A Small Bed of Saffron Flowers
"It is the fate of broken families to only meet at funerals." (Michel Audiard)
*All passages in italics correspond to flashback
* Second note: I didn't have this text proofread by an English speaker. My first language is French which is also the original language of this text which you can find under the title "Un petit lit de fleurs safran".
Please be lenient if you notice any mistakes, but don't hesitate to let me know courteously so that I can correct them.
The room is vast, peaceful, well lighted, filled with bouquets of white and gold chrysanthemums. On the usually red and black walls, white banners have been unfurled, adorned with the royal emblem of the Fire Nation.
The princess lays there, on a bed of saffron petals.
Her dark hair has been loosened and rests quietly on either side of her livid face. The once-coral, lightly parted lips are now a pale and soft pink, almost similar to the hue of the flowers that a careful hand has arranged in her ebony hair: maybe a Mother's idea, or Kiyi's.
The Fire Lord extends his arm to remove a stubborn hairlock that has settled on his sister's forehead. He guess the maids who carried out the mortuary toilet didn't manage to tame it. His fingers tremble as their tips touch her icy skin. The wick immediately returns to its place.
The movement caused a pink petal to fall onto her shoulder. Zuko seizes it between his thumb and forefinger and with infinite gentleness, he replaces it on the onyx cascade surrounding her impassive face. He thinks it's more likely Ty Lee who arranged those flowers, which are an unconventional hue for a funeral.
He's glad no one thought to remove them and to know that a little joy will accompany Azula's soul when it rises skyward.
Soon, when the torch will approach her bed of petals and consume her body; when the smoke will carve a path through the ether to guide her spirit to their ancestors' pantheon.
Azula won't be anyone's ancestor. It makes sense when you die at twenty-one. That doesn't make the thought more bearable. For ever, she will only be someone's daughter, someone's niece, his little sister. She won't even be an aunt for the child that Zuko and Mai will welcome in autumn.
The world will remember her as the Mad Princess, as the deposed daughter of the Fire Nation. For the next few years, they will still refer to her as the blue flames prodigy. But time will snatch even this glorious title from her. Her name will appear in the royal family records, alongside hundreds of others, who have long since faded into oblivion. His sister's existence will have been as fleeting and silent as the flight of a sparrow.
People have already begun to forget during the six years she spent in a sanatorium, a day's journey from the palace. There is no one left to talk about the warrior princess, her legendary capture of Ba Sing Se. The feat has already disappeared from the Eternal City annals. King Kuei made sure that history remembered nothing of the humiliation that a fourteen-year-old girl inflicted on him.
There wouldn't be many people to mourn her, he considered sadly. Even his dear friends who are there for him on this mourning day don't feel half his pain. He knows that deep down they will never regret Azula, that her passing is a relief to many people. He thinks of all those who saw in her a threat to order and security, to his crown.
He doesn't expect any solace from Mai. She barely flinched when the messenger came to tell them about Azula's sudden passing. Her face only blenched a little when she turned her silver eyes to him. She was the one who took care of asking questions about the tragedy while Zuko sat in an armchair, his limbs oddly cottony, like if stranger to his own body.
Will he miss Azula? Who can tell? Their relationship has been such a mess throughout their lives. Do you sincerely mourn a sister who hated you? That you would see barely four times a year, under the supervision of anonymous doctors and guards? Gazing at her pale lips, he mostly remembers the sarcasm and harsh words, the teasing, the reproaches, and the howls of rage when she was at her worst. The infamous nickname she liked to use when she wanted to humiliate him: Zuzu.
She will never say it again.
Shock seizes Zuko and rushes at him with the violence of a groundswell. A lump forms in his throat and steals his breathing. His sight blurs and his little sister's waxen face becomes uncertain, almost floating in its sea of saffron flowers.
He catches up in time at the altar she's lying on. One of his hands rests on the white arm and the coldness of her skin chills Zuko's bones.
