Several days later, Azula rested her body and sharpened her mind with meditation. The Avatar had informed her, via letter, that he would be arriving today for a visit. And so she had refrained from exercising; it wouldn't do to present an unseemly, fatigued appearance to her foe. Anything to distance herself from the image of the vulnerable, bound prisoner he had initially encountered.
Afternoon approached. She happened to be watching the sky for no real reason, simply observing the clouds. The flying beast came into view, its shadow passing over her as it settled on the eastern shore of the island.
During her hunts in that savage, foreign land, spotting the sky beast, even traces of him like shed fur or its triple set of footprints, filled her with a sense of excitement. That her prey was near. That her time to capture the Avatar had come. The satisfaction she would derive from besting the boy that had troubled her empire and vexed her brother had thrummed in her veins. She would prove herself superior to him and thus superior to all whom had failed to capture him.
After over a month since his last visit, a sense of relief accompanied his return. A growing fear bottled inside her was quieted.
So long as the Avatar visited her, Azula knew that she was not forgotten. That they still feared her. Feared what she was capable of. The most powerful people in the world were concerned about her actions and future. Azula knew that she still mattered.
History had yet to be written. Her captivity was only a chapter that she would have amended to make herself look more favorable after she was properly enshrined amongst past Fire Lords. The betrayed princess overcoming all obstacles to reclaim her throne, whose rule lead her country to unprecedented prosperity, creating global unity under the banner of a superior nation.
Azula took a spot under a tree in the park. The nurses or the Avatar could find her for themselves. She didn't feel like making it so easy for him by coming as he beckoned. Couldn't have him thinking she was too predictable and pliant.
She stood waiting, counting controlled breaths. Over one-hundred breaths later, the usual clamor of small talk his presence inevitably invoked reached her.
He spoke with a few of the other patients that also roamed the small park, greeting them easily before moving on. Awe lingered in their eyes as he passed.
He never glanced about, but headed straight for her, as if he had known exactly where she was. But how…?
Ah, the little earthbender. They must have learned it from the same teacher. That tracking could be troublesome to deal with in the future.
Her mind toyed with the idea of the Avatar hunting her if she made her escape from the island. Her pulse quickened as she played out the scenario. That would be an interesting challenge.
She eyed him with a frown as he approached, his mouth splitting into a jovial grin upon seeing her. Azula remembered quite keenly that she stood taller than he for all their encounters. Even on his previous visit. Now the Avatar was her equal in height. He seemed to be growing rapidly. Was that the norm for boys? Zuko had growth spurts around that age, hadn't he?
"Disapproval already, Princess? I haven't even had the opportunity to offend you yet." He gave her a light, respectful bow in greeting. When he raised his head, she could see he had not lost his grin.
Her inspection continued. His shoulders were broadening as well. Muscles becoming more defined. It seemed he wasn't ignoring his own physical training either. That brought a troubling realization.
She hadn't taken into consideration that the Avatar would be growing as well, though it was obvious in hindsight. The world's most powerful warrior still had not reached his apex. And she was already behind where she should be; in many ways, but especially with her bending.
A sense of dread crawled into her as she considered how her subconscious would handle this information. Azula mentally shook off the thoughts.
She stayed leaned back against a tree, arms crossed. "There is plenty about you I find offensive."
He mirrored her posture, finding a tree opposite of hers. "Name three things," he challenged.
She smirked. "Your voice cracks, young Avatar."
Mortification instantly warped his face. "That only happened once!"
The sight of his reddened cheeks filled Azula with smug glee. Her experience with mocking Zuko's gangly countenance seemed universal. Living spirit or no, all boys were sensitive about that awkward transition into manhood. Briefly, the thought occurred if her father had been the same way.
"Ah, you wouldn't know what it's like." Aang dragged a hand down his face and shook his head. "It even happened while I was escorting a group of refugees from a flood. No one laughed… except a bunch of the girls in the back. But I could tell they all wanted to!"
The mighty Avatar, savior of the world, heckled by a group of giggling girls. The vision made her smile in amusement.
"Ugh. Girls are lucky with their voices, especially you. Yours is so…"
"My voice is what, Avatar?"
The sharp warning tone seemed to sail past him as he wore a thoughtful expression. "It's… fearsome. Commanding… Captivating?"
"Captivating?" she repeated, speaking the word with complete calm.
Aang nodded to himself. "Captivating. It's really hard to forget something when you say it. Or maybe it's the way you say it."
Azula looked at him oddly. She was uncertain about how to feel about that statement, so she set it aside for future analysis.
"Are you hungry, Princess? Since I'm a little later today, I was a hoping you'd join me for lunch." He held up a hefty looking parcel, its contents tied together with a large neckerchief.
Food from outside the island was a rarity she hadn't experienced since her short stay at the palace, when her fate had been decided by the global powers… and the boy standing before her. She knew she had not been served their finest cuisine, having eaten the majority of her life's meals in the palace.
She nodded her consent and lead him to a bench. They sat with the food set between them.
The princess scrutinized her meal after the being handed a box of finely cut bamboo. Komodo chicken and rice, a reliable meal that she had always been sure to finish even in her childhood. Her mother had teased her for being something of a picky eater. A cup of her preferred tea to wash it down.
The enemy thought to feed her, and yet she accepted the still warm food from him. She considered whether it was poison. But she felt no true trepidation for it. Even if he were the Avatar, whom she had always been taught to despise as an enemy seeking to undermine her great empire, her mind could not conjure the image of him knowingly giving her a contaminated meal.
What kind of face would he even make? As she struggled for every gasp until her life was spent. She tried to imagine him with an evil smile while gazing over her prone body. She snorted with laughter.
The Avatar paused his ingestion. "Did you think of a good joke?"
"Indeed I did," she answered, a dark smile gracing her painted lips.
Aang knew he was probably better off not knowing. Azula's mind could go to places that he made an effort to veer away from. But he was glad that she found joy in it. For the most part.
He nearly opened his mouth to say something while chewing. But clamped down on the urge, determined to follow proper etiquette in her presence, at least for the most part. He didn't want her to feel disrespected.
Once he swallowed the delicious, vegetarian morsel, he said, "I'm glad we get to do this again. This is a lot better than the meetings I've had to attend."
Azula eyed him as she ate, careful not to let the consumption smear her makeup. It was quite good, the distinctness of the flavor struck her tongue. She could instantly tell her meal had been prepared by her favored cook in the palace. If memory served, her mother had hired the man. That was unlikely to be a coincidence, that her favorite meal had been prepared by her favorite cook. The Avatar had done further research into her life, it seemed.
She attempted to assuage the feelings of gratitude that welled within her at the thought. If she let him butter her up with food, Azula would be finished.
The doctor had mentioned that the Avatar always spoke of her as though she were good company. Did he actually miss speaking with her? She couldn't imagine why. She'd decided to be largely cordial, but had never been pleasant to him. Was she even certain how to pretend to be anymore?
Presumably, due both to his duties as the bridge between worlds, the mediator between nations, and his nature as a nomad, he came into contact with more people than even the most industrious of merchants.
What then could he possibly gain from their interactions that couldn't be fulfilled from one of the dozens or hundreds of people that he encountered?
When she thought about it from his perspective and place in the world, he truly had no place here, within these walls. And perhaps especially not with her.
What are you doing here?
His extended absence and sudden return had caused such questions to arise. But she couldn't simply ask him these things directly.
She dabbed the corner her mouth with a neckerchief that had been packed with the food. "And here I thought you'd forgotten little ole me as you gallivanted about the world."
"Gallivanting kind of makes it sound fancier that it is…" His face became worried. "You did get my letters, right? About why I couldn't visit?"
"Not to fret, Avatar. I received the reading material you penned for me. Your time seems to be in high demand. If I'm not mistaken," which of course she wasn't, having committed the details he slipped into his letters to her considerable memory. "You last mentioned an exchange of prisoners."
He nodded. "It went off without a hitch. People returned home after years only seeing their prison cells." He smiled, one that reminded her of Ty Lee. She often saw similarities when their optimism or empathy surfaced. A mix between fury and yearning passed through her.
"You should have seen the relief in the families when they were reunited. It really makes you realize that no matter where they're from… people are just people."
He remembered a soon to be father, a recent recruit sent to the front lines falling to his knees before his wife and their newborn. And that family with a young son and their father reunited with the mother and younger brother. Strangely enough, Zuko seemed to know them well…
For Azula, the imagery painted by the Avatar was muddy. Happy family reunions were difficult for her the royal to imagine, as they seemed to result in an inevitable death match.
She wasn't certain her family had ever truly been happy. Even those times in Ember Island seemed like a facade now. Perhaps they hadn't been so since she had been born?
Though she remained sickened by the idea of treating with the lesser nations, especially the one she had conquered, it was only proper that her subjects and dutiful soldiers be returned to the homeland.
She spotted the Avatar wearing a pensive frown. Something weighed on him. Something relating to the exchange, or perhaps its aftermath. An opening such as this was not to be ignored.
"And yet despite everything going according to plan, you seem nevertheless troubled."
He jolted in surprise from her assessment, or perhaps surprised that he allowed it to show. He calmed up, as he had no doubt done so long as these things bothered him. She was certain he would brush it aside and move their conversation to more safe topics like the weather or his fury companions.
Then the Avatar deflated.
"Why can't people be satisfied with peace?"
A delicate brow raised at his question. Should she get locked into philosophical debate with the Avatar? Curiosity ebbed at her. And more than anything, she felt a desire to prove that her view of the world was the correct one. A part of this was wanting to break the foolish child she saw in him, but another part of her felt curious as to how he would respond to her arguments.
He had opened the floor to her, and so she would take it.
"Because life is not about satisfaction. Life is a competition, Avatar. Those most suited to will rise and rule. Those ill-suited will serve. This is the nature of the world. Our needs may be minimal; a plate of food, a place to sleep. But our desires drive us. And when two opposing desires clash, the result is a conflict. Whether it is strength or wit, a victor will emerge, and enforce their will over the defeated. To simply peacefully coexist is not true to human nature."
Slowly, he gave her a single nod. Not in agreement, she was certain, but in acknowledgement.
"The monks always taught us to separate ourselves from such desires. To rise above the baser nature that made us human. And once you've severed all your earthly tethers, you attain enlightenment, freeing yourself from the mortal coil.
"In a single day we freed all prisoners of war, a war spanning a century. That should have been the end of it. A celebration." He shook his hairless head. "But shortly after, there was… commotion." He gave her a significant look. "The exchange took place in Yu Dao."
She grasped his meaning immediately. The world being the powder keg that it was, this did not surprise Azula. As she considered what would bring in the next era of conflict, Yu Dao had been a top contender.
Her mind had been more focused on Zuko's assassination, but that was largely relegated to a vindictive fantasy, as it presented her with several hypothetical problems. Namely the audacious precedent of a sitting Fire Lord being murdered by their subjects, something she herself would then have to contend with. Besides which, if Zuko were to die, it would be she herself, Princess of the Fire Nation, that did the deed with her own hand. Zuko was finally worth slaying.
"We thought it would be an appropriate place, as Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom citizens had intermingled and lived peacefully for generations."
"A sensible assumption," Azula allowed. "And yet?"
"It's brought up an issue concerning the Fire Nation colonies. There is a growing movement that the colonies should be vacated and the lands returned to Earth Kingdom citizens. Exclusively."
"I see," Azula said, her nose wrinkled with disdain. "They want to expunge all traces of the Fire Nation's occupation of the land? How foolish. I suppose they aren't keen to abandon the advanced metallurgy and the coin it brings in. They should be grateful for what we've done."
