Chapter Text
Confusion creased 9-year-old Izumi’s face. “What does ‘di-corse’ mean?”
Her mother and father, sat at the end of her bed, glanced at each other. “Divorce,” her father corrected. “It means that your mother and I… Have decided that we would be happier apart, rather than together. We still love you.”
“We will always love you,” her mother stated matter-of-factly.
Izumi looked from her mother’s blank expression to her father’s slight frown. She seemed to ponder her next words carefully, crossing her arms and tapping her chin with her finger. “Is Mommy going to go live with Aunt Ty Lee? ‘Cuz ‘apart’ means, like, separate. Like how you guys have separate rooms.”
The Fire Lord and Lady’s eyes met again. Izumi had always been a bright child. “For now, yes, Mommy is going to go stay with Aunt Ty Lee, and you are going to go with her for a few months.”
Izumi’s eyes narrowed. The squint looked out of place on her normally cheerful face. “Why do I have to go too?”
Her father looked sad more than anything. “I need to sort some things out with your mother, then I will send a ship to bring you back.”
The frown on the little girl’s face furrowed. “Bring me back for how long?”
Her father sighed. “That has yet to be determined.”
Izumi noticed her mother’s eyes narrow, though the rest of her face remained impassive. “We will always love you,” she repeated, as if stating that it was raining out.
“When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow morning. Your bags have already been packed by your handmaid. She will not be accompanying us,” her mother replied.
Nodding, Izumi laid back down in her bed. She looked from her mother’s neutral face to her father’s pained expression. “This was a different bedtime story,” she joked, trying to bring back her parent’s laughter. She had not heard it in a long time.
Her father let out a slight laugh, but her mother did not even crack a smile. “You’re not wrong. Now, go to sleep. You have a long journey to Kyoshi Island starting tomorrow.”
Izumi nodded to her father. She watched the seemingly impossible distance between her parents as they left her bedroom, candlelight flickering in the open space. She felt more alone that night than she had felt in years.
~~~
From her past visits to the Kyoshi Warriors, Izumi knew the trip would be about 3 days via ship from the Fire Nation capital of Caldera. Once, she had gone with Uncle Aang, and it had been much shorter, as the sky bison flies.
Izumi didn’t cry as they said farewells before they departed, as she knew she would be back within a few months. She wondered quietly why her father did.
Her mother was silent for most of the trip. Even Izumi’s attempts to brighten her mood failed, from offering to play Pai Sho to hide-and-seek. Her mother was usually quite stoic, but she was almost seemingly completely emotionless now. She barely spoke, barely ate, and barely hugged her daughter.
Confusion was Izumi’s most prominent emotion. Her mother had always been reserved with public shows of affection, but behind closed doors she was slightly freer with her displays. Now, even when tucking her daughter in, she barely gave more than a head pat.
And thus, the three days passed. Izumi spent most of her time playing with the ship’s cat or rereading the books and scrolls her handmaiden had packed for her. Sometimes an off-duty soldier would take pity on her and play a game of Pai Sho with her, but she suspected they were letting her win.
When they docked at Kyoshi Island, Izumi could see her aunts waiting for her on the pier. Ty Lee was clearly the one bouncing up and down, while Suki was calmly standing next to her. They were both in full makeup and uniform.
Ty Lee jumped on her mother as soon as they were on the gangplank. “Oh, Mai, when we got the news, I was just dumbfounded!! We’re here for you, no matter what!!”
Ty Lee’s normally cheerful cadence was filled with sorrow. The Fire Lady almost looked scandalized, but quickly schooled her features. “Thank you. But I’d rather not discuss this here.”
Ty Lee seemed to just notice her surroundings, looking about with a surprised expression. Then her eyes landed on her niece.
“Izumi!” She bounded over, throwing her arms around the young girl. “It’s been too long! How’s my favorite niece?”
Izumi giggled, “I’m your only niece.” Then hugged her (secretly) favorite aunt.
“Izumi! Gather your things. We are going to the house.”
Izumi immediately stood to attention. “Yes, mother.”
There was uncomfortable silence during the walk to the massive wooden building reserved for visiting dignitaries. Before she was born, Izumi had been told there used to be no such building. After her father and his friends helped end the 100 Year War, the world started opening up again to visitors and trade. Her father had done a great deal to make amends for the evils the Fire Nation had done to the world. Izumi knew how hard her father and his friends worked to maintain peace so her generation could thrive and not have to fight the same battles they had at her age.
