Hi everyone!

A few warnings to this chapter: There will be allusions to sexual topics in this chapter, as well as many swear words, since we're going to deal with a stressed and upset Zuko. There will also be not so nice words used to describe a certain type of woman, since in my opinion, Zuko just calls things what they are without any embellishment, and he will still be pissed, so, yeah...

This starts during the night, when Katara and Zuko are sharing his bed.

I hope you'll still like the next chapter, and please review!:D

I do not own Avatar The last Airbender.


Chapter Nineteen

It was difficult to fall asleep for Zuko.

Although he was very tired, he couldn't forget that there was a beautiful girl only clad in panties and one of his t-shirts lying in his bed. A girl he had kissed earlier that evening. A girl he had very much wanted to do more with than kissing.

Trying not to move around too much, so as not to wake her up or accidentally touch her, he couldn't fight certain images and fantasies running through his head. He almost groaned in annoyance, as he pressed his hands to his eyes.

Maybe his last sex was too long ago.

There was no other realistic reason to explain why having Katara in his bed turned him on so much.

Right now, he hated Jet. He hated him with every fibre of his being. Him, and his stupid parties, and gigs, and floozies he brought home. He couldn't let them walk home in their outfits, as horrible things could happen to them? Well, then maybe they shouldn't dress in these outfits in the first place!

Then, at least, he didn't have to sleep in one bed with Katara, and could actually get some sleep on the damn couch!

The worst thing of all was the guilt. He felt so guilty for wanting her now. For wanting her ever since they first practised kissing. Their whole arrangement was weird and twisted, but his body's feelings only made everything worse!

After what felt like hours, and Katara breathing evenly for a while now, Zuko slightly opened his mouth, staring up at the ceiling. "Katara?" he whispered. "Are you still awake?"

There was no answer, and he sighed in relief. There was a brief moment, when he honestly considered staying in bed for this, just because it would be a little more thrilling, but he blushed, called himself a perverse idiot in his head, and got up to go to the bathroom. If Katara would wake up in the middle of the night, she would probably only think he left to pee.

The next day was a Sunday, but Zuko still awoke early, as it had become habit.

He watched the darker skinned girl in his bed for a while, observing her facial lines, until he thought he could draw her from memory. She really was pretty. Even though there was saliva clinging to her lips, and the weird, dried, white stuff around her eyes, her hair curled wildly around her head, as she breathed with her mouth a little opened.

Although Zuko still thought she looked beautiful in this state, he was very grateful not to have woken up with a certain morning predicament.

When time neared half past six, he got up to dress in his sports gear and left the apartment for the fitness room on the fifteenth floor. This had been one of the reasons why his father had bought him an apartment in this building.

After doing his usual muscle and stretching training for one hour, he quickly left again, panting and craving some water. He couldn't wait to shower and make some breakfast. His stomach began to growl at the thought of English breakfast.

Since he smelled of sweat, he didn't enter his room before the shower, but later noticed this hadn't been too ideal, as he had to walk with a towel around his hips to his room now. Checking that Katara was still sleeping, he dressed turned towards her. If she would open her eyes in the next few seconds, it was better her seeing his manhood than seeing his back. He was dressed in comfortable, casual Sunday clothes and grabbed a book to wait for Katara to wake up. He would give her half an hour, then it would be past eight o'clock, and he didn't care how Jet's party guests would feel, he would start cooking at eight, and using the coffee machine, and this would mean noise, so hopefully this would drive everyone out of here.

oOo

"Mu-um!" Katara cried out in annoyance. "You're not taking this seriously!"

Kya frowned, as she looked at her daughter, and then back to the dress she was proposing her. "Why would you say that?"

Katara raised her eyebrows. "The dress has stripes! It looks like some marine uniform for a girls squad!" After spending one hour at the mall with her mum, looking for suitable clothes for the lunch with Zuko's family on Wednesday, and not finding anything, she was positive her curse had returned. She was cursed not to find a good job and cursed not to find good clothes. It was seriously too bad that her best female friend was blind. But even if not, Katara doubted Toph could ever be interested in things like that.

Her mother scoffed and hung the dress back on the rail.

