#toph is like zuko do people from the fire nation have naturally faster hearts or are you just gay

[teaandcrowns]

Whispered Truce

Diplomatic Solution part viii

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Each moment that ticked by raised the levels of anxiety in Katara. Dawn drew nearer; their time was running short. What remained before them to accomplish was the most important part of their plan to try and halt the illness—no, Katara corrected herself, shaking her head, the poisoning of this town, and it was also by far the most dangerous.

When Zuko explained to her his plan of making sure this message reached the right people properly, Katara had felt her stomach twist a little. By all rights, she shouldn’t have felt much of anything—he was the one who would be putting himself in far more immediate danger, and he was still technically an enemy, despite the last few days of working together with her. But, if he did get caught, she reasoned, that’d blow their plan of alerting the townsfolk in a way that might actually work. He’d also be captured and who knew what might happen to him… She cut herself short on those thoughts. Who was she kidding? Zuko was the prince of the Fire Nation. Surely some rural town wouldn’t dare go against the word of their very own prince? Then why didn’t he just march up to the mayor’s office and order him on what to do? a voice whispered in the back of her mind. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. What was it that made him skulk around in costume as if he feared being caught? Her mind raced, but she couldn’t begin to come up with a good reason why.

With this new seed of a question slowly starting to burn a hole within her, Katara kept her eyes trained intently on the hawk mews. She crouched atop a rooftop with a clear and easy path directly toward the mews in case she needed to reach it quickly, but for now, she was simply stuck waiting, watching for any movement in the shadow of the tall building indicating Zuko’s position.

His plan was simple: grab a messenger hawk and the appropriate ribbon, trek out of town a little bit, then send the hawk back to its home mews with the “official” document he’d written, making it look, for all intents and purposes, that the letter came from the capitol itself. He’d also insisted that he go alone, so she could keep lookout, and it was only after he’d slipped silently away that she realized she didn’t actually have a way to warn him if she saw something. Part of her wondered if he’d known that all along and had deftly maneuvered things so that he would be the only one in direct danger of being caught. If that were the case, why? Why would he do that? This far into things, she couldn’t imagine for a second that he wouldn’t follow through with the plan, or try to double-cross her, but she wasn’t sure she could wholly believe he was doing it simply out of the goodness of his heart.

Guilt.

Katara sucked in a quiet breath, then nodded to herself. The green glow of the ancient caverns beneath Ba Sing Se still shone brightly in her memory, and still they stung as sharp as she imagined those jutting crystal shards would have been. He must feel guilty for what he’d done, and this was his way of trying to atone for that.

Twice now there was a peace offering between them, shaky though it might be, and Katara didn’t know what to make of it or what to do with it. Her nature made her want to take it, without hesitation, to believe in the goodness in him. But another part of her nature wanted to slap it away in anger, cold and distant, for all that he’d done to her—to the group.

He was such an infuriating dichotomy. She trusted him, but she didn’t trust him. She respected him, but she wasn’t sure she could ever forgive his choices and actions. Yet, she still wanted to, but she didn’t want to, all the same.

An exasperated noise quietly left her throat, and she closed her eyes for a brief moment. Her thoughts and stomach were all churned up threefold not only because of who she was working with and all he represented, but because there was absolutely nothing she could do in this moment. She wanted to rush down there and help him—they’d both stolen into the mews earlier, after all—but she didn’t know if her sudden appearance would cause more harm somehow than not. What was more, by this point, she’d waited too long if she were going to do anything.

So, she stewed in silence and waited, glaring at the mews.

After a few more moments, an idea occurred to her. It didn’t actually do any good to watch the mews with no way to warn Zuko, so instead she turned her attention to the surrounding jungle. On top of a roof as she was, she might be able to have enough of a vantage point to scout out a good spot they could release the hawk. The grey of predawn was slowly spreading across the sky, lightening it just enough that she could see further out. She pressed back any additional anxiety that might have risen in her belly from that undeniable reminder of their dwindling hours, and focused on searching. There. With a lingering, furtive glance back at the mews, Katara gambled that she would have enough time to slip out to the potential spot she’d noticed before Zuko would make it back. Or need help.

Her descent from the roof was silent and graceful and swift, and she wove out through the streets of the town into the greater dimness of the jungle beyond.

It was easy to navigate here, even with little sight; she could sense the water all around her, on and within the verdant thickness of the plants. Idly, Katara wondered if this was something like how Toph saw through her earthbending. Even the very air around the plants was heavy with moisture—it was a wonder waterbenders didn’t come from these eastern Fire Nation islands' clime, with how abundant and readily available water was.

What she headed toward was a tall, rocky outcropping, the dark, solid outlines standing out against the softer relief of the trees and vines around them. Within a few minutes, she reached the base of the rocks. The whole formation rose before her, tall enough that she was sure there’d be a clear view from the pinnacle back to the town. If she’d seen it clearly from her vantage point before, she’d hazard a guess that they'd at least be able to see the mews once they climbed it.

On the way back, she played with the water in the air, using it to propel her faster through the jungle until she reached the outskirts of town and retraced her steps back to the roof where she’d been waiting for Zuko.

