AN: This story wanted to be present tense when it started, but the last few chapters kept trying to be past tense. I'm just not gonna fight that no more.

10. In Which Iroh Reacquaints Himself With the Palace and its Staff

Iroh was up with the sunrise. There was nothing quite like the sun in Caldera—the way it climbed up the slopes of their mountain unseen, whispering power at the edge of his chi. Then the swift moment it crested the volcano's rim and spilled out over the whole of the city—

This was the sun of his childhood, the sun he had missed during those six hundred days in the flat expanses around Ba Sing Se. Curious that years later, he would learn that being inside those walls gave the sun a rather similar effect. Similar, but not the same, in a city divided by walls. Too many shadows, both literal and figurative, in very different proportions than Caldera's.

Iroh folded his blanket neatly, and stepped over his student. Avatar Aang should have risen with the dawn, but while he could firebend with great proficiency, Iroh would not yet call him a firebender. The sprawled limbs of Sokka proved a slightly more difficult ground to pick his way across, but Iroh made it to the door without waking either of them.

Judging by the very lady-like snores coming from the adjoining room, Miss Bei Fong and Katara were still getting their beauty rest, as well.

Several guards were positioned in the courtyard, as they had been all night. The one directly outside his door was already frowning at him. No, that would be an insult to her professionalism: better to say she was observing him with a distinct lack of smile.

"Captain Izumi," he inclined his head.

"Prince Iroh." Her bow was perfect, and perfectly perfunctory: exactly the right angle, held for exactly the right amount of time. Iroh would ask what he had done to offend the senior guard, but he suspected the list was rather too long to go over in one sitting.

Iroh set his steps towards the Fire Temple. The gray-haired captain fell into step behind him.

He took the long way, of course.

"Miss Huian! I thought it was the sun that woke me, but truly it was your radiant beauty."

The servant bowed, laughing behind a sleeve. "Good morning, Prince Iroh. We were warned you were back in the palace."

"Warned?" he feigned a gasp. "Warnings are for rabbit-deer, running from the hunter. The tame mink-cat has nothing to fear. Ah, but perhaps you are not tame..."

"Perhaps the Honored Prince wishes to confer with my Lord Husband on this topic?"

"Ah, perhaps not." Iroh coughed into his hand. "Is my nephew awake?"

The woman looked flustered, in a way his flirting had not achieved. She darted a glance over her shoulder, not towards the Fire Lord's rooms, but the rooms of the crown prince. "Not yet, Prince Iroh. Is the matter urgent…?"

"Only an old man's desire to have breakfast with his favorite nephew. He must be sleeping very well, if he can rest past the dawn."

"Just so." The servant's smile flickered. "May I do anything for you, Prince Iroh?"

"Only tell your Lord Husband to take great care of any mink-cats he should be so fortunate to find, tame or otherwise."

The servant hid another smile, and bowed; he inclined his head in return. Captain Izumi followed as he left.

Iroh was not looking for anyone in particular. But he was looking for a certain type of person. The training grounds at dawn proved excellent for this.

"General Daichi," he greeted, as the man took a break between sets.

"General Iroh," the man's bow was, perhaps, a bit too low for General-to-General. Even for General-to-Prince. But then, he had served under Iroh at Gaipan and Luoyang, when they were both new officers. That sort of thing is not easily forgotten, either in word or bows.

"It is good to see you well. I heard there was an unexpected number of talented benders in Gaoling."

The General scoffed. "Street rabble. Some kind of underground fighting ring that thought patriotism could substitute for discipline. They surprised us the first time; we made sure there wasn't a second. The worst part was listening to them boast."

"I can imagine," Iroh chuckled, thinking of a certain young traveling companion.

"Of course, now the Fire Lord's convinced there's a whole den of badgermoles under those streets just waiting waiting to boil up. Won't even let me march my men back through a city they've already conquered." Daichi always had been the sort of officer who needed to vent before his fires ran too hot.

"It sounds as if he is concerned for your people."

"He's a General doing a Staff Sergeant's job. That kid needs to learn to delegate before he snuffs his own flame." General Daichi seemed to recall, very suddenly, that he was speaking to that kid's uncle. "No disrespect intended, Gen—Prince Iroh."

"General will be quite fine, General," Iroh winked. "My nephew has had some issues with delegation in the past. Is he getting very far behind in his work?"

"No," Daichi growled. And began gesticulating, with a few flames for emphasis. "He's at every meeting, he reads the Agni-cursed minutes for every other meeting, he comes to the next meeting with records and annotated notes, he has the archivists and the clerks researching every idea anyone says that he thinks has merit, and if we, his trusted advisors say it then he assumes it has merit even when it's that idiot admiral and his spirit tales—"

"I have heard the Fire Lord has, perhaps, not been getting much sleep."

"He sleeps?"

Ah.

