A/N: Not mine; there were a lot of references that I wanted to get in, but we'll have to see how well the gaps can be smoothed over...
"Normally, a fellow Waterbender would have been the first to alert you, but I'm sure you can understand why Master Katara was not up to the task," Zuko said, accepting the cup as the three adults settled in for business, the children dismissed to go play. Even though Unalaq was younger than her, something about his fine boned face and fine bone china and her father's serious expression made Izumi feel as if they had made a mistake in not sending her to run along as well, but she was Firelord now. The five-pointed crown rested in her hair, not Zuko's anymore. She could handle the dark times, even if she felt out of her element in this austere northern reception chamber.
"But of course." Unalaq was perfectly gracious, perfectly steady, and as empathetic as the cold, hard chair beneath her, no matter his perfectly solicitous words. "Such unfortunate circumstances must be hard on her and her children. We all grieve Avatar Aang's loss." And Zuko, his daughter knew, placed the blame for said loss squarely on his own shoulders, even when there was no reason to. Zuko had blamed himself when Suyin ran off to join the circus, insisting that he should have been a better substitute father figure for Aunt Toph's girls as well as his own daughters, even though duty kept them in separate countries for most of the Beifongs' childhoods. Zuko had blamed himself for the rift between the Avatar's older two children and their parents, though that had happened long before Bumi joined the United Republic military and Kya set out alone for the adventures their parents hadn't taken her on. Zuko blamed himself for the criminal elements in Republic City, for Aunt Azula, for Mai no longer being there to rap some sense into her husband's head and knock at least a little of the unnecessary guilt from his overburdened shoulders. "I'm sure this is not easy on you, either, Firelord, what with the recent loss of your spouse."
"Oh? I do miss my mother, but there is nothing wrong with my husband, the last I heard." Izumi might feel like a wayward child, but she refused to be dismissed as one. Sig had stayed home while she and their son made these bittersweet diplomatic visits with her father, but Zuko was there as a member of the White Lotus, a help and comfort to his daughter as she trained her son. Izumi and Crown Prince Iroh were there to stand for the Fire Nation as they hunted down the new Avatar. She just couldn't make eye contact with Zuko right now.
"My apologies, Firelord Izumi." Unalaq bowed his head politely, but it still felt like rote condescension. Three years ago, people joked that Zuko had stepped down because Mai had been the true ruler. Now the gossips were just as quick to say that Sig was the one really getting things done as the power behind her throne, as if his title of Phoenix King were something more than a shared joke at her grandfather's expense and a way to maneuver around the ill-fitting traditional title of Fire Lady.
"We are all still adjusting." Most who knew the family said that Izumi had inherited her temper from her father, but it was Zuko who stepped in to smooth things over, even if he appeared uncomfortable at doing so. "Still, with your strong ties to the spirit realm, we would like to keep a close eye on your twins. It's possible that the next member of the Avatar cycle could not only be one of your people, but perhaps even one of your family members." The twins were a bit old for it, at two and a half already, but it wasn't likely that the White Lotus would find their next Avatar for nearly ten years yet, anyway. Bending prodigies like Eska and Desna would keep them occupied in the meantime, even if neither developed skills beyond their native water. Certainly the two seemed to run their mother ragged; Unalaq's wife had retired with an exhausted smile as soon as she'd greeted the guests and excused herself and the children, Iroh following somewhat reluctantly after his younger hosts and asking for a washroom.
"Mom! There's ice spikes and dead fish and a monster spirit in the bathtub!" Iroh burst in to the icy throne room breathlessly, his topknot askew and unleashing his long, thick black hair nearly straight up in fright. Speak of the fox-goat and it would come running. "It wanted me to bring it all our elderly!"
Izumi traded glances over her tea with Unalaq and her father, cupping the liquid close even as she applied more heat. The former Firelord raised an eyebrow above the scarred side of his face, but the northern chieftain barely looked up as he sipped his own brew. It had to be cold by now. "I have felt no restless spirits," Unalaq said, unruffled by the boy's sudden appearance. "Have you perhaps done something to draw their ire?"
Izumi liked this line of questioning even less than the northern chieftain conveniently forgetting her title, but her son answered before she could speak up. "I punched a fish, but it was coming straight at my head!"
"As your 'elderly,' perhaps I should see what this spirit wants," Zuko said, beginning to stand, but Izumi waved her father back to his seat, firmly setting down her cup.
"I'll take care of it, father. Chief Unalaq, if you will pardon me for a moment? Perhaps the two of you might discuss the Order's methods to narrow down the list of potential benders while I see to this spirit." Unalaq nodded, and Izumi kept her hand on her boy's shoulder, letting him lead her to the scene of the disturbance. She needed a break, even as early in the discussions as it was, and dealing with this offered at least a chance of keeping a certain level of dignity. She was loathe to leave Unalaq to assume negotiations with Zuko, but Izumi liked the idea of facing him alone even less. She tried, but she had never managed her mother's perfect stoic mask, nor her elder aunt's skill at manipulating others' emotions as her younger sister Honoria could. Aunt Kiyi had always praised Izumi's good heart, as if she could brighten someone's day with her desire for honest work as much as her father's half-sister could with but a smile, but Aunt Kiyi looked for the best in everyone. For now, though, the Firelord trusted her father to stall while she acted on her motherly heart.
The washroom was rather impressive, even for a Waterbending stronghold. Icy spikes ran in low mats along the long counter and sparkling walls, and the taller ones along the lip of the claw-foot tub were impaled with some sort of tuna-mackerel. The sodden remains of the punched koi, slightly cooked from impact, stared up from the seal-bear rug, while a watery form only a couple of feet tall stamped through the tub waves as if La were rampaging in miniature. "We shall have our rewenge!"