It's often said of dead people that they look peaceful, or seem to be sleeping. But there is nothing more different from a sleeper than this corpse which is moving away from him at breakneck pace. Even in death, Azula remains a great beauty. The maids did a good job and dressed her well for her passage to the afterlife. But that's not the face he knew. That's not the face he craves to see now.
He thinks of all these years he has to live in a world she no longer belongs to. And he is seized with vertigo at the realization. He will have to continue, pain and guilt stuck in the heart. As the years pass over him and make him a different man, Azula will forever remain a detail of his life, a vague memory tinged with melancholy, the fugitive companion of his childhood. As bright and fleeting as a meteor splitting the night sky.
The last few years have been nothing but distrust, annoyance and resentment. Visits to the asylum were like a chore. He never knew what to say to her, had to deal with these awkward and prolonged silences that settled between them. He always returned deeply relieved to his aircraft, his heart both heavier and lighter than when he arrived, filled with the sense of having done his duty and knowing he was free from it for the next three months.
If he's completely honest, he knows that his daily life will not suffer from her disappearance.
But then why does the gap seem impossible to cross? Where does this chasm come from that expands in his chest and devours everything?
Zuko flips Azula's arm in his hand. He stares blankly at the long, purplish-white scratches that streak her forearms, from the wrist to the elbow. It is from here that blood has flowed, that life has fled this body, miserable bark emptied of its substance.
His other hand gropes in his pocket for the crumpled parchment he's been keeping for three days and can't bring himself to throw away. It is Azula's last letter, the last words she will ever address him, her final cry of despair to which he's chosen to remain deaf. He vowed himself he will keep it forever, as a reminder of the price to pay for his neglect.
And again, fury washed over him, momentarily dispelling the sorrow and guilt. It's been like this for three days. Emotions surge over him in successive waves, sometimes overlapping or fighting each other, unable to coexist peacefully. Until the end, Azula found a way to humiliate him. Even her death is a provocation, an insult to his honor.
Words of comfort do nothing to ease his torment.
"It's not your fault my dear. There was nothing you could do to prevent her from killing herself,"his mother said in tears, taking his hand in hers.
How can she still say that, even after reading Azula's letter? These cruel words are glaring and irrefutable proof of his guilt. They point to Zuko as her killer, even though he's not the hand that held the blade she used to cut her veins.
The corpse was already washed and prepared when it was brought back to him, but the image of his sister, lying in a pool of blood, keeps haunting him, to the point that he can't be sure whether he has witnessed this scene or not.
He wouldn't have felt more guilty had she traced his name in bloody letters on the cold floor of her room at the asylum. His father's accusations, shouted through the bars of his prison cell, continue to echo in Zuko's head, two days later. Although his reproaches have pierced him like deadly daggers to the heart, he can't help but feel a certain form of gratitude for the hated man. There is at least one person who agrees to believe him when he claims his guilt.
"She needed you, and you let her die like a filthy dog! You left her to rot in this asylum. You killed her! You son of a bitch, murderer!"
After that, the former Phoenix King's words had ceased to be intelligible, drowned in a flood of incoherent tears and cries of pain that his son would never have imagined from him.
Finally, it seemed like there was still someone on earth to mourn the princess. Too bad she didn't know.
"Does Father ask about me? Does he think of me in prison?" she asked once, during one of Zuko's visits. The tone was detached, almost indifferent but Zuko could see the pulse in her throat that betrayed her emotion, like some absurd hope she was clinging to.
Zuko didn't hesitate to lie. He had long since decided to avoid any contact between the former Fire Lord and his daughter. It was about national security. Never mind the recommendations of the doctors, the so-called need for the princess to reconnect with her family. If it had made any sense to Azula, she wouldn't have refused their mother's attempts at reconciliation, she wouldn't have spat on the hand that Zuko was offering her.
"Have you written to our Mother?" he asked in response. "She would like to see you. It saddens her that you don't answer her. You're hurting her by acting like this."
It was always the same refrain, the same sterile arguments. How many times had Zuko tried to persuade his stubborn sister that she was wrong about their mother and that she was hurting the whole family by denying the obvious.
