A/N: Mild time jump between the events of this chapter and the last, my apologies. As I got going I realized there was much left to explore between Ursa and Iroh.
Also, for those wondering, I've drawn Ta Ming from the unnamed, single-panel-appearance character on pg 26 of 'Smoke and Shadow' pt 3. Physically she exists in comics canon, but otherwise she's a total OC.

A messenger hawk was already well on its way from Ba Sing Se to the Fire Nation capital by the time Iroh sought Ursa out, finding her alone on the balcony of his teashop. Zuko, he knew, would have questions for him in the morning, but for now it was his nephew's mother who needed the most convincing. He had counselled her before regarding Ozai, and he considered it a great victory to have helped her relinquish her fear, but this was different. Fear for oneself was not the same as fear for another, nor was the fear that festered in her now the same as it had been for her youngest daughter. His platitudes – wise though they might be – of seeing with open eyes would not suffice this time.

Spread out below them, far as the horizon, Ba Sing Se was beautiful. The warm glow of lantern light reflected back at him against the yellow of Ursa's eyes, but she did not seem to see the splendor of the city. Iroh found himself surprised by how much the passage of time had come to register on her face – the crinkling of skin at the corners of her eyes, the lines tracing either side of her mouth. So much laughter, so much worry. So many years.

"May I speak frankly, sister?" he asked into the twilight. She nodded assent, inviting him closer.

Iroh approached, reaching into the deep pockets of his robe to finger a soft package wrapped in silk. He was reluctant to part with it, and yet could think of no better time than this. Perhaps the whole reason it had found its way to him was for this moment. But he would hold on for a minute longer.

"You would be more comfortable if we were sending a man to keep watch over Ozai, wouldn't you?"

It was a statement, more than a question, based on his tone. But Iroh left just enough of a query at the end for Ursa to deny it, should she wish.

"It shouldn't matter," she said softly, turning at last to face him head-on, "but somehow it does. To me, anyway. He still has his hands, his feet, his tongue. He's still him, Iroh. His mind and his heart haven't changed…" she trailed off, wringing the front of her robe in her hands. She took in a steadying breath.

"You all talk as though without his bending, he's powerless, that he poses no risk. But it was never his bending that I was afraid of."

Ursa lowered her gaze, solemnly.

Iroh withdrew his hand, gently clutching the package, and placed it on the balcony rail. Sensing that it was for her, Ursa reached for it, carefully weighing it in her hands. As she began to undo the fine strand holding the silk closed, Iroh spoke.

"I understand your concern, sister – " Ursa dealt him a disbelieving look, quickly looking back down at her hands – "but try to remember that this is not a marriage we are arranging. Ta Ming is to be his guard, not his consort. It is she who will have power over him, not the other way around."

He watched as Ursa uncomprehendingly beheld the contents of the package, her eyes wide but her brows drawn down low. It was a long plait of hair, russet coloured and wavy almost to the point of curls. Before she could ask, he answered.

"She sent me that after attending one of Zuko's re-education programs. Not even our defeat at the Outer Wall was enough for her to feel such shame."

Though Ursa did not have the martial background to understand just how truly profound an act this had been for a once steadfast, unquestioningly loyal soldier, she did have the knowledge of a Fire Nation woman, and all the inherent vanities that came with it. Whether as a sign of one's honour and place within the nation, or as a marker of beauty, hair was simply not a thing to be meddled with.

Ursa considered the braided strand reverently, taking in its length – it must have been shorn nearly flush from the other woman's scalp – and then said what Iroh had been waiting for her to acknowledge.

"Iroh," she began, her voice low, almost conspiratorial, "this is not Fire Nation hair."

"Nevertheless, it belongs to a soldier of the Fire Nation," he fixed his eyes on a distant point out in the expanse of the city, bringing his hand up to stroke his beard. "Ta Ming was a product of my grandfather's war as much as she was an agent of my father's."

War child. Bastard. There were words for Ta Ming's parentage. Orphan was as good as any, given how the unwanted girl had been sent to Harbour City, dropped on the doorstep of her sire's nation and left to fend for herself. A testament to nearly a century's worth of Fire Nation education and propaganda, she had somehow grown up without resentment.

"She has been in the army for most of her life. She is not driven by ambition, but love of her country, her people. She has no secrets. There is nothing he can use against her, and I doubt there is much my brother can do to her that she has not already endured."

"And what compensation will you offer her, for the acceptance and completion of so great and ugly a duty?"

