This doesn't tie into any of my other stories, it's its own thing… I was sort of thinking about Azula lately and feeling so sorry for her (she'd hate that…) so I decided to share this.
For anyone who hasn't read the Search or Smoke and Shadow: Kiyi is not my OC, she's Zuko and Azula's younger half-sister. She's 14 here, so Azula is somewhere between 25 and 30.
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Chapter 1
The trick to avoiding capture while on the run was pretty simple to understand. One just had to throw away any thought of ever being completely safe. Once you were a fugitive, that's what you were until they caught you.
Azula was quick to internalize that rule. No matter how comfortable she felt, she remained aware that her faith could change at any moment. Even years after her escape from the mental institution she was prepared to move her whole life at the smallest sign of trouble. Whether it was a prying neighbor, a single wanted poster or someone following her home.
That's why she immediately noticed when a cloaked woman started shadowing her on her way from the market. She made a couple of wrong turns to make sure, before passing right by her house and leading her stalker into an abandoned, dark alley.
She waited for the woman to make the turn and when she did, surprised her by stepping out of the shadows and pinning her to a wall. Now that she had her hand around her stalker's throat, she could see it was not so much a woman as it was a girl, pale and weak, trying desperately to speak, but letting out only quiet gasps as she struggled for air.
"I'm… Your… Sister…" the girl managed. Azula needed only one look into her desperate eyes to know it was the truth. She loosened her grip and the girl fell to the ground, clutching her throat and gasping for breath.
"You're her brat… How dumb of Zuko to send you first. Where is he anyway?" Azula's palm lit on fire as she turned around violently, "Come out, come out, Zuzu!"
"He's not… Here… It's just me." Kiyi found the strength and the courage to stand up again.
"You expect me to believe you've found me all on your own? That a ten-year-old succeeded where an army has failed?"
"I'm fourteen."
Azula shook her head and then started walking away.
"Hey, wait!" the girl followed.
"Just run home, Kiki!"
"It's Kiyi."
"Thanks. Just run home, Kiyi!" Azula quickened her pace, but so did her half-sister.
"I can't. Ever. I ran away." Kiyi said like she was unloading a big burden from her heart. That was the first time those words actually left her lips.
"Well, write a sad song about it, why don't you? And leave me alone." Azula thought a hitwoman was onto her, and it just ended up being a teenage drama in progress, "Go find your mom if you want a shoulder to cry on."
"No, I hate her." Kiyi said with an especially toxic tone. Azula almost liked it.
"I never want to see her again." the girl added, "That's why I wanted to find you. So I could live with you."
"Are you insane?!" Azula snickered, "Didn't you hear the stories? I'm dangerous."
"I don't care about that… We're sisters." Kiyi smiled innocently.
After hearing that Azula stopped and made eye contact with her.
"I don't have a sister." she said strictly.
"Alright, half-sister. But we have the same mother…"
"That's where you're wrong. I don't have a mother. Never did."
Kiyi said nothing, but still followed after when Azula started walking. With a few more steps they were in front of Azula's house.
"Please, I don't have anyone else." Kiyi pleaded.
"Maybe you should have thought about that before you took this little field trip." Azula unlocked the door and left her bag inside.
"Please! I'll-"
"Zip it! Go home, child!" Azula started closing the door, "And if you even think about outing me by shouting my name at the door, I will put my hand around your throat again and this time I won't stop."
And with that the door slammed in Kiyi's face. She felt like crying more than anything else. But she couldn't let herself. No. That would just prove Azula was right calling her a little kid. And she wasn't. She was doing alright up until that moment because she had a goal. Somewhere, or rather someone to reach. But now that she was here it was anything but what she expected.
As the sun was almost completely set by that point, Kiyi sat down on the side of the street and hugged her knees, leaning against Azula's door. She'd come around, the girl thought. She had to.
oooooooooo
Kiyi must have looked very desperate sitting on the ground, because a few of the people who passed by threw coins into her lap. And honestly, she did feel completely pathetic. But as she sat waiting for hours, thinking about her current situation she was beginning to feel quite angry too.
"Want to make some real money, little girl?" a shady-looking man appeared in front of her all of a sudden.
