A/N: This is a point-of-divergence AU; it can be spun off from either canon or Moths to a Flame since the point-of-divergence occurs before the start of the series, shortly after Azulon's murder. I will be operating on the same relative character ages as in Moths; this mostly concerns adult characters. This story represents "Ira" from my ATLA Seven Deadly Sins series.
The first chapter is also my entry for the Writers Anonymous Night Owl Challenge. The two leads (Iroh and Azula) are Fire Nation royalty and prodigies of wielding fire in combat. The setting is a fantasy pan-Asia. The royal family uses pseudo-Russian diminutive nicknames (Zulya, Zusha, Tenya). They are associated with light, sun, dragon, and dawn imagery. Eternal Dawn is the Fire Nation throne.
Characters: Iroh, Azula, Ursa, (Zhao, Ozai, Zuko)
Pairings: Mentions of Azulon/Ilah and Iroh/Lu Sha.
TW (chapter): Character deaths (including of children), grey-and-gray morality, mentions of human trafficking (Edo-era pleasure houses), usurpation and dictatorship, regrets, period-typical discriminatory attitudes.
Prologue
It is March 95 AG. The known world has been at war for nearly a century. Lu Sha, the Princess Consort to the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, and Prince Lu Ten, their beloved son, have both fallen in the line-of-duty at the siege of Ba Sing Se, deep in the Earth Kingdom over across the watery waste. Lu Sha's broken body has already returned to the Fire Lord's palace and awaits her funeral rites; Crown Prince Iroh has sent word he is ending the siege after over six hundred days and thousands of flameborn lives lost, but he and Lu Ten are not home yet.
The Fire Lord Azulon is grim regarding the disappointing end to the Ba Sing Se campaign, but he is grimmer still in the loss of his grandson. In a proud warrior culture that would brand the otherwise popular Crown Prince as a failure, the Fire Lord shows remarkable compassion for his firstborn. After all, Azulon loved Iroh, and in turn his son, as he had never loved his secondborn.
Prince Ozai has spent a lifetime in his brother's shadow. For many years, Azulon has dangled the hope of approval before his younger son. Tonight, Ozai finally understands: Azulon will never acknowledge his efforts or his worth.
"Father, his Princess Consort and his heir have both fallen. You see his dedication to Princess Lu Sha!" Ozai argues, tactfully leaving the fact that his brother's dedication to Lu Sha paled only in comparison with his father's dedication to his dearly-departed mother unsaid. "He will never take another. His lineage has ended."
Ozai asks to be made heir ahead of Iroh, but Azulon takes grave offence and orders the death of Prince Zuko, Ozai's firstborn, instead. To protect Zuko, Ozai's Princess Consort Ursa compounds an untraceable poison. Ozai slips the poison to Azulon and banishes Ursa; then claims to have been made heir on Azulon's deathbed.
During the mourning period for Azulon, and before Ozai's would-be coronation, Commodore Zhao stages a coup - his play for the throne was a long time coming, but spurred by the death of the much keener Azulon. He has even gained new supporters from those who reject Ozai as Fire Lord. The same evening, in Agni's fading light, Iroh's ship returns to the Capital Island.
When Iroh moors, he sees Zhao's supporters gathering. Even in his blinding grief, he understands - the sun is about to set on his royal house.
Ch. 1 Kingdom of Ash
Former Crown Prince Iroh stalked briskly through the flower district just outside the Caldera, a cloak with a heavy hood concealing his face in shadow. The plain fabric of the cloak is dyed a deep burgundy - just expensive enough to insinuate status that warranted anonymity. Without breaking his stride, he purposefully entered a middling pleasure house.
Before the madame could so much as entice him with available options, he silenced her with a hand, then pitched his voice more gruffly than usual. "Any assistants? One boy, one girl. Ten or younger. I'll be buying out their contracts." He produced a small bag filled with gold coins - a smattering of foreign gold belied the depth of his coffers.
The madame upended the bag and sifted through the coins. Genuine, and a fair price. It would more than cover the original purchase prices of two orphans and the costs incurred in raising them since. She closed her mouth into a polite smile. What a customer wanted with children so young was none of her business, so long as they paid handsomely for the goods. "Right this way, sire." She led the hooded man into a dim viewing room that looked into a much more brightly-lit adjacent room before leaving to arrange the array.
The minutes ticked by. A near-teenaged assistant entered once to pour tea. Iroh wasn't expected to be a repeat client; otherwise, they would have offered sake. He sipped cautiously, his hood still up. Not bad. Perfectly timed.
Finally, the door to the adjacent room slid open and fifteen boys and girls, clean but plainly-dressed, filed in nervously.
