AN: I updated this on AO3 yesterday and only remembered this account belatedly. Social media, as many of y'all observant folks have noticed, is not my strong suit! XD
Four years between updates? Yikes. Here's a long and overworked one!
Thanks for everyone who keeps coming back and commenting and rereading and hoping for updates! I feel that in my bones. There are stories I return to that way - most especially when everything in my life is bleakness and darkness and I need to step out for a while. I hope this story can provide you a place to go, too, if you need it. And hopefully, from here on, it will be a bit happier (if still a bit emotionally fraught) escape. As some folks have noticed, we're beginning the redemption arc. Fiiiiinally.
The more personal note: I haven't been able to work on this story because I stopped believing in love and hope and redemption. Then my house burned down - for real, literally - and with it went every USB drive and hard-copy document I had. All my novels and poetry manuscripts. Almost all of my journals (with some miraculous exceptions). Insurance can do a lot (always insure your homes, kids, even if you're renting) but it can't give you back your life's work.
Anyways, among the things that survived were documents I had emailed to myself, and I did that with this story almost every day I went to work so I could tinker at my desk. So, for this story, I still have my years of notes. I still have my outline. I can't express to you the aching relief of having some piece of myself left from before.
There is so much of this story left to tell... sometimes it has been daunting. A herculean effort. It's already nearly a half a million words long. And yet I let it keep growing. Why do I do this to myself?
But when the only thing left unburned in my metaphorical writer's garden is the out-of-control baobab tree, who am I to argue?
Life is nuts. On with the show. Grow, baby, grow.
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Katara woke with sweat itching her neck and back and it took her a long moment to remember where she was. The shades were slanted against the afternoon sun, but the breeze off the sea was stronger here outside the city, and occasional puffs of wind stirred the air of the guest suite. From the dressing room came the soft murmur of voices.
It took a moment to shift out from under the heavy sleep she had fallen into, and when she did her stomach gave an empty gurgle. Sian appeared in the dressing room door, looking apologetic.
"You've been summoned to dinner, Princess Katara. May we help you prepare?"
Katara mumbled her assent, still trying to blink off her grogginess, and found herself swiftly presented with a hot towel for her face and neck while Sian set about combing and braiding her hair. As she woke fully, she found the unfamiliar maids were helping her into finer clothes than she usually wore.
"What kind of dinner is this?"
"Lord and Lady Gan are coming," Sian said as she fixed Katara's topknot and stepped away, assessing her work. She might have said more, but Machi arrived to announce that the masters of the house had been spotted on the drive and Katara was hastened from the room.
Shortly, she found herself deposited in a small sitting room where Zuko waited, pacing. He pulled up short at the sight of her. Suddenly, they were alone together. For a long moment, they watched each other from opposite ends of the room.
He had tidied up since the morning - fresh clothes, fresh fake hair - but the look on his face was the same as when he'd promised they would continue their fight. He looked ready to do it right now.
Katara, unaware of the mulish set of her own mouth, decided she would be happy to accommodate him.
But Zuko only turned away from her, pacing once more. "Look, I know there are things we need to work through, but now's not the time. The Gans will be here any minute, and we need to be ready."
Katara drew in a long breath and clenched her fists at her sides, then released it all at once. "Ready for what? Dinner?"
"To present a united front." He fixed her with a penetrating look. "We need these people on our side if we're going to have any hope of overthrowing the Fire Lord. There's a rumor circulating that I'm here on my father's orders trying to expose seditionists. Gan is a pretty obvious target, so he's being cagey."
"So you want me to help show him what a great and trustworthy guy you are?"
Zuko scowled at her withering tone, but he didn't look surprised. "Just don't sabotage this. I'm not exaggerating when I say we will probably fail without the support of the Gan family. Now is not the time for you to-"
Katara had the feeling that, if he'd gotten to finish that sentence, they would have their fight after all.
Instead, the house majordomo appeared in the doorway and announced the Gans had been shown to the dining room. Zuko strode off at once, and Katara gritted her teeth for just a moment before hurrying after him. He moved quickly and she half expected him to enter the dining room without her, but he paused just outside the doors and waited for her to join him. Katara came to stand in her customary place, two steps back from his shoulder.
In the instant before a footman swept the door open, Zuko dropped back to stand beside her and tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. Katara tried to snatch it away, but his grip was tight, and the doors were already opening.
Lord Gan stood at the head of the room beside a tall woman. They wore fashionable attire in the richest cuts and colors, topped by matching gracious smiles - and clever, assessing eyes that snapped between Zuko and Katara in a way that instantly put her on edge.
His hand, still holding hers in place, was so warm. It hadn't felt like this when he'd escorted her through the palace on the day he interrupted her confrontation with Pokui – or after the play. Then, she had needed his support. Now…
Now, he wanted hers.
Sweat broke out at the base of Katara's spine and her heart beat quicker. She felt herself beginning to blush under the elegant woman's polite scrutiny, suddenly remembering that this woman's husband had seen her in her underwear just a few hours ago…
She desperately wanted to pull away. But she didn't.
Zuko seemed unaffected by their stares. He stepped forward slowly, grandly - at a pace Katara could easily predict and match. "Lord and Lady Gan, thank you for joining us. May I present Princess Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. Princess Katara, Lord and Lady Gan."
"A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance," Lord Gan said. He and his wife bowed as one.
"Truly," the lady said in a strong, cultured voice, "your reputation precedes you - though, if I may say, it is so consumed with heroic deeds and intrigues that it hardly does justice to your beauty."
Katara had started to bow back out of reflex, but Zuko did not release her arm, so it was more of a nod. And perhaps that was proper now, she realized belatedly. Her role before had been clear. Humbling but simple. Now, Katara had no clue. Any small gesture could diminish her in these people's eyes. Words failed her. She could not even muster up a smile for Lady Gan's kind sentiment.
Still, she resented Zuko's presumption, his taking control over her movements.
The nobles peered at her, momentarily quiet. Zuko's arm tensed under her fingers.
It was a small victory, making them all so uncomfortable, but Katara found no satisfaction in it.
"Thank you," she finally managed.
Zuko struck up some pleasant conversation as they took their seats, but Katara was too relieved to be released from his clutches to listen.
Servants laid out a simple but expertly prepared meal of spiced meat and peppers cut into thin strips that tangled together, accompanied by chilled fruit meant to soothe the lingering burn. Katara stared at the plate set before her and clenched her hands in her lap. Just the sight of the meat in its juices, just the sharp, heavy smell, made her stomach shrivel up like a crinkle-nut. She had not eaten since the previous morning, before leaving the palace.
Before she had killed those people. Assassins. Whatever.
The hungry twist of her stomach felt like a betrayal. She shouldn't have an appetite after what she had done. She should find the smell of that meat revolting – but she didn't. Her mouth watered at the sight of it.
But just because her body had turned against her didn't mean she had to give in.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Zuko wave over a servant and murmur some command. A moment later, her plate was whisked away and replaced with a bowl of translucent but fragrant broth.
Katara stared at the new food before her, then glanced surreptitiously at Zuko. He went on eating as if unaware of her, and pointedly asked Lord Gan some inane question about the weather during their journey down from Caldera. Lord Gan, who had been watching the exchange with some interest, cleared his throat.
"In fact, we descended shortly after sunset yesterday, so it was almost balmy."
Zuko hesitated with his chopsticks hovering over his plate. "I had not realized you were going on vacation."
"I insisted," Lady Gan said. Her smile was cool and civil. "It does not do to host the Crown Prince from half a day's journey away. Besides, Lord Gan's little business ventures do call him to Harbor City regularly. What better time to enjoy the family townhouse while he looks in on his interests?"
