Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

And nothing carries us: not the road and not the house.
Was this road always like this, from the start,
or did our dreams find a mare on the hill
among the Mongol horses and exchange us for it?
And what will we do?
What
will we do
without
exile? 

Zuko’s healers don’t say much, but even in her weakened state Azula can read faces like books. And she knows they’ve exhausted all their knowledge. 

She tries to look her brother in the eye as he keeps vigil by her bed, to reassure him she’ll be well again, but the naked worry in his face unmasks her own. She’d taken ill after the funeral rites were performed and had to be carried from the banquet hall. Years spent trying to convince the court that she, the Firelord’s sister, was not insane, that she could in fact inherit the rights and privileges due a legitimate heir to the throne, only to collapse in a terrible, shaking fit before many of the same people who would soon oversee her trial. Now, lying in a bed that reeks of camphor and sweat, Azula would trade every last vestige of pride not to feel sick as a dog, not to fall into restless sleep where her spirit floats above her body and longs to escape. 

She wants to mumble an apology to Zuko, but she can’t remember where to begin, and the words fade on her lips as sleep descends. 

Azula awakes to a brief glow of cooling blue washing over her head, followed by a hushed voice. She recognizes it as belonging to the waterbender who’d once bested her, Katara. “I don’t know what to do. Her qi is strong, but erratic. It’s almost like she’s been poisoned.”

Azula sees Zuko slouched in a corner of her room, his face lined with worry. The decade since he’d ascended the throne weighed heavy on him. 

“That’s not possible, Katara. We all ate the same food.”

Katara sighs in impatience. “I know, Zuko. I’m just telling you what I can sense with my bending. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

“I’m sorry,” he gruffs. 

“You’re exhausted. You need rest, Zuko. You can’t go on like this,” Katara says, hand on his arm, her voice already firm with wifely concern. In the dim light, Azula sees her brother bend to kiss the waterbender’s fingers. Even like this, weary and frustrated, they make a picturesque duo, a symbol of the new world, of peace between the nations. 

“I can be left alone for a few hours,” Azula says faintly, and they turn to her with matching, alert looks of concern. “Go get some sleep.” When they still don’t budge, she tries a different angle. “This will only make the rumors worse.”

This has the intended effect. Zuko ushers his wife out of the room, with an express command to Azula’s maid, Preeti, that no one save him and the Firelady are allowed inside without his permission, and that they are to be alerted at once if there’s any change to Azula’s condition. With the room clear, Azula breathes a sigh of relief. The fever was heavy in her body but heavier still were Zuko and Katara’s eyes, and the nagging in her chest that threatened to overwhelm her with disappointment and regret. Hunkering down into her pillows, Azula gestures weakly for Preeti to open the window. The night air is heavy too, full of the Sages’ droning prayers for the dead. They would not cease their chanting until the eight days were concluded, lest the spirit of the newly departed be tempted to return and linger in a familiar place. 

Azula dreams of stone steps beneath her feet, a mountain half hidden in the clouds, and someone waiting for her at the windswept peak-

When she starts awake, mind racing, a warm, callused hand clasps her own. The Avatar sits beside her bed, his eyes dark with worry. The sight of him temporarily clears her thoughts.

“You’re here,” she says.

“I came as soon as I heard,” he says, running his thumb absently over her knuckles. His frown tells her she’s surely ice-cold to the touch. “They told me you collapsed at the funeral. What happened, Azula?”

“It’s not what you think,” she says, raising herself against the headboard so she can look him in the eye. The rumors are already flowing, she’s certain of it. The Phoenix King’s favored daughter going mad at the sight of his body. Only she’s not mourning Ozai. She isn’t sure what she mourns. But the thought of Aang and everyone else once more believing her nothing more than her father’s acolyte, after her years of painstaking work, is unbearable. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she whispers, suddenly choked with fear. Her eyes ran with tears that she hadn’t realized she’d withheld in Zuko’s presence.

Aang draws her head down to his shoulder,“It’s alright,” he murmurs, running a comforting hand down her back. “I’m here. I’ll stay as long as you need.”

She knows he’s true to his word, just as she knows it would be selfish and reckless for her to ask such a thing, given who he is, given how many people in worse straits than she needed his help. She should disabuse him of such a notion, but she can’t bring herself to send him away. Despite everything, her fingers curl into his tunic and she savors the comfort of his arms.

Azula grows faintly aware of other presences in the room, but it’s not until Katara coughs discreetly that the Firelord and Lady make themselves known. She stiffens in Aang’s hold and pulls away, sensing rather than seeing their eyes slide disapprovingly over their embrace.

The Avatar rises to greet them and Azula fidgets with the threading on her sheets. She gazes longingly out the window, wondering when she’ll step outside her room again. It’s then the memory of her dream hits her with such force she sucks in a breath. She’s almost climbed out of the bed when they notice. Zuko and Katara rush forward, but Aang beats them to it, his hands alighting gently on her arms. “What is it?”

“The mountain,” she says, gesturing at the wicker chest against the wall while Zuko and Katara exchange worried looks. Azula keeps her focus on the Avatar, trying to clear her mind. “My art,” she says, willing him to understand.

Aang follows the direction of her hand. “In there?” 

She nods, leaning against the bedpost, dazed and tired as he rifles through the contents of the chest and fishes out a sheaf of rice paper. Too impatient to watch him card through them, Azula reaches out her hand. Normally fastidious about the state of her belongings, she drops each successive square of paper on the floor until she finds the one she’s looking for and holds it out for the Avatar.

Zuko peers over Aang’s shoulder, frowning as he tries to make out the image while Katara watches them warily.

“There,” Azula says, aware of how unhinged she must sound to everyone except the Air Nomad standing before her. “That’s where I need to go.”

Zuko steps forward. “Azula  -,”

“I know where this is,” Aang says. “It’s a mountain in the Earth Kingdom, called Deva Kanda. There’s a healer there-,”

“She can’t just abscond with you at whim, Aang,” Zuko points out, running a tired hand over his face. “The trial is in less than two months, the Keohsho are beating down my door asking when I’m going to announce her engagement-,”

Aang’s face hardens. “If the council has an issue, they can take it up with me. And wouldn’t her future husband prefer a wife who isn’t sick?” The quiet but steely determination in the Avatar’s posture, Azula knows, is not entirely for her benefit. He’s witnessed his share of less than pristine dealings in the imperial court since the war ended.

Katara rises from her seat and sweeps to Zuko’s side with the silent grace of her element. “All of that is true, Aang, but Zuko’s also right. There’s a proper way to do things here and, well, we can’t risk a big scandal. You know that,” she says, blue eyes full of entreaty.

“So you’re suggesting we let her languish without trying to help -,”

“That’s not what-,”

“Tell them it’s a pilgrimage.”

All three turn to Azula, who smiles faintly, hearing herself make a suggestion she would once have balked at. “Women of the court make them all the time,” she says. “And who better to escort the infamous Fire princess on her pilgrimage than the Avatar?”

“She’s right,” Aang says, moving to stand beside her. “Deva Kanda is a popular pilgrimage site, we can say she wanted to pay her respects before the trial.”

Zuko scowls, as though put out by how foolproof the idea is. Katara remains silent, her face pinched in disapproval.

“And what about this healer?” Zuko directs his question at Aang. “Will she be willing to treat Azula? What if she finds out who she is?”

“Deva Kanda is too far west of Ba Sing Se for anyone to know what Azula looks like, and Biyu never turns anyone away,” Aang replies steadily.

Zuko finally shifts his back gaze to her. “You really think this will help you get better?”

And there it was. Underneath the gravity and poise Firelord Zuko wore as armor, he was still her soft-hearted older brother. Still Zuzu. “I think I need something that can’t be found in the Fire Nation,” she says, and Zuko, no doubt recalling his own exodus from home, grows quiet.

At length he turns back to Aang. “Fine, take her. I’ll prepare a statement for the council tomorrow.”

Aang grasps his friend by the arm, the two of them exchanging silent looks of understanding. Then he returns to Azula’s side, brushing her cheek lightly with his fingers. “Get some rest, I’ll meet you on the balcony in the morning - no need to draw attention by walking through the palace.”

It’s decided, and if Katara’s pursed lips hide stronger words, she doesn’t speak them. 

Shortly before dawn, the Firelady herself arrives to help gather a few things for the journey, bustling with all the efficiency of a mother Azula only faintly remembers, her movements radiating carefully suppressed ire. When her things are readied, Azula mumbles stiff thanks to her brother’s new wife. Ozai’s death and her illness had occurred barely a month after the wedding - hardly the festive aftermath Katara and Zuko had both no doubt envisioned.

Azula finds her tongue both heavy and empty with words she doesn’t know how to say. Katara lingers briefly by the door, her eyes sharp as blades. But just as Azula expects her to lash out, she murmurs a quiet farewell. “Safe journey, Azula.”

She admires the waterbender’s poise, though she suspects she’ll hear Katara’s true thoughts eventually. Glancing at the mirror, Azula sees her own gaunt form, her wild hair and sunken eyes, the pallor of her lips. Her shenyi   - unadorned white, the color of mourning worn by the court until the mourning period was over - only makes her look more ghostly. Through the open balcony doors she can hear the rise and fall of the Sages’ chanting. She’s a ghost in a country of ghosts. If Ursa’s visage was to appear now, opening her arms and smiling with that terrible sadness, Azula might welcome her as a friend.

Piled on a table in the corner of her room, the gifts sent by her husband-to-be resemble offerings for the dead. Bolts of fine white silk for mourning. Delicate green apples from the foothills of his estate. Combs carved from wild turtleduck shells. Ryōichi had sent daily messages inquiring after her welfare, accompanied by carefully appropriate overtures. But Azula sensed the doubt and worry behind these gestures. The rumors that never quite faded - that she was mad, cursed, possessed by hungry ghosts. Rumors she sometimes believed.

A shadow looms in the sky, the massive silhouette of the Avatar’s bison hovering beyond her balcony. The airbender alights, slinging the rucksack of her travel clothes over his shoulder and wrapping his other arm around her waist. To her clammy skin, his touch burns like a roaring fire.

“Ready for your first time on a sky bison?” he asks with that crooked smile, making light of the moment.

“No,” she says, her head resting on his shoulder. “But thank you.”

In a stomach-dropping leap he airbends them aboard the bison and settles her in a corner before taking the reins. Then with a mighty flick of the animal’s tail they’re high in the heavens, gliding through the cold airs. The sky is quiet, empty of the sages’ chanting, of the courtiers’ whispering, of everything but the rivers of wind. She’s heard stories of soldiers during the war who, before being shipped off to battle, put their hands in the earth and swallowed palm-fulls of loamy soil, so they might carry their homeland with them. But up here, the plaza tower growing smaller as the bison takes them higher and further, it’s not soil but air that slips between her fingers, and if she opens her mouth, she would taste only clouds.

Four Years Ago

Spirit sickness. That’s what they called it when they thought Azula was out of earshot, what they wrote down in their parchment thinking she was too dazed to pay attention.

Seven years since the second pass of Sozin’s Comet and Azula’s days are grey and quiet. The monotony of rising, eating, bathing and sleeping - broken only by occasional walks on the guarded terrace that always felt too brief before she’s returned to the sterile air of her room - dulls her senses more effectively than the opiate teas they give her to dampen her qi . After the first two years she had simply stopped drinking them, but none of her attendants could tell the difference. Without Ozai’s designs, without an empire to win, she had no cause to reach for her inner flame. In their place were dreams that stole her sleep, sudden fevers that vanished swiftly as they came, and fits - strange episodes that would seize all her limbs and knock her unconscious for an hour or two - all of which the caretakers chalked down as a disease of the spirit no medicine could touch.

Seven years since they dragged her chained and sobbing from the courtyard of her defeat, Azula is brought to a different courtyard in fresh clothes, her clean hair pulled into a traditional top knot - only without the flame-gold headpiece that would mark her as princess. She is to have a visitor, her first since those early days when her brother would bring her blankets and tea and sit in silence while she dozed off on her opiates or stared stubbornly at the wall, refusing to speak. 

There are cushions and a table laid out, along with fresh tea and dumplings. But her eyes fix on the man standing in the bright morning sun, and her heart jumps in her throat. Could it be -

The red scar grows visible and the image dissolves. 

Not Ozai, but Zuko. 

Strangely, Azula is relieved. She begins to genuflect, but Zuko stops her. His hands, brutishly strong from the swordsmanship he clearly kept up with, keep her from sinking to the ground. 

“Azula,” he says, and there’s the faintest tremble of emotion in his voice. “Come sit.” Under the pomp and circumstance he’s still the brother she remembered, still Zuzu, his heart worn easily on his sleeve. 

He takes a seat across from her and waves the servants away, pouring the tea himself. His not-so-surreptitious glances at her don’t go unnoticed. Every so often he blinks, as though trying to clear a mental image, and Azula has the unpleasant realization that he isn’t the only one who’s grown to resemble a parent.

She sips her tea in silence, too grateful for the strong, fragrant flavor after years of bland food to say anything. She’s learned the hard way to appreciate simple things - the fresh air on her face, the feel of real porcelain in her hands, the living sky above. 

Zuko clears his throat. “I have a proposal for you.”

She waits for him to continue.

“I’ve discussed it with my ministers. We think you should return to the palace.”

Azula sets down her cup, her hand trembling slightly. “Why?”

“It’s been seven years. The caretakers tell me you’ve made good progress.” 

She gives him a penetrating look, until his jaw twitches and he waves his hand, sending the servants away.

There's a faint sulk in his voice reminiscent of their youth. “I thought you’d jump at the chance to leave here.”

“Perhaps if I knew what I was jumping in to ,” she replies, her own voice quavering a little. She still practiced her katas when possible, but she’s a far cry now from the deadly princess whose cunning and childish bravado had slain the Avatar and toppled the Impenetrable City. Her words are a rough whisper. “I’m not what I used to be.”

“Good.” Her brother’s golden eyes meet hers. “Because I need you to be something new.”

As he outlines the reason for his visit, and what he’s truly offering, Azula reads between the lines. Establishing peace after a hundred years of war is bitter work. Enemies are numerous, and maintaining an image of strength is paramount. The royal family needed to present a united front, prove they were worthy of Agni’s mandate. An imprisoned father and a mad sister made that difficult.

“You need a figurehead,” Azula says. “To prove I’m not insane, and demonstrate my loyalty to the throne.”

“I know what you’re thinking. I’m coming to you about politics, when I should come to you as a brother.” 

Oh Zuko, what difference has there ever been, in our family? But she remains silent, lifting her cup again. 

“You’ll have to stand trial, eventually, before I can officially restore your title and inheritance,” he continues. “I couldn’t dissuade the councillors without losing favor. But I told them you weren’t insane, and that when the time comes you could face the council clear-headed. My enemies don’t believe me, so you have to prove them wrong.”

As she watches, Zuko sets a small ebony box on the table between them. His fingers press the golden dragon clasp and the bottom slides out. Her royal headpiece gleams on a cushion of red silk.

Azula dares not touch it, but her eyes rivet on the ornament, trapped in a strange feeling of disembodied fear. 

“I know we’ll always have our differences,” Zuko says, “but I also know you love our country. This is a chance for you to inspire them again, Azula. Be a symbol the people can unite around.”

She pulls her eyes away from the headpiece. Somewhere inside her, shrill laughter vies with deadly quiet.

Zuko lifts the ornament and puts it in her hand. “Take it. And retake your honor.”

Chapter Text

Six months after she accepts Zuko’s offer she sees the Avatar again, for the first time since the war. 

He’s strolling up the inner courtyard unfazed by the attention he draws, long-legged now and tall, a staff in hand. His clothes are travel-stained, his kurta a faded whitish-yellow from many washes, his loose trousers frayed at the ankles. Only the saffron-colored cloth draped across his chest retains its brilliance - out of all his garments, it appeared this alone was handled with great care. 

On her way to luncheon at a noblewoman’s house, part of the social niceties she is now required to observe as a member of the court, Azula’s path is directly in his. 

She squares her shoulders, ignoring the tightness in the pit of her stomach as he draws near. The Avatar’s eyes dance over her- the vivid blue silk of her hanfu , the trailing sleeves lined in fiery-pink, the delicate coiling braids of her hair. Zuko had assured her she looked presentable, Azula had complained about resembling a particularly gaudy parrot. He looks at her in open admiration, as though they were villagers passing each other in the market and he fancied making a play for her affections. The casual imprudence brings her up short, and where once she might have offered a cutting remark Azula only waits for the inevitable moment he recognizes who she is.

The Avatar’s eyes blow wide, and his cheeks color like a woman’s, but he recovers quickly enough to offer the traditional flame-palm. “Princess Azula,” he breathes. When he raises his head, the impish smile that riled her during the war is firmly in place, though they are neither of them the children they once were. “A beautiful sight on a beautiful day.”

It’s the kind of courtly compliment common among the nobility, but the Avatar makes it sound both sincere and teasing. The years have moulded the soft roundness of his face into something firm and handsome, but a timeless boyish light dances in his grey eyes, and his smile is easy and ever present. His shaven head and barbaric tattoos are far from what the Fire Nation considers beautiful in their men, but he’s undoubtedly eye-catching. Perhaps it was simply the Avatar spirit, making itself known to those who perceived the body it occupied. Whatever the case might be, the riotous boy she remembers is now a poised and striking man, and when he stands beside her at his full height, she has to crane her neck to meet his eyes. 

“Avatar Aang,” she replies stiffly. “I’m sure my brother will be delighted to see you.” She can’t quite keep the barb from her voice, but it doesn’t land like it used to. Briefly she wonders if she’s ever truly perturbed him until that moment she shot him dead. The blazing triumph she felt as a girl is distant and childish now in the presence of a full-fledged Avatar. She hastens away with as much cold dignity as she can muster.

Like the nomads he hailed from, the Avatar comes and goes. 

His presence never fails to lift Zuko’s mood, but Azula senses her brother’s alone in that feeling. Even the ministers who had despised Ozai and wanted no part of his vainglorious schemes, who had rushed to pledge their loyalty to Zuko and sit on his Council, resented having to defer to an Air Nomad on matters of state - even if he was the Avatar.

But other members of the Fire Nation greet their Avatar with joy. 

Azula is rudely awoken one morning by a cacophony of whooping and delighted shrieks. Barely bothering with her robe she storms onto her balcony, ready to unleash her wrath on whatever street urchins have managed to infiltrate the royal gardens, when a child in a school uniform sails up in the air and sinks back down, cradled by the Avatar on a cloud of air. A group of school children surround the tree that Azula had noticed he liked to meditate under. 

Clearly having abandoned his morning meditations to toss children into the sky, the Avatar propels and controls them up and down with airbending. Two teachers stand off to the side, evidently enjoying the momentary reprieve from their duties, their faces softening a little at how delightedly the children rush into the nomad’s arms, at how eagerly he welcomes them.

A few of the gardeners have set their tools down to watch the display. Peals of children’s laughter fill the morning air, and Azula realizes, irritably, that the only way to procure silence is to make a scene. A surly princess upsetting children and reprimanding the Avatar was surely not what Zuko had in mind when he’d inveigled her to make inroads at court on his behalf. Cursing her brother and the ceaselessly childish nature of Air Nomads, she turns on her heel and storms back inside, muffling her ears with a pillow to keep the happy sounds at bay.

Gossip flows gently but surely in the exquisitely furnished parlor, punctuated by the soft sound of wind stirring the leaves on the almond and cherry blossom trees beyond the open windows, the clear notes of a fountain, and the echoes of Lady Renu’s daughter practicing her ruǎn in the adjoining room. Azula, having been assigned a seat of honor at the lady’s right, is careful to keep her expression neutral as the afternoon progresses.

All the talk circles around the recent announcement that Firelord Zuko is to be engaged, not to a citizen of the Fire Nation as was customary, but a waterbender, Katara, chieftan's daughter of the Southern Water Tribe and appointed delegate of the North. This fact alone is enough to fan the flames of courtly gossip to thrilling heights, but in addition to being a foreigner and former enemy of their nation, Katara had fought beside the Avatar in defeating Firelord Ozai, and many expected her and the Avatar to marry.

“I mean, you can’t blame the girl. How can a monk compare to the Firelord?”

“All that traveling they did together during the war, escaping death, sleeping under the stars. Passions flare easily in such situations.”

“And she is attractive for a tribal, in an exotic sort of way.”

Azula, who knew from Zuko that the truth was far less alluring, that the match had been suggested by the Council of the Four Nations after Katara’s demonstrated skill as a negotiator, that the Northern Water Tribe would only allow free travel in their waters if Zuko agreed to the marriage, all but forcing Zuko and Katara’s hands, hides her contempt for the women’s breathless speculation behind her cup of tea. 

According to Zuko, Aang and Katara had ended their relationship amicably, and as sole representative of the Air Nomads the Avatar had endorsed the suggested union as another step towards restoring balance. Nevertheless, Azula makes no move to curtail gossip - it would only improve Zuko’s standing among the nobility if they believed his Agni-given prowess, not mundane politics, had succeeded in enticing the Avatar’s woman to his side. 

“I mean no disrespect to the Avatar,” Lady Renu says with a sly giggle, “but are monks not permitted to visit a tailor?”

Her remark is greeted with a chorus of titters and delicate laughs. Renu looks coyly at Azula and takes her silence as approval. “My gardener has a cousin that works in the palace, who heard that our Firelord wished to install the Avatar his own azumaya for meditation, but the Avatar refused.” Renu pauses for dramatic effect, pouring herself more tea while the women hang on her every word. “Supposedly, he told the Firelord he preferred the trees. Can you imagine! To deny a gift from Agni’s chosen ruler - for trees!”

More laughter fills the air. “No wonder you bested him so easily, Princess,” another woman says with a sidelong glance at Azula.

Having the victory she once prized reduced to parlor talk among the idle rich presses down on Azula like heavy waves of water. She feels terribly small. “It was a long time ago,” she demurs. “He was but an adolescent boy.”

“Some would argue he still is,” Renu says, inciting another ripple of laughter.

One of the younger women lifts her teacup to her lips, her cheeks faintly coloring. “I think he’s handsome.”

Renu breaks the awkward silence with a soft, unkind laugh. “Really, Mi-Sun. I never suspected you had a taste for the barbaric.”

Mi-Sun, to her credit, is uncowed, though her face flames pink. “I heard the Air Nomads were deeply studied in the sensual arts.”

Renu scoffs. “Impossible. They were monks and nuns, girl. The only things they studied were prayers to their sky gods.”

Azula reflects on the boy she had chased during the war, and the man whose eyes had shamelessly admired her in the palace courtyard. Perhaps Mi-Sun was right, and there was more to the Air Nomads than met the eye. The thought is faintly unsettling, so she pushes it away. 

One of Renu’s friends angles her head pointedly at Mi-Sun. “Perhaps you can go down to the stables one night, Mi-Sun, and discover all you wish about Air Nomads.”

The others giggle unkindly while Mi-Sun flushes and grows silent.

“The stables?” Azula asks, and all heads turn to her.

“The princess doesn’t know,” Renu murmurs with elaborate deference, clearly relishing the prospect of telling Azula herself. “It’s come to our attention that the Avatar doesn’t sleep in the chambers provided so generously by the Firelord.” She pauses to build anticipation.

“Then where does he sleep?” Azula prompts, her patience fraying.

Renu gives a shudder of disgust. “In the stables, princess. Like some vagabond, with only his bison for company.” 

       Present Day

They touch down at a small rest house in the region of Diamer, near the foothills of the mountain. The ground is muddy from recent rains and the air thick and sultry. Azula wrinkles her nose as the pungent odor of manure mixes with the smell of oil lamps and wet earth.

Aang helps her off the bison and inside a small establishment that, by royal standards, would be just one cut above a hovel. Leaning against a barrel of grain, Azula’s hopes for a comfortable bed disappear by the minute, while Aang converses with the owner and his wife using a peasant dialect common to the Earth Kingdom hill country. From the looks on their faces, she can tell they’re flattered the Avatar would speak to them in their mother tongue. He puts down the coin, waving away their protests, and gestures at Azula. The wife shuffles over, taking her in with a quick but subtle glance and eyeing the Avatar curiously.

Aang however is unbothered. “Saima’s going to show you to our accommodations. I’m going to unpack the saddle and feed Appa.” He gives her arm a light squeeze. “Ask her for anything you need.”

Saima leads her up a precarious set of wooden stairs by the light of a small lamp. Azula considers using a flame to light the way, but decides against revealing herself as a firebender. There’s no telling what enmities and resentments still lingered in these lands.

“If you want a bath,” Saima says, her words stiff but clear in the common tongue, “Let me or Amal know, and we will boil water. You want to eat?”

Azula shakes her head, which earns a grunt from Saima. “Here you go.” 

In the lamplight Azula sees a small room, the walls bare save for a few tapestries decorated with protective symbols and the image of Avatar Kyoshi, and a bamboo plant in the corner providing a spot of green. Saima presses a cube of camphor into her hand along with some spark rocks - “Burn this for the mosquito-flies” - and, lighting the lamp in the corner shuffles back downstairs. It’s not until the wooden stairs cease creaking that Azula realizes the room only has a single bedroll.

Azula lights the camphor tiles and sets them in a plate in the corner of the room, then unlatches the single window. Counter-intutitve, perhaps, during mosquito season, but the closed air reminded her uncomfortably of being confined to her rooms in the Fire Nation. Without the torchlit brilliance of Caldera City, the night sky is ink-black and dazzling with stars. The dark outline of hillsides stretch out before her, twinkling with scattered lamplights. 

After so many years confined to the palace, the difference in scenery is both intoxicating and draining. The world feels mercilessly vast, and she a small speck of consciousness, something a swift breeze could extinguish. The somber reality that she’s at a crossroads, beyond which, if the healer was unsuccessful, lay only oblivion, descends on her mind like a dark cloud. 

Still, there’s a strange lightness in her chest that had to do with her distance from home. No watching eyes, no gossiping courtiers, no worried Zuko and impatient Katara, no Ryōichi with his tentative, anxious smile. Leaving had been selfish, perhaps, but she knew now to stay would’ve meant a slow and humiliating descent into the life of a sickly wife, barely able to nurse the children she’d be charged with supplying. This spark of selfishness grounds her, reminds her who she is, sharpening the contours of her self awareness. First she would see about getting her life, her vitality back. Then, she would face whatever duties and consequences awaited her back home.

Stripping down to her white linen middle clothes, she wipes her face and settles on the bedroll when a polite knock at the door announces Aang’s return.

He leans his staff against the wall and sets about removing his shoes, seemingly unbothered by the dimensions of the room. 

“I know it’s not the accommodations you’re used to,” he says, “but there aren’t very many options this far west of Ba Sing Se.”

“This is perfectly adequate,” she says airily. “I didn’t exactly travel in luxury during the war.”

He returns a warm smile that dances down her spine, and Azula changes the subject. “Tell me about this healer.”

“Oh, Biyu’s a force to be reckoned with,” he says, setting his shoes by the door and bending some water out of the basin in the corner to wipe his face. “The Earth King offered her apartments in the Upper Ring several times, but she refused.”

Azula, who finds the years haven’t tempered her contempt for the simpering royalty of Ba Sing Se, manages a small smile. “An admirable woman.”

