I got a scene in my head and decided to continue on with the AU. This chapter's a bit longer than the last and has some action, but the story will remain about the characters! Enjoy!
Azula was slumped, panting, a drop of sweat sliding down the side of her head, but she kept her eyes on the man. With a deep breath she straightened and composed herself, resuming her fighting stance. Then, suddenly, she cried out and surged forward, resuming her attack, throwing blast after blast at him. She directed her ferocity and determination out into her fists and soles of her feet, rapidly igniting the energy and punching her blue fire out in a succession of well-coordinated movements, sweat flying from her head - but the man was no easy opponent.
Sure, it was difficult for him to knock aside the attacks that he couldn't evade, and those that he had to block full-force pushed him back a ways and left his midsection vulnerable (not that she was in a position to take advantage of that at the moment), but every so often he was able to catch her fire and swing it around and back toward her, and she had to watch out for that.
His fire burned. It was hot, so hot that Azula had to leap aside when it came toward her, and she was seriously reconsidering Uncle's recommendation for a hair crop - even if he had only been teasing her at the time. Her hair was constantly needing to be rebound in the midst of their sparring, and she had been sparring so much recently that it was beginning to annoy her. It was never a problem with her old sparring partners, who only dealt out normal fire - which (while it was still hot) was more pressure or impact-based, and those she was more than capable of battering aside or kicking through. If she tried that with his fire, though, she'd need to hire a whole team of seamstresses and cobblers to keep up with how quickly she'd be needing new sets of clothing and boots.
Azula rolled to her feet again after leaping away from another rebound of super-hot fire, tucking a loose bunch of hair back amidst those that were still tightly bound. Her eyebrows were furrowed, eyes seemingly filled with anger and hatred as she watched the man, but inside she felt almost the opposite. She respected her opponent, and found genuine enjoyment in their sparrings - even if she did feel a pang of envy every now and then at his abilities (something that'd been completely alien to her up until recently and she was still learning to be comfortable with).
Her sparring partner stood opposite her in the arena, expression cool but concentrated, arms at the ready to block another attack. He wore a close-fit, dark-blue outfit and if not for the small, gold-plate earrings and the red-and-white sweat bands around his forehead and arms that spoke of his Sun Warrior culture, he would have looked like any other member of modern society.
How was he so efficient with his flame? Azula thought. Sure, it lacked the explosive force of normal fire, but it burned at such a high temperature that she couldn't see how he was able to keep it up throughout all their practices. Her old opponents would have already been exhausted and swapped out for fresh fighters at this point, yet here he was, still just as energetic as herself - if not moreso. She doubted that he had a better diet than she did, or had an exercise program that was better than hers, so there had to be something he was doing that she hadn't incorporated into her routine yet.
Azula composed herself once more and breathed, deeply, feeling her breath regenerate her inner fire. She was getting tired, but she was able to recover enough strength to potentially be able to gain the upperhand. Pooling her strength out into her fists again, she resumed her fighting stance and attacked, igniting bits of energy and rapidly punching them toward the Sun Warrior.
She moved, circling him, keeping to her strategy of precise targeting: her attacks were powerful, and if she aimed directly at him, he would be forced to block and wouldn't be able to send them back toward her. Unfortunately, however, her blasts had declined far from where they'd been earlier, and he was able to deflect most of them single handedly.
Suddenly, the man's eyes narrowed as he recognized a pattern in her attacks. After blocking her most recent attack he swung out an arm and swiped two fingers through the air, pulling a trail of fire seemingly out of nowhere, and flung it toward her. Azula's eyes widened at the sudden counter-attack and dove aside, feeling the skin of her legs blister as she just barely dodged the stream of flame. He swung his other hand out and stepped toward her, repeating the scooping-motion and flinging another stream toward her before she could ready herself for another roll. Thinking quickly, Azula swung a leg and sent a wave of fire toward the attack, neutralizing it as it blew through.
