A/N: CW: Character death! I had a feeling so peculiar that this pain would be for evermore. Love and be loved. Read… and review!

Such A Fire

[Winter 146 AG]

Sayaka of Honan Bay is a girl out of time.

The golden eyed thirteen year old girl with pitch black hair was born 46 years too late. If only she had been old enough to be who she is now when the 100 Years War was still raging, she could've played a part in history. Perhaps she would've helped the Avatar and his gang to take down the Fire Nation. Maybe she would have taught him a valuable life lesson about her homeland in the Earth Kingdom. She has an insatiable thirst for connection. She wishes to be understood and to understand others, which explains why she clings to the Sisters of the Forest.

If Sayaka had been born later in life perhaps Honan Bay wouldn't be as destitute. Maybe if she was born a few years later, the Sheriff wouldn't have been an alcoholic who couldn't control the chaos. Perhaps her parents would've had to move to a less rural area like Chin Village or Kyoshi Island. If more technology existed and Sayaka could've more easily reached Republic City, maybe she could've worked her way up through a company or earned a formal education.

Instead, she is a girl out of time. She was born in 132 AG in Honan Bay, which was about the same time that The Guardian was busy rebuilding a cursed village in the aftermath of The Burning. The two would not cross paths for 12 years, at which point they would both be at drastically different points in their lives. Azula, one of The Sisters of the Forest, wanting to be forgotten for several reasons. Sayaka, the Girl Out of Time, seeking any kind of mentor to help her understand her powers and to tame them.

The first time Sayaka produced a fireball from her palms it was not an altogether unique experience. Sure it was unexpected and surprising, but then again much of her daily life could be described as such. What's more is that it was explosive, which was practically her entire existence. Every moment at home was living on eggshells, uncertain of when her parents would commence screaming at one another, anxiously waiting for the next episode. Perhaps this fire was always in her blood. Maybe she had the proclivity towards violence from birth. Both her nature and her nurture leading her towards this end.

Most of all though, the fire spitting from her hands is destructive. A state of being that Sayaka has known from an early age. A state of being that Sayaka knows right now, because just a few minutes ago her father, amidst another drunken stupor, exploded into a rage against her mother once more. His explosive anger feels so familiar to the exploding red flames that emit from her palms.

Ty Lee has been gone for over twenty-four hours and Azula is categorically unraveling. She has barely eaten, still hasn't bathed, and she's desperately seeking answers at the bottom of bottles of sorghum liquor. Given her mental state, she went for the hard stuff right off the rip. She is joined by Sheriff Molan, a dope of a man with large biceps and small dreams. He's got a huge beard and beady little black eyes and he's nursing some cactus juice.

"I'm shocked, 'Suko. Really. I thought she'd have come back by now. You think she'll be back tomorrow?"

"I don't know, Mo. I really don't."

Old Molan and Yasuko, one of two 'Sisters of the Forest,' met in the pub shortly after Yasuko came to town seven plus years ago. Molan, in his 60's, was a veteran of the 100 Years' War as a non-bending child soldier for the Earth Kingdom. Yasuko, this version that she introduced to Honan Bay, was a Yue praising Fire Nation non-bender who was also a child soldier in the war. She was reluctant to admit that last part until she was very comfortable with Mo, which coincided with trying to bury her past as the world tried to close in around her. The two soldiers bonded over their paramilitary backgrounds and the traumatic horrors they have struggled to move on from throughout life.

"I thought what you two had was real love. True love!" Mo smacks the table in distress.

Old Mo was a massive fan of Suko and her wife 'Lana.' Despite his rural background and upbringing, the man has a soft spot in his heart for gender betrayers, especially of the female variety, and wished for better treatment for them by the world over. It was a lifelong opinion that, when given the chance to finally befriend one in his old age, he quickly jumped on.

"Thanks, Mo."

He puts a hand on her shoulder to express his empathy, while she just continues to stare into her drink. He, in his inebriated state, doesn't have the ability to stop himself from saying the words.

"I gotta say, Suko. I say this with all love. I'm sorry, but I gotta ask you. Do ya think she was right? Do you think she maybe was right?"

"Yes! Yes. Mo, I am so fucked up. I've been fucked up forever."

"Okay! OK! We're getting someplace."

"This was a really, this was a wakeup call. That's what she wants. She wants me to wake the fuck up, and act right."

"Yes! Okay. How do we do it?"

