Note: Last part. And to answer a Guest's question: yes, Azula can still firebend, which is what makes her the perfect firefighter – and what got her the job in the first place despite her being all, y'know, Azula-like.
Zuko exchanges some small talk with an assortment of Mai's moderately distant relatives, the men stony-faced and the women's lips stretched in perfect, painful-looking smiles. He's definitely had enough socializing for now.
He sits beneath the furthest tree from the refreshments table, where no man dares venture, holding a cup of fire-seed wine with a little paper umbrella in it. He is far enough away so that nobody would feel compelled to sit down next to him and initiate conversation, and close enough to keep both his sister and his daughter in his field of vision. Mai and Zhuyin are nowhere to be seen, so he guesses they might be together somewhere doing something more interesting, like reinventing the rules of Pai Sho to make it about dragon riding and world domination somehow.
Zuko leans back against the tree and closes his eyes. He is just so tired. He hasn't slept through one straight night in weeks, and this is when his kids are finally past the diaper-changing age. Between governing a former empire and planning birthday parties and spending time with Mai and resolving tiny squabbles with long-winded lectures and candy, there's most definitely not been enough Mai.
Would it really be so bad to leave the kids with Azula for one weekend?
It probably would. He's just letting his exhaustion override his common sense. Which is another reason why he needs some time off, now that he thinks about it. Dammit.
Out of nowhere, a tiny humanoid with frizzy wisps of black hair sticking out of its ornately pinned topknot, grass stains on its silk robe and raspberry sauce all over its face suddenly appears in Zuko's lap.
"I'm hungry," it informs Zuko.
Zuko puts down his drink and wraps his arms around his son. "There's every imaginable form of junk food scattered all over the place," he says. "You've noticed too, by the look of things." He scrapes some jam off Zhuyin's cheek with a finger and pops it in his mouth. "Yum."
Zhuyin giggles delightedly and wipes his own fingers on Zuko's face, painting it with a delectable mixture of mud and orange pudding.
"Thanks, Zhuyin," says Zuko. "But you don't have to waste it on me. You're the one who's hungry, right? Here, have some."
Zuko transfers some of the concoction from his face onto Zhuyin's nose, and thus commences a food fight consisting entirely of leftovers already stuck to clothing and body parts in advance. When they're done they've split the dirt mass between them but tripled its surface area, and look more or less equally ridiculous. Which obviously means Zuko lost by default, since he is an adult and Zhuyin is three.
"Still hungry?" he asks Zhuyin.
"Nooo!" Zhuyin declares and runs off, but not before adding one final touch of brownish orange to the sticky masterpiece of Zuko's face.
.
On his way to the bathroom Zuko bumps into Mai, and she silently stares at his mud and pudding-painted face for several long seconds.
"This isn't funny," he tells her, fighting his own grin.
"I completely agree," she says.
"Mai, I'm serious."
"As am I. Do I look amused to you?"
He searches her face intently; studies the eyes, examines the eyebrows, scrutinizes the lips.
Nothing.
Of course fourteen years together wouldn't be long enough to learn to identify any of the cracks in Mai's mask. What was he thinking?
"You'll pay for this," he intones. "I know where you're ticklish."
"I'll take that into consideration," Mai replies in an uninflected voice and walks away.
Zuko thinks he hears a snort, and he knows better than to believe it's just his imagination.
.
On his way out of the bathroom Zuko bumps into Ursa, and she doesn't waste any time either silent or staring.
"Dad, can Azula show me some firebending moves now?" she pleads.
"No," replies Zuko.
"But she says we won't do any more lightningbending."
"No."
"But she says she can make her fire red so it's less hot."
"No."
"But she says we'll be really careful and she knows how to do it so it's safe because her job is to make sure people don't get burned."
"No."
"But she said she'd never let anything hurt me."
"N–" he starts to repeat once again, and immediately does a double-take. "Wait. Azula said that?"
"Yeah! She said she'll make sure I'm always okay, because I'm important or something," Ursa replies, sensing she might have hit a mark. "So can we? Please, Dad? Please please please pleeease?"
He looks at his daughter and her big doe eyes and heart-melting little frown and the smudged chocolate on her cheek. She looks back and makes her eyes even doeier.
"Sorry, kiddo," he tells her. "Still no."
.
"Zuko!" Mai calls him from over at the fruit punch table. "Get over here. Aang is being enthusiastic."
Sometimes it almost seems to Zuko like his family and friends are made up entirely of easily enthused people and easily annoyed ones who, upon direct or indirect contact, immediately enthuse and annoy each other to the point of combustion. Then he remembers that that is, in fact, precisely the case.
He walks over to the two people representing the absolute extremes of that hypothetical graph, and is immediately enveloped in an armadillo-bear hug by a highly enthused Aang, who is, incidentally, almost a head taller than him nowadays.
