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I She already knows, as the walls split before her, that she ought to have rejected the invitation. What’s another year on the run, when she looks at her life in hindsight? The only problem is, where would she go?Azula fidgets, her nails biting into the worn leather of the reigns that she holds, her back ramrod straight as she passes through the first ring of imposing walls (as easy to invade as the last time that she was here), trying to force herself to be calm. Trying to will her shoulders to fall and her easy confidence to return. It’s been fourteen years. There’s no way that they could possibly recognise her. Not in Earth Kingdom green. Not leading a retinue of Earth Kingdom soldiers, and not with her mother’s face plastered over her features.She chews her bottom lip covertly, turning her attention upward at the towering walls of each section of the city. The men behind her, who due to complaints of the heat have been lagging since their trek across the desert, now walk a little more lively than before. Their attentions, too, are caught on the grand splendour that is the first ring of an even grander city to come. They do not notice her discomfort.That is all just as well.She hears the scrape of the ostrich-horses’ claws on the stone walkway and listens in the distance to the way the wind off of the mountains whooshes through the hollow spaces of the agricultural ring. An ostrich-horse snorts at her right elbow. She turns in time to see her second in command draw even with her, a grin on his otherwise rather plain face. Azula cocks an eyebrow.“Well?” His smile stretches perceptibly wider.“Well, what,” she returns in question, watching as Guangting’s gaze sweeps the vast expanse of the outer ring around them. He returns his attention to her.“You said you’ve never been to Ba Sing Se before,” he points out with a sense of ease that Azula wishes were her own, “what do you think?”She thinks that she’s already made a big mistake in coming here. She could have excused herself from the meeting. Feigned illness. But she did not. Azula notes that her hands have tightened once more against the reigns, and she loosens them consciously while she mulls over her response in her mind.“It’s very grand,” she says after much deliberation, “probably too grand for someone like me.”Even though the Earth Kingdom is and has always been much different from the Fire Nation, the city of Ba Sing Se reminds her of her childhood in Caldera…But Hui Yin, the commander of the hundred-and-eighty-seventh regiment of the Earth King’s army, has never been somewhere so ostentatious as Ba Sing Se. She has spent her life in the backwoods of the Earth Kingdom, scraping by, using her superior intelligence to make a name for herself in the army after the death of her farmer parents.And that is how it must remain.“Well it has to be, doesn’t it,” Guangting says then, “it is the capital city of the Earth Kingdom.” In name , Azula thinks.In truth, their reach is not as far stretching as it should be for the Earth King to be effective, but she is slowly remedying this for him. Slowly. Being the commander of a notably small force of soldiers is hardly worth much salt, just enough to get her noticed and summoned here.“I suppose so,” she answers distractedly.She feels Guangting grow covertly closer to her, glancing briefly over his shoulder at the men following their lead before he closes the gap between them.“Don’t be so nervous. You’re being lauded for your part in the King’s efforts to unite the Earth Kingdom. This is a joyous occasion.”Azula turns and offers Guangting a tight smile.“I’ve never done well in cities,” she excuses.Guangting snorts.“It’ll be okay. I’ll show you the ropes.”Azula laughs, smirking at him.“That’s right, you grew up here, didn’t you?”“Yeah. Lower ring though. Not a great place to be but…well, I got out of there, and I made a name for myself. And my parents can afford to be in the middle ring now and — Sometimes it’s just nice to be home, even if you don’t have fond childhood memories of the place.”Her stomach twists. She presses her mouth into a line and looks back at the second wall looming before them—the wall to the lower ring of the city proper. The part of the city that Guangting originates from, that houses the city’s poor.She remembers thinking in her youth that it was a rather clever system, the segregation of the classes by walls. No one had to see the squalor that some people had to live in. It was easier to keep the city under control that way too, the Dai Li’s ultimate role.Thoughts of stone hands flying out of the shadows and enveloping her before she can call out invade her thoughts momentarily.Azula trains her eyes on the horn of her saddle, watching the passage of the clouds overhead on its surface.Guangting’s rough-knuckled hand comes and plants itself over her own. Azula looks over at him. The silent And it’s all thanks to you sits between them unspoken.Then, he says,“You should meet my parents before we go.”Azula feels her face heating, just a little, and swallows against a suddenly thick throat, her heart fluttering.“I wouldn’t want to impose on them when they haven’t seen you in so long,” she replies, training her attention on the ground beneath her ostrich-horse’s feet.“Nonsense, I’ve written to them about you. They’ll be eager to meet you.”Her heart clenches. She clears her throat, and then finally, reluctantly, nods.“If you say so, then of course I’d be honoured,” she lies. This is something for which she will feign illness.He’s placated for the moment, however. Besides — it would be a lie to say that she is not flattered by the notion that he wishes for her to meet them, or that they would ever wish to meet her. They wouldn’t, but he’s being polite .Azula pushes the thought back into the recesses of her mind. She can examine that later.They slow to a halt at the second set of guards posted outside of the lower ring’s walls. The men there stare at them stonily for a moment before nodding and parting the newest set of walls with their bending. The earth trembles; Azula can feel the vibrations all the way to the top of her skull.For a brief moment, she hesitates. The sounds and sights of the city waft on the breeze toward them, revealed through the now present giant gate. It’s accompanied by the strong scent of human living, and she makes a conscious effort to breathe through her nose.With a sense of finality, Azula urges her party forward, and they pass onward into the lower ring of Ba Sing Se. * Azula is combing out her freshly washed hair with some effort when the official arrives at her door. Guangting’s footsteps pad across the floor and down the hallway to her private suite after a brief few minutes, identifiable even from where she sits alone in the room. She watches him come through the circular porthole, a missive in his hands, scrolled and sealed with forest green wax.“What’s that?” Azula continues in attempting to tease the knots from the bottom of her hair, wincing at each tug of the comb from her careless hands, still watching Guangting’s expression in the surface of her mirror.“Mm, something pretty official looking,” Guangting answers distractedly.Azula raises a dark eyebrow in response. Her hands have paused in her hair, and she watches as Guangting crosses the space between them and settles himself beside her. He looks up at her with his black eyes, smiling briefly before he returns his attention to the scroll in his hand. He breaks the seal, unravelling the paper.Azula returns to her work, waiting.“Ah,” he says after a moment of silence, “the King’s second cousin, Lord Shenlong, has invited you to a gathering of the nobility and high ranking ministers of the city.”Her eyebrows raise.“A party?” She doesn’t quite manage to hide the disdain in her voice. Or maybe it’s apprehension. She has enough experience with high society parties that she’d be hard pressed to truly enjoy one now. She knows all too well what goes on at functions featuring the nobility.“Yes.” He smiles, rolling the scroll back up and setting it down on the vanity. “A party.”Azula’s right eyebrow raises a little higher than the left in response, and she purses her lips. Guangting snorts.“Don’t be like that,” he says with a laugh, “they like you. They’ve heard all of the stories and they want to rub elbows with you. Not bad for someone from some farming village in the Northern Earth Kingdom, no?”A smirk tucks itself into her cheek.“I’m not very interested in rubbing elbows with most of high society,” she answers. “I don’t suppose that we can refuse?”He leans back on his hands next to her, bemused.“Making connections here will only be good for us,” he points out, too logically for Azula’s taste, “we could get a lot of help and a lot of supplies if you impress enough of the rich people here in Ba Sing Se. I should hardly think I’d need to tell you that, though, oh wise commander.”She offers him a withering look for the mocking way in which he uses her title.Turning from her second, Azula goes back to pulling the turtle shell comb through her tangled mass of damp hair one handful at a time. She winces as she catches yet another knot, closing her hand a little tighter around the offending section, working at picking the matt out with one of the comb’s fine teeth.“Hui Yin…” Guangting takes her hand in his broad palm, wresting the comb from her and shuffling yet closer, going to work himself on her hair. She lets out a sigh, and allows him the intimacy. “We cannot afford to offend these people.”She rolls her amber eyes up at the ceiling.“I am aware,” she responds flatly, “but it doesn’t make me want to do this any more than I did in the first place.”If she had still been a princess she could easily have refused the invitation. Gone to bed early. Done whatever she liked rather than go to the party, really. As a peasant girl from the Earth Kingdom, who has worked her way up the social ladder to Commander, she has no right to do as much. There are precious few times that she has missed being the princess that she once was, in all honesty, but now she longs for the privilege.That same privilege is also part of the problem, however. She has no doubt that there will be those among the guests who would have lived through her coup of the city. There are those that might even think they recognize her from somewhere or other, surely. At least with only a court proceeding to attend, she would run less of a risk of being recognized. She’d bow before the Earth King, far enough away from most of those in the palace that anyone who could possibly identify her would not be able to clearly see her face...Azula takes a steadying breath and tries not to think of the what ifs. This is happening, whether she likes it or not. She must simply prepare herself the best that she can.Her scalp tingles at each pass of first the comb and then Guangting’s fingers through her hair. His kind, dark, eyes catch her gaze in the mirror once more. She feels the curve of her spine relaxing downward.“Your parents would have been proud of you,” he tells her quietly. Azula feels her stomach sink, but keeps her expression passive where she meets his eyes in the mirror. No , she thinks, but forces the briefest of smiles, and makes certain it reaches her eyes for the full effect.“Perhaps,” she says out loud, forcing lightness into her tone, “It’s certainly not the life they could have possibly pictured me living.”“Maybe not,” he concedes, “but certainly any parent would be happy to see their child succeed in the way you have done.”She closes her eyes, and tries to will herself not to think of her mother or father.When she opens her eyes again, Guangting is smiling, and he settles her combed out hair carefully against her back.“You’ll need a nice dress,” he comments. Azula glances at the scroll where it sits loosely folded against the vanity’s surface. She grimaces.“Surely one of my nicer uniforms will do?”Guangting snorts at her.“You don’t know the nobility like I do,” he says, “you will need something nicer than that. Something that doesn’t shout military across the room. Something…refined. Lucky for you, I’m better at managing your stipend than you are. You have more than enough for something modestly presentable.”Azula rolls her eyes again but cannot help the smile that splits her face from cheek to cheek briefly.“What would I do without you, Guangting?” she asks.Azula sighs, fluttering her eyelashes prettily at her second in command. The man raises his eyebrows and sets her comb aside.“Go hungry, probably,” he answers dryly, a twinkle in his eye. * Despite the relatively dry heat of this region of the Earth Kingdom, Azula finds the room humid.It is the press of bodies and the mingling voices that make it so. She remembers a hundred parties in her youth spent regulating her own temperature with her bending for just this reason. Now that it’s no longer there, held just beyond her reach, she finds the pressing heat nearly unbearable. The people are even more unbearable, if that is possible.The invitation, when she had deigned to read it, had implied that this soiree was, in fact, a celebration of her accomplishments. But, as is often the case of gatherings featuring the world’s most wealthy and haughty elites, it had been a front for the catty sort of gossiping nosy nellies who would show up just to see someone allegedly as low born as herself stumble over her own iniquities amongst high society.How lucky for her that she has not entirely forgotten her courtly etiquette. She doesn’t see how she could have, not with years spent at that finishing school under her belt. And surely not with years spent trying to make certain that everything she did in deed and words was perfect.Azula doesn’t remember it being quite so exhausting, however.Eventually, she will purposefully allow herself to slip. She can’t let rumours spread.Guangting is a shadow at her right elbow, hovering close. He looks far more overwhelmed in this setting than she had imagined he would. He always seems so collected. It’s why she’d singled him out for promotion amongst her officers when she had first earned rank. But his floundering shows in this crowd.Azula keeps her hands clasped firmly either at her back or at her sides, resisting the urge to reach out for him in the sea of people. She feels dangerously normal in the silk robes they’d managed to find at the shop earlier in the day, and she wants to anchor herself back to her new normal. She doesn’t dare act on the impulse in front of a crowd.To her left, some noble women glance at her from behind their open fans, leaning in to whisper to one another. To her right, some men let out a raucous laugh and continue on in their private conversations. She is not wanted in either crowd.Azula turns to look at Guangting, and though she is careful not to let too much slip, he reads the exasperation in her features all the same. He offers her a tight smile.“Should I get you something stronger?” he asks, nodding at her cup. Azula glances down at the cleverly disguised glass of water that she holds poised between her fingers, and then shakes her head.“No. I wouldn’t want to lose my composure around these people.”He nods, surveying the room with a sweeping glance.“Hard to make friends and connections when everyone is avoiding you,” Guangting says then.Azula scoffs. “I feared that it might be this way,” she answers.Guangting looks at her in surprise. She realises she’s slipped up. She backtracks.“I just mean that when you’re born outside of privilege, it’s not as though the privileged in this country are all that interested in raising you up to be their equal.”Guanting nods again, expression softening to understanding of the observation. Azula takes a sip of her water.Out of the crowd, a man wades toward them, his dark hair slicked back into the long braid that seems popular still amongst the Earth Kingdom elites. His face closely resembles what she remembers of the build of the Earth King’s features. Azula turns to face him, expecting that she is finally about to be greeted by the party’s host.When he stops before her, she is proven correct.