This was generally agreed upon to be convenient timing and an odd quiet settled over the table once more. Katara eventually caved to the demands of her stomach and drank the broth. It was saltier than she had expected, but gentle and wholesome, and she quickly found she had drunk it all down. A delusional part of her had hoped she might be dismissed if she just ate what was put before her but Zuko had brought her here to serve a purpose and he clearly wasn't going to let her go until she did it. Only, Katara was still at a loss as to how to behave around these people, what might put them at ease and what might constitute sabotage.
Finally the meal ended and the dishes were cleared away only to make way for a light after-dinner tea. Katara stifled a sigh and stared into her cup as a maid filled it.
It was then that a servant came in and delivered a toddler into Lady Gan's waiting arms. The transformation was immediate. She changed in a blink from a reserved noblewoman to a beaming mother. She sat the baby in her lap facing her and spoke sweetly and quietly to him. He garbled back at her and stood up to grab her cheeks with his tiny hands.
"Our son," Lord Gan provided with a proud smile. "Jung."
At his father's voice, the baby turned his head, and more slowly his entire body - steadied in his mother's hands - to take in the other people present. He peered at Zuko, who seemed unsure of what to do, and then his large eyes settled on Katara.
Katara couldn't help herself. She liked babies. She had always liked babies. And even this one, a Fire Nation baby with a tuft of black hair on his head and bright amber eyes, charmed her on sight. There was no hint of guile or suspicion. No knowledge of the politics that stood between their peoples. There were only those two huge, limpid eyes, curiously taking her in. In the face of that, Katara couldn't hold her blank expression. She smiled the warm smile she always used on the babies in the village.
The baby smiled back and gurgled.
"Why Princess Katara, I think he likes you," Lady Gan said. She was smiling a true smile now, and she looked back at Katara just the way one of the mothers back home would. "Are you fond of babies?"
"Yes," Katara sighed. "He's so cute."
"Thank you – it's improper to gloat, but I never tire of it."
The baby grabbed the air in Katara's direction. She lifted her fingers from her lap and waved back.
Abruptly, she realized what she was doing. She shot an accusatory look at Zuko – who was watching her with naked shock – raked it across Lord Gan – who was watching Zuko knowingly – and finally landed back on Lady Gan – who only looked back at her, still gently smiling.
"It's not a trap," the lady said quietly. "Unlike babies themselves, who very much lure you in with sweetness and trust and then cry for you at all hours of the night and treat you to various nasty surprises."
She tickled the baby's sides and he scrunched his shoulders up to his ears and looked around at her, laughing with his whole tiny chest. Katara tried not to slip under his spell again, but it was very hard.
"The best-baited trap of them all," Lord Gan said. He leaned on one arm and reached across to tweak his son's ear. The baby squirmed even more and caught his father's fingers in his tiny hand. Lord Gan merely smiled, utterly arrested. "When I look at my son, I see the future stretching before his feet. One day, he will sit in my chair, and review the records of the Gan family's rise to fortune, as I have done since the death of my father. He will look at all the choices that I have made, the choices I am making now, and he will judge them for himself. With his eyes on me, how can I not step more cautiously than ever before?" His smile faded and his eyes flicked sideways at Zuko. "And yet how can I stand by and hand down to him the same sordid legacy my father gave me?"
"No worthy accomplishment is without risk," Zuko offered quietly.
"But there are some risks too terrible to justify even the most glorious accomplishment."
Zuko watched Lord Gan calmly as he searched for words, but Katara saw the sweat dotting his temple despite the breeze wafting in from the open windows. Whatever support he wanted from this man, he wasn't saying it directly. Maybe because that's exactly what he would do if he was hunting seditionists like the rumor said. Every conversation with Fire Nobles was a delicate dance of pride and propriety anyway, and now that Zuko was moving against his father, the stakes were higher than ever before.
And so was the difficulty of getting anything done. Once again, Katara swallowed back a sigh.
"How my lord husband does go on," Lady Gan said fondly. Lord Gan turned his look back to her, and something passed between them that Katara did not quite understand. It was the lady who turned her beatific smile back on Zuko. "Forgive me, your highness, but I resigned from most of my social circles after the birth of my son. I crave another lady's discourse. Will you permit me?"
"Uh," Zuko said under his breath before regaining his balance. "Of course."
"Princess Katara," she said at once, "I adore your hair. It must be a relief in this heat to wear it so short, and your braids are positively exquisite."
With the distinct feeling that she had been pounced on, Katara blinked back at her and reflexively reached up to touch the braids holding the longer parts of her hair back to the topknot. "I- Thank you."
"Have you always worn it this way? With your waves, I imagine it is quite magnificent when grown long."
Katara could almost feel it, the weight of her long hair, fluffed out and soft from brushing. "It was… but I had to cut it when I went to war," she found herself saying.
It happened so naturally. With her baby in her arms, Lady Gan did not for one second seem like a sensationalizing member of the Fire Court. She seemed like an actual person. She winced as Katara related the cutting of her hair, the necessity of it so that she could pass for a boy with the other recruits. Lady Gan shook her head at that.
"I can't imagine! Koji, can you imagine if I did that?"
Lord Gan, who had been making faces at the baby, turned his eyes up to her and lingered. "Vividly."
There was a silent beat as his tone soaked the atmosphere over the table. Lady Gan's mouth tightened but her eyes twinkled. Katara shot Zuko a subtle side eye in the same instant he glanced at her, and for a heartbeat they were two teenagers awkwardly witnessing a married couple's private language. Lord Gan went on smoothly and the moment passed.
"You are a master of secrets, my darling. No one would suspect you. Even if you walked around in a gown, you would concoct some story to convince them all it was a part of your brilliant martial strategy."
Lady Gan scoffed and rolled her eyes back to Katara, a smile playing briefly across her face. "I've wed an unrepentant flatterer. Ignore him. Suffice it to say, I would be utterly without recourse. There is no amount of courtly finesse that could convince anyone that I am a warrior. It is simply beyond my skill set."
The baby was trying to climb over her leg to get to his father, and without even looking, she steadied and guided him. Her eyes, though, sharpened where they were fixed on Katara.
"I protect my family in other ways," she said, and looked at Zuko.
Zuko met her eye and then picked up his tea with a steady hand.
When Lady Gan went on, it was with a fresh tone, as if the subject was closed. "I should like a breath of fresh air. Prince Zuko, if it is amenable to you, I would invite Princess Katara for a tour of my favorite trail around the grounds."
Zuko was caught mid-sip and hesitated just a beat before lowering the cup to the table before him. "By all means, Lady Gan. Lord Gan and I will… talk."
His eyes slid back to Lord Gan, and then dropped abruptly to the baby the man now held in his lap. Katara could tell by the look on his face that the conversation he had in mind had not featured an infant dividing the noble's attention. She allowed herself the tiniest smirk, then stood and followed Lady Gan out a sliding door and into the shade of a manicured side yard.
.
.
Zuko planted his hands on his thighs and fixed Lord Gan with a direct look, but the man wasn't even paying attention. He was playing with the baby, making faces so the infant would shake his fists and emit high laughter.
Zuko had rarely seen anyone play with a baby. He had seen people clutch their babies or calm their babies as he passed. He had at some point seen Iroh make faces at a baby – but that had just seemed like a bizarre Uncle thing. When an upper crust Fire Noble did it, it seemed like maybe Zuko had missed some unfamiliar social cue, some lesson in comportment he'd never encountered. He had a feeling he had waded into deep water, his toes barely raking the sand. One wrong step and he might blunder this meeting at its most crucial moment.
And there was also a deeper riptide of memory threatening to pull him down, dark waters where the baby that might have been – his baby – haunted him still. If things had gone a little differently…
How much harder would every step be now? How much more dangerous? How much more heartbreaking?
