more than words, a prompted drabble compilation
"Ursa! Ursa, come here! I need you!"
Ursa sighs from the hallway outside of her husband's room. Zuko and Azula are play fighting with a couple of wooden swords; it's a marvel, her children are, for as swift and agile as Azula is, Zuko matches her in sword skill and determination. Although the welts growing on both of their arms attest enough to exactly why Ursa doesn't like to see them fighting.
She ducks inside of the bedroom, her eyes still trained out in the hallway and narrowly misses a stream of fire that sails by her head. Freezing in place, she turns her head slowly to her husband. Ozai is sitting up straight in his bed, a dopey grin on his face, smoke wafting from his lips. The empty cup on his bedside table tells her that he's recently taken some medication to help with his fever.
Ursa faintly smells the singe of her own hair.
"Did you see?" Ozai says curiously, and Ursa raises an eyebrow, her tone pointed.
"You nearly burnt my face off."
"But it was breath of fire, Ursa," he preens, folding his arms across his chest and grinning that dopey grin. Ursa wants to tuck him in and kiss him. She also wants to smother him gently until he goes to sleep.
She reaches her hands into her hair to run her fingers through it, glad to see that none of her hair is actually charred. "That's lovely, sweetheart," she says, mustering up a smile.
Ozai's eyes cross for a moment. He opens his mouth and a stream of fire shoots out, this time a little to Ursa's left. "Ozai!" She chides, but his excessive fire has attracted their children's attention.
"Dad's a dragon!" Zuko yells, jumping into his father's bed and pointing his sword in Ozai's face. Ozai's illness has made him lenient, so he doesn't mind Zuko's arms around his neck, his son's chin atop his head, and his screaming of, "Go, dragon, go!"
Instead, Ozai laughs at his son, fire trickling from his lips. Zuko is pleased by this new, gentle Ozai, but Azula shrieks, throwing her sword in the corner where it catches fire, and stomps out of the room.
The sight of her husband and her son is too much to keep Ursa worried about the state of Ozai's new tricks, and in spite of his recklessness, she smiles.
notes: by popular request, fever stricken ozai is back in action!
