HOLY CRAP IT'S ANOTHER UPDATE?!
Yeah, I don't have much else to say except… enjoy! :) And props to Mitsu for being my beta for the last few chapters!
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Azula's head canted to the side just a touch, eyes wide and without guile. "I want to help you, of course."
Katara slid away and off the bed, laughing a little, mirthlessly. "Azula, I have never known you to be the helpful type." The innocent look, the air of helpfulness. It all seemed false to her and put her back up.
"Whatever do you mean?" Those prefect brows drew together in seeming confusion.
"I mean that I know you well enough to know you want power." She picked up a silk robe, drawing it around herself. "You want the throne."
"That's absurd." The princess began in a calculated tone. It was too cool, too truthful.
She let out a light, disdainful breath. "Is it? Don't make the mistake of thinking that I'm an idiot, Azula. I know manipulation when I see it."
"Katara…" Azula began placatingly, standing, going to her, fingers lightly caressing her arm.
It was a motion that was supposed to soothe her, but it didn't. "Don't patronize me." She snapped, angrily. "I'd much prefer your honesty to your soothing nonsense."
"It isn't nonsense. I was worried, when I heard your conversation with the Avatar. Why does this upset you so much, Katara? After what I saw today, what power could possibly frighten you so?"
"Do you really want to know?" Katara hated the sound of her voice – low and dangerous and quite frankly a bit ugly.
Azula's lips twisted in what seemed an exasperated, bemused gesture. "Yes, of course."
She was asking for it, and somehow Katara's temper had raised to the boiling point. She hardly realized that she had brought up her hand before she bended, shoving Azula back from her several feet, feeling her stomach twist as she did. The princess' golden eyes went wide and perhaps it was Katara's imagination but she seemed to pale. Katara dropped her hands in disgust, turning.
"Wait." Azula's voice was breathless, hungry. Katara didn't care, didn't want to hear it. She yanked the door open and stormed outside, slamming it shut.
It was still raining. She hesitated on the steps, just watching it, trying to calm herself and her furiously beating heart.
----
Azula dropped to the bed, bonelessly, just staring at the door.
Her thoughts and emotions swirled around her, mostly formless. The only two things she could identify were lust and… fear.
Fear. It was ridiculous, and naming the emotion made her thoughts pause.
She had never acknowledged that the waterbender could be more powerful than her. However, it was stunningly clear that Katara was more powerful, much more powerful. It triggered the same want, the same need that Azula had before but so much stronger.
It was wild and uncontrolled and she couldn't help but tremble with it, closing her eyes. This was absolutely impossible. It couldn't be happening. That girl, that chit couldn't have this much effect on her.
She had to get rid of her was the first, wild plan that she could think of. Get the girl to leave, to go home or somewhere, anywhere. Maybe Zuko could banish her. Well, no, he probably wouldn't banish her. Not without a reason… maybe he could send her on some sort of ridiculous diplomatic mission. It didn't matter, as long as the girl left. As long as she was gone, maybe Azula could regain the footing that seemed to have been taken from her.
Azula stood, pulling on her clothing, getting dressed. Perhaps normally she would take more care but this... this was an emergency, she had to speak to Zuko.
----
Sokka was slipping back into the palace from a hunting trip. Palace life was too placid, too boring. Sure he had all the meat he could want, but sometimes a man just had to triumph over the elements and the danger and get that meat himself.
He hadn't found anything. The rain had started in the middle of his tracking and made it impossible to find the trail of any appropriate game. It made him grumble to himself about the stupid fire nation and its stupid rain – it wasn't even cooling, just hot and muggy and absolutely inconvenient.
His quiet rant was interrupted when he saw the figure across the courtyard. Wearing a heavy silk robe that looked like it had been dipped in blood, white at the shoulders, darkening to deep crimson by the knee, Katara stood on the steps, watching the rain. She looked awful, jaw tense and tight, eyes dark, hair in wild ripples around her shoulders.
Normally, Sokka would have simply given her a wide berth. But he knew his sister, and knew that she wasn't simply furious… she was upset.
Cautiously he approached her, stepping in out of the rain. "Katara?"
Her head turned, and she took a breath. "Sokka?"
Suddenly she threw herself into his arms, shoulders shaking a little. He frowned deeply, and hugged her back, tightly.
----
The throne room was always, always unreasonably hot. Zuko hated it usually, but it did have some of the best light for reading at night and he had to complete work on a new trade treaty for the next morning.
He'd had a few plush pillows and a table spread on the ground in the middle of the room, off the dais. The servants had actually looked uncomfortable bringing them and the tray of light food in – as if he was doing some sort of horribly profane thing, using the room as a study.
