The screaming had stopped. Once again the village had fallen silent, underneath the wondering face of the moon, it burned softly, illuminating the night with an ethereal glow.
Bodies lay strewn across the ground, just taken from the high of Life to be thrown into the jaws of Death by her steady hands.
Azula burned them all to ashes.
She stood at the remains of what once was a respectable Earth-Kingdom village, laughing as the ground seemed to weep with the blood of its fallen. She didn't care, now, there was still more, this particular village may even go undiscovered, but it didn't matter to her because there were always more.
Just minutes ago, people had been out in the streets, laughing, cheering, celebrating the end of this foolish War which had plagued them for one-hundred years with a black cloud of fear and despair.
She had arrived silently, laying the balloon she had borrowed from a Fire-Nation out of sight from any of the villagers.
And she had waited...
Waited for the town and its inhabitants to fall silent, to fall soundlessly into sleep.
She had shattered their dreams.
The first household had been easy, she'd merely crept inside and severed the throat of its two inhabitants with the icy blade of a knife. Soundlessly, she'd crept outside to the next, and the next, thinking that if no one woke up now, they never would, again.
But she was mistaken. She had miscalculated. One boy was enough to scream out a warning to the other inhabitants, sending them out with swords, axes and various implements of her destruction.
The fire reflected dully in the eyes of the Dead, now blank, staring listlessly at the starry skies.
Azula didn't care... Shenever would allow herself to care.
FLASHBACKâ1ST PERSON
I waited for the peasants to fall silent. Silence, it seemed, was my safekeeping. For the cloak of night and the whistling dagger of Death was all I needed to carry out my plans against these people.
I didn't know them. I had no grudge against them except that they were fools. They believed it was over, they believed it was done, that something that spawned chaos and tyranny for a century could be ended all in a matter of hours?
I'll try not to laugh.
Regardless, they weren't responsible for the loss of my honour, for the defeat of my Father, for the total annihilation of everything I held dear to myself...
But I could use them to get to the people who were. I knew I could not defeat the Avatar and his friends single-handedly. I knew this, yet I still had trouble admitting it to myself. I could kill the girl, and perhaps my brother single-handedly if they weren't together.
But they were... So I must break them apart.
I waited, within the woods until all had fallen silent, until the Earth seemed to breathe alongside those who lived amongst it. Working it to their every whim, day-to-day. I waited, until I could wait no longer, until my hatred overcame me, and I had to do something.
You learned of what happened, earlier. I went in, spilt the first drops of blood from the people who lived there, and that little brat screamed.
He screamed, his eye bulged out from his head as if he were hyperventilating, but I suppose seeing both your parents with their intestines spilling from their bellies would make anyone holler.
I couldn't let him give me away. I killed him, slicing his head cleanly off with his fathers sword, and stepped out of the home to find the other villagers surrounding me, intent amusingly clear.
They would kill me, or I would kill them.
But of course, I couldn't allow myself to die.
The first of the men ran forwards, swinging their clumsy blades with accuracy, but not grace. I merely sidestepped them, and plunged my own into the soft bodies that lay behind them. I laughed upon seeing the shocked expressions of rage and horror on their faces as I wrenched the blade free of them, to leave them wounded on the ground.
More came, screaming of hate, rage, anger at the shallow princess who decided to put an end so soon to their celebration, only that princess held no mercy.
More fell, more blood was spilt, lit by the moon like crimson rain as they screamed as I ripped their bodies to ribbons, disemboweling, decapitating, massacring one after the other, taking cuts myself, but the pain was quickly forced away by more Black hatred.
Until it was silent, once again.
The village lay smoldering, in ruins, and what was not ruined lay in ashes. All along the ground, lit underneath the Night's eye, like something out of a dream were bodies, everywhere, bleeding, moaning, calling desperately for help.
No help was to come, they were to far away.
The only other visitor to this place, would most likely be Death.
I walked back to the balloon, dropping the bloody blade that now held the lives of over a dozen people, and I turned to face my masterpiece.
Bodies askew, blood carpeted the ground. Just ten minutes ago this had been a peaceful, quiet village.
I watched my own blood run amok down my arm, courtesy of a now-dead fool.
Somewhere within the houses, a child was crying...
I watched the blood run down my arm, burning from the heat of my body.
It felt good.
I left the child alive. Let them scream him a lullaby.
The war was not over, it may be at a standoff, yes, but it was not over.
My war had only just begun...