Disclaimer: still not mine.

It was cold up north.

Jeong Jeong just couldn't understand how the prince seemed so unbothered by it. Yes, naval armor was stuffy and well-insulated, but they were so far north now that the soldiers had opted to don cloaks and were still shivering under them. Most huddled below deck whenever they had the chance. Yet even in his free time, Iroh strode out about above deck—without a cloak—breathing in the biting polar winds as if they were pleasant beach breezes and making idle conversation about how fascinating it was to be approaching the North Pole for the first time. Since Jeong Jeong was the only other soldier willing to spend meaningful time above deck, he was usually on the receiving end of those conversations. It was interesting, getting to talk to the prince as equals at sea. Iroh had been molded well by Jinpa and Qin; he spoke about the unique gifts of the water tribe with fascination, eyes shining with genuine awe at what his elemental opposites could do.

"They're the only ones who didn't learn from animals, did you know that, Jeong Jeong? We learned from dragons, the Earth Kingdom from badgermoles, the Air Nation from bison, but the water tribes were taught by the moon herself. We may be able to conjure our element at will, but the waterbenders are the spirits' favorite students. Worthy adversaries, aren't they?"

Jeong Jeong usually just nodded in agreement, not having anything nearly as insightful to say.

Today, though, Iroh was oddly quiet, only nodding briefly at Jeong Jeong when the latter stood next to him to watch the waves. There was a letter with a royal seal clutched in his hands. Briefly, worry for Ursa swelled in Jeong Jeong's chest (she wasn't a Lotus anymore, but she was still an ally to protect, and she was still a good person), but he tamped it down. Qin was in the palace, and Jeong Jeong had trained the guards well. Besides, if something had happened to her, the Dragon of The West would be roaring enough fire to melt the icebergs around then. Instead, he was just quiet. So, Jeong Jeong just waited.

"My son," Iroh finally said, "made his first fire last week."

Prince Lu Ten wasn't even two years old. The White Lotus would be very interested in just how prodigiously he was turning out. "What an auspicious occasion," Jeong Jeong replied evenly. "It's a shame you couldn't be there."

"My wife said to me, when I was deciding whether to sail with the navy this year or not, that I should go now because Lu Ten might start firebending while I was away if I delayed it to next year." He smiled at the irony. "Serves me right for trying to know the whims of a toddler."

"There will be many more fires when you get back."

"But none as momentous as the first." As if to prove his point, he blew a red flame into the icy air. "My brother was there, at least. He knew what to say to help Lu Ten keep his fire under control until I get back. And I'm not sure how grateful I should be for that."

"Since the princess isn't a bender, perhaps Prince Ozai's assistance was needed," Jeong Jeong pointed out cautiously. The relationship between the brothers was one thing he hadn't quite figured out how to navigate during his years at the palace. Iroh defended Ozai to their father, yet he never seemed to like people defending Ozai to him.

"Yes, that's what I've been telling myself too." Iroh shrugged, then shook his head as if clearing it of the subject. "What about you, Jeong Jeong? Has Meena been able to write to you?"

Meena was one of the maids in the palace. Jeong Jeong had been quietly courting her for a couple of years now, which he hadn't told many people. He wasn't sure why he'd told Iroh. Something about being at sea with the warm, curious, well-mannered prince made it too tempting to open up.

"She has, yes. She says she wishes she could see a proper snow. I told her this trip has taught me there's such a thing as too much snow."

"There certainly is. Fortunately, I haven't hit my limit quite yet." He sucked in another lungful of icy air and exhaled an impressive amount of steam. "We'll have to be able to take a lot more than this to stand a chance against the waterbenders. Too many new recruits on the ship haven't learned that."

"They will shortly after their first battle."

"If they survive it."

They were going to battle waterbenders in the next forty-eight hours. It was a matter of when, not if. Either the waterbenders would come to confront the ship's approach into their territory, or the ship would land at the shores of Bear's Den by sundown tomorrow. Bear's Den was one of the last Northern Water Tribe towns that hadn't been absorbed into the stronghold of Agna Qel'a, and it was about to pay the price for its independence dearly.

