Title: Coping
Characters: Iroh
Prompt: #37 Turbulence
Rating: G
Summary: Iroh reflects on difficult times in his life.
Disclaimer: I do not own avatar the last airbender

As Iroh fled though the dark halls of the prison, he couldn’t help but to wonder about Zuko. Since Zuko was banished Iroh had wanted to help his nephew understand ups and downs of life and to be able to cope with them. Iroh felt that when he dwelled too much on his own problems, his life was worse for it.

He remembered the first major tragedy in his life: his mother’s death. He was fairly young at the time, but he had always had a very strong bond with his mother. It had felt like the end of the world, at that time, without of her support. Iroh discovered that others encouraged him as much as she did and so he was able to move on.

There were many times during his military career Iroh had made mistakes and had to pay for them. There were a lot of casualties in his regime because of a foolish mistake of his. He felt that he had let a lot of people down. He had even gone to Azulon and had a very intense conversation about them. It made him dwell on the subject even more. In time, life began to feel better for Iroh, he was more aware of what methods cause problems and he had more confidence in his military strategy.

Iroh remembered the worst moment of his life. Lu Ten’s death. It had a long-lasting devastating impact in his life. The death of his beloved son itself was bad enough but during Iroh’s depressed state he was taken advantage of. Ozai had worked hard to convince their father of his brother’s inability to rule the Fire Nation. Luckily for Iroh his father was supportive of him, but because his state he didn’t realize how far Ozai would go to gain power.

The situation went from bad to worse. It hurt Iroh greatly, but the Dragon of the West recovered from it. But still he couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t been so grief-stricken he would still have lost his rightful place of throne to his brother.

It wasn’t until he spoke up, volunteering to accompany the newly exiled youth that Iroh began to take interest in his nephew’s personal life. Iroh wanted to be there to guide him and teach him to cope before he lost his rightful place on the throne to Azula.