This was the first more expensive shop they had dared to enter. The places where Katara normally shopped hadn't felt elegant enough, and she was sure Azula would take one look, recognise some cheap fashion chain and sneer at her outfit. And that was nothing Katara wanted to deal with. But on the other hand she didn't want to pay so much money for an outfit, so it had taken quite some time for her to be sure to try out the more expensive shops.

"It's so nice of your boyfriend to offer to pay for this! It's quite the gesture, if you ask me! Gifting you clothes so early in the relationship…, He definitely wants you for something very serious!" her mother had gushed.

Maybe it would have been a better idea to ask Sokka to come along, but he was currently at work and was still moaning about how much he needed to show Suki that he was a good guy. Besides, Katara liked to think that Sokka's enthusiasm for shopping came from their mother, and maybe that was right, but Sokka's good taste probably didn't come from Kya.

"May I be of assistance to you, Miss?" a petite, curvy woman with a tight white dress and a dark blue work blazer asked her, suddenly popping up at the side of Katara's field of sight.

"Oh, er… Thank you, but I think I'm just looking around…"

Kya shoved herself next to Katara, pushing her a bit out of the way. "My daughter is in urgent need of fine clothing. She is to meet her boyfriend's family in a very exclusive arrondissement for lunch, and she would like to wear something blue."

Katara's first instinct was to glare at her mother, but she knew she had only meant well, and maybe the lady in the blazer could really help her.

She smiled a tight smile at the darker skinned women. "An exclusive arrondissement?" she asked with a tight, high pitched voice and a smile that seemed as if she considered the women in front of her not worthy of her time.

Katara took a deep breath through her nose. She knew why she didn't like the posh and fancy shops. The workers in there always asked Katara what she wanted, then made it seem like she couldn't possibly want something from their shop and sent her to a far cheaper one. They took one look at her appearance and already thought she could never belong there.

Not like she wanted to, but she deserved to be treated with respect. Her mother deserved to be treated with respect.

"The Volcano Club, actually," Katara sneered, one side of her lip pulled up, as her eyes narrowed on the small woman. She couldn't stand people like these. "I don't know if you've heard of it," she continued, knowing very well the woman must know the Volcano Club, as probably all her best customers were members of that club. "But my boyfriend's family has been members for decades, and I would like to wear something appropriate, so as not to stain their reputation and image," she said forcefully, her hands balled to fists.

Kya laid one hand on her arm.

The saleswoman smile became even tighter, and Katara could clearly see how displeased she was at hearing that someone like Katara had a boyfriend with his family being members of the Volcano Club. The saleswoman herself had probably wanted this to happen to her for some time now.

"Of course," she said, nodding. "Lunch at the Volcano Club, hm? Well, let's see…" She started walking off to the other side of the shop, Katara and Kya following her.

Kya managed to get Katara's attention and rolled her eyes at the saleswoman, making one small gagging motion.

Katara giggled.

To her surprise, though, the saleswoman remained completely friendly and professional, her tight and fake smile vanishing as she concentrated on simply selling the best outfit she could find for Katara and probably not making Katara tell her boyfriend's family what a racist shop this was.

It turned out to become less racist with every outfit Katara left the changing booth with.

There was nothing else going on in the shops, being Monday afternoon and a poorer part of town so that all the other saleswomen streamed out and focused on Katara, joining the mission. Everyone started to gush over her dark legs and arms, telling her how lucky she was since she could basically wear every colour this way.

The dresses, pants, skirts, and blouses were all beautiful and out of such fine material. One saleswoman had insisted Katara wear heels to be able to better judge the outfit, and when Katara emerged in a dark blue dress with little light blue flowers on it, the top clinging to her body with a heart shaped décolleté, and short, tight sleeves, and a skirt that billowed around her legs, with the white sandal heels stretching her body, it definitely had a wow effect on her.

Not even in her dress for graduation had she felt so beautiful. She felt like a model, and having every one of the people in the shop gushing over how beautiful she looked, not only added to that feeling, but also lifted her mood a little.

