Rated T for language and some graphic imagery.
Disclaimer: While it is quite unfortunate, Avatar: The Last Airbender and all of its related properties are not under my ownership. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Special thanks to my beta, Devon!
Aang urged Appa onward, tired yet refusing to sleep. He had no idea where he was going, or even really what he was doing, but he definitely knew why: the monks were going to take Gyatso away so he could be "the Avatar," so he wanted nothing to do with any of it.
Aang pointed at a line in the scroll. "Gyatso, what does 'air is the element of freedom' mean?"
"We've been debating that for centuries, Aang."
"Okayyy...but what does it mean?"
Gyatso smiled. "If you want to know what I think, then..." He spread his arms. "We are called Air Nomads, but we spent most of our lives in these monasteries. Did that never seem strange to you?"
"I guess, I dunno. Never really thought about it."
"Not to mention, we claim that to achieve enlightenment one must give themselves up to the world. So why do we separate ourselves from it?"
Aang shrugged.
"You know," Gyatso continued, "in other parts of the world, people who spend decades holed up in a single building are called prisoners."
"So...we're prisoners?"
"Yes." Aang's eyes widened—he couldn't remember a time when Gyatso had been so serious. Gyatso walked to the window and leaned out of it. "We are all prisoners of our natures, our experiences, our roles...our individuality. That is what we Air Nomads seek to separate ourselves from. By giving ourselves up to the world, we lose our individuality and become free." He turned around. "Do you see?"
"Honestly?" Aang grinned. "Not at all."
Gyatso chuckled, walked over, and rubbed Aang's head. "That's—"
A loud crack pealed through the air, jolting Aang out of his memories. With a start, he realized that he had flown Appa straight into a thunderstorm. He pulled on Appa's reins wildly, thinking only of escape.
Until the next lightning bolt struck him.
Prisoner
An Avatar: The Last Airbender oneshot
Rewrite of Trapped
Part One
Azula prided herself on many things. Her power, naturally—she was only ten, but was already close to being a master firebender. Then there was her intelligence, combining both an amazing memory and great strategic prowess. Not to mention her beauty, her physical strength, and of course her status as the Firelord's daughter. Safe to say there was no shortage of very good reasons for Azula to have a very good opinion of herself.
That said, even the lowliest commoner could appreciate those qualities. They were obvious, so to speak. What Azula really prided herself on, the thing that truly set her apart from the rest of humanity, was her wisdom.
Fools would be content with Azula's lot in life, but Azula herself realized that it could all be taken away in an instant. She had experimented when she was younger, and knew just how fragile a thing life was. And she also knew that, with very limited exceptions, the only person you could unreservedly trust was yourself.
So Azula's life philosophy was that the only way to protect yourself was to control everything and every one.
It was pretty fun, too.
She was going to love being Firelord.
Yet again, Firelord Ozai was thinking about the Avatar.
Around 95 years ago his grandfather, the great Firelord Sozin, had attacked the Air Nomads with the benefit of his comet in order to capture the Avatar. They seized the ones who were around the right age and killed the rest, then tortured the captives to find out which one was the Avatar. Unfortunately they gave conflicting answers: most claimed they didn't know, others said he died during the attack. A few even dared to pretend the Avatar had disappeared shortly beforehand, a ridiculous notion; coincidences like that only happened in kabuki plays. Be that as it may, none of themshowed any signs of being the Avatar, so they were all killed too and the situation was mostly chalked up to Spirit World weirdness. Sozin alone had wisely kept up the hunt, with most believing he was mad, though none dared say so to his face.
16 years later, a Southern Water Tribe savage—16 years old, of course—claimed to be the new Avatar, with the bending to prove it. The girl, Hatsuna, united the Southern Water Tribes behind her, and together the barbarians managed to repel the Fire Nation's attacks. Given time she could have allied the Water Tribes with the Earth Kingdom, which may have permanently ended the Fire Nation's glorious mission to civilize the world.
So Firelord Sozin concocted a daring plan to strike at Avatar Hatsuna directly with a small, elite assassination team, led by himself personally. Their advantage was the fact that while Hatsuna's guerrilla tactics were quite effective against armies, she was much less prepared to face a single skilled squad. None of the assassins, Sozin included, survived, but they accomplished their mission. The Avatar was dead and any hope of a worldwide anti-Fire alliance died with her.
