Winter was always quite a miserable time in the Fire Nation - at least for it's 8-year-old princess. The days were shorter and less sunny, meaning her firebending was a bit weaker, and early hours of the day were so cold it was torture to get out of her comfy, warm bed to go to school. Leaving any window open during the windy days was practically begging to make the rooms turn into coolers, and spending any time in the garden was impossible, especially if it was raining, as every drop felt like ice on one's skin.
It looked really ugly too. The flowers, the trees, the grass - everything was either dead or dying. Neither the vibrant colors of summer and spring blossoming everywhere, nor the beautiful red and orange leaves of autumn gradually faling from the trees and covering the ground. And since the capital city was in one of the warmest regions of the country, there wasn't even snow to make the place look better and offer Azula the chance to play some new games. Just boring-looking bare trees, gloomy cloudy skies, and ugly puddles of mud everywhere.
The animals that one would usually see there were hiding it away, and since practically nobody wanted to spend time there, with the cold wind and constant rain, the place was completely lifeless.
Or at least it would be, if it wasn't for the dramatic, stubborn dum-dum Azula called brother.
He was always there, right in the center of the garden, sitting by the turtleduck pond, looking at nothing in particular. All alone, for their mother was gone.
No one mentioned Ursa's name in weeks, even though she was technically Fire Lady now. She had left the palace in the middle of the night, taking with her just one bag - likely with some clothes and money - and leaving behind a stupid advice.
"Be good to your brother, protect him. Be good to your uncle and to your friends. Be good, honey. For me. I know you can do it, I know my sweet little princess is still in there. I know she'll make me proud."
The warm hug mother gave after saying the words did not make the moment less bitter.
When had she not been good? How had she not made mom proud already? She always did everything she was supposed to do! She was a firebending prodigy, a proper princess who knew everything about her country's history, had perfect grades in school, paid attention to even the most dreadfully boring class and was always on her best behavior during feasts, parades, weddings, religious rites, and even funerals.
She had never insulted grandpa to his face even though he clearly wasn't fit to be Fire Lord due to his old age, and all of her pranks against Zuko or her friends were just harmless fun! It wasn't her fault that they took themselves so seriously and were so easy to trick!
As for uncle Iroh, what was she supposed to do? Pretend he had not failed Lu Ten and everyone else by fleeing like a coward instead of burning Ba Sing Se to the ground for killing his only son? Zuko too had told her she was being cruel for mocking his grief and for wishing dad was Azulon's heir instead, but ever since Iroh had finally returned to the Fire Nation the guilt and shame over his own weakness was written all over his face. He had not even contested father's claim to the throne!
Was she just supposed to act like she didn't notice? That his behavior did not prove father right? Was that what mom's idea of being good came down to? Pretending to be stupid so other people didn't feel bad after acting foolishly?
...Was that really all mom had to say to her on what would likely be the last time they'd ever see each other?
"Your mother made lots of sacrifices through the years" father had explained "She accepted to marry me even though she loved another, because our marriage would be good for both our families and our nation. She spent the past eleven years dedicating her life to me, as well as to you and Zuko. Last night, she made one last sacrifice. The biggest one. She helped me spare your brother's life and win the crown that should have always been mine. But in exchange she wanted to be allowed to leave and be with the man she had known all those years before."
Had this been the first time she had heard of this other man, Azula would not have believed it, even if her father was one telling her about it.
But it wasn't. She had heard her parents argue more than once about how mom was too ungrateful to appreciate the life of luxury she had been blessed with, just because of that man from her past. She had found old love letters from him hidden among mother's things. She had seen how Ursa tensed up at the mere mention of that man's name the one time it came up, during a feast, just a year before grandpa's demise. She had asked Ty Lee's mother and the woman, after a long, awkward time trying to change the subject admited Ursa had been courted by Ikem, and that he left once she was betrothed to Ozai.
"She's probably with him right now, in the city his friend helped conquer" the princess had said, both to herself and to her brother.
He did not take it well.
"You're lying!" he accused "You're a horrible sick, person!"
"See the letters if you don't believe me!"
"You probably wrote these yourself!"
"Why would I do that?"
"Because you're you!" he snapped "And you live to make me miserable!"
"You're not that important, Zuko! I wouldn't go through so much trouble just to mess with your head! You're way too gullible for that to be necessary!"
"She didn't abandon us! You're lying!" he insisted.
"Waste all your time waiting for her to come back then!" the princess screamed as her brother stormed out.
Zuko did not speak to her for an entire month. He did not speak to anyone for an entire month. He just stood there by that pond, the whole morning and the whole afternoon. It was a miracle it took so long for him to first get sick.
It was only then, when he had to spend a week being miserable in bed instead of being miserable in the rain, that he deigned to say a word to anyone, and only about his sickness and how long it'd take for him to get better.
Azula hated to admit it, but seeing him like that hurt. She couldn't recall ever seeing her brother so upset before.
