Zutara Week Chapter 2 History

The cloaked figure found the least dusty corner of the room and sat down. Placing his torch on the nearby stand, he tried to make himself as comfortable as possible in the dark, musty room, surrounded by shelves and shelves of dusty, ancient scrolls. He had chosen a number of these scrolls already and was now about to see what wisdom they had to give him. He sincerely hoped that he would find something.

Fire Lord Zuko was a desperate man. Although the dilemma that was plaguing him was not one of national consequences, it was a matter of the heart, which made it all the more difficult to address. But he was determined to find a viable solution to the problem, no matter what it took.

What pushed him to try such drastic (and unusual) measures was the time constraint. Katara would only be in the Fire Nation for a few more days before she left for some other part of the world where she would surely spend a considerably long time. In the time left, he was determined to properly express his true feelings to her. Upon Toph's advice, he had given up on the bizarre masquerade of acting as a "secret admirer" at the risk of being exposed in an untimely manner. On retrospect, Zuko conceded that it had been a silly idea but his excuse had to be his lack of experience in such matters. And he was about to find out that he was not wholly to blame for his emotional ineptness. It was, after all, a family failing.

On occasion, he had found that consulting the family archives and annals offered some relief or consolation. After all, the few times that he had ventured to read the annals, he had made life-changing discoveries (such as the identity of his great grandfather on his mother's side.) So he figured that maybe one of the ancient Fire Nation Royal Family journals held the answers to his quandary.

Unfortunately for the young Fire Lord, there was little comfort or encouragement to be derived from accounts of his family history, particularly those of the marriages in the family, which were the specific volumes that he had chosen to read.

Surely there would be some clue in his family's history as to how to approach a girl and confess one's deepest feelings, he thought as he pored over the manuscripts.

After all, the nation had lived and prospered for many years under successful (though cruel and tyrannical) reigns of his forefathers. Zuko avoided the more recent family accounts since he had a feeling that his closer relations were not the perfect role models. So he searched for the stories of the marriages of Fire Lords before Sozin.

The accounts were expected. Nearly all of the marriages were arranged and Zuko was hard pressed to see any evidence of affection between spouses before or after the royal weddings. There were portraits of the families, some with smiling faces, and others with stern ones. But Zuko knew that in his family, smiling was not common but that did not mean that the people were miserable.

There were some accounts of official courtships. But these were only lists of the formal presents given by the groom to his prospective bride and the meetings of the families to discuss dowries, entails, and inheritances.

Most of the marriages were between aristocratic families but there were a handful of unions between a royal and a commoner but these accounts were even shorter and more uninformative than the others.

"Those would have been more interesting," Zuko thought with a sigh, "not to mention more helpful to me."

He chanced upon some records of marriages with other countries (this was from way, way before the war) which were contracted to cement international alliances. But if anything, these were even more official and formal than the other marriages and there was no talk of love or affection between spouses. And there were very little details in these scrolls because they were poorly preserved and were practically crumbling to dust in Zuko's hands.

But the more he read the more discouraged Zuko felt. He sighed repeatedly as he unrolled scroll after scroll only to read cold, official (unromantic) accounts of his forefathers' marriages. There were names and titles and family trees and bloodlines of this noble family and that. There were statistics on the number and types of legislation passed before and after the marriages of the Fire Lords. The scrolls talked about the number of children and grandchildren, the in-laws and a lot of other data which were of no interest to Zuko at all.

"Come on, come on," he muttered, "there's got to be something. I'm at my wit's end here!"

But as he continued to read, all the accounts only served to fuel his growing sense of dread. Was this some sort of family curse? Were all Fire Lords in history meant to live cold, loveless lives? Was this perhaps the reason why they started the war in the first place, because they were so lonely and unhappy and they had a distorted desire to fill the emptiness in their lives?

Zuko shook his head violently to get rid of such disturbing thoughts. His mind had strayed too far. But he couldn't help it. Reading all those histories gave him a headache and lowered his morale considerably. He leaned against the wall and sighed dejectedly.

"Another stupid idea," he thought as he set aside another scroll, "this is what I get for trying to seek a light for the future from the darkness of the past."

After uttering these words, he groaned and shook his head, as if trying to erase what he had just said. He was thankful that there was no one there to witness his little outburst.

"Oh no," he thought ruefully, "did I really just say that? Have I aged so quickly in these past few months that I'm transforming into Uncle Iroh?"

He cringed at the thought. But when the strange feeling passed, the memory of his uncle gave him an idea.

"Of course!" Zuko realized, slapping his forehead, "I've really been an idiot this time! Even if the Fire Lords of old were unhappy, I am pretty sure of one happy and successful marriage in the family."

With a burst of energy and inspiration, Zuko returned all the scrolls he had taken, dusted himself off, and resolved to contact his Uncle for advice as soon as possible.

"Why didn't I think of this before?" he scolded himself.

In his haste, Zuko neglected to return one unread scroll to the shelf. It was the account of his own father's early life and eventual marriage. And by some trick of fate, Zuko had not consulted the one family history that would have made given him the most useful advice on love.

But one couldn't blame him. It was an unlikely place to search for counsels for the heart but not more unlikely than the ancient family archives.