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nebroadweTitle: Full Constant Light: A Story in Drabbles
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character(s): Ursa and Ozai, with appearances by Iroh, Lu Ten, Zuko, Azula and others
Pairing(s): Ursa/Ozai
Rating: PG-13 (for implied conjugal relations, obstetrical detail, and one ribald joke)
Word Count: 1800 (excluding epigraphs)
Warnings: None, as long as you've seen through "The Day of Black Sun."
A/N: This had the working title of "Ursa's Life Story in Drabbles," which may have encouraged it to grow larger than originally planned. I drafted the bulk of it over Thanksgiving, during which time I discovered how difficult it is to write even implied conjugal relations with a parent sitting on the sofa three feet away. Thank goodness I was riding a largely empty bus when Lu Ten decided to get witty. Concrit welcomed with a "Get out of exile free!" card. Crossposted from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nebroadwe to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
avatar_fans and avatarfic.
Dedication: Forjuxtaposie, as a bribe to keep prodding artemisrae forward on her Evil Aang 'Fic of Doom. :-)
"Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, Love, in Love's philosophy."
≈≈≈
The sages say that the world, which began in water, will end in fire; thus the bodies of the breathless dead are washed and then burned, to free them of earth in foretoken of that final dissolution.
But she is breathless because her heart, brimful of fear, leaves her lungs no room to expand. The sweat on her brow, poor, sour substitute for scented water, glistens in the light from the lamp beside the old man's chair. In his stern gaze, nothing of fire now burns: neither pity, nor mercy, nor love.
He is already dead, she realizes.
And she ... ?
≈≈≈
"These three hours that we have spent,
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd."
≈≈≈
Ursa and her brothers mope crossly in their stifling nursery until their mother orders a picnic. Then down to the waterside they run, outstripping the basket-laden servants and startling a flock of turtleducks from the green bank into the lazy stream.
After lunch, the boys play among the reeds while Ursa listens to her mother's stories of princesses and benders. Occasionally they toss leftover bread to the suspicious turtleducks, who squabble over every crumb. Ursa shrinks from their snapping beaks. A brave face begets a bold heart, says her mother, and shows her how to shoo the birds away.
≈≈≈
Ursa finds her brothers practicing their firebending on a catweasel, driving the hysterical beast back and forth between them with gouts of flame. Stop, stop! she shouts, tugging at Zhang's belt, but he pushes her away. Don't spoil my aim! he says. We're not hurting it. We're not even touching it!
She grabs the catweasel, but it claws her arms and she drops it. Zhang shoves her to the ground; she screams until he lifts her scorched hem before her eyes. Cheng blanches, hiding his hands in his sleeves.
She trades her silence for their promise to leave catweasels alone.
≈≈≈
Before she is pledged to him, Ursa encounters the Fire Nation's second prince at court. From afar, he seems handsome, vigorous and convivial -- a little spoiled, perhaps, as royal scions often are. Then the Fire Lord proposes a match between them and, with her parents' assent, Ozai comes to pay his addresses.
He converses with her shrewdly, drawing and holding her gaze, listening to her words. Other swains have praised her beauty and grace, but Ozai takes her measure. It delights her to be so attentively weighed, so beguilingly sifted.
When he asks for her hand, she smiles and consents.
≈≈≈
Warned that a married woman must learn to enjoy her husband's company, whatever his tastes, Ursa is relieved to find Ozai so heedful of her desires. Later she realizes he is less eager to please her than to prove himself -- but when her pleasure demonstrates his prowess, that distinction is moot. Strong children are forged in the fires of love, he reminds her, smirking as she blushes.
She, too, yearns for children, not as proof of her womanhood, but for their own sake. So she welcomes her husband whenever he comes to her, fanning their shared hope into a blaze.
≈≈≈
"But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all things are reduc'd ..."
≈≈≈
Her first child is born both early and late, before his time and after too long a labor -- small, bloody and half-strangled by his own birth-cord. The midwife turns him upside-down and, calling his ancestors to his aid, slaps his backside until he gulps breath to wail.