She tries to untangle her hair with her fingers and sighs in frustration. “I suppose it’s rude to ask if you carry a comb on your person?”

He cracks a smile, but to her surprise rifles through his pack and offers her a small, pale comb. Azula eyes the simple handle and fine teeth, weighing it in her hand. Whalebone.

“It was Katara’s,” he says simply. “When we traveled, she was always misplacing it, so I kept it with my stuff.” He gives a light shrug. “She didn’t want it back.”

He moves to the corner of the room and begins removing his tunic while Azula combs her hair. Did he have other mementos among his meager possessions? Keepsakes and tokens from the ragged group he once travelled with, who were now all repaired to four different corners of the world? Her hair slips through the whalebone and she has a sudden image of herself as the waterbender, poised on the edge of the bison’s saddle, combing out her tresses with the moon behind her while the Avatar watched, his face a mixture of reverence and simple, manly desire. The image vanishes quickly as it comes, and she’s back in a small peasant’s room somewhere in the wilds of the Earth Kingdom, untangling her hair with a comb that belonged to the new Fire Lady, who had once been the Avatar’s lover. A link in a chain of strange inheritances.

He undresses, slipping off the orange-yellow cloth and untying the red sash holding his tunic in place so he’s naked to the waist in the dim lamplight. The planes of his body are beautiful, sculpted with training and the simple life of a monk, but her eyes latch onto his spine, and the pale, star-like scar interrupting the blue tattoo. She recalls the catacombs, the light and the lightning, watching him fall. She feels dizzy, but can’t wrench her eyes away. The urge falls upon her to cross the room and touch the bare expanse of his shoulders, reminding herself that he’s alive, that there are limits to what her hands can do. Then he turns, hiding the scar from view, and Azula realizes how she must look - gawking at him like a cloistered Caldera girl who’s never seen a man. Face hot, she looks away, combing furiously until the last tangles are defeated and her hair shines over one shoulder. She holds out the comb to him with a murmured thanks.

“You hang on to it,” he says, gaze straying to her loose, shining hair and the bare curve of her neck. He clears his throat, and she catches his quickly averted eyes, the faint color in his face. Somewhat mollified that she wasn’t alone in staring, she finishes a simple braid and wonders if he plans on sleeping outside, or if he expects to share the small bedroll with her. He’d promised to return her in time for the trial, and she’s certain Zuko’s impressed upon him the necessity of there being no...improper rumors about her time away. But they are far from the Fire Nation, and no one here knows who she is. The thought terrifies and exhilarates in equal measure.

Her brief quandary is soon resolved when he rolls out a rattan mat on the floor beside her and lies down, his long legs crossed at the ankle. He’s a respectable distance from her, as much as the tiny size of the room permits. Reclined like this, arms folded behind his head and dressed only in plain trousers, his skin browned with sun, he might be taken for a simple Earth Kingdom peasant, save for the blue tattoos.

She can smell the warm scent of his body. 

“Are you comfortable?” he asks, craning his neck to look at her. In the dim lamplight, the centers of his eyes are dark, quiet lakes. 

 “I’m grateful,” she says, and he chuckles.

“Very diplomatic, princess.”

There’s a moment of peaceful silence filled only with the sound of their breathing and the lamp’s flickering. Her fingertips graze the teeth of her new comb and though her voice is quiet, the words hang in the small confines of the room. “What happened, with you and Katara?” 

“Ah, well. Not everyone is suited for life as a nomad,” he says, eyes flicking to the roof again.

“Did it anger you?” she asks, pushing cautiously against the seemingly communicative mood he’s in. For all his openness and lively nature she’s always had the sense there were some depths to Aang not lightly probed. 

“Yes, at first. She was angry too. After ending a war you expect everything else to come easy, but it never happens like that, does it?” he murmurs.

“How does it happen?”

“Slowly, quietly. But Roku warned me a long time ago.”

It’s startling to hear the former Avatar, and her great-grandfather, spoken of so casually.

“To be the Avatar, in a way, is to be countryless,” Aang continues with a rueful smile. “You belong everywhere, and nowhere. Only my situation is a little... extreme.”

Azula digests this information in silence. There’s a faint buzzing at the tips of her fingers and she grows once again aware of how close they’re lying, how simple it would be to reach out and touch his bare skin. This isn’t like that night half a year ago, when bellies full of palm wine and sweetmeats, they lay on their backs on her balcony, shoulder to shoulder and gazing at the stars. There had been a potent magic to that moment, something they could blame for any lapse in restraint. But tonight they are both painfully sober, free to make their own decisions - or mistakes.

He raises himself on an elbow, giving her a look of concern. “You’re shivering.”

“It’s the fever, it comes and goes,” she replies, laying a tired head on the pillow.

He waves his fingers, and a gentle draft of warm air blankets her, slipping across her arms and legs like a caress. It would be improper to sigh deliciously, so instead she gives him a grateful look. His hand sweeps down, and the air brushes her temples, soothing as a balm.

“Better?”

She would point out the unfairness  - that he can touch her without his hands -  but the shape of his scar comes vividly to mind. He must have felt her every time he lay down. All those years after the war, those endless, empty nights and days she spent in confinement, pretending to drink drugged tea, the scar she’d left had travelled with him, her touch seared into his skin like a brand. She’s been a part of him longer than she can bear to imagine. 

Lie down next to me. Then I’d feel better.

Their gazes meet in heavy silence and Azula feels naked, her thoughts clear as glass. His own flicker fiercely in his eyes, but they make him appear conflicted, concerned, until Azula finally turns onto her side, facing away from him, sparing them both the trouble of a decision.  She is, after all, engaged. And even if she wasn’t- well, no use forgetting herself around him, though he makes it extraordinarily simple to do so.

Eventually she hears him extinguish the lamp and lie down on his mat, reclining with a sigh. His voice comes softly through the dark. “Goodnight, Azula.”

“Good night,” she whispers.

A last flick of air grazes her cheek, light as a lover’s touch. 

Chapter Text

She isn’t prepared for the looming sight of the mountain, etched against the misty dawn sky, each line the clear shape of her drawing. Real and solid and ancient. 

Whether this belies or confirms that she’s insane, Azula isn’t certain.

As the bullock cart draws closer she makes out small shapes, people moving up and down stone-cut steps, earthbenders powering a pulley system full of passengers up to a shelf of rock cut high in the mountain’s side. The peak of Deva Kanda is hidden in clouds - she suspects only the hardiest earthbender or a skybison could scale that height.

She’s clutching the frame, her body gone rigid with nameless fear, vaguely aware that Aang, having alighted from his perch beside her, has come around to her side of the cart. He peers up at her with concern until she forces herself to stand. Her small rucksack clutched to her chest, Azula takes his hand and climbs down. He doesn’t remark on her obvious pallor and anxiety, but keeps her hand firmly in his.

They approach the mountain together.

Small temples dot the higher reaches of Deva Kanda, cut into the rock by Earth Priests of times past. Abandoned during the war, the mountain is now teeming with life. Pilgrims come here from all corners of the four nations, Aang explains, bringing needed commerce to Diamer. At the foot of the mountain, he exchanges hearty greetings with a young earthbender named Vikram, a swarthy man with betel-stained teeth and a rich laugh. They fall into a casual conversation and Azula catches enough words of Common to piece together that the rains have been heavy this year, which means the rice farmers expect a good yield and the bajra seedlings from Omashu won’t be needed until the next planting season. Vikram turns to Azula with a grin, pointing at Aang. “Maybe you convince him to build a temple here. We’d be richer than the Earth King.”

Aang shakes his head with an embarrassed smile. “There’s plenty of temples here already.”

Vikram shrugs, clapping the Avatar soundly on the back. “I'm just saying. Richer than the Earth King.”

He takes his leave to assist some other visitors and Azula joins Aang atop a smooth wedge of rock, holding onto his arm while he earthbends them in a straight line up the mountain’s side. Cold air rushes past her ears as the village grows small beneath them. 

“He has a point, you know,” Azula says. “All the other Avatars have temples.”

“They’re also dead,” he says, mildly. “I don’t want to be anyone’s stone image, not while I’m alive anyway.”

Azula digests this in silence as they move higher up.

“Look,” Aang nudges her gently, and she follows his line of sight. The valley of Diamer is laid out before them, nestled below the green hills of Yantai to the north. A moldering stone dam squats upriver, and the shape of it stirs faintly in Azula’s memory. But the settlement itself, teeming and verdant, is unfurled beneath the veils of morning mist still lingering above the trees and rice paddies, out of which birds dart up and down with stolen fruit in their beaks. The waters of the Nan Shan river, cutting the plain in two, gleam in the sunlight like a ribbon of silver. 

Her eyes drift to the Avatar beside her, his bright, handsome face gazing down at the vista below, and the blue shine of his tattoos, and understands why Vikram wanted to capture his essence in stone. 

Aang turns to her with a curious smile. “What do you think?”

Azula looks down at her feet. “A fine view.”

“A fine view,” Aang repeats in airy imitation, his boyish laughter reverting him instantly from ethereal to insufferable. 

“I’m only teasing,” he adds gently, seeing her mutinous look. But any acerbic remarks she might have used disappear in her throat when the slab of rock they’re standing on wedges into the landing groove high on the mountainside. 

They have arrived.

The old woman, Biyu, is so bent with age Azula is surprised she’s still among the living. But as she draws closer, wiping her hands on a muddy apron, Azula sees her eyes are keen, her white hair well-groomed and even fashioned prettily with a comb above the crown of her head. Biyu greets Aang with a sly smile, squeezing his bicep with a gnarled hand while a lusty laugh rattles in her throat, “Avatar Aang, you grow more delectable each time I see you. And such good, strong qi . Delicious.” She winks at him before shifting her gaze to Azula, who’d been observing the exchange with amusement and mild shock. “Who’s this? She looks a bit peaked.”

Aang gives an easy, charming smile, and Azula almost rolls her eyes. He was worse than Ty Lee.  “Biyu, this is Azula, a friend of mine.”

The old woman gives Azula a sharp, knowing glance, then chuckles again. “In the family way, eh? Avatar, you have been busy.”

This time, Aang’s face turns pink, though he recovers quickly with a discreet cough. “Nothing like that, Azula needs help with her fevers.”

Biyu grins at them as though she’s in on a secret they’ve never shared, then takes Azula by the arm, her grasp surprisingly strong. “You'll have to stay here for a while, in the caves.”

“The caves ?” Azula balks.

“He can’t stay with you, either,” Biyu says, pre-empting Azula’s next thought. “Only those seeking treatment stay in the caves.”

A sudden panic rises in Azula’s chest. “How long?”

“That’s up to you, dear,” Biyu replies, and her tone is kinder this time.  “We treat the body and the spirit here, and both have to be willing.”

Azula tried to fight the welling terror. This is ridiculous, she’s a grown woman not a child being left by her parents. Yet somewhere deep down is the ugly fear that this is all some trick, that Zuko and Aang have planned every detail of this journey, making her believe it’s her idea, only to abandon her in a mountain cave with a crazy old crone and whatever cave people she consorted with -

Aang intervenes, drawing Azula closer to him. “Biyu, can you give us a minute alone?”  While the old woman retreats, his hand cups Azula’s cheek, grounding her briefly, and she’s too grateful to remark on the frank intimacy of the gesture. “Hey,” he says, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I won’t be far. If something goes wrong, or you change your mind, use this and I'll come get you.” He puts a small wooden object in her hand: his bison whistle. His grey eyes look at her with both directness and compassion. She knows he won’t force her to endure anything more than what she’s capable of, but she also senses that he trusts her to try. After years of being handled like delicate porcelain, his trust orients and strengthens her enough to finally give a silent, determined nod.

Her fingers close around the whistle. Then with a soft brush of his lips to her brow he’s gone, and Biyu leads her deeper into the mountainside.

Cut deep into the mountain’s flank, the healing center is a testament to the quiet ingenuity of earthbending. A greenhouse and a small, lushly cultivated garden form a crude courtyard where patients recline or work with plants, while caves sheltered from the elements by the grooves of the mountain provide space for Biyu’s patients to rest. A smaller, stone courtyard behind the greenhouse functions as a communal kitchen, and Azula catches the tangy aroma of tom-yum simmering over a steady fire. She notices several women dressed in matching dark green bustling about the place, watering the plants, gathering herbs, chopping, cooking, emptying out the latrines. These are her apprentices, Biyu informs her. “Even I can’t live forever,” she says with another throaty chuckle. 

A faint yet unmistakably pungent odor of sulphur wafts through the air, drawing Azula’s attention.

“You’ll get used to the smell,” Biyu says, answering her thoughts rather than her words. “That’s where I do most of my healing sessions. When you’re ready, you’ll come down to the springs with me.” She points east of the caves where Azula sees a set of stone-hewn steps leading to a cavern underground from which faint steam rises. Hot springs, rich with healing minerals. 

The caves where she is to say are both better and worse than Azula had imagined. They are large and clean, sheltered from the elements and laid with palm fronds and rattan mats to sit or sleep on. But they offer no privacy save a weathered screen behind which to change, and a basin covered in rattan sits in a corner for the occupants to urinate. “There’s outhouses over there,” Biyu waves her hand. “And a bathing area at the edge of the garden. The girls will show you.” And with a hearty clap to her back, Biyu shuffles off, leaving Azula to enter her assigned cave and introduce herself to the occupants within.

There are three women in the cave, Azula makes the fourth. They talk among themselves while she lays out her mat and pillow, occasionally shooting inquisitive glances her way. Azula keeps her face impassive, though the urge to snap at their scrutiny is strong. But once her things are arranged she finds herself suddenly exhausted, and falls into a deep slumber as soon as her head hits the small, hard pillow.

When she awakes, someone’s lit a small lamp in the corner and the spicy tang from earlier fills the air. The women are drinking from earthen bowls, talking animatedly in the dialect she’d heard Aang use with the innkeepers. Great . She’s to spend Agni knows how long in a cave with illiterate peasants, pissing into a bowl. She brushes the outline of the bison whistle in her pocket.

“We got you a bowl,” one of the women says, her words accented but clear. “It’s good tonight, Neomal cooked it.”

Her growling stomach gives her away, she’d had nothing to eat all day except some jook at the inn. Azula lifts the bowl with a mumbled thank you, breathing deep the scent of lemongrass and kha, and swallows a mouthful. It’s so good she hastily downs half her bowl while the others laugh.

“I’m Jorani,” the woman introduces herself. “That’s Nimi, and Kaushal. Nimi doesn’t speak any Common, but Kaushal’s learning. I’ve been teaching her.”

“Hello,” the woman named Kaushal says with a stiff nod. She’s short and stoutly built in a way that reminds Azula of the blind earthbender Aang once travelled with. Jorani is taller and wiry, her black hair in a long braid down her back similar to the fashion in Ba Sing Se. She has an easy, boyish manner that puts Azula in mind of the girls at the Royal Fire Academy, in the old days. Nimi is small and plump, with a pretty face. A green sling wraps around her chest, containing a doll roughly the size of a newborn baby.

Jorani gives brief details of their origins. All three of them are from villages outside Ba Sing Se, and had repaired to Yantai, the settlement north of Diamer, as refugees after the war. Azula has never been to the regions they hail from, but she knows them nonetheless. She’s seen them on her father’s war maps, attended the banquets celebrating the generals who conquered them.

“And what about you, mèimei ?” Jorani asks.

Little sister. She’s noticed that they refer to each other this way. Azula looks at their faces in the lamplight and the words freeze on her tongue.

“Don’t have to tell,” Kaushal says gruffly. “Jorani asks too much.”

Jorani shrugs and pours them all tea from a wood kettle. It’s pungent yet sweet to the taste, and the stiffness in Azula’s limbs gradually relaxes. 

Nimi whispers something to Jorani, who turns to Azula. “She says you have beautiful hair.”

“Thank you,” Azula murmurs. “My mother thought so.”

“Where is she now?”

She joins Zuko by the turtle-duck pond in the early morning hours. The sky is still pink and tender, and faint mists linger around the trees. It makes the gardens seem different, younger, like a template from their childhood. For a moment, Azula is seized by the vivid image of running children - her and Mai and Ty Lee, Zuko chasing her, and Ursa’s slender figure in the distance, floating by like a benevolent shadow. She shakes the image away and sits beside her brother, who she sees isn’t fully dressed, but had thrown a robe over his long white hadajuban . 

“You wanted to see me?” she says, when he remains silent.

Zuko’s voice is thick. “It’s about Mom.” He holds out a small wooden box and she peers at the contents inside. A faded handkerchief that smells faintly of jasmine oil, an incense holder shaped like a dragon, and in the center, wrapped in a crude bit of cloth, a small golden hairpiece worn by the former Fire Lady. Azula shivers, like a ghost breathed down her neck.

“Jun and her shirshu found these in an empty house outside Omashu,” Zuko says. His face scrunches and scowls with the effort to withhold tears; they pour down his face anyway. “Where could she have gone?”

Azula’s seen Jun, once. The bounty hunter was shrewd, and clearly understood the profitable depths of Zuko’s obsessions. 

“Shouldn’t the creature have found her by now?” Azula points out, keeping her voice even.

“She could still be out there,” Zuko says, with a flash of frustration. “What if she’s alone and helpless, and needs our help?”

Azula wanted to point out that a woman who slew a monarch to protect her son and slipped out of a nation she was poised to rule, leaving her children behind, was unlikely to ever be helpless. She wanted to point out that the search had availed no results for years now, that the bounty hunters and informants Zuko employed likely saw him as an endless pot of gold. She wanted to point out that their mother was most likely buried somewhere in an unmarked grave, or cremated and scattered in a temple river, and that Jun and her compatriots were never going to find Ursa, alive or dead, if that meant Zuko stopped paying them.

She looks at her brother, taller than her now, broader in the shoulders, his face so much and so little like Ozai’s. He’s been working hard to make a lasting peace, fending off loyalists to the old order, negotiating trade agreements with the Earth Kingdom and Northern Water Tribe. He’s risen to the responsibility of Fire Lord in ways she had never imagined he would, and yet she looks at him now and still sees that tender-eyed boy who cried too easily and followed their mother everywhere like a little shadow.

“You’re right,” she says. “You should keep looking.”

But Zuko surprises her, fixing her with a steady look that reminds her, suddenly, of Iroh. “You believe she’s dead, don’t you?” 

"It doesn’t matter what I believe,” she says, only a faint trace of bitterness in her voice. “You’re the Fire Lord, the decision rests with you.”

“I’m not asking as Fire Lord, I’m asking as your brother. Do you think our mother’s dead?”

Her patience waning, Azula looks him flatly in the eye. “I think you’re searching for someone who doesn’t exist.”  

“I don’t know,” Azula says. “She...went away, a long time ago.”

Her hand trembles a little around her cup.

The other women nod in understanding, their eyes dark with memories of their own. All four of them drink their tea in silence, until the lamp burns low and sleep makes their eyes heavy. 

“You know, you’ll have to tell us your name at some point,” Jorani says as they bed down, with the bluntness characteristic of her people. Kaushal grunts a reprimand, while Nimi is already asleep, her little bundle held close to her chest.

Azula watches the shadows dancing on the wall, and the answer comes before she can stop herself.

“Ursa,” she says. “My name is Ursa.”

Like most things at Biyu’s retreat, bathing is a communal activity. A giant stone trough is regularly filled with water, drawn from a well and carried by the apprentices. Women cluster around it, using earthen cups to collect water, and individual bars of soap made with Biyu’s herbs. On the other side of a low wall, men enjoy the same facilities; Azula had noticed they mostly consisted of young children struck with illness or infirmity, and the very elderly. By and large, it seemed more women than men sought Biyu’s help.

The more modest women bathe in their underclothes or bathing cloths wrapped around their bodies. Azula has few such qualms, and performs her ablutions quickly and efficiently. Memories of river baths with Mai and Ty Lee, swimming and laying in the sun, pierce her with unexpected sharpness. For the first time since the war, she longs to see them again and regrets that she’s unlikely to ever do so. 

She’s dressed and seated on a clean rock drying her hair, enjoying the coolness on her skin, when Jorani’s shadow falls on her. 

“There you are. Kaushal said you woke early.”

“Yes well, I was hoping for more privacy,” Azula replies, gesturing at the small group of bathing women. “But I see that’s unlikely to happen.”

Jorani cocks her head, untying her blouse and trousers. “But it doesn’t bother you.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Azula says evenly. She knew Jorani was itching to know more about her - she clearly ruled over the other cave occupants - but she was growing impatient with the earthbender’s prying.

Jorani removes her underclothes and drops them off to the side, her body on full display. She’s built like a warrior, lean and firm, her skin a nutty brown, her breasts small. Azula’s unfazed by her nakedness- women’s company is nothing new to her - but her left leg comes into view, hip to thigh to calf, mottled from fire. Though the flesh has healed as best it can, it appears to transform before Azula’s eyes, until she sees the fresh wounds, the skin blistered and weeping. The toes of Jorani’s left foot are mangled, fused, the skin shiny and pink like a newborn. Bile rises in Azula’s throat.

“Six firebenders,” the earthbender says with a hard glint. “That’s how many I crushed before they took me down. Even when I was locked up and chained, they were afraid of me. I could see it in their eyes.” She bends down close, so Azula can smell the strong sweat. “What about you? How many firebenders have you killed?”

If she was her old self, Azula would have returned a sharp retort. Does the Avatar count?   Instead her nostrils fill with the sick-sweet odor of burning flesh that seemed to linger for months, despite the royal cleaners’ best efforts, in the arena where Zuko begged Ozai for mercy. Her stomach lurches, and she manages to stumble into some bushes, heaving out her guts while Jorani’s hard laughter fades in the distance.

Chapter Text

Two Years Ago

Azula frowns, surveying the few, timid brushstrokes on her canvas. There’s a shape forming in her mind she wants to translate into paint, but it remains frustratingly indistinct, her head full of clouds.

The royal healer had suggested cultivating a non-martial practice to “rest and rejuvenate the mind.” Having no desire to endure music or tea ceremony lessons, Azula chose painting - something she had briefly excelled in as a child before her flames turned blue and her days grew monopolized by training. Her time is no less controlled now, but she grasps what little freedom she can.

Unfortunately, without the childish instincts she’d once called on to fill scrolls with loops of color and swirling shapes, her hand wavers. Azula replaces the smeared rice paper with a fresh one, careful to keep her irritation quiet. While she’s alone inside the azumaya, comfortably settled on cushions with the canvas before her, in a secluded part of the royal gardens, she’s not unobserved. Three attendants linger at a discreet distance, ready to rush forward at her command - or at a sign of erratic behavior.

From the outside, she makes a pretty picture. The hanfu, a gift from an obsequious noble, is soft yellow and pink like new flowers, encasing her gracefully and pooling around her seated form. A casual observer would see only a prettily dressed woman, a princess engaged in the delicate art of painting on a lovely spring afternoon, a picture of peace and prosperity. This is what’s demanded of her now, in the aftermath of war and conquest. This is what her country needs, what Zuko had asked of her when she was released from confinement, what he had bargained with the council for her freedom.

She sees a speck of orange out of the corner of her eye. The Avatar is walking up the path, waving and greeting some of the gardeners as though they were friends, nodding to her prim attendants. His feet are bare, his chest only half covered by the orange robe flung casually over one shoulder. He looks like a peasant that’s wandered in from outside the plaza. Azula arranges herself to appear as poised and regal as possible to deter the smiling airbender. 

To no avail.

“I didn’t know you painted,” he says, peering down over her shoulder at the blank paper. “What am I looking at?”

She cranes her neck to ask him if he’s stupid or blind or both, only to see laughter twinkling in his eyes. 

“If you don’t mind, I’m trying to concentrate.” Azula returns to her canvas, folding back her sleeve with one hand and raising the brush delicately with the other. Undeterred, the Avatar simply moves to sit opposite her. She arches an eyebrow. “There are other azumayas , you know.”

“Ah, but this one has the best view,” he says, settling into lotus. 

She squints suspiciously at him, but he’s already slipped into meditation, eyes closed and expression serene. Was he paying her a compliment? Air Nomads and their wayward ways - who knows what they mean, and don’t mean, to say? Or perhaps it was this Air Nomad. He’d made a habit of seeking out her company whenever he visited, though he didn’t explain why. Well..he’d tried to, once, when they’d found themselves alone in Zuko’s study. The conversation had gone awry quickly. 

It discomfits her to think about, so Azula simply takes up her brush once more. 

Her brushstrokes falter, the lines bend frustratingly out of control, refusing to reflect the perfect proportions she envisions. Still, Azula persists. The Avatar’s presence has set a fire in her veins - a fire of competition. She’ll be damned if he arose from his annoyingly perfect meditation to find her still struggling with a blank canvas.

She dashes away a bead of sweat from her scalp, training all her focus on the image taking shape under her brush. Grey, jagged lines. A hint of clouds that blend into wreaths of wind. She frowns, adding in dots for trees. A mountain appears on the canvas, old and rough and scoured by the elements, but faintly majestic, intimidating. She adds shape and texture to the rock, hints of footpaths and ledges where one might walk, climb or crawl their way up. When she reaches the top of the mountain her brush stills - there’s a fuzzy outline in her mind of a figure standing there, right on the peak where the sun crests over old stone, but her hand can’t draw it. Her arm trembles and a sudden, vertiginous headache makes her drop the brush. Her eyes squeeze shut. Splotches of color swirl behind her lids, a vortex threatening to swallow her whole. 

The Avatar’s hand, warm and pleasantly rough, encircles her wrist, grounding her. 

Azula opens her eyes. He’s moved close to her, face etched with concern. 

“I’m fine,” she says, pulling her hand away. There’s no bevy of attendants descending on her, which means the Avatar’s intervention kept them from noticing her dizzy spell. “Thank you.”

“Does this happen a lot?”

She doesn’t reply, but suspects her mutinous silence is answer enough. Yes, these spells occurred more than she would like, but this was the first time she’d had one in the presence of someone who wasn’t a servant. 

The Avatar could be trusted to hold his tongue, but it’s not the worry of courtly gossip that quakes in her stomach. Despite his strange mannerisms, he’s the only person who doesn’t approach her like she’s made of glass, and in the bare light of day comes the realization that she doesn’t want him to see her like this.

“You can stop looking at me like that,” she orders. “I’ve just been out in the sun too long.” 

They both know she’s not a wilting flower that grew faint from being outdoors, but she holds fast to the lie. 

A sudden splash of water hits her face, drawing a sharp gasp. Having bent it out of the glass beside her, he now lies back on his elbow, eyes dancing with amusement. “What? You said you were overheated.”

Azula doesn’t think. In one swift move, she’s tossed her pot of ink at his face. It dribbles down his nose and chin and she smiles pleasantly. “My apologies. Just part of my artistic process.”

He appears mildly shocked, then laughs, using more water to bend the paint off his face. With his fingers, he swirls the greenish liquid into a small bubble that bounces in the air.

“Don’t you dare, Avatar,” she warns, holding out a brush like a weapon. The bubble of green water floats above his hand, awaiting a target, and he cracks a sly grin, gesturing with his chin at a small group of councilmen taking a turn about the garden.

“Pick one of them,” he whispers.

“Absolutely not.”