How much sweeter? Katara's smile flashed before him, scalded into his memory. He had never seen such a look on her face before, and it wrung his heart like a tired rag. Would she have looked at their baby that way?
Could she, knowing it was his?
"It is perhaps improper to broach the topic," Lord Gan said as he helped his son toddle upright and get a grip on the edge of the table, "but have you given a thought to children, Prince Zuko?"
Zuko jerked as if burned. "Not… really."
Lord Gan dipped his chin. "You are young still, but it bears consideration, given your circumstances. Your father was just a year or two older when he married Lady Ursa. Wisely, as it turns out."
"Right," Zuko said stiffly. From the corner of his eye, he could see the baby bop along the edge of the table, taking short, awkward steps. When he looked ahead, and up at Zuko, he stilled. His eyes widened and took on an uncertain cast.
"Such things can and do decide the course of succession," Lord Gan went on. "Now that your sister has reached her majority, she could easily-"
"Ahh," Zuko cut in hurriedly, meaning to say something smart and confident so he would not have to imagine the hideous prospect of Azula reproducing. He must have made a panicky face, though, because a loud laugh prevented him from having to do either. Zuko looked down to find the baby grinning up at him.
He didn't know what to do. He had never been this close to a baby, not counting Azula in some time before memory – and she obviously didn't count.
The baby reached out toward him and took three tottering steps away from the table. He was about to fall. Zuko couldn't just let him fall. He stuck out a hand and, as he had seen Lord and Lady Gan do, let the baby steady himself.
He was warm, and soft, and he kept squinting his eyes when he smiled, like he was actually happy to see Zuko.
"Your highness, if Jung is bothering you-"
"No," Zuko said quietly. He watched the baby curl his tiny fingers around his large ones. It made him feel huge and important, as if he was being entrusted with the care of a delicate possibility. "He's not bothering me."
He didn't realize he was smiling back at the baby, or that a tiny pucker had appeared in his brow, but Lord Gan watched him with cautious interest.
"I've put the cart before the ostrich horse, of course," Lord Gan said, and Zuko didn't notice that he was speaking more quietly, emulating Zuko's tone. "You would need a wife first."
The baby dug his tiny chubby fingers into the fabric over Zuko's knee. He must have liked the feeling of the silk. His other hand still clamped around Zuko's finger, tighter than he might have expected.
"No doubt there will be a great many interested parties. Recent developments may temper some of the less serious inquiries, but if you were of a mind to, you could consider your nuptials a real opportunity to secure in-laws of strategic merit."
The baby was reaching up toward him with both arms, gazing at him expectantly. Zuko shot Lord Gan a puzzled look.
"He wants you to pick him up, your highness."
Bewildered but curious, Zuko planted his hands under those upraised arms and lifted. The baby was heavier than he expected and, as if by some trick of gravity, Zuko found that weight settled against his chest. Jung began playing with the gold trim lining the wide shoulders of his robes.
"Of course, a strategically beneficial marriage can take many forms."
Zuko blinked. Lord Gan was not quite smiling at him, but it was there in his eyes, the same crinkle his son had learned. Zuko cleared his throat. "Uh. Yes. Of course."
The baby squirmed in his arms, wallowing to get comfortable, and Zuko was diverted again. Jung was tugging on the gold brocade of his collar, yammering little baby sounds close to Zuko's scarred ear. Lord Gan went on musing.
"And even a good strategy always has the potential to backfire if poorly implemented. As I'm sure you know, and I hope you'll forgive the example, Princess Azula's ill-fated engagement to Lord Piang's grandson is just such a case."
"Her what?"
.
.
They took a path that looped around the house and then climbed the gentle slope of the mountain's base. The trees arching over the path shaded them and the breeze stirred the air just enough to keep the heat from building around them. When they came to the white stone wall, the path seemed to turn back into the compound, but Lady Gan smiled her secretive smile and opened a door cleverly concealed in the stonework. As they walked, she told Katara about the history of the spring, and how the property had been walled off only in the last fifty years or so. Before that, she said, it had been open to all the people of Harbor City, rich and poor.
Katara listened and refrained from commenting on that injustice. At length they reached a rocky outcropping from which they could look out over the trees at the sparkling ocean beyond. Katara stepped up onto the wind-beaten stone and breathed the salty air in deep.
It took a long moment before she realized she stood alone. Lady Gan had stopped in the shade at the edge of the trees and sat on a tidy stone bench. She had produced a long, slender pipe and, chin high with the stem between her lips, lit it with a twist of her fingers. Her flame was tiny, polite even, and it licked into the bowl of the pipe as she drew. Then she straightened and let out a long breath, tendrils of smoke curling out of her mouth and up through the sun-struck leaves. She spotted Katara watching her and smiled.
"It isn't proper for a lady to smoke, especially in the presence of royalty. Now you know my secret."
Katara peered out at the forest, the fine house below, all bounded by the white stone wall that kept out the riffraff. "I doubt a slave could do much damage to your standing in the Fire Court."
"My standing in the Court," she chuckled. "That is rich indeed. I only married well. My detractors will giddily tell you my many little scandals, from my ruined father to my own indecorous behavior." She drew again from the pipe and let out a long, satisfied breath. "It's all born of jealousy, you know. The greater you are, and the happier, the sharper their desire to diminish you."
The wall sliced through the forest like a scar. The sun hung fat and low, not setting but hovering high in the west as if doubting its course. Katara frowned out at it all. After a beat, Lady Gan continued.
"As to your being a slave," she said, idly if not for the precision of the silent beats between her words, "My impression that that is no longer an issue for you. The Fire Prince escorted you to dine as he would a lady of high regard. Like the princess you are. He sat you down at his right side, a place of honor."
Katara's frown only deepened. The iron around her throat felt heavy, hard as the stone wall that carved the land below. Leave it to Zuko to find a way around…
"He did free you down on the docks, did he not?"
It was horrible, that white line dividing the land into an "inside" and an "outside" - and he was horrible for presuming to simply brush past it all as if it did not matter.
"Forgive my blunder, Princess." Lady Gan said, perhaps genuinely apologetic. "You still wear his collar. Clearly I was misinformed."
"No, you weren't," Katara said at last, quiet and grim. She straightened her spine as she said it and let her fists curl tight at her hips. Zuko wanted to stop treating her like a slave? He wanted to maneuver her into a new role? Fine.
Then he could suffer the consequences.
Katara turned back to Lady Gan and met her eye directly. She squared her shoulders and held her head high.
"He set me free, but that doesn't matter. I'm not free until my people are free. So yeah, it's still an issue for me."
"A noble sentiment, not unexpected from one of your standing."
The cloying smoke crossed the distance between them and Katara allowed her frown to deepen. Lady Gan breathed out a series of ghostly rings that expanded as they rose, then broke apart when the breeze picked up again. All the while she watched Katara, focused as a cat.
The layers of subtext were stifling as that smoke and Katara was running out of patience. She had been fully swept up in the illusion Lady Gan crafted holding her baby and asking about Katara's hair… But this was not just another village mother. She was not just a friendly stranger revealing a hidden vice in a gesture of trust. She was a Fire Noble, and everything she did was done for a reason.
Katara folded her arms over her chest and glowered. "Can we just get to the point? There's something you want to know that you couldn't ask in front of Zuko. Ask me now."
The lady blinked owlishly back at her before emitting a tinkling little laugh. "My apologies for the production. Koji had expressed doubts about the nature of your situation after this morning but not a month ago he observed you to be remarkably well-behaved for a warrior-princess, bowed and obedient. Silent. Whatever he saw - or thought he saw - I still half expected I would have to wheedle my answers out of a cowed and brutalized girl."
