Archive of Our Own

The late morning sun shone brightly in the space of the city square, unobstructed by the few buildings that surrounded it. Though the heat of the day was increasing like a threat as the sun rose ever higher in the sky, there was a cool breeze on the air. And a few dozen Fire Nation citizens were flitting about, waiting for the start of an event that occurred each and every Sunday on a tower at the north edge of the plaza.

Zuko shielded his eyes as he watched his people. He was hidden from them, for now, standing behind a column while his guards inspected the square. His chest felt heavy, as it always did whenever he was about to make a public speech, even though he had been Fire Lord for five years now and had been making these weekly addresses to his people for the past two.

As he watched a young girl skip around with her father and a young man attempt to sell makeshift cigars, he oddly felt a little surer of himself. They weren’t wondering if the Fire Lord was going to mess up today. They were just enjoying their day, and were polite enough to allow their nation’s Fire Lord to interrupt it for an hour.

By the time the sun had reached its apex in the sky, the square was bursting with people. There were babies alongside older people, firebenders and nonbenders, people from the Fire Nation as well as immigrants who came to enjoy the new economy (or perhaps just the weather—Zuko couldn’t be entirely sure).

Zuko strode up the many steps to the tower’s rooftop podium and looked down at the sea of people. He had originally spoken on the ground—on the same level as the citizens. He had like the symbolism. But the first Sunday speech had seen more people attending than had been at the last royal wedding, so—onto the roof he went, the better for the citizenry to see him—and actually hear him.

It helped his nerves too, Zuko thought as he let out a breath and watched the crowd quiet from their boisterous buzzing to soft whispers in anticipation of his address, that the view from up here was beautiful.

From here, he could see the edge of the caldera, and the beautiful sunlit blue of the ocean below. He couldn’t help his small smile.

Like the sap he was, he saw the ocean and he thought of Katara.

But he always thought of her before the speeches that helped him connect more to his people in two years than his father, grandfather, or great-grandfather had done in 100 years combined. They were, after all, her idea.

“Good afternoon, my friends,” said Zuko, his voice echoing off of the corners of the plaza and allowing the citizens of the caldera—and anyone who traveled there to hear him speak—to hear him. Zuko had hired a team of earthbenders, led by Toph, to construct the best acoustics possible for the space. (“We’re wasting it on your dreary tones, Sparky.”) So his voice was amplified, and each Fire Nation citizen could hear him as if he was sitting right next to them for a chat.

“It’s my pleasure to speak with you on this summer Sunday. Sunday, after all, is the sun’s day. It is our day. A day for the Fire Nation to rest and collect its thoughts before the start of a busy week that we will use to better ourselves and the world.”

Zuko hadn’t loved the idea of the public speeches at first, mostly because he didn’t like speaking in public. But it was hard to say no to Katara. She had presented the idea of monthly speeches to Zuko and his council soon into her tenure as Ambassador for the Southern Water Tribe. She had prepared a presentation describing how opening a dialogue with the public itself would allow the Fire Lord to explain the Fire Nation’s new positions regarding trade, the military, the colonies, and everything in between. Most citizens of the Fire Nation had never even seen the Fire Lord, much less heard him speak. It would be, she had said, ending her speech to the council with a confident grin, “a revolutionary experiment.”

The first experiment was wildly successful. Monthly speeches quickly turned into weekly speeches, and town governments soon organized caravans so that people in far-flung areas could still at least occasionally attend what was now known as the Sunday Addresses.

“You may be wondering,” said Zuko the assembled crowd, “how we plan to respond to drought conditions on the farms in the northern part of the country. I myself went to visit the affected towns and I saw devastation and ruin. In such a case, you may think we cannot use our element to help—indeed, when I was there, I needed to be extremely careful so that I didn’t firebend at all. But fire doesn’t just come from some of our countrymen’s’ skin, it also lies in the northern farmers’ hearts. I’m inspired by their strength and tenacity to push on in the face of struggle. They need not struggle long: Ambassador Katara will explain today how a team of waterbenders is soon traveling to the northern farms to replenish the soil and replenish our food supply and trade. Also today, Ambassador Kyi will be giving an update on the reopening of tourism to Kyoshi Island.”

Additional speeches by other government figures had technically been Zuko’s idea. It was not his best idea. The plan, originally, was to give Katara time to speak to the people about the hospitals that were being built across the Fire Nation. He had thought that the catalyst behind the people’s better access to health care should be the one to explain details, especially because her passion for the project was unmatched. (This was saying something, because when Zuko visited the first finished hospital and met a young boy healing from a burn wound who was in good spirits and surrounded by friendly and concerned caregivers, the Fire Lord had to excuse himself to go cry in the bathroom.)

That part of his idea had been a good one, because the people had loved her. Zuko had been nervous at first—not about Katara’s political prowess, that was a given—but about how the rest of the Fire Nation would take to a Water Tribe woman as consort to the Fire Lord. He and Katara had never publicly announced their relationship, but the people of the Fire Nation were very aware; tell one servant a secret in the morning, and by lunchtime the whole country knows. But Zuko did not yet have a reason to worry. Katara’s addresses were interesting and rousing, and Zuko was pretty sure she always got louder cheers than he did.

Yet as soon as Katara had gotten to stand at the podium just once, the other ambassadors wanted to speak as well. And Zuko couldn’t say, “Well you’re not allowed, because I’m the Fire Lord, and I’m not in love with you.” So, all the ambassadors always had the opportunity to speak, and the Sunday Addresses became a little more boring. But the intention of these speeches was to try to get the people to know more about what was going on in the palace. And a lot of what was going on in the palace was dreadfully boring.

