AtLA fic: You Know That Time They Got Married? 1/3
Title: That Time that Katara and Zuko got Married
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: You know the drill, I own nothing here, I'm making no money from it either.
Rating: T/PG maybe as low as a K+/G
Summary: See the title?
Notes: I have many of these. Firstly, my theory here is that, of the various cultural groups of the world of Avatar, the Earth Kingdom could be the least homogenous. Think about Asia. There's Russia to the north, China, Japan, Korea to the East, India, Pakistan in the south, the Middle East in the Western part of Asia. My point is, While the Water Tribes and Fire Nation are relatively small territories in relatively isolated populations, allowing for a creation of a homogenous group, the Earth Kingdom is a lot more like the major continents as we think of them. So, I feel it's not implausible that there could be such a wide variation in culture, rather than everything there being essentially being far eastern.
Thus, my sourcing for this is somewhat varied. The group of priestesses I made up, using the Japanese Yuki-onna as the foundation of the concept. It's a spirit usually associated with death by cold. The Racapycoonbaras come from three things. 1) Racoons 2) Capybaras 3) The fact that the more syllables a word has, the more I like it. The concept of a heffalump I owe to Winnie the Pooh. Yes, I know that it's not Avatarish, but how could you turn that down? The bulk of the marriage ceremony itself was contrived out of information from a website called Worldly Weddings. The vows come from two sections of the same website, Documents and Designs. Katara's is the Eskimo Love Song, the one Zuko winds up saying is entitled Oath of Friendship. Last but not least, Katara is in an Indian choli, not one that I've seen, but simply one I made up referencing various pictures from Google, and Zuko is in an African dashiki.
Okay, this fic is also set in something of an AU. I'm going with the presumption, again, that each season was a year, rather than a few months, so they're all old enough to get married without any weirdness. Lastly, this is part one of a three-part series of fics. I'm not going to tell you more than that, now, but I expect the themes will become rather clear by the second fic.
And now, on to the actual story part of things.
It had been a victory for them, driving the Fire Nation soldiers away from the small group of towns filled with masses of refugees from all over the Earth Kingdoms. For Katara, Sokka, Suki and Zuko the myriad people with their rainbow of different colours, styles and kinds of clothing and an equal rainbow of skin colours the sight was a little stunning. Less so after Ba Sing Se, but compared to the relatively homogenous peoples of Water, Kyoshi and Fire, it felt rather strange.
Still, Katara didn't let it stop her from pulling Zuko into the midst of the revellers. It took a little time, but soon enough she had him dancing with her, showing a surprising amount of talent for an activity that was actively banned in his home nation.
Eventually however, Zuko dragged Katara out of the crowd and into the dark outside of the village square. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the necklace he'd worked so very hard on. "Katara," he said, "I . . ." His nerves overwhelmed him and he trailed off.
She cupped his face in her hands, smiling, and said, "You can tell me anything Zuko. You know that."
That tore it. Zuko nerved himself up and just asked. It wasn't pretty, but it got the job done. "Katara, marry me?" He thrust the necklace he'd made for her in the style of the Water Tribes at her. She just stared at it, looking a little confused. He started to sweat. Was it ugly? Was she going to say no? "What's wrong?" he blurted out. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. "You don't have to wear it if you don't want to take your mother's necklace off-"
"Who told you about necklaces being engagement . . . things?" she asked.
"Uncle," Zuko said. "When I had yours, Uncle said that it was something a man made for the girl he wants to marry."
She blinked, took it from his hand and looked at it closely. He'd spent a long time on it, finding a dark red stone that was just right, carving the symbol of the Water Tribes into it and burning his fingertips as he carefully melted silver into the crevices made by the carving so it would stand out, then adding in the symbol of the Fire Nation and getting glass mixed with white and blue pigments melted smoothly into that so that the two symbols seemed entwined on the dark red background. "It's beautiful," Katara told him, sounding awed. "And yes, I'll marry you."
Then she kissed him, and Zuko felt like his heart would explode out of his chest he was so happy. When they pulled away, she told him, "There's just one little problem."
"What is it?" he asked, worried. Had he done something wrong? Were the symbols wrong? Had he-
"Giving a necklace is an engagement practice in the Northern Water Tribe. In the Southern Water Tribe, when a man wants to marry a woman, he offers her something useful. Usually pelts or maybe a knife with a metal blade. Something useful but difficult to get."
"What?" Zuko's jaw dropped. "I . . . I could get you something else," he said, feeling a little frantic.
She shook her head at him, looking amused. "Don't worry Zuko. It's fine. I can tell how hard you worked on that. And unless the Fire Nation proposes with necklaces too, I'm so happy that you were making sure to include Water tradition when you proposed." Before he could say anything else, she'd taken off her mother's necklace, wrapped the band twice around a wrist and fastened it before putting on the one Zuko had made her. Red was very much her colour.
