Work Text:
Ephemeral : /əˈfem(ə)rəl/
adjective
- lasting for a very short time
*
Her daughter is born right as the sun reaches its apex in the sky. She is a tiny thing, red faced, with baby fat clinging to her, rounding out the edges that will define her teen years. Her daughter is soft now; delicate enough to hold, innocent enough to smile, and Ursa feels nothing but love.
Her daughter is born screaming, wailing, shaking tiny fists before her eyes have even opened. The midwife coos softly, trying to swaddle the newborn in red, and the girl fights her all the way through. It's not rage yet. A tired smile pulls at the corners of Ursa’s mouth as she watches.
(All things start somewhere. Blood is never born from nothing)
Eventually the midwife succeeds, wrapping the exhausted girl in a silk blanket. It's a bold red, embroidered gold- expensive, gorgeous, fit for a princess. Likely the gift of some noble clan, one attempting to gain the favor of the Royal Family. Her daughter is already a pawn in the political snake pit she will someday conquer, but Ursa doesn't see that part yet. Her daughter is just her daughter- tired, small, and all too warm against Ursa's chest. Ursa revels in it- welcomes it, even.
The myth echoes through her ears even as her daughter shifts against her chest (the moment a fire bender is born, their chi is activated. The stronger the fire bender, the warmer the core temperature of the child). Ursa clings to the words; she needs to. She knows the exact fate that awaits her daughter should she not be born with a spark.
But her daughter is strong. Solid against her chest and so, so warm.
Barely born and already testing the universe, Ursa thinks fondly, bringing single finger up to trace her daughter's red cheek. Just before Ursa’s finger meets soft skin, the baby’s eyes open. Bright golden eyes stare innocently and for just the slightest moment Ursa’s heart catches in her throat because that is the exact gaze of someone she hates and fears in equal measure.
The gaze of a man who would burn the world to the ground, if only to rule over the ashes.
(The second son of a ruthless man; the chip on his shoulder is large enough to fill the ocean. Large enough to drown them all.)
(Ozai, shaking his head as Zuko cries. Ozai, rolling his eyes as Zuko attempts to firebend. Ozai, impatient, power hungry and the man she was wed to, so her ruler, twice over.)
But then her daughter is blinking slowly in the dim candlelight, and Ursa banishes the wariness, forcing back the soft thoughts- the gentle ones. The precious ones.
(The feeling, while lightened, does not dissipate completely. Instead it nestles itself in between Ursa’s ribs, and this is an old story, one of the oldest maybe, of a woman who cannot see her daughter without first seeing her husband.)
“Hello little girl.” Ursa says softly, so very gently, and the baby blinks again, starting to squirm once more.
(This is her daughter. Her blood. Later, when Ursa has fled into the night, she will look back and wonder how she will be able to live with herself, after abandoning her children.)
Ozai does not come to see his daughter until the sun has set, yielding to Tui in an endless dance of chase. By this time their daughter has settled into Ursa’s arms, sleeping peacefully. Alongside him is Zuko, eyes bright and curious.
He is so unlike his father, so unlike the man that Ursa married that she thanks the spirits over and over.
Ursa smiles gently at him as he hesitantly paces forward, “Say hello to your little sister, Zuko.”
Crawling up onto the bed Zuko peers down, awe coating his face.
“Hi.”
He says softly and is rewarded with the girl opening her eyes at him, blinking sleepily.
Zuko lets out a little gasp as brother and sister meet each other’s gaze for the first time, and then he smiles with all the innocence that Ursa has tried to protect.
Ozai has come to stand next to her bed, staring at the baby with an unreadable gaze. Ursa’s hackles are raised. Ozai may be a monster but she was too. She knew this dance as well as he did- the court wouldn't wait for either of them.
A moment of silence and then the infant is wrinkling her nose, scrunching her face up in Ursa’s arms.
(Destiny calls. Fate is not to be ignored. The path has been made and crowns have only ever meant blood. There's no turning back now.)
She lets off a sneeze, that, on any other baby, would garner coos and squeals. Instead, Ursa’s heart drops to her stomach and her eyes widen as the candles in the room, for just the slightest moment, flare blue.
Ozai’s face loses its impeccable facade at the sneeze, slipping into shock and surprise before it changes into a look that Ursa, for the life of her, can’t place.
(It is the gaze of a man who has found something to exploit. The look of a man who can look at blood and bone and think weapon .)
“Mom…”
Zuko says in shock as his father reaches out for his daughter for the first time.
Ursa listens to him with one ear, the rest of her focus lasered in on her husband. She can feel the tenseness of her shoulders, the growl forming low in her throat. Ozai was many things, but gentle was never one of them. It's a lesson Ursa has learnt well; it's one her daughter will learn even better.
(An old story, one of the oldest, and never not a tragedy.)
Ursa relinquishes her daughter into the hold of her husband because she has no other choice and somewhere deep in her chest, something like a keystone feels like it begins to fall. She controls her flinch at the transfer, just barely, and the girl is dwarfed by his large hands.
