"There! Set us down over there!" Azula pointed to the forest below, ordering Druk to land. They had only made it a few miles outside the Outer Wall of Ba Sing Se. Still a little too close to the city for comfort, but they couldn't afford to waste any time. Zuko needed treatment now.
Druk landed with a thud between a grouping of tall trees and gently set Zuko down in the grass. A worried bellow rumbled out the dragon's throat, as he lowered himself to the ground so the others could dismount.
Izumi ran to her father and knelt at his side, holding his hand. "Father, can you hear me?"
No response, at first. Moments later, Zuko eased a deep, weighty sigh, although his eyes remained closed. "Izumi..."
"I'm here," she said, tightening her fingers around his. "Please, don't strain yourself. Just relax."
"This is bad..." Toph knelt nearby and pressed her hands against the ground, the only way she could sense vibrations right now with her feet burned. "His heartbeat is weak, and fading fast."
Azula spun towards Anraq, grabbing hold of his collar to pull him close. Her eyes were wild, frantic. "Annie, heal him! You have to heal him!"
"I need water!" he countered, a defensive urgency in his tone. "I lost the last of mine when Yula attacked me!"
"Water? Water, okay, let's find water..." Azula released his collar and looked around the forest surrounding them. Shadows stared back at her, too dark to see much beyond the first line of trees. "There must be a stream around here, or... or something, right?"
"I don't know!" Anraq shifted his gaze toward the treeline, clawing his fingers back through his hair. "I think I might have seen something in that direction on the way down? But it was dark, I'm not sure if—"
"Don't just stand there, let's go!" Azula grabbed his wrist and yanked him along, hurrying off into the darkness with Anraq struggling to keep up. She ignited a ball of flames in her other hand to light the way.
Izumi watched them leave. Once they disappeared from view, she looked back to her father. His eyes remained closed, a pained grimace on his face. "Hang in there, Father. They'll be back soon, and Anraq will heal you." She touched a hand to his cheek, and in doing so nearly lost her composure. She managed to choke back a bubbling sob, while her tears stopped at the corners of her eyes. "You'll see. You'll be okay."
"Izumi..." Zuko cracked his eyes open, gazing up at her with a weak, barely noticeable smile curling his lips. "I am... so proud of you. I love you... so much."
"I know," she said, swallowing another sob. No stopping her tears this time. They fell free, streaking down her cheeks. "I love you, too."
"When this is over... When you... all stop Yula..." Zuko coughed, wheezing with pained, raspy breaths, and his eyes fell closed again. When the coughing subsided, he eased his eyes back open to gaze at his daughter. "The Fire Nation... will need a leader again. They'll need you."
"You say that like you won't be there to see it," Izumi replied, wiping her cheeks dry. Again, she attempted to compose herself, this time with a deep breath. The breath quivered into her lungs, nearly wavering. She smiled at him, and tightened her fingers around his hand. "I'm here. Right here. I'm with you. Please... don't give up."
A hand came to her shoulder. Toph sucked in a breath through her nose and tilted her head downward, lowering a blank stare to the ground. "He's doing the best he can. He's fighting... He was always a fighter."
Zuko wheezed out a small laugh at her statement. The laugh soon morphed into another pained fit of coughing. His breaths wavered, growing fainter, barely able to take them in. "Toph... heh... I'm sorry we never got that life changing field trip together."
A gentle smile brightened across Toph's face. She knelt next to him, and touched her hand to his shoulder. "Zuko, just knowing you has been life changing. That's more than enough."
"Perhaps," he replied, letting his eyes close. "I just wish... I wish..." A groan eased from his throat, and he fell silent.
"Father!" Izumi jolted, panic ripping through her heart. She snapped a worried look towards Toph, eyes wide. "Is he...?"
"He's still hanging on," Toph said, lowering her head. Her expression sank, grim and distant. "For now."
"Over here!" Azula stumbled down a small slope, through a line of bushes. When she came out the other side, she held the fire in her palm forward and squinted into the distance. Trees, rocks, vines—no water. She didn't slow. She kept moving, pressing on through the forward in frantic pace. If they just kept going, they'd find some water eventually. They had to. "This way!"
Anraq ran into stride next to her, shifting his attention through the forest. One of his arms hung limp at his side, still dislocated. No time yet to pop it back into place. "Do you see water?"
"I... I don't know." She paused, listening. Had that been the sound of water? No, not water. Just some animal in the night. Bubbling sickness festered in her gut. She broke into a run again, racing through the trees. ""No, no, no, come on! There must be water around here somewhere!"
"We'll find it," Anraq said, as he hurried to keep up with her. "Don't worry."
