This was less of a one-shot and more of a plot bunny and I was thinking about adding it to "Torque", even though it isn't in the same universe. You know, kind of like a vault for What If AUs. But... If it doesn't make sense to you, good for you.

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender

Now that he looked back at it, all these years in the future, he finds it funny. He finds it so unlike him-the lord of all that burns-that he laughs. At his side, there is his beautiful and sad lady and in the place where there was supposed to be a son. She sports armor fitted for a boy and she wears it well. The Universe had been good to her. It has been good to them all.

Perhaps it was an act of providence.

There had once been a son who would have sat at Ozai's right elbow. He had big amber eyes and pale skin, almost like a girl. He was a prince, but circumstance caused him to "disappear" off into the unknown. Ozai didn't know where he was, and quite frankly, he didn't care. He had bigger tasks at hand.

Soon, the world would burn.

Inwardly, he laughs.

The Universe has been good to him.

The court of nobility in the Fire Nation was like a bed of serpents. Deadly, venomous serpents that waited for every opportunity to sink their fangs into an unsuspecting ankle and inject their poison. But even slithering beasts were patient, and now they waited.

Everyone waited.

A prince had fallen and he hadn't regained his footing. A prince was dead and another prince was plotting. Blood against blood, for the prize of a gold crown and a dragon's throne. Everyone waited, except the children. The children were not blind to the truth, they simply ignored it. A princess who knew more than she should have ran through the palace halls, lighting things afire and her brother who didn't know enough sat by a pond with his arms on his knees, staring at his reflection.

In a private room of the palace sanctum, their father, the plotting prince, cradled a steaming cup of tea in the palm of his hand, facing a sad faced woman as he sat on a cushion, amber eyes narrowed. He was made of hard, straight lines where she was made of graceful, curved ones. His golden eyes were cunning, hers were caring. They were opposites, but very much the same.

"I won't let you do this," The woman, his wife, declared. She kneeled across from her husband, shaking her head fervently. "There has to be another way, Ozai. There has to be." Her voice rose in mild desperation and she clenched her fists until they were even paler than before. "Why would Azulon order such a thing?"

Ozai set his cup down and pressed his hands together, resting his chin on his fingertips. "He ordered this task because I must be proven worthy to be Fire Lord. Iroh was never fit to be Fire Lord. I am your lord, if you've forgotten, Ursa. I command you."

Ursa stared her husband squarely in the eye. "You won't kill Zuko."

For a moment, Ozai is silent. He takes a deep, powerful breath and Ursa thinks she sees steam drift from his nostrils. "Your beloved son will live. Just not here. Not with you." The way he speaks is final. Ozai was not a quiet man, he just bided his time.

"What?" The older princess's voice raised an octave. "What do you mean? You can't do that!"

"Your lord has spoken."

Ursa drops her head and outside of the room, with her tiny ear pressed near the door, a young princess gasped.

The killer of kings hands Ursa the leaf and honey. "Heat the juice of the leaf in water until it is hot, but not hot enough to scold. Add the honey to sweeten the flavor. Allow it to cool and it shall thicken. Only then you will give it to him. It will work in minutes."

Ursa bites her lip and nods.

"Zuko, my son, wake up." Through the dark blanket of the night, the Lady Ursa slipped into her son's room, carrying a small cup. She crossed to the young boy's beside and sat next to him, placing her smooth hand on his shoulder. "Wake up."

The boy's amber eyes flickered open and he stirred as his mother slipped her arm under his back, lifting him into a sitting position. "M-Mom?" He whispered and Ursa smiled sadly. "It's not morning yet, why are you here?"

Ursa pursed her lips. It had to be done. "Zuko, listen to me. Should we ever be blessed to see each other after this, remember that I love you and that this is being done for you." And she took the cup and pressed it against Zuko's lips, urging him to drink it. "Please, my son."

He is confused. Confused and so scared but he swallows the liquid. It is sweet and bitter at the same time, and makes his eyelids even heavier than they already were. He feels heavy as his mother wrapped him in his blanket, pulling it up to his chin. She presses a letter into the blanket. He murmurs. She kisses his forehead and whispers something.

That is all he remembers.

Azula awakes to screaming and sobbing. Her sheets tangle around her legs as she struggles to kick free and she lands on the floor, nearly smashing her chin into the hard wood. No one had bothered to wake her-firebenders rise with the sun, dum-dum-except for their raucous outburst.

She emerged from her room with her tiny arms at her sides, dressed in her play clothes because they were the only ones that she could throw on fast enough. Her hair is out of its topknot and she feels so unlike herself because she doesn't look as pretty as she wanted to be. But that wasn't the point. She sees her mother with her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking and rattling. She's the one screaming. There was only one reason why Mother ever cried and that was Zuko.

