It takes him nine weeks to become angry again. That anger that had been beaten into submission, belly-up, buried beneath everything, suddenly wrenched itself free. He felt it fill his chest, his soul, his entire being with rage and fury. Why did this happen? How? Had he been forsaken? Had they given up on him? Is that why he had failed? Were the spirits laughing at him now?
Laughing, laughing, laughing…he could almost hear them in his mind.
"Bow down to me," he began to snarl at the empty and faceless air. "Bow down before your King." No one would stand in his presence. No one would pretend they were above him, better than him—no one would look at him with sympathy. Bow.
The anger chased some of it away. It chased away the blank stares of the stone walls. It chased away the suffocating pity. But it only inflamed to a blaze the wanting, the wishing, the hating, the missing. He hated the guards. He hated the Avatar. He hated his son, his stupid and foolish son. He hated his useless, obedient daughter. He hated those damn walls, watching him slowly break into pieces.
He was crumbling. They knew it. And he knew it. And the anger smelled blood—and went in for the kill.
"Stop it!" he bellowed at the silent stones, at the useless flat bed, at the cold metal bars and the window that only gave him sunlight once every 18 hours as if to mock him. "Do not mock the Phoenix King! Do not mock me!"
(The guards outside would hear him. But none of them would laugh. They would simply avert their eyes, bow their heads, and feel discomfort lie over them like a heavy blanket. His cries were the only words to break the silence they stood in. No man had the heart to say what they were thinking. And no man had the heart to mock him more than his own mind mocked him.)
He never cried. His eyes would burn, his eyes would water, but he would never let the tears fall. This only fueled the blaze that was his anger, his fury. This dungeon would not win! He would not be defeated! He was King of all the world!
"I dare you to defy me!" he cried, his voice echoing off the cold, heartless walls. "I dare you to try! Worthless! Weak! Come and face me, instead of laughing at me from afar!"
After a while, he had already forgotten whom he was shouting at.
"I am the Phoenix King."
It takes one week for word of his madness to reach the palace. The scarred one on the throne looks away, his expression torn, but does nothing. His wife lays a gentle hand on his. Their children do not understand, and continue their play. The grandmother, lingering on the fringes, is the only one to act.
And when she walks through the cell door, he looks up and says, "Bow down to me."
She stops. The door is closing quietly behind her, and shuts with a 'click' that is too loud. They stare. Then:
"Bow down to me."
She knows he wants it—he needs it. He yearns to be King again, possibly just Lord. Anything. Anything more than what he's become: because he can't stand what he's become.
She's not sure she can stand it either…but for a much different reason.
"You are not a ruler anymore," she says slowly, taking measured steps forward. He snarls—and she sees no recognition in those dulled amber eyes.
"I am the Phoenix King," he states. Like a child, making it true just by saying it louder. "I am the Phoenix King."
She feels her heart begin to sink, lower and lower in her chest as she moves ever closer. "No," she says shaking her head. "You are not. You are Ozai. Ozai."
A few quick, anxious breaths of someone who is trying to catch up. Of someone who realizes something important was very, very wrong. An empty stare, then a spark. "Ursa?" he whispers. She smiles softly, and lets go of the breath she didn't know she was holding.
"Yes. I am here." Her long fingers curl around the filthy bars, and she lowers herself to the ground. "How are you?" She nearly chokes at the obvious question (so stupid, so foolish, she's not a teenager anymore) but manages to keep a straight expression. "Are you eating?"
"I didn't think you'd come back."
She can't tell if he's all there. It's been too long. She remembers the face, straight and serious and noble in ways she could never be. She remembers the eyes, clear but blinded to many things. But she cannot tell if this is him—if this is the man she loved, married, hated, loved, left. Maybe he was already gone when she left. Maybe he was just buried. Maybe this was him.
"I've been busy," she says honestly. Visions of her son flash before her eyes: tired but determined; casting eyes blurred with love at his wife; laughing with a young Airbender who was forced to grow up far before his time; hugging a short earth girl and chuckling when she punches him. "Your son is a wonderful Fire Lord."
Those eyes seem to become duller. "I can only imagine."
Is he resentful, or thoughtful? Resenting how his son turned against him and betrayed him and stole his throne away? Or thinking of how he wished he could see for himself?
In truth, Ozai is both. He despises his son, and he knows it is pity that keeps him from visiting. He despises the pity just as much. But he wants to see his son on the throne, the crown a golden flame above his head, commanding generals and servants and nobles and thinking he's doing a better job, damn him. It would be a hated sight. But he still wishes desperately for it.
Why? he wonders. Why do I need to see that?
Because he needs to see whether or not the world is going on without him.
Who misses the Phoenix King? Who prays for his return?
Does anyone remember him?
"Have they already forgotten me?" he asks her quietly, and she looks up. There. In his voice. She can't put it into words, she can't describe it even to herself, but it's there. He's there. That's her husband. That's Ozai. He hasn't been lost.
She contains her joy. "Of course not," she replies with a smile. "How could they?"
He glances away. "They could. They will."
Her eyes become sad. "They won't. Nobody will."
His eyes look up. "Did you forget about me?"
There's more than one meaning to his words. She catches it, and sighs.
"Never," she whispers. Even with her voice soft, the stones still make it echo and rebound in the empty space. "You are enough for me." She had been pursued by several men, all of them much alike. But a certain knowledge kept her at a distance. The knowledge that somewhere, a certain Fire Lord was trying to survive without a heart, never truly free. Not without his wings.
Not without her.
"Their loss, my gain," he says with the first smile she has seen on him in years. Her heart lifts. Her love, her husband. The one she fell in love with. He is sitting just across the bars from her, grime on his chest and arms and face, hair hanging loose and messy and stringy to frame the face she had always admired. He reaches up to take her hand, the one curled around the bars. She lets him, watching him with a tilted head and a crooked, happy smile.
He glances up. He recognizes that smile—but he hasn't seen it in years. It warms him from head to toe (it's been far too long) and he rubs her hand between his. "I think I may go mad in here without you," he says simply. She laughs.
"I've heard that before. Although I believe it wasn't a jail you were referring to."
"Close enough." He smiles as well at the sound of her laughter, and looks back down at her soft, pale hand in his. Then his smile fades—just like her laughter. "Will you stay?" he breathes. "Will you stay with me?"
Her smile fades. And slowly, so does the warmth that once possessed the former Phoenix King. "I cannot," she says, and withdraws her hand. "Ozai, I cannot."
"Please, Ursa—"
But she is already standing and walking away. He feels the anger return, the crazy anger that built into a wildfire in his chest and in his mind. He feels the pity begin to close in; but this time, it's coming from her.
The Phoenix King panics.
"No! Ursa, I will die here!" he screams at her retreating figure, now just a silhouette in the light from the hall. "I will die here alone!" She turns back—but it is too dark to see her face.
She sees his, stricken with madness and confusion and desperation. But those eyes are no longer her husband's, and so she turns away again. "I would never let that happen, Ozai," she whispers so that he can only just hear. "Never."
But then the door shuts. And he is left alone anyway.