Archive of Our Own ^beta

You are not sure why, but somehow you always thought of marriage as the final challenge in your relationship with Zuko. The final stretch that you needed to cross to forever etch your names down in a history of lovers that made it past every hurdle in their paths. A proverbial step beyond Oma and Shu.

Maybe it was the result of your mother’s deliberate grooming of a daughter that was trained to one day court the Fire Lord, or perhaps it was your own resolve that marriage was a step you would only take after you were absolutely certain you belonged with him.

And make absolutely certain you did.

You put down his proposal three times before accepting on your fourth. And you are glad you did, because the rush of thrilling energy coursing through your veins and the tears that threatened to spill, were new. He instinctively knew this would be the last time he would have to ask as well, because this time he brought the royal engagement bracelet with him.

Your friends and family were overjoyed, and Ty Lee could not stop fantasising about the wedding down to painstaking details for weeks on end. Your mother almost fainted at the news, and you smiled (inwardly) at her antics, wondering how she would react if she knew you had rejected the Fire Lord three times already.

And so, in your head, you likened life after marriage to your favourite strawberry-flavoured fruit tart. And you softly garnished it with everything you were held back from until now–freedom, love, power, stability, Zuko, and a generous helping of rose petals on top. And there remained no room whatsoever for notions that things may have a tendency to go sour.

It was naïve of you (as it is of foolhardy youngsters) to think your part in suffering was behind you, and that only good days would greet you ahead.

Things didn’t start to go bad for quite some time. In reality, your marriage felt less like a singular fruit tart and more like a stroll along an endless buffet of fruit tarts of all kinds. And you didn’t have to save the best ones for a special occasion, because they were all 'best ones' and everything was a special occasion.

It was almost exactly like being together, but so much sweeter in marriage. You got to see him all the time, stand by him, hold him while he drifted off to sleep unlike before. He got to kiss you whenever he fancied, show you off, and love you without restrictions, unlike before.

Your life was so devoid of boredom as you immersed yourself into your duties as the Fire Lady that sometimes, after a gruelling week, you almost wished your weekends would be uneventful. From being expected to hold back your tongue in favour of your father’s political career, to being asked for your esteemed opinions on matters of utmost importance, you had made a sudden gargantuan leap.

You weren’t worried though. All of this was new to Zuko too, so you both traversed the high-walled, convoluted maze of governance together, side by side.

People said there would be sacrifices to make, not only in marriage but in your new role as Fire Lady. You knew. It’s why you took all that time to make sure you were ready. But so far, your most difficult sacrifice had been giving up your two top buns in favour of a singular bun, for the snobby Fire Sages refused to craft two crowns for you (you had asked).

There was a mountain of things to do from the moment you stepped into the shoes of a Fire Lady. It had been years since the Fire Nation had a Fire Lady and all those sacred duties were apparently stocking up in a corner.

So many decisions to make, projects to oversee, your counsel to offer to the royal court. But even when you worked yourself down, it gave you the good kind of burn, the one that comes from accomplishing things. The one that comes from using your talents for good. And your life felt like it couldn’t get any more perfect.

Then one day Zuko found his dragon.

And at first, you were not amused. But then when the once to-be-mighty dragon, who was at the moment only a tiny, scaly, lizard curled up on your palm and fell asleep, you decided that in the very least, a dragon was a far more impressive pet than a poodlemonkey. And so, you and Zuko, adjusted to make space for one more in your little family (quite literally too; Druk was a ridiculously clingy little lizard).

It was your sweet, charming, royal family of a brooding Fire Lord, a moody non-bender and the last-of-its-species fire-breathing lizard against the world, and there was no other way you would have it.

Most people have sparks. But with Zuko, you have lightning. It crackles and whips loud across the clear night sky when you are making love, and it sizzles across the table when you smirk an inside joke at each other over dinner gatherings. It thunders, white-hot and blinding, when he lashes at those who dare to question your legitimacy as the Fire Lady, and it drenches the room in a warm golden glow when you force him to sit down and let you trim his overgrown mop of hair.

Even though his duties as the Fire Lord never cease, you manage to steal your rightful share of attention from him. Each moment you spend together is either one of heady excitement or a languid escape from your daily lives but you are not one to pick favourites. You wish in those moments that things would always be like this, and for a while, they seem like they will.

As you settle down more comfortably into your queenly duties in the first year of marriage, another expectation is made from you two. And this is where the troubles began.

The anticipation of an heir.

You always knew it would be this way, and you weren’t averse to it, of course. But it was not something you had spent a lot of time dreaming about, you were both after all very young still.

In fact, the last time you had thought about it was when Zuko had made your union public after you had accepted his proposal.

Your marriage to him was not effortless. There was friction because you weren’t a Firebender.

Zuko didn’t care an ounce. Every time you brought it up, he would take your wrist and pretend to examine it.

“Who said there isn’t fire in your blood? Look, I can see that time you fought Azula to protect me, that’s fire.”

“Zuko, stop –

“Oh, and there’s that time you stood up to your father and his terrorist organisation for Tom-Tom. And then here's that time you…”

But despite his reassurances, he couldn’t change that this marriage would make you the first non-Bender to ever join the Fire Nation royal family.

Centuries-old rituals for finding the most virile, powerful Firebender blood to wed the Fire Lord, so that the offspring, the Future of the Fire Nation would be a strong, powerful bender, would be shattered. The Fire Sages warned that the Gods would be angered beyond consolation, and rain down their wrath on the kingdom.

They pit your love for each other against aeons of oppressive traditions that supposedly bound the three dimensions–God, Power, and People–together. Those that never wanted to see Zuko on the throne used your engagement as fuel to spread the venom that the new Fire Lord was dismantling the beloved Fire Nation that was once the greatest empire in the world.