He took a sip of the cool water, reading the same passage a fourth time, carefully re-wording a sentence of it for greater clarity.
"Zuzu." Azula's voice carried around the hall, angry and authoritative and somehow vulnerable. Zuko raised an eyebrow, slowly, looking up from the scrolls he had spread around himself.
"Azula."
"You look ridiculous." She sniffed, arms crossed, hair unbound and wild around her. She looked pale though, a little drawn.
"Thankfully you're my only audience, and since you already think I am ridiculous…" He said it dryly. Once, not long at all ago, he would have taken offense to her. Perhaps he should credit Aang for his newfound sense of humor. Or perhaps it had always been there, just stifled by his situation.
"True." She said, peevishly, then snapped her mouth shut, giving him a hard look, as if she wanted to say something.
"Would you like to sit?"
She snorted… but strode in, half-falling onto one of the cushions. "I can't believe you'd allow someone so dangerous so close to you." Her voice was scathing.
"If you killed me, Aang would make sure you'd regret it." Zuko put his calligraphy brush down.
"Not me you dolt." She snapped it out, glaring.
"Not you." He repeated it slowly, raising an eyebrow.
"You idiot." She seethed. "The waterbender."
"Ah." Zuko poured her a cup of water, offering it to her. "Katara."
"Is there some other waterbender I'm unaware of?"
"Why do you think she's dangerous?"
"Don't you know what she can do?" Her voice practically cracked on that, and her eyes had a hit of positive madness.
Zuko sipped his own water, calmly. "Bloodbend? Yes, of course."
Azula just stared at him, mouth slightly open, and he wished that he could have the court painter draw a portrait of that. "You… you…"
"Fool?" He supplied, helpfully.
"Yes!"
"Azula, I've known about her power for ages. She isn't about to bloodbend indiscriminately." He smiled wryly.
"And yet that's exactly what she's afraid of."
"No, she isn't."
"What?" She looked thrown by that, brow wrinkling. "But she said…"
"Azula." He tilted his head. "You two have been… for lack of a better word… courting, haven't you?"
He never thought that he'd see the day when his sister blushed. She was doing it now, and it seemed out of equal parts embarrassment and anger. "Courting is a bit liberal of a term, brother…"
"It's close enough." He shrugged. "It seems that what you're most worried about isn't her bloodbending."
"That's absurd. What else would I be worried about?"
Zuko drummed his fingers along the edge of the table, thoughtfully. "Katara is… infuriating and sometimes annoyingly mothering. She's got a terrible temper and she's competitive… not really very tactful. Oh, and she's really quite violent sometimes."
"What's your point?"
"She's also stunning. Powerful and just as smart as you. Really, I didn't think I'd ever see anyone who could actually match you."
"Zuzu…" She growled a touch, warningly.
He just smiled. "If you decide to propose to her, you have my blessing. I have Grandmother's betrothal ring. The waterbenders usually give necklaces though." He paused, thoughtfully. "I suppose the royal jeweler could modify it."
"Don't be absurd! I want her gone, not to marry her. Women don't marry each other." She glowered at him, arms folded, back straight. "And I wouldn't want your blessing, anyhow."
"Perhaps you're right." He said quietly, simply sipping his water. "At any rate, I'm not sending her on a fool's mission out of the country or banishing her or anything else, just to soothe your wounded pride. That would be absurd. She's far too valuable."
Azula shot him a poisonous glare, but for once she seemed to find no actual fault with her brother's logic. "Fine then." She said after a long moment.
"Fine?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Do you have a hearing problem?" She stood, sniffing a little. "I'll let you get back to playing clerk."
Zuko chuckled softly, nodding. "I hope things work out for you both." He was surprised to find that he actually meant it.
Azula simply sniffed and spun to flounce out, clearly trying to keep up her front.
----
Azula raged quietly as she left the throne room, headed back to her chambers. Her pride, injured? Preposterous. Truly ridiculous, and of course Zuko had been the one to spout such nonsense.
But of course he wouldn't see what she saw. Katara helped put him on the throne. Why would he consider her a threat? Why would any of them see her as a threat? None of them would push her to leave the kingdom, so clearly Azula would have to do so herself.
She sat down, heavily, staring at the wreck of the bed. Color rose in her cheeks as she remembered what had happened there earlier. She couldn't believe herself, having let things get so out of hand.
Azula was supposed to be in control of this. Not that crazy, over-powered waterbending freak of a girl.
Clearly seducing her had been a wild miscalculation on Azula's part. But now, the question remained as to what she wanted to do about it.