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He is informed that the elders have arranged it, and his father has approved it, and that he is expected to proceed with all due obedience. As to that, he has one scar already and he doesn’t intend to get another. So he will meet this girl he might marry. He will hold a civil tongue in his head and, if he isn’t pleased, at least he will not fight what he can’t change.
No doubt his father’s adviser and the Treasury Minister will ensure that a suitable contract is drawn up. He has no part to play in that. If he reaches there alive, upright and relatively tidy, that’s all they’d expect.
The five day journey by the sea gives him a wild sense of freedom. He rises with the sun and trains on-deck, ostensibly to hone his balance. It’s a lie. It’s because this is the first time in years that he has been in a space where he does not compete with the eternal threat of Azula’s brilliance, of his father’s power. Here, on this ship, he is a powerful firebender in his own right. He is also the Crown Prince.
For now.
This is the thought that has begun cycling through his head recently- he is the Crown Prince for now.
He’s not stupid, and he is perceptive. Azula took down the walls of Ba Sing Se. Azula helped in the subjugation of the Earth Kingdom. She’s also been taking more interest in the decisions of the court. She has begun to converse with the Fire Lord, asking questions, making observations, and in the four years since the last siege of Ba Sing Se, she has begun her training again.
Zuko knows what this means but he is relatively powerless. He plays his own game. There are members of the court who do not want Azula on the throne. They see him as weak and easily controlled. He doesn’t try to fight that. Better for him that they think him useless; worth keeping for a little longer.
They will back him, he knows, if they see a chance. If it comes down to the wire, he might have just one friend more than Azula in the places where it counts. But then again, he reflects, he might not. If Azula can offer them a more attractive deal.
He pushes it from his mind when the ship leaves the dock. For now his one task is to be a dutiful son and a perfect prince. He will meet the Earth Kingdom girl and her family. He will be strictly polite as his mother once taught him- say nothing if you can say nothing good.
And if he is lucky, the girl will either be so unsuitable that the negotiations will end, or she will be someone he can ignore. He prays for the former but he is pragmatic. In a world in which survival is key he will take the latter without comment.
Like everything else.
On the night before he sets foot on conquered Earth Kingdom soil, he wonders what his Uncle Iroh would say were he with him.
“You must hope, Prince Zuko,” he whispers to himself, imitating the ponderous voice he remembers, “Love, like the rare panda lily, may be found in strange places.”
The thought of it makes him grimace. Love is not a word to be used to Fire Nation royalty.
The next three days on land go quickly. They are installed in what the War Minister insists is a hovel not fit for a lieutenant. Zuko looks around at the spacious rooms and all he cares about is that he has a bed, a window, a door that is never locked by any hand except his, and a courtyard.
A stone courtyard.
It is troubling, he thinks, that there is so much stone around them on what is still Earth Kingdom soil. The part of his mind that always tries to think like Azula considers the brief notion that it may be deliberate. The estate has stone courtyards, earthen outer walls, and a beautifully constructed rock garden. It is the perfect place for an ambush. Fire Nation guards could be taken down easily with surprise and agility. Zuko can firebend but he is not the best in his family. He's not sure he could fight off an entire squad of skilled assassins.
It might not take a whole squad. Maybe two or three at most. If they were good at what they did.
It is overly suspicious of him to think such things of his own sister but he allows himself to hold the idea at the back of his mind. He can never tell with her.
He is advised to rest overnight. The Earthgrubbing nobility will wait upon him in the morning.
“Of course, as the suitor, you might have been expected to present yourself to them, but in the circumstances, the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation has the higher honour.”
He understands this. He learned Court etiquette. He also learned diplomacy. He wasn’t very good at it so he sticks to the basics- mainly, keep silent.
Had he kept silent some eight years ago, he would not have angered his father. He would not have been shamed before the whole Court, and would not, as a consequence, have brought shame to his family.
Zuko has tried to imagine what worse would have befallen him if his uncle had not sternly advised him the night before his fight to remember that he must not on any account ask for mercy.
