The white stone stood alone in a quiet area of the palace grounds. Its surface was smooth, still relatively untouched by the passage of time – there was not a mark upon except for the few words carved deep into the marble.

For five years now, Zuko had visited it every day.

“This isn’t exactly how I pictured this day,” he told the implacable white face. His hand drifted out, tracing over the carved letters. “I mean, I kind of thought you’d be here for it. Be an important part of it. I thought … I thought a lot of things, I guess, and I was wrong about most of them.” He exhaled noisily, and climbed to his feet. “If I could pick one thing to be right about, though … you’d be here with me.” Half a grin crawled across his face. “Getting in the way and making inappropriate old-man jokes until I pretended to wish you were still in Ba Sing Se. I miss you.”

It was well past mid-morning – Zuko sighed, and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. He had someplace to be, and several someones who would eat him alive if he was late. “I’ll bring polish when I get back,” he told the gravestone over his shoulder, as he turned to make his way back to the palace. “Those letters are getting dirty.”

Iroh, Son of Azulon

In sorrow, wisdom.

In wisdom, joy.

…

Mai sat in her dressing-room and counted to ten. Then she counted to ten again. Nope. Nothing. She tried counting to twenty, but it still didn’t help. Nor did thirty, or forty, or fifty. Okay. That’s it. I’m going to scream, and then I’m going to find Zuko, and then I’m going to murder him. And then I’m going to scream some more.

“They found him!” Katara sang out, bursting through the door. Mai released the breath she’d been holding, feeling suddenly calmer. The Water Tribes woman grinned knowingly at her. “Sokka says he’s getting ready now, so no need to worry.”

“Who’s worried?” Mai asked coolly, and stifled a grunt as her ribcage was suddenly, forcibly collapsed.

“Who said these things were hard to fasten?” Toph asked gleefully, and gave the strings of Mai’s corset another solid yank. “Hang on to something, Mai – we’re going to get you looking fabulous! Well, I assume, anyway.”

“It’s going to be hard to look fabulous,” grunted Mai, “if I’m passed out of the floor. Not so tight!”

Her hair was dressed, and her four closest and most annoying friends had insisted on shooing away the servants and helping her get ready all by themselves. She counted herself lucky, though; at least getting manhandled around her rooms now would prepare her for the gauntlet of handshakes, courtesies, and dances for the rest of the day.

“Okay, Toph, I think I hear cracking sounds.” Suki disengaged the earthbender’s hands from the corset strings, loosened the bindings slightly, and tied them into a durable knot. “There, that should do it.”

Mai gave her a jaded look. “I’m jealous. I bet you didn’t have to wear one of these at your wedding.”

Suki laughed. “Yeah, good luck trying to elope under the noses of the palace servants and all your guests – I bet that would go over really well with the noble houses! Oh, hang on – your curls are crooked. You didn’t let Toph touch your hair, did you?” She began fussing with the pins in Mai’s hair, making irritated noises as she went. It had been hard for Mai to blend in with the strange group of people surrounding the Avatar – Zuko’s best friends, though he’d known them for scant weeks before the Great Upheaval had happened! – but she and Suki had forged a fast, awkward kinship. Maybe it was something to do with being outsiders in the group, or maybe it was something to do with having weird boyfriends. Either way, it worked. “Besides, at least you didn’t get married at the South Pole. Instead of a corset, I was wearing three layers of sealskin lingerie.”

“Too much information!” Katara announced, a little too loudly, and arranged Mai’s arms over her head. “All right, she’s ready.”

“Me and Suki are just disappointed you didn’t get to have a Kyoshi-style hen party! Of course, you’d probably still be hung over, but that’s half the fun. Now look out, here I come!” Ty Lee fairly skipped forward – right-side up, for once – with Mai’s gold dress draped over both her arms. “Give me a hand, Suki!”

The two Kyoshi warriors lifted the gown high, and slipped it over Mai’s head. There was a flurry of motion as the four other women arranged hems, smoothed sleeves, and tied the sash – then all four stepped back as once to give her space around the mirror.

The dress was perfect: gold silk from neck to navel, and skirts of heavy brocade, embroidered with a dizzying pattern of crimson flames and amber dragons. “Aww, Mai,” said Ty Lee, her eyes suddenly huge with tears. “You look beautiful – a real lady!” She clutched her hands close to her chest. “I wish Azula was still around to see you, too.”