Even members of the nobility, 'friends’ of your parents, bemoaned your audacity to expect to be a Fire Lady and not quietly accept your position as a royal courtesan like every other non-bender that was ever associated with a Fire Lord. They spoke of your cunning for wanting to jeopardise the future of the Fire Nation, just so you could have a shot at becoming the Queen.

He stood right by you and fiercely defended your love, and you wished that that was all it took to strengthen your shaken confidence, but it wasn’t. Alone in her room, a girl who had only ever thought of marriage as the final warm cushy layer to cocoon an already blossomed relationship was now sprouting questions she wasn’t sure she wanted answers to.

What if no one at the palace ever accepted you? What if Zuko’s credibility as the Fire Lord completely dwindled after he married you? What if none of your children were benders? What if they were never accepted? What if one was a bender and the other wasn’t? You had seen what happened first-hand to those who were not welcome at the palace. Both you and Zuko have known the pain of being the less required sibling, and you could never let that happen to a child of yours.

Once before (when you were both young and excited teenagers at the precipice of adulthood), you had asked him what would happen if you and him had just a single non-bender child and no more. Your question was framed like a rhetoric, and he took it as such and the ensuing discussion about the political, historical, cultural significance of a non-Bender Fire Lord didn’t end for hours. Youthful heads leant against each other under the shade of an orange tree, churning with ideas about who you were, and what you wanted to be, and all the change you could bring in your Nation hand-in-hand, together.

And in the same way, he married you. With ideas of change, naivety, and togetherness. Hand in hand. 

Despite all that, neither you nor him were in a hurry to become parents so you brushed aside your mother's pointed questions, and his mother’s subtle remarks. With tired sighs, you ignored the Fire Sages’ poor jokes about when you would be taking a ‘long break’ from your counsel duties.

You complained to Zuko of how you envied that the man never had to dodge awkward questions about pregnancies and babies, and he laughed and tackled you to the bed, offering to help alleviate any future questions about babies right then. You rolled your eyes at his words, (the kind of eye-rolling that is born out of love and not annoyance), reminded once more of why you put up with glaring invasions of privacy and scathing public opinions of yourself.

You smiled curtly and continued to ignore your noble friends when they giggled and nudged you, making sly remarks about a future Fire Lord. They thought you might blush at the suggestions, but you couldn’t care less. They were lucky you even offered polite smiles in response to their weekly decimation of your private life that you knew took place in your absence.

You scoffed under your breath and took their remarks for what they were–indications for you and Zuko to make more love, essentially. They had no reasons for concerns there.

And your days carried on, sauntering along the same banquet spread of fruit tarts. Everything you could want for was within reach.

Months later, his mother, Ursa, invited you for tea and between sips, she explained how liberating it felt having your first child early. She knows, she too had been under the same pressure once. Having a child early was an assurance to the parents, and the court, and a good way to get ‘the task’ out of the way. You had never seen it in that manner, and it was starting to make sense. Most of all, the idea of shutting the mouths of everyone that felt the need to comment on your private life for good, appealed to you.  

So, that same night you ask your husband if he wants to have a baby. He smiles and like you expected (his jokes are very predictable, despite what he thinks) says he would like to 'make one at least'.

“I’m serious, Zuko. Should we have a baby?” You cannot deny the strong hold the seed of that thought has taken in your mind.

He takes a moment to think, and mulls over this life-altering decision for lesser time than you would deem necessary.

“If you’re ready, I don’t see why not.”

Truth be told, having a baby was a lot less life-altering for him than it was for you.  

Either way, you believe you are ready, so you nod and let down your hair, climbing into his lap.

So far, you weren’t regretting your decision.

You informed both your mothers (to their teary-eyed delight) that they could expect good news soon, mostly so they would stop dropping those ridiculous and embarrassing hints all the time.

You imagined any day now you would wake up with sickness or a ridiculous notion that you were pregnant. Some kind of divine knowledge perhaps that your womb had been blessed. You didn’t know how any of this worked, you were never taught these things, just expected to figure them out.

Anyway, you patiently waited for a sign that seemed to be taking its own sweet time.

All the while, the babymaking never stopped. For all intents and purposes, Zuko seemed to have forgotten that there was even an objective here.

A month passed. Two months. Three. No divine knowledge, no upset stomach.

Your mother brought it up once, her hesitant words a combination of her concerns and Ursa’s too, and you shut her down before she could even allude to the lack of ‘good news’ by saying it would happen when it would and that it didn’t bother you.

You were trying after all.

As days flew by, you were starting to catch yourself drifting into thoughts about women who found it hard to conceive, and about some who couldn’t at all. Despite your eagle-eyed focus, you were slipping into these grim musings during council meetings, weekly tea parties with friends, and at dinners with Zuko until he called you back with a snap of his fingers and a bemused expression on his face.  

To pacify yourself, you brought it up to a friend you knew had difficulty in the early days of her marriage with conception and she swore by offerings she made to some tribal god of virility who blessed her in return. You crinkled your nose, for this was not the kind of spiritual nonsense solution you had expected and decided it wasn’t worth your while. You were healthy, and you could conceive. It was just a waiting game. An annoying, boring, infuriating game.

Word got out though, and women around the circle began whispering about how you were failing to conceive.

You thought about it once lying awake in bed, after another evening of efforts at childbearing; recreating the picture they must have painted of you–a Fire Lady desperate for a child, weeping and lamenting her fate that she was warned of.

You smile, glancing over at your husband who snored lightly in his tired sleep. If only they knew.

Dramatising the smallest inconveniences was the way of nobles. When one was raised so far beyond the day-to-day difficulties of a commoner, excitement had to be created through the ridiculous stories one could spin off other’s not-so-ridiculous lives.

