AtLA fic: You Know that Time They Got Married? 2/3
Disclaimer: You know the drill, I own nothing here, I'm making no money from it either.
Notes: So, first, I want to complain the the internet hates me and my research into Inuit culture. However, I found some few things. First, and amauti is a type of coat, so I know that it's redundant to write coat after it, kind of like writing a parka coat. However, for people who don't read notes and don't know that amautiks are coats, it saves trouble. Most of the useful information I found clothing-wise was from a website called Canada's First Peoples. Some better pictures of decorated amautiks are to be found on the Winnipeg Art Gallery website of a display of Inuit artworks.
With the war over, the Fire Nation stabilised and under the guiding hand of Iroh while Zuko took some time off, Katara and Zuko made their way to the Southern Water Tribe to speak to Katara's family and tribe about the fact that she was married. They were fairly sure it was going to be a surprise.
They stepped off the boat and there was a lot of surprise. From Katara and Zuko. "Bato?" Katara said, sounding a little stunned as she approached the tribesman deeply involved in a kiss with a black-haired woman. "I . . ."
She trailed off as the man stepped back and revealed the woman he was kissing.
"Mother?" Zuko squawked.
"Zuko?" she breathed. "Zuko!" Then they were hugging and Katara was smiling. At least, until she noticed the armband on Bato and shook her head in disbelief.
"I thought you told Dad that time that you were never marrying anyone because there were too many single women who would be too sad at losing you," she said dryly.
Bato, however, was gaping. "Uza has a son?" He looked a little sick.
Katara giggled at the look on his face. "Uza, as you know her, is the Dowager Fire Lady."
The older man who was like an uncle to her looked utterly stunned. "My wife is . . ." he trailed off, clearly unable to say it.
Enjoying his discomfort probably more than she ought to, Katara added, "Your new step-son is the Fire Lord," she told him.
Zuko meanwhile was simply luxuriating in the joy of seeing his mother was well. At least, she seemed well. "Are you . . . well?" he asked hesitantly, once they'd separated enough to look at each other.
She smiled at the words. "Yes, Zuko. I am well." Then the smile broadened more. "You're so handsome!" she exclaimed, cupping his face in her hands. "And I'm so glad you're doing so well."
Looking around, Zuko asked, "How did you wind up at the Southern Water Tribe?"
She laughed a little. "I only just got here, actually," she told him. "Bato, my new husband, said he wanted to get married with the tribes as well as in the village we met in, in the Earth Kingdom. Since this is his home anyhow, here I am."
A little suspiciously, Zuko asked her, "Did he give you that speech about not being really married?"
"Bato did say something about not feeling like he was properly married until he had a ceremony at home," she admitted, flushing a little.
Katara approached, followed by the man, Bato, who looked a little apprehensive. "Lady Ursa," Katara said, bowing formally.
The former Fire Lady smiled at her and said, "There is no need for such formality. Bato assures me that among the tribes we all might as well be family."
When Katara took in a shaky breath, Zuko realised she was as nervous about meeting his mother and he was about meeting her grandmother and tribe. He went to her side, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "There's no need to be that nervous," he told her. "At least you never invaded mother's home and manhandled her."
Katara lost the nervous look and patted Zuko's arm. "You don't need to worry about Gran. I'm sure she'll forgive you for that."
"What?" chorused the older couple.
"Zuko?" his mother asked.
Ursa's questioning tone, however, brought Katara back to her original nerves. "You said, Lady Ursa, that there was no need for formality, but I wouldn't want to risk making a bad first impression on meeting my mother-in-law."
"Your . . ." Ursa paused, then understood. "Zuko! You're married!" she exclaimed. She whirled on Katara. "Let me get a look at my daughter-in-law," she said. She shook her head. "All those beautiful curves. I always wanted a bosom like that."
"Really?" Katara said hesitantly. "The boys at the Northern Tribe kept saying I was scrawny."
"Piffle," Ursa told her. "You're perfectly proportioned. Now, you absolutely must tell me how you met my son."
Zuko said, rather absently, to Bato, "I don't remember her being that . . . open, when I was a child."
"Katara's like my niece," Bato agreed, tacitly. They followed after the two women.
The meeting with Kanna was absolutely traumatic for Zuko. She looked him over like a buyer at an ostrich-horse auction while Water Master Pakku made snide comments. Hakoda just sat there, apparently trying to reconcile the Katara in front of him with his daughter. Then, much to Zuko's discomfiture, she, Katara and his mother sat down for three generations' worth of womanly gossip that drove the four men out of the ice home where Kanna lived and down the street that hadn't been there the last time either Bato or Zuko had been in the South Pole, and into a tavern that Zuko was particularly grateful for.
