WARNING: Graphic descriptions of battle wounds. If you've got a queasy stomach, don't read.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, just a fangirl.

1. Denial

"Courier!"

Iroh paused as he was about to mount his rhino. One of his aides moved to intercept the soldier who had burst into the midst of the general's camp, on foot and without armor to encumber his speed. Heaving, gasping for air, the sweat-soaked man handed the aide a short slender roll of parchment before he collapsed where he stood.

Iroh immediately abandoned the rhino. "You!" he said, grabbing the nearest person who happened to be rushing past in the chaotic scramble that is an army preparing for battle, "Get that courier to one of the medical tents!"

The soldier obeyed immediately, but Iroh had already turned to his aide.

"What is the report from the left flank?" Iroh asked, recognizing the seal.

"Sir!" The aide read quickly and efficiently, "General Ogan reports that the line holds steady despite a heavy skirmish a dawn at the second breach. He does not believe the enemy is aware of our retreat, but has ordered a diversionary counter-attack in pursuit of the enemy to ensure the illusion. Colonel Luten has volunteered his regiment and will engage the enemy within the hour. General Ogan and his division will fall back at the arranged ti- "

"What?" Iroh demanded, his face going livid. 'What does that fool Ogan think he's doing? Trying to wring one last drop of glory for himself from his men while he turns tail and runs?'

"General? General Iroh! What -!"

"Get yourself a rhino," Iroh ordered coldly, already seated on his enormous steed, "We go to the left flank."

Iroh was not even aware of his aide, who rushed away to scramble a company of cavalry to escort the general onto the battlefield. Ignoring his own injunction that soldiers were not expose themselves to unnecessary risk on this last day of the siege, the Dragon of the West galloped into the thick heat of battle.

'Agni who protects his warriors, let me not be too late!'

"General Iroh!" The murk of dust and smoke inhabiting the too-still breach swallowed the call whole, as coughs and wheezing gasps went dead in the ears of the men who struggled to breathe in the poisoned haze. The sounds of the battle near at hand, too, came eerily muffled.

"Luten!" Iroh called, his throat already scratched raw by the abrasive air, "Luten!" Abandoning his rhino, Iroh scrabbled over sand and scree, sending debris rattling and clanging as stones mixed with husks of armor. He knew that more than rock lay beneath his feet, that mixed into the remnants of the once-great wall were the remnants of men, his and the enemies. But he did not care, he could not care - only his son mattered.

'I'm not too late, I'm not too late, Luten knows better than to be a hero!' Panicked self-assurances as streaming eyes scanned the shifting silent smog. Climbing ever nearer into the city that had defeated him, every step closer to hands only too-willing to rip him to shreds for six hundred days of terror.

Only by chance did he notice the twitching of a red-gauntleted hand buried amidst the rubble he had been about to scale. 'Luten!' Hope without reason fueled strength beyond his aging muscle. 'Luten!'

The face, caked with grey dust and blood-mixed clay, could hardly have been called human - at the very least, it was not his son's.

"Where is he?" Iroh demanded, shaking the groaning Fire Nation soldier even as he freed him, "Where is your commanding officer?"

The man's lips moved, breath hissing through a dust-scoured throat. Instead of words, a great crimson bubble surged past his gritted, broken teeth, bursting with obscene slowness to dribble down his chin.

A momentary sanity took hold of Iroh. Gently, he laid the man down against the ground and loosened his breastplate. It only confirmed what he already knew - two knife-like shards of glistening ivory rib jutted from the man's chest. He was beyond the skills of any healer.

"Did we…" A rattling cough, and more blood streamed. Iroh leaned down to hear. "Did we win?"

"Yes, we did - you fought well," Iroh told the man - no, he was hardly more than a boy, now that Iroh allowed himself to look at him, "Your courage will be sung of in the halls of the Fire Lord."

Trembling lips worked into a shadow-smile. "Colonel Luten - is he…?"

"Where did you see him?" Iroh asked sharply.

"Ahead of… ahead… he lead… we… followed…" Suddenly, the soldier's body spasmed, a great rending fit of coughing and dark bloodand choked screams… and then, stillness.

Iroh placed a hand on the boy's forehead and bowed. "I'm sorry - but I must find my son."

The pebbles and stone shifted as he climbed the last hill, into the breach itself. Here, the gritty mist cleared somewhat, here he could breathe and not feel his lungs being scoured away, here he could see even the very greatest and last wall of Ba Sing Sei.

Here, he could see his son, standing in the breach, his face resolutely fixed toward the defiant city...

"Luten!" Iroh called happily, lunging up the last distance between them. "Luten, my son, you -!"

… the single shaft of stone, piercing his son through, so that his feet remained rooted in the earth that had killed him, mocking.

"LUTEN!"

It can't be true, it can't happen to the one I love. This is just a terrible dream that I can wake up from. This is not true...