A/N: I know it has been, like, two weeks, and I am regretful of that. Still, this chapter turned out to be 24 pages on my word doc so maybe the length can be a sort of saving grace. I wanted to give a little more personal insight into Kaji's past and illuminate some of her motivations. Next chapter, I promise, the main plotline will resume. For now, please enjoy the lull in compounding action scenes- not that I skimped out on all the action- and leave a review when you are done.
If anyone can guess where I got my blonde-haired OC from, you are the most amazing awesomest person on the face of this earth; so awesome, in fact, that you defy grammar and adjectives. (I changed her eye color so don't be confused. The name is correct though.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing and nothing owns me... so it is a mutually beneficial relationship.
Previously on Events Unexpected…
"We are neither supportive nor deprecating," the red flying serpent spoke as though to an ignorant child. "We are simply opposite faces of the coin of choice. I am surrender. She is fight."
"I choose to fight," Kaji immediately spoke. "Surrender was never an option."
Her lightening no longer worked because her driving force had shifted. It was no longer pride or honor or debt that drew her forward, it was the Avatar. And it would always be her. Kaji knew it, felt it in her bones. But she could not use Korra as fuel for her inner flames when her every action went against the young Avatar and her morals. Until she chose, Kaji knew that her flames would not return to their former glory.
"Your leg was infected, so I think that we are trapped here for a little while longer," Korra was saying. Kaji sighed in relief. She did not wish to be faced with whatever awaited her back in the world of the living. And that was only after they figured out some way of evading Koh's servants and finding their way out of the infinite celestial land.
The darkness of the cave had gotten to be more than either Korra or Kaji could bear over the course of their confinement. The 'days' edged on, slowly like flies trapped in molasses if the molasses had been faded alterations of grey and deeper grey with sprinkles of light grey sand which at time filtered through the entrance when the winds were blowing at the right angle. If it were possible, Korra could have sworn that the allotted space they had was gradually shrinking with each heartbeat and intake of breath. Even with Kaji's best efforts, the Avatar had been burned thrice already. Suppressing tempers was becoming a herculean task with each swift apology, each following one losing more and more of its genuineness. The girls had taken to keeping to themselves more and more as the topics that had to be discussed continued to be put off and material for idle banter became a commodity in short supply. Kaji, more than Korra, seemed to have sunk into her shell. At first, she had partaken in Korra's futile attempts at levity, but her responses had gradually trickled down into a rarity, and then stopped all together. On her part, Korra felt an irrational burning in her heart; a mixture of anger at the obvious illusive nature the other girl had taken on and hurt stemming from her counterpart's refusal to trust her with whatever was bothering the perturbed Fire National. As good of a liar as the firebender had been- and continued to be- some things were simply visible to Korra's eyes due to her strong connection to the girl. It was like trying to diagnose some terminal disease ravaging the psychology of her lover without any basis to start with apart from the knowledge that there was a malady, an ailment, to be found.
At first, the prospect of the fast healing wound on Kaji's leg was enough to keep the Avatar's spirits up, hopeful that soon they would be leaving the dreary place and its tightness. Proximity, once so welcomed, was almost a slow poison to her, suffocating her in its thrall. She hated it. She hated not being able to do anything. She hated feeling so helpless when there was obviously something askew, if not completely ajar. Korra was a woman of action.
The breaking point could not have been distinguished, nor could it have been predicted with any accuracy except for the sense of foreboding inevitability that oozed from the atmosphere like a black miasma. There had been no change in location, climate, or dialogue, the latter due to the lack thereof. The sandstorm outside continued to ebb and flow in its own invisible cycle, not broken since the night of stars and moons, oblivious to the fraying patience of the occupants of the narrow cave. The cave itself was no less dank or stuffy or unpleasant with its projections of rock and stiff contours. The sands sweeping in were not the irritant to blame for the sudden outburst of emotional upheaval; they had always been there and the girls had long since learned to ignore the intrusion of the granules as they entered in search of a refuge from their random journey upon the whim of the breeze. No, nothing in particular was different. Since time never really seemed to be a factor within the Spirit World, even its passage- however obscure it happened to be- held no sway as it would have in the midst of the physical plain. Perfect stasis. Perhaps it was indeed the fact that everything was the same, and would seemingly continue to remain the same for all eternity, that finally broke through the chipped and ill maintained walls of courtesy that had been erected for the sanity of the cave dwellers. All Korra could feel, without reason or conspiracy, was that she had to get a word out of the firebender.
Tap. Tap. Tap, tap, tap, and tap. The fingers of Kaji's right hand danced against the stone of the floor, her sharpened nails clacking against it and echoing as if they were running along marble in some cavernous hall. Tap. Korra's temple began to throb. She knew that the firebender was feeling as much a trapped animal as she was, but the little ticks that surfaced along with the restlessness were starting to slowly drive her up a wall.
Tap. Tap. Ta-
"Would you stop?!" Korra felt the command slip through her quickly disintegrating façade without permission. Her vocal chords held a sourness from the lack of use, especially enflamed by the suddenness of her yell. The words rang a few seconds, permeating the air around them and sinking into every crag and fold. Golden eyes turned slowly to look into her sapphire ones, uncomprehending at first, then turning disinterested as the message sank in. A pale hand fell limp against the ground, making a muffled thump before silence reigned once more. With the hand, the dim gaze of molten orbs dropped as well, surrendering without a hint of care or defiance.
Korra would have none of it. Not after so many… whatever increment or measurement of the passing moments one wished to utilize in a place where it was impossible to know such things. She despised how Kaji did not even try to hide her waning disposition through an energetic or enigmatic demeanor. Smacking her ghostly, luminescent fist into the ground with force enough to dent the bedrock, she cried out, "What is it?! Tell me! What happened to you that you no longer talk to me?!"
The desperation was palpable. Kaji's eyes were having a mighty difficult time in rising from the, suddenly very interesting, dust particles settling on the floor beside her feet. She could not fathom how to begin to explain the emotional turmoil writhing inside of her, threatening to swallow her whole into the roaring red waves. Red, she chuckled in a partially unhinged manner, firebenders and their red. We must seem like such droll, predictable people. A blue flicker in her peripheral and the Fire Lord's secretive smile broadened slightly. Perhaps every person of the nations was predictable what with the blues and the greens and the yellow sunbursts. The tangent ran away with her until she had no recollection as to how she ended up swimming in a whirlpool of dyes and colorations; all she cared about was that the current carried her away from the painful memory of her fire and her heart and the rest of the world waiting to devour her and turn her into its own personal scapegoat.
"Kaji?!" Korra's voice snapped her to attention. Her head remained where it was, hanging limply off of her extended neck, with messy bangs concealing the upturned gaze slightly. Flickers of gold glistened with reflections of the droplets of light filtering past the opening, made to appear leagues away by some optical illusion of the dessert and the stressful atmosphere.
"Korra," the smooth reply was an empty vessel, holding not even the slightest touch of feeling. The fire had gone cold.
"…" Korra wanted to say something, but all of the questions in her mind jostled for attention; so many were wont to be asked that her mind could not discern where one ended and another began. Her mouth tasted like ashes. The inside of her cheek was raw from being bitten on, a habit she had thought she had seen an end to but apparently been resurfaced in the lack of anything else to do.
"Do you want to hear a story?" it was Kaji who asked the question, strangely unsure and timid. Not waiting for a reply, the girl went on, "You've met my father, yes? He asked you to be rid of me, when the time came for us to meet in battle."
Confusion was the first thing to cross the Avatar's mind. Kaji could not have known of that… perhaps his involvement with the White Lotus had not been guarded closely enough. But, the meeting itself and what had transpired within should have remained a secret, surely. She nodded nevertheless, wondering where Kaji planned to take things.
