Chapter 46: Convergence of Destiny, Part 2
…
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
-Margaret Meade
…
It was beautiful.
In a world-dooming kind of way.
Namura Daiquan stared from her place in Appa's saddle basket as Sozin's Comet flared over the horizon like a second sun and lit the earth with a surreal dusky orange glow. She closed her eyes as her blood quickened and the energy inside her flared with power.
"Feel that?" Zuko called to her from the reins, his voice whipped back to them by the wind.
She nodded and raised her voice so he could hear. "It's quite a boost."
"What is?" Katara asked.
Nami nodded her head at the comet. "The energy from the comet. For now, firebenders all over the earth have more power than any other bender."
"Scary thought," Katara muttered. Nami raised her eyebrows and nodded in dark agreement.
"Fire Lord Sozin used the comet 100 years ago to take over half the world," she said in a hard voice. "Now we have to use it to take it back."
"Nami," Katara began slowly, "um, thanks for, y'know, asking me to come with you to face Azula."
"If anyone deserves to be the downfall of Princess Azula, it's the three of us," she replied. So long as you're not still after my boyfriend, she wanted to add. But Katara had been good for the past week, and Nami was hopeful she had put her crush behind her.
"Are you scared, Zuko?" Katara asked after a few minutes of quiet.
"Not of Azula," he replied. "I'm worried about Aang. What if he doesn't have the guts to take out my father? What if he loses?"
"Aang won't lose," Katara answered firmly. "He's going to come back. He has to."
…
Princess Azula sat in a dressing room in the imperial palace while one of her handmaidens brushed her black hair, another worked on her nails, a third scrubbed her feet, and a forth held up a bowl of cherries for her to snack on. She took one of the cherries and chewed it contentedly, but her teeth came down on something hard and she spat a pit into her palm.
"What am I holding?" she asked the young woman holding the cherry bowl in a cold voice.
"A cherry pit, princess," she replied softly.
"Correct. And what day is this?"
"It is the day of your coronation."
"Yes, it is. So please, tell me why on the most important day of my life you decided to leave a pit in my cherry?" She flicked the pit at the girl, who flinched.
"It wasn't a decision, it was just a small mistake…"
"Small? Do you realize what could've happened if I hadn't sensed the pit in time?"
"I suppose…you could've…choked?"
"Yes. Then you understand the severity of your crime."
The handmaiden lowered so that her forehead touched the red carpet. "I understand, Princess. Please, forgive me."
"Oh, very well, since it is a special day. I will show mercy. You are banished. Leave the palace immediately."
The young woman backed hastily away from the princess and out of the room. The other three girls stared at Azula.
"What're you all looking at?" she snapped. "I have two feet that need scrubbing. And makes sure you get in between the toes. I won't have my first day as Fire Lord marred by poor foot hygiene."
They finished up preening her, and then Azula dressed and went to the throne room which had previously been her father's. It was a spectacular room. Regal. The throne rested behind a short wall of fire so that the Fire Lord looked surrounded by flames. The sight intimidated those who approached, she knew from experience. And now her father was gone. She was not coronated yet, but would be. This would all be hers.
She arranged a pillow to lay just short of the throne on the platform and sat down on it. She tossed a ball of her signature blue fire into the oil pit below the platform and blue fire flared up in front of her. She saw it reflect on her pale skin and smiled with satisfaction.
But her satisfaction did not last long.
Alone in the throne room she thought about her slow, stupid brother and his mouthy girlfriend. About Mai and Ty Lee.
About Jareth.
Everyone who'd turned on her.
That's what people did—turn on you. Anyone you try to trust, they betray it. She had never trusted her father; he had never disappointed her. It was because when you mistrust someone, you're always ready. Trust blinds. It softens. She didn't have the leisure to be soft.
She could trust no one.
The princess sprang from the platform and down the long throne room. She stuck her head though the curtain at the end where she knew two imperial guards were stationed.
"Summon the Dai Li to me immediately," she commanded. "And then all of my servants. And after them, all of the imperials guards assigned to me, including yourselves."
Back on her pillow, Azula watched the time carefully. It was a full five minutes before the agents entered the throne room and kneeled before her.
"You sent for us, Princess?" the leader asked. "Is everything alright?"
"Actually, everything is not alright," she returned. "Do you know how long it took you to get here?"
"Uh, a few minutes, I guess."
"Five, to be precise," she snapped. "In which time an assassin could've snuck in, done away with me, and been on his merry way." Not that an assassin could do away with her. She was more than a match for anyone. But she needed an excuse to rid herself of the Dai Li. They were a liability. All of them had betrayed their leader, Long Feng. How long before they betrayed her?
"My apologies, Princess."