Thinking she'd found time to recover, she smirked and hopped back up. However, as the wave sailed through the man's fire, she realized that she'd aimed poorly - the man was able to step back and stretch out his arms, spin her counter-attack into a fireball, then swing it around in the air and throw it back toward her.
Azula leapt backward as the flames burst across the metal floor where she'd been standing. As they tumbled outward and dissipated they left a dull, red oval of hot iron, and Azula's eyes widened again at the impressiveness of his firebending. The man was certainly a worthy opponent - so perhaps it was time to see how he handled something a little more shocking.
Following the well-practiced motions, eyebrows still furrowed, Azula quickly made large circles with each of her hands and separated the energy around her, then readied the path out toward her fingertips. She felt the sparks snapping around her, smelt the burnt air, and just as the man's eyes widened in realization she thrust her fingers forward... but the man had reacted incredibly quickly.
As the crack of lightning split the air apart between them, the man's own fingers rose and connected with it. Azula remembered with a sudden horror how Uncle had spoken of a redirection tactic and started to throw herself to the side, but she could already tell she was too late. She watched the man's other hand come up, fingers - wait, they were oddly spread out, and his open palm was facing her - then, suddenly, intense pain split through Azula's head.
She collapsed to her knees, screaming, her vision whited-out with the red image-scar of the man thrusting his palm toward her burnt into her eyes, feeling as though she'd been stabbed through the skull.
The spectating royal guards cried out in alarm, "Princess Azula! Princess Azula!"
"Stay back!" She commanded in her harsh voice, directing a hand in the direction of their cries, still blinded with the red-and-white vision-scar.
She breathed, trying to recover. She brought her hand up to her face and felt that her cheeks were wet - just tears, fortunately, as the liquid wasn't sticky enough to be blood. Touching her skin felt painful, as if she'd just spent an entire day laying out in the sun. Well, she wasn't dead, so it hadn't been lightning that had struck her.
The Sun Warrior's voice was slow and controlled as he approached: "Do you concede defeat?"
Not again, Azula thought, rapidly coming up with justifications for the match to be merely postponed.
After all, she hadn't ever fought with someone that could redirect lightning, or blind her in a single movement for that matter. However, she knew that not being prepared would have never passed as an excuse under Father, and even though he'd been a war-mongering psychopath his lessons stuck with her. There was, after all, an undeniable logic to them, and it was actually somewhat likely that Uncle would have agreed with him for once. She had been defeated, and she had to accept that and learn what she could from it.
She felt for the ground, disoriented and blind, clothing moving painfully over her skin, and staggered to her feet. She positioned herself toward where the man's voice had been, placed her hands together and bowed as much as she was able to, saying, "I concede defeat. Thank you for the match."
Azula straightened again, hoping her vision would start to return, but the red image-scar of the man with his hand outstretched was still as present as before and pain still throbbed through her head. "Now, please, heal me."
The man spoke again in his slow dialect. "I'm sorry, Princess Azula, but you need to see the water-healer. The element we share can only be used to invigorate and accelerate healing, not soothe or balance."
"Fine," Azula said, then tried to soften the accidental sharpness of her voice, "then would you please escort me?" She asked, consciously making herself use a request rather than a command.
"Very well."
Azula felt the man get close to her and place one hand down on her shoulder, where her robes had blocked his attack, and the other under her arm, around her ribs. Her face turned red and eyebrows furrowed in a mixture of anger and embarrassment at the audacity of the man to touch her with his savage hands, but Uncle's voice rose reflexively at her harsh thoughts and reminded her of the position she was in; that the man was from a different culture where his actions might have been more appropriate; and was actually a very respectable person. A moment later her face relaxed and she hated herself for thinking of the man as savage, but kept her expression neutral.
The man smelled of exotic spices, and his guidance was gentle, but firm. Azula's concerns over the man's competency rose again out of habit, but as he confidently directed her into the cool of the ship and through the hallways, calmly pausing and warning her of pipes or doorframes, holding her with his skillful hands and strong arms as they descended stairways, the thoughts were continually dismissed. The man knew what he was doing, and she almost felt herself relax in his grip. Almost.
