Zuko woke with the sun, as he always did. It was a firebender thing—something in his blood and bones that responded to Agni's first light touching the horizon, pulling him from sleep whether he wanted it or not. For years, he'd resented this particular aspect of his bending, the way it made rest feel like a luxury he could never quite grasp. But now, in the quiet hours before the desert heat became unbearable, he found a strange peace in the solitude.
Katara was still asleep in her bedroll, her breathing deep and even, her face relaxed in a way it never was when she was awake. The journey was taking its toll on her—he could see it in the dark circles under her eyes, the way her hands still trembled slightly when she thought he wasn't looking. But she was recovering. Stronger each day. Determined to push forward no matter how much her body protested.
Moving quietly so as not to disturb her, Zuko set about building a fire. The desert mornings were cold, the temperature dropping dramatically once the sun set, and they both needed warmth and food before they could continue their journey. He arranged the kindling with practiced efficiency, then held his hand over it and released a small, controlled burst of flame.
The fire caught immediately, crackling to life with a warmth that seemed to seep into Zuko's bones. He'd spent so long hiding his bending, suppressing it, pretending to be something he wasn't, that these small moments of honest fire felt almost transgressive. But out here, with no one around for miles except Katara—who already knew what he was—he could breathe a little easier.
He pulled out their supplies, assessing what they had left. Rice, some dried vegetables, a small amount of salted meat. Enough for a few more days if they were careful. He'd need to find work in the next village, earn enough coin to replenish their stores before they pushed deeper into Earth Kingdom territory.
Zuko set a pot of water over the fire, adding rice and vegetables with the mechanical precision of someone who had learned to cook out of necessity rather than interest. It wasn't much—just basic porridge, the kind of simple meal that required minimal ingredients and even less skill. But it was hot, filling, and that was all that mattered.
He was stirring the pot when Katara's voice cut through the morning quiet.
"You're cooking."
Zuko glanced over his shoulder to find her sitting up in her bedroll, staring at him with an expression of confused surprise. Her hair was still loose from sleep, falling around her shoulders in dark waves that caught the early morning light.
"We need to eat," Zuko said simply, turning back to the pot. "And you need to rest. The healer said—"
"I know what the healer said," Katara interrupted, but there was no heat in it. Just bewilderment. "But you're... cooking. You're not expecting me to do it."
Zuko paused in his stirring, genuinely confused by her reaction. "Why would I expect you to cook?"
"Because that's what I do," Katara said, and there was something bitter in her voice now. "With Aang and Sokka and Toph. I cook. I wash the dishes. I mend the clothes. I'm the..." She trailed off, seeming to struggle with the words. "I'm the one who takes care of everyone. It's just... what I do."
Zuko turned to face her fully, studying her expression. There was something complicated there—resentment mixed with resignation, the look of someone who had fallen into a role they'd never quite chosen for themselves. He recognized that look. He'd worn it himself for years.
"On my ship," Zuko said carefully, "there were both men and women. Our cook was a man—Tadashi, huge guy, could probably break me in half without even trying. Our engineer was a woman named Akane. She kept the boilers running, fixed the engines when they broke down, handled repairs that would have killed most men twice her size." He shrugged, turning back to the pot. "There wasn't a distinction in jobs based on gender. People did what they were good at, what needed to be done."
He could feel Katara's stare on his back, could sense her trying to reconcile this information with whatever assumptions she'd been carrying about Fire Nation culture.
"I never learned to cook properly," Zuko admitted, a bit of shame creeping into his voice despite himself. "Three years traveling and the most I can manage is porridge and rice. Everything else either burns or comes out inedible." He stirred the pot with more force than necessary. "This is pretty much the limit of my culinary skills."
"That's more than Sokka can do," Katara said, and there was something that might have been amusement in her voice. "He tried to make seaweed soup once and somehow managed to make it explode."
Despite everything, Zuko felt his mouth twitch. "How do you make soup explode?"
"I have no idea. But he did." Katara was definitely smiling now, just a small thing, but genuine. "Gran Gran banned him from the cooking pot after that."
The tension between them eased slightly, the conversation settling into something that felt almost normal. Katara emerged from her bedroll, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders against the morning chill. She watched Zuko work for a moment, then said, "I could help. With the food. I'm feeling stronger."
