(cookie if you know where I outright stole this from)
Ursa holds her breath as she looks at the scale, wide and flat in the palm of her hand. Thirteen ridges bar its copper surface- the last still faint, as if lightly scored.
Thirteen years, she has held her greatest gift back from the world, mother-madness deeming that she keep him from soaring away from her, as all children must, as she has taught and been taught by countless mothers, fathers, officers, teachers.
Very soon, she may not have a choice.
She watches her son, her precious son, as he fumbles in his training and grows ever more frustrated. She rebinds his bandages each night, and bites her lip as he hunches more and more. Iroh is growing suspicious, of course- Azula, her baby girl, the unexpected second gift, merely teases him ever more viciously and never seems to think that her temper and her tongue might make her worthy of the same.
Her husband grows impatient, and, she thinks, even a little afraid under the cloud of disdain and disappointment. First they had no child to present to Azulon as a sign of their devotion and duty, even with a stunning heir in place. Then they had one, after a secret trip and a secret bargain, never to be spoken of again. Now they have a stumbling, aching boy who grows ever more angry as he grows ever more pained, and a stinging, sly girl who is sweet and too much like her forefathers to offer much comfort to an aging monarch.
When the Mother of Dragons roars circling around their castle, she runs to prevent his madness, the father’s-madness that says something marked and marred is not wanted anymore. It doesn’t work-
She takes her boy back anyway.
The palace shaking down around her ears, her companions, her friends, her own body growing as stone and ash, she reaches out, and sees her son reach back, charred, scarred, his woven vest torn and tattered as ribbons.
His poor little wings, so bent, so small and deformed, still flair free, and he cries out in the shock of it.
Ursa can only wish with her last breath that they will at least grow stronger.
no subject
Ursa holds her breath as she looks at the scale, wide and flat in the palm of her hand. Thirteen ridges bar its copper surface- the last still faint, as if lightly scored.
Thirteen years, she has held her greatest gift back from the world, mother-madness deeming that she keep him from soaring away from her, as all children must, as she has taught and been taught by countless mothers, fathers, officers, teachers.
Very soon, she may not have a choice.
She watches her son, her precious son, as he fumbles in his training and grows ever more frustrated. She rebinds his bandages each night, and bites her lip as he hunches more and more. Iroh is growing suspicious, of course- Azula, her baby girl, the unexpected second gift, merely teases him ever more viciously and never seems to think that her temper and her tongue might make her worthy of the same.
Her husband grows impatient, and, she thinks, even a little afraid under the cloud of disdain and disappointment. First they had no child to present to Azulon as a sign of their devotion and duty, even with a stunning heir in place. Then they had one, after a secret trip and a secret bargain, never to be spoken of again. Now they have a stumbling, aching boy who grows ever more angry as he grows ever more pained, and a stinging, sly girl who is sweet and too much like her forefathers to offer much comfort to an aging monarch.
When the Mother of Dragons roars circling around their castle, she runs to prevent his madness, the father’s-madness that says something marked and marred is not wanted anymore. It doesn’t work-
She takes her boy back anyway.
The palace shaking down around her ears, her companions, her friends, her own body growing as stone and ash, she reaches out, and sees her son reach back, charred, scarred, his woven vest torn and tattered as ribbons.
His poor little wings, so bent, so small and deformed, still flair free, and he cries out in the shock of it.
Ursa can only wish with her last breath that they will at least grow stronger.