A/N: This is a holiday gift sandwiched between Christmas & New Year's. I have been working on this chapter, well, Sokka, can help explain my frustration with it. I wanted to get something to my bestie reviewers: Kslamm and Klimmatt, before 2015 came to a close. You two are my most loyal and true blue fans! Double thank yous! Another happy shout out goes to my new favorites, thank you: Bluewolf545 and AlexFalk. I pay attention to what little action this story gets by the viewing public. No matter how small, you count in big ways in my book! Well enough blathering by me, before Sokka can lead the charge back into our little space odyssey, I must pause for this very special message...
Disclaimer: I do not own anything to either Avatar the Last Airbender or Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.
"Hello, is anybody out there?" Sokka's voice crackles over the intercom. He taps against the speaker. "I've been waiting forever for something to happen. It feels like four months, probably longer since I've been stuck down in Shipie's hold." Sokka floats toward a panel, bumping against it. The subtle action causes him to flip upside down. "No gravity weighing you down can be fun for a little while, but now I'm bored. Am I doomed to linger forever, floating to and fro?" Sokka glances at the floor where his head is hovering inches above; his blue wolf tail dangles down. "I'm starting to wonder if I will ever feel the cool touch of Shipie's decking on my feet again?" He spins himself in a barrel roll, righting himself upwards. His tether goes slack or taut, depending on where he bobs about in the lower cabin. "Hello? Is anyone listening to me?" His hand reaches out to the burnt console that has been pieced back together with his mechanical expertise. The panel is looking in better condition than when it was on fire, but still has a slightly charred appearance. "I've patched up Shipie, but I feel lonely. Someone talk to me, please."
Sokka strokes his chin beard with his left hand, while scratching under his armpit with his other hand. He contemplates his current situation and regrets his impulsive decision to prove Katara wrong and enter into the pai sho tournament. While his logic had a general 'I'll show her' attitude, the results have typically landed him into a hole of trouble. He chuckles over his little pun, referencing a whole lot of trouble he gambled himself into and Katara's nickname for Shipie's hold. If nothing else, he does amuse himself. Why doesn't Katara answer his obvious pleas for human contact? Sokka pounds his fist into his palm with a heavy dose of sibling resentment. His action creates the needed inertia to send him reeling backwards; before he can slam into a wall pane, the tether connected at his waist jerks him forward again. The back and forth motion of his body being yanked in mid-air creates a soothing rocking motion. He is gently lulled into an unusual moment of reflection, a whopping millisecond of total time. Sokka determines in that brief instant, there is no fun being alone out in space. In fact, he would be ecstatic with even a weighty groan over his puns, rather than this empty void of nothingness.
Sokka grabs a handle on the wall panel and abruptly stops his rocking motion. "Am I as insignificant as I fear, mere metaphysical comic relief?" I'm not asking for much, but maybe a little like...Hey Sokka, how's it hanging?" He shrugs his toned shoulders. "I'd say, upside and sometimes sideways." He turns to his side, crosses his feet at the ankles and floats in a reclining position. "Nothing, not even, Good one, Sokka?" A horrifying notion occurs to him. "What if I am truly alone, the only one left?" He spins himself around in a circle, before slamming against the panel and pressing his cheek against the speaker. "Katara, are you there? Angry Prince, can you talk beyond your normal tight grimace? Zuko, if you're there, are you able to make a vocal grimace? Zuko? Anyone?" He strokes the side of the cool metal ship. "At least I have you, Shipie?" Sokka begins to croon a love song to his most prized possession.
Zuko rolls his eyes. What is it with this family? Can no-one be quiet? Glancing at Katara, she has been silent ever since Zuko mentioned love was a weakness. Knowing Katara is lost in her own thoughts, Zuko examines her pensive profile. A twinge of sadness mutes her typical feisty demeanor. There is no blush of anger to her cheeks or flashing blue eyes glaring at him.
What could have her so occupied? Zuko stares out at the shifting mines, easily parting as the ship flies ahead. It can't be what I said. Gripping the steering column, he hunches his shoulders. His forehead furrows with a petulant crease. Zuko doesn't care about the peasant and her rambling brother, who is now singing about his feelings. It's not Zuko's fault that Katara can't accept what he learned a long time ago to be true. Love is a useless sentiment. It will cause you to sacrifice yourself; and in the end, you lose everything precious to you.
