Chapter Text
The black basalt was rough and jagged but pleasantly warm under her hands as she clambered up the steep slope, ignoring her older brother’s extended hand. He seemed unsurprised by her refusal to accept his help, and merely turned up and looked further up the mountain toward the gently smoldering caldera.
“There’s a cave a little further up,” he said. “Looks like a good spot for an iguanacrab nest.”
“I’m surprised at you, Zuzu,” she replied, mockingly. “You’d raid a nest? Take the itty bitty eggs and leave their poor mother bereft?”
“No,” he said. “We’ll have to catch the mother too. Lo and Li need the protein and there’s nothing else to eat on this island. Come on.”
Her face soured. He hadn’t asked for an apology - he never did - but she felt judgement lurking under his even monotone. It would be easier if, just once, he got angry with her. He used to, when they were children. She used to love making him lose his temper. But that had changed after the raid on Ember Island, when he decided that he would take charge of her safety - as if she needed his protection! Now, no matter how badly she messed up, no matter how much danger it put them in, he never let her see so much as a hint of disappointment.
She hated him for it.
Wordlessly, she stalked past him and continued up a path laid down by an ancient lava flow without looking back. She heard him fall in silently behind her and increased her pace, ignoring the pain in her feet and ankles. She was exhausted, but would rather die than show it. She let herself draw in power from the churning magma she could feel just below the stone.
“Careful,” he said from behind her.
“I wasn’t going to release it,” she snapped. “Just enjoying the heat. Anyway, there’s no one around for miles.”
“We should stop and take a rest.”
She turned. “I have the sun on my back and a volcano under my feet; I can walk for hours. But I know you never really attuned to fire very well, so go ahead and rest if you need to. I’ll meet you at the cave.”
“Azula,” he said warningly. “Slow your breathing. Send your energy back into the ground.”
“Blazes, Zuko, you sound just like Uncle. I can handle it.”
“There’s no reason…”
But she had already started walking upwards again. She heard a sigh and the sound of footprints resumed behind her.
The “cave”, when they reached it, was barely the size of a small room and, more to the point, was completely empty. She felt a strange thrill even as her stomach grumbled and her anger rose.
“Well,” she said lightly, “I suppose it was worth it for the climb and the pleasant conversation. It’s good that we get a little sibling quality time, don’t you think?”
But Zuko wasn’t listening. He was resting his hand on one wall of the cave. “Do you feel something?”
“What’s the matter, Zuzu? Energy of the volcano getting to you? Have you tried slowing your breathing?”
“Azula, I’m telling you, I can sense an energy…”
“You’re probably just hungry!” she retorted. “I certainly am, after you led me all the way up this volcano for nothing! I’m going to have blisters for days, it’s seaweed soup for dinner again, and now I have to listen to you prattle on about some weird energy in the walls like you’re some kind of actual competent firebender and not just an embarrassment!”
He turned toward her and paled. “Azula…”
She looked down at her hands. Bright blue arcs of static were leaping from fingertip to fingertip. The smell of ozone joined the smell of sulfur and hot basalt.
“It’s not too late,” Zuko said urgently. “Breathe with me, Azula.”
“You need to go, Zuko,” she said hollowly.
“I’m not…”
“Go NOW!” she said, as a small arc leapt from her right hand to the ground, just a few inches from her brother’s foot. “Get out of this cave! I’ll be fine! You need to go!”
He gave her a scared, desperate look, but he turned and ran. Good. She couldn’t hold back much longer. Another small bolt leapt from her hair to the ceiling. When she went off, would the cave absorb it or would it concentrate the blast outward like a parabolic dish? She didn’t know. Her father had told her he’d teach her how to manage lightning… when he came back home.
The air was crackling audibly now, and she could feel each of her hairs stand up in its turn, like orderly little soldiers at attention. She’d lied to Zuko when she said she was sure she would be fine.
She felt her stomach roiling with energy. And then, all at once, out it came.
Zuko felt the change in the air only a heartbeat before the shockwave hit him. The crash of thunder threw him to the rocky ground, and he rolled for a good ten feet before he could catch himself. Dazed, deafened, scraped, bruised, and bleeding all over, he nonetheless managed to pull himself up to his elbows and look up at the cave, now partly hidden through a haze of smoke and heat shimmer. Then the mountain itself rumbled and for one terrifying moment Zuko thought that Azula had somehow managed to set the whole volcano off.
And then, out of nowhere, a burst of unbearably bright white light burst from the mouth of the cave. Not another blast of lightning, just light, so bright he had to turn away. His first thought was: any Water Tribe ship for five miles around must have seen that.
Then the ground began to move, and all he could think was: Azula.
It would have been difficult to tell whether the teenager there on the ship’s broad upper deck was a master fighter or a master dancer, were it not for the presence of the three older men attacking him with whale-toothed spears. He parried one thrust with his short-handled club, dropped to his knee to avoid another, and then shot his free hand up to grab the third in mid-thrust. He rolled backward, using the weight of his body to wrench the spear free from his assailant, then whipped it around in a low circle to knock the feet out from under all three attackers at a go.
“Good effort,” he said, holding out a hand to the nearest man to help him back to his feet. “Now you can see what I mean about fighting with spears in close quarters. Even on a ship this large, you don’t have the room to…”
He was interrupted by a loud crack followed by a low rumble. Instinctively, the boy looked upward to see only a blue sky above.
“Beat for fire,” he called. The ship’s drummer began a steady thrumming beat and almost at once the deck was swarming with crew rushing purposefully to their stations. The ship’s captain bowed as she approached the boy’s side.
“Lightningbenders, sir?” the captain asked.
“Maybe,” said the boy. “I didn’t see it, but I heard it. From the east, I think.”
“There’s an uninhabited volcanic island in that direction. Could have been a natural eruption.”
“Could have been," he agreed. "But can I borrow a spyglass, Captain Hamka, just in case?”
She nodded and hurried off. The boy walked to the starboard side rail and looked out. He could just make out the shape of the volcano in the distance. Another great rumble washed over the ship, basso profondo, as though the entire volcano had shivered in an unexpected draft.
“An earthquake,” the captain said, as she handed him a small telescope. “Definitely a natural eruption, then.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Sokka said as he peered out at the unearthly white light that poured from the side of the volcano. “Prepare an albatross to send a message to Chief Hakoda. Tell him I’m going to be late getting home. I think we might have just found the Avatar.”