Work Text:
Gibel: /gee-bel/
Origin: Russian: гибель
noun
- Not death, not suicide, but simply ceasing to exist; deteriorating in a way that is painful for others
- Death, destruction, ruin
*
When Azula thinks of her cousin, she thinks of him frozen in time when she was 7 years old.
(She prefers that version of him. Sometimes, when the lines between reality and sleep blur, she sees him with his skull caved in. Blood and dust coat his uniform, and a mangled crown sits in his hair. He reaches for her, his mouth contorting in some mocking form of speech as blood dribbles out of the corners and he begs for something that Azula can’t quite make out.
Other times, he is the picture perfect prince she remembers, but when he turns to her the illusion breaks. Dust and sand fall from his eye sockets and nose. He opens his mouth, and instead of flesh and muscle there is sand continuously falling, filling the space around her, pressing against her ribs, filling her mouth and she can’t breathe, she can’t breathe, she can’t-.)
She had been on the floor in her room, fuming, as she attempted to fold square pieces of paper in the ancient art of origami for her class at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls.
(It had to be perfect. Princesses did nothing less than perfect. Maybe if she did it right her mother would see that she can create things too.)
(She doesn’t understand why her fire bending can’t be creation, (not when it feels like life. Not when it frees a bird in her chest) but she understands when her father says anger, and her father says, breathe, he wants her to use hatred to fuel it, so she does. (Sometimes.))
But the paper didn’t fold right, and the creases either weren’t sharp enough or were too sharp and it just wasn’t working, why wasn’t it working, father said she was to be perfect-.
Lu ten had been walking by, back ram-rod straight in the way Azula hadn’t quite mastered yet, all the bit heir to the heir.
She glanced up in time to see him stride by her door and then, 2 seconds later double back and poke his head in.
“What are you doing, little cousin?”
His inquiry was soft, as he stepped inside, eyes roaming the crumpled up pieces of paper on her floor. Azula had been mortified to feel hot tears prick at the corner of her eyes, mouth opening into a pout.
“I’m trying to make swan cranes but they won’t work!”
She scowled, arms crossed and Lu ten folded himself into the lotus position across from her.
“Do you want help?”
He had offered, and Azula peeked up at him, suspicious.
“Don’t you have stuff to do?”
She questioned in all her 7 year old glory, because he was the heir to the heir. A figure larger than life, dwarfed only by his father and the fire lord. (And sometimes her father, when he was mad enough.)
Lu ten smiled patiently in the way her father never did,
“I always have time for you, little cousin.”
And so they sat together, on the floor of Azula’s room, as he taught her crease by crease how to fold paper swan cranes.
“You know there’s a legend, Az, that if you fold 1000 of these, that any wish you ask for will come true, granted by Agni herself.”
Azula paused, mid fold to look up at him, eyes wide, “Really?”
Lu ten nodded solemnly, placing a finished swan crane in front of her, “1000 paper swan cranes for a single wish,” and then smiled mischievously, “so all we need now is…?”
Azula does the quick math, “987!”
And Lu ten smiled once more, but (and this moment is frozen in her mind, preserved perfectly) it’s softer this time, and it made the lines around his eyes crinkle, and Azula’s stomach flooded with warmth.
He leaves for the siege that would take his life less than a year later and all she has to remember him by is vague memories and a folded paper swan crane.
*
She conquers that city 7 years later, and thinks of an empty pyre and folded paper.
*
1000 paper swan cranes for a single wish.
She only got to 934 before her father discovered them and burned the paper to ash in front of her.
*
She leaves the avatar and his friends with cold words and a colder smirk. She turns her back to their pleading expressions and empty promises and in turn, cements their thoughts of monster in their eyes.
(Why should she care?)
She walks from them until her feet hurt, until her calves ache and her lungs feel they are going to peel away from her ribs.
( Go, whispers a voice in her ear, leave before you can’t.)
She walks under Agni, then Tui, then Agni once more. She walks until it hurts, and then she keeps walking until it doesn’t.
By the time she finds civilization, she is less human and more walking corpse, more wandering ghost than girl.
( Run.)
The port town is small, well prepared for large boats with large loads and Azula thinks that this is perfect.
(She can’t be here any longer. She has half a plan and half a life- there was nothing that could make her stay.)
Throat cracked and dry she limps up to the nearest stall, an old, shaky, wooden thing that looked like it was built since before Azula was born. A monolith of a woman sits underneath the sloping roof, slowly knitting another colorful bag to, presumably, sell with the others.
The old woman looks up at her after Azula clears her throat, and raises a single judging eyebrow.
“Which of these boats are going to Ba Sing Se?” Azula questions in standard Fire Nation dialect, attempting to stand straight.
(Her thighs hurt and her calves cramp and she is sure she looks terrible but her veins are humming alive, alive, alive and so she continues.
Survive, whispers a voice in her head, little girl I promise you will make it.)
(It is the voice from before the fall. But now the proud arrogant lilt is gone and is replaced with a softer tone that Azula has never heard.)
The woman drags her gaze up and down Azula’s body, somehow seems to become more unimpressed with what she finds, but nonetheless points a single gnarled finger to one of the larger ships in the port.
“Only one of these boats is headed there. Captains a man named Kaza. Got a bleeding heart that one.”
Azula nods her thanks, and limps away to find this ‘Kaza’.
(She survived the fall, survived the ground: what do you do when the world is holding its breath?)
After asking a few people, she is pointed towards an old man with a neatly kept grey beard.
(He served, the voice whispers, look at his posture. Look at his eyes. He will know who you are.)
She straightens her back (Confidence will get you anywhere) ignores the cramp in her calves and walks up to him like she hasn’t been wandering the woods for the past few days.
(Like she isn’t the sister of the overthrown Fire lord, on the run from the man on the throne.)
“I hear you're headed to Ba Sing Se.”
She says bluntly, letting her accent take on a crispness usually associated with people of the court and and Kaza turns toward her wearily, looks her up and down like the old woman at the stall did, and gruffly responds-
“You got pay?”
So much for a bleeding heart.
