Leave Yourself Behind.
Authors Note: Before you read it's important to know that this story waviers between second and third perspective, it is told from the POV of a palace servant/maid as she watches Azula rise and fall.
I do not own any parts of Avatar: The Last Airbender Those rights go to Michael Dante DiMartino, and Bryan Konietzko
"As soon as you see a mistake and don't fix it, it becomes your mistake." -Author Unknown
Hours of screaming, blood and pain, only to be rewarded by a baby's cries, echoing throughout the palace. This birth was different, it was agonizingly long especially considering the baby was so small. To small in fact, it seemed the child wouldn't make it. But she would not be the one to break Lady Ursa fragile heart. The baby's mother clung to her new daughter, smiling at her little girl. Nursemaids looked over Ursa's slim shoulders, the childs face, it was incredibility vibrant and she was just so, alive. However she's beautiful even at such a young age, she unlike any girl you've ever seen. This baby, however weak and small would live, she was sure of it.
"Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise." -Author Unknown
Seems like she was right. The child grew to be strong no matter people's doubts. This girl would live up to her namesake and perhaps even surpass him. However with a child so full of promise preserving their innocence is a task easier said than done, and now love becomes something fickle. Whispers rivet through the palace of a girl being torn and parents blind to it. Lady Ursa ignores them, squinting away the veil of pain on her beautiful features. He daughter was fine, it was her son she needed to worry about.
"In violence we forget who we are." -Mary McCarthy
She couldn't tell you the first time it happened. She was only a servant after all, her time couldn't be kept watching the child like a hawk. However when she did notices it, she couldn't say she wasn't the least bit surprised. It wasn't too big yet hardly was it small, it laid a musky blue tucked away beneath the child's shirt. How she came across the bruise was to the least awkward. The little girl was embarrassed, clearly distressed for she didn't know what she did wrong. Why would Daddy hit me? I was doing to katas perfect! You sympathize for her, if only for a moment.
"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." –Khail Gibran
At the tender age of five the child was performing as if she were fifteen, there was room for improvement, but there was no doubt of the prodigy that lay within. The little Princess trains in pleasure fighting her way through the pain her sifu underhandedly throws her way, detecting invisible mistakes. She debates on telling Lady Ursa, as if the clever woman hasn't already figured out on her own, however she wouldn't be surprised if the poor child was trying to hide it from her. It's not long before it something not even the wisest man can hide. She conveniently dust nearby, silently listening to the conversation at its peak.
"You're not what I would call clumsy Azula. These bruises have been showing up for months on end. Now tell me the truth. Why do you have a broken rib?"
"I slipped in the garden cart wheeling with Ty Lee. Mother you know the rocks are slippery."
This deceit couldn't last any longer. When Ursa finally wiggles the truth out of the girl she seems oddly astonished. Perhaps she doesn't know her husband as well as the maids do.
"Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love." –John le Carre
The bruises ceased, temporarily. Lord Ozai seemed distraught over something, perhaps Ursa had a chat with him. With the confusion gone, or at least dwindled Azula seems to finally reveal the mask she's been hiding behind and initially act like a kid again. She invites over two friends who's names surpass you but the joy on her face is enough to make you sleep easy. Servants stare in worry as she laughs at her brother as he tackles one of her friends in the pond, it is quickly dismissed though as just child's play. The day was eventful but the night was turbulent. FireLord Azulon was dead, Ursa had vanished, and the children you thought you once knew seemed unrecognizable. Whispers seem to haunt the little girl you helped birth six years ago.
Monster. Demonic. Unloved. Not Worthy. Monster. Mischievous. Unloved. Not Good Enough. Monster.
"Hateful to me as the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another." -Homer
However distraught, confused, and hurt the Prince and Princess's were they not once uttered a single word of it. However the Prince's cheeks never seemed to dry as he begged for an answer on his mothers disappearance. Ursa's daughter however, handled things a little differently. She never directly spoke to anyone, although it seemed her old childhood habits of insomnia hit her hard, and it was frequent you could see her wandering the halls as if she was looking for something, or someone. It wasn't long until she was stuck in her bead sick as ever, probably from the lack of sleep. You enter her chambers with a small meal, enough to make her not wretch it all up. She ignores you though, telling you and your prodding hands to go away. However all the maids know that she only wants her mother to be the one mending her to health.
"A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem." -Albert Einstein
The banishment of her brother seems to rock the not so little Princess. Azula is ten when it happens, maids do their best to ignore her now. She's shut you all out, throwing her own childish hissy fits when you try to help. The bruises start up again more rapidly than before and much more intense. She's not your baby, and she never will be. But you can't help but feel that it's almost your job to protect her, for you're the only one she has left.
"Little children, headache; big children, heartache." -Italian Proverb
Her father delivers her on a fools mission, but she comes home successful, not that anyone would ever expect any less of the Firenation's prodigy. The girl you once knew seemed completely gone now, buried under all the pain, confusion, and hurt you watched pile on top of her as you stood aimlessly on the sidelines. Why is it only now that you feel responsible? Servant gush about the return of their Prince, sighing of the returning Princess, but they don't understand, they're young maids, they weren't there through it all. She's only fourteen after all. Sozins comet creeps nearer and nearer and your Princess is becoming deranged. Something has set of off kilter, the look in her eyes is wild and utterly confused. Where did her two petty friends go?
"As soon as you see a mistake and don't fix it, it becomes your mistake." -Author Unknown
Years of hiding, plotting, and pain only to be rewarded with a breakdown, the mirror shatters, it's sound echoing throughout the palace followed by a girls sobs. Her breakdown is so agonizingly slow, and she's just still so small, only fourteen now, and she's only looking for escape. Maybe it wasn't you that broke her fragile heart, but you feel responsible. She clings to herself as she rocks on the floor trying to aid her broken heart. The once Nursemaids look over Azula's slim shoulder, the child's face, was dead incredibly dull compared to the vibrancy it once had. She's still beautiful, unlike any girl you've ever seen. Azula never lived though, no she never truly lived.
Authors Note: I hope you actually read the quotes. Let me know if you catch the corresponding Paragraphs! Thank for reading!