I couldn't sleep in our bed without him. I refused to, moving into the bedchamber that had supposedly been my own all along. Azula and Zuko would climb in bed with me every night, either because they missed their father or because they knew how much I did. I couldn't fall asleep without a firebender next to me, and the bed was large enough for six adults to sleep in anyway.

It wasn't the same, of course. I never slept or peacefully. Not in his absence.

Most people felt Ozai's presence as a heavy weight, but I never did. Even when he infuriated me, his presence took all burdens off of me, lightening my load so I was lighter than air, floating and finally free to breath. The heavy weight only came from his absence. I felt what I was missing more than I'd ever felt what I had. Missing him was constant claustrophobia and suffocation. Missing him was a phantom limb's constant ache.

Children rarely react the way you expect. Zuko, instead of mourning, sulking, or panicking, almost flourished after his father left. He worked so hard to be independent, to take the lead and take care of his family members, to be the prince his father wanted him to be. His resilience and hope inspired me constantly. His selfless heart always sought to comfort me, please me, and make me proud.

Azula, meanwhile, seemed to change overnight. Perhaps that's too strong. She'd never been an easy child, but Ozai leaving was a catalyst. She missed him so much that she acted out in every way she could, as if she thought it could force him home somehow. She made everything difficult. She took delight in exhausting and exasperating me, often in ways that no one else would realize, in ways I myself couldn't be sure whether or not she'd intended it to occur.

No child should've been so sneaky and manipulative, so cunning and knowing, and she increased my need for Ozai exponentially. I missed him so much. I was so certain he would know what to do, how to handle her. With each passing day, I felt like I had less and less in common with my princess, my baby…

Azula treated servants like servants, which shouldn't have surprised me. After all, Ozai did too. They were born into royalty, and I was not, but I couldn't stomach her absurdly sense of superiority. She treated her social inferiors as if they were her moral inferiors as well, and she'd say things, do things… The urge to slap her could be almost irresistible sometimes.

But then she'd hurt herself by accident, then she'd apologize or show some sign of kindness or display something she'd learned or improved on, then she'd crinkle her little brow as she worked so hard or played with Zuko, those Ozai eyes so focused and so golden…

I loved her even more for breaking my heart.

She became more and more impossible, as did living in the capital without him, so I decided to take the children on a tour of the Fire Nation. Convincing Azulon it was his idea was easy enough, as long as I served him his tea well, and he gave me permission after a few weeks. It was important for them to know their country, their people, and there were fewer constant reminders of who was missing.

Azula became much more manageable as we explored more and more.

For six months, his scrolls came like clockwork. One came every week, each addressed with, "Beloved." It was a word he so rarely spoke aloud, except in the most sacred moments, but writing freed him.

He loathed pet names. Always had and always would. But Beloved wasn't a pet name so much as it was a simple truth. In writing, he could call me his beloved again and again without fear of embarrassment or hyperbole, without fear of the word losing its power.

Reading and rereading his letters sustained me in a way I can't express. They were so full of him, his voice that I missed so deeply, his dry little comments that forced me to laugh out loud every time because of his casually brilliant wit and snark, his paragraphs written for me to regale the children with, his confessions of how deeply he missed us, how flavorless everything seemed without me. He'd send drawings and descriptions of every locale they visited, every piece of architecture or scenic view he wished I could see. He'd write truthfully and honestly about what he and his men did, the villages they colonized on the way from one air temple to the next, but most of it did seem quite dull. Most of his time was consumed by searching and re-searching air nomad temples that held no signs of human life, navigating the ocean, "conquering" villages that surrendered immediately anyway, and so on. When he missed us the most, he'd write the replies he imagined I would say, always knowing how I'd think or react to his comments and ideas, or he'd write stories about what Zuko and Azula were doing, imagining and detailing the small adventures in growing up that he missed out on.

In six months, they searched each temple twice over, and several villagers fell into their laps, while Azula, Zuko, and I visited every island in the Fire Nation and then some colonies. They loved exploring every inch of their homeland, and I loved watching them explore. Their eyes of wonder and our nonsensical games. The stories we'd play, or even dance, out. The stories we read and heard and retold.

