A/N: Guess who's back! Here is the next chapter, it took me a surprisingly long time to get into the rythm of this one, but once I found it, BAM! I'm really happy with how it turned out, this is the last filler chapter before we get back to the more plot-y stuff for a while. Let me know what you think of this one!
DISCLAIMER: NONE OF IT IS MINE I TELL YOU!
Chapter 22: Sick Day, Twisted Night
Azula was sick.
Ther was no way around it. She had never been sick in her life and now she could finally say she had the experience.
It was not a good one.
Katara had awoken the morning after their drinking game, ready to start her chores and training Aang. She remembered having crashed in Azula's room due to the peephole situation. She would really have to get that checked out. Then again, payback was in order. And a peephole did go a way-
Katara's thought process was violently cut off when Azula- who had been sleeping moments before hand- shot awake and started coughing her lungs up.
Katara sat up and put a hand on her friend's shoulder. She then got worried when Azula began smoaking. Literally.
A dark, ashy substance was billowing from the girl's mouth each time she opened it to cough.
Katara's first instinct was to grab for water-and then possibly douse Azula's face- but she remembered having left her water-skins in her room. She groaned.
Azula's coughing had died down slightly, and she was left just sitting there, drowsily taking labored breaths and breathing out ash.
"Stay here, I'm going to get my water."
The waterbender wasted no time in dashing from one room to the next.
She didn't think she was making much noise, but apparently she was, if Toph and Zuko both bursting into her room at the same time yelling "What happened?" was any indication.
Katara turned to Zuko, "Azula is sick."
The firebender stood, dumbfounded for a moment. "…what?"
Katara, who was thinking about the poor Princess all alone and miserable in the next room, sighed and repeated, "Azula-your sister? She woke up coughing smoke."
Toph was already on her way to the next room. Zuko growled something under his breath and made his way to his sister's room as well. Katara grabbed her water-skins and followed.
Upon hearing someone enter her room, Azula looked up from her place under the mountain of a comforter she had arranged over herself. She was sweating like she was trying to fill a bath house, and she could feel her head was filled with something other then just her sharp wit.
Toph had climbed onto the bed-not that Azula noticed, she was too busy trying to stay conscious- while Zuko just stood there, staring at his baby sister. He had never seen her skin that white.
Katara ran into the room without looking where she was going, and into an anchored Zuko. She griped his shoulder as she passed him, making her way to Azula.
"She's not shivering, that's good. This heat must be good for her. It looks like she has a fever, though."
Zuko snapped out of his stupor and walked up next to Katara. "Shivering?"
"Yeah-you know," She gave off an example shiver, looking to Zuko. "What happens when you get too cold? You must have been shivering like crazy when you were dragging Aang through the tundra in the North Pole."
"I didn't know that's what it was called. Fire Nation people don't…Shiver."
Katara shrugged and pulled up her water-skins. She went to uncork them before Toph stopped her.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Sweetness."
"What? Why not? I can help her if she's sick. I can heal her."
"Let's face it. You won't be here everytime one of us gets sick. Let her fight this on her own, it will make her immune system stronger and less vulnerable to sickness later. If you heal her now, it will just hurt her in the long run."
"Where did you learn that?" Zuko asked as he sat down next to her, putting a hand to Azula's forehead, he winced when he felt how warm she was.
"I've had the flu a few times myself. My parents refused to let healers see me. They wanted me to have a stronger system. Something about compensating for being too 'weak and fragile and tiny'" She answered, mimicking her father.
Katara sighed and dropped her water-skins. "Well. The least we can do is make her comfortable. We don't have time for any of us to get sick. The sooner she gets over this, the better." She sat by Azula, seeing that the girl had her golden eyes open slightly.
"Hey Azula. How are you feeling?"
"Like that hangover caught up with me anyway." Her voice was scratchy and hollow, her eyes had lost their brightness- but definetly not their fire.
"Can you still bend?" Zuko asked. Back when the Summer's Flare broke out, some benders got weak enough to temperaraly loose their bending.
Azula answerd by lifting a finger, lighting a small blue flame at the tip.
Zuko nodded, smiling softly.
At that moment, Sokka burst in.