Azula narrows her eyes, ( half a plan and a once upon a time reputation) and holds her left palm out ( control) . Kaza looks down at her empty hand and opens his mouth, but before he can get a single syllable out her hand erupts in bright azure flames.
(It’s a gamble. A bet. In for a tang, in for a quar. If she’s ever been lucky now is the time for it to work.)
The man pales considerably and unconsciously takes a step back, as the ambient noise from people on the dock ceases. Someone takes a sharp breath in, and Azula is sure that if she were to look, they would all be staring at her, much the same way Kaza is.
(The water crashes against the peer. The sparrow-hawks chirp in the woods. The world does not care for a story that has been told.)
Kaza ducks his head, “Apologies, my Princess.”
(Her reputation precedes her after all these years and she knows Kaza will be too threatened by her to realize he will be aiding her escape the pit that is the Fire Nation.)
Azula nods her acknowledgment and puts out her flame,
“When do we leave?”
Without the obvious threat Kaza has recomposed himself, “Tomorrow at dawn.”
“I’ll be here.”
( One step ahead of disaster.)
With that she turns away, victorious, and intent on finding a goddamn bath.
*
It’s a kingdom for a kingdom. The Fire Nation was full of ghosts and Azula was tired of being haunted.
*
Kaza, in correct etiquette, attempts to give her his room but Azula declines, instead choosing one that is closer to the main deck.
(Easier to defend. If it comes to mutiny she would rather take her chances with La than the wrath of angry men.)
It is smaller than (almost) any room she has ever slept in, with a small cot and a dirty mattress shoved into the corner. It continually smells like sea brine and vodka and Azula can hear everything .
(Her nose doesn’t wrinkle. The salt and liquor is better than the phantom smell of ash and coppery metal.)
(The waves against the hull. The muttering of the crew. The creak of rope and the stomping of boots. The world screams alive , and Azula listens if only so the noise in her head doesn’t drown her out. (Control.) )
The boat is always moving, always swaying and when Azula closes her eyes she can all too easily picture herself in the water, being pulled down, down, down until she freezes.
*
What good was a body if it was frozen? What good was a ghost if it was haunted?
Azula can be both and neither at all.
*
The first day at sea she meditates the sun away.
(Something in her chest loosened as she watched the land disappear into the distance. Azula feels lighter than she’s been in years as she runs from memories and a man she’s never met.)
She sits, legs folded into the lotus position, with a single wax candle in front of her.
(Basics. Always start with the basics. You know this path, you’ve walked it once: you can do so again.)
Closing her eyes, she focuses on her chi, her lungs and the air moving throughout her body.
(Fire comes from the breath.)
In and out.
The metal floor is sturdy beneath her despite the rocking and Azula calms her mind, tries not to think of empty rooms and cutting chains and I love you, Azula, I-.
In and out.
In and out.
In for 4, hold for 2, out for 4, hold for 2.
Focus on your lungs, feel the air in your body, your ribs against your muscles.
In and out.
In and out.
*
‘5 weeks,’ Kaza had said, ‘It’ll take us 5 weeks to get you to the nearest port to Ba Sing Se. From there on it’s about a week's journey on foot to the city.’
Azula nodded, accepting the information with ease.
5 weeks to get her head on straight, to retrain her body.
(5 weeks to sort out the mess of emotions in her chest. 5 weeks to get rid of everything in her that was Fire Nation.)
(Something like a fresh start, she thinks, and her chest writhes with the idea because yes, the Fire Nation left her gone. Yes, it stole everything from her. But it was home once. That had to mean something.)
*
Sleep does not come easy to her.
Sleep has never come easy.
(Even when she was dressed in silk robes, surrounded by people that pledged to die for her.)
Azula wakes, more often than not, to shadows in corners and heavy eyes.
The crew politely does not comment.
*
3 days into their journey she finds herself standing on the deck, breathing in cool morning air, as Agni begins her ascent into the sky.
( Ozone in her nostrils, fingertips smoking as her body racks with stray electricity.
‘Almost perfect.’ ‘One hair out of place.’ Comes the observation from Lo and Li.
‘Almost isn’t good enough.’ She snarls as she tries again.)
You’ve done this before. You can do it again, says the voice as she warms up her body and chi.
Taking a deep breath in, she slips into the basic kata taught to every junior fire bender.
( Basics, the voice whispers, you cannot build a tower on a mountain made of sand.)
When she is confident she is ready, she readies her body into an intermediate kata, and blue flames come out two fingers easily.
(Precision over strength. A hammer is strong but a screw will stay longer.)
It is not long before she tires but for once it is okay, because she can taste freedom on her tongue and it is different from copper and that is all she needs.
(Her world has been black and white for so long. Good and evil, right and wrong. Azula is tired . )
*
She wakes, usually when Tui still stands in the sky and meditates.
In and out.
Candles burn and get replaced.
In and out.
*
Sometimes she pulls up her shirt to look at her stomach. There is a new fascination there, in watching skin grow thicker over ribs. To watch the paleness fade away and muscles grow.
Strength is coming back to her, slowly.
Bit by bit.
(Crease by crease.)
Sea brine is familiar to her now, and when she breathes in, the salt that crusts her nose feels familiar.
(Almost as much as ash.)
*
She still doesn’t sleep well.
*
It's sometime in their third week of sailing, that the blood in her veins hums too restlessly and the room is too small and too warm and the walls are closing in, they're getting closer, someone please hel-.
Ignoring the rest of the sleeping ship she pulls on a thin robe (Not Mai’s) and walks out of her room to the deck like a moth to a flame.
(Her lungs expand easier out here. The cold in the air is like a balm to her soul and the waves are loud enough to drown out her thoughts.)
The night wind pierces the robe she pulled on and Azula breathes in, (and out) adjusting her inner temperature accordingly.
She is a fire bender and as such is powered by Agni, spirit of the sun, but the night has always held such fascination for her.
(There is a calmness. An easy peace. Even monsters had to sleep.)
She walks to the rail nearly trance-like and watches the hull of the ship cut through the waves easily.
In and out.
In and out.
After sometime she feels a presence walk up behind her.
( Careful .)
