Harmony
By Inktheory
Disclaimer thingy: I don't own AtLA, it owns me.
-Story title comes from everyone's favorite Avatar game, Pai Sho, in which the objective is to create harmony among the tiles one is playing with. If Iroh played it, it's got to be a good game.
-This is my first Avatar story. It's centers on Iroh, because he rocks the world; and Ozai, because he gets no love. Ursa is the name of Firelord Ozai's wife, in case you don't know. Please review! It makes me feel warm and ticklish inside
One: Turtle ducks and Tea
Iroh (14), Ursa (12), Ozai (7)
"Hogmonkeys…the tea got cold."
The fire prince cast the china cup in his hands a disappointed look. The plump boy had recieved the tea set as a present, and was eager to make most of it, spending all of his free times having tea breaks. As the heir to the throne, the free time was not so much, but Iroh had convinced himself that he didn't mind.
"Here, let me show you something," his companion said, taking the cup from his hands. "Watch me." She looked at Iroh and winked. Then she brought the cup to her lips and sniffed delicately, twice, before handing the cup back to him. "There you go." Utterly bemused, he reached for his jasmine tea.
"Thank y—ah!" Iroh dropped the cup, flailing his hands madly. "It's hot! What did you do that for, Ursa?" In his irritation, he plunged his hands into the pond, letting the cool water run over them. The girl laughed at her playmate. "You said yourself that the tea was cold!" she replied, still giggling. "I breathed some steam on it…"
"I thought you were sniffing!" Iroh snapped back, waving his hands back and forth, watching the movement of the turtle ducklings following their mother. "Sniffing?" Ursa replied, "Why would I do that?"
"How should I know? You're a girl…"
He regretted it the instant he had said it. Within seconds, Ursa was upon her, pulling at his hair. "Ouch!" Iroh yelped, trying to push her away as she pulled at his ponytail. "Take that back!" Ursa said, continuing to tug. "Ouch!" Iroh said again, "alright, I'm sorry for calling you a girl…stop yanking will you?"
"That's better…" Ursa said with satisfaction, retreating. "You're way too much like a boy anyway," Iroh said, wincing slightly from the aftermath of her attack, "Mother says Fire Nation girls are supposed to be ladylike. You're nothing like a lady." Ursa's expression softened at this. "I'm not going to be a lady I expect," the twelve year-old declared, "at least not in the near future."
"Not for lack of trying though...can you believe mother and father enrolled me in the Royal Firebending Academy for Girls?" she added as an afterthought. "The academy's sure in for it if they're taking you…" Iroh muttered, with complete honesty. The two children laughed, simultaneously envisioning the pranks Ursa could pull.
"Come on, I'll pour you another cup…" he finally added, when they were out of breath, "I'm going to try your steam trick."
Iroh took the tea cup in both hands, and after breathing in and out for a couple of times ventured to slowly exhale from his nose.
It was more like a snort.
And he lost control of the way the air was going, letting it flow halfway down his throat. He coughed, belching a spectacular amount of fire instead of a blow of steam. His consolation was that it did succeed in warming up the tea.
Ursa on the other hand, found this whole display incredibly funny. She was still laughing and comparing Iroh to various sorts of beasts of the Fire Nation, ranging from the dragon (Iroh liked that) to the fire belching slug (Iroh liked that one less) when he came.
"Firebending is forbidden in the gardens."
His face was pale and displayed no emotion. He and Iroh dressed almost identically, apart from the fact that Iroh's parka was a size larger to accommodate his comfortable physique, it would be difficult to separate the two brothers from a distance. Ozai always tied the red band showing his admissions to the firebending academy tightly around his waist, since he had earned it a month ago. Ursa remembered that Iroh was not as proper when he had been admitted – they had used the band as a slingshot to scare the turtle ducks. The Fire Lord had not approved, both children suspected. The Fire Lord frequently did not approve of his firstborn son.
Ozai was not like that. Ozai, pale and serious and disturbingly prim, always going through his firebending forms night and day, when Iroh dropped off midday, saying they were easy as well as boring…Ozai who was staring at them both fixedly, disapproval etched on every feature of his face.
"I wasn't bending," the older prince retorted, "it was an accident."
"I'm telling father."
Iroh and Ursa exchanged glances. Iroh rolled his eyes. "Whatever…" he mumbled, "look Ozai, why are you even here? Come to show off your stupid band again?" Ursa saw the younger prince's amber eyes flash and his fists clench in annoyance. Iroh saw neither – he was not the one to pay attention to his brother. In his eyes, Ozai was only interested in getting involved with him when he wanted to pester him, or when they got into a fight. He was a waste of his leisure time; the only thing Iroh wanted was his brother to leave so he could enjoy his tea in peace.
Iroh found his little brother annoying, in a childlike fashion. Ozai, on the other hand, seemed to truly, passionately hate his older brother. Iroh did not seem to know that, much to Ursa's surprise. It was as clear as day. Of course, Ursa did not know why Ozai hated Iroh – she and the young prince were not friends more than simply acquaintances. Even if they were, some thoughts, unknown to anyone else, were only for Ozai, not to be shared with anyone.
"Father wants us in the great hall," Ozai said, turning his back and making to leave, "he wishes to quiz us on the twenty forms."
"But I thought the instructions were to practice the first fifteen only!" Iroh said abruptly, forgetting his annoyance. A sharp smile lit Ozai's features as he turned his head to glance back at Iroh.
"Obviously you were mistaken, brother. Let's hope that I can amuse father well enough that he will forget his anger towards you."
"Argh." Iroh said, after his brother was an earshot away. "Intolerable jerk. He must have conveniently left out mentioning that to me. Let's just hope father asks him to go first so I can catch on the moves."
Ursa snorted. "Even you're not that good!" she said with disbelief, though she knew that actually he was that good, and probably even better. Firebending came naturally to Iroh, just as laziness and loving fun did.
"I'll get by," Iroh said, waving her off. "Besides, Ozai's probably perfected them, so I'll get a shot at the faultless stuff before I demonstrate." He watched his brother walk away. "Good thing he's far off and can't here me praise him."
Ozai could. He smiled to himself.