He flushed. "I did get engagement combs for you when we were back in the Fire Nation." He pulled them out and handed the package to her. "I just didn't feel right without them."
Katara opened up the paper and stared at the combs. They were works of art. Carved from ebony, they were lacquered and inlaid with other kinds of wood, forming a backdrop to the tiny gemstones winking from the eyes and feathers of tiny little birds and the petals and leaves of entwined tiny little flowers. The decorations were so small, so delicate, Katara was sure she could never cease to find new things in them. And yet the combs fit neatly into her hands. They weren't heavy in the slightest, but staring at them, Katara had no idea how anyone could have done such work on such a small scale. "Zuko, this is . . . I can't accept this," she said, shoving it at him. She was just a girl from the South Pole. Girls from the South Pole didn't get to wear jewellery that probably cost more than Sokka's space sword was worth.
"Why not?" Zuko demanded.
"Because it's too expensive and I'll break them or lose them or something," Katara explained. She watched as Zuko seemed to sag in relief.
Her assumption that he was grateful she wouldn't accidentally destroy his beautiful investment was shattered as he said, "So you're not saying no, you just think that you're too clumsy to wear them." Before she could reply to that vaguely insulting statement, he'd grabbed her hair, twisted it into some strange configuration and jammed the combs into it. "You're not that clumsy and they're not too expensive," he told her. "My mother's combs were made of pure gold, inlaid with silver, and with real gems for the eyes. This is just wood, and those are only semi-precious stones."
"It's ebony," Katara told him, "And don't pretend that's cheap. Anyhow, the craftwork alone on this is mmph!" She was cut off by Zuko kissing her. She tried again when he pulled away. "Zuko, work like this doesn't come cheap and-"
Another kiss. Then he dragged her out into the square, and over to where Toph had egged Sokka into getting drunk, and Suki was grinning in a way that made Katara grateful the village had offered them separate accommodations from each other so she wouldn't have to listen. Aang, watching the whole thing with every appearance of being simultaneously amused and disturbed, was the first to notice. "Katara!" he exclaimed. "Did you . . ." He turned to Zuko. "Did you ask her to marry you?" He turned back to Katara without waiting for a reply. "Did you say yes?"
"Yes, and yes," she told her friend. "Do you like the necklace? Zuko made it himself!"
Aang blinked, then said, "Uh . . . yeah, it's great." He looked a little embarrassed as he admitted, "Actually, I noticed the combs first."
"Combs?" Suki inquired.
Katara shrugged, but obligingly leaned over so Suki could get a better look at them. "Zuko says that they give combs as engagement pieces in the Fire Nation and that he didn't feel like he'd actually proposed if he didn't give me any."
"They're gorgeous," Suki said. "Of course, on Kyoshi, if you want to marry one of the warriors, you have to gift her with new fans."
Nodding, Katara settled in beside her. "In the Southern Water Tribe, the man is supposed to bring pelts or something else useful and rare to prove he's a good provider." She smiled. "Of course, Zuko's a firebender, so he's better than any pelts. He can act like heated rocks, and be snuggly at the same time. He's kind of a good provider like that without any other stuff."
Toph, having tired of playing with Sokka, came over. "What's up, Sweetness?"
"Zuko proposed," Katara told her with a big grin on her face.
Toph's eyes narrowed a little, then she frowned. "Where the ring?" she asked. "There's isn't any rock or metal anywhere on your hands."
"Why would I give Katara a ring?" Zuko asked, frowning in confusion. "I'm asking her to marry me, not handing her over to the priestesses of Yukionna."
"Huh?" Toph asked.
Zuko sighed. "By wearing a metal ring, the priestesses are showing that they have given up the flame that defines the Fire Nation in favour of the goddess of ice and snow as they pray to intercede on behalf of the people who live on the mountains where it gets cold enough for the weather to kill."
The Earth Kingdom girl frowned. "But, when you get engaged the man gives the girl and engagement ring. The more decorative and beautiful the stones the better. You're proving your worth as a bender if you can find the really good stuff in the ground."
"And in the Fire Nation, wearing a ring that your own bending could wind up causing you to be permanently maimed isn't really the way to go," Zuko replied. "I got Katara combs."
"Let me," Katara started, reaching for her hair to hand them to Toph. Zuko lightly rapped her knuckles. "Ow!"
"Don't you take those out," Zuko told her. "I want to see my wife-to-be wearing her combs, thank you."
"What!" Sokka squawked, having joined the group. "What're you . . . Katara! Where's your necklace!"
She rolled her eyes. "Mom's necklace is right here, Sokka," she told him, holding out her hand to show him the blue necklace wrapped around her wrist.