Iroh drew himself up, his hand halted mid-stroke against his beard. Ursa read his hesitation, then scowled.

"Of course. She doesn't get a choice, does she? You're ordering her to do this."

They would have to. Their options were too few, there could be no room for refusal. Besides, Iroh mused, Ta Ming's loyalty to him – he had been her commanding officer, after all – was yet another reassurance of her neutrality. During the siege, he had once overheard the less kind of his squadron refer to her as 'the general's goat dog', calling up the image of a gangly creature with dripping jowls, obediently staring at a dish of food, but never touching. Unflattering a comparison as it had been, there had been much truth in it. She would not suffer anyone to lay a hand on Ozai, nor allow him to harm anyone else, if that was her order. No matter what her personal feelings toward the man might be.

Ursa took one last look at the long coil of hair in her hand, then carefully wrapped it again in its silk. She passed the small bundle back to Iroh morosely, her yellow eyes pleading as they met his own.

"Why didn't you challenge him when you returned, Iroh? If you had been on the throne – "

"And what?" the older man's voice rose unexpectedly, a wave of heat radiating from his skin. Ursa took an involuntary step back, surprised by how suddenly irate he had become.

"Throw my country into civil war? Threaten the loss of many thousands of lives in a squabble for power I no longer wanted, and all without an heir? No, Lady Ursa, you do not get to ask that of me." He took the package from her, roughly returning it to his pocket. With his other hand he pointed a finger at her.

"And what of you? You are quick to lay responsibility for Ozai at my feet, yet every day you were married you could have ended him. Instead you chose to reveal your knowledge to him so that it could be used against my father."

Ursa opened her mouth to speak, but Iroh turned his head, raising the palm of the hand that he had used to point at her. His expression was strained.

"No, I know. You acted out of love for your children. I cannot blame you for that. I am sorry."

He breathed in sharply through his nose, trying to calm himself. These were not words he would have been able to say six years ago, not after the Agni Kai. Granted, he had not known then that Ursa's abandonment of her children had been for the sake of keeping them safe – Zuko in particular – from both their father and grandfather. Still, as he had watched Ozai's hand descend upon his own son's face, something akin to wrath had kindled in Iroh. What kind of mother would leave a boy to this man?

Of course, the question turned inward soon enough. What kind of uncle had he been, to stay seated throughout the whole ordeal, to look away from his nephew's suffering?

Unexpectedly, Ursa reached her arm out to lay a consoling hand on his shoulder.

"I am sorry, Iroh," her voice barely more than a whisper, "You would be right to hate me for taking your father from you."

Tentatively, Iroh reached up and guided Ursa's hand from his shoulder, clasping it between both of his own. Her fingers were cold, his own almost uncomfortably warm. They were, he supposed, having a conversation much overdue, and one rendered all the more difficult with hindsight.

Grief had driven him from Ba Sing Se, and had followed him as word of Azulon's death and Ozai's ascension to the throne spread across the world. At first, his father's alleged denial of his birthright had stung – Iroh was well-aware of his status as the first born – but it was a principled sort of shame. He was supposed to be chastened by Azulon's unorthodox proclamation, was supposed to be angry that his throne had been usurped by his younger brother, but what really mortified him was that he could feel neither of these things to any real extent. There was simply too much relief in the way. Relief that he would not have to shoulder the immense burden of leading the Fire Nation, relief that he would not have to formally continue with the army or the Hundred Year War, relief that this was a decision made for him by the Fire Sages and by the people. It had been an abdication of almost all responsibility.

Of course, not all the people saw it that way. There were assassination attempts, several, and more than one was made into a terrible public spectacle. But it was the tea server, the one who insisted she acted in Iroh's name, that had forced his hand. Fearing as much for the lives of his people as for himself in the face of the new Fire Lord's rage, Iroh had been obligated to endorse his brother beyond the usual swearing of allegiance. Rising from his obeisance, he had decried all detractors, denounced any involvement or support of the attempts on his brother's life. The words had tasted like ash in his mouth, but there were no more assassins after that, and therefore no more executions, save the one.

As a sign of his leniency and appreciation, Ozai had the girl hung, rather than scorched.

Before all that, there had been sorrow, too. His return to the Fire Nation marked by loss compounded upon loss.

Azulon had been old, Iroh tried to remind himself. Still, Sozin had lived an exceptionally long time – something all attributed to the influence of the comet – and as Azulon had been conceived while this power coursed through Sozin's veins – there had been the expectation that he too, would reign well beyond the usual span of years. While he was no stranger to death, somehow coming home without his father to greet him had been one of the loneliest experiences of Iroh's life.

