There'd been a time that Azula and Zuko played freely and wildly together, unlike royal children, and very like feral animals. They would tackle one another or leap down from high places, sparks trailing from their lips and fingertips. Other times their teeth were somehow sharper, and gnashing, and they would bite and claw at each other in a way that frightened the servants.
It angered Ozai and frightened Ursa. They were ordered to stop.
oOo
Azula and Zuko had always been rough with one another. Sometimes Azula was truly cruel to her brother; other times, Zuko was truly kind to his sister. Their sibling relationship was uncanny to most who witnessed it. They were both rivals and comrades. Though their parents did not see it, they were a matching set.
Eventually, Azula and Zuko stopped seeing it as well. When Ozai burned off half her brother's face, and banished him, Azula mirrored her father's take on the matter, and pushed him out of her mind. Still, he snaked back in, and she remembered how they once played together in the middle of the night.
Azula felt herself going mad at times. She hated missing her brother.
But they were a matching set.
Ozai could not understand. She had no desire to make him understand.
She wanted the throne for herself, and a smooth, beautiful face.
oOo
Father wanted to imprison Zuko. Azula just wanted him home.
If the arrangements needed to be changed once he was there, Azula was confident she could have it changed when she desired. She was, after all, the Crown Princess.
The Fire Lord loomed over her. She was merely his weapon. Though frequently, her will was found to match his.
Or, so she told herself.
oOo
Azula was eager to strike down the Dragon of the West.
A false god. An enemy.
Her brother was a fool to trust him.
oOo
Her brother felt it. His loyalties were a mess, of course, but there was something to be said when they stood by one another. Even if she was the prodigy, the chosen one-her brother had worth. He had strength. She could best him in most ways, but then again, she could best most people.
There was one person she was not certain she could best, but dreamed traitorously of doing so.
Her teeth felt unusually sharp in her mouth. She was hungry.
She was every bit of the monster her mother said she was.
But standing beside her brother, she knew she wasn't the only one. She felt it, their symmetry.
She knew he knew it, when she let her nails slice across his neck. He growled and his eyes flashed, and he reached to swipe at her himself.
They did not play as they did when they were children. There was blood on their hands now, and Azula could think of all the ways she could kill him. She felt wild again, her brother chasing after her-two monsters trapezing across a ship in the night, Mai and Ty Lee and numerous attendants and soldiers looking on warily.
oOo
She lied to Ozai. She wasn't afraid. It was the way to bring Zuko home.
oOo
Ozai's interest in Zuko faded after a week or so. He simply was unimpressed. Finally, his son was not a complete failure-but he was hardly exceptional. He was quiet.
Of course, Azula knew that Zuko was brash and loud and wore his heart on his sleeve. It was annoying at times, though it had the benefit of making him predictable. Safe. Azula trusted him in ways she would never articulate, nor would she dare, if she could.
Zuko was afraid of the hand that burned him.
Azula tried not to be. With Zuko near, Ozai would always see her as better.
oOo
Zuko did not want to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground.
"You just captured Ba Sing Se, and it will be razed," he told her. His eyes were flashing.
He meant, Father will destroy your treasure, your prize. How can you let him take it from you?
But Zuko was also soft. He mourned when Lu Ten died, and when their mother left, and even when their uncle went to prison. He felt guilt deeply, and recalled whatever rustic virtue there was to simple, Earth Kingdom peasants.
Azula did not understand his wanting. But she did understand losing something she wanted.
She understood what it meant to so easily dismiss one of her more impressive accomplishments.
She seethed, and tried to claw at his neck again. He bit her hand.
oOo
Azula dared.
She had never so defiantly dared before. Her survival instinct was much more developed than her brother's.
Her father's eyes flashed. They were not like Zuko's, really. Neither were his teeth. They were ordinary teeth, and Azula was fairly certain Zuko did have ordinary teeth, but somehow, they just weren't the same.
She felt dread. Ice in her veins.
Her father cupped the left side of her face ever-so gently. He smiled down on her. It was like a predator finding its prey.
She tried to back away, but he grabbed her hair.
The hand was warm. Then it was hot.
And then her brother dared, too, much more brazenly.
The hand was gone.
oOo
"Let this be a lesson to you, daughter."
She watched as the other half of her brother's face burned.
oOo
Zuko was not supposed to be up, but he was. He fumbled around in the dark toward her, his hand stretched out in front of him, the right side of his face heavily bandaged.
Ozai did not send him away again. Instead, he announced that he was simply no longer in line for the throne.
Azula did not graze him with her nails. She let him slide against the wall of her room to the floor while she paced in front of him, waiting.
"Tomorrow is the eclipse," he said. Let us rip out Ozai's throat. I'm hungry. Aren't you?
oOo
Zuko is supposed to be attended to by a physician. He is not.
Azula is supposed to wait in one of the false chambers with the Dai Li. She does not.
Ozai is supposed to be fooled. He is not.
Azula thinks they will die, full of lightning, agony the last thing she knows. They do not.
oOo
Ozai will have his kill before a small audience. They are traitors and they are weak. Neither were popular. Azula only feels rage and fear and pain-the pain might kill her before the execution-and her body curls on a cold floor somewhere dark and deep.
Zuko is there with her. They are a matched set.
