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By the time I make it to Izumi’s room, she is already dressed for bed, though apparently getting into her nightclothes is where her willingness to cooperate with the concept of bedtime ends.
“I’m fourteen,” she tells me for the second time, sitting in front of her vanity while I draw the brush through her hair. “I don’t think I should have a bedtime anymore.”
“I heard you the first time.”
“Then you should consider what I’m saying.”
“I did.”
She watches me through the mirror, waiting.
“No.”
Izumi groans and lets her head fall forward.
“Sit up. You’re making this difficult.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“I’m your mother. I’m allowed to be unreasonable after nine.”
That earns me the smallest hint of a smile before she launches straight back into everything that happened at school today. Apparently one of her friends is no longer speaking to another one of her friends over something said at lunch, although Izumi assures me she has remained neutral despite somehow knowing every detail. Her mathematics instructor assigned far too much work, her literature instructor assigned something unbearably boring, and she is certain none of it will ever be useful to her once she is an adult.
I separate her hair into three sections and begin crossing them over one another while she talks. I have long since learned that Izumi rarely requires much participation in these conversations. An occasional hum or question is enough to keep her going.
Zuko is still somewhere in the palace, trapped in whatever meeting has managed to consume his entire evening. I expect him to come looking for us whenever the ministers finally release him, but until then, I am perfectly content here.
“And I could finish my assignments much faster if I didn’t have to stop everything and go to bed at the same time as a child.”
“You are a child.”
Her eyes narrow at me in the mirror. “I am fourteen.”
“And two nights ago, I found you asleep with your face on a history book.”
“I was resting.”
“You were drooling on the Hundred Year War.”
“I was tired.”
“Which is an excellent argument for having a bedtime.”
Izumi opens her mouth, thinks better of whatever defense she had prepared, and slumps dramatically in the chair instead.
I smile to myself and continue her braid.
“History wasn’t actually boring today,” Izumi says after a moment.
“That is a remarkable change of opinion.”
“It usually is. Today we were learning about things that changed after the war.” She shifts slightly as I work my way down her hair. “Laws and traditions and things that aren’t done anymore. Master Shufen spent half the lesson talking about you and Dad.”
I smile. “My condolences.”
“It’s strange when they do that.”
“What is?”
“Teach me about you.” Izumi catches my eyes in the mirror. “Everyone else gets to write things down like they’re learning something important, and I’m sitting there thinking that you yelled at Dad for leaving his boots in the hall this morning.”
A laugh escapes me. “I hope you didn't contribute that to the discussion.”
“I considered it.”
“Izumi.”
“I didn’t.”
I give the section of hair in my hand a small tug, and she grins before continuing.
“We talked about some of the old traditions that were abolished. Master Shufen said Dad outlawed Agni Kais after the war.” Her expression turns curious. “Did he really?”
“He did.”
Izumi is quiet for a moment. “Why?”
“Because they were cruel.”
Her eyebrows rise slightly. “Cruel?”
“Yes.”
I can see her thinking through that. “Our book didn't call them cruel. It said they were an old Fire Nation tradition for settling serious disputes and matters of honor. It said people stopped practicing them because they didn't have a place in the Fire Nation anymore.”
“That is also true.”
“So they were bad?”
I finish crossing another section of her hair before answering. “Some traditions deserve to become history.”
Izumi looks at me through the mirror.
“Something being old doesn't make it good,” I tell her. “And calling something tradition doesn't make it kind.”
Her eyes drop for a moment as she considers that, and I continue working my way down her braid.
Then, predictably, another question occurs to her.
“Did you ever fight one?”
I glance up and find Izumi watching me through the mirror.
“An Agni Kai?”
She nods.
“No.”
Her expression immediately tells me she does not believe me.
“What? But you were in the military.”
“Yes, Izumi. I remember.”
“You were a commander.”
“That did not mean I spent every afternoon challenging people to Agni Kais.” I smooth a stray piece of hair back into the braid. “There was paperwork involved occasionally.”
“You challenge Dad all the time.”
“That is different. Your father is unusually irritating.”
Izumi bursts into laughter, ducking her head before I catch her gently by the chin and straighten her again.
“Hold still.”
“I’m telling him you said that.”
“He already knows.”
She settles down, although the smile remains on her face as she watches my hands work in the mirror. I know that look well enough to recognize that she has not forgotten the original question.
“So you really never fought one?”
