Royalty: Chapter 1, Part 1
Ah, finally!! I was able to get on with the first chapter today… Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Words of Treason
“You dare suggest I betray Iroh? My first born?”
Princess Ursa, ear against the door to the Throne Room, could hear the sound of the blazing fire surrounding the Fire Lord grow louder in his fury and she quivered. Her children had not exited the Throne Room and, knowing better than to waltz right back inside to reclaim them, stayed as close to them as she could by the entrance. She knew it unruly; hell, crazy for a grown woman such as herself to eavesdrop on a Fire Lord’s assembly without an exceptional excuse at hand… but her title would not silence her curiosity. Besides; as it were, her family were beginning to concern her more than usual as of late…
Fire Lord Azulon’s cruelty seemed to increase in his old age. His power as a firebender and ferocity as a leader had not withered in the slightest and, at the ripe old age of 95, he still stabilised his nation’s pride through what Ursa could only perceive as terror and violence… Her husband and beloved was becoming much more secluded and distant from his elder son, Zuko; and, indeed, withdrawn from her, his wife… She had wondered, with hurt feelings, if Ozai was perhaps tiring of her and, heart close to breaking, if he was perhaps dissatisfied with his only son… These feelings seemed bitterly possible, but the truth was wholly conspicuous… Rapt in his small daughter’s marvellous natural talents, potentially capable of surpassing both her parents’, Ozai spent a fair portion of his and Azula’s time poisoning her mind with the traits of brutality and perfectionism that Ursa did not like to see. Every time she had managed to approach her husband on the matter, her opinion was callously brushed off with false promises and “urgent meetings”. It vexed her to no end… She constantly worried for Zuko, a sweet child with a tender heart. Though she felt her son needed some backbone, she refused to damage his development in any way, already feeling as though she had lost her younger daughter to this same mistake… Ah, and she could also never forget Iroh, Ozai’s elder brother. A true friend and gentleman…
“Directly after the demise of his only beloved son?” Azulon continued, voice scathing in anger.
Ursa looked at the floor in sorrow. Lu Ten… Her only nephew, almost like a son to her, had departed agonisingly early from the world mere weeks ago during the now-discarded 600-Day Siege of Ba Sing Se. Though this terrible loss still stung for her, she could not imagine how her brother-in-law could survive… The loss of a child was a pain Ursa would sooner self-sacrifice herself for than allow to happen. Biting her lip, she soon continued to listen.
“-suffered enough. But you, your punishment has scarcely begun!” Azulon raged on.
Ursa frowned, barely catching the sound of the rising flames. Prince Zuko suddenly ran out of the doorway, his forefathers too engrossed the emotional intensity of their scene to notice, very nearly whacking his mother in the face with the force of the doors as he burst through them. Not noticing Ursa, he ran at top speed around the corner and out of sight.
“Zuko!?” Ursa cried in a voice audibly above a whisper. She gathered up her skirts and began to run for the corner when she heard more quiet, muffled voices coming from the inside the Throne Room. She hurried back and carefully leant against the door again.
“The choice is yours, Prince Ozai… Your son; or your honour…” she heard Azulon say.
There was a short pause before Ozai replied, “My choice is a finality; father. I will prove my worth to you.” Ursa frowned and leaned ever-closer to the doors.
The Fire Lord grunted. “Dismissed. Proof of the deed will be required by dawn the next day.”
The princess momentarily stopped breathing… A dreadful thought arose in her mind, a thought she was struggling to beat down… But could it be true? Could Azulon be so indifferent, could Ozai be just so cruel? She heard drawing footsteps… her husband was mere feet away from the door! Spinning around, she rushed as quietly as was possible out of sight of the entrance behind a nearby pillar.
Ozai opened the doors to the throne room carefully, taking a deep breath. Ursa’s eye caught Azula scampering through the doors and behind the opposite pillar as quiet as a hermit crab as Ozai released his breath. He shut the doors quietly behind him and walked away around the corner. Ursa waited quietly; seconds after Ozai had disappeared, Azula skipped out from behind the pillar and disappeared around the corner too.
Ursa waited for a while, temporarily lost in thought, before walking away from the Throne Room to search for Azula. Finding her daughter in Zuko’s room, she had questioned the girl, dragged her out and was now headed towards her daughter’s bedchamber.