“This is too perfect a weapon to waste,” he says, idly swirling the bubble. “And you look too beautiful to mess up. So, pick someone.”

She cuts him a sharp look but Aang appears unruffled, entirely focused on the bubble of green water floating above his palm.

“Maybe the sun’s gone to your head,” she says stiffly.

“Come on,” Aang says in a conspiratorial whisper. “You know you want to.”

Against her better judgement she steals a glance at the group of men in their trailing robes and starched hats. Contempt, strong and hot, curls in her veins. These unblooded politicians who now wielded such power over her fate, whom she was obliged to smile and placate until her trial. Men who called themselves servants of Agni and had never set their will to any task greater than their own petty ambitions.  A surge of forbidden delight overpowers her. “The one with the green hat.”

“Finance Minister Ishii,” Aang remarks with a wink. “Excellent choice.” 

The Avatar’s aim proves true. A flick of his wrist and the green bubble sails overhead, splashing dark, wet color down the minister’s spotless blue hanfu like cow dung. The group erupts into startled chaos, searching for the source of the attack, Ishii wailing and trying fruitlessly to dab at the stain with one of his numerous silk handkerchiefs.  

Azula ducks beneath the railing of the azumaya , barely holding her laughter. The Avatar, whose shoulder is now pressed to hers, appears equally delighted.

She sucks her teeth, shaking her head in imitation of a disapproving minister. “Such behavior, and from the Avatar no less.”

He gives a small shrug, not moving his eyes from her face.  “Must be the sun.”

There’s a hazy moment, lying there weak from laughter, where she realizes he’s close enough to kiss her. An even hazier part of her imagines closing the distance herself, pressing her lips to his and wiping the perpetual, airy grin from his face. Only his smile has already faded. He looks as dazed as she feels, his eyes both soft and heated where they land on her face. Azula sits up swiftly, cheeks hot with color, very much irritated, and a little bit afraid.

Maybe everyone was right, and she really was losing her mind.

“I didn’t know you’d been to Deva Kanda,” he says, looking at the canvas she’d forgotten was in plain view.

“What?”

“That’s Deva Kanda, one of the oldest mountains in the Earth Kingdom.”

The name rings vaguely familiar from many of the maps Ozai had made her study ceaselessly. But Azula has never seen it herself. She searches her mind for a recollection that may have inspired her drawing - a painting, a passing glance out of an airship during her travels with Mai and Ty Lee, a poem sung by a beggar - and comes up short. She’s never seen Deva Kanda, and yet according to the Avatar, she’d drawn it distinctly enough to be recognized by someone who had. The dizziness returns briefly and she clutches a brush tight between her fingers. What is she thinking? Playing childish pranks on politicians, slipping into fantasies and daydreams about places she’s never seen - she’s worked too hard to prove her mind clear to throw it all away in one afternoon. 

Aang is still studying her canvas with keen excitement. “There’s an old Air Nomad legend about that mountain and the first Avatar  -,”

“I passed it on an airship,” she says, interrupting him. “It’s an easy enough shape to remember.” 

She waves her attendants over and begins rolling up the canvas. The airbender watches her silently for a few moments but she avoids his eyes. At last he stands and takes his leave with a polite bow, disappearing into the gardens while she returns to the palace. Azula swallows a trace of regret.

She stuffs the painting away and doesn’t pick up her brushes again, despite the healer’s urging. But the shape of the mountain - and the ghostly figure she’d almost glimpsed at the peak - haunt her. After several restless days and nights, Azula submits a request for an audience with the Venerable Shyu, Great Sage of the High Temple and keeper of the Avatar’s history. Zuko questions her request, concern and mild suspicion flashing behind his eyes. Azula changes tack, pointing out how much the court would approve of the wayward princess seeking religious counsel and, mired in council business, Zuko reluctantly agrees.

Shyu greets her in a garden blazing with fire-lilies, jasmine, and marigolds. Beautifully restored under Zuko’s reign, and drenched in the late afternoon sun, the temple and its grounds glow warm, gentle amber. 

The Sage receives her flame-palm with one of his own. “Princess Azula, it is an honor.”

“The honor is mine, Venerable sir. I have a question for you, concerning the Avatar.”

Surprise flickers across the Sage’s broad, bearded face, but he gestures her towards a bench under a spreading frangipani tree. When her attendants make to follow, Shyu waves them away with an inexorable but polite firmness. 

“The Princess and I will converse in private, as guaranteed to any child of Agni that seeks my counsel.”

The entourage exchanges hesitant looks but Shyu stays firm. Despite their loyalty to the Fire Lord, Azula knows they are good, country people, raised on their parents’ superstitions and reverence for the authority of a Fire Sage. They retreat from the gardens, sparking respect and gratitude in Azula for the old man.

“Now, what is it that you wished to ask me?” he says, when they’re settled on the bench.

“I want to know about Deva Kanda.”

His eyes gleam with interest. “The Holy Mountain. Are you planning a pilgrimage, Princess?”

“I’m afraid not,” she says bluntly. “My movements are...contained within the borders of our nation. You understand.”

“We are all grateful to see you at court again, your highness,” he says, with a respectful nod, and Azula once again appreciates his tact. “Deva Kanda is a holy site. They say the Earth King himself visits the mountain every seven years, to gain the Spirits’ blessing. There are hot springs in the mountain caves, said to have extraordinary healing properties. In fact, a renowned healer resides there. Every year hundreds of people visit the mountain temples to honor the Spirits.”

“And the Avatar?” she presses, impatient to satisfy her curiosity.

“Earth Kingdom Avatars have often resided in Deva Kanda. There’s a tale about Avatar Kyoshi meditating on top of the mountain for sixteen weeks, after which she was healed of the injuries she’d received in battle...,” Shyu pauses, and gives her a knowing glance. “But I suspect these details are extraneous to you, Princess. What is it you truly wish to know?”

“The First Avatar. Who was he?”

Shyu’s eyes crinkle in pleasure at her question. “ She was Avatar Rajni. The legends tell us she was born a gifted singer, but she had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. She went to every sage in the land, asking them endless questions about the origin of fire, about the structure of the heavens and the sky. Exhausting all their knowledge, she at last came to the priests of Agni, eager to learn their mysteries. But in her impatience, she didn’t believe she should submit to their authority. So at night when they slept she approached Agni’s chamber herself.”

“And that didn’t go the way she hoped,” Azula remarks, trying to hurry him along.

Shyu shook his head. “Lord Agni was deeply offended by her disrespect. But, in his wisdom, he gave her what she sought. A part of his flame joined with her spirit, gifting her unimaginable power. No firebender could best her, and her flames were so beautiful they caused madness in some. But now, Rajni had a part of Agni inside her, filling her with even more fire, more will and ceaseless drive.

Soon, it began to feel like a curse.

So she left her home, travelled to each of the four nations. With Agni’s essence inside her she mastered not only firebending, but earth, water and airbending too. She went across the lands challenging powerful benders, always winning, but it wasn’t enough. Agni still burned, and so she kept going, seeking ever more and more glory. Her reputation began to precede her. People hid in their homes at the sound of her approach, and her name became a thing of terror. Even her own village no longer recognized her. They thought her gifts were dangerous and unnatural, and cast her out. So, Rajni wandered alone for many years until at last she found a slumbering Lion Turtle, an ancient creature who had witnessed the creation of the cosmos.”

“Yes, and she conquered the beast,” Azula interjects.

“Ah, Firelord Sozin favored that version of the story,” Shyu says, mildly. “But I was taught different.” 

“Oh?”

“The Lion Turtle cautioned Rajni about seeking more knowledge, but Rajni would not be deterred. So it swallowed her whole, and there inside the creature’s belly Rajni saw visions of the Great Wheel of incarnation. She saw the past and the future, and she grieved for the suffering of the world, some of which she herself had caused. When her grief was spent, she crawled up the Lion Turtle’s gullet and emerged from its mouth. She looked to the sky, and asked Agni to bear witness. From that day forward she would serve him and the other elements, not seek their power. Help people, not rule them. She became the first Avatar, and Agni’s flame was finally appeased. At last, she knew peace. But her will was so strong that when she died, her spirit returned to the Wheel of Incarnation, again and again, each time in a new country, a new body. That is how the Avatar came to exist. Agni’s endless drive, and Rajni’s quest for knowledge, serving humanity together.”

Silence falls in the wake of Shyu’s voice, and Azula watches the sun float on a pink and golden horizon. She’s disappointed. The story is no different from the one she’d heard as a child, though Shyu emphasized the importance of knowledge and humility, while Azula’s tutor had stressed the superiority of Agni and his chosen vessel, and how the lands Rajni visited hailed her as a deity. 

“And what about the mountain?” she asks. “On his last visit, Avatar Aang mentioned the Deva Kanda and the first Avatar.”

Shyu frowns. “The legends don’t mention Deva Kanda. But these are legends, you understand, passed down from generation to generation. In truth we have no record of Avatar Rajni’s life, only the lessons the elders saw fit to impart.”

Azula represses a sigh of frustration. 

“Of course, each nation has their own story about how the Avatar came to be,” Shyu says with a shrug. “The Water Tribes say the first Avatar was a great whale spirit who fell in love with a chieftain’s daughter, and took human form to be with his love. And the Earth Kingdom is so vast, the stories change from Omashu to Ba Sing Se.”

“And the Air Nomads?” she presses, sensing she’s closer to what she sought.

Shyu’s face falls a little, and he seems suddenly old and frail in the dying light. “I’m ashamed to say I do not know, Princess. Fire Lord Sozin ordered all knowledge of the Air Nomads purged from our temples. I wish I had asked my grandfather what he knew, but he died when I was a boy.”

“I don’t understand,” she says. “Why haven’t you asked the Avatar? He’s here often enough.”

Shyu gives her a long look, then gazes out over the gardens. “Avatar Aang was a child when the temples were destroyed. I do not presume to guess the extent of his knowledge -,” he pauses, “Nor the depths of his grief.”

“I see.”

Shyu’s voice nudges her gently. “The sun is almost set. Will you join me in salutations, princess?” 

Azula looks down at her lap. The Avatar had been on the verge of telling her when she had brushed him away. Now she was left alone with questions no one could answer, images in her mind that made her feel too close to the eve of Sozin’s Comet, her long-lost mother smiling in the mirror, her mind fracturing in her own hands. There are days she thinks the real Azula is still in that empty room, trapped behind that glass. Had she imagined what Aang said? Misheard him somehow? Was the mountain just a mountain, and all this the desperate exercise of a broken mind?

The old man is waiting patiently for her. 

Numb, she stands and faces west, clasping her hands in prayer while he begins reciting Agni’s praise names. The ritual is familiar to her, but only faintly so. Ozai had never cared much for these rites, except when a public display was necessary to win him the approval of his citizens. 

Shyu chants beside her and she bows her head to the setting sun. Agni the bountiful, Agni the destroyer, Agni the liberator. Her palms are wet, as are her eyes. She hadn’t felt the tears rise and fall, but is now helpless to stop them. It strikes her for the first time how alien she feels in the country to which she had pledged her life. Agni, the one who purifies, Agni, the wind-traveller, Agni the beautiful. Even Rajni’s story brings her only weariness. All those endless cycles of suffering and regret - what was the point? Where did it end? If even the Avatar felt cursed by fate, what could she, a disgraced princess, have to salvage?

Azula wipes quickly at her eyes. Having finished his prayers, Shyu doesn’t remark on her tears, but accompanies her silently through the gardens back to where her attendants await.

“You know, some say grief is a kind of madness,” he remarks, lightly as though they were discussing something inane like the weather. “And after a hundred years of war, we in the Fire Nation are all a little mad, all grieving as the world grieves.”

A nation of lunatics and wailing widows...so much for Agni’s favored children. Azula would laugh, if the taste wasn’t so bitter. 

Shyu's voice is steady and quiet in the gloaming. “But I prefer to think of grief as a sign of clarity. It shows you the truth, gives you vision where others are lost.” He stops to face her, suddenly grave and full of authority, though his words are gentle. “Be grateful for your grief, Princess Azula. It is a gift from the gods themselves.”

Chapter Text

Three Years Ago

Sunlight disappears with each step they take down into the earth where their father now lives. 

The building is an old watchtower repurposed for containment, it’s cellars that once held food and supplies hollowed out into a tightly guarded prison. Azula took brief stock of the landscape - hard, stony earth clear of trees, so any wandering figure would be instantly visible. Too far from any water for anyone to escape downriver, and guarded by the cliffs behind it, the tower promised no escape. Zuko has given Ozai the dignity of a respectable prison.

Descending underground, Azula wards off a shiver. There are no windows, no crevice through which a distant sea-wind might slip and rally the prisoner’s spirit, as had often been the case with her when she was confined. But then, she had a room with windows that faced the sea and balconies where her qi could drink the sun. Her brother, she realizes, had been generous with her. 

He’s being generous again today. After all, he might easily have denied her request to see their father. Zuko himself visited Ozai every few months, this Azula heard from her servant, Preeti, who had her fingers on the pulse of gossip. But her brother never disclosed the nature of his conversations with the former Fire Lord, and Azula never asked. She’s learned many things about Zuko in the years since their father’s defeat. His wounds she once pressed and prodded to debilitate him when they were on opposite sides of the war she now understands are too deep to broach in peace. She honors them with silence instead.

As the dank air of father’s prison fills Azula’s nose she starts to feel ill. Her reasons for wanting to see him - so clear and reasonable in the light of day - vanish like smoke as she follows Zuko down a torchlit passageway lined with guards. The added security, she knew, was as much to prevent Ozai from escaping as to prevent assassins looking to stir up trouble by murdering the former Firelord in his cell. Eyeing her brother’s tall figure, the unbroken calm of his walk, his head high and proud - she would never tell him, but she envies his composure, his self-assuredness on the other side of banishment and scorn.

They enter a small, closed room and a metal door slams shut. Another door looms ahead, beyond which she assumes is Ozai’s cell. Zuko nods at the guards who file out, then turns to her.

“I’ll wait here, so you can talk to him alone,” he says, then pauses to peer down at her. “Azula, are you sure?”

A part of her wants to laugh at his brotherly concern, to remind him she’s no stranger to the excesses of the man beyond that door, that some scars were invisible. But that part is small and distant, and overwhelmed by her present, anxious self.  She nods silently, and Zuko turns to unbolt the door.

There in the shadows, behind iron bars, crouches the figure of a man with dark tangled hair and her father’s face. 

Ozai stirs, hunching close to the bars. His shifting body gives off a strong, sour smell that almost makes her gag. The father she remembered was immaculate, polished and pristine. Seeing him now makes her doubt her own mind, her own memories.

He looks at her as though seeing a ghost. For a moment his expression is almost tender. Then the light shifts, and it grows hard.  His face comes into view, sallow and angular. Had his mouth always been so thin and cruel? His eyes so sullen?

“What in Agni’s name are you wearing?” he sneers. She had chosen the maroon silk specially, thinking - hoping - the color would please him, that he might find comfort in knowing she was still a proud member of the royal court. She feels foolish now. 

Azula steps forward and kneels on the mat for visitors, placing the small basket of tea beside her and setting out two cups. “Good tea is hard to come by when imprisoned, father. I speak from experience.”

“Have you gone daft, girl? I’m not your fat uncle.”

Still, he lowers himself to the ground and watches her pour. Her hand shakes a little under his scrutiny, and she wipes the spill with her sleeve. His eyes are sharp and merciless as when he would watch her perform her katas , over and over until they were flawless.

Azula pushes a cup towards him and lifts her own. The fragrant steam calms her briefly as she takes a sip. When he remains silent, old habits rush back. She begins telling him about her day, the tasks she’s set herself and how well she’s accomplished them. Tea ceremonies and banquets with councilmen’s wives. Charity visits to the city. It’s all a bit paltry compared to the heady days of war when father would document her firebending progress with acute interest, but Azula soldiers on. After all, hadn’t he taught her the veneer of royal dignity could ennoble any task, whether grim or mundane? 

She stops mid-sentence at a watery sound and has the brief, horrifying thought that Ozai is relieving himself in his cell. But the liquid tinkle is only tea from where he empties the contents of his cup, the one she had poured with care and deference, onto a widening puddle on the floor.

“Father, please -,” 

He spits, and the cold froth hits her cheek, sliding down her neck while she’s too stunned to move. Swift as a rat-viper, Ozai seizes her collar, dragging her close to the strange, terrifying mask of his face. “Insolent little bitch. Do you think yourself better than me? That your silk and your tea can fool me? I made you everything you are, girl.” She looks in his eyes and quails. The cup falls from her shaking hands, shattering on the floor. Hot tea splashes her wrist. She knows her father can no longer bend, that the Avatar took his fire away. She knows that she still can, that she is free while he is caged, but blind terror freezes her limb from limb. His voice is silken and casual, remarking on the obvious. “You don’t belong up there, you’ll never convince them of that. I created you for one purpose and now that purpose is gone. A cell is all you’re good for Azula, just like me.” He finishes, thrusting his face against the bars so she can smell his stale breath. His fingers pinch her jaw hard, like he means to crush her teeth inside her mouth. 

She’s trapped in a nightmare. How else to explain her slack limbs, and the leering preta in father’s place? Seized by an animal instinct, Azula splutters, then screams the only word that might free her of this grasp. 

“Zuko! Zuko h-” 

The door slams open and Ozai releases her, wiping his hands as though she’s soiled him, in time for Zuko to sweep inside and see her crumpled on the floor. 

“She’s hysterical. A lunatic if I ever saw one,” Ozai says, bored and disdainful. “I would rather my solitude than these ravings.”

Zuko’s face is tight with fury as he helps her to her feet. For a moment Azula thinks he’s angry with her, then he turns to Ozai with fists of steady flame. Their father’s eyes rivet on the fire, hungry, hateful, desperate.  But Zuko extinguishes the blaze, his voice cold and clear. “The Avatar was right. You aren’t worth the effort.” 

He takes Azula by the elbow and ushers her towards the door, turning to Ozai one last time. “Your request is granted, father. You’ll never see Azula again. I’ll make sure of it.”

Alone in the small waiting room, Azula can’t bear to face her brother. She stands by the small table, gripping the wooden edge and crushed under waves of humiliation. Zuko says nothing, but at last puts a quiet hand on her shoulder. Dimly, a childhood memory comes to her of the time she had convinced Zuko to play hide-and-seek in the Dragonbone Catacombs. She’d found the perfect hiding place, but when long moments crawled by and Zuko didn’t find her, she grew afraid of the looming statues and dusty shadows. The terrible thought that no one would discover her before she turned to bones in that dark, ghostly place had set her trembling, until at last she burst from her hiding place and cried out for her brother, who appeared soon after. Zuko had teased her at first, but when he saw her tears he grew silent, and had simply led her out of the catacombs to their mother. 

Azula reaches for his hand and clasps it awkwardly. He releases her shoulder with a squeeze and gives her a handkerchief, waiting patiently as she wipes her face and smoothes out her sleeves, so they look presentable when they pass the guards.  

“Ready?” he asks, and she takes his arm with a small nod. 

They walk out of the dungeons together.

Present Day

In the dream, Ozai wears her face. She’s locked inside a stone cage, no sunlight, no sky, nothing but dank earth and the rancid smell of her own body. Silence crushes her down. She is remembered by no one, wanted by no one, she is no one. Azula tries to speak, to scream, but her lips are stiff -

“Ursa, Ursa!”

She wakes in the middle of a fit, shuddering and jerking, Jorani and Kaushal holding her down while muttering in their own language. One of them clamps a wooden spoon between Azula’s teeth. Another moves the hair off her damp face as the spell passes and her body slackens against the ground.

Slowly, she regains control of her limbs. Jorani holds a candle above her, peering down. Kaushal wipes a warm rag over her brow, then lifts a waterskin to her mouth. Azula drinks greedily before collapsing back on her mat. The humiliation of having them see her in such a state is engulfed with relief and tiredness now that the fit has passed. “Thank you,” she mutters hoarsely, then falls immediately into a hard sleep.

They eat their breakfast congee together in silence. An apprentice had visited earlier to examine Azula and prescribe her a nerve tonic. Jorani and Kaushal pass her extra cups of tea and urge her to eat more. Nimi comes to sit beside Azula, her plump face smiling and shy as she unslings her doll from around her chest. Gently, as though she held a living child, she passes the doll to Azula.

Azula shakes her head, declining the offer. Nimi looks confused, then her smile turns encouraging as she nudges the doll at Azula again.

“Take it,” Jorani says in Common. “Trust me, it’s better if you do.”

In the far corner where she always sits, Kaushal frowns at the earthbender’s tone but resumes eating her breakfast. 

Suppressing an impatient sigh, Azula sets down her bowl and reaches for the doll. It’s wrapped in frayed blue swaddling, the round burlap face marked with quick stitches for eyes and a mouth. Whoever made the doll had filled it with cotton and earth, so the doll’s head lolled into Azula’s elbow with rounded weight. The last time she’d held a doll was when Iroh had sent her that Earth Kingdom toy. She’d reduced it to soot in her firebending practice mere days later. 

Nimi reaches out to play with the doll’s burlap cheek, her eyes soft and bright. She coos words in the hill dialect, then turns to Azula with a bright smile.

“She says her baby likes you,” Jorani remarks, sucking on a mustard stem. Her tone suggests Nimi’s behavior is a familiar - perhaps over familiar - routine.

Azula looks to Kaushal, who stares at Nimi with a troubled frown.

“The Fire Nation razed her village,” Jorani says, casually. “She saw her family burn, then walked to Yantai with her infant son. Two weeks. That's how long it took. The baby was dead by then, but she wouldn’t let anyone take it away. They had to tie her down just so they could bury the rotting -,” 

Kaushal hisses a reprimand, but Jorani ignores her. “Anyway, the villagers brought her to Deva Kanda. Apparently, the whole ordeal broke her mind. Oma only knows how long she’s been here, but Biyu had that doll made. So long as she has it, she’s fine.”

The earthbender gives Azula a steady, hard look, daring her to recoil. Kaushal looks away, her face dark. Ensconced in her own world, Nimi the youngest of them all, smiles while playing with her baby’s imaginary wisps of hair. Azula can’t bring herself to look at the crude doll or Nimi’s girlish glow. This must be some kind of test, though how and why remains hidden. 

“What should I do?” Azula asks the other two women in hoarse Common. They respond with casual shrugs, indicating that she’s managing fine.

She finds this hard to believe. She’s never held a child, much less one that feels heavier than any earthly weight. Swallowing the nausea in her throat she gazes down, readjusting so the “baby” is better cradled in her arms. 

Taking Nimi's gentle smile as a sign of approval, Azula rocks the doll to and fro while humming a nonsense lullaby. It feels, simultaneously, like the most ridiculous and most important thing she’s ever done. As tears fill her eyes and dribble down her nose, Azula's careful not to let them splash the baby’s face.

Chapter Text

Four Years Ago

She hasn’t been in the Firelord’s study since before the comet. The heavy wooden doors carved with fierce dragons are no less imposing under Zuko’s reign, but when Ozai sat the throne Azula came and went as she pleased and no guard dared forestall her. Now, the posted guards exchange uncomfortable glances as they see her approach.

“Our apologies princess, but the Firelord is not in his study.”

“Then I can wait for him inside,” she says. 

The older guard’s mouth forms a thin line. “No one is allowed inside unaccompanied, princess. I’m sorry.”

She stands firm despite the humiliation crashing over her. “My brother requested that I meet him in his study. He’s clearly late, but I’m not.”

Instead of quailing under her stare, the man only stands straighter. “Our orders are clear, princess Azula.”

“It’s alright, she’s with me.” 

The guards bow their heads to the Avatar who’s appeared by her side, his face disarmingly pleasant as he addresses them. “I’m sure Zuko won’t mind if we wait for him inside.”

Despite his mild expression Azula recognizes his use of the Firelord’s first name for the show of power that it is. It casts him in a new light - both the boy she had fought and the young man ushering her inside the Firelord’s sanctum.

The doors shut behind them and the room comes into view. Azula stops short, disoriented by both the intense familiarity and foreignness she surveys. In Ozai’s time the walls were hung with red and gold silk bearing the flame insignia, as well as portraits of Sozin and Azulon. Maps of the military’s progress through Earth Kingdom territories hung beside mounted war bounty offered as gifts by conquering generals. If she closed her eyes she could still see her father standing behind the ebony table, poring over maps of newly acquired lands, his hand gesturing her forward once she rose from the ground. 

Zuko, in a bout of impressive determination, had transformed the space entirely. He’d had workmen put in extra windows that helped the room breathe. The maps were no longer military charts but beautifully realized cartography detailing the lay of the land both within and without the Fire Nation. There was artwork from all over the world, and a few curios that she assumed were collected during his years at sea. A set of simple dao swords hang on the eastern wall, underneath a glowing portrait of Firelady Ursa.

Azula stands beneath the image of a mother she barely knew, feeling both relieved and unmoored by the changes around her.

“You look like her,” the Avatar says, coming to stand beside her. “Was she a firebender too?”

“No,” Azula replies, hoping her stiff tone would deter him. 

“Ah, well - it’s such a strong resemblance. She’s very beautiful.”

She feels a twinge behind her eyes. “Please. You’ve humiliated me quite enough for one evening, don’t you think?”

He looks down at her with genuine concern. “I’m sorry about the guards. They’re just following orders - sometimes, a little too zealously-,”

Azula scoffs. “Don’t pretend you didn’t relish the opportunity to play Great and Benevolent Avatar, escorting the poor mad princess inside.” There’s a faint ringing in her ears, and her throat burns.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, holding up his hands. “I didn’t realize that’s how you felt.” He stops, and his voice changes to something more quiet. “You’re right, I did see an opportunity - but not like you think. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Why?” she asks, cutting him a glare.

His hand reaches for the back of his neck, then curls away - fighting a familiar gesture. He settles for leaning his shoulder against the wall. “You seem just as out of place here as me.”

The words land like a blow. Azula feels the ground sway beneath her feet as she fights the tsunami of anger and outrage and blind anguish that rises inside her. It’s a losing battle, and her words spew out hot and furious. “If I seem ‘out of place’, Avatar, it’s because this entire country, including dear Zuzu, is squeamish about what I represent.” She sweeps her arm over their surroundings. “They think simple redecorating can expunge a hundred years of blood and conquest. That if their Princess smiles and gossips with the vapid wives of puny men, they can pretend she didn’t once slay the Avatar.”

“Why don’t you leave?” he asks evenly. “You’re unhappy, this place must be full of terrible memories for you. And you’re more than capable of evading the palace guards if you want,” he adds, with a touch of wryness.

“Leave?” She laughs, a cold, empty sound. “So I can be chased by bounty hunters and former enemies and politicians who’d want my head on a stick to win their subjects’ loyalty? So I can spend my days fighting off kidnappers who want to ransom me to Zuko? I’m capable of taking care of myself, as you so generously point out, but that’s no life worth living. I would be countryless. A fugitive.”

He shrugs. “Or a nomad.”

Azula looks at him sharply. The Avatar returns her gaze undeterred, and her earlier outrage ebbs away, replaced by something colder and more painful. “You make a mockery of everything, Avatar.”

He counts off on his fingers with a rueful grin. “Countryless, always evading former enemies and unscrupulous politicians, never staying in one place for long - you just described my life, princess.”