Kaza comes up beside her dressed in his captain's clothes, and Azula watches him out of the corner of her eye carefully.
He does nothing but look out to the sea as well.
(Safe, says the voice, he is no fool.)
Eventually she turns back too.
She breaks the silence, an estimated 7 degrees later, when she asks-
“You served?”
(For the sake of her survival she has done her best to get rid of the accent that marks her as royal. It will slip in occasionally though, and every time Azula winces, waiting for someone to try and throw her off the boat.)
Kaza doesn’t look at her, doesn’t jump, almost as though he was prepared, and he responds,
“232 division, on The Golden Mountain.”
Azula hums in acknowledgment, her mind reflexively pulling all the knowledge she has of the Fire Nation Navy.
The Golden Mountain was a good ship. She remembers vague reports of success from them, and the 232nd division was no joke but there is something at the edge of her mind, something that screams danger .
(Something was wrong with that ship. Something made her hesitate, made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.)
It is Kaza that breaks the silence this time, severing her dive into think, think, think-
“I served under the then-Captain Zhao.”
Her mind clicks the rest of the pieces into the puzzle easily and Azula’s nose wrinkles in disgust as Kaza cracks a smile, drumming his fingers against the rail,
“I never respected him as an admiral. He was too hot headed, too obsessed with himself.”
She stays silent, knowing there is something unspoken between them, something that is on the edge of coming into existence.
(Regretting something after it’s said has never counted. Likewise, saying something when no one is there to hear it doesn’t either.)
Kaza wryly continues, his fingers halting from their tapping pattern on the rail,
“I only feared him once in my life. And that was when he had one hand wrapped around the spirit of the moon and the other around a knife.”
She grimaces then, her mind automatically casting her back to that night.
(She remembers hot fear in her lungs, seizing her body. She remembers watching in horror as the pale blue giant trembled in the night sky.)
The moon had turned red, and Azula, who had been in the courtyard practicing ( better, do better) had been mid kata, as the color change occurred. Twisting midair, she just barely managed to land on her feet, surprise ricocheting through her, as she watched fingers wrap around it.
(The Fire Nation was treated with an unprecedented number of storms the next few weeks. Her father mentioned it only once, and that was to mourn the loss of the Northern Fleet. Azula kept her mouth shut and tried not to think of old wars and older spirits.)
Kaza shrugs lightly,
“A fools a fool, no matter what position he’s in. It made me rethink my priorities.”
Belatedly, she realizes what he means and she blurts out,
“You deserted.”
(Too much accent . The -ou- was too sharp. )
Kaza glances at her and clarifies,
“The Navy. I got reassigned to the west border.”
Azula nods slowly then,
“Zhao was a fool.”
She says quietly.
Kaza smiles a melancholy smile that doesn’t reach his eyes,
“He was my best friend once.”
Azula blinks in surprise.
He looks out to the waves then, shoulders hunched under the weight of memories,
“The Zhao I knew when I was young wasn’t… him. The man that tried to kill the moon wasn’t the boy I grew up with. That boy was a prankster, a trouble maker. All our teachers hated him.”
Azula keeps her eyes on him even as he does not meet her gaze.
“I got in so much trouble with him. My dad didn’t like him, but my mom thought he was harmless.”
Kaza pauses, then admits,
“I think, at one point, I would’ve died for him. I don't know. Sometimes I wonder where that boy went. If I could’ve saved him.”
Silence reigns for a long moment.
“He came up to me, for the first time in months and said, ‘Kaza, I am going to the Northern Water Tribe and I am going to kill the moon spirit.’ He followed it up then, dead serious, with ‘I want you to come with me.’”
Kaza laughs sharply, bitterly, “I told him no, called him a fool right to his face and he left.”
Kaza pauses, lost in memories and Azula gently prods with-
“I can’t imagine he was too happy about it.”
He regards her for a moment before chuckling slowly,
“No, he wasn’t.”
Azula swallows, “Why not? Why didn’t you go with him?”
( If you loved him, why not? If he was your superior, and if he loved you back why didn’t he just order you to go?)
Kaza looks at her with sad eyes,
“I think I knew, long before he started calling himself ‘Zhao the moon slayer’ that he was too far gone. That the boy that I would help put scorpion worms in lunchboxes with, had died.”
( Isn’t that what love is? Dying, setting yourself on fire for someone?)
Kaza shifts then against the rail, jaw clenching,
“It was like watching a ship on fire. You can’t look away, but eventually, you have to save yourself and swim away.”
Azula says nothing.
(I don’t know how to save myself.)
They watch the sunrise together.
*
When the tide washed away the lines in the sand does that mean she can redraw it? Or is it gone forever, left with only the vague memory of its existence?
*
She leaves the ship that carried her for 5 weeks at a port nearly one week away from Ba Sing Se.
Kaza finds her packing a bag with the few belongings she calls her own, and watches with dark eyes.
“It’s a big world out there, Princess.”
Her title sounds wrong ( when did that happen, when did the world that was so right turn on its head?) but Azula shrugs instead of commenting.
(Silence is the key to survival. Don’t rock the boat and no punishment will come to your head.)
He keeps watching her with a steady gaze, before he, very quietly says,
“If you want to save the world, you have to save yourself first.”
Azula bristles at first but then remembers ( he was my best friend) ( I would’ve died for him) (save yourself) and nods slowly, before bowing far deeper than etiquette demanded.
Kaza bows back, and as he escorts her off,
“May Agni be with you.”
Azula repeats it back to him and walks off, without turning back.
*
Is this freedom yet?
*
“Rule of thumb,” one of the crew members had whispered to her in the mess hall, “keep away from small towns. Keep near places where other immigrants frequent.”
At her cocked eyebrow he has chuckled sardonically, “those eyes are Fire Nation through and through. I’d suggest you find a hood and then you keep that hood up.”
*
Excerpt from: A brief history of tactics used by the Fire Nation during War:
Deemed the ‘Scorched Earth Policy’, Fire Lord Kotegio* was the first man to ever put this tactic to use. Utilized as a defensive maneuver, Scorched Earth Policy involves the burning of any important elements of the acquired land.
