A/N: Written for season 3 for the 2016 Pro-Bending Circuit.
(edit 17-Apr-2016): A reviewer pointed out (correctly) that the chronology in Part III does not match that specified in LoK. This was an oversight on my end due to a need to re-watch LoK and a declining memory, so in the meantime, please consider the noncompliant sections as AU.

Challenge: write a story featuring the birth, an important event, and death of a character.

Prompts: "it happens to all of us eventually" (easy), alcohol (medium), "100 Years - Five For Fighting" (hard)

Character: Iroh

Word Count: 3376 words (excluding author's notes)

Disclaimer: ATLA/LOK are property of Bryke forevermore, all characters and settings mentioned herein belong to them.

x

Little Soldier Boy

PART I: BIRTH

(there's never a wish better than this)

x

When Iroh was born, there were fireworks in the sky. Trumpets and bright lights heralded his arrival, the firstborn son of Azulon and Ilah, the heir to the mightiest throne of the four nations.

His star would burn brightest of all, declared the Fire Sages at his presentation ceremony. Before the whole of the Fire Nation, they proclaimed a vision gifted by the sacred flames: that Iroh would lead a long and prosperous life, grow to be a most talented firebending prodigy who would slay the last dragons, and conquer the heart of their enemy kingdom, the great walled city of Ba Sing Se.

From the moment of his birth, his destiny seemed certain, immutable. He would be the perfect heir to his father's throne, the fearless leader his nation required him to be. So Fire Lord Azulon promised, and took the child in his arms.

At that moment, no weight had ever felt so comforting to him, and henceforth, nothing in the world was quite as precious to the Fire Lord as his beloved firstborn son…

PART II: CHANGE

(i'm heading into a crisis / chasing the years of my life)

x

"…and from there on, you can ask for Hana, who can set you up with a place for the night. We can escort you as far as the city walls and vouch for you to the guards, but we're on a tight schedule from hereon in and -"

"That will be more than enough," Iroh replies flatly, hugging his thick black cloak closer to his shrinking frame. "Thank you very much for your hospitality."

The Water Tribesman nods at him briefly.

"I'll let you know when we're ready to head out to shore."

And then he turns on his heel and departs, leaving Iroh alone with his thoughts, staring listlessly out into the distance.

The air in the North Pole is colder than any chill he's ever physically experienced. There is an insistent breeze that tugs at his nondescript clothing and grey-tinged beard. It nips at his skin and draws water out from the corners of his crinkled eyes, now lined with age and weariness and –

A sudden silence. A harsh voice calls out the order to attack. The ground beneath his feet rumbles. In the distance, he hears the screaming.

Lu Ten screams for his father with his dying breath.

A few fat tears leak out from his eyes and trail lazily down his weathered cheeks as he remembers. No matter how he tries, it haunts him. Every waking moment, he relives his son's final scream.

My son. If only I could have saved you…

By now, the news has reached Iroh of his father's mysterious death, his brother's ascension to the throne in his place, the disappearance of his sister-in-law. His advisors had urged him to fight, when the news first broke. They had urged him to march back to the Fire Nation with his army in tow, and wrest his birthright back from his grasping, devious little brother.

Instead, Iroh had fled like a coward in the night.

And his advisors were left to grudgingly return home and pledge fealty to their new liege.

Iroh still thinks they were better for it. After five long years of fighting and bloodshed on the outskirts of Ba Sing Se, his men deserved to go home to their families. They had earned some rest.

However, for him, there would be no peace.

Instead, he had traded his royal red silks for humble dark cotton, shed his royal moniker for a more unassuming disguise, and roamed the four nations in a self-imposed exile. All in a futile effort to quell the storm raging in the depths of his soul.

But the hot springs no longer held any warmth, and the glances of beautiful women no longer stirred his passions, and the feeling of fire rushing forth from his empty palms only filled him with contempt and loathing.

And before Iroh knew it, he was adrift in a sea bereft of pleasure or meaning.

He had failed his son.

He had failed his father.

He had failed his country.

Iroh wonders how his subordinates fail to see it. They'd fought him until the last second to stay. As though he could be trusted with such power and responsibility. As though he deserved it.