Hopefully, the Water Tribe Lotuses remembered the separation of self from war.

"XiXi," Lu Ten called. "XiXi, c'mere!"

"XiXi, XiXi, come here!" Four-year-olds Ty Lin and Ty Liu echoed their younger cousin, all three children reaching their small hands out towards the cat. It had no effect; Xiliu stayed safely in the branches of the willow tree by the turtleduck pond, tail twitching as he eyed his audience on the ground warily. Ursa couldn't blame him. Those little hands hadn't quite mastered the art of being gentle with animals yet.

"Oh, Ty Luo, you think you can keep up?" Kai Ming put her baby down on the grass, and the third of the Ty sisters crawled after the first two eagerly.

"She's quite fast," Ursa observed. "And very confident in her movements."

"Too confident. I worry about what I'll do with her when she starts walking." Kai Ming rubbed her temples. "Not that anything she does will be as bad as when the twins were in their terrible twos."

"Please don't mention the terrible twos," Ursa shuddered. "I'm dreading Lu Ten's. How am I supposed to handle that phase with a firebending two-year-old?"

"Well, maybe Lu Ten will just skip that phase. He's such a well-behaved little boy, and so ahead of the curve. I still can't believe he's already making fire. Everyone at Senlin was so excited to hear it."

"I imagine so." Excitement was a natural emotion to feel, but for Ursa, it was buried under anxiety about her son's little hands bursting into flame at the wrong moment and- "The Fire Lord was thrilled too."

"He should be. Lu Ten's already shaping up to be a dragon among men like Iroh. And he's a much cuter child too."

On cue, Lu Ten toppled over into the grass, laughing hysterically at Ty Luo's attempts to crawl after him. The twins joined in, a swarm of noble children rolling around the gardens. It was positively undignified. Ursa couldn't have been happier at the sight of it. The palace was brighter with more children around, wasn't it? Did Iroh not see that because he was away so often?

"Ozai," Kai Ming raised a hand, "come, join us!"

Ozai glanced up from where he'd been walking through the courtyard, looking like he'd rather not engage with the gathering of women and children by the pond. There was tension in his shoulders, and he was dressed for the training grounds. Hadn't he been in the war room today, filling in for Iroh?

"Uncle Zai!" Lu Ten's call triggered a chain reaction, the twins echoing him like a chorus of parrothawks.

That cured Ozai's indecision. "Hi, Kai Ming." He crossed over to the turtleduck pond, squatting down to greet the children as well. "I heard you'd pushed out yet another baby. How old is Ty Luo now?"

"About eleven months. We'll probably spend her first birthday here in the capital. I wish Ru could be home for it as well."

"It's quite a long stay in the capital you have planned," Ursa noted.

"Well, Ru's hoping for a promotion soon. If he gets it, it would make sense for us to move to the capital full-time. So we want to at least make sure the girls like it here first."
"I think they like it plenty," Ursa pointed out, watching the twins run off for a game of tag with Lu Ten toddling after them. "They'd get to see Lu Ten all the time, and they could enroll in the girls' academy next year when they're old enough. Plus, Iroh and I would love having you in the city too. I can't speak for Ozai, of course."
"Please, move here. It'll give the little dragon other relatives to harass besides me." Ozai tilted his head at the children running amuck. "Not that I know much of anything, but based on what I heard in the war room, your husband's promotion is basically guaranteed if he and Iroh return victorious from the North Pole. In short, guaranteed. Iroh rarely returns less than victorious."

Kai Ming beamed at Ozai gratefully. She'd been watching Ru go off to war since before Ursa had married Iroh. A higher rank and a nice home in the capital were the least that could soothe that pain, and it was more than most people in her position would ever receive.

