Burn My Dread FES
By Iain R. Lewis
Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to Nickelodeon, some of the concepts are similarly inspired by Persona 3 and Persona 4, property of ATLUS games.
"I'm the first to admit the shear thought provoke the new era, become a big terror, but my only rival's my shadow. Rewind then playback and six my own error."
- P3FES
Lotus Juice
Chapter 28: Id
The gun made a noise like distant thunder, then all was silent. Everything was wrong. She stood there, her eyes focused on a point miles away while the smoke from the gun seemed to snake through her head and wafted up, wisp-like, on the opposite side.
The strange scarring on her face glowed.
At first glance, the girl was Azula Houou. The same hair that had been brushed and styled for hours in front of a mirror until every single strand of hair stood precisely where she needed it to be, the same smile, which contained a sinister promise of terrible things, and even the same voice, which whispered softly into the wind.
"I hate you."
She slowly brought the gun down to her side. She wore a surprisingly modest dress, with long sleeves and the hem went down to her knees. It was black on black, and if seemed to make her seem like a shadow on the inferno that was building on the streets below them.
And the scarring shined. Something was not right.
Yue shivered. She was used to the cold, she'd grown up in a city built on the tundras of the north. But the wind that blew through the city was frigid in a way that smothered the naturally warmth. And they stood frozen to their spots because they didn't know what to expect, and Yue was feeling in the pit of her stomach that something terrible was about to emerg..
There was something welling up inside this girl. At first glance, yes, she was Azula Houou, but Yue knew better. She'd seen these Strangers before. They were the faces they showed to no one, the repressed thoughts and the unwanted urges that hid underneath the surface. Azula, though...
She glanced at the girl. She was unconscious on the ground, no doubt fighting desperately through the darkness of her brain. Her memories had been fed into this insane doppelganger, every little scrap of guilt she had shoved off into her. Azula was right, she had nothing to hide, she made no qualms about declaring herself a monster - but they disagreed.
Aang saw something more in her, and she could sense without needing to say a word between them, that her friends agreed. Azula was worth fighting for. Whatever this imposter threw at them, they would not back down.
And the scars were widening. The light was intense, and it came from somewhere within. The wound slowly peeled wider and wider apart until with a flash it unraveled. Her eyes seemed to glow with the same light, as if through a window. And from the light, a shape slowly began to take shape.
"Here it comes!" Sokka said. He took the lead without hesitation. "Brace yourselves!"
"Burn!" The light began to take shape as azure flames ripped across the ground. It become solid, and for a given value of real, it seemed real. It was long, serpent shaped, with blue scales that glistened in the light from the inferno around them. Hungry jaws snapped shut tightly and the flames stopped.
They had laced around the group, like a stream around a stone. The dragon's eyes focused in contempt at Zuko, whose fists were still smoldering with heat. Steam rose up around him. He slowly lowered his hands. He was confused.
Fire was hot, a primievel understanding that had been ingrained, and it was certainly not cold. But for those who had been unfortunate enough to experience it firsthand, after a point, the body starts to think the flames feel cold. And furthermore firebending drew from many sources. Sometimes it fed on rage or hatred, and while rage smoldered over time, hatred was a cold-blooded emotion.
The azure flames from the dragon's maw burned cold like hatred
Xiao's knees buckled as she tried to stagger forward, dragging with her the massive serpentine dragon that emerged from her shattered head. She waved the gun dangerously about. The dragon inhaled deeply.
This time, they were ready for it. This time, they attacked.
The Labyrinth of Lethe robbed people of their memories, but only those they didn't want to begin with. For most people, these were things like Words Had With The Wife After a Bad Day, or The Time They Missed Little Tsu Zhi's Dance Recital For a Business Meeting, but for a select few, their guilty memories were somewhat more interesting.
And then there was Azula Houou, who spent her entire life unaware that she would regret it at the end. The Labyrinth of Lethe wasn't born from her memories, but it had given it a concrete shape. Relationships had power, after a fashion. But all Azula's brought her now was despair and uncertainty.
And she didn't know how to deal with that. She'd always been so sure of herself. She was in unfamiliar waters and all she could do was keep her head above the surface. As with most things inside the human mind, the extended metaphor had been taken literally. The most she could do was give herself some sensible clothes to wear.
So she had ended up in her school swimsuit. She wasn't particularly imaginative about this sort of thing, after all. And she just treaded the waters of uncertainty and did the one thing that she could do in a place such as this.
She thought.
Her mind used to be so crowded by memories, and she had a strange manner of freedom from context now with which to examine that which was Her. She hadn't done that before. She'd been so sure of Her, that she didn't think she had to.
She put uncertainty to good use and started to deconstruct herself.
Yue did what she always did when fighting broke out. She grabbed Azula's unconscious body and went for a safe distance away. Usually, this worked out all right. She even felt quite useful for this. But while the dragon was busy, fighting tooth, flame, and claw with the others, Xiao watched her. Yue didn't notice. This made Xiao anxious.
"Stop fighting them, and get her!" she shouted as she reached for what remained of her head. Her glassy eyes rolled back into the remains of her head and the dragon,gave a great resounding roar as it turned its flames on Yue.
A thin layer of frost appeared on the surface of the roof as it trailed after Yue. She paused only to glance behind her shoulder and dragged Azula's body to some sort of cover. She wasn't having much luck finding any. "Hey, ugly!" The concrete jut up in response. Toph was holding her stance firmly. "Eyes on me!"
The dragon swayed in a wide arc as Xiao took a step backwards, her upper body leaning heavily to her right. "Get out of my way, Bei Fong."
"Or what, you'll make your dragon flame me?" Toph grinned. She could deal with this sort of bad guy. Azula was one of your typical gloaters on a bad day, and Xiao was all of Azula's bad days rolled up into one little spiteful package. "I'm so scared."
"Idiot.' Xiao's eyes widened, "Why would I threaten to do something I was going to do anyway. There's a lot worse I could do than that."
"Yeah, right!" The fire had died down and the frost had turned to steam almost instantly in the heat of the inferno. Ba Sing Se on fire would have been a distressing sight. Seeing homes, entire lifetimes of memories, the streets that they knew and walked every day suffering under undying fires, it would have been distracting especially feeling the sting of cold from the dragon's waiting maw.
Thankfully, Toph couldn't see. "You know what I think, Power Princess? I think you know I can take you. And you're scared."