"Stop lying to me Zuko, she never loved me! She would never have made the choice to forget me otherwise! She wouldn't have felt the need to have another daughter!"
Zuko hadn't even felt remorse when scalding tears started to form at the edge of her eyelids. He was so tired of listening to her nonsense.
His little sister's tears hadn't reached him for a long time. He'd had to build himself a shell over the years, especially when it became clear that her case was hopeless and her mind would never heal.
But now it is his own tears that fall in large drops from Zuko's eyelids and crash on the face of the one who was once his enemy. It looks like she is crying. In a quarter of an hour at most, the Sages will send a messenger to warn the Fire Lord that it's time. Carriers will come and lift the litter to place it on the pyre where he once saw the body of his grandfather Azulon being consumed and vanished.
Zuko remembers the cruelty and indifference Azula had shown that day when she told him about their mother's disappearance. They had stopped being friends after that. Azula had become Ozai's puppet and he had ceased sharing her games.
She had laughed when their father had burned his face and banished him, years later. She hadn't even come to wish him "good luck", or even tell him…
"Goodbye… She didn't even come to say goodbye to me. And you want me to welcome her with open arms and allow her to come here and braid my hair or help me put on my makeup to forget my pathetic daily life?"
Every time he broached the subject of reconciliation between mother and daughter, Azula would inevitably retort something like that and Zuko didn't know what to say.
Now, as he contemplates her livid face, her eyelids who have already started to sink into their sockets, he knows why he couldn't respond. It was easier to blame Azula for her stubbornness and grievances than to admit the unpleasant truth.
Ursa hadn't say goodbye to her daughter that fateful night. Zuko had spared his mother the questions that tormented him. Ursa had suffered enough. She didn't need to carry all of her daughter's issues, either. If he could forgive her for willfully forgetting him, why couldn't Azula?
If their mother hadn't insisted, Zuko would no doubt have stopped visiting his sister in the past year. He had nothing more to say to her. A wall had been erected between them and an entire universe separated them. How did his role as ruler relate to Azula's prosaic daily life? It's hard to feign an interest in a poor madwoman's non-existent progress, in her derisory arguments with the other residents, to listen to her complain about the effect of the drugs… What is all this triviality when you have a nation to govern?
"Look at those two," she told him once in the visiting room, pointing to a man hugging another resident to say goodbye. Zuko had already stood up, ready to leave after mumbling a hasty goodbye to Azula.
Contempt almost vibrated in her voice as she added, "Each time they inflict on us the spectacle of their tearful embraces. As if he felt the slightest remorse at the idea of leaving her to rot here."
Azula was only gall and bitterness when she spoke of others. She only opened her ruby lips to mock or criticize. Never a kind word, never the hint of regret for what she had done.
Zuko sighed.
"So what? Maybe they're really sad to part ways," he replied absentmindedly.
"Pff, this is bullshit! We are all undesirables here. As soon as your filial or conjugal duty is accomplished, you, visitors, go back without looking at us. If you want my opinion, this man is a hypocrite and what he's doing to this poor girl is pure cruelty. Letting her believe he cares…"
Zuko said nothing, horribly embarrassed. How did she manage to always make him uncomfortable, send him back to his own negligence, his own incompetence as a brother. This time, however, he felt the need to push the conversation a little further:
"He might as well stop visiting her, just sending a letter now and then. Do you think that would be less cruel?"
Azula had not taken her eyes off the couple who was still hugging.
"I think he should stop giving her false hope," she replied grimly. Then, she spoke more briskly: "At least, with you, I know what to expect… Your goodbyes are so... formal."
Did she just say...? Was she suggesting that he should...?
"Would you like," he tried, blushing furiously, "Would you like me to hug you when I leave?"
His sister's cheeks flushed even more and she looked away sharply. Then, a little to late maybe, she burst into a forced and awkward laugh that caught the attention of their closest neighbors.
"You and me, Zuzu, hugging like this? Be serious! We are siblings, not lovers."
"Sokka and Katara do so when they leave each other for a long time," he said innocently.
He was not sure what made him insist on getting an embrace he didn't want.
