a little scene I wrote way back at the beginning of this year! for the zutaraang zine, which was completed in august :)
Summary: Strange feelings surface when Zuko attends an air temple wedding ceremony.
"Enjoying yourself, Your Fieryness?"
Zuko looks up to see Aang, his arms open, adorned with ceremonial shawls and a grin. He walks into the welcome embrace of his closest friend. "You know I love it up here, Aang."
Aang draws his arm around Zuko's shoulder, turning to gaze at the scene before them. It's a large wedding, in true Fire Nation style, but there isn't much in the way of formalities and hardly any pageantry––probably what he should have expected from two hardy reconstruction volunteers.
"This is amazing, right?" Aang gestures to where the pair in question is seated on a stage, chatting away to their party. Zuko's eyes linger on one of the brides, Kumari, her bright red sleeves stark against the pale rocky surroundings.
"Who would have thought we'd be having two weddings here?" Aang's voice is full of wonder.
Zuko relishes the excitement in his eyes. "You sound like you're the bride's mother or something." He knows what's underneath that glimmering gaze––a hunger, to see his home alive like this, milling with people and replete with the promise of joy and beginnings. He gives Aang's shoulder a squeeze, thumb lingering briefly where it joins his collarbone.
Aang shrugs him off, heedless. Zuko's heart picks up unnecessarily. He hurries to say, "You think you'll have your own wedding up here too?"
Aang's silence rings against the low chatter of the party. "Don't know," he murmurs, his gaze far. Zuko curses himself for asking the question. One misstep after another.
But then Aang turns to face Zuko, cheeks dimpling in a knowing smile. "I mean––I know not to make assumptions about that."
Zuko laughs. The last time he'd met Aang he had been roped, unknowingly, into giving both him and Katara relationship advice after a fight over where to live together had nearly torn them apart. "Thank the Spirits for that." The memory elicits a skittering sense of unease in his chest. Aang and Katara had always been a done deal in his eyes, and he hadn't expected to become so intimately aware of their cracks and insecurities. Hadn't expected to be the person privy to such worries, and he was surprised by the strength of his own investment in the matter.
He hadn't expected to be trusted with the fearful corners of both their minds––the two most dazzling, shining people Zuko has ever known.
"––No, thank you." Aang's tone is revealing. Zuko can intuit from it how much his counsel had really meant. He clears his throat, warm despite the choppy breeze. "Make sure you say hi to Katara, by the way."
"She's here? She came with you?"
"Yes," Aang says, knitting his brows. "You sound surprised, what are you implying––? Anyway, she's Arna's neighbour! It's a small tribe."
Zuko shakes his head. "I wasn't implying anything, idiot." He just hadn't prepared, in his mind, to see them both. He tries not to give thought to what there is to be prepared for. He's just never been a natural at the social side of––well, anything.
He finds his gaze drawn back to Kumari, unable to take his eyes off the Fire Nation noblewoman sitting comfortably in a rustic air temple courtyard as if she had always belonged there. Could he get away with something so simple for his own wedding, whenever that would be? So much silent pressure was lifted in the first place by the fact that this was no traditional ceremony between a man and woman. Could he ever––?
Aang is staring, intently.
"What?" Zuko coughs.
"You look like you're in pain."
"You're acting weird. Go entertain your acolytes, Avatar," Zuko mutters distractedly. Aang generously bows to take his leave, and Zuko shakes his head, receiving a soft smile in return.
He thinks about trust.
Kumari's wedding to Arna was a surprise to Zuko. He got the impression it wasn't surprising to others––all the acolytes and volunteers working on the restoration of the Southern Air Temples had gossiped voraciously about them over the past few months, even in front of the Fire Lord––but a part of Zuko, somewhere in the back of his mind, had never thought it possible beyond the abstract. They weren't the first pair to come out of this intense, years-long project, a brainchild of Zuko's and Aang's many moons ago. Something about the clear skies up there, the long hours and secluded caverns had had their effect. When two construction workers from the Southern Water Tribe had met and married on the island two years ago, Zuko had gotten the invitation and declined due to a conflicting meeting at home.
He wanders into the crowd of casually dressed attendees on the main plateau. This one he had to attend. For one thing, Kumari is his own subject, and an important one at that. She had left a life of comfort in the capital to toil up where the air was thin and the work hard and physical. Her parents, both court councillors, had been two of Ozai's mooks who were imprisoned after a lengthy tribunal last year. Her presence here, rebuilding the air nomad lifestyle, has almost as much weight as Zuko's own.
There are other matters of optics, too, though he hates to couch it in such sterile terms. Kumari's bride, Arna, is indeed from Katara's village, which makes the union supposedly symbolic. He doesn't understand why there had been so much fanfare around that fact in the first place, and definitely doesn't like the talk of precedents that it put in the mouths of tabloid writers.
Needless to say, a lot of goodwill hinges on the Fire Lord's presence at this wedding.
It had apparently been decided in the lead up to the previous wedding that Aang was the only person appropriate for officiating air temple ceremonies. Zuko wonders how much that decision had to do with decorum, rather than Aang's personal eagerness for this newfound hobby.
Aang clears his throat dramatically as the crowd converges. With a wink spared for a glowing Arna, he begins, "Everyone! Let's settle. We're gathered here for a very special occasion today…"
Zuko lets his mind slip for a moment––these events, where he isn't the focus of the world's attention, aren't as common as he'd like. His eyes flicker over the beaming faces from all nations gathered here. He yearns for them, their ease, more at home with ragtag volunteers than at the palace back home; he envies Aang for spending so much time among them.
Envies them for all the time they spend up here with him.
Amidst the wash of colours, a head of brown hair catches his eye, strands glinting momentarily golden in the fickle sunlight. Katara's eyebrows shoot up in recognition, and Zuko breaks into a smile for her. Still in a pleasant daze, warmth creeps up his limbs as he holds her gaze.
Aang continues talking.
"...we owe so much to these everyday instances of love. Ten years ago, who would have thought that two people from the Fire Nation and Water Tribes, would meet, be friends, fall in love? It couldn't be clearer to me…"
Aang's words float into his head, Katara's face the only thing clear in his vision. As he watches, her expression clouds into something softer, something almost tender. She flits her gaze away, quick as a fireburst, and looks back at him again. Her mouth parts gently, breaking into another smile.
It couldn't be clearer...
Zuko blinks into focus all too suddenly. He releases a shaky breath. What just happened? Did Aang's words mean something to her––?
No. None of this makes any sense.
Seconds or minutes pass, his brain too alarmed to count them. The crowd is quiet for a moment longer, and then it heaves, erupting into claps and shouts. There's a brief flash of Kumari and Arna embracing, but Zuko's mind is preoccupied.
His eyes search desperately for Katara through the din. For his own sake, he hopes his thoughts hadn't been clear on his face.
Through the waving arms and bobbing heads of the wedding-goers, Aang bounds up next to Katara. She catches him in her arms. Silent, animated words are exchanged, their noses inches apart; pinpricks rise in the back of Zuko's neck. They do look the furthest thing from broken up. Aang gestures towards the happy couple up in front and whispers something into Katara's ear that makes her cup a hand over her giggling mouth.
Zuko turns and walks out of the crowd automatically. Maybe he isn't ready to see them both again—together, or apart. Maybe, though he's too frustrated to pinpoint whatever it might be, there was a reason he didn't deserve the unequivocal trust they had given him.