Zuko groans as he wakes, rubbing the crust of sleep from his eyes. He'd had the weirdest --
His scar is missing.
The Fire Lord stiffens, lifts a hand from his face, and ignites the smallest flame he can manage with his bending. The brightness of the light so soon after waking is painful as it pierces his unprepared eyes and he snuffs the flame only a moment after calling it forth. Still, the flame had burned white.
It hadn't been a dream.
The Fire Lord buries his face in his hands and focusses on his breathing.
He is six years in what had once been his past. He has also been thrown headlong into his father's life. He's met the Sun Spirit and Moon Spirit, and, to a lesser extent, the Ocean Spirit. He holds Agni's favor but, as he learned firsthand yesterday, being favored does not mean he is immune to the spirit's anger. At least Agni seems to have enough of a grip on his temper not to immolate everything in his path at the first spark of his ire.
...His name isn't Zuko, anymore. That name now belongs to a son he didn't have two days ago.
The man groans into his hands before removing them from his face. He still has no idea what to do about the prince and princess, nor the rest of his situation for that matter.
His friends are gone. What is left of his family doesn't trust him. His nation is at war with the world. There is no Avatar to vouch for him with the other nations. His own court is full of backstabbers and warmongers. His bending is out of control.
He's sure there is some way for things to be worse, but he doesn't want to risk thinking it into existence.
Ozai stares up at the ceiling.
He remembers crying himself to sleep like a child as the events of the day had finally caught up to him without a ready distraction to focus his energy on. He remembers a furnace at his back and a too-warm hand on his shoulder, Agni's presence silent but real as he'd sobbed for what he'd lost. Agni had promised that he wouldn't be alone. The Sun Spirit seems intent on keeping that promise thoroughly. In less than a day's time, the great spirit has seen him weak-kneed, ill, and grieving. It's a far cry from the unwavering strength a Fire Lord is supposed to embody. Still, Agni had not abandoned him to his weakness, nor had he withdrawn his favor because of it. That's... something.
Ozai pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales slowly.
Enough moping. Just because he's cleared his schedule for 'rest' doesn't mean that the day should be wasted in bed.
The Fire Lord reaches for the sun to check the time and frowns at the odd double-sense that registers in his chi before he realizes what it means. Agni has returned to the palace, and this time he is not on the mortal plane for Ozai.
"Iroh," he mutters under his breath as he sits up in his bed.
On the one hand, he doesn't think Agni is inclined to harm Iroh. On the other hand, Agni is clearly not pleased with the older royal for reasons that Ozai is not entirely sure of, though he might have an idea after that scene in the throne room last night. The past day has proven that there isn't much he can do after Agni comes to a decision, but the Sun Spirit had listened to Ozai yesterday despite his obvious disapproval. More, Agni hadn't revoked Ozai's oath to Iroh. As the greatest authority of the nation, Agni would have had the right to do exactly that if he'd really wanted, but Agni had allowed the oath to stand.
So, his words hold some sway with the spirit. Iroh should be fine long enough for Ozai to get ready for the day without rushing. He hopes.
He still chooses to dress in one of the simplest outfits he can find in the wardrobe, and he calls a servant in to do his topknot for expediency, just in case... Well, in case. When the servant makes a soft, almost inaudible tisk and picks up the hair scissors, Ozai realizes that he has miscalculated.
'Expediency' never has been the highest priority of the palace servants.
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A fire that ever so politely does not burn hooks around his ankle and Iroh yelps as he falls. The retired general meets the sand roughly, catching himself on his rump and elbows. Iroh groans at the impact. He is beginning to feel like his bruises have bruises.
"Again," Agni commands.
Iroh grasps the offered hand of fire and leverages himself to his feet with a grunt.
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Ozai follows the tug on his chi to the training courtyard reserved for the royal family in the eastern wing of the palace.
"Your majesty! Agni is expecting you," one of the guards informs him as he approaches, wonder lingering in his expression. His companion's face is painted with a complimentary expression of shocked disbelief that speaks of a shattered worldview.
The Fire Lord nods his acknowledgement of the message. He pauses before entering as it occurs to him to ask, "How long has Agni been waiting?"
"He and your honored brother arrived nearly an hour ago, my lord."
So, Iroh is with Agni, then. "Thank you."