Katara and Suki rolled their eyes, and Toph made a disgusted noise. “What?” Ty Lee asked bewilderedly. “What did I say?”

Mai stopped her friend with a hand on her wrist. “We’re not going to think about Azula or any of her deranged supporters today. She’s gone. They’re gone.” She turned to the door, shaking out her long skirts with a quick flick of her wrist. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste a second more of it thinking about her. This is my day, and Zuko’s, and I have waited long enough. It’s time.”

She took two long strides toward the door before stopping short, making Katara and Suki pile into her back. “Actually,” she said slowly, giving in to the seed of worry that Ty Lee had so thoughtlessly planted. “There’s just one more thing first …”

…

Sokka bent down to peer directly into the Fire Lord’s face. “Hey, Zuko – relax, buddy. You look tense!”

“That’s probably because I am tense,” Zuko said irritably, pressing both hands to his temples. He resumed pacing up and down the narrow hallway, not looking at the ornate doors that would soon open onto the Coronation Plaza. “I have this condition where I get nervous about getting married in front of three thousand people.”

“Yeah, that is kind of a drag.” Sokka rocked back on his heels, nodding thoughtfully. “I really can’t recommend the eloping thing enough. Seriously, they can do this thing with sealskin where it’s just—”

“Too much information!” Zuko hissed, and the Water Tribesman shrugged.

“I’m just saying. Anyway, you should be happy – the sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day outside, a very beautiful lady is waiting out there to tell you she’s willing to put up with you for the rest of your lives, and you’ve got your best bud walking up there behind you in case you faint. What’s not to like?”

“The music!” squawked Zuko, his eyes suddenly huge. He seized the front of Sokka’s midnight-blue tunic. “Music! Starting! I have to walk out there now! In front of everyone!”

“Well noticed,” said Sokka dryly, and carefully detached the Fire Lord’s fingers from the fabric. “So? Are we going, or what?”

“Going. Yes! Let’s be going.”

Rolling his eyes behind the Fire Lord’s back, Sokka held the door open for his friend. Zuko walked out in a daze, not feeling bright afternoon sun on his face nor hearing the cheers or applause of the crowds – of common Fire Nation folk, as well as nobility and military – that filled the plaza.

He took three faltering steps, and then his eyes fell on her. Waiting, patiently – or if not patiently, precisely, then at least tolerantly – at the spirit altar. The Avatar stood beside her, his face nearly split in half by his still-boyish grin, and her attendants were gathered all around, but that barely registered. Mai was waiting for him, and she was radiant.

“Ahem.” Sokka clapped him on the back, and Zuko remembered how to use his legs. He strode confidently up the center aisle now, each step bringing him closer and closer to what he had waited for, for so long now.

He was halfway there when the first fireball struck.

…

The center aisle exploded in a hail of shattered cobblestones and half-molten rock. Screams and cries of pain erupted from the crowds that had gathered to watch the royal wedding – but it was Katara’s voice that cut through the chaos first: “Sokka!”

Mai felt her heart turn over in her chest. No, she told herself. No time for that now. Either he survived, or he didn’t. If you stop to mourn him now, you’re never going to find out either way. Her finger shot out, pointing to the gold-draped balconies. Men in black masks were pouring in from the outside; there seemed to be a fight or riot of some kind starting on the floor of the plaza, where the common Fire Nation people had been invited to sit, as well. “There’s more than one of them – a lot more.”

“Right,” said Aang grimly. His boyish grin had disappeared beneath a scowl of concentration. Five years of post-war life hadn’t managed to wear away his childlike joy in all things bright and beautiful – but they had finely tuned his sense of duty, his ability to take charge when need be. Gray eyes darted back and forth as he calculated briefly, adding up bending abilities. “Katara, Suki, Toph – you take care of the ones coming from outside. Mai, Ty Lee – follow me. There’s enough of them in here already to keep us busy for a little while, I think.”

Mai ignored the hitch of breath in her throat, the roar of her heart in her ears. The Avatar lifted himself into the air, saffron-yellow robes billowing as he soared toward the center of the fracas on the floor; wordlessly, she and Ty Lee followed after him on foot. You’ll see him when this is over. He’ll be alive and safe. She reached into her heavy bell sleeves, feeling the reassuring touch of many, many stilettos – thanks to Ty Lee. And if he isn’t, I’ll kill him myself.

