Great depiction of that terrible night. I like the portrayal of Ursa as a non-bender, something I only saw before in Qwi-xux's awesome "Bring Me Home" and an idea I'm partial to.

The scene with the will reminds me why modern wills have to be signed by witnesses to have effect, precisely because witnesses are safeguards against these kinds of shenanigans. And I'm not sure how much stock I put in the words of a guy who showed pretty blatant favoritism himself and wanted to have his grandson killed, but I guess even jerks can say some things right.

I would have expected Azulon's bedchamber or at least his wing of the palace to be under guard. Maybe Ozai bribed them?

"When did I look away from you?" is a sharply poignant line and my favorite in the story. Sometimes it's the people we think we know best, we turn out to know least. This was both tragic and well-written, good job.

This is a fantastic story. After reading both the prequel to this story and this well-woven piece, I can honestly say that I have encountered very few stories quite so well-written, especially ones about Azulon's murder and Ursa's subsequent banishment.

Ursa's fiery personality is something that I adore about her, and her drive to provide for Zuko and help him is both admirable and depressing. I say depressing because, like you mentioned, "favoritism begets monsters". On a tangent, I would like to say that that phrase really epitomizes Ozai's and Azula's characters. Anyway, because Ozai favored Azula so strongly, Ursa was forced to balance the "scale", so to speak, and favor Zuko. Her lack of attention to Azula (at least in my opinion) was one of the many reasons she went insane in the first place.

In short, I really adored this story, and I think that it deserves more attention. I love your winding, poetic, and yet still readable style very much! Keep on writing.

... How did I miss this fic?

Woman, this is AWESOME. I've gone through a bad run of horrible fic, and this was a breath of fresh air.

The dialog was really well done. "And you will go into the catacombs and replace the old with the new. Once that's finished, you will kill him, Ursa. Won't you?" I could almost hear Ozai's voice in that, the snake. lol.

I think the most chilling part for me was Azulon's last will. It seemed he knew his second son's heart much more than he had ever let on.

Yet at the same time I can't help but wonder why, if Azulon knew of Zuko's potential, he asked for Ozai to kill him. A test, perhaps?

Anyway, the phrasing in here was simply lovely. "When the sun crested above the nation, she was long gone, already a ghost." Was a great last line. You are sooooooooooooo talented, and I enjoyed it ever so much.

I love your writing so much it almost hurts. The flow is beautiful. Beautiful, I say! It has a poetic feel to it and sets a dark mood. A lot of writers have a hard time getting readers to feel a mood in their writing-we aren't "blessed" with the visuals of lighting, music, and other such emotion-invoking things.

I think it's interesting that you had her go see Zuko BEFORE going to kill Azulon. It's a nice touch.

I also REALLY like the whole, "You're turning into a monster, Azula." It's just one phrase and yet it is something that apparently stuck with Azula for a very long time. I like the idea of her having actually said it to her daughter instead of Azula just perceiving that. It shows that even mothers can make mistakes; in the sense that though Azula was turning into a monster, her mother having told her pushed her toward it even more.

Azulon's will wa sa fun touch to read, too. It gives his characters "life". In the series we only got one scene of him so we couldn't get a good feel for what he was like. For some reason I'd never considered that Ozai might be favoring Azula over Zuko because of past resentments toward how his father treated Iroh. It all makes sense!

I'm pretty much ready to just consider this canon; an episode they just forgot to take from the script phase and make into an episode.

Let's get married and have beautiful babies together. D:

I decided to review this particular piece instead of the hundreds of others of yours that I've favorited because it has so little review numbers and needs the love it so rightly deserves. Hope I was of some help, or at least boosted your ego a bit! 3

That was an amazing sequel. You almost got me to like Azulon. His will made the man seem almost loving. Obviously, he cared about both his sons, but in different ways.

"When did I look away from you? She thought to her husband, slipping into the darkened apartments with only a whisper of sound. Was that what made you mad? Or was it long before we met?"

That was one of my favorite lines. It basically sums up what the Urzai pairing is. Nice :D