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Chapter Text

The month after Zuko was banished Azula was sneaking through the Royal Palace. Overhearing servants was always a favored pastime, especially as it often netted a great deal of blackmail against the residents of the palace. 

“He burned his own son, what kind of man does that?”

“If he wasn’t the Firelord he would be decried…”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because Zuko was kind.”

“...”

“You’ve always said that the war was always questionable after Iroh lost Ba Sing Se…” 

“Silence, someone is coming.”

Azula glanced around her corner and saw a third servant approaching. She moved into the  room, leaned against the entrance frame. Watching as the servants were conferring, she gently cleared her throat. 

“Princess Azula” the three servants exclaimed as they dropped to their knees. 

“So… Do any of you want to explain to me what is going on in here? It sounds to me like sedition…” Azula smiled. 

“No Princess, never, we support the Firelord and the Royal Family!” they all said, nearly in unison. 

“Hmm… perhaps you should explain what you have been talking about to the Princess,” Azula said as her smile widened. The servants looked at the floor, eyes wide, sweat forming on their brow. Azula looked at them and her smile dropped. She thought of the times when Zuko and she would perform the ending to Love Amongst Dragons on ember island. Zuko laughing as she screams the lines, her mother’s laugh like a song. Her fathers eyes watching her, disapprovingly. 

“... Do any of you know how to get a message out of the Palace?”

“Princess?”

As a single tear rolls down her face, “I want to send a message to my uncle, and if any of you say anything, I will tell my father what you said.”

“As you wish princess.”

— 

Azula wandered back through the halls, thinking of her time at the Royal Academy for girls. Mai, Ty Lee, Azula. In all her time there she suspected that the only reason she succeeded to begin with was  because of who she was, until she began to so totally destroy her classmates. She remembered her classmates Lee, Chan, and Shoji who, before she arrived, were topping out classes. How her arrival brought harsh looks, being shoved in the halls by unseen faces, and having her books vandalised after school was released. But then, class after class she began to truly excel. Her logic and rhetoric class was simple, she won game after game in Pai Sho, the firebender training and private tutor were below her. The professors admired her mind, and feared her father. The children hated her mind, and feared her. In all that Mai and Ty Lee were there. Her only real friends. She missed them. Ty Lee off in the earth kingdom with that Circus, and Mai’s family off being Governor of Omashu. Azula fought back a tear. 

When She returned to her room Azula sat at her vanity and pulled out her brush and ink well, and began composing a letter. 

‘Dear Uncle, 

  At our parting we exchanged ill words. I would like to offer an apology. I was wrong to feel so superior. Zuko can never complete his task. The Avatar has not been seen in a hundred years. Let alone by a Fire Nation warship. I implore you uncle, as the greatest military mind of my father’s generation to work with me. As much as competition for affection was fomented between my brother and I, I cannot help but feel the emptiness of the palace. My friends have been forced away from me. My father has only made the palace more empty, An attempt to make me more desperate for his affection and attention no doubt. Yet I do not crave affection. I yearn for company more than anything. Father is rarely here, always claiming to be off touring some new ship or a new governor's posting. 

I am not looking for forgiveness. I am not looking for your pity. I was still pleased when Zuko was burned. I am still my father’s heir. But It is not my place. Zuko is owed this station, I may be better than him, but his naivete and kindness while a weakness politically will give him the power to unite my people. Our People. 

My Father needs to die. 

Your Blue Dragon, 

            Azula.’

Chapter Text

Iroh unrolled the scroll, he had to do a double take as he read the by-line. Azula. She had reached out to him. The message burned in his fingers. The Hawk was returned with a scrap of paper that only notes one thing “Jasmine fire”.

—

Azula sat in the Pai Sho garden and moved a Jasmine tile to the fire gate, noting her Uncle utilizing the dragon opening in the west. She examined the board briefly and played a rose in the Heaven Gate. Committing to the Avatar’s gambit. She sent Iroh her next three moves. 