"Then what's that around your neck?" he demanded. "It looks like an engagement necklace." He leaned very far over, and if he hadn't been her brother, Katara might have assumed he was trying to look down her top. Instead, it was very apparent Sokka was quite sloshed, and was leaning the way he was because he was trying to squint at her jewellery without falling over at the same time.
"It is an engagement necklace," Katara told him with a sigh. "Zuko made it for me, and I'm wearing it because we're engaged now."
"What!" Sokka shrieked in her ear.
"Ow," Katara said, rubbing that ear.
Sokka launched himself in a sozzled sort of way at Zuko, planning to pummel the other young man for daring to treat Katara like a girl instead of a nun. While they rolled around, Katara just rolled her eyes and showed offer her new necklace and the combs for Toph, who gave her approval of the rock around Katara's neck, and then joined her and Suki in talking about possibilities for weddings. Aang crept off, wanting to deal with neither the girly stuff, nor Sokka and Zuko's . . . dispute. After all, there were racapycoonbaras with their black and white masks, ringed tails and generous size for rodents. They were, as was their wont, raiding the trash, but that didn't matter to Aang. They were adorable.
The girls had been trading stories and wedding traditions for a few minutes, when one of the older women of the village broke away from the celebrating. "You're getting married?" exclaimed the woman in delight.
Katara blushed. "Yes. Zuko, my boy - fiance," she corrected herself with a smile, "Just proposed." She grinned. "He gave me Fire Nation engagement combs and a Water Tribe engagement necklace."
"So when are you planning on having the ceremony?" the woman asked.
"I . . . we hadn't really discussed anything yet," Katara told her.
"Then why don't you both do it now," she suggested.
Suki smiled. "That's a great idea, Katara!" she said.
"Well . . ."
"Yeah!" Toph added. "I mean, if you put it off for too long, there's no telling what Sokka will try to keep it from happening."
"Zuko . . ."
Somehow, several other women had crept up on them. "The dress my daughter got to get married in, until she decided to have a ceremony in the Omashu region with her husband, is still in my house," piped up one. She was as dark-skinned as Katara, but her hair was a thick black rope and her dress appeared to be a length of cloth that just wrapped around her to drape in an effortlessly beautiful fashion.
Another woman, this one very dark-skinned, and dressed in clothes that were patterned in bright browns, oranges and greens that somehow came together in harmony and wearing a sort of turban said, "My husband is a priest, I am quite sure he would be happy to do a wedding ceremony."
On a chorus of agreement, Katara was swept off, and was vaguely aware that Zuko was being carted off by another group of women. She found herself inside the house of the woman with the wedding dress. What was brought out was a glory of silky green fabric in a long and draped skirt, with complex embroidery in yellow thread that weighed down the bottom of the skirt, and formed sinuous patterns up the skirt, thinning as it crept up the fabric, only to form a solid mass of stitchery at the top, which sat low on the hips. Making the whole thing heavier were gold-coloured glass beads. The top was relatively small, leaving Katara's waist bare.
A moment later she found out why, as the woman began layering complex gold-coloured jewellery over her waist. It was like a sort of decorative chain and belt, and Katara stared into her reflection as the layers of bracelets, chains and decorative bangles transformed her into something completely exotic.
Suki was cheerfully helping the women with holding and pinning the dress, to make sure it fit properly while Toph cracked wise and let the women stuff her into a nice formal gown for the ceremony.
By the time they all emerged, the town square had been transformed from the scene of a celebration of victory over the Fire Nation and into a wedding. At one side of the square, one of the women was insistent that they needed a heffalump for Katara to ride on. "It is not a proper wedding if the bride does not come in on a heffalump," she insisted.
"Would Appa do?" Aang inquired. He had managed to clean up and was zipping about putting up lanterns, flowers and streamers someone had found in a chest somewhere. In the centre of the clearing there was a dark-skinned man with a friendly smile. Zuko stood next to him, looking as handsome as always in his exotic clothing. The cut of the shirt and trousers was simple and loose, but the complex patterns embroidered into the green fabric in shades of gold, white, blue, brown, orange and black gave it a vibrant life and Katara felt a little homesick for a moment as the shape and decorations reminded her of her father's old costume he kept for celebrations.
She started towards Zuko, but found herself being towed to Appa by the woman who had been saying something about heffalumps before. "You will enter on the back of the . . . uh . . ."
"Appa?" Katara suggested.
"Yes," the woman told her with some determination. She decided not to argue the point. Sokka was looking a little woozy, and as Katara watched, the village herbalist pinched his nose, tilted his head back like a recalcitrant bear dog pup and made him swallow something. As Katara watched Sokka seemed to both sober up and go into shock at the same time from the treatment.
