Chapter Text
The most trusted method of identifying a child’s second sex was patience. Every omega would have their first heat, and every alpha would have their rut. If not for the fact that the third sex - beta - never had either, it would simply be a waiting game. But when the matter of inheritance and lineage is on the line, it rarely feels that we have years to waste waiting. Luckily, for centuries the more impatient parents of the four nations had been devising their own methods for identifying a child’s second sex.
In the Southern Water Tribe, they would bathe the child in puffin-seal fats, then make them stand downstream of a cold wind. Whatever shape the fats took when they froze could be used to predict the child’s second sex.
Meanwhile, in balmy jungles farther north, the sun warriors used math: if the mother’s year of birth added to the child’s year of birth produced an even number, it would be an omega; an odd number was an alpha; but any prime number would be a beta, regardless of whether it was even or odd.
And it’s said that in Omashu, they would hold the child upside down by their ankles for ten minutes - an unorthodox method, to be sure, but if the child passed out, they were an omega; if they stayed awake, but were unable to stand afterwards, they were a beta; and if they stood steadily on their own two feet, they were an alpha. (Although parents were warned to take note of how red their child’s face was - for a particularly resilient beta could often bring themselves to stand, but would be beet red for some time afterward.)
These were all, of course, superstitions. Ozai didn’t intend to trust the identification of his children’s status on the whims of ancient wise women looking to get a laugh and a yuan out of gullible townsfolk. There were doctors who claimed to be able to divine a child’s second sex with a thorough examination, and Ozai, who had coaxed his father into embracing the technological advancements of war, also planned to embrace scientific advancements regarding sex and status. If Azula and Zuko were to enter their teenage years without presenting, Ozai would simply call upon a doctor who could put an end to the conversation once and for all. Ozai hadn’t claimed Avatar Roku’s only descendant as his mate because he wanted to be cursed with two sterile, beta children, and if that was the case, he needed to be able to plan for his legacy.
Years ago when he devised this plan, Ozai had been foolish enough to share it with his older brother. He would not usually broach the subject of status with Iroh, but the birth of Azula had filled him with a deep sense of foreboding. In a moment of weakness, he had confessed to his plan.
“You don’t need a fancy doctor to tell you all that,” Iroh had chuckled. “You just need a little ginseng, a copper pot, and-”
“Do not speak another word of your folksy drivel,” Ozai interrupted. “We will bring a doctor to examine the children, and that is final.” He punctuated this point by setting his cup of tea down none too gently. Ursa shot him a look for this indiscretion, but as with most of her moods, he ignored it.
“I don’t see the need for a rush. These things happen in their own time.” Iroh scratched his beard, chuckling. “I seem to remember a young man whose status didn’t become apparent until… how old were you, Ozai? Seventeen?”
“Sixteen,” he hissed, scowling at his older brother.
Ursa gave a quick, light laugh. “I had no idea you were such a late-bloomer, Ozai. I think I finally understand your anxiety around the matter.” The glare he shot her was so poisonous, the playful smile died on her lips immediately.
“There is no need to worry, Ozai. Our family has a tendency towards strapping, alpha boys.” Iroh beat his chest when he said this, and laughed at his own whimsy. “And even if Zuko and the new baby are no such alphas, it wouldn’t be such a tragedy. Betas hold all sorts of positions in power now. We live in a new era, and we don’t need to rely on the old ways.”
“That’s all well and good, Iroh, but it doesn’t ensure I’ll have a legacy to leave behind.” Irate, Ozai stood and stalked to the window, avoiding his wife and his brother’s judgemental looks. “If Zuko could not produce an heir…”
Iroh snorted. “He’s not producing any heirs. He’s two years old.”
“...And neither of our children are next in line to be the Fire Lord. So heirs are beside the point.” Ursa looked beseechingly at Iroh, as if to ask, Do you hear this treachery, in your brother’s voice? Why am I the one pointing this out?
“You say I should have no heirs, as if my individual legacy means nothing to you.” Despite the rage he felt, Ozai didn’t spare his wife a glance. Instead he looked out upon the courtyard, beyond to the roofs of houses and city proper. In his mind’s eye, he could see the entire Fire Nation laid out before him. His domain. His birthright. “If neither child’s status is satisfactory, we will need to try again.”
How frankly royalty talked, behind closed doors, and how openly husband and wife fixed one another with bitter eyes.
Iroh stood. “I am weary of having to listen to my brother speak of his children like chattel, so I’ll be going now. My ship disembarks at dawn. Wish me good luck, Ozai.” Ozai gave a dismissive wave, but said nothing more.
