Who is that girl I see
Staring straight back at me?
Reflection, Mulan
The first time Anna gets sick, really truly sick, is what breaks her. She's stuck in a haze, breath shallow, body slicked with sweat. And all she wants is her mother. Her name spills from her lips in between moments of consciousness. Anna thinks that she sees her, hands gripping the chair by her bed tightly, eyes glued shut as if she couldn't bear seeing her daughter in pain.
The Red Fever had settled over the city quickly that winter. She hadn't known what it was. One moment she had been fine, slightly warmer than usual but fine. The next moment, the servants had found her curled around a bank of snow, skin pale and clammy. Now, she lays mouth open, gasping in air, as she shudders from the heat burning through her body. Tears slip out as she calls for her mother again. No one ever comes and Anna falls into an uneasy sleep after that.
She dreams of her old life, watching the girl with green, green eyes fight and win. She watches her fall, eyes wide with surprise as a stray spell hits her, thirty years later. She watches the others, eyes clenched in pain, horror frozen on the lines of their faces. This was a girl loved and Anna feels selfish watching her. An orphan, mistreated and abused, and still she seems better than Anna can ever hope to be. What did Anna have but, the silence of an empty house and the hushed whispers that followed her.
She can't continue this way any longer, sealing herself away in grief. It does great dishonor to the memory of her parents. She had left her father's house and name unprotected and privy to the rumors of gossip mongers. If it was true, and she and this Potter girl were one and the same, then that fight, that tight grasp over life is in her somewhere. She wakes with a strange sense of hope.
She dresses herself for the first time in this life, makes her own bed and slips out the door to the servants' quarters. She remembers the path down to the kitchen, where she and her mother used to go and slip pieces of candied cinnamon almonds into their pockets before dinner.
A tall, slim man that had deep lines etched around his mouth and a pair of thin wire glasses that made him look more frog than man is seated at the small table tucked into the corner of the room. Taishi Hanzei was, or had been, the head of her father's household. He looks startled to see her, stuttering over his words as he stands and bows.
"Don't do that," she says, taking the seat directly in front of him.
"Zoeller-sama. I wasn't aware that you had recovered."
"I am one of the luckier ones, my fever broke this morning."
"Agni has blessed you. There are many who haven't woken once it set in."
"How many servants have been affected?"
"Five. Aiko fell ill two days before you and Mitsuko, Kazuki, Himaru, and Masaru have all gotten the Red Fever."
"Send fresh water from the springs and elderberries to them. It will help shorten the illness. In Shu Jing, there is a plant called konikai that helped ward of fevers. It is bitter with small white flowers. I will have some brought here and given to the household."
"That is too mu-"
"It is not enough. I have been very selfish in my grief. My father gave his life for everyone who lived under his protection, including his workers. He would not want to see you suffer and I have done nothing to earn your respect or anyone else's."
"If I may, no one blames you for anything. You were never cruel or unkind and you are still a child."
"There are girls my age who are married, Taishi-san. If I'm going to be the Lady of this house, I need to be able to run it. I need to do both my father's and my mother's job, if I want to stay here."
"You have myself and the staff at your disposal, then. It would be my honor to serve."
The first thing Anna does is hire new tutors. Sakiko-sensei is still in charge of her firebending training but, there are things that she cannot teach her. Anna's anger still burns bright at the old woman's words about her father but, for now she's let it go. She trains harder than before, relishing in the ache in her limbs after each session. It becomes easier and easier to call the fire and with it her magic.
Her other tutors are pulled from a list Taishi-san provides her. Her days dedicated to history and maths and music and all manners of subjects that Anna hadn't bothered with before. She doesn't see much of Zuko or Azula in the coming months because of it. The two both attend the Royal Academies further away from the inner city. Despite her friendship with the prince, she finds that she doesn't mind so much. The quiet she has lets her focus on more important things. She gets her father's estate in order, learning how manage the various investments that he's made and protecting the interests of their family. It is something that the old her hadn't been very good at but, Anna tackles it with a ruthless efficiency that both scares and impresses the bankers.
She finds out that many of her father's investments were in Earth Nation companies, some of them even tied to families like the Bei Fong's. She doesn't know what to make of it and grows even more confused at the frequency with which General Iroh's name crops up. She has the urge to ask him, maybe even ask Zuko to send him a letter but, it wouldn't do well to send a letter to the warfront. She instead makes maps, tracking the location of their money and keeps a meticulous record of every change. It is all she can think of for now.
At night, after her feet grow sore from dancing lessons or weapons training, Anna curls into a warm bath drawn by Aiko, who had been her mother's handmaid before hers. Aiko sits by her pouring warm oils into her hair with the gentleness of a mother and tells her stories. It often leaves Anna breathless with laughter and red in the face. She grows a fondness for her that she never thought she'd have for a servant.