“That’s no life worth living,” she repeats, watching his smile fade. “Sleeping in stables? Dressing in rags? For what? A show of virtue?”

This time, she’s got under his skin. Anger tints his face. “My people lived simply, without hoarding earthly possessions. Nomadism isn’t a hobby for me - it’s the fullest expression of airbending itself.”

“Perhaps,” she replies, angling her head. “But that isn’t why you bed down in the hay by your bison, that isn’t why you won’t accept Zuko’s gifts. You cling to poverty because you mourn your people.”

The air shifts, gusting briefly through the room before the Avatar takes a steadying breath, calming his element along with himself. 

“What’s going on?”

Zuko’s voice snaps them both out of the unnerving intensity they found themselves locked into. 

The Avatar gathers his staff and, with a hastily murmured apology to Zuko, slips out to the verandah. Azula sees the blue wings of his glider lift into the twilight sky.

Three Years Later

Azula picks her way through the gardens by the light of the moon. It’s nearly full, and the sky is clear. A beautiful night for waterbending. She isn’t surprised to round a copse of trees and find him hip-deep in what used to be Ursa’s favorite pond, making lazy ribbons of water rise and fall. Her brother and his newly betrothed are also present, talking quietly at the edge of the pond. Katara and Zuko are both dressed informally in the hakama worn for training, though Katara’s is blue and includes a simple white shirt, while Zuko and the Avatar wear red and yellow respectively and are bare chested. And while it’s no surprise that the waterbender’s hair and clothes are damp, Azula is more surprised to see Zuko is also wet. Still unobserved, Azula shifts her gaze to the Avatar, who seems content to ripple and lift the water in light, lazy motions, as though he’s teasing the element itself.

Ozai had installed the pond as a wedding gift to his new wife, but to Azula it always felt like their place - Zuko and Ursa’s. Her mother and brother would spend long hours under the shade of the ash tree, feeding turtle-ducks and splashing their feet with water and talking whatever intimate nonsense that Azula never understood but secretly longed to. It was both contempt and yearning for inclusion that drove her to hurl a rock at a turtle-duck one day. Zuko’s horror and anger hadn’t brought her the satisfaction she thought it would, and she’d only cemented her own exile from that particular oasis of motherly love; it’s only now she recognizes the willful anger of a child who understood far less about the world than she believed. But even with this newfound wisdom, she still feels like a stranger looking in on a familial tableau to which she’ll never fully belong.

“Azula! Come out and sit with us.” 

The Avatar’s voice sails through the air and Azula curses his preternatural perception. 

“Don’t let me interrupt...whatever this might be,” she drawls, unable to keep the edge from her voice. 

“Not at all,” Aang says with his wide, easy smile. “Come sit here.” He pats a spot on the grass, and she steps reluctantly from the shadows. Zuko and Katara lose some of their easy posture, but they offer no rebuttal as Azula moves to sit at the pond’s edge, careful to give them a generous berth.

For a while there’s simply a strained silence, that everyone but Aang seems to feel acutely. While the Avatar resumes his languid katas, Azula pulls up small tufts of grass and rubs the blades between her fingers. The sensation gives her something to focus on other than the overwhelming discomfort in the air.

At length, Zuko and Katara resume their quiet conversations and Azula’s eyes stray to the Avatar again. She’s witnessed firsthand the sheer, bone-numbing power of waterbending at its peak. During the war, they were taught that water is a devious element, something that lulled you into false complacence before drowning you. The stories of Zhao’s disastrous campaign in the North, as well as her own defeat at Katara’s hands, had only cemented water as dangerously unpredictable in her mind. But the Avatar bends water as though it were a living thing, a gamboling pet snake whose movements thrill and delight him. It’s enviable how easy he makes it seem. The fluid motion of his muscles mirror the swirls and tendrils he conjures, and the water, intimately responsive to his touch, caresses him like a lover in turn. The fanciful thought makes Azula’s cheeks flame. He changes tack and lifts three simultaneous bubbles into the air. With a crooked grin in her direction, he uses a combination of air and waterbending to move the globes of water in a circle. Azula gapes. 

He’s juggling.

She covers her mouth with her hand. He looks simply ridiculous, yet somehow endearing. When he predictably loses control of the globes and they splash over his head like overripe melons, Azula’s laughter joins Zuko and Katara’s.

“Just stick to the marble trick,” Katara says, while Aang pretends to huff.

“No vision, any of you,” he chides, shaking his head in mock disappointment. The couple return their attention to each other, and Aang walks closer to Azula.

“Come bend with me.”

She gestures with her chin across the pond. “The waterbender is over there.”

“I know,” he says, holding out a hand. 

“And what exactly do you expect me to do in a pond?”

“Think of it like dancing.” He shrugs, and she’s annoyingly distracted by the rivulets of water running down his arms and shoulders. 

“Dancing,” she says, flatly.

He cocks his head. “Are you afraid of getting splashed, princess?”

She’s about to retort sharply when Zuko’s voice rings out, “Aang, leave her alone.”

The Avatar, undeterred, looks her steadily in the face. The challenge in his eyes makes excitement spike in the pit of her stomach.

“Fine.” She stands, untying the sash on her robe so she’s in the linen shift and short hakama she slept in. “But I’m not juggling.”

He takes her hand and helps her climb down. The water is pleasantly cool, and mud wells between her toes. Something slithers at her ankle and she’s mortified by the yelp that escapes her. Stupid pond.

The Avatar laughs. “Relax. It’s just duckweed.”

Azula shoots him a poisonous look, but he only proceeds leading her to the middle, where the water laps at her waist. He moves to stand a few lengths in front of her and begins demonstrating a waterbending kata . Arms crossed, she watches him mutinously.

“Just try it,” he urges, moving his arms in a circle, palms up and facing out like he’s pushing something invisible away before drawing it back in. With a long suffering sigh, Azula mimics his stance and moves her arms in tandem. It feels stiff and awkward. Her center is off, her spine overreaching to extend her arms. Growing more humiliated by the second, she’s about to give up altogether when he walks behind her. She stiffens, feeling like a child. She has no desire for Zuko and Katara to watch her fumbling, but the Avatar seems to read her thoughts. “Don’t worry about them. Like this, see? ” He holds her hands, running his fingers between hers. “Leave just a little room, so the energy flows.”

“You mean escapes,” she huffs.

His laughter, warm and throaty, resonates through her body. “Firebending is taking control. Water asks us to surrender.” One hand sweeps down, resting lightly over her solar plexus. “You’re drawing all your energy from your manipura chakra. Try and pull it lower, from here,” his fingers brush a point below her navel, and heat suffuses her from head to toe. She takes a sharp breath. Between his bare torso and her soaked clothes, they may as well be naked. Her nerve endings dance like fireflies, and it takes a moment to realize he’s gone silent, his hand flattened against her lower belly. 

“And what chakra would that be?” she asks, quietly.

“...right,” he exhales, removing his hand. “ Swadisthana. The sacral point.”

He shifts back into a more neutral tone, extending his arms out in front of her. In his right hand he conjures a small flame. “Waterbending can help our firebending flow more smoothly.” No bigger than a baby bird, his flame invites the eye to appreciate its beauty. The warm, fluttering orange puts Azula in mind of the temple gardens at sunset with its rippling golden flowers. He passes the flame from hand to hand, keeping it steady and contained. “Ready?” he says, and it’s all the warning she gets before he gently passes her the same flame. 

Azula cups it in her hands, watching it flutter and pulse blue. The Avatar walks a few paces ahead of her again and turns to face her. “Now pass it back to me.”

Carefully, as though the flame had a sentience for which she was responsible, Azula shifts into the stance he’d shown her, low in the hips, knees soft like a waterbender. She breathes, and pushes out her arms. The flame swims towards him like a koi fish, turns gold in his hands. This time, she can’t hide her pleased smile. 

He returns it to her, and she to him, back and forth, from blue to gold and blue again. Maintaining the stance takes work. Unlike the dynamism of her firebending katas that came to her as naturally as breathing, this was counterintuitive, shifting and moving with the energy rather than commanding it. Yet she’s soon captured by the rhythm, swaying back and forth in a strange, hypnotic dance. At some point, they introduce a little individual flourish into the motions. She makes him wait just a beat longer to receive the flame. He responds by sending a slightly larger flare than she expects. She tames it easily enough, but the surprise sends a warm thrill down her body. Despite standing in cool water Azula finds she’s sweating, they both are. As her muscles ache and stiffen she summons more concentration - it’s exhilarating to feel herself pushed to her physical limits this way. It’s been so long, too long since she went toe to toe with a master.

The Avatar wears a similar look of concentration, but the gleam in his eyes tells her he’s enjoying this too. By the time they finally stop, the moon’s on the other side of the sky and Azula realizes they’re alone. Absorbed in each other and the movements, they hadn’t noticed Zuko and Katara leave.

Aang seems unconcerned, lifting himself nimbly out of the pond. He sprawls out on the grass, exhaling happily, limned in moonlight, and she thinks absently that he’s beautiful, in a way that she’ll struggle to describe or understand later. 

Sitting beside him, she stretches out her legs, her muscles singing with delicious exhaustion. The pond, it turns out, is just a pond. Waterbending is sinuous and secretive, yes, but also captivating, mesmeric. She knows the lightness in her chest is fleeting so she stays quiet, afraid to chase it away.

“You know, princess, you haven’t lost your edge at all.”

“Don’t flatter me. You were holding back.”

“We could go again,” he says with a lazy smile. “I promise I won’t go on easy on you.”

Azula regards his languid posture with a raised eyebrow. “How convincing.”

He laughs, resting his head on one of his hands. “You got me. All I want to fight right now is a plate of egg custard tarts.”

“We could raid the kitchens I suppose.”

He shoots her a look of almost comically vivid interest. “Go on.”

The banquet celebrating Zuko’s engagement to Katara had featured cuisine from all four nations to symbolize the message of peace and unity that their union promised to usher in. She wonders idly how Zuko’s ministers planned to outdo themselves for the wedding. Still, it seemed to be working - the betrothal gifts to the future bride and groom alone from various nobility around the world suggested the match was looked on favorably. “There should still be plenty of sweets leftover,” Azula says. “Perhaps even egg custard tarts.”

He groans in longing. “Benevolent princess, I will be your humble servant forever.”

She rolls her eyes, but the corners of her mouth twitch in a smile. “I suppose I could be persuaded to show you the secret back entrance to the royal kitchens.”

She stands, water dripping off her nightclothes, and his eyes linger a moment too long on the shape of her body. A sharp thrill pricks her spine, but she maintains her composure despite the blush on her cheeks.

“Well?” she says, standing over him and gesturing at her wet clothes.

He jumps to his feet and bends the water out of both their clothes in a few swift motions, returning it to the pond. She puts her robe back on while he pulls his plain tunic over his head. He pulls his staff into his hand and they set off through the gardens.

Arms full of pilfered sweets and a bottle of sombai , they hurry down the dark palace corridors like errant children. Azula leads them past the parlor in her quarters out to the balcony and the fresh night air. Safe at last, she dissolves into pleased laughter as they survey their treasure. They may have dropped some along the way, which meant the sweepers would have questions in the morning.

“I can’t believe Zuko never told me about that passageway,” Aang says, tucking away the egg tarts.

“He’s embarrassed,” she says. “When we were children, he begged me to help him steal lychee cakes from the kitchen. We were successful of course, but he ate far too many, and was too sick to leave his bed.” She grins at the memory. “I may have coined the nickname Lychee King.”

“Nice, I’ll have to remember that one,” he chuckles. “This one time, my friend Lhayul and I got into the bison curd.” He shakes his head fondly. “Sister Nam-Kha threatened to stick us with stable duty as punishment, but we were too busy shitting ourselves.”

Azula snorts. “What in Agini’s name is bison curd?”

“Oh, well when sky-bison give birth they produce milk for up to seven years, even though the calves are weaned after two. The monks said it was because when the bison first came down from heaven they didn’t think earthly food could sustain them. Eventually they started eating plants and grass, but air nomads believe their milk still has special properties, from when they lived with the gods.” His face is lit up with memory and excitement. “We make all kinds of things with the extra milk - or, well, we used to. Curd was my favorite.” He trails off with a soft smile.

“And your bison-,”

“Appa.”

“He’s male?”

He nods. “He was the runt of the litter, so we understood each other.”

The question is on the tip of her tongue, but she hesitates, unsure how fresh the wound still is. The Avatar stares gently at her. “What is it? I don’t mind.”

Azula toys with the sash of her robe. “Do you think your bison will find a mate?”

His face dims a little, and he dusts the pastry crumbs off his hand. “We’ve been looking for other bison, him and I. I’ve searched everywhere I can think of and couldn’t find anything, not even bones. It’s like they just vanished.”

Information about the destruction of the Air temples filters through Azula’s mind. The history books made sky-bison sound like fierce armored beasts who gored Fire Nation soldiers and ground their skulls to dust. Some of Ozai’s wealthiest ministers had owned partial pelts and sawn off horns, relics from their country’s triumph against the nomads. Still, she recalls the Avatar’s bison ready to defend the Kyoshi warriors, despite the animal’s obvious fear of fire, and finds it hard to believe even a comet-powered battalion of firebenders could successfully destroy every single one of such mighty beasts.

“Perhaps they returned home.”

She isn’t sure where or how the words came to her, only that they did. He gives her a look of surprise, and Azula’s face warms from his gaze. They eat and drink the rest of their loot until her stomach is painfully full and they’re forced to recline on their backs, gazing at the stars in a clear sky. They lie shoulder to shoulder, talking aimless nonsense, drifting in and out of sleep. He points at constellations, calling them by unfamiliar names. She studies the blue tattoo on his hand. What appears from a distance as solid lines of color actually contain intricate patterns and complex symbols, the arcane language of a vanished people, a forgotten world. A piercing ache fills her, and she savors this too. 

Their bodies are barely touching, yet her skin is on fire. His fingers brush hers, the barest touch, and she looks at him in the dark, knowing he feels the same pull, the same wanting that makes it difficult to breathe. 

“Do you -,” he begins, then stops and starts once more, choosing his words with great care. He looks to the sky. “Sometimes, I feel like I dreamed whole parts of my life, like the memories I have aren’t even real. Crazy, right?”

Yes, she wants to say. I know this feeling so well it frightens me. Her breath catches in her chest. But she’s not prepared to have more in common with the Avatar, to know where he ends and she begins. Instead she contemplates the stars, the brilliant multitudes of loss, a thousand little faces, and her throat swells with the immensity of it. 

“Tell me about them?” she says.

“Who?”

“Your people.”

Present Day

Up on the mountain, the kitchens in their own way are as organized and bustling as any in the Firelord’s palace.

One morning after her bath, Azula’s walking among the herb gardens, intrigued by the powerful, spiky scents, when one of the apprentices, seeing her lingering, silently hands her a shovel and puts her to work. Eventually she finds herself in the kitchens, where volunteers from Diamer prepare food under the watchful eye of Biyu’s apprentices. Baskets of food are delivered weekly from the villages below, some of them overflowing with eggplant and gotukola , others full of squawking chickens. With some instruction, Azula proves quite adept at plucking and cleaning the slaughtered birds. Not a scrap of animal is wasted - the vital organs, separated carefully, have specific uses. The nutrient-rich livers are cooked in stews, the lungs and hearts and kidneys, plated with camphor and honey, are offered to the small stone gods housed in the corner of the garden in a shrine only Biyu and her two eldest apprentices are permitted to approach. The feathers become bedding for the frail, the bones soup, or crushed into powder and mixed with milk-rice for those too weak to chew their food. 

Absorbed by the efficiency and complexity of Biyu’s operation, Azula forgets to fret about when the old woman would finally take her down to the mineral springs.The days flow into each other in a steady, unbroken rhythm, but unlike her time in confinement, Azula’s senses grow sharper and fuller each day. One afternoon while she’s watching a pot of boiling chicken feet, Neomal, the head cook, orders her to slaughter two hens and a rooster. Not wishing to seem incapable, she obediently grapples with a furious hen, trying to smash its skull on the ground when Neomal cries out.

“Ai! Not like that!” The cook rushes over, picking up the chicken and smoothing its feathers.“Your mother never showed you?” 

Embarrassed, Azula shakes her head stiffly, and Neomal’s face softens. “Here, hold the neck like this.” Her weathered brown hands cover Azula’s, guiding her grip. The hen’s throat is warm and pulsing, and the bird goes still, almost nestled into Azula’s elbow. “Now, ready? One clean twist.” The firebending she’d imbibed from Ozai and her tutors emphasized a single, clarifying purpose - a lack of mercy. This motion, firm and quick, is premised on the opposite. 

Neomal shows her how to twist off the head and empty the blood into a bucket. It all happens in a few minutes, but feels much longer. “What about the roosters?” Azula asks, setting the hen down in a haze.

“I’ll do it,” Neomal says, then points at the long scratches on Azula’s arm left by the hen’s feet. “You should clean those up.”

 While Azula wipes down her arms, she watches how the older woman deftly maneuvers the rooster under her arm, how cleanly her knife pierces the animal’s throat. 

“Show me how to do that,” she demands while Neomal moves to the second bird.

“Impudent little thing, aren’t you?”

“My mother thought so,” Azula replies archly. 

Neomal laughs, and Azula finds the talk of mothers doesn’t sting quite like it used to. 

“We have that in common.”

Azula lays her head on the rough pillow, grateful for its comfort after the strenuous day. Her nights follow their own routine. She shares a meal with her cave companions, listens to Jorani’s stories, and encourages Kaushal’s growing fluency in the Common tongue. Some nights, she holds Nimi’s “baby” while the woman goes off for a bath.

Strange how her sleep is more restful here than in the luxury of her palace bedroom. And if sometimes, drowsy-eyed with well-earned exhaustion she pictures Aang lying beside her, listening to her describe her day, describing his in turn, no one needs to know. Her desire to see him again is always tempered by the reality that he would only dutifully return her to Zuko, as he had promised. As she herself wanted. To return home, whole and healed. 

But desire blurs into unusual shapes in the mountain air, leaving her with no clarity, only a stinging sweetness, like a piece of tamarind on the tongue. On those nights she reaches under her pillow to press a light kiss to the bison whistle, and falls asleep holding it fast in her hand.

Chapter Text

Lo and Li survey her bloody bedclothes with pursed lips before murmuring to each other in their native tongue. Azula stands shivering in her robe and hakama , fingernails digging into the flesh of her arms, jaw aching with the effort to keep calm.

“Well?” she asks.

“Your father will have to be told,” the twins inform her, and Azula goes cold inside. She had turned thirteen a few months ago, the same age Zuko was when he was banished. In the two years since her brother’s exile, she had grown used to the dangerous luxury of their father’s undivided attention- when he could spare it. His approval made her heart soar, and ever since she had first produced blue flames Azula knew the key to the gleam in her father’s eyes was nothing less than perfection.

Bloody sheets and the dull cramping pain in her lower belly were decidedly not perfection. 

She had known what to expect -  girls at the Academy were constantly disappearing home or being ushered away by teachers at their first menses, and most of them returned smug and airy as though a little blood set them heads and shoulders above their peers - but she had somehow imagined it wouldn’t happen to her, or that she’d be spared some dignity by her own body.

While Li shuffles off with the stained sheets, Lo approaches her. The old woman pats her shoulder gently. “Let’s get you cleaned up, hmm? Shall I bathe you? I remember when you were a baby, how you squealed and kicked your legs when I poured water on your head -.”

"Spare me,” Azula snaps. “If you’re so keen on babies perhaps you should have had one of your own.”

Lo shrinks away. When they were together, the twins presented a united front of fierce composure; apart, Li retained all the firmness while Lo was prone to girlish fancies, enjoyed pilfering sweets and laughed at crude jokes. Seeing the old woman’s back hunched with chastening fills Azula with fierce, cutting confidence. So long as she could strike fear into someone’s heart, a little blood meant nothing.

It was the end of term at the Academy, but Azula’s days were no less full. There was an empire to defend, and she was her father’s right hand. She was pleased to discover the menstrual cloth, though unwieldy, could fasten securely enough to the girdle slipped under her training clothes. Azula arrives at the training arena at the appointed hour. She performs her katas with the first rays of dawn, her fire kindling in tune with the rising sun. Vaguely she wonders if Zuko still trained his firebending, wherever he was. She wondered what his face looked like now, and if he’d lost his eye. As always, she tamps down these thoughts with a firm, implacable control. Time would come for her to see her brother again, to unleash the knot of blinding anger in her chest that tightened whenever she thought of him.

She’s about to start her second session of katas under Lo and Li’s watchful eye when a voice rings out across the courtyard and sends a pleasant thrill up her spine.

“Care for a partner?”

Sokun was two years her senior, a gardener’s apprentice and talented bender who, had he been born into nobility, would have been fast-tracked to a command position. As it was, his best hope was being selected for ground troops. Only a few inches taller than her, Sokun hailed from the river country, brown-skinned and thick-armed, with a dimple when he smiled. 

Azula shifts into a fighting stance. “No, but I suppose I can set your hair on fire again- ” Sokun sends a wave of fire that she dodges easily. She returns a volley of her own, making him leap out of the way. He keeps his feet, and returns a blast. He lacked Azula’s finesse and dynamism, but his stances were strong and his katas powerful - and most of all, unlike the other partners she sparred with, he wasn’t afraid to give his all. 

With a sharp laugh of delight she dances out of the way, feeling like herself as she sends blue fire sailing through the sky. Sokun didn’t have the benefit of her grueling regimen, but he was used to hard labor and didn’t tire easily. She’s happily holding her own when suddenly, midway through their session her limbs grow sluggish. There’s another sharp cramp in her belly, a warm gush of blood between her legs. Azula evades a fireblast more clumsily than usual, going to her knees. Lo and Li’s faces are pinched with disapproval, but she barely sees them, because towering behind them is her father, the Firelord himself, watching her spar with an unreadable expression. He bends and speaks a few words in Li’s ear.

Sokun had stopped attacking as soon as Azula paused, walking over to her with a look of concern. 

“Princess, are you-,”
She leaps nimbly up, rushing him with swift, sure blasts. Taken aback, it’s all he can do to deflect her attacks. He blocks, parries and occasionally even holds his ground, but she’s clearly gained the upper hand, and soon enough he’s flat on his back, face running with sweat, teeth flashing a smile as he holds up his hands.

“You win, Princess. I’d like to keep my hair, please.”

Azula closes her flame in a perfect circle and offers him a bow. She’s grinning, her cheeks are warm as she returns his smile. “Consider yourself fortunate I’m feeling merciful today.”

Sokun stands to offer her the flame palm. As he takes his leave Azula looks around for Ozai, but he’s gone.

She sleeps much later than usual, savoring the delicious ache in her limbs from their exertions in the pond. A breeze from the open window fans her face. Stretching like a cat in the late morning sunlight, Azula contemplates indulging the rare luxury of sleeping even later when she sees a note propped discreetly on her nightstand: a message from Zuko, summoning her to tea with him and Katara.

The invitation is innocuous enough, but Azula recognizes a summons when she sees one. She calls for Preeti and sets about getting dressed, determined to prolong her good mood. She takes her time in the bath, smiling at the faint traces of mud still on her toes. The Avatar had departed shortly before dawn to fetch his bison and leave for the Earth Kingdom where he was needed again. 

Standing barefoot on her balcony, Azula had experienced a selfish sadness that he could never remain for long, that so many others - the whole world - had laid claim to him. Unexpectedly, he touched her face, running his thumb over the curve of her cheek where no matter how she tried, the disappointment showed. “I’ll be back soon,” he’d promised, and she’d watched him fly away on wings of blue, her cheeks warm and tingling.

“The Princess looks well this morning,” Preeti remarks behind her while brushing out her hair.

Azula says nothing, but a faint smile tugs at her mouth. 

She chooses an airy hanfu in shades of blue and yellow - formal enough for tea in the royal pavilion, but simple enough to be comfortable and accommodate the lightness she feels. The day is fresh and sunny, yet her mood dims a little as she approaches the place where Zuko and Katara have set out a place for her at the table. She has the distinct feeling of a child being summoned for a dressing-down by her guardians.

Greeting them both, Azula takes a seat at Zuko’s left, facing Katara. The waterbender avoids her eyes, and Zuko pays a great deal of attention to the tea in his cup. When the casual pleasantries grow thin, Azula cuts to the chase.

“Tell me you haven’t summoned me here to discuss the weather,” she says, giving them both a direct look.

Katara looks at Zuko, concern and embarrassment written across her face. Zuko appears equally discomfited, but forges ahead. He nods to the servants lingering outside the pavilion, sending them away.

“Azula, this isn’t - easy for me. I don’t mean to accuse you of anything, or suggest anything, but as your brother, as Firelord, it’s my duty to ask.”

“Ask me what, Zuko?” she demands, sharply.

Katara studies the embroidery on her sleeve with acute interest while Zuko forces the question past his lips.

“Are you and Aang - involved?”

There’s a faint ringing in her ears, plunging her into helpless, awful silence.

A week after her sparring with Sokun, she’s half asleep when someone climbs into her bed. Large, strong hands restrain her wrists and a heavier legs pin hers down, taking advantage of her surprise.

“Princess! It’s me, Sokun,” his voice comes out of the dark. “Don’t - please don’t burn the bed. We’ll both fry.”

Azula shakes with betrayal and disgusted fury. How dare he. He stinks of manure and sweat and the rough cloth of his trousers chafes against her silk shift. “You fool,” she seethes, “When my father hears of this -”

“The Firelord sent me. He said I would lose my head if I didn’t - please -,” his breath, redolent with tamarind, is damp across her face, but Azula barely feels it. 

Your father sent me.  

Her body goes slack with the truth. There’s no other way Sokun might have gotten as far as her room without the guards accosting him. And for all his bold manner on the training field, he was too afraid of his own skin and too hopeful of a military career to risk his future on a quick rape. No, he was telling the truth. Even if she knew nothing about the boy on top of her, there’s a small, hard seed inside Azula that knows her father. And her father’s lessons always came with a price.

Clearly rushing through the motions before his nerve fails him, Sokun has freed himself of his trousers and started tugging her inner clothes off. His hands are clumsy and nervous, and in the flash of moonlight that seeps from the window he looks suddenly young, younger than her, and there are tears on his face. He stops and moves off her, crying openly. He won’t do it, he weeps. He can’t. He had promised his mother he would never do anything like this-

Azula takes pity on him.

“Sokun, listen to me.” She grabs his fitful hands before her voice grows firm. “Your Firelord has asked you to perform a duty. Asked us both. He is the vessel of Agni, and we are his servants. If you wish to honor him, you’ll carry out this task to the end.”

He makes a sound halfway between a whimper and a curse. Azula hears him mumbling to the river spirits of his people, praying for forgiveness. 

She removes her clothes and lies naked before him.

At last, goaded by her sharpness, and shamed by her reminders of duty, Sokun crawls up her body, clumsily maneuvering his organ between her legs. It pinches and burns as he pushes inside her, but the pain is hardly of note compared to the daily endurance of firbending. His hips begin to move and Azula lies still and attentive, cataloguing his quiet grunts and panting and the feel of flesh inside flesh, urging him on when he flags, whispering faint nothings in his ear to gauge his reaction. 

