Chapter Text
Today is an early, open day in Ba Sing Se. A quiet breeze whistles between the tall buildings and the late morning moon dips low on the horizon, a promise of daylight to come. Azula sits on the roof of an apartment next to the market, looking down at the merchants tiredly setting up their wares so that they can be ready for working class people getting ready for work and criminals coming home from work. Brewing coffee and setting up displays of fruits and vegetables.
Azula lies back against the rooftop, the straw thatching digging into her back through her shirt. She should be getting back to the Jasmine Dragon soon. She should have snuck back into her bed almost an hour ago to get another few minutes of sleep.
She’d woken up at two in the morning missing her home. The girls at school had said that if you climbed to the top of the tallest building in the lower ring and looked east you could see the Fire Nation palace in the distance but all she can see is an expanse of farmland and a few walls. She thinks she can see a faint haze of smoke in the distance, ash from volcanoes and fire, but maybe she’s just imagining it.
Her fingers hurt from gripping the edges of window sills and bricks on her climb up and the part of her that’s more rational than proud worries that someone saw her firebend to light her way. She hates being ashamed for her firebending- the power in her, the thing that made her father proud, even if it just scares her pathetic brother- but a good Fire Princess adapts. She doesn’t put the future of the crown in danger just because she misses her father.
She doesn’t miss her father, anyway. She doesn’t miss anything. She just… she wanted to see her home again, even from miles away.
She’d dreamt about being home again, a convoluted storyline that had slipped her mind almost as soon as she’d woken up. Some variation of a coronation, although she’s not sure whose it was. Hers? Zuzu’s? Her father’s? She remembered feeling warm and needed. Important. Appreciated.
No one appreciates her in Ba Sing Se. She’s just another refugee with an uncle who loves her brother more. She’s fine with that, of course. She’s never been popular with her nurturing relatives. Her angst isn’t the kind they appreciate and she doesn’t do well with coddling. It’s a recipe for distance and she’s never needed them to be close to her. Zuzu thrives here, beneath his uncle’s wing. It’s disgusting.
The moon creeps lower and a bloom of pale blue and orange clouds opens above where the fire nation should be, heralding the rise of Agni. Azula’s inner fire rejoices and part of her mind does too, although she knows it just means another day of routine and powerlessness. She can do more at night, when her power is weakened. Ba Sing Se has a certain lawlessness at night and Azula appreciates the irony of her need for it- lawmaker at home, illegal here.
The first of the criminals start to creep into the square- heads low until they find their favorite vendor, then faces open and smiling, joyful despite the bounties hanging over their heads.
Azula doesn’t have a bounty, she’d discovered. Not even a reward out for her return. Just posters for the Blue Spirit’s arrest and muttered questions as to who will succeed Fire Lord Ozai now? Jokes about the turtleducks in his gardens taking the throne, tragic moans about the loss of Lu Ten, all those years ago. Nothing for the second child of the Fire Lord, the prodigal one.
Azula isn’t surprised, though. She’s not. She was kept the palace secret, the ace up her father’s sleeve. She was being saved for after what went down with Zuko went down. Of course there wouldn’t be more than a news story when she disappeared with her brother. Of course she would only be a footnote.
A few of the early morning workers wander through the markets on their way to the train station, pausing to buy street food or cheap coffee. Azula watches them like ants beneath her dangling feet and imagines what their lives must be like.
Pathetic, lowly things. Mundane like she could never imagine.
There’s a soft rustling impact behind her- someone dropping onto the straw roof next to her. It’s almost quieter than the distant waking-up sounds of the market below. If Azula hadn’t grown up next to her father she wouldn’t have even noticed it. “Hello, brother,” she says, and flips her hair over her shoulder.
Zuko sits down next to her, one knee pulled up against his chest. He’s wearing his thick brown jacket over black, a knapsack slung over his shoulder. “Azula,” he says.
They watch the rat race in the square for a while. It occurs to her to ask what her brother was doing up this early- or this late, her brain suggests, she’s only mostly sure he was home when she left the house- but he beats her to it.
“So, why are you up here?” His voice is raspy and so much deeper than it was when they left the palace. Azula wonders how she’s changed- would her father recognise her? Would her friends? “You should be getting more sleep.”
Azula’s face twists into a snarl without much command from her and she takes a moment to usher it into a sticky sweet smile. Zuko watches her face journey with the same impassive expression he watches her with all the time these days. “Don’t get sanctimonious, Zuzu. It’s still just the pot calling the kettle black. You’re sitting next to me.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Zuko stares out at the horizon, at the Fire Nation they both know is just past it. It’s not the reaction Azula was expecting, although she supposes she should have expected it. Zuko’s gotten so passive recently, like he’s let his inner fire extinguish itself with lack of use. Pathetic. A Fire Prince doesn’t let his environment shape him. A Fire Prince adapts, but he doesn’t let himself be beaten.
“Out with Jin?” Azula leans closer to her brother and sneers.
Zuko’s face breaks into a smile at the mention of the peasant girl and Azula’s stomach twists in something she decides not to label as envy. She’d been surprised when Iroh had mentioned a girl and not even just because neither sibling had been able to make many friends, let alone go on a date. She’d always assumed her brother was a little… well, she’s hardly going to throw slurs at her own brother, but… she’d thought he was like her, maybe.
Evidently not, if his face is going to go this soft at the mention of Jin.
“Yeah,” he says, face like he’s missing something he only just realized he has, “yeah, I was with her. We went to the Firelight Fountain. It was beautiful.”
Azula resists the urge to cross her arms and pout. “Uh-hu. I bet you thought she was just as beautiful or something, right? Pathetic. You’re getting soft.”