Maybe that was why her father cried when they departed, she wondered. Maybe he thought this was a battle she shouldn’t have to fight, this ‘divorce’. But so far the only downside she saw was having to leave her father and her mother’s increased stoicism. Nothing she couldn’t handle, she thought.
~~~
In the next 6 months, Izumi wrote to her father every day. He wrote back just as often, promising he would see her soon. After the next 6 months, Izumi was barely writing to him monthly.
He still wrote to her nearly daily. She had piles of letters she didn’t want to read, about his day-to-day life, how much he missed her, how he would see her soon. They were always the same. She was sick of it.
Her mother had withdrawn even more. Izumi hadn’t realized how much more she could go, until she did. She stopped eating meals with the family. They used to have tea together every afternoon; that stopped. Eventually she stopped tucking her in.
Ty Lee and Suki took over tucking her in, until eventually Izumi told them to stop. She used the excuse that she was a big girl now, at 10, who did not need to be tucked in at all.
She learned to tuck herself in.
~~~
The day it happened was exactly a year and 3 months to the day since she had left the Fire Nation.
Izumi hated school. Her mother’s absence at events made the other parents talk. The small island’s children did not care that she was royalty. They cared that she dressed differently, that she did not know their games. They cared that she was already several grades above her level, and that made them feel small. They were kind to her face, but cruel behind her back. They excluded her from their games she did know. They snickered at her when she answered a difficult question. The adults did not intervene, as the phrase ‘kids will be kids’ was common in that area.
Izumi tried to not let it affect her. She was royalty, she had had her share of mean-spirited comments directed at her. But the over a year she had lived on Kyoshi Island slowly wore her down. She had not even seen her mother for a month, or read her father’s letters for longer. She had no friends. She felt as if she had lost her home the day she left Caldera. She was wallowing in her depression at her circumstances in a way her mother would have scolded her for, had she been there to care.
That day, she left the schoolyard when they did not pick her to play ball.
That day, she did not pay attention to her surroundings as she walked through the tall grass.
That day, a spider-python was camouflaged among the grass, right where Izumi was walking.
~~~
It took an hour for someone to notice her missing. After recess and attendance, the teacher searched the school grounds close by. When she could not find Izumi, she sent a hawk to the girl’s mother.
~~~
Izumi did not know what depression was by name.
But Mai did.
SInce she had decided to leave her husband, because she was not happy, she thought it would go away. She thought she had made the difficult choice, so her life should improve automatically. She did not expect the increasingly worsening feelings of guilt to take over her every waking moment. She felt unable to bathe, so she stopped. She felt unable to make food, so she stopped eating except what Ty Lee and Suki forced food down her throat. She felt unable to take care of her daughter, so she stopped trying. She did not want Izumi to see her like this. She was doing fine in school, and Suki and Ty Lee promised to keep an eye on her, so she let Izumi be. She retreated into herself, and felt like she had nothing to live for.
Then she got the messenger hawk.
~~~
Izumi had been missing for 2 hours when Mai arrived. Hastily dressed, hair disheveled, she was almost frantic. It was like something had awoken in her, something that had been dormant for the past year. She suddenly regretted leaving the palace at all, for constantly saying no to Zuko’s attempts to return Izumi, for neglecting her daughter. Her normally put-together appearance and impassive features were thrown aside for fear of losing the most important person in her life.
“Where did she go? Did anyone see her leave?!”
The students looked owl-eyed at the nearly former Fire Lady. Their divorce had yet to be settled, with Mai withholding Izumi from Zuko, he was refusing to seal the papers.
Mai glared at them and gritted her teeth. “Did. Anyone. See. My. Daughter. Leave.”
One of the younger girls, with brown braids, slowly raised her hand. “I- I saw her go off towards the fields.”
Without a second glance, Mai turned and ran in the direction of the fields, Ty Lee, Suki, and the rest of the search party following her.
~~~
Four hours after she had been bitten by the spider-python, Izumi was found by a Kyoshi Warrior. Hurriedly rushed to the healer’s hut, her mother and aunts stayed by her side while the healer worked.
The antivenom was administered too late to be effective. Spider-python bites were known to be lethal within minutes, so it was a miracle Izumi was even still alive. There was a waterbender on the island, but he had never formally trained in healing. He tried, however, was barely even able to make the water glow.
