Xuanshi is the fine rice paper used for high quality, artistic calligraphy. It is renowned for its softness, its paleness and its fine silky texture.
The fragrance clock always pleases her when she comes to see him. As ever, this is dusk, the hour of jasmine.
When he returns from the front, Iroh keeps to his simple camp bed, his soldier's clothes, his boots worn soft and comfortable with age. He never makes a public spectacle of excess, but in private he revels in hot baths, in rich blackberry-and-fire-pepper infused duck, in the simple pleasures that an army on campaign cannot give him. The army of the Fire Nation is always on campaign. He is their greatest general, their unstoppable dragon who must go with them on the march…and if the dragon of the west should like the scent of jasmine curling in his nostrils at the hour, then it will be their private secret.
He bows to her as she enters. "My lady Ursa."
"General Iroh."
He nods to the servant at the door. His voice is firm. "Leave us."
"But sir, I…"
This is not proper. For propriety's sake, there should be at least half a dozen retainers and handmaids here, to watch and report like the little mice they are. She has always known that her handmaids are Fire Lord Azulon's creatures at heart. But then, Iroh is bold when he wants to be. He can ask for things she has never dared.
He is Crown Prince, too. That helps. No one dares refuse the Crown Prince much of anything.
"Leave us. We will be fine. Thank you."
And now they are alone.
He has laid everything out beautifully. Brushes, ink-stone and a fresh stick of ink, smooth paper that can only be the finest the Fire Nation can provide. And tea. Of course, there is always tea; a pot and two cups are laid out side by side.
All highborn children are taught to do calligraphy, though not all of them do it well. Ozai writes like he's fighting. He seldom writes his own missives, but when he does it is short, harsh, stabbing at the paper and forcing the brush to his will. Iroh is less emphatic, but his strokes are still workmanlike, better suited for military dispatches than art. He wants lessons – he says he needs the patience and subtlety that brushwork will teach him - so his brother's wife (Ozai's quiet, obedient wife, who has always had such a graceful hand) comes to his rooms. He's good to talk to, so she doesn't mind.
"How is Prince Zuko?" Iroh loves his nephew dearly; when they meet for these lessons, the children, Zuko most of all, are the first thing he asks about. They've grown a great deal since the last time he was here.
"Still adjusting to his sister, I'm afraid. She's so precocious, I don't think he quite knows what to do…"
It's true. Azula has only just marked her first birthday, but already sparks fly from her fingertips when she claps her pudgy baby hands. They have to put her in cold water when the time comes for her bath; she makes it bubble and steam when she splashes, crowing excitedly and kicking her legs in the shallows. It's unseemly to admit that children of the royal family have tantrums like any other little one might, but they've already had to replace one of the young girls in the royal nursery after Azula set her hair alight trying to fight a nap.
Ozai is thrilled. Zuko on the other hand, well, he is not so sure. He is only three, and though she knows he's a clever boy in his own way, she knows he's strong, she knows he has a good heart…she knows he will be a fine firebender one day, and with any luck a good man also, but he was never like this.
She's never known any other children who were like this.
Perhaps Iroh was like Azula though. Ursa has never seen a firebender as skilful as he is. Rumour has it that there are none as skilful as he is, or at least very few who could challenge him one on one if he truly let loose. It's hard to imagine him like that, hard to imagine him blazing white-hot as he must be in battle; now he barely sighs with heat, cradling the teapot gently in his cupped hands until it begins to steam.
Now she thinks on it, it would not worry her so very much if Azula grew to be like her Uncle Iroh. That would not be bad.
"Being an elder brother is hard, Ursa," he says with a sympathetic smile. "I will talk to Zuko…but first, ginseng tea."
The spicy-sweet scent rises to meet her as he pours for them both, bright with citrus and ginger. She releases a breath she never truly meant to hold. How he knows is a mystery and likely to remain so, but Iroh has never forgotten that ginseng tea is her favourite.
She sets him to copying the character 永, over and over. To lay the strange stone on the jade table, to pass from bridle to crossbow…there are eight steps to master, each one simple and common and a trap for the thoughtless, and every one of them will keep his feet a little more rooted on solid ground. Perhaps it's not so bad for him to learn patience by writing Eternity.
They talk softly as he writes. It is nothing important. Little things. She so rarely gets to talk freely of little things.
