DISCLAIMER: I don't own ATLA. I just borrowed a few characters. Please don't sue me.
When I was a very small child, I used to believe that the clouds could tell me stories. I would spend hours lying on my back in my mother's garden, blades of grass tickling my neck as I stared wide-eyed at the fluffy, white puffballs gliding across the blue sky. I would form shapes and images out of the formless masses of clouds, award them names like "Scratchy" and "Fluff", give them long, involved histories and back stories, and then throw them all together in some epic tale of love and betrayal.
On days when I was feeling down, I would look to the clouds for guidance. Instead of playing God with their imaginary lives, I'd turn to a single cloud, form it into a sabertoothmooselion, or maybe a person, or maybe even an inanimate object like a rock or a tree, and talk to it inside my head as if it could answer me. When I got really caught up in myself, I would end up whispering things out loud. The servants milling about the garden, watering plants or weeding, would smile to themselves and shake their heads, but would not disturb me.
Once, my father discovered me on my back in the garden, by myself, whispering softly to someone that he could not see. He flew into a rage, dragged me up by the stiff collar of my formal attire, chastised me for dirtying my clothes, screamed in my face for playing childish games not befitting royalty, and even slapped me across the face when I started sobbing. Afterwards, I stumbled inside the palace, half-blinded by tears, to find my mother, princess Ursa, tending to Zuko's scraped knee, speaking softly to him while he sobbed, and I felt something inside of me harden and shell itself over.
I didn't return to the garden for years.
When I finally did, I was eight years old. My mother had just disappeared, without even bothering to say goodbye to her only daughter.
I had long since learned that the only way to get on my father's good side was to appeal to his cruel nature. Zuko didn't understand this. My mother didn't understand this. They both hated me. But even at such a young age, I knew that I had an advantage over both of them, that I was going places in my life because I had learned to adapt.
I asked the clouds why life was so cruel and difficult and tedious. I asked them why I had to choose between the love of my mother and the respect and pride of my father. I asked them why my mother loved Zuko more than me, fluffy Zuko, who chose love over success, Zuko, who was a failure at Firebending, and a failure of a prince. And I asked them for a second chance, for another choice, a way to be like Zuko and mother, to revoke all my unkind words and actions, as if they could grant it to me.
Hours passed. Tears rolled silently down my cheeks and turned to mud when they hit the ground.
The clouds never answered me.
After a while, I pushed myself up on my elbows and sucked in a shaky breath. I brushed the hair out of my eyes, rose to my feet, brushed off my backside, and turned around, only to freeze up instantly.
Standing in the doorway that led to the kitchens was a girl maybe a year older than I was at the time, dressed in the faded red that all palace servants wore, her light brown hair falling in waves across her shoulder. She looked surprised and frightened, uncertain of what she should do, a watering can in one hand and a shovel in the other.
I immediately took control of the situation. "You, servant," I said in my most commanding voice. "What is your name?"
The girl straightened a little bit and jutted out her chin. "Zelan, miss."
"Why are you standing stupidly in the doorway, blocking the way of royalty while managing to spy on the princess at the same time?" I asked, a muscle in my jaw twitching for good measure. I said her name, "Zelan," sneeringly at the end of my rant, as if she were something particularly disgusting I had discovered clinging to the underside of my boot.
"I, I didn't mean," she started, stuttering and tripping over her own words, but I cut her off.
"You're lucky I'm in no mood to deal with peasants," I said harshly. "Now get out of my sight before I change my mind."
I expected her to be visibly shaking, maybe even crying a little bit, but instead I found that as she bowed, her eyes seemed to sparkle dangerously, and when she spoke, all hints of uncertainty had left her voice. Instead, the way she said, "Of course, my princess," made me shiver inexplicably, and when she brushed by me in the small quarters between the fence and the door, a jolt shot through me.
She left the garden through the gate in the back, never once turning back to look at me as I watched her disappear past the royal guards, into the city, her hips swinging and her hair swishing back and forth. I glowered at her back, and then turned on my heel and strode purposefully back into the palace, all thoughts of my mother and self-pity and strange insolent servants banished from my mind. A good princess didn't wallow and dwell on useless things. A good princess had her priorities straight, starting with her country and ending lastly with her personal life.
And I was most definitely a good princess.