AtLA fic: Airbender's Child: Fire 12/15
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: Almost there . . . alllllllmost there . . . I just hope I can do justice to the finale. Thanks to everyone who's started giving me suggestions for my follow-up of one-shots of various PoVs from this series that aren't Zuko. And at some point I'll finally be able to go back to goofy one-shots that don't require me to worry about continuity.
For all the Maiko, Kataang, and you-name-it 'shippers who are going to be disappointed by Zuko ending up with Katara, I apologise. It was my intention from the outset, and if someone wants to rewrite this to have a Maiko or whatever-else-you-want ending I would be flattered if it happened.
They spiralled in to land in the bottom of the old, dead volcano, hopping down off Appa. "Give me a hand with the saddle, Katara," he said. They made short work of the straps, and in that time a small crowd had gathered.
"Lee, Katara?" asked Chun, an earthbender they'd come to know in the brief time they'd stayed at that enclave. "Where's Aang?"
"Not here," Zuko said, repressing the urge to offer a more scathing summation of the boy's vanishing act because he couldn't man up to doing what needed to be done. "Actually, it's very important that we speak to the elders."
Katara seemingly felt no need to be circumspect. "The Fire Nation is planning to use the extra power afforded them by Sozin's Comet to burn the whole of the Earth Kingdoms to the ground."
"What?" snapped the former Fire Lady.
Katara deliberately turned her back to the woman and pulled Zuko to follow suit. She answered the question, but spoke as though the interruption hadn't happened. The sense that his mother's fuming gaze was almost burning into his back made Zuko feel twitchy.
"Sozin's Comet is coming and Fire Lord Ozai is planning to use the power of the comet to send out his troops to burn everything to the ground," Katara said. "The Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom forces and many expatriates of the Fire Nation have come together to stop this, to retake Ba Sing Se from the Dai Li and the Fire Nation, and to give Prince Zuko and the Avatar the best chance they can to take the throne away from Princess Azula and the Fire Lord."
From the gathered crowd, Ling stepped forward. "I can only assume you are asking the help of the airbenders," she said.
Zuko stepped forward now, the sense of his mother's gaze on his back intensifying. "We need bisons and gliders," he said. "The troops sent to destroy the Earth Kingdom will be on the new airships. We need flyers to disable them and stop them before they reach the land."
"So you want us to reveal ourselves to the world and bring the Fire Nation down on us-" his mother began to sneer.
He'd had enough. All those years of listening to her harangues about how he was selfish and inferior and he'd never seen just how selfish she was. He interrupted before she could go any further. "If the Fire Nation succeeds at burning down the whole of the Earth Kingdom to the ground, there won't be anything left for them to do a burnout on because there will be nothing here."
"This is just a Fire Nation plot, isn't it!" she shouted hysterically. "I should never have let you know about the enclaves, never have tried to convince a firebender to help me in protecting the airbenders!"
The crowd drew back from Zuko and Katara. Ever willing to step into the breach when a speech was needed, Katara instantly responded. "She's right. He is a firebender. In fact, he's the crown prince and the future Fire Lord."
"Katara," Zuko murmured out of the corner of his mouth. In that moment, he knew Sokka was right. Had always been right about this one thing. The waterbending girl from the South Pole really was crazy.
How sick was he that he thought it made her more attractive?
She also ignored his warning. "It's because he was raised in part by airbenders that you can trust him to do what's right. Not just for you, but for the whole world. This isn't a Fire Nation plot, it's a plot by all four nations to return things to the balance!"
Then she elbowed him. "Say something!" she hissed. "When you're Fire Lord you'll have to give speeches, start talking."
Unfortunately, the pause was long enough for Ursa to take centre stage again. "The firebenders can't be trusted! Look what Sozin did to my grandfather, the Avatar Roku, himself!"
"What?" gaped Zuko.
"He betrayed him, he killed him! A man who was his best friend! I tell you Sozin's line should be destroyed!"
"Like Aiko, mother?" Zuko demanded. "She's as much Sozin's line as I am. More, maybe, considering how well she's been getting along with Azula."
Ursa staggered back, pale and shocked. "No. No, I taught her better than to associate with firebenders."
"I guess Thuan's influence was a little more powerful than yours." He hadn't even been aware he was crossing the space between them, was barely aware that this had become a matter of airing his family's dirty laundry in public. "You haven't met Thuan, but he's a nice Earth Kingdom nonbender. From the lower circle of the enclave at Ba Sing Se."
