(Theme Sixty-Two) Adoption
(As Prompted By) A Kingdom of Isolation
Slamming her way into the kitchen of the Jasmine Dragon, Azula throws her apron into the sink (again) and Iroh sighs (again) and she slumps against the wall (again). This is how it goes almost every afternoon, seeing as Azula cannot finish a single shift without throwing a fit. She does not like the customers, or how they tell her what to do, or how they flirt with her wife. And the Jasmine Dragon is a damned tinderbox, so Iroh better make some changes, in her mind.
Iroh is trying his best to work with Azula, but he has to admit he does not always enjoy her working for him. Zuko said she had to do it for six months to learn a lesson, and he said there was no better person for Azula to learn from. Iroh just took a deep breath and went with it, only relieved by the fact that Ty Lee was joining his niece.
"It is a beautiful day out," Iroh says calmly, offering Azula some kind of peace offering smile. "Perhaps you should go for a calming walk."
"Maybe I will," Azula says sharply, in the tone of an insolent child, despite being well into her twenties. She examines herself in a shining teapot Iroh just finished cleaning and deems herself presentable in public.
She passes Ty Lee, whom is happily serving customers and making Azula want to flay her alive with fire, incredible sex or not. When Azula reaches the cold air, she feels a wave of relief in her body and her bones. The Earth Kingdom smells awful to her, but she has decided she does not mind the cold weather.
Or this forced vacation Zuko made her go on. Although, it is a bit absurd calling this a vacation when Azula and Ty Lee have been working like slaves for a horrible old man who spits out proverbs and continuously tries to feed Azula blueberries for breakfast despite her protests.
It was not like anyone who wasn't a criminal in the New Ozai Society died in Azula's little rampage. And she had very good reason; the rebel bastards put Ty Lee on the verge of death because Azula double crossed them in favor of her wife. Zuko said they should wait in the palace and stay guarded at all times.
Azula disagreed. She decided to kill every last one of them.
Zuko sent her out of the country for six months until he could sort out the mess she made; it was evidently a punishment, but he said it was like a vacation, after which he nervously laughed and averted his eyes. Apparently Fire Lord Zuko frowns on vigilante justice. She would, however, gladly take the Boiling Rock over working for Iroh in Ba Sing Se. This has to be some kind of cruel joke that Azula just does not get.
She walks through the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se, feeling incredibly bitter about the fact that the city is not hers, and more bitter about the fact that she deserves to be in Caldera now, or at least relaxing on Ember Island or in a nice mountain spa.
Ba Sing Se is rarely anything interesting, at least to her. Ty Lee seems to find something exciting about the city every time they go out together. Which Azula finds endearing, and the only redeeming quality of her temporary exile is the fact that she has Ty Lee with her.
But today, something interesting happens to Azula on her lonely walk. She sees police going after a girl no more than five years old, with no parents nearby, and looking about to cry.
Azula is about to turn around and pretend she was never here, until she sees the girl's yellow eyes and light brown hair. It is the eyes that make Azula stay on the scene, realizing she is likely screwing herself, as the child sees her, seems to get an idea and shouts, "Mom!"
No, no, no...
The police turn from the little girl and look at Azula, who somehow manages to remain calm.
"Are you her mother, ma'am?" inquires the brawnier officer and the little girl nods feverishly behind their backs.
"Yes," Azula says confidently, knowing she will regret this. "What did she do this time?"
One of the officers crosses his arms, the other exchanges a glance with his companion.
"We just caught her firebending," the same officer says and Azula is suddenly very glad that she intervened. The kid obviously was on to something.
"I'm sorry. I just lost track of her for a moment," Azula purrs, hastily grabbing the strange little child's hand. The little girl looks at her, blinking with yellowish eyes. "I promise to keep her better under control in the future."
The officers look at each other again, and shrug. "We just have to go to the Upper Ring Station to write up this report, and you two can be on your way."
Agni, and Azula has gotten herself into yet another mess. She curses Zuko in her head as she and the strange little girl are led by the police officers to the station. It is busy inside, surprisingly busy for this wealthy area, and Azula and the little girl are seated in a waiting area until they can be spoken to. If Azula recalls correctly, firebending within the walls is penalized rather harshly and she thinks she might have gotten herself into even deeper trouble than she did on her vengeance rampage in Caldera.
"You, kid," Azula whispers and the girl looks at her, "what's your name, how old are you and where are your parents?"
"I'm Kyoto, I'm almost eight and my... my parents are gone," she says, studying Azula closely. "When my mommy died my daddy left and I'm on my own. The police were going to take me to an orphanage if they caught me and I'm sorry I lied, miss, but I didn't want to go there. I was there for a while but the kids beat me up and everything because of my firebending and..."
It somehow seems even darker coming from the small, innocent voice of a seven year old. Azula sincerely hopes that, if she saves this orphan, that will be enough to convince Zuko to take her home. Or at least impress Ty Lee, who keeps insisting that Azula do kind things for people instead of being openly cruel.
Azula swallows and locks eyes with the police officer who gestures for she and Kyoto to come into a small, stone office. She helps Kyoto onto the chair beside her and clasps her hands on the table.