Zuko looks surprised and Azula rolls her eyes. You’d think he’d stop being surprised at her cruelty. Defense mechanism for a childhood lack of love or no, it’s who she is. Who she’s always been. “You think I-” He cuts himself off.
“Yes, I think you’re revolting, little brother,” Azula says. “You’d better be careful when you’re out with her, I heard the Blue Spirit is looking to take out the missing Fire Prince next.”
Any happiness on Zuko’s face drops. He picks at his nails. Azula decides bothering him about how unbecoming the gesture is isn’t worth her time. “You’re right. I’m so irresponsible, Ms. ‘I’ll leave home in the middle of the night without telling anyone where I’m going’,” he says to his feet.
“Oh, did little Zuzu worry? No one cares about me here, brother, and I will do what I please.”
Zuko looks alarmed and Azula hates that. She hates it, the way her uncle and brother only care about how she’s doing when they think she poses a threat to them. “The only person who cares about me is an ocean away and-”
“You- him? You think he-”
“Our father is the only person who loved- who appreciated me.” Azula does her best to keep her voice steady as Zuko’s face reddens. This is why they don’t talk. This is why their awkward silences when they share shifts at the Jasmine Dragon are for the better.
“Ozai never loved anyone!” Zuko shouts. Azula makes a mockingly shocked face and points at the people below and Zuko quiets. “I can’t believe that you’re still-” he says, sparks spinning around his words as he talks. Azula never did learn firebreath. Iroh taught Zuko, but he never taught her. “I can’t believe you. I shouldn’t have come.”
“Why did you come up here, Zuzu?” Azula asks. “I was perfectly fine on my own.”
Zuko’s looks away, defensiveness written across his oh so open face. Azula’s brother has always worn his face on his sleeve. You’d think it being his downfall would mean he’d learn better. “I-”
It dawns on Azula just as Agni fully makes its way above the horizon. “Uncle set you, didn’t he?”
Zuko doesn’t say anything. It’s a little surprising: Uncle doesn’t usually come into their room in the morning, so Azula doesn’t know how he figured she was gone, but maybe he needed her for an early shift at the Jasmine Dragon. “Oh, but why would he need to know where I am?” She taps a finger to her bottom lip. “Oh, hm. He’s scared, isn’t he? But not for me, no, I’m not the one he protects. He’s scared of what I’ll do.”
Zuko looks affronted that his precious uncle would ever be so calculating. Sometimes Azula thinks he forgets that even Iroh was once the Dragon. Even if he’s gone soft, he’s an imposing figure. Zuko is the only weakling. The one who needed to be weeded. “You’re so two-faced, Zuzu!” Azula says, pointing a finger at his chest. She wouldn’t normally crack this easily, even in front of Zuko, but today is a bad day. Today feels off. “You come here, acting all- Agni, I don’t know, like you care, but you’re just running errands for Uncle-”
“Azula,” Zuko says, with a voice like broken glass. Sharp.
“Why does he need you to watch me, Zuko? Why doesn’t he trust me?” Her voice is ragged and this is pathetic, a breakout that is disgusting, unbecoming, shameful for someone as high-standing as her. Even more embarrassing for it to be in front of another person.
“I don’t know,” Zuko says, “but he doesn't trust me either. Not either of us, and I don’t blame him, going behind his back like this, I can’t believe-” he sounds more like he’s talking to himself now, hands threaded through his dark hair.
Is this what I look like? Am I becoming my brother? The idea is repulsive- Azula is good because she is better than Zuko, and if she’s not-
“Get over yourself,” Azula says sharply. “Maybe if you weren’t so spineless, father would have loved you.”
“How can you say that?” Zuko says, golden eyes flashing some emotion Azula’s sure she’s too perfect to have. “Father hated you just as much as he did me. Why do you think you’re in Ba Sing Se with me and Uncle instead of playing at his lapdog?”
“Don’t talk about him. You’re just not good enough to-” Azula grinds her teeth. “Ugh! Whatever,” and she stands up, brushing straw off the back of her trousers. She leaps off the back of the building to a roof a few stories below, rolling down onto the pitched surface with the ease of dozens of nights spent doing it over and over again. If she looks up, she can see the top of Zuko’s head as he sits.
Azula wonders what he’s thinking- if he ever thinks the same things she does, or if he’s so far gone that he actually only thinks of Azula’s father with contempt. Azula stands up again and starts her leap from roof to roof, watching the people below. She’s not sure where she’s going, only that it’s not back to the Jasmine Dragon.
She finally situates herself above a busy intersection where an old man is selling cabbages. She’s seen him before, stubbornly at the same corner every morning, selling cabbages to the same selection of commuters who show no interest. He peddles his wares with a determination Azula would find admirable if it wasn’t so tiringly futile. It’s a drive that she sees in her brother, sometimes, the urge to go and go and go even when it all seems hopeless. Maybe something in her, too, but she’s never had to try too hard at anything. It all came naturally to her.
A yelp from the street below startles her out of her introspection and she looks down. The man’s cabbage cart is lying sideways on the ground, round cabbages rolling between the feet of pedestrians.
“My cabbages,” He shrieks.
“Sorry, mister!” Some kid yells over his shoulder, darting away between other people. A Water Tribe girl with a long braid follows closely behind him, their hands linked tight. Azula’s first instinct is to laugh, and she does. Her second is to zero in on exactly who knocked over the cabbages. She notices his tattoos immediately, blue arrows running down his back, fluid as he weaves between the people on the street. Airbender tattoos, which means…
She has to tell Zuko.