Rating: PG, probably; some unpleasantly violent concepts, but nothing especially explicit.
Characters/Pairing: This chapter's for Sozin's wife - another one we know nothing at all about, so these are all OC/Sozin of various shades. Also, some Roku, Ta Min, and mentions of Roku/Ta Min.
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: In a technical sense, to suit the theme better, this one should be about "Azulon's mother"; but the things they never did all AU these ficlets so utterly that, arguably, Azulon was never born to any of them. So I went with "Sozin's wife" instead. Also, despite the fact that, if I recall correctly, Azula's title was going to be Fire Lord, in this fic I have chosen to change the titling system to Fire Lord/Princess and Fire Lady/Prince to indicate which person in the pair is actually regnant. So the swap in title in Thing Three from "Princess" to "Fire Lady" is a deliberate choice made by the person speaking.
Also, thanks very much to those of you who have reviewed; I can't even tell you how much I appreciate it!
(Five people Sozin's wife could have been, and one thing each of them never did.)
One:
Sozin's not sure what it is that wakes him - a noise, the shuffle of feet on carpeting, or a sensation, the breeze on his face from the suddenly-open window. But he wakes, and a moment later becomes aware that there is someone in his room. Someone who has just stubbed a toe.
"Ow!" the shadowy figure by the table hisses, bending over. "Who'd leave a book there?"
"Don't try anything," Sozin snaps.
The figure glances up, and then steps a little closer - into the light from the window, and Sozin can see now that it is a girl, not much older than he is. "Oh - you are awake," the girl says. "I thought you might be, but I wasn't sure."
"What are you doing in here?" Sozin demands.
The girl glances down at the things she's clutching in her hands - a couple of rings, a few gold hair ornaments, a small enameled box. "Uh, stealing," she says. "What did you think I was doing?"
It's a peculiar question; Sozin doesn't know what to say. "You won't escape," he tells her instead.
She looks at him for a moment, narrowing her eyes, and then suddenly smiles. "I will if you let me," she says.
This girl is the strangest person Sozin has ever met. "Why on earth would I do that?" he says.
"Because you're nice?" she says. "Look, I could have slit your throat or something; taking a couple rings isn't that bad. Especially when they're this ugly."
.*.
A week later, and Sozin still can't figure out why he let the girl go; so when he wakes up in the middle of the night to a breeze through the window and a shadow over his pillow, it's like the spirits are giving him a second chance.
"What are you doing back here?" he says, sitting up.
"You're interesting," the girl says, shrugging, and makes herself comfortable on the edge of his bed - on the edge of his bed, like he isn't the Crown Prince himself. Her presumption is truly incredible. "I didn't think you were actually going to let me go last time, and I don't think you thought so, either; but you did."
Sozin feels himself flush inexplicably. "So?" he says.
"So, that's interesting," the girl says, and smiles. "My name is Wen. Want to take a walk?"
.*.
It turns out that by "walk", Wen means "death-defying jaunt along the palace roof".
It's terrifying, but Sozin's not sure he's ever had so much fun in his life.
.*.*.*.
"Come with me," Wen says.
Sozin blinks. "What?"
"Come with me," Wen repeats. "You hate it here-"
"I do not-"
"Oh, yes you do," Wen says, rolling her eyes. Sometimes Sozin is so difficult. "You've never said it in so many words, but I know it's true. If you stay here, you're just going to end up hating yourself, and everybody else. Is that really what you want?"
"I couldn't," Sozin says, but it's not very convincing, and Wen can tell he doesn't mean it by the way he keeps his eyes off to the side. She knows she's right; he's told her before about how the years his mother has spent on the throne have made her hard inside, and as often as Sozin interrupts himself to say it's only right for a ruler to be practical, she can tell that he doesn't want that to happen to him.
"Come with me," Wen says again. Beating Sozin into submission through pure repetition has worked wonders for her before, after all. "We'll go to the south coast; it's beautiful down there, you've never seen a city in your life as colorful as Ma-Dan-Ling."