It’s first recorded use was against the Earth Kingdom, circa 439 BAEA**, during the War of the Second Sun***. By burning the land to decimation, the Fire Nation could then safely abandon the acquired land without fear of the Earth Kingdom moving back within it.
This aggressive defense strategy was quickly used against the Fire Nation and much of the land in the southern regions of the Earth Kingdom became inhospitable, as the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation armies alike tried to starve the opposing sides.
*a mainly unknown Fire Lord, Kotegio was often cited as weak willed and temperamental. His reign (439- 447 BAEA) was in large part, peaceful, until the very end, in which he entered the Fire Nation into a dispute between the Southern Water Tribe and the Earth Kingdom. More on page 372 titled The War of the Second Sun. See below for a quick summary.
**Before Air Empire Attack
*** The War of the Second Sun was a set of 7 battles fought between the Earth Kingdom, the Southern Water Tribe and the Fire Nation. It ended in 440 BAEA, due to the then Air Nomads, playing peacemakers.
*
On foot she passes town after town. Villages after villages.
The people of the Earth Kingdom are weary of strangers on instinct alone, and Azula does her best not to interact with them.
Even still, she passes swathes and swathes of land, where dust settles in her nostrils and the ground is more ash than dirt.
This is what the war has done, the voice whispers.
The end justifies the means, her father says in her ear.
(Does it really? Her heart asks, as she watches families with gaunt faces try to farm anyways.)
*
Her father called them peasants. Had said that they were useless, pathetic, and weak.
But one of them throws her a loaf of bread without a single comment, when he notices her eyeing it.
And another lets her sleep in her barn.
And there are, of course those who are weary of her on sight, but they do not start anything with their fists.
(Their words are another story, but Azula can see through politicians and Generals. Peasants of the Earth Kingdom are as easy to read as a parchment for juveniles; underneath their anger, and their cold words, is a hurt born from loss. Every time it happens, Azula bites her tongue harsh enough to draw blood, ducks her head, and leaves.)
Azula wonders what else her father was wrong about.
*
Forgiveness, her mind whispers.
Weakness, her father says.
(Maybe not.)
*
Ba Sing Se is as she remembers it to be. Walls tall, proud and unmoving as the element that claims it.
(Earth is the element of substance.)
Gold and green dress every surface, as if the people are trying to prove who they are and despite the beautiful architecture, Azula knows it hides something so much more ugly beneath it.
(There is no war in Ba Sing Se.)
(Isn’t that what all beautiful things do though? Hide the scars so that no one saw what rotted underneath?)
Her uncle's tea shop is easy to find.
The Jasmine Dragon.
He hasn’t even bothered to change the name.
(Old anger comes to her. Old feelings, old bitterness that does nothing but muddle the lines of who Azula is even more.)
(When did you decide to save one child and not even glance at the other?)
A hideaway for a pathetic old traitor of a man.
She walks in stronger than she was a month ago, stronger than she’s been in years, but her head still hurts and there are days when she wants to lay down and never get up.
(Calm, says the voice, this isn’t a vipers den but that does not mean it isn’t dangerous. In and out.)
(A dim candle in a small metal room on a small metal ship. In and out. In and out. In and ou-.)
A cheery voice interrupts her thoughts, and her brain takes half a second too long to translate the Earth Kingdom commoners speech. It takes her another second to realize that it is because while the dialect was of the commoners, the accent was tailored to nobles.
(Interesting.)
“Hi! Welcome to the Jasmine Dragon, my name is Jin, how may I help you?”
Azula gives the girl a quick cursory look, and, when she deems her innocent (enough) Azula speaks, also in Earth Kingdom, “What’s the name of the man who runs this establishment?”
The girl (Jin) blinks once, twice at Azula’s bluntness but recovers hastily, dropping the odd accent, “Iroh. Do you- do you want to talk to him?”
Azula nods once, and Jin flashes her a quick smile before scurrying off to the back.
She takes a few seconds alone to look around. It’s beautiful, she’ll admit. Well decorated, (not an inch of red in sight) and the jasmine incense makes the atmosphere quaint, serene almost.
(Peaceful. So this is the resolution for a man who besieged a city for nearly 2 years, losing countless lives on both sides. Why did he get this and she got a shattered mind and blurred lines?)
Azula is all too prepared to ruin it.
(If that’s all her uncle thinks she is capable of, who is she to prove him wrong?)
(Pettiness has always been Zuko’s. But lines blur and Azula just wants to know why. )
Her mind snaps itself out of its haze and a familiar sneer curls her face when her Uncle walks in, dressed in green and gold.
“Hello Uncle.”
She says, (It’s the language of the Fire Nation, the language of the Court. It’s a warning. I can ruin you here and now, she is saying) and Iroh stiffens as soon as he hears her. The few customers in the joint turn to look at them at the unfamiliar language and his eyes narrow nearly imperceptibility, before he forces a smile to his face,
“Azula! It is good to see you!”
He answers in Earth Kingdom and the patrons turn back to their own conversations but they very clearly are still eavesdropping.
(He’s on edge, the voice whispers (and the arrogant lilt is back, the tone that says survive, land on your feet, win, win, win) this might be his territory, but it is your serve.)
(She learned strength before she ever learned weakness. Maybe that is why she is so empty.)
Azula bows, the expected 45 degrees to an elder and he returns it,
“You as well Uncle. I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
She returns to the Earth Kingdom tongue, keeping the timbre of her voice even, keeps the fire from her tone ( not yet) .
Iroh forces a chuckle,
“Of course not. Please come in, I’m sure you are weary from your trip.”
“I am indeed, thank you.”
Iroh nods, gesturing for her to follow, and begins to make his way back from where he first came from.
Azula brushes past Jin who watches them with an unreadable gaze.
*
Iroh spent nearly 2 years besieging a city and all he gained for his effort was a dead son, a stolen throne, and a world that lost its respect for him. 3 years after that, he conquered said city during the height of a fire benders power, but he did not do it for the Fire Nation.
Azula took Ba Sing Se (the indomitable, the unconquerable, the impenetrable ) a city that withstood the Fire Nations assault for 100 years, in a bloodless coup with only 2 girls by her side. Not 1 year later she fell to the last water bender of the Southern Water Tribe.
