when there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.
1.
The problem is, the others don't understand.
Azula does. Azula has always understood, better than anybody else, the way the world really works.
Her Mother weaves fairy stories about heroes and monsters, about good and evil, and her brother sits wide-eyed by the turtle-duck pond and listens. Azula does not listen. Every single one of Mother's stories ends the same (the hero saves the day and gets the girl, joy), and the more Azula thinks about them the more she realizes they're all really the same story, the same lie, the way all stories are really just lies.
There are no stories in real life, after all, just events that may or may not be causally related - it takes a storyteller to fabricate some overarching narrative and join the events together. (Why Azula is the only one who seems to realize this remains something of a mystery.)
Zuko accuses Azula often of being a liar, of twisting words into weapons, but Azula sees things differently. Zuko only ever hears what he wants to hear - this is what makes him weak, his refusal to listen to reason, the way he buries his head in the earth like an ostrich-horse when somebody tells him something ugly. Her idiot brother is stuck in his own made-up universe where things that don't really exist (honour and glory and faith) dictate world order, and this makes Azula unbearably angry sometimes. Her Father deserved a better heir.
Azula does not lie. She misleads, but never herself. Azula is always true to Azula, and this is all that matters; Azula owes no allegiance to her brother, or Mother, or even Father - her only real loyalty is to herself, since her own person is all Azula can ever truly know. Azula lives as though an ideal being ought; she does not sully her nature by twisting her own fortune to better suit the miseries of others - she is not an altruist, and will she not bow to the whims of the lesser majority simply because they are less blessed than she.
The gods gifted her for a reason, after all. Azula does not believe in coincidence.
2.
Azula is nine years old the day her Father becomes Fire Lord.
There is a roaring, exultant crowd; Ozai, handsome and triumphant, ascends to the throne as though a god amongst men, and Azula's heart pounds both joyfully and furiously. She has never tasted a victory so great, nor so sweet - it is the single greatest feeling in the world.
(Her Mother stole away in the night just three days ago. Azula might have missed her, might have been sorry about her own role in Ursa's departure, but the sight of her Father's beaming face lights a torch in her chest that burns away any lingering fears or doubts. There are means, and there are ends, and the ends justify the means by plain virtue of being ends - Azula cannot fathom why there is any debate on the matter still. It is all so clear, now.)
She is glad, too, to see her brother's unhappy face - it proves what Azula has suspected all along, that Zuko is unfit to rule over the Fire Nation, and that it is Azula's right - perhaps even duty - to see to it that her incompetent brother never inherits the throne. Zuko is still mourning the loss of their Mother, still too wrapped up in his own selfish sorrow to understand the greater machinations of destiny at hand. For this reason, the hands of fate will never allow him to be responsible for the well-being of the greatest empire in history. (Azula will make sure of it, just in case.)
All hail Firelord Ozai, the chorus chants, but Azula is no longer listening. Her Father's rule will be tremendous, naturally (Ozai knows the true meaning of ruthlessness, and Azula admires him for it), but Azula is already dreaming of the day she will take his place on the throne.
Azula will prove even a greater ruler than Firelord Ozai, than Firelord Azulon, for whom she was named - she will even surpass Firelord Sozin, now deified amongst the citizens of his nation.
The stars will align for Azula when the time comes. They always do, but Azula is far too clever to rely on mere luck.
3.
Ursa combs her hair with painstaking care for nearly fourty minutes every night. It is a maddening process - her Mother's movements are measured and meticulous, and Azula is expected to sit still and appreciate this facsimile of motherly love.
"Such lovely hair," Ursa cooes, and smiles tenderly at Azula in the vanity's intricate gold mirror. It is amazing how much they look alike - Azula has inherited her Mother's delicate features, her bright eyes and bow-shaped lips. Azula should be grateful - beauty is the only thing with true value her Mother has ever passed down to her, but Azula is not content to let this beauty define her, the way Ursa does. Azula is not vain.
Ursa spends her days lounging in the garden, rearranging plum-blossoms and grooming herself in the lake's reflection, scribbling out poems on little pieces of parchment whenever the fancy strikes and coddling her nancy-boy son. Her every movement defies effort, as though a living work of art, as though free from darkness and impurity. It makes Azula sick to see her.
Zuko hero-worships their Mother, but he does not know her the way Azula does. Azula follows her Mother's footsteps at night, watches carefully as Ursa slips soundlessly out of her own chambers and into the bedrooms of men other than Azula's Father. Azula is only eight years old when she learns of her Mother's infidelity and keeps this knowledge a jealously-guarded secret, for reasons she has long since forgotten.
