Work Text:
In hindsight, there was nothing surprising about this.
They’ve been fated to this the moment Ozai and Ursa decided to have a second child. The secondborn to a secondborn, there was no need for a spare heir of the man who was not the heir in the first place. But they agreed to it, it had been good days still.
Good days before Azula bent before him.
They were fated to be this, only one would, should survive. A better man, less bitter and angry by nurture, would hear you have to kill your sister and wonder if that was a thing a good person says. A last resort, maybe, he knew men who would never go that far. But then those men weren’t bred to see an enemy as something to be eliminated.
Ozai favoured Azula, they’d always fight to death for the crown.
It wasn’t surprised that Zuko at his beast couldn’t defeat Azula at her worst. Not on his own. Not without counting her to commit a mistake Azula would never if she wasn’t deranged and broken. Azula was punching fire at him, no cutting perfect precision. It was open-palm strikes that unleashed the fire of an army.
Agni Kai for the throne, his throne would never be safe with a burn to prove he won. Only one could make it alive, only one could make it alive from the moment Azula existed, small and unseen in the depths of Ursa’s womb. Only one could take it. It wasn’t going to be Ozai’s little war machine. Who manipulated the orders it got to bring Zuko back a free man, who spoke up so the Crown Prince didn’t commit accidental treason. Who seemed fine with never being Fire Lord, only Father’s perfect daughter.
The lighting exploded upwards in the sky. Zuko didn’t expect Azula to aim at Katara — a miscalculation of his, it was Azula. She knew, of course she knew, he’d jump. He’d take it. And Zuko was nowhere strong enough to hold her lightning, it burned before it touched him. It was luck he could take it. And he had miscalculated how fast she generated it, there was less time he thought he’d have.
If he was just a little more powerful, it would have been easy to aim it back.
He was burning and weak on the ground as more of this blue inferno was unleashed around him. Zuko was right there, bleeding and defenseless. And Azula was jet-flying after Katara like a mad woman.
(Maybe she thinks you’re dead. Azula, who could manipulate a person’s temperature without touching them. Azula, who could feel his inner fire — like he felt hers, and hated it). He recovered just enough to watch when Katara trapped them both in water from the rain drains. Who froze it and chained her down.
Zuko has never seen anyone outsmart Azula.
Katara ran to his side, shaking from adrenaline, helped him up. He had the realisation she was thousand of times the person he was. A better version on every way possible. He wasn’t euphoric for the victory, because he was in too much pain for it. But Katara? Seemed miserable.
Defeating the enemy should warrant a happier reaction, no?
Chained them down like the monster they’ve always been. Humiliating, a firebender defeated by ice. A royal defeated by a peasant. It must elicit a rush of pleasure. No? It was the fall of evil incarnated. It should be celebrated, right?
Then why was Katara looking at her with pity?
There was never a human wearing that flesh, yet it seemed so. It seemed Katara was seeing not a fallen monster but a defeated person.
Then there was blue. Raging inferno spitting out of a beast’s mouth. Did weapon cry? It sounded like sobs, it looked like tears. There was something that couldn’t be pain, because she was so perfect. It couldn’t be real.
The light was intense. Zuko felt Katara grab his arms and pull them away. The heat was even more scorching than the fire blasts. Roaring; the fire, the beast. Feral, animalistic, something inhumane. It made his bones shiver, his fire scream power, primal, ancient.
Then it rose.
A dragon. Numerous times smaller than the old dragons he met. It rose from the courtyard inferno — the blue flames turning orange and yellow and they burned by themselves and not under Azula’s control. Scales the same shade of Azula’s fire, stained with red. Dripping red. Blood. Its covered in blood.
For a long moment, he thought it would burn him to ashes. It could, he knew it, it could before it was unleashed from the cage of flesh it has lived in for fourteen years.
He knew someone who also had this exact shade of eyes, who can it belong to something beastly? He fell back, Katara knelt with him. Somehow she didn’t look afraid, she looked sad. Zuko still felt the aftershocks of the lightning and it made his hard beat faster. But the dragon huffed smoke, small sparks of fire among it.
He didn’t seek for humanity in the bronze as there was none when the cage was intact.
It was a magnificent being, majest with the beautiful blue scales even as it was stained. (There was a time he thought her fire was pretty. There was a time she was Azula, his sister. Not Azula, the enemy. Not Azula, Father’s fire to be shaped into his image.) The wings flapped as it tried to remember how to be what it was, but the dragon stayed airborne as it looked down and sideways. As it took its own figure.
It looked down at him with something he couldn’t name. A heartless little thing didn’t show dear, pain, despair or anything in the lines of it. It wouldn’t make sense — I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t- it hurts- help- can you help me? Please help me! Maybe he couldn’t identify anything in a creature’s eyes.
Fire Lords were not cowards. Not the ones that made their wives kill their father for a power that was never theirs. Not ones that were raised to fight to the death for a power that was never theirs. Because the power was their to take. Zuko was not a coward. He moved, his fire sputtered but it was bright. The dragon spat fire to counter it, orange and blue and purple, then flapped its wings harder. The gust of wind send heat towards them, snuffed out some of the fire still burning.
The blue inferno turned orange as the control slipped from the master.
He turned, Katara glared at him, disappointed. He would have to ignore it. They were allies at best. Katara had no right to judge him. Didn't she chained Azula down like a rabid animal? Hypocritical, it seemed.
The roar in the distance sounded pained.
But then, could it feel anything other than hunger for causing pain?