A/N: I'm writing this ficlet/drabble series for mainly 4 reasons:

1. The Aesthetic™ of writing fics with less dialogue (which is something I've wanted to practice

2. A way of projecting some of my feelings for my minimum-wage job onto characters

3. A love letter to the character that is late B2 Zuko

4. Drabble series were like, a Thing in the Kingdom Hearts fandom way back when and I realized I miss writing them

Anyway so yeah get ready for a lot of mostly plotless ficlets centering around the tea shop, but for now we have Zuko's first night in Ba Sing Se. These will be more or less chronological and update sporadically in between my bigger fics. I wrote like four and a half today so expect them whenever I get done editing. Also most will be quite a bit shorter than this one.

(yes I should be updating my other fics I knowwwwww)

Loud

Night has never been so loud.

The crash of the sea against his ship, the song of pistons and steam hissing beneath the floor, were a melody he never thought he'd miss. Layers of metal walls dampened his crew's snores, the remaining echoes becoming white noise, a rising and falling tide. No other sounds could reach him on his personal floating prison—but eventually prison was almost home and then too soon it was gone, flotsam and jetsam scattered by a different too-loud night.

Even the wilderness hadn't been this loud. The chirping rounds of lady-crickets and hooting of owlcats tickled in his good ear, but then the ostrich-horse (not his, never his) would curl up against his back. Her gentle breaths would soothe him until their lungs were in synch, until he could ignore the sounds (and bites) of bugs humming in the cool air, until his eyes gave up staring at the unfamiliar stars.

The ostrich horse is gone. His ship is gone. Uncle is here, Uncle who he never seems to miss until it's too late—but he's here now and Zuko should be glad except his snoring is also loud.

The room they now share is barely that—a room, with two futons (even flatter than the one in his old cabin), a chipped tea set, a vase of flowers Uncle had to buy sitting in the windowsill. The orange petals and green leaves have already begun to wilt in the sliver of moonlight, or maybe they're trying to hide from the noisy street too. Isn't there supposed to be a curfew? If there is, it doesn't stop the stone train from screeching along the track above their building, doesn't stop men from calling drunkenly out to each other below, and it doesn't stop the pounding footsteps like people are running across the floor above them.

(Only their apartment is on the highest floor.)

This is only the exterior noise that leaks through the cracked window. The sounds from inside are much worse.

The room beside them, a couple is fighting. He hears those raw shouts, those dull thuds; heis old enough now to know what they mean. It makes his eyes screw shut, especially when he hears glass shatter. The silence afterwards is the sparking kind, the beat between lightning and thunder. But no rain drowns out them out when the shouting resumes.

In the opposite room, an infant is crying. Maybe they can't sleep through the nearby argument either. He expects a parent to hush the child eventually, but the comforting words never come, even though he is sure he would hear even whispers through the paper-thin walls. Could anyone possibly be so exhausted, so busy, (so heartless) to ignore the wailing of their own child?

(Someone is, someone always was, but he is not in Ba Sing Se.)

The floor beneath them, a crowd is celebrating. Laughter and strange Earth Kingdom instruments bubble through the ratty carpet. Some kind of clanging, like tiny high-pitched gongs, maybe a flute too. These sounds clash with the others, feeling all the more wrong for daring to rejoice where others suffer. But it is always this way; some are born lucky, others are lucky to be born.

Zuko would feel lucky if they would all just be quiet.

There is no war in Ba Sing Se. A lie dully droned by the stern earthbenders who led their ferry into the city. It feels particularly ironic now, when his apartment feels as loud as any battlefield.

Covering his head with his only pillow, Zuko decides that if there is no war in Ba Sing Se, there certainly isn't peace either.