Chapter 2
Searching through her mother's jewelry Ursa couldn't find the particular pair of earrings that she wanted. She could distinctly remember her mother wearing them earlier when they had gone to the dress shop, but now that she thought about it when her mother returned from taking a walk with the kids while she had her dress hemmed, the earrings had been gone. Where had they gone? She supposed that her mother may have taken them off and put them in her bag? Eska did have a habit of grabbing onto anything that dangled and perhaps she had been getting in the way. Ursa shut the box and went down to the kitchen.
"Mom? I wanted to borrow your sapphire earrings but I couldn't find them," Ursa said, standing in the doorway of the kitchen.
"My earrings?" Rina asked, distractedly as she cleaned off Eska's face from dinner.
"Yeah, the ones you were wearing earlier when we went dress shopping. You didn't put them back in the box when we got home?"
"No…I guess I didn't," Rina said, looking at her eldest daughter for a moment before looking away. Ursa frowned. Her mother only did that when she was hiding something. But what could her mother be hiding? "Why don't you pick out a different pair? What do you need earrings for anyways?"
"I'm seeing Ikem tonight," Ursa replied.
"You two just go and sit at the beach, you don't need earrings for that," Rina dismissed, shaking her head. She finished cleaning Eska off and put her down. "Down you go, why don't you go play in the other room?" Eska smiled and ran off to the living room where her brothers were playing.
"Mom," Ursa sighed, rolling her eyes. "I know that you don't understand but I love Ikem. He loves me. Why can't you be happy for me?"
"I am happy for you, Ursa." Rina looked at her with pursed lips. "I just wish you would be realistic."
"Realistic? What is that supposed to mean?" Ursa demanded.
Rina sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose like Ursa was giving her a headache. "I don't want to have this conversation with you right now."
"No, you don't get to do that. You can't just say something like that and then not explain. Say it, mom. You hate Ikem."
"I don't hate him, Ursa. He's a sweet boy. But you should have higher ambitions than marrying the son of a local shopkeeper. You are beautiful and young and a noble. I wish that you would be more realistic."
"I can't believe you," Ursa shouted. "I don't want to be like you mom, I'm happy with Ikem!"
"Young lady—" But Rina couldn't finish her sentence, Ursa was turning and rushing out of the kitchen and out of the house, slamming the front door behind her.
Ozai always felt better after some training. His meeting with his father had made him furious and the only way he had to relieve that tension was through training. He couldn't believe that his father was so oblivious to the good that Ozai could do. With Ozai by his side, they could dominate the world. They would be quite the pair, Fire Lord Azulon, and Prince Ozai. Iroh may be older, but he wasn't stronger and he wasn't a better bender than him. He surveyed the charred remains of the training dummy a few feet away. No. Iroh was not a better bender than him. He was weak, he had run to Omashu when his wife died, leaving his son here under their father's guardianship. Ozai remembered how he had cried and gone on for weeks. It was pathetic.
His father wanted him to find a wife but he wouldn't be like his father and brother. No, he would not be ruled by a woman. To do that would show weakness and Ozai wasn't weak. Fire Lord Azulon could think that Iroh was the superior son, but Ozai would make sure that in the end, he would realize just how mistaken he had been.
He would do as his father asked and spend the night getting to know the young ladies of the court again. He had been gone for some time, and they were all older and he hoped prettier. Ozai already had some thoughts as to what he wanted in a wife and which of the noblewomen would fit his image of his wife. He would have to be picky about this, his father didn't approve of divorce and he didn't want to be stuck to the wrong woman for all eternity. But in the end, Ozai would get what he wanted. He always did.
A smirk on his lips, he turned back to his sparring partner, a fireball in his hand.
"Ready to lose?"
"She is so completely unbelievable! I can't even stand her sometimes, Ikem, I really can't. She wants me to be like her, she wants me to marry some-some noble when she knows that I'm in love with you," Ursa lamented. "She expects me to stay home and help her with the kids, and I love them, you know that I love them. But it's not fair to me that she expects so much of me and doesn't even want to let me choose who I want to be with. She's absolutely infuriating."
She had been pacing back and forth on the beach while Ikem sat by the fire that he had started when they got there. It was an unseasonably cool summer night, and Ursa had been looking forward to getting to spend some time with Ikem. But now her thoughts were just on her mother and how angry she was with her. It wasn't fair. She wasn't fair. She expected Ursa to be somebody that she wasn't; somebody that she never would be. She didn't need a lot in life; she hadn't grown up as a typical Fire Nation nobleman's daughter. Ursa didn't understand how her mother could expect her to want the same life that her mother had had. It didn't make any sense.
