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It was a perfectly peaceful afternoon. Katara was cooking lunch by the campfire, and Zuko was lounging with his eyes closed by the fire. As Fire Lord, he was constantly busy. Aang and Katara had been stopping to visit Zuko in the Fire Nation when Zuko got a notice that there was an emergency meeting in the Earth Kingdom. Appa was still the fastest way to travel so Aang offered him a ride.
The trip on the way to the earth kingdom had been stressful, and fast. All the same, it had been nice to have a chance to catch up with each other again, it had been a few months. The meeting had been a stressful, four-day-long negotiation that very nearly broke out into a fight.
And so, when the meetings had finally come to a close, Zuko had allowed himself to be talked into a minor detour and a slower route back to the Fire Palace. Truthfully, the first year of being a Fire Lord and starting the process of healing the scars of war across the nation had been draining, and two or three days just relaxing with his friends was exactly what Zuko wanted.
“This brings back memories doesn’t it?” Katara asked as she used water bending to stir her stew.
Zuko hummed in response. Contented silence hung in the air for a few moments before Zuko asked “Do you ever miss it?”
Zuko peeked out from under his eye and looked over to Katara who was staring at him. “What do you mean? Do I miss being on the run and the war?”
Zuko shook his head and snorted, “No, I guess not.”
Katara was contemplating what Zuko had asked when Aang crashed down from the sky, flipping his staff to whoosh air around him, severing her thought. Aang bounded down by the fire right in front of Katara and said, “You got to help me!”
Katara didn’t seem all that phased by his sudden pleading. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine, we need to pull a Kuzon.”
Katara stared at him and then laughed “No way! I am not doing that again.”
Zuko sat up and asked “What’s a Kuzon?”
“Me, I’m Kuzon.” Aang said unhelpfully, as he shamelessly threaded his fingers as he begged Katara. “Please, please.”
“What did you do?”
“I might have accidentally let lose a whole herd of Ostrage Horses.”
“Why did you do that?” Zuko asked
“Obviously I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Well,” Katara said, “You have released animals before.”
“No, this was an accident.”
“Why can’t you just go apologize and help catch them?”
“I would have, but the guy grabbed me and told me to bring my parents!”
“Why didn’t you just tell him you were the avatar?”
“He wouldn’t let me explain, he was kinda scary. Please Katara?”
“Gah!” Katara threw her hands up and said, “Sokka’s not here so we can’t.”
“You could just do it?”
“You want me to be a single mother?” Katara asked horrified. “I’m not going over there to get you out of trouble by myself!”
Aang turned his head and stared at Zuko “Zuko’s here.”
Zuko awkwardly waved back at Aang, already knowing he was about to be roped into another stupid Avatar Scheme, even if he was still completely lost.
“I don’t know-” Katara started, sounding uncertain.
“It’s perfect, you guys are a much more believable couple!”
Zuko and Katra looked at each other embarrassed and Zuko asked quickly, “I’m still confused.”
“Aang wants us to pretend to be his parents to talk to the owner of those Ostrage Horses.”
“And you’ve done this before?”
“Yep.” Chirped Aang happily. “I went to a fire nation school for a few weeks and they had to come as my parents when I got in a fight. It was worth it in the end as I was able to teach a class the joys of dancing.”
Zuko shook his head before saying “Right, okay, this plan has a few holes in it, namely, I am the Fire Lord, and you are the avatar, and Katara is Katara, we’ve had wanted posters and our faces all over the place, we are bound to be recognized.”
“No, no we won’t. You see, we aren't in the Fire Nation and we will be wearing disguises!”
Thirty minutes later and the small group of friends found themselves outside the ranch office in what Zuko considered the silliest costumes he had ever seen. “This is not going to work.”
“Yes it is.” Said Aang, ever the optimist.
Zuko stroked his clearly fake beard and wondered to himself just how embarrassing the next few minutes were going to be. A single glance to his side to see that both Aang and Katara were smiling mischievously as if they might actually enjoy these little stunts.
