Chapter Text
Book 4: King
Chapter 1 – An Unexpected Visitor
"Uncle!" Zuko calls as he strides through the Fire Nation's Royal Palace halls. "You won't believe our good luck!"
Zuko has been Fire Lord for three years, and they've been filled with many trials and tribulations as he's tried to carry his nation forward and restore balance in the world. It's been difficult work, and it's taken its toll on the young man, especially all the ordeals with the colonies, but today, he sounds almost jubilant.
Uncle Iroh is resting in the gathering room in private quarters of the royal residence. Gentle fires flicker from every wall, filling the room with a soft golden light that dances on the soft red walls. He is doubly delighted this afternoon because he is not only enjoying a cup of one of his favorite teas but also because he has the opportunity to play a good game of Pai Sho.
"That is a very interesting move," he says, stroking his chin and tugging his white beard with his fingers as he looks at the titles on his side of the board and considers his next move.
"Did you hear me, Uncle!" Zuko shuts as he jogs towards the gathering room. He knows his uncle is around somewhere. "Those marauders in the Fire Nation ship that have been looting all the traders in the South Emerald Sea are actually from the Earth Kingdom! They'd disguised their ship to look like one of ours, but they're Earth Kingdom. King Kuei has to deal with it! Not me!"
Zuko bounds towards his uncle with a big smile on his face, happy that, for once, one of the problems of the world falls on someone else's shoulders to solve. The issue with the marauders had been a thorn in his side for the past several months, and many had demanded the Fire Nation pay restitution for the goods and profits lost even though Zuko had no idea who they were.
"That is very good to hear, Lord Zuko, maybe now you can help me figure out my next move. I find myself in a bit of a quandary…"
"Uncle, you know I hate playing Pai Sho," Zuko says as he spins around the corner and stops in his tracks. The person playing Pai Sho with his Uncle is Katara.
She looks up at him and smiles. Zuko has to consciously make sure his mouth isn't hanging open.
"Katara," he stammers, bowing formally, "welcome to the Royal Palace."
He doesn't know why he says this. He defaults to royal protocol whenever he's nervous.
Her smile widens and she laughs softly.
"Come, Zuko," Iroh calls him, "what do you think I should do, the young waterbender has just made a most interesting move."
Zuko doesn't want to help his Uncle, but he doesn't know what else to do, so he goes over and sits by him, staring at the board.
It's been nearly three years since he's seen Katara, since she asked to speak to him on the balcony on the day of his coronation and they'd snuck off to the side gardens and made out desperately, their hands running all over each other, their breaths hot and heavy.
"Oh, Zuko," she'd said, after one particularly long kiss. But she wasn't calling him the way he'd hoped she would. Her voice wasn't a request or invitation. It was an apology.
He took her face gently in his hands and held it back, looking her deeply in her eyes.
"I like you," she said, leaning in for another quick little kiss.
Zuko felt a laugh rattle deep in his chest, but he couldn't quite let it out. "I like you too," he told her.
But both of them knew that wasn't the start of their conversation, but the end of it.
I like you, but I have to go home. I have to see my father, be with my family.
I like you but I have to lead my people. I have to rebuild my nation, repair the world.
Neither of them needed to say it, so they just held each other, Katara nuzzled into him slightly and he rubbed her arm and they watched the sunset over the dazzling gold-colored roofs in the Capitol. Night settled in, tucking the world in darkness as the final colors from the day faded away.
It grew chilly, and the sounds of their friends' conversation, his Uncle's Tsungi horn, had long faded away. Both supposed everyone knew what they were up to, neither cared.
Katara clung to Zuko, savoring the warmth and strength that his body offered her, even though she'd grown uncomfortably cold because she didn't want to leave him.
When she started to shiver, Zuko finally said, "Come on, let's go inside. I'll walk you to your room."
And he did, respectfully bowing at her door before walking to his own.
He knew she was still devastated by the death of her brother, and knew she needed time to mourn for him and figure out how to move on.
Admittedly, Zuko didn't think it'd take them three years for them to see each other again. But he was as much responsible for that as she was.
She wrote him a letter, a few months after returning to the Southern Water Tribe. She spoke about how good it was to be with her father, seeing her Gran and many of her other friends. How she was excited to begin doing good work again, something about collaborations with the Northern Water Tribe…She expected to do some traveling back and forth between the two poles, she hoped she'd be able to stop by and visit him at the Fire Nation Capitol.
Zuko immediately wrote her back, speaking briefly of what he was trying to accomplish as the new Fire Lord but mostly focusing on how excited he'd be to see her, and saying that he hoped her journeys brought her his way soon and how happy he'd be to see her. He'd also added many apologies that his responsibilities didn't allow him to visit her, at least twice.
