Chapter IX Through the looking glass
A/N: I AM SO SORRY I COMPLETELY FORGOT I LEFT YOU ON A CLIFFHANGER! Yeah, so a lot of this is random bits from fever dreams because, you know, everyone has prophetic dreams in literature. So yeah, just try not to take me seriously. Dreams don't have quotes because technically no one says anything, but I try to make it clear who says what.
I'm warning you, from here on out it gets supremely dark and angsty.
I write everything for a reason…so everything will be explained if you just keep reading.
Azula had always harbored a sort of fondness for commander Zhao. It was not uncommon for ambitious generals to curry favor from the Firelord through his daughter, but Azula had always liked Zhao the best. She accepted his candies and his compliments with dismissive words and an unrevealing expression. She was polite to him only when her mother enforced it, and he was polite to her only when there was no one else around. He would bend to her level and call her "your majesty"; she would cross her arms and turn her nose in the other direction.
When she had just been a lesser princess of the dynasty, Azulon had offered her hand and the title of Warden of the North to any man who could conquer the Water Tribes. With the death of her grandfather and her cousin, she had not been sure if the offer still stood as Zhao pitched a surprisingly clever plan to her father. Her eyes had widened as she listened to his cunning strategy. She hadn't realized that what she had been feeling was admiration until she was informed that the fleets had left.
She had been disappointed when she learned that the mission had been unsuccessful, but she had sighed when she learned that Zhao had been killed in the ensuing chaos. What truly disturbed her was the fact that Zhao had been everything she aspired to be. Zhao had been determined, and Zhao had been cunning and persuasive and intelligent and clever, but Zhao had failed. Zhao had been promising, but he had also been flawed and it had cost him his life.
Her hair was long again and blowing in the breeze that had swept her up in the noon sun. She was floating through the air and her elaborate silken skirts were twisted around her legs in a mess of scarlet and orange. Azula wasn't accustomed to dreaming, if she was, it would not have been so painfully obvious that she was wasn't currently in reality. The sky was as menacing as it had been on the day of Sozin's Comet, even though it wasn't currently present in her sky. Her father stood before her wearing his crown, studying her critically.
You will only ever be who I made you to be. He said with finality.
She was jarred into consciousness by water making contact with her skin. "I don't have the skills to repair this." Azula clawed at the shadowy figure in front of her and it swore.
"What do you mean you don't have the skills…" Someone began indignantly.
"You have to get Aang." The girl's voice was shaking but adamant.
"Get Aang? What could he do that you-"
"I SAID GET AANG DAMN IT. DON'T ARGUE WITH ME." She said urgently. Someone was gasping loudly very close by.
A cool sensation washed over her gently, and darkness took her once more.
Her feet hit the ground and she collapsed into an infinite beach.
When she looked up from beneath her shade of hair tangled with mandarin flowers, her cousin was building a house in sand. Words escaped her completely. Somehow she couldn't find the strength to stand and face him.
You're having an identity crisis. He said, packing sand around his castle.
I think it's too late for that. She said absently. At first she thought she had landed in the ocean, but it turned out to be a pool of her own blood. For some reason it didn't bother her nearly as much as it should have.
He indicated the sand castle. You've been living in this elaborate fantasy world that you've constructed. He stood up and rubbed the grains of sand off his hands.
Why couldn't I live in a fairytale like all the other spoiled princesses? She asked insolently. It was her dream after all; she could be as undignified as she wished. Plus, she didn't remember inviting the spirit of the boy who used to pinch her and steal her toys into it.
He shook his head dismally, looking much older than she remembered. Not everyone gets to live in a fairytale, princess.
A red wave came and swallowed the ephemeral palace he had made, and it took her with it.
Azula woke with a start to water bubbling out of her mouth and a curse. She felt as though she were drowning in ice, as she often did in nightmares. She spat the liquid in her lungs onto dark sheets in a bright room (or bright sheets in a dark room, she could not be certain.) The effort caused her a great deal of pain.
"She'll never get better if she keeps this up. I've been trying to force water down her throat for hours." A frustrated girl said from somewhere in the room.
"She's a firebender; she doesn't readily drink water on principal!"
"That's just stupid! I didn't bring her back to life just so she could die." Azula felt her eyes closing again
"Don't talk about death here. I don't think it's wise, considering the circumstances."
"Damn it I think she's coughing up blood again…"
She is wearing nothing but a floor length coat made out of coppery velvet; embroidered with gold and silver thread along the sleeves and hem. It is her only worldly possession, the only thing he allowed her. Acrid wind tossed her loose hair around her face as she surveyed the endless desert before her. She's crying but she knows none of it actually matters, she is mourning something irreversible.
What is there left to do, your majesty?
Burn them. She said, letting sand flow through her fingers. Burn them all.
The universe must have balance, Azula. There is an invariable ebb and flow to our world.
It was the middle of the night and she was on a sailboat in the center of a completely silent sea.
For every occasion there is reciprocation. Everything is interconnected in that way, death, birth, triumph, defeat, fire and ice. You will learn soon enough if you haven't already. My death demands yours.
She frantically spun around, searching for the speaker, but there was nothing but the ship, the sea, and the lightless moon…
"Did you find anything worthwhile?"
"No. The only thing peculiar about her room was a half shattered mirror that looks like she's been putting it back together. I have no idea why. The witnesses at the prison have been even less helpful. One keeps blabbering on about some kind of shadow that spirited him away."
"Sounds like the work of some nasty spirits. How else would you explain someone disappearing from a locked cell?"
"Good point. How is she doing anyway?"
"Let's just say she's fine for now. She wasn't poisoned and the damage wasn't catastrophic but the internal bleeding was pretty bad. I mended the tissue while Aang channeled air into her lungs… but I have no idea if it will hold up."