Katara pinched her lips together and Lady Gan quickly waved a hand through the air before her while she knocked the ashes from her pipe on the side of the bench.
"Yes of course, to the point." She rose briskly and stepped onto the stone, little more than an arm's length away. The wind mussed her long hair where it hung straight down past the low, artful knot at the back of her head. She clutched the pipe in both hands before her belly.
"My lord husband's enormous appetite for debating moral matters has kept our family balanced on a knife's edge since he took over his father's seat. I would not change Koji for the world, but this - the Prince's visit - is not the first time a pitfall has been placed before him and I am called to save him from himself."
Katara nodded to indicate she understood. Lady Gan's eyebrows tipped upward, and she searched her face with disconcerting intensity.
"It is obvious Prince Zuko wishes the Gan family to sponsor whatever scheme he has afoot. What is unclear is whether he is sincere, or merely setting a trap as a means to win back the Fire Lord's favor. I had hoped you might illuminate me as to his true nature."
"His true nature," Katara repeated, nonplussed.
"Forgive my directness. But no one can know a man like the woman he has commanded to intimate service."
.
.
"Her what?" Zuko finally looked up, his attention wrenched off the baby in his arms and fully focused on Lord Gan. "Her engagement? Azula was engaged?"
"Very briefly. For a matter of days."
"She never-"
And it hit him. Of course she hadn't told him. She had failed. Azula had failed, maybe for the first time in her life. It probably would have actually killed her to admit it to him.
"I suppose it is no surprise you would not have heard. You were out of country at the time and the subject has been… sensitive, even in the Fire Court," Lord Gan supplied quietly. "It was perhaps one of the best pairings one could hope for. From what I hear, the boy was exceptionally well-connected. It was… most unfortunate that she banished him in addition to breaking off the engagement. All of his connections, which would have benefited her dramatically in her future endeavors, are closed to her now."
Zuko stared wonderingly at the half-empty cup on the table before him. Azula had lost influence, had lost face, had lost her perfection in their father's eyes…
…and then she had brought Zuko home. Probably, yes, just like she'd said, to make herself look good by comparison. And now, here he was, turning traitor and fulfilling the purpose she set for him better than even she might have expected.
Unless…
He remembered unaccountably the sound of her voice on a far-off beach, a note of distress he hadn't heard since they were children…
Brother! Zuko!
"After all," Lord Gan went on with special emphasis, "could anyone be blamed for wishing to avoid such… extreme measures… in the future?"
Zuko's head snapped up. Lord Gan met his gaze steadily, slyly confident. The people he was talking about, the influential people who had seen their friend suddenly banished, were not likely to want to see the banisher ascend to the Fire Throne.
Azula hadn't just lost face. She had tanked her own rise to power.
The hairs on Zuko's neck stood on end. That didn't sound like Azula at all. She was always two steps ahead. For her to make a mistake of that magnitude…
"I didn't think it at first," Lord Gan said, smiling warmly, "but I believe you may have a steady hand after all, Prince Zuko."
"Excuse me?"
"Jung is quite taken with you. You'll make a fine father one day."
The baby's head was resting against Zuko's shoulder, a great grounding weight. He had not realized that his arms had come up to cradle the child even closer as they spoke about Azula, and now he became unnerved at the ease of it. His heart gave a painful lurch.
This is how it would have felt.
"Forgive me," Lord Gan said into the silence. "That was perhaps too bold. I did not intend to disturb you, your highness."
"You didn't. It's just…" Zuko frowned down at the top of the baby's head, so small and fragile. "You mentioned your father had handed you a sordid legacy. Well, my ancestors started the war your ancestors profiteered on. My father taught me little more than ruthless domination. That being a man meant subjugating those closest to me." He could feel Jung tugging at his brocade, but it was stiff and unyielding to his soft little fingers. "So I hope you'll understand that when you say I'll be a fine father, I have my doubts."
"You see, it is exactly this-"
Lord Gan cut off his own excited words with a hand pressed to his mouth. He seemed to be caught between horrified and abashed.
"Forgive me, Prince Zuko," he said on a long exhale, "but I'm forbidden to speak to you too… candidly until my lady wife has had her word with your princess."
Thoroughly derailed, Zuko very nearly demanded why - but a chill was already lancing down his spine. Because he knew why.
Lady Gan was here to judge his character, his intentions. Of course she was. And she was alone with Katara, insinuating herself closer with her smooth court charisma, coaxing out information Zuko would never have considered pursuing.
Her hair had taken on significance so suddenly. Before, it had been a simple fact that she had cut it. Now, Zuko remembered cutting his own hair - the special significance of severing his phoenix plume. He wondered at what Katara had severed, what unspoken loss Lady Gan had immediately understood that he was entirely blind to.
It was like the women were speaking a different language - and there was really no telling what Katara would decide to disclose with her temper so short.
Lord Gan watched him with sharper interest, a furrow in his brow and an unhappy smile creeping onto his face.
"What will be revealed, I wonder?" he asked very quietly.
.
.
"No one can know a man like the woman he has commanded to intimate service."
Katara felt all the blood drain from her face and then flood back in a furious blush. Lady Gan pinned her in place with her knowing, sympathetic eyes as she pressed on.
"I will not do you the discourtesy of speculation, nor will I ask you to reveal anything salacious, but in bondage to him you have no doubt seen his mask slip a time or two. What face does he show when there is no one there to witness-?"
"First off," Katara spat, finally getting a grip on herself and barely restraining the volume of her voice, "there was never any intimate service. I poured the tea. That's it. I know everybody just loves imagining gross, creepy things I might be letting him do to me in private, but that is not how it is."
Lady Gan's eyebrows inched upward, disbelieving or surprised. That only irritated Katara into an open snarl.
"Tell all your friends, too, for all I care. I didn't bow and obey because he intimidated me or- or brutalized me. I did it because I swore an oath. That should be enough explanation but apparently being a Water Tribe woman makes me somehow incapable of honoring my word."
"It's less that," Lady Gan said, almost too gently, "and more because he is his father's son. A great deal of speculation has swirled about the sort of man he has become during his exile, but the Fire Court still does not know him - not the way we know Fire Lord Ozai. And I will dare tell you now," she said, dropping her voice to a whisper nearly lost in the wind, "the last woman to be bound to Ozai could not say of him what you just said of his son. And she was not his slave, but his wife."
Katara stared back at her, ice thickening in her stomach. It shouldn't have surprised her - it made sense that a man who would horrifically scar his son would also be a harsh husband - but the confirmation still sickened her.
Zuko loved his mother. It had been the first proof Katara had of his humanity. Despicable as he was, it was twisted that he might have witnessed some part of her mistreatment.
Lady Gan went on at a more normal volume. "On the surface, Prince Zuko has played the part of the Fire Lord's heir rather well - no small thanks to you, his pet warrior-princess, always at hand, collared and bowed to his will… But you are telling me now that that is not an apt measure of his character. So please, enlighten me. What sort of man is the Prince?"
Katara mulled this over like she would chew a mouthful of sour berries, finally turning back towards where the sun hung sullen in the western sky. It was a difficult question, made more complicated by her need to win this woman over and her own uncertainty about what he would do. For her own part, she wouldn't wait around for the battle between his dual natures to be decided, hoping for him to make the right choice. Not this time.
Not ever again.
"If he set you free," Lady Gan asked quietly, "why did he not remove the collar?"
"He doesn't get to decide when it comes off," Katara said, turning her glare back on the noble's stunned face. She drew a breath and let it slowly out her nose. "Look, he's not trying to trick you. He cares about the welfare of his people and he… does genuinely want to stop the war."
"I can tell those words do not come easily to you," Lady Gan said carefully, tipping her head as if to see her more clearly, "perhaps because he told you to say them."