His mother let out a shriek of rage and then froze, as though seeking what to do next. Then she stormed off. Ling appeared from the crowd, her calming presence clearing them a path to meet with the enclave elders.
They were ushered into the presence of the leaders of that enclave and were greeted by the words, "What exactly is it that has happened?"
Katara elbowed him, and when he glanced at her, her gaze clearly read that she'd given the last speech, it was his turn. So he told them everything. He told them about the Fire Lord's plans, about the potential destruction of all of the Earth Kingdom and about Yanto's agreement to expose his own enclave members at Ba Sing Se. "If you don't wish to send your own people, we'll understand," Zuko said, stepping sharply on Katara's toes when she seemed about to protest that they most certainly would not understand. "But if you would supply the gliders and perhaps some bisons for the airbenders already there, it would be much appreciated."
Elder Hayato frowned contemplatively. "You say that the enclave of the Northern Water Tribe has chosen to reveal themselves?"
"Yes. Yanto felt that it was, perhaps, time for the fourth nation to retake its place with the other three." Zuko waited anxiously for the response. He had promised bisons and gliders to Yanto so that they could ensure a counterattack on the airships invading the Earth Kingdom. What good were the airbenders to be in the fight if they were not used to their best advantage?
Another of the elders spoke. "You are asking us to commit to exposing ourselves to the Fire Nation, as well as to the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes," she said.
A hunter would never take a sabre-toothed moose-lion without taking a few risks. "You have already exposed yourselves to the Fire Nation," Zuko replied to her, raising his chin. "My mother may not be well-liked, but she remains the Fire Lady until such time as my father is deposed." He took a deep breath and continued. "And I remain the eldest son of the Fire Lord, the Crown Prince, Zuko, of the Fire Nation." He cupped his hands, allowing fire to bloom from his palms.
Gasps of shock went from one elder to the next. Elder Fung stood, outraged. "Are you threatening us?"
"No. Merely letting you know that you already are forced to trust that I am not betraying you." He could feel his hands beginning to shake and quickly dropped them to his sides, letting the fire go out. Hoping as he did so that no one had noticed. When Katara's comforting grip twined itself with his fingers, he amended the thought, hoping that no one but her had seen.
Elder Hayato gestured to the others for calm, finally forcing Elder Fung to sit down. "If we did not comply, what were you going to do?"
Zuko shrugged. "Hope that the enclave at Ba Sing Se was willing to lend us the help we need."
"Not your own enclave?" sneered Fung.
"My enclave is no more," Zuko replied with a sigh. "Those who are left in the Fire Nation will be no help, as they have already sent an assassin after my uncle Iroh, who is a member of an ancient society meant to cross the boundaries of the elements."
"Your uncle Iroh," Elder Tien pointed out, "Is the same man who nearly conquered Ba Sing Se."
"His uncle protected the spirit of the moon from the depredations of Admiral Zhao of the Fire Nation. If it weren't for him, Yue might never have known she could replace the moon spirit and the Northern Water Tribe would be gone." Katara clearly couldn't stand waiting any longer to speak.
The council looked at each other, and then Hayato stood. "You will wait outside as we deliberate on these matters."
They turned to leave, but Zuko turned back briefly. "Deliberate quickly then," he warned them. "Sozin's Comet will be here in days only." Then he turned and strode out.
As he made his way down the hallway, suddenly Katara's voice cut through the racing thoughts in his mind. "Zuko, either slow down or let go of my hand!"
He stopped dead, suddenly realising his fingers were still tightly laced with Katara's. "I'm sorry," he said, unclenching his grip. She didn't let go.
"It's okay," Katara told him, her other hand slipping up to cup his cheek. "It's just that I don't walk as fast as you do."
Then they were standing, facing each other and Zuko found himself slowly leaning forward to kiss her. His lips were just barely brushing hers when he remembered his plan not to make any more assumptions until they'd spoken. He pulled away from her sharply, trying not to look like he was rejecting her. His whole plan was ruined as his heel came down on a pebble, which slid under his weight, sending him stumbling away from her in an attempt to maintain his balance. The whole debacle ended when he tripped over his own feet and landed on his behind against the opposite wall.