Closing his eyes, he meditates on his father, and his grandfather. He'd never met his grandfather, but from the stories his lord father had told him, he is secretly very glad that neither is alive to witness his shame.

You lost heart at the first chance and ran away like a child. How dishonourable you truly are. A real prince worthy of the throne would have bent the Earth Kingdom to its knees for what they did to your son.

His mind whispers to him in Ozai's voice. Back home, he already knows such judgments are being cast upon him.

Iroh the disgraced, they'll name him. Iroh the weak. Iroh the failure.

And strangely enough, he doesn't care a bit.

x

He's always been particular to the heady, pungent buzz of ginseng tea. But this far north, such a luxury is beyond his meagre provisions. He instead sips at the steaming cup of spirits that passes for liquor in these parts, courtesy of Hana the innkeep.

She'd received him cordially enough, questioning him diplomatically, if not somewhat shrewdly, of his identity and origins. But Iroh, despite his royal upbringing, is not unfamiliar with the concept of humility and, after some conversation, is able to sell his alias to her quite credibly.

The alcohol numbs his senses slowly, but steadily. It courses a different sort of fire through his veins and slows the racing whirlwind of thoughts in his head to a crawl. The screams in his head gradually grow quiet, as though someone has shoved thick wads of cotton into his ears.

Iroh shakes his head slightly before downing another swig of the strong liquor. The Northern Water Tribes had a legendary brew, they claimed, one that incorporated extracts of specific herbs from their spirit oasis. Its scent alone could heighten spiritual awareness and conscientiousness, while one cupful would be enough to fell a Tribesman in his tracks.

He's on his third when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

"I don't know what it is you're running from, friend," says a woman's warm voice, "but I think you've gone quite far enough."

He puts his cup back down on the counter with some reluctance.

Her name is Yugoda and she is a healer. But even her talents cannot mend what's broken inside him.

"Perhaps you should try the spirit oasis," she suggests kindly. "I've found that meditating there always eases my mind."

x

"Please," he begs into the night, "tell me where I can find him. He is my son, my only son, there is no one more precious to me than him."

The ground around him shifts and fades. Light and dark interweave until they are indistinguishable.

"I only want to see his face again, one last time."

His mortal flesh lies in trance back in the spirit oasis in the heart of the North Pole. Here, he is a phantom spirit, he supposes, an astral projection of himself. But the tears that slide down his face are real, as they drip from his chin and splash into the water before him.

The surface of the water ripples and distorts before it stills again. But the face looking back at him in his reflection is not his own.

"There," says the spirit with Lu Ten's face harshly. "You've seen it. Now return to your people, Iroh of the Fire Nation."

"Please," he gasps out, "Take me instead, I would gladly give my life for his, only let him go, he was young, he had his whole life ahead –"

"Ha!" The spirit lets out a derisive snort. "How arrogant you are! You play god with the lives of other, and then come to our realm on bended knee thinking to cheat death?"

"I…I only meant –"

"You heedlessly spread the violence of your father and his father before him, and now you have paid the price," the spirit in the water continues. "You will accept this, and you will live as you have always lived. A weak-willed, malleable fool, too afraid of his father to stand up for what he believed in."

It's too much, it's all too much for Iroh to handle. But the face is still Lu Ten's, even if it looks at him with cool, hateful eyes, and everything swells up inside him, everything that he's keep dammed up inside him for months now –

"I love you," he chokes out, great heaving sobs racking through his once-powerful body. "I love you and I've lost you and it's all my fault. I will never make this right."

"I know," says Lu Ten, and disappears for good.

x

He collides back into his body with a forceful jolt, wheezing for breath while the world spins around him.

And burned into his mind, the image of his son's face, glaring at him accusingly, holding him accountable for all the sins of his past.

Because in the end, they were right, he realizes. They've always been right.

For Iroh's greatest failure hasn't been to his country when he abandoned the siege of Ba Sing Se, nor was it to his son who died as a consequence of his actions.

It has been to the world.

It has been to himself.

How many times had he tried to temper his father's authoritarian rule with mercy, to no avail? How many times had he tried to repay treachery with compassion, only to hold back at the last moment for fear of being seen as weak and exploitable? How many times had he held his tongue and let innocent men burn on his watch?

