If you were far enough away from the fighting, open war looked just like regular life. Stacks of work were still piled on Ursa's desk, she still made regular visits to schools and hospitals, arranged the rare festival. At the beginning of her first full week in Jian's old position, she'd been presented with a revised budget which nearly cut her allowance in half. She quickly learned that her department would always be the first to receive budget cuts when money was needed for the war.

She'd confronted Azulon about it, but he only sneered and told her to find the funding elsewhere. So Ursa had turned to the nobility, hoping they cared more about the nation's schools and hospitals than they deemed her untrustworthy. They all talked behind her back, even those who thought she was smart for aligning herself with the 'stronger brother, politically.'

"She's never been happy with what she's been given," they said.

"Remember the wedding? She came out with all that expensive fabric and those jeweles like she thought she was going to be Fire Lady."

"We all knew Prince Ozai was headed for destruction anyway. I don't blame her for trying to save herself."

"She should be happy. They saved her from a backwoods town."

"I hear he forced her to do it, the crown prince did."

"I heard her own husband thinks she poisoned the crown princess."

"Either way, she got promoted. Now the Fire Lord can't kill her. Who's going to run the counry?"

"She's been a poison to the family. More bad things have happened since she married Prince Ozai than ever before."

These whispers and some far more vile followed her in everything she did. They hung about the air behind her like lingering perfume. They were carried to her ears on stiff winds, and sometimes by the palace staff that liked her enough to let her know when danger was headed her way.

So, with the help of Uti, Dio, and Bea, who'd become her de facto aides, she threw fundraisers for hospitals, and charity events, and arranged tournaments of all kinds so people could see just what the schools were doing for their children.

These events became mildly successful, in part because of Ursa's insistence that the focus remain on sympathy grabbers like cute sickly children, helpless hungry children, and children eager to learn at schools. Ursa wasn't stupid; people were more likely to shell out money the cuter the recipient. It worked for a time. People were kept occupied with their work, and with fundraisers and rare festivals and spectacles.

When war started to hit home a little more, Ursa stepped up her plans of distractions. Azulon raised taxes the month after Jian died, and six months later, a steep tax levied on the middle and lower classes was passed. Tensions began to rise, and no festival or party could fix them. Life just got harder, and Ursa did her best to relieve a little of the stress and tension of the people making the bombs and the swords and the armor and the navy vessals. More husbands and sons and wives and daughters began to disappear. Firebenders were suddenly in high demand; they were quickly being conscripted into the army.

For that, the people could thank Ozai. He successfully argued that firebenders were the better soldiers. They could attack at range, needed no weapons, were extremely powerful, and could lay waste to any city or village, any stronghold. Azulon had agreed, and firebenders were given a larger signing bonus than non benders, and the army's ranks swelled with the poor, who were desperate to find food to fill their stomachs and warm clothes to put on their backs. They signed up in record numbers, the trained and the untrained, hoping to send money home to their families, or arranging to have their families paid altogether.

It was early summer, a year after Jian's death and the relaunch of the war. Ozai made the trip to the capitol every three months, and for this trip she stood on the deck of his ship as they headed toward Ember Island. There was only ever one reason Ursa wanted to go to Ember Island, and her and Ozai's relationship had devolved into doing small things for each other. This was his small thing for her. Each summer, he would take her to Ember Island so she could see her play when he was back in the Fire Nation. He would endure the play, because afterwords, they had sex, and that increased the chance that he'd have an heir so much sooner.

Ursa caught onto him when he wanted to take her to see the play two days in a row. She let him, because she loved that play, and it didn't cost her anything to just lie on the bed. Really, it was an unfair trade because Ozai had to endure two hours of what he considered Agni awful acting. She could give him five minutes of her time.

"Life in the capitol has not been too hard, I trust," Ozai said. He still couldn't stand and do nothing for long periods of time.

"For me, no. For others who've had to give up loved ones to the army and deal with high taxes, yes."

"You have adjusted to your new position well?"

"I have. It's hard work, but it has its little rewards."

