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“So…I’ve been thinking.”
The bed creaks softly as Katara turns on her back and looks at him. In the moonlight, she sees that he has his arms behind his head and is staring at the ceiling. “About what?” she prompts. He thinks about a lot of things these days.
“About your tribe.” He pauses. “Do they have some sort of…marrying age?”
“Well…I guess not really. You have to be an adult by the tribe’s standards, but that doesn’t necessarily have to do with a specific age. I think most people only considered marrying after they’d turned eighteen, anyway.”
“‘Considered’? What about now?”
“I don’t know. I think the Northern Tribe’s influence might change things a little.”
“You have to be sixteen there, right? In the Northern Tribe?”
“Yeah. How do you know?”
“My tutors taught me about it. We learned about the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe…but only the Northern Water Tribe,” he adds, sounding apologetic. Katara is surprised to notice that the information stings a little.
“I guess nobody thought we were relevant anymore,” she says, slightly cynical.
“I guess not.” Zuko only sounds sad.
“Anyway, it is sixteen but I think most men don’t marry until they’re older than that.”
“I see.”
“Why have you been thinking about this?” Katara probes. Sometimes, she thinks she can see where he’s going with something, but she’s learned not to assume. He keeps so much to himself; she needs to extract every bit of information he’s willing to give. It’s tiring – but rewarding.
“I was curious,” he answers after a few moments. She starts to think she’s going to have to probe some more, but then he adds: “I mean, you turned seventeen a while ago. If the marrying age were sixteen in your tribe too, there might be some…pressure.”
“On me? To get married?”
“Yeah. Or to get you married, even.”
“Oh no, our tribe doesn’t really do that. I mean…there might be some social pressure on me to just pick someone or something, but ultimately it’s up to me. It’d probably start getting worse the older I got, though.”
“What if you didn’t want to get married?”
Katara laughs. “Not really an option. I mean, technically I could do it, but there would be a lot of stigma.”
“Yeah, it’s the same here. Some women can wait a long time before getting married, but if they don’t marry at all it’s weird.”
“What about men?” Katara asks, giving him a knowing look that he probably can’t see.
“I guess nobody cares if they choose not to marry,” he says sheepishly.
“Yeah, I thought so.”
“Well, except for the Fire Lord.” The silence that follows is slightly awkward.
“I guess it’s important to have heirs,” she finally says.
“Yeah.”
“Especially you,” she continues rather enthusiastically, happy to think of a way to resume the conversation. “Otherwise doesn’t, like, Azula get the throne?”
“If she’s deemed competent,” he says. “If not, then I guess there’s war.”
“What if your uncle has another child?”
“Um, I don’t think that’s likely,” he says, sounding vaguely disgusted. “But yeah, then I guess his child would be my heir.”
“Hmm.” Neither of them speaks for a minute, and Katara wonders if she should push some more.
Then he says: “I guess I was just wondering how you felt about it.”
“About marriage?”
“…Yeah.”
“I can’t say I feel much pressure. Then again, I guess I’m pretty far away from my tribe.”
“Yeah.”
“Besides,” she turns on her side to face him, “I’m happy exactly where I am, right now.”
Zuko looks at her. “You are?”
She leans over and kisses him.