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Ursa enters the room in silence and in shadow, in the darkness before dawn. She knows what she will find: and there sits Iroh at his writing desk, pen in hand, steaming tea service to one side. There is, of course, no fire: starlight streams still through the open window, and so does the chill air. The familiar pai sho set is in its familiar place in the corner of the room. The portrait of the Prince – made at his majority, removed from the gallery upon his death – gazes down on her; and so, from the other side of the room, does his mother.
She shivers.
He looks up from the blank sheet in front of him; up from the brush in its stand; up from the inkwell and the tea, both untouched. His gaze is calm and steady: she feels with vertiginous conviction that it is the only solid thing in the palace, the only truth.
“I have done only what is necessary,” she says.
And she leaves with a whisper of silk and the sigh of the closing door. She leaves to bid her son farewell.
***
Iroh listens and he watches. They are cultivated skills: he was a man of action, a man of war, and what possible use, after all, had he of the niceties of politics in his youth?
And so: and so. He begins to observe the children as they train: and though as he returns to his apartments he sighs, while in the arena he simply stands, a silent spectator, and the tutors soon recover their composure and stop darting furtive glances in his direction.
After six weeks he requests the honour of an audience with the Fire Lord: his mouth twists wryly as he spills exquisite, formal calligraphy smoothly across the page. He dresses carefully, with no servants to assist him: it is a fine line he must tread, between deference and disrespect, in these uncertain days.
The conversation is brief. Iroh remarks, delicately, on Azula's prodigious talent; lets the merest suggestion of Zuko's struggles hang, unvoiced, in the heated air between them. Ozai's expression moves from wariness to boredom to distaste; he dismisses Iroh with the barest flick of his fingers, with a sneer, with an exaggeratedly polite request to take whatever action he deems fitting.
And thus it comes to pass that Azula trains alone, in the grand stone courtyard at the centre of the palace, with masters chosen from among the best in the Empire, while Zuko – Zuko, baffled, bewildered, and not a little put out – finds himself sat at the edge of the turtleduckpond, studying not forms but ripples, to a backdrop of his uncle's lectures.
***
Azula mocks him, of course; of course, Zuko becomes bored. Iroh sighs, and bows his mind and his back to the whims of the heir apparent: better by far to keep the boy in his sights.
Zuko, for his part, comes to trust Iroh – at least, more than he does Azula, more than he does his father. He cannot forget that dreadful night; dares himself to ask his uncle what happened, tries to convince himself that it is an internal matter and his uncle cannot possibly know. But there is a truce, of sorts, for all that he is growing into adulthood made arrogant by fear and isolation.
Ozai knows. Naturally. He is ambitious and grasping and terribly, terribly jealous of his seat within the throne room (he has vowed never to kneel before those flames again), and though he gave his assent to Iroh's tutelage he lets it be known that he is watching: his gaze wanders over Iroh at banquets, and Zuko all unknowing repeats to Iroh the tales of treachery he is schooled in by his academic tutors.
Azula is perfect, beautiful and cold, and terrifying in her cruelty. Her smile, when she bestows it upon her uncle, is less like ice, more obsidian: he shudders to think of it, and what meaning it contains for this tentative family of two he works so painstakingly to build, to hold in readiness, for Ursa.
***
He can do nothing but bear horrified witness; but recollect himself sharply, as Ozai punches towards Zuko's face, and with a gentle exhalation and the subtlest of adjustments to his stance do all he can to at least protect the eye, to protect his nephew's vision without interference being suspected. He is distantly aware that Azula ascribes his movement to squeamishness, to cowardice, and she delights in it. He cannot bring himself to care.
***
It is Iroh who summons the medics after Ozai turns and strides away, as the audience filters away. He curses his brother for his pride and his arrogance, for his cruelty; their father, for his refusal to employ waterbending healers, repaying them with their life; Zuko, for his devotion to his future subjects, for his stubbornness, for his loyalty.
Zuko does not make a sound.
Afterwards – when he has been poulticed and bandaged, when he is insisting that he will walk, and will walk unaided – Iroh looks up, to find Azula watching, her arms crossed. It is the first time Iroh is afraid of his niece.
***
Iroh attempts diplomacy once more: he requests, in roundabout ways, that he might be permitted to join his nephew's voyage as tutor, mentor, and scholar.
Ozai smiles the calm, remote smile of absolute power, and denies his petition. He allows it to be understood that his weakling brother's influence has done quite enough damage to his weakling son.
Iroh returns to his apartment and sits, in silence, among relics and reminders, and once more he stares at a blank sheet in front of him and wonders what on earth there is to write.