Daichi was tugging at his goatee. Iroh was mildly charmed to see that the grey-haired General still had the nervous habits he'd picked on him for as a young lieutenant.

"And why does he trust us at all? We're his father's advisors, not his. Waido and Kwang-su and I were on that council that got him challenged to the Koh-forsaken Agni Kai, but he just sits across the table every day and doesn't execute any of us."

The General had quite a bit of venting saved up, Iroh inferred.

"If he's smart, he'll clear court before we turn on him. Install his own advisors. People he can actually trust, not—not us."

"Would you turn on him, General?" Iroh asked, as mildly as such a question could be asked.

Daichi blinked like he'd been slapped. "Fuck no."

"Perhaps he is right to trust you, then."

The General looked thoroughly baffled by this concept. He literally threw up his hands. "But he shouldn't!"

It was, perhaps, the most reassuring thing Iroh had seen since watching all of his children return from the day of the comet, with only a broken leg and a few burns between them.

"I'm not even sure he does," Daichi said, much more quietly. "He just… doesn't care, as long as what we're doing is in the interests of the nation."

They exchanged lighter pleasantries after that. Brief ones; Daichi was very intent on punching more fire around before the day's meetings began.

Iroh bowed, General-to-General, and left the man to do so. Captain Izumi followed, all the way to the kitchens.

"Don't you even start," the chef barked.

Iroh retracted his hands back into his sleeves, and positioned himself somewhat farther away from the delicious morning dishes already lining up on the counter. "Ah, Master Jae-Jin. I see you are as generous as ever."

The chef aimed a cleaver his way, more as a gesture than a threat. Presumably. "You've got a reason for being here. Otherwise you wouldn't be bothering my staff in the middle of breakfast."

"Of course. I just wished to make sure you knew that all the Avatar's meals should be—"

"Vegetarian. I dug the Air Nomad recipes out of the archives yesterday. If you've got a point you'd better get to it."

Iroh winced at the death of subtly, but acquiesced. "I hear my nephew is favoring work over sleep. Is he eating?"

"More than he did when they first dragged him out. I'll get the meat back on him."

"It was very unfortunate, how—"

"You're about to dance around the point." The meat cleaver struck the cutting board, and did what meat cleavers do. The tuna-pus looked just a little more dead. "Don't."

Iroh fought the urge to wince again. "Dragged out of where, exactly?"

The chef paused. Narrowed his eyes. "Don't hear much Fire Nation politics off wherever traitors hide, do you?"

Wincing, it seemed, was Iroh's new hobby. "Not as such."

"Prison. Now get out of my kitchen. And if I even think you're here to hurt the Fire Lord, poison's the best you'll get."

"Thank you for your concern for my nephew," Iroh replied, with a humble bow.

"Your nephew." The cleaver took off the tuna-pus' head, with somewhat more aggression than culinary ends demanded. "You been earning that, Uncle Iroh? His Majesty has been the whole summer without an ally in this roach-snake nest. Before the comet and after. Way I hear it told, his uncle choose the Avatar over him. Before the comet. And after."

Iroh was almost certain that a tuna-pus did not need to be gutted twice, particularly not so… thoroughly, but he did not think it wise to mention this to the chef. With another bow—much more silently, this time—Iroh left. Captain Izumi followed, exactly the appropriate amount of steps behind him.

"I know what you're doing, you old dragon," the guard captain spoke. "Stop snooping and talk to your nephew."

"Would he answer?" Iroh asked, without turning around.

The captain replied very neatly by saying nothing at all.

"Why was Zuko in prison?" This received a similar reply. "Was it house arrest?" He looked back for this question, and caught a single murderous glance directed his way.

"This isn't the way to the Fire Temple."

Neither were their other stops, but she had not commented on them.

"It's the way to the Fire Lord's rooms. I had thought to see if Zuko is awake now." Iroh smiled. "Unless, perhaps, there is something I should know? The Fire Lord did give me full use of the palace, I am quite sure he would not mind—"

"Princess Azula is in the Fire Lord's suite."

"We heard she was crowned," Iroh said. "She and my brother sent out quite a few hawks: Fire Lord Azula, and Phoenix King Ozai. Did Zuko challenge her for the throne? ...Did the Fire Sages revoke her claim? ...Did she step aside for him?" Though he turned to watch closely, her expression remained the same for all these options. "I am simply trying to understand the situation, Captain Izumi. You can see how this would look quite strange to an outsider."

"Are you an outsider?" she snapped. Then she took in a deep meditative breath, and let it out. With her next breath came her default answer: "Ask the Fire Lord."

"Which one?" Iroh smiled benignly. The guard captain continued her meditative breaths. It was, perhaps, a good time to actually visit the Fire Temple.

Captain Izumi followed him inside. She did not, however, follow him into the family shrine. Iroh knelt, and looked for the first time in three years upon the ashes of his wife and son.

