AtLA fic: Airbender's Child: Earth 11/12
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story, in fact a lot of the dialogue will probably be cadged straight from the show itself, which means I own even less.
Author's Notes: In this story is a quote from Kerry Look at her Political Universe series, the first story, "The Proper Punishment is Never Caramel Brownies", halfway down. I'm slightly misquoting what Chakotay says to Janeway's mother. Also, if you're a Janeway/Chakotay 'shipper and you enjoy goofy fun, this is a great series. Actually, Kerry's a great JetC 'shipper author generally. She's hysterically funny. In my opinion, anyhow. I'm still trying to figure out how to work into one of my fics somewhere that scene where Janeway and B'Elanna have clearly strangled a large predator with a bra.
Zuko woke the next morning to the pleasant feeling of Katara curled up next to him, her head on his chest. This was followed by the much less pleasant feeling that came from seeing his uncle and Toph's heads peeking around the doorframe with matching evil grins on their scheming faces. "No," he told them.
His uncle just grinned and made vaguely encouraging hand signals. Toph smirked in a way that just made his blood turn to ice. "I wonder how Snoozles is sleeping," she said wickedly.
"Now, Toph," his uncle told her, "It does not do to interfere with the course of love."
She pouted, but said, "Fine. I won't wake Sokka up."
"Thank you, uncle," Zuko said gratefully. Then he glared. "And would you stop going on about love? She's just being cranky and using me as a heat pack."
Toph and his uncle made simultaneous and very similar snorts. Unfortunately, all the activity woke Katara up. "Morning," she said to him.
"Hi," he told her, glancing significantly at the door. When she followed his gaze, her blue eyes went wide, she turned quite red, and said, "Eep!"
"You're right," Toph said contemplatively. "I won't tell Sokka. Leaving the fear that I might tell Sokka hanging over their heads is way more fun."
That was the last straw. Katara was awake now, so he didn't have to stay quiet for her sake, and Zuko lunged across the floor at Toph, who scampered off laughing. "I'll see you outside, Flower Petal!" he called as he chased her. "You, me and we'll see who walks away laughing then!"
Vaguely he heard Katara shouting at them not to mess up the garden, but he was more interested in wiping that grin off Toph's face. It wasn't until they came back inside, bruised, bleeding and Zuko triumphantly carrying a kicking Toph draped over his shoulder that he realised he was very lucky the garden had high walls. There was no telling the reaction there would have been if he'd exposed himself as a firebender.
They came back in to the ridiculous sight of Sokka and Aang, putting on airs, trying to pretend they were nobles . . . or . . . something. "Good evening, Mr. Sokka Watertribe. Ms. Katara Watertribe. Lord Momo of the Momo Dynasty, your Momo-ness."
Zuko hastily put Toph down. She needed to 'see' as much of this as she could.
"Avatar Aang, how you do go on ," Sokka replied.
Then Aang bowed, or something. Then Sokka bowed, apparently trying to outdo Aang. They kept it up until they managed to smack their heads together.
"You're wearing a curtain," Zuko said to Aang, more for Toph's benefit than anything else.
"What are you two doing?" Toph asked, sounding about as bewildered as Zuko felt at the display.
Katara said, very dryly, "They're trying to prove to Iroh that they can be sophisticated enough to break into the party the Earth King is having for his bear at the palace tonight."
Zuko looked at his uncle. "No. Absolutely not. I hate those things."
"You and me both, Weepy," Toph said. "But I think you, me and Pops are the only ones who're going to be able to get in without trouble. Maybe Sweetness. She actually has manners and stuff."
"Hey!" Sokka said indignantly. "What's wrong with my manners?"
"I thought we went over this at the Northern Water Tribe," Zuko told him. "Or can you not remember that far back?"
"I . . . uh . . . oh." Sokka blinked. "Right. That was . . . bad."
"What happened?" Toph asked, interestedly.
Zuko gave her a look. "You have enough ammunition against the rest of us. I'm not telling you just to let you harass Sokka more than you do."
"You're no fun," she groused at him.
"I'm just nicer than you."
"Nice?" she asked. "Look at what you've done to me. I'm just a little blind girl."
Zuko rolled his eyes at her. "Please, I'm immune to guilt. You're about as helpless as a skunk bear." He paused, then leaned forward and sniffed dramatically. "But you do smell like one."
"Why you-"
"She's got more manners than me?" Sokka asked, pointing at Toph.
It distracted her from trying to kill Zuko again, which was good, because she really was a hair-puller when her bending failed. "I learned proper society behaviour and chose to leave it. You never learned anything. And frankly, it's a little too late."
