Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Azula is nine and a quarter the day her death is ordered, and the world stops making sense.

There is nothing that marks the day as special. Agni’s warmth and the humidity make everyone’s clothes stick to skin and the servants make the usual breakfast fare, rice, fish soup, and an omelette. Zuko embarrasses himself during their lessons and Azula proves her worth as usual. Uncle forces them to sit through a game of pai sho—which Zuko loses, of course—before heading out to inspect the Home Guard. No member of the Royal Family truly retires.

Perhaps in another world, Iroh would be delayed and the Court would still be tense with Lu Ten’s death and Iroh’s uncertain status, but now, Grandfather’s wildfire rage has abated, and the usual cold simmer has returned.

Mother pretends not to notice Azula as she takes Zuko away. Azula’s good mood is the only reason she doesn’t incinerate the turtleducks. She’ll let the idiot think they’re safe for now and take them away when he’s in a good mood.

In the evening, they meet with Azulon in the Throne Room as a family. Azula demonstrates her forms, reminding everyone that perfection is her standard. Zuko is… well, Zuko. Father babbles on about her to the Fire Lord until it gets them kicked out of the audience chamber.

Azula drags Zuko with her past the billowing curtains. She wants to see what Father would risk the Fire Lord’s ire for. It is a daring plan, one that won’t work. Everyone knows that Grandfather cares for Uncle to an irrational degree.

Why would Father try this now? She wonders because it makes no sense. Is this something to draw Grandfather’s anger before the true request?

“I think Iroh has suffered enough,” Azulon rasps. “But you, your punishment has scarcely begun.”

The flames rage, reaching towards the ceiling. Azula flinches back because Grandfather is old, demanding, and made entirely of steel, but he’s never raged around his grandchildren. She understands why. His inner fire threatens to reduce the world to ash. Including her.

Perhaps that flinch is why Zuko doesn’t run away and why destiny changes.

He tugs her back instead, hiding them further in the darkness, his larger bulk wrapped around her. For once, she doesn’t push away his physical display.

The wall of fire parts for Azulon. Fire trails at his heels with each step, such perfect control to have them burn only in the shape of his footprint. The flames are orange as the dawn, a uniform shade that can chew through bone.

“You dare use the death of his favoured child as a bargaining chip. Ozai, coward that you are, you hide from challenging Iroh to Agni Kai for his position. When did I sire such a coward?”

Uncle is the Dragon of the West, she realises, and has never lost a duel. Father can’t win. He never could. That’s why he’s doing this.

“Fire Lord Azulon, I simply—”

“Silence yourself. I will name Zuko his heir. Iroh will rule as regent until he comes of age. You will never touch this throne unless you can prove yourself.”

Those words are an absolute. Every word Azulon has uttered in the decades since he took the Throne has changed the world. He is not the World Spirit, but his spirit affects the world. If he says Father won’t touch the Throne, then it won’t happen. Not unless Father killed Grandfather.

Grandfather is the greatest firebender in generations. No one could possibly beat him in a fight.

“You seek to destabilise the line of succession further, but the Throne is held only by those with the strength to take it. I slaughtered mine own brothers and held this throne through two rebellions. Challenge Iroh to Agni Kai or kill your favoured child to know Iroh’s pain.”

Azula’s heart stops. The world buzzes as she processes those words. Anyone who has spent more than an hour in court knows that Azula is the light of the Royal Line, the star that illuminates the sacred halls of their home with her future glory. Zuko isn’t even a rival at this point. He fails at the most basic of firebending forms, struggles behind Azula in class despite the two-year head start, and embarrasses the family whenever Grandfather holds court.

Father says nothing. He stays there, kneeling and perfectly still as Grandfather rages. She catches Father’s features for a moment and sees his sheer indifference to the words. As if the murder of his favourite child is an acceptable consequence.

He’s going to kill me.

Zuko keeps her mouth covered with his grimy hand which is ridiculous. She’s not dumb enough to make a sound and give away their position. Azula will live. That’s the only way the world can make sense. The world can’t go on without her. She’s important. She’s someone of value. Her history is already being written. It will begin with Princess Azula was victorious from her first breath and end with to her very last breath, Fire Lord Azula was victorious.

Nothing else is acceptable.

It is at that moment that Azula realises just how cold and cruel the world is. Her petty games to antagonise Zuko and other courtiers are nothing compared to Father calmly accepting a reality without her.

“Your will be done, Fire Lord Azulon.”

“Begone!”

Father rises slowly. He bows to his Fire Lord, turns perfectly, and walks away. Each step clatters in Azula’s ears.

Only when Father is gone does the curtain of flame fade. Slowly, silently, Zuko drags her out of the Throne Room. He’s shaking terribly but his inner flames feel steady. Maybe I’m shaking? That’s ridiculous. Azula is never afraid. Nobody is strong enough to make her afraid.

Then she finds herself in Zuko’s room, her brother calling her name. She’s lost time, confused as to how they got here. It’s not a close walk from the Throne Room to their wing of the Palace.

“Come on, Azula. Look at me and wake up.”

“Don’t call me that,” she mutters without her usual heat.

His smile is the first bit of warmth Azula has felt in hours.

“Mother will know what to do.”

Mother doesn’t believe them, of course. She looks at Zuko with concern but when her eyes glance over Azula there is only distrust.

“Grandfather wouldn’t do that,” Mother says. “Stop being ridiculous, Zuko.”

“But Mot—”

“No, I’ll hear no more of this. This family has enough problems without Azula imagining fake problems.”

“Mother, please,” Zuko begs.

Mother shakes her head and walks past Zuko, leaving them alone. Just the two of them. Soon, there will only be one. It’s not fair that Zuko gets the Throne for doing nothing. He’s not worthy of it. He’s done nothing right and she’s being punished? Why is that the world they live in?

He’s holding her, she realises. More time lost. His grip is tight, and he murmurs meaningless platitudes.

“I’m going to fix this,” Zuko promises. “I just need you to hide for me.”

Slowly, she regains her voice. “I don’t hide.”

“Please. Just once, trust me.”

Zuko is eleven and a useless firebender. He cries too easily and can’t lie to save his life. There’s nothing he can do. And yet, there’s something so terrible about his bearing, rage burning like frostbite. He shouldn’t be like this; he can’t be like this. It’s the same way Grandfather had been when he gave that order, the same way father had been as he accepted the demand.

All sound dies away. The blood rushing through her ears quietens. Her thunderous heartbeat vanishes. The room is bright, but in this moment, it seems grey and lifeless.

Trust him, a voice from her childhood whispers. A voice that has never hurt her in any way. Lu Ten’s voice.

For that reason, she trusts him and lets him drag her away from Mother’s rooms.

He drags her away through the secret passageways they’ve found in their years of exploring. There’s one tiny room they’ve found which only they know about, hidden in their wing of the Palace. The entrance to it is a tiny spot that can only be opened by a specific pattern of firebending. They’d found it because Azula had been annoyed Zuko had embarrassed her at school again and had taken out her ire on him with fire, chasing him through the passage, only for a doorway to open before them. It had taken them days to repeat the pattern, so she knows they’ll be safe.

It is dusty and tiny, barely a spare closet. The important part is the false wall that Zuko shoves her through. She hits her head on the other false wall. That’s the ingenious part of this secret room. It opens from both sides, one being a hidden hallway and the other a guest room, but both are blocked off from each other by false walls.

The air stifling and she worries she will run out of air long before Zuko returns.

Azula hides away for the first and last time in her life. She barely breathes, a thousand moments of being cruel to Zuko swirling in her mind. What if he’s going to tell Father where she is as revenge for burning his favourite turtleduck? Zuko wouldn’t do that? Would he? It’s what Azula would do. What anyone else in their family would do. This is his chance to secure the throne.

She doesn’t come out when hours later the screams start. She stays perfectly still as the Palace Guard is thrown into a frenzy. Orders are barked and squads run through the hallways, securing rooms and hallways.

What did the idiot do?

Whatever it was, the entire Palace is frantic. If it’s this bad, then all the nobles in caldera know by now and in the morning the peasants will as well. He’s dead. That’s the only option. Azulon struck him down. If she is lucky, his rage will stop after Father and Mother. There must be an heir. Azulon wouldn’t forget that.

“Zuko,” her mother calls, voice echoing in Azula’s bones. She comes so close to Azula’s hiding spot. “Zuko, darling, where are you?”

Not Azula. Never Azula. What crime did I commit that was so terrible?

Hours pass. Her leg cramps and it gets harder to breathe. She dampens her inner fire each time someone gets close. A good enough firebender could sense it if she’s not careful. There are not many in the Palace outside the Fire Sages and the Captains of the Guard, but that is more than one which is far too many.

It quietens for a time. The shouts become a constant buzz of agitated curses and threats. The troop movements regain some level of regularity.

The door behind her opens. Azuka stays perfectly still, huddled in her spot, as the false wall is pulled away. I’m dead. I should have run. This was a mistake. Why did I listen to that idiot? He betrayed me after Grandfather tortured the truth out of him. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It is not the cold visage of her Grandfather or the emotionless helmets of the Guard. No, instead, it is her brother.

Exhaustion is draped over his shoulders like a cloak. His topknot is undone, and he’s lost his outer robes. He looks worse than she’s ever seen. Tui’s cold light drapes Zuko in a strange glow, making him seem hollow.

“Come.”

He reaches out for her. She takes his hand. It trembles terribly as he pulls her out of the dark and into the pale light of the moon streaming through the narrow bank of windows.

“It’s done.”

“What did you do?”

He smiles and there is no joy or warmth in that smile. It is the smile one wears walking to an ignoble death, bitter and hateful, made worse by the shadows the moonlight casts.

“I killed him.”

Static fills her ears. Those words make no sense. Zuko can’t kill. He’s… well, he’s Zuko

“What?”

“I killed him. Grandfather.”

“No one can fight grandfather.”

“I didn’t fight. I poisoned his tea and watched him choke to death.” He’s chuckling morbidly, hysteria marking his features. “Fire comes from the breath. He couldn’t do anything. He was… he was just an old man.”

“You killed him? For me?”

“You’re my sister.”

The sky is blue. Agni’s warmth illuminates. The Fire Nation is the greatest of all nations. These are all truths fundamental to the way the world works. 

Tonight, Azula learns another truth: Zuko will kill for her.

Love is not found in words but in actions of loyalty. Zuko is loyal to her where Grandfather and Father and Mother were not. She accepts then that Zuko loves her and that love will be the weakness she exploits to kill him for the throne.

“I’ll have to leave Caldera,” Zuko adds.

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s a first.”

She doesn’t have the energy to hurt him for the insult.

“Father will be on the Throne,” she adds.

“And I put him there by committing parricide. I’m lucky he hasn’t ordered my execution.” Zuko inhales, his breath hitching. “He would have if not for Uncle.”

Father can’t beat Uncle, she reminds herself again.

Zuko shifts, reaching into his military tunics and removing a knife. The scabbard reflects Tui’s light strangely, silver light catching on the fine zephyr patterns, the light reflecting off the nugget of pearl on the handle. He flips the blade around, presenting her the hilt.

“Keep it on you at all times and keep it hidden.”

Azula flicks him on the forehead, burning her fears before they show. “I, unlike you, know how to firebend. I don’t need a knife.”

“Don’t be dumb,” he snaps, and once more, she feels the blood that binds them as kin. “Mom won’t protect you and dad won’t have me to distract him.”

Nine years she’s known Zuko and Azula thought she knew everything there was to know about him. Too weak to survive the court, too foolish to survive father, and too ensnared by affection to escape mother. In one night, he’s broken every preconception she had.

He presses the handle into her hand insistently. “Just take the knife.”

She wrenches her hand free, knuckles white around the pommel. In a flash, she flips it and has the blade at Zuko’s throat. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

His eyes glow gold and silver in the dark, strange, and fey. For a moment, she fears this unknown spirit masquerading as her brother despite having him at knifepoint. He knows too much about her and has saved her and will destroy her.

“Fine,” Zuko finally says.

The blade digs deeper against his skin. “If you ask for it back, I’ll stab you.”

“I won’t,” he promises.

She’s learnt the worth of his promises and so she pulls the blade back, sheathing it and hiding it in the folds of her military tunic.