His golden eyes lingered on each child; some he asked to step closer to the viewing window. Children raised to be future courtesans were all kept out of the sun by default, preserving desirable fair complexions. Iroh additionally looked for dark hair and light eyes, but was ever-careful to obscure this goal. Though he dismissed many instantly, he feigned great interest in the shapes of their limbs and asked even the prospects ill-suited to his true intentions to parade themselves as well.
Outside the pleasure quarters, Iroh stopped by a darkened storefront and bade the two children into the alley with him. They obediently complied.
He knelt before them and looked them directly in the eyes. "I offer you employment in the Fire Lord's palace starting tomorrow. There are openings for Royal Gardeners; we are looking for young workers to learn the trade. You will be fed and housed well, but only if you are willing to work long hours under glaring sun or torrential rain. Can you do so?"
The boy and the girl instantly swore they could. Their previous fates as future courtesans had been bleak; even popular ones seldom earned their freedom before dying young. Long hours in inclement weather was an improvement.
Iroh produced two glutinous rice cakes. "Here. Mochi. It's a long trek up to the palace. You'll need the energy." It wasn't a total lie. As the children devoured the mochi - ground from higher quality rice than either had likely ever tasted - Iroh continued, "The Fire Lord's palace does not tolerate tomfoolery. Though it be a gargantuan effort to train new gardeners, we'll not hesitate to have you thrown out the gates should your work be unsatisfactory."
By the time Iroh reached the younger prince's estate just outside the palace walls, both the children had passed out from the sleep-inducing medicine Iroh had laced the mochi with; Iroh carried them both on his shoulders. Iroh found his brother's entire residence dark and devoid of human presence. He checked his nephew and niece's bedchambers just to be sure - empty.
Ozai sure didn't waste any time. Iroh thought wryly.
Taking a leaf out of his younger brother's book, he hurried to the palace.
At the palace, so familiar and now so foreign with flames where there ought to be none, Iroh caught sight of his beloved Lu Sha's casket; he swallowed the lump in his throat best as he could and moved along. He caught, too, the battle of flames between Ozai and Commodore Zhao. Iroh did not stop for this, either; he knew time was of the essence, and that he must not be seen in the palace.
Iroh hied up to the residential quarters for the Fire Lord's family. His own family's bedchambers were completely undisturbed; it seemed Ozai drew the line at, of all things, supplanting the ownership of private bedrooms.
In one previously empty bedchamber, he made out a small figure fast asleep in the bed.
"Zulya." Iroh gently shook his niece awake. The moment she opened her eyes, he shushed her with a finger to her lips. "Zulya, this is important. Give me your robe and put on this girl's clothes. We have to go."
Once the orphan girl was dressed in Princess Azula's sleep robe and Azula in the plain cotton dress, Iroh tucked the drugged child into Azula's silk sheets. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Azula reaching for an object that glimmered in the low lantern light.
Her royal coronet.
"Leave it."
Azula made a face as if to protest, already displeased with the orphan's plain cotton garb, but Iroh's tone brooked no disagreement. A moment passed, and realisation erased the pout. She pointed at something farther away on her lacquered vanity-desk. "My comb?"
"Fine. But nothing else." Swinging the unconscious boy back over his shoulder, he commanded, "Lead me to Zusha's chambers. Now."
Prince Zuko had been given the neighbouring room; alas, his chambers were empty.
"Where's Zusha?" Iroh asked, his voice rising in pitch with urgency. "Where's Zusha?"
Azula shrugged, a little alarmed. "Ever since Mother disappeared, Zuzu's been hiding in various nooks and corners to mope.
Time was running fast, Iroh knew. If Zuko didn't favour one particular place for solitude, searching for him would put Azula's safety at risk. Iroh closed his heart, operating with only the cold cognition of a deservedly-decorated general; he took Azula's hand and brusquely led her out of the palace, taking care to avoid the sounds of battle.
Once outside the Caldera, Iroh found a secluded alley and set the boy down, leaning against the wall of some merchant's shop, as Azula's heart began to beat less frenetically.
Iroh paused in his tracks, his niece's curious golden gaze burning into his face. He turned and knelt by the boy. "For the Eternal Dawn." One swift motion and the boy's throat was slit. He met Azula's eyes with a rueful sigh. "We cannot have him speak when he wakes."
Azula nodded. She had dismissed her uncle as a soft disgrace when his letter had arrived, but the flame of his soul burned clearly yet.
The violet expanse was still dotted with stars when Iroh's men dropped him and Azula off in a small, light skiff near a sheltered cove. The main vessel's lights were all extinguished, a testament to the superb nautical navigation skills of Iroh's trusted crew, honed by a lifetime of service. A bag of rations, a solemn exchange of "May Agni smile upon you" and then they were gone.