Katara was impressed by the quality of his calligraphy, she was nervous to reply to him for a few weeks, her handwriting was so unruly and ill-practiced. She almost wondered if he had someone else write it for him, but she supposed it was another result of all his royal training.
By the time Katara did pass through the Fire Nation's waters, Zuko was off in the colonies trying to diffuse another war. He'd agreed to something called the Harmony Restoration Movement, and as part of the conditions of surrendering his father's war. He'd agreed to remove all Fire Nation military and citizens from former Earth Kingdom territory. But, some of those colonies were old, many of the families had intermarried. There were children with one parent an earthbender and the other a firebender. Aang's plan was to separate all the people's based on their bending, but Zuko quickly realizes that was not an easy feat. A few families came to him, begging him not to have them removed from their homes, not to tear their families apart. Zuko finally had to go and see the situation himself, and he promised the people he'd find a better solution. Aang and the Earth King at first did not like it, but they all eventually agreed to let each colony decide their own fate: Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation. There were, of course, a lot of unhappy people whose communities decided to go a way they did not like, but war was averted. Which was about all Zuko could hope for these days.
This ordeal, however, meant that he missed Katara the first two times she passed near the Capitol in the first year of his reign, and he regrettably had to tell her should probably couldn't come the next time, because there had been a few serious attempts on his life. Making peace with the rest of the world made Zuko a lot of enemies at home, and he knew some of the noble families were conspiring against him. He tried not to alarm her with the news, but he still couldn't risk her being there.
Katara was worried for him and still wanted to come, but Zuko advised against it. He told her he'd let her know as soon as it was safe. But months passed, and then years, and while he'd written many versions of that letter, he never got around to sending it.
First, he was busy dealing the disgruntled nobles. Some were loyal to Ozai, but most were just upset that Zuko was taking most of the money he needed to pay reparations to the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes from their royal budgets. He knew he couldn't raise taxes on the people, especially since so many were hurting because they lost their jobs when he shrank the military. His opponents eventually formed what they called the Eternal Flame, a secret organization dedicated to removing him from the throne. It became a reoccurring problem for Zuko over the years.
They were usually responsible for the assassination attempts, and even tried to help Azula escape. Zuko tried to keep her in one of the royal homes outside the city. She was not allowed to leave the premises and heavily guarded, but she was being cared for. He did not want to throw her in a prison cell like he did his father, especially in her unstable state. But she nearly killed a few of her caretakers and tried to escape a few times. Zuko asked Aang if he'd consider removing her bending abilities, but both he and Aang knew Azula would be no less of a threat without bending. "I think she'd just try and find a different way to kill people," Aang had told him, and Zuko knew he was right, so he had his sister moved to the same prison as his father.
And then there was Mai. She returned not long after his coronation and was one of the few people who asked how he was doing. Zuko appreciated it. Their relationship grew romantic as it had before, but it also fell apart again. Zuko at first liked how Mai didn't mind when his duties took him away, sometimes for months, but grew upset when he learned she'd been seeing other men during those times. She was angry he seemed more upset about what others would think about her actions rather than her actions themselves.
"Did you even stop to think about how it would make me look?" He shouted when he found out, knowing it'd be another reason the noble families would mock him. "People know we're together!"
"No," she told him directly, "I did stop to think about how it might make you feel, though."
Zuko stared at her in disbelief. "How it'd make me feel?" He didn't follow the distinction she was making.
"Yes," she told him, her eyes cold. "It's good to know all you really care about are appearances…"
"Mai, that's not what I meant—"
"Whatever, Zuko, I'm over this."
She wasn't though, and their paths crossed again. But no matter how many times they got back together, something always seemed to come between them, and Zuko honestly wondered if she really cared about him at all. He wondered if she was only trying to make things work because of her family, who undoubtedly would have been thrilled if they married.
Zuko finally asked her after a long stretch of acting indifferent and disinterred. "What's going on, Mai? Do you even want to be with me?"
"Do you really have to ask me that?" She said genuinely confused.
"Yes."
"Okay then," she said in the same detached voice she always used, "I guess this isn't working."
And Mai left. Zuko honestly didn't know why. Was she hurt he didn't know if she cared? Or angry he'd figured out she didn't? He still didn't know. But he did know that, after every one of their fights, he'd return to his desk and draft another version of his letter to Katara, asking if she'd be passing near the Fire Nation anytime soon, telling her it'd be so good see her, and wondering if it was too late to send it.
Katara had waited almost two years for that letter, checking her post almost obsessively the first several days. And while it occupied her thoughts for several weeks, life began to pull them away, as it always does.
