A/N: Second to last chapter. Maybe. It depends on whether or not the next chapter ends. Sometimes the fic doesn't do what I want it to. This chapter's kind longer than usual, and no real fluff. I intend to make up for that next chapter though. This is just random sibling bonding.
Chapter 52
Zuko was beginning to possess the sage-like qualities of their Uncle- in appearance only. He had a distasteful tendency to simply nod at the end of a conversation or add a very few choice words like a racing man at yelling at the ostrich horses as they ran. "That's right." He'd say. Or "I agree completely." Sometimes he'd just venture her a knowing stare as if expecting his sister to blurt out some deep dark secret under all of her blasé exterior. He was behaving as if he knew something about her that she wasn't saying. He was... suspicious of her.
Simple little Zuko always got it wrong. He trusted her implicitly when he shouldn't and looked for hidden lies when there were none. He never had any sense for a person's character, never any logic beyond the immediately obvious. He was so stupid and small. Azula was ashamed to be related to him sometimes.
"I suppose you expect me to say something to you." Azula licked her lips deftly. Her brother had been giving her some "knowing" look for nearly half an hour. Only now Ty Lee and Mai were in the other room chatting and laughing like the swell old friends they were and Uncle had excused himself to go back to back. He was old after all. Azula and Zuko sat alone at the table with little cups of tea in front of them. Camomile, just like when they were little. Uncle was always fond of saying "For temperament and spirit the finest camomile, and trust me you kids need it." Neither Zuko or Azula were very fond of tea but they drank it now just as they did then.
Zuko looked at her with a glib half smile. He always looked so creepy when he smile, like it wasn't natural to his face. "I really don't know what to expect from you at this point, Azula."
"Fire balls, massive terror," Azula never over-emphatically rose an eyebrow. "Espionage..."
He took a smug drink, "But that's not you anymore, right?"
Azula smiled as "sweetly" as she could manage. "No, that's me. Always has been, always will be. I just really don't give a damn about anything you do, brother. It seems so trite, as inept as you are."
His expression soured for a moment then rebounded just as fast. Zuko always got upset at everything. He was moody and overemotional like a little girl. Still it made Azula proud that her older brother still held so much stock in her dim opinion of him. He was probably going to cry momma Mai a river tonight.
"So," Zuko cleared his throat, trying to change the subject away from his own ineptitude and onto hers. "I hear you can't make a cup of tea to save your life."
Azula scoffed "Please cooking and tea-making are for women, like Uncle and Ty Lee I handle the finances flawlessly."
"I'm sure you do. You were always good at math and pointless subjects like that. I guess you think your psychotic-" He paused and rephrased himself, "anal cleaning tendencies are very masculine."
"Order is not something that should be taken lightly, Zuko." Azula snapped.
"Freedom is infinitely more important than order." Zuko snapped back, his eyes drawn in resembling to the tight little slits of a snake. Like he knew anything. "Anyway, what are you going to do when you live on your own? Eat out of garage bins every night? You have to learn how to cook eventually."
"I'll just get a wife to do those things for me." Azula rolled her eyes. Still there was a small spark in her that had a fearful little glimmer of excitement when he'd said "when you live on your own." Regardless of what ever he was saying Zuko was considering letting her out of her strange little probation. He was going to give her his all important "freedom".
The problem was she wasn't sure if she wanted it. For the entirety of her life Azula had never been free. She'd never lived by herself, gotten a job of her own volition, or even made a meal with her own two hands. It was scary thinking about all of the possibilities out there and little her unaccustomed to it all. The most terrifying thing however was simply the thought of being left alone with her thoughts. Azula didn't want to lose control of her reality like she had before. She needed others to make sure what ever she was seeing was real.
The future, or at least the far future wasn't something Azula really thought about. Would she really be working at a tea shop her entire life? Would she go back to the Fire Nation if granted "permission"? Would she and Ty Lee still see each other like they did now? It was always prudent to have a plan, to be working towards something, but Azula didn't have any thing beyond whatever instant she was in. She was flying blind.
