2 days after I first posted the previous chapter, I updated it. A lot. If you missed Ozai's conversation with Azulon, you definitely want to go back and read it first. It's important. Obviously.
There was only one training room in the palace that was enough of a challenge to make Ozai sweat, and he went their frequently to stay in shape and constantly outperform himself. No other firebender could be compared to him so he was forced to be compared to himself, refusing to be stagnant or complacent simply because he could afford to, always pushing his bending to be better and better despite the fact there was no one stood a chance against him. Constant improvement was his art and his obsession, an addiction he had to feed daily or he couldn't stand himself.
The room had multiple machines and each one unleashed a constant barrage of fire. Ozai would redirect the ceaseless blasts until he could bend no more—or at least until dehydration threatened to send him to the infirmary. This, of course, could take up half a day for him while anyone else would have been exhausted and incapable of lighting a candle after one hour. Bending anything, even without time to breathe, only served to intensify his spirit and inner flame. He did it just to prove that he could. To no one other than himself.
He also went there when he felt like he had to unleash a brighter blaze than the world could handle, when he had so much burning inside him that even he couldn't contain it all. When he forgot how to suppress all of his emotions.
And when he felt like he lost self-control.
I practically heard her eyes widen once she entered the room. I couldn't blame her; half the machines and all the dummies were broken and burning. A few of the banners looked ready to ignite. Rather than deflect the blaze, I'd shoved it right back into the cannon from which it came, and the room was so hot even I wanted a glass of ice water.
Ursa immediately flew to the emergency water and dunked a bucket while I toweled off.
"I have everything under control," he insisted.
"Is that why everything's on fire?" I accused, splashing the water onto one particularly fearsome fire.
He lowered every blaze into cinders and ash before gravity could complete its job.
She crossed over to me with those soft, all-too-piercing eyes of hers, penetrating my every wall before I could lock them.
"Golden boy's talking to him now," I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice, more angry in this victory than I had any right to be. "He'll convince him, of course. Probably in two minutes or less. A second longer of his charm, and we'll probably be wed by sunset. The Dragon of the West—"
Frustration was burning him alive.
"No, Ozai," she agreed with me in tone but silenced my words with a touch of my shoulder, never breaking our gaze even as her heart skipped a beat. This moment was too sacred, too important to her for any distractions to be allowed. She'd been preparing this message for a while. "You're not the dragon your brother is. You're a phoenix. You rise from your own ashes of fear—of self-loathing and despair to something greater, higher. You rise, Ozai. Like a dragon, you blaze and you soar, but when you die to your old self, you are made new. Like a phoenix, you are reborn."
I loved her metaphors.
He kissed me deeply, unable to help himself, but pulled back to stare back into my eyes as though he kept finding something new in their depths.
"I want to show you something," he whispered, squeezing my hand in his and leading me out of the room.
"Do you think you can put a shirt on first?" I chuckled at his realization more than my question.
His surprise at the lack of cloth was so sincere I could only assume that he'd mistaken the weight of his sheen, which would be known as sweat on a lesser mortal, for fabric somehow.
"All right, but I want to—"
"I know what you want to do, but you have to wait," I insisted with half a pout. "Please, my prince, wait until you have his permission."
"It's bad enough I've had to do this. I've waited for his permission for my entire life, and for once I just want to—"
"We've jinxed this enough," I insisted, cupping his face in my hands and kissing his nose. He was, of course, a few inches taller than me, but I didn't feel it for once. I felt myself to be his equal in everything, and I cherished every second. "And I don't want you to ask me out of frustration or while you're distracted. I want it to be natural, to have your full awareness so that every part of you, every corner of your mind and soul and spirit, is in the present moment."
That smirk tugged at his lips.
"How could I be anything otherwise, as long as I'm with you?"
I couldn't fight back a grin, and he tried to kiss me again, but I wriggled free of his grasp.
"Oh no you don't. You're going to talk to Iroh, and I'm going home to wait for... Well, whatever comes next."
He nodded, kissing my hand and watching me leave.
Telling myself it wouldn't be the last time.
"Prince Ozai?" a familiar, irksomely polite voice called me out of my reverie several minutes later.
Somehow, I'd found my way back to my bedchambers.
Be grateful, Ozai.
"Yes, Iroh?" I asked, struggling very hard not to sigh, tensing when he glanced about the room nervously.
"A man needs his rest," he repeated his same old advice when he saw my bed was still made.
"I'm not tired. Why are you so pale?"
"I don't mean to worry you… In fact, I've never seen Father so open to an idea before. But you should prepare yourself."
He didn't expound on that.
"For?" I probed.
"The decision you have to make. Our father is going to offer you something… And I want you to be prepared."