“This is goodbye.”

“It is. I’ll miss you.”

“Don’t be stupid enough to trust Uncle just because he saved you this time. And I won’t miss you. Obviously not.”

“Obviously.” Zuko inhales once. “I’m sorry Mother didn’t love you more.”

“Yeah, well, that was your fault. I never liked the turtleducks.”

He shudders, almost a chuckle, almost a sob. “Yeah. Take care of them for me, Lala.”

Chapter Text

The Court changes when Father takes the throne.

He is crowned immediately after the minimal mourning period for Fire Lord Azulon who died of natural causes arising of old age; no matter that people whisper that he had been firebending in full health earlier that same day with Prince Iroh—their shared grief granting them explosive strength—and that Prince Zuko vanished the same day. The same Prince who is absent at the coronation of his father and was publicly seen on Ember Island with the Dragon of the West. The optics of the event are embarrassing, quite frankly, not at all helped by all the guards who saw Azulon’s corpse, the clear signs of poisoning, Lady Ursa’s very loud shouts to Prince Ozai that he wouldn’t even get near the throne without my son doing everything. 

It is a dreary affair when Father is crowned, the drizzle matting her usually perfect topknot. Agni himself refuses to bless this day, hidden by the dark clouds. You were lucky to be born, she remembers him telling Zuko, and yet here he is, accepting a crown as if he had earned it.

Father disappoints her further as, in the coming weeks, broad swathes of the palace guard, alongside admirals and generals, all suddenly have sick relatives to visit indefinitely. All of those gone were loyal to Azulon and without the influence to maintain their position. It is wasteful to overturn so much in the middle of a war. It will be up to new and untested commanders to take and hold territory.

The turtleducks get to thrive in Zuko’s absence. Azula is not stupid enough to show weakness and feed them herself, but she does know which servants liked Zuko—at least, those that survived Father’s sweeping changes—and offhandedly comments that he would want them fed and cared for. What was once a single mother duck soon blossoms into a full-blown infestation.

Mother helps in her useless way by spending so much time in the gardens. It is an acceptable hobby for the wife of a Fire Lord to have, and the servants move to make sure the gardens and their turtleducks thrive.

Her studies change as well. Whilst she still goes to the Academy, she’s practically swarmed by royal tutors later in the evening. There’s a marked shift from the expected studies of the spare heir to the spare heir of the Throne to what she learns now. Before, she was expected just to learn which regions grew which products. Now she needs to know which battalions have troops from those regions and what extent each noble supports the war effort, which fleets were built from which forests, and which cities the Crown owes money to.

The lessons are dull, tedious, and leave her head swimming by the end of the day. It gets harder and harder to maintain her perfect composure when she’s barely sleeping just to keep ahead of the classes and dazzle tutors and classmate alike.

Perhaps her tiredness is why she fails to avoid her mother. “Azula.”

“Yes, Mother?”

“Have you heard from your brother?”

In truth, Azula’s received a letter every few weeks from him so far, all bearing Shu Jing’s crest and sent through the strangest of ways. Each one begins in the same way: Dear Azula, Light of the World. It isn’t her formal title, and the letters are always dry updates for anyone unable to read past the cypher they developed in their younger years. To anyone else, he tells a story of his calligraphy lessons and explorations of Ember Island, his time gardening, and the painful tedium of playing pai sho with uncle. To Azula, hidden by the cypher, he tells her of the rumblings of the nobility and the common folk, the tensions simmering over the war, and the famine affecting some of their outermost islands after a bout of overfishing.

She burns each letter after committing each perfect brush stroke to memory.

“Azula,” Mother prompts again.

“No, Lady Ursa, Prince Zuko has not spoken to me. Why I thought you would be the first person he tried to message?” She smiles cruelly. “Maybe Ember Island is unable to receive your letters? Are you sure you wrote the address correctly? Zuko loves you. He’d reply as soon as he got your letter.”

“What did you do?” Ursa asks through gritted teeth.

“Me? Nothing. I wouldn’t dare interfere with your letters. Why don’t you ask Father if something has happened?”

Cowardice surrounds Mother like a cloak. She won’t ask and risk Father’s wrath. No one is safe from it. Not even Azula.

Azula always wears long sleeves now to hide the mark of her shame.

With Zuko gone, Father logically demanded more and more from her firebending. His voice is always filled with disappointment and derision as if learning the Phoenix at Dawn at ten is mediocre at best. One evening, she’d snuck into the old archives and found the files documenting Father’s advancement and was filled with glee. He hadn’t even started the foundational forms till twelve.

Even Zuko was faster than that. Apparently, all the men in the family are late bloomers. Azula isn’t dumb enough to doubt Father’s skill now.

Maybe she had failed to hide her glee the next day as Father had tried teaching her to summon lightning. Never mind that not even Avatar Roku could call upon the cold fire before fifteen, the youngest to have done so.

Father’s frustration had built with each failure to even call upon a simple spark. His tone had gone from calm to cold rage to wrath itself.

He’d grabbed her by the bicep, looming over her. Fire had licked at his fingers, burning through cloth and flesh, not noticing the pain he had caused. Or perhaps not caring.

“You will master the form.”

Azula had stood still, calm despite the pain. That pain had brought her clarity, given her a greater understanding of the world and her place in it. She burns away her fears and doubts and hopes and dreams for they will be her downfall.

“Yes, Father.”

And so, she called upon a spark. It had been enough for Ozai to ignore her.

The next time she firebends, her flames are a brilliant azure. The Court is greeted at dawn by the hottest flames in generations as she performs the Phoenix at Dawn perfectly. It is the first step to being an Imperial Class Firebender, someone worthy of being of the royal line.

That achievement had protected her from Father’s ire. When were the last blue flames? The noble children ask in wonder, and in secret their parents say, Generations ago, in the time when dragons roamed, and Fire Lords did not need their sons to put them on the throne.

To harm her publicly, for any reason, would damage his already tenuous claim to the Throne.

“You’ll get it,” Ty Lee promises, twirling around Azula after Mother has run away to do whatever it is that irrelevant noblewomen do in their free time. Wine, perhaps. Mother does seem like the type to sneak a few glasses after her evening gardening.

“You know nothing of firebending.”

They’re in her room and the burn is still a painful reminder of her continual failing to master lightning. She’s hidden the wound from everyone and her attempts at ministration haven’t gone too well. When the injury became infected, she had to burn away the illness with blue flame and constantly fanning her inner fire. The three since had been spent in a fever haze, Azula functioning only because of the stimulants she stolen from the royal physician’s office.

“Yeah, but I know you’ll get it.”

“Why?”

Ty Lee turns, still upside down, and smiles. “Because you’re Azula.”

She throws her head back imperiously. “Of course. I’m the greatest prodigy the Fire Nation has ever seen. No Avatar has come close to my mastery of fire and no one else will come close in the future.” Azula stands, walking past Ty Lee because there’s something so painfully kind in her gaze. “When they speak of firebenders, I will be the standard that all are measured against. Consider yourself lucky to bask in my glory.”

Words are only a boast if the speaker fails, and Azula has never once failed in her life. What few blemishes on her spotless record will never be known, and if they are, her victories will burn them away.

Azula doesn’t know when Ty Lee gets so close, but she does feel it when Ty Lee takes her hands, cradling them delicately despite the blue sparks falling to the ground. Ty Lee’s smile is brilliant and soft.

“Your aura is muddy.”

“Oh yes, these magical aura’s that only you can see.”

“They’re real. Even Mai can seem them.”

“No, she can’t, and where even is Mai?”

“Hiding because your aura is cloudy.” Ty Lee’s smile is the only reason she doesn’t incinerate the girl. “You take it out on her the most.”

“I do not—”

“Do too.”

“—because there’s nothing there in the first place.”

“You can lie with your words, but your aura always tells the truth.”

Her control slips as her need to burn grows. It is a terrible thing, needing to burn her emotions to stay calm when that only makes them harder to control. It is a testament to her self-control that the flames that emerge are warm to the touch, not scorching.

“You’re pushing your luck, Ty Lee. Do you know what happens to people who push their luck?”

“Nothing if you’re me.”

“I should make you my court jester and then you can make my enemies suffer your circus tricks and fake auras.” 

“Then why does your fire have so much green in it?”

The fires curling around her knuckles are still blue but at their core, there is a tiny sliver of murky green, a sliver so small Azula herself hadn’t noticed. So strange that anyone else could possibly know her so well. It scares her for one painfully long moment.

“Stop staring,” she says after a beat of silence. “It’s creepy.”

Ty Lee dances away with a laugh, glowing in the afternoon light. Azula will, just this once, forgive the indignity of being Ty Lee’s practice dummy for her chi blocking. Just this once. And only because learning the basics of chi blocking will make her even more dangerous, just like the knife she keeps always hidden on her person.

It isn’t a bad thing to have friends, Lu Ten says in the deepest corners of her mind.

There is no value in anything a ghost says so shut up and go away. I don’t know which spirit I angered to be cursed with you, but I’m going to annihilate them.

Dinner is a quiet and lonely affair. Oh, sure, she’s dining with her mother, but there’s no conversation of any substance. It is the shallowest level of palace gossip. They are eating in the public gardens so that the world believes there is some semblance of functionality in the Royal Family. Exactly twenty-three minutes later—which is enough time for courtiers and servants to see them pretending at familial affection—Azula stands, bows to Mother, and leaves for her chambers. She spends the evening signing scrolls for the Fire Sages that are to be distributed at the coming Festival of First Rains before heading to bed.

It is pitch black when Azula wakes up. Her room is cast in shadows, the moon dark and the stars hidden by thick clouds straining to release their rains for the monsoon season. It will be a terrible storm, the second in a row, a rather inauspicious start to Father’s first year as Fire Lord. Those musings aren’t what woke Azula.

The air is strange. It takes her a split second to catch the odd bundle of heat in her room right by her bedside.

Assassin, she thinks slowly, but her body is already moving. Her knife, hidden beneath her pillow when she sleeps, lashes out towards the assassin. The blade parts the curtains in its journey. She means to end this in a moment.

Strike once, strike fast, and never strike again. Those had been Sozin’s words on the eve of his great victory. Like every great Fire Lord, those words an absolute.

The assassin ghosts back away from the blade. Azula rolls forward, landing in a crouch as the assassin melds into the shadows of the room.

She could use firebending but she’s going to prove a point that no assassin, no matter how good they are, is worthy of her blue flames. It will dissuade other assassins from whichever noble thinks she is the weak link in the royal family. If they all failed to kill Zuko in the last year—five assassination and counting so far—then why do they think she will fall?

A hiss of steel against a scabbard cuts the air. She barely sees the long blade, but she does hear it and ducks beneath the whoosh. She strikes on instinct, a sharp jab with her offhand to the assassin’s arm. She hits something from the hiss, but it isn’t a chi point like she hoped.

She flips back, her heel hitting the assassin on the chin. A mask flies off. The assassin stumbles back, hissing.

“Stop.”

She knows that voice well. It’s haunted her dreams enough times. She flicks her finger, a dart of fire hitting a candle.

In the weak light, Zuko’s features are easy enough to grasp. His lip is bleeding from one of her kicks and there’s an old bruise on his cheek.

“I’m not as weak as Grandfather,” she promises.

Azula leaps and Zuko curses, his blade flashing and parrying her knife. Which is going to be annoying to deal with. The sword is heavier and longer than her knife.

He’s faster than she remembers, agile in a way she doesn’t understand. Nothing about his stance is right. All of it is too easy to unbalance but he rolls with her blows, twists around her in flowing patterns, and jumps onto the rafters when she gets too close.

“I’m not here to kill you.”

“I doubt Grandfather thought you would.”

“Do you think any other assassin would wait for you to wake up?”

She narrows her eyes. Zuko surges forward and they clash again.

Azula dances between his strikes, evading them like a ghost. The sword splits in two and Azula nearly loses her head in her surprise. It is a whirlwind of steel and it takes everything she has just to survive. Zuko, if you truly aren’t trying to kill me, then I feel sorry for the assassins.

An opening. She twists over his shoulder, kicks him on the back, and lands gracefully as he stumbles. She closes the distance, closing her hand around his wrist, feet sliding behind his guard to trip him and bring him down.