“Not officially.”
Her eyebrows lift. “What does that mean?”
I hesitate, then continue weaving the three sections together.
“It means I came close once involving your father,” I tell her. “But it wasn’t my Agni Kai.”
Izumi turns her head toward me so quickly that half the braid nearly comes loose.
“Izumi.”
“Whose was it with?”
I sigh and straighten her toward the mirror again.
“It was between your dad and Admiral Zhao.”
Izumi stares at me through the mirror. “Admiral Zhao?”
“Yes.”
“The Admiral Zhao?”
“I only knew one.”
“And Dad fought him?”
“Your father challenged him, actually. They fought a few times.” I remember their last fight; the Northern Siege. My heart still aches.
Her mouth falls open. “Father actually did that?”
“He was sixteen and angry. Your father did quite a lot of things at sixteen that he would now advise you not to do.”
That seems to delight her. “Why did he challenge him?”
“They didn’t like each other.”
“That’s it?”
“There was more to it than that, but that is the version you’re getting before bed.”
Izumi makes a dissatisfied noise, but I continue before she can start negotiating for details.
“Zhao accepted the challenge, so they fought. Your father won.”
“He beat Admiral Zhao?”
“He wasn’t an admiral yet, my mistake, but yes.”
“Oh.” She considers this for a moment. “Did Dad hurt him?”
“He could have.” My fingers continue steadily down the length of her hair. “Zhao was on the ground, and your father had every right by the rules of the Agni Kai to finish it. He chose not to.”
Izumi's expression softens with recognition. That version of Zuko, at least, she knows.
“So that was it?”
“It should have been.”
Her eyes narrow. “That means it wasn’t.”
“No. Your father turned away, and Zhao attacked him from behind.”
“What?”
“He was angry that he had lost.”
“But the Agni Kai was over.”
“Yes.”
“That’s cheating.”
“I don’t think Zhao was particularly concerned with fairness at that point.”
Izumi twists around again, and this time I catch the braid before she can destroy my work. “So what did Dad do?”
“He didn’t have to do anything. I stepped between them.”
“You fought Zhao?”
“No. I stopped him.”
“How?”
“I grabbed his foot.”
“That sounds like fighting.”
“It was considerably shorter than a fight.”
She looks delighted by this entire revelation. “Was Great Uncle Iroh there?”
“He was.”
“And he just let you do that?”
“Your great-uncle was quite pleased with how the situation ended.”
Izumi turns toward the mirror again, trying to assemble people she has known her entire life into a scene that happened decades before she was born. I can practically see the version growing in her imagination, and judging by her expression, it is becoming more dramatic by the second.
“It was not nearly as exciting as whatever you are imagining,” I tell her.
“You don't know what I'm imagining.”
“I raised you. I have a fairly good idea.”
She grins at me through the mirror.
Then her expression changes as another thought occurs to her.
“Were you scared?”
My hands slow in her hair.
I think back to that courtyard, to Zhao advancing on Zuko after the duel was already won, and to how quickly I had moved. I remember grabbing his foot before he could strike, but I cannot remember being afraid.
“No,” I say eventually.
Izumi looks surprised. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Even when you got between them?”
I nod and resume the braid, although the question stays with me. I had known Zhao was dangerous. I had known exactly what he could do, but danger was hardly unusual to me by then.
“I don't think I knew I was supposed to be scared,” I admit.
The amusement fades from Izumi’s face.
“What do you mean?”
I consider how to explain it without giving her more than she needs. “I was around soldiers most of the time. I trained with them, traveled with them, worked beside them. Things that probably should have frightened me had become very ordinary.”
Izumi watches me quietly through the mirror now.
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
Her brow furrows.
“Fourteen?”
“Yes.”
She turns toward me before I can stop her this time.
“My age?”
“Yes, your age.” I put my hands on her shoulders and turn her back toward the mirror. “And if you keep moving, you are going to be your age with half a braid.”
Izumi grins as she faces forward again, but I can tell from her expression that we are nowhere near finished with this conversation.
“What else were you doing when you were fourteen?”
“That is a very broad question.”
“Besides following soldiers around and grabbing people during Agni Kais.”
“I did not make a habit of either of those things.”
She waits.
I sigh. “I traveled. I trained. I worked.”
“For the military.”
“Yes.”
“And then you helped the Avatar.”
“Eventually.”
