Shortfic: Decay
Jul. 29th, 2022 07:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
attackfishDisclaimer: Oh how I wish I had created or owned such a thing as Avatar: the Last Airbender.
Summary: General Iroh finally catches up to his brother's wife and her lover, and the children they stole from Ozai.
Author's Note: Part of the Avatar Sokka universe, found on my Tumblr at the tag #Water Avatar Sokka: [Link]. Open it in your browser. Tag links do not work with the Tumblr app.
Warnings: None of Ozai's abuse is shown explicitly, but it is very much present in this fic.
Decay
It was over so quickly. Ursa had heard navel officers say that sort of thing at court, always with that hint of a gloat. It was over so quickly because the Fire Navy was just that good, and their ships were better than anything in the world. But now she was on the other end of it, and it really was over so quickly, over before it had even begun.
With a cold lump sitting inside her, she waited, trying not to look at Hakoda, forced down to his knees on the deck of his own ship. This was her fault. She waited for the officer in charge to walk down the plank, so that she could know who would be deciding their fate. Names and ranks flashed across her mind, the cruel and the reasonable, the clever and the foolish, who she could trick, who she could cajole, who she could persuade, who might take pity. She waited on her own knees, and refused to keep her head down, no matter how the sailor who held her pressed.
She had closed the children in the hold, amongst the hammocks and dried meats, and she knew that once the crew started looking, they would find them easily, but maybe, maybe if whoever it was executed them out of hand, maybe the children wouldn't see it happen. Maybe she was imagining it, but she could hear them crying, the sounds muffled by the heavy wood.
But it wasn't a navel officer who walked down, not a captain, or a commander, or even an admiral. "General Iroh."
He stopped. "Ursa. How... what are you doing here?"
He loomed so baffled, and so old. "I think you can g-"
The hatch opened with a hard crash. The soldier holding her jumped, and Ursa almost wriggled out if his grasp. Azula strode up onto the deck like she didn't have a care in the world, but she had to have been terrified. Surely she had to have been terrified. "Hello Uncle," she said without even looking at her mother. "Are you here to take us home? Back to our father?"
"Of course, Azula." He opened his arms to her, but she didn't run into them. Awkwardly, Iroh dropped his arms back to his sides. "You're safe now."
"It's Princess Azula," she corrected. "I'm the Firelord's daughter. You're just his brother."
Iroh smiled, and shook his head. "Of course, princess."
Azula finally glanced down at her mother. "You should kill her. She's a traitor."
Iroh jerked back, blinking at Azula, but before he had time to say anything, a shout came from below decks, Zuko's high pitched voice, crying, "No!"
He launched himself up onto the deck, and crashed headlong into the legs of the man holding her down. As the man stumbled, Ursa shot to her feet and grabbed Zuko, clutching him to her.
Distantly, she was aware of Katara and Sokka tangling with the sailors holding their father, pounding at their thighs, and grabbing at their arms, trying to make them let Hakoda go.
"Get them all onto the ship," Iroh called, over the noise. "We'll sort this out there."
Ursa felt her son ripped out of her arms, and felt her arms fall away from him, empty.
.
The pounding clank clank clank of boots on the iron corridor pounded in Ursa's head. Up and down the corridor they walked, the clank clank clank ringing off the walls, through the metal door to Ursa's little cabin. Over and over, they walked past, where to, Ursa had no way of knowing, and no real way to make herself care.
It wasn't a cell, Ursa's cabin. She wasn't in the brig. Iroh seemed to be undecided about what to do with her, unsure of whether he should treat her like any other traitor. So she was lucky enough to experience the oppressive terror of her predicament with the comforts of a comfortable mattress and a small circular window that opened. Of course, it was too small for her to fit more than her hand through, and even if it were bigger, there was only the ocean below, but it was fresh air and a little light, a comfort and a kindness, evidence of her brother-in-law's benevolence.
She kept it open, and sat on her mattress against the wall with her head just below it, listening, ignoring the boots against the metal floor of the corridor beyond.
