Rating: PG, probably. The usual: some violent imagery, but nothing especially explicit.
Characters/Pairing: This is the Ursa chapter! I really loved writing this one.
Summary: Some of the missing and/or dead mothers of Avatar: who they might have been, and things they might have done or never did. Each chapter will be sort of its own five-things fic.
Disclaimer: Places and people you recognize from canon are not mine.
Acknowledgements: GIANT THANK-YOU to my sister, for the beautiful art (unfortunately, I can't embed it here!) and the constant nagging. And, of course, to the ladiesbigbang challenge on Dreamwidth, for leading me to actually get off my butt and post fic.
Other Notes: This entire fic is basically super self-indulgent, but this is one of the more self-indulgent chapters; for most of the show, I was kind of secretly expecting Ursa to show up again, as more than a presumably-hallucination, and I was bummed when she didn't. I love what-if AUs more than anything ever, and I could probably have written fifty for Ursa, but here's five, anyway.
(Five things Zuko and Azula's mother never did.)
One:
"Everything I do, I do because I love you," Ursa murmurs into her son's temple, and holds him to her for one more moment. "I hope you understand that, and I hope you will forgive me."
Then she settles him back into his bed, and goes to kill her husband.
She has planned it all precisely; the guard will sleep just long enough for her to take his sword and drive it through Ozai's heart, and will wake with a bloody blade in his hand, the tromp of boots coming around the corner, and a purse full of Earth Kingdom coins in his room. No explanation he can muster will save him, and odds are that he will confess to it anyway, if he is tortured long enough. Ursa hates herself for what will happen to him; but she has made arrangements to provide for his family when he is executed, and while he may be punished in this life for a crime he did not commit, his next life will undoubtedly reflect his true innocence.
.*.
Azulon recalls Iroh from the front as soon as Ozai's body is found; now he has only one heir, and the Crown Prince can no longer be risked when there is no spare to replace him. The Siege of Ba Sing Se has ground to a halt since Lu Ten's death, so it is not as great a loss to the army as it could have been, to have Iroh removed back to the capital city.
Ursa cannot say she is sorry to see him, exactly; he has always been kind to her, and, more importantly, he has always been kind to Zuko. But it is a sad and painful collection of circumstances that has brought him back to the city, and it is hard to see the marks his grief has left on him. Iroh is quieter than she remembers; he smiles less; and the first time Zuko comes running to see him, shouting "Uncle!" and throwing his arms around his waist, Ursa thinks Iroh looks like he might cry.
Two:
"Ozai!" she shouts, and steps into the Agni Kai arena.
"Stay out of this, Ursa," he says, still extending his hand toward Zuko; but the flame that was growing at his fingertips has vanished. "This is not your business."
"My family's honor is certainly my business," she says. "It is my right to challenge you for the insults you have dealt to my son."
Ozai stares at her, uncomprehending. "He is my son - he is our son," he says; "this is ridiculous-"
"Do you refuse?" Ursa says.
Ozai's frown turns thunderous. "I refuse no challenge offered to me," he says.
Ursa smiles, and settles into a bending stance.
Three:
Ursa is banished, as she knew she would be; she has a boat prepared several days before Ozai is crowned and the decree takes effect.
She is planning to find herself some obscure corner of the Earth Kingdom, settle there, and wait. But there is a storm when she is crossing the southern ocean - a huge one, she has never seen the like. It gets so bad that she binds herself to the tiller, which is the only reason she does not wash overboard and drown when a sudden wave cracks her head against the side and knocks her out.
.*.
She wakes damp and too cold to shiver, to bright daylight and the sound of ice creaking and scraping against the hull. She has been mostly frozen in, but a few blasts of flame and the boat is free - and she also feels warmer, which is a relief. She wraps herself in every spare piece of cloth that wasn't washed overboard, and steers for the great span of ice in the distance that must be the South Pole.
.*.
She drags the boat up onto the ice as far as she can, but it was not designed for one person to carry; she melts some of the ice around it, so that with any luck it will re-freeze, and stay there until she returns for it.
She has only a general idea where the great city of the South Pole is - she was, after all, planning for the Earth Kingdom, and the only maps she has with her are of Earth Kingdom land.
So, in a certain sense, it is very lucky that she stumbles upon the ice-fishing boy with the club.
He sees her the moment she climbs the rise in the ice that was between them, and drops his fishing line immediately, taking the handle of the club with both hands and raising it to shoulder height as he scrambles to his feet. "Who are you?" he demands, bold and unafraid.
"No one important," she says, and it might not even be a lie now.
She keeps her hands up, away from her sides; the boy keeps the club high, but comes warily closer.
"Hey, Katara," he shouts over his shoulder. "I think maybe you should go get Dad."
Four:
Ursa is content to live in exile when she knows that it keeps Zuko safe and healthy. She hates to be away from him, but as long as it is necessary, she will bear it. But news of the Fire Nation Prince's scarring and banishment reaches even the outskirts of Gaoling eventually; and when it does, it is not long before Ursa leaves her house in flames and sets out for the coast.
Perhaps Ozai hoped she would never hear of it; or, hearing of it, would not act, softened and made lazy by her time in hiding.
He never did know her very well.
.*.
The trailing eastern arm of the Fire Nation has always been somewhat looser in its loyalty to the crown - parts of it are closer to the Earth Kingdom than they are to the capital city, harder to control, and it is more highly traveled, more exposed to the rest of the world, more tolerant of differences in opinion.
The perfect place to start a rebellion, Ursa thinks.
Five:
The terms of Ursa's banishment are very specific, particularly in the section describing how any and every citizen of the Fire Nation is permitted to kill her on sight. But on balance, she thinks, it is a very small price to pay for Zuko's life.
She goes to Omashu first; she is briefly tempted to stay, but it is too close. So she lingers only long enough to trade for clothes of Water Tribe blue, and leave her old red things moldering in a hole in the ground. She has heard that the Southern Water Tribe is slowly collapsing; but the Northern Water Tribe still has cities and fortifications. If she cannot lose herself from the Fire Nation there, she probably deserves to die.
.*.
She manages to gain passage on one of a small fleet of Southern Tribe ships headed for the north; they are heading for the front on the north peninsula of the Earth Kingdom, but they tell her there are many trading vessels that travel to the North Pole.
And, sure enough, it is not hard to reach the capital city of the North from there.
She is used to the royal court of the Fire Nation; compared to that, the people of the North are near guileless. They accept her claim of membership in one of the smaller clans from the South, her false name, and her offer of service almost without question.
And then comes the day. "The Chief's wife is looking for someone to chaperone Princess Yue," Yugoda tells her, when Ursa is helping her clean up after the healers-in-training. "I know you are bored here, Ushaka; you should go, and see if it appeals."
.*.
"I am Ushaka," Ursa tells Princess Yue, and bows.
"My name is Yue," the girl says, smiling. She must know that Ursa already knows that; but it is kind of her to avoid assuming, and introduce herself as though they are equals. The Fire Nation would eat this girl alive. "I hope I'm not too much trouble," the girl is saying, when Ursa starts listening again.
You can't be worse than Azula, Ursa thinks; the pang of that thought is a little deeper than she is expecting, but she can bear it. "I think I'll manage," she says aloud, and smiles.