Archive of Our Own ^beta

"But I'm bored!"

Zuko supposed that was only to be expected. She was after all, a kid. "You could go play with Mom. She has all your toys anyway."

Her face crumpled, for less than an instant before she managed to twist it into anger and irritation, but in that tiny sliver of a moment when her real feelings were laid plain, Zuko caught a glimpse of something that was almost betrayal, but not, something worse and indescribable, like she should have known better than to expect anything else.

"I'm really busy," he said, feeling stupid, and also horrible. "I don't have time to play with you right now."

"Fine," she snapped. "I'm going to go play outside."

"No!" Zuko yelped. "I won't let you!"

"I'm not a baby!" She glared at him mulishly, so much like Azula that it hurt. Only Azula had seemed so much bigger, because he had been so much smaller. "You don't get to keep me inside all the time. It's not fair."

"You got kidnapped," Zuko shot back.

"It's not my fault I was kidnapped." She folded her arms defiantly. "You're locking me up for something I didn't even do!"

"We're not locking you up."

"Might as well be!"

"Look, it's not our fault you got kidnapped either." But that was the problem. It felt like it was. She was safe in bed, until suddenly she wasn't, and every second she wasn't right where he could see her, there was that whisper of dread telling him she was gone again.

"I'm going outside," she told him, "You can't stop me."

Something behind his eyes started to throb. "I'm a lot bigger than you are. I can just pick you up and hold you, if I wanted."

"Aren't you supposed to be busy?"

"Yes, I am." His headache was growing worse with every passing second. "Which is why you should sit over there and be quiet."

"But there's nothing to do!" she insisted, frustration radiating off her. "And you won't let me go anywhere!"

He gave in and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing the headache to fade. It didn't work. "Why don't you make one of those little flying paper birds Ty Lee showed you?"

She looked down at her feet before looking back up at him. "I don't remember how."

Zuko glanced back at the pile of unanswered letters and unread reports looming over his writing table. "You know what." He grabbed a stack of blank paper. "Let's go outside. I'll teach you."

Kiyi whooped and sprinted for the door, forcing Zuko to dash off after her. The halls were deserted as they dashed through them, Zuko clinging tight to the paper to keep it from flying away from him. When she reached the door to the inner courtyard, Kiyi snatched up her shoes and barrelled through without stopping to put them on.

Glowering fiercely at her, Zuko grabbed his boots and stuffed his feet into them before trotting after her.

When he caught up to her, she had flopped down underneath a tree next to the turtleduck pond, her shoes still dangling from her fingers. He folded himself down beside her, took a piece of paper for her, and another for himself, and stuck a rock on top of the rest of the small stack. "So the first thing you do is fold it like this."

Kiyi pulled herself up to watch, shoes falling into the grass. shaking out her paper, she copied his fold and creased it a few extra times. "What's next?"

Zuko made the next fold. and waited for her to copy it. "So this bit is a little bit tricky, you have to fold this bit and then unfold it to push the paper in like this."

Kiyi tried to match the fold a couple times before she fot it right. "So how did you learn how to make these things anyway?"

"Huh?" he grunted, unfolding his last fold to show her.

"It just doesn't seem like your kind of thing," she said, brittle and defensive, looking away.

"I don't really remember," Zuko shrugged. "I used to make them with Azula and her friends. "Mai used to throw them at people's heads when she was mad at them."

"Isn't Mai the one whose dad..."

"Yeah."

"Oh." Her eyes shot down to her almost finished paper bird. It was a while before she spoke again, long enough for her to finish the bird and toss it into an experimental glide. After darting off to retrieve it, she sank down next to him. "Why did you say you were busy before?"

"Because I was."

"But not now?" she challenged. "You don't have to lie to me. If you don't want to play with me, you should just tell me."

"I'm not lying! There's still a whole bunch of stuff I'm supposed to be doing now, and I'm going to have to do it later." And there was nothing he wanted to do less than go back to the pile of paperwork slowly consuming his writing table. "Being the Firelord means there's always a lot of stupid things I have to be doing, and stupid people I have to talk to, who all want me to do more stupid things, and it never stops."

"I'm glad you came outside to play with me," she offered.

"Me too." He handed her another piece of paper. "If you want to remember how to make the birds, you should make a bunch of them, you know, for practice."

"Uh huh," she said dubiously.

"Besides, the more you make, the more you can ask Aang to make fly when he comes to visit next."

"Is he coming soon?" She snatched the paper and made the first fold.

"I don't know." Zuko shrugged. "But it's not like it's ever that long."

"Oh," she whispered, but she didn't stop.

He leaned back against the tree. "Let me know if you get stuck, and I'll help you."