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"You have five minutes to tell me why I'm here, or I go to the Dai Li and tell them there's a firebender in Ba Sing Se."
As expected, Azula takes no notice of his threat. His word is as good as a fish trying to breathe air to her. Still, the mocking eyebrow she lifts grates against Zuko's nerves. "Don't you mean two firebenders? Oh wait, three?"
He grits his teeth. "Leave Uncle out of this."
"I certainly will not." Azula stands, brushing her legs as if to brush the Earth Kingdom from her. "You forget, Zuzu, both of you were my original assignment. No thanks to that fat old man, though, things have changed."
She takes a step towards him. He takes one back, hovering in the doorway. "How did you get into the city?"
Azula stops, already bored with his cautious proceedings. "Does that really matter? You said so yourself, you can't be here long."
"Indulge me."
She rolls her eyes. "Unlike you, my attempts on the Avatar were nearly successful. My attempt at cracking open Ba Sing Se's walls even more so. Getting double teamed by their little gang did me in, but in the chaos, I was able to slip into the Lower Ring. But as you can see, I'm quite stuck. Can't even get close to the Middle Ring wall before those Dai Li mutts start sniffing around, asking for papers, identification. It's quite inconvenient."
"How dare they do their jobs," Zuko mutters.
"Exactly." She begins to parade the room, inspecting the dark corners shrouded in the gloom, either oblivious to Zuko's sarcasm or, as he asked, indulging him. Somehow, as with everything she does, it feels like she's mocking him. "Security is much tighter than I expected for such a gathering of stubborn block heads. Though you seem to have had no trouble. Should I get a mask, too? Did you leave any of mother's things for me to use?"
"Stop dancing around, Azula." Each second stretches longer, filling the spaces between his thumping heart. He'll have to defend himself if she attacks him again. But he won't last long enough to get away without being able to firebend. "Out with it. Why did you send Katara to the tea shop? I could have gotten arrested!"
"Oh, calm down. You're so dramatic, Zuzu." She waves a hand in his outraged direction without the curtesy of looking at him. "You were never in any danger. I, or some well-paid acquaintances, were watching the peasant closely. If she were in danger of spooking, I would have gotten you out of there."
Lie, his gut tells him instantly. Except she makes sure to catch his eye. She's gotten better at appearing human. "What do you mean?"
"I thought I was on the clock?" Fake innocence drips from her like poison.
"So, stop playing coy." His temper and his nerve are two twined ropes, fraying apart the more she unspools his confidence.
"So, ask me something," Azula bites back.
"I don't believe you," he states, matter of fact.
Amber eyes roll again. "You can't even follow one instruction," she sighs, self-suffering. "I'm telling the truth. This time. You've become too valuable to be thrown in a cell, Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom. And it's not just me who thinks so."
He knows which part of that lingering statement she wants him to question. He wants to as well, fighting against the urge. "Explain."
"Touchy." Azula tsks when he doesn't react, flipping her fringe out of her eyes as she returns to her seat at the rotten desk. "My original plan was to wait until you were out on one of your little excursions. Don't you know how vulnerable you are on your own in the city? Some hired Earth Kingdom thugs would show you. I was going to pay them to pin you down, then use you as leverage to force Uncle out."
"Charming and sensitive as always," Zuko mutters. He's not even surprised.
"Did I say I wanted them to kill you? No, so you're welcome." Azula regards him for an indulgent moment, her nails tapping on the desktop. "Instead, I witness my brother not only try to intervene on the mugging of that peasant but run away when she was alone and vulnerable without so much as a threat or attempt at getting to the Avatar through her." She tilts her head at him. "Why is that?"
If he tells her the truth, she'll kill him where he stands. If he tells her what his heart did the moment he realised it was Katara, she'll kill her. "That's not my life anymore."
Bored with his answer, Azula returns to spoiling herself with the sound of her own voice. "I continued to have you watched, thinking there's no way in Agni's light my own flesh and blood could be so stupid as to let such an opportunity pass him by. Needless to say, I was disappointed."