Ozai was unusually chatty. She looked at him then, and found that he'd been watching her. He was frowning like he found something distasteful and wanted to get to the truth behind it. His eyes roamed over her, took in every ounce of her in a way that made her want to shrink away from him. It was like he was studying every detail of her, from the way her hair was blown about in the wind to the position of her eyelashes, to every fibre and fabric covering her body.

"Is something bothering you?" she asked.

He turned away and shrugged. "No. Not really."

But now Ursa was studying the set of his shoulders and his posture, and noting that he wasn't carrying much of the tension he usually did. Maybe he was working out some of his aggression. That was stupid, Ursa scolded herself. Ozai didn't exactly step on the battlefield himself. Too dangerous for the prince, he'd said. Iroh was on the field, fighting recklessly all the time, and Ozai would be there to take advantage of the situation when Iroh got himself killed, he'd written in one letter. Ursa swore she detected a hopeful note in his words.

"I haven't seen you dance before."

"You want me to dance? Now?"

"You can wait until we get to Ember Island if you want. You will dance for me, though."

Ursa crossed her arms. "We've been married three years and you haven't asked me to dance once."

"I'm asking now," he said matter of factly, as if that should make all the difference in the world.

He clearly saw no problem with this and stood facing her as if she were the one with the problem. Their relationship had improved, if only because they were often so far away from each other. He wrote her once a month from the front, giving her assignments, sometimes asking after her health, which meant he wanted to know if she was pregnant yet, to which the answer had always been no. Very rarely, he would update her about one campaign or another, though she was more likely to get this information from Iroh. He wrote her every other week, like clockwork, checking on her and Lu Ten, making sure Lu Ten was advancing in his firebending and keeping up with his studies. This, she hadn't expected. She didn't think, after everything that happened, he would ask after her personally, but she was glad he did. It made Ursa feel cared for.

"Fine. But my hip…it's not going to be as good as it was three years ago, so you'll just have to suffer."

Ozai waved this away and crossed his arms, frowning slightly.

Ursa thought about what dance she should do. Something not too demanding. Simple, elegant, and powerful would be best. She stood in the beginning position for the water dance, then changed her mind. Ozai raised an eyebrow in question, but she only waved him away. He wasn't quite worthy of a water dance. She thought instead of the storm dance. It was to mimic the summer storms that could sometimes damage crops. Ursa took off her shoes and loosened her restrictive dress a little.

She started as the storms often did: slow and light, moving slowly on the tips of her toes with her arms held away from her body. Back and forth across the deck she moved, at the end of her stride, always sweeping her leg out into a turn, bent backwards, nearly doubled, one arm straight in the air signaling the gathering point of the storm and the clouds. She let herself be transported back to Kirachu, to a summer when a storm so violent hit the island that it felled trees and flattened wheat and destroyed flowers. Ursa spun fast, the eye of the storm, whirled her arms like the fierce winds, imagined the air flowing from her sleeves. She was spirit of thunder and of lightning, of strong winds and driving rains.

Ursa improvised when her body could no longer support her weight the way it had, forgoing flips for spins and pushing herself through complicated leaps; her storm held all her anger and her regret, and she willed it to flatten the world. In the end, all it did was make those who'd gathered applaud. Except for Ozai. He nodded approvingly.

"That's the last time you'll dance," he said. "It's been banned. We don't need people distracted with frivolous things."

The crew began going back to their posts, and soon Ursa and Ozai were left alone on the deck again. Ursa stared, unsure what to make of this news. In truth, she hadn't been doing much dancing; the only time she danced now was for Lu Ten sometimes before she tucked him in at night. It gave her peace, and now Ozai had decided this little peace should be denied her.

"On whose orders?" she asked, her nails digging into the palms of her hands.

"Your Fire Lord's. And it is not your place to question orders."

Ozai advanced on her, and Ursa instinctively took a step back. She did not trust Ozai to be so close to her.

"Have you been doing anything to keep from getting pregnant?" He asked, continuing to walk toward her.

"No." Ursa continued to move back, aware that she would run out of space.

"Has that git of a servant of yours been giving you anything?"

"No."

Ursa had gone as far as she could go, and Ozai slammed his hands on the railing of the ship. He leaned against her, but Ursa refused to give in and lean away from him.

"Clearly you have had no one tell you how conception works," she said through clenched teeth. "You do not will a baby in my womb. You are gone for the majority of the year and expect something to magically happen?"

