Normally Zuko would have lurched away from here, maybe even firebended in her general direction while shouting at her to emphasis his point. But this wasn't really Zuko. At least, it didn't feel like - he didn't feel like himself. He was in Blue Spirit mode, and the Blue Spirit didn't do such things. And while he'd told Mikaela in a sort of roundabout way without saying what he was planning directly, he wasn't putting the mask back on to do good. No, he could do good in this city without that.
He was putting it back on to hide. Because being the Blue Spirit was easier than being Zuko. The Blue Spirit wasn't a traitor, wasn't a prince, wasn't Ozai's son, wasn't Roku's great-grandson, wasn't any of the varying things those around him expected him to be. All the constrasting things.
Though, maybe they weren't forcing him to be anything. Maybe he was just trying to please them a little too hard. If he had gotten to know his mother better before she disappeared, he would've known the personality trait to be attributed to her.
Pulling his hand from his coat, but leaving the mask inside, Zuko turned around, looking up from the ground to peer at her through his unruly black hair that now grazed his shoulders. It was almost hard for him to picture himself as bald as he'd been when he'd first started chasing Aang.
"I'm not the best to hold a discussion with at the moment, Katara. I'm sure the other royal among your group--" not his group or their group, her group "--will enjoy the company a lot more than myself."