where i was always a winner and i was barely alone.
title: it takes the truth to fool me
series: avatar; the last airbender
summary: post series fic I've been working on since.. the show ended?? Right now it is at 25 pages and nowhere near completion. but I can't post 40+ pages at once so.. here's the first 13 pages. yeah. 13.
ACTUAL SUMMARY- Azula, stripped of her powers and sanity at the end of the Great War, is forced to live with Uncle at his Ba Sing Seh teashop.
Bending a human being isn't a fix-anything trick, Aang explains. He can't just bend the water out of Katara, or bend it into Sokka (Sokka heaves a sigh of relief). Changing Ozai could have ended the wrong way. They were lucky he wound up harmless-- it might not completely work with someone like Azula. After her capture, Aang only took out some of her fire bending abilities before his strength left him, and the girl's force began to bleed into him.
Zuko scowls but understands. “Then we'll keep her locked up until you can.”
Seated at the war table, the Avatar's feet don't touch the floor. While Aang hasn't forgotten the crack of her lightning in the Avatar state, he can still feel Ozai’s energy within him.
“I don't know if I ever can,” he mumbles.
Since life-long imprisonment is the only other option for Azula, Mai suggests one of the cells where she had banished her friends. That ends up being impossible because even the Boiling Rock can't hold Azula. When Zuko tries to argue this, Mai accuses him of compassion, but he can't remember feeling that for his sister in a long time. Instead they send her to an asylum in a dark corner of the Fire Nation and work on forgetting her.
But the night they bring Ursa back from Whale Tail Island, she spends it on the other side of her daughter's padded cell. The next day, she starts asking to let Azula out.
“Speaking for Sokka,” Toph drawls, wriggling her feet onto the piles of maps. “I'm gonna just say that like- strategically? This is kinda a step backwards.”
“We don't have a choice.” Zuko scrubs a hand over his face.
“We agreed your father couldn't go free even without his fire bending,” Katara presses. “It doesn't make any sense that Azula gets off the hook when she's still dangerous- worse than dangerous!” There's a beat of silence before she sets a soft hand on the Avatar’s arm. “I'm sorry, Aang. We tried it your way, but now we might have to-”
“That's not an option.” He shakes his head. Katara's face flushes with mutiny, and she pulls back. The Fire Lord sighs, casting an imploring look around the table.
"I don't know why Mother thinks so, but if she says I can't keep Azula locked up forever then I don't really have a choice, okay?” The group shifts uncomfortably in their seats.
“I thought you said she was crazy.” Sokka eases into the conversation beside his own incensed sister.
“She is,” Zuko insists, as if there had ever been any doubt. “But my mother says in the asylum she won't get better.”
“Oookay. Question-” Sokka hesitantly raises his hand. “Do we want Azula to get better?”
“Even if she does, it's not like she'll show Mother any gratitude,” the Fire Lord grumbles.
“You don't think she'd hurt her own mother?” Katara recoils from the question, disgusted. Zuko is the only one who catches Toph rolling her eyes.
“Probably,” he replies grimly. “But that's why I have a plan.”
Appa’s not a means of conveyance for a war criminal, so they transport her by carriage. Given half a chance even a powerless Azula would manipulate an escape, so Zuko has to make the trip with her. It’s a safety precaution that’s all, his mind nags of Mai's accusation. Killing Azula won’t solve anything.
( “Says you,” Mai scoffs. He shudders. )
It isn't like he wants to be in a metal cage alongside of his maniacal sister, thundering through the desert. Tension between him and the subdued girl raises to the point that Zuko feels like a child again, anxious to run as far from Azula as possible.
He wishes Mother had come along.
“I know where we are,” Azula says minutes after the carriage enters the city. The siblings rode in steely silence for hours, interrupted only by the rattling of Azula's chains. Zuko glances after her taunt, catching the girl’s lofty expression through her unkempt hair.
“Yeah?”
“Of course I recognize it.” She smiles opulently beneath the blindfold. “I captured this city.” As the carriage doors snap open, Zuko squints against the light.
“You stole it,” their uncle corrects and extends his hand.
“Please be careful, Uncle,” Zuko begs.
The guards test a series of deadbolts installed into Azula's new bedroom door. Anything she could use as a weapon is removed from her reach, down to the last nail in the floorboards. Zuko's mind strays throughout the familiar compartments, listening to the wooden creak from his time of peaceful civility. This place won't hold Azula for a moment.
“I have looked after you at your worse," Iroh shrugs. "Your little sister will be a piece of cake.”
( That night, through the heavy locks-
“I was seconds away from becoming the Fire Lord,” she screams.
“Yes.” Uncle takes a sip of his latest brew. “I remember that feeling.” )
“Your crazy sister burnt down Ba Sing Seh yet?” Toph broaches the taboo topic easily when she passes the royal escort in the hall. While Zuko initially would have expected nothing less than the entire Earth Kingdom up in flames, Azula's freedom proves disturbingly boring for the first month. For every three letters Zuko forwards to the Earth Kingdom, Iroh sends a postcard. Azula sleeps a lot mostly, he mentions blithely. Tell Ursa to come try our Oolong!
“I would like to visit her,” Mother confesses over dinner, handing the latest vague card back to Zuko. The Fire Lord pushes food across his plate, impossibly jealous for his sister's insanity that dominates their mother's attention.
The next week Iroh sends a note that reads Azula starts work at the shop with me tomorrow! When a horrified Zuko passes the letter between his friends, he and Aang are the only two people who look worried.
“It’s not funny!” Zuko shouts over the din. “Stop laughing!”
“I can't breathe,” Sokka wheezes, leaning on his giggling sister for support.
Iroh sits thinking in the late summer sun, Zuko’s hysterical response in his lap. He doubts there’s a reason in the world to convince his nephew to allow Azula to work, but it hasn’t stopped him from trying. So far he has her serene sense of balance, Mei Lien having to take maternity leave a month early and that the princess could use some improvements to her social skills. They aren't lies, because Azula is quite coordinated. But without a purpose, the mind decays. Iroh remembers how the tip of a battle formation used to call to him like the North Star. Azula equally thought of her lofty position as the guiding point to all she did. Now, however, the look in her eyes between tantrums is one Iroh saw enough of the mirror after Lu Ten died, and he has no intention of allowing it in his home anymore.
She likes to keep busy, Iroh eventually explains. Don't worry Nephew! No one can replace your tea serving abilities.
(“He's totally going senile,” Mai glowers at the letter while Zuko tries to arrange emergency travel plans.)
On the first day at her new job, Azula slams a fist through a window and bleeds all over the stove. On the second day- perhaps disillusioned by her loss of power- she doesn't leave her room. On the third day she rips the apron into a thousand pieces. On the fourth day she doesn't get out of bed. On the fifth day she stands straight as a willow and pours boiling tea on a woman.
“Azula, a twenty percent tip is generous,” he reminds her.
“She's lucky,” Azula shrugs. “If she had tried that after my powers had returned, I'd have burnt the skin from her bones.”
“Is that what you think?” Uncle peers over the empty cups at her, long and quizzical. “I wonder if my brother in prison has your optimism.”
