A/N: Hello again, friend-os! I'm back at it again with another Pro Bending Circuit fic!

This time, HTaStB is a stark AU from what we all know and expect from canon. Everything happened in the series, but it takes place in a universe with the tradition of royal harems in the court. I didn't select a specific culture to base this off of, but if you're curious, feel free to read up on them even just on Wikipedia. Note - this isn't a kink fic. I'm just using the concept of Fire Lords having a royal harem as the core facet of this AU. And, because I'm trash, there are elements of unrequited Zutara if you squint.

And now for the Circuit book keeping:

Round Two: Oh, Baby!
Prompt: Write about a sad moment for your characters and their baby.
Bonus prompts: White (color), Baby Powder (smell), "A baby's gotta do what a baby's gotta do" (quote)
Word Count: 3238
Position: Waterbender for the White Falls Wolfbats
Bonus points: Use of my element (Water) as a plot element.

How Things are Supposed to Be

Commitment. Legacy. Endurance. The Fire Nation asked for these three simple things from their rulers. Yet Zuko chafed under the collar that came with the golden crown atop his head.

Bringing peace to the land had been a muddled, amorphous goal and even that had a clearer path than the one set before Zuko's feet now. There had been outrage, pain, and suffering in the early years of his rule. The bonds with his closest friends were tested with Zuko pressing both for them to check his rule but also respect the decisions that he made for his people. He refused to allow any further senseless bloodshed, but how should one react to a violent rebellion without yourself turning to violence? There were hours deep into the night spent agonizing over how strong a show of force he could allow himself to give in order to convince the most stalwart of Fire Nation First supporters to surrender the cause.

Those decisions sat heavy on Zuko's shoulders, joined by more and more concerns brought once there was armistice; he was weary to call the hair-trigger quiet "peace." No, as soon as the Fire Nation had rescinded as many of their colonies as would sate the other Nations demands, there was then a resurgence of internal pressures that Zuko had not anticipated.

As a child, Zuko had only experiences court life from a distance. He was expected to follow the lessons set by the tutors that slapped and coaxed manners into he and his sister. Perhaps had he not been banished he would have been brought into more of the careful intricacies of ruling. There was no time for wondering of "what-ifs." Now as anointed leader of the Nation, Zuko was expected to yield to the pressures that came with the title, lest he buckle and fold like cheap tin.

There was of course the expectation to treat with any number of lesser nobility, to listen to their concerns, and to give them assurances that he would support them. For without the support of the nobles, what power did Zuko hold? He couldn't rely on sheer militant might, not without going down the slope that the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes were so ready to retaliate against. He could not be Ozai's son. So Zuko learned the political dance.

He entertained Mai as a possible courtly marriage only until her family's influence was cut out from underneath them. There was too much baggage in marrying the daughter of one of the occupying families of Omashu. When their role in the occupation became common knowledge, it didn't matter how much land or money they had. They were no longer suitable company for the Fire Lord or his court.

Zuko had fought with his own feelings that evening after one of his many advisors had quietly taken him aside to tell him of their fall from grace. Part of him had been relieved; he had no real joy in the time that he spent with Mai. She was purely apathetic about the issues surrounding the throne, offering little-to-no-support to him when he struggled with issues of justice or care for his citizens. On the other hand they had been close friends for years, and she had sacrificed weeks of her life to remain in prison during the final days of the war. He wrote to her occasionally and had bitterly awaited the day that she would write back.

The only response he received was at the lowest point of his early rule. On what should have been a fantastic day, his eighteenth birthday, he was again thrown headfirst into an unrealized aspect of his courtly expectations. Demands were brought forth - in the most polite fashion, of course - that if the Fire Lord did not wish to commit to a marriage for political strength, then he should be reminded of the entirely acceptable precedent of seeking out an heir from another source. Zuko had scorned the approach of the other "acceptable" Fire Nation suiters and this, he thought, was the nobility's way of returning the favor.

