A/N: I loved you with a fire red, now it's turning blue. Love and be loved. Read… and review!

Our Empire

Azula floats through the air alone with her thoughts. It has been a whirlwind ten days for her, just as the last year has been. She had returned home from the storm a sopping mess, bathed and tried to sleep. But then she woke. And she thought. And she slept. Woke, and thought, and slept. Until the sun was about to rise and so she ventured out with General Lee and a battalion of soldiers.

She had very nearly killed Zuko and the Avatar and his gang, but yet again she failed. She nearly died in the process. She returned home, defeated once more, but the Fire Lord did not kill her. He was extremely displeased by her continued failure, but somehow he had been gentler than the last time. It perplexed Azula then just as it does now.

In this last week since her attempt to bomb them out, she has remained an image of stoicism at the capital. She has pushed her emotions down. She can go almost an entire hour now without thinking about the brunette in the prison. She hasn't even said her name out loud once since it all happened.

Azula has become the calm. She embodies the resolve. She is okay. She will be okay. She will break and burn and end everyone who opposed her now. She will set fire to the world and watch it burn down to embers alongside her father. It's the only thing that gives her day meaning anymore. She looks out through a thin veil at the procession through the Royal Plaza. They lag too far behind and she grows agitated.

She shouts at the servants, "Come on slowpokes! Faster!"

They struggle onward until they arrive at the destination. Azula quickly disembarks and runs up behind the Fire Lord. She stops behind him and kneels. Panting for breath, she apologizes, "Sorry I'm late, Father. Good palanquin bearers are so hard to come by these days. So, is everything ready for our departure?"

Fire Lord Ozai does not turn around. He continues facing away from her when she says, "There has been a change of plans, Azula."

Worriedly she asks, "What?"

"I've decided to lead the fleet of airships to Ba Sing Se alone," he tells her. "You will remain here in the Fire Nation."

Azula feels dizzy. Like she has just spent a minute spinning in a circle and has just been told to walk straight back to the Royal Palace. She asks, "But I thought we were going to do this together?"

"My decision is final."

This was why he had not berated her the other day after she failed to kill her brother. He had become his own calm, waiting until now to strike. He has strung her along to this very point, and now he cuts the line. She is deranged and can't filter her own thoughts before they come spilling out.

"You… you can't treat me like this!" She rises up to face him. "You can't treat me like Zuko!"

She has done everything ever asked of her. She has been strong, patient, and true. Yet at the final moment, she is being cast aside.

"Azula, silence yourself." He commands her.

"But it was my idea to burn everything to the ground!" She shoots at him. She feels woozy and that she may collapse. "I deserve to be by your side!"

"Azula!" He shouts, turning his head to look at her. Azula remembers the decorum and bows her head in reverence. After all, the man before her is the Fire Lord first and her father second. "Listen to me. I need you here to watch over the homeland. It's a very important job that I can only entrust to you."

"Really?" She asks earnestly, hope shining in her voice.

He seems so sincere. There's nothing facetious about his tone or body language. She is being trusted with something, by the Fire Lord no less.

He turns to face her at last, "And for your loyalty, I am ready to declare you the new Fire Lord."

There's a shimmering in her eyes. They even twitch for a second as she can't help but ask him, "You are?"

A thousand thoughts rush through Azula. Her lifelong dream would become a reality, right here, right now. She would become the first female Fire Lord. Everything she had ever done. All of the lying. All of the manipulation. All of the violence she had perpetrated. Pushing everything down and burying those feelings within herself so that not even she could find them. Hiding herself and her emotions to the point that she shoved away every friend she's ever had. It was all worth it to reach this point. Now she would be the Fire Lord. Now she would be the one to decide what stays and what fades away. She would get to decide.

"I am," he starts while narrowing his eyes, "but there is something you must do first before you can become the true Fire Lord."

'Of course. Of course there is more. There's always more.'

"What is it? What more must I do?" She asks, desperate.

Of course he would still require her to do more. And this close to her goal, he knew she would do it. Azula felt that no matter what came from his mouth next, she would do it.

"Tell me, Azula, what have you done today to reshape the world by the flame of the Fire Nation?"