Xiao looked at Toph for a moment, the dragon casually blowing out cold flames as it awaited its master's command. Then, she broke into a sickly grin. "Is that how you think it is?" she asked, biting back a laugh. The dragon was taken aback by the sudden movement as Xiao broke into a full on belly laugh,. "You think you can torment me like Katara? You know, I hate you, Toph, but compared to some of the others, I don't hate you that much." She wiped a tear from her fragmented eye. "You made me laugh. I'll let you live a little while longer. In the meantime," her eyes focused on Yue, "You're going to have to go, Princess."
The others had rallied around her, but Yue still felt unbearably exposed with the dragon's keen golden eyes staring at her from behind a dangerously frosty snout. The flames licked from the back of its throat, casting an awful light on everything.
"We won't let you hurt her," Katara said. She stood against the dragon looking like a lone woman against the tide, but her posture and the look in her eyes made it abundantly clear that she'd turned it before.
The dragon and Xiao stared her down. Then it crept on the both of them, a synchronized grin that seemed to catch the shadows and twist it into something sinister. Xiao chuckled, a low and controlled sound. "Oh, why not. Burn them all!"
Azula waded through the sea of her thoughts as she came across a small land-mass. Everything was dark, but she could see well enough. No, that wasn't it. She was asleep, this was her subconscious. She didn't need light to see because there was no need for eyes. Everything here she knew, intrinsically, because it was her.
Which made everything a nice little headache wrapped up for her. She was too good at cold logic that sometimes she actually got confused by it. There were times when things should be taken at face value just for the sake of their sanity. Azula, though, no, she'd rather face reality than the truth.
The truth was it was dark, and it would be hard to see if for the fact that she didn't need to. She could see the things on this landmass that stretched on as far as the metaphorical eye could see. They were crystaline, massive, and they wound around the dark - dark cavernous area, she supposed, ad it had always been a cavern despite her never paying it any mind before - like long mobius strips of ice and glass.
Her mind was devoid of memories, and memories were not stagnant or still. They changed, they breathed, and most importantly, they snuck up on you in the dark of night when you were staring at your ceiling wondering exactly why. Not why anything, just, why. Azula had too many nights like that. It wasn't exactly guilt, no, though she was starting to think it was related to it, it was more of a deep hunger for reality.
Really. Why? When you get right down to it.
These shapes were knowledge. They were things you could depend upon. They would always be the same. Two and two will always be four, and four is a number associated with the collection of objects in a certain quantity, all of which are words whose definitions are agreed upon by a general social construct. They shimmered without light. Even knowledge shifted about a little.
So what did Azula know.
There was a time, not so long ago, she'd have boasted everything, though she didn't exactly have memory for why. So without that bit of emotion, which was a tricky beast she'd have to look out for because they would descend upon you without a second's warning, and without the memories for it to feed upon, she was able to objectively realize there was an awful lot less than she thought there'd be.
One and one was two, except when it was 10. The entirety of the Epic of Ginshi was spiraling under the waters of uncertainty - she knew it but sometimes she would get rather confused by the middle chapters, where the supposed authoress would start referencing things she'd never even heard of - and there was her favorite movie's best lines lining the roof of the cave.
It was all in all a rather impressive collection of knowledge, but it seemed rather hollow There were tiny bits of fragments of memories buried inside the knowledge. She'd known that Absence Comes After the Storm was her favorite film only because she'd memorized so much of it. This was a logical inference, which was a dangerous little storm to watch out for.
Yes, sometimes impulses shot off of the crystals, shedding the cavern into some light, but it was a funny little thing. She was inside her brain and she'd yet to find any traces of emotion or identity, both things that she'd expected at least
The funny thing about emotion, she realized, is it tended to let you sneak upon it yourself, instead. It was a little like a alligator like that, but she'd never seen an alligator before. She'd never seen one hunt first-hand, either. Then again, not many had.
If she had, however, she would have recognized it when her pride snatched her by the leg and dragged her into the waters of uncertainty.
It was funny how she said 'Burn' when the only burning sensation any of them felt was a sharp freeze as the air reacted to the cold hatred of the fire In a moment, Katara would probably have time to notice the ice forming in the air around them.
But currently, her eyes were focused on Zuko blasting the fire back with as much force as he could muster. He strained against the heat, trying his best to divert it again, but this time the dragon didn't seem ready to stop. Firebending was in the breath, and what the dragon lacked in physical lungs - nothing emerging from anyone's head could be real, they all reasoned separately - it more than made up for in unending hatred.
"Yes, yes, burn, you wretches, burn!"
"Shut! Up!" Zuko grunted behind the bursts. The air around them was slowly beginning to chill from the scalding hatred, a contradiction that no one had time to observe. Katara's eyes saw the ice forming, and without consulting her brain first, she bended the water in the air back at Xiao.
The blaze subsided as the dragon and Xiao tumbled backwards. As Xiao hit the ground, the gun fell from her hands and rolled away. And just like it came, the light slowly drained into the darkness, leaving only the vague memory of a dragon. "No! No!" She was already stumbling to her feet when Toph kicked up the earth around the weapon. "Don't! It's mine!"
"Not so tough without your dragon, huh?" Sokka taunted.
That was, probably, his biggest mistake.
There was still that cold glow in her eyes. The dragon wasn't the source of the fires, but only a way out. Xiao turned her eyes on Toph with an expression that even froze her. The look was so full of hatred that she could feel it. "Snoozles, you idiot."
The fire trailed behind her as she moved, which was something to behold in and of itself. It was like she forgot how to traverse distance in her rage. She was standing still and the next second, she was closer and closer, like the flicker of an old film reel. Toph couldn't quite get a good feel of when she was going to strike. She was wholly unprepared for the sensation when it happened.
The hate wanted to get out, so it snuck out from her eyes and her ears and her mouth, and in that brief moment, her fingers. The fist collided with Toph's stomach, but it was the explosion that knocked her prone. "Keep Azula safe," Zuko said to Yue. Then he charged after Xiao. She was scraping the concrete away with her fingers, leaving charred lines behind as she tore it piece by piece away.
"Where is it, where?" she mumbled incoherently.
"Now!" Sokka shouted, in what would prove to be a close contender for the title of biggest mistake.
He charged and was knocked aside as the blow connected before she even remembered to move. The blue fire hung in the air in the arc that her hand had not been seen to travel in. She was now frozen in the follow-through, staring at them, and for the first time, they could see the cracks growing worse.
Her red eyes contrasted with the azure haze behind them. The flames were creeping through the cracks, licking at her face, slobbering hungrily at the flesh. She wasn't quite complete, though. She turned back, this time slowly, as she remembered herself, and heaved her breaths in and out. "There." She took in a haggard sigh as she tore the concrete and threw it at the group. It crashed into the roof. She took a ragged sigh, " I have it."