Sozin looks at her, pinching his mouth up as he thinks. "All right," he says at last, and Wen smiles.
Two:
Shien-Sa is not anyone important. She's some minor noble's brother's cousin, or something equally ridiculous; she comes from a tiny estate in the southeast, which everybody knows is nothing but farmland and scrub and pig cows everywhere, and she's only at court because the minor noble's brother made a promise he couldn't back out of.
So why Sozin keeps catching himself looking at her is a total mystery.
.*.
"All right, seriously," Roku says, and jabs one of his stupid sharp elbows into Sozin's side. "This is embarrassing. Go talk to her."
"And say what?" Sozin hisses.
"'Hello, I'm the Crown Prince. Love me'?" Roku suggests, deadpan, and then laughs when Sozin punches him in the arm.
As it turns out, Sozin doesn't have to go talk to her. He ends up strategically retreating to one of the balconies to escape Roku's relentless needling, and has strategically retreated all the way behind a column when Shien-Sa comes around it and nearly walks into him.
"Oh!" she says, and then glances at his hairpiece; her eyes go wide. "Oh," she says again, "I'm - I'm so sorry, Prince Sozin, I, uh-"
"It's all right," Sozin says, magnanimous and princely.
"-I didn't see you, I just - I mean, I was just walking, I didn't think there was anybody here - not that it's bad that you're here, that's not what I meant, and - I should just stop talking," Shien-Sa finishes. There is red all down her cheekbones when she bows; it's quite fetching.
"Wait," Sozin says, when she starts to back away; it's a little less princely, but he suspects Shien-Sa will actually listen to it. "Please," he adds, pathetically enough.
But it works - Shien-Sa stops. "You need me to embarrass myself a little more?" she says, with a small, awkward laugh.
"Well, it was certainly entertaining," Sozin says, "but I thought perhaps we could just talk, if that's all right."
Shien-Sa smiles, slow and pretty.
That settles it, Sozin thinks; he is doomed. Roku is never going to stop mocking him for this.
.*.
"Are you sure this is what you want?" his mother says, regal and distant behind the wall of flames.
"Yes," Sozin says, and he's startled by how true it is; he was always planning to say it, but he was secretly expecting to feel at least a little regret. "I want to marry her; you've told me yourself I can't do that and keep the throne. Santsin will do at least as good a job as I could have."
"Oh, I'm fairly sure I'll do better," Santsin says - but lightly, and when he glances over at his sister, she smiles back.
Three:
"But you do understand why he has to leave, don't you?" Toza asks, because she wants to make sure. Sozin's temper is so unpredictable, and he can be strangely unreasonable about some things.
"He's the Avatar, he has a destiny, he needs to be free of earthly attachment," Sozin says - all of which is true, but there is an ugly mocking undertone to his voice that makes Toza wish he would, just once, wear his upset on his face like a normal person.
She's not happy about Roku leaving, either; he's her brother, she's going to miss him horribly. But she knows that she's not going to bundle the hurt up inside and let it fester and rot away in her - she can't say the same for Sozin. She bites her lip, and then reaches out to take both of Sozin's hands. "He'll be back," she says quietly. "You know he will."
Sozin is glaring off at the ground to his right, but then he sighs - making the air ripple with heat - and meets her eyes. "I do," he says, and squeezes her hands.
.*.
For a while after that, he seems mostly all right; there are moments when he's suddenly sharper than Toza thinks is usual, with a cruel edge she doesn't remember from their childhood, but they're so intermittent that it doesn't feel like a real problem.
And it isn't, not really, not until the day the Water Tribe ambassador visits. She is a clear-eyed woman named Satora, with a face that, appropriately enough, makes Toza think of a still lake; and Sozin is so abrupt and disdainful toward her that it makes Toza flush with shame by proxy. Thankfully, most of it is hidden: only one comment is loud enough and straightforward enough to strike the entire high table quiet, and Satora smiles calmly in the face of it, instead of storming out the way she would be well within her rights to do.
