Morality Chain

Alright, the last chapter (I think…) before Azula gets involved with the main plot proper, and we get to see her strut her stuff. (That… sounded better in my head.)

Anyway, thanks to everyone who's kept up with the story so far.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"Hi – YAH!" Azula cried out, letting her breath billow out of her in a single large rush as she landed, her foot slicing downwards. Upon impact, a brilliant rush of blue flames surged upwards in a cloud of heat and light, temporarily throwing throwing shadows all across the dimly lit room they were in.

Not stopping, she pivoted, lashing out again and again with her legs to send plumes of scorching fire out in concentrated bursts, letting the fire rush forth to consume the area in front of her.

Even as she continued her furious attacks, her mind continued to note what she'd already done, and how much more she needed to do – complacency on the training grounds was unthinkable.

Nine kicks. Ten kicks. Eleven kicks. And… twelve!

The instant she completed the final strike, she leaned forward, swinging her arms in the wide arcs necessary for the technique she would use to complete this particular set of exercises. Even as she did so, she began to clear her mind – absolute concentration, absolute clarity of mind was required for this. And so she shut out everything else, letting her eyes focus upon the far end of the room, upon the black scar that the wall bore.

Her target. Focus on the target.

Nothing else mattered.

She brought her hands together, and a bolt of crackling lightning roared across the room, burning itself into the far wall with pinpoint accuracy. The walls of the dojo were strong – and they had been reinforced specifically to handle the strength of the young princesses' increasingly powerful fire – but they still shook slightly under the impact of the lightning strike.

Panting, breathing heavily, she pulled herself upright and turned to face the raised dais. As she did, she inclined her body into a bow, her head facing the ground. And as she did, she silently prayed that her father would give his approval.

But that did not happen. He merely sat for a long moment, the silence stretching on for interminable seconds. Azula's heart sank. She knew what the next words out of his mouth would be, knew what he would demand before he could even say it. Still, she hesitated, hoping against hope.

"Again." Her father's voice was low. Deliberate.

Unseen by her father, Azula's golden eyes flashed dangerously. She'd performed the set perfectly, she knew she had! Just like she had for the past seven times.

But the word of the Fire Lord was law.

She forced down her exhaustion, forced her trembling legs to remain still, forced her face to remain an impassive mask, forced down the anger that flared within her, and she nodded once.

She turned again, shifting once more into a battle ready stance as she tried desperately to ignore the fact that her legs felt more like they made of jelly than solid bone and muscle. Again she advanced, a blur of graceful motion – just her luck that today's session was almost entirely devoted to kicking and jumping attacks, of course.

Again, she performed the fast, fluid strikes. Again, the sweeping kicks. Again, the lightning bolt. As she made the last jump, she wobbled slightly upon landing, and a snarl of frustration made its way onto her face.

"Again." The demand was marked by an icy edge – her father had noticed her slipup. Her father always noticed her slipups.

And so she began again. And again. And again. Until, on the eleventh repetition of the same exercise, she missed a landing, her feet twisting under her in a manner she would have found comical had it been anyone else. And then suddenly she realized she was lying on the ground, heaving for breath, feeling the world spin around her.

Anger at her own weakness was quickly eclipsed by shame and fear. What would her father say?

Nothing at all, as it turned out. The highest authority in the realm merely sat, silent, for several long seconds. Azula didn't dare move, not even to pick herself up from where she had sprawled on the floor. She hardly dared to breathe.

Abruptly, her father stood and left the room. He did not even glance his daughter's way, and the sound of his fading footfalls echoed through the room for what seemed like an eternity.

Shakily, Azula managed to pull herself into a sitting position on the ground, still fighting for air. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Li and Lo staring at her silently. No matter. They were inconsequential.

Gritting her teeth, Azula forced herself to stand, to walk out of the training hall, and to her own room. Every time her legs threatened to give way beneath her, she would clutch at the railings, trying desperately to steady herself.

As she left the hall itself, she instinctively glanced to the right. That was where the benches were, where people could wait and rest.

They were empty.

As always.

(X)

Her father had taken over her more and more of her teaching as time passed. At first, she had been surprised – didn't the position of Fire Lord demand much of from him, especially in times of war? But somehow he had found the time to come teach and lecture her, day after day.

In her weaker moments, she liked to believe it was because he cared about her.

Still, regardless of reason, he would sit and talk to her of history. Of the glories of the Fire Nation, of its immense strength. Too, he would talk of strategy, of deceptions and crushing blows and desperate last stands. He would talk to her of her role as princess of the Fire Nation and now heir to the throne, of the uncompromising strength and devotion to the country that would be expected from her.