It takes half a week to get her out of her room again. Lost abilities; that's a sensitive topic, Iroh notes to himself, leaving a meal outside her door.
The sixth time Azula ventures into employment, she tries to take one of the tea patrons hostage. The shop rakes in four times the usual tips based on her 'performance'. One customer represents the king’s favorite acting troupe- but Uncle says his niece is too proper a lady for that profession. She kicks through a window the seventh day. Iroh begrudgingly admits this isn’t terrible news as she’s less likely to try and run away with glass in her foot.
“Hold still,” he asks, serenely applying alcohol as she knees him in the beard.
“Why doesn’t anyone recognize me?” she demands when her racist tirades once again fail to elicit a response from the crowds.
“Azula, you are the first Fire Nation warrior to fully subjugate Ba Sing Seh,” Iroh smiles knowingly at the beam that elicits from her. “You’re a much larger than life figure than a simple tea shop girl.”
“Obviously,” she scoffs, making a dive for silverware before Uncle deftly hides them within his sleeve. “But how stupid are these commoners? I’ve told them I was the Fire Lord Azula-”
“- and I’ve told them about the round-the-clock care you received before coming here.” He shrugs and the girl’s attitude simmers to a low boil at being thought of as just some crazy relation. “Princess, I wish you wouldn’t think of this place as a prison or as a way to inflict revenge on these people.”
“Oh, and what should I see this as?” she snarls.
“A job opportunity of course!” I deserved that, he chuckles as the shop’s entire collection of dishware is flung at his skull.
After a serious escape attempt ends in her being dragged home by the Terra Team, Azula devises a new strategy. Having her enemies cart her kicking and screaming through the city she once captured was shameful enough-- even if Azula was the only person who understood the significance. Resolute, she concedes to avoid another escape until her fire bending reappears. This doesn’t imply she has any intention of starting a sick civilian life with Uncle Fatso in the Earth Kingdom either, however. It’s only that the asylum was full of sugary doctors and whining patients who cried when you knocked their teeth down their throat. By comparison this is a great deal more entertaining prison, and Azula had prior experience and happy memories of misleading idiot earth benders.
The Jasmine Dragon is in the upper district of Ba Sing Seh, which has affords Iroh a prestigious set of clientele. Several high ranking officials Azula recalls from her occupation of the city often stop by, but none seem to recognize them- or care if they do. She uses the seeming invisibility of a servant to pass through the tables, circling between conversations of the powerful members of the Earth Kingdom. In the meantime, she makes an effort to slosh hot tea on anyone who’s face she particularly dislikes, or trip people as they pass. No one has yet to take up any actions against her, but she gives their earth bending hospitality only a few more weeks. More importantly, Azula can’t guarantee her the façade much longer than that either.
At the end of a particularly successful day (three men and two women tripped- one was even holding a baby!), Azula is intercepted on her way upstairs by Uncle and an unknown woman. She seems particularly regal, though Earth Kingdom women tend to wear the same amount of makeup as Fire Nation whores, so she holds off on making any assumptions.
“There you are, Azula! Lady Yin, this is my niece.” The look on the crone’s face tells Azula she’s heard some variation of the pitiful background story Uncle devised for her. She carefully overturns a few cups of the more expensive tea while Uncle and the old woman dog her tracks back.
“You should not be rude,” her uncle warns, trying to beckon the girl back by testing her patience. “After all, this woman has brought a present for you.” Azula lingers in the stairwell, debating if it was more worthwhile to slam a door in their faces or imply drop this proposed gift to the floor. She wanders back to her uncle skeptically.
“She’s not wearing the apron,” the old woman clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “She’ll ruin her clothing.”
“I’m to blame for indulging her,” Iroh laughs, helping Lady Yin pass over the present to his niece. “And she’s a bit of a tom boy.” He happily presses the crooked plant in a cheap pot in Azula’s hands. The trunk of the miniature tree is twisted and coiled as though its in pain. She’s not entirely sure if the object will sprout legs under the dirt and run after them, so Azula abstains- for the moment- from dropping it.
“A plant,” she glowers between the branches. “What do I care about this?”
“Oh, but you should!” the woman titters. “Careful maintenance of a bonsai tree is thought to be very soothing for a restless spirit.”
“My spirit isn’t the problem,” Azula bristles. “I think the only person with a problem are the idiots in this town foolish enough to allow me such generosity. My return to power will be on your backs, making my way further by climbing over the charred remains of a certainly king’s royal palac--”
“She has such an elaborate imagination!” Uncle laughs thinly, leading Azula around Lady Yin as easily as he would herd a cat. “You know during our time abroad she saw a show by the Ember Island Players and- such a memory!”
“She certainly has the flair for the dramatic, I have heard that,” the woman beams-- something Azula finds worse than her pity. “But Iroh, if you don’t close shop soon, we will be late for our show.” With an embarrassed chuckle, Uncle hastily leaders Azula up the steps and back into their private compartments. His niece, having caught onto who this insipid old woman and her crooked plant life is to him, happily launches herself upon the topic.
“You’re going on a date?” Azula shoots a menacing look over her shoulder, pushing back against his desperate attempts to move her down the hallway. “Did I embarrass you terribly around your new girlfriend? Do you really think at your age you can start a new life with some Earth Kingdom nobody?”
“We enjoy one another’s company very much, yes,” he clears his throat, responding only halfheartedly to her tirade. Iroh tugs her along, refusing to let the girl linger in the front room, the kitchen, pressing urgently towards the only place in the apartment that locks from the outside.
“She’s too old to have children, don’t you think?” Azula adds, feet sliding against the smooth floors until she’s past the threshold into her cell again. She makes an effort to get this out quickly, already knowing how their conversation will end. “If you ask me, what with your only offspring dead and Zuko no longer interested in your advice, I think you should give up trying to have a family-” As predicted, the door slams centimeters from her face. Her expression drifts into a low, comfortable smile as the locks snap into place on the other side of the barricade.
Iroh sighs, smiling grimly at the ease with which Azula can still hurt good people.
“No, Azula. You are my family.”
Once, preoccupied with the appearance of several higher ranked Earth Kingdom officials, Iroh asked his niece to “Please boil water for our guests.” After Azula realized she would have to use a spark-rocks to start a fire, they nearly had to replace the entire kitchen appliance.
“When I have my abilities back,” she shrieks. “I will burn this miserable shop, this disgusting hovel, everything you care about to the ground.”
“Now, Azula,” Iroh murmurs, working to catch the girl’s wrists to keep her from hurting herself further. “That’s no way to show gratitude to your elders.”
How are things going? Zuko’s latest letter asks in that same anxious handwriting with which he signs imperial decrees. Iroh’s back aches as he bends over to pick up the remains of the kitchen-set, to scrub blood from the countertops while listening to Azula howl behind locked doors and imagine an answer to that question.
(“‘When are you coming to visit, Nephew?’” Ursa reads aloud, her voice bright. “Oh, I think he misses you,” she teases, winding an arm with her son’s.)
An evening after closing hours, Uncle returns to the apartment with fresh vegetables and a unknown figure. Azula regards the young stranger leisurely- he's Earth Kingdom and slouching and she doesn't have the time to give him a second thought.
“Azula, I'd like you to meet Junren.”