Iroh stared after his former ship's wake long after it had been swallowed by the restless tides. What trials and tribulations awaited his loyal men? They would surely be treated with suspicion if not outright interrogated. Should even a single one pay the ultimate price to protect him…
As he oared, phantasms of his regrets one by one came to join their lonely little boat in the ink-black ocean.
The siege - or, rather, six hundred days of failure. Though he'd been on the front lines every last day, he ought to be hanged for dereliction of duty. The dream had been nothing more than a dream, and he had been a fool to mistake it for a divine premonition. Not only had he failed to take Ba Sing Se as that dream had foretold, he'd managed to lose thousands of his citizens along the way.
Lu Sha. He hadn't even seen her since he and Tenya had been summoned after she had fallen. If she couldn't be by his side, warm and full of life, then he wanted to be cold in the House of Embers with her; but the spirits were merciless and he yet drew breath.
Tenya. What sort of a parent outlives his child? Iroh hadn't even written his epitaph poem. How long would his tomb go without? He and his mother had trusted Iroh with their lives, and he'd led them straight to early graves.
Father. Those early years when they were a happy family, when every new dawn was limitless and bright. When his mother had still...
Zuko. A literal child, weeks shy of his twelfth birthday. If only he had arrived sooner, perhaps he could have caught Zuko before he ran off to mourn the loss of his mother.
Ozai.
Ozai, the baby brother for whom he had been the sole true parent.
Ozai, the baby brother he could have - should have - tried harder for.
The poets of eld used 'a spring night's dream' as a shorthand for the ephemeral; Iroh could say with absolute certainty that the metaphor had zero basis in reality, for the moon spirit tonight was loath to abdicate its reign.
Unfitting for royalty, in lieu of silks Azula spread the moonlight on the bottom boards of the little skiff, as the Uji Maiden had done centuries ago. Though her eyes were closed, Iroh's regrets did not blind him to the determined grimness of her mouth.
"The celestial wheel of causality spins; the heavens move; and the sky soon will lighten. But there will be no dawn for the Fire Nation - no Dawn except that which lives in us."
Her only response was to shut her eyes tighter.
"Azula. After tonight, we will be nobodies. We must. I will be a fugitive in Zhao's regime, at the top of the public enemy list. And you - you will be dead. We will be as the earthborn, and silently bide our time, preparing ourselves, waiting for the perfect moment to - "
"Shut up!" Azula snapped, then quieted her voice to a hiss. "My entire family is dead, save the mother who hated me so much she abandoned me without a word of farewell. I have just lost everything I have ever known - "
"Zulya, your mother didn't - "
" - and you are waxing poetic about enemy nations - the same enemy nation that murdered Tenya. You swore you would all return safely - you all did. And I believed you - you, the Crown Prince who could do no wrong; pride and joy of our glorious nation; a golden hero for future court poets and common bards to praise in verse - "
Iroh grabbed her shoulder and pulled her into his arms, cutting her tirade short. One hand held tightly to the precious oar; the other stroked Azula's head.
Barely audible above the waves, Iroh whispered, pleading, "They were my family too."
In the distant horizon, madder pink began to stain the violet of the sky.
A week into her banishment, Ursa stopped to rest on her slow journey home to the backwater isle of Hira'a. The tides always left her seasick; she had to debark after every single day of travel by ship to recover overnight on land. She was lucky there was always an island within a day's sailing in the Fire Nation archipelago.
As she sipped a watery crab-lobster bisque at the inn's common hall, drops and snippets of other travellers' conversation reached her ears.
"... Caldera's gone quiet…"
"... killed the poor prince and princess…"
"... I don't care about the royals, really, but they were children…"
"... Commodore Zhao and the new queen…"
No. Ursa's grip on her spoon slackened; only the way it nested in her hand prevented it from clattering against the bowl and drawing attention to the former Princess Consort.
Ozai had been a petulant child, but he diligently trained at fire-bending - that much Ursa respected. Ursa had trusted him to jealously guard the children that were his own flesh and blood, not because he loved them but because they were his; and she had trusted that his flame would be more than sufficient to do so.
And now, he was gone; no one could forbid her from returning to the Caldera. Yet, for what would she return? Ozai was gone, and so were they - her heart, her soul, her light. And with them, vanished the only things tying her to the palace that was never truly her home.
It was all for naught. She had done something so hideous, so against her very nature, and it had all been for naught.
She was at a total loss as to how she would ever pick up the pieces of her broken heart. It was all she could do to pull herself to her tiny room and collapse on the lumpy bed.
A/N: This story is outlined as being five chapters, plus an epilogue chapter sub-divided into three sections.