For he was expected to make use of a wing of the palace that he had long avoided. The royal harem was a longstanding tradition. Zuko recognized that he had even spent time there while growing up, allowed among the carefully sheltered women due to his youth. But he had not fully understood what the harem meant. Even after taking the throne from his father and sister, sending away the women who had been kept by the prior reign had been dealt with by someone else.

"It is expected," he was told. "There must be a line of succession." Zuko had unknowingly signed his own fate when he made the decision to remove Azula from the line. Now it stopped at him; there were no other distant cousins or family left. Iroh had removed himself from the possibility after the death of his own son, content to council the future rather than direct it himself.

It was that simple, in the end. The weight of his rule demanded it. He didn't have the will to fight against the entirety of tradition, not when he failed to find happiness with any of the suitors that still came to meet with him. Duty guided Zuko's actions, led his feet down the halls every few weeks to find a small amount of comfort in the arms of another.

There had been joy all around Zuko when the news was announced that the Fire Lord's heir would be born by the next winter solstice. He found it impossible to join in the excitement, particularly as Mai's cold words rattled around in his mind. She had written him as soon as the announcement was public.

I hope you at least found a girl with blue eyes, since you're allowed to pretend with them that you don't love someone else.

Tanvi, her name was. The young woman who was round with his child never seemed to begrudge his infrequent visits, but it was difficult for Zuko to truly know what she was thinking. Simply asking didn't seem appropriate. He'd demanded so much of her simply by nature of her remaining in the dark wooded halls of the harem. He didn't want to take away her privacy as to what she genuinely thought of him.

When the child was born, she remained hidden away in the secluded corner. Zuko had not been by Tanvi's side during the birth. He had sat in the room next door and listened to the pained breathing, quiet murmurs of support, and - finally - the baby girl's cries. Entering the room, he found himself both breathless and speechless. Twin pairs of golden eyes looked up at him, one curious and the other dulled from pain.

"She's a fighter," a nurse commented after checking the baby had clear airways and healthy lungs. "A perfectly respectable heir, Lord."

Zuko had stroked the baby's head, smiled when she grabbed at his finger, but didn't take her from her mother. The sooner he did, the sooner she would be his heir rather than Tanvi's daughter.

Three weeks later, Crown Princess Izumi was presented to the public at a grand affair. Tanvi attended, wrapped in golden scarves and nestled safely away from all but the Fire Lord on a gilded platform. She carried herself with confidence, looking down on the nobility that had demanded her to take on this role. Never again would she want for anything as the mother of the next generation of the Fire Nation, but her name would fade faster than a snuffed out candle.

This, Zuko thought as he watched person after person lay gifts before the child, would put an end to the outcry that he had not satisfied the demands of his position.

Of his trusted advisors, the portly old man by the name of Takumi was one of Zuko's least favorite to see. Not because his advice was selfish or his attitude was unbearable, but rather because he rarely had anything to say that was easy to put in place. He had been the one to tell Zuko to break things off with Mai.

Gritting his teeth, Zuko slowed his steps to allow the man to catch up with him. "Thank you," Takumi wheezed. "I was worried that you hadn't heard me." Zuko simply inclined his head and tried to lock away his most recent thought to return to later.

Takumi cleared his throat and regarded the man next to him. In the years since the end of the war, Zuko had grown into him frame fully. He no longer was the skinny boy-king, ill arisen to the throne. It gave him pause some mornings when shaving to look in the mirror and see echoes of his father in the glass.

"My lord, I wanted to bring to your attention a rumor which has been circulating within the staff," Takumi began. "Now normally I wouldn't bother you with such a thing, but it's only a few steps from a servant's ear to a noble's." Zuko grimaced. He recognized his uncle's saying on the man's tongue. Worse, it was true. Once the staff started to gossip, it was only a matter of time before the hungriest of the nobility heard from one of their sources.