Desna's lisp ruined the effect only slightly, but Iroh's eyes had widened all the same. Izumi bit the inside of her lip to school her expression back into quietude, and then used the hand on her son's shoulder to tap twice and point out where Eska was refreezing the ice from her hiding place in the linen closet. Really, these two were amazing benders, and not only for their age. Iroh still struggled to bring forth the flames when he willed it at nine years old; he'd admitted before he left that part of the reason he'd retreated to the bathroom was in hopes of warming himself in all the hot water on tap. Catching sight of the little girl, the prince allowed a faltering, awkward chuckle at his fears, relaxing under his mother's steady hand.
"You!" the would-be water spirit extended a tendril in his direction. "You shall not laugh at us! We shall break the line of the Avatars for what they did to us, and have rewenge on the Fire Nation!" Iroh gulped again.
Perhaps Izumi shouldn't be surprised that Unalaq's children were already so eloquent, but it still felt like a sign of her relative incompetence. They must have already been subject to far more formal speeches than she had been at her own son's age to have absorbed such diction and allow Desna to parrot it back.
"Greetings, o great ocean spirit," Izumi played along. There were worse figures she would have to answer to than the next generation's indoctrinated images of her forefathers' sins. "We wish to bring balance back to the lives of the Northern Water Tribe, as they once brought balance back to the spirit realm. Is there some way we might appease the kin of Yue, our beloved moon spirit?"
She expected the twins to ask for some treat or toy, perhaps a show of firebending. They weren't yet three, and it might take them a moment to process what Izumi asked. So the little water sprite's immediate demand threw the Firelord slightly off guard. "I get to be chief, all right? After Daddy."
"I don't see why you wouldn't," Izumi allowed. The chieftainship was a little less formally associated with one family than the position of Firelord, but Unalaq, though a younger son, had inherited it from his father, who had in turn inherited it from his second cousin Arnook only because Arnook had had no surviving children…
"Me and Desna both," the little monster in the tub added on, and the hidden twin emerged to stand beside it. The waterbender in the tub still maintained the liquid disguise, but when they were right next to each other, Izumi had to reexamine her original guess as to which was which. The thick matching blue furs on small bodies made it harder to tell.
"The Firelord and her heir acknowledge it." Izumi nodded seriously. They'd figure it out when the twins were older, but as long as the two of them worked together as well as they did, there was no reason not to encourage fairness between the siblings.
"Eska? Desna? Oh, Firelord Izumi, Prince Iroh, I really do apologize for any disturbance." Malina held one hand to her throat, the other on her hip as she leaned against the doorway, caught between relief and exasperation.
"No trouble at all," Izumi told the chief's wife. She didn't know the younger woman particularly well, but the northerner had presented a much warmer, if less polished, front than her husband. Malina stood with her hair in a single loose braid down her back and little in finery besides her engagement necklace, offering Izumi the secret sororal smile of harried mothers everywhere.
"My mother would say that this is what comes from training a girl in more than healing bending, but we could hardly keep Eska away from her brother long enough to try to train them differently." The water blob melted away from Eska as her mother spoke, revealing a stony glower more troubling than the miniature ocean spirit. The girl was used to being talked over as if she weren't in the room. Desna's body language was a mirror of his sister's: two sets of slumped shoulders, two pairs of clever hands held loosely at their sides, two silver tongues silent behind clenched jaws. They both expected to be ignored and belittled, at not yet three. Malina meant well, but this cold north was a different world than the one that had made Izumi Firelord.
She would make sure it was a better one. She had enough of Sozin's blood for that. "I look forward to seeing what they both will do with their training."
The chief's wife was not a bender. Neither was her mother. The old prejudices of the northern tribe were repeated without understanding. That didn't make it any better to hear her lean down to her children's eye level and berate them in soft, reasonable-sounding words not simply for scaring their guests, but for abusing their art. Izumi smoothed her own Iroh's hair, gathering the fire within her before she stepped in to face Malina.
"Truly, it's all right," she told the chief's wife. "It is an honor to see what such bright young sparks can do when they put their minds to such efforts." Izumi made sure to make eye contact with each child in turn as she spoke. If Malina took the complement for herself, Desna and Eska would know that it was meant for them.
Wordlessly, Izumi took her own son by the shoulders and nodded to the exit, offering the twins a quick wink over her shoulder as the Fire Nationals returned to business. Those quick tongues were still too quiet; those hands too still, but the twin spines were straight beneath the fuzzy blue robes. Then Iroh stuck his tongue out at the younger children as he followed beneath his mother's wing, not yet quite as ready to let the past go. It was hardly diplomatic, but it drew a pair of hoarse giggles all the same, and Izumi relaxed despite what awaited her back in the main chamber.
Unalaq didn't look up as she entered. "Any luck calming the spirits, or should I step in?" the Water Tribe leader asked mildly, sipping languidly at his tea.
"Iroh and I have it handled," Izumi told him firmly. "Well, no luck with the Avatar yet, but I think I've found Mother's reincarnations," she added quietly to her father as she resumed her seat.
"Reincarnations?" Zuko warily noted the plural.
It wasn't diplomatic to lean in and share the private memory with her father. Izumi's own mother would have told her that proper ladies didn't gossip. The Firelord thought she would have forgiven this moment, though, with inscrutable humor glittering in the eyes Mai had passed on to her daughter. "Both of them can draw knives out of thin air and make them disappear just as quickly. Noble. Elegant. Laughs like a strangled jackdaw-rabbit, and the latter not nearly often enough."
"I honestly do sometimes wonder what would have happened if your mother had been a bender. Usually shudder in fear afterwards."