After much discussion, it was agreed that Zuko, Toph, Iroh and Katara would go to the party. Iroh as Zuko and Toph's grandfather, and acting as a chaperone to Katara and Zuko, who would be pretending to be betrothed. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing," Zuko muttered to his uncle as the man dragged the three kids all over in search of 'Just the right outfits.'
"Why, nephew, whatever do you mean?" the man asked with a damnable twinkle in his eye.
"I mean," Zuko grated out as Katara flitted by, trying on shades of green and white, "That you're trying to set me up with Katara, and I don't appreciate being handled."
"Miss Katara is a lovely young lady," his uncle told him, then held up a tunic to himself, preening in a mirror. "You two are an excellent fit, and I do wish you would stop denying it."
"Just because everyone wants to see romance somewhere doesn't mean she's interested, and it doesn't mean I'm interested," Zuko hissed at him. The last thing he needed was someone overhearing the conversation and taking it the wrong way. Say, Toph. Or worse, Katara. "We're just friends, we've already talked about it, and we both agreed we never saw each other that way."
"When was this?" his uncle asked, thrusting a formal robe at Zuko.
Zuko sighed. "We were at the Northern Air Temple and some people were living there. Teo and Aang kept going on about how exotic Katara's hair loopies are, and she told me some of the girls though Sokka and I were . . . um . . ." he trailed off, not sure how to say what Katara had said without sounding unduly self-aggrandising.
"There is no shame in knowing, and accepting, that you look good in the eyes of others, Nephew," his uncle told him. "So, you told her about this conversation with Aang and this Teo, and she told you about the discussions she'd had with the girls?"
"Yes, and we agreed that we didn't see each other that way, and that was that."
"You started noticing her then, didn't you?" his uncle told him, refusing to take the point.
Zuko made a noise of disgust and stomped off, trying to find some nice formal wear that wouldn't cut his circulation off somewhere.
They eventually got clothes for all of them and spent the rest of the afternoon stealing an invitation to copy, copying the invitation, then bullying Momo into returning the invitation they'd stolen in the first place.
He'd gotten ready quickly, but he'd never been any good at getting his hair into any semblance of formality. It was precisely what servants were for. It was also one of the reasons he loved being Lee, the ordinary itinerant traveller. He never had to fuss with his hair beyond washing it and keeping tangles out. Now he was tugging it up, pulling it out, tugging it up, pulling it out, the whole process was incredibly annoying. Worse yet, he was going to have to ask his uncle for help, and how humiliating was that going to be?
He was banging his head on the vanity where the mirror was when Katara came in and said, "You need any help?"
"I . . ." She was dressed in a formal kimono of pale grey with edging in a greenish shade of grey. The embroidery and detailing was in cream. Her hair was up in an incredibly complex, formal arrangement, with some sort of architecture holding it up and a rose artfully planted in the centre. Between the clothes, the hair and the makeup, she looked like any noblewoman of good breeding. She was even moving like one, and Zuko found himself suddenly and forcibly aware of the fact that Katara - warrior, determined, annoying, comforting Katara - was a really pretty girl. Aware that he was flustered, and not liking it at all, Zuko reached for the only control that never failed him. Courtly manners. "I would be most pleased, my lady," he said, and bowed formally over her hand.
She blushed, stuttered, and Zuko instantly felt better now that he wasn't the only one acting like a moron. "I . . . uh . . . you were banging your head on the table," she said a little lamely, "So I thought you might be having trouble with something."
He sighed inwardly. Point to Katara. He'd already been acting like a moron before she interrupted. "Please. Can you fix my hair," he pleaded. "Before I have to embarrass myself and ask Uncle?"
"Sit down," she said. He did, and she quickly and efficiently brushed his hair out, smoothed it into place, and had it in a nice Earth Kingdom braid at the back of his neck, and one of their silly hats in place. Through the whole process, he was keenly aware of her hands on him and put it down to the fact that she wasn't an anonymous servant, trained in unobtrusive behaviour, but his friend. He wasn't going to give his uncle any more reason to claim he and Katara were anything other than friends.
"How sweet! I recall when my wife used to do that for me," his uncle said from the door. Zuko tried to bang his head on the vanity again, and Katara grabbed the back of his tunic pulling sharply so that any movement forward choked him.
"You mess up the hair and I'm not helping you fix it," she told him. "He's teasing you. Deal with it."
"He's not teasing," Zuko groused as he followed her and his uncle down the stairs. "He's completely serious. That's the problem."
Toph was waiting at the bottom of the stairs looking polished, but with a sort of ruffled air to her. "You look pretty," Zuko offered. "I'd better," Toph groused. "Katara made me take a bath."
