The Truth Behind Ursa
Chapter 1 - Searching for Answers
Zuko dug through hundreds of files and papers in the Fire Nation palace. He ran his finger over folder after folder, reading the labels of each one, desperately trying to locate any kind of information on the topic he had been researching for three days straight. He was getting very tired of his ceaseless work, for it had yielded him no answers at this point in time.
Zuko slumped back into his chair, in defeat. He was lonely at the time being, for Mai, his only companion, was out doing her daily routine of royal grooming treatments and the like.
After the war had ended, the team had spent a week on vacation in the Impenetrable City. Azula and Ozai were both imprisoned and had no chance of escaping, and as such, Zuko decided it would be alright to take a cursory break before beginning his position of Firelord and taking on the responsibility of calming the calamity caused by the revolts and uproars that would be sure to come from the Phoenix Loyalists.
Once Team Avatar had spent their final week together, recounting war memories and telling their stories, it was time to depart for their separate destinations. Toph had decided to pay a little visit back home to her parents and see if she could manage to peacefully wrangle her way out of living at home, so that she wouldn't have to run away against her parents' will again. (Either way she had NO intention on staying there whatsoever. If they wanted to make it hard, so be it, but she would not remain at home.)
Zuko and Mai returned to the Fire Nation, for obvious reasons with Zuko needing to step up as the new Firelord.
Much to Sokka's disgruntlement, Suki, along with Ty Lee, went their separate way to Kyoshi Island for the purpose of a rendezvous with the Kyoshi Warriors, who had only recently arrived home from being imprisoned near the Fire Nation royal palace. Sokka wished to stay with Suki, but he needed to return home, at least temporarily, to get things straightened out with his father about what to do in order to begin a courtship with Suki. This was the main reason he traveled back home, but secondarily he felt very uneasy about letting Aang and Katara fly for two hours on Appa completely alone with no one else to supervise, especially considering the fact that Aang and Katara had been together for a week now, and had already gone out on a couple of dates.
This obviously leads to the notion that Katara was returning home to the Southern Water Tribe, and Aang followed along with her. Aang knew well that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Katara, and in turn he requested of Hakoda and the higher officials of the tribe if he could remain in the Water Tribe permanently, having the town--which was slowly becoming a city--as the his main location to stay during the times when he was not off serving the world.
All this to say that Zuko was very bored around the palace when he had no national duties to take care of. He and Mai had arrived at the palace a few days ago, and ever since, all of Zuko's spare time had been devoted to one thing, and that was finding out what truly happened to the former Firelady: Ursa of the Fire Nation. Zuko's conversation with his father directly after the war ended in sad disappointment. Ozai had claimed that no one knows of the whereabouts of Ursa and that all files of any sort relating to her had been discarded and burned. But Zuko didn't believe it for a second. There had to be some way to find out what truly happened that half-decade ago.
Zuko fell back into his elaborate red chair and sighed, rubbing his head in defeat.
"Is something wrong?" A voice came from the front door of the study. Zuko looked up to see his girlfriend, Mai, walking towards him with a concerned look upon her face.
"I can't find anything. I'm starting to think my father might have been telling the truth for once." Zuko responded, slight depression glooming from his words.
"You searched all the files?" Mai continued questioning, trying to find some way to uplift her closest friend.
"Everything! There's nothing in here or the palace vaults." Zuko slumped even further back into his chair.
Mai looked around the room. She had seen it so many times before, but, for her, the vast size of it was just now sinking in. The room was quite large, painted with a deep red and lined with a gold: the two colors of the their nation. This color scheme was more common than grass itself in the Fire Nation, so obviously this wasn't what she was struck by. Along the left, right, and back walls were delicately designed file cabinets that were filled with all the paperwork and files that the former Firelord had kept for records of the important events that took place.
"No ideas on anything else that could contain information about her?" Mai rejoined her questioning after staring around at the vastness of the room.
Zuko shook his head, once again in defeat. Mai couldn't stand to see him like this: so unhappy and annihilated. She walked over to him, sat down on his lap, and was welcomed by a warm hug from Zuko.
"Zuko, it's okay. You'll find her. I know you will." Mai gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and then hugged him back.
After a minute or two of simply enjoying each other's warm embrace, Mai sat up quickly with a countenance very uncommon to be seen on her face: a combination of happiness and shock.
"Zuko," she spat out quickly, "Did Azula keep a journal?"
Zuko scrunched his eyebrows, trying to recall whether she did or not, but he quickly shook himself out of it.
"Azula would never keep a journal. That's too unlike her. It's not like she had anything in there other than pure evil to write about." Zuko cracked a small smile.
"Still, it couldn't hurt just to see. No one's been in her room since the war ended, so it's worth a try at least. Maybe she wrote about what really happened." Mai stood up, walked around the desk, and towards the door, where she stopped to tell him something before leaving.
"You go check on that. I have some letters I need to respond to. I'm sure that Ty Lee is dying for a reply." Mai giggled.
She turned to exit, but quickly stopped herself and turned her head back for a final comment.
"And Zuzu?"
He answered with a simple "Hm?"
