Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The soft sounds of conversation fill the yard. This year the Summit took place in Omashu, and Lord Fahi is the third representative to slip into conversation just “how fitting” that was. All of them seemed quite pleased with themselves at making this connection.

The issue had been official for a little over a week and already Zuko was bone tired.

He also needs to stop calling his own upcoming wedding an issue in his mind.

“I think I spot Lady Sovo,” Zuko says, and can see the conflict in the man’s face as he notices her. Lord Fahi wants Zuko's attention, but is obsessed with the silk Lady Sovo trades. His hesitation is enough for Zuko to escape, “I won’t hold you any longer. A pleasure as always, councilor.”

Zuko moves quickly across the yard. The Spring breeze is slightly chilly and most of the groups stand under the mid afternoon sun. The work is supposedly done by now, deals settled and agreements signed during the official meetings. In reality, the work of diplomacy is endless and most of it happens informally, so dignitaries, representatives and leaders will linger until they have to leave, taking advantage of every last opportunity to foster good relations or fawn upon those they must.

Today, Zuko is their favorite target and all he wants to do is escape their grasp.

“-a little apprehensive, you know? With Kyla away for the first time in years.” He hears Aang saying as he approaches. Aang’s wife, a tiny and fierce air acolyte who was the first to share in the Avatar’s task of mediating at Summits, was absent on the cause of having welcomed their first baby about six months before.

“How are Kyla and little Bumi, by the way?” Katara asks, smiling. He knows she was present for the delivery.

“They are doing great!” Aang’s smile is huge now, “He is the most perfect little guy we’ve ever seen.”

“I know that face,” Zuko joins the conversation, placing his hands behind his back in an attempt to keep a somewhat formal posture but he can feel his shoulders relaxing already, “That’s the gushing about my family face, isn’t it?”

“Just wait until it’s your turn, you’re gonna be even worse.” Aang replies, still smiling. “Katara, mark my words.”

“Don’t you dare set Katara against me.”

“I do think you’re gonna be worse.” She turns to Zuko, cocking her head to the side.

“Worse than him?” He points to Aang, widening his eyes for emphasis.

“Zuko, we all know you have never managed to keep your cool about anything in your life. Ever.” There's amusement in her tone, and after so many conversations full of veiled meanings Zuko is glad to be in one where people don’t hold back.

Which means he absolutely isn’t letting her win this one.

“Excuse you? Is this Auntie Katara speaking? The one who won’t shut up about her nephews?”

“And somehow, they still prefer Uncle Zuko.” She rolls her eyes at him.

“Ah, but Uncle Zuko can shoot fireworks, you see.” He discreetly opens a hand in front of him and small colorful sparks fly up from his palm.

“Oh, you need to teach me this trick!” Aang looks almost as excited as Sokka’s kids did.

“Does Suki know you’re playing with fire around her kids?” Katara crosses her arms.

“Don’t tell her.” He whispers and closes his palm. A short man in green robes approaches their group, Zuko’s pretty sure he’s involved in something related to technology but can’t remember his name.

“Excuse me,” he bows formally, “Avatar Aang, could I borrow you for a moment?”

“Excuse me, friends.” Aang tells them politely, the cloak of Avatar making his expression placid, all traces of childishness gone. Katara and Zuko nod in response.

Aang holds Zuko’s gaze meaningfully for a fraction longer before stepping away. Zuko ignores him.

When both men are far enough Zuko turns to Katara, her voluminous hair is in a half up style which reminds him of the way she wore it in Ember Island in the days before the Comet. The soft breeze blows some strands in front of her eyes and she tucks her hair behind her ears. The gesture is so familiar Zuko feels sixteen again.

“Walk with me?” He smiles softly. “We haven’t talked in forever.”

“Sure.” She smiles back, and they start on the gravel path that winds around the garden.

The shade of the trees makes this path a lot cooler, probably why it is empty, but he is a firebender and Katara is used to much lower temperatures, so they don’t mind.

Zuko takes in a deep breath, the air smells of freshly cut grass and something he doesn’t recognize but supposes is related to the small purple berries on the bushes that line the place. He is glad to have a moment to collect his thoughts.

The Summits are a beacon of hope after a hundred years of war. The standing cooperation between the nations feels like less of a miracle every year and as a leader he is eager to participate. As Zuko, though…

“How have you been?” Katara asks softly after they’ve walked a few minutes in silence.

The honest answer would be “overwhelmed” but he won’t say that.

He inhales, wondering how to put the last few weeks into words. In the end he just exhales again, puffing his cheeks.

“That bad?” There’s amusement in her voice.

He huffs a laugh. “Not really bad. Just… a lot.”

“Yeah, my brain always feels like mush at the end of these things. I thought it would be better for you now, though, your representatives are well-acquainted with the job and they seem to be faring well from what I’ve seen.”

“They are.” He is proud of the team diplomats he has assembled, “Four days of meetings is still much more socialization than what I’m comfortable with.”

“Ah, I forget how much of a lonesome creature you like to be.” Her voice is fond. Zuko hears it far less than he’d like.

“What about you?” He prompts, “Tell me about the committees.”

“They were good.” she smiles, “Not as good as they could be but… progress is a slow thing. It’s better than it was before, though there are still points of resistance, particularly with Agna Qel’a and Ba Sing Se.”

“The North still won’t let women learn combat?”

“Technically, it is allowed, in practice it is highly discouraged. You can tell their representative hates it. But every time I’m there I see more women on the training grounds, especially the younger generations so he is fighting a losing battle on that front.” She looks almost smug at that, but then her face is full of annoyance again. “Ba Sing Se, though, firmly believes they don’t actually need our healers or training in their magnanimous city.” She says the last part with affectation and an eye roll.

Zuko scoffs.

“Of course the people they send to the Summit don’t actually live the conditions in the lower ring, and don’t really care,” she continues, “But in the end they agreed to go on with the program and finance the supplies, so we should be able to keep the healers the White Lotus have placed there for around three more years before we have to go negotiate it again.”

“That’s fantastic, congratulations!” He smiles. Katara’s passion for the clinics is contagious, the candid way in which she expresses herself always makes him feel energized.

“It actually makes a difference for the little people, you know? Even if their politicians can’t see it. And it sets a precedent. Eventually the people making the decisions will change —spirits, I do hope Nokku retires soon enough— but the precedent will have been set. It will be easier then, hopefully.”

He nods.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately,” he shares, “Setting the right precedent, paving the right path for the next generation.”

“Is that why you decided to get married?”

Zuko’s heart skips a beat. Count on Katara to not mince words.

“So you’ve heard of it, too.”

“Too?” She raises an eyebrow.

“Aang asked me about it two days ago.” He looks at the trees above them, the leaves rustling softly with the breeze.

“I must say I was surprised to hear it.” She says.

“So was he.”

“What did he have to say?”

“He had… some names to suggest,” he says vaguely.

“You should marry Toph,” was what Aang had said. Zuko snorted. “She used to have a crush on you.”

“I don’t think there’s any amount of gold that would convince Toph Beifong to live in court again.” Is what Zuko answers. The crush part was probably true but Toph had been pretty much a kid back then and had certainly outgrown her crush long ago.

“What about Katara? She would do great as a leader. And you—” Aang pointed to Zuko’s chest “—used to have a crush on her.” Zuko tried to keep his features neutral but probably failed. Aang laughed. “It’s fine, man. You know I did, too. She’s always been awesome.”

“Katara already is a leader. I don’t think the Southern Water Tribe would appreciate losing her. I’m trying to start alliances, not hostility.” Zuko had answered, and ignored the crush part again because that was definitely true but unlike Toph, he hadn’t quite been able to outgrow it.

“Whose idea was it for a political marriage?” Katara asks him now. Sunlight, filtering through the leaves, dances on her face. The light catches on her eyelashes and her eyes look like pools. He has to look away or he will get distracted.

“My council has been trying to push it for years,” he answers honestly, “They’re worried about the succession line, as they should, and political marriages have been the norm for the royal family for generations. It’s usually among Fire Nation nobility, though.”

“Why the change?”

“Precedent.” He grins. “It’s time. The Fire Nation already has the biggest number of mixed families but after a hundred years… There's still a lot of anti-fire nation sentiment going on. The superiority propaganda inside the country has done a lot of damage, too. I don’t want my country to make the same mistakes again, having a consort who is not from the Fire Nation should be an effective way of proving the point to anyone even half paying attention, particularly if she is able to do good work, win favor with the people.”

It would also help curb the accusations that the Fire Nation still viewed itself as superior and was secretly plotting to strike again, which Zuko was fucking tired of dealing with.

“I take it this part was your idea, not your council’s?”

“They have been pressuring me to get married for almost a decade now, and couldn’t really argue with my reasoning. Let’s say there are mixed feelings about the topic.”

This part of the path has trees planted on a line by their right, forming a sort of columnade, to their left the city spreads below. A bird sings somewhere above.

“And what are your feelings about the topic?”

“Mixed, as well.” He sighs, rubs his neck, “I still think it’s the right decision. It’s time I get married, and not like I have time to meet someone… spontaneously. It was always going to be somewhat political for me.” He hopes his voice doesn’t betray his feelings about this fact, “An international alliance will be good for the country.”

Something in his tone must give him away because she raises an eyebrow at him, “But?”

“It’s just… I hoped things would be simpler, I guess. It all makes sense in theory but now I’m meeting real people and…” He smooths a crease between his brows. “Last week I caught myself thinking ‘Do I trust this woman not to kill me in my sleep after an heir is born?’”

Katara barks a laugh and he can’t help but smile too. “Wow. You’d think the Fire Lord would have higher standards when searching for a wife.”

“You would,” he agrees. It is a little depressing.

Once the laughter fades some, she straightens, tucks her hands inside her wide sleeves.

“What are your standards, Zuko? I mean, what is the Fire Lord looking for in a wife?”

He furrows his brow. Katara doesn’t call him Fire Lord unless they’re speaking officially or she’s trying to be sarcastic.

“Is the Southern Water Tribe interested in a political marriage?”

“We might. Arranged marriages aren’t common for us, it isn’t like the North. But this wouldn’t be a common situation.” She rolls her lips between her teeth, her eyes on the path in front of them. “So, standards. Pretty?”

“Wouldn’t hurt,” he admits.

“Sweet?”

“Not too sweet, she needs to survive in court.” He is only half joking.

“Plays a musical instrument so she can entertain your guests?” Her voice is teasing now, so he only answers with a laugh and shakes his head.

It makes him nervous to discuss it with her but… Katara is a people person, she travels a lot and knows the political and economical leaders in most important cities around the world. Aang had some serious suggestions after his initial joking, but Katara will probably have a better reading of the women in these circles.

She is still a representative of a different nation, so he has to be careful, but she is also his friend, and might be able to offer good advice.

“Ideally,” he begins, “someone who has a strong character. The position isn’t easy and while as a husband I wish to shield my future wife… I can’t fool myself into believing I can protect her from the reality of it. The work is endless. However much you achieve, it is just ongoing. And she will face a kind of opposition that no other consort before has.”

Katara listens attentively, eyes on the gravel path as they walk. He decides, well, it’s Katara, she’ll understand what he’s saying.

“I need someone who will be a good mother. My family… does not have a good track record. And I don’t really know how to be a father.” He swallows, tries to steady his breathing, “You said it yourself, eventually the people making the decisions will change. If I want anything good I am doing to really last, the next leader needs to be a good person, someone who values human dignity, honesty, honor.”

At that she turns to face him.

“Honor?” There’s a joking lilt in her voice.

“I walked right into this one, didn’t I?” He groans but can’t keep the smile out of his face when she starts laughing, glad for something light to break the heaviness of the moment.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you're not.” He shakes his head.

“No, I’m not,” she admits, “I assume she would have to be non-bender, as well?”

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t imagine the next Fire Lord could be an- earthbender, for instance.”

“Probably not.” He concedes. “Marrying a non-bender would make things easier with succession, but…” He sighs, “It is not the only thing. My- the heir… will rule eventually but all the while I still need a partner to help me rule and if she doesn’t have the political ability to do it well then the point of mixed families being a good thing may have a proof to the contrary.”

Katara hums in agreement.

There’s a reason he keeps calling it an “issue" to himself— it’s an insane idea, so much could go wrong. He’s getting a headache just thinking about it.

He tries to refocus. “I mean, a firebending child would have precedence in the line, I suppose. That would need to be established in contract beforehand, maybe?” He pauses, laying it all out like that makes things so much worse. “A romantic way to start a life, don’t you think?”

“Romance is overrated.” She shakes her head. His eyebrows shoot up.

“It is?” He’s always thought Katara to be a romantic, but maybe that was just Sokka trying to annoy her.

“It is if it’s empty.” She retorts with confidence, “You have the right idea. It’s better to settle things early than wait until they become a power struggle down the line.”

He thinks of his father and Iroh, himself and Azula. Maybe he should have only one child, avoid the chance of sibling rivalry altogether. Not for the first time he wonders if the royal family is somehow cursed. With how much pain it has caused over the last generations the idea doesn’t seem too far fetched.

“Yes, I suppose so,” his voice comes out hoarse. He clears his throat, “I assume you’re asking these questions for a reason. Do you have someone in mind? I would certainly be happy to hear the opinion of a friend.”

She adjusts a bracelet under the wide sleeve of her dress, not looking at him.

“What about the opinion of Chief Hakoda?” she asks.

“Is it different from your opinion?”

“I don’t have a formed opinion yet. But I’ve been… considering, for the past two weeks. After my father’s suggestion.”

“Funny, I never thought of Chief Hakoda as a matchmaker,” he says good-naturedly.

“Can you still call it matchmaking if it’s international politics?”

“What would you call it instead?”

“I don’t know, scheming?” She shrugs. He snorts.

“Who did he suggest? Do I know her?”

“Yes.” She puts her hands behind her back, still not looking at him. “He suggested me.”

Zuko stops in his tracks.

The crunch of the gravel under Katara’s next two steps sounds incredibly loud in the silence that follows her words.

She stops and turns to look at him. He can only stare.

She raises an eyebrow with a small smile and he realizes he has his mouth open. He closes it quickly, thinks of something to say but comes up empty.

“You seem very surprised,” she comments carefully.

“I… guess I am,” he manages to say.

“You've been to Wolf Cove recently. There aren't many unmarried women around our age, let alone with training in politics.”

“No, but- I… I guess I just thought— I mean you…” Damn it, he’s stammering. He crosses his arms and takes an intentional breath, lets his next words out slowly, “I thought… you were kind of… taking your pick from Water Tribe warriors, to be honest.”

She looks at him as if that’s a ridiculous notion.

“I heard you rejected a marriage proposal two springs ago.” He explains.

Now it’s her turn to cross her arms, exasperated. “Sokka told you that?”

“You certainly didn’t.”

“It wasn’t worth mentioning,” she spits out, her tone sour.

“…Was it bad?” he tries.

“Don't get me started.” She raises a hand, eyes averted.

He wants to know the story, but there’s something he wants to know more at the moment.

“So, your father… suggested… you?”

“Yes.”

“Two weeks ago, you said?”

She nods, but she’s still not looking at him.

“Okay.”

He wants to sit down and talk about it, but there’s nowhere they can sit here and he feels like the moment is fragile, like she will change her mind and run the other way if he steps wrong and breaks a twig.

Slowly, he rests his back against one of the trees lining the path. “What have you considered during this time?”

She looks at him then, her eyes scan his face, like she’s searching for something. He’s had years to learn how to keep his expression neutral even when he is freaking out inside and he hopes that won’t fail him now.

She takes a breath, uncrosses her arms, and follows his lead, walking to the next tree, a few feet away and leaning her shoulder there.

“Honestly, it makes sense,” she begins, “It would be good for us, the Tribe, I mean. The war was… brutal for the South, you know that. We’ve come a long way in rebuilding but there’s a lot to do and quite a bit of resistance to anything from abroad, particularly from Fire Nation.” She gives him a pointed look. “The Tribe can’t be isolated in this new world, we won’t go far. People trust me, my father thinks it would prove a point to them.”

She pauses, twisting one of the many silver rings she has on her fingers.

“I also don't trust the Earth Kingdom,” she continues, looking him in the eye again, “They already have the biggest territory and though they are mostly independent city-states, many show authoritarian tendencies. Earth Kingdom has the biggest population, Fire Nation has the most advanced technology. Those things united would put the Tribes at quite a disadvantage down the line. I know you are committed to peace. I know I am. I don’t know about whoever your prospects are. And I don’t like leaving things to chance.”

“So that’s a ‘better me than someone else’ thing?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Partly,” she admits.

“That stings a little bit, I’m not gonna lie.”

“I figured it might, but- this—” she gestures between the two of them “—could become quite convoluted. If we can’t be honest with each other I would rather not go forward.” Her voice is gentle but firm, “We have been friends for a decade now, I’d like to keep it that way regardless of the result of… these talks.”

A cloud moves and the sun shines through the leaves on her shoulder, her brown hair gets a golden halo. Katara’s one of the only people he truly trusts and he doesn’t want to lose that.

“Can we agree on that, then?” he decides, “We’ll be honest with each other, even if it’s uncomfortable.”

She nods. “You have my word.”

“Likewise.” He slouches a little more against the tree, “There are some things I’d like to know.” She just looks at him in response, “Why… you? Why not someone else?”

Was Chief Hakoda actually scheming? Had he suggested Katara because he thought she’d have an advantage by being his friend? Did he know Katara had a different kind of advantage with Zuko?

Because that would just be downright embarrassing.

“Many people in the South have spent time in Fire Nation prison, you know.” She plays with a ring again, her voice low and serious, “We don’t think many families would be comfortable sending a daughter.”

Zuko frowns. He hears what she is not saying. Again he thinks: cursed.

“I’m also better qualified in politics than any other young woman in the South right now,” she adds.

“You’re better qualified in politics than most young people anywhere,” he says. She just shrugs in response.

Katara is better than most people he knows in a great number of things.

She is still leaning against the tree, playing with a ring. Her posture is casual but her eyes are studying him with a serious expression. There’s something else, just under the surface. “What else would you like to know?” She asks.

Zuko considers.

“What is Master Katara looking for in a husband?” he echoes her question.

“Oh,” She raises her eyebrows, lowers her eyes. She draws a slightly short breath and he realizes: she is nervous. He hasn’t seen Katara flustered since they were teenagers. “I— don’t know, actually. I… I wasn’t really looking, to be honest.”

“Is that why you aren't married yet? You didn’t want to get married until now?” he asks.

Then he realizes that makes it sound like she wants to get married now. To him.

His heart starts racing and he forces himself to breathe normally.

She rolls her lips between her teeth, then squares her shoulders and answers slowly “I wasn't avoiding it. It’s just… It’s not like many people are interested to begin with.”

He studies her. The concluding luncheon for the Summit required formal clothing and The Water Tribes have a sense of fashion that looks intimidating, with leather, fur and fabrics embroidered with intricate designs. Her long hair is half up, dotted with braids, beads and pendants that make a soft sound when the breeze blows her strands. In the golden light of the afternoon her light eyes are a stark contrast to her brown skin. She looks beautiful, fierce, regal.

“I find that really hard to believe.” He is afraid his voice gives too much away. But Katara can’t really be surprised to know the effect she has.

There’s a tinge on her cheeks but her voice is even when she answers him, “People in the South now have been looking to build families, lead quiet lives, can’t do that if your wife isn’t home for half of the year.” She shrugs. “It’s not wrong of them, just not the kind of life I wanna lead. I like the work I do. I care about it. I’m not saying it will stay the same forever but… I need a larger purpose to feel happy. That I don’t think will change anytime soon. I’ve known for a while I wasn't going to marry anyone back home.”

“Someone from the North?” he wonders.

She snorts. “The ones who don’t think I need to be tamed are scared of me.” There’s a smug smile on her face now.

Zuko is reminded of the times Katara scared him. Even as a teenager Master Katara was a force, and by now her name precedes her everywhere she goes.

“I mean, they’re not wrong to be scared,” he points, matching her smug tone.

“Well, men don’t want a scary wife,” she says. Zuko doesn’t know how to answer that. He’s never been attracted to anyone he wasn’t at least a little bit scared of. “It’s nice to be respected but…” Her smile turns resigned, “It gets a little lonely, too.”

“Yeah… I know what you mean.” He answers softly. He still meets people who won’t look him in the eye.

A stronger breeze rufles the trees and bushes on the garden, they watch silently as some leaves float down from the trees around them.

“I guess, these days,” Katara's voice is soft, “when I think of meeting someone, I hope to find... Someone to do life with. A friend.”

A friend. It sounds so simple.

Someone to do life with.

Whatever life turns out to be. A partner through the chaos, the boredom, the challenges and the joys of existing.

It sounds simple. In practice, finding that isn’t guaranteed even for people with simple lives — and his certainly isn’t. He has the duties and expectations of a ruler making up for a century of wrongdoings, the wellbeing of so many people is dependent on his actions.

But when she says it, he can picture it.

Her thumb stroking his forearm. Blue silks rustling as he places her hand on the crook of his elbow. Her blue eyes glinting as he leans in to whisper a joke only she will understand.

A friend.

For all the things he had been worried about, he realizes he hadn’t been expecting to find that. But now that the possibility has been planted his heart aches for it.

In his mind, she laughs at his joke and in a split second a lifetime blooms before him.

Katara at a council meeting, dealing with his ministers better than he ever could. Sparring in the courtyard, a wave sweeping him off his feet, her stretched hand. His elbows caging her against the wall in his bedroom, her hands cupping his face. Katara walking the halls of the palace, hand in hand with a little boy with black hair. Zuko by the pond, feeding the turtleducks, a little girl with bright eyes nestled in his arms. Katara’s soft voice offering him advice late at night.

A friend. And more.

There’s a warm feeling growing in his chest.

It’s hope, he realizes.

And notices with a start that this is the first time he’s associated it with the idea of marriage.

He tries to rear himself, come back to reality. They are just talking.

“We are friends,” he says, careful, it sounds almost like a question.

“We are,” she answers, holding his gaze.

“It… could work.” He licks his lips. There’s so much to be discussed. A whole day wouldn’t be enough and he can’t even spend the rest of this afternoon with her, as much as he wants to. “Would- would you like to come visit me?” he asks, and knows there’s no going back from how this would change things.

“I’ll be in the Fire Nation next month for the White Lotus programs. We could meet while I'm there. I organized some extra time for my stay.”

“Were you… planning this already?” he has to ask.

“More or less. I wasn’t even sure I’d mention- my father’s suggestion… until a few minutes ago.”

“What made you decide? To mention it?”

She pauses. “You seemed pretty desperate, I took pity on you.”

He can’t help his surprised laugh. “Everything a man wants to hear.”

“Are you charmed yet?” she jokes, fluttering her lashes.

And damn, he actually is.

Because after the awkward and tense moments of the past two weeks, talking to Katara was easy, and apparently flirting was, too — was this flirting? Were they flirting?

Maybe he wants them to be.

“I am.” He answers, and her expression is surprised.

They just look at each other for a moment. She has a tinge on her cheeks and this look in her eyes, like she’s trying to figure him out. They’ve known each other for a decade — but never like this. His stomach swoops at the thought, it’s not the first time he’s wondered what it would be like, with Katara, but now the possibility is real.

He has the urge to get closer to her, touch her hair. But that’s too much too soon and they don’t have much more time today, so he places his hands behind his back and leads them back on the gravel path.

“Tell me about your plans for this year,” he says, because it is a safe topic and because he wants to know.

They slip back into conversation with ease and he is able to relax. Katara tells him about the plans with clinics and her traveling schedule. He tells her about Uncle Iroh and the last time he met Toph. And on the surface they are back at being just friends catching up.

If their eyes linger on each other a bit longer than before, none of them mention it.

Chapter Text

Katara arrives in the Fire Nation in the middle of spring, right as the cherry trees start blooming.

Zuko tells himself that’s the reason he’s been feeling so nervous about meeting her. Something about the flowers releasing things in the air and making all creatures stupid. He’s read about it in a scroll at some point, he’s pretty sure.

He hasn’t seen her in four weeks, since the Summit.

Since then, word of his willingness to marry had spread, and his council had received letters from a dozen noble families from the Earth Kingdom with eligible daughters — and two dozen from Fire Nation nobility, not paying attention, or perhaps willfully ignoring, his intention to make a match with someone from abroad.

Zuko vetoed half of the Earth Kingdom candidates on account of the girls being too young. Then his advisors spent a tortuous week trying to convince him to answer this or that family on account of the lady’s credentials, though mostly these credentials consisted of their family’s influence and wealth.

He chose to answer three families from the Earth Kingdom whose daughters were known for their studies and intelligence, ladies who Zuko thought might be up to par with the challenge this marriage would present and whom he had met at least once and found to be not entirely disagreeable.

Then he had to spend a revolting amount of money from his personal coffers sending thank you baskets filled with delicacies for each one he rejected.

Zuko worried the whole time he might have made a terrible mistake with the whole thing and just found a novel way to offend half of the important families of the world. Maybe his father’s loyalists had tried all those assassinations for no reason, and he would end up imploding his own rule on account of his own lack of tact.

It would be just like Zuko to succeed on the most difficult things only to stumble fatally on some detail that would cost him everything.

Then, his father would come back from whatever hole the White Lotus was keeping him in these days and scorch the whole world with his hatred, laughing the whole time about Zuko’s mistakes. A failure through and through.

Zuko wondered if his father’s disappointed voice would ever truly leave his head.

Then the rejected families sent back cards with their “most sincere well wishes for the happiness of the Fire Lord and prosperity of his rule” and Zuko was able to relax some.

It wasn’t so much that he believed the sincerity of all of them, but if they were still being cordial, it meant they were still willing to put up with him.

It had taken him some time to truly understand how the Fire Nation nobility worked: they would agree to just about anything to appease their ruler — as long as it didn’t make them too inconvenienced.

Reforms in the industry? Zuko could make them happen if the factory owners believed it would be good for their coffers. Better conditions for the workers? Zuko could negotiate them if the bosses believed it would grant them certain advantages.

At sixteen years old, after coming back from a shameful exile, Zuko had left the comfort of the palace to be chased around the world in the reluctant company of former enemies for the single reason that he believed that was the right thing to do.

For an idealistic boy like he was, realizing most of his countrymen just wanted to be the least-bothered was a hard reality to digest. It had been easier to deal with the uprisings, assassination attempts and treachery from his first years on the throne.

But time and experience had done their job, and he accepted that this was how real and lasting change would happen from now on: slowly.

And Zuko was nothing if not obstinate.

He poured over scrolls, soaked up wisdom from his mentors, and learned everything he could about strategy, negotiation, and politics. It allowed him to recognize like-minded people, build a solid team of advisors, ministers, and diplomats, and enact important changes over the years, winning the loyalty of his people and the respect of the nobility.

However, in the eyes of the world, he was still a man somewhat waiting to happen — a young man with no family.

Worse, he was a man who had his father imprisoned. And he knew he looked like Ozai too. Sometimes, Zuko wasn’t sure which part was worse.

A wife would help. Having a family would turn him from an uncertainty to a man definitely unlike his father, one who acted differently and treated his family differently. A wife would help foster good relations with the other noble families, with the people, and with other nations.

Not to mention guaranteeing that the next ruler wouldn’t be a power-hungry narcissist, hopefully.

His council was slightly affronted at not having received a single candidate from the Water Tribes. Zuko remembered Katara's words — “We don’t think many families would be comfortable sending a daughter.” — and said nothing.

And then Taika, the southern ambassador, presented a letter introducing Master Katara as a suggestion and Zuko didn't know whether to be amused or worried by the confused glances traded in his meeting room.

The previous letters, accompanied by painted portraits, were filled with flowery language, making a lengthy case of why this particular lady would make the Fire Lord a good wife. Lines about the lady’s beauty, elegance and accomplishments added to descriptions of their family’s history and tradition.

The Water Tribe, as was norm in their culture, wasted no time with embellishments. The letter presented facts: Master Katara is eligible. Here are her credentials. If you reach an agreement it will have our blessing.

“May the spirits guide your decision and continue to bless your rule.” It said, and made no further arguments.

That afternoon, Taika delivered a sealed letter straight to Zuko’s hands, “as instructed”, the ambassador said. It bore the seal of Chief Hakoda and very few words:

“Zuko,

I know you to be a man of honor.
Behave accordingly.

Hakoda.”

No titles, no preamble, no case to make. Just a father looking out for his daughter.

The simplicity of it was strangely calming to Zuko, even if it was a veiled threat. The threat was unnecessary; Zuko would never be less than honorable, and Katara would allow for nothing else. But the feeling that for Hakoda and the Water Tribe, Zuko was simply a man wishing to start a family and looking for recommendations stirred something in him.

Past all the calculations on appearances and politics, past all the worries about securing a line and raising a new ruler, somewhere deep down, a little voice kept whispering to him: Maybe life can be more.

“I guess, these days, when I think of meeting someone,” Katara’s soft voice echoes once again in his mind, the breeze playing with her hair in the soft afternoon light, her eyes watching her fingers as she spined a silver ring on her thumb, “ I hope to find… Someone to do life with. A friend.”

“We are friends.”

In the weeks after the Summit, his days were too busy for much consideration. But at night, as he lay alone in his bed, his mind kept replaying their conversation. The tinge on her cheeks, the glint in her eyes, that look of surprise followed curiosity, when he said he was charmed.

It started to make him nervous.

He is comfortable being her friend — a miracle in itself, given their beginning — but he doesn’t know how to be someone else to her.

In fact, he doesn’t know how to be a special someone to anyone. He had a single romantic relationship his whole life and felt like he was blundering about for most of it. True, that was in a chaotic time and he was a teenager. Things are different now, and, spirits, he hopes he is different too. Better, somehow.

He wonders what it will be like with Katara. Will it be awkward? Will they even work like that? Maybe they will try to be different and it will fall flat. They will just feel nothing.

He doubts it, though.

When he is honest with himself, there has always been something there, with Katara.

Annoyance, at first. At her being in his way. At how distractingly pretty she was. Respect, too. At her growing skills. At the fire in her eyes. And something else: a recognition of sorts.

You, too, know what it’s like — to have all the odds stacked against you and keep going.

You know what it’s like — to have so much rage inside you think you’re going to burst, to so desperately need to believe the world can be different. You know it too.

And you see it in me.

What else will they see if they allow themselves?

Zuko is equal measures afraid and eager to find out.

Katara was supposed to have arrived two weeks ago, and when she didn’t, Zuko started to worry she had changed her mind. If not for Hakoda’s correspondence, he might be worried he had imagined their whole conversation.

Then a hawk had announced she would be in Caldera within the week and he spent the whole time trying to quench his nerves.

Going to port would have caused a hassle, he can never go anywhere inconspicuously — not as Fire Lord. So, Zuko sent a carriage from the palace to pick her up. He had done away with the palanquins a short time after taking the throne, and since most nobility followed his lead, they were now quite uncommon.

He is waiting for her at the palace’s main courtyard when she gets out of the vehicle, travel clothes and hair in a braid still frizzled from the ocean air. Her appointed attendant receives her with the usual formalities and gives directions about her baggage to the footman, he watches as she greets both with her usual sweet disposition, the servants coloring at the attention of being called by name.

Then she turns and sees him waiting a few feet away.

And opens a bright smile. All the tension leaves his shoulders.

“Hi,” she says and immediately reaches up from her tiptoes, hugging him around the neck. She smells like salt and something flowery.

“Hi,” he answers into her hair with his own small smile. Someone clears their throat. She pulls away.

“Hm, hi to you too?” She says to the stocky man standing by Zuko’s side.

“Welcome to Caldera, Lady Katara,” says the man, greeting her with a shallow bow. His loose robes and wide sleeves momentarily swallow him until he straightens.

“Thank you,” she answers, “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you yet, sir.”

Even Katara’s posture has changed. She speaks the way she does when addressing Zuko’s ministers: polished, with the subtle flattery Fire Nation nobility is used to slipping into casual conversation.

He is reminded that Katara is actually good at dealing with people. Unlike Zuko, who had to work hard for it and still occasionally misses an important cue, Katara seems to be able to read people like characters on a scroll, anticipating needs and figuring out exactly what to say and how to say it.

Zuko is used to resenting people for being effortlessly good at things. But he has never resented Katara for this. Maybe because she uses her abilities in such a gentle way it never feels manipulative.

Or maybe because, to Zuko, that is a soothing reality: he never has to worry about being misunderstood by her. She had been able to see the truth inside him even before he had noticed it himself, all those years ago, in a prison underground, through the haze of green crystal lights.

“Master Katara,” Zuko starts, “this is Nishi. He’ll be accompanying us.”

At her puzzled look, Nishi speaks up, “It wouldn’t be proper for the Fire Lord to meet a lady alone.”

Katara’s eyebrows shoot up, she turns to Zuko. He tries not to color. “Protocol.”

He can see she is trying hard to keep a serious face. “Of course,” she turns to the man again, “Nishi, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m Master Katara, daughter of Hakoda and Kya, from the Southern Water Tribe.”

“Yes, my lady, I know,” he answers, and Zuko senses some offense in his tone. He raises an eyebrow at the man, who quickly adds, “The pleasure is all mine, of course.”

Katara seems unperturbed. “Thank you for lending us your company. I’m sure you’re very good at your job.”

The man colors slightly. As he scrambles for something to say, Katara starts up the path that leads to the palace.

“I’m sorry about the delay,” she says to Zuko, who keeps in step with her, and she's back to her normal self.

“I thought you were coming by bison with Aang?”

She had spent some days with Aang’s family after the Summit, checking up on Kyla and the baby who were visiting her family in the Earth Kingdom.

“That was the plan. We were on our way here when we stopped at a village to rest and restock. There was an illness going on…” she trails off in a way that tells Zuko the rest is exactly what he expects it to be. “Took us about four days to clear the well and heal the worst of it until we could move again. When we got to the next village, there was some complex spirit business going on. By then, I was already a week late. Aang couldn’t leave, but he had two more acolytes to help him and insisted I should go, so I took the first boat headed here. Sorry I couldn’t send a more detailed message, I was short on time.”

“You’re here now.”

“But the extra time I had planned is all gone,” she laments. “Aang sends his regrets for not making it.”

“No offense to Aang, but I wanted to see you more.”

He has half a second to enjoy her shy smile before Nishi sniffs very pointedly behind them, and Katara ducks her head to hide her amusement.

Zuko takes a deep breath and tries not to roll his eyes. He’s not even doing anything.

“I’m sure we’ll see each other for some urgent problem soon enough,” Zuko says, trying and failing to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

“I’m sure.” Katara’s voice barely masks the laughter she’s trying to hold in. They walk in silence until they reach the top of the path and stop under the canopy of a red maple.

“Do you need anything?”

“Right now? A shower and a nap.” She laughs.

“Right, sorry. I won’t keep you,” he tries not to look too anxious when he asks, “Will you join me for dinner later?”

“I would love to. Thank you for taking the time to welcome me today. I know it’s been busy.”

“Only always,” he jokes.

Katara sways in place, like she wants to move in his direction, but her eyes dart quickly to Nishi, and in the end she only briefly touches Zuko’s arm before nodding and walking away.

He watches until she turns the corner. Right before disappearing, she takes her attendant by the arm, he hears Katara’s faint “Tell me all your news” as the attendant giggles.

Zuko realizes Nishi is observing him and schools his expression. The man is so quiet that he almost forgets he’s there.

A chaperone is a ridiculous thing to have with Katara, considering they meet by themselves all the time when she is in the capital. “Meeting a dignitary is one thing, meeting a lady you’re courting is another thing entirely,” his advisor told him when he tried to dismiss it.

The prospect of courting Katara makes Zuko nervous enough that he accepts the chaperone without extra objections. He doesn’t want to do anything wrong. And as Fire Lord, what he is doing is very unconventional — he can’t allow anyone to find flaws in the process.

Even if that means now he’ll have to do without Katara’s hugs.

He usually takes dinner alone in his quarters unless he has official dinners, which happen in the grand dining room. On the few occasions Zuko has friends or family over, he usually asks dinner to be served in a tea room that Iroh favors, with large sliding doors that open the entire side wall to a garden with a quiet fish pond and carefully cultivated bonsai pine trees growing in sinuous shapes.

They share dinner, and when she asks if the cooks really remembered her favorite dishes, Zuko manages to blush only a little.

Katara tells him about Kyla’s health and baby Bumi’s developments. She says Bumi will be an airbender, in time; right now they’re all excited that he’s learning how to sit and roll over.

Zuko knows nothing about babies, so he just nods along, but Katara knows a lot, and she speaks of it with so much fondness Zuko can’t help but imagine what she will be like with her own children, he can’t help but think if anyone can lift a curse from a family, it’s her.

She’s telling him a funny story about Aang trying to keep Bumi from biting Momo’s ear. She touches his arm and leans in conspiratorially-

Nishi clears his throat.

Zuko blinks.

Nishi has been sitting in a corner, pretending to read a scroll the whole time. They had greeted him upon arriving and immediately forgotten his presence. Until now.

The man is looking pointedly at Katara’s hand on Zuko’s forearm. He watches as she follows the chaperone’s gaze, seeming to only now realize the scene: she and Zuko are completely turned to each other, leaning over the low table as far as it will allow them, bowls of food forgotten in favor of conversation.

She removes her hand carefully, eyes Zuko, then Nishi, then grabs a cup of tea to busy herself.

“Anyway, I’m boring you with baby stories.” She takes a sip. “Tell me about the results of the last Summit. Have you debriefed with your representatives yet?”

Zuko, still blinking away the now familiar images of a little girl with clear eyes playing by the turtleduck pond, barely manages to answer properly.

It happens a few more times.

Every time they get too involved in conversation, Katara will reach for Zuko in some way, or his knee will brush against hers under the table, and Nishi reminds them that they are not alone.

At first, it puzzles Zuko. It’s not like they are acting any differently. They are just talking.

Maybe it’s the fact that Nishi is Fire Nation and Katara is Water Tribe — they are simply more tactile. Sokka can’t be around Zuko for more than fifteen minutes before throwing an arm around him. Katara hugs and touches all her friends while in conversation. It doesn’t mean anything.

After the umpteenth time Nishi makes a sniff, or a hum, or a cough, Zuko is no longer puzzled, he is just pissed.

“Do you need us to call you a doctor, Nishi?” he asks, annoyed. “There has to be something wrong with your throat.”

Katara chokes on her tea and almost spits it on the table. Throughout the night, Zuko’s growing annoyance seemed to only amuse her. Right now, with her face red and tears in her eyes, it’s impossible for her to disguise her laughter any longer. It sets Zuko off, too. It is a ridiculous situation.

They try to recover and get back to normal conversation. But every time they take a look at their chaperone, they start laughing again.

They give up at some point and decide to retire to bed. Katara has told Zuko of her plans, and he knows she has a full day tomorrow.

When they stand by the door, Katara looks at Zuko with a glint in her eyes and curtsies before walking away, shoulders shaking with barely contained laughter the whole time.

Nishi looks supremely pissed.

Zuko goes to sleep lighter than he has in months.

They have tea the next day at sunset. Katara left early in the morning and spent the whole day at the clinic. She’s eating a bowl of sliced fruit Zuko asked to be brought when he learned she hadn’t had lunch yet.

“Is there something I can help you with?” he asks, after her quick update on the condition of the main clinic and the healers there.

“I’m not sure.” She says after swallowing her bite of mango, her face shows signs of the fatigue of the day. “I’ll have two fewer weeks than planned, and I have a lot of clinics to check up on before the training with the healers on the next full moon. An ostrich-horse might help?”

Before Zuko can answer, Nishi gasps.

“My lady, and how would that be of help to you? Certainly you would not be riding it. That would not be proper transportation for a lady.”

At first, Katara says nothing, just observes him, a slight frown on her face. Then she straightens and addresses the man with a placid expression, but a cool tone in her voice.

“You should remember, Nishi, that before being Lady Katara, I am here as Master Katara. This is not merely a social visit. I have work to do while in Caldera and it shall be completed before I leave. I train the healers who are responsible for keeping this city healthy. I heal the sick they can’t. Letting anyone suffer on account of one’s mere sensibilities would be the really improper thing for a lady to do, don’t you agree?”

Nishi’s pale face grows red.

She doesn’t wait for his answer, “Now, as I was saying to the Fire Lord,” she then turns to Zuko, and both her tone and her eyes become much softer, “I believe an ostrich-horse might help. I told you I had organized some extra time, but the two weeks I lost on the way messed with that pretty badly. I can’t cancel anything but… I would still like to spend some time with you while I’m here.”

“Me too.” He says, probably too quickly. But she smiles a little at that.

“If I can move through the city quicker-”

“Of course, I’ll get you the ostrich-horse. If you need anything else-”

“I’ll let Ayru know.”

“Ayru?”

“My attendant,” she says.

Zuko is slightly embarrassed at not knowing the girl’s name until now. But there are too many workers in the palace, and this one usually attends to guests.

“If she has any trouble, tell her to bring it straight to me.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Katara says, her shoulders still tense. “I need to organize some things. Do you mind if I cut this short?” She asks apologetically.

“Don’t worry about it.”

She gets up, suddenly looking a lot more tired than when she arrived.

“Will you join me for dinner later?”

She only nods in response.

Zuko stares at the mostly untouched cups of tea on the table, at the bowl of sliced mangoes.

He turns to Nishi, whose sour face turns nervous when he notices Zuko’s upset expression.

Ten years is, apparently, not that much time. Most of the palace staff still tremble under the Fire Lord’s gaze, even though Zuko has not mistreated a single one since he took the throne. The thought of people being afraid of him the way they used to be afraid of his father makes his stomach revolt.

He decides Nishi has been set sufficiently right and only says, “Mind your words around Master Katara,” before getting up.

At least he has dinner to look forward to.

Dinner, it turns out, is a strangely tense affair.

While the conversation still flows, Katara seems on edge the whole time. She tells him more about the healers' progress, but without her usual liveliness. She tells him about her plans for the training but doesn’t elaborate much. When Zuko asks if she is feeling well, she says she must still be tired from the journey and that it was a long day.

He offers to walk her back to her quarters, and Nishi, on the corner of the room, clears his throat.

Katara gives Zuko a sad smile, thanks him, and says she knows her way. She will see him tomorrow.

The next day, he doesn’t see her at all.

She leaves early and sends a message saying she will be out the whole day and won’t be able to join him for breakfast or lunch.

When he sends an invitation for dinner, Ayru informs him that Katara still hasn’t returned. Zuko is starting to get worried when a note arrives at the palace: Katara informing that she will sleep at the clinic to follow the evolution of a patient, but should be back for lunch the next day.

He has a feeling she is avoiding him.

He asks that lunch be set outside, near the fountain with the water lilies in his private courtyard, the one he knows to be Katara’s favorite.

It’s a sunny day. A pleasant breeze ruffles through the garden, making the young colorful blooms dance among the green.

Katara shows up in a simple blue wrap dress, hair down, looking comfortable and beautiful. When she hugs him hello she smells better than the entire garden combined. Nishi tries to clear his throat, but the running water from the fountain drowns the sound. If Katara hears him, she doesn’t show it.

She steps out of Zuko’s arms, letting a hand linger on his biceps, and looks at their meal. A mat was placed with their food under the cover of the larger trees, red cushions around it for comfort, “This is really nice. I love this fountain.”

“I know,” he says. She smiles up at him.

She greets Nishi with a nod before taking her place.

Lunch, then, is much better.

Katara tells him about her visit to the clinic in detail, giving her assessment on what she will probably focus on during training and on the case she followed overnight.

“Did you sleep at all?” He asks, noticing the subtle darkening beneath her eyes.

She flinches. “Sort of. Don’t worry, I’ll take the rest of the day off.”

Zuko shakes his head.

“No,” she points a finger at him, “You of all people don’t get to give me that face, Fire Lord.”

He raises his hands. “I’m not the one who’s just spent over 24 hours working.”

“This time, you mean.”

“And right after a long journey too.”

“Again, you’re not the one this time,” she repeats, pointedly.

Zuko laughs, she does too. He’s been known to overwork himself to the point of exhaustion, and Katara has helped him recover a handful of times. But she’s not much better at respecting her own limits.

“Anyway, your turn,” she says, picking up her bowl. “Tell me about your day.”

It’s not like he’s gonna tell her about his ministers discussing which one of the Earth Kingdom candidates would bring him the most influence or about how he was worried she might have been attacked by a loyalist when she didn’t come back for dinner yesterday.

But he can still update her on the progress of his reforms on Health and Education, the ones she’s always the most interested in.

He tells her about how some ministers are proposing to institute fines for the barbers who use bloodletting. Katara was very upset the last few times she was in Caldera at the amount of establishments offering the service.

After coming back from previous colonies in the Earth Kingdom, some people who worked as barbers had brought with them new “therapeutic practices”, and bloodletting had quickly grown in popularity.

She taps her fingers on her bowl. “I’m not sure that's a good idea.”

He frowns. “You always say it’s an ineffective and risky practice.”

“It is,” she agrees, “but fines… I don’t know if that would work.”

“Would you have them arrested?”

“No!” she hastes to say, “That would be a mess.”

Zuko cocks his head to the side, a silent invitation for her to elaborate.

“You see, they are not- charlatans. At least most of them aren't. They believe their practices, like most patients do, and the thing with believing something is that it will always have some effect, so it’s not so easy to convince them it doesn’t work.” Katara has explained to Zuko before how part of a healer’s work is to make the patients feel secure in their treatment. 'The mind does half the healing,' she had said.

Zuko takes a sip of his tea.

“If you simply forbid it,” she continues, “people will find a way to keep doing it, but under worse conditions. Besides, many families make a living from these places, they buy supplies, pay for cleaning services, some even rent rooms in more popular streets. If many have to close, it will cause a cascade of problems.”

“Do you have a different suggestion?”

Katara bites her lower lip, considers.

“You could have them get licensed,” she says. “Make the licenses affordable but requiring annual mandatory training. That way, we could teach the correct practices to minimize problems, and it would be an opportunity for them to learn better treatments. The training can have them add other services to their business, some simple therapies that actually work. After those take hold, we can start restricting more complex medical practices to actual healers. Hopefully, by then, most will have been convinced, and even if they aren’t, we won’t be taking away anyone’s main source of income.”

He is struck once again by how clever Katara has become.

She was always invested in helping people, but as a teenager she was impulsive, still too naive to come up with effective long-term solutions — much like Zuko himself. Her years traveling around the world, experiencing life in different spheres of society, have gained her a kind of perspective Zuko himself only had for a very short time, and most of his ministers never had at all.

“It’s a good idea. It would take some time to set it up, though,” he says, already thinking about all the ways this task will unravel into a hundred smaller ones, “And some pairs of hands to plan and execute the whole thing.”

“I can help you with that,” she sounds excited at the prospect, and Zuko’s mouth turns up. “I already have some people in mind who could lead the training. I can plan the structure and revise the material with them before I leave. And I’m sure I can set up a schedule for the program with minister Saoh — just let me go to the market first, if I take those sugared pink berries he’ll be happier to see me.”

“Minister Saoh is always happy to see you,” Zuko smiles, “I’m pretty sure he likes you better than me.”

“That’s ‘cuz I’m funnier than you,” she jokes, the way she always does among their friends, sweeping her hair over her shoulder.

Zuko’s heart somersaults.

“Yeah,” he decides to take the leap, “And you’re smart too. And beautiful.”

And I want to find out what else we can be.

Katara looks surprised by his words, but she holds his gaze.

Nishi coughs.

Zuko closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to steady his temper.

When this is over, he will send this guy to prison.

He sips his tea again. Once he is able to think past his annoyance, he remembers something, “Don’t you already have two fewer weeks than planned, though?”

“We’ll make it work,” she gives him a wry smile, “I have an ostrich-horse.”

Chapter Text

How do you lead a generation used to war into an era of peace? How do you make the right choices in unprecedented times when none of the historical examples fully apply? How do you undo a century of superiority propaganda without crushing the spirits of a proud people?

The Fire Nation used to value life, beauty, art. You used to dance, have music, be joyous! Aang had said, somehow sounding more the over-100-year-old monk he was supposed to be than the 14-year-old kid he actually was. What happened to all that?

It had been suffocated after a hundred years of war and twisted ideas about how fire was meant to consume everything in its path. But Zuko was determined to bring the good traditions back.

The Spring Festival happens every year now, and the hanami is one of the highlights of it. At the peak bloom of the cherry trees, the biggest parks in Caldera host the traditional flower-viewing party. Families and friends gather at the parks and lay large towels to enjoy a day of picnics, games and music under the white and pink blossoms.

The sakura are a symbol of ephemeral beauty. The trees explode in clouds of color for two short and delightful weeks before becoming a carpet on the ground. A reminder, the sages preach, of the delicate and fleeting nature of life. A reminder, Zuko hopes, that the pride of this nation no longer resides on death and destruction but rather on life and creation.

Zuko makes a point to always show up in one of the parks to socialize, be seen, show he cares. Even with so many eyes on him and so many spots for potential assassins to spring from, it’s still one of his favorite days of the season.

This year, he invites Katara.

Formally. Sends a letter to her room. With the official seal of the Fire Lord.

She accepts. Formally. With the official seal of the Southern Water Tribe.

He waits for her at the entrance of the palace, under the red maple, and does a double take when she appears.

Katara arrives in a long bright red qipao, the soft fabric loosely hugging her curves, small yoshino flowers dotting her braided hair. Zuko thinks even if a chaperone weren’t present, it would be clear to anyone that they weren’t spending time together merely as friends.

He tries to remember how to breathe.

“Fire Lord,” she greets him with a formal bow, briefly nods as a greeting to Nishi.

“Master Katara,” Zuko answers. The Fire Lord isn’t expected to bow, but he still does, “Thank you for accepting my invitation.”

“I was honored to receive it,” she answers. Through the layer of formality Zuko spots that now familiar glint in her eyes. It ignites a soft burning in his chest. “Where are you taking me?”

“How do you feel about Koki Park?”

It’s subtle, but Katara’s breath stutters before she answers, “Sounds lovely. It’s a beautiful park.”

It’s also the biggest in Caldera, where both nobility and common people are sure to be gathered.

He offers his hand, palm up. She places hers over it delicately, and he leads them on the path down towards the carriage.

Taking Katara on an outing like this is the most effective way to have a great number of people aware they are courting. In the following days, gossip is sure to give him and his advisors a decent reading on the capital’s opinion of her as a possible consort.

For the last 10 days she’s been in the capital they’ve only seen each other about once a day, usually for the meal that works best around their schedules, but Zuko still enjoys these moments immensely. Katara is always so lively, so genuine — she’s caring, competent, fun. He feels refreshed every time they spend time together.

Zuko wants more. With her.

Already, he feels a sort of warm haze enveloping his senses when he thinks about how things are growing between them. She observes him intently when he speaks, and her cheeks color every time he says something new, testing the waters on this new depth they’re exploring. He wants to do it slowly, away from prying eyes.

But while Zuko wants, the Fire Lord needs.

He needs a wife. He needs the news of his marriage to be received well internationally and domestically. He needs to mean security to his people after the mess the royal family has been for the last generations.

Power struggles, sibling rivalry, consort disappearances, banishment, betrayal, insanity, imprisonment— the list is long and none of it is good. Now the new Fire Lord is going to start his own family, and people are holding their breaths.

He can’t fail.

What the Fire Nation needs takes precedence over what Zuko wants.

If his people hate the idea of Katara as a consort, he thinks he is going to resent being taken that choice for the rest of his days. But if he marries her under such conditions… If she has to spend all her life among enemies, if his children have to grow up under the shadow of hate and bigotry… That is going to be so much worse.

It is better like this, he tells himself. If this can’t go forward, he can be honest with her and they can remain friends. If he waits longer, it will be harder to go back.

Zuko observes her in the carriage — looking out the window as they approach the park, eyes as blue as the morning sky — and his heart speeds up again.

He wonders if ‘going back’ was ever a possibility — hopes he doesn’t have to find out.

He steps on the street and offers his hand to help her down the carriage, then up the shallow steps that lead to the park.

A long path stretches in the middle of Koki Park, with tall cherry trees on each side. Against the blue spring sky and fresh green grass, the long branches filled with white and pink blossoms make a stark and pleasant contrast. Groups of people lounge on towels or walk under the canopies, pointing at birds or chasing small children.

Zuko keeps his hands behind his back and walks a respectful distance beside Katara — they aren’t a couple, it wouldn’t be appropriate to offer his arm.

Nishi walks a few steps back, there is enough noise that he probably won’t be able to hear their conversation. Zuko would say it’s the most privacy they’ve had so far, except… every pair of eyes in the park seems to be on them.

He can practically see the gossip spreading through the park as people widen their eyes and turn their heads to speak to each other. Some feet away, he notices people who were lying down are starting to sit up to look in their direction.

“Well,” Katara says airily, in a low volume, “this isn’t nerve-wracking at all.”

Zuko holds his laughter, but it still comes through in his voice, “Yes, very relaxing.”

“…Do people always stare at you like this?” Katara asks. Her face is calm but her voice is just a little too measured.

He looks at her meaningfully. “It’s not me they’re staring at.”

The red qipao and yoshino flowers are very Fire Nation, but her braid is Water Tribe, and so are the carved bone armbands on both of her biceps. He’s seen Katara wear elements from other nations before, but Zuko feels like today she did it to prove a point.

And she does look striking.

He expects her to blush, like she does whenever he tries to compliment her these days. Instead, she gives him back an arch look, lets her eyes sweep over him before fixing her eyes on his. “I don’t know, I feel like it is.”

Zuko feels his neck and cheeks heat up and looks away. Katara laughs.

“Woman, please,” he tries to joke, but it comes out shy.

“Oh, I see. So I can’t do it, hm?”

He pretends he’s going to turn back, whispers so only she can hear, “Hey, Nishi, help me out here. That has to be inappropriate.”

“Sshh, no. Please,” Katara chuckles.

They quickly regain their postures before it slips too far. Zuko finds it hard to keep the smile out of his face, though. It’s the first time she’s done something like that.

They both came here knowing they’d be walking into a public evaluation, but in a matter of minutes, most of the tension has already left him. Somehow, though all around they’re being measured and scrutinized, in this small space between the two of them, things are still easy.

She looks around at the trees swaying in the soft breeze, a content expression on her face. “It’s been a while since I last was here for this season. I had forgotten how beautiful it gets.” She points to a drinking fountain. “Is that new?”

Zuko tells her about the improvements made to the parks: pagodas for shade, drinking water fountains to help combat the summer heat, playgrounds for the children.

Some people wave at them from a distance, some bow as they pass. They nod in response as they keep up their conversation. Katara tells him about what she’s seen in parks in Republic City and Ba Sing Se.

Zuko catches the eye of one of his guards, in plain clothes, mixing with the common people. She nods slightly. All is well. But they’ve been walking for about half an hour, and this is quite an exposed place, he doesn't feel comfortable to linger too long.

“We should start heading back,” he suggests.

“Okay,” Katara answers. He thinks she may sound a little relieved.

“Master Katara,” a masculine voice calls their attention.

They turn to see a man in his forties standing a few feet away. His robes suggest he is not nobility, probably a man who works in a trade, or perhaps a merchant, not the kind of person Zuko would expect to approach them in public. His expression is slightly nervous.

“Fire Lord,” he bows respectfully, “I apologize for the interruption.”

“Yes?” Zuko asks.

“I just came to thank Master Katara,” he colors, turns his eyes to her again, “Two autumns ago, you helped me recover from a disease of the lungs. I had been unable to breathe and work properly for six months before you healed me and-”

“Masato?” Katara asks, incredulous, walking in his direction.

“You remember me?” He widens his eyes.

“Of course I do,” she says, and now her voice sounds joyful, “I barely recognize you, though. You look- so well! Did you get younger, somehow?”

The man chuckles, coloring slightly, “Thanks to your efforts, my lady. Your treatment was a turning point for my recovery.”

“You did give me a bit of trouble back then,” she jokes, and the man chuckles again, “But I knew you’d make it. I could see your determination from the very beginning.”

“I have a family to take care of, I couldn’t leave them without provision.” He glances behind him, a woman and two children had approached and were watching the interaction silently.

“Would you introduce us?” Katara asks the man, turning to glance briefly at Zuko. He comes to stand closer to her.

The man’s eyes widen. “Of course.”

Masato introduces his wife and children, who all bow respectfully. They seem wary of Zuko, but Katara soon distracts them with conversation, asking about the following months after her treatment and whether he is still following her instructions.

Zuko feels a tug on his clothes. He looks down to see the younger kid looking up at him, brown eyes wide and hands clutching a wooden dragon-horse.

“Hi,” the boy whispers, his family remains engrossed in conversation.

Zuko rests one knee on the ground so he is at eye level with the child and smiles softly, “Hi.”

“Are you really the Fire Lord?” The boy sounds a little wonderstruck.

“Yes.”

“Wow!” The kid keeps staring at him, mouth slightly open, “My dad says you’re like, super strong, and super smart and that you fight the bad guys and you’re gonna solve all the problems.”

Zuko’s heart twists in his chest.

“I do my best, yes,” he answers.

The child glances over his shoulder to where Katara is keeping his family's attention enough for his mother to not notice his escape.

“Are you friends with the healer lady? My mother says she brought our dad back. Maybe she can help you if- hey, is that a dragon?” The kid abandons his line of thinking in favor of analyzing the embroidery on Zuko’s sleeve.

Zuko smiles, starts telling him the story of the dragon-emperor, moving through the clouds outlined in thread on his robes. He’s done this with Kiyi before and soon the boy is leaning against him, holding his arm as they follow the images embroidered there.

“But how does he walk with such small feet?” The boy asks, a little too loudly.

“Riku!” His mother exclaims, noticing the situation. Riku, sensing he did something wrong, scrambles back to his mother’s side. The woman bows her head in Zuko’s direction, “I’m so sorry, my lord.”

“It’s no problem, madam,” Zuko assures her.

“He was telling me about the dragons,” The boy says in a small voice, clinging to his mother’s skirts.

Zuko smiles, dusts his knee as he rises.

The family is watching him with surprise, the parents still seem tense after the breach in etiquette. Beyond them, Zuko is aware that just about everyone within range is watching or listening to this interaction, but it’s Katara’s gaze, studying him with an intensity he hasn’t seen before, that makes him flush.

Nishi coughs.

Katara recovers first. “Well, we won’t intrude any longer on your family time.” She says to the group, “It was a joy seeing you in such good health, Masato. And meeting your family.”

“We were honored at the opportunity to thank you in person, my lady.” His wife answers with a bow. “And to meet you, my lord.”

“May the spirits bless your household and your line, Fire Lord Zuko.” Masato says, bowing low and formally.

Zuko doesn’t miss the way they seem to glance at Katara after these words, and judging by the color of her cheeks, neither does she.

“And yours.” Zuko manages to answer.

They walk in silence after that.

Before they reach the carriage, Zuko spots at least three girls running around with yoshino flowers in their braids.

A week later, Zuko is made aware of the commentary running through the streets.

Depending on who you ask: “the Fire Lord has always been in love with her”, “she’s not a proper lady, I saw her up an ostrich horse the other day”, “she is a healer and would help protect the Fire Lord”, “she’s in love with him, too”, “she’s in love with the Avatar, actually”, “she is as graceful as any lady in court”, “she healed my cousin once, I trust her”, “she’s a witch, brings people back from the dead”, “a waterbender will weaken the firebending line”, “she’s a bending master, she’ll give him healthy and strong offspring”, “she would anyway, she has the hips for it”, “I saw them at the hanami, they were laughing together”, “bet they were laughing at you”, “they greeted everybody, it was really nice”.

No one has spoken directly with him, and for that, he is grateful; he’s not sure how he would react to any of these comments. He sees the way the palace staff glance at each other when they pass through the hallways, though.

There is still time for opinions to develop, but the consensus among his advisors is that the majority of the population seems to approve of her. She’s beautiful, strong, and a war hero who shows respect and care for the Fire Nation citizens and their culture.

He and Katara are not talking about it, but it hangs in the air.

There seems to be a tacit agreement between them. They avoid any talks about the future, make no plans for seeing each other outside of what they’re already doing, and ever since the hanami all flirting has ceased. They still joke, but mostly they talk about work — and there’s plenty of it.

It’s gotten to the point where Nishi has started dozing off.

Zuko talked to his advisors this morning, and he hasn’t felt this agitated since before Katara arrived in Caldera. He’s trying to focus on the numbers on his scroll but his eyes keep wandering to the other corner of his table where she’s sitting, a line between her brows as she takes notes.

It’s almost sunset, they’ve been working the whole afternoon. She’s using some of his scrolls to build the presentation she’ll bring before council tomorrow.

The whole time, his mind has been simmering. Memories, reasonable thoughts and wild emotion mixing up in no particular order. The looks she gave him at the hanami, “Are you friends with the healer lady?”, “Someone to do life with.”, he should be careful about it, “she’s a witch, brings people back from the dead”, Katara’s tears as she restarted his heart, dark orange sky above her, “she has the hips for it”, her tan leg peeking through the slit of her red qipao, eyes as blue as the morning sky.

Zuko stands up. Silently rounds the table.

Nishi is asleep in his chair on the corner, double chin prominent as his pudgy face rests on his chest. Katara doesn’t notice him approaching until he places a hand over her scroll.

“Hey,” he whispers. He doesn’t want Nishi to wake up.

She startles a little. “…Hey,” she whispers back. He’s too close, forcing her to lean back to look at him properly. She looks up at his face, then at his chest and his arms crowding her between the table and her chair.

He nods to Nishi, as if that’s the only reason he’s this close and not because he wants to see how she’ll react.

“Wanna sneak out?” He asks.

Her mouth twitches up. “What?”

“Sneak out. Ditch him.”

She glances at Nishi again. “He’s gonna wake up, you know.” Their chaperone lets out a soft snore. “Eventually.”

“And what’s he gonna do? Cough at us harder?” Katara snorts. “Not now. I mean tomorrow night, for the festival.”

“...The carnival?”

“I have a mask,” he says. “We can sneak out after dark. It can be just the two of us.”

He lets the words settle, watches her surprise when their meaning registers. She looks away, pulls her bottom lip between her teeth in consideration. Zuko waits.

When she meets his eyes again, there’s a small smile playing on her lips, and that glint of curiosity is back.

He knows what her answer will be.

“This isn’t appropriate, my Lord.” The minister says to Zuko.

Katara, who had just finished her introduction on the plans for dealing with the bloodletter barbers, cocks her head to the side.

Minister Sakasai, a tall and lean man in his sixties, is often among the stronger critics for just about any new proposition brought to council. The severe lines of his cheekbones and jawline are slightly softened by the deep wrinkles and sagging skin, but his gaze, often peering over small round glasses, is as sharp as his remarks.

Once upon a time, Zuko thought he needed to surround himself with people who agreed with him. But a council was meant to counsel, and if all they had to say were things Zuko already knew, it wouldn’t do him much good.

Minister Sakasai, with his disposition to find a problem to any solution, audited the nation’s finances with the keen eye of a hawk. For every time he caused an unnecessary hassle over minutiae, there were five other occasions where he found holes in plans before they were implemented and caused actual problems.

“It’s not right for the lady to be here,” Minister Sakasai says.

The other ministers and secretaries, attentively listening to Katara until a moment ago, turn to Zuko.

He frowns. “I don’t think I understand you, minister.”

“This is a council meeting.” He says gruffly.

“I hope so,” Katara says with a confused smile, and some chuckles go around the table.

The minister turns to her. “We know you and the Fire Lord are courting. You were together just this weekend at the hanami.”

This is not how Zuko expected the topic to be brought to him.

“You are not the official consort.” The minister continues, voice quite harsh, “It’s not right for you to be involved in decisions about the country.”

A few muttered reactions begin to rise, whether in agreement or protest, Zuko doesn’t know. What he does know is that the minister’s tone is unacceptable and he’s about to be reminded of that.

“You are absolutely right, minister,” Katara speaks up.

Zuko is so taken aback that he forgets what he was going to say. Judging by the expressions around him, he’s not the only one surprised.

“Which is why I’m not here in the capacity of a prospective spouse, but as a White Lotus Consulting Master — same as I’ve been for the past five years,” she continues, clear voice and calm demeanor, “As such, I’m privileged to offer the nations I visit advice in my area of expertise, the decision-making remains a prerogative of local administration. And I fully trust both the Fire Lord and this fine council to be able to separate things and maintain their clear judgment where the wellbeing of their people is concerned.”

A few people shift uncomfortably and trade quick glances. Minister Sakasai twists his mouth in a pensive expression but says nothing. The way Katara presented things places the responsibility on them. They can’t question her presence now without implicitly questioning their own ability to do their jobs, and most seriously, their Fire Lord’s ability to do his.

She turns to him, “Lord Zuko, do you have any concerns about the matter?”

“None at all.” Zuko answers, tone low and face serious, leaving no room for debate, “You may proceed.”

She nods.

“Now, according to the most recent census, this is the number of families which currently keep establishments offering the service in the capital,” She continues, as if she had never been interrupted.

Zuko glares at his ministers until they all have their attention back on the task at hand. A few take a while to let go of their displeased expressions, but Katara is a good presenter and manages to engage them with a clear line of thinking and carefully placed examples.

By the time Lord Saoh, the minister of Health and Welfare, begins his considerations, the attendees are engrossed in analyzing the actual matter.

Zuko mostly watches it unfold, only asking two strategic questions he already knows the answers to and wants the others to consider. Katara and Saoh make a good team and when the meeting ends there’s agreement about the general proposition, though details are still to be worked on.

Zuko collects his scrolls in silence as the attendees begin leaving the room in scattered groups. At the other end of the table, Katara is engrossed in conversation with Saoh, Sakasai and two more secretaries. They seem to be working to solve a problem together, pointing over figures in different scrolls. She says something, Saoh and the secretaries chuckle, Sakasai gives her a look over his glasses and a corner of his mouth twists up, as close to a smile as Zuko has ever seen him get.

The future flashes before his eyes — not very different from what he sees, maybe just a different headpiece.

Katara has always had more faith in him than he deserved: he can't be trusted to separate things at all.

Katara would never go unnoticed in the noble neighborhoods, all the families know her face as well as they do Zuko’s but her dark skin makes her stand out from a mile away. So they go to Harbor City. There are enough foreigners living there or visiting for the season that she’s just one more person among many others in impractical costumes bustling about in the carnival.

She’s dressed in red again, a white mask with red swirls covers her face. The swirls also decorate her bare shoulders and arms and Zuko has to use all his self-control not to stare. It’s a warm night and he chose lighter clothing himself, short sleeves instead of his usual covered-up attire.

Still, she’s showing a lot of skin.

“Why The Painted Lady? She’s not very popular.” He asks when he first meets her, to distract himself.

“She’s a water spirit,” Katara says, as if that answers everything, her voice muffled by her mask. She removes it to raise an eyebrow at him, her lips are painted red, too. “I met her, actually.”

“You what?”

“Another time,” she waves off his question. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“The Blue Spirit. He’s a rebel, messed with the government during the war.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “You are the government now, though.”

“And I’m pretty sure I still mess it up here and there.” He shrugs.

The carnival marks the conclusion of the Spring Festivities. People stay out late into the night, the streets illuminated by colorful lanterns in every house — good luck for the coming year, attracting a fruitful harvest and successful plans.

Down by the market, a sea of masked and ornamented people talk and laugh as they go from stall to stall, choosing trinkets and souvenirs. The smell of fried foods and candied berries fill the air along with the faint sea breeze.

A group of artists with shamisen lutes, shinobue flutes and taiko drums play a lively tune nearby and Katara clutches his bare arm to steer him in their direction. They join the audience in clapping on time with the music, until the dancers of the troupe start pulling people from the audience to learn a sequence of steps. Katara tugs him again, Zuko is reluctant until he hears Katara’s delighted laugh behind her mask and decides to just enjoy himself.

They learn a simple choreography along with two more pairs of masked people, looping their arms, skipping or clapping their hands at intervals. By the time the song ends and they leave their contribution to the troupe, they are both sweaty and breathing heavily.

“I need to take off this mask, or I’m gonna suffocate in here,” Katara laughs, still out of breath beside him, after they’ve bought food and drinks. Zuko looks around.

“Come.” He takes her hand.

He leads her two blocks up, into an alley where he knows a trellis will give them access to a balcony on the third floor of a bakery, long closed this late into the night. He climbs up with practised ease, gets their food and helps her up.

“I’m not gonna ask how you knew this place so readily.” She says once she joins him.

Zuko removes his mask and only gives her a crooked smile in response.

Under the shade of the eave, and on the third floor, it’s safe to say no one will see them. He feels strands of his hair sticking to his neck and the side of his face, even though most of it remains in the high top knot. The breeze is cooler here, away from the gathered people and on higher ground.

They sit on the floor to eat and drink, legs dangling in the air. The railing is made up of only two wooden horizontal beams. Sitting on the floor, the lowest one is level with their chests and they use it as a makeshift table. From this vantage point, they can hear the faint music and murmurs from the carnival still in full swing in the main streets and squares.

The lanterns color the city in shades of red, blue, green… Katara’s face is outlined in pink. Her braided hair is a little frizzy with sweat and some of the red swirls on her arms have started to smudge. He wants to kiss her.

“Sorry about putting you on the spot, by the way,” she says, with no preamble, once they’re finished eating, “during the meeting this morning.”

“You were perfect,” he answers honestly. “His tone made me very upset. If I had answered him, it wouldn’t have been pretty. He had no right to talk to you like that.

“He doesn’t like me,” she says wryly. “Well, he used to like me fine before. He just doesn’t like me enough to agree with me being- his superior.”

My wife, Zuko thinks, heart flipping in his chest. But then Katara says:

“He’s not the only one.”

He frowns. “Has anyone given you trouble?" Her face tells him the answer is positive. "Why haven’t you told me?”

She gives him a look. Zuko just keeps frowning at her. She takes a deep breath, brings her hand to brush away some of the hair sticking to her neck.

“I knew what to expect. It was nothing serious. The only one who’s managed to truly annoy me so far was Nishi.”

Zuko snorts. “I don’t think that’s about him disliking you. I'm pretty sure he’s just like that.”

“He might be like that,” she concedes. “He also doesn’t like me. I’m not a ‘proper lady’ in his eyes, not enough for the Fire Lord’s, anyway.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s pretty obvious.”

At his puzzled look, Katara snorts. Her amused look is almost pitying.

“Zuko, he scolded me about the ostrich horse. You know he would never dare speak like that with someone he believed to be above his rank. The way he did it? He was trying to send you a message. That I’m no lady and not good enough for you.”

Zuko wants to disagree. But in the Fire Nation, rank is as present as your own face, and people might notice it first and care about it more.

“You’ll meet other people, right?” She asks. Zuko flinches. “It’s fine, I know you will.” She waves his concern away. “When you do, you’ll see he won’t be half as bothersome around them.”

Zuko suddenly feels uncomfortable about the whole thing: Nishi looking down on Katara, unknown people saying unknown things to her, the fact that he’ll have to meet other people, and worst of all, the fact that apparently she’s ‘fine’ with it.

“I can have someone else accompany us.”

“No, don’t. It would be an enormous shame for him, you know that,” she says. She bites her lower lip. “But maybe… Could we meet like this again? I don’t mean- breaking into someone’s property, just…” she drops the joking tone, her voice lowering into an almost whisper, “I want to be able to talk to you normally. Like this.”

She asks it shyly, like she’s not sure he’ll say yes, like this wasn’t his idea in the first place. Somewhere in the back of his mind, short lines in a parchment evaluate his actions. ’Act accordingly.’

“Doesn’t it bother you, though?” He asks, “For us to be meeting- unchaperoned?”

She levels him a look. “It’s a ridiculous notion to begin with. Not- in general. I mean, I get it. But for us? We’ve met by ourselves so many times over the years.”

“It’s different now, though,” he says, voice an octave lower than he was expecting. His advisor was right on that front: meeting her now is ‘another thing entirely’.

He’s pretty sure her eyes go to his arms before she looks away.

“Yeah, it is,” she breathes. Her face is turned to the streets before them, but Zuko doesn’t think she’s actually looking at them. Her eyes seem to dance, a look of concentration on her face, like she’s tracking possibilities instead of glowing lanterns.

He leans in her direction, lowers his head. When she turns to him, she doesn’t have to look up to meet his eyes, they are on the same level.

“And are you still okay with it?” He asks softly. He wants her to say yes but needs reassurance. He has the distinct feeling he’s handling something fragile, that it will shatter into a million pieces if he goes about it wrong.

To his surprise, Katara reaches one hand to touch his face, his scarred cheek.

Zuko is transported in time. To the catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se. To the times she worked on his scars following the agni kai. Her hands are as soft as he remembers. He closes his eyes, exhales shakily.

“We’ve come a long way, the two of us,” she whispers. There’s hesitation in her voice, like she wants to say more.

And because things are different now, he places his hand over hers, keeps it there when he opens his eyes.

“We both know we don’t do things halfway.” Her eyes are soft, and there’s no trace of humor in them. “If we’re going that direction… We don’t know that-” She pauses. “There’s a lot more than just the two of us to consider here. We can’t just-” Her next words are feather-light and sound almost like a plea, “Let’s not be stupid.”

Her inhale is stilted. Zuko sees it on her face, in her posture — she’s scared.

This could all fall apart.

Maybe public opinion will change. Maybe his advisors will oppose it. Maybe the two of them will find some incompatibility they won’t be able to get past. And then they will have to live with a path not taken. They will have to find a way to get back to a friendly relationship, knowing they couldn’t be anything other than that.

After his uncle, Katara was the first person to believe him. To believe that he could be better. If this turns to nothing, Zuko would like to keep the trust they’ve built so far.

But maybe… This could be it.

This woman tenderly holding his face could become his wife. The one he’ll wake up to every morning. The one he’ll take care of for the rest of his life.

It feels right that he should start now.

He takes her hand between his, caresses her smooth skin with his thumb, taking time to note the way her tan hand contrasts with his own. A warm feeling envelops his heart.

He kisses her knuckles.

“We’ll be careful,” he promises.

When he looks up, her eyes are soft. There’s a small smile on her face.

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude about your ancestors, but—” Katara’s nose scrunches up. “If you grow a beard like that I will divorce you.”

Zuko chuckles, trying to keep the sound discreet. They are supposed to have at least an hour before the guards make the rounds through the Royal Gallery, but even their low voices still carry when the rest of the palace is dead silent like now.

Paintings and illustrations cover the walls almost from floor to ceiling. The only source of light is the flame he holds on his palm, guiding their way or illuminating the pieces of previous members of the royal family for better analysis. They are under the portrait of… a great-great-uncle? Doesn’t matter. He does have bizarre facial hair.

“That’s fair. I think I’d like Uncle Iroh’s beard at some point.” He says absentmindedly, smoothing his fingers over his lower face.

“It would look nice on you.” The softness in her voice startles him, but it’s not exactly softness he sees on her expression. “Maybe not too soon, though.” Her eyes slide from his jawline to meet his eyes.

His heart thumps in his chest and the flame in his palm flickers.

Katara blinks, looks away and points to the next portrait, already stepping in its direction. “And who’s this one?”

Zuko takes a steadying breath and follows.

The conversations they share are usually comfortable, fun, energizing. But lately there are also these moments where she does something, or says something, or just looks at him a certain way and he finds himself completely off kilter.

Zuko tells her what he remembers about his long-dead relatives, the quirks or gossip that survived in the chronicles he studied. When a Fire Lord is pictured, he tells her about specific points of Fire Nation history and development.

It might have been faster to do it in the Fire Lord’s hallway, but that’s an intimidating place, with twenty-foot-tall portraits where Zuko himself always gets agitated. These rooms might be filled with less relevant details, but they house images of his whole family, including children, in-laws, and weird great-great-uncles with questionable fashion choices.

Eventually, they reach more recent history where the paintings show clothes and hairstyles that are more familiar, but so is the impact of their subjects’ actions on their current world.

A young Sozin is pictured with a small smile beside an equally placid Avatar Roku. The mood instantly shifts. Following the paintings and illustrations, they watch Azulon rise to the throne, get married, and pose with his wife and infant versions of Iroh and Ozai.

When they reach the official family portrait of Ozai with Ursa, Azula, and Zuko before his banishment, Katara stares at it for a long time, the corners of her mouth tugging downwards.

It’s only in the next room that they find additions made after the end of the war.

Zuko’s coronation in the main plaza. Iroh and his teaset. A long painting shows all of Team Avatar, dressed in formal clothes. Toph with her arms crossed, Sokka looking smug and clearly trying to appear taller, boomerang in hand, Suki with her fans, Katara and Zuko flank Aang who’s right in the middle, with Momo on his shoulder. Zuko had thrown a celebratory luncheon for his friends in honor of Aang’s first birthday after the war.

Katara’s face relaxes in a smile, she chuckles a little. “Look at us. Spirits… we were children!”

Looking at his young face, cheeks still holding some baby fat, he can’t help his own derisive smile. “I can’t believe they let this foolish boy run a country.”

“You’ve done a good job of it.” Her voice is light and sure as she scans the next few pictures. The first Summit. The inauguration of Republic City. Zuko, Azula and Kiyi with Ursa in her new face. “Better than the ones before you.”

The wall is empty after that. Soon, it will receive a new piece: his marriage portrait.

Zuko swallows hard. All the family portraits in the previous rooms show serious faces. The ornate clothing and neat top knots betray nothing of the abuse Ursa and her children suffered under Ozai. But Ursa’s eyes do, if you know what to look for.

“You know, they’d hate to see me here,” Katara whispers, and Zuko is brought back to the present. She is looking at the previous room, the one with his father and grandfathers.

“All the more reason,” Zuko answers.

She just looks at him, he’s not sure what she’s looking for. But he finds the courage to point with his chin and say:

“This is where mine will go.”

She follows his eyes to the wall. For a moment, they just stare at it in silence. As if they could somehow find clues about the future in the empty spot.

“It will look very different from the previous ones.”

His chest constricts. He inhales deeply to try to get some breathing room back. “I hope so, yeah. In more ways than one.”

Katara looks in the direction of the previous room again, then back at the empty spot on the wall. Finally, she looks at him, a determined look on her face. “We should talk specifics.”

“Specifics?” He cocks his head.

“What is the consort’s usual role? What are you expecting it will be? Would the children have double citizenship?”

Zuko blinks.

He nods in understanding. “Alright, specifics.”

Zuko lights a torch from the wall. They sit on the bench opposite the portraits and start discussing. Diplomatic impacts, the expectations of the public, the opinions of his council. In which scenarios it would make sense for them to get married, and in which cases it might not.

Katara handles everything with the same cool and collected approach he’s seen her exhibit in medical emergencies — like she’s trying to understand a situation as best as she can so she knows how to act.

Until they reach the issue of children.

Are you comfortable with your kids inheriting more than one culture? What if the first firebending kid is a girl? Would a waterbending kid still be able to claim Fire Nation royal heritage? Would they be trained to hold official positions like second-borns usually do? What if they aren’t accepted? We can’t know what the political climate will be then. What would be the plan for them?

There’s nothing cool about her, then. The tone of her voice doesn’t change much, but now there’s fire in her eyes.

“What if we have a nonbending child?” She asks. It’s the first time she’s outright used we, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it. The way she looks at him is evaluating.

“With two benders as parents, that’s very unlikely.”

“But not impossible. I’ve seen it happen. What then?”

“Then… nothing.” He shrugs. “They’ll learn other art forms.”

She just keeps looking at him.

“Non-benders can be just as skilled, more so. Look at Sokka and Suki. That’s got nothing to do with anything.”

“So you won’t be disappointed?”

It’s only the fact that she kept the low tone of her voice that makes Zuko realize he was raising his.

He tries to keep his temper under control this time. “That’s a stupid thing to be disappointed about.”

“But still a fair question.”

Zuko exhales, frustrated. The light of the torch wavers, but Katara’s gaze on him doesn’t. Did he get it all wrong?

“I could swear we had the same opinion on this,” he says.

“About a person’s value regardless of being a bender? Yes, we do,” she says. “But we’re not talking about a random person. We’re talking about a child of the Fire Lord. Possibly even a firstborn. A child you’d still have to raise and protect and find a way to connect with. What then?”

The planes of her face are accentuated by the contrast of shadow and orange light. And the fire in her eyes... Zuko’s seen it before. In battle. In meetings, too, when she is defending a point in which she won’t accept defeat.

Zuko thinks that Katara already knows the answers she wants to all of her questions, but she seems willing to compromise on most of them. Not here. He knows this look in her eyes — unyielding. It always appears when she’s defending someone.

And that’s when it dawns on him.

She’s defending her future children.

Their future children.

The thought knocks the wind out of his lungs. His eyes suddenly burn, and he has to close them. He’s not sure what does it, exactly. If it’s the idea of her caring this fiercely about their potential family… or his own old wounds. Possibly both.

He rests the back of his head on the wall, takes two deep breaths before he manages to open his eyes and look at her.

“Then I’ll teach them the broadswords myself.” His voice still comes out a little choked.

He tells her about his struggles with firebending as a kid. About studying with Master Piandao, about how learning to firebend didn’t make things much better with his father — it was never enough with Ozai, not even Azula’s ruthlessness was enough, and Zuko could never even come close to it.

“They could not be Fire Lord, that has to be a firebender, male or female,” he says. Katara’s gaze lost its hardness halfway through his story, but it did not lose its intensity. “But being a bender won’t make a difference outside of that. It certainly won’t make a difference in how much I’ll love them.”

She holds his gaze for a moment, then nods and rests her back on the wall. She closes her eyes and breathes. Zuko tries to do the same.

He brought her here for a reason. To remind both of them that he is not simply a man. He is also a throne. A people. A line. If she marries him, she’ll be joining all of that, taking on a page of this shared history that hasn’t always been noble and the challenges that come with writing it anew.

While she didn’t shy away from that fact, most of Katara’s questions concerned how their public life would interact with their private one. It’s like she knew to dig up Zuko’s deepest fear: not that of failing as Fire Lord, but that of failing as husband and father.

Strangely, he feels calmer now.

Until tonight, this fear was a formless beast. An animal chasing him through the woods, made of shadows and impressions: a feeling of helplessness, parting words whispered in the middle of the night, the smell of burnt flesh. The fear of repeating, of somehow doing even worse.

Katara brought the monster out into the light. Shadows being molded into a concrete body of what-ifs and what-thens that they both know they cannot control.

But they can examine. They can be ready for. They can agree on how to take it down if it ever attacks.

They have always fought well together.

Katara is stubborn, not stupid. She knows when to back down. If she’s pressing him this much, he knows there’s an underlying assumption: that they can make it work.

He opens his eyes again, stares at the empty spot on the wall.

“Alright,” she whispers. When he turns, she is looking at him. She nods once. “Alright.”

They suffer Nishi about three times a week, for appearances' sake.

On those occasions, they talk about their routines, about work, about their friends. They play pai sho.

They start betting on how long it’s gonna take Nishi to fall asleep. So far, Katara’s minutiae about treating protocols holds the record over Zuko’s road improvement numbers, but not by much.

Once, when Nishi slumbers in Zuko’s office, they use the pieces from the pai sho board to try to knock off a wooden statue from the shelf above him. Every time they fail and a tile scatters away, they have to hold in their laughter. Katara ends up doing it with an incredibly precise water whip that she dissolves into mist as soon as the statue falls on Nishi’s lap.

He jumps from his chair.

“Are you okay?” Zuko asks, mimicking a pensive expression over the Pai Sho board, the hand covering his mouth is actually hiding his laughter.

“I…” Nishi holds the statue, looks around confused. “I think this fell?”

“It’s an old office.”

Katara, whose back is to Nishi, rolls her lips between her teeth and breathes deeply to control her laughter.

With so many missing pieces, continuing the game is an impossibility, but they move random tiles in whatever direction, mischievous gazes meeting over the board in shared secrecy.

It’s not the only secret they share these days.

It was supposed to happen only once or twice, so they could speak openly about things that needed to be talked about.

After the night in the gallery, Zuko wanted to show her some scrolls so they sneaked into the library after hours. The next day, there was this meteor shower, and it’s not like they could take Nishi to the roof. When they were almost caught sneaking back from the kitchens, Katara mentioned casually that ‘you know, my room has a back porch’.

So now they meet there every night. He puts on his simple clothes, she places her bare feet on the grass, they sit on the deck overlooking the small garden, and they talk.

They have no illusions about Nishi and how very likely he is to be gossiping about everything he hears with spirits-know-who. So all of their ‘official’ conversations are those they wouldn’t mind getting out.

Here, things are different. Here, they talk about everything.

Zuko’s convoluted relationship with Mai. Katara’s brief thing with Aang. Her concerns about a growing nationalism in the South. Zuko’s worries about the nobility still having loyalists. What they think is important in a marriage, what they find unacceptable. What’s the best way to raise kids to be decent people. The patients she met in the clinic that day. Zuko's trickier matters with the council.

Maybe it is the cloak of the night that makes them braver. Maybe it is the light of the moon, coating everything in a silver too pure for the cynicism of the day. Maybe it is the knowledge that their time is limited and they should make the best of it.

Or maybe it is the fact that it’s just the two of them, and it feels easy to be themselves around each other.

He knocks twice on her sliding doors. It’s later than usual.

There’s some shuffling on the other side. He hears her bare feet approaching before she opens the doors just a fraction. The moon illuminates a single column upon her face, a blue eye shining almost silvery in contrast with the darkness.

“Hey,” her voice is surprised. She comes out a moment later, adjusting a silk robe to better cover her collarbones. Her hair is a riot that she tries to gather over one shoulder. “I didn’t think you were coming anymore tonight.”

“Sorry,” he says, mouth suddenly dry.

Is that how she looks before bed?

Is that how she looks in bed?

Fuck.

Zuko barely managed to convince himself he wasn’t struck dumb by her back when they were just friends. Now that he’s allowed himself to look at her in a different way, he’s not sure how it ever worked.

“I- hm, got held up.” He swallows. “I can come back tomorrow.”

“No, it’s fine.” She waves him off, seemingly unaware of his thundering heart. She sits down on her usual spot, by the wooden column that marks the corner of the deck. “I was kidding myself thinking I was gonna sleep so early with the moon almost full like that. I could use the company.”

He joins her, keenly aware of the small space between their shoulders, of the sound her hair makes when it brushes against the silk of her robe. She looks so unguarded, so soft… he wants to hold her against his chest.

He’s been cataloguing touches lately.

She doesn’t shy away when he gets closer. And he doesn’t want her to, so he doesn’t push his luck. He tucked her hair behind her ear two days ago. A day before that, when he took her hand, she slid hers up his arm and pressed her thumb on the inner side of his elbow as they talked.

Right now, he’s feeling stupid, though. And they agreed not to be that. So he plants his hands behind himself and leans his weight back instead.

“Eniko got engaged today,” she comments. She’s told him a little bit about the healers and nurses she’s working with in the grand clinic of Caldera.

“Oh?”

“Her family got dried kelp as a gift?” Katara looks at him in confusion.

Zuko chuckles. “Konbu. It’s a play on the words. It can also mean ‘child-bearing woman’. It’s a symbol of fertility.” And because that particular topic makes him a bit nervous right now, he keeps going. “There are other traditional gifts for the bride, too. Sake, said to attract joy.”

“It does make a person joyful in the right amount,” she says with a smile. “What about for the groom?”

“Lacquerware for the groom’s family. Clothes, sometimes.”

“What, you don’t get special fertility kelp?”

Zuko smiles, “No. But we get a special white rope.”

“What for?” There’s a very obvious joking tone in her question. Zuko has to run a hand over his flaming face before he answers. He is gonna combust before the end of the night and she’ll be laughing at him just as she is now.

“It symbolizes growing old together. The rope is made of a strong plant fiber. And it’s white like- purity, new beginnings.”

“That’s actually quite sweet, I feel a little bad now.”

“You should.” He jokes, leaning forward, letting his elbows rest on his knees and looking up at her smiling face. “What about for your people? The carved necklace for the bride?” He asks.

“That’s in the North.”

“Oh, right.” Zuko knows the story of how Katara’s grandmother abandoned Pakku only to marry him some fifty years later. “I’m still impressed by your grandma’s story, by the way. Didn’t they want it back, though? The necklace?”

“Nah. I think to gran-gran it was... I don’t know, a sign of something they tried to force upon her. She never used to wear it. And once my mom found it and started wearing it, it became my mother’s. To me, it was a piece of her to hold on to, after she died.”

“That sounds nice… having something to remind you of someone you love. It’s like the Blue Spirit mask for me,” he confesses. “My mom left it when she had to escape. I mean, she left lots of things, but few that actually felt hers.”

“How is she, by the way?” She hesitates, “And Azula?”

These are the things they would never talk about in front of Nishi.

“Mom is well, Kiyi and Ikem too.” he sighs, “Azula is… Azula. I used to think not meeting my father’s demands messed me up, but actually doing it seems to have been the worse lot. Sometimes I think she’s better. Sometimes she still scares me. But she’s my sister. I can’t… not love her. And I think she loves me too, in her own strange way.”

“She does.” Katara sounds certain. “People can only give what they have. She’s doing her best.”

Zuko’s throat constricts. He clears it before speaking. “So, the necklace is North. What about the South?”

Katara doesn’t fight him on the subject change, “Well, we’ve always been more of a free people, it’s why gran-gran moved there, in the first place. A lot of traditions were lost to the war, but we tend to favor more practical gifts, things we can take with us on our daily tasks, that are both beautiful and practical.”

“Like what?”

“Carved hunting knives, bows, decorated water skins, pelts… Embroidered clothes or jewelry, too. It varies a lot. In the old stories, there was usually this moment where the man had to prove himself worthy by offering the bride something he had hunted.”

She pauses. Her face turns amused, and a little… embarrassed?

“When I was a girl,” she says, her tone a confession, “I used to dream I’d get a snow-leopard-caribou pelt.” She giggles.

“What’s that?” He finds himself smiling too.

“They are big animals, smart, too. Their pelt is gorgeous. No one actually hunts them, though, too much hassle. You can get the same amount of meat and good hides with less trouble. But gran-gran used to tell a story about a great warrior who caught one once. So, of course, being kids, that’s what we dreamed about. Every boy swore they’d catch one when they got older. And every girl said they would only ever marry the ‘strongest, smartest warrior’. You know how it goes." She snorts. "Sokka was adamant he would be the first in our village.”

“In the Fire Nation, it used to be dragons. If you slayed a dragon, you were the ‘strongest, smartest warrior’.”

“That makes sense.” She nudges his knee with hers, looks at him through her lashes. “Do I have to slay a dragon to woo you?”

“You don’t have to do anything for that.” He answers, perhaps too honestly. Her eyes soften. Her lips part like she’s going to say something, but she doesn’t. He looks away, tries to steer them back on course. “But if you manage to find me a dragon egg that would be awesome.”

She shifts in place. “Noted.”

The night before she leaves, they have a very short dinner. Katara says goodbye to Nishi and wishes him good health, prescribes him garlic tea and honey for his throat. She bows to Zuko, and they hurry back to their rooms.

He’s knocking on her back doors as soon as he can manage.

Out on the deck, they sit and talk in hushed tones until the waning moon is high in the sky.

She tells him about her schedule once again, about the plans she left in place with Minister Saoh and the healer who’ll be conducting the licensing program.

She’ll check on clinics in two more cities in the Fire Nation before going to Ba Sing Se, where she’ll spend a month. After that, she’ll visit smaller villages with a group of itinerary healers, then she’ll travel to Agna Q’Ela to conduct combat and healing training for waterbenders.

Zuko already misses her.

She rests her back against the wooden column, legs crossed in front of her, facing him instead of the garden. As summer approaches, the night breeze grows more humid, and Katara’s hair seems curlier than before. He wants to know what it’s like to bury his hand in it.

“Will you write to me?” He asks.

“You’re the one with the hawks.”

“And you’re the one with the insane schedule.” He counters. “You know I’ll send them. Will you send them back?”

“No, I’ll use your hawks for barbecue.” She rolls her eyes with a fond smile. Then, she looks at him more seriously, bites her lip before speaking. “You’ll be busy, though. I wouldn’t— I’ll understand. If you can’t write. Or just- need a break to… think things through.”

She’s giving him an out.

She knows he is scheduled to meet other potential brides in the following months. They don’t talk about it, so he’s not sure how much she knows. But she knows she’ll be away for a long while, and he’ll be meeting other people.

She knows his council will have opinions, and so will the public. She knows those opinions can’t be ignored. They’ve talked about that much, at least.

They’ve agreed it would be stupid to try to fight everyone when they’ve already fought so much for the peace they have. They’ve agreed that if this doesn’t make sense politically, they’ll drop it. There are so many other important things they still need to fight for. The world is bigger than the two of them.

But that was early on. In the gallery.

Before she sat with her leg pressed against his thigh like this. Before he closed his hand around her foot in such a natural way. Before they had gotten used to this easy banter every night before going to bed.

They couldn’t have guessed what three short weeks would have done with them.

“It’s fine,” she says in a small voice.

And she’s said that before. But she doesn’t look fine this time. She is sitting very still and not looking at him. And he definitely doesn’t feel fine, either. The thought of giving her up makes a cold feeling creep up his spine.

And she’s leaving tomorrow.

“Katara,” he calls. She meets his eyes. “I don’t want a break from you.”

She holds his gaze, says nothing. There are a million things he wants to say. None of them will make a difference now, so he settles on what he can still keep.

“Promise me you will write me back? Please?”

She leans in his direction, rests her forehead on his shoulder. “Okay.” She whispers.

She breathes deeply, then surprises him by getting up all of a sudden.

“Okay, enough.” She says. Starts pulling her hair in a messy braid. “If I’m going to get any sleep, I need to get some energy out of my system. Spar with me?”

He’s still a little dazed from the moment she's just broke. “If we bend here, people will hear us.”

“Then we won’t bend.” She raises her hands in a fighting stance.

He snorts.

“C’mon, get up.” She orders. He does, without much energy, though.

“You know this isn’t going to last a-” She jabs him in the ribs.

Hard.

“Ouch.” He clutches his side, suddenly alert.

“I’ve been working on it.” Her smile is downright smug.

“...Okay,” he says. Laughs a little. Gets in a fighting stance himself. “Alright, let me see what you’ve got.”

He’s still much better than her. Zuko has many extra years of training and real-life experience in hand-to-hand combat, while she always relied on her bending. But Katara is vicious, fighting with her elbows, targeting his softer spots and and using her agility and smaller size in her favor.

She said she needed to get some energy out, so he lets her move. He parries most of her strikes and throws some her way to test her abilities. Once he gets a feel for her strategy, and they are both breathing hard with exertion, he starts pressing closer so she can’t move so freely — she still fights like a waterbender, with a wide stance and movements that flow into each other.

It’s not too difficult, then, to predict her next move. He hooks her arm and sidesteps her, maneuvering behind her, pinning both of her hands behind her back. He locks her neck with his elbow, her head pressing on his collarbone.

She freezes.

“Do you yield?”

“Never.” Her voice comes out airy in a labored exhale.

He tightens his arm slightly, it forces her chin up. He feels her intake of breath against his chest. “How do you get out of this situation then?”

He can feel her swallowing against his forearm.

“I… I don’t know.” She still sounds out of breath.

“Think.”

Her response is half breath and half chuckle, “Kinda hard right now.”

There’s a nervous note to her voice. And that’s when Zuko takes note of their position. Her back is flush against his chest, and he is speaking very close to her ear.

He loosens his hold on her. He expects her to use his hesitation to move away, but she doesn’t.

Slowly, he lets the arm around her neck slide, rests his hand on the junction between her shoulder and her neck. He lets her arms go, places that hand on her waist. He can feel her shallow breaths, wonders if she can feel his heart beating wildly in his chest.

She moves her face slightly to the side, his nose touches lightly on her temple.

“I should go,” she whispers. His hands tighten involuntarily.

“Stay,” he whispers back, “just a moment.”

She hesitates.

When she covers his hands with hers, he thinks she’s gonna remove them from her body. His hold is loose enough that she could easily pull away, and this is beyond inappropriate. Instead, he feels her lean her weight into his chest, carefully, like she’s testing a rock she’s not sure is gonna hold.

He desperately wants to hold her.

He closes his eyes, burrows his nose in her hair, pulls her closer.

Slowly, the tension leaves her frame, and her body is so warm against him, so soft. Her hair smells like flowers. He wants her to stay forever.

There is a warm feeling taking root in his chest. One that seems to envelop all his senses. In the back of his mind, something tells him he is treading on dangerous waters, too deep to swim out of. He does not care.

He's not sure how long they stay there. It’s longer than he has any right to, shorter than he’d like.

Eventually, he hears her faint whisper, “I’m gonna go now.”

She slips away from him slowly, like she, too, is waking up from some sort of dream state. She steps out of his arms, but her right hand stays intertwined with his until the very last moment, until she has to drop it.

He stands in the middle of the garden, watches as she closes her doors silently.

The night breeze feels almost chilly against his chest, without her there. But the warm feeling in his heart stays with him as he walks back to his bedroom, and all the way into his dreams.

Chapter Text

The black ink drips from his brush back into the small jar.

Zuko lets out a breath, the flame of the lone candle on his desk sways. Wavy shadows dance over his naked torso and the waiting parchment.

‘Dear Katara,’ it reads.

And nothing else.

Beyond the softly lit spot that is his desk, his room remains as dark as the rest of the palace. It’s late.

He wants to send the letter tomorrow morning, so it will arrive in Kosuishi at the same time as Katara does. He has a small window to reach her in each town, otherwise, she won’t have time to write him back before moving on, and he’s hoping to get at least a letter a week.

He doesn’t know how to begin, though.

Ever since she left the city four days ago, he has been walking around in a sort of daze. When he closes his eyes, he can still feel her weight against his chest, her shallow breath, the flowery scent of her hair… it all seems branded into his memory.

They had agreed he wouldn’t be at port the next day, but he went anyway. He needed to see her one last time. He needed her to know… wanted everybody to know.

He couldn’t really say anything meaningful at the time, with so many people around.

It might have been a good thing, in the end. If no one were around, he might have done something stupid, like grabbing her face and kissing her, with the way her eyes were on him — like she, too, was struggling not to come closer.

But he can’t say the things he means now, either.

None of the feelings in his chest can be properly conveyed through letter. The things he wants to say need to be discussed in person.

Between kisses to the nape of her neck, if possible.

He abandons the brush and buries his hands in his hair, the loose strands form a curtain around his face. How many times has he replayed that moment in his head, again? More than he’d care to admit. What if he had tried to kiss her? Would she have stopped him? Would she have kissed him back?

He feels like she left in the middle of a conversation. And now he doesn’t know what to do with the empty space — with the answers he didn’t get, the questions he didn’t ask.

Questions he can’t really ask her yet.

Because they agreed. To be careful and to be wise. And he won’t go back on his word, even if he wants nothing more than to throw caution to the wind.

So he draws a slow breath, in and out, picks up his brush and writes ‘I hope your ship made a good journey.’ even though it sounds ridiculous when what he really wants to say is ‘I miss you terribly’.

He asks ‘Did you come across any rain?’ instead of ‘Do you feel the way I do?’.

He tells her about the changing weather and prompts her about the state of the cities and the clinics she will visit, ends with ‘I’m looking forward to your reply. Tell me all about your journey and the people you’re meeting.’ and doesn’t say ‘I wish I could hear your tales in person, while holding your hand.’

The letter ends up too short.

He has learned how to do small talk, but doesn’t really want to. The things he can’t say keep coming back to him.

Earlier that evening, he had been back to the garden. He wasn’t sure why. But it had been strange. A place that seemed almost enchanted all those nights, and now… it was rather unremarkable. Because he could not help himself, he brought something back.

He gets the stalk of the flowering grass from her garden — the one that was always brushing their feet when they sat on the deck — and fixes it to the letter with a bit of wax, right next to the postscript:

‘I hope you stay longer next time.’

It’s ambiguous enough that it won’t bring them trouble if the letter falls into the wrong hands. But she will know all the things he means.

Hopefully.

He rolls the paper and seals it before he loses his nerve.

After sending the letter, he feels so jittery he worries everyone will see the reason written plainly on his forehead:

The Fire Lord has been sneaking around with a lady far too good for him.

He also has no game and sent her grass.

Grass.

What is wrong with him?

He half wishes he could talk to someone about it, but he refuses to speak with Aang about women on principle — not only is he the Avatar, he is so damn nice, and cute, and funny. He’s never had any advice Zuko could apply, not really. Sokka is a charmer but he’s also her brother and there’s no way Zuko’s talking to him about any of this.

He spends longer than usual on his morning exercise in an attempt to disperse some of the nerves. It doesn’t quite work.

He keeps wondering what she will feel when she opens that letter. What will she think of his words? Was he too forward? Was he pathetic?

Probably.

He ends up late for his first appointment, and curses himself for hurrying when he could have been later.

“My Lord?” His secretary calls, “Would you like me to repeat?”

The latest correspondence announced, in the usual flowery language of the Earth Kingdom noble families, that Lord and Lady Beshor have boarded the ship headed to the Fire Nation and should arrive in a month's time.

With Lady Ino, their daughter.

Why did Zuko answer those three families?

His nerves quiet suddenly, in the worst possible way. His stomach, which felt fluttery, now seems to hold the weight of fifty rocks. The warm haze in his brain has all but dissipated. Everything comes sharply into focus: the letter on his desk, the Fire Nation insignia on the opposite wall, the schedule he set for himself and had all but forgotten.

He is the Fire Lord, in the middle of a long process to select a bride for a political marriage.

He adjusts the collar of his robes.

“I heard you, Kaito.” He heaves a sigh. They’re on their way, there’s nothing to be done about it now. “What’s the next correspondence?”

“A reply will be expected, my Lord.”

Zuko tries to breathe.

The visit was scheduled months ago. It’s not like he would have been able to call it off, not without causing great offense and a possible scarcity of the essential oils the Beshor family trades with the Fire Nation, which is the official reason for their visit.

“Why are they coming by sea, anyway?” His tone is too sharp, judging by the way his secretary flinches. “The airships are much faster, they wouldn’t have needed to leave so soon.”

“I believe the Lady Beshor doesn’t trust the airships, my Lord,” Kaito answers carefully. There’s a subtle twinkle of amusement in his eyes, Zuko is not sure at whose expense it is.

He lets some air out through his nose.

It’s a silly point. Their leaving now or later wouldn’t have made a difference. If it weren’t for the ship, it would have been the calendar causing him anxiety. But knowing the Beshor family is on their way makes Zuko feel like he is being stalked by a very slow predator, crawling its way across the sea.

“The reply, my Lord?” His secretary asks after some moments of silence.

Zuko glowers at his desk. He is not being reasonable, he knows that.

He had to have answered some families. He put out the word. He needed to follow through. He might be cursing himself for it now, but if he hadn’t made the decision for a political marriage, Katara would have never initiated that conversation with him after the Summit.

Unbidden, her voice speaks in his mind: ‘This is supposed to make things easier, not harder.’

That night in the library, poring over chronicles of all four nations, they sifted for information that might be valuable: rulers who had made international marriages, lands which gained prosperity again after long conflicts, the education of the rulers who did the best works.

Back then, Zuko was still trying to be rational. He agreed that they would consider the political climate before making any decision. Because this whole time, they have been discussing a political marriage.

That’s their agreement.

Right now, public opinion seems favorable, and his council… well, he’s pretty sure she won them all over on that meeting, when she stood up to Minister Sakasai’s words with poise and grace and made it seem easy somehow. Even Sakasai himself seemed impressed by the end of it.

Zuko knows how quickly all of these things can change, though. He has weathered his fair share of rough winds since taking the throne. If it becomes a challenge in any way… Katara was clear that it would not be wise to fight the odds.

But she stayed in his arms... Pressed her body against his chest. Held on to his hand until the very last moment.

That had to mean something.

He may not be great at reading people, but he can’t have imagined the way things had changed between them over time. The strange mix of comfort and excitement in their conversations. The softness in her eyes when he kissed her hand every night before leaving that garden.

Being moved is not the same as being decided, though. And it’s definitely not the same as being willing to face even more challenges than this marriage will already signify on its own.

Why didn’t he just invite her to dinner like a normal person? Nooo, he had to go and make it a state affair.

But then again, he is a state affair.

He gets up to stand near the window. His secretary, knowing not to press when he is deep in thought like this, busies himself organizing some papers.

The air feels heavy with humidity as dark clouds roll above the city. The first rains have reached the capital, and monsoon season will begin in earnest any day now. There is always extra work this time of the year. Repairs to be done after the storms, citizens in need of aid, illnesses that show up with the rainy season.

This is his life.

Call it honor, call it burden, it is his.

‘There’s a lot more than just the two of us to consider here.’ Katara’s voice speaks in his mind again.

He has work to do and an example to set, and he cannot fail. He cannot lose sight of his priorities. Maybe this is what Katara meant when she said ‘This can become quite convoluted’ and ‘Let’s not be stupid.’

…But isn’t the fact that she cares this much proof of how well she would do at it?

He has known her for over a decade now. Can he honestly imagine anyone better for the job?

He’s met the three ladies before, though only in passing. He tries to imagine how well they would do at helping him rule, but he doesn’t have nearly enough information to make this assessment.

He tries to imagine holding them in his arms like he did Katara.

It feels— wrong.

The unease that crawls up his chest is so strong he can’t even stand still. He braces an arm at the windowsill, heaves a sigh. Kaito glances at him after his sudden movement.

Zuko tries to compose himself. Closes his eyes, focuses on his breath.

In through his nose.

It was her.

Slowly, out through his mouth.

It is her.

He lets his shoulders drop, allows the fight to go out of him.

Zuko hasn’t been in the habit of lying to himself for a long time: his heart has already decided.

He’s in love with a woman who’s sailing away from him right now and whom he won’t be able to meet again until at least mid-fall.

They went over so many scenarios in their conversations, now she will have time to consider all of them carefully. Zuko’s life is a maze of complications, if she marries him, hers will be too. And Katara is free now. She travels, meets new places, new people...

She might meet someone else. Someone more free, more interesting, with less baggage. There’s the possibility she simply won’t want the crown. They are discussing a political marriage and half a year is plenty of time for much to change. He can’t decide for her.

Meanwhile, he’ll have to meet other people and deal with the outcomes of that, none of which he can control.

A cold fear begins to creep up his chest.

He refuses to let it take hold.

This is his decision to make.

Not his council’s. Not the public’s. He makes this call.

If Katara isn’t willing to fight the odds, he will just have to work so she doesn’t have to.

He has made commitments. But the meetings will be just that: meetings. His correspondences were careful not to give the impression that they would necessarily mean anything more. And making new connections is always good, diplomatically speaking.

He’ll just have to be careful.

He raises his head. “Kaito,” he calls.

“Yes, Fire Lord?”

“Write a simple reply. The Fire Nation will be honoured to receive the Beshor family and continue our long-standing trading relationship, etecetara.” His voice is tense even to his own ears. “Read it over to me when you’re done.”

It would show more interest if Zuko wrote with his own hand, which is why he won’t. He knows how to subtly show his inclinations without causing slight.

He may not be able to control all the variables, but he has had ten years to master the art of influencing things in the direction he wants them to go.

He will put all of his skills to use.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Katara’s reply arrives about a week after he sent his letter. By the time it’s in his hands, she is already on her way to the next city.

‘Dear Zuko,’

‘It was lovely to have your letter waiting for me when I arrived. I hope you don’t mind that I waited a bit longer to write you back. I was waiting to gather some more tales to send you.’

That’s what Zuko started calling her retellings of her day when she was still in the capital.

She had come back once, so excited about the results of a new treatment protocol — and the resulting barb exchange between two healers with opposing ideas — that she had talked a mile a minute. When she paused, and had to catch her breath, she suddenly shrank on herself with a grimace and the most charming blush.

“Sorry,” she said, “that ran away from me. I didn’t mean to bore you.”

“You haven’t,” he answered honestly, “I like your… tales, actually.”

She snorted, “My ‘tales’?”

“Yes. Don’t leave me hanging now—” he narrowed his eyes— “Was Ayumi mad at Soshiro when he said that?”

She chuckled, and seemed convinced enough to need very little prompting for her ‘tales’ every evening after that.

In the letter, she tells him about the journey — some light rain on the way — and her week working with the healers of Kosuishi — fine people, attentive to the training, no drama to report, sadly. Then, she writes:

‘Your land is so beautiful. Visiting this year made me notice so much I hadn’t paid proper attention to before. The bay in the morning, the cherry trees, even the grass is breathtaking.’

‘Isn’t it funny how we can be surprised by what we thought we knew?’

His heart races.

‘It will be a while before I can come back, if you invite me. Hopefully, the weather will still be favorable enough. But monsoon season is just around the corner, so who’s to say? I’m trying not to get ahead of myself.’

‘Write to me properly, you told me so little about you. I miss your conversation more than I can say.’

‘Sincerely,
— Your friend, Katara.’

He reads the last paragraphs again and again. A mix of disbelief and awe burning up in his chest.

It’s all there: the port, the hanami, that last night in the garden. He remembers her quick pulse under his thumb where it pressed to her neck — there’s no way it’s that stupid grass stalk she’s calling breathtaking.

‘If you invite me.’ makes him frown. Until he realizes she is simply stating a fact: he’s the one who gets to invite. He has been worried about her accepting him, but has he been clear enough? Does she understand how much he wants this?

She wrote ‘Hopefully’, ‘I miss your conversation more than I can say’ and ‘I’m trying not to get ahead of myself’.

How much more of a confession can Zuko expect from her at this point?

She’s showing her hand. As much as she can without saying things explicitly.

And she won’t unless he does. ‘Write to me properly, you told me so little about you.’ In their situation, the first decision has to be his. She’s been following his lead, meeting him in the middle.

Except… Her letter gave away a lot more than his did.

She wants him.

His heart thumps in his chest.

Does she? What if he’s misreading things? Is he just seeing what he wants to see?

Screw caution.

He won’t see her again for months. She’s only going to get farther away every week, and these letters will be the only thread between them. He’ll make them count.

The next morning, he’s already at his office when his secretary arrives.

Kaito’s eyebrows rise up. Zuko’s routine hardly ever changes. “You’re early, my Lord. Is something wrong?”

“No. I’m getting ahead on the correspondence. I have a mission for you today.” Zuko gives him the sketches he worked on the previous night. “I need you to find the best jeweler in town and have this ready in- three days. Pay as much as you have to.”

“Are those-” his secretary cocks his head “-beads?”

“Yes. But metal, not bone.”

Kaito analyses the sketches attentively. Asks a few questions to clear if he has properly understood all the motifs and takes a couple of notes.

“Silver, I’m assuming?” There’s a hint of a smile in his voice.

Zuko allows a corner of his lips to curl up. He’s not trying to keep a secret. “Yes.” He looks at the parchment again. “Actually—” he circles the bead with a sun motif “—make this one gold.”

The fact that his usually placid secretary has his eyebrows up by his hairline tells Zuko everything he needs to know: it’s a bold move.

Good.

“I’ll be right on it, sir.”

As he’s leaving, something occurs to Zuko. “Kaito?”

“Yes, sir?”

He thinks about how to phrase it.

“Gossip… spreads really fast, doesn’t it?” He puts his elbows on his desk, staples his fingers.

Kaito turns serious. “I’ll make sure to be discreet, sir.”

Zuko hums. “Certainly. But some things always... slip out. And it would be a shame if people got misleading information, wouldn’t it?”

He fixes his eyes on his secretary until he sees the realization dawning on his face.

“Yes…” Mouth ajar, Kaito starts nodding slowly. “Yes, but… I was in such a hurry, because this had to be- shipped so quickly, while a certain lady was still in the country.” He tries.

Zuko keeps looking at him.

“And… I may have been very stressed out about making the motifs according to what was intended by… the person who drew them… personally. Yes? And people… have been talking a lot since the hanami. They reach… conclusions.” Kaito raises his shoulders.

Zuko gives him a minute nod. Kaito nods back and goes on his way.

While she was close, he could dare in subtle ways — a hand to her ankle, a flirty remark — and watch her reaction in real time. He could read her expressions and body language.

This time, he sent her a bold gift, and bold words, and poetry lines. And then had to sit and wait. A whole week.

He was happy enough with his letter when he sent it.

Any open promises right now, while he still had to meet three other ladies, would sound unreliable at best and manipulative at worst. So he was careful with his words, trying to say enough but not too much. In the end, he’s not sure if he succeeded at either.

He’s been consoling himself with the fact that Katara is Water Tribe, at the very least, she will appreciate his honesty — and if she didn’t mock him for the grass, of all things, she won’t start now.

It’s afternoon, Zuko has just finished his last meeting and is reviewing some documents when his secretary knocks on the door, looking like he rushed all the way there.

“Excuse me, my Lord. This has just arrived.” Kaito brings the hard, cylindrical leather case that is usually attached to the messenger hawks. It bears a blue ribbon and Katara’s seal. “I thought you’d want to have it immediately.”

Zuko, who has been trying to keep his head, is not proud of how quickly he drops everything. “Yes, thank you.”

Kaito is out in a flash, closing the door, and Zuko is already breaking the seal. The case brings a rolled parchment and a makeshift narrow envelope, there’s something heavy inside. He opens the letter first.

Dear Zuko,

We made good time on the journey here. Our boat came across a school of parrot-fish, such a sight! The islands are beautiful in this more rural area — it always reminds me of the first time I came to the Fire Nation as a teenager.

She tells him some more of the scenery, then about the training and a new plant extract the healers have been using to prevent mosquito bites, and that she already wrote Minister Saoh and the Grand Clinic in Caldera about it.

‘I went sightseeing on the last day.’ She writes. ‘Lady Eenisa, the governor, invited me. I have a feeling she heard some ‘tales’ from Caldera. But she had been welcoming every other time I passed by the city, too, so it felt genuine enough.

We visited a beach full of shells and seaglass. We don’t get many in the South, and they mostly get broken up by the cold and the tides. A beautiful one is like a small treasure. So this felt like walking into a dreamscape. Or maybe I’ve been just reading too much poetry.

She thanks him for his last letter and talks about her expected arrival in Ba Sing Se, tells him where to direct the next letter.

Other than one line about poetry, she mentioned nothing about what he said or the gift he sent. Zuko feels like this was a subtle rejection.

P.S.: I’m trying to travel light, hold on to something for me?

Zuko finally opens the envelope.

Inside, a long soft leather cord holds a small flat piece of seaglass, blue like her eyes, flanked by two blue beads.

Zuko looks closer, and sucks in a breath.

Those are her hair beads.

She sent him her hair beads.

He looks at the length of the cord, bites his lip. When he slips it around his neck, it reaches the center of his chest. It’s discreet enough he can hide it perfectly under his robes.

If he plays this right, one day he won’t have to hide it anymore.

Holding his hidden necklace and countless hidden words close to his heart, it feels possible. And for now, that is enough.

Chapter Text

Lonely is a word Zuko would never use to describe himself. Not out loud. But he had thought it for most of his life.

As a child, after his mother left. As a teen, hunting a legend aboard a cold metal ship in the middle of the ocean. As a refugee, fleeing the Fire Nation with an uncle he didn’t believe understood him. As a newly-crowned Fire Lord, with a burden too heavy for any young shoulders to be expected to bear.

But his shoulders had grown broader and stronger, the last ten years had shaped him into a man with clear values, who knows how to tread and where to find help when needed. Somewhere along the way, he stopped seeing himself as the scared and unsure boy he used to be. He hadn’t even thought about the word ‘lonely’ in a long time.

If anything, most days he wishes people would leave him alone. As head of a nation there is always someone who needs to talk to him, and he craves his moments of quiet, relishes them.

It is with surprise, then, that Zuko finds his days permeated by a sense of emptiness in the weeks he can’t reach Katara.

He goes about his tasks.

Meditation. Bending or sword practice. Breakfast. Correspondence. Studying. Meetings. Lunch. More meetings. Functions. Meetings again. Dinner. Rereading Katara’s previous letters. Sleep. Repeat.

He can sense his own agitation.

The edge of irritation lurking just under the usual layer of politeness he has to use in his daily conversations. The monotony of his routine is driving him up the wall. He wants to scream at— not someone, he can’t be screaming at people. Something, maybe? Himself. Yes, that might work.

He lands harder than necessary after a roundhouse kick. The woosh of the flames and the sweat trickling down his bare back are almost enough to calm his discontentment.

Almost.

“Well, someone is in a mood.” The tone is light and almost teasing.

Zuko has no patience for it today. He gets into his next kata.

A few feet away, a man in his forties stands with arms crossed, observing Zuko’s morning practice.

Yosu is a man of short stature and slender build, easy to underestimate in a fight. But his moves are precise, and his firebending, powerful. Both his skills and loyalty have been proven many times during the years he has served as one of Zuko’s personal guards.

He had defected from the Fire Nation army a few years after being drafted, when he was still young, but presented himself again once Zuko took the throne. Only willing to stand by a ruler he respects, he isn’t intimidated by the title. Zuko trusts him with his life, and also to tell him when he’s being stupid.

A man sure of his convictions, Yosu is exactly the kind of person Zuko likes having around.

“Your form is sloppy.”

Most of the time.

“You wanna spar, Yosu?” Zuko knows his tone doesn’t help disprove the accusation that he is ‘in a mood’. He is in too much of a mood to care.

“Will it help get that scowl off your face, my lord?”

That ‘my lord’ is a jab and they both know it.

“It will help shut you up.”

Yosu lets out a sharp bark of laughter and gets in position.

The fun of sparring with Yosu is that neither has to hold back much. They are both master firebenders and Yosu’s experience is a good match for Zuko’s superior strength, especially when he is feeling emotionally troubled, like now.

Still, by the time they end their match, bowing to each other, he knows he almost singed his friend’s topknot at least twice.

Zuko looks at the position of the sun — higher than it should be. If he doesn’t hurry he will be late for his first appointment. He collects his tunic, dabs at his face and neck with a washcloth as he prepares to leave.

Yosu finishes chugging some water and wipes the sweat from his forehead. “When is she writing you?” He asks, still catching his breath.

Zuko’s surprise must show in his face because the guard snorts.

“Please tell me it will be soon. You’re insufferable right now.”

Zuko turns his back to leave. “One of these days, Yosu, you’ll wake up in the dungeons.”

“At least I’d get to keep my hair!”

Four weeks.

Four weeks without news from her is what it takes to wear him down into an ‘insufferable’ person, apparently.

He knew to expect the absence of her letters during this period. He feels miserable anyway.

Katara had written him from Ba Sing Se while Zuko received the Beshor family in the Fire Nation.

Thankfully, Lady Ino seemed more interested in the Fire Nation flora than in the Fire Lord himself, asking questions about the plants in the royal garden and confessing in her polished and gentle tone that she never much liked politics.

He hosted the Beshor family for two weeks, in which he learned some more about his own garden and managed to strike a tentative friendship with Lady Ino over their mutual disdain for Nishi’s exaggerated flattery of her family.

Overall, Zuko found their visit to be surprisingly pleasant.

The fact that Lady Ino showed no real interest in him also meant he got to exchange letters with Katara without feeling even a little bit guilty.

His visitors returned to the Earth Kingdom — with trading contracts signed and a number of plant cuttings to care for — around the same time Katara’s letters had ceased as she went into the next part of her journey: an incursion into the Earth Kingdom countryside, where she’d be moving too quickly and through places too small to have messenger hawks.

The incursion happens yearly with a group of about a dozen healers who travel through cities and villages too small to have full-time trained doctors. They perform examinations, conduct health education workshops and distribute medical supplies for those who can’t afford them.

Zuko knows much about it, not only from what Katara has told him but also because part of the resources from this program come from the war reparations that the Fire Nation will maintain for ten more years.

It’s an important program, a necessary one, and Katara loves this part — helping the little people, as she sometimes puts it.

It feels petty to be so bitter over the lack of news when this is what she’s doing. But he cannot help himself.

He misses her.

Rereading her letters helped some, at first.

Until it started making him feel worse.

‘The trip to Ba Sing Se was a pleasant one, watching the mountains from above the clouds is always a beautiful sight.’

‘The earthbenders in the lower ring are testing some interesting solutions for drainage, I think it might be useful in some areas of the Fire Nation, too, especially during the monsoons. I’m sending you a sketch.’

‘I went to a concert yesterday with some friends. We saw a travelling troupe with people from all three nations, the mix of instruments and styles was so fun! I think you would have enjoyed it.’

The thing is… Katara has an interesting life. Thriving and full.

And Zuko— well. Zuko likes his routine, but he knows it isn’t exactly an exciting one.

He is going through numbers, meetings, correspondences, day in and day out. Meanwhile, Katara is out there, seeing new sights, meeting friends, helping people who need her. And Zuko just can’t help but think… she’s too bright for the dullness of what he has to offer.

‘We received a donation. The amount of supplies to take inland is larger than last year and we’re struggling to get enough carts. Amaqjuaq has been a huge help in the process.’

And there’s also that: all the people she meets during her travels.

He knows the Southern Water Tribe is not as particular about physical attachments as the Fire Nation. And he knows Katara — beautiful, charming, sweet. It’s not too difficult to assume she might have a number of candidates in every city.

He reminds himself that she said ‘not many people are interested to begin with’, which was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard, but she had also been talking about marriage then, which is very different from a casual relationship.

In his worst moments, he wonders what kind of experience she has had so far. And anything his mind comes up with seems… intimidating. Specially when compared to his one-and-years-ago relationship.

Zuko has not felt this inadequate in a long time. He hates it.

He started with worrying if she would accept him but at this point he’s wondering if she even should.

When he thinks about her, he sees… light. Bright eyes, a curl of lips, the smell of flowers. How is he supposed to keep a woman like that happy?

He looks around. Minister Sakasai cleans his glasses. Minister Hiroki stifles a yawn.

His reality is too dull for her.

Lady Ino would be easier.

“Lady Ino is a delight.” Lady Shi declares to the committee.

Gentle, soft spoken, pretty and sweet in a way only a lifetime of being shielded from a war-ravaged world can make a person, Lady Ino had arrived with her parents, two personal attendants and dresses that looked like they required four to put on.

“The perfect wife.” Lord Yaom agrees.

“I thought you were already married, councilor,” Zuko comments. His light tone carries just enough edge to remind them that only one person in this room gets to make that judgment.

A few nervous chuckles followed by awkward silence assure him that his message was received.

Zuko assembled this team carefully — people whose advice he prizes, and people whose opinion he needs to hear to get a fuller picture. There are only seven members, and today they are joined by a team of three secretaries responsible for gathering information from the public.

“She might not attract much support from the commonfolk.” Minister Sakasai ponders. “Too much pomp.”

“Nonsense. The commonfolk love some pomp.” Lord Yaom counters. He’s one of those people Zuko has to hear, but rarely likes to.

“That might have been true in different times.” Minister Sakasai says, “When we weren’t recovering from such a long war.”

“When we didn’t have a literal war hero as a possibility,” Minister Saoh adds.

“There we go again.” Lord Muzako comments, and some people snicker.

“I don’t deny my preference.” Minister Saoh raises his shoulders, unpreoccupied.

Minister Sakasai speaks again, “Naturally, the Ba Sing Se ladies won’t have the same draw to the people, not having come here. But all names have been made known since we last heard from the public. What are the opinions?”

The secretaries report on what has been gathered.

Lady Ukyia Shi and Lady Miko Huang, whom Zuko will visit in Ba Sing Se in the following weeks, are favored by some nobles, mainly those who hold business relationships with their families, but Sakasai was right about most other people barely knowing their names.

Lady Ino, with her demure behavior and impeccable appearance, embodied a model of the traditional feminine values many families still uphold. Though some comments antagonise the excess complexity of her hair and attire, she gained quick popularity among nobility and the interest of the people in the capital.

But when all sides are taken into account, there is a clear favorite.

“Master Katara’s work over the years has made her quite popular, and not only in Caldera.” Ikeda, the secretary commanding the team and organizing all the information, explains.

He asks the other secretaries for summaries on the reports received from other cities in the archipelago.

The Fire Nation isn’t very large. Katara has been to most relevant cities at least once, and those who haven’t seen her in person have heard about her work with the White Lotus or about her actions during the war.

It’s not unanimous — it never is. Some people seem to think she is not suitable for the palace, either for being a waterbender or a ‘peasant’ or both. Some called her a ‘witch’, and Zuko is quite certain that worse terms are being omitted from the official report.

The positive opinions, however, are a staggering majority.

People compliment her beauty, how well she speaks, and how respectful she is with people from all social levels. Stories are passed around about times she saved sick children, cried with a family who lost an elder and even one situation where she caught a couple of robbers.

Zuko has no idea how many of those actually happened and which ones have been too amplified to still be considered true, but they all sound enough like her.

“People are saying the Fire Lord is quite taken and that the marriage is a near-certain thing. There are rumors that they’ve been corresponding and trading gifts since she left.”

Zuko keeps his face carefully neutral, as if he were hearing nothing more than reports on a construction project. Beside him, Kaito doesn’t even look up from the notes he is taking.

Since the last meeting, Ikeda says, a new theory has started going around.

“We have heard, quite frequently this time, that they’ve been secretly in love for years. People are recalling—” Ikeda seems unsure for a moment “—the lightning strike.”

Zuko resists the urge to touch the star shape on his chest.

The theory is wrong — Zuko wasn’t in love with her back then. But now Katara’s seaglass and hair beads rest lightly against that scar and, when he thinks about how quickly things changed between them, he wonders if the feeling was ever that far away.

“Some are saying that’s why she broke up with the Avatar all those years ago.”

“We are lucky that the Avatar is already married.” Lady Gotoh, responsible for managing the communications of the palace, breathes a sigh of relief. “If that story had spread in different circumstances, it would have been a mess to manage.”

“Indeed.” Ikeda agrees, “Right now, most people seem to find it… a romantic concept. In fact, most people do in general, with the long-time friendship.”

The secretaries continue their report. Zuko fixes his eyes on the table.

Over the years, he’s had to learn how to keep his face in check and usually does it well, but he doesn’t trust himself right now. He can feel his breathing going shallow, the tension in his jaw. He worries that if he moves, he’ll end up bolting from the room.

The reports are more positive than he could have hoped for. The overwhelming majority of his people seems to approve of Katara, the politicians, the merchants, the commonfolk — even the nobility is agreeable to the idea.

And Zuko feels like running away.

“The general mood around the idea of Master Katara as a consort is… excitement. People like the idea of a consort who’s hands-on.” Ikeda summarizes.

“How do they like the idea of waterbending royals?” Zuko finds the courage to ask, somewhat bleakly. When he looks up, the whole table is staring at him. “Katara’s a bender. The possibility needs to be considered.”

He watches two secretaries trade a glance, no doubt registering how he called her by the first name.

“My Lord, may I say,” Lord Yaom begins, carefully, “if you think it might pose a problem—”

“You misunderstand me,” Zuko interrupts, “I have nothing against the idea. But some sectors might, and that needs to be taken into account.” He turns to Ikeda, “Plant it. I want to know the opinions on the topic by our next meeting, after I return from Ba Sing Se.”

The secretary nods and takes note on his scroll.

“Are we… certain it is a good idea to introduce this topic now, my Lord?” Lord Muzako asks. “This is a problem that might never come to pass.”

The committee is watching him, confused expressions on their faces.

Zuko heaves a sigh. He doesn’t want his council to think he is against marrying Katara, but it’s not wise to give his feelings away. He takes a moment to organize his thoughts.

When he finally speaks again, his voice is measured.

“Master Katara is, most likely, our best candidate, and not only because of the recent popularity. She has good relationships across nations, experience with diplomacy, she knows this nation better than half of our politicians. She’s charming, she’s smart, she’s diligent. I have no doubt she could do excellent work here.” He says all that matter-of-factly, with as little emotion as possible. “She’s also… a beautiful woman. We’ve been friends for a long time. People think it’s romantic.”

“You want to know what’s not romantic?” He continues, “Let’s say we married. In ten years, when she’s no longer a novelty, and the country goes through a crisis of some sort, the number of people calling her a ‘witch’ will double. The ones calling her ‘savage’ and ‘animal’ will get more supporters and grow aggressive —and I’m pretty sure those words were mentioned at some point in the interviews, weren’t they, Ikeda?”

Posture tense, the secretary answers with a quiet, “Yes.”

“Don’t omit it from the reports.” Zuko stresses each word, eyes fixed on the man, “I want to know— I need to know. How many there are, where they are, if they’re in a specific region of the country or mostly in a certain social group. I need to know. I need clear information.”

Ikeda nods, pursing his lips. “Yes, my Lord.”

He turns back to the whole committee. “Because in forty, fifty years, when succession becomes an issue, and one firebending child looks like me and the other looks like their mother, perhaps even the oldest… What kind of political tension do you think that could cause?” He pauses, lets his audience consider the implications, the same ones that have been running through his mind for weeks now. “Would a waterbending child ever be accepted as a proper prince or princess? Would they be shunned from their home country?”

“If the number of people who dislike the idea is small enough, and it doubles, it will still be small, it can be managed. If it is already a worrying percentage right now, however… We might not be able to afford this decision. A nonbender consort might be a safer choice.”

Even as he says it, he can hear the bitterness in his voice. Somewhere along his speech the mask of indifference slipped.

’Vulnerability is weakness’, his father used to say.

‘An idealist with a pure heart,’ Iroh advised him once, ‘people will follow you because of it.’

They’re both right on these accounts. There’s a balance to be found, but it’s particularly hard when his feelings are so muddled.

Yearning. Fear. All too close to the surface. He tries to recenter himself.

Someone tries to speak but he raises a hand and they go silent.

“Let me make something very clear,” there’s no masking the tightness in his voice, “The fact that we are discussing a political marriage does not mean I intend to treat my wife and children as… props… to the Fire Nation. That’s what Ozai did.”

He watches people widen their eyes, open their mouths in surprise. Zuko doesn’t often talk about his father.

“He saw his family as… an extension of his insane ego. Not as people. But as a means to an end. And that was what almost drove my sister to insanity. It drove me down the wrong path for many years.” He swallows. “As Fire Lord, I have a responsibility to this nation, and if I raise another generation of… power-hungry people fighting for the throne… I will have failed.”

“Now, if I invite a woman under my wing, knowing her children might never be welcome in their own home— Then I will have failed as a person.”

Zuko takes a breath, feeling like there’s not enough air in the room.

“In a couple of days, I will be going to Ba Sing Se, to discuss trade with King Kuwei and also to meet Lady Ukyia Shi and Lady Miko Huang. In a month, when I return, we need enough information on how the nation sees the possibility of a royal family member who bends water, or earth— Lady Ukyia may not be a master but she is a bender. Remember, Ikeda: complete and detailed information, this is very important.”

Ikeda nods, he looks determined. “I understand, my Lord.”

“Minister Hiroki,” he adds, “we must also speak of how this possibility would affect succession and regency laws. Draft a proposal we can discuss, Kaito will reach out to set a meeting as soon as I’m back.”

The minister of Law and Justice nods in response, face serious.

The councilors and secretaries have their eyes fixed on him. He’s not sure what he sees — apprehension, admiration, perhaps a bit of pity — he can deal with no one else’s feelings right now.

“Thank you, councilors. You’re dismissed.”

Ba Sing Se is, somehow, both better and worse.

On the one hand, not being cooped up inside the palace does wonders for his mood. He meets with King Kuwei, who has become a much more apt ruler since the war, and is pleasant company, if a bit odd.

On the other, he’s trying to come to terms with the possibility of marrying someone else, in case the Fire Nation isn’t ready for Katara — in case she isn’t ready for it, either.

His hopes of being graceful about letting her go last until he receives her first letter from Agna Q’Ela.

‘Dear Zuko,

I cannot tell you my joy in finding your letter waiting for me when I arrived.

Corresponding with you so often in the months after leaving Caldera has spoiled me rotten. My only consolation for the past four weeks was rereading your previous letters, but it’s not the same as getting news from you.’

Zuko feels the stupid flame of hope rise in his chest all over again.

She tells him about the incursion in the Earth Kingdom countryside, ‘We had very little time to rest, and accommodations were improvised. I might have a crick in my neck for the rest of my days. But we brought supplies and care to many people who needed it.’ She tells him about specific villages and their people, and how she helped deliver ‘a lovely baby girl.’

And of course, even through letter, she notices something is wrong.

‘I’ll end this here because this letter is turning out quite long. Four weeks is too long. I miss-ed getting your letters. You wrote very little about yourself, though. Are you okay? Write soon.

— Your friend, Katara’

It’s impossible.

Her mere words, from a continent away, and Zuko wants to forget all his reservations.

She squeezed that ‘ed’. Did she mean to say ‘I miss you’ before thinking better of it? Is it too much to believe she might miss him as much as he misses her?

But when he reads about the places she has been to, the meaningful work she has done, he wonders if it matters at all, in the end. Is there a world where she could leave all that behind and not grow to resent him?

…Is there a world where he could let her go and not resent himself?

Between his worries about Katara’s safety if she marries him, her happiness if she leaves her work, and his own heart who doesn’t seem to care about any reason at all, Zuko realizes he has backed himself into a corner where no option will allow him to escape unscathed.

“You could turn back now, or go forward.” Lady Miko Huang says, voice clear and sweet as she points the directions. “But both paths will lead you back to the same place eventually.”

Zuko, who has been trying and failing to pay proper attention to her description of the Huang family property, gives a small smile.

She’s standing under her parasol. It’s late afternoon and the gardens are well shaded, but the summer sun is merciless and no noble lady will risk getting sunburnt — not even her chaperone, an older woman standing a few feet behind. It’s the kind of thing Zuko’s supposed to find attractive: fair skin, pristine appearance, sedate manners.

He is reminded of Katara’s arrival in the palace months ago, the scent of salt and flowers in her frizzy hair, tan skin slightly red from the sun, her bright smile. He feels a tug in his heart.

Lady Miko is a gentle spirit — maybe too gentle. Zuko worries she would be eaten alive by court in two months; but she’s smart, and would have teachers to help her adjust.

She’s also not a bender, and seems to enjoy his company well enough.

Zuko likes her well enough.

Enough.

Could it really be?

When he decided to begin this process ‘good enough’ was the best he had dared hope for.

“What’s your favorite part of the garden?” He asks, to keep the conversation going, and tries to convince himself ‘enough’ doesn’t taste like defeat and heartbreak.

Lady Ukyia Shi is the eldest daughter of one of the oldest and richest families in Ba Sing Se, and she behaves accordingly.

Out of all the candidates, she’s the most involved in politics, influencing opinions, trade and fashion in the Earth Kingdom. Zuko chose to answer her family because it would be seen as a major slight if he hadn’t.

He knows Lady Ukyia to be determined, smart, and experienced dealing with people, all traits necessary for the job, but he had also always gotten a feeling of unease around her that he could never pin on any particular reason.

Lady Ukyia used to be the sole heir of the Shi family, until her father remarried and had a son, just one year before his death. She is the current manager of the family fortune, seeing as her stepmother wants nothing to do with work and the new Lord Shi is only five years old, but the power she once expected to keep for the rest of her life will now cease once her brother reaches majority.

He meets her exactly twice.

The first time, they go out for a walk in a small park in the inner ring. They must be seen in public and Zuko wants to get that out of the way as soon as possible.

The conversation is perfectly polite, Zuko might even have called it interesting, if it weren’t for the fact that he feels a tightness that doesn’t leave his shoulders for the duration of it. It’s something about her eyes, too analytical.

The second time, they have tea. Just as he’s starting to feel like the uneasy feeling is familiar, she startles him with:

“I hear you’re friends with Master Katara.” There’s a placid smile on her face.

“Yes,” he answers, and it sounds almost like a question. He’s pretty sure gossip has reached Ba Sing Se at this point and he doesn’t know where she is going with this.

“I met her last time she was in the city. So… polite, isn’t she?” She mentions, with her usual velvety voice and unbothered air. “Despite everything.”

His jaw tenses. “What's everything, exactly?”

“Oh, you know…” she drops her voice to a whisper, “Being Water Tribe.”

Zuko slowly rests his cup on the table, fixes his eyes on her when he asks, “And what does that have to do with politeness?”

“Oh, please. She won’t tell.” She says, nodding to the chaperone on the corner. “We don’t have to pretend here,” she adds, while selecting a pastry from the low table between them, “I thought it was very noble, what you did, including her. I’m sure it will increase her prospects.”

Zuko wants to burn something.

“I wasn’t trying to be noble. Master Katara is one of the most qualified ladies who reached out to me.”

She finally looks up at him. For a moment, she looks like she will laugh, but then she narrows her eyes. “You’re… serious.”

He can’t deal with her incredulity. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“She’s Water Tribe.” She whispers again, as if that were a dirty word. “Sure they can be… useful, but they’re not like us.”

“I think this conversation is over.” Zuko stands up. “Clearly, we don’t have the same worldview. Thank you for your time, Lady Ukyia.”

For a moment, she’s too shocked to answer.

When Zuko is about to leave the room, she speaks again.

“You’re genuinely considering her?” This time, her tone is devoid of the lilt of pleasantry she usually infuses into it. Zuko feels like he’s listening to her real voice for the first time.

He faces her again, itching for her to say anything he can outright fight her on. The obvious venom in her eyes make the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention.

“You can’t be that desperate to convince the world you won’t attack again.” Her gaze fixes him in place, her voice cutting like daggers. “Do you think Fire Nation people would accept a Water Tribe ‘lady’?” She scoffs. “In fact, do you think she actually wants that? Your people massacred hers. For a century. You think that will go away- why? Because of your pretty face?”

His nostrils flare.

Azula. That’s where Zuko recognizes the uneasy feeling from.

Lady Ukyia dresses up her viciousness as polite conversation, but when she aims, it’s straight for the heart.

He used to be the perfect target for this kind of taunt — insecure, hot-headed, and too naive to see past the words into the motivation of who spoke them.

Now, he knows: she is feeling humiliated. Zuko dismissed her with no ceremony, and in defense of a woman she doesn’t even consider to be in the same category of personhood as she is. She means to humiliate him in return.

There’s no real winning when you engage in this kind of fight, but he can still drag her down with him.

“Have a good day, Lady Ukyia. Send my regards to Lord Shi.”

Her angry expression is enough to help him stride out with a raised chin, but it does nothing to subdue the sharp pain on his chest.

She may have phrased her attacks in the cruelest possible way, but she is still right.

The city is hectic and his schedule makes him exhausted, but during the three weeks he spends in Ba Sing Se, Zuko tries his best.

He does his job — meets with Kuwei and his representatives; signs contracts with merchants.

He meets with Lady Miko a handful of times — she’s pleasant company, so it isn’t bad. It’s just not great either. From what he can tell, she feels the same way about him.

Lady Ukyia is a possible enemy for the future. But he is the Fire Lord and even with her influence there’s very little she can do to cause him real harm.

He exchanges letters with Katara — pretends like her words don’t make his chest feel like exploding.

She tells him about how she’s corresponding with Minister Saoh about the first phases of the licensing program in Caldera and fuck she’s perfect, no one else would do it like her, he writes ‘Thank you, I hope he’s not giving you too much trouble’.

She tells him how excited she is about the combat training this year ‘For the first time, there are more women enrolled than men!’ Zuko worries she would never want to abandon the Tribes, answers ‘Please give me a detailed description of Nokku’s face when you tell him that.’

Even though the future, uncertain and daunting, watches him from between every line he reads, her letters still make his days lighter.

There’s something about knowing she’s there, on the other side of this invisible bridge made of words across waters, that soothes his nerves.

So when Katara asks again if he’s truly okay, he finds himself writing too honestly.

‘My health is well, but my heart is not. I miss you terribly and feel like I'm losing my mind. I’m counting the days until I see you again in Republic City. But there’s so much I can’t control, I don’t know what kind of news I will bring. All I can say is that my hope is sincere and stronger than I expected.

No one else could do it as well as you. And for me, there’s no one—’

He rips the paper. Burns it for good measure.

A word spoken is like an arrow shot, Iroh says.

If things go sideways, he knows those words would only add hurt to both of them.

He’s sure she has enough to deal with. Gossip travels fast and she’s out in the world where anyone can tell her whatever they’re thinking — it’s impossible that all interactions have been positive.

It’s going to be at least another month until they can speak in person. Zuko doesn’t want her to think he’s changed his heart, he also doesn’t want her to be caught completely off guard in case his fears prove correct.

He tries again.

‘I apologize if I’ve sounded strange lately. My health is well and the work is running as expected. My heart, though, can’t help but worry about the future. There’s no controlling the weather, and some conditions are too dangerous for any sane person to travel in.

I’ve been trying to steer the schedule in the direction I want it, but I’m not sure how well it’ll work. I can’t say I’m at peace with the possibility that it won’t.’

Zuko should be more gracious about this. At this point, he should have learned.

But a lifetime of scrapping for whatever his fingers could reach trained his knuckles to be stiff in holding on.

What can he keep?

If he doesn’t get what he truly wants — what can he keep?

‘I promised you honesty, so here it is: The weeks I didn’t hear from you were hellish. I miss Spring, and don’t know whether I should look forward to or dread the next. If you’re not in Caldera then, would you still be willing to correspond? I can’t imagine going back to not having your words.’

It sounds as put together as he can manage while still being honest. ‘I hope to see you soon in Republic City, so we can speak in person.’ and adds ‘I miss you.’ because fuck, he’ll explode if he doesn’t say at least this.

Katara’s last letter before he leaves Ba Sing Se tells him she won’t be able to receive new letters for the next month as she travels through new cities in the Earth Kingdom on the way to Republic City.

It also tells him that she, once again, understood what he was trying to say.

‘I grew up around snow, it might be difficult for a Fire Nation citizen to understand, I know. But I know you will listen.

The first time I saw the cherry blossom season, it baffled me to no end that they could bloom with such exuberance just to fall down so quickly. But then I saw how beautiful the ground looked because of it and tasted the cherries in the summer.

Things must move forward. Some flowers become fruit, some just fertilizer, it’s impossible to know before the season comes. They were worth it, either way. I feel glad for all that bloomed.

I miss Spring too. And you. And I meant everything I said that Summit.

— Your friend always, Katara.’

It feels like a lungful of air and a knife pressed to his ribcage at the same time — he can breathe again, but only barely.

He’s thankful for her words, her reassurance that they will remain friends, that if this doesn’t turn out as they hope it can still become something else just as worthy.

The certainty that this won’t spoil what they’ve already built settles over his heart with a soothing coolness and allows him think more clearly.

But when he pictures that possibility playing out — talking to her as a friend and marrying someone else — he knows that no metaphor will be enough to patch his heart if it actually happens.

He feels wary of hope — it hurts twice as badly to suffer disappointment when you’re not prepared for it — but he can’t bring himself to accept a different result.

‘We must hold life’s gifts with an open palm,’ Aang teaches, ‘grateful for what comes but willing to let go when the time comes.’

But Zuko is no air nomad — a clenched fist is all he knows.

He wonders if Katara really feels as peaceful with either result as she sounds. Maybe she doesn’t feel as strongly as he does. Maybe it’s that she’s still a much better person than he is.

Or maybe, he dares think, maybe she is pretending, because there’s no better way to deal with it at the moment.

“There’s always a better way to do things, it’s just a matter of finding out how to get there,” Iroh says, pouring them tea, “with this blend, for instance, I was almost giving up, but the secret is not to heat the water too much and let it steep for the right amount of time,” he lifts his pointer for emphasis, “no less, but no more.”

Zuko smiles.

The one thing he can never regret about Ba Sing Se is being able to spend time with his uncle. It’s the main reason he insists on going there himself whenever the opportunity arises.

On the last night before he returns home, they have tea on the patio above the Jasmine Dragon. The summer air is just cool enough at night that they’re able to sip on hot beverages comfortably.

Zuko still doesn’t have his uncle’s discerning palate, but he’s learned to appreciate good tea over the years. This one tastes fresh, slightly spicy and just the right amount of sweet, perfect for a summer night.

He hums. “It’s very good, what’s in it?”

Zuko thinks he recognizes the floral scent, but can’t quite place where from.

“White tea, artic-thyme and a bit of ginger.”

He looks up at Iroh, his eyes are closed and there’s a content smile on his face.

“Arctic-thyme?”

“Yes, Master Katara brought me a generous batch of dried flowers and leaves on her last visit. I had mentioned I’d like to experiment with new plants when we talked last year.”

Zuko’s heart picks up. He brings the cup under his nose — it’s like the scent in her hair.

“She didn’t mention she brought you tea.”

Iroh’s eyebrows rise and Zuko immediately regrets his words.

“You’ve been corresponding, then?” He asks, casually. Zuko is not fooled, the old man is like a falcon-fox.

“Some.” He evades, looking out at the city lights visible from this vantage point.

“I suppose you would have more pressing matters to discuss than me.”

“She did mention you. That you were well. Just- not the tea.”

“Oh, did she mention our conversations?” Zuko looks back at him. “Sorry- you were saying you’re corresponding.” Iroh gestures to him, palm up, as if asking him to continue.

Zuko is not sure he wants to talk about it. Iroh’s certainly heard much gossip around the tea shop, but Zuko himself hasn’t volunteered information and Iroh hadn’t asked. Yet.

“What have you been talking about?” He prompts.

“…Nothing much.” Zuko says.

Iroh keeps his eyes on Zuko for just a fraction before going back to tasting his tea, humming with the same content expression on his face.

And says nothing else.

Zuko knows this strategy: staying silent so the other person will feel the need to say more.

It won’t work this time.

“So… she was here.” He tries to redirect, instead.

Iroh just hums and nods.

“You said you had some- conversations. What- what did you talk about?”

“Oh… nothing much.” Iroh echoes. The twinkle in his eyes tells Zuko he isn’t going to give an inch if he’s doesn’t get something first.

Zuko sips his tea.

He will not give in.

Iroh munches happily on a pastry.

The silence stretches.

He should change the subject, talk about the deals he signed or ask about the shop or their mutual acquaintances. He’s done it every other time he visited Iroh. Surely there’s still something to talk about.

There’s only one thing on Zuko’s mind now, though.

He sighs.

Iroh always wins these.

“We’re talking.” He confesses. “About it. The possibility of it. What- How it could work. If it would work.”

And then he finds himself telling his uncle everything, or at least the objective parts of it: how she approached him after the Summit, all they’ve discussed since, how thorough she had been.

He tells of his encounters with the other ladies and how he thinks none of them would be as good as Katara, talks about the numbers his council presented from the public, and his worries for her safety if she marries him.

“Because someone else wouldn’t be in danger?” Iroh asks. It gives Zuko pause. “Surely, you realize that even if you married a Fire Nation noblewoman she would not be immune to public scrutiny and intrigue, don’t you?”

“I— suppose.” He frowns.

“Isn’t it better to marry someone who can defend herself, if that’s your worry?”

Zuko’s chest tightens. “Katara doesn’t deserve to spend the rest of her life fighting.”

Iroh lets out a chuckle. “Because she would rather settle down into a quiet life on the countryside, yes? We both know that’s not like Master Katara. She’s an idealist, she needs a purpose — a lot of fire for a waterbender,” he adds jovially. “From what you’ve said, public opinion is favorable. And once again, by your logic, does someone else deserve to spend their life fighting instead?”

“Well- no, but—” Zuko scrunches his face, tries to finish his sentence but there’s a horrible lump in his throat that won’t let him.

“It’s not about deserving, nephew. It’s about deciding.” Iroh has his eyes fixed on him, in that way that makes him feel transparent. “If you both decide on it, there’s nothing else to be said. Why are you trying to get away from something good?”

Because I don’t deserve it.

The silent hot tears slip from his eyes before he realizes they were forming and he hastily swipes them away, averting his gaze.

These feelings have been stirring inside him for too long — shame, fear, inadequacy, yearning, wild hope — they won’t be silenced so quickly now that they were acknowledged.

“She’s going to regret it. And resent me.” Voice choked, he swipes at his cheeks again, still startled by his own reaction.

“Do you really think she would have spoken to you at that Summit if she hadn’t considered all the possibilities? You told me yourself how many angles you’ve both discussed.”

“Yes, but then there’s still me!” His voice sounds panicked and pathetic.

The pause is long enough that Zuko looks up at Iroh, he is running a hand over his beard.

“You are a handful, yes.” The old man chuckles and Zuko can’t help a watery laugh in response. “But then, so is she.” He raises a shoulder. “You’ve always worked well together, though.” He looks kindly at Zuko, "This is the part only the two of you can answer.”

Zuko wipes his nose, breathes deeply, trying to recompose himself.

It’s easier now, he feels lighter.

“You know, here in Ba Sing Se,” Iroh starts, using that tone that promises great wisdom, “when there’s a long drought, the ground can get so dry it looks almost like rock. In some areas, when the first rains fall, it takes a while for the ground to absorb it. Like it has forgotten how.”

Iroh looks at him with gentle eyes. “Fate’s not always unkind, nephew. It takes courage to accept the suffering life hands us, and you’ve shouldered your burdens with dignity. But it takes, perhaps, even more courage to accept the possibility of joy.”

Zuko feels his eyes burn again, and he breathes deeply to steady himself.

“Just remember, when the ground doesn’t drink it, the water runs somewhere else,” Iroh warns, “Don’t hesitate too long, Fire Lord Zuko. Trust yourself to make the right decision. I know I do.”

Zuko only nods, not trusting himself to speak yet.

“Would you like some more tea?” Iroh asks, back to his sunny disposition. Zuko lets out a small laugh.

“Yes, please.” He hands Iroh his cup. When he gets it back, Zuko closes his eyes, takes a moment to focus on the flowery scent, allows it to calm him, before tasting the sweet spicy blend again.

“What do you think of my new tea set?”

Zuko studies the lacquered details on the black cup, there’s a dragon circling it, surrounded by jasmine and lotus flowers.

“It’s beautiful. Fire Nation?” Zuko asks, noting the style.

“I thought so, too. It was a gift.” Iroh says, the lilt in his voice is almost smug. “She usually brings me essential oils or special herbs for tea. I wonder what gave her the idea this time?” He looks at Zuko meaningfully, doesn’t need to explain who the ‘she’ is.

‘What about for the groom?’ she had asked, sitting on her back porch deck.

‘Lacquerware for the groom’s family.’

Zuko can’t breathe. He puts his cup down slowly.

He mentioned it once.

He’s been a state of nerves for weeks now. But this time it doesn’t feel like a weight pressing down on his chest — he feels like soaring.

He wants to stand up, laugh, maybe scream.

In the end he does something much more ridiculous — he flops his forehead on the table.

Iroh laughs heartily.

Only one month before he sees her again.

Chapter Text

He leaves the crown in his room.

The absence of weight on his topknot feels strange. He fastens the frog buttons on his dark green shirt, the high collar hiding the ever-present leather cord around his neck. The blue seaglass and beads are a calming weight against his chest, an anchor that helps ground him as a wave of anxiety rises anew.

He’s been counting weeks, days, hours. And now he will finally see her again.

Her.

The fluttering on his stomach has been coming and going at intervals. It’s not unpleasant exactly. He just hopes it won’t affect his ability to form proper sentences — he really needs his wits about him.

He exhales slowly through his mouth as he adjusts a scarf to cover enough of his face. Grabbing the messenger bag he carefully organized before leaving Caldera, he walks to the room down the hall and knocks twice on the open door.

“I’m leaving.”

Yosu, feet propped up on the desk, looks Zuko up and down, raises one eyebrow.

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

“You will see me tonight.”

He tsks, “Always the pessimist.”

Zuko rolls his eyes, “Back window, second floor hallway,” he solicits.

“I’ll lock it again until after dinner," Yosu warns. "Enjoy yourself at least a little, will you?” It sounds almost like a threat.

Yosu makes his way downstairs, calling the two guards stationed at the front and back of the house to give them instructions — but really to give Zuko an easy route to the street.

Zuko waits until he hears his friend’s commading instructions that ‘the Fire Lord is not to be disturbed’ and that ‘no word is to be spoken about his presence until his official arrival’ before he silently slips out through the window.

The house he keeps in Republic City is not grand by Fire Nation standards, but it is well-kept, with a mixture of Earth Kingdom architecture and Fire-Nation-style gardens. It’s meant to show presence, but not an imposing one — he’s here to cooperate, not to rule. One more of the small ways his life requires constant calculation.

It’s why he arrived earlier in secret. For what he has to do, he wants to be able to speak as honestly as possible, without the crown, the regalia, the protocol — all of these things that would only get in the way.

He makes his way through the streets, making sure to keep his head down. Wearing simple green clothes, and with his scar hidden by the scarf, it’s easy to become just one more in the crowd.

Republic City will soon become one of the biggest cities in the world, and already it has a kind of effervescence that’s different from Caldera or Ba Sing Se. It’s in the diversity of the people, in what grows from the amalgamation of different cultures — not simply a mixture of the original nations, but the creation of something new.

He makes his way through the busier streets. The restaurants are preparing for the rush of lunchtime, and the easels on the sidewalks describe dishes with ingredients that are mostly familiar but often in combinations that are new to him.

Store windows exhibit a variety of styles in multicolored options. A narrow display of scarves and shawls catches his eye, the soft wools and shining silks adorned by tasteful embroidery.

Despite his better judgment, Zuko goes inside. He places custom orders, and the artisan tells him the pieces will be ready in two weeks — if the woman recognizes him, she doesn’t show it. There are still plenty of people with burn marks from the war, and though not many are like his, no one really expects a world leader to be walking around the street in common clothes. He pockets the receipt and walks the few remaining blocks.

The Hospital of Republic City is a large building surrounded by trees. Zuko was at the inauguration and still remembers some of the layout. The ground floor is busier, filled with doctors and patients, so he circles the building to find a window on the back and enter directly into the second floor, where Katara is most likely to be, considering the kind of work she usually does in large places like this one.

His footsteps are feather-light on the mostly silent hallways, and he keeps his ears tuned. He ducks inside a room just in time to avoid two men who sound like they’re carrying cleaning supplies, one of them grumbles about his daughter’s boyfriend.

“Too skinny, hair too shiny.”

“Can’t trust these types. They don’t know how to provide for a family, too used to…” The grumbled response fades as they descend the stairs.

Zuko looks down at himself. He’s not skinny nowadays, but could probably still be called… lean, by Water Tribe standards.

Does Hakoda think his hair is too shiny?

In any case, he’s done worse things than having shiny hair to earn distrust.

He tries to breathe away the cold feeling rising on his chest. Hakoda suggested him to Katara — a piece of information that still doesn’t sound real. But Zuko has ways to go before he has to worry about speaking to her family. He has to speak to her first.

As anxious as he feels, picturing her face is enough to fill him with a thrum of excitement that makes him move again.

Near the end of the hallway, he hears faint sounds coming from one of the rooms, like metal clinking softly against glass, and parchment being scribbled on. When he peers through the open door, he finds a long room, stacked from floor to ceiling with shelves filled with labeled boxes. At the far end, a table is placed beneath a single window.

Her back to the door, Katara works silently.

His heart stutters in his chest.

He enters the room quietly.

She picks a jar of what looks like herbal salve, opens it, analyses the contents with a critical eye before bringing it near her nose. A hum, a minute nod, and the jar goes in the box to her right. She marks something on a piece of parchment before picking a new jar. She opens and immediately closes it, recoiling slightly. This jar goes in the box to her left.

It’s a mundane task, but Zuko feels entranced.

By the graceful and sure way her arms move, her elegant posture, the tapering of her waist.

She’s wearing a navy dress with wide sleeves that reach her elbows. Her hair is styled in a braid that ends at the nape of her neck, the length of it loose, cascading in soft waves decorated with many silver beads that contrast beautifully with her brown strands.

He doesn’t see the gold one, and doesn’t have time to think about it because, as if sensing his presence, she pauses in the middle of her assessment and turns around, open jar in one hand and lid in the other. Her look of concentration dissolves into wide-eyed surprise.

She opens her mouth, but no words come out.

“Hi,” he tries for a small smile.

“Hi,” she exhales, too soft for something spoken from across a room, it makes his own heart thump loudly in his chest. She blinks a few times, looks around, as if trying to remember where she is. “I thought- next week?”

“I got a few days off.”

She looks at her own hands, finally closes the jar she had been holding open the entire time. “Lucky you,” she jokes weakly.

She turns back to the table, her arm hovers as she looks to the right, then the left. She ends up returning the jar to the original box. Zuko watches her shoulders rise in a controlled breath before she turns around to face him again.

Her eyes sweep over him, registering the scarf around his head, his dark green clothes, and the bag slung across his chest. When she looks at his face again, there’s a question in her gaze.

The last time he saw her, it was late Spring in Caldera. She was wearing light travel clothes, hair firmly pulled back in a braid that the wind still managed to mess, curly wisps framing her face. Her eyes held an unspoken question back then, too. At the time, she had looked full of barely contained energy, eyes bright under the early morning sun before she had to sail away.

Now she wears a heavier dress, fit for the autumn weather. Her hair is pulled away from her face, but in a looser braid, her waves look tamer, softer. Framed by the mild light coming from the window behind her, she looks softer — he can tell things are different, but not exactly how.

He realizes he’s been staring. But so has she.

“Darling, I think you- oh!” A plump woman in her sixties enters the room and stops short, looking between the two of them. She wears a long dress and the light green apron that’s the uniform for the medical staff. Her puffy face is rosy, and a bun holds her hair with wooden sticks on the top of her head.

Caught by surprise, Zuko doesn’t even have time to think about hiding his face, and he can see the moment recognition dawns on the woman's face.

“Lin!” Katara widens her eyes. “Hm, this is-”

“Yeah, I know who he is.” Lin interrupts, eyes narrowed at Zuko, “What you’re here for?”

Zuko hasn’t been addressed so flippantly by a stranger in a long time. He finds it quite amusing.

"I apologize for the intrusion," he inclines his head respectfully. He turns to Katara, “I was wondering if you’re free for lunch?”

“She is,” Lin answers, and before Katara can react, the woman takes her place, shoving her aside. “In fact, she’s free the whole afternoon.”

Katara sputters, gestures to the table. “I was in the middle of-”

“Something that isn’t even your job,” Lin says forcefully, “And you’re only doing ‘cus you convinced me you needed a distraction. Now you have a better one,” she inclines her head meaningfully in Zuko’s direction. To Zuko, she says bluntly, “Take her away. I don’t want her here.”

Katara makes a sound that's half laugh, half disbelief.

Lin responds with a shooing gesture. “Off you go. Goodbye, darling.”

Katara glances at Zuko from under her lashes.

“Lucky me,” he echoes with a smile. Her face flushes.

“Girl- get out of here!” Lin says in an angry mock whisper.

Katara half turns, actually covers her face with one of her hands for a moment, before she manages to mutter a breathless, “Let me get my things.”

“I’ll wait near the entrance,” he calls to her back. Shoulders almost level with her ears, he watches as she disappears into the hallway, taking a left, then walks back to the right a second later, like she had taken the wrong turn. He smiles to himself.

“I don’t care if you’re Fire Lord, boy.” He startles at Lin’s dangerous tone. Her gaze on him is scorching. “That girl is a gem. If you break her heart, I’m coming for you faster than you can say ‘diplomatic immunity’, you hear me?”

Zuko blinks. He licks his lips, “I have no intention of doing that.”

She narrows her eyes, studies him for a moment before giving a tight nod. “Means you're not stupid.”

“Lin?” He says more softly, “Thank you.”

She rolls her eyes and waves him off, but there’s a small smile on her face now. “Off you too, kid.”

He leaves by the same window and waits a few feet away from the main doors, where people are less likely to pay attention to him. Katara shows up a few minutes later, looking more composed. She has her waterskin at her hip and a small bag slung on one shoulder. Many people are already sporting coats, but it doesn’t surprise him that she’s comfortable in fewer layers.

“Do you have a plan, or are you looking for suggestions?” She asks.

“I heard about this place that makes good mix and match bowls at Harmony Park,” he lies, “but we could go someplace else if you prefer.”

“I like your plan.”

He offers his arm.

She hesitates before accepting, her hand feels very light on his elbow, like she’s not sure she’s allowed. They have touched more than this, but never under daylight, and certainly not out on the street where anyone could see them.

They walk a couple of awkward steps before she quietly says, “I’m half expecting someone to clear their throat.”

Zuko laughs, she does too, and it’s easier to relax after that.

“Do you mind if we take a longer route?” He asks. “I’m trying to avoid responsibilities for the next few days.”

Being incognito by himself is manageable, but having her on his arm is much more likely to draw attention.

“Back streets are fine.” She answers.

The walk to the park is unhurried. They make small talk until they reach the restaurant, and order their meals to go. Katara gets fish and mangoes with her green beans and rice, Zuko orders the same, but adds fire flakes.

“Over the mangoes, too?”

“You would like it if you tried it.”

She only scrunches her nose in response.

He leads them to the bench he scouted the day before, when he had also found the restaurant. Hidden between tall berry bushes and shaded by a large tree, they eat while looking out at the lake, watching as the cranefishes wade in the shallows, trying to catch meals of their own. All around the park, the light wind sways leaves in faded greens, yellows, and oranges.

They finish eating and leave their paper containers by their feet to discard later. Katara gives him a quick description of her journey to Republic City — the beautiful scenery, the weather changes, the cart with medical supplies stuck in the mud for half a day.

Surrounded by greenery and hidden from the world, it’s almost like being back in Caldera. At first, she seems just like she did then, warm and friendly, making funny quips here and there. But he catches little glimpses of something else at moments — a hint of sadness in her eyes, a breath that’s drawn with heaviness, a certain tension to her shoulders.

The whole time they’re talking, Zuko is aware of all the things they are not saying.

She signed her last correspondence with ‘your friend always’ after he told her how worried he was about things not working out. She said she felt grateful regardless of the result, and he wondered if her feelings were as strong as his.

As she speaks now, he can’t help but think she looks a little… subdued.

“What about you?” She asks. “How was your last month?”

Upon returning from Ba Sing Se, Zuko’s first meeting was with Minister Hiroki. He didn’t know what the polls would tell him, but the changes in regency and succession laws were a legacy Zuko wanted to assure either way, so he wrote the draft and dealt personally with all the reviews suggested by the legal council.

He had Ikeda send him the written reports about the polls beforehand, and at the last meeting with the committee, he made sure to have roughly equal time dedicated to each candidate, from the opinions of the polls to final considerations by each of the councilors. At the end, Katara was still such a clear favorite that Lord Yaom had sounded utterly dejected in saying, “I suppose it’s quite decided, then.”

Zuko had kept his face neutral, “Rest assured this committee will be informed of anything it needs to know in a timely manner, councilor.”

The truth is: he’s terrified. The reports may give him peace of mind about the nation’s preference, but they don’t tell him the most important opinion: hers.

“Busy.” He answers. He had also needed to get ready for the meetings in Republic City, and though he delegated more than he had ever done before, he had barely been able to catch a break. “A lot of work. Preparing things for the meetings here. For next year’s schedule.”

There’s a question in her eyes, but she doesn’t voice it, only nods and looks away.

He asks about the Hospital in Republic City. She tells him she arrived last week and won’t have any major tasks until the training in two weeks — it’s why she was keeping busy with small things.

“Sorry about Lin back there, by the way.” She says, eyes trained on the lake.

“She cares a lot about you,” he answers, “made a threat on my life and everything.”

Katara snorts. He catches the small downturn to her lips before she schools her face into neutrality. Her eyes take on a pensive expression as she looks out at the lake, “Remarkable woman. Raised five kids on her own, husband died in the war. She never remarried, says he was the love of her life and she could never find anything like it again.” She swallows, looks at him. “He was a firebender. Might be why she likes you.”

“Did I mention she threatened my life?”

"That's how you know she likes you a lot.”

They've only just reunited, and he doesn't want to push things too quickly, but maybe she wants to talk about it, too. “Does she know? About- us?”

“Everybody knows about us, Zuko,” she gives him a wry smile, heaves a sigh, “and about Lady Ino Beshor, and Lady Miko Huang, and Lady Ukyia Shi. Or they think they know, anyway.”

Zuko feels his hands grow cold. He knows the answer even before he finds the courage to ask, “Have you gotten comments?”

“Have you?” She shoots back.

“Me and my council.” He says honestly. “Have people given you trouble?”

“Not… exactly. Not much.” The tension he had caught in glimpses before is evident in her posture now. She reaches a hand to massage the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

“Back in Spring,” he says, “you promised you’d be honest with me. What have you heard?”

She drops her hand back on her lap. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.” He turns his body on the bench, resting one of his arms on the backrest to watch her more comfortably. “Please.”

She sighs. “I was being honest. I really haven’t gotten much trouble, just plenty of comments.”

Some colleagues teased her about it, she says, and random people she had never met before gave her opinions at weird times — like at the market, or in the middle of assessing a patient — about how she would be a good Fire Lady, or how someone else would be better, though no one dared be outright hostile.

In Ba Sing Se, a couple of upper-ring families called on her for health check-ups, clearly looking for gossip, but after she carefully shut them down, the others seemed to give up. In the Earth Kingdom countryside, news hadn’t reached some cities, and those were a nice break. But in other places, gossip ran so wildly that she was once asked how the wedding had been and if her husband was okay with her traveling so far.

The North, she says, was the hardest. Zuko is surprised. Katara says she wasn’t.

“I told you how nationalism has grown lately in the South — the North is even worse. They’ve always been prouder, spent a long time isolated. And in a sense, I am… family. They feel like they have a right to give me opinions. Some were quite harsh.”

“Tell me.”

She pauses, “I got called a traitor.” Zuko flinches, but Katara remains stoic, with little emotion in her voice. “Heard that I was turning my back on my people. Selling myself to the enemy.”

His stomach drops. “Fuck, Katara.”

“Yeah… Not a great moment.” She presses her lips together, “I also heard that someone had to keep an eye on the Fire Nation, and it might as well be me, since I wasn’t doing anything else.”

“What?”

“Also not great.” She lets out a humourless laugh, brings her hand up to make circular motions against her shoulder for a moment.

Taking a breath, she adjusts her posture. “Those were the worst ones. But others were genuinely supportive, said that it was an important step, that even just considering it was a sign of progress.”

“Some people were… Hopeful, I think?” She offers him a small smile. “Said that your decision to marry internationally showed that the Fire Nation had really changed their ways, so there’s that. Republic City has been easy so far, mixed families are not such a strange concept here, and the city is so busy — there’s plenty else to talk about. Of course, it’s only been a week. We’ll see how it goes once you arrive officially.”

Zuko is almost afraid to ask, “What about… in the Fire Nation?” He’s not sure the polls reflect Katara’s experience. She could have crossed paths with any group.

“It was good, actually?” She seems surprised to say it. “I got a little worried after our outing. And I did have a few people give me the side eye in Caldera, but most were treating me… better, I think. Almost…”

“Almost what?”

She bunches her shoulders. “Sweetly? I felt…” She shakes her head a little, “It was good. Better than I expected, honestly. In the islands, too — I told you about Governor Eenisa, for example.”

Zuko breathes in relief. But her retelling of the comments she received brings a fresh wave of worry. “Wouldn’t it isolate you? From the Tribes? They’re your people, I know how much you care.”

“I do. And it’s one of the reasons I talked to you that day. I am Water Tribe. I’ll take that with me wherever I go. If the Tribes could see someone they trust building something new while staying true to themselves, I want to believe it would help put down some of their reservations. There’s so much potential for growth when we’re open to it.”

Her eyes get a glint. “Did you know they’re having bending tournaments here? The moves they’re coming up with, Zuko! You have to see it, they’re mixing styles— it’s awesome!” She smiles.

“And that’s bending,” she continues, “there’s also engineering, farming, and… everything. It’s all evolving. I can’t stand by and watch my people try to stay in the past under some misguided wish to get back a time that was stolen. Time doesn’t turn back. There’s only forward.” She says, and looking out at the lake again, she reaches a hand to massage the same spot for the third time.

“What’s wrong with your shoulder?” He reaches his hand, covering hers. She startles slightly but doesn’t pull away.

“Just tension. And a month of sleeping on strange beds.”

“Can’t you heal it?” He presses his thumb in a circular motion. She drops her hand, closes her eyes.

“Kind of. It keeps coming back, though.”

He presses his whole palm to her shoulder, heats it just enough. She gasps in surprise, flinches away.

“Too warm?”

“No…” she blinks at him. “Just- unexpected.”

“Come back,” he asks.

She does, slowly. He spreads his palm over her shoulder again, keeps still until he feels her relax in an exhale. When she closes her eyes, he resumes the circular motions with his thumb until the knot disappears.

“Better?” He asks after a while, pressing his heated palm on her shoulder again, thumb just below her ear now.

“Yes, thank you.” She murmurs, with eyes closed, her breathing slow and deep. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Lots of things you don’t know.” He says, low, and feels her pulse quicken under his thumb.

Her eyes flutter open.

She takes a deep breath before turning to him, mirroring his position on the bench, one elbow over the backrest. His hand slides to her biceps. With a slow and deliberate movement, she sweeps the length of her hair to rest in front of her chest. There, in a place that was hidden from view in any other way, a single braid is adorned by a golden bead.

“Tell me, then,” she says, eyes hooded and a tone that’s somehow both a plea and a challenge.

He looks at her lips, parted and soft. Her eyes are pale blue in the soft yellow light of the waning afternoon. Somehow, he knows that once he kisses her, he will be ruined forever.

So he closes his eyes, and using all of his self-control, lets go of her arm. He slips the strap from his shoulder and offers the bag to her. “This is for you.”

She blinks in confusion. “Your... bag?”

“What’s inside.”

She opens it, frowning, takes out the first scroll, and reads the title, looks back at him sharply.

In the bag, he put in Ikeda’s complete reports, Kaito’s summary of the last meeting (with each of the councilors’ final opinions written down word for word), and a copy of the new laws.

It won’t be easy to read.

Most opinions are positive, but not all of them are. And reading judgments about every aspect of your life, image, and possible futures in such a calculating way can be quite disconcerting. Coupled with the experiences she had over the last few months, he’s not sure if giving her the scrolls will help his case. But this is what she will be signing up for if she chooses him, and he promised her honesty.

“I would like you to read them carefully,” he says. “We can speak again when you’re ready. There’s no rush.”

She presses her lips together. “Give me a day. Will you be busy after tomorrow?”

He cocks his head, he thought it would be obvious by now, “Not for you.”

She gives him a soft smile in return.

Katara is staying at an apartment that the White Lotus keeps in Republic City for senior staff. It’s a small place, meant to be practical. There’s a door that probably leads to a bedroom and a living area that’s both a kitchen and a dining space.

He met her near the clinic in the middle of the afternoon, as they had agreed. Katara had said it looked like rain and invited him for tea at her place.

“It’s one of Iroh’s blends,” she says, after filling their cups.

Zuko closes his eyes, breathes in the steam before taking a sip. “Jasmine and ginger?”

“You’re getting better,” she smiles. Katara loves Iroh’s creations. “Orange flowers, too.”

They drink in silence for a moment. The cloudy sky casts a weak light through the single large window in the room. Zuko tries to keep his emotions in check. Until yesterday, speaking in private would have him feeling excited about what she had to say — but that was before he overheard Amaqjuaq calling her ‘Kat’ when she was leaving the clinic, asking if she would be ‘at the get-together tonight’, and saying he would miss her when she said she’d be busy.

Zuko remembered the name from one of her letters, ‘Amaqjuaq has been a huge help’, she had written. What he did not know then was that the name belonged to a young Water Tribe man, almost as tall as Sokka, who was clearly interested in her.

“I read the scrolls,” she begins. “Are they- did you really change the laws?”

“Yes.” She and the guy were even wearing the same color today. The image won’t leave his head.

When he looks up from his tea, she is studying him intently.

“What’s wrong?” She asks, concerned. “You’re strange.”

‘Kat’, the guy had called her.

And she had called him ‘Amaq’.

But then, they’ve been traveling together since- what? Ba Sing Se? That’s months they had to get acquainted. Months Katara had to work the pros and cons and realize what would make more sense to her.

Ever since they left the clinic, her last letter — her willingness to accept they might not be together — had started to make more sense. ‘I grew up around snow, it might be difficult for a Fire Nation citizen to understand,’ she had written. Why would she choose this when she could have something much easier?

“You’d be… restricted.” He puts down his cup on the low table.

“...Restricted?” She frowns.

“You have this position, where you-” he swallows the lump in his throat “-you get to do this amazing work you love, helping people-”

“There are many ways to help people,” she interjects softly.

“-you travel to different places and-”

“You travel.”

“It’s not the same, though.” He says, “I’m bound by this whole… structure. You’d be too. You’ve seen the documents, the sheer amount of things to consider at every-”

“And I know all of that already.” She says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “I’ve known it from the beginning. What is this about, Zuko?”

His jaw tenses.

“Are you trying to tell me something?” Her voice is suddenly cold. “Because you should just say it. I can’t deal with half words right now.” She puts her own cup down. “Say it.”

“You can do better, and I get it,” he grounds out.

Her chest rises and falls rapidly. “You came to see me. And you gave me those scrolls and asked me to re—” She looks away sharply. Looks back at him. “Did you go through all this trouble just to tell me it’s a bad idea? Because that’s not what the documents say, so there must be another reason for this.”

“You told me,” he says, feeling his own temper rise, “not many people were interested. But ‘Amaq’ clearly is.”

Katara’s whole posture tenses. Her face shutters, her nostrils flare. “You can’t be serious right now.”

“He’s Water Tribe, and your traveling wouldn’t be a problem since-”

“You cannot be serious.”

“-he’s traveling too. And you wouldn’t have to give up your job, or worry about people saying things to you if-”

“Well, I don’t want him!” She raises her voice over his rambling. “And I don’t want the job anymore either, I resigned!”

For a moment, only silence fills the room.

“What?”

“Last fall.”

“But that’s-”

“Before we talked. Yes. Because I didn’t do it for you.” She breathes deeply. “This is my last year at this post. I’m handing things over to Amaq — he’s a bit of an ass, but he’s good at the job.”

Zuko blinks, trying to organize the new pieces of information in a way that makes sense.

“...Why?”

“Because I’m tired, Zuko,” her shoulders slump with the admission. “I’ve been living like a nomad for the past five years. But I’m not- air. I’m water. And water needs a place to run to. Right now I feel…” She shakes her head a little.

“I want a home. That’s not the South anymore, it hasn’t been for some time, I just didn’t want to accept it.” She looks down at her hands, her voice turns very small. “Others could see it, though. I think it’s why Dad told me to talk to you. He saw something that made sense. And that's what I saw, too, at first. I just didn’t expect to also-” She sucks in a breath, stops.

“Katara,” he calls, voice soft to match hers.

“This is not something for you to fix.” She stares at him intensely, her face growing red. “There’s a reason I didn’t tell you this sooner. I was working on it before I talked to you, and I still have a plan if-” she huffs. “Have I misunderstood the whole thing? I thought—” She frowns, her eyes watery. “Are you telling me you- don’t want this?”

“I’m trying to say, things would be easier for you if-"

“No. Why are you here Zuko?” She interrupts angrily. “Because if it’s to lecture me on what I’m supposed to want, you can leave now. Trust me, I’ve heard plenty about how fucked in the head I am, I don’t need you to tell me, too.”

“‘A waterbender in the Fire Nation palace, Katara?’” She says with affectation, like she’s quoting someone. “‘That’s the stuff of stories, dear, not a thing that happens.’ and ‘You really shouldn’t have refused Tulok, you’d be living an easy life now.’ But I don’t want easy, I want good.” She thumps her fist on the table, her voice growing choked. “I want a partner I can trust, who appreciates my drive. And to work at something I care about. And children of my own, and a home that feels like home and-”

Her eyes sweep over him, and Zuko knows that, absurdly, she meant those things with him. He opens his mouth, but Katara raises a hand to stop him, staring at the table and taking deep breaths to calm herself down.

Outside, the rain is starting to fall, a soft pitter-patter on the roof above them, more noticeable now that they’ve quieted their argument.

Realization washes over Zuko like a wave of calmness. For months, he had been worrying about her giving up her job, about how hard it would be for her to deal with the change… when change was exactly what she wanted.

Isn’t it funny how we can be surprised by what we thought we knew?

Katara inhales slowly, joins her hands on her lap, and faces him with a straight posture.

“You’re gonna listen until I’m done.” She says calmly, her voice leaves no room for arguments, but she waits until Zuko nods before speaking.

“We have talked extensively about all this would entail. I’ve read the documents. I don’t want to hear anything else about it, or about what you think I should do. We agreed to be honest with each other, and I’ve been as clear as I could about what I want. If you want something different,” her voice trembles, but she keeps her posture still, “I’ll be fine. Not now. But eventually. So, I’m going to ask you this one time: What do you want?”

Her face and posture are schooled into impassivity, but Zuko can see the tension in her frame, the way her eyes seem to search for the answer in his face. She exposed too much, more than she meant to — showed her longing, her pain, things that she had carefully concealed until now. If he expects to earn her forgiveness for the mess he made of their conversation, he needs to meet her at the same level.

He stands up, sits again on his shins, but this time right next to her. His back is to the table, so that they’re almost facing each other. The outside of his knee presses against her hip. It’s closer than he’s ever dared initiate. She doesn't move, just looks at him from the corner of her eye.

He reaches inside his shirt, tugs the necklace out. Her face softens immediately.

“I’m terrified,” he whispers, “by how stupidly in love I am with you.”

She exhales, touches the seaglass on his chest. He covers her hand with his, holds it there.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that Summit.” He confesses. “And the time you spent in Caldera felt like something out of a dream. I’ve been worried that things might not work out. Politically. But I also…" He licks his lips, wondering how to make her understand. "‘We had a meeting with healers and leaders from the region, it fills me with joy to see the advancements in the countryside.’" He quotes. Her eyes widen. "‘The mountain roads are breathtaking, there’s a species of cat-owl I’ve only ever seen around here, they always sing at dusk,’"

Her lips are parted in surprise. He gives her a sad smile.

"I couldn’t see you wishing to leave the freedom you have for- the complication of a political marriage.”

“I’m not sacrificing for you, Zuko.” She answers, clearly seeing right through his words. “I do love my work, but it’s not the only work I love. And anything worth building comes with commitment. I’m not scared of it. I want this. You. The job. All of it.” Her certainty settles over his heart like a soothing balm.

“I’m sorry.” He raises a hand to her face, caresses her cheek. She closes her eyes. “I didn’t know you felt like this.”

She looks up at him with hooded lids, murmurs. “Lots of things you don’t know.”

He leans in, heart wild against his chest. “Tell me, then.”

She closes the distance. They kiss slowly, with careful touches and soft sighs. Her lips taste of jasmine and ginger, and Zuko thinks maybe kissing her won’t ruin him, after all, maybe it’ll save him instead.

He slides his hand from her jaw to her hair, like he’s wanted to do for ages, and deepens the kiss. She whimpers. And it’s like a dam breaks. She surges up, a hand behind his neck pulling him closer, her chest pressing against his, and suddenly he has his arms full of her — waist and hips and thighs.

She pulls him to her bedroom and he knows, he knows, being ruined and being saved are not such different things.

Later, rain pouring down outside, she lies with her whole body pressed against his side, an ankle hooked over his leg.

He told Yosu he would be back after dinner, and he’s just going to have to trust his bodyguard not to send a search before morning light because there’s no way he’s leaving so soon. In her bed, surrounded by the smell of her, running a hand up and down her arm, he wonders how quickly a royal wedding can be put together.

Slowly, she raises her head to look at him, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes.

“'A faint clap of thunder / Clouded skies / Perhaps rain will come /'” she quotes, “'If so, will you stay here with me?'”

It’s the poem he sent to her with the beads, months ago, when they didn’t know if things would work for them, when they had to conceal what they were really talking about.

He was not the only one memorizing lines. He was never alone in this.

His eyes burn, but he blinks the tears away.

“A faint clap of thunder /” he quotes the second part back to her, “Even if rain comes or not / I will stay here / Together with you.”

She gives him a small smile, kisses his cheek softly, and rests her head on his chest again.

“I love you.” She sighs against his neck, not for the first time tonight.

He kisses her palm. “And I love you.”

She starts shaking softly. He is startled until he realizes she is laughing.

“What is it?” He asks, already half smiling.

“Nishi would be horrified.”

Chapter Text

Sneaking in at night is relatively easy.

Sneaking out during the day is manageable.

But sneaking into an official residence in the middle of the day without being spotted by anyone on the street is a bit of a bigger challenge.

He ends up having to set a small fire.

“Really?” Yosu crosses his arms with an unimpressed expression when Zuko finally sets foot inside the hallway.

Zuko startles.

“Shouldn’t you be putting out a fire?” He tries to recover, unwinding the scarf from around his head.

Yosu opens his mouth, but stops once he takes in Zuko’s appearance — he’s in a loose low-bun and yesterday’s rumpled clothes, and very aware of it. Whatever his friend was going to say dissolves into a crooked smile.

Zuko raises a finger. “Not a word.”

He makes his way to his bedroom. Yosu follows a few steps behind.

“How do you think the guards downstairs will interpret a sudden trash can fire after a whole night of rain?” He asks in a very official tone.

“Don’t care.”

“They’ll suspect something is up.”

“Can’t prove it.”

“So unsophisticated.”

“Effective.” He reaches the door of his bedroom, turns to see Yosu’s joking expression replaced by a hesitant curiosity.

“Is it official, then?”

Blue eyes, soft smiles, and whispered confessions invade his mind. He feels his whole body relaxing.

“Not— official official but… certain.” He nods.

Certain.

Somehow that’s even better.

Yosu looks at him with an expression that predicts a joke at Zuko’s expense. But what he says is:

“Finally,” and it sounds strangely proud.

Zuko enters his bedroom, hiding his smile.

Finally.

After making his guard aware that he has not been killed or kidnapped, he is free to go back to Katara’s place.

He intends to take advantage of every free moment they have before he needs to start dealing with work.

“Let’s go out,” she smiles up at him, leaning against his chest with her arms around his waist as soon as he puts down his bag — this time, it has a few changes of clothes instead of documents.

Katara tells him about a trail just outside the city. It has beautiful views, and it should be all but empty, considering it’s a work day and the temperature is lower than most people appreciate when choosing to spend the day outside.

“Won’t they miss you at the hospital?” He asks.

“I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

After yesterday’s storm, the sky is a clear blue and the air smells of damp earth in the best possible way.

The wind is slightly chilly, and the scarf around his head becomes more of a protection against the weather than a cover for discretion, even Katara wears one, strands of her unbound hair framing her face in soft waves.

It’s lucky, really. Because they unexpectedly come across a group of about ten air acolytes walking in the opposite direction and barely have time to hide their faces.

Zuko probably should have heard them approaching — ten people stepping over fallen leaves are hardly discreet, but he is feeling stupidly distracted. Stupidly happy. Stupid in general.

“Was that the Fire Lord?” A young boy whispers as they walk away.

Zuko stops, shoulders tense and ears tuned.

“No!” another boy answers loudly, like that’s a silly question. “His scar is on the other side, dumb.”

“I hear he’s gonna marry Master Katara. She’s so pretty.” The boy sounds as silly as Zuko feels, he can’t even be mad.

“What? No! He’s marrying the Huang girl.”

“Who— that one with the weird hair? Why?”

“Well, she’s rich!”

“And he needs to borrow money? Then you call me dumb.”

It’s the last thing he can make out before the voices turn indistinguishable in the distance.

Zuko looks at Katara.

“Do you?” She asks, with a serious expression that makes him nervous.

“Do I what?”

“Need to borrow money?”

He barks a laugh.

“No.” He grimaces. It’s just the Earth Kingdom fashion, he hadn’t thought much of it, but— “She does have weird hair.”

Katara snorts. “She’s cool, though. Seems kind.” She bites her lip. “You want to tell me how that went?”

He cocks his head. “Do you want to know?”

“Yes,” she confirms. And he knows that this is important.

For the rest of the day, as they walk the trail, they fill each other in on the things they couldn’t talk about over letters.

Zuko tells her about meeting Lady Ino in Caldera, Lady Miko Huang in Ba Sing Se, and how he only met with Lady Ukyia twice, because he didn’t want to create unnecessary political tension — he doesn’t tell her that he ended up creating it anyway.

He apologizes for misunderstanding Amaqjuaq’s intentions.

“Oh, no. He was flirting with me. Has been since Ba Sing Se.”

Katara tells him that she and Amaqjuaq have had a good professional relationship in the three years since they started working together. He’s an extroverted type, good with the practical aspects of the incursions, as well as the community organizing that Katara believes makes the most difference in the countryside. It’s why she chose him to take over this part of the work.

Amaqjuaq had never shown an interest in Katara. Until he heard that she was courting Zuko.

“He’s just trying to see if he can steal the Fire Lord’s girl,” she shakes her head.

Zuko takes her by the waist, unable to keep the smile from his face. “You’re the Fire Lord’s girl, now?”

She rolls her eyes, “You know what I mean,” but she smiles and kisses him all the same.

She tells him that she’s handing her tasks over to four different people, and that’s one of the reasons why she scheduled extra time in some cities this year. When he asks her why she didn’t tell him about her plans sooner, she looks down.

“I don’t know, Zuko. I just- it felt like too much. We had so much to take into consideration already. I didn’t want you to feel like this was something I was asking you for help with. I told you: I had a plan. Since last fall.”

He asks what her plan entailed before he came into the picture.

Moving to a big city, getting a job, and seeing how things went, she answers. She had a list of potential places to go to, people she would probably like to work with.

“What was your first option?” Zuko always felt like he would enjoy living in Republic City if he had a different life.

“Caldera,” she answers, “Republic City, if that didn’t work.”

He stops. “You wanted to move to Caldera?”

She shrugs, but he can see her ears are pink. “I like Caldera.”

At some point, Zuko might be able to give her a break from kissing her senseless every few minutes, but it’s not going to be today.

They sit on a lookout to eat the food they packed for lunch, simple sandwiches and some fruit that wouldn’t weigh much on their small packs.

All around them, the wind moves through the trees, a symphony of rustling leaves and chirping creatures.

From their vantage point, they can see the tops of the trees in the shallow vale below, the evergreens seeming darker in comparison to the faded oranges and yellows of the species that shed their leaves for winter.

Katara points out some scattered purple trees, “You can make tea with the bark. It’s the best one to reduce a fever.” She takes a bite of her sandwich. “They grow all across the Earth Kingdom. There’s this village where an elder planted a bunch of them outlining the main square. Looks really beautiful!”

“You look so happy telling these stories. I had never imagined that you wanted to leave this routine.” If he’s honest, he still has a hard time believing it.

“I do like it. Just… not everything about it.”

She tells him about how some places struggled in poverty, and it broke her heart every time. And then she would have no one to truly share that with. Her travel companions only stayed with her for certain stretches of each trip before going back to their cities.

She saw meaning in the work, though. And got genuine satisfaction from seeing the improvements her work fostered year after year. From reencountering the families she met on her previous visits and finding them healthier, to realizing the community organizations were stronger and better functioning after her guidance.

And she learned much — new medicines and treating protocols, new community cooperation strategies. Things she could share in the next places she went.

So, she kept at it. Probably for longer than she should have. Even when she realized she was feeling drained more often than not.

“The letters were… highlights. Beautiful or interesting things I wanted to share with you. I think a lot of it was because they were- for you, actually. My letters to other people never sound so... poetic.”

“Mine are usually official correspondence.” Finished with his food, he cleans his fingers on the cloth handkerchief where the sandwich had been wrapped in.

“Except when you send actual poetry,” she gives him a crooked smile, resting her own handkerchief on her lap.

He ducks his head, rubs his neck. “I was very nervous about that.”

“You didn’t seem nervous, then,” she says. “I could tell you were nervous when you sent the lovegrass, though.”

Zuko looks up at her.

“The… what?”

“The lovegrass,” she repeats, gathering crumbs from her clothes.

He blinks. “…It’s called lovegrass?”

Katara pauses, looks at him with wide eyes. “You didn’t know?”

He sputters. “I— I mean, it’s not… wrong!”

“Spirits above! I was—” she bubbles out an incredulous laugh, “and you didn’t even know it?”

“How was I supposed to know? It’s grass!”

“You thought you were sending me just grass?”

“Special grass.” He raises a finger in emphasis. “From our special garden.”

She opens her mouth to answer, pauses. Her face and posture soften.

“‘Our special garden’?”

She asks in a small voice.

“I mean… yeah,” he bunches his shoulders, feeling strangely exposed. “It was… Our garden… Right?”

She reaches for his face, gives him a soft peck on the cheek, “Yes, it was our garden,” and he knows he’s been forgiven for his ignorance of grass names.

“Do you have a garden?” She asks. “Outside your bedroom?”

“We can have a garden,” he decides. “‘A home that feels like home,’ you said?”

The smile that spreads across her face is slow and soft, and warms his whole chest.

A red jay chirps on a low branch behind them.

Katara carefully turns her torso, brings a finger to her lips, asking Zuko to remain silent.

She picks a small crumb from her clothes and throws it in the bird’s direction. The bird flutters down, hesitantly inching closer. It picks up the crumb and eats it.

Carefully, Zuko throws another. The bird looks at them, turning its head this and that way. It picks up Zuko’s offer and flies up again.

They watch as the bright red bird disappears between the trees.

“They’re considered a sign in the Fire Nation.” He whispers.

“Of what?” She whispers back, eyes leaving the tree line to look at him. The wind picks up, a strand of her hair momentarily covering her lips before she brushes it away.

He smiles.

“Joy.”

The next day, Zuko walks Katara to the hospital and goes back to his house. She says she volunteered to help with some tasks, and it wouldn’t be right to simply disappear. So he goes back to his house to catch up on his own work.

In three days, he will begin attending the meetings to discuss trade deals and inter-nations efforts on technological advancements.

It’s the reason Sokka and Suki are in town with the kids.

Well, it’s the reason Sokka is in town — he’s Head of the technology program in the South, and one of the most brilliant minds in all four nations. But the trip is long, and there’s no way he’d spend a whole month away from Suki and the kids. So they are all in town.

Yesterday, Katara told him she had previously agreed to have dinner with them tonight.

“Can I come?” He asked. He’s starting to see Sokka’s point of never wanting to be away from his wife.

“You’re sure? Sokka might be weird about it,” she warns.

“Is he fifteen?”

“I don’t think my brother can move past that mental age.”

Zuko snorted, hugging her above the shoulders. “I’m bound to meet him at some point. It will be fine.”

“Didn’t you want to stay incognito?” Katara asks, voice muffled as she hugs him. He can tell she’s a bit nervous.

“Please! One of those acolytes will rat us out to Aang by tomorrow morning, tops.”

And so it is that right after lunch, his guards announce that the Avatar is there to see him, saying that he won’t leave because he knows Zuko’s there.

“Oh, fancy seeing you here,” Aang says, with a barely contained smirk, when Zuko makes his way downstairs.

“Tea?” Zuko asks, gesturing for Aang to follow him out to the small courtyard where they can speak in private.

“No, thanks. I’m fine.”

Zuko sits on a stone bench. Aang rests his glider on a column and crosses his arms.

He stares at Zuko.

Zuko cannot win this game against Iroh. But he can win against Aang. So he crosses his arms and stares back.

Aang cracks a smile, “It’s her, right?”

Zuko breaks. He runs a hand over his flaming face. Aang lets out a bright laugh.

“How long did you pretend to keep cool about it?” Aang asks, clearly enjoying himself way too much.

A month? There’s no way Zuko’s answering that question.

“Did you want something, Aang?” Zuko grumbles.

“Yes. To tell you I’m happy,” Aang answers with a large smile. “Also, to tell you we’re having GAang night at my place at seven.”

“We actually had—”

“Dinner with Sokka and Suki, yeah. Now it’s GAang dinner.”

“You already talked to Katara?” He frowns.

“Duh. I’m not stupid,” Aang rolls his eyes, “I know how wives work.”

Zuko sucks in a breath.

“She needs to say yes first,” he bounces his leg. “Advice?”

He expects his friend to crack a joke.

Instead, he studies Zuko for a moment, his expression changing as he, no doubt, notices his friend's nervousness.

Aang takes a seat beside him.

He doesn’t say anything for a while, just stares at the swaying plants in the courtyard, a contemplative expression on his face.

When he speaks again, his voice sounds like a confession.

“You know… You and I? We were born into this. This… mantle. I’m the Avatar. You’re the Fire Lord. Everyone is always kind of… circling around us.” Aang raises his hands in a vague circular gesture, “Catering to us. Wanting things from us. You name it.”

“It’s easy to get big-headed,” he gives Zuko a wry smile. “So I will share with you some sage advice my wife gave me once: You are not the center of the universe.” Aangs lets out a small and embarrassed laugh, and Zuko can’t help but join. That’s not what he expected to hear. “You found someone to share your life with. And that’s a blessing. But don’t forget you are also sharing in her life as well. Not everything she goes through is about you.”

Zuko has a hard time imagining any struggle in Aang and Kyla’s relationship. They always seemed so in tune from where Zuko stood. But judging from this small snippet, it’s clear that they have had to make some adjustments over the years.

And Zuko’s been guilty of not considering Katara’s perspective already. He assumed he knew what was best instead of asking what she wanted — almost pushed her away because of it.

“Now here’s some advice from me:” Aang says, “If you don’t put each other first, you’re gonna be swallowed whole. By expectations. Demands. Work. And we know you are both prone to that already.” He puts a hand on Zuko’s shoulder, looks at him seriously, “The Fire Nation can wait. Your family cannot. They’ll only have you. Right now, I know you should make it grand, for politics’ sake. But making it meaningful to both of you is way more important.”

Zuko nods, looking at his feet, his throat almost too tight to form words.

They’ll only have you.

Zuko knows very well what it's like to be failed.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m insane for thinking I can have this,” he manages to get out. “Both things, you know.”

A healthy country. A happy family.

Aang gives him a small smile, and seems to understand what he isn’t able to say out loud. He eases an arm around Zuko’s shoulder. “Only way to have it is to make it happen.”

Aang has a way of instilling his mood into the people around him. Sometimes, his energy is too hectic for Zuko’s temperament. But then, there are moments like this, where his calm optimism seems to seep into the very air around him.

Zuko allows himself to take that in, breathing deeply.

“You know,” Zuko tells him, “sometimes I forget that you house millennia of wisdom.”

Aang laughs, gives him a self-deprecating smile. “Honestly, me too.”

Toph corners him when he is coming back from the bathroom.

“So, you and Sugar Queen?”

He doesn’t answer. If she’s asking, she already knows.

She points a threatening finger at him. “I don’t care that you’re Fire Lord. I will fucking kick your ass. Don’t make me do it. You’re one of the few people I actually like.”

Zuko blinks. “Okay.”

Toph holds the scowl a beat longer before walking away with a relaxed: “Okay, good talk!”

They will all spend the night at Air Island. Aang and Kyla are finishing preparations in the kitchen while the others play with the kids outside.

Katara and Suki are sitting on a bench, Bumi on Suki’s lap, while Momo, who’s older and slower but still just as cuddly, enjoys Katara’s petting. Sokka is chasing his kids around several obstacles that Toph bent out of earth before she went to the bathroom.

Zuko locks eyes with Akiak right as he is getting out of a tunnel. The kid freezes, large blue eyes going wide. At three years old, the twins are starting to look a little more like Suki, with lighter skin and smaller noses than their dad's, but the resemblance is still so strong that it's almost like facing a baby Sokka, right down to the mischievous glint in their eyes.

Zuko crouches… narrows his eyes, hunches his back.

The kid lets out a scream and scrambles away. Zuko chases him with a roar while Akiak screams maniacally, running around the yard in a beeline with no clear direction.

“Oh no!” Suki says in mock alarm, “The Fire Nation is attacking again!

Zuko stops, extends his arms beside his body, and gives her a look.

Really? This joke again?

But his moment of distraction is a mistake, because Sokka unceremoniously dumps a child over Zuko’s right shoulder.

“Water Tribe attack!” The kid’s high-pitched voice may make Zuko a little deaf in his good ear. Atka’s little arms almost choke him while trying to cling to his neck, while Akiak, sensing an opportunity, runs back and starts to climb his leg, making chewing noises the whole time.

“Dinner’s served!” Aang yells from the window.

“YEAH!” The twins scream in unison as they run to the kitchen — their reaction to food making clear that they inherited more than just Sokka’s looks.

“Walk, don’t run!” Suki yells after them. Katara following with Momo on her shoulder.

Zuko is fixing his messed-up top knot when he senses Sokka lingering beside him.

“So,” Sokka starts, voice unpreoccupied, “you guys together together?”

Kyla gave him a knowing smile earlier. Suki actually gave him a fist bump. Zuko has been waiting for Sokka to say something.

“Yes — unofficially,” he answers. “Katara thinks it’s best if we wait a bit.”

“Do you think it’s best?” Sokka raises an eyebrow.

“She gets to decide this,” Zuko answers.

He would be happy to go public now, but Katara has had to deal with a lot more unwanted comments than he has over the past months. He’ll happily spare her any more aggravation while she finishes wrapping up her tasks with the White Lotus.

Sokka only nods, starts walking to the house.

“That’s it?” Zuko frowns. “No ‘watch your back’ or anything?”

Sokka snorts, turns around. “Please! We both know my sister’s much scarier than me. But,” he spreads his hands, looking kind of bored, “by all means: watch your back, I have a sword yada-yada.”

Zuko chuckles. “I thought you were gonna be weirder about this.”

“Eh. Maybe at fifteen when I was stupid.”

“Was?”

“More,” Sokka smiles. But then his expression turns serious. “You know, Water Tribe doesn’t care much for fancy words. We're a people of gestures,” he says. “Katara showed me your scrolls — the polls, law changes. The fact you prepared all that tells me enough.”

He didn’t know Katara had talked to Sokka, but it makes sense, considering how close they are.

“Besides,” Sokka’s eyes grow a dangerous glint, “you guys have had this crush going on fooor eeeeever.”

Zuko just runs a hand over his face and goes inside. Did everybody notice it?

Dinner with seven people, three kids, and a lemur is a hectic affair. But it is the kind of fun and cozy chaos that Zuko doesn’t particularly mind, even if all he manages to do is half follow conversations and pass people things.

When the kids are down for the night — having pretty much passed out after a lot of playing and a hearty vegetarian meal — the adults all get together in Aang’s spacious living room to properly talk and catch up on the happenings of the year.

Aang provided three bottles of plum wine, placing one right in front of Katara with a pointed look. She nodded, filled her cup, and drank two large gulps in one go. Zuko can tell from the subtle tension on her shoulders, from the tapping of her finger against her cup, that she is nervous.

They aren’t exactly hiding here. All of their friends know, and Zuko’s sitting by her side in one of the sofas, too close to be considered just friendly.

“So, Sweetness, when’s the wedding gonna be?” Toph asks from her armchair, interrupting a conversation between Sokka and Aang about the meetings that will begin next week.

Katara freezes. “That’s- There’s nothing official at the moment,” she answers.

Toph cocks her head in suspicion, turns her omniscient feet in Zuko’s direction.

“What do you have to say, Fire Lord?”

He shrugs calmly. “Nothing to you guys.”

“Hmm…” Toph seems to be analyzing his answer. “You guys realize I can sense your mushiness all the way across the room, right?” All of a sudden, she relaxes back into her seat, tells the room, “Fifty bucks it happens next spring.”

“A royal wedding?” Suki sputters. She’s in one of the couches, slouched against Sokka’s side, both with their feet on the low tea table in the center of the room. “It’ll take ages to plan. More like the spring after.”

Sokka snorts. “Like they’re waiting that long. Next fall, tops.”

“I don’t know.” Kyla says, lying on the other couch, her voice drops to a whisper, “Can you imagine a winter wedding?”

“Aww,” Suki sighs, “It would be so poetic.”

“Right?” Kyla seems delighted at the prospect.

“Plus, you could get away with having fewer people.” Aang, sitting on the backrest of Kyla’s couch, tips his cup in Zuko’s direction.

Suki laughs. “As if!”

“No, he has a point. The North Pole can’t send ships out in winter,” Sokka says.

“Yeah, but that’d be like, a huge insult,” Suki counters.

“Well, if they didn’t suck they could start using airships,” Sokka answers, “and if they don’t, that’s not anybody’s problem.”

And then they’re all speaking over each other.

Zuko, for his part, is glad to hear people have a brainstorming session on the topic. Even if, and maybe especially because, nobody here seems too concerned about his opinion. There’s a lot to plan.

He senses Katara's gaze. She’s looking at him like she’s horrified to be hearing all of those things.

To be fair, they aren’t even official yet. But he thinks it’s pretty obvious that it will happen, so what’s the harm? He just smiles and shrugs in response.

All their friends place their bets.

No one bets summer, because ‘it’s miserably humid, no one would want that’ and they seem pretty decided that it simply won’t happen. Katara crosses her arms and keeps silent, frowning the whole time.

Once the chatter dies down, they turn to her. As if asking for a verdict.

“Are you quite done?” She asks. “Can we move on now?”

“Do you think the wedding will mix Water Tribe and Fire Nation traditions?” Toph throws in.

Zuko’s pretty sure Toph doesn’t care one bit about wedding traditions. But he knows she does care about annoying Katara, and he has a feeling that’s what’s going on here.

“Of course it will!” Sokka says.

“Which ones, though?” Suki asks in a tone of wonder.

“Aang!” Katara calls angrily, “Come on, man. You said you’d back me up!”

Aang, with a loose set to his shoulders that indicates he’s had too much to drink at this point, lets out a peal of laughter. “I did say that.” He pours some more wine into his cup, shaking his head with an amused expression. “What was I thinking?”

“Flaky bastard.” Katara murmurs, crossing her arms again and slouching in her seat.

“What about you, Toph?” Kyla cuts in, narrowing her eyes at the earthbender. “I heard some things about you spending time with a certain officer…”

Toph immediately tenses. “I swear you guys founded the acolytes just to have a personal gossip network.”

Aang looks affronted.

“Well, not just for that,” Kyla deadpans.

Aang nods sagely and goes back to sipping his wine.

“And you didn’t answer my question,” Kyla presses. Her small size and sweet looks really don’t match the strength of her personality.

“Yeah, Toph. Answer the question.” Sokka rounds in.

“Are they hot?” Suki asks.

“Obviously.” Toph crosses her arms. “When are you guys having more babies? It’s time.”

“Nope.” Suki pops the word decisively. “Not gonna work. I want the deets now, friend.”

Beside him, Katara laughs. And even though she didn’t say a thing, Toph shoots her an annoyed expression.

Toph ends up having to relinquish more information about her mysterious ‘absolutely-not-boyfriend’. Zuko isn’t too worried about it. All he can feel is sorry for anyone who ever thinks they can treat Toph badly.

Katara, though, is strangely quiet.

He could feel her nervousness the whole night, and he’s a bit worried about how she is not touching him right now. Since their first kiss, Katara seems to always be touching him in some way — an arm around his elbow, her thigh pressed to his, her ankle casually hooked around his foot.

She seems a little more relaxed now, with everyone else’s attention on Toph. But her arms are still crossed, cup of wine close to her body.

She meets his eyes. Katara gives him a small smile, and he feels his heart speed up in his chest.

“Ding ding ding! Mushiness alert!” Toph loudly interrupts the whole conversation, pointing lazily in their direction. She cups a hand beside her mouth. “Get a room!” To the rest of the group, she says, “I’m changing my bet, it’ll happen this winter.”

“You can’t just change your bet now!” Sokka protests.

She pffs. “It’s not like you were gonna win. Who bets on fall?”

“It’s the principle of it!” Aang complains.

“Get up.” Katara says to Zuko, before standing up herself. “Good-bye to you people,” she tells the room and starts walking out, before thinking better and returning to grab the half-full bottle of plum wine. “And I’m taking this.” She shoves the bottle on Zuko’s chest before grabbing him by the arm and leaving the room.

If she was hoping to quiet their teasing, it’s not the ideal solution. The wolf whistles and howls follow them out into the night, as does Suki’s “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

She keeps walking until they are far enough from the house that their friends’ conversation becomes a faint sound in the background. The chirp of moth-crickets and the croaking of badger-frogs mixing with the sound of the waves lapping gently at the shore.

Katara wraps her arms around herself and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath.

Zuko sets the wine bottle on the floor, comes behind her, and wraps his arms around hers. She tenses.

“We don’t have to talk about it right now,” he whispers, and she relaxes, rests her weight against his chest like she did all those months ago in a different garden. She’s on slightly lower ground here, so she fits perfectly under his chin, and he lets it rest on top of her head.

They stay that way for a long moment. It’s a cloudy night, the water in the bay so dark it seems almost black except for the silver moonlight reflecting from it. The autumn sea breeze rustles the leaves of the trees and bushes around the island, but their clothes are heavy enough to keep them warm.

Carefully, Zuko asks, “What’s troubling you?”

“You said we didn’t have to talk about it,” she grumbles.

“We don’t, but I think you need to,” he moves his chin to probe at her ear, trying to get her to look at him without unwrapping his arms from around her.

Katara sighs, turns a little so her temple rests on his chest. “They were just talking too much and I can’t— I can’t think about it right now.”

The it, all signs indicate, is their wedding.

Until a few days ago, that phrase would have confirmed all of Zuko’s worst fears. But they have spent much time clearing things, and he’s pretty sure of her feelings for him now. So it must be something else.

‘You are not the center of the universe’

“Why not?” A note of sadness still manages its way into his voice.

“It’s just— I spent all of last month trying to make peace with the possibility that it might not work out. Replaying all the reasons in my head. I heard plenty of them. And now you’re here and it doesn’t… it doesn’t feel real,” she whispers, her voice sounding impossibly small, “I keep waiting for something to go wrong.”

He had weeks to reread those documents, enough that he could convince even his pessimistic self that, yes, he could safely ask her to be with him. His insecurity was about whether she would want it.

Katara, on the other hand, seemed to believe his intentions from the beginning. But that dreadful letter he sent when he had convinced himself he couldn’t have this, couldn’t have her, had done a lot of damage. He should never have said anything.

“It’s real.” He kisses her head. “I’m sorry I got so scared before. But I promise you there’s nothing to go wrong.”

She steps away, enough to look him in the eyes. Zuko keeps his hands on her biceps, unwilling to let go.

“You can’t know this,” she laughs a little, but there isn’t much humor in it. “I’m a waterbender,” it looks almost like she’s speaking to herself. “Up until ten years ago, you were the enemy— I was the enemy. I was just some backwards peasant, and now I’m supposed to be... their ruler? And everybody's just... okay with it? I feel like— someone’s gonna tell me to wake up soon. Because this is just… not a thing that happens.”

Zuko frowns. He’s heard her say that before.

‘That’s the stuff of stories, not a thing that happens.’

Someone told her that.

It’s clear by now that people told her lots of things, and as firm as Katara is on her own opinions, spending months like that is bound to have an impact. There’s nothing he can do to remove those lines from her mind — but he can prove them wrong.

He kisses her.

Buries one hand in her hair and circles her waist with the other, presses her body against his and kisses and kisses her until they are both out of breath.

He rests his forehead against hers, hands still holding her in place. She is grasping at his arms like he’s the only thing keeping her upright.

“I love you,” he says. “This is a thing that happens because we will make it happen,” he knows he sounds angry, maybe he is. “Do you trust me?”

“I love you, too,” she whispers back.

“And do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Then trust me on this. Remember the library? The chronicles?” She nods. They spent hours reading each other snippets about people from the past. “We’ll be those stories one day, and we’ll make for a damn good one.”

She nods, swallows.

Then, she surprises him again. He expects her to stand tall, give him that fiery look he’s seen countless times before. Instead, she slumps against him, hiding her face in his chest and breathing deeply.

This brave woman, full of determination, who will raise a storm and never flinch, who remains calm when everything is falling apart, this woman Zuko has seen set right whoever dared underestimate her—

She makes herself small against his chest.

And at first, Zuko doesn't know what to think, how to react.

But then he realizes…

He asked for trust.

And this is her trusting him — letting him see a part of her she doesn’t show other people.

Water, she said, needs a place to run to.

He feels something shift inside him.

He tightens his arms around her, and she sighs. For a while, they just stay there.

“Don't you get cold feet on me,” he tries to joke lamely.

“Cold feet are my whole thing, though,” she mumbles, and he snorts. He has complained about her freezing toes once or twice.

“Good thing you have a firebender to warm you up now.”

It’s a corny thing to say, but she looks up at him with a dazed smile that lights up her whole face and says, “It’s the best thing,” so he can’t regret it very much.

She looks calmer already, and the relief he feels is so potent that Katara must see it on his face, because she tells him:

“I’m sorry. I promise I won’t just give up.”

“I know,” he places a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t apologize. It’s scary stuff.” He traces one of her eyebrows, “You can talk to me.”

“Okay,” she breathes, closing her eyes briefly. Then she steps away, looking a lot more relaxed. “Where’s that wine?”

Zuko chuckles. He retrieves the drink, and they sit on the grass, side by side.

“So, I’m thinking,” Katara takes a swig straight from the bottle, wipes her lips with the back of her hand, and passes it to him. Zuko brings the bottle to his lips. “We should do summer just to piss them off.”

Zuko almost chokes.

She sputters a laugh while he half-coughs, half-laughs.

“Sorry,” she chuckles, running a soothing hand on his back.

“No, no,” he says, “please proceed.”

“You see,” she tells him, with the air of someone who has been thinking about this for a while, “the Fire Sages don’t know any of the traditions of my people. We can basically get away with anything.”

By the time they return to the house, empty bottle and cheeks hurting from how much they laughed over insane wedding ideas, the living room is empty, all of their friends having already retired for the night.

They will be getting a lot of shit in the morning.

Chapter Text

—————— Wolf Cove.

“You want to arrange my marriage?” She blurts out.

That’s not how Katara thought the conversation was going to go when her father invited her for tea in his office.

“No,” Hakoda answers calmly, an amused expression on his face. “I’m letting you know that there is an opportunity for an international political marriage, and I think you should consider it.”

She relaxes a fraction, but still frowns.

“Why?” Is her father that disillusioned about her prospects?

Hakoda gives her a list of reasons.

She has shown great leadership ability in the last few years.

The letter received from the ambassador said ‘healthy women in their twenties, preferably acquainted with politics and public life’ and she is the best qualified in their Tribe, probably the only one who would seriously consider this particular offer.

It would be good for the Tribe to have someone they trust in cooperation abroad, both on a practical level, but also as an example — ‘you know how some people are getting twisted isolationist ideas’.

He tactfully doesn’t mention that she hasn’t been involved with anyone in some time, while most of the women her age in the tribes are either married, marrying, or already with a baby.

He also doesn’t mention the disastrous ordeal with Tulok. And for that, she is thankful. She does not want to talk about it.

“Okay…” She says, slowly. “Okay. I see your points. And… where is it?”

“Fire Nation.”

“Do I know him?”

She tries to list the ministers and politicians she knows in her head. Most are too old for her. But maybe a new governor? She hopes her dad isn’t desperate enough to consider marrying her off to someone twice her age.

“Yes. It’s the Fire Lord.”

Her mind screeches to a halt. She has to blink several times.

“...Zuko?”

Her father just looks at her.

“Zuko’s getting a political marriage?”

“So it seems.”

Katara has to force her mouth closed.

A number of things overlap in her consciousness: Zuko’s stern posture in meetings, the sharp edges of his robes, his small smile among friends, the smell of sandalwood when they hug — a flip in her stomach — the water-lily garden at the palace, a party with noble ladies in complicated hairstyles, Earth Kingdom war tanks, does Aang know this?

She looks back at her father. Blinks. “And you think I… should marry… Zuko?”

“I think,” her father rests his elbows on the table, joins his hands, “no one can be more trusted to raise the next Fire Lord than you.” He says seriously. Katara can barely breathe. “And I think… You and Zuko are friends. And that’s a good starting point for a marriage. Enough for you to consider it. If you find that it makes sense.”

It’s too much.

She stands up.

Pacing to the other side of the room, she turns her back to her father and crosses her arms, stares at the wall until she’s calmed down enough to sort the most immediate turmoil in her mind. Hakoda waits in silence.

Her father is telling her to consider this position, knowing what it would mean.

There’s plenty to do at home. For the last five years she has spent one season of the year in Wolf Cove.

When she is here, she works at the healing huts; she teaches the young waterbenders, trains with the older ones; she helps Dad with infrastructure plans and execution of projects; she shares what she has learned — stories, techniques, information, sits at the council with the leaders and the elders.

But as soon as Spring in the north hemisphere starts, she leaves.

Katara took up a traveling position because of the kind of work it offered, but also because she was restless, eager to exercise her abilities with new challenges, to meet people who had the same cravings as she did — for change, for building.

The longer she reflected on it, the more she realized she could not see a satisfying future in her homeland. She still hasn’t told her father about her plans to move — she still doesn’t know if she will have the guts to do it, not so soon after she leaves her job, anyway.

She sits back in front of him, dares to voice the question that has been in her mind for far longer than she would care to admit.

“If I married abroad, I would be… away.”

They’ve had so much of their time taken from them. And Katara wishes she felt more comfortable here. But Wolf Cove has very few people who feel like hers, people who get her, who she can be herself with.

Her father reaches across the table, palm up. She slides her hand up his forearm, and he holds her there, covers her wrist with his other hand.

“My daughter,” he says, gazing at her with a softness she doesn’t often see in her father’s eyes, “you know how much I’d miss you.” He swallows. “But I want to see you happy. And I believe you’ve outgrown us.”

She opens her mouth to protest.

“It’s okay to do it, pup. It’s the fate of every lucky parent to see their children grow beyond them.” His eyes fill with tears, and hers burn in response. “I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become, Katara. And I know you’ll do great things wherever you choose to go. And I want you to believe that it is possible to stay true to who you are while growing into who you want to be.”

Never one to linger once he has spoken what he meant, her father lets go of her hand, sits back on his chair with a sigh. “You don’t have to accept this suggestion. But I think you should consider it.”

She purses her lips, breathing through the emotion welling in her chest. She didn’t think her father had noticed her struggles. In her worse moments, she wonders if anyone notices her struggles at all.

“How long before this information needs to be with the council?”

“It’s not official yet,” Hakoda answers. “How long do you need?”

“Could you hold it- until after the Summit?”

“Takka sent the fastest hawk, but this news is probably with half the people who will make use of it. The Summit would be an ideal time to speak with the Fire Lord in person, if we are to have a Southern Water Tribe prospect.” He counters.

“Yes. But I would like to think about it and… get a feel of some things first.” It’s a vague answer, but Hakoda studies her for a couple of seconds and nods, looking quietly pleased.

“I can do that.” He says.

And doesn’t touch on the subject again.

When she can’t stand to keep it to herself anymore, she goes to Sokka.

Dad shares almost all important information with him. She’s quite sure he’s training Sokka to succeed him as chief at some point.

Probably not soon, Dad is still young, and Sokka is focusing on his inventions. They’re the reason that the South is quickly becoming a leader in implementing technological innovations. They have the brilliant mind of the engineer, the willingness of the chief, and the advantage of a smaller scale — perfect conditions for testing out new ideas.

Sometimes Sokka gets a little sidetracked with his visions, but Suki provides a good balance, with her more practical outlook on things. Her previous experience with leadership also makes her a powerful resource. Katara knows Hakoda has already noticed it and started delegating responsibilities to his daughter-in-law.

Another strong message from the Chief that the South will not be closed in on itself, that people from other nations can be welcomed as allies.

“Did you know Zuko’s getting a political marriage?” She leans her shoulder on the arch between her brother’s kitchen and dining area. Suki is putting the kids down for their afternoon nap, and Katara and Sokka have just finished cleaning up the mess that’s lunch with three-year-old twins.

Her brother slouches on a chair, puts a leg up on a stool, and answers her around a mouthful of jerky, “Dad told me.”

She’s given up correcting his manners a long time ago.

What else did Dad tell you? She wants to ask when he doesn’t say anything else.

She bites the inside of her cheek. “...What do you think about this?”

“I mean,” he swallows, shakes his head, “makes sense. Dude’s got zero game with women.”

Katara frowns. Zuko is a bit awkward, but she’s always thought it rather charming. Then again, Sokka’s always told her she’s a loser in this department, and she’s inclined to agree, though she'll never do it out loud.

“He’s good in bed, though.” Suki says, entering the room.

Sokka almost chokes. “What?” he coughs, and Katara feels heat creep up her neck.

“Mai told Ty Lee,” Suki shrugs, “Girls talk.”

“Woman, don’t you scare me like this.” Sokka complains, pulling a chair for her to sit right under his arm. “You want your kids to grow up without a father?”

Suki rolls her eyes, “Oh, the drama!”

“By the way, what are you telling your friends about me?” Sokka narrows his eyes at his wife, with a wolfish grin that Katara does not care about seeing on her brother’s face.

“Ew! Bye.” Katara grabs her coat and leaves immediately, while Suki giggles behind her.

Maybe it’s better if Sokka doesn’t know about it until she’s decided what to do.

.

—————— Summit.

Seeing Zuko at the Summit this time is the weirdest thing.

Her friends always look a little different after some time apart, a different haircut, accessories in a style she hasn’t seen them wearing before — Zuko was no exception.

But until now, he was that: her friend. And that’s what she saw when she looked at him. Now, she wonders if she’s looking at her future husband.

Does she want that?

…Would he want that?

Team Avatar corresponds sporadically and meets about two or three times a year on visits, Summits, or when they are needed To Solve Some Problem Somewhere — there are always Problems Somewhere, it seems. Their whole group remains somewhat in touch; their friendship has evolved into a bond that doesn’t need constant contact to hold the certainty of unyielding support.

Seeing her long-time friends always puts her at ease. But this time, when she first sees Zuko, her stomach flutters instead.

She finds herself watching him as if she’s never seen him before — his posture, the span of his shoulders, the movement of his hands when he speaks, the sharp lines of his jaw and nose.

It’s not the first time she’s wondered what it would be like, with Zuko.

There was always something there.

A recognition of sorts.

Like finding a mirror inside someone else — the dread of recognizing your own flaws reflected back at you, the relief of knowing you’re not the only one to have them. (The curiosity about what else is there.)

Even after they made peace with each other, there was a war going on. Even after he became an ally and a friend, he was still the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, and then quickly after… the actual Fire Lord.

And Katara was not stupid.

She had been stupid about a boy once. And soon learned that in a world like hers, being stupid about a boy can have consequences serious enough to drown a whole village.

So she looked at that door — the one that whispered what else could we be? — and kept it firmly shut.

It wasn’t really difficult, with everything else going on.

There was also Aang’s crush on her at the time. A crush she thought she might reciprocate for a while. It took them about two months of trying to work as a couple to realize they were better off as friends.

Love takes many forms, and for two children of war who had become family, it was easy to confuse things.

After the White Lotus came into the picture, after her father finally came home, it was easier to realize how she and her friends were all just children. Children who did the unthinkable and deserved respect for it, but children all the same. Peace was much more complex than war.

Ten years later, not so much.

Katara has been working with the White Lotus for the last five years. What had started as a travelling schedule to train healers across the nations has evolved into a work of community organization and cooperation with local leaders in order to set up the best possible publicly available health care in each region.

This year, she was in a number of committees on bending education and health advancements, and she was on a mission to set up deals that were as long-lasting as possible. She wants to ensure her successors will have an easier start — hopes they will use her groundwork to take things further.

She only barely greeted Zuko, the Summits are always busy. She’s wondering if she should take this as a sign from the spirits to keep quiet when he smiles softly at her and says:

“Walk with me? We haven’t talked in forever.”

After getting the context she needs — he’s not being pressured, he decided to do it — she hears him talk about sharing work, proving a point, leaving a legacy of change and it all just makes sense to her.

Until he asks, “What is Master Katara looking for in a husband?”

Until he gives her a look and tells her, “I find that really hard to believe.”

Until he listens to her with an unreadable expression and utters a hesitant, “We are friends.”

Until she makes a stupid joke and asks him if he’s charmed yet, and he looks her straight in the eye when he answers, “I am.”

And she feels that, unless she’s very careful, sense will quickly fly out the window.

Maybe there was more than just one reason why she had never allowed herself to touch that door in the first place.

.

—————— Earth Kingdom.

When Aang showed up at the Summit with Kyla’s written invitation, Katara had been reluctant to agree.

“I don’t want to intrude on your family time, Aang.”

“You’re family.”

“Not to Kyla’s parents.”

Aang had snorted. “Tell that to them. Threatened to disown me if I didn’t bring you.”

Aang’s in-laws were like if a warm embrace took the physical form of an old countryside couple, a table full of fruits and homemade cheese always ready to welcome people into their home, and a complaint about it being ‘too soon’ to leave, no matter how long you stayed with them.

Kyla, a tiny woman with a sunny presence five times her size, squealed in delight when she saw Katara arrive with Aang, light brown hair swaying behind her in a messy braid.

“The spirits have smiled upon my household!” Bumi in one arm, she threw her other hand in the air and went straight to squeezing Katara in a hug.

“‘Hello, husband!” Aang drawled, by their side. “It’s so good to see you again!’”

Katara gladly took Bumi as Kyla went to fuss over her husband until he was blushing and giggling.

Satisfied, Aang took Bumi to see Appa and left the girls to catch up.

“He will wither and die if he doesn’t have his fill of attention,” Kyla rolled her eyes, sitting across from Katara at the kitchen table, but her expression was so fond that it was clear she very much enjoyed Aang’s antics.

“How are you? It’s been forever, tell me everything.” She sucked in a breath, “Oh! Did you hear about Zuko?”

Katara bit her lip, anxious to talk to a trusted friend, “About that…”

The next day, Katara busies herself with the dishes after lunch.

Aang and Kyla usually protest at her doing any work while she visits their home, but they’re not exactly home; they’re in a rented house in Kyla’s parents’ city. Katara will be staying with them for ten full days, and with a six-month-old baby, any help is appreciated.

“Hey, can I help you with drying these?” Aang asks.

It’s not really necessary, but she takes one look at her friend and knows this is just his excuse to be around her. She has a feeling for where this is going.

“Sure,” she passes him the freshly washed bowls. He gets a cloth to dry it. He could bend it away, but it’s too much work for such a small thing.

“So,” he begins, “I saw you took a stroll with Zuko.”

He’s circling around the topic. He’s gonna ask eventually.

“Hm-hm,” she nods.

“…What did you guys talk about?”

Now… Katara loves Aang, she trusts him with her life — with the fate of the world.

She does not trust him to keep his cool about this.

“Oh, you know,” she says, casually, “catching up. Plans for the year.”

He pauses. She passes him two more bowls.

She can sense his eyes watching her apprehensively as he distractedly dries the dishes. “You’re going to Caldera first, right?”

“You know that, you're the one taking me.”

“Yeah, yeah. I'm just— just confirming.”

Katara tries to hide her smile, passes him three more cups.

It’s kind of fun to see how long he’s gonna take to get to the point. Aang has become an assertive and trustworthy Avatar, but around his friends it’s like he regresses five years.

“Has he told you about his plans?”

“Several.”

“I mean his plans to get married.” He blurts. “Politically. Like, to have a political marriage. International.” He rambles.

Katara tramps down her urge to laugh.

“Dad had already mentioned it.”

He pauses again. Katara starts washing the spoons and knives.

“I think you should talk to him.”

“About?”

“The marriage thing. You should, you know, talk to him.”

“We have. I just told you we talked about our plans for the year.”

“No, I mean, like, talk talk.” He widens his eyes in emphasis.

“Are you feeling well? You’re having trouble forming phrases?”

He huffs.

“I mean, you should- you know. Volunteer.”

Katara barks a laugh. “It's a political marriage, Aang. Volunteering is not how it works, you know. It's more of a job interview kind of thing. You have to send a presentation letter—”

He groans. “You know what I mean.”

She turns to him, thoroughly amused. “You’re saying I should marry Zuko?” She pretends like it’s a new and strange concept. It kind of is. “Why?”

“C’mon. Think about it. It makes sense— you’re not seeing anyone, are you?”

“No,” she turns back to the sink.

He asks like he’s just confirming. But it’s been a bit of a touchy subject for her since the whole mess with Tulok.

“So,” Aang says animatedly, and proceeds to list all of the reasons why he thinks it'd be a good idea. All the ones Katara has had swimming in her mind for two weeks now. It's nice to hear him say them.

It makes her feel less insane.

“Not to mention,” he says, at last, “you think he’s hot.”

“You mean the literal Fire Lord?” She deflects. “Isn’t hotness his whole thing?”

“Ha ha,” he deadpans, “I mean, you think Zuko’s hot.”

“You think Zuko’s hot,” she parries, and Aang blushes a little.

“Well, yeah. He is. So what? My point is-" He points to her. "You think it.”

“Well, yeah. He is. So what?” She echoes, gives him a bunch of utensils to dry, so he keeps his hands busy. He puts them down on the counter instead.

“Are you being this difficult on purpose?” He crosses his arms.

When she can't contain the beginnings of a smile. He narrows his eyes.

“Ah, damn.” He pouts, in a petty expression that lasts for half a second before his eyes glint again.

“Aaand…” he sing-songs, “you really like his princely shit.”

Katara flushes.

Bumi suddenly begins wailing. Katara has never been more glad to hear a baby crying.

“Sorry, Kyla’s napping,” Aang says, already running to the bedroom.

Katara furiously washes the dishes. Sure, Zuko is well-mannered and… yeah, it’s nice. But it’s not, like… a thing.

Aang returns with a sleepy and disgruntled baby in his arms, bouncing him softly and offering him a plush bison to play with. Katara notices how Bumi is scratching his gums against his knuckles. She forgets the dishes for a moment to peer into the baby’s mouth.

“I think he’s teething.”

“Already?” Aang widens his eyes.

“Might be a while before they come out, though.”

Bumi fusses a little when Katara takes the toy from him. She bends a cover of snow-like ice over one of the paws and gives it back as quickly as she can. The baby immediately starts scratching his gums against the cool surface.

“Neat!” Aang smiles. And then he turns his attention to her again.

Katara looks at the sink.

She made a huge mistake. She worked too fast while Aang went away, and now she only has a pan left to occupy her hands while avoiding Aang’s gaze.

She tries to ignore his scanning, but she can feel him studying her.

“Have you- have you already- talked to him?

Katara scrubs the pan. Aang keeps staring at her, eyes narrowed. He's not going to give up.

She sighs. She’s gonna regret telling him this.

“We had the beginning of a talk.”

Aang whisper-screams a “yeeesssss!” and practically bounces in place. Bumi giggles in his arms, and she can’t help but laugh too. The baby is adorable.

“How was it?” Aang’s eyes are alight. “Tell me tell me tell me!”

“It was- fine. It was just- like I said, the… beginning of a talk. We’ll talk more when I’m there.”

“Does your dad know?” He asks curiously.

“He’s the one who suggested it, actually.”

Aang pauses. “Damn.” He grows serious for half a second before his eyes get a dangerous glint. “Does Sokka know?”

Katara widens her eyes.

“No. And you're not allowed to tell him. Or Suki. Or Toph. Or anyone else.” Aang is a horrible gossip.

“Can I at least tell Kyla?” He pleads.

“Obviously. Kyla already knows, though.”

“What?” He sounds indignant. “And she didn’t tell me?”

“No. Because she’s a good friend, and you will follow her example and keep your mouth shut.” She points a finger at him.

“Why? Everybody’s gonna know very soon.”

She shakes her head. “This might be nothing.”

He gives her a look, his voice lowers. “You and I both know it’s not gonna be nothing.”

Katara flushes. “What's that supposed to mean?” She asks, and immediately regrets it.

“Com’on, Katara?” He gives her a crooked smile. “You and Zuko?”

“We’re friends!” She defends.

“He has a maaajor crush on you.”

“He— does not!”

But she remembers his eyes on her. ‘I find that really hard to believe.’ Her neck feels way too hot.

She goes back to scrubbing the already clean pan.

Aang’s gaze is knowing. And smug. “You know it’s true, don't you?”

“It’s a political discussion, Aang.”

“It's still a marriage. At the end of the day, you’ll be a family and have bab—”

She bends a jet stream on his face. Just enough.

He sputters. “Ouch! Hey! I'm holding the baby!”

Bumi giggles. She turns to the kid while Aang bends the water away from his face. “Your daddy,” she says in her baby voice, “is a major yapper. I hope you didn't inherit this trait.”

Bumi babbles happily in response. They laugh.

She returns to the sink, hoping Aang will finally drop the subject.

“Your Aunt Katara—” Aang says to Bumi, in his own baby voice, “—is trying to scrub a hole in that pan.”

Katara sighs, out of excuses. She gives the pan a last rinse and leaves it to dry.

“You should not be this excited," she tells Aang more seriously, drying her hands. “He's the Fire Lord. You should be worried about where this is going.”

“I was worried,” he says, with sincere eyes and a gentle smile, shrugs. “Now I’m excited.”

.

—————— Caldera.

Katara hasn’t wanted to drown an old man in a long time.

Nishi, though.

It was funny, at first. A bit ridiculous.

But the creature is getting to her in a way few people have in recent years.

Because Katara believes in the best of people. And she has managed to win over so many who were reluctant to trust her at first. She finds most people just need a little warmth — it’s something in incredibly low supply in the world, and something she excels at.

But at this point in life, she also knows that some people simply want to stay bitter.

They cling to their messed-up views as a way to affirm their own need for feeling superior, and they usually exhibit this in the slimiest possible ways — with backhanded compliments and insults that are too subtle to be called out unless you want to seem like a ‘difficult’ person.

They will hear about an ostrich-horse and say things like:

“My lady, and how would that be of help to you? Certainly you would not be riding it. That would not be proper transportation for a lady.”

But Katara has dealt with this more times than she can count. So she answers with:

“You should remember, Nishi, that before being Lady Katara, I am here as Master Katara.”

Because she is a Master, and while that’s the title she’s most proud of, she knows very well what it means to be a lady, too. Better than him.

“Letting anyone suffer on account of one’s mere sensibilities would be the really improper thing for a lady to do, don’t you agree?”

She knows some people are determined to dislike her and won’t accept contrary evidence to whatever image of her they have living in their heads. And while encountering these people still makes her upset, nowadays she can usually brush it off and move on.

But Nishi… She will have to constantly interact with. And to share what little time she has with Zuko. And to tolerate being scolded like a child — worse, like she’s somehow hopelessly lesser.

And maybe, if she’s fully honest, this new thing with Zuko is making her nervous.

Having someone so openly displeased with her so soon in the process brings out her insecurities. And Nishi’s not even a noble, he’s just some guy who coughs at people for a living.

It’s enough that, for the rest of the day, she questions herself. Is all this trouble even worth it if she’s gonna have to spend her days putting up with slimy little shits like him? She has better things to do than tolerate this kind of nonsense.

Katara spends the whole following day at the clinic and volunteers to watch a patient overnight.

Gran-gran used to say ‘moving the hands sharpens the mind’ and since Katara was a little girl, she has taken the advice to heart. Work usually helps her think more clearly, lifts her mood — it’s harder to feel sad when you’re doing something of value. But even when it doesn’t fully work, she figures that if you’re going to be sad either way, it’s better to do it busy.

When morning comes, though, she has to return to the palace. She is not one to run from things, but damn, she really doesn’t want to deal with this today.

When she arrives in her room, Ayru is quietly cleaning the dresser.

“Hi, good morning,” Katara says with little energy, and plops down on the bed, runs a hand over her face.

“What is it, my lady?” Ayru asks in her sweet voice, leaving her dusting cloth to come sit beside her. “You’ve been down since yesterday.”

Katara smiles despite herself, the girl’s soothing and gentle presence already helping her feel calmer.

She likes Ayru. She’s a couple of years younger than Katara, and when they first met, the girl was very shy, and impossibly nervous about doing something as simple as bringing tea late at night to a guest of the Fire Lord. She had let some of the water spill on the tray and started crying because of it.

Katara had bent the water away and told her ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t’. And it became a sort of theme.

When Katara tried to start a conversation, and Ayru replied that it was ‘inappropriate for staff to occupy the guests’ time’, Katara said ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t’.

A week later, Katara had gotten a horrible stomach bug after eating fish from a suspicious corner stand in Harbor City.

Ayru had told anyone who asked that Master Katara had the migraines, and delivered her all the healing tea and bland food from the kitchen with efficiency and discretion. Katara, glad to be spared the embarrassment, thanked her profusely, and Ayru answered with ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t’.

That was five years ago, and though they only see each other when Katara is in Caldera, they struck a friendship of sorts.

So she tells Ayru about Nishi.

About how she tried to be nice, and the barbs she received in return, about how Nishi looks almost disgusted when she touches Zuko, about how it makes her nervous about how other people will react when their courting becomes public knowledge.

Ayru listens to her attentively.

“Did you know many people are very displeased that I work here?”

Katara blinks. “Why?”

“Working at the palace is a great honor. Only the best are accepted.” Ayru explains. “Serving here, and in a position where you are seen… means you are capable, trustworthy, and good-looking enough for that. Most posts have been filled by the same families for generations.”

“I got lucky,” Ayru bites her lip. “My parents are cooks. The head of staff owed them a favor, so she gave me this opportunity, but she didn’t want me here — didn’t think I could do it. Bringing you tea that night was my first task, and she told me a lot of things before I came in with that tray.”

Katara didn’t know that.

“Do you remember what you told me that night?”

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t?”

Ayru smiles. “You also told me ‘Don’t buy into this nonsense. I’m just a person, same as you.’ And then you told me that everyone is made of the same stuff and what matters is how you decide to act.”

Katara barely remembers. Ayru had been frantic about how she was dishonoring her parents, the Fire Lord, and the spirits themselves by spilling some water into a tray, and Katara got so upset she went into a rant where she said way too many things until the girl calmed down.

“Nobody had ever told me those things, not anyone from your station,” Ayru says. “And when I looked at you, it made sense. You were a Water Tribe commoner, but I didn't see you that way. You had helped the Avatar, and healed the Fire Lord, and was doing all those other amazing things around the world. And that's how I saw you. By the things you were doing, not by who you had been born. So... why wouldn't other people see me by what I was doing, too? It felt possible.”

Katara feels her eyes burn.

“Trust me, I’ve attended plenty of ladies in this palace, and we see things.” Ayru widens her eyes meaningfully. “Yes, you’re different from Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom ladies, but I’ve never attended another I admired as much as you.”

“You are competent, and kind. Not to mention beautiful, and charming,” Ayru is smiling now, “and perfumed, and stylish and Your. Hair. Is. Gorgeous.” Ayru finishes, and Katara fights a giggle. The girl reaches out to squeeze Katara’s hand, looks at her with kind eyes. “Don’t buy into his nonsense,” she says more seriously.

Katara breathes, closes her eyes. Nods. “Thank you, Ayru. Really.”

“Let me help with your hair,” she answers, already making Katara turn so she can begin undoing her braids. “I’ll run you a nice bath, put in that floral essence you like, and you’ll forget all about it.”

Sinking into the warm water, the soft scent of monoi energizing her, Katara strengthens her resolve: She will be enough, or she won’t.

Her father told her she could stay true to herself while growing into the person she wants to be, and Katara decides that that’s what she will do here — or nothing at all.

So she shows up for lunch in her most basic Water Tribe dress, hair down and no jewelry, like she’s walking the living space of her own home, and hugs Zuko like she normally would.

Nishi’s face contorts with affront. Good. She hopes he gets a stomachache.

Zuko, bless him, seems completely unaware. But that’s not a surprise, Zuko has never been particularly good at picking up social cues or knowing what to do with them.

It’s kind of nice. She never has to worry about misunderstanding him. He’s always been easy to read, upfront about his intentions, even when they were messed up things like ‘give me the Avatar’.

She sits in front of him now, to have a nice lunch that he clearly put thought into.

He looks so glad to see her, asks about her day, shares about his work, listens to her opinion like it’s valuable insight. And then he tells her she is funny and smart and beautiful in such a simple and straightforward way that she barely knows how to react.

And then Nishi coughs. Breaks their moment.

Zuko looks about as done as she feels.

“We’ll make it work,” she says with a wry smile, when Zuko asks if she’ll have the time to work on the project they discussed, “I have an ostrich-horse.”

Because if Nishi thinks he is going to passive-aggressive Master Katara into giving up, he’s got another thing coming.

If there’s something Katara is even better at than warmth, it’s spite.

.

—————— Carnival.

His arms.

Spirits help her.

His arms.

.

—————— Harbor City.

He shows up at port. He wasn’t supposed to.

She has just given her bags over to be boarded when she notices him. A few feet away, standing with his hands behind his back, crown and all, looking at her like she’s the only thing he cares to see here. But they are in the middle of the docks and, amidst the flurry of morning movement, many people are already stopping to look at them.

Her heart thumps in her chest, her neck heats up.

If she closes her eyes, she can still feel his warmth against her back, the smell of sandalwood around her, the way his hand rested against the crook of the neck delicately, how he gripped her waist lightly when he asked her to ‘stay, just a moment’.

She should have stepped away.

But Fire Nation people aren’t very tactile, and Katara was feeling a bit starved. Zuko always looked hesitant at the smallest new touch, even though she welcomed it every time. And she didn’t want to push things too far out of his comfort zone — she knows how easy it is to throw caution to the wind once physical contact becomes a factor.

She was going a little insane with the holding back, though. And maybe she wanted more than to simply ‘let some energy out’ when she asked him to spar. Maybe she wanted to feel his hands on her.

So she stayed. And now, instead of starving, she feels a little drunk.

She walks to him.

“Hey,” she tries to smile, sound casual, it comes out breathless. “Did you have work around the docks today?”

“I came to see you.” He rasps, eyes fixed on hers. Her heart skips a beat. No pretense, then.

She tries to steer things back on course. “I thought we had said goodbye last night.”

“We did.”

There’s an undercurrent to his voice. A thrum.

She feels it at the base of her neck.

His eyes have her pinned in place, bright gold in the morning light. The sea breeze is starting to pull free some hair strands near his temple.

Most people have stopped to watch them now. Very openly. It’s why they had agreed to say goodbye privately.

“I will miss you.” He says.

And someone could have heard him. People are watching.

But he still said it.

Into the stark light of the day, he said it.

So she allows herself to be honest, to speak past the hard thumping of her heart.

“I will miss you, too.”

“Promise you will write to me?” He asks, for probably the fifth time in the past twelve hours.

“I promise. Again.” She says, but her tone is too stupid to deliver any bite.

“As soon as you reach land.” He insists.

The captain calls the last signal for departure.

“I have to go.” She says, still not managing to look away from him.

A frown flashes on his face momentarily before he smooths his features, but she can see the bobbing of his throat.

He reaches for her hand, kisses her knuckles carefully, drops it slowly. “Safe travels.”

She doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing.

Just nods to him and walks back to the ship, heart thundering in her chest. There are way too many people watching and she can’t allow herself to trip on the way in.

He knew there would be too many people.

And he came anyway. Looked at her like that. Said those things. Kissed her hand.

In front of everybody.

He’s been doing that lately.

Ever since that first time, on that balcony during the carnival, all their interactions have changed. Most of the time, it’s not anything specific that she can point out, but the way he treats her now seems to always be infused with a specific sort of attention, a softness that pierces her right through the chest.

She doesn’t know this Zuko.

The one who kisses hands, with eyes that linger.

And fuck if it’s not messing with her head.

When she first talked to him, she expected… She doesn’t even know what she expected, but it was not this.

Because Katara can handle things. She can plan, and execute, and protect herself and protect other people. And she knows Zuko knows that. But he’s still treating her like this. Like she’s… not exactly delicate, but… Precious. He didn’t before, when they were just friends, which means now he’s choosing to.

And she knew taking this lane would mean showing each other sides of their personalities that they hadn’t seen yet. Rationally, she knew, but she was not prepared for how much this version of Zuko was going to affect her.

Katara hasn’t been treated like anything other than strong and fearsome in a long time.

And she hasn’t been treated with this sort of gentleness and patience since… has it ever happened? Certainly not by a man.

She has been proving her strength all her life, but maybe- maybe she doesn't want to have to do it all the time. Maybe she wants to come home to a place where she can be soft and ridiculous and not worry about being seen as weak because of it.

Now, here is this boy she’s known for a decade, with whom she shares so much history, whom she has grown to respect and trust. And he’s a man now, and he treats her like… Well, like a lady.

Like a husband ought to treat a wife.

Paying attention when she talks about her day, asking for her opinion on his own matters, coming to her door every night and kissing her hand.

—the fucking hand-kissing. It makes her hot all over.

And he has to know. He has to.

There’s no way he isn’t doing it on purpose. He must be able to hear her pulse — she can hear it in her ears. Right now, she’s scared that every single person in these docks can hear it. It makes everything hazy around the edges, and she has to focus on her steps as she boards the ship.

Because a gesture like this, in front of everyone, is as unambiguous as he can make it right now.

He wants them to know.

He wants her to know.

She turns around to wave him goodbye from the deck of the ship. He raises his hand in response. Somehow, she didn’t think he would. Maybe she should have.

Some people on the dock wave goodbye to her as well. Around these parts, many people know her, or know of her, anyway. She waves back to them, too, and sees Zuko’s small smile.

She can also make out a few displeased faces. She’s not sure those are displeased with the Fire Lord himself or with the fact that he is giving her the time of his day.

If she marries Zuko, both things are always going to exist.

For the rest of her life, she will have to be aware of her surroundings in a different way. Public favor rises and falls like the tides and it is not always connected to how good or relevant of a job you are actually doing.

If she becomes the royal consort, she will spend the rest of her life in a land that until very recently was comprised of enemies. She will worry for her husband in a way other wives don’t have to. She will worry about her children in a way other mothers don’t have to.

She thinks about Ursa.

A woman who, even though forced into a marriage, loved his son so fiercely she was willing to do the most unthinkable thing that can be asked of a mother — leave her children.

She thinks about Kya.

Her own mother, who hid in the far depths of the tundra to try and protect her family, and not only accepted but incited upon herself a very painful death to protect her child.

She thinks about the women back home, praying to the spirits every time their husbands and sons go on a hunt.

Is it really that different?

If she marries Zuko, the rest of her life will be up for scrutiny. And even if she is well accepted at first, when times get tough, and when they need someone to blame, the foreigner, the witch, the woman is always the first target.

With her need to fix things and her tendency for getting into trouble, though, Katara wonders if there even is a reality for her where things will be simple.

And then there is the man waving to her, with golden eyes as sweet as honey. A once-enemy face from a once-enemy land, both of which she is now sorry to part with.

She’s never made things easy on herself.

But she can make this moment easier for him.

It’s neither proper nor safe for him to be here too long, but she knows he will stay for as long as she does. So she looks at him one last time, seals the image into her memory — just in case — and goes inside.

Feeling like her ears are full of cotton and like her chest is going to explode, Katara goes into her cabin and flops face first into her bed.

.

—————— Kosuishi.

You would think that as a grown woman of twenty-four, Katara would have learned how to keep her cool.

And she has — sort of.

She has learned how to not jump to conclusions when analyzing a situation, and how to keep her temper in check to act in the way that is most likely to get the results she wants, even when that’s not what she’d prefer.

But receiving Zuko’s first letter — a formal few paragraphs and a single line on a postscript that holds the weight of a hundred unspoken words — leaves her in such a state that she is glad no one is around to witness her scream into her pillow.

He sent her a stalk of lovegrass from their garden.

‘I hope you stay longer next time.’

What do you mean? She wants to ask. How much longer? Are you talking about that night? Are you talking about more? The lovegrass— are you saying…?

What. do. you. mean???

For a full three days, she doesn’t even know how to answer him.

And everyone she comes across is just treating her so nicely. The people on the boat, the patients and staff on the clinics, the community leaders she meets with — they all smile at her, treat her with sweetness, look at her like she’s already theirs.

She feels… cherished.

After work, she goes to an artisan’s market. She needs to sit down and answer Zuko, but the thought is making her restless so she decides to walk around instead.

She is observing a display of jewelry when an elderly lady, with deep smile lines around her eyes, whispers from the other side of the booth:

“So, when’s the wedding going to be?”

Katara startles. “Hm…”

“He won’t marry her,” the man on the neighbooring booth grumbles.

“And why not?” The woman asks archly. Katara wishes she hadn’t, her feelings are too close to the surface to deal with a verbal attack right now.

“Well—” the man stutters. “She’s… not a proper lady.” He ends up saying, but by the way he is looking at her, she can tell he had something worse on his mind.

The woman barks a sharp laugh. “Like you know anything about propriety? You pee on the bushes, old man! Shut up.” To Katara, she says, with fondness in her voice, “You can take whatever you want. My welcome gift.”

Katara opens her mouth, at first, nothing comes out.

“I… couldn’t. It’s- not certain that-”

“Please,” the woman insists, “it would make me very honored if Master Katara had one of my pieces.”

Knowing very well that refusing would be seen as a slight, Katara looks down at the display again. The work is very good, and she was hoping to buy some things, but the artisan probably won’t let her pay, so she chooses something that looks like it doesn’t cost too much: a thin braided cord, made of soft leather, perfect for a necklace.

“This one?” She asks.

“That’s too simple!” The woman protests.

“It takes skill to make something simple look this beautiful. Your work is very good.” She says sincerely, analyzing the long string. “I’d be honored to have it.”

When she looks up, the woman’s face is a little pink. “You really are as kind as they say. It’s yours, my lady. May the spirits bless you.” She bows, in a way that shows great deference, and Katara feels her heart racing.

That’s too low a bow to direct to a commoner.

“What’s your name?”

“Tamaki, my lady.”

“Thank you, Tamaki. May the spirits bless you as well.”

Katara walks back to her hotel room with her thoughts in a flurry.

When’s the wedding going to be? ‘I hope you stay longer next time’. But that man. She really is not a 'proper' lady. The low bow, too low.

This is happening.

Fire Lady. That’s… a real possibility in her life right now. To rule this people. To call this country hers.

And who would have thought she would feel so much warmth at the idea?

She likes it here. It’s beautiful. The people are receptive to her in a way she only feels in the South Pole. Except that back home she always has this feeling like she is failing in some way.

People in the Fire Nation tend to be more open-minded about women in positions of leadership. It’s been a common thing for generations.

And since Zuko took the throne, he has been very intentional about reverting the nation’s philosophy into one that values cooperation and diversity, not only by changing the narrative in the schools’ books but also by supporting White Lotus programs and giving incentives for multicultural efforts.

He strategically invited foreign people to positions where they would gain public favor — earthbenders to help with infrastructure repairs, waterbenders as healers in clinics, air acolytes to organize disaster relief after storms during monsoon season.

There’s a reason Caldera was her number one option when she considered moving.

But moving to one place with the intention to live there as a regular person is very different from taking on the responsibility to rule it. It’s not the work that scares her; she likes that part, she’s good at it. But would people really want her? Is she just seeing what she wants to see?

The one person she wants to talk to about everything that’s on her mind is Zuko. Like they did until a week ago. But those are not things to be discussed over letters.

And now… Now there’s something else to discuss between them.

All those nights they met in secret, she felt like they were teetering on the edge of a precipice, intentionally choosing to step onto solid ground, but never managing a distance that could be considered safe. When she decided to stay in his arms that last night, she knew very well the kind of free fall that would follow.

And now they won’t see each other again for months. And the man she’s starting to think she’s in love with will most likely still meet half a dozen ‘proper ladies’ in the meantime.

Well done, Katara.

Her returning letter begins with a lame excuse for not writing sooner. She’s not stupid enough to trust that these letters won’t end up elsewhere, so she puts down a few lines about her journey and her work and makes up some weird code words that she can only hope Zuko will pick up the meaning of.

‘Write to me properly,’ she writes.

For everything that is sacred, tell me what you want.

.

—————— Ba Sing Se.

She visits Iroh.

“Is it quite certain, then?” He looks at her knowingly, as soon as she presents him with the new tea set — custom made at the last city she visited in the Fire Nation.

She had arrived at her inn in Wanmachi to find a gorgeous bouquet of fire-lilies and a package waiting for her. And then she opened it to poetry and a gift full of meaning, and she all but melted into a puddle on the floor.

“Not really,” she answers Iroh with a small smile. She’s pretty sure Zuko is meeting with some noble lady this very month, though he won’t tell her, for obvious reasons. “But I would still like you to have this gift, whatever happens. Our conversation last summer really helped me.”

She always visited Iroh when in Ba Sing Se, to check on his health and bring him something from her trips. Last summer she had been feeling emotionally exhausted, and lost about what to do with her life, and though she hadn’t meant to share her problems, Iroh had seen right through her facade.

“Doing something of value to the world doesn’t have to come at the expense of your happiness,” he had told her. “Trust an old man: life goes by in a blink.”

“I decided to leave my post at the White Lotus,” she tells him now, “my work will be split between different people, but it will continue. I’m hoping they’ll be able to expand it, actually.”

After they speak some more about the details and the people she is training, Iroh tells her:

“I’m glad. You seem much happier than when I last saw you. Though I’m wondering if that has to do with more than the new professional plans,” he eyes a specific point near her elbow, and she realizes the single golden bead is visible at the end of her braid.

Zuko had sent her a dozen hair beads, each one with a delicate engraving of a different motif: koi fish, a wave, a crescent moon, a lotus flower, a lantern, a water lily, falling stars, a fire lily, a library scroll.

She has taken to wearing the cherry blossom and the lovegrass ones near her temples whenever she wears her loops, which isn’t every day anymore. The engravings on these beads are discreet enough that no one thinks anything of it. But she knows, and it makes her happy every time she looks in a mirror.

The single golden sun, though, is a clear give away that the beads mean something more, so she keeps it hidden.

It feels like a promise.

“Nothing escapes your notice, does it?” She adjusts her hair so the braid rests hidden against her back again.

“You said it isn’t certain. Would you like it to be?” Iroh asks.

She looks down at her tea.

‘A faint clap of thunder. Clouded skies.’

“It’s… There are a lot of things to consider.” Her heart squeezes.

‘Perhaps rain will come. If so, will you stay here with me?’

“But would you like it to be?” He insists.

Yes.

“There are… a lot of things to consider,” she repeats instead.

Iroh just looks at her.

“We don’t-” She looks away, swallows. “We’ve worked so hard for the peace we have now. And that could have… a lot of repercussions. Across the nations. Inside the country.”

He cocks his head, studying her with serious eyes.

“We’re being careful about it,” she says.

A kiss to her knuckles, three stories above ground, his face outlined in pink glow.

‘Stay, just a moment.’ Sandalwood. Freefall.

“Trying to.” She corrects.

.

—————— Agna Q’Ela.

When Katara was fourteen, she challenged a waterbending master many years her senior to a sparring match in the middle of the main square in Agna Q’Ela.

And she’s pretty sure the northern spirits took that as a personal affront.

Every single other time she returned there, she had some sort of unpleasant experience. From disagreeable interactions, to a sprained ankle, and even a weird rash after she came into contact with some plant. She thinks it’s time they forgave her, since Pakku himself already recognized she was right, but no such luck so far.

This time, she thinks it might be different.

A new letter from Zuko is waiting for her when she arrives, and after a month without news, seeing his seal again brings her such elation she thinks her heart might burst out of her chest.

When she checks the White Lotus office for the list of people interested in the combat training she will be conducting, she finds a total of forty-seven enrolled for the female class. It’s the largest number of women so far.

