Chapter 1: The Renegade

Fire Lord Zuko sighed deeply as he prepared himself for one of the most unpleasant activities on a schedule that seemed, lately, to be full of nothing but problems- his weekly visit to the mental hospital that housed his sister.

In some of his darker moments, Zuko wished that Azula would have been locked away in the deepest prison cell in the Fire Nation and promptly forgotten, rather than placed in the determined care of some of the most skilled healers in the Capital. Aang had launched into a passionate explanation of how the Air Nomads viewed all life as sacred and even an enemy should be shown mercy (it really was amazing the way he could be truly silly one moment and turn philosophical the next. It probably, Zuko thought, was an Avatar thing.) Then, if that wasn't enough, Uncle had joined in, pointing out that whatever Azula may have done in the past, she was no longer in a fit state to harm anyone. Of course, when the savior of the world and the man who'd been a true father to him teamed up to appeal to his better nature, Zuko found it quite difficult to say no. And so Azula was now being housed quite comfortably and given round-the-clock care, as well as round-the-clock guards.

The guards, though, seemed to have become a wasted precaution. Azula had been raving mad when she was finally brought down, weeping one moment, laughing maniacally the next, and generally shrieking death-threats at any living thing in the vicinity, as well as a handful of inanimate objects that she might possibly have mistaken for people. According to the healers, though, she had gradually quieted during her first night in their care, ultimately falling into a fitful sleep. When she finally awoke, her mind seemed all but gone. The deposed princess now sat perfectly still for day after day, staring off into the distance and ignoring everything in her immediate environment. She allowed the healers to feed and bathe her, but otherwise it was as if she was hardly aware that her surroundings existed.

"Her mind is still there," the chief healer had informed Zuko sadly. "She is plagued by horrible dreams while asleep, but her waking mind has completely withdrawn. We are sorry to say that we don't know how to reach her."

"Will she ever recover?" Zuko asked, influenced both by compassion and the knowledge that it would be best for all concerned if Azula never recovered.

"I can't say, my Lord," the healer said, shaking her head. "Your sister will come back when she wills it, and not a moment before."

That exchange had happened a month following the arrival of Sozin's Comet and the downfall of Fire Lord Ozai. It was now almost a year since that fateful day and Azula showed no sign of returning to the world of the living. As she showed no sign of harming anyone again, Zuko normally didn't regret this decision. There were times, though, that he couldn't help but wonder if Azula was somehow playing them all for fools.

None of that made Zuko any happier to be going to see her. Seeing as the last time she had been fully conscious Azula had been doing her best to send her brother to meet their ancestors rather prematurely, the young Fire Lord felt that he could be forgiven a certain lack of familial affection. Apparently his unease was showing on his face, though, because as the royal carriage rounded the last bend along the winding path to the hospital Mai turned to him and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Relax, Zuko," she said in a voice that managed to convey concern without ever changing its tone. "It's not like you're going to have an Agni Ki with her again."

"I know. I'm just… not looking forward to this."

Mai nodded, seeming to understand completely. Neither the Fire Lord nor his betrothed spoke again until the carriage rolled to the stop and a servant stepped forward to hold the door open.

Chief Healer Chinatsu, a kindly old woman in pale red robes, was waiting for them at the entrance. "Good day Majesty, My Lady," she said with as much of a bow as her stiff joints would permit. "I trust your journey went well?"

"It did," Zuko replied. "Now, I would like to see my sister." And get this over with, he silently added.

Chinatsu led them into the building and down a long corridor lined with rooms containing patients in various states of mental instability, all under the care of one or more subordinate healers. At last near the corridor's end they came to a single unmarked door. The healer hunted about in her robes for several moments and at last withdrew a silver key which she placed in the lock. After another moment of fiddling the door clicked and Chinatsu pushed it open.

The room beyond was comfortable, though plain. The walls and ceiling were red and unadorned, and the only pieces of furniture were a table on which sat a bowl of soup and a teacup, a small bed in one corner, and a chair. On the chair sat Azula.

Zuko's sister looked much as she had for the several months he'd been visiting. She was dressed in plain clothing reminiscent of what Fire Nation prisoners wore, albeit far better made, and her hair, while neatly combed, was not done up in the elaborate styling the princess had once preferred and was free to fall down past her shoulders. She sat perfectly still, hands crossed in her lap, and showed absolutely no sign that she was aware she had visitors.

