(The Day Before the Wedding)

"SOKKA, GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE AND HELP US!" yelled Katara, who was absolutely drenched from running around the fountains with Aang, trying to break apart the fight between the eel-swans and turtle-ducks.

While they had succeeded in breaking apart the fight, they only managed to accidentally allow them to escape and roam the palace gardens wildly; and they only just managed to corner them. From the other side of the garden, Toph let out a yowl as one of the eel-swans bit her. Suki was doing an OK job at wrangling the turtle-ducks, but each time one of them caught sight of one of the eel-swans, complete chaos ensued as mother turtle-ducks launched themselves at the eel-swans all over again.

"Sokka, are you listening to me?" demanded Katara as she attempted (to no avail) to remove the turtle-duck that had attached itself to her foot.

Sokka didn't answer but crept forward, warily eyeing the turtle-ducks.

"What kind of grown man is scared of turtle-ducks?" asked Toph, who was running after an eel-swan.

Sokka harrumphed at her loudly. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said dramatically before reaching down to grab for a stray eel-swan, "Why don't you try having a gaggle of turtle-ducks chase you because you accidentally got too close to their nest when you were five?"

"Sixteen," corrected Suki over her shoulder.

Sokka looked personally offended that his fiance wouldn't have his back on this. "Regardless of the age, it was still trau-ma-tic! YOWCH!" he yanked his hand away jerkily when the eel-swan he was attempting to grab nipped it.

"You know what, this is getting ridiculous," grumbled Toph, who was stepping away from the swans. "Everyone, move!" Suki and Katara, who were wrangling the turtle-ducks and eel-swans respectively, immediately backed away.

Toph stomped her foot against the ground before earthbending the ground so that it rose up and formed barriers around and between the eel-swans and the turtle ducks, ensuring that they couldn't escape or fight each other. Unfortunately for Sokka, however, he was too close to the enclosures when Toph created them, so he was unintentionally trapped in the turtle-duck enclosure.

The smirk on Toph's face, though, indicated that Sokka's entrapment wasn't exactly 'unintentional' per se.

He yelped as soon as he realized what had happened, before quickly proceeding to scramble towards the barrier and try to climb it.

"Toph, this isn't funny!" he shouted as he scrabbled to escape.

"Let him out, Toph," said Suki, though her eyes were twinkling with mirth and a smile was tugging at her lips.

Toph sighed. "Oh, alright," she mumbled. And with a twist of the hand, the barrier moved just enough so that Sokka could climb out but the turtle-ducks would stay in.

"Well, now that we've got them under control," said Katara, eyeing the honking eel-swans and quaking turtle-ducks with a look of appraisal, "How are we supposed to get them to stay in the fountains like Zuko wants?"

"Put wiring around the fountains so they can't escape or fight each other?" suggested Toph.

Sokka, who was as far as possible away from the turtle-duck enclosure, snorted a laugh. "Yeah, because decorating the Royal Gardens to looks like the Boiling Rock will totally encourage the serene environment Fire Lord Hot-Head wants."

Toph opened her mouth to retort but was cut off by two sighs of loud relief from behind her.

"Looks like you managed to get them under control without even needing our help," exclaimed a high-pitched, cheery voice.

Turning around, the group saw Ty Lee and Aang heading towards them. Aang looked surprised yet relieved to find that the issue was resolved, and Ty Lee looked nonchalant about it.

"Did you find Zuko?" asked Katara, who was straining her neck to glance behind her husband and Ty Lee. "Because I really need to talk to him about some of his wedding details. I mean, seriously, I get that he's the Fire Lord and everything, but why does he need a herd of eel-swans and turtle-ducks?"

"To 'encourage a serene environment for the ceremony'," recited Sokka. "Obviously," he added in a sarcastic tone.

Ignoring Sokka's comment, Aang answered Katara's question. "No, Zuko's not here. He and his mother went out shopping but—"

All of a sudden, a distant yet shrill voice broke out, cutting Aang off mid-sentence.

"Oh, my! How — wha-WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS, KIYI?" screeched the distant yet very familiar voice of Lady Ursa. And, from their perspective, it sounded like her voice was coming from the location of the wedding venue.

A second later, another distant but also very familiar (but distinctly male) voice rung out. "YOU BROKE THE ROOF?" demanded the shocked, incredulous, and equally distant voice of Fire Lord Zuko.

Dumbfounded — Sokka and Aang exchanged glances, Katara and Suki let out a synchronous groan of frustration, Ty Lee began curiously looking in the direction of the nearby wedding venue, and Toph started hooting with laughter.

"Looks like they're back from their lil' shopping trip," said Toph, her tone riddled with laughter.

. . .

When his mother told him to come with her to go shopping for flower crowns, Zuko had thought it to be a nice one-hour get-away from the chaos at the palace. He did not, however, expect for him to return to the palace, only to discover that his sister and Tom-Tom (along with a messenger hawk who was curiously lacking a letter), had crashed through the roof.

Zuko and his mother had returned to the palace, only for a startled-looking servant to approach him babbling about how the two teenagers had somehow managed to fall through the roof. Immediately following the servant, they found Kiyi and Tom-Tom and a message-less messenger hawk lying, dazed but unharmed, and surrounded by debris and rubble from the roof that they had fallen through.

They also spotted Fire Sage Nya, who had just left the Royal Planetarium before rushing over to the venue at the sound of two teenagers breaking through it, and she was in a fitful state.

"Inauspicious," she kept murmuring over and over, her very large eyes misty. "Foretells unwanted injury... very inauspicious indeed..."

Ignoring the Fire Sage, Ursa had let out a shriek of horror, then seemed to have lost her voice entirely as she gaped - shocked - at the scene before her.