"Anything else interesting in the war room today?" Ursa asked Ozai, unsubtly probing him for any information about Iroh he'd be willing to share.

"Not much. Communication's slow from the north, and things are quiet in the Earth Kingdom." He paused, straightening back up and scuffing at the dirt with his shoe. It was a very teenage habit that clashed with his almost-fully-grown frame. "Dad cleared me to enter the battlefield when Iroh's back."
"What? Really?" Logically, it made sense—Ozai was almost twenty, which was how old Iroh had been when he'd begun deployments—but it was hard to think of him as being old enough. Iroh hadn't seemed this sheltered, this soft-cheeked, when he'd started leaving for battle; no, he'd been a proper man, broad-shouldered and powerful and a dragon. Was Ozai too young, or was Ursa getting older?

"Ugh, don't say it like that." Ozai rolled his eyes. "Dad'll change his mind if he hears it."

"I'm with her," Kai Ming chimed in. "Aren't you like fifteen? That's much too young for the battlefield."

"Nineteen, cousin. Almost twenty."

"Silence!" she cried, throwing her arm across her face in fake anguish. "Say no more, or my bones will wither to dust. Twenty? That's worse than when Iroh got married!"
"Well, at least I won't be doing that one anytime soon." Ozai stretched his arms over his head. "Unless one of you feels like sparring me, I'm going. Not really in a babysitting mood."

"I thought he had a girlfriend," Kai Ming whispered to Ursa as he walked away. "Is he not that serious about her?"

"How would I know? I just found out about it last week. Besides, he's a prince. It could be that he won't get married until the Fire Lord decides who his bride should be, like I was chosen for Iroh."

"Ah, but that was such a good choice. Who knows if there's a match like that out there for him?" Kai Ming shook her head.

If only Kai Ming knew the whole story of Iroh and Ursa's match, maybe she'd realize stranger things were possible.

Jeong Jeong would have been wasted behind a desk.

His scarred right eye briefly met Iroh's from across the frozen battlefield, just as he smartly avoided a nasty blow from a water whip and punched out at his opponent's legs. Caught by ambush as they were, the waterbenders here had little in the way of armor; the man went down with a shriek, clutching at his ruined limbs.

The healers would've been able to fix him, those women who'd already surrendered and were heaving sobs as their men fell now. Couldn't the Northerners see how badly they'd crippled themselves by not training the women? The Southern tribe didn't have a fancy capital city, but they had fight; it had taken decades of far too many focused raids to wipe out their waterbenders, and there was no chance of pushing Southern waterbenders into servitude in the Fire Nation. Not with their fighting spirit, and especially not after that one who'd escaped…

Jeong Jeong caught another tribal warrior's club and turned it around on him, a sickening crunch resounding from the man's skull. Ouch. Yes, Jeong Jeong was of much greater use to his country out here than shackled to the palace. It was a shame, though. Iroh always felt much better with Jeong Jeong in charge of guarding his family while he was gone.

"What do you think?" he said to Ru, letting Jeong Jeong handle the last handful of nonbender warriors now.

"He's good," Ru conceded. "Of course, I should've known he'd be if you said so."

"He could be your new lieutenant. This is what he wants."

"I'll consider it." Ru turned his head sharply. "Hey! Hands off the prisoners, moron. That's not what we do with people who surrender."

Iroh sent a death glare at the soldier who slunk away from the weeping women. War was nasty enough business without adding that to the mix. "Where will these ones go? To the western islands?" It was quite trendy out there to have a personal waterbending healer, and Northern women had little fighting spirit to worry about thanks to how they'd been raised.

"Not sure. Could be that, or there are some professors at the medical schools who want to study them."

Korzu was an admirer of the water tribe healers. "If we could do things like that with fire," he had sighed whenever the water tribes came up at school. Iroh thought of his mother-in-law, a peaceful firebending healer herself, and wondered what she would learn from these women.