"You need to rest," Zuko said firmly, not looking up from the pot. "We have a long journey ahead and pushing yourself too hard now will only make things worse later."
Katara opened her mouth to argue, then seemed to think better of it. Instead, her eyes caught on something else—a small tear in the shoulder of Zuko's shirt, the fabric frayed and pulling apart at the seam.
"Your shirt has a hole," she said, moving closer. "Let me mend it for you."
"It's fine," Zuko said automatically. "I can do it myself later."
Katara blinked, clearly surprised. "You know how to sew?"
"Mending is an essential skill," Zuko said, still focused on the pot. "Not just for clothes, but for stitches, wound care. Every soldier on my ship knew basic field medicine, and that included knowing how to close a wound properly." He paused, then added more quietly, "When you're traveling alone, you either learn to fix things yourself or you go without."
"I'm still going to mend it," Katara said, and there was a stubborn note in her voice that Zuko was beginning to recognize. "You're cooking. The least I can do is fix your shirt. I need to do something useful or I'm going to lose my mind just sitting here."
Zuko opened his mouth to argue, saw the determined set of her jaw, and recognized a battle he wasn't going to win. "Fine," he said, setting down the stirring spoon. "But only because you're going to keep pestering me about it otherwise."
He reached for the hem of his shirt, then hesitated. Taking it off meant exposing his torso, his scars—not just the obvious one on his face, but the other marks that told stories he'd rather not share. But her stubborn look she was giving him mend there was no way out of it.
Zuko pulled the shirt over his head in one smooth motion, holding it out to Katara without meeting her eyes.
The silence that followed was heavy enough that Zuko finally looked up to find Katara staring at him with an expression he couldn't quite read. Her eyes moved over his bare chest and shoulders, taking in details he knew she was seeing—the way his ribs were too prominent, evidence of weeks of inadequate food and constant travel. The broad shoulders and defined muscles that spoke to years of training with dao swords, firebending, and fighting to survive. The sunburn that covered his skin in angry red patches, worse on his shoulders and upper back where the desert sun had hit him hardest.
"You're thinner than I expected," Katara said finally, her voice carefully neutral. "When did you last eat a proper meal?"
Zuko thought about it, trying to remember the last time he'd had anything more substantial than dried rations and whatever he could forage. "I don't know," he admitted. "A few weeks, maybe. Before I left my uncle."
Katara's expression flickered with something—concern, maybe, or judgment. But all she said was, "That needs to change. You can't take care of anyone else if you're starving yourself."
She settled down across the fire from him, pulling out the small sewing kit she had inside her small handbag. Her hands moved with practiced efficiency as she threaded the needle, her eyes focused on the tear in his shirt with the kind of concentration that suggested this was familiar work.
Zuko turned back to the pot, trying to ignore the strange intimacy of the moment. Katara sewing his shirt while he cooked their breakfast, the two of them working in companionable silence like they'd done this a hundred times before. Like they were actually the married couple they were pretending to be.
The thought made something uncomfortable twist in his chest, and he pushed it firmly aside.
As Zuko stirred the rice porridge, he became aware of Katara's gaze on him again. Not on his torso this time, but on his face. Or more specifically, on his hair.
"You cut it," she said suddenly. "Your hair. It's different from before."
Zuko's hand moved unconsciously to touch his head, feeling the short crop of dark hair that had replaced the phoenix tail he'd worn for years. "After the North Pole," he said quietly. "My uncle and I—we had to disappear. The phoenix tail was too recognizable. It had to go."
"It looks better," Katara said, then seemed to reconsider her diplomatic approach. "Actually, no—it looks a thousand times better. That other hairstyle was absolutely horrible. Who voluntarily makes themselves bald except for one ponytail in the back? It was possibly the worst haircut I've ever seen."
Despite himself, Zuko felt his mouth twitch. "It was pretty terrible," he admitted.
"Pretty terrible?" Katara's eyebrows rose. "Zuko, you looked like someone lost a bet. A really, really bad bet." She tilted her head, studying him. "Although I guess it made you easy to recognize. Which probably wasn't the point?"
"Definitely not the point," Zuko said, running his hand through his short hair again. It still felt strange sometimes, having actual hair on his head instead of just the ponytail. "My uncle cut his hair too. We did it together."
He left it at that, deliberately vague. Katara seemed to sense he wasn't going to elaborate, but she wasn't quite done with the topic.
