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Sokka watched the crowd settle into their seats in anticipation as the challenger entered the arena. The turnout was pretty good today. The morning had been miserably hot, and the air had hung heavy and humid all day in promise of rain later tonight. Sokka supposed that the air conditioned inside of the dueling chamber was an appealing place to rest while the setting sun cut through some of the muggy heat.
Sokka was also fairly certain that approximately half of the crowd filing into the stands had been single-handedly invited by his daughter, who he’d caught at multiple points throughout the day excitedly regaling a captive audience of servants or ministers or, on one occasion, a very confused member of the Earth Kingdom embassy staff, with the entire history of the Agni Kai challenges as she knew—and took a little creative license to embellish—it.
Izumi had only recently started her own firebending training, so of course, everything even remotely related to bending was new and exciting to her. She’d begged and begged to go when she heard that not one, but two challengers would be facing their opponents in Agni Kai tonight, and of course, because Zuko was an absolute pushover when it came to his daughter, he’d agreed. It was a little funny, and very cute, to watch her school the Minister of Defense on her personal Agni Kai strategy, which apparently boiled down to “be stronger and punch some fire and then you win”.
(...Honestly, she really was her father’s daughter.)
The standards for Agni Kai challenges had changed a lot over the years, even just in the time since Sokka had moved to the Fire Nation permanently. They were much less murder-y now, for one thing. Almost no one was seriously injured during a match anymore, and when someone was hurt, it was usually out of carelessness, not malice. His husband’s incredibly stubborn refusal to show opponents anything other than complete mercy had caught on among the nobility sometime in the years after his ascension to the throne.
It was kind of amazing how quickly the culture had changed from the belief that refusing to burn your opponents showed weakness, to the belief that seriously harming an opponent during an honorable duel showed a shameful lack of control… all with the right stubborn idiot to push progress along, of course. It really showed just how much sway Zuko had among his people.
Either way, it certainly made these duels much more family-friendly, which was the only reason Izumi was even here, settled into Zuko’s lap in order to see better, with her little legs swinging in the gap between his and Zuko’s knees and her head craned around to watch.
Today’s challenger was a short woman with a sharp jaw and long black hair. Sokka didn’t know her, but he had, unfortunately, met her opponent. He was an old man with a bad habit of making declarations at parties that would make even Pakku do a double-take, the sort of man who would clap you on the shoulder with a nudge-nudge am I right sort of smarm that made your skin crawl.
(Sokka had been tempted, on more than one occasion, to introduce him to Suki.)
So, Sokka could guess the nature of the insult that had pressed this woman to challenge him to an honor duel. Izumi perked up in delight when she saw the young woman step into the ring, an exciting change from the usual fusty old men coming to throw down.
The gong sounded, and two jets of fire crashed together in the center of the ring, dazzlingly bright. They were both strong and aggressive benders, enough to make a very entertaining match, but Sokka was far more interested in the view beside him.
A rush of heat washed over them from the clash. Izumi whooped in delight, little sparks scattering from her fingers as she tossed her hands up in excitement. Zuko plucked the embers out of the air before they could catch on anything, a common and very adorable gesture from firebending parents to their still-learning firebending children.
Izumi was a quick study, but she’d still only really been training her firebending for a few months. The first time she’d managed to create a real flame on her own had been entirely accidental. She’d been sitting in Sokka’s lap, and he’d been reading… something to her, he couldn’t even remember what the book was called, because she’d been so outraged by the story’s plot twist that she’d accidentally set the pages on fire in his hands. Sokka yelped in surprise when the flames burned his fingertips, which had only startled Izumi more, so that the whole book had gone up in a red-hot fireball.
It took the healer twice as long as it should have to bandage his hands, because Izumi had clung to him like a purple pentapus the whole time, and sobbed and sobbed for hours afterwards. She was so inconsolable that when Zuko had found them, he’d thought she was the one who’d been burned.
After that she’d stubbornly insisted that firebending was stupid, and she was never going to do it again… for all of about a week. Eventually she came around, mostly when she’d realized that quiet meditation was not nearly as fun as getting to train in the courtyard with her dads. The meditation had helped though, impatient as she was with it. He’d been happy to report no accidental house fires since then. Sokka had only a little pink scar on his thumb to remember the whole ordeal by, and even then he was pretty sure it would fade with time.
(They never did finish that book, though.)
Now Izumi was absolutely absorbed in the match, all her reservations about firebending long gone. Zuko’s chin was tilted down to watch her expression, the softest smile on his face at her pure delight.
Sokka was used to people paying attention to him, at first as a friend of the Avatar, then as an ambassador and the Fire Lord’s close friend, now as the Fire Prince (and wasn’t that still strange and amazing to think about, even now?). Everyone was paying attention to them today, too, sat aside in their box seats to watch the match, except that today he was fairly certain their attention was partly because Izumi was just way too cute, bouncing in her seat with each good defense and counter-attack the challenger laid out.