Even Ty Lee had a vague idea of what she wanted her future to be. She wanted to "ride the waves" and have children- things that she definitely couldn't do with Azula. Relying so much on someone who wanted things that would eventually lead them apart wasn't healthy for her. Over and over she kept telling herself that she needed to find her own destiny, but as far as she could look into the future everything was blank. She no longer had any hopes and dreams.
Sometimes she thought she might go to the University of Ba Sing Se, just to learn something, to gather skills and open her options more and more. Other times she figured she would just inherit the tea shop when Uncle died and live a simple existence on tea and anecdotes from old people. Ty Lee said she wanted them to go travel the world. That might be nice too. Azula had always wanted to see at least one of the water tribes and maybe even the air temples.
Azula had the vague idea that she had to do something. If she just let things continue the way they were going she ran the risk of becoming an old lady with 50 cats. She didn't even like cats. They were bothersome and pointless like all animals, people included.
"Zuko?" Azula interrupted whatever her brother had been prattling on about. She hadn't been listening any way. "Do you remember the kitten we had when we were really little?"
"Yeah, I remember it. It was mine. I found it. But you liked it so I gave it to you. Mom made me." Zuko's lips quirked involuntarily. "What was it's name? Something ridiculous like Snowball."
"Snowflake." Azula corrected.
"I knew it was something snowy. You wanted to live in an igloo where it snowed all the time, because you were afraid of lightning." He rolled his eyes. "You said it was coming to get you."
"And I'd sneak into your bed at night until Father found out and made me stop." Azula lowered her eyes. "I was always so afraid of what would happen when I was alone. Loud things just make it worse- And I was afraid of lightning because father was always so fast and loose with it. I almost got hit dozens of times... and I was five!"
"You don't have to justify yourself. It was cute." Zuko smiled deviously.
"I never was and never will be cute!" She seethed.
The same half mischievous half warm smile stayed on his face. He took the last drink out of his tea-cup with a satisfied sound. "Whatever happened to, uh... Snowflake anyway? Was he smart enough to run away from you?"
"No," Azula smiled a disinterested smile. "Father snapped his neck, like this." She demonstrated casually with her fingers. "He said its unhealthy to form attachments to weak things like animals or you."
"What?" Zuko started. "When did this happen? Did he do that in front of you?"
"Yes," Azula nodded cooly.
People and their melodrama. Azula could tell him stories a million times worse than a dead kitten. She could tell him horrifying things, illegal things. Then again Zuko may care more about some cute little kitty than his own diabolic little sister. She wasn't as innocent.
"Geez," Zuko brushed at his uncooperative hair. "That's awful. He's awful."
"I don't like cats any way." Azula shrugged. "I wouldn't trust an animal not to eat me in my sleep."
Zuko looked at her for a long moment with an imploring expression on his face. He'd softened so quickly. It was a flaw of Zuko's that he still remembered her as a little child, as his baby sister. Azula would never understand the strange protective bond he continually was trying to forge with her. If anything he needed the protection. She wasn't some little girl crying at a lightning storm any more. She was strong. She could hurt him.
"Do you want to know why I let you out of the mental hospital? Why I didn't let Aang take away your bending when everyone else thought that it was a good idea?" Zuko's sharp golden eyes locked onto her hers in an intense almost caring stare.
Azula jerked slightly. Mental hospital... She hated that word. It made it sound as though she were broken and weak, someone to take care of, instead of what she really was, a prisoner of war. It was in reality a prison with all it's fineries and doctors, just as Ba Sing Se was like a prison to her now. She had no freedom...
Azula nodded.
"I see myself in you sometimes." Zuko laughed as if it were absurd. "I mean sure we each have our own strengths and weaknesses, but we were born the same, we had the same choices and opportunities- the same diverging path. I could have ended up where you are now. And I know it's not your fault or my fault that things happened the way they did. It's his fault. It's father's fault everything is so messed up. It always will be."
