Tea and Storms
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General Iroh was a man of many pursuits. A natural lack of social acumen united with equally natural affability created in him a ready-made patron of oddity. His tangible and potent delight in the arts had served well to safeguard his standing in court, however little his influence consciously urged the habit.
Of course, his judgment only stood him in good stead when appreciating subjects secure in good taste. His rapturous sermonizing in all matters related to the creation of and consumption of tea was pardonable; after all, truly elegant tea had been a touchstone of the cultured since the inception of the Fire Nation itself. The occasional importation of Earth Kingdom sculpture in the 'modern styles' raised an odd powdered eyebrow or two, and his petition to erect a monument in the palace grounds to eulogize the fallen of both sides in the Siege of Ba Sing Se caused a brief and wildly gossipy scandal.
However, the blood kin of the Fire Lord held an untenable position, and he was indulged. It could hardly not be so, and grumbles concerning the old man's mind and security thereof were quickly damped down by constant, humble demonstrations of his good sense and friendly ease. Fortified by the innate, often subtle fear of the Fire Lord born in the minds of every citizen of Fire, naturally.
But even kin of sovereigns had to have boundaries. And some oddities, some affections, some pursuits, could never be indulged.
Rather like, Iroh sighed to himself as he discarded his sodden cloak into the waiting hands of a servant, this one.
The storm crackled and boomed once more in impressive anger. Perhaps water wishes to curb our hubris, Iroh thought wryly. The rain sluiced over the ornate eaves of the eastern pavilion and joined the hammering fall of drops on the stone steps he'd ascended moments before. Rolling his shoulders, he felt the dull ache of age in his joints. He always did when the airs were heavy with water. The cooled atmosphere followed him through the open archway, piercing his wet clothing and chilling his body with depressing ease. He hadn't always been so... feeble. His physicality had rarely failed him in youth. His mind, never. He couldn't recall one instance of doubt during his prime as to the longevity of his gifts. He supposed he'd assumed, as every young fool does, he would be infallible forever.
But now...
It was the uncertainty that killed him. The ugly face of doubt had reared. This was not to say that Iroh had never suffered moments of fear or self-interrogation, crippling and oppressive as it was for any other mortal. No, a long life had furnished him with plenty of those memories. He could not even claim that he had never interfered in the paths of others, that guilt had not stayed his hand or urged him to action before.
The General walked heavily and slowly down the stone passage. The monsoon continued thumping out a dull, distant rhythm on the roof.
No, what he could claim, for the first time, was whether he truly knew what was right. His fabled accomplishments were all committed under the very clearly defined charter of right and wrong, in Iroh's mind. He could choose to act wrongly if need be, but he had always known with grim confidence where the lines were drawn. His conscience had never failed him.
Until now.
The Pai Sho board lay abandoned in situ. The beautifully tooled pieces (the bluish-green set, his twelfth birthday, Iroh recalled, secretly treasured in his old handkerchief for their odd colours, which would never be admitted to her) indicated a game well advanced. He wondered at the slight improvement in strategy on his part (he had made her use the blue tiles, of course, pretending favour with a burnt orange, pretending nonchalance at her attachment to his treasure); hers was as dreadful as ever.
If he ever discovered why these two played so much Pai Sho, he would call himself a wise man. Zuko had had no love of the game prior to their meeting, and Iroh suspected as much on Katara's part. Yet, they could play for hours.
He had caught them once in the library just before sun-up, illuminated only vaguely by Katara's lantern. The air drifting out of the slightly ajar door had been stale and smelt of burned garlic; their dinners were still astride the Pai Sho board. They had been whispering about war strategy and Fire Nation economy and whether he could really climb the roof of the armoury without help. They remained completely oblivious to their eavesdropper.
Two hunched figures leaning over their pieces, complete with rumpled clothes and lank, oily hair. Dim silhouettes in the silent hours. Said eavesdropper had left them with their arguments as the first grey of dawn lightened the room. He had smiled warmly at nothing in particular as he returned to his bed.
Perhaps their mutual dissatisfaction with the ancient game was just an excuse. It was something they could do together. Simple, in peace, without competition.
In the dim chamber, the board's only companion was a doleful and slowly staling plate of half-finished tea-cakes. He noted with an inexplicable (to all but himself) pleasure the lack of a teapot and accompaniments, indicating it had merited the journey to the new location of the absent Pai Sho players. He flattered himself that he could make a reasonable, educated guess as to their whereabouts.
Lu Ten often asked him teasingly if he should simply refer to Zuko and Katara as 'brother' and 'sister' these days, instead of 'cousin' and 'friend'. Iroh had laughed and responded that if Zuko and Katara were ever siblings, surely neither would have lived past their second birthdays. But Iroh could not help but to want to watch their burgeoning companionship. True friends.
Though in his darker moments, he knew better. Too many sticky threads clung to this simple connection, too many irrelevancies swirled around its oblivious participants, safe as they were in their new-found cocoon. He knew his brother as Zuko never would.