The new Firelord, Ozai's father Azulon, blanketed the Earth Kingdom with agents to find and capture the newborn Avatar before it could deal more damage. Unfortunately the new Avatar, Shen, was born in Ba Sing Se, and learned well from Hatsuna's untimely demise. He spent almost all his time holed up in the Earth King's palace, and mostly served as a symbol to boost the morale of the Earth King's army; he never even learned firebending (not that he could've found a master easily, of course).He eventually died at age 65, apparently of natural causes.
That was ten years ago.
The next Avatar—the current Avatar—was Fire. Many of Ozai's advisers were encouraging him to take advantage of that, to use the new Fire Avatar to finish the war once and for all.
Ozai's advisers were not stupid, necessarily, but they were ignorant. They were not aware of the truths Sozin had discovered. The new Avatar was not Fire; indeed, the Avatar was not truly of the Material World at all. The Avatar Spirit's purpose was to keep the Material World weak and ensure it remained under the thumb of the Spirit World. That was why civilization had stagnated until Sozin began his glorious crusade. It was foolish to trust a Fire Avatar to act in the best interests of the Fire Nation, a fact Sozin himself learned through painful personal experience.
Besides, while it was illegal to say so openly, the Fire Nation was not doing well in the war. Hatsuna was only active for four years, but in that time she had fashioned the Southern Tribes into guerrilla armies, and they continued to bedevil the Fire Nation even now. The Earth Kingdom's army still rallied around Shen's name, enough so that Ba Sing Se easily repelled the assault launched after the Avatar's death—though to be fair, that resulted in some positive consequences for Ozai himself.
In any event, the losses were starting to pile themselves up. Victory not only gave the Fire Nation honor and proof of their mission's righteousness, it also gave them resources and spoils of war. Defeat gave them shame, doubt, and poverty. The anti-war faction in the Fire Nation was small, but it was growing with each passing year, despite Ozai's best efforts to crush it. Even if the Avatar held some special regard for its birth country, it could just ally itself with the anti-war traitors and rationalize everything away.
No, it was impossible to control the Avatar. In order for the Fire Nation to fulfill its destiny, in order for Ozai to fulfill his destiny, the Avatar must be eliminated.
By whatever means necessary.
Azula hummed a song as she skipped through the palace. Her firebending was going well. So well, in fact, that over dinner Father had told her she might be able to take her master test soon, perhaps even as early as her eleventh birthday. That would make her the youngest master in the history of the royal family.
"At this rate, you'll even surpass me one day," Father had said. "You may very well become the savior of the Fire Nation." Azula couldn't suppress a wide grin as she flew through the palace, hopping over chairs, sliding around corners, and rolling under servants' legs. When she passed by the garden, though, she ground to a halt.
If possible, her grin got even wider. Slowly, silently, she stalked into the garden and approached the figure sitting by the pond. He didn't make a move as she crept up to his side and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Graah!" Zuko shouted, and jerked so much he almost fell over. Azula giggled.
"Wanna play a game, Zuzu?"
Her wimpy older brother didn't even look her in the eyes. "No."
"Ooooh, are you sulking again, my dear brother?" Azula cooed, leaning over to ruffle his hair.
Zuko batted her hand away. "None of your business."
Azula put on her most innocent expression. She was proud of it; it had taken a while to get just right. "Come on, don't be like that. We're family, right?" Zuko didn't respond. Azula lay down on her back, looked up at him, and said, "Are you still upset about mommy?"
Her brother's face had been in permanent scowl ever since their mother…went away. Whenever Azula brought her up, though, the scowl deepened into a hate-filled glare. It was pretty amusing. "Go away, Azula," he said.
"Can't a sister worry about her—?"
"I said go away!" Zuko stood up, fists clenched, small embers flickering around his body.
Azula continued laying on the ground, arms and legs spread, completely defenseless. She looked up at Zuko with a serene expression. "Don't wanna."
They stared at each other for a few seconds. Then Zuko put his head down in defeat and turned away.
Azula smiled. "Tell me, Zuzu. How does it feel to be such a coward?" she asked his retreating figure.
Normally Zuko became completely sulky and introverted after she beat him, so after the question she sat up, thinking about what she wanted to do for the rest of the night.
"Better than being you," she heard behind her.
She whipped her head around, but Zuko had already left the garden. Azula's vision narrowed, and she could feel waves of heat rolling off her body. Just who did he think he was? Was he out of his mind, saying something like that?