Perhaps most disturbing of all to anyone who had encountered Princess Azula before her downfall were her eyes. Once they had been bright and penetrating, golden as a messenger hawk's and twice as predatory. Now, though, the life seemed to have left those eyes and they stared uncomprehendingly at a spot just to the left of Zuko's head.

"So there's been no improvement?" Zuko asked the healer after a long silence.

"None, Majesty," she said, shaking her head sadly as she often dead. "As I told you before- her ailment is her own, and only she can break it."

"I don't get it, Azula," Zuko said, though addressing his sister now was rather pointless as she did not seem to comprehend any known language. "You were always, I don't know, so alive, so determined, even at your worst. I'm standing right here, the person you want dead the most in the whole world, but you can't even register me enough to spit at me. I always thought that if something like this ever happened, Azula, you'd at least have the decency to go out fighting. I guess I was wrong."

"It's no use, Zuko," Mai said, looking at her former friend with her usual inscrutable expression. "The smoke's still there, but the fire's gone out."

The royal couple remained in the room for some time more, attempting- and failing- to engage Azula in conversation. At long last Zuko and Mai seemed to decide that she was a lost cause and left the deposed princess to herself. As the two left the room, Healer Chinatsu turned to look back inside before she shut the door- and saw, for just a moment, a flicker of gold. Had Azula just blinked? Chinatsu couldn't be sure with her failing vision, so when the princess reacted no further she simply shut the door. It must, the healer decided, have simply been a trick of the light.

/

It was greatly to Vasuman's surprise when his son called him to the front of the inn and he saw the war rhinos gathering in the village square.

It wasn't the creatures themselves that put the innkeeper on edge- he'd seen hundreds of the things during his days as a soldier in Ozai's vast war machine- but rather the fact that they bore armored riders upon their backs. The war had been over for a year now, and gone were the days when the army could lord it over the common folk as if the whole Fire Nation belonged to them. The new Fire Lord was a man of particularly strict opinions about such things.

Vasuman, at least, was simply glad that it was all over. As a young man he'd been conscripted into the Fire Lord's forces and been dragged all over the Earth Kingdom by officers who seemed to think that their sole purpose in existence was coming up with inventive ways to get the men under their command killed. Finally his leg had been injured in the siege of Ba Sing Se, and so he'd been sent home with honor and some meager pay, free to marry and inherit the family inn. His greatest concern had been for when his young son would grow old enough that he too would be forced into the pointless war, but now at last that was over. Vasuman could raise his family in peace.

One of the rhinos marched up to the front of the inn, and its rider, a huge man wearing the fearsome skull-mask of an elite firebender, leapt to the ground and strode forward.

"People of the Fire Nation!" he called in a deep voice, "the guardians of your homeland have need of your aid. You will give us all the supplies in this village save for those necessary for your immediate survival, and you will also agree to board us for the night. Afterwards we shall leave you in peace, secure in the knowledge that you have helped your Nation prosper."

Vasuman stepped out of the inn and limped forward until he was face to face with the firebending giant. "Your time is past, brute," he snarled. "The war is over and you have no right to steal from us what we won by our own hard labor. When the Fire Lord hears of this you will all regret coming here-"

Vasuman would have said more, but he was cut off abruptly as the huge man seized him by the throat and hoisted him one handed into the air. "Traitor!" the firebender boomed. "Behold, citizens, the fate of those who defy us!" The man held his other hand out and a ball of fire formed in his palm. Vasuman suppressed a shudder, not wanting his family to see him end like this but determined to meet his death with dignity.

"Enough!" a commanding voice cut across the square. "Put the civilian down, Colonel. I wish to speak with him."

"As you command, Lord General," the brute replied, and then roughly dropped Vasuman to the ground. The innkeeper staggered to his feet and faced the direction from which the voice had come. The rhinos were shifting and a man was striding between them, almost as tall as the colonel but far more slender, dressed in ornate armor such as only the highest officers wore. Perhaps he really was a general, and not just some self-promoted bandit.

And then Vasuman saw his eyes, and all doubt left him. He had only seen such eyes once before in his life, on the face of a soldier so maddened by battle-rage that he no longer cared whether he lived or died. This general's eyes were like that in their intensity, but behind the feverish light lurked an intellect far superior to the long ago maddened warrior.