Some of what was going on in the palace, however, was not boring at all. According to Uncle Iroh, Zuko’s succession of failed attempts to ask Katara to marry him was “better than any drama the Ember Island Players have ever staged.”

“After we respond to the droughts in the northern region, my council and I will make a solid plan to ensure that our people are health and fed even when droughts do happen. We will be healthy and happy in good times and in bad.”

He supposed Uncle was right—the fact that he had now tried five times to propose to Katara was significant on its own, but add in the fact that Katara had no idea—well, if Zuko hadn’t been so close to the story, he’s sure he would have found it enthralling.

“In just a little while, besides learning more about the response to drought conditions, you’ll hear about new fishing treaties—I promise she will make it more interesting than it sounds—from Fire Lady Katara—”

Zuko froze. The echo of his voice ricocheted off the buildings in the now-otherwise-silent square, mocking him and his slip-up. Usually the crowd below hummed with whispers, and multiplied by the thousands, they lent a soothing soundtrack to his speeches. But now the audience was hushed in a way Zuko had never before heard.

Fighting the nausea that was rising in him, he turned his head quickly to see who else was on the tower.

His two guards, Asahi and Jing, were lost in silent sniggers. At the scowl on their Fire Lord’s face, they immediately stood at attention, refusing to meet his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” said Asahi in a whisper, still staring straight ahead. “She’s not here yet.”

Zuko turned back to his audience as he felt the enormity of his mistake weigh down on him. What could he even say? He grimaced, trying to find his words as thousands of faces stared up at him. He opened his mouth to speak, to apologize—to lie? Could he make something up quickly? He didn’t say “Fire Lady Katara” he said “Sapphire Baby Katara”—it was a nickname! No, no, that was even worse.

“I—” he started, without any real idea what was going to come next. But then someone in the crowd had something to say first. Well, they didn’t speak—they whooped.

After that, a wolf whistle. (Really?)

And then a few cheers.

Then, suddenly, the entire crowd of Fire Nation citizens was thundering, their shouts and their cries and their laughter a massive wave of sound that amplified on itself tenfold due to the acoustics in the square.

“Yes!” he distinctly heard someone scream. “Fire Lady Katara!”

“Fire Lady Katara!” someone responded, and then the throng of Fire Nation citizens began to chant as if they were trying to get an encore at a Chong and the Nomads concert: “Fire Lady Katara! Fire Lady Katara! Fire Lady Katara!”

Zuko’s heart leapt—they didn’t merely tolerate his choice—they approved, at least the thousands of people here did. And this was likely a good sample size. He tried to do the math in his head. If 2,000 people lived in Caldera, and there was 100 in each town on the archipelago—but then he remembered something that made his heart sink so low he thought he might forget how to breathe.

“Wait! Wait!” he cried hoarsely to his citizens. “Okay, I’m so happy that you like Katara, but—she doesn’t—she’s coming here soon—she doesn’t know. That I’m going to ask her…to marry me.” Zuko wiped sweat from his brow. “We have to keep it—we have to keep it a—,” he said, looking down at what was at least a quarter of his country. “A secret,” he finished lamely.

The crowd buzzed. “We can do that!” someone yelled. “You can count on us!” cried another.

“Okay—okay—we can do this. Together. As a nation,” said Zuko, feeling that old energy of Royalty and Leadership and Motivational Speaker rise in him. “I believe that if we can stand together as one, we will meet any obstacles that come our way and we will be victorious over them. Unity is the answer, not division. The Fire Nation, together, can keep this quiet—”

Zuko heard the stairway door open behind him. He coughed. He distinctly heard Katara’s voice whisper “Keep what quiet?” to Jing. He sent a silent prayer in thanks to Agni that the acoustics of the area did not amplify the voices of the people behind him.

“—keep this quiet peace that we have forged as a nation of Agni’s children,” he continued, hearing a soft “Oh!” behind him.

Phew.

Unfortunately, Katara’s arrival caused Zuko’s already flushed complexion to burn a brilliant rouge. His nerves were so tight that he was surprised he could move his arms. And his throat was so constricted that he wasn’t sure he could even swallow. It was time to go.

“Now,” said Zuko quickly, forcing words out, “thatisallIhaveto share with you today sopleasewelcome Ambassador Kyi.” He said this so fast that some words bled into others, but he still moved away from the podium as if it had electrocuted him. He turned around, relieved to be staring at only three people instead of three thousand.

Except—no—that was one too few.

“Where is Ambassador Kyi?” whispered Zuko, trying his best to seem like a normal human being and not the inflamed sack of mortification that he truly was. Katara was attempting to meet his eye, but he could not bring himself to look at her, for fear of her being able to read him like a book. He knew that if he just glanced at her she’d be able to tell that he just told a good portion of the Fire Nation citizenry that he wanted to marry her.

“Not here,” whispered Jing. “We think he got food poisoning from trying the flamin’ hot fire flakes at the banquet last night.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Katara give him a thumbs up, indicating that she was ready to speak.

Zuko nodded at Jing but didn’t move. Out of all the times he had wished for Kyi to get food poisoning, it just had to happen today.

Katara was now making large pointing gestures at herself.

