His Highness the Crown Prince Kuzon may not have known if the story was true or not, but that wasn't important, because he knew that his parents would like it.

Can be read as a years later story in the A Different Path universe, but it doesn't have to be.

Parallel

[KUZON, KNOWN TO STRANGERS AS HIS MOST AUGUST ROYAL HIGHNESS THE CROWN PRINCE KUZON, BUT TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY AS JUST KUZON, BURSTS INTO HIS PARENTS' OFFICE, CLUTCHING AN OLD SCROLL TO HIS CHEST, TREMBLING WITH ALL THE EXCITEMENT THAT AN ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD IS CAPABLE OF. He finds his mother – otherwise known as Her Most Serene Majesty the Fire Lady Katara – right where he expects to find her, hard at work, scribbling something on a piece of paper, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose. His eyes shift to the desk that sits back-to-back with his mother's, and frowns.]

"Um…Mom?"

[Katara does not look up from her task, but she does smile, and her voice is soft and welcoming.]

"Yes, Kuzon?"

"Um…where's Dad?"

"You know very well where your father is, Kuzon. What time of year is it?"

[Kuzon visibly deflates. He had completely forgotten that it was the dreaded Budget Season, when the business of government ground to a halt and his father – known to the world as His Most August Majesty, Father of the Nation, Defender of the Faith, the Fire Lord Zuko, a title that, oddly enough, was about three-times as long when he took the throne– was forever stuck in joint sessions of the Diet and endless meetings of the Privy Council, trying to hammer out the budget for the next year. Kuzon hated Budget Season, not least because he knew that, someday, he would be the one stuck in those meetings.]

"Oh…right…"

[Katara finishes whatever she's working on, gives it an once-over, nods, turns to where one of her ladies-in-waiting, Kuzon can't remember the young woman's name, sits in a corner, reading a book.]

"Yumiko?"

[The young woman promptly closes her book, stands, bows.]

"Yes, Your Majesty?"

[Katara folds up the paper, slides it into an envelope, seals it, holds it out.]

"Please be so kind as to deliver this, personally, to Her Grace the Duchess Akiyama."

[The young woman takes what has been revealed as a letter, bows once more, while Kuzon scrunches up his face and recalls – from the list of nobility that he is required to have memorized – that Her Grace the Duchess Akiyama is the wife of His Grace the Duke Akiyama (currently the leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Peers and a close ally of Kuzon's father) and has just had a baby.]

"At once, Your Majesty. Shall I send the Lady Ming" [another of his mother's ladies-in-waiting, from the Earth Kingdom, if Kuzon remembers correctly] "to attend you?"

"That would be perfect, thank you. And please extend to the Duchess Our congratulations, and ask if there is anything We can do for her and her family."

"Of course, Your Majesty."

[There is another bow, and then the Lady Yumiko is gone and Katara turns to her son and smiles, holding out her arms.]

"Well, are you just going to stand there, silly, or are you going to give your mother a hug and a kiss?"

[Kuzon isn't entirely sure he wants to do either. He's eleven, after all, a self-proclaimed big boy, not a kid at all anymore, but he does love his mother, so he huffs and gives her the requested hug and kiss, after which he steps back, still clutching the scroll to his chest.]

"What have you got there?"

"Um…well…I was hoping to tell Dad, too, you know, at the same time…"

"Hmm…well, why don't you tell me first, and then, you and I can put our heads together and see if we can bust your father out of his current meeting for a little bit. How does that sound?"

[Kuzon thinks it sounds amazing, but he's a big boy and the Crown Prince to boot, and much more mature than any of his younger siblings, especially his next youngest sibling, his brother Hakoda, with whom he's not on the best of terms at the moment, which is his fault, really, so he draws himself up tall, just as his father has taught him, and does his best to look regal, just like his parents, completely missing the fact that his mother has to act quickly to cover up a most un-regal giggle.]

"I like the sound of that very much, Mother."

"Oh, how serious! And how very royal! You will have to do that for your father; he will be very impressed."

"Oh…you really think so?"

"When is your father not impressed by you, Kuzon?"

"…well…um…there was when I got in the fight with Cousin Irniq…"

"True…though, between you, me, and the moose-lion, your father was more annoyed that you lost than that you got in the fight at all."

"Really?!"

"Really. Your Uncle Sokka crowed about it for a week. Now, enough stalling! Show me what you've found!"