Azula's mind races. He wants her to prove her worth. She knows there are better answers, she knows she can think of something else, but her mind keeps circling back to the same thing. "I have lit the spark by which we, erhm, you will burn the world."

"Indeed. You have lit many sparks in your time." He replies. His eyes drift off and stare out into the distance. Then he looks back at her, "Do you worry that the fire within, the fire inside of you, has burned the candle from two wicks?"

Ba-thump Ba-thump

Her heart beats faster. There is an underlying question he is not asking. She knows this is not simply about her being exhausted or overworked. It has never been that simple.

"No. Never. I would never."

Ba-thump Ba-thump

"Lo and Li don't agree. They said something at Ember Island changed you."

Ba-thump Ba-thump

"Are they right? Do you burn with a different fire within now, daughter?"

Ba-thump Ba-thump

Azula stares into his amber eyes and she felt he was burning her alive with them.

Ba-thump Ba-thump

"I have always had the outer and inner fire, Father." She tells him. "I was born with both. My flame has remained the same since my birth. And I will take the life of anyone who says otherwise."

Ozai smirks. "Ah, but you've never actually taken a life, have you?"

Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump

Azula can feel her heart beating in her ears. She wonders if it is audible. Or visible. Can he hear her heart beating? Can he see it? He locks into the gold of her eyes.

"Your first order of business as the Fire Lord will be to execute the traitor girl."

"Ty Lee?" She asks as her pulse quickens.

"Is that her name?" He asks absentmindedly. "Hmm, well then, yes. Her."

Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump

"She betrayed you, is a traitor to the Fire Nation, and allowed your brother to slip between our fingers. She must be put to death."

"Of course," Azula said, trying to think quickly. "But wouldn't perhaps a worse punishment be a lifetime as a prisoner?"

Ozai smiles at this. A true, genuine smile spreads across his face. With a head nod he says, "You're generous."

Ba-thump Ba-thump

'Generous? Does this mean he agrees? He thinks it would be a good idea to just let her waste away? Will he allow it?'

"Me."

'"Me?" What does he mean?'

"You're ruthless," he says with another pause. "Me."

He steps towards her.

Ba-thump Ba-thump

"But I never taught you to lie," his tone grows harsher. He gets louder and towers over her. "That's why you're so bad at it."

Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump

Azula feels that he sees through her. As if he knew everything she had done in the last year. Her nightmares, her dreams, her laughter and tears. What happened on Ember Island. Every waking second she had spent with Mai and Ty Lee. He knows everything.

clap clap

Ozai claps twice and a soldier approaches and hands him a long, thin metal object. He holds it in his hands and stares down at Azula.

Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump

"Kill the girl," he whispers to her. "Become the woman."

Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump

He thrusts the object into her chest and she takes it from him cautiously.

"I had the Royal Blacksmith make this for you. It is a gift for your Coronation, since I will not be there."

He steps back. Azula's eyes fall to the object in her hands. He has given her an ornate scabbard. Finely painted and expertly crafted, all about it there are images of a bird on fire.

"Do not unsheath it until it is time to use it," He warns her. "It has a special inscription that I want you to read when the time is right."

Azula holds it and feels pride. She feels strength. She feels power. She has never felt so much recognition from her father in her entire life. She isn't sure what to do with this feeling. She stares down at the metal object in her hand and holds it delicately. As if it was but a tiny flower, about to melt away. Ozai's voice cuts through to her.

"Kill the traitor. Arise the Fire Lord." He says. Slowly he tells her, "Kill the girl, and become the woman."

Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump

She looks up and they make eye contact once more. Azula wants so desperately to believe that this is love. All the things she's heard from other people. All that she has ever known or heard about it. She wants this to be the first moment where her Father loves her.

'Is this what it's meant to feel like?'

The truth is that she has never been more afraid in her entire life.

"Now," he says, standing up straight to his fullest height. He commands Azula, "Say it back."

Azula feels the fear rise in her. Her voice trembles, but she replies, "Kill the girl. Become the woman."

"Good," he replies with a mirthless smirk.

He goes on, "We will cover this world in ash and soot. Together."

This last word lingers over Azula. She tightens her grip around the scabbard. Her muscles flex reflexively.