The change that overtook her was complete. Control reasserted itself. Every movement came through, maybe even more fluidly than before, more real than even Azula had been. The gun in her hand, she looked stable, she looked completely in command of the situation, and she brought it up to her temple in a dazed way that wouldn't have looked out of place on a dreamwalker.
"Now everything is going to be fine."
And she pulled the trigger and the dragon emerged. "Katara!" Xiao shouted, stepping forward with the entire awkward weight of the dragon moving forward with her, causing her stumble. "Do that again and I will end you."
Katara's mouth decided to not consult her brain at this moment. "Bring it."
"Oh, trust me, it's already brought." She twirled the gun around in her fingers as the dragon spat out a blast of icy flame. It descended to the ground, and spread when it smashed against the concrete. And then it lit with azure fire.
Azula fought for breath as well as fought for her leg, which would have worrying implications if she lost it inside her own head. The waters of uncertainty were, well, notably murky and confusing, but whenever she got above surface she caught a glimpse of Pride.
It was sort of like a crocodile, but unlike a crocodile, which usually had things like flesh, muscle, and bone as well as complicated systems of organs, this lacked all of them. In fact, its form was a lack of things. She could see it, she could certainly feel it nip at her foot as she kicked it back down, but what she saw and felt were absences.
It was like looking at the Fire Nation flag, or perhaps killing someone for it. Those were the sensations she was experiencing without either of those being present. Realistically nothing was there, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. It was weird when those two ideas were completely at odds with each other. She was starting to wonder if she'd had it wrong from the start.
She didn't get far in that thought as Pride emerged from the waters and stalked her. She could hear the menacing music, and she really could. Then it opened its maw that was like looking at the feeling inspired by the Fire Nation national anthem, and received a sudden and totally unexpected punch to the snout from Shame.
Shame was Pride's natural predator as well as its natural prey, and it looked like, well, it looked like a bear that was made from the morning after a rather lively party, which was something Azula had never experienced, but she somehow knew that was what it was. She'd seen a bear once, so this time she had an acute understanding of how it lacked the existence of any of those things that made it a bear. The tiny hat however remained.
Why the tiny hat, she was't sure.
She rubbed her eyes. The tiny hat remained, Pride was slinkling away, shaking its tail like a perfect score on a particularly difficult exam. Shame sniffed at Azula's hair. It didn't seem particularly vicious, so she tried to communicate. "Please don't do that."
It made a noise like a mother's scolding. Out of the corner of her eye she could see more of those things appearing. She didn't really come into own head to play zookeeper, though. "I'm sorry, all right? I have't exactly had time to do my hair."
The waters of uncertainty were murky, but the crystal knowledge was reflective. A thought occured to her. "Fine, I'll do it now. All right? Will that make you feel better?" Which was a strange thing to say to a feeling, she realized. In fact, she was certain she heard herself say that, but she didn't.
She looked around.
There was nothing but the figure of Shame pawing at the waters, and a few skittering Guilts that seemed to be coming from somewhere in the Dark. She didn't know what the Dark was, exactly, but she'd work towards it slowly.
She stared at herself. The reflection stared back, and then gave her an expectant look. She took a step back, and the reflection didn't. It just got rather annoyed. It was saying something, but she couldn't hear what since it was coming from beyond the reflection. She shouldn't have been surprised, she'd seen that Scion doing the same thing in the corrupted version of Ba Sing Se, but it still put her off.
Behind her, a creature slithered by with the noise of a blood-curdling shriek.
"My hair's a mess."
And it was a simple enough statement that made her examine herself. It wasn't surprising that she was a mess, except that it wasn't right that she was a mess. She wasn't Azula Houou, or rather, she wasn't the collection of flesh, bones, muscles, and complicated organs that she'd require someone to show her their medical degree to even touch, she was Azula, the impulses and thoughts and various animalized emotions of Azula taking on a shape.
She should look how she felt. So, logically, she felt like a mess.
Her hair was out on all ends, which was how it always got in the morning before she had time to do her hair. Her eyes were, well, they weren't quite sharp, but they weren't really unfocused. No, they were more watery. She chalked that one up to all the water she thought she was fighting her way out of. Her dress was -
She wasn't in that swimsuit anymore. She hadn't been in it at all five minutes ago, she'd changed it so it had always been her school uniform. The Bending Club armband was fastened to her arm, almost, dare she say it, proudly.
She cast a glance at Shame to make sure Pride didn't feel like giving it another go. Something about the tiny hat made her sympathetic to the poor thing. It never got a lot of use.
But the uniform itself looked creased and unwashed. She looked like she was tired, really. And she was. She was tired of being Azula Houou. The thought struck her with a lot of force. She was tired of being herself. What did that even mean, when one got down to it.
Which was a qualifier to almost all of her questions in this place.
It was one thing to realize that you were tired, and completely another to do something about it. What would she do about it? And then again, why did she hear herself ask herself that? It was getting a bit unnerving.
Azula had a very well defined sense of identity.
Unfortunately, she also was currently in, for want of a better term, two minds about itself.
She was only now becoming aware that the voice she was hearing had been talking the whole time. And the reflection threw its hands up in the air in frustration. Slowly but surely, Azula was deconstructing herself. And in the Dark, there was a distant howl.
Outside, Azula seemed restless. Perhaps thrashing was the better word. She'd never seen anyone in that much of a fit during sleep, but Yue was not one to judge. She was more concerned with the others well-being.
The azure flames were creeping across the ground like frost on a cold winter'ws morning. It was a slow burn, but it had a sort of unstoppable inevitability about it that slowed everyone right down to a stop. "Okay, what's happening?"
"The roof is on fire."
"Oh, is that all. Thanks Zuko."
"Does anyone have any ideas how to avoid becoming flamed to death? Because right about now, that'd be super great and awesome," Sokka moaned. He was leaping across the roof as the flames crawled towards him. "Also now would be great, thanks."
"I don't know!" Katara shouted back. She tried to bend the ice around the flames, but they refused to move like the flames were pinning them down. Xiao laughed in delight as she saw them struggle. She placed one hand over her shattered eye as she arched her back fully, and laughed at the sky.
"You're too funny. I'm going to enjoy immolating you!"
"This is going well," Toph observed.
"Ha ha, very funny. Look, I'm going to die so if someone would just, I don't know, do something awesome, I'd really appreciate it."
Yue watched the flames crawling towards them with growing apprehension. "Don't let them reach Azula," she heard Zuko call, but she didn't know if she could lift the girl, especially with her moving and squirming like she was having some fevered dream.