With her free hand, she lays her index and middle finger on his throat, letting a spark of azure fire build at the tips, before spinning away and sitting on her high-backed chair in one smooth motion, one leg crossed over the other. She is elegant and imperious, lording her strength over Zuko who kneels on the floor, scrambling for his blade.

“Touch those swords and I’ll cut your hands off.”

He still before slowly withdrawing his hands. “You really would.”

“I don’t make empty threats.”

“No, you never have,” Zuko agrees.

He rises only then, kneeling in kiza gracefully, and patting down his dark tunic, the armour plates beneath clinking. He does it with a smile as if he is merely humouring her. Banishing Zuko is the first thing she’ll do as Fire Lady.

“I do believe I enjoy seeing you on your knees.”

“Did you have to kick me somewhere visible? Uncle’s going to kill me if I come back bruised again.”

“You shouldn’t have tried to kill me in the first place.” She scoffs away his protest. “Uncle’s harmless.”

“You’ve never seen him fight.”

“If you’re still this terrible then he’s clearly gone senile in old age.” She flicks her hand dismissively. “I suppose your twirling might serve a purpose against someone who isn’t me.”

“I think that’s the first compliment you’ve ever given me.”

“It’s not a compli—”

He surges forward in her distraction, going from stillness to violent action in an instant. It startles her so much that she nearly, very nearly, fails to throw herself off the seat and avoid the attack. He’s on her in seconds, wielding a cheap knife that won’t ever match up to hers.

She uses his momentum and flips him over, rising in an instant whilst he’s in the air, and darting forward.

Azula snarls, flipping her dagger and thrusting it straight at his heart. It is a blow to kill. An obvious one. Zuko will dodge it easily.

The idiot doesn’t move away.

He’s not going to dodge. In a moment, Azula will guarantee her role as heir to the throne. Without Zuko, Father will have to do everything in his power to keep her alive. With no heir, the nobles would rebel and place Iroh on the throne. If you must choose between two heirless siblings, always choose the one with military experience and who didn’t need a boy to get the throne.

Killing Zuko will be simple in the grand scheme of things.

Barely, just barely, does she manage to change direction as the blade as snakes past armour and tears cloth. The thrust becomes an arc from his chest to shoulder. Her balance, already shifted, has her stumbling forward. Zuko catches her by the waist before she trips over him, then sets her down.

“Why? I could have killed you.”

“I wanted to know where we stood.”

“Your death wouldn’t bring me any advantage right now,” she says contemptuously.

He smirks as if he knows everything about her. Usually, she’d cut him down, but her gaze is drawn to the vivid crimson, bright even in the weak light. Blood. Her brother’s blood that Azula shed carelessly. Needlessly.

It is not a worthy repayment for Azulon’s blood that he shed.

“It’s just a flesh wound, Lala.”

She scowls. “Call me that again and it won’t just be a flesh wound.”

He laughs carelessly. “I did miss you.”

“Getting sentimental in your old age.”

“I’m not that old.”

She shoves him aside, ignoring his hiss of pain. Serves him right for picking a fight with her.

“You’ve been training. You never used to be so comfortable with violence.”

“A few assassination attempts will do that to you.”

“And is that what this is? Getting me used to violence.”

“You tried to stab my eye out at three. You don’t need any help with that. Is it so impossible to believe I missed our spars?”

“No one misses losing.”

“Yeah, well, the last year’s put your skills into perspective. It’s hard finding a good sparring partner.”

“Why not the person who taught you to use that oversized hunk of metal.”

“Master Piandao chased me away after he helped finish my training.” In just a year? she thinks but refuses to ask.

“Let me guess, you forgot everything he taught you and you went to laze about.”

He pouts in annoyance. “I spent the rest of my time with the 41st Division.”

She racks her brain for a split second, a complicated web of commanders, generals, army groups and political alliances unfurling in her mind.

“The 41st was destroyed.”

“They’re rebuilding it. It’s going to be my division.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I thought you knew.”

“Of course, I knew. I just wanted to see if my dearest brother could be honest in his letters. Obviously not.”

His lips twitch. “Obviously.”

“Cousin Lu Ten had a division.”

If Zuko is surprised by the subject change, he doesn’t show it. “Yeah.” 

“Surprised he trusts you with a Division.”

“It makes sure I stay put. What do you think happens to a commander who deserts his post?”

“Death. The traditional method is to be burnt by those whom you deserted.”

Azula wonders when Zuko got so wise. Was it the day he killed grandfather, or did it come later in his months away from the Palace? Azula’s tracked his exploits and knows people love him despite that he’s a bumbling foolish kinslayer. They love a parricide when they can’t even love her, the perfect Princess.

Maybe it’s because he can’t fit into the Royal Family, she allows for a moment before squashing that ember of doubt. Zuko showed his comfort with violence when they fought, his unflinching willingness to look death (read: Azula) in the eye and accept it. Had Grandfather even noticed that determination before he died?

“Well, you would deserve it anyway,” she adds when the silence becomes unbearable.

“That hurts.”

“It’s the truth. The only value you have is when and how I use your corpse. You should know this by now.”

“Maybe I hoped I would be the exception.”

“Don’t be stupid. If you’re stupid it will make taking the Throne far too easy.”

“I bet you have a plan to kill us all.”

“Did you expect anything else?”

“Not really.”

“Mother would be the easiest,” she says, testing him.

Zuko doesn’t flinch, passing her test. “She’s irrelevant to your bid to the Throne. Doing so would be wasteful.”

“I’d find a use for the dead wife to a Fire Lord.”

“Look at you,” he says admiringly. “The world changes but you refuse to change for anyone. No matter that you would terrify the world, you move forward without flinching.”

“The world bows to me. That is my absolute.”

She tenses when his fingers ghost over her shoulders. She allows the touch because it is Zuko and he is harmless to her. And if he isn’t, then she can always kill him.

You miss him. Her fire feeds greedily on that distracting voice. It sounds like no one at all and far too much like Lu Ten.

His fingers catch on the sleeve his blade sliced through. They tug at it, revealing her shame. The vivid imprint of a finger against pale flesh.

She glares as he traces the burn with his fingers just above her flesh, sensing the heat of the injury. Imperial flames aren’t like regular flames. The burns linger and stay vivid, marking one as an enemy to the Throne.

Finally, he meets her gaze again. He doesn’t flinch from her simmering anger. “I’m sorry.”

“For what.”

“For not being there.”

“It wasn’t a long time.”

“It’s been a year and he’s hurt you this much. I’m sorry.”

Azula pulls away from him, turning aside her shoulder.

“A year, two months, and six days, not that I’m keeping track.”

Zuko, wisely, stays quiet.

She feels exposed in the darkness, vulnerable with her back to an enemy. Maybe he isn’t an enemy today, but in the future, he will be as the Throne will always stand between whatever affections they occasionally show each other. It is good then that Lu Ten died against an enemy of the Crown instead of in the violence that would rack the Throne when Zuko and then Azula came of age. They would be threats to his rule, and though she knows Iroh now sees Zuko as a replacement for his dead child, had Lu Ten lived, Iroh would have killed anyone who tried to usurp him. Whether that was Ozai or Zuko or Azula.

It doesn’t have to be like that, Lu Ten says to her. It only becomes like that when you choose to forget the ties that bind you.

Blood binds the royal line together as much as treachery and deceit. Maybe it is why she feels closer to Zuko than all others. He committed the greatest of crimes for her and doesn’t flinch when she draws his blood. His eventual betrayal will hurt, but she expects it will forge her into the image of the Fire Lord who rules the world.

“A word of advice.”

“If this is one of Uncle’s proverbs, I’m going to slit your throat.”

“I’ve been in the palace for a bit watching you—”

“Creep.”

“Keep Mai and Ty Lee close to you. They’re good friends.”

“They’re mine,” she warns.

Though she trusts Zuko to kill for her—he’s done it already—she doesn’t trust him not to turn on her. If he touches her toys, she will burn his down, whether that’s Uncle or the 41st or Piandao’s island.

“That’s your problem, Azula. You consider everyone a piece on a board. You might think not trusting someone will keep you safe from betrayal—”

“Stop.”

“—but that’s just an excuse for you to lash out when they inevitably leave you because you didn’t trust them. It is a glaring weakness of yours.”

“You know nothing.” 

She looks over her shoulder at him as he approaches her calmly. He takes her hand, squeezing it tightly.

“I know that weakness will destroy you. If you want the throne, then you need to learn how to play the game. Like Father.”

“Father has no friends.”

He smiles and she realises her mistake. “No, he doesn’t.” That he doesn’t mention her mistake, her weakness, is a peace offering. More proof that Zuko won’t make it to seventeen. “Even Father knows how to manage webs of loyalty. He uses fear but it isn’t the only way, Azula. It isn’t even the best way.”

“Oh yes, Uncle’s love and peace nonsense have infected you.”

“They talk about you on the islands,” he continues. “They fear you. They use you to make children behave. Don’t stay out late or azure flames will chase you in the dark.”

“Good.”

“They speak of you the same way you would of a wild beast.” His hands snuff out her flames before they form. She could overpower it easily. They both know that. She’s just being… intentionally non-hostile. “You’re angry because it’s true. They’ll put down an unstable Fire Lady.”

“There’s no one else except you and I’d kill you to make sure they have no replacements.”

“Our dynasty is only six hundred years, Azula. The Fire Nation is far older. They can always replace you.”

“They’ll try.”

“It’s wasteful to make them try. I know you hate waste and inefficiency more than anyone else.”

“Do not presume to know me, brother.” She pulls her hand away and regrets the lack of warmth immediately. “Leave.”

“I’m sorry.”

She watches as he picks up his swords, sliding them into the scabbard. The Blue Spirit mask goes on a moment later. It always was Zuko’s favourite play when their lives were simpler and didn’t involve grandparents ordering their grandchildren’s death and fathers who agreed.

“You didn’t ask about Mother.”

He pauses at the windowsill. The weak light of her sole candle reflects off the glossy paint of his mask. A violent and mysterious stranger watches her.

It is her foolish brother who answers. “Has she asked about you?”

They both know the answer to that. The Blue Spirit slinks away, melting into the darkness. Azula shuts her window and returns to sleep, clutching her knife tightly.

Chapter Text

Matters of alliance and loyalty become her new focus alongside everything else she spends time on in court.

The Fire Sages accept her sudden appearance in their midst with bemusement and mild terror as she devours everything they know. It is good and encouraged for the second child in the line of succession to learn with the sages if they are not to join the military.

Fools whisper that she wishes to run from the fight against her brother, but those who are smart know that whilst the Fire Lord is the highest authority below Agni, he is not the only one. She learns the names of the great dragons that taught the earliest sages firebending and lights incense for the revered dead of her nation. She learns of their rituals and mysticism at a frightening pace whilst memorising the power structures at play here, meritocracy and seniority dancing cautiously with noble blood and reverence.

There was a time once that warrior sages existed. Powerful benders who were both spiritual and military leaders. Military tactics come to her easily, the knowledge of the sages learnt quickly, and her firebending borne of legend. No one at all is surprised when she is granted the honour to wear the garnet jewel of a Fire Sage, seated over her heart on her military tunics. It is proof of her power and that she is honoured by Agni Himself.

The Fire Lord is an authority but so are the sages. The honour they bestow upon her elevates her position and grants her further influence.

Later, word reaches her of Zuko and members of his 41st taking down a crime syndicate controlling an island. Yes, the Dragon of the West is present in the story, but his role seems deliberately inconsequential. It is Zuko who sneaks into the base to save stolen Fire Nation children and set them free. It is Zuko who leads the charge against the syndicate, unleashing wave upon wave of fire—Look, this Prince fights for his people, the peasants easy, their suffering feeds his anger and his anger feeds his fire—and battled the syndicate captain in a sword duel that, if every story is to be believed, took place on a sinking ship and a crumbling cave and on a bridge over a volcano, before landing the final blows.

Blue flames consume the parchment of the official report, ash falling on her desk. The ungrateful idiot has gone and outshone her for a single moment. As if her achievement of being named the youngest Honorary Sage at eleven is something to be forgotten.

“Fine, I’ll take down my own crime syndicate.”

