A/N: Thanks as usual to the reviewers: Goku275, AsahixMe, Sharpe, Guest, Tertius711, Black Dragon Master, IrishDreamer4, EmmyB3, CrazyPhenom, Robert, devilfiredog18, and Aquamirra.
P.S. Robert, Mako prefers Korra with long hair. However, even if Korra were bald, he would still love her regardless. Hope that clears it up for you.
On to the chapter!
Time check: Winter, 177 AG (2 years and 5 months post-Book 4)
39. You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
He isn't surprised when Iroh tells him he's leaving.
"It's time, Mako," Iroh sighs as he broods over pu-erh tonic in their regular bar. "I can't put it off any longer. Grandfather's right — it's time I figure out what my destiny is."
He swishes the whisky in his glass. "I thought it was fairly straightforward?" Even if it's not quite what Iroh wants, the duties of a Crown Prince are very clear.
"Apparently not." Iroh's face twists in some strange, conflicted emotion. "Grandfather seems to think that Mother and I could come to…an arrangement."
He frowns, quizzical. "What kind of arrangement?"
"Agni knows," Iroh groans. "He can be very cryptic sometimes. 'You must look within and ask yourself what is right for you. Only then will you know your path.'"
The Zuko impression is spot-on; he can easily imagine the aged Fire Lord saying that.
"Well, what do you want?"
Iroh pauses for several beats. "I guess I'm not really sure," he confesses. "I always figured I didn't have a choice in the matter."
"You never considered abdicating?"
Iroh blinks. "No."
"Why not?"
Iroh sips at his pu-erh while he mulls it over. He gets the feeling that very few people have actually asked this before — perhaps Iroh hasn't even considered it himself.
"Well, first of all, my sister is twelve years younger than I am. By the time there was a spare heir, so to speak, I had already internalised my role as future Fire Lord."
"Your sister's twenty-two, and very capable, from what you've told me. Would you abdicate now if she's willing to take the throne?"
Iroh shakes his head. "No, I won't abdicate. I have a duty to my country."
"Iroh, forget about duty for a minute. Do you want to be Fire Lord?"
There's silence for a long moment as Iroh wrestles with the question.
"Yes," the prince admits. "I do. Eventually."
He raises an eyebrow, but does not comment. Iroh has expressed chagrin about the destiny awaiting him as ruler of the Fire Nation multiple times, and he'd honestly half-thought that if the prince didn't have such a resolute sense of selfless responsibility, he would've abdicated once he made general. Iroh's acknowledgment that he does, in fact, want to fulfil the role is the first time he's ever gotten a straight answer about this, so he considers it progress. (He briefly wonders if this is how Erin felt whenever he finally gave her direct answers after skirting around an issue for days.)
"Okay," he says. "What is it you don't want, then?"
"I don't want to leave the Forces," Iroh says frankly. "Not yet. I don't feel that I've accomplished everything I want to in the fleet. And I don't want to move back to the Fire Nation so soon." He grimaces. "I certainly don't want to go back just to find someone to marry."
"But since you want to be Fire Lord, you do need to court a Fire Nation woman eventually," he points out delicately. "And somehow I don't think you want to be fifty when your first kid is born."
"I know." Iroh rubs at his temple. "Damn it, why couldn't I just have fallen in love with a childhood friend like Mother and Grandfather?"
His eyebrow rises again. "Iroh, what do you have against dating someone now? It's going to have to happen sooner or later."
"It's not the dating I'm against. The problem with a lot of Fire Nation women is that they would see the prince before they see the man. My title would overshadow their perception of me as a person — our dynamic wouldn't be…organic. I want a woman who looks at me and sees Iroh first, and Prince second; that's virtually impossible with anyone who's grown up in the Fire Nation. That's why —" Iroh stops abruptly, cutting himself off.
"That's why you fell for Asami." He sips his whisky calmly.
Iroh stares. "How did you know?"
"You said something, she said something — I put two and two together. I am a detective, you know."
"Right." Iroh downs his current glass and orders another tonic — the fourth one tonight. He's never seen Iroh drink so much before; the upcoming return home must really be weighing on him. "So how much do you know?"
"Honestly, not much. But I figure it happened after the Equalists — those six months while you were on shore dealing with the fallout from Yue Bay, and she was trying to keep Future Industries afloat."
Iroh grunts in affirmation. "Yes. We saw quite a bit of each other downtown while we were handling our respective matters, and we eventually started spending time together. At first it was just mutual commiseration, but it developed into something more."
"How serious was it?" he questions.
Iroh scoffs. "There was nothing to 'get serious' about. I told you, I didn't want to start anything I'd have to end."
"That's not what I'm asking. How serious was it for you?"
Another pause. Iroh purses his lips and stares into his glass. "The feelings I had for Asami…that's the most I've ever felt for anyone, before or since."
"Did she reciprocate?" He can't recall much of what Asami was up to during that time; but then again, he'd been wrapped up in Korra.
"I don't know if her affections went as far as mine did," Iroh admits. "I never asked; I never told her the depth of my regard either. But she certainly reciprocated enough that I had to…prevent things from going further."
He frowns. "What did you do?"
"We had an honest conversation. I told her the truth. That there couldn't be a future for us, and we shouldn't begin anything we couldn't see through." Iroh's face is etched with some old, distant hurt, a memory of pain. "She understood, but…neither of us was happy about it."
