The only reassurance that Zuko hadn't already left her was the gentle touch of his hand in hers. The two sat in silence, both too tired to find a topic for conversation. They'd already spent the last couple hours talking about everything from hardships in life to the few and far between happy childhood memories they had acquired in their lives. They'd start little arguments that started on the difference between a ring-tailed lemur and a winged lemur - Katara stated that the ring-tailed lemur had longer fur than the winged lemur, and Zuko argued that the amount of stripes on a winged lemur was more than Katara's account - that escalated to heated debates on the efficiency of the educational system - which, of course, was based upon what they'd overheard from discussions over the years, seeing as neither of them had a traditional education.
Their conversations slowly drifted from vocal disagreements to lengthy stories about mothers and sisters and brothers. The beauty of youth, of which both of them were still in the midst of, engulfed them. They told stories of canoeing down rivers, feeding turtleducks, catching otter penguins, bonfires on beaches - mostly useless memories they'd come to cherish more than anything. Anything but the memory of a mother's embrace. The two found comfort in the fact that they weren't alone - they both were separated from their mothers.
After they shared their hundreds of stories, fought countless arguments and reminisced about the littlest things, silence dawned on them. Although no one was saying anything, the air in the enclosed room was anything but awkward. The two sat next to each other, hand in hand and fingers intertwined, communicating without words; connecting in a way completely unlike conversation. They sat side by side as Yin and Yang. Tui and La. Sun and moon. Fire and water. Opposites, and yet the same in so many ways.
The young girl featured a gentle, kind face, and a personality to match. The firebender, on the other hand, was aggressive in every way, from the way he spoke to the way he looked. Though just as Katara could be fiesty, Zuko had his soft side. His face changed when talking about his mother, and the time they spent together in his childhood. He smiled a smile Katara could never provoke from him; his eyes glinted with the memories and his mouth turned up at the corners in the most childlike way.
They balanced each other. They brought out the best and worst from each other.
Fire and water.