Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jet was handsome. He was roughish and mysterious. He was exciting. Awfully exciting when he burst into their place of business, swords drawn, flinging accusations that were, admittedly, correct. Even so, before all that, there was something inherently thrilling about him. He didn’t ask whether he’d kissed a boy before. He just grinned at him and did it anyway. That grin was trouble, boy, was it trouble. He wondered who he would be if he let himself feel at that time, if he let himself seek out more with Jet. But kisses exchanged in the dead of night on a ferry full of strangers was enough. It had to be enough. He had dark green eyes, the darkest green. Like distant mountains in a storm. Yes, Jet was handsome, with shaggy hair, dark eyes and all. And tall, he was tall. And even though he hadn’t kissed so many people at that point, even though he had never kissed another boy at all, he could tell he was exceptionally good at it. Yes, Jet was handsome indeed.

And it was absolutely the last thing Lu Ten wanted to hear out of his father’s mouth.

“When I was a boy, just about your age - ”

That was precisely where he should have stopped him. Groaned to the heavens and pushed him out the door.

His father meant well, of course he meant well. He almost always meant well. Zuko considered himself a decent father, although the bar for that, he presumed, was very, very, low.

“Your son has been awfully moody since we returned from visiting my father.”

She had put down her brush still bleeding ink, giving him a bit of stare and lightly kicking his foot under the desk.

“Mhm,” he nodded as he continued reading over some proposal, “yes. Must be the heat.”

“It’s not the heat. It’s Yuka.”

“Who’s Yuka?”

“A boy.”

He lost track of the words on the page momentarily.

“A boy.”

She lowered the paper; he lowered his glasses.

“Talk to him Zuko.”

“Alright, very well Katara, I’ll talk to him,” she raised an eyebrow, “gladly!”

He threw in the exclamation for good measure, pushed his glasses up, and returned to his work.

Yuka, as Lu Ten had tried to explain it, was just a friend.

Yuka, as the boy’s mother knew, as the boy had confessed to her himself, was far more than that.

She had comforted her son as best she could, and would continue to do so. But she knew that words of consolation from his father would mean the world to him and that simultaneously, he would never speak a word of his romantic endeavors and inclinations to the man.

Lu Ten wanted to crawl under the covers and die the minute he saw his father gently opening the door wearing his most sympathetic look. Nothing good, he swore, would come from that look. It was the kind of look that sat you down and awkwardly touched your shoulder and said things like “hey bud” and “how are you doing champ”. It wasn’t as though anybody died. Nobody died. Nobody died except the many Lu Tens that had already lived a full and happy life with the boy from his mother’s hometown.

Lu Ten was brought up to respect his elders, respect his parents. Lu Ten, more often than not, adored his father. He was the pinnacle of leadership, a testament to strength through adversity, a man who had battled too many hardships too early on, one amongst many of his generation really. He laughed at his jokes even he sometimes didn’t quite catch on, he still kept the paintings he’d made when he was younger in his office, he encouraged him to be proud of who he was, not just for being a prince, anyone, he would remind him, sometimes pointing to himself, could be born a prince, but for being creative and kind, and a strong and diligent waterbender of the Southern Tribe just like his mother. He idolized the man and would give anything from his right ear to his liver to his ten toes to get him to stop talking about this “Jet” person.

“Dad…”

He kept rambling on about how it was alright to feel his feelings, how for a brief moment he thought, well, maybe not everything about Ba Sing Se would be awful. Everything, he remarked as Lu Ten pleaded with increasing futility and decreasing patience, went to hell in a handbasket pretty soon after, but for a moment anyway, out on that lake, on that ferry, in between the anger and the angst and the raging hormones, there was something actually quite lovely.

“And then there was Jin… and well… that also - ”

“DAD!” most people didn’t get to yell at the Fire Lord, but most people did not have to hear sprawling details about the Fire Lord’s teenage romantic exploits, suppose that was royal family privilege, “Enough! Please.”

“Did I mention that he… well he’s … he died, tragically, really, Jet.”

Lu Ten pulled a pillow over his face and groaned, hoping he might accidentally suffocate. It wasn’t the nicest response to learning the untimely fate of man, but he couldn’t help it. At least, if it was any solace, he wouldn’t have to worry about boys anymore. His father was absolutely going to end him.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lu Ten offered muffled condolences, he would have felt too bad saying nothing, “can we change the subject.”

“Turtleduck - ”

His father tried to lift the pillow off his face, but Lu Ten clung onto it like a pentapus.

“What? Don’t you have paperwork?”

Was I ever this bad, Zuko wondered thinking of his own childhood, the countless hours he spent staring up at ceilings or clouds or stars just stewing in misery. His poor mother, his poor uncle. Katara wasn’t like this. She couldn’t have been. She had always been the type to somehow both feel what she needed to feel and continue to plow through her duties. It was an entirely foreign concept at one point to Zuko, the idea that one could feel just as much as he could without a complete existential crisis every time an emotion cropped up. But, she was incredible, and he was still honored to this day that she trusted him to carry her in the rare moments that she did in fact need to stop and let it all go.

“Your mother told me there was a boy.”

“Oh,” he yanked the pillow down and gave his father a glazed stare, “is that why I had the privilege of hearing about your ex-boyfriend from Ba Sing Se this fine evening?”

He pulled the pillow back over his face. If he just stayed very still and couldn’t see his father, maybe one of them would simply disappear.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call him my boyfriend,” Zuko crossed his arms, he would be sending a thousand apology letters to his uncle, “I just thought it might help to let you know that these things … are normal, but … difficult, that I remember… you know, what it was like, being a … teenager. It’s the worst. And boys, boys are - ”

“Terrible?"

Lu Ten cautiously slid the pillow down off his face and hugged it to his chest as he sat up. His brow was furrowed and his soft blue eyes were shining, welling up with tears, his lip was trembling. He was blossoming into a young man, but the look slung him back into childhood. Zuko had seen that look many times before. When he’d thought he’d lost his favorite stuffed koala sheep, the one still on his bed. When he’d spilled ink all over a new painting and temporarily forgotten his ability to manipulate water and other liquids. When he’d first learned that people and things die, and it means they don’t come back.

“No. Not terrible,” he didn’t want to paint that impression for his son, “just… complicated.”

Yuka didn’t seem complicated. The only thing that was complicated was that he was so far away.

Lu Ten sighed and looked out the window. The sun was setting and soon, starting on the horizon, the sky would turn from blue to black. It mimicked the depths of the sea. It mimicked Yuka’s eyes. He had blue eyes too.

Lu Ten had had several crushes during his lifetime. There was Shen who caught butterflies on his fingers in kindergarten, there was Seto in primary school who would always win at hide and explode, there was Zihao just as he was beginning secondary school who was as quick as the sparks from his fingertips and who brought summer fruit from his grandfather’s orchards to class the first day of school. There were others, of course, countless passing faces who would catch the boy’s eye sending his imagination spiraling. On more than one occasion when he would be paraded around town along with the rest of the family for holidays and festivals he would spot someone and try to find him when the whole show was over. He almost never did. All these boys had golden eyes.

Yuka had eyes like his own. And they were beautiful.

Yuka’s father was a fisherman. Lu Ten had first seen him in the harbor when their ship had finally reached the shores of the South Pole. Ever since he was a child, he had the tradition of standing on deck and watching his mother’s homeland come in to view. Before he could stand, his mother would hold him on her hip and point towards the horizon at the first sight of icebergs. They were coming home, that’s what she would say to him, they were almost home. By the time he was born, no one really batted an eye at the Fire Lord’s ship coming into port.

Lu Ten loved the rush of cold air that enveloped him when he came out onto the deck. It did feel like the first embrace of home, like somehow the arms of his ancestors were drawing him in on the wind. He would head out even before anything appeared on the horizon. He just wanted the air to fill his lungs. He could feel something shift in his bones and he was sure his mother felt it too.

When she was his age, just about, she was still the last true Southern waterbender. It wasn’t until years later, after the men had returned, that new little benders started cropping up. The oldest new waterbenders were only in their twenties.

On their visits, his mother often had him play with some of the other waterbending children. When his sister was old enough, she joined them as well. But whereas back in the Fire Nation Kya wanted to show anyone and everyone what she could do, here amongst towering ice and vast plains of snow, Kya was horribly shy; she made sure Lu Ten was never too far away. She would latch on to his sleeve or follow directly behind, replacing his footsteps in the snow. She would look up at him with pleading golden eyes. She was shy. When the other children asked if she was a bender too, she would lie. She would lie, and Lu Ten would correct her. He would stand proudly on her behalf, put his hands on his hips, and declare that it wasn’t true. His sister was a firebender, and one day she was going to be the best firebender in the world. He would get asked why he wasn’t a firebender too. He didn’t know. His mother was a waterbender, so why hadn’t his sister been born a waterbender? Why had anyone been born the way they were? He would fume, he would wrinkle his nose, he would look down at his hands as if they held the answers, and by the time he looked back, the other children were already at play.

He stayed friends with a lot of those kids. Sometimes they would come to wave to him from the shore as that otherwise imposing Fire Nation royal cruiser docked.

He kept his eyes glued to the horizon. On the occasions that Uncle Iroh had traveled with them on their visits, he would without fail remark that he so reminded him of another young man he once knew, just without that charming temper. His mother got a bigger kick out of those comments than his father did; she would grin wide as the sky and he would wrinkle his nose as far as he could towards his furrowed brow.

No matter what, Lu Ten was always keeping his eye out for that first floating patch of sea ice or the faint gray silhouette of an iceberg on the horizon. And when he did finally spot it he couldn’t help but smile. Soon all manner of shapes would grow in the distance, soon he would see the growing town that had once upon a time, according to his mother, been a small village on the edge of the sea. Soon he would hear the sounds of fishermen, of merchants, of children, all going about their business bundled up and unbothered by the unforgiving cold. Soon he would spot his grandfather, his uncle, his aunt, his friends anticipating their arrival. They would wave and cheer, and accepting such a gracious welcome, and the joy of arriving in one home from another, he would wave like a pendant in a storm and keep a smile on his face like the midnight sun.

He liked to people watch as the ship moored. In those moments between truly being on land or sea, before he could disembark, he liked to study the faces of the people that passed by beneath him. Sometimes he would record them in his sketchbook when he was finally settled into his room at his grandfather’s house, sometimes he would just let them pass. When Yuka passed by he wanted to kick himself for leaving the book in his luggage.