"Sometime I have to take you to a hot spring," Zuko told her. "You'd love it. It's all rocky, and the water's heated by underground lava flows."
"If you can find me a bath that includes rocks and lava, I'm willing to give it a shot," she told him, agreeably. "I look okay? Katara didn't do that thing where you make your friends look ugly to make yourself look better?"
"No," Zuko told her. "And I don't think Katara would anyway. Not unless something happened and she suddenly became deranged."
"Hmmph," Toph told him. "That's good. Still, she'd better not be poaching my potential future husband."
By then, they'd moved into the front of their little group, and Zuko heard his uncle having a sudden coughing fit behind him. "Uncle?" he asked, turning around. "Are you okay?"
"Just fine," the man said, clearing his throat. "To what, exactly, are you referring, young Toph?"
Zuko tuned it all out for the carriage ride to the palace, preferring to focus on recreating the court persona he'd cultivated during his childhood. This wasn't going to be just Lao Bei Fong, with the excuse that he was travelling with the uncouth Avatar and his friends. This would be straight court.
They made it into the party without trouble, at which point Zuko discovered that this might not be as normal a court as he'd thought. At the far end of the room, seated at the dais, was a . . . bear. Zuko squinted at it. "What is that?" he asked. "It looks a little like a kind of bear but . . ."
Katara shrugged beside him. "The party's in honour of the bear. And the invitation just said, 'bear'. Not platypus bear, skunk bear or any other kind of normal bear. Just . . . 'bear'."
"This place is weird," Toph muttered.
They started circulating, Toph being fully as arrogant as could be hoped, Zuko doing much the same, while his uncle played slightly dotty nobleman, as he always did. Katara looked distinctly uncomfortable with the whole production. "Why is everyone so . . ." she trailed off as she searched for a good word.
"Nasty," Toph offered. "They're competing with each other. Whoever has the most prestige, whether through money, fame or rank wins. It's a whole thing," Toph said. "You have to bluff 'em."
Zuko pointed out one set of snooty nobles and said, "You see them? They're trying to make up in attitude what they don't have in rank. They all have a lot of money, you can see that by how expensive, yet completely tasteless their clothes are."
"Those are really high quality jewels," Toph added. She twitched a little, and one of them jerked as his heavily jewelled turban did the same. "Yep. Really high quality."
Zuko pointed out another group. "Those are some people with really high rank. They don't have any money, but they can probably trace their noble family lines back for a hundred generations. That kind of thing has a lot of cache. Unfortunately, their rank means that they can't work, so they can't make the money they don't have."
Katara frowned. "Is that why they're so . . . arrogant, but everything looks out of fashion?"
"You're getting it," Zuko said.
"Does that mean the relaxed people over there," she indicated the group she meant, "are rich and have a lot of power or rank or something?"
Zuko looked. "Expensive, but more or less tasteful and relaxed? Yes. The ones that are relaxed and don't look like a million gold are the ones that are here because they're famous, but don't have rank or a lot of money," he added. "They don't have anything to lose if they make a less-than-powerful showing, so they can afford to have a good time."
An oily voice interrupted. "I see you are showing your delightful acquaintance around for the first time." They turned, and found themselves face to face with a man in a robe of such dark green it was almost black, with gold edging. His hair was slicked back, and he had a carefully coiffed moustache and tiny little goatee. "I am Long Feng. A cultural minister to the king."
Zuko bowed, then said, "I am Lee Pao Ai, and this is my younger sister, Ju Pao Ai." He took Katara's hand, kicked Toph before she found a way to protest again that her name had to mean 'flower', and said, "My betrothed is from the provinces. Kwa mai Sing has never been to Ba Sing Se, let alone to court. She is therefore somewhat . . . unpractised in its culture."
Katara weakly smiled.
His uncle arrived, "Ah, Lee! I am most pleased to have found you. This is quite a gathering," he smiled genially at Long Feng, but his eyes were very sharp and Zuko was suddenly doubly glad his uncle was there. "I am Mushi Pao Ai. Lee and Ju's grandfather."
"Grandfather," Zuko still twitched as he recalled the last person he'd called that - his grandfather Azulon had always terrified him. "This is Long Feng."
"The lead cultural advisor to the king," his uncle said, showing he'd gathered rather a lot of information in the short time since they'd arrived. "As always, Lee, you are excellent at finding the seat of power."
It was all Zuko could do not to hiss, and the way Katara and Toph both stiffened slightly told him they'd caught the message as well. Long Feng wasn't just some random minister. He was probably the power behind the throne. Suddenly, Toph pulled out the faint delicate flower voice she'd used to get them all in trouble the first time they'd met in the Bei Fong's garden. "Lee? I feel unwell. Could you help me to a seat?"