"I mean, I'm sure there was a reason for it," she said, "but I'm just saying—as someone who had to look at that haircut while you were chasing us—thank you for cutting it off. This is much less offensive to my eyes."
"Glad I could improve your visual experience," Zuko said dryly, but there was no real heat in it. If anything, he was grateful for the lightness, for the way she could tease him about something that had been such a visible mark of his shame without realizing the full weight of what it had meant.
"Much appreciated," Katara said with mock solemnity, then returned her attention to her sewing with what looked suspiciously like a smile. "Does it feel strange?" Katara asked after a few seconds, her needle moving through the fabric with practiced ease. "Being without it?"
"At first," Zuko said. "But now..." He paused, trying to find the right words. "Now it feels... good"
Katara was quiet for a moment, her focus seemingly on her sewing. But when she spoke again, her voice was softer. "I think it looks nice. The short hair. It suits you better than that aggressive ponytail thing."
Zuko didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing. Just focused on the pot and tried to ignore the warmth creeping up the back of his neck that had nothing to do with the fire or the sun.
The rice finished cooking, and Zuko divided it between two bowls, handing one to Katara along with a spoon. She'd finished mending his shirt, the tear now closed with neat, almost invisible stitches that spoke to years of practice.
"Thank you," Zuko said, taking the shirt back and pulling it over his head. The fabric was still warm from her hands, and the mended spot was stronger than it had been before.
"You're welcome," Katara said, accepting the bowl of food. She took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, then added, "It's good. Better than I expected for someone who claims they can only make porridge."
"It's just rice and vegetables," Zuko said, but he felt something ease in his chest at the compliment. "Nothing special."
"It's hot and it's edible and I didn't have to make it myself," Katara said firmly. "That makes it special enough."
They ate in silence for a few minutes, both too hungry to waste time on conversation. But as they finished, Katara began to fill the quiet with stories—small things, memories from her childhood in the Southern Water Tribe. She told him about ice dodging, a coming-of-age ritual where young Water Tribe members proved their skills in a boat surrounded by icebergs. About her grandmother's stories of the ocean spirits and the way the moon pulled at the tides. About Sokka's disastrous attempts at hunting and the time he'd gotten his head stuck in a ceremonial mask.
Zuko listened, finding himself drawn into her words despite himself. The way she described her home made it come alive—not just a frozen wasteland at the bottom of the world, but a place full of community and tradition and love. A place where people took care of each other, where children grew up surrounded by family and belonging.
It was so different from his own childhood that it might as well have been a different world entirely.
"Tell me something," Katara said eventually, her bowl empty and her eyes curious. "About you. About your life before..." She gestured vaguely, seeming unsure how to finish the sentence. Before the hunt? Before everything fell apart?
Zuko was quiet for a long moment, trying to think of something he could share that wouldn't reveal too much, wouldn't open doors he needed to keep closed. Finally, he settled on a memory that felt safe enough.
"There were turtleducks," he said quietly. "In the palace gardens. A pond full of them—mother turtleducks with their babies following behind in perfect little lines." He could see them in his mind's eye, the way they'd paddle through the water with their shells gleaming in the sun. "I used to sit there with my mother when I was small. We'd sit by the pond and feed them bread, and she'd make up stories about where they were going, what grand adventures the baby turtleducks were planning."
He stopped, swallowing hard against the sudden tightness in his throat. "Once, I threw a rock at them. I don't know why—I was young and stupid and wanted to see what would happen. Hit one of the babies." The memory made shame curl in his gut even now. "The mother turtleduck came after me, bit me right on the calf. Drew blood."
"Good," Katara said, and there was approval in her voice. "You deserved it for throwing rocks at babies."
"I know," Zuko said. "My mother said the same thing. Told me that mothers always protect their children, no matter what. That it was the most important job in the world." His voice softened. "She bandaged my leg and made me apologize to the turtleducks. Then she held me while I cried, and told me that making mistakes didn't make me a bad person as long as I learned from them."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implications neither of them wanted to examine too closely. Zuko could feel Katara watching him, could sense the questions she wasn't asking about his mother, about what had happened to turn a boy who cried over turtleducks into someone who hunted a kid across the world.
But she didn't push. Just finished her food and started gathering their supplies for the day's journey.
Before they left, Katara excused herself and made her way to the river. Zuko busied himself with packing up camp, giving her privacy while trying not to think too hard about what she might be doing down there.
