Maiko Month: Marriage

AN: It's short and sweet and I like it.

It's the way her hair falls down her back, or how she snores loudly at the strangest hours of the night. How her fingers curl gracefully over the handles of her knives, or the fact that she hates being called anything near cute. It's how her eyes can hold everything she's thinking. Subtle gold, painted with passion, and history, little ounces of emotions she'd never share with others even if asked.

It's how she can pull him out of his comfort zone, with a blatant effort, there's never any dancing around facts, or intricately placed smoke and mirrors. There's so much about her, how she judges his actions without restriction, unafraid to tell him he's wrong. how he never needs to explain his past—she's been there with him, through it all, she knows, what memories haunt him, and which can draw tears.

Zuko's hands picked up the brush and wrote every character and every ink stained line conducted a obscured thought. Things people should hate, how quiet, reserved, and blunt. Things he loved, that other people would need to see past. It was embarrassing, how he could so easily fill the page.

Each character and phrase dictates his passion, brushstrokes pulling characteristics and abilities from the depths of an already clouded mind. Things stemming from the beauty of alabaster skin, to onyx lashes and a voice that carried like a song. But without second thought, he knew his favorite thing, the thing that set his hand determinedly onto the paper, and his face to flush. It's how she can say 'i love you' with no words. So he left them out, no hint, no subtle nudge in the direction of the term.

I L o v e you

A term far overused, and even when it fell from his lips it wasn't enough. Countless characters, and brushstrokes he could only imagine were slightly stained with with his own willingly given blood, painted the page.

And so, he stood there, reading off the paper, fumbling with his hands, and stuttering like mad, talking about flowers, and how she sleeps. Until she presses a kiss to his cheek, and his cheeks flush red and he takes a breath.

"Mai, will you marry me?"