“Commander Hui Yin,” he bows just slightly, hands out before him, “it is truly a pleasure to finally meet you.”Azula returns the gesture, bowing far lower, knowing her place. The ornamentation on the top of her head strains at her scalp, pulling at her hair with the downward momentum of her bow. She frowns at the floor before schooling her features as she straightens once again.“I am Lord Shenlong, Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se. I am so glad that you could make it to this small gathering of mine.”The title shocks her somewhat. Azula manages to keep her expression schooled, unaffected, but her heart thunders loudly in her ears, fluttering behind her rib cage. She knows what the title truly conceals, and it is as though her worst nightmares have come to life before her eyes, staring at her in apathetic interest.Shenlong, Grand Secretariat; Leader of the Dai Li.She knows that her posture has stiffened. She can feel the strain in her shoulders and her gut. She forces herself to smile cooly, demure.“Lord Shenlong,” she greets, bowing her head once more, “it is an honour to have been invited to mingle with so many members of Ba Sing Se’s upper echelons. I am flattered by the thought you have spared for me.”“Yes, well…You are an anomaly,” he says with an oily smile of his own, “and when I heard that you would finally be visiting our fine capital, I knew that I could not let the opportunity to meet you face to face go to waste.”Azula forces a light, lilting, laugh.“My Lord has spared far too much thought for one so lowly as myself,” she tells him. “Growing up, I could not have imagined myself in a place like this.”“I would guess not,” Shenlong answers. When he smiles it is knife thin and insincere.Azula feels herself relax. This is a game that she knows.His intrigues are, like those of all of the nobles in this room, of the lowest brow imaginable. At least in this context. She can feel the disdain dripping from him at the idea that someone as lowly as Hui Yin has made it as far as Azula has managed to push herself. From backwoods foot soldier to ranking officer ready to receive accolades and appointments from the court. The intrigue is petty, and ill thought out, and predictable . Perhaps the worst offence of all, especially in the hands of the leader of the Dai Li, whose power Azula knows first hand.She takes another sip from her cup, unruffled, waiting for the other shoe to drop.For the first time, she notes the presence of a couple of other noblemen, hovering by Shenlong’s elbow, waiting to see what happens, or to participate if they feel that they might be able to do so.“And how do you like the upper ring,” he asks then, “if I heard correctly down the grapevine, and I always do, you are to receive more than just accolades for your accomplishments. My cousin is set to award you a title as well. Soon you’ll be the honourable Hui Yin. Perhaps a military minister even.”When she is certain that she will be able to speak without the wavering of ambition and excitement in her voice, Azula opens her mouth to answer, “It is very fine; I’m unused to such luxuries, even with my rank. There’s little that could be described as glamorous about manning a desert outpost or wading through mud in the Southern swamps.”“So I would imagine…” he says, eyebrows arched.There is a calculated look in his eye that has Azula’s spine crawling. It’s a look that she knows from childhood. Her father’s look, the look of Long Feng, their last Grand Secretariat. Probably a look that Azula has worn a hundred times in her life or more. He is trying to discern something about her, or figure out what might be her weakness. How to get under her skin. How to control her; find her vulnerable underbelly so that he can turn her iniquities to his own advantage.Or, he already knows something and the Dai Li are lying in wait for her back in the borrowed house that she is staying in.She wonders how good Guangting would be in a real fight. They’ve hardly seen the sort of battle that Azula was used to in the war. They’ve mostly been herding peasants and quelling their unorganized uprisings. She looks down briefly at the toes of her silk slippers, peeking out from under the robes that she purchased for the party.Guangting’s an earth bender. He will be better than nothing.“I must say that I am surprised commander,” Shenlong says then.Azula looks up at him once more, eyebrows raised in a mild expression.“I had heard rumours of your beauty,” Shenlong continues, “but I had thought them greatly exaggerated. It’s strange enough that a woman should be serving in the army at all, let alone one with a face such as yours.”Recognition of the slight flickers briefly through Azula’s mind, and then a sharp smile spreads her red painted lips thin against her teeth. She holds herself perfectly still, feeling the anger tremble in her pulse despite her best efforts. Ah ha. He had found an edge to pick at after all.“I’m afraid that I have no idea what you mean, my Lord. What do my looks have to do with it?” She plays dumb, though she is coiled tight as a snake, ready to spring at a moment’s notice.“Well, surely it is just the novelty of a woman strategizing like a man that has gained you such recognition,” he posits casually. Around him, the men that have come to hear her speak look at one another, snickering, hiding smug smiles behind their sleeves as though she has not already seen them.In the Fire Nation, Azula reflects, no one would have had the gall to say such a thing to her, whether she had been the princess or not. A fighting body was a fighting body, and military talent was prized amongst men and women. What her face looks like would have had nothing to do with it.She feels her smile strain at the edges, and at her elbow, Guangting shifts. She thinks perhaps he might say something on her behalf, so she quickly responds before he has the chance to defend her.“You are probably right,” she says, forcing her voice to steady sweetness. With his lean features and pointed beard (the slope of his nose), Shenlong reminds her once again of her father. Or perhaps it is merely his words which are playing a trick on her mind.Even when he had been lifting her up, her father had had the uncanny ability to make her feel lesser than.“But even this lowly woman’s tactics have led my men to many victories for the Earth Kingdom, in the name of your second cousin, our benevolent King.” She bows again, hands folded against her thighs this time. The soft ties of her deep green, waist high, ruqun strain at her middle as she breathes deeply into her gut, settling her anger.“That is all of the assurance that I need to know I am following the correct path in my life, my Lord.”He says nothing, but Azula can feel the force of Shenlong’s gaze against the crown of her head.“Of course,” he says, “you are so humble. Our great hero.” There is a sneer in his voice, but he remains as poised as Azula. Around him, the men that have gathered to listen murmur their agreement, hiding their own disdain behind their politicians’ facades once more.“Come, Commander. Walk with me. Let’s leave this hubbub so that we might speak more privately. I’ve been just dying to pick your brain.”Azula straightens, searching his expression for any hint of what might be to come. There is no hint there.She nods finally, gesturing to the Grand Secretariat to lead the way. Shenlong accepts the invitation, wading through the crowd. It parts before them once everyone has noticed who is trying to get through. She is glad for the warmth of Guangting at her back.They step out of the large gathering hall and onto the walkway which overlooks the estate’s grand gardens. Azula has grown appreciative of such things in her adulthood. She breathes the sweet scent of late summer blossoms in through her nose and smiles briefly before she returns to the task at hand.Namely, what Shenlong is planning, and how she will avoid it, if she can.He comes to a halt, hands folded at his back whilst he observes the full spread of his gardens.“Remind me, Commander, where was it that you’re from again?”“Nowhere that my Lord would likely have heard of,” she answers simply, coming to stand even with him at the edge of the walkway. A breeze brushes against her cheek, cool. It comes off of the mountains. They might be in for a storm.“Humour me,” he requests.Azula smiles again, bemused. He suspects something, she thinks, but she isn’t certain what tipped him off. It could have been any number of things, she supposes. The colour of her eyes comes to mind, though there are plenty of men and women with something akin to them in the Earth Kingdom. A hundred years of colonization will do that.“Northern Chu Li,” she answers finally. A place that had long been occupied by the Fire Nation. The best choice for someone who looks like her to say they’re from, if they’re lying.“And your parents?”“Passed on, my Lord. They were farmers.”“Simple farmers?” He sounds slightly surprised by the news. She had thought that her fabricated story would be more well known by now. Then again, perhaps he is lying, just like her. “And yet you have such a military mind.”Azula lets her smile grow mild, tolerant.“Just because we were farmers does not mean that we are not capable of thought, my Lord.”Behind her she can hear Guangting shifting his weight from one leg to the other.“I suppose that is true,” he answers in a drawl. She sees Shenlong look sidelong at her out of the corner of her eye. “Did you know that the man who was cultural minister of Ba Sing Se before myself came from a similarly remote province. Similarly small. He also came from nothing, and yet he managed to become Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se…”Shenlong turns his attention back to the garden, and Azula waits for him to make his point, bemused. Of course she had known at the time. His history had been written all over him. She had seen his struggle in the lines of his face, and the way in which he had stubbornly clung to power despite knowing already that he had lost.“No my Lord,” she answers simply, “I didn’t.”“Yes…He was a powerful man, too, but in the end it was nobility who overthrew him, and it is nobility now who stands in his place. Better at his job than he ever was.”She might contest that, but Azula does not know Shenlong all that well, and anything is possible. Long Feng had not been the best of the best but he had been close. Anyone could be overthrown given the correct circumstances.“I don’t think I am following your point, Lord Shenlong,” she says after a moment, sounding a little bored. Azula looks over at him, straining her chin upward to take in his full height. He looks at her too, green eyes crinkling at the edges in a smile.“My point is that you enjoy quite a bit of power now, and will likely enjoy more, but given your humble beginnings I have no doubt that eventually you will fumble in that power. It was not meant for one such as you. But I can help you hang onto it as long as possible, and perhaps set you up for life after that power is gone.”Azula raises her eyebrows, amused.“That is a very generous offer, my Lord. What exactly would you want me to do for you, should I accept the invitation?”“Errands…Taking care of things here and there for me when I cannot take care of them myself…” He gestures lazily with a hand, pursing his lips.Azula swallows a laugh and a smile.“..May I consider the offer at length and come back to you with my decision,” she inquires.Shenlong looks at her for some time, expression inscrutable, and then finally nods, seeming satisfied with the answer.“Of course. Is a week long enough? You should be on your way back to your station by then, yes?”“That’s correct,” she replies, “I will have my answer for you by then.”This time he does smile, and he reaches out a hand toward her, seeming confident already that she will agree to his terms. Azula accepts his hand, and they shake firmly for a moment. Not exactly an Earth Kingdom tradition, but it’s as good as anything to seal a verbal contract.Shenlong slips his hands into his sleeves, and bows his head briefly toward her.“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Commander. I look forward to hearing your answer,” he says, turning to walk back in to the party.Azula watches him go, expression smooth as glass, and only when he has disappeared into the crowd does she look at Guangting, raising her eyebrows. She smirks. He returns the expression, though he seems considerably more troubled by what has just happened than she is. * The evening ends in a fashion that is not entirely uncommon these days. Her back pressed against a wall, and Guangting’s mouth on hers as they paw at one another’s clothing. When they break for air, panting, Guangting picks Azula up off of the floor to lumber with her over to the bed. He smiles broadly before tossing her down to the soft mattress.It’s too soft. She misses the solid ground under a thin cot.“I suppose after tomorrow I am going to have to start calling you ‘my lady’,” he says playfully, climbing in after her. The mattress bounces with every movement he makes, crawling up over her body.Azula checks covertly for anyone watching in the shadows, amber eyes flashing about the room to see if the Dai Li stand waiting for them. Waiting to begin her undoing, waiting to take her to Lake Laogai and brainwash her on behalf of Shenlong. They are not there.Guangting's dark hair has fallen from its top knot, her own handy work. It’s a curtain about them. Azula can feel one of the pins in her own hair digging into her neck uncomfortably. She ignores it and returns her full attention to what she’s doing in the moment once again.“Don’t call me that,” she says flatly, neck tilting back to expose more flesh to his searching lips while he trails wet kisses along her skin to her collar.“Mm…what? You don’t like the idea of being a lady,” he teases. Azula digs her nails into his sides and a hiss of breath sucks its way through Guangting’s teeth. It’s her turn to smile, knife thin and satisfied.“No,” she answers, breathless. Her expression has turned wicked.If anyone asks, she had not been looking for whatever it is that exists between herself and Guangting. Certainly, she’d almost been actively avoiding it her entire adult life. But whatever sits between herself and her second-in-command seems to come as naturally as breathing to them. And it does feel good to give in, every now and then.His tongue traces the raised skin of an old scar which runs like a crevasse over her abdomen. She shivers, gasping out involuntarily. Azula bites her lip and lets her head tip back against the silk pillows of the borrowed bed in their borrowed apartments. Her borrowed apartments.He brings his head back up, hovering close in the ever dimming light of the few candles that still burn in the room. She can feel his breath against her face.“Well, Lord Shenlong was right about one thing.”She raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. He is very quickly killing the mood, and she’s so very rarely in the mood in the first place.“And what might that be?” she asks, snappish.“You do have a face that’s meant for portraits.”She snorts, rolling her eyes.“Is that so?”“It is.” He grins at her, and Azula cannot help but find it…slightly endearing. Slightly.Guangting kisses her deeply, and Azula’s mind falls dizzyingly silent. She allows herself to be wrapped up in him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
II
Azula awakens when the first weak light of the day begins to filter in through the shutters of the room. Her blood sings, urging her to wakefulness, and not for the first time she resents the fact that, though she can no longer call forth a flame, she still lives for Agni’s call when he rises above the horizon line.