"It's difficult for me to prepare for anything with this level of intel," I retorted with more snark than was appropriate considering what he'd just done for me.
"Please, just remember…" he urged, grasping my arm in his hand as if I was on the verge of making the worst choice in my life. What that choice could possibly be, I hadn't the foggiest. "Don't be afraid to ask the big questions: who are you and what do you want? Because life happens wherever you are, whether you make it or not."
"You know, if I had never asked myself those questions before, I don't think we'd be in this situation," I reminded him, but he held on to me tighter, eyes widening into saucers while I tried to lean back from his encroaching face.
"Protection and power are overrated. Choose happiness! Choose love! Follow your own path! Not the path our fathers have set before you! There is nothing wrong with a life of peace and prosperity."
His sudden desperation startled me, but he was gone before I could even ask, "Why would I choose anything else?"
I'd barely been home long enough to lie down when there was a knock at the door. My cousins rushed to it before I could, giggling and whispering as they looked through the peephole. I shoved them away and opened it to discover one of the most humorous scenes I'd ever seen.
Ozai's arms were crossed, his eyes were rolling, and his foot was tapping out of deep irritation as he stood next to the Fire Lord's royal messenger. The prince must have insisted on accompanying him to deliver the Fire Lord's summons to—
Did he just say the word "tea?"
I'd been summoned to serve the Fire Lord tea.
"Thank YOU," Ozai sighed loudly once the messenger had finished his formal, long-winded speech, practically shoving him off the porch and forcing himself inside.
I took the scroll to relieve him of his official duty and then rushed to my bedchamber.
"Ozai, I need to change… Help me pick what to wear. Do I need to bring a teapot? Where do we keep teapots? What's his favorite tea?"
"Just wear clothes. I don't know. I'm not his tea-maker," he replied to the aid of no one as I paced from room to room.
"Help or get out," I commanded with a glare.
"But—"
"Meet me there before I go in. Now go. I need to think and focus and I can't do that with that infuriatingly gorgeous smirk of yours or those maddening—"
"You think my smirk is infuriatingly gorgeous?" he teased, almost grinning at this point.
"Of course I do now get out."
"Thank you."
"Ozai!"
"Yours is infuriatingly gorgeous too."
"I don't smirk. You smirk."
"Everyone smirks."
"Does your father smirk?"
"Not since I was born."
"Get out, you self-loathing dragon moose, you."
"I thought I was a phoenix," he teased as I shoved him out the front door, much to the shock of my spying cousins.
I shut the door on his back, and they gaped at me in disbelief.
"I have to serve the Fire Lord tea in two hours."
That snapped them out of it and went into emergency mode.
I spend most of the next two hours trying to convince them to leave my hair alone while they went over every step of the tea process for the eighteen billionth time.
I spent most of the next two hours pacing, and hiding from Iroh's inexplicable anger.
At last, the time came for me to meet her outside the throne room, and she—
Was breathtaking as ever.
My jaded "father" had seen too much of the world to notice beauty even when he was looking for it, though he probably remembered enough of it to decide within a few seconds that she looked the part of princess better than most.
She almost blushed as she curtsied and twirled to show off her robes, modest enough to represent her simple tastes but made of a rich, elegant silk fine enough to honor the Fire Lord's presence.
Then her nerves began to show.
"Do you have any last-minute advice? I mean, how should I—?"
He looked as though I'd slapped him across the face.
Then her nerves began to show, and I held her hand.
"Do you have any last-minute advice? I mean, how should I—?"
He looked as though I'd slapped him across the face.
I couldn't live with the knowledge that I'd influence here in this vulnerable, critical time. She didn't realize how much power she'd handed to me, to shape her future, her entire persona, and I loathed the idea of affecting her in anyway. She was willing to do almost anything, act like almost anything for me. I'd never wanted her to play this game of masks and machines. She shouldn't have to turn anything on or play any parts—at least none that I set out for her.
But if I needed it, she would do it.
If I needed her to be my everything, she would.
That didn't mean she should.
"You shouldn't feel like you have to be anyone other than yourself. For all I could say about Azulon, I can't deny his perception. He'll see you for who you are and esteem you for lack of guile and striving. Besides, this is my weight to bear and my mask to use not yours. I won't have you change yourself to please him, even if you can do it, even if you want to do it—"
"But if you need it—"
"I don't."
"If we need—"
He kissed the top of my head and tucked back a loose curl, whispering with soft, shimmering eyes.
"We don't. Just... be yourself."
Which version of myself? There's so many, including the sincere, real ones. And your version of me seems a lot more charming than any of mine.
"Lady Ursa, it's time."
I breathed in enough air for a lifetime before stepping forward.
I let go of Ozai's hand.