Unfortunately he was already gone, and while Azula really wanted to torch him Father wouldn't be happy if she burned down part of the palace again. So she did breathing exercises to calm down, then stalked off to the training ground. Firebending practice it was.
The person chosen to be her training partner that night was very unlucky.
Iroh had traveled to the Spirit World to try to meet his son again, if only to say goodbye. He failed in this, but his journeys in the Spirit World had taught him much else besides. He hadn't quite become an entirely different person, but he had changed.
Of course, the Material World had changed during his time away, too. Despite steeling himself to expect nothing when he returned to the Fire Nation, his father dead, sister-in-law missing, and honored younger brother sitting on the throne were a little much to take in.
"Uncle Iroh, would you honor me with a practice duel?"
Then again, some things never change. For better or for worse.
"Certainly, my dear niece."
Azula didn't truly want a duel, he knew. She had done this before—try to impress and intimidate him with her skills as a firebender, and probably learn some new moves from him in the bargain. Perhaps her intention was to reassert her dominance after he had been away for so long. That was just how his niece was, the spitting image of her father.
Not unrelatedly, they were also just about the only people he could never forgive. They had blown through too many second chances.
"Of course, my father does not approve of unsanctioned duels, so—"
"I shall not tell a soul, Azula. I give you my word," he said kindly, smiling at her.
She was lying, of course; Ozai didn't care about unsanctioned duels. She didn't want Ozai to know about the duel because she didn't want Ozai to see her lose. Arrogant she certainly was, but she was also smart enough to know when she was outmatched. Her goal was always to put up enough of a fight that Iroh would be scared of her potential abilities. But it never hurt to be polite.
Azula bowed, a picture of perfect courtesy. "You are very kind, Uncle. Is six hours after sunset tonight in the Royal Training Grounds acceptable?"
Iroh nodded.
"Then I hope to see you there." Bowing one more time, she walked away.
Iroh arrived at the grounds exactly on time. About five minutes passed before Azula entered. Likely she had intentionally made him wait.
"I apologize for being late, Uncle. Thank you again for giving me this chance to test my abilities," she said courteously, bowing perfectly once more. "It is rare for me to have an opportunity to go all-out. I do have one request, though."
"For me not to hold back, correct?" It wasn't difficult to guess—that was the same request she always made.
"Yes," she answered casually.
They bowed to each other one final time, and the practice duel began.
Azula fired the opening volley, launching a few fireblasts that Iroh sidestepped easily. He could tell his niece hadn't put much power into them; they weren't even blue. They were warning shots.
He observed Azula carefully as she went through several katas, starting with the most basic patterns and slowly making them more complex and powerful as she went along. Iroh continued dodging them, bending a fireblast out of the way only rarely. No matter how much of a prodigy his niece was, she was still ten, and if she kept progressing through the katas like that she would falter eventually.
And indeed, soon enough, when she tried switching mid-pattern from a kata full of leg sweeps to one composed of rapid palm thrusts, her leg placement was slightly off, causing her to momentarily lose her balance. Iroh responded by balling both his hands into fists and punching forward, bending the chi in his body into two columns of fire angled down at his opponent.
But instead of wildly deflecting his attack and leaving herself open for a finishing blow, Azula caught herself immediately and swept her hands in a large circle, taking Iroh's attack and sending it screaming back at him. He moved his fists apart and bent the flames into the ground, but not before letting his surprise show for a moment.
"Did you like my feint, Uncle?" Azula asked innocently.
So she had planned that from the beginning.
"Quite ingenious, Azula," Iroh said with a neutral expression. "Shall I see how effective your defense is now?"
Without waiting for an answer, Iroh started going through the katas himself, in the exact same order Azula had. The point of this duel was not victory, after all—this was about political power and control. Iroh didn't care about those things anymore, but he was not of a mind to let Azula have them without a fight.
As Azula dodged and deflected his attacks, the difference in their abilities quickly became apparent. She had more raw power than he did, true, but the gulf of training and experience between them was quite broad and deep. However, even though this should have been obvious to her as well, Azula's cocky smile never left her lips. It might've been a mask, or a result of her thinking she had already proven her point, but Iroh knew his niece better than that. She was planning something else.
When Iroh reached the point where Azula had feinted, he switched to the palm thrust kata in the same place she had without missing a beat. After finishing that, he went into a basic firebending stance—arms and legs bent and apart—and stared at his niece, who was visibly sweating despite her front.
