What could he say? What was he going to say? Why should he even have to say anything? These questions swirled around his head as he thought about the wedding. Besides, why was he even invited? Aang understood why he would be invited to the formal ceremony (he was the Avatar and this was a Firelord's wedding, there was decorum to be followed), but why did Zuko invite him to the full thirty day thing? The first twenty-five days of a wedding of this size were mostly a reverse honeymoon, where both of the sides of the marriage would mingle and meet in order to welcome the union or something. He still hadn't gotten a hold on weddings yet. Things were simpler back in his nation.
Air Nomads talked differently than anyone else in the world, and they were . . . different from the other nations when it came to things like marriage. As far as marriage went, the Air Nomads just didn't. At all. As far as kids went, Aang never knew. He probably wouldn't find out either, their secrets having gone along with their people and their culture. They probably didn't do marriage, though.
Aang always wondered if the Air Nomad way of doing things (whatever it was) had led him to mess things up with Katara so badly. He wondered if he over-corrected from the gentle letting-things-go spirit he was raised with and became too clingy. And then, whenever Aang thought thoughts like that, he would usually spend the next couple hours meditating, trying to forget the feelings he had for Katara. Good times.
In this way, with thinking, and thinking about thinking, and thinking about stopping of thinking, and finally meditating about the stopping of thinking about thinking, he got ready to travel to Zuko's wedding.
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"Whoa man, you booked the entire island!?" Aang was out of his mind.
Zuko laughed, his scar crinkling in the way it did when he was truly happy and wasn't caring about others looking. "I didn't book it exactly, I just told the governour of the Ember Islands that I wanted to have my marriage here, and he just kind of . . . did things? I'm not sure how he got the whole island to get in on it, but I've decided to turn a blind eye."
"That's super odd," Aang laughed along, "I wonder if you could do something like that anywhere else."
"I don't think I could risk it, they'd have me in the stockades for 'abuse of looking good' or something."
"Oh, for sure Zuko, it's the looking good that has them give you their island. It has nothing to do with the fact that your girlfriend is the scariest woman in the whole world."
"Fiancee," Zuko corrected, with a grin even bigger than before, "that's the whole reason for the island. Maybe they feel that if they gave us the whole island, we'd feel responsible and not burn it down." Zuko's eyes flickered behind Aang for a moment, "Speaking of which, what's the last update I've given to you about Azula?"
"That she's . . . I don't know, not dead?"
"Ha. Ha." Zuko's voice was flat, but he knew Aang was joking, "I think she's doing better, and, she is my sister, you know? Kinda the only living relative I have left, aside from Uncle Iroh. So I invited her to the wedding."
"Oh, that's okay, I have like a whole month to prepare for her." Aang tried to play it cool, but he started to breathe a little faster at the mention of her name. Out of all the people in the world who tried, Azula got the closest to killing him.
"A whole month? You definitely have less time than that."
"About two seconds," a voice said from right behind them.
Aang whirled around, hands in front of him, his right leg back and his entire body weight on the balls of his feet.
"Oh Aang, it's simply wonderful to see you again, what's with that look on your face? Oh, you still think I'm a monster, don't you? Don't tell my dear brother, but I'm almost certain you're correct."
"Azula, that's not funny," Zuko admonished his sister, but he was also definitely trying to hold in a laugh at Aang's sudden rush to attention. Azula held a determined stare and then burst into a fit of giggles. Zuko couldn't help himself and let his laughter run freely.
"Of course I'd be in waiting for the full month of my brother's wedding to my best friend (don't tell Ty Lee). Why wouldn't I be? Because I'm crazy? That hasn't stopped many people from attending their own weddings, if the tales I've heard are true."
Aang turned towards Zuko, finally remembering what he was confused about. "Hey, can we talk for a second?"
"Is it about Azula? I promise she's fine, I'd trust her with my life at this point. And I've seen you fight, you could take her any day of the week now, she hasn't even been training." Zuko glanced at Azula for a second, then leaned into Aang and fake-whispered, "I think I could even take her at this point."
Aang laughed for about half a second, then sobered up. "It's not about her, it's about me. Why . . . why did you invite me to the full wedding preparation? I get why you invited me, I'm the Avatar, you're the Firelord, but you didn't need to invite me to anything but the last couple days, maybe the last week."
Aang paused to take a breath, but Zuko quieted him with a raised eyebrow.
"Aang . . . you know we're friends, right?"
"Well, yeah, but still-"
"Aang. You honestly might be my best friend. I asked you here because I wanted you here, and I still do. Are you doing okay?"
Aang wasn't sure what he was worried about. He knew him and Zuko were friends. Zuko was definitely the person Aang talked to the most. Some months, he was the only person Aang talked to at all. It's just that the years had been long, and Aang didn't want to impose at all.
What if he imposed too much? What if Zuko didn't think Aang was really his friend? What if- What if- What if it all happened again?
Azula walked the ten feet she was standing away from the conversation to stare Aang in his unblinking eyes. "Do you need the assistance of some professional? I know a few. At this point, I might know all of them."
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After some incredibly awkward small talk, Zuko was called away for wedding planning stuff and Aang was left to explore the island alone. With Azula. Alone with Azula. It wasn't as bad as the nightmares he had had about it, to be completely honest. Azula was mostly quiet, letting Aang mull over his own thoughts, but she would sometimes pipe up with a story about the island.
"You see that house over there?" Azula pointed, then kept talking without waiting for Aang to respond. "It looks new, doesn't it? But it's not. It used to be a very old, very expensive house, until about 8 years ago. Mai, Ty Lee, my brother, and I went to a house party there, and we ruined the entire house: cut up portraits, dropped chandeliers, broke tables. Honestly, it was very cathartic at the time."
Aang didn't know if Azula wanted to be admonished or applauded, but she seemed to not care for either, simply choosing to continue talking.
"What my brother and my friends don't know is that a couple weeks later, I burned down the house. Then I paid for it to be rebuilt, and now it's one of the best houses on the whole island." Azula held a smile, but this one, for the first time in their walk, didn't seem to reach her eyes.
Aang had been practicing saying sage-like things for six years. He had finally gotten to the point where people didn't just see him as a kid who had had the misfortune of becoming the Avatar, now they saw him as a young man with the soul of someone a million years older. Azula looked into his eyes, and Aang wished he had a million years to practice, to say something to comfort her. He held her gaze, trying to put all the words he wished he could say into a look.
As soon as that moment was, it was gone, and Azula broke into another, more real smile. "If Zuko were here, he would say something philosophical, like 'Maybe a house needs to be broken to be built' or 'sometimes it takes burning something down to reveal what it had been all along.' but he's not here now."
Aang had heard all of the Uncle Iroh proverbs that Zuko had, and decided to interject with one that was more Aang's style. "Sometimes you burn down a house, and a new one gets built, and that's just it. The burning was bad and the building was fair. That house is really nice though, and I'm sure it's a nice place to live."
Azula could only nod and repeat, "I'm sure it's a nice place to live."
The two of them shared one more smile and went back to walking in silence.