AtLA fic: She Was Good At That (Or How Katara Became Fire Lady)
Title: She Was Good At That (Or How Katara Became Fire Lady)
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters, places, or the universe herein depicted.
Rating: PG
Summary: Zuko needs a lot of help with governing the Fire Nation. Luckily someone steps into the breach to help.
Notes: Just a couple hours to write, here’s my take on what happened after the series ended. Another one-shot. It’s a little . . . drabbly in nature.
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Zuko hated writing speeches. He hated trying to put together the words to convince people of things. He also hated speechwriters though. He hated them more than he hated writing the damn things, because at least when he wrote the speech, he was saying things the way he wanted them said. Or at least, he wasn’t saying things the way he didn’t want them said. That was the problem with his official speechwriters. They never put things in language that would work on the people, just on a few of his more stuck-up nobles.
In desperation, he asked his friends, who has agreed to stay a while in order to help him bring his nation to order. Aang was thirteen, and it came through with a vengeance in how he tried to write. Toph would be no good. He tried her anyhow, and she gave him exactly what he’d expected. Suki was very good at rousing people on the battlefield, but this wasn’t what he needed. Sokka was a disaster, his uncle was too caught up in intellectual philosophy to provide anything really good and Mai . . .
Mai didn’t even try to help. It was boring, she told him.
That was when Katara stepped in. She was fantastic. “It’s the practice,” she said with a blush. It seemed she’d spent half her time on the road giving speeches. Something the Ember Island Players had right. What they’d had wrong was her positive gift for saying the right words at the right time to encourage, support and convince.
He went to her for every speech after that. She knew how to give him the words he wanted to say and how he wanted to say them.
*******************
The Fire Nation’s finances were in shreds. With a whole economy geared to war, not to mention the expected collection of bounty from raiding other nations, taxes were too low, people were unemployed, the price of basic foodstuffs was soon on the rise and Zuko wasn’t yet popular enough that he was going to be able to institute austerity measures without riots.
He asked his councillors, who had no idea of what to do besides prepare to send out troops to quell the riots. He asked Aang, who told him to trust in the goodness of people. He asked Toph, Suki and Sokka, and each of them suggested a preparation for riots, but hoping for the best when he raised the taxes. His uncle had bowed out of being in government, and Zuko was loath to ask the man who was finally living out a dream as a tea shop owner.
Mai thought the whole thing was boring and sided with the councillors to hurry the conversation up so they could go back to something interesting. Then she asked when they were going on vacation.
Zuko stormed off, and ran into Katara. She sat down with him and went over the Nation’s finances line by line, helping him find places and things he could cut, assets he could sell, and discovered a few cottage industries they could start exporting to gain more income coming into the country. Years of figuring out how to get from year to year in the South Pole, and the year on the road with Aang had given Katara a keen sense of necessity and want and how the two stacked up against each other. More than that, she was excellent at juggling expenditures for the present and future. The moves they came up with wouldn’t be popular, but they wouldn’t cause riots and it would get the nation through the turmoil of the end of the war.
Whenever he had a budgetary problem after that, Zuko would try his councillors, then head to Katara. Even if she couldn’t really help him fix it, she’d help him talk through the problem.
*********************
The other nations had levied punitive measures against the Fire Nation for a century of invasion, damage, lands taken and people lost. Zuko stared at the massive list of grievances and knew he had to somehow make reparations, but he didn’t know where the funds or anything else would come from.
His council suggested that he ignore the demands. They were a sovereign nation and shouldn’t need to account to anyone for their actions. Zuko dismissed that instantly. If the Fire Nation was ever to be trusted again by the people of the other nations, they had to prove their sincerity.
Next, Zuko applied to Aang. Unfortunately, the boy’s only attempts were to tell people that it “wasn’t fair” and “Zuko had nothing to do with it”. Not only did that not convince anyone, but it did a lot of damage to the Avatar’s reputation. Sokka stared helplessly at the list, as did Suki, and both shrugged saying they were sorry he had to pay all that.
He’d given up on Toph.
Still bored, Mai asked again about a vacation, and Zuko finally snapped that this was more important than a vacation, and he’d been doing it for only a few months. He hadn’t even yet earned the right to a vacation. Offended, his girlfriend stalked off, muttering about how he was even more boring and self-centred now than when he’d just been the prince.
Zuko found himself at Katara’s door in the middle of the night, tearing his hair out. She took him in, made him some of that new product from the southern islands, they called it ‘khafee’, and drank cup after cup with him as she helped him work around, through and about various issues. For the damages in the Earth Kingdom, she suggested he send the Fire Nation engineers to work there, along with all the various assistants they’d need to help the Earth Kingdom rebuild. He’d offer state pay for those people, who would then have work, money they could send home, and it would mean he wouldn’t have to pay into the coffers of the Earth Kingdom.