Katara sobered and then seemed to fall into a ‘pregnant waddle’. Katara’s costume consisted mostly of a large pillow stuck up her shirt and her hair pulled into two large buns, a typical Earth kingdom hairstyle. Aang had a bandana over his arrow as well as a hat covering his bald head.
Zuko, in a futile attempt to hide his scar, wore his shoulder-length hair down and flipped over his face so it mostly concealed the left side of his face, as well as adorning a fake black beard. Katara had laughed when she saw him but had merely waved her hand saying “No, it’s good, it’s good,” when Zuko asked why she had laughed.
The sharp knocking on the door brought Zuko’s attention back to the task at hand. Katara’s hand had no sooner started to lower when the door snapped open, and an enormous red-faced man stood before them. He looked livid and ready to snap. He scowled down at Katara and then Zuko before his eyes snapped to Aang, who was standing in between them. The monstrously tall man bent down and growled out “So you’re this Urchin’s parents?”
No one replied for a moment as they were reeling back from the abrasive encounter. “Um, yes, I am Kozu’s father, and this is definitely my beautiful wife.”
There was a beat of silence as Zuko could feel the heat start on his face, he was not a good liar.
Katara laughed loud and awkwardly, rubbed her pillow belly, and said seriously, “That’s us the big happy Pippinpaddleopsicopolis family!” It was Zuko’s turn to stare at Katara, his heart was beating fast as he began to realize just how underprepared he was. Aside from knowing he was pretending to be Aang's father and Katara’s husband and that they had changed Aang’s Fire Nation alias from Kuzon to Kozu to sound mildly more Earth Kingdom, he had no other information or story planned. Thankfully, Katara seemed to have him covered “I’m June Pippinpaddleopsicopolis, and my husband is Kenji.” Zuko waved awkwardly then realizing that was weird tried to turn the motion into a nose scratch. “Katara smiled sweetly and said, “We, that is my HUSBAND and I, understand Kozu caused a little trouble, right Dear?” Katara said turning to stare at Zuko again.
Zuko nodded and said, “That’s right, sweetheart.”
The man looked between them for a moment before he huffed and said “I’m Pe Lo Bohe, and I own this ranch. Your boy did more than cause ‘a little trouble’. On top of the extra work to find all our Ostrage-horses and herd them back into the pen, he caused extensive damage to our fence on the east side of the paddock.”
“What?” asked Zuko turning to look at Aang, who had said nothing about destroying a fence.
Aang immediately stooped into a bow and said “I am very sorry, I was merely trying to talk to them.”
Pe Lo made a tisking sound and shook his head looking even more menacing. “That doesn’t fix the large hole in my fence, how anyone could ‘accidentally’ demolish that much fence is beyond me.”
Katara started a very fake-sounding laugh before saying “Oh, our Kozu is such a sweet boy, he would never do something like that on purpose! ” Katara under the quelling gaze of Pe Lo turned her large eyes to Zuko, and said, “Tell him, honey, how we are going to fix this?”
Zuko was thrown, “I- Uh, well, Lovebug, why don’t we pay for it to be fixed?” Pe Lo’s eyes narrowed at him as if he was displeased with this answer and Zuko added, looking back at the burly man, “Would that be alright?”
“No! What am I supposed to do with my Ostrage-horses while the builders come to fix it? They could take a week just to come out here!”
“We’ll fix it,” said Aang unexpectedly, causing Zuko and Katara to turn and look at him.
This seemed to be what Pe Lo was hoping and demanding from them as his face contorted into an ugly smile and he nodded, saying, “My farm hands have already brought the supplies out to the area.” He turned his gaze to Aang and said “I imagine you still remember where you demolished my fence?”
“Yes sir!” Aang said quickly before bowing for a second time.
“See that it’s done right, I’ll be down to check on it in a few hours, and if it’s not perfect, I’ll be charging you for the builders to come and fix it proper.” With that, he slammed the door closed in their face.