The Avatar frowned. "There's no telling what Yu Dao may have become without any foreign occupation. It disturbed the balance. For all we know it could have been even more prosperous without intervention."
Azula scoffed. "Spare me, Avatar. Yu Dao was nothing more than an underdeveloped backwater before Sozin laid claim to it. Its citizens wallowing in squalor, ignored by their rulers in Ba Sing Se, because there was no tax revenue to collect. The economic and social prosperity the natives have enjoyed is solely due to the charitable leadership the Fire Nation bestowed upon them."
"Bigger buildings and more money make a society better?"
"Only a penniless monk would ask such a question. Yu Dao is a model of what the world would be like if it had accepted our divine rule. The citizens there live as equals. One can rise above their station with the proper work ethic and ingenuity."
"So long as they're all subjects of the Fire Lord," Aang said quietly.
Her eyes narrowed. "People require leadership. Something the Avatar of the era, Roku, didn't provide. He cared nothing for solving the plights of the people so long as his precious balance was maintained. Even though he had traveled the world himself… Or they were beneath his notice. Sozin beheld how neglected they were. He wanted to share the prosperity of his great country and uplift those ungrateful savages."
"And if that help is refused, deliver it by force?"
Azula shrugged. "War is the inevitable result of expansion. Sozin saw the separation of the four nations and its peoples as an unnatural occurrence that prevented the natural progression of the world. Your precious balance is nothing more than stagnation. The world needed change… and only the Fire Nation was willing to enact it."
The tip of his tongue burned with some rather harsh words as Azula espoused on Sozin's vision. But that wouldn't help him understand her. Sozin was dead and gone, and he had certainly accrued a hefty toll on his karma for his deeds. No tirade Aang could muster was going to right his wrongs.
This was further opportunity to study Sozin's philosophy, the one which would guide his nation for generations. Understanding it would be the first step in undoing it. And as its current embodiment, Azula was probably one of the most qualified to teach him.
"The four nations are meant to be separate from one another."
"Says whom?" Azula asked, rolling her eyes. "Is this some deific edict of the universe? The sentiment rings rather hollow coming from you; you're certainly prepared to break this taboo, are you not?"
Aang felt his eyes stretch to their limits. "W-what?"
She looked at him in confusion. "Do you not intend to breed the water tribe peasant?"
"Azula!" Aang wore a mortified expression as his head lit like a beacon. He'd been struggling in silence with his thoughts about Katara for months now, thoughts he'd not shared or broached with anyone. Least of all the princess!
"You're hardly alone in this. Peoples of the two nations have intermingled in Yu Dao for generations now. Most of them have a mixed ancestry."
Aang regained his calm, more than happy to move away from the subject of himself and his would be lover. "And that doesn't bother you? In my time residing in the palace, I've read more than a few philosophers that warned about the 'tainting' of Fire Nation purity."
"Well meaning but short sighted views," Azula said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Although interracial couplings not unheard of, it's a taboo that Sozin opposed. The conquerors will always mix blood with the conquered, eventually. This has been observed in microcosms in each individual nation's history. It's fine for common citizens to breed with the natives."
She noticed the Avatar's face at this.
"I suppose in several hundred years it might become indistinguishable who originated from what nation. Though my bloodline would surely remain pure, and thus even more valuable. Some separation should remain from the royal family, of course."
"Is the purity of your bloodline so important to you?"
"Oh, please. As if we're the only ones who adhere to an idea of racial purity. The savages probably want to expunge all the citizens of Yu Dao as tainted traitors."
Aang's brow furrowed. "What? What do you mean by that?"
"I imagine their desire is that all the citizens of the Fire Nation, or even of Fire Nation descent vacate the lands entirely; this will of course include a purge of any firebenders.
And how do you think those who remain will be treated? They will be seen as traitors who supported my country's conquest. Our finest machinery all use the steel forged in Yu Dao, after all.
"Those left behind, who've had roots in the city for generations, will be reduced to second class citizens as the 'pure' Earth Kingdom descendants flock to take control of the city."She smirked at him. "Are you going to ignore their plight, Avatar? Would be fitting if you followed in your predecessors footsteps."
Aang rubbed his temples to sooth them from a stampede of thoughts and worries. He hadn't considered what would become of the citizens who considered themselves Earth Nation. Was Azula right? Would they be expunged simply for being firebenders. It seemed absurd to him.
But hatred for the Fire Nation ran deep. He had seen what it could do to people. How it had twisted Jet into justifying the murders of the innocent in an effort to wipe away his enemy in a flood of vengeance.
The young freedom fighter's prone form came to his mind. Aang shook his head.
Such complications. He was reminded of his time in Ba Sing Se. The bureaucracy, the agendas, the subterfuge. Everything was simple for him when all he had to do was master the elements and defeat the Fire Lord. A clear goal with a clear end. He preferred it that way. Traveling the world even with all the fireballs that were lobbed at them. His friends camping out together. Riding on Appa's saddle with Katara by his side. Now things were so muddied.
Even still, the praises sung to Sozin's ambition had not set well with him. Perhaps it was some of his masochistic tendencies to flay himself, but he still wanted to refute them.
"You said Yu Dao is the ideal city of the Fire Nation's colonization?"
She gave a firm nod. "Just so. Even the lowest of orphans are cared for and raised properly in Yu Dao. So long as the citizens pledge fealty to the Fire Lord and produce economically beneficial trades, they have been left to govern themselves as they see fit."
"I learned something interesting," Aang said after a moment of silence. "Every generation from its founding, Yu Dao has been lead by Fire Nation nobility. Not once has Yu Dao been governed by anyone of the Earth Kingdom, or even a native born. It has always been the sole privilege of the nobility from Caldera. Was it ever about uplifting the peoples?"
Azula remained unimpressed. "As if such a ceiling did not already exist over their heads. Or do you think any citizen can become Earth King? We are each a creature of the circumstance of our birth." She smirked and looked at him pointedly with molten eyes. "You should understand more than anyone."
Aang's tongue was caught by her point. The people were going to be beholden to a ruler born to their station, who would have command over their lives.
Not for the first time Aang wondered what it would be like if he hadn't been the Avatar. But unlike before, he didn't wish the burden away. Increasingly, Aang found himself wanting to make a difference in the world, in ways he could only do as the Avatar. He was grateful for the strength to stop a landslide from burying a village, or ferrying those stranded at sea to safety.
"Then even as the generations go on, you would always consider those of earthen ancestry beneath you."
Azula rolled her eyes. A smirk more smug had never been seen. "They are. Those incompetents didn't even win the war for themselves. They couldn't protect the city that had been the pride of their nation. You are the conqueror, Avatar. The Earth Kingdom proved itself incapable of defending their lands and people. All they would have ever accomplished is petty resistance that impedes progress and prevents peace."
Aang opened his mouth to refute that, but refrained. He'd never completed his trek of her soul, as he had with Ozai. There was still more to learn about her.
The Avatar shook his head. "It's amazing how well informed you are about the city."
She preened a bit. "A proper ruler remains well versed in the goings on of her empire's every corner. Speaking of component leadership reminds me of the complete lack of it in the Earth Kingdom. What do their ilk say of the colonies?"
Aang paused. He was uncertain if he had been sharing too much with Azula. Maybe he should avoid speaking about it altogether. But he'd been so frustrated, and none of his friends were available to speak with. And while he could share his concerns with Zuko, that might influence him a way Aang didn't intend. Or the reverse was possible, where the Fire lord's vested interest in protecting his people might sway the Avatar. He shuddered to think of the consequences.
Azula was far from an unbiased source, but he could talk to her without fear of it spilling out into the world, confined as she was. And she was quite knowledgeable. If she helped him see the flaws in his own dealings, and she seemed only too happy to do so, then he'd be foolish not to utilize it. No one was going to be left behind. Not on his watch.
"It's gaining political traction," he answered. "A lot of ministers and nobles are throwing their weight behind it. Especially since governorship of the city itself would be a contentious matter, given how long it's been under the Fire Nation. Kuei seems like he's pressured into it."
"Kuei?" Azula said, sounding the most disgusted he had ever heard. "They let him retake the throne?" She scoffed. "You should have just let my father wipe them out."
"Don't say that!"
She sneered. "They are clearly unfit for survival or self-governance. I have never seen or read of a ruler more pathetic than Kuei. Unaware of his own station or even the war itself. Not in control of his own policing faction. That the people allowed him back on the throne after he had proven he was incapable of defending them, they deserve no better."
A brutal thought struck Aang, lapping at his mind as they often did during his time with Azula, of what that would say of her, and her own aspirations to retake her throne. When she had been unable to defend it. But he kept this boiling comment from surfacing.
"It wasn't his fault, not completely. He wasn't prepared properly for the role. The royal family had been blind for at least a few generations before him. And-"
"Did you know that he was the one who informed me of the invasion?"
Aang paused, her words cutting through his thoughts. "He didn't mention it," he mumbled. "But he thought you were Kyoshi warriors! It's reasonable that he trusted you."
"Yes. And after he discovered that his city had been infiltrated and overthrown, did he mention that he himself had given up this critical information to the enemy?"
"No…" Aang hated how small his voice sounded, but it was hard mustering a defense for the sovereign.
"I presume that if he had, you wouldn't have gone along with the invasion plan at all."
Aang rubbed his temples. "Probably not."
"So he failed to protect his city from a war he didn't know existed. Then once it was taken from him, he couldn't even mitigate his failings by imparting crucial information to his saviors. My, what a marvelous ruler that sits upon the throne."
"It's not like he asked to be born king," Aang said stiffly. "He's had his shortcomings, but he has a chance to do better now."
"So that's it," Azula said, staring at him.
"What is?"
"See a bit of yourself in Kuei, do you?"
He hadn't been thinking along those lines, not that he'd been aware. But he had never directly expressed to Azula that being the Avatar was not something he'd ever desired. Given her keen observation and study of people, it shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did.
"He's trying his best. He's determined to be a proper king to his people."
"He's rather proven that's a foolish hope, has he not?"
The Avatar looked at her a moment, before a cheeky smile formed. "People have told me the same. Anyone can change, Princess. I would even say it's our duty to do so."
He had a sly way of saying generalities that she couldn't outright prove he meant for her, but she knew that they were all the same. And reacting to them would prove herself too sensitive to his remarks. She decided to push forward with the topic at hand.
This had been the most stimulating conversation she'd had in months. It reminded her of the war meetings she'd attended and participated in, or hearing the nobles address her father at court. She felt important. Discussing matters of state and the players involved, anticipating their movements by weighing their reasoning.
He hadn't asked her for advice directly, but she could sense an influence she had on him. All she needed was for him to consider her words, and they would paint themselves in his mind. It seemed she once more had the ear of the strongest man in the world, though this time it wasn't her father.
…She really needed to stop comparing them and feeding her subconscious ideas.
More, this was a first for Azula. She had never truly had any equals, and no one addressed her as such. She had been born better than Zuko. And always subordinate to her father. There was no back or forth. When she spoke, it was a law to be adhered to, met with bowing, kowtowing and a touch of groveling.
The time she had spent with Mai and Ty Lee, she had always been the leader, as was natural for them. She directed the group.
To sit and speak with someone, anyone, for extended periods as true equals… The Avatar brought her a new experience. And she did not find it distasteful.
"Given the prestige of the colonies being reclaimed, there's no question many powerful people want to be at the forefront of the endeavor. After all, they couldn't win the war, so they want to save face in some fashion. Whosoever were to be remembered for taking the colonies back, by whatever means, would become rightly acclaimed."
A groan escaped the monk. "Right. The political finagling. Why is it always like this?"
