Many years ago, the four nations of the world lived in balance with one another.
Decidedly not.
Water. Earth. Fire. Air.
Not quite right, either.
In the days before the Great War –
And then Ursa stops and crosses out that line, too. It won't do. None of it will do.
She sighs and drops the brush with a clatter, pushing the entire calligraphy set from her with such frustration that she just barely notices the singe of paper. She doesn't particularly care.
Ursa will never be a truly great Firebender, not like Radha, and she's seen the decision in Father's eyes. She's seen the regret, too, and thinks she understands the conflict in them. She wishes there was a way to calm his conscience, to explain that she never really wanted the title, anyway.
Not that it even matters in the long run. Firelord Zuko and Queen Mai have shared the longest reign in the history of their nation, and they don't look to be anywhere near finished. She thinks it has something to do with a lack of murderous children lusting after their thrones.
Radha hasn't realized yet, and the title of Crown Princess is an effectively useless one to Ursa. That's where this scroll makes an entrance. Her skills lie in calligraphy, not Firebending, but it remains her duty to put to rights the damage of her forefathers. Her parents (and later her sister) will do so in leadership. She will spread the truth.
If only she can find the words.
She already has the research. It lies all about her, scrolls of testimony piled neatly in rows. All of it is there, she left nothing out. Here lie the results of several audiences with her father, a week spent in Omashu in the counsel of King Toph, and a three-days visit to the island of Kyoshi. Her mother accompanied her there to visit with a girlhood friend while Ursa passed the time with the Chieftainess and her husband, a warrior of the Southern Water Tribe. The most precious of the scrolls contain the account of the Avatar himself, whom she met with his Waterbender wife and their son when last they visited her father. Even the testimony of Mad Auntie lies here somewhere, garbled and filled with half-phrases and half-truths, but it is there nonetheless.
They have all done their part. Now is the time for Ursa to do hers.
Write a first sentence, then write the next, gently advises her grandmother, her namesake, and Ursa grins for the first time all morning. She dips her brush and begins.