Ty Lee and Mai had come to say goodbye. Sentimental fools. Azula did not face them immediately. Father was just cleaning up court, for the sixth time in his three year reign, and Mai's father was a weak little maggot so now her minion-friend was leaving. The twisty feeling rose back up in Azula's stomach. She pushed it down to the same place she'd taken to keeping Mother and turned.
"Mai. Ty Lee." They, as her friends, were permitted to bow standing; they weren't old enough for court yet. Sixty-five degrees for a Fire Princess. (Crown Fire Princess, soon, but Zuko's claim hasn't been removed by the sages yet.) (Sometimes Azula stares into the mirror and isn't sure that she wants them to do it.) Mai looked as bored as ever, managing scorn even at the wall carvings of this out-of-the-way tea room they'd found themselves in, while the red rims around Ty Lee's eyes suggested that her bawling had finally finished. Azula sat as gracefully as she was trained to and waits for tea.
"So, Mai, your father has become governor on which Isle, again?" Phoenix-Tail, she knew, but small talk should be unassuming enough for Ty Lee to pull herself together.
"Oh, Azula, we're going to miss you so much!"
Never mind, then. Azula slid out of reach of a hug, lest Ty Lee forget her place. The idiot descended back into sobs, as if she'd never even been in court. (She hadn't, Azula reminded herself, she wasn't the eldest.) Mai's face pinched slightly, betraying her discomfort. Azula schooled her own face into disapproval.
"Oh, calm down, Ty Lee, all this sniveling is pathetic." The sobs only increased in volume. She grimaced. "You're just… misunderstanding." She reached a hand out and patted her shoulder slightly. She didn't remember crying well enough to remember how one comforted people through it. (She wasn't sure anyone had ever bothered with her.) Ty Lee did not raise her head but her sobs petered out. "I'm sure I could… visit. It would certainly be educational to see more of the Fire Nation. I'm going to be ruling it one day, after all."
"Would you really come and visit?"
Azula regretted the words less than she thought she would. "Certainly. Provided Father approves. And I shall write." She already wrote, by moonlight in her private chambers with guards at the doors so that she had time to hide if Father came looking, but these letters would be sent like normal, to non-threatening penpals who weren't traitors to the nation. "It will make for good calligraphy practice."
Ty Lee was, at least, smart enough not to point out that Azula didn't need any calligraphy practice. There were guards outside and a handmaid in the corner and the walls listened to every word. There had never been any such thing as honesty in Azula's home. She thinks that's probably where Zuzu went wrong. He never knew quite how to pull off a convincing lie.
(She's never known how to do anything but.)
Azula had to dismiss them eventually, and Mai drags Ty Lee away with a half-apologetic glance over her shoulder. Azula ignored them both, fuming slightly at the news.
Ty Lee was planning to run away and join a travelling circus. Realistically, Azula had known that she would from the moment she met her. She was too excitable to be kept in one place long and it had never been a question of skill.
Mai had been relocated to a beautiful island she can explore (not that she will) to her heart's content. She would be allowed to return to school at the end of summer, while Azula would take up classes in the palace.
Zuko was on an 'extended vacation' with Uncle Useless, getting to see the whole world forever. He wasn't happy about it, as he had written every day, which was a small comfort, but he was free.
Azula was alone, completely, and she was getting bored.
The idea came, as a lot of ideas did, as she was lying in bed, waiting for sleep to arrive. She gave up on her chamomile immediately and snatched up a brush and ink.
Zuzu had better be happy to hear from her.
Tao Shi-Lan was a foot soldier stationed in a backwater Earth Kingdom town, prior to the uprising that killed her and half her troop. Her file was requested by the retired General-Prince Iroh a week after the incident. No one in the clerks' office could fathom what the prince could possibly want with the file, but neither could anyone fathom a reason not to give it to him. So it was sent, with the slightly scruffy looking messenger hawk that brought the request.
"You don't suppose it's not actually… from the prince?" This was the kind of thing wondered aloud by someone after everyone else had already wondered in their heads.
"S'got his stamp," argued Eichii, who was on the tail-end of a double shift and would have much preferred to have been unconscious for the entire debate.
"I mean, yeah, but… what could he possibly want with it? She was only conscripted last year and she was from the other side of the country." Hanying made a good point.
"Who would fake a request from a member of the royal family?" Jie also made a good point, and Fire Lord Ozai did not, at that particular moment in time (or ever, really), make good use of his clerks. The debate continued.
"Another member of the royal family." Eichii's suggestion - all too wise for someone so sleep deprived - paved the way for an eerie hush over the room. Everyone else began to realize some very uncomfortable implications. Eichii settled down to use the month's Agricultural Budget Report as a pillow.
"Sending it is safer than not sending it."
And the debate was settled.
Zuko might have been a traitor and banished and a lot of other horrible things that didn't always bear thinking about, but he was determined to be a good big brother if it killed him. (He's good at doing things until they kill him, even if he hasn't died yet.) He very vaguely remembered being excited about his Big Brother status when Azula was still too young to speak. He had one particularly distinct memory of half-holding his little sister in clumsy, pudgy arms supported by their mother's, and watching as she opened her eyes again. It was not so distinct with details, but more the feeling of his own inner fire, blazing for the first time, almost as if it was calling to Azula's, visible in her bright golden eyes.