(It’s funny.)
She wonders who their ancestors would be more ashamed of.
*
She saved herself from falling off of the Western Air Temple. She saved herself from her fathers wrath for 14 years.
What good was saving yourself all your life if hitting the ground once was all it took?
*
Iroh leads her to a small room above the tea shop, a wooden apartment meant for civilians, for the working class for everyone not royalty so, she supposes, a humble tea shop owner.
It is unfit for the once General Crown Prince and the nearly Fire Lord.
(It’s funny.)
Azula steps into the threshold as Iroh hurries over to the small stove in the corner to prepare tea.
( Dust invades her nose . She hated this, she remembers, from back when Mai was loyal, back when Ty Lee was loyal. She hated the constant irritation of dryness, of sand in her lungs, of musk in her nose.)
(The past is not your answer.)
Walking carefully over to the small table in the center of the room, she sees an unused Pai Sho board sitting in the middle of it. Iroh comes back to her holding 2 steaming cups of tea and neither of them acknowledge the fact that the stove wouldn’t have had the time to light, much less boil water.
(Things left unsaid have never counted.)
She takes the cup he offers, fingers burning with a pleasant warmth as her eyes wander over the game board-.
“Fancy a game, Azula?”
She raises her eyes to him, and considers.
( Step carefully now. It can all too easily fall apart.)
“I fear I’m not well acquainted with the intricacies of Pai Sho.”
Azula admits evenly,
( Take the bait, the voice goads, play my game.)
“But you do know how to play?”
Clasping her fingers tighter around the porcelain she nods,
“Humor an old man.” Iroh says ( Game set.) and Azula fakes relenting, pulling out the small chair at the side of the table.
( Now is no time for fists.)
She sets the cup down beside her without taking a sip and she does not miss the way he eyes it with distaste.
They choose their pieces in silence, and when they have both placed them on the board Azula finally, finally, brings the cup to her lips, taking a sip of the tea.
(Oolong, her mind categorizes, meant to represent rebuilding, meant to represent healing. She nearly scoffs out loud, how subtle .)
Azula takes a cursory glance at the tiles her Uncle chose and then looks away, seemingly bored. His eyes glitter with satisfaction at her nonchalance and the voice inside her ear is positively purring.
“An interesting set up you’ve chosen, Azula.”
Iroh takes another sip of his tea and she shrugs lightly,
“Father didn’t deem Pai Sho as an important part of my political curriculum.”
Iroh’s façade falls for the slightest moment,
“I hope you will see the beauty in this game now then, niece.”
He has never called her niece. Has never seen her as family, as blood. It is a subtle manipulation and she is nearly impressed.
(She hates it on his tongue, hates the way he only claims her as family when she is no longer a threat.)
(But this hatred is familiar to her. She is used to it flooding her chest, filling the crevices, digging them deeper and then leaving. Hatred can be fire as much as it can be a flood- it has never been claimed by one element.)
She chooses a seemingly random tile and moves it forward, beginning the game.
(In and out.)
Iroh studies the move with a practiced gaze.
(Pai Sho is a game of strategy. All masters had one unique to their own, and her Uncle played the game much the same as he sieged a city.)
They go back and forth, Azula spending little time on her moves and Iroh choosing each piece with care. They have passed an estimated 11 degrees when Azula interrupts their silence,
“I must confess Uncle, I did not seek you out for merely a cup of tea and a game.”
Iroh’s eyes fly up from where he was studying the board and his eyes narrow again,
“Speak plainly, Niece, and I will do my best to answer.”
He uses a deceptively light voice and his body language gives her nothing but calm old man, and she is reminded that he was called the Dragon of the West for a reason.
(He grew up in the same pit you did, he knows this dance.)
Azula glances down at the board, and then picks up her cup from where it grew cold at her elbow. Taking a slow sip, she doesn’t bother to warm it with her bending.
She mulls over her next words carefully, letting him make his move and then striking.
“When did you first believe me to be irredeemable?”
(Her great grandfather began a century-long war with a calculated attack on all 4 air temples. He struck without warning, without any hint of viciousness and this resulted in the near extinction of the air benders.)
Iroh pales, (the monster purrs in contentment) as his mouth opens,
“I beg your pardon, niece.”
She chooses a piece to move forward in a bold attack as she repeats the question, knowing full well he heard her just fine.
Iroh glances down at the board and frowns, whether from the question or the move or both Azula does not know.
He lets the tense silence sit as he puzzles and when he finally answers it makes Azula furious enough to want to set the city on fire.
(In and out. In and out. In and out. In-.)
“I never thought you irredeemable, Azula.”
He moves a rose lily piece forward to block her and Azula has hardly let him set it down before she’s moving another piece forward in offense.
“Bullshit,” she hisses and Iroh recoils before eyeing her, “you never even tried.”
Iroh swallows, “Niece, I know you are angry-.”
She interrupts him, “Complacency doesn’t suit you Uncle. There are no lies between us that need to be shed, no feelings to be sheltered- the only thing that connects us is blood and that has never been enough for you, has it?”
(Calm, control, control, control.)
His jaw grits in anger then, as he moves another piece forward. She studies him critically, and then the board.
When it becomes clear he is not going to answer she prods-
“Was it because I reminded you of you? The prodigious child, the golden heir? Willing to burn the world at our fathers command?”
Iroh’s nose flares but he keeps his silence.
“Or was it because I reminded you of Ozai?” She doesn’t even stutter over his name and Iroh is too composed to fidget but he eyes a piece too long and Azula smiles (all teeth and no warmth).
“Was I too ambitious? Too cruel? Did I remind you too much of the brother that begged for your throne not 4 days after your only son's death?”
The tension in the room is reaching a stifling point now. The tea sits forgotten, and Iroh moves a piece forward.
She laughs sharply, “or do I give you too much credit? Is it because I’m female? The weaker sex?”
She slaps a tile forward without looking at it.
(Careful.)
Leaning forward she drops her voice to a whisper, “It’s because of Zuko isn’t it?”