They had gossiped when you were dating Zuko. They said he would never marry a non-Bender and that you would be reduced to a concubine. They gossiped when he brought Ursa, a banished Fire Lady that had married another man, back into the palace, the Fire Lord’s home, with an illegitimate child. They whispered when you actually did get married, about how he had to have other mistresses on the side, and if your first child ended up being a Bender then it was undeniable proof of it. Even now when they ran out of fresh fodder, they would fall back on their trusty chatter about how you were not fit to be a Fire Lady; a Fire Lady had to be compassionate and the unending reflection of divine femininity after all. And every last one of them was a far better contender than you.

But their jealous conclusions about you were why you enjoyed proving them wrong in the first place.

So, while at first, you had passively jumped onto this future-heir-bandwagon, the waiting was starting to get to you. Patience was not your virtue and you decided to take this on like a mission. You had never been once denied something you wanted in your life, and you weren’t going to be denied now. You were a healthy woman; with a fit body. How hard could this be?

Your husband seemed blissfully unaware of your frustration and your consequential new-found resolve. But it hardly mattered; his enthusiastic participation was a given.

So first, you flipped over your diet. You ate all the right foods and you drank all the right drinks. You even started paying a little more attention during the daily spiritual cleansings of the throne room. You made a schedule of when the two of you would ‘practice copulation’ for maximum efficiency. Leaving no stone unturned, you even made a few offerings to those gods who were meant to bless you.

Weeks flew by. Still no pregnancy.

You added herbal boosters to your tea and to his. You enforced the schedule with an iron fist because you were starting to get jumpy now at the lack of results. You made rules about the things he could do in bed with you and the things he could not. Love-making was now a calculated ritual. He seemed a little ruffled at the sudden change in your approach to the situation and reminded you to take it easy.

And you would. Once you conceive.

If all he had to deal with was a less exciting sex life, then so be it.

You were finding yourself mentally drained at the end of each day, and increasingly unwilling to jump into a new one the morning after. You could tell that all the stress was starting to take a toll on you and you began joining Zuko in his morning meditations. Except those were no good at all because every time you shut your eyes you only saw maddening images of yourself, childless and unsatisfied. You dragged copious amounts of kohl under your eyes each morning to make your sunken orbs look alive, and cancelled your weekly practice spars with Tom-Tom because you simply did not keep the energy or focus anymore.

Zuko was starting to pick up then, that your glow was dimming and that despite the overhaul in your otherwise indulgent diet, you seemed more tired than before. He told you in his own little way that there was nothing missing in his life, that he had you and he didn’t need anything else right now. And you salvaged your shattered self-esteem, barely holding the jagged edges together with the soothing balm of his words.

Then one day, the Fire Nation had visitors. Avatar Aang and Katara of the Southern WaterTribe, esteemed guests of the Fire Lord and Lady. Aang and Katara, Zuko’s best friends and yours too. This was an especially celebratory visit; the Avatar’s first-born would be visiting the Fire Nation for the first time ever. A grand celebration indeed.

When you picked baby Bumi in your hands, your breath was caught at how he was the most perfect combination of Aang and Katara. A beautiful, living, breathing testament to their love. Everything around Katara seemed to bask in the glow that emanated off her; a glow that didn’t exist before.

Zuko held Bumi in his hands, and you saw how happy it made him. It’s not like you hadn’t seen him with kids before, he had always been a natural with Kiyi and Tom-Tom. But somehow this time, watching him rock the baby in his arms, pricked at your chest like it never had before.

He gifted the four-month-old more gold than he could ever wear on his tiny little body. With every spark he sprouted from the palm of his hand to attract the baby’s attention, your heart was thrashed against your ribcage and left in a throbbing, bloody mess. You don’t know if you could ever give him this happiness. If you could ever complete your family. If you could ever give your nation a leader like you were supposed to.

You cannot pinpoint the exact moment when you started ignoring your husband. The hours you spent away from him turned into longer hours, mornings melted into evenings, and days into nights. Any time that you spent with him only fanned the flames that set your chest ablaze in guilt. You could not bring yourself to tell him that you might be barren and so you keep it inside and let it rot you from within. And in the process, it rots everything you touch including your once-perfect marriage.

You busy yourself in the times that you typically spend with him, and choose to respond to him in the least engaging fashion. The harder he tries, the harder you resist.

The only way you can keep from descending further into a mess is if you distract yourself from all the imperfect aspects of your life (which is everything except your work), so you bury yourself neck-deep in your duties.

You almost forget when it’s your turn to host the ladies at the palace for tea. Your heart is not in it when they arrive, and begin their weekly gossiping. It could be argued that your heart had never been it and you only did the socialising as part of your tasks as Fire Lady, but now you cannot even be bothered to smile politely in return.

Sensing the slightest break in conversation, you excuse yourself to overlook the preparations for lunch and drag your feet on the way back down the hall extending the time you can spend away from the little party. Your pace quickens when you enter the corridor that leads to the throne room though, for you have come to resent the glares of the portraits on the wall; Fire Ladies and Lords who came before you whispering of your failures.

You stop before you enter the pavilion again, this time the whispers aren’t just in your head.

Your friends are whispering about your infamous childlessness. They are whispering about the possibility of you being banished in the dead of the night like the last Fire Lady. They are whispering if you will fake a pregnancy and adopt a child that is born of Zuko’s seed, but not your womb. Surely, the Fire Lord will take action in the face of an heirless-future, and of a barren wife.

You leave the party then, and you never return to another one.

Days of quiet agony have stacked up against each other into an impenetrable wall that has blocked you from the world outside your head and is too hard for you to scale alone, and it is finally more that you can take. 

You storm into the temple with angry tears streaking your face, and with accusatory fingers raised at the stone idols, you demand that the Gods give you a baby.

You had done it all and more. They could not keep your right to be a mother from you. You warn them that if not for your sake, then for the sake of the future of the Fire Nation they had to bless you with a child.  

You wish you knew why this was happening. You followed all the rules you were told a proper lady had to keep ever since you were young. You shut up, stayed modest, were loyal to one man, performed your duties to the best of your abilities, and were willing to bear a child like a nice, lovely wife so then why were you on the floor of the Fire Temple, crying yourself hoarse to empty halls.