Once in the habit, Zuko cries at all hours, ever hungry, greedy for the life so nearly denied him. Ursa steals him from the wet-nurse and suckles him herself, until Ozai forbids it. She sends the nurse a daily gift of honeycakes thereafter, to sweeten her milk and her charge's temper.
≈≈≈
Lately widowed, Prince Iroh does not attend Ursa's birthday revels, but puts off his mourning for an hour to pay a private visit and present his gift with his own hands: a wooden box. Ursa smiles politely as she lifts its basket-woven lid, then breaks into delighted laughter on seeing the two young turtleducks nesting inside.
"The pond below the painted terrace has always looked a little lonely," Iroh says, well-satisfied.
Ozai mutters Oh, really? under his breath -- the gardens teem with prouder birds -- but Ursa quickly gives her brother-in-law her hand to kiss. "Thank you," she replies.
≈≈≈
Since her own father took little note of his offspring before they were old enough to make intelligent conversation, Ursa does not find it odd that Ozai seldom visits the nursery, though she is pleased to discover him awkwardly cradling infant Azula one afternoon. "She looks right at me," he says, voice hushed.
"Of course," Ursa responds, adding with a teasing lilt, "She knows her father."
Ozai strokes Azula's palm so that her tiny fingers circle his. "Such a strong grip," he croons, and Ursa stifles a giggle. "You're well named, little one."
Charmed and amused, Ursa embraces them both.
≈≈≈
Zuko brings his mother shells while Azula chases scuttling oyster-crabs up and down the beach and Ozai rows himself almost to the horizon to spear a fish for dinner. Having given the servants the evening off, Ursa roasts his catch herself on hot coals under the open sky; her family picks it clean, squabbling over the choicest bits, and buries the bones in the sand.
Afterward, fireworks: A comet! Azula squeals as a sparkling golden ball rockets over the rooftree, and Zuko shouts, Dad, Dad! Do dragons next! and Ursa, applauding, trusts her husband's enthusiasm won't set the house afire.
≈≈≈
"Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way ..."
≈≈≈
Prince Iroh's assault on Ba Sing Se, simple in concept, is complex nearly to madness in execution. The farther he advances, the longer and more vulnerable his supply lines. From the colonies he commandeers food and men, but their arms, and the engines to breach the Impenetrable City's walls, he requisitions from the factories of the homeland.
These Ozai oversees, tireless and exacting. The general praises his brother's work in every dispatch, but Ozai scorns a quartermaster's laurels. He begs leave to "inspect" the front and fulminates, privily but explosively, when rebuffed. Ursa soothes him, hiding her unease in sympathy.
≈≈≈
Lu Ten comes home, riding courier for his father, and is fêted in his place. His gallantry soon has the court at his feet, men vying for his notice and women for his favor. "I think, nephew," Ozai chaffs him at table one evening, "you have slain more ladies with your eyes than earthbenders with your sword."
"Not true," Lu Ten retorts, his ready smile glittering down the board, "though I admit that in the company of ladies I prefer to sheathe my sword."
Amid the hilarity and gasps of mock outrage, Ursa hears her husband's chuckle, late and false.
≈≈≈
The wounded are tended in the field and sent to convalesce in the colonies; only the broken and the dead return across the sea. Ursa showers largesse upon the royal hospitals, visiting often to cheer the staff and their charges (and to keep the administrators honest). She encourages boys little older than Zuko to take their first steps on clever metal prosthetics -- endures the ravings of men once as masterful as Ozai, minds shattered by combat.
Returning, she kneels at the household shrine and prays for a swift end to the campaign.
(And who knows? Perhaps her prayers are heard.)
≈≈≈
She plants a garden in volcanic soil and accepts, as her neighbors do, that what fire has given, fire may yet take away. They teach her to read the signs of peril in restless earth and hazy skies, but she knows that disaster may come without warning, whether the fatal stroke is prepared near at hand, unmarked, or falls far off, to send calamity roaring toward some other peaceful shore.
