Zuko had fucked up. Big time.
He'd betrayed his uncle. His uncle.
He'd betrayed the man whose shoulders he'd wept on after his late mother—whose hand he'd squeezed as he'd writhed in agony after his Agni Kai, blind and terrified. Betrayed the man who had spent three years traveling the world on a shabby ship for no reason other than to shower his spoiled nephew with wisdom and guide him through his exile—who had crossed the whole of the Earth Kingdom on foot for him, lived in caves for him, bought him new clothes with their only money and spent nearly an hour dressing and doing his hair for a stupid date.
He'd betrayed the man who had believed in him when no one else had—who had loved him unconditionally when no one else would show him the slightest of kindness. Now that man was in prison, and it was Zuko who had put him there. And for what? His honor? His rightful place on the throne? His father's praise?
"You shouldn't dwell on past mistakes, Prince Zuko," Uncle's soothing voice echoed in his head, taking Zuko back to the days of exile on his ship. He could almost hear the clinking of a Pai Sho tile against a wooden table and smell the scent of jasmine tea that clung to the old man. "To linger on the past is to shut out the present—and what joy is there in life if you do not enjoy the present?"
Uncle was right. As much as he didn't like to admit it, Zuko had done what he'd done. There was no going back now. Now, what he needed to do was look to the future—that was what Uncle would have wanted.
Zuko had his honor back now, or so Azula had said. Did that mean Father would accept him back now that he was more than just a stain on the family's reputation? Would Father finally love him? Or would he be disappointed in him for not being strong enough to capture the Avatar despite having so many chances to do so? Would he be angry at him for becoming a fugitive and living like a peasant? Would he burn him again?
So many questions whirled in Zuko's mind and he had not a single answer. And he didn't get the chance to ponder over them when the sounds of approaching footsteps pulled him back to reality, to the throne room of the Earth King's palace, by his sister's side, who sat triumphantly on the throne, quietly savoring her victory.
Zuko looked up to see the Head of Dai Li entering the throne room from the gigantic doors to the right. The man walked to the stairs of the throne and got down on one knee before the royal siblings.
"What is it?" Azula demanded.
"We've apprehended the waterbender, Princess."
The corner of Azula's lips lifted. "And the Avatar?"
"He wasn't with her. We are interrogating her as we speak. She says he's dead, but won't tell where the body is."
Azula briefly glanced to the side, brows knitting as she took in the information. "No. Those Water Tribe savages are loyal to their packs. She wouldn't leave him behind even if he were dead." She lifted her chin. "I want every house in the Lower Ring searched and every witness questioned. Spare no expense and leave no stone unturned. Also, do keep interrogating the peasant—she'll break eventually."
"Of course, Princess."
"Anything else?"
"There's been sightings of the Avatar's bison leaving the city. We have reason to believe King Kuei and the Avatar's companions were on it."
Azula exhaled a disappointed sigh. "Pity. They would've been excellent bait to lure out the Avatar. Oh well, I suppose the Water Tribe peasant will have to suffice." She fixed her eyes on the kneeling man. "If that is all, you may leave."
With a curt nod of the head, the man got up and went back the way he came, leaving the siblings alone once more.
Amidst all the things going on with his uncle, Zuko had completely forgotten about the Water Tribe girl. Now that he remembered, though—remembered the tenderness and concern in her eyes and the feather-light brushes of her fingertips against his scar—he wished she'd remained forgotten. His heart already ached for his uncle, he couldn't bear to think about another life he'd destroyed tonight.
"I hear that peasant is a pretty big hero for the enemy," Azula said, sitting with her back straight on the Earth King's throne, fists resting on the armrests, gaze fixed ahead. "Did you know her father is the chieftain of her tribe and she's the waterbending master of the Avatar?"
Zuko's shoulders slumped with the guilt pressing down on him.
She had a family. Friends. And she'd never get to see them again.
"Good for her," he responded flatly.
"It is good for her," Azula said, a note of malice present in her voice. "But it doesn't have to be good only for her, does it?"
Oh no. Zuko had heard that tone countless times in his childhood. And every single one of those times had ended with something terrible happening either to him or someone else. Something told him this wasn't going to end differently.
He turned to her fully, a feeling of dread worming from the pit of his stomach up his spine. "What're you saying, Azula?"
Azula crossed her legs, a smile forming on her lips.