When Yuka passed by it was as though everyone else had disappeared. The ships from the docks, the crowds from the harbor, the rest of his family, the crew. There was no one left but him. Just this boy with half his hair pulled back, his gaze on the sky, whistling as he carried a sack of who knows what over his shoulder. Lu Ten could have sworn he had fallen right over the side of his father’s ship. Straight into the frigid water of the harbor. That would be it. The tragic end to the tragically short life of this prince of the Fire Nation. At least, he wagered, they would spare no expense for the funeral.

“Lu Ten!”

A familiar voice revived him. He felt horribly guilty tearing his eyes away from the whistling boy. He let himself linger for a moment longer as he watched him board a ship and walk down below its deck.

“Lu Ten!”

The voice called again. Kanya.

Lu Ten grinned.

Kanya was the kind of girl who froze a man in place down the street to steal a fish from behind a merchant’s back. She was the kind of girl who would make you go jump in freezing water under a full moon at midnight just to jump back out and run to the sauna. She was the kind of girl who had the entire history of the Southern Water Tribe memorized just in case anyone challenged her. She didn’t care for frills or nonsense. She was one of the prince’s oldest friends.

“Kanya!”

She was also the kind of girl who knew everything about anyone. She devoured personal histories as much as she did political. He knew she knew exactly who that boy was.

“Him?” she had laughed and clutched his shoulder when he described the boy, “Nothing but the best for his royal highness. That’s Yuka. Everyone is in love with Yuka.”

Chapter Text

Lu Ten had confessed to his mother. That had been his first crime. She had found him in his quarters weeping shortly after they began their long journey home, and he did not have the heart nor the energy to lie to his mother on this matter.

His father, only recently hearing the information from the boy’s mother, had no real idea how to comfort him. He had managed to stave off conversations of this nature for years by virtue of the simple fact that none of his children were ever quite old enough to experience the sensation in earnest. But, as time inevitably marches forward and his oldest son was now well into his teenage years, Zuko had a sneaking suspicion the dreaded moment was never far off.

The truth of the matter was that Zuko had noticed how reserved Lu Ten had become upon their arrival home. He had never known him to be too quiet or shy of a boy; he had been charming diplomats and foreign dignitaries since before he could even talk with just a wiggle of his fingers or a wrinkle of his nose. He was a popular young man amongst his peers but was also beloved by the palace staff with whom he would often stop for a lengthy and pleasant chat. He was a doting brother and son, he could nearly always be found with a smile on his face and something clever on his tongue. He was as bright as the summer sun under which he was born. He was so much more like his mother, thought Zuko assessing his own natural dour disposition.

Zuko, however, recalled how easy it was to slip into a mood during one’s teenage years. He thought perhaps his son was simply adjusting to being home again. It was a very different life in the palace. And while it was true, however uncommon, that he and his wife had made each of the children help with individual chores for a few hours a week – laundry, kitchen duties, room cleaning – they were still served on silver platters, still addressed by their titles, still always a bit too in the public eye. And coming back to such a routine from a place of relative freedom, perhaps this time around it was hitting the boy especially hard. Even if home was a good place to be, it was sometimes hard to leave a place you kept equally as close to your heart. The grass is greener on the other side even if it can’t grow in the permafrost. That was Zuko’s initial rationale and he felt satisfied with it.

Knowing it was a romantic issue in nature, Zuko felt shaken. His obliviousness shattered, he felt not so much reluctant to help his son, just befuddled as to how. He felt confident he could handle any matter, rude children, snide adults, existential discomfort and general bewilderment at the very meaning of life; he could handle any matter for his children with relative grace but this matter made him sweat. He had never considered himself much of a romantic, no matter how many times he heard it jokingly or otherwise from the people around him. He supposed he had inadvertently found himself performing gestures and speaking words that were in fact romantic, but it all felt incidental. He often said things because they were true and did things because they were right. If they happened to be romantic, they happened to be romantic. That didn’t make him one, did it, he thought.

If he was being honest with himself, he still harbored a small part of himself that was perplexed as to how he had gotten so lucky as to marry the woman who was indeed his wife and the mother of his children. Mostly he didn’t pay it any mind, but occasionally he would wake to her still sleeping, or watch her wax political with some official from across the room, or buy a mango for a child as they passed through the market, he would see her and simply think to himself “what?” and occasionally “how?”

Of course, he had had his childhood crushes, though he truly fancied himself a homebody and in earnest spent much of his time with his mother. He had his tempestuous relationship with Mai. Last she had been in the capital she had told him bits of her travels around the Fire Nation, which could have proved exciting if she hadn’t kept her tone so droll. There was his brief, very brief, time with Jin, the lovely young girl from Ba Sing Se, who he hadn’t spoken to since he was sixteen but wondered if she told people, perhaps her children at this point, that the Fire Lord used to be in the circus – an obvious lie he assumed she never fully believed when he told her. And there was Jet. Even more brief, and certainly tempestuous. In another lifetime, perhaps things could have gone better for him. He had a strong sense of justice and a sharp tongue; in another lifetime, they could have been friends. Or perhaps they were really just teenagers – hormonal. But then, then, there was Katara, the boy’s mother, and once they had gotten on the right foot, that was it for him. He was absolutely smitten. It wasn’t even melodramatic to say that he would have readily died for her. The damn fool nearly did. There was no one like her in the world – as constant and true as the tide, but as ever-changing as the sea. Few matched her power or her grace. And it did not hurt that she was equally as beautiful. He really to this day had no idea how he had gotten so lucky.

Oh, but how romance had frightened him. He could never do the right thing with Mai. He couldn’t let himself be happy for too long with Jin. He made a real enemy of himself with Jet. His only true success had been Katara.

Nevertheless, he had resorted to talking about Jet. His logic had been twofold – it would be nothing short of a nightmare for him to share and for his son to hear details of the various ways he somehow wooed the boy’s mother, and he knew from experience, though admittedly little, how boys were with other boys in such regards.

His tale seemed to be doing anything but getting through to his son. Normally, Lu Ten might clutch his pillow in anticipation at such a tale of secret passions, tragic suspicions, duels and untimely demises. Instead, he seemed exasperated and defeated.

He saw the way his son wished he could hide from him under his pillow. He saw the way he mournfully looked out the window and peered into the setting sun. He heard him sigh and it broke his heart to see this good-natured boy so despondent.

“Lu Ten,” he put his hand on his shoulder and it felt properly fatherly, “you’re a good kid. A… a fine young man.”

He was settling into his face. His big blue eyes, his dark hair that he was letting fall to his shoulders, his long nose, and high cheeks. He was growing handsome yet, but there was still enough of a trace of that rosy and round-cheeked boy that remained in the face of his son to remind him that he was still rather young.

“You’ve got a big heart. You’re like my uncle that way. You’re like your mother that way.”

Lu Ten sighed. His father was telling him things he already knew, and though it was nice to hear, it wouldn’t bring him across the sea and halfway across the world again.

“Thanks,” he gave his father a weak smile, “I appreciate that.”

“Not to mention,” He raised his brow, “you’re a prince! Huh? What’s not to like about you?”

“Dad,” he slumped and patted his father’s hand on his shoulder, “it’s not a problem of liking me.”

He thought to add that that was never really the problem, but it would have sounded arrogant, which he assumed his father would not appreciate.

“Oh! Yes! That’s… good! Well, relatively good. It’s not bad. It could be… worse… I suppose. I mean … you know what I mean.”

Zuko’s heart sank. So much for being comforting with that little speech. But his son cracked a sliver of a smile and that put him at ease.

“It’s only… I’m stuck here and… He’s … He’s just… he’s just so - ”

Something clicked for Zuko. His son’s predicament was closer to home than he had initially assumed.

“Far away.”

His son met the conclusion with a somber nod.

Zuko recalled the nights when Katara would be gone for months at a time. He would turn over in bed and grasp at nothing but air he, half asleep, had expected to hold the form of a woman; he would wake up feeling absolutely despondent. He felt all he could do was sit and stare at the sea waiting to watch that first crest of her ship peer over the horizon. But he had much to do and little time to sit wistfully pouring all his hopes into the horizon. He missed her laugh, missed her wisdom when he was keeping busy, but he could manage during the day. Yet after dinner when he would find himself utterly alone trying to make his way through some book, or even worse, when he would crawl into bed, a bed that felt as vast as the sea, he could not help but feel his heart had been taken halfway across the world. His chest would ache and he would try to put himself at ease by rereading her letters or writing letters of his own, or reminding himself that she was out in the world doing good and necessary work on behalf of her people. And it did calm him some, to know the woman he loved was pursuing a life not only of passion but also of justice. It calmed him to know they had fought for a world in which she could do that which she loved. He loved her all the more for it. Only, selfishly, at the same time, could not wait for her to come home.

But unlike his son, Zuko had the knowledge that the person he loved would be coming home. He felt his heart break again for the boy, knowing that young love was hard enough, first love was hard enough, but for love to be so far away was perhaps the hardest of all.

He wrapped an arm around his son’s shoulder and kissed his forehead. At first, Lu Ten hesitated, stiffening at his father’s affection. He had already poured his heart out to his mother days earlier. He should not be feeling so pitiable anymore. There was too much affection and it was too much to take. He felt his lip tremble and his limbs soften and he couldn’t decide whether to keep facing the sun out the window or turn into his father’s chest and sob.

“I understand,” Zuko sighed too, “I remember what it was like when I was here and Mom was there. It isn’t the same writing letters back and forth.”

“No,” something within the boy steeled further, “it isn’t the same at all.”

Lu Ten had thought of nothing but Yuka’s laugh, nothing but his smile, nothing but the soft touch of his rough hands on his the whole journey home and then some. Until Yuka could capture his laugh or his touch or the look of his gentle blue eyes in a letter, it would not be the same.

He was sure he should have just been grateful for the time they had, but it was hard being grateful when he felt so greedy. It was wonderful, their time together. And that’s what made it so awful having to be home.

Perhaps, he thought, it would have been better, easier, to have just left him as some boy on the dock and some rough sketch in his book. Perhaps it would have been easier if he simply had never spoken to him at all.

He almost hadn’t. He had nearly bailed on the whole idea, trying to convince himself he was here to be with family, that he would much rather focus on his time with them and not in pursuit of handsome young men with broad shoulders and blue eyes. But as Kanya had told him, the spirits seemed to be on his side, for better or worse.

She had come round his grandfather’s house that first evening, after the family had dined and played a couple of rounds of cards. His brother and sisters exhausted from their travels turned in for the evening. Lu Ten had hardly felt tired at all. In fact, he felt as if all the blood in his veins had been replaced with frigid rushing water. And yet was so unusually warm he had to open the window and let the cold in. Sleep was so far off in his imagination it might as well have been something from a storybook. No, rather than rest, he was up in his room, sitting atop his bed, hunched over his book trying to sketch out the boy’s face, the boy from the dock. He was struggling with his lips in particular immensely when a snowball crashed at his feet through the curtains. Anyone else would have just knocked. Not Kanya.

