Author's Note: This is my final Avatar: the Last Airbender fanfic (part one of ten). I thank everyone who, for the past three years, have read my stories, helped me write them, review them, and critique them. Lyrics belong to Linkin Park. I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.

Mercy

daydream11

March 22, 2009

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mercy

noun

1. compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy

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001. Twilight

"It's my favorite time of day," she told me. I glanced up at her, surprised. Wasn't this girl supposed to be a Firebender? Didn't they love the day? You know, "I rise with the sun" and all of that jazz? She turned around, facing me completely now, and smirked.

"Oh, just ask it, if you really want to know," she said. I glared at her. She didn't flinch, and instead raised her brows. For one who has been so disgraced, she was still so arrogant even when she didn't try to be.

"I don't," I huffed. She laughed this time, no smirks! A real laugh – light and airy and not at all like the bitchy one I had heard so much.

"Yes, that's why you're here with me, and not back at the inn, where your friends and wife are expecting you." She grinned. "I wonder how she'd feel to know that you're here with me, of all people? And how she'd react when I tell her that I didn't call you, that you came on your own." I blushed under her gaze. "Not happy, she'd be, I know."

She turned back to the window, watching as the sun sank further behind the trees. Stars were beginning to emerge. She didn't move as I settled beside her.

She did smirk, though.

002. Burn

She had burned her way off of that disgusting sewer, filthy and soaking and stinking. Nobody had come to her aid; everybody had ignored her screams and cries. She was left with scars around her wrists, permanent scars that circled around her wrists. So like her brothers', though the tale was different. Her brother's own told his tale of freedom and truth. Hers were a testimony of slavery and lies.

003. Silence

They wouldn't allow her to speak.

They had drugged her as much as they could without poisoning her, and it kept the girl in an induced coma. It was terrible, this silence. Somehow, Song knew that it was worse than the girl's yells. She had pleaded with anyone she possible could plead to – the girl's therapist, the head doctor, the Firelord himself – but her requests fell on deaf ears. "There is no need for pity," the Firelord told her in a personal visit, presumably to confirm his sister's wellbeing, "she brought this upon herself."

Song had heard the whispers, saw for herself the new history textbooks being written. She knew damn well the horrors that followed the princess' wake; she knew that the Firelord had hid in her home running from her. Yet, as Song attended to the princess' scars – she had burned herself off the sewer the Waterbender had chained her to – she couldn't help but speak up herself.

"Maybe, maybe not," she whispered, handing the princess' wrists gently. She wrapped the clean linen around the fresh wounds, something she did at least six times a day. Song sponged the princess' face and brushed her hair, tucking the blanket around her body. "Azula does, however, need mercy."

004. Secrets

"Stay away from the princess," Tyro wrote, "that woman brings destruction." These were the words contained in the post-script of his father's letter, in the first one he received since he was in the Fire Nation representing his community (there was work to be done, after all, for former Fire Nation colonies). Haru wrote back to his father diligently, and obediently steered clear of the princess, who sources told him was now given the permission to roam the castle freely.

He had found her in the palace library late one afternoon, in a corner by an open window, studying. He sat at one small table nearby with parchment and a pencil, and ignored her. There was just enough time to write a letter to his father, and perhaps to rest afterward. No sooner had he began did a shadow come over him. He glanced up and met the princess' gaze.

"May I join you?" she asked. "I'm craving for some company. It's been days since I've been around anyone but my maids or my nurse." Without waiting for an answer, she sat down across from him and continued to read. She seemed to be paying him no mind.

Haru gaped and, realizing what he was doing, hurriedly returned to his letter. His heart beating furiously, he forced his hand to remain still as he wrote his letter. He'd keep this – the princess' close proximity – from his father. No need to frighten the old man.

005. Blankets

Prince Zuko woke up in the middle of the night shivering. The comforter he and Azula had been sleeping under was bunched around her small body. He rolled his eyes and yanked part of the blanket from under his sister, only for her to grumble in her sleep and pull it back. Zuko groaned and settled for cuddling her; it was as warm as he could get without attempting Firebending (and probably starting a fire along with it). He jealously eyed the blankets swaddling Azula.

"Cover hog."

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In this farewell
There's no blood
There's no alibi
'Cause I've drawn regret
From the truth
Of a thousand lies
So let mercy come
And wash away
What I've done

1/10