"I," he whispers to himself finally through ragged breaths, "am not a good man."

The silence of the tranquil nighttime air follows his words, broken only by the sounds of splashing, flowing water. It is jarring that such a peaceful place should bear witness to his utter devastation.

"Not many men in this world are," says a voice from behind him, and he startles to full attention.

Turning his head, he spots an old man standing before him. He is built in the mold of the Water Tribesmen, tall and lean and muscled. His long hair has gone white, and is held back from his face in beaded braids. From his posture, Iroh can tell that he is a waterbender, and a good one too.

At the moment, this dignified stranger is glancing at him quizzically, with one thin eyebrow arched.

"Who are you? And what are you doing here?"

Iroh does not fault him for his confusion.

"My name is Lee," he says with well-practiced ease by now, which somewhat masks the residual quavers in his voice, "I am a traveler from the Earth Kingdom."

"Bit far from home, aren't you?"

Iroh has no response.

"What possessed you to visit the North Pole of all places?" the stranger continues incredulously.

"Many reasons," Iroh says vaguely. "I was told to come here and meditate, by one of the women from your tribe –"

The stranger's sour face twists into a snort of derision.

"Must have been Yugoda."

"Yes, that was her name." His voice is still hoarse and somewhat raw as he rubs at his face with the hem of his worn traveling cloak. What a fool he must look. "She told me it would ease my mind."

Now both of the stranger's eyebrows have shot up.

"Miserable old fool," he mutters under his breath before turning his attention back to Iroh.

"Well, did it?" he queries sardonically. His voice is as sour as his face, yet there is something strangely comforting about it all the same.

"No," Iroh admits forlornly, thinking of his son's face staring at him from the surface of the water, speaking the words of a vengeful spirit. "No, it did not."

"Pity," says the old man with a shrug. "Me neither."

x

(half time goes by / suddenly you're wise)

Somehow he ends up back in the old waterbender's tent, drinking tea (which Iroh must admit is not half bad) and playing a taxing game of pai sho. His adversary, who has introduced himself as Pakku, is the most skilled player he's encountered in his life. When Iroh is soundly defeated twice in a row, he can scarcely believe it.

"You play this game extremely well," he comments, wide-eyed. "I don't believe I have lost a game of pai sho in a very long time."

"That is clear to me from the way you play," Pakku returns, bringing his cup of tea to his lips and inhaling the steam slowly. "Your strategies are very aggressive, but they are also very predictable."

"Perhaps I am just out of practice," Iroh sighs. "There is scarcely time for such things anymore. Nobody appreciates the art of a good game of pai sho."

Pakku's shoulders stiffen as he takes a long gulp of tea and sets his cup back down on the ground.

"Indeed," he says in reply. "But you show some skill in adapting to different maneuvers. Perhaps there is hope for you yet."

Iroh thinks of Lu Ten's blank face and shakes his head.

"I don't believe there is."

"Whatever it is," Pakku continues, his flinty, mean face taking on harder edges in the firelight, "you must realize that life goes on, yes?"

Iroh realizes that they are no longer talking about pai sho.

"Life," he answers bitterly, "has a way of making fools of us all."

Pakku shrugs.

"It happens to all of us eventually," he remarks, the lightness of his voice belying the ghost of past hurts too painful to talk about.

"I was just so sure," Iroh continues, "that I was right. That I was doing the right thing for my family, for my country."

The silence stretches out between them before Pakku fixes him with a knowing, piercing stare.

"Who are you, really?" he questions, and there is no judgment in his voice, only curiosity and something that could be empathy.

Iroh weighs his chances. He could insist on his disguise but he is so tired and sick of running away, and this surprisingly perceptive old man with the eyes that see everything has probably already figured him out.

"Do you really want to know? You will not like what I have to say."

"I don't like anything," Pakku returns flatly. "Try your best."

Iroh makes the decision to cut his losses right then and there.

"Very well," he says. "Then you must know that I lied to you earlier, to conceal my true identity."

"That was obvious," Pakku observes dryly, crossing his arms across his chest.

"My name is Iroh, and I was heir to the throne of the Fire Nation," he continues, a weight disappearing from his chest like a ton of stones, even as his heart hammers away madly. "Now my son is dead and my brother has taken the throne in my place."