"They don't come easily to me," Katara snapped back, "because I refuse to tell you that trusting him isn't risky. He's not running some elaborate deception, but there's always a chance with Zuko that the time will come for him to choose between his father and doing the right thing and he will choose wrong."
Lady Gan was silent for a beat, as if she had caught a glimpse of a whale, just enough to recognize how big it really was.
"The moment you looked at my son," she said at length. "I knew you possessed a kind heart, and that it has not served you well in the palace. I freely admit I came here today under the impression the Fire Prince had tormented you for sport… but when you smiled at my son, Prince Zuko watched you… very much like a man who hadn't seen the sun in so long, he'd forgotten it could be warm."
Katara could feel her face flush hot again. With a disgusted noise, she turned to glare out on the vista.
"Apologies," Lady Gan said. "I don't mean to pry so much into your personal business but… it is refreshing to think that the truth behind all the lascivious tales might be as wholesome as young lovers driven apart amidst a war."
"We weren't driven apart," Katara blurted. It was like she was watching herself from far away, unable to stop the words falling out of her. "He betrayed me and then dragged me into this- this nightmare because he couldn't risk displeasing his father. That wasn't the war. That was him."
"Was it?"
Katara snapped her head around and scowled. Lady Gan shrugged, her face tipped forward and to the side in seemingly genuine curiosity.
"Because it seems to me that neither your will nor your legs are broken. You have power, whatever shadow game you and the prince have been playing. Your… misfortunes, as you deem them, have landed you in the very heart of your enemy's stronghold. If you truly did not wish to be in this situation, I suspect you would not be."
.
.
"What will be revealed, I wonder?"
Zuko frowned back at Lord Gan, spooling out the silence, forcing himself to think. Finally, he straightened the defensive hunch from his shoulders and lifted his chin. The baby's weight pulled at his sore shoulder, but he did not bend.
"I doubt Lady Gan will come back liking me any more than she did when she left, but that doesn't change the necessity of our alliance."
Lord Gan's eyebrows formed two matching arches. "Necessity, is it now?"
"You said it yourself. Without me, the future of the Fire Nation is Azula."
He saw the noble's jaw twitch. "The Fire Lord is in his prime. That future is decades down the road - if it even comes to pass. He could marry again, you know."
The very prospect made Zuko's stomach cramp, but he didn't relent.
"Seeing as I'm still the heir apparent, he'll have to deal with me first." He didn't shift, didn't blink. He stared the noble down, one hand flat on the baby's warm back. "However my father decides to strike back at me, I won't just go away. I won't be banished. I'll be here, fulfilling my promise to help the people, and doing everything I can to stop his campaign against the world."
Zuko hesitated, but only for a moment. Burn caution, and dignity with it. He had to make this happen, one way or another.
"The truth is, I need your help. Specifically, your influence with your peers. Without some kind of support in the Fire Court, the unrest I'm going to create could be written off as a peasant problem instead of a problem for a united Fire Nation. I want you to sway nobles to my cause. I want our people to choose honor over profits won from looting other nations."
Lord Gan's chin worked to one side slightly as he seemed to consider this. His expression remained closed, though. Zuko's mouth twisted slightly in a bitter smile.
"I don't usually get what I want, though. And even when I do, it always turns out I've done something in the process of getting it that ruins any enjoyment I might find in it."
A coolness passed over Lord Gan's expression and he straightened, fiddling idly with his teacup and speaking with forced lightness. "Heavy weighs the crown," he said quietly. "Are you certain you even want it?"
Zuko's head snapped back. "What does that matter?"
"I should think it would matter a great deal. Why go to so much trouble, why risk so much, if the prize is not even something you desire?"
Stunned, Zuko opened and shut his mouth. The baby snored softly in the silence, a tiny ebb and flow against which Zuko's thoughts spun. "The prize isn't the crown. It's… setting things right. My father doesn't see a problem with the world as it is. In fact, he's done a lot to make it this way, and he's about to make it a lot worse. I can't just let that happen – not when I have a chance to stop him."
"So the Heir Apparent would rise up against the Fire Lord – forsaking an orderly succession and throwing the Nation into turmoil – purely out of conscience? Do you mean to suggest that the Fire Nation shouldn't come first among all nations?"
"No. It shouldn't." It was hard to keep the temper out of his voice as he spoke. "Our war on the world was supposed to be a way of sharing our greatness. Instead, we spread fear and destruction across every continent. In my exile, I saw what the Fire Nation has done to the Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdom. I saw the ruins of the Air temples. The Air Nomads are extinct except for one kid. The waterbenders are enslaved. The Earth Kingdom is full of packs of orphans engaged in guerrilla warfare against the vastly superior enemy that took their parents away. The world hates the Fire Nation – and we deserve it. This war hasn't revealed our greatness. It's turned us into bullies and murderers and thieves."
He paused and took a breath, and in the back of his head he remembered two blue eyes pinning him, knowing him. "We are exactly the monsters they think we are. And that has to stop."
Lord Gan's eyes had grown bright on some tightly-capped feeling. Before him on the table, his ringed fingers tapped rapidly together, belying the bored set of his face. "There are many who would find the idea of a leader harboring such a philosophy distasteful."
"A sick man doesn't drink medicine because it tastes good." The proverb rolled off Zuko's tongue fast – and he pushed on just as fast so that he would not have to think of the man who had taught it to him. "If the Fire Court won't support me out of their own sense of what's right, then I will assume it's because they no longer honor noblesse oblige – and I will take the resources I need from them."
Lord Gan's eyes snapped wide. Zuko felt a little satisfaction in seeing him finally unsettled, but he did not smile. He only went on quietly.
"I noticed in my review of the tithe records that your farmland in the southern isles produces a sizable percentage of the army's food supply. More than enough to feed the hungry here in Harbor City."
"Prince Zuko, are you saying…? If I do not agree to join in your treason, you honestly mean to… rob me?" Lord Gan stared at him, appalled. "Like some common thief?"
"All that you own belongs to the crown," Zuko said, low and sharp.
The noble dropped his eyes at once and murmured his apologies. Zuko went on, still watching him hard.
"And most thieves don't have access to royal economic reports. They don't know what I know. I'll do much worse than take your wallet, Gan. I'll take everything you have, everything your father worked so hard to build. Or at least everything he was paid to manufacture for the war."
Gan pressed a palm to his forehead, eyes flicking as if reviewing his holdings. At length, Zuko looked down at the baby sleeping against his shoulder. Some of the fire fizzled out of him.
"My father taught me that a strong prince takes what he wants. I've never been very good at that… But it always seemed like the people my father was taking from were helpless against him. You're not helpless, Lord Gan. You have a choice. Right now, you have all the power and privilege you could hope for - enough wealth and social capital to keep your family in luxury for generations upon generations, enough education and moral strength to know that this is wrong… And yet you boasted to me about choosing an ethical gardening service. As if that was making some kind of grand difference."
"Even a man of my position can be limited in options."
"Don't I know it." Zuko snapped his glare back up to Lord Gan, pinning him right through the faint trace of guilt about his flicking eyes. "Let me simplify those options for you. You can decline to follow your own better instincts and refuse to argue my cause to the Fire Court. But if the noble families continue their apathy for the suffering people of this Nation…" He paused, let the threat ripen. "…when I take my father's throne, my first act will be to dismantle the Fire Court completely."
.
.
"If you truly did not wish to be in this situation, I suspect you would not be."
Katara's stomach churned broth and she clutched at her biceps trying to still her insides. If she shut her eyes, the faces of all the people she had disappointed would crash in on her, so she did not blink. She stared unseeingly at the woman beside her, barely hearing.
"I think perhaps," Lady Gan went on airily, "you have brought yourself to this place in the same way that I brought you up this trail. Deliberately, for purposes of my own."