Should she have divined the future in Ozai's thwarted ambitions or Azula's way of feeding turtleducks or Lu Ten's untimely death? Does it matter, when escape, like rescue, is hopeless?
≈≈≈
"The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day;
But oh, love's day is short, if love decay."
≈≈≈
With the conquest of the Earth Kingdom stalled into siege, Ozai's attempts to curry favor with his father grow increasingly blatant. Ursa declines to participate, but she cannot prevent Ozai from drawing the children, primarily Azula, into his schemes. Let the Fire Lord take pride in so gifted an heir, as I do.
Watching Azula perform flawlessly and Zuko struggle to match her before their indifferent grandfather, Ursa longs to tell her children that she is proud of them -- but more than that, she loves them, and would even if they gave her nothing in which to take pride. Always.
≈≈≈
Once a word is spoken, they say, four komodo-rhinos cannot drag it back.
Ursa wishes she'd merely urged Azula to be kinder to her brother and not asked, What did you say to upset Zuko? Now she cannot unhear her daughter's vile slander against Ozai and the Fire Lord. "Enough!" she gasps, taking Azula by the shoulders to shake her. "That's a monstrous thing to say!"
The girl shrugs out of her hold. "If you don't believe me," she replies, slyly defiant, "ask Father."
Ursa hesitates, misdoubting and unnerved. "We'll speak again, young lady," she promises as she departs.
≈≈≈
Her husband's admission steals all the warmth from the air, until the sun burns no hotter than the frescoed flames beneath her soles. Ozai folds her trembling fingers in his. "Take comfort," he murmurs. "He leaves us Azula; someday, if not I, then she will make everything right -- "
"No," Ursa says, choosing her words carefully, lest rumor of treason reach the tyrant's ear. "Neither you nor she must raise a hand against him."
Ozai bows over her hand, as if in homage, but his glance is calculating. Bitter understanding rimes her heart, though his lips sear kisses into her palm.
≈≈≈
When the light falls on her sleeping son, still clothed, tangled in his sheets, Ursa's resolve almost fails her. Oh, why has no one undressed him? Has his doom already been noised abroad, that he lies thus abandoned? Or will his attendants return with the sun, rising to dispel this nightmare of treachery and parricide like mist?
If I stay to learn the answer, I will never know.
She cannot wholly rouse him, but perhaps that is best. She whispers her urgent valediction in Zuko's ear, praying that this child, forged in love, prove strong enough to survive his quenching.
≈≈≈
Dawn breaks in roseate fire, striking sparks off the saw-toothed obsidian hills, and Ursa's little cavalcade halts to breathe its mounts and make its hasty orisons. She bows her head in silence, in the shadow of her hood, scarcely daring even to beg that her ancestors' just anger spare her faithful companions -- not blameless, but faithful, though she is faithless and fainthearted too, not to follow the Fire Lord into the long dark ...
"Mistress?"
She presses her hands to her cheeks -- for comfort, for caution -- then lowers her hood to show the sun a face that defies her heart.
≈≈≈
"Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his first minute, after noon, is night."
-- John Donne, "A Lecture Upon the Shadow"
[Acknowledgments: Avatar: The Last Airbender was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko; copyright for this property is held by Viacom International, Inc.]
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character(s): Ursa and Ozai, with appearances by Iroh, Lu Ten, Zuko, Azula and others
Pairing(s): Ursa/Ozai
Rating: PG-13 (for implied conjugal relations, obstetrical detail, and one ribald joke)
Word Count: 1800 (excluding epigraphs)
Warnings: None, as long as you've seen through "The Day of Black Sun."