"I know it must have been very hard on you, being kidnapped."
"We weren't-"
"It was horrible, Uncle Iroh."
"I am sure you had to be very brave."
Ursa wondered if Iroh knew she could listen like this, if perhaps he meant her to. Did he open the window in her children's room so that she could hear their voices? Was it meant to be a comfort, or did he mean to drive her crazy?
"I was brave. I wasn't really scared, I knew Dad would send someone to rescue me."
"That's not-"
"I'm so glad you're here, Uncle, you can kill Mom, and Hakoda, and take us home!"
"No!" Zuko's voice rose high and scared. "He can't! Uncle, you can't kill Mom!"
"Yes he can! She's a traitor. She kidnapped us."
"It wasn't kidnap, she's our mom!"
"I bet you really believe that, don't you."
"Shut up Azula!"
"You're just jealous because if it were just you, Dad wouldn't have sent anybody. Dad cares about me, not you. Even you have to have figured that out by now."
"Shut up Azula!"
"I'm glad they're going to die."
"Shut up Azula!"
Ursa couldn't figure out why Iroh didn't say something, why he didn't try to explain, to teach Azula this wasn't the way to treat people. She wanted to pound on the door and scream to be let out, to hold her children one last time before Azula got her wish, and Iroh killed her.
"Do you really mean that, Azula?" Iroh's voice was mild, more mild than it had any right to be, with Ursa shaking one cabin over.
"Of course!" Ursa could practically see Azula's face, see her expression, the one she wore when everybody around her was being just too stupid to understand. "Dad didn't even want to marry her, you know? Grandfather forced him. Dad told me. Dad says I'm the only good thing she ever did, and it's not like she did it on purpose. None of the good parts came from her. She wants me to be like Zuko, because she likes whiny crybaby failures. She doesn't get it."
"Shut up Azula!"
"Is that all you can say?"
"Seriously, Azula, shut up. I don't want to hear it anymore."
"Whatever. You don't have anything else to say, because you know what I'm saying is true."
"No it's not! You're lying. You lie all the time."
"No I don't! And I don't have to lie when I'm right. Which we both know I am."
"No you're not!"
"Yes I am! You're a whiny crybaby failure, just like Mom. That's why when Grandfather ordered Dad to kill you, he was going to do it. He wouldn't have if it were me."
"If there's anything I can do for either of you," Iroh's voice sounded distant, detached. Ursa wanted to shake him by the throat until his head popped off.
"Can I have my own room? I don't want to share with Zuko."
"I'll see what I can do, but it is not a big ship. There isn't much room."
"You can put me with Sokka and Katara, if Azula wants to be all by herself."
But Iroh only said again, "I'll see what I can do."
.
The door to another cabin opened. Ursa listened intently, to hear if it was her children's.
"Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe." There was a long pause, and then, "I was going to question you, about how you found my brother's wife, how you convinced her to run away with you, and take their children away from their loving father."
"That wasn't how it went."
"I know. I talked to my niece and nephew." Iroh laughed. It was a horrible sound. "I was going to ask you about your nefarious plans."
Hakoda's own laugh drifted out the window, just as horrible and bleak as Iroh's.
"Instead I've brought someone to see you."
The cabin door creaked on its hinges again, and then, "Mom!"
"Hakoda!" Kanna's voice creeked as badly as the hinges from strain, and the same agony of feeling Ursa kept shoving down in herself. She wanted to scream, at how this family kept dragging new people in. She had tried to escape, and dragged Hakoda down with her, Hakoda and Kanna, Sokka and Katara.
But no, Ozai had dragged them in, when he kidnapped Sokka and killed his mother. It was hard to remember it wasn't her fault. It felt like her fault.
"I'll leave you two alone," Iroh said, and Ursa heard the port hole close.
A few minutes later, there was a knock on her own door. Ursa stood up and shut her own port hole before sitting back down heavily on the mattress. "I can't stop you from coming in. It's locked from the outside."