Glancing at each other, Katara and Zuko immediately fawned over Toph, 'helping' her away from Long Feng. Once they were out of sight, Zuko asked quietly, "What's going on?"
She just led them away to where Sokka and Aang dressed as waiters. "This is bad," Zuko said, feeling dread. The feeling was compounded when Joo Dee appeared out of the crowd and demanded, "What are you doing here? You have to leave immediately, or we'll all be in terrible trouble."
Joo Dee started trying to herd them all out of the room, but Sokka was obstinate, then Aang's tray of drinks went flying all over one of the noblewomen attending. Zuko felt his stomach start to drop into his feet. When Sokka told Aang to distract people while he tried to find the king, he could only watch in a sort of bemused horror.
"Do something," Toph hissed at him.
"Like what?" he hissed back. Aang had already rapidly garnered the attention of everyone there with his bending display.
It was too late. They were surrounded and carted off by earthbenders within moments. The discovery they made in that room with Long Feng was horrifying. It wasn't that the king was being kept ignorant of the outside world and Long Feng expected the war to ignore Ba Sing Se that so disturbed him, it was Joo Dee.
Or rather, it was the girl who claimed to be the same Joo Dee as the one they'd had as a 'guide' for the last couple days. Because she wasn't Joo Dee. Or rather, she wasn't the same Joo Dee. Who both girls truly were was a mystery, but something was deeply wrong. They allowed themselves to be tossed out and headed back to the house delegated to them, but everyone was concerned by the evening's events.
By general accord, they all pretty much silently prepared for bed and went their own ways. The whole evening had been a failure and no one knew what to do next.
Zuko didn't even bother closing his door. He just sat up waiting. As he'd expected, Katara showed up the moment Sokka's snores began to resound in the halls. He shook his head as she shoved him over and burrowed into him. "How does Sokka not wake himself up?" he asked her, as he let her snuggle.
"Sometimes he does," Katara told him, her voice muffled by his sternum.
"Are you okay?"
She sighed, gustily. "I don't know. I just . . . Long Feng scared me, and Joo Dee . . . I don't even . . ."
"I know," Zuko murmured. "What did they do to the first one, and why?"
"She was supposed to keep us quiet," Katara said. "She wasn't doing her job, so they . . . they did something bad to her."
Zuko shivered a little himself, because it really was frightening. "We'll figure something out," he told her. "We have to," he added, a little bleakly.
"We will," she assured him, then kissed his cheek.
Zuko blinked at her. "What was that for?"
"For being so nice all evening, for explaining all the weird court stuff, for not making me feel dumb for not figuring that out on my own," she paused, and Zuko fancied he could feel her blush when she mumbled, "And for being all courtly and stuff when I showed up to do your hair. It made me-" she sort of mumbled the rest into his shoulder.
"Made you what?" Zuko asked. "I didn't hear that."
Katara made a sort-of exasperated noise when she said, "It made me feel like a princess or something, okay? Like I was special." Then she started to scramble away, no doubt to return to her room. Zuko wasn't going to let her leave like that.
He grabbed her hand and yanked her back. "What do you mean?" he asked. "That's not even the correct form for addressing a princess."
She redoubled her efforts to get away. "Fine. Make fun of me."
"I'm not," he said, completely bewildered.
Katara turned back around and he found himself the object of intense scrutiny, from about one inch away from his face. Just as suddenly she stopped, turning back around and curling back up against him. "You'd better not be," she told him grumpily.
"I still have no idea what you mean," Zuko told her. "I was just . . . you . . ." Something about the dark made him honest. "You looked really pretty. Like you were a real noblewoman. You wear it well, you know," he told her. "I just . . . it was like instinct, okay?"
"Oh," she said in a small voice. Then, "You thought I looked pretty? Like a noblewoman pretty?"
"You always look pretty," Zuko said, exasperated with the whole production now. "You don't look any less pretty than noblewomen do, you just dress differently." He sat up enough so that he could glare down at her. "Can we stop this so at least I can get some sleep?"
"You think I always look pretty?"
"One, I thought we went over this back at the Northern Temple. Yes, you're pretty. Two, I'm going to make you go away if you don't start with being quiet so I can sleep," Zuko told her.
She settled back down.
Although he could have sworn her heard her mumble, "You think I'm pretty."
The next morning, all those late night confessions in the darkness seemed far enough away that he decided he wasn't going to even go there. Instead, he agreed with the others that they should take a day to wind down. They'd been training and working and struggling and searching for months, and they all needed to take a day or two to relax. Once they'd done that, they'd decide what to do next and where to go.