She tucked the pipe away in her sleeve, then turned around to look up the slope toward the mountain's rocky crest. Katara followed her gaze, but all she saw was a few scant trees and shrubs - the thinning forest that clung to the mountain's lowest reaches before the rocky cliffs cut sharply upward.
"I have never ventured beyond this point, but Koji tells me his uncle used to climb all the way to the family manor in Caldera. A death-defying feat - and for what? An afternoon lark? Why anyone would choose to scale such a height, I can only guess."
She turned her tawny eyes back on Katara and lifted a single shapely brow. Katara fought the urge to glance back up the mountain and map the secret path to the capital. A path back to…
Lady Gan watched her with a tiny smile that suggested she had already guessed the wild ideas flashing through her head.
"What is this?" Katara demanded.
The noble's eyebrows tipped up and her smile took on a hint of being lost. Katara forged on.
"I might not be a Fire Noble, but I've seen enough of how you people work to know I'm being played. Your little signals, your carefully planned public displays. You shared a 'secret' with me- no, you brought your baby here today because the Water Tribe values family and you wanted me to confide in you. Well, I gave you my answers, and not because you manipulated me – because I wanted to give them. Now you show me a secret passage and just expect me to traipse through it? How stupid do you think I am?"
The smile faded. Lady Gan turned back to look out at the sea. Her fingers pinched at the pipe she still held, tight and still.
"You're right, of course. Though I wouldn't exactly term my strategy an attempt to 'play' you, as you put it. I intended to put you at ease and to signal that I could be a compassionate ally to you."
"As long as I fulfill my part in that 'purpose' you mentioned."
"You seem to be laboring under the impression that I wish to use you as a tool." Lady Gan snapped her head around. "As I understand it, our roles are quite reversed."
Katara stared at the Fire Noble, trying to pierce through the appearance of impatience to whatever truth hid beneath it, but Lady Gan only frowned tightly back. Her high cheekbones were tinted pink and the tension lines around her eyes and mouth showed her age more truly than the bland bemusement she had consistently worn all afternoon. Was this rough emotion real? Or another skilled performance?
"Princess Katara," she said with earnest formality, "you've made it your mission here to see your people free. I wish to help in that regard. I could be of great service to you if-"
"I don't believe you."
Lady Gan held her grave look a moment longer, then allowed an exasperated smile to break through. "Tiresome as it is, I confess to an appreciation for your persistent wariness. If you decided to take up permanent residence in Caldera, I imagine you would do quite well."
Katara choked out a shocked and humorless laugh.
"But you're quite right. The Fire Nation has not been hospitable to its guests in recent years."
"Slaves are not guests," Katara spat.
"A sharp point well taken," Lady Gan said, turning to frown out at the sea again. She was silent for a long moment and licked her lips twice as if in preparation to speak words that were hard in coming.
"I'm sure you know how it came to be already… but after the invasion of the Northern Water Tribe, the Fire Lord gifted the most powerful houses in the Fire Court with their own personal healers. Wonders of the Northern Reaches, they were called. All the major families have one, tucked away among the servants. But they are not servants, of course. They are war prisoners who never even fought."
Katara watched her, her suspicions only building.
"Including Daga, who delivered my son." Lady Gan's voice shifted, tightened. She seemed to struggle to go on. "She eased my pain and helped me heal, and she ensured Jung was healthy. I have seen to it she is comfortable in our house, but… she remains a prisoner. As Jung gets older, he is going to ask questions. I don't want to have to tell my son that the woman who brought him into this world is technically our property. I don't want him to ever believe for a second that that is acceptable."
Katara listened, all the while feeling stabbed through the heart. She had known the waterbenders were in the noble houses, but somehow it had not struck her that she had been in those same houses, never knowing they were there. All those fine mansions where she had knelt and poured tea, every one was a decadent cage with a waterbender locked somewhere inside.
She felt like she had blundered across their graves.
"Why not just free her then?" she finally snarled. She watched Lady Gan shift uncomfortably. "Your will and legs aren't broken either."
The lady had the grace to blush and glanced at the stone under her feet. "You're suggesting I reject a gift from the Fire Lord. It isn't just your prince who fears his displeasure, you know."
"He's not my anything," Katara said sharply. "You could have made some excuse. Just say she ran away!"
Lady Gan nodded and finally met Katara's eye. "We did discuss it, Daga and I. Even if she went free, where would she go? Her home is lost, an ocean away. The world is at war. She would have to conceal her identity, always fearing discovery, a woman alone in a strange land with no way to defend herself. So she stays with us and waits." She took a long breath and let it out slowly. "I have done what little I could within my own circles. I made it a point of honor and nobility that we treat Daga as a guest - and Koji philosophizes to no end about what the institution of slavery is doing to the dignity and morality of the Fire Nation at large. But it is like… spritzing perfume on a pile of dung. We may influence a few opinions, but we cannot change the tone and precedent the Fire Lord sets."
"Then maybe," Katara sneered, "you should just get rid of the Fire Lord."
Lady Gan's eyes flashed with either fear or exhilaration; it was difficult to tell. "Oh, I doubt very much that I could do any such thing," she said very softly, "but I imagine you could make that climb, Princess Katara. What exactly you might choose to do once you reach Caldera, I dare not speculate."
Killer.
Katara jerked a step away from that meaningful stare. She felt hot and cold in her chest and her breath came too fast.
But there was no denying that she'd done it before, had threatened to do it again. And if she was going to take a life, shouldn't it be the one that caused the most destruction?
There would be no reason for Zuko to switch sides again… if there was no father to turn back to.
Her head spun at the thought, a dizzy feeling swooping all through her.
"Princess, you look unwell," Lady Gan said. Her hand had come up to clutch Katara's shoulder and steer her away from the cliff. "Perhaps you should sit-"
Katara jerked away from the noble's hold and strode for the path. She heard Lady Gan call after her, but she did not slow, and she did not look back.
.
.
For a long while, Zuko only met Lord Gan's frown with one of his own. His ultimatum permeated the air between them. At length, the noble sighed and folded his hands on the table, twisting a ring with sharp little motions of his thumb.
"I suppose at this point it should not matter," he said tightly, "but I am more curious than ever to hear Princess Katara's estimation of you… now that I know you would rather abandon decorum, threaten me openly, and coerce my aide than rely on her defense of you."
"Katara's not going to defend me." Zuko looked down at the baby snoring limply against his shoulder and hoped the ache in his chest didn't register on his face. "I'm sure she's made it clear by now just how much she hates me."
"Oh," Lord Gan said, bland and a little sarcastic, "surely 'hate' is a strong word…"
"It really isn't."
Zuko was busy remembering the exact look on her face in the dark of the garden when she had told him she hated him, so similar to the moment she stood over him in the mineral spring, looking so devastatingly beautiful as she promised to kill him. He didn't see Lord Gan's thoughtful frown.
"That must trouble you a great deal, considering your own stance on the matter."
Zuko looked up, confused.
"The infatuation you so clearly harbor for her."
At his flinch, the baby stirred against him, balling up a fist against his high collar. "That's not… It's not like that."
"Is it not?" Lord Gan arched his brows. "Because I'm beginning to think all that I've witnessed today points to an impatient young man entirely captivated by his captive, a girl who rather does appear to despise him. Tell me, does she hate you for living up to your father's expectations?" His voice was quiet, cold, mocking. "For being a strong prince who takes what he wants?"
Zuko's mouth twisted nastily and his chest swelled as he struggled to articulate a retort, but words failed him.
Because it was true, wasn't it? All his striving to be what Ozai wanted, everything he had done to win his father's love… Each step down that path had taken him farther from Katara, had made it more and more impossible for her to ever forgive him.