"Soon, brother," she started, still gazing into the depths of the throne room, "the whole world will know Ba Sing Se fell to the Fire Nation, and even better, their precious little Avatar was killed. The enemy's safe haven and biggest hope, defeated on the same night… It'll devastate them." She leaned back on the throne. "But it won't be enough to break them. They'll just regroup and continue their rebellions elsewhere. If we want to break them, really break them, we need to crush any sense of morale they have left."
She finally turned to him, her smile blossoming into a full-on smirk. "And you know what could do that?" The amber of her eyes was taken over by the black of her pupils. "Hearing that one of their biggest heroes became a whore in the Fire Lord's harem."
The blood flowing in Zuko's veins froze that instant.
No. Oh, Agni no… The harem was… No one, no matter how grave their crime, deserved to be punished like that, least of all the waterbender. She... wasn't a bad person. She'd offered to help him—her archenemy. And she'd done that twice, in fact—first when Azula had shot Uncle and then again tonight in the crystal catacombs. Zuko may not have known much about her, but he knew she was compassionate, and it was her compassion that had landed her in this situation in the first place. She was only trying to protect her friend. If someone were to hurt Uncle, Zuko would've done the same.
It wasn't fair. She didn't deserve this.
"What's more," Azula continued, too caught up in her own world to notice the color drain from her brother's face, "since the peasant is a chief's daughter, the soldiers in her tribe may even attempt to rescue her without waiting for the eclipse!" She chuckled and her gaze shifted back ahead. "Oh, it's perfect."
Zuko stared at her in disbelief. She was enjoying this. She was enjoying sentencing an innocent girl to a life of slavery.
He wanted to lash out at her, wanted to tell her she was crazy, that the waterbender didn't deserve this. But he knew better than losing his temper in his sister's presence—he knew he couldn't afford the consequences. So, instead, he kept his cool and recovered from his stunned state as best he could. What he needed right now was to change Azula's mind before it was too late, not lecture her on ethics or morality.
He racked his brains for a good enough reason to get the waterbender out of his sister's grasp.
"I say we use her as a bargaining tool to release prisoners of war," he blurted out, trying to keep his tone casual. "As you said, she's very important to the enemy. We can get thousands of our soldiers back—soldiers we'll need to enforce our rule here in Ba Sing Se."
At his voice, Azula snapped out of her thoughts, then shrugged. "After tonight, the enemy will be in shambles anyway. We'll use the eastern units to support the occupation, and after things calm down here, we can just go get the soldiers back ourselves. We don't need the peasant."
"But… if we move the eastern units, we'll leave a bunch of territory defenseless. What if someone tries to claim those lands while all of our soldiers are here?"
Azula rolled her eyes. "We'll move the western units there, Dum-Dum."
"But... then the homeland will be left open for attack."
She sighed. "We had an incredible victory here tonight, Zuko. People will line up to enlist in the army. They'll wanna be a part of history. The homeland will be safe."
Shit. That was a good point.
"She's a Water Tribe peasant, Azula," he pleaded softly, pitching to her empathy as his last resort, even though he knew she wasn't very good on that front. "Father won't see her as anything more than a filthy savage. He'll never bed her and he knows no noble would want her as a gift. She'll stay a slave for the rest of her life."
Azula slowly turned her head to look at her brother, her smirk now replaced by a dangerous glare. "Why does it matter to you if she's a slave or not, Zuko?"
His eyes widened. She was right, he shouldn't have cared whatever happened to the girl—they were enemies, after all, not friends.
Folding his arms, he looked away. "It doesn't. I just… We already have enough servants in the palace. There's no need for one more mouth to feed. And I doubt she even knows how to hold a mop."
"Mhmm…" Azula's glare softened and she tilted her head slightly. "In that case, why don't you deliver her the good news, Zuzu? She'd appreciate learning her fate from a familiar face rather than a stranger's, wouldn't you agree?"
What?! Zuko couldn't even look at the girl after stabbing her in the back, let alone tell her something like this!
'Calm down, Zuko. Don't do anything stupid. You're tired, go to your room.'
Deciding the voice inside his mind was right, he huffed and began his way toward the broken-down doors opposite the throne. "I'm not your servant, Azula. Go have one of your little agents do your legwork."
As he was about to take his first step down the stairs, Azula's sardonic laughter echoed in the empty throne room.
"Oh, Zuzu, don't tell me… Are you afraid of the peasant?"