Azula's voice chides with boredom in her brother's head, "That's right Zuzu, you and I know how that little scenario went down, don't we?"
"Shut up!" Zuko barks at himself and the sharpening talons of Azula's memory.
Katara sits upright and blinks several times. She glances frantically about the pilot cabin. Noticing Zuko sitting next to her, she is reminded that she is flying through space with a bounty hunter, who happens to be a Prince with a serious bad attitude and probably would greatly benefit from spending several long years on a couch, talking about all of his repressed feelings. Katara wonders if even therapy could help cure Zuko from what ails him.
The singing emitting from the speaker gets Katara's attention. She is flustered with herself that she had let her guard down by getting tangled within her memories of Yon Ra. Redirecting her anger, she glowers at Zuko for being so callous to her brother.
Zuko realizes he snapped his intended insult to his sister out loud and feels suddenly embarrassed. He blusters a plausible excuse. "Your brother won't be quiet." Zuko hopes that will explain his bizarre outburst.
Katara concentrates on maintaining her own self righteous stance, ignoring Gran Gran's sentiments about teapots calling each other the same offense. "You know, you could have responded to Sokka; it wouldn't have killed you to have talked to him."
Zuko huffed, "He's your brother; you talk to him."
Sokka's mournful serenade fills the pilot cabin. A soulful plea to ground control to a major somebody prompts Katara to relieve her brother's apparent suffering. She pushes on the intercom button. "Sokka, you're not alone. There is no need to call ground control or anyone for that matter? We have enough people in the galaxy searching for us."
"Katara! Thank Yue!" Sokka splays against the console with relief. "I thought I was lost out in space, alone."
Katara huffs, "Sokka, if you were so worried, why didn't you come up to the cabin?" Honestly, she wonders if her brother could even survive without her around.
"Great idea, I'll come up…" Sokka raises an eyebrow and chuckles. "I mean, I'll float up there, faster than the speed of light."
"No wait!" Katara realizes she has the perfect excuse to confer with her brother about a potential plan to get rid of Zuko. They need to figure out a way to get out of Draconian space, keep the item away from the angry prince, and make sure that Sokka and her stay alive long enough to collect the bounty. "I'll come down to you." Glaring at Zuko, she adds, "It's getting a little crowded in the cockpit."
"Okay, but hurry, while it is a proven fact that I am entertaining…" Sokka replies flatly with a doleful look around the empty hold. "I have learned that I do not enjoy talking to myself."
"I'll be down in the hole shortly." Katara releases the button and folds her arms. A little irritated crinkle appears between her perfectly arch brows. "Was that so hard, Prince Zuko?"
Anxiety, which had been circulating within Zuko, slowly abates. The corner of his mouth had crept up when Katara barked at him.
"What are you smiling at?" Katara wants to reach out and yank Zuko's flapping pony tail. Her blue eyes flash with annoyance.
"I'm not smiling." Zuko didn't realize he had been grinning. It irritates him, and his mouth falls back into its usual grim line. Hunching over the steering column, he glowers out the front window. He doesn't want to look at Katara, and the way her face gets a pretty glow when she's irritated.
"Well…" Katara flounders with a potential comeback and mumbles while staring out the side window, "good then." She needs to stop engaging this Prince Hothead.
"Don't you have somewhere to go?"
"Don't tell me…" Katara whirls around, blustering instinctually. She calms herself as she remembers that she does have somewhere to go; and she needs to get there right away, before Sokka does something desperate out of his obvious boredom. She primly unclips her seatbelt. "Yes, I do." She slowly rises in the air.
A warm churning in Zuko's gut generates from their brief sparring. This strange emotion attempts to pull his lips into another upward tilt. He determinedly huffs his mouth back down. Zuko doesn't like this feeling. Katara means nothing to me, stop thinking about the peasant, no, no, her name is Katara, Katara. He practically grunts out his frustration that he is losing his own inner personal argument. Rubbing absently the side of his face, he tries to eradicate his confusing thoughts. His palm runs over the rough skin of his scar. The action makes Zuko question whether Katara has ever thought about his mark of shame.