What he didn't see was Katara standing in the shallow water, her hands glowing with soft blue light as she pulled water from the river and shaped it into healing energy. She moved her hands over her own body first, easing the lingering aches and pains from the desert crossing, feeling her strength returning as the water worked its magic.
Then she thought about Zuko and his sunburned skin, the angry red patches that must hurt every time the sun touched them or fabric rubbed against them. She could help. She had the power to ease that pain, to heal the damage the desert had done to both of them.
But healing him would mean revealing her abilities. Water healing was precious—a skill that marked her as valuable, as someone worth capturing or using. And despite everything, despite the tentative alliance they'd formed and the shared meals and the quiet conversations, she still wasn't sure she trusted him all that much.
Not yet. Maybe not ever.
So Katara used her bending to heal herself, to restore her energy and prepare for the journey ahead. And she kept her secret tucked close to her heart, one more card she wasn't ready to show.
When she returned to camp, Zuko had Sugar saddled and ready. He helped Katara mount with careful hands, mindful of her still-recovering strength, then took up his position walking beside them. They fell into the rhythm they'd established the day before—slow and steady, stopping frequently for water and rest, keeping to shaded areas whenever possible.
They made better progress today. Katara's strength was returning, and Sugar seemed energized by the morning rest and good grazing. The river continued to wind alongside their path, a constant source of water and reassurance that they wouldn't die of thirst in this unforgiving landscape.
By midday, they'd covered more ground than Zuko had dared hope. He found a good camping spot near the river—a cluster of large rocks that provided shade and shelter, with good visibility in all directions. No one could sneak up on them here.
"We'll stop here for the day," Zuko announced, helping Katara down from Sugar's back. "The afternoon heat is too dangerous to travel in."
Katara didn't argue, just settled into the shade while Zuko tended to Sugar and set up their camp. But when he started preparing food again, she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"Let me," she said. "I'm rested enough, and you've been walking all morning. It's my turn."
Zuko wanted to protest, but the stubborn set of her jaw told him it would be pointless. Besides, she was right—he was tired, and his feet ached from walking on hot sand and rock. "Fine," he relented. "But if you start feeling dizzy or weak—"
"I'll tell you," Katara promised. "I'm not stupid, Zuko. I know my limits."
She proved herself by preparing a much better meal than his simple rice porridge. She made a proper rice dish with the dried vegetables rehydrated in water, seasoned with the small amount of spices they'd managed to acquire in the village. It wasn't fancy, but it tasted like actual food instead of just fuel.
"Where did you learn to cook?" Zuko asked, savoring each bite.
"My grandmother, mostly," Katara said. "After my mother died, Gran Gran taught me everything she knew. Cooking, sewing, how to manage a household." There was that bitter note in her voice again. "Eight years old, and suddenly I had to be the woman of the house because there was no one else to do it."
"That's too young," Zuko said quietly. "To have that much responsibility."
"Yeah, well," Katara stirred her rice with more force than necessary. "The Fire Nation doesn't care about what's fair or what's right. They just take and take and expect everyone else to deal with the consequences."
Zuko couldn't argue with that. His nation had been taking for a hundred years—land, resources, lives. And the consequences had rippled out across the entire world, touching everyone from Water Tribe girls forced to grow up too fast to Fire Nation princes burned by their own fathers.
After they finished eating and cleaned up their meal, Zuko insisted they rest through the worst of the afternoon heat. Katara protested—she wanted to keep moving, to make up for lost time, to get closer to Ba Sing Se and her friends—but even she had to admit that traveling in the brutal midday sun would be foolish when they had shelter and water.
So they waited, Katara dozing in the shade while Zuko kept watch. He spent the time checking their supplies, planning their route, and trying not to think too hard about what would happen when they finally reached the great city. When they finally found the Avatar and Katara's brother and everything got complicated again.
By late afternoon, when the sun had descended enough to make travel bearable, they packed up camp and resumed their journey. Katara rode Sugar now, her strength recovered enough that she didn't need to stop as frequently, though Zuko still watched her carefully for signs of exhaustion or overheating.
The landscape was changing as they moved further from the desert. More vegetation appeared—scrubby bushes and hardy trees that clung to life near the river. The ground became less sand and more packed earth and rock. Signs of civilization began to emerge: old cart tracks worn into the ground, the ruins of what might have once been a waystation, evidence that people had traveled this route before them.