A/N: This had the working title of "Ursa's Life Story in Drabbles," which may have encouraged it to grow larger than originally planned. I drafted the bulk of it over Thanksgiving, during which time I discovered how difficult it is to write even implied conjugal relations with a parent sitting on the sofa three feet away. Thank goodness I was riding a largely empty bus when Lu Ten decided to get witty. Concrit welcomed with a "Get out of exile free!" card. Crossposted from
nebroadwe to avatar_fans and avatarfic.Dedication: For
juxtaposie, as a bribe to keep prodding artemisrae forward on her Evil Aang 'Fic of Doom. :-)A lecture, Love, in Love's philosophy."
≈≈≈
The sages say that the world, which began in water, will end in fire; thus the bodies of the breathless dead are washed and then burned, to free them of earth in foretoken of that final dissolution.
But she is breathless because her heart, brimful of fear, leaves her lungs no room to expand. The sweat on her brow, poor, sour substitute for scented water, glistens in the light from the lamp beside the old man's chair. In his stern gaze, nothing of fire now burns: neither pity, nor mercy, nor love.
He is already dead, she realizes.
And she ... ?
"These three hours that we have spent,
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd."
≈≈≈
Ursa and her brothers mope crossly in their stifling nursery until their mother orders a picnic. Then down to the waterside they run, outstripping the basket-laden servants and startling a flock of turtleducks from the green bank into the lazy stream.
After lunch, the boys play among the reeds while Ursa listens to her mother's stories of princesses and benders. Occasionally they toss leftover bread to the suspicious turtleducks, who squabble over every crumb. Ursa shrinks from their snapping beaks. A brave face begets a bold heart, says her mother, and shows her how to shoo the birds away.
Ursa finds her brothers practicing their firebending on a catweasel, driving the hysterical beast back and forth between them with gouts of flame. Stop, stop! she shouts, tugging at Zhang's belt, but he pushes her away. Don't spoil my aim! he says. We're not hurting it. We're not even touching it!
She grabs the catweasel, but it claws her arms and she drops it. Zhang shoves her to the ground; she screams until he lifts her scorched hem before her eyes. Cheng blanches, hiding his hands in his sleeves.
She trades her silence for their promise to leave catweasels alone.
Before she is pledged to him, Ursa encounters the Fire Nation's second prince at court. From afar, he seems handsome, vigorous and convivial -- a little spoiled, perhaps, as royal scions often are. Then the Fire Lord proposes a match between them and, with her parents' assent, Ozai comes to pay his addresses.
He converses with her shrewdly, drawing and holding her gaze, listening to her words. Other swains have praised her beauty and grace, but Ozai takes her measure. It delights her to be so attentively weighed, so beguilingly sifted.
When he asks for her hand, she smiles and consents.
Warned that a married woman must learn to enjoy her husband's company, whatever his tastes, Ursa is relieved to find Ozai so heedful of her desires. Later she realizes he is less eager to please her than to prove himself -- but when her pleasure demonstrates his prowess, that distinction is moot. Strong children are forged in the fires of love, he reminds her, smirking as she blushes.
She, too, yearns for children, not as proof of her womanhood, but for their own sake. So she welcomes her husband whenever he comes to her, fanning their shared hope into a blaze.
"But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all things are reduc'd ..."
≈≈≈
Her first child is born both early and late, before his time and after too long a labor -- small, bloody and half-strangled by his own birth-cord. The midwife turns him upside-down and, calling his ancestors to his aid, slaps his backside until he gulps breath to wail.
Once in the habit, Zuko cries at all hours, ever hungry, greedy for the life so nearly denied him. Ursa steals him from the wet-nurse and suckles him herself, until Ozai forbids it. She sends the nurse a daily gift of honeycakes thereafter, to sweeten her milk and her charge's temper.
Lately widowed, Prince Iroh does not attend Ursa's birthday revels, but puts off his mourning for an hour to pay a private visit and present his gift with his own hands: a wooden box. Ursa smiles politely as she lifts its basket-woven lid, then breaks into delighted laughter on seeing the two young turtleducks nesting inside.
"The pond below the painted terrace has always looked a little lonely," Iroh says, well-satisfied.