While he was sick, she tried everything to cheer up. She mentioned how happy father was now that he was Fire Lord and it was the perfect time for Zuko to win him over and fix whatever it was that had strained their bond so much over the years. How Mai and Ty Lee missed hanging out with him. She even argued that uncle Iroh would likely be made more upset if he saw the sorry state his nephew was in.
More importantly, while he was sleeping, she placed an old stuffed animal by his bedside. A goofy looking red dragon that mom had made for him years ago - and that Azula had stolen after mom forgot to make blue one for her one too many times. Zuko had always known she had taken it, but he could never find it or convince her to give it back, and eventually just accepted that he was never gonna see it again.
The princess couldn't tell why she kept holding onto it after what mom did, or why it was so difficult to give it to Zuko.
Either way, it didn't work. Zuko had stopped being in the garden, like a pitiful creature all alone in a desolate place, and resigned himself to being a pitiful creature all alone in the comfort of his bedroom, like uncle Iroh had been doing since his return.
At least there he won't be sick, Azula thought.
But he did get all sick and frail again. Not from the cold, but because, unlike uncle fatso, he wouldn't eat.
It started subtly at first, with him never having any dessert, and skiping breakfast or lunch every now and then. But as the second and thrid month of winter passed, it kept getting worse and worse. Having just two meals every day, then just one, then none at all.
A prince starving. What a joke. What a horrible, morbid, painfully unfunny joke.
Azula couldn't convince him to eat anything. Neither could Mai and Ty Lee, nor Li and Lo, nor any servant, nor the family physician. Father had not even been trying.
"If that spoiled brat wants to turn himself into an emaciated corpse just for attention, let him! I won't waste my time with something he is inflicting on himself!"
But Azula couldn't leave him like that. So, for once in her life, she went against father's orders and ignored all those cowardly servants and guards and knocked on her uncle's door, screaming at the old man to let her in. For once in his life, the fat old man would be useful.
"Why did no one tell me about this?" he demanded to know, rushing down the hall alongside Azula, on his way to Zuko's room.
"Why would anyone think you'd do anything even if you could? You were too busy being useless in your room" she snapped. She usually wouldn't be the openly hostile, as it wasn't proper for a princess to do so, but she was sick of this unbearable situation and of uncle Iroh feeling all sorry for himself instead of acting.
He gave Azula an absolutely furious glare that actually made her stop on her tracks for a moment. He did not say a word to her, yet the sheer hatred she saw in his eyes was far more vicious than any of the worst scoldings she ever got from her mother, and suddenly made her understand why so many enemies feared the wrath of the Dragon of the West.
"I'll try to help him as much as I can" his voice sounded a bit rough, probably due to the recent lack of use "But grief is something that can take a long time to fully heal"
"Mother is not dead"
"But she's not here. Sometimes that's more than enough"
Against all odds, this desperate, last minute gamble paid off, and Zuko started to recover slowly - too slowly for Azula's liking, but still. Maybe seeing someone in an equally pathetic state made Zuzu snap out of it, maybe the bond he had with uncle Iroh helped remind him he still had other people in his life, or maybe the old man finally thought of a proverb that made sense.
Whatever it was, it worked.
Azula could only complain that, as he got better, Zuko spent nearly all of his time with Iroh. Three months trying to help him and he didn't so much as say 'thank you'? If it wasn't for her, uncle Iroh would have never left his room. If it wasn't for her, father would have killed him, like grandpa told him to.
If it wasn't for you, she wouldn't have left after saving him, some unknown creature said, as the princess was drifting off to sleep.
She jumped up, looking around the room, trying to find the source of that eerie voice, but couldn't. How was it possible? It seemed to have whispered right her ear, no way it could have run away in just a split second, completely unseen and not making a sound as it rushed through the door or out the window.
It wasn't a nightmare, she knew it, but there was no other explanation. Even Li and Lo couldn't pick up on any kind of evil presence, and nobody understood old, creepy things like those two did.
For the rest of the season, she'd take a long time to be able to fall asleep, both due to the old legends she had heard about evil spirits and that had never scared her much until that day, and because of all the candles lighting up the room, to make sure she'd see it if anyone or anything managed to invade her room again.
On the last night of winter, she woke up the feeling of someone sitting next to her on her bed, pulling covers gently. Her eyes immediately widened, but instead of seeing some evil thing, she was face to face with Zuko.
"Thought you'd want this back" he said, placing the red dragon next to her, then covering both it and Azula with a blanket, like mother used to do for him.
"It's yours"
"Didn't stop you before. And I'm older, and I'm the one who's supposed to take care of you, not the other way around"
"You need it more than I do" she argued, and for a moment he didn't know how to respond. They both knew it was true.
"I want you to have it" he said after a while and, surprisingly, leaned down to kiss her forehead, leaving her speechless "I'm too old for it anyway"
He left, and Azula looked at the dragon again. It still made her think of mom, but now it smelled like Zuko again, like it did when she first stole it from him.
She held it tightly and suddenly she was sure wouldn't hear that awful voice again.
She had someone to protect her from it.