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Ursa shut the door behind her and turned to face Azula, seeing her sitting on her bed wearing a fearful expression. Ursa sighed, wishing she would stop the act, and sat next to her. She turned her daughter to face her, “You and Zuko should not have disobeyed Fire Lord Azulon’s orders, you should have left as you were instructed to do so.” she said sternly.
Azula’s eyebrows raised. “Wow! How did you know, mother?” Ursa’s unimpressed expression at her daughter’s words made Azula shift a little on the spot. Ursa forced a smile.
“Never you mind, Azula… Now, you heard what your grandfather said to your father?” Azula nodded; so Ursa continued, still smiling. “Won’t you tell your mother exactly what that was?”
“I didn’t hear a lot of it… Honestly, mother… Zuzu dragged me through the curtain to listen; I thought it dishonourable so I kept to the wall…” Azula said innocently.
Ursa bit her lip, impatience similar to the type she felt for Ozai swelled up inside of her. She had to remind herself that Azula had not even aged 10 years. Moral and conscience, however twisted Ozai must have made it by now, were still very much budding infancy. Masking a sharp feeling at the back of her throat that would surely build upon a venomous voice tone, she glared right down into her daughter’s gaze. “Azula, you heard everything… Somebody’s life is at risk, and you will tell me the full truth about what you heard, or else.”
Azula’s expression changed to shock. She swallowed, looking away from her mother, and pursed her lips. She then muttered: “Grandfather ordered father to kill Zuko…”
Ursa allowed the gasp locked in her throat to escape upon Azula’s words. “No!!”
Azula gave the wall a venomous look. “What? It’s the truth, mother! That is what you wanted, right-?”
Azula didn’t have time to say anything more. By the time she had turned to look at her mother, Ursa had bolted out of the door and sprinted down the hallway to Ozai’s bedroom.
Azula growled. “Again, she threatens me… Again, she rushes to Zuko’s rescue…” She jumped down from her bed and walked to a corner of her quarters, where the blackened, crisped remains of the ugly doll her kooky uncle had sent her from the Earth Kingdom lay on the floor. The week before on the day she had received, and burnt, the doll; her mother had, yet again, belittled her; and this time on such a small matter as ‘ungratefulness’! The nerve!! So Azula had taken herself to her room and thrown the doll at the wall in a fit of rage.
Azula picked the damaged doll up again on this present day, studying the burnt features. “Helpless, useless… unfeeling…” Crushing the burnt head with her bare hand, she muttered… “You will suffer…”
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Ursa was not sure whether to believe her daughter or not. Azula had rather an issue with giving a person the full story, and at times the complete opposite of the truth… But, surely, she had to be telling the truth about something like this…
When she reached the door to Ozai’s quarters, she burst in, seeing no fit reason to knock. “… Don’t do this, Ozai!” she said sternly.
Ozai was standing in the middle of his chamber with his back to the doorway, his hands cupped and forming a bright orange fire. He lowered his head, extinguishing the small flame. “I have no choice…”
“No… You do have a choice, Ozai.” Ursa closed the door and approached her husband, albeit uncertainly. “And you are making a grave mistake-”
“No.” Ozai interrupted; his voice soft. He still would not turn to face his wife. “I am bringing this nation a step closer to ending this war… Once and for all.”
“By killing your own child!?” Ursa’s voice and appearance were desperate now, she could feel herself shaking involuntarily at the amount of emotions now raging throughout her mind.
“It is better this way…” Ozai muttered, voice still soft yet huskier than before.
“No, Ozai!! You are not answering my question! What-why!?” Ozai could hear Ursa approaching, ready to turn and look him in the face…
“For us, my darling… For our nation, for our daughter-” Ozai turned his head slightly, profile barely visible…
“What… about… Zuko!?” Ursa yelled slowly, now just inches away from Ozai.
“… The Fire Lord wishes for me to end my son’s life, in order to prove my worth to him…” Ozai turned his head back around to where it was when Ursa had entered the room.
“And you believe that will bring you any closer to claiming the throne for yourself?!” Ursa screamed at the back of his head.
This had made Ozai spin right around. Not only had Ursa not spoke to him like that since their teenage years; the accusation she had just made had made Ozai realise, fear, that Ursa perhaps knew more than he had allowed. “You care for the boy too much…” he stated coldly, looking directly at his wife.
