Iroh mentally braced himself as he stepped off the meager jetty of Silver Eel Island and began his walk inland. It wasn’t too long a walk, the small island could barely hold a fishing village, let alone a noble’s compound. Yet it was here that such a compound managed to squeeze in, its neat white walls marking its borders standing out behind the scattering of huts and nets.
Iroh reached the gates and gave it a short knock, and then announced himself to the sleepy-eyed servant that greeted him.
“Please wait,” he said despite the surprise at meeting a prince in person, and the gate closed shut.
Iroh let out a sigh and slumped a bit. He didn’t even try to cover up his nervousness. In his head, he ran through the possible routes the meeting might take. At the same time, another part of him berated himself for not coming here sooner.
Minutes later the gates opened again, this time fully, but Iroh knew better than to move when he saw the aged lady of the household scowling at him.
“You.”
The prince grimaced at the tone. Time had not weakened the venom in her voice. Drawing in a steadying breath, Iroh bowed from his side of the gate. “Lady Su-Wei.”
“How dare you show your face here, Iroh.” The deep lines on the old woman’s face accentuated her anger and revulsion, though her servants looked nervous at her lack of courtesy in addressing a royal. “Leave.” She didn’t have to say more. The last time they met, the widow had made it clear that Iroh’s presence would never be welcome. Time hadn’t weakened that sentiment either.
“Please, Lady Su-Wei, I’ve come to apologize.”
“Your apologies are worthless to me!” she snapped. “They’ve always been worthless, I was just a fool to realize it too late!”
Iroh winced, but did not rise from his bow as guilt and shame began to bubble up in him. As before, he couldn’t find the words to form a suitable reply. She had every right to despise him as she did.
“Well? Why are you still here?”
He finally, slowly, rose up, braving the widow’s enraged glare. “I wish to make amends-”
“Then give me back my sons!” Su-Wei wailed, raw emotions cracking through. “Return my husband!”
Iroh flinched and found himself unable to meet her hateful, tearing eyes as guilt and shame grew from gnawing to oppressive. “I…I’m sorry…”
“I already said that means nothing! Now leave!”
“Lady Su-Wei, please-”
“Don’t you dare enter!” she snapped, stabbing a finger towards him to stop Iroh from taking a step forward. The prince backed away, keeping a few paces away from the gate and tried to plead his case again. He quickly brought out an officious scroll of silk and paper.
“Lady Su-Wei, I come to give you a new home.”
She looked far from impressed. “What? Is this island not small enough for me?” she spat.
“No, please, this is the deed to Fire Sands Island. Your family’s old holding.”
That made Su-Wei pause for a second, but her glare did not ease up. “Why…why should I want it back? There’s nothing there but bad memories…and I will not have anything to do with you anymore.”
Iroh sighed. “I did not buy this deed. It is Colonel Xing who appealed to the crown princess for it.”
Finally the harsh look receded a bit as the widow showed some surprise, before it was smothered with a disapproving frown. “The boy that Lidai was so fond of.”
“It took him a while to obtain the deed, it was only with its owner’s recent…troubles that he managed to secure it. He wishes for you to have it.”
Su-Wei scoffed, but she finally broke her glare to look away. “Another insufferable group of sycophants. At least he and the rest of my husband’s soldiers have the courtesy of leaving immediately when I tell them to.”
There was resentment in her voice, but not as intense as her hatred for Iroh. The prince mildly envied the 11th for that.
The old matriarch snapped back to him again. “What does the boy want for this? Access to Lidai’s shrine I presume?”
“Xing only asks for you to accept this deed,” Iroh said as he slowly walked forwards to place the scroll right at the gates. “He will still respect your wish to be undisturbed by the regiment.”
There was a moment of silence as the woman clearly picked through any possible hidden agenda in that. “Hmph. At least he’s smart enough to understand that,” she grudgingly admitted. Then Su-Wei fixed her glare on him again. “And you? What do you want out of this?
As annoyed as Iroh was at the accusation, he had to remind himself that from where she stood, he deserved to be her enemy. “I do not want anything-”
“Please, Iroh,” she said with such contempt that he grimaced. “You’ve always taken from me and my family. First my cousin’s betrothed, then my husband’s reputation, then my family’s standing, and finally my sons. What will it be this time, what little dignity I have left? My life?”
Once more the prince felt the guilt and shame beat down on him at her accusation, and he knew that in her eyes she was right on each count.
Iroh had met Hitomi by sheer chance and had been entranced from the start, and only learned of her betrothal after he had fully won over her heart with his charms. His standing as a prince easily convinced her family to break off her previous engagement to Su-Wei’s cousin Sai-Fong, who had been so heartbroken that he committed suicide shortly after.
That had earned Su-Wei’s resentment.
As for Lidai… Iroh’s belittling insults against his friend for his approach to war had set the sycophants in court and the military against Lidai, which due to Iroh’s own inaction snowballed into a rather heinous character assassination. Iroh’s lack of intervention was what condemned his old senior to decades in the colonies, just as it allowed the nobility to prey on Lidai’s family like a flock of lion vultures. Lidai’s family had its influence whittled down to barely be considered a noble family.
That had earned Su-Wei’s disgust and revulsion.
He had been naive and foolish back then to not consider the ruthlessness of the upper nobility.
