A:tLA fic: For Every Ending, A New Beginning

[frith_in_thorns]

Title: For Every Ending, A New Beginning
Author: frith_in_thorns
Rating/Pairing: G, gen
Word count: 1,100
Prompt: For ghostonfilm.livejournal.com on avatar_minis : Zuko, politics & diplomacy: repairing the relationship between the Fire Nation and the Southern Water Tribe
Summary: It's hard, to suddenly find yourself representing your nation in politics. And harder when the one you're negotiating with is in the same position.
Warnings: None

Note: This is quite short, and also unbeta'd, since I've had hardly any time to write since the assignments actually went out. Sorry about that.

[]

"It doesn't work like that," Katara says, frustrated. "We don't have a government."

Her legs are beginning to ache from the unfamiliar formal kneeling position on the thin cushion. She takes some small comfort from the fact that, across the low burnished table, Zuko looks no happier than she feels. With the early-autumn warmth and all the torches in the room he's probably sweltering beneath his ceremonial Fire Lord robes.

Briefly, she wonders if the heat is affecting his brain.

"But the Northern Water tribe—"

"Yes, they've got a big ice city, I know. But the Southern Water tribe doesn't. We live in small villages like the one you smashed with your horrible metal ship."

Katara considers that the table in the ambassadorial chamber (unused for a hundred years) was likely to have been purposely made from metal to prevent it being accidently set a-flame during particularly aggravating negotiations.

"This isn't how it's supposed to work," Zuko mutters sulkily.

"Well maybe the Fire Nation shouldn't have started a war in the first place!" She knows it's hardly fair, but Zuko seems to be running a script in his head on how to establish diplomatic relations, and it's becoming infuriating. It obviously begins with sending an ambassador to the other government. He's reluctant to let the idea go.

They've been here for quite a long time already.

"You aren't taking this seriously," he accuses.

"You aren't listening!"

Zuko inhales, but at the last moment apparently remembers that he's the Fire Lord and bites back whatever he was going to say. Instead he shuts his eyes and pointedly breathes out slowly.

Katara decides she isn't going to be the one to break the impasse and pointedly studies the dark wooden panels of the wall instead, so fiercely polished that they gleam with the light from the torches. The lack of heavy Fire Nation tapestries is probably their concession to diplomacy, but Katara knows that she could never, never manage to forget where she is. It's around her, pressing into her, constantly. These are my enemies. This is enemy territory. She tries to fight down her thoughts. They're wrong now. She has to learn a different way of thinking in this new and unpredictable future.

She glances back to Zuko and sees that he's opened his eyes again and managed to calm his facial expression. "I never liked this room," he says. "Shall we go somewhere else?"

[]

The garden instantly improves Katara's mood, the colours of bright flowers in full bloom alongside the shaded paths banishing her irritation. She trails her hand in the cool water of the pond and tries to convince the hopeful turtle-ducks that she honestly doesn't have any food for them.

Zuko watches her with a half-smile, his eyes far away. "We spent hours here when we were children," he says quietly.

He doesn't elaborate on the we and Katara doesn't ask. After a minute the Fire Lord sits down, pulls off his shoes, and dips his feet into the water beside her.

"What do you think I should do?" he asks. "What does your tribe want?"

It's a weight suddenly placed unwillingly on her shoulders. She never wanted to be the voice for her whole tribe. But she's spoken for them before, after all. She's spoken for and fought for the whole world, and changed it forever. Somehow she had never really given much thought to what would happen when the war was over, and the world she had grown up in was gone for good—she had been too busy trying to look after them all and survive.

"You should leave us to rebuild," she says finally. "All the time when I was growing up we could be attacked at any moment—our families could be taken away or killed and we were helpless." She thinks of her mother, feels as always a stab of the pain she's carried inside her for most of her life, constantly nourished by anger. "I think you should just leave us be for a while." There's a pit of self-doubt opening in her stomach as she finishes speaking—did I just make the right decision? What if my tribe disagrees?—and she tries to ignore it. Someone has to speak, after all.

"Okay," Zuko says, with a quickness which slightly annoys her considering how long her answer had taken her to form. "Is that really all?" He looks a little alarmed at the prospect of that.

"You should probably furnish all the Water Tribe ships heading to their homes with plenty of supplies," Katara says, a little frostily. She doesn't see why he should get off with doing nothing. "After all, we've also been lacking our most skilled fishermen for years now."

"That's fair," Zuko agrees, and actually looks relieved that there's a definite action he can take. He kicks up small waves. "None of this is how I thought it was going to be, you know."

"This?"

"Being a Fire Lord. When I was small I thought one day I would be commanding my troops to war, being a proud leader with instantly followed orders, and all that. I never thought I'd be trying to... well, fix all the messes we've caused for the last hundred years."

Katara thinks about flicking him with a tendril of water, just to remind him not to yearn after the lost chance to conquer the world, but he suddenly looks so serious that she doesn't have the heart to. "I guess it takes time," she says instead.

"I guess." He sighs. "There are more message-hawks arriving with urgent letters every hour, and everyone loyal to me wants me to tell them exactly what to do, to say nothing of Azula's followers waiting for me to slip up. I thought—well, I didn't really think this would be easy, I guess, but—different to how it is."

"You've got people to help you," she reminds him.

"But you're leaving soon, and so is Aang, and Sokka, and everyone."

Now she does send a spray of water directly at his face. Not enough to soak him, but enough that he looks annoyed instead of dramatically despairing, which is infinitely more helpful. "You'll still have Mai and all your advisers, don't forget. The whole world's got problems. I'd say yours might not make the top of the list."

Zuko sniffs, and stands up. "So now we've spent the whole morning deciding to do nothing."

"We were being diplomatic," Katara says, and thinks it makes perfect sense that relationships between nations are forged and strengthened through quiet moments of friendship rather than through formal speeches.

"This isn't how diplomacy's supposed to work," Zuko complains, and she considers sharing her insight with him. But then he half-smiles and she realises he already knows.