"You are banished."
Azula kept her forehead on black marbled floors. Her father's voice belied the calmer one she heard last night. She lifted her head, watching a sturdy silhouetted figure hide behind orange flames lapping the podium.
She laughed for the first time since Zuko fell on his face in the gardens at ten. "Father, I believe you're looking at this the wrong way-"
"You dare call me a fool?"
Azula's smile died, "No I...I don't understand. Y-you told me that you forgive me. I left under the impression that I'd be given a chance to prove my worth to you."
"I do forgive you, but I cannot afford to keep a traitor in this palace. Your brother has influenced you."
"No, he has not!" Azula scrambled to her feet to walk up. "Father, I made a miscalculation."
"A simple mistake that cost me my reputation, girl."
Four guards stepped from behind black and gold pillars to use their spears to hold her back. When she tried moving forward, they didn't budge. Slender fists clenched, Azula calmly said, "I command you to let me through this instant."
No one did. The guards kept their spears out.
Her father rose.
"You are in no position to order anyone around anymore," he sneered, "..be lucky I am a man of reason. By mid morning you will board the ship to the Southern Water Tribe."
She frowned. "For what?"
Ozai stepped past the walled flames, revealing red and gold embroidered attire. Studded stones gleamed pink under lit torches. He slid across until she smelled dragon spiced cologne. Azula's mind worked hard, like it had never worked before, rushing to decipher the sudden twist of events she faced.
"You have proven that you are your mother's daughter, and I will not allow such blood taint the throne," he said. "You will leave this place you call home. I married you off to the chief's son to lighten your punishment. I don't want to see you step foot in this place again."
Azula watched warriors stand past the watchtower by the docks to wait for Ozai's fleet to leave. Cold winds blew as the last vessel disappeared in the fog. Something heavy slid up her stomach and knotted in a toe curdling twist.
The communal igloo seemed too empty, though the bright sun shined enough to warm up her sides. Hakoda still had his hands over her shoulders.
Soon, the Southern Water Tribe sprang back to life.
Warriors fell to their knees. Civilians bowed deeply, their children following along. When Azula was young, she wanted the throne, armies and lands, yet she secretly despised any commoner bowing to her each time she breathed.
After arriving in her new home, she finally understood why. The Southern Water Tribe refused to worship her as their queen. They called her a murderer and snake. There were times she felt like burning each of them alive and times when she'd bury herself under furs and force her tears down.
She learned to bow to them first, before they did the same for her.
Hakoda tapped her shoulders before walking around to hug her side. "You fear him, but you did a great job hiding it."
Azula looked up. Hakoda's smile hid his tired eyes. Suddenly, she felt her insides creep up her neck, just like it did on the day she found out her father would be coming by himself to ask her to come home.
"Azula!"
Katara grabbed her before she realized it. Her body almost fell. Arms tightened around her neck as cold cheeks slapped against her own. Katara pulled back, searching her face with the hardened look Azula was used to whenever they trained in the mornings.
"Are you alright?"
"Just fine," Azula murmured. "Absolutely fine."
Katara may be the only person who smelled her sarcasm from a mile away and saw through her in ways Azula first hated. Their first days spent together were, in both of their opinion, absolute agony. Hakoda sometimes had to keep them in separate homes in order to prevent them from tearing their eyes out. Now, they were closer that she had ever been with Mai and Ty-Lee.
Katara held her shoulders and trapped her in place with fierce blue eyes.
"Everything will be fine," she said. "Okay?"
Azula had no choice but to agree.
Finally, she spotted a sinewy figure emerge from the blue clad crowd.
She felt like she spent hours, trekking high mountains of the cold wastelands. Her husband tugged her close and slapped his arms around her. She didn't notice the others leaving them.
The former princess of the Fire Nation heard his deep breaths, gently letting him swing her in his embrace.
Sokka could not be with her. He had to go to another meeting after her father's visit, and she had a feeling that this would be longer than the last.
Azula let out a deep breath as she took off her clothes in Sokka's smaller igloo. Brown furs pooled beneath her. She gently parted her tunic gently parted with her cold fingers and unclasped the loopies in her hair.
