Perfection

Azula opened her eyes, feeling light and strangely settled, as though she were a balloon that had finally drifted down from the lofty heavens to settle on the soft, sweet, dewy grass. As her eyes focused, the sight before her filled her heart with a pure, luminous feeling that wiggled all the way to her pointy-nailed fingertips.

Haru sat in a chair, cradling a tiny bundle in his arms, staring lovingly down at the child she'd made—they'd made. On his right, Jet grinned hugely, wonder glowing in his usually cunning eyes. And Aang, the sweet, gentle monk she'd so mercilessly tortured, sat on Haru's left, tickling the baby's tiny prune feet, eyes so soft they looked like clouds.

"My baby…" she whispered.

The three looked up, their smiles bright and sunny and all for her. Ursa hove into view. Kneeling at her side, she gently bathed her daughter's forehead with a cool cloth. "You did so well, my sweet," she cooed, pride beaming from her face. "You were magnificent."

The words of praise washed over her, and Azula smiled, basking in love and adoration.

"Say hello to your daughter, princess." Haru brought the baby over, Azula's own little girl. She sat up gingerly, dull aches and sharp pains slowing her eager movement. The Earthbender eased the bundle into her arms, his dark hands seeming huge next to the infant.

She was so light and delicate, and yet the baby filled Azula's heart with a weight that anchored her restless spirit. Tugging the blanket away from her cheeks, she gazed down at her child's soft, pearly, round face, her silky pate of ebony hair, her tiny, wrinkled, grasping hand. She was the result of an act of sensual selfishness and nine months of tough love and sacrifice. This was the thing Azula had been born to create, her legacy, her future.

And then Azula knew.

A happy, ecstatic sob hiccoughed through her, and she clutched the precious life she'd made to her breast. She'd finally achieved perfection in her own baby girl.

"Azuria," she declared. "That's her name. My sweet little girl, Azuria…."

Ursa glanced up, dared the three young men in the room to protest her granddaughter's namesake. Azula could've named the infant Peepee Bunnybottom and she would not have blinked, because she was hers.

Zuko strolled into the tent then, grinning broadly at his mother, sister and niece, three generations of women in his family, together at peace…perhaps for the last time. "We have cause to celebrate, I hear," he said.

"Isn't she beautiful?" Azula asked in wonder, unable to tear her eyes away. "Look, Zuzu, I made her. I made her out of bits of me." She caressed the soft little cheek and the long lashes fanning over her skin. Her voice came breathily. "I can't stop looking at her, Zuko. I think I love her." She cuddled her close, burying her nose and inhaling the fresh baby scent. "Oh, Azuria…you're finally here!"

The Fire Lord smiled, no longer discomfited by the softer side of Azula. It suited her…like a coat of marshmallows on a boarcupine.

"Uh, Zuko…" Jet began slowly, eyeing him up and down, "not that we don't appreciate the show but…why aren't you wearing a shirt?"

He glanced down at his nakedness. His cheeks flushed. "It was…uh…strategy."

"And here I thought he was just taking after his dad," Aang said. "You just can't get that man to put one on."

"Strategy?" Azula's brain switched into military gear and she sat bolt upright. "Oh, gods! The war—!"

"Is over," Ursa said gently, urging her daughter to relax and lie back against the pillows. Azuria fussed and the new mother rocked her gently. Her tiny mewls increased and, in a stroke of maternal genius, Azula knew what she had to do. Without a second thought, she pulled one side of her robe down, exposing her aching, engorged breast with its dark, distended nipple. Dewy milk squirted in a high-pressured arch across the tent, raining down on the three shocked would-be fathers. Aang screamed as he was sprayed with colostrum.

"You couldn't have given us a warning first? Or maybe an umbrella?" Jet sputtered, wiping his face on his sleeve. He sniffed the stain and gagged. "You coulda' taken someone's eye out with that!"

Azula snorted her contempt. She didn't care who saw her breast or what they were showered in—her daughter needed food now and nothing was going to stop her from feeding her baby! She maneuvered Azuria's tiny, open mouth over her breast. The little princess sucked fiercely, and began gulping down her first meal greedily.

"Your brother performed spectacularly," Ursa went on, satisfied by her daughter's first feeding. "He truly proved himself to be Fire Lord today."

"Zuzu?" Azula looked to her half-naked brother in askance. She inhaled sharply as Azuria chomped down hard in protest at her mother's movement, and she shifted and lay back. "What happened? You didn't surrender, did you?"

Zuko's cheeks heated. "No…I mean, not exactly." He scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I just…gave them what they wanted."

The princess pulled a face. "What are you talking about?"

"I followed your advice. I gave them what they wanted." He cleared his throat. "Me."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Jet rubbed at his temples. "Are you saying…?"

"The situation got desperate." Zuko said it flatly. "So I…er…"

Jet gawked. "You didn't."

"He did," Aang chimed in, grinning. "And he got a few others to do it, too."

"I'm sorry, what's going on?" Haru asked, bewildered.

"The Fadmon armies—your armies—" Ursa wasn't about to let the Earthbender's traitorous actions go unnoticed, especially if he intended to become a member of the royal household "—they had the troops outnumbered. So my darling son went straight for the jugular and vanquished them by hitting them where they're weakest."

Haru blinked slowly, processing this information as though he were masticating a small rock. "So the naked and half-naked troops all over the place…" He trailed off as his brain began piecing bits of the disturbing scene all around him together. The prone, twitching fangirls, the foaming mouths, exploded heads…Haru could only imagine what Zuko and the others had done to fell an army of hungry fanatics….

Oh, gods, he really wished he hadn't just imagined it. He closed his eyes and tried to burn the images away by thinking of hair ribbons and quiche.

Jet kept smirking, liking where his dirty mind was taking him.

Hakoda walked in at that moment, also shirtless, a preening messenger hawk perched on his shoulder. Azula had to stifle the urge to ogle his leathery good looks—Hakoda's, not the hawk's. Something inside her wanted to quack "dilf" repeated as the fangirls had. What a strange compunction.

"Fire Lord, an urgent message from the palace," Katara's father said gravely.

Zuko took to scroll and hastily opened it. His eyes grew huge, and his face paled to the color of chalk.

A cold chill trickled down Azula's spine just then. Motherhood apparently heightened the sixth sense for danger and bad things, and she clutched Azuria to her chest as a stone of dread made her spirit plunge. "Zuko? What's wrong?"

He whirled away and was just heading out of the tent as he said, "Dad's on the loose," leaving his friends gasping in shock.

He didn't wait for them. Couldn't. He headed straight for Appa. The bison, sensing Zuko's turmoil, did not complain when he leaped onto his neck, jerked on the reins too sharply and barked a sharp "Yip, yip!"

Appa pointed them toward the Fire Nation, sensing the crackle of wrongness in the air. Angry storm clouds heavy with rain and pregnant with lightning thickened in the sky, their rheumatic oppression easing over the land like a wet, woolen blanket of dread.

A great darkness hovered on the horizon.

Apologies for the long period between updates, but these last few chapters are painful. Thanks for sticking with me.