Author's Note: Content warning for animal cruelty.

Chapter 21

It took three tubs of water to clean all of the dirt off Azula. She scrubbed and scoured and soaked, assessing her injuries. A sprained ankle, the beginnings of a black eye, a cut on the forehead, and what felt like a large bruise on her back. Luckily, Yoroh came in after she was clean, with bandages, cold compresses, and a tea that he said would relieve the pain and help her sleep. First he splinted her leg. Then he attached a poultice to her eye. Foolishly, she ventured a look in the mirror. As she'd anticipated, she looked just like Zuko after Father burned him. Yoroh tried to chat while he stitched her brow, offering a compliment to her wall of fire, but she just asked him for quiet in a dull, subdued tone. As soon as he was gone she went to bed.

As she lay for hours, trying to fall asleep, Azula's discomfort went beyond the pain of her injuries, and penetrated into her very soul. Of course she felt terrible. She had been humiliated in front of hundreds of her subjects, and knew that her abysmal performance would be recounted in newspapers around the world. But that didn't affect her the way it once would have. She could barely bring herself to care. She didn't even hate the earthbender. Toph Beifong was rude and uncouth, and she wished never to see her again, but the girl didn't matter enough to be hated.

No, what she felt was much worse than embarrassment, although the disgrace of the match might have brought the buried feeling to the surface, and allowed her to finally recognize and name it. The hot emotion burning through her was shame. Quite a foreign sensation for Azula. Her father had taught her never to feel ashamed, but he had also shamed her for any hints of gentleness or hesitation she had ever displayed. Actually, more precisely, she had seen him shame Zuko for those things, and had learned from that example never to show such "weakness."

The embarrassment of being made ridiculous in front of the entire world was nothing to the abject humiliation of Aang's second rejection. What made her burn with shame was the way he disapproved of her. The memory of the stern, reproachful way he had looked at her in the desert was unbearable. She felt ashamed of her kidnapping plot, and of the new scheme against Katara that she was currently contemplating.

Upon her return from the desert, Azula's first instinct had been to try again and launch an absolutely inescapable plot, this time to kill the waterbender. She certainly hated her. The idea of Aang holding the other woman, kissing her, sharing himself with her, was incredibly painful. It made her want to burn down the entire world.

Except him. She thought about extending her violence to Aang, and all of the fight went out of her. She knew she could never hurt him.

Except him. She thought about extending her violence to Aang, and all of the fight went out of her. She knew she could never harm him. It was true, she had attacked him once, on that terrible night. But now she knew that was a mistake; she had been mad with fury over his rejection. If she had succeeded in hurting her love, it would only have broken her own heart. She certainly couldn't plan an attack on him in cold blood.

She understood now that it would be impossible for her to do anything that would make Aang look at her like that again. Whether that meant he had become her conscience from afar, or she had somehow internalized his foreign morality, she couldn't tell, and she supposed it didn't matter. All she knew was that there was no way she would risk subjecting herself to this shame ever again.

The problem was that plotting to get Aang back had given her purpose during the few weeks of her reign. Now, if she stopped scheming, she would be left utterly adrift, without a goal or direction. It would be like sitting through that unbearable restless feeling she usually got when she tried to meditate. But she realized that even that unsettled, searching agitation would be better than the way she felt now.

Her spy plot hadn't worked, anyway. She needed a radical change of strategy. But she was too tired to think of one tonight, and her head hurt.

No more schemes, then, Azula decided as she fell sleep. No more spies. I don't know what else to do, but I certainly won't do that again.

Some merciful star might have decided to reward her for that resolution, because her dreams that night were the happiest she'd ever had. They began with the national anthem, and a ceremony. It was like her coronation, but with a sense of celebration and accomplishment, rather than bravado and white-knuckled determination. Then there was a party, with everyone she loved in attendance. Aang, of course, Mai and Ty Lee, Mother and Zuko. A bunch of guards, out of uniform for some reason. The waterbender, too, but she actually didn't hate her. Equally inexplicably, some baby was there. Everyone was happy and laughing. The sun set in gorgeous colors, and strong arms held her.

She woke with her cheek wet, crying both because the beautiful vision was gone, and because it was completely impossible. There were parts of it that she didn't understand at all—dreams were often nonsensical—but she wanted it with a hopeless passion.

Azula stayed late in bed, trying in vain to find her way back to the sunset party. When she gave up on that, she rang for a medicinal tea and changed her bandages. Her whole body ached. Her black eye had bloomed overnight, despite the medicine-soaked bandages. It was as if she had pasted Zuko's reward poster on her mirror. No, that's not right, she corrected herself. All of these injuries will heal perfectly. I am not my brother. And that earthbender is a bitch who made a fool of me, but she is not a sadist like my father.