Ozai mutters Oh, really? under his breath -- the gardens teem with prouder birds -- but Ursa quickly gives her brother-in-law her hand to kiss. "Thank you," she replies.
Since her own father took little note of his offspring before they were old enough to make intelligent conversation, Ursa does not find it odd that Ozai seldom visits the nursery, though she is pleased to discover him awkwardly cradling infant Azula one afternoon. "She looks right at me," he says, voice hushed.
"Of course," Ursa responds, adding with a teasing lilt, "She knows her father."
Ozai strokes Azula's palm so that her tiny fingers circle his. "Such a strong grip," he croons, and Ursa stifles a giggle. "You're well named, little one."
Charmed and amused, Ursa embraces them both.
Zuko brings his mother shells while Azula chases scuttling oyster-crabs up and down the beach and Ozai rows himself almost to the horizon to spear a fish for dinner. Having given the servants the evening off, Ursa roasts his catch herself on hot coals under the open sky; her family picks it clean, squabbling over the choicest bits, and buries the bones in the sand.
Afterward, fireworks: A comet! Azula squeals as a sparkling golden ball rockets over the rooftree, and Zuko shouts, Dad, Dad! Do dragons next! and Ursa, applauding, trusts her husband's enthusiasm won't set the house afire.
"Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way ..."
≈≈≈
Prince Iroh's assault on Ba Sing Se, simple in concept, is complex nearly to madness in execution. The farther he advances, the longer and more vulnerable his supply lines. From the colonies he commandeers food and men, but their arms, and the engines to breach the Impenetrable City's walls, he requisitions from the factories of the homeland.
These Ozai oversees, tireless and exacting. The general praises his brother's work in every dispatch, but Ozai scorns a quartermaster's laurels. He begs leave to "inspect" the front and fulminates, privily but explosively, when rebuffed. Ursa soothes him, hiding her unease in sympathy.
Lu Ten comes home, riding courier for his father, and is fêted in his place. His gallantry soon has the court at his feet, men vying for his notice and women for his favor. "I think, nephew," Ozai chaffs him at table one evening, "you have slain more ladies with your eyes than earthbenders with your sword."
"Not true," Lu Ten retorts, his ready smile glittering down the board, "though I admit that in the company of ladies I prefer to sheathe my sword."
Amid the hilarity and gasps of mock outrage, Ursa hears her husband's chuckle, late and false.
The wounded are tended in the field and sent to convalesce in the colonies; only the broken and the dead return across the sea. Ursa showers largesse upon the royal hospitals, visiting often to cheer the staff and their charges (and to keep the administrators honest). She encourages boys little older than Zuko to take their first steps on clever metal prosthetics -- endures the ravings of men once as masterful as Ozai, minds shattered by combat.
Returning, she kneels at the household shrine and prays for a swift end to the campaign.
(And who knows? Perhaps her prayers are heard.)
She plants a garden in volcanic soil and accepts, as her neighbors do, that what fire has given, fire may yet take away. They teach her to read the signs of peril in restless earth and hazy skies, but she knows that disaster may come without warning, whether the fatal stroke is prepared near at hand, unmarked, or falls far off, to send calamity roaring toward some other peaceful shore.
Should she have divined the future in Ozai's thwarted ambitions or Azula's way of feeding turtleducks or Lu Ten's untimely death? Does it matter, when escape, like rescue, is hopeless?
"The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day;
But oh, love's day is short, if love decay."
≈≈≈
With the conquest of the Earth Kingdom stalled into siege, Ozai's attempts to curry favor with his father grow increasingly blatant. Ursa declines to participate, but she cannot prevent Ozai from drawing the children, primarily Azula, into his schemes. Let the Fire Lord take pride in so gifted an heir, as I do.
Watching Azula perform flawlessly and Zuko struggle to match her before their indifferent grandfather, Ursa longs to tell her children that she is proud of them -- but more than that, she loves them, and would even if they gave her nothing in which to take pride. Always.