Years after three adults discussed the fate of children barely old enough to teethe, a sixteen year-old Zuko watched his mother cry. He was still at an age where watching a parent cry was an unnerving experience, especially in circumstances like this. She wasn’t wiping a stray tear from her eye as she sat in the drawing room with some novel, or with her family in the audience of a tragic Ember Island romance; she was openly sobbing in the middle of the courtyard, amongst guards and servants, spectators, because a messenger had just told them that Lu Ten was dead.
“How awful,” she kept saying. “Oh, poor, poor Iroh.”
Poor Lu Ten , Zuko thought. He remembered his cousin in gentle bouts of rough-housing, in sympathetic ruffles of the hair, keeping him and his sister company when their parents were in another room, talking about whatever mysterious things adults discussed out of the earshot of children.
Even as a teenager, Lu Ten had been a master firebender - he excelled not only in combat, but the sort of illusions usually reserved for street-performers, much beneath the purview of a crown prince, but enchanting to his little cousins nonetheless. Zuko remembered Lu Ten conjuring a bird made of fire - nothing as ostentatious as a phoenix, but a little bird, what was it? a finch? - and seeing Azula’s eyes go huge. “Show me!” she demanded. “Show me how, Lu Ten!” And she reached out with small, chubby toddler’s hands.
“Don’t touch, Azula!” The bird disappeared in a wisp of smoke. His sister began to tear up, and Lu Ten knelt down to comfort her. Zuko remembered how Lu Ten’s gentle voice warned them that for all its beauty, fire could do them irrevocable harm. “But if you work hard at your bending, someday I’ll show you how to conjure a bird all by yourself,” he said, with a wink. But he had never shown them, and now he never would.
Zuko wanted to ask Azula if she remembered the fire bird, but before he could speak, she turned away with her arms crossed and her jaw rigid. “Now Uncle Iroh has no heir,” she said, almost under her breath. Azula said almost everything in a shout, so it was a little impressive to hear her speak so softly now. “And his mate is dead, besides. If he becomes the Fire Lord, it will just be a dead end. Grandfather should just stop delaying the inevitable and make Father the heir in Iroh’s place.”
“Azula!” Ursa snatched her daughter by the elbow and shouted, eyes red with tears, “How dare you speak of your uncle that way, when he’s just suffered a great and terrible loss!”
“Everyone else is thinking it,” Azula argued. “Why don’t you want your own husband to take the throne?”
“What you’re saying is treason ,” Ursa cried, and Zuko was again aware of the fact that they weren’t alone. The guards and servants were respectfully avoiding eye contact, but they heard this outburst. They would undoubtedly talk amongst themselves, and news could easily make its way back to the Fire Lord.
Azula’s face twisted. “You always punish me for praising Father. He’s your own husband and you hate him! You’re a terrible wife and a terrible mother!”
Zuko watched in horror as his gentle mother smacked Azula across the face. He was too shocked to say anything, but in the horrified silence that followed, he wondered why Azula let her do that. He had seen Azula fight, and knew there was no end to her cruelty - why wouldn’t she simply burn her way out of their mother’s grasp? And then the answer revealed itself, an imperious voice calling out to them from the Lesser Hall.
“Ursa!” Ozai thundered. “Unhand Azula, immediately!”
Ozai was standing just a few feet away, cloaked in the shadows of the awning. Zuko couldn’t see his father’s expression, but he knew from his tone of voice that it could not be good. Their mother let Azula go, although more out of shock at seeing Ozai than anything. Azula gave a momentary, gleeful smile before putting on a dramatic pouting face and rubbing her cheek.
Their father stalked across the garden towards them, and as the sunlight hit his face Zuko could see every handsome angle was rigid with anger. He turned to the servants and guards gathered and snarled, “Get out of here! If I hear that a single one of you spoke of this incident, I will have you hung over the battlements!”
Everyone scattered, leaving the family of four to sort out their issues alone. Azula crept out of Ozai’s path to stand with Zuko, still pouting and rubbing her face.
Ursa’s expression was fearful. “Ozai, you have to understand. Azula was saying the most terrible things about your brother. Lu Ten has died-”
“I don’t care if Iroh himself is dead,” Ozai snarled. “You will not make a fool of yourself and of me in front of the help!”
Zuko was terrified his father would strike his mother, but instead he grabbed her roughly by the arm and leaned close. “You will not lay a hand on my daughter again. Do you understand?”