"Yet, you say it anyway."
"I already know how stupid you are. You're still learning." She smirks when his fists clench at his sides. "Temper, temper. I'm only trying to help. Since you obviously weren't going to capitalise on the advantageous position you've stumbled your way into, I decided to do it for you."
Snakes capitalise on mice who don't hear them slither. Zuko's looking right at the threat, yet he can't make it out. That's Azula's greatest weapon over everyone she talks to. She blurs the lines of confidence, insecurity, assuredness, ego, self-esteem, until she can mould them into whatever she needs. How long her prey lasts is entirely up to them; she has enough lined up to never go hungry.
She will not feed on Katara's goodness. Her capacity to empathise with even lowly, rotten creatures like him would fill Azula to bursting. She wouldn't be able to keep herself from gorging on it, keep taking and taking until Katara was nothing more than a husk of the girl he once he vowed he would never let feel alone.
Except that's no longer up to him. "What did you do?"
"You were there, right? You talked to her in the teashop." Azula rolls her eyes. "Fine, since process of elimination is beyond your abilities, I'll spell it out for you. I forged a note to the girl from the Blue Spirit telling her to go to your little tea shop in the lower ring. Seeing as you're so obsessed with destiny, I thought you'd see it as some sort of cosmic intervention. The two of you would talk, and you'd come to your senses and cash in."
Azula's eyes narrow at some inconvenience of the past. "Except, the watertribe girl sat on the information I handed her for a week. It was an unexpected reaction."
"Ka-" He catches himself in time. "The waterbender is good at those."
Azula huffs. "Indeed. I'm surprised you didn't drown her in that dreadful dank element when you had the chance." The casual declaration stuns him into stupid silence. He can't even summon fury at the notion he'd ever hurt Katara.
What as father done to you? He wants to ask but doesn't dare.
"I was forced to sit and watch her, waiting for a reaction. I don't know if you've ever just sat and waited for someone to be interesting, brother, but it's horrendously tedious."
Because if there's a payoff coming, Azula can sit in the tall grass and stalk for days. She's the only person he knows who can get such a thrill from something so slow. Yes, Zuko can imagine how well his sister took to having her plan stumble, to being forced to just wait and see. He's surprised no Earth Kingdom late night wanderer hasn't mysteriously gone missing yet.
"I went in with three possible outcomes," Azula continues. "If she alerted the guards, you and Uncle are killed, and I abort my plan at no real loss to myself. If she tells her friends, I simply need to keep to my observing until something more comes of it." She shudders in revulsion at the idea of more sitting around and waiting. "Or she keeps quiet."
Zuko knows the deviously jubilant look in his sister's eyes all too well. "Which is what you wanted."
"And it's also why I so thoughtfully alerted you to the fact she knew. Not about the Blue Spirit, of course. We'll keep that card close for as long as we can." She tosses him a playful look. Too bad anything from Azula, kind or not, comes with the implication she's mocking you for believing it. "But I also know my brother. You don't take to surprises well. No need to thank me, I didn't tip you off just for your sake. Couldn't have you spooking and cluing Uncle in."
"Why?"
"Because he'd tell you to do the right thing." Azula sticks her tongue out like just suggesting they do such a thing tasted bad.
"Why did you want Katara to keep my being in the city to herself," Zuko elaborates with the last shreds of his patience.
"Because it means we're not the only ones waiting for something. Difference is, we know what we want. She's unsure what to make of you, which makes her perfectly open to manipulation. She trusts 'The Blue Spirit's'-" Azula mocks him with quotation marks around the title. "- judgement. He's a friendly neighbourhood vigilante hated by the Fire Nation. And he sent her to you. That's why she didn't turn you over to the Earth Kingdom, and now we're going to use that."