Azula slid to a stop and snapped a wild look at him. Shades of her former self danced in her eyes, as the thought of losing her brother threatened to drag her back into a dark place. "How can you tell me not to worry? My brother is lying close to dead after being shot with lightning, and the one substance we need to save him, we can't find!" She turned around, swiveling a frantic gaze through the trees. "We have to save him!"
"I know, Azula." With his uninjured arm, he grasped her shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. The touch soothed her, gradually burning away her paralyzing dread with a calming warmth.
"I... I just got him back," she uttered, her voice cracking with a harsh quiver. "After years of hate between us, I finally had a brother in my life, family who loved me, and I... I can't lose him, Annie. Not now."
"I'll do everything I can for him," he said, holding his hand to her cheek. "I promise."
Azula turned from him and raked her fingers through her hair. "If we could just find some water. There must be something. Anything."
"There must be a stream or something around here somewhere." Anraq swept a careful look through the surrounding trees. No sign of any water. No stream, no pond, not even a drizzle. His focus wavered, as a gentle white flake fluttered from the sky in front of him. He blinked at it, and gazed upward. Several more flurries followed, soon filling the entire sky. "Snow! Azula, snow!"
"I don't care about snow!" she shot back. "We need to find water!"
"That's what I'm saying!" Anraq grinned, and waved his arm through the air. Countless snowflakes hovered over to him and liquefied, joining together in a steady stream that flowed into the empty flask at his hip. "Snow is water. Now come on!"
He waved for her to follow, and took off back towards where the others were waiting. Azula stood frozen, eyebrows lifting at the declaration. Of course. She'd been so lost to her worry she hadn't even considered snow as a water source. Her heart pulsed, and she raced after Annie through the trees. Heat returned to her gut, sinking deep. Not panic this time. Not worry.
Hope.
"Out of the way! We got it!" Anraq burst through the trees in full stride, with Azula following a step behind him. Snow flurries swirled around him, falling heavier in the time since they'd hurried back. Both Toph and Izumi moved out of the way, giving him space. He slid into place next to Zuko, bending his water out of the flask. The water bubbled around his hand and began to glow, as he pressed his palm to the old man's chest.
Azula knelt at her brother's side. She smiled at him, wide and hopeful. Her best attempt at being reassuring. "You see, Zuzu? I told you. Everything will be fine."
A quiet breath hissed out between Zuko's lips. His eyes fluttered open, turning to gaze up at her. He returned the smile, although his was weak and barely there. "Azula... I'm happy... happy..."
"What are you talking about?" she said, furrowing her brow in confusion. "You just got struck by lightning. What could you possibly be happy about?"
"I'm happy... because you came back into my life," he uttered, his words wheezing out between pained breaths. "Because we... mended things between us. I'm happy... I got to know you as a sister, and I'm proud... so proud at what you've become."
Azula's confusion deepened, twisting her lips into an uncertain frown. "Zuzu, I don't understand. Why are you telling me this?"
He didn't answer the question, instead reaching out to hold her hand. The smile on his face grew a bit wider. "Continue... on this path. Become better... and keep... keep healing."
"Zuzu, stop talking like that," she urged, lowering her brow into a glare. Her tone ignited with a subtle twinge of anger. Not out of malice. Out of defiance. Out of fear. "Stop acting like you won't be here. You're going to be fine. Do you hear me? You'll be fine!"
"Oh no..." It was Anraq. His eyes expanded with a distant panic, as he dragged his glowing palm across Zuko's chest. "This isn't good."
"What?" Azula snapped her gaze towards him. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"It's his heart. It was already weak from age, and now... There's so much damage. I... I don't know if I can heal this."
"What do you mean you don't know if you can heal him?" Fury strengthened, overtaking Azula's fear and desperation in a burning wave. Or at least masked them, if only for a moment. "You have to! You're supposed to be one of the best healers in the world!"
"I am! And I'm trying, but this..." Anraq stared at the glowing water around his hand. "Without spirit water, this is..."
He let his words trail away. No need to elaborate. Spirit water would have been best, might have made this possible. With normal water, there was only so much he could do to heal this kind of damage. Azula knew it, deep down. That didn't mean she had to accept it.
"Well just keep trying!" she urged, blinking at the tears beginning to sting her eyes. "He's still breathing, isn't he? He's still alive! Keep him that way!"
Anraq remained silent, but he continued his healing for as long as he could. As long as Zuko was still alive. In the end, it didn't matter how much Azula yelled at him to keep trying. Didn't matter that Toph and Izumi both watched him in earnest, hopeful he might deliver a miracle. He could do only so much. When the moment came, he pulled his hand away and let the water fall to the ground. "Azula..."
