You & I

Company

Y/N's POV
We continued our journey to the South Pole, I was ecstatic, not only was I travelling the world with my favourite person, I was on my way to learn bending from my idol.

Iroh had walked into my life and given me everything that I've ever wanted. The only thing that I couldn't have was him... but I don't think that I was in love with him, I feel like i was just attached to him because he gave me a happiness that I'd never experienced before in my life, so maybe what I wanted was the happiness he gave me.

I wanted to make sure that our dinner was ready before sunset so that we could watch it together. So after watching him steer for a while, I ran to the galley to begin preparing dinner for us.

I was chopping the vegetables for the stew that Iroh wanted when I heard a knock at the kitchen door,

"What's up Iroh?"

"Can I help?"

"No, I'm fine, just relax."

"Please, I want to, teach me"

I sighed and smiled before gesturing for him to come over to where I was stationed.

"You could dice the onion for me, whilst I press the garlic and grate the ginger."

I passed him the knife and walked over to the other side of the kitchen to pick up a garlic press, when I came back to where he was to pick up the garlic, he was stood, puzzled, staring between the onion and the knife.

"Oh, his highness doesn't know the ways of the blade."

I teased him but he didn't seem to find it very funny, so I placed the garlic back down and took then knife from his hand,

"See?"

I cut the onion in two and slowly diced one of the halves, holding Iroh's hand on the knife as I did so. I was surprised that he didn't react uncomfortably at all, usually in this sort of situation he'd flush red or jump back, but I suppose that's to be expected considering he has another girl on his mind, my presence just seems to make him uneasy sometimes.

He was really focused on what I was teaching him, before I could ask him to try the other half on his own, he keenly grabbed it and pulled the knife away from me. I smiled, he was so eager to help me, it was sweet.

As I finished preparing everything else, he called me over:

"How's this Y/N?"

I chuckled, in the time that I had prepared everything else, he had sloppily attempted to dice half of an onion; but it was cute.

So I smiled at him whilst taking the chopping board and pushing the onions onto the pan to fry,

"It's perfect."

I collected the other ingredients to add to the pan and put them into the pan and covering them with a lid, allowing them to simmer.

"Now what?"

"Now, we wait."

Iroh nodded before asking me,

"Sparring session?"

"Now?"

"You've never gone a day without training with me, unless you were on an actual military mission."

"And I'm no longer a soldier, General."

"Come on, please."

I smiled, I smile a lot when I'm around Iroh, I rarely have an interaction with him that I'm not laughing or smiling, but I guess he just has that effect on people.

"Alright, lets go, but we have to be done in half an hour!"

He grinned before racing me onto the front of the boat, the space was a lot smaller than what we usually would spar in, but it wasn't too bad.

Iroh blasted me with fire, sending me flying backwards, so in retaliation, I got into octopus form and picked him up with one of my "tentacles" and threw him backwards, he almost fell overboard but hung onto the railing and shot fire at me from his feet as he swung himself back over.

After I blocked that with water, I slid over to him to engage in some close hand-to-hand combat, after training with Iroh for the first time, I realised the importance of fighting without bending, especially considering that I'm a water bender. As a fire bender, Iroh doesn't have the issue of terrain, but water benders and earth benders, though extremely strong, cannot bend without bendable substances nearby. I'm quite a strong fighter without my bending, Iroh had trained me really well.

I peered up at the position of the sun, it had probably been just over half an hour so I told Iroh to stay put and ran back into the galley and took the stew off of the heat, packed up my surprise for a Iroh into a basket that I'd found in the storage room and hurried outside, instructing Iroh to close his eyes.

I spread out a blanket on the ground and laid out two bowls of stew, a big fruit tart and a variety of snack foods.

Is this weird? I hope he doesn't think that this is weird.

"Okay... you can open your eyes now... tada!"

He opened his eyes, when he saw the picnic, hid face lit up and he sent me the most dazzling smile. I coyly smiled back before explaining,

"So, I owe you a huge thank you, you've given me so much, you dropped everything to make sure I had the opportunity to be happy and to be free. You left behind the United Forces, your family, that girl that you mentioned... you are the most selfless and kindhearted person that I have ever met and I just wanted to do something for you, I suppose. It's almost sunset too, so we can watch the sun leave the sky and the moon begin to shine like we did every day on the journeys between the Fire Nation and Republic City. I hope this isn't weird or anything..."

He sped over to me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders and squeezed me tightly,

"This is the nicest thing that anybody has ever done for me. Thank you..."

We sat on the blanket, eating our food and watching the sky change together. I loved being in his company, he emitted this warm aura that made me feel constantly at home, I always wanted to be around him and missed him when he wasn't right next to me.

"Y/N, I need to talk to you about something..."