Unfortunately, one of those adventures left me very ill, bedridden and hallucinating, for an entire week. One minute, I was on a beach, and the next was all fog. Differentiating between dream and reality was impossible because nothing I saw or heard made sense. I saw an earthbender and a flying platypus bear. I saw fire nation soldiers and earth kingdom villagers burn to ash. I saw nurses but could never make out what they were saying, even though I seemed to be answering them. Sometimes everything seemed to be on fire. I heard weeping and screaming and a voice, a voice so unearthly and surreal and terribly familiar. An impossible voice beyond recognition as the one I fell in love with yet unmistakably his.

The only time I knew I was dreaming was when I saw his face. When I heard his scream. It dug into my soul and tore inside my chest for longer than I thought a body could stand.

My prince in agony. In anguish. Screaming with tears in his eyes. A man on fire. Or was I on fire? My skin felt no pain, but my heart…

My mouth kept trying to form his name, but it never could.

He said my name. He whispered it again and again, with alarming desperation, with promises of protection and return.

Then it changed. Then he changed. There was something wrong with his eyes. I kept trying to look into them, to identify what it was, but they disappeared in smoke every time. His cheekbones were sharper, colder, and I wanted to look away from them. He was too bright and too cold, a sun as blinding as it was freezing. My love had never seemed so draconic.

But when I looked away, there he was again, only younger, a boy again. Something was wrong with his eyes too.

I tried to reach for the little prince, to hold him and wipe away the tear running down his cheek, to take away his fear, but the other one stepped forward.

His voice, but not his voice, spoke to his younger self with a vicious tone, an oiled growl of accusation and condemnation.

"You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher."

Fire came from his mouth, his armor and robes, his fists and feet, until he himself seemed aflame.

I tried to say his name again. I tried to scream it, but I couldn't even hear myself over such a fiery roar, especially when that roar turned into a clap of thunder.

Lightning danced around a wicked grin.

A child screamed in pain.

The dragon vanished in total darkness, an abyss filled only by a laugh.

That horrible, horrible laugh.

It was an awful week, but at the end I could hold my children again and felt such sweet relief. We went back to the capital after that, for I couldn't bear to travel any more.

But the nightmare didn't go away. Ozai's anguish and flames and fearful attack of his younger self… They came every night, and every night I failed to see those eyes clearly, I failed to speak his name loud enough, and I failed to save him from himself.

When the nightmares came, the letters stopped.

There was no explanation, no sign of him, his ship, his men. The last scroll I received gave no hints or clues about any danger he could've been entering or even where he could've been heading.

I begged Azulon for information for search parties, every time he asked me to serve him tea, but he dismissed each one of my concerns, insiting such periods of silence were normal.

The weeks stretched into months, but Azulon insisted he would not interfere, he would take no action. The mission was for a year, he insisted, that's what Ozai had been entrusted with, and that's what we would have without question or doubt. My tears and pleading had no effect. He claimed that acting out of concern could jeopardize the fire prince's safety even more, and eventually he ordered me to be silent on the subject.

For another six months, the uncertainty ate me alive. I cycled from rage into fear into despair over and over again, beyond comfort, incapable of peace, clinging to my children as the only sources of life I had left. I was no use to anyone then. I was the worst of mothers. Zuko and Azula had to take care of me, persuading me to rise from bed, to eat some food, any food, that I could no longer taste. Azula brushed my hair for me when I couldn't lift a finger. Zhen and Maylin came to help, to mother my children and look after me while I couldn't take care of myself.

But I still served Azulon his tea. I found the strength for that not because I had any, but because I had to. My body fulfilled his command for the sake of my children, for the hope that he would send someone for Ozai. It was the only motherly duty I could still do.

And none of this would ever compare to the hell Ozai was walking through.

To the hell he was wreaking and had already wreaked.

A week before his mission's scheduled end, a scroll came.

My prince was coming home.