"Captain Ru," one of the more competent new soldiers emerged out of a hut, carrying a crude mannequin with lines carved all over it. "We found this. We think the healers use it in their studies."

Iroh squinted at the figure, noting that the pattern of lines looked familiar. Wasn't that the flow of chi through the body? "Is there more than one?" he asked the man.

"Yes, there's a few."

"I'd like one," Iroh said to Ru quietly, "if that's alright. I think Ursa might find it interesting."

"That's fine. The medical schools will probably want the rest."

Jeong Jeong slumped back to Ru and Iroh now, panting heavily as he saluted. He was walking with a bit of a limp, which made sense considering a waterbender had successfully trapped his right leg in ice for a moment. "Captain, I believe the town is secured."

"I believe so too. Nice job. Get yourself some medical attention."

"Here, let me help." Iroh shifted to Jeong Jeong's weak side, offering an arm so Jeong Jeong could brace himself.

"If I'm allowed to inquire, did I pass your test?" Jeong Jeong asked as they hobbled towards the ship.

"Who said there was a test?"

"Do you think your captain of the guard is an idiot?"

Iroh smiled. "No, but I had to check. You're good, Jeong Jeong. You can be whatever you want in the navy if you put the years in."

"That's all I've ever wanted," Jeong Jeong smiled back. "Still, I worry I was too reckless out there. I'm not sure how much use I'll be on the rest of this deployment with this leg."

"If that was your idea of recklessness, I think you'll be fine. Everyone has a learning curve on their first mission. Your leg will be fixed quickly by one of those healers, and in the meantime, I can test you on something else."

"What's that?"

"Pai Sho. I'm willing to bet Jinpa taught you some? Seeing how much he liked you."

"Oh," Jeong Jeong laughed. "Yes, he did. I don't know if I can keep up with you, though."

"That's fine. It's been ages since I had a new opponent, so anyone at all is exciting. The last one was my wife, and she's learned all my moves now."

"Well, there's more to the game than simple moves, isn't there?"

Iroh grinned, pleased. "You're well on your way to passing the second part of the test."

From the Fire Nation Royal Family's official records

Letter delivered to Ursa sometime in 102 AG

Old friend,

I heard you'd taken to autobiographical writing after the end of the war. I confess I don't care to do the same-there's too much I'd rather not recall-but since you and Iroh ask me to preserve at least some memories, I will write down what you two want me to share out of respect for you both.

The first mission to the north was an eventful one. You ask if it was truly my desire that took me to the navy, or some White Lotus mission. The answer is both. The sea was always my dream-you recall my family's story, my aspiration to make them proud-and back then, the easiest way for a slum boy like me to get to the sea was through the navy. The White Lotus helped with that, when Jinpa took me under his wing and gave me the training he thought would shape my "raw talent." In return, they wanted me to be another set of eyes for them, when the time was right for me to set sail. Then, they wanted more.

You know as well as I do, the White Lotus always ended up wanting more.

I'm fortunate, really, that things went sideways right on that first mission. It would've been much worse if I'd been so sloppy later on…

The northern Earth Kingdom didn't seem so bad now that he'd known the bone-deep chill of the North Pole itself. Qingdao was still brisk, though, especially at night. Jeong Jeong inhaled, trying to warm himself under his disguise with just his breath, the way Iroh had described. It didn't quite work. There was some trick to it, something with energy paths that Iroh understood intuitively and Jeong Jeong didn't. He would just have to practice more.

Iroh understood some things about fire and energy in an indescribable way, more than just what Jinpa had taught him. Maybe someone else had taught him, or maybe he really did have a naturally deeper connection with the element thanks to the generations of careful royal breeding that had made him. Last week, after yet another run-in with waterbenders, Iroh had done something curious. Bringing Jeong Jeong with him, he'd gone down to the holding cells where the women healers were, sought out the youngest one, and asked her to show them her bending over some jasmine tea. The girl wasn't much of a bender, but she'd made a little whirlpool in her teacup for about ten minutes before Iroh had nodded, satisfied, and given her some honey biscuits to go with the tea.