Toza steers her aside after the feast, far enough that no one will be able to hear them, but close enough that she might be able to repair some of the damage - the court takes its cues from Sozin, but the impact of his obvious scorn for the Water Tribe will be mitigated by the honor of personal attention from the Princess.
"I want to apologize," she says right away, because there is no reason to beat around the bush. "My husband was - discourteous, he should not have said those things." She pauses briefly; but if nothing else, Satora has proven that she is capable of discretion, and Toza is fairly certain she is safe saying things to her that she might not say to others. "I wish I could tell you the drink went to his head, but I am not sure it would be true."
Satora ducks her head graciously, smiling a little, and then lets her expression turn more somber, and fixes Toza with those odd blue eyes - normal for the Water Tribe, of course, but the lack of yellow still disconcerts Toza. "I will return the confidence," she says, taking one of Toza's hands between her own, "if I may speak frankly to you, Princess."
"Of course," Toza says, and means it.
Satora says, "I think-" and then pauses, as though she is trying to figure out how best to say what she means. "I think - the tide is changing," she settles on at last, and then, with a small sideways glance back toward the tables, "and I fear it is not for the better."
Toza would probably have said that the fire needed banking; but she knows what Satora means, and she gives the high table a glance of her own. Sozin is not eating, nor is he drinking: he is holding his cup in one hand, making flames leap from the rim of it, and staring into them with the brooding expression that tends to precede his sharpest outbursts.
"But all flood tides must one day recede," Satora continues, and her grip on Toza's hand tightens briefly.
.*.
Satora was oblique enough that Toza can pretend not to know what she meant, and give herself time to think; the visit will last another few weeks, there is no rush. And, much as Toza hates to admit it, it is an offer worth considering, vague as it is. She loves Sozin, in the sense that she loves the person he was, and she still sees glimpses of that person in him on good days. But whatever generosity he once had is gone; the sentences he passes down are harsher and harsher, the orders more and more restrictive, and his mood increasingly unpredictable. He frightens her now, more often than not, and Toza does not like being frightened.
And then, a week before Satora and her entourage are scheduled to depart, there is an uprising in one of the cities on the eastern islands. Where once he might have sent a light patrol to help keep order and a court advisor to manage the complaint with the city's governor, this time he goes himself with dozens of battalions. It takes them two days to reach the island, and the evening of the second day, the fire-signalers stationed on the palace walls receive reports of massive civilian casualties. The morning of the third day, the sun rises violently red through the cloud of smoke hovering in the east, and Toza puts her face in her hands and cries.
Despite her best efforts, her eyes are still red when she asks a servant to bring Satora to her; Satora clearly sees it, and her face softens. "I am sorry," she says.
"So am I," Toza says quietly, and then lifts her chin. "If I'm going to hold the harbor against him when he comes back, I'm going to need your help."
Satora breaks all protocol to step forward and clasp her hand. "The fleets of the South are yours, Fire Lady," she says.
Four:
Shusula cares for very little, aside from her broadswords and her staves. She dreams of joining the army, but she knows the odds are not on her side; noblewomen do sometimes enlist, but her parents have plans for her that do not include a uniform.
When she first marries the new Fire Lord, her only worry is that he won't let her fight; so when he says dismissively that she may do as she likes with her time, provided that she fulfills her duties as Princess, she's satisfied. The royal Agni Kai arena is legendary. Having a couple of children and attending a few court functions isn't nearly as high a price as she could easily have had to pay to retain a fair amount of independence.
But, of course, it doesn't stay that simple.
.*.
Shusula is not a politically-minded person, but even she cannot miss the strange undercurrents of tension in the court. The Avatar and his wife are frequent visitors, but not cheerful ones. Shusula doesn't know Sozin well, but he strikes her as the kind of person who would revel in an Avatar with ties to the Fire Nation; and yet Avatar Roku's presence tends to make his jaw tight. Walking down the corridor to the Princess's chambers - Shusula can't quite start thinking of them as hers yet - she keeps catching bits and pieces of arguments. No, that isn't quite right: not multiple arguments, more like one long argument that keeps getting interrupted and can never quite be finished.