There was no way she could let anyone see her like this, especially not the girl responsible for her condition. She did not emerge from her chambers until she had word that Toph Beifong had left the palace, and was en route back to the Earth Kingdom.

In the afternoon, she took an ornamental spear down from her wall to use as a cane and spare her sore ankle. Then she made her limping way out to the royal family's garden. It was a place that Aang had loved. They used to relax here on lazy afternoons after their lessons and training sessions, sometimes joined by Mai and Ty Lee. They'd sit on the bench by the pond with a snack, hiding from Father as long as they could get away with it. Aang came here on his own too, when he could. She had caught him many times, sitting peacefully under the willow tree, his fists together and eyes closed. When she asked what he was doing, he said he was "communing with the spirits of his people."

She wanted to feel close to him, to commune with his spirit, if such a thing was possible. So she sat under the tree, assumed the posture, and tried to meditate. Not indulging in a silly fantasy, like she used to do with her childish altar, but reaching toward him through the ether, and hoping he would tell her how to win his love.

She didn't expect it to actually work. But almost as soon as she quieted her mind, a memory came back to her, as fully formed as the spring six years ago when it had happened.

It was the first spring Aang spent in the Fire Nation. He had given up his escape attempts and had been integrated into the royal family, joining the crown princess for her daily lessons. They were taking a break together in this garden, when they spotted a pair of baby squirrel toads that appeared to have been abandoned by their mother. They had fallen from their nest and lay helpless and barely moving, exposed to the predations of the mischievous turtle ducks.

"Let's take care of them!" Aang suggested.

"Sure. One for you and one for me," Azula agreed, picking up one of the surprisingly cute creatures. "They'll be wonderful pets."

Aang frowned at that. "We shouldn't keep them. They're wild animals."

"Well, they'll die here if we don't help them," the firebender pointed out, one hand on her hip.

"I know, but they're not pets," the airbender insisted.

Azula shrugged. "You can do what you want with yours. I'm going to keep mine."

They took the animals inside and built two small habitats that they kept hidden in their rooms, knowing that they could not let Ozai catch word of this little rescue. They fed the squirrel toads mashed nuts and maggot slugs. It was surprising how much the little things could eat! And once they had recovered some strength, their coats grew soft and they ran playfully around their little boxes. Azula named hers Gonryu, after one of her ancestors known for his appetite, and Aang named his Chuckles, because he said the markings on its back looked like a laughing face.

Only two weeks after he had taken Chuckles in, Aang released him into the garden.

"I can't believe you would work so hard to save the thing and then never see it again," Azula commented, shaking her head.

"They're meant to be free, to come and go as they please," he told her, then explained with a proverb in his native language, the one Father forbade him to use. "It means, if you love someone, let them go." Then he suggested that Azula do the same with Gonryu. She refused, of course.

She should have, though. Only a week later, Ozai entered her room unannounced and found her playing with Gonryu. The Fire Lord was already in a bad mood because the latest attempt to capture Uncle and Zuko had failed, and he took it out on the squirrel toad. He squeezed it in his fist, making its little bones crunch, then threw it in the wastebasket. Azula didn't protest or cry, knowing that would only enrage Father even more. She claimed a neglectful servant had left a window down and the creature had simply climbed inside.

Chuckles lived the rest of his life in that garden, visiting Aang frequently. It would alight on the airbender's shoulder, making him laugh. The two would cavort for a few minutes, and then the squirrel toad would scamper away.

When she opened her eyes, she found she had finally shed some tears for poor little Gonryu. She wiped them away and tried to make sense of the memory. It was a pretty obvious comparison.

She had loved her squirrel toad, but she hadn't been strong or wise enough to let it go, and it had died as a result. But Aang had loved his squirrel toad with a softer, freer love, and so he had let it go, and it had come back.

"If you really love me, you'll let me go," the airbender had told her in the desert.

He had said that as if he didn't believe her. As if her love was invalid because it wasn't returned. But she did love him, she did, no matter what he said. She just had no idea what to do with her love, if he didn't want it.

The story of the squirrel toads seemed to promise that if she let Aang go, he would eventually return to her. Of his own free will, he would appear again, arriving unexpectedly from above, to brighten her palace with his laughter. As long as she let him go now.

But what did that even mean?

Probably it meant leaving the waterbender alone, she answered herself with a sigh. For his sake, as a gift to him, she could do that. She could ignore the Resistance, for him. She could even stop trying to contact him. But give up on the idea that someday Aang would love her, and not as a sister? Total desolation descended upon her when she merely contemplated it.

She refused.

Raiden followed the Fire Lord from a distance as she wandered listlessly through the palace halls, hobbling with a spear. Was he spying on her? Ensuring her safety? Hovering in the hopes of offering support? He wasn't even sure anymore.

