Author's Note:
This story is a sequel to A.D. Curtis's "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle." You will not understand this story unless you read that one first.
Before I began to write this story in earnest, I contacted A. D. Curtis and let her know my plans, and she gave me her permission for the project. I offered to let her read the story ahead of publication and she declined. She neither endorses nor un-endorses this story. She has generously stepped aside to allow me to take control and responsibility for what I write.
Here is a short summary of "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" to refresh your memory, not to substitute for reading it:
Zuko frees Aang from the iceberg. However, en route to return home with the Avatar, Zhao apprehends Aang from Zuko, taking the Avatar and the glory for himself, while sending Zuko back into exile. Back in the Fire Nation, Ozai raises Aang as a member of his own family, a Prince of the Fire Nation. Aang is abused and manipulated and lied to in order to make him a weapon for the Fire Lord to wield against the world. Meanwhile, Zuko and Iroh form a rebellion in the Earth Kingdom against the Fire Nation's rule. Katara joins. She believed Sokka dead, killed in a Fire Nation raid, until she gets word that he is alive, living as a prisoner in the Fire Nation. About 7 years after the return of Sozin's comet, when Aang is 19 and Katara 21, she goes there to rescue her brother, and becomes the Avatar's new waterbending teacher. Aang and Katara fall in love. However, Azula-who has also fallen in love with Aang (in her own twisted kind of way)-arranges an engagement between her and the Avatar. After many twists and turns, Aang, Katara, Azula, and Ozai have a confrontation. Just as Ozai tries to kill Aang with a lightning blast, Azula stabs her father in the back, killing him and absorbing a near-fatal shock. At Aang's request, Katara heals Azula. Aang, Katara, and Sokka are able to escape to join the rebellion, and Azula (mind fractured) becomes the Fire Lord.
This is an Azula redemption story. In canon, Azula redemption is implausible. But in this AU, Azula has not committed the same sins. Most importantly, she did not attempt to kill Aang with a shot to the back. And she spent 6 years growing up alongside Aang, who of course influenced her positively. Her love for Aang is unhealthy, but selfless enough to motivate her to sacrifice herself to save him. No one who does something like that is beyond redemption.
This Azula is not canon. She has a 'heart of gold,' and there is no evidence for that in canon. There is only a little evidence for that in "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle." However, imagining a version of Azula with a hidden potential for good creates narrative possibilities that I wanted to explore with this story. If that sounds interesting to you, then this is the story for you.
This is not an Azulaang story. I have labeled it Azula/OC, and I always label my stories honestly. In the universe of this story, the AU from "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle," Azula and Aang have a complicated history that includes growing up together under abusive conditions, and an ill-conceived, coerced, aborted engagement. This story deals with the ramifications of that history, and its continuing impacts on Azula. The Kataang relationship that develops in "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" is true love, as solid and enduring as the one in canon, and in my other writing. No machinations, even by a schemer as skilled as Azula, could end that love, even momentarily. Kataang (and Maiko) are together throughout this story, but they are primarily offstage. There will be some Kataang scenes, and a subplot, especially in the first third of the story, and then they will mostly disappear from this story until the climax. The main character here is Azula.
The Head that Wears the Crown
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown - King Henry IV, Part II, William Shakespeare.
Chapter 1
"The Avatar has murdered my father," Azula declared, placing the gleaming crown into her own topknot. "Now I am the Fire Lord."
From her seat on the half-destroyed royal seat, she surveyed the guards as they took in the rubble of the throne room, daring them to deny her authority. They eyed each other uncertainly a moment, before one bowed. Once the first man was kneeling, the others quickly followed suit. None wished to attract attention by being the last standing. The corner of her lips tilted up at their obeisance.
"Shall I send for the royal physician, and the Fire Sages, my lord?" The captain of the guard, Jinan, ventured to say. "They must certify the death of Fire Lord Ozai, and prepare his body for cremation."
"Very well."
A pair of guards left the ranks, and headed out the door.
"Which way did the Avatar go, my lord? Perhaps we can still catch him." Jinan asked eagerly.
Azula knew exactly where Aang had headed: to that beast of his. It was true, that stop would give the guards time to apprehend him. But if they caught him, what then? The idea of the execution that would inevitably follow made her feel sick.
At her shoulder, Mai snickered. "Brilliant idea, blame the murder on the guy you can't live without. That'll make him love you for sure."
"Straight out through the ceiling, captain," Azula replied easily, pretending as always not to hear Mai. Luckily, the others appeared to be ignoring her as well. "You know he can fly. There's no telling how far he could have gone by now."
"If he had the girl with him, that might slow him down." The captain calculated. "We'll fan out in all directions and search the skies from the battlements. We have war balloons to pursue him by air…."
"Don't bother." Azula commanded, channeling her alarm into imperiousness.
"How dare you let him get away," a cold, hard voice chilled her. She froze, staring at her father's still body. It had not moved, but he was speaking to her. A ghost? Fear clenched her heart. Would he haunt her now, since she had killed him? Would she never escape him?
The guards looked at each other uneasily. One of them ventured, "Pr—my lord, are you well?"
"Of course I'm not well." She snapped to attention and glared at the young guard who had spoken. "This was clearly a traumatic event. Excuse me for feeling momentarily disturbed at being jilted, orphaned, and crowned in the same night."
Captain Jinan's surprise had a hint of reproach. "But, my lord, your father's murderer cannot be allowed—"
"I will avenge my father, make no mistake," she vowed, speaking to her father's spirit as well as the captain. "But I will do it in my own time, in my own way. I will plan it carefully, to ensure success. Without methodical preparation, your guards would only waste their lives against such a powerful opponent." She did not particularly care about the guards' lives, and knew Aang, the silly pacifist, would strike to incapacitate rather than to kill. But the captain didn't know that, and he valued his men's lives, so it was a winning argument.