Zuko slowly turned his body so he was facing Aang and Katara and used one of Aang's favorite curses “Monkey Feathers, that guy.”
Katara nodded in agreement and Aang said, ever in his happy way “Well, Mum, Pops, we got a fence to fix!”
“You didn’t tell us you broke his fence! What actually happened?”
Aang's eyes got huge as if he wasn’t expecting Katara to actually ask, he let out a guilty chuckle and rubbed the back of his head, sending his straw hat sliding forward, “Uh, it was nothing, just a bit of a rock slide, an accident.”
Zuko and Katara let out a sigh in unison as Aang led the way. They found the broken fence, and indeed, they had their work cut out for them as they found the large stretch of demolished fence. The fence was mostly just gone as if the wood had vanished. There were a few poles sticking out of the ground as if the earth had just swallowed the entire stretch of fence.
“Aang…” Katara said in a slow voice, her deadly tone making both Aang and Zuko turn to look at her. Zuko thought as he looked into icey eyes, ‘If Aang was really Katara’s son, he would be running right now.’ “When you said ‘rock slide’ what did you actually mean… because this is a very gradual slope down to the river- there isn’t anywhere for rocks to have fallen on the fence.”
Aang took a side step closer to Zuko as if he would protect him from Katara’s wrath. “Well, truthfully I was trying a new Avatar ability!”
Silence hung between the trio for a moment before Zuko asked “and what is that?”
“MUD BENDING!” Aang said excitedly, “Thing is, I got distracted by the Ostrage horses and released a wave of mud, and it demolished everything in the area before I even noticed.”
Zuko slapped his hand over his face as his wife. NO. his friend, swallowed hard and took several calming breaths before saying in a too-sweet voice, “Aang, Mud can be controlled with either Water or Earth bending, it’s not an Avatar thing, and you should find it very easy to control.
Aang bit his lip hard and then bent over into a bow, just as he had to Pe Lo, “I’m sorry, I still have much to learn from my Waterbending Master.”
In an instant all of Katara’s anger left her and she waved her hand in front of her nose as if to wave away a foul stench. “Don’t worry about it pupil Aang, we all make mistakes while learning, I’m sorry I got uptight.”
Zuko spoke before Aang could rejoice in his easy forgiveness, “Next time you make a mistake, and there will be a next time, Avatar or not, the best approach, especially with us, is honesty. We would never be mad at a bending mistake, but sending us to talk to Pe Lo without the details is just too much.”
Aang nodded and bent into a bow facing Zuko as well, “You’re right, I won’t hide the truth from either of you in the future. I’m sorry Sifu Hotman.”
Zuko shook his head and snorted, unable to keep his lips from turning up at the corners “I would tell you to do forty hot squats but I think we have enough work to do today.” He gestured at the stretch of empty fence and Katara and Aang let out a slightly nervous chuckle as they survived the stretch of land they needed to fence in.
It only took them fifteen minutes to devise a plan, first, they laid out the new wood planks and posts where they needed to go, then Aang used earthbending to dig the holes where the posts needed to be placed. Katara pulled water from the nearby river to freeze the planks against the posts so they didn’t have to hold them while they nailed in the planks. Initially, Aang had thought he could metalbend the nails into the plank, but after twenty or so crumpled nails lay on the ground and not one of them had actually gone into the wood, they resorted to hammering them in manually.
Aang and Zuko watched Katara in awe as she struck the nails in with perfect fluidity. Katara was much more used to manual labor and accomplishing tasks with her hands than either of them were, and it showed.
Zuko was rather embarrassed, he was the worst at nailing the panels together, and it was a notable difference. He had about seven or eight bent nails to keep each board sturdy to the post, while Katara had four beautifully straight nails perfectly spaced in her posts. Aang had at least one or two bent nails in each of his posts, and that made Zuko feel marginally better.