The answer came veiled in another inquiry, "He told you things about my past, did he not?" Another nod. The Fire Lord's shoulders sagged. "He did not know me until I was well into my adolescence. By then, all he saw was the calculating soldier I had been raised to be. The strategist. I think he despised me more for the fact that I never belonged to him; that I was always my grandmother's creature, having stepped into the position that had been originally meant for him. I have not told you anything about my childhood."
There was a pause in which Kaji picked at the tiny film of dust that had crept under her elongated fingernails and Korra shuffled against the lumpy wall behind her in search of a more comfortable niche. Neither one of them was certain as to whether the unspoken boundary of the past should have been breached. It had been a wall that had held firm throughout the entirety of their previous relationship, looming in the background like some dreaded bulwark of doom, but there had always been leagues of distance separating them. Now, it seemed as though they had come to stand within its gaping shadow, the sun swallowed behind the arching stones of memory and intimacy.
"It was a mistake to keep my past from you," Kaji finally continued. "I know so much about you, and yet, you know close to nothing about me. I had wanted to share… some things… but I was always afraid that you would reject me if you knew, or that you would never trust me again. Now, it doesn't matter. I have already betrayed your trust and… whatever we are now; there is less to lose by telling you this."
"You don't have to push yourself if you don't want to," Korra knew that she would be kicking herself by saying those words. She had waited, Spirits knew how long, to hear the unfolding events that had ultimately led up to her meeting with Kaji; to be able to filter through the enigmatic mixture of circumstance and stratagem corrupting their attempts at staying together. But she said them, because she knew that Kaji could only further distance herself from the Avatar if she felt that she was being forced to reveal such sensitive topics out of some sense of guilt or obligation; that alone, was the only sacrifice Korra was not willing to make. "Tell me only if that is what you want."
Kaji sunk into herself, wrestling with the flight reflex at the presented opening. Korra's generosity was subtly costing her more than if she had forced the confession from her. Still, that was not the type of person Korra was. Kaji growled at her lack of discipline; she had kept the secrets for far too long. If she expected Korra to understand that she could not simply throw everything away, even if it was for the deep love that she felt towards the girl, then she would have to open up the figurative time capsule and let the younger girl in. Vulnerability had never been an emotion well liked by the family of Agni's blood, though it did have a knack for haunting them like their own personal poltergeist.
"I want to say it," she deadpanned. The easiest way to go about doing this was for Kaji to remain completely objective, retelling the events as though they had happened to a complete stranger. In a way, the cool, concentrated girl who had once seen the age of the Fire Empire as a swath of golden light falling upon the lesser peoples of the world was completely alien to the confused, stranded woman sitting at the bottom of some hole in the Spirit World. In a way, it made it easier to retell the passage of her young life while paradoxically making it more painful to remember how blissfully blind she had been back then.
"I suppose I should start with the day that I turned five, at the height of the summer months; the summer solstice had only just gone a week or so before. It was the first day that I was able to conjure fire-"
The Fire Nation summer was blistering, temperatures rising to all-time highs as the world capital of industry spewed dense clouds of carbon dioxide that trapped the greenhouse gases in an invisible dome over the island nation. The sun's rays fell upon the ground with merciless abandon and even the firebenders ran to find shelter within the acclimatized buildings blowing cooling ventilated air around the rooms of quaint little family homes.
There were, of course, a few courageous or insane souls who braved the heat. Most had found patches of shade to recline under; others took comfort in the deeper sections of ponds and pools to escape. The only two people foolish enough to be standing out in the open without any form of protection were a young girl and a woman in her elder years. Both held deep, strong horse stances. The older woman was breathing in and out, releasing little jets of indigo fire from her nose and mouth to dissipate the excess kinetic energy within her body. The young one, half a decade old, was sweating profusely and having a difficult time concentrating when her matted hair kept sticking to her skin and eliciting a terrible urge to scratch at the irritated epidermis. The tiny leg muscles were taut, but fatigue was starting to become evident with each tremor that ran up the calves to the thighs. Carefully, the little girl peeked through one large, golden eye to watch in envy as the master bender kept her body in homeostasis through the ribbons of sapphire flames exiting her mouth and nose in each exhale. A gruff harrumph startled the child, immediately snapping her eye closed and spreading a blush over her cheeks at being caught.
"Concentrate," the teacher murmured. "You should be mastering the art of firebending soon if you are going to be any good at it, so make sure you learn the basics now."
"Yes Master Azula," young Kaji replied with military diligence.
The trembling in her legs only increased however, no matter how strongly she willed against it. The shaking spread higher until the child's small frame was so unstable that, had there been a whisper of wind to disturb the torrid atmosphere, she probably would have been sent tumbling to the gravel beneath them. A small cry escaped Kaji's parched lips as her muscles finally gave in under the intense pressure of the sun's rays, her head swimming as gravity seemed to stop working and she felt her feet leave the floor. The vertigo set in to such a degree as to make her fear that she was falling, not toward the earth's welcoming arms, but the distant stratus of stars nestled among the heavens. The impact of the ground hitting her square in the forehead… or perhaps it was the other way around… was enough to jolt her back to semi-consciousness. The small girl coughed, ejecting the dusty remnants of the mucous lining her dry, cracked mouth with weak spasms of her diaphragm.
"Get up," Azula's rigid voice commanded. "We are not finished and you are only allowed reprieve when it is over."
Kaji shifted her body slightly so as to allow her arms to come underneath her aching sternum. Her heart was lethargic, slowed by the heat permeating throughout her surroundings, and only made for a more difficult time in recovering her stance. Her hands shook from the effort of lifting her torso even a centimeter from the sandy arena where they had come to practice. Irritation turned quickly into a violent tide of burning crimson rage; the young girl never accepted loss, she had never been taught to learn from her failures because she was not permitted to have any. The anger bubbled underneath her skin, scalding the epidermal layer to the point that the pale flesh visibly became a shade redder. Boiling hot blood fled her nasal passages as the fragile capillaries broke from dilating too much in the vain attempts at keeping a stable body temperature.
"Get up, Kaji!"
Urgency coiled itself around the flashes of wrath, perforating the thinning membrane that Kaji had never acknowledged before; it felt as though some part of herself that had been locked away had finally surfaced from its submerged state. The chains snapped and she could almost see the light illuminate her heart and mind, ethereal chi flowing freely for the first time through her small lymphatic system, igniting everything in its path.
"Magnificent," the compliment was nearly lost upon her. Kaji was still blind to the outside world, enraptured by the inner aurora borealis playing along the corners of her mind in waves of cobalt beauty. The word slithered into her cochlea and then up her auditory nerve until it caught the overactive dendrites leading to her nervous system. Large golden eyes snapped open to an image similar to the one in her head, only this was real. The blue dancing fire of the midnight sky was blowing small cylindrical patterns around her tiny, outstretched arms and licking at her body. For most, to have been bathed in such a display of superheated molecules would have been alarming, but for the first time, Kaji felt completely at peace.
"My grandmother told me that no one had been able to hold mastery over the blue fire before the weaker, orange form… up until me," Kaji, the nineteen-year-old, smiled at the memory of the proud smile gracing her benefactor's face. It had been the proudest moment of her life up to that point.
"She had you stand in the middle of an open courtyard when it was over one hundred degrees outside?" Korra glared in incredulity at the happiness with which the Fire Lord recalled the event. She shook her head, noting that firebenders were by far the most idiotically insane people she had ever met. "Did the heat fry your common sense?"
Instead of getting upset, as Korra thought she would at the poorly hidden insult, Kaji simply laughed. It was a carefree sound, like bells or chimes, and Korra soon cared less about the stupidity and stubbornness of the Fire National and more about wanting to hear the sound for the rest of her life. Finding the impulse to join in difficult to go against, the Avatar broke into her own fit of giggles while Kaji tried to justify the brash infraction against logic, "Fire requires fuel to be ignited. You know this. Azula knew me. I was always eager to please her and every misdemeanor or mistake I made, I took to heart. Excellence had always been my motivator, so she set me up with an impossible task; in that manner, I was able to overcome the barrier holding my firebending back."