The answer is clear. It's what Ty Lee had asked her. It's always been the same. The thing Ty Lee wants, what she has sought for so long, was to go home. She wants a family. Return to the Fire Nation. The answer isn't the problem, but the equation. The complex calculus in her brain that she's never been able to solve in deciding if she was truly a good person or not. There was a litany of friends and family who would argue and have told her that she is good, including her wife and deceased Uncle. There was also an untold number of dead bodies left in her wake throughout her life that would argue the other side.

"I don't know, Mo. I'm not sure. I'm not a good person."

Ty Lee, Zuko, Lin, Suki, Iroh, Lonou, Jin, Miki and so many others. They stood atop one weight of the scale. On the other end were people like Zirin, Ruki, the Kemurikage, Gaaler, Kallik, Katara, the Avatar, and many others.

"Fuck that! You're a great person, Suko. Look at that young girl you've been teaching! Her family's completely fucked. Go ask her if you're a good person. There's your fucking answer!"

Molan is right. Between the scales of her fate is her young protege. The key to her salvation. She smacks the table and thunders.

"Whoa there, Big Girl!" Molan references her muscular figure while scraping his chair backward.

"Mo! You're right. You fucking genius."

Ty Lee was right from the start. Sayaka can be her last good deed.

Sayaka sits against her bedroom door, listening. She hears the muffled cries of her mother. Rhythmically, every odd number of seconds, she hears the slapping noise. His fist meeting her flesh. Sayaka stands and faces the door. She debates within herself about going out there, whether she has the strength to fight her father.

Not the physical strength. She has power he could never wield, abilities he could never understand.

She does not need the strength to aim her fire at him.

She needs the strength to stand up to him.

'I can make this right.' Azula tells herself, wobbling but resolute in her seat at the bar.

'I can make this right.' Sayaka tells herself, wobbling but resolute as she reaches for the door handle.

Azula pushes back from her seat and stands up.

"Mo! You son of a bitch! I love you! I'll see you tomorrow!" She shouts as she stumbles out of the bar.

When Sayaka first got her fire bending, she did not know how to wield it. She was not used to being in a position of power. Sayaka did not understand the true meaning of fire bending. There was no one in Honan Bay who could teach her, and even when she finally found a master they did not teach her. Azula was too pragmatic to be concerned with teaching the philosophical origins of the bending. Sayaka came to her needing help to control the chaos. Azula offered her management skills. Now, Sayaka will look to put it all into practice.

She stands at the top of the landing to their two-story home, the stairs to her left, a few feet outside of her door and a few feet from her cowering mother, a tyrant of a father standing over her. The wind howls in the winter night against their cold home. Enough chill to freeze a person and leave them for dead.

None of that matters opposed to the fire in Sayaka's heart. Her love for her mother and a deep desire to protect.

"Baby! Dear, please! Go back into your room." Her mother calls out, urging her to leave. "Please, just go back inside."

"I am Sayaka of Honan Bay!" She announces, twisting her arms into a form until she holds one open palm back behind her, ready to shoot forward. "I am the Protector of this Home and you will leave us!"

Her father, named Hamen, more than three times her age, more than double her weight, and a foot and a half taller than her, with enough alcohol in his system that it would kill her, lumbers to turn around.

"What the fuck are you on about?"

"Leave us, or I will make you."

"Make me? You're going to make me? I'll fucking kill you."

Sayaka hears these words and her hands move beyond her control. She pushes her hand out and a fireball erupts forward. It flows from her heart, through her veins, and into her finger tips, as a blast of heat and flame streams out. Even she is surprised by its veracity.

"ARGH!" He shouts as he goes crashing backwards into the wall, his top burned and his chest seared.

"SAYAKA!" Her mother screams at her. "No!"

Sayaka turns her golden eyes and midnight hair to look at her destitute mother with all of the glittering hope of the moon in the night sky. Sayaka burns the image into her mind. Seeing her mother, shocked and dismayed as she may be, but free, truly free for the first time. This will be the first moment of the rest of their lives. A hero, forged from the darkness of her troubled family, harnessed by the fires of the Sisters of the Forest. She will burn everyone down to feel this kind of warmth again and again. Sayaka of Honan Bay will be a help to those in need.

Hamen pushes up off of the wall when the burning stops. He rushes forward and closes the distance faster than the sun peaking over the horizon.

"NO!" Her mother screams.

"YOU LITTLE BITCH!"

Hamen swings. He backhands Sayaka across the face. She is struck with such a force that she loses her balance, her body falling down towards the step. The side of her head cracks open like an egg on the first step and then her body continues to tumble downwards.