Not everything is a competition.

“That’s why you’re dead and I’m not, Lu Ten.”

It takes her far longer than she would like to organise the paperwork for Mai and Ty Lee to be part of her honour guard with all the attendant privileges. She doesn’t bother telling either. Maybe it’s why Mai slams her door open in a rare show of emotion.

“Explain,” Mai says flatly.

“Your parents are moving to the Earth Kingdom. I doubt you want to spend time in that wasteland bereft of all culture and good food.”

“Do you know how long my parents spent shouting at me?”

“I am aware.”

“You were there.”

“Guilty. I got bored after the first fifteen minutes. Very, domestic.”

It isn’t very hard to sneak around after years of watching Zuko do the same

“I’m not a soldier. I can’t be part of your guard.”

“Mai, this is me we’re talking about. I can do whatever I want.”

A sharp exhale, the closest Mai will get to a laugh. “I am aware. You still owe me a new wardrobe.”

“Once we’re done with this first mission, I’ll get you the darkest wardrobe in all the world.”

“Very tempting. What’s the mission?”

“Find Ty Lee. She vanished from her caravan a week before I sent the letter.” She flicks her hand. “Something about a trip for spiritual enlightenment.”

“You sent it a week ago. That means the trail is two weeks old by now.”

“Yes.

“We’re eleven.”

“So, it will only be mildly boring. The worst we’ll have to deal with are some wild animals.”

They vanish in the dead of night without any more warning than a letter sent to the Fire Sages. Something about communing with the Spirit of Agni and finding her inner peace, or some nonsense to that effect. Mai writes it, translating Azula’s scornful threats should anyone dare follow them. And for she is an Honourary Sage on a journey to commune with Lord Agni, even Father cannot order her return, not without losing the support of the Sages and by extension every Lord and Lady who lights incense during the Summer Solstice when Agni is at his most glorious.

They learn quickly enough that Ty Lee was kidnapped and walk into a plot to destabilise the Fire Nation. Perfect. The world itself bending to her needs. This way, she can kill two dragons with one spear. History will remember it as the Melonyam Conspiracy but Azula will remember it for the way blood dries on the sand and piranha-seals feast on corpses, the water churning with gore. They find Ty Lee in chains, her eyes duller than they’ve ever been, and Azula incinerates the chains and sets the base on fire.

By the end of it, the organisers are in prison or dead, Azula has a bridge named after her upon which she earns her first, second and third kills, the people are more fearful of her, and Father’s hold on the throne is further weakened.

Was Ozai not once Azulon’s head of spies, they will whisper. How could he not know of the plot against our nation? How could he not know of the criminal stealing our children? And if he did, how could he send his children in his stead?

Saving Ty Lee almost immediately becomes a regret as the girl incessantly chatters and darts around, bright and bubbly as if she weren’t just kidnapped. Every time she’s ready to snap at Ty Lee, she is stopped only by Mai’s amusement at the antics and reminds herself that loyalty needs to be reciprocated on occasion to ensure its worth. Even if Ty Lee takes liberties of Azula’s person that no one else would.

Perhaps the antics have something to do with carrying Ty Lee in her arms out of the base and promising the girl an ocean of blood as repayment for this insult?

A silent capital heralds her return, her people bowed before her procession. It is not the pompous parade of Uncle’s return from war but a solemn affair like Father’s ascension. A hedged bet by the organiser. Loyal subjects bowing in silence can never be disrespectful. But to make noise and run and laugh? That is easy to interpret as a willful insult.

“You should be honoured to be part of my first military achievement.”

Mai rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

“Come on now, be happy for Azula. Let’s enjoy it before the future ones all get stale.” She turns a bright smile Azula’s way. “Hey, maybe next time we’ll let them throw a parade instead.”

Because there will be a next time.

There is a reason Ty Lee is her favourite toy. She already understands the way of the world, that it bows to Azula and Azula alone. If it didn’t, she’d be dead. Or irrelevant had Azulon shown mercy in what could have been her final moments.

But that isn’t that world of make-belief. This is a world where brothers kill grandfathers for their sisters.

That military achievement grants her access to the Fire Lord’s war meeting. To deny her request made before the court upon her return would be petty and a Fire Lord may never be petty. Cruel, yes. Conniving, yes, expected even. But petty? That is for the realm of lesser nobles.

It is a dull affair and Azula regrets ever bothering with this. A quarter of these men are armchair generals with less time on a battlefield than Zuko and Azula together.

She frowns when she notices Zuko hiding in the shadows. For someone so honest with such an erratic inner fire, he’s always been able to sneak his way into trouble.

The meeting drones on. Azula stays silent, memorising troop movements, supply chains, and attrition rates. One front is proving difficult to capture with powerful earthbenders protecting it. A general suggests using a division as bait. It will be a sacrifice for a greater cause.

Azula dislikes the plan immediately. Why waste so many lives if the front as a whole is this weak? How would they even hold the region after sacrificing thousands of men? Men who could be spent patrolling garrison and surrounding cities. Men who could farm and be assigned other duties. Even discounting the cascading loss of moral that will infect their entire army, this move will be a mistake.

She says nothing for she is not foolish enough to speak out in Father’s war room.

Then the General mentions the 41st Division. The Prince’s Division.

Time seems to freeze as she considers every angle of this and comes to the simple conclusion that Father personally wants Zuko dead, not out of necessity or pragmatism, but on a purely emotional level. No General, no matter how foolish, would be brazen enough to suggest the Prince’s untested Division be used as cannon fodder. Not without the Fire Lord first suggesting the idea. No, he would have to insist on it.

“And why wasn’t I informed of this?”

Zuko’s voice cuts through the discussion as he seems to emerge from shadows, back straight and topknot perfect. He is dressed as a soldier, but his royalty is marked in the gold outlines on his blood-red breastplate and shoulder-guards, the shimmering pattern of dragons on his black tunics and pants, and the white half-cape draped over his left shoulder. Cold fury lines every inch of his face, a threat in every step he takes. He looks like something out of a fairy tale, a Prince of the blood out for vengeance and justice.

“You have the audacity to enter a war council without my knowledge.”

Father’s voice is low and even. Malevolence infects the room, infects them all, and leaves Azula with the certainty that someone is going to die.

The Prince of the Fire Nation bows to his Fire Lord. There is no sense of familial love in the act.

They make an interesting contrast, the Fire Lord in his silk robes and Zuko in his military armour. More than one person looks at Azula and takes note of her military tunics and Sage’s garnet over her heart. They look like soldiers trained for war, unlike their father who never once served in the military. Child soldiers, perhaps, but soldiers with victories earned in the field. Victories earned through bloodshed.

“Forgive me, Fire Lord.” He rises from his bow without permission. “I was merely concerned for the safety of you and your most esteemed Generals and sought to check the security of your war council.”

He speaks calmly but his inner fire rages, almost reaching out to the wall flames to take control of them. Every single person in this room is a bender. Every single person can feel this blatant act of defiance.

It surprises her that he would be so openly insulting of their Father.

The common people may love Zuko because he’s a bumbling fool, but every noble and military leader knows Father was put on the throne by his son. Anyone could put together grandfather’s death, Zuko’s sudden exit from the court, Father’s ascension, and the complete lack of an investigation. Zuko’s very existence makes Father’s claim tenuous at best with Iroh never having formally abdicated. A leader who needs a boy of eleven to secure their throne isn’t a leader to be respected.

“It seems both security and sense are to be found lacking in the war room today. Tell me, General Shi Long, have you personally walked those killing fields you would send fresh soldiers? Would you so carelessly give this order after seeing the gutted corpses of loyal soldiers, their last words stolen by the Earth itself? Would you send it after seeing soldiers crushed to death and forever stolen from Agni’s light? Would you do it after speaking to the grieving mothers and wives who thank you for remembering that their men lived, that they were loyal, and their lives are given with the knowledge that their commander would neither dishonour nor waste their sacrifice?”

His words are a quiet rasp, his voice hoarse with smoke damage from firebending on the frontlines, but no one can speak out against the rage and horror that laces every word he speaks.

“No, I think not. No soldier who has fought would give this order. To give this order is to dishonour the loyal sons and daughters of this nation. It is to dishonour the country you have sworn fealty to. It is to dishonour Agni Himself and that sin cannot be forgiven.”

Every word Zuko says against the General is a direct attack against Father’s claim to the throne. She feels the way the chi in the room changes, those who had survived through Ozai’s sweeping reforms shifting their loyalty away from Father, and those too powerful to have been removed fanning their inner flames in time with Zuko’s deep breaths.

The challenge of Agni Kai doesn’t shock her. It does startle the other Generals because they are fools and have never known the depths of Father’s malice.

“It will be Father you fight,” she says in the evening after Zuko has ghosted into her room.

Without his armour, he is no longer the wrathful Prince of the Fire Nation. Dressed only in his underclothes and huddling beneath a spare blanket, he looks like the child Azula grew up with.

Weak.

Vulnerable.

Honest.

“I know.”

“It was stupid,” she insists, snuggling further into his side under the blanket. "It’s just a Division.”

“They’re people loyal to me, to our nation. I can’t abandon them.” His voice rumbles through her body and fills her with an emotion she refuses to name and burns immediately.

“Can you even fight Father?”

“Do you think he would forgive me if I got down on my knees and begged?”

She rubs the handprint burnt on her bicep, always hidden away from prying eyes in a very deliberate show of weakness. That mark of shame will always serve as a reminder of their importance to Father.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. Where is Uncle?”

Zuko smiles wryly. “I snuck away. He won’t be here in time.”

“You could run.”

“Then he’d have an excuse to kill me for cowardice and dishonour. If I’m going to die, I’ll die on my feet.”

“Dead is dead. Whether it’s a disease, a blade, or a knife. There’s no dishonour in retreating from a fight you can’t win.”

“An honourable death is easier for you to manipulate to your advantage.”

She inclines her head. “There is that.”

“Do you think we’d be happier if Lu Ten was around?”

“Then I’d have to kill the both of you and that’s far too much work.”

“He loved you.”

I did. Always. Every moment of every day before I died, and every day afterwards.

Lu Ten, I will kill you again if you don’t shut up.

“Then he was a fool.”

“I guess I’m a fool as well.”

They’re on the ground in moments, Azula pinning him down and the blanket fluttering to the ground. Her knife is at his throat.

He laughs with a spark of genuine humour. “l will miss this. I have missed this.”

“Nothing about you makes sense.” She stares at the words written along the blade. “Never give up without a fight. Don’t make it boring for me.”

He huffs without mirth. “I won’t. Make me a promise.”

“No.”

“After this is done,” he continues past her refusal, “promise that you’ll do anything it takes to survive.”

“I was going to do that anyway.”

Slowly, with infinite patience, he wraps his hand against her holding the blade. He brings it closer, letting it dig into his flesh just the slightest. A single wrong move and he’d be dead in a pool of his own blood.

“Even if it means killing me.”

Blue fire flares down her knuckles suddenly but Zuko doesn’t let go. He glares at her, waiting patiently, his own flames consuming hers and being consumed in turn, a dangerous balance that could lead to them both engulfed in uncontrolled fire.

They are powerful firebenders, the two of them, wielding flames blessed by Agni. There is a true risk to this careful act of balance. If she trusted his eternal foolishness just a little less and if he doesn’t understand the true depths of her cruelty, the balance would break, and they would both walk away with burns.

“A useless promise.”

“Please, make me that promise.”

“Why? It’s not like Father will let you live tomorrow. It’s a stupid promise.”

“Then indulge my stupidity.”

“No.”

“Azula.”

The blade trembles. Stupid Zuko and his unsteady hands. It’s a wonder that his calligraphy is so perfect when his hands are so unsteady.

“It’s stupid,” she insists, looking everywhere around the room to avoid meeting his eyes.

“Lala.”

Why are you so afraid to make that promise? Lu Ten’s voice asks.

Not now, Lu Ten. You’re dead. You don’t get any say in this.

Ever so slowly, she meets his gaze. There is no fear, only an infinite well of patience and resignation. And something else she can’t name, something Father and Mother and Uncle have always lacked when looking at her, but something she sometimes catches in Ty Lee and Mai.