Ursa's hands are soft and white, brilliantly contrasted against the blackness of Azula's hair. If Azula didn't know better, she might have sworn her Mother's smile was sincere, but Azula has seen enough of her Mother's posing and posturing to know that all of this is a lie.
One day, Azula lets her anger get the better of her and confesses to Ursa her knowledge of her Mother's adulterous affairs. It takes Ursa until all of the day after to turn against her own daughter, to stage-whisper to his royal kookyness Uncle Iroh how she has always felt there is something wrong with Azula, how she is worried for her own daughter's well-being and does not know how to help (lies, lies, and more lies). Ursa no longer stops by Azula's bedroom at night to comb her hair or kiss her goodnight, and their private interactions are painfully tense and strained.
Azula contemplates telling Zuko about Ursa's indiscretions, but decides against it. A liar and a weakling deserve each other's company, after all, so Azula will let them be and concentrate on more important matters. The universe will see to it that they both receive their comeuppance.
4.
Azula is content, at first, to spend her recesses all by her lonesome at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls. To be honest, it does not bother her in the least bit to watch the other children play their silly games while Azula observes their interactions (they will grow up one day, and be her subjects - better that she anticipates their motivations now) from far away.
(The other children would not approach her unless she approached them first - they would not dare, and Azula does not care enough to formally make their acquaintance.)
Lo and Li, however, insist to her Mother that Azula find some peers, and so Ursa invites over a few of the nation's most prominent families to find somebody suitable for Azula's company, but this only makes Azula more vehement against making "friends" - she cannot really see why friendships would benefit her in any way. Unlike her classmates, Azula has plans for the rest of her life - she is not content to idle away her leisure time on the swing set or run around dirty fields playing juvenile games. Such things do not give her pleasure.
It is her Father who makes Azula change her mind, who draws her upon his lap and says in a conspiratory whisper that there are different kinds of friends and that no man can rule a nation by his lonesome, that Azula must be careful in choosing on the best and brightest to serve her.
5.
Azula has never fought an Agni Kai. Nobody has ever challenged her.
Her teachers call her a firebending prodigy and marvel at the deadly perfection of her fire blasts, the unmistakable intensity of her blue flames. Azula's form is straight and honest, her leaps and punches a graceful, almost hypnotic flurry of movement.
Azula does not care what her teachers think - they are sycophantic and dispensible, and though usually four or five times her age, possess typically a fraction of her talent. She would hardly be surprised if she hadn't surpassed a least a few in skill already (their only advantage is their experience, and Azula is patient enough to know that experience will come with time).
Firelord Ozai praises her for her knowledge, for the keen way Azula is able to recite her Great-grandfather's victories conquests off by heart, and Azula allows herself to smile (she has always felt a deep, almost spiritual connection with Firelord Sozin, even if she has never actually met him, but his plans and strategies become embedded into her mind once she hears about them as though they were her own).
Zuko is slow and stubborn, a tiger-horse in everything but strength and ability. Azula finds relief in his failure (it only reaffirms her own success). It has been two years since Ursa disappeared from the Palace, and Zuko channels all of his frustration into his firebending, practicing night and day to refine his skill.
It is not, of course, enough. Zuko covers, clumsily and erratically, in months what Azula picks up in only a few days' time. Azula takes the time to sit in on his lessons and watch her brother stumble and fall time and time again, observe as the barest flickers of contempt pass over the most careful of their firebending teachers' faces after Zuko fails to master yet another form. Azula sits, and she waits. Her brother has the audacity to pick himself up after every defeat, square his shoulders proudly and defiantly, as though oblivious to all the forces of the universe telling him in junction that he is never to succeed.
Azula sits, and waits, for a day when Zuko will finally understand his true place in the hierarchy of things. She is observant enough to know that this day will come soon.
When their Father shows up to duel Zuko in an Agni Kai, Azula lets out a breath of relief and sits by Captain Zhao in the arena to make sure everything goes as expected.
The Firelord does not disappoint.
6.
Azula notices Ty Lee first, doing cartwheels on the pavement with such liquid strength that even Azula is impressed, and after that it is only too easy to win Ty Lee over to her side.
"I have another best friend, too," Ty Lee confesses when Azula recruits her company. "I think you know her too - her name is Mai and we've been best friends since we were babies." There is a shy, hesitant look. "Maybe we can all be best friends, the three of us?"
