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Chapter 1: A tomb reopened
30,000 years A.R. (After Ritual), and a year before the avatar awakens.
It is a beautiful morning in the Fire Nation, with song birds chirping a cheerful tune. The sun just coming over the horizon, painting the sky in various hues of reds and oranges with undertones of purple or indigo. A long since, dead volcano catches the light which gives it feeling of being alive again, with the light causing an illusion of fire on its surface to be specific. The forest around the volcano stretches for miles teeming with all kinds of life, adding to the harmonic orchestra of nature.
Two hours out from the volcano's base is a home of oriental design, with a noble flare to it. It would be a fairly large home for many, but for the occupant currently in it, it was the smallest of the seven vacation homes that her father owns, but at least it had a courtyard for daily training routines.
Azula herself was training out in the courtyard, by sparing seven of the royal guard with the purpose of honing her already perfect, firebending skills before moving on to the master level techniques. At the moment, only three of the royal guard remained to spar her, with all three surrounding her.
The guards attacked simultaneously by blasting wide gouts of flame at her. Azula dodged by jumping high and using the momentum of the jump to carry her over to the guard in front of her. She launched a blue fire ball towards him, which he blocked with moderate difficulty, but his efforts were rewarded with a flaming boot to the face. The two behind her used the fact that her back was turned to take her unaware, with one launching a hail of fire balls, and the other making fire daggers to engage in melee with the princess.
Azula analyzing the situation made a very tall wall of fire to cover her, while she used jump-jet to give herself a higher jump to clear the wall. After she cleared the wall the princess blasted the guard that was foolishly charging her with flame daggers, hitting him square in the chest.
The last guard kept blasting fire balls at her, but just couldn't hit her some how. When she landed in front of him, he used a short ranged fire blast to try and hit her, which she dodged by ducking under it and swept his leg. While he fell, she quickly sent a small blast of blue fire at him, hitting him in the shoulder.
Now that the spar was over Azula straightened out her clothes, before walking over to her mentors to kneel at their feet for evaluation of her skills, though as perfect as she is, she doubted that much if any was wrong.
Lo and LI, her mentors, are elderly identical twins. Both wear the same cloths and have the same hair style. They are also quite short, just barely standing any taller then Azula who was only five feet tall, though their being hunched over did not help their height.
"Princess Azula you have done flawlessly in the final assessment test," Lo and LI said in near perfect unison. "We can now move on to the master firebending techniques starting two days from now."
"I am more than capable of learning the master techniques today. Tomorrow if I really have to wait," Azula said with an air of confidence, clearly eager to learn some of the most powerful firebending to impress her father.
Lo and Li shifted a bit in response before explaining themselves. "It's not that we don't think you can't," Lo said. "But your father has asked for an in person report from us on your firebending training, and some of the new techniques will need new equipment, which would take a day alone to get our hands on," Finished Li.
"So, then what should I do till then?" Azula asked, trying to put some pressure on them so that they will speed up the schedule. After all she is the princess so it would be an insult to make her wait.
Lo and Li both pondered on what "fun" activity they could suggest to the princess to take up her time.
"We got it!"
The mentors both said with a snap of their the fingers.
"This land that we are on, specifically the forest of Mt. Insania, has quite the history if I remember correctly," said Li, who was trying to remember the rest of the story.
"Yes, they say a scholar came here and studied all he could for some project he was working on," Lo said, recounting the story to the princess. "They say that he found a cave on the side of the mountain during his exploration, and then he went inside to explore it, but he didn't come out for days. The college sent a team to find him, it took some time, but they found him mad and speaking in a strange language, and repeating the word insania over and over."
"I'm guessing that's why it is named so strangely?" asked Azula, only slightly intrested in the story.
"Yes, though it is mostly a myth used to scare the children from going to far into the caves," the teachers stated, a bit dissapointed in it being a myth. "The story is older than us, so you know its old."
"That was a "nice" story, but why are you telling me this?" inquired the princess, not really understanding.
"We were going to suggest exploring the forest, or mountain. Who knows, maybe you will find something of interest, or succeed where the scholar failed," Lo said, with her sister nodding in agreement.
Azula thought for a moment. It was clear they were just trying to give her something to do so that they could go give the report to father, and also get the equipment for the new lessons. But why get equipment, she never needed anything for the other lessons before? It didn't really matter that much in the long run she guessed, so she will humor them and go along, but if this is a plot against her, she will make them pay.
"Hmmm, alright I will do it, but I want you to make it as hard as you can when the lessons start again. I am very eager to see what equipment will be needed for those lessons. I do hope I won't be dissapointed," the princess said, as she stood up and proceeded to exit the training area, leaving her mentors to both glance at each other.
Two hours after exploring the forest, at the base of Mt. Insania.
The venture into the forest was mediocre at best for the princess. There were some things of interest here and there, but nothing stood out, besides a firebending trick she tried to do for a bit of fun. It didn't go well for the small rabbit-shrew.
She had come to the base of the old, dead volcano to see if any caves really did exist around, or in it. While searching for a cave she had a ball of fire in her hand not only to light her way when she needed it, but to practice focus in keeping a flame burning even though she really didn't need to practice such a thing.
Unfortunately there were no caves near the base of the mountain, as Azula soon found out herself. It took another two hours to walk all the way around the mountain's base, to only find nothing at all. She was at least thankful that she brought a small lunch with her before she left the vacation home, though it was not the best, it would do.
With lack of caves to explore, she decided that climbing the mountain would be the next task of this "fun" adventure, and it would be a good exercise as a bonus.