The work went quickly, and after only three or so hours they were very nearly done. “Ahem,” the clearing of a throat made Zuko spin on his heels as he was squatting down to nail the sixth or seventh nail into the post. It was Pe Lo.
“Mr. Bohe, I hope the fence is up to your standard?”
“Oh, yes, it looks nice, almost better than the one your boy destroyed. You’ve managed to construct it quicker than I thought possible, how did you do this?”
Zuko had almost forgotten the story they had spun, and immediately remembered why he was still wearing the itchy beard, he smiled and nodded, awkward at the mention of ‘his boy’. Zuko sputtered “A little hard work to make sure my SON Kozu remembers to be more careful in the future, he’s had no breaks, just work.” Zuko cringed as he heard the faint excuse, but he couldn’t exactly say that they had used water-bending and earth-bending to make the work go faster.
Pe Lo seemed to agree with the sentiment and nodded sternly. He looked behind Zuko’s head and a flash of surprise and maybe irritation crossed his face, “Surely you wouldn’t let your wife… do heavy labor in her condition.”
Zuko looked behind him at Katara squatting in the dirt and swinging her hammer with practiced ease and efficiency. Zuko’s breath hitched, she looked beautiful, long strands of hair had escaped her buns and hung around her face as she concentrated on the nails in front of her, the fake and huge pregnant belly swelled out in front of her.
Zuko felt a nervous tingle run up his spine as he wondered if their disguise was just busted. He called out, trying to get Katara’s attention, “June.” Zuko swallowed hard as neither Katara nor Aang had glanced at him. He cleared his throat, feeling sweat roll down his face as the nerves and hot late afternoon sun beat down on him. He all but shouted “BunnyBear! I’ve told you already not to help, go rest your ankles in the river or something!”
Both Katara and Aang’s head snapped over to Zuko at his loud outburst, their eyes widened when they saw Pe Lo standing with Zuko. Katara muttered something to Aang and then stood. She slowly walked toward them, her hand pressed on her back as Aang continued hammering into one of the last few posts.
“Oh Snookums, you worry too much, I told you I’m fine!” Katara grinned at Pe Lo and said “How is the fence, up to your fine standards?”
Zuko plastered a fake smile on his face as Katara finally came level with him.
“Yes, yes it looks good!” Pe Lo finally seemed to have a smile to his face now as he said “It’s better than expected, and much faster too! The pip… uh, what was your name again?”
Pe Lo was staring at Zuko, expecting him to answer. “Pipinkisstopolis” Katara squirmed next to him alerting him that he had definitely gotten the name wrong, but still, that rancher hadn’t remembered.
“Right, it's thanks to you the Pipinkisstoplis family that the problem was fixed so rapidly, thank you really.” He gave a curt nod and then said “I’ll give you a ride into town when you finish up, just come back to the ranch office.”
“Thank you.” Zuko said as Katara said, “Thank you, Sir, we again apologize for Kozu and would appreciate the ride into town.”
Pe Lo left them after that, and it was only another twenty or so minutes until they finished repairing the paddock. They walked back to where Pe Lo had said he would meet them behind the office, he had already hitched four ostrich horses to a wagon. The three of them enjoyed the ride on the back of the wagon, jostling back and forth as the wagon bumped across the rocky road.
It wasn’t that long of a ride but the sun was low, casting pink and orange light across the sky, before they stood on the edge of town, waving at Pe Lo as he turned his cart to head back to his ranch. Zuko had his arm wrapped around Katara’s waist in a convincing husband-esque manner. They all continued to wave and watch the retreating rancher until he rounded the corner of the road and disappeared out of sight.
In one motion, Katara pulled the pillow out from under her shirt, sagging in relief and exhaling, Zuko used the free hand, not wrapped around Katara to rip the terrible beard off his face saying “Owe”, and rubbing his jaw. The glue had really fused with his skin.
Aang sighed and said, “I wish I could take my disguise off.”
Katara couldn’t help but snort, “Unfortunately, the blue arrow on your head kind of screams ‘Hey look at me, I’m the avatar!’”