Once a word is spoken, they say, four komodo-rhinos cannot drag it back.
Ursa wishes she'd merely urged Azula to be kinder to her brother and not asked, What did you say to upset Zuko? Now she cannot unhear her daughter's vile slander against Ozai and the Fire Lord. "Enough!" she gasps, taking Azula by the shoulders to shake her. "That's a monstrous thing to say!"
The girl shrugs out of her hold. "If you don't believe me," she replies, slyly defiant, "ask Father."
Ursa hesitates, misdoubting and unnerved. "We'll speak again, young lady," she promises as she departs.
Her husband's admission steals all the warmth from the air, until the sun burns no hotter than the frescoed flames beneath her soles. Ozai folds her trembling fingers in his. "Take comfort," he murmurs. "He leaves us Azula; someday, if not I, then she will make everything right -- "
"No," Ursa says, choosing her words carefully, lest rumor of treason reach the tyrant's ear. "Neither you nor she must raise a hand against him."
Ozai bows over her hand, as if in homage, but his glance is calculating. Bitter understanding rimes her heart, though his lips sear kisses into her palm.
When the light falls on her sleeping son, still clothed, tangled in his sheets, Ursa's resolve almost fails her. Oh, why has no one undressed him? Has his doom already been noised abroad, that he lies thus abandoned? Or will his attendants return with the sun, rising to dispel this nightmare of treachery and parricide like mist?
If I stay to learn the answer, I will never know.
She cannot wholly rouse him, but perhaps that is best. She whispers her urgent valediction in Zuko's ear, praying that this child, forged in love, prove strong enough to survive his quenching.
Dawn breaks in roseate fire, striking sparks off the saw-toothed obsidian hills, and Ursa's little cavalcade halts to breathe its mounts and make its hasty orisons. She bows her head in silence, in the shadow of her hood, scarcely daring even to beg that her ancestors' just anger spare her faithful companions -- not blameless, but faithful, though she is faithless and fainthearted too, not to follow the Fire Lord into the long dark ...
"Mistress?"
She presses her hands to her cheeks -- for comfort, for caution -- then lowers her hood to show the sun a face that defies her heart.
"Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his first minute, after noon, is night."
-- John Donne, "A Lecture Upon the Shadow"
[Acknowledgments: Avatar: The Last Airbender was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko; copyright for this property is held by Viacom International, Inc.]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 09:32 pm (UTC)Again, beautiful.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 09:53 pm (UTC)Somewhere on one of the season 3 commentaries (probably the one for "The Avatar and the Fire Lord"), the joke is made that Avatar is primarily a show about kids and old people, not about adults in their prime. Which is probably one reason Ursa doesn't get as much attention -- we're too busy looking at either end of the age spectrum and miss the middle. (Plus, this fandom skews young, and it's harder to write what you don't know, age-wise just like everything else.)
You completely did her justice, building up a background for her and I particulary liked the way you foreshadowed the turtleduck scene - and brought that into how she would later react with Zuko and Azula.
Thanks! I wrote this in spirals, but the turtleducks were an early element -- I knew Iroh was going to be responsible for introducing them to the palace gardens because he knew that Ursa had fed them when she was younger. That "when she was younger" drabble was a tricky one, though, because while I knew I wanted a turtleduck-feeding scene, I had no idea what the point was (other than to give the turtleducks a history). But then the 'ducks started yapping and Ursa's mother found something proverbial (and pointful) to say. (Then I had to cut out a bit identifying Ursa's favorite fairy-tale as the one about the princess and her talking eel-hound -- wish I'd found some way to shoehorn that in, but drabbles are drabbles. The hundred-word limit is the heart of the challenge.)
It was also fun inventing Ursa's brothers, who sadly disappear after she meets Ozai. I probably should have figured a way to bring them back, at least for a mention, but I didn't. Oh, well.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 10:27 pm (UTC)I will prod with all the proddiness I can produce!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 11:04 pm (UTC)It always pays to make quality investments; you get a better return that way. [looks forward to
I've read more than a few fics sporting various descriptions of Ursa and Ozai's marriage, and I can safely say that this rings the truest.