Besides, if any of the crew spoke out at the sight of her, she would simply… again, Uncle's presence rose in her mind, but this time in response to the thoughts of violence - she breathed. She would simply speak with them. It was unlikely enough for them to step out of line, anyways. She knew that she still had a fairly intimidating presence, despite the last year or so of trying to become more personable with the help of Ty Lee.
"Oh dear," said some old woman ahead of them. "That's quite the sunburn."
The man gently restrained her as he stopped, then spoke: "Princess Azula's eyes are in need of immediate medical attention."
The woman's breath caught and she hushed an order to her assistant: "Karra, dear, go ready an aloe-bath."
"There's really no need to be so concerned," Azula said, voice sharp and confident. The Sun Warrior moved her forward and gently pulled her hand toward the back of a chair, which she instinctively grabbed onto and felt her way down into the seat. "Merely an unusual injury from a sparring exercise," she continued.
Suddenly, a cool cloth - no, just water - surrounded her eyes and forehead, and the thumping pain at the back of her eye sockets immediately began to recede.
"Thank you," Azula said, to both the man and the old woman.
She could tell from the lack of the old woman's response that she was concentrating, so Azula directed her voice toward the Sun Warrior. "What is it that you did, exactly?" She asked, trying to keep her voice casual. "I must say I've never had someone block one of my lightning attacks, and there's no record of someone capable of inducing both blindness and a sunburn in a single move."
The Sun Warrior was silent for a moment before he spoke, and Azula wondered for a split second if he was still in the room (most people answered her immediately, even if it was little more than stuttering half the time).
"It is an ancient and highly advanced Sun Warrior battle art," he said, "and I may not be the best person to explain it. To put it simply, I projected highly concentrated sunlight. I had to use an adaptation of Firelord Iroh's lightning-redirection technique to make use of the incredible amount of energy I'd intercepted." He paused. "Lightning is very dangerous."
Azula's eyebrows furrowed in the realization of her mistake. She could have seriously injured the man - what had she been thinking?
Perhaps, Azula, you weren't, said Uncle's voice in her head.
She would have never used lightning in an ordinary sparring match. She'd just gotten so caught-up in the excitement that she'd stopped paying attention to what she was doing.
Father's harsh voice rose out of a memory in which she'd just lost a childhood sparring match and had demanded that her tutor be imprisoned: If you get injured in a fight, Azula, it is your fault, and the same is true if you do greater harm than intended on another. You must be constantly vigilant and in control, or your carelessness will lead you to failure, and there is no greater disgrace. Her tutor had still been imprisoned, of course, but Father's words had stung nonetheless.
Even if they were wrong, Azula thought, thinking of one of Uncle's lessons: if you never accepted failure, you'd never acknowledge poor habits and improve yourself.
She felt the water pull away from her face and heard the old woman say, "Okay dear, open your eyes and tell me how everything's looking."
Azula squinted and reflexively wiped at her eyes, but the woman had already gotten all the water off. She blinked and looked around, trying to catch shapes or outlines in the darkness. The Sun Warrior's scarred image had become much more dull, and she could dimly make out the figure of the old woman and the Sun Warrior in the room before her, but she still had a long way to go.
"The healing was insufficient," she said, then tried to soften her voice. "I am able make out some shapes, but I still have a great difficulty seeing anything recognizable."
"I feared as much. Not to worry, though, I will continue the treatment as you bathe and you'll be back to full health by the morning."
"The morning? What do you mean?"
"Yes," she said cautiously, "I'm afraid the injury may take a bit longer than normal to heal. I have calmed the area quite a bit, but encouraging the body's energy to flow toward a particular spot is a lengthy process, especially with an unusual injury like this."
Azula frowned and the Sun Warrior spoke up.
"My people are fairly skilled at accelerating healing. If there are no objections, I can offer my services."
