I think this is actually my favourite chapter so far! If you hadn't noticed, I have fun writing Azula. Figuring out her character seemed relatively simple, at first, but when I started plotting out her plans, I think they were more confusing than I could understand myself, so I was in Zuko's boat for a bit, there.
But I think it works out splendid :)
Could you imagine that originally, the only scene Zuko was in was the one in chapter two, when he's getting ready to go to the Agni Kai? You could say the story has changed a lot since then.
This chapter actually took a looong time to write, as you can tell by the delays. I'm very sorry about that, but it was a combination of school, illness, and time to sit down and rework the plot.
And yes, next chapter we get back to Miss Suki and Mr. Sokka. That chapter is currently at... 40 percent completion, I think.
CHAPTER EIGHT: BLACK OR WHITE
Zuko woke up to shouting and running –– when his eyes opened, all he could hear was the roars of men ordering others around, footsteps rapidly beating against the tiled floor, the loud exchanges of information. Azula was on the edge of his bed, facing him, leaning over on her arms so that her face hovered almost over his. It was so dark that she seemed blurry, like she was only a suggestion, and not a real being.
He didn't really react, it was only a dream, after all, and mother was gone again. Azula's mouth twisted up at the corners, and she seemed to wait for him to react. She opened her mouth to say something, but Zuko beat her to it.
Zuko said to himself, aloud, "Not this dream again."
"Dad's going to kill you," Azula sang, softly, and Zuko felt the shudder go down his spine, as he pulled himself to sit up. Azula sat back, a bit, and he ignored what she said. Just a dream, just a dream, he was a little boy with his life about to be ruined. Zuko felt apathetic.
He brought his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes, and his left eye stung like hell when he put pressure on it. He let out a gasp of pain and then brought his hands down and looked at them. There was nothing there, so he frantically brought one hand up to his cheek and felt his scar. The skin was boiled, raised in ugly bumps, and it was raw like leather.
He had his scar.
He turned to look at Azula, and realized that she was her present-day self, almost sixteen and beautiful, not some cute little nine year old. Her smile was horrible. Zuko stared at her, horrified by how real everything was, at that moment.
"Please tell me I'm dreaming," Zuko said.
"Alright, but you can't get all offended when you find out it's a lie," Azula replied. Then she paused, and then she said, seriously, "You're dreaming."
He broke out of his blankets and he pushed himself out of bed, his hair falling into his eyes. He swept it out of the way, and Azula swept him off his feet. She pressed him back, forcing him to sit down on the edge of the bed, and she said, "Don't be in such a hurry. What are you so worried about?"
"Dad's coming to kill me?" Zuko demanded, "Why is he going to kill me?"
He was freaked out. He was stunned. He was terrified. When she didn't reply, and just kept a hold on his shoulders, he demanded, again, and then said, "Azula, what's going on?"
Her face said she was amused, like she was thrilled that he seemed so dependent on her all of a sudden. Her mouth said, seriously, "That was a joke. Dad isn't going to kill you. What I really should have opened with, Zuko, is that someone killed Father."
He stared at her, and all at once, his stomach twisted. His guts wrenched. He felt like he was going to hurl, and all at once, he was losing another parent. The mental image of his mother came back, like a bad dream, and Azula was staring at him with his mother's mouth, his mother's cheekbones and his mother's figure, but her eyes were cold and vicious, like a snake's.
He said, all the more horrified, "What?"
"Father was found dead in his bed," Azula said.
He could say nothing, he could just try to grasp the situation. When he said nothing, she stood up and she paced over to the foot of his bed, where she leant against the post. Zuko stared at her, in horror.
Azula said, before Zuko could muster up the words for an accusation, "I didn't do it, before you put the blame on me. Trust me. I'm just as hurt as you are."
"Dad's... dead?" Zuko said, barely above a whisper, and Azula glanced at him, with a smile that was almost sad, but insincerely so. He could only stare at his bedroom wall, in shock, and Azula slid over to sit next to him. She slunk an arm around his shoulders, laid her head against his head in that charmingly condescending way.
And she said, softly, "I'm distraught, too. Everything I ever did, it was for Father, and now he's dead..."
Zuko didn't buy it for a second, but he was more concerned about himself, at that point. He fought tears of frustration, and found himself unable to cry for his father, something that nagged at him horribly. Why did he care so much about himself, when his father, the one he had been desperate to please, was dead?
There were loud slaps of boots rushing by the door every minute or so, with much shouting and orders to seal every door. Zuko heard his own bedroom door being sealed, and he did nothing to stop it. There wasn't anything he could do.
It was so dark in the room that he could hardly see anything that wasn't adjacent to the window, which was half-covered by heavy drapes. He jabbed his fingers at the candles, and they all lit up in flames. Everything danced into an unreliable relief, and Zuko felt his stomach twist when he saw that Azula seemed so terribly worn. It was the way her face looked without make-up, in the flickering light, it was the way her mouth curved down. She shifted slightly, so her cheek was against his shoulder.
It wasn't comforting for him at all.
Zuko said, "What happens next?"
Azula sighed, the top of her head against his cheek, and as she withdrew to sit up straight, her nails traced light grooves across his bare back. It was no friendlier than the times they were fighting, but the way she moved away implied it was unintentional, like she couldn't control her own claws. Zuko barely grit his teeth.
"Hundreds of political questions. Inquiries. The status quo has been overthrown, it must be maintained," Azula said. "Are you worried?"
"Yes," Zuko said. There was no point in trying to lie.
He thought, terrified, she did do it. He knew it. Agony better than misery, indeed – at first he had believed them to be the same thing, but now it made sense. Azula put him in more trouble. She put him in more pain, not the quiet sort that one kept hidden, the kind you couldn't resist screaming to. Agony. Agony. But how was that better?
The lights were still out and he still couldn't understand a thing. He didn't know why she'd do it. It didn't make sense. He was going to inherit the throne now, not her, why would she bring that about? Wouldn't she sabotage him, Zuko, her brother, and not the father that could give her that power she wanted?
Happier in the long run? How?
Zuko knew she had killed him. Zuko knew it, deep down; it was the despair in his throat and the tightening in his stomach that told him. He realized he could have prevented it, had he only stood up to her.
He was disgusted with his own weakness. Disgusted at how, no matter how much effort he made to see through what she was doing, she still managed to slip between his fingers and out of his grasp.
She was a terrifying thing to reckon with. His voice came out with a croak, a miserable sort of "Father's dead. Father's been killed."
Azula said, "I'm all you have, now. You're too old to cry for your parents. Don't worry. I'll take good care of you."
He and Azula were found together some half hour later. It didn't matter. Neither of them had spoken a word to each other in that time, and Zuko kept giving Azula questioning looks. Perhaps, he thought, she really was upset. Never once had she allowed him peace when they were in the same room, and, after all, Azula was to their father what Zuko was to their mother. Surely, it dug into even her black heart, to lose her father.
But the lights, the cryptic talk from before. The lights went out, he still didn't understand.
When the servants came in, led by General Shang, they seemed surprised that the siblings were together, at least in one room. Azula was still sitting on his bed, near the foot, and Zuko sat at the head. In fact, he was sitting on one of his pillows, up against the wall with his arms folded, as if he were trying to stay away from her. When General Shang approached, Zuko leapt to his feet at the side of the bed. Azula only lifted her head, as she had been staring at a place on the floor near the wall.
"General," she said, surprisingly smooth, Zuko thought, for a time so tumultuous. His eyes drifted to the open door behind the men, and he saw that the halls, normally lit every hour of the day, were black as night, without windows. It was like someone had turned off every light, every torch, and no one had been able to relight them.
"What's going on?" Zuko asked. He felt weak in the legs.
"There is an assassin loose," General Shang said. Azula raised her eyebrows.
"Still?"
"Unfortunately."
General Shang turned to Azula, and he sank to one grubby knee. He said, gravelly and grave, "Princess Azula, I wish to know where you have been. When you spoke to me before going to bed, I assumed you would stay there, but when I went to check after the first alarms went up, you were missing."
Azula stood up, a surprisingly slow move, and she said, calmly, "When did you come? At one point, I left to get a drink, and the Palace fell into an uproar immediately after. I was concerned that the killer was still loose, so I came here, where Prince Zuko was."
Zuko's head turned to Azula so fast he pulled a muscle, but he ignored the throbbing pain with wide eyes. Surely, she was lying about that? But she seemed so calm, so sincere. But, at the same time, as if she needed comfort from him. As if she cared about him. As if she were worried about him.
"Has Prince Zuko been here all night?" he asked, and Azula didn't reply, she just turned to look at Zuko.
Zuko, mildly miffed at not being addressed directly, said, "Yes."
"I understand," General Shang said, "Do both of you understand the current situation?" The siblings nodded, vaguely, and General Shang saw fit to explain anyway. He said, "Your honourable father, Fire Lord Ozai, has been found dead in his bed. His heart was stopped by a blast of bend lightning directly to the chest. Princess Azula, the council is taking record of all firebending masters advanced enough to create lightning and will be holding them accountable until the assassin is found."
"Am I to be included in this congregation?" Azula said, her voice growing dark. General Shang seemed ready to confirm it, but he didn't seem ready to actually say it aloud. Before he could, Azula took him out of his misery: she said, pointedly, "I have been unable to bend lightning, or do much firebending at all, for some weeks, due to my injuries. Surely you're not suggesting I defied the limits of my own body to do something to my own father, who I've always been loyal to?"
"My apologies, Princess," General Shang said, and he bowed his head. His eyes drifted to Zuko, and then he said, "Can Prince Zuko bend lightning?"
"Don't be silly," Azula said, before Zuko could reply on his own. It stung, to have her admit such weakness on his part. She continued, "He hasn't been mastered firebending yet, let alone learned to create lightning."
There was a pause, and Azula turned around on the bed to look at Zuko, and through the dim candlelight, her gold eyes glowed and danced. She said, carefully, "Unless he knows more than he's let on."
"I don't know how to bend lightning," Zuko said. It was like admitting he wasn't worthwhile, a funny thing to be concerned about, when there was nothing good about being a candidate for murder. He looked away, and Azula looked back to General Shang.
"Then I ask you to get dressed, Princess Azula, and Prince Zuko. There are many meetings to be held, inquiries," General Shang said. Azula gave a curt wave of her hand, as if asking him to gloss over the details, and he did. He said to her, almost concerned, "I shall escort to your chambers, Princess, and then to the war room. We cannot be too careful in these times."
"Thank you," Azula said, and she slid off the edge of Zuko's bed, and she smoothed her sleeping robes over her thighs, elegantly. She gave Zuko one last look, and she said, calmly, "I'll see you in the war room, dear brother."
When she and the General disappeared out of Zuko's room, Zuko blinked back frustrated and anguished tears. He set on dressing himself, stabbing his feet through the legs of his pants angrily, tying up the sash of his robe all wrong, fitting the pauldron on backwards and then turning it around immediately after. But that was understandable: Zuko couldn't see, his eyes were so misted.
Zuko hadn't been in the war room since he had spoken out of turn and gotten his face scarred for it. To think that the first reappearance in the room wasn't to direct a victorious battle – it was to decide who should be punished for his father's murder – was a grave matter. The room was almost exactly as he remembered it: map of the world on the floor, though the countries had been remarked, and the large pillows for seating all around it.
He arrived before Azula. He was nervously greeted by the pageboys and pagegirls, he was given curt bows by the other generals. They led him by a low draped with a red cloth, with a suspiciously human shape underneath it. Still, no one liked him. When Azula came in, they made a great show of spine-breaking bows and lowered eyes, even when she was leaning over Zuko's shoulder and pointing at a different seat.
"That's yours," she said, "this one's mine."
"But," Zuko started to protest, but there was no time for it. Everyone was eager to start. They switched seats, and Azula slid down onto his seat like she was born to be there. Maybe, Zuko considered, she did deserve to be there.
He was just so confused, and the talking between everyone around him was giving him a massive headache. They all chattered, repeating themselves, caught up in the drama and the political ramifications of what had happened.
"Very well," General Shang said, "if we could all quiet down, we could get started. We have a lot of information to share tonight, and a lot of important decisions to make. No one leaves until we're done. First order of business –– the killer."
Azula was settled. She folded one leg over the other and said, calmly, "Have you caught the perpetrator?"
"There are only five people in this palace capable of bending lightning," a man named General Choi said, "Fire Lord Ozai himself, his daughter Princess Azula, General Shang, General Rhee, and myself."
"State your alibi," Azula said. "Where were you tonight, General Choi?"
The general stood up, though this made little difference to his height. He wasn't tall at all, though he certainly could bear the weight of his armor. What he lacked in height, he made up for in width.
"The officers of my unit and I were discussing ex-General Iroh's escape," he said. He started to continue, and Zuko perked up to listen intently, but Azula cut him off.
"Excused," she said, "General Rhee?"
(General Rhee was a woman who led the women's units, small and scarce as they were. She was, curiously, not much of a warrior. Her skill rested entirely with negotiations and special missions, as the women's units rarely were placed on the regular battlefields. Despite her general non-participation in battles themselves, she carried a type of flag spear called a "keechang", and was well-known for it.)
"I was sleeping," General Rhee replied, "General Shang woke me to inform me of the situation."
"General Shang and I spoke before I went to bed," Azula said, "therefore, we are both excused."
Zuko didn't like, at all, how no one was contesting these excuses, but it occurred to him that it didn't matter: every single person in this room knew who did it. They all knew it was Azula, not a single one doubted it, as almost these same people had gathered here years ago, to discuss Azulon's death. They were all playing into it, pretending they had no idea, and yet it was so painfully clear.
The conversation drifted for a moment about the possibility of suicide, but that was ruled out rather quickly, seeing as his bed was set up perfectly, and his guards were both slaughtered. Suicide had happened twice in the Royal family's history –– over three hundred years ago, Prince Sado, and then two centuries earlier, with Prince Yinreng and his mistress.
"Very well, on the subject of who inherits the throne... Princess Azula still officially holds the title of the Crown, but Fire Lord Ozai had made his intention to make Zuko his heir clear, though there has been no official coronation yet. However, there are complications further than that."
Zuko glanced at Azula. She looked annoyed, and she leant forward in her seat, as if she weren't hearing things right. She said, testily, "How could there possibly be a complication if I was titled heir apparent, and Zuko is only by what may have been a passing idea, or thought?"
"My apologies, Princess," General Shang said, "exceptions have been made for you in all high-ranking positions –– you are the first woman to ever be granted permission to control the men's unit, that in itself is incredible –– but the position of Fire Lord deals in both military AND civilian affairs––"
"I know what I've accomplished better than anyone," Azula interrupted. "And I know what being Fire Lord entails. My father raised me to succeed him. However, I would have expected that the bill for right-to-rule would be effective by now."
There was a slight pause where General Shang said nothing, and Zuko asked, "What bill?"
"It's been in negotiation for a year," Azula said, calmly, "so that I would be able to take the throne as a woman, and not under a male title. I'd rather be Fire Lady than Fire Lord, though it's a small matter."
"Unfortunately," General Shang said, "the bill lacks the Fire Lord's signature. Without it, Princess, no matter how you were groomed as a child, no matter what Ozai's intentions were, you cannot be crowned. At best, to conform to the laws set down by your great-great-grandfather, Fire Lord Zutan, which states that your husband could rule."
"Unless I was promised as a child and not informed of it," Azula said, cooly, "that's not an option. Negotiations and bids for an arranged marriage are to begin on my sixteenth birthday, not before. There is another option, however, that doesn't require that."
"Do you have an alternate idea?"
"Joint rule with Prince Zuko," Azula said, calmly, and the entire room fell silent. Zuko looked at her, immediately catching on to what she was saying. "Twin thrones, we could rule together."
"You're--" Zuko started, but Azula was too fast.
She denied what he feared most. She said, "We could rule as brother and sister, together."
He was stunned she would even offer, and the rest of the room did, too. She seemed so vehement about adopting the throne that it seemed unlikely that she would share it. In fact, Azula never shared anything. Azula would never let Zuko touch her things, now or ever.
"And let you usurp all the power? No," Zuko said, firmly. "I would never rule with you, there would never be any progress at all." He left off the bit at the end, where he wanted to say he'd rather not rule at all than rule with her. He didn't want to give her ideas to build off of.
"Then give a reason other than in the future," Azula said, and Zuko just glowered at her.