"Yes, yes, don't! Just try and stop them!" Xiao teased. She was in control, and she was loving every minute of it with a childlike spite and viciousness that shot from her mouth like venom from a serpent. The blue flames were starting to gush out from the dragon's head, freezing the air around her as it flailed about.
"Sounds like she can't go long without shooting off her flames," Toph pointed out, "Dude's a total spaz."
"Sounds like Azula, all right."
"Well, yeah, Katara, that's sorta her thing. Okay, I got an idea."
"What's that?"
"Stop her from shooting her flames for five seconds so I can punch her in the face."
"That's a good plan, but how do we make it work?" Sokka realized that he'd just volunteered himself for that job. A momentary pause, and he said, "I have an idea but it's only just crazy enough to work."
"Always a good sign," Toph retorted. "What's the idea."
"If you say knock that gun away from her, so help me, Sokka," Zuko grunted. Sokka looked defiant for a moment before it slowly washed away. "It is, isn't it? That's your brilliant idea." He was ducking through the flames at this point, trying to burn them away. "Well great. How do we do that?"
"Why are you all looking at me?" Sokka moaned. "Okay, okay, look, she's got a big head."
"Duh, she's Azula."
"She's Azula with a dragon coming out of her head, so, let's knock her down?"
"I can hear you!"
"And we probably shouldn't be shouting across the rooftop discussing our strategy, so, if someone would stop the fires!"
"I don't know how!"
"Because you can't! No one can! These fires are going to burn away everything until there's othing left. A cleansing fire," she breathed in the smell of chilled smoke, "Ah, that is refreshing."
The fires were getting closer now, they were close enough that Yue could hear them crackle over the voices. What they needed was the wind to blow away the fires, or the oceans to rise up, but none of those things seemed to be happening. What they needed right now was divine intervention.
Yue blinked. Things suddenly made some modicum of sense.
Divine intervention was, for most people, supplicating to a spirit or deity for help. For Yue, it was merely a matter of applying herself. Everything she did was divine intervention. She'd done it before to protect Aang, she could do it again.
She stood up. "You're wrong!" she told Xiao, resolutely. Then she clasped her hands and prayed that she knew what she was doing. The faint glow of moonlight radiated off of her, her hands clenched tighter together as the flames crept closer to the moonlight. "Please, please work!"
"Impossible. I don't accept this!" Xiao shrieked. "Burn her alive!"
The dragon reared its head back as the cold azure flames streamed from its mouth, its whiskers streaming after it as it wrapped itself around and exhaled. The flames traveled at the moonlight slowly. burning the air with its icy chill. It seared around the moonlight, diverted like a stream around a pebble, and Yue shrieked in fright.
She could feel it burning the light. The tips of her fingers felt cold, and as the flames continued to press back against the firestorm, she could feel ice clinging to her hands. Her teeth clattered. She could hear her friends calling out, rushing to help, but she couldn't understand the words.
All she knew is she had to hold on. The flames weren't touching her. The chill was of the mind. She could feel the hatred washing over her, but she refused to be frozen in it. Xiao was strong, but Yue believed in Azula.
As the flames danced around the glow of moonlight, Xiao was thinking nothing but hate. There was nothing in her but hate. She hated the light, she hated Yue, she hated that she couldn't seem to break through. She hated the noise the others were making. And most of all, she hated that they were fighting back.
She was the true self.
So with a roar the dragon unleashed a blast of flame and chilled heat that slammed against the moonlight with a blinding flash. She breathed heavily, the feeling draining from her mind as the dragon faded away. She gripped the gun tightly in her hand. "No, no, no," she repeated while the others clenched their eyes shut. "No! No! No!" Then she shrieked. It started off as a heart-searing sound and then devolved into a mirthless laughter.
Yue opened her eyes. The moonlight held. It emitted from her, and where it reached, the flames were doused. She looked like a goddess stepping out of the clouds, and the others opened their eyes to see her emerge, unscathed. "Yue?"
"What happened?" Toph asked. She felt like she was missing half of what was going on.
"The flames are out - Yue did something," Sokka said, "Yue's totally kicking butt."
Xiao gripped the gun tighter in her hand and brought it up to her forehead. "No! I won't accept this. Don't you dare think you've won. I can't lose. I'm stronger than you, better than you - I'm the perfect one! I'm perfect!"
"Guys, I think she's finished," Toph said.
"Yeah," Zuko grunted. "Let's end this."
Xiao's finger steadied around the trigger. "You really think I'm beat just because your goddess pulled off some little trick?" The mirthless laugh returned. "Oh, Zuzu, I hate you all so much. This is exactly why you can't win. You can't see the forest for the trees."
She pulled the trigger, her whole head rearing back at the force.
"I really wish she'd stop doing that."
The Dark was deep in the caverns of her brain, where even Pride did not prowl. Things could be heard, distant whispers of things that she couldn't erase. She knew she had to go through it, but she couldn't.
She was too busy arguing with herself.
"I refuse."
It was strangely liberating to tell herself where to stick it, but at the same merit, rather pointless. She was talking to herself after all. And all she could figure was the faint whispers of what she meant. It was like knowing something without being told. One minute ignorance, and the next, enlightenment.
That's why she knew she took that rather poorly. "I don't care. I'm not going through there.' Her reflections seemed to be unable to decide what to do about that. "I can't. I can't bend in here. I don't know how I know that, I just do."
The realization that she was going through the Dark whether she liked it or not was already there, but she didn't get anywhere without being stubborn. She cast a glance at the waters for signs of the lurking beast of Pride, but saw no hide or hair of it. Most of the emotions had scurried off, though from time to time she could see it somewhere.
Anticipation, Excitement, all of these creatures had no real shape, but she knew them just at a glance. The shapes she gave them were of animals. She wondered why that was. They could be anything.
It was obvious, then, as she told herself, that it was how she conceived them. There was no explanation, only understanding. They were not things she'd never be able to conceive because that would be impossible here. The only limits to shape were her own imagination and for all her cunning, Azula lacked that.
She didn't like frivolous things. Why bother reading fiction? It wasn't real. It didn't have any merit. Literature was a matter of understanding society and its growth, but she was making excuses. She had interests besides her own self-improvement, she argued with herself.
"But they have never been of any use."
That wasn't right. No, it was completely wrong. Azula always lies. Why did he always say that? Why was he right? Why was she lying to herself?
"I'm insane, aren't I?" she asked in a moment of total clarity.