And always, no matter his stories of the glorious past, no matter the lesson on military strategy or the future that awaited her, it would boil down to a single unchanging point.

Strength alone was what mattered. Those stronger than you were obstacles to be surpassed, those weaker than you were tools to be used – at best. Attachments were for sentimental fools. Forming attachments to those weaker would drag you down to their level. Forming attachments to those stronger would mean that you merely became a tool yourself – a cog in the machine.

Her father's voice was heavy and driven as he impressed this point on her. He considered it the single most important thing to be taught to his ward. The unshakeable bedrock that everything else his worldview rested upon.

Azula had believed it once.

She almost believed it now.

Her father was compelling and charismatic and clever. He weaved crafty arguments in favour of his worldview – there was no shortage of examples to draw from, both in history and fiction, of people who had let their attachments doom them to ignoble fates – and he would paint dreamlike visions of a glorious future – if only there were firm, strong hands with which to guide their nation.

But beyond all that, there was the simple fact that he was her father, and that ever since she had been old enough to reason she'd wanted to please him and live up to his expectations, and that even now a part of her (a fairly significant part, she would admit, if only to herself) craved for his attention and approval.

She almost believed.

Almost.

Because on quiet nights, after he had departed for the day, after his duties as Fire Lord had called him away again, Azula would lie on her bed and close her eyes and remember. She would remember her brother – one of the 'weak' ones – and the times they'd shared. Playing games, sniping at one another, discussing their lessons and Firebending techniques.

She would remember a time when she was happy.

And she would remember her whispered promise in the middle of the night to a departed mother she'd longed to please but never could, and she would remember golden eyes glinting with a malice that chilled her to the soul as it stared down at her brother, lying vulnerable and wounded on the arena floor.

And then she would open her eyes and all of a sudden the wonderful words her father had just spoken would have a hollow ring to it.

(X)

One day, as she made her way back to her room after yet another day – they all did tend to blur together after a while, and especially ever since anyone she could have ever considered a friend had gone their separate ways – she paused at the doorway and sighed.

It hadn't been a particularly good day for her, all things considered. The training session in the morning had gone well enough (if primarily because her father hadn't shown up for once), but the meeting she'd snuck into in the early afternoon (just too early, as it turned out, to grab a decent lunch first) had droned on interminably without anything particularly noteworthy being said. To top it off, they'd chosen one of the smaller conference rooms as a venue, with the upshot being that the hiding spots there tended to be horribly cramped.

And now, she was nursing a wonderful headache.

Wearily, she pushed the door open – and paused.

A single piece of straw was lying on the ground in the doorway.

Eyes narrowing, she stooped to pick it up. She'd been the one to place the straw piece there in the space between the closed door and the wall – one of the most basic ways to detect if someone had been into her room unannounced.

The servants won't make their cleaning rounds for a few more hours. And if by some chance they'd changed the schedule without her knowing, Azula knew that they would be thorough enough to have cleaned up that piece of straw from the ground. It wasn't that inconspicuous.

Which left only one real conclusion – someone had entered her room without permission. Quickly, her eyes darted to her drawers – it was still open the fractional inch she'd left it in this morning. The blanket on her bed – the corner she'd tucked in was still there. Not satisfied, she yanked it straight – the tiny piece of white paper she'd tucked inside the fold fluttered to ground.

Right – so someone had come into her room, but apparently not to search it – anyone who'd been careful enough to replace the paper into the blanket would have done the same with the straw. So, then why…

Slowly, her gaze tracked the room, looking for anything that had been different from how she'd left it –

There. The shelf in which she kept all her writing materials (not that she used them particularly often, but it never hurt to be prepared). The pen's brush tip was no longer resting on the corner of the shelf. Someone had moved it. Striding over purposefully, she quickly rifled through all the contents of the shelf, finally coming up with a small, unlabelled, unsealed scroll that hadn't been there before.

Pausing a moment to ensure that her door was closed, she settled herself down on her desk and slowly opened it.

Azula,

This is Zuko. How've you been?

She nearly dropped the letter from sheer shock. Blinking in rapid succession, it was several long seconds before she could continue.

If you're surprised that I'm writing this letter to you, then I guess you should know that I'm pretty surprised too. I know anything sent home from me will be monitored by father, and he's unlikely to let these sort of things pass on to you.

But we're in luck, apparently. I was talking to Uncle the other day about how I wish I could talk to you or at least send letters, and he told me that if I really wanted to, he knew how to get letters to you without father noticing. I asked him how, but he said that there are some things best kept secret for now, so I've decided to trust him on that.

