Iroh made it home a few days before Lu Ten's break, and he chose to pass the time playing Pai Sho with Ozai. Convincing him to sit down for a game was far from painless or groan-free, but my prince always caved to Iroh's persistence eventually.
The Dragon of the West could be totally inexhaustible and maddeningly optimistic in the pursuit of playing even one game with me. The hour it would take to play was never worth putting up with more than a week of his smiles and stalking, especially because Ursa liked to watch us play and always lit up when visiting with Iroh.
It was a sight to behold the princes' meeting of the minds.
They were both master strategists. But while Iroh best managed troops, supplies, and war tactics, Ozai specialized in manipulation.
He'd learned from the best, but it wasn't his training—or even his natural cunning—that drove him to develop it so well. However disturbingly talented my prince was at deception, it was his survival instinct that drove him. With a father like Azulon, Ozai learned to evade his wrath through masks. The son'swill was unbendable as the father's, but he appeared to be malleable. Every sentence was carefully constructed. Every expression calculated. Every reaction was restrained or exaggerated to benefit him in the end.
Yet for all of his self-proclaimed darkness, for all his self-loathing Narcissism, Ozai had more human decency than other man I knew. As tormented by angst and self-loathing as he might be, his hypocritical masks didn't contradict his core, his unbreakable sense of character, his deeply empathetic heart.
Not even Iroh had this ability to see and cut through his own hypocrisy. For all his platitudes and insights, General Iroh didn't always apply them to his own actions. He didn't always question the consequences of the roles he took. He didn't always consider the negative impact and destruction his roles meant for those outside his country. His peace-loving nature turned a blind eye to the inherent fallacies behind his military success. He'd surrendered to self-contradiction more than he realized, which was partly why he so deeply feared Ozai would as well.
Their games always ended the same way. Ozai would compete fiercely, putting in his best effort, draining Iroh and keeping him ever thoughtful, vigilant, and defensive, until my prince made a mistake slight enough to avoid his brother's suspicion but obvious enough to still be noted. My husband let the crown prince win every time, and Iroh knew it by now. He respected that choice and never mentioned it, continuing to play for the few minutes of Ozai actually doing his best. Those minutes challenged Iroh more than just about anything else, and he craved the opportunity to learn and test himself in any way possible.
Their game ended, Ozai stretched out by the turtle duck pond to soak up some sun. I didn't move from my seat, chatting and playing with Iroh instead. Ozai could hear our conversation and laughter quite clearly but almost never added to either one. He liked to hear me talk and laugh, and he knew how much I cherished every second with the other prince. In some ways, Iroh was my brother more than Ozai's.
As close as they might be, I never envied their relationship for one sole reason.
It was not because he was old enough to be her father, which was more than enough reason for Ursa. It was not because she saw him as an overgrown, overwise child, though she did. It was not even because she loved him as a dear brother. I'd never questioned the absurdity of a tenderer affection on either side.
It was simply because, as he admired her wit, grace, and beauty, Iroh could never get past her aversion to tea. To him, the drink was as sacred as the spirits. He could look past many things. He could forgive much wrongdoing. But to deny tea? She might as well have denied breathing.
To Iroh, the hatred of tea bordered on treason. Actually, it was more like suicide since he would repeatedly insist that the beverage was linked to breathing in importance.
In fact, it was that subject in particular that led to one of their rare, light-hearted arguments.
Iroh asked a servant for a pot, unfortunately seeing my eyes roll in his periphery. Amused by this, he began to deliver overly detailed instructions to the poor fellow and then asked if I would like any, answering for me, and continuing to delay the bemused messenger until I finally took the bait so he could escape.
"Yes, yes, Iroh, we all know how your precious leaf juice—"
"Leaf juice?" he repeated in thoroughly genuine horror.
"I was being kind. It actually tastes like dirt."
I interrupted them in order to distract Iroh from his indignation.
"You'll have to drink mine, Iroh," I said. "I don't want any. Not when it's this warm out."
Ursa struggled not to laugh at such an absurd statement coming from me while Iroh scolded.
"That shouldn't stop you from enjoying tea!"
Ozai scoffed and barked his sarcasm.
"The capital could be set on fire, and you wouldn't let that stop you from enjoying tea."
He considered that for a moment as some servants returned with the requested tea and as Ursa struggled to hide her chuckles.
"Well," my brother decided, "if an invasion reaches that point, there's no point in fighting back. Clearly, I'm the last firebender on earth."
The tea arrived, but the servants didn't see a jutted-out rock, tripping and dropping the pot.
Iroh gasped in horror, hand flying to his heart, while Ozai growled a warning.
"If you cry over that spilled tea, I WILL set you on fire."
"I love you too."
I smiled at the frank casualness of Iroh's affection even as Ozai feigned disinterest and mild irritation.
"But don't think you've distracted me from my point, Ozai. I have not forgotten your wife's greatest flaw."
Ozai rose as if to defend my honor, but he crossed over to me instead, his ever-smoldering eyes softening in a tender expression as he wrapped an arm around me.
"To be fair, it is her only flaw."
He kissed my massive, rounded belly and then my cheek while I curled up into him as much as I could so late in my pregnancy, resting my head on his shoulder.
Iroh's lips curled in approval at our display of affection. It still delighted him to see us so in love, perhaps because he was never home long enough to be sickened by our honeymoon period that refused to end. He still thought of us as newlyweds, and perhaps we did too.