At least she was sane enough to realize it. She was going mad. Things didn't make sense anymore. Was she becoming lucid enough to see her insanity, or insane enough to sense that saity was slipping away.
"I'm scared, aren't I?" She said this with a strangely detached understanding. "I'm scared of death. Why am I scared of dying, when I never feared it before?"
She was only a second year in high school. She had a life to live. That was something, wasn't it? Something to be scared of losing, at any rate. Mortality was a funny thing. It crept up on you. It wasn't an emotion, it was a knowledge that breathed and lived like one. There was no bargaining with it, no tempering it - it was always there.
Death was, after all, never unbenownst to its prey.
"I don't want to be afraid. It's a waste of effort."
All the same, she was. She knew this. There was no point in arguing that. That's what the Dark was. It was a living shadow, where emotions like fear prowled, hungry. Where knowledge of evil lurked and radiated off of it despair and dread. Everyone has the Dark inside their heads, Azula Houou, but she was different.
"Why are we even using our name? Why am I even saying this. We should know what we're thinking."
That was the mystery, wasn't it?
But she knew the answer, didn't she? She'd been fighting against it so long and she was tired and she didn't even know why she was fighting at all to begin with. "Everyone's been there this whole time, telling me that there was something more to me. That was pointless, there was't anything more. I knew who I was."
But...
"Not who I am. I don't know who I am. Everything that made me who I was is gone. Even my father is gone and I can't let that go. I can't because there was never anything there to begin with."
It was then that loneliness came upon her. The Dark beckoned her with dark, seductive oblivion. And she looked there, trying to remember anything about her friends. Ty Lee, Mai, she knew their names but she couldn't remember them. She'd given up all of the last scraps of memories to Xiao. She shivered, feeling alone.
"I don't even remember them. I've forgotten everyone, everyone but - him."
Something in the Dark seemed to call out to her. She wasn't alone anymore.. And while she didn't know when she stopped being who she was and became who she is, she did know there was a way to find out.
The Dark was closer than it appeared to be. It was right in front of her. Travel through the mind goes at the speed of lightning, and Azula had always been one to think on the edge of the thunderbolt. And the Dark was the pitch in the noon.
She didn't need to see, but she wished she could.
She wasn't alone. She could feel... him...
And it made everything better. The walls unfurled their tendrils and the light of some bio-luminescent plants seemed to flicker to life. The Dark was like a swamp of the mind. Uncertainty had drained away into terror, and though you waded through it, it was the noises in the pitch that scared you most.
Not because you didn't know what it was, but because you didn't know how close they were.
The Dark opened up to let her in, and something was waiting for her inside.
It had been going so well, too. Or at least, Sokka had thought so. Xiao was breathing heavily as she recovered from their attack. She held the gun limply on her finger as she fought to keep her breath. The dragon was sagging, weighing her down.
She was on the ropes. When she tried to straighten herself, a water whip lashed her in the back causing her to stumble forward into a waiting pile of rocks that jutted up at just the right moment. Zuko struck her with the full brunt of his firebending at just that moment, leaving her sprawled on the floor next to Sokka.
He kicked away her gun. "This is over!" Xiao's eyes weren't on him, though, she was staring at the gun as it rolled away. She held her breath as it skidded to a stop by the bent and twisted cage. He brought his sword up and tried to remember that this wasn't real. It was just like stabbing any other spirit, albeit one who looked like the girl who'd killed his best friend that one time.
Which he did get better from, but still, this was dangerous territory. He couldn't just stab people when he was mad. He kept reminding himself that as he began to plunge the weapon into her. He expected her to fight back, to squirm, or even make a sound. Instead, the sword pierced her through her heart and then, nothing.
Yes, nothing.
He opened his eyes tentatively. She was staring at him, with her eyes aflame. Then, her hands were on the blade and she pulled it out without him even having a chance to push back. As she did this, the flames gushed from the wound and knocked him on his back.
She looked at the sword, forgetting to move it up to eye-level and just having it appear there. "You thought this toy could finish me?" she asked, her face flickering between expressions rapidly. She laughed, that same mirthless cackle, and threw it aside. "I need my gun. I can't - can't-" she was fighting back the laughter, as if she'd just gotten the universe's big punchline.
"Guys," Toph said, "I don't even need to see her to know something's wrong with Power Princess the Second."
The flames were crawling up her dress now, and though the fabric was alight, it wasn't burning. She was beginning to rain down embers around herself when she walked, and the flames just kept pouring out. Along her arms, the cracks began to spread. Flames were peeking out, and smoke billowed above her as it vanished into the deep black cloud above the city.
"It's eating her from the inside out," Yue stated. "That's why she needs that gun. She doesn't know how to call it any other way."
"You mean that's the only thing stopping her from -"
"Yes. She can't control it forever," Yue sighed. "It's so sad."
She was lurching across the rooftop, leaving a trail of fire behind her as she went, disappearing and reappearing as she forgot how to show she was moving. She existed in the same way as a ghost, drifting between what was real and what wasn't.
And the gun was the only thing she knew how to use.
"We need to keep her away from that thing!" Zuko shouted as he charged. He hefted his blades up and the sparks danced between them. Xiao's eyes lit up, and the fire watched him from inside her, the longing for freedom gleaming across her blood red pupils. The fires wanted to consume everything.
And without even needing to move, she did. Her foot had collided with him because that's all she could focus on doing. It wasn't a kick, it was a statement in physical form. He dropped to the ground and rolled.
"Oh no you don't!" Toph slid the concrete block the gun had rested on forward, causing it to jump across the rooftop. She could hear Xiao gasp in fright as she hurried ever closer. And Katara and Yue watched as the immolated girl launched herself at the gun. Clinging onto it tightly as it teetered closer to the abyss.
"I have you," she said, though her voice wavered uncertainly. "I have you and the fires, they want me to destroy you."
The Dark crawled in behind her, in a world enshrouded by darkness the only way was forward. She could hear Fear and Terror and all those other buried, primal emotions scraping away in the dark. The organic light shone off the walls, the tendrils of the bog reaching into the gray stone, covering it in midnight blue moss. Azula wasn't alone.
Well, she was, but she wasn't wholly herself, either. That meant things could still grab her in the dark and drag her down. She didn't want to find out what would happen.
The emotions here didn't make her see the color of the dentist's office or the noise of an incoming truck, they were the core emotions, the ones that had been part of the reason the species as a whole survived. And the reason she was above the rest of the world was that she knew to conquer them.
Fear? Hah! Nothing to fear if you have strength. The strong fear nothing. Terror? Bah! That's nothing compared to a rational, logical mind sharpened to a point.