There was nothing else to it. Zuko nodded at the space near Katara’s left ear and turned back around to the podium.

“Changeofplans—we now have Ambassador—,” he paused for a beat so the audience remembered her real title “—Katara here to speak.”

The crowd roared as they usually did whenever Katara took her turn during the Sunday Address.

“Fire Lady Ka—!” someone yelled down below, followed quickly by the sound of a smack, a loud “Ow!” and a chorus of “Shhh!”

Zuko smiled. These really were his people.

He turned around to walk off the podium, and almost ran straight into Katara, who was wearing an easy smile. “Sorry I’m late!” she whispered, her blue eyes wide. “Slept in!” She reached out and squeezed his hand before passing him to take her place at the edge of the tower.

Zuko walked slowly backward as Katara began to speak, her soft voice echoing in earnest around the square. He took his place next to Asahi and Jing.

“Nice save, Fire Lord,” said Asahi. Jing tried and failed to stifle a snort.

Zuko glared forward, refusing to acknowledge the two guards. They had become too comfortable since Ozai’s defeat and Zuko’s coronation. If he were Ozai, they would currently be roasted, flamin’ hot guards.

But he wasn’t. So they kept laughing at him.

--

One week later, Zuko had not made any real headway at asking for Katara’s hand in marriage. He had tried, and it had been a valiant effort. On Friday night, he had ordered a meal of Katara’s favorite Water Tribe treats—sea prunes, five flavor soup—and planned a picnic under the stars. He and Katara had enjoyed a very romantic evening on the Fire Lord’s balcony, and his most promising one yet for a proposal. Zuko had carved a small pendant joining the Fire Nation and Water Tribe symbols, matching her necklace but to be worn on her wrist instead, so as not to replace Kya’s heirloom.

He wanted to surprise her; he stuffed the pendant into a sponge cake so that she could discover it during dessert.

But Zuko had underestimated Katara’s ability to eat sea prunes, and when it was time for their cake, Katara announced that she was absolutely stuffed and promptly gave her piece of sponge cake to a passing flutterbat.

It was fine. He would just carve a seventh pendant. At least he was getting better at it.

Still, he was not looking forward to another Sunday Address, during which any one of his subjects could yell out to Katara that Zuko wanted to marry her. (Admittedly, if this happened, it seemed unlikely that Katara would take them seriously. Unless of course, the entire crowd decided to betray their Fire Lord. Then she would probably figure something was up.)

One positive was that Katara had still been sleeping when Zuko left their chambers. She had slept through his entire morning routine of meditating for an hour and then answering correspondence, and she continued sleeping as he spent way too much time trying to see what hair loopies would look like in his own hair. (He took them out before he was to address his country as Fire Lord.)

Katara would probably be late again, which limited the amount of time that his countrymen had to embarrass him in front of her.

“Good afternoon, friends,” said Zuko, after climbing to the top of the tower and starting his speech as soon as the sun was directly overhead. He figured it would be best to act completely natural, and just start his speech like everything was normal—because it definitely was. “Agni is surely blessing us today as we unveil new uses for the majority of the Fire Nation Navy fleet. We will be taking apart most of these warships, which we have no need for any longer since the end of the hundred-year-war, and will be using their metal to build housing. Priority will be given to those who lost their homes during the—during the—”

Zuko paused. The crowd before him was rapt with attention—they always were during the first ten minutes at least—but they weren’t merely watching and listening. A good third of the people below were holding large pieces of paper. Zuko narrowed his eyes and he realized they were signs.

Zuko was at once thrilled…and filled with dread. Thrilled because bringing political signs to a speech meant that his people were interested in having a say in Fire Nation affairs. That was the point of the Sunday Addresses! But he was also filled with dread at the very real possibility that his people wanted something he could not grant.

Zuko took a breath. He was going to focus on the former and hope for the best. He figured it would seem like good leadership to bring up the signs before the Fire Nation citizens began a demonstration. That way, they would know that he was interested in their thoughts and feelings and wanted to know how they thought he should govern.

“I notice that many of you are holding signs,” he said in a change of subject. “Before I continue with my prepared remarks, please, let me see what you want me to know so that I can be better informed what it is the people of the Fire Nation need, and so that I can do my very best to meet it.”

Zuko relaxed a little at the cheers that this statement drew from the crowd. In unison, the people holding signs held them up. Zuko couldn’t really see what they said—he squinted.

Just then, Asahi appeared next to him. Never breaking from attention, he wordlessly passed Zuko a pair of binoculars.

Zuko lifted the binoculars to his eyes and spun a dial to zoom in on a random sign. It looked like—a rough, colorful drawing of a girl. Was there a missing girl? thought Zuko. His stomach twisted into knots as he wondered if Fire Nation soldiers had kidnapped someone. He spun the dial to zoom in further and took note of the drawing’s details: the girl was wearing a blue tunic, she was smiling, she had dark hair, had beads in her hair loops—wait. Beads in her hair loops?

Oh no. Zuko snapped the binoculars to another random sign, which read, “ASK HER!” Another sign: “WE LOVE KATARA.” Another sign, held by an old man with a round belly: “PRO FIRE LADY K.”

He slowly lowered the binoculars to the podium and sighed. “I can’t tell you all how pleased I am that you are supportive. But it hasn’t happened yet, and I really need you to play it cool.”

At this, the hundreds of signs lowered and disappeared behind their owners. It was as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Thank you,” said Zuko. “You can bring out the signs again when it’s time. Though…I just don’t know when that’s going to be?”

