Nature versus Nurture

Azula's Daughter

This was easily the worst storm that the Fire Nation had seen in the last ten years. The heavy downpour combined with the monsoon type winds made it nearly for anyone to see where they were going. The city outside of the grounds of the Fire Lords palace was already covered in debris. Fallen tree limbs and pieces of building covered the streets, soaking in the ankle-deep water that ran downhill like a small river. A woman makes her way, unsteadily, to the gates of the place. Her pale, boney hands firmly hold a small blanket covered bundle to her chest as she tries to protect it from the elements. Lightening flashes, illuminating the path ahead of her for a few seconds, letting her know she was heading in the right direction. There was a time that she had loved the lightening, the energy that it gave her, the feeling of utter power that ran through her body when she wielded that unnatural weapon, the superior feeling she had when people saw her use it for the first time, it had made her feel whole. Now, it was nothing more than a nuisance that added more difficulty to the task at hand.

With a weakening grip, she pulls the bundle closer to her body. She was almost there. The loud cracking of thunder makes her flinch. When had she become so weak that a little storm scared her? Pulling her cloak closer to her thinning body, she continues on her way, staggering as the wind whipped around her, nearly knocking her off her feet.

"Who goes there?" A booming voice asks as she nears the large iron gates. The man behind the voice was a larger male, he reminded her of the ships that she had once commanded, broad with sharp features. His thick bearded appeared to be soaking up rainwater as he stepped from underneath the covering and pointed the end of his sharp spear in her direction. "I asked what business you have here."

"I'm here to see my brother." The woman says, stepping out of the rain, into the light of the glowing lanterns and letting the hood from her head fall backwards to rest against her shoulders. The woman looked like a shell of what she once was, her cheeks were sunken in, her hair was knotted and pulled looked like she had pulled it back, but the wind had ripped most of it out of its tie. The dark circles that pooled heavily under her eyes made her look like one of the undead.

The guard gasps, stumbling backwards a few steps. "Princess- Princess Azula?" He asks, frantically waving over another guard to make sure that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. The servants rushed away to let the Fire Lord know that his estranged sister had returned.

"Don't just stand there, you idiots!" She snaps, shifting the bundle from one arm to another as she walks through the slowly opening gates. "Get my brother and bring me a fresh towel and hot water."

"My apologies, Princess." The guard replies, bowing lowly before rushing away to fetch the items that the princess requested.

Zuko enters the dining room, stopping dead in his tracks when he see's who is warming themselves by the fire. The servants weren't wrong, his sister had returned. At least what used to be his sister, the woman in front of him was far different from the last time he had seen her. She was pale, even by Fire Nation standards, and she looked as if she hadn't had a decent night's sleep in months. She looked ill, it was evident by the way that the clothes she was wearing hanging loosely on her body that she had lost weight.

Sensing her brother's presence, Azula rises to her feet, turning away from the flames to face him. Zuko's cannot hide the shock from his face when he see's what's in Azula's arms. The Princess follows his gaze to the small child that is nestled closely to her chest. "It's your niece." She says, as if reminding him of something she had told him a hundred times over. "Oria."

Zuko starts towards his little sister, approaching her in the same manner that one would approach an injured animal that was likely to attack or flee if it was to become frightened. "How old is she?" He asks, trying to get a better look at the infants' face.

"She will be three months of age in two days." A small gasp sounds from behind him, he doesn't have to turn around to know that Katara had entered the room. The look of distaste on his sisters hollowing face lets him know that she had entered. Her opinion of the Waterbender hadn't seemed to have changed much over the last three years. "It looks like the rumors are true. I should have known that Zu-Zu would have dropped Mai for you." Azula says, her amber eyes raking over Katara's figure in a way that made her shiver. "I suppose father is thrilled about the union."

"Father is no longer with us." Zuko says, after a long moment of silence.

Azula's face falters for a moment before returning to a less convincing stoic expression. It appeared that she was either too weak or too tired to keep up her usual cloud of defense. "How unfortunate." She turns lean against the large dinning room table. "And mother?"

"She's still alive."

When the child in her arms starts to whimper, Azula shifts it to her shoulder and pats it on the back with a gentleness that Zuko would have never believed her to be capable of. "How did the Avatar react to you stealing his girlfriend?"

"Zuko didn't steal me." Katara says, speaking for the first time since she entered the room. Stepping forward to stand beside Zuko, she holds her hands in clinched fist at her sides. "I'm no one's property to steal. I choose to be with Zuko."