"Well…um…I didn't actually…you know…find it…Kei found it, we were poking around the Library, Hakoda swore that there was once a Fire Lord who was a waterbender, and I told him that was silly, he was just saying that because he's a waterbender, and it was silly, and he dared me to prove it, so me and Kei we went to the Library and we were very polite to Midorikawa-san, he likes us and lets us wander around, and Kei and I start looking and well, he found this and we read it and I just had to show it to you."

[Katara nods, looking very serious.]

"I see. Is it proof of this waterbending Fire Lord?"

"Oh, no, Mother, we couldn't find anything about that, though maybe we didn't look long enough, I bet Dad could find it, he can find anything, but Midorikawa-san says that he's never heard of a waterbending Fire Lord, there were a few earthbending ones a long time ago but no waterbending ones as far as he knows, and Midorikawa-san knows everything about History, he would know if there was one, but…um…yeah, here it is."

[He holds to the scroll out to his mother, who takes it, puts her reading glasses back on, and starts examining the scroll.]

"Hmm…very interesting, Kuzon. You had no trouble reading it?"

"Well…a little, I don't like that old court language, it makes my head hurt."

"You know, your father would agree with you."

"He would?"

"Absolutely; it's why one of his first acts as Fire Lord was to officially end the use of the old court language in official documents."

"Oh, right…I remember that now. Then why do I have to learn it?"

"You know why, Kuzon."

"Oh, right. Because I'm to be the Fire Lord and so I need to be able to read old documents without difficulty. I still don't like it."

"As well you shouldn't. Now, what am I looking at?"

"Oh!" [Kuzon springs forward, propping himself up on his mother's desk, pointing at this and that as he tells his mother what he found.] "It's a story about a long-ago prince! Apparently, there was a tyrant who had taken the throne in the Northern Water Tribes, and this tyrant waited until the Avatar had died, and before the new Avatar could grow up, launched a terrible war. It went on for at least ten years, and there were horrible battles, until the Southern Water Tribes, they were being ruled from the North then, tried to break away, and the tyrant king punished them brutally, and no one could stop him, because the Fire Nation was weak and the Earth Kingdom was weak, too, and the Air Nomads weren't nomads yet, they were still ruled by petty kings and most them were on the side of the tyrant and it was awful."

"I can see that…go on…"

"Well, anyways, when the tyrant put down the Southern rebellion, there was a chief's son who was taken prisoner, and when that son's father refused to come to terms, the Northern tyrant scarred the son horribly, and set the son adrift to die. By the will of the gods, he came to rest in the Fire Nation, which wasn't really the Fire Nation then, it was during one of the periods of civil war, and this chief's son landed in an area controlled by a very powerful daimyo, who wanted to stay out of the war, but his daughter who was apparently very beautiful and a very skilled firebender found the chief's son on the shore and nursed him and fell in love with him."

"My, how romantic! This is a story after my own heart! Remind me to have a copy of this made, your sisters would love it."

[Kuzon tries not to make a face. His sisters, Ursa and Kya, may be only six, but they are still girls and thus gross. Plus, they are his sisters, so they are double gross, not like Reiko at school, who isn't gross at all, Kuzon doesn't care what Hakoda thinks.]

"Oh, okay…"

"Oh, don't make a face. Go on, tell me how the story ends. Is there a happy ending?"

"Yes, there is! So, eventually, the daimyo's daughter nurses the chief's son back to health, and the chief's son falls in love with her, too, and they want to get married, but the chief's son has to go home and fight to end the Northern king's tyranny, so he tries to sneak away, so he won't break the girl's heart."

[Now it's Katara's turn to make a face. She huffs, cross her arms, and shakes her head.]

"Men. I swear, they're all the same."

"…even Dad?"

[Katara laughs and ruffles her son's hair.]

"Yes, even your father, though his idiocy is part of the reason I love him so much. Now, go on! Don't keep me in suspense! Did the daimyo's daughter let him get away with that?"

"No! She caught him and told him that she was coming with him, but first he had to take her to the nearest temple and marry her, and he knew he was beaten, and he hadn't wanted to go without her anyways, so they went right away and got married by a nice fire sage, and then they ran away. They returned to his homeland, and raised the Southern Water Tribes in rebellion again, only this time, the girl's father decided he couldn't just abandon his daughter, so he raised his armies and all the armies of his allies and even those of his enemies, and the Earth Kingdom joined in, too, and the Air Nomads who still weren't nomads decided to abandon the Northern tyrant and so he was defeated and toppled from his throne, and the chief's son and the daimyo's daughter were offered the Northern crown by the people there, and so they took the throne and ruled together for a long time, and had many children, and this was the Northern king who gave the Southern Water Tribes their independence, and you know what their names were?"