"Zuko! My favorite Fire Lord!" he declares.
"Hey, Aang," Zuko greets him. "I'll try not to let that flattery go to my head."
Aang has been in the Fire Nation for the past couple of weeks on official Avatar business, so Zuko actually had a few chances to catch up with him, and he already heard about Katara's diplomatic tour in the United Republic, where she's been for the last couple of months while Aang had things to do elsewhere. Zuko knows he misses her.
"How's the birthday girl?" Aang asks.
"She's five," says Mai.
"She's really excited to be five," says Zuko.
"How come I haven't seen her around yet? Usually I don't get two steps into the Fire Nation before being mauled by a tiny princess begging me to do the whirly thing."
Zuko snorts and points to the other side of the garden where Ursa is sitting down in the grass and watching Azula mimic some of Ty Lee's simpler routines. "She has a new toy," he says.
"That's great!" Aang says happily. "You're finally becoming a family again."
"Actually, I think we're finally becoming a family for the first time."
Aang laughs resonantly. "That's great, too."
Mai yawns deeply. "I'm gonna leave you to your sentimental gushing, then, boys," she says, and pats Zuko's arm encouragingly. "Enjoy."
"Don't listen to her," Zuko tells Aang. "She just wants to go tell Zhuyin fairytales and coo adoringly all over him."
"Such lies, Zuko. Lies and slander," Mai throws over her shoulder as she walks away, and is immediately joined by Zhuyin, whom she picks up and kisses on the nose.
Aang laughs boomingly some more. Zuko is seriously becoming jealous of this guy's larynx. He really knows how to laugh.
"So, uh, Aang," says Zuko. "How's, I mean, how are you and Katara doing?"
Aang's smile diminishes a little. "I haven't seen her in sixteen and a half days," he says sadly. "Letters just aren't the same. And her messenger hawk hates me."
"A member of the animal kingdom that hates you? That can't be true."
"I think it might be because my letters are so heavy."
"You should use reduced-thickness parchment," Zuko advises. It's kind of absurd how much he knows about parchment after dealing with paper-related grievances for the past week.
Paper-related grievances. That sounds even more absurd.
Aang smiles sardonically. "The thing is," he says as he pulls out an incredibly thick roll of extraordinarily thin parchment, "I already am."
"Let me see that." Zuko snatches Aang's alleged letter, which would more accurately be described as a novella, and rolls it open.
It's actually rather well written, and beautifully describes Aang's thoughts and feelings and other things Zuko has no interest in whatsoever.
"You're even more disgustingly in love than I gave you credit for," he tells Aang. "You deserve your messenger hawk hating you."
"I still have the beak marks on my hands."
"I don't want to hear you complain about scars, Aang."
Aang chuckles. "That's balderdash, Zuko. You wouldn't have had half as many lady admirers without that scar and you know it."
"Hey, Aang, I know you were born more than a century ago, but don't you think it's about time you stopped using phrases like balderdash and lady admirers and –"
"Don't say it!"
"Hotman?"
Aang sighs wistfully. "I'm going to bring that one back one of these day."
Now it's Zuko's turn to laugh. "You always were a dreamer," he says.
.
As the guests start to leave and the crowd dwindles, Zuko finds Ursa and Azula sitting cross-legged near the pond, talking. He leans against the closest marble pillar and casually eavesdrops.
"I heard the moon is made of cheese," Ursa declares.
"Then you have some unreliable sources," Azula tells her. "The moon is made mostly of rock, and partly of Yue."
"What's a Yue?" asks Ursa.
"It's a spirit, an incorporeal substance indigenous to the Northern Water Tribe. Also it's Uncle Sokka's ex-girlfriend from when he was still young and eligible," Azula explains.
"What's eligillible?"
"It's a male-specific condition. It has to do with ability to convince the opposite sex of one's worthiness of their time. It passes with age, which is why Uncle Sokka hasn't had a girlfriend in so long."
"I thought it was because he was so busy being politically relevant."
"That's what he told you, is it? It's fairly typical of the early period of post-eligibility, also known as the denial stage. The subject is likely to make up far-fetched excuses, such as imaginary career obligations, in order to cover up his condition. It's likely also the reason why he didn't come to your birthday party today. Afflicted males become increasingly dedicated to the charade they construct."
Ursa seems increasingly worried. "So Uncle Sokka isn't here because he's sick?" she asks.
"In a way," replies Azula. "You don't have to worry, though. This is nothing True Love's Kiss can't cure. If he manages to find somebody to administer it, of course."
"What happens if he doesn't?"
"Well, Ursa," Azula sighs dramatically, "if he doesn't, then he might just become an old maid. Forever."
Ursa exhales and, in the very serious way of saying very silly things only children have, she says, "I'm glad I'm not a male."
Azula nods solemnly. "Me too, Ursa. Me too."