Lu Ten smiled, set down the sketchbook, picked up the ball of snow, and went to the window to retaliate.

“You can come to the door you know,” he leaned out the window and called down to his friend, “it’s perfectly polite.”

“Bah,” she threw up her hands, “I don’t know how you people do it in the Fire Nation.”

“Usually, we come to the door."

He chucked the snowball back at her. She liquefied it, causing it to dissipate and deflected the subsequent splash.

“I’m not going to go skinny dipping if that’s what you had in mind.”

“Ugh! No! I joke about it one time – Gross! Oh,” she gave a quick sarcastic bow, “no offense to your princely body.”

Lu Ten scoffed. Whatever Kanya had planned, at least he would stay clothed.

“Are you coming down or not slowpoke? Don’t make me throw another snowball.”

“Please, do you really want to start a fight, Kanya? Don’t you know who my mother is?”

“Why?” Kanya asked knowing full well who his mother was and that she had trained him well, “Is she the one who’s gonna fight me?”

“You wish.”

Lu Ten shut the curtains and threw on his parka. As he tugged on his boots he shook his head wistfully. As soon as he had come down the gangway and greeted the small crowd of family and friends with warm embraces, he immediately turned his attention to Kanya and began his inquiries about the boy. And of course, Kanya had laughed in his face. Even though her laugh suggested that he was entirely unattainable even for a prince, she reassured him saying they would talk in the evening when she had more time and had gathered more information. True to her word, it was evening and here she was.

He grunted as he finally pulled his boot over his foot. He glanced at as much of himself as he could. Between his deep blue coat and tawny boots, no one would ever suspect he was a Fire Nation prince. In fact, the only thing that really made any of them stick out like a sore thumb on the surface was Kya’s golden eyes. It was all a matter of costumes really, but he had great affection for the one he donned at that moment.

As he exited the house his mother and father apparently less tired than their children, were sat reading. He had rarely seen his parents doing absolutely nothing. They were always tinkering with something, reading something, discussing something, exchanging ideas and words or icicles and flames. Even in silence, they were always throwing glances back and forth. They must have slept, his mother and father, but he remained convinced they must occasionally find each other in their dreams as well.

“Where are you off to sweetie?” his mother had asked, setting down her book at the sound of his footsteps.

“Kanya’s outside.” He had answered grabbing his gloves from where they were hanging on the wall and slipping them on.

“Does she want to come in? We have so much food left over.” His father asked further, setting down his book and looking as though he was about to get up and invite Kanya in himself.

“It’s fine. We’ll let you know if we’re hungry when we come back.”

“We can leave a pot of tea on,” his father said it like a suggestion but Lu Ten knew it would be on the stove when he returned, “it’s bitterly cold out there.”

His mother gave him an odd smile; it was as if her husband had just made the discovery that a land of ice and snow was, indeed, as he had put it, bitterly cold.

“Try not to be out too late, your grandfather wants to take you all fishing in the morning.”

“Does that mean you and I get to sleep in?”

His father gave his mother a sheepish look and she returned it with a slight nod.

Turning her attention to their son, she gave him a quick once-over making sure he was indeed dressed warmly enough for the night.

“Just be careful if you go out on the water, alright?”

“No need to send the royal guard mother, we’re both very good waterbenders,” he softened his curt tone, “and I happened to learn from the best.”

He gave first his mother then his father a quick kiss on the cheek, and his parents exchanged a curious glance as their son ran out the door.

As soon as he was in the proper company of his friend, he tucked his arm in hers and began his interrogation as they began to walk.

“Tell me everything. Kanya. I think I can say with full confidence that I am absolutely in love. Never in my life have I been so enamored with another human being. You have to help me. Is he nice? Have you talked to him? Oh, Kanya, Kanya. What if he’s mean? Is he mean? Oh, tell me he isn’t mean. Were you in school with him? How long has he been working with his father? Lugging all those supplies and whatnot, I bet he’s strong. He must be strong. Does he smell like fish? Oh. Oh no. Oh, what if he doesn’t even like boys! But wouldn’t he like a prince? Who wouldn’t? Or would that be worse? Oh Kanya, what am I supposed to do?!”

“Tui’s gills man,” Kanya laughed, “you are positively ill. Maybe you could start by speaking to the guy, he might have more answers than me.”

“Oh,” he suddenly felt himself close up at the prospect of actually speaking to Yuka, “well…”

“I don’t know him well, but the few times we’ve spoken he’s been very polite. Very charming. And I’m difficult to charm.”

“No you aren’t.”

“Yes I am,” she shot him a defensive look, “I’m the only one who’s never been impressed by your big fancy boat.”

“First of all,” he rolled his eyes, “it’s my father’s. And second of all, it’s not even the fanciest one he could have had. And third of all, you’re lying. You get a massive kick out of watching it come into port.”

“Please, I don’t care about the boat, you could arrive on a piece of driftwood for all I care. ‘It’s not the fanciest one’, sheesh, listen to yourself! They must do a real number on you over there. I like the boat? I come to see you, you stew-for-brains. And you know what, Yuka does smell like fish.”

“I…” he felt himself blush at the thought of being close enough to Yuka to smell him, “I could get used to that.”

“Well,” she leaned in and whispered, “if you want to know where that fishy boy will be tomorrow morning, noon, and night I’d be happy to tell you. And I think you’ll be quite happy to hear. Just don’t ask how I get my information.”

“I wouldn’t dare!” He felt himself clam up again at the thought of actually approaching the boy, “but I don’t know Kanya… I don’t know if I can talk to him. You said everyone was in love with him! How could… Who am… I mean who am I to - ”

“Lu Ten,” she stopped them, looking at him rather quizzically, and began punctuating her speech with wild gesticulation, as she was wont to do, “since when are you shy? The boy who insisted on giving a speech at the Glacier Spirits feast in front of everyone and their mother when he was, what, barely ten? The boy who writes to me telling me how he dines with diplomats and royalty and whoever the hell else from all over the world on the regular making up foreign policy and shit? The boy who sits in the throne room of the freakin’ Fire Nation? Only the second waterbender ever in ALL OF HISTORY to do that no less! The boy who asked the very first time I met him if I could show him any waterbending moves before he even asked my name?”

Lu Ten swallowed and felt himself caught in her glare. She poked him in the chest as she barked her closing statement.

“That boy is suddenly shy?!”

Lu Ten shrugged and looked down towards his boots in the snow. It was funny how people expected such consistency from a person.

“Who says I’m being shy?”

Kanya threw her hands up in exasperation. It was so typical of her friend to hurl himself into these dramatic flights and then insist he was acting quite the opposite. When Kanya wanted something done she just did it. She didn’t ruminate, she didn’t stew; there was no point pondering the hows and the whys and the what-ifs. It was either going to happen or it wasn’t. But she knew her friend to be the sensitive type, that despite all his general boldness, it often came at some internal cost. Yet she also knew him to be the type never to back away from a challenge. Even at the expense of what was perhaps rational, the boy rarely liked to be questioned on his character and would rise to any occasion to prove himself. In other words, she knew how to push his buttons.

“He usually departs with his father’s ship at dawn. However, he’s garnered quite a bit of a reputation as an excellent sailor. Occasionally he’s been hired by other crews in need of assistance. I believe he’s even worked with your grandfather and uncle before.”

“They’ve known him all this time. And never once did they think I should like to meet him?”

Lu Ten couldn’t help but grin at his own facetiousness. Though a part of him did feel irrationally betrayed that his family members weren’t trying to set him up. Only when he remembered that he too would be on the dock at dawn did his heart once again flutter.

“In fact,” Kanya turned her head toward him slightly and cocked an eyebrow, eager to deliver the best news yet, “a little birdy told me he’s been hired by quite the VIP for a special trip in the morning. Something about a certain former chief and his grandchildren in from the Fire Nation…”

Lu Ten’s eyes went wide. When he would come to visit his grandfather alone, they would go out on his canoe, stay in relatively calm waters. It was a peaceful and quiet ritual. However, when they all came to visit, his grandfather made a real show of it. He would take them out on his large vessel, enlist a few extra crewmembers, take them out into deep black water, and make it a raucous affair. There would be singing and joking, storytelling, and with a handy firebender on board, they could eat their catch as fresh as they caught it. In other words, for the morning, Yuka would be a part of the family. He was tempted to strip off his coat, gloves, and boots and run headfirst into the water. Hypothermia, he reasoned, was an excellent excuse to have to say home and miss the trip altogether. Perhaps it would be preferable to be swaddled up in furs, his mother gently feeding his feeble form soup and his father keeping a steady fire going at his side. Oh, his siblings and grandfather would be sad for him to miss out, sure, but they would all live.

“Kanya,” he furrowed his brow, he would not put it past her to pull a fast one on him just to see his reaction, “tell me you’re joking.”

“I don’t know Lu Ten,” her grin was dripping with victory, “I think the spirits are on your side.”

“This isn’t a prank? You’re not just… teasing?” she shook her head at his questions, “This isn’t your doing is it?”

“Oh my friend, I wish it was. I wish it was. And though I might be clever, it seems you’ve just got friends in high places.”

He looked into the night sky, all the glittering stars pierced like glaring eyes. He sought out the moon and recalled a sad story once told by his uncle and mother.

“Where on earth are you taking me anyway?”

“Where on ice you should say. Out on the floes, there’s a great place for stargazing this time of year. Twelve shooting stars a minute! You’re up for it, right?”

He nodded solemnly. All his attention was on the impending morning. All his attention was on the fact that the sun would inevitably rise over the horizon and there he would be at dawn to greet it, to greet him, or be greeted by him. All his attention was on the notion that fate had a cruel sense of humor. All his attention, as if it were really any different now as opposed to the rest of the day, was on Yuka.

“Of course,” he heard himself say, “I’ll need to wish on all the stars I can now.”

Chapter Text

Katara had immediately noticed a change in her son when they arrived at her father’s house. He was just as effervescent as always, chatting with his grandfather, helping with the luggage; he was in good spirits, but there was a frantic energy behind all his actions. She had seen him while their things were being unloaded briefly talking to his old friend who had come to greet him, Kanya, a young waterbender whose parents had moved from the North after the war. They had clearly been teasing each other back and forth about one thing or another. It warmed her heart to watch him pull her into a hug. Yes, all the way from the dock to her father’s house, he had been nothing but jovial at the prospect of being back in the South Pole. But as soon as he walked through the door of her father’s house, he grabbed his things and flew up the stairs as quickly as he could to his room, shut the door, and did not see his family until dinner.