And here, in the Dark, she discovered she never really escaped them. No, she'd just thrown them into the Dark and let them fester and grow. And they'd be waiting for that strength to fail, for that mind to rust.
And she realized if they were ever going to take her, now was the time. They were close. The wolf's jaws were at her throat, the serpent lay in wait. And dawn was never going to come to the Dark. She had to keep moving.
Knowledge here was different than the crystaline tendrils she'd seen before. Here, they absorbed the light while everything else kept its distance. She'd had the misfortune of brushing against one before, and quickly learned why. The knowledge seared.
She knew, with terrifying clarity, that she could suffer pain. It was a kind of knowledge that most took for granted, but it came from somewhere. Pain kept you alive. She appreciated that. But she still chose to ignore it.
The memories here were the first to go, she wondered what they would have been like. Ghosts in the marsh, roaming around replaying the pantomime of her life. Would she remember her father here? Would she remember her mother?
She had a mother. That was one of those bits of knowledge that stayed. It was a quantifiable fact. Zuko and she couldn't have just popped into existence at her father's behest. There was a process for these things. It apparently involved a lot of waiting and paperwork, though apparently ceremony was strictly optional.
She didn't want to think about her mother, though, so into the Dark she went. Into the Dark everything went, eventually. She didn't think anyone did it differently. Everyone made mistakes - she was just better at pretending she didn't.
Terror struck like a serpent, lashing out at her while her mind wandered. She nearly got bit. She didn't doubt it had some kind of venom, one that would leave her a gibbering coward. It was small. Terrible things usually were.
It rattled like - like terror and it looked like a serpent the color of, of terror. And it was doing things to her head the way it slithered about like a serpent made of terror. It wasn't anything, she couldn't figure out what it was doing to her, but just hearing and seeing it made her respond like this. She needed to steel her mind.
She reached for a gun that wasn't there and she tried to will something to fight back but she couldn't even begin to think what. It was crawling up the vine of a phosphorous plant. Its silhouette shifted and changed as it moved. It was everything all at oe and her brain struggled to comprehend it.
Terror was the curse of the blind. It was what could be lurking. She needed to focus. It was a serpent, and she'd dealt with worse than serpents. It couldn't do anything to her with careful, calm, reasonable logic.
The problem there is that reason and logic had just booked an impromptu flight somewhere warmer.
Something told her time was short. Somewhere, a voice that she couldn't hear urged her forward.
She didn't have time now for terror. She needed to focus her mind into a point. This was her mind and she would be its master whether it liked it or not.
Terror lunged and she -
- she didn't know exactly what she was doing, but her body moved without her bidding. Her hands grabbed it and wrestled it and shaped it and terror became something like a staff in her hand. Its wriggling stopped.
She was still terrified. She didn't know why she knew her time was so short, but she knew it. She had to take that terror to drive her forward and there in her hand it had been turned into a weapon. It had been sharpened to a point.
Fear lurked somewhere in the bog. And now she'd fashioned that primal terror into something to fight back. She could feel her feet soaking in the waters underfoot, but she kept running. She was making an awful lot of noise, but she didn't have time to be afraid, either.
Fear happened to everyone, when it happened to Azula Houou, it wasn't exactly prepared.
The bog had been going on forever. Azula's feet were soaked and tired and she came to a point where all the knowledge she'd thrown into the Dark had come. They wrapped around like a terrible plant, its tendrils going everywhere in the bog. And around it, nothing came. Even the waters kept their distance. Even from a distance, she could feel the knowledge seeking to make itself known.
Mortality, the ultimate knowledge - literally.
She was afraid. It was coming off her like a stink, and she knew that. She knew that Fear like a hound on the hunt was coming for her and she wouldn't be able to find her way out without first going through it.
She'd heard of a wolf eating the moon. Fear must have been its mentor. The thing emerged from the swamp and kept a respectable distance from the knowledge. The knowledge of evil hung lower than others. It crawled beneath it and approached her.
She tightened her grip on her makeshift spear. It suddenly felt altogether futile Fear was massive, it had a massive mane of absolute fear and dread Its teeth were the color of everything she'd ever been frightened of in her life mixed with the primal understanding of fear.
Here, where Mortality was known, it had made a home. Fitting, really. It seemed to be made of the same materials Uncertainty was left behind in its wake. Fear was a natural predator It knew to wait for its prey to corner itself before making itself known, and it knew how to get its prey so wrapped up in terror that it wouldn't even hear it coming.
Well, Azula thought, she had the terror well in hand. She'd be angry about the pun later, but right now, she'd just have to use it. Not even fear is undefeatable. Confidence, strength, if she had that, she had nothing to fear. And Azula was perfect. She was so perfect that when you looked really close you barely even saw the imperfections.
You didn't see the girl who knew, in her heart of hearts, that no one would care if she was devoured by this beast. No one would shed a tear if she never returned.
You didn't see the girl who had become so wrapped up in the fear of being imperfect that she'd made sure everyone knew, at every opportunity, that she wasn't.
But Fear saw by scent. And there was no way she could disguise that.
Its quarry was cornered. It was beaten. And it had emerged from the Dark to drag her into it forever. For the first time she wondered what lay on the other side of the Dark, and with a most fervent wish, she really wanted to find out
Grip loosened on the spear. It was useless if she just grabbed it like it were some kind of stick. She needed to be calm and reasonable and use the serpent right or else she was just going to hurt someone, probably herself, and that wouldn't do anyone any good.
And they're in danger, right now, she will kill them, even if she has to kill herself to do it, the voice on the wind whispered in her ear.
They were expecting her to pop up unfazed by any of this, to be Azula Houou, the perfect, capable, ruthless leader. She'd always been ruthless, she didn't see the point in changing that. She'd just have to use it right this time.
Fear pounced upon her and pinned her to the ground. Its maw reeked of the feeling of all small woodland creatures that are hunted every day. She couldn't loosen her arms but she could shift her weight just enough to free one of her legs.
The growl it made sounded like a thousand. She was surrounded in her own mind by one wolf. Human beings were an evolved species. They were better than the small furry creatures that ended up being eaten by any variety of wolf.
Except..
Except sometimes, once in a blue moon, the furry creature gets the upper hand. It relies on instinct and it relies on blind terror and somehow it's the wolf who's running for safety. Human beings didn't get this far without once in their lives relying on that self-same terror.
Azula kicked.
Fear shuddered and stumbled as Azula squirmed for freedom, her feet becoming an increasing source of frustration for the predator. It snapped at her angrily and then yelped when it realized that her arms were free. It saw the spear come and it hurried back into the blackened crystal vines.
