#ursa avata

[xbriizx]

just a sketch that i did

[earlybirds-atla-au]

The summer solstice, what happened there?

Oh, about what you’d expect from any family holiday gathering…

(prompt submitted by Girljackson on AO3)

~~~

“Is that Ozai?”

It’s all the warning Ursa gets before her fiance is swept up by a jovial woman with Yu Yan tattoos.

“Jyoti!” Ozai protests, but he’s unable to escape the woman’s fingers before they pinch his cheeks.

“Little cousin, look how big you’ve gotten!” she coos. Ursa can’t help but giggle, and that proves to be a mistake as Jyoti’s head turns toward her. “Oh!” she exclaims, eyes lighting up. “And you must be Ursa!”

When Ursa finally escaped to the banquet table, her mother frowned at her. “I thought you said you were going light on the makeup, dear,” Rina said. “Why are you wearing so much rouge?”

“Cousin Jyoti got to you, didn’t she?” Janya snickered, and Ursa groaned and rubbed her cheeks with a rueful nod.

The summer solstice celebrations progressed as well as they could. Fire Sage Kuzon presided over the spiritual side of the ceremony, giving praise to Agni and asking for blessings and luck for the Fire Nation in its ongoing Great March of Civilization. Other Fire Sages performed similar rites, and then a bunch of nobles gave some speeches and praised the royal family for their astute leadership and wished them good fortune. Through it all, Ursa saw Fire Lord Azulon looking more and more bored. One of the first things she’d learned about her future father-in-law was that he wasn’t one for pomp and circumstance and only dealt with it when the court demanded it.

When the talking was finally over with, the eating and socializing began. Ursa chattered with her parents about her new life in the royal palace, Janya interjecting every so often - mostly to heap praise upon Ursa’s shoulders. Ursa was a sweet, kind girl with a keen sense of humor, fun to spar with and a splendid conversationalist, and Ozai was just dazzled with her. Jinzuk and Rina should be very proud to have raised such a daughter! She was going to make a wonderful addition to the royal family.

Ursa flushed at the praise. Beside her, Ozai was just as red, and he kept shooting Janya annoyed scowls that she pointedly ignored. Iroh smiled serenely and pretended not to see his little brother’s embarrassment. Ursa caught Ozai’s eye and shot him a quick grin, which only made him flush more.

Ursa took a minute to look around the banquet hall. She heard Azulon laugh at something Daimyo Masami of Kohimori Island said, and at one of the other tables she caught sight of one of Janya’s relatives from the House of Flying Daggers doing some sort of balancing trick with a knife on her finger. At another table sat all the Fire Sages who were in attendance for the festivities. Most of them spoke amongst themselves, except for one who was in deep conversation with Daimyo Ayako of the Shiroboshi Clan.

Fire Sage Kuzon, however, wasn’t speaking to anybody. Rather, he was looking straight at Ursa.

Ursa pursed her lips and went back to her meal. She wasn’t unused to the scrutiny of Fire Sages. She was, after all, the granddaughter of Avata Roku - though that little fact Was Not Talked About, not in polite company. It was, perhaps, a factor in Azulon’s proposal that she marry Ozai, but by no means the only reason behind their betrothal, and one that was barely acknowledged. Still, for all that lack of acknowledgement, Fire Sages had a knack for showing up in Hira’a to ask Ursa’s parents and aunts and uncles questions about spiritual affairs. They never asked Ursa, because Ursa had never known her grandfather.

But now Fire Sage Kuzon was looking at her.

She confronted him about it when the after-dinner mingling started up. Politely, of course. It made for better business if you were polite, a lesson she was trying to figure out how to hammer into Ozai’s head. “Fire Sage Kuzon, is there something I can help you with?”

“Ah, Lady Ursa,” the old man said, turning a genial smile on her. “How are you this evening?”

“Very well, sir, thank you. I saw you looking at me during dinner. Is everything alright?”

“Ah, you saw that did you?” he sighed, looking contrite. “I was just thinking. You look very much like your grandmother, you know.”

Oh. Ursa looked the old man over. She wasn’t sure how old he was, exactly, but he could easily be older than the war. Old enough to have known Lady Ta Min, certainly. “So I’ve heard,” she said. “Did you know her?”

“I met her a few times, when I was a boy. We had a mutual friend, you see. One of my friends’ teachers. He brought us to visit sometimes.” Fire Sage Kuzon smiled fondly. “She was a remarkable lady. Very kind. Always had a bowl of fire gummies ready for when rambunctious children visited.”

Ursa smiled. That sounded like the woman her father had described. Jinzuk had been born late in his parents’ lives, and had been raised more by his older siblings than by his parents themselves, but he had many fond memories of his mother. “I’ll have to stock up on fire gummies, then.”

Fire Sage Kuzon laughed, and Ursa laughed back politely, and then they went their separate ways.

She found Ozai grumping around in the middle of the banquet hall. His cheeks had been pinched red again. “This party sucks,” he grumbled.

“Do you want to sneak off somewhere and make out?” Ursa asked, mostly to see his face flush. She giggled. Ozai stomped off, face red as a chili pepper.

Ursa eventually found herself with her parents, sitting beside Azulon. “Having a pleasant evening, Father?” She wasn’t married yet, but Azulon had told her she could call him father already. He liked her.

“As pleasant as these parties can be,” Azulon sighed. “I’d rather be in my office.”

“It’s good to get out sometimes,” Ursa pointed out.

Azulon huffed.

Across the room, Iroh was serving up some tea to whoever wanted some, and that was when the arguing started. “Iroh, this isn’t tea.”

“But of course it is, Cousin Jyoti! It’s a plant leaf infusion made with hot water. That’s how one makes tea!”

“Herbal teas do not count!”

“Actually they fit the definition very nicely…”

“If it’s not made from the tea plant, it isn’t tea, Iroh.”

“It’s chamomile tea, Cousin. Drink some, it’s very good!”

“Does it even have caffeine? No, of course it doesn’t, because herbal teas are invalid.”

“Here Cousin, have a cup. It has a very pleasing calming effect; I think you could use some.”

“Chamomile tea is just hot daisy juice, Iroh!”

“What?”

“Fire Lord Azulon,” Jinzuk said, watching the drama unfold, “when I agreed to marry my daughter to your son, I did not think her marrying into the royal family would involve her in instances such as...this.”

The arguing was getting worse. Janya was trying to wade through the crowd to get to her husband, but to no avail.

“I know my sons can be...unique,” Azulon said. “But Ursa has slid very neatly into her place in our family. She can handle the...eccentricities of royal life.”

“I should hope so,” Rina muttered. “It isn’t too late for us to withdraw our agreement to the proposal.”

“No, but Ursa wouldn’t want that,” Azulon said, turning to Ursa. “She’s very happy here. Aren’t you, my dear?”

Ursa smiled sweetly. “I could have married Lao Beifong.”

Her parents snickered.

“Ursa I will give you a province if you promise to never entertain that notion again,” Azulon said. 

“Oh no need, Father, it was just a joke!”

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack, child?”

“Father, I motion to banish Lady Jyoti from the Fire Nation on the grounds that she doesn’t appreciate all tea!” Iroh shouted from the middle of the hall.

“Your son is a disgrace to tea aficionados who drinks daisy water and has no standards, Uncle Azulon!” Jyoti shot back.

“REJECTED!” Azulon shouted back, and then his hands went to his temples.

“Are you alright, Father?” Ursa asked.

“I am going to put these people on different boats and send them all over the world.”