"Uncle," she said in a slightly hurt tone, "I asked you not to hold back, but you're nowhere near your best right now." She smiled, and in a way only Azula could, made it simultaneously friendly and malicious. "Unless it's true that the Dragon of the West died along with his son."
Iroh tried very hard to avoid rising to her bait, and succeeded.
For the most part.
He immediately decided that the best way to counter Azula's attempts at dominance was to wipe out her pride completely. He straightened his legs and launched himself at the girl, rocketing his body forward by forcing an incredible amount of fire out of his feet. Azula started attacking almost immediately, but almost was not fast enough, and Iroh swatted her hasty assaults away with ease before stopping right in front of her, releasing the excess flames in a shockwave that knocked her off her feet. As she fell he calmly pointed his fist at her, mentally preparing what to say when she surrendered—
Except as soon as she hit the ground, the earth moved under him, and he tripped and fell.
When he looked up, Azula was thrusting a fist wreathed in blue flames right in front of his eyes, with a look of utmost contempt on her face.
"Did you just take a fall to let me win, old man?"
Iroh was unable to answer as his mind tried to process what had just happened. There was only one possibility, and yet…
Some part of him had always guessed. The timing was perfect, her ridiculous talent at firebending (even for a member of the royal family) would be explained, and from a certain point of view, her position and intelligence made her the perfect candidate.
This train of thought was always interrupted by the sane part of his brain, which declared, There's no way the Avatar Spirit would incarnate itself in Azula, of all people!
Yet here the evidence was, staring him in the face with a flaming fist.
After a few seconds, Azula sneered, returned her fist to her side, and stomped out of the training ground.
Minutes later Iroh went to his room, and lay in bed thinking for the rest of the night.
Things were going well for Azula, even better than they usually did. She was sitting in on more and more war council meetings, and Father had even started letting her contribute some ideas—allowing her to demonstrate her cunning to the generals. Her firebending was improving rapidly, while Zuko's was lagging. Add that to the special lessons she was getting from Ty Lee and Mai, and she'd be one of the most powerful benders in the world in just a few years.
That train of thought led her to another "one of the most powerful benders in the world," her very dear uncle. Iroh had been acting strange ever since their "duel" a month ago. Or, to be more precise, he had been treating Azula differently. And not good different (awe and fear), but weird different. It was like he was interested in her. Not sexually—oh Agni, please don't make it be sexually—but like she was some exotic animal in a zoo he was seeing for the first time.
"Earth to Azula!" a chirpy voice called.
"What!" she snapped, causing the owner of said voice to leap back.
"Y-You just blanked out for a second," Ty Lee stammered, twisting her hands and looking away. "I was worried."
Azula smiled. "Sorry, Ty Lee. I'm fine." She liked Ty Lee. Aside from the girl's incredible flexibility and near-perfect knowledge of chi blockage points, the major reason for this was that she was the perfect servant: constantly terrified of Azula, always aiming to please her, and completely submissive. Basically, she was what Azula wanted to turn the world into.
"Yeah, just a little stage fright before her big exam," a monotone, airy voice said. "Get ready to laugh when she falls on her butt."
"Don't be silly, Mai," Azula responded. "You never laugh."
"Ha ha," Mai deadpanned, proving Azula wrong.
Azula snorted, unconsciously releasing a small bout of flame from her nostril. "Fine, you never laugh unless it's ironic."
"Glad you understand."
Mai was Azula's other friend. She was the exact opposite of Ty Lee: unemotional, rational, and unafraid to make fun of Azula. That last part was necessary, as while Azula was near-perfect, she did occasionally make mistakes, and Mai was the only person who called her out on them other than her family. According to Father, her grandfather's fatal mistake was filling his top posts with yes-men, and neither of them intended to mimic it. Even now, Mai's taunting was helping her to deal with the small amount of stress she was feeling.
Preternatural skill with knives was a bonus. As was one other thing.
"Alright, all done!" Ty Lee said, stepping back and shoving a mirror in front of Azula's face. Azula looked at it admiringly. The girl wasn't the brightest ember in the fire, but she did know her makeup.
Azula nodded. "Well done," she allowed, and stood up, putting her arms out for Ty Lee to attach the traditional firebender armor. It was important for the royal family to follow tradition. She nodded to Ty Lee after the latter was finished. "Alright, you can go sit with your family now. It'll be over before you know it."
