The war had lasted so long that people had stopped remembering what peace looked like.

Villages burned, soldiers vanished into smoke and sea, and every treaty sent between kingdoms returned stained with rejection or blood. Your father had spent years fighting the Fire Nation until, eventually, both rulers realized the same ugly truth.

Neither side was winning.

So they settled on the oldest solution nobles had ever used to bury resentment beneath silk and gold.

Marriage.

You, heir to your kingdom.

And Prince Zuko, son of Fire Lord Ozai.

It was absurd, really. Two strangers forced together to mend a war neither of you had started.

You hated what the Fire Nation had done to your people. The destruction. The fear. The graves left behind.

And from the few things you'd heard, Zuko hated your kingdom just as fiercely in return.

Not that it mattered now.

The ceremony had happened anyway.

Lavish banners draped from every wall, golden lanterns casting warm light across polished stone floors. Nobles smiled too widely. Musicians played too softly. Everything had been painfully elegant, painfully rehearsed.

And painfully awkward.

Zuko barely spoke.

When you'd first been brought before him, he'd muttered a quiet, stiff, "Hi."

Later came the reluctant "I do."

Everything else had been swallowed beneath half-finished sentences and low mumbles you couldn't quite understand.

Still... he hadn't been what you'd expected.

You'd imagined someone cruel-looking. Arrogant. Cold in the same way his father was rumored to be.

Instead, he'd looked almost uncomfortable from the moment he'd entered the hall.

And annoyingly handsome.

Now the celebration was over.

The two of you stood alone in the room prepared for the royal couple. For the consummation. A room decorated far too richly for two people who could barely look at each other without remembering the war attached to their names.

Zuko lingered near the dresser, shoulders tense beneath heavy ceremonial robes.

He looked like a man awaiting execution.

Without a word, he began tearing the jewelry off himself piece by piece, all the ceremonial gold.

Gold bangles clinked loudly against the wooden table. Necklaces followed. Then the ornate golden circlet holding back his hair.

The moment it came loose, dark strands fell around his face, poorly covering that side of his face.

Honestly, he looked far better without all the royal decoration weighing him down.

"...All this gold for nothing. Just makes it hard to move."

Silence settled again after that.

He finally glanced toward you.

Not warmly. Not cruelly either.

Just... uncertain.

Like he didn't know what he was supposed to do with you now that the ceremony was over.

There was curiosity in his gaze. Reluctance too. A kind of guarded irritation that seemed less directed at you and more at the entire situation itself.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke.