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justanotherghostwriter · 2 years

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NORTH STARS: PART II

PART I IS HERE

It’s one of the best days of the year! Today is @lizanthium 's birthday, which means that today is the reason we all get blessed by her presence, her art, her brain and her existence in general. Happy birthday, my dear twin. I offer you the ending of a story I’ve given you a beginning to, so that you can infer all the middle bits with no effort on my part. ;P In all seriousness: you sparkle so well, and it’s always a privilege to have some of your light in my life in whatever form it comes in. Here is to many more years blessed with growth and quiet moments and creativity and good family and friends.

Without a word, Katara padded to her brother’s side and sat beside him on the edge of the ice walkway. Even through her parka, the ice was chilly, but she made herself ignore the sensation in order to sit very still and watch the horizon. Sokka sighed beside her, and Katara watched from the corner of her eye as he turned a very misshapen carving of an otter seal over and over in his gloved fingers.

“Are you going to do it?” she asked, after a moment, still innocently studying the horizon like her heart wasn’t in her throat at the possibilities of what that evening could bring. Both potential outcomes made her on edge, but the emotions behind the quickened pulse were as different as the way the river could twist.

“I don’t know,” Sokka all but whispered, glum. “I don’t… Our tribe is counting on me. Dad and Bato are counting on me.” He glanced around a little theatrically. “Aang being able to stay hidden for a while longer and just… goof off and be a kid… The very tentative end to a hundred years of war… I could screw that all up by stopping that wedding. For a woman I’ve known for only three months. Three months, Katara.”

There were a hundred things Katara wanted to say to him, but some of them were tainted with frustration and hurt, and Katara was learning to keep those inside until their blades were dulled a little bit. Not every battle had to be fought with blood and wounds. A lesson that still sometimes tasted bitter. But, with hands that were learning how to heal people with the gift that thrummed like blood and breath inside of her, Katara clasped Sokka’s hand. And squeezed. He squeezed back, and she remembered that he was only sixteen, and she dropped her head onto his shoulder.

For a long moment, they were both quiet. Katara’s thoughts were on the Fire Nation ships that had come into the Northern waters that morning, and the handful of people clad in red who had been allowed to descend the gangplanks into the Northern Water Tribe. And her thoughts were on her father and Bato and the other select men and women from the South who had arrived the day before. And then she thought to Chief Arnook, and the Northern Tribe’s council of Elders, and all the arguments that could be made of all they’d done wrong and right during the war and during this situation. Would they be ruining hard-earned peace between the Water Tribes and the world, and the beginning of better relations between Water Tribes with their plan? Possibly. Was said plan only going to fulfil the selfish whims of four teenagers? Also possible.

But just as possible was finding the long-lost Avatar in an iceberg three months after a hundred years of war had ended because there was suddenly the desperate, hopeful chance she could learn Waterbending, and she’d already been eagerly practising. Just as possible was the fact that Yue was right, and the Spirits had organised things to happen this way, and some things were just destiny, and the adults just had to… be helped to see it. Or, if she couldn’t get her head around being that important to the Spirits, then she could at least hope for the fact that they were unimportant enough for destiny to still flow around them, even if they altered the course just slightly. Just slightly enough for four unimportant teenagers to be a little bit selfish.

“Are you going to do something even if I don’t?” Sokka asked her, and Katara smiled, fondly, at how well her brother knew her.

“Yes,” she told him, only a tiny bit unsure of her answer even though she and Zuko had taken a large chunk of the three months they’d known each other to even become friends. Her heart was just… sure. “I really think it’s worth it to try.”

Sokka laughed, not unkindly, and pulled away from her a little, making Katara have to lift her head. Once she was sitting upright, Sokka pulled off his glove, jabbed his thumb to his chest and then painted an invisible mark on her forehead. She knew he was painting the Mark of the Brave, even though she hadn’t been through her ice dodging ceremony just yet. She rolled her eyes at him, but there was fondness in her for the brother who was braver than he thought he was, and was probably about to find that all out for himself.

“Give your hand here,” she instructed instead of turning things as sappy as she wanted to, and she began to heal all the little cuts the carving knife had left on him.

***

There was no good moment to interrupt a marriage ceremony, Katara learned that day. But Sokka, brilliant as he was at strategy, somehow managed to crash in at the moment that almost made the most sense. Or, perhaps it wasn’t planning at all. Perhaps the words had just burst out of him in giddy adrenalin as Yue and Zuko were instructed to stand beside one another in the presence of their gathered witnesses.

“I am Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe!” Sokka yelled, cutting across Elder Anik’s grand speech in a squeaky, breathless rush. It was so unexpected that even Katara jumped in surprise. “And I — I — I do not condone this match!”

The second bit, at least, came out a little bit stronger. Katara heard her father inhale sharply behind her, and she quickly bent the ice under his feet slick, causing him to suddenly slip and have to cling onto Bato, who almost fell at the sudden, crashing weight. She’d apologise later. Right now, Sokka needed to be able to say his piece. Her brother caught her eye, and she nodded, and he squared his shoulders and turned back to the Northern Water Tribe Elders and Fire Lord Iroh and the four Fire Sages he’d brought with him, all who were staring at Sokka with varying degrees of quiet surprise.

“Boy,” one of the Elders boomed. “You do not—”

“I have every right to object!” Sokka fired back at him, head thrown back proudly. “The North has violated one of the very oldest promises between the sister tribes, and I, son of the current chief of the Southern Water Tribe, will not be silent and allow it to go grossly unaddressed for another year.”

Yue’s eyes were transfixed on Sokka as she reached out and gripped Zuko’s hand. Zuko, on the other hand, was warily alternating his gaze between the five Fire Nation representatives, the Northern Elders and the Southern representatives, entire body tense as though ready to fight. She realised, with a twist in her heart, that he expected somebody to attack Sokka for his interruption, and he was getting ready to intervene. To protect, like nobody had done for him. Once again, she was sad that Ozai hadn’t come to the North Pole so that she had no chance to accidentally drown the man.

“Sokka,” Hakoda said, almost sharper than Katara had ever heard him.

Elder Oki cut across her father. “The South is not truly independent,” he sneered. “The title of chief that your father holds gives him as much power as one of us Elders. If that.”

Instead of cowing Sokka, this only made him stand taller and take a step closer to the Elders. “Exactly. The Southern Water Tribes, plural, were always meant to be under the leadership and protection of the North. Protection. Where were you in the last hundred years? Where were you in the raids that stole our Waterbenders from us? The ones that killed my mother?” Oki’s mouth snapped shut, whatever he was going to say evidently getting knocked out of him. “If any of the Water Tribes deserve compensation from the Fire Nation, it is us.” The Fire Lord’s eyebrow raised, and he tilted his head to the side, as though agreeing. “The North, our great ‘big sister’, the seat where our Chief resides, did not even offer us that reparation. They simply asked for a few delegates to come and watch the wedding. Without discussion. Without apology for years of silence.”

There was certainly silence in the hall as Sokka took a pause, his chest heaving slightly. The same emotions that were clearly thrumming through him were in Katara’s chest, heavy and achingly hot. Some instinct made her glance at Zuko to find that his wary tracking had stopped and he was, instead, watching her. Okay? he mouthed at her, and some of the tension in her chest left as she gave him a small smile and a little nod.

Sokka didn’t let them stew for too long. “There is only one way to make reparations between North and South. Only one way to repair the brotherhood that has been broken here for so long. And that is the promise that should have been ours over generations: the good faith, unity, and celebration of marriage. That is what I am demanding on behalf of my people.”

The silence shattered to murmurs that rippled at different decibels across the room, people leaning in to whisper to one another. Only Sokka, Katara, Zuko and Yue stood perfectly still and perfectly upright.

“Sokka, son,” Chief Arnook said, and his gentle tone couldn’t quite cover the grief there. Katara noticed he was pointedly not looking or speaking to her father at all. “I… I understand your hurt. But there has been a war treaty signed between —”

“The treaty was signed to honour unity and to step forward into peace with good faith,” Zuko interrupted, voice clear and usual awkwardness completely gone. He stared Arnook head on, and only the way his free hand trembled gave away how much speaking up was costing him. “If I were still to marry Princess Yue, knowing all this that has been brought to light, it would be a violation of the very thing the marriage is supposed to stand for.”

“Prince Zuko,” the Fire Lord said, and nobody in the room could miss how Zuko flinched instinctively. In the too-long pause that followed, Yue did what Katara longed to do but could not and placed a subtle hand on the small of Zuko’s back, rubbing small circles there to try and soothe him. The Fire Lord very briefly closed his eyes in what Katara thought might have been sorrow at his nephew’s reaction. “And Warrior Sokka. What is it that you would both suggest?” The Elders started murmuring louder, so the Fire Lord turned a mild gaze to Chief Arnook. “It would be worthwhile to hear them out, I think, Chief?” he asked, with a little bow.

Chief Arnook, lips pressed together into a very thin line, waved his hand in agreement and in offer for Sokka to continue. Zuko looked over at Sokka, who suddenly looked very unsure. Alarmed, Katara started mentally willing him to scrape it back together.

“Well, um,” Sokka floundered.

“Princess Yue should be given to Warrior Sokka in marriage,” Zuko prompted him, giving him a long stare.

“Yes,” Sokka agreed, a little dumbly.

“So that you could become Chief of the North,” Elder Oki sneered, insinuation in every drip of his words.

And, luckily, his accusation woke Sokka back up. Scowling, he folded his arms. “Is there a better way for us to ensure the North continues to rule the South well, as they’re supposed to, than making a Southerner Chief?” he demanded.

A few eyebrows raised in what almost looked like concession, and Katara dared to hope that this wild, wild gamble would work.

“And you would leave the South without a chief? Are you not set to take over from your father?” an Elder whose name Katara didn’t know asked, sounding much more measured than Oki, as though he were genuine in his asking.

“I am. But Katara, my sister, has lived and trained and served as much as I have. She will make as good a chief as I ever would of the Southern Tribe. And they,” he said, very loudly, over the sudden growing protests, “would accept her as their chief without question.”

“Our laws and traditions clearly state —”

“Your laws and traditions,” Katara cut across Kiugak, finally unable to keep silent, “are only about the position of Chief. As has already been established in this court, there is only one Chief. The title held in the South is an honourary one. And there are no laws in the North about not having people on par with Elders who are women.” She gave them an overly sweet smile.

Pakku smirked without reservation at the blustering of some of the other Elders.

“Right!” Sokka said, brightly, steering them back where he wanted them all to go. “I’ll marry Princess Yue, and govern the North. Katara will be Chief of the South. Together, we’ll ensure that the mistakes of the past are made into promises of the future.” That was completely Yue’s line; Katara saw her biting her lip to stop her smile of pleasure. “And if the Water Tribe Elders and the esteemed Fire Lord”— he paused to bow to Iroh —”still want to ensure the unity between the Water Tribes and Fire Nation after the terrible acts in the past… Well. There have been none promised to Katara in marriage.”

Later, Katara would freeze every one of his favourite socks for the way he let that be worded.

“You cannot just offer your sister up in marriage,” Hakoda snapped, really sounding angry, now, and Sokka turned with an apologetic grimace to his dad, hands up in surrender.

“Your sister, who is fourteen,” Chief Arnook said, also sounding vexed. “She’s not of marrying age, yet.”

“I’ll wait for her,” Zuko blurted out at once. In the stunned silence that followed that, the prince’s face blushed a colour very reminiscent of a cherry blossom.

Chief Arnook’s eyes narrowed. “What,” he said, very slowly, “is going on here?”

“Nephew?” the Fire Lord asked, in a tone that was dumbfounded but also delighted. Zuko was resolutely staring at the ground, growing a darker shade of red by the moment.

Katara caught her brother’s patent I’ve gotten myself into trouble and can’t get out; help, sis look and she turned around to finally face her bewildered looking father.

“Dad,” she said, loud and clear enough for the whole room to hear. “You’ve always promised me that I could choose the man I will marry. Do you still stand by that?”

Hakoda searched her face for a moment and then nodded, expression turning resolute. “Yes,” he vowed, to the room, clearly thinking he was refuting his son’s claims and willing to do it, anyway. Katara felt a rush of affection for him in that moment.

“Okay, great, thanks.” She pointed at Zuko. “I want that one.”

“Y—what?”

“And I’m kind of, sort of, really in love with your daughter, sir,” Sokka blurted to Chief Arnook, who shared the same utterly bewildered expression on Hakoda’s face a moment after Hakoda started wearing it. Yue, on the other hand, bloomed like a flower into a huge, beaming smile that she unleashed on Sokka in full force. “So if… uh… everybody’s okay with it, we’ll just…” Sokka made a tumbling motion in the air with his hands. “We’ll just switch things up a tiny little bit?”

“I’ll stay in the North until Katara comes of age,” Zuko piped up, finally no longer staring at the ice as though he wanted it to melt and suck him down with it. He looked from Arnook to his uncle. “I’ll… you can make me do whatever you want. Or I’ll go to the south to start learning. Or… whatever. You need. Whatever the treaty needs. Just…” He gave his uncle a giant, pleading look. “There must be a way to negotiate the treaty a little bit? Please?”

“What by Tui and La…” Elder Anik said, sounding a little bit faint.

“Chief Arnook.” The Fire Lord’s voice was grave enough that, if Katara hadn’t seen the way his eyes were sparkling, she would have thought him to be very displeased. “I think it may be prudent for us to discuss the treaty once more. Perhaps with Chief Hakoda present.”

“Dad,” Yue said, soft but with such deep yearning it spoke of the depths of the ocean. She gave her father a hopeful smile, one hand still gripping Zuko’s tightly. “Please?”

Arnook slumped as though whatever had been holding him up had just been cut. “I suppose we’d better,” he said, sounding utterly bewildered.

“I told you you should have curbed the habit when they were only bringing home abandoned otter penguin chicks,” Katara heard Bato mutter to her father, laughter in his voice. “You couldn’t say no to them then. Now look. It’s as good as done.”

Sokka and Katara shared a grin of pure, giddy hope.

***

It was the longest summer of Zuko’s life.

Granted, he’d spent the first two weeks spending every minute he possibly could in the sun, relishing in the heat that he’d last felt over two years ago. He’d eaten copious amounts of all the foods he’d missed and had visited all the places he’d dreamed about and then he’d… simply been ready to leave most of it behind, again, after a month. The Fire Nation, he discovered, now all felt like Ember Island to him: exciting to be at for the first while, full of nostalgia and great memories and wonderful people and experiences, but not home. He found himself missing aspects of Water Tribe culture, and thinking fondly of the mixed-nation cuisine that was starting to take over the cooking pots of the Southern Water Tribe. He thought about penguin sledding when he was climbing up volcano walls, wondered if komodo chicken could be made into jerky and walked along the ocean edge alone thinking of the people he wanted to share every experience with. Uncle and Lu Ten were both incredibly busy, and things were strange enough between him and Azula that hanging out with her, Mai and Ty Lee soon grew uncomfortable. Zuko missed his friends. Enough that he would willingly say goodbye to the sun again when it was time to leave, as much as that was the one thing his very soul yearned for.

(He may have cried, just a little bit, that first morning when the sun rose on him and soaked him in heat from above while the warming soil curled something like a hug through his bones from below. Two years was a long, long time to only set foot on a boat or on a land of ice.)

And so, in the end, what Zuko had worried might conflict him only served as another confirmation that he was making all the right decisions for probably the first time in his life. He was waiting in full Fire Nation royal robes, his Water Tribe beads hidden in his top knot, when the Northern Water Tribe ships arrived. Arnook had, respectfully, declined the invitation, but had sent his daughter and son-in-law as his representatives, along with Water Tribe finery as a gift to honour the new Fire Lord on his coronation day. Lu Ten received these gifts with polished grace, but Zuko could see the genuine delight over some of the things on his cousin’s face. Lu Ten had never been to either Water Tribe, but he’d badgered Zuko for information enough that Zuko had been able to easily hint to Sokka and Yue what things to bring.

“Fire Lord Iroh,” Sokka greeted, as he and Yue both did a very impressive Fire Nation bow that Zuko was very proud of. And with good reason.

“Not for much longer, Warrior Sokka,” Uncle beamed, bowing back. “Allow me to introduce you to my niece and brother.” Even Yue, who smiled at everybody, looked strained as she greeted Ozai. And she used a Water Tribe greeting very pointedly. Zuko didn’t know whether to be alarmed or amused. Uncle, true to his nature, simply pretended he hadn’t noticed a thing wrong. “Now that all the formal stuffy nonsense is over, come! Let us just be friends in one another’s presence.”

Yue immediately launched herself at Zuko with a cry of, “My fiancé!”

Cheeks flaming, Zuko nevertheless hugged her back, tightly, all the months of missing her crashing down on him at once. “You really have to let that joke go,” he complained, knowing she would not heed him in the slightest. She and Sokka were well-matched in humour, after all.

“Actually, you may have to, love,,” Sokka said, and Yue looked crestfallen. “If the engagement goes ahead, Katara gets full dibs on that title.”

“Oh, that’s fine! It will only be until they get married. And then I can use it again.” She grinned.

“Or you could just not,” Zuko offered. “It makes a lot of people really uncomfortable.”

There was a sudden glint in Yue’s smile. “I know,” she said, still perfectly innocently.

Zuko was still trying to formulate a response when Sokka swept him up in a hug, not even bothering with a first pretence of a bow or even a traditional Water Tribe arm clasp. And… he hugged Sokka back a little longer than necessary, too. He really had missed them, after years being in their company near-constantly. Ignoring his family’s varying looks at the sudden visual confirmation that Zuko had changed his thoughts on hugging, Zuko asked for permission to give Sokka and Yue a tour of the palace. He chose not to care what the servants and guards would whisper back to his Uncle, even after Sokka nearly broke a six-hundred-year-old heirloom jar with his antics.

At that point, if Lu Ten refused to allow the planned betrothal to take place, Zuko was going to let himself be willingly kidnapped back to the South Pole, diplomatic incidents be damned.

***

By the time Katara, representing Hakoda and the rest of the Southern Elders, arrived two days before the coronation with Aang in tow, Zuko had to admit he was a little nervous. Every time the two of them had reunited after a little time apart in the past two years, the niggling worry that she would have changed her mind about him while she’d been gone ate at the corners of his mind. And this time was no different. In fact, this time was almost worse, because he’d left for the Fire Nation the day after her sixteenth birthday, before they’d had any real time to just be alone and talk about the fact that she was finally sixteen, and the idea of marriage was no longer out of their grasps.

Katara had left the Southern Water Tribe a day or two after him with Aang, because Aang had said he was ready to quietly find a Master to teach him Earthbending, even though he still wanted to wait for a while until the world heard that the Avatar had returned. Zuko and Katara both agreed with his choices, even though they were both privately a little worried that, left to himself, Aang would simply find more good reasons to keep running for the rest of his life. Katara had promised Zuko she would get the Earthbending teacher in on the full situation once said teacher had proven themselves trustworthy. And she’d kept him abreast on the situation as best as she could from the back of a covertly flying bison, detailing their trip from the South Pole to Kyoshi Island, where Aang had wanted to look for a teacher first because of the connection to his past life. They hadn’t found any Earthbenders there, but they’d found some of the fabled Kyoshi Warriors, who had connected them with their sisters still in the Earth Kingdom helping with the war rebuilding efforts and the demilitarisation of villages across the land. Aang had gone to meet the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, who was dating an Earthbender that had apparently led his entire village on a riot that toppled a whole fleet of Fire Nation ships during the last days of the war, but Aang had had some kind of Spirit vision that told him to find a very specific teacher somewhere else in the Earth Kingdom. So off he and Katara had gone, following half a dream of Aang’s. And the letters had lessened, and then stopped.

It could mean nothing. But it could mean everything. And the approaching Water Tribe ship held no answers for Zuko as he stood and sweat next to his family, Lu Ten unknowingly making things worse by muttering teasing things to him as the ship docked. When Katara had been the one coming to Zuko on a ship before, she’d always grown impatient at its speed and had flung herself off the edge of the boat to Waterbend to the shore quicker, flinging herself into his arms. This time, she descended the gangplank in demure finery.

It could mean nothing. But it could mean everything.

Katara greeted Uncle, first, as she should, and then Lu Ten, Ozai and Azula. He had expected her to do things correctly, but now, with his heart in his throat, Zuko being excluded felt less like he was in the same boat as Yue and Sokka beside him and more like the first notes of a death march. Katara introduced Aang simply as a member of the Southern Water Tribe, and Zuko tried not to see every glance that Ozai threw the boy’s way as something sinister. There was very little chance that even Azula’s cunning would leap onto the truth that Aang was the Avatar unless the boy started Airbending, which he’d already sworn up and down he wouldn’t do. And that was a large part of the reason Katara had cut her arrival so close to the coronation: less time for Aang to accidentally break that promise and start some kind of chaos with the revelation that the Avatar was alive and well.

Zuko knew all of this, but he was still desperate for some kind of sign that she hadn’t come to some realisation as she travelled with Aang that she was better than the likes of him. He wouldn’t blame her for that realisation, really, but he wondered if it would be more loving to her to fight to prove his worth or to just let her go.

As he had with Yue and Sokka, Uncle called off the pomp and circumstance of the greeting, allowing Yue and Katara to embrace and to start chatting about Yue’s new hair pieces. Aang and Sokka greeted each other in a clownish fashion and Zuko just stood there, not knowing what to do with his arms at his sides or the size and weight of the heart in his throat. Lu Ten nudged him in the side. And then again, sharper, when Zuko didn’t move.

“Come on, little cousin. I’ll only tease you a tiny little bit, as is my due,” Lu Ten teased him, under his breath.

Zuko’s mouth was too dry to answer.

“Looks like the stories of your great and epic love have been exaggerated,” Azula piped up, dryly, a smirk twitching at the side of her mouth, and Zuko wanted to ask Aang if he knew enough Earthbending to just… bury him.

Sokka went in to hug Katara and Aang bounced over to Zuko, saw something on his face and changed the exuberance to a bow, looking confused at the stiff way that Zuko responded. The confusion gave way to concern, and he made some excuse to go and whisper to Yue. Yue looked over at Zuko, and her expression turned fond. She whispered to Aang, who nodded and then immediately launched into a very loud and very sudden story about riding the Unagi that captured everybody’s attention except Zuko’s. He instead watched Yue subtly lean over to Katara and whisper something very short. Katara’s eyes widened, and she immediately looked over at Zuko.

Caught in his staring, Zuko looked away sharply, trying not to flush. As Aang started making Uncle and Lu Ten laugh, Katara wove around the group like water until she was standing at his right side, still seemingly watching Aang. The familiar warmth of her fingers ghosted against his for a moment before she firmly clasped their hands together. And Zuko found that he could breathe. Katara squeezed, and he squeezed back.

“You idiot,” she breathed, almost too low for him to hear, even out of his right ear.

In response, all that he did was trail a thumb up to her pulse point, and Katara leaned closer almost instinctively. They let go of each other once the party made its way up into the Fire Nation palace, but Zuko was no longer anxious. Even another barb by Azula — this one with an edge of concern to the end of it, Zuko noted — didn’t pierce the insecurity back into him. Katara and he would talk, later, and then the uncertainty would be sorted out, one way or another.

Unluckily, Zuko’s occupied thoughts had kept him from hearing Aang and Uncle’s conversation until Aang made a suggestion that made Zuko suddenly very alarmed and very focused. He saw Katara stiffen and turn away from Sokka at around the same time.

“You’d… like to go where?” Uncle asked, blinking in surprise.

“To school, please, Fire Lord,” Aang repeated, eagerly, pushing his hair out his eyes. It was getting a little long, but Zuko couldn’t blame Katara for wanting to be sure it hid his forehead arrow. “I used to visit — eyahhhhhmean I’ve… heard… a lot about Fire Nation schools…” Katara and Zuko gave each other a look across the room. “And I’d love to be able to go for a day or two. I’ll blend in and I won’t cause any trouble.” Katara’s look intensified and Zuko scrunched his face up at her in response.

“Aang,” Katara said, soothingly. “Maybe this isn’t the best time.”

“I can ask my old tutor to give you a few lessons,” Zuko tagged on, also trying to be soothing and not panicking about the Avatar revealing himself in a Fire Nation school on some random afternoon.

“I think it could be arranged,” Uncle said, and Katara and Zuko shared another look.

“Uncle,” Zuko started. “There’s no need to bother —”

Uncle chuckled and waved a hand. “It won’t be a bother. I’ll simply explain to the teacher.”

Aang beamed. “Thank you so much!” he breathed.

Katara and Zuko looked at each other, helplessly.

They spent the entire day that Aang was at school waiting for some disastrous report to come and, as the sun set and there was still no sign of the younger boy, they began to seriously plan a quick search and rescue mission. Until Aang happily bounced up the pathway, shouting a greeting like he handn’t scared them half to death.

“Where were you?” Katara scolded. “We were worried! You can’t just — Aang. It’s your idea to keep it on the downlow. If you’re going to change that, then we have to do it properly. Not in a place that can cause confusion and panic!”

“I didn’t even do anything,” Aang pouted. “The fight wasn’t my fault.”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “What fight?” he groaned.

Slowly, in stops and starts and tangents, the story came out how Aang had invited some friends he’d made at school to the palace to see the gardens, and how he’d been stopped from doing so from the local bullies, who didn’t like all the attention he was gleaning. Zuko arranged for Aang’s new friends to come see the gardens the next day, telling his Uncle ten more than the number Aang gave him because he knew how quickly the kid accumulated friends.

Sure enough, Aang pitched up after his second, and his last, day of FIre Nation School with nearly thirty people in tow. They were all Fire Nation enough to behave perfectly when Zuko was in their midst, though, so things ran smoothly for the afternoon. Just as they were saying goodbye to all the kids to send them home, Katara cleared her throat pointedly. When Zuko glanced at her, she widened her eyes and inclined her head. Following her gaze, Zuko found Aang and a pretty young woman lingering together.

“I’ll write to you, I promise,” Aang was saying.

“Will you tell me all about the Southern Water Tribe?” the girl asked. She was blushing, prettily. “I’d love to hear about it.”

“Sure! Of course. Maybe… depending how big the messenger hawk is… I’ll send you some, um… things….”

“I’d really like that, Aang.”

“Okay,” Aang said, colouring deeply. He rocked on his heels. “So…”

“Yeah. I’d… I’d better go.” She made no move of going at all.

Zuko and Katara met each other’s eyes and they both grinned. “Hey, Aang?” Katara called, sounding far too innocent. “Prince Lu Ten’s coronation still needs some paper cranes folded. I said I’d help out, but Zuko just asked me to help him.” There were definitely enough paper cranes for the coronation ceremony. Zuko kept this completely to himself. Paper cranes, after all, were very easily accidentally burned. “So do you think you can fold them, please? I know it’s a lot of — Oh, hey! It’s On Ji, right?” The girl nodded, still flushed. “Do you have time to stay and help?”

“I’ll contact your parents personally for permission,” Zuko offered.

On Ji brightened, and tried desperately not to look as eager as she did. “I’d be honoured to help the royal family,” she said, and Katara disguised her laugh in a cough. “Thank you, highness.” She bowed to Zuko, and then to Katara.

“I’ll send them a message,” Zuko said, amused. “You two get folding.”

Once around the corner, he and Katara muffled giggles into each other’s shoulders. After they gained composure, they tiptoed on silent feet to peer around the corner and watch Aang and On Ji blush and fumble and grin and giggle around each other. The number of times their hands accidentally brushed as they reached for the origami paper was quite frankly ridiculous.

“Shall I see if she can somehow be invited around the day after the coronation?” Zuko whispered to Katara, hoping that the reason would be an engagement party.

Grinning up at him, fond happiness all over her face for her young friend, Katara nodded. They tiptoed away again hand-in-hand.

***

As was usually the case, it was Sokka’s idea, and Zuko somehow got talked into it despite his lingering reservations. It wasn’t a bad plan, which was typical of Sokka’s plans, but it also had the potential to go wrong, which was also typical of Sokka’s plans. And the fact remained that they weren’t in the Water Tribes any more. Things going wrong in the Fire Nation meant that Ozai was around to see them go wrong. And, despite having full confidence that Uncle and Lu Ten would do all they could to protect his friends from Ozai’s oily opportunism, there was also still a part of Zuko that watched his father’s gaze with wary anticipation every time one of his friends was in the same room as the man. Just in case.

“Prince Lu Ten!” Sokka said in his best commentator voice, arms spread wide and grin infectious. “We have called you to this courtyard on this, the afternoon before your coronation, for a very special gift! We ask you to be our special witness in a ritual old and honoured by the Water Tribes. When the emerging chief of our tribe has a suitor for their hand, the suitor must prove their worth in a battle, either of weapon or of element. Those witnessing will give their verdict on whether the match is advantageous for the chief and for the tribe!”

Lu Ten looked delighted to be given that much honour, and Yue clapped and cheered happily as she escorted Uncle and Lu Ten to a seat in the tree. Azula’s expression was complicated, and Ozai was very faintly sneering. Katara looked utterly lost. Sokka prompted them to meet in the middle of the courtyard to bow to one another, and she went, clearly trying to ask her brother for clarity as she did. Just go with it, Sokka mouthed to her.

“What is going on? There’s no such tradition?” Katara whispered in Zuko’s right ear as they bowed.

“Sokka wanted a show. And we thought we’d give you a chance to show off.” Katara blinked. Zuko smirked. “All the vegetation here is fair game, too, by the way.”

When she straightened again, Katara no longer looked confused. Instead, there was a very satisfied smile curling at her mouth and sparking in her eyes. “Showing off means I won’t go easy on you,” she taunted.

Zuko laughed. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Waterbender.”

There was no slow start: Katara ripped water from one of the underground feeds into the palace as soon as Sokka yelled go, sending half a tsunami Zuko’s way. He was, luckily, used to sparring with her when they were absolutely surrounded by her element, and rolled out of the way with practised ease even as Uncle let out a surprised little shout. Before he even rose, Zuko kicked fire at Katara’s legs, and she broke her stance with a curse. Her retribution was swift, and he had to melt ice daggers as they sailed his way, wincing as one or two bit into his forearms and his shoulders.

Before she could launch the next lot of prepared ice his way, Zuko used a Waterbending move to knock her off balance again. She could have just let all the ice fall to the ground: he knew this. It was, in fact, the easiest way to disperse of the weapons while she regained her balance. Instead, the usually graceful Katara flailed instead of wove like an ocean current, and some of those ice daggers embedded themselves in the wall right above Ozai’s face. Zuko’s father went rather pale. Katara met Zuko’s eye and smiled like the wolf after a kill.

In the rest of the battle, Ozai accidentally nearly got impaled another twice, and got drenched once, and Zuko was torn between amusement at how much fun Katara was having and absolute, exasperated horror that this was what Sokka had evidently meant when he’d told Zuko Katara will want to show off for Azula and Ozai, especially. He was going to char every piece of meat in Sokka’s presence for the next month.

The sparring match ended in a usual fashion; Katara had an icicle to Zuko’s throat, and Zuko had one hand around the back of her neck and the other on her sternum. He could feel the fast beat of her heart through her skin and the thinner material of her blue tunic, and it became the focal point of his whole world until she tilted her head up and met his gaze with her fathomless, bottomless ocean eyes. Almost impossibly, Zuko’s panting breaths picked up speed even more. Katara bit her lip as she began to smile.

“And that’s a match! Both of you, disengage and step away from each other.”

Reluctantly, they disentangled as Sokka dictated, but there was still heat in the little gazes Katara kept throwing at him. Sokka was going on about their dance, and Tui and La, but Zuko wasn’t paying much attention. There was a bruise on the underside of Katara’s jaw, and he wanted the talking to be done so she could heal herself. And he very much also wanted to kiss the little triumphant smile she was trying and mostly failing to hide.

“What is the verdict of those watching about the match?” Sokka asked, and that was actually enough for Zuko to turn his attention back to the audience.

“It is blessed!” Yue cried at once.

“It is blessed,” Aang echoed, also grinning.

“An auspicious match indeed,” Uncle said, looking more delighted than Zuko thought he had any right to. After all, Uncle had been there when he and Katara had first admitted their feelings for each other very publicly, and he’d given his blessing to their intentions back then already.

“I do heartily concur,” Lu Ten said. He was grinning, but the smile he sent Zuko next was soft enough that Zuko’s chest warmed. “I’ve never seen you bend like that, cousin.”

Embarrassed, Zuko could think of nothing to do except bow to Lu Ten in thanks, which caused some soft laughter and made his blush grow. He didn’t expect Ozai or Azula to weigh in on anything, and Sokka didn’t prompt them for their opinions, but, very suddenly, Azula’s voice cut across the courtyard.

“It is blessed,” she said, as confident as she was about everything else.

Floored, Zuko looked at her. The siblings met each other’s gazes for a long moment, shocked to composed, and then Azula smiled, ever so slightly. It looked like the smiles of memory; of back when Mom was still alive. It was what Uncle had spent so long trying to coax back out of her since he’d become Fire Lord, even though Zuko had heard him confess, in heavy grief, that Ozai might have poisoned too deeply. Zuko smiled right back, and gave her a deeper bow than he’d given Lu Ten, the entire courtyard quiet as it held the moment for them.

Sokka, Yue and Aang brought attention back to them with talk about a pre-dinner snack, and Zuko left them to their planning with Uncle about which tea they should make that day — one for celebration, already, or one for victory, or perhaps one to help Lu Ten sleep well in the evening, even though Lu Ten stood beside them as they argued and laughingly insisted that he would sleep fine without any help. Instead, he gravitated toward Katara’s side.

“Let me see,” she said, at once, dropping her glowing hand from her own bruises to the cuts and marks on him. She winced at a particularly deep, bleeding gash on his arm. “Oh, love. I’m sorry.”

“We promised we wouldn’t be,” he reminded her, still fascinated by what her water could do as she touched the glow to his injuries. “If it wasn’t intentional, then there’s no apology necessary in a spar. Otherwise we’ll never really test one another.” He frowned at her, and pushed some loose hair back over her ear. “You’re usually fine with it. What’s wrong, this time?”

Instead of answering with words, Katara simply reached up with one hand and gently cupped his scarred cheek, running one thumb lovingly across the bottom of the puckered flesh. “I’m just… very conscious of who is watching, this time,” she explained, her expression fierce. “And I…”

He kissed her palm. “It’s not even close to that.”

“I know that, logically. But…”

But she noticed Ozai in similar ways that Zuko did. He loved her for it, and also wished that she could be free of that burden.

“Besides. You heal me every time.”

That made her smile and drop her hand again. “Yes. I am great like that.”

Zuko playfully scoffed, and she splashed some water at him, and they were giggling when Lu Ten reached them and broke the moment.

“I was just about to ask if I’d been lied to,” he said with a grin. “Everybody told me you were a healer.”

“Oh, I can definitely also heal,” Katara said, cheerfully, finishing with a split in Zuko’s lip with a slow pressure of her thumb that left him flushing. And then, a little more seriously, she turned and bowed to Lu Ten. “Thank you. For your blessing over us. Yours was the last one, and I know how important you are to Zuko, and now that we have it… It just makes it feel better, this way.”

Lu Ten’s grin turned to something soft. “To be honest, I wasn’t yet sure about you, even as you arrived,” he admitted. “I know what Dad said. But Zuko… Zuko deserves better than what the world has tried to give him.”

“Lu,” Zuko protested, weakly, feeling overwhelmed and embarrassed and a little choked up.

“And then I watched the two of you… Well. You call it sparring. But I’ve seen battles. And I’ve seen this nation learn how to dance, again, after years of it being banned. And I definitely know what that looked more like.” The grin came back, wicked sharp and laughing-eyed. “I knew you were the right one the first time my uncle nearly got impaled.”

“Lu,” Zuko hissed.

Katara almost preened. “If you ever need a little accident to happen once you’re Fire Lord, you know where to find me.”

“Kata— There are people who could be listening!” Zuko hissed, horrified.

Completely ignoring him, Katara and Lu Ten clasped hands in the Water Tribe way, both smirking knowingly.

“Dear Agni, dear Spirits,” Zuko said. “I think I’d like to detract my proposal.”

“I’m the one who proposed to you, technically,” Katara reminded him. Her smile was fond, but by no means less fierce. “And I’m not letting you go anywhere that isn’t by my side.”

It was formality and nothing more for Zuko to stick the hairpin into Katara’s hair two days later in front of the court and the visiting dignitaries and Aang’s friend On Ji, who Zuko had managed to smuggle into the second-coronation-party-slash-engagement-party that had been planned with all the coronation party leftovers. While he loved the way the blue gems clinked every time she moved, he’d been woven into her for a long time before then. It was equally unnecessary for her to braid a bead into a strand of his hair, but he let her while Sokka pretended not to cry.

“Now everybody else knows what is true,” she sang, softly, as she worked. “You belong to me, and I to you.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” he promised her in a whisper.

#ghostfic #as usual this turned out longer than planned without much plot lmao #welcome back to my silly little AU of Liz's amazing AU #zutara month 2022 #Arranged Marriage #Because it fits so why not :P #I really wanted to get more Haruki in here but please know they're off being awesome in the EK #The Kyoshi Warriors were instrumental in helping end the war #And Haru fell head over heels in love with Suki #so in love the mustache never made an appearance #this is all #Also in case it wasn't clear enough the Spirits told Aang to go find Toph #Who will be her usual gremlin self and become ZK's second adopted child after Aang #Taang Sibling Supremacy thanks very much #Zuko will still be asked to teach Aang Firebending #He'll be so touched by the ask and Aang will be so confused because of course he was going to ask his unofficial dad figure??? hello???#Zutara Month

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