It’s called love, Lu Ten promises as Azula’s blue flames are entirely consumed by Zuko’s deep red.

At that moment, she is defenceless to his fire. It should burn and annihilate her. Instead, it is warm and gentle just as his eyes are. There is no lie to them, only truths she refuses to acknowledge.

He smiles and the fire putters out, leaving only the smoke and ash of their broken childhood, a chain that binds them together as much as the blood between them.

Perhaps even more so.

Snatches of time when they were younger swirl in her mind, moments where they understood each other perfectly: the cruelty of burning the turtleducks and the warmth of a hug; Zuko dragging her to the kitchens at night to steal sugared citrus-plums and the squawk of a toucan puffin on the shores of Ember Island; correcting his firebending forms with a scathing insult and receiving a wobbly smile in return; Zuko showing her a secret hatch to the roof of the palace where they watched the stars till the early hours of the morning and Azula folding a paper boat when his was swept away by emerald waves.

He would smile if Azula killed him so long as it meant she lived.

“Fine,” she says after a silence. “I’ll kill you myself if you somehow manage to survive tomorrow.”

At noon, Zuko fights, and it is glorious. He battles the inevitable and soars so high. His forms are perfect, every burst of flame hot enough to ruffle Azula’s hair, and his oddly circular defence split flames with exacting precision. It is a showing worthy of a firebender of the Royal Line.

It is not enough. It could never be enough.

Ozai shows the world his weakness when he burns his son’s face.

Zuko’s scream of pain is the last she will hear from her brother for three years.

She makes sure the world knows of Zuko’s bravery and spreads word of the Fire Lord’s weakness, that he uses his children for his every accomplishment, and the madness of his military strategy. Word spreads of the 41st Division, Zuko’s Division, and how the Fire Lord’s mad generals would have sacrificed loyal soldiers who saved children for no gain in a terrible gambit. A gambit that the Earth Kingdom’s agents hear about for the plan doesn’t go through and the Prince’s Division lives. Thousands of men and women send word home of their Prince who fought unjust orders for their sake, who was dishonoured for the great crime of protecting his people.

The common people will say, A true Lord protects his people no matter the cost to his life.

Discontent simmers in the Fire Nation. Azula is pleased with her machinations. It will make her eventual claim for the Throne far easier.

Chapter Text

The day starts out pleasantly enough. Azula and her brother are both chasing the Avatar, fighting all the while. Mai and Ty Lee are further back, stymieing the others following behind her.

She’s not sure why Zuko is hunting the Avatar. He’s saved the child once before. The Blue Spirit garb didn’t fool her for a second. No one else wields paired dao with his skill and no one else is as capable of infiltrating Fire Nation strongholds.

Why didn’t you tell the Fire Lord? Lu Ten asks. Zuko would be named a traitor and you heir.

Because I can fight my own battles.

Is that why he was the one who killed Azulon?

Damn it, Lu Ten, stop haunting me and move on or something.

Even after Azula had arranged for Zuko’s ship to blow up, Azula knew he was alive. Only she can kill him. Her faith in his survival had been proven the day the moon turned red and the world went grey, snuffing out all inner fire and leaving the world draped in dread. Whatever that fool Zhao had done had twisted the very nature of the world.

Sometimes, she still dreams of how every candle had lit up, rainbow flames flickering and bringing back warmth to the world. Zuko, somehow, impossibly, affecting the entire world. The reports out of the Northern Invasion fleet were also disconcerting. It is unfeasible to discount the words of thousands of sailors telling the tale of the Ocean’s Spirit rising, summoning forth an endless wave of tides and… stopping. Right when it had every opportunity to crush the fleet, those rainbow flames had appeared again, cradled in the hands of Princess Yue, the living Moon Spirit.

The waves had not destroyed the fleet. The Ocean had shown mercy and the waters froze instead; their soldiers trapped but alive to send their letters, the first link to a chain of rumours. And, before the rumours could be quashed, a fragment of the truth had spread like wildfire across the islands: Prince Zuko interceded on behalf of the Fire Nation, shedding royal blood and dragon fire to appease the wrath of the Ocean.

Father’s grasp on the Throne has always been tenuous. People had remembered then the strange circumstances that led to Father’s Ascension: Zuko’s defence of the 41st Division—alive, grateful, and eternally loyal to their Prince—and the Agni Kai that followed. Zuko had lost, yes, but every action he took made him a worthy heir to the Throne. Worthier, perhaps, than Ozai though no one would be caught saying that.

It delights Azula that Father weakens himself with each passing year. His will be a short reign as Fire Lord. At this rate, the people will revolt and beg Azula to be Fire Lord. She won’t let them do all that, of course. That would be the coward’s way out and Azula is no coward.

Her distraction is a mistake. A fan of knives flies from above in an aggressive arc, seeking her with unerring accuracy. Azula twists off her mount, forward momentum becoming circular. Azure erupts from her heels, speeding up her rotation, and engulfing her in a curtain of protective blue.

If Mai’s been secretly teaching Zuko her knife-throwing, then her family is about to lose a daughter.

Whatever the truth, she’ll find it once the Avatar is dead.

Azula wants to kill the Avatar for forcing her out of the Fire Nation. He’s the damned reason she’s stuck in this filthy continent—and yes, maybe the Fire Lord is sending her to the Earth Kingdom in the hopes she dies, but that’s par for the course of their family. Azula loathes every inch of this continent and honestly, she’d be fine staying in the colonies and terrorising a few hapless nobles with delusions of importance. Instead, she’s going to have to take over every single city just to bring some semblance of civilisation to this continent.

The forest becomes an endless plain abruptly. The Avatar flies, Zuko chasing him and Azula chasing her brother. The abandoned town is a desolate place, long since forgotten on every map. Dust flits past her vision as Zuko finally stops in the centre of the town, between her and the Avatar. Almost as if he’s defending the brat.

The years have marked him. He seems comfortable in his own skin, rooted deep in the earth and sky and Agni’s light. His chi has changed, no longer that puttering wildfire she remembers, but smooth and steady as Agni at His highest. Despite the peasant clothes, he has lost none of his bearings as a Prince of the Fire Nation.

“Azula,” he greets pleasantly, the first thing he’s said to her in years.

She looks past him to the airbender, burning away her unfortunate feelings of longing and resentment. “Avatar. You can come with me with your limbs intact if you like. Or I can break them and you will still come with me.”

“How’s about I don’t come with you at all?”

“Are you ignoring me?” She throws a spare throwing star at her brother, who steps aside. “Hey! Those things are sharp.”

“What say you, Avatar?”

Zuko’s eyes widen. Instinct has Azula ducks immediately, a water whip skimming above her.

“How’s about you get the hell out of here,” the water tribe peasant behind offers.

“What she said.”

Azula raises a brow at the scruffy Earth Nation child. “Sigh, I suppose if you want anything done then you need to do it yourself.”

“You’re surrounded.” the Avatar says, raising his staff.

His wooden staff.

As if wood doesn’t burn.

“Yes, by a blind girl, an ill-trained waterbender, a twelve-year-old, and my brother. Those aren’t good odds—”

She strikes suddenly, fire pushing the Avatar back as she darts forward. Zuko’s a moment too slow and takes a foot to the face as she uses him as a springboard, propelling herself with a gust of fire, to get on the buildings. She’s not touching the Earth unless there’s no choice, not with an earthbender around.

Azula reigns fire down like a god as the fight begins in earnest, chasing the Avatar through crumbling homes and broken taverns, keeping the others away with her immaculate firebending.

Tracking them gets difficult as more of the town is engulfed in flames. Not helped by Zuko constantly materialising from shadow to attack her with his swords. Each blow is aimed to kill or maim just as her fire would leave him a blackened corpse.

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday,” Zuko says, splitting a stream of flame with a flick of his swords.

She freezes. “You think this is about my birthday?”

“What else would this be about, Lala?”

Azula blinks. She blinks again. Yup, that’s still Zuko standing there with his terrible haircut and that’s the Avatar slinking away to regroup.

“What did you just call me?”

The blind one speaks. “Lala? Is that what you call her. Ah, how cute. Is Big Bad Lala gonna burn us all?”

Zuko flinches, finally understanding the mistake he has made. “Azula, I didn’t mean—”

Her flames burn so incandescently bright that it blinds her. Her fire outshines the sun, shimmers of heat distorting the world around her.

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Hah, when isn’t that true!” The water savage retorts, scrambling back from her flames.

“We really just pissed her off,” the blind one shouts and flings a boulder at Azula.

She’s so angry that her fire whip vaporises the boulder, leaving not even dust. Her chi rages so greatly that the normal fires burning the town to a crisp turn blue with her anger. They’re all going to die. Each and every one of them.

Starting with Zuko.

“Oh shit.”

Fighting Zuko in melee is more frustrating than she wants. Oh sure, she manages to stab his bicep but, in her rage, she takes a water whip across the back. Her gasp of pain has Zuko roaring, leaping over her with a violent burst of fire at the waterbender.

This is the first time he’s used his firebending since the chase. Before that, he’d used knives and throwing stars unbefitting an imperial firebender.

Azula pauses for a split second, taking in the sight of his flames. Greens and purples and pinks interweaving with the warm reds and oranges.

Flames of legend.

Flames of the dragons.

It won’t stop her from killing him.

She gets in his defences and just barely misses his throat. He sighs theatrically, grabbing her wrist and spinning her around. Azula turns that spin into another attack, flames bursting once more to push the Avatar’s cadre away.

“You always go for the throat.”

“Shut up, traitor.”

“You shut up.”

Breaking his hold is easy. He hisses in pain, skipping away from her reach, and twist his wrist to pop it back into place.

“Why are you being such a brat?” he screams.

Azula scowls and takes it out on the waterbender, three arcing darts forcing the savage back. “Brat? You’re the one interrupting my work.”

“What work? Capturing the Avatar because you’re bored?”

“Next time I blow up your ship, I’ll do it myself.”

“That was you?” he screeches.

“Hey, if you guys are working through some family troubles, we can always do this later.”

They don’t look at the Avatar when they attack, two massive streams of fire forcing the idiot away. What kind of fool interrupts angry Royals?

“Well?” she demands. “Explain why you’re here.”

“I need to the Avatar if I want to go back to Caldera.”

Caldera specifically, not home in general. She narrows her eyes, pleased when he tenses. Good. It means he is trying to hide something.

Behind Zuko, the Earthbender stirs. Behind Azula, the Avatar and his favourite savage are shifting in position. Damn it, she’d let their drama distract them whilst the others were regrouping.

He meets her gaze for the barest moment, and she sees the realisation that they’re trapped. Or she hopes that’s what it is. Trust him, Lu Ten whispers. He has never betrayed you.

She decides to trust him just this once. If he misinterprets her attack, she’ll be defenceless and go down, captured by a cavalcade of chittering fools. It will be so embarrassing blaming the loss on the voices in her head.

Azula darts forward and Zuko matches her motion.

They slide past each other, moving in sync. His rainbow flames seek the Avatar, her azure fire heading for the earthbender.

“Now you’re fighting with her!” the waterbender savage screams behind Azula.

Azula’s lips curl in amusement as Zuko presses his back against hers. In the corner of her vision, she sees his right arm hang stiffly at his side, heat shimmers swirling there, ready to protect that side. Azula mirrors that, blue flames licking at her hand, ready to create a shield on his weaker side.

The stance is derived from the Dancing Dragon, modified heavily by the Imperial School of firebending to the point that the only resemblance to the original style is that two people must perform it. Once, there was a time it was believed that even if the rest of the world turned on them, the royal family would always fight together. What fools they were. The Fire Nation already had a history of brothers killing brothers, sons killing fathers, and daughters placing themselves as Fire Lord in the aftermath, sometimes after a slew of fatal illnesses. It is a form they’d been taught at the insistence of the Fire Sages as was customary for all siblings.

Ridiculous, Father had said, but, in this one instance, it has a use.

“Caldera. Explain,” She demands, creating fire in her off-hand to shield Zuko’s side from an air-blast. She trusts him to do the same for the stone spears heading their way.

“The archives,” he mutters, ducking low when she leans back, letting Azula springboard off him. She twists in the air, fire raining down as Zuko attacks with low arcs of his rainbow fire.

