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The Avatar Returns
Taisho did not return to his family's home. He merely stood by a river looking into it. His armor he had thrown into the river, he was quitting nobility, he was quitting the military in short he was quitting his family.
If Chulalongkorn was willing to give Fire Lord Ozai a phony prediction instead of try and put General Iroh on the throne then what reason did he have to stay? Their father had died alongside Lu Ten and Chulalongkorn was not willing to accept Iroh's birthright?
Taisho was young and proud. With his pride came an idiocy. Due to the death of Lu Ten, Iroh's only son, Iroh's bloodline had indeed ended unless Iroh married again and had more children. Iroh was fifty-nine years old when Lu Ten died and who knew how long Iroh would live without issue? As his younger brother, Ozai would have been Iroh's heir if he became Fire Lord and even then Ozai succeeding Azulon was a pragmatic solution to continuing Azulon's bloodline.
Still, Taisho could not see that. He only saw a betrayal.
As the boy brooded and fumed as he grew angrier and angrier as he thought it over, there was a question that came to his mind. Why? Why was he acting this way? Chulalongkorn didn't meet his father until he was fourteen years old, thus as Chulalongkorn was Taisho's older brother he himself had not met his father until he was seven.
Their father had been on campaign alongside General Iroh and Prince Lu Ten quite often. Their father had only ever thought of sending for their mother, never all of them. During their father's brief return to the Fire Nation, Chulalongkorn had asked their father why he had taken so long to come and see him. Their father's answer?
"I was fourteen when I met my father Meiji. The firstborn must ever be fourteen when he meets the Pretender to the Throne, his father."
Their father had been an old man. Their father had been older than General Iroh. Their father had been seventy-one when they met him and seventy-two when he died. Such marriages were not uncommon in their family.
Mongkut had married late in life. He was forty-seven when he wed the forty-five year old Amarindra. Their son, Meiji's father had been born two years later.
Meiji had been forced into an arranged marriage at the age of fifteen to the forty-two year old Sri. A son was born once Meiji had come of age.
After Sri's death at the age of sixty-nine, Meiji remarried. At the age of forty-two, he married the sixteen year old Somanass. She died in childbirth a year later. Their son lived.
Meiji them married a third time at the age of forty-three to the seventeen year old Debsirindra. She gave Meiji four children. She died after eleven years of marriage.
Meiji married a final time at fifty-four years to the twenty-three year old Phannarai. She gave birth to one child, Meiji's youngest son. Meiji died at the age of fifty-nine of a heart attack on campaign with Azulon.
Chulalongkorn was married himself. At fifteen he was forced into an arranged marriage to the twenty year old Shoken, a redhead as well. When Chulalongkorn said there were no redheads outside his family, he included Shoken into this as she had married into their family. Despite being forced into an arranged marriage, they were happy together.
Taisho had only one memory of his father. That one time he met him was it. He might as well have been a child of Meiji's final marriage because of how little time he had with his father.
As Taisho finished his thinking, he merely said a few words: "Out into the world I go."