Chapter 19

Born Lucky

Izumi rubbed his temples and let out a quiet sigh as he listened to what felt like the hundredth angry rant about the inconvenience of an interim Fire Lord that morning. When his father finally did return home, Izumi was going to request—no, demand —a week's vacation on Ember Island in blissful solitude and silence.

"…and furthermore, I recognize that the Fire Lord was quite young when he assumed the throne, but circumstances necessitated such measures be taken, and while I have the utmost respect for you, Prince Izumi, I do not feel it is wise to leave a young man barely out of his studies to rule over the Fire Nation in a time of such instability and uncertainty to go gallivanting about the seas. I mean, there are rumors of rebellious uprisings, and the spirits only know what General Wei is scheming regarding the political reform of the education system as we speak…"

Make that two weeks.

"I understand your concerns, Counselor, but I will remind you that my father did not take the decision to appoint me as his right-hand lightly. In placing me in this temporary position," he emphasized with a meaningful look, "Fire Lord Zuko has demonstrated the utmost faith in my abilities as a leader and your abilities as advisors. I am positive that, with your wise guidance, my father's absence will pass without a hitch."

Seeing that the advisor was opening his wide, frog-like mouth to object, Izumi held up a hand and continued, "If you have any further concerns, I would be happy to pass them along to my father via messenger hawk. Unfortunately, I must call this meeting to a close. As you know, we have emissaries from the Earth Kingdom arriving shortly and we must prepare for their arrival."

Izumi rose from his seat at the head of the long, ornate table, cutting off any grumbling with the motion. He marched toward the door, flanked by disgruntled advisors, but his long legs propelled him down the corridor and out of sight long before they could think of catching up.

When he was safely out of range, he slowed and breathed a sigh of relief. His head was throbbing and his mood was grim.

Though the arriving emissaries were just an excuse to cut the meeting short, Izumi knew, in that perfect, responsible part of his mind, that he really should check in with the cooks and servant staff to ensure everything was in order.

In the more human part of his mind, Izumi knew he needed to take a breather first.

He debated for a moment, then turned on his heel and marched toward the outer gates. He was going to take a short walk, try to relieve his headache, and then return to run a nation. Temporarily.

As he walked, he let his mind wander. Izumi had been groomed his entire life for this position. His father had only a few tentative years of preparation in an abusive household before he was tossed into the throne. Having just spent a few days in his shoes, Izumi shook his head at that extraordinary feat. Granted, Zuko was not an ordinary man, but Izumi could barely imagine what it must have been like for him, trying to repair a broken nation, a broken world, as a teenager.

How could anyone live up to a legacy like that?

Try as he might, Izumi would never feel like he was worthy of the shoes he would one day fill.

These dark musings hung heavy in his mind, looming so powerfully over him that he lost track of where he was going.

"Prince Izumi."

The voice jarred him back to reality and he blinked. He was standing in front of an enormous cylindrical building, the entrance to which was patrolled by several guards. Instantly, he felt cold. He had no idea why his feet had carried him to this godforsaken place.

It was the prison that housed his aunt and grandfather. Ozai and Azula. Close relations only by blood, never proximity. He'd only seen Azula once when Zuko took him and his young sister to visit her. He didn't remember the meeting much, except that she had been intimidating and callous, with a wicked gleam in her eye that made him uneasy… like she could see through his soul.

Zuko never allowed him to meet his grandfather.

Once upon a time, Izumi was curious to meet the man… but time had robbed him of that curiosity. As an adult, he had every right to see him now, but never did. He told himself that he was avoiding Ozai not out of cowardice, but indifference.

Privately, he knew that was a lie.

Izumi stood before the guard, thinking about this in silence, until the guard shifted uncomfortably. "Did you… did you want to enter, my lord?" he asked tentatively.

No, he was prepared to say, but his mouth, like his feet, had other ideas.

"Yes," he said, and he marched inside.

A guard patrolling the corridor bowed upon seeing him, then took up a torch and escorted him down the hall. "What brings you here, my lord?" he asked, glancing sideways at him as they walked briskly through the stone passages.

Not really knowing how to tell the man that he had no idea what brought him there, he just said the first thing that came to his mind. "I'm here to check on a prisoner."