“Why?” she asks as she lands lightly beside him, covering his burnt side.

“No.”

“Consider it my birthday present.”

They move in unison, weathering all attacks against them, and pushing the Avatar’s team back. In the few moments that they fight together, she wonders what would have happened if she had followed him that night so long ago.

Azula has never felt more alive when she fights, but today feels special. Once, on the worst day of her life, she trusted her brother and things worked out. Today, in trusting him, in matching the rhythm of her inner fire with his, she knows they would have been unstoppable on any battlefield.

Even when Iroh arrives, they move together. Azula makes certain to never place Zuko in the impossible situation of choosing her or his uncle. She’s not stupid enough to risk that betrayal. Part of maintaining loyalty is making sure your pawns aren’t placed in situations to betray you in the first place.

“What happened to your fire?” she asks, parting Uncle’s fireball, warmth licking at her cheeks.

“I had an argument with a dragon. I won and it showed me some firebending.”

Of course, he did. Why wouldn’t Zuko casually have an argument with a species hunted to extinction and get something out of it? That’s just like him.

“You’re still not as good as me,” she says, calling upon lightning and firing it at Iroh.

Uncle twirls his arms, catching the bolt in an arc and firing it back. Well, this is unfortunate, she thinks, and then Zuko is there, catching the bolt and firing it at the sky.

“I know,” he replies cheerfully.

They get split up and the fight becomes a blur. It gets more confusing when Mai and Ty Lee join in. And then, for some unfathomable reason, a group of pirates and a man shooting explosives from his forehead join the fray. She immediately blames Zuko when they regroup after she’s blown across the town by the Avatar.

“How is it my fault?”

“Tell me this isn’t your karma interfering with things. My life never goes this crazy.”

“Sorry, Lala.”

She shoves him away from an incoming boulder. “My present?” she asks when he’s on his feet again.

“I need to confirm something about Avatar Roku.”

“Just sneak in.”

“Ozai’s intensified the security against me.”

“Ugh, why are you so useless. Fine, I hope you can fit Mai’s clothes.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Entirely.”

He groans but joins her in battle once more. 

Chapter Text

It is a frigid evening when Azula first lays eyes on the walls of Ba Sing Se. The impenetrable city that Uncle failed to capture. The last bastion of Earth Kingdom control. Ba Sing Se is the last free city in the world, proud and resolute in its belief that nothing will make it fall. 

Azula means to shatter that faith.

They are in a command tent just over a hundred li beyond the Outer Walls watching the city through telescopes. Candlelight illuminates the room, throwing flickering light over the map in the centre, around which Azula, Mai, and a few military commanders stand. They are protected for now by a cadre of earthbenders Azula spent a few months psychologically breaking, now little more than sensing nodes against enemy benders. A useful allocation of the Fire Nation’s imprisoned earthbenders as opposed to having them waste resources.

“General, how long do you think it will take me to capture the city?”

General Long Shi is a familiar face to her. A face that stirs strange emotions in her. Sure, there’s hate, disgust, and disdain, but that’s standard for everyone Azula meets. She thinks this emotion might be contempt. Wasting resources bothers her more than she knows to admit, and this General would have wasted many loyal lives.

Maybe the General isn’t a total fool and recognises the trap with the way he shifts warily. “General Iroh did not—”

“It is not Iroh asking you a question. How long?”

“Highness, I cannot answer that question.”

“Take a guess. You know how to count, do you not?” She glares at the man. “Certainly, you could accurately tell the Fire Lord the number of 41st Division soldiers you would have thrown to the meatgrinder.”

He steps back. The coward suits the Fire Lord perfectly.

“Three months, Sage Princess Azula.”

“Excuse me?” she asks sharply.

The candlelight turns cold blue as her rage smoulders. This insignificant creature thinks that three months is something to be proud of. Something worthy of Azula’s name. It may very well be the most insulting thing she’s ever heard before.

“Mai?”

“However long are you willing to stay in this barren wasteland?” Mai asks dourly.

Azula smiles sharply, enjoying the way the General flinches. “That’s the right answer. General, watch carefully now. I’ll show you how to capture a capital. When I’m done, you can walk home. I’ll let you visit your sick relatives indefinitely.” She turns to face the other commanders. “As Sozin once said, strike once, strike fast, and never strike again. Consider yourselves lucky to witness my legend.”

It will be a battle fought on the same fields that killed Lu Ten should she go ahead with the expected invasion. However, Azula has always learnt things easily. She’s been around Zuko enough times to know how to sneak into a fortified city without issue and the advantage in doing so.

Whilst her forces fight outside the city, she and Mai break it from within.

Ba Sing Se falls to her in three days.

It is the greatest conquest of the war and the one with the least bloodshed. It is an accomplishment that will be spoken of for millennia to come just like the other chapters of the story she writes with every breath she takes. Mai should be honoured to stand in her shadow.

“None of these clothes fit well,” Mai says sourly instead of praising her, tugging at her bracers.

“They’re in your size.”

“That’s not the point. You like them because you only ever wear military tunics.”

Azula’s changed out her Earth Kingdom noble robes for more familiar military tunics, still draped in greens and black, but now there are rippling patterns of dragons in crimson, the lapels a smouldering orange.

“Requisition some robes or something. Honestly, Mai, it’s almost as if I control an entire city and you don’t need my permission for something so trivial.”

The sigh is far more theatrical than truly aggrieved. “Fine. I’ll go instil the fear of Azula in the bureaucratic system and make sure it’s running efficiently. I suppose listening to Dad’s meetings will be useful.”

Mai’s father is a career administrator and the current Governor of Omashu with ties to every part of the Fire Nation civil service. That relation is part of why Azula has cultivated Mai’s loyalty and sheltered her family from more than a few machinations.

“If they piss themselves on the spot, I expect you to deal with.”

“Ew.”

“I’m the big bad dragon that just ate up Ba Sing Se. I would be surprised if a few didn’t faint.”

After Mai is gone, Azula lounges on her settee where the Council of Five once convened, staring at reports in the late afternoon sunlight. It warms her body but barely touches her inner fire. Blue flames are the hottest when exposed to the outside world, but inside, they are almost as frigid as lightning.

It takes her a while before she notices Zuko in the corner of her room, hidden by the rippling curtains and an odd patch of shadow. He’s in peasant clothes as the last time she saw him at Tu Zin, his dao blades strapped to his back and the Blue Spirit mask at his waist.

How in Agni’s name did he get past all the Dai Li?

She won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he snuck up on her. Again. Instead, she flicks a finger to the cabinet some irrelevant Earth Kingdom savages (read: The Council of Five) had kept their tea sets.

“Make tea.”

Zuko jerks away from the wall, yawning. Has he truly been here so long that he fell asleep?

“I’m not your servant.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

“I will.”

He’s already walking to the cabinet, so she doesn’t tease him any further. Even Azula can be considerate on occasion.

She watches him pour tea, his hands perfectly steady. Azula has been poured tea by Uncle before and can recognise Zuko’s imperfect attempts to recall Uncle Iroh’s methods. Zuko is still better than most ceremonial tea master’s but Azula will never tell him that.

It’s unfortunate. In a world without her, maybe people would recognise his skills in combat, stealth, swordsmanship, bending and inspiring loyalty. But Azula will always loom over his every achievement.

The tea is good, a chilli-lemon and honey-rose blend. One meant to be sipped slowly. Sweet at first but it leaves the mouth tingling

“Maybe I’ll let you be my personal tea attendant.”

“Do you really trust me to pour you tea?”

“Do you really think I don’t carry antidotes for every poison you might try?”

“I don’t know why I expected anything else.”

“Because you’re not very smart.”

“I can still outsmart your new toys.” He gestures to encompass the Earth Kingdom Palace and the Dai Li’s total failure. “Your security could be better.”

Her eye twitches. “Did you enjoy wearing Mai’s uniform?”

His blush hides the scar for a moment. Azula relishes the moment, storing it in her memory alongside every other moment of his embarrassment.

“We don’t talk about that,” he chokes out.

“What if I want to?”

“Well, I don’t, and you know how stubborn I can be.”

“Oh, is big bad Zuko afraid of the world knowing he makes for a very lovely courtesan… okay, even I can’t make that lie believable.”

That startles a laugh out of him that becomes a choke as tea goes down the wrong pipe.

After he’s recovered a bit, she asks, “Why did you fight Iroh with me?”

He tilts his head. “I very distinctly remember you made sure I wasn’t facing him directly at all times.”

“You’re misremembering events. Clearly, old age is setting in. Now answer my question.”

“Because he would have hurt you.”

“He wouldn’t have killed me.”

“I know, but it wouldn’t be right. You shouldn’t have been hurt by Azulon or Ozai or Ursa. Not by Uncle. And certainly not by me. I’m sorry.”

“If you didn’t try to kill me, our fights would be boring.”

It isn’t an apology, but it is acceptance of the way the world is. They were bitter rivals when they were younger, and even though Zuko cried and was a coward, there were days she was certain her older brother would kill her if she was anything less than perfect during their spars. Murder and betrayal have defined their family’s history. Just as Azulon murdered his siblings, Ozai usurped his, she and Zuko will one day fight to the death for the throne.

Why would she be upset that Zuko occasionally fits in?

“I suppose they would be.” 

She throws one of Mai’s shuriken. Zuko tilts his head away lazily, the blades barely skimming his hair on his good side. The throwing star flies outside, undoubtedly going to be the reason someone’s destiny is forever altered.

He smiles. “You really should be more willing to go after my bad side. Ignoring it is a terrible habit to get into.”

Sometimes, she forgets that in all the world, only they know each other. It is moments like this that startle her most. When he pierces past the shroud of half-truths and full-lies she has made to protect herself and gets to the kernels of truth at her very core.

“Did you find what you wanted in Caldera?” she asks, far too uncomfortable with how well Zuko knows the parts of her that she doesn’t know exist.

“First, why did you help me?”

“Boredom.”

“That’s a terrible lie.”

Azula throws another knife that he catches lazily. “I could always tell Father you snuck into the Palace.”

“You won’t.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“Because you’re not a coward. You’d kill me yourself and parade my corpse.”

“I promised, didn’t I?”

Zuko chuckles. “Yeah, you did. Do you know father was planning on scorching Ba Sing Se before you took it?”

“And you know this how?”

“Because I know Ozai’s a coward. That man would only dare enter the Earth Nation on the day of the comet.”

“More and more treason. Keep going, brother dearest.”

“Ozai couldn’t tell mortar from artillery. That man’s never seen a battlefield his entire life. But you? You walked in and conquered this continent in a year. Your victories are worthy of a Fire Lord.”

Unlike his, but that hardly needs to be said.

“Flattery. How disappointing.”

“I grew up in Azulon’s court and I never figured out flattery. Do you really think I would have learnt it in the wild?”

“Knowing you? I wouldn’t be surprised. The wilderness and poverty suit you.”

“Just like conquest suits you.”

“More flattery.”

“Learn to take a compliment.”

She holds out her empty teacup.

“Maybe I just like hearing you praise me.”

Zuko rolls his eyes and refills her teacup. “You could rule the world, you know.”

“Don’t state simple facts.”

“But even you overreach. You’re too confident because that confidence is well-earned. What you did here was magnificent, but you lost the war for this continent already.”

She sets her cup down carefully. “Explain or I rip your throat out.”

“Ba Sing Se feeds the entire continent and you’ve burnt half their fields. That can’t be changed but there’s still time to—”

“No. I am not rebelling against the Fire Nation on your say so by pulling back our forces and fortifying our continental holdings.”

He shifts. “How did you—”

“Figure it out? I know you, Zuko. I know that for some unfathomable reason you think these peasants are worth something. And let me be quite honest, their only role is kneeling before me. Whether they starve or not means little to me.”

His good eye narrows. The other can’t really do that, much to her eternal amusement.

“A good Lord cares for their people.”

“I’m not Fire Lord yet.”

“Yet.”

“Yet,” she agrees.

He hums deep in his throat. Azula allows him his time to think. He’s always been slow. It’s an unfortunate side effect of not being born as amazing as Azula. The rest of the world suffers the same problem, so she won’t hold it against him.

