Suyin was sitting cross-legged on her bed, humming to herself as she darned her favourite stocking, when Azula opened the door between their bedrooms without so much as a knock. She leaned against the doorframe.

"I just got word from Father. We're going to dine together this evening." She said with a hint of impatience in her tone, "I must get dressed now."

"Oh- I see." Suyin took a second to finish the stitch she was on, and then stuck the needle in the stocking so she would not lose her place. By the time she looked up again, Azula was gone, having turned back to her room, leaving the door open.

Suyin put her work aside and followed in after her. To her surprise, Azula was standing before one of the open closets, sorting through the vast array of elegant clothes. Never before had Suyin seen her choose out her own clothes - that was a task she left to her handmaid - and this, for some reason, unnerved her. She hovered near her, unsure of whether she was expected to take over and help her choose an outfit, or if the princess wanted to do so herself.

"When is the dinner?" She asked.

"In half an hour." Azula replied, without even looking away from her clothes.

She pulled out two hangers, thrust them both at Suyin who scrambled to grasp them in time and hold them at such a height that the dresses did not drag on the floor, and then pulled out another two. Without a single word, she strode over to the mirror and held up each dress against herself. Suyin followed after her and handed her the dresses she held once she was finished with her own.

"Which one do you think is best?"

Suyin had been expecting the question, and yet it still rendered her speechless for a moment. Each dress was absolutely beautiful, like nothing she'd ever seen before. In fact, since Suyin had started working as the princess' handmaid, she'd yet to see her wear anything from this selection of formal clothes. She was having a hard time even imagining what Azula would look like in them.

Each dress was a varying shade of red, ranging from crimson to ruby to garnet, detailed with delicate golden accents. The sleeves and neckline were all a little different, but in each case, the dress reached the floor. In fact, they almost seemed to be a little too long for the princess' stature.

"They're all beautiful."

"Tch. Useless." Azula muttered.

Suyin reddened in embarrassment. So she'd been looking for her input after all... "Maybe this one." She nodded towards the dress in the lightest shade of red, "It matches your lip paint."

Azula held it up against herself again, and nodded at her reflection, clearly decided. She handed Suyin the other hanger, and she took this as a signal to put the other dresses away, back in the closet, while Azula placed the chosen dress on the bed.

"Are you excited to eat with the Fire Lord?" Suyin asked as she began to undress the princess, if only to make conversation and to defuse this awkward silence that lingered between them.

"Of course," Azula replied without missing a beat, "It's a great honor."

But she didn't seem very excited. The way she held herself betrayed the tension in her shoulders, in her jaw. Suyin was certain she wouldn't have noticed a few months ago, but she'd gotten adept at reading the princess. Even the tone she used with Suyin now was more curt than it usually was. She watched her with great intensity as Suyin dressed her in all the formal garment's layers. Knowing that they only had half an hour - less than that, now - urged her on to work quickly, and Suyin did her best to be efficient in dressing her, but this outfit was a lot more complex than the ones the princess usually wore.

"Hurry up." Azula urged. Clearly, she felt that same press for time.

Suyin felt her face heat up again. "I'm sorry, princess."

She finished dressing her as quickly as she could, and then they moved onto brushing and styling her hair.

"Leave it down this time." Azula told her as she sat in front of the mirror. "Pin it up halfway."

"Like this?" Suyin asked, bunching up only the top part of her hair, and holding it up in a makeshift bun. This was the style most young women wore in the Fire Nation – elegant, regal, but feminine.

"Yes."

"Very well." Suyin released her hair and returned to brushing it, carefully, gently, until it shone. Only then did she comb out and separate a portion of her hair, and worked on tying it into an elegant topknot, leaving the rest of hair loose, hanging past her shoulders.

It was after a long silence that Azula spoke, "Father says I look more like Mother every day."

Suyin was still pinning her knot securely into place, and she looked up to glance at Azula in the mirror. But the princess wasn't looking at her – no, she was looking at her own reflection, overcome with a look Suyin couldn't quite place.

"I heard Lady Ursa was very beautiful." Suyin didn't know what else to say. She'd never seen the late Fire Lady, and though there was a portrait of her in one of the hallways, it was hardly anything to go off of. Suyin could imagine, however, that Azula had her mother's good looks. "Do you miss her?"

Azula didn't say anything for another long moment. "She's not dead, you know."

Suyin paused in her work. Furrowed her brows. "Oh? I thought…"

"She left us. Disappeared one day, out of the blue, with not so much as a goodbye. Father says she didn't love us, and that she had another family she loved more, and left to be with them instead." Azula spoke impassively. "It was easier to tell the nation that she died, rather than that she abandoned her family and duties as the Fire Lady. It was more dignified."

Suyin frowned. She'd never heard that before. All she remembered was that when she was about eleven years old, there had been a nation-wide mourning period. Those terrible months where they buried the eventual heir, Prince Lu Ten, and Fire Lord Azulon, and Lady Ursa within the span of merely a few days… Never before in Fire Nation history had there been such a profound level of grief. Of death in the royal family.

She remembered how they all had to pay their respects in school, and that they weren't allowed to play during this period of mourning to show the said respect. It had been terribly dull for eleven year old Suyin, who cared more about playing tag with her friends than whatever fate befell the royal family, but it had certainly been memorable. She wondered just how much of that Azula remembered. She'd been even younger then – eight or nine – and probably didn't remember her mother very well anymore.