"Is this how you plan to treat your new Fire Lord? With tardiness and disloyalty?"
"The Dai Li would never betray you."
"And I'm sure that's just what you told Long Feng," she growled, "before you turned against him and joined me. You're all banished!"
"But—"
"Goodbye! Send in the next group on your way out."
…
Azula was leaning against the pillar to the left of the throne platform when Lo and Li, old crones who had served and advised the royal family for decades, came in and approached her.
"Azula, we heard what happened," one said. "Why have you banished all your servants, the Dai Li agents, and the Imperial Firebenders?"
"None of them could be trusted," she replied. "Sooner or later they all would've betrayed me."
"Azula," they both said together, "we are concerned for you and your wellbeing."
She turned to glare at them. "My father asked you to come here and talk you me, didn't he?" she accused. "He thinks I can't handle the responsibility of being Fire Lord, but I will be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history."
"Azula, today is the day of Sozin's Comet and your coronation," one said, and the other finished, "Do you wish to fight everyone who threatens you? You need protection."
"I don't need protecting!" she shrieked. "Both of you are banished! Banished! Get out of my sight!"
She watched the old women hastily flee and turned thoughtful, frowning deeply. 'Do you wish to fight anyone who threatens you?' Yes, perhaps a buffer would be useful. But there wasn't anyone she could trust! She'd already made too many mistakes trusting. She had trusted Mai and Ty Lee to be on her side. They'd turned on her. She'd trusted Jareth… Her stupidest, most careless mistake of all. He had dropped everything back at her feet. Unfeelingly.
Why?
She had showed him…well, she had been stupid enough to show him that she cared for him. But when that idiot colonel spilled her secret, he had let everything they'd had drop to the cold stone floor.
It didn't make sense. She could read people—she knew people. Every human inconsistency, every look, every word that betrayed weakness or lies. And Jareth had shown none. When he had told her he thought she was beautiful, when he smiled, when he kissed her, it was all with such a pure sincerity of emotion that she never thought to doubt it! She was sure! Sure about his feelings! She could not have been deceived in that. She had been a student in the deceits of human nature for too long to have been misled in that.
So then where did that leave her logic? He had cared about her. He had. She was certain of it. But then she had punished him…so she had no reason to suspect he still cared for her. That he still would protect her if it was asked of him.
But he was the only person in the world she could come close to trusting her life with.
It didn't make sense. Maybe that was why it made such sense.
"You! You there!" she snapped at a servant passing the throne room. The servant flinched and edged hesitantly into the room.
"Y-Yes, my lady?" she squeaked.
"Bring me Jareth Daiquan. Immediately," she commanded.
"W-Who?" she questioned blankly.
"He's a stablehand! Bring him to me now! Now, now, NOW!"
The girl shot from the room.
It took a full eight minutes, but finally Jareth was shoved through the curtain into the throne room and escorted to her by a masked solider. The soldier brought him up to the edge of the platform ringed in blue fire and shoved him down onto his knees before her with the butt of a spear.
"The man is filthy, Princess—do you still wish to see him?" the solder asked, distaste obvious in his tone.
"Yes," she answered. "You may go."
"Are you certain you don't want me to—"
"Do not question me!" she barked. "Now leave us!"
The soldier bowed and left the room. The dirty young man prostrated before her did not get up or lift his eyes to hers.
"I've banished the Dai Li," Azula said.
Jareth did not reply.
"I banished my servants."
Silence.
"I banished the Imperial Firebenders. And they were none too happy about it."
"If you've brought me here to banish me too, get it over with," Jareth muttered, irritated. The corner of Azula's mouth twitched upward.
"You reek," she commented mildly.
"I have been cleaning stables as Your Highness wished."
"You think that's what I wished, stupid boy? Do you think this is what I want?"
"Her Highness can have anything she wishes, so why would she command otherwise?"
"Sometimes not even a princess can have what she wants. You showed me that."
Jareth lifted his eyes to hers for the first time. Alone, by the light of the blue flames, there was an ache in his eyes he could not quite conceal. "I showed you nothing more than the only thing that could be. You are a princess and I am a servant."
"I am a woman and you are a man," she replied in a soft voice.
Jareth squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head sharply once. "Do you wish to go through this again? Is there some lower position you want me degraded to? Just say so."
Azula stood and walked down from the platform to stand in front of him. He was still kneeling on the floor.
"I understand that what we both want can never be," she said in a steady voice. "But I'm asking you as a woman and not as your princess… Since I can trust no one else, since I have sent away everyone who could stand between me and harm, will be my guard?"
"Since when does Princess Azula need protecting?" Jareth asked softly.
"Will you protect me, Jareth?" This time she was unable to keep emotion out of her voice.
Jareth lifted his deep golden eyes to hers.