"I'm home," he said. "It has been a very eventful summer. Ah, but you would want me to start further back than that. Zuko—you remember your cousin Zuko—did… something foolish. Something that I allowed him to do, to my regret. And I think I have continued to allow him and allow him, and it is only when I have left him to himself that he has found his way. But I am skipping to the end again…"

There was nothing quite like the sun in Caldera. He knew the angles of every shadow outside, simply by the feeling of it above this roof. Approximately thirteen degrees had passed by the time he'd given his dear wife and Lu Ten the basics of the situation; about an hour, in Earth Kingdom terms. They listened quite respectfully. He promised to visit again soon, presuming Sokka did not get them kicked from the Fire Nation today. He would tell them all about his unique young friends the next time. Lu Ten would have liked Toph. And he would have liked Katara.

(It was hard to picture Lu Ten as he would be now: a grown man, no doubt already married, and much too old to be flirting with pretty Water Tribe girls no matter how compatible their tempers. Then again, perhaps he would have taken after his father with regards to flirting...)

"I hope I am not interrupting, Prince Iroh," a man said. Though he already knew he was not, for he had timed his arrival in the alcove for the moment after Iroh had risen from his final bow to ancestors and god.

"Not at all, Sage Fujio."

The man was old—older than Captain Izumi, who had been a young guard in Azulon's court when Iroh had been running around leaving spark-marks on the shoji doors. When he had been an only child wishing foolishly for a little brother to play with (and, perhaps, to blame certain fires on). Sage Fujio had known Sozin. And what must that have been like, to be the moral counsel of the world's most effective murderer?

Sage Fujio was old. Too old to waste breath on small talk, he had once heard the man tell Ozai to his face, after Ozai was already Fire Lord. Iroh was surprised the man had lived to see the next Fire Lord crowned. This surprise was unrelated to his age.

"Prince Iroh," the sage said, "do you still support your nephew?"

"I do."

This too the man had already known the answer too, because it was abundantly clear that Iroh's conversation had been between himself, the spirits of his family, and this man lurking in the shadows. The sage inclined his head, by the barest of acceptable margins.

"The boy needs a regent. Talk him into it, and take the role. You have our support."

"As I did when my father died?"

The sage stared down at Iroh, where he still knelt in front of the shrine. "If you had wanted the throne, you should have challenged for it. We cannot support those who will not support themselves."

For the fourth time that day, Iroh fought the urge to wince. "Why has a regent not been chosen already? Zuko is only sixteen."

"The age of majority for the royal family is fourteen."

"How—? Ah. Azula. Ozai changed the laws for her." This was not a question.

"It appears the Phoenix King did not wish for a regent to stand behind his daughter."

"Likely he intended that position for himself," Iroh agreed.

"The girl crumbled on her first day. The boy will follow, unless someone shares his burden. But we cannot force a regent on him unless he himself first changes the law. Convince him to do so."

"My nephew is stubborn, and independent. If he refuses?"

"Then do what is right for your country and your family, for the first time in your life. Take the throne, and let that boy sleep. A few years training as your heir and he might even survive this. We are running out of viable heirs, Prince Iroh; I do not want to break this one. He's… not his father. He's not you, either."

Yes, Iroh was very surprised that Sage Fujio had survived Ozai's reign. But then, his brother never had spent much time consulting with the spirits.

"You have our support," the sage repeated, and turned to leave. Their small talk was over.

"Why?" Iroh asked. "Some are saying I chose the Avatar over my own nephew. Would I make the sort of regent you want?" Or would the sages take the changed law, and place someone else besides Zuko?

"He still trusts you," Sage Fujio said. "You are, perhaps, the only one he trusts."

It was not a burden Iroh was ready to pick back up. Not when he had failed the boy for three years, and all the things he had not said had split them apart under Ba Sing Se. It was a city where he lost sons.

Zuko had apologized to him. Had welcomed him back into the palace, unquestioned and—aside from one unsmiling guard captain, who Iroh sincerely doubted was acting on her Fire Lord's orders—unrestricted. It was too much trust for a new ruler to have, particularly in an old man who'd earned his traitor posters. Iroh had never prepared Zuko for court, because the boy was never supposed to return. The Avatar was gone; and then he wasn't. Zuko was never to set foot in the Fire Nation again, never even to join his family's ashes in the shrine; now he was Fire Lord, and Iroh still did not know how.

Avatar Aang was very nearly a master of fire. It was time for Iroh to return to his family.

He bowed once more before the shrine, then left. Captain Izumi followed him back to the courtyard.

AN: I really really wanted Captain Izumi to tell Iroh all about Ozai throwing lightning at his own son and then shoving him into a lightless cell to be forgotten. It was in my chapter notes. But Izumi took one look at that scene and was all "I don't discuss the Fire Lord's business," and I could not change her mind. Dammit Izumi, why you gotta have integrity?