That was when the royal physician entered: Yoroh, a tall, ancient man with sharp shoulders under his flowing robes. After a small bow to Azula, he knelt by the body, just outside the pool of blood. He checked for a pulse, then turned the man enough to see the stunned expression on his face.
"May I ask what caused this destruction, my lord?" Jinan gestured to the fallen pillars, the hole in the ceiling. "We were alarmed as we listened to the…conflict. I suppose this is the Avatar's doing?"
"Smart one here," Mai snorted.
"Exactly." Azula focused her attention on the captain, blocking out Mai. If she listened to her sarcastic friend, she might start laughing, and then she might never stop.
"Was he in the Avatar state? Some of this damage looks like it was caused by…."
"Yes, by lightning. My father was going to finish the Avatar with a lightning attack, but he channeled the energy to the ceiling."
"It was not the lightning that killed him, but this." The royal physician spoke up, pointing at the knife in Ozai's back.
"You ungrateful wretch," Father spat, causing her to flinch.
"The waterbender did that." Azula told them, covering for her lapse as smoothly as she could. "At exactly the moment he sent his lightning toward the Avatar." The explanation fit. Aang couldn't have stabbed Ozai in the back if he was in front of the man, channeling the lightning. But, conveniently, Katara had been there, too. The only other person in the room. Besides herself, of course.
"But you said the Avatar was the one who killed your father." Jinan reminded her.
"It all happened very quickly. I could not tell whether the cause of death was the stab wound or the lightning." She waved her hand as if the identity of her father's murderer was a mere detail. "The Avatar worked together with his whore to bring down my father."
"Good save," Mai muttered, rolling her eyes.
"I thought she was tied up." The captain objected.
"She was, when you left the room. But my father wished to punish both of them, and that required untying her."
"If the girl stabbed him at the moment when he was performing a lightning attack, the electricity would have been channeled by the metal of the knife." The physician put in. "It probably would have killed her."
Chilled by the explanation of her own near demise, Azula forced herself to shrug. "Maybe it did. The Avatar carried her out. I couldn't tell if she was alive or dead." If only that were true….
"Where did she get this knife?" The physician asked. He looked up at Azula, perhaps recognizing the hilt as Mai's.
"How should I know?" Azula snapped. "What right do you have to question me?"
"I merely seek to understand, my lord," the physician bowed.
"What is there to understand? The waterbender stabbed my father in the back, while her lover destroyed the throne room my ancestors built. They will be brought to justice." Her voice was final, ending all questions. It took effort to hide the panic at what that search for justice might require of her. But she was practiced at such dissembling, and trusted herself to come up with a suitable plan in time. Her face showed nothing but confidence as she turned to the immediate future. "But first, we must have a funeral. And," she grinned, "a coronation."
Then a great bustling work began, the sages surrounding her father's body, the guards sweeping the palace perimeter, the maids cleaning the rubble of the throne room. It was the middle of the night, and the exhaustion of the party, the hurt of Aang's betrayal, and the impact of her healed injuries seemed to hit Azula all at once, as soon as she had written the history of the evening and ensured her own survival. Tomorrow there would be more work: preparation for the celebrations to come, decisions to make about how to proceed with the war, now that the Avatar was on his way to join the Resistance. Her first full day as Fire Lord would surely require even more of her than this eventful evening, and she would be more alone than ever. The crowd of voices in her own head did not truly count.
She made her way to her bedroom, glancing at her father's door, and noting that his bedroom was hers now. Another thing to deal with later. But first, rest.
She undressed, tossing her armor to the floor. Just as she was getting ready to lie down, a knock sounded at her door.
She opened it a crack and saw the ancient physician.
"I wanted to see if you needed medical attention. In case you were injured defending your father from the Avatar's treachery. Perhaps a…..stray bolt of lightning that may have damaged your royal person?"
Alarm bells rang. He knows! Azula stifled a gasp.
"Of course he knows, dumb ass." Mai rolled her eyes, behind the man. "Anyone who knows Aang, knows he wouldn't hurt a fly. And anyone who knows your family, knows its history of patricide."
From the corner, Mother hinted, "He won't tell on you if you treat him kindly and pay him off."
Azula mustered a false smile and let him in. "Thank you for your concern. You may examine me if you like." She turned, and the doctor followed her into the room. She took a seat at her vanity and he bent over in front of her.
He focused first on her right arm, looking for burns. "The Water Tribe healers are quite remarkable," he said conversationally. She ignored that remark, unwilling to incriminate herself by taking the bait. The man listened to her heart with his instrument, then moved it lower on her abdomen. "There's something….off, but I can't put my finger on it." He murmured. "If you could take a break from your training for a week or so, and let me observe you again…."
"Fine," Azula decided to go along with the physician's cautious recommendation. She would be too busy with the coronation to keep up with her regular regimen anyway. Recalling how disastrous it would be if the old man blabbed, she forced herself to appease him with a careful compliment. "My family has always valued your advice. I'm sure you know that when you are ready to retire, you will enjoy every comfort."
The doctor smiled kindly at her, and put his instruments away in his bag. But then he paused on his way out the door. "Did he really get away?" he whispered, without turning to face her.
"I told you he did," Azula's irritation came out in her tone.
The old man swallowed, and he bobbed his head in several bracing nods. "Yes, well. Thank you for sparing him."
"I didn't spare him." She corrected testily.
"Of course." He turned halfway and gave another small bow. "Good night my lord."
Author's Note: I plan to post new chapters on Fridays.