Something had been on his mind the whole evening. Katara wondered what lurked there as he kept himself abuzz. He had nearly knocked over his glass at dinner yet, lacking his usual competitive spirit, had hardly been invested in their game of cards. Every minute he seemed to check the window then the door then the window again. He was waiting for something, or someone. He was eager, she figured, as is common in one’s teenage years, to part from his family obligations for the far more exciting world outside with the other youth.

There was a quickness about him indeed that night. And just as quickly as he had rushed into her father’s house, he had now rushed out.

“Should I be worried?” Her husband set his book down and rose to make a pot of tea. The idea had become thoroughly implanted in his mind, and on such a brutally cold night, it seemed more than appropriate.

“Hardly. I think he’s just excited to see his friends,” she stretched her legs out on the couch luxuriously now that her husband was up, “you remember how excited you used to get seeing Sokka.”

“Yeah, well,” he turned around and gave her a sly grin, “it wasn’t just seeing Sokka I was excited about.”

A jolt ran up Katara’s spine; they had the next morning to themselves and he was already giving her looks that would make her never want to leave bed again. She couldn’t help but shiver as she recalled those faraway days of their youth. After so long away from one another all their pursuits were driven by a restless passion, and since they wanted to spend every waking moment in each other’s company, they ensured that they had, for one reason or another, few moments they were not awake. She smiled sweetly to herself in the hopes that her husband would catch her similarly reminiscing about the long quiet hours of the night spent wrapped only in furs, talking so low only they would hear until they both realized how little sleep they were going to get and how tired they would be in the morning. Then they would talk further yet, hoping the chill in the air would keep them alert the next day. Sometimes, of course, they would not talk at all. They exchanged plenty of words in their letters, and though talking in person was always more pleasant, it was also the other’s body, the things that could never be exchanged through a letter, that had been sorely missed in their time apart.

It was preferable, of course, not to have to be apart for so long anymore. It had been several years and several children since that was their routine, and they had no plans to return to it. They were free now to romanticize those days, free now to recall only the happy reunions rather than the agony of distance.

And they were always happy reunions. She would go out to the harbor and stand on the docks and wait for that same ship to crown over the horizon like the rising sun. Her heart would stir and her hands would tremble in their gloves. Patience being a virtue she had yet to learn in some respects, she had half a mind to leap out into the water and propel herself all the way out to him. But there was a certain thrill in the waiting, a certain thrill in watching his arrival. He would stand on the deck of his ship and watch the world come in to view, similarly waiting for the moment they would catch each other’s eyes. When he would finally come flying down that gangway, it was always hard to tell who leapt into each other’s arms first, who greeted whom with a kiss first, who let go first after they had thoroughly and finally felt each other’s presence again.

In her childhood, there was one thing Katara swore she never wanted to see again: a Fire Nation ship on her shores. She never wanted to see black snow falling, never wanted to see that gray shadow looming like a demon against the misty sky, never wanted to see those sharp lines and pointed hulls aiming to pierce the boundaries of her already fragile world. Those ships only contained nightmares fueled by smoke and ash. In childhood she swore the next of those ships she saw she wouldn’t run, she would stay, like her father, a warrior, and fight, even, she determined, at the cost of her life.

Never in a thousand lifetimes would it occur to her that one of these ships would carry a friend to her, much less her love. Granted, a ship like that had carried him to her once – the first time she ever saw him, but it seemed like a different lifetime, and the man gently coaxing the flame underneath the teapot was a very different man than the boy who had stormed off that ship with anger in his eyes, wrath on his tongue and in his hands.

But there she would find herself, in those days before she too was stood upon the deck of his ship, waiting amongst the crowds, all murmuring one thing or another about the impending arrival of the Fire Lord. Some thought it was an unnecessary display of power; they had too many terrible memories. Some thought it was hopeful; he had been helping Chief Hakoda rebuild for years after all. Some thought it had absolutely nothing to do with them and went about their business as they would any day Fire Lord or not. Some who knew Katara well gave her knowing smiles or squeezes of the shoulder. Though it was no secret to the public who the daughter of Chief Hakoda had fallen in love with, there were usually old friends and neighbors who would come to share this somewhat private joy of Katara’s. Regardless, all who gathered to watch that royal ship come into port were likely thinking the same thing, that they had sworn they’d never see the day when there would be anything but mortal dread scouting the horizon for the arrival of the Fire Nation.

“You don’t suppose…”

He trailed off as he lowered the flame.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

Katara set her feet on the floor and crossed her arms. She kept her tone, however, light and playful.

“I don’t suppose what, Zuko?”

He swallowed and scratched the back of his neck. He was admittedly hesitant to delve into speculations about his son’s personal life. It felt like gossip, for which he had little care or patience; though he supposed it couldn’t be gossip if it was about his own child and his potential well-being. Besides, despite any discomfort he might have in broaching the subject, he did genuinely want his wife’s opinion.

“You don’t suppose he… likes her?”

“Kanya?” Katara balked at her husband’s question, “No. She doesn’t like boys and he doesn’t like girls.”

“Oh. Well,” he began rummaging through the cupboards for the ginseng he had brought the last time he had visited his father-in-law with his family, he thought of poor Jet, “you never know.”

Katara rose to grab two teacups, softly running her fingers on her husband’s back as she passed him by.

“I just think he feels at home here.”

He narrowed his eyes and gave her a discerning look.

“More than the other children?”

She could sense the nervousness that he tried to keep hidden in his voice. Long before any children were ever born, but during the time when marriage and children were a distinct inevitability, Zuko and Katara had insisted that their children would be raised in both the culture of their mother and the culture of their father, all objections from pesky outside sources be damned.

It went, of course, without saying that they would be raised with Fire Nation traditions to the utmost degree. As the children of the Fire Lord, it would be not only an expectation but a duty as well. And on a far more personal note, despite a turbulent upbringing, there were many things Zuko held dear about his homeland. It was why he would work so hard to put it back on the rails. There were many things the young Fire Lord cherished about his home and his people and he wanted to pass those along to children who would also have to learn the horrors of not just the history of the nation but the history of their family as well.

They both knew there would be people who would not be pleased to have their children raised in the culture of the Southern Water Tribe as well, but that also was a matter on which there would be little to no discussion. Neither Katara nor Zuko could imagine depriving their children of a tradition that was as equally theirs, Zuko wouldn’t dare imagine severing Katara from her traditions, and Katara would never allow herself to be anything other than devoted to preserving the customs and practices of her people no matter where in the world she lived, to whom she was married, or what work was required of her. Even if none of her children were waterbenders, hell, even if every last one of them was a firebender, they would all know the legends, the songs, the dances, the foods, the history like the backs of their hands. They would have their ice dodging ceremonies at fourteen like every child of the Tribe. They would go penguin sledding, they would go ice fishing; they would grow to love the South Pole as much as their mother. To hell with anyone who told them they did not belong. They would be lucky. They would have two homelands. They would be children of a new era, a new world. She was determined to make it so. They both were.

“No,” she set the cups before him and watched the steam rise from the pot’s spout, “not necessarily. He just gets a little lonely at home, you know, in a way the other three don’t. There isn’t really anyone like him there.”

Zuko took the pot off the fire, cut the flame, and poured her a cup first.

“You’re there.”

Then himself.

Katara smiled softly. She had grown up the last waterbender in the Southern Water Tribe. He had grown up amongst perhaps too many people like him. She knew something of her son’s loneliness. She knew what it was to want to be around anyone like herself so desperately. It wasn’t that she resented the friends she had made in her youth. They were as dear to her as her own family. But that yearning to look into another’s eyes and know they were, in some way, just like you and that you weren’t the only of whoever it was you were was the kind that made you lonely in a way most people couldn’t quite understand. Her husband could understand loneliness. He too had experienced it in excess. But this was different; this was the kind of yearning that made you want to leave everything you’ve ever known just for a chance to find someone who knew what you knew, who moved like you did in the world. She knew.

In their talking and their planning, in their dreams that were perfect in the way only dreams could be, it had seemed simple. Their children wouldn’t be torn between two worlds, they would celebrate a multitude of wonderful traditions and it would be good. And it was good. But it wasn’t perfect, how could it ever be? That was reality, and Katara still could not help but feel a quiet guilt that she had, in some small part, been the cause of her son’s loneliness.

“You are very sweet,” she kissed her husband’s cheek, “but a boy needs more friends than just his mother.”

A mother was a wonderful friend to have, Zuko thought. Most of his childhood was spent with his mother, and he would have been quite lost without her. It made losing her all the more difficult. Still, he knew his wife was right.

“But he’s a very popular boy,” there was always some new classmate whose name he could never quite remember underfoot at the palace, “his friends adore him.”

“Oh of course! And he adores his friends. I would hardly call him unhappy. Far from it. Sometimes I think…”

She cut herself off and took a quick sip of tea, avoiding her husband’s gaze.

“Sometimes you think… what, Katara?”

“It’s not so important. I’m beat from all that travel, aren’t you?”

Zuko would not have it. He saw the sadness flicker in his wife’s eyes. He had learned to read his wife’s more subtle expressions over the years. While she certainly wore her heart on her sleeve, ask any minister, council member, or visiting dignitary, she had, as a result of her somewhat stifled youth, become adept at concealing her own pain. She would always attend to the needs of others with full force before turning towards herself, and it was a force of habit that was difficult to break even after all these years. Nonetheless, she had a habit too of confiding in him, long before they were even properly friends, and whatever his nature brought out in her, it only increased with time. He didn’t have to say much; he didn’t really have to say anything at all. He merely had to give her his look of slight, but sympathetic, incredulity, his look that said, no my dear, there is more to this story.

“Well sometimes I think… what would have happened had we raised the children here. I think so much about my childhood here; I think so much about how I’d give anything to be around other waterbenders. Don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t trade our life for the world. I wouldn’t trade our home for the world. I made my decision a long time ago, and never once have I regretted it. And Lu Ten, I know he takes great pride in being a son of the Fire Nation, in being your son. He’s such a sweet boy. And so clever, and he learns so well, so easily. I mean, it’s been my honor to be his teacher, it has. Anywhere in the world I would have done that. But I know his kind of loneliness, Zuko. I do.”

Zuko took his wife’s hand in his. She felt his hand warm from the tea. He clasped his fingers in hers and steadily brushed her thumb with his.

“But say we had raised them here. Wouldn’t Kya then be awfully lonely too? And Rohan would have to go so far away for his training, and Izumi for her dancing, and then you… you - ”

“Katara.”

“Zuko, have we done the best we could? We’ve done the best we could, haven’t we?”

