chasing sanity
JetAzula
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She first hears of him when her father calls her to the throne and orders her to take down the rebels. She laughs, verging on maniacal, and tells him it'd be her pleasure. He looks down on her, pleased with his prodigy, and she leaves, happy that he is proud (in a twisted, Fire Lord way) of her.
She waves off Ty Lee and Mai when they say they'll join her — "no need, girls." — because she wants to take down these children all on her own. She doesn't doubt her abilities, and neither should they.
Eventually, she arrives in the redyelloworange forest by the dam, and she terrorizes the villagers for a while — just for kicks. They cower in fear, and she sneers, because of course they should be afraid of her — her with her cold blue fire and heartless amber eyes. She sets off to their headquarters, and burns down the first treehouse she sees — "they really think the Fire Nation princess wouldn't notice some crude treehouses?" She asks, as if it's a joke, to herself, laughing that insane laugh — and the babywarriors come rushing out, unsure of what happened.
One boy — their leader, presumably — dives for her with hook swords, and she suddenly realizes just how many there are. She's surrounded, and for a second she thinks they might beat her, but then she's up on her feet again, blasting azure flames all around and scorching their precious forest. Until finally, the boy with the hook swords catches her from behind and they pin her down, with her writhing and shooting flames from her mouth until they muzzle her — she's never been so undignified in her life, she decides, as the boy with his foot on her back cheers "we won!" and the rest of the measly nonbenders shout, and it's one big roar of Jet!
They put her in a makeshift cell, with her hands bound behind her back and she's still muzzled when the leader comes in, with his weapons, and says, "I guess the Fire Princess Azula isn't so amazing after all." And she's infatuated with him, because he beat her, and he has the eyes of a mad man.
.
She stays in the cell for who knows how long, and they feed her well enough. It's a disgrace to herself, she notes bitterly, because she used to be so proud, and now she's trapped by a group of child rebels — where did it all go?
And she hears them cheer every time they have a victory, hears them gloat when they defeat another Fire Nation soldier, and it's a nice little life for them, she realizes. She's humbled by it all, in a way — comes out a different person. But she is still the Fire Princess — no doubt about that.
It's a shame, she thinks, when Mai and Ty Lee come and break her out, that things weren't different, because maybe, if the war wasn't the war, and she wasn't her — she might have fit in there — and she might have loved their leader Jet like she loves herself.
They leave the treehouses intact, no one dead, because she didn't want Ty Lee and Mai to do all the work — and because the rebels didn't deserve to die.