A throne inlaid with gold. A crimson carpet, thick and widen from the entrance to her raised dais. A marble floor with raised obsidian pillars painstakingly carved just for her. Priceless statues that would fail to catch no ones attention. It was the vision of greatness that she deserved and nothing less. Unfortunately for her, these were all things that she was currently lacking.
They had managed to get her a reasonably nice throne, though she found it quaint, and while she did have a stone floor, it was slate rather than marble. Her vision of Statues had been replaced at the moment by a small legion of guards, and her rich carpet and pillars were completely lacking from the picture.
The end result was that her throne room looked more like she was queen on a small war tribe than Fire Lord, but she was going to have to settle. Eventually she would have the Fire Palace proper, so having to grin and bare what used to be a prison was a small price to pay. After all, for her purposes, it was better. While prisons were designed at keeping unwanted people in, they did a pretty good job of keeping them out as well, and while she controlled near half the nation, she herself couldn't Firebend, so she'd rather not take her chances.
Yes, while Azula wasn't particularly happy about her situation, it was quite a step up from the cell that she had been occupying a week ago. A slight smile came to her face as she remembered her liberation, remembered the feeling of having men loyal to her, her own army, storm onto the transport and free her from her captors. No one on Zuko's side had been killed though, appearances had to be maintained after all.
She raised a hand and one of her servants was almost instantly at her feet, ready to take her order and do whatever needed to be done. "You may rise." She said, her old authoritative tone having easily be regained once she found herself in a position of power.
With a bow of his head, her servant did as told and stood, keeping his eyes diverted from looking directly in hers out of a servitude. "Yes Fire Lord, what can I do for you?" his voice was respectful, carrying the full weight of what he said. To these people, she really was the Fire Lord.
"Has any word been received yet from either Ty Lee or the Avatar?" It wasn't like Ty Lee to be any less than punctual. Well, that wasn't exactly right. It wasn't like Ty Lee to be any less than punctual when it came to matters that she was worked up about, and Azula felt as though she had done a fairly good job of stressing the importance of her task before she left.
"No my lady. There has been no word from either Lady Ty Lee or the Avatar. Should I send word to his coterie?" There was slight apprehension. After all, in the past, Azula had been less than...polite, when dealing with bad news.
"There will be no need for that." If Ty Lee had yet to reach the Avatar, he wouldn't have heard her side of the story. That meant, of course, he would come storming in here to beat the stuffing out of her side and send her back to jail so his little friend Zuzu could have his play toys back. Granted, Azula had no false hope that it would be much different even with Ty Lee having reached him, but at least with that he would approach the situation with a bit less inherent force.
"No, for now I think I would like to have..." She was interrupted by a rather loud commotion outside of the doors to a chamber, and a slight smile spread across her face as she waved her hand, indicating that the servant was to leave her. It seemed that someone was a little earlier than she had anticipated, which was a nice change of pace. She'd rather get this over with.
Another servant quickly came running towards her from outside of her hall. "My Lady, the former..." A wave of her hand silenced him and another wave, this time towards the door, sent him hurrying back in that direction to permit the person entry into her inner halls. She needed a moment to be quite, for she had to draw her composure. It was quite a bit harder than it had been before her little episode...something in her mind didn't tick exactly right any more.
"AZULA!" The voice raged through the hall like fire as the doors burst open, and flames as hot as the rage shot down the middle. She suddenly found herself amused she didn't have carpet, as it would have been singed and she would have had to grow angry. Of course, the fire itself was intercepted and scattered against the unrelenting stone long before it got close enough to even warm her.
"Ah, dear brother. I should be honored that you've stopped by shortly after my coronation. Tell, me, are you here for the party?" This elicited the reaction that she was expecting, flames from the nose and mouth, and a steady storm of stomping feat in her direction. Some of her elite guards moved to stop the young man, but a raised hand held them at bay.
"What party, what coronation?" He roared. "You must be more touched in the head than I thought. I am fire lord, Azula." To describe Zuko as pissed would be about the largest understatement one could make. She could just here his thoughts now. "How dare she. I am fire lord. What kind of insult to my pride is this? This is ridiculous!" She chuckled despite herself. Anger flashed across her features for a moment as she berated herself for allowing such a slip, before she realized she had allowed that slip as well.
"Funny." She raised a finger to her lips as though in thought. "You don't look like an Azula to me." Turning her attention for a fleeting moment, she caught sight of her reflection for a moment in a mirror and held her view for a dramatic second. "As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure -I- am Fire Lord Azula, dear brother." His weight shifted as he brought himself into a firebending stance, and even as her guard was moving she raised a finger and waved it.
"Dear brother, you seem to be missing the fact that this is my Elysium. Every honored soldier here is mine. Should you act hostile towards me, I guarantee that you would never walk out of here alive. Even you can't take this many elite Firebenders, Zuzu."
His reaction was a roar and his body tensed, but didn't take any further action towards harming her. "I don't know what kind of delusion your under, Azula, but I am Fire Lord, and your just a pretender to the throne. This nation listens to me, obeys me, trusts me. What do you claim, Azula, asides from this band of traitors?"
She laughed, high and loud. Not the insane crackle that she had once possessed but rather than cool "thats so cute" laugh that she had reserved for disdain before her slip from grace. "As terrible at politics as you always were, Zuzu, you know as well as I do that 45-50% of this country recognizes my rule. Some always supported me, and with the tragic death of our father, who were his supporters to turn to? You? The man who helped put him in prison, and the man that was slowly destroying our country? Oh, thats right. You yourself drove a few of them to my causes over the past year, Zuzu."