As her gaze focuses, her mind returning in fits and starts, Azula gazes across the dark room and sees the full length mirror that she has been provided with for dressing.
In its surface her mother stares back at her, looking tired and worn, lying down beside the warm lump at her back. It is ironic, she knows. Years after she’d first seen her mother’s reflection in the mirror it has become her own reflection instead. Now she cannot escape her no matter how hard she tries.
She sits slowly in the bed, stretching out her limbs before she slides softly from the mattress. She stands to pad across the floor to find her clothing, flesh prickling with the early morning cold.
“Where are you going?” Guangting’s voice barely parses the vast darkness of the room, rasping with sleep. Azula looks over her shoulder, her under tunic barely passed the tops of her shoulders, her long black hair brushing against her spine.
“It’s dawn,” she says by way of explanation. She completes the motion of putting her tunic on, reaching for the next layer of her clothing.
“It isn’t,” he complains. The light filtering through the shutters is the pale blue of twilight, “I have never known anyone but you to rise this early.”
Of course he has not. No one in the Earth Kingdom understands the siren call of the sun. That even though she can no longer bend, it sings to her. The sun pulls the fire inside of her blood like the moon pulls the tide forward and back on a shoreline.
“Then they are not as dedicated as I am.”
“Hey,” he complains, not quite committed to the disagreement he wishes to voice against her assessment. Guangting rolls in the bed, stretching himself out with a yawn.
“Well…Enjoy working up a sweat at five in the bleeding morning,” he mumbles, curling back onto his side in his cocoon of blankets.
Azula ties the soft sash for her clothes around her middle with a decisive snap of the fabric and then turns on her heel, heading for the door.
She toes on her shoes. She walks out into the chill of the early morning with a strong breath in through her nose and falls into the first stance of her first kata with the practiced ease of an entire life spent fighting.
She often uses this time to meditate, the burn of her muscles as she moves through the kata, the intake and output of breath as deep as she can make it. Azula doesn’t even need to think as she moves through the forms of her childhood, and the less traditional forms of her new life in quick succession. They’re second nature to her now — have always been.
In the weak light of predawn she thinks of the day ahead of her and of all that she has gone through since escaping the institution fourteen years ago. The starvation of her youth. The desperate need to do something, anything, which would assist her in living.
She thinks of signing on for the Earth King’s army at one of the most remote outposts that she could find (she had to stay out of the way; no one could know who she was), and of the gruelling hours of training that she had gone through for non bending foot soldiers. Of the laughs and sneers of the men around her when she had said she wished to join the army.
She feels her body fly through the air with ease as she flips, landing with a heavy heel against the ground. She imagines crushing a man’s ribs with her heel and the scent of charred flesh from the heat of her bending.
Azula stops, arm outstretched before her, first curled. She pants, steady and hard. She falls out of her stance and turns to greet the sun as it peaks its head above the mountain lined horizon, closing her eyes to feel its warmth spread over her pale face, painting her skin gold.
“Hui Yin.”
She turns back toward the borrowed house, and sees Guangting leaned up against the sturdy, round, doorframe, arms crossed. He smiles at her.
“better bathe and get dressed. Wouldn’t want to keep his majesty waiting.”
She rolls her eyes, but smiles back. A shiver runs along the length of her spine. She feels her fingers twitch at her sides.
“I’ll be in in a moment,” she says.
Guangting nods, pushing himself away from the doorframe and wandering back into the dark interior of the house.
Azula turns to look over her shoulder, sharp eyes scanning the large courtyard. There is nothing out of the ordinary, of course. At least not at a cursory glance. She turns back to face the open space and frowns at the shadows still clinging around the shrubbery and the walls that obscure the house from the rest of the street.
Then she sees him.
He is subtle, well blended with his surroundings, and he obviously thinks that he has not been caught. He darts away like a rabbit startled out of the bushes and scurries back out onto the street. Dai Li.
Azula’s eyes narrow, and she hesitates again where she stands, uncertain of what this means. A feeling of dread settles in her bones regardless. What had he seen? What had he been looking for?
If she gives chase and gets rid of him, how long before the rest of the Dai Li, and by extension Shenlong, guess correctly that she is the culprit who disposed of him?
There is a good chance that Shenlong simply wishes to know what her daily routine is. That he wants to know who she is close to amongst her men and how he can exploit those relationships so that she is guaranteed to say yes to becoming one of his pawns in Ba Sing Se and abroad.
There is also a good chance that he knows precisely who she is and has yet to decide what he is going to do about it. This particular chance is what makes Azula’s gut roil and tighten. She swallows back against the nausea that washes over her and takes another steadying breath. Her pulse is nearly back to normal from her workout.
She supposes that, eventually, she will find out which it is. Hopefully it is before he has outed her to the rest of the Earth Kingdom.
Turning hesitantly back toward the house, she wipes her sweaty palms against her trousers, then swipes her sleeve across her brow. The sun continues to rise at her back, casting long, dark, shadows across the courtyard which chase her heels back inside.
*
The peasant Hui Yin needs the etiquette lesson that they face upon coming to the agreed upon meeting place at the palace, but Azula, princess of the Fire nation, does not. She remembers the movements well, even if they are slightly different from the ones in the Fire Nation’s court.
She’d had to learn a hundred different customs as a child. Just in case. Mother had always insisted.
Still, she makes certain to stumble through them, to look as though she is genuinely studious and in need of the lesson. She makes certain that she is clumsy with bowing, as elegance might give her away. As a peasant, her bows have never needed refinement before now.
Azula is silently relieved to be in ceremonial armour instead of the silks of the night before. There is nothing like a good two inches of steel between herself and any threat, physical or otherwise.
They wait at the doors, Guangting the required five steps behind her. Azula can feel her heart in her mouth and bounces a little on the spot, shaking out her hands. It doesn’t seem to matter how often she receives praise, it’s always been something which excites her to nerves.
Excellent Azula, you may have your pick of these rewards for your hard work
.
Excellent Hui Yin. For your intelligence and dedication let us reward you with a climb in rank
.
Whatever the prize may be, she feels it water in her mouth like a dog looking for a treat after a job well done for its master.
Azula breathes in, a steadying breath, and as the doors swing open slowly to reveal the long walk to the foot of the Earth King’s throne, she bows low, reaching her hands out before her, her identification tablet held aloft in ceremony. She begins her approach.
Her footsteps shuffled ineffectively, making her progress far slower than she would have liked. If given her way, she would have marched the length of the throne room and fallen on her knees with confidence. The way that she had always done. But this is the Earth Kingdom, and things are done differently here…And she is not the Earth King’s favourite soldier.
Azula sees the hems of gowns and luscious robes, each a shade of green slightly different than the last. There are finer garments and less fine. Rank dictates just how dark the green of their robes is. She can tell enough about each person she passes that she need not know them to know what their ranks are and how much of a yearly income they make. She can read their day to day lives in the stitching on the bottom hems of their robes.
Azula glances up only once and sees the stony face of the Earth King seated a few feet before her. Ten more shuffling steps. She falls to her knees. She folds forward, pressing her head nearly to the floor with her arms still raised before she finally comes to rest, waiting to be acknowledged.
“Here she is now,” the Earth King is saying, “our esteemed commander, as promised.”
Azula is uncertain of who he is addressing but cannot look to see just yet.
“Raise your head, Commander Hui Yin. You are most welcome in this court,” Kuei says.
She does as she is commanded, lowering her arms before her, meeting the gaze of the Earth King. He smiles at her. She resists the urge to smile back at him. She must confine her emotions. She must not let on how pleased she is, in this moment. She must remain the iron soldier who has led his forces to victory over his own people on multiple occasions, keeping everyone in line, organizing his Kingdom for him so that it is easier to rule.
To Kuei’s right, someone shifts. The motion is odd, sharp. Stumbling. Her eye is drawn to it, and in the sea of green which surrounds them, she feels the colour drain from her face as crimson pops out, stark and obvious.
She schools her expression even as Zuko staggers to a straighter stance, expression owlish. She doesn’t dare look him directly in the face, but she knows. She knows the gold embroidery at the hem of those robes. She knows the upturned points of those shoes and the trailing sleeves of the Fire Lord’s regalia, even if they are somewhat changed. She sees them in her sleep, still.
Her shoulders tighten, her heart stops.
“Azula…” the sound is barely audible at first, breathed out between his lips like a fervent prayer; it sounds like relief.
Then, stronger, his expression flickering to steel when she dares steal a glance at him. “Azula!”
The entire court descends to silence. She feels the tension trembling in her limbs and forces herself to
breathe
.
She looks her brother in the face. She wears a mask of confusion.
For a moment, as she takes him in, Azula thinks that she is looking at their father. He looks enough like Ozai that she shivers again, frightened of his wrath for not coming home to release him from prison. She’d failed her father and joined the enemy. She’d wasted away from what she had been. She’d become someone who was not Azula at all.
“Fire Lord Zuko,” Kuei is squinting at Zuko in confusion, his hands tense against the arms of his throne, “what is the meaning of this?”
“I’m sorry to inform you of this, King Kuei, but this woman is not ‘Hui Yin’, but my sister, Azula of the Fire Nation.”
There is a collective gasp. She hears a shuffle of feet, hurried, and turns to see Shenlong strong arming his way out of the crowd, his eyes wide, a finger pointed at her accusationally.
“I
knew
it!” He turns to the King, looking vindictive, self-satisfied. “Your majesty this is the child general who conquered Ba Sing Se during the last months of the Hundred Year war! She shamed us and you! She must be arrested and brought to trial.”
Azula shifts, the room spinning out of control quickly around her. The nobles begin to shout their agreement with the Grand Secretariat. She looks at her brother once again, paling.
“No!” Her voice breaks over the noise of the rabble surrounding them, “I’m sorry my lords but you are incorrect I’m — I am not who the esteemed Fire Lord says. There has been some sort of mistake!”
Zuko’s own awareness is catching up with the situation he has created. She can see the thoughts racing across his face, open and too easy to read. Azula attempts to stand. At her wrist, a warm hand closes, anchoring her to the spot. She turns to look and sees Guangting, his own eyes wide, staring at her in disbelief. He hasn’t decided what he believes yet. She can see it as plainly in his face as she sees Zuko’s regret.
“Now wait just a moment,” Zuko is saying finally, “she is a fugitive of the Fire Nation, we have had men looking for her all over the world for fourteen years, she should be — “
Shenlong interrupts him again, emphasizing that she should be their prisoner. She has impersonated an officer of the Earth King’s forces. This is what she had feared the most, and still it is worse than she could have imagined.
She holds Guangting’s gaze, chest heaving, wanting to flee before anyone can stop her. If she can make it out of the palace and down into one of the lower rings, she could find a disguise and slip from the city.
And what about the Dai Li
?
Azula’s tongue flickers out to wet her lips. She twists herself free from Guangting’s grasp. He only manages to look more horrified as it dawns on him that the men who are arguing over her now are perhaps not wrong.
Azula shakes her head at her second in command, expression pleading.
“Please,” she tries again, turning back toward the Earth King, “this is a mistake, and these are serious allegations.”
Azula wonders if this will work. If she can convince her brother when faced with the evidence of his own eyes that he is not seeing what he thinks he is seeing, the way that she used to do.
But she has been out of practice with this sort of lying.
“I knew there was something wrong with you,” Shenlong says venomously, baring his teeth at her from where he stands before the Earth King’s dais. “How could a peasant have such extensive military know how? How could a peasant work her way up the ranks to become a commander that is so well known as to be brought before the Earth King himself and offered titles and land. You are a grasping little snake, unsatisfied with any sort of lower existence. You couldn’t help yourself.”
Zuko’s expression has grown hard as steel once more, his hands tucked at his back as he observes her where she is still knelt before the Earth King and his Grand Secretariat. Perhaps he had felt sorry for a moment, but it seems that he has quickly overcome this. She stares at her brother, amber meeting gold, and then closes her eyes.
It doesn’t matter what she says, Azula thinks, she is not going to talk her way out of this.
She breathes out, and stands in one swift movement, side stepping the first of the Dai Li agents that melts from the crowd. Azula imagines herself in her mind’s eye reaching the steps of the palace, dashing down them and out the gates. She catches the earth bender before he can bend at her again, tossing him in one swift movement. If nothing else, training with the Earth King’s army has taught her how to disarm an earth bender with little more than her hands.
Azula somersaults through the air when the next rumbling of the stones at her feet can be felt in tremors through her legs and into her belly. She lands lightly and is on the move again. The Dai Li melt further from the crowd. The nobility have fallen back, all aghast. She catches the flurry of her brother’s robes as he hurries down from the dais which he had been sharing with Kuei, intent upon capturing her himself, no doubt. If she had to choose between the two nations —
That isn’t even an option.
