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Published:
2020-06-22
Updated:
2021-03-30
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7/?
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Little bosom not yet cold

Summary:

Prince Zuko spends his mornings sitting by the turtleducks, feeding them pieces of bread and talking in a low voice. He plays pai sho with the courtesans, and performs mini-concerts with the tsungi horn for the royal guard, and takes servants' children to the market square to buy fire flakes and molten pear drops from the street vendors.

 

And if Azula closes her eyes, she can pretend that everything’s fine.

It does not change the fact that Zuko's going to die.

 

(AU where Zuko was blessed by Agni and Ozai plans to sacrifice him on the day of the eclipse.)

Notes:

please enjoy my trash writing and this AU I came up with while I was depressed

Title is from the poem "Little bosom not yet cold" by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Chapter 1: the very part was consecrate to thee

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The little prince is born.

 

A servant rushed through the courtyard, tripping over stray pebbles on the polished pavement. In the sky, there was no full moon to illuminate the gardens. The shadow of a new moon left unlit dark corners where no lanterns could reach.

 

It’s a sign.

 

They stumbled through Prince Ozai’s palace wing, before finally reaching a set of heavy, ornate doors. They waited for the guards to push the doors open and allow them into their master’s chambers, nervous anticipation flickering like the lamps that lit the hallways.

 

When the servant was finally given access to the rooms, they fell to their knees, forehead touching the cool floor, prostrating themselves in a bow.

 

“Prince Ozai,” they said, “your wife, Princess Ursa, has given birth. I regret to inform you that...unfortunately, the child did not make it.”

 

The prince dismissed the servant.

 

The lights flickered out.

 

It’s a sign.

 

 

 

 

 

Most of the residents of the Fire Lord’s palace will forget this in five years’ time, but Ursa could never forget the worst hour of her life; worse than the day she learned of her engagement, worse than her wedding night.

 

She had been in labor for nearly half a day, but her baby’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t breathing.

 

Why wasn’t her baby breathing?

 

“Princess Ursa?” the midwife called to her, “Princess Ursa, please, let us take the little prince. We must clean him and prepare for the funeral.”

 

Ursa’s hold on her son tightened. “No,” she whispered.

 

“Pardon me, Princess Ursa?”

 

“No,” she said again, with more conviction, more fire-tempered steel, “Let me hold him, I want to hold him.”

 

He had come early. The fire sages hadn’t predicted that Ursa would give birth at the end  of the monsoon season; they had planned for her to give birth in spring, when Agni’s strength would be kind. But her baby had come early, and now he was here in her arms, so small and soft, and he wasn’t breathing .

 

It’s a sign.

 

A Fire Nation princess wasn’t supposed to cry. Fire Nation royalty should be composed; they should always maintain their public image; they shouldn’t show weakness. The advisors and the nobility and her father-in-law all expected her to uphold her status, to act as the princess she now was, but, cradling her baby boy, Ursa couldn’t find it in herself to care.

 

A cry rang through the palace.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a sign, they say. 

 

“Poor Princess Ursa,” a servant murmured, standing outside the chambers where grief-stricken cries wouldn’t stop.

 

“Her union with Prince Ozai must be cursed,” another whispered, “for their first baby to not make it. She is a fertile woman and royal blood is strong, how else could it have gone wrong?”

 

The midwife’s assistant shushed them. “Don’t let the Fire Lord or Prince Ozai hear of that! Do you want to be sent to the coal mines?”

 

 

 

 

 

On Crescent Island, Fire Sage Shyu stopped in his tracks.

 

“There is something wrong.”

 

There has always been something wrong, is what he didn’t say. Something has been wrong since we betrayed the Avatar. Something has been wrong since we stopped serving as spiritual guides and started serving the Fire Lord’s war instead. But this is something different, something separate from the usual wrongness.

 

“You are imagining things, Shyu,” the Great Sage replied.

 

Shyu watched as the other fire sages, master firebenders all in their own right, struggled to relight the foyer’s lights. No bending would come out, and no matches would catch fire. Even the oil lanterns refused to turn on.

