Night was falling on Ember Island and Azula was doing her rounds – that was what the wardens of this prison called it when they thought she couldn't hear them – inspecting the new bed sheets for rat-vipers or traces of poison, and that they had been cleaned, pressed and turned down properly; making sure no spies or assassins were concealed under the furniture, and that the cleaners had swept up properly; listening for the passage of the orderlies in the hall outside, and shouting orders at them to straighten up or look lively if they had bad posture or were thirty seconds late; confirming that her cell door was, in fact, locked. She'd also demanded, as usual, that the same orderly who delivered her dinner be the one to collect her dishes afterward, to confirm that she hadn't been taken ill after obeying Azula's command to taste it first.
The doctors had told their staff to indulge her in this, since she could become hysterically angry if she was unduly reminded that she was not, in fact, in command any longer.
Then the night fell fully and Azula turned and sat in her armchair. She wasn't going to sleep if she could help it. Now that Zuko was here, she needed to be on her guard. Now might be the time they take her to some show trial, or maybe do away with her entirely! Maybe, now, she could win the Agni Kai and take her rightful place as Fire Lord…
But who would follow her now? They were all loyal to Zuko. Even those traitors, Mai and Ty Lee wouldn't be brought to heel now. Why was she mourning losing them? What use were they to her?
I think you're confused. All your life you've used fear to control people.
"Mother," she snarled to herself. Her mother who still haunted her dreams. Often she dreamed she was fighting the Agni Kai with Zuko, and just as she was about to deliver the fatal lighting-bolt, her mother would cry out for her to stop, and spout a lot of garbage about loving Azula, and then Azula would get distracted, hold onto the lighting too long, and burn from the inside out.
And then wake up screaming and surrounded by orderlies and that damned Water Tribe peasant! The first time it had happened, she immediately tried to summon the lightning, but something had gone wrong, the energy burst exploded and she'd knocked herself out against the headboard.
Deep inside, she knew that for all her brilliance, her cleverness and her royal blood, she was helpless. All she could do, in the end, was maintain her dignity and her noble disposition as best she could, defying attempts to mould her into anything less than that.
But with Zuko here, that might not be possible. She'd let her armour crack in front of him. Tears! She's shed tears right in front of him! And he'd tell everyone that she was weak! So much for Ember Island giving everyone a clean slate!
With a growl, she stood and paced furiously in the dark, trying to resolve the cycle of plots and obstacles that ran through her mind.
As she had done earlier, she went to the window and thrust the heavy curtains aside. With difficulty, she could see down the slope to where the royal summer residence stood. Lights were on in its windows. The crescent moon was rising and…
Azula narrowed her eyes. There was an islet, a mound of earth with trees on it, nothing more, just off the shores of Ember Island.
But in the faint moonlight, it looked…bigger. Closer. She shook her head and looked again. But if there was one thing she would not accept disobedience from it was her own eyes.
As her eyes travelled back to the nearer shore, she froze. On the beach in front of the Royal Residence, a small steam boat was pulling up on the shore!
For months Azula's primary state had been one of a soul heavy with monotony. But suddenly she was light with ideas. She felt her mind accelerate. She felt confidence for the first time since – no! Don't think about the Agni Kai. All that would soon be undone, if this worked. It was risky, but oh, so worth it!
Turning, Azula assumed a fighting stance, and began the motions. She felt the chi flow to her will. She felt her hair prickle and smelled ozone. Then she stabbed her arm outward.
The lightning burst forth. Admittedly, it was not her best. The recoil shoved her up against the foot of her bed. But the important thing was she did it! The lock of the door was blasted outward in a million pieces. The door itself sprang open, and without a backward glance, and only a moment's hesitation at the sight of the orderly bleeding in a heap from shrapnel wounds, she sprinted for the door.
Azula had paid close attention to the layout of the facility, so she knew that the side door opened onto a hewn-stone stair down to the beach near Lo and Li's cottage and the Royal Residence.
And the boat.
By the time she kicked the flimsy wooden gate down – which hurt; she'd neglected her exercise – it sounded like half the orderlies in the place were chasing her. The stairs were slippery with sleet, and the puddles could easily be turned to capturing ice by Waterbending, so she jumped off into the foliage. Cold mud was more haphazard to navigate, but safer to fall down on.
She burst out through the shrubs and out into the grassy slope than ran down toward the beach.
She skidded to a halt and lashed back as four jets of orange flame roared towards her. She conjured a protective torus of her signature blue flame to protect herself.
Somewhere through the roar of flame she heard an authoritative shouting, and the orange flame desisted. Azula ceased firebending to see the four armoured firebenders backing off as the robed and armoured figure of Zuko swept forward towards her.
"Azula! What are you doing?"
"You think I'm going to let you destroy me? Usurp father? I won't sit in your prison with your Water Tribe serf prodding me!"
"Azula, you've got no where to go! You have no army! No palace! Why bother?"
Azula hesitated, forcing herself not to show it, and then said, "Because you're going to tell me something: where is my father?"
Zuko blinked, "What?"
"What did you do with him?"
"He's in prison."
"Where?"
Zuko shook his head, "It won't do you any good, Azula. It's not worth it. Where he's held is secret. I haven't even told Mai where he is."
Azula's breath shortened with nervousness. Already her grand plan was cracking. No, no, no! I need his power to confirm mine! I need him to get rid of Zuko!"
"The Avatar took away his Firebending, Azula. His reign is over. Just stand down, and we'll go…" he paused briefly, and then spoke again in a gentler voice, "we'll go to the house and…"
"No!" Azula screamed, blasting blue flame, catching Zuko off guard. She took off toward the beach.