Any recommendations? I've only stumbled over a few, and stopped looking when I realized this one was going to be my next project, because I didn't want to be unduly influenced by anybody else's stuff, but now that it's done, I'm interested to see where I fall on the continuum.
I especially loved this line: Later she realizes he is less eager to please her than to prove himself -- but when her pleasure demonstrates his prowess, that distinction is moot. It says so much about their relationship, and it might have broke my heart just a little bit.
[hands you Superglue] That line came early, on my first sheet of draft jottings, and seemed both to sum up the young Ozai and to lay out the fault lines in his relationship with a young and naive Ursa so well, that the rest of its drabble got written around it. (While my mother was sitting on the couch and could have looked over my shoulder at any moment. Eek!) Since I didn't write this drabble set in order at all, it was a bit of a challenge to make sure I had Ozai's psychosis developing in properly linear fashion without painting it too broadly, since I don't think Ursa realizes how badly off the rails he's gone until she sees that he intends to let her ... remove ... his father without lifting a finger himself (except to kill Zuko if necessary, of course, but I think she balks at taking that in, preferring to blame Azulon for putting her husband in that impossible position. Some things really are too horrific to contemplate.).
Glad you enjoyed it!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 12:11 am (UTC)when my new hard drive finally comes in the frickin' mail COULD YOU GET HERE NOW PLEASEKTHNX?!no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 03:56 am (UTC)You know, you say things like this and all I can do is blush and flail and then
somewhat guiltilyopen up the fic...I hope you realize that the compliment is greatly appreciated, and that I hope very much the fic comes out to your expectations.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-08 02:32 am (UTC)somewhat guiltilyopen up the fic...Hah! My nefarious plot is succeeding! Nuzzink in de verld can shtop me now!
I hope you realize that the compliment is greatly appreciated, and that I hope very much the fic comes out to your expectations.
I always look forward to 'fic from people who tend to write the kind of 'fic I like to read. [gets out pom-poms and cheers you on]
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 03:54 am (UTC)Anyway, you've done a great job adding some real depth to both Ozai and Ursa's characters. And I applaud, as always, to keep to both keep to the 100 word limit and tell a poetic, descriptive story. I am deeply jealous of your ability to do so.
I also forgot to point out that I especially enjoyed Lu Ten's zinger, although if I sat and pointed out all the lines I liked I'd just be retyping the whole fic.)
no subject
Date: 2008-12-08 02:52 am (UTC)Well, that's dramatic irony for you. And it makes better story-sense to have them be not terribly unhappy all at once -- I kept thinking, as I was plotting this out, that Ozai doesn't appear to have been all that unsuccessful a Fire Lord (apart the family cruelty and lust for conquest). He has to have had some talent for administrating and keeping his subordinates in line to prosecute his war aims, and since Ursa is, in some ways, just another subordinate, he probably exercised that same charisma on her. So they do have a happy marriage, as royal marriages go, except that he gradually gets eaten hollow by his narcissism and ambition and envy of Iroh, and by the time she realizes that the charming prince she married has morphed into a monster, it's too late.
Especially the one with Azula and Ursa and Ozai, from this side of the story with Ursa having no idea how things will turn out with Azula and Ozai? Sad.
Having written that, I'm still not sure whether it's logical that he would have started seeing Azula this early as a second self -- what if she had turned out clumsy and Zuko talented? -- but I kind of liked the idea that he'd never paid any attention to Zuko, because he was weak and fussy, but Azula was quieter and less difficult to pick up and interact with ... and he's caught off guard by parental feelings he wasn't expecting to have. Most of us are pretty firmly programmed to go "Awww" at babies, as a survival of the species thing, after all. Hmm.
I also forgot to point out that I especially enjoyed Lu Ten's zinger ...
