Just a reminder: I don't own Avatar.


Minstrels


"But what's wrong with the palace musicians?" Zuko asked, his voice rising to a whine as Katara led him to the Fire Lord's private concert hall.

"Oh, they're fine for all your Fire Nation shindigs, but this is our wedding! People from all the nations are going to be there, so we can't disappoint. I mean, how many songs outside of Fire Nation traditional dances do the palace musicians know?"

The Fire Lord was about to object – he was sure the royal orchestra knew lots of non-Fire songs. He'd never heard them play any. But that was beside the point!

(…The point being, he really, really didn't want to be there just now.)

"So I've got a few people lined up for auditions today," Katara extracted a list from her robes. Zuko closed his eyes and prayed to the spirits it was a short list. They heard his prayer. "Yeah, just three people."

Zuko brightened and sat on the edge of his chair, ready to accept the first act and be out of there in 5 minutes. Katara smiled at her suddenly enthusiastic fiancé and looked at her list.

"First up is 'Jee and the Waveriders.'"

"Jee?" Zuko cocked an eyebrow. Sure enough, his former lieutenant, ramrod straight and severe as ever, strode onto the stage, sitar in hand, followed by the ship's engineer who carried a drum, the Cook with an erhu, and the smooth-faced serving man with an armful of banging, clattering percussion instruments, including a triangle, a bell, a gong, and a set of cymbals.

"My lord," Jee bowed. "My lady," he smiled to Katara, who waved with a giggle.

"Since when have you found time among your duties to form a band, Jee?" Zuko said archly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Jee's sallow cheeks dusted pink. "Well, actually, we had a lot of time to practice over the, er, two years we traveled in search of the Avatar, and you never came out to music nights, so I guess you never heard us get better. Now that there's no war, I try to get gigs here and there. They don't pay a lot, but me and the band get free meals and drinks at the taverns. I talked to an agent the other night and he said—"

"Just play your song." Zuko interrupted, rubbing his forehead tiredly.

Jee grinned as the band set up. He opened, strumming wildly on his sitar as the rest beat out a fast, heavy beat.

Sailing your blue oceans
Riding your blue wave
Plowing through your sea foam
You're the only girl I crave

Drinking from your pond
Bathing in your water
Lying in the sand of your dirty, brown beach
And your glacier is melting as my ice pick gets hotter—

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!" Zuko stopped the band, and their song deflated. "This is a royal wedding, not a tavern sideshow! You can't go singing lyrics like that to the crowd! There'll be children there!"

Jee blinked at him. "But your majesty, this song is quite popular."

"Among who? Sailors and tavern wenches?"

"They prefer to be called 'beverage procurement managers.'" Jee sniffed.

"Get off the stage, Jee."

Jee and the Waveriders sulkily followed their leader out. Katara smiled wanly at her fiancé. "I thought they were pretty good."

"I don't even want to think about where they got the inspiration for those lyrics," Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. "Who's next?"

Katara looked at her list. "'Gods on Earth.'"

"Sounds like a religious band." Zuko snorted.

"Bumi recommended them."

"He also recommended I borrow one of his robes for the ceremony – you know, the yellow one with the blue polka dots? Then he said we should have Flopsie as the ring-bearer, and suggest we honeymoon in his 'newly refurbished holiday suite that was once a torture chamber.'"

"He meant well."

A quartet of teenage girls clattered onto the stage, a lute, drum, harp, and bawu flute in hand. They looked shyly upon the Fire Lord, blushing and giggling. Zuko suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable. There was something odd about these girls…

Katara narrowed her eyes at the band members as they ogled her fiancé.

"Well, nice to see you… uh…" And then she noticed they all had blue arrows painted onto their forehead. Upon closer inspection, she saw each of the girls wore tunics with one of the four elemental symbols drawn on. They stood trembling on the stage under the Waterbender's cool inspection.

"So, let hear what you've got," Zuko waved. The lute player stared wide-eyed at him. She dropped her instrument and shot forward.

"OMIGOD ZUKO, I LOVE YOU!" She screamed and sprinted towards him. The other three took this as a signal, dropping their instruments and squealing as they charged the Fire Lord.

Zuko barely had time to react. He let out a frightened cry and stumbled out of his chair, tripping over himself to get away from the mob of screaming girls. Thank the gods for Katara: she bent a great sluice of water from a nearby flower pot and froze them to the spot, then gathered more water to encase all four of them in a hollow sphere of ice. Their anguished, pleading cries continued even as the guards rolled the living snow globe away, the shrieking banshees clawing at their crystal prison, reaching out for the handsome young Fire Lord.

