Maiko fanfic - Love Letters (slow updates)

Chapter 4

I own NOTHING

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Zuko's POV: 3 years later

Sitting down at my desk I begin thinking of what I should write to my beloved. We've just reached the south pole after running through all of our leads and each passing day my hope for ever returning dims. After three years at sea I can't help but wonder how Mai has changed. There's a part of me that wants nothing more than to run into her arms but there's another part of me that's scared. I'm scared that when she sees me she'll be disgusted or come to her senses. She doesn't deserve having to put her life on hold for me. I don't know what else to do but to tell her how I feel.

Dear Mai, 

When it hurts so bad,
why does it feel so good?
I wish this all made sense,
I wish I understood.
Not having you here with me is tearing me up inside,
but I can't stop thinking about you no matter how hard I try.

You know how I feel about you,
and I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you,
but it's so hard to do when I can't even be next to you.
Why does it gotta be so complicated?

Loving you feels so right,
but at the same time,
knowing I can't have you keeps me awake at night.
I just want this to be simple,
I just want you here with me,
to look into your eyes,
be held in your arms...then I'd truly be happy.

Through these three long years your letters have kept me afloat whenever I feel I'm about to drown. Your love and care is something I one day wish to deserve. I can't stop this  feeling though, that I'm holding you from reaching your fullest. with each passing day I'm sailing further away with still no luck of coming home. I must capture the avatar but I no longer know how. I'm scared of not being able to ever see you again, but I'm also scared of what seeing you might mean. In these years I've changed and though I'm sure you have as well I fear I have changed for the worse. I now bear  the mark of a banished prince, a horrendous scar across my face making me unlovable. Believe that if there were chance I'd be allowed back home I'd take it but now it seems more like a fools errand. A wild armadillo-goose chase. It is my wish for you to be happy, it is my deepest desire. It is now why with great sorrow in my heart that I ask, whatever bond you have to me whatever hope you have that I'll come back. lose it. For your own good for there is no happiness in false hope and waiting. Find someone who will love you even the smallest fraction of my love for you and they will love you to the sun and back 100 times over. 

Where I am now it is cold, the southern water tribe hase the harshest weather and torturous waters. Yet its beauty is something to behold, the snow shimmers in the light like crystal and the icebergs stand alone like islands of their own. The waters glimmer in Agni's light but become wrathful by Tui's night. There's a vastness looking out, that makes me feel like the only being here for miles on end but there's a familial loving warmth within the people here. Uncle says that by observing and understanding how different people lead their lives we can learn to become more well rounded people and thus better in our understanding and knowledge. Sometimes I wonder why all those people had to die. Why so many families had to have been broken. It can't have been for nothing right? 

These thoughts are leading me down a treacherous path and I need your guidance. You've always helped me, you've always understood what I need, who I am. I need to know what I'm doing is right. I feel like I'm being pulled every which direction by what other people want me to do and everyone say their way is the right way is confusing me. Do I have a responsibility to my father even if what he's doing is wrong? Or should my loyalty lie with my people? Is there truth to uncle's ramblings that I need to listen to and follow? Help me make a decision Mai, you're the only one that's ever been truly honest with me.