#Lu Ten's mother was lonely for the arranged marriage she got put in and then she died lonely only a few hours after having Lu

[yellow-faerie]

How specifically does Lu Ten survive in the au?

The short answer: his betrothed.

The long answer: in this au, Lu Ten is betrothed at quite a young age to Makei, a noble woman's only daughter. They're both nonbenders, who both train separately to be equally deadly (Lu Ten under Piandao, and Makei under a retired Yuyan archer by the name of Izuki) and are probably each others only real friend at court, just due to the cutthroat nature of the court.

They both go to the siege of Ba Sing Se, probably a year into it, Lu Ten is an officer and Makei is a healer. They are very quickly disenfranchised with the whole idea of The War.

This is mostly because they were both very lonely children, Lu Ten moreso. When Lu was little, his mother was dead, his father was off at war more often than not and there were very few people who were consistently around him (Ursa would be around a bit but since Ozai does not want to be around him, even that's limited), but he made his loneliness better by basically saying that Winning The War will make it all better.

Newsflash: the war sucks and when fighting it begins to feel entirely pointless, and Lu Ten is very quickly like...oh. My childhood just sucked for No Reason.

(Listen, Iroh loved his son but I am of the firm belief that their relationship was not an easy one)

And then, Iroh dies on the front lines. Maybe Lu Ten should have been the one to die then - he certainly came close - but Makei is a skilled healer who makes sure he pulls through. But Lu Ten is neither the leader his father was nor someone who wants to be, and the siege is called off.

Still, he's angry and bitter and has a burning hatred for the war for taking his father from him in so many ways (and, later, when he's spent time among the earth kingdom, he'll be angry for them too), and when he returns to the palace, he does not exactly go along with everything Ozai has to say...

By which I mean he does multiple kidnappings but that's another post.