Azula was skeptical, despite what she'd heard and seen of the Sun Warrior's abilities. These were her eyes, after all, and it didn't seem logical that fire could help heal.
The old woman's voice sounded equally doubtful. "I'm sure your people have their customs and rituals, young man," the woman said, the condescending tone suddenly making Azula bristle with anger, "but this is a professional medical bay and only verified -"
"Silence," Azula ordered, but recognized that her doubts may have led her to say something similar only moments ago. Then, speaking as much to the woman as to herself, she said: "I have seen much of this man's talent and it is foolish of you to speak of things you have no knowledge over. You are being incredibly ignorant and are perpetuating stereotypes. If you dare to talk down upon my associates again…" she paused, becoming aware of how harsh her voice sounded.
Thinking the threat was meant to be left lingering in the air, the old woman began to apologize profusely in a tone that was the complete reverse of how she'd been speaking moments ago, with a satisfying and rather enjoyable touch of fear in her voice.
Azula tuned her out, anger abating, and consciously suppressed the growing urge to smirk that usually rose when people started pleading to her. Then, suddenly acknowledging the urge for what it was, Azula wondered where it came from - people were afraid of her, intimidated by her, and she liked it. That sounded like a typical "evil character" trait from the plays she'd seen as a child, or something that Father would do, and so it was undoubtedly rooted in that part of her she'd been working so hard to rid herself of. Yet here it was, unaffected by all her efforts, as if its source was no closer to being resolved than that first day when she and Uncle had reconnected as family.
Why do I enjoy this woman's fear? Azula thought.
It is natural to enjoy the fear of your subordinates, said Father's voice. That is how you know they are under your control, and that you have power over them. And complete power, Azula, is the ultimate achievement in life.
No, Azula thought, frowning and eyebrows furrowing, that's not true! Fear destroys loyalty and pushes away the people that are close to you!
Suddenly, Azula registered that the old woman's apologies had increased in desperation and were being directed additionally toward the Sun Warrior. Her facial expression must have been misinterpreted by the old woman!
"It is of no concern," the man was saying, casually dismissing her apologies.
"Yes," Azula said, softening both her voice and face. "Mistakes are necessary for one to learn."
"Oh- okay," the old woman stammered with a hint of confusion, before resuming and profusely thanking her for her kindness and gracious understanding.
"Please," Azula said, stopping the woman. Azula sighed. "How are you planning on proceeding with the treatment?"
"Uh- yes, next, I have drawn an aloe-bath that should help restore your skin. During this time, your eye injuries were to continue to be massaged by my water-healing."
"The Sun Warrior will oversee the healing. I will not discourage you from observing the process if you wish to be present. Is the water ready?"
"Karra," the woman said, strict tone suddenly resurfacing, "is the water ready?"
There was a weak mumble in response, and Azula frowned.
"Madam," she said, "I am attempting to withhold harsh tones while a speak with you, and you would do well to extend that courtesy to your assistant."
"Oh, yes of course, my apologies Princess."
Azula sighed.
She turned her attention to the Sun Warrior. "Very well. Will you please escort me to the bath? Also," Azula said with a touch of guilt, "what is your name, by the way?"
"I am Jai, after my grandmother and previous Chief, Jaiza. And yes, I shall escort you."
Azula watched dark shapes shift in her vision and felt hands on her shoulder and side just as before, and she pushed herself up out of the chair.
"Jai," she asked with a sudden realization, "what are your people's attitude toward nudity?" The old woman let out a meep.
"It is not uncommon, nor stigmatized as it is by your people," he said, leading her forward into the room. "However clothing, as well as body paint and jewelry, are often worn for aesthetic purposes."
"Very well." So the embarrassment would be hers to bear alone - the medical staff was undoubtedly familiar with the human physique.
Azula got to the tub, carefully pulled the robes off her sensitive skin, and was guided by Jai as she walked up a small set of stairs and carefully stepped into the bath. The water was air-temperature, and Azula unbound her hair and let herself settle into it.