…

That noise. Was the Spirit Bell being rung already? Zuko didn’t remember the wedding ceremony, but then again, he’d been told many times that his wedding day would be a blur.

He did not quite remember being told that it would involve so much pain.

With a grunt, Zuko dragged himself to his feet. He felt as if he’d fallen down a flight of stairs, he thought, as he dusted himself free of debris and ash. There were broken chairs, smoldering rugs, dancing flames all around. Very strange. He wiped something sticky out of his good eye, and frowned. Where was Mai? And why was Sokka on fire?

Sokka’s on fire! Zuko snapped back to himself as he fell on his friend, rolling him over and slapping out the flames that were licking at the back of his tunic. “Sokka!” he shouted, barely hearing himself over the ringing in his ears. “Wake up, you idiot!”

“Hmmph?” Sokka blinked sleepily. “Whuzzat?”

“We’re being assassinated!” Zuko bellowed into his face. “Now is not the time for a nap, Sokka!”

Sokka’s face scrunched up, as if in concentration; before Zuko could shout at him again, something large and heavy collapsed against him. The Fire Lord scrambled out from the weight of a huge, black-masked man with Sokka’s ceremonial sword embedded in his belly.

Zuko stared down at the body as Sokka clambered to his feet and retrieved his sword. “Today,” he said stupidly, watching Sokka wipe the blood on the dead man’s tunic. “I wish it hadn’t been today.”

Sokka spared him a glance as three more assassins in masks came swarming through the smoke and flames. “What better day than today?” he asked, dodging a firebending gust and repaying the attacker in kind with a swing of his sword. “You’ve got all your friends by your side.”

A sudden thought struck Zuko as he grappled with one of the firebenders, trying to immobilize the man to keep him from bending. “Sokka – I couldn’t see the altar through all the smoke. Did you—?”

“No.” Sokka’s foot shot out, tripping one of his opponents. The man fell backwards and tripped over a pile of loose cobblestones, leaving Sokka free to parry the second fighter’s sword thrust. Rolling to one side, he came up with a long piece of charred aisle runner. As the assassin lunged in for another attack, Sokka darted around him, wrapping the burned carpet around his head. As the man struggled frantically to free himself, Sokka struck him on the back of the head with the pommel of his sword – just as Zuko delivered a crushing head-butt to the man who’d assailed him. “I couldn’t see anything either.”

They locked eyes across the half-burned clearing. Zuko’s fiancée, Sokka’s wife and sister were somewhere on the other side of that wall of fire and smoke. “So,” said Sokka, nonchalantly, clamping down on terror and anger, “let’s go.”

Zuko nodded, held out one hand, and shouted as he leapt through the air, parting the fiery curtain so that he had Sokka could pass through unharmed.

The other side was sheer chaos.

…

The flood of black masks had slowed to a trickle by now. Toph swung a marble pillar at a remaining clot of assassins, sending them flying like so many ragdolls. Not too many left now. I wonder how Twinkletoes is doing down below? Even up on the balcony, she could feel the confusion below, as people fled and scattered and fell on the stones. She certainly didn’t envy Mai her wedding day.

“Suki,” called Katara, from beside the door to the outside. With their fight winding down, she had left the battle to her two friends and gone to heal the palace guards injured in the attack. “Be careful near the edge – I don’t know how stable the balcony is anymore!” She bit her lip, then asked: “Can you see anything?”

“Sokka! And Zuko, too!” shouted Suki, her voice almost cracking with relief. Toph felt the Kyoshi warrior step to one side as someone charged her; she briefly lost a sense of the attacker’s whereabouts, only to find him again as he crashed into the ground, thrown over Suki’s hip as if he were made of so much featherdown. “They’re all right!”

“Geez,” said Toph, sending a hail of shattered bricks to cover some of their downed opponents to keep them from rising again. “You sound like you’re about to cry or something!”

Suki made a strange noise – somewhere between a snarl and a gasp. “I’m sorry, Toph, if I just can’t get excited about the idea of raising a child by myself in this stupid, violent, horrible world!”

There was a sharp intake of breath from both Toph and Katara. Then Toph felt her face split into a wide grin. “Hoooormones,” she sang out.

“Suki!,” Katara gasped, the water gathered around her hands splattering suddenly to the floor. “What are you thinking, swinging those fans around like that? You shouldn’t be lifting anything heavy!”