Sozin tells her nothing, and she barely even considers trying to discuss it with him; he is not a person who invites questions. She feels presumptuous just thinking about striking up a conversation with the Avatar. So in the end, it is the Avatar's wife she speaks to.
Really, it is mostly luck that everything works out the way it does. The Avatar is departing for his home soon, and there is likely to be a farewell feast - much as Sozin seems to privately begrudge Avatar Roku his visits to the palace, he would be an idiot to publically appear less than gracious toward the Avatar. Shusula has vague plans to make sure the Avatar's wife, Ta Min, is seated next to her, and speak to her then; only a light conversation, she thinks, enough to start an acquaintance that will make it less rude to push on their next visit.
But nearly a week before the feast, Shusula is stretching in the arena when Ta Min enters with a glaive - not one of the elaborate guan dao from the palace armory, but a light and obviously well-used weapon, clearly her own. "Oh," Ta Min says, and bows, beginning to back away. "I hope you will forgive the interruption, Princess - I did not know the arena was in use."
"No, no," Shusula says, and picks up her broadswords. "Please. Would you mind a fight? I can only cut up so much air before dueling nothing loses its thrill."
Ta Min laughs, and bows her head, acquiescing. "Of course, my lady," she says, "I would be honored," and goes into a fighting stance.
The duel is a good one; not serious, neither of them aims for blood, but Shusula manages to tear several holes in Ta Min's robes, and will undoubtedly have a massive bruise where Ta Min struck her leg with the flat of her glaive blade. After nearly an hour, they stop for water, and Shusula decides she may as well start asking now.
She's no good at being diplomatic; the moment she says, "If I may, Avatar Roku has been looking worried," Ta Min's eyes narrow.
"If the Fire Lord told you to speak to me, I can assure you right now that you will get nowhere," she says, tightening her grip on her glaive; the servant who brought them the water pitcher and the cups starts backing away nervously.
Shusula lets out a breath, and decides to be forthright: it is what she does best, after all. "The Fire Lord does not tell me what to do," she says, "and if he did, I am not sure whether I would do it."
Ta Min relaxes her stance, but her face is still wary. "Then why do you pry?"
"Because I want to know," Shusula says truthfully. "If the Fire Lord and the Avatar are at odds, then at the very least, I'd like to know so I can get out before the palace gets flattened."
.*.
"Colonies in the Earth Kingdom?" Shusula says, thinking she must be hearing wrong.
"We think so," Ta Min says, looking grave. "We are not certain yet. I think Roku wants to give Sozin a chance to tell him himself before he goes looking for proof. They were friends, once," she adds, when Shusula raises her eyebrow; "when he was younger, Sozin was - not so bad."
Shusula shakes her head. "Well, he's definitely lost it now," she says. "Invading the Earth Kingdom - what is he thinking?"
"I probably shouldn't have said any of this," Ta Min says; "now I've dragged you into the middle of it."
"I think it's better that I know what my husband is up to," Shusula says dryly. "And if worst comes to worst, and you need someone to drug him in the middle of the night, you know who to ask." Unpleasant, but true: Sozin has never endeared himself to her, and has evidently gone power-mad; if it comes down to a choice between the world getting dragged into a war because of one ambitious Fire Lord, and Sozin being shut away somewhere for the rest of his life, Shusula knows which she'll pick.
Still, she wishes she'd been a little more delicate about it when Ta Min blanches. "I hope it doesn't come to that," Ta Min says quietly, but she doesn't sound very optimistic to Shusula.
Five:
In the abstract, Sozin grasps the value of being married; but he's not especially eager to put that theoretical understanding into practice. So when he does decide to marry, he chooses carefully: he needs someone who will maximize his political capital without having much actual power herself, someone who will do what he needs and stay out of the way the rest of the time.