Just as he was equally naive and foolish to try and rectify that by taking on Lidai’s two sons under his command. Iroh was supposed to give them opportunities to gain merits and acclaim, but instead his aggressive tactics sent them to their deaths. Deaths that were, in hindsight, clearly avoidable with more grounded strategies. But everyone else commended the crown prince for his decisive recklessness, especially since it resulted in a victory.
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That had earned Su-Wei’s undying hatred.
Lidai eventually forgave him for that crime, but Lidai was the kind of man that could forgive just about anything. His wife would likely curse Iroh’s name even beyond her dying breath, and his guilt over the incident had the prince acquiescing to the bereaved matriarch’s demand to never sully their memories by even thinking of their names.
He remembered how she had conducted their funerals practically in secret and alone, her husband unable to see off their children because he was stuck fighting battle after battle on the Earth Kingdom continent to prove himself to his peers. It had been a far smaller service than the officers deserved, mostly because of their family’s diminished station and wealth.
He remembered his offerings of condolences being thrown back at him when he finally mustered the courage to meet the grieving mother.
“All I see is shrouded in a haze of despair. All I taste is the ashes of loss. I do not care for your sympathy or for you at all, Iroh. I can only wish that you die as shunned and alone as I am now.”
That was her curse on him on their last meeting, and the words had haunted Iroh for years. It was what drove him to appreciate his family even more, it had loomed over and almost broke him when Lu Ten fell in battle.
Iroh got down on his knees and, to the gasps of the servants and some passersby noticing the meeting, prostrated in front of the woman who had endured much because of his actions and inactions. “I ask for nothing, Lady Su-Wei, save for only the hope that you’ll eventually find it in you to forgive me for the things my presence has inflicted onto you and your family.”
“Never,” she sneered. “Never, not even if the spirits commanded me to. Not even in a thousand lifetimes.”
With a sigh, Iroh got back up and resigned himself to her enmity. All the prince could do now was hope that it did not spread to the men and women that dutifully followed Lidai.
“Hate me, then, but please accept Fire Sands Island.” He nodded to the scroll still lying on the ground. “It is already in your name, and Xing only wishes to repay your husband’s generosity.”
Su-Wei glanced down at the deed, and then snorted with derision. All the anger faded away from her, and she slumped with a tired sigh. “Since Lidai was so fond of him, let him keep the miserable island. I have nothing there. It means nothing to me now.”
“I’m sure you can-”
“Don’t tell me what to do with my life, Iroh,” she quickly snapped, and then receded to a thoughtful expression. “Tell the boy…tell him that he can do with Fire Sands as he wishes. He’ll have…my blessing for it.”
Iroh sighed heavily at that, drawing her ire. “Xing expected you to say that,” he explained before she could snap at him again. Iroh produced a small note from within his sleeve and offered it to a servant, who then passed it to the matriarch.
Su-Wei read through the paper with a frown, her eyes going increasingly wider towards the end. She glanced up to him, but Iroh could only shrug in return; he didn’t understand the significance of the mansion Xing had described he’d like to build, or the offer to have Su-Wei employed in the palace (under Azula, but it amounted to the same thing).
“He’s building this?” she eventually asked.
The prince nodded slowly, trying to grasp the hidden meanings here. “With your permission.”
For the first time in this meeting, all hostility left Lady Su-Wei, and she stared blankly at the note.
“If I may as-”
She shushed Iroh into silence, and he bit back a weary sigh before she suddenly answered the question she interrupted. “Lidai…Lidai once promised me he’d elevate us into the royal court proper.”
Su-Wei spoke to no one in particular, her expression taking on a melancholic, faraway look. “Once we made it ‘in’, he’d see to it that our holdings would be improved. He’d get me a manor…” She absently rubbed at the paper with her thumbs and fingers. “A large, spacious manor with a magnificent garden, with a gardener for each tree, each bush, each vine trellis…”
Iroh found himself smiling. It was very considerate, and by now very typical, of the boy to try and fulfill his adoptive grandfather’s dreams, even in part.
“We’d need those servants, he said, because we’d both be too busy. Him as a general, and me as a royal handmaiden…”
The woman heaved a sigh and shook her head, harshly dispelling her old memories. “Of course, then you happened.” Iroh tried not to flinch at that casual accusation, but it was a poor attempt.
Su-Wei took several steps closer towards the gate, enough to close the distance and allow her to squat down to pick up the scroll herself with a bone-weary groan. She sharply waved off the servants that tried to help her, and eventually got back up slightly winded, the deed in hand. The matriarch then extended her arm across the gate’s threshold, offering the scroll over to Iroh.
“Tell…tell the boy…tell Colonel Xing that I gratefully accept his offer.” Despite the lack of anger, Su-Wei still wore a stern expression that glowed with contempt for Iroh. “I will move in as he asks, and he and his regiment are more than welcome to pay their respects to my husband once the shrine is built.”
Her eyes narrowed to send a final stab of hatred at him. “Unless something significant happens, I hope that this will be the last time I see you, Iroh.”
While Iroh was glad to see Su-Wei again even if she still despised him, while he was glad that Xing had asked him to carry out this painful but necessary task, while he was glad to be able to help rebuild part of her old life…
Iroh couldn’t help ponder as he walked back to the jetty about what Azula and Xing stood to gain from all this. Was this purely out of Xing’s gratitude to Lidai, or was there some hidden angle here to consider?