Zuko stopped dead in his tracks, his foot hovering above the marble stair.
"It's okay, Zuzu," came his sister's mocking voice from behind. "I'm sure Dad won't mind hearing you're still a coward."
Zuko felt his cheeks burn, though he wasn't sure if it was of anger or embarrassment. He whipped around to his sister, his fists smoldering at his sides. She was examining her nails, her previous smirk back on her lips.
"I'M NOT AFRAID OF HER! AND I'M NOT A COWARD!"
Azula glanced up from beneath her dark lashes. "Why don't you prove it, then?"
"FINE!"
"Good." She uncrossed her legs and held her hand in the direction of the doors to her right. "The Dai Li will show you the way. Oh, and do tell the peasant I say hi."
Never minding whatever his sister was saying, Zuko practically flew down the stairs and stomped over to the doors.
Afraid. Ha! He wasn't afraid! He was going to show Azula who was afraid! He wasn't scared of some Water Tribe girl! He could face her! What was there to be scared of, anyway! All he had to do was look her in the eye and tell her she was going to become a slave for the family responsible for her mother and friend's deaths and be forced to clean toilets and scrub the floors and get treated like a rat for the rest of her life...
He could do that…
Right?
-o-
Zuko wanted to bang his head against a wall. Repeatedly.
He'd let Azula play him like a damn fiddle. She'd set a trap for him and he hadn't just fallen for it—no, that would've been way too smart of him—he'd dived into it headfirst! So much for not doing anything stupid! And the worst part about this was he knew something like this would've happened. Something like this always happened.
What was he even going to say to the girl? How did you tell someone they were to become a slave? What, was he going to go up to her and say, "Hey, remember me? I'm that guy that stabbed you in the back and helped kill your best friend! Yeah, hi! I know I'm the last person on the planet you wanna see right now, but surprise surprise, you're gonna be a slave! Congra-fucking-tulations!"
Argh, why couldn't he have just stayed quiet?! He should've known there was no way Azula would've let… her go without a— Agni, the girl had offered to heal his scar, but he couldn't even remember her name?! He'd heard her brother say it before… Arkata? Takara?
A man's voice coming from in front of him cut through his thoughts like a knife.
"State your business."
Oh, he must've arrived at the prison… Great.
Since leaving the throne room, Zuko had been blindly following a Dai Li agent down into the depths of the palace. Now that his focus was back on, though, he realized he was walking in a tunnel—the ceiling above a couple of heads taller than him, and the walls barely two shoulders apart. The old, moss-covered stones of the tunnel hardly reflected any light coming from the glowing green crystals mounted on the walls, and the side passages branching off to the left and right were all as dim and eerie as the one he was in.
Some steps ahead of the agent in front of him was a metal door and another agent standing guard in front of the door, marking the end of the tunnel. The agent leading the way stopped before the guard, causing Zuko to do the same behind him.
"Prince Zuko will see the waterbender," the agent said.
The guard didn't even look at Zuko. "She's being interrogated. Come back later."
"His Highness is here on Princess Azula's request," the agent said, and at those words, the guard's eyes darted to the Prince standing timidly in the back. He eyed him briefly before turning around to unlock the door and stepping out of the way.
The inside of the prison was made entirely of metal—the floors, walls, doors, curved ceiling, and even the little boxes on the floor with the glowing crystals in them, everything was metal. As Zuko and the agent strode through the short, narrow path that was this prison, their footfalls tore through its deafening silence.
The agent led the Zuko to the door at the opposite end of the passage that differed from the others, for it had neither a barred, square window at head level nor a rectangular opening on the bottom, presumably to slide food trays in and out of the cell.
Then the agent knocked on the door twice. "The prisoner has a visitor," he informed whoever was inside.
A deep voice came from the other side, muffled due to the door. "She's in an interrogation."
"It's the Princess' orders."
No response came for a few seconds, but then the door creaked open, revealing a huge man standing in the doorway. A rush of hot air radiated from behind the man and hit the Prince in the face, and instantaneously, a horrid, metallic smell overwhelmed his senses.
Zuko knew that smell well. It was blood. And judging by its intensity, there was a lot of it.
Cold sweat began trickling down his back, the dread he'd felt earlier in the throne room returning to its place in his stomach.
This couldn't be good.