Cocking her head to the side, she thought that she really had long legs in these shoes. The only problem was that she couldn't walk in them. They looked gorgeous and were definitely in her budget. Zuko had given her six thousand Yuans for shopping for the gala and the lunch, and although the sum had abhorred Katara at first, she soon realised that perhaps, this was necessary. She didn't want to stand out like a sore thumb, and have people sneer at her too cheap outfits.

Her job was to play Zuko's girlfriend and therefore make Ozai get more supporters in his campaign. Her job was not to piss the rich people off.

"Do you maybe have a jacket here which would go with the dress?" Katara asked the small saleswoman next to her, who was actually grinning wildly at Katara in the dress. "I don't want to wear my jeans jacket with it, if I can help it."

"Why not?" Kya asked, taking two steps towards Katara and began tugging at Katara's hair and the dress, as if something was out of place. "A jeans jacket would look very cute with the dress."

The saleswoman blinked very slowly at Kya, before shaking her head. "Yes, it might. But you can't wear that to the volcano club."

Promptly, another saleswoman appeared on Katara's other side. "What about this one?" She held up a white blazer with light blue feeding making the collar and the trim on the sleeves light blue, too.

Katara grimaced. "Too formal. No blazer, if that's okay."

The tiny saleswoman brought an elegant, white, short cardigan with silver embroidery and tiny silver buttons. It was straight-cut, but also slightly tapered.

Katara put it on and decided that it was the best jacket she would find. Finding a dress apparently hadn't been so difficult, but now she realised that a dress wasn't the end of it all. She had noticed she needed a new jacket with the dress, and now she noticed she hadn't any shoes or handbag that would go with it, either. She couldn't possibly wear any of her handbags to that outfit.

"Katara, this all looks lovely, but you're going to need a handbag with the outfit," her mother pointed out, as if she had read her thoughts.

"Er…"

"A handbag!" the short saleswoman called out. "No problem. The handbags for the summer collection just arrived, but we also have some colour fitting ones from the spring collection. Are you more the tiny sling bag type, or do you want to have a bigger bag, one you could wear on your lower arm?"

Katara blinked. Normally, she had big sling bags. They were comfortable, and everything she needed went in there. She had four of those bags, and she had never needed any other one, since they all went greatly with her clothes.

She turned around to look at the bags set on shelves, to where Kya was already heading. The bags looked all so elegant and expensive, most of them looked like there were made of colourful leather, there were round ones, half-moon shaped ones, or angular ones, some small or big, with long or short belts and handles.

"OH! Katara, look! This one has a leather flower sewn in! And there are flowers on the dress! I think it's perfect!" Kya happily exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

Katara frowned, studying the tiny, white, leather bag.

"It might be not a good idea to wear a white bag over a white cardigan. I would rather go with a colour from the dress. Preferably light blue, as the background colour is so dark. With white shoes, you'll have a match to the cardigan, but with a light blue bag, you'll have a match to the dress, too," the saleswoman told her, showing her what she meant, as she held a light blue bag to herself. Her dark blue heals matched her blazer, but since the dress was white, the lighter blue of the bag didn't look as good as a white bag on her.

"It's just the other way around with your outfit," she said with slightly raised eyebrows. "Try them."

Kya shot a glare towards the saleswoman, and although Katara loved her mother very much, she was not the first person Katara went to when she had a fashion question.

As Katara tried the different bags, she asked one of the saleswomen if they also had white ballerina shoes, as she wasn't comfortable walking in high heels. The woman almost looked like she wanted to laugh, then complained that the high heels made Katara's legs so much longer, and flats would ruin the outfit.

Katara took a deep breath. "Please, I'm just not comfortable with heels."

The look on the saleswoman's face changed almost to pity, as she nodded and said: "I'll look for it and be right back."

Smiling, Katara nodded.

"So, which bag do you prefer?" Kya wanted to know, smiling expectantly.

Katara grimaced. "The light blue one, actually. Sorry, Mum."

Kya huffed, grabbed the white one out of Katara's grasp and looked for the price tag. "Hm." She twisted her mouth. "Maybe… I haven't bought anything yet this year… Can't you make your boyfriend buy me something, too?" Kya joked/whined.

Katara didn't know if she should laugh or glare at her mother, but settled for chuckling. "Well, if you invite him to your birthday, I could drop a hint as to what you would like."

