star dust imprints on her waiting skin
AO3
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Relationships: Azula x/& Yue, Azula & Zuko
Project: ATLA Rare Pair Gift Exchange 2021
Abstract:
This is the stranger you’re supposed to marry. The princess presented to your father as your equal. The girl you have never seen before.
aka: The politically motivated engagement of Yue and Azula that soft-boils Azula's heart over the course of several years. (5 facts disguised as secrets that Yue shares with Azula, + 1 secret disguised as fact that Azula keeps for herself.)
Anmerkung:
in german translation available: AO3 | FFde
disclaimer 1: please don't look too closely at the worldbuilding
disclaimer 2: i accidentally wrote this in the wrong language, so if anything's off (like syntax or overall wording) please don't hesitate to tell me!
i hope you enjoy this as much as i did writing ♡
CN: Essen, Toxische Beziehung (Azula & ihr Vater)
You straighten your back before your father can reprimand your posture. Your pointy shoecaps point towards the door, and you clasp your hands behind your back to keep you from fiddling. They dressed you in your finest garbs, pulled your hair back into a perfect knot. It was your mother who crowned you princess with a sharp needle and golden hair ornaments. The incarnation of royal poise confined in the flesh and bone of your nine-year-old body.
They talk about contracts, safeguard, and tributes. They talk about localities and modalities, about peoples and connections. They talk about alliances, coalescences, and loyalty. - What they’re not talking about is you.
Zuko and you are stood unmoving behind your parents and their advisors, feet aching and fingers twitching for safe ground. He doesn’t reach for your hand, and you don’t reach for his, but you wished he were closer to you every time your eyes fall upon the white-haired girl on the other side of the negotiating table who doesn’t lift her head a single time to meet your gaze. You just want an allied soul in this room that can soothe the fire in your veins that flares up again and again and again as you examine the straight line of her shoulders; as your gaze falls upon the blue of her clothes and the brown of her boots; as her name is dropped as little as yours.
You can’t do anything other than look at her. Not only because she’s in your direct line of vision but also because you hope you can read your future in her clasped hands, star dust imprints on her waiting skin.
This is the stranger you are to marry. The princess presented to your father as your equal. The girl you have never seen before.
Your father beckons you to step forward. You’re supposed to bow and not say a word because everything has already been said without you. But perchance you’re able to catch a genuine glimpse of her face. The face of the girl who steps up in all her graceful serenity, fingers wound around an object in front of her body so firmly you can’t even see it up close.
Now she stands right before you and you can see the allusion of a smile on her lips; that small and invisible that no one but you may notice; a conspiratorial smile just for you, a secret between you that no one else is privy to. - You don’t want her intimacy, her conspiracy, but yet you answer by swallowing down the anger and helplessness that spreads through your veins. All that remains is the embers beneath your midriff.
In the hollow of her hands lie a dark ribbon and a blue, cut stone. She bows her head, avoiding your gaze and stretching out her hands, she’s offering you a necklace, and you don’t know if it would be justified to reach for it, so you reach for her hands instead and bring them to your neck, although everything in you rebels against the thought of strange hands on your vulnerable throat. But when her touch, as she puts the necklace on your neck, is feather-light you seek her gaze in surprise. You can’t find it. She doesn’t stop not looking at you. And as she lets go of the necklace and takes a step back, the weight of the stone brings down the weight of her gift onto your shoulders.
You’ll be married once you’re sixteen, and although your entire life so far is ahead of you, it feels like the end.
In the evening you put the chain on your bedside table, in the morning on your neck, at night it disperses the light of the moon and at noon your will.
Zuko says he’s your father’s heir and that there is no place for you anymore. Zuko says the only place for you is in the midst of ice and snow. Zuko says they’re going to send you away because you’re not getting married, you’re being married off. You, however, know he’s wrong. You know your father would never allow them to send you away. You know your place is on the throne of the Fire Lord and nowhere else.
Ty Lee says it’s so very romantic that you can carry around your fiancée’s promise every day for everyone to see. Ty Lee says it’s so very sensible that the stone was cut just for you, by hands that tried to create the perfect gift for you. Ty Lee says you’re so very lucky that you know what awaits you in your future. You, however, know she’s misguided. You know the stone is your brand mark. You know everyone should be able to see who you really belong to, that you don’t belong here anymore, like Zuko said.
Your mother says it’s alright to be sad. Your mother says you can cry whenever you feel the urge. Your mother says she understands how you feel because she had been in your situation herself before she married Ozai but she’s so very happy now with Zuko and you. You, however, know she’s lying. You know she’s the one who told your father to accept the plea of the Northern Water Tribe. You know she’s the one who doesn’t want you to be here, and that Zuko will end up being right.
They have kuspuk and parka and mukluks ready for you. Thick and lined und far too much too blue. In the clandestineness of your room, you slip into the heavy fabric and you don’t recognise yourself underneath all that winter. Your own eyes stare back out of the mirror but the rest of you that you can see belongs to the fiancée of the princess of the Northern Water Tribe.
Most of the time you’re able to forget what is awaiting you, the heavy necklace an everyday weight, but in moments like this the weight of the world rests on your shoulders. The day you must leave for good is approaching and no amount of hoping and pleading and begging will keep them from sending you away.
“You look like one of them,” Zuko says and in your haste to turn around you trip over the mukluks behind you. Arms crossed in front of his body and head tilted, he watches you struggling with your balance.
He’s about to turn away as if he has been only waiting for a chance to taunt you and disappear, coming away full-handed, but then he pauses and his wandering eye studies your room until it finds its way back to you. Maybe he views the hard line of your mouth as victory, maybe the fur-trimmed hood as triumph. Maybe he wants to bask once more in the realisation that it is you who was wrong; that your mother has achieved all her goals. You must go and Zuko is going to ascend the throne.
Before he finally turns to go, his gaze softens only for a moment, you almost don’t recognise him, and he says: “Blue suits you.” And suddenly, you’re alone again, drowning in a parka made for someone bigger than you.
The seasons pass you by, in reality, however, it is you passing by the landscapes. It doesn’t comfort you, the steady progress of the royal sloop, the constant trampling of the Komodo rhinos, the never-ending roar of the sea you can always hear, feet on board or land. The cold air an incessant memory that you have left the Fire Nation and its heat behind. Proof that it doesn’t matter that you’ve spent your entire life being better and best; that it’s worthless, the word of your father to whom you’ve given all your loyalty; it doesn’t make a difference that you would become heir to the throne if Zuko would misstep because you’ve already gone too far. You’ve reached the outskirts of the Northern Water Tribe and the masses of snow and ice are shining towards you.
From now on, this is to be your home, the place you’re going to live, the realm where you’re merely the consort of the regent. You are made for greater things but Zuko is the one who will end up on the throne because your mother’s care has ensured that you will never attain what you’ve fought for.
