"Azula-" the woman said, taking a step forward.
"Don't you dare come any closer." Azula replied. A mixture of anger and happiness was heard within her voice. It was mainly anger.
"I've missed you."
"You're lying." Azula said, but Azula knew her mother was telling the truth. After all, it takes a liar to know a liar.
They stared at each other for a long time. Azula was glaring. Ursa was trying to get through to her daughter by conveying her sadness, happiness, and regret all at once. But Azula wouldn't be the one to surrender and break down. She was the strong one, she didn't run away, she didn't back down, she never let go, she would never come off as pathetic and weak. She would leave that to her mother.
Ursa stood there quietly. She knew exactly what Azula was playing at. She knew the games ever so well. She did after all raise the young woman before her for more than half her life. So she just stood there. She took away all the expression that had been conveyed on her face, now she was had on a stern look.
Just stern. Stern like the way a mother would look at her daughter when she was being defiant.
They stood there for a long time. Neither saying anything. Neither sitting down. Neither taking their eyes off the other. Both waiting for the other to speak.
"Look at you, Azula." Ursa broke the silence. Her voice took Azula by surprise. It was harsh, and not weak like Azula had expected. Her voice had so much authority in it, so much strength.
"Look at me?! Look at you. You stand there staring at me like I've done something wrong. Like I've broken one of the rules, like I didn't do my chores. You stand there, seeing me for the first time in how many years? And you think that you are justified, that you have the right, to talk to me like I've done something wrong?! Let's skip me. Let's talk about why you abandoned us." She couldn't bring herself to say "me."
Ursa had expected this. She had been in expecting it from the moment she ran away from the palace so many years ago. So she had prepared herself. "You don't understand, Azula. I had to-"
"You had to leave us? You had to abandon your children?!" Azula felt her eyes glaze with water. Fighting back the tears that were about to fall, she looked away.
"I did." Ursa said. She felt ashamed saying this, but it had to be said. It was about time Azula knew the truth to why her mother abandoned her for the most important years of her life. The years that are supposed to shape a young girl's future were done without a mother. It is cruel, but if the reasons were brought to light, maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
"Why?" Azula muttered. She wanted to know. No, she needed to know.
"Come sit down, we'll talk over a cup of tea." Ursa offered.
"I don't have the time for casual tea drinking. So start talking."
xxx
Zuko was running. Where he was running, why he was running, how he was running, he had no idea. Last he remembered he was watching the lightening from his sister's finger tips heading straight toward him. And then everything was dark.
But now, everything was bright, colorful, and extraordinarily clear. Was he healed, or was he dead? Maybe he was dreaming.
"Zuko…" A woman's voice was calling out to him. She was echoing.
"Hello?" Zuko called back. He stopped running. He stopped to figure out where he was. But he had no idea.
"Zuko…" She repeated. Who was she? "Help me."
"Who's there?" Zuko yelled, louder than before.
"Please…" Her voice was fading.
"Where are you? Where am I?"
And then everything turned black. All Zuko saw was the same darkness he remembered when the lightening struck his chest. But he was still moving, still able to feel, to think, to bend!
He held out his hand, and focused on his energies. IFire/I He thought. But nothing happened. He tried again to create a ball of flame. Like before, the darkness stayed, and his fire didn't appear. What was going on.
"Zuzu." Azula.
"Where are you?!" He screamed. He kept on trying to make a flame to destroy her. To get his revenge on the sister that had betrayed him too many times.
"I'm here." Azula's voice was at his left. "Here." His right. "Now I'm here." In front of him. "Turn around." Behind him. "Up here, Zuzu." He looked up, but his sister's voice was somewhere else.
"I'm everywhere." Her voice was echoing all around him. He thought his head would explode. He was hoping his head would explode. That would be better than this torture.
"ZUKO!" The voice he heard when everything was light was back. "Help me."
Then he recognized the voice. "Mom!" He screamed.
"Everywhere." Azula's voice sounded more evil than it ever had. It was filled with rage.
"Mom, where are you?!" Zuko yelled. But he received no reply. Not even from Azula. Zuko dropped to his knees. His eyed filled with tears. He was going insane. He was trapped in this eternal darkness. Trapped with the voice of his sister. Trapped with the voice of his missing mother.
xxx
"You have no idea what was going on when I left." Ursa told her daughter.
"Yes I do. Our family was thriving, we were royalty. We were worshipped. I was a prodigy. Zuko was a failure. Nothing was wrong. Grandpa was fierce, a strong leader. Dad was brilliant. You were-" Azula said. Her voice was very matter-of-fact.
"I was what? Afraid? Yes, I was. I was afraid for my life." Ursa said for the first time since she left the palace, left her family. But she kept her posture, her cool.
"Why? What reason could-" Ursa interrupted her again.
"I'd seen what your father was doing. What he was going to do. I knew the plots, the schemes, the treachery. I knew it all. I knew what you never did. Your father was a monster. He killed your grandfather while he was sleeping. He was power hungry, dangerous, a killer." Ursa said. Her voice was trembling.
"At least he accomplished something." Azula said in his defense.
"Accomplished what? He tore our family apart. He banished your brother. He continued a war that killed out the entire population of the Air Nomads. He attacked the Water Tribe, killed woman and children, took over the Earth Kingdom. He manipulated his own daughter." Ursa had accidentally flipped a switch in Azula's brain that was labeled "Freak Out."
"Shut up!" Azula shouted. She turned around for the first time since her mother began talking. She didn't care about the tears that were forming. She made no effort to stop them from falling. And they did. They fell hard. "At least he was there for me. I don't care what he did to mess me up. Because at least he cared enough about me to stay around and care for me, even if he only wanted me around because of my skill. He was there. That's more than I can say about you. If anyone messed me up it's you. Not him."
Ursa hadn't been expecting this. She hadn't expected Azula to be so open, so upset. What she was saying was nothing like Ursa had anticipated. From what she heard about the person her daughter had become, from what she'd seen from a distance( and she saw a lot, she was always around, either physically hiding in the shadows, or through a close friend,) she had expected that Azula would be more, angry, not upset.
Tears formed in Ursa's eyes, too. She walked forward, hesitantly at first, but when Azula made no resistance to her mother coming closer, she walked all the way forward and embraced her daughter in a hug that made up for the millions she missed out on. And Azula hugged her back, and the tears kept falling. The tears kept crashing. But now, they weren't because she was upset with her mother.
The tears were because finally, after so many years of confusion, questioning, fear, everything was finally falling into place. She found the person she'd been dreaming about since the day she disappeared. She found the reason Azula was so angry.
Suddenly, her plan to recruit an army to take on the southern water tribe didn't matter. "Oh, no." She said, coming to a sad realization of what had transpired in the past hours.
"What's wrong?" Ursa said.
"Zuko…"
xxx
"Zuko." His mother's voice was back.
"Mom…" He sounded weak. His body hurt, and he was tired.
"Trinity." She said.
"Trinity? Mom what are you talking about?" Zuko asked.
"Wake up." It wasn't his mom's voice anymore. It was the voice of a little boy. "Zuko, please. Wake up." He sounded so close, so familiar. "Zuko, come on, you gotta wake up. It's me, Lee. Please wake up." And Zuko did. His eyes shot open. Everything was blurry, and bright.
When his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw them. He saw Lee, Lee's family, and then he saw the Waterbender. He saw Katara. Her hands were wrapped with glowing water. She had healed him. She saved him.