“… fire bend?”
Zuko’s voice is high in youth, but low in seriousness and before Ursa can respond Ozai answers, deep voice steady.
“She heat bent,” he says, staring intently at his daughter as she cocks her gaze innocently, “it’s not fire bending but it is a mark of a great future one.”
His voice grows with excitement as he reaches the end of his sentence, and Ursa does not know what to think.
(If all you’ve ever known is falling, then what is solid land but blasphemous?)
“Azula." Ozai declares, "In honor of my father.” He is still staring intently at his daughter and part of Ursa grates at knowing her daughter will share a name with him.
(The man on the dragon throne. The man that molded and shaped his son into this. The man that made one son great, the other bitter.)
Ursa plasters on a smile, “An excellent name.”
What she does not know is this: Azula is longer hers. The moment Ozai names his daughter for a man she is not meant to surpass, Azula ceases to be her mother's child.
Zuko remains silent and the room is plunged into a quiet that is almost peaceful, the flickering of the candles the only thing in the room that moves.
Azula scrunches her face again and this time Ursa is fast to pin her gaze to the candle by her bedside, as do Ozai and Zuko.
One small sneeze later, the flame once again flaring blue, and a girl's fate is set in stone.
“A true prodigy.”
Ozai breathes out and something clamps onto Ursa’s heart.
(Red is the color of the room where her daughter is born; red is the color that bathes the courtyard the day her daughter fails to land on her feet.)
(Mother, you didn’t think the story would end there, though, did you? True stories aren’t stories until the hero’s lost everything. After all, no one wants a half remembered tragedy.)
*
What is more tragic than a girl who is only ever destined to hit the ground?
*
Azula! Silence yourself.
Weak. Is this all the princesses of
the Fire Nation has to offer?
Young lady, we do not say things like that.
True power, my daughter, the divine right to rule,
is something you're born with.
Of course I love you Azula.
Trust is what gets you killed. Trust
is for fools.
What is wrong with that child?
*
It is one of the most important political gatherings of the new year and Azula is six years old, too old to make foolish mistakes, but too young to not make them anyways. She is six years and she has just slammed into her mother at break neck speed, subsequently causing Ursa to drop the glass of champagne she was holding.
Azula freezes at the sound of shattering glass, and ahead of her, her brother stops from where she was chasing him.
The murmuring of the crowd quiets abruptly, as the most important people in the Fire Nation reflexively turn towards the scene.
(Her heart is in her throat, and she tampers down the urge to run, or flee because this is her nation. Her people. Azula cannot afford to run, when it concerns them.)
(Duty first.)
The glass had smashed on impact and the splintered shards glint in the torch light like stars. For just a split second, Azula can nearly fool herself into believing that she isn’t here, in this too hot ballroom with too many cold eyes.
(For just a split second, she can nearly believe that she is outside, underneath Tui, looking up to the twinkling stars, up to the pale moon giant, where she was, yes, alone but also safe. Where the world was kinder.)
(Being lonely is a small price to pay for safety.)
But then it is ruined, as she watches her mother's hand comes up to cover her mouth and her father's lips tighten, drawing into a tight displeased line, eyes cold.
That means punishment, she recognizes, dread burrowing into her chest, and wondering if her mother will protect her, for once, too.
(‘I love you both equally,’ her mother had reassured her once, when Azula had made the mistake of wondering her thoughts aloud.
Her mothers words have always said one thing. Her actions have never followed.)
The red wine that was in the glass seeps slowly outwards, dark sangria liquid coalescing into a puddle. In the blink of an eye a nameless servant hurries forward from the shadows, throwing a cloth over the liquid, and beginning to collect the glass.
Azula stares, frozen, nearly in a trance, as the servant clips his finger on a shard. She watches in slight horror, slight fascination as the crimson blood drips down, intermingling with the wine.
(Red on red. Bright crimson gone, in the puddle of dark wine.)
The only sign it even happens is the slightest clench in the servant's jaw.
“Azula,” her father's low voice interrupts her stare and her heart begins to beat slower, at the sound of his voice, “come here.”
Swallowing, she tears her eyes away and forces her feet to move, one step, two steps, until they bring her to her father's side. He lays a heavy hand on her shoulder, just a little too warm and she risks a glance to her mother.
(The woman that birthed her. The woman who gave her life. Part of Azula wants to believe that despite her actions, Ursa still loves her daughter.)
Her mother has moved from a hand covering her mouth to reassure Zuko, putting that same hand around his shoulders, leaning down to whisper reassurance in his ear and something in Azula’s stomach curdles.
Her mother doesn't look at her.
(That hope is gone now. Snuffed out like a flame without a sound. If Ursa doesn’t care, neither can Azula.)
Her father guides her out of the too hot room, a heavy hand on her shoulder, and the threat of punishment a noose around her neck.
The torches that line the walls to her room flicker and Azula burns along with them.
*
Is this love?
Azula doesn't know any better so it must be.