"There remains two options to us, then," another General said. His name was General Dong-Sun, he was a man who had spent much of his time in the colonies. He explained, "Firstly, as Prince Zuko was not going to be crowned as heir until this evening, Princess Azula technically holds the Crown, and should be made Fire Lord. However, this is conflicting, as women do not hold the right to rule. That bill has yet to be passed."
Zuko glanced at Azula, and then back to General Dong-Sun, in an excited sort of flurry. She couldn't rule. Azula couldn't take the throne. That left the only place to him, didn't it? Zuko sat up straighter in his seat, prouder, and Azula didn't even flinch.
"How long is it until the tradition is changed?" Azula replied. "I've read the documents myself, records dating back to before Fire Lord Izanagi. For six hundred years, no woman has ruled alone, even in situations where there have been no other heirs. Would you pass the throne to someone less worthy merely because they are male? I find this a stupid practice."
"We know you do," one of the Generals said, a thin, wiry man with a weak chin. He said, with a sniffy sort of condescending tone, "you've been pushing for his bill for two years. Never before has a woman in the Fire nation commanded an elite army, you've already broken convention enough. Have patience. Zuko is the first born, even if he was shamed. Fire Lord Ozai clearly wanted him back if he intended to place him on the throne--"
Azula was on her feet in an instant, and she said, coldly, "Would you dare speak against me, General Tsuneo? I won't have it."
"It's my birthright," Zuko piped up, and though a few Generals glanced at him, most ignored him. Azula didn't even seem to hear him. So he repeated himself louder, and they all looked, falling silent.
It was a lot like being in his father's war room the first time, when he had spoken for the poor new soldiers, boys barely older than him. They had stared at him, stunned and angry at his objections. And now, they were staring, not with astonishment or with anger, but with pity. Azula was the only one who offered him any sort of malice, and she hid it well, with a simple frown.
"General Dong-Sun," Azula piped up, before Zuko could state his case. "Legally, I am entitled to my inheritance. My father's intention may have been to make Zuko his heir, but as of his death, Zuko was not officially made heir. The papers were not signed, the ceremony was not completed, and therefore, I am still the Crown Princess."
"Whatever your father's intentions were, Princess," General Dong-Sun said, "we can not guess. For all we know, he could have died while planning to give the Earth kingdom back to its people…"
This was interrupted by a heavy barrage of laughter from all the men in the room, leaving Azula and Zuko the only two in silence. Zuko stared stonily ahead; he was trying to keep up, so utterly twisted up inside. Azula remained on her feet, angrily. When the laughter lasted for more than thirty seconds, she slammed her fist on the surface of the table, and the entire room fell silent, laughter slaughtered in their throats.
They all stared at Azula, a lot of grown men, battle-hardened men, wise, intelligent men, all whipped into submission by a teenaged girl.
"Are you suggesting this situation is funny?" she demanded. There was another moment of silence, and she continued, "I didn't think so. The Fire Lord, my father, the beloved leader of our great nation. He is dead and you are giggling like schoolgirls."
The silence reigned.
"I demand you cease this foolish behaviour at once and get back to the task at hand," Azula said, and she slapped the flat of her palm against the table once more. A few Generals jumped, and Zuko grit his teeth. She said, "To not do so would be a disrespect to your nation, to your honour, and above all, to me. Now apologize."
To Zuko's discomfort, there was a murmured reply, apologies, and the bowing of many heads.
"Princess," General Tsuneo said, "your bill to allow women to rule needs the signatures of every General in this panel, and the signature of the Fire Lord."
"Which of you hasn't signed?" Azula demanded.
There was silence, and a show of hands. Two hands went up, one immediately, and the other slowly, almost shyly. General Tsuneo's hand was held up high, proudly, while General Shang's inched up weakly.
Azula's eyes landed on General Shang like a viper. She said, voice dripping with poison, "Might I ask why?"
"I've been too busy to review the bill in its entirety, Princess," General Shang said, "I still have to finish reviewing the history, and the proposed new regulations, and, there is, of course, the reaction of the public to consider—"
"General Shang," Azula interrupted, "am I to take your hesitation as a personal statement against the Crown Princess, or am I to believe that you're wrapped up in your sexism? Or is it both? It's a simple process."
General Shang lowered his head, and he said, "Princess, I remain loyal to you. This is merely a larger--"
"Do you?" Azula interrupted, yet again. No one seemed to have the courage to cut her off, to interrupt her. She commanded the room with fear, and Zuko wondered why any of them so much as considered putting her on the throne. Azula continued, "I feel I have more than proved my worth. I toppled Ba Sing Se and Omashu. I killed the Avatar. Most men don't even come close to one of those, let alone succeed in all three. If there is someone else who would rule this nation better, point him or her out, because I fail to recognize anyone."
Zuko had enough. He said, "I want my birthright." He said it loudly, clearly, and Azula still ignored him.
"Well?" she prompted, to the room.
"Azula, I want my birthright," he said, even louder, standing up. Azula's gold eyes flicked to him for an instant, and he grabbed her shoulder and turned her around to face him. She didn't fight him, but she lifted her sharp chin in defiance. He said, "I want my birthright."
"Don't touch me," Azula said, whisking his hand off her shoulder with a swat of her hand. She turned back to the room, calmly, and she said, "Gentlemen, what has this boy done for his country?"
Zuko regretted speaking up, because he realized, right then, next to Azula, he had nothing. All he had was a desire, and even peasant boys walking barefoot in the dirty streets and sleeping in the gutters had dreams and desires about power. He didn't have military accomplishments. He didn't have victories to his name, like Azula did.
He had nothing.
"Shaming our family, shaming himself, shaming everyone he comes in touch with," Azula said, "If he can't manage a ship, how could he possibly manage a country? We would be sunk before nightfall, with Zuko on the throne."
Zuko said, "That isn't true. I would be a capable leader."
"And what examples do you have, to prove your capability?" Azula shot back. She glanced at the Generals, who were staring at the scene in something akin to fear and understanding, and she said, "Make your case then, Zuko. I won't be missing anything."
"I helped topple Ba Sing Se," Zuko tried, firmly.
"No, you didn't," Azula said, "you fought alongside me in the aftermath."
Zuko couldn't say anything at all.
With that, she said, "I'm going to bed. Don't dare wake me unless you've got a proposition for me." She left calmly. The Generals watched her go, apprehensively, and Zuko took his seat again, awkwardly. He gathered his thoughts, prepared to make his case.
But as Zuko opened his mouth, General Dong-Sun said, diligently, "Let us adjourn this meeting for the time being, then. We will continue this session this afternoon, after lunch."
There was a murmured agreement and Zuko watched, in horror, as they all climbed to their feet and left, chatting amongst themselves. He remained seated, clutching the edge of the table. They all left, except for General Tsumeo, who looked up at Zuko with those droopy, doleful eyes. He said, calmly, "I fear I'll be signing that document."
"You can't," Zuko protested.
"Morally," General Tsumeo said, "I can't. But physically, I can, and will. But I hope you know your sister as a leader as well as we do, Prince Zuko. Only then, really, can you best her in this fruitless game."
"What do you mean?" Zuko asked.
"Azula will have me killed," General Tsumeo said, "and either force me to sign, or else forge my signature. She's ruthless, and I won't be the first. I have little doubt about who else's blood stains those horrible hands."
General Tsumeo's eyes drifted to Ozai's body, under the red sheets. Zuko hated that General, at that moment. He was infuriated that the General could stand up to Azula while in her face, but everyone knew he was a wilting flower outside of confrontation. The man who could, literally, take on a Komodo rhino with his bare hands without fear, but who laid in bed at night, so terrified of the battles ahead that he was unable to move.
Zuko thought he was a coward. He didn't say a word.
"If you're smart, you won't fight her," General Tsumeo said.
"How will that solve anything?" Zuko demanded, "I want to be Fire Lord and I want to fix this screwed up world. I want to free the prisoners and free the soldiers. I want to make everyone happy, and I can't do that as the brother of the Fire Lord—Lady, whatever. I can't gain anything by being merely a noble."
General Tsumeo shrugged. He replied, "You won't be killed, that's what you'll gain. A life of some sort, even if it wasn't the one you were promised as a baby."
"I hate all of you," Zuko announced, "none of you stand up to her even if it seems the most obvious thing of all, that she killed him."
This seemed to spark a bit of hostility in the General, and Zuko could only clench the table and look away when he was told, "And when's the last time you stood up to her and stopped her, Prince Zuko? We've all tried at one point. We just value our own lives, and the lives of our families."
"You and your families will DIE in Azula's Fire nation," Zuko snapped.
"Not if we're in her good books," was the defensive reply, and then General Tsumeo left the room, shutting the heavy doors behind him. "But we'll try to put you on the throne."
Zuko was alone, alone with the body of his father, and he put his head in his hands and breathed deep, waiting for something to happen. He waited for his mother to come in and comfort him. He waited for Uncle Iroh to come in and tell him what to do. He waited for a voice in the back of his head, telling him what to do. He waited, desperately, for a miracle to strike Azula dead, because he just couldn't do it.
Nothing happened.
Things changed for both of them when the messenger came to them over their late breakfast. Azula had just walked in, barely a moment earlier, and taken her seat exactly as she always did. Calm, together, and regal. She acted as though nothing had happened the night before. Ty Lee chewed her rice with an awkward smile, Mai didn't react at all, and Zuko couldn't eat, he was too disturbed.
Azula looked up at the messenger expectantly, almost smiling, and she prompted, "Yes?"
"General Shang sends a message," he said, and he handed her a scroll of paper. She unwrapped it, unfurled it, and glanced down at it.
Zuko could have retched at the look of delight on her face.
"Ah," she said, "General Shang has signed the bill!"
Then her face soured. Zuko waited for her to say something, but she didn't, so he said, "What is it?"
She put back on that smirk, though he could see how livid she was. He said, "What is it, Azula?"
"We're not going to the meeting this afternoon," she said, "they've barred our presence."
Zuko felt his stomach do flip-flops.
"What does that mean?" he asked, as Azula re-rolled the scroll and thrust it into servant's hands, without even offering it to Zuko first. Zuko reached for it, and the servant handed it to him. He almost tore it, in his eagerness to open it.
"It means they don't want you sitting there and begging for the throne," Azula said, with a smile.
"Sounds like they don't want you doing that either, ha-ha," Ty Lee teased, and the corner of Azula's mouth twisted up. She glanced at Ty Lee sidelong, and then Ty Lee yelped. Zuko, at first, wondered how Azula made Ty Lee yelp without even saying or doing anything, but then Ty Lee glanced at Mai and complained "Hey!"
Apparently, Mai had kicked Ty Lee under the table. Zuko saw why.
"Very funny," Azula said, though she didn't sound like she meant it. She picked at her breakfast, and then narrowed her eyes at Zuko. "Your thoughts?"
"You care about my thoughts?" Zuko replied, warily.
"I wouldn't ask if I didn't."
"Right," Zuko said, and he paused. "To be honest, I'd like to be there, but if they've barred me, there isn't much I can do."
"Well," Azula said, "you are set to be Fire Lord. How could they deny you if you demanded it?"
Zuko saw what she was doing there. He caught her, that time, easily. For the first time, he felt as through he had understood her trap entirely. She was trying to lure him into agreeing that he would be Fire Lord. So, with that in mind, and a sudden confidence, he said, "I wouldn't want to be rude." He glanced at Mai, and smiled. He asked, "So what would you like to do today?"
Azula seemed the slightest bit annoyed. She said, "It wouldn't be rude. You're entirely within your rights, Zuko."
"Too late," Mai said. "He has plans. We're going on a picnic."
Azula did not look pleased. Ty Lee nudged her with one elbow, rather playfully, and she asked, "Azula, what are we going to do?" Her smile was bright and big.
There was a moment without reply, and then Azula said, with a slight smile, the kind that wasn't really genuine, "Let's go for a run."
Ty Lee grinned, and Zuko felt himself slip into an easier sort of ease. Father was dead, but life would go on. When he glanced at Mai, who was looking at him with that blank sort of cheer, he realized Azula wasn't the only one left for him, in the whole world.
Zuko wasn't sure how it happened, but a picnic turned into a walk, and a walk turned into a day on the couch. Not that he minded, but it was funny how intentions turned out completely different than actions.
Mai had a calming effect about her. She made him relax. Not the sort of relaxed where he became lethargic and shut off from the rest of the world, but the sort where he found himself able to open himself up. She asked, calmly, "Do you want to to talk about it?"
"No," he breathed, feeling his throat loosen up already. Azula had fallen out of sight at least a hundred paces back, her presence as far away. It was just him, and Mai. Just Zuko and Mai. Just the two of them.
"Very well," she said, and then she took ahold of his arm, right by the elbow. He felt like a gentleman.
But he was inclined to talk about it anyway.
"I'm glad I don't have to sit in on those meetings, in a way," Zuko said, with a sigh of relief. "Even one was enough for me... I'm so exhausted I could just collapse right here. I don't know if I could sit through another, maybe Azula's right. Maybe she would be the better ruler. She's more... cut-throat."
She said, calmly, "I thought you didn't want to talk about it."
"I don't," Zuko said, and Mai placed a hand against his forearm, empathetic and yet not pitying.
"Then don't," she said. He felt an odd sort of comfort slip over him, with those simple words and that gesture, and his mind found peace. His shoulders relaxed. He let out a calmed sigh.
Her hands slipped from his arm, to take his hand, and she held that for a moment. She smiled and and he smiled back. A thought occurred to him, and he pulled her in a different direction, politely.
She said, "Hey, where are you going?"
"I have an idea," he said.
There were two gardens in the palace. One was a large one, which was the public one with the ponds and the turtleducks. People passed through that one all the time, they were free to wander. Most of the exits from the palace passed through that garden. But the second was private, restricted to the Fire Lord and his most honoured guests, and Zuko had never been there for more than a minute or two in his entire life. Why not try to go now?
"Where?"
"The Fire Lord's Court," he said, and while he waited for her to rebuff him on it, she didn't. She gave a faintly amused smile.
"Sounds like fun," she replied. Zuko couldn't resist stepping closer to her and taking her face between his hands, and pressing a kiss to her lips. It was soft, tentative, and then bolder. They broke off so that walking could be made possible.
As Zuko expected, he was stopped by the guard by the gate. Zuko immediately countered the rejection with a calm and firm, "I'm going to be Fire Lord soon. Why not?"
But with a bit of convincing, mostly on Mai's part, they were in.
Zuko vaguely remembered the place as a beautiful garden -- he remembered holding onto the train of his mother's gown and looking around in wide-eyed wonder, each new sight a bit more intimidated than the next. All the flowers seemed so impossibly large and threatening, exotic blooms from all around the world that grew as large as Zuko's face. Some had spiny ridges, others were delicate, some seemed to be shaped like great mouths with sharp teeth, fit for snapping up bugs.
He remembered, too, how he wanted to be in his mother's arms, but he couldn't, because the new baby had taken his place. He didn't like that, he had cried, and nurse had taken him out of the garden. Zuko had never gone back.
But this garden wasn't what he remembered, the intimidating plants, beautiful in their dominance over the native Fire nation blooms there. In fact, it wasn't even remotely close. Zuko struggled to come to terms with it.
In fact, in the present reality, there were no flowers. There were no plants. There was no gentle pond, no flora, nothing that suggested it was a garden at all. Instead, it was just a stretch of dead grass and a withered tree in the middle, yellowed. The wood was rotting, and the pond had long dried up.
Zuko just stared for a moment, and then Mai laughed, suddenly. It was a sharp laugh, nothing musical or particularly attractive-sounding, but it was so endearing he couldn't help but let a grin tug at his lips. He looked at her, and she looked back at him.
"Did you spend years wanting to get in here?" she asked.
"Sort of," Zuko replied, and then he laughed, himself.
"That's so lame," she said.
"Are you mocking me?" he asked, none-too-seriously. She smirked at him, and he kneed her in the butt, almost knocking her over. He said, "Some girlfriend."
She shoved him back by the forearm, quite playfully, though her face remained calm, looking vaguely amused. He shuffled out of her way, and she said, "Well, kicking me, some boyfriend."
"Hey, you started it," he said.
"I'll finish it," she said, and she took him by the waist and pulled him in close.
Zuko awoke to a crowded room, but he had the satisfaction of knowing Azula wasn't there. It was frightening, still, to be prodded awake only to see a circle of powerful, fully-dressed Generals surrounding him. General Rhee was closest to him, and she took her hand off his shoulder as he opened his eyes and sat up, and all of them sank to their knees and bowed for a moment.
