Playing Blue
"Mother! Mother! Mother! Mother!" shouts the little girl.
"I heard you the first time," Azula mutters, forcing her eyes open.
"I want to play blue!" she shouts, as Azula wonders how she has infinite energy after keeping her mothers awake all night. Sometimes, she finds the child she produced completely baffling. Maybe I'm not as much of a people person as I thought. No... that can't be right... maybe children just aren't people.
"It's way too early for that." Azula closes her eyes and tries to return to blissful sleep. Azusami puts her sticky hands on Azula's face and forces her eyes open. If she were not her child she would shoot a bolt of lightning through her face.
"Izumi wants to play too," Azusami whines and Azula suddenly realizes that her niece is in the room as well. Ty Lee murmurs something in her sleep, clearly not woken by this insanity. Well, she did live in a circus for several years. That is exactly what the previously solitary and foreboding palace has become: a circus.
"Auntzula please!" Izumi squeals, dancing from foot to foot.
"You can't firebend yet," Azula says cavalierly, slowly sitting up. The blankets shift with her slender form. "It won't work for you. It's a shame you got your father's bending."
Strangely, Izumi is never put off at all by the fact that her younger cousin is firebending before her, albeit weakly. Slowly, Azula lights two fingertips and Azusami holds out her palms expectantly. Azula touches the tip of her finger to the skin of her toddler as if she were lighting candles, and Azusami has fists full of blue fire. Her eyes light with a wild and childlike excitement.
For some reason, she prefers her mother's fire over her own.
An hour later, Zuko wakes up needlessly early.
He recalls when he started falling into the habit of sleeping all day, which was around the time he grew mildly jaded with searching for the Avatar. After seeing Aang, he started waking up at sunrise to practice again, but the years of peace and dwindling attempts on his life have given him the luxury of not waking up before the sun does.
He walks to go locate a cup of Earl Grey and start working on a series of negotiations with Republic City, when he hears bounding footsteps of a child.
"Go back to sleep, Izumi," he groans, assuming his daughter is going to instantly tackle him. He has also reached the point in his life where Izumi waits a couple of hours before she dashes into he and Mai's bedroom demanding their full attention.
"I will destroy you!" Azusami.
"I will destroy you first!" squeals Izumi. So two toddlers are awake and seemingly unaccompanied. There will probably be ink on the walls and juice spilled everywhere when he rounds this corner. There are endless nannies, but neither Izumi nor her cousin are much for following rules.
"Nobody is destroying anybody," Zuko sighs, rubbing his eyes. His scar has a distinctly different texture than the rest of his skin, and sometimes he notices it and other times he doesn't.
"We're just playing, dad," Izumi snaps. She is seven and rebellious. She looks like her mother, but with the distinctive golden eyes of her father.
He then glances at Azusami. Her hands are on fire. On blue fire.
"This is the end of the line, cousin!" Azusami declares and Zuko rubs his eyes again. Definitely hallucinating. "The throne is mine!"
Azusami has often been called Little Azula. She is four years old, already capable of firebending ─ but definitely not blue firebending last Zuko checked ─ and has pointed features, red lips, reckless black hair she refuses to wear in a crown no matter what her nannies, mothers, or her aunt and uncle try to do, and piercing gold eyes.
And right now she is carrying blue fire and shouting jumbled one liners.
"Izumi, comeback, quick," comes the intonation lacking voice of Mai and Zuko looks to the other edge of the room. Typical. His sister and wife are perched on the sofa, watching their children play fight with sparkling eyes. "Say something witty."
"Something witty!" Izumi warbles and Mai sighs.
"Hey, Zuko," Mai says, not looking up at him. Her eyes are glued to the two children as if it is some kind of performance.
"Are you guys serious?" Zuko demands and Azula rolls her eyes. "This is extremely dangerous."
"You pronounced 'hilarious' wrong," Mai replies dryly, still not making eye contact with her husband. Izumi lunges at Azusami full force, moving in for the tackle.
"You're gonna put out the blue!" Azusami shrieks as Izumi comes at her. Azusami dances a few sloppy firebending steps out of the way, one of her hands almost fizzling out. Her eyes bulge in panic as Izumi slips.
"What are you going to do about it? Walk on your hands?" Izumi taunts, afterwards stopping moving altogether and looking to Mai for encouragement. Zuko's tense shoulders slouch. Are you kidding me?
Mai nods at Izumi. Izumi flashes a smile and returns to fighting her little cousin.
"How can you two enjoy this?" Zuko snaps, mostly at Azula. He takes Izumi's shoulders and pulls her away from chasing Azusami. "Pitting our children against each other?"
"You're just jealous because your kid can't firebend yet," Azula purrs in response. Mai stifles a smirk. "They're harmlessly playing together. Are you opposed to our children getting along? Is that it?"
"Azula, I expect this from you, but Mai?"
"I find this really funny, Zuko," Mai says. "Azusami tell your uncle you're becoming an only child."
"I'm becoming an only child, uncle!" Azusami says blithely, with the intonation of Ty Lee, who is somehow peacefully sleeping on the other side of the palace. After Azula was roused from bed, Azusami and Izumi ran and woke Mai, and demanded that the two sisters-in-law observe the game they have been playing for a few weeks now: playing blue.
"No, no, say it like you mean it," Mai says, eyes sparkling. Rarely is she so entertained.
"I'm becoming an only child, uncle?" Azusami offers, sounding confused. "I am an only child..."
"Azula, show her how to pretend to kill Zuko." Mai turns to Azula expectantly.
And so Azusami gets an impromptu acting lesson from her mother, as Zuko is still a little convinced he is hallucinating, Izumi gets distracted and Mai is far from bored. Zuko is not buying into this whole thing.
Zuko finds himself facing a fistful of blue flame from a pint sized assailant, declaring, "I'm becoming an only child, ZuZu."
Azula applauds, looking repulsively proud. Izumi knocks over a vase trying to do a cartwheel. Zuko rolls his eyes.
Just another day in the Fire Nation royal family.
end