*
Weakness is not tolerated.
Strength is what makes the world spin.
Power my daughter, that is what makes us great.
War is needed sometimes, Azula.
Master the basics. Always start with the basics.
You were born lucky,
Your brother was lucky to be born.
*
The cousin that was meant to be Fire lord dies at the walls of the impenetrable city.
The uncle her father calls a failure ends the siege and disappears for a month in his grief.
The grandfather that ordered the near genocide of the Southern Water Tribe is assassinated in the night.
The mother that never loved Azula flees that same night and doesn't say goodbye.
The brother that has only ever been blood, and nothing more, is burned and exiled, forever marked by his failure.
Fight, a voice whispers in her ear as a Fire Sage places the crown of the heir apparent in her top knot, fight because that is all you can ever do.
(Azula suspects that only one of the royal family's youngest is going to survive this war.)
*
Her father thinks her a weapon.
Her mother thought her a monster.
Azula has never been able to please both, but maybe this time, with these parameters she can.
*
Almost perfect.
One hair out of place.
*
Red is the color of the Fire Nation. Red is the color of the conquerors, the almost winners, the men who have waged war for almost a century.
Red is the color of wine. The color of fleeting sins and low hanging fruit, the color that paints lips that lie as easily the sun rises.
Red is the color of the sun. The blessed Agni, for whose name they wage war in. The sun that only ever seems lonely.
Red is the color of flames. Flames that burn and scorch, and bring ruin with a flick of the wrist.
Red is the color of burns. The kind that makes you wonder why you keep fighting. The kind that makes you wonder if monsters were made or born.
Red is the color of blood. It is the color of alive, of living, because no one that died could bleed. Crimson stains means alive and love, and Azula has long since been okay with that.
(Blue is the color of Azula’s flames. Blue burns hotter, burns faster, and later, Azula won’t be able to help but wonder if that was Fate's cruel analogy.)
*
A list of things that fall to Azula, in chronological order:
- The Kyoshi Warriors
- Ba Sing Se, the impenetrable city (the city that took her cousins life)
- The Avatar
- Her Uncle, the last dragon of the west
In one fell swoop, some of the Fire Nation's greatest enemies are extinguished, snuffed out like a flame without air.
It’s an amalgamation of all Azula has spent her entire life working towards. She should be proud. But her head hurts. And something in her chest feels empty. Her father says he is proud and the warmth that floods her rib cage doesn’t last 3 days.
*
Truth: It’s not the fall that will kill you.
*
The sun grows muted in the sky and Azula’s inner flame is muffled.
Even though she knows this would happen, has known for months and prepared herself, the emptiness that echoes inside her chest nearly leaves her breathless.
No, no, she thinks desperately, you are one of the only things that has never left. Stay, stay, please don’t leave.
The Avatar, the pacifist (so you did survive) tries to kill her. Or maybe not, but the air he whips towards her breaks a stone throne, and Azula may be a master fire bender but she is still only bone and blood.
(Land on your feet. Make the right choice and you will be rewarded.)
The invasion force is stifled.
Azula snatches a victory from the jaws of failure with nothing but quick thinking and a silver tongue. The Avatar and his friends leave empty handed, and the chief of the near decimated Southern Water Tribe is captured, along with nearly all of the invasion forces.
Zuko leaves (again).
Azula tries not to let that hurt.
Despite her success at taking a losing hand and winning with it, her father is still furious.
You lied to me, Azula. This means punishment.
It fucking hurts.
She is fine.
*
She tries to remember a time when the ground didn’t shake beneath her, when the walls weren’t collapsing.
For the life of her, she cannot.
*
Things that have always been able to hurt Azula:
- Her heart
People that have always been able to break Azula:
- Her father, his imperial majesty, Fire Lord Ozai
- Her mother, the woman that left in the night, Lady Ursa
- Her brother, the twice banished prince, Zuko
- Her friend, daughter of Governor Ukano and Lady Michi, Lady Mai
- Her other friend, seventh daughter of a minor noble, Ty Lee
People that have left Azula:
- Her mother
- Her brother
- Mai
- Ty lee
Her father is the only person that has not left her. She can’t help but wonder why it feels like he left first.
*
Truth: You can’t lose something you never had.
*
Truth: The price for betraying the crown is capital punishment. Azula has saved 3 people she cares about from a traitor's death.
All 3 of them left, turned their backs, left her all alone without a single goodbye just like mother.
Why, why, just tell me why please.
When she pleads on her knees for their lives anyways, her father's lip curls in disgust (weakness) but he grants it nonetheless.
The price, as always, is high.
*
When did it stop hurting?
*
Azure flames meet orange in a furious clash.
Two siblings fall.
Her brother is caught. The water tribe girl reaches out, grabs his arm. He falls onto the air bison safe and sound, surrounded by people that care.
Zuko never had to land on his feet because someone would always catch him. Mother. Uncle. And now the Avatar and his group of friends.