Things got rough with her father. He was despondent at his son's death. Katara began to think that he went to war after her mother died not so much to protect them but to escape his grief. Now, with nowhere go and nothing to do with all his pain, it festered and turned into fights.
"You never left to save us, you did it to save yourself!" Katara screamed at him one night, "and now look at you…what are you going to do to save yourself this time?"
"Nothing," Hokodda told her, his voice flat and empty. "There's not reason to…" He was totally lost.
Katara wanted to yell back, scream Aren't I a reason? You're not going to even try for me? But she didn't. She just went on another trip to the Northern Water Tribe and never came back. She'd planned to, but it was always something that was going to happen later.
Until now. She'd been gone for almost two years, working with the Northern Water Tribe, building strong relationships and securing their support to help rebuild parts of the South. The Fire Nation had given the South large sums of money in recompense for the damage they'd done in the war, but the South didn't know what to do with it. They needed help, direction, vision even, from the North. Katara and several others looked to them to help plan, but the work was not as easy as she'd thought. The North wanted to rebuild the South in its own image, ignoring the differences important to the Southern Tribes, and they also requested a decent fee for their services.
Negotiations were still ongoing when Katara decided it was time for her to return home. She hadn't been planning on stopping off at the Fire Nation Capitol and seeing Zuko, but the ship she traveled on suffered damage from a storm, and they needed to stop for repairs.
When she learned they were going there, her first thoughts were of seeing Zuko. She wasn't angry they'd lost contact over the years. She knew they were both busy, and she knew he was busier than most as the Fire Lord. She'd kept up her correspondence with his Uncle Iroh, who always returned her letters in a timely manner, and who always told her just how much Zuko had been dealing with.
"I know we would both be delighted to see you," he concluded most his letters, "should your travels every bring you this way again."
Katara wouldn't have felt right had she not stopped by.
When she'd arrived that afternoon, she had to talk to several attendants and guards before Iroh was notified she was there and welcomed her in.
"She's a family friend," he waved at the grumpy inner palace guards who wanted to keep her out. "Ahh, my dear, it's so good to see you!"
She hugged him softly as he led her into the interior chambers.
"Lord Zuko is attending to state matters this morning, but he should be back this evening," Iroh told her.
Katara didn't know if she'd ever get used to hearing him called Lord Zuko.
"…but until then, why don't you join me for a nice cup of tea and we can catch up…"
Katara smiled and nodded.
"…and then, perhaps, I can interest you in a friendly game of Pai Sho?"
He laughed heartily when she agreed and led her indoors.
. . . . .
"What are you thinking, Lord Zuko?" Iroh asks his nephew as he stares blankly at the Pai Sho table.
Zuko tries to gather his thoughts. He admittedly was not thinking about the game.
"She's put up a good offense," Iroh compliments, "I did not know you were such a strong player."
"Dakkum's grandfather liked to play a lot," she tells him, "and no one else would play with him."
Iroh knows from her letters Dakkum is a young man from the Northern Water Tribe she'd been dating on and off. Zuko has never heard this name before and his cheeks begin to burn.
"And how are things with Dakkum?" Iroh asks carefully.
"Over," Katara says emphatically. "And I mean it this time."
Zuko actively has to stop himself from reacting.
"Mmmmhmmm," Iroh says with a bit of a chuckle.
"I'm not dating any more Watertribesmen," she declares. Katara had been dating Dakkum for a little less than a year. He was kind and handsome, but they never seemed to be on quite the same page. He never supported any of her personal endeavors and grew upset when she wanted to visit her home in the South. Or wanted to do anything that would take her away from him.
There had been Jaktoh before him, but that, she admitted, was mostly physical. And Tankarik before him. He was nice, but Katara just wasn't ready at that point for anything serious, the grief of her brother still too closer to her, and her feelings for Zuko too strong.
"How fortunate for the men of the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation," Iroh says with a chuckle.
Katara smiles at him and looks to Zuko, who is still awkwardly staring at the board.
"Well, I will let you finish this game for me," Iroh tells him, putting his hand on Zuko's shoulder as he gets up. "I'm going to go find some dinner! Try not to lose too badly, okay?"
Iroh laughs as he leaves and Zuko moves to sit across from Katara.
His brain is still trying to process what is going on, what he should do or say.
"How long are you going to keep me waiting?" She finally asks him, rubbing her pai sho pieces together in her hand. Her voice is a tease.
"Katara, do you really want to play Pai Sho with me?"
She shakes her head no and smiles.
"I didn't think so," he says, hopping up and reaching for her hand. "Come on, let's go."