“Did you know that once there was a Fire Lord who tried to crown himself again,” Zuko finally says, framed in the light of the setting sun. “The Dragon Emperor he wanted to call himself, for our Throne was granted unto us by Agni’s dragons. He sought not just to rule the Fire Nation but to abolish the nobility and the Sages. He sought to do it during the comet twelve hundred years ago.”

“Why are you prattling on about Tomok’s Folly?” she asks, knowing the story from her lessons with the Sages.

“What he didn’t realise,” Zuko continues, “is that before his grand plan, the sky would darken, and Agni would test his children’s resolve. He may have been the greatest firebender, but without the sun, he was nothing more than a man. The Fire Lord is mortal. This is the truth of the world. There is no honour in fleeing from death. Even Grandfather knew that truth and his words rewrote the destiny of the world.”

She still doesn’t get his point. Or maybe she does and she’s just running from the truth herself.

“Speak plainly.”

“Then let me say it like this, Lala—”

She doesn’t think, doesn’t let her body tense, before the knife is flashing towards his throat. He doesn’t get to say her name like that, dripping with such derision of scorn.

And then the world is spinning on its axis.

Her back meets the ground harshly. Heat bursts into being. Those damnable fire daggers, so tightly controlled and so pretty in their pinks and greens and lavender.

He could kill her easily. For the second time in her life, she’s at his mercy. She spits an ember of blue fire. He stays still as it sails past his shrivelled ear. She follows as he very terribly tracks the fire with his bad eye.

“You can learn. Will wonders ever cease?” he asks in mocking parody of her years ago.

“If you’re going to kill me then don’t hesitate.”

Zuko scoffs. “If I let you go, will you behave?”

Azula rolls her eyes. “You should know better than to trust me.”

“The only thing I trust about you is your ruthlessness.”

“You can learn. Will wonders never cease?”

“Stop copying me.”

“I said it first.”

“Did not.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why are you like this?”

“What? better, faster and smarter than you in every regard? Youngest master of the cold fire and the person who achieved the greatest military victory in history?”

“And even that isn’t enough for Ozai to love you.”

Zuko lets her go but she’s numb from that verbal attack. She draws in the warmth of the room to give life to her limbs and slowly rises, straightening her tunics. Embarrassing. Anyone else, she would have struck down on the spot. But Zuko’s already seen her at her worst and hasn’t used it against her.

Yet.

He never would, Lu Ten says. No matter how much you want to avoid that truth.

“Speak,” she prefers instead of listening to her Cousin.

“What will happen when Ozai burns down the Earth Kingdom’s largest farmlands at the height of harvest? You think those starving masses won’t come for us? Sure, we can slaughter them, but what happens to their bodies? When pestilence infects the rivers and lakes that supply our colonies, and our people die of plague as well, and the vengeful dead walk the world, what will you do then? We’ll win this war, but we’ll start a bigger one and it will destroy us.”

“Only if we lose.”

“I worry for your reign as Fire Lord. I lose sleep thinking of what you will do. You’re ruthless and without mercy to those without loyalty. I love you, Azula, but I also love our nation, and worry I can only choose one or the other.”

“You should choose me.”

“Were it so easy.” He shakes his head. “They still fear you. They fear you will be worse than Azulon and Ozai. You prove it with each victory and successful scheme. The world won’t be able to survive you if you ever choose cruelty. They’ll rebel before you get the chance.”

“I would win.”

“I know. It would be a slaughter.”

“Then why are you so worried?”

Zuko shakes his head, breathing in deeply. His breath stutters along with his inner fire. Weak. He’s always been weak.

“You truly are Azulon’s greatest legacy,” he says finally, chilling her right to the bone.

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not? He would be proud of all that you’ve done and all that you will achieve.”

“I will murder you.”

His eyes are cold and merciless and dispassionate. “There’s a reason you’re upset with me.”

“Don’t.”

“If he would be proud of you, then his decision to have you die was a good and just thing. And you can’t stand that contradiction.”

“There is no contradiction,” she grits out, fanning her waning inner flames. “I will win whatever war comes because my word is the absolute of the world.”

“I know you would. That’s never been in question. You would win as Fire Lord, second only to whatever title Ozai gives himself.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She could fight and argue that. Azula is a great liar, whether that’s lying to herself or others. She can burn her emotions up to feed her motivation, to keep her moving one more day.

Be honest with yourself, Lu Ten says. Just this once, be honest.

Exhaustion settles over her because she knows the truth. She always has. Isn’t that why she has plotted against Father, weakening his position at every turn and scheming against him? Is it not why she sought the approval of the sages with her false piety and the military with her victories?

“You’re still the heir,” she says because that question cut right through her shields and left her defenceless.

And Lu Ten’s ghost can stick it. She isn’t listening to a disembodied voice.

His lips twitch, spotting the distraction, but accepting it graciously. “That title’s not worth the paper it’s written on. Father’s tried killing me already and I… I don’t know if I can kill more family.”

She grins mockingly. “That’s a lie.”

“Damn it, Azula, why are you always like this.”

“Because I’m the liar in the family. You would kill him. Admit it.”

“But not for the throne.”

“That’s a truth.” She takes a sip of tea, wondering if it is poisoned. She lied about the antidotes and Zuko bought it too easily. He is one of the few who can tell her lies from truth. “What would you kill Father for?”

“I will do it because Father is mad, and he will destroy what remains of the world. I’ll do it because the Avatar is twelve and promised sixteen years. And I’m tired of seeing everything our family touches turn to ash.”

“You’re not sixteen,” she says, conveniently ignoring the rest.

“Neither are you and you’ve conquered the Earth Kingdom. I wish I could say I’m proud of you, and maybe if Ozai wasn’t a madman and Mother cared, if Uncle was on the Throne, then maybe I would be celebrating this victory.”

“The world isn’t so kind.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It’s still your birthright,” she offers and knows that in this one moment, this singular time, she wouldn’t hate him entirely if he tried to claim it.

She’d kill him after, yes, but she wouldn’t hate him.

“It was Lu Ten’s and it killed him.” Zuko smiles bitterly. “Everyone loved Lu Ten. Even people in the Earth Kingdom. He still died. I don’t want to bury you. I don’t want to kill you to save our people.”

“But you would.”

“I would.”

He isn’t lying. Here they are, the lies and facades finally stripped away. It hurts to know he would kill her, but it fills her with a sick joy that the act would destroy him as well.

“The spirits must laugh at us.”

“You don’t believe in them. If you did, you would have conquered the spirit world.”

“I’m saving that for my sixteenth birthday.”

“Only you, Lala. Only you.”

They sit together in the fading light without speaking. Everything that needs to be said has been said, every action taken, and each plot carefully cultivated. The last five years of world history has been nothing more than the conflict between siblings. In the end, it will only be a matter of who has the strength to take destiny into their hands and shape the future.

When she looks up again, Zuko is long gone and the tea is cold.

Chapter Text

The day her destiny crystallises is the day the moon will hide Agni from the world.

It may certainly be a cyclical phenomenon that they’ve tracked for millennia, but it does feel like revenge against the Fire Nation for Zhao’s foolishness. It would be fitting for spirits to descend upon their nation today and exact revenge for threatening to upturn the balance of the world. It would also be entertaining as Azula hasn’t had the opportunity to kill a spirit just yet. Animals, yes. Humans, yes. Benders of all but the Air variety—though Sozin’s generational karma probably nets her a few airbender kills on a technicality.

Footsteps pull her from her thoughts. They lose their confidence, stopping uncertainly behind Azula. Only one person would dare disturb her.

“Fire Lady Ursa,” she greets politely in the hours before the world falls to darkness.

“Azula?”

It is early morning, the breeze in the Royal Gardens just the slightest bit chilly. She is feeding the turtleducks some bread she stole from the kitchens. Not something she would usually do but boredom leads to strange things.

This is the first time she’s stepped foot in the gardens since the night Zuko killed for her. It makes sense that Ursa would be so startled to see her.

“In the flesh.”

“Why are you here?”

“Boredom.”

Honesty is something she can do on occasion, especially when it’s inconsequential.

Mother offers some approximation of a mothering expression. “You’re allowed to be nervous.”

“I made half of today’s contingencies. Don’t project your guilt at failing to parent your son on me.”

“That’s not—”

“Isn’t it? I am a regret to you. You thought I was a monster my entire life. It’s true, yes, but it was rather rude of you to treat me like one.”

“That’s not true. I never thought you were a monster.”

“Then what did you think I was? Tell me the truth for once,” Azula demands, relentlessly. “Mother,” she adds spitefully.

They stay together in tense silence as Mother works through her false feelings of whatever regret she’s taught herself to feel.

“I couldn’t protect you,” Ursa finally settles on. “If I did, Ozai would hurt you. There was no happiness in our marriage, and he took out his hatred of me on his children. If I showed you kindness like I did Zuko, he would have hurt you just to see me suffer.”

“That’s funny.” For the first time in years, she pulls down her sleeve, savouring Mother’s gasp at the handprint burnt into her flesh. “Your inaction saved no one. I don’t need you. Zuko doesn’t need you. You forced him to become a man the day you left me to die. You showed him that the only person he could trust is me.”

“I didn’t think Ozai would—”

“Mother, I don’t care about your excuses or whatever pathetic reasons you give yourself to sleep at night. You left me to die. Your own child. You couldn’t be bothered to care so you do not get to start now.” She smiles brightly at her mother who trembles. “Zuko is mine and we will destroy each other. Now, leave me alone with these turtleducks.”

“Azu—”

Scorching flames blossom on the ground, blackening the earth beneath. Steam rises as water is vaporised and turtleducks squawk in fear, fleeing her wrath.

“Now look what you’ve made me do. Go away, Lady Ursa, before I forget how to pretend at civility when you’re around. Committing matricide today brings me no advantage.”

The turtleducks are impossible to coax back after her eruption. It doesn’t matter how much food she offers, they’re too skittish of her after one hurt. She can’t understand why anyone would compare Zuko to these creatures. He’s a glutton for getting hurt by those closest to him and always comes back for more. Turtlesucks are smart enough to run.

I’m sorry she didn’t care for you better, Lu Ten says.

She thinks she would have preferred it if Mother hated her. Hate, at least, burns hot when she feeds it to her inner flame. Not the coldness of indifference or the sliminess of fear.

“It made me strong.”

You shouldn’t have needed to be so strong. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to survive.

“One day I’ll forgive you that sin.”

Hours later, a soldier very politely encourages her to head underground. They do a fine job of pointedly not looking at the blackened ground. Good nerves on that one.

Her bunker is the lowest of the lot. The obvious choice for a Fire Lord to be hiding in. That cavalcade of bumbling fools will waste time they never had, though she wonders where exactly Zuko will be. There’s no chance of him missing this. Not after the words he spoke with all their bloody conviction in Ba Sing Se.

There will be one less member of their family after today. It is only a matter of the way luck falls.

Warmth leaves her soul as Agni’s light is blocked by Tui. It feels something like she imagines dying would be like, the way all heat leaves the body and the soul’s fire is doused. Azula forces herself to stay calm even as she feels a rising edge of panic when she can’t call upon her blue flames. She’s got a dozen ceramic throwing stars and her knife with her, alongside all her hidden assets. There’s nothing to fear.

In the aftermath, the Avatar manages to escape. Not that Azula tried very hard to kill him. Just as Zuko said, the Avatar is twelve. A child. Too young to be deciding the destiny of the world when you don’t belong to a family that’s done so for a century.

After the Fire Lord’s speeches are made, she sits with her father in a private meeting room as they discuss plans for Sozin’s Comet. In summary, Ozai will burn the world and justify it as a necessity.

The servant pours tea for them. She smells something spicy and bitter, probably some light alcohol, coming from Father’s.

“Did your son slink into this invasion somehow?” she asks after the servant is dismissed.

“He couldn’t even attempt to hide his treason. I should have drowned him at birth.”

His hands are shaking, she realises. The robes he wears aren’t the same from this morning. The scent of ozone clings to him. Zuko had redirected Uncle’s lightning at Tu Zin. Had he done the same against Father successfully? It would explain the tremors.

“Do I get to kill him or will you?” she asks, testing Father.

“You can do the honours,” he answers, failing and revealing his cowardice.