Her father looked lean, like a broken hawk huddled in a corner with nothing but his vicious jabs from his beak and loud squawks to protect him.
The mirror she brought along before she left the Fire Nation stood near the bed on top of a table.
She saw her herself in her worn shift, catching the redness in her eyes. She palmed her belly, checking the slight raise on her sides. Sokka didn't need to know now, but he'd find out soon. Her vomiting and nausea assured it.
Someone hollered outside once before others accompanied the sound. By now, guards should switch with the night guards on the watchtower and Sokka would wrap up the meeting. Civilians would laugh and focus on their evening tasks, with healers gossiping about the latest patient and hunters dragging in game. It was as if her father never came in the first place to try to take her back.
She didn't realize the opening parted until a shadow loomed in. Azula waited until the room flowed back into darkness.
"He's going to kill me."
Sokka walked over in a few large steps to tug her in his arms. He smelled a bit of soap, and something misty. Sokka always felt warm even though he wasn't from the Fire Nation.
"No he won't. I won't let him lay a finger on you."
Azula scowled. She pulled back to look the one man who had managed to grate and frustrate her since the moment she met him. "I don't think you understand what I'm saying. You're not stupid, are you?"
"I'm not fighting you this time." Sokka snapped. "Today was a rough day for both of us and all I'd like to do now is be with you tonight."
Before her father came, they argued till their voices echoed in their room. She tried to leave angry, but he drew her back and held her tight until she calmed down and waited for her father to arrive.
When she met him, she had done a good job tearing down his superior attitude when she knocked him out cold on a hunting trip Hakoda forced them on. In return, Sokka invaded her personal space and made her feel as lowly as a commoner in the slums.
Now, he wasn't afraid to hold her hand in the middle of the village.
Azula sighed and let him lean down to kiss her. His soft lips were enough to calm her down before he added another deeper one, accompanied by hands that crept underneath her shift.
It had been weeks since she's been with him, with their days spent performing their separate tasks and heading on to sleep after a hard day The last time they were together, he'd kept her in a cave for hours on a hunting trip.
"No one will take you away from me," he murmured, palming her bare bottom after a hot kiss.
She sighed when he lifted her up to take her towards their bed. Sokka's lips found what they loved best. She bit her lip when he kissed both breasts.
She winced at the contact on her nipples, smiling at the quiet apologies he made. He took her neck and pink lips, then slid down in a hot trail in between her legs. Their bodies disappeared into the blue dark, with her legs sliding up over his back.
Azula never laid with anyone before she married Sokka and learned that it drove her crazy having him inside her while his lips teased her jaws and hands caressed her body. She didn't say anything back, but she closed her eyes when he tightened his hold.
Deep down she wanted to believe him, but she only heard her father's advice to her when she'd been seven years old.
Never trust anyone.
He arrived at the Fire Harbor at the royal docks. An entourage of his top generals, political advisors as well as guards and servants waited with the palanquin he would use to get home. Their hungry looks withered when he emerged from his ship alone.
Ozai never spoke when his advisors informed him of the Fire Nation's progress. The likely had happened: coal and steel production was significantly lower than it had been due to immigrant assembly line workers rebelling against their masters. Oil, wheat, barley and rice production began to experience the same fate, with farm workers either running off or killing plantation owners in the Fire Colonies.
The Boiling Rock had around a quarter more prisoners since he'd banished his children, due to the severe influx of riots in the urban districts. Not one such act had happened in the Royal Plaza, but Ozai could smell it coming. He saw it in the quiet looks from his servants, most with eyes like the people who worshipped his daughter.
"How was your journey, my lord?" Zhao asked. "I trust that it went smoothly."
Seeing his daughter all decked in fur after three years numbed him. She had behaved as if she were with a stranger. Her hooded gaze and longer dark mane reminded him of a village girl in Hir'ra who had just told by her mother that she had to marry the Fire prince.
