After talking things over with Zuko and his friends, and with Sokka, Ursa decides that it is high time for her and Iroh to have a talk. She knows that most of, if not all of her words towards Iroh will be hypocritical, particularly accusing him of looking out for Zuko and doing nothing to protect Azula. How can she condemn the man for that when she did the same thing years ago? Maybe it's because she can acknowledge her mistakes and actually wants to make things right with her daughter. Something that Iroh doesn't seem too keen on doing, if he even realizes that he failed the girl at all.

She finds Iroh talking to Kiyi, saying something that makes the little girl laugh. Had it been anyone else talking to her daughter, Ursa would have found the scene before her to be heartwarming.

Right now, all she feels is annoyance. And the urge to grab Kiyi and take her away from this man.

Ursa clears her throat, "Iroh, can we talk?"

At the sound of her voice, the old man turns to look at her. For a moment, there is anger in his eyes before it quickly vanishes. This doesn't surprise Ursa. Iroh is many things, but the man isn't stupid. He must have a suspicion, if not entirely convinced, that she had some part to play in his father's untimely death. Ursa would be shocked if he didn't come to that conclusion, considering the fact that he came home to his brother being the new Fire lord and she had simply vanished.

Iroh nods, "Of course, Ursa. We can chat over a nice cup of tea." He smiles at her, but Ursa can tell that it isn't genuine. Which is fine with her. She'd rather not play pretend with him.

She looks down to Kiyi with a smile, "Kiyi, why don't you go find your father? I'll be back in a little bit."

The child looks at her mother with apprehension and a little bit of fear before she nods and quickly runs off. Ursa sighs. She knows that it will take some time for Kiyi to get used to seeing her with a different face. It still hurts to see her daughter looking at her with fear in her eyes.

She looks back at Iroh. Neither one of them say anything, content with staring at the other one. It almost feels like how a predator watches its prey before it pounces. The staring contest ends when Iroh speaks up.

"Well then, shall we go?"

They find themselves in Iroh's room, the old man making tea for the both of them, just as he said he would. When he's done he walks over and gives Ursa her cup before he sits down across from her and blows on his tea before taking a sip.

"So, what did you wish to talk about? I can't imagine that you wanted to talk for the sole purpose of catching up."

"Oh, I'm sure that you have some ideas of what that something might be. You aren't a fool, after all. Then again, perhaps you are a fool, seeing as you locked my daughter away in a place that was supposed to help her, and you never even bothered to check on her and make sure that she actually got the help she needed" Ursa said, glaring at the man in front of her. She's in no mood to play nice with Iroh. It's much better to rip off the bandaid right now rather than wait until later, where it might be harder to take off.

For a moment, Iroh says nothing. He sets down his cup, and when he looks back up, he is no longer the kind old man that many know as Zuko's loving uncle. The man staring at her right now is the war general who nearly conquered Ba Sing Se in a 600 day siege. The man staring at her right now is the once fearsome Dragon of the West.

"Azula was a problem that Zuko and I didn't know how to deal with. Zuko was going to be crowned the new Fire lord, and lead the Fire Nation into a new era of peace. He wouldn't have time to take care of Azula when he has a nation to run. I thought it was best to have Azula placed in the asylum, a place where people who have similar issues like Azula go to get better."

"Aside from the fact that Azula is a Fire Nation citizen and Zuko's little sister, as well as his heir, all things that should at least make him want to help Azula in any way he can and help her recover, I wasn't talking about him. I was talking about you, Iroh. The only responsible adult, which is very debatable, considering what Zuko has told me, in their lives. Surely you could have arranged it so that Azula could have the best medical care here, in the palace? She is still a princess after all, and she should be treated as such. She is also your niece. A fact that should make you care about her, and yet you talk about Azula as if she is nothing more than a problem to you, a problem that needs to be dealt with swiftly."

"I didn't want her to try and take the throne from Zuko, which was part of the reason why I-"

Ursa laughs, did he really think that Azula would try and take the throne from Zuko? In her current condition? Perhaps Iroh is more stupid than she initially thought.

"Iroh, my daughter has hallucinations of me and can't even tell what's real and what isn't most of the time. Do you really think that someone in that state of mind would be capable of plotting to usurp the Fire Lord?"