"It's probably a peasant custom," she scoffed. "Let's not forget that they are barbarians." Then she added: "Wouldn't we look completely stupid if we did the same thing?"
Zuko didn't know if it was just his imagination or if Azula's voice had really become softer, almost hesitant.
"I was just asking, that's all. I just wanted to be sure," he replied, not sure if he felt offended or deeply relieved by her refusal.
Then she gave him an uncertain look, her cheeks a deep red. An uncomfortable silence settled and lingered between them. Zuko didn't know how to name what he read in her amber eyes. It was quite similar to the glances Ursa would give him at first, after their reunion, when she wasn't sure whether or not she still had the right to hug him or take his hand. For the first time in a long time, the resemblance between mother and daughter struck Zuko, but the feeling faded the second Azula opened her mouth to speak and let out her venom:
"If there's one thing I'm grateful for in the midst of all this horror you inflict on me, it's that you at least have the decency to spare me your so-called brotherly tenderness! Really, can you imagine us, you and me, hugging like that?" she echoed herself, cackling awkwardly. "That would be really stupid, right?"
"Yeah, stupid," he mutters now, contemplating the mess, his voice rising in the silence of the empty room where he stands, next to his little sister's corpse. Would things have gone differently if he had decided to hug her despite his own reluctance and Azula's sarcasm?
From outside, he hears the voices of a crowd gathering around the place. He is surprised that so many people come to attend her funeral. It's quite comforting to know that the people have responded, that her funeral will be worthy of the princess she was. He thinks of the eulogy the Fire Sages wrote and showed him yesterday. Nothing in this speech resembles what she was at the end of her life. The Elders glorified her precocious and prodigious gifts, her audacity, her intellectual skills, her incredible beauty. It's fine. This is what Azula would have wanted but Zuko knows that these words are hollow, that they omitted what was essential.
When he thinks of the past six years, he only sees the shadow of the proud young girl she was. A teenager who sacrificed her sanity to please her megalomaniac father, who secretly mourned her mother's abandonment, who took reckless risks to bring her disgraced brother back to the palace. A girl who talked about owning the world while she only craved her family's love.
A magnificent blue-scaled dragon now brocken and stripped of its wings. And he knows who is responsible for its downfall.
He only has a few minutes left to look at her before she's just a pile of ash. He tries to engrave in his memory every detail of her face. He would like to see her eyes one last time, but they are closed forever. With a hint of panic, he realizes that he's no longer certain of their color. He thinks for a moment to lift her eyelids to try to see the iris, but a long shiver runs through his spine at this idea and he gives up.
Mother said goodbye this morning. He had to supported her when she left the room, her eyes filled with tears, her legs too wobbly to carry her. Kiyi also came, her throat tight, laying her slender ten-year-old girl's hand on that of the older sister she would never have the opportunity to bound with.
"Kiyi told me that you were rude to mom the last time they came. That you refused their gift", he had blamed her during his last visit.
"I never asked them to bring me those stupid cakes that stick to your fingers and teeth. If Mother knew me, she would know that I hate these things!"
"You never let her get to know you. You don't talk to her when she comes, you don't answer her letters. How do you expect her to guess? You were eight when she left and you loved those cakes back then."
"I don't care about her vulgar cakes," she muttered, looking down at her feet.
Feeling the anger boiling up inside him, he stepped out onto the balcony for some fresh air. From there, he could contemplate the sea. How could his sister have the nerve to complain about her internment conditions?
A scarlet disk was slowly descending toward the silvery line of the sea. When he returned a few minutes later to retrieve his abandoned belongings from the desk in Azula's bedroom, a golden light was carpeting the floor and walls. Zuko suddenly felt a deep melancholy.
Azula was waiting, her hands hidden behind her back. He knew why she hid them like this. If he had seen how fiercely she was digging her nails into the skin of her hands, he would have lost his temper. He chooses to feign ignorance this time. He was in a hurry to put an end to this. Mai was waiting for him at the palace, a day's flight from that grim place. They had planned to announce her pregnancy to their friends the following evening and he was stamping with anticipation at the idea of this night.