A key turned in the lock. When the door opened, Ursa was anything but surprised to see Iroh standing alone in the doorway. She didn't get up to greet him.
He closed the door behind him, and stood stiff, like a soldier, like he had to stand that way to keep himself upright. "I spoke to Zuko and Azula. Were you listening?"
She nodded. "I thought you might want me to, to soften me up for questioning, if I knew how much you already knew, if I heard my own children telling you, that maybe the guilt would make me tell you everything. Everybody was always telling me what a wily old general you are."
"A risky strategy. Do you think I am a gambling man?"
"I don't know you well enough to say." She had to ask, "Are you?"
"Sometimes," he admitted. "Yes."
"You got what you wanted. I was listening."
"What has my brother done to his children, Ursa?"
He didn't ask it like he was expecting an answer, which was good, because Ursa didn't have one to give him. "Don't take them back to him, Iroh."
"I won't." He sat down heavily on the mattress next to her. "I promise. I won't do that. But I don't know what I am going to do."
They sat there together on the mattress for a long moment, neither one wanting to speak, the weight of putting it into words, too much for either of them. She felt almost impossibly angry, with Iroh, with Ozai, with Azulon, with herself, with she didn't know what. But Iroh was there, so most of it was at him, at how he had never been there, how he hadn't known until now, how he had gotten to tell himself that everything was fine, when she had never gotten to do that. She'd had to watch everything fall apart, and now he was here to fuss over the pieces. It wasn't fair. She knew that. But it disn't change it either.
I the end, Iroh was the one to speak, which only made her angrier. "What has happened to our family, Ursa?"
He didn't sound like he expected a reply, bit she gave him one anyway. "I don't know. Most of it happened before I got there. It just kept happening."
He stared down at his knees. "Did you hate us?"
"Of course." The silence stretched between them again, long and empty, feeling more like distance than time, and neither wished to cross it. "I'm sorry, about Lu Ten."
Iroh nodded, but he didn't look at her. Neither one of them looked at the other for a long time. But she felt him start to shake beside her, and she put her arm around his shoulders.
Summary: General Iroh finally catches up to his brother's wife and her lover, and the children they stole from Ozai.
Author's Note: Part of the Avatar Sokka universe, found on my Tumblr at the tag #Water Avatar Sokka: [Link]. Open it in your browser. Tag links do not work with the Tumblr app.
Warnings: None of Ozai's abuse is shown explicitly, but it is very much present in this fic.
Decay
It was over so quickly. Ursa had heard navel officers say that sort of thing at court, always with that hint of a gloat. It was over so quickly because the Fire Navy was just that good, and their ships were better than anything in the world. But now she was on the other end of it, and it really was over so quickly, over before it had even begun.
With a cold lump sitting inside her, she waited, trying not to look at Hakoda, forced down to his knees on the deck of his own ship. This was her fault. She waited for the officer in charge to walk down the plank, so that she could know who would be deciding their fate. Names and ranks flashed across her mind, the cruel and the reasonable, the clever and the foolish, who she could trick, who she could cajole, who she could persuade, who might take pity. She waited on her own knees, and refused to keep her head down, no matter how the sailor who held her pressed.
She had closed the children in the hold, amongst the hammocks and dried meats, and she knew that once the crew started looking, they would find them easily, but maybe, maybe if whoever it was executed them out of hand, maybe the children wouldn't see it happen. Maybe she was imagining it, but she could hear them crying, the sounds muffled by the heavy wood.
But it wasn't a navel officer who walked down, not a captain, or a commander, or even an admiral. "General Iroh."
He stopped. "Ursa. How... what are you doing here?"
He loomed so baffled, and so old. "I think you can g-"
The hatch opened with a hard crash. The soldier holding her jumped, and Ursa almost wriggled out if his grasp. Azula strode up onto the deck like she didn't have a care in the world, but she had to have been terrified. Surely she had to have been terrified. "Hello Uncle," she said without even looking at her mother. "Are you here to take us home? Back to our father?"