Kya's answering grin was nothing if not mischievous. "You're a great daughter, you know that?"

Katara giggled, feeling reminded of those times when she was younger, whenever Kya had allowed her something or bought her something she wanted, Katara had said "I love you!", and Kya had answered in a resigned voice "Yeah, yeah. Now I'm the best mother on Earth." Katara had giggled then, hugged her and said she always was that.

During Katara's teenager years they had had quite a lot of arguments, often screaming at each other, and then not talking to each other for a few days. It had sometimes really been bad, and Katara had felt completely lost and alone, but that was puberty.

So sometimes, having Kya buying her something and Katara saying "I love you!" and hugging her had been the only times they had really been friendly to each other during Katara's teenager years.

Now, as an adult woman who had her own apartment, she barely argued with Kya. When Katara had first moved in with Aang, Kya had been incredibly easy to explode on Katara for a while, and Hakoda had said she only did that, because she missed Katara. But that had settled after a few months, too. They simply didn't see each other often enough anymore to argue, and they didn't live in the same household anymore, which helped, too. Katara knew her mother loved her, and she also loved her mother, but all this arguing for no reasons, mostly because Katara had been incessantly cheeky and riling her mother up on purpose, had still an effect on Katara sometimes. She was simply glad they didn't do it anymore and remained friendly and loving to each other. Which didn't mean they wouldn't sometimes provoke the other one a little bit just for fun. With banal topics, that was okay, as long as it wasn't about something serious.

Katara and Kya left the shop with one dress, a cardigan, a tiny sling bag, and white ballerina flats, the staff waving at them and wishing them all the best and good luck for the meeting with Katara's boyfriend's parents.

oOo

Zuko was late. He hated being late, and normally he was never late, so of course it wasn't his fault that he was. One of his fellow students, whom he sometimes talked to about the lectures, and whom he sometimes sat next to, didn't leave him alone after his last tutorial for the day. Wednesday was Zuko's shortest day, and he only had classes until a quarter to twelve.

Then, he had to find out that there had been an accident downtown, which prevented him from taking the normal route to where he would pick up Katara. The only problem was that the detour was fully packed with cars whose drivers had apparently thought around similar lines as he had. Standing for ten minutes in the traffic-jam, Zuko had enough, took a turn to find a parking place to be able to take the underground. He had not found a parking place for twenty minutes, driving in circles around the blocks surrounding the underground station.

When he finally jogged down the steps, a large crowd of people was moving in front of him, and it became hard to move further forward. There was an old lady standing in front of him, walking very slowly, and Zuko had to suppress an annoyed growl.

On the platform, there were equally many people, and it became hard for Zuko to push through, until he stood closer to the tracks. Almost all these people shoved into the train with him as soon as it had arrived, and Zuko stood in the middle of way too many people, all pressing, pushing, holding onto something, too many of them looking at their mobile phones, and some staring too openly at a group of European tourists.

The group of people with natural blond, red, and light brown hair attracted stares, and a few giggling, young women tried to film them with their phones.

Zuko hated the underground.

Nevertheless, he couldn't afford to be late. He didn't want to be late, but he still had to do something, so he pulled his mobile out and called Jet.

"Come on, answer," he murmured in a stressed way, when suddenly the line clicked, and he bellowed into the speaker, before Jet could even say something. "I need you to get downtown to the district, where all the streets are named after philosophers. My car is in Confucius Street. Drive it to the Volcano Club before three o'clock, and then leave it there." Jet had the spare key to his car, so it shouldn't be a problem for Jet.

"Zuko, bud, I'm at work. I can't just…"

"You'll have a lunch break later, won't you?" snarled Zuko, his hands already forming fists. Okay, now don't explode, Zuko. You're in public. Not everyone has to know about your problems.

"Yes, but there's this new woman at the office. She's blond and French, and I think…"

That was it. Whenever Jet brought up a woman in their arguments, or when Zuko needed him very much to do something else, it was the final straw. "I don't f***ing care, you jerk! She'll still be there tomorrow!"

