"Hey."

"Go away."

"Alright, I know we-"

"Now."

□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■

So his first attempt at talking to Mai hadn't gone quite as planned.

From what he could tell, she wasn't really in the mood to talk.

Or hang out.

At all.

With him or anyone else, but especially not with him.

She wasn't aggressively rude.

But she was curt and to the point, and ignored almost all of his questions.

Mai had readily credited Azula with asking her to come by letter.

Passive-aggressively demanding that she come, really.

Because Azula.

But she had probably only said that much to cut off any of his teasing before it could start.

She was a spoilsport like that.

So their heartfelt reunion went about as well as could be expected.

Better, even.

She was a lot more restrained than when he had seen her last.

Back when Zuko...

Yeah.

Iroza sighed, taking comfort in the knowledge that it could have gone much, much worse.

Then there was his correspondence with Azula.

His letter, polite and nondescript, with all of his annoyance impeccably encoded.

"What the fuck, Azula?"

And her responding letter, equally subtle.

"Are you braindead? The fuck did you expect me to do?"

He was paraphrasing heavily.

But he was annoyed, so whatever.

How had he described his journey to Wan Bhing?

Boring and annoying?

Well, none of that had changed.

Even after arriving.

He had been looking forward to getting his new orders and falling into a routine.

Whatever that routine was, he was prepared to carry it out.

Something to do.

Something productive.

Something that contributed to his goal of getting home and...

He grimaced, crossing his arms and looking down at the city streets from his balcony.

And all that.

A position of real authority, and whatever responsibilities came with that.

A role he could embrace and act on, and feel as though he was accomplishing something.

Instead, he almost had less freedom than he ever had at the capital.

And wasn't that a weird realization?

In the days leading up to the feast being held in his honor, he started noticing some... Oddities.

Oddities in how he was treated.

He couldn't help but notice.

Besides firebending, he had nothing of any worth to spend time on.

So he spent that time thinking.

Something of a trend since he had left home.

But that embarrassing episode had been paranoia born out of boredom.

This was different.

Probably.

He was pretty sure it was different.

The behavior was subtle.

Any kind of constraints or limitations surrounding him were hard to pin down and call out.

Not something he could call out at all, really.

It even took a few separate occurrences for him to start taking his idle suspicion seriously.

He had practice, but things were different here.

Once he was curious, he started testing.

Making some kind of request to Ji.

Something outside of the admittedly extensive list of 'activities' that his guide loved to suggest to him.

From the naive...

"Oh, but I would love to get out and explore parts of the city! Could I go without a guide? I want it to feel authentic."

"This side alley sure looks exciting. We ought to go there!"

To the slightly more testing...

"Could I perhaps leave the walls, explore some of the poorer districts?"

And finally the pointed, purpose-driven questions.

"I think it'd be good for me to meet some of the paper pushers. Become more comfortable with how your administration works. I want to help as best as I can!" Still naive, but eager to help and prove himself.

Then he would watch while doing his best to not appear as though he was.

Little things tipped him off.

Tightening of the eyes.

Stiffening of his smile.

Shoulders going rigid, before quickly relaxing.

Too quickly.

Then there was the customer service voice.

That cadence of forced cheer.

Neatly sidestepping the issue.

Presenting a conveniently timed distraction.

Knick-knacks and sweets.

Games.

A play from some local children, just for the prince!

A tour of the estate.

Fresh robes and a throng of noble heirs waiting to meet him.

No one ever said 'no' to Iroza.

Not outright.

Instead, they said 'how about.'

Or 'what if we!'

Sometimes 'I have this great idea.'

All while gently leading him into something else.

And his role as a naive prince with no worldly knowledge meant that he had little choice but to go along with it.

Let himself be distracted or deflected without making a fuss, or even letting on that he had noticed at all.

It was all very subtle, and very unlike living in the capital.

Back home in Capital City, his activities were strictly monitored and regulated without any subtlety whatsoever.

Fire Lord Ozai had no need for subtlety.

His word was law.

Days and weeks of Iroza's life were meticulously planned out ahead of time, and his life was arranged without any input from him.

Back there, any free time had to be stolen.

Disappearing for a breather, alone, or to chill out with Azula, not thinking about the consequences until later.

Again, here it was different.

He was royalty.

He was technically the most important person in the whole city.

The whole province, even.

And he was treated as such.

He had complete freedom.

Servants bowed to his whims, and General Rama was only ever a few minutes away.

All of them were ready to listen to his requests.

"Anything for you, Prince Iroza."

And yet, that right there was the rub.

Prince Iroza.

Not General Iroza.

Not Crown Prince Iroza.

Not Fire Lord Iroza.

Prince Iroza.

His authority wasn't authority at all.

It was deep respect.

Admiration.

Awe.

At most, it was borrowed authority from invoking his father's name.

Something he was loath to do.

He wasn't in charge here, and it would be foolish of him to act as though he was.

Expecting everyone to fall over themselves to please him just because he was a prince.

He was Prince Iroza, son of Fire Lord Ozai, and they would obey him, or else he would do something, maybe!

He'd write to his father!

Watch out!

He couldn't help but snort.

Yeah.

Even in his head, it sounded stupid.

More of a Zuko move.

Even if it worked, and it probably would, it was just too embarrassing...

He frowned.

There was also the chilling possibility that it wouldn't work.

That was the thing.

True loyalty was hard to cultivate.

His great-grandfather Sozen had done it with his decisive opening moves in the hundred years war.

As disgusting as those moves were.

His grandfather Azulon had taken it all to new heights during his reign, raising the mythos of the Fire Lord and his family to a sort of cult-like status.

Ozai was doing it too.

But it was slow, and he had only been Fire Lord for a few years.

Heck, no one in Wan Bhing had ever even seen the Fire Lord before.

Maybe a few older ones had seen Azulon, once upon a time when his armies had taken the province and he did his little victory parade through the city.

The old man had enjoyed those.

But Fire Lord Ozai?

Not a chance.

When Ozai had ascended to Fire Lord, the mere thought of touring a place like Wan Bhing was probably laughable to him.

No point.

Iroza being here at all was a special occasion for these people.

Something that never happened.

Look, royalty!

A real prince was visiting!

He couldn't count on that curiosity lasting.

The cult-like status of the royal family didn't extend to their occupied holdings.

If anything, the attitude towards the Fire Lord was probably... Quite bad.

These were a lot of assumptions he was making.

But Iroza was cautious.

Caution fueled by his lessons as a prince, and his older memories as a normie.

What he could recall of Earth history.

A lot was faded, but he had gone through a pretty typical education.

Even up through part of university.

Wan Bhing was poor and weak.

Fire Nation wasn't in danger of a rebellion.

But Iroza could be in danger if something bad happened.