"Which one, my lord?"

Valid question.

"Azula." He said, sounding far more decisive than he really was.

The man nodded. "This way," he said, and lead Izumi toward a spiral staircase and upward.

. . .

"Well, well, what a pleasant surprise. It's not every day I'm visited by royalty…" drawled a velvety voice as Izumi stepped into a room that was divided in half by thick, steel bars.

The room was larger than Izumi remembered and had a small barred window looking out over the ocean at least 50 feet up. There was a bed with a few pillows and blankets, nothing terribly ornate, but not in the filthy, dilapidated state that Izumi had been expecting. The cell was relatively clean, with a few books resting in a neat pile in the corner of the room.

The inmate herself was dressed in a clean, red tunic that reached her knees and covered her shoulders modestly. A black belt cinched around her waist, revealing a figure that was thin, but not unhealthily so. Izumi tried to mask his surprise at how… cozy she looked, locked away in a high-security prison.

Azula was turned away from him, gazing out the window, but at his silence she pulled away and faced him, mouth quirked up in a rueful smirk.

"Hello, nephew dearest."

Izumi nodded stiffly, unsure of what to say as the door swung shut behind him. Azula needed no prompting.

"Don't stand on ceremony on my account," she said dryly, folding her arms and jerking her head to indicate a chair on his side of the barred room.

"This won't be a long visit," Izumi said as he shook his head.

"Come to check on your favorite auntie? Or have you come to make sure that your favorite prisoner is still safe and sound, wasting away in her tower?"

"You don't look to be wasting away to me," Izumi said.

She raised an eyebrow, that wicked gleam reappearing in her amber eyes. "No? Were you expecting some savage creature scratching at the walls and eating crumbs off the floor with the rats?" She laughed, a mirthless hum that sent shivers down his spine. "I see you got the ruthless streak your father always lacked."

"My father, the Fire Lord, seems to be doing very well for himself without that ruthless streak," he retorted, working hard to keep his face impassive.

"The Fire Lord? Really? That's what you call him?" She rolled her eyes. "I guess your daddy passed on his rigid sense of duty and honor instead. How fun for you."

Izumi clenched his jaw. "I didn't come here to listen to you criticize my father."

Azula jumped on that. "Then why are you here, little Izumi?" She stalked slowly toward the bars, coming to stand directly in front of him and looking into his eyes. She was tall for a woman, having grown in prison to stand nearly as tall as he was.

Those emotionless eyes saw his split second of hesitation and lit up with delight. "You look lost, Izumi. You don't know why you're here, or what to do next, do you? You've got the weight of the world on your shoulders and you have no one to help you carry that."

He shifted his weight. The movement seemed to confirm something in her mind as she continued, "Where's daddy? Surely if you're so lost, your great and powerful Fire Lord would be the first person to make everything go away, wouldn't he?" she sneered.

Izumi said nothing.

"Unless…" her mouth spread into a small smile, "Daddy isn't home, is he? Zuzu has flown the nest and left you here, all alone, to clean up the mess. No wonder you look so down, I remember what that was like, little nephew. Not a fun job, is it?"

"I've had enough of this nonsense," Izumi announced as cold sweat ran down his spine. He spun around, heading for the door, when her voice stopped him.

"Wait!" He froze, not turning to see her. "Please," she whispered and a rare note of anxiety leaked into her voice. He did turn at that and was shocked to see her gripping the bars with white knuckles. Her face was stony, but he saw in the set of her brows that she was more upset than she wanted to let on.

She cleared her throat and loosened her grip. "If I apologize, will you stay and… and we can talk?"

Instantly, Izumi was suspicious. "I don't think it counts if the apology is bargained for."

She rolled her eyes upward to look at the ceiling. "An apology is an apology, little prince. You should be grateful and take what is offered to you."

"Why do you want me to stay so badly?" he asked softly, ignoring her. He moved closer to the bars gingerly, as though he was approaching a dangerous animal. She had betrayed a moment of weakness, one that Izumi had no problem exploiting.

Some people called him manipulative. He preferred to think of it as social navigation.

