11th Day, Peach Moon, Year of the Tiger
Prince Ozai

Ursa was avoiding him. For the first few hours Ozai was grateful, he had things to arrange and Ursa would only get in the way, but by noon he was starting to get worried. Ursa should have been panicked, terrified by the fact that her children were missing, and she should have come straight to him for answers. That was what Azulon had done, although he had admittedly known more than Ursa about what had gone on.

Ursa must have her own sources of information, which shouldn't have been a surprise, but wasn't something that Ozai was terribly happy about it. Ursa would be easier to control if she listened to him and only him and right now Ozai was at a tricky spot where he needed as much control as possible.

And, sooner rather than later, he was going to need new heirs, which meant cozying up to Ursa long enough for said heirs to be conceived. With that in mind, Ozai headed off to the garden. It was too early for fire lilies, but Ursa had always had a fondness for flowers of every kind and something was sure to be blooming.

Red roses might be considered a little too romantic, considering the situation, so Ozai plucked a handful of white ones before heading to Ursa's chambers.

He knocked gently on her door, because Ursa had never liked demands and was likely to interpret him banging on her door as exactly that.

After a couple of minutes, when Ursa had failed to respond, Ozai knocked a little louder. Just because she didn't like to be pushed, didn't mean that Ursa had the right to ignore him like this. She had married into the royal family, he had been born in and that made him her superior.

Ursa still did not answer, and Ozai found himself becoming furious. Even more infuriating was the knowledge that he couldn't just barge in while angry, if he wanted Ursa to like him instead of run off to one of the Fire Temple to 'pray' for her children's souls.

He knocked a third time, more of a bang than a knock, even though he tried his hardest to keep his anger in check.

"Ozai, what are you doing?" He wheeled around and there, obviously having come back from a visit to the turtle-duck pond by the dampness of her sleeves, was Ursa.

"I wanted to talk to you," Ozai said. He was blushing, he noticed in a distracted sort of fashion. As if this entire situation had to be any more embarrassing. He held out the flowers in his hand.

Ursa raised an eyebrow, looking down at the roses as though they had started to rot.

Ozai felt his face starting to heat. "I thought you were mad at me," he said. It came out more defensively than he wanted it to. Something about Ursa, he had never been able to figure out what but he hated it, had always kept him off balance around her.

"So you decided to bring me flowers as what? Some kind of bribe?" Ursa's voice took on a note of disdain, and Ozai remembered that she had always been oddly bimodal about gifts. Sometimes she loved them and other times... other times she reacted like this.

"I saw them and I thought they looked like you would like them," Ozai said. He managed to avoid raising his voice as he did so, but only barely. "And I needed to talk to you about Zuko and Azula anyway." There, Ursa wouldn't waste energy being angry at Ozai if she could be learning about what happened to Zuko and Azula.

Ursa's mouth twisted into a bitter sort of smile. "I've looked for them for hours. The entire staff and half the guard was looking for them the night they went missing, until Firelord Azulon called them off. Rumor has it you had something to do with that."

Ozai gulped. "I'm sorry, I should have talked to you about this earlier."

Ursa seemed a little mollified by his apology, but not nearly as much as Ozai would have liked.

"Zuko and Azula are not missing," Ozai said. It took him a little effort but he added, "I know exactly where they are."

"And you let me go thinking that they had vanished off the face of the earth– kidnapped or killed– for an entire day?" Rather than pulling away the way she had done in most of their fights in the past few years, Ursa stepped closer to Ozai, putting herself into striking range.

Ozai held up the roses in hopes that they would provide him some kind of defense against his angry wife. He couldn't very well fight back if he wanted her to like him. "I should have told you earlier. I'm sorry. I had a lot of things on my mind."

"You always do." Ursa deflated, her posture dropping into the resignation that had always come shortly before she ran away from him. "What was it this time?"

"When we had an audience with the Firelord and I spoke alone with him, I asked him to name me as his heir, as Iroh's bloodline has ended with Lu Ten's death," Ozai said. He was going to have to be careful about how he said the next piece, to make sure he appeared protective rather than stupid. "He was furious. He said that as punishment for my presumption, I should lose my firstborn as Iroh had lost his."

Ursa gasped, looking suitably appalled. "But he can't have meant for Zuko to die. He'd only have one grandchild left." Perhaps Ozai hadn't given his wife enough credit in political intrigue. He had expected her to be horrified by the idea of her precious Zuzu dying, not to be able to think things through better than Ozai had at the time.

"He didn't, but I was too distraught to think things through," Ozai said. "I hired a pair of earthbenders from the Colonies to stage a kidnapping– it was only supposed to be Zuko, but Azula was in his room at the time and so my employees took her as well– and get on the first boat to the Colonies, where my son would be safe."

Ursa smiled, a genuinely happy smile this time, and leaned in a little closer to her husband. "Azulon didn't fall for it, did he?" She sounded almost amused, like she thought that this entire mess was funny and was doing her level best to stop Ozai from noticing.

"No. He summoned me to his chambers and insisted I own up to my subterfuge." Ozai grimaced at the memory. "I admitted it readily enough, but I refused to tell him where the children were until he promised that they were in no danger." He would let Ursa come to her own conclusions as to how Azulon had truly intended Ozai to interpret his order and validate whatever idea she liked best. "I sent a messenger hawk to the ship telling them to return to the Capital. Zuko and Azula should be home before nightfall."

Ursa was actually getting teary-eyed. Ozai felt the tiniest bit guilty about playing her emotions like this but, he reasoned to himself, Ursa was soft. There was no way she would understand what he was doing, what he had to do, in order to keep hold of what little of his father's favor he had managed to regain.

Ozai sighed. "But–"

"But what?" Ursa asked. She stepped closer to Ozai, obviously seeking some kind of comfort from him even though she had to know that whatever was coming couldn't be that bad. The children were safe and that was all Ursa would care about.

"Zuko is to be named Iroh's heir," Ozai said. He did not even try to hide the bitterness in his voice. Ursa had always been a bit of a sucker for sob stories, and now that Ozai was firmly in her good books as a result of his 'brave' defense of his children he could take advantage of that.

Ursa squeezed Ozai's shoulder sympathetically. "I'm sorry, Ozai." She sounded sincere, but not particularly upset. Ozai decided to take that as a good sign: she was sincerely sorry that he was upset, but didn't care about his plans.

"I'll manage, Ursa," Ozai said. He resisted the urge to slip in a pet name, as that might be a little too fast for Ursa's taste. "The important part is that the children are safe."

A/N: Confession time: I'm not terribly familiar with the comics. The impression I've got from what I've seen of them is that Ozai was always abusive and by this point in time Ursa hated him. For the sake of this story, I'm assuming that 1) at some point in time Ursa and Ozai actually liked each other and 2) that their relationship at this point is repairable.