"No, thank you." she hated the way he was looking at her. He was one of those people you just felt like running from even though they haven't done anything wrong, really.
"Are you sure? You're very pretty, I could easily find a use for you."
She was obviously going to have to make herself clearer.
"I said no!" she stood up suddenly, "Now piss off!"
Kiyi never actually spoke like that to another person, but she was discovering she had a taste for it.
"That's what all of you say at first." he tried to grab her arm, but she moved out of the way and decided to make a run for it.
She was a really fast runner, but panic was starting to get to her. She made it half way down Azula's street before she realized there were no more pedestrians anywhere in sight. She was completely alone with that man.
"Don't come any closer!" she wasted no time, but turned back around and threw a warning ball of fire in the man's direction.
Unfortunately, she was so preoccupied with keeping him in check, she didn't even notice his friends sneak up on her from the back. Instead of grabbing her, the two men spilled a full barrel of something oily on her.
As she struggled to get it out of her eyes, she slipped and fell to her knees.
"If you even try to firebend again, this will ignite and your whole body will burn."
Kiyi could see again and she was desperately trying to get the liquid off her skin and clothes, but it was proving impossible. Without her bending, she had no defense against the three of them.
"I don't need to bend, I'm not afraid of you!" she lied.
The man simply smirked and started tying her hands together. She struggled, but it didn't seem to bother him. Kiyi felt like crying again, when suddenly all three of them let her go and started running away.
"That's right! You better run!" Kiyi screamed after them before hearing footsteps behind her, "Azula?"
And it really was her sister, displaying one of her infamous blue flames.
"Get in the house. Come on, quietly."
Inside, Kiyi was allowed to use the bathroom to wash herself of that disgusting oil and change into some fresh clothes. She might have allowed herself a few tears in there before washing her face, but that didn't really count, did it?
"Azula?" Kiyi peeked out of the bathroom, fully dressed in her older sister's a-size-too-big clothes.
"Oh, yes. Here." the woman handed her a stack of sheets, "One night. That's all you get. I want you gone in the morning."
Kiyi nodded.
"That's for the sofa, over there." Azula added, "I don't have a guest room, for obvious reasons."
"Thank you."
oooooooooo
Azula watched Kiyi as she struggled to make her bed properly, while wondering how this girl even made it this far on her own without getting herself kidnapped, killed or falling off a cliff. Then Kiyi sat down on the sheet just like she did on the street and completely froze like that.
"That thing they poured on you is really nasty." Azula started, "It's called Dragon Snare. They make it from a mixture of natural oils which makes it highly flammable. Even the slightest spark of fire or lightning and… You catch fire."
Kiyi just nodded. Oh, so now, now she's quiet.
"That's why you should have left when I told you. It's not safe here at night. For those like you, at least… They were probably planning on selling you." Azula noticed the girl wanted to say something, "Please, don't ask me what for…"
"No… I wanted to ask if the front door was locked." the girls voice seemed more brittle than before.
"Yes, it is." Azula's answer didn't seem to put the girl at ease. Oh, the hoops she had to jump though to get through this night. "And they know I live here. They wouldn't dare think about going inside."
After another nod from Kiyi Azula was officially done. She said something along the lines of Good Night and retired to her room.
When she got up in the middle of the night to drink, she didn't even remember she had a guest. At least not until she walked into the living room and saw Kiyi there, wide awake, holding a sword at her neck.
"Put that down!" Azula took it from the girl, "That is not a toy! If you wish to kill yourself do it somewhere else."
"I'm not- I wanted to cut my hair. That's all." Kiyi explained, but her sister didn't look convinced, "I swear! I never liked it, only she did."
"Well, I don't know what kind of theater dramas our mother's been feeding you," Azula walked into the kitchen and then swiftly returned handing her a pair of scissors, "but out here in the real world, people use those."
Kiyi looked even more determined now that she had an audience for her little act of rebellion. She took Azula's silent observation as support, while she cut the first few locks. Her hair, when let down, reached all the way to her waist, but she was cutting it around the shoulder now.