Zuko sighed and said, "Go on." It was better to just rip the bandage off and let what was certain to be a painful experience start to heal.

"To be frank, my lord, you do not spend enough time with your heir," Takumi said. He corrected himself when Zuko levelled a scathing glare in his direction. "Excuse me, Crown Princess Izumi."

After pausing a beat, Takumi continued. "She is young yet and certainly isn't expected to be brought to functions as a babe, but still the servants have noticed that you do not visit with her or Miss Tanvi."

Zuko breathed in through his nose and exhaled through his teeth. "And naturally this means that I don't love my nation or something like that?" he snarled.

His advisor blanched. "It looks to them that you do not love Izumi," Takumi replied.

Footsteps faltering, Zuko struggled to reign in his facial expression. Anger simmered just as doubt creased his brow. Hadn't he given the nation enough? The fact that Izumi had been born should have satisfied them.

It was selfish to think that way, to think of the barely one-year-old Izumi as a burden that he'd never wanted. She was unexpected and not at all born in the way he'd thought he would build his family, but Zuko did love her. He resented the implication that he didn't.

Takumi cleared his throat and looked past the Fire Lord's shoulder. "I wouldn't tell you what to do, but my advice would be to consider paying a bit more attention to your family now that you have one. You don't need to care for the princess' mother, but your own blood? She is precious to the people. Best keep that in mind," he said. In a jostle of cloth, the man bowed and left Zuko to himself.

Zuko stared at the paneled walls, swallowing several times as he schooled his emotions back into check. It was easy to fall back into old patterns and react to Takumi's advice with anger and irritation. The man was just trying to do his job. It didn't actually matter to Takumi whether Zuko genuinely cared about Izumi. Perhaps that was the worst part. The nobility would only concern themselves with what things appeared to be.

Perhaps it was time to change what things looked like, then. Nodding to himself, Zuko diverted his mental course and took a significant detour from his original destination of his office. The letter to the Eastern Governor would have to wait.

It was no longer uncomfortable to meet the eyes of the palace guards who watched over the annexed harem. They watched over everyone who approached and entered the harem from behind white masks, rarely speaking. Zuko personally knew every woman standing watch over the rooms. It gave him comfort knowing exactly who was watching over Izumi, though it had taken a while to get used to before she'd been born. Though his every move was fairly well known already in his daily life, it was a struggle to rectify that lack of privacy when he had come to the harem for one express purpose.

Now though, he was visiting his child. There was no shame there. Rolling his shoulders, Zuko relaxed as he stepped further inside the halls. There were several young women within the harem, each having chosen to enter the fold of their own free will. That had been Zuko's demand and, as far as he could tell from his agents who had investigated the women's past home lives, it had been honored.

Tanvi and Izumi had the largest space in the hall, set farthest away from the main garden and dining rooms. It was a symbol of her status as the first of Zuko's companions, should he choose to have children with any of the other women. Zuko skittered around that thought, filing away that detail from his current thoughts. It was bad enough that he'd been pressured into one child.

He knocked on the doorway, heart pounding in his throat. It would be a small mercy if the baby was sleeping; he could just leave and go back to his familiar routine. This was why he didn't visit. The jitters, the feeling of not belonging here; they emerged every time. He didn't want to hate seeing his daughter, but he couldn't deny the dark feeling that lurked in the pit of his stomach.

"Enter." Tanvi's voice was loud and clear. When Zuko opened the sliding door, he spied her perched on the edge of the bed. In one hand was a toy and in the other, Izumi. Again, Zuko's stomach flipped as he went through the circuit of emotions. Guilt at how she'd been conceived. Frustration at the nobility. A kernel of adoration at the way her hair was coming in the same cowlicks that he had.

Tanvi smiled when she saw Zuko, her lips a thin line of red. "What a nice surprise!" she said. Looking back down at the girl on her knee, she donned a lighter tone. "Someone is here to see you, my little candle."