She promised to talk to her father and Chief Arnook about either reducing their demands or at least creating a longer term plan of payment, and suggested several things he could offer instead of money, such as shipments of things that were particularly hard to come by at the poles instead of cash. Katara went a few steps further, getting King Bumi of Omashu to drop nearly all his demands, and King Kuei to change his payment requests to a longer term plan, rather than the ruinous lump sum he’d demanded.
Thanks to her hard work and personal connections, diplomatic channels opened and Zuko was able to keep from losing everything he’d just gained.
*****************
The infrastructure of the Fire Nation was in bits. His councillors and ministers didn’t care, and Zuko found himself, a few months into his leadership having to fire them all and find new ones that were both competent and gave a damn about the people. Until he had them back and administering as they were supposed to, Zuko was alone with all the paperwork and bitty details.
Katara showed up the morning after he’d fired them all and sorted things into piles. She canvassed, ordered and shoved the palace staff around, finding good people to fill positions. Within a few days the educated class were flooding into the capital while Katara helped him interview and appoint people to those positions that needed oversight or a new minister.
The waterbender was no war strategist or tactician, but she was a powerful organising force and was a perfect partner for Zuko in all his efforts to reorganise his country.
Mai was completely uninterested in government, but started dropping broad hints about marriage.
*****************
Zuko needed an escort to formal events. He needed a young lady on his arm to dance with, to fend off eager social climbers hoping to land the Fire Lord, and to sit next to him at dinners and dance with at balls.
Mai found them all so very boring, it was a kindness to ask someone else.
There really only was one option. Toph was too young, Suki was taken and there wasn’t anyone else he knew well enough to feel comfortable, since Ty Lee had already left with the Kyoshi Warriors. Except Katara.
She had some trouble the first time they went. As a peasant growing up on an iceberg, she hadn’t exactly had a chance to learn all the formalities needed in high society. Still, she stuck it out, stuck by him and willingly learned all the formal court dances and customs for the next formal banquet.
It was the first time those things were fun. Spinning around to the music, Zuko finally understood why someone would enjoy dancing at those events. Katara chatted with everyone, amicable, but firm in her political and ethical convictions.
Zuko arranged for her to spend time with the royal dressmakers so she would have appropriate things to wear at functions. The first time he saw her in formal Fire Nation dress, she took his breath away. The red and gold stood out beautifully on her dark skin, and the form-fitting clothing showed a lovely figure to best advantage.
At a formal dinner where he hosted the ambassadors from the other nations, she wore a dress modelled off the formal wear of her own people. The blue silk, with its feathered ruffs and white piping was both simple and elegant compared with the beaded, embroidered and braided clothing of the other delegates.
He felt proud to have such an exotic beauty on his arm.
********************
The final straw for Mai was the incessant rumourmongering. “People are saying that you’re having an affair with her behind my back!”
“And you believe them?” he shouted at her.
“That’s not the point!” snapped his girlfriend at him. “I want you to stop seeing her!”
“You mean the one person who’s actually helped me the most with ruling the country since I took the crown?” Zuko asked, incredulous. “The one person who actually helps me with my speeches and policies and how to get people to do things? The person who actually goes with me to the balls and formal events?”
“Yes!” Mai yelled. “You’re spending too much time with her, and I never see you. You’re always doing things for the country and things for the people. What about things for us?” She took a deep breath, clearly reaching for some sort of calm. “Why do you listen to her when she wants you to go for bending practice or swimming? Why is it when I ask you, you turn me down, but you don’t turn her down?”
Zuko shook his head. “We have to come second, Mai,” he told her. “I thought you’d understood that. The people of the Fire Nation have been coming second for a century. That has to stop, and until everything is under control, I can’t take a break and I can’t do things for us.” The Fire Lord looked earnestly at his girlfriend. “Katara comes in and helps me reach a stopping point. She plays secretary and talks me through problems. She doesn’t just show up and tell me to go swimming.” He reached out to her, pleading with her to understand. “Please Mai. I know you have the training. Katara doesn’t have it. Come with me. Support me at the next ambassadorial dinner.”
“You know I find those things as dull as dirt,” she told him with a firm shake of her head.
Zuko’s lips were pressed together in annoyance. “Well, who else am I supposed to go with, if not you? It only leaves Katara.”
“Don’t go,” she told him. As though that solved the problem.
In frustration, he shouted. “Don’t you understand? I have to go! I can’t just skip these things! So either you come with me, and we’ll be able to spend time together and put those rumours to bed, or I go with Katara!”
Mai sighed, suddenly reverting to that very annoying ‘bored’ persona. “I guess I just don’t understand, Zuko. You’re not the person I thought you were.” She turned to leave, and said, “At least I’m breaking up with you in person.”
Then she walked out the door, leaving Zuko feeling devastated.
Sokka had tried to commiserate and failed at it. Aang had been a little more helpful, since Katara had had a similar conversation with him. Unfortunately, she’d been taking the, “I have responsibilities,” side of it, while Aang had been on the, “Let’s go ride big weird animals,” side. He was a lot more in sympathy with Mai and Zuko got into a rather vociferous argument with the boy about duty and responsibility.
