Chapter Text
This was it. This was how she was going die. She was Crown Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, and she was going to die at the hands of her useless disgraced Uncle.
She felt her back hit the water, the heavy cloth dragging her down further and further. By some miracle her neck hadn’t broken upon impact. That would have been a kinder death. Now she'll drown.
Her crew was too busy fighting her brother and Uncle to come for her. Those two were the ones who threw her overboard in the first place, they wouldn't come for her. She opened her mouth, ready to get this over with – so she would at least give herself the dignity of controlling the when, if not the how – and felt the water rushing into her lungs and stomach, filling her body through every crevice it could sneak itself through. And yet... And yet, she wasn’t drowning. There was no suffocating feeling in her throat, no constriction of her lungs, no last shot of adrenaline filling her veins.
Her back hit the ocean floor, soft like a falling feather. She sat there for a moment, two, then hesitantly opened her eyes, conscious of the stinging she was about to feel. Except that... she didn’t. Her eyes weren’t hurting. Her lungs weren’t burning. She was sitting there, on the ocean floor, staring at the refracting light, viscerally reminded of childhood summers and mansions on beaches. It was disconcerting.
But Azula was never one to dwell in her confusion. Slowly, she pushed herself upwards, palms digging into the wet, clay-like sand. In one fluid move, she was floating and then back on her feet, standing on the ocean floor. the move was as precise as always, if lacking in the swiftness Azula had learned to move her body in. She looked down at her hands, clenching and unclenching her fists, watching the specks of sand slowly separating themselves from her skin.
Her hair had touched that sand.
Azula groaned, head leaning backwards and hand over her forehead. Washing it was going to be a pain. Wait-
Her eyes shot open. She slapped her hand over her mouth, looking around wildly. Experimentally, she opened her mouth again:
“Did I just-“ she snapped it shut, in a move that would’ve made the clenching of her teeth echo back on land. Except she wasn't on land. She was at the bottom of the ocean. And she just spoke underwater. She just- she spoke underwater, without any semblance of difficulty, and the words were loud and clear. As though she had been born a creature of the sea, and not of land. “This is it. I’m going insane.”
“You’re not losing your mind,” a voice said from behind her. Under normal circumstances, she would have been able to sense them before they spoke. Alas, these were not normal circumstances. Azula barely managed to stop herself from visibly flinching.
She turned towards the source of the sound slowly, mentally preparing herself for whoever this intruder was. She couldn’t firebend underwater, and she wasn’t the fastest swimmer, especially not while fully clothed, but- pink. Pink, and sparkles, and too big eyes with – were those eyelashes? Why would a dolphin have eyelashes, Azula thought despairingly.
Still, she tried looking past it, towards whoever spoke to her underwater, but there was no one to be seen.
“Umm, I’m right here,” the voice said, and Azula’s gaze snapped, locking with the dolphin’s. The... talking dolphin, with bright blue eyes and pink sparkly skin.
She hit her head on the side of the ship. Yeah, that was it; she hit her head, her crew fished her out, and now she was comatose in her chambers. It was the only explanation that made sense. Either that, or she had truly lost it. Azula desperately hoped it was the former.
“Hello, I’m Zuma!” the dolphin said, swimming vertically in a circle before returning to its initial position, smile bright on its face. A smile, because why shouldn’t a sparkly pink talking dolphin with eyelashes be able to smile. What would it even need eyelashes for in the first place? It lived underwater for Agni’s sake-
“Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?” it tried to tilt its head, only for the rest of the body to follow suit, making the dolphin stare at her sideways. Azula bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from smiling. This creature was strangely endearing, reminding her of her friend Ty Lee, back when they were kids.
Still, it wouldn’t do to smile at figments of one’s imagination, no matter how much they may or may not resemble former childhood friends.
“Princess Azula,” she said, chin raised, because it wouldn’t do to ignore a direct address either.
Its eyes lit up. “Ah good, so you know who you are!”
She frowned, confused. While the sentence made perfect sense on the surface, her instinct told her it was talking about something else. She scoffed, looking down her nose at the fish. “Should I not?”
It waved its fins around frantically, “No! Err, I mean no, I just didn’t expect-“ it sighed deeply, then looked her in the eye evenly, “I didn’t expect your mother to tell you. And I certainly didn’t expect you to believe it.”
Azula’s blood ran cold. “Mother? What do you know about Mother?”
The dolphin frowned – how do dolphins even frown? – “So you don’t know, then? But you said you were a princess?”
“I am a princess. I am Crown Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, daughter of Fire Lord Ozai.” she proclaimed with as much pride and confidence as she could, and still the dolphin looked at her with pity. She should be feared, not pitied. She opened her mouth-
“Maybe you should sit down for this,” it said, and something in its voice made Azula listen.