Iroh attempts to speak, but Ursa silences him with a look.

"I will forever be grateful for the fact that you were there for Zuko when I couldn't be, that you kept him safe during his banishment. You helped Zuko and yet you abandoned Azula, however hypocritical it is for me to say that to you, since I abandoned her long before I left. We both abandoned her, and it's time that we both owned up to that fact."

Iroh sighs, "I assumed that Azula would have been fine with Ozai since he favored her because of her prowess in firebending. I never imagined a scenario where he hurt her just as much as he hurt Zuko."

Ah. The same mistake as she made, then. Perhaps they weren't so different in that regard.

"You witnessed your brother burn Zuko. How could you have possibly thought that Azula would be fine alone with him? I know that I'm the last person to be saying this to you, since I also believed that Azula was fine around Ozai since he favored her, which is why I put all of my focus on Zuko. I thought that she didn't need me as much as Zuko did. I didn't realize how wrong I was until I was far away from the capital and I had plenty of time to reflect on a lot of things. Both of my children needed their mother, and yet I only ever treated one of them as my child. I suppose that I'm no better than Ozai in that regard. Playing favorites with my children."

She can feel the tears in her eyes, but refuses to let them fall. Not yet. There will be plenty of time for crying later on.

Ursa takes a deep breath before continuing, "From what Zuko told me on our way to the capital, you really didn't do much of anything to mend the relationship between them. And yes, I know that you were enemies and that Ozai had tasked her with hunting you and Zuko down since he had declared the both of you as traitors to the Fire Nation. That doesn't excuse you for telling Zuko that Azula was crazy and needed to go down, when he expressed the slightest desire to get along with her. That doesn't excuse you from urging Zuko to fight Azula for the throne, after you said to him that a brother fighting a brother for the throne wasn't what the Fire Nation, what the world, needed. Yet you turned right around and told Zuko that it was fine for him to fight his sister. A fight that could have been avoided had you actually taken the time to reach out to Azula before Zuko was banished! Would it have been hard because of Ozai's influence? Maybe. But the point is that you never even tried. You just decided that she was beyond saving. I'm sure that Zuko gave you a hard way to go during those three years of his banishment, I have no doubts about that since he told me himself. We talked about a lot of things on our way back here. One of the things that he told me was that he was grateful for the fact that he had you every step of the way. That he was grateful for your guidance, for the fact that you never gave up on him, even when he betrayed you. No matter what he said to you, no matter how hard he made it to reach him at times….you were always there to catch him if he fell. You never abandoned him. You were there for him no matter what. Where was all of that devotion for my daughter, your niece?"

Iroh looks at her but doesn't say anything, not knowing how to answer her question. Maybe he's going over everything she's said and slowly realizing that she's right and-

Iroh's laughter interrupts her train of thoughts. What could he possibly find to be so funny?

"You know, I find it ironic that the woman who had a hand in killing my father thinks that she has the right to lecture me about anything." Iroh says, looking at Ursa with a smile. That smile is probably one of the most disturbing things that Ursa has ever seen. That smile isn't a happy one. It is anything but genuine. That smile is what someone wears on their face right before they pounce. She was wondering when the topic of Azulon was going to come up. To Iroh, it looked like a plot to get Ozai the throne while he was away. He likely didn't know what actually transpired that night. Might as well tell him the truth.

"Yes, I did play a part in killing your father, but it's not for the reason that you-!"

"What other reason could you have possibly had for killing my father other than to give Ozai the throne? My brother has always been power hungry, so it should have come as no surprise to me that he would go so far as to kill our father, but-"

"It was to save Zuko's life!"

That made Iroh stop talking immediately. They had killed his father to save Zuko? What did that mean?"

"What are you talking about?"

So he was willing to listen to her story. Probably because she mentioned Zuko.

"The night we killed him, Ozai made a proposal to Azulon: make him his heir instead of you, since you no longer had any children in the line of succession. Obviously your father didn't take too kindly to that, since he favored you over Ozai. So, in retaliation for his words, Azulon ordered Ozai to kill Zuko, so that he would know the pain of losing his first born son. Azula overheard everything since she hid behind the curtains after her and Zuko were done showing their progress in firebending to your father, and he ordered us to leave except for Ozai. She warned Zuko about what she heard ... .well, taunting him about it is more like it, but she still told him regardless. Had she not done that, Zuko wouldn't be alive today."