Katara came and pulled him out of it, reminding Zuko that Aang was just a boy, and one who hadn’t had the fear of war looming over his head until just the past few months. As she’d been doing everywhere, she kept the peace between the pair of them.
Then she went on to comfort him about Mai. Promising that there would be other girls, and the next one would get him better.
*****************
Katara was there for several years. Years longer than the rest of their little group. Aang had finally left, taking Toph with him, the pair looking for adventure and airbenders. Sokka had taken up the mantle of being the chief’s son at the South Pole and Suki had left with him, the pair arguing the whole way about where they were going to live and how they would be raising children.
Eventually, however, she received a letter from her father, telling her that she was expected to come home and do her part in the return of the South Pole’s tribe to normal.
They had one last bending fight, which she won (by taking her shirt off halfway through which was just plain cheating), and then Zuko gave her the full formal farewell for a foreign dignitary and stood on the docks and watched until her ship disappeared over the horizon.
Somehow the palace felt empty.
Thanks to all her hard work, he had a staff of secretaries who handled all the sorting of documents, a competent staff of councillors who administered in an ethical fashion and kept him apprised of everything. His ministers were on the ball and the Nation’s economy was slowly, but steadily improving.
A week later, he got a letter from her, telling him all about how the South Pole had changed. She told him all about her new home and her father’s plans to improve the lives of his people now that he didn’t have to worry about Fire Nation raids.
He immediately wrote back about the dinners he’d been to and how her plans were coming along. He begged her for advice about his latest troubles and sent it off with a dragon hawk, wanting to get her response as soon as possible.
The letters went back and forth for months, when he started reading her troubling stories about her father wanting her to get married. “Have native Southern waterbender babies,” was how she put it in disgust. “My father keeps telling me I should take Mom’s necklace off. It’s a signal that I’m taken, so he wants me to make sure people know I’m not.”
Zuko wrote back to her, telling her she should come back to the Fire Nation and not let Hakoda pressure her.
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His uncle always did say he never thought things through.
Right after he’d sent that last letter, Zuko had gone to bed and a restless sleep filled with images of Katara, married to a faceless Water Tribe man. He’d woken, feeling terrible, as if from a nightmare.
On going back to sleep, he’d dreamt of her in his palace, his bed, with his children and at his side wearing the crown of Fire Lady.
Zuko had woken up knowing exactly what to do.
On his bed, there was a note, telling everyone not to worry, the Fire Lord hadn’t been kidnapped, he was just on a personal mission. One week later, he was coming up to the Southern Tribe in the tiny ship he’d effectively stolen from his own navy. He’d jury-rigged it to run with a crew of just him, and had barely slept at all on the trip.
Arriving at the new port, he was a little taken aback at how different the place was from the small collection of igloos and huts made of hides he’d rammed several years before. That kind of thing hadn’t ever stopped him before, and Zuko brought his ship to an anchored halt, ignoring the demands that he identify himself from the guards on the walls.
Katara had told him the layout of the new city, so he bent his flame to his feet to give himself extra lift as he cleared the wall in a single leap, then set off to find her at a dead run, leaping from slippery rooftop to slippery rooftop. He was followed by shouting Water Tribe guards, who gave chase trying to stop the apparent invader.
Zuko came to a halt as he saw the large ice house Katara had described as being her fathers, and dove off one roof and crashed through a window to land in Katara’s living room, apparently in the middle of an argument with her father.
“I - Zuko?” she stopped in the middle of whatever tirade she’d been giving her father and helped him to his feet. “What are you-“
He heard the pounding of the tribesmen who’d been chasing him and didn’t even care as he grabbed her and kissed her. She was stiff for a moment, then suddenly she let out a moan and seemed to just melt into his arms. Zuko forgot where he was, forgot he could be accused of attacking the Southern Tribe, forgot her quite possibly very angry father was there - everything but Katara.
Finally they had to break apart to breathe, and Zuko just happily stared into those blue eyes he’d missed so much.
“Ahem,” Hakoda’s voice interrupted. “I would very much like to know what the Fire Lord is doing destroying a window to break into my home and molest my daughter.”
Zuko looked up and saw the rather stern-looking chief glaring at him, backed by several warriors, all of whom looked extremely discomfited. He swallowed, but now that he’d started this rash plan, he was going to see it through. “Katara, I know this is sudden and you have every right to tell me no. You’ve helped me more than anyone, including Uncle, with ruling the country, with helping my people and keeping me sane. You’ve been the Fire Lady in almost every way those three years and I want you back.
“Katara, I love you and I want you to be my Fire Lady. Marry me?”
“Oh, Zuko! Yes!” she cried, and flung herself into his arms, kissing him.
She was good at that too. It was a very good sign that they’d be having a lot of heirs to choose from.
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