“First of all, deep breath,” she took her husband’s advice as he breathed with her, “we are a bit weary from a long day, aren’t we?”

She nodded her head. He gave her a slow small smile.

Pausing for a moment, he considered his words carefully and then let them all fall out.

“You have made this place their home. I see their faces when they run out onto the dock. When they greet your father. I see the way they are welcomed in by neighbors, by strangers. I hear the way they talk about holidays and foods and festivals and legends to their friends. They don’t speak like they’re repeating information from a book. They are speaking of themselves, of their own history, their own people. Of you. Hell, do they not insist on making you stewed sea prunes every year on your birthday? Not the cooks, not the staff, they themselves insist. It’s second nature now; they don’t even need the recipe anymore… You said it to me once, I think, that you didn’t have to be home to be home, to be of your people. That you would bring them with you to all corners of the earth. And you have. Katara, you have. And you have done the same for our children. You’re right; our children take great pride in the Fire Nation too. For that, I am grateful. But never once have I doubted that they belong here just as much. So Lu Ten feels free here? Good. That means you’ve done exactly right. Is loneliness a part of life? Of course. We can’t spare them that. We can’t spare them everything Katara, even though I know you want to. Trust me, I do too. But you have made sure that no matter where in the world they go, our children will never be truly lonely, that they will always have a home. And it’s not by some miracle; it’s not by some accident. It’s because you consistently only know how to do your best. You’ve done a damn good job, I promise you that, Katara.”

He blushed at talking so frankly, but he meant every word.

She looked at him, her eyes shimmering with emotion. She could not tell precisely what it was, only that it laid somewhere between gratitude and relief. Though she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to shake that guilty feeling, she took her husband’s words directly to heart.

“Would it kill you to have a few more waterbenders in the Fire Nation though?”

“No, not at all,” the corners of his mouth curled into a bittersweet smile, she had always marched to the beat of her own drum and it would be some time before waterbenders in significant numbers might so readily make a life in the Fire Nation, though with their children, their son, perhaps there was hope, “they would be most welcome.”

He brought her hand up to his lips. His eyes were as soft and as gentle as the kiss he placed on her knuckles. He set her hand down and they continued to drink their tea in silence, contemplating the words the other had spoken. When they had emptied their glasses, Katara spoke.

“It is rather sweet that he gets so excited to be around other waterbenders.”

She looked at him pointedly before he could respond.

“Who aren’t his mom.”

“For what it’s worth,” he leaned in, letting her see the glint in his eyes, “any of those children would kill to have the legendary Master Katara as their mother.”

“That’s because I’m not their mother. They’d quickly learn I’m just as annoying as any mother would be.”

His expression softened.

“You aren’t annoying, you’re really a wonderful mother!”

“It’s precisely because I’m annoying that I know I’m a wonderful mother,” she patted his hand thrice, “but thank you regardless.”

He gestured to the pot, silently asking if she wanted more, she shook her head no. She was admittedly tired from their travels, and now warmed by the tea her husband had made, she wanted to spend the rest of the night in his arms. Setting the cup on the counter, she indicated with a slight twinkle in her eye that she was heading off to bed but not quite to sleep.

Zuko left the rest of the tea out for his son, for whenever he would return from whatever he was out doing, he would undoubtedly need something to help him warm up from the cold.

He took his wife’s hand and followed her up the stairs of her father’s house, feeling a certain swell in his heart as if she was still after all this time his young bride and himself her young groom.

Katara hoped her son would return home to rest well before the early morning the children were to have. She thought of the lonely nights of her own youth, before she had met the Avatar, before she had traveled the world. She would lie awake after her long days and imagine her village teeming with people again. She would project her visions onto the domed ice ceiling and watch them dance. There, her father’s fleet would crest over the horizon and she and Sokka would run as fast as they could into his arms. There, a school of waterbenders would train and laugh and she would be in the center of it all, surrounded by peers and students alike, surrounded by bright eyes and smiles and water, water, water. There, she would see herself dancing in front of a great fire, twirling rivulets about her as she flew, catching the eyes of her grandmother, her father, friends with faces that were always a little too blurry as the result of an overwhelmed imagination. These dreams consumed her in her youth, and now, her children and their generation began to live them. Her children had come home to the home of her dreams. So what if her son had stayed out too late? He was young, and she would let him be young. His time was rife for gathering stories that she had only once envisioned as fantasies drifting like snow upon the walls.

Her husband’s voice, soft and wry and suddenly sounding younger than he now was, came from behind her and cut through her thoughts.

“The whole house to ourselves in the morning then?”

Chapter Text

The harbor just before dawn could best be described as incredibly still and incredibly gray. Though there was the slight bustling of sailors and fishermen, it all seemed to be a rather quiet, introspective affair, as if though awake and moving, all present would only move as automatons through the cold until the faint glow of the sun appeared in the haze above them breaking free from the horizon. The cry of seagulls could be heard overhead, and clusters of otterpenguins gathered on the rocks and the ice, all already in anticipation of the later arrival of fresh fish. Yet as the sun began to rise, some of the sailors would begin to hum as they prepared for the day, some would greet each other with claps on the back and quick wishes for a successful day or safe travels. Some would look at the fog on the horizon and predict whether the seas would be calm or rough. Their words and hearty laughter would tumble out into the freezing morning air in tufts of hazy breath. Their great ships would sit in wait, rising and falling almost imperceptibly with the gentle roll of the waking sea. Their great blue sails, matching the coats of the sailors, mimicking the deep summer skies of lands beyond the icy shores, swayed in the wind as a leaf caught in a trickling stream. All fluttered and flowed with anticipation for the breaking of waves and the journey out to beyond where the sky met the sea. All was quiet in the daily routine of preparing the day’s potential. The stalls and shops along the docks were still shuttered closed save for one where a haggard but kindly woman served hot drinks and simple provisions to still-waking sailors. Somewhere the other shopkeepers were waking. Somewhere they were stretching their spines or drinking their tea or giving one last kiss to their sleeping partner or children. Slowly, slowly, the world was waking, and what better place to herald the waking of the world than the very place where one could see the dawn breaking the clearest.

Lu Ten stood on the wooden deck of his grandfather’s ship, toying with the beaded strings of his coat and looking out not towards the horizon where the dawn broke and its pale light spilled out over the edge of the water, but rather towards the town. Soon he would arrive and they would be on their way.

He continually wrapped the cord around his finger until it became too short to wrap. Then he let it go in a coil and started the process all over again. He noticed that the beads would leave strange markings and indentations in his fingers. He examined them and thought his skin looked like some far-off desert with rolling dunes and plunging canyons. A memory flashed through his mind, not one of his own, but of his mother’s – the time she had led her companions out of certain death in the endless arid wilderness of the Earth Kingdom. How brave she was to keep her head above water in a place where none whatsoever could be found. To say the least, his mother had lived a very different life. His gloves were in his pocket; his hands did not yet feel cold.

He had examined his face in the mirror that morning, taking his time despite his brother banging on the door with growing impatience. He drew his hair back into his accustomed high ponytail, and let it fall. He tied his hair back again, plucking out two loose strands to frame his face, and frowning in the mirror let his hair fall again. He could wear it like Izumi, half up in two buns, hair loopies like their mother, and the rest falling past her shoulders. He could match Kya; wear it in a long loose braid down her back, as she often liked to do when in the South Pole. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. He leaned closer to the mirror and traced his dark brow with his pinky. He stopped, catching sight of himself. He was indeed growing into his face and was at the age where one began to take notice of it. Everything that once seemed soft and round about him now seemed sharply angular in contrast. The gentle curve to his nose and the cut of his cheeks and jaw lent him the particular appearance of burgeoning adulthood. His blue eyes remained wide and bright, brimming with curiosity; his bending was not the only gift his mother had given to him. He let half his black hair hang loose about his shoulders and pulled the other half into a ponytail in the preferred style of his grandfather. He blinked at his reflection several times and smiled. He had come to the conclusion that he was, indeed, handsome. He opened the door to his scowling brother with a disarming grin.

He was handsome, and not just because his mother and the women she knew from the village had said so year after year.

He kept wrapping his finger over and over and had now begun bouncing his leg in an unconscious rhythm.

At the far end of the boat, his grandfather was showing something of the ropes and sails to his siblings. He overheard Kya interjecting something vague about shifting winds. Ever since completing her ice dodging ritual a few months prior, she fancied herself a bit of an expert on sailing. Certainly few in the palace knew how to sail, and fewer of her friends back home did either. The only people she couldn’t quite fool, try as she might, were her mother, her uncle, and her grandfather. Nevertheless, Hakoda indulged his oldest granddaughter, feeling a certain sense of pride that she had taken such keen interest in the art of sailing. Lu Ten felt a twinge of guilt that he should have been listening to his grandfather. But the information was not crucial he determined as he half-listened, and though he would not claim to be an expert himself, he felt he had enough sailing experience to sit this particular lecture out. Furthermore, Lu Ten did not want to be caught off guard. He stationed himself like a sentinel and kept a steady watch on the milling crowd. He wanted to see Yuka coming down the dock and prepare himself adequately for his arrival. However, if his grandfather did call him over, he would, despite any anguish, abandon his post and hope that in the event Yuka should appear, he would be doing something that made him look either very adept, very handsome, or if the spirits really were on his side, both.

A still waking Izumi, no longer interested in facts about rope, strode up to the brooding Lu Ten and slung her arms over the side of the ship. She was only a morning person in so far as you were only allowed to see her most mornings once she had made herself entirely presentable in body and spirit. With such an early morning, after such a long day, it was one of those rare occasions where Izumi chose sleep over her usual morning routine. And though her hair was still neatly combed, with two perfect beaded loops delicately framing her face, all she really had to go on was a quick washing of her face and one cup of tea.

“If I knew the crew was going to be so late I would have slept in.”

“Come on Izumi,” he tried not to sound like he was chastising too much too early, “a little patience.”

“A little patience Lu Ten,” she pointed to his tapping foot and his bouncing leg, he had scarcely noticed it, “really?”

He stopped tapping his foot immediately and blushed. He blinked away and bit the inside of his lip.

“You know me. I get excited about these things. It’s good to be out on the water.”

“Agreed. If I can’t be in bed I’d rather be out on the water already.”

“Mhm, yes. Indeed.”

He felt a bit bad that he had hardly processed his sister’s words. He had returned to scanning the crowd for that one face. His leg, subsequently, could not stay at rest.

“Grandpa was saying it should be a calm day today.”