Izumi wrinkles her nose. “That sounds miserable.”
I laugh softly. “At the time, I thought it was important.”
“But what did you do when you weren't working?”
My fingers hesitate before taking up the next section of hair. “I trained.”
“That is still work.”
“I read sometimes.”
“For fun?”
“Sometimes.”
She studies me suspiciously in the mirror. “Did you go to school?”
“Not like you do. I had tutors when I was younger, and I did attend the same school as you, but I was pulled out of school when I was eleven.”
“What about your friends?”
I think of Zuko, of Azula, of Mai and Ty Lee, and of all the people who moved in and out of my life beneath the shadow of the war.
“I had friends.”
“Did you see them every day?”
“No.”
“Did you ever go to festivals with them?”
“Not often.”
“Did you sneak out?”
A smile tugs at my mouth. “There were considerably easier ways to get myself in trouble.”
“That doesn't count.” Izumi thinks for another moment. “Did you ever stay out too late and get grounded?”
“No.”
“Did you ever skip school?”
“Izumi.”
“I’m asking historically.”
I laugh despite myself and secure the end of her braid, but when I look up, I find her watching me with an expression somewhere between fascination and concern.
“Mom,” she says, “what did you actually do for fun?”
For a moment, I don't know how to answer her.
Izumi is quiet for a while before she looks at me through the mirror again. She touches her cheek.
“Is that why Dad banned them?”
“Agni Kais?”
She nods while rubbing her face in the same spot Zuko was burned. “Because of his scar.”
“I think that was part of it.”
She already knows the story. Everyone does. She knows her father was thirteen when his own father burned him, but knowing the history and understanding what it meant are not the same thing.
“Your father knew better than most what could happen when people used honor to justify cruelty,” I say.
Izumi frowns slightly. “Were they really that common?”
“When I was young, yes. They were treated differently then.”
“Even for kids?”
I hesitate.
“Before your time, the Royal Fire Academy for Girls taught that trust made you vulnerable. We were encouraged to challenge each other, to prove ourselves, to settle things through strength.” I shake my head faintly. “Sometimes that meant Agni Kais.”
Her eyes widen. “At school?”
“Yes.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It did more harm than good.”
I finish smoothing the last loose strand near her temple while she stares at herself, clearly trying to picture it.
“I don’t understand why adults would let children do that,” she says.
For a moment, I only look at her.
Fourteen years old, sitting safely in front of me in her nightclothes, genuinely confused by something that once felt completely ordinary.
“I don’t understand it anymore either,” I say.
I tie off the end of Izumi’s braid and let it fall against her back.
“There.”
She turns her head from side to side, inspecting my work in the mirror before running her fingers over the braid.
“The Fire Nation sounds strange when you talk about what it was like when you and Dad were kids.”
I almost laugh.
Strange feels painfully inadequate, but I suppose from where Izumi is sitting, that is exactly what it must seem like.
I look at her reflection instead.
She is fourteen years old, warm and safe in her bedroom, with schoolwork waiting on her desk and clothes scattered across the chair that I have already asked her twice to put away. She spends her days worrying about assignments and her friends, and whether her father will wander into the room and embarrass her when she has someone from school over.
The thought of a thirteen-year-old being burned in an Agni Kai horrifies her.
The thought of girls her own age being encouraged to challenge one another horrifies her.
None of it feels normal to her.
Something settles warmly in my chest at the realization.
It isn't because Izumi knows less about the Fire Nation than I did at her age. In many ways, she knows more. She has been taught its history without being taught to accept every part of it. She can look at something our people practiced for generations and ask the question that I was never allowed to ask aloud.
Why?
Why would adults allow that?
Why should honor require pain?
Why should tradition be protected simply because it is tradition?
I used to try to accept those things because everyone around me accepted them. Izumi doesn't.
Zuko and I have spent years trying to build a Fire Nation where she never has to.
I rest my hands lightly on her shoulders and meet her eyes in the mirror.
Perhaps the fact that our childhood sounds strange to her means we did something right.
A soft knock sounds against the open door before Zuko appears in the doorway.
He looks exhausted.
His formal robes are still perfectly arranged, but his hair has started to fall loose around his face, and the expression he wears tells me whatever meeting kept him this late involved at least three people who enjoy hearing themselves speak.
Izumi brightens immediately.
“Dad.”
Zuko steps inside. “You’re still awake?”