"She couldn't have just waited until you were mature enough for it to manifest itself?" Korra remembered the months of grueling boredom she had spent in preparation for her entry into the art of fire wielding. To expect a child of no more than five to master one of the most unpredictable elements, even if said child was talented beyond measure, was a little disconcerting.
"She was her father's daughter," the words were said in a saddened, lamenting mumble. Korra turned her head to look out of the small window into the outside environment, noting its uniformity. Ozai, Azula, now Kaji; it seemed as though the line of Sozin was cursed to forever suffer the expectations- and, through them, the sins- of the previous generation.
"And you are Azula's?" it was tentative, for Korra feared the answer more than she would have liked to admit.
Kaji's formless reply drifted into Korra's exposed ear, though her eyes stayed centered at the focal point of the beige wall made of whirling sand, "I used to want nothing more than to have her call me hers with pride in her voice. I once would have done anything, burned the entire world to the ground with everyone in it had she so much as hinted that it was her desire; now, now I don't know anymore."
Another lengthy silence enveloped them. Korra did not wish to feel the hopeful butterflies flutter in her stomach, not sure whether they were premature and should have been kept in their cocoons until she was more certain of the firebender's intentions. Kaji still could not find the conviction to form one answer or the other and stick to it. She owed her life to her grandmother, but she also did not want to waste that life by fighting against her overwhelming craving for Korra's love. She decided to withhold judgment for the moment and continued on.
"Let's see. If I remember correctly, the next thing that happened was the Academy. I had spent the larger part of my youth being privately instructed in the subjects my grandmother deemed necessary for my upbringing so I did not actually enter the Fire Nation Academy for Girls until I was twelve. My father had returned a few years prior to that."
A platonic look of sheer exasperation was the permanent fixture on the near-teenager's face. The pack she had slung haphazardly over her right shoulder sagged with the writing materials and scrolls that were needed for her classes throughout the day. The opening ceremony was about to begin, welcoming all new and returning students to the commencing school year. As a member of the Royal Family, the aggravated girl had been given one of the outlying balconies that hovered over the heads of the normal student body. Because of the lack of usage of the projecting compartment, the seats had acquired a thick film of dust. Kaji crinkled her nose, musing as to whether the impudent staff members had deemed her less worthy than her cousin, Iroh, when it came to cleaning. Her grandmother may not have been Fire Lord, but that did not give any excuse for incompetence.
A staff member stood nervously behind her, his long hands clasped in front of his thin waist. He did not notice it, but every now and then he would rock onto his heels and then back down again in a nervous fidget. His brow was slightly beaded, having heard the horror stories of the countless number of tutors who had been chased out of the complex of chambers held by the most famous general in Zuko's army, all by this frightful girl sitting with her back turned to him. The poor man had been one of the few members of the Academy who had been entrusted with the identity of the forgotten Royal. For the majority of the students and faculty, Kaji was to be nothing more than a wealthy merchant's daughter, or some big shot politician's niece. Above all, discretion was to be kept, on penalty of incarceration… or so he had been told by his boss.
"D-do, you requ-require anything else, My Lady?" he stuttered, his tongue tripping over the words as his feet tripped over themselves and the long, flowing robes of burgundy that marked him as a member of the lower school administration.
"Have I been demoted in some way recently without my knowledge?" the cool reply startled the man. His mind tried to work through the question, anticipating some sort of trap or rhetorical intention. None came so he chose to go with the safest choice: ask for a clarification.
"I-I am not quite sure what you mean-"
"Has my rank in the hierarchy of this nation been lowered since my arrival on this Agni-forsaken island this morning? Honestly, I thought they had standards in choosing employees," the girl lazily rolled her head to rest it against her left shoulder, her eyes coming to slowly give him a look that clearly stated 'you are not worth the dirt on the bottom of my shoe.'
"N-not that I am aware of, My Lady," he gulped.
"Ah, you see?!" the suddenness of the exclamation caught him off guard, causing the poor administration's officer to back away with his hands outstretched in a pose of surrender. Kaji inwardly glowed with the prospect of bringing him to the verge of tears, "There it is. 'My Lady.' If I have not been stripped of all of my family's entitlements and honors, you should refer to me as nothing less than My Princess, though I accept Your Highness or Your Grace as welcome strokes to my ego."
Realization hit the man. Though the Princess Azula had been stripped of her titles for a time, she had been redeemed after a few years of loyal service to her brother. In effect, that made the girl sitting, staring at him in expectation, Princess as well. His body, frozen apart from a lip that appeared to be having a seizure, the man could do nothing but run profuse apologies through his head. A moan drew itself from his mouth, making the girl snicker in a manner that reminded him of a dragon playing with its prey, prolonging the inevitable demise of the sacrificial animal.
"And to answer your previous question, I suppose I do not require anything further from you. Honestly, if I cannot even expect to be greeted properly, and placed in suitable accommodations," her remark emphasized by a slim finger run across the top of a velvet chair cushion and coming up with a thin film of dust, "then I do not expect to be given much further consideration anyway."
Kaji arched her eyebrows when the man made no move to leave. Oh dear, she thought to herself, I do believe I placed him in some sort of catatonic state. Best wake him before I get pulled out of this place and sent back to the palace.
A hard clap brought the administrator back from his stupor. His mouth gaped open in a convincing show of a man who had been half-drowned and finally allowed to break the surface of the water. Grey eyes snapped to look at an amused, Cheshire grin playing on the corners of the Princess Kaji's lips. "You are dismissed," she said, making shooing motions with her hands. "I know where my classes and my rooms are so don't bother coming back to give me the tour."
"Y-yes, Princess," he made sure not to further humiliate himself as he turned and fled.
Watching him, Kaji couldn't help but laugh aloud. She had always had so much fun using her grandmother's history and her own position to torture others and, with so many victims running about the place, she knew that she was going to have a great amount of fun before she would have to return to the dismal halls of her home. There, she was the shadow of Azula, always following her and acting the part of pupil, but here, here she could rule as she had been taught to do.
"You are horrible," Korra managed through her chuckles. "Poor people. How the hell did they survive you?"
"Well, I only stayed for about two years before I went off on my own," Kaji reasoned. "But other than that, I suppose I had a few experiences there that ingratiated me with the higher upsand got me out of anything I was careless enough to get in trouble for."
"Tell me more," Korra smiled. She had never really had the 'school' experience. All of her lessons, she had learned personally. She had had training partners, but none had been her age and most had never conversed with her. To be able to hear about Kaji's escapades would be a welcome insight into something she had been denied.
"Alright," Kaji relented. She too didn't mind going off on a bit of a tangent before she began retelling the more serious aspects of her life. Thinking of what she wanted to follow with, she settled on an experience that marked her for the rest of her life.
The first week of the year had gone on uneventfully. Kaji had kept to herself mostly and the rest of the student body had busied itself with reunions and rekindling of friendships. No one had noticed the quiet, new girl in the back of the room who had the darkest ebony hair and the brightest golden eyes just yet. She had been afforded a pseudonym familial name, to keep the obvious nature of her position in the nation's hierarchy secret. Still, many times, the fact that she was different from the rest of her classmates showed from behind the façade.
The afternoon after classes was warm, even though autumn was fast approaching. Such a sunshiny, cloudless day had all of the girls out on the beachfront. Teachers had taken pity on the excitable youths, affording them the day without too many assignments- and those allotted were complete-able in roughly ten minutes- so minds had left the drudgery of the classroom, and flown to the picturesque seashore.