Azula entered the portrait hall. She began at her own portrait, unfinished, next to her father's, recently completed. She didn't linger there, but went straight across, to Avatar Aang's picture. As he approached, Raiden compared the likeness to the boy he'd met about a week ago. In the portrait, the airbender still wore his hair in a topknot over his arrow. He had looked entirely different in the desert with a shaved head. The artist had not captured the life in his eyes; on the wall, Aang looked dull and sad. Trapped.

The guard came within an arm's length of the Fire Lord, and stood on her right. She looked forlorn as she stared up at the man who had left her. Maybe the Avatar had had a good reason to run away the night before their wedding, and if he really had killed her father, the world was surely better off. But Raiden had witnessed Azula's devastation when Aang had left her in the desert, and couldn't help but sympathize with her. He wanted to find the perfect words to cheer her up, but all he could think of was singing the national anthem in the arena. Well, it seemed to work once, so why not try the same thing again?

"The Fire Nation always rises from the ashes," he crooned in an ironic sing-song. It was an uplifting line from the third verse.

She turned to him in surprise; he was equally surprised to see the purple skin around her eye, but suppressed the reaction, guessing that she'd want him to pretend she looked like her normal, gorgeous self.

"You were the one who started that song?" she asked, incredulous.

"I'm just a loyal citizen of the Fire Nation," he acknowledged modestly, with an apprehensive smile. His words reminded them both of his interrogation.

"It was saccharine. Jingoistic," she chastised him primly. Then her face softened, and she murmured, "My nurse used to sing it to me."

"You just seemed so lonely up there," he explained himself sheepishly. "You lost your mother, brother, friends, father, and fiance. And leading a country is isolating work. On top of all that, to be embarrassed by a cruel opponent–it would be too much for anyone." He noticed that his voice had turned tender and….unprofessional. He swallowed and straightened his shoulders, reminding himself to act properly. "But the Fire Nation is behind you, my lord. I wanted to remind you of that."

"The crown appreciates it, Captain."

He breathed a sigh of relief, and stood at ease, gazing up at the Avatar's portrait. He hoped he was doing what Aang would want him to do right now. He thought he was.

"How does that work, exactly? Rising from ashes?" Her voice had a cynical edge.

"It's a metaphor," he began uncertainly.

"I know it's a metaphor, Captain," Her tone turned annoyed, and he couldn't blame her. He hadn't meant to be pedantic. "How does it work metaphorically?" she asked sarcastically.

"Perhaps history could teach you," Raiden ventured, inspired by their surroundings. "After all, this is far from the worst moment the Fire Nation has ever endured."

In his opinion, Sozin's comet was his country's lowest point, but he didn't know what she thought about that, so he went further back. He walked backward in time past a dozen chronological portraits, and she followed him, her limping steps full of doubt. Finally he halted at the hall's first portrait: a silver-haired man holding a paintbrush and a bowl of rice.

"When Yosor took the throne, we were emerging from a dynastic war," Raiden felt presumptuous, giving the Fire Lord a history lesson over her own ancestors, but repressed the feeling, eager to deliver this optimistic message. "But now, the reigns of Yosor, his son, and granddaughter are considered the Fire Nation's golden century. They unified the islands, made peace among the warring clans, inspired the world's greatest art and literature, and increased farm yields so dramatically that our population doubled. But who really created this prosperity?" He walked across the hall and gestured to another portrait. "Avatar Szeto. He spent his entire career as their advisor, working behind the scenes in this palace to ensure the advancement of our people."

"That must have been nice for them, having the support of the Avatar," she replied resentfully. "No wonder they were so successful."

"You have everything they had," he assured her.

"Aang is gone," she intoned flatly.

"You don't have Avatar Aang anymore, but you have something just as good!"

She rolled her eyes, as if she thought he meant himself, and considered him a poor substitute. Her scornful gaze would have made him wither if he weren't so desperate to convince her she had reason for hope.

"You always have the Avatar's guidance," Raiden insisted, pointing at the bookshelf in the background of Szeto's portrait. "Szeto left behind an entire library full of records. You could study his words, and let his precepts guide your decisions, just as Yosor and Izumi did. The immortal wisdom of the Avatar could help you become the greatest Fire Lord in history!"

She gazed at him a long moment, the skepticism in her expression slowly softening to interest. "That's….an intriguing idea, Captain. I'll consider it." She nodded at him and he bowed in response. Then she turned and began to hobble out of the hall, in the direction of the royal residence.

Raiden gaped at her back, unbelieving. He had just voiced a policy idea that he had pondered privately for years, to the Fire Lord, and she was going to consider it. She had listened to him, a guard, when she had threatened her highly educated ministers' jobs simply for boring her. He felt exhilarated, and a bit anxious. It was as if that cheetah boa in the forest had not only declined to attack him, it had eaten out of his hand.

