Disclaimer: The title and subtitle are direct quotes from the song Black Wave by The Shins, which I listened to on repeat while writing this and recommend you listen to while reading.
Underneath the Waves
(you were most alone)
I. Spring
Underneath her feet, the earth is warm and moist. The sea, all heavy salt and open air, and the blooming earth crash against her nostrils, and it's making her head throb between her eyes. She recognizes the faint tinge in the air, almost, but it's just out of her reach. It reminds her of her grandfather, ominous and tall and wreathed in fire, but it also reminds her of her mother.
And she is lost, and afraid. She knows her mother can sweep away the pain crushing her lungs, making it hard to breathe, even if her mother isn't a healer and cannot soothe the pounding in her head. A spiderfly's web bows between two trees, low enough for her to stumble through, and her fear and pain lash out red-hot, searing the bark in streaks.
The sticky residue clings to her skin's memory as she breathes and passes, shaking. Her favorite dress is ruined. She hopes it doesn't rain. Father said it would, but she hopes it doesn't because her hair is already messy in her face. It's very, very hot, more hot than she has ever remembered, and everything green and shadowed closes in on her; she doesn't think the heat was this oppressive earlier.
She doesn't see the root and when she stumbles to the ground, her dress rips. The bitter tightness of her chest raises past her lungs, and it's like her brother's hand on her elbow when Father is admonishing them. But she doesn't want to cry. She has a gift. Gifted girls don't cry.
It feels like the ground is melting under her fingertips.
She is pure and divine and smoke curls after her feet.
She looks up and the ground swells like blood before her, and she forgets how to breathe.
II. Summer
It's hard to sit still and listen to long-winded stories. Her mother's voice is too relaxed, and when she speaks, she sits very, very still, like she's afraid of moving. Azula isn't afraid of anything, and she's always impatient with her mother's hesitance. She tries to indulge herself on the attention, take in every detail of the moment.
The book is leather-bound. The inscription of the title is gold. The sun is tilted at seven o'clock, and will set soon (it would be wise to attack her enemies from the west and arm her soldiers with brilliance). Her mother's hair is slipping out of its topknot, just by a few strands (enough that if she were in arm's reach, she could disarm her - hair is sensitive when pulled and plucking hair is a very good means of extracting information from prisoners). The chair her mother sits in is mahogany (unwieldy and not easy to set on fire - if necessary, it could be broken, but not easily. It is a poor weapon, but a good means of defense). The mat she kneels on is newly woven and embroidered in gold (flammable, but hard to tear - with the right position, it could be used to trip an opponent). The tray of tea on the table before them is her mother's favorite (hard clay, easy to heat and smash and burn - the best weapon in the room besides Azula's body).
Her mother's neck curves down. There is the shadow of a bruise under her collar.
Her fists clench.
"Is that the best you can do?" The words run out of her before she can stop them, and for the first time in her life she gets away with lying to her mother.
III. Fall
Nature is the conquest of fools. She's not blind to the weeds that grow through floors, nor to the creatures that lurk through alleyways, homeless and ravaged by humans yet still alive. Her gaze traces the long line of the sea, and she can see every living thing under its glassy surface in her mind. Their eyes would not turn to her if she stepped down to their doorstep. They wouldn't run from her.
She's tired of things running. And she's tired of sound, of excessive noise. She's tired of cities, and halls, and voices.
She's just. Tired.
And the ocean stretches out indefinitely. She knows logically that three hundred nautical miles to the east is the first island of the Earth Kingdom. It was the first land conquered by her great-grandfather Sozin, and was the first land officially given its independence by the Avatar and Firelord. That is a simple matter of fact. Still, with the waves coursing across her bare ankles, she imagines that it is infinity spread out before her, and if she set sail her ship would find harbor in new lands. Lands without maps and set statistics.
It perplexes and unsettles her that she doesn't even know what she wants the shoreline to resemble.
Her pants billow around her knees and stick to her thighs and her fingertips graze at the waves.
She hears her mother hailing her, and for a brief moment she lets herself pretend it is because she wants her safe.
IV. Winter
"You think you're a glacier," her mother chides gently. She doesn't remember her ever waxing poetic before. "But darling, you're so much younger than that. Do you remember when you found that volcano, when you were a little girl?"
They are sitting across from each other at a Pai Sho table. It is her turn. She remembers. "No," she lies, and though she is mapping out her next move, removed from her mother, she knows that her mother has seen through this one. When she was ten, she discussed the memory with her father, who would surely have passed the conversation onto her mother. She used to be all he talked about.
Her mother says nothing for a moment, and her hand is delicately poised at the brim of her teacup. "I think you do," she decides. Her tone is benevolent and calm, without retribution, and it makes her slice a tile three spaces forward with more vehemence than she originally intended. Her mother doesn't hesitate to counter, and she loses her Fire Lily tile. "You were always so proud of yourself," she finally continues. "I remember you wanted to be called the Goddess of Volcanoes."
"Perhaps as a child," she says stiffly, and instead of making a move glares at her mother. "What's your point?" And she always has a point. Everything's a lesson, now.
"You're that volcano," her mother says, and leans her chin on the heel of a hand. "You always have been. You still have a long life to live, sweetie, and this is just the beginning."
"I'm not a child." Yet as a child she cuts a tile in a violent diagonal and her stomach coils with the realization that she's lying. Her mother's hand leaves the teacup; her knuckles settle against her cheek. She imagines breaking them, the sound of the bones snapping, and immediately after imagines kissing them. They remain there until she realizes she's holding her breath, and she has almost decided what to do when her mother tucks her hair behind her ear and sighs.
"If only you still could be." When she looks up, her mother's eyes are focused on something far away and the fingers that touch her teacup are trembling.