Zuko. Azula had heard Daddy say that he was going to kill Zuko. He couldn't have really done it, could he?

Could he?

"Princess Azula!" That was a servant named Rahili. Azula didn't like her very much because she always told her what to do, as if she was the princess and she was her superior. She was ugly, too, with a crooked nose and too big of eyes to be someone from the Fire Nation. "Something terrible has happened to your brother, the prince!"

Daddy couldn't have done that? He couldn't have! Azula didn't like Zuko very much, he was a dum-dum, and he was a bad firebender, but she didn't want him to die. Who else could she gloat to when she passed him in her lessons? "Zuko's dead? As in, he won't come back?" Yes, stupid.

"No one is sure, Princess," Rahili replied and Azula blinked, tearing herself away from the servant. She dashed towards her father, who was standing beside her mother, his expression as stoic as always. Daddy couldn't have killed Zuko. He wouldn't do that. Sure, Zuzu was annoying and whiny, and stupid, but…he couldn't die!

Mother pauses in her crying to see Azula and her yellow eyes are rimmed in red. "Your brother is gone," She said softly and reached down to hold her daughter, but Azula stepped away, numb. Gone where? Why wouldn't they tell her? Why wasn't Daddy telling her?

Azula looks at her father, then her mother, and she bites her bottom lip. Someone's the liar here, and it isn't her. Someone's dragging everyone else down into their lies and if she knew where to begin, she would find them. But she doesn't.

And Zuko's not there.

"It has been done, my lord." Ozai says, kowtowing before his father and ruler. At his side is canopic jar filled with ashes, sealed tightly and labeled with the characters for "Young Boy". A thin bead of sweat begins to roll down the back of his neck. The Fire Lord knew nothing of the lies and conspiracy that had been going on under his nose for the last few days. "The boy is gone."

The flames that shielded his father from him leaped up and licked the ceiling, casting the eyes of the dragon motif above him into an angry orange color. Azulon, Ozai's father, rose and stepped through the flames, his gait uneven as he descended the steps of his dais towards his younger son. "You insolent fool!" Even though he was old and withered, the man's voice had the ability to fill the whole room with its volume.

If Ozai had been a child again, he would have winced. But instead, he dipped his head further to the ground and ground his jaw. He had always hated his father and his ire rose as Azulon ordered him to meet his gaze. And so he did. He did and he glared back with just as much hatred.

"How dare you commit such a thing and expect to become my heir!" Azulon raged, his golden eyes glittering. Whether or not he had known what was going on in his palace, no one would ever know. "You will not inherit anything!" He snarled and a vein appeared in his neck, "Leave."

Ozai stood up, meeting his aging father's gaze before he took the jar of ashes and offered it at the Fire Lord's feet. "Yes, my lord," He growled deep in his throat and did as he was told.

A week later, the Fire Lord was found staring blankly out of his window, dead. Curled in his hand was his revised will, stating that his son Ozai was to inherit the Fire Nation and the Dragon Throne. He was cremated a day later and Ozai was seated upon the throne with his Fire Lady Ursa and his daughter seated where his heir should have been.

There was supposed to be a son to complete their family, but he was somewhere else entirely, living a life that didn't constantly put his life in jeopardy. He was with his uncle in a city with a romantic history, ruled by an ancient king. He remembers where he came from and he misses his mother, but he doesn't want to go back.

It is quiet here, and his uncle makes good tea. He has friends he goes to school with and no one asks why he has golden eyes. He doesn't mind that he has to go by a false name most of the time. In fact, he quite likes the name Li.

And sometimes, sometimes, he dreams that Prince Zuko is his long lost twin who disappeared and wants to find him. But most of the time, he content to lie in the web of lies and pretend he has always been Li. And he can imagine that his mother and father, and Azula, are just waiting for him to come home after the war, so they can be together again.

He likes to pretend, but sometimes dreaming is enough.

When the Earth Kingdom burns with the comet, Ursa watches from the roof of the palace. She is not a firebender, but even she can feel the wild, rampant energy that races through her veins. She is alone in the palace, for her husband is burning Ba Sing Se and Azula-with her ferocious blue fire-is accompanying them. They won't touch Omashu.

The Avatar is out there, she thinks, and he is hiding for the right moment. Part of her hopes that he will stay hidden, so another person won't be dragged down into the web of lies that she has woven. Her fingers ghost over the growing bump in her stomach and she sighs. She moves back towards the guards that had accompanied her to the roof with the heat of the comet on her back.

The child Sozin is born with fire already at his fists. His father holds him like he did with Azula and his eyes are clouded with plans for his second son. Ursa closes her eyes and sighs. The boy will grow up in lies, hearing nothing of a brother he never had.

The web thickens.

That's okay, I sometimes wonder what's wrong with me, too.