On The Edge

Chapter III: Guest

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à la folie. ( to insanity )

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"Smoked sea slug, Lady Azula?"

It took a lot of my willpower to force myself to look away from the half-fearful, half-smiling face of the servant girl offering me a plate of the steaming dish. I nodded quietly and she slid the plate in front of me before bowing and scurrying away.

We had only made it to the main course and I had already had enough. Not of the food, but of the way everyone was treating me. That servant girl had been the last of at least a dozen other servants who had looked terrified to even approach me. It was as if I was some kind of rabid animal, waiting to strike. And if I made a sudden movement, they would cringe as if I intended to slap them.

I had to admit, it hurt.

Meanwhile, no one other than the servants offering me food had spoken to me. Zuko mainly spoke to Aang or remained in a brooding sort of silence. When one of the servants placed a purely vegetarian dish in front of him, Aang enthusiastically thanked him. It was only when another servant offered him a beverage ("Ginseng Tea, Avatar Aang?") that I realized with a jolt Aang wasn't just any Air Nomad. He was the Avatar. I vaguely recalled his title being mentioned along with Zuko's earlier, but I'd been more distracted at the prospect of Zuko being Fire Lord than Aang's status as the Avatar.

Looking back, I should have paid more attention to the fact Aang was the Avatar. I felt I should have treated him with more respect than I did. I had thought of him as a mere boy when he was, in fact, the master of all four elements and the keeper of peace in our world.

"What are you looking at?" Katara snapped when she caught me staring at Aang (no doubt looking dumbfounded).

I looked down at my dish, flushing. "I - it's just, I didn't expect the Avatar to be..." I trailed off helplessly. Katara continued to glare but Zuko looked up sharply.

"You don't know Aang is the Avatar?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"But you know of the Avatar?"

I nodded in confirmation.

Zuko sat back in his chair, not saying anything else, and Katara set her jaw and glowered. "I still don't believe her. It's all some part of a scheme to kill Aang, I'm sure of it."

"Why would I want to kill Aang?" I burst out. I folded my arms. "Or anyone, for that matter," I added.

Katara looked like she wanted to rip my head off while Sokka casually speared a komodo sausage and said, "I think that question would be best answered by our friend Zuko. What do you say?" He pointed the end of his sausage at Zuko before biting it off the end of his chopstick.

Zuko sighed in exasperation. "That's a long and complicated story." He gave me a sideways glance, looking wary. "And I'm not sure you would want to know anyway."

I bit my lip. He was right, I wasn't sure I wanted to know what I might have done in my past and my reasoning for wanting to kill anyone. But I at least wanted to know why he thought Azula would have wanted to kill the Avatar. "What happened that would have caused me to have a desire to kill Aang?" I asked.

Everyone was quiet. Even Sokka had stopped eating to look between me and Zuko. The Fire Lord looked far older than nineteen for a moment as his gold eyes went out of focus. "Because for a long time the Fire Nation wanted the Avatar dead. And you, as...part of the Fire Nation, also had a desire to kill him." He closed his eyes a moment. "You were just more determined than anyone else."

A whole nation wanted the Avatar dead? It didn't make any sense. "Why would the Fire Nation want Aang dead?" I wanted to know. "He keeps the peace and balance in our world. Why would anyone want to ruin that?" I let out a shaky breath, perturbed by everyone's gazes on me, and looked for something to do. I grabbed a knife and started busily cutting into the smoked sea slug.

"You mean you don't remember anything that's happened in the past hundred years?" I didn't look up, but Zuko's tone sounded shocked. "You were the one that remembered our history lessons best."

"No, I don't remember - " I started, looking up briefly.

I caught Sokka's eye just as he exclaimed, "I think that's a good question to ask your great-granddad Fire Lord Sozin!"

The knife abruptly slipped from my grip and flew off the edge of the table, clanging loudly to the floor at my feet. I stared blankly at Sokka and hardly noticed that Zuko seemed to be shoving his chair back in a burst of emotion. Sokka's exclamation had been directed to me, but surely, surely, he wasn't talking about my great-grandfather. Zuko was related to the previous Fire Lords, not me. Surely not me. Because then...

I stood up suddenly and half the table stood up with me, looking alarmed at my movement. Distantly, I thought I would have to get used to everyone's tension since they all seemed to be expecting me to attack them. But right then I didn't particularly care. I had to be alone.

I pushed off of the table and raced across the length of the room. I felt a shard of ice skim the side of my arm, but I didn't stop or slow down. I bolted through the hallways, ignoring the shouts behind me. The guards I did see didn't react quickly enough to my entrance and I rushed past them easily. My feet were taking me through the palace as if I owned the place, like they had a mind of their own and knew exactly where to go. I blindly ran down a last hallway and kicked open the final door to the right, slamming it closed behind me.

I slid slowly down the door and sat with my back pressed against it. I pulled my knees up to my chin and tried to get my breathing under control. It wasn't all the running that had taken my breath away - it was the panic. I could feel it rising in my throat like bile, threatening to overwhelm me. This was all too much. I couldn't handle this.