Kaji had decided to leave her less than expansive chambers as well, figuring that her pale skin could use some vitamin D. She also couldn't stand staying in the cramped quarters of the small shack she had been given as a residence. There was a bathroom next to the bedroom, furnished by two beds laid parallel to each other, heads facing the one window looking out onto the bay. A small living room was accessible through a door opposite to the window, flanked by a large mahogany dresser on one side and a miniature closet on the other. The living room itself was also infuriatingly tiny, with two coaches available for reading strewn across the middle of the area, and a table with three chairs nestled into a corner by yet another small window, most probably for doing homework. Apart from that, and a small icebox for drinks, the chambers ended with a plain door leading into the hallway. She had been told that the size was what was afforded to the moderately wealthy, but it was small enough not to draw any unwanted attention. And, had that been all, Kaji may haps would have been able to adjust. The final touch that she could not stand, for the life of her, was the fact that she would have to share it.
"Royal treatment in a secretive manner," the Princess grumbled to herself as she walked down the hill that led to the beach. She had a vain hope that she might, somehow, find a relatively vacated spot on the sand. "Damn liars."
"Talking to yourself is never a good sign you know," Kaji stopped dead in her tracks, hand clenching around the loose strap of the pack that had her change of clothes. Turning, her eyes scanned the area in search of whoever had addressed her. She didn't have to look far, gaze zeroing in on a girl not even a yard away from her. She was tall, taller than even Kaji who was rapidly overtaking some of the older girls in height. Long, exotic hair spilled over her bare shoulders in waves of gold and silver depending on the manner with which it caught the light. Her eyes were melted chocolate, sparkling with the reflection of the bright daylight and the oozing happiness barely contained in her white-toothed smile. The bathing suit she had on was a scandalous pattern of blue flowers on a white background; colors that were quite unseemly for a Fire National. Her skin was also of a darker hue than the others, but whether that was because of a good tan or mixed heritage, Kaji could not tell.
Smiling, Kaji decided that anyone willing to so explicitly defy the norm was worth a second glance. Thinking of a smartass retort, she didn't even think before blurting out, "Well, insanity runs in the family I guess."
The girl looked down at the Princess quizzically, waiting for some sort of insight into what had obviously been an inside joke. Mentally slapping herself, Kaji quickly searched for something to say that would remedy her slip of the tongue without giving away her identity. For some peculiar reason, where she had always been a moderate if not better liar, her brain had completely frozen over in the presence of the eccentric stranger.
"Well, I guess I'm not getting a straight answer for that one," the girl brushed over the awkward silence that had enveloped them. Switching the subject quite suddenly, she inquired, "Were you heading to the water?"
"T-the-" water? What the hell was that again? 'Flustered' could not have begun to describe the current state of the Royal. The other girl blinked, trying to understand the stupefied state of her newly acquainted friend. Then, quite unexpectedly, Kaji's mind cleared enough to assess the question and develop a sufficient answer. "Yes, I was… as you said."
Giggling at the strangeness of her newly found companion, the blonde took a hold of Kaji's arm and wheeled around to face the distant surf. "My name is Jenny Realight. It's a pleasure to meet you…"
The pause was clearly intended for Kaji to insert her name, but all she could think of was how perfect the name seemed to fit such a… different… looking person. A unique name for a unique girl. Unique, and impulsive Kaji mused as the girl, Jenny, snapped two fingers in front of her face and kept looking at her in a n expectant manner.
"Kaji," the name came unbidden. She didn't try to remember the surname that had been appointed to her, knowing it would be an impossible task when her brain was still stalling and could not get past how warm the girl's arm felt against her skin.
"Well, Kaji, why don't we head over together then? The beach is always more fun when you have a friend around."
Without complaint, the Princess let herself get dragged down to the shoreline, all of the time thinking, friend, huh, and wondering at the warm feeling the word brought to her stomach.
"She was my roommate too," Kaji smiled at the memory. It was stupid how that one little moment, one little show of unconditional kindness, still had a way of making her feel happy.
"Where was she from?" Korra had never heard of such a foreign name, or a foreign description, for someone. Blonde hair that was not dyed was very rare among all of the four continents, but especially so in the western island nation.
"You know, I never asked," Kaji sighed, leaning her head on her shoulder and working at a kink in her neck. "She was actually the first person I fell for."
Korra smirked at the blush that colored the Fire Lord's cheeks. Rarely did Kaji's face redden from embarrassment, but when it did, it was surely a sign of a good story. And, to make things better, Korra's green monster had yet to rear its ugly head. Thank you magical Guru man.
"Yeah?" she prodded playfully. The Avatar would have loved to give the added effect of poking the firebender's side, but thought better when a strong heat wave passed over her. Apparently the darkening hue in Kaji's stained cheeks was also an indication of an increase in the exuding fire under her skin.
"I had been in the Academy for one year and was starting my second. I was fourteen at the time, and, unknown to me, it would be my last year at the Fire Nation Academy for Girls."
The winter on the island was like a particularly wet autumn in any other corner of the globe. The clouds drifted over the landscape in an oppressive manner, threatening to catch any suckers unlucky enough to find themselves outside in a downpour. The wind chilled the landscape, evaporating the droplets of water clinging to the grass and treetops, absorbing heat and entrapping it in the freed gas molecules. For a particular firebender, the inside was no better off. Kaji slumped under her covers, miserably shivering in the cold air of the bedroom. Had she had it her way, the heater would be on blast to keep her overheated body from giving off the meager warmth she had been able to accumulate under the thick blanket, but she had drawn the short straw- or rather, lost the Pai Sho game for the first time in her life not counting the games against her grandmother- and had been disavowed of her temperature control privileges. And Jenny was the type of person to greatly enjoy her cold weather. Kaji had discovered early on in their roommate-ship that the girl was a nonbender and had come to get accepted in the Academy on a scholarship for foreign exchange students. Whenever the firebender had tried to discern where the idiot was from, she had been promptly shut down with either a fistful of fire flakes shoved down her throat or a door slammed in her face, followed by a cheerful remark of 'if I tell you, the mystery will be dead.' Infuriating. But, despite the detached mannerism with which the Princess treated all of the others in her class and school altogether, Kaji found herself growing inexplicably close to the blonde-haired beauty.
A door slammed open, revealing the hyperactive heathen upon whom Kaji blamed her current predicament. To her guffaw, her roommate had deemed it appropriate to wear nothing but a pair of really short shorts and a tank top, all while not displaying a single sign of cold. Stretching, the nonbender peered into the dim room. The day was barely turning from afternoon to evening but the overcast made the lightless expanse dark as midnight. Brown eyes danced in glee as they caught signs of movement coming from the bed on the right, occupied by the huddled Princess. Another peculiarity Kaji had come to find, get accustomed to, and eventually enjoy, was Jenny's insistence on constant bodily contact as a display of affection.
"What the fu-" Kaji's curse was muffled by a mouthful of cotton and silk as the body of the other girl collided with her through the covers. For a second, she could not breathe, her mind panicking as fuzzy balls of orange and red appeared at the corners of her vision. Soon enough though, her head was uncovered with a swift pull at the offending blanket, and a good portion of her long hair. After briefly massaging her scalp to lessen the stinging, the firebender turned to give her assailant-rescuer a dirty look.
"What were you doing in the dark?" Jenny smiled, oblivious to the venomous golden eyes throwing imaginary spears in her direction.
"Hibernating," Kaji muttered darkly. Her ears were starting to grow cool, so she grabbed for the edge of her sheets and made a sort of hood out of them. There was a small hole for her mouth and nose, but other than that, not an inch of skin was showing.
"I didn't know dragons hibernated," her friend prodded the tip of her nose. Kaji shook her head to dispel the offending digit. She gave up when it became obvious that her efforts were wasted as it descended on the same spot each time her head stayed its motion.
"They don't," Kaji replied in her pedantic manner. "But I am not a dragon."
"Sure you are," Jenny insisted, loving the way her companion grew embarrassed at the nickname. "You breathe fire, you have a horrible temper, and you totally crinkle your nose in a snarl whenever you don't like something." Kaji grunted, not deeming the backhanded… endearments, worth the trouble. "And you have a really warm belly."
