Azula and her Daughter
By Vifetoile
This is a companion piece to my other story, 'Marisa and her Mother,' which can be found on my profile. Thank you for reading! More chapters to come.
Basically, this came about as a very strange idea that I had that would not let me alone. Ever. Until I wrote it down and wrote it out. I own neither Azula, nor her world, nor the world of Lyra's Oxford, but then, I never pretended to.
First Scroll
Blaze in me, O Lord Agni, that the words I speak may be clear and true, and ignite spirit and understanding into all who read them.
I, Lady Azula, do put down this record for the Fire Nation scrolls. On this eve of Midwinter, I, the daughter of Fire Lady Ursa, daughter of Lady Shani, shall record the years of my exile following the coronation of my brother Zuko. Many times I have attempted to record these events, both in writing and in speech, but interruptions or mocking disbelief have quelled my efforts up to now. I shall not be denied any longer. I have chosen a mute scribe who will not laugh at me. I have retired to Ember Island, away from what might distract me. This is fitting. It is here that my story began.
When Sozin's Comet came and left – that day, my life broke.
How I can recall that day clearly? My mind was still recovering from the agony and the ecstasy of the Comet, the glorious Comet of the once-in-a-lifetime fire.
The Earth Kingdom addicts to cactus powder refer to being on a mental 'high,' and 'crashing' afterwards. I, to borrow their vulgar phrase, was still 'crashing.'
I remember very little of the immediate aftermath. My brother provided for me to be taken to the North side of Ember Island, which possesses a widely renowned asylum for mental patients. I did not react well to being put there. I had lost everything that I had relied on or believed in, everything. However, I still had my bending, unlike my father.
I bode my time.
For five years I languished in the mental asylum, watching the sun set through my little window. Sometimes Mai, the reigning Fire Lady, would pay me a visit. Sometimes Ty Lee, dressed up like a Kyoshi doll, would sit by me in friendly silence. I never spoke to them. To speak would have been to ask why.
There were exercises. Walks in the grass. Days to fly kites if the weather was nice. I had times outside of my room. But my doctors never seemed to see a change in my condition, though I did change. I became again coherent, became a ghost of my old self again. I just hid my development from them with stony silence. I felt it every day, more keenly, my status – prisoner.
Five long years, I waited.
Then, one summer twilight, I escaped, I don't remember how.
I ran along the shore, away from habitation. As the sun started to set, I climbed onto the rocks to be as close to the Western horizon as possible. But when I looked behind me, I saw two things: one, that the high tide had cut off any way for me to get away, and that soon it would swamp me entirely. I retreated into the caves on the water's edge, hoping maybe the water would not rise there.
This is where my story always meets with disbelief. I saw a window in the air, hovering without moving in the air of the cave. Through that window, it was also sunset, but I could see clouds, and trees as one sees in the colder parts of our homeland. I felt a cold wind coming from there. It was someplace else.
Again, I didn't think. I scrabbled over the rocks. Once I slipped and screamed when my foot hit the water. When I approached the window, I looked through and felt a colder wind. It still hovered some distance away. If I jumped and missed, it was a narrow crevice in the rocks, and I would likely be trapped, unable to crawl up the rocks as the tide rose.
I looked at the window again, and jumped through.
I landed on grass – grass growing on thick, peaty soil. The sea air was only behind me. I moved like an animal, forward, not caring for destination, just wishing to move, to run. So I ran, and kept running, until the window was out of sight. I was in another world. In the wind, the food, the trees, I could feel the difference with every part of me. Even the sunlight – though it allowed me to Firebend, still, I knew it was a different sun.
I wandered around for several days, eating meat that I caught and cooked myself. To be honest, I quite lost track of time. I followed one road inland. One evening, I heard bells ringing, low and far away, as I fell asleep.
When I woke up, I was being jolted along, and covered with a sheet. When I pulled it off, I saw that I was traveling along a road in a cart with vegetables in it. A young man was driving it, his back to me. A dog sat beside him.
What occurs to me now is that the man must have found me on the road and assumed me to be a dead body, for reasons I'll explain later, and so, intending respect, he put me on the cart to take me to a fit burial site.
Then I had no idea what was going on, but I sat up and demanded it. At once the dog started barking in alarm, and whimpering. He stopped the team of horses and turned around. I grabbed him by the collar and threatened him for his treatment of me. He spoke to me, but I could not understand a word he said. His face was unlike anything I'd seen before. His nose and eyes were very large, and he had hair the color of sand.
I demanded of him where I was, who he was, and what Nation he belonged to. His dog kept making such a racket, barking and yelping, that I shot fire at her, and singed her fur. The man yelped back as if I had burned him. He threw off my grip with the strength of panic and scooped the dog up in his arms, and did not look back at me, but ran down the road. That was my first guess as to the nature of the two, the human and – the animal.
I was baffled, and had learned nothing. It wasn't a total waste, however. I claimed the cart for my own, took it into a by-road, and had enough vegetables to make a sufficient diet for a few days, even if I did have to cook them in my own hands. I was happy enough.
After a time, a strange delight stole into my veins and animated my being. I had food, and I was in an entirely new world. By night I traced out new constellations, heard the song of perfectly alien birds. I could forget the smug smile on the face of that Water Tribe witch as she slipped her arm around Zuko. I could forget Ty Lee and Mai's faces at last.
A day passed while I gathered strength. I was not in any sort of hurry. It was not luxurious at all – I had to bathe in a stream – but what would have troubled me before did not trouble me now. I was alone, in solitude, and unable to understand the language, yet I was not lonely. I felt free.
That feeling did not last. Soon I grew very stiff and unhappy with sleeping on the wooden cart, and my vegetables grew rotten. I bathed in the stream, made myself as presentable as I could, and then marched into the village whose church bell I had heard for several days.
What a sight I must have made! I could not put my hair into the traditional topknot, so I let it sit heavy over my shoulders. I still wore the inmate's toga of the asylum, but I cleaned it as well as I could.
As I walked down the street, I got many strange, wide-eyed glances. Everyone had the same large eyes and pale hair as the man on the cart – in fact, I did see him at one point, goggling at me like any commoner. I lifted my chin and refused to be bowed. I approached him and demanded to be taken to the governor.
From behind, someone hit me over the head, with something hard. I blacked out.