It is the first time in your life you will not get what you want; the first time you will have to submit to a decision made against your will; the first time it looks like you will just have to resign yourself to your fate. And your fate is to live out your existence at the North Pole while the cold drives the fire out of your veins.
But the reality is actually this: Your mother is no more and Zuko is gone, but they still didn’t call you back, all three of you were mistaken. You, however, don’t know anything about it.
You miss Mai, Ty Lee and your afternoons in the palace garden. You miss trainings fights and talking behind closed doors about the things Ty Lee and May can’t confide in anybody else. You miss the warm feeling of gratification that spread through the pit of your stomach whenever Mai asked in a low voice: “Don’t tell anyone, Azula, not even Ty Lee.” You miss the intoxicating feeling of sprinkling barely decipherable hints of all their secrets into conversations, always bordering on revelation. You miss the feeling of being needed, of being in control, of not being alone.
At the North Pole, you’re lonely, an oil lamp amidst arctic wind.
Sometimes you’re lonely together with Yue. Lonely because she doesn’t belong to you but to the Northern Water Tribe; expressions of loyalty would be nothing but hollow phrases. Together because sometimes she looks at you as if wants to whisper soft words meant only for your ears. But most of the time she blinks decidedly and averts her gaze from you as if she had just noticed who’s sitting in front of her. (That you’re sitting in front of her.)
(Sometimes you wonder what Yue could confide in you. You wonder what secrets lie dormant in a person like Princess Yue; what feelings and thoughts, that she wouldn’t share with anyone else, are hidden behind her superficially polite words; what vulnerabilities are buried beneath her introspective smile and kind eyes. You wonder how far you would have to dig to reveal what is hidden inside her. But most of the time you are preoccupied dealing with the anger that is constantly threatening to burn its way out of you that you can’t concentrate on anything but breathing in and breathing out and breathing away all the need for rash action.
The first secret she confides in you isn’t really a secret, it’s a “this one is my room, don’t hesitate to knock if you need anything, doesn’t matter the time of day” and an imploring “no matter when” as you walk past Yue’s door. But it feels like a secret, in this residence where every ice pillar looks the same and where, on some days, you can barely find your own room (which is not far from hers).
You try to think as little as possible about the fact that you now know the place where she is most vulnerable, because there can only be one reason why Yue has taken this step towards you: She is trying to gain a strategic advantage by laying the groundwork to be able to extract information from you without you seeing through her game. It doesn’t matter that you find yourself at her door on bad days, hand only moments away from knocking, because the thing is: Yue is not the only one capable of coming up with a game plan - a battle plan, really - and you’re tired of waiting for the situation to change on its own; tired of waiting for your father to finally bring you back home; tired of being passive and deedless and waiting. You want to finally take action, and maybe the only way to achieve that goal is to beat Yue at her own game; even if that means taking different paths than you’re used to go. (You know what your father would ask of you to win Azulon over. And how difficult could it be to conquer a princess that has already laid claim to you far too long ago? You can be perfect for her, you think, doesn’t take too much effort. A cinch, really.)
“I’ve never been interested in card games,” you say in way of greeting, your shoulder leaning against the doorframe and the offer of peace in your voice. Yue winces, visibly taken off-guard by your appearance. “My strength has always been more in Hide and Explode and the shell game.”
For a moment, her fingers fiddle with the Water Four she was about to place on the second pile from the left. Then she places the card next to the board and indicates for you to enter.
Your shoes almost slip on the ice, but you carry it off well that the floor catches you unprepared in unsuspecting moments and throws you off balance.
As you sit with her on the carpet in front of her bed, she says: “Usually, I play Pai Sho.” For a moment you’re reminded of Uncle Iroh, whom you have seen playing Pai Sho so many times but who never offered you teach you - just as he never wanted to teach you generating lightning. (You took up the lightning, discarding the Pai Sho.)
“I’ve never played Pai Sho,” you retort, while you can’t believe that a first opportunity to gain her trust presented itself so quickly and so obviously (a mundane opportunity, but you’re patient. This is your road to the throne, albeit the wrong one), and you swallow your anger at Iroh.
“Oh,” Yue says quietly. “I can show you how it’s played.” She makes no move to stand up. “But you’ll have to do something for me in return, all right?” A conspiratorial smile spreads across her lips; a smile you have seen before, and you brace yourself for the worst. But you do nod determinedly. “You gonna explain to me what Hide and Explode is.”
This will be even easier than you expected.
The second secret she confides in you is not necessarily a secret either, but you let it pass as one because it means moving a step forward. You sit outside the palace and she explains the rules of Ice Marbles, which, unlike Pai Sho, seems like something you might actually enjoy. (You’re good at Pai Sho, a natural-born strategist, but little comes close to the sweet satisfaction of a victory evoked by a game in which you had to really put yourself out.)
Her hand cups yours as she corrects your grip, and you concentrate all your strength on simply accepting her feather-light touch. (You remember the first time she touched you, you feel the stone on your neck, making you much less of an outcast here.)
“Since you’ve arrived,” Yue says suddenly, without taking her hand from yours, “I wonder how on earth it’s possible that you don’t freeze.” She looks at your red and black coat, clearly not designed for North Pole temperatures.
You stare at the marble in your hand and reply: “Fire.”
The temperature of your fingers increases, and with the melting of the ice marble, Yue pulls her hand away to avoid burning her skin on yours. You regret a little that you didn’t tease the same indignant reaction out of Yue that Zuko would have displayed in this situation. But you also don’t expect her to say in a low, concerned voice: “You must be awfully hungry from all that bending.”
She doesn’t ask why you’re still dressed in the thin coats of the Fire Nation and not the warm parkas of the Water Tribe, even though so much time has passed by. Instead, she shows you the way into the kitchen and the best way to obtain a midnight snack without getting caught.
Your hot fingers bend metal, that was once a necklace of yours, into a new shape and you wonder what exactly it is you are doing here. Or rather: You know exactly what you are doing, but you cannot explain why you are doing it.
For years, the betrothal necklace around your neck hasn’t felt as heavy as it did when you were still in the Fire Nation, and by now you know the necklaces are given away by the courting to the courted. You know that wearing the necklace marks you as courted, as ensnared, as smitten, and you’re so very tired of seeing Yue’s bare neck peeking out of the collar of her parka. You’re not the kind of person whose benevolence is ensured without wearing your sign, too. Showing your allegiance so very publically when Yue’s not also constantly reminded that you’re not the only one who belongs to someone else.
So, you sit in the snow, wrapped in your coat and focusing your full attention on the gentle, precise bending of the metal to make a pendant for the red ribbon you pulled from another one of your necklaces. (You have no use for all the jewellery they bestowed upon you when you were forced to leave. There is only one necklace left for you to wear until you’re married.)