At the first mention of her brother she gets the reaction she was looking for all along.
(It’s in her chest, this hot hatred that is so familiar and she hates, she hates, she ha-.)
“Why?” She asks quietly.
(It’s not serious, it’s not, she doesn’t care, it’s just a game, it’s bait, she doesn’t ca-.)
The single word hangs in the air and Iroh takes a deep breath in.
( Calm.)
“He needed me more.”
- lightning at her fingertips - empty bedrooms - lightning coursing through her body - a dining table with empty seats - lightning too close to her heart - dead gardens - hitting the ground, electricity still wracking her frame - cold stone stinging her palms - her father, angry - her father, eyes cold - her father, mouth drawn in a tight line, her father, walking away, her father -
Unaware of her inner turmoil because he has his head buried in the board (and the sand) Iroh continues,
“My brother is not a kind man. Zuko needed guidance, needed a hand to guide him out of the dark-.”
Azula laughs sharply then in disbelief, and Iroh looks at her with dark, sad, eyes
“I know how it must sound to you, Azula, niece. But-.”
He doesn’t finish the sentence before (she’s losing control, reign it in, calm, calm, calm-) Azula slams her hands against the table, making the board and the cups jump, as she revels in the sting against her palms.
(She’s in a courtyard- she’s in a cell- she’s in a small metal room on a small metal ship- and the thoughts are too loud, the world is too big, she wants to know why, but doesn’t want to hear the answer why, why, why, why-)
“You’re a coward.” She hisses, eyes cold, and Iroh looks at her with sad, sad eyes.
( In and out. Crease by crease. Fold by fold. Control. Control.)
He moves another piece forward in silence and Azula doesn’t need to look at the game to know she is on the brink of losing.
He needed me more. He needed me more. He needed me more. He needed me more. He needed me mo-.
She moves a piece back in retreat and tries to recollect her anger, tries to regain her control,
(In and out. In for 4, hold for 2, out for 4, hold for 2, in for 4, hold for 2, out for 4, hold for 2.)
Iroh pays little attention to the game now (sure he will win) and he hardly looks at her tiles as he moves another piece forward.
(So close .)
He keeps a steady gaze pinned on her like he can salvage this, like he can save her, like she is just a child.
“I hate you.” She says finally, carefully moving a piece back, in an attempt to prolong the inevitable, in an attempt to make something out of nothing.
(Just like she’s always done.)
( Born lucky. Land on your feet. Take chance and make it your fool.)
Iroh smiles (it doesn’t reach his eyes), a slow sad thing,
“I’m sorry, Azula.”
He glances down at the board and confident in his practically assured victory, moves a tile, then looks back to her.
(So close. A few more moves.)
She’s empty, she’s so empty, where is the anger, where did it go, it’s not fair, she tried so hard-.
She meets his eyes now, “I don’t care.”
Iroh swallows, “I think you do.”
She moves a piece back. He moves one forward. She moves another back. He presses his advantage.
It goes on like this, her retreating, his moving forward (her guiding, him following) and he is 3 moves away from taking the game when she has succeeded in her trap.
He needed me more. He needed me more. He needed me more. He needed me more. He needed me mo-.
“Game set.”
She says quietly, and her chest is so empty.
A gaping hole, the ground beneath her opens, and she feels like she could fall right now, could keep falling for all her life.
Iroh startles, looking down at the board with new eyes scanning, scanning, scanning, and she sees the exact moment he sees her trap.
(His shoulders stoop. He breathes out. He looks beaten and there is no warmth in her chest.)
He moves the one tile that could save him and when she takes that tile he nods his surrender.
(Match.)
“A good game Azula. It seems I still have things to learn in my old age.” He tries for light heartedness and Azula shakes her head.
(She’s so fucking tired.)
“Thank you for the tea Uncle.”
It is a goodbye, it is leaving (running) and Iroh knows this. She can see his desperation (to make things right or to keep an eye on her, she does not know.) to make her stay.
“Stay the night Azula. Ba Sing Se is dangerous for us fire benders without Agni.”
He coaxes and Azula smiles bitterly.
He needed me more. He needed me more. He needed me more. He needed me more. He needed me mo-.
(Now is when you care? It’s too late, too far gone. Too much time stands between them, too many unspoken words.)
“Your worry is unnecessary Uncle. I have done just fine by myself.”
He does not acknowledge the jab,
“Not only that, but your Pai Sho trick was ingenious, niece. Teach an old man something?”
(She could stay. She could take this offer of warmth, of security. Her Uncle's offer is genuine; she can see it in the openness of his eyes, in the stoop of his shoulders.
She can stay and he will care and maybe they will mend something.)
(You cannot un-burn a pyre.)
She can almost see herself, serving tea with an apron on, like a commoner. Catering to ignorant people who will never know who they once were.
(The musk of the Earth Kingdom has infused her nose, and despite her discomfort Azula has always been good at adapting. ( One step ahead of disaster .) But the salt of her nation still lays thick in her memories. Her Uncle is ash and she is tired of ash.)
“I call it the Ba Sing Se Gambit,” she says quietly and Iroh’s eyes lighten because he thinks this means she will stay, “and I’m sure you can figure it out.”
His face falls and he opens his mouth but she interrupts him dropping her voice to a whisper,
“You burnt this bridge long ago, Uncle. You cannot complain of the chasm between us.”
Azula leaves then, leaves in silence, leaves into the night and wonders if this was how her mother felt.
(She should know better than to ask questions she’s not prepared to know the answer to.)
(She is so tired.)
*
She thought if she bled a little more it would fill the cavity in her chest and silence the ghosts in her head.
*
Truth: you cannot un-shatter the glass, the same way you cannot not hit the ground.
Lines in the sand might get washed away by the tide but they were drawn for a reason.
*
For the next 11 days she wanders the Earth Kingdom.
(Looking for something, running from something. For and from what, Azula is not sure anymore.)
She leaves Ba Sing Se because there is nothing there for her that doesn’t hurt, nothing there that doesn’t chafe.
(Memories wrack her. Grey and tawny eyes. Thick makeup and ‘ don’t flatter yourself’ and it hurts, it hurts, it hur-.)