Zuko wondered, in disbelief, if Azula had died in her sleep, and now he was the only heir to the throne.
They went on to straighten up and inform him very seriously that, given the circumstances, Zuko was to be Fire Lord in just under a month's time. They were going to consider it for a while, give Azula a chance to bid for her bill and try to win their support, but as it stood, they were giving the crown to him, simply because it was the law.
Zuko couldn't believe it. He was sitting there, in his sleeping clothes, sleepy-eyed and ruffle-haired, and they were explaining law and the monarchy to him. He just couldn't get over it. It lasted thirty minutes and he just sat there, feeling like an idiot, as they went over irrelevant details on conduct and procedure and what his duties would be when he was crowned.
He was just baffled that he just started, simply asked one or two polite, sheepish questions, and then resumed his straight-ahead terrified stare, wondering, wondering why Azula wasn't there.
It scared him that he wanted her presence so desperately because he knew something had to be extremely wrong for her to pass this up so innocently. But when he asked General Rhee whether his sister knew or not, General Rhee simply replied, "We told her and she accepted. She is waiting outside to speak with you when you're ready."
Zuko, not wanting to delay, dismissed everyone and stumbled into his clothes, and by time he was fit to be seen in public, the hall outside his door was deserted except for, well... Azula. She was leaning against the wall with her arms folded, and her eyes on the floor. She straightened up as soon as he opened the door.
His defense mechanism shot into action.
"Why did you stop pursuing it?" Zuko demanded.
"I decided I didn't want it anymore," came Azula's reply, so calmly. She said it with such flippancy, such honesty, as if it were nothing. Zuko could only stare at her, wondering why.
He remembered another noble child in court, in his own childhood, placing tacks on the seats they gave to others. It was funny for a laugh, unless you were the poor child getting stuck like a pig.
"Why don't you want it?" he asked.
"Because I realized I have nothing to fear by letting you rule," Azula replied.
"Did you ever fear that?"
"So many questions," Azula replied, skeptically. "Are you that worried?"
"Maybe," Zuko said, with a dark frown. He said, "Just tell me."
"Not for an instant," Azula said, "but I realized that perhaps, Zuko, you'll do a fine job, as long as you keep everything together. Keep the world intact, keep our family's pride and honour."
"Are you lying?" Zuko asked, doubtfully. Azula was looking at him with a smirk, thumbing the buckle of one of her gauntlets as she tightened it around her wrists.
"I don't lie nearly as often as you think I do," Azula replied, "Don't pretend I was born evil and have zero kindness in my entire being. I did you a favour back in Ba Sing Se, didn't I? I did you a favour with Iroh, didn't I?"
"You did," Zuko agreed, "but you pushed for the throne. You changed your mind so suddenly."
He realized, right there, that he was talking as if she really had changed her mind. He was talking as though he had bought the whole story. And, when his eyes met Azula's, he knew that she had seen that coming.
"You'll find that many people are capable of change," Azula said.
"You've never changed," Zuko retorted.
"Nonsense," Azula said. She started walking down the hall, to her own room. "I change all the time. You're just so wrapped up in yourself, and your own personal redemption, that you don't notice anyone else."
"What?" Zuko said, and he almost laughed, even as he followed her. He caught it in his throat, he merely scoffed, and then he told her: "You, of all people, want redemption?"
Azula lifted his chin, parted her lips, and mimed laughing, though no noise came out. She just said, with twisted amusement heavy on her voice, "Redemption? You say it as if I have done things to need to redeem myself."
With that, she slipped into her own room and shut the door behind her, leaving him standing there like a fool. He felt oddly optimistic anyway.
But that optimism didn't last long, unfortunately –– later in the afternoon, he heard two maids talking about the suicide of a General, and with careful eavesdropping, Zuko realized that they were talking about General Shang.
When he spoke to Azula about it, later, she acted like she hadn't heard, and she made a great show of acting distraught at the news, but Zuko didn't buy it for an instant.
Zuko was enjoying his day as much as he could, with so much political strife around him. He was half-asleep, with Mai under one arm. She was reading. Ty Lee was stretched out on the floor, grabbing the balls of her feet without bending her knees, flipping over backwards and draping her feet over her neck with easy, the ripple of her taut stomach muscles peeking between the gaps in her clothes.
And he was enjoying his day, reading over Mai's shoulder and watching Ty Lee do some new contortionist act, occasionally sipping at his drink, until Azula walked in.
"Really, Zuko," Azula said, "you should be happy that you don't have to sit in to these meetings. Getting this law changed is surprisingly difficult."
"Serves you right," Zuko said, confidently, "they decided I'd be Fire Lord, and that's it."
"It'll take weeks to prepare for the funeral and coronation, you know," Azula reminded him, "There's plenty of time for things to change."
Zuko realized she was holding a box, and when his eyes drifted down, she looked down at it too, as if surprised that she herself would have to carry something. "This?" Azula said. "This is a gift for you."
He was wary. Azula didn't hesitate to place it firmly in his lap. It was very light, though the way she gave it to him made it seem heavier than stone. Zuko looked down at it, and Mai glanced over at it. She didn't seem concerned, so Zuko dared brush his fingertips over the lid.
Azula said to a servant, dismissively, "I'd like some spiced peanuts." Off the servant scampered.
"What is it?" he asked, suspiciously.
She waved one hand, again dismissively, and she said, "Keepsakes. Original paintings done by the court painter, from when we were kids. Figured I'd give them to you, instead of keeping them in my closet."
Zuko flipped the box open, still expecting some joke, but he was pleasantly surprised. It was a neat stack of thick paper cards that fit the box perfectly. He picked up the first one and twisted his wrist to flip it over, and the cool grey eyes of his mother stared back at him.
Azula's peanuts arrived. She took the plate thanklessly and said nothing, standing before him and waiting for a reaction.
"This is from when you were just born," Zuko said, surprised, "she looks a lot younger than I remember."
"Little did she know, many years later, her son would be preparing himself to sit at the helm of the greatest civilization on earth," Azula said.
Zuko looked up, reluctantly taking his eyes off his mother's beautiful face. He was surprised at her wording, but he quickly replaced it with an easy smile, not wanting to let Azula see it. He said, "Mm."
Azula smiled and shifted her weight to one foot, so her hip cocked. She popped a peanut in her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and then she said, calmly, "She never guessed, either, that if Zuko died right now, I'd inherit the throne. In fact, the only thing that would keep me off that throne forever is if he had his own children, and then grandchildren, and they would have to hope to outlive me or make too many heirs." She paused, Zuko picked up his glass of plum wine, and Azula said, "What do you think of that, Mai? The pressure's on, now."
Zuko snorted his wine right through his nose. At the last second he turned his head away from Mai, over the armrest of the couch, and he sprayed the armrest of the couch purple. He let out a gasp of pain (Azula knew it burned, that bitch) and clutched his face while servants swooped in to mop up the mess. Mai looked disgusted, horrified and embarrassed all at once, Ty Lee collapsed into laughter, and Azula just remained smug as ever.
"I'm not old enough to wed, yet," Mai said, calmly, as if it were nothing, when she recovered from her initial poor reaction. She went back to thumbing through her book. "Then, we'll see."
Zuko spluttered, "What kind of a question is that to ask?!"
"Zuko, you're spraying everything with spit," Ty Lee complained, "Ew, ew, ew. Stop yelling."
"Oh dear," Azula said, seemingly unresponsive to all this negativity around her. She only continued, dearly, "I'm only teasing."
"It sounds like a challenge," Zuko growled. He caught Mai's eye. Mai looked hurt that he would react that way, though he was positive that she wasn't too keen on leaping into bed with the intention of anything but feeling good, and that nothing would change in the near future.
Zuko didn't have much of an interest in marriage; he liked Mai no matter what title she had. And besides... there was lingering mistrust. And distance. And they rarely seemed to have decent conversation. How could he possibly care about marriage?
But Azula was making it a race, a game, she was pushing them. But why? She had no way of winning, that Zuko foresaw, as no male with an interest in his own well-being would dare. Azula was a horrible threat to one's lifestyle. And Zuko didn't like how Azula pushed him.
"Don't be silly," Azula commanded.
Zuko ignored her, pushed his hand past the servant still mopping up the linens, and took up his re-filled glass. He took a swig, rapidly, in case she decided to drop more bombs on him. She didn't. His attention drifted back to the box in his lap, and he flipped through them, determined to ignore her.
They were all like snapshots of the happier times, hastily painted in minutes, barely the size of his spread fingers. There was Mother again and again, as a beautiful shadow behind her children and husband. There was Father, looking stern, but somehow softer than he had in his last years. There was Azula, too, a beautiful child that had taken after her mother's good looks, learning to write calligraphy. At five, she was probably more skilled than Zuko was at present. And, there was Zuko, two-eyed, looking up at his mother as she trailed behind his father. Ursa looked back, over her shoulder, but she kept her back to him.
It was such an awkward picture.
Azula was still watching him, and she said, "Ty Lee, Mai, excuse us for a moment."
"No, no," Zuko said, "They can stay."
Mai's lips twitched, and Azula raised an eyebrow at him, as if he had said something particularly out of line. All at once, he hated how perceptive she was, and cursed his own reluctance to be with her alone.
"It's fine," Mai said, "I should stretch my legs."
"Me too!" Ty Lee added, quickly. She had been stretching for hours. Zuko disliked this scenario, both girls dropping everything to leave. They shut the door behind them, leaving Zuko alone with his box and his wicked sister.
Azula took a seat, munching on her peanuts as if each were a rare and refined delicacy, and she folded one leg over the other and said nothing. Zuko waited for her to say something, and she didn't. He demanded, "Well?"
She pushed the peanuts around on her plate with one sharp nail before selecting one and seizing it between those claws. She popped it in her mouth and she said, "It couldn't last forever, you know. The scenes in the paintings."
He understood, but he hated it. He ignored her comment and he asked, "Do you want to have a family someday? A husband, kids?"
He was staring at the paintings again, one of Azula with her eyes painted with what looked like real gold foil. It was flaking, leaving her eyes chipped and blank. When Azula didn't reply, he looked up and prompted, "Azula?"
She was looking out the window, but she said, "I suppose I'll have to. Can't let the family line die out –– how would I possibly continue it without a child, if you were unable to carry the throne?"
Zuko wasn't happy. He said, "Would you even love a child?" He was skeptical. He was afraid for the child, even when it was only a passing thought, but he was afraid for himself, too.
Azula said, "If they're everything I want them to be."
"Please only have one," Zuko demanded, "if you do it at all."
She raised one eyebrow, and she smirked. "Ah," she breathed. "We couldn't have more Zukos and Irohs, now, could we?"
Zuko could imagine it so clearly. Fifteen, maybe twenty years from now, would he be in Uncle Iroh's place? Would he be bundling his nephew up in a blanket as he fell into septic shock from the vicious burns on his face, would he be giving up the Palace to ensure the boy's survival? Would he be spending his years on a miserable old ship, trying to keep the spirits of a bitter and frustrated and utterly desperate boy alive?
And the fact that the cycle could continue, that terrified him most.
Almost angrily, he turned on her: "How could any child ever live up to your expectations? You'd be a nightmare. That child would go to bed fearing its own mother, rising to only imagine what kind of ridiculous demands you'll put up. If it wasn't a perfect child, what would you do? Disown it, or have another just to show it up and make it feel like trash? That's cruel."
"It worked for Dad," Azula shot back, and Zuko grit his teeth and went back to the pictures, staring long and hard at one of himself. Azula said, "I don't see what you find so attractive about rule by circumstance. The real concept, that's worth over birth. Even the Water tribe understands it, you don't see their tribes passed onto the weakling son of the leader. No, Zuko, leadership is for claiming. If you can't understand that now, you might as well grovel on your knees. You may have the divine right to rule, but you're hardly fit to lead."
"I never thought I'd live to see the day where you, of all people, Azula, would praise something that the rest of the world did," Zuko replied, determined not to listen to the jabs.
"No," Azula said, "they just understand that when a system works, to keep using it. Do you think that hundreds of years ago, the Fire nation revolved around a system that asked 'Is it male? Is it breathing? Is it the first?' No. Back then, one had to war, to prove themselves, to control the land to state their worth. Nobles had a divine right, but they still had to earn it."
"And we still had no female leaders," Zuko said, not because he believed it, but because it would get under her skin. It did, and she put down her plate on the armrest of her chair with a stung look. Peanuts skittered off the edge, dusted in spices that clouded the plate.
She seemed genuinely angry. She said, sharply, "I proved that I'd be the better heir at five years old, Zuko. If Iroh hadn't had twenty years of experience on our father, our father would have surpassed Iroh, too. And uncle Anguoh, and aunt Anzu -- they were worthier of the title, one of them should have succeeded, but they failed and Fire Lord Sozin put Azulon on the throne, merely because he was born first! And HA-- look what happened there! He was removed by his own progeny."
Zuko just said, darkly, "What makes you think you'll get it? Sozin died old in his bed––"
"–Because his other children lacked the ambition to take the place they wanted," Azula said.
Zuko forced himself on, to continue, "So? Azulon was removed to give our father the throne."
"Yes," Azula said, almost impatiently. She continued, "And to think, Zuko. If he hadn't had the drive to succeed, you and I would have been doomed into being the cousins of the Fire Lord. Not because we weren't worth it, but because our father happened to come along late. It is hardly a proper system."
"I understand that," Zuko snapped. He accidently rumpled the edge of a painted card, and it folded under the pressure. He looked down at it and smoothed it immediately, but the new crease would be impossible to fix. He swore at the line folded through his mother's throat and folded it backwards to lessen the damage.
Azula watched him, calming rapidly. She was gaining her composure. She wasn't so impassioned with her desire to succeed. Zuko took his chance and he said, "Who said you'd ever be Fire Lord, anyway? Who says I don't want it more than you do?"
Azula let out a calm snort, and she went back to looking out the window. She said, with a smug tone that dripped with amusement, "You're right. Who is to say?"
But she sounded so sure of herself.
Zuko had known a girl or two, Mai considered, as he pulled her hips down to grind against his. Perhaps it was how he touched her skin, perhaps it was how he knew how to maneuver himself around her. She'd never known a boy quite like this, really, except for the stupid gawky boys her father and mother had invited over, back in the colonies, and she never touched them when she could avoid it. But as for Zuko, Mai couldn't imagine where a scarred and standoffish boy would meet a girl who'd do this with him, Earth kingdom or not.
Mai gasped, felt her toes curl, and she dragged her painted nails over his shoulders, trying to find support. He moaned against her mouth. His skin was hot as fire, his legs tangled with hers like snakes until she wrapped them around his waist. He was Zuko in and out -- quick to jump in, shy at times, but determined all the way through.
And, of course, some things were naturally awkward – the way he disrobed her, the way he brushed her bangs from her face so he could kiss her forehead, her eyelids, her cheekbones. Mai knew he was a faster learner, though, despite anything said about him. One grope too rough and he knew, oh, he knew better next time. Mai made sure of it.
Mai, in all, felt more than she ever had in her entire life, and for the first time, she felt like she didn't have to serve to please. Zuko loved, and wanted her, in more than just this way, betwixt the sheets and in the humid western afternoons.
It was all spark showers, raw kisses up and down her body, and mumbles and moans stifled against skin.
But for the moment, her only complaint was that he didn't have the stamina to make the entertainment last too long. That could be corrected, she noted, in time. For Zuko, she could wait patiently.
They were still tangled together afterwards, though, with Mai wrapped up in his arms and her bare back against his bare chest. One of his hands was over her breast, fingers drifting across her nipple almost experimentally. She was tolerant of his breath on her neck, as he slept. They fit together like puzzle pieces –– incorrect at times, but correct eventually.
Then, Zuko had to go and spoil the magic by mumbling aloud, "Mmph, 'zula."
Mai's eyes widened. Her mouth fell open a bit, her heart started to thump in her chest in a nasty tattoo. She twisted her head to try and see him, she was so wrapped up in blankets and his arms that she couldn't even turn to see him properly. She said, stunned, "Excuse me?"
He was fast asleep.
Zuko woke up shortly after, to feel Mai untangle herself from his arms and slide out of bed.
Mai was dressing. She stood by the edge of his bed, quite naked, sorting out her underwear and flipping it the right way around. Zuko came to his senses as she pulled them on, and he said, confused, "Where are you going?"
She didn't say anything, apparently too preoccupied with her clothing. There was a lot of it. Zuko glanced at the window and noted that the sun was down. How long had he been sleeping? An hour, at best?