"Azula!"

A shout echoed down the hallway and I knew that they had caught up to me. So much for getting my breathing under control. I felt like I was drowning again, except this time it was something worse than water and waves.

There seemed to be voices arguing. It went on like that for a while and I caught snippets of the furious conversation:

" - she'll attack you - "

" - it's all a trap, she's going to - "

" - we don't know that - !"

Finally, the voices stopped and I sagged in relief. I pressed my cheek to my knee, breathing deeply, my eyes closed.

A soft knock on the door made me jump.

"Azula, will you let me in?"

That was definitely Zuko's voice. He didn't sound mad or frustrated or upset at all. I waited another moment before scooting away from the door settling myself against the wall a few yards away.

"Okay," I said.

There was another moment's hesitation and then the door opened. Zuko leaned his head in, not inching forward another step until his eyes found me. Then he pushed into the room, closing the door behind him, and tentatively sat a couple feet away from me.

We sat in silence for several minutes, just looking at each other. His posture was impeccable: formal, straight-backed, his hands in his lap. The posture of a true Fire Lord. Yet, I thought it didn't suit him. His black hair was still messy and damp-looking from his dive into the sea. He'd changed out his wet clothes for new ones earlier, an offer that I hadn't been given. He looked strong and fit and capable of being a Fire Lord, but he still looked so young. He couldn't be twenty yet. I wondered how much pressure that put on him. A teenage Fire Lord. I wondered how the Fire Nation citizens felt about him. Did they love him or were they skeptical of him? I had nothing to go off of since I didn't know of the events that had led him to where he was today, sitting here with a half-insane girl.

"Why did you run away?" he asked at last.

I tried very hard not to think about the implications of Sokka's words. So I simply said, "I got scared."

He ran a hand through his hair and then his posture slumped into something I would expect from a teenager. Now his weight was all on his elbows as he rested them on his thighs. The posture suited him better. "You sort of scared us, too," he retorted, sounding a little frustrated.

"Sorry," I muttered.

We were quiet for a while after that short exchange too. I tore my eyes away from him long enough to scan the room I was in. It was large, grandiose, and most of it didn't seem to have many personal additions from the owner other than a painting above the large bed. It was a picture of a young, pretty girl kneeling in between the tall, looming figure of a man and her hair was being gently touched by the gentle-looking woman standing beside him. I focused on the young girl, seeing she had her hair up in a neat bun with a crown placed in front of it. Only two strands of hair escaped the bun and framed her face.

"Zuko," I said, grabbing his attention. I looked sharply away from the painting, a feeling a dread flooding over me. "Who is Azula?"

He held my gaze for a long moment before he looked briefly around the room. "Azula is the crown princess of the Fire Nation. She's my sister." His eyes rested on the painting across the room. "And this is her room."

I looked down. My hands were trembling in my lap. I felt as if I had known it all along but I still couldn't believe it. "Am I really Azula?"

Zuko let out a bitter laugh. "Not the Azula I know."

I glanced up at him. He looked a little guilty and he couldn't meet my eyes. We were quiet for another span of time and I slowly got my breathing and panic under control. I started to accept everything. I started to accept what had to happen now. When Zuko could meet my eyes again, I spoke.

"Then can you forget about the Azula you knew?" I asked.

His golden eyes widened a fraction, and then narrowed. "No," he said darkly. Before I could protest, he went on, "But I can help you find a better version of yourself." His lips turned up into a small but genuine smile. "Don't worry, I've had prior experience."

I got the feeling he was talking about himself. "Okay," I agreed. I hesitated, then added, "But if you can...don't tell me about the person I used to be. I have a bad feeling that could ruin everything."

Author's Note: Thank you guys so much for the reviews! I'm glad you guys are still interested in reading on after the second chapter. I feel like some people sort of lose interest after the cliffhanger of the first chapter but a lot of you guys are still here so that's great! I have a lot planned for this story!

Guest: So she remembers that a sky bison is a giant bison-manatee hybrid that flies? And winged lemurs are lemur-bat hybrids? Does she remember the hundred year war and its major events: purges of the Air Nomads, fall of Ba Sing Se, attack of the Northern Water Tribe etc?

- She knows of the beasts of the world she lives in, just like everyone knows what a dog is because it's part of the world we live in. Sky bison and flying lemurs were likely in abundance when the Air Nomads were still around so it wouldn't make sense if Azula had no clue what they were yet also didn't know what happened to the Air Nomads. She knows nothing of the Hundred Year War or its major events. It's like none of it ever happened. So it'll be quite a rude awakening when she has to be told her family started a war against the rest of the world, hahhh.

So that just about wraps it up for this chapter. I thoroughly enjoy writing scenes with just Zuko and Azula and I'm excited for more of their interactions in future chapters. They've never had a normal brother-sister relationship so we'll see more of that in upcoming chapters. ;)

Until the next chapter!

- mari