Azulon demanded an account of my last six months, so I told the story straight with a detailed and detached report.

He didn't believe a word of it. We both knew I was lying to his face without fear and without pretense.

We both knew I wasn't going to tell him anything.

He accepted the blatant lie and dismissed me without a word, not caring because of all of the victories I'd achieved for him.

It'd been such a short meeting that I didn't know where to go or what to do. Ursa wouldn't be expecting me for a while, though she was probably wringing her hands and pacing back and forth.

Definitely.

If I went back, I knew she wouldn't force a confrontation. I knew she wouldn't force even a conversation. She would want whatever I wanted.

I just didn't know what that was anymore.

I'd done so much to be here again, to see her, my children, yes, but mostly her. She was my life in a way neither of them could ever be, even if I loved them too. Now I had them. I had her. And I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't know what to do with the ashes and burns left behind by my trail, with the burdens I still carried and the burdens I left behind.

Iroh found me still standing in the hall.

"Zuko and Azula are with their mother," he began to explain but halted when it seemed like I didn't care why.

"Hello, brother," I said simply, waiting for the storm.

He seemed so surprised and disappointed by this greeting that he walked away.

For once, Iroh had no lectures to give.

When Ozai came back, Zuko and Azula were training, and we were alone again.

A soft, instinctive smile curled on her lips to kill me, and she gestured to some boxes on the table.

"I didn't know when you wanted, or if you wanted, to read, but I brought them out just in case—"

"I'd love to read them," he insisted with a firmness that gave me hope, squeezing my hand after some hesitation. "Do you mind if I start now?"

"Of course not!" I said. "I told the kids I'd see them practice, but if you preferred that I stay…?"

I knew the answer before he said it.

"No, go keep your promise. I'll be fine. Besides, it'll take me hours to read all of them, and you'd be bored."

I nodded and kissed his smooth—yet somehow hard—cheek.

"I'll see you at dinner, my—" I almost said love, but it felt wrong somehow, as if it was out of place and deceitful, a shallow pretense to disguise how distant I felt from him. "My prince."

This was not much better, and my voice almost cracked.

I left so I didn't have to see his reaction, or nonreaction, to the pain I know he could still observe, but I didn't make it very far down the hallway before the tears began to flow.

I feared they'd never cease. I feared they would. I feared how much the only thing I wanted was the source of my weakness, my selfish mess. I feared how much I longed to run into my best friend's arms and tell him all about how much I was hurting… because of my best friend.

Azula and Zuko spent all of dinner telling stories, interrupting each other, and bickering with glee because I was home.

They brought the first real smile to my face since I arrived. The first in months, really.

And they let me admire a smiling Ursa without forcing me to meet those eyes.

I'd read each one of her letters, some of them twice, so I knew many of the stories already. I knew how much Azula missed me and took it out on her mother. I knew how hard Zuko strove to be the best prince, big brother, and son possible.

I knew how Ursa struggled to stay afloat without me there, without the reassurance of my safety, how she was so preoccupied being everyone's anchor that she couldn't notice herself drowning.

I could breathe water. And for Ozai, I could breathe it everyday. He didn't realize this, and I didn't realize the effects of water pressure.

He reached across the table to kiss my hand. As his lips brushed my knuckles, my heart skipped a beat, all breath left my lungs, and I was sixteen.

Dessert arrived before I could whisper any declarations of love, and I ate with his eyes on me, sure he'd already sensed how much I'd lost weight and why. My appetite had already returned a few days ago, and I hadn't regained enough to escape his notice. I'd just had my nails done, so he probably wouldn't notice I'd refused to indulge in the one luxury I'd always allowed myself as princess. Months without a pedicure or manicure couldn't damage my skin when I had no cause to lift a finger.

"Is Dad going to listen to you tell a story with us?" Zuko asked as I started to send the kids off to take baths.

"Of course," I responded without thinking to glance at him first. I realized my mistake after I made it, but Ozai nodded in agreement. "But he's just going to listen," I reminded Zuko. "He's too tired to tell any stories tonight."

Azula and Zuko both nodded and followed the servants.

I looked to Ozai as he remained seated, staring off at nothing in particular with that perplexed brow of his.

I resisted the urge to ask. I resisted the urge to run my fingers along his brow to soften it, to take away all his heavy thoughts and dark memories, to bring him back to me.

"The Sun and The Moon," he explained.

We'd made up the story together some time ago, and my letters told him it was still Azula's favorite. She pleaded every night, sometimes again and again for me to,

"Tell me the story about how the Sun loved the Moon

so much

he died every night just to let her breathe."*

It was a story of lovers who rarely met but always chased each other. They almost always missed, they almost never stole a kiss, but when they did, the world stood in awe of their eclipse.*

"I think Azula's more like the moon than she'd care to acknowledge," I confessed after letting him think a bit more.