“As should you…” Ursa replied coldly, looking back into Ozai’s eyes with disappointment.
Ozai paused for a moment and, pursing his lips in a similar way to which Azula did, averted his gaze towards a magnificent painting of Zuko in his infancy that hung beside the door. “Zuko will die tonight…” he then looked towards the pearl dagger he had encountered his son playing with earlier on. Ozai had taken the dagger from the place Zuko had left it after the assembly and placed it on his bedside table, it was an option of his son’s execution that he had considered at the time…
“… You are in no position to do anything about it.” Ozai brought his gaze back to Ursa. “Say your last goodbye to the boy, and then return to your quarters and stay there. I order you. Get in the way, and charges will only be made against you. I don’t want that to happen…”
Ursa looked directly at Ozai with a bitter expression of hate that he was not used to seeing neither, at least in his opinion, one he deserved. Ozai glared back at Ursa, folding his arms. “Now.”
Suddenly, Ursa pushed past him and swiped Zuko’s dagger from Ozai’s bedside table. She unsheathed the weapon, which made Ozai stand firmly still. “What are you doing?” he asked sternly, frowning at his wife.
Ursa was only half paying attention. She peered at the inscriptions on the exquisite dagger that Zuko had read out upon a first glance of the knife…
“Never give up without a fight…”
Ursa looked back up at Ozai, now walking towards her. Biting her lip, she held the knife up against her jugular, as quickly and as calmly as though this were a rehearsed scene of a play.
“You clearly do not care for my volition enough to consider sparing our son’s life, my husband? So be it…” Gripping the knife firmly as Ozai merely remained where he stood, expression vacant, she continued. “… Say you’re going to kill Zuko, dare tell me that once again.” She held the knife closer against her skin, expression undaunted. “You know fully well what I’ll do.”
Her husband, much to her surprise, merely smirked. “But you wouldn’t, would you?” Ozai began pacing in a small circle around Ursa like a vulture would a corpse. “Not with a son at risk and a daughter to raise…”
Pupils dilute, Ursa brought the dagger away from her neck slightly. “How could you be so sure I wouldn’t; lord husband!?” She fell into Ozai and awkwardly backed away as he drew closer. “You think I’m moonstruck, I could end my own life at any minute for all you believe!” Ursa hit the wall; Ozai reached her before she had a chance to move. He took a hold of the wrist of the hand with Zuko’s knife enclosed. Feeling her grip loosen, Ozai flicked it to the side. The knife struck the wall, inches away from a portrait of Zuko in his infancy.
“Impend all you wish, we both know that your nobility is too strong for such nonsense as kamikaze…” Ozai said amusedly. With no invitation or notification at all; Ozai pressed his body against Ursa’s, pinning her to the wall, she gasped. “As is your beauty, my wife…” Ozai then began to kiss her neck.
Ursa shook from both anger and… a newfound repulsion for this man. The prince, the husband she loved so very much… until this night. Her hands clenched into fists and, forcing her anger to stay shallow, calmly stated, “Lord Husband… Not only is this the wrong time, it is also no longer your right…” Those words won Ursa her wish. Ozai drew back, as though physically hurt. Ursa sensed Ozai’s anger and braced herself.
“You…” Ozai was trembling with anger and hurt, Ursa felt the smallest tinge of sympathy for her husband that she quickly eradicated before the next words spilled from his mouth with a scowl. “Dare deny your duty, my wife!?”
Ursa narrowed her eyes and continued to speak calmly, something of a practised art that she was thankful for. “If you deny your duty as a father, it is my full right to deny my duty as your wife.”
Ozai’s next words were full of venom. “That is pure nonsense! The crown atop your head is material proof of our binding marriage. You belong to me, not the boy!! Learn your place or suffer the consequences!”
Ursa kept her glare. Seconds later, her hands moved to the headpiece surrounding the tie keeping her topknot in place. Ozai’s expression changed from pure anger to shock twice as quickly as it had changed beforehand from shock to anger. Ursa removed the pin from the headpiece carefully, bringing it down to her waistline and reinserting the pin, she held it up. “This item is of material value, you say… For the past 3 years, that is all our marriage has been to you, Ozai!”
(Cont in previous journal for post length...)