“Hello,” he smiles apprehensively. Azula scoffs. Iroh appears unfazed.
“I was thinking the two of you could become better acquainted.”
“Why?” she snaps. Uncle always has some sort of ulterior motive, and giving him the slightest bit of leeway opens one to his surprise antics.
“Well…” Iroh pretends to possess some hesitation in admitting this, though Azula can tell from his grin he's enjoying every second of the charade. “He's your age, Azula, and Junren your mother did mention you don't have a girlfriend-” Azula’s head snaps up, on her feet in an instant.
“No!” Both teenagers shout (though Junren weakly manages to add a "please" when she glowers at him). Iroh commends himself for choosing a boy with the reflexes to dodge the princess’s punches. He has to applaud his own ability as well to convince the teens that a trip to fetch more tea leaves from the back room would go faster if they went together. They really look very cute together- when Azula isn’t scowling like that and the boy stops shaking. He considers letting Junren take her for a walk to the main square, but regrets that Azula still can’t be trusted on her own.
Junren is quick- Uncle barely spots him as he darts out the door, white as a sheet. Azula saunters into the room like a polar leopard that’s spooked its prey- still hungry but innately pleased with himself.
“Not your type?” Uncle calls over his shoulder. She rounds on him, having no patience for the old man’s insolence.
“Are you out of your mind?” she snarls. “First of all, as if a Fire Nation Princess would want anything to do with an Earth bending commoner! Secondly, he is hardly even a bender at all; He is taking remedial classes at the university- what sort of man doesn't utilize his birthright from the moment he's on this earth? Especially an earth he can mold with his own hands! I didn't waste a moment with my abilities.”
“No, you did not.”
“And finally! He's nothing more than a child! He's shorter than me and exudes not only a complete lack of potential, but absolutely no confidence behind even the most mundane of decisions!”
When Azula slams the door behind her, Iroh underlines the following passage in his notes-
Needs to be taller.
During a lunchtime rush, Azula stumbles on the rug and slops white hot Longjing over her left hand. She snatches the salve from Uncle and commands him to return to his work. As the blister hisses red and aches, Azula recalls the last time she was burned.
She wraps her hand in cloth and avoids thinking about Zuko.
Ty Lee gets some vacation time in the fall and inexplicably decides to spend it with Azula.
“I don't think so,” Azula laughs in her face and Iroh wastes two cups of tea trying to get the idiot to stop crying. Eventually the sound of it gets on the princess's nerves, and she shoves him aside to deal with the circus freak herself. Ty Lee, for all the falls to the head she’s taken, has enough sense to stop sniffling when she’s alone with Azula. With a rough sigh, Azula shoves the kettle across the table. Ty Lee quickly takes the hint and pours them each other cup.
“I didn't know you liked tea, Azula,” she chirps, voice still a little watery.
“I don’t.” The silence is long enough they follow Iroh’s entire conversation with Lady Yin (“Are they-” Azula nods grimly and Ty Lee makes a few grossed out noises.) When she almost chokes on her tea giggling at the pet names, Azula resists the urge to clap Ty Lee on the back. Ty Lee must have seen the tensing of her arm and because she takes the opportunity to be serious.
“I'm sorry for everything.” She reaches for Azula’s hands. The princess can almost feel her old friend’s windpipes crushing under her grip. But when she opens her eyes, she’s alone in the shop with cold tea and an unharmed Kyoshi warrior.
“I don't care,” Azula waves the outstretched hands aside. “So if you’ve come here expecting me to redeem your treacherous inclinations, it‘s not happening.” Ty Lee scowls like she used to when Mai made fun of her lipstick.
“I came,” she counters coldly, “Because I sorta hoped you weren’t so grumpy anymore!”
“What do I have to be happy about?” Azula yawns.
“Aren't you at least happy to be out of prison?”
“Are you?” the princess counters, edging a clay cup off the table. Ty Lee flinches at the crash.
“Sometimes,” she concedes at last, hands twisted in her lap. “Not if I have to see you like this.” Azula casts her a look that she doesn't want pity while Ty Lee hastily explains, “But Azula, its just-- I mean your aura-”
“What?” She leans forward on an elbow, her smirk extending far past the table. “Let me guess, the Avatar's taken that now too. But don’t worry, I’ll let you examine it when I take my revenge out of you.” Locks clattering behind Azula’s departure, Uncle brings a wad of tissues to the table. Ty Lee clutches him close, smearing makeup in his beard.
“Her aura is beautiful,” she sniffles. “Tell her for me.”
“Your friend is very happy for you,” Iroh explains, looking up from a set of dirty dishes. Azula continues carving lines into the wall with a butter knife and her uncle continues, “I am very happy for you too.” Azula yawns.
“What is everybody so happy about anyway?” She flings the knife narrowly close to Uncle’s back. “I haven't accomplished anything in this place.”
“I don't have to lock you in your room anymore, do I?”
That night, Azula finds her door is deadlocked like old times.
“I know you very well, princess,” Iroh calls through the barrier as he goes for a late night bathroom run. “You do so well when you're not trying to get the jump on innocent people.”
“‘Innocent’?” she screams, smashing her fists against the door.
One of Uncle's friends knows their true identities and, despite Azula's suspicions, has promised to keep it a secret. That doesn't prevent him from such arrogance, however, like smiling knowingly across the table to Iroh's niece.
“Are you enjoying life as a civilian?” he asks genially. Azula strikes him so hard she could've sworn steam rose from the mark. At dinner she and Uncle sit in an unusual silence, her flurry of thoughts a palpable barrier to Iroh's insistent conversation. When she gets up, Uncle calls,
“Whatever you're considering, I believe you should think it over again.”
After the sun sets, she presses her hands to the floor and concentrates on lighting the timber, on burning the entire block to ashes. My abilities are here, she hisses desperately. I'm not a civilian. Just one spark. But instead of smoke, she wakes up to the smell of Uncle cooking breakfast. The groves in the hardwood floor leave little imprints against her face when she sits up. Iroh's face twitches into a smile despite her anguished expression, the helpless gestures behind her actions.
“You'll catch a cold, Azula,” he chides, carrying the soup to the table. “Sleeping on the floor like this.”
In the winter, Zuko has a meeting with the Earth King to discuss the current state of his reparations, and in his free time agrees to stay with Iroh. Uncle has to admit the Fire Lord will be forced to sleep on the couch for this visit- Azula has his old room.
"Though you're more than welcome to share a bed with me, Nephew! Like old times." Brother and sister wear identical looks of disgust.
Iroh makes a great show of noting that the siblings haven’t seen each other since Zuko left the princess in his care. While Zuko had made several threats to storm into Ba Sing Seh and salvage the disaster zone Azula normally leaves in her wake, he had been unable to find time away. The situation at home is not good, Uncle admits when Azula overhears talk of the Fire Nation nationalists.
“But I don’t think we should talk business with your brother when he gets here,” Uncle advises when Azula asks a few too many questions.
“Because it’s not my business?” Her fingers tighten into familiar fire bending seals.
“Well, I don’t think it would be much of a vacation for him if we did.”
