"Heads up, Zaheer, you have a visitor!"
My son's eyes flew open from his place, sitting cross-legged in a meditative state.
They said he would never bend the elements. I thought in awe at his flowing, graying hair, floating with the gust of air from his bending. Neither his father nor the current avatar had achieved that level of mastery, making him a rare bender like his mother, the only firebender known to bend the purest form of fire in skin melting blue flames. He's done more than just bend the element. He has mastered it. Pride flooded my heart despite not seeing his face since he was a small child. My son, a master bender.
Though my heart swelled with pride, for one of the few times in my life, I felt like a complete, utter failure. His look was skeptical, distrusting, yet curious. His face, wrinkled with age and stress, was every bit his father, though his short stature was a royal family trait.
"Who are you?" Inquired the thirty-five-year-old, gazing over my youthful appearance with instant disdain. "I thought you were someone else," he grumbled quietly.
Of course he wouldn't recognize me. I thought. I chose to forget him first.
Zaheer was barely ten when I chose to walk from my life of complete luxury as the wife of a living god without looking back until now. I had sought a different path in what I will admit now was the fear of ruining my small family. The result of my leaving led to breaking my husband's heart and sending our son spiraling down his current, detrimental path. Luck has it that I had still unintentionally repeated my mother's mistake.
It's not your fault. It was my fear. I wanted to say. It's not your fault, I did not love you enough. The words were still biting, more so as I a gazed at my son's green eyes that hid years of suffering.
"Are you going to speak, Woman!" He growled, rattling his chains with rage.
I wrung my hands and bit my lip, even after all the years of dealing with hostile men who towered over me, reducing them to speechless, squabbling rodents, I had no words for this man. This flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood is my son. Behind my false form, granted by the Mother of Faces's pity for my unfortunate soul, I was still Ursa's daughter.
"I am…" My voice broke, I could not speak to him! What right do I have now? Could I say that I was sorry? Am I really sorry?
"Get out! I do not know you!"
I nodded, solemnly, but before I could turn, I used the false form to my advantage. I could have been a prosperous Ember Island actor in another life. With an air of boldness, I looked him in his eyes and spoke to my son after so many long years. "I know you do not know me, but I wanted to let you know that your mother loved you and never meant to hurt you".
My son flinched openly shocked. "You—you…how do you know this?"
"Just trust me," I assured him, turning to leave.
"Trust is for fools!" He growled after me as the white lotus members closed the stone to his cage and we vanished from one another's life once again.
"Feeling better?" Asked Zuko, offering a comforting arm.
I waved him away. "I said what I needed to. There is no changing the past".
"You can always start over, Azula".
I nodded. I intended to do just that before it was forever too late. If only I could have said the same to his father. It was always fear. There is no changing the past.