"Oh Zuzu, like that peasant, would think about you at all, with your hideous scar." Azula laughs. "I barely want to think about you, but have no choice, since I'm in your head."
Zuko watches glumly as Katara grabs the sides of her chair and hoists herself over the arms. She is now hovering between the two captain seats.
As Katara floats past Zuko, she commands hauntingly. "Make sure you don't steer us into any trouble."
"See, she doesn't think you can even fly correctly?" Azula yawns, "I'm bored by this conversation already."
"Shut up!" Zuko barks at himself. He doesn't want to think about Azula or anything beyond gaining the item. He can feel a tightening around his temples. He mumbles to cover his eruption. "I don't need flying tips from the likes of you." Zuko can feel a tightening around his temples.
Katara gasps and then says thinly. "Of course not, the all knowing Zuko has proven that he thinks before he acts; your shining example is our current situation where we flying into enemy territory." She lets the sarcasm drip out and feels more satisfied as Zuko is visibly clenching his jaw and words. Before the Prince can slip in another response, Katara pushes herself out of the cockpit and toward the main room.
Alone, at last! Zuko hunches over the steering wheel with relief. He needs to remember why he is on this ship. Muttering to himself, he grips the steering wheel tighter. "Get the item and bring it to father!"
Azula's venom seeps into Zuko's psyche. His scar throbs with her imagined words. "Now, which father would that be Zuzu? Would it be our father, Thanos, who created two deadly assassins out of his slave children? I'm sorry, his adopted children. Knowing you, Zuzu, you were thinking about our dear, old Dad, Ozai, the one who sold us into slavery. You always were such a dum-dum, so easily swayed by those who you thought loved you. Must I remind you of our little past?" He tries staving off the burgeoning pain in his temple, but in doing so, the flow of memories deluge his present.
Zuko was hunched over a scroll. The parchment kept curling at the corners. He situated his arms, so his elbows could keep the paper relatively flat for writing. Each time, he reached to dip his brush into the inkwell, the parchment's ends rolled up. Trying to keep his words from smearing, he leaned more onto his desk, until he was almost lying across it.
The painted black markings were crooked. This wouldn't do, especially in front of his father. It was his first proposal, and Zuko wanted everything to be perfect. The word perfect left a bitter taste in his mouth. It was only hard work, diligent hours of toil, which led to Zuko gaining a small morsel of begrudging respect out of his father. In fact, the only lucky moment to have occurred in Zuko's short existence was to be born first. His sister, Azula, more than made up for that little slip in the cosmic twist of fates.
Leaning back, the paper immediately spins into a tight roll. "No!" Zuko slaps his forehead. How stupid to relax. Resting is for the weak. He winces as he unwinds the paper. His worse fears are confirmed. The subpar penmanship is now officially illegible. He can hear the ridicule from his old handwriting instructor.
"Prince Zuko, Princess Azula, has already shown superior aptitude, and she's two years younger." The old man's whizzed his derision through his pronounced hawk nose. "Great penmanship reflects a sense of refinement in one's character. Being royal is much more than a birthright, it is an attitude. Princess Azula truly has that inner fire, which is also present in the true Fire Lord, Ozai."
The praise of his sister had only mildly irritated Zuko. Azula may have innate gifts, but Zuko knows he has doggedness. He won't give up, even when the odds are clearly stacked against him. He snatched the scroll, crumpled it into a ball with one hand, and then tossed it over to the small metal trash receptacle. The paper hit the lip of the can and bounced back toward his foot. While grabbing a new sheet of parchment, he kicked the paper ball frustratingly away. It skittered across the floor and landed in front of his bedroom's door.
The door creaked open, sending the ball back to Zuko. Azula stood in the doorway; her voice cracking out a hesitant call to her brother, "Zuzu?"
Zuko refused to look up from his scroll. His handwriting, for once, was decidedly delicate with each character brush stroke. He could barely believe this calligraphy was done by him. Zuko felt a growing excitement as he painted the letters proposing a potential treaty with the Avatarians. The document would eliminate the further need for fighting and finally cease the unnecessary rampant death toll of Draconian lives.
"What is it, Azula? I'm trying to work on this proposal for Father."