Azula, at one time, had two people that would reach out (maybe). But they are rotting in jail now, and Azula tries not to think about them because the echoing chant of betrayed, betrayed, weak, leaves her keeling in the ash.
Azula, now, has only her wits, her fire bending, and her body to stay alive.
(She’ll lose control of two of them by the end of the summer.)
Turning midair, she finds the nearest cliff face, untangles the crown in her hair and shoots fire from her feet.
Her brother is saved.
Azula has to save herself.
(Even with someone there, they always had one foot out the door.)
Azula always has to save herself.
*
She stays because she can, because she must, because that is her duty.
Running was for cowards and the only thing her father hated more than traitors was cowardice.
*
She lays in her bed, surrounded by all the luxuries befitting the crown princess.
Silk sheets line her bed, but they are too hot against her skin and so she kicks them off.
She draws her knees to her chest, curls into a ball, and tries not to think.
Born lucky.
She fails.
*
The ground is only ever so far away. Even luck will run itself to the ground amuck the ash.
*
Her father leaves.
*
*
She sees her mother in the mirror.
She sees her mother in the dark, in the shadows that lurk never too far away.
(She has her fathers eyes but her mothers face. She has never been able to please both.)
Ursa looks the same as she did the day Azula broke that wine glass. High features, delicate eyes, and Azula wants to claw her skin from her cheeks, wants to flay flesh from bone so that she can’t recognize herself because everyone that has left, has left because it’s Azula, because there’s something wrong with her and if someone would just please tell her what it is she can fix-.
All your life you’ve used fear to control people.
The room is too warm. The torches that burn are too hot and the light they give off is not nearly enough to get rid of the monsters in her head the shadows.
Such a shame. You always had such beautiful hair.
The mirror mocks her. Azula stares into hateful golden eyes, the only thing that reminds her of her father. You gave me my power, my anger, I love you, I have to because you are the only person that loves (?) (but you left, you left me too, what does this mean, why aren’t I ever enough?) me back.
I lov-
The mirror breaks.
The shards fall to the ground.
Her mother disappears. She always does.
*
Don’t leave me here alone.
*
The throne room is bathed in blue light for the first time in centuries. It’s all she’s ever wanted, she tells herself.
It’s all she’s ever wanted.
*
I love you-
*
She’s been (almost) everything she’s tried to be.
A weapon. A monster. A prodigy.
Success was the only thing that was safe.
Failure was punished.
Weakness was punished.
*
why did you only ever love him?
why was i never enough?
why did you always see father first when you look at me?
why did you leave and not say goodbye?
why did you think i was monster?
why, why, why, why, wh-
did you ever love me?
*
Even monsters have to fall.
*
*
They were only flesh and bone after all.
*
*
Her brother shows up to her coronation with the water tribe girl.
Not so long ago he challenged her to an Agni Kai.
She returns the favor.
(I’m sorry it had to end this way, brother.
No, you're not.
Azula always lies. Except when she doesn’t. )
She can’t help but imagine the fight being framed in a tragic beautiful way. The red comet overhead, beautiful music in the background.
(The fall of a monster who was never a child could only ever be a tragedy).
She knows from the start that it is not going to go well (for her). Her brother is stronger than he’s ever been and he matches her strike for strike.
Because she’s slipping, because she’s falling, she’s been falling, and she can see the ground now, it’s not too far away someone please catch her-.
What no lightning?
The cold fire comes to her, comes to its master and like so many times before, ozone fills the air and electricity dances along her forearms.
Azula braces herself.
Land on your feet.
She breathes out, and just as she is about to let it go, she sees the water tribe girl run up.
Born lucky. Think ahead. One step ahead of disaster.
She was wrong. Lightning has no master, only a guide, and Azula lets go.
Her brother goes down.
(The heart of an opponent will always be their chief weakness. Anger could be barred, weakness overcome but the heart? Not so easily swayed. (Azula knows this best.))
Zuko is not dead. She knows this because she is the one who separated her poles, separated her yin and yang, and she is the one that decided the voltage.
After all this time she is still weak.
*
She’s tired.
She wants her mother, she wants her father, she wants their love, their approval, and all she ever got was their anger, their power, their absence, and she’s just so fucking tired-
*
The water tribe girl beats her.
Azula does not always land on her feet.
Luck only gets you so far.
*
The chains are cold and they dig into her wrists, as she sobs on her knees. Her brother looks at her with pity, because he has only ever been able to love her when she is weak. When she is broken.
It’s really not different from the rest of her family. Always conditional.
*
I love you, Azula, I do.
*
*
You didn't think you were done yet, did you child?
*
*
There are two ways to keep a fire bender from bending:
One is to keep them in the cold, to stifle the outer flame so that they have to focus on keeping their inner flame alive.
The second is to keep them in the heat. Fire benders naturally run warm, but even they are not invulnerable to the effects of a heat stroke. Make it warm enough on the outside, and in order to survive they cannot risk raising their inner flame without death.
Her brother chooses the latter.
“It’s not forever.” He says awkwardly, from the outside of the cell, dressed in fitted robes, “just until-.”