She throws one leg over the other, leaning back in her seat. Arriving at her triumph like a queen claiming her throne. "Like I said, we know what we want, and the peasant is going to be the one to get it to come to us instead of us chasing it halfway across this backwards country."
She's unbearably pleased with herself. Too bad Zuko's not quite caught up. "You couldn't possibly have known she wouldn't tell anyone about me being in the city. You risked my life, and now you expect me to go along with whatever scheme you're cooking up? Forget it."
"Scheme?" His sister seems genuinely insulted. Too bad he knows there isn't a genuine bone in her body. They're all made of cold, indominable ambition.
She can sense his imminent departure. The hour grows later the more she prattles on. So, she stands up, facing him fully for the first time.
"Have you ever heard of the concept of reciprocity, brother? It's how stall merchants get you to buy their worthless trinkets. They lower the price to make it seem like they're doing us a favour. We feel we owe them, so we buy the toy drum or disgusting rotten flowers, knowing it will break or we'll throw them away."
Mother gave him a toy drum she bought in the Caldera once while making one of the few public appearances their father allowed her. It was fixed on to a slim piece of wood with the batons hanging off by thin strings. He'd twist it until the halls of the palace were filled with the cacophony of those balls beating the stretched skin.
That toy didn't break. Father took it and burned it in front of him.
"You have managed to worm your way into a place where Katara feels she needs to reciprocate the Blue Spirit's trust in you without knowing he is you. Do you understand yet?"
"She only trusts me because she thinks her saviour does," he sums up.
Azula nods. He thinks she's done but, with an air of reluctance, she astounds him with as close to a compliment as she's ever given him. "That, and you've also lucked your way into earning the benefit of the doubt from her and the rest of her vile friends. You, Zuko, not the Blue Spirit."
Zuko frowns. "I have?"
"Flaming fury of Agni, how have you survived this long on your own?" Azula pinches the bridge of her nose. "Yes. When you attacked me, with them, in that town, you showed that girl and the others with her that we are not on the same side. She remembers, it's why she didn't turn you in. Well done, Zuzu, it's a position we can use to our advantage if we use it right."
If she uses him right; Zuko isn't an idiot. It never even occurred to him what he did in the abandoned town would make any of them see him differently. At the end of it all he still attacked them, still lashed out. Still showed he isn't much better than a chained-up panther cat; it's not worth approaching, you'll only get burned.
"What's our position, then?" he snaps, antagonising her and her stupid plan. He'll listen to it fall apart, then walk right out of this decrepit warehouse and into the closest civil police station.
Bowing her head, Azula shrugs nonchalantly. "Only one which father is absolutely thrilled with."
His blood freezes. "Father knows I'm here?"
Azula grins from beneath her fringe. "Of course. I got a message to him as soon as I realised how genius you'd been. Regrettably too early now, I see. No matter. He thinks your plan to use the Waterbender to get close to the Avatar is deviously brilliant."
"I have no plan," Zuko spits, scrambling to piece his confidence back together before Azula can keep digging through the cracks.
Father knows about Katara. Father knows there is a Waterbender of the Southern Watertribe. Or does he? How could Azula possibly know Katara and Sokka are of the South? He can't imagine them blurting it out. Not after everything he told Katara.
Don't do this, he begs Agni, the spirits. Whatever's left to listen to one scarred boy's pleas. Don't let them find out. He feels his soul fracturing like thin ice across a pond. All Azula need do is keep pressing her weight against the cracks. He won't be able to take the weight if Katara's in danger.
"That's obvious. Not to worry, I do." She regards him like he's the one who scoffs at other people's intelligence. "What do you think I've been doing these past days? Torturing myself with the boredom of incapacity?"
"Torturing other people with your boredom for incapacity, actually."
His sister smirks. "Fair enough. But no." She flips her hair away from her face. "I got a message beyond the walls for Mai and Ty Lee to take to father. I told him all about the position you've squirmed your way into, though I assumed you did it on purpose. Either way, father's overjoyed at how this will benefit us. Word of advice, brother, you're finally clawing your way back into his good graces. Intentional or not, don't screw this up."