"This is Zuko's fault."
"You always blame Zuko."
"Well you should try it. It's fun."
This time she pried a smile from him. She liked having that impact on him. At the very least she could return fire on his own front, when he would make her laugh or smile when she had no intention to do so.
The Avatar indulged her. "How is it Zuko's fault?"
"Why, I'm glad you asked. Because he is the Fire Lord and failed to anticipate this inevitability. This should not at all be an unexpected demand."
"It shouldn't?"
"Not at all. The colonies were the first symbol of the Fire Nation laying claim to the territory of another country. An act of aggression committed by Sozin himself. Of course they will want to assert themselves as the masters of the land once more. Otherwise they will forever remain sour reminders of their inability to fend for themselves against the might of our empire.
"Zuko knows the people better than most, having lived in their squalor for a time. He should understand their resentment. And resilience. I'm surprised this topic did not come up in the talks beforehand. I'm certain they spoke of restitution. I suppose it could have been overlooked; you're the only one accustomed to living in peace. It must have slipped their collective focus."
"You would have expected this?" he asked without reproach, only curiosity.
She pursed her lips. Aang found his gaze drifting toward the shade of red she favored before returning to her eyes, the color of autumn's golden leaves. "I can't be certain if it would have been my highest priority, not being privy to the details of this transition to peace. But I wouldn't have let them leave the table until the issue was addressed and our trade with the colony established as a non-negotiable term."
"That could start a new war!"
"Anything can start a new war, Avatar. Least of all territorial disputes over economically prosperous cities."
"The lands belong to the Earth Kingdom, Princess," Aang said plainly.
"Yes, a hundred years ago. But things change. Has not the Northern Air Temple changed ownership to Earth Kingdom refugees?"
Aang reeled at her comparison. "That is completely different!"
"I don't see how," she said, giving him an unconvinced look. "Shouldn't they vacate and return to their ancestral roots now that the war has ended? Or do you accept that events occurred to change what was once the status quo of our world's political climates?"
"We came to terms about the matter, Princess. I accept their occupation of the temple."
"Because it means much less for you than it does for them. Likewise, the lands colonized meant nothing to the Earth King and his ministers until we took command of them. They should be satisfied with their precious city. That was clearly too much for them to handle. We simply lightened the burden they are so clearly unprepared to bare."
"But I am not opposed to the refugees remaining, Princess. They have my permission and blessing to prosper in the temple."
"And the earthen peoples that live in and around Yu Dao want the city to remain as it is, no doubt. Or do the wishes and well beings of these people not matter to you?"
The Avatar leaned back into his seat and exhaled deeply enough that he seemed to deflate. She was using his concern for the people against him, and he wasn't certain how two dispute her claim. Maybe he couldn't.
Aang didn't know what the people of the city wanted. Those who held the political power to start a new war had been at the forefront of his mind, so much so that he had yet to take the measure of the citizens caught in-between. He'd neglected their desires and needs. And if that went on, it could cause unrest. The people may even rebel no matter which country claimed sovereignty over them.
He let out a strong sigh. If he had hair, it might be falling out at this point. "Hopefully it will blow over. I'm sure the people can get used to one another in time. We're all just in a period of readjustment."
She doubted that. And it was plain the Avatar also had his trepidations as well. But she would let the world show the Avatar that warfare was its natural state. The people craved conflict and to dominate one another, to profit from the suffering and demise of their neighbors.
If she were to advise the Avatar, she would tell him that decisive action now would be necessary, to shape the conflict before it spiraled into something unmanageable. It was foolish to craft plan and policy appealing to the better nature of mankind.
But a world of spiraling chaos rather appealed to her. Perhaps she would be freed or escape in the time it all reached its inevitable boiling point. The world in a tumultuous state would be easier for her to rally others to her cause and wrest control of the throne from Zuko. Once it was proven that the peace they brokered through betrayal was a lie, and the only true peace was through successful conquest. Hell, by the time he's realized it, her brother may just be ready to give her the crown and title. If he did, she would consider merely banishing him.
The Avatar sat quietly, staring at his food for several moments.
"Sulking, Avatar? How unbecoming of a young man, let alone one of your standing."
When looked up, his eyes were clear and unbothered. "Thank-you, Princess."
Her smirk fled. "Whatever for?" she challenged.
"For your perspective. I hadn't thought about what might become of the citizens already in Yu Dao. You've help broaden my understanding of the situation. I now know what my next step will be regarding the issue of the colonies." His smile was warm. "And it's thanks to you."
Azula kept her defenses up. She couldn't let him get to her, let his sincerity penetrate her armor.
She countered his smile with an empirical stare. "If you are keen to lend your boundless virtue to my citizens, it is only my duty to guide you as such. I do need subjects to rule, after all."
Aang shook his head. "Enough about politics. I want to hear what you've been up to."
"What I've been up to?" she echoed, incredulous. How could anything in these walls be more interesting than being at the center of the worlds political concerns? "Wondering how I've managed to hold on to my tenuous grasp of sanity?"
Aang frowned. "Well, I know you've found something to keep you busy. You seem more… relaxed."
She eyed his face as he began eating again, and couldn't bring out her well worn and experienced distrust. That wasn't because she trusted him; Azula simply understood him.
"I've been training."
He stopped mid-bite, slowly lowering the chopsticks. "Has your bending come back?" he asked, unable to mask his misgivings.
She set down her food in the space between them, then turned to the Avatar with a chilly smile.
Azula jumped and spun, generating force as she punched at the Avatar's head.
His reflexes proved themselves sharper than ever, as before she completed the movement, the Avatar leapt with the aid of his bending, landing behind her. He had, impressively, done so without spilling any of his food. He stood wide-eyed, holding his meal overhead.
"Princess, please! I… wait, there was no fire?"
Azula straightened and turned to face him fully, savoring his dumbfounded look. "Why are you, panicking, Avatar? I'm just showing you part of my kata. As I'm certain the doctor has informed you, I'm far from recovering my flame."
"Oh." He realized he had been in no danger and lowered the food. He blinked several times, then laughed, and there was no nervousness she could sense behind it. "Good one, Princess! I never thought you'd pull a prank on me."
She had thought he might be embarrassed. Zuko would have been; a self-conscious fear alongside a growing fury at being fooled. But the Avatar had no qualms laughing at himself.
She wasn't certain if that took some of the satisfaction from it, but nevertheless enjoyed being able to set him on edge so easily. Fear remained her power, and she wielded it even without her bending. That it was the Avatar she had such impact on magnified the feeling.
"Just remember, you started it," the Avatar said so lowly Azula was unsure she heard him correctly.
"What was that?"
"Oh, nothing. You really haven't lost a step, Princess. Your movements are still so clean and precise, I saw a flame even though there wasn't one." He paused. "Can I see the rest?" he asked with wide, hopeful eyes.
"…What?"
"The rest of your kata, the ones you've been practicing. Could you show me?"
Indignation and anger came easily to her, as they did now. His motives may be pure, but he was still demanding a demonstration that was, outside of her those designated to train her, thus far reserved strictly for Fire Lords. Witnessing a display of her skills, she still saw as a rare privilege. One she was not prepared to grant the Avatar.
And she had no intention of allowing him to view her forms absent of flame. It seemed a shameful thing to display to him, for a number of reasons.
"Hmph. Don't think I'm going to treat you to a show just because you brought me something passable to eat."
"Oh. Alright." The disappointment was clear on his face. She loved having something someone wanted, and being able to deny them. She had to take any power she could in her life, and especially from him.
Azula favored him with a sharp smile as she retook her seat, crossing one leg over the other. "No need to fret, Avatar. You'll definitely have a chance to study my technique, in full. That's a promise."
"Great!" He accepted her threat with such grace she wondered if he even understood what it was. The Avatar glanced from side to side. Then leaned in slightly, as if there were anyone near that could possibly hear them. "Then maybe I'll show you a form only a select few firebenders know."
Begrudgingly, this had her curiosity. Her hunger for more knowledge and power was insatiable. And having further firebending to discover and learn was one of her greatest thrills and joys, one rare and relished by this point, given her mastery.
Not that she could let the Avatar know that. He might lord it over her. And so, rolling her eyes, Azula asked, "And what form of worth could you possibly know that I do not?"
He only smiled secretively. It seemed the Avatar could hold back if he wanted to. That was an admirable trait, but a troubling one from someone whose guile she had dismissed entirely.
"I suppose my uncle taught you how to do his little trick with tea."
"Well, I never learned any firebending from Iroh." Aang said as he retook his seat, given that he wasn't in any danger. "Just some solid life advice that I'm not entirely sure worked out for me in particular."
Azula started. "Wait, you are saying Iroh wasn't your firebending teacher? Then whom?" she asked, dreading the answer.
The Avatar shook his hairless head. "Well I've had two. The first was Jeong-Jeong. But I wasn't ready to learn at all. He knew that and I proved it to him. And myself." The Avatar was quiet a moment, as he tended to be following any discussion of his failures. The name, however, caught her attention.
"You crossed paths with former Admiral Jeong-Jeong? I suppose that isn't too unexpected. It seems every traitor to my country flocks to your side."
Aang frowned. "You know about Jeong Jeong?"
"I know it's a lot to ask, but don't be a fool, Avatar. Of course I know of him. First man to survive military desertion. One of the greatest prodigies in the history of our nation."
"He was?"
"Indeed. The youngest man ever appointed to the position of admiral. They say his techniques and stratagems for naval battles were unprecedented and unmatched since. What a shame he wasted all that talent and potential."
Although she now had the Avatar as a standard with which to measure herself, she lacked such a clear goal in her younger years. There were times she wondered how she fared against Jeong Jeong in terms of progress. Usually she compared herself to her father. To whom else could she? Certainly not Zuko. Once, a teacher had compared her prodigious talent to the traitor's. He had been harshly reprimanded, as well he should have been. But there were times when the thought lingered in her head, for the one that people used the same word to describe him as they did her: prodigy.
She would have liked to fight Jeong-Jeong someday. Perhaps hunted him down after she had become too bored with the conquered world. Him and her tea loving uncle and traitor brother.
"Huh. Neat. Well, Zuko is the only person I learned from after I learned water and earthbending. He trained me after the Day of Black Sun." He paused again. "Although, technically you could say I've had a few more teachers in firebending…"
His secretiveness concerning the matter that involved her brother and firebending gnawed at her in a way that she wasn't expecting. Perhaps that was due to the Avatar being so open and honest about everything else they discussed.
However, she was far more concerned with the notion of whom his primary master had been.
"Zuko," she said flatly.
"Yeah?"
"Zuzu, the great uncoordinated mess of limbs was your firebending teacher?"
"Well, yeah."
"And you faced my father with that tutelage to guide you?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"You're a brave man, Avatar."
"Hey, Zuko's a really good teacher!"
She gave him a side-eye. "Count your lucky stars I've never seen you firebend, Avatar. Or I certainly have something contrary to say."
He stuck his chin out. "For the honor of Sifu Hotman, I guess we'll have to see."
Azula refrained from smiling. He was falling for her goading. She would give him something to prove so he would be less reluctant when the time finally came. She thought to have him give a demonstration now… He would eagerly abide her, she was certain, careless as he was. But it stung her pride too much. To see him perform the sacred art she was yet denied. Her time would come.
"Yes, we shall." She paused. "Sifu… Hotman?" The word tasted strange to her, and she felt somewhat hesitant to say it. The moment she did, Azula felt embarrassed that the old slang had even passed her lips. "You are such a relic."
The Avatar grinned. "I am ancient and widely sought after."
Azula rolled her eyes, but the comment forced a smile from her.
