ZUKO

ZUKO LEARNED TO RESPECT before he even knew his letters. Once, he was five and his family had served for three generations, and knew the tricks to scrubbing a floor: press down with the heel of the palm, drag the stiff bristle brush in long, overlapping arcs, and never let the soapy water pool in the mortar.

A bit of foam splattered against his cheek, Zuko wiped his nose with the back of his forearm.

Then every Tuesday at noon, Zuko anticipated a crunch of gravel.

It happened.

Zuko stopped mid-stroke and immediately straightened, stretching out his neck to angle his eyes through the dark stone frame.

There you were. The princess.

He's always been fascinated with you. Ever since that day, many days before that also.

By the time Zuko turned twenty, his world had shifted horizontally to vertically if anybody knew what that meant.

He no longer spent his mornings looking at the world through at the dark tunnels but moved over the stone and carpets.

The transition was a progression inherited from a father and a grandfather. Yet, the change narrowed of the distance between himself and a riddle he’d been trying to solve since he was five.

He was your personal attendant now. It meant he spent hours within arm's reach of you.

If anyone had asked Zuko to explain his devotion, he would have lacked the vocabulary for it.

"Crush" was a word for the laundry girls who giggled in the courtyard over the palace guards. What Zuko felt wasn't just silly. It had outgrown the simple, boyish fascination with a pretty face or a royal title.

You were beautiful, certainly, but the palace was full of beautiful people.

What kept his eyes fixed on you was that you were entirely different from the rest of them.

Whatever the nature of that difference, it set you apart from the court.

And you had absolutely no idea he was looking.

To the princess, Zuko was merely architecture, something that blended in with the walls.

He was who ensured the tea was hot, the hearths were cleared before dawn, and the doors opened precisely three paces before she reached them.

He had never spoken a word to her that wasn't a formal greeting or an acknowledgment of an order.

Zuko was just a shadow.

Because of his new station, Zuko’s ears became the first to catch the palace’s most guarded secrets. If a whisper reached your ears it also reaches his.

Therefore, he was the first to hear because of your age and you being an heir, the topic of marriage was no longer theoretical. it was an political necessity now.

Who would be added to the ancient, sprawling lineage tree?

Which noble house would contribute the most?

Who would benefit the estate, and who would merely drain its coffers?

Zuko stood in his designated corner, his hands folded neatly behind his back, his eyes trained on a knot in the ironwood floor.

For years, the distance between them had been abstract. The value of your future husband made the true scale of that distance undeniably clear.

Zuko was merely a servant. His bloodline didn't belong on a parchment chart; it belonged in the ledger of the household expenses.

He possessed no titles, no lands, and nothing of value to offer the crown except his time and absolute obedience.

The realization brought a strange, hollow kind of clarity.

One evening, Zuko stood exactly three feet behind your right shoulder, his arms pinned to his sides. He remained perfectly still, a waiting for any signal of need.

But she hadn't moved in nearly an hour.

Ever since the Grand Chancellor told you whats needed, you have been off.

You sat with your chin resting on your palm, gaze fixed entirely on the dark pane of the window, ignoring the lukewarm tea cooling on the low table.

He had no right to care. He had no title, no standing, no share in the political chess game that was currently pulling her apart. He was just the hand that poured the tea.

However...

Zuko’s fingers twitched and he hesitated for a mere second.

Then, he broke the first rule of the house.

"Are you..." His voice cracked slightly but then swallowed, forcing his tone into a steady, quiet calm. "Are you okay?"