As she read, she couldn't keep the slight smile from tugging at the edge of her lips.
"Same old Zuko…" She whispered to herself.

Anyway, it's been nearly a month since I've been banished

Three months, now. Azula pursed her lips. Whatever delivery method Uncle used wasn't particularly fast, that much was apparent.

and I've been to three different towns. It's kind of amazing how they're all from the same country, and yet can have such different feels and cultures. Uncle's enamoured with the instruments they have on sale on the markets, and –what else? – the various blends of teas they have on sale at each new stop.

It was surprisingly easy to envision her uncle haggling in a port market. Azula wasn't sure if that image was an amusing or disturbing one, though.

Still no luck in finding the Avatar, however. Though it's only been a month, I shouldn't be surprised.

"Oh, Zuko."

I guess I'll start by asking about people performing feats of airbending – since the airbenders are all extinct, anyone airbending would have to be the Avatar, right?

Azula frowned. I'm pretty sure the Avatar needs to learn the individual bending schools. If there're no airbenders left, there won't be anyone to teach airbending to the newest Avatar – whoever he is. Well, that was something that might be advantageous to Zuko should he ever find the Avatar…

"Ha, listen to me." She chuckled without humour. "Here I am, acting like he's going to actually find a phantom of the past." Shaking her head, she continued reading.

Anyway, sis, I know you tend to worry about me, but seriously, don't. I'm fine. Uncle's good company, in his own way. And the rest of the crew are pretty competent at what they're doing. Also, as much as this banishment hurts, I can't say I don't enjoy the chance to experience see the world outside the Fire Nation.

Azula doubted that the world outside the Fire Nation really had that much to offer, but she hadn't experienced it firsthand, so she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, I think I've been rambling for a bit too long, so I'll just end here.

See you soon.

Your brother,

Zuko

After she finished the letter, Azula sat there quietly for a very long while. Finally, she let out a long, slow breath of air. She didn't know why – in reality, very little had changed – but the simple fact of knowing her brother could communicate with her cheered her up considerably.

Then, almost as an afterthought, she rolled the letter up tightly, clutching it in her palm. A moment's concentration, and a fire blossomed, rapidly eating its way through the parchment.

Well, Azula thought as she watched the last remnants of the letter crumble away to charred ash. That's the safest way I know to ensure this letter doesn't get read by unwanted eyes.

And with that, she stood and departed from the room, not bothering to give the remains a second glance – with all the Firebending that went on around the palace, accidents were a simple fact of life and the servants would be used to dealing with the results without comment.

(X)

The letters from Zuko continued to arrive, generally two months late (at least to the times when he remembered to give a timeframe for his writing), and about once a month. It would always appear in the same spot in her room, and as much as she tried, she could never find out who it was that constantly left it there. He (or she) had even become skilled enough to properly replace the warning signs she'd left for herself. That annoyed her, but not that much. For the princess, whose life now consisted of little more than repetitive training in all sorts of fields needed to be Fire Lord, the letters tended to be one of the few things she could genuinely look forward to each month.

Once, he'd mentioned that he'd sent at least three letters via the official channels, so if none of them had reached her (they hadn't), that meant their father was most likely intercepting them. When she'd read that, she felt a tug at her heartstrings, although she wasn't sure why.

And then one day, six months after his exile, she opened the newest letter, and read Zuko's latest missive.

Az,

I'm an idiot. For a while I've been wondering why you've never written back to me, and Uncle pointed out that there was never an address to send your letters to.

So, sorry about that, and here's a list of the stops we're planning to make over the next few months. Uncle says he expects a lag time of approximately two months for a letter to travel from writer to reader, so that'll make it four months in terms of replies. Not the best setup, but I guess we make do with what we can.

If you want to send a letter out, Uncle says to leave it where you always find my own missives. I'm not really sure what it means, but I guess you do, so I'll just leave it at that.

See you soon.

Your brother,

Zuko

Azula had smiled to herself, and later, in the silence of the night, she'd brought out her own scroll and pen.

Dear Zuko,

Thanks for the consideration, but to be frank, there's really not much to write about back here. It's just boring. There's always the Firebending training, and I'm still good at it, of course, but aside from that there's surprisingly little going on back here. Even the council meetings have stagnated. I think we're in a bit of a deadlock as far as the war is concerned; they can't decide if they should renew the offensive on the Earth Kingdom or reallocate resources to a killing blow on the Northern Water Tribes.

