Azula could only have her faith shattered so many times before she stopped believing in the things that used to make sense. She could accept the royal family had been hiding important secrets on the nature of fire bending for so long, secrets that would have helped her brother be better than he already was, good enough that their father wouldn't be so mad at him anymore. She could even accept that her father was a monster that married her mother only because she was the granddaughter of the last fire nation Avatar, it made sense in her head why she and her twin got so much attention from their grandfather.
They were destined to be the best.
But to have the one thing she hoped was a lie proven true, that their father actually wanted Zuko dead? Zuko! Her brother! The same Zuko who always sneaked her crystal cookies at night or made sure none of the other the girls said anything bad about her, not that she needed the help but it was the thought that counted. The same Zuko that listened to Raizu and tried his hardest every time his younger brother wanted to share something utterly bizarre and unfathomable with him.
All that simply because he might not have been a fire bender, just because his eyes didn't have the spark of the inner fire when he was born. It took as much as a month for newborns before they first showed the spark! Even the royal family's records showed that some princes and princesses were born late with those. Agni, her own father took a day to show the spark!
Her anger boiled and raged but it lost to the one remaining emotion she had left for the person she once called her father: disappointment. Yet she also saw in him who she might have been had her mother never told her the truth about her hovering over him so much. She hated that her father was really out to make her brother's life as miserable as he could just because mother loved someone else. She also hated how she'd been forced to grow up faster than she needed to. And she also hated how she understood that perhaps it was for the best she knew better now than later.
At least mother was trying to be better, she could forgive that even if she wanted to be angrier than she already was.
Azula looked up to the full moon, high above the palace's roof, a friend among the stars. She wondered what it was like to be so far away from the life she had now. Would she have been happier if she were someone else? Someone who was born to a normal family? She wondered and wondered but no answers came forward.
She couldn't see past the person she already was.
She lied down against the cold tiles of the roof, dreaming of a girl who could celebrate her birthday without any exploding cakes or having to worry about poison in her next cup of tea. She dreamed of a room that wasn't decorated with gold or had servants and guards waiting outside of it, sworn to give their lives should it come to that. She dreamed of a life where she didn't need to be so strong all the time and have to blink away the tears even when she was all alone.
Her grandfather appeared, blocking the moon with his head.
"It's a cold night to be out so late, little one."
It had been almost a year already when her grandfather stopped calling her Azula or girl. A year since Raizu learned to write. And half a year since she'd learned how to read on her own against her wishes—although she had to admit it was useful to learn so early. But she also knew she couldn't have gotten as far if Raizu hadn't been… talking to her about some things other children had no right knowing.
"Hey grandpa."
Her grandfather sat down next to her and radiated warmth. "Can't sleep?"
She nodded.
"I can imagine."
He looked up the moon and stars next to her; and lied down against the roof.
Zuko wouldn't leave mother's side and fell asleep in her arms while Raizu disappeared to his room or wherever it was he want once night fell. As much as her younger brother unnerved her, it still didn't stop her from worrying if he was taking care of himself. Fire, her uncle once told her, was the element of power and determination, two things that described both her brothers but in very different ways. She wondered if she was as amazing in their mother's eyes as either of her siblings, she who was caught in the middle of two extremes.
She sighed. Look at her using all these big words feeling all these complex things and thinking about things that were so much bigger than her.
These things might have been bigger than her, but she was sitting next to someone bigger than that.
"Grandpa?"
"Yes, little one?"
"Why does father want to be the Fire Lord so much?"
Her grandfather breathed out.
Azula waited.
A cool wind blew from the east.
A shooting star blazed a streak across the sky.
She heard her grandfather breathe softly in and out. Her heart was pounding earlier but it was calmer now. The tiles beneath her back weren't as cold anymore, having been warmed by her body and that advanced bending her grandfather did. She saw a shadow in the corner of her eye and thought it could have been Raizu doing whatever it was he did in the dark. Maybe he turned into an owl like Wan Shi Tong and flew around looking for secrets in whatever hidden corners there were.
She remembered when he'd shared with her their mother's letters their father kept to himself. She remembered how wrong it felt to keep a daughter away from her parents. She remembered how her mother lied and how their father took that as a blessing to be as horrible as he could be to her and Zuko. She remembered the times she or Raizu had to grab their father's attention with the most useless stories just so he wouldn't get as mad at Zuko, and how amazing they were compared to him and how that made their father angrier the next time her older brother found his notice.
She remembered how unfair it was that she would have to steal moments for herself to be a younger sister to her big brother.
"It's my fault," her grandfather finally said.
His hand found her face and removed a tear that sneaked past her notice.
"The court called the practice an 'heir and the spare.' It's the reason all royal lineages have at least two children, and its also why Zuko has you two."
Azula wondered if that should have made her upset, then she remembered she didn't feel like seven for so long already. It made sense. Even if it shouldn't.
"And I… treated Ozai as the spare he was intended as."
Except in her case, she was the spare to Raizu—and what did that make Zuko? Her father always treated her with just enough attention to keep her there, just like he'd taught her to do with the court's children.
"But when I heard that prophecy, Ozai took that as a sign I'd chosen him over Iroh—though I never dissuaded him from the notion." Her grandfather took another steady breath. "The pressure to fulfill that prophecy drove him to the lengths he goes to now; all to prove the chance I'd given him was correct.
"I'm sorry my mistakes haunt you, and I will do all I can to make sure that those mistakes end with me." Her grandfather sat up to look her in the eyes. "But I am not sorry how you and your brother were born. You're cute compared to that imp, and every palace deserves a princess as amazing as you."
Her grandfather opened his arms to her—in a gesture she'd only seen her mother do.
"I don't think I've ever given you a hug before?"
That was an easy no. Azula sat up and shuffled closer to her grandfather.
She knew it was strange that she was so unfamiliar with the sensation of another person's warmth. Only Zuko was this affectionate, and that he got from their mother. Her, she made do with whatever she got from Zuko.
But this, she decided, this was nice.