『𝑻𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑭𝒂𝒕𝒆』

Chapter 2

All the water vessels in the room exploded.

Katara stared at her father as if he'd just told her that he had given her hand in marriage to the Fire Lord. Behind him, Iroh stood, wiping the tea from his robes with a handkerchief.

"It's nothing more than a political alliance, Katara," Hakoda said haltingly, palms out towards his dangerously enraged daughter. "I know you and the Fire Lord don't see eye to eye, but your interactions with him will be limited at best. The Fire Lord is losing ground in his own kingdom from what Iroh has told me and he needs to be able to solidify his power."

"That's his problem not mine," Katara snapped.

Iroh came out from behind Hakoda, the broken pieces of his tea cup still in his hand. He looked appropriately sorry for what he was doing but not enough to take back his request. At that moment, he looked how Katara imagined he would if he were faced with a room full of naysayers—strong, unmovable, and confident. But his faith in his plan wasn't going to convince her to play along with this game, because that was all it was: a great game in which she was merely a pawn on Zuko's political chessboard. She'd given her life to the service of her people but this was taking it too far. She needed to keep something for herself and the last thing she wanted to do was give up her chance to have a family of her own.

Her thoughts must have been plastered all over her face because her father put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze and Iroh gave her a sympathetic look.

"Please try to listen to what I have to say with an open mind. I know it'll be hard to do, especially considering the circumstances, but I think that if you put your emotions aside, you'll see why this has to be done," Iroh reasoned.

"Just say what you have to say," Katara said sharply.

Iroh took a breath.

"After the death of his wife, my nephew lost the support of her family," he explained earnestly. "He has many supporters, but they were his base. It's not that they support his sister outright, but they are no longer so sure of Zuko's rule and they're vocal about it. It didn't help that he reduced the income going to their landholdings. Zuko has become a wiser ruler but to be honest, he hasn't changed much from the boy you knew. He is brash and unapologetic, and he expects his subjects to do what he says without question."

"Why do I have to pay with my freedom just because he's jamming unpopular policies down their throats? Teach him, Iroh," Katara argued, waving her hands at him. "You're a better leader than he could ever be. Teach him how to deal with his own damn people. "

"Don't you think I've tried?" There was an uncharacteristic strain in Iroh's voice. "I've tried talking to him, convincing him, arguing with him but he refuses to listen. After all these years of having me at his side, Zuko has learned how to ignore me and there's no one else he trusts enough to listen to like he does to me."

"Is he blind? Is he deaf? Can't he see and hear what's happening to his own kingdom?" Katara raged and the water that had spilled from the various vases and glasses trembled. "The Fire Lord's palace can't be that far removed from the rest of the nation and from what I understand, Zuko has made quite a reputation for himself for making surprise visits to different parts of his lands."

"They're not quite as big a surprise as he'd like them to be," Iroh countered. "He sees and he hears, but he believes things will get better before they get worse because he making changes that the Fire Nation sorely needs. The war cleared out our treasury as well as our able-bodied workers and it's taking longer than expected for us to bounce back. He is trying to distribute wealth evenly in the Fire Nation and you can imagine what kind of uproar that's causing, but it's necessary because the poorer of our citizens are beginning to make noises.