She supposed it made sense, that the royal family would rather tell the nation that Lady Ursa had died, than abandoned her post, though Suyin could still hardly wrap her mind around it. "I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't. It would have been a terrible scandal, if it got out into the public. I trust you will keep this to yourself, Su? I'd rather not have to find a new handmaiden just yet." Her voice took on an edge, as if she'd just realised what she told her. How vulnerable she'd been, telling Suyin about the royal family's great lie. "Though I suppose it hardly matters now, so many years after."

"I won't tell a soul." Suyin promised. And not because of the threat – but because she really did mean to keep her secret. It wouldn't achieve anything, either, to tell the world about this. Neither would she be able to prove it. She doubted anyone would even believe her - it would be her one servant's word against that of the entire royal family's. Of course no one would believe her.

"So when you asked if I miss her…" Azula trailed off, and she was, once again, looking into something Suyin could not see. "How could I possibly miss a traitor of our great nation? She was selfish, and a coward, to leave like that. To leave me and Zuko here, alone."

Suyin's heart ached. She could tell there was so much more to Azula's words. To her grief. She wanted to prod her further, but feared that she was stepping into delicate territory. Azula had been opening up to her, slowly, over the months she'd worked for her, but never before had she displayed such a feat of vulnerability. Of talking about herself. About her past. About her brother. Everyone knew about the disgraced prince, but, Suyin had long since learned, it was a taboo, to speak of him in the palace. This was the first time Azula had mentioned him to her at all. And Suyin wanted to know more, and to comfort her, but she was desperately afraid that she would say the wrong thing and break her out of this trance, and that she would close herself right up again.

"I'm certain she had a reason." Suyin said gently. She could not imagine what it was. But it must have been a great one, for the woman to abandon her post as Prince Ozai's wife. To leave her two young children behind.

"It doesn't matter what her reason was." Azula said, and the edge was back in her voice, and Suyin immediately regretted her words. She'd said the wrong thing after all. "She left us. She was afraid of me. She hated me. And I do miss having a mother. I just wish it hadn't been her."

Suyin could not possibly believe that was true. What mother was afraid of her own daughter? She could not speak of love and hate, for Suyin knew very well that some people were not meant to be parents, that some parents genuinely did not care for their children. She could imagine that, in the royal family, producing an heir was of such importance that it did not matter whether the parents wanted a child or not - it was simply what had to be done. Maybe Ursa hadn't been happy here after all. But she could not imagine anyone being afraid of an eight year old. Not even a fire-bending, prodigal eight year old. How was it that Azula came to believe that? They sounded like parroted words. Like something she'd heard from someone. Learned from someone.

"I'm sorry." Suyin whispered. She did not know what else to say. "It must be hard."

Azula did not speak. She looked ahead levelly. The tension in the silence was palpable, too uncomfortable to break. "Sometimes when I look at myself in the mirror, I see her instead. But Father likes it when I wear her things."

Her things? Then, that explained why the formal dresses all looked just a little too big on her. Azula must have inherited them from her mother. And the hairstyle she'd chosen… Suyin thought back to what portraits she'd seen of Lady Ursa in her youth. Yes, this was certainly the way she used to wear her hair. Who was she seeing now, in the mirror? Did Azula even remember her mother's face, at this point? It had been so long, and she'd been so young when she'd left…

Suyin finished brushing her hair, and inserted her royal hair pin, making sure it was tucked securely into the top knot. She applied her makeup, now, and felt a knot twist in her chest. The makeup certainly made Azula look older. More like a woman than the teenager she was. More like Ursa, perhaps. She wondered whether this was all for her father's behalf as well.

"These earrings were my Mother's, too." Azula then opened a drawer in the vanity, and pulled out a small, black box. She opened it to reveal a pair of earrings.

They were the same ones Suyin had admired against her own ears that first day, when she'd gone snooping through the princess' things. Deep red rubies, set in gold. She hadn't looked at them since, and in all honesty, had nearly forgotten of their existence. But there they were, as lovely as the first day she'd laid eyes on them.

"They're beautiful."

"They're hideous. So gaudy." Azula made a face. "I'd be glad to get rid of and give them to you, Su, if you like them so much, if only I'd never have to wear them again."

Suyin smiled, but she knew that wasn't a real offer. She could read between the lines well enough to know that Azula was to wear these to supper tonight. She picked them from Azula's open palm, and carefully put them on for the princess, securing the pins behind her ears.

"There you are." Suyin took a step back once she was finished dressing the princess. "Beautiful."

"Just like my mother." Azula dead-panned.

Suyin saw her glance at her reflection, and then quickly turn her eyes away. She wondered if Azula still saw herself in her own reflection, or someone else. She looked- quite different. Entirely unlike herself. Or, no, that wasn't right, for Azula still looked like herself, but another version of herself? Like the woman she would one day be, rather than the child she was now. It made Suyin's heart pang again, that she was playing at being a grown up, but that was what was expected of the princess… no? She'd hardly been given the opportunity to be a child.

"It's almost time. Let's go." Azula glanced at the clock and headed out of her room.

Suyin followed after her, locking the door behind them, and accompanied the princess down the vast halls and to the royal family's dining room. They did not exchange a single word as they walked.

They arrived first, before the Fire Lord, as was expected, to show respect. Two maids were there even earlier, ready to serve dinner.

"Be back here in an hour." Azula ordered, and Suyin nodded, and wished her a good meal, and left her in that room to face her father. Alone.

Her words from before about Lady Ursa still rang in her head – she left us here alone.