There was no time to react, it happened so fast. One moment, Kaji was slowly succumbing to the gloom of gradually freezing to death with only an annoying chatterbox as her final human contact, then the next she was lying on her back with the sheets completely thrown off of her and Jenny's head nestled right up against her bared abdomen. The squeak that escaped her was far from ladylike, though it made the girl lying on top of her giggle. The vibrations against her skin sent a strange new sensation shooting through her frame. Her back arched, her mind unsure as to whether the movement was an attempt to get the blonde off of her or to get closer to her. Strong hands pushed Kaji back onto the malleable mattress. Butterflies dive-bombed around her stomach, cutting at her with ticklish wings. A gasp escaped her when something warm and wet slid down into her bellybutton before coming up to trail over her taught stomach. Reflexively, she threw her hands behind her and pushed herself into a sitting position, effectively knocking Jenny off of her in the process. The Princess had no idea what to think when her eyes caught the small glint of moisture on her bare skin.
"What the hell are you doing?" Kaji swept up the saliva that had been placed upon her without her permission. Splaying her fingers, she glared at the sloppiness of her friend, wondering what the girl was playing at.
"You didn't like it?" the Fire Princess was taken aback by the sheer despair with which Jenny whispered it, sadness brimming over the edge of her watering eyes.
Quick to react to the girl's unanticipated emotional display, Kaji truthfully backpedalled with a hesitant, "N-no, it wasn't… thoroughly… unpleasant." Jenny's face perked up almost instantaneously, her arms quickly outstretching to engulf the firebender in a hug. Kaji's hands shot up to keep her at arm's length, softly pushing against the soft skin of the blonde's shoulders. "Why did you do it?"
Jenny chuckled into her hand, the other falling to the bed when it became apparent that the oblivious golden-eyed girl was not going to let her anywhere near her until she gave an explanation. Sighing, she chose to play with Kaji a little more, knowing that the firebender was easily miffed when it came to things she did not understand, "Because I like you."
Not one to disappoint, Kaji's face quickly morphed from determined curiosity to utter astonishment. Her mind reeled, searching for any precedent to Jenny's actions within the social etiquette manuscripts she had studiously examined as a child. Customarily, she had never read of humans licking each other as signs of affection. Her bewilderment was evident in her tone, "People do that as a display of affinity?"
Jenny snickered, glad that Kaji had not rejected her advances because she didn't want them; the firebender was clearly out of her league when it came to reading situations such as this. Furthering the confusion, the blonde nodded her head vigorously," Yup."
"Is this… a custom… in your previous home?" Kaji hated being caught unawares. The girl had always been eccentric, but the Princess had not known her to be so… so… abnormal. Cultural gaps were not helpful in such situations, Kaji decided.
"You could say that," Jenny slid up to sit beside the calculating Royal, barely keeping her straight face when all she really wanted to do was to fall on top of the helpless Fire National. "But I'm pretty sure the Fire Nation does the same thing. And the Earth Kingdom. And the Tribes. I guess, even the Airbenders."
Perplexed, Kaji turned away from her companion, barely noticing the sly hand that wound itself around her shoulders and pressed her against Jenny's well-developed chest. The puzzle of how such a thing which had been emitted from her instruction could be so pivotal as to be performed by all peoples of all nations was close to incredible. Azula had ensured that Kaji was a brilliant politician, knowledgeable in all of the traditions and mannerisms of the differing people of the world. Could it have been possible that she had missed one? Perhaps she had not deemed Kaji old enough to understand such a complex practice? It seemed rather intimate in its fashion, something done in private and only between confidants of great esteem.
"If you keep creasing your forehead like that, you're going to get wrinkles," Jenny smiled.
"I don't care," Kaji murmured, inspecting a nail while still mulling over the obvious gap in her tuition on worldly affairs.
"Well you should, your face is one of your defining features. You should take care of it," the nonbender reached over and swept a strand of hair out of Kaji's eyes. Deciding that the girl would give herself an aneurism if she concentrated any harder, Jenny decided to take pity and end Kaji's misery. "And, when I said that I liked you, I meant it like this."
Kaji's eyes widened as a pair of satin soft lips pressed against hers. It was a chaste kiss, but it set her on fire in a way that she had never experienced before. It felt… nice, better than nice. Her brain screamed for her to stop, telling her that there was something innately wrong with what she was doing. The act was supposed to be done between a man and a woman… or, at least, that was what she had heard whenever the girls in her class spoke of their boyfriends and such. But, she had never felt the urge to become some goopy-eyed idiot fawning over the pompous son of some famous noble or notable business tycoon. Having Jenny's soft, supple body pressed against her battle hardened frame was heaven and she never wanted it to stop. Hands came to circle around her, grasping at her shirt's loose collar and tugging at her hair. Her own hands timidly reached up to press into her friend's protruding shoulder blades.
They broke apart, huffing for air and crimson faced. Matching stupid grins spread from ear to ear as they met each other's eyes. The night was spent with a certain firebender snuggling close to her newly found compatriot- occasionally with a few instances of the firebender being pushed off of the bed in a flurry of blankets when said compatriot became too hot.
"We became even closer after that, though I insisted that we keep what we were doing a secret. I think she was a little upset with me about that, but she never said anything. I made a convincing argument about my father freaking out and taking me out of the school, which wasn't that far off I suppose," Kaji chuckled. Her face grew a shade darker after a moment of thinking. "It was too hard to hide it. We became sloppy in the heat of the moment, and rumors began to spread. I was top in my firebending class, despite having to lower my fire intensity to match the red flames of the other students, so I didn't get the brunt of the attacks. And Jenny was so good at covering up the bruises that I didn't find out about what they were doing to her until it was nearly the end of the semester."
Kaji had forgotten her textbook on the histories of the Fire Nation and its relations with the outside world in the classroom again. She cursed her faulty memory as she strode briskly down the hallway, hoping that she could slip in and out before the teacher came back from her meeting. She had already been admonished twice before over the same topic and had no intention of dusting the shelves of the decrepit bookcases lining the back of the room again. Thankfully, she was able to get there just as the stringent woman rounded the corner to the council room. The sliding door was easily pried open with only a miniscule scratch against the paper windows to mark her entry. Finding the book tucked neatly under the desk where she sat throughout the day, Kaji smiled at her good fortune.
With book in hand, the Fire Princess took off at a sprint to clear the scene. Her feet carried her swiftly down a series of corridors before she slowed to a halt. The hallways were empty of any witnesses, so she would be able to say that she had been at the other side of the school the entire time, were anyone to actually inquire.
She was passing the biology section when she heard the scream. It was quiet, almost as if its owner had tried to stifle it. Kaji had never really been one to care about the victims of bullying, believing that those too weak to defend themselves deserved what they got, but her natural curiosity had her turn down the hall and sneak closer to the sound. Soon the cries of pain were accompanied with hard impacts of skin on skin. Obviously, the violence had escalated from verbal to physical. Tensing her muscles, the firebender crouched down and slightly craned her neck forward to peek around the bend leading to the rectangular depression that led to the bathrooms and drinking fountains. Her eyes widened at the spectacle unraveling before her.
Three girls had congregated around a cringing body. The one to the right was shortest; the victim was getting mercilessly kicked against the hard plaster wall as a show of bravado. The girl to the left crouched down and held onto the person's neck causing her sobs to come out in choking gulps. The middle girl, the leader of the bunch, was standing a ways away from the scene, observing it as a vulture would a banquet of lions.
"What a freak," the short girl said, enunciating every word with another hard kick to the girl's already battered form. "Just look at that hair and that skin."
"Yeah," the one on the left joined in. "Fucking foreigners, defacing the prestige of our academy. If you're going to act like some uncivilized beast, go do it in the hole where you crawled out from."
The leader brandished a small flame on the tips of her fingers, strengthened by a smaller opening in her chi so that it resembled a blowtorch. Her eyes sparkled, steel pits of grey, as she smiled and added to the barrage of insults, "We don't want unnatural scum like you around. You should leave, before you really get hurt," another kick and another gurgled moan, "and, to make sure you and that sick little girlfriend of yours get the message, I'm going to permanently brand it on you."