She paused, trying to find something to write about. Well, there was always those two… With a shrug, she continued to write.

Ty Lee's left – apparently she managed to convince her mother to let her join the circus. I'm not even sure how, and personally I think it's demeaning, but it's not my life.

And I can't shake the feeling that she did it in part to get away from me. The last sentence she kept to herself. She shook her head. No time to waste on 'what-might-have-beens'.

Also Mai. You remember her, right? She had a crush on you when we were kids. I think she still does, actually. Anyway, she's been shipped off along with the rest of her family to the Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom – her dad's supposed to help with the jurisdiction of the subjugated areas. I've been debating whether or not to try to get him settled down in a particular area as a favour to her – but I can't decide whether she finds travelling around the same areas again and again or staying put in a single area more boring. Maybe you'd have some ideas?

Anyway, all that aside, I'm glad to hear that you're still well. I

Azula paused, pen to paper. She prided herself on not going off on flights of fancy, and the notion of someone capturing the Avatar was exactly that. Yet she could not find it in herself to discourage her brother from his quest. Finally, with a sigh, she continued to write.

wish you good luck in your search. Don't get discouraged, you hear?

Finally, at the end, Azula paused. Then, closing her eyes, she let out a deeper sigh, and penned three more words.

See you soon.

And with that, she waited until the last of the ink dried before rolling the scroll up tightly and stuff it into the same alcove that she got all her letters from her brother from. Her task completed, she promptly went to bed.

In the morning, the letter was gone.

I've got to figure out how whoever it is keeps doing that.

(X)

As the months faded into years, the two of them continued to keep up their correspondence – their one link to each other. As Zuko had predicted, a four month lag in delivery made responses to each other pretty worthless, so they mostly wrote about whatever was happening around them, each keeping the other updated on the situation.

As time went on, Azula began to detect changes in her brother's attitude – relatively gradual, but hardly subtle when one took it all in together. When before he'd go into great lengths about some new cultural attraction or site at the latest port of call, now he'd only mention the name of the town in passing, at best. Before he'd noted Uncle's indulgences in a rather playful manner – one could almost picture shaking his head and grinning to himself as he recounted his anecdotes, now whenever he brought Uncle up it was mostly in an impatient tone, to complain that he didn't seem very serious about the quest at all.

Azula had never had much patience for her Uncle herself, but the change in Zuko was rather jarring, nontheless. Added to his rather consistent complaints that they were wasting valuable time at each port of call, it didn't take a genius to see the reasoning behind her brother' actions.

After destroying the latest letter, Azula leaned back in her chair, one hand reaching up massage her forehead. She'd known this task set upon him by their father had been a hopeless one from the first day, and Zuko must have known it too. But somehow he'd manage to keep his hopes up for a rather long time…

He has a remarkable capacity for self-delusion. She knew others would have referred to it as 'optimism', but really, it came down to the same thing in the end. If Zuko wanted something to be true badly enough, he tended to convince himself that it would indeed come to pass.

A frown crossed Azula's face. In fact, it would be remarkably easy to manipulate him with such promises. All the more reason he should never have been sent out to fend for himself.

But apparently over two years of fruitless searching had begun to take its toll – Zuko was still entirely determined on finding the Avatar, but the search had gone from an eager young man believing that his goal lay just around the next corner to a frantic hunter tearing through everything he could find as quickly as he could and overturning every stone in his path.

You knew this would happen, didn't you, father? Azula thought coldly as she continued to stare placidly at the ceiling. You know Zuko, you know the weaknesses in his character – you knew he'd be driven to desperation by his failure. Her lips pulled back into a snarl. Thinking about her father and Zuko at the same time was never a particular pleasant experience. It always ended with an uncomfortable feeling in her gut, one that would arise again the next few times she faced the Fire Lord, and one she continually fought to push down.

Zuko's tearing himself apart slowly. And I can't do a single thing to help hi-

Light.

A blazing pillar of radiance soared through the inky depths of the night, temporarily flooding the area in an eerie glow. Azula blinked in surprised, quickly pulling herself to her feet and hurrying out into the open.

It was coming from the temple.

The light faded after several brief seconds, but the talk about it refused to die down. Speculation ran rampant, but the pervasive theory (and one that was shortly confirmed anyway by the Fire Sages) was that the Avatar had returned.

The princess of the Fire Nation stood in the night air, staring off into the distance from which the light had bloomed. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath.

Maybe there was hope, after all.

Chapter End

I actually intended for a single, very long chapter, but I think splitting it up would be better in the long run.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and please review.