Calm? Calm. That was laughable thought Lu Ten. Sure the water might be smooth as glass, nary a wave in sight. The breeze might be gentle and the boat might rock as if only in a mother’s arms. That was all well and good for the atmosphere, but the absolute last thing the boy felt internally was calm. On the inside, Lu Ten’s thoughts crested and broke in rapid succession. Yuka was just a boy. Yuka was a beautiful boy. He would so very much like to kiss Yuka. But would Yuka return his affections? Well, what wasn’t to like? There was nothing about him not to like, Yuka just might not want to kiss him. But what if he did want to kiss him? He was so handsome! Yuka, the cycle began again, was only just a boy. Lu Ten knew he could more easily bend a raging sea than he could reshape, redirect, or freeze his own thoughts at this point.

A smiling face flashed in the crowd and Lu Ten’s heart lurched. Upon second inspection, it was a man far older than Yuka, perhaps it was his father. Perhaps Lu Ten was simply going insane.

“Good fishing too, did he say?” He craned his neck trying to get a view of the streets, still feeling his heart beating despite the settling disappointment.

“When is it not?”

“Ah, hoping for a big catch then today Izumi?”

“Oh, always.”

He smiled at his sister’s dry delivery.

“That’s the spirit.”

As much as Izumi loved their visits to their grandfather and to the South Pole, it did take her a few days to adjust to the setting. She would dare anyone to tell her she was unhappy among the ice, in the very place of her birth, but she would also never deny that she was accustomed to a certain royal lifestyle and enjoyed it thoroughly.

“And you, our resident waterbender, what tricks are up your sleeves?”

Lu Ten held out his arms and looked quizzically at his sleeves. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his little sister break into a smile. He folded his arms across his chest and an image flashed through his imagination, of him holding a very impressive fish and Yuka, knowing a thing or two about fish, being very impressed.

“Me?” he puffed out his chest slightly, “You’ll see. I’ve been working on some special techniques with Mom and I think they’ll suit quite well.”

“While the rest of us struggle with nets?”

Another boy around Lu Ten’s age appeared in the distance, but he was too tall, too thin, and not at all familiar.

“Precisely. Why should I bother with a silly old net?”

"I don't know. It's tradition."

"So is waterbending, Izumi."

"Well, I can't argue with that."

They leaned over the railing in tandem.

His foot had continued to tap, he bit at his lip, and his eyes had grown just a bit frenzied. He had begun to look like he was anticipating a storm.

He started rubbing the palm of his hand with his thumb, a circular motion he repeated over and over. He brought his hands up near his chest. She had observed this particular gesture in their father. She spent much of her time at his side in the throne room, absorbed as much as she could, sitting in on meetings of all kinds, and making note of every detail, not just the agenda or the debate. And no matter if he was meeting with high officials foreign or domestic, local councilmen, or concerned citizens, if and when he began to feel overwhelmed he would take his thumb and circle it into the palm of his hand. He kept his demeanor the same, stoic, and few people were the wiser. But Izumi could tell that underneath that quiet façade, his mind was racing or groaning, or both. It seems her brother had subconsciously picked up the habit, and she made a note to look out for it in herself as well.

Izumi narrowed her eyes at him and curled her lip in a way that gave him pause.

“Are you alright? You can't possibly already be seasick.”

"What? I'm fine. Just, you know, eager to start the adventure." 

"That's all it's about?"

“What else could it possibly be about?”

Izumi shrugged and leaned over the side of the boat, taking in the morning air. She closed her eyes and Lu Ten watched his sister in her silent moment of meditation. She tilted her face up towards the sky and a slow smile spread across her face, some great readiness awaking within her. Their father had stressed meditation from an age far too early for a child to want to sit still for so long. He had said it was good to stop and refocus their energy, though some days he had shouted it on his knees making futile attempt after futile attempt to grab his giggling and screaming children who had decided to focus their energy solidly on making each other squeal, whose giggles and shrieks only increased with their father’s exasperation, with no intention whatsoever of this refocusing anything ever again.

How calm she looked, thought Lu Ten turning back to the steadily growing crowd on the docks, how content in the morning light. He searched for Yuka in every face, and every face filled him with disappointment. A dread thought occurred that something had happened to the boy and that he wouldn’t be able to join them at all. It made his insides grow cold, and they were already cold enough.

No, no. Yuka would show up. He had to show up. Something in the universe was willing it, wasn’t it? Something in the universe was pulling them together. They were fated, they were fated, they had to be. He shouldn’t believe in that kind of destiny, he knew. It was silly to believe in star-crossed love. It was silly, but he wanted it anyway. He felt his heart swell and his breath start to quicken. His palms began to sweat despite the temperature, and his brow furrowed deeply. As many thoughts as false-alarm faces ran through his mind. Kanya had been mistaken, Kanya had been pranking him after all, the spirits were cruel, the universe was uncaring, he had fallen ill, he had slipped through the ice, he had a family emergency, he forgot, he quit, somehow without ever speaking to Lu Ten he hated him personally and wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot spear.

His hands grasped the side of the boat and he had to remind himself to breathe. He looked again at his sister, her face still lifted to the sky, her back now straightened, a faint smile still pressed against her rosy cheeks. He took a deep breath in and a deep breath out. He was Prince Lu Ten of the Fire Nation, son of Fire Lord Zuko and Master Katara, waterbending prodigy, and loyal member of the Southern Water Tribe. For a moment, as his shoulders came down from his ears and his hands still gripped the sturdy wooden hull, he felt invincible. He was on his grandfather’s ship, surrounded by his element – he was home.

Lifting his head to the sky and closing his eyes, feeling the chill of the air against his eyelids, for only a moment, he envisioned the day victoriously. He envisioned his hands in another’s, stolen glances, stolen kisses, he envisioned deep blue eyes staring back into his own. And like sea ice in summer, his fear cracked and faded away.

A watched pot, Uncle Iroh had oft-repeated, rarely following his own advice while tending to his tea making, never boils. And oh how the universe loved its cruel tricks. An unfamiliar voice cut the prince’s thoughts like a blade through spring bamboo. The voice was deep but youthful, it had a bit of a rough scratch to it from the early hour, as if these were perhaps the first words he had spoken aloud that day, but it rang clear. It had a good humor to it and the soft wind carried it with stunning ease. He opened his eyes at once and let a wry grin curl at the corners of his mouth. The moment of battle had arrived. He turned and stood ready to accept nothing less than victory.

“So, Hakoda! This is the motley royal crew, eh?”

Yuka.

The boy was of medium height and had a sturdy build. Lu Ten, though not as gangly as he had once been, was easily taller. He had a healthy flush in his cheeks. His smile, as blinding as the snow on a clear day, stretched across his clear broad face. The blazing sun of midday would seem as weak as that of frail morning in contrast to his smile. It was instantly warm, and there was no trace of falsehood or deviousness to be found in it at all. His wide nose appeared dusted lightly with freckles. It sloped gently down his face like a low rising hill that would scarcely inhibit a glowing red sunrise. His eyes, creased by his smile, were glittering, they shone like flecks of sun upon slow-moving water, and they were blue as Ember Island bay at the height of summer. Though they sparkled with youth, they ran deep with earnestness and kindness, as a lake whose true depths are obscured by the nature of its own shocking clarity. His dark brown hair could have easily been taken for black had the morning light not cast a faint golden glow in the wisps caught in the mellow breeze hailing from the sea. His hair too was half pulled back in a ponytail, the rest stopping just above his broad workman’s shoulders like a raincloud not quite ready to wreak its havoc upon the earth. Hanging down on either side of his forehead, framing his warm open face, were two braids, beads of blue ceramic and white bone woven carefully into the strands; someone, perhaps the boy himself, had taken great care to weave them so delicately in. He stood with his back straight, the confident posture of a person clearly in their domain, and his arms folded across his chest, a bag slung over his shoulder. Though really no older than Lu Ten himself, and only a young sailor, he had the poise of a captain, of a man who would forge any waters with expert delight. Lu Ten had to wonder if beneath his blue-gray coat beat the heart of a boy or a god, a mighty spirit of the ocean bound to this exquisite mortal form.

Lu Ten straightened his spine and clasped his hands behind his back like a soldier, lifting his chin and peering slightly down his nose like the perfect prince he was. Any second now, he was sure, his lungs would burst and his whole rigid form would collapse. It was like his grandfather had told him when he was a child about encountering tiger seals; if you stay incredibly still, make no noise, keep your breath low and your eyes alert, you’ll be fine, they will simply pass you by. But if you run, if you make any sudden movements, panic at all, well, you’d better hope they’ll write something other than seal food on your grave. Lu Ten, clenching his jaw and swallowing his breath, would have happily been seal food.

His grandfather strode over to greet him, clasping his forearm and pulling him into a friendly embrace. Kya and Rohan had followed him over, their curiosity piqued by the newcomer. Hakoda’s four grandchildren subsequently assembled themselves in a perfect line. After growing up so often in the public eye, it was second nature for them to assemble in this picturesque manner, each able to be easily seen and identified, ready to bow or wave before a single foreign monarch or a pulsing raucous crowd. They knew full well they could do it in their sleep – and occasionally, with the people they were introduced to, that would be preferable. But, not so much in this instance. They all seemed to be particularly intrigued by Yuka and his presence, youth being drawn to youth. They smiled, eager to be introduced to the young man who stood before them. Lu Ten’s eyes flashed with anticipation, and he masked any vestigial fear with a warm, pleased grin. That too, to the prince, was second nature.

“Yuka,” Hakoda gestured to the small group, “these are my daughter Katara’s children.”

“Ah. Well, the great Master Katara’s children. Yuka,” he gave the traditional Fire Nation bow with an almost imperceptible wink and Lu Ten could have sworn he caught his eye just as he dipped his head, “at your service.”

Never one to miss an opportunity to make a first impression first, Izumi thrust out her hand awaiting anything from a handshake to a curtsy and a kiss on the knuckles.

“Izumi. Charmed, I’m sure.”

Yuka laughed and took her hand, giving her a sweet curtsy without a hint of irony. He was, indeed, charmed, if not a little taken aback, by the little princess with the loops in her hair and the confidence of a woman who knew her way around a throne room.

“Rohan” he introduced himself next with a solemn nod of the head, he was, as he would often find himself when embarking on any sort of seaward journey, in a taciturn mood and pensive state of mind, “nice to meet you.”

Yuka returned the nod. Kya, like her sister, then stuck out her hand and took a slight step forward to meet the young man, clasping his forearm in the traditional Water Tribe greeting, always feeling as though she should make some indication that she was not expecting to be waited on or approached like some snooty old king, despite, or perhaps entirely because of, the fact that she would one day assume the throne upon which their father resided.