He had wondered if he should tell Azula about it, but he had changed his mind when he saw her dull gaze, her pale face and the dark circles under her eyes. There would be plenty of time to tell herabout the baby. It wasn't like she was going to spend much time with her nephew.
Obviously Azula had perceived his haste. She was already handing him his mantle. He felt a hint of annoyance. Why did she always seem reading in him like in an open book?
"When will you come back to see me?" she asked in a falsely detached tone.
"I'll be back this summer for your birthday, like every year."
Zuko had been careful to hide the lassitude in his voice, but he was sure Azula had heard it anyway.
"It's in three months," she noticed.
It could as easily be an observation as a reproach. Zuko froze. She couldn't sincerely want these visits. It was awkward and painful for both of them. He supposed that if not a source of comfort, her brother's presence must distract her, allow her to break for a few hours with the monotony of her daily life.
"Indeed," he replied, "It's in three months. Alright, I will..."
"Yes."
Despite the mild spring air, the atmosphere in the room was polar.
She accompanied him to the door. He turned to face her and stared at a point a few inches above her shoulder. It was always harder to look her in the eye when leaving.
"I'll say hello to Mother and Kiyi for you," he announced.
"I'm sure you will."
Suppressing a sigh, he turned the doorknob in his hand.
"Goodbye, Azula. If you need anything, let your doctors know."
He expected no response. Azula never said goodbye to him. So he was slightly surprised when she called out to him:
"Zuko, wait!"
"What?" he asked, trying to suppress any hint of annoyance in his voice.
Azula was standing in front of him, her eyes downcast on her hands which she was twisting nervously between her fingers. Her cheeks were a deep red. She had never seemed so unsure.
"Well, it's… There's this little party the sanitarium decided to organize for the solstice in three weeks. It won't be much, but there will be a buffet, a firebending show and fireworks.
"Okay…" Zuko replied slowly. "It sounds nice. And would you like to participate? You know you don't need my permission to join this kind of events?"
He was a little surprised. Azula was not one to mingle with others and social gatherings were usually repulsive to her. Her cheeks were still flushed pink and her voice sounded impossibly small to Zuko when she continued, still unable to look at him.
"It's just… we are allowed to invite someone."
Azula looked like a little girl confessing to her mother that she had just done something bad and Zuko felt his heart clench painfully in his chest. There was a long awkward silence, then:
"And you want…you want me to come with you?" he whispered.
"Only if you can!" she added hastily, throwing him a furtive glance.
"I can suggest to Ty Lee if you prefer to go with a friend," he offered, terribly uncomfortable, wanting to slip away as soon as possible.
"Yes, I thought about that too. But it's just… the doctors think it's better if I go with someone in my family."
Azula always lies.
Zuko didn't know why the sentence he repeated to himself like a mantra when they were kids, had chosen this moment to force its way into his memory.
"Well, I'll think about it. I'll give you an answer in my next letter, okay?"
"Yes okay."
Azula ran a shaking hand through her hair, looking in the opposite direction, as if trying to avoid his gaze at all costs.
Zuko hesitated. Should he kiss her, put his hand on her shoulder, hug her?
That would be really stupid, right?
"You should go, right? Your balloon is waiting for you..."
"Yeah," he replied, running a hand through his hair in turn in a desperate attempt to look relaxed. "I' have to go. Well, goodbye Azula. See you soon I guess."
And he left the room, without looking back.
He didn't know that was the last time he saw her. Had he be aware oh this, he probably would have turned around. He would have searched her gaze for a long time to engrave it in his memory before leaving her room. He would have squeezed her scratched little hand in his own to feel the warmth emanating from it one last time. He would have hugged her for a long time to tell her, without the need for words, that she mattered to him despite everything.
Things would probably have turned out differently if he hadn't been such a coward. But at the time, the desire to put as much distance as possible between them, to temporarily get rid of the chore outweighed everything else. More than the disappointment he'd thought he saw in her amber eyes when he told her he wouldn't be back for three months ; more than the anxiety in her voice when she had offered him to accompany her to her stupid party.