Fear gripped the chocolate eyes of the trapped girl as the flames of the firebender got closer to her body. Getting into position over the exposed area of the girl's skin, between her uniform's skirt and the shirt that had ridden up in the struggle, the leader prepared to make her intended mark. Her fingers flicked forward, and the flames burst hotly for a second, before being extinguished by an unexpected hand grabbing a hold of them from behind. Turning in anger, she beheld a familiar face glaring down at her. Kaji stood, her face ominously half-hidden in the shadow of her falling bangs. Her mouth was stretched in to a thin line, making her eyes seem larger than they were.
"Why don't I leave you with a message instead," the unstable tremor in Kaji's voice only added to her blackening aura. Her hand grew tighter around the two fingers until the foolish belligerent was tearfully begging her to stop. She didn't until there was an audible crack and pop, a sickening sagging of the top segments of the two fingers indicating that the bones had been completely fractured. "Do anything to hurt her again and I will… kill… you."
Kaji let go and the girl scampered onto her feet in an attempt to flee, only to be grabbed by the hem of her skirt and shoved back down onto the floor. The Fire Princess looked down at the sniveling waste of existence before digging her heel into the girl's face. The nose broke instantly. "Did I say you could leave?"
"P-please," one of the others sniffled. It was the shorty. Her breathe caught in her throat when the eyes filled with pure hatred turned to her. "W-we d-didn't mean any h-harm."
The laugh that came from Kaji's throat was completely maniacal. Her hand swept over to where Jenny was lying, regaining some of her breath as the air returned to her beaten lungs, "what exactly do you call that?"
The short girl looked down at the trembling blonde, then back up at the monster blocking the only exit. What had been a strategic place to corner a victim was now a heinous trap. She fell to her knees, head falling to touch the floor, groveling. "P-please. Don't hurt us. P-please."
"Oh, it's too late for that," Kaji growled, teeth bared in a Draconic expression. "You see, if you meant no harm to her and that is what you did, then what am I supposed to do to you, when I do intend to bring harm to you?"
The leader groaned from underneath Kaji's bloodstained boot, her mouth gasping for air around the heavy sole. Kaji sunk the heel in a centimeter further before pulling away and picking up the limp form of the girl. She was an inch or two shorter so her toes were the only things scraping the tiled floor as she was lifted. In a deft motion Kaji threw her into the wall. Blood sprayed out of her mouth and covered the Royal's clothing. Grimacing, as though aghast that such an insignificant worm should dare ruin her attire, the Princess gave the barely conscious student another well place kick just above the chest, fracturing the solar plexus. The girl who had been choking Jenny saw the opening to the escape route and took off running. Her brief gamble for freedom was brought to a quick end as brilliant blue flames erupted as a sort of fence between the two walls of the corridor, cutting off all means of evasion. The space was so small and the flames burned so hotly that everyone was sweating in seconds. The stench of fear was barely discernible over the smell of combusting air. Turning back to the other two victims of her wrath, Kaji pulled them both up and off of the blonde by the scruffs of their necks before thrusting them both headlong into the wall. She would have done more, already formulating the next bone-breaking strike to be delivered, when her eyes finally caught full sight of her girlfriend. They had left her face, mostly, except for a scratch running along her forehead that dripped an obscene amount of blood for such a shallow wound. Her chest was moving, but laboriously, and the telltale signs of bruising were forming along the skin of Jenny's exposed neck and collarbone. Her eyes were open, glazed, but still comprehensive. She instinctively flinched when Kaji made to move closer to her.
It was the terror filling the deep brown eyes that snapped the firebender from her explosive path of destruction. Kneeling quickly, the Princess stooped her back so that her arms could slide under the frail girl's body; she lifted her bridal style, as gently as possible though even the slightest movement elicited a mewl of pain.
"Count yourselves fortunate," Kaji growled down at the cowering wretches at her feet. Her speech was lost upon the comatose smear of blood that was the head girl, but she trusted that the lackeys would be quick to relay the message. "If I see any of you so much as look at her in a manner that displeases me, I will ensure that your bodies are never found and your entire living families are left to poverty. Am I understood?"
Collective nods.
Without a word, the Princess turned, careful to not disturb her precious bundle, and continued down the hall to where the nurse's office was.
"The nurse was rarely ever there, so I was the one who patched up the worst of it. I was still much of a novice so by the time I was satisfied with my handiwork, Jenny was nothing more than a mummy swaddled in medical gauze," Kaji chuckled before growing serious. "That was the incident that 'outed' me to my father. I would say that it was the first time Azula knew of it, but I'm sure that she had been aware for longer than even I had been."
Korra remembered vaguely Kirei's outburst over Kaji's near expulsion. Her thoughts must have portrayed her previous knowledge for her companion quizzically responded, "You knew of this incident?"
"I didn't know the details. Just the consequences," Korra replied. Her voice shook, and she was unsure of how to bring up the topic, but the chronology with which the story went compelled her to breach it, "I was also told that your grandmother… passed away, shortly after that."
Kaji indeed felt the memory as one would feel a ton of stone upon one's back. She hated to recollect how quickly she had lost everything she held dear to her. Still, solemnly and reluctantly, she retold it, "Yes. The next few weeks had me under much stress over the little situation with those girls. The head girl's parents called for me to be kicked out of the school, and it seemed for a while that it might come to pass.
"Then, suddenly, all charges dropped and the case was closed. I was free to continue my education, but there was also a consequence to my actions that even I could not have anticipated at the time… Jenny was told that she had to leave the Academy. Deep down I knew it was not my grandmother's fault; she cared not for the girl as she cared for me and must have seen her as an acceptable sacrifice, but at the moment, in my rage-"
Tears slid down the flushed, pale cheeks of the Fire Lord. Her vision blurred and her eyes stared, unseeing into the void of the past which was still so crisp that she remembered the scent of summer clinging to the trees and blades of grass.
"What have you done!?" Kaji exclaimed.
"My dear, I am a skilled reader of expressions," her grandmother, the Princess Azula, cordially sipped at her cooling beverage, "but you are going to have to be more specific."
"Why was Jenny forced to leave after Spring Break? She was told that her scholarship had been withdrawn. Why?" Furiousness exuded from the younger girl's very pores.
"Kaji, you are a smart girl," the way it was said was not unkind, but it was also strict thus minimizing the intended effect of caring, "but what you did was immensely foolish. The girl you nearly killed was a daughter of one of the higher bureaucrats who run this nation. He was out for blood, your blood. I did what I had to in order to ensure that the brunt of the repercussions did not fall on your head. And the girl was clouding your vision, plainly. It was killing two birds with one stone."
"Clouding? You sent her away, ruining her life, because she was 'clouding' me?"
"It was for your own good. You needed a scapegoat."
Kaji reeled. She could not feel the earth under her any longer. Never once had she questioned a decision made by her idol, the Fire Princess Azula, but her mind was confused and her heart cried for blood; whose, it did not matter at the time. The words came weakly, trembling, through clenched teeth with an aura that would wilt a lesser soul, "Not her."
"She was convenient."
"She was the victim!"
"An unfortunate detail, truly."
"How can you be so cold?" Kaji knew she was crying. For the first time in her life, she did not care that her grandmother could see the tears streaming down her face. She was pure anguish.
Azula stood, walking resolutely toward her wayward disciple. She stared hard, directly into the captivated golden orbs, pure mirrors of her own if only lacking in the worldly age that had darkened the depths of the older woman's with knowledge. Once, it had been so simple to elicit a look from the child that spoke of endless loyalty and reverence. Once… during a time before love, and questions, and remorse, and heartbreak. Azula could not bring herself to look upon the child as she had once gazed upon the traitors to her and her father; she could only see herself, standing alone, defiant, but so very bare and exposed in the wake of having the illusion of divinity fade from the one person who had been a rock when everything else was called into question. So, instead of the punishment that would have met such an insubordinate remark, Azula flittingly checked to ensure privacy then wrapped her arms around the quivering girl she had raised to be an unwavering flame.