"I will not give up my place on the front line for you."

Ursa strained against the overwhelming urge to turn away from him, to squirm out of his reach and get as far away from him as the boat would allow. Some of the crew were watching, and she wondered if they could hear the conversation. If Ozai started hitting her, whose side would they be on?

"I will alert you when my condition changes," she said quietly.

Ozai stepped to the side. "Go lie on the bed. I will be down shortly," he growled in her ear.

.O.

Ozai sat slumped in his chair, looking everywhere except at the stage. At least he was quiet this time. Ursa leaned forward with her elbows on the railing, a sad smile on her face. Ozai thrust a handkerchief at her, and she used it to wipe her eyes. Onstage, the lovers were just meeting for the first time, and it was so sweet, the way they blushed and gave awkward tokens of affection. He was handing her a flower and the orchestra was keying up. Ursa started humming the song.

"No," Ozai said, pointing at her. "It's bad enough that I have to watch this—"

Ursa whacked him in the chest as hard as she could, and the blow caught him off guard, knocking the air out of his lungs. She didn't care that he might retaliate later. He was ruining her play.

"Woman—"

She fixed him with a firm stare and a finger in the face, and turned back to her play. She'd already missed the lovers saying a sweet first goodbye with promises to meet again the next day. And that was her favorite part! That was ok, though. Her next favorite part was coming up. The lovers were having their first date, and it was so romantic. She wished Na could have been there to see it with her. They could lament all the ways their lives would never be like the lovers in the play.

When the lovers said their first real goodbye, not sure if they were ever going to see each other again, she clutched her fists under her chin, tears streaming down her cheeks. Ozai rolled his eyes and did a lot of huffing, but at least he kept quiet. Beyond that, he did not acknowledge her presence at all, and she was quite content to do the same.

Ursa rode the waves of the play's imagined emotions, no matter how poorly executed they were. What they couldn't do on stage, Ursa did in her mind, and it reminded her of when her father would tell her stories as a little girl. He'd ask her to use her imagination, and she always would, and the pictures in her mind were greater than truth. If she were to visit the spirit world and its Hall of Ancients, or travel back in time to see the great princesses of old who were warriors and respected politicians, they would pale in comparison to the images in her mind.

It wasn't so much the play she saw in her mind, but all the possibilities of what could have been. She cried for loves she would never have, for moments missed and moments stolen. She mourned the destruction of beauty that had been and would be, and rejoiced in the hope of reuniting with the love and innocence she'd lost.

Azulon had wanted her to spy on Ozai and Iroh both, and she'd originally intended to do that, but it didn't seem to matter anymore. Jian's death had taken something out of her, or perhaps put something in her, and it didn't matter whether Iroh or Ozai ruled the Fire Nation. People would die and there would be destruction all across the world. Children would cry and mourn and be filled with hate. There would hardly be a soul that would not be stabbed and shriveled and bear the scars of these pointless battles.

"This is bad, even for you," Ozai said, but he made no move to do anything, even though there was a hint of concern in his voice.

This was a part that usually made her happy. It was a party scene, and the party scenes were funny. Ursa could find no joy or mirth in the acting in front of her. She saw everything for what it was: the costumes were horrid, and the makeup exaggerated, even for the stage. There was no elegance in the way the actors recited their lines, no refinement in the construction of the scenery. The stage hands in their black costumes grated on her nerves, and Ursa did not care that she was so openly sobbing. She did not care that this unnerved Ozai, or that he started to reach out to her several times.

"Ursa—"

She did not care to hear what he had to say, and she stood, hurriedly walking out of their private box.

For the first and only time, Ursa couldn't stand to see all of the play.

A/N: Ok, this is where the pacing gets funky, and I'm trying not to make it too horrid. There are important events that happen, but they're not nearly as often as they were before. All the big action has moved out to the front lines, and Ursa's back at home, trying to make people's lives a little less miserable. Which isn't terribly eventful. This starts a series of my favorite conversations between Ursa and Ozai: babies. Not quite working out the way he wants it to, but as Ursa says, you can't just will a baby into her womb. Apparently, no one told Ozai this.