"I know." She said slowly. It was a hard admission that her father wasn't out for her best interests, but it had been hard for Zuko too and he'd done it. Her quick tongue wanted to changing her mind was wishy-washy. But she knew and Zuko knew it was a very hard thing to do. Zuko would always be the only one who really knew how hard it really was.
"That's good." He said looking soft and almost pleasant. "It took me a long time to realize that. I hurt a lot of people and did things I'm not proud of. I still do things I'm not proud of. But no more of that! The past is the past and the future is the future."
Azula smirked, "How very zen of you, Zuzu."
"I am superbly zen." He deadpanned.
"Still can't bend lightning, though. Am I right?" Azula smiled wickedly, "It requires peace of mind, you know."
Zuko gave a devious smirk back, "I heard you lost your bending."
Azula's grin faded. Who had been talking to him about that?
"Winter's are cold here." She quipped quickly, trying to convince herself as much as him. "I wasn't prepared."
"You know as well as I do that its possible to bend in cold weather," He shook his head, "If you think it's cold here try going to the North Pole in the middle of winter. I almost died. I could still fire bend though. It was in summer, at the Western Air Temple that I lost my bending."
Azula's eyes lit slightly. It somehow made her feel better knowing that at one point Zuko had lost his bending as well. Maybe it was a more common experience than she'd been led to believe. Maybe she wasn't as indecisive and unmotivated as Uncle had led her to believe.
"Your impotence is simply fascinating, please continue." Azula mouthed defensively.
Zuko gave her a wary look but abided nonetheless. "My whole goal in life up to that point had been to capture the Avatar. It consumed me, it became me, for so long that when I no longer had that motivation I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to make the new things that were important to me replace that source for fire bending." He paused for a moment, "It was... embarrassing."
"Thank you, dear, for sharing," Azula couldn't help but grin at his mushiness. "But I've gotten my bending back now so there is no problem. Did your little spy tell you that? I don't know how the hell I lost it or how I managed to get it back. Doesn't matter I guess. I'm as perfect now as ever."
"You can't just not know." Zuko rolled his eyes for the thousandth time. "What did you think about to make it come back? You've got to at least know what you were thinking then, don't you?
Azula had been kissing Ty Lee when she regained her fire bending. Any thought she was thinking at the time had to have been about her. She had been feeling so incredible and complete at that time. She'd never felt so good. Uncle had said that she needed to find a new motivation or whatever behind her bending. As in all aspects of her life recently Ty Lee was the motivation. But she wasn't going to tell him that.
Ty Lee was special. She always had been. She was everything Azula always admired but never really was herself. She was the only thing in the world that made Azula feel anything other than never ending numbness. That feeling, what ever it was, was the only way her fire bending could manifest it self, she supposed. It was only rational.
"It's... personal." Azula replied with as little suspiciousness as she could manage. Just with that she was certain Zuko was imagining her murdering peasants for fun or something equally as devious. Still he didn't raise an eyebrow or anything.
"You've finished your tea?" Zuko asked quietly, politely. "I can go get us more, unless you're too tired."
Azula looked down at the empty cup. She hadn't even noticed that she'd been drinking it- all of her "good temperament and spirit" seeped in without her even noticing. Her reflection stared back distorted and long, almost like Zuko with his small eyes and pointlessly long, sharp face. Still when she looked up to see her brother his face didn't resemble that image she'd seen at all. She was always forgetting about his sorry excuse for a beard and how smooth and shiny his hair looked now that he wasn't bathing in spring. He'd changed and she'd changed.
Zuko looked back at her calmly with a patience that had never been very like him- and strength and confidence, more words that she never thought she'd associate with her girlish and scared brother. Maybe it was how similar he was styled to her father that made her think that way, she didn't know.
"Sure." Azula whispered. Her eyes locked with her brother's. "More tea."
Why not let him prattle on and on about pointless stuff. She could always use it to make fun of him later.