The crowd started to hiss.

“No, no!” so Zuko quickly. “I just mean, I’ve tried to ask her six times, and each time I do it, something goes wrong! Just the other night, Katara unknowingly gave the pendant I carved to a flutterbat!”

The people of the Fire Nation let out what seemed to be a collective snort.

“Hey!” said Zuko. “It wasn’t my fault! I stuck it into a piece of really good cake but she just wasn’t hungry!”

Zuko thought he might have heard some sympathetic tuts coming from the crowd.

“So I just don’t know what to do,” he sighed.

Like they did whenever Katara finished a speech, the crowd began to cheer. Zuko stepped back a little, surprised. “What?” he said.

“We’ll help!” someone yelled from below. “We can do this together!” shouted someone else. The signs were out again. “Unity is the answer!” came another shout, which sounded very familiar. Was that—was that Uncle Iroh with a sign? No, it had to be a trick of the light. It was, after all, high noon.

“I don’t think—but how—I don’t think that would work.”

That was the wrong thing to say. The crowd was turning on him now; they were all loud grumbles and boos.

“Wait!” cried Zuko. “Okay, I’m listening. What should we do?”

The group of thousands held up their signs and screamed approximately 700 different sentences at the same time.

“I can’t—can we try that one more time?”

Again, they hollered how they as Fire Nation citizens could help their Fire Lord snag a wife, but there seemed to be at least 1,200 different plans being shouted into the warm afternoon sunlight.

“Okay okay!” Zuko shouted, waving his hands to get the throng to quiet down. The crowd quieted at once, encouraging Zuko. “Maybe what we can do,” he said, with all the gravity of his position, “as kind of, uh, a revolutionary experiment, is that you all divide into small groups of…100…for five minutes and then we’ll do a share-out with one person speaking for their group. Does that sound good?”

The Fire Nation citizens tutted their agreement as Jing coughed behind him.

Zuko turned toward the noise. “Small groups of 100?” whispered Jing, deadpan, as the sound of thousands of people trying to divide into groups filled their ears.

“I’m sorry I’m late again!” cried Katara as she pushed through the door and ran up to Zuko. “I know noon is symbolic but it’s way too early.”

Katara’s words reverberated across the square: Symbolic but way too early. Symbolic but way too early. She slapped her hand across her mouth. “Oh no. I forgot about the acoustics,” she whispered weakly.

Zuko wasted no time. He snapped toward the podium, trying, once again, to appear calm. “My friends!” he shrieked to the assembled thousands, who were now frozen still at the sound of Katara’s voice. Some of them were still holding up various colored cloths to indicate different teams.

“Ambassador Katara is here to speak with you!”

“I’m up already? Again?” whispered Katara, but Zuko was already pushing her forward.

“You’ll do great, love you!”

--

The Fire Nation citizens did well during Katara’s speech, clapping and cheering at all the right moments and not letting onto anything strange, and when Katara and Zuko left the square together, people gawked, but they gawked silently. Zuko was thankful that these people, surprisingly good at keeping a secret, were his people, if not a little irked that he would have to wait until the following week to detail his plan for new public housing.

That is, if he even had the chance to talk politics. Zuko had a feeling that the Fire Nation crowd was not going to forget that their Fire Lord was trying to woo one of their ambassadors until the engagement was announced. And unfortunately, this week, Zuko had failed again at asking for Katara’s hand.

It was possible he needed to try a new strategy; it was possible the pendant offered too many opportunities for disaster.

He had stayed up late Thursday night carving a new pendant—the seventh pendant—and the following evening he and Katara were sitting by the turtle duck pond in the light of the moon. There was no romantic picnic basket, no passing troupe of musicians he’d hired to serenade Katara—perhaps simpler was better. The pond was a special spot for them, a place where they could be alone together outside of the pressures of the palace.

Zuko gulped as he looked at Katara’s face in profile. She was watching the pond with curiosity, her nose scrunched up in that cute way that he loved. It was time.

As soon as he made his decision to ask her, now, his lungs tightened in anticipation and the world seemed to spin.

Katara said something to him, asked him a question by the expectant look on her face, but Zuko couldn’t hear her. She looked a little blurry, and his head was full of bees. That was okay—her question could wait.

Wordlessly, he slipped the pendant out of his pocket and held his palm out to Katara.

Katara’s face dropped into a perfect “o” of surprise and then her face melded into sheer glee. “I didn’t think you would!” yelled Katara, grabbing the pendant and getting to her feet.

Now that he had done it, now that it seemed she was accepting him, he could hear her words as the buzzing dimmed and the world became clearer. Success. And he hadn’t even started his monologue yet! But there was still time for the monologue.

“Katara, since the moment you walked in the palace doors—" he began as the woman in question turned away from him and, strangely, set her waterbending stance while he remained sitting on his bottom in the grass.

Maybe Katara was performing some Water Tribe proposal ritual that Zuko didn’t understand. Should he stand too? He scrambled to his feet just as Katara let out a whoop and hurled the pendant with all her might across the pond. It skipped across the water about a dozen times, the gentle splashes of the stone on the water disrupting what was otherwise a still and silent night.

On its final splash, Zuko watched the pendant fell below the surface in the very center of the pond, accompanied by his dignity.

“Oh spirits yes!” screamed Katara, jumping into the air with her fists balled in victory. “That had to be a record—was it a record?”