Zuko heard Katara and Toph say something about a spa, and decided not to ask. It was fairly clear this was going to be another abortive attempt on Katara's part to bond with Toph on a girly level. Sokka went exploring, Aang declared he was going in search of the zoo he'd heard so much about and uncle was being mysterious, so Zuko left him to it.
Instead, he took the time alone in the walled garden to meditate in peace and quiet, then practice his firebending. He'd just finished having a delightful hot bath and redressing when first Sokka, then Katara and Toph and finally Aang all returned. For a while, they all revelled in it being just them without the adult they'd picked up in Iroh, but Aang gradually got more and more annoying as he chattered on about the zoo, and Katara had somehow gotten to Toph enough that they were both being eerily girly.
By a silent mutual accord, Zuko and Sokka fled the house, wandering aimlessly through the streets of Ba Sing Se. Cheerfully harassing each other about the night before and Sokka's silly uniform as opposed to Zuko's emasculating formal wear and a discussion about which of the noblewomen at the party had been easier on the eyes, they wended their way through the streets of the city.
Zuko was just about to prod Sokka again about his impromptu haiku competition earlier that day, when Sokka silenced him and pointed at a bunch of boys. He turned to listen, hearing, "So then the old man is all, 'It is usually best to admit mistakes when they occur, and to seek to restore honor,' then old man Ping shouts at us the way he always does, and he gets all, 'But not this time. Run!'" The boy is laughing. "And he ran away just like we did. He even covered for us with the constable. He may have been fat, but he was pretty cool for an old guy!"
Amazingly, the boys even said which way they'd seen him going last, and Zuko, now curious about where Iroh was going, went with Sokka to the marketplace and picked up Iroh's trail. They found a path, leading up a hill to a tree. On the ground, before the tree, Zuko spotted a piece of parchment. A sketch was on it.
"What's he doing?" Sokka asked, baffled.
Zuko hissed. "I can't believe I forgot," he murmured.
"Forgot what?" Sokka asked.
"Lu Ten," Zuko said, by way of explanation.
"Who . . ." Sokka suddenly looked up. "Your cousin? The one who . . . who died here." They both watched as his uncle began to softly sing a lullaby Zuko recalled from his own childhood.
Zuko nodded absently, seeing his uncle's facade of kindness and geniality, unaffected by all that had gone on in his life crack. He heard the man's voice tremble as he mourned the son he'd lost so long ago, and yet so recently. "He'd mounted the walls, trying to . . . I don't know. I heard Uncle once tell my mother he'd been trying to prove something. There were too many up there and he . . . I only know that he was pushed off the wall. He fell and . . ."
Sokka was looking at him with deep sympathy. "That why you went so nuts at the Northern Temple, wasn't it?"
"I saw his body," Zuko said, his own voice cracking. "He was . . . it was horrible, and uncle-"
"Go up there," Sokka told him.
Zuko flinched. "I don't . . . he would have asked if he wanted me there. Lu Ten was his son. I'm just-"
"The guy he thinks of as a son," Sokka told him. "And you miss him, don't you? You have a right to mourn your cousin too." When Zuko continued to balk, Sokka dragged him over to where Iroh continued to softly murmur at his makeshift altar.
The older man looked up, surprised to see them both. "Sokka? Zuko? What are you-"
"We were curious," Sokka said, interrupting, "And now Zuko's going to join you, because I'm pretty sure he'll cry if he doesn't."
His uncle looked . . . oddly happy. "Zuko? Do you wish to join me?"
He'd never been able to cry over his cousin. The servants had been spies for his father, and both Azula and Ozai had called those tears a weakness. He'd never dared, but his uncle's tear-streaked face made him ask - just to be sure, "Can I? I mean, I can leave if you don't want . . ."
"Please. Stay."
With that, he joined his uncle, kneeling and remembering the boy who'd died. Zuko glanced briefly back at Sokka, as his friend headed back towards the path, catching his eye and mouthing, "Thank you."
They knelt together, talked, remembered Lu Ten and shared their happy memories of him. Sokka had long since left, and they were alone on that little hillock.
Zuko and his uncle were both so distracted by their memories and the chance to share their mourning for Lu Ten, that neither noticed the attack until it had started. They were a great team, but Zuko was used to working with a different team, and his uncle kept expecting Zuko to fight as a traditional firebender, making them both off balance with each other. They were overwhelmed by the earthbenders - the Dai Li, now that Zuko was making note of their uniforms - and his last view was of his uncle calling his name in what sounded like fear. "Zuko!"
Post-fic note: Yes, yes, I'm ducking the thrown objects.
Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 12
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