Chapter 42

Raiden stood nervously on the other side of the conference room door while the Fire Lord spoke privately with the Avatar, sure that no matter what happened inside, he would hate the outcome.

He couldn't help overhearing when Aang raised his voice: "Never wanted….miserable….treated me like that….denial!" The words alarmed the captain, and forced him to reassess both of the people inside. It seemed Azula had mistreated Aang in some way, so that he was right to leave. From the airbender's perspective, he had not callously jilted the princess, but liberated himself.

While Raiden contemplated this change in perspective, the Avatar swept out of the room, face stormy. Azula did not immediately follow, so the captain ventured inside.

The Fire Lord was seated in one of the chairs at the side of the table, spine slumped, staring at the ground. Raiden's mind instantly went back to her extreme reaction to her last confrontation with her ex-fiance. He knelt at her feet, hoping to prevent catatonia before it set in.

"Azula, look at me," he pleaded.

She turned her stunned, green face to him and muttered, "I'm going to throw up."

Raiden grabbed a wastebasket just in time to catch her vomit. When she was finished heaving, he poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. For a few minutes, she sat there, staring into space, focusing on her breathing.

He was sure such stasis was bad for her. "Shall we go?" he suggested, thinking of her quarters at the governor's mansion. If she felt ill, she should rest before continuing the negotiation tomorrow.

"Yes," she rasped. "Back to the airship. I can't stay here another minute. There's no point, anyway."

Raiden was concerned to hear that she'd come to that conclusion. What about peace in the colonies? he wondered. Nevertheless, he offered his hand to help her up from the chair, and she took it. "I'm here," he murmured, tucking her hand under his arm.

He couldn't tell whether she heard or not, but either way, she let him lead her home.

On the airship, Azula focused on the sky through the window, the inane chatter of the guards, a small flame in her palm, anything to avoid thinking about what Aang had said to her. They arrived late to the palace, and she went straight to bed without even letting Peony take her makeup off. She had a small, ridiculous hope that if she went to sleep, she would find that the whole disastrous meeting had been a dream.

She woke at dawn remembering everything. To keep Aang's words from ringing through her head again, she went out to the training grounds. She ran through her usual workouts, but found she had little energy. Her strikes had their usual precision, but the force behind her bending was lackluster. When she ran, she got winded much too easily. She gave up after a while, and, following her usual routine, went to her office to begin her day.

Her assistant Joshu was there, as always. He offered her tea and gruel, and began talking to her brightly about the partnership with automobile manufacturers. He ran through the daily report: unemployment was down, college enrollment was up, tax revenue was up, the price of rice was flat. Every indicator pointed to success. But she could not bring herself to care.

"Take the day off, Joshu. I'm done here." Azula knew that her normal meetings and lessons had been canceled for the visit to Yu Dao, so her schedule should be clear.

"But the ambassador needs to meet with you," he informed her. "Governor Morishita doesn't know what to do about the proposed election, since you….came home early."

"Have my foreign secretary meet with the ambassador instead. They can send a message to Morishita," she answered wearily.

"But without your word—" the assistant objected.

The Fire Lord knew she'd left a mess behind when she flew from the colony so abruptly, but the last thing she wanted to do was deal with it. "I've appointed educated professionals who are perfectly capable of making policy decisions without my input," she declared, mustering a hint of her usual imperiousness.

"Don't you want—"

She cut him off. "No, I don't." Azula stood and left the room, leaving her breakfast behind.

Raiden was standing outside Azula's office when she left it after only about five minutes. He looked inside and found Joshu stunned. The assistant told him what the Fire Lord had said, and it chilled the captain. He looked for her in her chambers and the library, only to find her in the little garden with the turtle duck pond.

"Taking some time off?" he asked gently, taking a seat next to her on the bench.

"Some time. All time. Whatever." She shrugged.

"You'll have to go back to work someday," he admonished her uncomfortably.

"For what purpose?" she wondered, her voice soft and listless.

"For…the purpose of ruling the Fire Nation," he asserted something self-evident, squinting at her in confusion.

Azula looked at him like he was crazy. "You don't understand, Raiden. The only reason I ever bought into your Szeto idea was because Aang is Szeto. I thought that if I became a good Fire Lord, it would bring him back to me, and it didn't work."

Raiden blinked, perplexed by her logical leap. "Why would you think that?"

She scowled. "I don't know. It seemed rational at the time. More than rational: inspired." She gestured emphatically with her palms reaching up to grasp something that wasn't there. Then her hands dropped ineffectually. "Aang called me deluded."

"Regardless of your motivation at the time, the important thing is that you were inspired to do good work as Fire Lord. And you can continue that good work. The whole world needs you to," he pleaded.

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Aang is married and they're having a baby."

Her statement seemed a non sequitur to him, but her insistence on returning to the topic of the Avatar told him that just as he'd feared, she was heartbroken again. Even though she had said she didn't want a child, it must have been painful to hear that her ex was going to have one with the woman he'd left her for. He could empathize with that, even though it cut him.

"I'm sure it was difficult for you to hear that news," Raiden managed, venturing to touch her hand so she could feel his sincerity. She looked into his eyes, and he could tell how forlorn and abandoned she felt. Seeing the woman he loved suffering hurt him just as much as he'd known it would.

Nevertheless, a part of him, the self-righteous warrior for justice, thought Azula was acting like a spoiled child, refusing to do her job, regardless of the consequences to the world, just because of a romantic rejection, one that was probably justified. He tried to think of a way to bring the conversation back to what he considered the main issue, her duties.

Before he could come up with an opening, she answered with an unhappy little simper: "You have no idea." Then she sighed and turned away. "Leave me alone."

Raiden had no choice but to respect her wishes. He stood, bowed, and left the garden. Disturbed by the Fire Lord's attitude, he decided to call for more help.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Please leave me a review!

I'm going on vacation next week, so I won't be able to post as usual on Friday. I'll post the next chapter in 2 weeks, on Friday, August 4.