Zuko turned and stared stupidly at her, his mouth agape.

“When I asked if you spent time out here skipping stones, I didn’t really think you did!” she cried, “but there you are with a skipping stone in your pocket! You really are full of surprises, Zuko.” She sent him a shining smile, a small blush creeping up her next.

She walked closer to him, her chin perking up. “It was a record, right?” she asked, noticing his sudden discomfort and raising an eyebrow. She leaned against him, and that’s when he finally relaxed.

“Yes, Katara,” he sighed, wrapping his arms around her, trying not to think about how this was his seventh failure. “It was a record.”

--

On Sunday morning, Zuko walked up the stairs to the tower with Uncle Iroh. “It is good, Fire Lord Zuko,” said Iroh, “that Ambassador Katara speaks so frequently at these events. You are getting the people comfortable with her.”

“Yes, they really love her,” Zuko said, annoyed. He hadn’t slept much last night, half ruminating on his seventh failed proposal and half worried about how thousands of Fire Nation citizens would take the news that there was no news on the engagement front.

Iroh knitted his eyebrows at Zuko. “You seem frustrated at the thought that your people love the woman you love.”

“Of course not!” interjected Zuko, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand and staring accusingly at his uncle. “I just…they love her a lot. I think they want me…to make a move.”

“That’s…odd,” said Iroh in a kind voice, though he couldn’t hide the skepticism covering his face. “A whole nation wants you to make a move? Why do you think that?”

“Because!” said Zuko as they opened the doors to the roof of the tower. He gestured toward the square. “All of these people want me to!”

Iroh frowned and put a hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “Nephew,” he said quietly. “This is between you and Katara. It does not involve the rest of the Fire Nation. And besides, they love you and they love her, but that doesn’t mean that they want you to make a move.” He tutted. “They have more important things to worry about.”

“No,” said Zuko, shaking his head. “You weren’t here these past two addresses. They, as a group, want me to propose to Katara.”

“Prince Zuko—” started Iroh, but then he stopped himself with a small smile. “My apologies, Nephew, I was just reminded of previous times I had to assure you that something might be all in your head. Fire Lord Zuko, have you been getting enough sleep? Drinking enough water?”

“I’m not going crazy!” shouted Zuko. “Asahi—Jing—tell him!”

The two guards were currently watching the crowd below and laughing at something while shoving each other. Zuko did not feel very well protected.

“What?” asked Asahi, stifling his guffaw. Jing elbowed him. “I mean, excuse me, Fire Lord Zuko, could you repeat your request?”

“Tell my uncle that the crowd has been very pleased and…insistent…about my attempts to propose to Ambassador Katara.”

Asahi and Jing shared a look.

“You’re going to propose to Ambassador Katara?” asked Asahi pleasantly.

“That’s great,” said Jing with gusto. “Congratulations, my lord.”

The two guards wore matching sycophantic smiles.

Zuko crossed his arms and scowled. “I should fire you both.”

“Zuko!” exclaimed Uncle Iroh. “Do not threaten your guards like that. It is because of them and their colleagues that you have survived the numerous assassination attempts against you. You should be thanking them.”

Zuko huffed. The stupid smiles on Asahi’s and Jing’s faces didn’t falter.

“Well?” nudged his uncle.

“Thank you for preventing my murder,” said Zuko in a dull voice.

“You’re very welcome,” said Asahi.

“Anytime,” said Jing.

“I hate you,” mouthed Zuko so his uncle couldn’t see.

He turned back to Iroh. “You’ll learn about it during this speech,” said Zuko. “You’ll see that we’re all keeping the secret together.”

“Keeping the secret?”

“Yes, the people all agreed that they wouldn’t say anything, so that Katara wouldn’t find out before I asked her.”

“That’s very…kind of…thousands of your people,” said Iroh to Zuko, but he shot a concerned look to Asahi and Jing, who both shook their heads sympathetically.

“I’m not crazy!” repeated Zuko. “You’ll see!”

But by the time Zuko had finished his portion of the speech, he was wondering if he was indeed crazy. There were no pro-Katara signs, there was no whooping, and he even paused after mentioning Katara’s name to see if the Fire Nation citizens began to cheer. They did not.

On the bright side, he easily detailed the plan for public housing built with scrap from state-of-the-art warships, which the crowd seemed to love.

He introduced Katara, and finally, the outrageous rumble he’d gotten used to reached his ears.

Katara stepped up the podium and beamed at the Fire Nation citizens before here. “Hello friends,” she said. Katara had recently started addressing the people of the Fire Nation as “friends,” just as Zuko did.

“I wanted to share good news from the hospital project. We were able to provide jobs to hundreds of Fire Nation citizens as well as several Water Tribe healers. The cultural exchange continues too, as the Water Tribe is learning about herbal remedies that we have never used before but are common in the Fire Nation. And most importantly, anyone in the Fire Nation can reach a nearby hospital in less than a quarter-of-a-day’s journey.”

There were many cheers at this update, and Zuko could hear a number of the people in the crowd actually yelling, “Thank you.” His chest burned with pride.

Katara smiled at her audience. “That really means a lot to me, that the projects I’ve worked on are helping you,” said Katara, looking up from her prepared notes and veering from her set speech. “Not to get sentimental, but I knew it was a risk to come here, to the Fire Nation, when I have no fire in my blood. But it was a risk I would take over and over again, and that’s in part because of all of you, and how happy and blessed I am to serve you.”