He cuts himself off but Azula can hear the unspoken.
Just until you're okay again. Just until you can stop yourself from trying to kill me.
She says nothing, sweat beading her body, head between her knees, wrists and ankles rubbed raw.
“Azula…” he pleads, begs.
Father won’t like that Zuzu. That is a weakness. Weakness is burnt out.
Azula keeps her silence.
Her brother leaves.
*
It seems he got absence from their parents as well.
*
An undefinable amount of time later she is transferred to a prison mental asylum.
It is even worse here.
The heat was hard to keep at bay, but the cold, the fucking cold, is stealing away everything Azula is.
Maybe that’s the point.
Her cell is freezing, and instead of shackles she gets a straitjacket and guards that watch her every move. She can feel herself wasting away, can feel years of muscles collapsing into skin and bone.
Everything she worked for, gone. Everything she spent her life on. She staked her heart at birth and has paid the price with her freedom.
(But was that ever truly freedom?)
(The voice that has been in her ear all her life doesn’t answer, and Azula doesn’t know.)
She bites her lip and tastes blood. It is something reassuring to know that after everything, there is still blood.
(There has always been crimson. There is crimson or there is death (or sometimes both) and Azula doesn’t know which one she would choose if she has the choice.)
*
Her father showed her brother mercy.
Her brother does not extend the same kindness.
*
The guards are people who have lost their sons, their daughters, their siblings and parents to a war that was all but won before her brother ended it.
‘Peace! Together we will usher in a new era, one where there is no war! Where the nations will live in harmony, once again.’
Zuko never had a mind for politics.
(Right and wrong don’t matter, her father had taught, it’s all about motivation. Figure out what they want, and manipulate it to your will.)
She grits her teeth against their fists.
There is no honor in beating the defeated but they do not particularly seem to care.
Her brother didn’t really think this through.
Or maybe he did.
*
Azula is intimately familiar with pain. The guards are mean but she learned from a young age the world was cruel, so really, this is nothing.
*
‘Why do you want to kill the fire lord?’ The first doctor asks and Azula laughs bitterly, ‘take a wild fucking guess.’
*
Her mothers hallucination has left.
She wonders why that hurts.
*
Time has lost whatever meaning it once had.
Bruises fade and get replaced. Sometimes, bones get broken. Azula is tired.
*
Another day, another headache. They have taken off the straitjacket after deeming her docile.
(Docile. Azula curls into a ball as much as her shackles allow and tries to gather warmth.)
*
They move her from the first cell. Her new cell is smaller, but Azula is no longer under the threat of dying from hypothermia so maybe it’s better.
*
The food really is terrible, when they bother to feed her.
*
She can do nothing but think. Her mind has always been her greatest enemy.
*
She’s not supposed to bend. It was one of the stipulations of the straitjacket getting taken off, but the guard who has a crooked nose has been getting too confident.
(He leers at her the same way her fathers old generals did.)
She waits. Waits until it is his shift and he is walking into her cell, arrogant and stupid.
(She’s here now, but she is the one that masterminded the fall of Ba Sing Se, she is the one who can summon cold fire, and she is the one who wields blue flames between the two of them.)
Her attack is quick- a bony elbow to the solar plexus followed by a trip. The shackles that line her wrists and her ankles ally her in this and before the man with a crooked nose can blink she has wrapped the connecting chain around his neck.
She squeezes.
His eyes bulge. His face turns red, then an ugly purple. His hands scrabble frantically and he is moments away from overwhelming her (he has been able to eat to his heart's desire. He has been able to move more than two paces without getting threatened. She is strong but brittle.) when her hand flares bright blue.
His pupils go wide with fear and he freezes as Azula smiles, all teeth and no warmth.
(Draw the line in the sand, the voice urges in her ear, if you let them pass it once, there’s no going back.)
(Careful now, there’s something savage here. Something that has lurked, that has prowled for years, and Azula is just about done with keeping the monster on the leash.)
(Her mother never thought she had one- proving her wrong will change nothing in anybody's mind.)
She brings her flaming palm closer to his face much the same way her father did to her brother.
“Please…” he begs, chest heaving.
Azula down at him, and is this the monster, mother, the one you feared?
(The one you shaped.)
“Hmmmm,” she coos, “no.”
His neck snaps between her hands.
Azula smiles too widely.
Lines in the sand.
(In defending one, she crossed another.)
Guards flood in two second too late and buckle her into a straitjacket.
Azula laughs until she cries.
*
Her mothers hallucination (ghost?) disappeared long ago and in Azula’s memory her features begin to look hazy.
(Azula is once again forgetting.)
That’s fine.
*
No one comes to visit.
Not Mai.
Not Ty lee.
Not even her own brother.
It seems her father was right about one thing.
Trust was for fools.
*
There were monsters or there were children. There could never be both.
Ask anyone and they would say she was the former.
*
An assassin gets into her cell one night.