But she wasn't halfway before the sea suddenly surged forward, up the slope, and then rose upward, and froze into a solid wall of ice. Azula whirled round to see Katara lowering her hands. Azula sprang back up the bluff, making for the next nearest beach, which she was pretty sure had a pier.
But a dozen or more Imperial Guards headed her off. Azula looked around wildly. On her right was the hill back to the prison they called a hospital. In front the poised guards that should have been hers. Her gambit to win over the Dai Li might work…no. Behind her was Zuko and the peasant. And on her left was a cliff above the beaches, with the high islet probably a half-mile or so away.
Azula, almost despite herself, backed away, giving ground in the direction of the cliff. Suddenly Zuko, in a staccato bark said, "The Guard will halt!"
The advancing guards stopped. Zuko slowly advanced alone, his arms spread wide.
"Suddenly the caring brother, Zuzu," Azula tried to inject mockery into her voice.
"You're lucky, Azula. You have someone who knows what you're going through. Take it from me, chasing around the world for your past isn't the way. I came to Ember Island hoping we could work together, to help you make a new life. A life that didn't hinge on fighting, terrorizing and manipulating everyone else."
"Make me your pet! Take all the power and show me up as a naughty child, like mother did! I'd rather die!"
Zuko snapped, "Don't say that about Mother!"
"Zuko!" Katara's voice had warning in it.
Zuko glanced back at her and then back at Azula. What's wrong with me, Azula thought, he gave me an opening! Why didn't I take it?
"Look at us, Azula," Zuko said, "we're both caught in the shadows of our messed-up childhood. But I've learned to move forward from that. You can too! Please…"
He stepped forward, extending his hand. "Come on. You don't need Father to be you. I won't make you do anything, I'm just asking. Please…"
Azula stepped away from Zuko, whose eyes widened, "Azula, watch out!"
The 'cliff' was really more of a gigantic sand dune that rose up from eroding bedrock, beaten by the sea. Under Azula's slippered foot, the dune grass roots lost their grasp, the sand crumbling away. Azula didn't take her eyes off Zuko. She'd neglected to take advantage of his quarter, she would give him none. But the sand gave way. She gasped and her arms windmilled as she lost her balance.
"Azula!" Zuko sprang forward grabbing for her hand.
It was like that moment, nearly a year ago, at the Northern Water Tribe. As the rampaging Ocean Spirit seized Admiral Zhao, Zuko had offered aid to him. But the Admiral withheld his own hand, and been drowned rather than live with his pride injured.
Azula's expression of fear changed suddenly back to her usual burning resentment. She spread her arms, putting herself out of Zuko's reach. And with that she gave up her tenuous balance. Without a sound, she fell. She kicked one leg out and fire blasted out of her foot and hands. Zuko was blown over backwards. Waving the wisps of flame clear, he watched, horror-struck, as Azula soared away off the cliff. Her fire blast seemed to lose force, and then she plummeted into the sea with a distant splash.
"Get down to the boats!" Zuko screamed, "Now!"
The sea was a little choppy, and a lot cold.
Part of Azula wasn't sure why she had gone to the trouble of rocketing herself out like that. It was a gamble to reach the islet, and at the same time made it all the harder for Zuzu's minions to get her, but it was hard to say what was really her priority.
Azula tread water vigorously, gasping for air. The frigid air drove the breath from her. She stared hard toward the horizon. Her spirits sunk to see that the islet was still over a quarter of a mile away, and in the icy water her limbs were growing stiff and numb.
She was sinking slowly, dragged down by the weight of her cotton wool patient's clothes. Well, if Zuzu doesn't get here in time, so much the worse for him for putting her in that jail then!
Her head nearly went under. She spat out seawater and saw the island once more – it seemed nearer now. Maybe the currents were carrying her there!
No point in hoping, she thought. But she struck out in a stilted breaststroke for the islet. She thought she could here the boat engine and it was that keeping her going.
But as she swam on, her strength failed rapidly in the cold and the exertion. Still, she thought, oddly dispassionately, this way Zuzu would never humiliate her again, and she would always have been Princess Azula, as she knew she was, Ozai's daughter.
As the water closed over her head, she cursed Zuko and her mother and the Avatar and the Water Tribe Peasant all one last time.
And then, to her amazement, she felt herself rising. At first she thought, perhaps, it was her soul rising from her body, but souls do not splash and sputter when coming out of the water.
Shaking her hair out of her eyes she looked around. She wasn't in a boat, and there were no guards. Something had lifted her up from below! She looked down. A massive, scaly, golden paw, with claws like bronze! And rising out of the sea…
Azula crouched in the centre of the enormous claws, shivering violently as, in the moonlight, a giant Lion Turtle, that rarest of beings, stared out of its massive golden eyes at her. With dull amazement, Azula further realized that the Lion Turtle had not risen up in front of the islet: the Lion Turtle was the islet! Its shell was overgrown with trees, made stable through years of immobility.
Then it spoke. Or rather, she heard its voice, but its tusked maw didn't appear to move enough for speech. It said, in a deep boom inside her skull, you who are a child of a royal line of the element of fire, seek to be extinguished?
Even though her teeth were chattering, she forced herself to say, "I seek to escape from my enemies! If I die, then at least I die myself! They won't take anything else away from me!"
You have lost your identity and descended into darkness. Seek a path into the light and be cleansed.
Azula, despite being almost immobile with cold, asked, "Is there any such path?"
It depends on what you desire.
"I desire restoration! To be as I was, as I should be, or to die if I can't!"
The exertion of shouting this made dark spots bloom in her vision. She vaguely discerned that the Lion Turtle had raised its other paw, and it was descending on her. She groaned, "I want to be myself again…"
You have turned your back upon the world in which you have lived. You have no ground left on which to build a life. So you must find it in another one…
Azula passed out.