"Well if you didn't want me anymore you could have just told me," Katara told him snappishly. Her tone was belied by the tears suddenly glistening in her eyes, and she whipped around, hurrying away.
"Oh no," Zuko moaned. "Katara! Wait!" He raced after her. She noticed and sped up. Soon he was sprinting after her, and they both bowled Ling over as she entered that particular hall.
Her arms snapping out with the kind of speed only an airbender could ever manage, she corralled them both. "What is going on here?"
Zuko didn't answer her, intent as he was on explaining himself to Katara. "It's not that . . . Katara please! Let me explain!"
"What's to explain?" she demanded. "You finally remembered that I'm Sokka's stupid little sister so you stopped being interested in me."
"No, that's not it!" Zuko said. "I mean, yes, remembering had to do with it, but it not-"
"Exactly! I remember you always telling Aang you thought I wasn't good girlfriend material," Katara interrupted.
"That's not the point!"
"That's exactly the point!"
"Both of you, stop it!" Ling shouted over them.
"Sorry Ling," they chorused sullenly.
"What happened?" Ling demanded. "Katara?"
Katara sighed, looking tearful again, and said, "I don't know. When Zuko first caught up with us, when he couldn't remember anything right, he kept on kissing me and acting like he wanted to be my boyfriend." She sighed shakily. "Then he got all his memories back, and all of a sudden he started avoiding me and just now, when I tried to kiss him, he made it pretty clear he didn't want anything to do with me."
"No, no, no!" Zuko tried. Ling silenced him with a stern look.
"So," said the airbender. "Zuko's seemed like he wanted to be with you, and then all of a sudden he changed his mind?"
"Yes," sniffed Katara.
"No!" Zuko said desperately. "Katara, when I couldn't remember everything, I thought we were . . . we were seeing each other. I remembered the uh . . . the tiger seal thing, and I could remember the couple of times we did kiss and when I called you pretty that time in Ba Sing Se. So I just assumed, since it made sense."
"Then what?" Katara asked. "You were so repulsed by me that when you remembered you didn't have to kiss me you just stopped?"
Zuko could have sworn he heard Ling mutter, "Teenagers," in tones of sheer disgust.
"No," Zuko pleaded with her to understand. "I just . . . I realised I'd been forcing myself on you," he said. "I meant to talk to you, to find out if you . . . you know, if you liked me like that. But then I didn't have a chance and I didn't want you to feel like you had to kiss me or whatever, so I was trying to back up, and then I tripped on a rock or something-"
"So, you do want me to be your girlfriend?" Katara asked, cutting him off again.
"Yes," he told her. "You're smart and funny and you have the other half of the practicality that Sokka should have gotten and you're completely insane, but I think it's cute, spirits help me, and you're so beautiful-"
"Oh, Zuko," Katara flung herself at him, kissing him. Now Zuko was absolutely sure Ling was muttering something about teenagers and melodrama, but he really couldn't care less, because Katara was kissing him, her arms were around his neck and all that really mattered was that she wasn't angry at him and still liked him enough to let him clutch her close.
The sound of repeated throat-clearings got their attention. Eventually. Zuko surfaced from Katara to see a gathering of mostly amused-looking elders. Although Fung still looked like he'd bitten into something rotten. "We have made our decision. Prince Zuko," the man spoke pointedly as he addressed the prince by his name. "We will send you both benders, and the requested bisons and gliders."
Zuko sagged in relief. "Thank you. On behalf of the forces we have assembled at Ba Sing Se, thank you."
Things turned into whirlwind of action, and soon there was a contingent of bisons, loaded with airbenders and gliders heading for Ba Sing Se. Ling had decided to join Katara and Zuko on Appa. "So," she asked, "Where's Shuga?"
"She let this big lug get her in calf," Zuko said, still righteously angry with her for abandoning him like that.
Katara spoke at the same time however. "Shuga's gonna have a baby!" she squealed. "I bet it'll be the cutest bison calf ever!"
Ling took one look at Zuko's ire and burst into giggles that were most unlike her. In between the laughter, she forced out, "I expect you're right, Katara."
Zuko harrumphed and decided to ignore the mocking laughter at his expense. He muttered to Appa, "This is all your fault. You seduced Shuga, you know."
It really was kind of impressive how a bison managed to look smug from the back of its head.