"My dear, I know that you are hurting," she soothed. Kaji did not fight the protective cocooning effect of Azula's warmth. More so, she was shocked into stillness by the act as she had not been so openly loved since she had been a small child, "but you must know that love is a powerful, yet temporary emotion. You will find and lose it many times over before your life is at its end. That, at least, is certain."
"Why?" Kaji knew the answer; there were no other words left to say, so she filled the void with that sole mantra anyway.
"Because I care about you and any sacrifice is worth it if only to ensure your success in this world."
"I returned to the school for the remainder of the year, petulantly squandering my grandmother's troubles in keeping me enrolled by barely finishing the year with passing marks. It was on the day after my return from the Academy, and the first day of summer vacation, that I heard the news."
Kaji, fourteen for the moment but not for long, was happily walking down the corridor of the palace. Her step held a sort of spring to it, enough to fool most of the staff since they were not deeply acquainted with her. Inside, she held a deep set anxiety. Her heart was still raw from the proceedings of the school term, though it had been more of a background ache the entire morning. She felt the uneasiness stiffen her movement until she forcibly urged her muscles to loosen themselves and keep her air of false levity about her.
A messenger ran toward her, his head bowed and chest moving up and down as if he had just run from the other side of the palace. His light brown eyes caught the light in pretty speckles of amber mixed in auburn as the sun shifted. Hair messily fell down his sloped shoulders as he stopped to catch his breath, not more than a few yards away. It was customary for royalty to be addressed only when at one's best appearance, so he made a hasty adjustment of his wardrobe and physical state before using long strides to close in the distance. The fact that he was still barely cutting the mark of etiquette only aided in fraying Kaji's nerves.
His hands shook, pretty eyes trying to find anything to look at that might get him out of the horrible situation. But, he had lost and drawn the short straw, so consequences had to be dealt with. His fingers twitched nervously and he had to start a few times before quickly squeaking, "M-my Princess… the Royal Princess Azula… she… her… there was…"
"Speak, or I will have your tongue branded with the words you wished to tell me," Kaji snapped. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep calm in the wake of the man's intense discomfort. Her foot tapped expectantly; her fingers curled around her crossed arms; her eyes bore into his, watching the fear and sorrow mingle in a hypnotic miasma of amber.
"Your grandmother, the Princess Azula, died in her sleep last night. I was told to relay this message to you and take you to prepare for the funeral ceremony."
Cold. That was the first sensation to break over the stunned firebending prodigy. Of all of the misfortunes the man could have borne; she would never have been able to believe such a ridiculous one. Azula could not have died. Never. There had been a consuming sense of perpetuity every time Kaji had set eyes upon her grandmother. Azula had always lived. She had been the first person Kaji had seen when she had opened her eyes. Azula had been the first to hear her speak her first words. Azula had been there always, and Kaji had always thought that the woman would continue to be an eternal presence in her life. To suddenly have such a thing swept away, drowned in the remorseless current of time and age, was a travesty; an impossibility.
"Leave me," she finally whispered.
"O-oh," the messenger stuttered. He really didn't want to be a pile of ashes in the wake of the frightening girl's loss, but he had to finish his directive, else he would have to face another form of wrath. "Sh-she instructed me to give this to you, before… before 'it' happened."
The slip of paper was transferred from the trembling hand of the servant to the frozen fingers of the Princess Kaji. The girl's hands were cooler than he would have expected, but such things were to be expected from firebenders. If Azula had been the motivation for the youth's flames, there would be a heavy toll on the prodigy's abilities. Hurriedly, not willing to find out just how much of a blow the Royal's bending had taken, the man spun around and quickly walked away. He would have someone send for the girl once the funeral had begun; there was no point in trying to usher her into the gilded chamber leading to the front steps of one of the palace's courtyards where the final pyre would be lit just yet.
Kaji stood for hours, without truly being within her body. Her hand roughly felt that there was something important nestled between her fingers, but she had forgotten what it was. All she knew was that she could not let it go. Her eyes could not see. She feared that she had gone blind before she realized that she didn't care in the slightest. Her lights had been snuffed out one by one. Her mother before she had even been able to remember what she looked like; her father from grief and estrangement; her love because of a stupid misconception of right and wrong ways to feel; and now her grandmother. She could not even dream of a world where she did not have Azula's guidance in everything that she did. There was something intimately wrong with the realization.
Slowly, she came back to reality. It was sunset; she had arrived at noon. The hours had gone by like nothing was wrong. She growled, wishing that the sun's light would extinguish itself, or eat up everything in a blazing inferno to mark the end of her inner light. There was nothing left, nothing for her to hold on to anymore. Then a light crackle of unfolding paper. Kaji looked down into the palm of her right hand where, between her palm and her middle and index fingers, was a piece of crumpled parchment. Tentatively, it was opened. Within read:
I know how the birds fly, how the fishes swim, how animals run. But there is
the Dragon.
I cannot tell how it mounts on the winds through the clouds and flies through heaven.
Today I have seen
the Dragon.
Kaji marveled at the words. They meant nothing. Not that she could imagine. Her grandmother had been a clever woman, perhaps too clever at times for a young mind in mourning. Kaji's eyes flickered through the words, memorizing the faltering script, with its slight blemishes caused by a body near its end. To see the Dragon. Was the Dragon symbolic of Azula? Had she finally reached the heavens on the wings she had been born to possess? Or was it something else, something deeper. Turning the sheet on its back, Kaji noticed a slight yellow splotch on the far right corner. Intrigued, the girl lit a finger, glowing a dull orange though the hue was ignored for the time being, and held it below the corner. Far enough was it, to not get burned and as the heat seeped in through the folds of parchment, the hidden letters became visible. It was a name, something Island. –ber. –mber. Ember. Kaji flipped the card over once more, gazing into the prose. The Dragon. Azula had trained her to finish what she had not been able to. Kaji could not give in simply because she no longer had Azula to personally lay down her next move. Clutching the paper to her chest, Kaji rushed back to her room and grabbed the duffel bag she had not yet unpacked, filled with most of the necessities for travel. A few extra precautions and she was off into the rapidly chilling evening. She knew that she could not be caught by her father or any of the guards. Her exit would have to be unnoticed. Saying a silent prayer for her passed mentor, she disappeared from the memory of the few people who had known of her existence.
"The address was for the old beach house Azula's teachers Lo and Li had lived in. It had been deserted for years, so no one really would have thought to look there. I made connections with followers of Ozai and the old regime scattered across the world. You met some of them in the Northern Water Tribe. Others were secretive benefactors willing to lend me monetary support. I enlisted Agent Kain's support and the Dai Li as a foothold in the Earth Kingdom. My grandmother had been planning for the rise of the Fire Nation for decades before my birth. I was simply the final missing piece. And everything was coming together. Upon Prince Iroh II's coronation- I had just turned nineteen- I was to seize the throne, which was the simplest part of the entire scheme. After that, I set my sights on undermining the Earth King through a new, highly addictive drug, called Opium. Having economic control of Ba Sing Se and its legislative body was just about as good as military conquest. The Water Tribes were weaker, easier to take down when I had the right cover. The plan was nearly flawless, except…"
"Me," Korra finished.
Kaji nodded, "The Avatar had always been a wild card, but you had been locked up in the training facility of your masters for the majority of the time I spent working on my plans. It was only after I met you that I recognized that I was becoming a liability to my own purpose."
"Love is not a liability," Korra insisted. She wanted Kaji to see that their meeting was fated. The world was never meant to be conquered and ruled by one. It was simply that, instead of being defeated by the sword, the Fire Lord had been destined to be defeated by her heart. "I am glad that we met."