He passes through the doorway and finds himself watching as Iroh throws a set of fireball-punches at Agni. As harmless as the flames are to a fire spirit, let alone the greatest fire spirit of them all, Agni still dodges out of the way with the grace of a master combatant. Iroh moves into an advanced kata designed to create space around the practitioner but Agni slips past his defenses. A hand of fire pushes against the mortal's chest as Agni drops into a half-kneeling position. A split-second later, Agni's other hand slams into the back of the man's knee. Iroh collapses into a heap with a groan.
"Fire Lord," Agni greets, rising to stand over his defeated opponent. The spirit holds out a hand to Iroh.
"Brother," the retired general says wearily before accepting the help back onto his feet.
"Agni," Ozai greets first with a bow, and then, "Iroh." He considers the pair for a moment. "Sunrise training? This isn't what I'd imagined when you warned of regret in the coming weeks."
"It is an honor," Iroh intones, "but perhaps a bit rough on these old bones."
"You're not that old," Ozai says with a frown.
Although the fine details of Agni's expressions are not as easily read on his mortal fire forms as they were in the spirit world on Tui's pale but more solid reflection, the spirit's current sharp smile is still clear to see. "Oh, there will be plenty of regret. I am not a soft master," Agni promises, "Sore muscles, aching bones, chi exhaustion, general tiredness, and a multitude of bruises that I suspect have already begun to form. By the time I am done with him, the inevitable assassins will at least have to work for their prize." A slight pause, and then the Sun Spirit asks, "Would you care to join this morning's session, child mine?"
"Yes," Ozai answers eagerly, shrugging off his outer robes as he strides over to take up position on one side of the sparring field. Who knows what techniques have been lost over the years that Agni can teach him? Perhaps there are even lessons that have only ever been taught to Agni's Heralds. Ozai sinks into a ready stance.
Agni laughs merrily, the sound filling the space. "I am afraid we have finished that portion of today's training," the great spirit says and walks over to a closet of supplies set into the courtyard's wall.
Iroh sighs in relief. "Thank Agni," the man mutters under his breath.
The great spirit in question chuckles and replies, "Your thanks is received and noted, Once-Prince. It will neither spare nor shorten tomorrow's session, however."
The man blinks and then smiles in wry amusement at himself. "No, I suspect it will not," he muses.
For his part, Ozai frowns in confused disappointment. "Finished?" he questions.
"Indeed." Agni closes the closet. He deposits a small oil lamp into Iroh's hands as he walks past, one finger skimming over the wick to light it. "Control is an important skill and it requires regular practice to maintain. I recognize that your recent struggle is a result of my actions, and yet the problem is one that must be fixed through your efforts." The fire spirit holds up a rectangular slip of paper only to pinch its center and sear a pinprick-sized hole through it. "I believe you are familiar with the exercise?"
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It is ridiculously difficult to keep himself from groaning as he says, "Yes."
Agni's following hum of acknowledgement sounds suspiciously like smothered laughter as he passes over the slowly smoldering piece of paper. "Be mindful of the time as you practice, young Fire Lord. You have a breakfast appointment to keep today." Agni takes a step away and looks over his shoulder at Iroh. "Until next I rise over the horizon, Once-Prince," he says. The secondary form disperses into the air.
Iroh seats himself on one of the benches pressed against the courtyard's walls, the lamp cradled between his hands and its flame already rising and falling with his breaths. "Throwing me around a sparing field seems to have improved his mood," he remarks with that familiarly deceptive mildness.
Ozai sighs and wanders closer to his brother, sinking into a crossed-legs position on the ground opposite the man. He ignores Iroh's raised eyebrows. It's a private courtyard with guards at its entrance. There's no one to see. Instead, he scowls down at the training paper in his hands and the embers slowly eating away at the fibers. He doesn't dare to try bending it into a sustainable burn just yet. He prods at the well of chi in his belly, trying to figure out how to make the cinders his own without overfeeding them.
"I've only seen him angry twice, thus far. When I found the two of you talking in the entryway of my suite, and when I gave you my oath," Ozai says, "Outside of that, he's been either cheerful or... sympathetic, but unyielding."
"If that is true," Iroh says carefully, "then it would seem I am the common thread and the cause of Agni's dissatisfaction, though I certainly hope for my own sake that is not the case." His breathing and the flame of his candle remain steady in their shared rising and falling as he speaks. "How many times have you met with Agni?"