She dodges flying earthen hands, disappearing behind courtiers where she can, dragging them before her as shields. She brushes aside one of the grasping rocks, and it dissipates in a cloud of dust against a pillar.
Azula turns, dashing down the long walkway which leads to the Earth King’s throne, back the way that she had come. Her heart is in her mouth again. She feels the drag and pull of her breath in her lungs.
Her stomach drops when, suddenly, her progress is halted, her body whipping almost to the ground before she is encased fully in rock. Azula snaps her head around to look at the culprit and feels her mind screech to a halt when she sees Guangting, sunk into a strong stance, his fist closed, squeezing her into the trap.
She looks at him wide eyed, feeling the colour drain from her face once again.
“Guang — “ her voice is cut from the air, mouth sealed by the rough palm of one of the Dai Li’s weapons. She struggles briefly, but Azula knows it’s too late. She is captured. She won’t be going anywhere.
The Dai Li converge. Azula breathes in sharp, smelling dust, and feels her body released from Guangting’s trap as Shenlong’s agents take hold of her. Her hands are secured at her back by more bonds. She stares the length of the throne room numbly even as her brother turns from her, looking pained, and opens his hands to address the Earth King.
Azula is dragged from the hall, a hundred pairs of eyes trained upon her as she goes.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
III She ought not have been surprised by her interrogator, but Azula finds it a little surprising anyway when Shenlong appears on what she believes to be her second day of confinement beneath the earth.Left alone to stew, the former princess of the Fire Nation finds herself resolute in the assertion that she will never admit to her real identity, if she can help it. She’ll repeat her new one until it is the only truth that she knows, and nothing will break her of it.When she was young, there had been a period when she had not fully remembered her past. After the institution. After running away. It had been easier to forget and become someone else. It will be easier now, too.The Dai Li won’t allow it — Shenlong won’t allow it.Her hands feel fat, stinging, and her mouth has the distinct taste of cotton when she comes to once more in her underground cell as the flash of their lanterns invades her cell, the door at the end of the large space creaking open noisily. Shenlong’s large shadow is outlined in the doorway. As he approaches he multiplies into several other silent, shadowy, agents. Azula lifts her head.“Who are you?”His question has been the same every time that he comes with his agents to visit her. Sometimes they do worse than hit her. Sometimes they do less. They keep her guessing and she knows well enough that this is a normal tactic. It’s one that she would have used in her youth, when interrogating. if she’d known that her subject was lying.“Com…mander Hui Yin…of the Earth King — “A hard hand grabs her face, forcing her to look up into the shadowed visage of Shenlong’s face. His slender fingers dig painfully into her cheeks. The words die on her tongue for a moment.“Commander Hui Yin,” she begins again, rallying herself, steel in her gaze, “of the Earth Kingdom’s ground forces.”“How often do you practice that sentence in the mirror,” he asks her, voice smooth as honey. She doesn’t answer. She merely waits for him to continue or not to continue. It doesn’t make a difference to her.She has endured far worse than this. She will endure this as well.Shenlong sighs heavily, frustration evident in his tone, though he seems unbothered enough in the dim glow of the lanterns.“Why are you here in the Earth Kingdom?”“I have lived here all of my life,” she answers stubbornly, steadfast. “I am from a small village in the North. This is my home.”Azula thinks that her story sounds less convincing the more that she tells it, but she cannot quite bring herself to sound as though she is pleading. If nothing else, they will not receive desperate please from her. No.He releases her face, pacing away from her, setting his lantern down on the cold, damp, stone floor.If only she had been a water bender…The Grand Secretariat reaches into his tunic, back still turned to her. Azula feels her shoulders tighten. Her breathing comes rapid. She tries to regain control. He approaches. * When she breaks she thinks that she must have been in the cell for a week.The room is dark enough to play tricks on the mind. The first time that she sees movement in the shadows she is half in slumber, as much as she can get perpetually chained to the wall.She’s seen this shadow before. Heard her voice in her ear. Azula thinks of the institution and its padded floors. The spare furnishings in the room that she had occupied there for a year. This is far different, but the hallucination is the same.“Oh Azula. Look at you…”“You’re not real," she says hoarsely into the dark. Her mother’s gown hisses against the stone of the floor. A slither of silk brocade. Ursa had always seemed to be able to walk without making a sound with her feet. Floating along as though she had always been a ghost.“I’m as real as you allow me to be,” the apparition disagrees.She feels her mother sit at her side. She seems almost to bring warmth with her into the cold of the cell. It awakens some part of Azula that has been tucked away for years, and her blood feels hot for the first time in over a decade. It subsides as quickly as it comes.She closes her eyes, and breathes out.“Why are you here?” Her voice is small in the pressing darkness but deafening in her own ears.“Because I love you, Azula.”“Stop saying that. I’m not Azula.”A sigh, barely parsed from her surroundings. Perhaps just a passing wind in the catacombs.“You are Azula. You have just lost your way. Forgotten who you are.”“I have not.”“You have, my darling. Would a daughter of Sozin allow herself to be treated like this by those that she has spent fourteen years serving? Would a daughter of Sozin let herself be beaten down to dust? You are to die in fire, like your ancestors before you. Like my grandfather. Like Ozai’s grandfather.”“I have no more fire.”“It’s still there, daughter.”Azula feels the press of a hand at her chest, searing her like a brand. She gasps out. Sags.“Your father took the phoenix as his insignia. He was not reborn from the ashes. You will be.”“I don’t want to be her.”“You must be her. You must not forget who you are.”As quickly and quietly as her mother’s ghost had come, Azula feels it fading away. The cell is empty around her once more. The cold returns. The center of her chest continues to burn. She opens her eyes to see the impressions of the architecture around her. She breathes in sharp through her nose. *
The Dai Li enter as usual, Shenlong at the fore. She hangs limply from her chains once more, her head drooping. She feels clarity for the first time in what seems as though it has been an eternity.“Who are you,” he asks, voice smooth and calm.Her face lifts. She stares hard at the man before her, jaw set.“I am Azula of the Fire Nation,” the edge of her voice cuts like a knife through the space between them, “daughter of Fire Lord Ozai. Granddaughter of Fire Lord Azulon, and great granddaughter of Fire Lord Sozin and Avatar Roku. I am the sister of Fire Lord Zuko, and conqueror of Ba Sing Se. You will treat me as befits someone of my line. You will unchain me from this wall. You will take me from this cell.”The men before her fall silent for just a moment, perhaps shocked. The leader smirks.“Lady Azula,” he greets her, tone oily, condescending. “So wonderful to finally meet you face to face.” * In hindsight, Azula knows that it was foolish to believe that the admission of her true identity would spell the end of her interactions with the Dai Li. A quick trial. A sentence.Azula is wrong, of course.She doesn’t see her brother, either. Perhaps he has already left the Earth Kingdom. Perhaps he refuses to deal with her now that she is some other monarch’s problem. She wonders how the people of the Fire Nation will take it when they learn that the Earth King holds their once favourite daughter captive.Perhaps they won’t even care.She’s moved to a different cell, at the very least. A reward, perhaps, for finally admitting who she is. There’s a window in this one. It filters weak light through from the outside on occasion, shielded mainly by another section of the prison or the palace. There is very little between it and the elements outside; when it rains the cell grows damp and cold, and Azula can see her breath in the air.Soon it will be autumn.For a time, she is left to her own devices. She can mostly wander the new cell, though she is still chained in place at the end of a long lead, her hands and ankles shackled. She stares out the window and longs to feel the sun on her face, wondering what Guangting is doing now, and what might become of her after her admission.She already knows the answer, though, no matter how many ways she turns the problem over in her head. It always ends the same.When Shenlong finally returns, he settles himself across from her on the floor, cross legged, calm. His hands rest over his knees comfortably while he regards her with his pale green eyes. Azula stares back, passive, waiting to hear what he has to say.“How long have you been ferrying Earth Kingdom military secrets to your brother the Fire Lord?”Azula blinks, speechless. She pauses. She feels a laugh bubbling out of her throat.“I haven’t.”He reaches into his tunic and withdraws a stone instrument, playing with the shape of it between his fingers, bending it hither and thither almost listlessly.Azula’s mouth goes dry, but she lifts her chin. She will not be intimidated by men . Least of all by men from the Earth Kingdom. He is just another Long Feng, no matter how he was born. He has clawed his way to power, and now he basks in it and thinks that by doing so he can intimidate the conqueror of Ba Sing Se.“I haven’t,” she repeats.“How long have you been spying for your brother?”“I am not spying for the Fire Lord.”“I don’t believe you,” Shenlong tells her simply. Azula knows this.“Why would I ever spy for my brother? There is no love lost between us. As you can see, he left me here to be tortured and brought to trial under Earth Kingdom laws. I’m someone else’s problem now,” she says bitterly.Shenlong stares at her for some time, the blue light which fills the cell playing across his pale features. He smiles just slightly.“Hm…I see, then — you would have no problem divulging, say…Fire Nation military secrets. To me?”Azula’s gaze hardens, her jaw setting stubbornly at the question. She has no love and no loyalty for her brother but — she won’t put her own people at risk. Not when she spent so long fighting for their benefits in her youth. Not when she lost everything in the pursuit of giving them better, more prosperous, lives.She would have no issue betraying her brother. It’s the Fire Nation that she cannot betray.“I have a problem with divulging anything to you ,” she answers sharply, smiling at Shenlong in spite.“So be it,” he says.Shenlong hurts her, and it goes on like this. * They change their phrasing the second week in. Azula lies on her side in the cell, shaking like a leaf. Her breaths feel wet and ineffectual, but she gasps them in anyway, desperate to survive. She hasn’t come this far only to die here in an Earth Kingdom prison at the hands of the Dai Li.Not when, once, she had led them.“What is it,” Shenlong asks, picking at a stray piece of straw in the crack between one of the stone slabs in the floor, “that you failed to do that forced your brother’s hand in the throne room?”“I’ve told you…a thousand times…” Azula’s voice rasps in her throat, barely strong enough to carry between them, “that I am not working…for my brother. I joined…the Earth army of my own volition. I…I needed food and money. Being a soldier was all I knew.”“We don’t believe you,” the Grand Secretariat asserts coldly.“I know you don’t,” she replies, sour.The leader of the Dai Li shifts, and involuntarily Azula flinches. She feels her guts twist as he settles back, a smile on his wide mouth. She glares at him with a heated gaze across the space between them.“Then tell us the truth. We know you are a notorious liar, and what’s more you’ve proved that you can lie well. After all, you’ve been lying to the Earth King for fourteen years. You’ve been pretending at another identity for just as long. Why should we believe you when you say that you weren’t working for your brother?” He gestures wide with his palm up.“You committed so many crimes against him. This way you were making up for everything that you did to him and his uncle in your father’s name. To endear yourself to him. To make certain that you had a place in his new version of the Fire Nation.”It’s…plausible, Azula will give him that. That’s what stings all the more. Maybe she had done just that? Perhaps she’d simply forgotten, in her addled state. Perhaps she had been working for Zuko all along and that was why he had revealed her in the throne room.Perhaps she had forgotten and he had become angry. No, no, no! This isn’t the institution. You have been of sound mind for thirteen years. You’re spiralling .Azula closes her eyes briefly, finding comfort in the black behind the backs of her eyelids.“I’ve been telling you the truth,” she asserts again, calmer this time, her voice a little stronger. “If you don’t believe me, that’s your problem. My story isn’t going to change.”“Mm, just like your identity wasn’t going to change,” he points out smoothly. “Hui Yin was a fiction; your presence here as something benign is a fiction also.”“I know that’s what you’d like to believe. After all, I did trick you all once before,” she says casually in return.“That’s right,” he answers after a pause, expression losing some of its smugness. Azula relishes in it just a little. Even if it is short lived. Even if it is hollow.Shenlong turns his face down to the notebook in his hand and scribbles something inside of it, silent before he takes a breath and looks up at her once more, a tight smile in place over his mouth.“Let’s try again,” he says. “I’m sure you’d like all of this to stop. To have a respite. If you tell me some of the things about the Fire Nation that I want to know, then I’ll make sure that you’re moved to a nicer cell than this one, perhaps a little more comfortable. Maybe more blankets. How does that sound?”“Why do you want to know anything about the Fire Nation?” she asks in turn, stalling. The light has started to fade across Shenlong’s features. Night time is setting in.“We’ll call it…A healthy interest in the well being of our political allies.”Azula lets out a husky scoff.“Is that what you’re calling it.”Shenlong scoffs as well, far more gently, setting aside his notebook for a moment, steepling his longer fingers in his lap.“If you are not loyal to your brother, as you claim, then why do you care what secrets I want to know about the Fire Nation? You will never live there again. What do you owe the people who took your bending, and locked you away in that — horrid little facility that you so easily broke out of?”