Ursa nodded, lips pursed to keep her composure. After one long, tense silence, Ozai let her go.
“Make yourself presentable. The doctor is going to be here in half an hour, and we all need to behave in a manner befitting royalty. I will not have some stranger privy to our family’s shame.” With that, Ozai stalked back towards the house. Ursa stood, trembling, before heading for a different entrance a good distance away.
Beside Zuko, Azula was still rubbing her cheek, but her expression was an incongruous one of pure bliss. Zuko scowled at her. “Mother hit you on the left.”
“Oh. Whoops.” Azula switched sides. It only angered him more.
“You shouldn’t have made Mother angry!”
“She shouldn’t have hit me,” Azula sniffed.
Zuko faltered. “It - it didn’t even hurt you!”
The way Azula’s lips curved into a smile reminded him of a viper in the grass, striking at its prey. “You’re just angry at me because you did nothing to defend Mother. You stood there and watched Father intimidate her like a scared little baby. Some fierce firebender you’ve turned out to be.”
Before the doctor arrived, the family was meant to gather in one of the parlors adjoining the windowless inner-rooms of the house. Ozai had ordered them cleaned and carefully arranged per the doctor’s request, to allow the best examination environment right inside the royal palace. In the time leading up to the appointment he was pacing the room, expression tense, when Ursa entered. She realized too late that her children had not yet arrived, and immediately regretted her decision, not wanting to be alone with Ozai. But he spotted her before she could leave.
“Sit,” he ordered. After a moment of hesitation, she obeyed.
Ursa almost expected Ozai to continue to berate her for her earlier behavior, but Ozai only continued to wordlessly pace the room. The silence that stretched between them made Ursa so anxious she felt she must break it or fall ill.
“Do you know if the doctor’s exam will be invasive?”
“I don’t know the particulars.”
He continued to pace, not looking at her. She fidgeted. “What do you think the results will be?”
Ozai rolled his eyes. “If I had any way of knowing that, I wouldn’t have sent for a doctor.”
Ursa smoothed her hands over her lap and stared at the dark ripples of fabric. Truthfully, she was worried for Zuko. She’d seen this before - Ozai had spent years consumed with the paranoia that Zuko would not be a firebender, and was hostile and critical of him over everything as a result. Even when Zuko finally summoned his first flame, Ozai had only slightly relaxed his onslaught. She didn’t want to know how he would react if Zuko turned out to be anything but an alpha.
Ozai stopped pacing suddenly, and seemed to reconsider Ursa’s question. “For the most part, I trust Azula is an alpha - her excellent bending skills and natural mental and athletic aptitude imply she will have superior presentation. But I don’t want to waste any resources.”
“You presented late, didn’t you?” Ursa thought she recalled Iroh telling her as such years ago. “Couldn’t Azula and Zuko be the same? They’re only fourteen and sixteen.”
“Yes.” Ozai gritted his teeth. “But I presented on my sixteenth birthday exactly. Zuko turned sixteen in July. It is now September.”
“...I wish you wouldn’t be so hard on Zuko. He’s your son, and he only wants to make you happy.”
“That is rich, Ursa, considering your clear preference. I fail to see how I am being hard on Zuko when I am subjecting both of our children to the same treatment. Or did you forget whatever invasive procedure you’re imagining might be performed on your daughter, too?”
“I did not forget,” Ursa lied. Well, not lied. She had remembered Azula was included. She had just forgotten Azula could be hurt by anything so mortal as a doctor. Or a mother’s hand. She really should apologize to her later. “And I do not just mean this doctor's visit. You are frequently unfair to Zuko.”
“Azula is frequently excelling in her studies and Zuko is frequently falling behind her, despite being two years her senior,” Ozai mocked. “You are too soft on him. He’ll never be the Fire Lord if he’s constantly clinging to his mother.”
Fury rose up in Ursa’s chest. “He will never be the Fire Lord because you will never be the Fire Lord.”
She expected to be punished for the venom in her voice. But Ozai only addressed her in an uncharacteristically calm tone. “We will see.”
What could that mean? Azula’s earlier words about Ozai deserving the crown more than Iroh suddenly came to mind. Was the girl simply idolizing her father, or was she privy to deeper secrets? It unnerved Ursa to consider that her husband was discussing such treason, and that he’d entrust a child as his confidant.
From the hallway arose the familiar bickering of their children. Ursa held back her questions of Ozai’s loyalty as Zuko and Azula stumbled into the room, poking and prodding and arguing until Ozai silenced them with a furious shout.
