Prompt: Mother
Characters: Ursa, Lu Ten, Iroh
Pairing: None
Continuity: References "The Search." No familiarity necessary; no spoilers.
"Hi! Are you my new Aunt Ursa?"
Startled, she looked up. The boy was no older than ten, of stocky build, and very cheerful-looking; his brown hair was pulled into a topknot that was quickly coming loose.
"My name is Ursa." She hastily wiped her eyes as she turned to face him. "Who are you?"
Instead of answering her, he blinked, cocking his head to the side. "Why are you crying?"
Her mouth opened to give some platitude—this child didn't need to know the hardships of her life—but before she could think what to answer, a man came running up from the same direction she assumed the boy had come.
"Lu Ten, you mustn't bother people who are seeking their privacy." At the sound of his voice, the boy grinned and ran over to him instead. While they were exchanging their greetings, Ursa took a moment to assess this newcomer.
He was also of stocky build, with the same brown hair as the boy and laugh lines around his eyes—the two of them looked so much alike that there was no question they were father and son. She vaguely recalled seeing him at the wedding, now; he had been at the front of the room, close to where she was, but they hadn't spoken, and Ursa had been too deep in her own grief to pay much mind to those around her at all.
He ruffled the boy's hair affectionately—his topknot was now thoroughly ruined—before turning back to her. "I apologize if my son has been disturbing you. Lu Ten means well, but he can be a bit overeager at times." His eyes crinkled with concern as he, too, got a good look at her face. "Is something wrong?"
Everything is wrong, she wanted to say, but swallowed the words before they could come out. The court was far different from the life she had grown up with, and Ursa didn't yet know whether this man was worthy of her trust. "I'll be fine," she said, wiping the final tears from her eyes as she stood with the dignity her hasty lessons had taught her a princess must maintain at all times. "I don't believe that we've been introduced."
"Of course; how very rude of me." He bowed. "My name is Iroh. I do believe that I'm your brother-in-law."
From then on, seeing one or both of them became a regular occurrence. Lu Ten was full of energy—not to mention never-ending questions.
"Did you live in a small village? What was it like? Do you have any brothers or sisters? Are you a firebender? What did you do before you married Uncle Ozai?"
There was one question, however, that he asked with a hesitation that had never been present before.
"Aunt Ursa? What was your mother like?"
Ozai, she knew, didn't want her talking about the life she had left behind, and so she had always deflected Lu Ten's more personal questions, knowing that he would move on to the next before he had even figured out that she hadn't given him a real response. This time, however, Ursa felt compelled to answer.
"My mother is… was… a good woman. She and my father have always been good to me. She went out of her way to keep me out of trouble." Like the kind that came to my village not two months ago to offer me his son's hand.
"Oh." Lu Ten looked down then, his voice small. "Is she dead?"
Thankfully, Ursa was saved from answering when Iroh came to fetch the boy for his firebending lessons.
"Lu Ten has never known his mother," Iroh explained later as they shared a cup of tea in the gardens. Her nephew—when had she started thinking of him as such?—had played himself into exhaustion and fallen asleep right there on the grass, and Iroh ran a hand fondly through his hair as he spoke. "I have done the best I can and I know that he is happy, but… he has always wondered what might have been."
"I see." Suddenly, she could not think of anything to say, and so she said the only thing she could. "I'm sorry."
"My wife died far sooner than she should have—but what's done is done, and no amount of grieving will change what happened. Now, the only thing we can do is look to the future, and make the best of what we do have."
The words, it seemed, caused something in her to break; she choked up, and suddenly her story was pouring out of her before she could stop it. "There was… someone else."
"Oh?" Iroh said nothing more—but when he set down his teacup and turned his gaze on her, Ursa knew she had his full attention.
"He asked me to marry him the same night Ozai came. I couldn't refuse—not an offer from the Fire Lord himself." She found that she was shaking, her hands over her face, and now the tears were falling freely, heedless of what they were doing to her makeup or of the blotchy redness that would soon be showing on her face.
It was a long, long time before either of them spoke again; Iroh let her cry into her hands for a few minutes before he ventured further comment.
"Ursa," he said at last. "I am truly sorry for your situation. Know that if I could do anything for you, I would." A warm hand came to rest on her shoulder; she started, and looked up to meet her brother-in-law's warm gaze. "I know that this is not the life that you would have chosen for yourself—but it is still your life. I would hate to see you lose sight of what good things you still have."
At that moment, however, Lu Ten sat up and rubbed his eyes with a yawn, and neither of them said anything more on the matter. A week later, Iroh returned to the front. They did not get the chance to talk in private again before he left.
"I wish Dad didn't have to go away all the time." Lu Ten was dangling his bare feet in the turtle duck pond, and Ursa felt it wasn't her place to tell him that such behavior was unbecoming of a prince—especially when she was sure his father would have said no such thing. "The Fire Nation needs to hurry up and win this war. Then Dad will be home all the time, and I won't have to worry about him getting hurt anymore." He threw the last few scraps of bread out onto the water before slumping down to rest his chin morosely in his hands.
"I'm sure your father will be fine." It was all Ursa could think to say, and she dearly hoped she had not just lied to her nephew—Iroh might have been a renowned general, the Dragon of the West, but this was war. The unexpected could happen at any time.
"I'm going to go fight with him," Lu Ten declared, sitting back up again. "As soon as I'm old enough to join the army. He said I'd have to wait until I'm sixteen." He pouted slightly at the notion—to a boy his age, six years might as well have been an eternity.
Ursa couldn't help it: she laughed. After all, she had been ten once too, asking her mother when she'd be allowed to do this or that and balking at the answer because it had seemed like forever. "Don't worry, Lu Ten," she said when he narrowed his eyes at her, no doubt wondering whether she was making fun of him. "It'll happen sooner than you know it, I promise."
They sat in silence for a while, watching the turtle ducks swim. When Lu Ten spoke again, it was with his usual tendency of bouncing from topic to topic without any logic that she could fathom. "Hey, Aunt Ursa? Do you know any good stories?"
For a moment, she pondered. "Well," she said at last, "are you familiar with the tale of Love Amongst the Dragons?"
A/N: I believe this is the longest chapter yet.
I have been itching to write me some Ursa-Iroh friendship since I don't know how long, not to mention I think it's about time for some Warm Fuzzies after all of the dark, dark places I've been going lately.