AN: This chapter is significantly shorter than the intro and only covers a short span of time. I cut it short for good reason though, don't fret! In the next chapter we shall talk babies. :)
I am sixteen on my wedding day.
They dress me up in a red and white embroidered gown that feels like it weighs a hundred pounds. It's probably not even an exaggeration. They paint my face and stick ornaments in my hair and I have to sit still so I don't mess anything up. I long to see Zuko but it is forbidden for any man to see the bride before her husband sees her. That also means I can't see my brother or my father, but I know they'll be at the ceremony. Knowing makes me feel a fraction better.
I glance into the mirror and have to do a double take. Is that really me, with those red lips and the crazy hairdo? I find myself touching the glass, making sure this was real. I touch the golden flames in my hair and the drops of fire hanging from my earlobes. How can that really be me, looking like a porcelain doll?
It's not really me, I decide. I'm not fire and finery, I'm cool water and simplicity. I'm just a girl being forced to grow up. I turn abruptly, feeling the anger boil in the pit of my stomach. I want to scream and cry about how unfair everything is, that someone else should marry the prince. Instead it's just me, alone in this room and waiting to bring honor to my people. Well, they can take their honor and—
A soft knock interrupts my silent tirade and I honestly try to calm my face before opening the door.
"Who spit in your bean curd?" A shaggy headed Zuko is not who I expected to see. I drag him in by the front of his robes and close the door quickly.
"What are you doing here?" I try to be stern with him, because that's the only way he learns right from wrong, but I can't deny the fact that I'm thrilled to see him.
"I'm here to see you, of course," he grins cheekily and oh, how I want to slap him. Slap him and maybe kiss him hard on the mouth. I swallow both urges.
"Tradition," I remind him, just about to enter full lecture mode, but he finishes the thought for me.
"Dictates a man can't see the bride before her husband, blah blah blah, I know." He waves his hand as if to sweep away such outdated nonsense. "Heard it a thousand times. Original royal here."
"There must be some extra special reason you're here, or you'd wait until after the ceremony," I point out. He runs a hand through his hair, something I've come to recognize as a nervous habit. "What is it?" I ask, my eyes narrowing.
"I wanted to tell you...something important," he says, suddenly so shy like the kid he used to be. His distracted earlobe tugging mixed with the hesitation begins to make me nervous.
"Spit it out before someone comes and sees us!" I insist. I have zero time for his shy boyishness at the moment, but I'm also frightened at what he might say.
"Katara," he begins again, more serious this time. More determined than ever to tell me what we both don't need hanging between us. A soft knock stops us both dead in our tracks. As quietly as we can, I stuff him into the tall wardrobe and bid whoever it was enter.
An employed woman simpers over me, so flighty all of these people are. She gives me the message, her true purpose, and pats my hair into place before leaving.
"It was a maid," I whisper, not daring to raise my voice. "It's almost time. You should get out of here."
"Not until I tell you how I feel," he asserts, stepping back into the room.
"We both know how you feel, please don't make it any harder for us," I beg. "Please." I can't help it, my hand moves on its own. I brush back the stray hairs from his face before I remember myself. These games we play have dangerous consequences.
"You ask me to stop but your actions tell me a different story," he mutters. I feel his hand shake against my cheek and I remember the first time our lips brushed. So innocent it had been, but look where it has brought us. "If only things were different, I'd be the one waiting for you out there."
"Something tells me we are always so teasingly close in our incarnations. We're always one step away..."
"I won't let you get any farther from me." He pulls me close and I squeeze him tight, careful not to smear the paint on my face. This past year has been trying for the both of us, so tantalizing and maddening. So many secret meetings and suppressed kisses I cannot count them.
"You have to leave, someone will start to wonder where you are." He tilts his head, asking for a kiss. I don't want questions about my missing lip color, so I touch my fingers lightly to my lips and touch his own.
"I'll see you later?" He asks. We both know it's doubtful, now that I'll be sharing a room with his cousin. I nod anyway and hope for the best. Tonight, I know, my husband and I will begin the effort of conceiving our first child. I cringe from the idea.
