thinking about firelord zuko who very quickly discards tradition as soon as you’re married.
he never walks ahead of you, always a few paces behind like he has a better view or he’s appreciating a sight only to be seen once in a life time. your fingers stay interlaced beneath heavy cloaks that bare the emblem of his home nation, but nowadays yours is stitched into the fabric with threads imported from your own. right above his. right above his heart.
zuko who’s shadow takes shape in the darkness, allowing your light to filter through a room full of opinionated others. he knows the extent of your capability extends beyond the wildest dreams, far greater than those who stand around you waiting for the crack in your visage. you’re strong, even if you stand a few heads shorter than him, your voice is loud and oftentimes the most correct in a room full of static and noise. he’d never let you feel less than, he never speaks for you, lips only parting to clear the buzz in the air and to allow attention to fall to you.
fire lord zuko who insists on being your right hand at every table — leaving you to take a seat at his head. he can’t stand the thought of eating meals at opposite ends — where the distance makes him feel lost, too far from home. he eats to your right where he can listen to the mundane up close, watch the way your lips curl around bites of food or a the words that make up tale from your tribe. he listens like the world has stopped for the two of you, like a nation in need of rule can wait another day for its lord and his princess.
in a similar fashion, he tends to you like a devout follower. even if there are handmaids and tailors and people to help. every door you’ve ever walked through is held open by him. for you. he lifts the straying edge of your train with a certain reverence, treating extra fabric like it’s an extension of you. zuko twirls the braids into your hair in the fashion that you like, undoes the lacing strings of your attire with fumbling fingers that only know the roughness of flames after a late night — because even though his mess of your garments is embarrassing, it makes you laugh in a way that warms him like honey notes in milk before bed.
zuko preps the water that laps at the tension in your shoulders and eases it away with hands that move like molten lava. rose petals bob along the surface, perform twizzles in the ripples of water that ebb around the lines of your body. worn down by work, diplomatic duties but tended to by unspoken love and adoration. zuko sinks into the tub behind you, bare and warm — his chin on your shoulder and face in your neck because that’s the only place he’s found safe enough to call home.
when you’re married to zuko, life is not instantly easier and the traditions of others still find their way into your relationship as performative duty… but he carries part of the load. he makes it simpler for you, because loving you, is simple too.
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