In the political climate created by Sozin, Szeto's nonviolent cosmopolitanism had fallen out of favor, even as the recent leaders' extreme nationalism made speaking ill of bygone heroes such as Yosor and Izumi equally taboo. Citizens were supposed to be proud of their history while venerating leaders whose actions were historically aberrant. It required a doublethink that Raiden had not been able to sustain, but that an alarming number of his countrymen found perfectly fine. His discontented questioning had led him to join the Order of the White Lotus. He grinned, imagining Piandao's face when he reported this conversation.

If she did any research that went below the surface level, Azula would discover how subversive Szeto actually was. If she didn't like what she read and questioned him about it, Raiden would say he meant only to praise the past Avatar's approach to agriculture or economics, which were less controversial than his peacemaking. Even if reforms were limited to those two areas, a return to Szeto's principles would significantly improve the quality of life of most Fire Nation citizens.

But he hoped that the reincarnated link between Szeto and Aang would make Azula receptive to the former Avatar's words. Because if she adopted all of Szeto's ideas, and applied them, it would mean the success of his mission, and her reign, and the Order's age-old quest for worldwide peace and harmony. It would be nothing less than a bloodless revolution.

Azula walked back toward her room, moving slowly because of her injury, and because her mind was elsewhere. The captain's idea had captured her imagination and ambition. She had always longed to be remembered and honored like Izumi, one of her most illustrious ancestors. She had known about Avatar Szeto, of course, but it never occurred to her that he had left records behind, and that they could teach her how to rule. Szeto's principles of government would be a significant departure from those of Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai, she knew, but she considered that a good thing. She liked the thought of defying her father's ideology and dismantling his legacy.

But of course the main appeal of the captain's suggestion was the way it made her feel connected to Aang. The idea of reading books of Aang's words and following their instructions in directing her government positively charmed her. Of course, they weren't exactly Aang's words; the connection was tenuous, separated by five lifetimes, but it was there. Surely if she followed his previous self's guidance, she could win Aang's approval and his love. She could redeem her shame, and change his opinion of her. Perhaps most importantly, this new project of reform gave her something concrete to do.

Taking action was important. After all, it would be silly to expect Aang to come back to her entirely of his own accord. If all she did was make a private decision to let him go, how would he even know about it? He didn't like the way things were between them before, so she had to show him that it could be different, that she was different. And she had to make the change big and obvious. Luckily, since she was Fire Lord, all of her actions would be headline news worldwide.

Azula waited for the Aang in her head to come out and confirm that this was a good idea, but he stayed away. But so did her father, which was a blessing. Although his criticism would have served equally well as confirmation. She would have to trust herself to decide without their input, and found that surprisingly easy.

The more she thought about the captain's proposal, the more she liked it. In fact, reforming her country was exactly what Aang had asked her to do. She remembered the airbender's last words to her: "You could do so much good, if you tried, Azula. You could make the Fire Nation peaceful and prosperous. You could end so much suffering. You could be better than this."

Yes, she thought fervently. I will be better. I'll change to become the kind of woman he would want. Not like the waterbender. A new version of me, one that will fit better with him. I'll become worthy of him. This is how I'll prove to him that I deserve his love.

Azula felt energized by the decision, and confident that she would achieve her goal. After all, her strongest trait was her supreme competence. Everything she had ever tried to accomplish, she had succeeded, from mastering firebending at age 9, to lightning bending, to a string of military victories. Her track record of success ended with the aborted engagement, but that was exactly why she was backtracking now, and course correcting. Surely her prudence would be rewarded.

There was one variable she could not control, though: the waterbender. She continued to believe that Katara did not truly love Aang, not the way he deserved. Her poor airbender had been deceived by a desperate rebel who hoped to use him for a weapon. She had to have faith that the other woman's true nature would reveal itself eventually, given enough time. She recalled a lesson of her favorite childhood trainer: "You're not competing against your opponent. You're competing against your previous self. As long as you're better than you were yesterday, you've won." That was how she would beat the waterbender: by ignoring her and bettering herself.

She could just picture it: someday soon, when the Fire Nation had entered a new golden age so wonderful that the whole world shared in its abundance, she would be the benevolent leader whose hard work had made it all possible. On that day, she would lay it all at Aang's feet, declaring tenderly, "I did all this for you." How could he not love her, then?

There was a fork in the hall. Instead of returning to her room, she turned toward the library.

Author's Note: Some of the inspiration for this chapter comes from material in the Kyoshi novels, including the setting of the portrait gallery and some details about Avatar Szeto. Some of the other information and details, though, including the Fire Lords Szeto served, are my own.

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