“Kya,” she beamed at him as her name left her lips, she wore the name of her grandmother with pride, especially on a day like today, “pleasure to meet you.”

And then there was one. Lu Ten had watched Yuka make his way down the line, and with each passing second, a thousand greetings ran through his head. Should he be funny? Should he be earnest? Should he be serious? Should he be a bit coy? Should he let his shoulders drop and his chest sag, resuming a more relaxed posture? Or should he remain as he was, at attention, thinking it gave him the air of someone older, someone mature, someone like an anchor. No, no, perhaps he should bat his eyes and let his cheeks flush, be as flighty as a spring creek after a rainstorm trickling through the woods, curl a lock of hair around his finger as he had with the cords of his parka. Until Yuka was before him, he had no idea which Lu Ten would be present to greet him. Only until he felt himself, as though by some invisible force, draw his hand from behind his back like a sword and extend it outwards did he discover what version of himself was present for that first true encounter.

“Lu Ten,” his voice sounded far too deep to be his own, and when Yuka took his forearm, even only as polite custom dictated, he felt a sudden surge of desire spark in his fingertips and the palm of his hand, and ripple all the way up his arm and to his heart, or if he was being more honest, his stomach, “I hear you’re quite the sailor. I look forward to seeing your skills put to the test.”

“Well, then,” Yuka narrowed his eyes and smirked, still gripping on to Lu Ten’s arm, “I hope I don’t leave you disappointed.”

Chapter Text

Yuka’s grandfather had grown up in a village a good twenty miles from the city that came to be his home. He, like his father was and like his son would be, was a fisherman. And like all the good and brave men of his generation, he had gone off to join the war effort in the Earth Kingdom. Yuka’s father was too young to fight and was left to do what his family had done for generations – fish.

Yuka was born on the sea; his mother had assured his father that she was fine to be out on the water, fine to cast nets and hoist sails every day even as her body grew swollen with child – the child inside should be familiar with such things even before his birth anyhow she insisted. Still he had arrived early. He had emerged from the womb into the dimly lit belly of a ship racing back to shore. He was born crying with the gulls that followed and cold as the waves. It was rather unclear whether the fragile child was going to make it even back to shore. But Yuka, like his grandfather before him, was a fighter, and though they had to keep him in furs by the fire on nonstop watch for the first several months of his life, he ultimately grew up to be a fine and sturdy young man. The ocean spirit, his mother would cup his chin and remind him, was with you that day, wanted you out in the world, you’re a boy of the sea Yuka, a boy of the sea.

Yuka’s father liked to joke that he had learned to fish before he learned to walk. A child of only a few months who would grasp anything from his mother’s finger to a burning coal latching on to a fishing rod and holding it mindlessly over a hole in the ice was debatable fishing, but so the story went nonetheless.

Yuka’s father had grown up in the same village that his own father was raised in, but he always told Yuka how everything started to change when the war ended. See, his father, like all children of the preceding generation, knew nothing but war; they were born into it and they were sure that their children would be too, that is if the Fire Nation spared them and let them dwindle into obscurity. At least dwindling, they would still be alive. Yuka’s father recalled hearing the news of the war ending, and it was only later in life that he’d learned it had taken days for news to reach him and the rest of the village. A shadow appeared in the haze out on the horizon, and everyone looked on with dread, wondered when the black snow would begin to fall. So that would be it then, the Fire Nation had come to finish off the last of them. But as the shadow began to grow and define itself more clearly against the low, low sky, a rush of elated disbelief rippled through the small crowd. The ship had a blue sail, a flickering blue flowing in and out of a gray sky like a flame, like a torch, like a beacon. The ship was coming home. Yuka’s grandmother had taken Yuka’s father by the hand as tight as she could, ran as fast as she could, as far as she could out onto the ice. Yuka’s grandfather was the first off the ship. It was over, he cried as they all embraced and dropped to their knees in the snow, it was over, it was over, it was over.

And after it was over, talk of change began. How was this fragmented society going to come together again? How was the Southern Water Tribe going to rebuild itself? Ideas floated in about looking to their sister tribe in the north, people gathered what information they could from elders whose parents had seen the great capital city that once stood as the gleaming gem of the South Pole – its great embankment, its domed roofs, its elegant carvings of ice, its markets and its port bustling with traders and craftsmen, the grand avenue that led to the ancient waterbending academy where the masters had trained, where Avatar Kuruk himself had once been a pupil. Tales of its glory had been told and retold for so long it all became something out of a dream. And no one quite knew how to construct reality from such a dream, but they knew they had to try. There were talks indeed of restoring the capital beyond its old glory, not only recreating the past but shaping it anew, burnishing it with the hope that their children and their children’s children would nevermore have only to rely on dreams.

Chief Hakoda, who had fought alongside Yuka’s grandfather in the war, had great plans of contacting architects and waterbenders from the North to aid their kinsfolk down South. He had great plans of petitioning their allies from the Earth Kingdom to assist. And perhaps most daring of all, it had been rumored he was immediately in talks with the new leader of the Fire Nation, some young idealist who happened to be born a prince in what turned out to be the right place at the right time, about reparations and significant contributions to the rebuilding efforts. Yuka’s grandfather had been there when this boy king officially declared the end of the war. He had talked a big game about peace and love and restoring the honor of the Fire Nation, helping to heal the world. Hakoda, when the other men began to rabble, doubled down that these were not mere pleasantries, that this boy was a man of his word. Over a bottle of fire whisky at a large table in the back of a tavern down by the port in the Fire Nation capital, Hakoda had revealed to his company how the boy they just put on the throne had saved his daughter’s life. His hands shook as he told the tale but his voice never wavered. Katara was off with Sokka celebrating their victory with their friends at the palace. Katara was alive and would live to be happy, and Hakoda was already coming home from war a different man; if it had not been for Zuko, he shuddered to think about the kind of man he would be. His men had heard about how Sokka and the new Fire Lord had rescued Hakoda from the clutches of the most ruthless Fire Nation prison – they could already understand his trust and fondness for the boy. But they had not known he had nearly given his life in exchange for one of their own. So whether they thought he would fork over the money or not, they had to respect the trust their chief placed in him, and no matter what they would never forget the kindness of his sacrifice already made.

Yuka’s grandfather had gone back to his fishing, and Yuka’s father went with him. And for a bit after the war, all was quiet, and most everyone was just happy to be home.

And then the messengers came from the Chief seeking out able-bodied individuals to help rebuild the capital city. News was the Fire Nation was contributing greatly to the restoration project and folks from the North were sailing down. Rumor had it that the Fire Lord had fallen in love with Chief Hakoda’s daughter, some said he already had been for years. Either way, he had vowed to help the Tribe. And so off Yuka’s grandfather took up his family and belongings and trekked the twenty miles across the snow to build a city from the blueprints of a dream.

Occasionally rumors prove true, and at least once a year, from as far back as he could remember, Yuka would see the Fire Lord’s ship docked in the harbor. He had thought it quite ugly, its drab gray, its mirthless steel hull. Technically speaking it was an impressive ship. The mechanics alone fascinated Yuka’s young mind. But even for a ship fueled by fire, it just seemed awfully cold. The floating furnace towered above everything and Yuka shuttered to think of one of those coming over the horizon in a time of war.

He had heard all sorts of stories about the Royal Family floating around growing up. Some from his father’s crew, some from his mother’s friends, some from other children who had played with the young princes and princesses, some who had studied waterbending from time to time with the young waterbending prince. Sometimes people would start to say nasty things, and someone would always shush them, reminding them not only that they were speaking ill of Chief Hakoda’s family, but also that the Fire Lord they so disdained Hakoda’s daughter for marrying, had throughout his reign continued to be a great friend to the Southern Water Tribe. He had once heard an old friend of his grandmother grumbling and griping that her son would have been a perfect match for Katara. All their children would have been waterbenders! Yuka suspected that many other mothers might have felt the same.

Everyone wanted some claim to Master Katara. And every one of the Southern Water Tribe was proud of their ability to claim her as their kin. It didn’t matter how far away from home she ventured, upon her many returns the legends would surface once more and flit from street to street, house to house, ship to ship. You must recall it was the brave Master Katara who freed the Avatar. Who could forget that she was his teacher as well! Did you know she broke into a Fire Nation prison and freed the earthbenders? What of the time she defeated the daughter of the old Fire Lord, ah no wonder she was on the throne, it was her right after all by Fire Nation law. A master at just fourteen, at only fourteen. It was hard to believe she was really flesh and blood. She had ten fingers and toes, four limbs, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, just like the rest of them. She, like the rest of them, would have to brush her teeth at night and in the morning, wash her face, she would sleep, and wake and dream in between. She was human, he knew she was, he had seen her several times. It thrilled him to know she was human. She was a mother. Just like his mother was a mother. She was the mother of a boy about his age. The first-born child of the Fire Lord was a waterbender and didn’t it serve that country right: that was something he had heard too. It was easy to believe that Master Katara was a queen. The title seemed too small for her. Yuka could imagine her brushing her teeth or washing her face or groggily sipping morning tea, but for the life of him he just couldn’t imagine her yelling at someone to eat their vegetables or clean their room or put on their coat – that thought was simply too fantastical.

When Yuka had been very young, he had seen the boy, the young prince, from the deck of his father’s ship as they were pulling out of the harbor. The other boy too had been poised on the deck of his father’s ship as it was coming into port. He was holding his mother’s hand as he practically leapt over the railing waving to his grandfather; his mother, with her other hand, held on to a girl only a year or two younger than the boy, and the boy’s father stood carrying a little girl on his hip and holding on to the hand of a little boy. They were all dressed in blue fur-lined parkas, and if it weren’t for the ship being so imposing and so obviously a possession of the Fire Lord, and the pallor of the man’s skin, they really hardly looked out of place. Even the scar wouldn’t have marked him. Yuka’s grandfather had a scar, the vague imprint of a burning hand, on the back of his neck. The only difference was the Fire Lord was too young for such a battle scar. For a fleeting moment, as his father handed him a net, Yuka wondered what it would be like to grow up a prince. He doubted the boy ever did anything but stand tall and wave to adoring Fire Nation crowds. He probably had a room to himself bigger than Yuka’s house, and he probably never had to finish his vegetables. All his fish was served headless, tailless, boneless, and he could go to sleep as late as he wanted because he could sleep as late as he wanted. Just as long as he showed up to wave when he had to. That’s what he imagined the life of the prince to be.

And slowly as the two ships passed and the boy shrunk further and further out of his sight he felt a pang of sadness for him. He imagined what it would be like to grow up a waterbender surrounded by all those firebenders. Even if he never had to eat his vegetables, even if someone cut the vegetables he never had to eat for him with a golden fork and knife, he was probably awfully lonely.