“You must stand your ground, Prince Zuko,” Uncle had told him.
“I can take that old General,” he’d said.
Now Zuko knows what Iroh had always known- that it would not be the General he would meet in the Agni Kai but the Fire Lord, his father. And now Zuko also sees what Iroh saw- that had he submitted....
Zuko doesn’t remember much about the fight. He remembers turning to see his father. He remembers the immediate terror and his knees turning weak and how, had it not been for his Uncle’s words from the night before, he may just have fallen to the ground and protested his loyalty, begged forgiveness.
He knows that he only threw one blast because he was told that. By Azula. Who says it was so pathetic it wasn’t more than a puff of smoke by the time it drew near its target. But it had been enough.
“You will learn respect,” his father had told him, “And suffering will be your teacher.”
He’d been beaten into submission. Not with fire, but with bare hands. His father had not deigned to waste his talents on a son who was so clearly lacking them. Only at the end had Zuko received his most important lesson.
The one shot of fire his father threw was performed when Zuko on his knees, retching up bile, and when he’d lifted his head, he’d seen the flame come down. He hadn’t moved in time.
His father spoke to him three weeks later, when the wound was beginning to draw tight and heal, and he was told coldly that his training was clearly not vigorous enough if that was the extent of the power he could summon. Three dreary years of bitter, hours-long lessons in the training compound, afternoons spent rehearsing and re-learning every rule of strategy, evenings spent bathing and meditating the soreness away.
After three years, Zuko could go through most forms blindfolded, knew every step of the training compound. So he was put in an unfamiliar training ring with a firebender twice his age and experience and he won. Barely. His father was not pleased with his effort but he had won. The result was a technicality that could not be forgotten.
At first his uncle had been there, an eternally annoying presence when pain was constant and showing it was weakness. Uncle’s commiserations had not meant much when they came with the decayed whiff of tea and failure.
Zuko still wonders where his uncle went to when he left. The Dragon of the West had been there one day and gone the next. Just like his mother. Hopefully not like Lu Ten. Zuko was ashamed of the man his uncle had become but he remembers hazily the great General he had been, and for that at least he honours him.
The morning dawns bright and there is nothing for him to do except prepare himself.
His attendants dress him and he stands there not thinking of anything- lifts an arm when they tap gently, sits down when they place a hand on his shoulder. One of his attendants, on fastening a small, ceremonial flame crest into his hair, pauses for long enough to say, “We all wish you well, Prince Zuko. We pray Agni smiles upon this auspicious day.”
The man doesn’t wait for a response but lowers his head, clearly embarrassed by speaking out of turn, and he leaves.
‘An auspicious day,’ Zuko repeats in his mind. His mother echoes it, somewhere in his memory when Lu Ten was still alive and when a more celebrated Crown Prince was contracted to marry.
The pain comes and goes, and Zuko deliberately watches his face in the discoloured glass, gazing to see if he has mastered his blankest expression. He assumes that he will need it with the Earth Kingdom nobility, such as it is, and even if he does not, he needs it in the Fire Lord’s court. Eight days of freedom are not worth forgetting the lessons he has learned.
Not that he can.
He takes an extra minute to stare at the scar over his left eye. And not for the first time, he wonders what the girl he is to meet will think of him. He is well enough in profile, he supposes. One side of his face is reasonably handsome. His features are regular. His eyes, he thinks, may be considered an exotic colour in the Earth Kingdom. Certainly his cleanliness would be, though he hopes fervently that that notion is a joke and not a reality. The idea of wedding a girl who lives in a layer of dirt is more than even he can stomach.
But the scar cannot be hidden, and vaguely he believes that girls care about such things. He thinks he would. They must care that this man they do not know looks ugly, and that if the contract is agreed on, they will have to lie with him.