I balk even at the thought of kissing him at the end of the ceremony. We have never kissed before, not on the lips. It's always been chaste pecks on the cheek or hand or something, never the sweet meeting of lips that his cousin and I share. I can only close my eyes and pretend it's Zuko I'm kissing, Zuko I'm marrying in front of thousands of people.
After the ceremony comes the celebration. I am able to freely converse with my father and brother, both of whom I have missed every day. Most of the time I am occupied with the nobility as they congratulate Lu Ten and I. They wish us a happy union and many children, which is what we're supposed to wish for I guess. I smile until my cheeks hurt and I have to rest my cheeks behind the sleeve of my robe, trying to look the part of a demure princess.
My husband is very quiet these days, but I suppose that's what maturity does to you. We have given up on finding common ground to bond over and see the marriage as a thing that must be borne. Well, he's never said that exactly, but it's more in the way he acts.
I have never seen Iroh lose any enthusiasm for my marrying his son and it doesn't stop today. In fact, it appears to multiply significantly. The man is so jovial and pleasant all of the time it's hard to remember he's actually Fire Nation. But then again, so is Zuko.
With that thought my eyes search for him automatically. It is a habit to seek him out in a crowd, to find someone I feel close to. There he is, so far across the room I can't pick out the details of him. Not that I need to see him to know him. I'm very acquainted with the color of his lips, the soft slip of his hair across my fingers.
"My Lady," Lu Ten murmurs at my side, and I realize I've been absent from the conversation for too long. Smiling always works though, these nobles assume I'm so pathetically stupid.
"Perhaps she is tired, it is getting quite late," one of their number titters, a woman if I had to take a guess, and I search for the moon with invisible feelers. The hour is late, I suppose, but I feel much more alive in the night. The moon gives me strength as a waterbender, Master Pakku says.
I can tell he only has a grudging respect for me, if anything. Being asked politely to teach the last Southern bender by the nation that nearly went to war with the whole world was probably more than a little grating. I could tell he didn't want to be here, so far from his home, but we had bonded over that fact as best we could. It gives me hours of distraction in this gilded cage.
"Yes, perhaps it is best that my wife and I retire for the evening." Oh, ever the diplomat Lu Ten. He was definitely bred for this role.
I have no choice but to follow, being attached at the arm with the man. He bids his father good night, which is in turn met with disappointed noises from whoever surrounds us. Iroh makes a speech, his fifth one that night, and we are chased by applause down the long hallway.
I feel like I can finally breathe, away from all of those piercing gazes and oppressive expectations. I pull my arm from his as we turn a corner, glad I don't have to keep the pretense up with him. At least Lu Ten understands.
Our marriage suite is simplistic in his (and my own) preferred style. We don't look at each other as we dress for bed.
As we lie next to each other in the darkness, I am afraid. I wait, the covers drawn up to my nose. I've had this pep talk several times from several people. I know what to expect.
"I can feel the tension in your body from here," he sighs. No a disappointed sigh, I think, but something more like suppressed amusement. He doesn't move at all and I stay right where I am. "I know about you and Zuko. It's fine," he says before I can even draw breath to deny it. "You didn't ask for this union. I can only imagine what it must be like to know who you would marry before you were thirteen."
I am relieved that Lu Ten understands me on the most basic of levels. It gives me hope for the future. I am more overwhelmingly terrified that he knows about Zuko and I. If he knows, who else? After all the precautions we've taken it must still be so blatantly obvious for Lu Ten, a man I hardly spend time with, to notice. Or maybe he heard it from someone else. We have to be much, much more careful.
"I will allow this affair on one condition," he continues. He definitely has my attention now. "I only ask that you bear me a son. Any child after that can be his."
"Okay," I croak and clear my throat. "Okay." It's not a bad deal or a particularly difficult one. We just have to conceive a male child and then I never have to worry about sharing this bed again.
It isn't long after this night that a schedule evolves. Once a week we try to make my young, fertile womb ripen with child. Mostly I just close my eyes and wait until it's all over. Zuko's jealousy is stronger than ever now, his kisses more demanding. I am only too happy to give him what he asks for, trying to escape into the desire my teenage body craves.
When I told him about Lu Ten's deal he was more accepting than I expected. The thought of having his baby is much more appealing than a full blooded little princeling, but I will bear it.