Ozai pushes down the jealousy that threatens to rise up and reaches out with his bending to claim the smoking cinders. (He'd spent his childhood being jealous of Azula's easy skill and it had never helped him. He refuses to waste his time on envy over Iroh's mastery.) White fire flares to life and a diameter a full inch wide burns away into ash before the Fire Lord manages to gentle the flames back down to bright embers. Small tongues of flame attempt to grow stronger with every slow breath. His frustration with his own lack of control isn't helping his case, either.
"Agni has been a near constant presence since the Agni Kai," he admits. "As for a number of individual encounters..." Ozai quickly runs through the events of the previous day, "Six. It could be counted as six separate times." He keeps his focus on the fire he is trying to convince to burn colder, lower, and slower as he adds, "And I don't think you're the reason for Agni's displeasure. It's more... what you represent to him." The Sun Spirit had schemed to save the royal line and he had included Iroh's life in those he sought to preserve, after all. Ozai's efforts finally begin to bear fruit as he achieves a tamed smoldering ring of small embers.
"Oh?"
The Fire Lord glances up at the other man before returning his gaze and the bulk of his attention to his task. He has only begun to grasp at something approaching passable control. The real trick is in successfully maintaining it. Fire's nature is to consume. It is prone to either flaring up or burning out. For a fire to remain stable, it must be carefully tended.
"I don't mean he isn't unhappy with you," he clarifies, "but it's more what you've done or, rather, what you haven't done that's..." Ozai scowls down the embers. He's explaining this wrong. "The second time, when I gave you my oath," he says slowly, "It wasn't your involvement that angered Agni. He accused me of abandoning my job as Fire Lord, of neglecting my duties and responsibilities. But... it's more than that." He wrestles with his thoughts and bending as he attempts to give voice to the idea just beyond his reach. "To be the Fire Lord is to be Agni's Herald, it isn't just the responsibility of governing the nation. It's... a privilege. A..."
Oh. Oh, he is an idiot. Flames leap high from the paper and Ozai quickly snuffs them, the fire going cold and dead. How did he not see this sooner? How does Iroh not see it?
"It's a spirit gift," he says in a strained voice, turning his complete attention to Iroh, "passed from Kuzon, First of the Fire Lords, down through our line. And when you chose not to fight for the throne..."
His brother looks immediately ill and the lamp's flame flickers wildly before he follows Ozai's lead and extinguishes the small fire. Iroh sets the lamp down on the bench. "The spirits do not take kindly to those who reject their gifts," he says, "Agni is more merciful than most to stay his hand."
Ozai grimaces. He's still putting the pieces together, making sense of what he has seen and heard in the context of spirits. It's not a manner he is used to thinking in, but...
He remembers heat beating against his back and hands on his shoulders. He remembers a laughing voice near his ear, counseling him through the chaos of the last day that would have otherwise overwhelmed him.
"Son of Agni and Nephew of Tui, cherished child of the sky."
Ozai had thought he'd understood. He hadn't. Every Fire Nation citizen is a child of Agni, but very few will ever have a chance to meet the spirit face-to-face. Ozai is not merely another of thousands -- millions -- of children. The Fire Lord is favored. A True Herald is, apparently, cherished. It's the difference between himself and his sister in his father's eyes, but amplified in the way that spirits always seem to trend toward extremes. Or maybe that isn't quite right, because Ozai has grown to believe that his father is -- was -- incapable of loving anyone outside of himself, and Agni has not only been present but fond, almost doting at times.
It isn't only a gift, he realizes. Becoming Agni's Herald -- not just bearing the title as a holdover from a time when the Fire Lord was also the head sage, but fully stepping into the role -- means beginning a personal relationship with Agni, requires it, or else how would the Fire Lord know Agni's will well enough to lead the country in accordance with it? Records could be studied and sages could be consulted, but those would be a shallow substitute. It would be like how obsessively reading through scrolls on airbenders and Avatars had left him ill-prepared for Aang.
The sages were right when they said there had not been a True Herald of Agni in living memory, but had Agni been planning to change that once Iroh took the throne? Had Uncle unknowingly not only rejected Agni's gift, but Agni himself?
If he is right, then Iroh is lucky to be alive. At the very least, he would have expected Agni to strip Iroh of his bending, much like Aang had done to his father.
He feels ill at the direction his thoughts are traveling.
"Ozai," Iroh says, brow furrowed with the beginnings of concern and eyes searching his face for answers, "Are you well?"
"Fine," he forces out and rises to his feet, "I need to go. I'm having breakfast with the prince and princess today."
He flees the courtyard before Iroh can ask any more questions and storms through halls before ducking into a room that is thankfully empty of servants. "Agni," he chokes out.