The man standing in the doorway wore a black outfit, covering him from head to toe. He also wore a black mask and a hood that left only his eyes that lacked any life in them visible to the outside world. He carried around him an aura of ominousness. And though his large frame obscured most of what was inside the room, Zuko was able to make out the top of the waterbender's head, hung low, from under the man's arm.
The agent moved aside as the man in black took a step toward the Prince, towering above the tiny boy that only came up to his shoulders.
"Make it quick," he told him firmly, then stepped out of the way, giving Zuko a full view of the girl sitting behind him.
And the icy terror brewing in his stomach exploded, paralyzing him to his spot.
The waterbender was seated in the middle of the room on a tall metal chair, secured in place by leather straps around her shins, wrists, and chest. Blood dripped from her mouth and the tip of her nose onto her black shirt. But worst of all, three thin pieces of metal were sticking out from under her fingernails, causing even more blood to trickle down the arm and leg of the chair and pool beside her foot. Her eyes were closed and she was as quiet as a spirit—the only evidence she was even alive, the faint rise and fall of her chest.
The sight of blood triggered memories in Zuko he'd sworn long ago to never revisit ever again. His heart skipped a beat and breathing suddenly became too difficult. His vision blurred and the world around him started to spin.
"Prince Zuko," the agent's voice came from hundreds of miles away, "Are you alright, sir?"
'I'm fine,' Zuko wanted to say, but his mouth wouldn't form the words no matter how hard he tried.
"Prince of the Fire Nation my ass," the man in black spat out. "Look at him. He's gonna faint like a little girl." He leaned back against the wall next to the door and crossed his arms. "Hey. Little girl," he called Zuko. "If you're just gonna stand there like that all night, I'm going back in. I don't have time for your shit."
Zuko ignored the man's insults. The waterbender needed his help—he couldn't just stand by and do nothing while the poor girl died a slow and excruciating death. Even if she was coated in blood.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he ordered his leg to take a step forward. He fixed his gaze on the floor, avoiding the girl sitting before him. His legs begged him to stop, to turn back and run, but he pushed through. Once his foot landed on the floor, he forced another step, then another one, and then another one until he was inside the room, and the door closed behind him.
A ghastly atmosphere reigned over the small room. There was a fireplace on the left that burned with green fire, heating up the room to a searing degree. Its crackling filled the quiet air and buried the place in a haunting green glow. There was a metal table on the right with more long needles, a pair of pliers, and a bloodied brass knuckle lying on top of it. And the walls, as well as the ceiling and the back of the door, were lined with puffy, black leathers—noise insulators, Zuko realized with dread.
They were alone now, the girl and him, but he still couldn't bring himself to look at her. How could he look at her when it was his fault she was here?
'Don't think about that right now, Zuko. She needs your help, so help her.'
Wounds. What Zuko needed to do now was tending to her wounds. Even in a sanitized infirmary, it wasn't uncommon for wounds to get infected, whereas this girl was going to be thrown to a prison cell without a single care for her health or hygiene.
Throughout his banishment, he'd witnessed numerous instances where the physician on his ship had burned the arm of a soldier to close and disinfect a wound—he could do the same with the waterbender, right? It'd be agonizing, but it was the only way to ensure a nasty infection wouldn't get to her.
'The wounds on her hands you can burn, but what about the ones on her face?'
Damn it… He had to figure out another way.
In the crystal catacombs, she'd said she had healing abilities and taken out a vial of water. Did that mean she could somehow waterbend-heal people? Would it work on herself too? Would it help with her pain?
Well, there was only one way to find out.
Without looking anywhere near her hands, Zuko walked over to the unconscious girl. He gently lifted her head up with his thumb and bent pointer finger under her chin, her normally rich brown skin now almost as pale as his own, and let it lean back on the headrest.
Her whole face was coated in red with blood trailing down her left eyebrow, from the large cuts on both of her cheeks, from her broken nose, and from her split lip. Her left eye was swollen shut and beads of sweat had plastered the rogue strands of her tied back hair onto her temples. But what broke Zuko's heart the most were the two channels of fresh tears that had slathered the blood on her cheeks.
Gulping, he knelt down on the floor in front of the girl, not caring that the small pond of her blood was staining his robes.
"Can you hear me?" he asked quietly so as to not to be heard from the outside.
The only response he got was the crackling of the fireplace.
"Hey." He lightly shook her by the shoulders. "I need you to tell me how your healing power works so I can help you."