"It's changed so much," Bato commented.
Zuko nodded. "I know. There was nothing here but some igloos and fur tents the last time I was here."
Pakku frowned at him. "What I want to know, is what is Kanna talking about when she and Katara speak of your previous trip and manhandling her?"
So Zuko sighed and told them the whole story of his hunt for the Avatar, for Bato's benefit, and then endured Pakku's scathing commentary on his wits. It was actually somewhat odd to be receiving his father-in-law's halfhearted support against the waterbender. Not for the first time, Zuko was grateful that his first meeting with Hakoda had been while he and Sokka were rescuing the man. They made their way back to Kanna and Pakku's home, to the news that the ladies had unilaterally decided that since Zuko, Katara, Ursa and Bato were all going to have second ceremonies to include the tribe, they might as well have them at the same time.
Zuko and Bato exchanged mildly horrified looks. "At the same time?" they chorused.
"I know!" Katara declared gleefully. "A double wedding, how amazing is that?"
The next several months were a whirlwind of activity as Katara, Ursa and Zuko had to have brand new Water Tribe finery made up, plans for Chief Arnook and a large contingent of Northern Tribesmen had to make their way to the South Pole for the wedding of the only female bending master in the tribes, as did Suki and his uncle (whom Zuko had not told of his mother's presence and impending marriage as a revenge for all the years of driving his nephew batty with aggravation), not to mention messages to Aang and Toph had to be sent. Aang agreed to come, Toph declared that she'd been at Katara's wedding during the war and wasn't going to spend a week blind on the ice for anyone.
Also, according to Southern Water Tribe traditions, a husband had to provide a dowry to the bride's family to make up for the significant loss in terms of useful womanpower. That is, with Katara no longer in her father's house, so to speak, she could no longer do laundry, clean, cook, take care of imaginary younger siblings and all those other things. A family would have to arrange for some means of replacing that labour.
That was the real reason. The reason everyone gave Zuko was that he had to prove his generosity and capability as a provider. If he could provide generously to Hakoda and still feel he could afford the extra mouth to feed in a wife, he would have proved himself.
Of course, with Kanna as the family matriarch, she got special considerations and Zuko's first impulse, to give Kanna a lot of gold and to tell her to buy whatever she wanted from whatever merchant ships came through, was soundly rebuffed. In fact, until Katara learned that Zuko had done this as gifting for everyone he ever knew except her, he was thrown out of her bed for lack of respect for her family. Once Katara knew his solution to giftgiving was to throw money at it, including his uncle, he got soundly lectured on the fine art of giftgiving.
In the end, he took the expedient of giving Pakku a lot of money and telling the man to purchase Kanna something appropriate that she'd like on Zuko's behalf, allow Zuko to present to it her and what bribes did he want not to tell Katara?
Finally, however, the big day arrived and Zuko felt distinctly discommoded by the Water Tribe formal wear, which was quite attractive in its way, but didn't feel like formalwear to the Fire Lord.
Katara, however, was happily putting on the soft sealskin pants and formal overdress she would wear beneath her wedding amautik coat, with its ceremonial hood to represent all the children she would have to carry within it. Heavily beaded on the front with stylised depictions of tiger seals, bear dogs and waves, it was a testament to hours of hard work stitching each individual bead into place. Across from her, in a startling red amautik coat, beaded into patterns of royal dragons, was Ursa. She had done it all herself, and while the other women of the tribe felt a little nervous at so much of such an ill-omened colour, Katara just thought it looked quite pretty.
She also had learned that she adored Zuko's mother, and the fact that Ursa had chosen to permanently move to the South Pole with Bato just meant that Katara was guaranteed the chance to go home often, as she knew that Zuko would want to see his mother as often as she wanted to see her father and gran.
"Are you ready?" she asked the older woman.
Ursa smiled at her. "Never more ready."
The once-village, now town, was decorated with ice sculptures and decorations, dye having been added to the ice in many cases to create brilliantly coloured decorations that spiralled over and around the square, the houses and changed the shade of the snow beneath them as the sunlight shone through the ice.
Katara had helped some with the decorations, but Yugoda had sent her away, insisting that it was not the bride's place to make those, but those of other waterbenders of the tribe. It was her first view of them, and it was breathtaking.
Zuko meanwhile, had been worried the whole production would be as stark white as the South Pole, and was somewhat relieved when he emerged to the brilliant colours of the ice sculptures. Preceded by Bato and his mother, they walked down the clear centre of the square to where Hakoda stood, looking sternly at Zuko.
When Bato and Ursa stood before him, however, Hakoda's stern mien melted away into an amused grin. "We have gathered today to see a man break his vows to remain single forever-" he started.