He was not so sure about being a big brother now, stumbling nauseously through the port with half his face in bandages, orders of assistant-medic Satomi because the real doctor left last week and she was the most qualified person left on board (and weirdly good at bullying everyone into doing what she says). (Except crewman Teruko.) (No one can bully crewman Teruko.) (He's tried.) He keeps tripping on this stupid cloak he has to wear so no one notices it's him wandering around near midnight and he's exhausted and Azula might not even be here yet but he's still going because this was his life now apparently.
"Zuzu? Why are you walking like you're drunk?"
Zuko lurched awkwardly into a conveniently placed wall instead of offering an explanation. His vision was far too hazy to make out Azula's eyes rolling halfway out of her head, but brotherly instinct had its perks.
"If you throw up on me I'll burn the other half of your face off."
Pulling his face into a scowl was excruciatingly painful, but worth it. "Shut up."
"Inspiring comeback. Agni's grace, am I going to have to carry you back?"
"No." Zuko took a step forward and managed a controlled lean into a lamppost. "…Maybe."
Despite her threats and general huffiness, Azula didn't drop him at all as they shuffled back to the Wani. Zuko was counting this as a win (and starting to think that Azula might be okay at being a little sister). Getting back into his room presented some issues.
"If you got out, you can get back in. Move."
"Fine." Zuko fell flat on his face after three steps.
"Have you ever thought anything through in your entire life, Zuzu? Was there a point before I was born where you made one good decision?"
"Shut up," Zuko groaned from the floor.
He didn't know how they got into his cabin, but they did it. Azula rolled her eyes when he asked and refused to say anything about it.
"Show me the file, Zuzu." Azula scanned the scroll handed to her for a few moments before nodding somberly. "She was an honourable soldier. May her soul reach Agni safely." Zuko nodded, just as serious.
"I missed you."
Azula wrinkled her nose. "That's disgusting."
Zuko laughed. Azula shoved him off the bed.
It was nice to see her again.
Satomi was absolutely not getting paid enough for any of this. "Assistant-to-the-Doctor" meant, in her situation, "only medic on board a ship with a crew of fifty" because the actual doctor had only stuck around long enough to make sure he wouldn't get the blame if the prince died.
That left her changing a grumpy teenagers bandages every other day (it should have been daily, but she had neither the bandages nor the patience to spare) and taking care of everything from scratches to second-degree engine room burns in the mean time.
"Thanks," grunted engineer Hanako. "You need to get some sleep, kid."
Satomi glowered at her ineffectually. She was only twenty-four compared to Hanako's no-one-knows-and-everyone-is-too-afraid-to-ask, but she didn't graduate early from (or get thrown out of, depending on who you asked) the best medical school in the Fire Nation to get called 'kid' by a woman who was a full foot shorter than her. She tightened the bandages just a little more than strictly necessary, prompting another grunt from her colleague.
"Right, that's you done. No welding for a week." Hanako gave her the 'this ship is already falling apart' look. Satomi sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Can you manage four days?" She got another grunt that probably meant yes. "Okay, great."
"You coming to dinner?" Satomi didn't have the time to open her mouth before Hanako interrupted. Just because she had the best manners of all her crew-mates didn't mean she had good manners. "You need to eat before you sleep. C'mon."
"I'll be fine, I can eat when I wake up."
Satomi was dragged to the mess hall quite unceremoniously and may or may not have fallen asleep somewhere along the way.
All this to say she was not particularly thrilled with the call for attention on deck halfway through her dinner. She managed to stay standing mostly on her own and partly held up by Genji for the full minute and a half before Prince Zuko called "at ease" as awkwardly as he possibly could. Inconsiderate brat.
He was trailed by a soldier who was even shorter than Hanako.
"Crew, this is Tao Shi-Lan. She is our new watchman." Tao Shi-Lan took off her way-too-big helmet and turned out to be about ten. Satomi considered, not for the first time, throwing herself overboard. "She is known to her peers as 'Lala'," which was an unnecessary detail that implied that 'Tao Shi-Lan' was a fake name, and prompted a chillingly subtle glare from 'Lala'. "She'll be on afternoon shifts. Uh, that is all?"
Watchman Lala was left standing slightly awkwardly in the middle of the hall, under the scrutiny of thirty or so grown adults. She handled this very impressively, by shoving her helmet back on and stomping over to the end of the food line.
Satomi took a quick nap (read: blacked out) between this and Lala sitting down very unobtrusively at the other end of her table.
"Does this mean I'm not 'New Guy' anymore?" New Guy sounded stupidly hopeful.
"Hey, New Kid, wanna come sit with us? We're the coolest crew members on board," Teruko offered, with a grin that would have worried Satomi, if she'd been more conscious.
Lala took off her helmet, and raised a thin eyebrow. "I can't imagine how dull the rest of the crew must be, then."
Genji choked on his rice.
Satomi's head fell forward onto the table, and she let sleep claim her.