Title: From Blue to Red

Author: Me!

Rating: K+

Genre: Family

Summary: Azula's locked up. Spoilers for series finale, one-shot.

A/N: Originally written on 7/20/08 after the series finale, edited a bit. The characters might be a bit OOC and some canon details lacking. Some might not make sense at all.

Nevertheless, hope you enjoy!

She was beautiful.

She was graceful.

She was clever.

She was dangerous.

But no more.

Now, she was nothing more than a weak Fire Nation princess who'd gone insane.

She was still dangerous but, like her father, had fallen from grace during the Agni Kai. It was all that little Water Tribe peasant's fault. And the Fire Nation traitor's as well – she could never think of him as her brother, never. Or even the fact that he was related to her at all in every possible way she could think of.

"Father..." she sobbed. Then she suddenly screeched, "Mother, what have you done to me?!" She glared venomously at nothing in particular, with fire in her eyes and tears flowing down her ungraceful face. Disgraceful. Undignified. That was who she was now—to anyone who set their eyes on her.

In a puddle that had recently expanded due to her uncontrolled tears, she could see the reflection of Ursa – her mother. Ursa was well groomed in a Fire Nation outfit, fitting only of the great Fire Lady. Azula couldn't take it; she was supposed to be crowned a Fire Lord after all. She breathed an enormous blue fire onto the puddle without effort, evaporating the poor puddle in an instant. However, it didn't stop Azula from hearing her mother's voice once again:

"I love you, Azula. I do."

Those words echoed, a constant reminder of the mirror scene. She had no weapons left to shatter that illusion of love.

"MOTHER! I don't need love! I-I deserve to be feared! Not loved!"

She was truly a monster.

Again with her lashes and struggles. Katara had done a good job – nay, an excellent job of binding her by the chains. Azula couldn't believe that she couldn't just burn her way out of the chains. Sure, her hands would be burned as well but she didn't care. She tried calling up her bottled energy and potential within her, ignoring a huge pain throbbing in her palms and blood trickling out smoothly, to firebend.

All she wanted was to be feared. Alas, no one did anymore.

She heard light footsteps akin to an airbender's, she heard the clinking of the key, she heard the cell opening. She prepared to escape, as alert as she usually was. But whoever it was, it was too fast for her.

It didn't fear her.

She began to see darkness as her head thumped the cold ground once more, her messy brown hair scattering again. Suddenly, she had a sensation of pins and needles. It dawned on her that she couldn't firebend anymore, nor could she produce lightning. Never would she display her enormous talent and potential, unlike her brother; never would she reach the stars above and extend beyond them. It had all disappeared only a few seconds ago, thanks to Ty Lee's wonderful skill at blocking chi.

Darn her.

Even so, she could produce red hot flames now, and only barely – it was all evidenced by her heavy snorts. They weren't fire-blue as usual but hey, it was better than nothing. She was inescapable, just like that.

After all, she was Azula.

"Hello, Azula."

She snapped her eyes open. Even in her sleep, in her dreams, she'd always been alert of her surroundings. It was crucial when you were expected to be assassinated at any given time – if an assassin ever dared approach her body. After that one incident when she was 10, no one dared go near her at night. It made her proud, for it meant that assassins were afraid of her. She was truly someone to be respected and feared.

As her eyes adjusted fiercely to the creature outside the jail, she realized that the author of the voice was none other than her brother, Prince Zuko. Or, she observed with concealed anger, Fire Lord Zuko. His hair was tied neatly with the obvious Fire Lord's crown. He stole that from Father, she concluded vehemently.

The heat had somewhat disappeared from her body and cell. She'd been placed in a cooler! Azula hadn't noticed because she'd focused on ignoring the weird pins and needles. Ty Lee… she growled at the unsatisfying memory of her former "friend." She couldn't be in the cooler earlier because she easily bested the guards and she was always, always alert. At least, her wish was fulfilled – she never saw her friends' faces. Twisting her head to the stranger, she appeared malicious even in the cool foggy cell. Still dangerous. She liked the feeling.

"What do you want, Zuzu? More pity? More bragging? I see you've been made the Fire Lord – LIKE I SHOULD HAVE BEEN!" Her seething anger became more apparent as it grew, built up inside her throbbing heart.

He shook his head pitifully. Pity, pity. It drove Azula insane, just as she was driven a week ago. She hated being pitied. "You want pity? Fine, here's pity for you!" She snarled angrily at her, breathing huge bursts of red fire directly at him. Fire Lord Zuko wasn't harmed, for he was standing outside the cooler. She cursed, for she'd used up all her chi to create red fire despite the frigid temperature in the cooler. Well, it still meant that Ty Lee's chi blocking effects were gone at last. She avoided Zuko's glance, waving him off with her hand. "Save your pity for others. I don't deserve it."

"You're right. You're obviously cruel and you've tried to hurt Aang thousands of times, even tried to kill him as well as hundreds of other people you've hurt. Especially me. You don't deserve pity. Besides, you'll only hurt yourself if you do that." She heard a hint of concern in his tone.

"Oh, what's this? Zuzu is concerned about my wellbeing? How rare of him."

Then she cackled madly. "Just you wait, I'll bust out of this cell and avenge my father! Then you won't have anything to be concerned about!" Her threat lingered in the air, as Azula exchanged a stony glare with her older brother whose stare was comparatively less intense.

"You're my little sister; I do love you," he said gently and delicately, causing her to throw back her body into the very back of the cell. She shut her eyes and ears, screaming and wailing, forgetting her pride for a moment, forgetting that she was exiled now.

"Enough! You're banished! I never want to see your traitor face again."

She didn't want to see him, because he was a traitor.

She didn't want to see her uncle, because he was a fool.

She didn't want to see her father, because he abandoned her.

But most of all, she didn't want to see her own mother.

Why?

Because Ursa was the reason why she was this demented.

She hated her mother.

Screw this family.

Love was troublesome.