Zuko can't even remember what a smile looks like on his father's face. Overjoyed isn't something he can picture. "I have no reason to believe you. You're lying like you did before, and all the times before that."
"I am not," his sister huffs, her iron-clad dignity slipping almost imperceptibly. The never-before-seen reaction rocks something in him. Could she possibly… "I am not lying because, unlike last time, you're actually valuable to father. You have his support."
He feels like he's been punched in the chest. To have never been valued is nothing new to him. Their father treats his praise like currency, and he spends it all on Azula. He's used to feeling empty at the mere mention of him. But this feeling, this squeezing of his chest… Like their father has finally seen the heart of a true Fire Lord beating in Zuko's chest and is holding it, cupping it gently until the son can return to his father's embrace.
"Father… values me?"
"Not as if you've actually earned it, but yes," Azula sniffs. She's never been fond of sharing. Her distain for the circumstances her own genius has landed her in tightens Zuko's resolve. "You have his support."
He can do this, can have both worlds. He can learn Azula's plan, follow his destiny and reclaim his throne. "What am I supposed to do with it?"
"You've cast doubt in the waterbender's mind as to your allegiance to the Fire Nation. Use that, and your position as the Blue Spirit, to get closer where I cannot." Azula's in her element now. She begins pacing before him, hand on her chin as she plots aloud. "You have her attention, now you need to work on gaining her curiosity. Once you have that, you can work on getting her interest. As the Blue Spirit or yourself, your choice. Then…"
She stops, looking at him. Zuko blinks. Azula inclines her head, and he's struck dumb for the second time in the space of an hour. She's plotting as she goes, not only trying to hold his best interests in mind, but actively including him in the making of them.
His only memory of them getting along was before she could firebend. Six years old, running up behind him and jumping on his back, begging him to take her for a pony ride, pulling his fledgling ponytail with chubby fingers when she wanted him to go faster.
The game they play now is far more deadly, but she wants him to play with her instead of being one of her pieces.
He has to swallow back the emotion swelling in his chest. It might not just be a father he gets back once all this is through. "They haven't found the Avatar a firebending teacher yet, as far as I can tell."
Azula's eyes light up. "Oh, that is twisted, Zuzu. Getting her to offer you up as a teacher? You'd have to have her complete trust. She'd be as vulnerable as you can get her, and when she brings you to the Avatar…"
She trails off again when she sees him wince. "What's wrong?"
If he tells Azula the truth, Katara won't ever be safe from her. Destroying even the happy memories of what they shared when he destroys Katara's trust in him will be a heavy cost, but Zuko will do anything if it means going home now that there's a home waiting for him.
So, he lies. "How do I know if I can trust you?" He pointedly looks at her hands, recalling with ease the terror of her lightening coming right for his face.
He expects her to roll her eyes and tell him to get over it. She missed, didn't she? No, Uncle had to stop her. He's not dead. He would be, by her hand, and she wouldn't have batted an eye if it meant pleasing their father.
"Because now you're useful, and not only to father."
The pain from her jab recedes when he looks up to find her watching him. Her almond eyes soften at the edges, the usual sneer which dominates her face when she looks at him nowhere in sight.
Zuko doesn't know what to make of it, frozen to the spot when she comes closer. She doesn't touch him, but she stops just shy of it. He hasn't felt the warmth of another firebender in months. He hasn't felt warmth from his sister for much longer.
But he feels something now, squirming in his chest, always afraid to peek out for fear of her deceitful nails ready to snatch it from its safe place and finally finish the kill. It held onto the memories of pony rides, showing her how to pull her hair into a proper royal knot, pleas to show her how to make the fire dance, and even those first few glimpses of her blossoming talent she'd rush to show him first. Always her big brother first.
Until their father poisoned her to weakness.