In his turn, he wonders what she will look like. Given his looks and his history, he is fairly certain that physical appearances are a secondary consideration. Primary consideration would no doubt be political power, closely allied to money. From what he hears of the Bei Fongs he imagines idly that they have both. And while no one has yet told him anything about the seventeen year old daughter he is to meet, except that she is seventeen, he supposes that were she also to arrive alive, upright and generally tidy, that would be all that is expected of her.
He leaves his room fifteen minutes after his attendants are done with him. He meets the Treasury Minister in the elegantly appointed sitting room. He holds still for those eyes to rake over him critically.
“It is well enough,” is the response he gets.
He is seated carefully, at the front but not in the middle. It is a small statement of power. He is twenty one and so still young enough to be under advise. Besides, this marriage is a state matter, and who better to decide the terms than a state adviser and one of the Fire Lord’s most trusted ministers. Certainly a mere prince wouldn’t know what was required in the agreement.
The Bei Fongs arrive on time. The man is a typical Earth Kingdom nobleman- slender and seemingly mild. His wife accompanies him but says nothing.
Zuko thinks it may have something to do with how the lady’s eyes latch onto his face and then widen slightly. She is too well bred to gasp, but she is shocked enough to betray herself. The nobleman himself says nothing on the matter, merely pays his respects to the Prince and possible future son-in-law, and allows himself to be seated and offered refreshments.
They have their own adviser who sits at his lord’s left hand and begins the pleasantries.
“I think it best if we attend to our business matters first,” he says, with a smile that does not reach his eyes, “Matters of the heart don’t like to wait too long. And the young are always impatient.”
Zuko bites the tip of his tongue to stop himself from saying that there is no heart involved. He has not met the girl. From the looks of her parents, she will be typical of her breed. She will be well-kept, dressed in finery, empty-headed, nervous, raised to be meek, and utterly unsuitable for life in his family.
It is almost laughable, people of this stamp and calibre going up against a force like Azula. Azula’s friends probably have more spirit, he thinks viciously, and his hope dies.
“My lord must have assurances that their daughter will be accompanied by her attendant at all times,” the adviser says. His tone leaves no room for compromise.
Zuko glances at Minister Garu, expecting the usual stubbornness, but the Minister surprises him by acquiescing as if there was never a doubt that he would.
Zuko wonders how much they need the Bei Fongs’ political and economic power in the Earth Kingdom colonies. He has not been allowed back into his father's War Chamber for the last eight years. He has no more notion of how the war is progressing than anyone else.
He looks at his prospective bride’s parents again and catches the woman’s eye. She looks away hastily but there is no disguising the look of horrified fascination.
He wonders idly if they were told what to expect. His disgrace is an open secret in Caldera. His Agni Kai was fought in public. Most of the Court was present to see it.
“There will be independent provisions made for my daughter, naturally. She will require the resources to establish her own comforts.”
“It would depend upon what that the lady requires. We would do all within our power to make her comfortable.”
Comfortable but not welcome, Zuko notices. He wonders if the Bei Fongs do. They don’t seem to pay the choice of words much mind.
“She will require some space for her earthbending.”
Zuko stiffens. Before he can say anything, his father’s adviser has risen to the challenge.
“We were assured that the lady would not be a bender.”
“She will never be any danger to anyone,” her father sighs, speaking for the first time, “She is still on the basic forms.”
There's a speechless silence for a moment and then, “But she is seventeen?”
“Her... incapacity,” the nobleman explains, “It will hamper her ability for the rest of her life.”
Zuko listens closely, brows knitting. ‘Incapacity’ is a word he wants no part of. For all he knows she could be lame or missing limbs. She may be one of those girls who are always ill, always fading in and out of one sickness after another.
Or she could be mentally incapacitated; he wouldn’t discount that in a political match.
Of course, ‘incapacity’ could also be a raging temper. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Zuko hears his uncle’s voice remind him of this.
“They did not tell you?”
The soft voice slides gracefully into the silence.
Zuko catches the woman’s eye again, and this time she looks at him with compassion, and some form of... he feels his lip curl. Pity. The woman is staring at him with pity written plainly on her well-bred face.
“My daughter,” she tells him, “Is blind.”