"So what else have you been doing?"
"Reading." Her options were obviously limited but consuming knowledge had always eaten up sizable portions of her time. It was perhaps the most familiar activity she could perform on the island.
"Oh, what have you been reading?" he asked, sounding so genuinely curious it made Azula frown.
"Nothing that would interest you, surely."
"Try me. I may have been passed most of my knowledge orally, but I'm no stranger to a stack of tomes, Princess."
She eyed him, and decided to allow him to embarrass himself. Some humbling would be good for the supposed master of four elements. "I was reading the compiled works of Feng Hu."
She saw the gears in his head moving. The unmistakable look of recognition erupted on his expression. His smile now held a touch of melancholy. "Somehow I'm not surprised that you'd subscribe to his philosophy. I suppose he further distinguished himself while I was in the iceberg. I'm glad his name is still known."
Azula stared at him skeptically. "Do you mean to imply that you have met with the great philosopher?"
"Meeting is about all I can say I did, and even that might be a stretch. He would only speak to people he considered peers… or worthy rivals. In our trips to the Fire Nation, my mentor, Monk Gyatso, would often take me to visit lecture halls where philosophy and culture were discussed.
"I witnessed he and Gyatso engage in a few debates. That was the closest to being angry that I'd ever actually seen him. But in the end, no matter how heated the discussions became, they would part amicably after tea and pai sho."
Azula tapped her finger against her thigh as the Avatar's thoughts drifted. It still seemed utterly fantastical that the young man before her had lived one hundred years ago. But the nomads were known to travel, and the Avatar was hardly one to lie.
He had witnessed the Fire Nation before their conquest of the world began. A time of global peace. What an alien world he had lived in… a world fallen into irreparable decay.
She often thought that her life had been shattered, but…
"That must have been quite an experience, witnessing such a debate. Though you probably didn't appreciate it, given your age and… erratic disposition."
The Avatar actually harrumphed. "I will have you know that discussions of philosophy are a great pastime of we air nomads."
"And how long were you able to sit still for these debates?"
"That really depended on how long it had been since I did any airbending."
"How surprising."
The Avatar shrugged. "I was an exuberant youth." He leaned back into the bench. "I was a little younger, or a lot younger, from a certain point of view. But listening to Feng Hu always made me upset. Not just because of how intensely he debated with Gyatso. But… the things he said, and the evidence and examples he used. It scared me that it would make sense. The endless cycle of wars were unstoppable. That the hatred and distrust people had for one another were tools necessary for survival."
Her mind drifted back to the brewing conflict over the colonies that she was certain would escalate into violence. "Human nature, Avatar. In its rawest and purest forms. Not quite the nursery rhymes the monks made it out to be, is it?"
The Avatar frowned, and she could tell from the set of his jaw that she'd struck a nerve. "The monks never taught us that life was all lychee nuts and bison riding. They warned us constantly about out own darker natures so that we could rise above them."
He seemed especially sensitive and protective about the memory of his people and the profundity of their teachings. That knowledge would be useful another time, she was certain.
"And what else does the Avatar do when he isn't fending off some impending disaster?"
Aang blinked. "Me?"
Azula rolled her eyes. "No, the other master of four elements. Surely not every waking moment of your life is dedicated to keeping the world from imploding."
Aang rubbed the back of his head. He wasn't certain if Azula ever asked what he got up to in whatever time he could get for himself. "If I'm not at the palace, I'll spend some time at the Western Air Temple. Since it's nearby, I've decided to begin the restoration of the temples there."
"The Western Air Temple?" she asked. Its had been the only temple she'd seen herself, and that had been to kill everyone present. Much like her great-grandfather before her. "Whatever for? It isn't as if there are any occupants to-"
She paused as he winced. A pregnant silence spawned. She'd spoken as she always had of the nomads, as an extinct people wiped away in the opening salvo of the great war. But to the Avatar they were probably friends and family.
Sudden awkwardness fell over her, because she had not been intending to cause him distress or discomfort. Azula felt… clumsy. In a way that brought forth memories of that idiotic house party at the beach. And that coward Chan.
The Avatar was quick to recover, and seemed to still have his good humor about him.
"You probably didn't notice during your, uh, visit," Aang said, lifting his brows.
This made the princess smirk in amusement.
"But there are a number of unique aspects about the temple that should be preserved. Sights that inspire great art. And a giant pai sho table; it's the birthplace of pai sho, actually."
"I certainly didn't have time to take that in. The only memory that really stands out is both my brother and I falling. But as always he had someone to catch him. And I managed on my own."
Her eyes suddenly narrowed into a glare, and Aang could feel rage brewing inside of her. "If I relied on anyone else, I would have fallen to my death."
"That wasn't going to happen," Aang said with finality.
"Of course not. I wouldn't let it. You must have been relived for a moment. To think that-"
"I was going to save you."
She challenged him with a hard stare.
"If you hadn't stopped the fall yourself, I would have glided down and caught you."
"Foolish to leave yourself so vulnerable. You never know what I could do to you in that position, Avatar."
"I'd trust in your self-preservation to at least let me land," Aang said dryly. "Whatever happened, I would have handled it. I can't let someone die when I have the power to prevent it."
Azula gave a dismissive, unladylike snort of derision. "Even if it's me?"
"Maybe… maybe especially if it's you."
Sometimes the Avatar said or did odd things that left her off balance, and this was one to them. The awkwardness from earlier was now replaced with a warmth in her chest from which anger and mistrust and hate fled. But right along with that warmth confusion was born.
She examined her fingernails. This had always been a gesture to show her cool detachment from the situation. Yet now the sight of her hands only served to remind her that they lacked the desired sharpness.
"I like helping people, Azula. If there's one reason I'm grateful for having been born the Avatar, it's that it helps me help others."
She swallowed. "I must have looked quite pitiful to you indeed."
"Well everyone kind of looks a bit silly when they're in the air without a glider." He chuckled. "Just falling through the air, flopping about. What are you guys thinking? It's like watching someone who can't swim."
She cleared her throat. "The temple... Is that where you had been hiding while trespassing in my country?"
"Nope, we only went there after the invasion failed. We needed to recuperate."
"I thought you were well and truly crushed after that." She gave him a sour look. "Every time I think I'm rid of you, you display an annoying habit of always coming back."
"I'm a persistent guy. Even though, I guess it doesn't always work out." He laughed a bit, but she could tell it was a bit off, more of a pained expression. Curious. He must be thinking of the numerous defeats he had suffered. Thinking of it made Azula smile.
"I suspected that you were alive, somehow, someway." Rather, she had feared the repercussions of her father's view of her if that turned out to be the case. Still, it had been direct strike…
The Avatar swallowed the last mouthful of food and nearly wiped his mouth with his robes, but caught himself, and used a handkerchief instead. His meal finished, he set down the box.
"Now that I think about it, it's pretty strange you didn't seem surprised when we arrived at the bunker."
"Naturally I had to consider for the possibility that you would be spearheading the assault. It was the worst case scenario, and that must always be accounted for."
"But why did you think I survived?"
"I was certain that I killed you. But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss." She narrowed her eyes at the monk. "How did you survive my lightning?"
"Katara healed me." There was a warm pride in his voice, an alien fondness she had seen between people who claimed that love bound them.
The name evoked a deep, angry heat in her chest. Another victory the water witch had robbed her of. Slaying the Avatar should have been one of her legendary accolades.
She tried to calm herself. The mere mention of her foe and failings set her into an emotional tailspin, yet the Avatar could sit in her presence for hours on end without flinching. He didn't seem at all perturbed discussing two of the devastating blows she had dealt him and his efforts.
This false face she could not oblige a moment longer.
She felt the grip of her old self and feel into a calm, analytical state. "Perhaps your physical wounds she mended. Waterbenders have to be good at something, after all. But she could not have touched your mind. It was only a few months ago that I sent you careening into the dirt, Avatar, at the height of your power.
"You were expecting something like the North Pole? To flaunt your spiritual powers and wipe out your enemies? The people would have rallied and worshipped you. There was a victory to be had for you in Ba Sing Se. And I took that away."
A myriad of emotions spilled out and over the Avatar's face. Once his surprise faded, a flash of the anger she had sought in him emerged, dancing along his clenched jaw and narrowed eyes for a few heartbeats. Then a strong shame flooded his features before he looked down. The Avatar breathed in deeply. He stared out ahead into the woods surrounding them.
Azula smirked. She still had her gift, and had slain his facade of patience.
She looked down at him, waiting.
The Avatar sat up straight. He did not look at her as he spoke.
"Is it that you want me to bear you a grudge, Azula?" he asked. His voice was quiet, but the strain in it told her he was holding something back. "You want me to be angry with you, wish ill of you for the outcome our battle?"
"You can admit it or not, Avatar. No matter what you say, I know that you're furious with me for Ba Sing Se."
He reached up and traced his thumb against the wooden medallion he wore, over the grooves that formed the symbol of his extinct nation. Azula felt a sudden, irrational yearning for her royal hairpiece.
"It was a few weeks before I regained consciousness." His voice and expression were calm, as if lost in thought. It seemed the anger she had wrenched from him had been supplanted by an introspective train of thought.
The Avatar turned and offered her a grin. "I even had hair!"
He frowned as he relived his memories. "When they told me what happened, I… I couldn't believe it. I'd never felt so… worthless. I was sullen and petulant. I didn't even want to disguise myself to go out anywhere when everyone thought I died. I lashed out at my friends. Sulking alone in the dark. Exactly how I felt.
"I don't even remember being angry with you. Only… myself." He grimaced. The Avatar was quiet for several moments, and Azula continued to observe.
"You didn't do anything less than what I deserved." He looked at her with a resolute and heavy stare. "I was unworthy of victory."
Azula sat back. She felt her mouth agape, but didn't have the mind to close it right away. She couldn't imagine making such a profession. Such words could never even begin to form in her mind.
She swallowed. He had said it, admitted that she had been superior. Yet the words did not mollify her as she thought they would, as she had dreamed they would.
"Well, certainly. I had the numerical advantage. I'd convinced Zuko to join my cause by offering him all that he had lost. I made certain that every factor was in my favor."
The Avatar sighed. "None of that matters," he said. "I mean, sure, it was stupid of me to use crystal armor against you…"
Azula nearly laughed, remembering sending him into a wall. In retrospect she was surprised he was able to continue fighting after an impact that severe. The Avatar's slim frame bellied a certain robustness.
"But I had already made the biggest mistake before the battle even started."
"And what might that have been?" she asked, tempering how much curiosity she expressed. The Avatar held a surprising amount of interesting knowledge. And it was quite an experience to hear her enemy's perspective. If he had something that would have rendered all her machinations moot, she would need to know. Especially for future confrontations.
"When you first arrived in Ba Sing Se, I left to train with a guru to master the Avatar State."
Yes, fortuitous timing, that.
"I was on the final step, unlocking the last chakra. It would have given me control of the Avatar State, the ability to call upon it and exit it at will… Something I'd never been able to do before.
"Then I had a vision of Katara in chains. She was struggling so hard to get free, I… Even though Guru Pathik warned me that I wasn't ready, that I needed to stay and complete the training… I left to save her."
Azula looked at him with open incredulity. She couldn't see the line of thought that would lead to such a course of action. People did the damndest things for love.
"That's it?" Azula scoffed. "We weren't even torturing her. You gave up the mastery of power that would have won you any battle because of an infatuation?"
He seemed shocked by her mention of this, but shouldn't it be surprising. Even as… romantically inept as she was, that much was obvious even to her.
"That was foolish. Duty before all."