Which merchant in the capital sells the best marigold tea. How to coax the best flowers from the chrysanthemum bushes in her private gardens. Zuko's latest attempts to tell knock-knock jokes to the courtiers, which have him doubled over laughing but make little sense to anyone else. How Iroh's boy Lu Ten – who is only fifteen, and barely that – has hardly begun his officer's training, will not be on the front lines for years, but already has grand plans to capture Ba Sing Se singlehandedly the moment he finally gets there. It's clear to see what Iroh thinks of this; he doesn't boast, but his eyes shine at the mention of Lu Ten's name, and a genuine smile curves his mouth. The thick, black (still dark, though it's true he is greying a little now) sideburns that cling to his cheeks are not quite enough to disguise his dimples.
"Maybe by the time Lu Ten reaches the front, I'll be able to write him a letter he can read. Do you think?"
She laughs. His penmanship is not yet beautiful, but it was never that bad! Leaning over his shoulder to find the best light, she studies his work with a critical eye; he is getting there, but Iroh still doesn't quite feel the flow. The last stroke is a little harsh...
She rests her hand gently over his to guide it.
"Almost. Like this, see. Like this."
Her hair tickles his ear. He's not paying the slightest bit of attention to the movement of pen on paper. She can feel his eyes on her, following the pale line of her wrist up, up, up and into the shadows of her voluminous sleeve. She can feel him breathing, feel the hot pulse of blood under his skin, under her fingers, cool on calluses and burns and resting like a whisper on his hot, hot skin. She can feel the beat of his heart ringing, deep as a war-drum to call him to battle.
He doesn't say a word.
He and Ozai do not look much like brothers. Truth be told, Iroh does not look much like a prince. Ozai is tall and sculpted like a god with broad shoulders and slender hips and every muscle picked out individually; many women think him handsome, but they don't often see the impatient, sometimes cruel set to his mouth. Iroh is not much like this. Iroh is no taller than she is, and needs his topknot piled high on the crown of his head to make him match even her height. He is burly and robust; though he's strong, it's as a slab rather than as a statue, with a sly smile and the spark of a secret joke in his eyes.
Sometimes she wants to say he is a rock, but when she thinks about it more that doesn't seem right. Not for him. He's not a rock. He's not a boulder. He is the log at the base of the fire, the great solid heart of a tree carved out and set at the bottom for all the heat of the rest to be built upon.
His wife died in childbirth, trying to give him a second son. The heir and the spare as they say, the duty of every royal wife there has ever been. She knows this – the whole court knows this, his grief was no secret and painfully real besides – but seeing him fumble with the fastenings on her robe makes her wonder. Ten years…have there been any others? Some secret paramour?
Somehow, she doesn't think so, even with his flirting to smooth the way. His fingers are careful, gentle, with ragged fingernails and a callus on his broad, blunt thumb where he is accustomed to test the edge of a blade. The weapons themselves rest in racks against the walls of the room, gleaming in the light from the lamps – spear and pudao polearm, the long sword with a tassel on the hilt that he wears sheathed over his back and needs two hands to swing, a shorter cavalry sword, platypus-bear claws that fit over his clenched fist and rake a man's face to bloody shreds…then make the poor man scream again as fire blazes along the length of the claws and cauterises the wounds.
He's spent far more time with them over the last ten years than he has with any woman. Or man, for that matter. It's not discussed, but she and everyone else in the Fire Nation knows by now that men at war sometimes…do things. Together. Still, Iroh does not. Iroh has no one. If he did, his hands would not shake.
He draws back.
"Would you -? Are you sure?"
Bless him for asking.
"Yes, I'm sure."
She has never felt so beautiful as she does when her robe hits the floor and she sees the roaring tide of want in his eyes. There are things they can never do – there can never, ever be a child, nor even the risk of a child – but still it's sweet when he cups her breasts in his large, rough hands, drinks in the sight of her imperfections and all. She does not like her faint stretch marks or the tale they tell on her belly, but he studies them intently…and she finds she doesn't mind as much as she thought she might.
Of course he does. He was away at war when his own son was born. He never met the boy until Lu Ten could already walk and talk. It's possible he has never seen a woman's body with the story of the birthing bed still on it.
"That looks like my handwriting," he says, and peers at her from under bushy brows. "It looks better on you. Skin like yours…so soft, so fine…"
He moves back to the desk. He shapes the brush to a fine point against his lips. He dips it in the black, silk-smooth ink, and writes 永 on the sweep of her belly.