No answer again.
Zuko heaved a shaky breath. He was on his own.
Okay… So, first, he needed to figure out how this waterbending-healing thing even worked. Did a waterbender have to actively do the healing, or was it enough to just bring the injury in contact with water? Also, did it require that specific spirit water she'd told him about, or would any type of water do the job? Because if an unconscious waterbender and any sort of water could carry out the healing, Zuko might've actually had a chance to help her. He may not have been able to bend water to his will like her, but he could still pour it on her hands, couldn't he?
Getting up and going back to the door, Zuko donned his most princely demeanor before opening it. The agent that'd brought him here and the man in black were standing a couple of steps out in the passage, both with their hands behind their backs. They went quiet as soon as the Fire Prince appeared in the doorway, his back straight, shoulders pushed back, chin lifted.
"Go fetch me some water," Zuko ordered the agent with such authority, it would've made even his father proud.
The men blinked first at him and then at each other.
"You do know she's a master waterbender, right?" the man in black deadpanned, turning to him.
"And I'm a master firebender," Zuko lied. He was no such thing, but they didn't need to know that. When neither man stirred, he quickly added, "Besides, what better way to interrogate a waterbender than tormenting her with water she can't bend?"
At that, the men glanced at each other once more before the agent nodded to him and went out to the open door of the prison. After a minute of tense silence between the man in black and the Prince, the agent came back carrying a metal bucket in his hand. Without wasting another second, Zuko took the bucket, shut the door behind him, and placed it on the table beside the girl. Then, he took a deep breath to muster up the courage to finally look at her hands.
Her fingers were sprawled palm-down on the long, wide armrests, and bruises had begun forming along the tight bonds around her wrists. Her right hand was swollen to nearly twice its original size, the bones inside it clearly broken. The three needles in that same hand had ripped off her nails completely and, through the thin layer of raw skin and blood where the nails used to be, Zuko could see the silver lines of the needles tearing further into her flesh, almost all the way to the first joints.
His head began spinning again and he held on to the table's edge for dear life, acidic bile rising in his throat.
'It's okay, Zuko. You're okay. Just close your eyes and breathe. In… Out… In… Out… See? You're already better. Now do what you need to do.'
Right. Wiping the sweat on his hands on his outer robe, he took a deep breath, bracing himself for the anguished screams and the gush of yet more blood to come.
He reached for the needles to pull them out, but immediately jerked his hands back when the metals seared his fingertips with a sharp, hot sting. The scar on his left eye ached at the familiar sensation. The bright orange flame flickering above his father's fist coming for his eye, the same sight that had frequented his nightmares ever since the Agni Kai, suddenly filled his vision.
Zuko staggered back a few steps at the memory. He knew first-hand how indescribably agonizing it was to get burned—and his scar was only external, whereas this girl was being burned from the inside.
Luckily for her, at least, he was a firebender—a firebender trained by the Dragon of the West himself.
Without hesitation, he set his right palm down onto all three needles at the same time. He hissed through gritted teeth and squeezed his watering eyes shut when the top layers of his skin instantly began melting off where the metals laid beneath his palm. The stench of burnt flesh joined the smell of blood in the air, but he didn't pull his hand away. Instead, he transferred his weight from his right foot to the left, pointed two fingers at the fireplace, and let the heat flow through him—through his right hand, up his arm, down to his stomach, and then out from his pointed fingers, just like Uncle had taught him to do when redirecting lightning.
Soon enough, hot air began streaming from his fingertips toward the fireplace and the metals beneath his hand gradually cooled down, though he couldn't really feel anything but pain anymore. As soon as the last fumes of the stream disappeared, Zuko dipped his burning hand in the bucket of water and groaned gutturally when it sizzled at the contact with the cold water.
When he felt a tiny bit better and his ragged breaths evened out, he took his hand out of the water to see three horizontal, blistering red lines ranging from one end of his palm to the other. But this wasn't the time to suffer right now—he still had to heal the girl before the men outside got suspicious of how long he was staying here. Besides, he'd survived getting nearly half of his face melted off—what were three little lines on his hand compared to that?
Zuko took another deep breath, readying himself for the horrifying screams to come, and wrapped his fingers around two of the needles.
Then he yanked them out.
-o-
She wasn't screaming. She wasn't screaming or crying or shaking or reacting in any way while blood gushed like a river from her fingertips. She simply kept sitting there as if nothing had happened, as if someone hadn't just pulled two needles out from inside her fingers.
