The Avatar and the Fire Prince

Book 3: Earth, Chapter 2: The Cave of Two Lovers

After departing from Fong's base, thankfully, several days of flying passed without them running into any Fire Nation troops. However, that didn't mean they could let their guard down just yet. Just before they had left, the patrol that Fong had sent to Guilin that same morning had returned with the unfortunate news that Azula and her soldiers had seemingly disappeared without a trace.

None of this surprised Zuko in the slightest-Azula was cunning, and could not be captured so easily. It did, of course, make him uneasy. She had said she wasn't interested in capturing Aang at the moment, but Zuko always took anything his sister said with a grain of salt. For all he knew, Azula could be secretly tracking them right now, waiting for the right moment to strike...

He sighed heavily as he sat down at the base of a large tree close to the river they had camped next to the previous night. There was no use in worrying about it. After all, if it was the case that Azula was stalking them from the shadows, there wasn't exactly anything he could do about it.

Despite it being early summer, the weather had already grown much warmer than anyone had anticipated. Not that he minded-in fact, it almost reminded him of home. The corner of his mouth tugged into a small, amused smile as he noticed that Sokka seemed to be using a giant leaf as a makeshift raft, lazily floating with the river current as Momo napped on top of him. Meanwhile, Aang and Katara appeared to have begun the day's waterbending training.

Zuko had enjoyed sitting in on Master Pakku's training sessions every so often during the months they had stayed in Agna Qel'a. It had also been impressive to see just how much Katara had improved over just the span of four months. He wasn't at all surprised that she was now a master; in fact, he was happy for her. However, he couldn't help but feel ever-so-slightly inadequate now that two of his friends were masters of their native element, while he had barely made the time to even practice firebending these days. Again, he reminded himself, he did have his broadswords, and they worked well enough for him...

He continued to watch Aang and Katara spar in the river, the waterbending master throwing ice spikes at Aang as he formed water tentacles to catch them. While he couldn't hear what they were saying, he saw Katara nod approvingly before wading over behind Aang, putting her arms around his, presumably to improve his stance.

Despite the clear innocence of the interaction, Zuko felt a twist of jealousy in his gut nonetheless.

It had been months now since his conversation with Aang that evening in Makapu Village. Neither of them had discussed the airbender's feelings for Katara since, so he wasn't certain if the airbender's crush on her had grown stronger, weaker, or vanished entirely. Recently, however, he had noticed that Aang didn't seem to be going out of his way to spend more time with Katara than usual, nor had he been acting noticeably strangely around her like he had before. While this was a good sign in his book, he still didn't want to get his hopes up too high-even if Aang didn't like Katara that way anymore, that didn't automatically mean there was any chance of Aang seeing him as anything more than a friend.

At this point, he had fully accepted how he felt about the Avatar. His feelings hadn't changed-in fact, they had only gotten stronger. Zuko had never been in love before, but if this wasn't it, he didn't know what was.

Unfortunately, these feelings only made things that much more painful and complicated. He'd thought for some time now that he could be content with simply remaining friends-best friends-with the Avatar, nothing more. He wouldn't hope for more, shouldn't hope for more.

Sometimes, however, he found himself imagining what it would be like if, by some miracle, Aang did return his feelings. He often imagined being able to hold him, to be close to him in ways that he never could be as just a friend.