An emergency hawk was sent out to the nearby Southern Water Tribe, where the closest known healers were. It would take the bird at least a day to get to the tribe.
But it was too late. And so, Izumi, the heir to the Fire Nation, died in her mother’s arms.
~~~
Zuko felt like something was wrong in his bones. He had felt that way for days. He knew in his soul it was something to do with his daughter. So he chartered a boat to Kyoshi Island, something he had not yet done out of fear that Mai would take Izumi and disappear forever. He left his uncle in charge, and took his most trusted advisor with him.
Katara, the diplomat to the Southern Water Tribe, who was there on business.
~~~
Katara and Zuko were outside the healing hut where they had been directed when they heard the wail. The scream resonated in their bones, sounding like pure, unbridled anguish. Katara ran in.
She summoned her element to her side, kneeling by Mai and her daughter. She ran the glowing blue water over Izumi’s still-warm body, assessing.
“I can save her.”
~~~
While Izumi slept, Mai and Zuko talked.
“Mai, what happened? Why haven’t you written me? Why hasn’t Izumi?”
Mai looked at her daughter’s peaceful, sleeping face. She sighed. “Ever since. I… SInce I chose to leave, I’ve just been feeling bad. Guilty, I guess. I don’t know why. I don’t know how to handle it. I don’t sleep. I barely eat. I just felt- I felt inadequate to take care of Izumi. But she had Suki and Ty Lee, so I didn’t think I needed to send her back to you.”
Zuko looked steely. “If you were actively choosing to ignore her, why wouldn’t you send her back to me? You’ve been saying no for over a year. You said she was thriving here. Now I find out she’s been handling everything by throwing herself into schoolwork, has no friends, and no mother OR father to care for her. Did you even know she hasn’t been writing me?”
“No, I didn’t. I thought she was fine. She had good grades, never complained to Suki or Ty Lee about anything. I didn’t know she was being neglected.”
Zuko’s fist started to smoke. “YOU were the one neglecting her! Don’t tell me you didn’t know. Why didn’t you send her back to me? This never would have happened!”
Mai’s eyes darkened, and she resorted to deflection. “Something bad could have happened to her at the palace, too. Yes, I should have been more attentive, but how could anyone have stopped this from happening?”
Zuko let out a yell, unclenching his fists to rake them through his hair. “You! You could have, by being more involved in Izumi’s life! If you knew she was being bullied- And don’t tell me it wasn’t bullying,” he said, seeing Mai start to interrupt. “If you had been there for her. That’s how you could have stopped this from happening. So maybe she would have run to you instead of the fields.”
Mai had the decency to hang her head in defeat. “I’m sorry,” she said weakly, tears beginning to form on the corners of her eyes. She rarely showed emotion, but she still felt deeply.
“You bottle everything up. You don’t talk to people. If you could have talked to Ty Lee, or Suki, or one of the other girls about how you’ve been feeling, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten this bad. Maybe you wouldn’t have retreated so far away from the person you claim to love most in the world. Didn’t you tell her you would always love her? I bet she hasn’t felt that in a long time. I know I didn’t, and that’s why I agreed to let you leave and take her in the first place. I thought you would never treat her the way you treated me.”
Now the tears were falling down Mai’s cheeks. “I never meant to…”
“But you did. And now we don’t know if Katara managed to do enough. If, when, Izumi wakes up, I am taking her back to the Fire Nation with me. You need to get your shit sorted out. Then maybe we can talk about you coming to see her again.”
Mai nodded her head, turning it to look back at her sleeping daughter. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, this time to Izumi.
“I can’t forgive you right now. Don’t be mad if she can’t right away either.”
~~~
It took over a month for Izumi to wake up from her coma. When she did, her mother and father were sitting on either side of her. Her mother was half asleep, her father completely passed out. The first thing she did was cry.
“I’m sorry I left! I shouldn’t have, but I was just so sad!”
Mai bolted upright. Zuko also jolted awake.
“Izumi!”
They all embraced, not a dry eye among them.
“Izumi, it’s not your fault-” Zuko began, but Mai interrupted him.
“Izumi, it’s all my fault. I should never have left you.”
“Mommy, you never left, what do you mean?”
Mai started crying harder.
“I’ll explain more later, hun. For now, I’m going to call Katara in to check on you, okay?” Zuko rubbed her arm as he spoke.