Katara had halfway hoisted herself onto the roof proper when she noticed a dark figure at the other end. Her stomach wrenched for a moment, heart leaping to her throat in fear that she’d been noticed and someone was now lying in wait for her, until she saw the hawk on the figure’s arm jolt a little, and the turn of the figure's head gave away the telltale dull flash of the white of his mask. She let out a small sigh of relief and relaxed, pulling herself up the rest of the way and going over to join him.

“Where were you?” he hissed as soon as she drew nearer.

The sharpness of his tone took her aback. It wasn’t just anger that she heard, but… fear?

“Did everything go okay?” she asked.

“I got the hawk, didn’t I? Where were you?” he demanded again. “You were supposed to wait here for me.”

“Well, I’m here now,” she snapped. “If you think I’m just going to sit idly by, thumbing my beads and waiting, you’ve got a big shock coming.” Katara motioned back toward the jungle were she’d just been. “I spotted a good place to release the hawk, so I ran to go check it out. I was only gone for a few minutes, and I didn’t realize you needed a constant babysitter.”

He raised a hand and motioned for her to lower her voice. “Okay, sorry,” he said, surprising her. She thought for sure he was going to argue back. “I just got worried when you weren’t here, is all. Let’s go to the place you found.”

Just like that, her anger deflated a little. She couldn’t really blame him for being tense; it’d been a long night. A long last few days, in reality. His nerves were probably just as shot as hers, and, the thought occurred to her, he was probably getting his arm—and now shoulder, as the raptor shifted its position as he climbed down from the rooftop—torn up by the messenger hawk’s talons. With some effort, she managed not to sigh.

They moved quickly through the dimly lit dirt streets of the town, Katara leading the way toward the rocky outcropping she’d scouted. The jungle welcomed them with thick, heavy air and the quiet, intermittent buzzing and chirruping of nocturnal insects and creatures preparing for the eventual dawn. In some ways, it reminded her somewhat too keenly of the Earth Kingdom swamp they’d crashed into a few months ago. She tried not to dwell on that overmuch, not wishing to see what sorts of visions or nightmares a Fire Nation jungle would give her.

Fortunately, they soon reached the rocks, and Zuko nodded in approval. “This should be perfect.”

Without further ado, he began climbing up, and she followed suit, watching where he put his hands and feet with seemingly little forethought. This kind of agility appeared to come so naturally to him, and she wondered where—and when—he’d learned it. Katara imagined that the firebending prince of the Fire Nation would have spent most of his waking hours perfecting his bending abilities, but Zuko had other physical skills that surprised her, as well as academic knowledge that made sense, but still made her wonder just how much he actually knew. And, yet he still had failed to capture a couple of self-taught Water Tribesfolk and a goofy airbending kid. How could someone know so much and be able to move like he did still be such a gangly teenager?

She wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh at that or be concerned with how endearing she abruptly found it.

When she reached the top, he was already standing near the front of the pinnacle, the messenger hawk perched on a thick leather glove that he now wore. Zuko softly scratched at the feet of the bird while Katara rounded to his side and slipped the message into its back canister, attaching the black ribbon like before. She gave him a nod as she stepped back, letting him know that it was secure.

“Ready to go,” she said, startled to hear how breathless she sounded from nerves and the swift climb.

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered, almost to himself, then shifted the arm holding the hawk up and toward the town, releasing the jesses he’d been holding. “Let’s hope it works the way we want it to.”

“Yeah,” she echoed quietly, following the dark shape of the hawk with her eyes.

A few moments of silence settled around them. Katara broke it.

“Do you still feel like it’s not enough?” Her voice sounded as if it would be swallowed up by the thickness of the jungle air.

“Yeah,” he replied, not tuning his head from the town.

“Zuko,” she said, and watched him stiffen. “Thank you for all your help. I… can’t really say I know why you did all that, but… I wouldn’t have found out the source of the illness—the… poison—without you. So… thanks.”

This moment was an echo of the catacombs of Ba Sing Se, except now their positions were reversed. He was the one with his back toward her, and she was the one extending a small peace offering. Something ached in her chest, and she found her breath caught with trepidation somewhere between her heart and her throat.

“I can’t walk away from people who need help,” he said softly.

I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me, she heard herself say. That’s something we have in common, she heard him say.

Her heart pounded in her chest and she worried her lower lip. The words were right there on the tip of her tongue, waiting to spill out of her mouth. Did she dare? Could she trust him? She remembered the intensity with which he pursued the leads in the town with her, the quick anger against the mayor who poisoned his own townspeople just to enrich himself.

“Aang—the Avatar—needs help.” Her voice was small and unsure, the words almost a whisper, but unable to remain unspoken.

For an anxious breath, she was convinced he hadn’t heard her. Then, he turned to her and lifted the mask off his face, and pulled the black hood off his hair.

“I can teach him firebending,” he said, and for the life of her she couldn’t tell if he was stating a fact or asking her a question with strange wonder.

Her compulsive chuckle punctuated the oddness of the moment. “I did tell him I’d find him a firebending teacher.”