"I'm going to bathe," Mai said.
It seemed too bold for Zuko to invite himself. So he just pulled himself to sit up, dropping his legs off the side of the bed, and he wrapped the sheets around him. Mai went on dressing, quietly, and Zuko said, "Oh." After a moment, he added, with a smile, "Are you coming back here, after?"
"Maybe," Mai said.
Zuko didn't like how drab she sounded. It was a "no" sort of maybe, to be polite. So he asked, "Did I do something wrong?"
"I enjoyed myself," Mai replied, but she didn't sound terribly enthusiastic about it, not like Jin had, even though that had been the most awkward encounter of his life.
"I did too," Zuko said, quite pleased, though her tone was bugging him. He dwelled on it, as she dressed.
There was a moment of silence, and as she was just closing the button on the front of her shanqun, and Zuko just sat there, pleased and confused and concerned, with his hands on his knees and his shoulders relaxed. Mai didn't look at him. In fact, she acted like he wasn't even there.
So his mind wandered. He said, completely out of the blue, "Do you think Azula killed Father?"
Mai didn't reply for a minute. She stopped in front of his mirror to do her hair up, and he just watched her. The way her jaw set made him regret he had ever asked.
"Elision," Mai said, "that's what it is."
"What?" Zuko said.
"She killed him behind closed doors. It makes it worse for everyone, because no one but her knows what happened in there to cause it. The deed is hidden. We can't blame her, even if we know she did it. It's going to be omitted from history as if Fire Lord Ozai died in his sleep."
"But that's wrong!" Zuko protested, "I KNOW she killed Father! I worked so hard to get back into his good books, I went through so much! And she killed him!"
Mai looked at him with something like disgust, as if he were holding something foul under her nose. She said, "Don't you care that he's dead? All you seem to care about is that Azula did something wrong, and that you're not going to be able to reap the benefits anymore."
"I do care about Dad, I do," Zuko replied, defensively, "But Azula didn't take any blame at all, no one seems to care that she did it, even if everyone seems to know it. I know it, you know it, the council knows it, Ty Lee knows it, and yet no one but me wants to say anything about it aloud!"
Mai didn't say anything, she just focused on her hair. Zuko rounded on her.
"Are you loyal to me, or Azula?" asked Zuko, determined. Mai stared him down, her face blank, her eyes cool, as always. She didn't reply, and Zuko said, "I order you to answer me."
"Where did this come from? Azula is my friend," Mai said, coolly, "She's been my friend since our school days. Why wouldn't I be?"
"What about me?" Zuko demanded, stung.
"I always liked you, and still do," Mai said. She wasn't blushing, but her voice lifted a bit. "I'm loyal to you, too."
That was it? That was all? No explained reassurance? Zuko waited for her to say more but she didn't. He sat there, the blankets falling around his waist, and stared at her, pale and dark-haired against all the red linens. She did not look impressed at all.
"But how do I know you're not feeding Azula every word I say, so she can use it against me?" he urged. If it was possible at all, Mai looked even less impressed.
She lifted an eyebrow at him and raised her chin. She said, calmly, "You don't. You're just paranoid, and maybe just a bit obsessed with Azula. Ever since the Avatar died, you're been turning your obsession onto her, and since your father died, it's been considerably worse."
Zuko admonished her with an offended, "He died? Mai, Azula murdered him."
"Irrelevant," Mai said, "that's not the point. You're obsessed with everything she's doing."
Zuko scowled and replied, "I'm not obsessed! I'm just worried she'll go after ME to get the throne. Father liked her better, she has all the politicians in her hands, and everyone likes her better. I don't even know why Father made me Crown Prince again, unless it's just to give Azula something to play with! And I still haven't mastered firebending, and Uncle Iroh could be anywhere by now, or he could be dead, and it's all my fault—"
Mai gave a loud huff, and she said, snottily, "not this again."
Zuko stared at her, half in shock and half angry, and he said, "What?"
"Throne this, Azula that."
Mai wasn't even looking at him. She was thumbing through her hair, scanning her reflection for a single misplaced hair. He waited for her to look up, and he was truly appalled that he was hearing anything like this from her, from Mai, from his girlfriend. Someone who could possibly be his wife someday, as no other girls seemed to be coming along. He just slept with her and she had liked it.
"Do—do you even care?" Zuko asked.
Mai looked up and him, then, and she said, "I really do, Zuko. But I want to be spending time with you, the goofy guy who'll laugh with me, not a paranoid, obsessive freak with a fixation on his sister."
Zuko sighed, exaggerated and frustrated, and he counted out the points on his fingers. "One, I'm not paranoid. Two, I'm not obsessive. Three, I'm not a freak." He paused, and checked that she was still looking at him. She wasn't. He let out a growl and he snapped, "I'm not fixated on anything but surviving!"
It took a bit, but he finally got a reaction out of Mai. She lowered her hands from her hair, and Zuko felt the magnitude of what he had snarled at her when she looked down at him, angrily.
"Come talk to me when that goofball I liked by the fountain comes back again, I miss him terribly," Mai said, and she stormed off.
Zuko didn't chase her. He just folded his arms, stretched out on the couch, and pretended nothing happened, while the servants just outside the room glanced between each other awkwardly.
"Zuko's driving me up the wall," Mai said, calmly, as she climbed into bed. Ty Lee peeked her eyes up over the edge of the covers. Her side of the bed, compared to Mai's meticulously folded blankets and sheets, was pell-mell, despite the obvious attempts of servants to tame it. Ty Lee just liked her sheets rumpled when she went to bed.
Ty Lee said, "What'd he do?"
"He's worried about Azula."
"I don't blame him!" Ty Lee nodded, very seriously, but her voice was as carefree as usual. She rolled onto her stomach and kicked her feet in the air, so that the blankets tented up. Folding her arms under her pillow, she said, "I'm actually kind of worried too, I think that's why my skin feels all icky tonight."
"Mm," Mai murmured, uncommitted. She said, "I am too."
"Really? You never get worried," Ty Lee said, turning her round brown eyes on Mai in surprise. "But I guess this is pretty serious, huh?"
"The Fire Lord's dead, his son has returned from exile and is set to be crowned, so his daughter, only recently stripped of the title of Crown Princess, won't get the throne," Mai listed, drearily, as if she were unloading a heavy cart. She continued, in her own monotonous voice, "I imagine the whole Nation's going to be in turmoil now…"
"Did Azula tell you ahead of time?" Ty Lee asked, quietly.
Mai shook her head.
"Me either," Ty Lee said, "Gee… that's the first time she didn't tell us what she was doing. Even when her mom—"
"Ssh, Ty Lee," Mai shushed her, quickly, actually reaching over to put her hand over her friend's mouth. She warned, "We shouldn't talk about it, someone could overhear."
"Oh," Ty Lee said, brightly. She had clued in rather fast. She said, "Right, right."
There was a quiet moment – that was a rare thing with Ty Lee around. Mai settled down under the covers, her long black hair falling loose around her shoulders and back. Ty Lee's was much longer, of course, but even when she slept, she kept it tucked into a neat plait.
With the covers up to her neck and her hands folded across her stomach, Mai lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling, thinking quietly. Ty Lee rolled over again, but it didn't bother Mai, as their shared bed was so wide they probably couldn't have touched both each other and the edge of the bed, had they stretched out finger-tips to finger-tips.
"Heeey, why are you back in here with me, anyway, when you're dating Zuko?" Ty Lee asked, propping herself up on one elbow. Mai sighed and brought her hands up over her eyes for a moment. She didn't really want to get onto this subject, though she figured Ty Lee would ask eventually, anyway, especially if Mai was going to crash in her room.
"Commoners date. Nobles court."
Ty Lee said, "Sorry, well, why? You mad at him or something?"
"He keeps bothering me about being on Azula's side," Mai grumbled. "He just can't grasp that we're friends and nothing's going to change that. And I'm not going home, it's empty and boring with no one around."
"Just bothered you?" Ty Lee said, with a smile.
"Well," Mai said, and she paused. It was such a delicate subject. Her cheeks flushed just slightly, with the barest tinge of pink. She said, darkly, "We were alone together in his room, and things happened, and then… he said her name. Right after, well... that." She trailed and started again. "And afterwards he just wanted to talk about Azula. He accused me of feeding her information about him."
Ty Lee laughed, and then she said, with that big goofy grin, "What a dumby!"
Mai didn't even want to reply to a dumb statement like that. So she said, "He can sleep alone tonight. When he stops bothering me about Azula, I'll go back to him."
"Yeah," Ty Lee said, and enthusiastically, she added, "So it's a sleepover!"
The door swung open, and Ty Lee sat up and craned her neck to see who was there. No one was in sight, and Ty Lee started to call over, but Azula appeared around the edge of the door with a smile, and she said, "And I'm not invited?"
"Azula!" Ty Lee laughed, "I was just about to call you!"
Mai sat up, and wondered how long Azula had been at the door. Presently, Azula was striding towards them, barefoot, in her sleeping robe and loose pants. She stepped up onto the foot of the bed and walked across the top of it, stepping over Ty Lee's feet and crashing down to sit between the girls, propped up against the headboard.
"I thought I heard my name," Azula said, wryly. "You know what they say about saying demons' names will make them appear to you. Thought I'd drop in and, lo and behold, a sleepover I wasn't invited to."
Mai thought it almost funny that Azula would joke so lightheartedly about being so wicked. She didn't care, though, she was used to it. So she just said, patiently, "We were just discussing your brother. Care to join us?"
"Would I ever," Azula said, joining them under the covers and giving an odd little laugh to herself. "I'm surprised you're not with him right now, Mai. Tired of the angst already?"
The corner of Mai's mouth twisted up, but whether it was sardonic in nature or actual amusement, Mai wouldn't say. Ty Lee giggled. Azula waited for an answer, and Mai said, "He talks about you constantly. It's like he has a fixation."
"I see how it is," Azula said, inspecting her nails and smiling. She seemed to at ease, so relaxed. She said, charmingly, "I suppose with mother and father dead, and Iroh in exile, it's only suiting that he cares about the only family he has."
Ty Lee erupted in giggles, and she said, "Oh, Azula, you'll never stop laughing, but when Mai and Zuko were—"
"Don't you dare," Mai said. But Ty Lee ploughed on, laughing so hard that her shoulders shook, and she had to clutch her stomach, and her eyes started tearing up.
"Bah-hah-hah-hah! Ha! HAHA! You'll never stop laughing! Mai and Zuko were having some fun and, ha ha ha, HA, they finished, ha ha, and the first thing he did was roll over and—"
"Ty Lee!" Mai protested.
"He asked her if you were using her as a spy," Ty Lee finished, loudly, and Azula glanced between Ty Lee and Mai with a raised eyebrow, looking a bit surprised.
Azula said, with a tone that suggested she, too, would like to laugh like crazy, "Really, Mai? That's ridiculous."
"No kidding," Mai said, darkly. She shot Ty Lee a glower, that only doubled when Ty Lee replied.
"Maybe you need some new moves."
Mai grabbed a pillow and hurled it at Ty Lee. Funny that a pillow could take someone with such fine-tuned reactions and combat skills out, but it happened: it bounced off her head. Ty Lee let out a protest and she grabbed another pillow and used it as a makeshift club to whap Mai right back.
"Stop that!" Mai protested, picking up another one and rising on her knees in bed, reaching across Azula to pelt Ty Lee again. Ty Lee only laughed, and Azula did, too, though she picked up a pillow and joined in.
It was all forgotten, then. Zuko, fixations, Mai's sex life, and the murder of reigning monarchs and fathers, everything. All of it was, for the moment, replaced by a high-action and high-energy pillow fight.
"Ever done cartwheels?" Ty Lee asked, smiling and tilting her head. Zuko looked at her, incredulous. Mai was still grouchy, Azula was off playing with politics, all while Ty Lee bounced around him and bothered him.
"As a game...?"
"No, just because," she said.
"No," Zuko replied. Ty Lee clapped her hands together. Zuko said, quickly, "No way."
"What do you want to do, then?" she asked. Zuko stood up.
"I wanted to talk to you about Azula," he said, and he continued, when she folded her arms, "And then we can do somersaults or handstands or something."
"Okay," Ty Lee agreed, enthused once again. "How about both at once?"
"Er," Zuko said. He was ready to balk, but he could see Ty Lee wasn't going to do much otherwise.
"Okay!" Ty Lee clapped her hands. Zuko awkwardly knelt in the grass next to her, hyper-aware of the fact that he was going to do something silly. He waited, and then she dropped down to the ground and put her head in the grass. She braced her arms, and said, "Do this!"
Zuko did it, and found it hard to watch Ty Lee at the same time. She straightened up, and grabbed him by the knees. She said, "Balance your knees on your elbows. I know it sounds silly, but do it."
It took Zuko a few tries, and he felt absolutely ridiculous, but he pulled it off.
"Now try to get up!"
He failed, and fell. He let out a vehement growl and he asked, "Are you sure?"
"Don't use your legs to get yourself up," Ty Lee said, with a silly grin, "you'll just flop around in the air like a fish! Use your stomach muscles."
Zuko stared at her; he was quite happy he had that covered, and tried it. His legs wavered anyway, but once he could get his butt up in the air, he couldn't figure out how to straighten his legs without overbalancing. He tried, and failed, and he intentionally aimed to fall forwards, so he didn't land on his own neck.
Ty Lee squatted down next to him and she said, "That's pretty good, for a beginner, you know. It takes a lot of practice."
"Er, thanks," Zuko said, and she patted him on the knee.
"Try again!" she urged.
"Alright, but before I do," Zuko said, "About Azula—"
Ty Lee heaved a melodramatic sigh, and she flopped over in the grass. Zuko stopped talking. He waited for her to complain, to rebuff him or something, but when she didn't, he testily continued, "I just wanted to ask you if you knew why she killed Dad."
"Gee, Mai was right," Ty Lee said, "you really only care about Azula, don't you? Everything is about Azula! Did you really interrupt cuddle time to talk about Azula?"
Zuko flushed, and he said, alarmed, "Does she tell you about what we do alone?!"
"Well, yeah, it's not like I have ears in the walls, silly," Ty Lee replied. She stretched, arching her back as she folded her hands together and reached them towards the sky. "But that was mean of you."
Zuko felt stupid, suddenly, now that she pointed it out. It was true, wasn't it? No wonder Mai had been so fussy. In retrospect, he really did look like a complete jerk. And he had his excuses, he really did, but that didn't mean he had to be nasty.
Ty Lee noticed this dumbstruck look, and she said, "Look, maybe you just need to relax a bit. You really need to just breathe, forget about what Azula's doing, and focus on yourself. I mean, ha-ha, you're the Fire Lord now! Don't you have bigger things to work on?"
As she spoke, she rearranged her legs into a lotus position, and mimed bringing her arms up slowly, in some teasing sort of fashion. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Zuko stared at her, and replied, "So I'm just supposed to sit back and relax when she might be planning to kill me? She's up to something, Ty Lee, and you know what it is!"
"Actually, I don't," Ty Lee replied, almost indignantly, "Look, we may be good friends, but she doesn't really sit us down in the evenings to discuss who she's going to hurt next, okay? It's not like we sit around braiding each others' hair and giggling over DOOM and DESTRUCTION."
She made arm gestures as she said it, and Zuko found it very hard to take her seriously, but she had a great point. Azula probably didn't confide in them for everything, though there was still that lingering doubt in his head about it all. Ty Lee probably didn't know more than he did.
"But she does plan it," Zuko argued, "doesn't that bother you? That your friend plots to kill innocent people?"
"You know, maybe it's justified," Ty Lee said, defensively. "Your dad is – was – a lousy guy. Just think of it as revenge for scarring and banishing you, or something."
"That's horrible," Zuko shot back, sitting bolt up, "Apologize for that."
Ty Lee hesitated, and she raised an eyebrow. She said, "I'm not gonna fight with you, Zuko, there's no point."
Zuko stared her down, angrily, and she did a backwards somersault to put some distance between them, and then she flipped to her feet some yards away. She said, seriously, "I'm sorry." She bowed, and then straightened and said, "You don't have to be so mean about it."
With minimal hesitation, Zuko said, "Sorry. I guess I'm just on edge around here." He paused, and Ty Lee didn't say anything, she just slid to her knees and sat down. Zuko said, finally, "I just don't understand how you and Mai can just sit around like rocks about this. Azula killed our father and you're not even alarmed that she did. You act like she stepped on an ant, or something."