There are several decent candidates, but the best fit to his criteria turns out to be Shing Li Sun. She is the daughter of a lord from the north of the Fire Nation - he is a rich man, with considerable influence in the region, while Li Sun, by contrast, is shy and scholarly, with few friends. She will bind the north to him by association without having any real pull herself.
.*.
Sozin is pleased with his choice, insofar as anything pleases him these days. Shing Li Sun is just as he imagined: quiet, incurious, and perfectly content to spend the vast majority of her time in the newly rebuilt palace library. She does have an odd habit of conversing regularly with the servants, but everyone has their quirks; she doesn't try to talk to him, and that's what counts.
It has been nearly five years since Roku almost destroyed the palace and gave Sozin that ludicrous ultimatum, and the thought of it still tears at him. But the repairs are finished, the palace has been returned to its former glory, and, thanks in part to Li Sun, the nation is once again united behind him. These things go a long way toward easing his rage.
.*.
It takes a long time for Sozin to get the opportunity he wants, because he can't make a move as long as Roku is paying attention. Good thing Sozin has learned to be patient.
.*.
The day the volcano erupts, everyone in the capital city can feel it; the force is great enough that it even gets Li Sun out of the library.
"What was that?" she says, clutching her book to her chest and blinking at him over her spectacles.
"Something too far away for us to be in any danger, lady," Sozin says. He tries to keep the dismissive tone he usually uses when he talks to her, but he is looking out the window; the faint plume of smoke and glow of light are coming from the direction of Roku's island, and Sozin's heart is pounding.
"Oh," Li Sun says, somewhere in the background, but Sozin really isn't paying attention anymore.
.*.*.*.
"Tell me, Meiling: the Avatar lives in that direction, doesn't he?" the Princess says suddenly, pointing out the window in the lower hallway to where the presumed volcano is turning the early evening sky orange.
Meiling frowns a little and stops sweeping; after ten years, she knows that the Princess doesn't ask idle questions. "Yes, my lady," she says, slowly.
"And the royal dragons," the Princess says, supremely nonchalant; "anyone in the royal family may use them?"
Meiling stares at her, and then starts to smile, just a little bit. "Yes, my lady." The problem with the Fire Lord, Meiling thinks, is that he confuses external quiet with internal quiet; he thinks that because his lady rarely speaks, she also rarely thinks.
Meiling, though, knows better.
.*.*.*.
Roku clutches weakly at his chest and watches Sozin walk away; his eyes are already streaming from the heat and the stinging gasses, but if they weren't, he's willing to admit to himself that he would probably be crying. Sozin hasn't been a true friend in over a decade, but the weight of everything that came before has kept him tucked still into a small fond place in Roku's heart - apparently the reverse is not true. But there are worse ways to die, Roku thinks. He is a fully realized Avatar, yes; but fire is still the element closest to his heart, and if he has to go, it might as well be while he is surrounded by it.
He's closed his eyes and started to let his mind drift away, putting a little distance between himself and the sharp pain in his chest, which is why he doesn't notice right away when a hand comes down on his shoulder. The arms that loop around his chest, he notices, though; he's too weak to really be much help when they start dragging him, but he does his best.
Whoever it is manages to pull him away from the volcano's mouth and down to a clear patch of rock, and suddenly there is actual air in Roku's lungs, not a poisonous approximation. He is still coughing when his mysterious rescuer hauls him up onto something - a dragon, Roku thinks; his eyes are still too blurry with tears to see very well out of, but he can feel scales under his fingers - and then they launch into the sky, the blistering heat replaced with sweet cool wind against his face.
.*.
"Li Sun," Roku says blankly, aware that he has dropped her proper title but too surprised to worry about it. Besides, she just saved his life; she's probably not going to mind too much.
She smiles. "Avatar," she says, and bows formally, fist against open palm. "My husband has displayed some small flaws in his judgment. I hope you will do him the honor of teaching him the error of his ways."