The man would have died, one way or another, though, and there may even have been some mercy in Ursa's contribution to his demise. She would not have offered Ozai something that caused great pain. He had to hold on to that.

Iroh cleared his throat, letting Ursa's hand drop from his own.

"No, sister, I do not hate you. We both know that Ozai would have found a way, with or without you. And it was wrong for my father to demand what he did, especially in my name."

Zuko had told Iroh the story, ultimately, connecting his father's cryptic slander of vicious, treasonous things to what Ursa herself had revealed following their reunion. Iroh still did not believe that Azulon could be mad enough to demand the death of his own grandson, let alone on the heels of Lu Ten's own violent end, but the man was gone. There could be no explanation now.

Ursa wiped at her eyes self-consciously, turning once again to stare out at the sprawling city. She finally seemed able to see it, all glittering lantern light and shadow.

"He was never cruel to me," she admitted, "but I never could forgive him for bringing us together."

Ozai's proposal had been a farce, of course. With Azulon leering over his son's shoulder, the literal will of the nation standing there in her mother's greenhouse, how could she possibly have refused? Though she would never concede it to Iroh, after hearing of his threat to Zuko, it had been surprisingly easy to decide upon dispatching her father-in-law.

"You, me, your father," she sighed, "we're all responsible, aren't we? Any one of us could have done something about Ozai well before this point, and yet we didn't, and now he has become a problem for everyone else to deal with."

Iroh actually found it within himself to chuckle.

"All the more reason for us to respect Zuko's decision in this, is it not?"

Ursa glanced at him tiredly, a small frown on her lips. Iroh continued, taking on a gentler tone.

"We had our chances, you and I. As did my brother. There is no point in clinging to past mistakes. What we have now is the time ahead of us, and ahead of your son. Like it or not, he has inherited the problem of his father, just as he will inherit all that we leave behind. Can we not make his future easier by accepting what he wants for his present?"

Ursa watched as several lanterns were extinguished. Slowly, the city was falling dark. It felt a horribly stupid thing to ask, but she had to hear it, one more time.

"You trust her?"

"I would have trusted her with my son's life."

Ta Ming would wait until the end of days for something if given an order to do so. Left to her own devices, however, the captain had a habit of prioritizing things as they arose. The letter she received by messenger hawk from Fire Lord Zuko and General Iroh had not specifically told her to wait, though it had not advised her to unofficially visit her new ward in prison, either.

Nonetheless, she had made the trek from her barrack to Capital City Prison, leaving her ostrich horse with one of the men posted outside. It was a reconnaissance mission, she told herself, no different from scouting out enemy territory.

As soon as she arrived, she knew something was wrong.

She had not expected a welcome – her arrival was sudden and unheralded, after all – but there had been something odd in the way the guard at the gate bristled at her, the way he mumbled the location of the prisoner's cell as though hoping she might not catch what he said. Odder still had been the absence of guards the further she climbed up the prison stairs, the highest cells corresponding with the level of security deemed necessary for their occupants. Though closer to the sun, the upper cells were also furthest from Caldera's warmth, often causing a strange fatigue in those prisoners who could bend. Escapes were unheard of, but even so, anyone who attempted to flee would have to choose between jumping from an impossible height or taking hundreds of steps down a winding spiral patrolled by dozens of men and women.

Former Fire Lord Ozai, naturally, had been sequestered right at the top.

As she neared her destination, thighs burning from the climb, Ta Ming ran a hand through her growing mane of hair. She had grown up with daily declarations of loyalty to Fire Lord Azulon, had spent five years praying for Fire Lord Ozai's health and victory, and now – due to her allegiance to yet another Fire Lord, long may he reign – she would be spending an untold number of days acting as guard to her previous sovereign.

She prayed to Agni that he wouldn't recognize her.

Though he had not known it, Iroh had not been entirely truthful with Ursa when he told her that Ta Ming was a woman of no secrets. The captain had precisely two, and she kept them well, but they were secrets nonetheless, and ones she had purposefully hidden from him.

The first was what she had witnessed happen to Lu Ten on the battlefield.

The second was what had happened to her after General Iroh sent her back to the Royal Palace with news of his self-imposed exile.

