What is it like, losing a son? The king doesn't say what is it like to have grief? but Iroh hears it behind it, in the attentive set of the man's head and the slightly-too-interested tone of his voice. This man, whose parents died when he was too young to remember, who never had siblings who betrayed him or children to lose. Iroh doesn't know how to talk to this man without hate rising in his voice. He goes home, and he pours tea for himself, and for Lu Ten, and he keeps both cups hot for hours without drinking a drop.

Coming up into Iroh's rich, posh tea shop, with the matrons of the Upper Ring laughing into their sleeves and the soft clink of tea bowls, smoothing down their new fine clothes, glancing across the counter into the back of the shop. Every time, Iroh wonders if someone will stop and say his name.

And what he'll do if they do. It seems so unlikely that nobody would, but it keeps not happening. His own importance here is not with his own face, certainly not with his hair so white. It is so strange.