Before she could add anything, he'd opened the door, nodded to the two guards posted there, and started walking down the hallway that led to the atrium. Each step away from his sister eased the weight in his stomach. In the aircraft, he was able to breathe normally again. The tension slowly left him. The next evening, when he announced to his friends, his heart full with joy, that the new heir of the Fire Nation would arrive in October, he was no longer thinking of the solstice, nor of the hesitant voice of his little sister, nor of her rosy cheeks in the evening dying glows.
Zuko pulls out a chair to sit near the altar and he takes the dead woman's hand in his.
He wipes an unwelcome tear that has just invited to his cheek without ceasing to caress the marbled skin.
When he'd received Azula's letter a few days earlier, he suddenly remembered the party and cursed. The solstice had passed for two days and he had forgotten.
You're lying, an unpleasant voice sneers in his head that sounds like Azula's.
No, if he's completely honest, he knows he had thought about it that very morning. But it was too late already, and he had a busy day. Azula would understand. Besides, he hadn't promised her anything.
She must have known that a man of his importance had little time to waste on trivialities. What sane person would want to spend an evening in a bunch of lunatics' company? It was embarrassing enough to be recognized by other visitors and residents when he would come to see Azula at the asylum.
"I need you," the letter said.
I need…
Azula always needed something. She always needed more comfort, new clothes, new creams or lotions, when it wasn't untraceable books published in only a few copies at old bookstores... Zuko bent over backwards but it was never good enough for the capricious princess. The sumptuous dresses he brought her never suited her: they were too large or too small, they didn't suit her perfect complexion. The lipstick he brought her was either too flashy or dull. The teeth of the comb ached when she ran it through her ebony hair.
"I don't have time!" he complained to Mother, who was asking him, Azula's letter in hand, if he intended to go to the sanatorium. "I went there less than three weeks ago! What else can she want from me? Yes I should have told her that I couldn't come to her stupid party! We are not going to give in to all her whims."
"I don't know," his mother worried. "Usually she tells you clearly what she needs, right? Aren't you intrigued? "I need you,"" Ursa read again. "Maybe it's more serious than we think, right? You should have told me about this party, I would have accompanied her."
"No," he replied, rubbing his face, suddenly exhausted. "She would never have accepted, you know that. I know very well what she wants. With her, it's always in purpose. She probably hopes to convince me to stop her treatment."
Azula never missed an opportunity to draw his attention to the disastrous effects she suffered, according to her, from the "fire suppressors" as she called them. Ever since she was forced to take these drugs that annihilated her chi, she complained constantly. He had no choice though: he couldn't let her use her bending.
"She doesn't care about this party: it's just a pretext to manipulate me and remind me of what a cruel and heartless brother I am. I don't know what she had in mind when she asked me to accompany her. I don't have time," he repeated. "If she really needs something, she just has to state it clearly. I'm tired of having to guess what she's feeling."
"Do you want me to go instead?" suggested Ursa who didn't look serene. "I found her depressed the last time I saw her. She had lost weight and she was restless, like when she heard voices."
"No, don't" he snapped. "She'll be mad if you come without telling her. I don't want you to suffer her wrath again. I know how hard it is for you. I put her there. I know it's for her own good, but it's my choice, my responsibility. I will go to her after the Grand Political Summit. Azula can wait, it's not like she has anything important to do."
Early summer was the season for meetings and diplomatic relationships. Emissaries from all over the world and from other nations arrived at the palace every day and Zuko had to increase social events to welcome them, maintain the image of an open and considerate sovereign, attend all the meetings. Usually, Mai handled these chores wonderfully, but the pregnancy was exhausting her, and Zuko couldn't get away from his worldly duties indefinitely. His presence was essential. Azula was fully aware of that and it was only too obvious that she was doing it on purpose.