The Avatar swallowed. He nodded. "It was. If I had just waited. Completed my training, mastered my power, I would have been able to stop you, Zuko, the Dai Li. Saved everyone. Saved Katara. Instead I let Ba Sing Se fall. I failed the Earth Kingdom. I failed as the Avatar."
Azula eyed him, looking for cracks in the Avatar in the silence following his profession. Yet, even though he was more solemn than she had seen him, he seemed also steadfast. These admissions of his faults and failures he continued to bear with a dignity and fortitude she found both foolish and increasingly enviable. He continued even now, it seemed, to grow stronger from his failures.
"The advice I mentioned earlier from Iroh. He told me that power and perfection were overrated. That I was wise to choose my own happiness."
Azula felt a strike against herself. She knew that Iroh was thinking of his younger brother and niece when he made such a statement. "He would say something as banal as that. Iroh became ever negligent of his own duties after failing to take the city himself."
"It's sage advice, and I think most people would be happier if they chose to live as such." He looked at her for a moment, as though he were going to relate the advice to her directly. Then he seemed to think better of it, and left whatever thought had occurred unsaid.
"The world would be a better place. But I'm not most people. The Avatar has a duty to the world. When I communed with my past lives for advice about what I should do, they all more or less told me to set aside all my personal dispositions and do whatever it took to restore balance. I'm not allowed to choose my personal desires over my duty to the world."
She found herself with a growing admiration for the Avatar, despite herself. The more she learned of him, the more he shared with her, the further her view of him strayed from what she thought it should be.
One of the many reasons she had been so cross with Mai saving her traitorous brother was the betrayal of her own duties. Her station. Did she not care what would have become of her family? They could have been stripped of their status, or purged for three generations. She was the daughter of a noble prominent enough to be awarded governorship of a major colony in New Ozai. And yet she was able to shirk her duties… for love.
She dared to discard her roles, and for something Azula didn't understand. It had helped drive her to madness. Even now she could feel cracks begin to form as she contemplated it.
Why?
"You took the opportunity to strike me down… But it only happened because I gave you that opportunity. I put my desire before my duty."
He breathed in deeply, his eyes closed. He leaned back against the bench. Then he turned to her, and against all reason she could see, the Avatar smiled. "But that, Princess, was another lesson learned. If I had to do it again, I would stay and complete my training. Ba Sing Se will hopefully be the greatest defeat I ever suffer. It was a winding path, but I'm wiser for having traveled it. I managed to find the light at the end of the tunnel."
The light of the afternoon sun shifted through the trees, and suddenly she saw him illuminated by the giving rays of the sun, while she remained in dappled shadows. A peaceful smile graced his lips, while Azula began to seethe.
To withstand such hardship and emerge from the broken shell of oneself. The Avatar also possessed a strength that she aspired to.
Curious that he never brought himself up as an example of rising from disgrace and failure. His fall was even more grand than hers, in some respects. The world had thought him slain. It didn't seem to be in his nature to boast unless it was in jest. Instead he chose to uplift those weaker than himself.
She could see nothing but a lie in the warm smile directed toward her. Of all his sickening sincerity, her mind could not accept it as genuine. Because Azula was different now. Knowledgeable in ways she had never been before.
Her life had been a long string of victories and accomplishments until she had arrived in the Earth Kingdom. She had been bested several times. She had tasted failures in letting her prey, her uncle, her brother, and the Avatar, escape.
She had been denied victory, stripped of her honor, her country, her throne. Even her bending. Everything to which she had aspired. Everything that had defined her.
Having been dealt such crushing, total, humiliating defeat, Azula now understood the enormity of what she had done to the Avatar. Months ago, his tale of defeat, the recounts his own failures would have fallen on her ears as the lamentations of the weak and nothing more.
But she understood him, in a way she had come to realize she had failed to understand others. It shouldn't have been a surprise that Mai turned against her. Azula had known her most of her life. Her eyes, always so keen, should have spotted the betrayal from miles away. That the motives had escaped her was baffling.
She could see herself in his place as she had never been able to for others.
This failure, they shared on a similar scale. His nation and the world relied on him. As her nation had been the foremost responsibility in her life, the cause her entire being had been dedicated to serving. And they had both failed.
What she had taken from the Avatar. She understood.
For that reason the princess knew any pleasantry or warm thought or kindness that the Avatar had shown her time and again could not coexist with what he must truly feel. Impossible. Impossible to forgive such transgressions. Only the death of the offender could satisfy one's honor.
And yet here he sat.
Beside her. With her. For her.
Over and over the thoughts turned and flipped in her mind. People were puzzles to figure out, and despite the time she had spent, the pieces were not fitting together. In the Avatar she had come across someone whose thoughts and motivations were so alien to her own that comprehending them caused her mental anguish.
She lowered her head until the black bangs hid her eyes. "I do not understand you, Avatar," she said in a whisper. A frustrating admission that came forth of its own accord. How could he sit there so calmly, so dedicated to helping her, when she had been the one to deliver such shame and humiliation upon him?
"Well, maybe I can clear it up. I'm not really complicated. Just a simple monk."
"You all say I'm crazy, but-"
She pauses as he abruptly stands and looks down at her with a frown.
"Who says you're crazy?" he demanded.
She stood up as well. Her point forgotten in a surge of fresh anger. "You all do! Don't insult me by pretending otherwise."
She cast a blazing gaze to a few of the other patients, who's eyes stole glances at them. They scattered. "Those whispering sows, the doctor, my brother, my friends."
The Avatar crosses his arms. "No one says it in my presence, Princess. And I don't think you are."
He continued to baffle her with his directness, his fierce defense of her. It made no sense. Did the Avatar truly…
No. No! It was a lie.
"Don't lie to me," she hissed. She straightened and lifted her chin. "I've finished with my food and will retire to my chambers. I do not require an escort. Good day, Avatar."
She spun to walk away from him after her clear dismissal, but the Avatar grabbed her hand. A jolt of disbelief went through her. No one had ever dared breach her space in such a manner.
Azula rounded on him, feeling a heat gather around her raised fist. "Unhand me!" she snarled. Rules of the penitentiary be damned, he would not lay a hand on her as he pleased.
Her ire abruptly vanished, or was at the least swallowed up by confusion. His stare was resolute, like hardened steel. Not an inkling of fear in his eyes or any defensive effort from his body language as she was poised to strike him.
"You're not crazy, Azula" he said firmly. He spoke with such strength that it reverberated through her bones. "It doesn't matter what you see, I know that doesn't make you crazy."
Her eyes widened, then narrowed to slits. She snatched her hand away from his warm grasp. "As if you would know what that was like," she hissed. She'd spent months afraid of her own mind playing tricks on her. Telling her lies. When she found no refuge in her thoughts, there was none in the whole world.
"Well…" The Avatar rubbed the back of his head and glanced upward. Telling signs of bashfulness. "I do."
She looked at him with such malice that every fiber of Aang's being told him an attack was inevitable. Yet she waited, her face pinched with roiling anger like a volcano on the verge of eruption.
It was difficult for Azula to share, and that was what she was doing. In her own way, she was venturing to tell him something that made her feel vulnerable. And he felt a need to handle her delicately.
"We had a few days before the invasion," Aang said, "while we waited for our forces to gather. All to march on the capital. I had time, way too much time on my hands. I should have used it to prepare but all I did was stress myself out. I was so anxious that I was going to fail again, let everyone down. I couldn't sleep. I thought I would just stay awake until the invasion but…"
He grinned through his embarrassment. "Eventually I started hallucinating."
She started. "You… saw things?" she asked in a whisper so unlike her commanding tone.
Azula's eyes were some of the most expressive Aang had seen in his life. Always so sharp and calculating. And so capable of transmitting the heat of her anger, or vindictive glee. In that moment, he saw a fragility in those golden orbs absent even when she'd been bound and carted. He had to restrain the urge to reach out and hug her.
In those eyes he saw her hope that she wasn't alone.
Then it was gone, concealed behind her scoff. "I'm not talking about your visions or spirits, Avatar."
"Neither am I. At least, I'm pretty sure I didn't see any."
"W-what did you see?" she said in a near whisper.
The Avatar chuckled. "I was so stressed out that I saw Momo and Appa fighting each other with swords. I'm pretty sure they don't actually know how to use them. The guru I mentioned earlier was there somehow, and he had eight arms! I think he was singing about chakras or something, but I couldn't really hear him over the koala-sheep cheering for Appa and Momo to fight."
Azula could do nothing to hide her shock as the Avatar described a fever dream.
"But that wasn't the most terrifying thing, Princess. It was my dream. What I saw when I finally managed to fall asleep."
Before she could think better to beguile the answer out of him, she found herself asking. "And what was that?"
"When I faced Fire Lord Ozai, I wasn't wearing pants," Aang said in a solemn tone.
Her threatening posture returned in an instant, as though it had never left. "Be serious, damn you!"
He held up his hands in a defensive gesture. "I am!"
She marched up to him until their noses nearly touched. Aang struggled not to shrink back as she looked into his eyes as though staring into his soul. That seemed only fair, considering he had literally done so to her.
The Avatar held her gaze, allowing her inspection. She studied him carefully. No evasive eye movement, no twitch of his jaw. He wasn't lying.
Azula crossed her arms and huffed, easing away from him as she straightened. "Even your hallucinations are childish."
He chuckled, then laughed, and it held a tinge of something she hadn't heard from him before. Something manic. "It does seem kind of silly now that I think back on it."
She chanced a look at him, not wanting to seem too enraptured. "I suppose you haven't had them since?"
"No. Just the normal spirit visions that make me look crazy."
She should pace herself, manipulate him into giving the answer she needed without even letting him know she'd gotten it. But she was desperate to make certain that her mind was her own again, and would always remain so.
"What stopped them?"
"Stopped who?"
Azula clenched her fists until they shook. "The hallucinations, you idiot! How did you resolve the issue of your mind playing tricks on you?"
Aang smiled warmly, and from that alone, she knew what his answer would be. "My friends reassured me. They made me a soft bed from koala-sheep fur. You know, the ones that were cheering."
"Your friends," she muttered. That seemed a common message the Avatar had. The power and drive his friendships gave him. How was she to emulate such strength when she had no friends to speak of?
"I slept like a log," Aang went on. A triumphant smile emerged. "And when I dreamed that night, it was a victorious affair. For it was the Fire Lord who had forgotten his pants, not I!"
She stiffened. Her face shifted through several emotions. Azula averted her gaze from him, breaking her patented, dominating eye contact. And he could see the corner of her lip twitching as she tried to fight off a smile. Azula stiffened again, but his time she covered her mouth, confusion and mortification coloring her expression. She let out the faintest breath that Aang took as a smothered laugh.
That was the most reassuring sign he had seen from her yet. He wanted to push her just a little bit more, to let it out. To laugh openly and honestly. He wanted to know what that sounded like. It sounded wonderful, he was certain. She had a great voice, after all.
It took more than a few steadying breaths to reign herself in. There were serious matters to discuss. She'd been blindingly furious only moments prior. How dare he make her laugh!
She crossed her arms and looked at him with the sternest expression she could muster. "You are an absolutely ridiculous person, Avatar. Did you know that?"
"Ridiculous, amazing, I've heard both, and I think it's a fine line."
For the first time she didn't feel like she was alone in this. She felt… she wasn't certain, but it may well have been hope. A voice that doubted her recovery, that she would be plagued by visions for the rest of her life was quieted. The Avatar had been through just the same, and he seemed to have conquered it.
Few understood her. Those that did never truly accepted her…. Her own mother had known of her all of her life, and rejected her as the monster she was. That was the greatest gift the woman had for her. Not life, but the lesson. That no one save her father would accept her.