“I was born to be Fire Lord,” Azula answers steadily, tremors wracking her for a moment. She glares heatedly at the head of the Dai Li, “Which means that I am responsible for the lives and well being of the citizens of the Fire Nation. I spent my childhood working for my father so that I could serve them in that way. I am hardly about to stop doing that now, even though I am never to ascend the throne. Whatever you may be planning, I will not assist you in laying harm on the people I was born to protect. That may be the way you do things here in the Earth Kingdom, but that is not how it is done in the Fire Nation.”Shenlong barks a laugh, shaking his head.“Oh, I see. So the Fire Nation took care of its most vulnerable citizens, did it? It didn’t simply concern itself with those citizens who were able and willing to fight in their war? The Middle Class and the Upper Classes thrived during war time, but your peasantry were as down on their luck as ours, and they were bullied into conscription under your father’s rule. Can you tell me that you would have done things any differently than him given the chance?”Azula frowns, words caught at the edge of her tongue. She doesn’t know how to answer him, and that is perhaps the most insulting thing of all.Shenlong laughs again, and then gathers his book, standing in one swift motion. He looks down at her, expression one of disdain. Smug.“I think that is all for today. We’ll try again tomorrow. Goodnight, Lady Azula.”He walks from the cell, a long shadow in the gathering gloom. * On her fifteenth day in the above ground cell, a new set of footsteps approaches, far more familiar than those of the Dai Li agents.Azula leans against the wall, sweat beading over her brow, limbs trembling, when he enters. She tries to surge upward the moment that she recognizes his face. Her body rebels, and in a moment, Azula is back on her rump once more, breathing heavily.He stops, dark eyes sizing her up in the dim, circular, room.“Guangting…” her voice is dry from misuse, barely able to carry across the space that her second-in-command has left between them.He doesn’t answer her right away. The familiar warmth that he has always held in his expression when looking at her is gone, replaced by something else. Something that she has seen plenty of times before in the men in her life. Dispassion. The stoniness of his stare sits heavy in her gut. She swallows.Azula lets her smile fall. The former princess’ mask slides back into place. Porcelain.They exist in silence for what seems an eternity. The rain on the windowsill drops loudly in the quiet, echoing from the walls. Azula breathes out and briefly notices the white mist of her breath through her lips before it dissipates into the air. Her body gives another tremulous shudder. She looks away from Guangting.“They’re saying that you finally admitted you’re that Fire Nation princess,” he says finally, breaking the silence.Azula’s lips part, but she doesn’t say anything in return. She simply waits.“I can’t believe — “ Guangting cuts himself off and closes his eyes, swiping a hand down his face. His palm rasps against the stubble already growing on his cheeks, a blue shadow on his skin. He laughs, and it sounds despairing in her ears. “I can’t believe that no one ever…”“Guessed who I was,” she finishes for him. Azula sits back against her heels, feeling wearier than before. She feels the force of his eyes against the top of her head and looks up at Guangting, searching his face for something, anything, that might remain of what fondness had passed between them.It’s desperate, and Azula resists the urge to curl her lip at herself.“It’s not as though it was something that anyone would have expected,” she excuses for him, looking away again and into the shadowed curves of the room where she is being housed. The steady drip of the rain still fills the background, nearly driving her to distraction. “I made certain of that before I even thought of joining up.”Guangting’s footsteps shuffle, and he moves forward, sitting heavily before her on the damp floor. He does not come close enough to touch, but at least he is at her eye level now; easier to gauge.“Why,” he asks, blunt.Azula returns her attention to him again. She searches the stony facade that he has slid into place. Impressive, for her traditionally very expressive second-in-command. She considers the question a little more seriously than she has previously. Because if anyone is owed a real explanation, she supposes that it is Guangting. Not Shenlong. Not King Kuei…Not even her brother, wherever he is.“I’ve only ever known soldiering,” she answers, “ever since I was a child. I was raised to fight, and I fought, and then I lost…And then I needed to survive somehow…So I did the only thing I knew how to do with any success, and I was good at it, like I’ve always been, and I just — I suppose…I let it get out of hand.”His expression doesn’t change while she speaks, and Azula finds herself all the more impressed.“So you just — accidentally were so good at your job without trying that you ended up climbing the ranks to commander; to a general if the Fire Lord had not interrupted the ceremony? Someone who would be involved intimately with all of the Earth Kingdom’s military operations and plans.”When he says it like that, Azula’s almost ashamed that that wasn’t her plan. To infiltrate the Earth Kingdom military and trade its secrets to other nations. It would have been in character for the deposed princess. Hui Yin though…?It's difficult to think that she would have done the same as Azula.This is perhaps what is the most impressive of all to Azula. The fact that, somehow, she had managed to be a relatively good person as Hui Yin. That she had detached herself from her old life so well as to think of the two women as different entities all together. Perhaps it is troubling. Perhaps…She really had belonged in that institution after all.She rolls her lips inward, swallowing against a dry throat.“Yes,” she agrees finally, “I had no plans of getting to where I am now.”He scoffs, rolling his head backward so that his face is toward the ceiling and then back down again. He shakes his head, looking beleaguered.“What,” she asks, voice flat.“I just — find it really difficult to believe,” he says.Azula feels the sentiment like a slap in the face.“You’re a notorious liar,” Guangting continues, “and everyone knows that you tricked your way into Ba Sing Se the last time that you were here. Why should I believe you? Why should anyone believe you? You lied to me and the men about who you are for ten years!”“I suppose they feel just as betrayed.” Azula cannot quite help the dry sarcasm that drips from her tongue as she speaks. She doesn’t feel like the person that they all fear anymore, no matter how much she might have embraced her old identity.“Yes,” he answers sharply. Guangting’s voice cracks like a lash. “They looked up to you. They were loyal to you. You repaid them and me with deceit.”“And I’m certain you all would have willingly followed the conqueror of Ba Sing Se,” Azula returns with vitriol.“Of course not — ““Then I suppose I didn’t have a choice!”“You could have chosen not to join the army,” he points out sharply, “you could have vanished in obscurity, or become a farmer — something . But you chose the military.”“Because it was all —““Yes, yes because it was all you had ever known. That’s the funny thing about life, Lady Azula, you can learn new skills. You can change the way that you live your life. You chose not to. I don’t want to hear your lies or your excuses!”Azula falls silent for a moment, throat aching. She stares down at her hands and blinks rapidly to stave off the stinging sensation in her eyes.“I’m sorry ,” she breathes out thickly. Azula bends in on herself and feels the first splash of salt water against the backs of her broken hands, the wetness stinging at her torn flesh.“You’re sorry?” His voice holds none of the softness that she has known for the last decade. None of the tenderness. “Then at least tell me why you are here! The truth of it! Are you — spying for the Fire Nation? Are you —“Azula looks up suddenly at the words, her face streaked with tears, and she feels her cheeks heating with the realisation of why he’s come here. He hasn’t come to see her or find out answers for himself. He has come for the Dai Li, at Shenlong’s request. They’d thought to trick her.She’s almost impressed, but images of the day at the Boiling Rock come flooding back into her mind. Mai standing off against her, gold eyes like steel; Ty Lee’s fingers jabbing into the soft pressure points in Azula’s arms and body, rendering her useless. The way her body was dragged upward by the guards so that she could see her captured accomplices and face them down for their betrayal.“Get. Out,” she bites the words off as though the air were solid around her.“What? You — ““GET OUT!”Azula surges forward in her fury, the chains jangling as they catch her weight; she is stopped short of Guangting where he has surged backward in reaction to her sudden lunge at him.“It seems to me that you are the one who is betraying trust,” she snaps at him viciously. “What else did the Dai Li tell you to ask me? How the Fire Nation conducts naval maneuvers? What the names of my brother’s top advisors are?”“I — ““Get out of my sight!”Guangting stumbles to his feet, treading backward quickly and away from her ire. Azula watches him go, wolfish in her intensity.He slaps his hand against the solid door and it opens. Guangting slips out before the door closes in his wake, a solid echoing clunk of the lock back in place the only indicator that he was ever there.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
IV
It’s another week before they finally believe that she is not Zuko’s spy, and Azula fights them all every inch of the way. Her rage courses through her new and bright, like a flame roaring back to life.
It’s almost an insult when they move her to a better cell.
This one feels more like a room than a prison, though. It is dry and there are grass mats on the floors; there is a fire pit and a brighter, better, window than the one which had occupied the lonely wall in her last cell. She is, of course, just as locked away as before, however.
They don’t provide her with much to stoke the fire. They won’t let her have parchment or books or brushes and ink. They simply let her be there.
It’s more maddening than anything that had previously been done. At least they had been torturing her with some routine. There’d been more to occupy her time than just her thoughts.
She lies with her feet up against the wall, crossed at the ankles, and her back flat on the soft mats, her hair spread around her like a halo of ink. She stares at her toes. She hears a clock ticking somewhere, though it is not in her room.
Azula strains her neck backward, tipping her head to view the room upside down. The shabby, lonely, table in its center needs dusting, and her bedding isn’t in any better shape.
She thinks that by now, Zuko must be back in the Fire Nation, telling Mai about everything that had happened. No doubt the little traitor thinks Azula deserves this and more. No doubt, Zuko agrees.
Azula finds herself more and more occupied with thoughts of Mai and Ty Lee. She has no choice but to examine her past in the silence between the meals that are brought to her one after the other throughout the long course of a day. Her fury boils over in the quiet hours of the early morning after nights full of restless sleep, and finally she had set to pacing.
The room isn’t long. In fact it is quite short and easily traversed, but it’s enough. She can take about ten strides either way across the width of it, enough to satisfy the need for movement as her desperate rage vibrates through her limbs.
Maybe this is the point. Maybe this is some new form of torture that Shenlong has thought up to amuse himself with. That makes an awful lot of sense. She presses her lips into a thin, white, line.
…And maybe she does deserve what’s happening to her. She is a criminal in her brother’s eyes and those of his wife, isn’t she? She is not the victor in this new world after the loss of the hundred year war. She’s not the darling daughter of the Fire Nation any longer. Ozai is not the Fire Lord. Uncle Fatso’s way of thinking is ruler in this age.
The Avatar is at the height of his power once more.
Azula rolls to her side, pushing herself up with her feet against the wall before she sits, blinking away the dizziness from her previous position. She looks around the spare little room. She stands. The sun is rising in the east over the desert, and it calls to her. She sinks into her katas.
*
The jingling of keys brings her out of her meditation. She lets out a slow breath, opening her eyes bit by bit until they have focused on the door before her, though she does not move from her cross-legged position on the floor.
She cannot guess who might be on the other side of the door. She’s not had any visitors since they moved her here, after all, and she is rather certain that Shenlong is done with meeting her in person. The surprise still seems exponential when a bald, tattooed, head ducks in through the low porthole. The Avatar unfolds to his full height as the door is closed behind him and locked once more.
Azula stares at him in utter silence, her jaw slack.
This is not the reedy little boy who she had thought she’d killed fourteen years ago. This is not even the boy who had faced down her father on the day of Sozin’s comet and taken both his bending and her own away from them; divine retribution.
Her gaze tracks him across the room as he pads forward, settling himself gently before her in a mirror to her position. He offers her a weary, kind, smile. She feels her ire rise in her again like a stoked flame.
“Hello Azula.” His voice is softer, deeper, than before. He has become a man, with a man’s problems, leaving his boyhood behind sometime in the last decade or so. It should not be a surprise, of course. Everyone grows up.
“Avatar.”
“I hope I didn’t interrupt you. If you’re not done yet, I’d gladly join your mediation.”
She rolls her eyes, looking away, mouth pressing once more to a thin line. Of course he would. Azula unfolds herself from her meditative position, shifting so that she sits back against her heels instead of with her legs crossed.
“I’m through,” she answers curtly, “what do you want?”
He seems unperturbed by the sour greeting.
“I’ve been working with the Earth Kingdom for a few months to try and get you extradited from here,” he tells her steadily. “Zuko asked me to come when they tried to expel him after he revealed your identity.”
Azula’s interest piques, if only a little.
“Tried to?”
“He’s still here working on your behalf as well.”
“How generous,” she deadpans, though she feels the shock at her core. And then “You still haven’t answered my first question. What do you
want
?”
Aang is silent for a moment, looking around the room, and then looking at
her.
He seems to see everything simply by staring for a moment. It feels quite a bit like being naked in front of a crowd.
“What have they been asking you about,” he asks instead, avoiding her question. Aang’s eyes linger on the scars that line her hands and the skin there that is still discoloured from abuse.
Her eyelid twitches briefly, and she takes a moment to answer, breathing deep to steady herself. What does she have to lose at this point? She’ll find out the exact reason for his visit sooner or later. Whether he tells her outright or not.
At least in the Fire Nation she might have a chance. If Zuko really is working toward getting her home.