She doesn’t know it then, but Sokun would never smile at her again. She would never again see him stride towards her in the early mornings, bare arms glistening with dew and sweat, and feel that sweet tug in her belly. In fact that night is the last time she sees her favorite sparring partner. 

(For months after, a washerwoman with a child strapped to her chest lingers in the plaza, begging the guards to let her in. She had black eyes and a dimple in her cheek, and wanted news of her son. He had come to the palace to be a soldier, she said. Did they know where he had gone?)

But in the moment Azula is focused entirely on the act, this mystery that so many girls couldn’t speak of without dissolving into giggles and blushes, this new knowledge her father had bequeathed her. 

Katara reaches gently for Zuko’s hand, her voice calm and, to Azula’s ears, painfully cloying. “It’s just that - last night, we couldn’t help notice the way you looked at him. And the way he looked at you.”

That last is tinged with the softest accusation. Azula cuts her eyes at her future sister-in-law. “So, you wish to know if I have designs on your old lover, is that it lady Katara?”

Sensing danger, Zuko attempts to intervene, “Azula, that’s not -,”

“No, she’s right Zuko,” Katara says, eyes flashing as her control on her own temper begins to slip. Her voice drops to a furious whisper. “I don’t trust you with Aang, and frankly you’ve given me no reason to. He’s not a toy you can amuse yourself with.”

“I’m perfectly aware of who and what he is,” Azula returns.

Katara laughs sharply. “Oh, please. You’re the expert on the Avatar now? The woman who killed him?”

“So now he’s the Avatar. What happened to Aang?” Azula retorts, knowing she’s treading dangerous ground, yet unable to retreat. The day that started out so beautiful and full of promise now feels tawdry, the sunlight a stabbing, hostile force. “You might have saved his life, but you have no claim to him, not anymore.”

“So you are involved,” Katara declares, blue eyes glittering like ice.

“No, we’re not -,”

It’s Zuko who speaks, his words falling like a thunderclap. “One of the gardeners saw him leave your chambers this morning.”

There’s blood on her bedclothes again - nothing like the mess from a week ago, but a small, poppy-sized stain. Sokun is long gone.

She drinks the bitter tea Li gives her in a single gulp and scrubs herself clean in the bath. She feels polished and cold and alert. Lo is pulling her hair into the traditional top knot when Li informs Azula the Firelord has requested tea with her. Azula sees Li pulling the stained sheet off the bed and folding it neatly.

Under a pavilion in the garden, Azula genuflects to her father and sits beside him. He doesn’t look at her, but keeps his gaze ahead, musing on the trees. It seems a great distance yawns between them that Azula can’t understand. She’d thought he’d be pleased with her.

Compose yourself. You’re not Zuko.

She eats some of the sliced fruit and sips her tea, tamping down the child crying out for her father’s attention. At length, Ozai waves his hand and a servant appears carrying an oblong wooden box that he sets before her. As the man hastens away, Ozai instructs her to open it.

“Young women your age often squander their lives slavering after men,” her father says, “Or they hesitate and run from battle, fearing what men will do to their bodies.”

Inside, folded and gleaming, is a set of battle armor that glitters black and gold. Her fingers ghost over the supple leather, the careful stitching, the flame insignia that would shine at her waist.

“You’ve conquered both the mystery and the fear.” Ozai turns to look at her, “You’ve done well, Azula.”

Her vision blurs and the sound dims in her ears. Azula has the strange, ghostly sensation of being lifted from her body and pulled back and forth through time, a puppet of history. When her mind refocuses she is back under the pavilion with her brother and his betrothed. 

Zuko reaches out a conciliatory hand and squeezes hers. “We’re not judging you, but it’s our job to know everything that happens in the palace.”

Her thoughts race with images of the night she had passed in Aang’s company.

We stole sweets from the kitchen, like you and I did as children, she wants to say. He told me stories while we looked at the stars. He didn’t touch me, even though he wanted to. We both wanted - We didn’t do anything wrong.

Azula says nothing. She reads in their eyes that they’ve already decided they knew what happened. She feels soiled. 

“But there’s another reason we asked to see you,” Zuko continues, clearing his throat. “I’ve received a proposal for you. Several in fact.”

Azula wants to laugh like the madwoman many people still believed she was. “A marriage proposal? For me?” 

“One of them looks especially promising. Ryōichi, from the Keohsho clan.”

“Ryō?” This time, Azula does laugh. “His family came to the palace after father’s coronation. He was terrified of me.”

“Be that as it may, the Keohsho have been among my staunchest supporters,” Zuko says. “And Ryō is a fine politician in his own right.”

His voice softens a little. “He’s a good man. He’d be kind to you, Azula.”

“His family are powerful firebenders,” Katara says, her voice grown more placating. “I’ve heard that his ancestral home, Shuhon Island, is beautiful. And you’ll be able to visit Caldera City whenever you want.”

“And,” her brother adds gingerly, “being engaged to him might convince the council to be lenient. This trial is about appearances too, Azula.”

“Of course,” Azula echoes. So, this is where she’s arrived, where they always intended her to culminate: a second cloistering. Katara was right, Shuhon was beautiful. And being a Keohsho wife would win her respect and status at court. Eventually, once she had birthed enough Keohsho children, if she was persistent, she might even sit on Zuko’s council. Considering her father’s fate, fortune has been gentle with her. She would be a part of the Fire Nation again, a real and meaningful part rather than a figurehead ever wary of embarrassment. Her sins would be washed clean in the eyes of her countrymen and women if she did this. 

“You know, there was a time in my life when I balked at arranged marriages,” her soon-to-be sister says in a gentle tone. Katara beams with empathy like the sun. “It seemed so cold and loveless, for something that should be intimate and personal. But,” she shoots Zuko a faint smile, “if you respect each other, and honor the same values, it can be a blessing in disguise."

And isn’t that what she’s wanted for years? To hold her head high and carry out the royal mandate of duty? So what if the thought of the Avatar flying away made her heart ache for something she couldn’t name? So what if they had lain side by side for hours, talking of lychee tarts and sky bison and constellations, of everything and nothing at all? The faces of the two people in front of her, in the same pavilion where Ozai had gifted her her first set of armor, are the terms - the real terms - of her life. Anything else was a mere fantasy she had been foolish to indulge. As she had reminded Sokun all those years ago, what were they if not servants of Agni?

“You don’t need to decide now,” Zuko is saying, his face abashed. 

“What’s there to decide? It’s as fine a match as any,” Azula says, her tone leaving no room for remonstrance. “You can tell Ryō I accept his proposal.”

Chapter Text

Three Years Ago

Except for when required to exhibit one’s status, palanquins were the worst form of travel.

  Azula never enjoyed the contraptions, preferring a mounted animal for short distances or a vessel for longer ones. Nothing made her feel more helpless than sitting on silk cushions behind delicate curtains while four men carried her to her destination. But this time it was more than simply impatience. This time, she’s ashamed.

They were en route to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, the place that helped mould her into a fierce warrior and lethal tactician during the war, where she and Mai and Ty Lee had reigned supreme while the other girls vied for their approval.

The school had closed briefly during the last months of the war when Ozai ordered all monies diverted to the Imperial Treasury to equip the military, but had reopened its doors while Azula was imprisoned. Zuko had openly pledged to support the Academy as part of his initiative to revitalize Fire Nation arts and culture that a hundred years of militarization had hollowed away, and was supposed to pay a visit himself. When last minute appointments prevented him from doing so, he had suggested Azula take his place, reasoning that her double status as royal and alumna would be cause for celebration.

Azula could think of nothing more humiliating than revisiting the Academy as little more than a trumped up figurehead in a palanquin whose authority barely extended to the meals she ate. But she had no good reason to refuse, not when Zuko’s council surveilled her every move for evidence of either madness or corruption, and so that afternoon saw her alighting from her transport flanked by her entourage, and walking in to greet the students and teachers.

She had chosen to wear a simple red and maroon shenyi - ornamental enough for the purpose of a royal visit, but with light trousers underneath the robe so that she could move freely without being hobbled by flowing silks. 

Her first sight of the school courtyard is a blow to the chest. 

It looks painfully unchanged - from the fiery bugambilia trailing from the windows, to the flagstones where she’d bloodied several noses and even singed a sleeve or two in schoolyard scraps, to the pond where she and Mai had practiced skipping pebbles. For a moment, the memories of that other life rush so strongly back she’s dizzy. But slowly, the present comes into view. Instead of sparring or practicing katas , the girls are occupied reading or painting. The faint, sweet melody of a ruǎn floats from one of the classrooms. 

“It is an honor to receive you, Princess,” a familiar voice speaks behind her. The woman it belongs to bows gracefully, her greying hair gathered in a neat bun and eyes crinkling with pleasure. Gomako, Azula’s favorite teacher as a child, bows deeply to her, her voice full of quiet emotion. “It is good to see you again, Azula.” 

Azula touches her sensei' s shoulder and bids her rise. The familiar scent of hair oil and powder floats from the woman’s skin, more familiar to Azula than her own mother, and she fights a sudden swell of emotion that for a moment has her throat too full to speak.

But she remembers herself and draws back, summoning a composed voice for the people watching. 

“ Sensei , it is an honor to be here.”

Her words land nicely, Azula can tell from the hum of approval that goes up around them. She follows Gomako and a group of young pupils to the inner courtyard, where a welcome ceremony had been prepared. There’s a small banquet laid out, and many of the students shoot Azula admiring, awe-struck glances as she makes her way to her appointed seat. Her mood lifts slightly and she waves graciously at the admirers, feeling a little like her old self.

She takes her appointed seat and allows herself to nurse a tentative hope that, against all odds, this would be a pleasant afternoon.

That hope is dashed an hour later when the courtyard plunges into stunned silence. 

Azula, her triumph draining away, stares down at the student she had tackled

Shock freezes her in place. The student, Dinah, should have seen her move coming miles away. She’s one of the oldest and, Azula assumed by her performance, the most formidable. It’s why Azula had asked to spar with her. Now as the thick silence presses around them she realizes Dinah hadn’t thrown a strike, though her firebending was by all counts strong. 

A lone clap breaks the unbearable quiet, and Gomako sweeps over to the small stage, a hand on Azula’s shoulder and the other one helping Dinah to her feet.

“Excellent form, both of you,” Gomako says, then turns towards the crowd. “As you can see, the Academy has a rich history of technique. Princess Azula uses an older form, while Dinah is a student of the new. But the past can sometimes surprise us,” she says wryly, drawing a few laughs from the crowd. “We are but servants of Agni. The art of firebending is diverse and dynamic, and we all have much to learn.” She finishes with a graceful sun salutation that she silently exhorts Azula to join, and the three of them bow to the crowd.

The older woman speaks quietly to Dinah, and the student nods, eyes full of reverence for her teacher. Azula, feeling once more like an intruder, turns to make her way offstage, head held high although her face burns with humiliation.

Preeti, seeing her discomfort, hurries discreetly over, “Shall I call the palanquin princess?”

“Not yet, please,” Gomako intervenes, coming up behind Azula. “I would be honored if the princess joined me for tea, so she can learn more about our new curriculum.”

With such a request, broached so publicly, Azula has no choice but to comply. She waves Preeti away and follows Gomako out of the courtyard.

Gomako leads her past the classrooms to a small, private room that Azula recognizes, with mild shock, is actually a living space. A beautifully painted screen hides what appears to be a bed and nightstand from view. Gomako gestures her to a table while Azula’s entourage waits outside, then rings a small bell. A young girl in a simple robe appears, and while Gomako orders her to bring them tea, Azula takes in the room where her former teacher now apparently lived.

Everything is orderly and clean in the way Azula herself enjoyed. A small shelf of books and scrolls, a cabinet of tinctures, a statue of Avatar Roku and a painted screen appear to be the only objects Gomako possessed. When Azula was a student, she imagined her teachers lived quite well - certainly she imagined they had houses of their own. Being inside Gomako’s simple abode, on school premises, is another crack in the glassy memories of Azula’s childhood. Her eyes come to a small altar behind the table, clean and diligently attended to. A portrait rests there of a woman in battle armor, her eyes fierce yet warm, a hint of a smile around her mouth as though something, or someone, had interrupted the solemnity of a sitting. 

“How are you feeling?” Gomako asks,  taking a seat across from her.

“Strange,” Azula says, without thinking. But her sensei had always been a forthright woman, and the gleam in her eyes suggested she appreciated the honesty.

“Everything that should be familiar, is different. I suppose it’s been many years since I was a student.”

“Almost twelve, to be precise,” Gomako says with a fond smile. “It brings me true joy to see you again, Azula.”

Does it? Azula almost says, but bites back the impulse. “I doubt your pupil would agree.”

“Dinah is not the type to hold grudges.”

“I don’t understand,” Azula says. “In my day, girls half her age would see my strike coming. I thought she was an advanced bender.”

“That she is,” Gomako says. “An excellent fire dancer. Naturally gifted, just like you.”

“Dancer?” Azula snorts. “You taught me how to find an opponent’s weakness and strike without hesitation.”

Something flickers across Gomako’s face, but disappears before Azula can grasp it. The servant appears with tea, and Azula takes another look at the portrait behind her teacher. She reads the name. Dimayuga. A river-country name . “My condolences to you,” she says to Gomako. “Was she family?”

“Yes, she was.” A smile trembles at the corners of Gomako’s mouth. 

Her years at school flash once more in Azula’s mind. How Gomako was the only unmarried teacher, how private she had been, how she always brushed off questions about courtship.

“Tala was her given name, after the spirit of the river,” Gomako says. “And she was dearer to me than any other.”

It was her grandfather, Firelord Azulon, who’d begun the practice of recruiting soldiers from the riverland clans. They were not only fierce firebenders, but skilled in stealth and tracking, a powerful asset to the growing military needs of the empire. At first they were enticed to Caldera City with promises of wealth and glory, only to be quickly dispatched to the front lines. When word escaped that their kin were being shipped off to die, the clans had mounted an uprising that took Azulon months to suppress. Azula recalls vague snatches of conversation, her father and grandfather complaining bitterly about squandering precious manpower putting down rebellions at home when they could be sending those troops to the Earth Kingdom.

She remembers another smiling brown face and a dimpled smile. A mother wailing at the palace gates. 

“Things are different now, Azula,” Gomako says, jasmine-scented steam rising from her cup. “Our people are tired of war, of sending their sons and daughters off to battle. They want order and simplicity, things they can wrap their minds around. Not martial firebending, but fire dancing. Young ladies who can sew and cook and play instruments,” she pauses with a faint smile. “Not hunters and warriors.”

“But that’s preposterous,” Azula says. “Surely you don’t agree.”

Her teacher stares down at her teacup. “Of course I don’t agree. But it’s what people want, it’s what makes them feel safe. So for their sake, I do my duty. I serve my students as best I can.”

“But why?” Azula demands, her desire to know overcoming her resolve to remain composed. 

“I suppose it’s because of Tala. It’s what she did when she was alive,” Gomako says, evenly. “She didn’t believe in the war, Azula. Not after she’d seen what things were like in the Earth Kingdom. Women and children stripped of all they have, families torn apart. Prisoners, maimed for insubordination-”

Azula’s mind fills with the grey corridors of Boiling Rock, the cries of desperation and despair, the deadly silence of a cell whose occupant had taken the only possible escape. The warrior, Suki, who had borne the brunt of the violence until she cracked, calling her Water Tribe lover’s name like a prayer to keep her alive. “It was war, sensei . We all did what was necessary.”

“And Tala wanted no part of it,” Gomako says. “Just as I want no part of a world without her. But she’s gone and I’m here. So, I do my duty.” The older woman gives Azula a weighted look over her cup. “As I see you are doing yours.”

Azula bites back a sudden surge of sorrow, of emptiness. She gives a bitter smile. “I don’t have your certainty, sensei . I’m at the mercy of others. Any purpose I have is given, not chosen.” 

How closely her life before the war mirrors her life after it.

Gomako looks off into the distance, taking a thoughtful sip. A softness touches her face. “My students test my patience every day. They’re impatient, and reckless, and entirely too concerned with trivial things. But they also make me laugh. And sometimes, I’ll even see a glimpse of Tala in them.” She turns to Azula with a half smile. “I know you, Azula. You are graced by Agni himself. You’ll find your inner fire again, I am certain of it.”

“And until then?” Azula asks.

“We do our duty,” Gomako says. “War comes easy to our people, but peace - peace takes practice.”

Present Day

Her pillow, mat and bundle of clothes are exactly as she left them, but her instincts prickle in alarm. Something’s amiss. Squatting down, Azula goes through each item, her panic rising as she searches for but doesn’t find the object her gut warned her was gone. The bison whistle.

She stands, patting down her pockets, her shirt, sticking her hands through her hair. Increasingly agitated, she picks up a candle and roots around the cave, moving rocks and looking under mats and pillows. She’s about to carry her search outdoors, retrace her steps back to the kitchen if needed, when Jorani speaks.

“Looking for this?” 

The earthbender lounges against the opposite wall, holding up the whistle up between her fingers. 

Azula’s voice comes out sharp and cold, the whip-like command of the old days. “That belongs to me. Give it back.” 

“Or what?” Jorani returns, a strange edge to her own voice. The candleflame glints in her eye and Azula realizes, too late, that her frenetic search had caused the flame to flare and swell. From the back of the cave, Kaushal looks up from her rattan-weaving with a cluck of disapproval. Nimi glances between Jorani and Azula, round-eyed and uncertain.

Azula sets the candle down and keeps a neutral posture. “Return the whistle, Jorani.”

“Why don’t you take it from me, yakkini ?”

Kaushal jumps to her feet, barking a sharp reprimand to Jorani in their native tongue while Nimi, her limbs drawn up, cowers behind her. Yakkini. The epithet is familiar, born in the Earth Kingdom in the fires of war, when villagers began referring to firebenders as demons who ate children and sucked flesh off the bones of men. Fury stabs Azula, but one look at the fierce glint in Jorani’s eyes tells her she can’t afford to lose her own temper.

“Look. You’re scaring Nimi,” Azula says, holding out her palm. “Give it back.”

By now a few others have gathered in the pathway winding between caves, their faces equal parts concerned and fearful. Jorani edges out of the cave, the whistle clutched in her hand, gaze feverish.

“We should all be afraid. We’ve been sleeping next to a demon all this time!”

Azula follows her out, careful to give her a wide berth. “I’m not a demon. I’m here to get better, Jorani. Just like you-,” The earth juts up, catching her left foot. She nearly falls on her hip, but old instincts die hard, and Azula drops lightly into a handstand that would have made Ty Lee proud. 

Jorani rushes forward, hurtling jagged rocks at Azula like knives. Even with a mauled foot, the earthbender is a force to be reckoned with. Azula dodges most of them, though a couple catch the soft underside of her arm. She fights to keep flame from shooting out of her hands. One strike of lightning and she could bring the earthbender, and half the mountain, to its knees. 

“She’s a firebender!” Jorani shouts, as Azula leaps and dodges out of the way. “Burn me, yakkin . Show us your true face!”

The crowd is yelling, whether for help or encouragement Azula can’t say. All her senses are honed on avoiding Jorani’s attacks. There was a reason beyond politics why she had enlisted the Dai Li to take Ba Sing Se, why she had kept them close on the Day of Black Sun. Earth was the only element that matched fire in determination. Water could be turned to steam, air only made fire stronger, but earth - earth would hold firm and grind your bones to dust.

Azula rolls away from a furrow in the ground that threatens to swallow her whole. Her hair comes loose from its braid, whipping about her face as she ducks a hail of stone. The rhythm settles into her muscles - sway, jump, turn, yield, push. She dances within the energy of battle like a waterbender, never summoning a lick of flame.

Jorani roars in rage. “Stop dancing and fight me!”

  Out of the corner of her eye Azula sees Kaushal pushing through the crowd, but the distraction costs her dearly. Jorani traps her hands and feet in mounds of earth. The earthbender advances, a rock in her hand with which to crush Azula’s skull. Her eyes are empty and blazing as she raises her hand.

Azula moves.

Bursts of blue flame free her hands and feet and the crowd, gone suddenly silent, surges back from her. Jorani’s face is a mask of terrible delight, washed in the blue light of the fire still dripping from Azula’s wrists. 

The familiar sequence of her battle katas tug at Azula’s limbs - step, turn, strike. She twists at the waist and blue fire streams forth, not to scourge her opponent, but to vanish harmlessly into the sky. Lowering her hands, she turns to the earthbender again. 

“My name is Azula, daughter of Ursa and Ozai, princess of the Fire Nation.” Her voice is calm, her words measured and soft as she opens her empty palms. “And I won’t fight you.”

Jorani’s lip curls as she returns to a fighting stance. Azula sees the earthbender’s foot shift forward, but Kaushal moves quicker, swinging a broomstick at Jorani’s head and knocking her off balance. Jorani reels, pushed against the rock wall. Whatever she sees in Kaushal’s eyes is enough to steal the fight from her and the earthbender sags to the floor in time for three apprentices to rush forward and lift her by the arms. 

Azula stands frozen as the apprentices usher people away, as Jorani is led off. She catches Kaushal’s eye. The woman marches towards her, grim and determined as though walking to the edge of a precipice. Kaushal was the most reticent of her cave companions, the one who spoke the least and hardly ever shared details of her life before Deva Kanda. Kaushal shared no stories of lost children or fierce battles, and she wore no visible scars. She had a quality about her of patient and dutiful grief that reminded Azula of Gomako and Shyu. As she stares hard at Azula’s face, Azula is struck by the thought that she, the yakkini , is a test of Kaushal’s own fears, of whatever horrors the woman had seen in the war, and that this is the closest she’ll ever come to a glimpse of what Kaushal has survived. 

Kaushal speaks slowly, ensuring Azula understands each word in her thickly accented Common. 

“What I did -  was for Jorani. Not you.”  

She drops the bison whistle at Azula’s feet.

“Now go.”

The dismissal is both calm and implacable. Azula watches the stout woman retreat, knowing her time with her and Nimi and Jorani is over. That her time as Ursa, the woman they slept beside and shared soup with, who bathed and cleaned chickens with them, breathed the same mountain air as them, is over. The few stragglers return to their caves and she’s alone, empty-handed on the edge of a cliff. It’s not that she truly expected to belong here, but simply that she had wanted here to last a little longer. To be someone else, a little longer. She stoops down and picks up the whistle, weighing it in her palm. 

But before she can blow it, an apprentice touches her shoulder, gently. The woman beckons Azula to stand.

“Biyu will see you now.”

Chapter Text

It’s her fifth birthday and Ozai has commanded a ship to take the royal family out past the Great Gates of Azulon. Her father lifts her onto his shoulders and points at the towering glory of her grandfather’s face. Someday, Azula, it will be our faces set in stone. She’s too young to really understand what he promises, but her heart pounds hard in her small body. Balanced on his shoulder with the seawind on their faces, his voice warms her and the gold of his eyes is richer than sunlight on the waves. If she could soar to the top of the highest peak she wouldn’t feel as buoyant as she does now, lifted by her father’s love. He tells her about his days at sea, long ago, when his father sent him out to prove himself. 

Behind them the familiar curve of Caldera City flies proud banners of red and gold interspersed with blue, celebrating the princess’ fifth year. Beyond them is the glittering ocean, a map that promises to spread the glory of their nation throughout the world. Ozai lowers her from his shoulder. Come, we should turn back. Your gifts are waiting at the palace. But she shakes her head, clings to his robe. Out here in the open sea, she felt lighter, her father was lighter. In the solemn shadows of the palace, he didn’t laugh as much, and he hardly ever lifted her up into his arms. She wanted him to tell her more about the beautiful future awaiting them while the wind whipped his hair, usually so carefully combed, carelessly around his face. My little prodigy, Ozai smiles, turning her in a circle before setting her lightly on her feet. One day you’ll see the whole world for yourself.

“Drink this. Quickly now.” Biyu thrusts a cup at her and Azula obeys. The liquid is bitter and burns her throat, but afterwards a pleasant warmth suffuses her limbs. She groans as the brief reprieve is broken by the onset of another splitting headache. 

“How long have we been here?” she croaks, barely able to open her eyes. The cavern where Biyu conducts her healing sessions is lit only by faint beams of sunlight reflecting the amber stalactites. Carvings and painted images decorate the stone walls, and the air is stiflingly humid, rich with the fumes of the hot springs bubbling at the center of the cavern. Once a day, the apprentices come down and fetch buckets of the mineral-rich water to mix with salves and potions for the sick, or to bathe fresh wounds.

“Don’t trouble your pretty little head about that,” Biyu replies from her spot against the opposite wall. She sits on a rattan mat, grinding a mortar and pestle in her lap. “It’s got enough troubles inside it already,” she adds with a hoarse chuckle.

Azula laughs, head lolling against the stone, “The mad princess.” She thinks it’s been two, maybe three days since her skirmish with Jorani. Her arms and legs still throb where the earthbender’s attacks landed, but the pain lessens each time she wakes up. She’s been drifting in and out of consciousness propped up against a rock for Agni knew how long, waking only to drink more of Biyu’s bitter potions. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever climb out of this pit and back into the world. 

She falls back into a trance-like sleep and hears Biyu’s rattling laugh. “Nothing wrong with a little madness.”

She’s chasing her mother through a garden of blazing fire lilies. Ursa trails ever ahead, her maroon silk robes dragging behind, leaving no footprints as she goes. Azula runs through grass that turns sharp, through flowers that burn when she touches them. She cries out for her mother, but Ursa never turns. The older woman’s dreamlike pace is unbroken, while Azula’s feet throb and ache. Ursa disappears around a bend and Azula rushes after her. Her mother stands before a pond, still as stone save for the edges of her black hair swaying in the breeze. Ursa turns, and Azula sees her own face, the mouth turned down with sorrow, the eyes sad and empty. Her mother opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. An invisible force pulls Azula towards the silent woman. Riven with fear, she screams.

In the lazy afternoon sun, she counts each pearl of Ty Lee’s spine with her fingernail, pausing every so often to scrape the smooth skin and draw a shiver from the bubbly girl. Somewhere in the wilds of the Earth Kingdom they’ve stolen a moment’s rest. After a dip in the river, the three of them now lay on the banks - Mai, hiding under the shadow of an ash tree, watching the river move with a soft, pensive look on her usually deadpan face. Azula herself is still enjoying the sun with Ty Lee lying on her stomach beside her, both of them in their sarashi . Azula takes hungry stock of her friends’ faces and enjoys a strong measure of pride. They’re happy. She alone has made them happy. Nothing can take that away.

“Easy, easy now,” Biyu’s rough voice centers Azula, draws her out of the trance. Her face is wet with tears, and there are sobs clawing at her throat. She struggles to a sitting position, chest heaving, while Biyu pats her back like a burping child. “Let it out, there you go.”

Azula scrabbles away on her hands and knees, like a rat. She convulses with grief. It pours out of her in waves and waves. She cries so hard her stomach heaves, vomiting spit and bile on the cavern floor. She cries until the tears dry out and only empty sobs remain, until her body lies spent and weary. She crawls back to her mat, and takes the cup Biyu offers with silent gratitude. The medicine is less bitter this time, though its flavor is still sharp.