The people of the Fire Nation whooped and hollered like they never had before for Katara, which was saying something. Zuko turned to his uncle—Iroh was already looking at him, a serious look in his eye. Zuko smiled and Iroh beamed right back.

Katara was continuing, somewhat flustered by the emotion she let show.

“Anyway, I should get back to budgets, but you all should know that I plan to live in the palace for a long, long time.” She let out a laugh, which quickly turned into a sputtering cough.

Long, long time, the square echoed. Long, long time.

Zuko felt like he was watching a repeat of two weeks ago, except that it felt much, much better this time.

“Oh,” squeaked Katara. “I must—I really—I—”

Ambassadors didn’t live in the palace.

Guards and servants didn’t either—they went home at night, or they came to the palace in the evenings if they were working the night shift. There were staff bedrooms, sure, if an emergency arose—but they didn’t live in the palace.

The only people who permanently lived in the palace were members of the royal family. Officially, that was: Fire Lord Zuko and his Uncle Iroh. The Princess Azula had living quarters she rarely used, preferring to spend her time recuperating on Ember Island. And there were rumors that Ambassador Katara’s apartment in the city was rarely visited and kept only for appearances, and that instead she lived in the Fire Lord’s chambers.

The rumors, of course, were true.

Zuko watched, a strange giddy feel coming over him, as Katara seemed to remember and digest all of this. “I think I’m finished,” she said as if in a daze. “I’d like to welcome Ambassador Kyi.”

“He’s not here,” hissed Jing.

Katara ignored him and stepped back off the podium. Slowly, she turned her face to Zuko and grimaced with guilt and apology. Zuko made a waving motion to signal that everything was fine. But he couldn’t help sidling up to her and whispering, “Long, long time, huh?

But just as two weeks ago, the bemused silence—or really, the amused silence—of the Fire Nation crowd didn’t last long. All at once, they began to cheer.

“Oh no,” said Katara, stricken. “I messed up again. Now they’re cheering for Kyi and he’s not even here.”

“It’s fine, Katara. Really,” Zuko said, feeling much lighter than he had in days. He hopped up to the podium. From this position, he could hear a few voices yelling “Long time!”

“Welp folks!” announced Zuko brightly. “Unfortunately, Ambassador Kyi ate something funny again and can’t be with us—”

“Zuko!” said Iroh sharply. (All right, he didn’t know why Kyi wasn’t here. But it could have been food poisoning again.)

“So that’s all for today! May Agni’s light shine upon you all!” He yelled, giving his people the most dazzling smile they’d probably ever seen their stoic, scowly head of state give. He added a jaunty wave for good measure.

Slowly, the crowd began to thin, their voices a rising and falling cacophony. No doubt, that was the sound of fresh gossip being trotted out.

Zuko turned to Katara. She was hovering away from the wall so that no one below could see her, and her cheeks were flaming red. Zuko moved to walk over to her, but Iroh called him over first.

“Zuko, over here,” Iroh said, forgetting the “Fire Lord” title that he loved to use. Uncle Iroh was talking in the corner with Asahi and Jing in hushed voices. “I will need to borrow your guards for just a moment,” he said. “You will find us in the stairwell when you are finished up here.”

Iroh tugged Asahi and Jing along by their elbows, and when he was sure only Zuko was looking at him, he winked. The two guards were grumbling, each making futile arguments that they were needed here for the Fire Lord’s safety (Jing) and that they wanted to watch what was going to happen next (Asahi).

But the Dragon of the West had his way, and soon the door was closing and Katara and Zuko were alone on the tower.

Zuko, for his part, had never felt better, and felt only the smallest twinge of guilt when he saw Katara’s expression.

“I’m so sorry,” she pushed out, after watching Iroh leave. Zuko wondered if Katara, in her flustered state, thought that Iroh had left with the guards so that Zuko could scold her. Now that the square held fewer people, she was leaning against the side of the railing wall and staring into space in dismay.

“Why?” asked Zuko. “Why are you sorry?” He couldn’t hide the joy in his voice, but Katara was particularly unobservant at the moment.

“I said—I implied—they all—they think—you think—and you haven’t even asked me,” she said, shaking her head as if she was scolding herself. She bit back a sob. He felt a little guilty for feeling as good as he did—Katara was genuinely upset.

“Haven’t asked you…what?” asked Zuko softly. He had stepped close to her during her incoherent rambling. Close enough to smell her shampoo, close enough to hear Katara’s little gasp when she realized that Zuko was inches from her.

She looked up at him. “Haven’t asked me—" she breathed, blue eyes locking onto his gold ones. “Haven’t asked me my...thoughts…on staying in the palace…long-term.”

Zuko resisted the urge to laugh. She was a diplomat after all.

“What if I told you,” he said, his voice husky, “that I have tried to ask you seven times and each time, you, in your beautiful obliviousness, have thwarted me?”

“What?”

“Let’s imagine for a second,” said Zuko, thoroughly enjoying that he had the advantage in a conversation for the first time in weeks. “Let’s imagine that I had carved seven different pendants that have been lost seven different times. Can you think of anything that’s happened recently where we could have lost a pendant?”

“I don’t understand,” said Katara. At the very least, she was relaxing now that Zuko had implied that he wanted to marry her. But she was still perplexed.

“A pendant, like the one on your neck,” he said, his hand coming up to cradle her neck. She shivered. “But for your wrist instead.”

“A stone,” said Katara.

