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The voices will never stop, her mother warns her. The whispers are a necessary evil that comes with being the daughter of the Fire Lord, the princess of the nation.
Azula loathes the princess stereotypes. Always has.
She chooses to go to the most prestigious school in the Fire Nation because she doesn’t want to be a little songbird, stuck in the cage that is the palace. It’s only a little tug on her heart when the subject of homeschooling comes up, but it has Azula flying from her seat with tears welling up in her eyes, demanding her father send her to a real school.
This is when the war is progressing nicely, when her mother lives at home and when Azula’s firebending is already on par with Zuko’s, so Ozai smiles and indulges his daughter.
The voices quiet when the palanquin is carried over the large square in front of the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, but Azula can see the girls they belong to clearly through the red mesh fabric. They must be older than her, but their eyes fill with reverence as Azula is carried by them. Azulon’s eyes shine as the sun hits the metallic surface of the statue. These are all things Azula has already grown used to.
Registering becomes superfluous when you’re the most well-known girl in the country, so when the palanquin lowers and Azula is accompanied into the school, she is brought straight to her class. The headmistress bows deeply when they meet and tells her Azula will get whichever seat she likes, no matter if it is already taken. Azula toys with the idea of picking the seat of the most impressive looking girl there, just for kicks and to establish some sort of dominance over her classmates. This is a school for the elite, but she’s more than that. She is the daughter of Ozai, named after the man whose shimmering statue they just passed outside, great-granddaughter of the man who built this nation.
The door to the classroom slides open and there’s a collective intake of breath when Azula walks in. She stares at the class, ignoring whatever the teacher is saying as her eyes glide over the seats. Her father’s eyes stare back from his official portrait, hung at the back of the classroom. There is only one empty seat, next to a girl with a long braid, who seems more interested in the birds outside the patterned window than in the princess that just walked in.
Azula wants to ignore her and take the seat of the girl she recognizes from the whispers outside—she’s tall and scowling, the perfect person to take down a notch, to show that there is no messing with princess Azula—but when she walks over, her feet don’t stop. Instead, as if there is an invisible force pulling her along, Azula walks to the back of the class, and sits in the free seat.
“Hello,” she greets. In spite of countless lessons on manners and etiquette, it sounds awkward and stilted. Either the girl doesn’t notice or she doesn’t care, because she smiles and holds her palm like a flame over her balled wrist, and bows.
“Hello. I’m Ty Lee,” she says, and the tug on Azula’s heart is back. “Nice to meet you!” There are other eyes on her, Azula knows, but Ty Lee’s brown ones are warm and inviting and for once, she forgets.
***
Even at the school, everyone walks on eggshells around her. Azula had thought it might be less here, where not everyone she interacts with is a servant to the palace and the royal family.
She’s stronger than half of them, but they treat her like she’s weak, like a damsel from the songs that needs protection more than she needs self-actualization. If only they could have seen her with Lo and Li last summer, when they had taught her the starting principles of lightning bending. If only they could see her fire, that had long stopped burning orange and had turned to blue the winter she’d turned ten.
And it is a bit of a shame the Academy teaches educational subjects only, Azula thinks as she walks past the Agni Kai dueling field on the far end of the school grounds, sitting on the chalk cliff overlooking the sea. She could have nicely shown off her strength in a class dedicated to training firebending. The field has seemingly been neglected for a long time, with long blades of grass growing in the cracks between the tiles and parts of the rock wall on the cliffside having crumbled under the force of the elements.
Mai told them stories of long ago, in the age before Sozin, when the Academy had been led by a woman named Hei-Ran. According to the stories, she was infamous for the most accidental kills during Agni Kai. Azula stares at a dark stain on the tiles beneath her feet, and imagines dried blood.
The wind shifts and blows a few strands loose from her top knot. With it comes a familiar voice, carried by the breeze.
“Azula!” Ty Lee says as she reaches the dueling field. “I had a feeling I would find you here.”
“Why?” Azula asks with a deprecating smile. “Because I’m prone to violence?” Ty Lee chuckles and rolls her eyes.
“Because you enjoy history,” she answers. “And because I saw the look on your face when Mai was telling that story about the evil headmistress.”
“It was a good story,” Azula mumbles. Lately, being around Ty Lee has felt like there is a string tied around her heart, constricting whenever she smiles, or switches from her feet to walking on her hands, or touches Azula unexpectedly. Now, as she watches Ty Lee take in the ocean, it threatens to squeeze it into a pulp.
Azula ignores it. Instead, she asks: “Ty Lee, do you want to train with me?” Ty Lee is the only one she could ask, apart from maybe Mai. From the day they met, the girl has refused to treat her as a princess and Azula knows she is one of the few in this school who would not hold back. Ty Lee’s eyes grow comically wide.
“Me?” she asks, sounding genuinely confused. “But I can’t firebend.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Azula says as she walks to one side of the dueling field. “You just have to attack me.” The sun is sinking lower and Azula can feel its power simmer where the light touches her skin. “And avoid getting burned.”
She grins menacingly as she says it. Anyone else with knowledge of her bending talent would probably have run away, but Ty Lee returns her smile with a cheerful determination.
***
The summer has passed and Azula is back at school. It’s the first day of their final year. She will turn twelve this winter and take Zuko’s vacant place by their father’s side, as his right hand in the war.
It’s something Azula has been looking forward to all her life—the moment she sits down in the throne to her father’s side can’t come soon enough.
She finds Ty Lee in their dorm. It’s a room twice as big as the ones the rest of the girls sleep in, and Azula has been sharing it with Ty Lee since her second year. She used to quip that it was a good thing they had become friends, or Ty Lee wouldn’t have had the space to store half of the things she kept in her room. Ty Lee had laughed in her particular way, freely and unabashed, and the string around Azula’s heart had constricted.
