... as it were...

>and considered it a fair exchange before Azana came
>along, by which time that it was obvious it was too late.

That may be so. However, it's worth noting that, although the general was just as surprised as Azera when that happened, he was also quite delighted.

Still, had he lived another year or two, he would probably have given Azera what she wanted: a Suitable Residence in Caldera City and his tacit permission to go and do whatever it was she was planning to do there, while he remained in Shu Jing and tended his garden. By that point Azana would have pretty amply demonstrated that she could get along fine without a distant, vaguely hostile mother figure, and Izuno would've given up his lingering hope that Azera would ever be anything but. As for the rest, eh, at his age, what of it.

Unfortunately, he died, which in the weird game of Fire Nation high society, left Azera considerably more circumscribed than she would've been if he'd been alive. As General Izuno's wayward second wife, she could have cut a deliciously scandalous figure in Capital society. As his widow, she faces a different set of social expectations. On some level, Azana probably sympathizes a little, at least in the abstract.

(Karana doesn't.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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