The final and fourth chapter in my mini-fic, Pretending. I hope you all enjoy my twisted little mind's ideas of the Royal Fire Nation family, and what exactly was going on in their lives at the palace.

Disclaimer: Don't we all wish that we owned Avatar?

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Azula lay on the ground, panting. All her senses were working- that was a good thing. But cold sweat drenched her body, and somehow she was on the floor, instead of sitting on the bed where she had started. Her fists were clenched, long nails biting into her palms hard enough to draw blood.

Looking up, she saw that her brother was sitting calmly over her, waiting for the hallucinatory memories to dissipate completely. He seemed too relaxed and in control of the situation, contrary to the turmoil that Azula felt inside.

The princess sat up, and immediately realized that that was a bad idea. Her head spun, and the breakfast that she had recently eaten lurched in her stomach. A pounding began in the back of her skull and she bit her lip.

"What have you done to me?" she asked him softly, her voice cold.

He grinned. "You're right Azula… it does feel good to mess with other people's minds. Maybe I should take a leaf out of your book, and try it more often."

Azula felt fury rising in her until she almost couldn't contain it. She stood, ignoring the protests of her body and tried to produce lightning, push the energy out of her fingertips, and guiding it to her brother.

… And it didn't work.

Azula stared in disbelief at her hands. Her brother should be a crisp right now, screaming as she burnt him with her blue fire. What was wrong? The princess asked herself, rage mounting. Why can't I make lightning!?

Zuko looked confused too, until a memory awoke in his mind. "You're angry, Azula." He told her gleefully. "You're too angry to make lightning."

"That's absurd." There was no other way that she could possibly answer that nonsense.

He shook his head. "No, it's not. Lightning is cold firebending, remember? It doesn't come from emotion like rage or passion. It just… happens…"

Azula ran at him. She jumped, landing with her knees in his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Nimble hands with long fingernails itched to be around his neck, squeezing and squeezing until there was no life left in him.

Zuko grabbed her forearms and tried to fend his sister off while regaining his breath. He rolled, and the two landing on the floor on their sides, still scrambling to be the ones in control. Again Azula kneed him in the gut and he gasped for air, seeing spots in front of his eyes.

She ripped one hand out of his grip and threw a punch at his nose but he caught the fist. Quickly holding it with both hands, he began to twist her arm around until she bit her lip so hard that it bled, to keep from crying out.

"Azula, listen to me." He panted. "Don't you want to hear the rest of what happened to us?"

She growled in reply. "I don't want to hear any more! I don't want to know!"

With a surge of strength, Zuko thrust them forward so that he was sitting on top of her, and pinned her arms to her sides. He leered down at her like a predator, and said firmly, "Well, I'm going to tell you anyways."

She stopped struggling and stared at him icily. Golden eyes met like, and they didn't break apart from each other when Zuko began to speak, telling the rest of his story.

"Father has watchers to watch the watchers. He had spies for the spies, and insiders on the inside of the insiders. Since Mother and Uncle's organization grew to be so big, there was no way that they could have kept it secret. It was amazing that it did stay secret as long as it did.

"When Father found out… well… you know Father. He only knew about Mother at that point, and so he sent for her. She went and he tortured her, but she didn't give anyone's names." There was a proud half-smile on Zuko's face.

"Mother knew that Father was going to kill her. He needed to, now that he knew what she was a part of. So she escaped, in the middle of the night. She ran, after talking to Uncle, and giving me a cryptic phrase to remember her by." His voice was very bitter, as though the memory had happened only yesterday.

"That left you and me for Father alone to raise, and he planned to take full advantage of that. But I never forgot what Mother told me." He looked away. "He had given up on me, and you can't outright banish your son for no reason at all, even in the Fire Nation. So he just found an excuse."

Zuko sat up, off of Azula, eyes cast downwards. She stayed where he left her, not bothering to move, not even thinking about how boring the ceiling was. She just mulled over everything that her brother had announced to her.

It was all unexpected, but she should have expected it. All these years she had wondered, wondered about her brother and her messed up family, and everything in between. Now she had the answers, and she wasn't sure that she liked them.

She could also remember scenes from when she was little, but… no, she didn't want to see them anymore!

It was getting hard to concentrate. Her thoughts whirled through her head, and she could feel heat pressing in on her from all sides. She supposed it was rage, like she had felt before, but she was surprisingly cool-headed. That was right, was it?

"Zuko…" she gasped, closing her eyes and feeling beads of sweat roll down her face. "Zuko… why is it so hot in here? Are you lighting a fire, or something…?" she gasped, feeling pain curl in her abdomen.

His face appeared above hers, features blurry. Azula couldn't even tell if he was smiling or not. All she could really pick out were two pinpricks of gold that she guessed were his eyes. Or were they? It was getting harder to think.

"Whoops, my mistake, Azula. Did I tell you that enough Mortroot to give you memories is also enough to kill you? I didn't? I'm sorry, I guess I forgot to mention that little detail."

It felt as though someone was trying to squeeze her lungs out of her body. Azula squirmed, desperately wanting to fill her lungs with the air that would not come. Her temperature was still rising, and she could feel it searing through her skin.

The princess didn't have enough strength to say something to her brother, but she felt the betrayal and fury very clearly, although all her mind could focus on was how much she hurt.

"It's a slow and painful death." Zuko commented, resting lightly on the bed and watching his younger sister writhe on the floor. He smirked half-heartedly. "You know, even if you hadn't wanted answers this would have happened anyways."

A malicious grin, one to rival Azula's, twisted his features. "I'm going to sit here, and I'm going to watch you die, Azula."

She tried to lash out at him, but curled up into a ball when it sent an excruciating amount of pain to her stomach. Her eyes were scrunched up tight, and she chewed on the inside of her cheek, tasting the metallic flavor of her own blood.

Her brother eyed her, explaining his entire plan. "After you've died, I'm going to go and free Uncle Iroh from his cell in the dungeons. Some of the Dai Lee are at this moment taking care of Mai and Ty Lee."

He sighed. "I didn't know if they would turn on me or not, but no taking any chances, right?" he smiled at her in an almost brotherly way.

"We knew this would both happen sometime, didn't we? Well, it's just sooner than later, that's all. It was nice telling you everything, Azula."

He stood up and began to walk away. Blackness was eating at the edges of her vision (if you could call it vision anymore), and the pain had reached an unbearable level. The heat was eating her from the inside out, and her clothes were now soaked with sweat. Her black hair stuck to her face as she moaned quietly, fists clenching.

"Oh, and by the way." He turned back while taking something out of a pocket in his robes. It was a knife, the one with the inscription on it. Never give up without a fight. He looked at it almost with disgust, as though remembering something unpleasant.

"Do you remember this?" he waved it in front of her face, but Azula could barely see anything at all. "You used to always try and take it from me. Well, I'm a kind person… it's yours now."

He softly tucked it into one of her clenched fists.

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Author's Notes:

Well, after that extremely long break of mine, here it is. The last chapter. I don't know how it stood up to your standards, but I hope it was satisfying enough. I know that it was short, but I warned you about that.

I might come back later and revamp all of these, but right now I'm just glad that it's over so that I can really focus on other things.

Please review, reviews are my life. XD