“This is ridiculous,” she muttered, nails digging into her palms. Of all things-
“It’s the truth. How else would you explain your abilities? What human can do what you can?”
“Agni. Tui and La. If I were truly what you say that I am – A mermaid,” she scoffed, crossing her arms and leaning back. They were on land again – on some rocks overlooking the beach her ship was docked on. It felt good – grounding – to be on solid ground again. “Then why haven’t I been able to do this before? Does it not make more sense for me to be spirit-touched, rather than the next in a long line of fish stew?”
“And it makes more sense for you to be chosen by the spirits?” Zuma shot back. His eyes were narrowed, but his tone lacked the bite Azula was used to. To be fair, it was hard for anyone to match her Father’s burning tongue. Not her Father, if she were to believe Zuma.
But she didn’t. Instead, she uncrossed her arms and leaned forward, bringing one palm before Zuma’s muzzle. Smirking, she lit it up, staring into Zuma’s eyes even as the fire reflected off his skin in a breathtaking maze of sparkles. “It wouldn’t be the first time, depending on who you ask.” She closed her fist, extinguishing the flames just as Zuma began comprehending what he was seeing.
He remained quiet for a second, then leveled her a look that was more calculating than chiding, “And if I asked you?”
Azula blinked, just once. It’s was ridiculous rumor, of course, made by those unwilling to put in the work. But she couldn’t say that, not when it would just prove his point. Judging by the satisfied smirk on Zuma’s face, he already knew what she thought.
“I can’t tell you why you can just now breathe underwater – at least not with complete certainty. It isn’t often that a half-breed is born. It might have something to do with your age, though.”
“My age?”
“You’re about fourteen, right? Mermaids usually come of age at sixteen, but it’s not uncommon for it to happen a year or two earlier or later. When a mermaid comes of age, they... change- Err, nothing bad, I swear!” he hurried to add, seeing the look she was giving him, “They go through physical changes, like their hair growing or changing colors.”
“Or they might start to breathe underwater,” Azula breathed, “Mermaids, albeit thought to be but rumors, are said to be Tui and La’s creation. That would make them spirit-touched. As someone not fully of their people, my blood does not carry the powers as it does in them, but now-“
“Now that you are reaching maturity, your powers would manifest physically, as it does to them! Azula, you’re brilliant!” Zuma did a loop around her, excitedly waving his tail, and Azula couldn’t even bring herself to get mad at getting interrupted. She was a bit more preoccupied with the heavy feeling settling in her chest, realizing that some part of her actually believed Zuma’s words. It was the same part of her that helped her discern lie from truth, that made her able to read a room with just a glance. She has never doubted that instinct before. But if Zuma was right, then-
No.
“Why come to me now?” it couldn’t have been that he could sense her abilities appearing. Even if that were possible, by all accounts Zuma should have been too far away to arrive so shortly after. Unless- “You’ve been spying on me. For how long?”
Spirits, if Father ever found out she let someone spy on her-
Zuma shifted. Azula glared at him. Finally, “For a couple of years. But you have to understand-“
“I do not have to understand anything. You are a spy, thus untrustworthy. Every word you say could be a lie.” Azula lifted her chin and looked down her nose at him, “In fact, what’s stopping me from ending your life right here and now?”
“You can’t!” Zuma shouted, flapping his fins frantically. “You don’t understand, please. Oceana is in danger! The whole ocean is in danger! We need you, Azula, please. We need you to fix this.”
She shot him an unimpressed look and crossed her arms. He gulped.
“Your father, he- we don’t know what happened to him. He just up and disappeared one. Your aunt, Eris, took the crown. She’s been ruling Oceana with an iron fist ever since, holding her Merillia as a threat over the whole kingdom. But the ocean is dying, Azula. And that’s why we need you.”
“You’ve spent years stalking me because you want me to usurp some mermaid queen?”
The doubt in her voice was thick as smoke, and yet Zuma nodded enthusiastically – frantically. “You’re the only one who can do this. She doesn’t know about you; she can’t control you. You have to help.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Azula snapped. It didn’t make any sense. With King Calisto gone, then by all accounts Eris was the last of the royal line. She shouldn’t need this ‘Merillia’ to keep her subjects in their place. To threaten her own people with extinction – what sort of weapon was strong enough to even do such a thing in the first place?
She looked back towards the ship. She could see the crew panicking, some going so far as to jump into the water, searching for her. She could return to them. She could return, finish her mission, then go back to Father, either with Iroh and Zuzu in chains, or with their heads. But- Somewhere beneath the ocean, there was a weapon strong enough to raze the ocean floor, along with every being living there. A weapon strong enough to win the war.
And the Fire Nation is an archipelago.
She looked back at Zuma. He looked so hopeful. For a moment, his eyes were golden and his smile was small, incredulous. “Alright,” she said to him, and not to shake off the pit that almost-was in her stomach. “I’ll help you.”