They arrived back to the camp, to discover that a small number of airbenders from Ba Sing Se had apparently bucked the enclave's administration to join the forces around the city, and that Sokka had been busy organising strategies with both Zuko's uncle, and with-
"Dad!" Katara shouted as she raced past Zuko to cling to her father in a joyous reunion. "You're okay?"
"I'm fine," he told her with a smile. "I missed you and your brother, though. I'm glad you're safe."
Zuko found himself being dragged over to the warrior, and rather fervently wished Katara would let go of his hand so he'd be able to get at both of his swords if the man chose to take offense to the fact that Zuko was now involved with his only daughter. "Sir," he said, inclining his head respectfully.
"Zuko's my boyfriend now," Katara informed her father in no uncertain terms.
"Oh, really?" Hakoda asked, a menacing yet amused look on his face. The impression that he was going to enjoy breaking Zuko in two made the firebender feel rather nervous.
Katara didn't even notice. Or maybe she did and didn't care. After all, Hakoda wasn't likely to break her in two. "Yes he is, and you're going to just have to get used to it."
"I don't see why he should," a familiar female voice spoke up behind them. "I truly fail to see how any decent father could want a firebending monster anywhere near his child."
Katara bristled immediately. "So speaks a woman who doesn't even love her own children."
He didn't want Katara getting into a fight with his mother. He wasn't sure what would happen, only that it could only turn out badly. "Katara, don't."
"That's right," Ursa sneered. "You need a girl to hide behind." Then she looked Katara and Hakoda up and down. "I suppose hiding behind a violent savage like they breed at the poles is good strategy."
Hakoda's nostrils flared, and for a moment, Zuko could see a rather powerful family resemblance between the man and his daughter. Sokka said Katara took after their mother, but Zuko noted the shared way the two stood, the similarity as they both squared off against his mother's affront. "Better to be a violent savage than a person who would sneer down at her own child that way," Hakoda replied with remarkable calm.
"Who says I'm hiding, Lady Ursa?" Zuko asked her. "Simply because I have won sufficient regard from Katara that she wants to defend me from other people doesn't mean that I can't fight on my own behalf." Before she could sneer, he told her, "But I'm not going to fight with you, my Lady. You've made it perfectly clear that you only have one child, and that's Aiko. By everything you've ever said and done, you've made it clear that I mean nothing to you, so why don't you go and join the other airbenders and help defend the enclaves of the Earth Kingdom."
Zuko turned on his heel and stalked off. He felt . . . free. Ursa was shrieking and sputtering behind him, and he only felt a vague sense of regret rather than the pangs of loneliness and self-hatred he was so used to feeling. He suddenly realised Hakoda and Katara were bracketing him as he walked firmly away from his fuming mother. "I never thought I would see a firebender so cold," Hakoda commented. His idle tone didn't fool Zuko for a moment. The man was shocked by the whole display.
"She's a harpy," Katara told her father from Zuko's other side. Then she wrapped her arm with his and twined their fingers together. "I'm glad you did that for yourself," she told Zuko.
Glaring around Zuko at his youngest child, the chief said, "She's his mother, Katara."
Zuko stopped. If he and Katara were going to be . . . whatever they were right now, girlfriend and boyfriend, he had to reach an understanding with his girlfriend's father. "No, she's not," he told the older man firmly. "By her own admission, I'm not family, I'm a firebender."
"She said it, Dad," Katara added. "I mean it. I'm not even sure she thinks that Zuko's human."
Hakoda stopped, frowning at his daughter. "What do you mean?"
With that she was off. Zuko watched in awe as Katara spun a tale that made him both sound like a deeply injured person ("Katara, I never cried."), as well as a great hero ("I was thirteen and I made a few order go missing. It's hardly heroic."), refused to let him get more than a word or two in edgewise ("Why did you just hit me?") and finished with big dewy blue eyes that were an amazing coup de grace on the whole performance.
Zuko found himself exchanging glances with Hakoda. "It's factually correct," he offered the older man, whose expression was somewhere between impressed and doubting. Then he turned to Katara. "Did you do that when we landed on Kyoshi that first time?"
"Yes," Sokka said from behind him. "It's not really how I would have put things, though. What brought that on anyhow?"
"Zuko performed a one-person rite of exclusion," Katara told Sokka.
Sokka looked momentarily confused, then said, "Did you finally tell your mother off?"