Ty Lee smiled, then gave her a hug. Azula was surprised, but decided not to protest. "Happy birthday, Azula." She broke the hug, and her smile turned into a grin. "Now kick his butt!" Then she left, waving to Azula and Mai behind her.
Azula returned the wave, feeling an odd bit of appreciation.
"I'm not going to hug you," Mai said.
She turned toward Mai, lowering her hand but keeping the smile on her face. "Of course. There's something else I'd like you to do, though."
Mai looked at her, saying nothing.
"I've arranged things so you'll be sitting near Zuko. Could you keep an eye on him? I want to know exactly what his face looks like when I win."
The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds. "Of course, Princess," Mai said, as deadpan and emotionless as ever.
Mai's relationship with Zuko was the other bonus to having her around. Azula's smile got bigger. "You're the best, Mai."
Her friend bowed in response. The two of them then walked off, each to fulfill their assigned role.
Azula's path took her to the middle of the courtyard. A huge crowd, including probably every important noble in the Fire Nation, had gathered to watch. Facing her was the master firebender that had been chosen for her test.
In the Fire Nation, the only way to be recognized as a firebending master was to defeat a firebending master. Azula, being not only the princess but also her father's pride and joy, had an additional task: defeat a firebending master so thoroughly that the entire country would know and fear her power.
The man Father had chosen was middle-aged, thin, and wiry. His name was Li (how original), and he was apparently a Captain in the army or something. Father hadn't told her much, to stop her from doing research beforehand. He was testing her today, too.
Not that he had any need to worry. Azula had never failed a single test he'd given her.
Her sifu, who was officially in charge of the exam, droned on about the history of the master test and other irrelevant matters until the opening fireball was finally launched. To avoid giving the appearance of favoritism, she had been ordered to let Li have the first attack. He launched twin fireballs at her, which she deflected easily. She responded with rapid palm thrusts and leg sweeps, sending a barrage of fire in his direction.
Li dodged all of it and ran away, with a few counter fireballs tossed her way for good measure.
Azula chased him while keeping up her assault, but very soon a dynamic took shape: she attacked, he dodged and countered, she deflected easily, and he was already too far away for her to deal the finishing blow.
His style was simple, but really annoying. His aim was clear: get Azula to use up her chi, then defeat her when she was exhausted. The worst part was, it was working. She had only ever seen Ty Lee dodge that well, and Ty Lee couldn't firebend. She had never dealt with this kind of enemy before, and the longer it took to figure out how to destroy him, the more worried she became about the consequences of not destroying him quickly enough.
Well, how about this, then? She began a kata of her own invention (well, Ty Lee had helped), full of flips and the twisting of limbs. But in the middle of it she pretended to trip, and fell down in a way that would look painful. The trick almost worked on Iroh, and this guy was no Iroh. Azula was face-down on the ground, but all her remaining senses were on high alert, waiting for her opponent to come closer or attack.
A few seconds passed, but nothing happened. Azula glanced up. Li hadn't moved from his spot. He was just watching her.
You've got to be kidding me, Azula thought as she pushed herself to her feet, eyes locked on the man. That was the perfect chance; why didn't you attack? As she resumed her assault, though, the answer came to her. He was faster and had more stamina. There was no reason for him to take any risks, because he had the advantage.
This no-name, unremarkable peon had the advantage against her.
As tears built in her eyes, Azula glanced at Father, hoping to find encouragement or maybe some sort of idea to win. But all she saw in his face was disappointment.
Something snapped. She could feel a scream, or wail, building in her throat, but she stuffed it back down. There was only one option now. After creating a wall of fire for protection, she breathed deeply and started meditating. She had done this many times before, so her positive and negative chi energies quickly became clear. She started pulling them apart.
By the time she realized how stupid trying to bend lightning now was when she had never succeeded before, it was too late to do anything but try and make it work.
She attacked her own chi with a fury, tearing it apart, and—
Missed the moment when they crashed back together. The lightning building on her hands fizzled.
Azula's entire body was seized by panic. And then Li dispersed her fire wall and charged at her.
She hated Li. She hated herself, for not being able to bend lightning. Most of all, though, she was afraid, afraid that she might actually fail this test. Her instincts took over and threw her hands up over her face, while she begged her opponent to stop.
