A. N. : Blue is the color most associated with Azula, in everything from her name to her fire. Incidentally, blue is also the color of the chakra residing in the throat, dealing with truth and blocked by lies to oneself. I don't know if that was intentional on Bryke's part, but I've been using this coincidence for quite a while now, in my chapter titles and in-story, and will continue to do so.

Father is going to kill her.

That isn't true. Reasonably, logically, Azula knows this to be impossible. She conquered Ba Sing Se, she has prestige and the support of the Nation, even the Fire Lord wouldn't dare take that risk. And Father didn't kill Zuko.

Father didn't kill Zuko.

Reasonably, logically, there is no way Father would kill her today.

But the throne room is the hottest it's ever been as far as Azula remembers, to the point breathing almost hurts, to the point the ground feels like it will melt under her feet, to the point Azula's voice holds the same weight as ashes.

The Avatar is alive. Azula failed. That makes two, and this one she can't twist into something she isn't responsible for.

Azula failed. It should be impossible, she struck the Avatar's heart with her lightning, she killed him, there should be no way – reasonably, logically – no way he survived.

The world doesn't make sense anymore, she finds. The Avatar lived, Azula failed, Father summoned her and hasn't said a word since she entered the room.

If the world doesn't make sense, if she too is a failure the likes of Zuko, then maybe she will die today. But no, no, she is better, she is –

She isn't Zuko. She isn't Zuko she isn't a failure she will fix this – Father knows she can fix this, she has never let him down before, that's why she is the heir and Zuko is the failure, that's why she is worthy –

Father rises from the throne, suddenly. The flames part to give way, and his walk towards Azula is calm and focused, pace steady, the way it always is. Azula always admired the way Father moves, full of intent and barely hidden danger, always thrived to imitate it herself.

Father's walk looks like a puma-cat's in its grace – it also feels this way, kneeling in front of him, waiting for the sentence, the same as a woolly-deer paralyzed in front of death.

This, Azula knows, is the last thing Zuko saw with both eyes intact. But she will not beg, she will not disgrace herself, not even when Father raises a hand and the flames in his back grow stronger.

She refuses to be Zuko.

The blow she expects does not come. Surely Father saw that she wouldn't disappoint him any further, that she is better, that he can count on her.

Do not fail me again, he says, and Azula hears the finality in his voice. There is smoke in her throat, she thinks, that has to be the reason no sound comes out of her mouth when she tries to answer. Father doesn't wait, anyway, he turns his back and dismisses her.

When Azula rises, her legs feel weak. That's absurd of course, she wasn't even kneeling for that long, there is no reason for this to be happening. Azula isn't weak, isn't Zuko, isn't a failure, isn't afraid –

The flickering shadows on the wall seem to laugh at her as she walks past them – was there a Dai Li agent there ? She will not allow mockery, not ever, especially not now, when she needs perfection and perfect submission for her plan to succeed.

A plan. She needs a plan. She needs a way to regain Father's trust, a way to ensure both the Avatar and Zuko are dealt with, definitively, before the eclipse and the chaos such a fight will bring about.

She needs certainty. She needs her legs to keep moving and her hands to stop shaking and the ash in her throat to be gone – that knot in the flow of her chi is still here, worse than before, she needs it gone, she doesn't have the time for acupuncture anymore, she has to be quick and efficient and reactive and she needs the world to make sense again. She will make the world make sense again.

Everything has to be perfect. She will not fail.

She can not fail.