"How far to the next village?" Katara asked, adjusting her position in the saddle. She'd insisted on giving Zuko his hat back, arguing that his sunburn was worse than hers and that her Water Tribe skin was better adapted to harsh conditions anyway. He'd reluctantly accepted it, grateful for the shade even if he felt guilty about it.
"At least two more days," Zuko said, consulting the mental map he'd been building from half-remembered geography lessons and the few landmarks he could identify. "Maybe three, depending on our pace. The river will lead us there eventually—most settlements in this region are built near water sources."
"Makes sense," Katara said. She was quiet for a moment, then added, "You're good at this. Navigation, I mean. Planning routes."
"I spent three years on a ship," Zuko said with a shrug. "You learn to read maps and stars pretty quickly when getting lost means running out of supplies in the middle of the ocean."
"Still," Katara persisted, "it's useful. Sokka does most of our navigation usually, but he relies a lot on Appa flying high enough to see landmarks. On the ground like this..." She trailed off, and Zuko could hear the worry in her voice. Worry about whether her brother and the Avatar had made it out of the desert, whether they were safe, whether she'd ever see them again.
"They're alive," Zuko said quietly, surprising himself with the certainty in his voice.
"You don't know that."
"I do, actually." Zuko glanced up at her. "The Avatar is too important to die in a desert. The spirits themselves would intervene before letting that happen. And your brother—from what I saw at the North Pole, he's resourceful. Stubborn. The kind of person who survives through sheer determination not to die."
"That does sound like Sokka," Katara admitted, and there was affection in her voice mixed with the worry. "He once fought off a group of Fire Nation soldiers with nothing but his boomerang and his ego."
"His ego must be impressive then," Zuko said dryly.
"You have no idea."
They fell into a comfortable rhythm after that, trading small observations about the landscape and the journey. Katara pointed out plants she recognized from her travels—which ones were safe to eat, which ones had medicinal properties, which ones would make you violently ill if you were stupid enough to try them. Zuko shared what he'd learned about reading the land, how to identify good camping spots, how to tell if water was safe to drink.
It was practical knowledge, survival skills exchanged between two people who had both learned the hard way how unforgiving the world could be. Nothing personal, nothing that required vulnerability or trust beyond what was necessary to keep each other alive.
But somehow, it felt like more than that. Like they were building something—not friendship, exactly, but a foundation. An understanding that they were in this together, at least for now.
As the sun touched the western horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold, Zuko found another good camping spot. This one was even better than their midday rest—a small grove of hardy trees near the river, with soft grass for Sugar to graze and a natural windbreak formed by large boulders.
"We'll stop here for the night," Zuko announced, helping Katara dismount. She'd been in the saddle for several hours now, and he could see the stiffness in her movements as her feet touched the ground.
"I'm fine," she said before he could ask, though she leaned against Sugar for a moment to steady herself. "Just need to stretch."
While Katara walked along the riverbank to work the kinks out of her muscles, Zuko set up camp with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd done this hundreds of times. Bedrolls arranged at a respectful distance, supply packs organized and secured, Sugar's saddle removed and the ostrich horse given access to water and grazing. He built a fire pit with stones from the riverbed, arranged kindling and larger pieces of wood he'd collected during their afternoon rest.
By the time Katara returned, looking more relaxed and refreshed, Zuko had everything ready. The sun had fully set now, the temperature dropping quickly as it always did in this region. Soon they'd need the fire for warmth as much as light and cooking.
"You're good at this too," Katara observed, settling onto her bedroll. "Making camp. You've done it a lot, haven't you?"
"More times than I can count," Zuko said, arranging the fire so it would catch easily when he lit it. "Three years of traveling, most of it in places where there weren't convenient inns or villages. You learn to make do."
"It must have been hard," Katara said quietly. "All that traveling." She seemed like she wanted to ask something, but after a while she shook her head.
Zuko paused in his work, something tightening in his chest at the observation. "Sometimes," he admitted. "But my uncle—he made it bearable. He always knew how to find something good in the worst situations."
He didn't elaborate on how he'd left his uncle, how he'd abandoned the one person who had stayed by his side through everything. That guilt was his to carry, and sharing it wouldn't make it any lighter.
