"I wanted to see you fight. But then that didn't make sense either."

"In civilized societies, people handle that by being like, 'hey, wanna spar? where did you learn to fight?' and not by randomly punching people in the face - while surrounded by soldiers, mind you! - and seeing what they do."

He shakes his head impatiently. "Fighting for show is different. Wouldn't tell me the same things."

"Well, did you learn anything of particular use to you this way?"

"I learned you're not the Avatar. And that instead you're something else that makes no sense."

"Astute observation, there, Watson."

"Now you're making no sense on purpose," he declares, astutely.

She gestures vaguely, annoyed. "Possibly. But I was having a really terrible day before you blasted fire at me, and I've been busy having progressively more terrible days since then, so if you're going to talk to me about how annoyed you are then you might have to put up with a little bit of confusing sarcasm."

"Fine," he says, crossing his arms and glaring. (The vendor has by this point left the stall entirely and snuck away.)

The vendor leaving is probably not literally the worst thing that has ever happened, but it really feels like it. It takes kind of a lot of effort to avoid just crying out about the unfairness of everything that has happened in the past week.

"I'll fight you again if you pay me. Somewhere else, since you're scaring people here. And also share your supplies, since sparring with someone who hasn't eaten in two days is pretty much a waste of everyone's time."

"...Why haven't you eaten in two days??"

"It turns out the forest is not just crawling with saber-tooth-moose-lions."

"..."

He turns back to Iroh.

"Uncle, I want to feed the weird girl."

He seems a little surprised at this outcome, but he smiles. "I am sure we have more than enough food on board the ship for a guest."

"Good."

He looks vaguely uncomfortable, in the way of someone who is pretty sure he's doing something wrong but can't quite figure out what and isn't interested in finding out lest he end up having to stop doing it.

Karen is honestly also kind of uncomfortable about this! Following prince burn victim onto his ship again absolutely seems like the sort of thing that has, like, a forty percent chance of going pretty terribly for her!

Her stomach rumbles.

"Well. I suppose I don't have any obviously pressing engagements."

"Come back to the ship, then," he says, uncomfortably. "I won't attack you again. There wouldn't be any point."

"All right, but if you do, I'm gonna be super unimpressed," she says, as if this is anything in the way of an incentive at all.

She whistles to her dog.

Wishbone trots up behind her and glares suspiciously at Zuko.

He nods, as though this was a perfectly reasonable thing to say. "That's fair."

She's not in the mood to laugh, but she smiles a little. A very little.

She follows him back to his ship, mentally tracking her escape routes more out of habit than out of anticipation of using them this time.

The escape routes are much more open this time on account of there aren't a dozen soldiers hanging around watching her.

The prince continues looking vaguely uncomfortable.

"I'm Karen. By the way. Since you haven't asked."

"My name is Zuko." He sounds... less uncomfortable, with this one, more... sad? It is not clear why he is sad about his own name.

"S'a good name."

She scoops her dog up, mostly for want of something else to do.