Azula wakes before the sun rises. She's done that every day of her life, even in the malaise of this depression, but this morning feels different. She chugs water to chase the hangover. She finally bathes, and the cool water washing over her long hair is glorious. She even has time to wash her clothes and hang them out to dry. She does stretching exercises for the first time in recent memory. She practices her breathing the way Ty Lee once taught her, something she hasn't done in years. It won't happen today, or tomorrow. It will take months if not years, but once Sayaka has become a master, once she has evaded the path that Azula and Zirin followed, then Azula can be free. More over, when Ty Lee comes home in the coming days, she will see the resolve. She will see how serious Azula is about escaping the darkness and returning to the sunlight.

Azula waits for Sayaka to arrive. Her last lesson had been about where to get her motivation. That was far more philosophical than Azula liked, but a necessary deviation given what Sayaka had said and where the conversation had led. It made sense for Azula to share about her background and the advice she'd received. Now that it was done, she could stay focused on forms and techniques. She needed to work on sustained flames and on her stamina. Azula could ferry her all about town to get her lung capacity increased, even marginal improvements would go a long way.

The hours pass, and Sayaka does not come for her training. At first it gives Azula more time to prepare but after a certain point it becomes awkward and strange. The sun reaches high into the mid-morning sky when Azula finally leaves her home in the forest and walks into town. Villagers are stunned to see her. One of the Sisters of the Forest walks among them in broad daylight, but even more so that she does so without going to the bar. It is an odd place, filled with mud roads from a recent rain and no paved walkways or concrete. A farming town at the water's edge. She recalls from some conversations with Sayaka where she lives and routes her way to it.

Azula walks towards a blockade. She feels lost and confused, unfamiliar with the town. By happenstance she spots Molan, who is conversing with some strangers on the other side of the blockade. She's not sure where she's supposed to go but she raises her hand up and waves towards him. This odd display catches the attention of every single villager within eyeshot. Given what has transpired last night and this morning, the last thing they thought they'd see is that drunk Sister from the outskirts.

"Molan. Molan! Mo!" She shouts to get his attention.

He finally notices her and instantly cusses under his breath. He says a few more words to his officer and then dismisses him. He takes frought and slow steps as she moves towards his drinking buddy. As he gets within a few feet she speaks to him.

"Mo! I'm looking for Sayaka's house. Can you tell me where it is?"

He looks grim and sad. He shakes his head to himself as he looks down, then finally back up. He speaks with a low yet firm tone.

"Yasuko, now, I need ya to remain calm."

"Calm? Why wouldn't I be calm? What's, what-?" She trails off as her mind gets a head start on the answers.

A lump forms in his throat as he tries to spit out the words.

"Sayaka's dead, 'Suko. Killed. Her father confessed to it last night."

"They have brought with them nothing but trouble and despair."

"You're a beautiful monster, Azula."

"Because there's no such thing as peace time for her; her life is just one battle after another."

"Please don't. Please! You're supposed to be the good guys! Please don't. Please. Why do you get to decide? Huh? Who chose you?"

"You will never know how much harder it is to be nice and normal and decent than it is to be like you."

"I hope that you burn."

"Everything you touch burns. It's your curse. All that you hold turns to ash."

All of these moments flicker through her mind like pictures, and as they draw closer the outline of a figure moves closer. It is herself drawing near. The looming shadow of her own outsized legacy casting the darkness upon all that she sees and all that she touches. More than anyone alive she is only able to break, and burn, and end.

Azula is truly the Ashmaker.

"Hello? Hello? Anyone there?" Molan tries to pull her out of her haze.

Her last good deed did not go unpunished.

"Where the fuck is he?"

"Where who? Hamen?"

"Him. Where is he?"

"Yasuko, you listen here - ahhh!"

Azula grabs Molan by the neckline and pulls him closer. She foams at the mouth, her blind rage becoming omnipotent. She spits in his face.

"You tell me where that mother fucker is right now or I'll kill you!"

Molan is not surprised by the reaction alone, but rather the ferociousness of it. He is quiet and mumbling while a few of the townsmen step up to stop her. She presses him for more information.

"That prison pen you have? Is he there?"

Two men put their hands on her shoulders and grip her to pull her off of him.

"Y-y-yasuko, you can't-!"

Azula throws Molan with force. She shirks off the men and now they step back to leave her alone, but don't step too far away. One cautiously stays nearby, while the other walks three feet away to help Molan up out of the mud. While they focus on that, Azula turns away. She marches out across the village to one of the only places she knows. The villagers jabber fervently as they watch the Sister of the Forest make a fool of her friend, the sheriff.