"Yeah," Zuko said, shaking his head as he added, "I don't even know why she's here. I mean, she's the deadliest airbender I know, considering that Aang won't even think about killing people, but she's also very invested in the idea that her rank puts her above it all." Then he blinked and said, "What's a rite of exclusion?"
"It's when you kick someone out of the family and the tribe," Sokka said offhandedly. His father cleared his throat pointedly and Sokka looked suitably cowed at the man's stern glare.
"A rite of exclusion is a serious business," Hakoda informed Zuko. "Life is harsh at the poles, and those who have been excluded can find no home with anyone of the clan who is family within the second degree. That is, parents, siblings, in-laws, aunts, uncles, first cousins and grandparents. Anyone of the family caught sheltering an excluded member of the family is to be automatically added to that exclusion."
"Well, that's pretty bad," Zuko admitted, "But what's to stop them from just staying with a friend?"
"There's a lot of stigma to an exclusion," Sokka explained. "I told you before, family is everything."
They slowly began to make their way through the camp, Hakoda shaking his head in wonder as young airbending warriors could be seen in battles of one-upsmanship with young earthbenders, waterbenders and the few younger firebenders that were in the army. "In the Water Tribes," Hakoda clarified, "Someone who has done something so terrible that he or she must be excluded is usually a person that no one in the tribe would offer shelter to."
"In theory," Katara said acidly. "Don't think I haven't forgotten what was done to Ulloriaq after that Earth Kingdom merchant made her think he was going to marry her."
Hakoda shot her an irritated look. "I took her in, didn't I?"
"After Gran-gran made you," Katara retorted.
"Just like your mother," Hakoda muttered under his breath. Zuko could see Katara loftily pretending to ignore him. "In the end, I am not sorry she chose to leave," he admitted. "It was uncomfortable for her and would have been worse for her son." He looked sideways at Katara.
Sokka let out a smothered snicker. His father looked at him, clearly trying to cow his son into silence, but it didn't work this time. "Dad's just glad she left because she wanted to find a place in the chief's igloo."
Katara blinked. "Was that why she was always spilling things in his lap?"
"Katara!" chorused her two scandalised male relatives.
She ignored them. "I have to try that with Zuko some time."
His mind caught up with what she was implying at the same moment the two Water Tribesmen turned towards him with murder in their eyes. "Meep."
Deciding that he'd had enough of trying to reach an understanding with Katara's father, Zuko hastily turned and sprinted off to where he knew his uncle was. He bounded up down and around the various practising benders and skidded to a halt before ducking into the man's tent and trying to put the various White Lotus members and their pai sho game between him and the entrance.
"Prince Zuko?" his uncle said, sounding rather bewildered.
Sokka's head appeared in the tent entrance, followed shortly by his father. "Really, you'll have to do better than that if you're going to hide from us," he told his friend.
"Hey, I didn't say anything," Zuko protested. "Katara's the one making implications."
Hakoda shot him a Look, and said, "I still think we need to make sure you remember that Sokka and I feel those aren't appropriate implications for my young, underage daughter."
Let no one say Water Master Pakku was slow on the uptake. "Yes, Prince Zuko. I do believe I should ensure that my favourite student and my new wife's granddaughter should not have her honour impugned in the slightest."
Zuko was frog-marched off in a hurry, with a smirking Pakku behind, while his uncle waved merrily and let them cart his nephew away. "Do not be concerned, Prince Zuko," Iroh shouted after them. "I will save you some dinner for when you are all finished."
"Uncle! You traitor!" Zuko shouted. They were his last words before being dumped into an ice-cold pond by the three men.
Sokka grinned. "Just a quick reminder you need to keep a cool head," Sokka said with a grin.
"Why you-" Zuko flung himself out of the water abruptly enough to drag Sokka into it with him. Sokka came up swinging, and within moments they were trying to drown each other.
Somehow, Suki joined in with the wrestling, then Toph came by, "Wow. You really did it this time, Weepy," she said.
"Why Flower Petal, let me help you!" Zuko said with a grin, and yanked his tunic off to use as a lasso to drag Toph in with them, which added bent mud to the fight.
They had all pretty much stripped off their sodden clothes by the time Katara came by and shrieked, "What is wrong with all of you!"
