Throne of Ashes (Avatar: The Last Airbender Fanfic)

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"So..."

The headmaster of the Royal Fire Academy for Boys let out a sigh.

"The Fire Lord wishes to enroll Prince Zuko in our school, along with this Minato, but you wish for Minato to be enrolled in the same year as Prince Zuko despite him being a few years older?"

"Fire Lord Azulon's assigned Minato to the duty of personally guarding Prince Zuko from any harm that may occur to him, particularly given the recent events involving my brother. So you must understand his reasons."

"Do I understand his reasons?" The headmaster sighed, then said, "I can not go against an order from the Fire Lord, so does understanding his reasons matter?"

"You do not have an opinion on the situation. Do you have any concerns?" Iroh asked, feeling tired already.

The headmaster sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing the back of his head. "Do I have my concerns? Of course, I have my concerns, given everyone knows Prince Ozai was unhinged enough to attack his own father and..."

"It's actually more complicated than that."

"Isn't it?" The headmaster opened his eyes. "I think, and this is just me, Prince Ozai must be quite unhinged to purposefully attack Fire Lord Azulon. That, or he thought our Fire Lord old and frail, unable to defend himself. It seems more likely Prince Ozai did something to disfavor himself in the eyes of Fire Lord Azulon."

"Are you saying it is Fire Lord Azulon who is unhinged then?"

"No," the headmaster shook his head, taking the folded fan on his desk and using it to scratch the back of his neck even though the crown prince sat in front of him, taking a far more casual attitude to what should be far more formal. "Fire Lord Azulon wouldn't attack his own bloodline unless there existed good reason to do so, but I've been thinking, and since you're asking me to be candid here, Crown Prince Iroh, may I continue?"

"Yes. I want to see where this train of thought of yours is going."

"Prince Ozai may not have been insane enough to attack his own father, but he was unhinged enough to attack his own son."

"That's not theory but fact, you know."

"Yes, well. It's hard to conjecture from here, Prince Iroh, but I am left with the feeling the whole matter involves Prince Zuko, which in turn is why Fire Lord Azulon is insistent on your heir having a personal bodyguard."

"Fair."

"But, if the other rumor is true..."

"What other rumor?"

"Prince Zuko isn't the first prince that Prince Ozai had killed."

Iroh felt the color drain from his face. "If you're referring to myself, I assure you..."

"I'm referring to Prince Lu Ten."

"Prince Ozai—there is a rumor he killed my son?" Iroh frowned. "My son fell in battle, so this is quite a cruel rumor, isn't it?"

"Did you confirm that to be true, though?" The headmaster opened the fan, hiding his face. "Or were you so lost in your grief that you didn't realize it at the time? Can we be sure this isn't the truth, when Prince Ozai did, in fact, not care if he killed his own son? It may be cruel, my prince, to suggest this rumor may be true, but it's even crueler not to touch upon it, as Prince Lu Ten was your son. And..."

"And?"

"And he was one of my best students. Prince Zuko, though." The headmaster closed the fan. "Is he like Prince Lu Ten or Prince Azula? As you know, Princess Azula has already been involved in the girls' academy and has already managed to terrorize her fellow students. She shows signs of going down the same unhinged path as her father."

"Which is why Princess Azula's been unenrolled, as we can not trust..." Iroh sighed. "Was that his intent? To get me to admit that Princess Azula is as unhinged as she is."

"I'm already aware of this, but if you're removing that one, I think it's safe to assume, unlike many of the nasty rumors, that Prince Zuko is actually quite the opposite of being unhinged."

"Can a child really come out unscathed from their own father attempting to kill them, though?" Iroh frowned. "I'm not saying my nephew, my heir, is unhinged, but he isn't perhaps completely recovered from his ordeal—that the scars remain, both visible and not."

"Ah. There is that."

"And, I'd say, Prince Zuko, he is very much like my Lu Ten," Iroh said. "Yet lacking my Lu Ten's confidence as where I placed all my confidence in Lu Ten's abilities, Ozai has placed none into Prince Zuko's. His bending—it's still quite stiff from his injuries, and he may need to learn to compensate."

"Princess Azula is the exact opposite, I've heard, so full of confidence in herself that she—the girl's academy hasn't been able to keep up with instructors, but they're rather glad to be rid of her."

"A shame," Iroh said. "She is still a child, but..." His hands tightened. "We've been unable to make any headway with her to dismantle the damage Ozai's done."

"She thinks too highly of herself," the headmaster sighed. "And things to little of everyone else."

"The other thing—Minato, since you are one of the few the Fire Lord trusts and that I trust. He is not a firebender."

"We teach non-benders," the headmaster said.

Iroh cleared his throat. "I never said he wasn't a bender."

The headmaster froze. "Is the Fire Lord serious?"

"As said, you're one of the few we're trusting this information with," Iroh said.

"Why pick a non-firebender as the personal bodyguard of the prince?"

"Because this bodyguard is able to not only protect the prince but heal him."

"A waterbender? They'll have my head."

"He may be a waterbender, but he's Fire Nation. Or at least mostly, because he wouldn't be able to bend water if there wasn't some Water Tribe in him. But even with Minato, I don't know how easy it will be for Zuko to adjust. Ozai's purposefully kept him sheltered from the world, and Minato doesn't know much regarding Fire Nation, so we're hoping to pass him off as someone from the colonies, which—"

"Ah, yes. Those children are likely to bend earth instead of fire, but I've heard stories of a tiny handful able to bend water as there is unexpected Water Tribe blood in them, as the children who can bend earth have the Earth Kingdom in them. That will work, but this isn't going to be easy. In some ways, I wish he had a second young man rather than just Minato."

"I'm aware," Iroh said. "But we're working with what we have and hope to leave the prince in your care. He's very soft-spoken, and there are those confidence issues, but we're still concerned—his movements are headed in the right direction, but there is still stiffness at times from how he was injured."

"I'll do my best, and I apologize that I can't guarantee the results everyone hopes for. If he is soft-spoken, lacks confidence, and his movements may further the rumors, he is unhinged."