"With my life," he whispered. He took slow, deep breath as their eyes held each other's. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"
"You've been shoveling rhino shit for a week. I didn't know anything."
"Well…sometimes it's good to shake things up."
"Follow me." She turned and walked down the throne room and they had to walk a ways to find a servant since there didn't seem to be many of them left.
"Give this man a bath and some clean clothes and then show him back to the throne room," she ordered of a man carrying towels down the hall.
"Yes, Princess. Right away, Princess," he said in a rush. Jareth followed him away and down the hall and Azula turned to return to her seat in the throne room.
…
"Ba Sing Se, the Order of the White Lotus is here to set you free," Bumi said solemnly. The five old men stood outside the great wall of the Earth Kingdom capital. Iroh stepped out from them and began to breathe deeply. As he breathed, fire flared around them all, getting higher and higher with every breath he drew.
"Only once every 100 years can a firebender experience this kind of power." He breathed in one last time and then collected all the fire he had amassed into the air as one gigantic fireball which he shot with a yell toward the wall.
It brought down a section with the sound of an explosion, and Bumi earthbended them all toward the city by raising a slab of rock and speeding them on it. Jeong Jeong and Iroh deflected the fire attacks from the Nation guards at the top of the wall, and then the five masters split up, taking the city back in the name of the Earth King slowly but surely. Billowing fire flared up in all the streets. The city was aglow in a fight for power.
"Iroh," growled a voice behind him.
Iroh spun around and narrowed his eyes at the man standing with balled fists and lifeless eyes a few yards down the street, barring Iroh's way into the capital.
"General Daiquan," he greeted in a hard voice.
"You're not going any further, old man. Ba Sing Se is and will remain under Fire Nation rule."
"It is not wise to stand in the way of destiny, Daiquan," Iroh growled.
…
Princess Azula stood in front of the full length mirror in her bedroom tying her hair up. She knew Jareth to be waiting outside the door and she was glad he was not inside to see her right now.
Her stomach was in knots and her head aflame. It was different from being sick. It was impossible to pinpoint where the problem was in her body or her head. She wanted to rip herself open and plunge her fingers under her skin to find and destroy the itching that was traveling like a fish through her bloodstream.
Azula growled in frustration when she again tied her finger in her hair and she wrenched it out with a painful tug. It was the third time she had tried to put her hair up. Gods! Everything was against her, even her own body, her own HAIR! Azula growled in defiance and grabbed the pair of scissors from the side table she'd used to cut the ribbon with.
"Alright, hair," she growled and sliced through her bangs. Azula stared at herself in the mirror. She looked almost wild. Her headache was splitting.
What a shame. You always had such beautiful hair, came a soft, loving voice she hadn't heard in years.
Azula stared at the image of her mother that had come up behind her in the mirror. Ursa was beautiful, with a soft face and gentle eyes, just as Azula remembered her.
"What are you doing here?" she snapped.
I wouldn't want to miss my own daughter's coronation.
"Don't pretend to act proud. I know what you really think of me. You think I'm a monster."
I think you're confused. All your life you've used fear to control people. Like your friends Mai and Ty Lee.
"Well, what choice do I have?! Trust is for fools. Fear is the only reliable way."
You trust Jareth.
"And you trusted Father! Look where it's gotten us both! Look at me! Fear is the only way. Even you fear me."
No. I love you, Azula. I do.
Azula's chin trembled and she grabbed her hairbrush off the table and threw it as hard as she could into the mirror where her mother's face taunted her. It shattered. She fell to the floor as shameful sobs shook her.
She heard the door open.
"I heard a crash—what—?" Jareth stopped, seeing the broken mirror and the princess on the floor. He moved down beside her, but Azula shoved away his hands.
"Leave me alone!" she screamed, lifting her head to scream in his face. She choked on the sob that forced its way up her throat and Jareth cupped her face strongly between his two hands.
"No," he replied simply.
Azula stared at him with disbelieving, tearing eyes. In a swift movement, Jareth pulled her gently into his lap. Azula let her head drop against his chest for just a moment, and her headache was dulled. She felt so weak, so needy of his arms.
But it couldn't be this way. She couldn't be weak, not now. Not now, on the edge of her triumph…
"No," she choked, pulling away from him, her movements stiff and jerky. He let her move out of his arms. "No. I can't. Leave me. No."
"As you wish," he said softly, and left the room. Azula pressed her face into the carpet.
…
After Azula had commanded he be bathed, Jareth Daiquan had ordered the servants dressing him to fit him up in full Imperial Firebender regalia with a Lieutenant-Colonel badge blazing commandingly from his shoulder and left breast.
Who was there to argue?
He now encompassed the entirety of the Royal Procession.