"Stop, I can't watch this anymore… Give me." Azula moved over to sit next to her and put out her hand demanding the scissors.
"You want to help?"
"No, I just can't bear to watch incompetence. Now turn around and don't move."
The girl obeyed without question. She seemed to be recuperating from her foul mood from earlier, as far as Azula could tell.
"You know, it's been three days since I ran away." Kiyi attempted to get a conversation going.
"You still haven't told me how you found me." Azula knew encouraging the girl was the last thing she should be doing, but if there was a weakness in her plan, she had to know.
"We just think alike, I guess… Do you want to know why I decided to leave?" she asked even though she was pretty sure the answer was no.
Azula barely even heard the question, since while she was cutting she noticed the bruise on the girl's neck from their first encounter.
"If you can finish it before I finish the haircut."
Something about the look of the bruise, paired with the gentle sounding voice of the girl made Azula feel truly awful. But that was before she knew who she was dealing with, she couldn't be held responsible for that, could she…
"… Even when it was time for me to go to school, she just hired tutors to come to the palace. She planned on never letting me leave. Or do anything I want. And Zuko doesn't even care, he's just thinking about his work all the time."
Azula wanted to ask about Zuko, how he was doing, about him and Mai, but if she showed the girl even a little bit of interest she'd never shut up.
"Here. Done." Azula stood up to leave, "Go to sleep."
"Azula… Could I maybe, please, stay here some more?" Kiyi pleaded.
"Absolutely not."
"But… Please. I came here because I knew you could teach me."
"Teach you what?"
"You know… How to live on your own when everyone's looking for you."
"We are not in the same situation and I am not teaching you anything. You're gone in the morning, so I suggest you get some sleep."
"I have money, I can pay you." Kiyi reached into her pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. This seemed to get Azula's attention back.
"How much do you have?"
"All together? Between three hundred and four hundr- Hey!" Kiyi objected when her sister yanked the money out of her hand, "That's mine!"
"It just so happens the night and the clothes with the haircut come up to about three hundred to four hundred also. How lucky…" Azula did a quick count of the bills ignoring Kiyi's sulking.
"You can't just-"
"You wanted a lesson from me. Here it is: you don't tell people how much money you have, you certainly don't show them where you keep it!"
"Alright, I can remember that…" Kiyi calmed down and sat down, "I didn't think that included you. We're family…"
"Second lesson, you never trust someone, no exceptions. Whoever they are, they will always, always turn you in."
"But if they're on the run too…"
"Especially, then. If people are given the choice between helping you and helping themselves, they'll chose themselves every time without exception."
"That's not true." Kiyi insisted.
"Well, let's see… I could just give you the money back, but I think I'd prefer to send you out without it in the morning. It'll get you home sooner."
"I'm not going home! No matter what happens." Kiyi lied down so she didn't face Azula anymore, "I'm not gonna be her little doll anymore."
Azula took that as their conversation ending and quietly walked to her room, putting out all the candles on her way. She had trouble sleeping the rest of the night, something that didn't usually happen to her. After some time, she simply gave up.
oooooooooo
Kiyi wasn't exactly sure how long she slept, but she could gather it was already near noon when she woke up. The first thing she noticed when her vision cleared was her money, lying on the table next to where she slept.
"Azula?" she sat up and checked the bills. They were all there. "Azula, thank you! Azula?!"
Kiyi circled the entire house two times, but there was no sign of her sister. She was surprised, but maybe she shouldn't have been. She said it was going to be only one night at the very start. Kiyi wanted to be glad she at least got her money back, but she couldn't bring herself to care about that in the moment.
Once again, she was alone. Completely alone.
She sat down and cried, for real this time.
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Anyway, I was planning on continuing this. I don't usually leave things at one chapter…
Tell me, if you'd be interested in reading more chapters of this.
Also, I made up the part about Ursa being overly controlling to Kiyi, but from what I saw in Smoke and Shadow, is it that much of a stretch really? While growing up kids often ask for more and more privacy and I think that would just make Ursa try to control her daughter even more, wishing she could stay her baby forever.
Anyway, remember it takes literally seconds to leave a review and I appreciate every single one with a burning passion… :)