Ty Lee is holed up underneath the covers today. Azula can hear soft sobbing noises come from beneath the duvet and the string around her heart tightens. She scoffs, stalks over and sits on the edge of the bed.
“Ty Lee?” she starts, keeping her tone steady and authoritarian. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Ty Lee answers with a shaky voice, as if she takes Azula for a fool.
The princesses in her bedtime stories were always gentle and always kind. Azula vaguely remembers her mother reciting them to her as she sat on the edge of her bed, the way she is sitting at Ty Lee’s, now. The princesses had a soft touch. They never hurt others. They spoke kindly, always.
Azula rips the covers away, pulling them to the floor, and says: “Don’t lie to me.” Ty Lee’s eyes promptly well up with fresh tears and Azula scowls angrily. “Don’t cry,” she adds. “You know I can’t stand it.” Ty Lee nods and wipes at her eyes with her wrists, messing up the line around her eyes she had so meticulously put there in the morning. Not that Azula had seen her put her make-up on today—they spent enough mornings together for her to know. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I hate my family,” Ty Lee admits. She pulls her knees to her chest and presses her face to her legs. “I hate them.” Azula fleetingly thinks of Zuko.
“What was it this time?” Azula asks. She uncharacteristically tries for soft, but it comes out as curt. “Your sisters?”
“My parents,” Ty Lee replies. “They think I’m throwing away my life. But traveling with the circus is my dream.” Azula has a scathing comment about the circus laying ready on her tongue, but she keeps quiet. Employment at the Sun Circus wouldn’t be too bad. Ty Lee is talented and it’s a respected institution. Any other, however…
Azula silences her own thoughts in lieu of following the familiar tug at her heart. She leans forward and pulls Ty Lee in a hug, as gently as she can manage.
***
Azula isn’t a princess anymore. She never was one—she had been the first person to know that, but now the rest of the world knows it, too.
Zuko sits on the throne. The Avatar lives. The war has been over for close to a decade. And Azula is finally free.
Solitude has been worse on her than any physical punishment she could’ve received. Azula had always thought she would miss the voices, the whispers that would quiet as she passed but never died completely—but the silence is maddening.
People thinking she was weak had been bad, but people not thinking about her at all has been worse. Traveling through the Earth Kingdom in red clothing has given Azula enough weary looks, but none of recognition. She was never a princess, but she can’t pretend the lack of realization in their eyes doesn’t sting.
Azula pets the ostrich horse offhandedly as she lets it rest and drink from the river they’re about to cross. Even though she doesn’t have any servants to boss around, it does feel good to have an animal that listens to her unconditionally.
She thinks about Ty Lee. The ache in her chest had grown dull over the years, like a knife, and she has grown used to it. This must be what the princesses from the stories and the songs felt like when their lovers, meant to protect and be with them, left for war, or conquest, or some other idle mission. Azula can’t help but be reminded of her investment in the war and how it had taken everything she had ever cared about.
With a huff, Azula steps onto the saddle again and urges her ostrich horse to wade through the river with her heels. It’s no palanquin, but at least the beast has no trouble walking through the cold water.
A fork in the road has Azula hesitating. The mountain ranges at the horizon are still too far to reach and around her there is nothing but grassy plane, stretching as far as the eye can see. Besides, it’s not like Azula has a tangible destination on this journey. A tug on her heart breaks her train of thought. It must be her instincts, Azula thinks as she sighs and directs her ostrich horse to the left.
By the time the sun sets, the path has led her into a small settlement. With practiced movements, Azula ties the reins to the pole behind a narrow trough filled with water and leaves her ostrich horse to drink up as she enters the inn, recognizable as the largest building in this town.
The door creaks as it swings closed behind her. Azula has frozen up as she sees a group of female warriors in an all too familiar uniform sitting around a table. She is no longer a princess, but they will recognize her, for sure. Before the door can fully close Azula has turned around and stepped outside again.
A wrong move. Azula would much rather face a group of enemies than the person she had spent so many days in captivity thinking about. Ty Lee’s eyes are still as soft as they were when they first met, as they slide from the ostrich horse to Azula. They widen in recognition and some other emotions Azula can’t place, and she fidgets under her gaze.
“Ty Lee,” Azula says, stiff and awkward, exactly like their first meeting, as well. They’re both so different, now—in some ways, this is a first encounter.
Ty Lee’s voice is hoarse as she answers. “…Azula.”
***
The storms that rage over Kyoshi Island make Azula think that maybe the Avatar had done some truly grisly things in her life, to warrant repercussions such as these. Ty Lee tells her it’s because of the island’s position and the corresponding climate, but Azula lets herself dream about the tall woman overlooking the island from her wooden pedestal and her immense power.
The reverence in the voices of the villagers as they tell her the stories of how Avatar Kyoshi separated the peninsula from the land and defeated Chin the Conqueror is reminiscent of how Azula used to be addressed.
It’s on Kyoshi Island that she realizes that she’s come to appreciate all the things she hated about her youth as a princess.
Being confined to an island seems to set her free; Azula is stuck on this rainy, cold slab of earth in the ocean, but she’s never felt more at home somewhere. She hasn’t firebended in years, but she’s never felt more strong. Being gentle had been challenging, but comes more natural to her now that she has Ty Lee’s unconditional trust and love.
It’s such a cliché. She has lost her nation, her claim to the throne, everything that made her royalty. But as she falls asleep in the warmth of Ty Lee’s embrace, sheltered from the storm that rages on outside, Azula finally feels like she has grown into the princess she was born as.