"I hate ants," Ty Lee replied, "I didn't hate your dad."
"Fine," Zuko said, frustrated, "you know what I mean, though."
"Well," Ty Lee said, "I think about it a lot, and then I decide that there's nothing I could have done, if I knew. If I told you ahead of time, wouldn't you have gone to protect him? Azula might have killed you. If I told anyone else, who would have believed me? I may be Azula's friend, but I'd be accusing her of murdering her own father."
"I know, I know," Zuko said, "Azula told me that herself. But you'd think that people would be SO eager to find a culprit that they'd buy absolutely anything."
Ty Lee shrugged, and shook her head.
Azula's hands drifted across her ribcage, carefully, and she looked up at her advisor with a strange look. It was utterly impossible to describe well – perhaps it was anger, with the way she let out a sharp breath and then gritted her teeth. Perhaps it was concern, with how her eyebrows sloped. Perhaps it was shock, with how the corners of her mouth twisted and her lips parted.
But her eyes, those horrible yellow eyes, they spoke of bloodlust.
"What did you say?" she said, standing up and drawing herself up to her full height. The beat of her heart was like a drum, constant and impending. The advisor just held eye contact and sank to one knee.
"The unit holding the Kyoshi warriors has been invaded and destroyed, and the prisoners escaped alive."
She demanded, "Tell me everything, and leave no tiny detail out, no matter how insignificant you think it."
The advisor broke eye contact and launched into the explanation, but then he finished with the last thing Azula should have been told: "No one knows where she is."
Azula stepped down from her throne, furiously, each step loud against the floor. Azula never stormed so violently, she was so often calm and impending rather than obvious. She headed for the door, walking so fast she tread on the advisor's hands as she walked by.
She never looked back; she slammed the door behind her, and walked right into Zuko's chest. She didn't quite touch him, but she was close enough that she had to step back to change her course.
"What's going on?" he asked, though she could tell he didn't really want to ask at all. She looked up with him, and gathered her thoughts. She brought her hand up to brush a lock of hair from her face, as it had fallen out of her topknot, in her rage.
She said, with renewed calmness, "I'm going hunting, brother. The North Pole can wait. Do you want to come?"
"What?" Zuko said, and then he corrected himself with a "Pardon? Why?"
"My friend flew away from her cage," Azula said, "and you're coming with me, to find her."
"Why would I do that?" Zuko growled.
"Because I asked you nicely," Azula replied. She paused, to smile and touch her fingertips to his cheek. She said, "Mai's going. How could you possibly guarantee her safety if you didn't go? We'll be doing dangerous things."
There was no point in arguing that Mai was an accomplished fighter herself, that she was perhaps even more skilled than Zuko, because Azula knew that Zuko would doubt. Zuko would believe that Azula was a threat to Mai.
Zuko didn't even hesitate when he nodded, though he brushed Azula's fingers away angrily. Azula knew that Zuko wouldn't risk the only real friend he had, and it's not like he had something to do over the weeks anyway.
Their ship left early in the morning. Azula had been up for hours and hours, or perhaps she had never slept at all. Zuko didn't know. Either way, she kept to herself, but her image stalked him like a wolf. If Zuko was alone, or with someone else, no matter what, he could count on her shadowing him like an afterthought, though she was never really there.
He thought about her far too much, especially as the Fire nations islands were fading into the distance, too far for the human eye to take in. It was foggy, it was going to be a humid day. The steam of the stack overhead blotted out the clouds.
He just watched his home sail away. Zuko hadn't figured on leaving home so soon.
"I hate this," Ty Lee said, suddenly, "I really do."
She was perched on the edge of the rail around the rear of the ship. There wasn't really a fear of falling, because the top of the rail was thick enough to safely sit on, but Zuko wanted to reach out and hold onto her anyway.
"The going-away part or the Azula part?" Zuko asked. He leant against the rail, within arm's reach of her.
"Mm," Ty Lee smiled, not committed to any answer. "There are a lot of reasons, but I was happy in the circus. And I was happy back home. But I guess, as long as I go where there's sunshine, everything will be alright!"
"I wish I could be so carefree," Zuko said, almost bitterly. "What happens next?"
"What d'you mean?"
"After we find Azula's friend, the escapee," Zuko asked. "What happens after that? We just go home and she lets me have the throne without a fight? I don't know why she cares about this escapee so much, it's just one girl. Between a girl and an entire nation, I know which I'd pick."
"Is she as pretty as me?" Ty Lee teased.
Zuko didn't feel the joke. He said, dryly, "I'd pick the nation. And besides, Azula's not in love with the girl. She wants her dead, if you were paying attention. She's got to hate that girl a lot."
Ty Lee shrugged, not hurt that Zuko had blown her off. She said, "Well, the girl is a bit more important than that, you know? It's not that the girl did anything wrong, we just beat them up a bit. It's the whole brain thing. We learnt a lot from that girl, we did. But maybe that girl learnt a bit too much about Azula, at the same time."
"Why would Azula tell a stranger about herself?" Zuko said.
"I don't know," Ty Lee huffed, "I can't read MINDS, you know. I just notice stuff, okay? It's not like Azula was friendly, but she has some pretty bad stories to tell."
Zuko didn't know how to reply to that. He just kept his arms folded against his chest, leaning against the metal rail with a frown on his face. He just didn't know how to reply, didn't know how to accept such a horrible thing in his head. Azula, telling strangers about her secret life? Stories? Personal stories? He just asked, "Are they true stories?"
Ty Lee didn't reply. She just flipped backwards off of the rail, straightened up on her feet, and she shrugged.
"Is that a yes or a no?" Zuko asked.
"I dunno," Ty Lee said.
And right there, the conversation stopped, because Azula joined them on the deck.
Zuko had forgotten how much he hated ships.
After two years, he had more or less adjusted to the nonsense that was living on a ship, but his ship had been one of little luxury. It was the ship of a former captain, one that was of little status, and thus, he had a little ship. It wasn't Iroh's ship – Uncle Iroh had said that taking his ship would be senseless, as it was a huge, coal-devouring monster, and it was fairly unreasonable to coast around the entire world in such a thing. Expensive, a waste of resources they didn't really have. So Uncle Iroh had taken the ex-captain's old ship, fitted it with his crew, and hoped for the best.
Zuko hadn't made many decisions back then. Those were the first days, the first two weeks of his banishment. When he wasn't curled up in his cabin under a mound of blankets, trying to sweat off the fever and the infections, he was a wreck. Zuko barely remembered being carried onto the boat, barely remembered Azula on the pier, a smiling ten-year-old who looked as if she had just been granted all her wishes and dreams. It was true. She really had been.
He had shut himself in his new room, between four cold steel walls, with only a few cheap tapestries for comfort. They were emblazoned with the Fire nation symbol, the one flame. It was his goal, his determination, but it was also just a scrap of cloth on the wall, musty and old with age.
He had slept for twenty hours a day, then, he had turned visitors away, and he had ignored it when the end of his mattress sank deep with weight, finding someone sitting by his feet. Iroh would sit there for hours, and Zuko never once looked up, he just listened to the man cry those old-man tears.
Zuko was still in so much pain at that point, so much that his entire body felt like it was burned. A servant, one of the few that had come with them from the Fire nation, fed him. She had propped him up on a mountain of pillows and fed him bite by bite. Because of the heavy burns on his face, infected and bound to leave the nastiest of marks, he could barely see her, and because of that, he could only blearily look at her out his good eye, and pretend she was his mother. Here comes the ship into the port, open wide and eat up, Zuko, so you'll be strong and well. Good boy! Oh, you poor thing.
(The servant died of diphtheria, some months later, when Zuko was well enough to feed and bathe himself. She contracted the disease when they stopped in a port of a colony town, and by time she realized she had it, it was too late for healing. Luckily, she didn't pass it to anyone else on the ship, as there were enough skilled firebenders to ward it off, but Zuko didn't care much either way; he pitied himself more than he could possibly pity anyone else.)
And as the weeks went by, things got mildly better. Their ship was chugging steadily out of Fire nation waters, and Zuko was well enough to sit up without feeling atrocious. He was propped up on a couch on the deck, where he could sit and watch the last of the Fire nation drift by. His head was still wrapped in those bandages, and the left side of his face was both painful and numb at the same time, with all the nerves shot.
He watched his homeland – even if they were islands he had never visited – drift by like clumps of red seaweed. He wanted to reach out to them, to grab them and hold on for dear life, but he was miles away and he had nowhere to go.
Zuko still didn't talk to anyone. He just talked to himself, with those delusions he'd come to accept: Father is testing me. Father didn't mean it. Father will change his mind and call us home. We misunderstood; he never banished us, he's sent us on an errand. We'll be back home in two weeks.
Of course, this lie of two weeks became three, then a month, then two, then six, and then Zuko wondered if he'd ever see his homeland. He kept that desperate hope alive.
When he was well enough to sit up and concentrate, he demanded books. He demanded records. They were brought to him, sometimes in minutes, sometimes in weeks, and he would pore over them until his eye watered, by whatever scrap of light he could find or make in his room. The books and records told of the Avatar, everything the Avatar could do, its purpose and its ways. Zuko read about Roku, and Kyoshi, and Kuruk. He read about Yangchen, but there was no information on any Avatar before that, as there were few surviving records. He knew the names of the rest of them, but his supply of information ended there, so he went on to study airbenders as a people.
That, too, was roughly around when he demanded Iroh take him as his apprentice. News reports from home – pointless things sent to more as a means of tracking rather than real concern – said that Azula had learnt to bend lightning, at the tender age of eleven. Azula bothered to sent a letter herself, full of discreet little snipes at Zuko, claiming superiority. She mentioned, in lavish detail, how exquisite her coronation as Crown Princess and heir apparent was. Zuko could practically taste the wine in his mouth, her words were so vivid. It made him feel sick to his stomach.
Iroh told him to pay no mind, and Zuko wrote back anyway, a six-page letter so full of anger and spite and bitterness that very little of it was legible. Zuko waited for a response for months, knowing Azula would insist on having the last word, but no letter ever came. Zuko hoped that she had died of some horrible wound, explaining her delay at replying, but news didn't come of that, either. Instead, Zuko received a copy of a poster, telling of Azula's first victory in battle, at the age of eleven. Apparently, she had revised some General's plans, and her version won them the city without losing a single Fire nation soldier's life. There was a comment, hand-written in a margin, and it said, "What are you doing to please Father?"
Zuko burned it, and shut himself up for days, but that was not a new practice.
He learned to live that way.
"That friend of yours," Zuko said, "the one in the prison. The one we're going to hunt down."
Azula merely turned her eyes on him, and she possessed a look that suggested she was sorely annoyed at him for assuming she needed a reminder. Those golden eyes were hawklike, but she hid no shame. She said, right out, "What about her?"
"Surely you have a reason for this bigger than finding a single girl?" Zuko replied.
"Not really," Azula said, "I want her found and I want to kill her myself. No one disrespects me. No one escapes the Fire nation and survives, for that matter."
"Ah," Zuko said.
"Tell me everything you know about the Avatar's company," Azula commanded, and Zuko blinked, slowly. Azula expanded on the comment. She said, "The Water tribe girl and boy, and I believe there was an Earthbender, too. Tell me everything."
"Uh," Zuko trailed, rather taken off-guard by this question. How much detail to put it in? How to explain how petty he'd been? So he said, "I don't even remember their names, but I know that the Water tribe kids came from the South. They went up through Kyoshi, and um, they were in a Fire nation shipyard for a while, freeing captives. Then they continued north, visited an island in the Fire nation, Avatar Roku's island. Got to the Northern Water tribe, Zhao killed the Moon spirit but it came back alive… I don't know, lots of stuff."
Azula scoffed, as if these vague details weren't enough.
"I don't care about where they've been, I want to know about them as people. Where they've been doesn't matter. This Sokka boy," she said, "managed to break out my prison. Explain to me, if you will, how a non-bender manages to do that. What type of person is he?"
Zuko said, "He can't bend, but he's obviously intelligent."
Azula said, "I gathered that. Who is he?"
"I've never fought him," Zuko said, "I've never had a conversation with him. What, exactly, do you expect me to know about him?"
"Surely you know how to observe," Azula said. The suggestion there was apparent, Zuko knew he was being an idiot. Azula said, "I've heard the girl's side of it, I want to hear it from another source."
"What did she tell you?"
"Not enough, clearly," Azula said. "But when I catch her, I'll catch him too, and they'll both be sorry they ever got in my way."
"Well," Zuko said, "I hope we find them fast." He straightened up, stopped leaning against the rail, and yawned as he stretched his arms above his head.
Azula remained rigid and attentive, standing behind him and to the side, like a guard at his post. She held her chin high. She said, seriously, "You're free to go home whenever you wish, Zuko, but the girls and I are going to stay here until the mission is completed."
Zuko heard this as, essentially, he was doomed to wander until Azula got what she wanted.
They spent weeks harassing the Kingdom. Zuko recalled the days where they torched as many as two or three villages in a single day, where Azula would be energetic and even cheerful, and on the days spent traveling between village and village, Azula was a miserable person to deal with. He woke up one morning, still in the saddle, to hear Azula barking orders at some poor soldier, and when Zuko opened his eyes, it was just in time to see her smack him across the face with a handful of fire.
Zuko had been so eager to jump down at help the poor man, but as soon as Azula hit, he knew it was a lost cause. He figured, bitterly, he had no advantage, no skill, here. He couldn't have stopped Azula if he tried.
Ty Lee and Mai just turned their heads and pretended it never happened, every single time.
There was only one village they left standing, and that was because Zuko stood up to her. Once. She razed four villages the next day, as if to make up for it, and she told him so. Zuko didn't do it again, as it was him versus the armies.
And Azula certainly knew how to command an army: she could stand forcefully, clasp her hands behind her back, and lift her chin high. She could order grown men around without even raising her voice. She was absolutely vicious about it, ruthless, without mercy. Very quickly, Zuko realized that she was prepared to kill her own men if they didn't do as she asked. Azula demanded perfection, and she damn well got it.
It terrified him that every time a voice in the back of his head told him "you should do something about this", he could do nothing. He could only watch, he could only stand there as Azula wreaked havoc, and the shame stewed in him bitterly.
He realized, after the fifth village, that Uncle Iroh would loathe him as he was now.
"Why did we come here?" Zuko demanded, "So you can terrorize people? So you can cause them needless pain and suffering? What is wrong with you? Normal people don't… they don't get off on hurting people!"
Azula just stared at him, not with shock or surprise, but with a calmness Zuko found disturbing. She seemed to shrug it off. She merely blinked, once, long and slow, and then she said, softly, "What do you know about war, Zuko?"
"I know it hurts people when it doesn't have to," Zuko said, firmly. "I know that you're just being a catalyst to all these disasters that could be avoided. What's wrong with you, Azula?"
"If you have a problem with how I do things, Zuko," Azula said, almost warning, "then do what all those cowards don't. Kill me off. Get me out of your way. If you're strong and desperate enough to do something better than what I'm doing, surpass me."
He was angry enough to snap, "Well, maybe I should."
"That's right," Azula said, "maybe you should. But you know what? You can't, Zuko. No one can touch me, and that's exactly why I'm still standing here. No one has had a dream better than mine, and thus, they could never overcome the mountains I've created in my wake."
Zuko wasn't sure if he wanted to throttle her or just walk away. She was so painfully condescending, her tone absolutely dripping with power and malice, and he understood what all those peasants thought when looking at her in the eyes. He understood what they thought when she spoke.
They thought, "this is the new world, and this is what the world is like under the Fire Lord's daughter."
Zuko wondered if he'd be liked, in comparison, because he wasn't Azula. But no, she proved that wrong, presented him as ruthless, ordered him to do things he didn't want to do. He didn't do them, when he could help it, but what could he do about it? Mai stood by his sister's side, calm and obedient, when he just wanted to rip her away and shake her, demand she wake up and understand how dangerous Azula was.
He didn't think Azula had friends. These weren't friends. Real friends didn't do that.
"No," he said to Azula, "that's not why you're still standing."
"Then why am I?" Azula asked, her eyebrows lifting just slightly. She said, viciously, taking a few steps closer to Zuko, "Luck? Chance?"
"No." Zuko shoved her back, right on the shoulders, and Azula stepped out of the gesture, taking all his effort away. He said, "You're still standing because you hide behind your 'friends', you hide behind people who'll act as shields."
"Strong words from someone who threw away his beloved Uncle, from someone who has licked boots with the best of them."