—

Her opening was fast, Iroh noted, but entirely hers. The Avatar’s Gambit was not one that is encountered often. But the Dragon opening can easily be changed to meet it. Iroh planned out his next four moves, and sent them. He looked up as Zuko began the basic firebending set again. 

“No Prince Zuko, Your energy comes from the breath. Breath and then,” fire erupts from Iroh’s closed fist and shoots across the deck of the ship, “the fire will come, no matter how hard you swing, you must breathe.”

—

Azula noted that both of the final moves that She and Iroh had made were in conflict with each other. But, blocking her he forces her to slow. She sighs. Her whole gamble was on overwhelming force. Without the fast opening of the Avatar she had to rethink her entire strategy. The two months to get just these three moves have been forcing her to analyze and examine every move, every placement, and she hated the waiting. But to get her uncle to fully prepare Zuko to take the throne when she is done she needed him on board before she could put any of her other plans in motion. She can not even contact any of the necessary commanders to begin her subtle manipulations of the Navy and Army that will be needed. She did force her attendants to take her on a tour of a barracks closer to the waterfront. 

Upon arrival a dozen men in Fire Nation uniform stool tall and stock still. She slowly paced through the room with the sergeant explaining the different things to her. 

“... And this princess is a foot locker, this is where the men store their private belongings…” Azula noticed a Pai Sho tile on the ground. She looked up at the man and made eye contact, he did not flinch, merely he ever so slowly lowered one eyelid and winked at her. Azula was unsure what to think and blushed slightly in both anger and embarassment, looking down again to hide this she focused on the white lotus tile on the floor. 

— 

Iroh read over a report from the White Lotus, the Avatar continues to be beyond the reach of everyone. Looking over the page he notes that Zuko has his feet out of place. He noted that Azula’s next moves would back them both into a corner. Subtle changes to his posture put him into a much better position, while still seemingly weak. His shift from his Dragon attack to the Turtle Duck defense with an easy change into the Platypus Bear. 

“Zuko, keep your balance, spread out your feet.”

“Uncle, any further and I am out of the stance”

“Zuko, listen to me. Trust. Breathe in, spread out your feet for that block. You will have more strength for it.” 

“Okay Uncle,” Zuko smiled.

—

Azula is again staring at the Pai Sho garden. Iroh’s moves had her pinned into the neutral gardens. But she had his potential victories locked down with her Accent tiles. Then she saw it. Four moves and she had him. She smiled and stood up and began walking away. 

“Azula, What are you doing?”

Azula turned and dropped to her knees, “Father, I’m simply playing Pai Sho.”

“Against whom?” Ozai growled.

“... myself, father,” Azula said. 

“I see, hmm…” Ozai moved one of Iroh’s flowers, checking the piece that Azula was going to block anyway. A small grin crept across Azula’s face before she checked it. 

“Azula, come with me. We have a trip.”

“Yes Father,” Azula rushed to follow. 

—

It was a long tour from the Capital around the nation, from city to city, though they did avoid Ursa’s home town Azula noticed. While they traveled Azula performed her advanced forms for Ozai. Visiting the various governors around the nation gave Azula some perspective. As she met with the Governors and generals she noticed that several of the younger officers waited for hours to meet her and leave their offerings as their superiors bent the knee to her father. 

“Hello Princess… Thank you princess”

“Hello Princess… Thank you your majesty” 

So it went, on and on, until a young man with bright eyes approached and bent down, leaving a gift on the pile at her feet.

“Hello Princess… Jade to heaven water white 4...” he said under his breath.

Azula stuttered out her basic response and looked to the offering that he had added to the pile at her feet. A single white lotus flower resting on a rolled parchment. Azula was lost in thought such that she did not even notice when the event ended. Her mind was reeling, she had just lost. Iroh’s final move had placed her in a bind, but she knew, she knew that there had to be a way out. The whole game had felt like a test, every time Iroh advanced he left himself open to an attack from a direction that would never be open in a normal game. But when she attacked from a different direction sensing a trap he would bend around her, as though anticipating her every move. But now, she was in a bind. His harmony was converging around her and she could not find her way out. 