He cringes in sympathy. Coming not long after his own breakup with her, the rejection from Iroh — as reluctant and gentle as it was — must have been hard for Asami. Not for the first time, he bemoans the circumstances in Asami's life that have brought her so much pain, especially in matters of the heart. It is no one's fault that none of her relationships really had a future, but his heart aches for his friend. There is consolation in the fact that he is lunching with her every week, and so he is able to support her that way. Asami does at least seem to be regaining her spark — last Friday she had suggested inviting Korra and Bolin for their next lunch for a Team Avatar reunion.
Asami will be fine, he assures himself. It's Iroh who needs him right now.
"Do you still love Asami?"
Iroh shakes his head. "No. Like I said, it's been a long time. We've both moved on." His manner turns contemplative. "If circumstances had been different, then maybe we could have had something. But we are who we are, and our end goals don't align. I'm going to be Fire Lord one day, and she wouldn't give up Future Industries to be my consort in the Fire Nation, even if I could marry her — which I can't. It was hard enough calling it quits after four months of — whatever it was — I couldn't imagine the heartbreak if we had to separate after several years. It's really for the best that we didn't pursue anything."
He doesn't have anything to say to that, so he lets the moment pass in silence before speaking again.
"What exactly are you hoping to accomplish with this trip home? Are you going to try to compromise with your mother?" A sudden thought strikes him. "Wait — you haven't resigned your commission yet, have you?"
"No. I applied for a two-month leave of absence. I figure that's enough time for me to negotiate with Mother." A fleeting shadow crosses Iroh's face. "Or meet whomever she wants me to court."
He blinks. "Izumi's arranging your marriage?"
"Not exactly." Iroh glances up at the crystal lights on the ceiling. "Mom would never force me to marry someone I didn't want to. But at the same time she's made sure I know that whomever I pick has to fulfil certain…criteria. For the stability of the nation." He drinks more pu-erh. "Priority number one, of course, is that the girl is a Fire National. Since I've spent the vast majority of the last seventeen years away from the Fire Nation, I don't exactly have prospects — and with my status back home, it's not like I can casually go out for a night on the town and meet women."
"You could if you went in disguise," he suggests.
Iroh actually chuckles. "And perhaps I might resort to that. But in the meantime, Mom's been on the lookout for potential — er, candidates, I suppose. Every time I visit she's introduced me to some noble lady or other whom she hopes I'll take a liking to. I don't mind, exactly — it's not like I've had much opportunity to find anyone on my own — but it gets rather wearying. And not a single one of them has been someone I could see myself settling down with."
"Does your future wife have to be a noblewoman?"
"Not necessarily. But it makes things a bit easier — on the girl, not me — if she is. And to be fair, most of the young women Mom interacts with are of the nobility."
Iroh drains the last of his pu-erh and seems ready to order another one; but he pushes a glass of fruit juice into the prince's hand instead.
"If you're going to drink some more, you'd better have something to dilute the alcohol."
Iroh acquiesces, accepting the juice.
He feels like he's about to stir a viper nest, but it has to be asked. "What does your mother want?"
Iroh exhales slowly. "She wants to ensure the security of the Fire Nation. And she wants me to be happy." His lip curls wryly. "Unfortunately for her, those two objectives have thus far proved to be mutually exclusive."
"I don't think they have to be," he argues. "Seems to me that your mother and grandfather both managed it."
"Agni knows how." Iroh knocks back the juice. "I guess I have two months to figure it out."
He frowns as Iroh throws down a wad of yuans and hops off the stool, only slightly unsteady. "Do you want me to walk you back to your ship?"
"Thank you, but no. I need to clear my head. I leave for home in three days."
"That's soon."
Iroh laughs humourlessly. "Tell me about it." His golden eyes seem to sober up. "Mako…regardless what my situation is when I come back — or even if I come back — I want to thank you. You've been a good friend."
"So have you," he returns. "Look — don't be a stranger, okay? Even when you do end up relocating to the Fire Nation permanently — and I don't think it's gonna be this round — keep in touch."
The first genuine smile he's seen all night brightens Iroh's face.
"I'll do that. See you around, Mako."
As he watches Iroh walk out of the bar, he realises that the Fire Nation Prince is facing an identity crisis similar to what he himself had gone through two years ago — albeit perhaps not as severe. Iroh isn't confused about what he wants or what his purpose is; he's merely struggling with how to reconcile the two.
Still, he found his way from the depths of despair to attain clarity — and, dare he say it, happiness — in his choices.
He hopes Iroh will find the same.
A/N: Lyric is from 'Bad Day' by Daniel Powter, and the bad day in question is Iroh's. And here begins the long-awaited Fire Nation arc. It's going to be most plot-heavy arc in the entire story, and it'll be quite long. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
The idea of Irosami not working out long-term is based on one of my own real-life experiences. Sometimes you meet someone and hit it off, and would like to take it further...but long-term goals just don't align, and a relationship just wouldn't work out in the long run. It's no one's fault, it's just that your paths are going to take you in different directions. In that case, it's up to the two people in question whether they still want to pursue something that would eventually end. Personally, I didn't (and neither did Iroh, for the reasons he stated).
Oh yes, and here are some birthdates for various characters, in case anyone was curious. These are just what I've worked out for this story, mind - I've taken liberties with some dates we don't have actual dates even if we know the year, and some characters don't even have stated birth years. But here you go:
Xien - 133 AG
Iroh - winter (January-ish), 142 AG
Juno - autumn, 148 AG
Asami - midsummer, 151 AG
Mako - late summer, 151 AG
Korra - autumn, 152 AG
Zoya - winter (December-ish), 152 AG
Bolin - early spring, 154 AG
Iroh's sister - mid-spring, 154 AG
Minsu - summer, 154 AG
Opal - 155 AG
Kai - winter, 158 AG
Jinora - autumn, 160 AG
Ikki - 162 AG