"What was that for?" Jeong Jeong had asked when they'd left the holding cells.

"What'd you think of her bending, compared to what we've seen from the men?"

"She's a child. Her bending is that of a child. Simplistic?"

Iroh had looked mildly disappointed. "Oh, I thought you'd understand."

"Understand what?" Jeong Jeong's heart had skipped a beat, worried about failing the prince's odd tests after over three months at sea together.

"The flow. The energy. Push and pull…" He'd sighed, pressing his fists together. "Ah, I can't quite explain it. I'll tell you if I figure it out. I thought you'd understand, that's all."

A week later, Jeong Jeong still didn't understand, and Iroh didn't seem to have figured it out. Or maybe he had, but he couldn't figure out how to explain it to Jeong Jeong. Well, that wasn't of concern right now. Iroh would share when he felt like it. Jeong Jeong had a cloak for the cold, warm plainclothes for his disguise, and a mission to carry out.

He'd done this type of thing before. It was just that it felt so different to be doing it here, in the Earth Kingdom, where one of his fellow soldiers seeing him could be his undoing instead of a plausible coincidence. Hopefully, this particular bar being so far away from the port would eliminate that risk.

"Good evening," he greeted the Pai Sho player inside, like he'd done with faceless players a dozen times over, "how much for a game?"

Over the past few weeks, Iroh had thrashed him in Pai Sho a good dozen times, but this wasn't a real game. Jeong Jeong made the pattern, exchanged the words of greeting with the sentinel, and followed him into a back room.

"He's been waiting," the sentinel told him, almost like a warning.

Sure enough, as soon as Jeong Jeong opened the door, a nasty-looking icicle spear came for his head. He blasted it away and took up a fighting stance, glaring down his potential opponent.

"You're late," the Water Tribesman declared, already drawing the icicle's water up for another attack. "And you're firebending."

"You could've taken my head off."

"The world would be better for it," the man scowled. "After what you did at Bear's Den-"

"The war does not breach the confines of the Lotus," Jeong Jeong reminded him.

His scowl deepened, an ugly look on an otherwise charmingly symmetrical brown face. He couldn't have been more than a few years older than Jeong Jeong's twenty-five, if that. "They wouldn't punish me if I killed you."

"The same goes for you. Do you want the message, or do you want to have it out?"

Blue eyes flashed indignantly, but he reluctantly lowered his arms. Jeong Jeong did the same.

"I'm Jeong Jeong," he introduced himself, trying to ease the tension.

"I don't care. You have the message, don't you?"

"Yes. Here. From my master to yours." Jeong Jeong pulled the scroll out of his waistband and handed it over. The waterbender grabbed it none too gently.

"Have you read it?" he asked.

"Of course not. Do you plan to?"

"Of course not," he snapped, like he hadn't asked Jeong Jeong first.

"He said your master needs it before-"

"-the next new moon, I know. I can handle it."

That was it, then. The handoff was over. "I'd say it was nice to meet you, but I'm not sure either of us feel that way."

"I hope that fleet of yours is foolish enough to come near Agna Qel'a," he retorted. "It'll be nice to not be within the confines of the Lotus next time I'm near a firebender."

"You could have that opportunity if you fought for your tribe instead of hiding behind the city's walls."

"You-" The waterbender looked like he was going to strike, but he thought better of it when Jeong Jeong raised his fists again. "Oh, whatever. Tui and La will see to your kind soon enough."

He shoved his way past Jeong Jeong to exit the room, almost running into the sentinel outside in the process.

"Oof!" The sentinel grunted. "Pakku, you shouldn't-"

"Shut it!"

Pakku continued whisper-arguing with the sentinel as they left through some back entrance, and Jeong Jeong was alone. Carefully, he slipped out of the back room and shut it quietly, opting to leave through the front of the bar instead. He didn't want to run into Pakku again if he could help it.