—

Watching his Daughter Ozai’s lips pulled into a tight line. He could sense something was wrong and did not yet know what he could do. There was only a slight distance he was beginning to feel between them. But he knew he needed to do something to bridge it. 

“Azula, dear girl, would you like to learn the most advanced fire bending technique?” he asked. 

Azula looked far away, he could almost see the cogs turning in her head. Mulling a problem over and working it over and over. Seeing all the angles, looking five moves ahead, it was the same look that Iroh would have when they were children in the War meetings under Azulon. Ozai frowned, coughed, and looked intently at her. 

“Azula! GIRL LISTEN TO ME,” Ozai yelled.

Azula startled, “Yes father!”

“You will learn lightning generation when we return,” Ozai said, with the corners of his lips turning up into a smile. 

“Yes father,” Azula said in a low voice with her vicious smile. As she settled back in her seat Ozai noticed that her vision went out of focus again. What was she thinking about? Ozai’s thoughts drifted away from his daughter back to the woman he had been seeing. From her to the possible menu options for the evening. Only momentarily focusing again on his daughter. I will need to enforce a stricter schedule on her, more lessons, less time alone. 

—

Azula felt the sweat drip down her brow. Her arms were shaking, her breath coming in heavy rasps. 

“Hold yourself still…” Li said

“...steady your arms.” Lo finishes

Azula drops her arms and squats as she starts breathing more heavily. She waves her hand in the air and a cup of water with rose petals and cucumber is presented by a member of her staff. 

“Azula…”

“... Again,” Li and Lo said. Azula steps into the circle again, and begins the sequence again. Step, spin, fire, block, turn, duck, turn, under, fire, block, fire block, Azula sees the target beyond the fray. She reaches two fingers into the air, pulls at the energy that she feels there, and charges the lighting. A feeling at the edge of her senses, the air smells like storm, her heart pounds in her ears as the silver blue lighting is plucked from the aether. Her eyes focus on the wooden bust of some vague avatar and the electricity coursing through her finds release through her chakra paths. The lightning courses across the garden and destroys the wooden bust. Azula breaths out a sigh, stands, and centers herself. When she opens her eyes she sees her father staring down from a balcony above. 

—

Iroh receives Azula’s final move. He smiles. Patience is required when playing Pai Sho from such a distance. But her strategy is capable, and she took no unnecessary risks. So perhaps he can work with her. 

“Prince Zuko, We have searched all three air temples, the avatar is not there. Slow down, and focus on the improvement of yourself.”

Iroh sat and gestured to the other side of the Pai Sho table. 

“Zuko, you need to examine the world around you and begin to focus on what you can do to improve it,” Iroh said. 

“Uncle, I can help the world later, right now I need to regain my honor. That is what will allow me to make changes, that is what will take me back home,” Zuko responds. 

“Prince Zuko, please, your honor is not in question. Your father--”

“My father will return my station to me when I capture the Avatar!” Zuko shouted.

“Prince Zuko--”

“Enough Uncle!” Zuko said as he stood up and stormed off the deck towards his quarters. 

“Oh Zuko, We will give your back what you deserve. Your sister and I. oh.. Lu Ten, if only you were here to help show him the way…” Iroh said under his breath. He sat back down and brought out a brush and inkwell and parchment and began to write. 

‘ Dear my Blue Dragon, 

I have examined your strategy in our game, I have found you to be capable. I will help you. But to create the circumstances to bring down your Father we will need help. I have old friends who will assist us. But you must develop your contacts within both high society and the military. I can give you access to a network to move your messages through but you will need to be the one who is the center of this web. I am too far away and too occupied making sure that your brother continues to be the boy we both know. You can be the mastermind behind this, but if you are, you must live with it and the consequences. 

As for how we can communicate, you must never leave your name. You are now the Blue Dragon. You must only pass sensitive information through the people I send to you, as they serve a higher calling than their nation, you must be sensible and make only the moves that will allow you to stay a secret. Do not underestimate your father. 

Dragon of the West.’