"Zuko, we love you!" Their muffled cries sounded through the thick ice.

Zuko shuddered and turned away. "Next time, do you think you could just freeze them to death? It'd let me sleep better at night knowing there's one less thing to worry about."

"Fucking fangirls…" Katara muttered. "Okay, one last act to see and you can go. And they are… hey, it's Chong and the Nomads!"

"Who?"

And out stepped the most ridiculous looking bunch of bohemians Zuko had ever seen. Their leader, the man he could only assume was Chong, walked onto the stage, barefooted, casually strumming his lute. He was followed by a fat, effeminate man, who Chong introduced as Moku, tapping on a tiny drum; and Lily, a tall and willowy woman engrossed by her flute. Two nameless others waved and flailed about to the wayward tune, their flower garlands bouncing against their bodies. A sweet, heady, smoky aroma wafted in with them, but it did not hide the smell of unwashed bodies.

"Heeeeyyy, River Lady!" Chong pointed languidly at Katara. She waved and grinned.

"You know these… people?" Zuko asked incredulously.

"They took us through the Cave of Two Lovers," Katara explained.

"Wait, Cave of Two Lovers? I know that legend… aren't you supposed to kiss someone or something in order to find your way out?" Zuko narrowed his eyes at her. "And who, exactly, did you kiss?"

"Chong, let's hear it!" Katara insisted brightly.

"Now hold on there, River Lady. We're supposed to be here to audition for the Fire Lord's wedding party."

"You were only traveling with your brother…" Zuko reasoned out loud.

"This is the audition." Katara said firmly.

"Whoa. So you're the Fire Lord?"

"…and the Avatar…" Zuko stroked his chin.

"Do I look like a Firebender to you?"

"Weeeeellll, not really. Say, where is Master Arrowhead these days?"

"…and Appa and Momo…"

"He's around. Look, could you just play your song?"

"…which leads me to believe…"

"Please Chong, we need you to play," Katara said nervously.

"Well sure… uh, maybe something exciting, like an adventure story?"

"…that you kissed someone within your group of travelers…"

"It's a wedding Chong, not a campfire."

"Well, maybe you should get a campfire at the wedding." Chong suggested. "Then we could have marshmallows. That would be sweeeeeet."

"…and it could only have been one person…" Zuko glared accusingly at his wife-to-be.

"Look, never mind that, just play a song! Any song!" Katara shouted.

Chong shrugged and launched into one of his boisterous two-tone ditties, his band mates joining in tunelessly.

Flowers
Yeah yeah yeah
Flowers are so pretty
Yeah yeah yeah
Flowers make the world a better place
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
Floweeeeerrrrrs! Yeah!

They stopped abruptly and bowed. Katara clapped enthusiastically and Chong smiled up at her.

Zuko stared blankly ahead, his brain momentarily stunned into a state where it could no longer sense the musical assault.

"That was so bad it gave me indigestion." He croaked finally.

"What are you talking about? It was really good!"

The Firebender leaned forward and hissed. "Katara. They just sang about flowers. They didn't even sing about them, they just sort of talked about them and played a couple of notes and danced around like idiots. Beside, we can't hire them! They're a bunch of awful-smelling hippies!"

"So?"

"My father hates hippies. He used to set them on fire and watch them run around in circles until they stopped trying to sing the pain away. Then he'd have them healed and fixed up, and he'd do it all over again, just for kicks."

Katara frowned in thought. "Hmm. A definite drawback." She kneaded her temples. "And Azula would probably hate them, too… she told me something about a phobia she has for bohemians…"

Zuko blinked and grinned at the nomads. "You're hired."

"Excellent!" Chong said. "We'll see you two at the wedding!" The nomads danced away to a tune that sounded almost exactly like the one they'd just heard, only now they were singing:

Hired
Yeah yeah yeah
Playing music is fun
Yeah yeah yeah
Music is good weddings and parties and good for everyone
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
We'll get to eeeeeaaaaaatt…

Zuko shuddered, but suddenly remembered what he was saying before the hippies had broke his brain with bad ballads.

"You… you went through the Cave of Two Lovers," he said slowly. "And you kissed someone, didn't you?"

Katara backed away, hurriedly explaining herself. "It was a long time ago, and it wasn't how it happened – we got out of the cave by following the glowing crystals…"

But Katara's blush could not hide the truth from the Fire Lord. He tsked in disappointment. "Oh, Katara. I thought you had better taste than that..."

The Waterbender's eyes widened.

"…Kissing Moku." Zuko shook his head in disgust.