"I can't find Mother. I've been looking all over the palace for her."
Zuko mumbles absently, determined to not lose focus. "Mother is probably with Father."
"No, Father is in his throne room." Azula glanced down at her little palms. "He, they, had an argument."
"An argument?" Now that triggered Zuko's attention, it seemed preposterous. Before glancing up, he grabs two stone to weigh down the scroll's bottom edges and repeats his motions for the top page of the parchment. Confident his work won't smear, Zuko turns to his sister. "Mother and Father barely utter a word in front of us. Why would they argue in front of you?"
Azula's calm face twisted into a look of smug triumph. "Father is always thinking I'm too little for important things. I picked his office's lock and crept into his study to steal something to prove that I am as great as anyone, better even than him."
Zuko's look of horror turned to worry. "Did Father catch you? He would be furious. His office is off limits to even his most trusted servants."
Azula shuffled into her older brother's room, letting the door shut behind her. She dropped her head. Her two pieces of dark locks fell in her face, shielding her worried expression. "I heard someone coming, so I hid under his desk." Zuko held out his arms and Azula shuffled into her brother's embrace. She didn't wrap her arms around him, but clutched her hands. "Mother apparently followed Father into his study, and they got into a terrible row."
"I'm sure it was nothing. It will be all forgotten by tomorrow." Zuko rubbed his sister's back. He had never seen his sister this concerned. She usually had a decided air of disinterest in most things involving their family. It was only in her studies that her eyes shone with a determined fire.
"There won't be a tomorrow."
"What do you mean there won't be a tomorrow?" Zuko leaned back into his chair and dropped his arms from his sister.
"We are being sent away." Azula glanced up. Her hair fell away to reveal a look of distress, but no visible tears.
Zuko had never seen his sister cry, not even when she got burned in her first lesson of fire blasting. She missed dodging the round of blasts from the instructor's gun. A blistering burn was visible on her lower leg. She didn't even cry out in pain, but simply got up and demanded that the instructor continue with the practice.
"Sent away, where, why?" Zuko couldn't comprehend Azula's pronouncements. His father had specifically told Zuko to work on a peace proposal and present it at the following day's cabinet meeting. It made no sense to give his son a senseless endeavor. If Zuko was to be sent away, it meant the proposal was merely another tool for his father to keep his son mindlessly occupied and away.
Azula held her arms rigidly at her sides. Her hands balled into tight fists. "We are to be sold to Thanos, as his slaves, a promise payment to guarantee that the Avatarians would lose the Terias sector of space. Mother said the price is too high and that if Father would do that, do that to us, to her, she would drink the Black Ash poison. By killing herself, he wouldn't be able to have anymore children, because her blood, her bloodline, holds the royal blood, not his."
"Sell us to Thanos?" Zuko knew his father considered him a failure; but the idea of selling him and his sister, it had to be preposterous. "No, never, Father wouldn't do that to us or to Mother."
Azula's eyes narrowed. "I'm only ten and know that Father would do anything for power." She said grimly, "Father laughed at Mother's threat. He said she was a foolish sentimental woman and that she could have other children, but the chance for the Draconian empire to grow is now."
Zuko was shaken to his core for all that he held dear seemed to float out to the nothingness of space. Azula's sentences were jumbled; her information was confusing. She must be mistaken. Zuko had to go to the source and know what was real and what was fodder for the stars.
"No, you heard wrong. I'm going to Father. He will tell me where Mother is." Standing up, Zuko rushed past Azula.
"Zuko, wait!" Azula followed behind her brother, trying to keep up. Seeing him approach the throne room, she slowed her pace and stood in the shadows.
Ozai sat on the highest level upon his gilded throne. The room was vast and seemed even more hollow and empty than normal. It was devoid of the usual courtiers and sycophants that clamored for a modicum of approval. Any acknowledgement from the Fire Lord, no matter how insignificant, elevated their social standing in the court.
Zuko fell to his knees, bowing before his father. "Most Honorable Sir, may I speak?"
Ozzie waved his hand in a flippant way. "Zuko, why are you here?"
Zuko tried to not make his twelve year old voice waver. "Father, I have heard rumors that my Mother has left the palace."
"Zuko, you should know better than trust the mutterings of the court."