"You may begin," Azula said.
The water instantly began to sooth her skin, coolness seeming to roll up from her feet to her neck and back down again as the shadow of the woman's figure made motions above the water. The blisters on the back of her legs throbbed, but the pain soon began to ebb.
A warm, tingling sensation, accompanied by the man's smell of exotic spices, began to glow around her forehead and eyes, and she suddenly felt as if she'd just had an entire kettle of Uncle's morning tea. She'd only felt fire-healing once before, and while there were some similarities between it and water-healing, you could tell it was a completely different element. However, it wasn't like the fire she was familiar with - in fact, as she felt at his energy with her own firebending sense, she realized his fire's source was completely different than normal and that his fire-streams had actually shared the same, unfamiliar signature.
"Jai," she asked, "would you be able to instruct me on performing fire-healing?"
There was silence for a moment. "I'm sorry, Princess Azula, but I don't think that's something I will be able to teach you."
Azula didn't say anything, studying his unfamiliar energy. What was it about his technique that was so different than normal? Was it something particular to his culture that he'd been raised with and had taken years to master? Whatever it was, it seemed to be extremely valuable - not only had the Sun Warrior been able to absorb her lightning, but he was able to transform it and perform a firebending attack she'd never seen before.
"What about the sunlight-attack?" She asked, tentatively.
"The Flare is an ancient and highly advanced art," he said, repeating himself from earlier, "and no, I cannot help you with that either."
She remained silent. Maybe Jai couldn't help her, but that didn't mean she wouldn't be able to learn from someone else.
But what if - Azula thought, suddenly worried - what if it has to do with a person's nature? Images of Father flashed through her mind, being cruel and unfair to the people below him, imprisoning without a second thought, enjoying the fear of others and the destruction of other nations, and she recognized that some of these were things she was prone to doing as well. Dread filled her heart. Is that how I am inside?
She saw Zuko, her brother, on his knees, tears streaming from his face as he begged for forgiveness, and Father mercilessly pummeling him until the skin of his face was swollen and split, streaked with blood from the burns. She had been there, had enjoyed Zuko's weakness and injuries at Father's cruelty, and now they were both gone. Dead, all because of Father's evil nature, the same nature she could very well share. Their house was empty now, Uncle broken inside, and she had let it all happen. She had even been amused by it at the time. Was she really that monstrous? How could she have enjoyed seeing her brother suffer?
"Princess Azula, are you in pain?" The Sun Warrior asked.
She realized her face was screwed up and that she was crying. She tried to calm her expression, but the tears kept leaking out, and she gasped in frustration.
"I'm fine," she accidentally snapped, then hoped the Sun Warrior would forgive her. "I'm just… having unpleasant memories, that's all. There's no need for -" she gasped again and stopped as she remembered Father pointing a finger and smiling as he banishing Zuko's unconscious form.
Once the quiet of the room became unbearable, she spoke again: "I'm just having a difficult time with myself," she said, talking quickly. "I'm trying to become a better person, but I don't know - I don't know if -" she stopped again.
A moment passed, and Azula forced her eyes open to distract herself from the memories and the unpleasant thoughts. Her vision had vastly improved - she could see the man's hand-flames tumbling softly above her, white and gentle, and the water of the bath glowed as the woman passed her hands back and forth, her expression stoic and concentrated as if she felt she shouldn't be hearing this.
Azula sighed. "I suppose I just don't know where to begin. I've been trying to become more personable, but it's so… so difficult. I don't know myself very well. I'm worried about my nature. I don't want to hurt the people in my life." I don't want to become like Father, she thought. "I'm afraid that I won't be able to change, and have no idea how to start improving myself."
A moment passed as the old woman's rhythmic hand-motions passed over the water.
Suddenly, the Sun Warrior spoke again. "That," he said, "may be something that I can help you with."
Please leave a review to let me know if there's anything I can improve upon! I'm enjoying this AU quite a bit and want to hear some feedback!
See ya!