Aang made a face but said in almost a Sokka voice, “I’m hungry.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Katara said, glancing up and down the street, after a second her face started to tinge red, she took several hasty steps away from Zuko, who remembered only after Katara had set distance between them that he had still been holding her. Zuko could feel his own face firing up as well, thankfully, Aang remained entirely unaware of the situation.
The group drifted together down the brightly lit street. The street was strung with beautiful lights, there were a lot of vendors in the town this afternoon, considering how small the town actually was. A touch of spice blew on the breeze and music from the distance slowly drifted through the streets, mingling with the crowd's laughter.
“I wonder what’s going on tonight,” Aang said grinning around, all of his normal happiness back in full force, and irritation at keeping his hat on forgotten.
“Let’s check it out!” Said Katara.
Zuko merely shrugged, certain that there would be plenty of food in the direction of the crowd. As the friends reached what they assumed to be the center of town, they found the crowds, fuller, and livelier than they had been a few blocks back. There in the center of the town, seemed to be the crux of the festival.
They got some food and watched the dancing. It looked carefree and innocent, old couples, children, and everyone in between took to tumultuous dancing. It’s full of bright, positive energy and looked like a lot of fun. Katara said she wanted to join them, and Zuko immediately said he "doesn’t dance." Katara actually looked disappointed for a fraction of a second before she said, ‘Come on, it’ll be fun!’ Zuko just shook his head. Aang cleared his throat and extended his hand to Katara saying, “I’d love to dance with you.” Katara smiled back at him and took it saying “Thank you!” In an instant, the pair of them had joined the large colorful swirling towns folk.
Zuko stood glaring from his position at the edge of the dancing couples, he held in his hand a stick of meat that he had completely forgotten about. He had made a devastating mistake. Just before him, moving in graceful fluidity that could only have been learned from bending, Katara danced. She was easily the most beautiful girl spinning across the town center. Zuko couldn’t honestly, not to himself, say that he had not thought about kissing Katara’s lips at least once or twice. But today, today every time he had turned and looked at her unexpectedly she had been there, stealing his breath as if she were an a Airbender. These past few days with Katara and Aang had held more enjoyment, and chaos, than Zuko had experienced in the three months of their absence and his solitude in the Fire Palace.
Within him, Zuko could feel the flame within him turn emerald with jealousy. Aang had left to dance with some other person and a presumptuous Earth Kingdom peasant had instantly slid into the Arrowhead’s vacated place. She had smiled brightly and wrapped her arms around the complete stranger as if he were her husband.
It was true, Zuko hated dancing. Touching someone he didn’t know or like, ‘swaying’ to a beat he can’t quite match. Finally, the song ended, Zuko watched, expecting Katara to release the man and leave the makeshift dance floor. As another quick number was struck up, another young, uncomfortably attractive peasant, approached Katara. Zuko was too far away and in a loud crowd to ever hope to hear what was said between them. He didn’t know what exactly was said, but as they stepped together taking up the pace of the new song Zuko watched Katara. Her large blue eyes were turned up into a permanent grin as she spun to the simple song. She both blended into the crowd and stood out. Her hair had fallen out of the buns and swung around her like the water she commanded. Zuko shook his head and looked at the appetizer still sitting in his hand, a single bite missing from the top.
Zuko visibly sighed and threw his Chicken-Frog legs into a large bin nearby, bracing himself for the irksome and foolish thing he was about to do.
The song was winding down, and Katara and the boy she was dancing with had disappeared into the thick of the dancers. Zuko only had to go a few paces before he could see her. Walking a little faster he caught up with her, just as the songs faded out and the drummer was starting another rapid-paced song.
Katara’s stared back at him as he pushed his way toward her, through the crowd. Zuko offered his hand, Katara reached out instantly, a genuine smile coming to her lips. The boy looked at Katara and then Zuko and said as the people around them started to dance, “June, is that your boyfriend?”
