Every couple of months I would travel to the three capitals of the world: Ba Sing Se, the Caldera, and the Northern Fortress. Each brought its own treat, and those treats lifted me through the dreary, cold weeks of what used to be my home.
The Southern Water Tribe would always hold a special place inside my heart, of course, but it no longer fulfilled me the way it used to. The ice crunching beneath my fur lined boots brought nostalgia, not comfort. I longed for warm oceans, sparkling streams, even the murky swamp water. I wanted water with life.
Whenever I had confessed this to Aang on one of his many trips to the South Pole he took my hand and showed me all the life in the ocean. The penguins, the sea prunes, the fish. I had smiled sadly, and simply told him that it wasn't the same. These organisms were the survivors; they could bear the freezing temperatures because they had to. This was the only home they'd ever known, and would ever know, and so they survived.
But I didn't just want to survive, I wanted to live.
So I volunteered to become an ambassador of sorts. My father was needed in the tribe; he had been gone far too long and had a lot of work to do to get things back on track. Sokka was busy figuring things out with Suki, and they constantly flew back and forth between the South Pole and Kyoshi Island, always bickering about where to live when they got married. Suki argued that she couldn't just abandon her girls, and that she could never live on a big hunk of ice – no offense, she had said to us, living on this big hunk of ice. Sokka argued that he couldn't just shed his responsibility to his tribe, because one day he would become chief. Aang told me much later that even though flying them back and forth was annoying and inconvenient at times, he was glad he did. He needed the company on his journeys to visit me, and besides, sometimes those two were cute. He said that even back then, they acted like an old married couple even before they'd had a ceremony.
My first trip to the capitals was three moons after the war had ended, and two moons after I'd arrived back to the South Pole. It was one whole moon ago that I had last seen my friends.
Aang flew us first to Kyoshi Island, where Suki and Sokka were currently staying. They both seemed pretty content and less argumentative than usual while we were there. We had loads of fun, the four of us. It was almost like being back at the house on Ember Island. Suki taught me some of the traditional warrior moves, and I taught her some waterbending moves. We each tried to incorporate a bit of the unfamiliar style into our own, and came up with some pretty neat moves to add to our already impressive repertoires.
We only stayed for a couple of days, though, and moved on to Ba Sing Se. Toph was living there by herself, much to everybody's concern. But she refused to go live with her overprotective and sheltering parents, and said that she could handle herself.
I am the greatest earthbender in the world, aren't I?
So we visited the middle ring first, where Toph had obtained a small house paid for with her own earnings from teaching earthbending. She refused to use her parent's name as a free ticket anymore, and refused to use their money. Not that she really needed it, because people flocked to be taught by the famous "Blind Bandit". For that's what she called herself, once more. Toph also refused to teach anybody metalbending unless they'd gone through her beginner, intermediate, and advanced earthbending classes. So far that was no one, but Toph told us that soon her first advanced class would move on to metalbending. She had all ages in her classes, mostly children in her beginner and intermediate. But in her advanced class there were men and women of all ages. That was because she needed to get a feel for them before she could decide how to best teach them the new skill that they all longed to possess, or so she said.
The night we stayed over at Toph's tiny house we didn't sleep. We told stories, more like memories, really, to each other. We all laughed over Aang's earthbending block now looking back on it, and how Sokka had ended up solving it in the most unplanned and ridiculous of ways.
In the morning Aang and I went to the Royal Palace, to meet with King Kuei. I spoke to him of trading agreements and the like, while Aang urged him to go ahead with the Fire Nation Treaty. Kuei was still getting used to being an actual political figure, instead of just a figure head, so he was still pretty flustered. He still hadn't signed off on a peace agreement with the Fire Nation, because he didn't like not having the full support of his kingdom – and most importantly, his city. The Earth Kingdom would not easily forget the brutal siege on Ba Sing Se, and how the very general who had lead that siege was living inside the city walls – in the upper ring, no less! They would also not easily forget The Burning, which is how they referred to Ozai's insane plan to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground. The land had a huge, ugly scar to show for that and serve as a reminder. So, alas, King Kuei still wasn't quite convinced.
