Chapter 1: The Son
The caves on Sozin's Island were a terrible place to live.
Located in the North West of the Fire Nation continent, they were completely alien to the hot Savannah deserts near the Capitol, or the humid forests and rice patties of Hira'a where Ursa was born. It was windy here, wet, and the winters were no strangers to snow.
The people of Sozin's Island didn't much care for the place. Many of the children born here longed to earn enough money to head south and make a new life. But there was a decent living to made in the island's coal and copper mines, and in the abundant salmon squid that bred in the choppy sea. So people lived here anyway.
Ursa did not live in the mining town or the fishing village, but in a cave, away from the prying eyes of the locals. Her and four hundred refuges.
The caves were worse than the island itself. The floors were continually damp, and the temperature was always low. Only parts of the cave were habitable. Many of the tunnels had dangerous drop offs and frequent cave-ins. But it was safer here than it was anywhere else in the Fire Nation. The people who came here had nowhere else to go.
A large portion were from the Water Tribe. When the Fire Nation raided the arctic islands, people fled to the closest land they could find, which happened to be the very homeland of their persecutors. They came on crowded rickety boats. Ursa learned many drowned at sea trying to reach Sozin's island.
Many of the refugees were Fire Nation citizens. Their reasons for coming here were diverse, though no less dire. Ozai's rule had been as ruthless within the Fire Nation as it had been abroad. Among them were displaced East-islanders who were fleeing ethnic persecution. There were young men evading the army draft, petty criminals who might be hanged for stealing a bag of rice, political dissidents who had left a comfortable bourgeois existence to keep their families from harm.
Ursa's job was to count them, record them, and give them somewhere safe to stay. She didn't tell them it was she who had put Ozai in power. Maybe that didn't matter. Maybe a different Fire Lord would have been just as ruthless. Azulon had created plenty of refugees in his day. But Ursa felt she had made this mess, and she would do whatever she could to fix it.
When Ozai was deposed, Ursa excitedly kept her ears to the ground, listening as Zuko's career progressed. She hoped that things would get better, that the refugees would stop coming, and those holed up in her cave would be allowed to return home. And some things did get better.
The ethnic tensions on the East Islands relaxed. Somewhat. The raids on the northern island stopped. The end of the war meant the end of the draft. The more liberal politicians were allowed to come out of hiding. But Zuko could not solve every problem. And the refugees continued.
On this particular winter day, Ursa had been on her feet since before dawn. There had been a cholera outbreak in the encampment. The sick needed to be separated from the healthy, needed soup spooned into their mouths, and needed to be cleaned when they inevitably vomited it back up. The healthy needed their fears managed, and needed to be stopped from drinking the water from the spring in the cave's easternmost tunnel. Ursa had to manage all of it.
And then her second in command had the audacity to give her bad news.
"What do you mean it's delayed!" she said to him. "We have forty-five women and children who need emergency passage to the Earth Kingdom and you're telling me the ship is delayed?"
He held out his hands in front of him, urging her to lower her voice so as not to panic those around her. "We don't know if it's the ship that's delayed or just the messenger. No news is good news, Ursa," he said. "I don't think we need to panic yet. And if it turns out the ship is delayed, we'll improvise. We'll do what we've always done. What you've always been good at."
"I know, but you sure picked a hell of a time to tell me this!" she said.
He took a deep breath. "You need sleep."
"I need to manage a Cholera outbreak," she said with a sigh. "But you're probably right. I do need sleep."
Ursa felt a tap on her shoulder. It was an angry Fire Nation woman. Her fashionable clothes, indicative of noble both, were worn thin and dirty, and she was furious. "My husband has been waiting for three days to see a physician for his knee, and you haven't even explained to us the delay."
Ursa snapped at that point. This was just one more thing than she could handle. She turned on her heals. "I thought the coughing and wailing and smell of vomit would have been obvious enough!"
"It's no excuse to just ignore us! He can barely walk!"
"Well than he can crawl!" Ursa yelled. Steam escaped her nose. There was nothing she hated more that when other fire benders used heat to express anger, but she was having a hard time holding back.
The woman glared at Ursa silently. Then she turned, and walked away, sighing with a deep frustration they were all feeling.