'Knew this day would eventually come. So here's one last lesson …'

Azula barges into the headquarters for law enforcement. It's a shabby, small building with poor lighting and smells terrible. A woman twenty-some years younger than Yasuko looks up at her, alarmed and confused. The fire bender scans the main lobby and then sees a hallway leading to the back, behind the front desk. She marches forward with tunnel vision.

'Everything ends, the good and the bad.'

"Hey!" The middle aged woman protests, standing up to block her way. "Hey you can't be back - AHHH!"

Azula pushes her back into her chair. She keeps one hand on the woman to keep her down as she rips the keys from the desk.

'The good memories are only a blip and the bad days never seem to end.'

A man, one of Molan's youngsters, approaches her but she shoves him away with ease, not even considering the man. She walks through the hallway into the back and finds it. A cell with steel bars are the only thing separating them. Inside is a man only barely conscious.

'I know you have hate in you. Most of us do.'

Azula unlocks the cell and steps inside. The man stirs and looks up at an angry, mad woman standing over him.

'But you need to use it for yourself, rather than letting it use you.'

Azula lifts Hamen up by the throat and throws him back into the wall.

'Know this, the pain can be a motivator, but should never be the motive.'

Hamen coughs strenuously, his airways disrupted and his head ablaze with pain. He turns his head around slightly, trying to find who did this to him. Azula steps up amongst his daze and delivers three quick strikes. One to his left arm, one to his right arm, and then one across the face.

Hamen feels like he blinked and his arm muscles stopped existing. They become instantly paralyzed, like they're made of rubber all of a sudden. Before he knows it though his face is struck and his head ricochets back into the wall.

"Ugh." He groans in pain.

Azula is not satisfied. Not in the slightest, not even a trickle of what she wants to do. She puts her left hand up and pushes his head backwards roughly until it's against the wall and then, with her right hand, she delivers consecutive blows to smash his face into the wall. His teeth get cut on it and blood spews from his mouth.

Despite his pain he can't stop it. His arms can't move and she is pushing him into it. It is a brutal punishment as he cries in pain and bleeds from the mouth. A different person may have walked away, satisfied to have done irreparable harm, but Azula can not. She lets him go and his body slumps part of the way down the wall. She grabs a fistful of his collar and starts dragging him away.

Azula drags him out of his cell, out of the prison, out of the headquarters. When she drags him out into the public eye, right there in the village square, there is a crowd waiting. Molan had not gone into the building as they were trying to decide on a plan of attack. He now sees her come out and watches as she throws Hamen into the dirt.

'So if someone does harm, you go hunt 'em and get your justice.'

Azula balls her fists. She stands above his motionless body and points both arms straight down at the massive man who looks so small on the ground. Molan grabs a few of the men from the village and tells them to run out with him. Everyone else stands in silence as they look out at the scene in front of them.

Hamen had killed his own daughter. Now he is bloodied and broken and one of the Sisters of the Forest stands above him, her empty fists pointed down at him. They begin glowing with a blue heat. She decrees loudly, for all to hear.

"I, Azula of Caldera, Guardian of Lonlhai, sentence you to die!"

She sends the mental command and the fire courses through her, ready to explode outward.

"Yasuko! NO!"

Molan tackles her, or tries to at least. He throws all of his weight at her and he can't bring her down. But he holds her from the front and prevents her from blazing Hamen into nothing.

"Get off of me, Mo!" She shouts, lifting her arms up to shrug him off.

"No! You can't!" Her friend fights back.

She is on the verge of prying him off of her when suddenly more weight is upon her. Two more bodies crash into her and hold her arms down.

"He killed her, Mo! He killed her!"

"I know, Suko! I know!" He squeezes as hard as he can and puts all of his weight onto her arms.

Azula is still stronger than them. Molan and two men can't stop her. She lifts some fingertips up, if she can just get a clear line on the man, she could electrocute him. She does not want to do that, as it is far too quick of a death than he deserves. However, just as she's getting them free, another two bodies crash into them and block her path.

Five of Honan Bay's strongest men, in their physical prime, are only just barely able to subdue the sixty-plus year old Azula. They hold her front and some pull her shoulders back. She can't get any arms up, but she leans forward, fighting back. Her head is tilted towards him, even as her arms and body are being pulled in the wrong direction. The crowd murmurs to life. Astonishment at her brute strength, comments on Hamen's bloody appearance, whispers about the names she just called herself. Hamen, using his legs and his head, is finally able to sit up on his knees and look up at her. He is a bloody mess and in disarray, yet there is something sad and angry in his eyes. He speaks to Azula, just a few words but ones that reach her all the same.

"You don't understand," he whimpers. "I loved her more than you ever could."