And before her eyes, he did. Azula didn't question why as she dove at the man and shoved her fist in front of his face, winning the practice duel.
As her emotions ebbed away and her senses started to return, Azula experienced a moment of confusion, wondering why nobody was cheering.
Then her peripheral vision recovered, and she understood all too well.
The earth below her opponent's feet had been bent, covering his legs and holding him in place.
Her first thought was, So that's why he stopped.
Her second thought she expressed out loud. "Who interfered with my fight!" she screamed, looking about wildly, absolute fury twisting her face.
The crowd backed away while Azula's mind raced. The only other people here were Fire Nation nobility. There was no way an earthbender could be anywhere near the Fire Nation palace anyway. Maybe it was a spy or assassin, but if so, why would they interrupt her master exam? Wouldn't they take the opportunity to attack her, or her father?
She couldn't figure it out. So she did what she always did when she couldn't figure something out, and asked her father. "Father?" she said, turning around. "What just—"
Azula was stopped short by her father's look of shock and, for some reason, fear. Then, a moment later, her mind finally finished piecing together the events of the last few seconds.
She had moved her arms up, and the earth had bent up. At the same time she had been wishing, body and spirit, that her opponent would stop...
No...
She was born only two weeks before Avatar Shen's death had been confirmed. Information out of Ba Sing Se came slowly, so the timing was...
No.
All the children born around Shen's death had been kept under close surveillance, but none of them had shown any signs of being the Avatar. Very few of them had even shown much firebending talent. The only one who hadn't been considered was...
No!
"Look, Father," she said, almost pleading (almost), "I'm sure there's some kind of reasonable explanation for—"
Father rose from his seat, and with a stern look, slowly paced toward Azula. Her body tensed up, and she was so terrified she could neither move nor think.
He stopped right in front of her…and smiled.
Azula was filled with so much relief that she actually became weak at the knees.
Such a meek reaction, she chided herself. I'll have to—
Then Father's fist met her face, and her world went black.
It had been two months since Iroh received his confirmation that Azula was the Avatar, in the worst way possible.
He, and the White Lotus, had been very busy during those two months. He had called a meeting immediately after Azula's eleventh birthday/reveal as the Avatar, and they unanimously agreed on the need to break her out of her holding cell and take her someplace Ozai couldn't reach. The Earth Kingdom was out: only Ba Sing Se was completely safe from the Fire Nation, and they couldn't risk letting Azula fall into the Dai Li's clutches. Besides, it was too obvious. The Northern Water Tribe seemed reasonable, but Ozai knew that too, and the country was compact enough to be extremely vulnerable to a full assault by the Fire Nation army.
That left the Southern Water Tribes. Diffuse enough to make any attempt to track down the Avatar very difficult, and still powerful enough after Hatsuna to beat back all but a focused, prolonged assault. They had become very adept at guerrilla warfare over the past 60 years, enough so that every Fire Nation soldier dreaded being sent to the South most of all. Even if Ozai were to discover she was there, he wouldn't be able to find her without devoting a large number of troops to the task, and if he did that the Earth Kingdom and Northern Tribe would pounce. Of course, the downside was that the South's strength lay in defense, not offense, so they'd have to eventually travel to the Earth Kingdom and Northern Tribe in order to build the necessary alliances to defeat Ozai. But they could cross that bridge when they came to it.
It took a while to finish negotiations with the selected Southern tribe, not to mention develop a plan to break into the inner sanctum of the Fire Nation palace and rescue Azula from its deepest depths. But the plans had been drawn up and the preparations were in place. All that was left now was to execute them.
As an elite strike force of White Lotus members and allies attacked the Capital, chaos swept the city, and Iroh was able to sneak into the location where Azula was imprisoned.
It was not the Boiling Rock. As supposedly impregnable as that prison was, Ozai didn't want to keep the Avatar that far away from him, even though—or especially because—she was his daughter. So he kept her in the Dragon's Pit instead: an underground dungeon deep below the palace, in the lowest part of its emergency bunker.
Despite the White Lotus's attack a few guards were still stationed there, but the Dragon of the West was not dead quite yet.
Iroh arrived at her cell a bit behind schedule, so he had to hurry. He melted the metal lock, shoved the door open—
And his thinking hit a brick wall.
He had known, very well, his brother's attitude toward the Avatar; he had received the same lectures from their father, after all. He knew that being Ozai's daughter would only make it worse, not better, for Azula. He had prepared himself for anything…or at least, thought he had.