She walks away from her Uncle, walks away from his promise of security and love. She walks until her soles bleed, and her body aches, and sometimes she sleeps, but mostly she thinks.
(The war her father continued was her legacy. It was what defined her, what made her who she is. If she doesn’t like who she is, then what does that make the war?)
*
She’s long gone from Ba Sing Se when she encounters a village. Immediately part of her is on edge, and she is hyper alert as she walks into the small market, keeping her head down and her shoulders hunched.
(Careful now.)
She’s halfway down the market road when a voice calls out to her, in the commoners tongue of the Earth Kingdom,
‘‘Where are your parents?”
Azula’s head darts up, hoping the voice was talking to some random child. But no, the woman stares straight at Azula and she pauses, turning the question in her mind wearily.
(On edge. She is tired of destruction but she has been tired all her life and that has never stopped her.)
(Where are your parents?
I’m not sure. My mother murdered my grandfather so my father wouldn’t kill my brother. I imagine she’s dead, but it would be my luck that she’s not. My father continued the 100 year war until he got beaten by a 12 year old pacifist and had his bending taken away. So he is most likely rotting in a jail cell somewhere, if he hasn’t already been executed.)
While her mind is already scanning the woman, looking for weakness, for something to exploit (Peasantry or working class, young, early thirties, late twenties. Not a bender nor a fighter. Tan, she works outside.) another part of her is waiting for a spark of recognition, a dawning of realization. For the woman to recognize the once Crown Princess of the Fire Nation and raise the alarm, but it does not come and the woman still waits for Azula to respond.
“Dead.”
Azula says in the Earth Kingdom dialect tersely, in the hope that the woman will not catch the crisp accent that red flagged all nobility no matter where they resided.
(The Earth Kingdom dialect was all rough syllables, with long vowels and short consonants. Growing up, it was hard for her to switch from the crisp Fire Nation tongue but her father made sure she got it before long.)
Something like sorrow fills the woman’s eyes and her mouth tightens (There was another emotion there, the smallest snapshot. What was it, what was it, was it danger or-?) and she whispers, quietly enough that Azula can barely piece it together, ‘so damn young.’
(Youth has never mattered in the Fire Nation. You were strong or you weren’t. They didn’t get soldiers for a war by waiting for them to grow old.)
The woman raises her voice next, breaking the pattern of thought Azula has circled millions of times, and she shocks her by offering,
“Come to my house. I’ll feed you, give you a roof over your head for the night.”
Every unrelated thought screeches to a halt in her mind and Azula narrows her eyes in suspicion.
(There is no such thing as a free token. There is always a debt, a price to pay. Understand the motives, play the cards right, and coming out on top is guaranteed.)
The woman keeps her body posture relaxed, and an open welcoming gaze.
“Why? You can see I’m Fire Nation.”
Azula does her best to mimic the woman’s accent, drawing out the longer vowels of the working class, the lilt of the i’s in her calculated question. It’s practically perfect.
The woman’s face flashes with pity, and some part of Azula (the part her father encouraged, the part her mother feared) rails against it, making her want to unleash azure flames to show this woman that she doesn’t deserve her grief.
(Control. In and out. In and out. )
“You’re just as much a victim of any of us.”
(Her brother bitterly, ‘because you're just so perfect’. Her father cunningly, ‘born lucky.’)
The woman says, completely earnest and Azula startles here, fumbles in surprise. Mis-stepping (miscalculating) as the words slam into her like a hard fist to an unprepared gut. She loses the composure that left her alive in the court to 10 words, spoken by a peasant, and one of the Earth Kingdom no less.
(The mask that kept her fathers wrath from her for just the slightest second cracks.)
(Weak.)
Immediately her mind is spinning, pulling up reasons she’s not ( she’s not, she’s not, she’s not) . She’s a weapon. A monster. She couldn’t be a victim because she was the hand that burnt the forest to the ground, the youngest of a line that waged war for 100 years. She couldn’t be a victim because victims were weak and she wasn’t wea-.
“No, I’m not.”
Azula says too sharply, (her accent has slipped, she pronounced the i too much) she’s strong, she’s a prodigy, she’s everything she's ever had to be to survive.
“Still could use a warm meal couldn’t ya?”
A man inserts himself into their semi-conversation, striding lazily up beside the woman (And immediately Azula is even more on edge, because men were volatile, were dangerous, had anger ingrained within them from the beginning) carrying a large sack of rice on his shoulder.
His voice is deep, gruff, and harder to understand as he stretches the consonants to the point of bleeding them together, but his eyes are just as welcoming as the woman he twines his hand with (married).
Azula hesitantly nods, once and they beckon for her to follow as they start to walk out of the market, hands still intertwined.
(She weighs her options. For one piece of tinder, it would be stupid to follow them. They have every advantage here, they know the terrain, the people, and Azula is still only a teenage girl.
But for a different piece of tinder some part of her trusts them. That part is juvenile, is stupid, and naive and practically non existent (thank you father) but it is there and Azula is tired.)
(She knew kindness once, and the couple radiated it.)
Hesitantly she follows behind them, her mind carefully planning every escape route, attempting to once again keep her one step ahead of disaster.
(Land on your feet.)
They get to the small house not 15 degrees later and the husband disappears down to the river as his wife hands her (green and gold) clothes, saying,
“I grew out of these. They look like they’ll fit you.”
Something flickers in the woman’s eyes and her hands clench the fabric too tightly. The pieces click into place then and something like guilt fills the pit of Azula's stomach.
(Take what is yours my daughter. Blessed by Agni we are, and as such we deserve everything. )
(It’s funny. )
She is neither cruel nor ignorant so she does not mention that the clothes are tailored for the build of a teenage girl. She does not mention the empty room that grief seems to permeate from. And she does not mention the flickers of sadness that live in the woman’s eyes and the chest of the man’s.
The husband has returned from the river with buckets of water and they give her soap, towels and a comb before leaving her to bathe.
(The soap is unscented. The towels are rough against her skin and she has to heat the water herself. Azula clutches the bar of soap closer to her chest and tries to banish thoughts of soothing hands and jasmine scented lotion.)