You coughed and spluttered as your hands flailed at your throat as it began to seal up, while your tears dried on your face.

And there you sat, a Fire Lady desperate for a child, weeping and lamenting her fate that she was warned of.

Maybe they were all right. Maybe you were not meant to further Zuko’s family. The Gods would never let a non-Bender raise the ruler of their kingdom. 

You held true to the teaching of your mother and persisted. There was nothing else you could do.

But there was only so much perseverance without hope. You ate your food with a lot less gusto and lost your appetite for the fruit tarts your husband had delivered to you in hopes of cheering you up.

You also lost the appetite for conversation. He thinks it might be something he’s done, so he tries to fix things and talk them out, but the complete absence of response on your end is starting to frustrate him too.

Your dinner conversations disappear, replaced with the depressing, quiet tinkering of cutlery. You wonder if he has the slightest clue of how torn you are in your inaction. Torn in the words you won’t speak and steps you won’t take. Torn in the whispers you hear about yourself, known only to you because no one dare let slip their thoughts of you in front of him.

You wonder what he thinks about this all. Does he know why you have amplified the distance between where you sit and where he sits? Does he know that it's not his fault, but yours?

There was a time when he was young and you were younger still, and nothing could dampen the fire of your affection for each other. Not even war.

Now he sweeps into the room with the magnificence of a true Fire Lord. You watch with pride because you were there when the shoulder pads of his robes were still too big on him, and his unruly hair stuck out at odd angles from his crown. A mere boy, expected to fill the shoes of a king and flip over the fate of his kingdom. Even his well-wishers expected him to fail.

He has grown into the mold of a king now, and every day is a bigger challenge than the last for him to exceed the expectations his subjects have from him and prove his worth to the throne. And you know that when compared to the future of millions of Fire Nation citizens, your troubles are small but you wish he would see them too.

You will not tell him, but you wish that he would find out anyway. Somehow, he would overhear the other women mercilessly picking you apart, or maybe he would have a dream that would magically point him to the inadequacy you feel, or maybe a letter detailing your every problem would fall into his lap from the sky and he would rush to your side.

And while none of these things come to pass, he tries nonetheless. He kisses you and wants to show you he loves you the same; he wants to hold you intimately in a way you haven’t let him in weeks. He wants to worship your body, but you turn him away because your body is not the temple that he’s been mistaking it for.

You know then, that the time for this ill-fated marriage has come.

You wish it could stay beautiful forever (or for just a little bit longer) but the Fire Nation cannot continue without an heir, and you cannot provide one. Your marriage has turned into the joke that everyone said it was. Only, it’s not funny at all.

Through every painful realisation so far you have held yourself; stoic and removed. And you will continue to. You perform your duties to your country the same as always, and you stand by the Fire Lord as long as you will be allowed to with unflinching conviction.

Your tears are only meant to sprout when you are sitting right under the gushing bathwater, so that their existence may always remain questionable.

Now you only talk when you must because you do not have kind, encouraging, interesting words to offer. Your behaviour doesn’t alert too many of your friends and acquaintances; you were never much of a talker anyway, except around Zuko. But around Zuko, you were almost a different person so that was hardly shocking.

There is a deafening silence in your life. And once upon a time, you had no qualms with silences. Not until he came into your life and filled it with noise. You hate him for making you fall in love with the sound of his laughs, and the hum of his quite snores, of his whines, and of his sulky growls and of his raspy proclamations of love spoken in heat of the moment.

You hardly see him anymore. You pretend to sleep when he enters the chamber late and he wakes up and leaves before you do. Your life and his, once a rapid, bubbling, singular stream have broken off into tributaries and you never know if they will meet again.

You start to realise now as you roam the palace halls alone, how big and cold and dark this place really is.

With all the moping time you freed up for yourself, you decided to make a trip to the place you spent a lot of time in before your duties as Fire Lady gobbled up any recreational hours–the library. You had redecorated it the way you liked upon your arrival to the palace because apart from you, not many other residents found themselves taking refuge in these tall shelves. Least of all Zuko.

You walk in and nod at the caretaker. Mentally you ask her if you might find a book in here on saving marriages and almost chuckle at your perservering ability to produce your staple dry humour.  

Your fingers skim over the leather-bound titles on the shelf looking for something that might fill up the steep empty gorges in your head. You stop when you peek over the space between two shelves at your regular spot–a high cushioned chair by the window, standing on a burgundy rug that you stole from the reading corner in your own house. That rug was the little spot that made you feel like home when you first found yourself the mistress of this large palace.

But the chair isn’t empty like it should have been. You paused because your husband is perched upon it. You were not aware Zuko perused the library in your absence. In fact, you are almost certain he does not.

He is squinting down at a red hardbound book in his hand. Hunched over in a way that is making you want to chide him to straighten his back from afar. He always did it to you.

You take this rare, sombre moment to look at his face as he peers down at the words in front of him. The sharpness of his nose is highlighted by the sun streaming in from the window beside, and his scar is thrown into the darkness of the side you cannot see. And even though you could recreate every rise and fall, every turn, every hollow of his face from memory alone, you have come to know him so closely, so intimately, that your eyes do not see his features anymore, just straight into the man behind them.

You move quietly to a different section, skimming over newer books just so he may not be alerted by your presence here.

You wish that you had brought the stepping stool with you as your fingers brush against the base of the book you are trying to reach. With a grunt, you drop your heels that are floating above ground.

“You’ve already read that one.” You hear close behind you, the smooth, gravelly voice you know so well. You turn around to catch him sliding the red book into place before you can peek at what had your reading-averse husband so intrigued not moments ago.

“I haven’t, actually,” you respond, turning to face him as he straightens to look up at you.

