Chapter 64

Azula had sent her royal airship to Ba Sing Se, to bring her visitors home in style. It landed on a courtyard on the palace grounds, and the Fire Lord came out to greet them.

Ty Lee tumbled out of the zeppelin first, performing a cartwheel before landing at Azula's feet and wrapping her in a hug. Reassured that at least the acrobat's exuberant nature hadn't changed, Azula returned the embrace, but her anxiety over her other guests made her restrained.

Zuko came next, in a green robe with yellow trim. His hands in fists, he looked around and took in the few guards who had accompanied the Fire Lord to the courtyard. He appeared tense, ready to drop into a defensive posture at any moment.

"Where's Mother?" he demanded.

Azula's heart sank. It was just as she suspected, he didn't really want to see her. Despite his rudeness, she answered her brother's question. "In Hira'a, where she lives with her husband and younger daughter. They will all be here in two days' time. They are eager to see you."

Mollified, Zuko nodded.

Then Mai appeared, carrying a small bundle. She looked the same as ever, blunt bangs framing her face, body wrapped in wide-sleeved burgundy robes. A little head covered in black hair rested on her shoulder.

"Please tell me you're here to kill me," Azula joked feebly, hoping to remind her old friend of the dark sense of humor they shared.

"My knives are a bit encumbered at the moment." Mai turned so that the Fire Lord could see the sleeping, angelic face of her niece. The baby between them made hugging forbiddingly awkward; instead Azula patted the infant's soft head with an uncertain hand.

"Won't you come in and eat?" Azula led her guests into the palace. Mai put the sleeping baby down in a small cradle in the corner of the dining room. Azula had ordered one placed in each room where her guests might spend time, and nurses on standby.

"Tell me about your life in Ba Sing Se," the Fire Lord began, once they'd all been served.

Zuko went on for a while about their uncle's successful tea shop, where he also worked. "It's more than just a place to drink tea. It's a community gathering space. It's a center for intellectual life, a place where people from many different backgrounds feel at home."

Though she wondered how much of this enthusiasm was feigned, Azula nodded and asked polite follow-up questions, stifling her urge to pity her brother for leading such a lowly life. She learned that Mai helped in the shop as well. The young mother had also found a group of poetry-writing women who appreciated her dark verses, and who she gave lessons in self-defense and knife-throwing. Ty Lee co-taught these classes with her friend, and occasionally performed acrobatics in the town square.

Zuko asked for details about their mother and her new family, which Azula was glad to share. She couldn't help feeling a bit smug that she now knew Ursa better than he did, though he'd been the favorite. Next, the returned prince inquired about the government's new policies, about the reduction of the military, the end of the draft, the job training program, and the factories being built. It was hard for the Fire Lord not to brag about the progress she'd made. She could tell her brother was keenly interested, though he tried to downplay it.

It seemed like they had so much catching up to do, they couldn't help peppering each other with questions. "I want to know about your wedding," Azula said to Zuko and Mai. "It can't have been as grand as the one we might have given you here, but I'm sure it was…special."

"It was in the forest, among the Resistance. Our last big gathering before the group disbanded. Uncle officiated," her brother answered, with a fond look at his wife.

"How lovely." The Fire Lord forced a smile at the quaint picture, then teased her friend. "Did you carry a bouquet of knives, Mai? I believe that was your idea when we were girls."

"Dark purple orchids," her friend answered. "Fire lilies would have been traditional for a royal wedding, but they don't grow in the Earth Kingdom." Azula thought of the bouquet Raiden had given her with a pang.

To distract herself from that thought, she turned toward her other friend. "Ty Lee, are you still dating that boy from the Water Tribe? Sokka?"

She laughed. "Oh, no, we broke up months ago. He's dating Suki, last I heard."

"You might remember Suki as the girl who brought down the tent in the desert," Zuko put in.

"Ah." Azula looked down at her plate.

"What were you thinking, Azula?" Mai admonished her.

"I regret that plot," she confessed. "I sent apologies to Aang, Katara, and Sokka, for what it's worth."

"The three of us also spent several days in the scorching desert, thanks to your kidnapping scheme," Zuko informed her.

"Then I'm sorry to you, too."

Her guests exchanged surprised glances.

"When Aang said you wrote him that letter, I didn't believe him at first. It seemed so….not you, Mai admitted.

"I'm not the girl you grew up with. That should have been clear from a casual glance at a newspaper." Azula lifted her chin.

"I guess I needed to see it to believe it."

"I understand. Shall we move to the sitting room?"

Mai picked up the baby, waking her up. She fussed as they walked through the palace halls to the room Azula had chosen, where a tea set and a fire waited for them.

"Perhaps you'd like to serve the tea, Zuzu, since you like doing it so much," Azula suggested, teasing.

But her joke did worse than fall flat—it offended. "You've been condescending to us ever since we landed," Zuko yelled.

Mai lay a hand on his arm.

"I apologize. I'm not very good at this." Azula couldn't help thinking that if Raiden were here, he would have smoothed over this awkward situation for her. It was hard to be kind, and unnatural for her, especially when her brother was so sensitive.

"Don't let them get you down, Azula," Ty Lee sympathized. "They're just cranky because little Zumi keeps them up all night."

After Mai elbowed him, Zuko mumbled an apology, and they all sat down. Each poured their own cup of tea, except for the young father, who poured for his wife, whose hands were full with the baby.

When they all seemed settled, Azula broached the topic that had preoccupied her. "There is one other thing I wanted to talk to you about. I need an heir."

