Word Count: 6,323 words
EXTRA. 承諾, 搜索, 煙影
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It's been a year ever since the end of the war.
Zuko, Ozai's son and their ally, became the new Fire Lord.
Together with the Avatar, the Fire Lord and Earth King established the Harmony Restoration Movement, named by Sokka himself, where it will be a movement towards harmony between the Fire Nation colonies built within the Earth Kingdom.
Within the year, they had separated paths; the three came back to travelling with each other, Toph created her own metalbending academy, Suki was back with the Kyoshi Warriors, and Zuko had to stay for his Fire Lord duties.
For Natsuko, she has been travelling alone or rather meeting people from here and there and tasting life just the way she wanted. She has been fishing with her own skills, dancing with her own feet, tried her hand in the arts through her pure luck, seeing places she saw before right in front of her and through her own eyes. She finally hit the brink of her parchment listed with what she wanted to do. Only three quarters of her list left then.
But that's a story for another day.
Now she was here, in Ba Sing Se, taking a break from all the action her life promised her for until she had given up on action itself. Learning tea with the best tea maker in the world, she promised to help Uncle with the tea shop whenever she could.
This was a nicer pace, peaceful, calm, practically what tea is for.
So when Aang brought to them an unconscious Fire Lord, she didn't think she needed tea more than ever.
"Flameo, hotmen!" Natsuko was sweeping outside before the sunset when she greeted her then other half before petting Appa by his nose, as well as Momo who circled around her shoulders before settling on her right with a snuggle to her face, "Tea for how many?"
"Just one." he jumped down and let Zuko's hit the ground with a thud. He could see her purple eyes widen at the sight of the boy and rubbed his nape, "Well, there was a fight, you see?"
Uncle appeared from inside, "How about we talk with a nice cup of tea after bringing my nephew upstairs."
"Iroh!" Aang greeted the owner and did what he was told, bringing Zuko upstairs and let Aang wait down with Iroh who was making them tea, "How long has Natsuko been here in Ba Sing Se?"
The said girl was tending to Zuko on the floor above them, "She arrived just yesterday."
"A girl can do so much during a year of adventure." Natsuko replied, had just finished and walked to Iroh to see the cups of tea that had just finished brewing, "What was the fight all about?"
She and Iroh walked to the table Aang was sitting on and placed their cups before Natsuko walked back to place the tray where it originally was. They sat with each other, talking about what happened over the duration of the year they haven't seen each other and it wasn't like Natsuko could pinpoint where they always was and vice versa.
Her emotions depended on what topic they were in, a huge glint of worry when Aang talked about the agreement he made to Zuko about ending his life once he shows even the smallest signs of turning to his father, "Why am I hearing about this now?"
"He told me not to tell you." Aang admitted bashfully, "I know I should've but you were gone just as fast as he asked me."
Natsuko rubbed her forehead, "Seriously, that boy."
YOU ARE READING
parallel lines
Fanfiction[18/11/23: Rewrote this fic on another site 2 years ago and is still ongoing. Def the better of the two.] The Tale of the Summer Child. An Avatar: the Last Airbender (ATLA) fanfiction // Zuko x OC