The climb up the mountain was actually fun compared to the walk in the forest, mainly because she was getting a moderate challenge from climbing the mountain. It was not a far climb to the top either, being about an hour or two of climbing to reach the top of mountain.
At the top of the mountain, Azula began to look out over the land. The view would have been a gorgeous sight for many, but for Azula not so much. Things considered beautiful or fun to others would be considered trash or a waste of time to her.
One thing she does for fun, is to think about life or the war, when she has the time, though mainly about her life.
She often thought about the many differences between her and the commoners, when she had a small amount of time to think about them that is. The first things that always came to mind was her royal bloodline, and her skill at firebending. But there is one thing that makes her jealous of the commoners, and that's their families, they are so nearly perfect, but why can't the perfect princess have that. Any way it didn't matter such thoughts clouded her mind and kept her back from her true potential as princess and firebender.
With her thoughts concluded the princess walked over to the center of the mountain's peak, which was easy because the mountain had a flat top as it had once been a volcano long ago. She simply gazed out over land from her view, and it was a beautiful sight she could almost see the ocean.
With site seeing done the princess turned around to head back the way she came, that was until she noticed a shiny piece of metal. It is circular in shape and is the size of an eye, on it a symbol she had never seen before. The symbol was one long line going up and down, and a smaller line going acrossed it with a circle around the intersection.
The princess pocketed the piece of metal and was about to take a step, when the ground she was standing on suddenly fell out from underneath her.
During her time falling she desperately tried to use jet-step to slow her fall, all the while wishing she was taught the jet propulsion move, but it was a master rated technique that she hadn't been taught yet, and when gets back home that will be on the list of first moves she will learn first.
Unfortunately her firebending didn't seem to be working that well, with it only achieving small flames that couldn't stop her momentum.
The fall was not that far down though, but it was far enough. When Azula landed on her back all the air in her lungs shot out, causing her head to hit the ground, and forcefully knocking her out cold all as she thought "Why?"
Unknown time later, in a forgotten cave system.
Azula woke up gasping for air, with the shock of the fall, and the impact still not wearing off yet. After the princess caught her breath, and the shock now all but gone, she carefully studied the surrounding area without moving her head and body too much, with it still sore from the fall.
The pit seemed to be twelve feet wide, but the height was a bit hard to determine, in fact she couldn't see the sky from where she fell. So she carefully made a fireball the size of her fist to light up the pit to give her some vision in the dark. But something was off, her firebending wasn't as powerful as it once was and it felt "choked", like her chi couldn't flow along with power her bending.
To test this theory the princess tried to use jet-step, but it took more effort than it was worth, with it only raising her a foot off the ground.
So now she was stuck at the bottom of the pit, with no way out, and her firebending was barely working. A lesser woman would die here, but Azula, she would be home by morning.
Now all she needed was a plan, and the first step was to search the walls of the pit for any ledge to begin climbing out. Keeping the fireball in her left hand, she used her right hand to feel for any spot to begin climbing out.
After a few minutes of searching she found no usable ledge to start climbing, which was very troublesome for the princess, because it seemed like there was no way out.
There was one thing she found that could help though, and it was a round stone that was jutting out of the wall. The stone was about the size of her head, and seemed to be in the shape of a dome. But what really stood out, was that it was not the same type of rock that made up the walls of her prison, and was very brittle.
Azula had spent a few more minutes breaking the odd stone when she learned how brittle it was, all she did was punch it once and a fifth of it just fell off. After she finished breaking the stone, all that was left was a. . . key hole?!
The princess, for all of her intelligence and confidence, was utterly baffled. How could there be a key hole in the middle of nowhere? Unfortunately there was little she could do to deny the existence of the key hole, at least she hoped she wasn't seeing things.
So the next best thing to do now, is to inspect the key hole, which proved to be a very good idea, as the key hole was of a special, but familiar design. The design itself was simple, a large round hole, no bigger than her head. It was framed with a faded gold ring and geometric symbols ingraved on it, and if it was a language she couldn't tell.
Within the hole was a thin, charred sheet of metal that had many odd symbols carved into it as well. Though the one that drew her attention, was the one at the center, which was two intersecting lines and a circle going around the intersection. She quickly got the odd coin from her pocket to see if there would be a reaction of some kind, but nothing happened.
To say the princess was frustrated, would be an understatement. She was stuck with no way of escape, and she hated that, even if her face didn't show it. The only thing she had was the key hole, and oh how it taunted her with the illusion of escape, as its charred metal seemed to shift into a mocking face. . . wait a minute!
The metal being charred, could that be the clue she was looking for to opening it, at least she hoped it was.
Azula took in a deep breath to focus, and to fuel the flame already in her left hand, which expanded to the size that would fit the key hole. This took a lot more effort than it should have. That choking feeling still ever present when firebending, and the more suffocating the feeling, the more she pushed her firebending.
After she got the flame stable, she slowly pushed the flame into the key hole. This time it reacted by sucking in the flame, and the dark fully consuming all of her vision. But the symbols on the ring of gold and the sheet of metal started to glow blue, giving off a small amount of light for her to see.
Suddenly the glow erupted into a bright, blue flame and it engulfed a good chunk of the wall, causing the princess to back away so she didn't get burnt. After the fire dissapated, Azula made a new, small flame to see what had happened, and to her shock the wall had turned into a long corridor, with no end in sight.
But it didn't matter though, it was her only chance of getting out of here. With one last look around, she checked that she hadn't missed anything.
Azula took another deep breath, and proceeded to walk down the corridor, with a very small amount of uncertainty and fear, but she did her best to quell those feelings. She continued to walk through the dark hallway, oblivious of what she just found.