I never believed myself capable of murder until I held my baby for the first time. In that wondrous, terrible moment, I was willing to anything—literally anything—to protect that precious head.
For the next week, I spent every waking moment watching him, adoring him, worshipping and protecting and refusing to leave the bedchamber.
Everything Zuko did left me in awe. I wept when he opened his first eyes for the first time, and I could barely sleep out of a constant need to watch his every moment, every blink and finger curl, every yawn and rise of his chest. His simultaneous strength and fragility entranced me. Ozai understood and loathed any second of separation; sometimes he even seemed to begrudge my turns holding or breastfeeding him.
Azulon visited once to look over his grandchild, staying for less than five minutes, but my eyebrow twitched for every second the Fire Lord held him. Had he held him for a millisecond more, Ozai would've had to restrain me to keep me from pouncing on our sovereign and retrieving my heart of hearts.
My prince usually had to force me to sleep, which I needed desperately and pretended not to that first week, with promises to observe and report everything Zuko did.
I appreciated this soon enough, especially seeing as Zuko always fell asleep to Ozai's lullaby… and always stopped crying, at least for a couple seconds, once Ozai held him. For the first year of his life, Zuko refused to go to bed without Ozai singing a lullaby.
Fatherhood always struck me as a burden I would have to learn, a discipline I would have to master with focus and diligence and constant education… It wasn't easy by any means, but it was so much more natural than I'd ever dreamed. I didn't have to learn to love him any more than I'd learned to love bending. In some ways, it was even easier than when I was falling in love with Ursa—though that might have had more to do with the experience and wisdom that came from not being a seven year old when I met my son.
I loved him fully and always wanted to be with him, but never as much as I always wanted to be with Ursa. I wasn't used to loving so many people, but it never interfered with the reality that Ursa was still my life. I did love her more than him, though I'd never phrase it like that. I loved her more, ever so slightly, because… she was Ursa. We'd vowed to be together every day for the rest of our lives, but our child would grow up and leave. He'd be independent, but Ursa changed my life and helped define and shape me into who I was. She was the source for any goodness I had, any ability to love someone other than her.
Loving Zuko was a privilege, raising him an honor. Loving Ursa was a prerequisite for life.
She was, of course, the best mother there ever was, and even as she constantly doubted herself and felt like she did so much, she loved every minute of it. I couldn't fathom how perfect she was, even in imperfections, how graceful and elegant she could be while changing the baby's diapers, as she insisted on doing without any servant help, how she could be so powerful and influential as a princess and champion of so many causes while being such a selfless and attentive mother… Everything she did was an inspiration to everyone who knew her, but she was still my Ursa. More peaceful and secure, wiser and calmer, a master of resiliency, patience, and forgiveness, but the light of my life in every way. I thought I'd never get enough of her, seeming to ache for her more and more each day, satisfied and unsatisfied and longing to consume her every inch and have her consume me as well.
Being a father terrified me, but she gave me the hope and strength I needed to do it. She helped me keep the promises I whispered to Zuko every night, the promises to never hurt him as Azulon had hurt me, to protect him as a part of me, to guard him from all pain, neglect, bitterness, and fear…
And to love him as Azulon never loved me.
Fatherhood showed me just how much Ozai had grown, and it helped make him the best version of himself possible. He flourished in it as he did in so many other things. It was hard. We struggled, we cried, we fought, we got mad and frustrated, but it was so worth it. We were so delighted and so in love, even if some of usual forms of affection and romantic expression had to be limited or put off until the baby stopped crying. It was a bit harder for him to spontaneously dance with me in the rain or kiss passionately up against some garden wall—not that it'd ever been easy with the servants around—when Zuko took his first steps at eight months old. Being a parent didn't alter my sweet, cranky, and Narcissistic husband's personality beyond total recognition, after all.
"Good morning, wife," Ozai greeted me one morning, returning from a morning workout as I watched Zuko sleep.
"Good morning, husband," I replied and met his gaze, Ozai flashing what I called his "tiger panther eyes."
"Good, good, good morning," he purred, crawling across our gargantuan bed to pin me down as I laughed and feinted protests.
"Ozai, the baby…" I pretended to complain as he sought to bathe me in kisses.
"The baby is sleeping," he retorted without any hesitation, running fingers through my hair and focused on me alone.
"As you should be," I insisted, and he pulled back for a second. "Don't pretend you aren't exhausted. You're a natural grouch as is, and you barely slept last night."
The bags under those beautiful eyes were proof enough, so he "hmm"ed and dove for my lips.
As if on cue, Zuko cried, and Ozai growled.
As I got up with a smirk, he glowered sweetly with that sad, little pout that always warmed my heart.
"I kept trying to warn you about this throughout my entire pregnancy."
"Yes, yes. Zuko's going to deny me all the 'beauty sleep' I need to survive, and he's going to do everything in his power to prevent me from seducing you as much as I want to."
The babe refused to eat but continued to cry.
"He wants you," I sighed, and Ozai rolled out.
I was more than a little jealous that Ozai was his clear favorite, but as soon as one of them smiled, I couldn't help but adore them both. Besides, Zuko's favoritism made it much easier for me to draw the two of them, to get Ozai to stand still for more than a minute.
