Katara POV
I changed into some more formal attire. I took my hair out of it's normal braid and let it fall down my back. I looked at myself in my mirror and for a moment, I thought I was looking at my mother. Under my thin parka I touched my mother's necklace. I grabbed my bag and took out my things. When I took out the lotus flower, I was expecting to see it a bit wilted, yet it was still as beautiful as when it first appeared on the lake. I placed it on my night side table and put away my clothes and other belongings.
I walked out of my room and asked the guard outside to show me to the throne room. The palace was beautiful. It was nice to see the Southern Water Tribe thrive as it once did so many years ago. Soon enough we came to very large double doors that had the symbol of the Water Tribes on it. Once the doors were fully open I saw my dad stand over a table with scrolls all over it. His advisors, Sokka, and another Wolf Warrior were with him. When he looked up from the scrolls and saw me, he smiled from ear to ear. I ran around the table and hugged him. His embrace is one that I have missed for far too long.
"Katara, you're home. I've missed you so much," my dad said to me. I snuggled closer to him.
"I missed you too, Dad, " I replied. We let go and I bowed to the men in the room and walked closer to see the scrolls on the table. On them were development plans for a hunting lodge further inland for the wolf warriors during hunting season. Sokka and the other Wolf Warrior were very interested while the older men had a look of jelousy. My father had the look on his face as he stared between the still masked warrior and my brother. I chuckled a bit as I stared a bit more. It would have a quarter for the royal family and personal guests, then another for the various officer rankings and warriors, and a central area that includes a kitchen and lounge.
I honestly couldn't wait for them to build a temple to train waterbenders. It would be amazing to teach young benders what Hama taught me before the blood bending. To pass on the Southern Water Tribe heritage is all I wanted to do. Sokka walked over and pulled me aside.
"Suki and Gran Gran are in the family room. Gran Pakku is in a meditation session at the moment, and will be joining this meeting after. When we are done here, we'll have dinner together in the dinning hall. Just the family," he said to me. I smiled and nodded. I bowed to everyone and left towards the family room. As soon I got there, I heard Gran Gran telling Suki a story of Sokka from when we were younger.
"And then he insisted that he could raise a Tiger seal in the village to make more Tiger seals and that way Hakoda didn't have to go hunting and leave him behind," Gran Gran said finishing her story. We started laughing and added on.
"Don't forget that he already had one under his bed," I said as I sat down on a fur covered seat next to Gran Gran. She pulled me in for a hug as three of us laughed. I took some tea from the center table and a piece of bread. We kept talking about Sokka's and my childhood and all the fun times we had.
"I cant wait to see both of you in Kya's wedding dress. Suki, you will make the dress unique with the underclothes from your island, and Katara, you will look so much your mother. I am so proud of all of you. You deserve the happiness coming to you," Gran Gran said to us. I knew that Suki and Sokka were getting married this winter, on the night of the Southern Lights. It is one of the most beautiful things down here in the South Pole. Suki blushed a bit. Her betrothal necklace that Sokka gave her was a blend of both our cultures. I just hope that one day mine is as special and unique as hers.
Zuko POV
I spent the rest of the day training, then had dinner with Uncle in the dining hall.
"Zuko, have you decided where you are going?" Uncle asked me. I nodded and finished chewing the food that was in my mouth. I pluck up my napkin and wipe my mouth before speaking
"I have decided to travel to the South Pole and see how the construction is going. Also I bet Sokka would want to spar. We haven't had a good fight since just after the war when I was done healing," I let him know. He nods and smiles at me.
"Give Chief Hakoda and Master Pakku a message for me. Next time we get together, we must play a game of pi sho and have some tea. Nephew, your council spoke to me about you being wed by next Summer's Set Festival. They asked me to talk to you to consider either one of their daughters or to get back together with Mai-"
"I don't understand why I have to marry within the next year. Its not fair. I don't want to marry someone out of nessecity or obligation. I want to break the tradition of my lineage and marry for love. Uncle, I want to find someone I can see myself with for the rest of my life. Someone that not only would be my best friend and mother to my children, but also the mother to my country and who will improve our way of life."
"I understand, and I was going to say that I told your council that you would talk to them when you returned from your trip. But Zuko, my advice to you is to forge your own path. If your mother were here she would tell you the same thing. Have I ever told you the story of how your mother came to the palace and married your father?"