For a moment it was silent at Jet's end. "Okay, bro, listen. I get you're probably stressed, but…"

"Stressed?! I'm losing my f***ing mind right now! I have to drive in a train! In a shit underground train! I can't be late, under no circumstances," he muttered on, his chest heaving, while he was glaring at the opposite door, over the heads of all the people inside. He couldn't even make the tiniest of mistakes, when it came to his father. For almost a year, he had managed to present a perfect son. Loyal, obedient, and submissive. He knew Ozai hated it when guests were late. To Ozai being late was refusing respect. Letting him wait showed him he wasn't respected. Zuko couldn't let his father think he didn't respect him. Not ever again.

Jet cackled. He f***ing cackled!

Zuko growled for real now.

"Okay, bro, just relax for a while and listen to me, okay? I know you're a hygiene freak, and you hate small, cramped, public places, and people in general, but you can get through that. Nothing bad will happen if you're late…"

Zuko tensed. Well, Jet didn't know. He only knew so much, and it definitely wasn't enough. Jet knew of Zuko's scars, but he didn't know exactly where they came from or why it happened. It had been an accident for Jet to actually see them, and Zuko had been very careful later not to let that happen again, or to get drunk enough to tell him everything about it.

"I can drive your car there, if you allow me to take Margaux with me, and we can get lunch at the Volcano Club on your account. Gotta impress her a little."

Zuko's nostrils flared. "Fine, but take a private room, I don't want to see you and your conquest anywhere near us during lunch. In fact, I don't want to see you there at all! If you can manage to pull that off, then please, order anything you want."

"Fine," Jet's voice had a strange clipping tone to it that Zuko was not used to. "But try to rein in your inner arsehole in front of Katara later. She doesn't deserve that, you shit dick!"

Zuko's eyes widened in rage. Of course he wouldn't talk like that to Katara, he was no idiot, and certainly didn't hold a death wish. And how dare Jet even say something like that, when his incessant flirting with some stupid bimbos constantly managed to get in the way of Zuko's plans!

Jet called Zuko a jerk or an idiot almost every day. He only used more vulgar words describing male or general human anatomy, when he was really pissed.

"Fuck off, and just do what I told you to!" Zuko snarled, his other hand raising and making an angry cutting motion through the air.

His hand landed accidentally on the shopping bags of an old lady, who was holding them tightly to her chest, his hands slicing through the thin, cheap brown paper and making several items fall to the floor.

She gasped in shock, as her eggs all cracked on the floor. Why didn't she have an egg box? Why carry single eggs in a paper bag?

Zuko's eyes widened and he grimaced, his anger already completely forgotten. Quickly, he ended his phone call, put his phone back and tried to save the rest from falling out of the woman's bag. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to…" Holding the bag closed with one hand, he bent down to at least pick up a few of the vegetables, before people were stepping on them. Just then, someone stepped on his hand. In a high heeled shoe.

"Ouch! F*ck!" He rose to his feet, glaring at the woman with the heels and dark red dyed hair. "Can't you watch where you're going?!" He held his bruised hand with his other one.

The woman's eyes widened in shock, and she started to stutter an apology. Zuko took a deep breath, then turned around to the old lady, determined on helping her again, when he suddenly realised he had to get down the train at the station it was just driving into.

"Oh, shit. I've got to get off the train now," he told the old lady, who just gazed at him with a judging, unimpressed face. "I'm really sorry about your groceries." He bowed shortly, before pushing his way to the doors, not above using his elbows to get there.

When he was practically running out of the station, he again pulled his phone out of his pocket, calling Katara.

"Hi, Zuko!" She sounded cheerful, and something in him felt guilty for probably ruining her good mood.

"Can you come outside, please? Now! I'm really late, hurry, please!" he shouted, before ending the call, shortly watching where he was running, and then calling his sister.

"Hey, Zuzu."

"There was an accident downtown. I'm not going to make it on time," he panted.

Azula was silent for a short while. "Are you absolutely sure?" she then hissed. "You still have half an hour!"

If he wasn't running, he might have laughed at that time window. Yeah, half an hour was definitely enough.

"I'm not even at Katara's yet. And my car is downtown, and there's the accident, and all the streets are blocked, and we'll have to take the underground, and then the bus to even get to you. Please, Azula, please, could you distract Father for a while? I'll text you as soon as we're there," he practically begged, still dashing down the street.

