3. Voices
"Miri had not realized that Eskelites spoke with an accent until she noticed how much Liana sounded like an Aslandian. Miri wondered if Liana had practiced long to work the accents of home off her tongue." —Palace of Stone, Shannon Hale
Katara listened as Zuko rattled off the agenda for today's meeting, noting how he refused to fiddle his hands, clenching them in his lap as he sat cross-legged in his throne, and reviewed her notes for her proposal. It was the first meeting for her with the Fire Council alone, without any of the Gaang or the nations' ambassadors or leaders to help. She was ready for challenge as her new role of Ambassador that Zuko had bestowed upon her soon after his coronation. Katara tried not to fidget or chew on the inside of her cheek as Zuko's raspy, yet confident voice addressed the next topic: the war orphans.
"My Lord, shouldn't we be discussing the internal affairs of our nation and the trade with the Earth Kingdom instead?" one of the nobles inquired.
'Shouldn't we be discussing more important matters instead?' Katara silently translated in her head. Zuko turned his head to look at him, no flames in the way—although his eyes were glowing.
"The war orphans have come from our nation, too, General Yao. This war has not just affected the other three, and I am not undermining their casualties when I say that the war has rebounded on us, and not just after. All of us in this room have lost a loved one—whether it be a relative, friend, or lover—fighting in the war meant for conquering and plunder. If you are so worried about our internal affairs or the trade with the Earth Kingdom, we will discuss it at tomorrow's meeting at length."
"Yes, sire." General Yao was forced to answer. Zuko nodded and turned to face her. "Lady Katara of the Southern Water Tribes has a proposal to help the war orphans. Please give her the proper respect and attention. My lady, you have the floor." He could not openly show her public approval, for fear for blatant favoritism, but his eyes were kind as she rose nervously, papers drinking in her hands.
"Thank you, Fire Lord." she bowed to him, as custom dictated. "My proposal is not simple; it is—" She heard a whisper and a snicker, but decided to go on. "it requires hard work and dedication. The orphanages—most of them—are run-down. Some are put down in kindness, others in haste. My—" Now she hears it—mimicry, not as expert as the sparrowkeets in Ba Sing Se, but exaggerated and audacious like the Ember Island Players. She's more aware of her tongue and the placement of it and the way her words slur and blend together unlike the local dialect, and her cheeks grow hot.
"—This is about the children, not just about diplomacy. The children's innocence has—have been shattered in the Hundred Year War, and nothing can compared—compare to losing your parents..."
Katara notices the more nervous she gets, the more her vowels blur together and her words falter, but she refuses to let this stop her. Are they even listening to her plan? She remembers the hours and days planned, ink stains on her hands, talking it over with Zuko, rehearsing and pacing...
"That's enough!" she nearly jumps at Zuko's angry tone, but it isn't directed at her. "Silence! Do not disrespect her!" He gestures for her to go on, but she hasn't calmed her breath long enough, and it's trembling and shaky and she fears that it'll be her undoing. What a stupid ending for her, almost undone by petty words and looks. But her dignity must be salvaged, she decides firmly, so she lifts her chin and stares at Zuko straight in the eye.
"My Lord, I have finished with my part," she lies smoothly. "It is your turn."
Zuko looks a bit surprised, but he quickly wipes his face clean of all emotions before this can be caught. He nods, shooting her a quiet glance of concern, and glances down at the copy of her papers in his hands (as Fire Lord, he has every single plan in front of him).
Katara sits back and lets Zuko take over, enunciating her plan and wrapping it up, offering discussion. The proposal is eventually agreed upon, and she bows in acceptance.
She does not speak again for the rest of the meeting.
"I'm so sorry about that, Katara."
In spite of herself, she smiles. Trust Zuko to apologize for a roomful of noblemen and take all the responsibility. They're having a private dinner in the main dining room, Katara at his right side, the huge table empty. Zuko is anxiously staring at her over his roasted komodo-chicken.
"It's all right, Zuko." she soothes, involuntarily noticing how her voice compares to his—he has that faint lisp, to be sure, but there's that clear, sharp tone beneath it, no shuddering of words. Her accent isn't as prominent as her father's or Arnook's—they've mostly been around other Water Tribesmen—presumably because of her traveling, but it's still there.
"No, it's not. I thought after the war, after the summits and meetings, they'd stop, but...stupid of me to think..." Zuko stabbed his chicken with such force that his plate shuddered. "I wish they let you finish, Katara. I don't think I did as well as you did."
She smiled softly and takes a bite out of her smoked sea-slug. Spicy. "I...didn't realize I sounded quite as...different."
"Your words were more important than..." he hesitated.
"My accent." Katara finishes for him. "I know. I knew yours was different when we first met. Sokka and I never have heard Fire Nation really speak to us before." She blushed again, remembering while on the run, the siblings would mimic Zuko unkindly. Aang had looked, but hadn't said much. He must have been too embarrassed to speak up, probably thinking of his own friends back in the Fire Nation who spoke the same way. She wondered what would have happened if he had said something.
"Me too. Your voice...for a Waterbender..." he looked at her and hesitated again. He stuffed another piece of komodo chicken into his mouth.
"What, your Highness?" she asked, curiously, almost playfully.
"It sounded like a Waterbender's." he quickly muttered, looking down. "Like how I imagined it."
"Oh." Katara remembered the propaganda textbooks she helped haul out one month and the entries on the Water Tribes. Zuko had shook his head and refused to look at them. She felt herself flush red once again, and it definitely wasn't out of pleasure again.
Katara focused on her words, trying to speak quickly. It didn't change much. She tried to practice alone, reading out of scrolls and remembering the old days of mimicking Zuko and trying to imitate him. It took trial and error, but she spoke in full length about the progress in the war orphans plan at the next meeting without hearing any snickers.