You dip the pendant into the snow to smother the glow and you look at the teardrop shaped thing into which you still have to engrave flames to avoid any confusion about who Yue is belonging to.
(In the end they look more like churning waves, you’re not an artist by any means, but Yue’s smile is so frighteningly genuine and so surprisingly infectious that you don’t mind it as you put the necklace on her.)
The third secret she confides in you may not be a deep, dark secret but it must be enough to reassure you that you are on the right track.
“I know a spot,” Yue said before she led you outside late at night and posited you right behind her on a polar bear dog. You rode for quite a while and, after she asked you to, you actually kept your eyes closed. (You tell yourself that you did it because you want to convey to her that you trust her, so she can completely and utterly hand herself over to you. But she has never given you any reason not to trust her, hasn’t she?)
Suddenly, the polar bear dog halts and you feel Yue lowering herself from its back to the ground. You pause until you feel her hand rest on your thigh, the back of her hand facing down, the inner palm turned up so you can put yours into hers so she can help you down.
“All right,” Yue says after leading you away from the polar bear dog. She stops you and turns you in another direction, then, without letting go of your hand, she says: “You can open your eyes now.”
And as you open your eyes, the vastness of the cold tundra and the polar light stretching above hits you right in the heart. You feel so small and overwhelmed that only Yue’s hand in yours can stop you from turning back to the polar bear dog and fleeing. (You’ve never felt like this before, and you don’t know how to deal with so many feelings that aren’t anger or defiance or spite.)
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Yue asks softly, and you can’t help but look at her out of the corner of your eye.
The only reason you came back to the place she showed you was because you wanted to be alone. Truly and utterly alone. Just a few precious hours without another living creature, while the North Pole sleeps and you can be finally in your own element again. (The constant control of your own body temperature and the perpetual cold drains you because there is so much more inside you that isn’t allowed to come out.)
You stole a midnight snack from the kitchen and wolfed half of it down before shaking out your limbs and stretching them.
Everything in Agna Qel’a is made of ice and you can’t afford to lose the goodwill of the city by melting its infrastructure or damaging a few buildings. So you must use the empty expanse of the tundra to scratch the itch inside of you; to finally get back to doing what you were born to do.
At first your joints feel unwieldy and frozen, as if you’ve never bend fire in your life, but the longer you twist and turn across the ice, the smoother your movements become, until eventually you feel as if you’ve never done anything else in your life. Laboured breathing, you slip your coat off your shoulders, your upper arms and face steaming in the cold. As you stretch your arms above your head to stretch the muscles in your shoulders, you suddenly hear a voice you didn’t expect: “That was beautiful.”
Surprised, you turn to Yue, whose hand clasps the reins of a polar bear dog. You reply slowly: “Firebeding is powerful.”
Yue shakes her head and it almost looks like she is smiling at you as she says: “No, what I mean is: It looked beautiful.” And you don’t know what to do with that statement.
It’s the Avatar.
The damned Avatar is at the North Pole and you don’t know what to do. (Or rather: You know very well what would be expected of you. You know that if you father knew about the Avatar, he would expect you to report to him without hesitation. You know that he would expect you to put a quick end to the Avatar. And you could, because he is so young and so inexperienced and so powerless that it would be easy for you to overpower him. But why should you do what your father expects of you? Why, after all this time of not hearing a word from him beyond the order to report back, should you do what he asks of you? You have waited so long for him to explain to you why he left you alone. You have waited so long for him to take you back and tell you that it was just a gambit to give you the space you deserve. You waited so long and were disappointed).
(And then there’s Yue, who doesn’t want to hide from you that the Avatar is at the North Pole; who looks into your eyes with vulnerable, brittle faith and tells you not to tell anyone; who begs you to keep quiet, even though she knows your father would demand otherwise).
The damned Avatar is at the North Pole and you don’t know what to do. (And you remain silent, just as your father remained silent when you had to leave the Fire Nation. And you stay silent because you have to gain Yue’s trust after your father lost yours. And you just watch the Avatar becoming stronger and stronger, because he’s going to affect your father in a way you could never possibly have).
The moment you realise that your loyalties cannot lie with your family and the Northern Water Tribe comes in the form of General Zhao laying siege to your city. (It is the first time you think of Agna Qel’a as your city; feel Agna Qel’a as your city). You must decide which side you’ll extravert.
This acknowledgement should not be difficult for you, even though your father is everything you have ever lived for. But still you stand rooted to the spot in a pile of snow and cannot lift a finger. Everything inside you freezes and you can only watch as Zhao makes his way to the oasis.
Your heart wanders reluctantly to Yue, who asks you in a trembling voice to support the Avatar and help the Northern Water Tribe; who desperately grabs your hand and asks you urgently if you are on the same side.
(Are you on the same side? So far you have only ever been on your side and the side you would share with other people has always had to be yours. Mai and Ty Lee have been on your side and you’ve been kind of on your father’s side. But now it’s different, now everything is different, and maybe it’s time to take a side that you’ve chosen all by yourself).
“General Zhao,” you call out with all the potency in your voice, and you surprise yourself. Even though you live at the North Pole and no longer have the same power as before, you are still his princess and he must do as you ask. “What do you think you are doing? Whose orders do you think you are acting on?” And with that, your battle lines are drawn and you are not sure how you found yourself on this side.
The fifth and final secret she confides in you sounds like the greatest revelation Yue is capable of.
You sit together in the middle of the tundra, five-fingered gloves and thick parkas with fur-trimmed hoods protecting you from the icy cold of the wind. The only other creature in sight is the polar bear dog on which you sneaked out of town.
“Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone before?” Yue asks quietly, without looking at your face. You brace yourself for her to tell you something that will somehow move you forward, that will tell you how to finally take another step further.
When she doesn’t continue, you encourage her to keep talking: “Sure. Go on.”
“When I became old enough to be inducted into political business,” Yue begins, and you perk up, because until now you’ve been kept out of most political matters, because as the princess’s consort you don’t have the right to participate in the conversations and discussions, “my father forbade me to keep on penguin sledding with the other children because it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to do so. But I still sneaked out one time at night because I couldn’t stop myself.” A blush spreads across her cheeks that you’ve never seen on her before, you almost don’t recognise her.
“Penguin sledding,” you repeat, bewilderment creeping into your voice. (You were expecting a mystery to match the abysses of yours, but this one is so far from your understanding of what mystery truly is that you can’t stop yourself from laughing a little.)
Her cheeks turn even redder and she tries to hide her face from your gaze as she embarrassingly exclaims “Yes!”, which makes you laugh a little more. Suddenly you are no longer sure if you remember the plan.