"No, I don't recall that you ever have. I know that she was the granddaughter of Avatar Roku, whom was the son of a nobleman. In turn, that made her a noblewoman, which made her eligible to marry into the royal family. How was she brought to the palace and why is it that I never met my grandparents on mother's side?"
"Come let us retire into the family room. I will tell you," he said. We walked to the family room where I sat on one of the lounge chairs. To hear how my mother came to the palace would be something new for me. Honestly I wasn't sure if I was ready to hear this, but eventually this was a conversation I was going to have with my father. I had tried to go and talk to him shortly after becoming Fire Lord, but I had gotten no response.
"As you know, your mother is the grand-daughter of Avatar Roku. Roku and your other great-grandfather were the closest of friends until Roku went on to begin his Avatar training. After a few years Roku returned to the fire nation as a fully train Avatar and married the love of his life, Ta Min, another heir of nobility. That is when the two started to see things differently, and Roku went on to live on an island just off the shore of the main land. From there I know that Roku had a daughter. Then as my father was growing up, my grandfather tried to find Ta Min, to try to have a union between Azulon and the daughter of Ta Min. Yet they had vanished and Sozin had died and for many years my father was at war and gave my grandmother the responsibility of finding him a suitable wife. My mother was the daughter of a nobleman, and when she had turned 18 my grandmother found her perfect for her son. Although my father was much older, she was the only one my grandmother approved of. My parents relationship was more for the sake of the public eye and for your father and me. As we grew, the Fire Sages came to my father and told him that uniting the heir of Avatar Roku and one of the heirs to the throne would be an ideal lineage to have. So my father sought out for the daughter of Roku. Unfortunately, I had come of age for marriage and your mother was still lost to us, so I married Sakura, the only woman other than my mother that I would ever love. Shortly after that, we had Lu Ten and Sakura wanted to return to her old life. So we waited until Lu Ten was about five, and explained to him what was going to happen to our family. That is around the time my father and my brother found out where Ursa was. While I was to take care of things here and get a feel of what it would be like to be Fire Lord, the two went and came back with your mother. A few months later, they were married. And a year later you were born."
I stared at Uncle in disbelief of how messed up my family was. I knew I was the first male descendant of Avatar Roku, and that the blood pulsing through my veins was one that had been at war with each other for a hundred years, but to find out the details from then until now was a bit taxing on the mind.
"I know it is a lot to take in Nephew, and I understand that you want to break tradition. As Fire Lord, you can change that law after your are married, so that your children will be free to choose their own paths and you can also change the law about the Fire Lady and any who marry into the royal family," Uncle said to me. This caught my attention.
"What law about the Fire Lady?" I ask him. This is something I never heard about.
"It is said whomever marries into the royal family, must sever ties with everything and everyone from their life before the palace. That was what made Sakura so sad, she missed her old life so in order for her to return to it, we had our marriage annulled and as a prince, Lu Ten had to stay with me. That is the cost of marrying one of us."
Upon hearing this, I immediately made the decision that whomever I marry, will never have to cut ties with their old life, it made them the person I will come to care for and I would want them to change.
Katara POV
A maid came in and told us that the meeting was over and that Dad had asked for our presence in the dining room for dinner. The three of us walked together talking about the upcoming wedding and some of Sokka's mishaps before we left with Aang. As soon as we entered the dining room I saw father sitting at the head of the table and Sokka on his right. On the other side, just across from Sokka was an empty chair, which I assumed was mine. Next to that chair was another that was occupied by a Wolf Warrior in full armor and helmet. On the other side of Sokka was two more empty chairs and next to the Wolf warrior was Gran Pakku in the last chair on the side. There was one more empty chair sitting at the other end of the table across from Dad. Gran Gran and Suki sat in the two empty chairs next to Sokka and I just stared at that empty chair on the end. I made my way to the seat next to Dad, but I never took my eyes off of that chair.
That chair shouldn't be empty. Mom should have been in that chair. Everyone had started to engage in a conversation, but I had tuned them out. My thoughts were just on that one fact that will never be. She will never sit in that chair and join us for meals. I then stared at my empty place mat. I sat in silence until Dad put his hand on my shoulder.
. "I know. She should be here, but we can't change the past," he said. "I have an announcement to make, that will affect us here and in the future."