"Of course, Azula." He opened his arms to her, but she didn't run into them. Awkwardly, Iroh dropped his arms back to his sides. "You're safe now."
"It's Princess Azula," she corrected. "I'm the Firelord's daughter. You're just his brother."
Iroh smiled, and shook his head. "Of course, princess."
Azula finally glanced down at her mother. "You should kill her. She's a traitor."
Iroh jerked back, blinking at Azula, but before he had time to say anything, a shout came from below decks, Zuko's high pitched voice, crying, "No!"
He launched himself up onto the deck, and crashed headlong into the legs of the man holding her down. As the man stumbled, Ursa shot to her feet and grabbed Zuko, clutching him to her.
Distantly, she was aware of Katara and Sokka tangling with the sailors holding their father, pounding at their thighs, and grabbing at their arms, trying to make them let Hakoda go.
"Get them all onto the ship," Iroh called, over the noise. "We'll sort this out there."
Ursa felt her son ripped out of her arms, and felt her arms fall away from him, empty.
.
The pounding clank clank clank of boots on the iron corridor pounded in Ursa's head. Up and down the corridor they walked, the clank clank clank ringing off the walls, through the metal door to Ursa's little cabin. Over and over, they walked past, where to, Ursa had no way of knowing, and no real way to make herself care.
It wasn't a cell, Ursa's cabin. She wasn't in the brig. Iroh seemed to be undecided about what to do with her, unsure of whether he should treat her like any other traitor. So she was lucky enough to experience the oppressive terror of her predicament with the comforts of a comfortable mattress and a small circular window that opened. Of course, it was too small for her to fit more than her hand through, and even if it were bigger, there was only the ocean below, but it was fresh air and a little light, a comfort and a kindness, evidence of her brother-in-law's benevolence.
She kept it open, and sat on her mattress against the wall with her head just below it, listening, ignoring the boots against the metal floor of the corridor beyond.
"I know it must have been very hard on you, being kidnapped."
"We weren't-"
"It was horrible, Uncle Iroh."
"I am sure you had to be very brave."
Ursa wondered if Iroh knew she could listen like this, if perhaps he meant her to. Did he open the window in her children's room so that she could hear their voices? Was it meant to be a comfort, or did he mean to drive her crazy?
"I was brave. I wasn't really scared, I knew Dad would send someone to rescue me."
"That's not-"
"I'm so glad you're here, Uncle, you can kill Mom, and Hakoda, and take us home!"
"No!" Zuko's voice rose high and scared. "He can't! Uncle, you can't kill Mom!"
"Yes he can! She's a traitor. She kidnapped us."
"It wasn't kidnap, she's our mom!"
"I bet you really believe that, don't you."
"Shut up Azula!"
"You're just jealous because if it were just you, Dad wouldn't have sent anybody. Dad cares about me, not you. Even you have to have figured that out by now."
"Shut up Azula!"
"I'm glad they're going to die."
"Shut up Azula!"
Ursa couldn't figure out why Iroh didn't say something, why he didn't try to explain, to teach Azula this wasn't the way to treat people. She wanted to pound on the door and scream to be let out, to hold her children one last time before Azula got her wish, and Iroh killed her.
"Do you really mean that, Azula?" Iroh's voice was mild, more mild than it had any right to be, with Ursa shaking one cabin over.
"Of course!" Ursa could practically see Azula's face, see her expression, the one she wore when everybody around her was being just too stupid to understand. "Dad didn't even want to marry her, you know? Grandfather forced him. Dad told me. Dad says I'm the only good thing she ever did, and it's not like she did it on purpose. None of the good parts came from her. She wants me to be like Zuko, because she likes whiny crybaby failures. She doesn't get it."
"Shut up Azula!"
"Is that all you can say?"
"Seriously, Azula, shut up. I don't want to hear it anymore."
"Whatever. You don't have anything else to say, because you know what I'm saying is true."
"No it's not! You're lying. You lie all the time."