When the day of the visit arrives, Zuko drops off his things at the apartment before he heads to the deliberations. Azula doesn't go downstairs to greet him, or to see the fine Fire Nation construction of his imperial luggage and royal robes up close. From her room (window still barred with wood- flammable wood) she glares out at the landscape of the town, trying to pinpoint where on the wall her drill broke through. She gets so angry her eyesight goes blurry and Uncle has to hurry and buy several new plates when she's through with her first tantrum of the day. It’s been such a long time since he needed to repair dishware over her bad attitude that they raised the price of clay.
“Now, now,” he chides. “You don't want me to lock you in your room for Zuko's visit.”
“Oh, I think Zuzu would prefer it,” she grumbles and tries to kick the stool out from under the old man.
By the time Zuko returns in the evening, exhausted from the proceedings, his sister has worked herself into an indelible fervor.
“I hope you're hungry,” Uncle smiles despite the seething girl over his shoulder. “Azula here has worked up quite the appetite waiting for you.” It’s only midway through the first course before the princess makes her demands.
“No,” Zuko counters over their noodles.
“I don’t see what good I'm doing here,” Azula snaps. “I'm not asking to be reinstated as Fire Lord-”
“You were never Fire Lord,“ Zuko hurriedly hides a smirk behind his soup spoon. Just as fast, Uncle grabs a vase from Azula before she cracks her brother’s skull with it.
“You have me in a city of enemies!” she snarls. “At least in the asylum I wasn't on foreign ground.”
“These people are not your enemies,” Iroh cuts in smoothly, trying to set a calming hand on her arm. “Remember? You get along so well with them.” He shoots an anxious look to his nephew. “She is not usually like this.”
“Yes she is,” Zuko rebuffs what Azula realizes is Uncle's attempt to paint her in a better light. She can't understand why he would do this, and it dumbfounds her enough that her brother is allowed to continue. “Bringing you back to the Fire Nation is putting you in a city of enemies- my enemies.” He sighs, directing a further explanation to Iroh, “As long as she’s here, the King says they can keep some of the worst nationalists out. With the updated watch list, the likelihood of some rogue lunatic getting to Azula is-” Her laughter cuts him off.
“So is this for my safety, Brother?” she sneers, shoving her food aside to draw a reluctant Zuko closer. “I highly doubt any of the nationalists assume you'd be hurt by my death.”
“They may not want to kill you, Azula, but these are bad people.” Iroh says warningly.
“Like you,” Zuko mutters, pushing aside his own bowl of food.
“What,” she breezes. “I'm a bad person because I don't worship you like the Avatar and his commoner friends?”
“You're a bad person because of what you've done to this country!” Zuko snaps, any earlier patience he had thinning by the second. “I can't believe I have to waste all this time cleaning yours and dad's mess and then you ask me to let you go!” His sister's face darkens considerably.
“‘Mess’?” she echoes with a laugh. “Father made our country better than all the others combined.”
“Why do we have to be better, huh?” Zuko demands, rising. “Why can't we all work together? Why is that so terrible?”
“Because we are better,” Azula replies nonchalantly and takes a sip of her tea. The more Zuko explodes, the calmer she feels. After months of being the only one screaming, it was refreshing to see someone else let loose. “Well, I am. Not you. I'll be happy to demonstrate that to you when I get my powers back." She flexes her fingers and Zuko snaps.
“You're not getting your fire bending back!” he cries, coming around the table only to have Azula slap Zuko's hands away. “The Avatar took it away for good!” Face pink with jealousy, he rails on, “This is your life from now on; living with Uncle, serving tea! No responsibilities, no subjects, no stupid royal duties, so why can't you just be happy?”
“How could I be happy without my power?” she hisses, eyes flickering throughout the room that suddenly seems impossibly small. “That’s pathetic.”
“You’re pathetic,” he counters obstinately. “All you are about is whether or not you’re stronger or better than everyone else. No wonder you hate living with these people- they’ve got lives! They know who they are, and you’re just some crybaby who’s nobody without your fire bending!” Zuko has more than enough ammunition to continue, but stops short when it's clear his sister isn't listening. The color sinks from her face as she shoves back at the Fire Lord. Azula sweeps the remainder of their dinner to the floor, and scrambles away to give herself air, the room shaking with the force of the door she slams behind her. Azula collapses in her room, fingers pressed to the kindling wood of their home, again trying to create a firestorm at the end of her nerves. Even at her angriest, she mourns, there's not even a spark.
Outside the apartment, Zuko declines Uncle's original offer. He'll stay at the palace tonight instead, making his way there through the back alleys- which isn't safe, Uncle scolds.
“I’ll be fine,” Zuko tries for a little wry humor, adding, “I mean, I still have my fire bending.” Uncle's expression remains stony, so much so Zuko would feel guilty if the person he offended had been anyone other than Azula.
“I am trying to help your sister become a better person,” Iroh reminds him. “When you are cruel to her, she falls back on her bad habits.”
“Azula doesn't have good habits,” Zuko fumes, tugging his hood over his head. “Look, Mother's plan failed. We should just take her back to the asylum before she hurts someone.”
“I do not think that's wise, Zuko,” Iroh says firmly, but the boy leaves before he can argue the matter further.
Closing the door behind him, her uncle spots Azula at the top of the stairs, expression unreadable. He sighs, slowly beginning the ascent to meet the shaking girl.
“Don't you worry, princess. Your brother is just upset because he has been working too hard,” Iroh begins, tugging at his beard. “If you ask me, I think you've made a lot of progress since you first came here. And I know your Mother feels-”
“I don't feel so good,” Azula mumbles and slouches against the railing. Iroh lurches ahead to catch her before she falls.
In her dream she drowns in one of the courtyard ponds while her mother watches, Father’s hands pushing down on her shoulders.
She wakes up screaming, water on her face. Uncle holds the damp cloth to her burning forehead, trying to look wise and sympathetic all at once. She nearly snaps his fingers in her desperate grip and faints.
(“Azula’s sick,” Katara reads the letter aloud to the meeting that convenes in Zuko's absence.
“Good?” Sokka manages at last, tugging at his White Lotus collar.)
Even after Azula crushes the Avatar’s skull beneath her fingers, he still reaches forward, and the proof of her power and birthright slips away from her in an instant, leaving her a nobody.
“What did you do to me?” she hisses in a flicker of lucidity.
“This is a metamorphosis,” Uncle eases water towards her sputtering mouth. “It looks like your brother’s words had quite the impact on you.” His face looks as though he’s making light of the situation, but it serves to only make Azula’s uneasy stomach drops further.
“I’m not going to change into someone he likes,” she mumbles and rolls on her side away from him. Gingerly rising to his feet, Uncle takes her obduracy as a cue to leave.
“No,” he confesses, leaving one light burning. “But I think you may change into someone you like.”
Ty Lee hits her pressure points and laughs cheerfully when Azula falls. She lies begging between them while Mai slides hot knives under her skin.
“It's too hot,” she whimpers, tossing in her sleep.
“I'm here, my darling,” Mother murmurs, pushing the hair off Azula’s brow.
The door slams in another room and Azula's eyes snap open. She shifts under the pile of blankets, eyes squinting through the darkness only to realize she's alone.