Suki punched the last assassin in the face, dropping him to the floor. She and Toph stared at Katara (or at least, in her general direction) for a long moment. Then, finally, they all broke down in peals of laughter – tinged with a note of hysteria, maybe, but laughter nonetheless.

“I’m done here,” said Katara, laying a guard’s head gently down on a folded square of cloth. “Let’s get down there and make sure the boys haven’t managed to get themselves hurt.”

…

He couldn’t bend. He couldn’t bend, or he could hurt someone innocent. He must not bend.

Zuko ground his teeth, and wondered how Sokka managed to feel this way all the time – unable to simply wreak elemental havoc on anyone who stood between him and his loved ones. It was incredibly frustrating – beyond frustrating, it put him on the edge of a berserker rage. How often would he find himself in this position: forced to act like a noble leader when all he wanted to be was a frightened husband? The assassins certainly weren’t behaving with any such moral qualms. It wasn’t fair!

Even Sokka had to be careful; he swung his sword in smaller, tighter arcs on this side of the fire wall. There were far too many people here – commoners trapped on this side of the explosion, unable to reach the exit, pinned between masked assassins on one side and the Fire Lord and his tribesman friend on the other.

Zuko landed a swift kick to the back of an assassin’s knee, making him drop and giving Sokka the opportunity to deliver an elbow strike to the man’s head. The assassin collapsed forward, and Zuko spun, looking for his next adversary.

But no new attack came. Zuko blinked, refocused, and reassessed the situation: why am I not being pelted with fireballs right now?

There were still black-masked men standing – but not as many now. There was, of course, the wide swath of them that he and Sokka had taken down … but as he stared around, he realized there was another reason for the lull in the fight.

People, ordinary people, dressed in red and amber and black, were grappling with the attackers, knocking them unconscious, dragging them down. Some of the assassins had been tied up with ribbons from decorations; some had been knocked unconscious, or at least dazed, by bricks wrapped in jackets or slippers.

Well. That was new.

One man, dressed simply in an orange tunic and crudely-made brown robe, looked up at Zuko from his position kneeling on an assassin’s chest. “My lord!” he exclaimed, a broad grin on his face. He cracked the assassin’s head against the floor twice, before the man went limp; the commoner then stood up and wiped his hands on his robe before grabbing the Fire Lord by one arm. “You’re almost there,” he informed his liege happily. “Hurry up, now! Come along!”

“But the altar is—” Zuko struggled in the man’s strong grip, as he was half-walked, half-dragged off to his right. Sokka hurried to keep up, which was increasingly difficult as a motley gathering of Fire Nation peasants crowded around their ruler.

“Congratulations, my lord!”

“A lovely woman, so brave and strong, a real credit to her people …”

“Don’t look so nervous, lad, you’re hours away from the marriage bed yet!”

The surging crowd stopped abruptly, making Zuko stagger and drop to one knee. He hadn’t realized how much support they’d been providing – he hadn’t realized how tired he was. Injuries ached, old ones and new, and there was no time to rest now or anytime soon.

“Zuko!”

There were cool, pale hands on his face, keeping him from falling any farther. He stared into Mai’s face, the face he had been hoping so hard to see, the face he had dreaded to find among the casualties on the ground. He stared long and hard at her, and said: “Your hair’s all messed up.”

She half-smiled at him – a rare show of emotion, that – and dragged him the rest of the way to his feet. “Don’t let them see you give up now,” she murmured into his ear. “They came to see you – so give them something to see, already.”

“Because fighting for their safety, back-to-back with an exotic Water Tribes barbarian, wasn’t enough of a show?” Zuko reached out and wiped away the thin trail of blood that ran from the corner of her mouth. “They’re not just here to see me, you know. I hear you’re a real credit to your people.” She crooked an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. “Then again, it was just a rumor.”

They leaned toward each other just as Aang popped up in front of them. “Ahem,” the Avatar said. “Don’t get carried away or anything!”

Zuko knew him too well to believe that Aang was ignoring all the hurt and destruction all around; out of the corner of one eye, he could see Katara moving around the plaza, healing those that she could. The Avatar was simply throwing a veil over concerns that must wait for later: tomorrow we will rebuild. Today, we celebrate. It wasn’t much, but Zuko was grateful for it. “We’re ready,” he said.

The spirit altar had been half-buried in rubble during a fireball barrage. Sokka did his best to dig it free, with some help from Zuko’s peasant entourage. The Fire Lord and his fiancée sat down in front of the altar, grinning stupidly at each other, as Aang took his place behind it and begin to give his brief blessing.