 

“No,” he said, “the spirits are troubled.”

 

It’s a sign.

 

 

 

 

 

Prince Zuko breathed his last breath before he could even open his eyes.

 

There were no greater spirits to witness his short life. He was born in the night, where Agni held no reign and little power; he was born under a new moon, when Tui left the sky to visit La and answered no prayers; he was born to a sky full of clouds, covering the stars so that not even the smaller heavenly bodies could peer upon his face.

 

But he is not alone.

 

His ancestors’ spirits wait by the bed, their pale hands reaching out. The ghosts of Fire Nation soldiers (drowned in the ocean, buried under the earth, burned to ashes) traverse the world to bow in front of him. War prisoners who have long passed slip into the city to watch him. The malnourished carcasses of Earth Kingdom peasants and depleted bodies of the Southern Water Tribe’s benders wait in the courtyard. An entire race of air nomads sit on the palace’s roofs, the nuns holding steadfast to toddlers’ hands as monks circle the towers. Fire Nation citizens leave their family shrines.

 

The lesser spirits gathered for him.

 

And when he breathed his last breath, they cried.

 

 

 

 

 

Iroh was sleeping when his nephew died.

 

Years later, he will go on a spiritual journey to find his son, Lu Ten, and he will learn of the day that the spirits and ghosts and undead mourned so great that the sun was awoken from an eternity’s tradition.

 

 

 

 

 

Agni slept at night. That was the deal.

 

Agni would be allowed to rest, and the humans would have Tui and the little-sister-stars to guide their way. Some of the humans were even gifted with Agni’s fire, so that they could fill the night with bright light and continue their laughter and games while Agni slept. And so, Agni has never woken up before morning.

 

Yet, here they were.

 

 

 

 

 

Under the ocean, a twelve year old boy twitches.

 

 

 

 

 

Save him.

 

There is a woman and a baby cradled in her arms, and the baby is not breathing.

 

The little prince cannot die.

 

Save him, please save him.

 

There is a woman and a baby. The woman is crying because the baby will not breathe. The baby’s eyes will not open.

 

Don’t let this be his end!

 

Save him. Save him.

 

There is a woman and a baby who will not breathe, and they are both Agni’s children.

 

Agni knows that if the baby’s eyes open, they will be yellow. The baby’s eyes will be gold like molten pear drops, like the ocean’s horizon or the sunset sky. They will shine brighter than the morning sun and they will burn through shadows and darkness and night.

 

The little prince is destined for greater than this.

 

Save him!

 

 

 

 

 

Spirits do not converge for no reason. The lesser spirits, the spirits of the earth, spirits of people, they do not just stray from their graves and possessions. They certainly don’t convene for a baby. There are hundreds of babies born every day, after all. There are even more who are lost to the world.

 

Still, they flock to the little prince.

 

Please save him, they say. All hope will be lost if he dies.

 

The Avatar still lives, Agni reminds them.

 

They cry. But this one is ours. He is ours. Save him!

 

 

 

 

 

Ozai had not been pleased to have his sleep disturbed by the servant. So Ursa had finally given birth? In the middle of the night, of all times?

 

He would wait until morning.

 

But when the sun finally rose, Ozai’s mood had not improved. As he walked through the courtyard, soaking up Agni’s light, he did not feel rejuvenated. The monsoon clouds had finally cleared and the sun was unimpeded in its ascent through the sky, and yet Ozai felt that his fire was weaker.

 

When he reached the birthing chambers, where his wife lay, Ozai found the royal guards and palace servants all waiting outside the room. Even the midwife was outside, not daring to enter, though Ozai had no idea why since their job was to be inside the room to help Ursa give birth.

 

The guards and servants parted for him, watching with bated breath as he entered the room.

 

A baby’s soft cry greeted him.

Notes:

sorry, this is definitely not properly edited or revised

chapter title is from Shakespeare's sonnet 74 "But be contented when that fell arrest"