The scroll in your hands looks as if you had never opened it, only the broken seal proves that you know the contents. You look at Yue, who is sitting on the carpet in front of her bed, and you say: “I must pack.”
Frowning in surprise, Yue asks: “What?”
“My father wrote to me,” you reply, then hand Yue the scroll so she can read for herself that your father is ordering your intervention in the doings of Iroh and Zuko.
Her eyes dance frantically over his words and with strained disbelief in her voice she asks: “And now you must pack?”
“I must pack and begin to search,” you declare, your thoughts already half buried in a map of the world.
Yue sighs sea-bottom-deep before she can stop herself, noting: “You must obey his command, for your people, I understand.”
You snort, and the laughter that falls from your lips afterwards could almost be about Yue if it wasn’t so damn entertaining that it doesn’t matter how much time people spend with you because they fail over and over again at being able to read you.
“I must find the Avatar to teach him firebending,” you retort mockingly. There is nothing in this world that edges you on as much as malice and invidiousness and the mere gratification of doing something out of spite. (To your father, not to just anyone. The days he could enjoy your unquestioned loyalty are over. You want your throne, and the Avatar is the only one who can make it happen).
“I’ll come with you,” Yue says suddenly, already standing on her feet, and you can’t explain the warm feeling that spreads through your entire body. After all, you didn’t ask her to come.
You say: “Good.” And she smiles at you.
The boat Yue has organised for you is small and wooden and not at all meant for royal travellers in its sheer simplicity, but it will have to suffice to find the Avatar who is supposed to be in the Earth Kingdom. Yue has brought on board two waterbenders for your plan, who will not rat you out to Arnook (because they love Yue; a nonbender who is not even trained in combat, but who is so close to their hearts that they see nothing wrong with doing anything for her, even if their chief would not agree) and who are trained in steering boats.
You take one last look at the illuminated palace that has been your … home for the last few years, even if the thought doesn’t necessarily bring the same kind of comfort as knowing Yue at your side. (Yue, who, without questioning your motivation, has been immediately willing to do anything for her people, and thus somehow for you; who, in all your time at the North Pole, you haven’t had to convince of yourself in the same way as Mai and Ty Lee and your father, and in whom you can sometimes recognise parts of your mother that she only revealed to Zuko, but never to you).
“You want to tell them to put out to sea?” Yue asks, after checking her bag one last time to make sure she has packed everything. She has let you tie her hair into a topknot, and if it weren’t for the Water Tribe symbol on the medallion she has attached to it, you could easily mistake her for a Fire Nation princess.
You shake your head. “You do it.”
And then you reach for her hand and together you board the boat. Your journey is just beginning.
[missing scenes (that didn't fit the vibe)]
Her hands are buried somewhere in her sleeves, and for a moment you bask in the breath of fresh air and the warmth emanating from her body. It’s almost peaceful here in the sun with Yue, until her calm voice breaks the silence between you: “You don’t have to escort me, you know?”
“He asked if you wanted to do an activity with him,” you state, eyes always on the channel, as if it would answer her question in any kind of way. You don’t know why you voice it; almost as if you were shielding your cards in the opposing direction and revealing your hand of hearts to her in the process.
Tilted head she throws a glance at you, weighing the expressionlessness of your face against the hard intertwinement of your hands. She says: “He’s trying to be nice. It’s been a long time since the Northern and Southern Water Tribes were in contact.”
“Fraternisation, you mean.” Maybe your words sound tight-wound and your voice clipped, but it’s only because you want to make sure that she doesn’t defect, that you still have your foot in the door, that she won’t stab you in the back for an insignificant boy from the Southern Water Tribe.
She pulls her hands out of her sleeves and for a short moment it looks like she wants to reach for your hand - you catch your breath -, but she only intertwines her gloved fingers and says: “Building a friendship.”
(A fortress against the Fire Nation is in the air between you, because why else would the Northern Water Tribe lay bricks of comradery. And despite the concomitant agitation in your stomach, you can’t keep from placing your hand on the railing on her other side when the Water Tribe boy talks to her.)
“Blue suits you,” sounds different coming from her mouth than Zuko’s. There’s no hidden pity underneath coats of derision and taunt and year long bottled-up frustration. Those are not carefully selected words meant to occupy and fill the space between you and make it suffocatingly tight; meant to find every crack in your walls and foundation to take hold of every nook and corner of your heart like parasitic algae just waiting to dig their way back out of you again. But that doesn’t mean the words don’t reach your heart, that they don’t settle in every nook and make you burst from within yourself.
There have been so many trivialities over the years that Yue said or did or refrained from doing; a groundwork of nice words and supportive touches and the absolute absence of any pressure to return her behaviour. (She’ll claim her countervalue, some time, maybe, maybe she won’t.) Her words don’t fall into empty space but rather into nicely consciously suppressed warmth that feels a lot more like body heat than fire; like a sun-drenched day amidst ice and snow and the endlessness of the tundra.
But for all that, how are you supposed to express what you can’t even understand yourself. How are you supposed to explain to her that, in another life, her words would have broken your heart, whereas now they’re the only thing holding you together. How are you supposed to answer her without unveiling chippings of yourself that have never seen the light of day. What are you supposed to do, what is the next step, what is the planplanplan?
You breathe in and deeply and all the trembling in your heart away, then you square your shoulders and say with all the tranquillity you can find within yourself: “I know.”
Yue and her polar bear dog find you on a rock. It’s not the first time you withdraw from Agna Qel’a to absorb every beam of sunlight you can catch while the warmth of the stone beneath you seeps into your thighs. For a long time you thought you’d never come closer to the heat of the Fire Nation than this, now every thing is different because the dry warmth of the Earth Kingdom calls for you.
Without hesitation, Yue sits down next to you on the rock, you must herd together closely, so that none of you ends up in the snow, and the polar bear dog attempts to jump onto you to lick your face, even though you never gave it any reason to take you into its heart.
With firm hands, you shove it down and after a few more vain attempts to bury you underneath its massive body, it lays down right in front of you, trapping Yue’s and your feet under its back.
“You must be cold,” Yue says, pulling her gloves off and your hands out of the sleeves of your parka, so that she can enclose your hands with hers.
Contrasting your heated skin, hers seems to be cool and you reply: “I doubt it.”
“You behave like a mongoose lizard,” Yue states and here, on top of your rock, you can’t deny the speck of truth, but that doesn’t mean you must accept it.
“Did you ever see a mongoose lizard?”
She laughs breathlessly, your hands still gripped tightly, and shakes her head. “I don’t have to.” Seemingly without thinking, she lifts your hands and, equally as absent-mindedly, she presses a kiss to your knuckles. “I got you after all.”
You catch your breath and you’re so very much ablaze for Yue.
