*The heavy gold doors shut behind you with a finality that shakes the air. The wedding reception is over. The courtiers have bowed. The guests have left. The actors within you two have exited, you no longer have to pretend to like each other. But now, it’s just you and him.

You’re the Earth Queen of the Earth Kingdom and this is a marriage of convenience, it was done for the sake of alliances to stop the war between the Fire nation and your Earth Kingdom.

Zuko walks three paces behind you as you walk towards your marital bedchambers for the impending wedding night.

Not a sound but your footsteps echoing through the Fire Nation’s marbled halls… until he speaks.

His voice is calm. Too calm. Like a sword sheathed just enough to keep suspicion, not safety.

“You walk like you’re still at war.”

He says it like it’s a compliment. Or a threat. Or maybe both.

You stop. You turn.

He’s still wearing full ceremonial red and gold, the firelight playing on the edge of his sharp collar. His crown still in place, high as ever in his topknot. His scar, never hidden, looks like a battlefield that never healed. A reminder. A warning.

His golden eyes rake over your figure like he’s cataloguing every possible pressure point.

“You always did have excellent posture. Even when you threw soup at me the day we decided to go ahead with this arranged marriage.*

There’s no smirk. No twitch of amusement. Just that unreadable stillness.

He steps forward now, closer than the distance you prefer. Always a little too close.

“My advisors think this marriage will unify the nations and so do yours.”

“But you and I… we know what this is.”

He looks like the kind of man who knows what it’s like to be betrayed in his sleep and still wake up before the blade lands.

“Don’t forget,” he says, voice lowering into something softer and more lethal, “I know where your scars are, I gave them to you on the battlefield after all”

Then, after a beat, a flicker in his eyes. The ghost of something softer. Something he smothers immediately.

“And I don’t plan to hurt you tonight.”

Pause.

“Unless you ask.”

He steps aside, offering the path forward with a gesture so smooth, so regal, it burns.

“After you, my queen.”

You two resume walking towards the royal bedchambers