Sensing an opportunity to keep Katara to himself for the rest of the night, Zuko said “I’m Kenji, June’s husband.”
Zuko waited for Katara to exchange a friendly goodbye to the boy, who looked amused as he walked off the dancefloor in search of another partner. They fell into an easy dance, Katara’s face a red color. Neither of them said anything for about half the dance when Katara finally blurted out, “Why did you say that?”
“Just keeping to the story, you told him you were June, was I supposed to make up another character on the spot?” It was an excellent excuse after all.
Katara tilted her head to the side, a warm smile coming up to her lips as she said. “Oh, yes, I’m sure.”
Katara’s smile grew until she was laughing, and Zuko couldn’t help but to let out several chuckles as well. The song shifted into a new one, it wasn’t until that song had stopped that Zuko realized that he was actually having fun. Here with Katara, dancing felt more like bending than the formal ballroom dances he had suffered through, or the parties put on by the kids in the emerald islands. Here nobody was watching him, everyone was too busy having fun with their own friends and family to be watching anyone else.
The new song started much slower and it hummed and played in a slow manner. Katara stepped forward and put her arms on his shoulder. Zuko immediately recognized the dance from his own lessons as a boy, and one of his hands went to Katara’s waist, the other sliding down her arm to take her hand in his. Katara looked up at him, and he led her, spinning her around, realizing that even the dances he hated in his old dancing lessons, he liked with Katara.
“You know what you said, before lunch?”
“Uh, what was it again?”
“You asked me if I missed it.”
Zuko nodded and, for the first time in several minutes took his eyes off Katara to look awkwardly around the crowd.
“I don’t miss the bad, the fighting, the running, the constant threat of death around the corner… Sparky-Sparky Boom Man.”
They both snorted before Katara said, “I don’t miss all that, but I do miss how we used to travel all together, I miss you.” After a second she said “And Toph and Sokka of course.”
Zuko shifted and said, “I miss Sokka and Toph, mostly you.”
Zuko hadn’t expected the stark honesty to jump from his lips so freely. His inner flame seemed to burn brighter, making him feel warmer all over his body, the feeling from earlier while hiding in disguise came back to him, would Katara finally see through him?
Katara also had a light flush across her face as they spun to the loud music. The song changed and Katara slid her hands around his neck, taking a step closer to him, and said “You seem quite good at dancing for someone who doesn’t dance.”
“I think that Kenji likes to dance.”
Aang was breaking out some truly wild moves for a slow song right next to them at that exact moment, and Katara smiled saying “I think Kozu does too.” She paused for a moment and said “And June, she likes to dance with her ‘Lovebug’.”
Zuko couldn’t help but to scoff fondly, and play along. “Well, that's us the…”
Katara filled in for him “Pinpinpaddleopsicopolis’”
“Exactly,” Zuko agreed.
Katara rested her head on Zuko’s chest, and said “I suppose this is more how a wife would dance with her husband.” Zuko looked around and noticed that the song had shifted and that indeed a great deal of people seemed to be taking this song as an opportunity to cuddle closer. Zuko wasn’t opposed.
They kind of did a slow rotation, not really going anywhere so much as swaying together. After a minute of gathering his courage and Zuko spoke softly, “Tonight I might be jealous of Kenji.”
Katara turned her head and looked up at him. From this angle, she looked shorter than Zuko ever noticed her to be, her beautiful eyes and curious smile looked back as she asked “Why is that?”
“If I really was Kenji, I would kiss you.”
Katara’s eyes widened and for a fraction of a second, she faltered her step to the music. “But I’m not really June either.” Zuko felt one of Katara’s hands slide up his neck, her face came even closer to his, she paused just short of their lips meeting. Their warm breath mingled together and Zuko could feel Katara’s fast shallow breathing and hoped she couldn’t feel his heart race. Katara tasted sweet and pure like the morning after a summer rain storm.
The kiss they shared was the first of many for Mr. and Mrs. Pinpinpaddleopsicopolis.