It looked uncertain. If it had eyes, it would have been following her warily. It didn't, but the sensation of its eyes on her was still present. And she, she gripped that spear tight in her hand and waited. She couldn't push her luck. If she missed, she'd be trapped beneath those crystals.
She didn't have time but she had to make it. She had to survive.
She wouldn't stop until everything that stood against her was dead or destroyed. She was not merciful. And she knew her Stranger was a nightmare given flesh, and it wouldn't think twice about destroying everything in her path, no matter for her own safety because-
- and the realization hit her hard.
It was enough to raise Fear's haunches. It snarled like a death-rattle.
She should have dropped the spear. She should have stood there, her throat out for the wolf at her door, waiting, expectantly. That thought should have left her vulnerable to all those negative emotions, just like they'd done so many times before.
Who would miss a child so horrible, she terrified her own mother?
But Fear wasn't ready for the spear to pierce it through the chest. The noise it made was lonely and pathetic and Azula couldn't believe her hand had moved. The Dark was full of despair, it fed on it like an aqueduct after the rain.
It should have been her on the ground, moaning weakly.
But she wasn't.
And that was that.
She had to hurry. Xiao was still running rampant and, as a small spark went off on the horizon, it would end terribly for everyone if she didn't hurry. She wasn't a hero, she wasn't going to become a good girl, but she wasn't about to let those fools get themselves blown to smithereens when she could prevent it
She stopped running. She sprinted, instead.
The finger was on the trigger again and she seemed calmer again. Happiness was a warm gun. However, beneath the veneer of control, it was clear she was beginning to crack. The lines on her face were worce than ever, and the fire was starting to come out from the skin. Her dress was still on fire. It was like watching an effigy take up Northern Roulette.
She seemed so relieved when she pulled on the trigger. It took her a few seconds to register the pain in her hand and the gun firing wildly into the air. It rolled off her fingers and spiraled through the air.
"No!"
It was a cry of anguish. She fell to her knees. "No! Come back!"
It hit the cage and rolled down. She watched in desperation, trying to will her body towards it. it propelled like a torpedo on the ground, stretching her hand. She didn't even notie her hand was wet, or that Katara had lowered her water whip and watched the girl struggle for the firearm.
"Nice one, Katara," Sokka said with a glowing smile. "Let's see her get it back this time."
She scrambled and she scraped but her hand was too short. It was too shattered and weak to stretch any further and the gun teetered on the brink. "I need you!"
"Now I know this is an imposter. Azula doesn't need anyone or anything." Toph crossed her arms. It was a grudging acknowledgement of admiration. "She's ten times as tough as you, and nicer to boot. I can't believe I said that."
"She might be a part of Azula, but she's half as scary."
"Shut up, Sokka."
"It's true, Zuko. You know it."
He grunted, and that was that. Xiao was watching the gun start its slow fall down into the fire. Her face contorted with pain and anger. Hatred shot out of her fingertips and the sudden burst of hear caused the cage to shift and the gun to hurtle down into the blaze below.
Her hand trailed after it. A small whimper was the only noise she made. She looked like a girl who had lost her only friend in the world.
"Azula-"
"Quiet." The voice was low, husky, and cold. "Katara, this is all your fault. I'm the real Azula now. I'm better than her. I'm not weighed down by stupid things like regrets, and friendship. If you'd only accepted my hatred and died like you should have this would never have happened."
She stood up. It was like watching her do it twice as she tried to collect herself enough. The flames were getting more intense now. They were causing the roof to feel like the middle of the tundra. "You may think you're the real Azula, but you're not," Katara said, weakly. Staring at those eyes was like staring into the eyes of the wolf. It was clear murder was foremost on her mind.
"I am the real Azula!"
"You're just a part of her. You can't survive without the rest -"
"- Just watch me!" She stumbled forward, collapsing to her knees and screaming. The sound echoed for miles. "You think you've beat me? You think you're better than me? You're no one."
Azula's eyes threatened to open. She was finally calm in Yue's arms. She was ready, but she was still so deep in slumber.
"I have all of her memories. She gave it up, so why shouldn't I take it? I'm the real Azula now, And I'll make you see that. Oh," she began to laugh. It was a bitter sound, like frost on a cold winter's morning. "Oh you'll see. Believe me."
The flames had turned on her. They were eating away at her. Her hair was catching on fire, and her body was expanding, ever so slightly, like a can under pressure. All it would take was one spark, one little breach and they would see.
It was hypnotic, like watching a fuse burning right in ront of them. Yue turned pale as her hair and tried desperately to make sense of everything she could sense. All of that hatred was begging to be released. It wasn't going to stop at consuming its host. All of it was just waiting for her to break, and then - Yue said, "She's going to blow." It wasn't the shock that she was expecting, but it put into words what everyone was thinking.
"Sweetness, do something now."
"What? Me? Why don't you do something, Toph!"
"I don't know what to do. Snoozles!"
"I'm thinking."
"Some help you are. Snowflake, Matchstick, either of you -"
"I told you, I'm thiinking!"
"Not you, Snoozles."
The spark was something she could use. She could feed on the same flames, but she could squelch them, too. She wasn't going to let them consume her, not when she'd come this far. There was just one thing she had to do.
"I can't think of anything! There's nowhere to hide. We either take our chances with the fires on the ground or take our chances up here."
"Those are bad chances," Zuko grunted. He wasn't coming up with anything better. "I pushed back the flames before."
"Yeah, but you've got to keep on pushing, and she's only got to push once."
"Yue stopped those flames -"
"I don't even know how. And I don't know if I can stop this -"
"It's better than just dying!"
"Calm down, Toph, I'm sure everything will just, uh, work out. Think positively."
"That's really not helping right now, Katara!"
She had to push on through the Dark to the place her dreams were. And the thing about dreams were they were the only way you could -
- wake up.
Azula's eyes shot open and she nearly hurt herself sitting up. She was relatively unnoticed in the hubbub. Only Yue seemed to realize what happened and she'd only managed to loose a stunned gasp when she pushed to the front.
She'd expected them to turn their eyes to her, those queen bees and freaks and geeks, and say, "Save me." They didn't, but she liked to imagine if they did, she would have said, "Yes." Instead their eyes turned to her with a mix of relief and terror.
She had to latch onto it Turn it into something useful. "Get behind me."
"You've got to be kidding me. So, what, you take the brunt of it? Way to be macho, spice girl." Toph stood resolutely by her side. "If we get blown up, I'm not hiding."
