Zuko sat in his office, staring off towards the ceiling. His fingers drummed along the top of his desk. Occasionally his eyes descended to take in the piles of papers that required his attention, his seal and signature, but he couldn't bring himself to look at them.
Khazhida had never sat in the Fire Lord's office. He'd never utilised the Royal Seal. He'd never even sat upon the Dragon Throne behind the curtain of flames. Those staples of the Fire Lord didn't exist then. The Palace as it was now was only five hundred years old, and the one before that hadn't been the one built by Khazhida and his followers. The Seal of the Royal Family wouldn't be created until two hundred years after Khazhida's death; though it did use aspects of the man's personal crest. As for the Dragon Throne, that was crafted in the latter years of Sozin's reign, after he declared open season on the dragons.
After leaving the Catacombs, Zuko had gone straight to the Royal Library and found every scroll he could on the First Fire Lord. There wasn't much; and what was there was mostly legends, mythology. Very little in terms of concrete facts about the Fire Nation's Founder.
Zuko thought of the man that he'd met, the memory of the man. He thought of tired eyes and a warm smile. He thought of the warrior's physique and the gentle, comforting hands. He thought of a young man who looked far too old. It made him sad in a way he couldn't quite articulate.
Zuko rose from his chair and stepped out from behind his paperwork-laden desk. It would keep, for now. He exited the office.
As servants and guards passed him, each one bowed deeply, the bow of a subject to their Lord. He made a point of nodding his head to them; he tried to give that same warm smile that Khazhida had given him. He doubted he'd been successful; his smiles always seemed a little forced to him unless someone startled them out of him. Still, he thought, maybe it would come with practice.
Zuko found himself walking through the portrait gallery, specifically the wing dedicated to the Lords and Ladies of Fire. There wasn't a portrait of Fire Lord Khazhida; the practice began five hundred years after his reign had ended. The closest thing that existed was in the main gallery, a painting by an unknown artist that showed a broad-shouldered figured, crowned, and shrouded in flames. Zuko didn't know the original title, but Sozin had renamed it 'The Birth of a Nation'. Zuko chose not to go and look at it; it bore no resemblance to the man he'd met in the Dragonbone Catacombs.
He stopped beside his own official portrait. He frowned absently at it. It had been completed a few months after his coronation. His scar looked bold against the paleness of his skin, and the crown and robes looked awkward on him. He half-smiled; he still felt awkward in them, like he was wearing a costume.
He walked away from him his portrait. He had paperwork to do.