“That’s right.”

“A…skipping stone.”

“Mhm.”

“Ammunition for a slingshot.”

“Yup.”

“…an old Earth Kingdom coin I gave to passing musicians.”

“Very good.”

“A…Pai Sho piece that got thrown off the balcony when you beat me.”

“You were never humble in defeat.”

“An offering for Agni.”

“Seemed like blasphemy to take it back.”

“A stone for a necklace I spontaneously made a little girl.”

“That one I could have gotten back, but chose not to.”

Katara paused, thinking. “And the seventh?”

“In a slice of cake that a flutterbat ate.”

“Okay,” said Katara, very slowly. Zuko could see tears forming in her eyes. “So those were all…betrothal stones. For me. Because you wanted to ask me to—to—”

“Say it,” said Zuko, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Marry me,” she said. Her eyes widened. “You!” she sputtered, trying to correct herself. “Marry y—”

“I accept, Master Katara, Ambassador to the Fire Nation, and Sifu to the Avatar,” he said, interrupting her. “I will marry you.”

Katara’s mouth dropped open before she leaned forward and erupted in a fit of giggles. Zuko took the opportunity to pull her closer to him.

“What do you think?” asked Zuko softly. “Are we engaged now?”

She placed her forehead on his. “It sounds like you failed eight times at proposing, Fire Lord. And I bested you. I got a yes in one.”

“I’m fine with it,” said Zuko lightly, and then captured her lips with his.

The sun was blazing high above them as they pressed closer together on the top of the tower. Below them, hundreds of Fire Nation citizens remained, chattering happily about Fire Lord Zuko and his not-so-secret girlfriend. Money changed hands as grown men placed bets on when the Fire Lord would propose, and young kids acted out how they imagined the scene would look.

(“My heart burns for you!” cried one little girl.

“I’m drowning in you!” replied another, and they both collapsed on the plaza, giggling and clutching each other.)

Unbeknownst to all of them, the Fire Lord and his intended had already privately agreed they should marry, and were sort-of-privately celebrating in the best way possible.

“They will come down soon,” Iroh said confidently to Asahi and Jing as the trio waited at the bottom of the tower stairs. It had been quite some time since they had left the Fire Lord and the ambassador alone on the roof.

“They could be in danger, General,” said Asahi impatiently, worried lines creasing his forehead. “What if an assassin has climbed to the top of the tower?” No doubt Asahi was remembering mocking Zuko earlier and was feeling ashamed.

Jing rolled his eyes and then turned to his partner. “Buddy,” he said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “believe me, you don’t wanna go up there right now.”

“But—” said Asahi.

“And just be happy that only the podium has acoustic amplification effects,” added Iroh.

Realization hit Asahi like a hammer to the head.

“Right,” he said, leaning back against the wall and slapping a weak grin to his face. “I’m fine to wait.”

Not too far from them, Katara rubbed her back. “Should we make an announcement?” she asked lazily. Zuko narrowed his eyes in concerns, worried that the tower stone upon which she was lying had rubbed her back almost raw…as it had his. But the pain was a distant thing next to his steady elation. “I’m fine, don’t worry,” she said, watching his expression and sitting up. So she could read his mind.

“Actually let’s…could we wait a week? To announce it?” Zuko asked from where he was sprawled next to her.

“You want to keep it a secret for a week?”

“I have a…special form of announcement in mind, if you’re okay with it.”

--

“So you don’t have any announcement…or anything…to tell me,” said Uncle Iroh from where he hovered in Zuko’s doorway.

“What do you mean?” asked Zuko, doing his best to look confused.

“Oh you know, I wondered if there was any…news of any kind.”

“News,” said Zuko repeated. “What would give you the idea that there would be news?”

“You and Ambassador Katara were on the roof a long time.”

“I told you Uncle,” said Zuko easily. “We were practicing next week’s speeches.”

“A whole week in advance?!”

“What, you don’t think I’m keeping a secret from you, do you? How can I keep any secrets around here? People are such chatterboxes. And it’s not as if I can keep a secret with thousands of people.”

Iroh’s eyes narrowed while Zuko smiled innocently at his uncle.

“You are cruel, Prince Zuko,” Iroh huffed and stormed away. Uncle Iroh always liked his little reminder that Mature, Fire Lord Zuko could sometimes act like Teenage Horror Zuko.

--

Keeping a secret with thousands of people was not fun. Keeping a secret with Katara? Extremely fun.

It’s not as if anything about their relationship had truly changed; they still ate dinner together, they still slept in the same bed, they still met at the turtle duck pond in the evenings to talk about their days. Katara and Zuko had already been acting like they were married, and now they were just going to make it official.

What was different was the brief looks in trade meetings, small smiles that let each other know that they knew something special that no one else in the room did. Zuko had carved an eighth pendant out of a stone he picked up from the turtle duck pond, and on Wednesday, he hid it in a nondescript ink jar for her to find on her desk. Katara pulled Zuko into a closet on Thursday afternoon to do the kinds of fun things they were already doing, but now they were doing them engaged.

Zuko felt a little guilty that he hadn’t told Uncle Iroh the truth, but he figured that on the one hand, the old man already knew something was up, and two, come Sunday he would be very pleased that he was surprised.

When Sunday finally arrived, Katara didn’t exactly wake up with Zuko, but she got out of bed early enough that they could travel to the city square together. Asahi and Jing flanked them. The two kept giving Zuko and Katara curious looks—but if anyone deserved to be in the dark right now, thought Zuko, it was his annoying guards.