"The chief's son and the daimyo's daughter?"

[For a moment, Kuzon pauses, suspecting that his mother – who can read just as well as he can, if not better – is just playing along, but he decides he doesn't care and spreads his arms wide and makes the big reveal.]

"The chief's son was named Katar, and the daimyo's daughter was named Zuka!"

[Katara's mouth drops open.]

"No."

"Yes!"

"You're kidding!"

"I'm so not! And it might even be true, because apparently, in the Northern Water Tribe Royal Family, every once in a while a firebender will be born, and this might be the reason why, or at least that's what Midorikawa-san says!"

"Well then, that settles it, doesn't it?"

"Um…settles what, Mom?"

[Katara stands, sets her reading glasses on her desk. She rolls up the scroll, hands it to her son, lays a hand on his shoulder.]

"Your father will absolutely want to hear this story right away, budget meetings be…ahem…nevermind. Your father will be delighted to hear all about this. Ready to go interrupt a government meeting?"

[As they head for the door, Kuzon tries not to look giddy. After all, they are about to interrupt actual government business, which they're not supposed to do, him or his siblings, especially because most of the time Mother and Father are in the same meetings together, and interrupting Father is bad enough, interrupting Mother is downright suicidal, but Mother's on his side for this one and so he smiles wide and tries not to look too little kid-like in his excitement, because he is the Crown Prince, after all, and, even more important, a big boy.]

"Absolutely, Mom!"

"Well, then what're we waiting for!"

[Father is just as thrilled by the story as Mother assured him he would be. So thrilled is Father that the Fire Lord derails a Privy Council meeting to have Kuzon read the story to the assembly, and the applause is something that Kuzon will never forget, as much as his little brother, Hakoda, will end up wishing he would.]

Man, two stories in a row in which no one dies, there are no emotional gut-punches, everyone's have a good time and is happy and shit...I must be losing my touch. Either that, or I had more fun and games story ideas for this month than I did...um...not fun and games. Um...yeah...

Anyhoo, this, I think, is another story that pretty much stands on its own and explains itself pretty well. Like I said up above, it can be read as a follow-up on my first fic, A Different Path, because I'll get my page views and (maybe, someday, fingers crossed) fanart if it kills me. However, like I also said, it can be read completely on its own, and if you don't feel like hacking your way through my fun - albeit, typo-ridden - first fic, you totally don't have to. The only thing that I think needs explaining is the post-war set-up of the Fire Nation. One of the things that always...well...irked me about the Canon universe is that they never really stopped to address the problem of absolute monarchy. Like, they pretty much presented the choice as no monarchy or all the monarchy, which is pretty silly, really. As a (God help me) Political Science minor (which isn't all that fun, because it mostly just means I can't watch the news without throwing something at the TV), I'm here to tell you that very few nations go straight from all the monarchy to no monarchy, and if they try, well...I refer you to the French Revolutionary Wars for what happens when radicals try to pull a 180 without warning. It's bad news.

So, with that in mind, I always liked the idea that, once he took the throne, Zuko would shift the Fire Nation to a Constitutional Monarchy. Since it's still very early, the Fire Nation at this point is like many newly minted constitutional monarchies, in which the monarch still has a lot of real power. Over the course of the next century or two, though, the Fire Lord will eventually become a figurehead, which is pretty much what Zuko had in mind when he started this process; he would, I think, be very wary of the potential for another Sozin or Ozai, and absolute forms of government will eventually produce a tyrant. What does this all look like? Well, I stole the name for the Fire Nation's parliament from Japan, and called it the Diet, and it has a House of Peers and a House of Commons, one unelected, the other not, because that's how these things generally start. As for the rest...well...you know what? Very few of you guys actually want to know all that, because most of you guys are normal and don't watch C-SPAN for fun (which I do, because I hate myself; the wife thinks it's sexy, though). But...yeah...

You know what? That's more than enough! Haha. Like I said, that was just some good, clean fun, and I hope we all enjoyed ourselves. Tune in for tomorrow's episode, wherein, as Katara prepares herself for her coronation, Zuko finds himself in the odd position of counseling patience. See you then!

Oh, and before I forget: It's Taco Friday at my house, which is fucking awesome, I'm so stoked you guys, but, just a reminder to my wife, don't forget the extra green salsa! Te amo, querida!