Pakku's reaction is woefully inadequate. He raises an eyebrow, but that is all.

"Do you intend to take your throne back?" he asks, and Iroh is thrown by his question.

"What? No, of course not!"

"Why not? If I was in your place, I would."

"Why? Because – because –" Iroh struggles with himself but ultimately it slips out of him, the one truth he's been running away from all this time, it's caught up with him and finally he's ready to admit it, "because I don't care."

Pakku takes another sip of his tea but his face is carefully neutral.

"Nothing good has ever come from anything I've done in the name of that throne," he continues on doggedly, the tirade pouring forth without ebbing, "and I have no way to make it right again."

"Are you sure?" Pakku asks carefully.

Iroh can't believe his ears.

"How can you ask me that? Don't you know who I am? What I've done? How can you sit there so calmly, why – why haven't you revealed who I am and thrown me into the sea?"

"Because I know who you are," Pakku answers calmly, "I know you that you were raised to think of yourself in a certain way. I know you feel deep shame over your past actions, and have lost the one you loved most because of them. And I know you would do anything to make it right again."

He sets down his cup on the table once again.

"Would you?" Iroh dares to guess, wondering what darkness hides beneath Pakku's stone-cold exterior.

He is rewarded with a small, mirthless smile.

"I don't know," he replies. "It's never enough. But it's better than nothing. Then again, I don't even know what I did wrong. I don't suppose I'll ever see her again, at any rate."

Iroh is surprised, but he feels a twinge of sympathy for the man.

"Maybe you will," he suggests. "I know one day, I will see my son again. And I – " he meets Pakku's eyes hesitantly, "- I want to be a better person when I do."

"It won't be easy," Pakku warns him.

"Nothing worth doing ever is."

Pakku nods slowly once, looking as though he is thinking very hard about something.

"Very well," he says, reaching into his sleeve.

He places a tile in the shape of a white lotus onto the centre of the board.

(the sun is getting high / we're moving on)

PART III: DEATH

(i'm 99 for a moment / and dying for just another moment)

x

"Iroh, beloved uncle of the Fire Lord for years beyond count, and Fire Lord on his behalf on occasion. You were the famed Dragon of the West, the General of the Imperial Army –"

"No, no, no," Iroh interrupts weakly, frowning at his nephew. "You make me sound grim and humourless."

"Have you ever attended a state funeral, Uncle? They're not exactly cheerful displays," Zuko returns dryly. Nevertheless, he crumples up the scroll he's been working on and draws up a fresh sheet.

"Then maybe you should liven them up a bit," Iroh returns with a grin. "Mention something like my skill with the tsungi horn, or my popularity with the ladies!"

"I have to be truthful, Uncle."

They are in a small flat in Ember Island, where Iroh has lived in peaceful retirement. He has long since turned management of his beloved Jasmine Dragon over to a couple of candidates he's hand-picked and groomed over the years. It is in good hands, he gladly believes.

Zuko is about to become a grandfather himself, now. His daughter has taken over reign of the prosperous Fire Nation, leaving Zuko to advise, serve, and live out his days in peace.

The thought of it all fills Iroh with pride he cannot begin to describe.

"Zuko," he says abruptly, the tone of his voice cutting through the levity of their exchanges.

"Yes, Uncle?"

Now Zuko is staring at him attentively.

Did I ever tell you that you are my life's greatest accomplishment?

Because it's true. More than re-mastering firebending from the dragons, or learning to redirect lightning, or reconquering Ba Sing Se with only a handful of his White Lotus friends.

"What is it?"

In Zuko, he has found a part of himself that he had thought lost forever when Lu Ten had died.

"Sing me a song," he says instead.

Zuko's eyes widen in shock, but he collects himself. Moments later, he clears his throat.

"Leaves on the vine, falling so slow
Like tiny fragile shells, drifting in the foam…"

His nephew has never held a tune in his life, but no music has ever sounded so sweet to Iroh's ears.

"Little soldier boy comes marching home
Brave soldier boy comes marching home…"

Iroh smiles, closes his eyes for the last time, and departs.

(there's never a wish better than this / when you only got a hundred years to live)