Chapter Text
f you need to marry someone who's royalty for political reasons," Katara said hesitantly, biting her lip as she looked away, her cheeks flushed. "Then. Well, as daughter of the Southern Water Tribe's chief, I technically qualify."
Silence descended upon the table as the entirety of the group turned to look between her and Zuko. Zuko himself had been struck still by her words, cheeks turning redder and redder the longer they took to sink in. Katara herself looked a little like she wanted to melt into the floor, but the steel remaining in her spine showed she wasn't taking the suggestion back.
Zuko had to admit, her... proposal , of a sort, would solve their problems rather nicely.
The old group had come together to help Zuko work through the biggest problem his council had put forth so far - establishing his lineage to stabilize his rule. Zuko understood why, but he hated all the conversations they'd forced him to have about it so far. His advisors kept trying to convince him to marry some Earth princess or a Fire Nation noble. Specifically, they kept trying to convince him to marry Mai , even though things had fully fizzled out between the two of them. They had parted amicably, but under the understanding that they would both live their lives separately from then on, even though they held no ill will towards each other.
For the sake of the council, Zuko had looked over their other suggestions, and had run into a completely different problem.
Most of the women they had suggested seemed... boring, as nice as he was trying to be about it. While he was sure plenty of people were attracted to beauty, or delicate manners, or softer skillsets, Zuko just wasn't. He'd always been attracted to women with some bite to them, ones who were firm in who they were and made no apologies for it, and who had people or beliefs they would defend to the death.
Unfortunately, the few women on the list who seemed like they could have that fiercer side to their personalities were also the ones he wasn't sure he could trust. Instead of a polar-bear dog or a saber-toothed wolf, they gave off the impression of a rat-viper instead. Cunning, sneaky, and waiting for a moment of distraction or weakness to strike.
"Katara?" Sokka's shocked voice cut through his thoughts, as he named the one woman remaining that Zuko knew who both fit his type and that he knew he could trust implicitly.
"I'm just saying, half the women on this list would be useless at heading a post-war recovery effort and the rest feel like a trap," Katara said, lifting her chin stubbornly even as her cheeks remained tinted pink. Zuko blinked at hearing his own thoughts said so blatantly by her, abruptly remembering how often they ended up on the same page after they'd worked out their issues, and how well they had always worked together.
"Katara, we aren't going to force you into a marriage with Zuko," Aang tried to placate, his eyes a little panicked as he looked between the two of them. "I'm sure we'll find someone who will be a good fit."
Zuko personally thought the Avatar had the wrong impression. Katara wasn't being forced - she'd brought it up herself. As the daughter of the chief and the last waterbender in the South, she must have known on some level that both of those roles would eventually come into play in her life. There was no way they couldn't - especially after how weakened the tribe was after war. Katara had done a remarkable job in the last three years of rebuilding her home back to its former glory while he'd taken up his duties here, but there was no way she could have forgotten her role, even as the South thrived with the return of the men and her help rebuilding.
"A political match would have been brought up sooner or later," Katara shook her head, her blush fading. She glanced at her brother, whose shock was fading, giving way to a pained understanding. "The South treats men and women equally for the most part, especially in comparison to the North. But there are lingering traditions, even still. Dad never would have forced me to go along with any of it, and Grangran especially wouldn't have let him. But the possibility would still have been considered, and I'd have been forced to choose whether duty would have mattered enough to me regardless."
"And marriage to a friend would be preferred regardless," Suki said knowingly, sharing a glance with the waterbender. "Duty would call on you to act, but having choice in the matter and trust that you'd be tied to someone you cared about makes all the difference. Especially if you're in a position that requires that."
"That's all great and all," Toph interrupted loudly. "But all that talk of duty and political arrangements is boring. Can we talk about why Sugar Queen and Sparky's hearts have both been going haywire since she suggested that?"
Zuko's face burned as his eyes automatically snapped back to Katara's. Her own blush had returned as well as they made brief eye contact before forcibly looking away again. Toph cackled as she leaned forward, a wicked grin on her face as she tilted her head towards them.
"Oh, your hearts both just did something interesting about that!" she laughed, while the others had dawning looks of realization on their faces - some with amusement, others with horror. Her voice sing-songed the rest, as she continued, "I think both of you may have been keeping some secrets !"
"Well, we know Zuko's type from Mai," Suki said with a growing smirk as she looked between them. "I can see how Katara resembles it. And we know Katara's type from Jet and kind of Haru, and Zuko's pretty much a cross of the two. I think we all might have been overlooking a good match right under our very noses."
"Hold on, you can't marry him!" Sokka exclaimed, suddenly looking like a protective older brother all of a sudden as he stood and glared at Katara. Seeing her resulting expression and realizing that picking a fight with his sister wasn't the most effective use of his energy, he rounded on Zuko next. "You can't marry her! She's just barely eighteen! You're - how old are you now? Nineteen? Twenty?"
"Twenty in a month," Zuko sighed, suppressing the urge to put his hand over his face as Sokka's righteous scolding petered out as he realized he'd lost track of Zuko's age.
"Oh," Sokka said, slumping a little as the tension in his shoulders eased. "That's not so bad, actually. Some of the political marriages I've heard of had men and women marrying people twice their age. Just under two years isn't so bad - that's pretty close to the gap between Suki and I, at a year and two months."
"But-" Aang protested, before cutting off as he realized he had no real argument beyond something personal.
Zuko had sympathy for the kid, he really did. Especially because after the final battle, he could tell Katara had been considering Aang as a potential match. From what he'd heard, she'd ultimately decided that while their personalities had clicked, what they wanted out of life would be too different to make pursuing something worth it. Not that the group had talked much about it - while they were gossips, they could all tell that this needed to be handled more privately than they were used to.
Still, it seemed the Avatar had hoped Katara might change her mind one day anyway.
"Well," Katara said, breaking the ensuing silence. Zuko looked up to meet her eyes for the first time since she'd made her suggestion. Her cheeks were still pink, but she looked determined and more certain than she'd been all conversation. "Since everyone else has no real objections to it, what do you say, Zuko? Should we tie our cords together and take things on as a team?"
Zuko could tell he was still blushing himself - especially with the reference to the Fire Nation's marriage ceremony of tying cords around a pair's wrists. Still, he could think of no better partner to face the good times and the bad times with, and he already could tell that Katara was well on her way to changing the world on her own. If he could benefit from that, then why not?
Besides, Toph wasn't exactly wrong when she called him out earlier. The fact that she'd called Katara out too could only prove to be interesting.
"Why not?" he agreed with a small smile, reaching out a free hand to her. As she took hold of it in her own with a matching smile, "Here's to our next adventure."