Chapter Text
"Look at me, Prince Zuko."
Firelord Ozai's words boomed, as the decrees of a ruler ought to boom, but it was calm—or at least ambivalent—enough to lure the groveling thirteen-year-old prince into raising his head. Even when he did as he was instructed, though, Zuko did not truly see the face of his father. The firelight behind the looming man obscured that bearded visage in shadows.
Suddenly, Zuko felt the hand of his father brush against his left cheek.
Father's hand was calloused from decades of training, and almost as big as his whole face.
"No matter how gravely you insult my honor," the Firelord continued, "you are still my son."
The large hand was now cupping his left cheek. Zuko almost leaned into the comfort of those words and that touch—father still loved him after all. Whenever father spoke to him harshly or punished him, that was simply father trying to make him a better person and crown prince. And now, father was going to forgive him, even though he had been a bumbling disappointment again.
And then, he heard his father suck in a deep breath.
"As such…"
Firelord Ozai almost sounded like he was holding back a chuckle.
Zuko was eager to hear his sentence. Father loved him, after all, and yet, he had insulted father's honor. He must deserve something, to punish him for such a betrayal.
And then, Firelord Ozai breathed out.
Firebending came from the breath.
Standing in the refurnished throne room and swarmed by generals and ministers on all sides, Firelord Zuko never felt more alone.
"Lee," he sighed, "surely you realize why we can't just march Imperial Firebenders into Yu Dao?"
The throne room…once, it had been one barren hall, with the elevated throne of the Firelord at the end. Soon after Zuko took his place as the Firelord, however, he realized just how distasteful it was to hide behind a veil of fire and stand above all the members of his court, and so he redecorated. Nowadays, the middle pair of support pillars had been pushed back to make space, and the center of the room was occupied by one round table large enough for every one of the thirty or so members of his court to simultaneously sit down at. Zuko was there too—he preferred to stand, so that he could have the freedom to pace and gesticulate when he wanted, but he did have his own seat. The throne, on the other hand, was now just a decoration far behind everything significant.
Clap.
General Lee slammed both his hands down on the round table, confrontational for sure, but not rude, as far as Zuko was concerned. That was simply the start of the man rising from his seat and propping up his weight with his arms on the table. The general—the older and respectable general, who had just started to show the first sprinkle of gray in his short hair and his beard—meant no offense.
Besides, Zuko clearly remembered that Lee had family in Yu Dao. Given the circumstances, he was not going to fault a fine general who also sparred with him often in private. He was also not going to call Lee out on his motives being too personal, even though that would be the best point to debate from, practically speaking.
"My lord!" The general exclaimed. "I fully understand the delicacy of the situation, but it is vital that we capture LiRan!"
"And we will!" Zuko couldn't help the growl. "Yudao is not some lawless wasteland, they're defended—"
"Yudao isn't equipped to handle a combustion bender, my lord, and you know it."
"Even if Yudao cannot handle this on their own, we can't be the ones—"
"Apologies, my lord." General Jin was the one to offer a thinly-veiled protest now. "But I believe that, in our current situation, being the one to handle this dangerous fugitive is precisely what we need. We have to show through our actions that we support the peace—"
"And the first step to supporting the peace is not sending our most elite force into a colony we just set free three years ago." Zuko insisted. "We cannot—"
"Dissenters will question us no matter what we do!" General Lee butted back in. "So we might as well go with the option that gets the job done and establishes our strength."
"I for one support Firelord Zuko's idea."
For a second, Zuko had the audacity to hope that there was at least this single other person who saw reason among the dozens of men and women in the room. So, expectantly, he traced the voice with his gaze…
And was immediately faced with disappointment.
"Let Yudao handle this one alone." Governor Saito sneered. "Maybe once they actually experience dealing with a combustion bender on their own, they will come to realize how foolish it was for them to break from our nation."
It was almost as if this man did not care to conceal the fact that he was still operating by Ozai's political ideologies. Actually, scratch that—Zuko was without a doubt that Saito didn't care, and because of Zuko's initial policies regarding members of the previous court, Saito didn't need to care either. The old man officially denounced Ozai, so he was safe. For good.
The rogue prince in Zuko—or what was left of it after five years of domestication—wanted to punch Saito in the face and then tell the man to watch himself. The Firelord in Zuko helped him stay right where he was and meet Saito's eyes without glaring.
"Like general Jin said, Governor Saito" Firelord Zuko warned, "we should all live by the principle of showing our support of the peace through our everyday words and actions."
"Saito's an idiot, my lord, forgive my vulgarity," another voice called, one that Zuko could not lock down right away, "but people like him do exist in our nation. You must also consider how those people might view you, if you do not take direct actions against LiRan."
And so, the debates continued, because Zuko did not want to be the kind of Firelord who hid behind a curtain of fire and silenced his followers by flaring his flames—by threats of violence. That was why he had the throne room rebuilt in the first place, and he had outright asked his court to be verbal when he first came into power, so now, here he was.
Another governor suggested that they should ask the Avatar to intervene. After all, subduing powerful individuals without harming the individual in question or any potential bystanders was right up the airbender's alley. The Avatar's face was also much more welcomed around the world than the metal masks of Imperial Firebenders.
Hmm.
Come to think of it, maybe it was time they updated their uniforms? The goal of the Fire Nation was no longer military might and intimidation, and their garments should reflect that. Such a change, unfortunately, would no doubt be two meetings in and of itself, one to debate the political impacts, and another for budgets and timelines.
