Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PROLOGUE

“Would the world have turned out differently if we didn't exist?”

The question is unobtrusive, floating gently into her ears. She doesn't answer, lifting the cup to graze her lips. The false red streaks across the rim, and it stands out, ugly against the green of the jade.

Before her a little girl sits perched on a windowsill, far removed from the ceremony commanded from those of her stature. The girl's lips slide close after the fraction of a murmur; her question hangs in the air, a steam that ghosts into their mouths and sits heavy on their tongues with every inhale. 

The child lounges with a forced type of leisure. The curve of the window cradles the benign slouch of her back, but the lines of her shoulders are drawn right with tension. The cuff of her sleeve rests atop a hitched knee, and another foot rests on the floor. She is a profile bathed in the luminescent moonlight; a specter that was not meant to have stayed within the mortal plane, the gentle rise and fall of her chest thrumming with the eons of existence she has yet to traverse.

Would it have, indeed.

Ai Mei does not tear her gaze away from the girl; she no longer feels her heart twinge, for the sensation has long since been present for as far as she cared to remember, for as far as there was anything worth to remember. She has grown accustomed to it, hoping to become immune as time flowed by – but time has failed where the parasite has taken root, and it has festered into an abomination that she has yet to truly abhor.

All she has left is resignation: to that which others may have relished, had they been more fortunate people, from a different world.

She reaches out and beckons to the little sprite. The girl uncurls herself from her stoic vigil, and Ai Mei marvels at how she no longer waits for her master‘s precise orders, familiar in the way she folds in her liege's side. Ai Mei does not let herself think of her as a dog, or as a pet, but as a friend long used to their habits.

The scarlet bands around the child’s limbs drown in the sea of Ai Mei’s white garments, like streaks of red atop a pile of snow. Ai Mei’s robes are long, weighty things, waves that can easily swallow children whole, bright against the crimson of the room and the darkness of the sky beyond it.

There is no practical use for the volumes of cloth, no real mobility to the design or convenience to its cut, but she finds it fitting that now these are all she is given to wear. They are beautiful, ornate, the sort of elegance that is best shown when its wearer finally becomes perfectly still.

Tonight the stars seem frozen, not quite glittering in the night sky, as if the skies have ceased all life. It does little to remove their wondrousness. Her ward breathes steadily, a comfortable presence at her side, and Ai Mei lifts her cup to inhale the steam.

“Would the world have turned out differently,” she finally says, and she reaches out to smooth a hand atop a mess of inky hair. Her fingers pet around the edge of a jaw, and trail upwards to the shell of an ear – but that is all she lets herself do, for the littleness of the organ reminds her of the magnitude of her sin.

Instead she bends her head, and the immense rivers of her hair flow around them. Within the curtain of tresses there are only two people in the world, and in this darkness she strains to see the outline of her only companion.

“Would the world have turned out differently,” Ai Mei murmurs, like a prayer, and she bends until her long lashes tap against her charge’s pale cheek, “then I would not have had to suffer you, Maonu.”

Chapter Text

There is a ghost in the western halls, Azula says, once upon a time, there is a ghost, and it's coming to get you, Zu-zu!

Mother scolds her with only a frown, and Azula - save for a moment where her face looks stricken, but Zuko blinks and it is gone - cackles off towards the turtleducks. Azula always lies, but the damage is done, and it was all Zuko could do to clutch at Mother's skirts and shrink into the red. Ursa tuts, and pats his shaggy head.

That little monster, and though Zuko hears her scold nobody in particular, he flinches at her quiet indignation, she should learn to speak of her cousin better.

The incident takes root, of course, and Zuko could only blame himself for the mockery from his sister's haughty gaze. He is young, defenseless, and he cannot even reach his own silverware without being perched on a mountain of cushions. But across the dinner table he sees that Azula is the same, except that she is unyieldingly unafraid where he balks at the idea of ghosts.

And doesn't that strike Zuko with an air of injustice, for Azula is just a little monster where Mother calls him her big boy. So he stalks off from the dining halls and into the darkness of the unlit hallways to stake his claim over its unknown depths. He would show the ghost that he was at the right of it, he would, for he is big where Azula is only little, and littler things should have more cause to be afraid - even if they are already, in part, the monsters that people are taught to fear.

---

What does it mean to love? Zuko asks much, much later. His hair fans around his head where it is pillowed on the carpets. He will be scolded later for not wearing his formal attire, still garbed as he is in his everyday robes. Though he does not particularly care for the punishment, it is preferable to the strange pang he feels when he looks at the embroidered clothing.

A few feet away, Maonu wipes down a piece of decorative china. She is already in her ceremonial uniform, layers of padded armor and a plumed fur shoulder piece. Her boots clank sharply against the floor, all dull metal and little comfort, and Zuko looks up to see the back of her short hair as she leaves the room.

Zuko lies back down on the floor and closes his eyes.

She returns shortly, and soon Zuko feels the bristles of a broom at his arm. Maonu begins sweeping with sharp efficiency; Zuko bears the force of a few sneezes until he is forced to move away from the dust.

He is halfway to standing when Maonu stills the broom in a leather-bound grip. Her knuckles strike a stark crimson contrast against the beige handle, like a fresh wound over tan flesh. The silence unsettles Zuko, and he meets her eyes. He is shaken at their ferocity.

Lady Ai Mei sat here often, she says, at a length, and Zuko gets it.

He selects a chair, and watches Maonu sweep with care.

---

It is dawn when he thinks of returning to his room. By then, word of his sudden disappearance had spread like wildfire in the palace, and Zuko is immediately flanked by four of the palace guards upon his entry to the main halls. Zuko spares a glance to the still-darkened western hallway, and wonders why they had not thought to look for him there.

Azula comes to him later, when he has locked himself in his room to catch up on lost sleep. He is not entirely surprised when she sneers and says, "Did little Zu-zu get lost in the palace? "

"No, " because even if the darkness and its chilling breeze had been a shapeless mass that tore his flames asunder, he had eventually stumbled to where he needed to be. Azula scoffs and moves to his bedside. Her little limbs scramble like tiny talons when she pulls herself up to sit beside him.

"So did you see it? " Azula says to her fingernails. When Zuko doesn't reply, she demands, "well? Did you see the ghost?"

Zuko turns to his side, away from her. Her fingers dig painfully into his shoulder, and for a moment he does not wonder why Azula always had more force, more power, behind her fire.

"No, " he answers, finally. "There was no ghost. Azula, I'm tired. "

He hears Azula huff. The bed dips and rises, and Azula's feet softly pad away. The door creaks open.

"Mother was worried, you know, " Azula smirks, and Zuko knows better than to delude himself that there was anything else in Azula's words aside from contempt, "always so worried about you, her precious, weakling Zu-zu," she taunts, even as she retreats to the entryway.

The doors open and creak close.

"Did you?" Zuko asks after a while. The room doesn’t answer.