He takes a step closer in your direction, reaching overhead for the book. “ ‘Women of the Air Temples: A Forgotten Sacrifice’ ?” He reads aloud the title, turning a squinty gaze down at you, “You even told me what you thought of it.”

You look up at him blankly. This book has been on your list, yes, but you are certain you haven’t read it.

His eyes widen a little as he figures it out sooner than you do, and he snorts in disbelief. “You made it all up so I would read it. I even did because you said it was so good.”

He hasn’t stepped away yet.

“Well, was it?” You ask.

His low, bellied chuckle is close enough that you feel the weight of it in the livened air between the two of you. “Not really. And I thought I was an idiot for not seeing how ‘despite compelling content, it is the author’s ability to weave a gripping narrative that was the shine of the book.’” He imitates your speech and you can’t help but laugh, remembering your con job now thanks to his impressive mimicry of your lacklustre intonations.

“Well, it got you to read, didn’t it?”

“Mhm,” he nods, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear, and smiles. The curves of his lips hide his longing for you but there is also a hint of something more. The slightest hint of hope that entwines with the scent of these old books and with the musk that rises from him as he bends down towards you.

You realise that this is the first time in months you have genuinely laughed and you relish in the slight, heady rush that it sent through you.

You relish also, in how good his lips feel against yours.

You know he misses you too. He doesn’t know what went wrong, but you know his duties are making it hard for him to stage an intervention.

So, he marries his professional life and private, emboldened by your encounter in the library yesterday, and you awaken to your bags all packed at the foot of your bed. He’s all dressed and you remember that he is travelling to the outskirts of the Fire Nation on an annual visit to oversee development efforts.

You rub your sleepy eyes as he informs you that he is taking you with him on his two-day excursion. But you don’t want to go. You were glad he was making that trip because you believe this time apart might put things in perspective for you both.

“I don’t think I should go, Zuko.”

“What do you mean?” His voice falters and you can tell he didn’t expect to hear you decline.

You pause; your next words will hold a lot of weight.

“I think it’s good for us to spend some time apart.”

“Mai…” he breathes quietly, lost for words save for your name.

You cannot give in. Tough decisions have to be made and you need the space to make them. He leaves that day and you wonder if he’s ever coming back at all.

You go about the rest of your day as the Fire Lady, ironically making preparations for the grand celebration of your two-year anniversary with Zuko on the same night he will return.

But merely two days away from him seem to rock back your senses as you are reminded of all that you take for granted. You compare this new silence to the old, and realise how much even his quiet company means to you, how empty the palace, your room, your bed, your heart feels without him.

So, you decide that when he’s back, you will take the first step. You don’t know how far you will manage to walk, but you will sit him down and you will say the first words. You will end the silence.

What happens next will be a life-long reminder to you of how trivial the plans of mortals are against the workings of the universe.

That night you are jerked out of sleep when it feels like someone has pierced your torso with a dagger and you awake, gasping for air. Shock and horror lock your scream from escaping your chest as you push aside the sheets with your pasty, shaky hands to find your clothes and bed soaked in dark red. The unimaginable pain that followed has numbed your brain but you finally manage to break through its hold and shout out for Sangi, your bodyguard, and she comes bolting in. At the terrifying sight of you, she lifts you off the bed without a word, and rushes you to the healer.

You feel the hot steady drip of blood down your legs onto the pale marbled floors of the palace, while you fight to hold your screams from the pain that is tearing through your insides.

The healer’s voice is trying to get to you and you peer at her through half-lidded eyes, your vision unable to focus properly.

“I’m sorry my Lady, you have miscarried.”

That’s not possible.

You were never pregnant. That is impossible.   

You cannot tell her this though, because the heavy draught she has given you has made you drowsy, yet barely helped with the pain ripping your body apart. Lying there on the table while the healer worked on you and Sangi held your hand, you almost wished you would die then so that this hellish agony could end. A cloth stuffed between your jaws prevents you from losing your tongue to the sharp edge of your teeth as you bite down in torment; your cries of help muffled to the world outside.

The same teeth you bared to the world when you became the first non-bending Fire Lady were held back now to protect the tongue that should not have strayed from its quiet seat behind your father.

It seems every time you mumbled your prayers, and wailed and your requests, and pleaded your pleas, the Gods turned a blind eye, but the one time you gnashed and cursed at their alter they took notice.

Hours later when you come to, looking around at the inside of the healing chamber, still unsure of everything that had taken place, you are shrivelled; sucked dry of blood, tears, and spirit. 

There is a lot that you want to say. So many questions about how this could come to pass. Pain, grief, anger, gratitude all take turns churning up a storm in your heart whose beating seems feebler now.

But the only words you say are, “If Zuko hears a word about this, I will not hesitate to have either of you banished.”

You spend the next day in bed, while your mother comes over to help you recover from your ‘seasonal sickness’. You direct the maids and party organisers on last-minute arrangements from your resting spot. The herbal draughts have quelled the pain for the most part, but you also feel liberated in more ways than one. Your ability to feel anguish of any kind seems to have been drained out of your system along with all the blood last night.

You lift your arm, raising a sullen eyebrow at your pallid wrist. Was there even anything left to course through your veins?

Now you just feel tired, and irritated. You don’t even feel sorry. You have never cared lesser about the colour of the lights or the decorations or seating arrangements. You say words that feel right and order your assistants with muscle memory. You don’t sleep, because you don’t know how to stop yourself from teleporting back to the healer’s table every time you close your eyes.

You eat, but only because you still haven’t forgotten how to chew.

You hear that Zuko has returned, but you cannot go to greet him. It doesn’t matter though, because he storms into the room, still in his travel clothes, and plops down on the edge of the bed beside you. His hand shoots up to your cheek to check your temperature.

“What happened?” he asks, a little alarmed.  

“I’m fine,” you reassure bleakly. “You’re warmer than me.”

He tuts, angry at you for overindulging in frozen desserts like you undoubtedly must have in his absence, and not taking care of yourself.