She was bound to a chair, with all four of her limbs hideously bent in at least three places where they shouldn't be.
Ozai had broken them all, more than twice over.
And when she looked up at Iroh, there were empty sacks where her eyeballs used to be.
Iroh fought the urge to throw up. He won. Barely.
If only I had acted sooner instead of waiting for confirmation...
He shoved that thought aside, knowing it would come back to haunt him for the rest of his life.
There was an odd sort of gag that covered the bottom of her face but kept her mouth open. After he took it out Azula closed her mouth, opened it, then started coughing hoarsely. Iroh looked around the cell for water, didn't see any, and wasn't willing to let her be alone. So he just looked at her as a feeling of disconnection blazed through him, severing his connections to the past and present, reducing the whole of reality to this one room.
After several false starts Azula eventually spoke, voice barely audible. "So who's the brave prince, here to rescue the beautiful princess? Although I suppose I'm not so beautiful anymore."
"It's Iroh," he managed to say.
She seemed surprised at first, though it was hard to tell given the circumstances, but nodded after a few seconds. "I see. Siding with the Avatar in order to take down your brother and get the throne? Well, I suppose I can't complain. Anyway, I'd suggest you untie me and carry me on your back, because unfortunately I cannot exactly move on my own right now."
Iroh started to nod before realizing it was pointless. Stupid. Remembering his time limit, he untied Azula as fast as possible and gingerly picked her up.
"I said on your back, Iroh; you need your hands to firebend. Use the rope you just burnt off of me to fasten me to you. Agni, do I have to think of everything…"
Iroh was in no mood to argue and did as she suggested. He didn't have enough time to do a proper job of it, though, so he ended up needing to use one arm to keep her from falling off. Admittedly, it was better than carrying her. He ran toward the bunker's exit, trying to keep Azula as comfortable as possible.
Neither said anything for a few minutes. When Iroh was getting near the exit, incapacitating the one guard he saw before she could report anything, Azula finally spoke up.
"Where are we going?"
"South Pole."
A pause. "Not bad. That's what I would've chosen. I assume you've contacted people there already?"
"Yes."
Another pause. "Does that include a healer?"
"I believe so."
A third pause. Iroh dreaded the next words, and Azula probably dreaded asking them, but it would have to be addressed sooner or later.
"Can they heal me?" she eventually asked.
Iroh didn't answer at first, until the exit finally came into sight.
"I believe they can fix your limbs. But they can't give you new eyes," he eventually said.
Because it was pointless to lie to her.
They were almost above ground now. Only a few more seconds.
"Iroh?"
"Yes?"
"I'm the one who'll kill Ozai."
He stepped out of the darkness and into the clear, midday sun.
"That's the plan."
End of Part One
Author's Note: A long time ago, I wrote a fanfic called "Trapped" (and part of a sequel, "The Adventures of Avatar Azula"). You can still find these by looking at my profile. Unfortunately, due to various reasons, I ended up abandoning the latter in 2012; however, for various other reasons, I have become inspired to finally go back to the story, which I still really like (and have some good ideas for).
That said, I myself have changed with the passage of years, and the quality of Trapped is below my current standards. The sequel is better written (thanks largely to my former beta, Lavanya Six), but has a number of other issues stemming mainly from the fact that since I posted it as I wrote it, I couldn't go back and change earlier chapters to fit the later ones. So instead of merely starting from where I left off, I've decided to re-write both fics. I hope you enjoy this new story, Prisoner, whether or not you read its predecessor.
I've already finished Prisoner, but it's long enough that I've split it up into four parts, which I will post a week at a time on Saturday afternoons, at around 4pm EST.
Here's some information I can't really include in the story itself. First, the point of divergence is that, in this timeline, Aang gets caught up in his memories and inadvertently flies directly into the thunderstorm. In canon he noticed the thunderstorm and so was able to avoid the most dangerous part of it.
Second, regarding the master test: for the purposes of this fic, in canon Azula did it later and passed easily. Her Avatar-boosted skills and the declining war effort made Ozai have it earlier in this universe, when Azula was still inexperienced and (even more) emotionally immature.
Finally, while I'm taking both the original series and Legend of Korra to be canon, I'm ignoring every other piece of Avatar-related media. I may use elements from them as it suits me, but in general I'll be ignoring everything except the TV shows.