(AUTHOR NOTE; no this isn't the end, lj just won't let me post more than 13 pages at a time. Consider this uh end of part 1? )
series: avatar; the last airbender
summary: post series fic I've been working on since.. the show ended?? Right now it is at 25 pages and nowhere near completion. but I can't post 40+ pages at once so.. here's the first 13 pages. yeah. 13.
ACTUAL SUMMARY- Azula, stripped of her powers and sanity at the end of the Great War, is forced to live with Uncle at his Ba Sing Seh teashop.
Bending a human being isn't a fix-anything trick, Aang explains. He can't just bend the water out of Katara, or bend it into Sokka (Sokka heaves a sigh of relief). Changing Ozai could have ended the wrong way. They were lucky he wound up harmless-- it might not completely work with someone like Azula. After her capture, Aang only took out some of her fire bending abilities before his strength left him, and the girl's force began to bleed into him.
Zuko scowls but understands. “Then we'll keep her locked up until you can.”
Seated at the war table, the Avatar's feet don't touch the floor. While Aang hasn't forgotten the crack of her lightning in the Avatar state, he can still feel Ozai’s energy within him.
“I don't know if I ever can,” he mumbles.
Since life-long imprisonment is the only other option for Azula, Mai suggests one of the cells where she had banished her friends. That ends up being impossible because even the Boiling Rock can't hold Azula. When Zuko tries to argue this, Mai accuses him of compassion, but he can't remember feeling that for his sister in a long time. Instead they send her to an asylum in a dark corner of the Fire Nation and work on forgetting her.
But the night they bring Ursa back from Whale Tail Island, she spends it on the other side of her daughter's padded cell. The next day, she starts asking to let Azula out.
“Speaking for Sokka,” Toph drawls, wriggling her feet onto the piles of maps. “I'm gonna just say that like- strategically? This is kinda a step backwards.”
“We don't have a choice.” Zuko scrubs a hand over his face.
“We agreed your father couldn't go free even without his fire bending,” Katara presses. “It doesn't make any sense that Azula gets off the hook when she's still dangerous- worse than dangerous!” There's a beat of silence before she sets a soft hand on the Avatar’s arm. “I'm sorry, Aang. We tried it your way, but now we might have to-”
“That's not an option.” He shakes his head. Katara's face flushes with mutiny, and she pulls back. The Fire Lord sighs, casting an imploring look around the table.
"I don't know why Mother thinks so, but if she says I can't keep Azula locked up forever then I don't really have a choice, okay?” The group shifts uncomfortably in their seats.
“I thought you said she was crazy.” Sokka eases into the conversation beside his own incensed sister.
“She is,” Zuko insists, as if there had ever been any doubt. “But my mother says in the asylum she won't get better.”
“Oookay. Question-” Sokka hesitantly raises his hand. “Do we want Azula to get better?”
“Even if she does, it's not like she'll show Mother any gratitude,” the Fire Lord grumbles.
“You don't think she'd hurt her own mother?” Katara recoils from the question, disgusted. Zuko is the only one who catches Toph rolling her eyes.
“Probably,” he replies grimly. “But that's why I have a plan.”
Appa’s not a means of conveyance for a war criminal, so they transport her by carriage. Given half a chance even a powerless Azula would manipulate an escape, so Zuko has to make the trip with her. It’s a safety precaution that’s all, his mind nags of Mai's accusation. Killing Azula won’t solve anything.
( “Says you,” Mai scoffs. He shudders. )
It isn't like he wants to be in a metal cage alongside of his maniacal sister, thundering through the desert. Tension between him and the subdued girl raises to the point that Zuko feels like a child again, anxious to run as far from Azula as possible.
He wishes Mother had come along.
“I know where we are,” Azula says minutes after the carriage enters the city. The siblings rode in steely silence for hours, interrupted only by the rattling of Azula's chains. Zuko glances after her taunt, catching the girl’s lofty expression through her unkempt hair.
“Yeah?”
“Of course I recognize it.” She smiles opulently beneath the blindfold. “I captured this city.” As the carriage doors snap open, Zuko squints against the light.
“You stole it,” their uncle corrects and extends his hand.
“Please be careful, Uncle,” Zuko begs.
The guards test a series of deadbolts installed into Azula's new bedroom door. Anything she could use as a weapon is removed from her reach, down to the last nail in the floorboards. Zuko's mind strays throughout the familiar compartments, listening to the wooden creak from his time of peaceful civility. This place won't hold Azula for a moment.
“I have looked after you at your worse," Iroh shrugs. "Your little sister will be a piece of cake.”
( That night, through the heavy locks-
“I was seconds away from becoming the Fire Lord,” she screams.
“Yes.” Uncle takes a sip of his latest brew. “I remember that feeling.” )
“Your crazy sister burnt down Ba Sing Seh yet?” Toph broaches the taboo topic easily when she passes the royal escort in the hall. While Zuko initially would have expected nothing less than the entire Earth Kingdom up in flames, Azula's freedom proves disturbingly boring for the first month. For every three letters Zuko forwards to the Earth Kingdom, Iroh sends a postcard. Azula sleeps a lot mostly, he mentions blithely. Tell Ursa to come try our Oolong!
“I would like to visit her,” Mother confesses over dinner, handing the latest vague card back to Zuko. The Fire Lord pushes food across his plate, impossibly jealous for his sister's insanity that dominates their mother's attention.
The next week Iroh sends a note that reads Azula starts work at the shop with me tomorrow! When a horrified Zuko passes the letter between his friends, he and Aang are the only two people who look worried.
“It’s not funny!” Zuko shouts over the din. “Stop laughing!”
“I can't breathe,” Sokka wheezes, leaning on his giggling sister for support.
Iroh sits thinking in the late summer sun, Zuko’s hysterical response in his lap. He doubts there’s a reason in the world to convince his nephew to allow Azula to work, but it hasn’t stopped him from trying. So far he has her serene sense of balance, Mei Lien having to take maternity leave a month early and that the princess could use some improvements to her social skills. They aren't lies, because Azula is quite coordinated. But without a purpose, the mind decays. Iroh remembers how the tip of a battle formation used to call to him like the North Star. Azula equally thought of her lofty position as the guiding point to all she did. Now, however, the look in her eyes between tantrums is one Iroh saw enough of the mirror after Lu Ten died, and he has no intention of allowing it in his home anymore.
She likes to keep busy, Iroh eventually explains. Don't worry Nephew! No one can replace your tea serving abilities.
(“He's totally going senile,” Mai glowers at the letter while Zuko tries to arrange emergency travel plans.)
On the first day at her new job, Azula slams a fist through a window and bleeds all over the stove. On the second day- perhaps disillusioned by her loss of power- she doesn't leave her room. On the third day she rips the apron into a thousand pieces. On the fourth day she doesn't get out of bed. On the fifth day she stands straight as a willow and pours boiling tea on a woman.
“Azula, a twenty percent tip is generous,” he reminds her.
“She's lucky,” Azula shrugs. “If she had tried that after my powers had returned, I'd have burnt the skin from her bones.”
“Is that what you think?” Uncle peers over the empty cups at her, long and quizzical. “I wonder if my brother in prison has your optimism.”
It takes half a week to get her out of her room again. Lost abilities; that's a sensitive topic, Iroh notes to himself, leaving a meal outside her door.
