A soft tinkling melody fills the room as Azula tries to get herself some sleep. She watches in the dying candlelight as the figures in the music box rear up and fall back down on their mechanical hinges. To her, it is a curious thing. She has always been fascinated by the workings of the musical mechanism. How each and every cog and tiny lever moves with such precision and accuracy. In that way, she sees a bit of herself in the contraption. It's so complex and difficult, hard to figure out but expensive, beautiful, and rare all the same.

Azula runs her thumb up the side of the polished mahogany. Overtime it has become somewhat scratched and a little faded from the washes. Her thumb finds one of the decorations that are screwed into each corner. They are small metal imitations of fine lace. Each of these decorative pieces have been painted with pure gold. She traces her finger over the very center of the music box's base. Right there rest shimmering dragon scales, red in hue and fringed with a glittering gold. Azula had always been told that the gold on the scales come from the dragon rolling around in its hoard. Apparently, some of the gold rubbed off onto the creature and clung there. Azula still isn't sure if she believes it, but she truly wants to.

She opens the lid once more, as she has done so many times. Even though the candle has completely died out now, Azula can clearly visualize the familiar figure within. She has seen it so many times it is hard not to picture it.

She holds the music box at eye level and peers at the dragon with in. It had been crafted out of solid gold, every scale etched in with special attention. Everything about it was fashioned with great care from its elaborate, ring dressed claws and its sharp grin to the medallion it wears around its neck and the crown positioned on its head. Azula's favorite thing about it though, are sapphires fixed in its eye sockets and at the very tips of its whiskers. Next to the dragon she knows that there are exactly eight lotus flowers; some of amber and some of gold. And one—the eight one—made of ruby. They are in a diamond pond and the dragon perched on a Smokey quartz in the center. She wonders how difficult it must have been for the artist to make the dragon move without harming the precious minerals.

She windes it up again and sets it back down. She, herself, positions her arms on the table and props her head on her arms. With the tinkling tune, she knows that the dragon is coming alive. It is again rearing up and dropping. And after every few bucks, it unleashes a furl of sapphire flame. Back when everything was mostly okay, her father had the artist replace the amber with sapphire, just for her.

Azula smiles at the thought.

Softly, she begins to hum the tune.

A tune that, for longest time, had been her only source of comfort. Whenever her father raged or her mother's scolding became to oppressive, she would sit cross legged on the floor and watch the golden dragon spin and the lotus flowers twirl around the pond. She would sit and stare hard and long, trying to figure out how the machine worked—how it was that the flowers were able to cross the diamond. Putting that much thought and concentration into something so mundane helped her keep her mind away from whatever was troubling her at the moment.

Though, as a girl she was never able to figure out how it worked, she was thankful for that as it kept her mind busy for the longest of time. Recently, Azula had come to conclude that the artist had made and ever so small cut in the gemstone for the sliver of a peg that held up the flowers to glide through. It is very creative thinking, she decides, and she admires the mind that had come up with it.

The music stops again, prompting her to give it another twist.

She does.

This time she moves away from the music box and her beloved dragon and returns to her bed. She is at ease tonight, but she still enjoys the simple pleasure of letting the dragon box and its enchanting melody lull her to sleep.