Chapter Text
Azula runs. Her heart is beating hard against her ribcage – she can feel it running as wild as she is. Azula runs, and no longer cares about her heartbeat. She’s no longer angry at its existence. There is no time for regrets. Azula has mourned just enough.
To her ears come the shouts of guards, of worried doctors and their broken façade. They shout her name. They shout orders against her, and she runs faster. Fools. They are never going to catch her again. A princess is not one to be held captive. A princess is no servant, and fire does not bend for whatever ridiculous soul. She’s too much of a flame to be tamed. Fire cannot be controlled. Even in ashes, it rises and rises, and it flies with the wind. Just like Azula. Fireless, but warmth still.
A sleeping dragon is no less a dragon.
Azula runs, and she is one with the night. A bunch of useless idiots is not going to catch a cunning warrior as herself. She worked too damn hard to make sure of that.
The woods are not scary. They are her home now – as much as she can call someplace hers. She has not belonged anywhere in a long, long time. Her heart no longer aches for something it cannot have. When she planned for countless afternoons there was not a single home occupying her mind. She saw no throne, no long-lost brother waiting with his arms open and his heart changed. There was not a doting, loving father too proud of his offspring he could not stop smiling. There were no friends with soft smiles waiting at the side. There were no gold and no crowns. There were no drills and no conquests. There were only woods and an open sky kissed by the sun. There were only birds extending their wings and flying to never be seen again.
She was sure she’d be one of them, someday.
Cunningness became her. They shouldn’t have given her too much time to think. Her mind was her sharpest weapon, after all. Bending was simply an elegant touch. An extra addition, if one could call it that. Fancy, yes – but she was more than that.
The woods open humbly to their queen. She needs to find shelter –somewhere away from the trees, somewhere she can’t catch lighting. Azula laughs at the irony of it – a joyful sound that still feels foreign, an echo of a time she was hurt to remember and delighted to let go. The princess feels her long, long hair dancing, and she misses not the elegant knot she fancied. She misses being one with lightning. It’s been long enough.
She knows she needs to think fast. So she does.
At the corner of her eye she sees the mountains, and she is reminded one again of the ghost tales her soldiers used to share between the few, sacred fire sake bottles they saved. She used to listen intently to them—until they bored her, of course. But she remembered. How could she forget? A mountain is always shelter to the souls she considers worthy. Azula is worthy of that and more.
She runs, and runs, and runs until her feet hurt, until the mud stains her slippers and they rip apart in a mess of silk and uselessness. Azula runs, and she cries when she feels the earth against her skin. It’s been long enough.
The sharp sound of thunder pierces through the sky. She feels it vibrating in her bones. Electricity runs on her fingers – and she misses it, misses the emptiness and the wholeness, and the infinite power that never before dared to leave her. The Avatar’s blood. The flesh of the dragon. A cry of the storm. There is no time to mourn for what was taken from her, not when she can feel its longing caress. Not when her body reacts in what can only be yearning. The storm missed her too, and that knowledge is just what she needed.
Lighting will never harm her. Fire cannot be controlled, and it cannot be forgotten, either. It’s been long enough. One could wander, but not all wanderers have lost their way. Her destiny was covered in velvet, but the veil has slipped. Night has never been clearer for the princess’ eyes.
Azula smiles, lets her head fall back. Fat drops of rain fall all around her, and the sound of their song is all that is heard in that lonely, dark woods. A roary laugh flies –she breaks the sacred silence because it is hers – and the cold droplets of rain are an icy reminder of her recovered freedom. Of her ultimate conquest. A victory that is hers and hers alone.
She does not feel cold. She never has, and she is not going to start now.
She’s had enough slips already. If Azula has a say in it, she’s never going to have one again.
She’s the true phoenix. The rightful queen. The feared general. The cunning warrior. She’s the true phoenix, and she’s free, and as long as she has a say in it, not even the stars are safe from her.