"Little candle?" Zuko asked. He edged forward, dropping to one knee several inches away from the mother and child. His hand hovered in open air, waiting for a sign that he could touch his baby girl.

Humming softly, Tanvi placed the toy on the bed beside her. "Yes, my little candle. She burns so bright and brings such light in every room. All the women love her, even the watchers. You can see the way that their face crinkles in the corners of their masks," she said. Her eyes lifted to meet Zuko's, filled with an unknowable emotion. "One day she will burn before the whole nation, an endless fire like her father before her. But until then, she will light my life alone."

Zuko nodded as he took in Tanvi's words. Finally she shifted forward and held Izumi out to his waiting hands. He took her into his arms, a smile curling along his chin as Izumi reached up, up, up towards the glinting flame on his head. Her tiny face screwed up into knots when she realized that she couldn't reach. Opening her mouth, the girl started to wail.

"She wants-"

Zuko snapped, "I know what she wants." The way that Tanvi's lips purse once more brings a sigh from his chest. He apologized and offered a quick squeeze of her hand. Tanvi settled back on the bed, looking around her room rather than continue to meet his gaze.

Her tone was dry and curt. "Shall I tell you when she needs changing and a bath, or should I just do that myself after you've left?" The air was still and her words hung there like a challenge. Therein was the expectation that he'd set: Zuko would leave the hard work of raising his child to others.

He couldn't claim that it wasn't the easier option.

Still in the same breath, he could imagine exactly what it would be like to fall into the illusion of family that lingered in this soft, warm room. Zuko would throw back his head and laugh when they realized that Izumi had soiled her cloth. A baby's gotta do what a baby's gotta do, he would chuckle, and to make up for the last time when his wife - his wife, not concubine - had to get up in the middle of the night Zuko would scurry to change her. If he got baby powder on his robes, so be it. The smell was soft and delicate; the perfume of a working father.

In his vision, they weren't locked away in the harem. The watchers didn't stand by with their owlish masks, and there instead would be privacy in their quiet home. His wife's long brown hair would tumble down from it's careful loops, and their little girl would tug at them gleefully as she sat in the washbasin. Zuko wouldn't force his smile at his daughter, not when she giggled so wholeheartedly as she splashed the room with water. When bathtime was over, he'd gather her up in a towel, playing peek-a-boo as her blue eyes opened in amazement-

A bitter bile rose from Zuko's stomach. Tanvi still glowered at him as she took Izumi from his arms. "Come back when you're ready for the baby you have now," she said.

Zuko's fingertips grazed the edge of Tanvi's sleeve, stopping before he actually touched her arm. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be so distant. I should be around more to get to know her," he insisted. Her shoulder lifted and dropped as if to say, Your point? Izumi babbled to herself, padding after the toy Tanvi had abandoned on the bed. Zuko watched her move, felt his heart pound as she approached the side.

Her mother curled an arm effortlessly along the edge, coaxing the child back to safety. It was effortless, instinct. He hadn't been able to budge from where he knelt. Zuko would have to teach himself to be that role for Izumi rather than shy away from it.

"I have to go, now," Zuko began.

Tanvi nodded. "Duty calls elsewhere," she sighed.

He pushed himself to stand once again, settling his robes back into place. "Always," Zuko admitted. "But, I will return. More than I have. I should be around more to help you and the child."

"Izumi."

Her name stuck like molasses to his throat. "You and Izumi," Zuko finished. He breezed out the door after a final glance at his daughter, now bouncing the toy against the bedding again and again. He couldn't force himself to stay, not when the white-faced watchers measured his every step. But he would learn to turn this duty into something else. Something similar to the unity he saw when he closed his eyes at night and dreamed.

Zuko could take what he had been told to do for honor and for the Nation, and he could turn into what he wanted it to be. Eventually, not today.

Don't forget to check out the other fics submitted in the Pro Bending Circuit! Check in the A:TLA forums and please root for the Wolfbats ;)