It still warmed my heart to see Ozai so open in showing affection for me in front of nearly everyone. It showed his comfort not just in loving me but in being honest with people he used to resent and now appreciated, his comfort being around Iroh and Lu Ten again.
"Oh!" I cried as the baby began to kick, smiling instinctively even if it was the hundredth time. "I swear he senses every time you're near, Ozai."
"He?" Iroh asked.
"She," Ozai corrected, placing both hands on my stomach.
"He just wants it to be a girl because he knows I've always wanted a daughter, but I can tell this one's a boy. I just… know."
I didn't say it, but I also knew Ozai wanted it to be a girl because he thought being a father to a daughter would be easier than to a son. Having only Azulon as a model of parenting worried my poor prince. He didn't trust himself to be the father our child deserved, but I believed in him. I always believed in him, and I never questioned that he would know as much as anyone ever did, probably more, and figure out the rest from experience. Having only Azulon as a model of parenting gave him a lot of opportunity to learn what not to do, and there wasn't exactly a risk of repeating favoritism if we only had one child.
Ursa had been born a mother. She'd wanted to be one for as long as she could remember, for as long as she had her mother to look up to, memories of their relationship to cherish and adore.
I knew, before I even fell for her, that loving her meant parenthood. That didn't make me feel any more equipped to be a father. It'd never been instinctive for me. I'd assumed it would happen eventually because it's what Azulon expected. It was a fire prince's duty, meant to strengthen the family line and protect our claim to the throne and history.
But fatherhood never seemed real until she told me she was pregnant. I never expected to feel such… exhilaration.
Ozai's reaction had been immediate and instinctive, and he couldn't stop grinning for the entire day. Our cheeks hurt for a week, and he spun me around so many times I had vertigo for a week also, but I was so relieved. I had been worried about his concern, about any fears he might have over being an incompetent father or ruining our child, but his happiness gave me the hope and courage to know he could overcome those fears even if they did sneak back in, to know that even when it was hard and when we were both scared, we could do anything and everything together.
"We're both so certain of being correct about the gender, in fact, that I tricked him into agreeing that he'll name the baby if it's a boy, and I'll name if it's a girl."
"You don't want to name him?" Iroh asked.
"You immediately decide she's right?" Ozai interrupted.
"She's the mother. She's the one with life growing inside of her."
"Neither of us wants to make such a final, lasting decision," I explained. "He knows what names I like, but he refuses to admit he already has a favorite name too because he doesn't want to sway me. This is the only way I can get him to decide. Besides, if I do hate his choice, he'll let me change it."
Ozai confirmed this by saying nothing and simply kissing me.
"The mother is always right," Iroh commented as he drank. "Though I'm sure Ursa would love a bookish, girly girl to spoil with dolls and dresses and hair bows."
Ursa confessed, "Obviously, it's fun to play, but I'd want her to be independent and strong and aware she can do anything a man can—"
"Boy or girl," I said with an arm wrapped around the princess. "Anyone is lucky to be born to a mother like you."
"And here I thought you didn't believe in luck."
"I didn't."
A messenger came to remind me about a meeting with a technology advisor so I kissed Ursa goodbye and assured her I'd be back in an hour or less. Iroh insisted he could entertain her quite well, and I muttered something about how his delivery made even the most legendary war stories dull.
Iroh and I discussed the scrolls I'd read in his absence, having reserved such a conversation for Ozai's absence because it bored the fire prince to tears, but there was something else I wanted to ask him.
My brother-in-law saw that unspoken thought somewhere on my face and spoke in a soft yet serious tone.
"Ursa, you know you can ask me anything."
"Iroh, do you think… Do you think that firebending can corrupt someone?"
"Firebending alone? No."
I felt ashamed of the question.
"Of course not. I was being child—"
"But power? Yes. There is nothing more corrupting than power, which firebending offers to many people. It can be used for so much destruction with so little effort…" He trailed off and then looked at me sternly, as if he was interrogating one of his officers. "Is this about that burn on your elbow?"
I'd hid it well. So well, in fact, that Ozai hadn't even noticed it yet, but somehow Iroh did.
"It was my fault. I underestimated his heat. His eyes were closed, and I was reckless, and—"
"You should tell him."
"Why? It'd hurt him far more than the burn ever hurt me."
"But it will warn him to gain some self-control."
"I don't know of a man with more self-control! That's not his problem."
"Then what is?"
"I... I don't know."
Neither of us spoke for a while, and I reflected back on a conversation my prince and I had a few weeks before.
"Does Iroh want to be Fire Lord?" I'd wondered aloud.
Ozai didn't even have to think before answering.
"He only wants it because he knows he should want it. We are the element of power so it is our duty to strive for power and influence, and Iroh always fulfills his duty. Thinking about the why or thinking about what he wants hasn't happened because he was born into it. There's never been another option. He knows his role. He knows his place. He can afford to not think about it."
I'd known what my prince wasn't saying. I'd known that he thought about it more than he would ever admit aloud.
Ozai always wanted what he couldn't have, often against his better judgment, and he had a drive, an ambition, that Iroh didn't, that went beyond duty or roles, and that none of us truly comprehended.
Ozai was the embodiment of fire, through and through, and his thoughts revolved around that truth no matter how many times he tried to silence them.