Chapter Text

Azula looked at the note in her hand.
She grinned.
Slowly and deliberately Azula ripped the piece of parchment several times, and then burned it to ash. Then stuffed the ash in a loaf of bread and fed it to the turtleducks. She walked out of the garden. Walked through the palace and sat around the Pai Sho board that her servants moved to her room.
Azula spent hours working through the message in her head. How had her Uncle intended to reach out to her. She thought back to their game of Pai Sho, to the cryptic messages from random members of the Navy and Army that gave her Iroh’s moves, commonalities between everything that was said and done. Thinking over this all Azula couldn’t help but think that she was missing something. She went about her day thinking of every event that had led up to that letter from Iroh. She thought of the soldier who brought her the first move from Iroh that did not come as a slip of paper.

She pulled the lotus tile out from the set and placed it in the middle of the board.
—
Ozai sat on the throne staring down at the map of the earth kingdom. Skirmishes fought along every border and around all of the colonies. Ozai’s thoughts drifted to his son. His brother. His eyes drifted to the eastern air temple. Ozai knew that eventually Zuko would go there as Ozai himself, and Azulon had, desperate in search of the Avatar. Ozai scoffed under his breath, Zuko was weak. That woman was too soft on him. Ozai had only made a play for the throne. Zuko would have been worth all of this. But she had to change it, and play the game. It's no game for a woman. Let alone one born among peasants and raised up to the highest ranks of aristocracy by himself. She should have been grateful to him. Ozai scoffed a final time and dismissed his advisors with naught but an indication that they should do as they wish and they would be damned if the consequences were poor. As the last of the group left the war room Ozai walked through his entrance behind the throne. Normally covered in fire the entrance Ozai takes leads down through darkness. The few spiderfly webs are turned to smoke as he passes and clears the passage. He continues down, into the hollow core of the ancient volcanic rock.
The stairway widens into a dark room that is lit with a simple snap of Ozai’s fingers. Honeycomb fractals cover the walls of this ancient library. The room smells like old paper and lamp oil. Ozai walked carefully around the room. The private notes of a hundred Firelords live down in this room, hidden from the prying eyes of the Fire sages. Sozin’s private account of the obliteration of the Air nomads, Azulon’s writings on the gradual destruction of the southern Water tribe, and Iroh’s letters and battle plans from the occupation of Ba Sing Se. Ozai opened a scroll from his great grandfather. The aging ink cracked, and Ozai brought it to the table in the center of the room. He retraced the characters as he read.
The day I usurped the throne by making the deal for my eldests life. Knowing that I would have to destroy my only heir to gain my proper standing. My elder brother is weak and his rule will be ineffectual and ruinous to the Firenation as a whole.
Ozai smiled.
The weakness inherent in our line will be purged. I will take what wives I need to create a strong Heir. When Kyoshi finally dies we shall be blessed by the Avatar being birthed in our nation. I will build us to our full strength before we host the Avatar and he will be the strongest avatar in the cycle.
Ozai Grimaced at the mention of Avatar Roku and put away the scroll. He reached for another, a note from Sozin on his assault of the Southern Air Temple.
Their culture had no need for a military force, each member of the temple was capable of bending to some degree or other. Their Elders were each the most powerful benders in the world. Each required many battalions of our soldiers to fully defeat. Together they pushed each one of us off their mountains, as individuals the less spiritual of them were capable of taking the breath away from dozens or hundreds of my men. We marched for days against them. The Air Nomads were capable of defeating us. If they had held the same ideology we did. Should they have felt that violence against us was allowable they would have soundly destroyed us. As it was, when we destroyed them, it was less that equals fought and lost, and more that a Saber-tooth Mooselion allowed a seal turtle to slap it to death. It did not feel like the victory that we presented it as, even before we were able to recognize that we did not end the avatar.
Ozai stood, and retrieved a blank scroll and began his notes on how the war was preceding. Once he finished updating his notes he recalled the torch flames and the room dimmed yet again. He walked back up towards the palace. A second staircase off of the primary led Ozai up to the royal bedchamber. When he opened the hidden door into his bedchamber he sighed. The termination of his day looming he pulled off the heavy robes and walked into an adjoining room that was dominated by a large basin of water. Ozai heated the water and slipped into it. His scarred body feeling tense and loosening in the hot water.
“Ozai! Your foot is in the wrong place, watch Iroh and LEARN FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE!”
Ozai started and jerked as he woke up. Darkness permeated the space, and Ozai could feel the skin on his fingers being pruned. He stood, dried himself, and walked back into the royal chambers. Called for a servant and sent the man away for a tray of sliced meat and fruit. He sat in a large chair and waited. His head aching.
—
A figure stood in the corner of Azula’s room. They shuffled forward and brushed a lock of her hair back. The figure stands and walks out of the door.
—
The next morning Azula sat in her room and read over reports from the edges of the Fire nation empire. Squabbles and skirmishes with the Earth kingdom. Azula smiled when she found a report of an attack on an encampment of Fire navy sailors, as the only thing spared from flame was a Pai Sho board and the White Lotus tile. She activated a lever under her Pai Sho table. The revealed lid was pushed aside and Azula placed the report into the compartment under the board on top of a pile of similar reports. Each bearing the official seal of the Earth kingdom.
Azula’s mind races through the day. Strategy and tactics fill her head, and her time training her bending is spent with her recounting a book by an old Fire nation Avatar from memory. Sun Tzu’s strategy was burned into her memory. As she moved through the various forms of Firebending Azula stated every rule. Over the course of her hour under the watchful eyes of her father, instructors, along with Li and Lo. Her skill is apparent, each flaming strike can be felt from several meters further than her sparring partners, and the blue heart of her fire marking her out as poignantly different than any peer her teachers had seen.
Azula left training breathing heavily. Her arms ached and her legs wobbled. Tired and weak after so long at the whims of her teachers she was bathed and changed clothes. She ate and rested. While reading on her chaise lounge Azula nodded off.

