AN: I'll be the first to admit it. The last few chapters have been rough. So this one is going to be lighter.
xxx
The veil of the night covered the Fire Nation.
It was so late that the only living things awake at this time should've been the hooting night owls and other creatures of the nights. Creatures such as the auburn haired spy who had successfully infiltrated the Fire Nation's palace.
Tsai looked around swiftly before putting a hood over her head. She stepped out tucking a scroll with viable information in the back of her pants before slipping away. Like every other night she had to make way to the hawkery to communicate a message for her evening mission. She snuck around the corner of the hallway and almost had a heart attack when she came face to face with someone.
Zuko stood before her leaning against the hallway's wall. His arms were crossed over his chest and his sharp eyes were fixed on hers. He didn't seem groggy or sleepy in the least.
"Going somewhere?" He asked cooly.
She placed a hand over her racing heart and took in a deep breath. Stopping herself from screaming from the shock.
It took her a moment to regain her composure and she glowered at him. "I told you to stay away from me!" She repeated angrily. "Were you watching me?"
"You still haven't answered my question," he pressed not answering hers.
"I don't have to," She muttered as she walked past him. "Or what? Are you going to order me to?" She narrowed her light brown eyes at him. She hated it when he ordered her around to do stuff. He couldn't believe he had the audacity to do so after his betrayal, after everything he had done to her.
Zuko was convinced that Tsai was never going to forgive him. Never going to look at him and think of a decent human being again.
He tried. The spirits know he tried to make things right. He would try to speak to her. To purposely run into her around the palace when she was running errands for his sister. Sometimes he would even ask her to do pointless stuff for him. Just to keep her near. It was never anything painful or humiliating. Most of the times they were petty, ridiculous favors so that she could catch a break from his sister.
"Try this roast duck and fire-berry tart," he had demanded one afternoon. "I have to see if it's poisoned. The ice cream too."
Sometimes he would even leave bowls of fruits or sweets outside of her room in hope that they might make her day a bit more bearable.
He could still remember the angry look in her face as she glared daggers at him yet ate the full roast duck meal. She would never let it show let alone vocalize it but she was more than grateful for these small favors. Still, it wouldn't change the way she felt about him. She was still seething in anger every time she saw him, even more when he was with his perfect new girlfriend.
Zuko kept a close eye making sure that Azula wouldn't make her do anything too brash. Regardless every day the girl looked more and more exhausted. He knew it was because she wasn't sleeping at night. Dark circles carved under her eyes from exhaustion as she went on in her day by day without complaining. After seeing her that night he guessed she had been doing this every night, but to do what? Her mysterious motives for remaining restless were still a mystery to him. Was she sneaking out to visit his uncle?
"What? I can't explore the mainland?" She said referring to the Fire Nation Capital over her shoulder lying with ease.
"Liar," he called her out flatly seeing right past her façade. "I've been watching you for some time now. Sneaking out at late hours. Almost passing out during the day. Where do you go? Who do you go see?" He inquired.
"That's none of your business," she snapped. It really wasn't. He made a hum in the back of his throat.
"You need rest," he advised sound like his uncle.
"Don't you have a girlfriend or something to keep you busy? A hobby? Princely duties to attend?" She said mockingly before turning away from him.
"Have you seen Uncle?" he chased after her. She wasn't really sure where she was going. All she knew was that she didn't want to be around him. "You have!" He pressed on.
She would neither accept or deny that claim.
"Did he see you? Did he say anything to you?" He questioned as he tailed behind her.
She scoffed cruelly and looked over her shoulder. "He's not talking to you?"
"No..." he answered quietly.
"Figures. Why would he want to talk to his betraying nephew?"
"But you betrayed him too!" He called out.
She stood silent for a moment. She slightly flinched as if she was going to say something but turned away silently instead.
"What are you not telling me?" He stood dead in his tracks when he realized she would not answer to him. Letting her go vanishing into the night.
Xxx
The other day Azula had demanded that she fetch a rare lily pond from a nearby pond infamous for being pooled with leeches. The poor girl returned to the palace soaked and muddy covered with leeches from head to toe. She would withdraw to her small windowless prison room completely drained where she could have a cold dinner of either stale bread, rice and sometimes dry chicken.
Another day she had been walking to the Royal bathroom chambers carrying two heavy buckets over her shoulders filled with rose petals. Petals which would be used for the princess's weekly rose water bath. She stumbled upon the hallways sleepily almost collapsing from the exhaustion. When she turned a hallway and encountered the one person she did not want to see.
He said her name in a worried tone and she ignored him continuing forward in her trek.
"Let me help you," he said reaching for one of the wooden buckets she carried over her shoulders. "I can manage just fine, Prince." She responded in an annoyed tone.
She looked ill. He could see the strain in her as she struggled to carry the heavy wooden buckets over her shoulders. Her body was even slightly wobbling from side to side to side from exhaustion. He snapped his fingers and before she knew it two servants that seemed to appear from out of the nowhere took the buckets off her shoulders and would finish the task from her.
She leaned over resting her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. She pushed her hair out of her face and looked at him with a hard expression on his face. It was always like this with him. She didn't need his help and certainly had no need for his sympathy. If she was fully well rested she would've most definitely been able to deliver to Azula. However her sleepless nights really weren't helping...
"I don't want anything from you!" She angrily snapped at him. Before standing up and dusting her clothes off.
He, of course, was already used to this and had found a way around her bickering, push aways and protesting.
"Actually," he said in a matter of fact tone. "Seeing as you are also my servant. I have something I need you to do for me."
She gritted her teeth in fury, wondering just what stupid task he had in mind for her.
Moments later she found herself in his bedroom chambers. She tried her best not to appear interested by the artifacts and materials that were in the room.
"This is by far the stupidest task I've been forced to do," she complained beyond irritated from his bed. She looked at the prince who was sitting on a wooden chair besides his bed looking down at her with his arms crossed over his chest an annoyed look in his face.
"General curiosity," he shrugged with a rare, small smirk playing at his features.
"This.." she fought of an exhausting yawn. "Is so pointless..."
"You will not leave this room until you count every single thread on this blanket." He ordered in a tone that was forcibly unsympathetic.
"This is so dumb. You're so dumb..." she said weakly pointing a finger in his direction. But the bed... It was so comfortable. Her body sunk into it. Sleeping tempting her, calling her.
She currently lay on his bed, her nose buried against the heavy blanket as she counted every microscopic thread and stitch on the comforter. Sleep was taunting her, it was so seductive. Just a little cat nap wouldn't help... He looked so smug. She had reached somewhere in the hundreds when she finally succumbed into its hands.
How could she not? Wrapped in warmth? Sleeping on a cloud, specially when the bed was wrapped in such a familiar comforting scent. What was that again eucalyptus?
It took him some time to realize it smelled like him...
Zuko let out a sigh he had been holding when he realized the exhausted girl had finally passed out from the exhaustion. He hated just how hardheaded she could be sometimes. He shook his head and pulled a thin blanket over her sleeping form before exiting his room.
xxxxx
AN: Stop reading here if you want a nice fluffy chapter. Do not read the following 3 sentences unless you want it all to go to hell again.
xxxxx
That same day Tsai was caught sleeping and as a punishment the soles of her feet were repeatedly whipped with a wooden cane in torture.
She swore not speak to the prince again.
She didn't tell him why.