"I think the best idea is to send soldiers back until things settle down."

Zuko turned his head in disagreement. He didn't need to bother thinking over this suggestion.

"The governor asked me to withdraw all troops from the area until all the citizens decide whether or not to come back."

"But they have been attacked too many times. It is taking long for us to transport them back to The Fire Nation while a lot of them are still refusing to leave or to change nationality."

Zuko could feel his frustration building up. He had heard the situation a thousand times.

At the end of the war Zuko immediately offered the Earth King all of his former property back as a sign of peace. The Earth King knew that this would cause problems for the families that are already settled in his land, so he allowed them to stay as long as they officially become Earth Kingdom citizens. Now many of them blatantly refused the offer by saying that the land belongs to the Fire Nation. This caused many Earth Kingdom locals to attack the colonies and even the ships taking the people back to the Fire Nation. The worst part was that the new governor asked Zuko to withdraw all of his military from their land leaving the colonists unprotected.

"I have sent word to King Kuei asking that he send some more of his military to protect the land. Other than that there isn't much I can do."

The advisor snorted. "You can ignore their ridiculous requests and send the military back to protect your people."

Zuko suddenly flared with anger and stood up. "I am your FireLord and you will show me respect!"

He realized how he reacted and sat back down. "I have made my decision. If you don't want this war to start again then we of all nations need to make compromises. You are excused."

He could see a hint of fear in the man's face. My father used to be able to scare people for respect.

The advisor quickly bowed and left.

Zuko sat there staring. He wasn't really staring at anything, he was almost seeing through everything until he could see back into his own mind. He snapped out of his trance after a while with a shiver. I need some air.

The gardens were blooming very nicely. Zuko stopped in front of his favorite pond. Some turtle ducks took notice of him. There were three of them, a mother and two turtle ducklings. He wondered how the children would react if the mother were to suddenly disappear.

After sitting in the grass for a while he noticed a man walking towards him.

"Fire Lord." The man bowed.

"What is it?"

"I was sent with the message that Lady Mai would like for you to visit her."

Zuko stood up and rubbed the grass off his robe. "All right then. Thank you."

He started to walk away but then the man ran back in front of him looking nervous.

"Well- actually I was sent for you some time before. I couldn't find you and the palace is just so darn big."

"Well I doubt Mai is going to suddenly disappear so it's fine."

The man looked down to his feet nervously.

Zuko slapped his forehead. "Ugh, what is it now?"

"Err- she actually w-wanted you to go immediately because she said something about going into the city for something."

Zuko sighed. "Don't worry about it. I'll go see if she's there."

The man stood straight up and bowed exaggeratingly. "Thank you FireLord!" He proceeded to scurry away.

Zuko arrived at Mai's house. He let himself in since Mai had already gotten comfortable with him doing that.

"Mai?"

He searched the bottom floor but there wasn't a trace of anyone. He went upstairs and thought he could hear some noise coming from a bedroom.

He walked into the room and immediately noticed a girl turned away, putting her shirt on.

"Hey Mai!"

There was a shriek and she turned around dropping into a fighting position. It was Suki.

Zuko felt his face turn red with embarrassment. He covered his eyes with his hands and stumbled around trying to leave the room.

"Aww, oh noo. Sorry! I don't know what I'm doing!"

"Huh? Zuko! No it's okay calm down."

He could hear some shuffling of cloth before tripping over an object and falling.

"Zuko are you allright? You can open your eyes now."

Zuko looked up and could see Suki, her face was also bright red. She helped him up.

"I'm sorry I thought you were Mai. I completely forgot you were staying here."

Suki chuckled nervously. "It's fine Zuko. I'm surprised you managed to sneak up on me. Just try knocking next time."

"Yea… I'll try that."

Zuko looked away. His head was throbbing and his face felt very warm. Suki was looking around nervously. They stood there in awkward silence.

"Mai and Ty lee went out. Ty Lee insisted on them going out together to talk and have fun. I wanted to stay here."

"Leave it to me to come in at the worst time." Zuko chuckled for a second then stood there silently again.

"Yea heh. You did."

Zuko finally built up the courage to look at Suki's face. She looked back at him, she seemed a lot more relaxed now.

"Well I better get going." He turned for the door and started walking.

"Wait! I mean, despite what just happened here. Do you mind having me along for a while? I was getting bored here by myself. I actually resorted to trying on different clothes."

Zuko swallowed. I better not mess this up.

"Yeah… sure. I was just going back to the palace. Probably going to be spending a lot of time just sitting there wasting time when I'm actually supposed to be thinking of solutions to problems."

Suki smiled. "Sounds like fun."