His fists clinched so hard that he drew blood, but he didn't attacked. She found herself a little disappointed. It would have been so much easier if he just got himself killed here. A simple justified game over, and then she really would be undisputed Fire Lord, just like that. But she had planned on this. She had planned on Zuzu's control increasing since she had dealt with him.
"So why are you here, dear brother? You didn't bring any muscle with you, so it wasn't to try and overthrow me." She leaned forwards as though she was genuinely interested in what he had to say. Her left eyebrow raised and she smiled at him. One could only wonder what was running through Zuko's mind sometimes, but she knew it would be ammusing.
"I've come to offer you...help. Azula." He said, dropping his eyes to the floor with some slight shame. "You'll be moved to a very nice room in a hospital, and treated until your better. And then you'll be..." He swallowed as though it was hard to say. "And then you'll be welcomed back into the royal family, Azula."
Her other eyebrow raised and a look of genuine suprise came across her features. After a few moments, she burst out with what was perhaps the most intense laughter that had ever came from the young woman. It took a few minutes to bring herself under control as tears started to touch her eyes from the duration.
"Oh..oh brother. Thats great. You want to make me better, Zuzu? I'm in control of half the fire nation, with the rest certainly only a small time away from coming to my side, and you dare to offer help me? How about this, instead, brother? You welcome me back into the family, willingly hand me the throne, and I let you keep a nice palace somewhere, with all the privileges of Royalty?" It was a very generous offer on her part, she though. She knew Zuko wouldn't be willing to take it, but that was because he was far to stubborn to be strategic.
"Thats it Azula, I think we're done here. You've been...less than cooperative, as I thought. But I was willing to give you a chance, don't forget that." His only response, as he turned and began to walk back towards the door. Her face twisted into a grin at his back. It had been a move to insure a gracious appearance. To bad her offer had been more generous.
"You offer me entrapment in exchange for me relinquishing control of the throne back to you so that you can destroy us. Instead I offer you all the privileges of royalty in exchange for letting me save it. Dear Zuzu, you have some nerve to think that yours is the winning hand. The country is slowly slipping from your grasp into mine. I will be the eventual victor, with time all on my side. Either hold on to this illusion of power and watch it slip away from you, or take my offer."
He stopped, and turned his head back to look at her. "The throne is MINE Azula. I won the right to it in Agni Kai fairly!"
He had slipped. He had fallen into the trap that she had laid for him. She knew that if pressed, he would fall back on that, his right to rule through victory. His right to rule because he defeated her during his challenge for the throne. But as she had pointed out before... "Sorry, dear brother. It seems that I expected to much in you, to remember our last conversation. You didn't win that fight. The Water bender, Katara, won that fight."
Everyone in the room but her stiffened noticeably, but none more than Zuko. She hadn't advertised it to her troops, for without Zuko present, it would seem like nothing more than a boost on her part and weaken her positon. After all, a leader that needed to lie wasn't a very strong one. It was part of the reason Azula had done away with lying. Insuring that the truth was always on your side made your position so much stronger...and when needed, you just allowed others to draw their own false assumptions, as she was going to do at the end of this little rendezvous.
"How dare you, Azula? At the end of the fight, I was the one still standing and you were on the ground crying your eyes out." His eye was angry, but his posture clearly displayed some degree of shock, and shame. It wasn't subtle, though. It didn't take Azula's trained eyes to see it. To everyone in the room, it was clearly that her words held truth.
"Right. Because Katara healed you, and because I had a mental break." She waved her hand dismissively. "I've admitted all of my weaknesses to my people, and they still accept me. Tell me, how much have you had to hide to achieve the same?" There were...more colorful words she could use when referring to the Avatar's bitch, but as that group was a very strong political force, keeping a political mind when referring to them was in her best interest.
It was too much for Zuko though. She spun to face her, throwing fire in the process that was once more quickly deflected, and once more she raised her hand to stop her guards from bringing him down. No, it would be more fun to play the chess game that was to come than to let him off this easy. He would watch his rule, his world, fall apart for what he did to her. Death was too easy.
"Fine, Azula. I challenge you right now, for the rule of the country, to Agni Kai."
She raised her eyebrows in surprise this time, and while on the surface it was genuine, in her mind it was false. This is the little game she played, the position she had backed him to. "Always one to use force to solve your problems dear brother. This is why our position with the other nations is falling apart, because you lack any hint of finesse." She shrugged and crossed her left leg over her right knee, resting her hand against her palm while smiling across the hall towards him. "While I recognize your right to challenge me to Agni Kai, I'm afraid it won't be quite that simple. You see, Agni Kai can only be declared on another Fire Bender. And as you were so kind to insure that wasn't a possibility...well, you removed the possibility of solving this with a fire duel."
Hostility showed on his features, and then further anger as he realized that it was directly his fault that he couldn't end this now, take re-control of his country with one decisive battle. But it planted in his mind the seed of a thought. If he could get the Avatar to restore her bending, then he could challenge her once more and end this.
And that was exactly the thought that she wanted him to have. Once contact was made with the Avatar, she would put pressure on him to return her bending. He would resist, of course, but once dear Zuzu asked him to, so that he could take control of his country in the only method he knew, force. And now that her sanity had been returned to her, for the most part, she was confident in her ability to win when that day came once more.
No response came from Zuko, instead he turned to leave, his brilliant plan already hatching in his mind and she had to keep from laughing at him.
"One last thing, dear brother. Knowing how you work...should any permanent harm befall Ty Lee, I will insure that you suffer the same fate. It would be such a shame to have to break my promise to spare you, but I will not tolerate harm befalling my closest....friend."