Instead, Zuko lit the fire with a careful application of his bending, watching as the flames caught and spread, driving back the darkness and cold. Katara didn't comment on the casual use of his abilities, though he saw her watching the fire with an expression he couldn't quite read.
After they ate, they settled into their bedrolls as the fire crackled between them, small but steady, providing light and warmth as the desert temperature dropped. Above them, stars began to appear in the darkening sky, hundreds and thousands of them, more than Zuko had ever seen even on the clearest nights at sea.
"The stars are different here," Katara said softly, staring up at the expanse of light above them. "At home, at the South Pole, you could see the Southern Lights. We called them the Aurora. They'd dance across the winter sky in waves of green and blue and purple, sometimes pink or gold if you were lucky." Her voice took on a dreamlike quality. "Gran Gran said they were our ancestors and loved ones watching over us from the spirit world. That every light was someone who cared about us, making sure we were safe."
"What do they look like?" Zuko asked, unable to keep the longing from his voice. "The Southern Lights?"
"Like... like rivers of color flowing through the night sky," Katara said, her hands moving as if trying to paint the picture in the air. "They shift and change, never staying still, always dancing. Some nights they're so bright you can read by them. Other nights they're just whispers of light at the edge of the horizon." She turned her head to look at him. "Have you never seen them? The Northern Lights, at least?"
"No," Zuko said. "When I was at the North Pole, it was during the day cycle. And I was..." He paused, not wanting to say 'too busy hunting the Avatar and getting my ass handed to me by your waterbending.' "I was occupied with other things."
"That's a shame," Katara said, and she sounded like she meant it. "They're beautiful. One of the few good things about living at the bottom of the world."
"The Fire Nation has stories about them too," Zuko offered. "We call them Aurora as well. The legends say they're the children of Agni and Stellar, the star weaver spirit. Every light is one of their children dancing across the sky, celebrating life and love and the bond between fire and stars."
"That's... actually kind of beautiful," Katara said, surprise evident in her voice. "I didn't expect the Fire Nation to have poetic legends."
"We're not all monsters," Zuko said quietly. "Some of us are just... lost."
Katara didn't respond to that, but her silence felt less hostile than it might have a few days ago.
Zuko shifted in his bedroll, pointing up at the sky. "See that constellation there? The one that looks like a dragon?"
"Where?" Katara squinted at the stars.
"Follow my finger," Zuko said, tracing the pattern in the air. "There's the head, the long neck, the wings spread out like it's flying. The tail curves down and around."
"Oh!" Katara's voice brightened. "I see it now. What's it called?"
"Ryu," Zuko said. "Named after one of the first dragons. The stories say he and his mate Sora flew so high they became stars, so they could watch over the world forever." He shifted his hand to point at another constellation. "And that one there is the turtle. It represents a lion turtle from the ancient legends."
"You know a lot about stars," Katara observed.
"My mother taught me," Zuko said softly. "When I was young, before everything... she used to take me up to the palace roof at night and show me the constellations. She'd tell me their stories—not just the Fire Nation versions, but legends from all over the world. She said the stars were the same for everyone, no matter what nation they were from." He paused, swallowing hard. "And knowing the constellations helped with navigation. When I was on my ship, I used them to plot our course, to make sure we didn't get lost at sea."
"That's useful," Katara said. "We used the stars for navigation too. Sokka knew all the patterns, learned them from our father before he left for the war." She was quiet for a moment, then added, "Your mother sounds like she was a good person."
"She was," Zuko agreed. "She was the best person I knew."
They fell into silence again, both staring up at the vast expanse of stars above them. The fire crackled quietly between them, and somewhere in the distance, a night bird called out to its mate. The Earth Kingdom was dark and dangerous and full of unknown threats, but here in this small circle of firelight, with the stars overhead and the sound of the river nearby, Zuko felt something close to peace.
It wouldn't last. It couldn't last. Eventually they would reach Ba Sing Se, and Katara would reunite with her friends, and the Avatar would be there, and everything would get complicated again. The fragile alliance they'd built in the desert would shatter under the weight of reality and history and all the reasons they were supposed to be enemies.
But for tonight, they could lie under the stars and share stories and pretend that maybe, just maybe, they were two people instead of representatives of nations at war. Two people who had lost too much and were trying to find their way forward in a world that hadn't left them many good options.
Tomorrow would bring its own challenges. But tonight, they had this.