"Mai, Ty Lee, the Generals, the Dai Li, mom – every one of them, you abused each and every one of them as shields," Zuko said.
"Mother?" Azula said, skeptically. She folded her arms here, and she even smirked. She said, "You're so desperate to blame someone other than yourself that you're moving it onto me. As for my friends, we've been together most of our lives. We've got each other covered; I'd kill for them just as soon as they'd kill for me. But there's no need for me to defend myself. I'll say it once more, the biggest crime of all is yours: Uncle Iroh."
Zuko couldn't reply. He could just struggle with bits of accusations. Of course Azula had something to do with mother, hadn't she been the last to see her before she disappeared? And didn't Azula pull Ty Lee from her happy home in the circus for a stupid vendetta against him? Didn't she lie up and down, constantly?
"Uncle Iroh made his choice," Zuko said, defensively.
"Really," Azula said, "if I recall correctly, you betrayed him, and he betrayed you by not following you blindly into the dark."
Zuko ignored her. He had enough. He just swallowed his pride, he turned on his heel, and marched off, feeling Azula's smirk against the back of his neck as he did.
Zuko didn't want to do this.
He stood behind Azula like a looming shadow, harmless and silent. She was speaking to the people, demanding they give her information, and if they had none, they would be evicted from Fire nation land and sent packing. Zuko didn't know what Azula expected. Did she really expect that they were secretly hiding the girl, and would turn her over at a moment's notice? They were doomed whether they had her or not.
Zuko figured he knew the Earth kingdom well enough. They were a tight-knit bunch, despite their varieties. They were kind to desperate strangers. They fiercely opposed the enemy. He had only ever met one exception to the stereotype, and those men were probably jerks to everyone.
He doubted that such a calm town, that already opposed the Fire nation and had kicked its representatives out, would throw a young woman to the figurative dogs.
"Very well then," Azula said. "You are all evicted. You have three minutes before we start torching."
Zuko watched the crowd rapidly disappear, angrily, bitterly, and while some lingered in fury, as if to fight. But they, too, left, as the flames surged up in the hands of the opposition. By the time two minutes were up, all had disappeared, racing to their homes, except for one girl, and Zuko looked down at her in sheer terror.
"Li, it's you," she said, sounding rightly confused. There was no anger there, no threat, but Zuko just wanted to run and hide, he was so struck with embarrassment. Azula looked between the girl and her brother.
"Friend of yours, Zuko?"
"We've met," Zuko said, hesitantly, and the girl's mouth was open, slightly, her round brown eyes wide. She looked as if she could have cried. He wanted to apologize for misleading her, but Azula was right there, and he couldn't apologize to an Earth kingdom peasant in front of her. So he just said, "You're Song."
Song clamped her lips together and stared. Then she said, creakily, "I trusted you, we saved your Uncle's life, we fed you... and all along..."
Azula stepped in. She stepped between Zuko and Song like a divider, and she said, right in the girl's face, "Don't waste our time. This is Prince Zuko of the Fire nation, soon be to Fire Lord. He's not some boorish Earth kingdom boy. What business could a mere peasant have with him?"
Song replied, "I don't have any business with him. But Li took advantage of our hospitality, lied to us, and stole my ostrich-horse."
Zuko thought she was awful brave to stand face-to-face with Azula, but Azula lifted her hand, and he wasn't about to watch Song get slapped around, be it with flames or not. He grabbed Azula's wrist and she looked back at him, clearly annoyed.
"Just what do you think you're doing?" Azula demanded.
He said to Song, "Just go." He struggled to say it in front of Azula, and he added to her, "Please, go."
Song stared at him for a heartbeat, in a mix of anger and sadness. She didn't say anything, and then she turned on her heel and ran off. Zuko waited until she had put some distance between them, and then he let go of Azula, who turned to face him.
"Saying 'please' to a commoner," Azula said, almost in disbelief. "You ought to be drawn and quartered."
"Maybe," he replied, though it was more because he realized how much of a jerk he was being, and not to do with how he'd just ignored Azula's precious caste system.
She wasn't a child to be cradled against her mother's chest, to weep for all the trouble she'd cause and feel even a fraction of remorse. Indeed, Azula barely grasped the concept of remorse. To feel remorse implied she'd even approach feelings of regret or guilt, it clearly stated she could make a mistake.
Azula didn't make mistakes.
She didn't break a sweat as she strutted the empty roads of the streets, Ty Lee and Mai following in her footsteps. The heat from all sides, the burning or smouldering buildings licked with flames and sending constant heat waves towards them, was oppressive and all-engulfing.
Mai's pallid skin glowed with perspiration, and Ty Lee's face was reddened. But Azula, pale and harsh, seemed to frighten off even the heat with her fervoured steps and hardened nature alone.
"Why do we bother torching it if we've already won?" Ty Lee said, and Azula glanced her way, annoyed. Ty Lee continued, gripping her chin in a pose of thought, "I kind of liked being in the circus."
"Because they're resisting the Fire nation's command," Azula scoffed, and she said, "I refuse to let them struggle like fools."
Mai picked at her nails as she walked, and her lips pursed as she found one with a bit of dirt under it. She scraped it out with her thumbnail, annoyed. She didn't point out that there was nothing in the Earth kingdom left to conquer, and that the North wasn't exactly going to be a problem, what with the Comet coming. Mai wasn't exactly keen on being torched for speaking up.
"Nothing to do with the fact that that Kyoshi girl escaped you?" Mai asked, dully. "A little bit of punishment for the innocent?"
Azula didn't exactly come across as angry, at the remark, but the atmosphere certainly seemed more hostile. She said, smoothly, "No." There was no offered excuse.
"That's right!" Ty Lee said, loudly, "I didn't even think about that! Azula, you ALWAYS get what you want, I guess it kind of sucks that you have that sort of failure on your record, huh? I don't blame you."
Mai shot Ty Lee a look that could only be described as a warning. Ty Lee brushed it off without notice, and Azula only redoubled her walking speed, so that Mai had to move into a half-hearted jog to keep up. Ty Lee skipped along, swinging her arms.
"I don't understand it," Azula said, under her breath, and there was a hitch to her voice that wasn't frustration. She seemed merely puzzled, but there was a definite element of anger to her tone. Both of her companions figured it was normal, but Azula never spoke in that tone. She continued, more to herself than anything, "What can be done?"
Mai shrugged as she jogged, and she let out a long breath and a calm, "So why bring Zuko along if we're just going to be finding some girl?" Mai didn't tack on the doleful sort of "to keep me company?" she was thinking, as it would be unusual for Azula to think of others, even her best friends.
Azula glanced over her shoulder at Mai, and came to a halt so suddenly that Ty Lee almost smashed into her. Mai stopped, too, a couple of steps after Azula, and she turned to look back. Ty Lee folded her arms.
"I don't want him alone at the Palace," Azula said, as if that explained it. But despite her lack of words to properly explain her hatred for the situation, both of her companions (or at least Mai) seemed to grasp the gritty details in her mind. Azula considered, "I don't want him on that throne for long, and I won't have time to find the escapee and her stupid boyfriend when I'm Fire Lord."
But Azula was determined to make giving Zuko the throne a worthwhile thing to have done. Azula didn't regret.
"And when I'm ready to take the throne, killing him isn't an option," Azula said, "I have to take my rightful place back using the leverage I have."
Neither Ty Lee nor Mai seemed willing to tell Azula that it wasn't her rightful place to begin with, that she had earned it through luck and chance and illegal methods, not by hard work. No one had opened Zuko's mouth for him, in the war room, and no one had placed those words in his mouth. No, his own nature, caring for the swine, had done him in in the end, not anything she had done, and she had restored him.
Azula knew it, but she also believed that if she didn't like her fate, it didn't have to be hers. Just as she could send her dinner back to the kitchens if it was unsatisfactory, Azula felt she could deny fate and just change it for a new one, one that included a crowning and power, rather than being the second child, the back-up plan for the throne.
There had never been a female Fire Lord ruling alone, and she would be content to take that place. Whether Zuko was Fire Lord or not, she would never be a mere breeding cow. He could try as he might: Zuko wouldn't deny her her place.
Azula would take her throne by any means necessary, no matter what.
Mai was good at sneaking around. Over the years, she had become skilled at being unseen, unheard. It was a requirement, in her home, and she fulfilled it grudgingly. Mai wasn't allowed to do otherwise.
It was easy, then, to avoid Zuko. She just couldn't let him see her like this, holding her injured wrist and all marked on the face.
Yeah, stupid earthbenders, right, Mai thought, bitterly, as she glanced around a corner and saw Zuko standing at the end of the hall. She leant back, and waited, and then checked again. He rounded another corner and disappeared from view, so she stepped out into the hall and turned at the first hall. When she found Ty Lee's room, she sighed, and hesitated, before opening the door with her good hand.
Mai shoved the door closed behind her, and the metal clanged and rang loudly. Ty Lee looked up from her place on the floor and smiled, and Mai didn't smile back. Ty Lee's smile didn't fade, until her eyes flickered to Mai's cheek.
"What happened?!" she yelped. She climbed to her feet and rushed over.
"Don't," Mai said, as Ty Lee reached to touch the bandage. "It's not serious. I spoke to Azula about going home, and she wasn't happy."
"Omigosh," Ty Lee sighed, "Mai, that's really bad, I told you not to talk to her about it! Was Azula mad?" Mai just stared at Ty Lee apathetically, not amused. Ty Lee took a second and corrected herself with a tentative, "Okay, so she was mad. That's not good."
"Mm," Mai nodded. "Don't tell Zuko what happened. No matter what."
"Why not? Are you… worried?" Ty Lee asked, as she sat down on the floor again.
She was uncharacteristically sober. Seated on the floor in the lotus position, though with her elbows touching the floor in front of her, she looked up at Mai. Mai didn't seem to react, much, as she was as stony as usual.
"Yes," she replied.
"Aah," Ty Lee said, and then she continued with a cautious, "Do you think Azula's going to kill him…?"
"Ssh," Mai shushed her, "I don't even want to think about it. Azula's going to be a danger to us soon, if she isn't already."
"But Mai," Ty Lee protested, "Azula's our friend. Why would she be a danger to us?"
"Look," Mai said, with a frustrated huff. Why didn't she get it? Why wasn't she catching on to the problem, here? No one was immune to Azula forever. "Ty Lee, there's nothing she wouldn't do to get what she wants. If you don't stay loyal to her, then she's going to get rid of you. She's already going to get rid of me."
"Azula wouldn't do that," Ty Lee said, tentatively. She sounded like she had trouble believing herself. She added, "Azula's just looking out for what's best for the Fire nation… what's best for everyone. You and I aren't against that. At least, I'm not."
"I want what's best for everyone, too," Mai said.
"Then why would Azula hit you?" Ty Lee frowned, putting her chin in her hands.
"Because I told her to give up on the Kyoshi warriors," Mai replied, "and that she was being petty."
Ty Lee gasped, rising out of her folded-up position, and she flipped to her feet. Within seconds, she was holding Mai by the forearms and shaking her lightly, her voice concerned and her face full of sorrow.
"Mai," Ty Lee said, "Azula's a good person. She is, she's our friend, and she's just trying to keep that girl from hurting people. Why would you stand up against her? She's not doing anything wrong."
"You sound like you have trouble believing yourself," Mai said, with a slight huff of frustration.
"I d-don't!" Ty Lee replied, almost at a whine. Mai shrugged her off.
"I don't want to be her friend anymore," Mai said. "But I don't want you to get involved with this if you still want to hang around. If you want to stay with Azula, that's your choice."
Ty Lee backed off, folding her hands together, and she said, "I'm sorry, Mai." Her eyes were tearing up. She said, "I honestly think Azula's doing this for good, she's just making the world a better place."
"Whatever," Mai replied, frustrations getting the better of her. She swallowed the lump in her throat, and she turned on her heel and left, slamming the door behind her.
Despite how bad things went for Mai, there was a perk: they left for home the next day.
"Princess," the messenger said, almost choking on his own saliva, he had been running so hard. He coughed for a moment, and apologized profusely while Azula looked down on him in disgust. When he had composed himself, he said, "I have important news from the seventy-first unit."
"Go on," Azula said.
Zuko knew this couldn't be good. He looked at the man, almost pitying him, and the man certainly looked terrified out of his wits. When he reached up with the scroll, he kept his head down and his eyes on his feet.
Azula unrolled it, and her eyes roved the page. To Zuko's surprise, she actually gasped, and then her eyebrows dipped and her mouth twisted into a look that was undeniably furious. Zuko asked, "What is it?"
"The Avatar is alive and headed to the North Pole," Azula said, darkly.
"What are you going to do?" Zuko asked, tentatively. His heart was pounding. Wasn't the Avatar presumed dead?
"Kill him," Azula replied, crisply. Her eyes flicked to the messenger, who was straightened up, but he looked no more relaxed than before. She ordered, "Rally the men and women. I want every one of them at the North Pole. It's time for part two of the siege of the North."
Zuko felt different feelings boil up in him. He only said, "Are we going now?"
"No," Azula said, "we're going to go back to the Fire nation for your coronation, and then we're going to the North. We have time to kill before the Comet, anyway."
She sounded so casual, and yet so furious, as if it were nothing. As if she didn't think it was a problem at all. Zuko didn't have anything to say to this, so he just folded his arms and glanced to the side. His eyes happened to fall on Mai and Ty Lee, who were walking up. Azula smiled at them, but Zuko frowned.
"What happened to your face?" Zuko asked, concerned, gesturing needlessly at the bandages on Mai's cheek. There was a large flat piece of cotton stretched across one cheek, and two cloth straps to hold it in place. One passed over her nose, and the other across her chin. She did not look comfortable.
"I got in trouble with an armed earthbender," Mai said, slowly. "It's nothing."
"That sucks," Zuko replied. He approached, and stupidly reached out to touch the bandage. "Are you okay?"
She brushed his hand away, and said, "It's fine, don't touch it, you moron."
Azula smiled, and said, "Next time, you won't be so quick to jump into battle, I don't think."
"Of course not," Mai replied, and Zuko heard something bitter and hostile in her voice there, but he considered that he was imagining it, especially as Mai gave Azula a curt smile.
It was the time of his coronation, and Zuko couldn't breathe.
The idea was torture: he was a good person, he had always been a good person, but he was forced to do bad things, and he couldn't decide what was worse. He couldn't decide whether it was better for Azula to twist him around like a puppet, jerk his limbs no matter how he resisted, use him as her horrible man-shaped mouthpiece for her horrid cause, or if it were better to just let her be the one on stage, controlling everything from the right side of the curtain.
The sage lowered the metal hairpiece down and set it in Zuko's hair. His coronation. He was Fire Lord Zuko. From the silence, barely a few feet away, Azula burst out laughing, and every head turned in her direction.
His throat hurt. His lungs hurt. He strained to breathe normally but Azula was laughing hard, so hard she had her hands in the air beside her and she was holding her palms to the sky like she was effortlessly carrying the weight of the world. She laughed, she laughed, and Zuko realized he had never seen her laugh since she was a child, ever, not even once. He'd never seen her laugh as a woman and not a girl.
And here she was, laughing in front of the whole crowd of people, like she had lost her sanity. She laughed, she laughed. She threw her head back and twisted her fingers together so that her claws dug the air like daggers, and she brought one of her hands to her throat and she traced the contour from her chin to her collarbone in one smooth gesture. She was laughing so hard she was enjoying herself.
Her fingers trailed over the ridge of her collar, down the slide of her chest, drifting away from her clothes as her back arched. She straightened up again, and then laughed more, scarcely stopping for breath.
And when she did, those golden eyes were clear and hardened as if she'd never laughed at all, and the thousands on eyes on her didn't blink or dare look away for an instant. Zuko could feel himself dying, in his new chair, smothered under the heat of the flames and the surge of the fire and that horrible, horrible laugh.
He couldn't tell her to stop. No one could. She just kept going, until she decided she had had enough.
"Princess?" one troubled old general asked, and Azula ignored him, as she did everyone else. To Zuko, it appeared as if she thought she was the only one in the room, free to burst with any sort of horrid emotion she wanted.
Seeing Azula laugh was the sickest thing he had ever seen in his life, and he had experienced some of the lowest lows, he had crawled on his belly among peasants, and he had seen some of the most tortured souls in the world.
And Azula surpassed any nightmare, any dream, anything real he had ever witnessed. Azula was horrifying, and Zuko fought to fill his lungs with air.