His eyes close without his permission, heat radiates from behind his back, and a pair of hands fall to rest on his shoulders. "You called for me, Fire Lord," Agni says. It is no question, merely a statement of fact.
His head is spinning, his heart is beating in his ears, and he can't seem to breathe properly. "I'm sorry! I didn't, I didn't realize --"
"Ah," the spirit says, voice gentling into something just shy of being a murmur, "This is about last night, then."
Ozai nods quickly. "I'm honored to be your herald," he rushes to say, "I didn't mean to make it seem like I'm ungrateful for the role you've given me, or that I don't value the time and attention you afford me."
Agni sighs, creating a warm breeze near the Fire Lord's ear. "A misunderstanding on both our parts, child mine. I sometimes forget how little man is taught of spirits and heraldships in this current age. You will learn." Ozai's breathing eases somewhat. Agni doesn't blame him for the ignorance that has left him floundering. It's still something he needs to fix, but he has time. "Focus on the tasks I have given you. I will see to Iroh of Second Fire."
And there is the second source for the sudden onset of his newest concerns. "Are you... angry with him?" Ozai tries not to flinch at his own words.
"I am more disappointed than I am angry with the once-prince. Iroh was the first of Kuzon's line in generations that I thought might rise to be a satisfactory herald. The Fire Lords before him had varied in their flaws -- lazy, honorless, wrathful, cruel, arrogant, greedy, and all of them faithless, all of them placing their own desires before their duties -- but Iroh showed potential. He loved the nation he was to lead. Then Lu Ten of Second Fire was struck down in battle and Iroh's great flaw as a potential herald was revealed. Iroh lost himself to his grief."
"But..." Last night, he'd thought...
Agni huffs a humorless laugh and Ozai feels the Sun Spirit's face press lightly against his temple. "Your grief and Iroh's grief are two very different beasts, young Fire Lord. Iroh forsook his duties in a search to remedy that which caused his heart's wounds," he explains, "You have lost as much, if not more, and instead of running from the responsibilities inherent to governing my lands and people, you called a meeting to bring about the end of Sozin's war before taking even a moment's respite."
"You told me to take care of things that couldn't wait," Ozai says. Some part of him is waiting for the praise to turn into gently phrased scolding about overworking himself. Uncle had done that a lot, and Katara had used the same tactic before deciding that icing him to his bed and glaring was a more effective method of forcing him to rest. "The longer the war continues, the more people it kills. Of every nation."
Agni hums and draws back, though his hands remain firm on the man's shoulders. "Mortals are always in conflict," the Sun Spirit says, "If it is not this war, then it will be others for their own reasons. This one is notable only for the length of time it has lasted and the breadth of the world it has reached."
"I thought you wanted me to end the war," Ozai says in confusion, "You said to build peaceful relations with the other nations."
"I did and it must," Agni answers, "Sozin's war has attracted the displeasure of many spirits, and I considered it a small price to guarantee its end in order to secure the agreement of the council. Building mutual ties with the other nations will help to further soothe some of the spirits that have taken insult from the recent actions of those of second fire. However, outside of my promise to Kuzon the Uniter, I myself care little one way or the other about the wars of mortal men."
"Oh." He doesn't know how to feel about the fact that Agni apparently neither supports nor condemns the war his ancestors started.
Agni releases his steadying hold. "Our time grows short, Fire Lord. Do not keep your heir and your fledgeling waiting."
The heat at his back disappears and Ozai opens his eyes. His brow furrows as he wonders, "Fledgeling?"
He nearly jumps in surprise when he hears Agni's laugh but the spirit does not manifest any more of himself than his voice. "The young princess is as dragon-hearted as mortals come: fierce, loyal, and ruthless. It is up to you to teach her when she should put her claws to use and when she should curb her instinct to hunt and rend. Now, child mine, go, or you risk being late."
Ozai turns that thought over as he leaves the room, backtracking to the training courtyard to retrieve the outer robes he'd forgotten earlier. He thinks about Ran and Shaw, about the very real risk he and Aang had taken of being either eaten or flame-roasted by the pair of dragons.
Yeah, that sounds like Azula. If his sister was supposed to learn restraint from their father, then it's no wonder she'd grown to be so unrelentingly vicious.
Ozai freezes mid-stride in the halls.
How is he supposed to raise a dragon? How does he even begin to try?
The Fire Lord stifles a groan and pinches the bridge of his nose. He has no idea what he's doing.