(The assassin is too loud, is too clumsy. Any fool could catch them so she suspects the guards allowed this, if only to see what the once great princess of the Fire Nation could do.)
She awakens to a blade stabbing downwards (a blade inches from her heart) and just barely manages to move so that the blade clips her shoulder instead.
With practiced movement she beats the figure, blood gushing from her wound until the guards swarm in and drag the pathetic thing away.
Crimson coats her shoulder, runs down her arm, the smell metallic and haunting.
What good was landing on your feet if you get killed in your sleep?
*
‘How did watching your brother get burnt make you feel?’
Azula scoffs at this, ‘I laughed. Father always hated weakness. Is it really such a stretch he would burn for his disobedience?’
The doctor looks up steadily, ‘You didn’t answer the question.’
A slow sneer stretches her face, ‘If you already know the answer, why bother?’
*
Death has never been a foreign thing to her. It taints every memory she’s ever had, leaves a grim feeling of unknowing, of wondering why it should hurt. (No one she once cared about died. They only won.)
War leaves bodies and ghosts.
She can’t be both a monster and a child, but a body and a ghost?
They didn’t call her a prodigy for nothing.
*
‘Let’s talk about your mother.’
‘No.’
*
She pulls up her shirt sometimes just to stare at her protruding ribs. Sometimes she’ll trace the lines with a single finger, to feel every ridge and bump that protects her lungs and heart.
(Ever since she was a child there was a cruel fascination in blood. In bones. In the meat of things. Where there was no right and no wrong, and Azula could be safe.)
Sometimes she’ll dig her fingers in just to watch bruises bloom.
Landing on your feet didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
*
‘Let’s talk about your father.’
‘What do you want to know?’
*
Her hips protrude too. Her arms are bony and thin, as are her legs.
Her bones are brittle, and if Azula is feeling particularly masochistic she’ll reach up to her own face and trace her cheeks and jawline.
*
‘How did he treat you during your brother's banishment?’
‘Father was busy running a nation. I wouldn’t expect you to understand, but some responsibilities can’t be pawned off.’
*
She’s tired a lot now.
Did monsters get tired? Weapons did.
She knows the latter well, and feels as though she is getting to that point with the former.
*
‘Did he ever hurt you?’
‘Do you think yourself great for working with the Royal Family? I’ll let you in on a secret- this family doesn’t let things go. Why do you think Lady Ursa disappeared? If the wife of a prince can vanish, what makes you think you have a chance?’
*
Wake up. Eat if she feels like it. Stare at the wall.
Repeat.
*
‘What do you think of your uncle?’
‘He’s pathetic. He couldn’t do what I did in 3 days with nearly 2 years. The golden son of Azulon, fat good it did him.’
*
Wake up.
*
‘What do you think of your cousin?’
‘Lu Ten? I don’t know, I suppose I think he should’ve been faster. Fire benders are meant to be quick and I hear he got his skull caved in.’
*
Eat.
*
‘You see your mother sometimes.’
‘The last doctor that mentioned my mother had a horrible day falling down the stairs. It was such a tragedy. I can’t imagine why she couldn’t see the obvious step right in front of her.’
*
Stare at the wall.
*
‘What makes you happy?’
‘Not being betrayed.’
*
Sleep.
*
She would sleep forever if she could. She supposes that’s called death.
*
‘How did it make you feel when Mai betrayed you?’
‘If you must know it made me extraordinarily angry. Sometimes it’s just so hard to control that anger- just one word and I’ll burn the place down.
*
She’s always been a forest on fire. Both the forest (young, malleable and so very vulnerable) and the fire (angry, destructive, uncaring of who burns as long as it hurts).
*
‘How did it make you feel when Ty Lee betrayed you?’
‘Persistence in some fields is admired. In this one I have an awful feeling it’s going to get you killed.’
*
She’s the girl (monster?) falling through the air, falling to whatever was below, but this time she doesn’t catch herself, doesn’t save herself, so she’s still falling.
*
‘How does your brother make you feel?’
‘Enough of this. You're tired of talking and I’m tired of listening. Tell my brother you tried and I’m a lost cause. It’s not like he was wrong.’
*
She is everything and she is nothing at all.
She is the hands that burn and the body that receives it.
She is the precious few seconds of flying when falling and she is the water below, angry, hungry and willing to swallow things whole.
She is alive and she is dead, but mostly she is alive. But mostly she wishes she was dead.
She is the sun, burning then she is the earth, scorched.
She is a girl who was told at every turn that love would only ever hurt.
And she is the girl who still fell for that love, all the same.
*
Her brother comes to collect her two years after he left her chained to a grate in a courtyard.
Not that she bothered counting. She stopped counting the days the same time she stopped caring about the 5 people that left (or were never there in the first place).
She knows immediately something is wrong.
(It’s in the air. In her ribs. Knowing something is wrong before it happens has served Azula all her life.)
Her brother stands too stiffly, too on edge for a visit. His clothes, while well woven, are the clothes that are used when the Tui is in the sky. He is flanked by two guards, who, by all means, should be imperial guardsmen but instead wear the clothes of the Kyoshi Warriors.