Azula remembers Mai, a quiet, gloomy girl who could not be more opposite of Ty Lee if she tried. "What can Mai do?"
"What do you mean, Princess Azula?"
"You're the best gymnast in our class. I'm the Princess of the Fire Nation. What can Mai add to our group if she joins?"
Ty Lee, to her credit, doesn't miss a beat. "She's really smart - she gets all A's without even trying, and she's really funny even when she pretends she's not."
Mai isn't nearly as magnificent as Ty Lee makes her out to be, but the cunning is certainly there, and Azula recognizes potential when she sees it. It isn't until years later that Mai develops her uncanny precision and deadly accuracy with throwing knives, and Azula allows herself a small congratulations for having a good eye for friendship.
Ty Lee and Mai come in handy other ways, too, after Ursa disappears and Zuko (good riddance) is forced at long last into exile by their Father. Firelord Ozai, for all of his greatness, is hardly the most attentive Father (not that Azula would have him any different) - but Azula has become so used to the company of others that when her Mother and brother disappear from the Palace, they leave behind some dimly hollow feeling in her chest that worsens by the day.
Azula invites Ty Lee some nights to sleep over and comb Azula's hair before they both fall asleep (a thousand strokes, so that Azula's dark locks crackle and shine under the lamplight). Mai, sullen and angry, takes Zuko's place, and Azula commemorates her brother's departure by seeing how far she can push the already wintry Mai to the brink of depression (as it turns out, Mai is far less emotionally volatile, but Azula is adaptable and finds her weak points quickly all the same).
Azula reminds herself that Ty Lee and Mai are not permanent fixtures in her life, that they will leave her in the end, as all "friends" are apt to - Azula has seen her fair share of deserters, cowardly men who renounced their allegiance to the Fire Nation once her Father took the crown, who'd somehow favoured her fat, lazy Uncle Iroh as their ruler over her strong, ambitious Father.
Perhaps Azula will make them her new family instead, but even this will not be enough to keep them. (Azula has learned this the hard way.)
No matter.
Azula will find a way. Azula always does.
7.
Azula always listens.
Sometimes - she thinks - when it comes down to things, Azula's greatest achievement is not her prodigious skill at firebending, but her indomitable ability to anticipate the actions and motivations of others. This, rather than the threat of some burned ligament or fractured bone, is what truly empowers Azula's quest for greatness.
It is not Azula's fault most human beings operate in such predictable patterns. (Really, they make it too easy.) Azula, on the other hand, makes it a point to retain the element of surprise.
Her Grandfather's voice booms like thunder inside the royal chambers, and the walls seem to quiver from the sheer ferocity of his ire. For the first time Azula can remember, she can smell the fear - an ugly and putrid stench, radiating off her Father's back. It does not suit him in the least, but Azula refrains from disappointment. Her Father is afraid, certainly, but there is no humility in his lowered gaze, no cowardice in his firm shoulders. Ozai does not let fear get the better of him, and so Azula must not allow self-doubt to cripple the dangerous ideas forming inside her own mind, either.
(Azula is not remotely afraid.)
Zuko, forseeably, is shivering in his own chambers when Azula comes to find him, and twitches like an old puppet when she starts tugging on his strings. The puerile way he responds to her taunting only further incenses Azula's taunting, causes the last remaining shreds of uncertainty to wither away before she cements their Father's intentions into his ears.
Ursa, too, appears suddenly in the doorway, graceful features alight with surefine worry as she surveys her son. Azula does not miss the way her Mother's eyes sharpen as she notes Azula's presence at her brother's bedside.
"It's time for a talk," Ursa hisses as she wraps her fingers are Azula's wrists, and there is no love, only coldness and exasperation in her Mother's narrowed gaze. All the better - it will make Azula's job that much easier.
Even as they exit the room Azula can still make out her brother's pathetic mumblings (Azula always lies, Azula always lies), a snivelling little boy's mantra, waved gratuitously over his own discomfort to wash the monstrousness of the situation away.
This, perhaps, is the most wonderful thing about Zuko. Zuko never changes, never listens, never understands. Zuko will forever be Zuko, ignorant and feeble, destined to spend the rest of his life under the shadow of those more able than he.
Ursa, on the other hand, is not so innocent. Azula will make her understand, will weave a story of deceit and murder around her Mother's delicate ear and watch Ursa write the ending to their grisly tale.
Azula will make her Mother see the truth the way Azula has always known it.
