[Drabble]
Player: banerry
Subject: Azula
Table: B
Prompt: 028- Writer's Choice (Return)
It was late when the small group of Vatican refugees entered through the gates of the Fire Nation royal palace. There were only six of them. Other survivors from their side were hiding away back at home, but Cardinal Sforza had ordered that any surviving Vatican higher-ups-- and all of her agents-- be evacuated to another world immediately, in order to regroup.
Fire Lord Zuko has been the first to volunteer his quarters.
The youngest of the group was a girl in her early twenties-- still a child in the eyes of the rest. She walked close to the Holy Madonna, and her rosary clinked softly against the buttons of her uniform with each step. Like the others, she couldn't help but glance around the palace grounds in wonder. Unlike the others, she had seen it all before.
This was the courtyard, where she had spent hours playing with her friends and brother. This was the turtleduck pond, where she had lobbed full pieces of bread at the animals for fun. This was the door to the throne room: a place that had first been a source of ambition and pride, then a symbol of loneliness.
It was all recognizable, but still different somehow. There was the superficial (this wall had been repainted; that column had been remodeled), but it went deeper than that. The change was in more than just the structure and design-- it permeated the environment; the entire attitude of the place had been transformed. Unlike the palace of her childhood, this one didn't make her think of war, victory, and strength through ultimate unity-- the artwork and influence of the other nations was in the architecture, the artwork, and even the people that glanced at the Vatican party curiously as they passed in the halls. This is what the world had become in her absence: four distinct nations that were nonetheless not afraid to share their cultures with each other, even sometimes blending them together to make something new and unique. Four nations-- separate, but together all the same.
She couldn't say that she approved. She had grown up learning the right and proper way of doing things, and this melding and acceptance certainly wasn't it. But there was a disconnect, somehow. She wasn't seeing something of hers that had been ruined beyond repair-- she was seeing something that used to be hers, but wasn't anymore. This may have been her childhood, but in a way, that's all that it was.
As she saw her former home for the first time in six years, Azula felt no anger or resentment that she hadn't been able to give this place the conquest and glory that it deserved. Maybe someday somebody would be able to set things right, but she felt strongly that it wouldn't be her-- that was her past, not her future. She had grown. She had changed. And-- despite all odds-- that growth and change had brought her to a place where she couldn't be Fire Lord Azula anymore. She was Sister Azula, AX agent, code name "Fire Lord".
And she had a new world to save.
Subject: Azula
Table: B
Prompt: 028- Writer's Choice (Return)
It was late when the small group of Vatican refugees entered through the gates of the Fire Nation royal palace. There were only six of them. Other survivors from their side were hiding away back at home, but Cardinal Sforza had ordered that any surviving Vatican higher-ups-- and all of her agents-- be evacuated to another world immediately, in order to regroup.
Fire Lord Zuko has been the first to volunteer his quarters.
The youngest of the group was a girl in her early twenties-- still a child in the eyes of the rest. She walked close to the Holy Madonna, and her rosary clinked softly against the buttons of her uniform with each step. Like the others, she couldn't help but glance around the palace grounds in wonder. Unlike the others, she had seen it all before.
This was the courtyard, where she had spent hours playing with her friends and brother. This was the turtleduck pond, where she had lobbed full pieces of bread at the animals for fun. This was the door to the throne room: a place that had first been a source of ambition and pride, then a symbol of loneliness.
It was all recognizable, but still different somehow. There was the superficial (this wall had been repainted; that column had been remodeled), but it went deeper than that. The change was in more than just the structure and design-- it permeated the environment; the entire attitude of the place had been transformed. Unlike the palace of her childhood, this one didn't make her think of war, victory, and strength through ultimate unity-- the artwork and influence of the other nations was in the architecture, the artwork, and even the people that glanced at the Vatican party curiously as they passed in the halls. This is what the world had become in her absence: four distinct nations that were nonetheless not afraid to share their cultures with each other, even sometimes blending them together to make something new and unique. Four nations-- separate, but together all the same.
She couldn't say that she approved. She had grown up learning the right and proper way of doing things, and this melding and acceptance certainly wasn't it. But there was a disconnect, somehow. She wasn't seeing something of hers that had been ruined beyond repair-- she was seeing something that used to be hers, but wasn't anymore. This may have been her childhood, but in a way, that's all that it was.
As she saw her former home for the first time in six years, Azula felt no anger or resentment that she hadn't been able to give this place the conquest and glory that it deserved. Maybe someday somebody would be able to set things right, but she felt strongly that it wouldn't be her-- that was her past, not her future. She had grown. She had changed. And-- despite all odds-- that growth and change had brought her to a place where she couldn't be Fire Lord Azula anymore. She was Sister Azula, AX agent, code name "Fire Lord".
And she had a new world to save.