Zuko set down his teacup with a splash and a clatter. "I knew you had a plan. You wouldn't invite us unless you were getting something out of it."

"I invited you before I knew about the existence of your child. I wanted you to come simply because I missed you." She reminded them, a pleading tone entering her voice, to the surprise of all present. "I know I was a terrible sister and friend, but I'll do better now if you give me a chance. Won't you at least hear me out?"

In stunned silence, they nodded.

She took a deep breath and made her proposal. "Besides the fact that I currently have no romantic prospects, the doctors tell me I am infertile. My brother's daughter would be a logical choice for the next Fire Lord. But of course, it would be proper for the future ruler to be raised at court."

"You would take our daughter away from us—" Zuko burst out, while Mai clutched the baby protectively.

Azula waved off their worry. "Obviously you're invited to stay in the palace as well. Someone has to care for the girl, and I have no intention of being anyone's mother. I wouldn't separate you. I might even prefer to have you around."

"I couldn't allow you to treat her the way Father treated us," Zuko declared.

"I would never." The Fire Lord placed her hand on her heart, as if to swear. "Father was a brute. I suppose Aang told you that I killed him. I don't regret it."

"Yes. I'm sorry you had to do that. I'm glad he's gone, but—" Zuko squeezed a fist and touched his left cheek. He seemed to be finding his regret hard to articulate. "I just—wish I'd had the chance to—I don't know—confront him, and make him see that what he did to me was wrong."

Azula had to focus to keep her eyes from rolling. "You know as well as I do how futile that would have been."

"I know he wouldn't have changed. But standing up to him might have changed me," the young man insisted.

"Are you upset with me for taking that chance away from you?" his sister wondered.

"No, I'm sure you didn't have a choice, and the world is better off without him, of course. It's just…complicated." He sighed, pulling on his topknot.

Mai touched his shoulder. "You chose to stop fruitlessly chasing your father's approval, and instead devoted yourself to helping the Earth Kingdom resist his domination. You don't need him, not even as a villain to defy."

Impressed and touched by this moment, Azula chimed in to agree. "Listen to your wife, brother. You've built a good life for yourself, with a beautiful baby daughter, and now I'm offering you the chance to help me dismantle our father's legacy."

Mai spoke up. "Why make Izumi your heir, and not Zuko himself?"

Azula shrugged as she answered her friend. "It makes no difference to me. I'll be dead. Either Izumi is my heir, with Zuko as regent in her minority, or Zuko's my heir and Izumi is his heir. The point is providing for the succession into the next generation." She turned back to her brother. "You're sure to outlive me, anyway. And since you would be living here in the palace, I'd also like you to resume your title and become an active part of my administration. The truth is, I need someone like you on my council, Zuko. Even as a child, you had a strong sense of what's right, and weren't afraid to speak your mind. Perhaps you would enjoy serving as foreign minister. You've certainly seen more of the world than I have. You'd be second in rank only to me."

"It's insulting for you to offer him second place, when he's the one who should be Fire Lord!" Mai burst out. "You usurped his throne, and now you're throwing him these scraps?"

"Father is the one who took the throne from him over a decade ago, not me," Azula objected. "I've been crowned, and there's no reversing that. I am offering my brother a position with real power." She amended her plan on the spot, again sure that if Raiden had been there to help her plan this overture to her estranged family members, it would have been easier for everyone. "The Fire Nation has no official process for a Fire Lord to share authority with a family member, but it has happened before, mostly between aging monarchs and their heirs. Siblings have never ruled as equals, but we could blaze a trail."

"As equals?" Zuko asked, incredulous.

"Yes. Except that officially, I would wear the crown, because that's what tradition dictates. But between us, that difference can be a formality."

"What will happen if you and I disagree?" he pressed.

Azula cast around for an answer, and her eyes landed on her friend. "Then Mai can act as tiebreaker. Until Izumi's old enough, that is."

He blinked, taken utterly aback; it seemed he certainly hadn't expected her to select his wife as a supposed neutral arbiter. The couple exchanged dumbfounded looks. Then Zuko shifted his weight uncomfortably. "I'd hate to leave Uncle…"

Now Azula did roll her eyes. "You were raised a prince. You can't tell me you're really content working in a tea shop in a foreign capital, when I'm offering you the chance to lead your own country into a new Golden Age."

Her brother shook his head adamantly. "It's not just a tea shop–"

"Come now, Zuzu. The tea shop is Uncle's project, not yours. Besides, you must have ambitions for your daughter. Why else would you have named her after the Fire Nation's greatest queen?"

"It's an intriguing offer. I'll think it over." He paused. "Why did you say I'll outlive you?"

"Father's dying lightning strike both rendered me infertile and cost me over a decade from my lifespan, according to several doctors," she informed them.

"Oh. I'm…sorry to hear that." Zuko murmured, dumbstruck.

Azula forced a shrug. "Our family is long-lived. Nevertheless, it did make me feel somewhat more urgent about securing an heir."

Baby Izumi began to cry in earnest then. Zuko took her from Mai. "I'll change her and try to put her down for the night," he told his wife.

"I'll stay here and catch up. Give her a bottle too," she answered easily. Passing off parental duties was clearly a routine for them.

"I had a cradle and a larger bed placed in your childhood bedroom," Azula informed her brother.

"Thanks," he said, smiling softly at his sister as he left the room with his baby.

Author's Note: Please leave me a review! Happy New Year!