"Oh, my!" she exclaimed, rushing to her daughter's side to make sure was uninjured. "How — wha-WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS, KIYI?"

Fire Sage Nya tut-tutted to herself before murmuring in a dreamy voice, "Inauspicious...very inauspicious indeed..."

"That'll be enough, Fire Sage Nya," Ursa snapped before turning to her daughter once more. Ursa was never particularly fond of the Fire Sage after she inaccurately predicted Zuko's early death.

Zuko, who had not yet realized that the two teenagers destroyed a section of the venue as well as left a gaping hole in the roof the day before his wedding, was turning an impressive shade of purple as the realization dawned on him.

"I-you-" he started in a quiet voice. Looking up at the hole in the roof, then back at the dazed teenagers, he felt a vein in his temple throb. "YOU BROKE THE ROOF?!" he shouted incredulously.

"It was an accident," muttered Kiyi, who was looking around the room as if it was spinning and she was trying to get it to stop.

"Foretells unwanted injury... accidental accidents... very inauspicious..."

"I said that'll be quite enough, Fire Sage Nya," snapped Ursa irritably at the Fire Sage before turning back to her daughter with anger. "Kiyi, how could this have happened?"

Kiyi looked down at her feet in embarrassment. "Well, Tom-Tom and I were on the roof outside my bedroom," she started.

"The roof?" wailed Ursa. "How many times have I told you not to go up there? How many times, Kiyi?"

She frowned. "I know, I know, but we were up there anyway. And then we sort of fell, but it was totally Tom-Tom's fault, and then I used firebending to help slow our fall, but I was accidentally burning Tom-Tom while doing so, and he started squirming and I crashed into this bird—" she gestured vaguely to the dazed, harassed-looking messenger hawk — "And we sort of all fell through the roof."

Zuko looked at his half-sister in shock. "Of all the days and places, Kiyi, that you could've crashed through a roof — you decided to crash through the roof of my wedding venue the day before the wedding?"

"It wasn't like I did it on purpose!" snapped Kiyi defensively.

"Accidental accidents... unwanted injury... tut-tut-tut."

Tom-Tom suddenly groaned before Ursa had the chance to snap at the Fire Sage, and he was clutching a hand to the side of his head. "Don't talk. Head hurts."

"Oh, a lot more than your head is going to hurt by the time I'm through with you, young man," hissed the dangerously low voice of Michi.

Zuko turned to see his future mother-in-law, alongside his future wife, making swift strides towards the wreckage.

"Didn't I tell you to be on your best behavior?" Michi growled through gritted teeth, reaching down to tug at his ear. "What, exactly, did I say that made you think roof-hopping and destruction of property were well-mannered?"

Mai, who was shaking in anger, looked at her brother (whose ears were in the process of being tugged at) in disbelief.

"You actually fell through the roof," Mai said to Tom-Tom, shocked. "You actually managed to be that stupid."

Zuko gave a sharp look of disapproval in Kiyi's direction. "The day before I got married. Seriously?"

"When we get back home, Tom-Tom, I swear, you'll be grounded," threatened Michi, her fingers still firmly tugging at his ear.

"You're grounded too," said Ursa firmly to Kiyi. "Honestly, where you kids get these ideas..."

"Inauspicious... totally inauspicious..."

From an outsider's perspective, it seemed as if the four adults were taking turns berating their corresponding teenager with admonitions. To make it more bizarre, there was also a trembling old, misty-eyed woman wailing about inauspiciousness. A very uncomfortable situation to witness in all regards.

So maybe that was why Ty Lee, Sokka, Suki, Aang, and Katara were all slowly backing away from this scene.

They had rushed over to the wedding venue at the sound of the shrieks and commotion, and in the chaos of everything, went unnoticed by the two dazed teenagers, the harassed-looking messenger hawk, and the four disappointed adults who seemed to be taking turns at chastising Kiyi and Tom-Tom. And they weren't exactly looking forward to being spotted now. Maybe if they crept away quietly, nobody would notice them and - BOOM - awkward situation avoided.

Well, unfortunately for them, Toph couldn't completely stifle the chortle that escaped her before she clapped a hand over her mouth.

The two Fire Nation mothers, their respective teenagers, and the soon-to-be-wed Royal Couple (as well as a lamenting Fire Sage) turned their heads to glance at the newcomers — who were giving deer-in-the-headlights looks. And it didn't help that all the newcomers were drenched from running around after the eel-swans and turtle-ducks and feathers were sticking to their clothes.

After a beat of awkward silence, Sokka cleared his throat.

"Good news, guys: we managed to get the turtle-ducks and eel-swans that Zuko wanted for serenity, or whatever it was he said, to stop attacking each other. Bad news: we don't know how to get them into the fountains without a total interspecies fight-to-the-death ensuing."

Mai's scowl deepened, but she didn't look surprised as Aang had already broken the news to her. For Zuko however, every single word that Sokka said was news to him.

"Let me get this straight," Zuko started, "It's the day before one of the biggest wedding of the century, our wedding venue is demolished, we're one step away from an interspecies Armageddon, and Caldera City's head Fire Sage foretells of all sort of inauspicious events?"

"Inauspicious... I tried telling them... oh, yes, I did try..."

Ty Lee uncomfortably cleared her throat. "Oh, and the printing company misspelled Mai's name on the banner," she mumbled.

"And the pamphlets," Mai added flatly.

"And the printing company misspelled Mai's name on the banner and the pamphlets," echoed Zuko wryly, who - despite this information being news to him - didn't look all too shocked. "Great. Fantastic. Anything else anyone would like to contribute?"

When nobody answered him, he smacked his hand against his forehead before vocalizing the unanimous thought that was going through everyone's mind:

"This is a nightmare."

To be continued