"And then we will emerge as the rulers of all we survey. Our Empire," he says with a smile. "... of Fire and Blood."

'Fire and Blood.'

'Our Empire.'

'Kill the Girl.'

'Become the Woman.'

'And for your loyalty, I am ready to declare you the new Fire Lord'

"Fire Lord Azula? It does seem appropriate, but what about you?"

"Fire Lord Ozai is no more."

He puts his arms out at his side and three Fire Sages converge on him. They place new, Royal Garments on him.

"Just as the world will be reborn in fire," a new helmet is placed over his head. He narrows his eyes and tells her, "I shall be reborn as the supreme ruler of the world."

"From this moment on, I will be known as," he raises arms high into the air.

"The Phoenix King."

Azula can not take her eyes off the scabbard. She rides back on the palanquin and obsesses over it. She thinks about the conversation she had with her Father, the Phoenix King. She realizes now that the flaming birds on the scabbard are meant to be phoenixes. She thinks about how she is set to become the Fire Lord. No longer the Crown Princess, she will be the ruler of all she surveys. She is the one who will sit upon the Throne. Hers will be the power to banish and even sentence to death.

'Kill the girl. Become the woman.'

Azula feels like this is all part of something bigger. The questions, the scabbard, repeating the phrase to him. It is all some grand test of her.

'Yes, a test. He's testing me. He's calculating my motivations and testing my loyalty. That must be it.'

To become "Fire Lord Azula," she was ready to do anything. It's exactly like a Phoenix, now that she thinks about it. She'll have to surrender her attachment to her old life. She'll have to flame out into nothing and "die off." When she becomes the Fire Lord, she shall rise like the phoenix and join him in the sun. Azula must leave behind the girl that she is and has been. She will then become the leader she can be.

'Kill the traitor. Arise the Fire Lord.'

'Kill the girl. Become the woman.'

Kill Ty Lee and become the Fire Lord.

Her lifelong dream on the verge of becoming reality, and all she has to do is get rid of the girl she has been actively trying to forget anyway. It is as simple as that. It could be done quicker than falling asleep. Azula doesn't even need to do it herself. Tell her guards to do it. Tell the Dai Li, the Imperial Firebenders, any one of the servants, mercenaries, or anyone in the entire Fire Nation. Her prison guards could simply wait until she's asleep and kill her peacefully. Slit her throat or a blade into the base of the neck. Something quick, painless, and peaceful. She could simply go to sleep and never wake up again.

'Why is this so easy?'

Killing Ty Lee off in her mind is so simple. Doing it is another thing. Azula feels that this summarizes all that she learned from traveling the world. All of the adventuring, wandering, and soul searching had taught her this about herself.

'It's so much harder to be honest, and decent, and feel for others, and trust, than it is to be like… this.'

Azula looks back on a life of decisions. Each one had led her on the path that brought her to this point. Each one had brought her through all of her challenges and obstacles. Even if one decision had been different, it could have meant that she would not have reached this point. It could have meant never meeting Ty Lee, or the Firelight Fountain, or the midnight walk at Ember Island. It could have meant never chasing Mai or Zuko away. It could have meant never being on the verge of becoming the Fire Lord.

This fact alone makes her endlessly hate her past self.

Azula has mongered fear, hate, violence, conquest, and fire and blood. She has spent her entire life chasing away everyone around her. Everything she has ever done has led her to this point. To this moment.

'If I look back, I am lost.'

She must keep going forward. Looking back would mean confronting the horrible feelings that she has buried. Yet the guilt and shame rise above her like a wave, threatening to crash down. She can not face them. She can not go forward. She can not turn back. She is paralyzed by the moment.

"You might be the Fire Lord someday. You might get to decide. So what do you want, Azula?"

'What do I want?'

Azula will be the one. She will decide. She has decided. She will not kill Ty Lee. Her first order of business as the Fire Lord will be to banish her to a life of isolation. Build a new prison, one that Azula will design herself.

Azula will be the Fire Lord and Ty Lee will be forgotten to time.

A/N: This Chapter's OST is "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Lorde.

Love always. Tyzula forever.

Notorious