"I'm not sure how much longer I can do this," Ursa said to her assistant.
"Maybe you can after an hour or two of sleep. You can't fix everything right away."
She rubbed her eyes. The weight of the past was evident in her voice. "There's a lot of things I can't fix," she said. She groaned and resigned to head back to her cot for much needed rest.
However, she did not get far.
It was at that moment the lookout boy ran in from the mouth of the cave, a skinny Water-Tribe child of ten who had insisted on making himself useful the day he arrived at the camp orphaned and traumatized. Ursa had thought there wouldn't be any harm in letting him play outside while convincing him he was doing something important. But apparently had taken his fake job as a "lookout" seriously.
"Ursa!" he said, stopping before her and panting. "A ship. A... big ship. Not the one we're waiting for."
"Slow down, Panuk," Ursa said. "Deep breaths. What nation was it?"
"Fire Nation," he said. The boy paused. "Military. Official."
"They could just be passing through," she said.
"Except for the part where they anchored off shore and sent a row boat," Punak said.
A few of the refugees turned their heads to listen in. The color left everyone's faces.
Ursa was going to ask what the ship looked like but a more urgent thought interrupted her. "Did they see you?"
Panuk looked up, wiped his hair out of his eyes and paused. He didn't know.
She grabbed the boy's shoulders. "Gather the other children and take them to the south tunnel." She turned to the onlookers. "I need every fire bender in the camp to join me in Foyer. Any adult who can light a candle needs to move, now!"
Sleep would have to wait.
Ursa pulled up the hem of her skirt and headed into the tunnels toward the cave entrance, fire from her own hands illuminating her path. She paused only to tie back her hair. She needed to look presentable in case this situation called for diplomacy. She also needed to see well enough to fight, in case the situation called for that.
She scrambled up the tunnel to the open chamber they had nick-named The Foyer. By the time she got there, she could already hear voices. Her heart dropped like lead into her stomach.
"I don't think this is the right place," said a male voice from the tunnel ahead of her.
"It's exactly where he said it would be," replied a female voice. "Exactly as he said we would find it. I think we're on the right path."
He... Who was he? A sickening thought occurred to Ursa that "he" was someone from among their own ranks. They had been betrayed
The voices were getting closer. The fire benders hadn't rallied yet. She was so far without backup. She had four hundred people in this cave and it was her job to keep them safe. She had to do something quickly. Without much thought she gathered a ball of flame in her hands and ran into the tunnel with a loud cry.
The intruders jumped when Ursa revealed herself. The first intruder was a Water Tribe woman. Ursa aimed a burst a flame and the woman's jacket and singed it.
The woman replied with an angry cry. She turned, widened her stance, and pulled a string of fluid from the canteen she carried. A water bender. This was going to be an interesting fight.
"You're not welcome here!" Ursa shouted.
The woman defended herself, blocking Ursa's fire attacks with the small amount of drinking water. With each of Ursa's strikes, the water between the woman's hands evaporated more and more, shrinking. Soon the intruder would be forced to flee, or fight more creatively.
"We're not here to cause trouble!" the woman said.
"You already have!" Ursa answered.
A second person joined the fight. A young man who jumped in front of the woman and charged forward with a sword. He dodged Ursa's blasts, and managed to get in close, but she was just as good in close quarters as she was at range. She took hold of his wrist, twisted them behind his back, and managed to break his hold on the weapon, disarming him.
"A little help here!" the Water Tribe woman called.
Two more people ran forward. "I have this!" A second female voice. The tunnel walls growled, shifted, and before Ursa could react, she was knocked down onto her back, her head hitting the ground. Her feet and hands were immobilized in solid stone. There was no feeling in the world more frightening than being trapped. But she was a fire bender. She had her breath to fight with, and she did not hold back.
Someone parted her flames in front of her, and stepped through them, his hands raised with fire of their own. He stood over her, ready to strike, but then paused.
She recognized him. Broad shoulders, sharp jaw, amber eyes that were intense, passionate, but also burdened with a heavy and undeserved tiredness. She knew immediately where he had gotten them. He had gotten them from her husband.
"Mom..." he lowered his hands.
"Zuko..." she said.
He dropped down to the floor, and wrapped his entire body around her, and he did not let go.