"What are you...?" Azula's gaze moved back and forth between him and her brother. Confusion flickered at first. Concern overtook it seconds later, only to be swiftly replaced by fear. Moments later, even the fear vanished, leaving only knowing denial in its wake. "Why... why did you stop? Why did you stop!"
Anraq said nothing, managing only to press his fingers against his eyes. Toph slumped next to him, a mournful frown twisted across her wrinkled face. She hung her head, and heaved a solemn sigh. Even Druk bellowed out a deep, grieving growl. Izumi lifted her father's hand and held it against her cheek. She maintained her composure for a few brief, fleeting seconds. Didn't last long. Tears ran free, followed moments later by quiet, choked sobbing.
Azula watched them all with her eyes steadily widening. She sat there in stunned silence, unable to say anything. Words floated at the tip of her tongue, but struggled to break free. Struggled to accept what she was seeing. Her breath choked in her throat. Stifling her. Suffocating her. She swallowed, and lowered a desperate glare at her brother. Zuzu... Not moving. Not breathing. Lifeless.
"No... no, no, no..." She leaned over him with a scowl. Her anger did its job in hiding her pain, if only a little. Hurt lingered deep in her gaze. "You idiot! Wake up! Don't just lie there!"
She grabbed his shoulders and shook him, half expecting him to start coughing again and open his eyes. "Don't you leave me! Just... just wake up!" No response. No coughing, no groaning, no movement of any kind. Nothing. Her scowl vanished, and with it any semblance of remaining anger. Emotions carved freely across her face. Pain, grief, sorrow. Unmistakable, and unavoidable. "Please? Please, wake up..."
Anraq reached out to comfort her. Azula pulled back from his touch, swatting his hand away. She stumbled to her feet, stepping backwards away from the scene, her gaze locked on the motionless Zuko. He wasn't getting up. He couldn't. Not ever again.
He was gone.
The full gravity struck her with an incoherent howl of fury and grief, surging from the deepest pits of her soul. She threw a fireball at a nearby tree, igniting the branches with a flash of blue light. Deep, heaving breaths filled her lungs, as she watched the tree burn. When she could no longer stomach the sight of it, she turned away and marched through the trees, disappearing through a raging swirl of snowflakes. She couldn't be around them right now. Couldn't be around anyone. She needed to be alone.
Azula lost all sense of time, as she sat at the edge of a cliff and gazed out at the world below. Nothing but vague outlines and shadowed blobs, obfuscated by darkness and falling snow. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered right now. Zuzu was gone. Taken away. Cruelly. Unfairly. Just when they had finally made things right between each other. When they were finally happy with each other. A distant memory, now. There could be no more happiness with Zuko. With her brother. The brother she had finally come to love.
Too little, too late.
"Azula?"
The voice yanked her out of her thoughts. She turned a slow glance towards the treeline, noticing a figure approaching. The woman carried a small, flickering orange flame in her palm. "Oh, 'Zumi... it's you. What do you want?"
Izumi stood at the edge of the cliff, looking out over the valley below. Her composure had since returned, or at least as much of it as she could manage. The redness of her eyes, and the wet streaks staining her cheeks did little to hide the fact that she had only recently stopped crying. "I thought you might need the company."
Azula frowned. "What I need is to be alone."
Izumi sighed, bowing her head. "Well, then perhaps I needed the company."
"You have the others to keep you company, don't you?"
"They're not family."
Azula scoffed. "And I am?"
"You are my aunt," Izumi said, with a shrug. "Technically speaking."
"Yes, the aunt who threatened you, challenged you to an Agni Kai, burned you, and took the Fire Nation throne from you." Azula rolled her eyes and turned away from the other woman. She returned her gaze straight ahead, watching snow fall over the empty darkness in front of her. "The aunt who caused every horrible thing that's happened over this past year. The aunt who got your father killed. Who... ruined your life. Who ruined everything."
Izumi frowned at her. Not a frown of disappointment, nor of annoyance. One of pity, rather. Perhaps even sympathy. "That's quite a large burden to place on yourself."
"Well it's true, isn't it? If not for me, none of this would have happened. You'd still be Fire Lord, Yula wouldn't be a tyrannical empress, and Zuko would still be alive. You should be spiting me, or trying to kill me, not seeking out my company."
Izumi paused, shifting her gaze back out over the edge of the cliff. The snow picked up, whipping around in white sheets across the sky. "My father was a great man... and a very forgiving man. When he set his mind to something, he always saw it through, and never gave up. Much like he did with you."
She glanced at Azula again, gently lifting her eyebrows. "He saw something in you, something that convinced him you could change if you only had the support you needed. If you had a second chance. I didn't believe him, of course. I thought he was letting his personal feelings cloud his judgment. In the end, he saw it through just like he always did. He never gave up on you, and now he's shown me that he was right. He usually was."