Relief flooded through Zuko, "Then she is here. Is she in her apartments? I would like to visit her."
"No, she is in the infirmary." Ozai's voice was harsher than normal.
Azula gasped from her hiding place, backing away in fear. No, she had believed briefly that Zuko was right, that maybe she had spoken lies and her ears had betrayed her.
Zuko didn't even properly ask for leave, as royal etiquette dictated. He raced past Azula, but paused halfway down the hall. Turning, he ran back to his sister. She looked like the lost ten year old child, not some improbable prodigy.
"Come on, we're going to find Mother and take her far away from here." Zuko reached out for his little sister's small hand.
Azula nodded with relief and clasped the only sure thing that held her tethered to this world. Together, they dashed away from the cold throne room and through a maze of opulent rooms toward the royal infirmary. Brother and sister passed tapestries that dictated the exploits of Draconian forefathers. Ursa's family was rich in the tradition of being conquerors. Each new Fire Lord that rose to take the throne was determined to claim more stars and enrich the Draconian name. In doing so, they would create a lasting legacy, carved into the very stars, making their name last for an eternity. The Draconian dynasty was one that needed to be continued; and Ozai made sure that what he lacked in royal blood, he more than made up for in gaining more territory than any predecessor.
"Zuko, I have risen from nothing to create a better universe. You may have your mother's royal blood, but my greatness is in you, too. You are more than old enough to prove your honor." That is what Ozai told his young son during Zuko's first royal hunt. What the young prince viewed as a glorious outing between father and son was cut short, when Zuko couldn't even bring himself to kill a turtle duck.
"Just when I think you might be worthy to be called my son, I find another way how you are a disappointment to me. I was five when I went and won my first hunting trophy. Look at you, a boy of eight, and you can't bring yourself to kill a puny, turtle duck." Ozai sneered with derision, "You were sickly as a baby, and now you can't prove your worth as a man." Zuko wanted to make his father proud, but staring at the swimming turtle duck, an animal that given no provocation to deserve a senseless death, Zuko couldn't bring himself to kill it. His father held out his own gun and had obliterated the duck with one trigger blast. "That is how it's done, little boy." The smoke still wafted from the barrel as Ozai strode away from his son.
Zuko rushed into the infirmary's lobby. "Where is my mother?"
The two royal nurses, Li and Lo, hurried over, frowning with their disapproval. Long, red veils and dresses made them almost indistinguishable from one another. Li began, "Your mother," Lo finished, "needs quiet…" Li wrinkled more deeply her lined face with distaste, "not visitors."
Zuko tried peering past the creepy nurses, who had worked in the royal infirmary longer than it had been an official hospital for the nobles. Li and Lo were steeped in the ways of the court and how to stretch out the tedium of bureaucracy. Zuko tried shoving his way past the two crones. "What is going on? Tell me where my mother is!"
The chief doctor, stepped out of a room, triggered by Zuko's sudden commotion. As the doctor strode past a sterile, white counter, he put down the chart which had been in his hands. He spoke to the horrified nurses, who were blustering about the overstepped protocol. The doctor spoke with reassuring superiority, "Let me handle this, please."
"Yes, Doctor," Li and Lo bowed and stepped away, immediately mollified that the proper order of things had resumed. As they moved away, Li directed her steely response to Zuko but her words were meant for the doctor, "We will..." Lo finished her sister's sentence, "tend to our other patients."
"Thank you, nurses." The doctor was never quite sure which one was who and directed all of his orders in the plural. Focusing his attention on the distressed boy and lost little girl before him, the doctor attempted to calm the prince with an outstretched hand of compassion. "Son, I'm sorry, but your mother isn't long for this world."
Zuko glanced down at the doctor's hand and yanked his body away. "Why? What have you done to her?" Zuko felt tears come down his face. He scrubbed at his cheeks. Azula squeezed on her brother's hand more tightly, willing him to not cry and show weakness.
The doctor clasped both of his palms together and said solemnly, "I have done nothing, but try to save her. Unfortunately, Fire Lady Ursa has consumed the Black Ash poison. There is nothing left to be done, but make her comfortable in her final hours."