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Relationships: Azula x/& Yue, Azula & Zuko
Project: ATLA Rare Pair Gift Exchange 2021
Abstract:
This is the stranger you’re supposed to marry. The princess presented to your father as your equal. The girl you have never seen before.
aka: The politically motivated engagement of Yue and Azula that soft-boils Azula's heart over the course of several years. (5 facts disguised as secrets that Yue shares with Azula, + 1 secret disguised as fact that Azula keeps for herself.)
Anmerkung:
in german translation available: AO3 | FFde
disclaimer 1: please don't look too closely at the worldbuilding
disclaimer 2: i accidentally wrote this in the wrong language, so if anything's off (like syntax or overall wording) please don't hesitate to tell me!
i hope you enjoy this as much as i did writing ♡
CN: Essen, Toxische Beziehung (Azula & ihr Vater)
You straighten your back before your father can reprimand your posture. Your pointy shoecaps point towards the door, and you clasp your hands behind your back to keep you from fiddling. They dressed you in your finest garbs, pulled your hair back into a perfect knot. It was your mother who crowned you princess with a sharp needle and golden hair ornaments. The incarnation of royal poise confined in the flesh and bone of your nine-year-old body.
They talk about contracts, safeguard, and tributes. They talk about localities and modalities, about peoples and connections. They talk about alliances, coalescences, and loyalty. - What they’re not talking about is you.
Zuko and you are stood unmoving behind your parents and their advisors, feet aching and fingers twitching for safe ground. He doesn’t reach for your hand, and you don’t reach for his, but you wished he were closer to you every time your eyes fall upon the white-haired girl on the other side of the negotiating table who doesn’t lift her head a single time to meet your gaze. You just want an allied soul in this room that can soothe the fire in your veins that flares up again and again and again as you examine the straight line of her shoulders; as your gaze falls upon the blue of her clothes and the brown of her boots; as her name is dropped as little as yours.
You can’t do anything other than look at her. Not only because she’s in your direct line of vision but also because you hope you can read your future in her clasped hands, star dust imprints on her waiting skin.
This is the stranger you are to marry. The princess presented to your father as your equal. The girl you have never seen before.
Your father beckons you to step forward. You’re supposed to bow and not say a word because everything has already been said without you. But perchance you’re able to catch a genuine glimpse of her face. The face of the girl who steps up in all her graceful serenity, fingers wound around an object in front of her body so firmly you can’t even see it up close.
Now she stands right before you and you can see the allusion of a smile on her lips; that small and invisible that no one but you may notice; a conspiratorial smile just for you, a secret between you that no one else is privy to. - You don’t want her intimacy, her conspiracy, but yet you answer by swallowing down the anger and helplessness that spreads through your veins. All that remains is the embers beneath your midriff.
In the hollow of her hands lie a dark ribbon and a blue, cut stone. She bows her head, avoiding your gaze and stretching out her hands, she’s offering you a necklace, and you don’t know if it would be justified to reach for it, so you reach for her hands instead and bring them to your neck, although everything in you rebels against the thought of strange hands on your vulnerable throat. But when her touch, as she puts the necklace on your neck, is feather-light you seek her gaze in surprise. You can’t find it. She doesn’t stop not looking at you. And as she lets go of the necklace and takes a step back, the weight of the stone brings down the weight of her gift onto your shoulders.
You’ll be married once you’re sixteen, and although your entire life so far is ahead of you, it feels like the end.
In the evening you put the chain on your bedside table, in the morning on your neck, at night it disperses the light of the moon and at noon your will.
Zuko says he’s your father’s heir and that there is no place for you anymore. Zuko says the only place for you is in the midst of ice and snow. Zuko says they’re going to send you away because you’re not getting married, you’re being married off. You, however, know he’s wrong. You know your father would never allow them to send you away. You know your place is on the throne of the Fire Lord and nowhere else.
Ty Lee says it’s so very romantic that you can carry around your fiancée’s promise every day for everyone to see. Ty Lee says it’s so very sensible that the stone was cut just for you, by hands that tried to create the perfect gift for you. Ty Lee says you’re so very lucky that you know what awaits you in your future. You, however, know she’s misguided. You know the stone is your brand mark. You know everyone should be able to see who you really belong to, that you don’t belong here anymore, like Zuko said.
Your mother says it’s alright to be sad. Your mother says you can cry whenever you feel the urge. Your mother says she understands how you feel because she had been in your situation herself before she married Ozai but she’s so very happy now with Zuko and you. You, however, know she’s lying. You know she’s the one who told your father to accept the plea of the Northern Water Tribe. You know she’s the one who doesn’t want you to be here, and that Zuko will end up being right.
They have kuspuk and parka and mukluks ready for you. Thick and lined und far too much too blue. In the clandestineness of your room, you slip into the heavy fabric and you don’t recognise yourself underneath all that winter. Your own eyes stare back out of the mirror but the rest of you that you can see belongs to the fiancée of the princess of the Northern Water Tribe.
Most of the time you’re able to forget what is awaiting you, the heavy necklace an everyday weight, but in moments like this the weight of the world rests on your shoulders. The day you must leave for good is approaching and no amount of hoping and pleading and begging will keep them from sending you away.
“You look like one of them,” Zuko says and in your haste to turn around you trip over the mukluks behind you. Arms crossed in front of his body and head tilted, he watches you struggling with your balance.
He’s about to turn away as if he has been only waiting for a chance to taunt you and disappear, coming away full-handed, but then he pauses and his wandering eye studies your room until it finds its way back to you. Maybe he views the hard line of your mouth as victory, maybe the fur-trimmed hood as triumph. Maybe he wants to bask once more in the realisation that it is you who was wrong; that your mother has achieved all her goals. You must go and Zuko is going to ascend the throne.
Before he finally turns to go, his gaze softens only for a moment, you almost don’t recognise him, and he says: “Blue suits you.” And suddenly, you’re alone again, drowning in a parka made for someone bigger than you.
The seasons pass you by, in reality, however, it is you passing by the landscapes. It doesn’t comfort you, the steady progress of the royal sloop, the constant trampling of the Komodo rhinos, the never-ending roar of the sea you can always hear, feet on board or land. The cold air an incessant memory that you have left the Fire Nation and its heat behind. Proof that it doesn’t matter that you’ve spent your entire life being better and best; that it’s worthless, the word of your father to whom you’ve given all your loyalty; it doesn’t make a difference that you would become heir to the throne if Zuko would misstep because you’ve already gone too far. You’ve reached the outskirts of the Northern Water Tribe and the masses of snow and ice are shining towards you.
From now on, this is to be your home, the place you’re going to live, the realm where you’re merely the consort of the regent. You are made for greater things but Zuko is the one who will end up on the throne because your mother’s care has ensured that you will never attain what you’ve fought for.
