Music Night

"Not only will I not play the Sungi horn," Zuko told Aang patiently, "I will especially not play it where all the palace staff can hear me!"

"Well, whose fault is it for putting your bedroom balcony over the royal garden?" Aang huffed.

The Fire Lord made a mental note to flay the palace's architect. The spacious garden opened into the rest of the palace and had been designed in such a way that the acoustics were pin-drop perfect: any conversation whispered there could be heard in the farther corners of the deepest hall.

"Anyhow, it's a surefire way to get Katara in the mood," Aang went on. "She loves musicians. One time, while we were traveling together, I had this flute and stuck it into—"

"STOP!" Zuko cried out, putting his palms over his ears and squeezing his eyes shut. "Just stop! I know you two had some weird thing going, but I don't want to hear what you did with my wife! At all! Ever!" He shook his head violently, as if to rattle out the disturbing images popping into his brain.

"—a network of singing groundhog holes," Aang finished, eyeing his friend oddly. "Because they sing, you know. That's what singing groundhogs do. They sing." He shrugged then, a little perplexed at the Fire Lord's reaction. What was wrong with sticking instruments into furry-creature-filled holes?

"Anyhow," the Avatar went on, "the Sungi horn's supposed to be one of the most romantic instruments in the Earth Kingdom. I'll bet you Katara would love to hear you serenade her. C'mon, I'll even back you up."

Zuko was skeptical, but that same night, he grudgingly brought out one of his fifty-four collected Sungi horns. (People just wouldn't stop sending the damn things over.)

Aang met him with an armful of instruments in the garden beneath the balcony. Drums, a triangle, flute, some four-stringed ukulele thing, chimes, and a xylophone spilled out of his grasp, clattering noisily onto the grass.

"Hey, buddy! Ready to make some be-oooo-tiful music?" the Avatar chirruped as he sorted out the pile.

"Aang," Zuko began patiently, "why do you have all those instruments? And what on earth are Momo and Appa doing here?"

Aang grinned. "They're going to help."

"Help?"

"Oh, yeah, Momo's great at percussion. And he's an awesome dancer. Check it out." He motioned to the lemur perching on Appa's great shaggy back. Momo hopped down and peered up at the two men inquisitively.

"Do it, Momo! Dance for us!" Aang insisted.

The lemur stared back, then began licking his crotch.

"No, no! Dance! You know, that funny little— Aw, heck, he's probably just cranky because it's past his bedtime."

Zuko was almost afraid to ask the next question. "And Appa's here…why?" He indicated the air bison, who was noshing on one of the manicured hedges.

Aang answered brightly, "Oh, Appa's going to sing, of course!"

The Fire Lord deadpanned, "Sing."

The monk nodded enthusiastically. "It was one of the most erotic sounds in the Air Temples—the song of the air bison in heat as it's looking for a mate was something you could hear all the time. It was a real test on our vows of celibacy, let me tell you." Aang chuckled. "Appa's not in heat, but he's still one of the best singers around, aren'tchya boy?"

Zuko was beginning to feel less and less silly with the Sungi horn as he stood next to Momo, who batted an egg shaker about, and Appa, who was now munching on the foliage of a very rare, very hard to grow miniature tree.

When the Avatar had finally managed to strap little cymbals to Momo's paws and had wrangled the bison's attention back towards the task at hand, he nodded at Zuko to begin, poising his own dainty bamboo pipe flute.

Sighing, Zuko said, "Okay, I'm going to play a Fire Nation love song. Try to keep up."

And he began.

Now, Zuko, unused to being good at anything, had never thought much about his musical talents. But he was the Fire Lord, after all, and some modicum of aptitude must have been passed down through the generations because Zuko wasn't just good: he was, as Sokka would grudgingly put it, "made of so much awesome when he played the Sungi horn that he could play it out his cave of one lover and no one would know the difference."

Not that anyone could ever decipher that comment as either an insult or a compliment.

And so it was that night as Fire Lord Zuko serenaded his wife, the woman he loved, the future mother of his children. He breathed life into the curvy, coffee-coloured horn, soft lips curled delicately and skillfully over the silky ivory mouthpiece, tongue flickering over the air slit to stutter the notes. One hand was insinuated deep inside the smooth, dark bell, coaxing mellow tones from its waxy core until the instrument vibrated with its keening moan.

The melodious strains of the Sungi horn echoed through the garden, a sound so beautiful and heartbreakingly glorious that even the cicadas paused to listen. Night-blooming jasmine flowers unfurled their fragrant petals to drink in the sensual tune. Fountains thought long dried up suddenly burst to life, overflowing with warm liquid essence. Somewhere in the palace, a female servant caught a few of the lilting notes and orgasmed on the spot.

Of course, that was right before the rest of the orchestra joined in.

The asthmatic bamboo pipe flute whined in protest as it competed against the sexy Sungi, struggling to work in tandem and failing miserably. The flute's rasping whistles were misinterpreted by Momo who, thinking he'd heard another lemur challenge him to a poop-flinging contest, immediately took to the skies, screeching his earnest acceptance while dragging a mess of percussion instruments noisily behind him.

Appa hadn't even had a chance to join in before the contents of turtle-duck pond suddenly surged and crashed over the would-be minstrels.

"WILL YOU CRETINS KNOCK IT OFF? I AM TRYING TO GET SOME SLEEP!" Katara's silhouette screamed from the balcony.

She spun on her heel and stomped back into the bedroom, cursing loudly.

Pulling the curtain of soaked bangs from his eyes, Zuko complacently studied the scene before him. A family of angry turtle-ducks struggled to untangle themselves from the mass of Appa's sopping wet back while Aang shook his shoes out.

"That," Zuko muttered, slopping away, "was a good try."

"Maybe she'd prefer an adventure ballad," the young Avatar suggested.

Appa lowed his agreement and broke into his own grunted rendition of "It's A Long, Long Way to Ba Seng Se."