One she recognizes as the girl that fought Ty lee at the boiling rock. The other is as easily identifiable as the sun in the sky.
Tawny gaze and a neutral expression. Hello Mai.
Or- not quite neutral. Azula once trusted this girl with her life (Betrayed, betrayed, weak-) she knows her ticks, her micro expressions as well as she knows her fire. Mai is on edge and something is wrong.
“Come on.”
Her brother says impatiently, his left foot bouncing up and down on the stone.
The guards that Azula has become well acquainted with but only calls Eyebrows and Greasy Hair unlock the door to her cell slowly.
Shackles clink together but she makes no move to stand.
“Azula.”
He snaps, eyes darting.
Her gaze narrows,
“In the Fire Nation I lived in, we usually exchanged a pleasant “hello” before making demands. Has the crown made you so uncivilized so soon, Zuko?”
His jaw clenches and his nose flares and she smirks inwardly, at his anger. It was his (unique, between the two of them) weakness, his soft point, and if you had the right teacher (father, please, please, I’ll do better) a soft spot might as well be handing a sword to your enemy and turning away.
(A loaded catapult. A sharp sword. She has always been on the edge of being too far gone.)
“Stand up and walk Azula, or we’ll drag you out.”
Mai interrupts their decades long dance of prod and poke and draw blood with just a few simple words.
Azula sneers at her, even as something in her chest tightens at the fact that her voice is the same, after all these years.
The other girl (Zuki?) tenses to readiness as Azula considers.
The threat will be backed. Cause and effect. If one falls, the other lives. There is only one choice here.
“As you wish, Lady Mai.”
Azula mocks, dragging herself to her feet.
If there is one thing Azula knows, it is this: something has happened and she wants to watch the flames burn everything to the ground even (especially) if it takes her too.
*
Crowns only ever meant blood. Thrones only ever meant greed.
What’s the threat of falling if you never hit the ground?
*
The sun is beautiful outside. Azula forgot how much she lost.
*
She sits in front of the Avatar and his friends.
Mai is there. Ty Lee is too.
(Ignore , the voice whispers softly, it can’t hurt if you don’t care. )
She has changed from the prison clothes into one of Mai’s spare robes, that hangs thick and heavy on Azula’s shoulders.
(It makes her look thin, look emaciated and Zuko’s and his friends' faces twist in pain when they first see her. She wonders why. It’s not like they care. The winners never did.)
“How are you, Azula?”
The Avatar asks politely. He is taller now, his shoulders wider. His eyes look heavier too. He looks like he’s drowning under the weight of his duties.
(She can relate.)
(Or- she could. Once.)
“What do you want?”
She ignores his question completely, some vicious part of her delighting the way it makes the water tribe boy stiffen and his fingers tighten around the hilt of his sword.
(Before she pulled her punches. She aimed for a disabling shot. That girl, the one who cared too much, died long ago. Azula does not think they will like the new one better.)
“What do you know?”
Mai interjects smoothly, twirling a blade between deft fingers.
(Balanced weight. Acute taper, double edged, with a lethal point. It's a new knife- a muscle in Azula's jaw twitches.)
Two of them (the water tribe boy and her brother) seem to be in physical pain from biting their tongues but they do not speak and she is very nearly impressed with their restraint. (The blind earth bender just looks vaguely bored. The Avatar, the Kyoshi warrior, the water bender, and Ty lee look worried.)
Nearly.
She hasn’t been in the political scene for years (?) (how long was she in there? How long did she waste away?) but she can read their body language like a piece of parchment.
They were children, child soldiers, not politicians. Their desires lined their faces, their fears, their weaknesses as clear as the sun in the sky.
(Motivation is the key, her father whispers in her ear, one way out and through you must go.)
She supposes some part of her is thankful for that (somewhere deep, deep down) because it tells her so much more than their words will.
They need you, the voice whispers confidently, that is why they planned this.
So they planned to break her out.
And then, once that happened, they decided that their best bet would be for Mai to pull the strings of their operation. A choice she applauds them for, because out of them all, Mai knows best how to play the mind games Azula (almost) always wins.
(Always a game. Always taking, only giving when it benefits her. Azula wins because Azula writes the rules. Playing someone’s else’s game was to balance on the edge of a knife. She played that part for 14 years of her life and it only ever left her gone.)
But then that begged the question of since when did Mai play nice with them? And when did they begin to trust Mai?
(Trust was a two way street, and so very easy to break.)
She shrugs, trying (and failing) not to revel in the feel of her freed limbs. (And the sun in the sky. And the smell of the outdoors. Her world ended, but it still turned.)
What do you know?
“Nothing.”
Zuko steps in now, new stress lines around his eyes, “I got betrayed.”
Azula cocks an eyebrow and then mutters, “Wonder how that feels.”
Mai ignores it but Ty lee winces with her big grey eyes. Something like hatred burns in Azula's gut at the sight of it.