It is the first time in your life you will not get what you want; the first time you will have to submit to a decision made against your will; the first time it looks like you will just have to resign yourself to your fate. And your fate is to live out your existence at the North Pole while the cold drives the fire out of your veins.
But the reality is actually this: Your mother is no more and Zuko is gone, but they still didn’t call you back, all three of you were mistaken. You, however, don’t know anything about it.
You miss Mai, Ty Lee and your afternoons in the palace garden. You miss trainings fights and talking behind closed doors about the things Ty Lee and May can’t confide in anybody else. You miss the warm feeling of gratification that spread through the pit of your stomach whenever Mai asked in a low voice: “Don’t tell anyone, Azula, not even Ty Lee.” You miss the intoxicating feeling of sprinkling barely decipherable hints of all their secrets into conversations, always bordering on revelation. You miss the feeling of being needed, of being in control, of not being alone.
At the North Pole, you’re lonely, an oil lamp amidst arctic wind.
Sometimes you’re lonely together with Yue. Lonely because she doesn’t belong to you but to the Northern Water Tribe; expressions of loyalty would be nothing but hollow phrases. Together because sometimes she looks at you as if wants to whisper soft words meant only for your ears. But most of the time she blinks decidedly and averts her gaze from you as if she had just noticed who’s sitting in front of her. (That you’re sitting in front of her.)
(Sometimes you wonder what Yue could confide in you. You wonder what secrets lie dormant in a person like Princess Yue; what feelings and thoughts, that she wouldn’t share with anyone else, are hidden behind her superficially polite words; what vulnerabilities are buried beneath her introspective smile and kind eyes. You wonder how far you would have to dig to reveal what is hidden inside her. But most of the time you are preoccupied dealing with the anger that is constantly threatening to burn its way out of you that you can’t concentrate on anything but breathing in and breathing out and breathing away all the need for rash action.
The first secret she confides in you isn’t really a secret, it’s a “this one is my room, don’t hesitate to knock if you need anything, doesn’t matter the time of day” and an imploring “no matter when” as you walk past Yue’s door. But it feels like a secret, in this residence where every ice pillar looks the same and where, on some days, you can barely find your own room (which is not far from hers).
You try to think as little as possible about the fact that you now know the place where she is most vulnerable, because there can only be one reason why Yue has taken this step towards you: She is trying to gain a strategic advantage by laying the groundwork to be able to extract information from you without you seeing through her game. It doesn’t matter that you find yourself at her door on bad days, hand only moments away from knocking, because the thing is: Yue is not the only one capable of coming up with a game plan - a battle plan, really - and you’re tired of waiting for the situation to change on its own; tired of waiting for your father to finally bring you back home; tired of being passive and deedless and waiting. You want to finally take action, and maybe the only way to achieve that goal is to beat Yue at her own game; even if that means taking different paths than you’re used to go. (You know what your father would ask of you to win Azulon over. And how difficult could it be to conquer a princess that has already laid claim to you far too long ago? You can be perfect for her, you think, doesn’t take too much effort. A cinch, really.)
“I’ve never been interested in card games,” you say in way of greeting, your shoulder leaning against the doorframe and the offer of peace in your voice. Yue winces, visibly taken off-guard by your appearance. “My strength has always been more in Hide and Explode and the shell game.”
For a moment, her fingers fiddle with the Water Four she was about to place on the second pile from the left. Then she places the card next to the board and indicates for you to enter.
Your shoes almost slip on the ice, but you carry it off well that the floor catches you unprepared in unsuspecting moments and throws you off balance.
As you sit with her on the carpet in front of her bed, she says: “Usually, I play Pai Sho.” For a moment you’re reminded of Uncle Iroh, whom you have seen playing Pai Sho so many times but who never offered you teach you - just as he never wanted to teach you generating lightning. (You took up the lightning, discarding the Pai Sho.)
“I’ve never played Pai Sho,” you retort, while you can’t believe that a first opportunity to gain her trust presented itself so quickly and so obviously (a mundane opportunity, but you’re patient. This is your road to the throne, albeit the wrong one), and you swallow your anger at Iroh.
“Oh,” Yue says quietly. “I can show you how it’s played.” She makes no move to stand up. “But you’ll have to do something for me in return, all right?” A conspiratorial smile spreads across her lips; a smile you have seen before, and you brace yourself for the worst. But you do nod determinedly. “You gonna explain to me what Hide and Explode is.”
This will be even easier than you expected.
The second secret she confides in you is not necessarily a secret either, but you let it pass as one because it means moving a step forward. You sit outside the palace and she explains the rules of Ice Marbles, which, unlike Pai Sho, seems like something you might actually enjoy. (You’re good at Pai Sho, a natural-born strategist, but little comes close to the sweet satisfaction of a victory evoked by a game in which you had to really put yourself out.)
Her hand cups yours as she corrects your grip, and you concentrate all your strength on simply accepting her feather-light touch. (You remember the first time she touched you, you feel the stone on your neck, making you much less of an outcast here.)
“Since you’ve arrived,” Yue says suddenly, without taking her hand from yours, “I wonder how on earth it’s possible that you don’t freeze.” She looks at your red and black coat, clearly not designed for North Pole temperatures.
You stare at the marble in your hand and reply: “Fire.”
The temperature of your fingers increases, and with the melting of the ice marble, Yue pulls her hand away to avoid burning her skin on yours. You regret a little that you didn’t tease the same indignant reaction out of Yue that Zuko would have displayed in this situation. But you also don’t expect her to say in a low, concerned voice: “You must be awfully hungry from all that bending.”
She doesn’t ask why you’re still dressed in the thin coats of the Fire Nation and not the warm parkas of the Water Tribe, even though so much time has passed by. Instead, she shows you the way into the kitchen and the best way to obtain a midnight snack without getting caught.
Your hot fingers bend metal, that was once a necklace of yours, into a new shape and you wonder what exactly it is you are doing here. Or rather: You know exactly what you are doing, but you cannot explain why you are doing it.
For years, the betrothal necklace around your neck hasn’t felt as heavy as it did when you were still in the Fire Nation, and by now you know the necklaces are given away by the courting to the courted. You know that wearing the necklace marks you as courted, as ensnared, as smitten, and you’re so very tired of seeing Yue’s bare neck peeking out of the collar of her parka. You’re not the kind of person whose benevolence is ensured without wearing your sign, too. Showing your allegiance so very publically when Yue’s not also constantly reminded that you’re not the only one who belongs to someone else.
So, you sit in the snow, wrapped in your coat and focusing your full attention on the gentle, precise bending of the metal to make a pendant for the red ribbon you pulled from another one of your necklaces. (You have no use for all the jewellery they bestowed upon you when you were forced to leave. There is only one necklace left for you to wear until you’re married.)
