AN: Tyzula Week. M for (future) lemons. AU. 300 - 700 word chronological drabbles, unless I get more time on my hands.
Handwriting
Azula wanted her.
Did you need any other explanation? Did you?
She was brought in by a set of soldiers scrounging for people instead of killing them. Azula was always curious about those dark happenings; she could not resist the curiosity that warred with her better judgment.
Azula was only briefly interested in the various prisoners of war, even the ones who were forced to work close to her in the palace. But her infatuation with this particular girl grew stronger and stronger throughout their childhood.
They did not speak the same language; they did not understand each other beyond a few glances but Azula wanted her and there was no denying that very simple fact.
The girl worked at the palace, but she was very clearly from the colonies. Azula never paid much mind to the children of servants who were amongst her but out of sight, however, when she turned fourteen, that changed... at least for one of those other children.
Then, however, that girl was assigned directly to Princess Azula. It was supposed to be because Azula lacked a mother and spurned the idea of any nannies ("I'm thirteen and I have no need for anyone to take care me."). And so Azulon and Ozai settled for a few girls around Azula's age to do the work for her.
"How long have you worked at the palace?" Azula asked silkily and the girl at first did not seem to think that Azula was talking to her.
Firstly, Azula did realize that the girl likely did not speak much of the Fire Nation's language, which was, in itself, a ridiculous concept. It held true most of the time, though, so Azula just had to bear it.
The girl shrugged and Azula sighed. She did not know why she was doing this; it was an incredibly pointless endeavor to be trying to get to know one of her slaves.
Azula sighed. "Are you a refugee from the Colonies?"
The girl shrugged, and then hesitated, and the nodded. Her parents were.
"Right, so you're working in the palace to try to scrape by. How cute." Azula was trying to give a compliment, but it did not go over as well as she would have liked.
The girl nodded. Azula looked very unimpressed before the girl hesitantly reached for the paper laying out on Azula's desk. The princess withheld from stopping the bold move and was rewarded for that; her crush on a servant filled out a few words with messy handwriting.
As Azula opened it to try to decipher the swirly and butchered characters and the smudged ink, her new servant escaped.
Azula sighed and sat down to squint at the cacography that her long-time crush had left her.