“Grief is the other face of joy,” Biyu says, her voice sounding both distant and impossibly close. “The salt balances the sweet - that’s what gives life its flavor,” she chuckles, running a hand over Azula’s brow.

“Do you ever speak plainly?” Azula complains, but she leans into the old woman’s papery hands. She’s flooded with the memory of Lo, splashing the bathwater to make her laugh until Li scolded them both. Zuko had found no trace of them anywhere in the Fire Nation, though he had made inquiries at Azula’s behest. It was as though banishing them had erased them from existence. Azula imagines them living in a quiet house somewhere, frightening and spoiling the village children in equal measure, bickering until the end of their days. 

She hopes she set them free.

Lightning shoots from her fingers like an arrow through the Avatar’s heart. It passes through him and emerges as a silver snake, a living thing with a will beyond her control. She sees the thread of it silently steal her victory: Zuko comes home, only to leave again. She throws Mai and Ty Lee in prison, but it’s like they’ve left too. Even her father, to whom she believed she was indispensable,  finally leaves her behind. The rest she dispatches herself - Lo and Li, the Dai Li, her maids. She banishes them all one by one, until there’s no one left for the silver snake’s hunger, no one but herself.  Only when they drag her chained and sobbing and hysterical from the courtyard does the snake crawl out of her eyes and mouth to die, its purpose fulfilled at last. 

One Year Ago

The Avatar is late.

Firelord Zuko’s engagement to Katara of the Southern Water Tribe is to be formalized on auspicious ground, inside Roku’s temple, with the four nations bearing witness. Dressed in brilliant red and blue, Azula taps her foot impatiently beneath the frangipani tree where she’d sat with Shyu years ago. The day is warm and she’d rather enter the temple without her kohl streaming down her face.

Delegates from all four nations trail among the beautiful gardens before alighting at the steps where some attendants collect their shoes and others set out basins of water with which to bathe their feet before entering the sanctum. 

She’s never counted fear among her attributes, but the sight of so many former enemies gathering under the eaves of the temple has turned her blood to ice. Her release from confinement had required careful negotiations. Zuko had shown her the formal pardons he had received for her crimes from the Water Tribes and Earth Kingdoms. But the Princess of the Fire Nation could never again set foot in Ba Sing Se or Kyoshi Island, by decree of the Earth King. 

When all’s said and done the restrictions on her movements were understandable - she would’ve enacted the same in their place. But accepting the political reality of her life after the war is markedly different from looking at politicians who put ink to paper, as well as Zuko and Katara’s friends, some of whom she had personally wounded or imprisoned, in the eye. Especially now, still without her formal title, dressed up and paraded out at formal events like a child praised - and watched - for good behavior.

So when on the morning of the betrothal ceremony she found Zuko fretting about Aang’s tardiness, lamenting that he’d had a brooch made for Aang specially, and how it wouldn’t be right if Aang wasn’t wearing his gift during the ceremony when all the delegates and politicians proudly displayed theirs, Azula had offered to wait for the Avatar and hand him the Firelord’s gift herself. The less time she had to spend inside the temple with the other guests, the better.

However, she hadn’t counted on Aang being so late as to draw attention. If they weren’t inside within half an hour, disapproving tongues would start wagging, and the betrothal would be doomed before it could even begin. Which was why she’s a touch...impatient when one of her attendants escorts the Avatar over to her.

He strides up with a smile, resplendent in new clothes, but she squares his greeting off with a curt nod and hands him the intricately carved wooden box with his gift inside.

“It’s from Zuko. Wear it before you go inside,” she says. “It marks you as an honored guest of the Firelord.”

“Wow,” he breathes, holding up the brilliant sapphire ornament with a mild smile. “Zuko’s not subtle.”

“The sun is hot and the sky is blue,” she says, rolling her eyes, and her mood lifts a little for reasons she doesn’t care to examine. It sours just as quickly with his next question.

“Don’t you get a fancy jewel?” 

He takes her stiff silence as enough of an answer not to broach the subject further. 

Struggling to pin the heavy jewel to his breast, Aang flashes a lopsided grin. “Sorry, brooches aren’t part of my usual wardrobe.”

Oh for Agni’s sake. She huffs, sweeping over to take the jewel from between his fingers. Deftly undoing the clasp, Azula sets it carefully below his shoulder, assessing the position before shifting it slightly left.

"I didn’t mean to arrive so late,” he says. “There was a shipwreck off the coast of Crescent Island.”

“At least you had time to see a tailor,” she remarks, pinning the brooch beneath his left shoulder. Markedly different from the traditional ceremonial garb of his people she’d seen in paintings, there were nevertheless elements of history in the yellow dye of his tunic. His signature orange cloth had been cut in two, most of it draped sash-like across his chest while the remainder was tied around his waist. An undershirt of fine white malmal , embroidered with the delicate, swirling loops characteristic of Air Nomad textiles, peek out at his wrists and collar. Whoever the tailor, they had brilliantly and carefully woven recognizable features of the Avatar’s cultural wear into a garment in keeping with current fashion. The result suited Aang immensely.

“What do you think?” he asks, drawing her attention to the hesitance in his voice. He’s studying her intently, clearly invested in her opinion.

“It suits you.”

His smile slips out warm and crooked. “I took a princess’ advice.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. “She was very wise. She told me punishing myself wasn’t virtue, but cowardice.”

“Did she now?” she murmurs, her cheeks flaming faintly. She brushes a wisp of leaf from his tunic and steps away. “She sounds very self-assured, your princess.”

The Avatar’s eyes linger on her. “She’s a great many things.”

The simple clarity of his tone makes her start. It’s not one of his teasing or playful comments she can brush off.  Fortunately the sound of the ceremonial gong intervenes, and the last of the straggling guests hurry their way up the temple steps. Azula follows them with Aang close on her heels. At the bottom of the steps, Aang offers her his arm. 

Cutting him a sharp look Azula tries to ascertain how he’d noticed - how he’d known - that she wasn’t thrilled about encountering the array of judgement and scorn awaiting her inside. But he was himself a spectacle, destined to stand apart wherever he went, and he was offering her not pity or benevolent condescension, but something else, something at once delicate and immense.

Silently, she slips her arm through his. 

Her other hand rests on his forearm, finding him warm and solid to the touch. He smells of earth and sandalwood and ozone, both redolent and airy. He’s not the boy she had struck down, far from it. Holding on to him, she wonders if this was the Avatar’s true power, this ability to make any transformation, any new horizon, seem possible. 

Azula steals a glance at him - or perhaps it was simply Aang himself. 

 “You know,” she says as they begin ascending the stairs, “this is going to draw an awful lot of attention.”

He looks down at her with that boyish charm.“I don’t think anyone’s going to have eyes for me.”

The tiniest smile blooms at the corners of her mouth. 

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Avatar.” 

The Avatar falls and she cradles his dying body. Blood soaks his tattered orange tunic, drips from the hole in his foot. He weighs no more than a fawn. Azula cradles him in the greenish light and mourns. For him and her and their stolen youths, for Sokun and Lo and Li, for Mai’s quiet grin and Ty Lee’s laugh, for Zuko finding her in the Dragonbone Catacombs, for the gleam in her father’s eyes when he showed her the world from the prow of a ship, for her mother’s vanishing smile. The Avatar’s body turns to light in her arms, dissolving before she can press him close.

Azula gasps awake, drawing gulp after gulp of air into her lungs. Her heart is running like a wild rabaroo, like a drum beating out of her chest. She looks down at her hands as though seeing them for the first time. She glances around and finds Biyu asleep on her mat a few feet away. Too wound up to wait, Azula reaches over and shakes the old woman awake.

“Biyu! I’m awake!"

The old woman grunts in protest. “Are you finished?”

“I am. I’m ready for the springs.” 

Biyu had informed her when they began the ritual that once in the cavern, drinking the herbs and fighting through your dreams was the final stage of healing. The herbs would only pass through your system once your qi was settled - some patients lingered down in the cavern for months, until their exhausted bodies were returned back to the upper caves to rest and try again.

Azula practically bounces from side to side as Biyu leads her deeper into the caverns to the hot springs - the last step before she can return outside. 

“So,” Biyu remarks. “In love with the Avatar, eh?”

Azula starts, her dream-visions slamming into her with the force of an earthbender. She looks around in a temporary panic as reality floods back. Who she is, what she is. Her engagement. The honor of the Fire Nation. 

“Don’t look at me,” Biyu says, laughing rustily. “I’m a healer not a matchmaker.” 

The cavern expands as they go, like the belly of some slumbering, ancient beast. Earthbenders had worked carefully within the mountain to carve and shape a pathway leading to the hot springs. The springs empty into a pool that glows warm, soft blue. Like the color of Aang’s tattoos.

“This is as far as I can go,” Biyu informs her. “The springs are charged with qi , among other things. You’ll see.”

When Azula stares blankly, awaiting instruction, Biyu pats her gently on the back. “Go for a swim, dear.”

Azula climbs down the crude stone steps until she’s submerged to her knees, then slowly forward. Water laps at her shoulders. It’s warm and alive and seems to have a will of its own, so much so she’s wary to venture further.

Firebending is taking control. Water asks us to surrender.

Aang’s words return to her and she brushes her navel, recalling his hand there, warm and gentle. It’s just a pond, she tells herself. It’s just a pond.

Azula takes another step, and a few more, until the misty blue ripples form a haze in her vision. The sound and color of the world around her fades as the water seems to lift and cradle her.

She barely blinks when her head slips below the surface.

Head cushioned on her mother’s lap, Azula watches sunlight dance off the surface of the duck pond while her mother strokes her hair. Ursa hums a wordless melody while her other hand, full of crumbs, beckons the ducks to the lip of the pond where they climb ashore with discreet huffs to eat from her palm. Azula stares at that palm, the slender wrists and elegant fingers, the nails honed to a fine yet sharp point. 

Uncanny, isn’t it? Ursa says. We have the same hands.

This isn’t real, Azula says. You’re not really here .

Ursa runs her fingers through Azula’s hair, so gentle and loving Azula thinks she might scream or cry. It’s a lie. Her mother never loved her, not like she loved Zuko-

Oh, Azula. I loved you so much it hurt my bones to carry.

Tears stream down Azula’s face and soak Ursa’s silk hanfu, because unlike before, unlike her cobwebbed memories of this woman who changed the course of a dynasty before vanishing in the night, this time Azula believes her. This time she knows her mother’s love to be true. 

The stone in her chest rolls away and she finds the words. It wasn’t enough. 

Ursa’s reply comes soft as the wind.

No, it wasn’t.

She lies on the stone floor of a temple, high in the clouds, surrounded by whispering voices. The voices belong to figures she can’t make out, except for the orange-gold of the flowing robes they all wear. Air Nomads. Women with tonsured heads and braided hair held aloft in the wind. Azula tries to see their faces, but the light blinds her. Seemingly engaged in an urgent conversation among themselves, their heads look down at her as one, like trees in a storm.

You have much work ahead of you, daughter of Sozin.

She answers with defiant pride, I’m ready.

One of the Nuns detaches from her sisters and floats down closer to Azula. You’ll have to be more than ready, child. More than you thought you could be.

The nun touches a finger to the center of Azula’s forehead, the place where, if she were of Aang’s people, her arrowhead would be. Visions tear through her mind, brilliant and vivid and beyond understanding. She sees places and people she’s never met. Children laughing, the sound of rain on an earthen roof. Sketchbooks full of archaic symbols. Canvases of landscapes drawn by her hand. Aang, barefoot in the palace courtyard, holding out his arm for her to take.

She’s climbing up the mountain on her hands and knees. The wind nearly takes the skin off her flesh, and her teeth chatter in her head. She can barely breathe, but the only place to go is up. Up and up, where the person she had tried and failed to paint that one afternoon in the azumaya , awaits her. She almost quails, afraid to see who waits there. But she’s come too far and what lies behind her is a steep fall to her own death. Slowly, as Azula approaches the peak of Deva Kanda, the person comes into view. A woman in a plain grey and blue shenyi, traveller’s clothes, a child cradled in a sling across her chest. The woman’s black hair is gathered in a simple bun secured with paint brushes and bamboo needles.

Azula looks at her own face, her own self.  This other Azula, with brushes in her hair and a child in her arms, greets her with a knowing grin and wryly arched brow.

“Took you long enough.”

Biyu’s apprentices pull her from the waters, trembling and wet. The air is warm and pleasant, tempered by a cool evening breeze that’s found its way underground and smells faintly of the rich flowers in Biyu’s garden. The apprentices dry her off and dress her like she’s a child, in short plain trousers and a shirt, like the rice farmers wear. When Azula asks who the clothes belonged to she’s informed that villagers who lived around Deva Kanda often donated their old clothes to Biyu, who then had her apprentices clean and repurpose them for the patients.

Someone puts a cup of hot, sweet tea in her hands and Azula sits on her mat one last time, savoring the stillness in her mind, no longer in a rush to return outside. In the faint light of day she finally studies the paintings on the walls. Some of them are faded and indecipherable, but there’s one that catches her eye, a crude drawing of the mountain’s peak circled by what appeared to be orange-winged birds. The gold-robed spirits fill her mind’s eye, her forehead tingling with a ghostly touch. 

“They knew a lot of useful tricks about plants and qi , those nomads,” Biyu says, answering Azula’s thoughts rather than her words. Then she winks. “Could really rustle a bedroll too, if you know what I mean.” The old woman’s eyes twinkle with fond though not entirely chaste memories, and Azula imagines her as an eager young woman hungry for knowledge of the world, flirting and dallying with any nomad that caught her eye, absorbing their knowledge and the pleasures of young love. The image is so vivid it startles Azula, and Biyu gives her a knowing look.

“You see things,” the old woman says. “Ghosts, images of the past, and the future.”

“I thought I was mad,” Azula murmurs, looking down into the dregs of her cup and thinking of Ursa in the mirror behind her on the eve of Sozin’s Comet.

Biyu clicks her teeth. “It’s a fine line between truth and madness, and walking that line is bitter work.”

Azula puzzles over her words while Biyu gestures for her to stand, leading her out of the cavern into daylight. As they ascend the stone steps together, Biyu makes a casual remark. “The Avatar is here for you.”

Out in the courtyard, Azula sees her belongings bundled together under a tree and picks them up, making her way through the garden. She stops at the edge of the courtyard, looking down the mountainside at the vista beyond, framed in the setting sun.

She feels naked, yet unworried, as the flowers and the vines and the trees, the stones below her and the sky above, simply and fully a part of the living universe. The hillsides are green and lush and beautiful, spread out under a violet sky. Here and there, people’s evening lamps appear as small dots of light, and wisps of smoke curl up from cooking fires. The world, teeming with life, quietly beautiful, vibrant and tender, washes over her like a wave.

“Azula?” 

Aang. Her heart picks up speed as he approaches, fighting the strong urge to run and leap into his arms. With great effort, Azula makes herself stand still as he draws near. The look on his face takes her breath away, and she allows herself to see it, to see him. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, gently interlacing their fingers. The touch sends electricity shooting up her arms. She can only nod while he searches her face and, seemingly satisfied that she’s well, begins talking about going down to the village. 

She vaguely discerns him saying something important, urgent even, but nothing in that moment feels more pressing than silencing him with the pads of her fingers, before rising on her toes to replace her fingers with her lips.

Any fear she’s crossed a boundary that would doom her forever is swallowed up when Aang’s mouth chases hers, when he pulls her hungrily into his arms. Through the thin cotton clothes her body burns with longing. It’s like soaring with her feet on the ground. Running through an open field with the wind at her back. She moans into the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck as he kisses her deeper, as he draws her against him like he’s been waiting a long, long time to do so. The world melts around them. Time was such a strange creature, racing and lumbering, bringing her exactly where she needed - where she wanted - to be. 

They kiss until the sky turns dark and the sun slips beyond the green hills of Yantai.

Chapter Text

Azula isn’t certain if the torrent of unrestrained joy and desire coursing through her body has utterly clouded her mind, or if by some mysterious power the Avatar - if Aang - had learned exactly how she likes to be kissed. She thinks, dazedly, that this requires further inquiry. There’s so much she wants to say, so much time she wants to seize between her fingers. She might never tire of the way his hands glide over her spine, his fingers tapping silent promises of return. No, definitely not tiring of that anytime soon- 

“Wait, Azula -,”

In between their breathless kisses Azula grows faintly aware that he’s trying to get a word in edgewise. His mouth drags against hers and Azula follows, unwilling to break the moment for conversations that would inevitably release the hungry grasp of his hands on her waist, to see the dark, heavy look in his eyes grow clear and restrained.

“Azula,” he says, resting his temple against hers. She relishes the heavy effort it obviously takes him to keep from kissing her again. “I - okay, so - you have to stay here a little longer.”

“Why?”

“I’m needed in the village,” he says glancing up at the sky where she can see now that thunderous clouds are slowly gathering. “There’s about to be a flood, a bad one.”

Still wrapped in his arms, Azula doesn’t think too long. “I’m coming with you.”

“I can’t risk you getting hurt,” he says, his voice so earnest and warm she melts a little, even if the notion of protecting her is endearingly naive. “There are no waterbenders here except me, and the earthbenders aren’t trained for this. It’s going to get bad.”

Without missing a beat, she cups his jaw in her hand before stealing another impulsive kiss. “Then you’ll need someone to watch your back. Let’s go.”

This far west of Ba Sing Se the main source of life and commerce was the Nan Shan river, its tributaries teeming with fish and feeding the rice paddies that were the lifeblood of the surrounding villages. Azula had once fished wads of bison fur out of a tributary of the Nan Shan many years ago, hunting the Avatar across the plains.

Now she peers over that same bison’s saddle as Aang flies low. The last rays of dusk, drowning in the approaching storm, show her just enough to confirm he’s right. 

The situation is dire.

The dam she had noticed on her way up to Biyu’s retreat squats over the mouth of the river, swollen with rain.  It had rained frequently during her stay on the mountain, but she’d been too preoccupied with other matters to consider what the weather might mean for the world below. Now defunct, the dam had been built in Iroh’s day as a waystation where his armies could rest, sampling food and women from the nearby villages, while their machinery was oiled and re-powered en route to Ba Sing Se. Abandoned after the war, she could now see the small but densely clustered dwellings where villagers had reclaimed the waystation and repurposed the dam for their own livelihoods. 

While the bison hovers, Aang climbs into the saddle beside her and points upriver. “The dam’s already full to breaking point, but as soon as the storm breaks -,”

“The entire flood plain is overrun,” she finishes for him. 

He nods grimly. “I can direct the water away from the rice paddies, but they’ll lose their houses. And I don’t know how much of the arable land I can save.”

Azula thinks quickly, sifting through the information dredged up from memory that she’s pleased to find is clear and sharp. “This dam is Oorjit’s work, he was a competent engineer in my grandfather’s day, but he was working fast, and on unfamiliar terrain.” She continues, pointing to the edges of the structure. “The land is silt-heavy, and without earthbending - I’ll wager Oorjit used rocks they could machine-lift to reinforce the base.”

Aang frowns. “So, if I can reinforce the rocks with earthbending, and redirect some of the floodwaters there-,” he points at the uninhabited plains to the west of the dam, “- the village might be safe.”

“That’s a best case scenario. We have no way of knowing how much the reinforcements have eroded -,”

But he’s already leapt onto the bison’s head, directing the creature to descend. A flash of lightning splits the sky, its energy dancing along her skin and making her fingers itch with familiar longing. As the first sheet of rain begins to fall, Azula looks down at the river’s mouth, seeing the waters churning and bubbling like a raksa stirring in the depths.

They land beside the small inn where they had slept the night before Aang took her to see Biyu. A group of people rush the Avatar, speaking in loud, urgent tones. Azula climbs off the bison unattended and frowns at the feel of soft, muddy earth beneath her feet. The air smells heavy with wet earth and she knows the saturated ground will barely hold the rainfall, much less a flooding river.

Aang turns to Azula, unfurling the blue wings of his glider. “I’m going to try getting a closer look at the dam. Stay with Appa.”

He flies off into the rainy sky and she exchanges a mutually wary look with the bison. The villagers regard her with open and unabashed curiosity, murmuring among themselves. But from her time with Jorani and Kaushal Azula’s learned just enough of the hill dialect to parse that they’re less concerned with her presence than they are with the Avatar’s plans. The anonymity is a relief, and she shelters under a tree, keeping a respectful distance from the bison.

Thunder rolls overhead and the rain intensifies. Aang returns in a brief gust of air, his face grim with concern. A litany of voices hail him before he can say a word, plying him and each other with furious questions.

“ Enough .” 

There’s a swirl of wind that cuts through the rain, and Aang stands firm, commanding their silence. 

“Listen to me. The water will breach the dam soon. Your need to evacuate - go north to Yantai, take only what you can carry.” The wings of his glider expand sharply again. “I’m going to try and hold back the river as long as I can, but everyone needs to get to higher ground. Now .”

Azula rushes forward, seizing his arm before he opens his glider again. One look at his face and she knows she can’t dissuade him from what he’s about to do, so she doesn’t try. “The riverbanks,” she says urgently, willing him to understand. “They’re waterlogged from the dam. You won’t find steady ground, and the mud gets dangerous very quickly. In fact, avoid setting down as much as possible.”

“Good thing they call me Twinkletoes,” he says, with a faint grin that fades when her nails, unwittingly, dig into his forearm. She’s grown to find his humor endearing in recent years, but now it sets her heart pounding with wild terror. The water stored up in the dam would unleash like a tsunami, and the Avatar was still a being of flesh and blood. She had tasted the truth of his mortality in Ba Sing Se, felt his heart give at the edge of her fingers.

Her voice falters and she withdraws her hand with a prick of embarrassment. Behind them there’s more clamoring questions, someone shouting for order, asking the Avatar for guidance.

Aang cuts off the squabbling and chaos before it grows untenable, pointing at Azula. “She’s in charge. Follow her lead.”

“What are you doing?” Azula whispers, furious and confused. “I have no authority here, these people have no allegiance to me-,”

“Neither did the Dai Li,” Aang reminds her. Her mouth crowds with too many words to speak at once - she’d had weeks to infiltrate Ba Sing Se, learn the machinations of court and play the Dai Li against their leader, not to mention the full authority of her royal mantle - 

Aang takes her hand in his. “Azula, if anyone can lead them to safety, it’s you.”

His simple yet unyielding faith in her abilities chases all other thoughts from her mind except the reality that he’s about to fly off into a storm. 

“Come back to me,” she orders softly.

He kisses her quickly but firmly. “I will.” 

Aang disappears into the sky and Azula glances skeptically at the huddled villagers. A memory flits through her mind of sitting in her father’s war room, debating how best to defeat the Earth Kingdom. They can endure anything, Zuko had said, as long as they have hope. 

She gives them Ursa’s name again. 

Command returns to her easier than she’d thought - her posture, her voice, every word honed to have as much impact with as little effort as possible. Briefly, she recalls Long Feng sniveling on his knees, hate and envy in his eyes as she reminded him true power was always born, not learned. She would always be the scion of conquerors, the namesake of Azulon the Mighty. But here in the far reaches of the Earth Kingdom, without title or allies or armor, without even her own name, her words to Long Feng were finally being put to the test.

“You,” she summons a young man with an ostrich-horse forward. “Are you a fast rider?”

He nods firmly. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Ride ahead, tell them to expect evacuees before dawn. They’ll need extra beds, and food for the children. Don’t stop until you reach Yantai, is that clear?”

He’s on his horse and off in a fury. Unfortunately, the rest of the village proves more intractable. Her Common is stilted and refined from too many years behind palace walls, and the native dialect is much harder to speak than understand. 

“You heard the Avatar,” she says. “Gather your families, we don’t have much time.”

“What about the livestock?”

“My mother is too frail to walk-,”

“The children will catch their death in this rain-,”

Azula recognizes the voice that cuts through the din belonging to the innkeeper, Saima. “They’ll survive a runny nose, but not drowning,” she says sharply. “Avatar Aang left Ursa in charge. I suggest we listen.”

This has an effect, and Azula seizes the moment. She climbs into the back of an empty wagon and stands to look over the people’s heads. Later, she would reflect that perhaps true power was not intimidation, but striking while the iron was hot. Her voice rings out firm and clear through the pattering rain. 

As long as they have hope.

“Listen to me: the river will soon be at your doorstep, but you will survive, because you have survived worse. You withstood the march of the Dragon of the West, and you took his dam for yourself. Now that dam is crumbling, but you will outlast that too.” Azula waves a fireless hand and points at the bison. “Those who can’t walk will ride on the Avatar’s bison. The rest of you, collect your families. Take only what livestock can fit in the wagons. Cows and chickens are plentiful, but your children are not,” she says pointedly. “Earthbenders, come with me.”

It takes longer than she would like to assemble everyone for departure, but Azula is impressed by the cooperation among them. Appa permits them to lift several passengers into his saddle - mostly the frail elderly, very small children and a handful of pregnant women. Azula orders the earthbenders to march ahead and clear a pathway in the treacherous mud. Everyone else she organizes into a modified genbu formation, the strong and able bodied on the outer perimeter, young women and children in the interior, the bison at the head. She doesn’t dare try and ride the animal without Aang, but borrows an ostrich horse on which to lead the way.

Azula finds Saima lingering by the small inn with her husband, all their belongings gathered in a rucksack at his feet. Azula glances at the window where she’d sat that first night, looking out over the dark countryside and wondering what fate had in store for her. The room where Aang watched her brush her hair and his gaze caressed her like warm fingers. She bends to scoop a handful of wet earth into a rag and ties it in a small bundle that she presses into Saima’s hand. 

“You will return here,” she tells the older woman. 

“Look!”

They are a few miles from the village when the cry turns her head. From the plateau that leads north, Azula sees a mighty wave of water rise from the dam, curve like a serpent’s belly, and flatten against the ground into a mass of ice. There’s a small flash of light - Aang’s tattoos luminous in the dark, a star fighting the storm - and her heart leaps into her throat. She’s witnessed the full power of the Avatar only once - in a catacomb under Ba Sing Se. And she herself had extinguished that blaze of light. 

There’s a chorus of gasps and startled shouts as the evacuees catch sight of the Avatar, witnesses to godly power of which they’ll tell their children and their children’s children. But Azula can think only of the man, and the scar in the center of his spine that fits in the palm of her hand.

They make slow, but steady progress through the dark. The rain has abated enough for their torches to be lit, and the earthbenders work diligently, if not always with the finesse Azula would have liked, to keep their pathway clear enough to walk.

There’s a treacherous moment down a steep, muddy slope where she worries the rain will outpace the benders and trap them in a landslide. But they hold fast to the position she orders, stabilizing the flow of wet earth long enough for the party to reach the bottom of the hill. Every so often she turns her eyes to the sky, searching in vain for a sign of Aang’s return.

One of the benders, a lanky young woman whose fierce stances remind Azula of Jorani, clasps her arm in a hearty squeeze. 

"Mèimei, we’re almost there.”

Chapter Text

They reach Yantai late but otherwise unscathed, and Azula is relieved to find her messenger had carried out his task.

