This took some time, I'm aware, but this chapter was supposed to contain a lot more events, but I decided on splitting it because I don't want this thing to end too quickly.

I finally made a plan, you're in for just two more chapters probably.

oooooooooo

Chapter 4

"Knock it off, Mom…" Kiyi gently slit out of the woman's grip, "I'm not coming back with you. Azula, please make her leave."

Kiyi looked to her half-sister, expecting her to obey with pleasure, but instead she was just standing there, looking at them emotionlessly.

"Darling, don't say things like that." Ursa tried to cup her daughter's face, but the girl shifted backward to avoid her.

"Azula? Are you alright?" Kiyi asked but got no answer. Just a long stare.

"Kiyi, she's the one that sent me a letter saying I would find you here. I came as quickly as I could…"

Ursa continued talking, continued explaining herself. There even might have been an apology in there, but Kiyi didn't hear a word of it.

"You turned me in? Why?!" Kiyi marched forward and came face to face with her sister.

"What's the first thing I taught you? Whoever they are, people will always, always choose to help themselves rather than help you. I'm getting my bounty lifted for this, isn't that right?" Azula looked over to their mother.

"I'll talk to Zuko as soon as Kiyi and I are home safe."

"How could you?! How… I thought we were-" Kiyi suddenly went quiet as tears started rolling down her cheeks, first just a few then a lot more.

"Didn't Zuzu warn you? Azula always lies." saying that Azula smiled in the most disturbing manner the girl had ever witnessed.

Kiyi just couldn't believe it, she refused to. She felt her mother's hand on her shoulder and it all became too much. Still crying, she bolted to Azula's room and locked herself in.

"Kiyi! Darling, don't-" Ursa tried to yell after her, but lacked words.

"Anyhow," Azula started while putting on her jacket, "you can have the place to yourselves for your emotional theater. I was done with it the second she set foot inside anyway. Feel free to burn it down when you leave…"

She probably wanted at least some kind of a reaction from her mother, but Ursa simply followed after Kiyi and knocked on the locked door.

"Darling, let's talk about this! I'm only here because I care about you!" she continued banging on the door, "We can forget everything that happened here and just go home… Please, darling, talk to me."

"No! I hate you! I hate you both! You two deserve each other!" Kiyi yelled from inside.

It took Azula one lap around the living room before the realization hit that all her stuff was in her suitcase and her suitcase was in her room, locked away with Kiyi. She was pissed, but not too much to appreciate the irony.

After taking a deep breath, she approached the locked door as well.

"I need something from inside, so the sooner you open, the sooner you'll be rid of me forever." Azula said and tried the doorknob. Still locked. "Kiyi, if you don't open this door right this second, I'll blast it down!"

She waited a beat, but heard no movement from inside.

"Fine. If that's what you want, I'm kicking down the door." Azula took a step back to prepare, before finally hearing a reply.

"If you do that I'll burn your stuff!" Kiyi's voice didn't sound so sweet anymore, "I have your passports here, your money… Everything."

"Listen to me, you'll bring my things outside this second, you little-"

"Why should I? It's every person for themselves, isn't it?"

Ursa started feeling like it wasn't safe to just keep observing, she felt like she had to do something since Azula's face was overwhelmed with rage. But just then, the woman surprised her as she exhaled deeply blowing a little fire and calmed down.

"Tough luck, seems your other daughter is broken, too. You probably should have stopped after the first child…" Azula snapped at her mother and saw her jaw clench. She was getting upset by this, she was just trying not to show it.

Getting completely ignored again… No surprise there.

Azula walked into the kitchen, leaving Ursa outside Kiyi's door, still trying to console the girl. This was all too much. It would have all worked out if she could just leave like she planned. But without her fake documents, Azula couldn't get on any ship out of there. What's more, with the storm worsening by the minute, there might not be any more ships leaving the port in a few hours.

She was stuck there! Stuck with the one person she didn't want to see ever again.

The calm, above-it-all facade was slowly slipping, and she didn't want anyone to see that. She slammed her hands on the kitchen counter, now briefly alone, wishing she could just start smashing things. Oh, how she'd like to see all those nice plates break into a million pieces, the cupboards burn with blue flames…

But she couldn't give either of them the satisfaction of hearing her lose it.