"Hey! Where did everyone-" He stopped short as he caught sight of Azula on the bed. "…What's wrong?"
He rushed over to her side, taking in her watered-down appearance.
If Azula had been healthy enough to think straight, she would have hidden under the blanket like a child. She was sure she looked less then pleasant right now and did not want Sokka seeing her like that.
But of course, all she could do was lie there and feel like crap.
"Azula got sick. Somehow." Katara explained, running her hand over the girl's sweaty hair.
Toph sighed, "She got it from me. I was sick a few days ago. I stayed in my earth tent all day, but I guess she got it anyway."
Zuko ruffled the earthbender's bed head. "Don't sweat it. She'll be fine. She just needs to rest."
Azula herself was dimly aware of people surrounding her. Her battle against whatever it was that was in her system was taking all of her strength. Bending that little plume of fire usually would have been nothing, but this time it had taken a lot out of her.
She was aware someone was running fingers through her hair, and the effect soothed her into a warm and heavy sleep.
The small group decided that even though one of them was sick, training Aang was still important. Toph and Zuko gave him his usual lessons while Katara and Sokka watched over the bed-ridden Princess.
Katara was glad to see that she seemed to be improving over the day, her breathing was getting stronger and she seemed more comfortable in her skin everytime she fell in and out of consciousness.
Such a moment was now, the Princess was waking up.
"Hey there." Katara said softly, recalling how she had spoken to all the infirm patients she visited as the Painted Lady. "Do you need anything?"
Azula looked around the room blerirly. She noted the sun had long since risen and was now making it's downwards decent. She swallowed dryly.
Wincing, she spoke as loudly as she could-which was nothing more then a whisper. "Water."
Katara smiled as she uncorked one of her water-skin's and brought it to Azula's mouth. Azula had the wakefulness to feel slight embarrassment- she felt like a baby that couldn't properly feed herself- but Katara didn't seem to mind. It appeared as though she had done this sort of thing before.
Sokka and Zuko came in then, Sokka carrying a bolw of rice for the Princess.
"Hungry?" He asked as he sat on the bed next Azula. She took one look at the bowl and physicaly felt her stomach turn. She grimced and shook her head.
"No? ok." Sokka set the food on the bed side table and streatched out on the length of the matress.
Azula mustered up enough strength to string together a question, "Won't you all get sick if you're near me?" She rasped, pushing away from Sokka slightly, even though she wanted to stay close to him.
Zuko shrugged, "We'll be fine. Aang and Toph went back to the market to get some food. Aang said there were some sort of vitimins you could take to strengthen your system against this kind of thing. The Air Nomads used them a lot."
"Besides," Sokka added, "I'd rather hang out with a sick Azula then do chores any day!"
Words of agreement came from the other two in the room and Azula felt warmth from something other then her fever filling her up. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt like this, like people actualy cared for her. She smiled a little, feeling the warmth in it's whole, and the warmth that came from those around her. She allowed her illness to pull her into something like sleep.
She was balancing on the edge of the conscious and unconscious worlds, like walking one of those tightropes Ty Lee favored. She felt soft. Aloft. And the sound of someone's voice telling a story filled her hazy mind.
It was her brother's voice. That much she could decipher through the blur of her own mind. The words weren't sharp, had no distinct shape or form, just sounds melding into one another. Yet she still saw with dreamlike clarity the words he spoke forming pictures, like a live play in her mind. His story turning into her dream.
They are small, she and her brother. To small to comprehend anything around them, yet they understand that they have one another. She is barely a year old. She see's his baby face, small and bright and full of child-like life and light. He is grinning down at her as a figure, cloaked in a blurry maroon color stands above him. A soft vibration fills the room as the figure speaks. She doesn't understand what is being said, but Zuko does. He looks up at the blurred out figure, nodding along to the vibrations that make sense to him. Then he is looking down at her again, smiling softly. Clumsily, he leans down-seeming to hang from the arms of the figure- and places a tiny kiss over her left eye. He is pulled back, away. She sees her own tiny, infant hands reaching out, wanting him back but lacking the comprehension and vocabulary to say so.