"I still can't believe you don't see that he has your eyes," I told her. "The most breathtaking eyes in the world—"
"Perhaps," she admitted at last, "but he has your face, and I'm inexpressibly grateful."
"I do have fabulous cheekbones," I teased her and lulled Zuko back to sleep before she could slide out any art supplies.
Ozai onto the bed, admitting his exhaustion at last.
"If he cries one more time… You warned, and you warned, and I dismissed and dismissed with that—"
I burst into laughter at the memory of what had become a recurring joke, born out of some off-hand, false threat Ozai made in exasperation. I'd been in the midst of some lecture about how different things would be post-pregnancy, and he needed rest after seeking to comfort my restlessness and discomfort. Now that our lives revolved around our born baby, the attempt at hyperbole was infinitely more absurd and untrue than than it had been as we awaited his arrival.
"Oh, don't say it again!" I pleaded, sides splitting in anticipation as I curled into him and let him wrap his arms about my waist.
He started to coo it, but I silenced him with a finger to the lips.
"I do love your clever, empty threats—" In fact, I'd always believed his sense of humor to be the pinnacle of both wit and comedic delivery. His deadly, dry tone and dark, cynical view could articulate everything I'd ever felt or suspected, that sly curtness sometimes breaking my heart, sometimes inspiring my mind, and always making me laugh. "—but it wasn't your best work."
To disprove such an accusation, Ozai dropped all expression and spoke in the lethal monotone I could never resist nor grow tired of.
"I will bend all the fire I have, and all the fire I am, to burn him—"
His eyes flashed with lightning, and he dove for me a final time, but I dodged again, teasing him for teasing me, and leapt out of the bed.
"Ursa, come back."
"No, my prince," I insisted with rigid posture and an uplifted chin, standing next to the bed on principle. He rolled his eyes but listened to me order, "We've milked that joke quite enough," I said despite having never felt the slightest unease in it and never anticipating that I would even subconsciously. "I shall not return until you promise to never burn Zuko's face."
Ozai sat up to send me a look.
We'd both forgotten the original premise of this idle nonsense, the condition for such an impossibility, but neither one of us felt the least bit disturbed or unsettled any of the dozen times I said such a terrible thing. I never meant it. We knew that without a first thought, much less a second.
"That's the most ridiculously unnecessary oath know to man."
"Promise, husband," I commanded again, taunting him by coming near and then withdrawing.
I groaned and moaned, "Very well. I promise I'll never burn our son's face. Satisfied?"
"Very."
She grinned and thanked me with a kiss that lasted until Zuko woke up again.
The second pregnancy was welcomed with less enthusiasm.
"Ozai, my prince, please say something," I begged in the silence following my announcement. "My love, please."
I hadn't looked forward to telling him. I knew his reaction would be different, his first instinct a dark one.
We never discussed having another child, and I never expected of being pregnant again so soon, especially considering how difficult it was for our parents to conceive.
Ozai never said that he feared it. He never had to. The prospect was born of a nightmare to him, a guarantee that the sins of his father would live on, that the cycle of favoritism would remain unbroken.
His eyes flew to Zuko the instant I said it, and he solidified into a frozen stature.
"How can I… how can I love any child more than him?" he whispered as I clutched his hand. "As much as him? How can I approach any… secondborn milestones with half the joy…" he trailed off, trying to avoid my gaze.
I'll love the heir too much to love the spare.
I'll neglect a child just as deserving of my love, just as much an extension of our love, as the first sibling.
They'll resent each other for generation after generation.
"You will love them both," I insisted. "I will, we will… I'm afraid too. I can't fathom it either, darling, but we will—"
He suddenly knelt down, placing both hands on my still fairly flat belly, kissing the cloth between our skins.
I could never neglect my second. I would devote all time to my second, making up for any lost to the first. I would never leave the second alone to that isolation, that resentment… Ursa could love them both. Ursa would make sure Zuko had everything he needed.
But I had to pick. I had to choose, or I knew it would happen again. I didn't know anything else, so I had to do everyting in my power to do the opposite, to be as far from Azulon as possible.
Ursa probably sensed these thoughts, but I didn't speak them aloud for fear she would be hurt. She would argue and insist I need not forget any part of Zuko or lessen any love for him in order to remember and love the second.
I thought my heart was limited, that it could grow no more, and that love was a finite resource, at least when it came to me.
"We will," he agreed, but his eyes had dimmed. Something in him seemed so defeated, even as he squeezed my hands in his. "You and I will love them both."
Some fire rekindled in his chest, some warmth that all parents felt whether the child be the first, fourth, or seventh, and I brightened.
"Perhaps she'll be a girl. That'll be a different kind of love, and a different kind of palace with your family's history," I teased.
"A girl with your strength and my beauty?" Ozai teased with a tickle. "Let's hope she doesn't have Iroh's brain."
"You're still a bully, aren't you?" I chuckled, burying my face in his chest. "Zuko will get to be a big brother. Just like Iroh."
She couldn't see me frown at the thought.
"Yes. Just like Iroh."
And she didn't see my dead-eyed stare at our child. She couldn't hear me calculate how and when I should begin to distance myself, to let the lullabies die out, to focus on his discipline and education, on making sure he would be a good, loving brother independent of me, to lean him off of my time and attention in a way Ursa didn't realize.
I swore not to allow history to repeat.