"No, it isn't true. She wouldn't do that! Mother would never leave us!" Zuko shook his head. Azula stood rigid next her brother, glaring at the doctor with obvious rage.
The doctor knew what was to come soon and that was even more terrible than the loss of their mother. He had heard the court rumors. "I'm afraid it is, she will be among the spirits soon." He had seen more than his share of death, especially since the increased Draconian battles for more space territory. The constant loss of life made him question if he had chosen the right profession. He wanted these children to leave and not have to see their mother in this pathetic state she had rendered herself into by her own choosing. "It is best for all, if you take yourself and your sister far away from here."
Zuko glanced around the antiseptic hall. "I don't believe you. I demand to see my mother." He yelled out, each call more frantic. "Mother! Mother!"
Li and Lo appeared in a red flash. "Be quiet, young…" Lo finished her sister's irate statement. "man, there are other sick people here in this ward."
Zuko ignored the creepy nurses and stepped angrily forward, yelling louder, "Mother! Are you here? Don't go! Azula and I will save you! We will take you far away from the palace, where no one will ever hurt you again."
The doctor stepped between Zuko and the two nurses. "Please stop yelling, Prince Zuko. If you will calm down, I will go tell your mother that both of her children are here. If Fire Lady Ursa says she doesn't want to see you, you must respect her wishes."
"Yes, yes, I promise" Zuko glanced around, hoping to catch a glimpse of his mother's room, so he could circumvent the doctor and dash inside it.
"Do you swear by your honor?"
"Yes," Zuko bowed his head and answered sincerely. "By my honor, do I swear, I will abide by my mother's wishes."
The doctor bowed his head and moved down the hall to another room, stepping inside. Li and Lo glared at the royal siblings. Zuko ignored the nurses' looks of disdain. Though in open defiance, Azula wrinkled her nose at the nurses and stuck her tongue out at them.
The doctor reappeared. His somber face spoke volumes. "I spoke to your mother. She wishes to only speak to you Prince Zuko."
Azula stepped forward angrily and spat at the doctor, "You lie! Mother asked for me, too."
The doctor shook his head sadly, "I'm sorry, Princess Azula. Your mother only wants to talk to your brother."
"I didn't make that promise. I'm going in," Azula begins to step forward.
The doctor grabbed onto Azula's arm and glared at Zuko, "You gave me your honor, Prince Zuko, that you would abide by your mother's wishes."
Zuko had been prepared to fight the doctor, but felt the tug of his promise urging him to show calm. He bowed his head. Azula was desperately trying to wrench her arm free, while trying to aim several kicks at the doctor's dodging shins.
Grabbing Azula by the upper arms, Zuko turned his sister towards him. "Azula, please, mother asked for me, let me go talk to her and then I will make her agree to see you."
The stubborn look on Azula's face abated slightly, but she glared a warning response at the doctor. "I don't know, Zuko." She faced her brother and whispered, "What if the doctor is lying and Mother did ask for me?"
The doctor coughed and Zuko interjected before the doctor could. "I'm sure Mother doesn't realize how much you need to see her. I will make her understand that you must be in there, too."
The doctor glanced over his shoulder. "Hurry, Prince Zuko, you may not have much time left."
Azula nodded her head. "You swear it, Zuzu, you will let me see her?"
Zuko nodded his head and touched the top knot on sister's head lovingly, "I swear to it."
Azula stepped away and folded her arms tightly around herself. Zuko ran his hand down his sister's arm as he dashed toward the room the doctor had disappeared and reemerged.
Zuko found his mother in a sparse room with the only adornment a shuttered window, blocking out the night. Ursa lay on a slightly elevated hospital bed. Her lustrous black hair lay scattered on the pillow behind her head, resembling a death mantle. She was now bald with a deathly gray pallor to her once vibrant persona. Black spider veins crawled up from her exposed hands, which rested along her sides on the stiff sheet folded over a simple cotton blanket. Ursa's eyes were shut. A heavy breathing labored her chest with a noticeable struggle.
Tentatively Zuko approached his mother's side and touched her fingertips, which were almost completely black.
Ursa's eyes fluttered open with effort, she croaked, "Zuko, my son." Son was uttered with such tenderness, but the energy for her to raise a smile could not be produced.
