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Everything changed when Azula's father, the Phoenix King, and the Avatar vanished.
With the help of the comet, roaring and blazing brilliantly through the skies, her and her people of the Fire Nation united all of the Nations together. Azula sends her top generals, and their armies, to occupy the territories dealing with the most resistance.
She hasn't the faintest idea of where Mai and Ty Lee could be. Or the Avatar's little friends.
Not that it matters.
Azula has shed off her past grudges, or so she believes, marching on with her role as the Firelord.
What does matter is finding where Zuko hides.
The rightful blood heir of the former Firelord. Her brother.
He was seen alive in Hira'a three years ago.
Zuko… Zuko is her first thought she has in the waking hours, and her last when Azula rests during the evening.
She must have him.
All of the ravaging and ruination during these past five years… Azula puts it out of her mind.
For now.
Softly snapping her fingers, Azula beckons her handmaidens forward. "I expect to see my own reflection clearly in them," she orders, staring pointedly to her newest handmaiden Qiang cradling Azula's hand, readying the long and silver-handled file.
Qiang nods meekly.
Azula lets her polish and file away any impurities in her long, sharpened fingernails. She cannot stand dirt under them.
Xia and Shihong scrub Azula's feet without complaint, keeping their heads bowed. Zhu lowers Azula's head into a big, gilded basin of water, washing her, combing out Azula's flowing, flawlessly brown hair. Azula plucks a ripe, red cherry from Mei's tray.
Her teeth crunch loudly around a pit.
"Forgive me, Your Highness," Mei babbles, turning a fearful pale color when Azula's widening, gold eyes land on her. "Please."
"Should I?" Azula falsely trills, glancing over each of her handmaidens who remain dutifully silent, continuing their ministrations.
Mei's color blotches to a similar hue of cherry.
"Of course I will," Azula then tells her, expressionless. "After you finish the tray."
Mei opens her mouth, hesitating. She gazes dreadfully at the near-mountainous mound of fresh cherries.
Azula opens her hand, bending a palmful of vibrantly living fire alternating from blue to orange to blue. She twists her fingers, watching her flames dance between them. Off to the other side of Azula's pampering chair, Mei tries to swallow all of Azula's cherries, pouring them into her mouth and choking them down. Azula waves a hand dismissively, letting the guards remove her.
"She wasn't trying to hurt you, Azula."
Zuko, kneeling in place of Xia, stares in disapproval. His eyebrows lower.
Azula jerks upright as if startled, no longer firebending.
"Nobody would dare to."
Another Zuko touches his hands onto Azula's hand, cradling her.
He feels like a spirit. Far, far away.
Azula's breathing quickens.
She grips onto him, demanding to know where he has been, where he is, where is he running to when it's from her—
A ragged cry leaves her.
"You are perfect. Even I saw that when we were kids, Azula."
His fingers comb slowly into Azula's moistened hair. She cranes her neck, gawking at a third Zuko. He smiles thinly down on her.
"How could I not love you?"
"Zuzu," Azula mumbles, reaching for the back of his head, pulling him towards her.
Their lips brush. Hungry for more, Azula kisses him again, digging her nails harshly against Zuko's scalp. She tightens up the bruising, breathless kiss. His rough knuckles graze against Azula's cheek. Zuko mumbles out Azula's name, deliriously needful.
Her inner thighs clench.
She feels warm wetness gathering there.
Azula tugs him down into her lap, lathing her tongue up Zuko's neck, biting against the soft flesh of Zuko's ear.
Her newly filed, unpainted nails rake up the length of Zuko's plain-robed back, scratching him, shivering him. You're mine, she whispers to him, planting her opening, worshiping mouth against Zuko's cheek, rolling her hips erotically underneath him. Mine. Mine. Mine.
"Zuzu…"
"Your Highness?" Zhu mumbles, the gust of her hot breath hitting Azula's face.
She remains unmoving in Azula's lap, baffled.
In a blink, she's turned back into Zuko, scrutinizing Azula as if their Firelord gone mad.
"No…"
Azula bares her teeth, shrieking "NO…NONO!" and frightens her Zuko-handmaidens out, throwing aside the water basin, flinging the long and silver-handled file into a mirror, and shrieking at a much higher-pitched volume until the Zuko-guards gape.
It's pity. It's love and it's longing, and it's destroying Azula from the inside.
(Not that it matters…)
…
… …Where is he?
She breathes heavily, clutching her face and fighting humiliated tears.
Azula swallows sobs like cherry pits lodged deep in her throat.
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