Ah, the zinger. I loved being able to have Lu Ten get Ozai -- they're probably quite close in age, given how much older Iroh is than Ozai, and they must have had a bit of rivalry going (Ozai leaning on the respect-me-I'm-your-uncle thing, and Lu Ten being respectful but giving as good as he gets). I must go looking to see what other people have done with Lu Ten now ...
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Date: 2008-12-08 04:19 am (UTC)My only complaint is that I found the italicized sections confusing. It's clear they take place in a later time period, but I had a hard time figuring out what was going on in them. Part of the problem is that I couldn't tell if they were meant to be read as one continuous event split into three parts, or as three separate events.
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Date: 2008-12-08 01:27 pm (UTC)I liked taking them to the seaside and figuring out what they'd do, as well as playing off the whole "That was the last time we were happy" thing from "The Beach." By that time I'd also decided that I was going to be tossing in all kinds of little hooks to catch other elements of the story, like Azula yelling about the comet and Zuko wanting dragons (or, getting all meta, the "world begins with water and ends in fire" line from the first drabble, heh).
My only complaint is that I found the italicized sections confusing. It's clear they take place in a later time period, but I had a hard time figuring out what was going on in them. Part of the problem is that I couldn't tell if they were meant to be read as one continuous event split into three parts, or as three separate events.
Yeah, I am leaning pretty heavily on the reader to just pick up that the one in the middle is actually set in Ursa's exile, while the first and last are a more closely-related set. (The version of this that I'm putting up on FF.net may handle that better, because I'm chaptering it out and can label the "volcanic gardening" drabble as "Interlude: Exile".) I'm also not really playing fair in that last drabble, since I'm using it to hint at my idea of What Ursa Did That Night without really explaining it. (I may end up explaining it anyway; it seems to be spawning a short novel, despite everything I can do to prevent myself from making notes about it. I'm not sure I have the discipline to write "Aang and Zuko find Ursa" -- nor am I convinced that the world needs yet another version of that tale.) I ended up hoping that the "brave face" idea, harking back to drabble #2, would be enough to carry it: Ursa's still in shock and having a hard time processing what she's done, but she's going to tough it out, because she has to.
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Date: 2008-12-10 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-10 02:12 am (UTC)It occurs to me, belatedly, that this piece here probably qualifies as my first songfic -- if you can count John Donne as a singer/songwriter. :-)
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Date: 2008-12-10 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-10 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-11 06:07 pm (UTC)even when I know what happens to him!really says a lot about your writing. And well, you jut basically broke my heart with the whole royal family beach drabble. This was just a wonderful read and we most definitely need more fics like this out there!PS:Do you mind if I memory this? It's too good to pass up!
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Date: 2008-12-11 07:39 pm (UTC)I didn't realize that one was going to move people so strongly -- it was always part of my plot planning, because I wanted to show the happy family that Zuko mentions every now and then. But I didn't deliberately try to build significance or emotional resonance into it, the way I did with 5 or 12 or 17. It's even a happy accident that it comes halfway down the sequence now, right before everything starts going to hell in a hand-basket. (A happy accident I'm quite happy about; I'll take good structure anywhere I can find it.)
PS:Do you mind if I memory this? It's too good to pass up!
Not at all. I'm a writer; I live for kudos. :-) Thanks!
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Date: 2009-03-05 10:40 pm (UTC)Wonderful story. Will so rec.
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Date: 2009-03-06 01:02 pm (UTC)Canon practically invites fanon with respect to Ursa, IMO. And at the time I wrote this, I hadn't really found any 'fic about her that really spoke to me, possibly because it helps to be grown-up to write grown-ups and this fandom skews young. Once I started in on this piece, it just kept growing and growing as I considered all the points at which Ursa's influence might be felt in the canonical story -- on Zuko, without a doubt, but also Ozai and Azula and (whatever it was she did) Azulon.
Wonderful story. Will so rec.
Thank you! I'm a writer to the bone -- I want the entire world to read my stuff. :-)