"I know how this looks," Azula says, her voice the softest he's ever heard it, for the first time without any edge. "I've already lied to you once about our father wanting you to come home. Because you had nothing to offer."
The pain bursts in his heart like a fiery hand cupping his cheek. His mouth opens to protest. But Azula's looking up at him, begging him to let her finish. Slowly, he closes it.
"You had nothing to offer him. But you never asked me what I wanted. Of course, I never gave you a reason to, and now I'm too afraid to ask you what you think that is." He would have scoffed if not for the way her crystalline eyes watch him, carefully cataloguing each reaction before she proceeds. Their family is so wrapped up in its pride. He won't let it stop her now. "So, I'll just tell you. I want you to come home."
She puts her hand on his arm, finger landing on the inside of his wrist. He swallows again, pulse hammering, his wariness and desperation to return home with this Azula at opposite ends. Threatening to noose his neck and strangle him.
"I know I don't deserve it, but I can't do this without your help. I was able to smuggle my way into this disgusting part of the city only because the Dai Li don't care about it, but I have no way in. I can't summon men to help me or gain an audience with the Earth King as I am. I'm in, but I'm on my own. I need you."
He thinks of Uncle, how disappointed he'd be watching this moment because his old mind cannot see past the sun slowly setting on his years. The old man thinks only of his tea, of his simple life because most of his is gone and he's content to whittle the rest away because what he's lived has been filled with enough honour and glory to fill several lifetimes.
"I know we've had some difficult times lately. We've had to struggle just to get by." His Uncle's hand on his shoulder was as cold then as it is now in Zuko's memory. Azula's hand on his arm tethers him to the present. "But it's nothing to be ashamed of. There is a simple honour in poverty."
"There's no honour for me without the Avatar." It's as true then as it is now. It's something only the true rulers of the Fire Nation can understand.
"Zuko ... Even if you did capture the Avatar, I'm not so sure it would solve our problems. Not now."
He'd turned away. If held known how much time hanging on would have wasted, he never would have tried to embrace Uncle's wisdom. "Then there's no hope at all."
"No, Zuko! You must never give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts." Uncle clawed him back. Always holding him back. "In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength."
Destiny stretches far into the future, but if something stretches one way, then it must go the other. It is not so rooted to the present, sometimes it can shed light on the past. His Uncle was never meant to be Fire Lord, Zuko understands that now.
And he understands now how foolish he's been, relying on something as fickle as hope. All because Uncle told him to. He needs stability, something solid to take the final steps of his journey on.
"You have a chance, but you need me to do this. And I need you for it to be possible." Azula's never needed him. "It's us against a city, Zuko."
Them against the world, for once they return home with the Avatar, father will push the Fire Nation's conquest to every corner of the world. Zuko will earn his place in the war room, he'll lead charges, show the world the Fire Nation's prosperity can be shared instead of spurned, just like they always planned it.
But all of that hinges on this moment between a brother and a sister.
Carefully, afraid of spooking her, Zuko lifts his hand and places it atop Azula's. She looks down at their hands resting on his arm, and when she looks back up, Zuko squeezes once.
Her eyes gleam. "If our plan succeeds you will finally have the Avatar for father, and I'll have my big brother back."
For the first time in almost a decade, Zuko smiles down at his little sister. She smiles back, her tenacious desire returning to her. Ambition he once mistook for menace returns. He throws himself into its fires. "Where do we begin?"
I actually considered uploading these first three chapters all at once, as they really set up where my interpretation for Book Two is heading. But I've taken on two new projects since beginning the writing of Book Two that are already looking to become pretty big (hint* One is Avatar based that I think you guys will really, /really/ like), and I haven't even started Book Three yet, so the more time I can give myself, the better XD
Please let me know your thoughts and feedback because I would love to know if I'm doing a good job! it would be greatly appreciated! The input of my readers is incredibly valuable to me!
Kudos always welcome, likes, dislikes, comments and complaints. Let me know what you guys think because I love reading them and finding out about you guys!