Revenge revenge revenge revenge he chants in her head. Or maybe she chants in her head. Let us rip out his throat.
She wonders if she was ever not a monster. Maybe Zuko wasn't, but she's not sure. They are cornered now, dirty, wounded animals. But there are still sparks on her breath. She dreams of the Fire Throne. Of gold. Of blue.
I'm hungry, says his voice in her head. Something isn't lining up.
She dreams of the garden when she was a young child. She killed the turtleducks, and her brother was upset.
Mother was mad. Monster.
No.
She opens her eyes, and her brother is there. The old scar faces her, a single, golden-slit eye staring back.
oOo
Azula basks under Agni's warmth, kneeling, in chains upon a small stage of sorts. She pays the audience and the Fire Sages no mind.
Mother speaks to her. Zuko speaks to her. She does not know the difference.
The sun is high. She does not know how to pray. Zuko might; he might be praying beside her. His gaze is vacant, and the bandage is gone. The wound is still fresh and ugly and festering. She knows he can't see much of anything. A shame.
But he basks, too, his head tilted just slightly toward the sky.
Everything aches or throbs. She feels sick.
How could Father do this to her?
I am hungry I am hungry I am hungry her brother chants.
Sharp teeth.
Slowly, she turns her head to see Ozai. He does not look at her. The Fire Sage reads aloud their crimes and failures.
She looks up into the sun instead. She could fly into it, she thinks. She could whip herself through the wind and into the sky. She could feast.
I am hungry I am hungry I am
She doesn't know the moment it happens. But suddenly she is pulling her brother up, and the chains are too tight. And then, everyone screams.
oOo
Her brother shreds apart a koala-sheep with his teeth and claws, the length of his body curling inward. Azula drapes herself across a rock face, her wings stretched out on display. The ocean laps against the beach below.
No one comes across them. If they did, her brother would eat them.
oOo
When the Comet comes, they descend upon the palace again. They land on the roof, shaking off the tiles, and slip into a residential wing. They are seen clearly, and the staff flee. Azula sets the curtains on fire with a single breath. Her body winds through the window until it condenses, and when she glances behind her, her brother does the same.
He looks in her general direction, but his eyes do not connect with hers.
They choose matching robes.
They are a matched set.
oOo
They sit behind a wall of flames that flash blue and orange. The Avatar does not bow, nor do his companions. Iroh is behind them. No one arrests them.
"Uncle?" Zuko asks hopefully when he hears his voice. "Is that you?"
Azula wants to snap at him. He does not know how to speak. His voice is always soft and weak, and it betrays him as vulnerable.
Iroh is horrified, as he should be; her brother's face is grotesque. No one shall look upon it without fear.
"My nephew, what has happened to you?"
"Ozai," he responds. There isn't much to say besides that.
(Iroh does not see the lightning scars; he does not see what should have killed them both. They sit calmly, and there is no reason to stand. A dull ache promises to permeate the rest of their lives.)
"He betrayed us; the throne is ours," Azula adds. "It is our right."
"It is only your right if the war ends," the Avatar says. For a twelve-year-old, he has a lot of conviction.
"And it shall," Zuko says beside her. She doesn't spare him a glance. "We have no desire to raze the Earth Kingdom to the ground. It is time that the Fire Nation rebuilds itself outside of war. It is time we move on."
oOo
Azula did not want to give up Ba Sing Se, but her brother nearly tore her hand off over it. The colonies were another matter, and one that nearly started another war. The Avatar had walked within their grasp as if they would not eat him, and demanded the colonies be freed. Azula was not consoled by the fact the Earth Kingdom would also have no claim.
Zuko remained in the Fire Nation to oversee the dedication of a veterans' hospital; Azula attended the first council meeting for the newly-founded Republic City alongside the Avatar. Most remained wary of her, but the boy was simply foolish.
"Fire Lord Azula," he said pleasantly, and she frowned down at him. "You know, I forgave you. For trying to kill me, in Ba Sing Se."
She blinks. "I never required your forgiveness, nor do I regret my actions in war."
His smile did not falter. "I know. But I wanted to tell you." He stops and looks directly at her. "You know, you're really scary sometimes, but I think you're a good Fire Lord. You and your brother. It's like, he figures out all the peace-stuff, and you make everyone actually do the peace-stuff."
"How astute."
oOo
The Avatar, annoying child that he is, follows her out onto a balcony. It quickly cleared out for the two of them.
"Fire Lord Azula."
"Avatar Aang."
They say nothing for a while. There's a sunset over the water, and petals in the air.
She studies him while he looks outward. He is still a boy, yes, still soft and vulnerable, but he will be a man soon enough. He eventually catches her looking.
"What are you thinking about?"
She frowns, pointedly looking away. They are not friends.
"My brother," she lies easily. The Avatar hums in agreement.
"You two are very close, I can tell."
She snorts. "I wouldn't say that. We're just..." She leans against the railing, watching a distant ship in the harbor. If she wanted, she could meet it-she would twist through the air, graceful spirals and all, free and ever-powerful. She could torch all the little people as she went, and their pitiful houses; she could snatch up that ostrich-horse, pulling a little gig at the dock, and rip out its throat, its blood on her teeth and down her scales just like-
"We're the same. A matching set," she decides.
(There is no one else like us.)