“Love is not like a rock,” he said quietly, making the commoners gathered around strain to hear him. “A rock is finished. It’s done. There’s no work that goes into a rock – it just is. There are some beautiful rocks, it’s true – diamonds and rubies and gold. But all they do is sit there. To be looked at, and appreciated, maybe – or maybe just eroded away.”

His voice began picking up strength and volume as he went along. “Love is a tree. A tree needs light, and soil to put roots down, and it needs pruning and care. You have to give your love the same attention and care.

“Love is a home. Once built, it has to be maintained. Don’t let mice or mold into those walls – don’t let worms destroy your foundations. You’ve built a solid frame – add on to it, make it stronger every day, and it will keep you safe and warm for all your lives.”

“Love is bread. It sustains you, makes you strong, gives you life. It must be made new, every day remade.”

He stopped there, quite suddenly, his solemn expressed replaced all at once by a sheepish grin. “Uh, that’s all I wanted to say. Sokka, are you ready to …?”

Sokka nodded, grinning in no small part himself, despite the knot on the side of his head and his scorched tunic. He stepped forward and dropped to one knee between Zuko and Mai. From his belt, he took the knife he’d kept sheathed all during the fight, and used it to make a small nick in both Zuko’s palm and Mai’s. “Sorry, sorry,” he muttered under his breath as he worked. “Wow, you fire guys have some seriously barbaric traditions.”

Returning the bloodied knife to its sheath, he placed Zuko and Mai’s hands together, palm to palm. “One blood, one heart, one life,” he intoned solemnly, and then gave them a lusty wink.

He stepped out of the way, giving Suki and Ty Lee room to come in. Both women grinned broadly as they undressed Mai’s hair from the childish buns she’d worn nearly her entire life, quickly pinning it back up in a topknot with the golden ornament worn by the Fire Lady. As they finished their work, Katara and Toph swooped in, a single gold cloak in both their hands. At Aang’s nod, Zuko and Mai stood and moved closer together, and their friends draped the cloak around both their shoulders together.

“Earth and Air, Water and Fire,” said Aang. “Husband and Wife, Woman and Man. I give to you your Fire Lord and Fire Lady.”

“Yeah!” shouted Toph, and punched the air vigorously with both fists. “Let’s hear it, people!”

The crowds erupted with cheers, applause, and not a few catcalls. Zuko glanced down to his left, at Mai. At his wife.

“I think,” she said, gazing back up at him through her eyelashes, “this is the part where we kiss.”

“Oh,” said Zuko. “Okay. Yeah. You’re right.”

So they did.

…

The white stone survived on. For six years now, Zuko had visited it every day.

This time, he was not alone.

“Hello, Uncle,” he said, and adjusted the small bundle in the crook of his arm. “I can’t stay for long – Mai will be wanting us back. But I wanted to introduce you to your grand-nephew.”

So very carefully, he drew the blanket down away from the baby’s face and showed him the stone. “Iroh,” he said formally, “meet Iroh.”

Iroh the younger screwed up his face as if to cry, thought better of it, and went back to sleep.

“I don’t know if you’d be pleased or not, Uncle,” Zuko said. “Maybe you would have preferred it if we called him Lychee, or Ginseng.” He folded a flap of blanket back under the baby’s chin, feeling himself grin foolishly down at the round little face. “Well, we picked a name that was important to us. I figure you’d approve.”

He glanced over his shoulder, at the towers and walls of the palace behind him. “We should be getting back. I really don’t want to make her mad – she’s like a mother bear if she thinks I’m not supporting his head enough, or rocking him too fast.”

But he didn’t move yet – for a long, quiet moment he stood still, looking down at the baby as he rocked him back and forth. “You know,” he said slowly, “for the longest time, I kept hoping that things would get back to normal. I wanted to be married during normal times. I wanted my son to live in a normal world. I wanted you back, with us – it was normal, and right, for you to be here.”

He stroked the baby’s cheek with one finger. “But this is normal, isn’t it Uncle? Things will always be crazy, changing. People will live. People will die.” One side of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “I guess you could have told me that a lot sooner, and with a lot less trouble. But I’m figuring it out for myself, Uncle. I’m trying.” The gravestone stared implacably back at him, as he made his respects and turned back to the palace.

In sorrow, wisdom.

In wisdom, joy.