"Aw, it's not that bad." Zuko pushes himself off the pillar and approaches them.
"Dad!" Ursa calls happily. "Can we send Uncle Sokka a get-well-soon gift basket like he sent me when I had the komodo-chickenpox?"
Zuko hums in contemplation. "I'm not sure," he says. "He's all the way over at the South Pole right now. It might take several months to get to him."
"What if we give it to Aang and he gives it to him when he goes back home?"
"I don't know. You'll have to ask Aang."
"I will!" declares Ursa. She bounces up and zooms off to find Aang.
Zuko joins Azula on the edge of the pond and tosses her a cinnamon bun.
"I have to admit, your bullshitting skills have really improved," he tells her.
"Nonsense, Zuko. I'm an impeccable liar and always have been. You of all people should know that."
"Yeah, but you never used to do it just for fun."
"I did it just for fun quite often, actually."
"The non-sociopathic kind of fun, Azula."
"Oh."
They eat their cinnamon buns in, for once, not especially tense silence. Zuko notices that Azula eats her bun from the middle outwards, just like he always does. He'd never noticed that before.
"You know…" he says around a half-chewed glob of pastry. "I think it's good you're here."
Azula swallows her own mouthful and speaks with her usual condescension. "Well, I didn't exactly have a –"
She cuts herself short and twists her lips in an odd way.
Azula doesn't often bother to censure herself. Partly because she usually thinks every word through carefully before speaking, but mostly because her remarks are actually meant to be hurtful more often than not.
With very stiff shoulders and a different tone, she clears her throat and says, "Me too, Zuzu."
They stay (tensely) silent for more than a minute, and Zuko's never seen Azula look so uncomfortable.
He says, "Did you just use that stupid nickname in a non-sarcastic context?"
Azula's shoulders relax a fraction and she barks out a short laugh. "I did," she replies. "Thank you for ruining the mood, Zuzu. And I mean that sincerely."
They continue to chew on their cinnamon buns together, and when the turtle-ducks swim nearby, Azula tosses them a few crumbs in a way that isn't likely to cause brain damage.
.
In the end Mai and Zuko decide they'll take the weekend off and leave the kids at home with Azula and their nanny. They figure the two of them make a good balance, and in any case there are always the four cooks to keep an eye on things. Also, it would probably be much more conducive to Zuko's peace of mind if he doesn't sleep in the same building as his sister.
The party has dispersed, and only Toph, Aang, Azula and a handful of Mai's relatives are still around.
Azula is playing hide and seek with Zhuyin, who is watching her peek underneath tablecloths and behind large ornamental rocks from the branch of a eucalyptus tree and giggling gleefully. Zuko's fairly certain Azula is already aware he's up there, unless she's somehow managed to fail to notice the gleefully giggling tree in the corner. He doesn't think Azula's ever purposely lost anything before.
Aang is making up for lost time with Ursa and taking her piggyback riding in the sky. He's performing triple somersaults and corkscrew dives, and Ursa's squeals of joy can probably be heard all the way to Republic City. Zuko's pretty sure that in case it's still a tossup between Aang and Sokka over who's the cooler uncle, the scale is definitely tipping in Aang's favor at the moment.
Toph is flirting with some second-grand-cousin-in-law or something of equal needlessly confusing complexity. Of course, by 'flirting' he means 'engaging in hand-to-hand combat'. So really, they might actually be fighting for all he knows. Or just bonding over a friendly pissing contest. It is also possible that they've both simply had too much rice beer. Maybe Mai will understand it better.
He finds Mai working on her legal proposal near the southeast gate.
"What do you think Toph's doing with your grand-aunt's grandson's ex-wife's long lost brother over there?" he asks her.
"Who, Kulong? I think they know each other from her metalbending academy or something," she replies without taking her eyes off her paper.
"Hm. Should I go give him the 'if you ever hurt her' speech?"
"You absolutely shouldn't," says Mai. "She's already gotten back in touch with one overbearing father, she doesn't need another one."
He sighs. "You're right."
"I try to make a habit of it," she says distractedly and scratches out a few lines on her bill.
Zuko watches her work for a little while. Even concentrating intently, Mai is completely expressionless.
And completely beautiful.
"Hey," he murmurs softly.
"What?" she asks.
"We're kind of a weird family, aren't we," he says. "But I think, you know, mostly good enough."
From the corner of his eye he catches Mai staring at him as he gazes meaningfully into the horizon.
"That's very deep, Zuko," she says.
He turns to grin at her. "I think I'll just ignore the sarcasm. So, thank you, Mai."
"Ignoring your sincerity, you're welcome."
Zuko looks at Mai's unmoved expression and slips her scroll out of her hands. He truly loves this woman very sincerely much.
He winds one arm around Mai's waist, uses the other hand to muss up her perfect hair, and kisses her softly and messily until she smiles, and for some time after that.
