It is a cool spring morning as Azula makes her Katas in the palace garden. She is clad in pure white robes, completed by gloves and fine white shoes, all made of the same, delicate fabric.
The only disruption in her attire are the golden Fire Nation crown, that holds the princess´s dark hair tightly under control and the golden necklace with the dark red ruby she received on the day of her first birthday from the Firelord.
The amber eyes of the princess narrow as she struggles with herself. She still remembers the first time she had to do this exercise, focus the Chi in her body for firebending, yet keep the energy under control so no flame forms.
She had burned her hand that day and her father had looked at her with disgust. Her mother had not even looked at her. The six year old girl had shivered under her father´s gaze more than from the pain and since that day never burned herself again.
But something had changed these days. Azula was uneasy for some time now and it got worse. As long as the sun lit the world everything was fine, but with dusk came the feeling. It was like a cold, damp blanket that was thrown over her soul, as if her inner self lost its color and shape with the darkening world and turned grey and gloomy. The cool, calculating Azula that she had shaped herself into vanished. She managed to keep the outside look, but inside her the emotions boiled each night. The girl felt things that she could not explain. Some kind of sadness, that weakened her body and mind, drowned her inner strength and made her Chi flow slow down and almost cut her off. Then there were outburst of fury, fear, rage and then somehow moments of tranquility, where she could almost...see things that escaped the eye. It was as if something waits just outside the grasp of her mind for the right moment to slip into place, like a key in the lock.
The wind plays with the strands of Azula´s hair and carries with it the salty smell of the sea, that reminds her...
...of the crushed shipwrecks at Kyoshi Island as the dolphin piranhas preyed on the dead and wounded of her people
...of the long gone days at Ember Island. A faint huff escapes Azula´s lips as she pushes the thought aside and lets the Chi swell in her fingers, ready to burst out of her body in a stream of blue fire, there she balances the energy by sheer power of will and focus, as she spins around on one foot and elegantly points two fingers at the imaginary target, to then hop up and kick thin air, again making her firebending moves, with her Chi held at the edge of bursting out, never allowing it to leave of float back inside. The exercise is actually much more exhausting than real bending, what is one of the reasons for her to do it.
Long years of training allow her to move on the soft grass like a ghost, while she feels every stone and clump of grass through the thin shoes.
She makes a salto and bends without flames, sweat glistens on her forehead by now. The exercise is still taking and the focus hard to keep up while making all these moves, she will need in a real fight.
It is even harder as she had not much sleep this night.
A nightmare that she couldn´t really recall as she opened her eyes had woken her early. And as she lay there in her bed, one had cramped around her own throat she had experienced a weird, scary moment where she didn´t even know who she was.
I am Azula, daughter of the Firelord and heir to the throne!
She recalls that moment against her own will. Panic that slowly faded back. Still the feeling of threat and danger remained.
Usually she could open her windows and let the rising sun burn away her newfound feelings.
This morning the feeling had withstood the sun and carried on till now.
And then it happenes. A small spark forms and turns the white glove on Azula´s left hand dark, then the fabric starts to burn.
She freezes in the bending pose, her eyes stare at the spreading flame.
"Azula!" she hears the two old hags behind her.
"You are starting..."
"...to loose it."
They say, finishing each other´s sentences as usually. And usually Azula doesn´t care. Li and Lo are trusted servants of her family and she has known them for her whole life.
But now they witness Azula fail at an exercise she has mastered years ago. That burns inside her as her will reaches out with the build up anger and frustration to push she heat of the flames outside, making the flames grow substantially.
The old women stare at Azula as she turns around to them, her hand now covered in the burning glove, yet she does not seem to notice...or care.
"I KNOW!" she shouts at them and blows at the burning glove, her breath is a faint, bluish flame that scorches the rest of the glove off her hand and turns it into flakes of ashes that are dancing in the wind. Her hand is soft and unscathed as the flames die out.
Then with blazing amber eyes she starts to walk over to the two, who stand near the pond next to a small tree. Zuko had loved that place...Azula can recall that picture of him...with mother. They had seemed so happy there, mother had smiled and laughed, hugged her son and been the perfect image of a loving parent...for Zuko.
"Enough of this nonsense for today!" she hisses at the two, who shake their heads in unison.
"You need..."
"...to finish your training."
"now more than ev..."
They stop as Azula suddenly starts to wave her arms in long, drawn out bows around her. Blue energy sizzles under her fingers as Azula seperates Ying and Yang.
"I´m quite ready!" she shouts out as she points her fingers at the two. Both women duck and hug each other as Azula´s lightning jumps of her fingers, over the two women´s heads and rips the upper half of the tree apart. Azula gives the view a cold smile. That was her first time with a working lightning and it made clear to the two, that Azula does not need any more of their useless exercises.
Still shocked Li and Lo watch with big eyes as Azula storms at them. Without stopping or even slowing down she raises one foot, slips the shoe off, repeats the same with the other one and then, again without slowing down a little, rips the robes and remaining glove off her body, so she is clad in nothing but her undergarments. The golden necklace with the delicately crafted flame of the Fire Nation seems to glow in the sunlight as she reaches the two, the dove egg sized ruby makes it look like a living flame that burns on her chest.
"Now excuse me" she says in a still angered, but mostly annoyed voice as she balls the cloth in her hands and throws it up in the air, where she obliterates her clothes with a flash of fire, that trickles over Li and Lo as fine ashes.
"But I need a change."
With that she turns around and leaves the intimidated old women alone, as the poor tree cracks behind them and falls into the pond, what makes the two women shriek out.
Still infuriated, mostly about herself, although she had no intention let anyone know that, Azula openes the door to her chambers.
The room is dark, the servants had, after they took care of the large bed, shut the heavy curtains and as Azula closes the door behind her, darkness takes reign. She still walkes through the room, she kows her own chambers well and her senses are sharp. Father would not approve of any carelessness of his daughter. Training had helpled to make the young girls easily find her path in dim light or even with her other senses. She should never be taken off guard by something as puny as darkness.
And in the twilight of her room she can see well enough...
...the corpses of the fallen. Burned, maimed and crushed in the brutal melee under the city.
...to find her desk near the window. She takes a seat at the chair standing next to it and looks into the mirror. A faint shiver makes the mirror image dance in front of her eyes. Azula frownes. The figure in the mirror looks like...
...the skeletonized body of her old teacher
...it is glowing softly. Startled by the view Azula bends forward as she thinks to see a glow in her mirror image´s eyes.
Terror
With a shriek the princess jumps on her feet.
Sadness
She stumbles backwards, the chair seems to have turned into a beast with arms that grabs her feet.
Loneliness
She falls on the heavy curtain with a loud thud, shivering helplessly.
HATE!
Darkness takes her away and she dreams of a dark, red sky and the cries of the dying air nomads.