Like Father, Like Daughter
By Nikkel
(c) to Nickelodeon, Michael Dante DiMartino, and Bryan Konietzko
And the Warm-Teared Rain
Nothing would get in her way.
Azula tore through the brush, incinerating tree leaves and burning bushes at her touch, clearing away the fauna-choked terrain. The path may have been covered with thick roots and vines, but to have erased its destination from her mind would have been impossible. Despite all of the memories that were lost and confused, the ones that remained were what kept her sane.
Thunder rumbled in the sky when she set foot in the meadow. She looked up at the sky, swirling grey, fading to black. It wouldn't be long until the storm would arrive.
She walked through the tall grass, wild and yellow as she had remembered it. The palace at her back. The cliff and the sea at her front. The ocean breeze, tropical and warm. She could taste the salt on her lips as she neared the edge, the sea below crashing aquamarine waves to the bluff.
The hair stood up on the back of her neck. She was still looking at the sky—the sky, that ever-churning distant sky—and waiting for it to come. The lightning. The exhilaration. The power. The fear.
Just as her father had done, she removed the topmost layer of robes, discarding them to the wind. She stood with her toes curling over the cliff's edge; if she were to go any further, she would fall to her death.
A raindrop splattered her cheek. She twitched and hastily wiped it away, her mind screaming that she had broken her stance, the flow of what her father had taught her.
"It will be fine," Azula told herself, feeling another drop on her skin, and then another, and another. "Everything will be fine."
It was soon pouring. The water soaked through her clothes, and the wind blew harder. The thunder cracked, her ears vibrating from the sound. Their baritone voices echoed that of her father's.
"You must be calm, you must be steady."
Azula fell naturally into the stance.
"To procure lightning is an art. You must be poised, and wrought with technique."
Her movements, fluid and precise, were what she had trained to become instinct.
"You must be perfect. Your aim must be true. And your mind must be set."
The thunder crashed again, and she knew it was time.
Her fingers struck twelve as she drew them into circles, twirling and commanding them so, wringing the white-blue serpent between her hands. It crackled and hissed, live, wrapping itself around her wrists, her arms, her neck, her chest. It was everywhere with nowhere to go, screaming for freedom. She drew the lightning dragon close to her heart.
One wrong move and it was certain death.
With a dramatic step forward and a direct face to the storm and two fingers pointed out, Azula released the lightning, the cobalt coils skittering up her arm and out the very tip of her fingernails, reaching and clawing out to the fabricated heavens, only for it to suddenly come shooting back at her, retreating.
There was an explosion, and the next thing she knew she was knocked off her feet, her back on the muddy ground. She groaned in pain, smelling burnt flesh through the rain. She raised her a hand to her shoulder—she was bleeding, and bleeding badly. She had punctured an artery. Nevertheless, she stood up.
She was going to try again.
She did try. Again. And again. And again. But to no avail. Blood streamed down her entire left side, her legs feeling weak, her mind growing irrational, but she would not fall. The rain beat against her, and the mud slathered her eyes, but they would not prevent her from reliving the only moment she could remember of her father.
The storm became terrible. Trees blew over, lightning struck the plains, and there was word of flooding in the town. It was the worst weather of the summer.
Zuko finally burst through the brush, Mai and Ty Lee and Iroh and Ursa behind him. His rain-soaked eyes scanned the tempest-blown landscape, running forward.
"Azula!" he shouted, shouted, and shouted. "Azula! Azula!"
She had fallen to her knees. She stood up, turning, when he caught her by the shoulders.
"Azula! What are you doing?!"
"I can't do it," she whispered hoarsely, panicked and frightened. She slowly fell to her knees again, slumping in his grasp.
"I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it. . . . . ."