"Ursa, come on, come sit with me. Please?" Ikem encouraged. "This spot next to me is reserved for you. But only if you stop talking about your mother."
Ursa breathed out and took a deep breath. She knew that this was hard for Ikem. She knew that he didn't like her mother, and her mother apparently didn't like him back. Rina did a good job of hiding it, Ursa supposed, but Ikem had always seen through her mother.
"I'm sorry," she said, finally coming to join him, resting her head against his shoulder, she closed her eyes. "I just wish things were different."
"Me too," Ikem said, interlocking their hands. "But one day I'm going to inherit my father's shop, and I'm going to ask you to marry me. That's a promise, Ursa. We're going to be a family."
Ursa smiled. "We'll have two kids."
"No, three! At least three. You like to stay busy," Ikem teased, placing a light kiss on her forehead. "We'll move into a beautiful house near the shop and you'll bring the kids in every day on the way to school. And then after they're in school, you'll come and help me run the store for a little while."
"We'll run it together," Ursa said.
"We'll make it the most sought after store in the Capital. Everyone will come and get their meats there. We'll be so busy and so rich we won't know what to do with all of the money."
"Yeah. And then I'll go and get the kids after school and bring them home and we'll do homework and I'll get dinner ready and when you get home all of the kids will go running to see you. And after we get the kids to sleep, we'll sit outside and talk until we're both exhausted and when we get into bed, we'll be happy because we're together."
"Exactly," Ikem nodded.
"That sounds nice, Ikem," Ursa murmured.
Ikem leaned forward and kissed her. In the distance a ship blew it's horn and she pulled away, laughing and shaking her head.
Xxx
When Ursa returned home, trying to be quiet, she saw her father sitting in the living room, waiting for her. Her mother was nowhere to be seen, and the house was quiet. She had thought that everybody would be asleep.
"How was your night?" Jinzuk asked, patting the spot beside him.
"It was nice," Ursa replied, walking into the living room and sitting down beside her father. "Ikem says hello."
Jinxuk was quiet. "You know that we love you, Ursa. Your mother loves you. She tries so hard for you. She just wants you to be happy and to have more than we have." She could see the worry on her father's face. Lately, whenever she looked at him, he looked older somehow. More worried.
"But I am happy, father. "
"We know." Jinzuk was quiet for a few moments. "There's something that we've been…not telling you."
Ursa turned to her father, concern on her features. Her father looked sad, and Ursa felt a pit in her stomach. She hadn't dwelled on the hushed conversations that her parents had had lately, but she had noticed them. Was her father ill?
"What is it, father?" Ursa encouraged.
"The money is gone, Ursa," he faltered. Jinzuk looked down, his face covered in shame. "People don't want to learn sword fighting right now it seems and my clients well…I haven't had as many lately. Or maybe they just don't want to learn from an old man anymore."
"You're not old, dad," Ursa whispered, tears swimming in her eyes as she looked up at her father. She had never seen him so sad before, and it broke her heart. "I'll get a job; I'll help provide for the family too. I can train to become a teacher, I love working with kids."
"You shouldn't have to," he barked, and Ursa shied away from him. She had never seen her father angry before. His face softened and he wrapped his arm around his daughter. "Ursa, your mother would hate to see you go to work to help support this family. I would hate to see it. You shouldn't have to work to make up for my failures."
"Then what can I do?" Ursa worried, looking at her father. Looking past her father, she noticed an empty spot on the wall where her father's swords once hung. She had noticed them missing a few days ago, and had assumed that her father had just brought them to the shop to clean them. But…what if…it suddenly hit her. Her mother's earrings. "Did…did mom sell her earrings to buy our dresses?"
Jinzuk looked away and Ursa knew that she was right. "Why would she do something like that? We don't need to go to his birthday party, they don't even care about us, dad! We're nobody to them. They don't invite us to court so why should we go now?" She argued.
"Your mother hopes that it's a sign that our status is improving. It's been almost two years since Fire Lord Azulon has asked to see us. We can't afford to anger him anymore, Ursa. Our position is precarious; we need to do whatever we can to stay afloat until I can find a solution to our problem. Please, don't tell your brothers or your sister about this. They shouldn't have to worry."
"Of course not," Ursa nodded. "I know that you'll figure something out, dad, you always do. I love you."
"I love you too, Ursa-bear," he whispered, kissing the top of her head.
Authors Note: Thank you all for reading and I hope that you enjoyed this chapter! The next chapter is Ozai's birthday and the first time that Ursa and Ozai meet. I'm so excited for you all to read it! As always, please leave a review if you liked it and let me know what you thought!