She took a deep, tired sounding breath. "Okay, fine. But you owe me."

Zuko gasped in relief. "Oh gods, thanks, Zula! You're absolutely the best sister in the world!"

"Yeah, and what else?" Her tone had taken on a nonchalant quality.

"You're amazing and brilliant." He turned the corner into the street where Katara had told him to pick her up. He realised it was the street on which her favourite coffee shop was.

Seriously? He risked being late for hot chocolate? Katara lived in a students' dormitory on campus. If she had just been there, instead of fifteen minutes away, all of this wouldn't have happened! He could have driven them to the Volcano Club without any delays.

But Jet was right, Zuko was not going to get all arsehole on Katara.

Running closer, he could see her standing outside of the coffee shop, waiting for him. She wore a beautiful blue dress with flowers on it and a white cardigan. It looked to be of a good quality, and Zuko was grateful she had chosen her province's colours. And on top of that, she simply looked beautiful, the flat shoes almost giving her an innocent aura, as he mentally compared her outfit to the girls he usually saw walking in and out of the club. He had to smile.

"And?" Azula probed.

Zuko rolled his eyes. She always wanted to hear it, but never said it to him.

"I love you. Happy now?"

"Very. Just don't be too late. I might be able to distract Father for half an hour, and I can pay some people claiming they saw you, but that's all I can do for you."

Zuko's smile widened, and he slowed down in front of Katara. "That's still good enough. You're the best. I gotta go now."

"Good. Bye."

He ended his phone call, taking one step closer to Katara, who raised a hand to stop him from kissing her. He tensed. He had acted on instinct and thought they would greet each other like a couple, as they were in public.

Katara pressed her lips together, one eyebrow raised. "Er… Who was that on the phone?"

He blinked. "Azula. Why?"

Her eyes widened a little, and it almost looked like a blush spread on her cheeks. "Er… Nothing. Well, er, are we going?"

He felt a little disappointed at obviously not getting to kiss her, but he nodded, took her hand and led her along the street. He filled her in on the urgent situation, and that they would have to hurry. "And under no circumstances can my father know we haven't been on time. He's very strict regarding punctuality. "

Katara seemed amused. "Come on, it can't be that bad."

His hold on her hand tightened. She had no idea how else his father could be. If she thought about him like this, she had already lost.


Thanks for reading!:D Please let me know what your thoughts are! I love reading them.

So, as you can see things are slowly progressing with our two reluctant love birds. But, well, the situation is still a mess and morally questionable.

I thought of having a clichée morning between Zuko and Katara, when they wake up and notice with shock that they started cuddling at some point during the night, and are now completely entangled. Then they notice how nice it feels, and they remain completely still, because they don't want to end this. But I rejected the idea, as it really is an absolute clichée. I don't mind clichées at all, I'm frequently using them, but to be able to say "No clichee this time!" also feels kind of good. And don't worry, they will have their cuddly mornings.

For further clarification, if someone was wondering, Zuko did not go to the bathroom to pee. Since the characters are adult, and I want to keep it realistic, I put this in, but didn't describe anything or used more precise language. Do you guys think I should already rate this M, or do you think it will still be okay for now as T? I actually only wanted to change the rating when things between Zuko and Katara will get more steamy.

And we had Kya! I was so worried about writing this, as I have no idea what kind of person Kya was. She's seldom alive in fics, and I don't think I ever read anything except a prologue in which she was alive. But while writing, I suddenly didn't have to think a lot anymore. I leaned on Sokka and Kya from LoK for help to write this Kya. I want Katara and Kya to have a relaxed and friendly relationship, in which they act a lot like friends, but it would somehow still be clear that they are mother and daughter. I wanted Kya to be a little bit of a meddler to show where Katara gets it from. Kya should be fun, but could also be serious. I didn't want her to only radiate maternal warmth and love, but be a real woman with a personality. Katara and Kya had a relatively normal life in this fic, apart from the constant moving, so they have a loving, normal mother-daughter-relationship. It might have seemed out of character how I described Katara's relationship to her mother during her teenager years, but Katara in here didn't lose her mother. She doesn't know how this feels like, and doesn't constantly think about how much her mother meant to her. Normal mothers can be annoying. They can infuriate you. It doesn't mean Katara doesn't love Kya in this fic. And since Kya was alive, Katara also didn't need to grow up so fast. She herself is still caring, but not so much motherly, as she didn't need to be the mother for anyone. That remained Kya's role.