"Well, I'd rather not blow up, but this is something I've got to face myself."
She was about to burst. The face was so like hers,, even through the blaze. It was what she saw. It was always what she saw. Everything was in place but it was still wrong. And she could feel it holding her tightly from inside.
She felt like the first person on the scene from the bomb squad. She had to take the terror in her gut and make it her weapon. She couldn't think of what to say. Whatever she said now, everyone would hear.
Let them be witnesses, she thought, to the rebirth of Azula Houou. Like a phoenix, rising again.
"I know why you're doing this."
It took Xiao a minute to respond. She was too busy forcing every ounce of hatred into this inferno that raged inside her. An inferno she could feel welling up inside herself. How dare she, how dare she.
And she understood why she dared. Spirits help her, she understood why everyone abandoned her, she understood why she was alone. She saw the truth and she had felt it in the Dark and taken it out into the light to show everyone.
"I know you think everyone you've ever cared for abandoned you. I know how it feels to be left behind. All of those feelings - I see them here. We made this place, this den of dragons, because this is what we thought we wanted." She remembered the streets of Ba Sing Se, she could see them burning in the distance.
"This doesn't change anything, Xiao - Azula. this doesn't change anything, and I'll go mad if I think it will. Did destroying those streets make you feel any better? Did they make our mother come back?"
Xiao was staring at her. The hatred that she stored inside her seemed almost uncertain now about how to proceed. If it had a face, it would probably be buried in a map. Azula would have laughed at it if she wasn't so sure she was about to explode herself.
"Did anything we do even matter to our father? Does it bring him back to life? Does it make us more perfect for him? When did we ever do anything for ourselves?" She couldn't bite back that bitter chuckle. "Whenever it suited us, of course. We took power to protect ourselves. We relied on no one but ourselves. That's the irony, you know. You do know, of course you do. This has all been one big farce to the both of us."
"Azula, what are you talking about?" Katara sounded worried. She was getting closer and Azula wanted to push her back, but she couldn't anymore.
"I thought I hated you, Katara. You and all your friends - you always seemed to be so happy and you excluded me. I was alone in a crowded room. Surely you've heard that before. People can be loneliest when they're surrounded by the people who are supposed to be their friends."
"I thought I hated you too, Azula -"
"Shut up, Katara. I have to face this myself. We don't hate you. I know that now, and she's probably known this the whole time."
Xiao bowed her head. She seemed weaker now, but the threat was still lingering. The flames of hatred were still burning inside her. They were a small bonfire compared to the inferno they were before, but even the smallest spark can reignite.
She was face to face with herself. And everyone was listening. "I finally figured it out. I was so scared, so terrified inside my own head that it finally occured to me why it seemed everyone left me, it finally made sense why I was so full of hate that I couldn't let out."
She couldn't turn back now.
"No one abandoned me. I abandoned them."
"Mother abandoned me! I was just a girl."
"I was never just a girl. Zuko was terrified of me, and Mother thought I was a monster. She wasn't wrong. You disagreed. You were wrong, but you disagreed anyway." She sighed. This made it all the harder. "I'm - I'm sorry."
She never uttered those words and meant it. She meant it now. She didn't want to say these next words, but they had to be said.
"I hated everyone because I couldn't stand to admit that the only thing in this world I truly hated more than anything was me. Everything I did was projecting that hate so I didn't have to face it. I can't do that anymore."
She closed her eyes. Memories were rushing back.
"I hurt everyone because I couldn't bear hurting myself."
Xiao stared at her with a smouldering look - Azula noted that was a literal assessment. The flames seemed to have died and Xiao seemed to be losing corporeal form. She wasn't real. She was every ounce of self-loathing she'd ever had. No wonder she was so terrifying.
"Azula -"
She turned around with palpable dread. She didn't want to face this part. The pity was the worst of it. She could feel it radiating off of them. They had it easy. "Don't. Don't you dare pity me. I'm still Azula Houou."
"Well, yeah." Sokka rubbed the back of his neck. It was an awkward silence and he seemed destined to fill those until the end of time. "So. You're back. Nice maze, you made. Very creative?"
"Thank you. It was an expression of my own impotent rage towards the world in an attempt to remove myself from it. I thought it came out lovely."
"You're actually making a joke?"
Toph sounded incredulous. "We sure we got the right Azula?"
"I don't know. I kind of like an Azula with a sense of humor."
"Don't get your hopes up. I'm still ruthless, efficient, and cruel. It just so happens that I have decided that I don't wish to be that way towards you." She crossed her arms. After a while, she thought she'd give Sokka a break. The awkward silence was so full of questions that she could feel them waiting to be asked.
"I didn't want to admit that in front of you all. But if I only admitted it to myself, I could deny it. The problem with being such a good liar is sometimes you forget what's the truth and what's a fabrication."
"You know Mom didn't -"
"Yes. And, Zuko, I never thanked you, either."
He turned red and stiffened. "For what?" He was so predictable, she thought. He'd be noble, prince-like even, but he'd be ashamed of it. It was ridiculously Zuko, and some things would never change.
"You didn't leave my side. I wouldn't have in the same situation, but you already knew that."
The fires below were getting worse, but Azula didn't seem worried. "Now, we need to get out . Which seems to be a problem. Unfortunately, I'll be leaving how you solve that up to you."
"That's sounding more like the old Power Princess," Toph said, supremely happy about that. Azula shook her head.
"No, it's more that I think I'm about to collap-"
In a world of absolute darkness, the maze spread out around like the gnarled branches of a tree. It was reaching, searching for something. In the darkness, there was absolute clarity. Everyone had a dark part of their minds.
It fed upon it.
It had no shape or mass of its own, but what it didn't have it could borrow. And it had found a ripe source. Spirits were defined not by some mystical force, but by the dreams and minds of people. They were the fruit of their existence. Gods need belief to live.
It existed much like them, but it had purpose.
It walked those halls in its dreams. Its hunger wasn't sated. It could see the memories, the regrets, the guilt, and it longed to consume it.
The Labyrinth of Lethe was a prison. But no prison could hold it for long. It found its ways through the maze. Its hunger led it towards freedom. And when its hunger was finally abated, the world would burn.
The glutton stirred.
And in Azula's dreams, Lee appeared before her, casting a long shadow across the lavendar room. The curtains had been thrown open. And he looked at her, and even the smile of the mask couldn't disguise the graveness in his voice.
"We don't have long. It's going to start it all over again."
"Start what all over again?"
Lee paused, and in hushed tones, he uttered two words. "The Unification."
To be continued.