Izumi looked confused. “Aunt Katara is here?”
“Yes, Katara is here. You got a nasty spider-python bite and she helped you get better. She just needs to make sure you’re healing alright. You’ve been asleep for a while.”
“Have I?” Izumi sniffled. “I feel very tired.”
Zuko nodded. “I’m sure you do. It was a very bad bite. I’ll be right back with Katara.”
~~~
Another month later, Katara gave the all-clear for Izumi to travel. So they boarded Zuko’s boat back to the Fire Nation.
“Aunt Katara, don’t you have to get back home? To your students?”
Katara gave Izumi a laugh. “I left my school in the hands of some very capable graduates of mine. I trust they would write me if they needed me back. I do miss home, but I need to make sure my little patient is doing okay on the way back to her home.”
Izumi giggled for the first time in a while. “I’m fine! See? All better!” She spun into a cartwheel, and suddenly flames flew from her feet. She shocked herself into falling over.
“I can firebend?!”
~~~
Zuko thought he had been a late bloomer. But his daughter was even later than him.
“She did what now?!”
Katara was beaming with pride. “You should have seen the size of the flames coming from her feet!”
“And why isn’t she here to show me? Is she still upset with me?”
Katara’s face grew sad. “Yes, she said she doesn’t want to show you right now. She said maybe later, though.”
Since she had awoken, Izumi seemed to be avoiding her father. She made up every excuse to get away from him, shirked his hugs, and spent most of her time in her room or with Katara. It seemed she had some lingering feelings of resentment for him not coming to see her for over a year. Even though he had written every day, sent her regular gifts (and a very elaborate one on her birthday), she felt more neglected by him than she had by her mother.
Feelings were complicated.
Zuko felt like he couldn’t tell a 10-year-old he thought her mother might’ve kidnapped her if he came to see her, so he just told her nothing. Perhaps it wasn’t for the better, but it was what he did, against Katara’s advice to just tell her the truth.
“Maybe she’ll come show me something that important. We’ll see.”
~~~
Once they got back to the palace and Zuko resumed his Fire Lord duties, he saw even less of his daughter. Katara, surprisingly, stayed, using the same excuse as she had when she came back with them, that she needed to keep an eye on Izumi.
Izumi had missed her old room, and was elated that everything was where she had left it. It wasn’t even covered in dust, since the servants cleaned every day. And so, she fell into a new routine at the palace than the one she had had on Kyoshi Island.
She wrote her mother every morning. She had private lessons, and did not have to deal with snide remarks from jealous classmates. She also now had firebending training, which she was picking up on very quickly. She had previously had swordsmanship training at her father’s insistence, and firebending was not all that different. She had even gotten to make her own little sword with Piandao, the famed sword master.
The weirdest part of her day was with her ‘therapist’, whatever that was. She said she was there to talk with Izumi about whatever she wanted. Izumi thought she was like an adult who was being paid to be her friend. She didn’t talk about much during their sessions, but mostly played with the toys in the room and talked about her day.
Eventually, her therapist asked her about how she felt living on Kyoshi Island.
“I’d rather just forget about it. I miss my Mommy, and Aunt Suki and Aunt Ty Lee, but that’s about it. I don’t miss the spider-pythons,” she giggled at her own joke.
The therapist smiled. “Did you make any friends? Do you want friends here?”
Izumi frowned. “Why do I need friends? I had my aunts. Here I have Aunt Katara. Why do I need anyone else?”
The older lady changed gears. “How about your father? Is he your friend?”
Izumi’s frown deepened. “Of course he is. I just don’t want to talk to him right now.”
“Why is that?”
That’s when Izumi decided she didn’t like her therapist. “Why? Because he didn’t come see me. I missed him, and he didn’t miss me. So I’m making him miss me.”
“Izumi, you know he missed you terribly,” a voice said from the doorway. “He would have come if he could. He couldn’t, however.”
Izumi dropped her doll and stomped over to Katara, hands on her hips. “Why not?”
Katara sighed. “That’s for him to tell you. Why don’t you go ask him? He’s in his study. I think you have a letter from your mother, as well. It’s in your bedroom.”
Izumi looked past Katara in both directions. Her bedroom was the opposite direction of her father’s study. This was the first letter she had gotten back from her mother.
“Where you go is your choice. But know your father loves you very much, and so do I.”