Sonzehn hoped he was a picture of professional calm, because the cold hand of terror was ringing his neck, and making his voice sound shaky and feeble to his ears. He knew that today could either be the last day of his life, or the beginning of a long and illustrious career in medicine. If he brought good news, he would be exalted, the most sought-after doctor in the kingdom. And if he brought bad, well - he simply wouldn’t bring bad news. He would lie, and run far, far away, before Prince Ozai found out the truth and had him executed.
When the children were brought out to him, Sonzehn couldn’t have guessed what the results would be. The truth was, no matter the personality, the skills, the thickness of the jaw, the softness of the features, there were few ways to predict secondary sex without thorough examnation. Yes, female alphas tended towards height and solid build, but he’d identified plenty that were small and spry like this Azula. Yes, plenty of male betas tended towards a certain level of androgyny - but this was a child standing before him. All children were androgynous. Aside from reproductive capabilities, there was very little that separated each and every sex… and yet Sonzehn was perfectly familiar with the fact that generations lived and died by these differences, persecuting one another and going so far to hurt their own children over imagined inferiority.
Sonzehn swallowed his fear and hoped at least one of the children was an alpha. Otherwise he would have to change his name. He would have to abandon his practice and his sweet wife Mera, and he’d have to resort to selling - oh - cabbages, or something, in a far off kingdom to survive.
He started by explaining the details of the exam to the children’s mother. “I will talk to them before I begin, but I strongly advise that you give them clear expectations.” The careful explanation of a strange old man never compared to the gentle touch of a mother. Still, the girl, Azula, ended up singeing his shirt collar when he went in for a closer look. But it was worth it.
An alpha. He was so relieved, he didn’t even care how the small patch of skin at his neck throbbed from the burn.
“If you do not extract that metal contraption this instant, I will tell the guards you tried to stick your fist inside me,” Azula snarled.
He removed the speculum immediately. How could a child her age even think of such a threat? “I apologize for any pain, my lady. Is it a relief to know you are an alpha?”
But she did not smile. She only flipped a lock of hair out of her eyes and declared, “Of course. It’s pathetic we needed you here just to tell us what we already knew.”
Maybe he imagined it, but there seemed to be a perkiness to her exit from the examination room. (Or what currently passed as an examination room - he was posted in an empty drawing room, ominous portraits of past Fire Lords looming down on him from the walls.) Sonzehn held the door for his patient, and then called out into the hall for the next child.
Although he put on a brave face, Zuko showed his nerves in a way his sister hadn’t. His brow furrowed, his body tensed, and Sonzehn understood why his mother had pleaded to be allowed in the room with him. He seemed as sensitive as she had said, but Sonzehn had refused her offer to hover. Even the most codependent child didn’t want their parent in the room for an examination of this kind.
“You may feel some pressure.”
Zuko sucked in a loud breath.
“No worries. Just a little longer.”
Sonzehn glanced up. The boy wasn’t looking at him - his face was white and his eyes were fixed on some point over the doctor’s shoulder. Doubtless he was making eye contact with one of the Fire Lord portraits behind the doctor - perhaps Sozin.
“It… hurts. Is that normal?”
“Only because you’re not used to it.” Sonzehn pressed down. Another sharp breath. “It’ll get easier, I promise.” And he meant that - the boy was tight with anxiety, so much so that it was hard to even get a finger in. Hopefully with age he could learn to relax his muscles. Still, Sonzehn found what he was looking for. “And… done.”
Sonzehn turned away to remove his gloves. Zuko lay for a moment or two, breathing hard, eyes closed, before he made a move to sit up.
“You haven’t said anything.” A pause, allowing the doctor to fill in the silence. He declined to. “Is it bad?”
“You are perfectly healthy.”
Sonzehn could hear the rustle of clothes, then silence. He turned to find the young prince looking at him expectantly. He considered telling the boy, but he was still deciding what to say to Prince Ozai, and didn’t want to get the wires crossed.
“...Can you fetch your parents for me?”
Zuko looked like he wanted to say something, but he stopped and nodded. When he was gone, Sonzehn was sure that he’d made the right choice in having the boy wait. He could have just a few more minutes in the liminal space of childhood before the truth thrust him into the world of adulthood, of arranged marriages and birthright and the loss of his reproductive agency. Because the truth was worse than beta sterility.
An omega. Spirits - no secondary sex sent parents and society itself into a frenzy quite like omegas did. Sonzehn could only imagine what Prince Ozai would do with the boy.