Ursa was never taught to do this.

Of course, she received the best tutors her parents could afford- insipid, frivolous governesses who instructed her in flower arranging and tea ceremony and fan dancing. She became an obedient, graceful woman, pretty of face and quick to smile, and she managed to wed far above her station.

Nobody ever bothered to tell her how to survive a husband. What to do when your father-in-law demands your son's life as tribute. Where to stab a man so that your dagger doesn't catch on his ribs. (Azula would know. She was raised in the new Fire Nation, the one that makes warriors out of eight-year-old girls and trains them to kill without flinching. Azula has always- always- been braver than her.)

There's dark blood staining her delicate murderess's hands, embedding itself beneath her nails and seeping through the sleeves of her robe. Azulon is sprawled across the crimson carpet, his expression frozen in shock. You underestimated me. You thought I'd cower and hide while Ozai slayed my only son, and it was your downfall. How does it feel?

Slowly, painstakingly, she removes the blade. Poison would have been a far cleaner option, but the Fire Lord has grown paranoid in his old age. If she had shown up in his bedchamber with two cups of coffee, innocently asking if they could have a nice talk together, he'd make her drink from both cups first.

A shallow washbasin is present in the corner of the room. She scrubs furiously at her arms, trying to clean off the sin, and fails to do more than defile the water. Is this really her, sweet little Ursa, who was always held up as a shining example to all of the other young ladies? Her mother could not have possibly envisioned such a future.

She quickly shoves her soiled robe into the back of Azulon's closet and dresses in the peasants' garb she's brought with trembling fingers, folding the tunic right over left as though this is her funeral (in a way, it is). She wants to scream. Perhaps, if she had been bred differently, she would have.

Once she pulls a hood over her head, she is no longer recognizable as a princess. She has a task left, one far more difficult than the prior, and it requires skulking through the corridors of a place she used to call her home without being apprehended.

Forgive me, Zuko. Remember- I did this all for you.