Aang and Katara had a nasty fallout about a year after they had gone with Zuko on the journey to find his mother. Zuko had been slightly stunned when Katara had shown up on the palace doorstep in the middle of the night. She was an emotional wreck and cried for three days straight, before she finally managed to tell Zuko the short version of what had happened. It took two weeks for him to coax her out of the bedroom and back into the world of the living. Sometime after that, the two had started a relationship, one that had angered the Avatar momentously when he found out about it. There relationship with him hadn't been the same since.

"I suppose it's time to discuss why I am here." Azula says, looking between her brother and his fiancée.

"Are you and the baby okay?" Katara asks, holding out her hand as she takes a step towards the two of them. "I can heal you if something is wrong."

"We are perfectly fine." She says, glaring at the other girl until she lowers her hand. "I'm not staying." She says, looking at Zuko. "I don't want anything to do with mother."

"Why are you here, Azula?" Zuko says, his eyes drifting down to the babies face as his sister approaches him. She looked a lot like her mother did as a child. Azula wasn't lying about the child being her own. The idea of Azula allowing someone to get close enough to her in order to make a child was hard for him to wrap his mind around. There had to be some kind of catch to it. A ploy to get the throne to the Fire Nation or something. "Where is her father?"

"That doesn't matter. He doesn't matter." Azula says, shaking her head, making more hair fall out of the loose hair tie. "He never intended to stick around for her anyway." Placing a kiss on her daughters' forehead, she whispers something too low for either Zuko or Katara to hear, before she closes the distance between them and places the baby into her brothers' arms. "I'm doing what our bitch of a mother was two much of a coward to do. I can't take her with me where I'm going. She deserves a better life than the one that we had, I can't give that to her right now. I'm not sure I will ever be able to."

Zuko looks down at the child in his arms and freezes. Azula couldn't be serious. She wasn't just going to leave her newborn daughter wit him while she took off, would she? He watches as she turns to Katara, a bitter look spreading across her sickly features. "As much as I hate to say this, I know that you will take good care of her." Azula says, looking as if the words caused her physical pain to say.

Katara nods slowly. Not sure what to say in reply. She seemed to be just a shocked as Zuko was about the events that were unraveling before them. "Maybe you should get a decent night's sleep before you leave." Katara suggests. "It must have been some time since you had one."

"Why?" Azula says, her untrusting demeanor returning once again. "So Zuko can have be thrown back into the hospital where I won't be able to feed myself?"

"No… I was-" Katara starts, but the door opens to revel a maid who was bring in a tray of food for the Princess.

Quick as lightening, Azula shoots across the room and wraps her arm around the neck of the young maid. The girls face shows nothing but fear when Azula raises a lit finger to her face. "I'm leaving, Zuko." She says, her voice firm. "I'm taking her with me and I'll release her once I'm outside of the gates."

Katara's hand moves to uncork the bottle of bending water that she had kept almost permanently attached to her waist. Zuko's large hand covers her own, stopping her as the flame near the maids' face begins to grow. "Just leave, Azula."

"Have you lost your mind?" Katara asks, turning to face Zuko as soon Azula disappeared out the servant's entrance with the young girl in tow. "She could kill that girl!"

"She's not going to."

"How can you possibly be sure? This is your sister we are talking about!"

"Katara." He says, looking down at his niece who was staring up at him with the same amber eyes that were a trademark of the Fire Nation. "She just wanted to leave the child. She'll let the girl go as soon as she gets out of here. She wouldn't have risked showing up here with a plan to take only a maid as a hostage. Not when she could have easily killed me right here and claimed the throne."

Katara's attention turns to the baby. "I can't believe Azula had a child." She says, talking it from Zuko, who hands it over quickly. He wasn't accustomed to holding children. He hadn't been around very many kids since he was one himself. Why Azula thought it would be a good idea to leave a child with someone who knew very little about them was beyond his comprehension. "She looks a lot like you."

Zuko stares at the small child as Katara places it on the table and uses her water bending to make sure that it was healthy. He kept waiting for whatever magic that was making the baby exist to wear off and for the baby to completely disappear. His fiancés hands light up in a glowing blue that the baby seemed to find interesting.

"She's perfectly healthy." Katara says, wrapping the child back up in its blanket. It was going to need some new clothes, the ones that it was currently wearing where becoming a little worn down. "Azula did an amazing job taking care of her. It's amazing, I would have never expected something like this to happen."

"What am I going to do?" Zuko says, staring at his niece who has decided to take a nap in Katara's arms the poor thing must have been exhausted from traveling. There was no telling how long Azula had been on the road before she had finally arrived.

"There's only one thing we can do, Zuko. We're going to raise her."

A/N: I completely redid this chapter and about doubled it in length. I hope it's a lot better and more interesting than the original. I'll probably save the original if anyone wants to see it for whatever reason. Tell me what you think about it. I love seeing your comments.