We met up with Toph at The Jasmine Dragon, to visit with Iroh. Sitting there, sipping delicious tea, having Iroh telling hilarious jokes, and singing silly Fire Nation folk tunes with him, I couldn't imagine him as a fearsome General that once laid siege to that very city for a full hundred days. I wondered then what had changed him so drastically so that he would turn down the chance to be Fire Lord, and become the jovial man he was then.
I learned later, in one of my many conversations with Zuko, that Iroh had lost his son. Lu Ten, Zuko had called him. I hadn't pressed further, because he looked immensely sad talking about his passed cousin, and I wanted our short visits with each other to be happy ones.
Late that night we rode off on Appa, Toph and Iroh waving as we flew towards the Caldera. It took until midmorning to reach the Fire Nation Palace, and I remember feeling oddly more excited to see Zuko than anyone else. At the time, I shrugged this off and attributed the excitement to getting to experience the Caldera fully for the first time.
We had to be formally introduced in the throne room, where Zuko sat very impressively behind a giant wall of flame. To be honest, it scared me. That must have been what his father looked like.
Ozai was a sore subject between Aang and Zuko. When Zuko had first found out that his father was still alive, he didn't know what to do. So, naturally, he yelled at Aang for not killing him. It became a kind of habit of his, one that he hadn't yet broken at the time we were formally introduced in the throne room. Aang said a decade later or so, when Zuko had finally stopped yelling at him, that it would often be the same speech shouted at him by the young Fire Lord, over and over. Though I never experienced it, it's my understanding that it became a sort of twisted joke that the two men laugh at now.
How could you bring my father back here and just dump him at my feet saying, "Here you go, have fun with your crazy dad! Now you have a matched set: a mental sister AND dad!" All I asked was that you kill him! That's all anybody EVER asked, and now you don't and I have to deal with the shell of him that still spits out insults at me whenever he can. Great, Aang. I'm so glad we're friends.
It always went something like that, but apparently sometimes in the earlier years of "the speech" he would slip and refer to Ozai as the 'father lord' instead of 'my father'. Aang thinks back on that as really sad, even now. Even now they don't mention that slip of the tongue in their jokes.
When Zuko parted the flaming wall and stepped through it, I couldn't believe my eyes. He looked nearly the same as I last saw him! His hair hadn't grown out much, from what I could tell by looking at his topknot, and there wasn't even a hint of facial hair. I commented on it, and he replied darkly that if he grew it out, he would look like his father, and he wouldn't be able to stand looking in the mirror at himself, then. Aang had shifted uncomfortably next to me, as one of Zuko's angrier glares landed on him.
That first visit we stayed only for a few days, and every time I saw Zuko, I felt something odd try to emerge. I suddenly found him attractive when I saw him in his more casual evening wear. His ebony hair was shaggy, and long enough to cover his amber eyes. I found myself fascinated with those eyes, whenever I could study them, I did. I unconsciously memorized the way he walked when he was the Fire Lord, and when he was just Zuko. I calculated the differences between them, and decided that I most definitely liked just Zuko more. I didn't even realize what was happening, then. Before I could, we left for the Northern Fortress.
We relaxed there for a week, Aang and I, and we finally had time to ourselves. We walked through the frozen city hand in hand, smiling and laughing easily. It was there that I told the Avatar that I loved him, and he told me that he had loved me from the moment he set eyes on me. He said he always knew, always knew that I was the one.
After that first trip to the three cities, Aang and I traveled around to them every two or three months. On the second trip we learned Toph had just begun teaching metalbending to her most advanced students, on the third King Kuei signed off on the Fire Nation Treaty, on the fourth we learned that Sokka and Suki had decided to live on Kyoshi until Sokka was made chief, and on the fifth Aang had some urgent business to attend to in a Fire Nation colony in the Earth Kingdom. At the time we were at the Fire Nation Royal Palace, once again, and I wanted to stay in the Fire Nation instead of going along with Aang. He was gone for an entire week.
In that week, everything changed. Without Aang around I began to realize the full extent of my feelings for Zuko. The way he shed his 'leader' persona so easily at night, the way that he talked about his uncle, the way his smile was always, always, crooked, how he just let his hair hang in his eyes and cover his scar when it wasn't in a topknot, the way he mock bowed to me after walking me to my room for the night. Anything and everything attracted me to him. Even the way he actually dealt with his dad when Aang wasn't around. How he still hadn't given up on his mother.
