I do not own.
Because everyone knows Azula isn't winning any trophies for sibling of the year.
This is also Azula before Day of Black Sun. So get yourself in that mindset.
37. Siblings
Because I'm a people person . . .
There might have been one thing that Azula could agree with her uncle on: Zuko was a putz. He was readable whether or not he thought he was, and Azula was good at reading people. Oh, he had avoided her for quite some time, but only with the help of their dithering old uncle, and that only made him lucky.
He was, in fact, much luckier than their father gave him credit for, and much more useful. Where Ozai's pride would have denied him the use of his son, his daughter could see the possibilities.
Of course, Ozai had spent all the years of Zuko's existence ignoring him. Azula had spent those years perfecting her control of him. It was jokingly easy to turn Zuko away from his only guide through all his years of exile.
Of course, all the boys were easy these days. She had Long Feng on his knees without breaking a sweat, and the Avatar . . . the Avatar was made ineffectual, if he was not dead.
No, boys were all too easy to control, especially since they thought they controlled the world. And the Avatar was surrounded by boys, and that little earthbender who acted like one. She was talented, but it made her just as otiose.
Azula had a harder time controlling girls. They were less pawns to be moved than competitors to be eliminated, but she had need of them. Ty Lee and Mai worked, because Ty Lee only followed the path of least resistence, and Mai could be controlled through her brother.
Ty Lee didn't see, Mai only saw Zuko, and that little blind earthbender could only see black and white.
Azula's only real competition was the other who could see the shades of grey for what they were. The waterbender.
They were not alike. That little peasant couldn't manipulate her way through a market, much less a court. But Azula recognized her as the only equal she had amongst the Avatar's little group. She didn't know why.
Maybe it was because, she, too, had to deal with an macabre older sibling. She was an exemplary bender, no matter her lack of other skills. She wouldn't play by Azula's rules, and Azula wouldn't play by hers. That meant it was back to the most basic rules of war: there were none. Someday, perhaps soon, they would find out who was, in fact, the more powerful bender.
It would take some planning. Since this girl was her equal, how would she go about defeating her? The same way she would go about defeating herself.
She would strip away the supports. Without them, there was no one and no purpose. There was only the slip into desperation, and then madness. What was the waterbender's purpose?
What was her own?
That gave her pause.
I want victory. I want power. I will have them. It doesn't matter why. Because those things will make me whole.
So the answer was to crush every last hope of victory or that ever-elusive peace the waterbender was always on about. It meant crushing the Avatar, if it was not already done.
Obviously, Azula doesn't know Katara. But I think Mai covered that when she broke her brain. I'm going to go cry for my favorite villain now.
Sheesh . . . I wrote four things last night, and I don't want to post them all right now. Maybe today, but not right now.
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