You dip the pendant into the snow to smother the glow and you look at the teardrop shaped thing into which you still have to engrave flames to avoid any confusion about who Yue is belonging to.
(In the end they look more like churning waves, you’re not an artist by any means, but Yue’s smile is so frighteningly genuine and so surprisingly infectious that you don’t mind it as you put the necklace on her.)
The third secret she confides in you may not be a deep, dark secret but it must be enough to reassure you that you are on the right track.
“I know a spot,” Yue said before she led you outside late at night and posited you right behind her on a polar bear dog. You rode for quite a while and, after she asked you to, you actually kept your eyes closed. (You tell yourself that you did it because you want to convey to her that you trust her, so she can completely and utterly hand herself over to you. But she has never given you any reason not to trust her, hasn’t she?)
Suddenly, the polar bear dog halts and you feel Yue lowering herself from its back to the ground. You pause until you feel her hand rest on your thigh, the back of her hand facing down, the inner palm turned up so you can put yours into hers so she can help you down.
“All right,” Yue says after leading you away from the polar bear dog. She stops you and turns you in another direction, then, without letting go of your hand, she says: “You can open your eyes now.”
And as you open your eyes, the vastness of the cold tundra and the polar light stretching above hits you right in the heart. You feel so small and overwhelmed that only Yue’s hand in yours can stop you from turning back to the polar bear dog and fleeing. (You’ve never felt like this before, and you don’t know how to deal with so many feelings that aren’t anger or defiance or spite.)
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Yue asks softly, and you can’t help but look at her out of the corner of your eye.
The only reason you came back to the place she showed you was because you wanted to be alone. Truly and utterly alone. Just a few precious hours without another living creature, while the North Pole sleeps and you can be finally in your own element again. (The constant control of your own body temperature and the perpetual cold drains you because there is so much more inside you that isn’t allowed to come out.)
You stole a midnight snack from the kitchen and wolfed half of it down before shaking out your limbs and stretching them.
Everything in Agna Qel’a is made of ice and you can’t afford to lose the goodwill of the city by melting its infrastructure or damaging a few buildings. So you must use the empty expanse of the tundra to scratch the itch inside of you; to finally get back to doing what you were born to do.
At first your joints feel unwieldy and frozen, as if you’ve never bend fire in your life, but the longer you twist and turn across the ice, the smoother your movements become, until eventually you feel as if you’ve never done anything else in your life. Laboured breathing, you slip your coat off your shoulders, your upper arms and face steaming in the cold. As you stretch your arms above your head to stretch the muscles in your shoulders, you suddenly hear a voice you didn’t expect: “That was beautiful.”
Surprised, you turn to Yue, whose hand clasps the reins of a polar bear dog. You reply slowly: “Firebeding is powerful.”
Yue shakes her head and it almost looks like she is smiling at you as she says: “No, what I mean is: It looked beautiful.” And you don’t know what to do with that statement.
It’s the Avatar.
The damned Avatar is at the North Pole and you don’t know what to do. (Or rather: You know very well what would be expected of you. You know that if you father knew about the Avatar, he would expect you to report to him without hesitation. You know that he would expect you to put a quick end to the Avatar. And you could, because he is so young and so inexperienced and so powerless that it would be easy for you to overpower him. But why should you do what your father expects of you? Why, after all this time of not hearing a word from him beyond the order to report back, should you do what he asks of you? You have waited so long for him to explain to you why he left you alone. You have waited so long for him to take you back and tell you that it was just a gambit to give you the space you deserve. You waited so long and were disappointed).
(And then there’s Yue, who doesn’t want to hide from you that the Avatar is at the North Pole; who looks into your eyes with vulnerable, brittle faith and tells you not to tell anyone; who begs you to keep quiet, even though she knows your father would demand otherwise).
The damned Avatar is at the North Pole and you don’t know what to do. (And you remain silent, just as your father remained silent when you had to leave the Fire Nation. And you stay silent because you have to gain Yue’s trust after your father lost yours. And you just watch the Avatar becoming stronger and stronger, because he’s going to affect your father in a way you could never possibly have).
The moment you realise that your loyalties cannot lie with your family and the Northern Water Tribe comes in the form of General Zhao laying siege to your city. (It is the first time you think of Agna Qel’a as your city; feel Agna Qel’a as your city). You must decide which side you’ll extravert.
This acknowledgement should not be difficult for you, even though your father is everything you have ever lived for. But still you stand rooted to the spot in a pile of snow and cannot lift a finger. Everything inside you freezes and you can only watch as Zhao makes his way to the oasis.
Your heart wanders reluctantly to Yue, who asks you in a trembling voice to support the Avatar and help the Northern Water Tribe; who desperately grabs your hand and asks you urgently if you are on the same side.
(Are you on the same side? So far you have only ever been on your side and the side you would share with other people has always had to be yours. Mai and Ty Lee have been on your side and you’ve been kind of on your father’s side. But now it’s different, now everything is different, and maybe it’s time to take a side that you’ve chosen all by yourself).
“General Zhao,” you call out with all the potency in your voice, and you surprise yourself. Even though you live at the North Pole and no longer have the same power as before, you are still his princess and he must do as you ask. “What do you think you are doing? Whose orders do you think you are acting on?” And with that, your battle lines are drawn and you are not sure how you found yourself on this side.
The fifth and final secret she confides in you sounds like the greatest revelation Yue is capable of.
You sit together in the middle of the tundra, five-fingered gloves and thick parkas with fur-trimmed hoods protecting you from the icy cold of the wind. The only other creature in sight is the polar bear dog on which you sneaked out of town.
“Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone before?” Yue asks quietly, without looking at your face. You brace yourself for her to tell you something that will somehow move you forward, that will tell you how to finally take another step further.
When she doesn’t continue, you encourage her to keep talking: “Sure. Go on.”
“When I became old enough to be inducted into political business,” Yue begins, and you perk up, because until now you’ve been kept out of most political matters, because as the princess’s consort you don’t have the right to participate in the conversations and discussions, “my father forbade me to keep on penguin sledding with the other children because it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to do so. But I still sneaked out one time at night because I couldn’t stop myself.” A blush spreads across her cheeks that you’ve never seen on her before, you almost don’t recognise her.
“Penguin sledding,” you repeat, bewilderment creeping into your voice. (You were expecting a mystery to match the abysses of yours, but this one is so far from your understanding of what mystery truly is that you can’t stop yourself from laughing a little.)
Her cheeks turn even redder and she tries to hide her face from your gaze as she embarrassingly exclaims “Yes!”, which makes you laugh a little more. Suddenly you are no longer sure if you remember the plan.