Zuko knew she was unconscious, but damn… she was out out.
Regardless, he threw the needles in his hands to the floor, then grabbed the last one still inside her finger and pulled that one out too. Without missing a beat, he picked up the bucket on the table, poured some water on her bleeding hand, then placed the bucket down on the floor and circled his hands around hers to keep the water in. The blood on her hand immediately drowned the clear water in scarlet.
When nothing happened for a few moments, he began doubting himself, but an ethereal sound coming from inside his hands silenced his worries and the water started glowing a light shade of blue.
'It worked!' Zuko sighed a breath of relief. 'Oh thank Agni, it worked… She's gonna be okay!'
It felt like it took years for the light and the sound to fade away, when in reality barely half a minute had passed. Once the healing was finally done, he saw, through the washed away blood, that her hand had shrunk back to its normal size, the bleeding had stopped, and the raw skin of her nailbeds now matched the complexion of the rest of her fingers, more or less.
The tiniest of smiles found its way onto his lips.
Encouraged by his small victory, he picked up the bucket again, poured more water down her face, and cupped his hands under her bleeding eyebrow. This time, the healing took less time to finish. Then he repeated the same procedure on her swollen eye, bleeding cheeks, and nose—of course while being careful to let her breathe. The healing on her face didn't work as well as it had on her hand since it was more difficult to hold the water in now, but her eyebrow and nose stopped bleeding, the swell of her eye shrunk somewhat, and the cuts on her cheek mostly closed into thin lines of scars.
While he was working on her split lips, a knock came from the door behind him.
"Hurry up, kid. I don't have all night."
Oh, how Zuko wanted to burn that man to a crisp right about now. Rather than responding in a very unprincelike manner, though, he kept healing the girl's lips until the last of the glowing dwindled away and the split turned into a small cut.
Now that he was done with her face, he took a step back from her. He still had some water left. If she had more wounds, he could heal them as well while he was at it.
His eyes began scanning down her body. They quickly stopped when a bloodstained, however, when a blue ribbon around her neck caught his attention. He recognized it instantly—he'd had it for a whole month, after all—and the taste of happiness in his mouth soured.
It was her mother's necklace—she'd said so herself when he'd tied her to a tree that one night—and it may have been the only thing she had left of her. But she was a prisoner now—all of her possessions were going to be taken away and destroyed, the necklace included. And even worse, if the Dai Li were to ever catch on to its significance, they'd destroy it right in front of her eyes to get any information out of her.
Zuko knew, from personal experience, that nothing on this wretched earth could ever compare to watching the last object that tied one's dead mother to this world go up in flames.
He couldn't let anyone else go through what he went through. He wouldn't.
Reaching for the pendant, he undid its knot at the back of her neck and put it in between the layers of his robes for safekeeping.
Then, after pouring his remaining water on the blood-stained knees of her pants, he set the empty bucket down and looked at her. Her eyes were still closed and she was still far from what was considered a decent condition, but she seemed more relaxed and her breathing had become more prominent.
Now, the only thing left to do was putting an end to this drudgery. It was the least he could do for her.
Getting into his prince persona again, Zuko turned around and stepped out of the room. He closed the door behind him so the fact that the girl was in a better state wouldn't be noticed.
The men standing outside hadn't moved at all since he'd left.
"This interrogation is over," he told the man in black. "The prisoner is unconscious, you're wasting your time."
The man's eyes narrowed. "I don't take orders from you, child."
Zuko stood his ground against the giant man. "I'll talk with the Princess. I'm sure she'll agree with me." When he saw the man was obviously unconvinced, he added, knowing he'd probably regret this decision in the future, "If you don't hear from her within an hour, you may carry on with your work."
The man didn't say anything, choosing instead to keep staring down at the Prince, his ruthless, black eyes making Zuko feel like a worthless insect under his scrutiny.
"You have 30 minutes," the man snarled at last and then turned around and left the prison with big steps.
And with that, the clock began ticking for the Fire Prince.
-o-
Zuko barged into the war room without waiting to be announced—to where he was informed his sister had moved onto after he'd left the throne room. His trip back from the prison had nearly used up half the time he was given, there was not a second to waste.
