In-Extremis

to be at the point of death

So sacrifice yourself, and let me have what's left

Prince Zuko is wearing his very best clothes and is scrubbed clean and has stuffed a bunch of rags up his sleeves to hide the crimson that keeps burbling up into his mouth, but he still feels incredibly exposed and uneasy. He and Uncle have been sitting here waiting for far too long and every instinct he possesses is screaming at him to just get out of here as fast as he possibly can.

So when a ring of Dai Lee begin to close around them and he recalls that flash of blue, he murmurs his apprehension.

"It's tea time."

And he knows that voice. Knows it down to his bones.

"Azula!"

He's on his feet as fast as he can muster, even though he has absolutely no hope of taking her now, not alone and certainly not outnumbered like they are. He's too weak; they're dead meat-

"Have you met the Dai Lee?" She's unconcerned, a predator closing in on helpless prey, flawless grace to her every movement and her attitude nonchalant. "They're earthbenders, but they have a killer instinct that is so firebender - I just love it!"

His heart is about to pound out of his chest, he doesn't see a way out of this, but Uncle calmly stands and sips at his tea. Too calmly.

"Did I ever tell you how I got the nickname 'Dragon of the West'?"

His sister rolls her eyes and inspects her nails. "I'm not interested in a lengthy anecdote, Uncle."

"It's more of a demonstration, really."

Zuko's lips quirk, and he ducks as Uncle belches fire, dispersing the earthbenders surrounding them with one fell swoop of breath. Even in the middle of fighting for his life, he finds that trick ridiculously amusing.

Then they are running, running down green hallways, and there's earth flying and flames roaring, but Zuko's mind wanders, gut plummeting and hands growing cold as a terrible, terrible solution presents itself. His fingers tremble. Uncle blasts away a wall and leaps to freedom, but Zuko hesitates. He won't survive that fall without broken bones, not in this state, and he knows it. He'll just be a deadweight, and Uncle will never leave him behind.

He is a coward, but he'll never sacrifice Uncle.

He's figured out his own definition of honor.

"Come on! You'll be fine!"

A terrible, terrible solution . . . but it solves every problem.

"I'm tired of running," he hears himself say, turning away. "It's time I faced Azula."

He doesn't know how to say goodbye, so he says nothing at all.

"You're so dramatic," Azula purrs. "What are you going to do, challenge me to an Agni Kai?"

"Yes." His tongue is heavy, like his mouth is full of lead. "But only on two conditions."

That gives her pause, a dark brow quirked. "And what might those be?"

He swallows the copper that scratches the back of his throat and make him want to hack and cough until he's curled up on the floor, and adjusts his stance. "First, you let Uncle go." Her look of interest flatlines, and he stutters - falter now and he'll have sacrificed everything for nothing. "He's just a harmless old man; all he cares about is his stupid tea. He doesn't have any interest in power or war anymore."

"Interested or not, he's a traitor to the crown and I have a direct order from Father himself-"

"You'll talk him out of it. Change his mind. He listens to you." He'd be bitter, but he's too busy trying to win her over.

She sighs, picking at her nails again. "And the second condition?"

For a moment he can't force his mouth to work. "The second condition . . . is that you'll kill me. In the Agni Kai."

For the first time in his life, he sees Azula shocked speechless; her eyes round and lips slightly parted and her mask of lies for once cast aside. If he wasn't in the middle of bargaining for his death, he'd have crowed with triumph. But he is, and he mostly has to focus on not vomiting or throwing up blood all over his baby sister because he's sick and the deal he's striking is making him sicker.

"Are you sure you said that correctly?"

Her voice is barely more than a whisper, and he notices the earthbenders surrounding them look distinctly uncomfortable with the turn this conversation has taken.

"Yes," he manages. "I want you to kill me."

She is balking.

Zuko expects many things from her, but not this.

"It solves everyone's problems," he explains, desperate to get her to listen. "I'll never be able to get in your way or challenge you for the throne again, or shame our family, and Uncle will be able to live peacefully and quietly like he wants."

Her eyes narrow. "And you?"

"I . . . I . . . " he stutters, uncertain. " . . . I won't have to live . . . like this . . . anymore. As a traitor. An outcast."

Studying him intently, Azula's lips purse, calculating. "You? Giving up? That isn't like you at all. I'd almost thing all this time among these barbarians has broken you . . . or that you've got something nasty hidden up your sleeve."

"No, I -" he chokes, battling down a cough that will expose him for what he is.

"Save it."

"I'm begging you, Azula!" His knees give out and the ground scrapes his palms, but it doesn't matter because he's failed.

"Are you actually arrogant enough to think I owe you anything?"

"An honorable death. And Uncle's freedom. That's all I'm asking! We'll never get in your way again!"

She steps daintily closer, expression haughty. "You lost this conversation the moment you assumed you could ever be a threat to me."

No, no, no, no, no!

"Please," his voice breaks, and suddenly he's vividly reminded of a day three years ago on his knees. A day he died. Today he should die. Why won't she let him?

"You're nothing, Zuko," she breathes, "nothing but a pebble under my shoe. And even if you were a threat, you should know me better than that. I don't kill my enemies. I destroy them. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have another traitor to catch, and an Avatar to bait."

Azula waves a hand and the earth swallows his hands.

"Get him out of my sight."

"Coward!" he screams over the rising panic. "Liar!"

She blinks, unperturbed. "Do yourself a favor, Zuzu, and shut up."

The earth moves, and everything goes black, tears of desperation still stinging the corners of his eyes.

Princess Azula, heir apparent to Fire Lord Ozai, master of blue flame and lightning, frowns at her brother's unconscious form, disturbed and shaken.

That shouldn't have knocked him out so easily.

She's furious, inside. How dare he ask that of me. Does he really believe I'd actually just kill him in cold blood?

He asked her to kill him. Not murder, death during an Agni Kai is not a crime. But he'd asked her to kill him.

And lied about why.

She takes him in, this gaunt, desperate skeleton with shaking hands and bruised eyes. He barely looks human - or alive - at all. She'd initially, upon first encountering him, attributed it to his three years of ceaseless wandering, and every time since, as he deteriorated further, to the months spent as a penniless refugee. But now she is wondering; because he is too thin and too desperate and there's something unshakably wrong when she looks at him.

There's barely anything left of the the brother that she disdains, yet misses.

Pulling the dagger he'd had concealed in his sleeve free, she drags it along his unmarred cheek, coating the blade with brilliant crimson.

"Ty Lee?"

The acrobat pokes her head into the hallway. "Yes, Azula?"

"Get this to our medic, immediately."

She hands the girl the knife, ignoring her squeamish eep and concerned glance at Zuko's body, and strides away with a confidence that perfectly masks the screaming fourteen year old girl underneath whose brother has just asked her to take his life.

"Put him in the Catacombs."

I'm going all the way, get away, please

12/01/15