"Mother," Zuko knelt down and clutched Ursa's hand to his cheek. "Please, let Azula see you."
"No, not like this, I want her to remember me well; she is too young to understand my reasons."
"Mother, I beg you, please; Azula and I will take you from here. There are other doctors, we can stop this!" Zuko turned to call out for his sister, "A…"
"No!" Ursa snapped off the further letters of her daughter's name from being spoken. She coughed and black mucus oozed out of Ursa's mouth. "I don't have much time," she said hoarsely. "I let you come in, because no matter what your father has told you, you are a fighter. You are the only one that could protect your sister." Ursa's voice waned with fearfulness.
"Mother, what do you mean? Protect her from what?"
"Thanos! His slave ship is already on its way to take you."
A black tear ran out of Ursa's eye, "I'm sorry. I thought Ozai would spare you both. I truly believed Ozai loved me more than his ambition." She coughed, "When he signed in his own blood the slave document. I realized I had gambled and lost everything I hold dear."
"Mother, we could have escaped, you didn't have to take the poison and kill yourself."
"Shush, you can't escape the slave ships." Ursa touched her son's perfect face, unblemished by a life spent in regret. "Thanos is your master now, but Ozai will always know that everything must be paid and nothing is without a penalty. It is too late for me." Ursa gasped as the black fingers ran up her neck. "No matter how things seem to change, remember to never forget who you are." Ursa dropped her hand from her Zuko's cheek.
"Mother, don't leave, stay here with me. Don't leave! Azula, come quickly!"
Azula appeared suddenly in the doorway, triggered by Zuko's cry. "Zuzu? Mother?"
"Azula, come here." Zuko held onto his mother's lifeless hand and struggled to reach for his sister.
Azula's pale face took in her mother's lifeless body. "She's dead!" Azula's face twisted in fury. "You promised I could see her!"
"Come here, I tried, mother wouldn't listen. It isn't too late, you can still say goodbye." Zuko pleaded as his sister backed away from him and the room in anger.
"You promised me!"
Zuko stood up and came toward the doorway, trying to reach out and clasp Azula to him. She was the one person that understood this pain of losing your mother.
Azula shook her head vehemently. "I will never believe anything you have to say!" She spat at her brother.
The spittle hit Zuko's shoe and ran down the side of his boot onto the tile floor. Azula spun on her heel, running away. She wanted to run from the pain and the truth of knowing that the one person that was suppose to love you, your mother, didn't care for you at all.
Zuko gasped. He couldn't lose his sister, too. Not now, when the slave ship could arrive at anytime. Zuko had to get them both far away. He raced after his flying sister.
"Azula, No! Wait, come back! We must get away from here."
Azula ran from a palace of empty promises and a family that would only end up betraying you. Out of the confines of the infirmary and onto the palace grounds, she fell onto the wet grass. The expanse of stars stretched above her. Zuko blindly followed Azula and lowered onto the grass next to his crying sister.
"Azula, I swear, I tried. The Black Ash poison acted too fast." Zuko tried touching his sister's arm.
Tears streaked down Azula's face. She slapped away her brother's hand and said with utter hate and despair. "You made me cry, I will never forgive you, Zuzu, you made me cry."
Before Zuko could speak, a blinding light illuminated the two siblings and the darkness of night. Zuko and Azula looked up in terror. A vast ship hovered above them. Two doors on the space craft's belly slowly opened, revealing the black depths. The siblings' screams were shrouded by the sounds of the massive whirring engines. A tractor beam shot out of the opened door's void, immobilizing Zuko and Azula, both frozen in their motions of trying to flee this forced upon fate. Slowly, the white beam sucked the siblings into the bowels of Thanos's slave ship.
A/N: Okay, little drabbles of future back stories will be revealed much later (like who gave Zuko that scar?), but we've got to get back into the action. Who knows when the next chapter will come out? I can't say:( I do promise that I keep typing away at my stories. I must confess that I need to get out another chapter to my other fanfic: The Imperial House of Dragon, so trying to work on that little ditty, and then there is my actual paying writing work that must get done...Where are those little writing elves when you need them? So, I guess I'll see you next year! But don't forget to close out my 2015 with a review, favorite, follow or all three, if you please:)