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heartlines—

Somehow, she had never imagined her future like this, she thought to herself as she curled into the warm body next to her, felt the fingers trace down her spine.

Post-war had never been so bleak. She'd always, in the past, held tight to Aang's visions of a beautiful, brighter world, but with one hundred years of warfare finally behind them, it was easy to get rid of the violence, but never the fighting.

It wasn't easy to let go of the prejudice that she knew laid deep inside of her, nor the anger that bubbled to the surface every time she remembered, nor the tears and choked gasps. It was even harder to forget the hands around her neck, the viscous feeling of blood coating her fingers.

Aang felt a little bit like drugged freedom. With Aang, everything was always this far away dream; the tension would leave her shoulders and she'd relax into Appa's fur as she traveled her way around the world once over again. Just him and her and the skies. And for that moment, she could let it go.

Limitless.

But she wasn't with Aang, not anymore.

Somehow, in the musk of reality and the burdens of being the Water Tribe's Ambassador to the Fire Nation, the lines between everything had blurred, inescapably left her, and between the liquor and the understanding and his golden eyes…

With Zuko, there was always a plan. There was the steadiness of a path to travel on and a goal within reach. She supposed that was to be expected from the Fire Lord, but she hadn't realized how much she'd needed her tether to the ground until she was touching it.

It was hard to let go of the war like Aang did. She wasn't so easily changed. Constant like the tides, she was water. And so she'd left with her slightly unhinged state of sanity and with all of the need to solve herself.

She closed her eyes and breathed as lips descended on her neck and the sheets were moved aside and the blood that she could never quite wipe off of her hands melted to dust underneath the steady pressure of hands—so warm, so warm.

And all the pieces that she'd lost of herself found their way back to her, and in just that moment, she felt complete. Like there had never been a war in the first place.

Like her mother hadn't been killed, like she hadn't taken lives, like she'd grown up in the warmth of her parents' arms.

His lips moved to hers and she inhaled. And for that split second, free.

note: this is a repost and slightly retouched drabble I'd written a while ago on my tumblr for a thirty days type of challenge. I decided I liked it well enough to post it here. drop a review?