“They think I was spying for Zuko.”
“…Were you?”
The question feels almost like a slap in the face, and Azula has to remind herself that it is highly unlikely that the Avatar is working for Shenlong…Unlike Guangting.
She lifts an eyebrow in incredulity.
“Certainly not.”
Aang’s gaze ligers but ultimately he seems to decide that he believes her. Azula feels her face flush in annoyance, but ignores it. If she had been in better shape she could have suppressed it. She isn’t, and it is what it is.
“What else?”
“They want Fire Nation military secrets. I can’t really ascertain why.” Her answer is short and clipped, matter-of-fact. And maybe not all together true.
Aang makes a grunting sound, drawn out and flat. It says that he
does
know why.
She takes a moment to let her attention settle over the grown Avatar’s form. He has filled out, in his adulthood, more muscle, broader across the chest. His features remain lean, however, and clean shaven. His grey eyes settle over her in turn, trying to suss her out.
Azula closes herself off behind the walls of stone she’d built up as a child.
Finally, he nods in silence. For a time they simply sit in the quiet, enjoying one another’s company — if one could call it that. The air grows colder. The Avatar moves to the small fire pit in the middle of the room and starts a fire for them before wandering back to sit near her again.
“…They’re resisting giving you over to the Fire Nation,” he tells her then, simply. Azula nods. She’d expected no less.
“They want to punish me according to their laws,” she guesses, “for my role in the coup and for humiliating the Dai Li the way that I did.”
He seems surprised by her canny ability to know these things. She ignores it. She’s always understood how politics like Shenlong’s work. They are the most transparent kind to her. She won’t fool herself in thinking that the new head of the Dai Li does anything differently than Long Feng had done long ago. No matter what the new public face of the institution might be.
“Their laws are a lot harsher than the Fire Nation’s. That’s why I’m trying to intercede for the both of you --
that’s
what I’m doing here.”
“They aren’t really,” Azula disagrees, “unless Zuko really has overhauled the entire system. The punishment for my crimes at its worst will still be death in the Fire Nation…But do go on.”
The Avatar winces at the word.
“I came to make sure that they’re treating you okay,” he continues after a moment, expression drawn. The Avatar’s eyes flicker over her, lingering again at her hands. “I can see that they aren’t.”
Azula shrugs.
“They’re treating me all right now,” she tells him. “These are old.”
Azula leans back, the soft green of her tunic flattening down against the jutting edges of her ribs.
She looks at him again and reflects that it’s odd…how comfortable she feels in his presence. He is the one who is responsible for the eternal cold she feels. He is the one who stripped her of her bending, even if Zuko was the one to give the order. He is the one that she has seen in some of her most distressing dreams. Sometimes he wears a different face than the one before her now. Sometimes he’s Avatar Roku.
“Do you fear death,” she asks him after another stretch of silence, curious. It’s been so long since she’s been the one asking the questions that Azula indulges herself.
Aang pauses again, frowning deeply at her. The expression is thoughtful.
“I fear leaving behind people who still need me,” Aang says.
“Hm…” Azula supposes that, for the Avatar, this is a legitimate fear.
“Don’t you,” he asks in turn.
“No one needs me,” Azula returns automatically.
Aang hesitates, grey eyes more empathetic than she cares for. She doesn’t want his pity any more than anyone else’s.
“I think that whether you believe it or not, there are plenty of people who still need you, Azula.”
“Please,” she snorts derisively, “enlighten me.”
“Your brother does, whether he wants to admit it or not. Most of your family is gone. The two of you are important to one another, even if you don’t think so.”
“Well, he has a funny way of showing it,” she answers, glib. Azula rests her back against the outside wall of her room, crossing her arms before her. “I certainly would not have called him out in front of an entire room of his peers if it were me and I needed
him
.”
“He was surprised,” Aang defends, a little too reasonably, “and besides, just because you care for someone doesn’t mean that you’re not going to hold them to account. In fact, caring for someone
is
holding them accountable for their actions.”
Azula gives him a look.
Aang takes a breath and continues on, “And your mom needs you too. She’s always been torn up about how things worked out between the two of you and with you missing for so long and presumed dead, she despaired of over getting the chance to do right by you.”
Azula sits upright lighting fast, back ramrod straight.
“Excuse me?” The words snap out between her teeth, her face feeling cold.
Aang blinks, eyebrows raised, and then she sees his cheeks pink.
“Oh…Uh…sorry yeah I guess… I thought you would have known…” He looks away briefly, then back at her, earnest. Azula hates it.
“Your mom — Zuko found her maybe a few months after you went missing. Turns out the Earth Kingdom had been keeping more than just you hidden from him.”
“She’s alive,” she repeats in question, feeling as though her head is under water and she cannot find her way up again.
Then why did it take her a year to come home? Didn’t she want to come home? Father was gone, out of power, her favourite child was on the throne. Why would she stay away? Why didn’t she come back and see us? Why — ?
Azula takes a few sharp breaths through her nose, trying to steady herself.
“Yes. She’s alive.” The Avatar lifts a hand from his knee, as though he would reach out to her. Azula flinches away from him on instinct.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Sorry. I’m — I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” Azula decides then, voice thin. She trains her gaze on her torn hands, feeling dizzy, “Get out.”
“Azula I — “
“Get out of here!”
The Avatar unfolds himself hesitantly, standing and pausing for a few moments in indecision. She glares up at him from where she is seated, waiting for him to obey. Finally, reluctantly, he turns and goes, knocking on the door to her room before it opens before him.
He turns back to her, hands at his sides, his red cloak hanging about him loosely. She feels as though her eyes alone could burn through him if she truly willed it.
“Well I guess…I’ll see you…later…” he tries. She looks away from him again, toward the fire this time, her jaw set defiantly.
The door closes behind him with a gentler snap than before, the click of the lock following after.
*
Her mother visits her dreams. She reaches out for her, embracing her in the warmth of her arms. Ursa tells Azula that she loves her. For the first time in a long time the girl simply accepts the words instead of insisting that her mother is a liar.
Father is the only one who loves her.
She wakes to the snap and pop of a much higher flame than the one that had been started in the brazier the night before. Her mind comes back in fits and starts, registering the heat from the flames and that compressed feeling of the presence of another person in a room which usually only occupies one.
Bleary-eyed, Azula searches around her, seeing the bottom of his robes first, gilded and glinting in the firelight. Gold meets amber. She blinks lazily at her brother, sitting over her, watching as she slumbers.
She can’t quite read whatever hides behind his stony, severe, expression.
He truly is every inch the Fire Lord when he looks like this, she considers in her sleep-addled state. He plays the part well now.
“Zuko,” she greets, voice gritty from slumber. It occurs to her that she ought to be surprised by his presence, but there is a part of the former princess of the Fire Nation that is not surprised even a little.
The Avatar had said that he was fighting to stay in the Earth Kingdom, after all. Part of that fight being over his rights to see her, as her brother.
“Azula,” he replies, voice soft, belying the seriousness of his expression. Finally, his features soften just a little as well. “I was worried,” Zuko says then.
Azula sits stiffly from her thin palette, slowly stretching out the kink in her neck. She winces when it pops and cracks.
“About what,” she asks simply after a moment, voice flat. She’s still uncertain of how she feels about Zuko’s presence here, now that all is said and done. She’d almost been more comfortable with the idea that he had left her to the Earth Kingdom and gone home. This though…his presence…it is incongruent.
Zuko’s expression turns stoney again for just a moment, his mouth pulling down into an annoyed expression. For a beat, he looks just like their dad again.
“You,” he says finally, “What they…What you might be enduring here while they were keeping me from you.”
Azula lets out a dry laugh, leaning back against the palms of her hands.
“That’s fresh. Then again I suppose that’s just the guilt talking — you are the
reason
that I’m in here,” Azula points out, feeling uncharitable, suddenly. How dare he say that he was worried? If he had just kept his trap closed they would never have known until it was too late. She might still have gotten away…
“What — ? I — “
“Besides,” she interrupts his incredulity, barrelling through any denials he might be ready to make, “this place is no better or worse than that institution you locked me a way in for a
year
.”
Zuko winces, his face growing flush the further along she gets in her minor tirade.
“It wasn’t that bad,” he snaps at her finally.
“Maybe not to you,” Azula returns, tone clipped, “but to me it was unbearable. And now, once again, I have been imprisoned at your hands.”
“Oh, and I suppose I’m the one who had you tortured, too!”
“Weren’t you?”
Zuko’s voice catches in his throat, and he struggles to get passed his outrage. Azula nearly enjoys watching him squirm.
“Of course not!” His voice rings through the room, too loud in the closed in space. Azula closes her eyes and waits for the strange sensation that comes over her at the sound of his shouting to pass. She takes in a steadying breath. She opens her eyes. When she takes in Zuko’s expression again it’s drawn, pained. He looks her over and reaches out, catching her wrist between his long fingers before she can withdraw it. He’s stronger than her now. Azula cannot break his grip without a greater effort than she is currently willing to put forth.
Zuko pushes back the ragged hem of her sleeve to reveal the still-healing bruises and abrasions on her arms. Azula watches his face, but he has hidden his thoughts behind the stone wall of the Fire Lord once again. He doesn’t let go of her hand and wrist after he looks up. Azula’s brow tugs inward just slightly.
“I don’t - I don’t want you to get hurt,” he tells her, voice higher than before, almost strained. He looks earnest enough.
His skin feels like a brand, but in a pleasant fashion. Azula looks down her nose at the fold of his fingers over her mottled skin. He has a slight tan. Unusual.
A long silence passes between them before Zuko speaks again:
“And your life here,” he asks, “has it been so much better than being in the Fire Nation? Under care?” He searches her face.
Azula falls silent, reflective. There were plenty of times when she had simply wanted to roll over and die, at first. There were plenty of times that she nearly had; from starvation, from exposure. At least she had always been relatively good at surviving.
“Not at first.”
His frown returns, the steel coming back to his voice.
“And then it was,” Zuko says.
Azula tilts her head just so, eyes going bright. She smirks, unable to help herself.
“And then it was,” she repeats in agreement, tone bright.
Zuko scoffs and releases her hand back to her. Azula tucks it at her side, out of sight.
“So what? Did you hope that you could infiltrate the Earth Kingdom and raise an army,” he asks, blunt. Azula snorts, amused.
She might have entertained it once or twice, at the beginning.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” She stares long and steadily at her brother. “I’ve changed. I…Had changed already when I joined the army. There were no ulterior motives.” The last is truthful enough, despite the early entertainment of a coup involving her brother’s dethroning and her rightful return to power. She had never really been all that serious about those thoughts.
How could a Fire Lord not be a fire bender, after all?
Azula turns her attention down to her lap.
Zuko is silent for a time before he answers:
“I don’t believe you.”
Azula looks up, lifting her chin in defiance at his words. Of course he doesn’t. No matter what she says no one here believes her. She could say totally contradictory things and no one would believe either of them — she dares to think that, likely, even if she had divulged the Fire Nation’s secrets to Shenlong, or told him that she was a spy for her brother, he would not have believed the very thing that he had asked her to confess to.
“Don’t you,” she asks, “what’s so unconvincing?”
Zuko frowns at her deeply.
“From what I can see, you’re still doing the same things you were fourteen years ago, just in a different country. You’re intimidating the little man on behalf of a government that you don’t think to question. You’re receiving accolades for visiting brutality on peasants who cannot defend themselves. Just like with dad.”
The answer hits a little too close to home. Azula’s mouth pulls back. She narrows her eyes.
“What else was I supposed to do?” Her voice is a hiss in the space between them, venomous, “I don’t
know
anything else! I was always a soldier, same as you. I was starving and had no other way to feed myself! I joined up. I had no intentions of rising this far in the ranks. It just happened. I couldn’t — help myself.”
A soft scoff escape’s Zuko’s mouth, and he runs a hand over the length of his face, shaking his head.
“Well, that’s just the problem, isn’t it? You never could
help
yourself. You always needed to show off all of that talent. Agni forbid you sink into the shadows once in a while and not do better than everyone else.”
Azula resents the words as soon as they leave Zuko’s mouth, and the anger which she had been feeling since Guangting’s betrayal rises up inside of her like bile.
“So you’d rather I suppress my gifts so that you can feel better about your lack thereof?” she demands.
Zuko opens his mouth, face gone crimson, working his jaw a few times before he breathes out steam in his frustration.
“Sometimes,” he answers finally, voice suppressed with what sounds like great physical effort, “yes.”
“Oh please," she drawls, “are you really still
that
insecure about yourself? You have the Fire Nation. You have the throne that father had always promised to me. You have the adoration of your subjects and a bunch of friends who are just as soft hearted and sickeningly sweet as you pretend to be. What more could you possibly want? What exactly is it that you think I have that you don’t?”