Just like striking down the Avatar, Lu Ten reminds her. Just like dismantling the Southern Water Tribe Fleets. Just like conquering Ba Sing Se. He is a Lord in name only.

She wonders, not for the first time, what victories he truly earned. If he even earned any. Maybe bullying Mother into submission but that’s not much of anything.

“Thank you, Father. It pleases me that you see my worth.”

“Always.”

A lie. A terrible one. A lie so bad it would have Zuko at six blushing in embarrassment.

“Will you formally remove Zuko from the line of succession?”

Father focuses slightly more of his attention on her. “Eagerness doesn’t suit you, but it will be done as a reward for your loyalty.”

“And I will succeed you?”

His lips curl in something of a smirk. “You will be the next Fire Lord.”

She reads past his words, picking apart out the omission. Fire Lord, yes, but not his successor. That was Lu Ten’s birthright. It is Zuko’s birthright. 

In thirteen years of life, she finally sees the Throne for the trap it is.

“I heard some cowards whisper that Iroh should have been Regent until Zuko came of age.” She enjoys the way the cup stops on the journey to his lips. “That Zuko is the rightful heir to the Throne. Treasonous thoughts plague the court, and as usual, Zuko is the cause. May I purge it of its weakness?”

He brings the cup to its lips. “I would like to look those cowards in the eye before they die.”

Azula bows her head and rises. “Your will be done, Fire Lord.”

She walks past the Fire Lord, her Father, the man who rules half the world and plans on burning the other half. A person who sees his heirs as disposable and would destroy his nation out of vanity. When Azula draws her knife, she doesn’t do it for balance or compassion or world peace. She isn’t anything so trite.

She does it because it is the least wasteful thing to do.

Zuko’s knife has always been hidden from Ozai. He doesn’t even see the blade until it carves cleanly through his throat.

Father stumbles back, clutching at his throat, pawing at it desperately. The cup crashes on impact. In his struggles, he kicks the low table with its ancient teapots, ceramic bursting to a thousand tiny pieces and drenching scattered documents.

It is pitiful to watch him clutch at the torrent of red escaping his body. 

Chi burns deep in his gut, sucking up all the heat in the room. Ozai’s inner fire is an unrestrained wildfire and it will scorch Azula to cinders. He punches at her, chi flaring painfully bright to all her senses.

Smoke greets her instead of flame.

Azula smiles. “Fire comes from the breath, father dearest.”

She watches as he realises death is imminent and that the Fire Lord is only mortal.

Death makes equals of everyone. Whether it comes from a daughter committing patricide or the killing fields of Ba Sing Se, all people die. Sometimes it is more peaceful and possessed of fewer regrets. Other times it is desperate and pathetic.

Azula holds the gaze of this coward as he struggles to death, beating frantically at his throat. She will not die like this. She will die of old age, perhaps napping at the turtleduck pond or in the peaceful sleep after squashing a rebellion, but it will not be like this. It will be a profound death for the contrast it provides to the violence and struggle of her earlier years.

It will be nothing like Ozai’s pathetic death. His reign was short and punctuated only by the achievements of his children. Azula wipes her blade clean on the sleeve of her tunic where he burnt her so many years ago.

Honestly, she thought there would be something more cathartic about this. Maybe some spiritual enlightenment. A burden lifting from her soul or even Lu Ten’s ghost showing up to say something witty—I thought you’d be annoyed if I did that—but no, it feels no more special than any other kill she’s committed.

With a shrug, Azula leaves the meeting room and steps out into the hallways lined with guards, some her Father’s, and others loyal to her. Let them see Ozai’s body in a pool of his own blood and know the truth of her actions.

She smiles cruelly. “Do clean up after my father. He seems to have died of natural causes like Grandfather.”

Everyone expects her to crown herself in the aftermath which is why she doesn’t. Everyone expects a far more violent continuation of hostilities especially with the comet looming close. Azula instead focuses on fortifying their holdings on the continent. She recalls the 41st Division from the continent and sets them to patrol Caldera.

She is not indecisive as some might think. The Fire Sages find themselves with more administrative power and so they do not oppose her for she was taught by them and honoured the ways of spirits. It is good and encouraged for the Throne to honour Agni, and so they permit her strange acts. She frees political prisoners of families she antagonised in her childhood, having them placed under house arrest to secure their loyalty. It is still imprisonment, yes, but being required to stay in your estate with your family is a blessing after the years they spent away from their loved ones. That, as well, gains her another block of power.

Executing the most wasteful admirals and generals earn her fear and awe. She challenges them to Agni Kai one after another on the same day and comes away without a scratch. A dozen seasoned veterans of great power fall to her flames, proof once more of her innate majesty.

There is so much to deal with and so little time. The comet passes and the Earth Kingdom does not become a scorched wasteland as the world had expected. Oh, sure, her soldiers scorch an army group or two, but it’s nothing like the wholesale slaughter of a continent everyone expected.

Defeating the enemy army during a comet is prudent; burning all the farmland that supports a continent is genocide.

Her violence is calculated and surgical, designed to extract the greatest result. Uncontrolled fire simply destroys. Useful, sometimes, as Sozin and Azulon and Ozai all proved, but it shall not be Azula’s method.

“What are you playing at?” Mai asks beside her the day after the comet.

There had been another slew of challenges for the Throne during the comet. Fools, all of them, that she had executed with bursts of flames that set an entire section of the Palace on fire. Mother may have been in those rooms, and Azula may have done it as a very polite reminder for her to leave permanently, but that’s a kindness compared to all she could have done.

“I never play games.”

Ty Lee flips over the throne, twirling gleefully to land on the other armrest. Azula will forgive the insubordination this one time as Ty Lee drapes herself over Azula.

“Azula, you play with everything.” Ty Lee bops her on the forehead. “You’re like a scorpion-cat but less cute and more angry blue fire. You play with your prey all the time.”

“You’re very close to becoming my prey.”

Mai groans. “You two are disgusting.”

“You love us anyway,” Ty Lee counters, poking Azula again.

“That’s debatable.”

“Until Azula weighs in. No one debates her.”

“Are you calling me fat?” She pokes Ty Lee’s cheek with a warm finger on the edge of flash fire as a warning. “Do it again and you won’t have a tongue.”

Mai shudders. “You could have picked any body part, but you chose the tongue.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me,” Ty Lee says, ignoring Mai.

“Are you willing to experiment?”

“Okay, I’m out,” Mai says with a groan. “You two are sickening.”

Azula doesn’t really get it what’s bothering Mai so much. It’s not like Ty Lee hasn’t been practically attached to Azula since they were children. Alone, she’s aware of just how grey Ty Lee’s, like smoke, or perhaps mist. They are cheerful and there is a guarantee in them that Azula will always be accepted as she is.

Ty Lee lays her hand on Azula’s arm, fingers curling around the burn mark she’d hidden perfectly, but that Ty Lee had known about regardless.

She opens her mouth and says, “Lala.”

The name said by anyone other than Zuko sounds strange. For some reason, Azula doesn’t incinerate Ty Lee before she can escape with a gleeful laugh.

And maybe she doesn’t want to anyway.

The people are uncertain in the days that come. As Ty Lee said, she is a predator that toys with her food, and the world knows. She is kinslayer now, but so is Zuko, and they love him. They will learn to love her as well. And if they cannot, they will learn to live with their fear.

Her announcement that both waterbenders and airbenders are no longer enemies of the state nearly starts a civil war if not for the support of the Fire Sages. They are an island people born on the highest peaks and along the endless coasts. Once, the Fire Sages say, benders of air and water were born to the islands and halted the catastrophic monsoons.

Her overtures to Princess Yue, the living Moon Spirit, to open communications, send ripples through the world. There hasn’t been a line of communication between the Fire Nation and a foreign ruler for decades.

And then comes a message that the Avatar will arrive and hear her on behalf of all nations.

The arrangement of the throne room is very intentional. Her loyal cadre of Dai Li agents kneeling in place of honour, the Fire Sages behind her, and along the walls are the Water Tribe savages they’ve collected—behaving only because Azula promised them freedom should they comply or death for their scattered tribes should they argue.

Fire. Water. Earth. 

The last remaining nations of any importance. The nations that she rules. The Southern Water Tribe is irrelevant, and the North may have survived one fleet but Azula has more, and the world knows that Fire controls the oceans. She no longer holds Ba Sing Se but that was out of choice. With their nobles executed and generals scattered without command, the Earth Kingdoms are in disarray and of no threat. Pulling her forces back to fortify their grip over half the continent had been a prudent decision, not an act of cowardice.

The final piece she has been waiting for arrives in a gust of wind. The Avatar, the Spirit of the World, the Great Bridge between mortality and the eternal.

A boy of twelve meant to bear the burden of ending the war.

“The Fire Nation welcomes you, Avatar Aang of the Southern Air Temple.”

He bows shallowly to her, an Avatar to a foreign ruler. More than she expects given that they were enemies only weeks ago.

“The war,” Azula tells the Avatar, tells the embodiment of the physical and the spiritual, “is over.”

And for she is Azula, those words are an absolute.

“Why?” the Avatar asks for the world. “He was your father.”

“When one seeks to bend the world to their whim, one must always take care not to destroy it. Fire Lord Ozai forgot that truth, and in so doing, betrayed his people, his nation, and his honour.”

They are pretty words that will fit neatly into her history books.

I’m proud of you, Lu Ten promises her later that evening. I love you and I’m proud of you.

“Shut up.”

It’s the truth. Dying doesn’t change that.

“Agni above, can you just move on already. I’m sick and tired of your nonsense.”

I’m only here as long as you need me here.

“Then leave.”

Laughter echoes in her mind, but she gets the sense that he isn’t truly gone. If he was ever there in the first place.

The dragon sighting at noon the next day doesn’t surprise her. Zuko has always had a penchant for drama what with his dual swords and pretty flames and theatre mask.

The Fire Nation has gone through much in this year. The return of the Avatar. The imminence of the Ocean’s wrath. Military victory after military victory. A violent change in leadership. And now, Agni’s favoured child returns on the wings of legend. Caldera erupts in cheers to herald its beloved son, cheers that only intensify as more dragons emerge from the ocean. The Dragon Prince they will undoubtedly call him just as she is Sage Princess.

No matter what happens, their people know now that the actions Azula and Zuko took in killing their forebearers are acts that Agni Himself approves of. Those dragons, six of them from the reports, have just secured the throne and peace to come.

She lounges upon the throne when Zuko arrives in the Throne Room. She is alone, her guards dismissed. Blue flames obscure her, menacing and violent. She is the picture of a Fire Lord, cold and distant and immensely powerful.

“Azula.”

She permits him to spread his inner fire across the room. Vibrant colour blooms across half the room: sakura blossom pink and moss green, dawn orange and wheat yellow and snowdrop white. Warm and inviting, a counterpoint to her domineering and cold presence.

Her brother whom she has killed for, whom she has spared the pain of another parricide and perhaps the act of sororicide—though he would never win if he tried to kill her, not today and not through any method: Azula will die after a hundred and two years, and be remembered for ten thousand more, and if the world does not abide by her decision, both the realms of spirit and flesh will burn in blue fire—stands before her calmly, his chi an equal to her own, his deeds and legend comparable to hers.

Five years ago, the order of the world changed when Azulon ordered her death and Ozai accepted it. As she steps past the flames to stand before her brother, she wonders how entertained the spirits are by their family drama.

“I got bored of waiting for you to end the war, so I did it myself.”

His laughter echoes in the room, deep and jubilant and relieved. The fool is crying even as he laughs, disgusting, and such a Zuko thing to do that she doesn’t hold it against him too much. Today, just this once, she will allow him to pull her in for a hug.

But only for a moment before she pushes him away and sweeps him off his feet with a kick. Ah, yes, Zuko on the floor before her. That was the missing piece to all this.

No, she’s lying to herself.

Ever so slowly, she extends her hand to Zuko as he did on that night that stands out vividly in her memory. He’d pulled her out of the closet and brought her into the pale light of the moon.

Today, he takes her hand, and she helps him up and into Agni’s firm embrace. Dragons roar in the distance and the volcano beneath them rumbles. This, too, history will remember.

“Don’t you dare cry on me again, Zuzu.”

He smiles. “No promises.”

All is right in the world.