The figure is back, still blurred out in the face, but she can make out certain features, long dark hair. A shade of gold shining down on her. Soft, warm fingers run over her chubby cheek, and she grasps at them with a strength she doesn't yet know how to control.
And for the first time in her life, she laughs.
/\
Zuko finishes telling about the first time he remembers meeting his baby sister. Katara and Sokka look at her sleeping form, a light and peacful look on her face.
"It's starnge to think of you two as babies. I bet you were so cute!" Katara gushed, turning to a now blushing Zuko.
"Yeah…we grew up fast. She was throwing balls of fire in no time." He smiled as he pulled the blanket tighter around her.
At that time, Aang and Toph rush back in, some strange looking vials and some fire gummies in tow.
"Just in time!" Sokka says quietly, but with all his usual food-related excitement as he snatches the gummies away from Aang.
"Hey! Oh! Sorry." Aang exclaimed before remembering the sleeping Princess not three feet from him.
"How is she doing?" Toph asked as she reclaimed her space on Azula's bed. She handed a vial to Katara, who began reading the lable.
"She just fell asleep." Sokka said, tucking a stray piece of hair behind Azula's ear. She murmered something in her sleep and burrowed further into the covers.
"Here, Toph," Katara said, bending some of the liquid from the vial out and up to the girl's face. Toph huffed-she could drink it on her own thank you- but opened her mouth anyway. Katara continued dealing out the liquid to each member of her mix-matched family.
"Azula can have the rest when she wakes up again." She glanced out the window, seeing the sun had set fully and only light purple groups of light remained as the sky gradually darkened. The moon was shining brightly overhead, and she felt that warm energy thrumming through her. Zuko was right, she rose with the moon.
"I'm going to go practice my bending for a bit. I'll be back soon to make dinner. Give Azula the vitamin if she wakes up." She used Zuko's shoulder as a support to lift herself from the bed.
She got warnings to be safe and to saty out of sight as she left the room.
The rest of the gang stayed with the sick Princess, watching as she sweat out the impurities in her body, slowly but surely getting better.
Katara spent a good hour after sundown practicing, going through her forms and moves with a grace only known by a master. Little did she know a certain firebending master was silently watching over her from the large window in his room, entranced by the beauty of her movments. And kicking himself for how stupid he had been for not joinging her and her family sooner.
The gang as a whole was unaware of the events taking place just a few hours away, in the heart of the Fire Nation capital…
/\
Fire Lord Ozia, Mai found, was a very impatient man.
By the time she had gotten back from the Air temple, settled back into the Fire Nation, and was alerted of his summons, he had been impatiently awaiting her arrival in his throne room for over five hours.
She entered, making her way to the up-raised dias. She bowed low to the dark figure shillouetted in flames before her, waiting for him to address her presence.
"Lady Mai," He finally drawled, allowing her to rise. "You took your time." He was upset, she could tell. She didn't really care. He had promised her something if she took up this job for him, and she was here to make sure he would be ready for her to collect when the time came.
She sighed, "Your children put up more of a fight then we anticipated. They got away."
The Fire Lord growled, "I see that. You failed."
"There's still time. You gave me until the comet. I plan to deliver."
"You better. Your life and the lives of your loved ones are hanging on your ability to complete this task. And you know what I promised you in return for thier heads on silver platters."
Mai nodded slowly, "My family's promotion. The lives of my loved ones. And…" She hesitated. She had never cared for titles, never cared that she had everything she wanted. It made her bored. But she couldn't deny the appeal of his last offer in return for the lives of his children, the power it would bring her, "and the title of Fire Lord."
"Do not forget that you are a last resort. I can have you replaced easily. However, if you wish to be the one ruling this contry at the end of this war, then I suggest you do as told and remember your place. You failed this time, but I will let it pass. Time is on our side. But if you do not have what I want by the time we are through, then it is your head that will be hanging on my wall. Are we clear on that matter, Lady Mai?"
Mai took a shuddering breath. "Yes, my Lord."
She would not fail again.
She would be Fire Lord.
Whatcha all think of that ending? Let me know! Love hearing from you guys- seriously I get so happy, you guys are so sweet (And thanks for sticking with me this whole time!) Leave a reveiw letting me know what you think! Catch ya on the next one!
Writer, out! ~0-0~