He was the Imperial Firebender.
Those irritating Dai Li, all the guards, most of the servants, and many of the soldiers were now draining from the palace like sand through a sieve in a chaotic frightened-ant-like exodus that made him giddy.
In such chaos, he was all too happy to help clarify the princess' directives. 'Had she meant all the guards, or just her personal ones?' ('All of them—he was certain he had heard her say so.') 'Did he speak for her?' ('Well, yes, he supposed he did.')
The palace was now soon to be mostly made up of a much smaller number of servants and soldiers, who Jareth was now in command of. Or would be soon, once he had dealt with Kei Fong.
All courtesy of the princess. Who, if he was any judge of things, was not in a mental state to give any orders for a little while. All the better that she had ordered him out of her room. He had things to do.
Fate, it seemed, was smiling on him in a great rush, as it sometimes did.
The colonel found him himself, as Jareth had known that he would. Kei Fong's long black mustache was aquiver, and his eyes were accusing, hard gems.
"Daiquan!" he exclaimed, cornering him in a hallway. Jareth let out a relieved sigh, and sprang forward to greet him.
"Colonel—thank the gods! Please, sir, if you'll come with me to see the princess. I'm so confused and concerned about all of this—one minute she says someone is banished, then she takes it back, and she's shrieking and commanding such, well, odd things!" He was leading the Colonel down the halls toward the princess' suite. "Colonel, really, sir, I'm in over my head—I'm afraid her mind is—is loosening."
The colonel looked grim. "I… Azula's always been a tad intense, but I, well, I did hear a few things this morning… But to banish all her guards?! And then you! To make you an Imperial? She—wasn't she angry with you? For some sort of noncompliance?" He looked suspicious. Jareth gave him his best overwhelmed, confused look of helplessness, raising his hands in supplication as they strode down empty halls.
"The other day she was just asking about rounds and things," he said, "and I said perfectly normal answers—I would never presume to defy her—when suddenly she's yelling at the top of her lungs, sir! I didn't know what to do! I thought she was possessed by demons or something! And suddenly I'm being taken to the stables. And now today she makes me an Imperial! I don't even know her!" Jareth could hear himself as if he were watching himself on a stage. He knew how convincing he sounded.
Kei Fong was nodding as they walked. "I—well, it's all highly irregular, Daiquan—what she's been ordering these last few hours. Her father is eccentric—a bit harsh, you understand—but not usually illogical. It's good you're bringing me to her. I'll perhaps be able to talk some sense into her."
"Yes, sir—I hope so, sir. Is her father the Fire Lord safe wherever he's hiding?" Jareth asked.
"He's not hiding," Kei Fong answered gruffly, raising his head high. "Fire Lord Ozai left early this morning to begin an invasion plan that's been decades in the making."
Damn.
"Ah—that makes sense, sir. I'm glad about that. I was worried, you know, if he were here, it might bring the Avatar down on us, and with the palace emptying like this—"
"I'll put a stop to this emptying as soon as I speak with the princess," Kei Fong asserted. "She'll see reason if I speak to her…What are you doing?"
Jareth was opening a door along the hallway, pulling the colonel in with him with his hands on his arm.
"Well, she's in here, now, sir—" he was saying mindlessly, but the moment they were both fully inside the unused, dark room, Jareth had slammed his palm into the tall colonel's neck and blasted a ball of fire straight through the man's body, almost parting his head from his shoulders.
The colonel's body convulsed a few times, even after it hit the stone floor with a few heavy thuds. Jareth grimaced. He had overdone it a bit, due to what must have been the added power of the comet.
"Nothing personal, Colonel," he sighed heavily, heaving the body over to a dark corner to the right. The head dragged rather terribly on a bloody strip of flesh.
Jareth closed and locked the door, washed, and then continued giving out the princess' "orders" while she continued with her mental breakdown in her bedchamber, oblivious.
When all was quieting, Jareth stood on a high balcony of the palace he now controlled, overlooking the grounds and some of the city. The railing of the balcony was painted stark gold, and it glinted. The grounds were quieter than usual. Sozin's Comet, like a second sun, blazed in the blue above him.
Jareth gazed as far as he could see over the city into the horizon. Gods only knew where the Avatar was now. And if he could stop the invasion. And if his young friends would make it through.
The fate of our world…riding on the shoulders of children, he thought grimly. But then, isn't it always so?
The blaze of the comet could not be looked at directly, but nonetheless it was alluring. The blaze of it seemed to be burning in his veins alone. His blood was on fire with strength.
I can understand why Azula and her father crave this. Power has a delicious taste, like a drug. But they have never known loss.
I…
Loss and I are old friends. I have known better than power in a vacuum. And so much worse.
He turned his back on the sky.