“Izumi!” Zuko chastised in a whisper. He grabbed both her tiny hands in one of his own to keep her from punching fire at the back of the Minister of Education’s oblivious head. Sokka heard a quickly hushed burst of giggling off to his left, from someone who didn’t quite have a handle on the fact that you could stare at the Fire Lord all you wanted, but you were supposed to pretend that you weren’t doing it.
“Maybe we need to go meditate some more?” Zuko asked, quietly amused. Izumi immediately looked aghast at the thought of missing the rest of the match, whirling around to fix him with a huge, watery pout. You could land a sky bison on that lip.
“No!” she said. She quickly tucked her hands into her lap, but her feet were still swinging, and she was still vibrating with barely-contained excitement. “I want to watch!”
Sokka shared a grin with one of the giggling women. She blushed at being caught staring and stifled her next laugh behind her hands. Zuko leaned over to Sokka, exasperated.
“I told you she’s too young for Earth Rumble XIV,” Zuko said, amused and long-suffering all at once. “Look how riled up she is.”
“How is this my fault?” Sokka laughed. He refused, refused to take the blame for this, even if he was beginning to suspect that Zuko could be right, and that the Blind Bandit might be a bad influence, no matter how family-friendly Earth Rumble claimed to be, or how absolutely important for her development it was for Izumi to see the Boulder in action. “We’re currently watching a crazy firebender match. Blame them!”
If Izumi’s laugh was just a little maniacal, a bit too similar to a certain metal bender they both knew, Sokka would not be the one to point it out.
On stage, the challenger’s footing seemed to slip, and her opponent swung forward in an instant, cutting the air with a wild arc of flame. Izumi gasped. Sokka wasn't a firebender, but even he could see the faint for what it was—at one moment she was pretending to stumble, and the next she had twisted in mid-air to avoid his attack. That wild arc did nothing to block the precise spear of fire that she thrust from her lagging foot.
The man hit the mat with a whuff of air that Sokka could hear from the stands. The challenger raised her fist, the last one standing in the arena. She scorched the ground beside him, signaling the end of the match, and immediately the stands erupted into applause. Izumi leapt in her seat a little too enthusiastically, and Zuko huffed a breathless laugh as she roared with the crowd in a very un-princess-like manner.
And then all at once Izumi spun around to face them, eyes bright and eager.
“I want to try!” Izumi said. She clutched the front of Zuko’s robes with both fists, tugging insistently. “Father, will you duel with me?”
Sokka’s stomach swooped. The smile dropped right off Zuko’s face.
“No,” Zuko snapped, so quickly and with such force that it startled them both. Izumi blinked at him, wide-eyed, fingers twisting in the fabric of his robe.
“Oh,” Izumi said finally, with a shy uncertainty, not used to sharpness in his tone. “Why not?”
Zuko sat rigid in his seat, but somehow the people seated around them were even tenser, the light mood suddenly gone. They stared very resolutely forward, watching the next challengers approach the stage with absolutely rapt interest, and making every effort to appear as though they were not all waiting with bated breath for Zuko’s response.
Sokka doubted that Zuko even noticed it, but it was a testament to everything they’d promised to be as parents that Izumi was only confused by his reaction, where two decades ago, a different child might have cowered in fear. She thought for a moment, her tiny mouth twisting into a frown, oblivious to the tension around them.
“Do you have to be grown up to fight an Agni Kai?” she guessed, hesitant.
Zuko was staring at her like he hadn’t heard her question, all stiff and distant, drawing shallow breaths. Sokka rested his hand on Zuko’s knee, feather-light. The touch was enough to remind him to draw a careful breath. Zuko shook himself, glanced at Sokka with one of his careful, Fire Lord appropriate masks, doing an awful job of hiding an absolutely miserable expression. Sokka squeezed his knee reassuringly. Zuko turned back to the little girl in his lap, brushed a hand over her hair.
“Yes,” Zuko said quietly. “You have to be grown.”
Sokka took Zuko’s free hand and threaded their fingers together. Neither Zuko nor Izumi noticed, but Sokka could almost see the stands around them breathe a collective sigh. Izumi hummed, glancing back down toward the arena. The next challenge was preparing to start.
Down below, the gong sounded. Izumi’s attention had wandered off again, seemingly satisfied with Zuko’s explanation. She leaned back in his lap, head tilted against his chest while she watched, finger still threaded in the front of his robes. She was so, so tiny. Sokka watched his husband for a moment longer. He was giving their daughter a long, searching look, half-lost in a distant thought. After a pause, he drew a breath, surprisingly steady, and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
On the dueling ground below, the next match carried on, waves of cast-off heat pouring off the stage into the stands, and if the Fire Lord held his daughter just a little tighter, the rest of the crowd was certainly too occupied with the duel to notice.