Appa strolled up to where the makeshift altar had been set up, and then knelt, letting Katara walk down his tail. When she got off, she saw Zuko's eyes widen and a goofy grin crossed his face. Dimly she heard Sokka saying something about Zuko and amorality, but that was muffled by a sudden shift in the earth. "Thanks Toph."
"No problem, Sugar Queen."
Katara got to Zuko, who was still looking pretty goofy. "You look amazing," he told her. "So beautiful."
"You look pretty handsome yourself, Zuko."
The man at the front said, "My name is Chinua, and I welcome you all to the wedding of Katara of the Southern Water Tribe and Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. This wedding represents in so many ways all the ideals of marriage. The union of two different people into one, to families into one and the overcoming of those differences."
He reached in front of him and took a cloth off of the altar, which had been covering up four small dishes. "All marriages, and I speak from personal experience, are a mix. They are the heat of anger," he said, and held up a small spoon. "To remind you both that your marriage will have fights and anger." Katara braced herself, and tasted the hot pepper. He eyes instantly began to water, and she noted with some resentment that Zuko was actually sucking on the spoon to get the last traces of the pepper. "Next, to remind you of the sourness of disharmony in the home." This spoonful was incredibly sour, but after a moment Katara got used to it and decided she rather liked the intense flavour. Zuko looked like he was trying not to spit. Katara grinned at him, the sourness having briefly chased away the burning. Then Chinua held up the next spoonful. "The bitterness of disagreement that must be watched for so it does not overwhelm the other parts of marriage." This was quite possibly the worst yet.
Katara couldn't help herself. "What is that?"
Behind her, Toph said, "Sparky's tea. I'd been saving it for a special occasion."
"It's just hot leaf juice," Zuko muttered. "I don't get it."
"But seriously," Katara asked him, staring, "How did you mess that up?"
"I don't know!"
Chinua cleared his throat. "Sorry," they chorused.
"Lastly," he said, giving them amused but stern looks, "The sweetness that overcomes the others if only you take care and let it blossom." This last spoonful was simple honey. Zuko stared as Katara licked off the spoon and tried very hard not to think about other places her tongue could be.
"Now you must speak you vows," the man said.
"Vows?" Zuko asked. "I . . . we . . . I mean, what do you mean?"
He watched as his almost-not-quite-yet-wife sighed, and said, "I'll go first." She smiled, and Zuko completely forgot he was supposed to be thinking of something to say.
"You are my husband
My feet shall run because of you
My feet dance because of you
My heart shall beat because of you
My eyes see because of you
My mind thinks because of you
And I shall love because of you.
This declared before the Spirits,
We are as Tui and La,
Two and separate,
Forever one."
It was beautiful and Zuko panicked. What was he supposed to say in response to that? Suddenly, from behind him, he heard Aang hissing his name. It took the monk two tries to get Zuko to realise Aang was thinking on his feet for him, but he didn't care because he had something to say.
"I want to be your friend
For ever and ever without break or decay.
When the hills are all flat
And the rivers are all dry,
When it lightens and thunders in winter,
When it rains and snows in summer,
When Heaven and Earth mingle
Not 'til then will I part from you."
"Oh, Zuko," Katara said, leaning in.
Chinua interposed between them. "Almost there," he said with a quick grin. He picked up the last item on the table, a piece of soft rope which he twined around their wrists in an intricate knot. "They have spoken their vows before witnesses and the spirits. They are bound together in the sight of all here." He turned back to the pair. "Now you two can kiss."
He didn't need to be told twice. Zuko pulled Katara against him, ignoring the slightly awkward quality of having their hands tied together and kissed her for all he was worth.
The party lasted late into the night, but they finally got a brief moment to themselves, and Zuko asked, "How did you come up with that . . . vow so fast?"
She blinked. "It's the traditional wedding vow of the Southern Tribe. Isn't that the vow of the Fire Nation that you said?"
He shook his head. "We don't have vows. There's just bowing before a sage and a tea ceremony. I mean, for the actual marriage ceremony part."
"You made that up on the spot?" Katara said looking delighted. He was tempted to let her think he was that brilliant, but he knew it would just cause problems later.
"Aang prompted me. Line by line," he confessed. "I had no idea what to say, so I just said whatever he did."
Which was when their moment alone ended again. "I should have had you promise to feed Momo nothing but moon peaches for the rest of his life," Aang said with a mischievous grin. "I bet you would have said it too."
"He should have," Toph agreed.
Katara smiled at Aang. "Well, I'm glad you didn't. I'd hate to have to start my marriage by threatening my new husband if he ever does anything like that again."
Zuko considered defending himself, but decided he'd keep the peace that night by agreeing with her. They could argue the next day.
Tonight, they'd celebrate.
"Zuko, stop leering like that, the reception isn't over yet."
Part Two
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