The problem is, the others don't understand.
Azula does. Azula has always understood, better than anybody else, the way the world really works.
Her Mother weaves fairy stories about heroes and monsters, about good and evil, and her brother sits wide-eyed by the turtle-duck pond and listens. Azula does not listen. Every single one of Mother's stories ends the same (the hero saves the day and gets the girl, joy), and the more Azula thinks about them the more she realizes they're all really the same story, the same lie, the way all stories are really just lies.
There are no stories in real life, after all, just events that may or may not be causally related - it takes a storyteller to fabricate some overarching narrative and join the events together. (Why Azula is the only one who seems to realize this remains something of a mystery.)
Zuko accuses Azula often of being a liar, of twisting words into weapons, but Azula sees things differently. Zuko only ever hears what he wants to hear - this is what makes him weak, his refusal to listen to reason, the way he buries his head in the earth like an ostrich-horse when somebody tells him something ugly. Her idiot brother is stuck in his own made-up universe where things that don't really exist (honour and glory and faith) dictate world order, and this makes Azula unbearably angry sometimes. Her Father deserved a better heir.
Azula does not lie. She misleads, but never herself. Azula is always true to Azula, and this is all that matters; Azula owes no allegiance to her brother, or Mother, or even Father - her only real loyalty is to herself, since her own person is all Azula can ever truly know. Azula lives as though an ideal being ought; she does not sully her nature by twisting her own fortune to better suit the miseries of others - she is not an altruist, and will she not bow to the whims of the lesser majority simply because they are less blessed than she.
The gods gifted her for a reason, after all. Azula does not believe in coincidence.
2.
Azula is nine years old the day her Father becomes Fire Lord.
There is a roaring, exultant crowd; Ozai, handsome and triumphant, ascends to the throne as though a god amongst men, and Azula's heart pounds both joyfully and furiously. She has never tasted a victory so great, nor so sweet - it is the single greatest feeling in the world.
(Her Mother stole away in the night just three days ago. Azula might have missed her, might have been sorry about her own role in Ursa's departure, but the sight of her Father's beaming face lights a torch in her chest that burns away any lingering fears or doubts. There are means, and there are ends, and the ends justify the means by plain virtue of being ends - Azula cannot fathom why there is any debate on the matter still. It is all so clear, now.)
She is glad, too, to see her brother's unhappy face - it proves what Azula has suspected all along, that Zuko is unfit to rule over the Fire Nation, and that it is Azula's right - perhaps even duty - to see to it that her incompetent brother never inherits the throne. Zuko is still mourning the loss of their Mother, still too wrapped up in his own selfish sorrow to understand the greater machinations of destiny at hand. For this reason, the hands of fate will never allow him to be responsible for the well-being of the greatest empire in history. (Azula will make sure of it, just in case.)
All hail Firelord Ozai, the chorus chants, but Azula is no longer listening. Her Father's rule will be tremendous, naturally (Ozai knows the true meaning of ruthlessness, and Azula admires him for it), but Azula is already dreaming of the day she will take his place on the throne.
Azula will prove even a greater ruler than Firelord Ozai, than Firelord Azulon, for whom she was named - she will even surpass Firelord Sozin, now deified amongst the citizens of his nation.
The stars will align for Azula when the time comes. They always do, but Azula is far too clever to rely on mere luck.
3.
Ursa combs her hair with painstaking care for nearly fourty minutes every night. It is a maddening process - her Mother's movements are measured and meticulous, and Azula is expected to sit still and appreciate this facsimile of motherly love.
"Such lovely hair," Ursa cooes, and smiles tenderly at Azula in the vanity's intricate gold mirror. It is amazing how much they look alike - Azula has inherited her Mother's delicate features, her bright eyes and bow-shaped lips. Azula should be grateful - beauty is the only thing with true value her Mother has ever passed down to her, but Azula is not content to let this beauty define her, the way Ursa does. Azula is not vain.
Ursa spends her days lounging in the garden, rearranging plum-blossoms and grooming herself in the lake's reflection, scribbling out poems on little pieces of parchment whenever the fancy strikes and coddling her nancy-boy son. Her every movement defies effort, as though a living work of art, as though free from darkness and impurity. It makes Azula sick to see her.
Zuko hero-worships their Mother, but he does not know her the way Azula does. Azula follows her Mother's footsteps at night, watches carefully as Ursa slips soundlessly out of her own chambers and into the bedrooms of men other than Azula's Father. Azula is only eight years old when she learns of her Mother's infidelity and keeps this knowledge a jealously-guarded secret, for reasons she has long since forgotten.
