Act I - The Prince and the Gravedigger's Daughter
One year earlier - Capital of the Fire Nation.
Scene 1
The bubbling of festive days has spread to the capital. Everywhere, bursts of laughter and excited whispers can be heard. Workers hang light and variegated garlands between the windows of the houses. Red, yellow and blue lights paint the walls of the houses in almost fantastic hues. Children marvel and laugh at the snake charmers and musicians' show. Puppeteers and jugglers compete for the best places and, for a few coins, show off their talents to small groups of people gathered around them. Brigands rub shoulders with honest men, and well-mannered women embrace loosing girls in great displays of friendship. Young gallants lure into a corner blushing girls, audacious enough to escape the vigilance of their father's harsh gaze.
This festive and unbridled atmosphere is largely watered by the wine with which Regent Ikem has flooded the city. It must be said that it's not every day that the royal family celebrates not one but two happy events. The imminent double wedding has to be the subject of all conversations, arouse the envy of all subjects.
At the end of the month, the Regent will marry the Queen, the former Fire Lord Ozai's widow. She is finally out of her mourning. It has been seven years since the king died, tragically killed in a strange accident. Queen Ursa wept for a long time and she is finally out of her widowhood.
Good news never comes alone and it was with even greater curiosity and redoubled emotion that the people learned yesterday of the impending marriage of Princess Azula.
This princess who lives hidden in the palace and of whom no one knows anything is a mystery. Since the death of her beloved father, no one has seen her outside the palace walls. No one knows what she looks like, even if everyone imagine her to be very beautiful. It is even claimed that after the disappearance of Fire Lord Ozai, she took a vow of silence and chastity.
No one knows the identity of her fiancé and theories go well. The question fascinates all citizens, from the prim bourgeois to the lousy brat who lightens the pockets of honest people in the central alley. There are some crazy rumors about the name of the mysterious and happy chosen one. It's said that the wedding will be fabulous and that the Regent hasn't skimped on expenses.
The ceremony will take place on the large coronation square where the most prominent citizens of the Nation will be invited. The Imperial Guard itself will watch the crowd, vigilant, for the safety of the royal family.
The people, for their part, are invited to feast the whole month to honor their leaders.
Indifferent to this festive atmosphere, a hooded figure makes its way in the mace. According to its gait, he is a young man. He has the awkward appearance of a child who has grown too quickly. He hurriedly walks, impatient to reach quieter parts of the city. As a street player calls for him from a wooden table set up in front of a shabby shop with closed windows, he pulls on a part of his hood, the one that conceals the ugly scar he wears around his left eye and stretching from his forehead to his angular jaw.
"Come on Sir! You don't want to bet on the name of the Princess's fiancé? Come and listen to the predictions!" The stranger does not give him a look and hurries up.
Ignoring the man who is now calling him a beggar, he disappears in a narrower artery plunged into darkness.
He recognizes nothing of the country that was once his home. How to remember the city from which one has been banished before reaching the age of man? Especially when you grew up between the golden and glittering walls of a palace which you never left the threshold of, until the day of judgment?
But years of wandering the world and varied adventures have sharpened his sense of direction and he easily finds his way through the maze of this sprawling and teeming city. He knows he has to go to the heights. There he will find the long staircase carved into the mountain that leads to the crater of the Caldera where the beautiful quarters and the royal palace are located. Certainly he will have to use his skill and his cunning to escape the scrupulous surveillance of the guards who roam the long stony path.
Luck smiled at him, though. The festive mood of the streets seems contagious and has reached the soldiers who, too busy feasting noisily, do not notice the slender figure which weaves its way along the large door giving access to the flight of steps meandering on the mountain side.
Finally the palace looms before him, intimidating in the night, its red and black walls standing proud and impenetrable. A powerful stir grips his heart and he instinctively removes his hood from his head.
It's hard to express the emotion of a man who finds his home after having traveled for years, overcome thousand trials, who left it as a child and finds it as an accomplished man.
The prince hoped for a more opulent arrival but he is not sure, even seven years after the death of the man who banished him, he's welcome here.
He will hide that night in the Garden of Tranquil Souls. He will slip into the crypt under the cover of darkness and see for himself the downfall of the man he once called Father, whose blood made him a prince and whose cruelty made him a pariah.
He can't believe in his death until he contemplates the miserable urn containing his ashes, only vestige of what was once the king of kings, the most illustrious of the Fire Lords, the one who brought down Ba Sing Se.
What he doesn't know for now is that he's not the only one tonight wandering this grim and lonely cemetery. Another figure has crept out of the palace walls and makes its way towards the crypt, with a sure and determined step.
They haven't seen each other yet. They don't know that they are going to meet. They walk towards each other, hidden by the thick night and the pointy graves standing in their way.
A cruel fate separated them as children but this very fate puts them on the same road tonight. Ignorant, driven by different desires, they walk towards each other.
They are rushing to their destiny.
Note : I apologize for the long delay between my first two chapters. In reality, this one had been written in French for a long time but having not yet written the rest, I waited a little. Finally, I post it so that you know that I did not give up on the project but it's a bit in the background because I am more focused on my other fanfic which requires a lot of investment.
I hope posting today gives me the faith to write the sequel.
Please forgive my language mistakes, I did not have the translation proofread.