"No I don't! And I don't have to lie when I'm right. Which we both know I am."
"No you're not!"
"Yes I am! You're a whiny crybaby failure, just like Mom. That's why when Grandfather ordered Dad to kill you, he was going to do it. He wouldn't have if it were me."
"If there's anything I can do for either of you," Iroh's voice sounded distant, detached. Ursa wanted to shake him by the throat until his head popped off.
"Can I have my own room? I don't want to share with Zuko."
"I'll see what I can do, but it is not a big ship. There isn't much room."
"You can put me with Sokka and Katara, if Azula wants to be all by herself."
But Iroh only said again, "I'll see what I can do."
.
The door to another cabin opened. Ursa listened intently, to hear if it was her children's.
"Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe." There was a long pause, and then, "I was going to question you, about how you found my brother's wife, how you convinced her to run away with you, and take their children away from their loving father."
"That wasn't how it went."
"I know. I talked to my niece and nephew." Iroh laughed. It was a horrible sound. "I was going to ask you about your nefarious plans."
Hakoda's own laugh drifted out the window, just as horrible and bleak as Iroh's.
"Instead I've brought someone to see you."
The cabin door creaked on its hinges again, and then, "Mom!"
"Hakoda!" Kanna's voice creeked as badly as the hinges from strain, and the same agony of feeling Ursa kept shoving down in herself. She wanted to scream, at how this family kept dragging new people in. She had tried to escape, and dragged Hakoda down with her, Hakoda and Kanna, Sokka and Katara.
But no, Ozai had dragged them in, when he kidnapped Sokka and killed his mother. It was hard to remember it wasn't her fault. It felt like her fault.
"I'll leave you two alone," Iroh said, and Ursa heard the port hole close.
A few minutes later, there was a knock on her own door. Ursa stood up and shut her own port hole before sitting back down heavily on the mattress. "I can't stop you from coming in. It's locked from the outside."
A key turned in the lock. When the door opened, Ursa was anything but surprised to see Iroh standing alone in the doorway. She didn't get up to greet him.
He closed the door behind him, and stood stiff, like a soldier, like he had to stand that way to keep himself upright. "I spoke to Zuko and Azula. Were you listening?"
She nodded. "I thought you might want me to, to soften me up for questioning, if I knew how much you already knew, if I heard my own children telling you, that maybe the guilt would make me tell you everything. Everybody was always telling me what a wily old general you are."
"A risky strategy. Do you think I am a gambling man?"
"I don't know you well enough to say." She had to ask, "Are you?"
"Sometimes," he admitted. "Yes."
"You got what you wanted. I was listening."
"What has my brother done to his children, Ursa?"
He didn't ask it like he was expecting an answer, which was good, because Ursa didn't have one to give him. "Don't take them back to him, Iroh."
"I won't." He sat down heavily on the mattress next to her. "I promise. I won't do that. But I don't know what I am going to do."
They sat there together on the mattress for a long moment, neither one wanting to speak, the weight of putting it into words, too much for either of them. She felt almost impossibly angry, with Iroh, with Ozai, with Azulon, with herself, with she didn't know what. But Iroh was there, so most of it was at him, at how he had never been there, how he hadn't known until now, how he had gotten to tell himself that everything was fine, when she had never gotten to do that. She'd had to watch everything fall apart, and now he was here to fuss over the pieces. It wasn't fair. She knew that. But it disn't change it either.
I the end, Iroh was the one to speak, which only made her angrier. "What has happened to our family, Ursa?"
He didn't sound like he expected a reply, bit she gave him one anyway. "I don't know. Most of it happened before I got there. It just kept happening."
He stared down at his knees. "Did you hate us?"
"Of course." The silence stretched between them again, long and empty, feeling more like distance than time, and neither wished to cross it. "I'm sorry, about Lu Ten."
Iroh nodded, but he didn't look at her. Neither one of them looked at the other for a long time. But she felt him start to shake beside her, and she put her arm around his shoulders.