Lord Gan watched him keenly, his manner the unaffected look of a man already having accepted some measure of defeat. Like he had lost the first round - but now meant to win the game.
"I'm right," he said, though he did not seem glad about it, "but that's not all of it. After all, you don't usually get what you want - so you said. What you want from that girl then is not a thing that can be taken by force. Is that the reason for your change of heart? Have you committed yourself to a life of treason to win the affections of your… tundra sapphire?"
Zuko sneered as much at the term as at the suggestion. "You're entirely out of line."
"And what will you do to put me in my place, Prince Zuko? You've already threatened my wealth and status. What more would you take from me to bend me to your will?"
Zuko bared his teeth and nearly snarled back, but he stopped short - because Gan's eyes flicked slightly down. There was his fear again, just barely visible behind the mask of grim challenge.
The baby let out a wobbling little noise and stirred against Zuko's shoulder.
All of a sudden, he understood what was happening here. He gaped at Lord Gan with fresh offense.
Before he could speak, the sliding door wrenched open and Katara appeared. She was pink in her cheeks and her eyes were a reckless flash as they cut across the room. She stopped short at the sight of him, at the baby in his arms. Incredulity flickered over her face, dragging her thoughts from whatever had troubled her. Her lips twisted together.
"Do you think I would hurt a baby?" Zuko blurted, having intended to direct the question elsewhere. His voice was a little higher than he wanted it to be, but the shocked drop of Katara's jaw was gratifying.
"No," she said scathingly. He might have turned a pointed look on Lord Gan if not for her immediate follow-up. "You just obviously have no idea what you're doing."
"Of course I have no idea what I'm doing," he growled. "Holding babies isn't exactly part of my duties as the Crown Prince."
The baby squirmed against him and whined and suddenly he felt trapped, pinned down in a way he had no idea how to wrestle out of. He was a few heartbeats from panicking. Katara casually folded her arms over her chest.
"He's drooling on your good clothes. Your highness."
She seemed to understand exactly how uncomfortable he was and deem it well-deserved. Zuko gave her what was meant to be a withering look, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. One corner of her mouth twitched up and flattened in less time than it took to blink.
"Here, let me hold him," she huffed, and suddenly she was right there beside him, her hands brushing Zuko's chest as she lifted the baby's warm weight away and settled him in her lap. For an instant, Zuko could smell her perspiration from the walk. Even when she sat back, still just barely within arm's reach, her scent hovered like a fog in his brain, warm and salty as the sea.
Jung was rubbing at his face with his tiny fists but, as soon as he looked up at her, his cheeks creased in a big smile. Katara's expression opened up. Her eyes sparkled and her mouth fell open like she was surprised and delighted to find him there.
Watching her was like tearing open a wound. Because she had never looked like this around him. Not ever. He was used to her anger and resentment, her disdain and misery. Even when things had been good, she hadn't been exactly happy. To see her so… pleased… talking so sweetly…
This might be her natural state if Zuko wasn't there to ruin everything.
He didn't like the way that made him feel. So he tore his eyes away and fixed a glare on Lord Gan. The noble was looking between them and the open door, and the knot of anxiety in his brow tightened by the second.
"Will Lady Gan be rejoining us?" Zuko asked Katara lightly, as if it hardly mattered. She shot him an annoyed side-eye and spoke to the baby instead.
"Your mom needs to get more exercise. She walks too slow!" She dragged out the words and tickled the infant until he giggled. "Don't worry, though. She'll be back soon."
Lord Gan relaxed a measure, but he didn't look exactly reassured. "Forgive me, Princess Katara. Did you enjoy your tour of the grounds?"
"The view was nice," she said, not looking at him. "It'd be better if there wasn't a wall blocking off part of it."
"I'm rather inclined to agree. A project for a later date, though. With things as they are, you might find yourself glad to have such an obstacle between yourself and… any who mean you harm."
He met Zuko's forbidding stare and lifted one eyebrow. Katara glanced between them briefly, then ignored them in favor of making faces at the baby.
A moment later, Lady Gan stepped through the open door. If she was at all winded from the walk, it didn't show on her calm face. Her eyes passed over Katara and her son and came to rest on Zuko. Something in her regard had changed. A heat she had kept well-contained had dispersed. She bowed, as was proper, before returning to her seat.
"Ah, the light of my life returns," Lord Gan said grandly. Lady Gan cast him an affectionate glance before turning her attention back to Zuko.
"I see my son has left his mark on you, your highness," she said with an apologetic sort of humor. "Koji, dear, we shall have to replace his highness's robes."
Lord Gan peered at her skeptically, his indrawn breath screaming reluctance. She lowered her chin and looked back at him with some force.
"The Heir Apparent must have raiment appropriate to his office."
Lord Gan's eyes popped before he could shutter his expression. It would have given Zuko a surge of satisfaction if he hadn't been similarly shocked. Lord Gan's eyes flicked between Zuko and Lady Gan. "My darling…"
"And we shall express our gratitude for the honor of being the ones to provide it for him, as well as for his honored guest. Princess Katara of course will also need a new wardrobe to signify her new role."
"Which is… what, pray tell?"
"Dear heart, it is not my place to say, but activists, advocates, and advisors alike are susceptible to the benefits of style. Diplomats and ambassadors need every edge in civil combat, and that begins with cutting an impressive figure."
Zuko only vaguely heard this, his wide eyes glued to Lady Gan before finally peeling away to fix on Katara. She watched Lady Gan as if suspecting some hidden insult while she helped the baby gain his feet.
She had somehow won their cause. She had defended him. She must have. Zuko was flooded with relief and gratitude and uncomfortable questions.
What had she said? And why?
Abruptly, Katara noticed his stare and glowered at him. It was enough to bring his attention back to the conversation at hand.
"Dearest, his highness was just explaining to me the lengths he means to go to in order to ensure success in his endeavors," Lord Gan was saying quietly through his teeth. His voice dropped even lower. "He will have the very shirts off our backs, Yaza."
Lady Gan's expression soured and she gave her husband a long, heavy look. "You could not simply wait."
Lord Gan huffed and started to defend himself, but she cut him off, still in an undertone.
"You asked for my opinion, so you'll have it. This is not some court intrigue or one of your cries for reform. It is our duty and privilege to grant Prince Zuko whatever support he needs in pursuit of his goals, ambitious as they are. And it is our extraordinary good fortune that he may truly be the idealist he sometimes appears."
"But behind closed doors?" Lord Gan growled so softly Zuko didn't fully hear him – he could see the shape of the words on his mouth, though. Gan's look was earnest and loaded with meaning. "He as much as admitted to me-"
Lady Gan shook her head with confidence. "Rumors and shadow games."
Lord Gan scoffed, doubt writ large in his furrowed brow. Zuko, fighting to reel in the uneasiness that had taken him over, held his head a bit higher, sat a bit stiffer.
"Why don't you just come out and ask me whatever it is you want to know?" he demanded.
"As your highness wishes," Lord Gan sneered, straightening. "Look me in the eye and tell me you haven't taken advantage of this girl."
Zuko's eyebrow popped up and he swayed back from the table. His face flushed hot. Flicking a glance at Katara, he found her watching his reaction with growing irritation. He quickly looked away. It was so much easier to meet Lord Gan's accusatory glare.
But then, as he opened his mouth to dismiss the very notion, he found his throat closed tight around the words. Could he honestly say he hadn't taken advantage of Katara? She had never been happy with him. Even at the best times, she had always been sort of… trapped with him, desperate for comfort and support and… And he had selfishly gobbled up every scrap of her affection, completely heedless of what it could cost her.
Whack!