Zuko often looked at her oddly as weeks passed, and finally, he stopped her while on a walk together.
"Katara," he asked of her. "say apple for me."
"Apple." She parroted easily. Katara gave him an easy smile, as if she didn't know what was going on, but he wasn't fooled. Zuko appraised her and asked her to repeat several more words, including the ones where she'd struggled for weeks—the most difficult ones, the ones where her accent showed the most and still did sometimes if she was not careful. She didn't falter for a second and stared at him when he stopped.
He stared back and thought for a moment. "Continue talking, please."
She did. Zuko never interrupted or interjected and only nodded. "Stop," he eventually commanded.
"Katara, what..." He scratched his head and continued. "You sound...different. Like...Fire Nation."
She only looked at him. "I do."
"You've only been here for a few weeks; you shouldn't be...it's not long enough..." Zuko was in deduction mode. "Katara, you didn't..."
She refused to look at him.
"Katara!" He looked indignant and pulled her closer by the forearms. "I...why?"
She shook her head.
"I..." the tip of his ear turns red. "I liked it. It sounded smooth and nice and flowing. Like a Waterbender. Like you."
She's gaping at him, and he's now guiding her back to his office. "We're going to have a chat, my lady."
"Stop bossing me around!" she snaps, and the "o" sound turns into an "oo" and "ah" drags atrociously, and Katara flames in mortification as the passing noblewomen stare and look away, doubtless tittering in their upheld fans.
"This is what I'm talking about, Katara." he's siting her down in his office and pulling out some papers. "You can't be embarrassed."
"I am," she protested angrily, wincing at the pronounced vowels. "Stop making me angry! I hate that!"
"Katara..." Zuko looks at her sadly, with pity. She refuses to look at him. "I know what it's like, to be gawked at. But you can't—"
"You don't know what it's like to be laughed at every time you speak!" Katara snaps, and Zuko's eyes darken.
"I do." He leans forward and puts down the papers. "You have noticed my...lisp, haven't you?"
"...Yes." Katara can see that she's shoved Zuko's buttons and pushed them hard, and by the way his eyes are looking, it looks like it'll be another pleasant story from his childhood.
"It was worse when I was a child. Much worse." Zuko glances out the window and stares far away. "I couldn't pronounce the 'sss' sounds and just rasped along the sharp sounds and spat. Worst, I had to go to the Fire Nation Academy for Boys—where all the noble-boys went. I had to read out loud every single day of the year in front of the class. Do you know how embarrassing that was for me, especially because I was the Prince, supposed to be looked upon and praised? No one dared to openly tease me, but I heard every single whisper, every little taunt."
Katara bites her lip and looks down. Zuko isn't done.
"When I got back for the holidays, my father heard of it. He got me all of these tutors to help. All they did was humiliate me if I couldn't read right. They would make me repeat sentences and words and phrases over and over, and I just...couldn't. Father...would hit me. He thought I wasn't trying hard enough.
"My mother helped. She would seek me out and shoo the tutors away. She made up games and tongue twisters and stories to help me. She would drill me every day. When I had to go back, she'd find out what would be read and tell me so I could look them up and practice.
"Thank the gods Azula was a toddler when this was happening. She didn't tease me. She didn't get a chance, because she never learned about the whole reading out loud thing. Father covered it all up. That was before he forgot to care about about the general public opinion about the Fire Prince."
"Zuko..."
"I'm not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me or to get your accent back. It's wrong...it was wrong for me to laughed at; it was wrong for you to be laughed at. But my...speech impediment was different. It needed to be corrected—I was going to speak in public a lot, for one thing. But they have no right to be telling you that your accent should be...it. That's your identity, Katara."
Identity...
She taps her fingers, remembering Aang's dialect that reminded her, appropriately, of wind chimes, high and chiming, while Toph, though she covered it with roughened language and snarks, had a slight "posh" (as Sokka once called it) accent like her parents. In the short time Suki had been with them, she'd sounded a bit different from all the group—not quite Earth Kingdom, but with a clear, crisp voice like autumn leaves. Haru, Teo, and the Duke all sounded slightly different, too, despite being from the Earth Kingdom. And there were the different languages, too. The last time she spoke her native tongue was...the day she found Aang, when she spoke to Gran Gran about storing meat.
"...Zuko." Katara says thoughtfully and letting her tongue caress the "zz" sound that she found, at first, difficult to say. "Thank you."
Katara does well for many years as the Southern Water Tribe Ambassador, traveling from her home to the Fire Nation and in-between. She makes speeches at almost every meeting, and her voice grows stronger and more confident, sometimes echoing around the room. She notices Zuko when this happens one day, smiling softly at her, eyes glinting in the new, somewhat dim, electric light Sokka invented, loosely holding reams of paper in his hands. It is not until she eventually finishes her proposal on reforms in Republic City that she realizes that he's been doing that for a very, very long time.
They arrive back in the Fire Nation together, this time, holding hands.
"You'll have to make a speech when you address the crowd," her soon-to-be husband informed her cautiously and twisted his hands together. "Do you...are you okay with that?"
She stood on her tip-toes and kissed his nose. "Of course."
Notes: I really hope I did this particular prompt well and described speech impediments accurately and in a way that did not offend anyone. The same goes with accents. As you can see, I took the inspiration from a line from Palace of Stone, sequel of Princess Academy. The quote from the summary is from Goose Girl, another novel by Shannon Hale. Don't be discouraged by Stephenie Meyer's quote on the cover on some editions. Her books are wonderful! (Not Meyer's)
I would really love to hear what you guys think and leave feedback so I know if you've enjoyed these prompts. There have been many views and alerts for this collection (thank you), but please drop a few words.