***
But write he does: hours and pages and weeks stretch out before him, and with his duties to Zuko gone he must find something to fill them, or be hollowed out in turn by their emptiness. His brother will not stoop to intercepting his letters; that dignity at least is left to him, though he knows well that this is only because he is deemed to pose no threat. He paints delicate pictures of the changing seasons: of the leaves in autumn and the turtleducklings in spring, to remind Zuko of his home. He writes reminiscences of Zuko's childhood, and of Ursa, to remind him of his family. He writes of politics and of history and of philosophy, interspersed with theory of firebending, to guide Zuko on his travels.
His nephew is itinerant. The messenger hawks take days, and then weeks: Zuko details their course in painstaking care and obvious frustration; asks what he is missing, where he should go next.
Iroh learns that any discouragement itself discourages replies. He learns to bite his tongue, put down his brush, breathe deeply. He asks about the places Zuko has visited: their languages, their music, their stories. Zuko, of course, replies curtly: he is not an anthropologist; this is a military mission, not a research cruise. He is single-minded and unquestioning in his dedication.
Zuko still sends questions about his training. Iroh spends hours in the palace library, copying forms from crumbling scrolls; appending his own modifications and suggestions: he has studied his pupil well. He pours his love and fear onto paper, and hopes with his heart that they are legible.
***
The leaves are turning once more when Iroh receives the note confirming the Avatar's return. In the terseness and the omissions, he reads a stranger tale: this young man is not averse to boasting, yet this letter is neither boastful nor even excited. Determined, yes, but Iroh senses rage lurking suppressed in the margins.
He worries.
His response urges caution, moderation.
The next letter arrives with a hawk battered by storms, in a water-stained tube, and Iroh takes it upon himself to nurse the bird back to health.
He takes the missive out to the formal tea gardens in the grounds of the palace before unfolding it: there is enough of a bite to the air to discourage all but the guards on their patrols, bender or not.
... Captain Zhao, understanding the importance of my task, has placed his command at my disposal. We are gathering reports of sightings of the Avatar. We set a course Northward. We expect to return with our passenger by the New Year...
The paper crumbles to ash between his fingertips and falls gently to the ground, snow on snow. Iroh has heard the name before: elevated for his arrogance, for his brutality, for his disrespect toward the great Admiral Jeong Jeong.
He realises that there is nothing he can do but wait.
***
He retreats from palace life. Food is brought to him in his quarters, and ink blocks, and paper. Rumours spread. Courtiers smirk.
When he hears of the siege of the Northern Water Tribe he crushes the stick of charcoal in his hand, and breathes only a little easier to hear that Zhao's efforts on the spirits was abortive. (This second point is reported with distaste and dismay.)
And then the ships return – in pomp, despite the failure – and his heart weighs heavy.
He watches the procession from the balcony; watches Zuko striding next to Zhao; watches as behind him a troop marches surrounding a tiny figure, blue with bruises and with cold – and with markings Iroh has seen only in illustrations, heard of only as history. A child.
He grips the railing in an agony of grief, offers silent apologies to Ursa (who cannot hear him) and to Roku (who maybe can). Azula regards him coolly, measuring him, no doubt ascribing his reaction to foolish sentimentality over the return of his nephew; for her part, she turns to Ozai, and says, crisply, “Surely you don't trust him. He could arrange to have any peasant tattooed, with the time he's been away. We must test the boy.”
Ozai smiles indulgently, terrible to behold. “Azula, child,” he says, and she bristles only momentarily, “do you not know Captain Zhao? He shall have a promotion for this. Be sure that this is his doing; he is loyal. He would not risk his standing in my eyes on a chance. Nonetheless,” he adds, “we shall make a ruler of you yet.”
Iroh notices the words only for the reaction they provoke in his niece, and dread's stranglehold on him tightens.
***
Zuko will not see him. There is to be no audience; he no longer asks advice on his stances; he is grown proud, prouder, and distant. He will not meet his uncle's eyes at the banquet in his honour; though Zhao does. Iroh drops his gaze first: the delicacies are ashes in his mouth; he is choking on Zhao's satisfaction.
Iroh leaves his rooms in the palace; makes for the temple, where he abases himself at Roku's feet. He weeps for the world, and for the sons of his heart, both lost to him.
***
It takes days for the resolution to form; months of careful questioning, circuitous enquiries, to learn what he needs to know. He knows the Avatar will be kept alive: why risk the reincarnation? It is only a matter of information, and of cultivating his reputation as grief-stricken hermit. Who, then, cares enough to stop him when he professes to undertake a pilgrimage? Who cares enough to follow him?
By the time word reaches the capital, he has vanished along with the Avatar, and no trace of them can be found. Zuko pales beneath his scar; Zhao succumbs to apoplexy; and Azula, calm and focussed, sets out into the world to finish the job.
The Dragon of the West is turned traitor, and there is no revenge considered too harsh by his homeland.
In a forest, by a stream, the young monk shaves his head with relief, and nods (this is right, this is proper) as Iroh imitates his action. They are pilgrims and fugitives both, a young boy and an old man, reflections in each other.
The world hangs in the balance.
All they can offer are their hearts.