The sixth time Azula ventures into employment, she tries to take one of the tea patrons hostage. The shop rakes in four times the usual tips based on her 'performance'. One customer represents the king’s favorite acting troupe- but Uncle says his niece is too proper a lady for that profession. She kicks through a window the seventh day. Iroh begrudgingly admits this isn’t terrible news as she’s less likely to try and run away with glass in her foot.
“Hold still,” he asks, serenely applying alcohol as she knees him in the beard.
“Why doesn’t anyone recognize me?” she demands when her racist tirades once again fail to elicit a response from the crowds.
“Azula, you are the first Fire Nation warrior to fully subjugate Ba Sing Seh,” Iroh smiles knowingly at the beam that elicits from her. “You’re a much larger than life figure than a simple tea shop girl.”
“Obviously,” she scoffs, making a dive for silverware before Uncle deftly hides them within his sleeve. “But how stupid are these commoners? I’ve told them I was the Fire Lord Azula-”
“- and I’ve told them about the round-the-clock care you received before coming here.” He shrugs and the girl’s attitude simmers to a low boil at being thought of as just some crazy relation. “Princess, I wish you wouldn’t think of this place as a prison or as a way to inflict revenge on these people.”
“Oh, and what should I see this as?” she snarls.
“A job opportunity of course!” I deserved that, he chuckles as the shop’s entire collection of dishware is flung at his skull.
After a serious escape attempt ends in her being dragged home by the Terra Team, Azula devises a new strategy. Having her enemies cart her kicking and screaming through the city she once captured was shameful enough-- even if Azula was the only person who understood the significance. Resolute, she concedes to avoid another escape until her fire bending reappears. This doesn’t imply she has any intention of starting a sick civilian life with Uncle Fatso in the Earth Kingdom either, however. It’s only that the asylum was full of sugary doctors and whining patients who cried when you knocked their teeth down their throat. By comparison this is a great deal more entertaining prison, and Azula had prior experience and happy memories of misleading idiot earth benders.
The Jasmine Dragon is in the upper district of Ba Sing Seh, which has affords Iroh a prestigious set of clientele. Several high ranking officials Azula recalls from her occupation of the city often stop by, but none seem to recognize them- or care if they do. She uses the seeming invisibility of a servant to pass through the tables, circling between conversations of the powerful members of the Earth Kingdom. In the meantime, she makes an effort to slosh hot tea on anyone who’s face she particularly dislikes, or trip people as they pass. No one has yet to take up any actions against her, but she gives their earth bending hospitality only a few more weeks. More importantly, Azula can’t guarantee her the façade much longer than that either.
At the end of a particularly successful day (three men and two women tripped- one was even holding a baby!), Azula is intercepted on her way upstairs by Uncle and an unknown woman. She seems particularly regal, though Earth Kingdom women tend to wear the same amount of makeup as Fire Nation whores, so she holds off on making any assumptions.
“There you are, Azula! Lady Yin, this is my niece.” The look on the crone’s face tells Azula she’s heard some variation of the pitiful background story Uncle devised for her. She carefully overturns a few cups of the more expensive tea while Uncle and the old woman dog her tracks back.
“You should not be rude,” her uncle warns, trying to beckon the girl back by testing her patience. “After all, this woman has brought a present for you.” Azula lingers in the stairwell, debating if it was more worthwhile to slam a door in their faces or imply drop this proposed gift to the floor. She wanders back to her uncle skeptically.
“She’s not wearing the apron,” the old woman clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “She’ll ruin her clothing.”
“I’m to blame for indulging her,” Iroh laughs, helping Lady Yin pass over the present to his niece. “And she’s a bit of a tom boy.” He happily presses the crooked plant in a cheap pot in Azula’s hands. The trunk of the miniature tree is twisted and coiled as though its in pain. She’s not entirely sure if the object will sprout legs under the dirt and run after them, so Azula abstains- for the moment- from dropping it.
“A plant,” she glowers between the branches. “What do I care about this?”
“Oh, but you should!” the woman titters. “Careful maintenance of a bonsai tree is thought to be very soothing for a restless spirit.”
“My spirit isn’t the problem,” Azula bristles. “I think the only person with a problem are the idiots in this town foolish enough to allow me such generosity. My return to power will be on your backs, making my way further by climbing over the charred remains of a certainly king’s royal palac--”
“She has such an elaborate imagination!” Uncle laughs thinly, leading Azula around Lady Yin as easily as he would herd a cat. “You know during our time abroad she saw a show by the Ember Island Players and- such a memory!”
“She certainly has the flair for the dramatic, I have heard that,” the woman beams-- something Azula finds worse than her pity. “But Iroh, if you don’t close shop soon, we will be late for our show.” With an embarrassed chuckle, Uncle hastily leaders Azula up the steps and back into their private compartments. His niece, having caught onto who this insipid old woman and her crooked plant life is to him, happily launches herself upon the topic.
“You’re going on a date?” Azula shoots a menacing look over her shoulder, pushing back against his desperate attempts to move her down the hallway. “Did I embarrass you terribly around your new girlfriend? Do you really think at your age you can start a new life with some Earth Kingdom nobody?”
“We enjoy one another’s company very much, yes,” he clears his throat, responding only halfheartedly to her tirade. Iroh tugs her along, refusing to let the girl linger in the front room, the kitchen, pressing urgently towards the only place in the apartment that locks from the outside.
“She’s too old to have children, don’t you think?” Azula adds, feet sliding against the smooth floors until she’s past the threshold into her cell again. She makes an effort to get this out quickly, already knowing how their conversation will end. “If you ask me, what with your only offspring dead and Zuko no longer interested in your advice, I think you should give up trying to have a family-” As predicted, the door slams centimeters from her face. Her expression drifts into a low, comfortable smile as the locks snap into place on the other side of the barricade.
Iroh sighs, smiling grimly at the ease with which Azula can still hurt good people.
“No, Azula. You are my family.”
Once, preoccupied with the appearance of several higher ranked Earth Kingdom officials, Iroh asked his niece to “Please boil water for our guests.” After Azula realized she would have to use a spark-rocks to start a fire, they nearly had to replace the entire kitchen appliance.
“When I have my abilities back,” she shrieks. “I will burn this miserable shop, this disgusting hovel, everything you care about to the ground.”
“Now, Azula,” Iroh murmurs, working to catch the girl’s wrists to keep her from hurting herself further. “That’s no way to show gratitude to your elders.”
How are things going? Zuko’s latest letter asks in that same anxious handwriting with which he signs imperial decrees. Iroh’s back aches as he bends over to pick up the remains of the kitchen-set, to scrub blood from the countertops while listening to Azula howl behind locked doors and imagine an answer to that question.
(“‘When are you coming to visit, Nephew?’” Ursa reads aloud, her voice bright. “Oh, I think he misses you,” she teases, winding an arm with her son’s.)
An evening after closing hours, Uncle returns to the apartment with fresh vegetables and a unknown figure. Azula regards the young stranger leisurely- he's Earth Kingdom and slouching and she doesn't have the time to give him a second thought.
“Azula, I'd like you to meet Junren.”
“Hello,” he smiles apprehensively. Azula scoffs. Iroh appears unfazed.