The scroll in your hands looks as if you had never opened it, only the broken seal proves that you know the contents. You look at Yue, who is sitting on the carpet in front of her bed, and you say: “I must pack.”
Frowning in surprise, Yue asks: “What?”
“My father wrote to me,” you reply, then hand Yue the scroll so she can read for herself that your father is ordering your intervention in the doings of Iroh and Zuko.
Her eyes dance frantically over his words and with strained disbelief in her voice she asks: “And now you must pack?”
“I must pack and begin to search,” you declare, your thoughts already half buried in a map of the world.
Yue sighs sea-bottom-deep before she can stop herself, noting: “You must obey his command, for your people, I understand.”
You snort, and the laughter that falls from your lips afterwards could almost be about Yue if it wasn’t so damn entertaining that it doesn’t matter how much time people spend with you because they fail over and over again at being able to read you.
“I must find the Avatar to teach him firebending,” you retort mockingly. There is nothing in this world that edges you on as much as malice and invidiousness and the mere gratification of doing something out of spite. (To your father, not to just anyone. The days he could enjoy your unquestioned loyalty are over. You want your throne, and the Avatar is the only one who can make it happen).
“I’ll come with you,” Yue says suddenly, already standing on her feet, and you can’t explain the warm feeling that spreads through your entire body. After all, you didn’t ask her to come.
You say: “Good.” And she smiles at you.
The boat Yue has organised for you is small and wooden and not at all meant for royal travellers in its sheer simplicity, but it will have to suffice to find the Avatar who is supposed to be in the Earth Kingdom. Yue has brought on board two waterbenders for your plan, who will not rat you out to Arnook (because they love Yue; a nonbender who is not even trained in combat, but who is so close to their hearts that they see nothing wrong with doing anything for her, even if their chief would not agree) and who are trained in steering boats.
You take one last look at the illuminated palace that has been your … home for the last few years, even if the thought doesn’t necessarily bring the same kind of comfort as knowing Yue at your side. (Yue, who, without questioning your motivation, has been immediately willing to do anything for her people, and thus somehow for you; who, in all your time at the North Pole, you haven’t had to convince of yourself in the same way as Mai and Ty Lee and your father, and in whom you can sometimes recognise parts of your mother that she only revealed to Zuko, but never to you).
“You want to tell them to put out to sea?” Yue asks, after checking her bag one last time to make sure she has packed everything. She has let you tie her hair into a topknot, and if it weren’t for the Water Tribe symbol on the medallion she has attached to it, you could easily mistake her for a Fire Nation princess.
You shake your head. “You do it.”
And then you reach for her hand and together you board the boat. Your journey is just beginning.
[missing scenes (that didn't fit the vibe)]
Her hands are buried somewhere in her sleeves, and for a moment you bask in the breath of fresh air and the warmth emanating from her body. It’s almost peaceful here in the sun with Yue, until her calm voice breaks the silence between you: “You don’t have to escort me, you know?”
“He asked if you wanted to do an activity with him,” you state, eyes always on the channel, as if it would answer her question in any kind of way. You don’t know why you voice it; almost as if you were shielding your cards in the opposing direction and revealing your hand of hearts to her in the process.
Tilted head she throws a glance at you, weighing the expressionlessness of your face against the hard intertwinement of your hands. She says: “He’s trying to be nice. It’s been a long time since the Northern and Southern Water Tribes were in contact.”
“Fraternisation, you mean.” Maybe your words sound tight-wound and your voice clipped, but it’s only because you want to make sure that she doesn’t defect, that you still have your foot in the door, that she won’t stab you in the back for an insignificant boy from the Southern Water Tribe.
She pulls her hands out of her sleeves and for a short moment it looks like she wants to reach for your hand - you catch your breath -, but she only intertwines her gloved fingers and says: “Building a friendship.”
(A fortress against the Fire Nation is in the air between you, because why else would the Northern Water Tribe lay bricks of comradery. And despite the concomitant agitation in your stomach, you can’t keep from placing your hand on the railing on her other side when the Water Tribe boy talks to her.)
“Blue suits you,” sounds different coming from her mouth than Zuko’s. There’s no hidden pity underneath coats of derision and taunt and year long bottled-up frustration. Those are not carefully selected words meant to occupy and fill the space between you and make it suffocatingly tight; meant to find every crack in your walls and foundation to take hold of every nook and corner of your heart like parasitic algae just waiting to dig their way back out of you again. But that doesn’t mean the words don’t reach your heart, that they don’t settle in every nook and make you burst from within yourself.
There have been so many trivialities over the years that Yue said or did or refrained from doing; a groundwork of nice words and supportive touches and the absolute absence of any pressure to return her behaviour. (She’ll claim her countervalue, some time, maybe, maybe she won’t.) Her words don’t fall into empty space but rather into nicely consciously suppressed warmth that feels a lot more like body heat than fire; like a sun-drenched day amidst ice and snow and the endlessness of the tundra.
But for all that, how are you supposed to express what you can’t even understand yourself. How are you supposed to explain to her that, in another life, her words would have broken your heart, whereas now they’re the only thing holding you together. How are you supposed to answer her without unveiling chippings of yourself that have never seen the light of day. What are you supposed to do, what is the next step, what is the planplanplan?
You breathe in and deeply and all the trembling in your heart away, then you square your shoulders and say with all the tranquillity you can find within yourself: “I know.”
Yue and her polar bear dog find you on a rock. It’s not the first time you withdraw from Agna Qel’a to absorb every beam of sunlight you can catch while the warmth of the stone beneath you seeps into your thighs. For a long time you thought you’d never come closer to the heat of the Fire Nation than this, now every thing is different because the dry warmth of the Earth Kingdom calls for you.
Without hesitation, Yue sits down next to you on the rock, you must herd together closely, so that none of you ends up in the snow, and the polar bear dog attempts to jump onto you to lick your face, even though you never gave it any reason to take you into its heart.
With firm hands, you shove it down and after a few more vain attempts to bury you underneath its massive body, it lays down right in front of you, trapping Yue’s and your feet under its back.
“You must be cold,” Yue says, pulling her gloves off and your hands out of the sleeves of your parka, so that she can enclose your hands with hers.
Contrasting your heated skin, hers seems to be cool and you reply: “I doubt it.”
“You behave like a mongoose lizard,” Yue states and here, on top of your rock, you can’t deny the speck of truth, but that doesn’t mean you must accept it.
“Did you ever see a mongoose lizard?”
She laughs breathlessly, your hands still gripped tightly, and shakes her head. “I don’t have to.” Seemingly without thinking, she lifts your hands and, equally as absent-mindedly, she presses a kiss to your knuckles. “I got you after all.”
You catch your breath and you’re so very much ablaze for Yue.