Iroh felt the tired stab in his heart. Carried for fourteen years now, come the prince's birthday in a few weeks.
He extracted a tea-cake from the crumbling pile and ambled slowly back out into the cool stone corridor. The lit braziers dimmed in his wake as he began winding his way towards the easterly tip of the building.
In truth, he pitied Ozai. He alone remembered the silent child that had once played tricks on the palace staff with his elder brother, and wept inconsolably in his nurse's arms after his father's flames had publicly chastised him once more. The man he had become, however, could not bear the sight of his beautiful son. He lived in raging fear of fatherhood. Azula he could laud. There was no love between the prodigy and her mentor, except perhaps love of the power they wielded. Zuko, however... well, Iroh knew any parts of Ozai that had once been what Zuko was, he had abandoned and dismissed as weak.
And so every swell of gratitude, every spark of happiness as he watched this Water Tribe girl blithely offer Zuko what none had before, was smothered by this uncertain guilt. An indefinite feeling formed only from suspicions and instincts, but entirely sure on one point. However many old wounds these two unwittingly healed in the other, if it were ever turned against them?
Yes. Iroh knew better.
After a few minutes, Iroh rounded the corner into his destination. The ornate gazebo stood apart from the main building, connected by a path of stone. It stood over the lip of a sharp descent into the valley, supported on latticed stilts. There were no windows or walls on the little circular platform, only a hip-high stone balcony carved with twining dragons in profile. As a vantage point, this secret spot had no peer within the palace. The vista into the stormy, greying mountains stretched on and on.
The old man released a soft sigh.
They had taken seats on the only place available; the balcony itself. Protected from the downpour only by the lip of the curved roof, they faced the storm, legs dangling.
He watched unseen, and ached.
She bended a little tea out of the pot on the floor, into their painted cups. Zuko reached out and dipped his smallest finger in hers for a brief moment, before repeating the action with his own. He absently removed the tiny excess on his silk tunic, one knee up on the stone ledge, half reclined against a carved pillar. Crushed cherry blossom and ginseng mingled with the scent of rain and wet stone. They resumed their quiet sipping.
For all his efforts and affection, he could not spare his nephew. He had witnessed, perhaps more observantly than any other, the hardening of his heart in the two years since the disappearance of Ursa. Without his mother to shield him, Azula had no check on the exercise of her cruel tongue. And Ozai no longer obscured his rank disgust.
Too quickly, unhealthily, boy had become man. Bitterness became synonymous with adult. Deep, deep wounds were shoved away as childish. Trust or companionship could not be attained without those wounds rising far too close to the surface, so they became weaknesses. Dishonourable. Oh, how Iroh wished he could tear that word from the mouth of his brother and set it to a white-hot flame, until it was nothing but frail ash in Zuko's mind and memories. But Ozai never cared. Ozai loomed.
But not always. Not in this sheltered little gazebo. He supposed that would have to do.
"Like wooden balls rolling across a wooden floor." The prince was barely audible over the rain. Katara glanced at him from over her cup. He watched the trembling cascades of water. "That's what my mother always told me the thunder was. The gods of water were rolling wooden balls across a wooden floor."
Iroh watched her blow gently on her tea. "Were you frightened of storms?"
"They terrified me once. But I learned control." His voice hardened imperceptibly. Katara's eyes slid off his profile, and back to the misty curtains of rain obscuring the green mountains. They were silent again.
Then she said, "The gods of water playing with balls across the floor of the sky. I approve of the idea." Zuko responded only with exhaled, sighing silence. The older man observed the quietest hint of a smile on Zuko's partially hidden face.
The rain clattered against tiled roofs. The torrents of water spilling off the eaves splashed his boots little by little. There were no more words spoken for a time, and Iroh turned to leave them to their solitude once more.
"What do you see, when you look out at that?" Iroh turned back to see Zuko had posed the raspy question with the motion of a hand barely raised from his cup. He met her eyes as she turned to him, his face as blank and inscrutable as stone.
Katara shifted her weight slightly, drawing one leg up under her chin. "Something filling me up, lending me power, I guess. But humbling me. It reminds me that we're really just conduits for a tiny fraction of our element." She carefully drew one wide sleeve towards her elbow, fingers smoothing awkwardly over the heavy embroidery. "I see... home, too. Not the Water Tribe really, but a different kind of home. The one I carry around with me."
She reached out the hand not balancing her teacup on her knee, and pushed her hand through the smooth waterfall spilling in places over the eaves of the gazebo. The water parted and encased her fingers in a living, transparent cloth for a brief instant before channeling off her hand into the foliage far below.
"I guess what I really see is me, but reflected back more simply. Just the essence." She turned her head to him, one hand still in her element. Iroh could see even from a distance how unbearable the brightness of those eyes, though her face was solemn. "What do you see?"
The boy held her gaze for an instant that lasted years. Then he sipped, before answering easily, "I see you, too."
Iroh watched the storm in the mountains along with the two friends a few moments longer. Then he faded back into the dark hall, and left them to their tea.