In the meantime, Jin was interjecting himself and pointing out that the Avatar was Zuko's personal friend, not a representative of the political entity that was the overall Fire Nation. Then, Lee also had to make a remark about how the Avatar did not kill Ozai.
"Stray Ozai supporters are still popping up in remote locations of the kingdom to this day" was the part of Lee's comment that got to Zuko the most. Mostly because it was the undeniable fact.
Certainly, Zuko could make like Lee and let the blame fall all on Aang, but he knew the truth of that matter. The fraction of the nation's resources and manpower that had been permanently dedicated to dealing with conspiracies and small-scale espionage—that was because he decided to spare his father's life as the new Firelord. Aang had passed the decision onto him after the day of Sozin's Comet—something that most people would see as a gesture of respect and recognition to the new Firelord—and he held the blade over his father's neck. He chose the path where Ozai lived and continued to inspire the monthly handful of political insurgencies.
Him. Him and nobody else.
Eventually, in his great fatigue, Zuko made a momentary slip of judgment and uttered the out-loud proposition that he could accompany the Avatar to track down and capture LiRan, seeing that nothing was more representative of the current Fire Nation than him. Right away, multiple members of his court leapt in to inform him that the Firelord personally engaging in combat would be a shameful and debilitating show of desperation. General Lee even went so far as to tell him that he was no longer the child who had the privilege of touring the world on a Sky Bison.
Ironically, that was the only comment that Zuko truly heard.
Regardless, though, Zuko could feel his mental and physical stamina draining. So, firmly, he made the declaration that his final decision on the matter was asking for the Avatar's assistance but also sending along some sort of representative of the Fire Nation. There were still protests within the room, but it was easy to convince everyone to leave the actual selection of a representative to a later meeting. He was never as fast a learner as Az—
No.
Well, anyhow. Zuko was not the fastest learner, but after five years of wearing his crown, Zuko had at least realized that procrastination ran in the very veins of every man and woman in the world. When it became clear that his opposition was getting ready to dig in and fight him tooth and nail, it was always easier to claim that they made progress, to push the harder decisions to a later date. Today, that little bit of street smart applied as well—with the issue of the combustion bender removed for now, the court was able to quickly dispatch a miscellaneous budgeting issue and adjourn the meeting.
Finally, the day was over.
Today, Zuko did not feel like seeing anyone out the palace individually—to praise in private, or to chastise—and so he took the lead in leaving the throne room. Guards accompanied him the whole way as he retired to his bedchambers; guards that, while respectable and hardworking in their own rights, were obviously no match for Zuko as benders or as fighters. He supposed that they could still watch his back when push came to shove, but overall, in any situation where he might need guarding, he could probably protect himself better than they could.
And he had seen all of that play out once before, heh.
It still made him chuckle a bit, whenever he recalled how he used that very fact to his advantage at the Boiling Rock. Looking back, he really had been in a desperate spot, but his thick head managed to squeeze out that one idea, and it bought him time against Mai, just like he needed . He was proud of that moment of quick thinking, even now—using Mai's "guard," who was slower than her, weaker than her, and less aware of the situation than her…
Agni, he had definitely been channeling his inner Azul—
No, no, no.
Yes. Ultimately, the men around him right now existed to serve the same purpose as the ceremonial armor over his shoulders, and the crown upon his head. They were all parts of the ensemble that completed the image of the Firelord, and while he could always get out of specific meetings after a few hours, his shift as the Firelord was something that lasted throughout day and night. Even as he slept, even as he ate, even as he read missives while lazing around by the turtle-duck pond, he would still be the Firelord, and he would at least still serve as a living target practice for the few assassins who did manage to make it all the way into Caldera City.
Speaking of sleep, though…
Also just like with the ornamental armor and the royal headpiece in his hair, Zuko was allowed to shed the royal guards after entering the royal bedchambers. A grand auburn hall in its own right, this "room" housed the masterpiece furnitures of the Firelord, and was in many ways an heirloom of his family. The chamber was currently unlit, perhaps a little cold and a little vacant with Zuko being its only inhabitant, but that could be easily changed—truly, these bedchambers were designed brick by brick to suit the needs of master firebenders.
Case and point, while Zuko was unhooking his chest plate, a single exhale lit the two dozen candles and torches laid out all around the reddish room. These dancing flames were no sunlight, but due to sheer number and strategic placement, they nevertheless illuminated every intricate embossing carved onto the walls and the ceilings and the beds and the doors to the master closet.
In the meantime, Zuko exhaled a second time—this time completely disconnected from firebending—as he placed his chest plate on its designated rack. Growing up as the crown prince of the Fire Nation meant that he had gotten used to the weight of his armor even before he first started hunting the Avatar, so losing the twenty pounds on his shoulders was not exactly a big deal, but recovering the ranges of motion in his core and in his shoulders was always nice. Getting out of the under armor next—that was another bonus.
As Zuko fell onto his twin bed alone, and as he closed his eyes to submerge into the darkness, his mind wandered to Mai for what must have been the millionth time. He did not wonder how she was doing or what she thought about him—her last letter had come in just a few days ago, from somewhere within Air Nomad territories where she was scouting out a location for Aang's new project. She was no longer set to be his Fire Lady, sure, but they were still the best of friends, and right now she was safe among their mutual friends.
No; all things considered, Zuko really just wanted to be reminded of what it was like to see the world with those friends. After five years of being the Firelord and exerting vague influences through fifty layers of bureaucratic procedures, he could barely remember the face of that Earth Kingdom boy who had once received his pearl-handled dagger.