Ursa's hands are soft and white, brilliantly contrasted against the blackness of Azula's hair. If Azula didn't know better, she might have sworn her Mother's smile was sincere, but Azula has seen enough of her Mother's posing and posturing to know that all of this is a lie.
One day, Azula lets her anger get the better of her and confesses to Ursa her knowledge of her Mother's adulterous affairs. It takes Ursa until all of the day after to turn against her own daughter, to stage-whisper to his royal kookyness Uncle Iroh how she has always felt there is something wrong with Azula, how she is worried for her own daughter's well-being and does not know how to help (lies, lies, and more lies). Ursa no longer stops by Azula's bedroom at night to comb her hair or kiss her goodnight, and their private interactions are painfully tense and strained.
Azula contemplates telling Zuko about Ursa's indiscretions, but decides against it. A liar and a weakling deserve each other's company, after all, so Azula will let them be and concentrate on more important matters. The universe will see to it that they both receive their comeuppance.
4.
Azula is content, at first, to spend her recesses all by her lonesome at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls. To be honest, it does not bother her in the least bit to watch the other children play their silly games while Azula observes their interactions (they will grow up one day, and be her subjects - better that she anticipates their motivations now) from far away.
(The other children would not approach her unless she approached them first - they would not dare, and Azula does not care enough to formally make their acquaintance.)
Lo and Li, however, insist to her Mother that Azula find some peers, and so Ursa invites over a few of the nation's most prominent families to find somebody suitable for Azula's company, but this only makes Azula more vehement against making "friends" - she cannot really see why friendships would benefit her in any way. Unlike her classmates, Azula has plans for the rest of her life - she is not content to idle away her leisure time on the swing set or run around dirty fields playing juvenile games. Such things do not give her pleasure.
It is her Father who makes Azula change her mind, who draws her upon his lap and says in a conspiratory whisper that there are different kinds of friends and that no man can rule a nation by his lonesome, that Azula must be careful in choosing on the best and brightest to serve her.
5.
Azula has never fought an Agni Kai. Nobody has ever challenged her.
Her teachers call her a firebending prodigy and marvel at the deadly perfection of her fire blasts, the unmistakable intensity of her blue flames. Azula's form is straight and honest, her leaps and punches a graceful, almost hypnotic flurry of movement.
Azula does not care what her teachers think - they are sycophantic and dispensible, and though usually four or five times her age, possess typically a fraction of her talent. She would hardly be surprised if she hadn't surpassed a least a few in skill already (their only advantage is their experience, and Azula is patient enough to know that experience will come with time).
Firelord Ozai praises her for her knowledge, for the keen way Azula is able to recite her Great-grandfather's victories conquests off by heart, and Azula allows herself to smile (she has always felt a deep, almost spiritual connection with Firelord Sozin, even if she has never actually met him, but his plans and strategies become embedded into her mind once she hears about them as though they were her own).
Zuko is slow and stubborn, a tiger-horse in everything but strength and ability. Azula finds relief in his failure (it only reaffirms her own success). It has been two years since Ursa disappeared from the Palace, and Zuko channels all of his frustration into his firebending, practicing night and day to refine his skill.
It is not, of course, enough. Zuko covers, clumsily and erratically, in months what Azula picks up in only a few days' time. Azula takes the time to sit in on his lessons and watch her brother stumble and fall time and time again, observe as the barest flickers of contempt pass over the most careful of their firebending teachers' faces after Zuko fails to master yet another form. Azula sits, and she waits. Her brother has the audacity to pick himself up after every defeat, square his shoulders proudly and defiantly, as though oblivious to all the forces of the universe telling him in junction that he is never to succeed.
Azula sits, and waits, for a day when Zuko will finally understand his true place in the hierarchy of things. She is observant enough to know that this day will come soon.
When their Father shows up to duel Zuko in an Agni Kai, Azula lets out a breath of relief and sits by Captain Zhao in the arena to make sure everything goes as expected.
The Firelord does not disappoint.
6.
Azula notices Ty Lee first, doing cartwheels on the pavement with such liquid strength that even Azula is impressed, and after that it is only too easy to win Ty Lee over to her side.
"I have another best friend, too," Ty Lee confesses when Azula recruits her company. "I think you know her too - her name is Mai and we've been best friends since we were babies." There is a shy, hesitant look. "Maybe we can all be best friends, the three of us?"
