"Zuko, can you pass the peaches? I can't tell where they are," Toph asked, reaching out with a hand towards where she suspected the desired bowl of fruit lay. The youthful Firelord smiled at the Earthbender and handed over the bowl. "Absolutely Toph," he replied. She happily plopped one on her plate and offered one to each of the men sitting on her side. Sokka accepted, slicing it in half and giving one part to his wife across the table. Aang, too busy trying to get little Kuzon to stop bugging "cousin" Tenzin, declined.
Katara lightly tapped Tenzin's hand from Kuzon's plate and scolded him quietly. "You know your father and I don't want you disturbing your cousin."
Two golden eyes stared back indignantly at two blue ones and Tenzin scrunched his face in a scowl. "But Kuzon's not even Tali and me's cousin! You just call him that," he whined. The little prince could be adorable but right now he looked as though a temper tantrum might be erupting. Zuko, pausing his conversation with Suki about the rising platypus bear population in the Fire Nation, turned to stare admonishingly at his son.
"Tenzin, what did I tell you about not listening to your mother?" His tone was gentle, but his eyes glinted with a very real authority. "And Kuzon is as much your cousin as Sokka and Suki's little boy-"
"Or girl!" chimed in Sokka.
"-or girl will be," Zuko finished. "Just because we're not directly related to Aunt Toph and Uncle Aang doesn't mean you can't treat them like family."
Toph smiled at this, giving Aang a little punch on the shoulder. "Did you hear that? We're family to the Firelord. Does that mean we get even more bonuses?" Aang shrugged, his attention again torn by his troublesome son. Toph, noticing Kuzon's wandering hand moving towards Talia's plate, made a small movement with her hand. The earthenware plate wiggled at her silent command and wrapped around the eleven-year-old's wrist. "Kuzon, can you behave?" she asked with mock sweetness.
Talia, the same age as Kuzon, giggled and stuffed a bun into her mouth to cover it as he mumbled, "Yes mom." He shot her a hurt look and went back to his meal, the plate going back to its original form. Talia, not yet to have caused trouble, said loudly, "Mo-o-o-om when can I go play?" She held up her clear plate and made a pitiful look with her bright blue eyes.
Katara smiled at her younger child, already seeing the little manipulations that she was pulling. "You can go get your dessert if you want Talia, but I don't want you leaving Kuzon and Tenzin all alone. Kuzon's up visiting and I want you to be nice and wait for him too, honey," Katara compromised.
With a satisfied shrug Talia stood up, sticking her tongue out at Tenzin, who still had a half plate of rice left and Kuzon who was "supposed to finish his peach before he had anything sweeter!", as declared by a frustrated Toph. Sokka grinned at Suki, saying, "Can't you wait to have one of those for yourself?"
Suki nodded, rubbing the large bump that was Tenzin and Talia's cousin-to-be. "Remind me again why we waited?" she asked, jokingly.
Zuko rolled his eyes. "Something about wanting to see if Katara and I didn't kill ours first? Or was it not wanting to leave a kid behind if the Fire Nation, what was it, 'erupted again?' I believe those were your exact words," he said pointedly.
Aang laughed, his wine snorting out his nose after he had taken a sip. "Seriously? Oh Suki you know if the Fire Nation did anything you'd be the first to know," he sputtered. Toph tossed him a napkin, but he just bent the wine from his face back into the cup.
Sokka groaned, shaking his head and pausing his eating for a moment. "Katara doesn't tell me anything about the Fire Nation! Now, if you were talking about the latest thing that Talia and Tenzin did to torture poor Iroh, then I'd be your guy." He pointed both thumbs at himself, his belt knife, which he'd been using to cut up his steak, went flying behind him.
Talia, returning from her expedition to get her dessert, ducked, her hair flying. "Ahhh! Uncle Sokka's trying to kill me-e-e-e-e-e-e!" she cried, holding her bowl of ice cream in the air over her head.
Kuzon and Tenzin, who had been silently been engaged in a fierce pea pod war, broke out into barking laughter. The rest of the adults, minus Sokka, also joined in the laughter, though a bit more gently. Sokka spouted apologies and tried to tell Talia that he wasn't trying to kill her. In the commotion the adults lost track of the original conversation and the two boys had magically made their food disappear underneath the table. Toph stepped on one of the rogue pea pods just as the boys were making their way to get their own ice cream and another tussle surged, ending with Kuzon frozen to the floor by a confused Katara and Zuko, rather than Tenzin, trapped by Earth.
"Boys!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. "Get back here and, well first Toph let me go, but clean up your food before I make whichever one of you is mine go to their room for a very long time."
Finally, a very dusty Firelord, a wet shoe-ed Kuzon, and a smirking Tenzin all sat back down at the table and everyone ended up with a bowl of ice cream. With a menacing glare Katara met everyone (excluding Toph)'s eyes. "We're all good?" she said pointedly. Sokka, halfway through his bowl already, nodded, as did the rest of the crew.
"Isn't this nice, now?" Zuko said. "A good, quiet-"
"TENZIN HAS CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM! THAT'S NOT FAIR!" Talia whined loudly, joined by Kuzon.
"-family dinner."
Author's Notes:
So. I nearly forgot about Zutara Week 2010. Fail. SO I cranked this out in 1.5 hours. Ouch.
Yeah, I know Tenzin is a Kataang kid but I liked the name :3 Plus, I like manipulating the world haha. So yeah. expect 6 more of these, generally maybe sorta on time.