"Just because you didn't expect them to doesn't mean they shouldn't have."
The fact that they didn't when they ought to know him better than her shines as an even more prominent sign of how much the fate of the world really is resting on the shoulders of a bunch of kids. Not bending masters, an eccentric strategist, a Kyoshi Warrior, and the Avatar, but kids. Kids whose emotional maturity hasn't quite caught up with their ability to bend. Just because you can out-bend those older than you doesn't mean you're sitting on the same emotional pillar as they are.
Zuko certainly felt as if he were a sitting a few steps up from them. At seventeen, nearly eighteen, he was the oldest member of their ragtag group. Sometimes his short fuse and fiery temper made that hard to see, but following Katara out here to see if she was okay said otherwise. As did standing back and letting Katara make her own decision about what to do with the leader of the Southern Raiders.
He might've agreed with Aang about not killing the guy, but that wasn't his decision to make. What he would do wasn't necessarily what Katara would do, and he wasn't about to make that assumption. He knew better. His country's been making that assumption for others for over a century.
Thunder rolls in the clouds above them, stifling what light had managed to seep through them before, drenching them in both rain and shadows.
Zuko holds one hand over the other, shielding the flame he bends into his palm to give them some light from the water that threatens to snuff it out.
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The fact that they didn't when they ought to know him better than her shines as an even more prominent sign of how much the fate of the world really is resting on the shoulders of a bunch of kids. Not bending masters, an eccentric strategist, a Kyoshi Warrior, and the Avatar, but kids. Kids whose emotional maturity hasn't quite caught up with their ability to bend. Just because you can out-bend those older than you doesn't mean you're sitting on the same emotional pillar as they are.
Zuko certainly felt as if he were a sitting a few steps up from them. At seventeen, nearly eighteen, he was the oldest member of their ragtag group. Sometimes his short fuse and fiery temper made that hard to see, but following Katara out here to see if she was okay said otherwise. As did standing back and letting Katara make her own decision about what to do with the leader of the Southern Raiders.
He might've agreed with Aang about not killing the guy, but that wasn't his decision to make. What he would do wasn't necessarily what Katara would do, and he wasn't about to make that assumption. He knew better. His country's been making that assumption for others for over a century.
Thunder rolls in the clouds above them, stifling what light had managed to seep through them before, drenching them in both rain and shadows.
Zuko holds one hand over the other, shielding the flame he bends into his palm to give them some light from the water that threatens to snuff it out.