“I — “ he presses his lips into a thin line, a mirror of Azula’s own exasperation, and then he breathes out steadily once again.
"So you do still want those things,” he says then, changing the subject, lunging like a sabertooth lion-moose.
Azula feels her expression fall flat, weary even. Her shoulders droop.
“No,” she answers finally, dully.
Zuko is silent, staring at her. She can see him attempting to decide whether or not he thinks that she’s lying to him. If he does, what will it mean? Will it matter either way?
“No?”
“…No.” Azula draws her knees to her chest, hugging them there for warmth. The fire still crackles high enough that she doesn’t really need to, but it’s a nice change nonetheless. “I told you. I’m not the same person I was back then.”
He breathes out again, audible. He looks at his hands in his lap.
“You know,” Zuko says then, his voice a little quieter than before, just parsing the space between them, “I used to think that if nothing else, I had mom’s love for myself.”
Azula feels the sting of the words a little too keenly for her own liking.
“Yes,
and,
” she inquires sharply, “what does that have to do with anything?”
“Let me finish — “ he pauses, looks at her steadily, and then continues, “Honestly though? Ever since she got word that I found you she — she’s really…desperate to see you.” He glances at Azula, seeming uncertain, “Honestly I thought you probably already knew that she was back. That you had spies everywhere and that you knew exactly what I was up to and when. No hiding from Azula.”
He chuckles, unenthused.
“Aang said that you were surprised. That you didn’t know.”
She’s still uncertain of where her brother is going with this, and Azula looks at him suspiciously, wondering what his point is.
“No,” Azula feels her grip tighten against her thin sprawl of blankets, “I didn’t know. I didn’t have
spies
looking after you. I wanted to be as far away from you and the Fire Nation and my old life as possible!”
Zuko recoils briefly.
Azula’s stomach clenches, but she does not say anything more.
“Was it really all that much for you,” he asks her after a pause, seeming to recover. Zuko’s expression, in that moment, is inscrutable. Azula huffs.
“Of course it was. I was humiliated! If father had survived and your friend the Avatar had been destroyed then I would have been — “ In truth she doesn't know what would have become of her. Certainly their father did not tolerate failure.
Unbidden, her attention is drawn to the mottled skin on the left side of Zuko’s face.
And failure against Zuko? It would have been the greatest failure of all.
She tears her attention away from her brother’s scar, back to the situation at hand.
“I was nothing,” she says, “I lost everything on the day of the comet.”
Another silence stretches between them, and Zuko folds his hands into his sleeves, staring at the fire.
“I know a thing or two about losing everything,” he says then, quiet once more. “You could have come to me. I would have helped you through it. Uncle would have helped you through it.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she says, feeling her throat and chest tighten as though she is held in a vice. “You wouldn’t have helped me and uncle has never been fond of me the way that he is of you. I was going to be an afterthought, for all of you. No longer a threat, so what attention could you have spared for me? I was in the institution, locked safely away.”
“Azula that’s not true. I thought of you every day that you were in there, and then every day after you escaped.”
“Because I escaped,” she asserts, sharp, “not because you were worried
for
me. Don’t try and lie to me. I can spot a liar a mile away.’
“I’m not lying!” His voice raises once more, and then he cuts himself off, releasing his hands from his sleeves to wipe them over the length of his face. “Agni, Azula, why do you have to make everything so difficult?”
She bares her teeth but says nothing in response to his question. She is hardly the one making this difficult.
“You couldn’t have just kept your mouth shut in the throne room,” she says then, bitter, “I wouldn’t be in this position at all if you’d just shut up.”
“I was surprised,” Zuko shoots back, quick to defend himself this time.
“So was I but I didn’t go shouting about it!”
“Azula I didn’t know what you were doing there. Anything could have happened. I called you out to protect myself and my allies.”
“Oh, so the Earth King is your ally now, is he?”
“Of course he is! The Fire Nation still relies on imports from the Earth Kingdom, and they pay well for exports of some of our higher industry items that we wouldn’t have had a market for otherwise.”
Azula huffs. Zuko does the same.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about your precious alliance,” she finally tells him, sour, “They tried to get me to confess that I’d been spying for you and to tell them Fire Nation secrets, but I didn’t have any to tell. And of course I
wasn’t
spying, so your reputation is safe, brother.”
He grunts in frustration.
“I’m not really worried about that right now,” he tells her, a little more sober than before, though his voice remains tight. He is staring at her in earnest when she chances a sidelong look at him.
There’s a sharp rapping at the door, knuckles striking in an unusual pattern. Zuko sighs heavily, rubbing his forehead before he finally straightens out once again, all pomp and ceremony.
“That’s my time,” he tells her.
Azula watches him stand, bottom lip jutting out miserably.
“I should be able to come back again. They’re putting up less of a fuss now than they were before.
“Do what you want,” she answers flatly.
Zuko doesn’t respond, but looks at her for a moment longer. The force of his gaze is a weight on her shoulders. He turns and exits the room, and Azula slumps back into her sparse bedding, closing her eyes once again.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
V
Azula breathes out in sharp bursts, her abdomen burning as she makes her way up from the floor toward her knees and then down to the floor again. It nothing else, exercising fills her mind up so that she cannot think about everything that she has learned and that she has yet to face in the days to come.
She is mid sit-up when the door to her room slides open and someone is ushered in.
Azula stops, leaning with her arms against her knees, breathing slightly laboured as she hones in on this newest visitor. It’s been nearly a week since Zuko had come to visit.
When she sees who it is the blood drains from her face.
The woman is much older than the one who visits her in the night. The one who insists she not forget who she is. The one who had hidden herself from them for so long. Her dark hair has streaks of silver in it where there have never been any before. Her features have softened a little with age.
But she is unmistakably Ursa.
Sweat trickles down Azula’s cheeks, and she stays as still as she dares in the center of the room. The woman’s hands have come to cover her arms, rubbing at them as she looks about Azula’s sad excuse for a set of apartments. Finally, her gaze settles on Azula herself. The same dark amber eyes look back at the younger woman from what seems the ghost of her mother’s face.
“Azula…” there’s something like relief in the way that her mother breathes her name, and Azula feels her spine stiffen.
“Lady Ursa,” she finally says in return, jaw tight.
Her mother had been in the midst of crossing to her before Azula addressed her by name, formal. She pauses now, expression falling just a little.
Ursa starts walking again, slower this time, and settles gracefully before Azula in a plume of red robes, hands folding daintily in her lap.
“Azula, I know…you must be confused still, and angry — “
“I would hardly call myself confused,” Azula answers dismissively, her temper flaring hot in the middle of her chest, and her voice souring with the flare. She straightens up, folding her legs in front of her rather than continuing as she had been while doing her sit-ups. “I understand perfectly well.”
Her mother’s expression closes off just slightly. This is the woman she remembers from her childhood.
One of the older woman’s dark eyebrows raises high on her forehead.
“I suppose that you think you do, yes. We were always far more alike than either of us wanted to admit…Even if there is a lot of your father in you.”
“How could there not be,” Azula asks, “he practically raised me.”
“Azula I know you know that there was nothing I could have done about that. What I preferred in that relationship was hardly ever taken into account. You’re a smart woman. You were always a very smart girl, too. Playing dumb isn’t going to help you here.”
Azula scoffs. No, this certainly isn’t the mother of her hallucinations.
“What is there to see differently,” she asks her mother sharply, “you abandoned us after murdering our grandfather. Even your favourite son got left behind. Father wouldn’t have pursued you if you’d taken Zuko along with you into exile.”
There is a silence. A pause. A moment in which Ursa simply stares at Azula for a time, and then the muscle in her cheek twitches as though she is clenching her teeth.
“Perhaps not,” she agrees after the moment has passed, “but he would have if I’d brought you, and I could not very well take Zuko and not you too.”
Azula takes a deep breath through her nose. She lets it out slowly, heart fighting to pound heavily in her chest.
“I think you would have relished the chance to leave me behind.”
Saying the words out loud stings even Azula, for some reason. She swallows against the pain that she feels at her own thoughts breathed to life.
“Then you really were brainwashed by your father. Or you’re being purposefully obtuse,” Ursa says in return, “Because the evidence speaks for itself, doesn’t it? I took neither of you with me.”
Azula’s anger returns.
“Because you didn’t love Zuko as much as you professed to,” Azula supplies for her meanly.
Her mother closes her eyes.
“That is not true.”
“It is.”
“No, Azula. I love both of you more than my own life. I would have taken the both of you with me if I’d thought that I could do it. If I’d thought that your father would not find us right away and destroy me for taking his favourite tool with me, and then Zuko. If I hadn’t thought that he would use it to twist you even more than he had already managed to do.”
“He never twist —“
“He did, Azula. You were already…a difficult child. He fed into that instead of discouraging it in you, and that is the truth. You would be a far different woman now if I had not let him get away with raising you the way that he did. If I’d had a stiffer spine.” Ursa stops, taking a steadying breath.
Azula feels her very limbs vibrating. She wishes that she could stand and pace, to let off the excess energy, but that would only give her agitation away.
“What do you want?” she finally demands of Ursa. The sooner this interaction is over the better, in Azula’s estimation. She won’t have to look at her mother’s face anymore, and she can — she doesn’t know what.
“I wanted to see you,” her mother answers gently, “I know what being in this place can be like and I — I had hoped that maybe we could…” Ursa lifts a hand, brushing at a stray hair that tickles her cheek.
“Is that so,” Azula asks curtly.
Ursa sighs out, looking weary.
“Yes. I just — I suppose that I wanted the chance to get to know you. And you can’t really run away from me in here.” Ursa tries smiling at what Azula assumes is meant to have been a joke, but the former princess of the Fire Nation isn’t laughing.
“You want to get to know me,” Azula repeats, bland.
“Yes.”
Azula lifts a hand, inspecting her ragged nails.
“Did Lord Shenlong send you here, mother?”
Azula can see the confusion on Ursa’s face from her peripheral vision, but she stubbornly pushes passed this outward evidence that she has not been sent by the head of the Dai Li at all.
“No,” Ursa finally denies.
“So you didn’t want to draw information out of me, just like everyone else who has
visited
me since I was taken into confinement.”
“What? No that’s not what I wanted I — “
“You’re not hoping to
trick
me into some sort of confession that will allow the Earth Kingdom to justify keeping me here once and for all? You’re not working for the Dai Li, or on Zuko’s behalf so that he can save face and not actually bring me back to the Fire Nation at all?”
“Azula — “
“Tell me!” Azula’s voice rips out of her throat, ringing through the confines of her room. There’s a shift of armour outside the door, and it opens a crack, one of the guards peering through.
Ursa turns and shakes her head slightly, lifting a hand.
The door closes once more.
Her mother turns back to her, looking for all the world like someone testing their own patience as she starts to shuffle forward once again.
“What are you doing,” Azula demands, starting to shift back herself. “Leave me al — “
Her mother’s hands close over hers, and for all of Azula’s strength (in mind and body) she finds that she cannot make herself draw away from her mother’s warm, soft, palms.
The former princess of the Fire Nation's chest heaves as she stares at her mother, uncertain of what to do, and feels her mother’s fingers squeeze over her own.
“I want to know my daughter. That’s all, Azula.”
“I don’t believe you.” Azula’s voice is brittle, and her chest clenches all the tighter. “If you wanted that, you would have come home. You had a whole year to come home and you didn’t you —“
“I couldn’t, my darling. I had no idea how to come home…Or that I even needed to.”
Ursa has grown yet closer, and Azula leans back, though the familiar scent of incense and roses draws her in again. She wants to bury her face in her mother’s hair. Instead she holds herself completely still, tension forming between the two of them where her mother’s hands connect with Azula’s wrists.
“I don’t understand.” Azula sniffles.
“You know about the Ju Dis, yes…?”
Azula frowns and glances up at her mother, catching her gaze and holding it. She nods.
“I..somehow,” Ursa says, “I ended up being one. I don’t really remember how it happened or when but…I was Ju Di. For many years.”
“Liar,” Azula accuses.
She isn’t lying
.
Her mother lets out a weary sigh, her hands tightening over Azula’s.
“I’m not lying,” she answers patiently.
“You are,” Azula asserts once more, “I was
in
Ba Sing Se.
Zuko
was in Ba Sing Se, you weren’t
here
!” A little voice in the back of her mind implores her to stop, but Azula cannot. The words tumble off of her tongue in a flood.
“How could you leave us with father?” Azula’s voice breaks, and for a moment that she imagines is all in her head, the low fire flares and gives off a little more heat before dying down again. “You could have stayed but you chose to run away. You left us all alone and didn’t care to remember to come back!”
Azula crumples, her hands still held tight in Ursa’s, and she feels weary. Tears sear down her cheeks in the silence which follows.