Azula remembers Mai, a quiet, gloomy girl who could not be more opposite of Ty Lee if she tried. "What can Mai do?"
"What do you mean, Princess Azula?"
"You're the best gymnast in our class. I'm the Princess of the Fire Nation. What can Mai add to our group if she joins?"
Ty Lee, to her credit, doesn't miss a beat. "She's really smart - she gets all A's without even trying, and she's really funny even when she pretends she's not."
Mai isn't nearly as magnificent as Ty Lee makes her out to be, but the cunning is certainly there, and Azula recognizes potential when she sees it. It isn't until years later that Mai develops her uncanny precision and deadly accuracy with throwing knives, and Azula allows herself a small congratulations for having a good eye for friendship.
Ty Lee and Mai come in handy other ways, too, after Ursa disappears and Zuko (good riddance) is forced at long last into exile by their Father. Firelord Ozai, for all of his greatness, is hardly the most attentive Father (not that Azula would have him any different) - but Azula has become so used to the company of others that when her Mother and brother disappear from the Palace, they leave behind some dimly hollow feeling in her chest that worsens by the day.
Azula invites Ty Lee some nights to sleep over and comb Azula's hair before they both fall asleep (a thousand strokes, so that Azula's dark locks crackle and shine under the lamplight). Mai, sullen and angry, takes Zuko's place, and Azula commemorates her brother's departure by seeing how far she can push the already wintry Mai to the brink of depression (as it turns out, Mai is far less emotionally volatile, but Azula is adaptable and finds her weak points quickly all the same).
Azula reminds herself that Ty Lee and Mai are not permanent fixtures in her life, that they will leave her in the end, as all "friends" are apt to - Azula has seen her fair share of deserters, cowardly men who renounced their allegiance to the Fire Nation once her Father took the crown, who'd somehow favoured her fat, lazy Uncle Iroh as their ruler over her strong, ambitious Father.
Perhaps Azula will make them her new family instead, but even this will not be enough to keep them. (Azula has learned this the hard way.)
No matter.
Azula will find a way. Azula always does.
7.
Azula always listens.
Sometimes - she thinks - when it comes down to things, Azula's greatest achievement is not her prodigious skill at firebending, but her indomitable ability to anticipate the actions and motivations of others. This, rather than the threat of some burned ligament or fractured bone, is what truly empowers Azula's quest for greatness.
It is not Azula's fault most human beings operate in such predictable patterns. (Really, they make it too easy.) Azula, on the other hand, makes it a point to retain the element of surprise.
Her Grandfather's voice booms like thunder inside the royal chambers, and the walls seem to quiver from the sheer ferocity of his ire. For the first time Azula can remember, she can smell the fear - an ugly and putrid stench, radiating off her Father's back. It does not suit him in the least, but Azula refrains from disappointment. Her Father is afraid, certainly, but there is no humility in his lowered gaze, no cowardice in his firm shoulders. Ozai does not let fear get the better of him, and so Azula must not allow self-doubt to cripple the dangerous ideas forming inside her own mind, either.
(Azula is not remotely afraid.)
Zuko, forseeably, is shivering in his own chambers when Azula comes to find him, and twitches like an old puppet when she starts tugging on his strings. The puerile way he responds to her taunting only further incenses Azula's taunting, causes the last remaining shreds of uncertainty to wither away before she cements their Father's intentions into his ears.
Ursa, too, appears suddenly in the doorway, graceful features alight with surefine worry as she surveys her son. Azula does not miss the way her Mother's eyes sharpen as she notes Azula's presence at her brother's bedside.
"It's time for a talk," Ursa hisses as she wraps her fingers are Azula's wrists, and there is no love, only coldness and exasperation in her Mother's narrowed gaze. All the better - it will make Azula's job that much easier.
Even as they exit the room Azula can still make out her brother's pathetic mumblings (Azula always lies, Azula always lies), a snivelling little boy's mantra, waved gratuitously over his own discomfort to wash the monstrousness of the situation away.
This, perhaps, is the most wonderful thing about Zuko. Zuko never changes, never listens, never understands. Zuko will forever be Zuko, ignorant and feeble, destined to spend the rest of his life under the shadow of those more able than he.
Ursa, on the other hand, is not so innocent. Azula will make her understand, will weave a story of deceit and murder around her Mother's delicate ear and watch Ursa write the ending to their grisly tale.
Azula will make her Mother see the truth the way Azula has always known it.