And so she used fear to rule them, to get what she wanted from others. A universally reliable method of control.
But the Avatar did accept her. He had been through much the same and emerged whole.
Her malice, her irritation, her distrust… she could feel them fading. And that terrified her. Where was her desire to destroy him, to escape? What would become of her if those drives vanished?
She couldn't become complacent.
"You're still a fool, Avatar. I'm sure you were warned not to trust me. I'm a know liar. That's what makes you crazy."
"Does it?"
She scoffed in response.
"The thing is, Princess," Aang said with a grin. "I don't think you've ever lied to me."
Azula blinked. She thought back to their interactions.
"The invasion."
"To Toph, sure. But not me."
She pursed her lips. He was right. "There had simply been no need to deceive you."
"And I've never lied to you." He motioned toward the space dividing them. "So right now, there's only the truth between us."
The phrasing gave her pause. Something about it made her relationship with the Avatar sound almost… intimate.
"Careful, Avatar. I might have to fix that someday."
The threat made him smile. They retook their seats once again. Aang wondered when the next time was that one or both of them would be jumping up once more.
"You still haven't told me why you thought I survived after Ba Sing Se."
"In large part it's because we didn't have a body. I would have been more certain if I had been able to capture it… well, you, but Iroh interfered and allowed you to escape."
Aang hadn't known that, but given the type of man Iroh was, he couldn't say it was a surprise.
"After that, it was just a matter of waiting to see if you'd appear or not. Which of course you did."
The Avatar grinned. "Were you happy to see me?"
"I was happy that you lived long enough to watch that silly plan of yours unravel."
The barb melted his smile. "But the plan wasn't bad. It was the opposite of bad. It was really good!"
"Your plan was terrible."
"Well, the invasion wasn't my plan. It was Sokka's."
"Sokka," she muttered. Her eyes widened when she remembered which of the rapscallions that was. Suki's savior. Azula realized he actually had come through and fulfilled Suki's hope he would save her.
"The oaf? You're telling me he was the architect behind the invasion?"
"He sure was! Sokka came up with the solution to a lot of our problems. He's the idea guy. He even figured out how to stop the drill by reading the schematics."
Ones foes were a mark of their own prowess and ability. Azula didn't want to even think about what it said of her nation that the peasant was the mind behind thwarting many of their greatest schemes.
She made a mental note to place a hefty bounty on his head once she came to power. He was definitely getting erased from the history of the world she would write.
"I will admit, that attacking during the eclipse was an inspired idea." Azula smirked, and felt more of herself than she had in a long while. Speaking tactics and strategy, especially in face of the enemy whom she had bested, delighted her soul. "However, it never would have worked."
He turned his body slightly to face her. "Why not?" he asked curiously. A peer addressing another peer. Or perhaps a student asking a teacher. She preferred to think of it as the latter.
She eyed his encroaching knee, which was ever so close to the border of her territory of the bench, but the distance was still acceptable. Still, she was not one to be passive in defense of her space, and so turned to him in kind, bringing her knee closer to his.
"One crucial factor that you were all so keen to overlook: you."
The Avatar's face shifted into neutrality. Meaning the topic was something he was emotional about. Guilt, shame. Subtle, but not so much they weren't blazing signs to her.
"Tell me, Avatar, if you had encountered my father during the eclipse, if he had been sitting on the throne when you marched into the palace, what would you have done to him?"
"Well," he said, stretching the word as he thought. "I would have defeated him?"
"Defeated him. So you would have, say, smacked him around a bit? Blasted him with a your airbending? Perhaps encase him in earth?"
The last one made the Avatar chuckle for some reason. "Something like that."
"But you wouldn't have killed him, or even crippled him, would you?"
"No," he said, a firm strength that she now knew was there, but could still surprise her when it arose.
A light grew in her eyes as he walked into her trap. "Then what were you going to do when he regained his bending a few minutes later?"
Aang opened his mouth, paused, then closed it.
"That is why your plan was silly, Avatar, because you did not have the will to carry it out."
She considered something then that she had overlooked. Perhaps she and her father had been in far greater danger than she had known.
"Or… would you have taken his bending then and there?"
For all her plans and schemes, as much as she anticipated her enemies' actions, she had never imagined that the Avatar possessed such gross power. That anyone could do such a thing. To revoke the power bestowed on them by Agni was… sacrilegious. Demonic, even.
Had he simply been reserving it as a secret weapon for when he got his hands on Ozai? When she had been pinned to the wall by the three of them, had she been a hair's breadth from having her bending taken?
The Avatar shook his head. "I didn't learn that until just before the comet arrived."
Though the events had passed, Azula still felt a relief that she hadn't miscalculated. "Then my point stands. You had the capability to end the war. But you lacked the fortitude."
She waited as he digested her teachings.
The Avatar leaned back into the bench and sighed. "Maybe you're right. I was lacking in resolve."
"Honestly, what did you think was going to happen, Avatar?"
He rubbed the back of his head. "Well, I thought it was some kind of honor thing that the Fire Nation wouldn't let a defeated Fire Lord sit on the throne. Like, I'd beat Ozai and everyone would give up, I guess?"
Azula stared.
"I don't know!" Aang said defensively, his cheeks coloring. "Everyone was vague about it! 'Defeat the Fire Lord,' 'Face the Fire Lord.' No one ever said I had to kill him before!"
Aang folded his arms and sunk into the bench. "That's not what it meant a hundred years ago," he grumbled.
Azula drummed her fingers along the armrest. "Why didn't you?"
He glanced at her from his sulking position. "What?"
"Why didn't you kill my father? You had the power. You have the power now. You would have still been a hero and avenged the honor of your people."
It was a heavy question, one which challenged his entire being. He righted himself, sitting up straight. She expected him to become serious. Instead, his laughter filled the air.
"You're the first to actually ask me. A lot of people wonder that, I think. They don't say it outright, but I can see the question in their eyes from time to time. Why Ozai is left to live out his life in peace, well fed while there are thousands of maimed and displaced? Even though he's caged in iron bars, that's just not enough for them and what he represents. But they all hold themselves back from asking."
"People don't typically have the stomach to chastise the deities they worship."
Aang blinked. "Worship?"
"Oh yes," she said with a widening smirk. "The infallible Avatar Aang. Mover of mountains. Swayer of the ocean tides. Queller of storms."
"Destroyer of cabbage."
That brought her up short. "What?"
"It's a long story of a very unfortunate merchant." Aang said. "People don't worship me, Princess. Plenty of them spoke up against me during the war. There was this one town that had an entire festival about burning statues of Avatars. Including me! And I can think of at least one fisherman that gave me an earful."
She was tempted comment on the effort that would take given the size of his ears, but she refrained from grabbing such low hanging fruit. It would be… undignified.
Azula waved a hand. "Anomalies. And that was after your century-long absence. Of course their faith was shaken. But your return was met with much rejoicing, just as your supposed death brought despair. Who has dared to speak out against you since you won the war and asserted yourself as the prime strength on the planet?"
Aang rubbed his chin. Hadn't Toph mentioned something like that before? People seeing him as a god…
He answered Azula. "Well, there is a certain, obstinate princess that always speaks her mind," he said, smiling. "I'm pretty sure she doesn't worship me."
Her treacherous subconscious seemed just on the verge of it, but Azula did her damnedest to tame that beast.
"One cannot serve two masters, Avatar."
"Uh… sure?"
Azula lifted her chin, giving him a smirk accompanied by a raised brow. A challenge in her eyes. The answer wouldn't be forthcoming. She wanted him to figure something out from her words.
Alright. He could play.
He was familiar with the proverb of two masters, though it wasn't one he or any of the monks abided. Her master… It couldn't have been anyone other than Fire Lord Ozai.
In the vision Roku had shown him, even the crowned prince of the Fire Nation had bowed when the sages revealed him to be Avatar.
"There was a time the Avatar was held in station above the Fire Lord," Aang said. "But Sozin changed that, didn't he?"
She gave him a nod. Her expression held a measure of approval. "When and if the Avatar returned, Sozin knew he would have to contend with them. He couldn't have a nation that felt divided between serving their sovereign and obeying his enemy. Sozin replaced reverence of the Avatar with worship of the Fire Lord. By decree of the Fire Sages, they elevated Sozin's bloodline to divinity. And the Fire Lord was announced as the embodiment of Agni's will."
Aang shook his head in disgust. Sozin's fear had driven him to the most monstrous acts imaginable.
"They want you to be perfect for them, Avatar. A deity they can place their faith in. To believe that your decisions are the right one, even when they desire otherwise. That is why they do not question you.
Those of us that are strong don't believe in anyone being perfect. We are the ones relied upon. The ones they want to bare their weaknesses to, and to be forgiven for them."
So this was part of the pressure that Azula felt. Was it bearing this weight alone that made her crack? He had known of this decree, having gone back and read a few of the history books in the palace, and discussing it with Mai. He was beginning to grasp a more complete picture of the Fire Nation and its princess.
"I've already seen you at your lowest in Ba Sing Se. My world is not built on the foundation of you being some divine being. So I have no need for you to be perfect." She gave him a haughty smirk, like the one she bore on the Day of Black Sun. "I doubt you could put on a good performance if you tried."
"True." He gave her a gentle, somewhat teasing smile. "I hope you keep in mind I return the courtesy, Princess."
Azula felt her face heat up and glanced away, only to look back as the Avatar began to answer her original question.
"I have wondered if sparing Ozai was the right thing. I know it was for my own spirituality, but for the world? I meditated on this, and realized the guidance the world needed, and my place in providing it. There are meant to be four elements. Four nations. Each with philosophies and cultures of their own that enrich one another by their diversity.
"Sozin destroyed the balance when he killed the air nomads. He plunged the world into a global war. My people believed in peace and tranquility above all else. Casting aside those teachings that we would need most to break away from this conflict… As the last of the airbenders, that would be casting aside the balance forever. I honor my people by abiding this teaching."
So he, too, was fighting for his country, even though they were long dead. Or rather, because they were?
Azula wore her curiosity openly. "What if you weren't the last of your people? If there were others to carry on the memory and doctrine of the airbenders?"
"I don't know," he said with halting uncertainty. "The loss of my people is a part of me, Princess; I'd be a different person if they weren't all killed. I'd like to think that I would behave the same way. But I can't be certain what I would do if their teachings didn't die with me.
"As the Avatar, my goal would still be peace for everyone. I'd still need to show the world there can be resolution without killing. What I did also benefited the people of the Fire Nation."
"And how did dethroning their divine leader help them?"
"You mean aside from no else dying in war?" Aang asked with some bite. He calmed himself as her eyes narrowed. "In showing mercy to Ozai, I think that helped the other nations accept the end of the war."
He looked at her with an expression more grave than any he'd displayed prior. "The imprisoned Earth Kingdom generals. Once they were back in power, their first intention was to invade Caldera."
To strike at the enemy when they were at their most vulnerable, their forces spread thin and in disarray, their leaders defeated. A sound strategy. It's what she would have done.
Azula gave him a wane smirk. "No doubt in revenge for their own city being taken."
Aang was not amused in the slightest. He met Azula's smirk with the same stone face. "It wasn't just a battle they sought, Princess. They wanted to completely destroy the Fire Nation as a country, dismantle it, and subjugate the people.
"They claimed the Fire Nation had proven itself an unprecedented threat that could never go overlooked for the rest of history. They wanted to continue the war, and claimed that unless your people suffered accordingly, all people of the Fire Nation would never truly know the devastation they had wrought on the world. And any failure to do so would be insufficient to dissuade such atrocities in the future.