Ozai. Xai Bau. Yakone. Gaaler. Warden Thaki. Kallik. Harbinger Yong. Hamen.

Evil men who have harmed her or tried to harm her. Who have traumatized her or left their mark on her forever. They may have never touched her body but they raped and pillaged her mind and her emotional stability.

The fire rises from such a deep-seeded place that it doesn't even feel like it's hers. It draws from her bones and her blood itself. The insatiable pain and the unshakable fury so deep that it goes back generations. Lifetimes of her own and of those from before her. Pain mixed with anguish as she lost a younger version of herself in Sayaka, a fate she had so desperately wanted to prevent. It is fire more powerful than any that Azula has ever produced, it shakes her core and breaks her body. Her face contorts as his words land in her mind and make a nest of her thoughts. From her mouth, wisps of blue fire escape. She inhales the largest breath of her entire life.

'Hurt people because what they did was wrong.'

Held back by a gaggle of men, Azula opens her maw. Blue fire spills out and a roar so loud it could pierce the sky.

"RAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWRRRRRR!"

The fire that spills from her mouth is so bright and so powerful that the townsfolk of Honan Bay must shield their eyes. The five men, shocked by this development and rightfully fearing for their own lives, immediately release Azula and step back, the blast of the fire so strong it threatens to catch on them while they are within range. Molan falls on the ground and is paralyzed with fear at the sight.

Azula breaths a blue fire twice as powerful as anything else she has ever produced. It is propelled by the emotions that she feels, manifesting her hurt into an unstoppable inferno. What stuns everyone the most though is how long it lasts. Azula continues breathing fire for forty seconds, long after Hamen would've died.

When she's done, there is nothing left.

Nothing.

No ashes.

He is gone.

Not even the bones remain.

Azula's hearing gradually returns. She feels a weight crash into her and start pounding at her. It takes a moment before she realizes this is not Molan or any of his officers. It is a boney woman, who weeps and punches her. Finally, with a popping sound, Azula can hear clearly.

"- your fault! You did this! You did!"

"Huh?"

Sayaka's mother looks up at her.

"You killed my family! You did! You did!"

She weeps and helplessly smacks Azula, flailing as best as she can but doing nothing to the dragon.

"You killed my husband and you taught her firebending. If it wasn't for you my family would be alive!"

Azula steps back and becomes keenly aware of where she is, what she's done, the publicity of it all. She has invoked her own name, she has executed a man in broad daylight, she has used her blue fire. The whole world will turn its attention to Honan Bay now. None of that matters anymore though, because she knows she has killed this woman's family. She looks down at her hands and they shake violently.

Without another word, Azula turns and runs.

'It's yours now, 'till the last watch is kept, all the words are spoken, and all the ends are met.'

Azula makes it slightly more than a dozen miles out of town before deciding to set up camp. She dashed back to the house and gathered what she could into her traveling pack, and now she is on the run. It is not unfamiliar but it is jarring and she suffers from emotional whiplash. What's started out as innocent optimism for the future has ended so sinisterly. Sayaka had been the key. She was ready to rebuild her life, only for it to all be ripped from her overnight.

The winter sun is setting so Azula pulls some firewood together. It's cold and she rubs her palms together for warmth. Once the pit is safe and secure, she kneels before it and puts her hands out.

No flames come out.

She rubs them together and tries again. Still nothing.

'Fuck, I don't have time for this to get temperamental on me.'

Azula gives up on lighting it with her bending. She grabs some sharp rocks and starts a kindling.

'Probably just what I'm feeling right now,' she thinks. 'It'll be back by morning.'

Fifteen some miles out from perhaps the last home she will ever have, Azula will sleep alone under some damn trees. She's able to fall asleep with ease. The truth is that she knows the nightmares can't be worse than the things she has lived.

A/N: Just a quick note on burning a body so badly and so quickly that not even bones are left. This took a ton of research. A very weird hole on the Internet of threads and videos that I never want to experience again. Anyway, bones melt at 3000° Celsius. You know what else burns at 3000° Celsius? Blue fire (no, seriously). The surface of the Sun is only 5000° Celsius. So, after all the research and discussion with FMTomiko, I settled on this idea: If Azula had a rage-induced power spike and doubled her output (6000° Celsius whoa) it wouldn't take that long to melt everything (it would also be devastatingly hot to be near). 40 seconds seemed like a fair guess. And if I'm completely wrong? Well, sorry. I'm a fic author with limited resources. This chapter's OST is "Black Flies" by Ben Howard.

Love always. Azula forever?

Notorious