Sure, there are only thirty-two men. It used to be over sixty, two years ago. Before Tulok came back with his heart broken, before Katara decided to court the Fire Lord.

But who cares?

Forty-seven women of the Northern Water Tribe want to learn combat — Katara could sing.

But three days in, it starts.

First, it’s the freezing wind that makes her skin so dry that her lower lip almost splits.

“You’re not used to the cold anymore, are you?” Asks an older woman at the market when Katara goes to buy some moisturizing butter.

“You know the South Pole gets colder than here, right?” Katara tries to joke, even though she could hear the hostility in the woman’s tone — can clearly see it in the upturn of her nose right now.

“Except you spend half the year away. From perch to perch like some nestless bird.” Katara flinches. “And now you’re trying to perch on the Fire Nation, of all places. Why would you do that?”

“Let her,” another woman calls from the neighboring stand, “someone has to keep an eye on them. It’s not like she’s doing anything else.”

“Have a good day.” Katara grinds out between clenched teeth.

She has just spent four weeks deep in the Earth Kingdom countryside, traveling through dirt, mud, and rain to bring healing, education, and supplies for people who, at times, had no other source but the annual visits of her group. A program she developed and leads by herself, enough work that it will be split between four people once she leaves.

Just last month, she reunited with mayors, governors, and untitled community leaders, organized workshops on food safety, reproductive health, and nutrition. She set broken bones, pulled out teeth, delivered a baby.

But since she’s not making her own babies yet, she’s not doing anything else — Katara could scream.

The sharp sting on her left upper back returns with full force.

She had managed to heal it on the boat trip, but when she presses against it now, hand sliding under her parka, it’s like the knot never went away.

Katara knows her body.

She knows when she’s irritated by nothing else than her monthly cycle, she knows when she’s sad because she needs more hugs, she knows when her back hurts because of non-ideal sleeping arrangements.

So she knows that, right there, on the spot between her neck and her left shoulder, something is clogging up her chi and causing her pain, and it’s a feeling.

One she did not want to acknowledge. But that reared its head once it was called by name, and now she can no longer ignore.

On the way back to her hotel room, eyes burning and shoulder throbbing, two words ring over and over again, taking up the whole space of her mind:

Nestless bird. Nestless bird. Nestless bird.

It gets worse from there.

Clearly, gossip has already arrived in the city about Katara’s outing with Zuko. In the healing huts, half of the people are giving her the silent treatment, side-eyeing her when she passes.

Two weeks into her stay, she stops just outside the storage room, the muffled voices still clear enough that she can discern them through the closed door.

“She’s selling herself to the enemy, it’s what she’s doing.”

A cold feeling runs down her back, all the way to her toes.

“Selling herself for what exactly?” Comes the reply.

Katara can’t breathe. Her face heats.

“Spirits know! Point is: marrying the Fire Lord… after a hundred years of what we’ve been through? Traitor behavior. But what would you expect of a wretched woman like that — fights like a man, left home at fourteen!”

“She literally did it to help the Avatar end the war. You realize that right?”

“Why are you defending her?” Comes the indignant reply.

“Because she is doing a good thing and you’d realize it if you stopped spewing the dumb things you hear on the market, Anah.”

Katara feels her heart start beating again.

“Don’t you realize what that means?” The same voice continues “If the Fire Lord can consider marrying a Water Tribe woman, that means things really are different now. Doesn't even matter if he actually marries her or not. Just considering it is a huge step. Though I think he will, I heard he’s liked her forever.”

A snort. “You believe everything you hear.”

“And you may not like her personally, but you should at least be respectful. You know how much value she brings every time she’s here, with the trainings and the new techniques. The new treatment protocols.”

Silence.

“Anyone could do that, though.”

Katara opens the door.

The woman’s eyes become the size of plates.

Katara enters the room slowly, searches through the shelves with a calm she absolutely does not feel. The silence is almost palpable.

“Tell me… Anah, is it?—” Katara finally says, taking one of the jars of the salve she was looking for “—what are you doing of value for our people other than gossiping behind a closed door?”

The woman’s face grows impossibly red. Katara lets her feel the shame for a beat before raising a single eyebrow in her direction. “‘Thought so.”

Katara looks at the other woman, manages to give her a small smile, though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. But the woman smiles softly in response, and Katara lets herself hope that she has other quiet allies like this one, defending her in rooms she’s not in.

That week, she conducts three days of combat training for the men who enrolled.

She wants to do the women’s during the full moon, so they’ll have an easier time with the more advanced techniques.

The men can struggle, for all she cares. She’s trying to level the playing field.

She’s in the introductory part when one of the younger participants asks if she’s going to teach them how to ‘beat a firebender’, with clear innuendo in his voice. Some of the men look horrified at the disrespect, but a few of them snicker. It dies as soon as they see the look on her face.

“If you are half decent, you should be able to apply these principles to defeat whoever you need to.” Katara answers seriously. “I mastered these at fourteen, with no teacher. If you can’t do it after a good training, then it’s more of a skill issue.”

That shuts them up.

Just to make sure they understood, Katara trounces each one of the snickering bastards under the guise of showing them the moves. The rest of them seem quietly pleased to watch it happen while receiving obviously gentler guidance.

She pays for it, though. Her shoulder hurts so badly she has to resort to asking for Yugoda’s help.

“Spirits! What happened, child?” The master healer says, touching the impossibly hard lump on her upper back muscle.

“Just tension,” she lies, “‘been traveling and working a lot.”

“You know,” Yugoda says from behind her, hands starting to glow over Katara’s neck and shoulder, “if you married a good man, you wouldn’t have to be working so hard.” And adds quietly, “Tulok’s wife seems happy.”

Katara presses her eyes closed.

Hearing a well-meaning person, who actually likes her, say something like that is almost worse than hearing the comments from the mean grandmas warning that her ‘womb is going to dry up soon’, as if she were some decrepit creature at twenty-four years old.

Because Tulok had been so interested in Katara as a person that he moved back North and married someone else less than three months after she rejected his proposal.

He had been in the South for the season, visiting his sister, who had married a southerner and recently had a baby.

When he met Katara — the famous Master Katara, teacher to the Avatar, who fought like a man and corrupted women for breakfast — and found a kind and feminine woman instead, he had been a little smitten.

And Katara… She was only human. She had started feeling the disconnect of never being in one spot for too long, and having a handsome and sweet guy show such open interest in her caught her off-guard.

She returned his attentions.

She didn’t expect him to propose to her, after they had kissed all but twice.

And with an otter-penguin of all things.

“I figured- you’re… different right? You wouldn’t care about that. It’s just a symbol.” He had said, at Katara’s visible discomfort with the offer.

He didn’t even say ‘different’ like it was a bad thing. He really didn’t seem to mind that she was ‘different’. He was a simple man with a kind disposition.

But looking down at the sad, limp animal that he was using to ask for her hand — a small creature, easy to catch, with tough and bland meat — Katara wondered if he even understood what a symbol meant.

“I’m sorry, Tulok. I— don’t think we’d be a good fit.”

She has no doubt he would have treated her well.

Tulok knew what was expected of a shiny husband, and that was all he wanted to be. But Tulok never really tried to learn who Katara was, to share in her inner life, to be her friend. All he wanted was a shiny wife.

If she had married him, she would have a warm home, a comfortable life, and a chubby baby.

She would also be miserably lonely.

So, not much different from now.

“What about Amaqjuaq?” Yugoda asks. “He even has the same job as you.”

He’s actually going to have my very own job.

“We’re not interested in each other.”

It’s mostly true. It’s not her he’s interested in, not really.

“Pity,” Yugoda tsks.

Katara breathes a sigh of relief when there are only ten days left for her departure. And it’s like the spirits she pissed off hear it, and say: not so soon.

News reach Agna Q’Ela of the Fire Lord’s schedule in Ba Sing Se.

Katara didn’t think much of it when she heard about Lady Ino Beshor’s visit to Caldera months ago. She knows Lady Ino doesn’t like politics and would not be interested in the kind of involvement Zuko is looking from a consort.

But in Ba Sing Se, Zuko met with Lady Miko Huang, who is a genuinely nice person and might be good at the job with some extra training. And he also met with fucking Ukyia Shi of all people.

If Zuko marries Lady Ukyia, Katara might actually go straight back home to train the army in the South, just in case.

And then she receives Zuko’s letter.

Telling her that he’s not sure things will work out for them, even though he clearly wants to. Asking her, almost pleadingly, not to cut him off if they can’t be together. Even through the letter, she can sense his agony.

That night, for the first time in many years, Katara sits down and cries.

She gets Zuko’s previous letters from her bag. Rereads them over and over again like she had done on the road.

The first one, awkward and uncertain. A single line on a post script: ‘I hope you stay longer next time.’ The grass stalk is now completely dry, the tiny flowers having fallen off.

She remembers receiving this letter, how optimistic she felt then. Most people in the Fire Nation had treated her kindly and their nightly conversations were recent, coloring her entire perception of the world with joy.

Even though they had agreed to consider the political implications, she had been optimistic. And she thinks he had been too.

She thumbs at the small golden sun, carefully woven into a thin braid coming out of the base of her head — a spot protected from prying eyes and unnecessary opinions.

She rereads the poem he sent along with the hair beads:

‘A faint clap of thunder,
Clouded skies,
Perhaps rain will come.
If so, will you stay here with me?

A faint clap of thunder,
Even if rain comes or not,
I will stay here,
Together with you.’

It was a clear declaration to her at the time. That he wanted this. They had to consider the circumstances, but he wanted it as much as she did.

What if she had never asked any of those millions of things? What if they had simply decided to get together like normal people do: over dinner instead of over library genealogy scrolls and calculations of political repercussions?

But it didn’t matter in the end.

A faint clap of thunder, clouded skies…

‘It’s impossible to control the weather,’ he wrote.

And what are they to do if the thunder is not faint? Pretend they don’t hear it? ‘Some conditions are too dangerous for any sane person to travel in.’

She feels a lot of things right now: sane is not one of them.

Because it seems like the very reason they opened this door will be the reason they’ll have to close it. And as much as her heart rebels against this result, she knows very well that she doesn’t want a portrait in that gallery if the inscription below it will say ‘messed it all up right when things were getting better’.

They were naive.

‘A waterbender in the Fire Nation, palace?’ the head nurse had said at the hospital in Ba Sing Se, after a coworker had teased her about courting Zuko. ‘That’s the stuff of stories. Not a thing that happens. ’

Katara feels like a fool.

She goes out of the city gates the next day, walks into the bush by herself, picking up artic-thyme flowers and filling her pockets. She will layer them between her clothes when she begins packing later. Their scent always reminds her of home.

Home.

Nestless bird.

‘I believe you’ve outgrown us.’

She had a plan. Before Zuko.

Her first option had been Caldera, but she can’t do that anymore.

Ba Sing Se is too big, the difference between the rings is too much for her sense of fairness to tolerate in the long run, and most of the nobility there gives her the creeps. (Did Zuko even see the gift she gave to Iroh?)

Republic City it is, then.

It’s a good place to live. Aang and Kyla, and Bumi will be around, and Lin will help her get a position if she has any trouble with it, though she probably won’t. When she spoke with her superior at the White Lotus last fall, he already suggested he would have a permanent post at Republic City if she wanted it.

Back then, she felt excited about it. Now the thought makes her want to lie face first in the grass and weep.

But she doesn’t. She goes back to the city and decides that if she’s going to be sad, she’ll do it busy. She calls Amaq and reorganizes their schedule, places two extra stops on the way to Republic City.

She may be a fool, but she is a fool with work to do.

So she picks herself up, because she has sixty women enrolled for a training that she decided to extend to a full week after more people had become interested in it — word got out about her response to the men who taunted her, and, apparently, the idea of humiliating assholes is a major motivator for women to do things.

By the end of the week, watching a group of sixty women executing waterbending katas in tandem in the middle of Agna Q’Ela’s main square, Katara remembers.

At fourteen, she challenged a waterbending master many years her senior for a sparring match — knowing full well that she would lose.

She did it because she was angry at the unfairness of it. Because some things are worth fighting for, even when you have no chance of winning.

She and Zuko may not get what they want. But they were not wrong to try. She won’t let herself regret it.

Maybe, like ten years ago, she won’t win.

Maybe, she will get a major beating, just like she did that time.

But back then, Katara still walked away with her resolve intact.

And now she has sixty women practicing combat moves on that same square.

She looks at the moon, full and bright in the sky.

She hopes Yue is pleased.

Any other vengeful spirits can suck it.

.

—————— Republic City.

Her journey to Republic City goes by in a blur.

Arriving feels less like a relief than she had hoped.

On the one hand, she actually has friends here, and the work she did in the countryside on the way to the metropolis actually helped her feel a bit better.

On the other hand, the pain in her heart and on her shoulder have both evolved to a sort of constant dull throb that refuses to go away. She has learned how to live with them, but it makes her exhausted all the time.

Then Zuko shows up.

A week before schedule. With no warning, no context, and no crown.

Katara tries her best to keep a leash on her emotions.

He could be here to tell her that he was right in his last letter, to let her know that this thing between them can no longer exist. She has been rehearsing this conversation in her mind for weeks now.

(He could be here to tell her there’s still a chance.)

She doesn’t have the strength to ask.

The timbre of his voice tugs at something in her chest. From the moment he first says “hi” she feels her defenses slipping away. She tries to tug them back up (but she is so very tired).

On the way to the park, he offers his arm, and she’s almost scared to touch him. Will it hurt less if she keeps some distance?

She takes his arm.

They talk about other things. Her trip, his trip, the weather. Carefully stepping around the bigger thing.

Even then, just being around him feels like… rest.

He undoes the knot on her shoulder with the press of his thumb, and Katara knows he’s either going to finish breaking her heart or finally put it back together.

Whatever it is, he'd better do it soon because she can’t take this in-between any longer.

“Lots of things you don’t know.”

“Tell me, then” — he gives her scrolls.

She spends the night reading them, and then the next morning too. She can’t quite believe her eyes. She skips work and thanks every one of her lucky stars that her brother is in town.

He opens the door.

“Hey! Can I talk to you?” She sounds breathless. She’d blame it on the brisk walk here, but her heart hasn’t been at a normal rate since yesterday.

“What’s up?” He asks distractedly, closing the door behind her.

She looks at him, hands grasping the strap of the messenger bag Zuko gave her. She didn’t even do her hair today.

Sokka looks her up and down, expression changing. “Oh, it’s serious conversation time. Come sit.”

She follows him to the dining table of the rented house. It’s filled with scrolls, there’s a big parchment with the technical scheme for something Katara doesn’t understand. Judging by the silence in the house, Suki probably took Atka and Akiak out so Sokka could work properly.

“So, I’m gonna assume you’ve heard about it at this point.” She sits in front of him. Her leg won’t stop bouncing. “About Zuko. And… me.”

“Everybody’s heard about it at this point,” he brings a ceramic mug to his lips. She is too anxious to feel embarrassed.

“Right. So, I need you to see something.” She places the bag on the table, opens it, slides the documents in his direction.

He looks at the first title. Looks sharply back at her. “Where did you get these?”

“Zuko gave them to me. Yesterday.”

“He’s in the city?”

“Not officially.”

Sokka raises his eyebrows. “I see.”

“Could you- analyze them? Please? And give me your opinion? Please.” She swallows. “Honest- honest one. Please.”

Mercifully, her brother doesn’t mock her on the amount of pleases, just quickly skims the scrolls, with the same focused expression he wears when faced with a problem that needs fixing.

“Shit. It’s a lot of stuff— are you gonna pay me for this?”

She rolls her eyes, but Sokka’s humor helps her relax somewhat.

“I’ll cut you a mango.”

“When did you become this cheap?” He settles in with the first scroll in hand. “I want two mangoes.”

She snorts and goes into the kitchen, brings him back a full bowl of cut-up fruit.

It’s gonna take him a while… it is a lot of stuff.

She looks around. All of her tiredness has vanished.

At the hospital, she was finding simple tasks because she didn’t have the presence of mind for any work that was more complex, and she needed to keep moving. Now, she has to find something to do, or she is going to start bouncing off of walls.

She decides to get started on dinner. She is taking up her brother’s time, and Suki and the kids all love Katara’s cooking.

It keeps her busy until he speaks up from his spot, “Yeah, that makes sense.”

She looks back at him, he’s rolling up the last scroll. Katara had just finished cleaning the work space, the ingredients for a stew all cut up and portioned, she dries her hands and joins Sokka at the dining table.

“What do you mean?”

He puts the scrolls back inside the bag. “You think he’d make me a lord if I asked him?”

“Sokka!”

He laughs.

“Be serious, please.” She wrings her hands. “What do you think?”

“Like I said: it makes sense. Explains the last few months.” He spears a piece of mango with a chopstick, pops it into his mouth.

She just looks at him confusedly.

“Do you know which of our goods had the biggest growth in exports this summer?” He doesn’t wait for her to answer. “Number one: a leaflet.”

She frowns. “A leaflet?”

“On how to do Water Tribe braids,” he says, with a smug smile, eats another piece of mango. “Mostly to Fire Nation, but Earth Kingdom too.”

Katara feels her hands and feet go cold.

“Big demand for other small things, though. Jewelry, mostly. Hair beads, necklaces — bone-carved stuff is a big hit. Armbands, especially. You wouldn’t know the reason for that, would you?”

Katara thinks she forgot how to breathe. Just now, she couldn’t get any air in her lungs, and now it’s like she’s getting too much — she feels a little dizzy.

“I wish Suki were here, she could tell you the numbers. She’s the one helping Dad with it.”

Katara clambers down from the chair, sits on the floor with her back to the wall. Is she gonna faint? She might faint. She holds her knees, just in case, trying to breathe at a normal speed.

“What am I doing, Sokka? Fire Lady? I’m a waterbender. It doesn’t even make sense!”

“Sure it does,” he shrugs, speaking with his mouth full. “Fire’s just in the title.”

She is going to die on her brother’s rented kitchen floor, and he won’t stop eating mangoes.

“It’s not just a title!” Her voice sounds absolutely ridiculous, but she can’t care.

“Hey, you knew this whole thing before talking to Zuko, right? Dad said you thought about it for like, three years or something.”

“Two weeks — wait, you knew? Oh, spirits! What was up with me?” She presses the balls of her hands to her eyes to keep from crying. “I must have smoked spoiled incense or something.”

He snorts.

“Don’t laugh at me! I’m freaking out!” She looks up at him in desperation.

He sighs, stands up from his chair, comes to sit beside her, back pressed against the wall, legs long in front of him.

“Hey, c’mon.” He says more seriously, bumps her shoulder with his. “What is it?”

She takes a deep breath, bunches the fabric of her dress in a tight fist over her knee. “I… can't do this.”

“Lots of people seem to think you can,” he says calmly, with the same patient and firm voice she’s heard him use to help his kids come down from a tantrum.

“Some people. Some hate me.”

“Most people think you can. In fact, an… insane majority.”

“That can change any day.”

“It can change. But not any day. Those things take time. There are ways to stay aware and to counteract it. You know that. C’mon, Katara. Cut the crap. What’s the problem? You want this, right?”

“I-” She opens her mouth. Stops.

Because her brother is right. Now, that’s what it boils down to: does she want this?

In her mind: a dark library, a council meeting, sunlight and cherry trees. A raspy laugh, honey eyes and sandalwood, his warmth against her back.

She wants this so badly it hurts.

She wants the work. But mostly, she wants him. With a kind of desperation she did not expect. With the kind of intensity that half a year on the road only made stronger. With the kind of certainty that a month of trying to suppress did almost nothing to quell — it all came back the moment she saw his face again.

There was always more than one reason why she hadn’t touched that door before. Deep down, she had a feeling it would be like this.

It terrifies her.

Sokka seems concerned for the first time, “Hey, talk to me.”

“I want it,” she whispers, “I just… I didn’t expect to get it.”

Her brother’s face softens, “Well, maybe you should have,” he whispers back.

“Doesn’t it- sound fake to you?” She asks, more calmly now, but still feeling like she’s missing something on this equation that will come back to haunt her later. “How much people like me?”

“No,” he answers simply, “you’re likable.” He gives her a smug smile, “Water Tribe, baby.”/p>

She smiles, bites her lip.

Sokka had been the only person she told about her plans to move. But this is different.

“We’d never live in the same place again,” she tells her brother, heart squeezing in her chest.

“We would if he made me a lord.”

Katara laughs, relaxing some more.

“We both know Suki and you are going to succeed Dad at some point. He’s already training you guys.”

“I love how you said Suki and me, because clearly she’s much better at politics than I am,” but he sounds fond, not upset. He prefers the more technical parts and is glad that Suki enjoys the more traditional leading. “You deserve that too, you know. Someone to lean on.” He looks at her seriously. “Is Zuko that person for you?”

Katara exhales, nods. She backtracks, “Do you think it’s… too soon?”

“Too soon for what, exactly?”

She doesn’t answer.

Sokka exhales. “Katara, this guy took a lightning bolt to the chest for you, and I know—” he emphasizes when she opens her mouth to protest “—that it was not a romantic thing at the time. But- that’s not the kind of thing you do for just anyone. You’ve always had a special kind of trust going on. And, fuck, Katara… You get to be worried about lots of things, but it being too soon is not one of them.”

She notices the glint in his eye and starts groaning even before he says it.

“You guys have had this crush going on foooreeeever.”

.

—————— Wolf Cove.

Returning home this time feels bittersweet for Katara.

Very soon she will be making herself a home on a much different land, and it’s impossible not to look at every detail with more observant eyes.

Normally, she would be returning with Sokka and Suki, but she stayed in Republic City about a month longer than she usually does, to properly finish training her substitutes and to deliver all reports needed to her superior.

“I would offer you that spot again, but I don’t think I can cover your current offer,” he told her, with a knowing smile, on their last meeting.

“I still appreciate knowing that you would offer it,” she smiled in return.

After so long trying to convince herself it might not happen, Katara had some trouble accepting that it was, in fact, happening.

They kept things quiet for most of the month Zuko spent in Republic City, though rumors were plenty.

About a week before Zuko left Republic City, he sneaked into her apartment in the middle of the night with a box. Even if their relationship weren’t secret, the Fire Nation was a lot more prudish, so he couldn’t exactly be seen spending the night at her place.

"Where did you find this?” She asked, in a tone of wonder, when she opened the box. The soft wool scarf was woven in midnight blue and dotted with delicate stars in golden thread; two inches of dark red outlined the garment.

“I ordered it,” he answered, “the day I gave you the scrolls.”

She started removing the scarf from the box, “You know that if I wear this, everybody’s gonna know what it means, right?”

“So, only wear it when you’re comfortable to let them know.”

In the dim light of her candle, she noticed that one of the corners had a different motif: a golden sun, half covered by a crescent silver moon on one side. She looked up at him.

He tried to hide his nervousness, “I was thinking that could be… a new crest?”

Her insides suddenly turned into liquid honey, she whispered, “You mean a family crest?”

“Yes,” he whispered back, almost like a question.

Katara leapt into his arms, fireworks in her chest.

They slept very little that night, and she started wearing the scarf that same morning, golden sun bead visible near her collarbone.

If something awful was waiting to happen that she had no idea of or control over, she decided she would stop wasting time thinking about it.

And screw anyone who had anything to say against it.

Funnily enough, most people only had congratulations or lighthearted teasing. If anyone gave her the stinky eye on the street, she was too busy being happy to notice.

The next time she sees him will probably be in Caldera, for an official engagement ceremony of some kind. Zuko told her not to worry, that he would go home to sort things and then get in contact with Hakoda to organize dates, she’d know by the time she arrived at Wolf Cove.

Katara, who has always been the one organizing everything, feels strangely relaxed about letting him handle this. To her, they are already engaged.

The snow caps become bigger and bigger as the airship approaches the South Pole. From the deck, Katara can make out, in the distance, the approximate place where she and Sokka found Aang ten years ago.

The outline of Wolf Cove comes into view, now a quickly growing city — she helped bend most of those outer walls into shape, as well as many of the public buildings, too.

As the airship starts to puff out hot air, coming down on the designated port a few miles from the city, she spots a couple of sleds pulled up by polar dogs making their way back. Probably a group of hunters, judging by the shape of the vehicles — a new design Sokka and dad had come up with, that could be turned into shelter more easily for longer stalks.

One of her favorite things about Wolf Cove is how they are managing to welcome technological advancements while preserving the more traditional ways of doing things that are unique to their people.

The airship she came in is bringing mostly products, and with few passengers, disembarking is a quick affair. She is welcomed by Suki, on a sled, though Katara doesn’t recognize the polar dogs.

“Hey, sis! Welcome home!” Suki raises her arms in greeting, and Katara walks into her embrace, the fur lining of Suki’s parka tickling her nose.

“Sokka’s home with the kids?” Katara asks.

“On a hunt with Dad,” Suki answers, “Kids are with the neighbor for a bit.”

“I spotted a couple of sleds returning to town,” Katara says, shouldering her heavier bags as Suki picks up two smaller ones, “might have been them.”

“Really?” Suki turns to her sharply, barely contained excitement in her face.

“They’ve been gone long?”

“A bit,” Suki places the bags on the sled, starts fastening them in place. “About two weeks.”

“Big game, then?” Katara frowns. “I don’t know, they didn’t seem to be carrying much. Too fast.” Big animals weigh a lot.

“Oh,” Suki seems a little disappointed. “Well, guess we’ll see.”

The trip is relatively quick by sled. Before, the place she shared with her family was very close to the main square. Now, her house, closed for most of the year, is right beside Sokka and Suki’s and across the street from her father’s, Pakku and Gran-gran's, in a new neighborhood that they built from scratch.

Katara and Sokka were both adamant that the city grow with planning, having seen the difficult living conditions of the outer ring of Ba Sing Se and so many other improvised settlements on their trips. They had a vision of what their community could be like, and had energy and determination to spare.

It took time, a no-number of stupid arguments, and a lot of help, but they were able to tear down outdated structures and build new ones, in a layout with room for growth, and smart segmentations and connections between residential areas, public services, and commercial streets.

Suki tells Katara she dropped her some fresh food earlier if she feels hungry, and then leaves her to unpack, announcing that dinner tonight will most likely be at Hakoda’s.

Katara changes out of her travel clothes to something lighter. The new houses have much better insulation than the huts did when she was a kid, and Suki had already started a fire for her.

She’s unpacking her first bag — wondering how long she will even stay before her next trip — when she hears the faint noise of people talking outside. With how heavily insulated the walls are, it must be quite the commotion.

She’s already halfway to her door when someone knocks on it, and the noise of people talking ceases.

Katara pauses.

She opens the door to Zuko — in a dark blue parka, hair in a messy low bun, and cheeks flushed from the cold.

There are a lot of people on the street, watching them in silence.

She sees her family watching from across the street, and she immediately realizes what’s happening.

Zuko doesn’t know this, but last time a man knocked on her door to propose to her, it was Tulok, with a sickly looking otter-penguin, and she had to reject him in front of everybody.

Katara has already accepted Zuko, but the fact that he’s carrying nothing big behind him doesn’t bode well.

She wasn’t even expecting anything. She would rather he had chosen a different way to propose to her than have another man use this tradition in a way that implies she has a very small value.

There’s a weird lump near his chest. He’s holding his parka closed with one of his hands, the other hidden inside the garment. She really hopes someone warned him not to hide a dead animal inside his clothes.

“I came to tell you that you were right that day, in Aang’s garden,” he speaks in a volume that only she will be able to hear, “when you said we can’t know what will happen. But I want you to know that I meant it when I said we would make it happen. Even if it’s the stuff of stories.”

He opens his parka.

Katara sucks in a breath.

Against his chest, asleep and looking quite comfortable, Zuko is holding a tiny ball of white fur with black spots — a snow-leopard-caribou cub.

She reaches for the creature, holding it carefully in front of her eyes. All around her, people start to murmur again, she can make out a couple ‘whats’ and ‘no ways’, but she can’t take her eyes off of the cub.

“Is this for real?” she asks, breathless, even though she is holding it in her hands — tiny snout, and soft fur, and the stubs where antlers will grow someday — she can’t quite believe it. The animal lazily blinks its eyes open at her, meowing what sounds like a complaint.

“Marry me?” is Zuko’s raspy response.

She looks back at him, lets out an incredulous laugh.

Resting the cub against her own chest, she pulls him in for a kiss. “Yes.”

People cheer around them, with claps and shouts and whistles and the usual racket that follows every new engagement in their community.

Her heart feels ready to explode.

She told him that silly story once. He did this for her. To prove a point. To quiet her fears. If only he knew how much her fears quiet anyway just by him being around.

She later learns that they had been on the stalk for about a week when they came across the mom, killed at least two days prior. Hakoda was the first to notice it was a female, and that she was probably attacked while protecting her cubs. They split to search in the nearby caves when Sokka had been ambushed by the adult male whose trail they had been following.

Chief Hakoda calls for a meeting in the town square to present the five cubs they will raise for mount. He tells the story of how Zuko’s sharp senses and precise firebending had saved his hunting partner, and bestows him the Mark of the Trusted.

He might be dressed in blues and wearing no crown, but the man being applauded is very much the Fire Lord. The fact that her people are cheering for him — in a way, cheering for them — fills Katara with hope that this may indeed do all the things she and her father expected at the beginning.

When Zuko rises from his kneeling position in front of the chief, an arc of ink on his forehead, Hakoda pulls him in for a firm hug and says a simple, “Well done, son.”

Katara watches as Zuko swallows hard, the way he blinks rapidly to cover his emotion with a curt nod. His eyes find hers, and his face softens in the hint of a smile.

Her heart is invaded by certainty — this is not what she expected.

It’s so, so much more.

Chapter Text

Katara becomes Zuko’s wife in the middle of Spring, with the cherry trees in peak bloom.

He cannot blame the flowers this time. He’s been feeling like this since she agreed to marry him some months ago — like his heart is going to take flight and pull him up up up.

Fire Nation royal wedding ceremonies usually happen at midday, when the sun is higher in the sky. Water Tribe weddings happen under moonlight. They agree on late afternoon. The feast will happen at night. The priests repeatedly warn against any delay so that all expected rituals can be performed under sunlight, as is considered auspicious.

When he first sees her, dressed like a midnight sky threaded in gold and looking at him like she can see no one else, he knows the Fire Sages never had to fear the night coming — the sun rising in his chest will be more than enough.

They meet in the middle of the temple.

There's silence, except for the sound of the drums. This is supposed to be solemn. But joy is written on their eyes with every step, and he can hear his heart beating in his ears. When she finally takes his arm, eyes crinkling at the sides, he can no longer keep the smile from blooming on his face. The torches flicker up.

Katara notices and closes her eyes, trying to rein in her smile. She squeezes his arm lightly. Warning. Encouragement. Partnership.

He takes a deep breath, trying to do things the way they rehearsed, to keep the imposing face expected of him. He starts their walk to the altar.

The temple is packed. Politicians, businesspeople, and leaders from all nations. A few unknown faces — families from the commonfolk. Katara convinced the Sages that the Southern Water Tribe believed it brought'horrible bad luck' to exclude the community, and this was the compromise. A kind gesture. A symbol of what they both stand for.

Near the altar, their friends and family watch them with joy and love in their eyes. Zuko can’t look too much, Iroh has silent tears streaming down his cheeks, and it takes all of Zuko’s concentration to control the emotion rising in his own chest.

They go up on the dais. Prayers and scriptures are read. They share wine from the same cup, feed each other sugar, burn offerings of aromatic herbs.

As the sun starts to lower, rays of light flood the temple in gold. The sages step back, Kanna goes up on the dais, and begins singing a blessing.

Katara stands. Zuko kneels.

He can hear the sucked breaths and rustling of clothes throughout the temple. Katara doesn’t react to it. Kanna’s voice carries in the temple, words that call for joy, wisdom, and plenty throughout all seasons. Katara tenderly chooses a strand of his hair, weaves a single thin braid, and secures it with a silver moon bead.

When he stands, she kneels in front of him. Her hair is in the traditional Fire Nation half-up style, under the topknot that will later hold her crown, delicate golden chains trail down, while others are pinned near her temples, forming soft arcs. Zuko isn’t particularly good at braiding, but they practiced this before. He carefully works at the strands, securing his creation with the golden sun bead.

He holds out his hand to help Katara stand. Kanna approaches, and they have to bow their heads so the elder can reach their foreheads. Her thumb coated with aromatic oil, she smoothes a line between their eyebrows as her song comes to an end.

Zuko turns to Katara, holds both of her hands in his. She looks up at him with watery eyes, a small smile on her face.

The couple is pronounced married.

“May the spirits bless this union,” the Sages say. The temple rumbles when all guests repeat the blessing.

He leans down to kiss her, just a soft brush of lips. He wants to shout his elation, spin her around, but they have another ceremony in the sequence.

It’s unseasonably cold, and the air feels crisp when they step outside.

The Plaza is filled with people, and their cheer is so loud when they appear that Katara startles, flinching a little. He lets himself laugh, knowing the sound will be drowned in the roar of excitement.

They stand still until the guests who were at the temple can take their places, descending the stairs into the plaza, where the closest area has been reserved.

Beside them on the platform, Aang raises a hand, and the public finally quiets.

“Eleven years ago,” he begins, “We stood in this very place to bless the beginning of Fire Lord Zuko’s reign. I was much shorter then.” Some people laugh, Aang waits until the attention is back on him. “Waking up as the Avatar in a time of war, I had challenges that my predecessors didn’t. The reason I succeeded at them was that I was not alone.” He looks at Katara and Zuko. “I had good masters,” he smiles. “Good friends.”

Aang turns back to the plaza. “This is a new era. We are all faced with new challenges. Each one of us needs to choose how to answer. I am happy today to see that this nation chooses to listen to love. This is how you get fruits of peace.”

The last rays of sunshine paint the sky in orange and pink, and the air begins to shift, a cool wind swaying hairs and robes. Zuko and Aang stand to the side.
Katara steps front and center and lowers on one knee, a Sage fixes the crown in her topknot.

She rises to the cheer of the crowd. This time, she doesn’t flinch.

He walks to her, extending his palm. The sounds suddenly start to quiet, a murmur passing through the crowd. Katara takes his hand, and Zuko raises his head just in time to see the first white drops gathering on the shoulders in the plaza.

“Snow!”

All around them, people look up, extend their palms, murmur to each other. Someone shouts that it is a blessing from the spirits. The cheers start growing again, this time they are almost deafening.

Zuko has never felt particularly connected to the spirits, so he's not sure how their signs are supposed to work. But Katara’s face softens in a look of wonder at the snowflakes floating down around them, and there’s only one word he can think of to explain how he feels: blessed.

He cradles her face, rests his forehead against hers, “Welcome home, my love.”

Zuko doesn’t knock on many doors.

As Fire Lord, doors are opened before he reaches them. For the Blue Spirit, knocking is never a concern.

But since last Spring, he’s been secretly knocking on her doors repeatedly.

For their nightly conversations, at first. To kiss her, in Republic City. To ask her to marry him in Wolf Cove. To practice braiding her hair, in the weeks leading up to their wedding.

Tonight, he knocks again. But this time on the door connecting to his wife’s bedroom. She opens with a bright smile and promptly jumps into his arms, legs wrapping around his waist.

A woman — Iroh used to warn him as a young boy — will make you do things you wouldn’t normally do.

For Zuko, those things are knocking on doors and smiling like an idiot.

It’s so much better than he ever hoped for.

They lie together, her head resting on his right biceps, his left arm around her waist, his hand tracing words idly on her upper back. I love you, I love you, I love you.

He feels buoyant, like after spending the day floating in a body of water. The warmth of her skin, the scent of flowers in her hair, the feeling of closeness envelop all of his senses. His heart feels larger, lighter.

It’s not their first time. But it’s the first time on their bed. The first time on this side of… everything.

She seems to be reflecting, too. She traces the outline of the star-shaped scar on his chest.

“I always wished I could have healed this,” she murmurs.

He smiles softly, brings her hand to his lips.

Kisses her knuckles, the tips of her fingers, her palm.

“You heal me in every way that matters.”

Don’t Hesitate
By Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.