Sometimes, I thought that he looked at me like I looked at him, but I convinced myself I was imagining it. As I found out on the third day of the week, I wasn't.
XOXO
"Oh come on, let me walk you to your room for once! I'm not into sexist pigs, you know. That's a big turn off," it just slipped out. I had the urge to cover my mouth and run, but Zuko just chuckled.
"I didn't know that I had turn ons," he shot me the crooked smile of his, and my heart skipped a beat.
I decided to just go with it, what's the worst that could happen? We'll probably forget this ever happened by breakfast tomorrow. I pretended to look him up and down and think hard, as if I didn't already have a million and one "turn ons" that I could list right now.
"Well…I do like that hair on you. It's very…street rat," I joked. In reality, it was very attractive on him. Somehow he could pull off the shaggy, chin length hair with bangs hiding his eyes. Toph could also pull off the ridiculously long bangs. I stroked my chin, pretending to think about what to say next while I really thought about his hair, "And red quite suits you, which is fortunate."
"Ha ha, Fire Nation red," he rolled his eyes.
"Seriously though, red looks good on you. Though I guess I'm not really a good judge of what colors look good on you because that's all I've ever seen you wear…do you even have clothes in other colors?" I asked.
"I wore green when we all visited Uncle's tea shop," he reminded me.
"Hm…I guess you did. I don't really remember it too well," I said.
"Probably because you were too busy sucking face with Aang," he grinned at me, but there was something off in his eyes. I didn't dwell on it.
"Ha ha, dating the Avatar," I echoed him.
We had reached his room, and so we turned to each other just like the past two nights. Just as I was preparing to mock bow to him, he lurched forward and kissed me right on the lips.
It was awkward, because his legs were still back where he'd been a moment before, and he was leaning on me trying not to fall, while I was leaning backwards under his weight trying not to fall. Our eyes were wide open and his were full of that little 'off' thing that I'd spotted earlier. So even though it was one of the most awkward kisses I'd ever received, it was also the most hilariously perfect kiss of my life.
He grabbed my back and wobbled backwards, wobbling me with him until we were balanced correctly and upright. Then he pulled away to see my full reaction.
"So?" he asked anxiously.
I grinned, and threw my arms around his neck and kissed him hard.
We ended up stumbling into his room, and he backed me up so that I fell onto his bed. We kissed, touched, and explored each other with fevered passion. He was so impatient he singed my under bindings off, and then drank my body in as I basked in his. Before he took the plunge he looked me in the eye.
"One time, to last us our whole lives through," his golden eyes that I loved so well spoke so eloquently. They said that he would never stop loving me, not until the day he died.
I echoed him for the second time that night. "One time, to last us our whole lives through," I agreed. In my blue eyes I tried to convey the same love to him, and we became one.
XOXO
I never intended to tell Aang of what transpired that fateful night. But life has a funny way of throwing things at you that you least expect, but when you look back you know they were bound to happen.
As it turned out, in giving myself to Zuko that night Zuko had given me a child. As a healer, I knew all of my symptoms pointed to pregnancy, and I knew that I had to tell Aang. The child might be born with his amber eyes, after all. So even if I did take all the steps necessary to have Aang believe it was his child I was carrying, how would I explain the amber eyes?
Besides, I could have never lied to him.
After he dealt with my betrayal and the pain, he forgave me, and I'll always love him for that. He tells me now, as I write this, that he decided he had to live with what was. And he was glad he did.
I had a beautiful golden-eyed daughter, with my brown hair and Zuko's ivory skin. It was an odd but exotically beautiful mix of traits in the Water Tribe. Zuko always says that she looks like his mother, and Aang says she looks like me.
My daughter has always known that the Avatar is not her father, but the Fire Lord is. And Zuko loves his daughter more than anything else in the world. Except for me.
Because even though I've married Aang and he's married Mai, it will always be Zuko for me and me for him. But sometimes things can't work out as perfectly as we'd like them to.