Continuation on Regent Ursa AU?

attackfish:

Continued from here: [Link]

1. As I alluded to in the previous Regent Ursa post, Ursa is an imperialist. As kind and loving a mother as she is, she was raised in the imperial Fire Nation system and has never really had a reason to question it. She has never met a non-Fire person, and it doesn’t occur to her to wonder how the war affects the conquered. So the war continues apace. And Zuko and Azula are educated to continue the war in their turn. Many of Azula’s lessons focus on getting her to aim her cruelty at acceptable targets. This is something Iroh quietly seeks to rectify with only marginal success.

2. Iroh sneaks both Zuko and Azula into the war meeting when they are thirteen and eleven. He hopes it will be instructive for them. He intends for them to see and be horrified by the tactics used. And Zuko at least is. He still stands up for the Fire Nation soldiers. Only it’s not Zuko who is punished. Ursa has Iroh banished, while Iroh insists that the young Firelord had every right to be there anyway. In truth, it’s just an excuse to get him and his meddling away from her children.

3. This is of course a miscalculation. And Iroh not at court is an Iroh out from under her eye, and an Iroh sufficiently recovered from his crushing grief to plot, at that. He heads straight to the Order of the White Lotus with a plan to kidnap the young Firelord and his sister.

4. As Zuko reaches his fourteenth birthday, Ursa focuses more and more attention on educating him in the skills he will need soon when he takes power. He now has his own invitation to the war meetings, and she expects him to spend time with her as she conducts royal business, and as he receives lessons in governence, Ursa becomes ever more painfully aware that these are lessons she never received, and skills she as a ruler does not possess. She intends to see Azula educated in these skills as well, but Azula is younger and doesn’t have a looming deadline upon which she will have a nation to run. So Ursa doesn’t rush her ahead of Zuko as Ozai might. Go on. Guess how Azula perceives this.

5. Yeah this is when Ursa proposes that the Earth Kingdom, an exciting and exotic land, might be a fitting place for Azula to rule in her brother’s name someday. She never wants Azula to feel like she is less loved or less worthy, even if her brother is already Firelord.