“…Azula I — “ She hears Ursa take a deep breath, hands tightening even more against Azula’s skin. “I committed treason. I could not come back if I did not want to be put to death. I could not make the two of you go through that. I couldn’t make you watch them execute me…And besides, how could Ozai have become Fire lord if his wife was on trial for the murder of his father?”
Azula has rallied herself once again, her mother’s calm voice…grounding. She swallows and holds still where she is still half bent over her own knees.
“So you did kill grandfather,” she says quietly.
“…Yes. I killed him.”
Azula straightens then, assessing her mother. She hadn’t ever imagined her capable of doing what was necessary, and yet she had done that and more in order to put Ozai on the throne. She had been the reason that they had spent seven years in power. Ursa had always been the reason for so much more suffering than that, in Azula’s mind.
“What you did of your own volition is not my problem,” Azula finally says, voice steady. She looks her mother dead in the eye, unflinching.
Ursa closes her eyes again, looking once more as though Azula has struck her physically. The older woman sighs, weary, and shifts her weight.
“I can see that you do not want me here,” Ursa says after a time.
“You’re right. I don’t.” Azula feels a clench in her chest, her tongue weighted.
Releasing her hold on her, Ursa stands and brushes off her skirts.
“Very well. I’m sorry, my darling. If you need me, then please don’t hesitate to call for me. Otherwise I will leave you alone. As you so clearly wish.”
Azula says nothing in return, but waits for her mother to slowly leave the room, lingering in hopes that Azula will change her mind. Azula will not. She cannot.
When the door closes and the lock clicks behind Ursa, Azula feels the involuntary tug of her mouth downward, hiccuping sobs erupting from her chest.
*
“How dare you treat mom like that!”
Azula feels like a reprimanded child, and she sits silent and sullen while her brother paces back and forth before her, the fire in the middle of the room flaring with his temper, the temperature piquing.
“She’s been dying to see you! To make amends with you and start over! Do you know how hard it was for her to come back here? But she faced her fears and came to Ba Sing Se because she cares about you and you treat her like common dirt!”
Azula says nothing. This seems only to incite more wrath in her brother, his face red as he lets out a growl of frustration; the fire flares in response.
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”
“I didn’t treat her in any way that she didn’t
deserve
to be treated,” Azula answers finally, calmly.
She watches Zuko’s ire spike, the room growing uncomfortably hot in the following silence as he tries to collect himself enough to speak rather than scream. He’d seemed so calm and collected the day that they had reunited, even with her goading. Perhaps he has not changed as much as Azula had thought.
Or maybe they just bring out the worst in one another.
“I believe that you believe that,” he says when he has finally gained control of himself, pacing away from her once again, though less agitated than before. The fire dies down somewhat, the temperature of the room lowering to something a little more bearable.
“She’s our mom, Azula. She loves us. She wants to be with us and she wants us to be happy. Is that so difficult for you to believe?”
“Yes, it is. She left us alone with father and killed Azulon. As father was so fond of saying, she did vicious and treasonous things the night that she disappeared and then she left us behind too because she didn’t
care
about us. She didn’t even care about you.”
“That’s not true.” Zuko’s calm has returned, and it is far more unnerving than his temper. She watches as he approaches her, vaguely apprehensive though she masks it beneath a dismissive façade.
Crouching before her, Zuko comes closer than he has dared before now. She can smell cloves and the faintest hint of smoke. He must have been practicing his katas earlier. Azula looks at him sidelong.
“You’re just parroting what dad said, like you always do…Did…”
Azula feels the heat rise within her this time, though the room does not respond as it had with Zuko, of course. She looks at him sharply, turning her head to face her brother.
“I do
not
— “
“You do. Do you really think that all of the mean and awful things you said as a kid were your own thoughts and feelings? I mean — I guess dad probably made sure that you thought they were. But it’s just like what the Dai Li did with mom and all of the other people who lived here in Ba Sing Se during the war. He brainwashed you. Surely you can at least see that much with fourteen years between the two of you?”
Azula feels her throat tighten. She opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out. She feels as though the world has narrowed to a pinpoint around her brother’s face.
“I mean part of you had to know,” he continues, “otherwise why didn’t you try and break dad out of jail? You could have. You’ve had all this time, and you even managed to raise an army, though it definitely wasn’t in the traditional sense…” He laughs just a little, and Azula feels her heart rate climb to a steady buzz in her ears.
“I — I — “
He seems satisfied with himself when she is unable to say more than that. The expression on Zuko’s face leaves Azula even more frustratingly tongue tied than before.
Her brother settles himself down beside her then, falling to his rump in a more comfortable position than his previous crouch.
“I wasn’t brain washed,” she says then, feebly. It doesn’t sound convincing even to Azula.
“So you committed your war crimes of our own volition?”
She knows that, somehow, Zuko is trying to perhaps assuage her of her guilt, whatever that might mean. Perhaps he is fishing for a way to get her out of the Earth Kingdom or for something that can help him justify locking her away in the asylum again. Either way it leaves a sour taste in her mouth.
Azula frowns at Zuko, reproachful.
“Yes,” she answers decisively, “I did. I willingly helped further the Fire Nation’s cause. I willingly supported our father the Fire Lord. I took my role as Crown Princess of the Fire Nation very seriously, and I intended to further our father’s cause once he was gone and I was Fire Lord after him. Or Phoenix King…or whatever title he might have held by then.”
In her adult mind it sounds foolish, and that is perhaps the most offensive thing to Azula of all. How has she moved so far from how she used to view the world? She frowns down at her lap, mouth twisting itself up in displeasure.
Zuko’s hand is heavy and sudden at her shoulder but not unpleasantly warm. She looks up at him in surprised reproach. He doesn’t remove his hand.
“You were a good daughter to him, Azula.”
She feels like lashing out at him with an open palm. It would certainly wipe that smug look off of his face.
Zuko’s hand merely squeezes at her shoulder, as though in reassurance. She feels her expression grow askance.
Finally, her brother retracts his hand from her shoulder, lowering his head for a moment as though in contemplation. Azula feels a shiver run down her spine at the unfamiliarity of it all, looking away and letting out a scoff in indignity.
“I don’t want to fight with you, Azula,” Zuko announces, voice quieter than before. “You’re my sister and — and things…have not been going well in negotiations with the Earth Kingdom on your behalf.”
Oh.
Azula looks at him again, the concept of Zuko working on her behalf in itself foreign to her but understanding dwelling in her gaze regardless. She doesn’t need to be told what comes next, but she listens anyway.
“I brought Aang in early on to try and persuade the Earth Kingdom’s delegates to my side, as you know…” He’s looking at her, and Azula feels oddly exposed by the open pain that floats at the corners of her brother’s eyes.
“I’ve been digging in my heels and putting off my return to the Fire Nation too, to work in your defence, or at least to assure Kuei that I won’t let you go unpunished if he releases you to my custody, but every time Aang and I seem to make any headway, the next day we’re back to square one and he is unwilling to compromise.”
His ministers are likely whispering in his ear again, Azula knows. Ba Sing Se has been its own entity for so long that even deposing Long Feng had not been able to change things in the long run. Not when the Fire Nation’s influence was almost immediately removed after they had finally conquered the city. After
she
had finally done.
Zuko won’t get anywhere, not with Earth Kingdom politics at the helm. If he’d wanted custody of her then he ought to have outed her in the Fire Nation.
“So what are you saying?” she asks soberly, already knowing the answer.
Zuko pauses, and the silence between them becomes pregnant with the words that he is trying to avoid.
“They’re not going to release you to the Fire Nation, Azula.”
The words hold no less weight for her suspicions. Azula closes her eyes, hands curling in her threadbare tunic.
“I’m going to face trial here.”
“Yeah…” Zuko looks for a moment as though the weight of the world is hanging from his shoulders.
There’s another silence which stretches between them in the small room. It is punctuated by the crackle of the fire and the splitting of the wood in the heat of the flames that Zuko is able to maintain himself.
Azula’s lips roll inward.
“They won’t let me live, Zuko.”
He is silent still, staring at his feet with his knees drawn up to his chest, as though he does not wear the dignified cloak of a Fire Lord. Her brother drags a hand down the length of his face, and for a moment she thinks she sees real pain there. What gall.
“I know.” His voice is brittle. He clears his throat.
She watches him for a moment and cannot help the small scoff that escapes her lips at how pathetically sad he looks. His pale skin drawn, a dark circle under his good eye. She nudges his arm with her elbow.
“Don’t look so sad,” she teases dryly, unable to help herself, “your number one competition will finally be gone. You won’t have to worry anymore.”
Zuko shifts suddenly, his hands grasping the front of her tunic. Azula feels her breath catch in her throat, eyes widening when she’s yanked forward, and Zuko’s arms close around her like a vice.
Chin tucked against her brother’s shoulder, she barely dares to breathe while he squeezes her with his hands strong at her back. Unfamiliar.
“Do you know what I worried about when you were gone, Azula?”
She doesn’t have the chance to make a snide remark, nor does one immediately come to mind in the shock of the moment. Her hands hang loosely at her sides, useless to her.
“I worried about what happened to you. I worried about whether you were hungry, or cold, or whether something horrible had become of you and we would never know about it.”
She feels Zuko’s chin against her own shoulder, and she swallows thickly, her shoulders loosening in increments as he continues to hold on to her like a man drowning at sea clings to driftwood.
“I worried that you never got better and that you died while you were still in pain.”
There is a rap at the door, and they both jump at the suddenness of the noise.
When Zuko finally pulls away he wipes at his eyes, trying to be covert and not quite managing it.
“That’s my cue,’ he says, laughing thickly. “I’ll…see you tomorrow.”
Zuko pauses in the middle of the room, already on his feet and takes a breath. His shoulders settle, squaring. He is the Fire Lord again and not her brother. Azula can’t quite manage to compose herself in a similar fashion, and she stares after him long after his silhouette no longer cuts her doorway.
*
The crowd outside is roaring. It sounds like the swell of the ocean on a windy day at the edge of Ember Island. Azula closes her eyes, and imagines that that is where she is. Ember Island, with her mother and father, and with Zuko. She feels the warmth of the sand against her skin, and imagines that if she simply reaches out, she’ll feel the fine grain of it against her hands.
A foot scuffs against the floor, purposeful, so as to alert her to its owner’s presence. She opens her eyes again and looks up. The Avatar looks back at her, expression drawn, serious.
She blinks slowly, and wonders what he is doing here. Air benders are supposed to be opposed to death, and death hangs about her like a loose cloak.
“Azula I — I’m here to offer what I can,” he says finally. Aang shifts from one foot to the other, glancing back over Azula’s shoulder. She turns to look, and catches the figure of the water bender from the corner of her eye. She frowns.
“So..Uhm…If you want…Katara could give you something, so you don’t feel any pain — “
“No,” she answers soberly, quickly, before he can continue.
It will be over within a blink anyway.
The Avatar shifts his weight again, uncomfortable. He looks once more at the water bender, perhaps for reassurance. Then his expression smooths again, and he takes a steadying breath, letting it out.
“Then…Is there anyone you want here with you..? Before the end?”
She thinks of her mother, but Azula closes her eyes and wills herself not to cling to the woman in her last moments. She’d spurned her when she’d come to her in prison. She doesn’t want her last moments to be with the woman she’d hurt.
…And she and Zuko have said all that they need to say to one another.
“No,” Azula answers again, less punctuated.
“Are — are you sure?” He seems perplexed.
Azula manages a weary smile, tight against her teeth.
“Yes.”
An uncomfortable silence stretches between them, and then Aang comes forward, his hand outstretched and placed on her narrow shoulder. Azula looks up at the Avatar with a blank expression, perplexed.
“Then…I’ll be with you,” he says, “until it’s time. I’ll walk with you out to the field if you want.”
She wants to deny him this simple show of kindness, but the words falter on her tongue and die. Azula lowers her head, staring at the tips of the Avatar’s shoes in the gloom of the underground.
“Alright…Yes.”
This seems to assuage him, and he loosens, settling himself lightly beside her. He faces the sunny exit as well, waiting.
When the Earth Kingdom guard comes, Aang stands in a single, graceful, motion and waits for them to change her shackles, following at her side when they begin her funeral march out into the arena.
Azula’s eyes smart when they exit into the full force of the sunlight. She closes them briefly before adjusting to the change, and then she scans the crowd, looking for Fire Nation red. It isn’t difficult to find. It blazons out like a flame amongst trees. She fixes her attention on her brother and mother. They sit to the right of Kuei, who seems resplendent in his throne.
Azula is dragged up the steps to the execution block, dust rising around her in the midday sun, cloying her throat, and coating her tongue with an unpleasant earthen grit. She ignores all of this, feeling her knees give out under her as they are kicked from behind, forcing her down.
They wait again, and Kuei gives the signal. Azula fixes her gaze on her brother’s, finding it in the sea of people and clinging there. For strength; for courage.
His expression is stoney. He meets her eyes, and they hold one another from across the arena. Azula breathes out.