The day seemed to pass much faster than Zuko remembered Sundays passing. One moment, he and Katara were walking hand in hand out of the palace, and the next, she was shoving him forward toward his podium.

“Good afternoon, friends!” his voice rang out.

The crowd below him applauded and Zuko couldn’t help the smile that came over his face. He sighed in contentment.

With the knowledge of how different this Sunday Address would be from all the others, and the peace he felt in general, he finally didn’t feel nervous speaking anymore.

Zuko made sure to spend a much longer time than usual going over the political treaties he was working on as well as the current domestic agenda. He knew the citizenry was waiting for some kind of update about his status with the waterbender who was smiling softly behind him, and knew a delay would maximize the drama.

“And now, I want the people of the Fire Nation to experience a very special moment with me. You all know your Ambassador from the Southern Water Tribe, Katara.” Zuko paused to let the crowd cheer, for he was now a seasoned professional when talking to the public about Katara.

“You may not know, however—” he said, now pausing for dramatic effect. They absolutely knew. And they probably knew more than he thought they did. “—that the Ambassador and I are important to each other. She is a stellar politician, a stellar representative for her people and yet, over the past two years, all of you have become her people too.”

The crowd was very quiet.

Zuko had wanted to stage this because he thought it would be fun, but now that he had started, it all seemed very serious. And he couldn’t stop. He veered from the script.

“Five years ago, not far from where we are now, I almost died in an Agni Kai. You know that.”

They did know that, but that didn’t stop the gasps from the audience that their Fire Lord would actually discuss it. He never had, to anyone, except his friends and Uncle Iroh.

“And I would have died, if it weren’t for your ambassador—our ambassador, Katara. I owe her so much. We all do.”

Zuko turned around and motioned for Katara to come forward. She looked like she was about to grimace from the attention and cry with happiness at the same time.

He locked eyes with his uncle for a moment, and Iroh was full on blubbering. Zuko tried to smile at him, but Iroh just let out another happy sob.

Katara slowly walked forward and joined him at the podium, clasping his hands in hers.

“Katara—I love you so much. Since the moment you walked through the palace doors, and years before then too, you have captivated me with your courage and your kindness. Will you be my Fire Lady? Will you be—our—Fire Lady?”

That last, extremely cheesy question was not planned, but Zuko ad-libbed it on a flash of poetic inspiration. The people below rewarded him for it.

The thousands-strong crowd screamed and stomped their feet so loud that Zuko was sure that those not in the square would think it an earthquake.

Katara stared into his eyes and nodded, and then opened her mouth to deliver the lines they had practiced.

“Well, I’ll be,” she cried, drawing the back of her hand up to her forehead and miming as if she was about to faint. “I never would have suspected a thing, Fire Lord Zuko!”

That…was not what they practiced. Especially not the strange accent.

“You sure know how to woo a woman!”

“Katara,” Zuko whispered through gritted teeth. “What are you doing?”

“I’m acting,” she whispered back. “I’m giving the people what they want!”

It was true, he supposed, the people were still losing their minds below them, Uncle Iroh was still bawling, and Zuko wasn’t sure, but it looked like Asahi just passed Jing a handkerchief.

“The water in my veins never could douse the fire in my heart,” Katara screamed.

Agni help them.

“Let the flames of our love—” Katara started, but Zuko cut her off with a strong kiss on the lips. She relaxed in his arms as he kissed her for a few more seconds then pulled back—there were children watching, after all.

“I think that’s a yes!” announced Zuko. Katara raised their linked arms to the sky as if Zuko had just won a wrestling match.

She was worse a worse actor than Actress-Katara in the Ember Island Players.

Still, the tower shook with the noise that the Fire Nation crowd was making.

“May I present your future Fire Lady?” asked Zuko, and this, perhaps, was too much for the people in the square. Their shrieks filled the air and more than half of them suddenly held up handmade signs.

“What’s that?” asked Katara, but Asahi was already moving. He placed the binoculars in her hand.

“We love Katara,” she read out, and then looked up. “Oh spirits, Zuko, these are so sweet.” He grinned and put his arm around her.

“Fire Lady Katara Forever,” she read from another sign. “Pro Fire Lady K—wait, Zuko, is that your uncle?”

Zuko whipped his head around to look behind him, but Uncle Iroh wasn’t on the tower anymore.

Katara shoved the binoculars in his face and he peered down.

Sure enough, Uncle Iroh was in the center of the crowd, raising his “Pro Fire Lady Katara” sign, still sobbing.  

“Fire Lord?” came a voice from behind them. Zuko and Katara whipped around while a few people in the crowd below broke out beach balls. “Jing and I want to extend our congratulations,” said Asahi. “We like Ambassador Katara very much,” while Jing nodded fervently. “A master waterbender is great back-up,” added Jing.

“That’s not what we meant,” snapped Asahi, who then walked forward to look at the crowd below. He paused. “I believe the Dragon of the West is crowd surfing,” Asahi murmured to Zuko and Katara.

Katara and Zuko scrambled for the binoculars, each putting one eye in either lens before they heard the tower door open. Asahi and Jing stood up straight, palms at the ready.

A pale old man stooped through the doorway. “Fire Lord Zuko, Ambassador Katara,” nodded Ambassador Kyi. “I’m here to talk about decreased subsidies for Earth Kingdom agricultural commodities.”