Then he embraces you, in the same way that he would before…everything went to absolute shit. And you hug him back.

You hug him back hard.

You being held like this was many, many hours overdue; hours that felt like ages. You want nothing more than to give in and tell him about everything, but you cannot do it. You could not stand to hurt him like this.

He senses the neediness radiating off you and holds you deeply, and for longer than you would have settled for. His fingers comfortingly plunged into your hair and for that you are thankful.

Oddly though, while you sat alone in your large bed all this time, keeping physical distance from everyone including your mother under the pretence of ‘seasonal sickness’, you felt trapped in a claustrophobic box–constricted and cornered. But now wrapped tightly in his arms you feel a little freer. Breathing becomes a little easier.

At his touch, a charge sparked through your heart and kickstarted it’s beating. You felt it before in the library and you think you felt it all those years ago, dripping wet as you stood behind him in the fountain too. It’s that same, sweet, old spark. A small controlled version of the lightning that once existed. You feel it leaping inside your chest, desperate to break loose and fuse with the one that’s surely leaping within in his own.

You make it to the evening. With the healer’s potent concoctions, you have almost completely recuperated physically. But mentally? That’s a different story you do not wish to narrate.

You ask for the maids to come and doll you up because you have no motivation to do it on your own. You watch them bustling and fussing around a ceramic doll in the reflection of your mirror. Hollow on the inside, painted colourful on the outside, and fragile enough to shatter at the smallest drop.

You look at your flat belly under the figure-hugging drapes of your black dress in your reflection. It is the only place you can brave looking at it. You haven’t touched it since last night and neither have you looked down at it. You want to be severed from it, not reminded that your womb is a part of you. When you look at yourself, you see a body that has betrayed you and you have never seen a more revolting thing.

Your eyes won’t reveal that though, they remain as they were–lifeless.

Zuko sees you and walks over, wrapping his arms around you from behind and you hear him say something about you looking beautiful and you assume it warrants a smile, so you try. You don’t say anything except for a quiet “Happy Anniversary” because just saying “Anniversary” would be odd. Then you slip away from his grasp that is only skyrocketing your debilitating guilt.

In your life you have never cared lesser for a party. And that is saying a lot.

You have no interest in feigning happiness and the picture of a perfect marriage. Zuko notices how you are not responding, he notices too that you are not wearing the diamond choker that he brought back from his trip as an anniversary gift for you. As if that necklace was not the loudest, gaudiest reminder of the things you don’t deserve. A product of the luxury others swore you slept your way to.

He notices that you are not being the perfect hostess, but tonight you cannot be bothered. The trauma you had experienced could in the least compensate you with an excuse to be at less-than-perfect behaviour, right? Right.

You sit quietly at your table, choosing to not make acquaintances and let the cider be your 1 for the night (or 2 or 3).

The Fire Lord tries to send you hints about your conduct that is at present not the desired reflection of a Fire Lady, but you ignore them. You were like this before marriage too, weren’t you? And he knew that. Come to think of it, why did you ever bother to change? That too for people who would like to see you dragged through the halls of the palace and thrown out of it by your own husband.

You know what these people talk about behind your back, and they should be happy you only offer your apathy in return. Your hatred, they would not be able to handle. The women, your friends, wave at you from afar. Clearly whispering about your sorry state and if you weren’t devoid of all emotion, it might have made your blood boil.

You sit like a statue beside Zuko, smiling curtly at the guests who offer their congratulations. He has grown tired of asking you to dance with him, as is customary for the Fire Lord and Lady as hosts of the dances they arrange. So, when Yung Sing asks him to dance, he goes and you don’t know why but it makes you want to breathe fire. You clench your glass it an unforgiving grip, watching them take the floor and move together to the music in a show of ‘politeness’. Politeness.

He knows that conniving wench has always tried to come between him and you. He’s clearly trying to show you that you are replaceable. Show you that he can have just as much of a happy life with someone else and everyone watching knows it too. They are all in on it. They know your days in the palace are numbered and they are enjoying every last bit of this. You can see it; you can see it when they smile at Zuko and Yung Sing. The way they tip their glasses at them. You are not sure you have ever seen them this way when it’s you dancing with him.

And you cannot deny that watching them all burn in jealousy once gave you a kick, but now as you compare the treatment you never received, you want to show them just what you think of their unwanted opinions and their disgusting noble ideas.

You don’t want to be silent anymore, you want to make big noise. Smashing, crashing, roaring noise.

You scream and you shout. You topple the table filled with foods over on its head. You pick up the drinks and you splash them into the faces of the smug women that talk shit about you and leave their eyes burning. With your knives, you threaten to permanently injure anyone that dares comment on you or your life ever again. You fill the silence of your life with bone-chilling screams and you tell each and everyone present at the party to fuck right off.

All in your head though, in reality, you are a bruised woman, drowning her pathetic self in the bitter pits of the cider.

When he returns, you stand up and inform him that you are leaving the party and without waiting for a response you walk away.

He is not the only one that has pride, you have grown into the mould of a Fire Lady too. You have pride too.

He calls in a hushed whisper after you, but you are gone.

You realise he has followed you when he pulls you into a shadowed corner.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” He demands in anger.

“I can’t be here right now,” you reply dispassionately.

“Mai, you can’t just leave. This is our anniversary party.”

“Manage it, Fire Lord,” you respond blithely.

He hisses in annoyance. “Is this about Yung Sing? Because frankly, I’m so confused and just done with your rubbish.”

“Great,” you reply plainly, chin up in hauteur. “Then why don’t you go back to finding yourself a replacement like you just were?”

You turn on your heel and feel his tight grip on your upper arm as he yanks you towards himself in rage at the grim accusation you have made. Your steely gaze reflects his anger back at him and you realise the untrue words you spat out in a moment of outrage have hurt him in a way you didn’t even want to.

