End of the Beginning

Chapter 11

After that night at the Jasmine Dragon, Zuko and I decided to stay with Iroh until the day of the meeting came. Unintentionally, it became one of the most care free times we've spent together since Zuko's coronation. It was feeling more like a normal relationship, free of our life long responsibilities even if it was just for a couple of days. Every day we would walk outside to enjoy the sun rise, then ending up falling sleep while watching it since it would be early morning and we didn't have any real schedule for anything. Then we would go around the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se in disguise so they wouldn't recognize us. On the outside it seemed nothing special, or at least something that you would normally do when your dating. But having titles and reputations like ours made times like this hard to come by. It was an amazing feeling, it was a feeling of freedom. Although, it was weird to think it took Zuko almost dying and a another war almost starting for us to spend time together like this. But we both made the most of this peace nonetheless.

However, once we were about to leave for the summit Zuko seemed a bit anxious.

"Ready to go?" I asked Zuko as I put my hair up with the hairpiece Kaito gave me at Zuko's coronation.

"Yea," Zuko plainly replied, a bit zoned out.

"Look," I said, earning his attention and walking closer to him and patting down his robe,"Whatever the everyone says we all agreed that Yu Dao and the rest of the colonies should become something new. So even if the Earth Kingdom's advisors show you some hostility, don't worry too much,"

"You always know what to say don't you," Zuko said, leaning in to give me a sweet kiss.

"It's a natural talent," I hummed, softly holding my hand out for him to take. He smiled as I  walked us out to Appa who just landed with Aang, Katara and Sokka to take us back to Yu Dao.

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We all sat down for the meeting as a professor from Ba Sing Se University came to give a lecture on ancient Earth Kingdom theories of government. The five of us were there along with the Morishitas, Sneers, and a handful of other representatives from Yu Dao and from the Earth King's royal court were present. I sat next to Zuko almost at the end of the table as I zoned out from the man speaking for over two hours already. All he would speak about was the past, often repeating the same things, instead of what we could build towards the future. Even someone like me who would study about government to keep Kaito company when she was first assigned as an advisor to the royal council found it extremely draining. A long sighed escaped my lips as I laid back. My vision doubled making me zone out from the entire lecture.

"Can you two keep it down, please?" Katara hissed, allowing me to slowly return to reality,"Some of us are trying to listen!"

"Sorry Katara!" Aang replied.

"Hm?" I said, trying to understand what was going on since I hadn't been paying attention to anything that had been happening for over an hour now.

"Surprise surprise, my boring sister likes boring lecture guy," Sokka said, clearly wanting to annoy our sister.

"Hey! That's my girlfriend you're talking about!" Aang defended, making me let out a breath of air in amusement.

Katara then turned her tea into snow, throwing it to Sokka's face. Aang and I quickly tried to contain our laughter as Sokka quietly did his best to swat away the snow.

"Professor, can you repeat that last part?" Zuko asked, averting my attention.

The professor loudly sighed, clearly showing his discontent that Zuko interrupted him.

"A teenager is a teenager, apparently, even if he's a head of state." He said in a derogatory tone.

I sighed, things have gotten better but a lot of people still find a way to hate on Zuko. It's not any better that Zuko is the youngest Fire Lord since before the war started. It's disrespectful, rude, and it bothered me a lot. But there was only so much I could do about it without making things worse.