Chapter Text

Azula dreamed of her grandfather. Her namesake Azulon. She dreamed of one of the speeches she overheard from the back of the throne room. Azulon’s last monologue for Ozai and Ozai alone, based on the content she assumed it to be the last of a series.
“Ozai… you must remember to play the game. The Clans may have been subdued by our forebears but the great game goes on. They wait for us to be decimated and deposed so they may destroy us. Each house seeks to marry your daughter to get their hooks into the throne. They seek only power and they will fight and claw from the shadows because they can no longer do it with armies and open assassinations, so instead they do it with economic attacks and shadowed manipulations of other clans, and houses, and people. Because all that matters is the game. I have taught you the game from your youth, and you have not passed this lesson on to your progeny,” said Azulon.
“The game is everything. Playing the game wins the war,” Ozai interjected.
“This is not about some tiring war Ozai, this is bigger than the war. This is bigger than everything except the whole world itself. The game is the only way forwards. The game is all that will be left after we win the war.

When Azula wakes she writes a letter to Iroh. Searching for a first step that she can take.

The response from Iroh is unequivocal.
“Gather about you those you can trust. Seek out power, gain a following, become better loved than your father. Find Ran and Shaw.”
After memorizing it Azula burned the note. She reached for a new parchment and began to script letters.
Azula’s letters flew across the world in the bags of men and women. Placed with care in the care packages of soldiers on the front lines, passed in battle to those on the other side of the lines. Carried across continents by multitudes of people, into the hands of a select few who have become necessary.
—
Mai is sitting in a lounge balancing a grape on the end of a knife. She refuses to engage with the party raging around her and instead focuses on how the grape is slowly sliding further onto the blade. She slips the grape off the point and begins to peel the skin very carefully off of the flesh. She eats the grape.

—
Ty Lee focuses on the knuckles of her left hand and she balances on the high post. Her foot bends into view, and her right hand reaches over to re-tie her slipper. She bends back into the idea of a dragon, she flips off the post and lands in a perfect maihua pose.

—
When Ty Lee received a note sealed with blue wax she wondered who would be so tacky.
‘Ty Lee,
I am asking you to abandon that circus. Please, I need you back here. For me’

When Mai received a note sealed with blue wax she wondered when Ty Lee had changed from pink to blue.
‘Mai,
I know that you are bored, please return. I think I’ve a plan that will prove to be exciting.’