She could still hear her mother trying to reason with Kiyi through the door. She thought she could handle it, she really did… In a second her sleeve was rolled up, her thumb firmly pressed into her skin. All she needed was to warm it and it would all get easier to live through.

It's been so long and she still remembered how it helped when it burned. But she worked so had to stop… No! She was better than that!

She pulled he shirt back over the scars and realized she had to keep her hands busy somehow. Making tea was the first thing that came to mind. Those few minutes did calm her down somewhat, but just as she was pouring the water over the leaves, she heard footsteps approaching slowly.

Ursa entered the room in complete silence and sat at the table, not lifting her gaze from her lap at all. For a few moments the only thing that could be heard was Azula moving the porcelain cups around, trying to seem busy.

"How are you?" Ursa spoke.

"That's it? Ten years and I get the same question the woman at the bakery asks me every morning?" Azula's hands were trembling far too much to keep fiddling with the tea, "What, nothing else to add?"

"You did a good thing, calling me. Thank you."

"I didn't do it for you." She did it because of how lost and helpless Kiyi looked that first night. She was sure the girl would get hurt if she wasn't brought home immediately, living like this wasn't for the weak, "I did it for myself."

Azula turned around and found the strength to look directly at her mother, but the woman still wasn't doing the same.

"You can't even look at me, can you?" Azula snickered and Ursa shifted slightly, gaze still pointed at her shoes, "Look at me, Mother. Look at me!"

Ursa lifted her gaze and their eyes met.

"You're still terrified of me." Azula said, quickly.

"I'm not. I-"

"Stop." she pulled out a chair and sat opposite her mother, "You're terrible at lying. Terrible at hiding how you feel. And terrible at hiding a knife up your sleeve."

Ursa winced at that and opened her mouth to say something, before giving up and pulling a dagger out onto the table slowly.

"I was right…" Azula chuckled. She really wished it was just her paranoia, but not this time.

"You don't understand… I didn't know what I was walking into, last time I saw you, you were-"

"Completely out of it?"

"I was going to say troubled. I couldn't risk you hurting Kiyi to get back at me. When you requested I come alone-"

"I didn't. I requested Zuko come alone."

"He was busy, he sent me." Ursa's eyes darted to the right shortly. Spirits, she was bad at this.

"You know what I think? I think Zuko doesn't even know Kiyi's missing."

"He's an important man, he has a whole nation counting on him, and I didn't want to distract him."

"But the letter wasn't signed, which means you read everything, don't you? Too bad you didn't have that kind of control over the last Fire Lord, if you did, we'd all still be a happy family."

"That's enough." Ursa didn't raise her voice, but she did make it more firm. It sounded strict enough to make Azula quiet. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something about talking to Ursa again made her feel like she was still a child. Azula had all the power in that conversation, but she somehow still found herself being shushed successfully.

"Could you go through with it? Right now," Azula turned the dagger on the table so its blade was pointing towards her, "If I said I'll kill Kiyi, could you use it to slice my throat?"

"I don't- I don't know." tears started collecting in Ursa's eyes, "But… Azula, you have to know I didn't come here, wishing I'd have the strength to use it. I came here dreading I'd have to."

"Well, to be fair if I wanted to set a trap for you, this is exactly how I'd do it." Azula relaxed her hands on the table, "But hurting my- Your daughter was never my objective."

"I see that now." Ursa pushed the dagger aside, and reached over to take Azula's hand. This caught her completely off guard. Years had gone by since she felt genuinely affectionate physical contact. And from her mother of all people…

Azula squeezed her mother's hand back, but only for a moment. She was furious with herself for enjoying it so much, so as soon as she found the strength she pulled back.

"Just go over there, tell Kiyi you'll treat her like an adult and let's put an end to this."

"I can't… You don't understand, she's so young, she needs me there to show her…"

"She's capable of more than you know." Azula couldn't believe she was having this conversation.

"Of course, you say that. Of all my children, you were always the strong one. You never needed anyone."

It took every bit of strength Azula had not to scream back how wrong she was.

"Do you honestly think that, Mother?"

oooooooooo

All that time, Kiyi sat in Azula's room on the floor. She couldn't hear everything that was being said in the kitchen, but she got most of it from context. She was all calmed down now, and slowly realizing she couldn't stay locked in that room indefinitely, no matter how mad she was.