Azula pulled away from the bars and hugged her sides. "Look, it's not exactly like I'm swarmed with company up here. Even I deserve a little conversational stimulation, don't I?" She stared at him defiantly, daring him to disagree. When he didn't she continued. "Besides, I see so much of myself in you, it seems a shame to waste the opportunity to have a meaningful discussion, doesn't it?"

Shocked, Izumi took another step forward. "You see yourself in me?" The idea was not a comforting one.

She waved a hand dismissively. "Of course I do. You are the prodigy, the perfect child, the one with all the responsibility and expectations. You demand excellence and will settle for nothing less, not even in yourself. Everyone around you seems to always let you down, and the pressure of never quite being good enough is what drives you to become better, stronger, more powerful."

Without realizing it, Izumi had taken a seat after all. Azula paced slowly along the bars as she spoke.

"You were born lucky, but raised to be invincible."

Izumi's heart stopped cold at the familiarity, the truth, of the words. But still, he betrayed nothing in his expression.

"Much as you hate it, you are your sister's keeper. For me, it was my brother, the screw-up, the one who made all the messes for you to clean up. Everyone always expected Zuko to fail, but me? I always had to be perfect. And don't get me wrong, I was perfect, but I didn't realize that it would come at such a cost…" she momentarily faltered, looking into his eyes as she passed in front of him.

"I made mistakes. Fatal ones. And now I am here, paying for them." She gestured at the small window. "The bigger they are…" Izumi glanced at the opening, imagining the steep drop that waited outside of it.

"Have you never tried to make amends?" Izumi asked quietly, voicing the question that had always nagged at him about his family's incarceration.

She looked away from him, striding to straighten the already-straight stack of books. "I must have used up all of my second chances," she said in a tone that was falsely indifferent. Izumi could hear the sadness underneath the casual reply, though.

"But you were just a kid when everything happened. Has my father never given you the chance to make amends as an adult? Why are you still here if you recognize you were wrong?"

She stood at that, rigid and proud. "I'm not entirely sure I was wrong," she replied. "I followed orders, just like everyone else. I followed them exceptionally well, in fact. So well that I was the first and only one to accomplish what my father sent me to do. I conquered Ba Sing Se! I don't believe that the things I did were any more or less wrong than what the rest of the fire nation army did, and they get to walk around, living their lives in freedom!" She gestured again at the window.

"You tried to kill my father," Izumi pointed out evenly.

Her shoulders drooped a little. "I was ordered to kill your father."

"And you were ready to do it, even though it was wrong?"

Her eyes flashed angrily. "Let me ask you this: What would you have done if your father commanded you to do it?"

Izumi recoiled at the idea of harming his sister. Seeing his look, Azula backtracked.

"Zuko was always the favorite of my mother, while I was the cold monster she never really loved. Don't pretend you don't know what that's like. I've seen the way your beloved perfect parents treat you and your sister. They dote on her and completely overlook all the times she fails, while you are held to impossible standards and get no praise or recognition for all you sacrifice for her. That was once me, Izumi."

She approached the bars again.

"I was once there. I watched as Zuko defied my father, let the avatar escape, and betrayed the Fire Nation… yet still, at the end of the day, everyone was ready to welcome back the prodigal son. So yes. When my father demanded I kill him, I didn't hesitate. My father banished, burned, and rejected my brother for speaking out of line. I wasn't about to get the same treatment for disobeying him. It was me, or Zuko. And I was never a huge fan of Zuko anyway."

Her voice dropped to a volume so low, only the echo of the stone walls carried it to Izumi's ears. "Funny how no one ever mentions how he was ready to kill me too."

Izumi tried to school his features into indifference, but it was hard not to react to that allegation.

She shrugged, pulling away from the bars and moving to sit on the bed. "Fine. I can see you don't believe me. But as they say, it takes two to tango. Your oh-so-good-now father was there, firing away at me too. I did what I had to do, Izumi, just like he did, and just like you're doing now. The only difference between you and me is that I ended up on the losing side." She picked up a book and cracked it open to read.

Sensing the conversation was over, Izumi rose from his seat and walked toward the door. As he reached to knock, Azula spoke once more.

"If you ever want to talk, I'll be here, nephew. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll be here indefinitely, so any secrets you share will probably rot away in here with me. Just a thought."

Finally, Izumi left, head swirling with confusing thoughts and emotions and pounding harder than ever.