The Fire Nation's leadership had always taught that their war of conquest was a Great March of Civilization, a way of improving the rest of the world by placing it under their benevolent rule. True believers were not uncommon among the lower ranks, at least until they had their idealism burned out of them on brutal campaigns; they were all but unheard of among the highest officers, who as a rule cared only for their own power. This man, this Lord General, though – something about his eyes and his carriage made it plain. He was a true believer. Vasuman knew suddenly that although he had been on battlefields for a good portion of his life, he had never been in more danger than he was right now.

The general moved forward slowly with a nonchalant ease reminiscent of how great cats were supposed to look when stalking their prey. He was an older man, his hair and beard gone mostly grey and his face lined, but his back was straight and his limbs were strong – he was not altogether past his prime, and dangerous for reasons beyond the soldiers under his command. On the shoulders of his armor he wore strange insignia; a Fire Nation symbol done in blue rather than red and set against and golden background; in all his years of service, the innkeeper had never seen its like before. The general looked Vasuman up and down, those fierce eyes seeming to take everything in, and then he smiled. "You are a brave man, innkeeper," he said in a deep, rich voice, "and from that and your limp I guess that you were a soldier wounded on the front. Am I correct?"

"What of it?"

"I have a vision, innkeeper," the general said softly, "a vision of a world where the Fire Nation is restored to its glory. Our Lord now is but a child, and he is weak-willed, sacrificing our pride in the name of the phantom called 'peace'. But I shall restore what he has taken and deliver the throne to one who shall guide us to heights undreamt of even by Sozin himself! But I have few men, and I could do with such spirit as you have shown. I sense that you are a respected man in this community, and I do prefer cooperation to coercion. Will you join me, and your village with you?"

Vasuman stared into those bright and dangerous eyes for a long while, and then he laughed. "I served under General Iroh at Ba Sing Se. I only met him once, but I know one thing- he is twice the leader your kind will ever be. So I'm sorry if I don't take you up on your offer- I've got a business to run."

"Reconsider, I beg you!" the general said; he actually sounded like he meant it. "This is your last chance – our Nation's last chance!"

Vasuman named a particularly unpleasant portion of the Spirit World, and suggested that the general and his men could remove themselves to that location.

"As you wish, but remember- it did not have to be this way!" Quick as a dragon the general lashed out, a thin whip of fire shooting from his hand and striking Vasuman's uninjured leg. The innkeeper collapsed, and looked up to see the general standing over him. His prey now immobilized, however, the man seemed to have forgotten him.

"Ransack the village!" he ordered. "Take everything you think we might need, and burn the rest. If anyone resists- then they have proclaimed their allegiance. We have no mercy for traitors."

/

I decided to make Azula catatonic following her breakdown mostly because it seemed like a logical place to go – she'd more-or-less burned herself out completely, and now she's ended up in the opposite condition she was in at the end of her last Agni Kai. There she was a berserk ball of hate, rage, and perhaps some grief; here there's barely anything going on with her at all. From a writer's perspective, breaking Azula down completely before she could begin rebuilding herself was appealing as well. Of course, it's not likely she'll remain in this state for much longer…

I rewrote large parts of the initial scene with Zuko for this update, mostly because in hindsight I made him seem harsher than I'd intended to. He's got very few positive memories of Azula and a whole host of negative ones, and I do think he'd have a hard time pulling much compassion for her together – but on the other hand, between what he'd learned on his own path to redemption and witnessing Azula's downfall, I think he would make the effort (with some prompting from friends and family). Aang's position has more to do with Air Nomad beliefs and a general faith in the goodness of people than with Azula personally; Iroh felt that Azula needed to go down, and now that she has, he's willing to wait and see what happens next.

We also meet Heart's main OC villain in this chapter, in the form of the as-yet-unnamed general (and yes, he's the real deal). I wanted to play around with a different kind of villain than we'd seen in the series – while we'd had villains who genuinely thought they were doing good (Jet comes to mind) or were motivated by ideology (Long Feng and the Dai Li), all the Fire Nation high-ups we saw were mostly in it for power. Here, we have a genuine fanatic. We'll be meeting more OC villains across the trilogy, and they're mostly intended to each reflect an aspect of Azula's personality; the general has her dedication to the Fire Nation and belief in the divine right of its mission.

-MasterGhandalf