Azula met the woman's gaze, squinting with a combination of confusion and curiosity. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I believed in my father. I trusted him, and I still do. Second chances are hard to come by sometimes, especially when you don't have a lot of people who believe in you, like how he believed in you. I owe it to his memory to follow that. So..." Izumi breathed in a deep sigh, and offered the slightest of smiles. "I just wanted you to know that you still have family. I am your family, and I believe in you too."
"Izumi..." Azula straightened herself, swallowing the dry, grating knot in her throat. To hear such a thing coming from her niece, someone she had already hurt in more ways than one... Could this possibly be real? "I... Thank you."
"Take all the time you need here," Izumi said, as she stood up from the edge of the cliff. She let her hand come to rest on Azula's shoulder for a moment, before straightening herself to full height. "We'll be waiting for you back at camp when you're ready. Then we should return to Republic City and let them know what happened."
Azula frowned in thought, and promptly shook her head. "Kyoshi Island."
"Hm?"
"Your mother is on Kyoshi Island with Ty Lee. We should stop there first. Mai should..." Azula lowered a blank stare towards the ground. How would she even begin to tell Mai? "She needs to know."
Izumi gave a slow nod. "Kyoshi Island, then."
Some time later, Azula moved away from the edge of the cliff. She sat cross-legged in the grass, gazing up at the dark, cloud-covered night sky above. Snow continued to fall, blanketing the area with a thin layer of white powder. That included herself. She did nothing to wipe away the frozen flakes dusting her clothes and her hair. They hardly bothered her. She could keep herself warm enough with her chi, in any case.
How long had it been since she'd last seen snow like this? Winters in the Fire Nation had been mostly the same as summers. Hot, muggy, and not a snowflake in sight. While there had been plenty of snow and ice at the North Pole, this was different. To actually sit and watch a snowfall blanket the once clear landscape...
Spirits, she'd forgotten how beautiful it could be.
"Uh, hey." She knew that voice. Annie.
Azula lowered her attention from the sky and glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, Anraq stood behind her. "Hey..."
"I, uh... I should probably heal your hands now," he said, making his way towards her. "Before the burns start scarring."
She blinked at him a few times, and looked down at her hands. Her palms were still scorched red, throbbing with a dull, lingering pain. Oh, right. She'd forgotten about that, too. With a sigh, she dropped her hands into her lap and gave a simple shrug. "Shouldn't you be healing Toph's feet? Or your shoulder?"
"I already did," Anraq said, as he sat down on the snowy ground next her. "You've been out here for hours."
"Oh... I guess I have, haven't I?"
Anraq raised a hand and called a ball of snow into his palm, liquefying it into a clear bubble of water. "You know I'm here for you, right? Whatever you need."
"I know." She gave a soft nod, and held out both her hands for him to take. "Thank you."
He pressed the water to her hands, causing the bubble to glow, and soothe her burns. Silence lingered, broken only by the steady howl of gusting wind, swirling coils of snow around the both of them. When the wind calmed, Anraq eased a deep sigh and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, Azula. I know what it's like to lose someone you love."
She shrugged, maintaining focus on the glowing water. "I just can't stop thinking of the irony. There was a time when I would have reveled in this moment, a time I would have celebrated his death. Now that we finally fixed things between us and I actually wanted him in my life... That's when I lose him. I suppose that's karma, continuing to punish me for all the terrible things I've done."
"I don't know that I'd blame karma," he said, "and I certainly wouldn't blame yourself. Yula is the only one to blame here. She did this."
"But I put her on this path, didn't I? No getting around that."
"You were a different person then." Anraq looked up from his healing water, meeting Azula's gaze with sincerity. "You're a different person now."
"Same person, different choices," she insisted, with a simple shake of her head. "In the end, what does it matter? What's done is done, and I can't change it."
Azula's vision blurred. As she watched the glowing water heal her burns, a sudden swell of emotion bubbled in her gut. Powerful emotion. Harsh, deep, and raw, digging into her core like a dragon's claws cutting into her belly. Grief. That's what it was, surging through her in full force. Until now, she'd been able to suppress it. Been able to keep herself calm. Relaxed, even. Now, it cut into her so deep she wanted to throw up. Almost did, as she doubled forward with a hand pressed to her stomach.
No suppressing it any longer. Her posture sank, eyes squinting shut. Tears followed, streaking out from behind her closed eyelids. Her breathing shuddered, short and rasping, desperate for air. Within moments, she found herself hyperventilating, broken with frantic, uncontrolled sobs. Why? Why did it hurt so much? With a gasping wail, she fell forward. Annie caught her, arms wrapping tight. As she had hoped. As she needed.
"I got you," he whispered, stroking his fingers through her hair. "I got you."
