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You always felt as though Uncle was, and still is, able to see past your many masks. He always looked at you differently, carefully. You still remember the day he returned from the war. Different, touched, scarred. The loss of his son did a number on him. You and Zuko never interacted much with Cousin Lu Ten. By the time you were old enough to really think, he had already gone to the frontlines to fight and lead. He was supposed to be Fire Lord one day, after all.
After returning home, Uncle spent most of his time perfecting his tea making skills and skimped on his daily training, preferring to just maintain the bare minimum of his strength. Then he began to train Zuko. Zuzu had never had as good a master, he was useless before Uncle began to train him, then, in just a few years, he had almost caught up with you. Well, almost, more like halfway.
You stop looking at your room’s roof, spin around and jump out of your bed. What better master of lightning bending than the Dragon of the West?
At Zuko’s boat, your brother is busy looking out ominously to the northern horizon while Uncle plays some sort of table game.
“You want me to teach you lightning bending?” Uncle Iroh says with his old man voice. “I thought your father had obtained two of the finest bending teachers in all of the Fire Nation for you.”
You shrug. “I wasn’t able to pick them up at their temple, Father said my mission was much more urgent than any training.”
He gives you a serious look, peering into the honesty of your words, then offers you the seat in front of him.
You sigh, you couldn’t train much lightning bending while seated, but surely Iroh had his wise old master reasons.
“Have you heard of this game, lady Azula?”
You gave the pieces on the table a cursory look. “Those are the symbols of the different bending arts, right?”
“Just so, though they are also the symbols of the nations themselves. Their people, their bending art, their culture, their very way of being.” He puts a symbol of the Air Nomads on top of another.
“This game needs an update, the Air Nomads don’t exist anymore, we made sure of that.”
Iroh takes another and puts it on top of the old one. “They do not, but there is much that can be learned, even from those that are no longer with us.”
You stare off into the distance, expecting a boring rant. “Learned from those who were beaten and died?”
“How much have you read about the invasion of the Air Nomads, lady Azula?”
“Not much.”
“Did you know that they were one of the least populated of the four nations?”
You look at your uncle, still concentrated on one last symbol of the Air Nomads. “Nope.”
“Did you know that we lost more men per Air Nomad killed than against any other nation?”
You don’t respond to that, Iroh places the last piece and ponders deeply. “We lost dozens, sometimes hundreds, against each Air Nomad, even after breaching their temples. Veterans of campaigns against the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes, dead in seconds.”