When Jeong Jeong received a note sealed in blue wax he balked at what was asked.
‘General,
Your nation calls you back into service. Recover your wits. Cease your foolish guerrilla campaign and bide your time. The Dragon of the West and the Blue Dragon are building support. Join us.’

—
Jeong Jeong moved through the Fire nation like a ghost. Shadow and the night were more often his friends than the light of Agni. He forayed past the islands on a single stolen ship. Through the blockades under the new moon, into a colony after three days. Jeong Jeong shaved, and combed his hair. His name was Li, and Iroh, and Bumi, and Long. He moved from the colonies into the earth kingdom. He crossed the Serpent’s Pass and arrived dusty and road weary on the outskirts of Ba Sing Se.
A small tavern built outside the wall is mostly empty and everyone looks up as Jeong Jeong enters. He stops at the bar and pays for a single mug of tea, and moves to the Pai Sho table in the corner. An elderly woman from the Earth kingdom sits and asks to play. Jeong Jeong plays a lotus tile illegally and the woman scoffs and stands. A gentle frown crosses his face. A gentleman sits and attempts a real move but Jeong Jeong stares him down and he leaves. A man who looks like he may have been a soldier in a past he has now forgotten sits across from him. He plays a White Lotus tile and the dance begins.
—
The constant push and pull of battlelines move across the face of the earth kingdom like wrinkles on an ancient face. Fortresses of steel and stone dot the landscape like blemishes, and inferno-scoured forests scar the world. The ground bends and ripples during conflicts, fires start, spread, and are pulled off the earth and hurled into battle lines. The earth itself fights against the advance of the Fire Nation, but a burning scar is carved through the continent and country, and the people.
Across the world there is a shift. A glimmer of hope in the hearts of those who know. A convoy of elders pass through a town and hand out toys to the children. A group of young soldiers, out of uniform, walking together laughing and joking. With yellow, bronze, green,and brown eyes laughing together. With flower pendants hanging from their necks.
Battle lines push and pull across the face of the earth kingdom. But, at some of the steel walls, fire comes up, not just down…
__
Azula trains, day in, day out. Learning to flex muscles that her 12-year-old form had no need of. She was never going to beat an adult with strength alone. But bending is a muscle that is unfettered by youth, and thus the flexing of that strengthens it only further and further.
No one says anything, but she can see in their faces that the ever-lightening blue jets of flame she produces with the slightest effort are clearly fast approaching the most powerful bending of her generation, of any generation. She’s heard the stories, blue flames are a sign of power and skill. She also knows that the blue flame has occurred most often in two family lineages. Her fathers… and her mother's. This knowledge was the reason Azulon brought Ozai to Ursa. Azulon could, in his youth, produce the blue. Ozai never could. She was told enough that she was special by people she knew didn’t mean it. She craved a larger audience. One that she could pack with messengers to Iroh. Messengers to Jeong Jeong. People she knows would examine her performance critically and give decent feedback.
__

Chapter Text

No one says anything, but she can see in their faces that the ever-lightening blue jets of flame she produces with the slightest effort are clearly fast approaching the most powerful bending of her generation, of any generation. She’s heard the stories, blue flames are a sign of power and skill. She also knows that the blue flame has occurred most often in two family lineages. Her fathers… and her mothers. This knowledge was the reason Azulon brought Ozai to Ursa. Azulon could, in his youth, produce the blue. Ozai never could. She was told enough that she was special by people she knew didn’t mean it. She craved a larger audience. One that she could pack with messengers to Iroh. Messengers to Jeong Jeong. People she knows would examine her performance critically and give decent feedback. 