"Don't get bogged down if things don't work out. Worst case scenario we put word throughout the Fire Nation that the former Firelady is wanted to return to the palace. You'll find her, Zuko. I know you will." She flashed a smile before walking out. Zuko couldn't help but smile back. Somehow, underneath that dingy, grey aura was a beautiful and vibrant woman who was loyal and faithful to keep up hope. That's what Zuko loved about her.
Zuko roamed through the halls, still admiring and musing to himself about his wonderful Mai. He trudged along until he finally arrived at the door he had been too scared to open ever since his return to the palace.
Azula's room.
He hadn't been in this room since he confronted Azula about three or four months prior, when he questioned her reasoning of her 'shared glory' of the fight in Ba Sing Se and the supposedly 'dead' Avatar. Back then it wasn't as terrifying--though granted terrifying nonetheless--but ever since he came back to the palace he had been even more horrified of the thought of entering her room, mainly because she had only recently gone completely insane, and done who-knows-what to her own room. If she were willing to go to the extreme of cutting her own hair off, which she had so often bragged about when they were younger, who knew what she had done to her room.
Zuko took a deep breath, and slowly creaked open the door to what he had anticipated to be a portal to hell itself. The darkness in the room made it difficult to see. Zuko clamored around the wall, looking for a torch to light, but still remaining outside the room in fear of stepping into the dark, frantically feeling the wall inside for a torch of any kind. He found one, much to his great joy (and horror as well) and lit it with his left hand. He illuminated the room with the torch and slowly eased his way in after it.
His tension and fears all came to a sudden stop when he saw that the room hadn't changed much, other than that the mirror was cracked, the sheets were ripped, and clothes were thrown all over the dresser and floor. It was nowhere near as horrifying as he expected; those expectations were some sort of evil and twisted device designed to crisp you thinner than a potato chip. (Okay, so I'm exaggerating. But something equally as evil!)
Zuko mounted the torch upon the wall and busied himself with tidying up the clothes thrown around that had obviously been ripped out of her wardrobe, for all the tops and dresses were torn at the shoulders where they had been ripped off the hangers. He tidied them up into a pile in the corner of the room, and then quickly pulled the torn sheets off the bed and piled them on top of the clothes. He swept up the shattered glass that lay scattered across the floor and brushed the shards from the face of the dresser into a bag, of which he discarded to the corner of the room with the clothing and bed sheets.
The room was now tidy enough for Zuko to at least have a slight bit of comfort and concentration. He couldn't bare to think of what happened in that room the evening it had become such a mess. Azula had gone quite insane.
Zuko began the investigation, in search of something; anything! Anything that could possibly be written by Azula. It no longer mattered to him if it was not about Ursa. If it was about Ursa, great. If it wasn't, it's still a good find. He might actually get to look inside his sister for once.
He pulled open the doors of the wardrobe, scanning the floor and the shelf at the top for anything that could slightly resemble a book. When he found nothing of interest to him he moved towards the bed, looking underneath the mattress and under the bed frame. Again, nothing. He walked over to her dresser: the one that had a large hole in it where a mirror had once resided. He opened the door on the left, then the other on the right. He moved to the top of the three drawers in the middle. The top one held nothing more than a few unmatched earrings and a broken necklace. The second drawer he pulled on would not open. This raised his suspicions. He pulled a little harder, but it would not open for him. Zuko stood up from his kneeling position and pulled the dresser away from the wall. He looked at the back side which revealed a small, sliding panel. Zuko yanked it open and found a lock that must have been attached to the back of the drawer. He did his best to pick it, but to no avail.
He finally decided that he had had enough, and he pulled on the lock with one hand, while heating the base with fire from the other. As it heated, the metal began to mold into the drawer's metal bar frame. It finally melted all the way through, leaving Zuko with a lock that had been burnt off. Zuko discarded the lock and began to come back around the front of the dresser when he saw Mai standing in the door frame of the room.
"Any luck?" She questioned in that dull yet somehow hopeful voice.
"Maybe," Zuko responded, coming around the front of the dresser and signing with a hand for Mai to come over to him. "This drawer had a lock on it, and is the last place it could be. Let's hope for the best."
Zuko took a deep breath as Mai kneeled down beside him, anxious to see what lie in the dresser drawer. Zuko pulled it open all the way, and there in the middle of it lay a thick, black book that was worn, torn, and wreaked of evil all over. To Zuko, it seemed as if time stopped and the room got suddenly darker when he laid eyes upon this hellbook. The drawer released a toxic scent that smelled distinctly like Azula's favorite and preferred perfume: Dripping Dragon Blood. Mai reached out to grab the book, slowly and carefully, seeing as Zuko was not moving.
His hand suddenly grasped her wrist firmly before she could touch the book. Mai pulled her hand away from him.
"What was that for?" She questioned, slightly put out.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have. I'm just really uneasy about this." Zuko responded, rubbing her wrist where he had forcefully grabbed her priorly. "I won't let that happen again." He reassured. His gaze then turned back to the black codex, which surely had to be the work of some demonically possessed creature.
Zuko reluctantly brushed off a few beads of the necklace that had rolled out of the drawer above and into this one, then picked the book up and opened to the first page. It had two words on it; words that made shivers go up and down both of their spines.
There, written in what appeared to be blood, were the two words that would be the beginning of an adventure to find out the truth behind what happened to Firelady Ursa.
Azula's Diary.