They'd dressed her son as the Firelord. The robes, the hair, the crown, every part of the formal dress. They'd dressed her son as the Firelord and put him on the throne, and the fires in the throneroom hearths danced with colors she had never seen in fire before.

"Firelord Zuko," Ursa said, offering the lightest of bows.

He smiled down at her behind the curtain of flames, and she feared how bad things had become that Iroh had let her mad son be crowned.

Maybe her brother-in-law was dead. Or worse.

She shied away from thoughts of Ozai.

"Mother," Zuko said with delight and stepped down from his throne. The flames parted to let him through, bits of it winding around him like a pet. "You came back."

"Of course," she said, and then Zuko wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her shoulder. She hugged him back, nuzzling the top of his head very gently. "My poor boy. What happened to you-"

A familiar and not-at-all familiar hand squeezed her rear.

"Zuko," she said in a tight voice, "What are you doing?"

"Don't you love me, Mother?" Zuko tilted his head up to look at her, smile winsome as he kneaded her like he had experience. Far too much experience for a boy of sixteen.

Her blood ran cold. "Zuko, baby, not like that-"

His other hand crept to her shoulder, then knuckles brushed against her cheek. His eyes were so bright, and then-

He kissed her. Thoroughly, and she could feel his hardness against her hip.

Ursa reacted instinctively, her knee coming up to catch the young man in the solar plexus, a controlled fireblast shoving him away to go skidding across the polished wooden floors. She panted, her lips feeling swollen, her body aching for Ozai-

Zuko pulled himself to his feet, hair in disarray, expression so wounded it made her heart break.

"Oh, Zuko, honey," she said softly. "What happened to you?"