“This man, Governor Tsiki overthrew me in a coup. We,” he gestures to the group, “tried to appeal to the Court of Nations but they agreed that it wasn’t their problem.”
Azula does not particularly care, “and this involves me how?”
“We want to put you on the throne, lightning bug.”
The blind earth bender that just revealed their motive lounges, arms behind her head in a faux relaxed pose.
Immediately alarm bells begin to ring in Azula's head but she covers it with a snort, and quick snark, “You- the people who fought so hard to keep me from the throne- want me to replace this, Governor Tsiki?”
The water tribe boy growls (not nearly) quietly under his breath, “You weren’t our first choice either.”
Azula ignores him.
They want her on the throne. They want her to rule the Fire Nation. There is something ironic about this, and Azula would laugh but her head hurts.
“We,” Mai stresses the word, stepping in and shooting Zuko a warning glance, “will help you gain the throne. You’ll get the crown, the luxuries, the backing of the Avatar: everything.”
Zuko’s grits his jaw and mumbles, “just like you’ve always wanted.”
Azula ignores him too. Her head is spinning, turning up every catch, every hidden motive. Nothing came free in life. An old lesson, one of the oldest, and one Azula learned well.
The silence hangs heavy in the air as Azula narrows her eyes and contemplates.
They’ve revealed their hand. It’s a good one by all means, and despite the fact that she’s been locked up, starved and beaten for the past few years Azula has the power here and they know it. They have chosen to gamble on her ambition, her ruthlessness. They have bet that she wants the throne more than anything.
Betting on motivation, when done right, will always yield the right results.
(Long Feng. The fall of Ba Sing Se. The failed invasion during the day of Black Sun. If they wished to go toe to toe, Azula would meet them with a sneer and a cavity in her chest.)
(Betting on motivation when done wrong, however, muddles the water, redraws lines in the sand, and leaves people dead, more often than not.)
She can take this path they’ve offered. She can play the ruthless, power hungry little sister who has only ever had eyes for the crown, and she can turn on them the second they have served their use.
She could walk away from this on solid ground, the power of a monarch under her belt, the world ready to turn on her command. It would be easy. Why land on your feet when the world is handed to you on a silver platter?
But Azula is tired.
And far more than willing to watch the world burn to the ground than she ever was. She has served her entire life, as the perfect heir, the prodigious daughter, the girl that has had the world: at her feet, in her palms, on her shoulders. (And she’s so fucking tired.)
(Want, want, want. Ambition gets you burned. Family is nothing. The world turns because it’s an eye for an eye.)
They expect her to agree because she’s Azula. Because they think she’s evil, and power hungry, and daddy’s little monster just like mother. She can see it in (some of) the set of their jaws, in the resignation in their eyes.
(They're tired. Azula would feel bad but she doesn’t care.)
They will help her take the throne and then they will rule from behind her, a puppet ruler to children with the world on their shoulders.
Azula smiles, all teeth and no warmth, and she opens her mouth-.
“No.”
The ensuing silence satisfies Azula like the world never has.
(There’s a cavern in her chest, and a humming in her blood. The primal urge to run fills her and for once, Azula will answer.)
(It's primal, but not unfamiliar. Azula knows this feeling intimately from her childhood.)
Their eyes have grown wide, the water tribe boys' mouth hanging open unintelligibly, and their shock is more than easy to see.
What makes the world spin but spite and duty? Once the glass breaks there is no returning it to what it once was. The aftermath is always what kills you.
It’s Mai that interests Azula the most.
(Mai. The girl who never seemed to care, essentially signed her execution warrant for a boy that all but ran his way into exile.)
(An execution warrant Azula stopped, for whatever Agni damned feelings she once had.)
To anybody else Mai’s expression didn’t change, just stayed its neutral façade, the one Azula thinks she might’ve been born with.
(I got everything I ever wanted, as long as I was well behaved.)
But to Azula, she might as well have dropped her mouth open and started foaming at the mouth.
(She could read this girl as well as they could read her.
The story of my life, she thinks bitterly, here until it’s too late.)
(Trust was a two way street and so very easy to break.)
Mai’s eyes had darkened as she set her jaw, and the tips of her mouth quirked in the way it did when she was disappointed.
Ty Lee recovers first, opens her mouth, begging,
“Azula, please.”
Cold golden eyes turn to the gathered teenagers.
“In saving the world you fucked it up even more- congratulations. I’m not going to fix your problem but I will watch it as it burns everything to the ground.”
And then she stands, gives a mocking bow with a cold smile, and walks away.
Fire didn’t stop because someone cried. Monsters didn’t care who they devoured. The fall doesn’t hurt until the ground becomes all too real.
Azula lied.
She has always been too far gone.
*
The girl before pulled her punches. That girl aimed for the disabling shot. She would take prisoners.
The monster that took her place would rip throats open with bared canines and smile, a dark, terrible thing.
*
(All teeth and no warmth.)
*
If the ground didn’t kill you, the monster inside could do it just fine.
*