Zuko clutched his throbbing shoulder and gaped at the source of his pain. Katara scowled back at him. The fist she had struck him with still hovered threateningly between them – while her other hand propped up the baby so that he faced his startled parents.
"The answer you're looking for," she hissed, "is 'no, I have never forced myself on my slave.' It's really simple. Just say it."
"That's not what he asked."
Katara's face went rapidly pale, then red, then she scowled at him harder than before. "It's obviously what he wants to know. It's what everyone wants to know."
Her voice was rising. Lady Gan coaxed the baby to totter into her arms, but Zuko hardly noticed that. A cold sweat prickled his spine.
"What?" he wheezed. It seemed impossible for Katara to look angrier, but she managed it.
"You cannot seriously be saying you weren't aware there would be rumors." When he didn't immediately respond, she pressed on. "But I guess this is just like the last little fiction you didn't contest, isn't it? The lie makes you look strong, so you're fine with just letting it stand. Funny how yours is always the position of power and mine is always the butt of the joke."
It took Zuko a second to remember – but then he did, and the rush of it was sickening and painful. She was using his own words for the rumor that had circulated among the trainees in the rebel camp – the little fiction that they were gay. The parallels were immediately obvious. Once again, he was the dominant party. Once again, the rumors tore Katara down, made her his victim, an acquiescent if not entirely willing plaything.
And, to his ever-deepening shame, she was right. He hadn't been entirely oblivious. He hadn't consciously decided to allow the rumor in this case because he hadn't been explicitly confronted with it, but he had done just as she said with this and every other part of their façade – let the lie stand because it strengthened his reputation to have a powerful captive under his thumb. And if it seemed like he kept his war prize in check with private shows of force, all the better to win Ozai's approval.
Of course everyone suspected he was raping her. It was implicit.
Zuko felt the contents of his stomach congeal into a cold slush. There were other people in the room but they had faded, become about as important as wallpaper. Katara was watching him like she meant to hit him again-
-and he wished she would. It was the least of what he deserved. Instead, she bared her teeth at him.
"Just. Say it."
"Katara, I'm so s-"
"To them," she snapped, mercilessly hacking through the sentiment before he could fully express it. "I know it's not true. Tell them."
The apology felt lodged in Zuko's chest, a hard-edged obstruction holding back what he sensed was a deep and festering abscess. It felt intolerable, holding that inside, but Katara clearly didn't want to hear it – so if he said it now, it would only be to alleviate his own discomfort. And then it would mean nothing.
So Zuko stiffened his spine and fixed a firm look on the nobles, though he knew his face was not entirely the blank aristocratic mask it should be. It was hot still, and troubled, and they stared back at him with identical looks of acute attention.
"No, I have never… forced myself on, on my slave." Determined not to wonder at the distinctions of the words she had chosen – not now, idiot! – he swallowed and mustered more strength so his voice wouldn't come out so soft. "It's my father's way to use violence and cruelty to show his power. That's not a legacy I want to continue."
After a silent beat, Lord Gan raised his brows in a bland expression that thinly veiled his grudging acceptance. "Unless you feel the need to commandeer our holdings."
His recalcitrance rasped at Zuko's last nerve. It snapped him back to solid ground.
"If I have to choose between feeding all those people and letting you keep your stuff," he snarled, "then yes, I will commandeer you blind."
Lord Gan glared back at him, but Lady Gan easily cut the tension with a laughing sigh. She held an apparently boneless Jung against her shoulder, rocking side-to-side.
"Really, Koji," she teased gently, "in what bizarre universe would a young ruler present himself as anything less than ruthless and implacable when an aristo sits before him questioning his honor?"
Her husband huffed and relented, casting her a mildly repentant look. "I tried to wait for you, my love, but his highness was insistent on the topic of conversation. I held out as long as humanly possible."
"I'm sure," Lady Gan said. Her hooded eyes clearly expressed her disbelief, but she was kind enough to not speak it aloud. Instead, she turned back to Zuko. "I hope your highness will forgive my lord husband's presumptions. To his credit, he was strongly counseled against you by a vociferous detractor not in possession of the facts."
Zuko was confused for an instant before he took in her sheepish shrug. Herself. She was talking about herself. And she was attempting to diffuse the insults he had been dealt at this table. The rigid prince in Zuko's mind told him to deny her efforts and hold onto the grievance; his honor, and Katara's, had been besmirched by the mere suggestion – much less being forced to dignify such an accusation with a response…
And added to that was his shame, hanging thick and persistent around him like the smell of a nauseatingly indulgent meal. He knew instinctively that if he set his anger loose, it would burn everything else away. All the miserable feelings would diminish – at least for a while.
For a moment, Zuko sat still, his mouth twisted sourly downward. Then he flicked his eyes to the side, to Katara. She wasn't looking at him – was, in fact, frowning severely at the two nobles – but she seemed to feel his stare. When she looked back at him, her frown didn't diminish. She offered him no advice, only watched him, waiting for him to choose.
Fury or forgiveness. His father's way or something new – something much harder.
Zuko shut his eyes and drew a deep breath, then forced it out from deep in his belly. He squeezed his anger down until it was a quiet seethe rather than the inferno it had been building toward. His pride and shame butted heads in his chest, but he knew what he had to do.
"I didn't hear an apology," Katara said abruptly.
Zuko's eyes popped open and he took in her tight frown – and he cursed himself again when he remembered he wasn't the only one who'd been insulted at this table. Perhaps not even just at the table... Katara had come to this meal hating him as much as ever, and now not only was she not working against him, she was almost, very nearly, kind-of-if-he-squinted… taking his side.
"Neither did I," he said at once, snapping his attention back to the nobles. It gave him a giddy flutter in his chest when Katara's head turned so that she, too, was frowning at them. He tamped down that feeling, but it shuddered through him like a chill and it was all he could do to hold his forbidding stare.
Lord and Lady Gan shared an unreadable look. The lady raised her elegant brows. Lord Gan bowed his head. "My apologies, your highnesses. Please consider me-"
"Both of you."
Those elegant brows did a little hop. "I- Certainly I would never dare deny your highness, but may I ask what I did to cause offense?"
"I don't know - but my honored guest came back from your tour looking unhappier than when she left."
Katara was watching him again, and there was a hint of fire in her eyes. Zuko carefully avoided looking at her.
"And since a lot of things have been unclear up to now, I'll make this explicit; any disrespect to Princess Katara is a personal insult to me."
Lady Gan fluttered her apologies for any unintended insult with the measured haste of a well-bred noble but, although Zuko went on watching her, his attention was swept up by the blue eyes pinned to him, through him. He couldn't tell, watching her only peripherally, whether Katara was angry or suspicious. He couldn't be sure whether she found any measure of satisfaction in an apology when he was the one to extract it for her. Her only response to Lady Gan was a brusque nod. The scantest acceptance.
Was it just his remorse that was meaningless? Or was every apology the same slap in her face?
Zuko sensed that it would be foolish to ask. Katara wasn't accepting any apologies from him but she was willing to align herself with him for their shared purpose. She would help him take the throne from his father. She would even help him keep the nobles in line.
And if he stepped off this difficult path he'd chosen, she would help him by ensuring it was the last mistake he ever made.
It was rushing through him again, the same tremulous flood he'd felt down in the springs when she stood over him promising to kill him. He had dismissed it quickly at the time, had allowed anger to burn it away like everything else, but now-
He hardly heard Lord Gan send a footman for a bottle of fire wine, hardly felt the glass in his hand as he raised it in a toast to their alliance. The only clear moment was when he let his eyes settle on Katara as she raised her glass to her lips and, staring unblinkingly back at him, sipped.
He struggled to keep it from showing on his face in that moment – because if she didn't want his apologies, she would have even less use for this, his overwhelming tide of fierce, desperate gratitude.