After making sure that the couple cannot see her she uses her fire bending to carefully heat the water. She lights the water past scorching and then steps in her skin stinging.
(Fire benders do not burn easily.)
She scrubs until her skin is red and raw, until she can no longer feel salt or dust or phantom chains.
(In and out. Fold by fold.)
When she is done she dresses in the clothes handed to her and wonders if it should feel scratchier against her skin.
They, true to their word, give her warm food. She accidentally puts too many fire flakes in and it is enough to make her eyes water and her throat burn.
(When she is done, she can finally breathe through her nose without smelling sand or ash.)
Azula eats it without complaint.
Agni leaves and Tui rises and they let her sleep in the barn, the warmest she’s been in days.
She does not sleep well.
(Her, practicing in a courtyard she knows inside out.
Her, training until each kata is muscle memory, training until she could do it in her sleep because almost has never been good enough, for her father or herself.
And then: black figures, dropping from the surrounding roof, faces blurred as they reach for her.
Her staying, fighting because that is her duty, because that is all she has been asked to do.
Her fighting, blue flames dissipating the shadowy figures with ease, but more and more replace each other, and Azula is trying but there are so many, reaching for her, reaching-.
Her, trying, trying so hard, and failing anywa-.)
She wakes without a sound, throat dry, flames reacting to her fear, as she attempts not to light the barn on fire.
In and out. In and out. In and out.
When Agni rises again (always rising) she helps the man in the field because that is what her honor demands because that is what she owes- nothing comes free in the world.
The man eyes her dubiously when she demands to help but he gives her a rake nonetheless and tells her to upturn the dirt in one of the fields surrounding the small house.
He, kindly, does not comment on the way she mimics his grip as though she has never wielded it in her life.
(Born lucky. Land on your feet. One step ahead of disaster.)
She works underneath the sun, sweating, turning dirt. It is hard work, hindered by Azula’s lack of knowledge in the subject and by the time she finishes, noon is long gone.
(Her shoulders burn and sweat crusts her body. Her nose is once again filled with earth, but it is not dust and it is not sand. It is soil and dirt and she thinks it is not so terrible.)
They insist she stays for one more night and she does not fight them.
(The kindness of strangers. Her father called them savages but the people of the Earth Kingdom have fed and clothed her, despite knowing she is Fire Nation.)
(Her mothers voice, war is needed sometimes, Azula.
Maybe mother, but then maybe not.)
She bathes again, and the water is just as hot as last night, but this time the food doesn’t burn on the way down.
Her body aches as she lays in the bed of straw in the barn but her head doesn’t hurt and Azula wonders if her father would hate her yet.
(She’s a ship on fire and she is wondering when the damage becomes irreparable.)
(Save yourself.)
She leaves the next day.
*
There is something to be said about wars and children.
Something about how fire purifies sometimes, destroys others.
There is something to be said about going home, but for the life of her, Azula can’t think about what it is.
*
5 days after leaving the couple something inside of her breaks. Something inside of her shatters, cracks and she feels the same way she did when the water bender beat her.
(Grasping at the edge. Scrambling for purchase. If there is one thing that is constant it is hitting the ground.)
She remembers this from the asylum all too well. She remembers weeks of bleakness, of wishing it would end, that she would end, that she would cease to exist because it hurts it fucking hurts.
The feeling drags her movements, heavies her limbs, so that the ground seems all too inviting. She gives into her exhaustion not 10 degrees into walking and curls up underneath a tree by the side of the road.
(She gives into the demons that haunt her mind and wonders if they are ghosts.)
Monster, weapon, monster, weapon, mon-.
Her thoughts are spiraling, she is spiraling and she can feel herself fall but cannot find the motivation to stop it.
(She wonders how long it would take for her to decompose, to become the forest, to forget.)
She lays there a whole day, her mind warring, her body shivering.
When the sun rises the next day (always rising) she forces herself to her feet, forces one foot in front of the other in some twisted form of desperation.
(Fight, a voice whispers in her ear (gone is the arrogance once again, gone is the confidence of a girl who has caught herself every time), fight because that is all you can ever do.)
It takes her 3 and half weeks in its entirety for her to realize that the Earth Kingdom has nothing for her.
*
She thought leaving was how people healed, how they came back better .
(Sometimes they didn’t come back whole.
Sometimes they didn’t come back at all.)
(Mother, brother, uncle, Mai, Ty Lee)
She thought that if she left ash and fire she could become whole again.
*
The first boat that accepts her offer of work is nothing more than a glorified rust bucket.
The captain is a man with one milky eye, and old leathery skin. He laughs when she offers help and when she bristles he says,
“Hope you know how to swim, darlin.”
The boat named Storm of fire barely floats at the port and doesn’t look like it will survive a small wave, much less the open ocean but desperation is heavy in her limbs and her chest.
(Her veins hum get out, get out, get out before you can’t and Azula knows they speak the truth.)
(She had half a plan when she left the Fire Nation. She returns with nothing but a stronger body, and an empty chest.)
She eyes the ship dubiously, decides she has nothing to lose and accepts the position for deckhand.
(She doesn't know how to ‘deckhand’ but she is a quick learner. And it’s not like they will throw her off. (Right?))
It takes her 3 days to readjust to the rocking, to the creaking, to the salt and liquor and another week and a half for them to get the Fire Nation.
(They make it in one piece and Azula thinks that maybe miracles do exist.)
She leaves them at the easternmost islands that the Fire Nation claims and wonders if returning home should feel so much like walking to an execution.
*
‘What are you looking for?’ The wife had asked.
Something worth saving, my mothers love, the reasons no one ever gave for leaving, Azula thinks but that is her hurt, her pain and yes, it burns but it has always done that, so she will keep it close to her chest.
(Just a little too close to her heart.)
(A knife stabbing down. A knife inches from her-.)
‘I’m not sure.’
It’s not a lie.
*
Save yourself , Kaza had said.
I’m sorry, Iroh had said.
So damn young, the woman had said.
Her mother taught her absence and her father taught her fear. Azula is trying to find herself in between.
*