"We didn't have any of this back in Shu Jing," Anna tells the girl whose dark skin glows like amber in the firelight.
"Any of what?"
"Servants or perfumed oils or pomegranates and milk."
"You're of a noble house, how could you have not had it?"
"My grandfather always disliked the fact that my father wasn't a bender. When he learned that he married a non-bender who had no name to back her, well he exiled him to an estate far from the capital. He didn't want any dishonor bought to the house."
"How did your father end up back here?"
"When I was young, Shu Jing was hit very hard by the water tribe attacks. There wasn't much money or jobs left, so my father took whatever work he found. When the draft started, the money flowed back into the city. My father was selected to help build the ships but, one of the Generals had gone to school with him and recognized him. He remembered how clever my father had been at school and allowed him to help draw up the battle plans. My father helped quell the revolt of the southern water tribes."
"It must have been strange for you to come here."
"It was and still is. Sometimes I feel more at home in the gardens with my feet in the dirt than in here."
"I miss my home too but, the Capital is very beautiful and I wouldn't turn away the fireflakes for anything in the world."
"One day, I'll show you the mountains back home and this place will look like nothing but a rock next to it."
"A rock with cute boys. In the colonies, all the boys are ugly and look like statues that haven't been finished. The only reason the soldiers here wear those ugly helmets is to stop us from fainting," Aiko says, drawing a burst of laughter from Anna.
"Is that why they don't speak as well?"
"Imagine their voices! You'd probably have an heir the next day."
The sound of water splashing fills the air, followed by a sharp shriek as Aiko jumps away from the dripping girl.
Zuko returns for a full week the following spring. Anna's glad to see him, though he looks slightly different. A littler taller, gaunter around the face and she supposes that the constant talk of the war must be getting to him. He's happy to see her though and almost immediately thrusts a box into her hands.
"What's this?" she asks, giving him a puzzled glance as his cheeks flush.
"A present. I missed your birthday, but I got you this and Azula got you something too," his nose scrunches as he says his sister's name.
Anna smiles brightly, remembering the somber affair that was her birthday. Filled with strangers giving her empty wishes and sly marriage proposals and the small collection of presents she had gotten from Sakiko-sensei and Taishi-san and Aiko. She had been quite happy to realize that her small collection of friends had risen from one to a shaky four.
She shakes the box, holding it to her ear jokingly. She tears the wrapping paper with a forceful precision, folding it back up neatly next to her. Inside the little wooden box, sits an elegant silver necklace, with a small koi fish hanging off of it. She turns to Zuko, giving him a quick hung to show her gratitude before demanding he put it on her.
Azula's present is a knife, with a jade handle and a symbol of luck engraved onto the blade. It's light in her hand, and sharp enough that she knows it's not for show. It's more than she expected from the girl, meaning Anna will have to figure out a way to one-up her in the months to come.
"Did you learn anything new in school?" she asks, Zuko.
"We learned new firebending techniques and Dad's been teaching me stuff about the army," his brow creases and he looks away as he says the last few words.
"How is your uncle?"
"They've breached the wall," Zuko says, shortly feet kicking at the dirt on the ground.
"That's good. It means, they'll be home soon and that the war will end."
"I heard that you've been learning how to use a katana."
"It helps build discipline which, I apparently have none of. It's hard but, I like learning it and it helps with you-know-what," she waves a hand and the petals littering the ground, rise up, turning into soft pink butterflies. They flutter around them and for a moment all Anna can see is Zuko, amber eyes bright, cheeks pink, and mouth pulled into a soft grin.
"It still hard to believe what you can do," Zuko says with a hint of awe in his voice. Anna turns away before he catches her staring. Her mouth twitches downward and she sighs into her hands.
"Sometimes, I wish I couldn't do it."
"Don't say that. It's like asking not to firebend. Uncle says that we shouldn't worry about having power but about how we use it."
"You know, if you actually listen to your uncle, you might be as smart as me one day."
"If I listen to everything uncle said, I would end up working in a tea-shop."
"An admirable profession."
"Better than being someone's wife, I guess," he laughs, dodging the fist that flies through the air to the place where his should had been.
"Shut up, I'm 13 and it's creepy that people are even asking."
"Don't listen to them. It's just a bunch of old men who are stuck a 100 year in the past," he wraps, an arm around Anna's shoulder and she relaxes into the embrace.
"You know, if you do open that tea-shop, I want a discount," she laughs when he shoves her to the floor. She gets back to her feet quickly, shoving him back and laughing away running.
A/N: Bit of filler, next chapter is gonna get us into the actual Avatar plot-line with Zuko's story. Also, I'm think of posting a Kakashi/OC, if anyone is interested in reading it.