Yuka hadn’t seen much of the prince or any of the royal family for that matter in the years since. Keeping to his father’s schedule, he was out early and back early. Yuka had a friend Kanya who was close with the prince. Yuka, though, wasn’t very close with Kanya. Still, he considered her a friend. Even though she was the type he knew to get into everyone’s business, that was just the type of person Yuka was. As long as you returned his kindness, you were considered a friend.

It came as a bit of a surprise when Chief Hakoda asked Yuka to accompany him to help out with his expedition. He had worked with the man before, and he had heard all kinds of stories about his travels to the Fire Nation, both during and after the war. He had heard all sorts of tales of battles and betrothals and summits and ceremonies. Hakoda felt just fine about the actual place. The palace was a maze, the air was sticky, the beaches were nice, and the sunsets were gold. But if there was one thing the old chief had talked about most, it would be his grandchildren. You would comment on how the weather was warming up (something nearly imperceptible to the untrained in the South Pole) and before you knew it he would be telling the story of his granddaughter’s fifth birthday party with as much intensity as an old war tale. Every time he went to help Hakoda on his ship, Yuka would receive, unprompted, a full and detailed list of all the activities of his grandchildren – their schooling, their training, their hobbies, their favorite books, the gifts he was making for them, the gifts he had already given them, how they liked them, what their favorite foods were, what their least favorite foods were, most recently how his granddaughter Kya had passed her ice dodging test with flying colors. And Yuka was always glad to hear it. He was always glad to see the old man’s eyes crinkle and spark. He was always glad to hear the pitch of his voice change and the smile burst onto his face like the rays of the sun through a crack in the clouds. He was always glad to see that the bottom line for this man was love. Yuka knew that Hakoda got plenty of flack for working with the Fire Nation and that he had received far more for having his daughter marry into its royal line. But he wouldn’t care if those kids were from the deepest depths of the Foggy Swamp or the far side of the moon. They were his whole heart. His whole world.

And so Yuka believed it when he insisted they were good kids.

Even as he sat gathered around the fire with two of his old friends, even as they mocked him for trusting that the palace brats weren’t exactly that, he held on to two beliefs. Firstly, despite him still not being able to fully picture the great Master Katara scolding her children to eat more vegetables, he could not believe she would raise children who were arrogant and poorly behaved with no respect for home and heritage. Secondly, that Hakoda wouldn’t bullshit him.

“Yuka,” his friend called out and raised his cup, “hope you’re prepared to do the royal dirty work!”

The boy, Anik, laughed as Yuka shook his head. Anik and his sister Sakari had grown up next door to Yuka. Their father was a rope maker and their mother an architect. Their father had grown up in the South, in the village that blossomed into the capital city his children now knew. Their mother had come down from the North with her parents as a girl. Back home she was destined to be a healer. She had always been surprised at how quickly her own parents had let her adapt to a Southern custom. She had passed her gift down to her daughter.

Sakari idolized Master Katara. Anik liked to remind his little sister that she could have idolized her a whole lot more if she had only stayed in the South Pole. If she had stayed home.

“Pardon me,” Anik chimed, “would his royal highness care for more lemon water, more seal jerky, oh it isn’t to your royal taste, oh pardon, pardon.”

He laughed at his own farce. He laughed at what he imagined Yuka’s morning would look like. He laughed and Yuka held on to his beliefs so tight they would have given him rope burns.

“Hakoda says they’re good kids,” he shrugged, “alright?”

“Hakoda,” Anik thrust a mug into his friend’s hand, “is biased.”

The mug was full of something dark and swirling. He was sure it wasn’t tea, but it was warm and the night was frigid as ever. And so he drank. It was bitter. But the sting faded and the warmth trailed down his chest and filled his belly. So he couldn’t complain.

“And who has lemon water?” Yuka furrowed his brow, “Where’s anyone getting lemons around here?”

“You don’t think they come with fancy provisions?” Sakari ran her finger around the rim of her mug, “Why else would they need such a big boat?”

“It’s a power move,” Anik leaned forward and struck his hand out, “it’s a total power move. Big Fire Nation ship pulling up making all our ships look dinky. Well, my dad told me about a Fire Nation ship that used to be stuck out on the ice past the town, and all I’m saying is, they better remember whose turf they’re on.”

“Anik,” his sister chided, “do you really think the great Master Katara would let them forget?”

“The ‘Great Master Katara’,” the boy sneered, peering into his mug, “has more to her title, or have you forgotten that?”

“You’re such a cynic sometimes. You’ll never get Opik to ask you out.”

She took a sip, glaring at her brother. Yuka couldn’t help but give a sly smile as a scowl shadowed his friend’s face.

“Aaaw,” Yuka gave him a slap on the back that startled him, “come on Sakari. It’s not worth it if she doesn’t like him for who he really is.”

Anik sank lower into his crossed arms.

“I think you’re jealous,” he spat, “I think you’d love to wait hand and foot on the prince.”

She scrunched her face and stuck out her tongue at her brother.

“Would not.”

“Would too.”

“What,” she narrowed her eyes, “makes you think that?”

“For one thing,” he nudged Yuka in the ribs, a splash leaping out of his mug, “I hear he’s a real pretty boy.”

Sakari blushed furiously and brought her eyes down to the contents of her mug. Yuka couldn’t help but feel himself blush too.

“Yuka, didn’t you see him this morning?”

“Yeah,” he brought his mug to his lips, “I did.”

“And…” Sakari’s eyes widened.

“Look, he’s a prince, what do you want me to say.”

The girl rolled her eyes and flicked her wrist, scoffing as she turned away from the boys.

“Oh forget it,” she sighed, “he might as well be a snail.”

He had really only caught a brief glimpse of him earlier in the day when the grand royal ship pulled into the harbor. It was only a glimpse. Nothing more. He was busy loading and unloading. He was only distracted for a moment before he turned his eyes back to the sky above and his mind back to the work. He wasn’t a little boy anymore. Neither, he admitted, was Yuka himself. For a brief moment, he glanced at the boy on the deck of his father’s ship; he no longer held on to his mother’s hand. He stood tall, spine straight, eyes fixed ahead, a smile gleaming on his face under a long elegant nose. His hair, tied back, waving in the breeze – a greeting, a signal of his arrival long before a hand could grace the frigid air. By the lights, Yuka thought to himself, his ears must be freezing.

He hadn’t thought much of the prince. Well, he thought he hadn’t thought much. Only that he had grown too. That he could no longer be that little boy in his memory but was in fact a young man just like he was.

He had wondered for a moment if the prince was still lonely at home. He was still one of two waterbenders in the whole country of his birth. It had to be lonely. It just had to be.

No, Yuka hadn’t thought he’d thought much of such a glimpse. Not really.

And yet, there was something handsome in his stature, his elegance. There was something alluring about the command in his posture and the image of him atop a looming metal ship. There was something about his black hair in the wind, like a great raven or hawk keeping watchful eye on the world below from its proud station in the heavens.

Yuka scoffed at his friends. He had hoped hanging out with them would take the edge off. It wasn’t as though he didn’t trust Hakoda. It wasn’t as though he really cared about the royal family. He didn’t. Not really. Some of the other kids would gossip for days about what they thought went on in the Fire Nation, what new coats they’d all show up in this year, the one time they got to hang out with the prince or the princess, how their older brother or sister or cousin or neighbor used to babysit for the twins. As far as Yuka was concerned they were just more people.

Which perhaps was true in a vacuum, just not really where Yuka lived, which is to say, reality.

And something about the reality that Chief Hakoda’s grandchildren were the premier sons and daughters of the Fire Nation made his palms sweat.

Their father was still a man who came in on a warship. Their father, despite Hakoda’s clear love for his son-in-law and his instance that he was a good man, held the key to a kingdom. Yuka’s father held rope.

“It’s gotta be weird, right,” Anik leaned back, “growing up in the Fire Nation.”

“No snow.” His sister chimed in.

“No coats…”

“No other waterbenders,” Sakari sighed, “must be awfully lonely.”

“Not until you marry him.”

Anik cackled as he dodged a snowball.

“Maybe I will! Maybe I will and I’ll live in a palace and I’ll never have to work a day in my life and you’ll be here dragging your heels in the snow begging every day for even the slightest glance from Opik!”

“Can you imagine,” Yuka scratched his neck, “Master Katara would be your… mother-in-law?”

“Not to mention your father-in-law…” Anik narrowed his eyes at the fire as if it would somehow betray them.

“What does a person even say to the Fire Lord,” Sakari hugged her knees to her chest, “You can’t just be like, hey, nice boots.”

“I guess Yuka will have to tell us.”

“Shit,” he chuckled, “imagine if he showed up. That would be something.”

“Bet you a bowl of sea prunes you can’t make the guy laugh.”

Anik’s face lit up as he taunted his friend, bringing his mug to his lips smugly.

“Fuck you,” Yuka scoffed, “you’re on.”

“I don’t think that guy’s smiled once in his life.”

“Guess that’ll change.”

Yuka grinned at his friend, and suddenly found himself thinking again of the prince’s smile. Yuka doubted very much that the Fire Lord would be in tow the next morning. He doubted very much that Hakoda would let him impede on this time with his grandchildren, as much admiration as he had for his esteemed son-in-law. But suddenly Yuka thought of what it might be like to make the prince laugh. Suddenly Yuka was consumed with thoughts of how he might best tease out the boy’s sense of humor. He kept smiling at his friends on the outside but on the inside, all he could see was that black hair in the wind and his far-away smile, and he couldn’t help but wonder what that smile looked like up close. Were his teeth a little crooked or were they perfectly aligned? Would he smile shyly, slowly? Would his laugh be like melting ice or a roaring tide? Who made the prince laugh at home and why did Yuka suddenly want to make him laugh better than anyone had before? Yuka didn’t know the boy. They had never spoken. But Yuka had, his whole life, imagined the boy to be awfully lonely, to be sad in his own way. Suddenly, Yuka had wanted very much to make him laugh like he had made Anik laugh. He wanted very much to watch his lips curl and his eyes crinkle. Strange, as much as he wanted to watch his eyes crinkle, he had no idea their color. Strange, they could very well be golden; Yuka didn’t know why, but he hoped they were blue.

“Well,” he raised his glass, his friends following suit, “to the Fire Nation, hey?”

Anik rolled his eyes, and Sakari choked out a laugh. They echoed his toast anyway.

"To lemon water more like."

Anik cracked a smile at his friend.

Yuka swallowed the bitter liquid and felt a sly grin tug at his lips. He felt he would wake up the next morning having dreamt of blue eyes and, indeed, lemon water.