She looked one more time at the small notebook in her hands, thinking about how it would feel to return home. Maybe it would feel good, but she doubted it. It's much easier to live in a cage if you have no idea what you're missing.

"Admit it! Just say you never wanted to have me, I know it's true!" Kiyi heard Azula shouting from the living room now. She leaned on the door to listen more closely.

"I can't, because it's not true!" Kiyi heard Ursa yell, "I swear to all the Spirits! Just because I didn't love your father, that does not mean I don't love you!"

"Admit you never treated me like your daughter because I was too much like him!"

"I- Azula, I-"

"I don't need you to say it, because you already showed you never cared. You chose to forget us! You forgot me, the monster you regretted creating! You even forgot Zuko, the son who refused to forget about you!"

"Stop, right now! I love you both! I know I was never the perfect mother, but I-"

"You were a bad mother! Not only to us, but to your favorite as well. But what are you to do now that she sees you for who you are? You could always promote Zuko back to your favorite, but he has Mai now, he's too independent."

"Azula, that's enough!"

"As soon as we stop making you happy you write us off and move over to the next one, right? But what to do when you run out of children? I know! You can always go out there, find yourself an eager young man and hope it's not too late to try for baby number four!"

Kiyi heard a slap and immediately unlocked the door. Outside the room she found her mother and sister staring at each other. Azula was holding her cheek in shock, while Ursa was frozen still, while tears poured down her face.

It didn't take Kiyi long to figure out what happened.

"Are you insane?!" she ran to her mother, "Did you just slap her?! You can't just hit people because you don't like what they're saying!"

Ursa was still speechless, so Kiyi turned to Azula. In the two short days she spent with her sister, she saw her mad multiple times, but she had never seen that look. A look that made Kiyi feel it was necessary to put herself in front of her mother, even though she was clearly in the wrong here.

Azula still said nothing but looked at the scared faces in front of her, as small sparks started generating at her fingertips. Kiyi was sure they'd finally pushed too far and that this was the end. Her mother closed her eyes, preparing for the worse, but she never broke eye contact with her sister.

Then suddenly, Azula sighed, lowered her hand and ran straight out of the house and into the pouring rain.

"We have to follow her." Kiyi said.

"No."

"Excuse me, what do you mean, no?" Kiyi turned back to her mother.

"This is how we lose her every time. It's better if we just leave, darling, while we can do it painlessly."

"Painlessly?! You and I are far past painless. And you and her are… Why do I have to explain this? I'm going after my sister!" Kiyi said and made a step towards the door, only to be forcefully pulled back.

"You're my daughter, I'm not letting you into that storm."

"Your daughter already is in that storm!"

"You know what I mean, Kiyi. You're not going looking for someone who wants to hurt you." Ursa squeezed her daughter's hand so hard it hurt.

"You're the only one who's hurting people tonight. I need you to see that and go apologize with me." Kiyi hoped this would get through to her mother, but it was beginning to seem like nothing would. Ursa just stood there, still desperately clinging to Kiyi's sleeve.

"Really? Nothing?" Kiyi pulled her hand back, "To quote a bad mother: What's wrong with you?"

And with that Kiyi ran out into the rain too, calling out her sister's name desperately.

oooooooooo

OK, can we all agree that one would need a psychology degree and at least ten years of patient experience to comfortably discuss the Fire Nation royal family and all the complex processes in the background of it? I have neither and I tried my best from the limited screen time Ursa got in flashbacks and comics.

I know I kind of made her a bad guy, but in my head there will always be some stuff she has no excuse for. I'm sorry if you like her and think she should just apologize to Azula and everything should be alright.

The sad truth of life is that often when you confront your abusers they don't see/ don't want to see anything wrong with their abuse/neglect.

A thing I realized while writing this (it's not really a breakthrough, but I'm slow to conclusions):

Ursa's last words to Zuko before leaving were: "No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are." And that is literally the first thing she did after leaving! Forget who she was! Forget him!

Screw that…

Anyway, Kiyi was kind of boxed away for this chapter, but she'll be here a lot starting next time.

Reviews are welcome, I'm so thankful for the ones I got until now, update soon hopefully… :)