The evacuees are quickly welcomed, and she waits to ensure most of the elderly and the children are attended to before making her way to the main tavern. Yantai is a larger settlement, but the evacuees would fill up any extra sleeping space quickly. And knowing Aang, he would return and be quite content to sleep on the bison’s saddle, or outside in a shed. It really wouldn’t do. If setting out to secure decent sleeping arrangements for him took her mind off the gnawing worry that he had yet to rejoin their party, Azula didn’t dwell too long on that. In times of uncertainty her first instinct still was to put her hands to a task. 

Inside the tavern, two grubby young boys are moving tables against the walls, clearing floor space for more evacuees to sleep on, under the orders of a burly man with a bushy black beard and sharp but patient eyes that remind her of Iroh.

She marches up to him and removes her hat, stating her name with clear authority. “I trust that accommodations have been set aside for the Avatar?”

The man nearly trips over his own feet, his sun-brown face whitening. “The Avatar? Here?”

“Did you think the river redirected itself? He’s the reason these people are alive, the reason your roads aren’t even now swimming with fish.” Yantai might be north enough to avoid a deluge, but if the dam had ruptured and overrun the floodplain, the resulting landslides would have blocked off the roads that connected it to cities like Gaoling.

He splutters some more, barking orders at two young women laying out rattan mats for the evacuees.

“You will set your best room aside,” Azula orders. “And a hot meal. The Avatar’s bison will require your stable, and two bales of hay.” She assumes the bison ate hay, though she'd never asked. "Make that three bales," she adds, just in case.

“Yes, yes of course,” the man assures her, practically bowing before hastening off to do her bidding. She still has a savor for having her orders followed, of using her authority to cut through human incompetence. True, she never imagined deploying it in the service of Earth Kingdom villagers, but the strong swell of satisfaction almost compensates for her damp clothing and the exhaustion crawling up her back.

She oversees the preparation of Aang’s room - a small but clean space, with a fresh bedroll, a window, and a washstand, before filling two plates of food and carrying them back to the room, hoping he has the good sense to land where Appa is housed. 

Azula makes herself eat, but only manages a few bites of a baozi and some water. She tries to approximate the distance they’ve walked to Yantai against how long it might take Aang to cover that same journey on his glider. Of course, that was assuming he wasn’t injured. Though the storm had eased to a soft drizzle, it would be well after dawn before anyone would be willing to form a search party. She could go herself, take another ostrich horse - but most of the road they’d followed has no doubt washed away. There was always the bison, but she didn’t understand how to communicate with the animal in the air, nor did she think Appa would suffer her to ride him alone. 

Ostrich horse it is. 

She wraps some baozi in a cloth, mentally re-mapping the terrain she’d have to cover, when the door swings open and the Avatar walks in. In the intensity of her concern for his safety, she hadn’t heard his light steps climb the stairs.

The faint candlelight shows her the Avatar rain-spattered with rips in his clothes, weariness plain across his face, but otherwise safe and alive. Relief, gladness, joy and a hundred stormy emotions flood her and freeze her in place.

“You’re back,” she blurts.

“They tell me everyone’s accounted for,” he says, with a weary smile. “We did it.”

“The triumph is yours. You redirected a river.”

“And you got everyone to safety,” he points out. His gaze sets off a strong fluttering in her stomach, and her cheeks grow warm. 

“I saved you some food,” she says, in a brisk voice. “There’s clean water in that basin, and the bedroll is yours -,”

“Azula-,”

“If you need bandages or tonics I can ask the innkeeper -,”

“Hey, hey,” He covers the distance between them and takes her gently by the elbow. “Slow down for a minute.”

His touch scorches with the reality of his presence. The hot rush of feelings drain as quickly as they came, and Azula sags against him with a muffled cry. There’s a clatter as his staff hits the ground and he gathers her up, stooping to bury his face in the curve of her neck. She breathes the warm scent of his skin and sweat, the reedy dampness of his river-stained clothes, the steady beat of his heart against hers.

“I was worried,” she accuses, muffled into his shoulder as his arms tighten around her.

He laughs quietly. “You of all people should know I’m not that easy to kill.”

Infuriated, Azula pushes him away, only for him to grasp her hands and pull her back for a searing kiss. She bites his lower lip in reprimand, then soothes it with her tongue. He’s here, he’s safe, and they’re both alive, no more barriers between them except the clothes on their backs. It makes her giddy. He lifts her off her feet and the giggle that escapes her sounds suspiciously like Ty Lee. She doesn't care.

“I like hearing you laugh,” Aang says into her hair, like it’s a secret. 

Azula pulls his mouth back to hers.

They stumble towards the bedroll, tugging at and shedding each other’s clothes. He frees her of the simple blouse and trousers so she stands before him in her cotton sarashi. Aang exhales long and low, eyes closing briefly as though he’s appealing to some power higher than himself. “If you want to stop, tell me and I’ll - ” he begins, only for the words to catch in his throat when she pulls off the bindings to stand naked before him.

Azula drinks the look on his face like wine. It makes her sway on her feet. His mouth sweeps down over hers again and they fall into the bedding together. She draws him close with trembling hands. Nothing matters more in this moment than getting as close to him as she possibly can.

Chan had been eager but boorish. Ty Lee was as sprightly a lover as she was a friend, but there were hidden motives in her touch, and Azula never quite knew how much of the acrobat’s passion was sincere, and how much was self-preservation. And poor Sokun, her first, was hardly a lover at all, just another tool in Ozai’s machinations over her life. As Aang’s hands move down her body those other touches slide off and away, like an offering carried on a swift current.

It’s quick and hungry and blinding. Afterwards they lie with their chests pressed together, damp and panting, their kisses warm and soft and salty.

“What?” she asks when he gets a curious look in his eye.

“I want you again,” he says simply, making her clench with longing. He traces lazy circles on the small of her back, managing a look of  innocence. “But I wouldn’t want to exhaust you, princess.”

Azula runs a fingernail across his chest, reaching down to find him grown hard again.

“Worry about yourself, Avatar,” she murmurs, hitching her leg around his waist. He drives inside her and words melt on her lips.

It’s like the kata they used to pass the flame back and forth, all those nights ago. 

He moves languidly inside her while sucking on her breasts, gently ignoring her cries for more, and harder, ignoring her insistent fists pounding his back. She takes her revenge by riding him deeply, until he breaks with pleasure and his eyes roll in the back of his head. When they manage to focus he looks at her with complete and utter serenity, like he would die by her hand a second time, like he would accept his fate.

It takes every drop of her considerable will not to race alongside him over the edge of pleasure. Azula doesn’t want to lose herself, not yet. She wants to see him give, to savor every moan, every cry, every fevered uttering of her name. She’s dreamed of her name passing his lips this way, like a prayer. She loves the Avatar now, but the old urge for mastery remains. It feeds off her love and grows strong. And from the way he’s rutting fiercely, helplessly into her, Aang clearly enjoyed - and had perhaps long thought about - having her atop him.

She purrs, rolling her hips in the way she’s already observed drove him into a frenzy. “You love letting me win, don’t you?” Her answer comes in the violent arch of his spine as his own hips pump into her, as he calls her name over and over, like she’s the one with divinity etched in her skin. His hands hold her in place with a strength she relishes. Azula growls, kissing his mouth hungrily. She swallows her own name.

He evens the score a few moments later, making her come apart with just his fingers and a string of wicked praise perfectly chosen to drive her wild. The lustful worship he pours in her ear is, naturally, everything she’s longed for. It makes her toes curl and her body go boneless. She comes all over his wrist, slowly riding out the aftershocks of pleasure on his hand while he whispers honeyed words that, if she had her bearings she’d balk at for being too saccharine but, taste perfect in the afterglow.

As always, he’s proven a quicker study than she anticipated.

They reach a hazy, delirious balance. Every inch of her spine blossoms with pleasure. It blooms down her arms and legs to the soles of her feet. Like the aftercurrent of lightning. But there’s no fear, no hurry. They’re the eye of a storm and each breath is aching bliss. Brilliant colors swim behind her lids and Azula darts out her tongue, as if to taste them.

“I dreamed of you,” he says, feverishly, “ - too many nights to count. If there was a storm - I couldn’t sleep. I felt you everywhere.”

Her own confessions are more simple. She’s never had much use for flourish when the truth sufficed. And the truth is her nails staking claim on the flesh of his back. It’s her thighs wrapped tight around his torso, ankles locked over his spine. It’s the way she doesn’t contain her cries and gasps, how her throat arches in helpless pleasure, how fiercely she studies the taste of his mouth. And the truth is his name - not the Avatar, not the airbender, just Aang - whispered and sighed and caressed. Aang. In the small, dark room, countryless and soaring, Azula pours out his name like rain.

Chapter Text

A Few Months Ago

He finds her in the garden, nursing her third cup of wine and hiding from Ryō as the wedding festivities reach long into the night. The palace grounds flicker and twinkle with hundreds of dēnglóng, suspended from trees and set afloat in ponds, dyed striking red, gold and silvery blue, each one hand-painted with blessings for the bride and groom and for the future of their two nations.

“Quite the celebration, wouldn’t you agree?” Azula says, gesturing with her free hand at the brilliant grounds. The air thrums with laughter and drums and drunken shouts. It’s a bit much, in her opinion, but then again this wedding was a show of strength and unity as much as it was a celebration.

Aang looks down at his own cup, which is nearly full. Zuko’s brooch blazes on his shoulder, matching the blue sash embroidered with a simple crescent moon detail worn across his chest to honor the Water Tribes. His maroon tunic, while less resplendent than the clothes he wore to the engagement, is still well-tailored and chosen. “I’m sure your wedding won’t be far behind,” is his light reply.

Azula laughs. She’s a little unsteady on her feet, having helped herself to more wine than her physician recommended. But she doesn’t expect to feel ebullient at her own wedding, certainly not enough to partake in alcohol. In fact she doubts her wedding will be anything like this revelry, Firelord’s sister or no. Aang blinks at her in concern, his eyes searching her face.

“Zuko told you, I assume,” Azula says, her voice hardening. 

“He did.” Aang’s tone suggests there was more to that conversation than he could divulge. Not that he needs to. Azula can picture it as if she were present: Zuko and Katara, brimming with concern for their beloved friend, cautioning against any attachment to her. In their defense, she had felled him during the war with no remorse. And yet here she is, drawn to the Avatar despite her past crimes - or perhaps because of them. Maybe they were right, and there’s something dark and corruptible inside her that now wishes to lay claim to the Avatar a different way. Maybe Aang should heed their advice.

“It should hardly come as a surprise,” Azula says, taking a drink and fixing her eyes on the water-lanterns bobbing in the distance. “Even my father had plans for a political marriage for me.”

Aangs’s voice is quiet and clear amid the dull noise surrounding them. “Are you happy?”

Behind his shoulder, she glimpses Ryō drawing close. Zuko’s right that her betrothed is a good man, if terribly dull and timorous. He would keep her close beneath the watchful eye of her nation, and in time, the fearsome princess would dwindle into afternoon tea and idle gossip with other noblewomen. Not glory or triumph, but a dull, quiet honor to feed the peace Zuko and so many others have worked hard to establish.

Having reached them and spotted who she’s with, Ryō makes a hasty bow before launching into a polite if entirely too prolonged list of honorifics to greet the Avatar. 

Aang cuts in gently around the fifth or sixth praise-name, “Thank you, but that’s really not necessary. It’s an honor to meet you, Ryōchi.”

“Avatar Aang, the honor is mine,” Ryō says, nodding very seriously indeed. “Will you join us on the balcony for fireworks? I’m told they will be a sight to behold.”

“I’m sure they’ll be visible from my room,” Aang says mildly, giving Azula the distinct impression he’s not entirely pleased that Ryō had interrupted them. 

Ryō offers her an elbow she’s obliged to take. 

Aang looks steadily at her. “I suppose I’ll have to hear your answer another time, princess.”

Are you happy? 

His face is very still, watching her. From anyone else, a question about her happiness would inspire disdain. But Aang asks without mockery or pity, because her happiness matters to him, perhaps even more than it matters to herself. The knowledge cuts like a knife. It seems even when she isn’t trying, all she can do is hurt him.

“I am where I should be,” she replies.

Aang’s smile is faint and laced with regret. “Then I should congratulate you,” he says, but instead of a formal gesture he bends down to kiss her lightly on her cheek.

“Be well, Azula.”

Before she can formulate a response, he nods at both her and Ryō and melts away into the fire-lit gardens. Ryō, who had stood by in polite confusion while Aang spoke to her, begins walking her down the path that winds to the palace veranda. A tad less obsequious without Aang’s presence, he gives a nervous little laugh. “Air Nomad customs baffle me greatly. So quaint, don’t you think?”

Azula averts whatever doubt has clouded his mind by flashing a smile that has him scrambling to maintain his lofty facade. She changes the subject to ask about his sister’s recent marriage and, happily diverted, Ryō talks her ear off the rest of the way.

Present Day

Lazing in luxuriant sunlight, Azula contemplates leaving the small room in search of repast or burrowing deeper into the pillow. The storm has given way to a clear morning, and the sounds outside the window - people calling to one another, children playing and babies crying, bullock carts driving down the muddy roads - are reassuring signs of life. She wishes Aang were still in bed. As it stands, she must content herself with their mingled scents on the thin cotton bedding.

He had slipped out at dawn, dusting kisses along her shoulders and laughing at her sleepy complaints. 

Hunger and curiosity finally getting the better of her, Azula picks her way through the garments still scattered on the floor. There’s a fresh set of clothes, some soap and a washbasin of fresh water. After cleaning herself, she picks up the new clothes, a chong kben with a simple sbai, a regional style well suited for movement in a humid climate. In the small glass beside the washroom she looks at her reflection for the first time since she left Caldera City. She’s still thinner than she used to be, but her face is less peaked. Her skin has a warm glow and her eyes no longer flash like a cornered animal. Her hair, black and silken, spills freely around her shoulders.

You always had such beautiful hair.

A quiet thought creeps in that perhaps this is all a fever dream - the flood, the caves, the long trek to Yantai, Aang’s arms around her, all of it. For a moment, she’s afraid she’s going to wake up in her room at the palace, spirit-sick on the edge of death. 

But slowly, she wiggles her toes and lifts her arms, anchoring herself in the reality of where she is. What was it that Biyu said? A fine line between truth and madness. She would walk it the rest of her days. With a firm smile Azula reminds herself she’s nothing if not precise.

Her mother’s likeness, the woman on the other side of the glass, no longer frightens her. Azula touches the mirror with her fingertips, receiving and bestowing a blessing.

Downstairs she’s immediately handed a bowl of fragrant jook flecked with raisins, and a cup of hot tea. The tavern owner, no doubt in his efforts to impress the Avatar, had put on a generous display for the evacuees. There’s a bowl of food in every pair of hands and the man himself bustles around, exchanging elaborate pleasantries with the elderly, barking orders at his employees.

Azula threads through the crowd, many of whom are still reclined on their mats, mothers feeding children and some cleaning vegetables for the afternoon meal. Despite their temporary destitution there’s a lightness in the air. They’d suffered no casualties, and Yantai had welcomed them with open arms. For a people who had lived under the shadow of war for so long, this resilience is hardly surprising. Azula allows herself a measure of pride, not because she believes they had needed her, but because they had accepted her as fit to lead them.

The tavern like many other structures in this region had its kitchen outdoors, tucked in the corner of an open courtyard. Chickens peck peaceably among the flagstones, occasionally squawking in outrage when one of the children breaks away from their peers to chase down a bird. Amid the bustle and cooking, Azula finds Aang seated on the steps with a group of children hanging on his every word, showing them how to fold scraps of paper into tiny animals. A little girl around six years old is balanced on his lap, her face scrunched in concentration while Aang issues instructions over her shoulder. Careful and attentive, his hands guide her smaller ones in shaping the paper into a butterfly. Warmth drenches Azula from head to toe, but it’s an exhilaration edged with panic. She isn’t ready yet to consider why seeing Aang with children affects her so strongly. 

“May I join you?” she asks with a touch of stiffness, holding her bowl and cup. His eyes glide over her, warm and appreciative. She’s reminded of another sunny day four years ago, of Aang looking at her as though she were outlined in gold.

He scoots over to make room on the step, holding the child in his lap steady so as not to disturb the work of little fingers. Azula sits with dignity befitting who she is, despite her villager’s clothes, despite the blush on her face. 

“Slept well?” Aang inquires, shooting her a smile.

She sips tea and hides a smile of her own.“I suppose.”  The tea is strong and sweet and just bracing enough. After a few more sips she replaces her cup with the bowl of jook , balancing it on her lap. It’s much too hot for her loose hair, so she gathers it into a hasty bun.  She grows aware that the children are watching her, having stopped their crafts to peer inquisitively in her direction. Arching an eyebrow, Azula sits up straighter the way her teachers did, to radiate an air of detachment.

“Aang,”

“Hmm?”

She keeps her face and voice neutral so as not to alarm them. “Why are these children looking at me?”

Staring, is what she would say if she wanted to be rude. No telling how much Common they understood. 

Aang asks them a question in their native tongue but it happens too fast for her to follow. The girl on his lap giggles, which makes Aang laugh too. Increasingly sensitive to being the butt of some joke, Azula cuts him a sharp look.

“They think you’re beautiful,” Aang says with that crooked smile. “I told them I agree.”

They spend two more nights in Yantai helping the earthbenders erect temporary shelters for the evacuees. It would take weeks for the floodwaters to recede, but already there was talk of farmers from Yantai going south to Diamer and helping clear the fields. While Aang aids the earthbenders, Azula, thanks to her time on Deva Kanda, makes herself useful in other ways. She’s no good at cooking, but gathering firewood, cleaning chickens, scouring the cooking pots - these are tasks she takes to with gusto. At night they crawl into their small bed and exhaust each other anew. Today, with most of the evacuees taken care of, Aang is taking her somewhere close to Gaoling, where the southwestern tributaries of the Nan Shan flowed more placidly than their furious eastern sisters. 

Still, even here the current is strong thanks to months of steady rain, and Azula eyes the waters with skepticism. “Not exactly a calming bath,” she murmurs. But the Avatar barely seems to hear. He’s already undressing, pulling off his tunic and shoes and stripping down to his muddy brown trousers. Azula joins him on the grass, her limbs still stiff from the day - and night - before. She’s never been the simpering kind, but her face warms at the memory, and the little red crescents dotting his shoulders where her nails had clutched him close.

“Come on,” he holds out a hand, grinning like a fool. “The place is just over those rocks,” he says, gesturing downstream to where the river disappeared over the cliff.

Wary but amused she follows him to the edge and peers down. The sight makes her breath catch. Below them glistens a pool of pristine green water, surrounded by thick trees but still open to the sky. The waterfall, interrupted by several rocky outcroppings on the way down, gentles to a foamy stream that feeds the pool, which can only be reached by climbing down slippery, treacherous rocks - probably why it remained clean and unmolested.

“Hold on, princess.” He pulls her close with one arm, using his feet and other arm to airbend them down, landing briefly on two or three of the rocky shelves before taking off again. She suspects the move is mostly flourish, he’s charmingly vain about his airbending prowess. As someone who spent years perfecting the art of lightning, Azula doesn’t begrudge him this small vanity. On the contrary, she’s alarmed by how endearing it is. They land on the banks of the pool, feet sinking into a cushion of moss. 

“I found this place one summer flying back from Gaoling,” he explains, face shining with excitement. “The nearest village is miles away, and they get their water upriver. No one ever comes here.” The perfect place for a bath.

She glances at the thick, green jungle surrounding them on all sides. The prospect of beasts or guardian spirits or both were probably a powerful deterrent for any interlopers.

He winks. “Don’t worry, I’m the Avatar. You’re safe with me.”

It’s said lightly, the way he says most things, but the words fall into her like stones into water. She’s more than capable of fending for herself and always has been. To have someone else share the responsibility is at once disorienting and exciting. A new country to discover.

Azula draws close to him, charmed by the flush that covers his cheeks, by the dark centers of his eyes blowing wide and swimming with her face. “Show me, then.”

Leaving their clothes on a rock they walk naked between pillars of cascading water. A small cave behind the waterfall offers solid ground to stand on. “And then you just let the water do all the work,” he says, voice as proud as though he’d carved the waterfall with his own hands. She’s always enjoyed the elaborate ritual of royal baths, reclining on a hand-crafted chair while diligent hands massaged her scalp before combing her hair in a stream of warm, distilled water fragrant with oil and flowers.  This water is cold and electric, like the heart of the mountain it was born in. It thrills her head to toe. She stands under the rushing fall shaking out her hair, throat arched, laughter bubbling out of her. She never wants to bathe any other way. 

He lifts her against the rock and wraps her legs around his waist. She slides down onto him with a low cry of longing. Her hands pore over his back and shoulders, her mouth dancing over his. Their pace is broken, rough with lust yet somehow leisurely too, like they’re outside time. The sunlight turns emerald gold through the water, transporting them to the green light of a catacomb. She’s watching him fall, pierced by her lightning. Her hand rests above the splash of his scar, uncertain if she should, but longing to venture further. The look he gives her, challenging and dark with lust as he pushes deeper inside, is answer enough.

Azula touches the center of his spine. 

A bone-deep thrill paralyzes her arm. Sudden, possessive longing has her thighs squeezing tight around him as Aang shudders and almost loses his footing on the wet stone. “Azula -,”  his voice breaks into a hoarse, throaty moan, his grip on her tightening with an unbidden ferocity. There’s a faint hum, like a swarm of insects trapped behind a linen screen, and his skin glows hot in her hands. Azula sucks in a breath. The light changes color, beams of white slicing through the air to spill between her fingers where his tattoos are silver and alive. Her heart races wild enough to make her light-headed. He lifts his face from her shoulder, eyes blazing white, a white arrow burning on his forehead, and she doesn’t dare look away. 

“ Azula,” his voice rolls with muted thunder, with a thousand others. She quakes with pleasure, moaning inchoately. His hips grind into her and her body clenches and throbs against him, white-hot waves radiating from her core. Her rational mind is splintering with every second, plummeting into a soundless abyss of euphoria. 

She’s always believed nothing could thrill like the charge of lightning through your body, the energies clashing and mating furiously inside you, looking for an escape only you can provide. She’s wrong. This is a purer, more ecstatic charge. Shattering, frightening, beautiful. She can only manage quiet, keening gasps as the immensity of countless incarnations, the warm familiarity that’s Aang himself, his future entwined with hers, all wash over her in a blinding clarity, in shockwaves of bliss, until she’s certain she’ll reach some absolute zenith and break into a million little shards that scatter across the sky. It’s too much. Her thighs rock drunkenly against him. She would cry out if she had breath or bearings, but she wants to venture further, and further still. She doesn’t trust herself to come back from this precipice.

“Aang.” Urgent and breathless, she calls his name as though he’s very far away, though their bodies are pressed together, though he’s still moving inside her. “Aang I-,”

She hears him speak, but doesn’t understand the words. She only knows they’re beautiful. 

Her head falls on his shoulder. They’re somewhere else, carried along a swift, cosmic current that makes it impossible to do anything but breathe.

He kisses her and white light spills between their lips.

Azula presses him close while the white glow dims, soothing the fading vibrations under his tattoos. There’s nothing now but the rush of water and their ragged breaths, like they’ve run miles and miles. To her exhausted and painfully sensitive senses, the world is both quiet and unbearably loud. Her shaking legs slip from around his waist. Somehow, he manages to lower them both gently to the mossy ground.

" Nyingdu-la...”  Aang rains kisses all over her face as the storm calms. “Azula, nyingdu-la. Hey, come back to me.”

Too exhausted for any of her usual witticisms she lies in his arms watching refracted light dance on the roof of the cave. “What is that?” 

“That word,” she clarifies. “ Nyingdu-la.”

“It’s an old air nomad phrase.” He sounds reflective. “I don’t think anyone uses it anymore.”

“Tell me.”

“It doesn’t quite translate.” His fingers lightly cradle her jaw. “Just know that it's yours.”

They spend the night on the riverbank, in a shelter made of earth that he bends from the ground. Waking shortly after sunrise, Azula rifles among their things for the comb he’d given her - her hair is a snarl of tangles and while falling asleep in Aang’s arms without completing her usual hundred brustrokes had felt like a delightful indulgence after the exhaustion of lovemaking, in the light of day her propriety returns full force.

He’s standing in vrksasana in a shallow current, dawnlight liming the sculpted angles of his body and dancing along the blue tattoos. Azula finds a comfortable patch of grass nearby and begins brushing out her hair, humming the counting song Lo and Li taught her. It’s meditative and familiar, and slowly, as she tunes out the world to focus on her own voice, she grows aware of a hitch in the back of her mind, something demanding her attention, consciousness tugging at a dreamer. Azula pushes it away. Please, just a little more time -

She’s almost at a hundred strokes when she sees Aang walking out of the river, watching her intently. 

“Finished meditating already?” Her voice is arch.

He kneels to brush his fingers appreciatively down the cascade of her hair. “No.”

“So I’m a distraction,” she observes, tossing her hair over one shoulder and bending forward. His eyes latch on her lips and Azula’s breathing quickens. 

“A good distraction,” he states before pulling her into his arms. She laughs soft and clear as they tumble on the grass together. All one hundred brushstrokes gone to waste, but arms wrapped around his neck and breathless from kisses she finds she doesn’t care. Not at all.

“Avatar Aang,” she pretends to chide him in between kisses. “What would the great Air masters say, seeing you so easily distracted?”

He grimaces so strongly another giggle bursts from her lips. “I’d rather not think about my old teachers right now if you don’t mind,” he murmurs, kissing a path down her stomach. His mouth dips between her legs and she opens for him with a sigh of pleasure, all words forgotten.

She starts awake like someone’s clapped thunder over her head. It’s still afternoon, the sun slanting lazy gold through the branches of the tree they slept under. The world is the same, still golden and calm. Aang still lies behind her, breathing slow and even. His hand rests on her abdomen, pressing her close to him. She studies the broad, sun-worn knuckles, the blue constellation of his tattoo. Everything is as it should be, only she can’t shake the feeling it isn’t.

“What is it?” he murmurs, having felt her stir. Azula extricates herself gently and rises to a sitting position. He follows suit, clearly reading her worry on her face.

“My trial is in a week,” she says.

Aang nods. “It is...”

Hearing the slight catch in his voice, Azula meets his eyes. “I have to go back.” She sees his face darken. “Aang, you can’t shield me from this.”

The quiet fierceness of his response is startling.“Why not?” He covers her mouth with his, running a thumb down her cheek. “Can’t I be selfish, just this once?”

For a moment, she lets herself imagine it. Flying off with him and never returning home, eking out a renegade existence, sleeping under stars, seeing the world together. It’s so real she can taste it.

She pulls gently away, shaking her head. “I have to do this.”

“Are you worried about Zuko?” Aang asks. “Because I’ll talk to him. I’ll talk to the council too. The Avatar’s word still counts for something.”

“Zuko will tell you the same thing. It’s a question of honor ,” she says wryly. “If I don’t face the council, my honor will be forfeit.”

“The council! And what do they know about honor,” he scoffs, with a tinge of bitterness she’s unaccustomed to. She looks at him in surprise. “They’ll sit in judgement over you but won’t lift a finger to help people in need. They all have blood on their hands.”

“And if I run away from my trial I’m no better than them,” she replies evenly.

“You’re a hundred times better than them,” he says fiercely. “You aren’t afraid to look yourself in the mirror everyday.”