"I thought about how things would have turned out had I never met you," Kaji murmured. Korra's heart sank. The firebender continued, "I couldn't do it. It hurt too much to even fathom a universe where I had never been able to be around you.
There was silence. The story had been told. The individual schematics and tactical calculations mattered not. Korra couldn't help but feel relieved. The things she had learned were not easy to process, but she was happy that she had been given a small window to Kaji's life. She could not have felt better, even in the solemnity of the bittersweet memories. Still, if there was ever anything predictable about the Royal, it was that she could not let go of her promise to her caregiver. Looking at the forlorn way with which Kaji stared at her feet, Korra knew that her battle for the firebender was hardly over.
"I-" they both began simultaneously. Twins could not have been more synchronized than the two girls trapped within the enclosed space, each blushing and chewing at their bottom lip while scooting their legs up to enfold them with their arms.
Kaji was the first to finish, surprising the both of them, "I don't know what I'm doing anymore."
The confession was unexpected, to say the least. Korra had always believed that Kaji was a woman who held an assured path in front of her and would determinedly do whatever was necessary to achieve the goal at the end of it. In a way, it was justification for the both of them, a reason for their places on opposite sides of the resurging world war. It had justified Kaji's rejection of Korra's olive branch when she had come to the Fire Nation so long ago, questioning the extent to which the Royal loved her. It had justified Kaji's attacks on the Northern Water Tribe, her deceptions, her lies. That wasn't to say, however, that Kaji's conviction had ever served as excusing for her actions. A deep part of Korra would never completely forget the pain of having her heart broken for the second time, so close to its rejuvenation. No, never would it be enough for that, but it felt so final. That finality had made it possible for Korra to find the determination with which to choose the world over her lover- even if the decision still tore at her insides and overturned her entire being. But now, to have the one-mindedness of the firebender's character placed in doubt also brought doubt on Korra's righteousness. The issue became whether she could, in good conscience and without regret, give Kaji over to whatever punishment awaited her upon their return if there was even the smallest possibility that the firebender would choose to love her.
"My entire life, my existence, it was all for the sole purpose of achieving what my predecessors could not. I was to rekindle the honor of Sozin's line and make amends for the failures of Ozai, Zuko, and Azula; now, with this," the gesture was a tight clench of the fingers of the right hand over the fabric hanging above the flesh and bone covering the throbbing heart of the girl who no longer resembled a fearsome creature of power; just a very frightened, very confused, very mortal girl. "What do I do when I don't want to do that, but I have known nothing else?"
Korra shifted as close to the inferno dwelling within the rags adorning the frail Fire National as she dared. She could not have hoped to muster enough courage to grasp the extended fingers of the left hand that had slipped from its place over Kaji's knees to lie flat against the gravelly ground; instead, she tried to convey as much comfort as possible through the synapse between their legs, now only a centimeter or less apart.
"You learn something else," Korra whispered.
Kaji silently shook with hysterical laughter, finding the prospect both futile and tantalizing, "Like what? I was born out of destruction… and destruction is what I am destined for. I cannot know anything else."
Korra's hand flew across the chasm between them, connecting with the Royal's left cheek in a resounding slap that left her hand stinging as well as the compulsory burning. Kaji, herself, looked like she had just seen a four hundred foot tall purple platypus bear with pink horns and silver wings trot through a meadow in a flowery tutu. Her hand slowly, laced with uncertainty, came to rest upon the tender flesh of her reddened cheek. The twinge of discomfort was unmistakable, and yet so foreign to her. Her body had suffered much abuse, as was normal for a warrior's lifestyle, but being struck in such a manner was quite anomalous for her.
"I'm not going to say sorry for that," Korra tucked her hand into her armpit to nullify some of the discomfort by suppressing the pain receptors. Her face was pulled into a stubborn pout as she stared down the dumbstruck girl sitting opposite of her. "You are an idiot if you believe that. I don't know who got that into your head- because I can tell it wasn't your grandmother and she seems to be the only one whose opinions hold sway over you- but whoever it was must have been a fucking magician to be able to remove all common sense from your brain!"
Kaji heard the words, and in some primitive alcove of her mind, she did comprehend their meaning. For the most part, unfortunately, all other thought patterns had been sharply interrupted. All that managed to come to the forefront of her addled head, and escape her gaping mouth, was, "You… you just slapped me."
"And I would do it again!"
"W-what? Why?" the silly quirk of Kaji's eyebrows and the way her mouth was still unable to comprehend how to shut itself was nearly enough to thaw the iciness with which Korra regarded her. Nearly, but not quite.
"Why? Because you deserved it!" There was no filter anymore. Whether the screen of politeness had been simply drawn or completely cut to ribbons mattered little. The Avatar smacked the floor to quell the urge to give Kaji another smack for being so dense and injuring her hand further. "All of this self-pity and talking about destiny… It won't work with me. You did what you did because you felt it was what would bring you happiness, or some form of gratification. So don't say that you were created for destroying things. If you did something, then you did it for a reason, but it was your choice!"
Kaji's clenched her hands into tight fists, her knuckles whitening. She despised the truth with which the words rang. It had been a cowardly act to blame such a fickle, uncertain thing as 'fate' for the actions she had committed. Still, the lingering effects of breeding and upbringing held a firm grip over her instinctual reflexes. She had never really been very good at 'fixing' something that was broken. She had been taught that what was broken was so because it had been weak, and therefore it would never be worth the effort of nurturing it back to health. Was it not more prudent to search for an improvement?
"I was never any good at fixing or healing anything," the firebender said her thoughts aloud. Her mouth quirked down, unhappily remembering the one time she had tried to help a young bird with a broken wing when she had been five or six years old. She had received a scathing scolding and the bird had soon died in her little, crude hands in spite of her good intentions.
"You fixed me," Korra breathed. She had never revealed the extent to which Kaji had uplifted her. The Fire Lord, for all of the misleading remarks and subtle betrayals, had been the one thing Korra had desperately needed. She had been the one who showed Korra that there was life after love lost.
"And then I tore down everything I had built with you like the idiot that I am," the self-loathing caked every syllable bit out from between gritted teeth. "I should have recognized that what I had was worth more than the conquest of the world ever could amount to."
Korra was left speechless for a second. It was finally out in the open. The regret, but also the complete spectrum with which the Royal felt she loved the Avatar. Kaji had said it; the world, forgotten in sacrifice to Kaji's passion. Her fists were clenched around handfuls of dirt; she liked having something solid to feel when everything seemed to be disintegrating around her.
"You know, doing something for yourself every once in a while, isn't betraying Azula," Korra treaded lightly over the fractured ice of Kaji's psyche. "She would have wanted you to be happy in the end. I didn't know her, but I'm sure that, because of all that you said, she loved you and she wanted you to live your life without regrets. Maybe that's why she wrote the letter to you. She had seen what her ancestors had strived to do and how they went about doing it; she saw what her father had wanted; she had reflected on her own desires and she recognized that she had only done what had been expected of her… until she had you. She saw the Dragon when she saw you finding love and finding your own way in the world, without the chains of obligation and others' ambitions to keep you from soaring."
Kaji gaped at the younger girl, reveling in her unforeseen analytical insight. Smiling, she playfully remarked, "You know, sometimes you're smarter than you look."
"Whatever," Korra rolled her eyes at the witticism. "At least I'm not the dunderhead that couldn't figure it out until the end of the world."
"True," Kaji relented, "but you were always raised to be the hero. Some of us had more ambiguous upbringings."
P.S: Thanks for reading. I appreciate every view and favorite and follow. It makes me happy that the story is being read. Reviews help me see whether you enjoyed it or not and each one is cherished to the utmost, but just knowing that people open up their time for the chapters is a really cool thing. Full of love for you all, I hope you enjoyed. PM me, or review, or just read. All of the above make my day. Sorry for any grammatical errors; Word can't catch 'em all and neither can I. See you next chapter. :)