"You might be worried about the penalties," the officer says, his voice low and gravelly, but calm all the same. He shuffles through a jumbled mess of scrolls and folded up parchment, nearly knocking over a container of ink multiple times. "But it's usually forgiven in children who were born shortly after the Occupation of 100 AG."
The princess hides her surprise at that sudden fact. She caused that occupation. And it only takes a split second to guess why firebending in children of that age is not as forbidden as with adults or teenagers. Azula feels her stomach twist with a weird and alien feeling, as she realizes that Kyoto's dad probably left because he wasn't her dad.
"Just tell me what I have to do and we will be on our way and out of trouble," Azula purrs and the man seems relieved. If there is anything she knows how to do, it is persuade her way out of a nasty situation.
"Simply fill out these forms to report the incident of ─ uh ─?"
"Kyoto," Azula says and Kyoto smiles at her.
"Kyoto's firebending incident."
Azula has no clue what actually happened, but she fills out the forms and signs as Kyoto's parent, filling it out with a fake name, despite her being in the Earth Kingdom completely legally as Princess Azula. It would not take much digging to find out Azula does not have a child, but Jin Odaya... well...
"Thank you for your time, sir," Azula says smoothly before grabbing Kyoto by the arm and leaving the police station as quickly as she can without attracting too much attention.
"Please, allow me to escort you home," offers a policeman with bright green eyes and tan skin eagerly. Azula just stares at him, wondering if a lie has ever gotten her into this much of a mess before. "You would be surprised at how dangerous the Upper Ring is at dusk."
Azula looks at Kyoto, whom she was just about to drop off at the nearest place of business and get back to the Jasmine Dragon, and then looks at the officer. He clearly is into the single mom thing... hm. Ick.
"I actually was at work and still have to finish my shift," Azula says with a silent prayer to any spirit that could possibly be listening. Please let me get out of this...
"I'll take you there," he says and Azula has to give him points for enthusiasm. It does feel nice to be desired instead of her wife.
And so, she is walked, with Kyoto latched to her arm, to the Jasmine Dragon, where she bids the officer goodnight and goes inside. And then he comes in for a cup of tea. Azula's eyes flash at Iroh, alerting him that something is wrong, and he walks to the teashop.
"Were you arrested?" Iroh asks in concern and Azula shakes her head.
The officer interjects before Azula can say anything, "She and her daughter just had to file a report. It's no big deal, happens all the time. So, I heard this is the best tea shop in the entire Earth Kingdom..."
Azula slips past her uncle with Kyoto in hand as her escort starts jabbering to the stunned speechless Dragon of the West. She clambers up the stairs and finds Ty Lee starting to make dinner, still wearing her uniform apron, but with her shoes kicked off and in the corner.
"Hi, Azula," she says, kissing the princess on the lips before noticing the elbow leech clinging to her. "Who is that?"
"Uh... this is Kyoto..." Azula says with a small grimace.
"Hi," Kyoto says, waving once as if being kidnapped by the Fire Nation Princess is an everyday occurrence.
Ty Lee touches her lips, then makes a small groaning sound in the back of her throat, and finally kneels in front of Kyoto. She examines the child closely, and then has a similarly stunned expression when she sees the girl's yellow eyes. And with the light brown Earth Kingdom hair, to Ty Lee, she almost looks like she could be she and Azula's child.
"Why don't you go color with Iroh's painting set over on the table," Ty Lee suggests, pointing, and Kyoto obliges. "She looks worse off than a stray cat, Azula. We should feed her, probably. Unless her parents are looking for her."
"She's an orphan," Azula admits, watching the child crack open the paints and start brushing them along a sheet of parchment. "... and I may have told the police that I'm her mother."
Ty Lee's lips part in surprise. "Why would you do that?"
"She's a firebender, and she got caught firebending... She called me mom when they were going to arrest her, and I just panicked," Azula says, throwing her arms up and leaning against the wall. "Ty Lee, it's our fault that she was in that situation. Her mom died and her father abandoned her because of the soldiers we sent into this city."
The acrobat looks at Azula with sparkling eyes. "You do have a heart!" She kisses Azula on the lips before returning her gaze to the orphan in Iroh's living room.
"I wanted to just drop her off by some shop or something, but this asshole decided to escort me home," Azula says and Ty Lee's excitement about Azula's compassion fades. Of course she would just abandon an orphan again, regardless of her feelings of responsibility for the child's misfortune.
"I know you don't believe in fate or auras or vibrations," Ty Lee says and Azula sighs, knowing this cannot lead to anything good. "But I'm pretty sure there's a reason that it was you who ran into Kyoto on the street today, and a reason she told them you were her mother. I think we should adopt her."
Azula tries to look inconvenienced by rolling her eyes, but she is not opposed to the idea.
And that is the tale of how Azula's lying habit, conquest of Ba Sing Se and punishment of working for Iroh for six months led to her becoming a mother.
A/N: I know this is a fairly outlandish story, but I felt like I had to do something interesting with the prompt of Ty Lee and Azula adopting a child. This might actually show up in one of my future fics, possibly, but with a less flimsy background.