"Every year, it's the same story. Every year, something happens: when she doesn't go on a hunger strike, it's a fight that breaks out because of her, or else it's an escape attempt. It's her way of drawing attention to herself. If we want her to heal, we must prevent her from replicating these mechanisms. She must understand that everything does not revolve around her, and then I need you here to help me prepare for social events. I can't ask Mai in her condition."
His decision was adamant. He would visit Azula the next week after the summit and write a letter to her doctors asking them to make sure she didn't need anything. Azula had already gone longer periods without receiving visitors. She could wait a few more days. Ursa looked reassured. And they hadn't talked about it anymore.
Then the messenger arrived.
When the herald showed it to him, Zuko immediately recognized the dagger with which she killed herself. The one Uncle Iroh gave him when he was a child. No doubt Azula had stolen it during his last visit, while he was breathing on the balcony. Zuko hadn't even noticed its disparition, he was in too much of a hurry to put some distance between them. Why did she wait so long to use it? Had she stolen it, hoping that would make him return sooner?
Never give up without a fight the inscription engraved on the blade said.
The irony makes him want to scream.
"You knew you would wreak havoc on my mind using that dagger, didn't you?" he whispers to her corpse. "That was your intention, right?"
His voice seems strangely distant to him in the quiet atmosphere of the room. It looks like he hasn't used it for days. It's a little scratchy, as if he had been forced to swallow earth.
He would give anything to hear her sarcasm, to suffer her reproaches. Anything was better than this eternal hopeless silence that sounded in his ears harder than her meanest insults, her most scathing retorts.
Suddenly, he thinks about what Azula's life has been for the past six years and a deep grief surged in him.
For unfortunate and deprived ones, happiness comes from a loving embrace, from a squeeze of the hand, from a seddy firework in the courtyard of a madhouse.
He consideres what selfishness, cowardice and resentment have cost him and how they have tainted his soul, he who thought he was doing right, he who was convinced he was on the good side.
The others may tell him, tirelessly, that it's not his fault, that Azula was too sick and that she would have acted exactly the same in other circumstances. He can't help but wonder: what if? What if he hadn't pretended not to understand when she showed him this couple hugging to say goodbye? If he hadn't ignored her slightly extended hand on the table during that other visit, hoping perhaps that he would take it in his own? If he hadn't consciously omitted to go to this party?
The door opens and an ominous creak echoes against the walls of the room. An old man wearing a high hat and a chin adorned with a long gray beard appears. Zuko recognizes him: he's the priest who will preside over the funeral.
"Fire Lord? It's time. Have you said goodbye to the Princess?"
Zuko knows this moment is going to happen ever since he walked into this room. That doesn't decrease the shock he feels.
I'm not ready. I'm not ready for that! a voice screams in his head.
He fears what is to come. What if he loses his mind in front of the crowd gathered in the main square where the ceremony will take place? What if he starts screaming, or bursts into tears when they carry her to the pyre? If he suddenly clings to Azula's corpse the moment they pull her away from him? He realizes he can't stand the thought of her body being destroyed. He would like to keep it in a crypt, bury it, like they do in the Earth Kingdom. At least that way she would continue to exist somewhere, even in an altered form. It seems cruel to him at this moment to cremate her. He feels like he's getting rid of her. It's like throwing her back into the asylum, but with no prospect of getting out.
He understands that he never intended to free her. It was comforting to know her there, in her golden prison, to be able to keep an eye on her, to control her life. Even if they couldn't stand nor understand each other, it was good to know that she still existed somewhere and that he could see her as often as he wanted.
Azula has found a way to escape him. Of course she had to do it in the cruellest way. Would her tormented spirit finally find the peace she longed for? What if her soul couldn't find its way? If some demon captured it on its journey? If Azula felt alone? Even more alone than during the miserable life he imposed on her?
"Fire Lord?" shyly asks the priest who witnesses, ignorant, the silent storm that unfolds in the mind of the young sovereign. Miraculously, Zuko finds the strength to answer in a flat voice:
"Give me a minute, please."
"Of course, Your Majesty. I'll be waiting behind this door for you to be ready."
The old man leaves the room and Zuko finds himself alone with Azula.