__

Ozai sits behind his wall of flames as his generals pretend to know how any combat operations might happen. Ozai knows though, no plan makes it past first contact with the enemy. The forces they project great victories with are green beyond belief. The forces they give impossible tasks to are older than Ozai. Azula sits staring at the board. She doesn’t blink as she examines the lines that the Fire Armies have carved across the continent in blood and fire. She gingerly points in a hidden gesture that indicates she is thinking about how to move various armies around and through the contested zones. Ozai traces the movements with his eyes. She moves the fifth Fire Army and re-enforces the third, the fourth spreads to cover that flank and he sees that the position becomes stronger. 

Ozai raises his hand. General… Sho, Ozai thinks, stops with his mouth open like a flytrap. 

“Move the fifth to re-enforce the third, stretch the fourth to cover the drop. Do not fail me in this.” Ozai speaks, and a dozen generals stand at attention and  file out of the room. Azula stands to join them. Ozai doesn’t stop her. 

“Azula, don't forget to take your credit,” Ozai says.

“I won’t father, I won’t” she responds. 

__

Ozai walks through Azula’s room. Her Pai Sho board is set up in the form of a game Ozai has never seen before. It doesn’t look to be a winning position for either player. Ozai frowns, the room is immaculate, as usual. Not a thread out of place. Her books, her brushes, her paintings, everything points to her perfection. Everything she does shows that she was the right choice for him to have made all those years ago. 

__

Iroh sits at the Pai Sho board on deck. Zuko stands on his hands on the other side. 

“Remember Zuko, balance is the key to control. Too much anger and your fire will die, too much temperance and you will not find the strength to fuel your fire.” 

Iroh studies the last game he played against Azula. Their fourth. Another tie. Iroh could always beat Ozai. But Azula takes all of his knowledge of the game. All of his skill. He spends weeks agonizing over every move. Zuko trains, Iroh plays. Iroh teaches, Zuko trains. Iroh sees something in Zuko that he has rarely seen before. Iroh plans. He thinks of how to finally get Zuko home. What he could do to sneak both his Nephew and his Niece to meet his masters. 

“Zuko… have I ever told you why they call me the Dragon of the West?” Iroh asks. 

“No Uncle, but my father said that it was because you had hunted the last dragon,” Zuko said. 

“That is.. the story he knows. That is the story I knew would protect what I know, and what he does not. Has anyone told you the story of how we first discovered firebending? Who the first masters were?” 

“No Uncle”

“The first firebenders were the Dragons, Zuko. They could bend fire through pure will. Through all emotion. Their fire was blue, and green, and purple, and red. They could express themselves with it. And they taught the Sun Warriors. They were the living embodiment of Agni in the material world.”

“Uncle, they could bend blue fire?”

“Yes Zuko, just like your Grandfather, just like your sister, and… just like you…”

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT UNCLE”

__

Iroh brought Zuko to the deck of the ship late that night. Had him bend a constant stream of blazing flame. Right as Zuko felt his concentration wavering, Iroh pointed to a very small section of the flame. Gripping Zuko’s wrist Iroh wrenched forth further effort from him and the whole blaze flashed like blue magnesium, and then Zuko lost all feeling in his hand. The flame died as quickly as it came. 

“Uncle how did you know? How long have I been able to do that? Why did no one ever bring it up before?”

“For the same reason I never could and your father never could. Because to effect that change and nurture that talent, if it is not as overwhelming like your sister’s ability, it takes years to nurture. Years to develop. Beyond normal training. It requires efforts above and beyond all mainstay training, beyond even a Master benders training. Even for this,” Iroh said then holding up a small blue flame, the size of a candle flame. 

“I may not be able to nurture this in you. But with time you may learn.”

— 

Time passes as it must. The maps move, the games are played. Time passes. The shadow of the Firenation is pushed back by the light provided by the Blue Dragon. The world begins to hope. Time spins forwards toward the national tour for Azula’s 13th birthday. Ozai plots himself through the great game that is being played for his throne. His vision of becoming the Phoenix king will require a great deal more influence over those who seek to plot and spin spiderfrog webs around his court. 

Iroh and Zuko continue traveling, inching southwards towards his ultimate destiny. Iroh continues to use the White Lotus to communicate with Azula. Zuko is consumed with training and his developing rage. A desire for the power that he knows his sister has, and for the love of his father. 

The world turns.