Katara left Izumi standing in the hallway, the therapist peering at her over her glasses.
~~~
A little head popped over Zuko’s desk, causing him to drop his teacup in shock.
“Izumi! What brings you in here?”
“I… wanted to show you my firebending,” Izumi squeaked out.
Zuko waved the servant who came in to clean the shards of the teacup away. “I would love to see it. Shall we go to the garden?”
Izumi nodded.
They went to Izumi’s grandmother’s garden, the one with the turtleducks. Izumi showed her father a demonstration of some simple firebending moves. When she finished, he erupted into thunderous applause.
“You’ve improved tremendously! It’s nice to be able to see up close and not watch from far away.”
Izumi tilted her head. “You watch from far away?”
Zuko froze, realizing he said that out loud. “Of course,” he said quietly. “I’m always watching you.”
Izumi started crying.
“Izumi! What’s wrong?” Zuko rushed to his daughter’s side.
“Why-why-why didn’t you come? Why did you le-leave me alone?” Izumi wailed, dropping to the ground.
“Oh, my precious daughter. I wanted to so badly. But… I thought I might not see you if I came. Your… Your mother was-IS-very sick. I thought she might take you someplace I could never find you if I came.”
“Is-is that what she said?”
“More or less. I’m sorry I haven’t told you, I didn’t want you to think less of her. She loves you very much, she’s just very sick.”
“Why is Mommy sick? Can Katara help her? Like she helped me?”
Zuko sat cross-legged next to her and sighed. “She’s sick in a way that Katara can’t help. Your mother just needs some time to sort out her emotions. When she does that, she’ll come back to you.”
“To us?”
“To you. I don’t think there’s anything left for her to come back to me for.”
“Is that what divorce means?”
“In a way. I’m sorry you’re going through this, my dear. You shouldn’t have to.”
Izumi sniffled. “It’s okay. I have you and Aunt Katara to help me.”
~~~
After they talked, Izumi felt better. She couldn’t bring herself to read the letter from her mother, not quite yet, not after learning how sick she was and that she almost stole Izumi from her father.
She spent more time with her father and Katara, meals and tea breaks and firebending practice. She even woke up early and did katas with her father and Katara. She wondered, later at nighttime, why Katara was still there, but she wasn’t complaining. She liked Katara. Katara was nice, played with her, and helped her with her homework. She also showed Izumi some waterbending moves that she tried to incorporate into her firebending.
She slowly started to notice how close Katara sat to her father. How when her father seemed mad, Katara seemed to calm him down in a way her mother never had. In the past, when her mother still lived at the palace, whenever her father would be upset he would go firebend alone or lock himself in his study for hours. Now, Katara would spar him or be in his study with him. She never seemed to leave him alone, not like her mother had.
Her father seemed happier.
One night, she had a bad dream. She snuck off to see if her father would let her sleep in his bed like he had when she was younger. But when she tried to crawl in, Katara was already there, sleeping soundly. Startled, she snuck her way back to her bedroom. Back in her bedroom alone, she crawled back into her own bed. Confused, she opened the letter from her mother on her nightstand
Izumi,
My beloved daughter. I am so sorry for how I treated you. I understand if you never forgive me.
I love reading your letters. They bring me joy when little else does. I am doing well. I hope you are too.
Writing this is hard. I hope you understand when you get older. I love you.
Mommy
Izumi didn’t understand. She didn’t understand why it was hard for her mother to write her. She didn’t understand why Aunt Katara was in Daddy’s bed. She didn’t understand why her Mommy was sick in the first place, and why Katara couldn’t help her. She didn’t understand.
~~~
“Aunt Katara, why were you in Daddy’s bed last night?”
Katara spit out her tea as Zuko coughed on his rice. Clearly, Izumi had received her mother’s bluntness.
“I had a bad dream and went to sleep with Daddy. But you were already there. Did you have a bad dream too?”
Katara waterbent her tea back into her mug. Zuko finished coughing, gulping some water before they glanced at each other.
“Izumi. We were, ah, waiting to tell you…”
Izumi was even more confused. “Tell me what?”
“Your ‘aunt’ and I are, um, getting married.”
Izumi dropped her teacup, much like her father had weeks before.
~~~
The wedding planning was elaborate. Izumi had never seen so many attendants. She wondered if it had been like this when her mother and father got married.
Izumi was the flower girl.