"She looks like her mother," Ozai muttered, watching his top general's smile die down. "The Fire Sages were right with the prophecy. My kingdom will fall when my last born from the line of fire betrays me. That's what you wanted to know, am I right?"
He and Zhao had been together for as long as he could remember. This man before him was not the boy he once knew. He was an idiot who failed seven missions in a row, and was responsible for already wiping out ten percent of Ozai's military force.
"My apologies - I did not mean to offend you."
"The Southern Water Tribe looks much bigger. Why do you think that happened?"
Zhao paused. "Because of the alliance between the North and South. But they both cannot-"
"What will happen if they form an army larger than the one they have?"
"My lord, they will not beat us."
"I asked my general a question," Ozai said, "Is this the answer you are giving me?"
"Fire is our blood," Zhao said with a laugh. "You cannot expect those savages to defeat the Fire Nation even if your daughter is one of them! I know times are tough but have faith, your majesty!"
"Do you know what Azula would have said?"
Zhao blinked. "No."
"'Kill them off," Ozai answered, "...before the sickness spreads.'"
They were close to Royal Plaza's gateway. Through the small curtains outside, Ozai could see his father's statue on the gates of Azulon on the horizon. He could almost hear him cackling down over the kingdom he had built. You were never meant to rule, my little son. You may as well forget it!
Iroh immediately occupied his mind. The tea loving gloat followed Zuko and never returned. Ozai knew the fool would eventually betray him and poison the boy's mind too. Iroh just wanted the throne back, and Ozai would be damned if he took it.
"Are you suggesting we kill Azula?"
Ozai clicked his tongue, "I arrived at the Southern Water Tribe in the morning with a warm welcome from the chief and his closest advisors. They were gracious, you see? Enough to guide me to their little ice hut and give my men and I seats. The chief spoke to me about the state of his home, as though we both were equals when we were not.
"I waited half an hour to see my daughter. She came, stunning in those furs and 'loopies', looking every bit like the princess they saw her as. I kissed her forehead and held her close, just like I did when she'd been a little one. Then she told me no, right to my face." The sun outside began to dip. "I walked out with my men while two savages led us out."
Zhao blinked, squirming in his seat as the king spoke. He reminded Ozai of a starving dog on the streets of Fire Fountain City desperate enough to eat from the gutters.
"I saw a well-dressed warrior by the harbor as I walked up. I stopped to take a good look at this man. Quite tall, with funny hair those men wear. Fine young one, good enough to be a soldier of mine. I instantly remembered his face when he'd been a little dirty faced boy, playing with that boomerang of his with his little sister when I came with my father to visit Chief Hakoda to oversee the premises. I believed he was the servant back then, and just realized that he was the son of Chief Hakoda, and the dirty boy I gave my daughter to."
The palanquin finally stopped, sinking low unto the Fire Palace's courtyard.
"All the savages were gracious," Ozai said, "but he wasn't. He watched me walk from that place to the docks, and kept looking as I left. That's when I saw that the people bowed because they see me as a fool."
He turned to Zhao.
"Do not kill Azula. She's been brainwashed. That boy I gave her to snatched her from me, and I want you to bring her back...with twenty thousand men."
"Lord Ozai, that's…a bit much," Zhao said. "The Southern Water Tribe's position is delicate. Severing our ties with them could possibly start a rebellion of some sort-"
"You will not die," Ozai murmured. "You will survive, as you always have, General Zhao."
Zhao faltered before deciding to nod. "Yes, my lord."
"Good. Our victory will be grand."
He left the palanquin, not bothering to look back at Zhao's pitiful state. Summer air gushed his face. The palace courtyard looked just as he'd left it. He stopped, spotting a chestnut haired woman at the dragon mouthed entrance.
His fifth wife stood nearby, her hands clasped and face down. A gold headdress stood on a half topknot. Her remaining hair fell down her back. As expected, her robes glimmered under the sunlight. She greeted him with a smile that didn't quite reach her gray eyes.
Her personal guard stood close by with a feline shaped golden mask, hands behind her back as the guards bowed.
Ozai blinked. "Take Illah with you this time."