"When they learned about the plan to burn the entirety of their land and people into oblivion… they took it rather personally."
Azula absorbed the information in silence. For the first time, she felt a sliver of fear at the potential retaliation of her enemies. She had been in no condition or position to defend her country. Couldn't even defend herself. Her father had been stripped of his power, his position, and his bending, then imprisoned.
Things could have ended more tragically for them than even their current circumstances. She and her father could have been taken to Ba Sing Se, given a trial and have been summarily executed for the public to witness. The deaths of the two royals fueling the bloodlust of an entire nation, compelling them into a frenzied assault on their hated foe. And if Zuko had acquiesced, they would continue to leech until all the nation's riches fattened their coffers, and enslaved its people.
Azula swallowed heavily. "What stopped them?" she asked, keeping her voice steady.
"I returned to Ba Sing Se a few days after the comet had passed. I didn't have Appa with me, and I had to keep my eye on your father.
"The White Lotus quelled much of the initial outcry. The fact that two formerly high ranking firebenders were amongst those to liberate the city helped. And Bumi being a greatly respected king whose lived through the entirety of the war, it holds some weight when he encourages peace."
"And yet that wasn't enough, was it?" No, the rest of the world was not like the Avatar. They were hurt people whose actions she could understand and anticipate. And she knew they would be crying out for blood.
"I think that there was also a compromise of sorts. I learned later that the minister whom proposed you be a political prisoner, Shuo is his name, also spoke against continued warfare. He probably managed to convince them that this would have been enough justice and insurance against future Fire Nation transgressions."
"That was clever. I see now that Zuko had even more reason than I realized to hand me over."
That didn't mean she held no grudge for it, but Azula did admire his pragmatism over the matter. She would have thought him entirely too sentimental to make such a cold decision. In a way, she felt… proud of her brother.
Aang grimaced. "I think when the minister returned without you, it further inflamed those who were… dissatisfied with war's end."
"I suppose they weren't anticipating the interference of a certain pesky monk with a penchant for ruining plans."
He smiled faintly, but it soon faded as he frowned at the sky, saying nothing. His bearing evoked memories of better times.
In the military meetings she had attended, there had always been a tension and pressure present. The desire amongst the finest and most accomplished soldiers to outdo one another. And above all the duality of being terrified of the demanding Fire Lord and wanting to please him. A man who saw the failures of his own son as unforgivable.
Azula had felt the anticipation and anxiety in those around her, though she herself had always been largely unaffected by them. She had been the favored and the chosen by divine right. Trusted by her father and above each of those competing for his favor. Instead, they quite reasonably felt the need to please the heir apparent to the throne.
Sitting this close to the Avatar, and having observed him for some time, she could feel the weight of the world he bore on his shoulders. Seeing the troubles that he had brought upon himself in his bargain for her well being, and with her mind achieving greater clarity by the day…
It was increasingly difficult to attribute any ulterior motives to his actions.
"Regretting not letting them have me, Avatar?"
"No in the slightest," he said with a conviction that should have surprised her… but it didn't. Some part of her had come to expect it.
Aang continued, "At least while you're here I know you're safe as things settle down. While everyone learns to move forward. I think…" He swallowed, looked at her, then away. "I fear that someone would try to… get to you."
He didn't want to protect the world from her. He wanted to shelter her from the world's wrath. Zuko was still suspect. He was going to sell her out. It didn't matter if she would have done worse to him. She knew what he had done.
But the Avatar… He owed her nothing. If anything he should have been one of the first and foremost to call for her blood.
"If I had killed Ozai, I think it would have set the next era of the world on the wrong path. Bloodshed to repay bloodshed."
"Showing my father your… mercy… illuminated the world to the ways of peace? Is that it?"
The Avatar's cheeks reddened. "Well, I wouldn't say I'm totally responsible, but I like to think I'm setting a good example for anyone willing to follow."
Taking the greatest burdens onto himself. Choosing the most dangerous route he could to uphold his ideals. The ideals of his people.
She hated herself for it, and all those that inspired the emotion, but a faint gratitude toward the Avatar blossomed in her. Had he been a vengeful man, he would have visited untold horrors upon her with impunity. What would any other man have done in his position? She already knew the answer. It had played out throughout history time and again.
He would have taken her for himself. She was a nubile young woman of considerable beauty and pristine breeding. An ideal prize for a conqueror that was the last of his people. They would have all too happily offered her as sacrifice to appease their god. He would strip her of her bending, whisk her away to one of his temples, and simply have his way with her for years to come. Such fates were common for deposed princesses. Inevitable, even. She'd been mentally prepared to endure. To wait.
Between being bedded by some sniveling Earth Kingdom nobility that would cower from her strength or the Avatar…
Instead of such hells, he brought her lunch and smiles. Laughter in place of scorn.
Absorbing this, Azula felt, for a moment, small and insignificant. Even petty. Everything she had ever done and said had been her divine right. Actions committed without the slightest consideration of regret, because divinity could do no wrong. Now the princess wasn't certain.
"It's hard to imagine you were audacious enough fought Ozai… my father.. without the intent of killing him. Let it never be said you have chosen the easy path, Avatar."
The Avatar wore a sagacious expression. "I'm starting to think that if it ever feels easy, it's probably wrong."
It was far more difficult to avoid harming. She had never given it much thought, as all her strikes were meant to kill. But the risks of drawing out a battle with a comparable opponent was not a risk Azula would take. She could play around with Zuko as he had been, but she had to admit he was too formidable for that now. His strength presented a proper challenge that would make her inevitable victory much sweeter.
Thoughts and talk of the legendary battle between the Phoenix King and the Avatar raised dormant questions that had lingered in her mind as she worked herself back up to becoming a true firebender.
She had sent the Avatar to her farther once the eclipse had ended. She'd had full confidence that he simply stood no chance against him, that the Fire Lord would easily triumph.
How had that changed in just under a month? How had the Avatar become so powerful that he could defeat her father and rip the bending from his soul? All while restraining himself.
"Avatar," she said, a faraway look in her eyes. She stared out into the sky, and he felt certain it was the direction of the palace. "How was my father?"
Aang felt a trepidation in the lingering subject of the deposed ruler. The first time she had brought up Ozai had been to redress him for taking his ability to firebend. Those words still cut him when they echoed in his head. He wasn't sure how much he should discuss it with her, but some things couldn't be avoided.
"Um, terrible?" he offered.
She pinched her eyes shut, striving for patience with the monk. "As a fighter. As a firebender."
Aang's eyes widened. "Oh. In our battle."
She paused, contemplating her words, how much to reveal to him, then confessed, "I had always seen him as the pinnacle of our art. I had thought him invincible."
Aang, likewise to Azula, was careful in his wording. The thoughts of the Fire Lord were something he tried to tread carefully. The emotions they evoked were not the type he liked to indulge in.
"Ozai was incredibly skilled. The greatest firebender I've ever seen."
Azula felt a cocktail of emotions. The Avatar wasn't being placating, telling her what he thought she wanted to hear. The respect she heard in his assessment of her father was surprisingly cold, but present. He seemed to restrain himself in a way that didn't suit his free flowing emotions.
"How so?"
She wasn't letting it drop just yet… "Keep in mind I've only seen him bend during the comet, aside from nightmares and visions. I expected him to be strong, but the way he wielded the power surprised me. He flew effortlessly. Flew. I didn't know firebending could do that. Even I can't fly without a glider."
She nodded, thinking of her own gliding across the ground.
The Avatar continued. "I think what stands out to me most was his ability to generate lightning. He was so fast. And he could do it even while he was flying. It makes my limbs feel confused just thinking about how much skill that requires, managing it all those advanced techniques at once. And it was so strong. Maybe the strongest lightning ever. It felt as if nature itself were attacking me."
"Okay, surely that would have been enough to kill you, right?"
As smile broke from the Avatar's cold, controlled expression. "Maybe if it landed. I dodged most of it."
"You dodged it?"
She had been taught that this was impossible. That the only counter to lightning was to interrupt the bender before it was unleashed or obscure its path with a suitable barrier, methods only the most talented and powerful benders could manage.
"You may be the only person alive who could actually evade lightning."
She wondered if all the airbenders had been so slippery as the Avatar. It was a wonder Sozin had managed to hunt them all down.
"That may be," the Avatar said quietly. "The last time he fired at me, I redirected it."
When she took the time to estimate what the Avatar was capable of in her mental simulations of battles, Azula had suspected he could use the technique. Both Iroh and Zuko could. So it stood to reason that he would have the ability as well. Even so, Azula found herself slightly in awe of him.
From what she discerned of the technique, one took the lightning, the raw untainted power and expression of firebending into their own bodies and redirected the power. She could only imagine how powerful such a torrent of energy would be, coming from her father. The thrill of the comet's power surging through her chi echoed in her veins. She wanted to experience that power again. Hold it in her chest and never relinquish it.
To have contained it in one's body, even for a moment. How had he not died?
"What was it like?"
The Avatar looked at her, and she again felt an abnormal display of restraint. His eyes still cold and distant. Did the Avatar have some complicated emotions in toward her father?
He waited for her to elaborate.
"To have the lightning in your body. What did it feel like?"
He grimaced as the memory struck him. "Like having the power of the sun itself inside my being. I performed the technique correctly; yet felt singed all over. But.. I still felt the power within me. I knew its strength, and for a moment, it was mine. It wasn't like when you struck me."
If he could actually discuss the topic with such calm, she felt no need to hold back. She fired off a question to sate her curiosity.
"And how did that feel? I imagine so few have the chance to explain such an experience."
"I am a special case, aren't I?" His humor faded as he said, "I was melting from the inside. Like my blood had become fire and was cooking me from within as it tried to escape. I was bursting apart at the seems."
Azula wasn't sure what to feel or if she felt anything at all as his hands clenched ever so slightly. She was simply struck by what a curious existence the Avatar was, and the odd circumstances of their meetings and resulting conversations.
"You remember that?" Most people would have died or been rendered unconscious the moment of contact.
"I will never forget it, Princess."
They sat in silence a moment as Azula let his words simmer in her head, searching them for any of the heated anger she suspected the Avatar harbored toward her, despite his best efforts. But it was a simple statement, made with less interest than the Avatar had displayed in the weather on any given day he had visited. As if she had asked him what color grass was.
"If I understand the technique correctly," Azula said, "the purpose is to redirect the lightning back at the wielder." She looked at him, waiting for an answer to her unspoken question.
He grew uncomfortable. "It's how I had been trained to use it. My body moved without thought and my arm was already pointed towards Ozai. But…" She saw a bit of light return to the grey eyes nestled within a concerned expression. "I saw the fear in his eyes. The fear of dying. Of being killed. I couldn't bring myself to do it. So I just redirected it toward the sky. Thankfully for both of us, there was no more lightning after that."
She could imagine why.
"Thank goodness Iroh studied waterbending to create such a peaceful technique."
She looked at him incredulously as though he were an entity she couldn't accept as real. "I doubt that very much, Avatar. That technique is one of the most vicious I've ever seen."
He seemed surprised by that. "But, it allows the peaceful dissipation of a destructive force without harming anyone. That has to be why Iroh invented it, right?"
Azula scoffed. "You all look at Iroh and see a cooky old man with wisdom and tea to dispense during some meandering diatribe. Which he is. But he was once a great general of the Fire Nation."
She pinned him with a sharp stare. "Laid waste to tens of thousands of lives. Destroyed entire armies. Captured more prisoners of war than all the other nobility combined. Appropriated the resources of villages he passed to fuel his war machine."