And then they were all dumped out of the pond, sopping wet, but impressively not muddy. "I can't believe you all!" Katara ranted. "We're going to be attacking the Fire Nation tomorrow and you're all here trying to drown each other!" She turned on the gathered older men, shaking a finger at her father. "And you! This is all your fault!"
Behind her back, Zuko exchanged faces with his other friends, silently agreeing that Katara just didn't get it.
"Don't think I didn't catch that!" she snapped whipping around. "Sokka! Go get Appa ready for tomorrow and meet up with the airbenders you're in charge of! Suki, I expect you and Toph to keep him in line tomorrow so I expect you both to straighten up right now. Zuko, you . . ." Katara trailed off, and Zuko suddenly realised he had no shirt on, Katara was one smirk away from open leering at his bare chest, and Hakoda and Sokka were getting angry again. He hastily snatched his tunic up and slipped it on again. Katara shook herself. "You need to talk to your uncle now, it's important. Now everybody move it!"
Zuko shuffled off, like all the others, heading in their assigned directions. He made his way to his uncle's tent where the maps that had been used for planning the offensive on Ba Sing Se and the counter-offensive to the Fire Nation had been rolled up and stowed away. All that was left was the modest bedroll, a few bags and one travel board for his uncle's incessant playing of pai sho.
"Uncle? You wanted to see me?" Zuko asked.
"It is important that we speak, Nephew," his uncle said. "It is about tomorrow, when Azula is to be confronted and prevented from taking the throne."
"You'll be dealing with Ozai, Uncle, I know," Zuko said. "I know Avatar Roku told Aang that he had to defeat the Fire Lord -"
Iroh interrupted, looking very weary. The years of grief after the death of Lu Ten, the years of fruitless searching for his nephew, the whole made enterprise of the war had left him drained. For the first time, Zuko thought his uncle looked old. "Even if I did defeat Ozai, and I don't know that I could. It will be the wrong way to end the war." He looked at Zuko earnestly as he continued. "History would see it as just more senseless violence, a brother killing a brother to grab power. The only way for this war to end peacefully is for the Avatar to defeat the Fire Lord."
It made sense. Zuko had seen far too much of how history was written to propagandise one side or the other to underestimate the kinds of histories that might be whispered in back rooms and secret meetings if his uncle took the throne. "And then… then would you come and take your rightful place on the throne ?" he asked. He didn't say the words that hung silently between them. As long as Aang makes it back in time and is able to bring himself to do the deed. He didn't have to say it.
Iroh also chose to ignore the komodo-rhino in the room. What good would asking those questions do? "No," he said firmly. "Someone new must take the throne. Someone who can help unite all four nations. Someone with unquestionable honour."
"Unquestionable honour?" Zuko asked. "I . . . I ran away from everything, Uncle. I spent three years doing nothing but wandering aimlessly and eating Chong's mushrooms and-"
The man who was at one time to be the Fire Lord shook his head. "You have always done what you thought was right. Even when your sister turned you from the right path you found your way back." He leaned forward and clasped Zuko's shoulders in his hands. "You can restore the honour of the Fire Nation, Prince Zuko."
How could he turn his back on this confidence? "I'll try, Uncle," he said.
They were both somewhat startled when Katara poked her head in. "So, with the way everything's been going, it looks like I'm coming with you when you stop Azula," Katara told Zuko with a smile.
"I wouldn't dream of asking anyone else," Zuko said. "Except maybe your brother."
"You're not serious," Katara said disparagingly. "What good would he be against your sister?"
"Tactics," Zuko replied, cheerfully needling his girlfriend.
"Shpff," she said. "You don't need that. Anyhow, I don't think you want Sokka doing this," she said, and kissed him.
There was something of a first about this kiss. The kisses they'd shared before the Dai Li and Ba Sing Se had all been friendly, accidental or that one memorable time he was trying to prove her crazy. After Ba Sing Se, he just thought he'd forgotten the first one, and had managed to skip having a proper first kiss. The kiss at Ling's enclave had been born of exploding tension and anger.
This was just, because they both wanted to kiss. Zuko just let the world fade as he sank into the sensation.
A sound a little like a cross between a giggle and a snort sounded behind them. They both turned to see his uncle, looking a little too pleased.
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."
Zuko shot a look at his uncle. "You can just stop gloating," he grumbled.
Prologue Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part Ten Part Eleven Part Thirteen Part Fourteen Part Fifteen
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