"Wouldn't be alive…?"

"I overheard Azula and Zuko talking, since I was on my way to his room to see if he was ok and to say goodnight to him. Zuko said 'dad wouldn't do that to me' and that's when I entered the room, demanding to know what was going on. Since Azula seemed to know something, I took her outside of Zuko's room to ask her what that something was. That's when she told me what she had overheard. I thanked Azula for telling me that and reassured her that everything would be fine, before walking her back to her room and telling her to not come out no matter what. I then went to find Ozai and proposed a plan to him: kill Azulon so that Ozai could take the throne. He had no problem with that plan, of course, since the throne was all he wanted. Since it was my plan, I was the one who killed him. Afterwards, we made the necessary arrangements for Ozai to be crowned the new Fire lord, even though you were Azulon's heir. Once everything was done, Ozai banished me for committing treason, although I suspect the actual reason was to make sure that I wouldn't do the same thing to him. I left the palace that same night. My only regret is that I didn't say goodbye to Azula, like I did with Zuko."

Talking about what had happened that night and thinking about what would have happened to Zuko if Azula never went to his room and told him what she overheard, causes Ursa to release the tears that she has so desperately tried to hold back.

Iroh doesn't say anything after listening to Ursa's story. That's what really happened that night? His father had ordered Ozai to kill Zuko, something that may have happened if not for Azula? The girl who he's always had nothing but disdain for, because he saw too much of his brother in her, and because she reminds him a lot of his past self? The Iroh who did unspeakable things during the war, a past that he is still trying to run away from? The thought makes Iroh sick to his stomach. Not only because he's just found out that Zuko was going to be murdered by his own father, but because it was Azula who had, knowingly or not, saved her brother's life. And Iroh has been treating her like anything but his family for years now. Suddenly Ursa's words towards him about Azula hit a lot closer to home. She was right: he had failed Azula, the girl who he has to thank for Zuko still being alive. How ironic is it that he's played a part in their family's seemingly never ending curse when it comes to favoritism by choosing Zuko over Azula and thinking nothing of it, when the girl in question did something that Iroh can't even begin to thank her for? With tears in his eyes, Iroh slowly bows his head to Ursa.

"I am so sorry for what you had to go through that night because of my foolish brother and father. I'm sorry that I wasn't there for both of your children like I should have been. I'm sorry that I wasn't the uncle that they both needed. I'm sorry that I didn't think to help Azula the way I helped Zuko. And lastly, I am sorry for throwing Azula into the asylum and not checking on her to make sure that she was getting the proper care she needed, all because I never stopped viewing her as a threat: a threat that would try to take the throne from Zuko at any given moment. Nothing that I say will ever be enough to fix my mistakes, but I'm so sorry, Ursa."

Of all the things that Ursa expected Iroh to say, an apology after apology certainly isn't one of them. At the very least it seems like he has taken her words to heart. She hopes this means that he will try to make amends with Azula, however hard that may be. She has no doubts that her daughter wants nothing to do with Iroh.

She also has no doubts that Azula probably wants nothing to do with her, too.

Even if that is the case, Ursa swears that she won't give up on Azula ever again, and that she will actually be there for her. She swears that this time, things will be different. She will try her hardest to be the mother that Azula needs, the mother that she should have been to her years ago.

"I don't know if Azula wants anything to do with either one of us, Iroh, but I have sworn to myself that I won't abandon her again, that I'll be the mother that she should have had back then, the mother that she needs me to be now. If you are truly sorry for the way you treated her all these years, then think about how you can make it up to her. Show her that you are sorry with your actions and not your words. Anyone can say they're sorry for what they've done, but that apology only means something when your actions show that you are indeed sorry for your mistakes. Perhaps you can begin to make amends with Azula by launching a thorough investigation into the asylum you locked her away in, and agreeing to not sending her back there should you choose to not shut it down. Can you do that, Iroh?"

"Yes, I can and I will. You have my word."

For a moment, Ursa has the urge to say that his word doesn't mean shit to her, but she holds her tongue. Instead, she looks at Iroh with a similar smile that he showed her not to long ago.

"Good. I'm glad that we were able to come to an understanding."