"Wasn't it you that said 'Zuko and Azula will each curse each other with their last breath?'"
"She hasn't cursed you yet."
"Then believe me, Azula has not breathed her last."
You were never born to rule, Azula. You were born to run.
She has a black eye, her lip is split and her hair is sticking to her face in wet tendrils.
Cursed to fear everything, even when you're safe. She is dripping water on the tiles of the Agni Kai arena, moving closer to the scarless Zuko she had known. His eyes are as red as the comet that brought her demise.
You have no idea how terrified I am. Her voice betrays no emotion, but for once her eyes do.
You have plenty to die for. He tells her. But nothing to live for.
I have myself. She whispers. Isn't that enough? There is blood in her eyes again, her hair is falling out.
It will never be enough. He says, perfectly still. You always did everything you possibly could just to earn an iota of the affection Ozai owed you as your father.
You're wrong. I did it for myself. She bites back tears.
Then why is it that you're always falling apart?
She springs toward him, quick as a cat; he breaks apart like so many pieces of mirror.
Then she starts falling.
Her first few moments in reality are surprisingly calm. Her eyes fluttered open and she took a deep reassuring breath- which is unspeakably painful, thus causing her to hiss a string of colorful swear words through her clenched teeth.
"I didn't know it was possible to do that with a boomerang." Toph stood beside her bed, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She was in a new lantern-lit room on the ground floor with a view of one of the courtyards. It was still dark out; for a moment Azula was irrationally terrified that the sun was gone forever.
"What the hell…" She managed to wheeze.
"You've been out for almost two days, it's a good thing you woke up- Snoozles was distraught."
"I was not!" Sokka protested vehemently from his seat in the opposite corner.
"He found you dying in the garden," Toph said with typical nonchalance. "With a punctured lung. It took Katara and Aang to fix it. I hope you're grateful."
"You got blood on me." Sokka grumbled.
"I'm sure it was a vast improvement." Azula said deprecatingly.
Toph and Sokka shared a look that clearly said: "Yup. She's all better."
"You sure did take your time waking up too; usually the effects of healing are instantaneous. So what happened to you, prissy? "
She had to move, she had to leave. It had been too long. Long Feng had never meant for her to cause a distraction. She was the distraction. How could she have let him get that close to her?
While the tiny earthbender rambled on, Azula rolled to the side in an attempt to launch herself out of bed. With the searing pain in her chest she was only capable of stumbling to the other end of the bed and clinging to the post for support. It was terribly unbecoming of her; she could feel her disheveled hair sticking out at odd angles.
"Hold on. Where do you think you're going?" Toph asked sternly.
"Where is Zuko." She rasped.
"He's been busy. Considering your father escaped and all." Toph shrugged.
"Shit." Azula said under her breath.
"That's… exactly what we were thinking." Sokka and Toph glanced at one another once again.
"Get Zuko." She demanded.
"Okay, geez. Don't kill yourself." If Toph could have rolled her eyes she would.
"And get me some tea!" Azula added before the girl left the room but the door slammed instead.
Azula slid back against her pillow cautiously and climbed under the blankets. She was feeling abnormally chilled. The robe someone had thrown around her hung loosely around her thin frame. "So. I suppose this means you are free from your debt." Azula said arrogantly after an uncomfortably long moment of silence.
"Oh it does. You were very lucky I just happened to be taking a stroll at exactly the right time." They faced each other guardedly from their respective positions.
"How lucky for you." She looked out the dark window. "A braver man would have left me to die." She knew she shouldn't be saying it, but she couldn't help herself.
"Even if I didn't owe you a debt I still would have saved you." He confessed. Azula was suddenly engrossed with the remaining blood stains on her ring. A bit of detached skin on the nail-bed of her thumb caught her attention. But when she started to pull at it, her entire nail came off. She looked upward warily at Sokka, who had not noticed.
"What were you doing in the garden anyway?" She asked, maintaining her sneer and trying not to display her bewilderment.
"It was the full moon." He said blankly, as though that explained everything. "You know… they say that once you save a person's life you're responsible for it forever." He mentioned tentatively. "Zuko and Katara have saved each other too many times to count now…"
"I seriously hope that's not true. No one could ever be responsible for you, Sokka. That's more work than one person can handle." She said distantly, looking forlorn as if she regretted something.
Sokka's lips parted in surprise. He wasn't aware Azula even knew his name.
The door swung open with unnecessary force and Zuko stepped in. "You mind telling me what the fuck happened to you?" He said in a low, dangerous, tone Sokka hadn't heard since Zuko stopped trying to kill him.
Azula sat up straighter, furrowing her brow in disapproval. "Is there something bothering you?" She said acerbically.
"Am I just supposed to believe that you letsomeone stab you?"
"Apparently someone practical decided to murder me. Why make the trip up Caldera Crater twice when you can free Ozai and kill Azula in one fell swoop? And I'll have you know that someone ambushed me from behind."
"You think they're connected?" He said, freezing in place.
"Of course, DumDum. It certainly wasn't a coincidence." She said in a nauseatingly sweet pitch.
Zuko crossed his arms. "So who would want to stab you?"
Azula smiled at the carelessness of his words. "It's an occupational hazard. When you play reckless war games, you're going to be betrayed more than once. It could have been anyone. But I have a few plausible theories…"
"they say that once you save a person's life you're responsible for it forever" taken from Hitchcock's Vertigo
You may choose to ignore the odd little anecdote about Zhao at the beginning, I just wanted to emphasize that he was the pinnacle of Fire Nation sucess but still failed somehow. (and the crack!shipper in me couldn't resist)
P.S. Mai is making an appearance in the next chapter!