"At least I never promised eternal vengeance on my future wife for stealing my dolly," retorted Bato.
Hakoda's eyes narrowed. "It was a warrior figure, and it was gifted to me at the solstice by my grandfather, and she used it for tinder," groused the Chief. "So don't you even start. Don't think I don't know where yours is," he warned his best friend.
Zuko heard himself making a strangled sound.
"I told you Sokka was just like Dad," Katara muttered in his ear.
"I thought weddings were supposed to be sort of dignified," he muttered back.
"Like our last one?" she asked him pointedly.
The former Fire Lady and her new husband finished exchanging vows and were now buried in an enthusiastic crowd, including Bato's mother, who had so long ago given up on her son being married that she apparently didn't care who he married anymore.
Now it was their turn. The crowd slowly hushed and Zuko and Katara faced Hakoda. "Katara," said her father. "I'll miss you, puppy-seal." He took a deep breath and turned back to the crowd. "Today I give my daughter away to her new husband. Speak your vows," he said.
They exchanged the vows he had first heard all those months ago when they married in the Earth Kingdom ceremony, and then they kissed and the party started.
Zuko was in the midst of negotiating visiting times and dates for Bato and his mother to come to the Fire Nation to visit, and for him and Katara to return to the Southern Tribe to visit there, when Iroh joined them. "I am disappointed, Nephew, that you did not warn me that your mother had been found," his uncle said reprovingly.
Katara suddenly joined them, slipping her hands around Zuko's waist from behind and resting her chin on his shoulder. Zuko turned around, noting she'd had to stand on her toes to do it, and pulled her in front so he could trade places with her and rest his chin on her shoulder from behind. "Zuko's just doing it because he wanted revenge on you for annoying him while he was looking for Aang when he was in exile."
"Katara! I told you that in confidence," Zuko grumbled. Suddenly he paused. "Mother, I kept wondering, but I never had the chance. When did you or father have the chance to annul your marriage?"
His mother shrugged. "He rousted out a sage the last night I was at the palace and had it done before dawn and before I was formally exiled."
Bato looked outraged. "He was able to end the marriage with his wife so easily?"
"Well, she had just murdered the old Fire Lord," Katara said practically. "It can't be that hard after that."
"What?" said Bato.
Iroh nodded. "It would only be logical. She put my brother on the throne to spare my nephew's life."
"So-" Bato started, but Ursa pulled his head down, murmuring into his ear. In short order a look of understanding crossed his face and he smiled at her, kissed her tenderly and promised he'd never force her to make a decision like that again.
Iroh waited patiently until Ursa and Bato were finished before saying, "I must tell you all, however, that the Fire Nation's sages have declared that they will not consider Zuko and Katara's marriage valid until they have had a wedding in our own traditions." He turned to Ursa. "I would ask therefore, that you return to the Fire Nation in order to assist in planning and the ceremony."
"Another wedding?" chorused the younger couple. Katara looked baffled. Zuko, in spite of himself smiled a little. He might finally feel like he was properly married if they did that. And he'd had to go through Katara's Tribal wedding. She might as well go through a Fire Nation one.
Ursa clapped her hands in delight. "Katara, I cannot wait to speak with the royal tailors about fitting you with a cheongsam."
"Another wedding?" asked Katara again as his mother began selling her on the advantages to wearing Fire Nation formalwear.
Zuko turned to Iroh and said, "How do you propose we handle the entry to the palace? I was thinking that Bato would have to symbolically take at least part of Father's place in the ceremony."
"Zuko!" his uncle said in a tone that was equal parts disapproval and amusement. "Do you wish to scandalise your people?"
He looked at his bride, picturing her in the tight red dress she would wear for their wedding, instead of the bulky, if attractive, amautik she was wearing then, said, "I think they're already scandalised."
"I think it would be worse to have you declaring your new stepfather to be only slightly lower in rank to your lady mother," Iroh said reprovingly.
"But think about the look on General Pau face," he protested.
Kanna joined them with a disapproving look on her face. "Why are you three over here talking about generals?" she demanded. "I want to see my granddaughter and new grandson . . . dancing right now. I expect great-grandchildren out of tonight. Are we clear?" she declared.
"Yes, Lady Kanna," Zuko said obediently.
As he started towards his bride, she shouted after him, "And by dancing, I mean necking!"
Suddenly Zuko was particularly grateful for the cold that had caused his face to be flushed. It hid his embarassment nicely. Then Katara insisted on necking in the middle of the dance floor and he decided not to worry about it. Instead he thought about Katara and Very Tight Red Dresses.
Part One
Part Three
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