“I was thinking the two of you could become better acquainted.”
“Why?” she snaps. Uncle always has some sort of ulterior motive, and giving him the slightest bit of leeway opens one to his surprise antics.
“Well…” Iroh pretends to possess some hesitation in admitting this, though Azula can tell from his grin he's enjoying every second of the charade. “He's your age, Azula, and Junren your mother did mention you don't have a girlfriend-” Azula’s head snaps up, on her feet in an instant.
“No!” Both teenagers shout (though Junren weakly manages to add a "please" when she glowers at him). Iroh commends himself for choosing a boy with the reflexes to dodge the princess’s punches. He has to applaud his own ability as well to convince the teens that a trip to fetch more tea leaves from the back room would go faster if they went together. They really look very cute together- when Azula isn’t scowling like that and the boy stops shaking. He considers letting Junren take her for a walk to the main square, but regrets that Azula still can’t be trusted on her own.
Junren is quick- Uncle barely spots him as he darts out the door, white as a sheet. Azula saunters into the room like a polar leopard that’s spooked its prey- still hungry but innately pleased with himself.
“Not your type?” Uncle calls over his shoulder. She rounds on him, having no patience for the old man’s insolence.
“Are you out of your mind?” she snarls. “First of all, as if a Fire Nation Princess would want anything to do with an Earth bending commoner! Secondly, he is hardly even a bender at all; He is taking remedial classes at the university- what sort of man doesn't utilize his birthright from the moment he's on this earth? Especially an earth he can mold with his own hands! I didn't waste a moment with my abilities.”
“No, you did not.”
“And finally! He's nothing more than a child! He's shorter than me and exudes not only a complete lack of potential, but absolutely no confidence behind even the most mundane of decisions!”
When Azula slams the door behind her, Iroh underlines the following passage in his notes-
Needs to be taller.
During a lunchtime rush, Azula stumbles on the rug and slops white hot Longjing over her left hand. She snatches the salve from Uncle and commands him to return to his work. As the blister hisses red and aches, Azula recalls the last time she was burned.
She wraps her hand in cloth and avoids thinking about Zuko.
Ty Lee gets some vacation time in the fall and inexplicably decides to spend it with Azula.
“I don't think so,” Azula laughs in her face and Iroh wastes two cups of tea trying to get the idiot to stop crying. Eventually the sound of it gets on the princess's nerves, and she shoves him aside to deal with the circus freak herself. Ty Lee, for all the falls to the head she’s taken, has enough sense to stop sniffling when she’s alone with Azula. With a rough sigh, Azula shoves the kettle across the table. Ty Lee quickly takes the hint and pours them each other cup.
“I didn't know you liked tea, Azula,” she chirps, voice still a little watery.
“I don’t.” The silence is long enough they follow Iroh’s entire conversation with Lady Yin (“Are they-” Azula nods grimly and Ty Lee makes a few grossed out noises.) When she almost chokes on her tea giggling at the pet names, Azula resists the urge to clap Ty Lee on the back. Ty Lee must have seen the tensing of her arm and because she takes the opportunity to be serious.
“I'm sorry for everything.” She reaches for Azula’s hands. The princess can almost feel her old friend’s windpipes crushing under her grip. But when she opens her eyes, she’s alone in the shop with cold tea and an unharmed Kyoshi warrior.
“I don't care,” Azula waves the outstretched hands aside. “So if you’ve come here expecting me to redeem your treacherous inclinations, it‘s not happening.” Ty Lee scowls like she used to when Mai made fun of her lipstick.
“I came,” she counters coldly, “Because I sorta hoped you weren’t so grumpy anymore!”
“What do I have to be happy about?” Azula yawns.
“Aren't you at least happy to be out of prison?”
“Are you?” the princess counters, edging a clay cup off the table. Ty Lee flinches at the crash.
“Sometimes,” she concedes at last, hands twisted in her lap. “Not if I have to see you like this.” Azula casts her a look that she doesn't want pity while Ty Lee hastily explains, “But Azula, its just-- I mean your aura-”
“What?” She leans forward on an elbow, her smirk extending far past the table. “Let me guess, the Avatar's taken that now too. But don’t worry, I’ll let you examine it when I take my revenge out of you.” Locks clattering behind Azula’s departure, Uncle brings a wad of tissues to the table. Ty Lee clutches him close, smearing makeup in his beard.
“Her aura is beautiful,” she sniffles. “Tell her for me.”
“Your friend is very happy for you,” Iroh explains, looking up from a set of dirty dishes. Azula continues carving lines into the wall with a butter knife and her uncle continues, “I am very happy for you too.” Azula yawns.
“What is everybody so happy about anyway?” She flings the knife narrowly close to Uncle’s back. “I haven't accomplished anything in this place.”
“I don't have to lock you in your room anymore, do I?”
That night, Azula finds her door is deadlocked like old times.
“I know you very well, princess,” Iroh calls through the barrier as he goes for a late night bathroom run. “You do so well when you're not trying to get the jump on innocent people.”
“‘Innocent’?” she screams, smashing her fists against the door.
One of Uncle's friends knows their true identities and, despite Azula's suspicions, has promised to keep it a secret. That doesn't prevent him from such arrogance, however, like smiling knowingly across the table to Iroh's niece.
“Are you enjoying life as a civilian?” he asks genially. Azula strikes him so hard she could've sworn steam rose from the mark. At dinner she and Uncle sit in an unusual silence, her flurry of thoughts a palpable barrier to Iroh's insistent conversation. When she gets up, Uncle calls,
“Whatever you're considering, I believe you should think it over again.”
After the sun sets, she presses her hands to the floor and concentrates on lighting the timber, on burning the entire block to ashes. My abilities are here, she hisses desperately. I'm not a civilian. Just one spark. But instead of smoke, she wakes up to the smell of Uncle cooking breakfast. The groves in the hardwood floor leave little imprints against her face when she sits up. Iroh's face twitches into a smile despite her anguished expression, the helpless gestures behind her actions.
“You'll catch a cold, Azula,” he chides, carrying the soup to the table. “Sleeping on the floor like this.”
In the winter, Zuko has a meeting with the Earth King to discuss the current state of his reparations, and in his free time agrees to stay with Iroh. Uncle has to admit the Fire Lord will be forced to sleep on the couch for this visit- Azula has his old room.
"Though you're more than welcome to share a bed with me, Nephew! Like old times." Brother and sister wear identical looks of disgust.
Iroh makes a great show of noting that the siblings haven’t seen each other since Zuko left the princess in his care. While Zuko had made several threats to storm into Ba Sing Seh and salvage the disaster zone Azula normally leaves in her wake, he had been unable to find time away. The situation at home is not good, Uncle admits when Azula overhears talk of the Fire Nation nationalists.
“But I don’t think we should talk business with your brother when he gets here,” Uncle advises when Azula asks a few too many questions.
“Because it’s not my business?” Her fingers tighten into familiar fire bending seals.
“Well, I don’t think it would be much of a vacation for him if we did.”