The din from the front of the bar was faint, masking the sound of Jeong Jeong's footsteps as he retraced his path the way he'd come. As he reached the curtain separating the front from the back rooms, he realized (too late) that someone was there, someone his disguise didn't fool.

"Jeong Jeong," Iroh said with all of his usual warmth, "who were you meeting back there?"

Dragonshit.

Iroh liked Jeong Jeong. Iroh also didn't know much about him outside of his military career, aside from that he'd grown up in a poorer part of the capital, and that he had more of a knack for sparrowbones than Pai Sho. So, when Jeong Jeong had uncharacteristically left the barracks in the middle of the night, Iroh had decided to follow. It wasn't that leaving the barracks at night wasn't allowed, it was more that Jeong Jeong wasn't the type to get wasted alone in the Qingdao bars while at port. Iroh had been curious. Was it an invasion of privacy? Perhaps, but maybe it was one that was needed.

Because Iroh couldn't think of a single good reason why Jeong Jeong would have been secretly meeting a Water Tribesman on his very first naval deployment. Maybe if he'd been to Qingdao before, there'd be a reason he'd know people from other nations, but…

He didn't know what to do. He'd been trained for this, in theory, but he'd never imagined being caught by Iroh. Was this why the prince had taken such an interest in him during this deployment? Had he been suspicious all along? Had he been waiting for the exact right moment to catch him slipping up? At least he'd delivered the message before Iroh had confronted him (this was part of why he never read the messages, after all, so they couldn't be tortured out of him-)

"It…It was a deal for a friend," Jeong Jeong finally answered, proud of himself for managing the cover story with only the barest tremble in his voice. "I was asked to bring some money to him while at Qingdao, by one of the other soldiers who's been here before. Apparently, he lost to that waterbender quite badly at Pai Sho during his last deployment, but he didn't have the money to pay it off at the time."

A plausible story. Iroh wanted to test its strength.

"What's the soldier's name?"

"Pei."

"What ship is he on?"

"I'm not sure. I think in the western fleet. I met him playing sparrowbones in the evenings."

"How much money did you carry for him?"

"Fifty gold pieces," Jeong Jeong bowed his head. "I know it's not honorable conduct for a soldier, but it seemed harmless to do him a favor. I'm sorry."

Iroh weighed it in his mind. Pei, huh? A nice, generic name for a nice, generic soldier that would take a long time for Iroh to find, if he even existed.

"Gambling's not the worst vice you could have, I suppose," he said finally.

"The woman you're courting," Iroh continued, and Jeong Jeong's blood ran cold, "Meena, don't you plan to buy her a home outside of the palace soon?"

"Yes."

"Hard to do as a gambler, isn't it?"

"Well, I don't wager large sums, usually. Like you in Pai Sho. It was my friend Pei who did it, like I said."

"Does Meena know about your friend Pei? Or about this little side mission of yours?"

Was that a threat? Jeong Jeong's ears were ringing. "No," he managed to stammer. "No, Meena doesn't know much about my work. For security reasons, of course."

"But your friend Pei's not your work."

"Well- no. But it's not the kind of thing she would like to hear about, either."

"Mm." Iroh didn't really react to this. He just looked at Jeong Jeong in a way that seemed to burn past the skin of his face. "Let's have a drink, then, since we're here anyway. Tell me more about Meena. I can advise you from experience, Jeong Jeong, it's not wise to keep too much from a woman you love."

Iroh didn't believe him. Jeong Jeong couldn't explain how he knew that, but he knew- Iroh didn't believe him.

Which meant he was definitely in trouble. He just didn't know how much.

"I don't want her to worry," Jeong Jeong whispered.

"Oh, I understand the feeling." Iroh pulled the curtain back for both of them to walk through. "But she may end up with worries anyway, if Pei keeps dragging you into his troubles without her knowing. I'll have to report his conduct to his superior officer, of course, whatever ship he's on. It may take a while."