She paced down the stairs, stepping out in front of him, and there she stopped laughing, to say, so brightly, "My valiant brother, so boldly you stand before us today, not as a disfigured and ugly banished prince, but as Fire Lord. I simply cannot find the proper words to compliment your ascension to glory, my Lord."
She inclined her head, just slightly, so that her dark eyebrows fell over her eyes in a menacing tilt, and her bangs fell forward over her face like curtains. She said to him, though everyone could hear, "What's done, Zuko, cannot be undone. Hold onto the pieces while you can."
Zuko could say nothing, he was still trying to breathe.
She smiled, simply, and turned. He watched her walk from the raised platform to the bottom of the stairs, in long, slow steps, with all the nation watching. She was deliberate, flawlessly graceful, and Zuko saw eyes being stripped from him and given to Azula, in wonder and surprise and fear.
The people loved Azula and hated him. The people always loved Azula and always hated him. And, Zuko realized, he was sitting on the throne where all of them would know where to direct that hatred, and Azula was the only one controlling that hatred.
Azula was gone for hours. Where she went, she didn't tell anyone, though some people saw her wandering the halls, smiling to herself. Others claimed to see her meandering about in the gardens, one went as far as claiming she was luring turtleducks over with bits of food and dashing them against the rocks for fun. Some people insisted she had locked herself in her room, laughing like a maniac.
None were true, of course. That was fictitious propaganda.
In reality, Azula was in her father's bedroom, seated on the bed. It was made up neatly, as if the whole palace expected someone to return to it. In truth, it was waiting for Zuko, who would take up residence in those quarters that night, but Azula liked to think about it in other ways.
Zuko would sleep in the bed where she had assassinated their father. He would lie where his father's corpse lay for hours, he would lie where his mother had once lain, he would sleep where his parents slept, together. And he would know it, and think about it.
It was supposed to be her bed, someday. And Azula considered then, perhaps it would be hers tomorrow. Maybe the day after. As soon as she could find an occasion where there would be no suspicions.
Azula understood that she was gifted, that people would doubt her but never call her on it, but what could be called a fifth assassination in the royal family in her life, after centuries of only the occasional murder, would be pushing the envelope a bit too far. People believed Sozin and Ozai murdered unlawfully, and there were suspicions that Ursa's disappearance and Lu-Ten's death were assassinations too. If Zuko died, too, people would only look to Azula more, seeing as it just left her and Iroh.
She needed to make it really look like an accident, especially now, when people were seriously starting to doubt her sanity.
Zuko's coronation ceremony was over, but the festivities were probably well into swing by now. A glance out the window, to the great courtyard, only confirmed it.
Anger plagued her. The Avatar was alive. Her prisoner had escaped, along with precious information. Her father was dead, and she didn't even have the throne to show for it. Her brother was the Fire Lord.
She lifted her hands in front of her face, marveled at her own pristine white skin, and felt the tingle of energy along her bony fingers. She didn't gather it, not really feeling the need to zap anything nearby.
Zuko's party was definitely in full swing. She could hear it. That was what prompted her to push herself to her feet and stride across the room to the side door. She threw it open, and passed through the great gold-leafed frame, lighting the candles with faint breaths in their directions. They surged up, brightly, throwing the room into an unsteady, flickering light.
Ideas were coming to her.
It was her mother's dressing room, untouched for at least five years now. The make-up tins on the stand were still arranged just as they had been the last day of Ursa's palace life, and they were veiled with a thin layer of dust, proving that, at least, people still entered the place. Servants, maybe to clean, Azula didn't really know or care. When Azula approached the make-up stand, she noticed a few had finger-marks where the dust had been disturbed. The brushes were perfectly aligned, something Azula did not particularly remember about her mother: Ursa, beautiful as she was, was not particularly organized.
Azula seated herself in front of the make-up stand and picked up one delicate brush, and dipped it into the make-up remover. She stripped her eyes of all the harsh dark liner, and replaced it with soft ochre and browns. She blushed herself with rouge, replaced her wine red lips with a gentle pink. It softened her features, made the harsh contours of her cheekbones and eyebrows seem subdued. She let her hair down, combed it of its kinks, and tied her bangs back.
Azula was her mother's daughter, when she tried.
Her golden eyes flicked to the side, to the boxes stacked on the shelves. They went so high that there was a ladder for servants to climb, to get the topmost ones. They were all labelled and tied closed. Azula pulled off her ceremonial armor, her bodice, and her boots, and in just her underclothes, the loose pants and the balloon-sleeved shirt, she climbed the ladder.
She opened a few boxes, and selected the finest one. Bringing it down and dropping the box on the floor, Azula began to strip off her underclothes. When she was just stepping out of her pants, standing there in nothing but her underwear, the door opened, and she turned to face it, not even bothering to cover her pale breasts.
A male and a female servant. They looked at her, embarrassed, and started to move away, but Azula said, briskly, "Come here. I need help dressing."
The finest clothes in the Fire nation took hours to get into unassisted, and Azula knew it. She leant over while they stood there, stunned, and she picked up the under-robe and pulled it over her shoulders, closing it shut around her hips. She said to them, calmly, "Stop standing there and do something, or you'll regret it."
They jumped to life, hurriedly setting on arranging the clothes. Azula knew they had little knowledge of how to dress a noble, as they were servants, not dressers, but they didn't dare disappoint, not within reach of her anger.
Azula looked stunning in her mother's clothing. True, she wasn't quite tall enough, and her body not quite so delicate, but the clothes hid her toned body, anyway. Azula hadn't worn clothes so stunning, or so regal, in her life. As soon as she had been old enough to choose, Azula had taken men's clothing and fitted it to her female body. Her preferred form of dress was masculine, yet so undeniably female.
But not these robes; they were creations handed down over the centuries, red, gold and crimson silks cared for as antiques. These weren't the everyday clothing Ursa had worn, these were the heirlooms of the royal family, worn maybe once in her entire life in court, and even then, perhaps it had been only for a painting, or to sit beautifully at her husband's side.
Azula knew that women had always ruled by their husband's side, in the Fire nation, as leaders. But not Ursa. No, Ursa had chosen motherhood over the nation, and for that reason, Azula was angry. How could any woman give up that sort of power? She thought of her grandmother, who, until her unfortunate death, had ruled in the way Azula had aspired to rule. That was a real woman, with the direst cruelty and the firmest hand. Her grandmother had never coddled her children.
Fiddling with the sleeves, so long they covered her hands, Azula took a few practiced steps. She had to walk in long, purposeful steps to move properly. She could easily pull it off. She dismissed the servants, making them promise not to say a word, and once they were gone, she got to work. She wasn't a perfect replica of her mother, but it had been a while since anyone had seen Ursa walk the halls of the palace. Azula would pass.
She went to her father's bed, and she pushed aside the pillows. From underneath the sheets and mattress, she pulled out the knife she knew was concealed there, for emergencies.
She held it in her hand, the metal handle cool against her skin. Under all those folds of delicate fabrics, it was completely hidden.
Zuko was being bowed to, being treated like the royalty he had been born as. It didn't quite feel the same way his father's coronation party had. Zuko had only stayed for about an hour before retiring to his room and sobbing for hours over the whole ordeal, but he spent his time at the party holding Azula's hand and watching his father being congratulated.
Azula wasn't a touchy person and she didn't really want him holding her hand, but she let him. She didn't seem distressed at all when various lords and ladies knelt before them to apologize for their mother; in fact, Azula smile and waved them off with a polite, "What happened is unfortunate, but, well, she challenged fate, and it championed her in the bitter end."
From a nine year old, this seemed intelligent, and when one lord asked her who had taught her to look at it like that, Azula had only smiled and cheekily told him she had practiced in front of a mirror, just in case. The lord then asked her, with a concerned look, "What do you mean, Princess Azula? She challenged fate?"
That was when Zuko felt his eyes starting to well and Azula's mentors come up behind them –– Li and Lo, the twin Masters with great lined faces and great stature despite their shrinking height, whisked Azula from the conversation before she could say another word.
Presently, Zuko dismissed the couple of ladies congratulating him, and he glanced to the right. Over by that walkway, that's where he had gone to see Uncle Iroh, who had shown up for a scarce few minutes. Uncle Iroh had avoided everyone's eyes, there for formalities and duties alone, but no one talked to him. Failure, they had thought. Miserable failure. But Zuko had gone over, talked to him, smiled and won a grimace of a smile back. Uncle Iroh was hurting so much, it was obvious by the new lines on his face.
But, of course, Iroh wasn't standing there tonight. No one knew where Iroh was, and Zuko felt a pang of guilt. Did he have the power to pardon Iroh now? Could he bring him home? The answer was likely no. There would be none of that, as long as Azula was alive.
Zuko let his eyes linger on the spot for a moment, and then something quite stunning happened.
"Mother?"
There she was, stepping into view, and she scanned the crowds briefly before setting her eyesight in his direction. She didn't move, and she smiled. She didn't advance towards him. And then, as Zuko considered incredulously that he was imagining it, she lifted a hand, and beckoned him to come.
Zuko's heart beat once, and then twice, and then he bid the man coming to speak to him a hasty, "My apologies, I'll be right back", and took off in her direction.
Azula purposefully made her steps long and slow, as regal as she could. She'd been born with that walk, but it had fallen into disuse over the years. Zuko was trailing behind her, maybe twenty or so paces behind. Azula didn't look back, but she could imagine his face, stunned and shocked.
"Mom?" he said, stunned, and Azula paused, for a beat, and then lifted one hand. Zuko stopped walking, too, she heard him let out a gasp, and then she flicked her hand, gesturing him to follow, again.
"Ssh," she replied.
"Wh-what? Mom?" Zuko stammered.
She didn't say anything, she just held him there like a lure, and then, when he started to go after her, she started walking again. He followed. She walked and he trailed behind her. He didn't try to overtake her, he just tried to come up beside her, and she just kept him behind her.
Her hand curled tighter around the cold metal handle of the knife as she slipped around a corner into the dark. It was invisible to Zuko, buried under lengths of silk and held close to her body, but it would be so easy to plunge forward and into him, once she got close enough.
She could stab him, he wouldn't expect it, and he would bleed to death all over his precious mother's robes, while she smiled down at him. It would be a fitting end for such a traitor.
When she rounded that corner and stood in the shadows, confident the darkness obscured her features enough to mask her identity, she turned to face him, and she reached out with her free hand and took his. She pulled him into the dark with her, and he sounded so close to tears.
"Mom," he said, "Mom, why... what? You're here..."
She itched to tell him that she was a fake through laughter, but she held it back. The look on his face was so bright and happy, and he broke the magic himself –– he grabbed her forearm gently and spun her so she had to step into the light with him. He just wanted to get a better look at her, she knew, and she couldn't resist his pull. She followed it, swung into the light, and caught sight of the delight on his face for a whole ten seconds.
That handful of time was silent, him beaming at with pride and joy, and then the slow realization crept up onto him. She wasn't his mother. She was Princess Azula, not Princess Ursa. She was wicked through and through, under that delicate painted-on face.
"Wait," he said, smile vanishing, "you're––"
"Sister, not Mother," Azula smiled.
That was where things went, ultimately, wrong. Zuko grabbed her by the shoulders and backed her into the wall, and despite how Azula rolled her shoulders back and lifted her arms up to throw off his grip, it was too late. He had already pushed her down, and she was startled, in so many heavy robes, to find herself with limited movement. Zuko pushed her down before she could maneuver her legs around under all those layers.
"What's wrong with you?!" he snarled, "Dressed as our mother–– what's wrong with you?!"
Azula fumbled the knife, right there, when she had to use her hands to catch herself. It dropped, slid along the seam of her sleeve, and clattered out to the floor. Zuko noticed it, definitely, but he hardly paid it any heed, because he had pinned her down with his knees, and he was clutching the front of her many-layered kimono so tightly the lines of golden thread pulled and stressed. Her great sleeves were trapped under her and his weight, limiting how she could move her arms.
He just breathed raggedly, heavily, clinging to her throat like a wild animal, and he shouted at her, "What do you think you're doing? Going to kill me, Azula?!"
"I just fancied a walk," she hissed back, and he climbed off of her, only to haul her to her feet by the collar. Azula stumbled, feet twisted up in the fabric.
She could kill him at any moment, anyway. One flick of her hand, she could strike his heart still with a bolt of lightning. One twist, she could snap his arm. One little gesture, she could silence that wagging tongue. But, out of curiosity, to see what he'd do, she let him overpower her.
"Walk," he snarled, "walk, Azula."
He was clinging to her forearm like she was a child, he hauled her alongside him as he started to briskly walk down the halls. Azula's brain was buzzing, she was debating with herself so hard, whether to kill him for handling her like that, or whether to entertain his anger and see what he wanted.
"Where are we going?" she asked, almost purring it, though she honestly had a problem keeping up with him. Zuko just let out a vague, angry growl, and he didn't say anything.
Azula figured out, early on, where they were going. She knew it as soon as he pulled her into the left wing, as soon as he let out a hard breath as they entered their parents' private hall. Zuko's nostrils were flared in anger, his mouth curved into a dangerous frown. Azula'd never seen him that infuriated before, and it almost made her laugh.
To lose control of his emotions like that, it was pathetic.
Zuko shoved open the door to the room and dragged her to the side. She let him, still, entertaining this violence, and he shoved her into their mother's dressing room. Free, Azula rolled her shoulders and rubbed her arm, with a look of disgust.
"What do you want me to do, Zuko?" she demanded.
"Take it off," Zuko snapped, "everything of Mother's, take it off. I won't have you disgracing her like this."
"Are you going to force me?" Azula said, loftily.
Zuko reached over, grabbed her shoulder, and reached to pull out the topknot in her hair. Azula leant back her head, laughing in his face, and Zuko demanded, once more, "Why are you doing this? Why would you? Just to hurt me?"
"Did it work?" Azula drawled.
"Yes!" Zuko snapped. "It did, now stop! Just stop it! What do I have to do to make you stop it?!"
Azula pushed off his hand from her shoulder, and she backed away a step. She said, with a bitter smile, "I don't know, what can you do for me?"
"You're going to dog me forever," Zuko said, angrily, "no matter what I do, no matter how I run this nation, you're going to dog me until I die or give you the throne."
"Is your memory of Mother more important to you than power?" Azula asked.
"Yes," Zuko said, "yes it is. But I'm not giving it up when I can put a stop to it."
"Can you put a stop to what I'm doing?" Azula asked. That smile was savage. Zuko looked desperate, he paced back and forth once.
"Yes," he decided. "Take it off."
There was a flash of feral anger in his eyes, and Azula was not frightened in the least, until he fought her. He seized her by the front of the robes, clutching at her obi and tugging it loose. Azula gave him a shove away from her, and she hiked up her sleeves, but she was biding her time for something. She let him press her against the wall and jerk at the collar of her robes, dragging them down off her shoulders. She pretended to struggle, just to wait this whole part out. He pulled off the next layer, so she had three layers of robes hanging off her elbows. He was about to tug off the last layer.
Azula snarled, "Unhand me!"
That was precisely when General Rhee and General Choi came in through the door, only to see the new Fire Lord pinning his half-stripped sister to the wall.
"If I hadn't come to you first," Zuko asked, "Would you believe me, or Azula?"
Mai sighed, but this time, it was not one of frustration. She had her arms folded against her stomach and her head down, and she sat alone on the edge of his bed, holding herself like she was going to be sick. Zuko waited, pacing. He felt antsy, like Azula would appear from anywhere and kill him off. It didn't matter where from: the bedroom door, his wardrobe, from under the bed. Azula was going to kill him when he least expected it. Zuko half expected her to pop through his bedroom mirror at him, he was so on-edge.
"I have no reason to believe her," Mai said, "but it sounds far-fetched. Almost too weird to have actually happened."
Zuko paused, almost nervous, and he said, "Look, I told you exactly what happened. She showed up dressed as Mother, I got angry, and when I told her to take the clothes off, two of the Generals on the council came in and misinterpreted what was happening. Clearly she's crazier than we all thought. She's really lost it now. And the council doesn't buy that she's the crazy one –– they think I'm the screwed up one!"
"I don't know," Mai sighed. "I don't know where my loyalties lie, it all sounds so unbelievable that she'd do something so... juvenile but extreme. I don't know."
She fell silent with what seemed like doubt, though her face said she was apathetic. She picked at the bandage on her wrist with something akin to boredom. Zuko knew her better than that. He just looked away, swallowed hard, and he resolved to end this the only way he could.