When the day of the visit arrives, Zuko drops off his things at the apartment before he heads to the deliberations. Azula doesn't go downstairs to greet him, or to see the fine Fire Nation construction of his imperial luggage and royal robes up close. From her room (window still barred with wood- flammable wood) she glares out at the landscape of the town, trying to pinpoint where on the wall her drill broke through. She gets so angry her eyesight goes blurry and Uncle has to hurry and buy several new plates when she's through with her first tantrum of the day. It’s been such a long time since he needed to repair dishware over her bad attitude that they raised the price of clay.
“Now, now,” he chides. “You don't want me to lock you in your room for Zuko's visit.”
“Oh, I think Zuzu would prefer it,” she grumbles and tries to kick the stool out from under the old man.
By the time Zuko returns in the evening, exhausted from the proceedings, his sister has worked herself into an indelible fervor.
“I hope you're hungry,” Uncle smiles despite the seething girl over his shoulder. “Azula here has worked up quite the appetite waiting for you.” It’s only midway through the first course before the princess makes her demands.
“No,” Zuko counters over their noodles.
“I don’t see what good I'm doing here,” Azula snaps. “I'm not asking to be reinstated as Fire Lord-”
“You were never Fire Lord,“ Zuko hurriedly hides a smirk behind his soup spoon. Just as fast, Uncle grabs a vase from Azula before she cracks her brother’s skull with it.
“You have me in a city of enemies!” she snarls. “At least in the asylum I wasn't on foreign ground.”
“These people are not your enemies,” Iroh cuts in smoothly, trying to set a calming hand on her arm. “Remember? You get along so well with them.” He shoots an anxious look to his nephew. “She is not usually like this.”
“Yes she is,” Zuko rebuffs what Azula realizes is Uncle's attempt to paint her in a better light. She can't understand why he would do this, and it dumbfounds her enough that her brother is allowed to continue. “Bringing you back to the Fire Nation is putting you in a city of enemies- my enemies.” He sighs, directing a further explanation to Iroh, “As long as she’s here, the King says they can keep some of the worst nationalists out. With the updated watch list, the likelihood of some rogue lunatic getting to Azula is-” Her laughter cuts him off.
“So is this for my safety, Brother?” she sneers, shoving her food aside to draw a reluctant Zuko closer. “I highly doubt any of the nationalists assume you'd be hurt by my death.”
“They may not want to kill you, Azula, but these are bad people.” Iroh says warningly.
“Like you,” Zuko mutters, pushing aside his own bowl of food.
“What,” she breezes. “I'm a bad person because I don't worship you like the Avatar and his commoner friends?”
“You're a bad person because of what you've done to this country!” Zuko snaps, any earlier patience he had thinning by the second. “I can't believe I have to waste all this time cleaning yours and dad's mess and then you ask me to let you go!” His sister's face darkens considerably.
“‘Mess’?” she echoes with a laugh. “Father made our country better than all the others combined.”
“Why do we have to be better, huh?” Zuko demands, rising. “Why can't we all work together? Why is that so terrible?”
“Because we are better,” Azula replies nonchalantly and takes a sip of her tea. The more Zuko explodes, the calmer she feels. After months of being the only one screaming, it was refreshing to see someone else let loose. “Well, I am. Not you. I'll be happy to demonstrate that to you when I get my powers back." She flexes her fingers and Zuko snaps.
“You're not getting your fire bending back!” he cries, coming around the table only to have Azula slap Zuko's hands away. “The Avatar took it away for good!” Face pink with jealousy, he rails on, “This is your life from now on; living with Uncle, serving tea! No responsibilities, no subjects, no stupid royal duties, so why can't you just be happy?”
“How could I be happy without my power?” she hisses, eyes flickering throughout the room that suddenly seems impossibly small. “That’s pathetic.”
“You’re pathetic,” he counters obstinately. “All you are about is whether or not you’re stronger or better than everyone else. No wonder you hate living with these people- they’ve got lives! They know who they are, and you’re just some crybaby who’s nobody without your fire bending!” Zuko has more than enough ammunition to continue, but stops short when it's clear his sister isn't listening. The color sinks from her face as she shoves back at the Fire Lord. Azula sweeps the remainder of their dinner to the floor, and scrambles away to give herself air, the room shaking with the force of the door she slams behind her. Azula collapses in her room, fingers pressed to the kindling wood of their home, again trying to create a firestorm at the end of her nerves. Even at her angriest, she mourns, there's not even a spark.
Outside the apartment, Zuko declines Uncle's original offer. He'll stay at the palace tonight instead, making his way there through the back alleys- which isn't safe, Uncle scolds.
“I’ll be fine,” Zuko tries for a little wry humor, adding, “I mean, I still have my fire bending.” Uncle's expression remains stony, so much so Zuko would feel guilty if the person he offended had been anyone other than Azula.
“I am trying to help your sister become a better person,” Iroh reminds him. “When you are cruel to her, she falls back on her bad habits.”
“Azula doesn't have good habits,” Zuko fumes, tugging his hood over his head. “Look, Mother's plan failed. We should just take her back to the asylum before she hurts someone.”
“I do not think that's wise, Zuko,” Iroh says firmly, but the boy leaves before he can argue the matter further.
Closing the door behind him, her uncle spots Azula at the top of the stairs, expression unreadable. He sighs, slowly beginning the ascent to meet the shaking girl.
“Don't you worry, princess. Your brother is just upset because he has been working too hard,” Iroh begins, tugging at his beard. “If you ask me, I think you've made a lot of progress since you first came here. And I know your Mother feels-”
“I don't feel so good,” Azula mumbles and slouches against the railing. Iroh lurches ahead to catch her before she falls.
In her dream she drowns in one of the courtyard ponds while her mother watches, Father’s hands pushing down on her shoulders.
She wakes up screaming, water on her face. Uncle holds the damp cloth to her burning forehead, trying to look wise and sympathetic all at once. She nearly snaps his fingers in her desperate grip and faints.
(“Azula’s sick,” Katara reads the letter aloud to the meeting that convenes in Zuko's absence.
“Good?” Sokka manages at last, tugging at his White Lotus collar.)
Even after Azula crushes the Avatar’s skull beneath her fingers, he still reaches forward, and the proof of her power and birthright slips away from her in an instant, leaving her a nobody.
“What did you do to me?” she hisses in a flicker of lucidity.
“This is a metamorphosis,” Uncle eases water towards her sputtering mouth. “It looks like your brother’s words had quite the impact on you.” His face looks as though he’s making light of the situation, but it serves to only make Azula’s uneasy stomach drops further.
“I’m not going to change into someone he likes,” she mumbles and rolls on her side away from him. Gingerly rising to his feet, Uncle takes her obduracy as a cue to leave.
“No,” he confesses, leaving one light burning. “But I think you may change into someone you like.”
Ty Lee hits her pressure points and laughs cheerfully when Azula falls. She lies begging between them while Mai slides hot knives under her skin.
“It's too hot,” she whimpers, tossing in her sleep.
“I'm here, my darling,” Mother murmurs, pushing the hair off Azula’s brow.
The door slams in another room and Azula's eyes snap open. She shifts under the pile of blankets, eyes squinting through the darkness only to realize she's alone.
(AUTHOR NOTE; no this isn't the end, lj just won't let me post more than 13 pages at a time. Consider this uh end of part 1? )