He wished he could've gotten the Water Tribe girl out of prison as well while he was at it, but he wasn't a fool—he knew he'd never be able to give the girl her freedom back. She was inevitably going to become a slave to the one man she hated more than Zuko—but at least, when he was done here, her misery will have ended… hopefully.
The vast warm room overlooked the somber scenery of the cityscape, its magnificent view parted with marble columns and short, green curtains hung between them. In front of him, Azula sat on a long marble table, legs crossed, an elbow placed on one knee, chin resting on her hand. She was staring at an enormous atlas of the world on the floor with lean red and green stones scattered across the map, while two statues representing the Earth Kingdom laid broken on the floor behind her.
The Head of Dai Li standing next to her nodded to him in acknowledgment while the Princess kept her gaze on the atlas.
"Did you know what they were doing to her?" Zuko asked as he walked up the steps to get on the same level as his sister, his tone neutral.
Azula looked up from the atlas, the ridicule in her growing smile also gleaming in her amber eyes. "Why? Did you faint again?"
There it was. She was doing it again, playing him. But Zuko had learned his lesson tonight—he wouldn't fall for her trap this time.
"She won't talk no matter how much you 'interrogate' her," he stated calmly, coming to a stop at the edge of the atlas across her.
She shrugged. "If you can't make someone talk, it means you're not pushing them enough."
Zuko shut his eyes as anger threatened to spill over. He gathered his thoughts and started again.
"You've pushed her enough. She's unconscious. She couldn't say anything even if she wanted to. Besides, there's no point in questioning her anyway. You shot the Avatar with lightning over an hour ago. He's either reincarnated into one of the Water Tribes already or has fled the city by now."
Azula leaned back on one hand and sized her brother up for a good second. Zuko could see the gears turning behind her eyes.
Then, she sighed dramatically. "Very well… Since it is a special night and you were so polite, I'll allow it." She looked at the Dai Li agent standing behind Zuko, "Take the prisoner to her cell."
The man bowed and turned to take his leave.
Wait. That was it? That was all it took to convince Azula? Zuko had hoped he could change her mind, but… he didn't actually think he could do it this quickly. Was she not going to attack him for telling her to do something? Tell him he was weak for pitying the waterbender? Threaten him by telling Father about this? Why would she be so nice? She was never nice, not unless she was playing into something.
As if in response to his confusion, Azula let out a small giggle just as the agent was about to step out of the room, causing him to stop and turn around.
"Oh, I almost forgot," she said gleefully, holding up her hand. She smiled at the agent with an obviously artificial sweetness. "Please do make sure to give our lovely guest a warm welcome to her new home, will you? We wouldn't want her to be left... unsatisfied with her stay here." She locked eyes with her brother. "Would we, Zuzu?"
Zuko tried his best to stay calm, but the anger in his voice was evident. "You just said you wouldn't hurt her."
Azula's brows furrowed innocently. "'Hurt her?" She put her hand on her chest to show her offense at the comment. "Whyever would I wanna do that? I only said to give her a warm welcome. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's called hospitality."
She dropped her innocent act abruptly and gestured to the agent with her head to leave. As the man bowed again and walked out the door, her gaze moved back to the atlas in front of her.
"Now, if there isn't anything else, I have a city to rule."
Zuko knew his sister well enough to know that the conversation was over—anything he'd say from now would just be wasting his breath. He also knew he couldn't justify defending the waterbender any longer. If he kept going, it'd come back to bite both him and her in the arse in the future.
Another agent standing at the foot of the double doors opened the door for Zuko as he turned on his heels and began his way out of the room. He stared at the marble floors and pondered what his sister had meant by 'warm welcome'. Was that some sort of a twisted metaphor for 'go throw that girl into a freezing room and leave her there for all eternity'? Now that was something he'd expect from his sister, not her actually caring about the girl's comfort or well-being.
As he stepped out into the hallway, still oblivious to his sister's true intentions, he heard her sing after him.
"Goodnight, Zuzu. Sleep tight."
A/N
Whoa, you're still here? What a champ!
The prison I described is actually the one Long Feng was in (the only difference being that the door where Katara was... interrogated in had a window in the show), and the war room was the place where Katara had the meeting with the Council of Five. If you wanna see what they look like, they both appear in episode 02x19 'The Guru'—the war room at around 03:50 and the prison at 22:32 (the prison also appears in episodes 02x18 and 02x20).
Anyways, thank you so so much for sticking with me and I'll hopefully see you later!