Broken arm in a sling, she had traveled for many days by foot, by mount, and by ship until at last she touched down on Fire Nation soil for the first time in almost three years. It had been a relief to be home, but one she felt unworthy of. She returned humbled, a survivor of a bloody battle whose only success had too quickly been abandoned. Perhaps it was fitting that her ship had not found harbour until late in the night, even the sun refusing to shine its light on the shamed soldier.

Still, she had a duty. Her general had given her a message to be delivered to no one but the Fire Lord himself. She had marched from the harbor, up Sozin's switchback, all the way to the Royal Palace, displaying Iroh's seal whenever necessary to keep her from hindrance. She had been too tired, too focused on her mission, to think it strange no one offered more aid to the Crown Prince's messenger.

Nor had it occurred to her that she ought to bathe beforehand. Reluctant as she was to be the bearer of difficult news, she was more opposed to being delayed. News for the Fire Lord, from his own son, could not wait. Not after what had happened. Besides, a soldier's information was infinitely more valuable than their appearance.

After days of hard travel and a journey on foot to the palace, the royal servants had disagreed vociferously.

"It is too late!"

"You are too filthy to be in his presence!"

"Can it not wait until morning?"

In the end, a compromise was reached. The servants hauled her to a part of the palace's inner sanctum to clean her and her clothes, wrinkling their noses at the sight and smell of her armor, and she had been allowed to deliver her message as soon as they found a spare robe to throw over her. Her arm they left bandaged against her naked chest, sleeve hanging loosely from her shoulder.

Not one of them told her of Azulon's passing. Not one of them spoke of the second son's coronation.

Nearly dizzy with the heady perfume of jasmine soap they had doused her in, Ta Ming had raised her good arm – message clutched within her fist – and knocked on the door she had been deposited outside of. Not the curtained entrance of the throne room, but a private suite of some sort. A voice too young answered her,

"Enter."

Steadying her breath, she obeyed.

She took the appropriate five steps into the room, then dropped into the lowest bow possible, pressing her forehead to the marble floor. The act was difficult with her one arm pressed between her and the floor, all her weight on the opposite shoulder. Still overtly warm from the forced bath, the soldier could feel herself begin to sweat.

"Forgive me, lord," she managed to croak out, "but I have news from General Iroh."

"Do you indeed?" the man's voice was drawling and disinterested. A moment of panic coursed through Ta Ming. This was not the Fire Lord she had expected to deliver her message to. It was Prince Ozai, not Azulon, who rose before her, a bottle of plum wine in hand, the top half of his robes disheveled just enough that she had seen a glimpse of his skin before her nose found the floor.

She had seen the golden emblem in his hair, though. That made it irrefutable.

Tucking in her chin, Ta Ming supported the weight of her upper body on her forehead, extending her good arm to indicate the roll of parchment she had been carrying. It was a risky move to make – she shouldn't do anything to make the Fire Lord lower himself, but nor had she been given permission to rise.

The man made a scornful noise, then said, "Get up, woman."

Ta Ming obeyed, keeping her eyes downcast. Ozai took the scroll from her once she was upright. Her hand free, she bowed at the waist, doing her best to make the Fire Nation salute, forcing the fingers of her broken arm to make a fist. Pain shot through her, nerves set alight. The message delivered, she ought to leave. A nervous thought prickled at the back of her neck – she hadn't prayed for Ozai's health this morning, had not known to do so. How many days had she been remiss in her duties to him as a citizen, let alone as a soldier?

As she took a step backwards, Ozai gestured at her vaguely with his hand, still holding the bottle of plum wine.

"Stay," he commanded, lifting the bottle up to his lips, swallowing deeply. "You've come this far. Aren't you curious what my dear brother has written?"

He broke the seal of the parchment unceremoniously, spread it across his desk and scanned the elegant characters, blowing a grunt of disgust through his nose as he read. Ta Ming continued to sweat, even as the residual heat of the bathwater fled her skin. She suppressed a shiver.

To her horror, Ozai's eyes flicked over her, as though he had sensed the motion. Quickly reverting her gaze back to the floor, she watched as, with the slightest shift of his foot, the fire in the room's hearth grew by several inches, immediately warming them. Had she braved looking up, she would have seen a crooked tilt to the Fire Lord's lips, a rare smile of amusement.

"Impressive," he said at last, "Iroh speaks well of you. He says you're the one who found my nephew's body."

The words were so innocuous, so straightforward, and yet Ta Ming couldn't help but sense a threat. It was the way he said them, even as deep into the wine as he was. If she had been set on fire, his tone still would have left her cold. She nodded her head in a short, respectful nod. "Yes, lord."