I hope you liked the mother-daughter-interaction, and that you understand my reasoning behind it.

I've wrote before that not many people of the Water Tribes, aka the Northern or Southern Provinces live in the capital, so the inhabitants aren't used to seeing them, and they also definitely have never seen any rich people from the Southern or Northern Provinces. They all believe what they hear on the radio and watch in the news, and they all envision these provinces to be tiny villages in snowy valleys, where people are hunting fish and herding caribous. So, it's why the tiny saleswoman wasn't so thrilled at seeing them.

Some of you might think that Zuko overreacted a little over being too late, but firstly, it was because he is afraid of Ozai's wrath, and more so, his punishments. And secondly, I needed him to snap in public, close to an old lady. He had to seem very vulgar, violent, and unlikeable. Maybe some of you already figured out why I needed to put this in.

Margaux is pronounced like Margo, it was just the only French name which came to my mind that can be pronounced in English without completely mispronouncing the vowels, and which also looked French without having an own English counterpart to it. My first thought was Chloé, but that's just Klowy in English, and that does not sound French.

And yes, some Asian people do film European (or people of other ethnicities who don't look Asian) tourists in underground trains. It certainly doesn't happen every time, but it happened to me once, and that was kind of funny, actually, and I just thought about an underground in an Asian country, while writing this, so that came to my mind, and I added it.

Hm, and I guess that's it. I don't have any more to say to this chapter. If you're confused by something, wonder why something was the way it was, just let me know.:D

Answers to reviews:

To uchihaNaruto247: Thanks for reviewing!:) Thank you, yes, I know it was short, unfortunately, but it didn't feel right to draw that out. How exactly do you mean 'incompetent'? Do you mean Azula will simply provoke Katara or actually make her drop the act?

To Smckoy929: Thanks for your review, and thanks, here it is!:) Or was, if you're already reading this. I hope you liked it:)

To IDidn'tSignUp4This: Thanks for your review!:) Actually, I've first read it in an ATLA fic by a person from New Zealand, I think. Since I read things from people who write American English or people who write British Eglish, and watch films and series with both, too, I sometimes mix it... For example, I mostly write 'lift', but I also mostly use 'apartment' instead of 'flat'. It's not intentional, and at the university I had to choose one way of spelling and pronouncing, and I actually chose the British one. Maybe you noticed that I'm spelling some words the British way, for example organisation instead of organization. But I still get most media in American English, so the colloquial English of mine probably sounds more American, since I've read that more, apart from some words like snogging. I didn't know the word before, but I decided I like it. It sounds semantically different than 'to make out' to me, even though it probably isn't. A lot of British versus American terms sound semantically different to foreign ears, actually. Or, at least, my ears. However, I especially like how you can say 'to snog someone senseless'. But you can't say 'to make out someone senseless', as 'to make out' is not a direct verb, and it's a phrasal verb. I guess it will depend on my mood which word I'm going to use for future chapters, and if the last time I read about it in English I read 'snog' or 'make out'... I wouldn't say the word suddenly showed up, as I never really wrote about snogging/making out before in this fic, or did I? I mean, it's only now that Katara and Zuko are maybe going to do that. But maybe I used 'make out', and already forgot it... But your review got me thinking... At the university I chose British English, but sometimes I feel weird writing in a more British way about an American TV show, in which the characters all have an American accent and definitely speak AE. But, in this fic, Elementia is a former British colony (I decided on that to explain why Asian people in an Asian country speak English), so they wouldn't speak AE, right? Maybe some variety of BE, but honestly, I'm just confused. It would make sense for people in Elementia to speak in a more British way, but the characters of the show still speak AE. Well, I don't think I'm going to find a solution, but I hope it's not too confusing for you, when British and American English mix. I know, I would think it strange when a variety of my language would mix with the variety I speak...