Her immobility is like an insult, her silence a perjury. Right now, he hates her for inflicting such maddening pain on him. He hates her like he's never hated her. He wants to tear the flowers from the pots around him. He wants to sweep away the saffron petals on which she rests and set them ablaze. He wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her inert body until it comes back to life. He wants to scream, he wants to hold her against him and hug her, hug her until she turns into dust in his arms.
Zuko comes to his senses. He walks slowly towards the altar and covered his sister's hand with his own.
That would be stupid, right?
He almost thinks he hears her voice and is surprised that her lips haven't moved. He wonders if her soul is still imprisoned in this body. Is she afraid? Is she cold? Zuko looks around to make sure they are alone.
When he lifts her, orange petals escape in small swirls and fall soundlessly on the marble floor, golden flakes falling silently on the immaculate snow. He is amazed to find her so light. Her arms hang limply on either side of her body and her mouth opens slightly. He backs up to the chair near the altar and sits down. There, he holds her tightly against him, in the pose of a mother cradling her child. He breathes in a whiff of the perfume the servants have sprayed on her to conceal the acrid smell of death. It's like holding a rag doll. He shivers at the coldness of her skin. Zuko takes a deep breath and a gentle warmth radiates from his entire body as his inner fire rises within him.
Azula's fire has gone forever. He will never see the azure hue of her flames again, the ones he so desperately tried to suppressed.
He tries to warm the corpse using his own bending. He quickly gives up. What death has touched, fire doesn't warm. The cold that emanates from Azula's body is like the winter wind that engulfs everything and overcomes the brightest flame. Zuko feels it seeping through the pores of his skin, enveloping his heart which he feels wither in his chest. It goes to his head in the form of thousands of small sharp crystals that pierce his skull.
It's senseless, he thinks. If Katara had been there, she could have saved Azula. But his little sister died alone, bleeding to death on the cold floor of her room in the asylum. Did she regret her fateful decision at the end, when she felt herself leaving? Was she scared? Did she call for help? Did she call him or their mother?
"Forgive me Azula," he manages to stammer between two sobs, kissing her pale forehead. "Forgive me."
And as he tightens his grip around her body, so close yet so far away from him, he tells himself that maybe it wasn't that stupid after all.
The crowd is gathered in the square and observes a respectful silence, all eyes directed towards the raised platform where the mourning members of the royal family and their closest friends stand: the Avatar, the famous war heroes Sokka and Katara and the young Beifong. Queen Mother Ursa cries into the shoulder of her son, the Fire Lord who valiantly strives to remain dignified. But one can tell, by the way his lips quiver, how affected he is. The young Ty Lee, a little behind, has hidden her face in her hands and her shoulders are shaking uncontrollably.
When the priest, after delivering a speech as edifying as it was moving, sets fire to the pyre on which lies the lifeless body of the princess, the crowd hold its breath.
The flames devour the first logs and gradually lick the edges of the litter. We hear it crackle and this sound covers the silence that has fallen on the main square.
Then something happens.
When they talk about it later, Zuko will say he always knew something like this would happen. At the time, however, he can't believe it.
As the fire attacks Azula's lifeless body, the orange flames gradually color. A dazzling azure blue flares up, hiding the princess from plain sight. The crowd emits exclamations both frightened and amazed.
When the fire is at its highest, an azure vapor fills the sky and a gigantic but magnificent form rises up into the clouds.
Finally freed, the energy that had been contained in Azula's body for too long takes its flight and Zuko recognizes it. It's a formidable dragon with magnificent cerulean scales.
A tear rolling down his scar-ravaged cheek, Zuko gazes after it until it disappears, swallowed by the dazzling disk of the sun.
One day, I promise, I'll write something light and heartwarming.
This text was purely cathartic and had clung to my mind after a reflection I had on the duties that we had (or didn't have) towards the members of our families. In particular the most fragile and the most failing ones.
It's less elegant to quote Dumbledore than Michel Audiard, but it really fits with the situation I described, so: "Do not pity the dead. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love."
Hope you liked this oneshot. Please, let me a review :)