Aang had heard of "General" Iroh in passing whispers. Dragon of the West. He hadn't given it much thought as the jovial man had never posed a direct threat to himself or his friends, leaving the fighting to his nephew.
In their expedition to discover ancient firebending secrets, Zuko implored to Aang that his uncle had been different from the rest of the family. He had spared the dragons Ran and Shaw, falsely claiming to have killed them to protect them. That they referred to Iroh as the Dragon of the West in Ba Sing Se told him that he had the title before laying siege to the city and tearing through the outer wall. The man had blood on his hands.
But people were multifaceted. Not all yin or yang. Not the summation of any one deed, no matter how righteous or heinous. Perhaps there was a fine line between those two men, the tea shop owner and the general.
"My father was not quite subtle about wanting to be Fire Lord, I don't think. At the least, even I knew that was what he wanted. Iroh likely understood the same, and anticipated a confrontation with my father. He can," she paused. "Could generate lightning faster than anyone. Iroh created that technique to kill his brother."
A compelling narrative, and despite misgivings, Aang found it rather believable. Given what the Fire Nation had become, a brother killing a brother would have hardly seemed out of place.
"Perhaps that was the intention behind it," Aang allowed. "But a technique is just a technique, in the end. What matters is how it is used, and that is determined by the practitioner. It helped me defend myself without killing Ozai. So I'm grateful for having learned it. And in turn, grateful to Iroh for having created it."
Although, is that true for blood bending as well? he thought. The phantom sensation of not being able to control his limbs crawled through him. Aang shivered.
Maybe that was the one exception.
"Honestly, I think my firebending improved a lot just from our battle. The better my firebending becomes, the more I understand Ozai's skill."
The Avatar had an answer to a question that no one else would. From a perspective only he had. He alone had battled both herself and her father. Though Zuko had a confrontation with Ozai on the eclipse, and shot his lightning back at him, it was not an extended engagement, else he would have been destroyed. The Avatar, though, had fought her on numerous occasions, and it seemed he had experienced the full extent of Ozai's strength… and emerged the victor.
How did she compare to Ozai? A part of her wanted to know, but couldn't bear the answer as she was. For now, the only thing they shared was the inability to bend. And that thought had left her increasingly hollow whenever it emerged. Usually Azula kept herself absorbed in activity that gave her little time to wallow. But given the Avatar's presence and their history, it refused to wilt away.
"But he will never wield fire again," Azula said, her voice forlorn, sounding to her ears as though it belonged to someone else.
"No, he will not." There was that stern, unapologetic tone supplanting the patient and understanding one. The Avatar offered no explanation or justification. On this, he seemed truly immovable.
Azula felt her anxiety and anger rising. She would never get to witness her father's truest strength. Or spar with him. Never have his praise as a master firebender. Never have the chance to best him.
Would he even appreciate her strength if it eclipsed his own? Would he become jealous, furious? Wary?
A stable driving force of her life had been extinguished.
"Does it not bother you to take such peerless ability from the world?"
His mouth twisted with distaste. "I would have rather spared us both the experience, Princess. I offered him peace. I pleaded with Ozai to stop the airships. And he did nothing but spit in my face. He said it was an act of providence that he should kill me before laying waste to the Earth Kingdom."
His clenched jaw. His tightened fist. Anger. She was quite surprised to see it in such a raw form from the Avatar. Nothing she had said or done ever seemed to get the rise out of him. Patience, forgiveness, and care were all he had for her thus far. Perhaps some indignation or touches of anger. The occasional bafflement. That always faded shortly after.
But with her father… He seemed of a wholly different mind. There was no kindness, no forgiveness, no patience for the former Fire Lord. Why was that, she wondered.
"Everyone has a knack for something, Princess. Some of us are talented. And a few of us are truly gifted. How we use those gifts shape the world we live in more so than those around us. Ozai's firebending could have been a light for the world. A beacon of welcoming warmth and strength. But he chose destruction, to sear his name into history with genocide alongside Sozin."
"It was their own fault for not obeying the victors!" Azula snarled. "We defeated them! I won! I took their capital and dethroned their king, and thwarted the attempt to invade ours! Their fates were ours decide by right of conquest!"
Aang glared at her, his fury quiet and cold. "The petty perspective of tyrants. If I am grateful to Ozai for one thing, it is that he did not take you with him. Even if he did it because he feared being outshone by you, it was the best thing he had ever done as your father."
Azula felt her stomach boil with unfettered emotions as the affront of his statement truly settled on her. He implied, no, stated things about Ozai and his relationship to her. Her father had actually been jealous of her accomplishments?
Was that why he had left her behind? Absurd! No, he entrusted her with the throne, with ruling the homeland in his stead.
"You.. how dare you? You speak as if you know him! As if you know us!"
"Better than most," he said quietly.
Azula heard the implication. That he knew Ozai even better than she.
She pinned him with her most vicious smile. "You realize that was my idea to begin with, don't you?" she asked with trembling anger. "That I was the one whom set the destruction of the Earth Kingdom into motion?"
He winced, seeming conflicted. She almost thought he felt ashamed on her behalf.
"I am aware."
"And if I should?" she challenged. "If I escape this place, or Zuko is fool enough to release me, and I continue the task of wiping the Earth Kingdom from the world. What would you do, Avatar?"
He looked into her eyes, and the moment stretched on for several heartbeats. A faint impression of his usual continence within a hard, unyielding edge that left her feeling she had been cut. For the first time, Azula felt difficulty maintaining eye contact with the Avatar.
"I'll stop you. I won't let you become that person, Azula. The person you think you should be."
He spoke with such a command over her fate that she bristled. "MY life will be shaped by my own hands, Avatar. And my decisions are my own!"
"Of course they are," the Avatar said, sounding, to ear, accepting without being dismissive. "I told you, Princess. I can't save you. I can only offer my time to help. However, I'm not too concerned with the idea of you endangering others."
"Because you think I'm beneath you," she said, her tone more potent than any venom.
Warmth entered his eyes again as he smiled at her. "Because I know you're above them."
Azula reeled.
"You'll rise above what you were taught. At the end of the day, when you're true to your heart, you'll accept love and compassion from others, and that which dwells within yourself. Ozai and Sozin were never able to do that. But you will. I know it."
Azula tore her eyes from his beatific gaze.
How she wished he would attack her, deride her. That she knew how to handle. Easy enough to retaliate with her own vicious barbs and dig into his failures and insecurities. But this… This earnest belief in her, that she could be good, that she was good. This she had never encountered. Not from her family, nor those she thought of as friends. Perhaps Ty Lee once had such hopes for her, born from fear, but Azula had thoroughly squashed them, surely.
She was Ozai's daughter, not Ursa's. No matter who she physically resembled, she was the spitting image of the former Fire Lord No one had, in any sense, ever placed her above her father. He had been her better in all ways.
Azula felt herself flush. Her temperament had been steady and stable until the betrayal. Always sought control of herself and the world around her. To exert her will.
Every time she interacted with the Avatar he kept her off kilter. An array of emotions coursed through her.
"I," she swallowed, and regained her voice. "I will retire for the evening, Avatar." She stood.
They had spoken for some time, but to Aang it still felt rather short. He would like to continue the conversations that were so unlike any he had before. He liked seeing the world from her perspective, even when he disagreed.
Perhaps this was what Gyatso felt when he spoke with Feng Hu.
Had he been too inconsiderate with her? Things were rather heated just then. Maybe there was just no way for them to peacefully discuss Ozai.
"I meant no offense, Princess," he said, rising as well.
"I will certainly let you know if you've crossed any boundaries, Avatar."
"Yeah, you will." He chuckled. "As you wish, Princess. May I escort you back?"
Whereas before he followed behind her as she lead him to her room, he now walked by her side, knowing where it was. His words tumbled in her head as she sifted through them.
She stopped at the door to her room and turned to face him. The Avatar stood by. She was meant to bid him a farewell, a sign that he had properly done his duty as a gentleman.
But his challenge to her self image continued gnawing her. She wanted something else from him before he flew away from the island, to return Agni knew when. She couldn't hold this burning question until then.
The Avatar spoke as though he knew her better than she knew herself. Perhaps that was not without merit. Azula had been completely unaware that she had been falling to pieces until sometime after her mental collapse.
He was an outsider in every sense. An interloper probing into royal affairs and speaking to and of the royal family with disrespect and patronization.
She was a monster. Incapable of the feelings and drives that held normal people. Everyone knew this of her. They would say this of herself and she accepted that. Embraced it. For that was the signifier of those weaker than her.
An anomaly to all she knew, the Avatar deemed her not to be a monster nor a madwoman. Labels so easily set upon her as surely as she once wore her royal headpiece.
He who had looked into her soul. Something she couldn't imagine. But it allowed him a perspective that even she herself lacked.
"Avatar."
"Yes, Princess?" he asked, rooted in place, unsure what came next.
She took a deep breath and asked, "What did you see in me that makes you so certain that I am not my father? That I am not Sozin?"
What did you see in me… that I do not even see in myself?
What prevented her from keeping herself together? Why had she wavered where her father and forefathers would have flourished? What held her back from perfection? If he would yield the answer to her, if she learned what weakness she had… She could excise it like the cancer it was.
Aang thought of the regret. But that hadn't convinced him. Ozai had regrets. Like not killing Zuko when he was born, or executing Iroh when he was imprisoned.
He thought of her heartbreaking loneliness, to stand apart from everyone, isolated and with no one but her father. Ozai needed no one and wanted no one by his side. All were meant to be beneath him.
He had not seen Azula's soul in as great a depth as he had Ozai's. He searched only long enough to see what shone beneath the surface. And when he had seen it, a plethora of words skimmed over this mind.
One separated her from Ozai.
"Beauty." The word came unbidden to him, and spoken unconsciously. But Aang found that he did not want to take it back or offer a replacement.
She stiffened.
"You have a beautiful soul, Azula."
She found her mouth dry, and her face flushed at the sincerity of his words. She began to shake her head, the daggers of hair framing her face flailing as words failed her.
"You do," Aang said emphatically. "I saw it for myself. And… and someday I know you'll see it, too."
"I… what…" She had anticipated that he might say something that would baffle her, as was his wont. "Everyone knows what I am, Avatar. You are the sole exception unaware. I am a monst-"
He breached her space once more, this time laying a hand on her shoulder. Though his touch was light, Azula felt herself tense all the same. But she did not shirk away. And no reproach came to her mind as they so easily had before.
"Don't say it," he said in a hushed tone, almost like a prayer. "Please don't say it."
His plea caught her tongue. She truly had no inkling how to respond.
Steady. Focus. Calm. She breathed.
"The world would not agree with your assessment, Avatar."
He withdrew his hand, and seemed relieved as though he had just learned the safety of a life-long friend. Did it truly bother him so to hear her speak of herself so, as she was? Perhaps he truly didn't tolerate anyone to speak ill of her; it seemed even she fell under that umbrella.
"No. They'd probably want me locked up in the asylum next door."
Her tension faded a bit as the thought made her grin.
"But the world doesn't see you the way I have. The way I do."
He looked at her, and the warmth that she had always suspected a guise for some deceit reached her in a way it never had before. Something distant that she could coolly observe had invaded the shores of her emotions. She needed to be away from him.
"Good night, Avatar."
He smiled and gave her a short bow. "Farewell, Princess."
20,358 words. What drove me to write and unleash upon you a chapter of such ungodly length?
It wasn't my intention originally. I had a cutoff point that I could have worked around and split the chapter in half. But reached the conclusion that I wanted the chapter to feel like an actual afternoon with Aang and Azula, to witness a full conversation between them.
Any strong thoughts? Leave a review if you please.