“Mother has been telling me embarrassing stories about you.”
His eyes move to me.
“I have been providing historical context.”
“That sounds suspicious.”
Izumi turns in her chair. “I know about the Agni Kai with Admiral Zhao.”
Zuko stops.
“You told her that?”
“I told her a very tasteful version.”
“She said you challenged him and won, and then he tried to attack you from behind. Mom is so brave!”
Zuko gives me a look. “That is an extraordinarily selective version of events.”
“I left out the parts that made you look worse,” I tease.
Izumi laughs, and Zuko shakes his head before walking over to her. He bends and presses a kiss to the top of her head, careful not to disturb the braid.
“I’m beginning to regret letting the two of you spend time together unsupervised,” Zuko teases.
“You married her,” Izumi says.
“I’m aware.”
I smile and hold out my hand when Zuko offers his. He helps me to my feet, then looks back at Izumi.
“Bed.”
“I am in bed.”
“You are sitting in a chair.”
“That feels unnecessarily technical.”
“Lay down.”
Izumi sighs with all the suffering available to a fourteen-year-old, mopes to her bed, and climbs beneath the blankets.
Zuko pulls them up over her while I move beside him.
“Goodnight,” he says.
“Goodnight.”
“I love you,” I tell her.
Izumi’s expression softens. “Love you too.”
Zuko leans down and kisses her forehead once more. “We love you.”
“I know.”
He reaches for my hand as we turn toward the door.
Behind us, Izumi settles deeper into the pillows, safe and warm beneath the blankets.
Zuko closes the door gently after we leave.
He keeps hold of my hand as we make our way down the corridor toward our room. The palace has gone quiet around us, most of the lamps dimmed for the night, and for a little while neither of us says anything.
“What brought up Zhao?” he finally asks.
“Agni Kais. They learned about them in history today.”
He glances at me. “That explains nothing about how Zhao became involved.”
“She asked if I had ever fought one.”
“And naturally you told her about mine.”
“It was relevant. I technically contributed.”
“Of course.”
I smile and lean a little closer to him as we walk.
“She asked me why you banned them.”
Zuko grows quieter at that. “What did you tell her?”
“That they were cruel.”
He nods once.
“She couldn't understand it,” I continue. “Why anyone would let children participate in them. I told her about the academy too, how we were taught to distrust each other and encouraged to challenge one another.” I look down at our joined hands. “She thought it was horrible.”
“It was.”
“I know.”
The words come easily now, which still surprises me sometimes.
We walk a few more steps before I speak again.
“She asked what I was doing when I was fourteen.”
Zuko looks over at me.
“I told her some of it. Traveling, training, the military. She started asking whether I went to school or spent time with friends or went to festivals.” I laugh quietly. “She asked if I ever got grounded for staying out too late.”
The corner of his mouth lifts, but his eyes stay on me.
“She has such a different life than we did,” I say. “At her age, I already thought I was grown. I thought I had responsibilities that mattered more than anything I wanted. You were chasing the Avatar across the world because you thought it was the only way you could ever come home. Well, eventually we did.”
Zuko's expression softens.
“And she’s worried about homework,” I continue. “She complains about bedtime. She worries you'll embarrass her when her friends come over.”
“I do that intentionally.”
“I know you do.”
That earns a small smile from him, but mine fades as I look back toward the corridor behind us.
“She gets to be fourteen.”
The words leave me quieter than I intend.
Zuko stops walking.
I turn toward him, and he studies my face for only a moment before pulling me into his arms. I wrap mine around him and rest my cheek against his shoulder.
It hurts in a strange way, looking at Izumi and realizing how young fourteen actually is. I feel grief for the girl I was, but beneath it is something warmer, something that makes me want to hold our daughter tighter rather than mourn what I cannot change.
Zuko presses a kiss into my hair.
“We couldn't change what happened to us,” he says quietly. “But we changed what happens to her.”
I close my eyes.
There is nothing grand about the life waiting behind Izumi's bedroom door. School tomorrow. Friends. Arguments over clothes left on the floor. Complaints about bedtime and whatever new disaster fourteen brings with it.
That is exactly what I want for her.
I pull back enough to look at Zuko, and he brushes his thumb gently across my cheek.
“I think we did all right,” I whisper.
His expression softens into a smile.
“I think we did too.”
I lean forward and kiss him.
Then, still holding his hand, I follow him the rest of the way to our room.