"Though, maybe the praise of a man who cannot even deliver word of his own disgrace isn't much praise at all," the Fire Lord sneered, crumpling the parchment into a fist of flame. "Not only does he abandon the conquest of the last great Earth Kingdom city, but he sends you, an inferior, to deliver his excuses for all but defecting."

Ta Ming bit her tongue, a flush of rage colouring her cheeks. Criticism of her beloved general was a hard thing to find among those who served him, and she was unused to hearing it without being able to respond. Worst of all, his comment made it sound as though she were a source of dishonor to Iroh, as though her very presence in that room somehow reflected poorly on him.

Never, she thought. I'd rather die.

"I live to serve, my lord," she finally said, voice hollow.

Ozai let out a bark of laughter. "Oh, oh yes, you and every other soldier, noble, and citizen in this nation. You all live to serve." The words dripped disparagingly from his lips, damp with wine.

He straightened from the desk suddenly, a cruel glint in his amber eyes. He took several steps toward her.

"Prove it," he hissed, "let's see how loyal you really are."

Ta Ming's voice was level, her face blank.

"What would you have me do, lord?"

He circled her slowly, trailing a finger along her shoulders, collarbone, as though contemplating all he could insist upon. Ta Ming straightened her back, standing stiffly at attention, willing even her pulse to be appropriately sedate. At last he stopped, hooking his finger beneath her collar pointedly.

"Disrobe. We'll start with that."

Ta Ming brought her hand to her waist, slender fingers working carefully at the knot holding her borrowed robe closed. After a moment of struggle – she was working by feel, vision fixed on a spot just beyond Ozai's shoulder – the sash fell to the floor. With a shrug of her shoulder, the rest pooled about her bare feet.

Her body was a mess of bruises and scrapes, pummeled as she had been by Earth Kingdom soldiers and their Agni-damned stones and discs. A burn across the back of her thigh told the story of an errant fire blast – one of the unfortunate realities of being a non-bender in a largely bending battalion of soldiers. Ta Ming stared straight ahead, telling herself that this was just another report, one which merely demanded her flesh as evidence. This is what the loyal look like, she thought. The loyal and the lucky.

Silence fell between them. After a moment, Ozai set the bottle of plum wine down against his desk with a thud. The woman did not flinch, offered him not so much as a quiver.

He reached up to toy with a damp strand of her hair, idly noticing how it curled too easily around his finger. Of course his brother would put his faith in a non-bending half-breed.

"Tell me, soldier," he leaned in close, breathing huskily against the skin of neck, "Are you not cold?"

Still staring over his shoulder, Ta Ming let out a dutiful, "No, lord."

He let her hair go, reaching down to twist one of her nipples painfully. The soldier took in a sharp breath through her nose, good hand clenching to a fist before overcoming instinct and flattening her fingers against her leg.

"Your body says otherwise."

"Yes, my lord," she grated.

The Fire Lord is as a father to his people, Ta Ming repeated in her head, he is Agni-blessed, and we are blessed to walk in his light. His will is our will, under his guidance we shall not be led astray. Righteous is his rule, he who rises with the sun, long may he reign.

If she never smelled plum wine again, it would be too soon.

His hand left her breast.

"Leave," he growled.

And as before, Ta Ming obeyed.

Looking back on the incident, one corridor away from where the fallen Fire Lord was supposed to be, Ta Ming wondered if perhaps she had not recognized the value of her injured arm then. Had not appreciated that a broken toy was so much less fun to play with. That it had not been her desperately maintained composure that frustrated him to her dismissal.

She had never told Iroh about it. And now that she was going to be the one with power over him, she assumed it was too late for such revelations. Better, perhaps, to simply pretend it had never happened. Better to hope that the haze of liquor had erased her from Ozai's memory.

As she approached, Ta Ming could hear an unusual ruckus of noise. Men were shouting, jeering, yet none of the cells around her seemed occupied. It was not a riot. She checked the faded number etched into a door, realizing she was only one cell away from her destination. A sick knowing slithered in her stomach.

She pushed open the unlocked door to Ozai's cell, taking in the scene of four men against one.

The parallel struck her uncomfortably. As she had been, he was naked, body a mess of injury.

But when I knelt, it was out of respect.

It is wrong, what she is witnessing. It is not the way. It lacks all honour.

The words are out of her mouth before she can debate their merit in giving away her advantage of surprise.