Maybe you are the cold, unfeeling creature everyone says you are. Unfit to be a Fire Lady. Unfit to be a mother. And apparently, unfit to be a wife.

His grip loosens as you pull yourself away and walk out of the hall, letting the bitter tears that prick at the corners of your eyes fall. He still has the ability to resurface emotions within you, good or bad, and you realise you have not completely turned to stone. Not yet.

The next time you see him, your head is resting on Ty Lee’s shoulder and you are staring down at his feet. It seems a lot more of your feelings have rushed back into your body with the tall gulps of alcohol you flooded into your system, sitting by the turtleduck lake in the garden. Turns out you are still capable of feeling some form of shame at showing up at your shared chamber, well past midnight, drunk on half a bottle of cider after deserting your husband, the Fire Lord, at your anniversary party.

You don’t respond to his glare that you can feel boring into the top of your head. As you wobble into the dimly lit room, letting your hair down, you realise you are not as drunk as you would like to be. You can still recognise your awfully royal room and your awfully royal husband; you can also still recognise their voices as they discuss you.

He’s thanking Ty Lee for looking after you and bringing you back. Ty Lee is telling him about how grey your aura is. You know auras are ostrichhorseshit because if they were real, yours would be pitch black.

You throw off your bracelet and your earrings with sullen haste, wishing they would shut up about you. Ty Lee calls “good night” before walking away as Zuko shuts the door behind her.

He frowns at you as he walks past but says nothing. You glare back as well. Less out of anger and more out of the fact that you have forgotten what you were going to do next. Your brain has descended into an inadequate fog where you can still feel all the pain that has taken residence in there, but cannot for the life of you remember which dresser drawer holds your jewellery box. You turn in response to a tapping on your shoulder and find Zuko standing in front of you with a glass of water that he wordlessly hands over, still frowning.

You gulp it down, happy to chase down the unsavoury bitterness of the cider. You might have swiped the bottle of wine from the kitchen instead, had it not been for the flinching realisation that wine and blood share an uncanny resemblance.

He disappears into his wardrobe to change. He has decided there is nothing more to say or do, it seems.

You shrug and make your way to the bed with the intention of burying yourself, shame and all, among the layers of your duvets. As you hobble, you realised that your custom-made-to-be-annoying heels are still on your feet. You slide down the edge of the bed with a grunt, sitting down on the floor. You lean against the wood of the bed, foot squarely propped up on the awfully royal burnt amber walls with intricate hand painting in front of you.

Zuko reappears and halts in his path, seemingly in the room by himself. He flings around in short-lived panic, wondering if you’ve disappeared again until he spots you struggling on the floor. The heels you are wearing come with ropes that snake up your calves and you try in vain to figure out the knots.

He sighs and you look up as he walks over to you, sitting down in the crammed space across from you leaning against the wall. Again, no words are exchanged as he takes your foot and places it in his lap and begins to undo the straps of your blasted footwear.

It seems instead of helping you forget your life; the alcohol has given you super memory as your brain rudely pulls up pictures from a forgotten childhood. Of when you and Zuko would giggle into your palms, crouched in tightly crammed corners of the palace waiting for the seeker to come to find you.

It seems the game of hide and seek never ended.

He huffs, eyebrows stitched together, focused on undoing the strings in the lowly lit chamber, and also on avoiding your gaze. You smile and lean your heavy head on his propped-up knees by your shoulder. 'Cross, yet caring Zuko' was arguably your favourite Zuko.

You realise as his hair droops over his face that in absence of your almost forceful persuasion for a weekly haircut, his hair grew much past the point you would let it otherwise. You reach up to brush it away from his eyes and he bats your hand away in annoyance.

“I’m still your wife,” you inform him softly, yet firmly, and push the hair back to reveal his beautiful face. He has always been beautiful to you; the kind of beauty that causes a dull, painful throbbing in one’s chest.

Your hand caresses the side of his face, and his scarred ear and your heart aches from the tragedies that have plagued both your lives.

“Promise me when I leave, you will take care of yourself,” you whisper.

“Where are you going?” He asks, freeing your foot off the shoe. His voice is stable but his unmet gaze is heavy. He is scared of your revelation.

“I don’t know,” you slur dismissively, still leaning on his knee. You don’t know where you will go. This is your home. Here is your family and here is your community. You’re not sure you can start a new life somewhere else and be happy in a world that he is not a part of, despite it all. “I don’t want to go,” you confess and your voice breaks, the impassive façade faltering.

“Then don’t go,” he says, finally lifting his head to look up at you. “Stay. We can fix this–

“We can’t,” you whisper, pulling your knees close to your chest, head back against the edge of the bed.

“Mai, I promise you if–

“Zuko,” you implore as the tears flow down your cheeks, eyes shut tight because you cannot bear to look at him. “I lost the baby.”

“What,” you hear him say.

“I didn’t even know I was pregnant, and then I lost it” are all the words you manage to say before you break down into sobs that erupt from your soul and shake your being. You feel his hands cupping your face as he tries to ask you when this happened, how it happened, what happened. But your tears won’t stop long enough for you to answer him.

He holds you as you descend into cries, and yells and screams. Finally, you allow yourself to grieve. To completely give in to this profound loss you didn’t know existed. How does one lament the passing of a child that didn’t even receive the time of a single thought from its mother before it was gone? You don’t even know if it was a son you lost, or a daughter. And you never will. 

You scream into his arms because you want him to pull out your soul from the deep, endless pit it has fallen into. You want him to tell you it’s not your fault, but you know that it is. You want him to tell you everything can go back to how it was, but you are only being foolish.

You yell out in desperation of wanting to be okay but you don’t think you ever will be again.

You ask him why you are being punished. You tell him how alone you were. You tell him how you feared for your life. You tell him how much you bled. You tell him how much you wanted him there, stroking your forehead, telling you it would be fine. You tell him how much it hurt. You cry, and you complain, and you curse, and you spit out your anger for the Gods because you have been robbed.