I nodded, unable to deny this.

There was a reason she was so romantic about the moon. It never asked her questions or begged for the answers, nor did she ever have to prove herself to it. It was always just there – breathing, shining, and in ways most humans can't understand, listening.*

Both the moon and Azula were timid in themselves, hiding pieces from the world. Then, there were rare moments when both were full, and it became hard to look away.

Like mother, like daughter.

Years later, I would realize another similarity between my daughter and the world's nightlight.

She had a side of her too dark for the stars to shine on, too cold for ever the sun to burn on.*

"Let's take a walk," I suggested, hoping that the gardens could welcome Ozai in a way I failed.

Once we went to bed, something was normal again. He wrapped his arms around me, and I curled into him, able to rest with speed and ease for the first time in an eternal year.

"I love you, Prince Ozai," I whispered. "I love you more than air."

He paused before he responded, very factually, "I love you more than I can and less than you deserve."

I kept myself awake long enough to watch him fall asleep, to feel his chest rise and fall beneath me, to study the way his lashes brushed against his cheeks. I watched him breathe in the peace without pain. I watched his closed eyes, his forehead, and nose, rememorizing the face of my Ozai, my love.

I slept in perfect contentment and peace for the first time in a year.

Until I woke up to his screaming.

He shot out our bed with a cry that was neither animal nor human, too soulless and too soulful, like his core was being torn in two.

"Ozai!" I heard over my own roaring. "Ozai, oh Ozai, what happened?" she asked as she walked up behind me. "What—?"

Her hand touched my back.

He spun on me with eyes that were pits and a gaping mouth that threatened to swallow me whole.

"ASK. ME NOT!"

I collapsed to the floor, though I hadn't been struck, and he tried to put the masks back on, to straighten himself and keep his distance.

But true agony—true anguish—is something not even he could hide. At least, not from me.

Guards rushed in, but I dismissed them with a wave of my hand. They left without glancing at Ursa, the one person I needed them to defend.

Ursa, my courageous Ursa, dared to ask the question again even when she didn't dare to stand.
"What happened?"

He spoke with that awful voice of apathy.

"You mean what did I do?"

I paused for a heatbeat before admitting the blunt truth.

"Yes."

He turned away.

"And why shouldn't I ask?" I insisted in the darkness.

"Because then I don't have to lie."

She'd found her feet again, found a strength and purpose, and I let her touch me this time, an immoveable object to her unstoppable force.

I took his face in my hands, rested my thumbs on his temples, forced his hollow gaze to meet mine.

"There is nothing you could say, nothing you could have done that would make me stop—"

"Yes, there is."

I didn't know whether to be angry or petrified as he tried to walk away.

"Don't you see how terrifying that is? You know where my mind goes. Don't you see how much darker my imagination and fear—Not knowing will eat me alive, Ozai!"

When he next spoke, it was with complete certainty, with a finality that crushed me even more than having to look into those changed eyes.

"Not as much as knowing would destroy you."

"That makes it so much worse!"

"Who said I can make it better? It's not my job to comfort you, Ursa," he said without scorn, impatience, or resentment, without any emotion or passion at all while I was a woman on fire. "I don't have that left in me. You've demanded honesty of me, and I've always given it. Why don't you return that and admit the truth?"

"Ozai, please—"

"I'm scaring you?" he asked as if it was some formal, distant thing rather than the worst thought I'd ever had.

"No!" I lied immediately, hating myself for the lie and hating myself for the truth.

"But I did this morning. I saw you, Ursa, and you saw me."

I knew it would happen eventually. It happened to everyone.

I'd just hoped it wouldn't.

But I'd learned the truth about hope.

"I'm sorry. Whatever happened, whatever you—"

"Never apologize for me again," he said firmly but still without passion, without the humanity I craved.

I almost wished he would cry out again. I almost wished he would throw something, set something on fire, even if it scared me. I was so desperate for him to show, be, feel something that I could grasp onto, that I could wrap my mind around.

"Please," I begged him, taking his face in my hands again. "Come back to bed."

Come back to me.

"Sleep."

Without bad dreams.

He tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear and pulled me close because he knew I needed it.

Not because he needed it.

"If I could begin to apologize," he struggled to articulate the unspeakable.

"I know. Just… just I'm here. Whatever you need, whatever you need me to be or not be, I'm here, and I love you."

"I know," he said, kissing my hairline before going back to bed.

It was the last nightmare to make him scream, but he sweat and shook in bed for several more weeks before he stopped, sleeping like a statue, imperturbable and still and…

Somehow I knew the nightmares still came.

* means that this is not my original work. It's either stolen from or heavily inspired by another quote that you can find online.