He was going to hunt down Pei. He was going to unravel the story. Jeong Jeong's throat went dry.

"Unless," Iroh stopped at the bar, finding a couple of stools for them, "you remember anything else about Pei that might help me find him faster?"

An invitation to sit down next to the crown prince and come clean. Something about him made it so tempting to do; something in his clear amber eyes and welcoming half-smile that promised anything Jeong Jeong said would be forgiven as long as he was honest. It was too much. Jeong Jeong never should've told him about Meena.

"No, I don't. I'm sorry," Jeong Jeong sat, wondering how much time as a free man he had left.

Iroh shrugged, "It's alright," and turned to order a couple local beers.

"Actually, I was wondering earlier," Jeong Jeong desperately attempted to change the subject, "did you figure out what you noticed about that girl bending the teacup?"

The girl had made a whirlpool out of her tea for a few minutes, using just a finger going around and around the rim to do it. Later, Iroh had gone back to her by himself, wanting to clarify something.

"Did it hurt your hand," he'd asked, "to do something like that, over and over again?"

"No," the girl had responded, peering up at him with large blue eyes through the bars. She hadn't seemed as frightened of him this time, possibly because he'd brought biscuits again. "Once you get the whirlpool going, it wants to keep going. You just guide it after that. It doesn't hurt unless you do it for a really long time."

Fire was similar, in the sense that it wanted to keep burning once it had started burning. But generating a steady flame took more effort than simply guiding it.

"What if I added more tea to your cup while you were making the whirlpool?" he'd asked. "Would it have disrupted the flow? Would it have been harder for you?"

"Maybe if you added a lot. But usually, water wants to flow together. I think it would just follow the whirlpool that was already there."

Water wanted to flow together. That much was obvious, in the fluidity of the waterbenders Iroh had faced during the past few months. They'd combined their attacks smoothly, like tributaries rushing into a river, to try and overwhelm their opponents. They'd neutralized the firebenders' blasts like waves rushing to meet the shore. It hadn't saved them in the end, but Iroh recognized a strength within it that was lacking in his own bending.

"Jinpa told me once," he said to Jeong Jeong now, "that the greatest strength of the waterbenders was their ability to turn their enemies' force against them. He thought it was something I should learn to do with my own bending."

"Have you?"

"I'm not sure," he confessed, sipping his beer. Light and somewhat honey-flavored…not bad. "I thought I had, until I saw the waterbenders."

"Fire is the opposite of water. Perhaps it's not a directly transferable principle."

Perhaps. Iroh recalled watching thunderstorms roll over Senlin Island as a boy, and his mother's warning to not go down to the beach when that happened.

("But why not?" he whined. "I wanna play!"

"No, Iroh," she said very firmly. "The ocean gets angry when it rains, and even angrier when it storms.")

It was when he was a little older, after she was dead and cremated, that he'd understood the reason for the rule. Water was the opposite of fire, but it was a great conductor of lightning.

…anyway, Ursa, you recall what happened after that first mission. I'm still sorry I dragged you back into it when you were just worried about raising your son well, but I also still don't know what else I could've done to save Meena and myself from my folly.

What else do you want to hear from me? If I'm going to remember and write all this, I might as well do it all at once. Let me know. I'll come visit you and talk about it instead, if you like.

Regards,

Jeong Jeong

Dear Jeong Jeong,

I'm so thrilled to hear back from you. So you're aware, it's not my idea to write this "autobiography"; that son of mine insists upon it, and I have so little power to say no to him now that he's grown up. Not that I was ever great at it, as Iroh likes to remind me.

Please, do come visit! We can talk about happier things while you're here as well. Iroh's been sharpening up his sparrowbones skills for you and Piandao…[remainder of letter omitted for brevity]

Best wishes,

Ursa

A/N: I'm playing a new game called every time I have writer's block, I pick a different character POV to write. It's kinda working so far. Cheers to Jeong Jeong!

~Bobbi