He says things too, you’re not sure you hear him over the constant hum of your sobbing but his voice is comforting. He is apologising. Telling you that you are safe now. Telling you he will never leave.

At some point, he had picked you and placed you on the bed slipping in behind you, his arm over your waist and his lips whispering words into your shoulder that still trembles from your slowing sobs. He tries to place his palm over your stomach, the place he knows you hurt the most. But you don’t let him because you need to stay disconnected from your body. Your hand guides his up to your chest so he can feel your erratic heartbeat and maybe your rattled spirit within.  

Later, when he thinks you’ve fallen asleep, he gets up and leaves. If you know your husband at all, you know he’s gone to see Sangi and the healer. He will question them about last night and you’d rather he do that than ask you.

A long while passes before he returns to the chamber and vanishes into the bathroom.

Tired, you had even started to drift a little, before you feel a warm cloth that he’s sweeping over your face to wipe the makeup off. You had felt the carbon of your kohl on your lips, mixed with the salt of your tears. As he wipes you down with the gentlest strokes, you open your eyes and look up at your husband.

The man who said he would care for you and has never broken that promise. He looks down with concern in his bloodshot eyes and it is then you know that he has cried too. You pull him close and hold him to your chest.

Why did you ever think you had to do this alone? Why did you think you could?

You shift as he slips under the covers, holding you as you face him. His arm is under your head, and you are able to focus past the intrusive thoughts and onto his firm, safe arms that support you. His thumb caresses your ear and you stare into his golden eyes.

Perhaps not everything is lost.

“If anyone, ever, tried to take you away from me, I would fight them. Physically. I would fight them all. With fire. With swords. With my bare hands if I have to,” he says, and the way his temple twitches you know that even the thought of it bothers him.  

“What if I never conceive?” You ask. Neither of you were children anymore, there were very real implications of things in your life and they affected a whole nation, whether you liked it or not.

“I don’t care,” he shakes his head. “I don’t need a child. My family is complete with you.”

“Zuko-

He brushes his thumb over your lips. “As far as the Fire Nation is concerned, we’ll find a way. We’ll adopt a child. We’ll elect the next worthy leader. I don’t care,” he repeats insistently.

Maybe a young hot-headed Zuko might have said things he didn’t mean in his hot-headed impulse. But he was Fire Lord Zuko now, and he knew his words carried weight. You snuggle into the crook of his neck and allow yourself to feel safe in his assurances. You allow yourself to be selfish.  

As sleep finally begins to come over you, still wrapped up in his embrace, drowsily you take his palm and guide it slowly down to your stomach. You feel the heat his palm sends through you, radiating through your womb all over your body. And for the first time since last night, you feel sensation there. The heat reminds you that you are connected to your womb. That it is still your body. You feel like you have finally descended into yourself from wherever it was that you were stuck in limbo.

He stays with you the next morning instead of running off to his duties. You both wake up late afternoon to a rich spread of brunch filled with all your favourite things that you had crossed off your menu in favour of your diet.

He takes you to go see the healer and while you choose to sit quietly and listen, it is he who has questions about everything. He won’t let the healer continue before she has cleared every single doubt he has. He’s asking things about your specific health conditions, what you can and cannot eat, and what you should and should not do. You realise now, as you watch the side of his face, that that night he had lost his child too. That you are not just yours; you are his too.

The healer sighs at his relentless slew of questions and pulls out a book from her drawer.

“I took notes for Fire Lady Mai from this book. It has a lot of information on reproductive health, women’s hormones, the shifts in their chi and emotional states before, during and after pregnancy, and a lot of home remedies for strength and vitality,” she says. “All your questions should be answered in here Fire Lord.”

She hands a familiar red, hardbound book to him. When he takes it from her is when you know where you’ve seen the book before. In his hands, as he was hunched over it in the library.

You can’t help turning to look at him with widened eyes, and he mouths a quiet ‘what’ stowing away the book along with some other scrolls about your health. You shake your head, blinking in dismissal, remembering that you are still in the healer’s chamber.

You walk away from the session a little pacified and a little less scared about what had happened. The healer said you pushed your body too far and the stress might have been a factor. She gave you a flicker of possibility of conception, but you do not want to fan the flames just yet. You want to take the time to recover and only broach this option when you are both fully ready again.

You are stopped in the middle of the garden-balcony on the way to your chamber when Zuko holds your arm and pulls you into a hug.

“Please don’t ever leave me,” he rasps into your shoulder, thinking about the horrifying second-hand details of what happened that night. “I would die if something ever happened to you.”

“Can’t get rid of me that easy,” you reply with a smile, circling your hands around his waist.

The spark within you jumps freely, rushing through your veins, awakening every cell in your body as it crosses from you to him and him to you. And as though it was a scene right from an Ember Island Player’s production, thunder crackles above you and you both look up at the sky.

Although there is no lightning, there is Druk.

The adolescent dragon has spotted his parents and is no longer interested in continuing his daily training. Despite Zuko’s sharp commands, the excited fifty-tonne dragon flaps its wings and lands roughly onto the balcony, smashing rows and rows of flowers under his unruly gigantic paws, scorching the rest with only his excited breath. You chuckle as Zuko runs up to him shouting “Bad, Druk!” as the dragon pants eagerly, awaiting his treats.

You decide right then to stop fighting. To stop resisting the good things in your life. To stop pushing away the love, care, and affection of the people around. It was the three of you against the world, and not you against them.

And if it really ever came down to it, then it wouldn’t be a very tough fight, would it?

You smile.

It was you who stood beside your childhood love, a fire-breathing dragon, and had the ability to pin down hundreds of armed guards and benders in a matter of minutes.

You raise your arm and glance down at your wrist. Despite what the world may think, you know that fire coursed through your veins too.