When Zuko sat in the Fire Lord's chair, alone, Azula took a seat to his right, the place where a wife would sit, one day. She took that seat comfortably, and she watched him carefully. The throne room was entirely empty, other than them. Zuko avoided her eyes for a good moment.
"I think I understand my purpose, now," he said, darkly.
"About time you did," she drawled, "I was starting to get worried you'd never embrace yourself for what you are."
"And what am I?" Zuko demanded.
Azula took a moment, and she folded one leg over the other. She sat higher in her chair, her head held high. Azula enjoyed making Zuko wait for what he wanted, after all. She gave him chances to take what he wanted for himself, but she avoided spoon-feeding him when she could.
As much as she loved to see him on all fours and begging, shame on his name was shame on the royal family, and that reflected on her. She liked Zuko pathetic, out of the way, but never quite subservient or out of the picture.
It would have reflected badly on her, as the next Fire Lord, if she did so.
"You're the Fire Lord," she said, calmly. "Fire Lord Zuko."
Zuko stared at her, and she watched his pupils shrink, contracting in surprise and fear, and Azula let out a faint huff of amusement. It was if he still hadn't grasped the magnitude of his position, on that elegant seat, with that elegant hairpiece. She said, delicate still, "Do you not like your title?"
Zuko hesitated, and then he said, overbold and rash, "Fire Lord... it's brought me nothing but trouble in my life so far. I realized that what I am is more than that."
Azula let that settle, and then she said, "More than Fire Lord? I understand the position is quite mighty, dear brother, but you're crossing the borders of hedonism to claim you're godlike, especially after having the title for barely a week."
"I never claimed that," he snapped, so afraid to be wrong.
"To be more than Fire Lord is to be greater than human, Lord Zuko," Azula said, loftily, "But what do you plan to do with your power? Grant yourself luxury and peace, and leave the rest of the country to rot, while you tend to the peasants? Someone like you certainly couldn't command the armies. You don't have the experience. I'd love to stand in."
Oh, she would get what she wanted.
Zuko turned his head away, and he settled his eyes somewhere on the floor, in the distance. Azula waited, patiently, though her fingers itched to tap, and her mouth yearned to cut it him down and implore. Zuko finally looked over her way again, after a few long minutes. He seemed to struggle with his own courage, and her eyes settled on him with a curious sort of malice.
The way a cat wanted to bat a mouse.
"I'll think about it," he resolved.
"That's what I like to hear," she replied, and off she went again. He watched her go, and she relished that she still held his attention like no other could.
"Hey, you, long time no see," Zuko called. He hadn't spent time with her in a week, he was so busy with meetings on the entire world. Mai was sitting on the couch with her back to him, with her head slumped forward. She wasn't moving. In fact, she didn't seem to register the voice a single bit. Alarmed, he said, "Mai?"
When she didn't even move, he reacted rapidly. He quite literally jumped over the couch and stood on the seat next to her, and she finally reacted. He crouched down and asked, "What's wrong, Mai?"
He sounded genuinely concerned. She turned her face away from him, reflexively, and she said, "I'm fine."
"Then why are you just sitting here? Hey, you got the bandages taken off?"
He reached over, and took her chin with his fingertips, and turned her face towards his. He was going to lean in for a kiss when he realized her eyes make-up was smudged under her eyes in dark circles, and she was holding her wrist in front of her. Her cheek was imprinted with a hand-mark, and it was scarlet red. It was a burn.
"What?" he uttered, unable to really form words. Anger came to him rapidly, he said, "Who burned you." It wasn't even a question; it was an order.
"It's nothing," Mai said, stonily. Despite her blank face, her voice held a bit of frustration. She continued, as she looked away again, "I'm tired. I'm just so tired."
"You look tired, yeah, I could tell, but that doesn't explain who did it, and why," he agreed, and she didn't seem offended at all, she just sat there holding her wrist. When she didn't reply and he started to repeat himself, with a lot more anger, she sighed and rolled back her sleeve.
She said, calmly, "There was no knife accident. I fumbled a candle. Burnt myself."
Her wrist was scarlet red, too, and the mark was shaped like a thick band, rather than just a random patch. It was large, and it stretched around her wrist to the back. In the dim light, it definitely looked like a handprint.
"Uh, I don't think so," Zuko said, dubiously, and annoyed. "Pretty funny candle."
"Who am I kidding?" Mai said, exasperated. "Azula did it."
Somewhere in his head, he had seen it coming. What kept him from accusing her from the start was only the fact that he didn't think Azula would really hurt her friends, or maim them in any way. In hindsight, he probably should have thrown caution to the wind and recklessly accused his sister left, right and center, right from the beginning.
"What?" he said. He was so stunned, despite how obvious it all seemed, that he didn't even make his protests interrogative. "WHAT."
"That night where I came back with the bandages. We argued," Mai said, "and she grabbed me. But it'll heal eventually, it just smarts, it's not serious or anything."
"When? Why? Over what?!" Zuko demanded.
"Well…"
Mai always faced everything with the same face.
It was her gambling face, her infallibly blank face. To the world, she was a bored teenager, and that was it. Nothing seemed to imply she was angry, or upset, and unlike Azula, Mai truly could remain calm. Azula may have mastered self-control, but Mai had been born to be in control of her feelings. There was no other way around it.
That was the point of her entire life, wasn't it? Wasn't her point to be calm and subservient?
So when Mai confronted Azula, she kept that same face on. It was the one that masked any feelings she had, that apathetic stare with the lidded eyes. Even Azula couldn't read that one.
"Can we talk?" Mai asked. Her voice betrayed her. No matter how strong her stoic expression was, Mai just couldn't keep the slightest bit of concern out of her voice. Azula devoured that sort of thing like a starving carnivore. It was viciously, and it was bloodily.
Azula didn't turn around, standing at the edge of the burnt city, the smoke and glowing embers keeping the air as hot as hell. Azula was watching it intensely. She said, flatly, "I don't see why not."
"Is everything all right with you?" Mai asked. She folded her arms, slowly, leaning her weight on one foot. She said, "Ty Lee and I are a bit worried about you. Ever since your dad died, you've been… violent. More than usual, anyway."
"I'm only ruling as I see fit," Azula replied, calmly. "Father didn't think such behaviour appropriate – punishing his council for disobedience, for example. Then again, Father didn't truly understand the situation that the Fire nation is in."
Mai thought this very difficult to accept. She said, "You know, Azula, the council may not have the ability to revoke your power, but they do have to approve what you do."
"No, they don't," Azula said, "things weren't always run this way, and they were better, then. I have the council under my control, and they have no power at all if I choose to ignore them." She looked at Mai then, almost with disgust. "What does it matter, to you?"
Mai shifted. She said, "There is such a thing as overconfidence. I'm just looking out for you. I want to know what you think there is to gain, by running around the Earth kingdom and torching things."
Azula turned around then, shifting her weight to one foot and pivoting, just slightly, just enough to turn her head to Mai. Her face was decidedly set, though one eyebrow lifted casually. She said, "Are you questioning me?"
"Yes." It was confident, but maybe not confident enough. She continued, when Azula's expression soured, "Azula, I think we should go home. This is stupid, this is pointless."
"Excuse me?" Azula replied, and she actually started walking towards Mai. Mai held her ground, determined, and Azula said, "I don't see why you would think that."
"Because your justification is just that you want the Avatar's body, and that the Kyoshi warrior has information you don't want getting loose," Mai said, "Why does the crisped body of a kid matter? So you can parade it around? And why bother with someone you broke? It's not like she's a threat to you."
"I don't need justification for my actions," Azula replied.
"Maybe you do," Mai said. She tried to make it sound diplomatic, but Azula was staring at her with absolute hatred. Mai said, "I'm supposedly your best friend. I think I have the right to know what you're doing, why you're doing this, because it involves me and people I love. Azula, this isn't exactly fun."
Azula came so close that there was barely a foot between them. Mai was tempted to step back, but she held her ground still. Azula walked to the side, and rounded Mai once, in an inspecting circle. She asked, circling like a shark, "How many friends have you ever had, Mai? What do you know about friends?"
"Enough to know that real friends don't abuse their friends like this," Mai said, calmly.
"Oh please. I know that you don't make friends, and never did," Azula said, "Never. You are too aloof, too quiet, just not friendly enough. You didn't make a single new friend in all your years of school, but I was your friend. Ty Lee was your friend. You had us, you didn't need to make others, and you were determined to keep us. And if I don't live up to your expectations – expectations I set myself – then it's your price to pay."
Mai didn't say anything, so Azula said, calmly, "What do you want me to do, Mai? What is it you expect to leave this conversation with?"
"I want us to go home," Mai said, and suddenly she was saying more to Azula about her feelings than she had in her entire life. It rolled out of her without hesitation. "All of us. I want Ty Lee to be able to go back to the circus. I want Zuko to be happy, and rule without fear. I want you to be happy. I want to get on with my life, not worry about a war we've already won!"
And Azula moved forward, and Mai refused to move back. Azula grabbed Mai by the wrist, her hand scorching hot, and she slapped Mai once across the face with the other hand. They stayed like that for ten seconds, with both girls in a stony silence. Mai just held her tongue between her teeth to keep herself from making a noise. Azula only had to hit her once to get her point across.
"The war's won," Azula hissed, "when I say it's won."
She let go of Mai's wrist, and cast it aside. Mai followed the gesture loosely, and only then did she let out a breath of pain. No noise, but one sharp inhale.
"Get back to the ship," Azula said, viciously calm. "You are not to see Zuko. You are to bandage your wrist, your cheek -- you got into a fight with an Earthbender and you were injured. That is the only story you will tell anyone, am I understood?"
Mai held Azula's eyes for an instant, and then she did exactly that.
Zuko hardly gave her a moment to think before he strode up to her, almost banging the doors against the walls as he shoved them open. He was there, he commanded attention, and for the first time, he caught Azula's attention as a threat. Her shoulders went back.
He said, firmly, "The war's over, Azula. I'm going to call the troops home, call the colonies home. Everyone. I don't want a single Fire nation man, woman, or child in the entire Earth Kingdom."
Azula's eyes widened, and there was that anger. Her eyebrows lifted. The traitor, the blood traitor, the traitor to the royal family would sully their name, and throw all their ancestors' hard work to nothing. Wasting such divine right! She laid back her shoulders and lifted her head higher, and she pushed herself from her seat to stand in front of him.
"You wouldn't dare," she said. She struggled to rein her anger in, to remain calm, because she wouldn't allow such a display to appear before her brother. She repeated herself, louder, "You wouldn't dare shame our family like that. We took the Earth kingdom, and it no longer exists. All the great cities fell, along with its king and its military. They are spent and it is ours! You would dare back away from such a prize?! You would dare give up the Water tribe and the world?!"
"This war has been pointless," Zuko said, "Now, now I understand what my purpose has been, all these years. When I said I was more than Fire Lord, I wasn't kidding around. I'll bring peace."
She could hardly keep the laughter back. She said, dark and angry and infuriated, "Ha ha—your purpose, Zuzu? To stop the progress we've made? To deprive the Fire nation of the glory it has finally won? To do your peace-loving mother proud?"
Zuko stood taller than her. He was right up in her face, his chest almost to hers, and Azula took a step back, almost out of disgust. Zuko said, after a hard glare and frustration, "I'm going to deliver the Fire nation from this wretched war and restore peace. I'll prove that the Avatar isn't the one that brings peace—people are. And I'll bring it to all of us."
Azula stared, holding his gaze unblinking, and then she said, viciously, "And what happens when your precious peasants starve? When two million soldiers come home? Another two million colony citizens, many of whom have never seen the Fire nation in their lives?"
Zuko said nothing, and Azula demanded, "And what happens when your precious nation revolts against you?"
Still nothing.
"And, what, Zuko, when your name goes down in history as the man who walked away from the spoils his sister worked so hard to win, for a father so great?"
Then, Zuko reacted. It was explosive, it was angry, and Azula was like the lone person standing at the empty foot of a dam bursting. He let out an angry shout, incomprehensible and feral in nature, and he snarled at her, "I hate you! I BANISH you! Get out of my sight, get out of my palace, and get out of my nation! I never want to see your miserable face in these lands ever again! Go die in a ditch somewhere!"
Azula was fast. In her rage, she shoved forward, seizing her elder brother by the throat. She pushed him back, into his throne, so that his head clanged against the back of the seat, and his arms flailed out before grabbing her arm.
She didn't have his physical strength, but with her other arm lifted and the heat clearly forming, Zuko didn't move. He froze, like stone, and looked up at her in fear. For that instant, she relished that look, and she continued pooling the heat in her palm, while he stared into her eyes in pure, terrified, hatred.
That was what she liked to see. That was what calmed her—the power of her position. Holding him down filled her with peace. It reminded her, overall, that she still held sway over him, that she outmatched him with ease. He didn't even come close.
"Remember this?" she said, softly, and she didn't even need an answer to know that he did. "I could even it out for you. Make the other side match."
He stared, and he knew exactly how vulnerable a position he was in. She knew it, too, and she didn't worry about it, as a result. After all, if he tried anything, if he tried to breathe, if he tried to move or fight back, she would plunge that ball of white-hot flame right into his right eye.
"I'm not afraid of you," Zuko said, voice raspy under the pressure of her hand. He said, "And I know what you're after."
"What is it I'm after, Zuko?" Azula said.
"You killed father," Zuko said, rapidly, "so that when I took the throne, you could use me as your puppet, until you take the throne yourself."
"Why would I waste my time? If I wanted to be Fire Lord, I would have just taken it in the first place, without detouring through you. You know how I dislike wearing those formal white clothes… imagine having to survive two funerals and two crownings. No, no. Two ceremonies would have been be enough. One for Father's untimely death, and one for my own crowning."
Azula scoffed, and she let go of his throat. He slumped in his seat and took a huge breath, and then he lunged forward towards her. She sidestepped, deftly, and he ended up stumbling forward, off the edge of the platform and narrowly avoiding a dangerous step into the flames around it. She waited for him to recover.
Zuko stared at her, long and hard, and then he said, angrily, "Then what are you after, in the end?"
Azula cocked an eyebrow and smiled. She said, brightly, "Guess."
"You wouldn't go this far just to control the military, and rule by my side," Zuko said, accusingly.
"Obviously," Azula said. "Besides, it's not like I don't control the military already."
"Then why?" he demanded. "Or do you just enjoy making my life miserable? Is that it?"
Azula scoffed again, at that sort of arrogance. She parted the flames on the platform and walked through them, jumping down to the floor on the other side. Once there, she looked back at him and she said, with another smile, "Oh, don't be so vain, brother. Surely I have better things to do with my time."
"You're crazy," Zuko said, accusatory. "First mother, now father -- and I thought you loved him, but I was wrong. You don't love anyone but yourself."
He was upright, and on the dais he towered over her, the flames casting horrible shadows all over his face, highlighting his harsher features. Highlighting the ridges of his scar, where the skin had bubbled up. But even so tall and imposing, Azula never felt a single flicker of fear.
"Don't worry, Zuzu, I love you," Azula said, so sweetly she could have made herself sick. It was like downing lemons after indulging in sweets for days and days. It stung her own tongue, but it stung Zuko worse.
"I hate you," he replied, confirming it, "I hate you, I hate you. When are you just going to stop?"
"Stop what?" she asked, her wicked lips curling up at the corners, her eyebrows dipping. Her eyes glinted, her voice was sickly sweet for those two little words. Mockingly innocent.
"This game," Zuko said, "where you strip me of what I love most."
"Everything I've ever done has been for me," Azula said, "what makes you think that what you love is what I think about? No, brother. They're, coincidentally, what stands in my way."
"Mother stood in your way?" Zuko demanded, "Father stood in your way? What do you want, Azula? If you don't want to be Fire Lord, what do you want?"
Azula gave him a pause, a long moment to regret asking it. And then she replied, honest as ever.
"I want the entire world, as one, to kneel to me, even if they're doing it because their spines are severed at the hips," she breathed.
Zuko seemed scalded. He didn't say a word, until he snarled, "I vow I'll kill you. I'll kill you for the good of the world, for the good of everyone!
When she walked away, she heard him yelling after her, knew he was yearning to follow, but he didn't leave his post. He kept himself in line, thankfully, lingering around his chair but not leaving. Such was the Fire Lord's duty. Order, not act. For once, his eyes were on her and she could barely wait to get out of his sight.
Better things to do with her time, indeed. First thing the next morning, they'd be en route to the North Pole, and Azula would claim her world.