Azula rises, removing her hands from his. “And what do you propose? Us being fugitives together?”

“I’d protect you,” he says, and the simple sincerity of it floors her. It also frightens her.

“I know,” she says. “That’s why I won’t ask you to. I have to do this, Aang.”

Quiet anger simmers in his eyes. “And what about Ryōichi? Are you going back to him, too?”

Azula laughs without humor. “If the council restores my title, dear Ryō will be fending off a dozen suitors with more ambition, certainly more charm. Some of the council members might even make their own offers-,”

“This isn’t a game, Azula.” He’s on his feet in a gust of air, hand wrapped around hers. “What I feel for you -, ” he catches himself. Gone is the careful calm and detachment she recalls from the night of Zuko’s wedding. In its place Aang looks at her with vivid emotion, even a trace of anger. “You were wasting away there. I saw it. You know it. And now you want me to take you back? To let you go when I -,”

“I know,” she says looking him full in the face. “But if I don’t face them, I’ll...,” Her voice trails off. What does she want? The vision of herself atop Deva Kanda, a child in her arms and paintbrushes in her hair, calls so strongly it hurts. But the path isn’t clear yet. The Gates of Azulon, the golden roof of the Fire Palace, her countrymen’s judgement - these loom in her mind. She’s wanted these things for so long, humbling herself at the whims of the council. But the thought of fully reclaiming her old life no longer holds the same appeal. In its place she’s filled with confusion and thwarted longing. She tries to approximate what she’s feeling in words.“If I don’t face them, I won’t be myself.”

Aang smiles, distant and sad. “The life I have to offer - it’s not always waterfalls and beautiful scenery. All I have to my name is Appa, and even he doesn’t belong to me, not really.” 

“What are you saying?”

“That if the council restores your title then...well, I don’t have much to offer you, do I?”

“You have more to offer than you think,” she says, quietly.

“You don’t have to flatter me.”

“I thought you were finished with this,” she says.

“What?”

“Punishing yourself for her choices.”

He looks stricken, eyes flashing with sudden guilt. Releasing her hand, he steps backwards and looks to the sky, his voice quiet and even. “I think I should go finish meditating.”

Azula stands silent, her chest aching as he picks up his glider and walks downstream. She turns back to their shelter, exchanging a mutually wary look with the bison. The animal blinks as though he understands her turmoil. She’s about to brew herself another cup of tea to calm her nerves when there’s a wooden snap and swift breeze. Aang reappears beside her, his face naked with passion and regret.

Though she tries not to show it, she trembles in relief. “I thought you were going to meditate.” 

He strides forward and kisses her, her face held tenderly between his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll take you back to the Fire Nation tomorrow. I understand why you want to do this, and I trust you. It’s just  - well I’ve learned the hard way not to take tomorrow for granted,” he says with a faint smile. “But, I must concern myself with what is . We’re here together, right now. And I don’t want to waste a single second.”

A princess surrenders with honor . She had once spoken of honor and used her enemies’ hesitation to escape. In those days, as her father’s blazing right hand, the end justified all means. She looks at Aang now, the truth of what he feels shining in his eyes, and lets it settle on her like golden dust. All her life she’s striven for perfection, to smooth out every flaw, every inefficiency, every weakness with brutal thoroughness. She’s been whatever her country needed - a prodigy, a weapon, a figurehead, a scapegoat. Celebrated and despised, adored and ashamed. Even when they loved her, she was shackled - by her father’s ambition, her mother’s shadow, her forefathers’ war, her own hungers and fears. But this is something too priceless to compromise, something she won’t let anyone tarnish, not even herself. “What you’ve given me -,” Her voice catching in her throat, Azula seizes his face and kisses him softly, fiercely. “I love you,” she says through tears she has no desire to stem. I love you, I love you.

Aang crushes her against him, returning her kiss with fervor of his own. “Nyingdu-la,” he breathes into her mouth and she has a glimmer of understanding. Nyingdu-la. Something so cherished it’s almost terrible. So pure that it stings. That says, sorrowfully, blissfully, for me there is no other like you.

One night, on the journey back to Caldera City, they stop to rest on a mountainside. Lying side by side in the bison’s saddle, they contemplate the stars. By tomorrow she would be back in the palace, back in her country.

Azula entwines her fingers with his. “I’ve been meaning to ask. That day when I was painting, you said there was a legend about Deva Kanda among your people. What was it?”

His eyes search her face with calm curiosity. “Why?”

“Because I lied,” she says, looking down at their clasped hands. “I’d never been to Deva Kanda until you took me. Sometimes, I see things before they happen. I thought I was going mad.”

Aang looks thoughtful. “Explains a lot.” He clarifies when she shoots him a sharp, quizzical look. “During the war - it wasn’t just your bending that made you formidable. You had a kind of vision, a way of knowing and predicting things.” 

“You say that like it was a good thing.”

He shrugs. “A gift is a gift. What matters is how we use it.”

Azula pretends to make a face as he pulls her close. “You sound an awful lot like Uncle.”

His kisses pause halfway down her neck. “Again with the old men at inconvenient moments.”

“Strictly speaking, you’re an old man,” she returns, laughing gently as he moves her collar aside to ghost kisses over the curve of her neck.

He draws her against his chest. “And here I thought you liked me for my virile youth.”

She settles into his arms and they watch the starry sky. She’s never understood the sensation of freedom, nor even until this moment believed it could exist. And for that, whatever else lay ahead, she would be grateful to Aang for the rest of her days.

“This is how I remember the story.”

Her face tucked against his shoulder, she listens to a version of the first story all children who came to the Air temples once learned, a story of a warlike people learning to value peace over power, freedom over conquest. A story of how a nation became nomads. Of the first Avatar among the airbenders.

There on the back of a skybison, halfway between her home and a world she has yet to see, Azula hears for the first time the story of Avatar Skanda.

Chapter Text

Only the most devout visit the temple this early.

The sun is still peering over the horizon and mist lingering among the trees when Azula makes her way between the hibiscus and jasmine bushes towards the pagavadi. Ever since news of her pilgrimage to Deva Kanda, her newly-gained reputation for piety had spread like wildfire through the court. Some admired her, others pitied her, while still others assumed the pilgrimage had been a ploy to sway the council in her favor. Her mouth curls at the thought of genteel courtiers like Lady Renu learning the more intimate details of her journey with the Avatar.

The sound of stirring kokil birds and the sweep of an ekel broom fill the early morning air. A sage sweeping the grounds gives her a concerned frown. Shyu had passed away a year ago, and the new High Sage rarely performed temple duties, preferring to busy himself with prayer and study. This newer crop of acolytes were over-zealous, eager to cleanse the reputation of their order after the war. 

“Princess,” the man bows. “The temple was not informed you would be visiting.”

She gestures for him to stand. “Carry on with your duties. I won’t take long.”  

Tan shuffles his feet, looking as though he has more to say. Azula prods him with a touch of impatience. “What is it?”

“I wish you the blessings of Agni at your trial, Princess. We have consulted the calendar, and the trial falls on an auspicious day.”

In Ozai’s time, such a remark from an acolyte to a royal personage would be treated as imprudence, and possibly punished with demotion. The reality of change washes over her anew, even as a small part of her prickles at the man’s boldness. She returns a flame-palm to him. “Then I receive your good wishes with gratitude.”

He scrambles to return the gesture, his barely masked shock nearly making her laugh. She proceeds past the courtyard, leaving her shoes at the bottom of the steps before entering the inner sanctum. She isn’t certain what drew her here. The trial is in two days. She should be in her rooms poring over the carefully written statements she’d prepared for the council, or enjoying a walk in the royal gardens. She would sorely miss these small luxuries if they decided to confine her again. But the sanctum had been calling her, though she doesn’t know why.

The temple floors are cool beneath her feet. 

At the far center wall looms a statue of Avatar Roku, wreathed in golden silk curtains and surrounded with white and orange flowers. Incense curls up around the polished contours of her great-grandfather and Azula approaches cautiously, as though the statue might gain sentience and reprimand her.

It’s difficult to make out his face in the dim light. What manner of man was he? Whatever secret wars he fought, or grief he nursed, are hidden behind his stern features. If he looked out across the sea at the shore of a country to which he no longer belonged, and if his heart wrenched in longing for the lights of the plaza tower, she can’t know. If he would think her plan foolish or wise, if he’s proud or ashamed, if he sees any part of himself in her - there’s no point in speculating. She loves Aang, but her ancestor is a ghost. The immensity and intimacy of such a relation is too much to contemplate. Azula offers a simple bow and moves away. 

A pang goes through her and she wishes Shyu was alive, to counsel her under the frangipani tree one last time.

 She contents herself with observing the painted panels on the wall, chronicles of the lives of Fire Nation Avatars preceding Roku. The central panel is dedicated to Avatar Rajni and Azula studies each image. Rajni, fleeing across the earth with Agni burning inside her. Rajni, mastering earth, air and water, trailing terror in her wake. Rajni, beggared and alone. Rajni, saving a village from the ravages of a vengeful spirit. Rajni facing the lion turtle, facing death and transformation. And the final panel, brilliant and vivid, of Avatar Rajni, her eyes aglow with Agni’s light, her right hand raised at a group of villagers, palm outward in the abhaya mudra, dispelling fear and promising peace. Her left hand cups a small flame. Below the mural, gold letters shine on a stone tablet. The Laws of Agni, that all firebenders are called to obey.

Everything is suddenly clear.

Azula’s feet remain fixed to the floor, until the rising sun fills the sanctum and lines Rajni’s painted eyes with tender, brilliant fire.

She dresses for the trial in red and kingfisher blue, the colors of the nation and the color of the flames that once won her both glory and infamy. Preeti carefully sets the gold-flame headpiece in her hair and Azula studies her reflection. She looks ornamental and imposing, a blend of her mother’s grace and her father’s disdain. She smiles, complimenting Preeti on her work, and the image shifts, becoming something new. 

Her attendants trail her across the lawns to the Fire Lord’s throne room, and Azula leads them the long way through the gardens, taking stock of all she sees, collecting pieces of memory to treasure forever. The fountain where she had tricked Zuko and Mai into playing that game with an apple and a knife. Beyond the trees, the happy chittering of the turtle-ducks her mother had loved, the verandahs that she and Mai and Ty Lee went tearing down with all the unchecked wildness of youth. Newer ones combine with the old. The tree under which Aang loved to meditate, where he so rudely disturbed her slumber by tossing delighted children into the air. The pond where, soothing her worries, he had shown her how to move like a waterbender . The azumaya they’d sat in the afternoon she first envisioned Deva Kanda without knowing it was a real place. 

Aang had left mere hours after seeing her safely returned from the Earth Kingdom. He would return for her trial, but she had made him swear not to attempt any inroads on her behalf. She doesn’t want them to try her as the Avatar’s lover. It wouldn’t be honorable. But honor doesn’t erase how much his presence would comfort her. She worries. For years she had prepared herself to accept the council’s verdict, to accept either imprisonment or a placid marriage. Things are different now. She’s tasted a life that was neither, that was exciting and demanding and rich in countless ways. A life she wants more than anything. And the wanting makes her afraid.

One of her attendants prods her quietly when she lingers by the azumaya. “Princess?” 

Azula glances at the sun, the faint clouds, the living blue sky. It’s time.

She sits on the floor, at the head of the council table. Beyond them, on a raised dais ringed with fire sits Firelord Zuko, his wife Lady Katara, positioned at his right hand. Their expressions are hidden from Azula but she senses tension in their posture. Her own nerves strum faintly as the proceedings begin. Just because she had a plan didn’t mean it would work, nor that she could escape the council’s evident desire to make an example of her.

Minister Daisuke clears his throat and gestures for the council to begin. His high brow wrinkles in displeasure at the sound of someone entering the chamber, then quickly clears into something more amenable. “Avatar Aang. We weren’t aware you would be joining us today.”

Zuko cuts in with authority. “We’re honored to have you, Avatar. Please, seat yourself.”

Azula watches Aang thread through the crowd of courtiers gathered to witness her trial. He’s in his travel clothes, but the signature orange cloth is draped gracefully across his body, and the ceremonial wooden beads decorate his chest. He settles into lotus in the back of the room, unmindful as always of cutting eyes. Azula feels lighter.

Daisuke takes his time enumerating her mistakes and afflictions. Her full title as Princess of the Fire Nation can only be officially restored, with the lands, privileges and freedoms it affords, on two conditions: that her mind is sound, and that her repentance outweighs her crimes.

Overthrowing the Earth King, imprisoning the Warriors of Kyoshi without trial, imprisoning Fire Nation citizens without trial, usurping the authority of Fire Lord before an official coronation, killing the Avatar - they enumerate each act with precise severity. Acts that once brought her glory, now turned to shame. The sweet turned to salt, as Biyu had said. The way of all existence.

“Azula of the line of Sozin, do you deny that you committed these crimes?”

There were corrections she could make. It was war, and no one's hands were clean. Her father had appointed her Firelord on his way to crown himself emperor of the world. Some of the men and women in this room had flown the Phoenix King’s flag from their windows. They would have sold their mothers for a chance to kiss Ozai’s hem. But what would that matter? It was her duty as a child of Agni to clean herself of shame. In her great grandfather’s day, traitors and cowards were thrown into vats of open flame so Agni, who despised liars, might consume their polluted flesh. 

“No, Minister.”

A hum goes up from the crowd, silenced under Daisuke’s glare. “In the years since you have been released from confinement, you have performed the duties required by your Firelord. You have visited with our citizens at his behest. You have even sought the Avatar’s counsel, and honored the Spirits. Did you perform these acts of your own will, in a clear and unclouded mind?”

“My mind,” she says, “is as clear as any in this room.”

This time, there’s only heavy silence broken by a few strained whispers. Minister Daisuke’s face is dark as a stormcloud. He’s been both a staunch ally and a thorn in Zuko’s side since the coronation.  A persistent force against corruption, but also a stickler for tradition. Azula remembers him from Ozai’s war rooms too. Daisuke had served under Azulon, and disapproved of Ozai’s grandiose ambitions. The military might of the Fire Nation, Daisuke believed, was too valuable to be squandered by a second son bristling to fill his older brother’s shoes. His disdain for Ozai had extended to Azula too, seeing her as fruit borne of the same vainglorious tree.

His stern voice rings through the room. “Do these proceedings, the laws of our great country, amuse you, Princess?”

“I have waged war in the name of our great country, minister,” she returns evenly. “As others have for a hundred years. Children have been conceived and born and buried, and the war continued -”

“The Fire Nation is not on trial -”

“No, I am,” she says, her voice rising an octave. The room grows quiet. “I’ve seen into the shadows that lie on our country’s conscience. Some of those shadows were even cast by my hand. And so I say again: my mind is as clear as any of my fellow citizens’.”

“And as a citizen of this nation you will be held to account,” Daisuke’s voice thunders through the room. Behind him, Azula sees Zuko stir.

“I will be held to account by greater forces than you, Minister Daisuke,” Azula says, her breath trembling in her chest before the next words rush out clean and clear. “Let the council bear witness that today I forfeit my title, my duties, and my standing as a citizen of the Fire Nation. I invoke the Seventh Law of Agni.”

When the din subsides, it’s the Firelord who speaks. Zuko’s voice is taut with barely suppressed anger and confusion. “Princess Azula, are you asking to be returned to confinement?”

“No, my lord brother,” she says, meeting his eyes across the room. “I am willingly, in clear mind, relinquishing my title, the lands and monies that accompany it, and my claim to the throne.”

She can’t read Katara’s face, but Zuko grows quiet as the seriousness of her declaration sinks in.

Daisuke, his face white with outrage, interjects. “A ridiculous notion. You were always clever, Princess Azula. I see what this is - a rhetorical maneuver to evade responsibility-,”

“I assure you, Minister, that I’m quite serious.” She gestures for one of the servants to come forward with the ledger of paperwork she’d had prepared and directs them to place it before the council. Daisuke glances at the contents, flitting through the pages before raising a sharp eyebrow. He passes the ledger to his compatriots and gives her a wary glare. “As you can see,” Azula says, “I have left clear instructions about my property. All that’s required now is the Firelord’s seal-,”

“Even if the council grants your preposterous request,” Minister Ishii cuts in, “it is for the imperial treasury to decide what becomes of forfeit royal property.”

“Of course,” Azula demurs. “Although I trust a decorated personage such as yourself will not begrudge an old woman and a war widow their dues.”

“Who is she referring to?” Zuko asks the council.

Ishii chimes in again. “Commoners, milord. They have no bearing to the royal family, nor any claim to -,”

Azula cuts in. “Gomako Ito, head teacher of the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, next-of-kin to Tala Dimayuga, first officer in the thirty-sixth regiment, killed in the Siege of Ba Sing Se. As you can see, I have also recommended Lieutenant Dimayuga be posthumously awarded the Phoenix Seal for courage on the battlefield. The second is Biyu of Diamer, a healer to whom I owe my own health.” She pauses, letting her words sink in. “My clothes and jewels are to be made a dowry for my maid, Preeti.”

Ishii huffs. “We will take it under advisement.” 

“It’s done,” Zuko’s voice rings out. “These are worthy causes, Minister, and you may convey that to the treasury when you inform them of my decision.”

“As you wish, milord.” 

Daisuke’s crowy gaze returns to her. “Nevertheless, Princess, your request is highly unorthodox and will require further deliberation -,”

“Am I to be imprisoned?”

“No.”

“Then I am free to leave?”

Daisuke’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “And where, pray, shall you go? We have treaties with the Earth King and the principality of Kyoshi Island that says -,”

“I will go nowhere I am not welcome. And where I go, I will not be an emissary of the Fire Nation, but simply...Azula.” She looks around the room, seeing Aang watching her with an unreadable expression. “Let this be my sentence, Minister. Let me be countryless.”

“The purpose of this trial -,”

“Minister Daisuke, I assume you’re familiar with the story of Avatar Rajni? When Avatar Rajni reflected on her deeds,” Azula says, “she swore an oath to Agni that she would leave her home behind and spend her life helping the world. Restoring balance. In some of the ancient manuscripts, the Seventh Law of Agni is sometimes even referred to as Rajni’s Mandate.”

“You are not Avatar Rajni,” Daisuke replies, eyes flat and cold.

Azula laughs. “Assuredly not. But I have been blessed by Agni, as she was, and I have used those gifts to bring harm. As Agni teaches, I must now do the opposite.”

She can tell from Daisuke’s growing impatience that she’s struck a chord. She’s argued her case on the basis of history and custom, invoking the renewed investment in restoring the ancient mandates of Agni that Daisuke championed. Mandates that Sozin and his sons had laid waste.

“Azula, are you sure?” Zuko asks, voice full of concern, protocol momentarily forgotten. Despite his lapse, the room is silent with respect for their Firelord. Azula regards him with a swell of bittersweet pride. He’s come far, and worked hard to leave behind the hot-tempered, banished prince and become a leader worth following. 

“Firelord Zuko, four years ago you asked me to restore my honor. As you well know, there is no honor without sacrifice.” Azula reaches up with great care and removes the gold-flame headpiece for the last time. She lays it on the ground. “My honor will be found in the world beyond this country, or it won’t be found at all.”

Zuko is silent, a glimmer of surprise and something like pride touching his face. For a moment he looks so much like their father her heart squeezes tight. But Ozai’s face never wore such a look of gentleness and wonder, not for Zuko, not even for her.

Daisuke frowns. “So, you voluntarily concede to life as a vagabond? If that is your desire and the will of the council, allow me to enumerate. As the Seventh Law decrees, you shall forfeit your possessions, your royal privilege and your proximity to the throne. Your name shall be erased from records of the royal line. When the sages pray to Agni for the safety and prosperity of his children, your name shall not be among them. Upon your death you will receive no funeral rites, your ashes will not be interred with the royal house, and your name will not be engraved upon the spirit stones. The Fire Nation will say no prayers for your demise, nor recognize any children of your issue.” 

The Minister looks at her with pity.

“Choose wisely, Princess. Once invoked, the Seventh Law cannot be reversed. Not by you, not by me, not even by the Firelord himself.” For the first time, his eyes shine with sympathy. Daisuke would die for his country at a moment’s notice, but his love is not tied to personal ambition. Unlike her father, for whom the Fire Nation was a means to an end, Daisuke is a true believer. Aang was not wrong to scorn the council for their hypocrisy. Most of the men sitting in judgement were bureaucrats, career politicians who had elbowed their way to power while those beneath them paid the price. But Daisuke was a soldier. His marriage had been childless, and his wife had succumbed to sickness while he was away in battle. He had never remarried, though his military rank gave him his choice of brides, and in the absence of offspring he had tended to his country as a beloved child. Azula looks at him now and sees not condescension or scorn, but the wary patience of a father. He speaks slowly and with care. “You will be an exile, child.”

Azula bows her head and opens her palms. “As Agni wills it, I accept my fate.”

Daisuke surveys his fellow councillors, who seem to reach an uneasy consensus. “Then it’s done.” The room hums and buzzes, whispers spreading like wildfire, but instead of silencing them, Daisuke rises to his feet. “Before he passed, the Venerable Shyu wrote me a letter on your behalf, attesting to your character.” His stiff face lightens. “I see now that he spoke the truth.” The minister bows, saluting her with his hands.

Having spoken at length, Azula finds herself silent. She stands, and offers Daisuke a flame palm in return.

Aang slips between the milling crowd and takes her hand. The gesture will set tongues wagging at Caldera City for years to come, but swift on the heels of that thought comes the dizzying knowledge that such things are no longer her concern.

Reality washes over her like a tide, then recedes. She’s light-headed and bubbling with laughter. People stare on their way out of the room. 

Aang clasps both her hands between his own. “Princess?”

“I’m not a princess anymore,” she points out, giggling. Studying their joined hands, her voice grows quiet. Aang rests his forehead on hers. They breathe together.

“What now?”

Azula leans into the callused warmth of his palm. When he kisses her, he tastes like sunlight and honey, and smells of flying. Her hands clutch his shoulders as though the two of them are sailing through the sky. The Avatar, her defeat and her hope. Aang, her lover and her companion. The bloom of joy and freedom at the end of the silver path of lightning. In the throne room of the imperial palace, in full view of its citizens, Azula throws her arms around the last airbender and laughs into his kiss.

Chapter Text

The judgement goes into immediate effect. 

With the Fire Sages as witnesses, Daisuke and Zuko sign the papers formalizing her exile, and in an instant Azula is transformed from treasured figurehead to stranger. Guards accompany her to gather what belongings she needs from her chambers - a small grace. Those who were subject to the Seventh Law were sometimes ejected with little more than the clothes on their back. In some cases, they were denied even that.

Azula dresses in her plainest shenyi, pale-green with cream colored trousers - comfortable and easy to move in. It’s the simplest garment she owns, but still too fine for travel and life on the road. She’ll have to purchase hardier items soon. Preeti is permitted to assist her one last time by removing the elaborate pins holding her hair in place, but when the girl goes to comb her hair, Azula forestalls her. She fashions her hair into a simple braid herself. Demure in the presence of the guards, Pretti nevertheless shoots her a small smile. Azula hopes she relishes the life her new dowry will enable. As for herself, she gathers her paintbrushes, a few pots of ink and a sheaf of rice-paper into her bag. There’s only one more thing she needs.

The guards march her through the palace, down the long hallway dedicated to Firelords past. Their painted images loom above her, but whether in judgement or apathy, she cannot say. She’s paid her debt to them and their nation all her life. The Seventh Law strips her of their protection, but it also frees her from their claim. 

In the middle of the hallway, surrounded by her own retinue, the new Firelady awaits her. Katara dismisses the other guards and walks beside Azula the remainder of the way. Azula stays silent - she knows this conversation has been a long time coming.

The silence between them lacks open animosity, but it’s far from warm. She senses that what Katara fears isn’t her, or even another war, so much as failure. Failure to protect, failure to fulfil expectations, failure to safeguard the things and people you love. It’s a fear she knows intimately. “Zuko informed me it was your idea to negotiate a trade agreement between the river clans and the South Pole.” 

Katara scoffs, unsettled by the sudden change of subject. “It’s still only an idea.”

“A shrewd one, if you can get the council behind you.”

“That means nothing if we can’t convince the river-country to trade with my people.”

“You will,” Azula says simply. “And if Whaletail Island offers the use of their ports, the South will be secured.”

The waterbender raises her eyebrows. “That was my plan.” The North had  been generous with her tribe but - relying on a single source of benevolence is always risky. Resentments emerge, then demands, then conflict. Katara surveys her with a wary and curious gleam. “Tell me, why are you so eager to leave everything behind? Your title, your influence.” Your country goes unsaid. She might be an appointed delegate of the Northern Tribe, the Firelord’s Imperial Consort, but Katara’s a Southern woman to the bone. If the North, or any other faction, hoped to use her to make inroads that eclipsed the South, they were woefully mistaken. 

Passing Azulon’s portrait, Azula glances at the image of her grandfather, her namesake. Blue waves fan out from his feet and head. Under Azulon’s rule, the naval might of the Fire Nation had increased tenfold. It was his ambition to conquer the North and South Poles, the last barrier between the Fire Nation’s mastery of the world’s oceans. The thought of that cantankerous old man, who surely still haunted these halls, having to suffer a waterbender on the throne, brings Azula a dry smile. In Firelady Katara, it appeared the gods, ever wry and fickle, had granted Azulon’s ardent wish for the oceans. Azula looks away from the portrait to the path ahead. 

“I’ve cut my teeth on war long enough. It’s time for something new.”

“You’re serious about this aren’t you?” Katara says. “You’re really going to travel with Aang, live with him...” The smallest hint of accusation lingers in her voice. “Is this really what you want?”

“Cut to the chase, L ady Katara.”

Katara sniffs. “I’m happy for you both.”

“No, you’re not.”

The waterbender’s face hardens so swiftly a lesser person would have ducked for cover. Azula is quite certain the water in the flower vases have turned to ice. “Go on,” Azula says coolly. “Tell me how you really feel.”

Katara laughs, pressing a strand of hair behind a jeweled ear. “Oh you think it’s so easy. You have no idea the position I’m in. Tell you how I really feel? You don’t deserve to breathe the same air as Aang. You hunted him, you killed him-  But I can’t say those things, can I? I have to be understanding. Forgiving .” She looks at Azula, eyes cool and grim. “One day, Aang is going to forgive the wrong person. For your sake, I hope that isn’t you.”

She can’t say it’s surprising. In Katara’s place, she would feel no less wary or vengeful. “For what it’s worth, I agree,” Azula says as they continue walking. “He is entirely too forgiving.”

They continue the rest of the way in silence, until they’re at the steps leading to the outer courtyard.  Reaching into her satchel, Azula finds what she’s looking for and hands the object to Katara, whose eyes blow wide. The waterbender takes the comb with slow fingers. Beside the rich magnificence of her robes and jewels, the whalebone is pale and clean. The faintest smile trembles at the corner of her mouth, and her eyes glisten with memory. Then she gives Azula a hard, suspicious look.

“Oh it’s far too crude for my tastes,” Azula says airily, looking Katara in the eye. “Take it from someone who knows. This place has quite a knack for remoulding you in its image. If I were you, I’d start holding on to a few things. Things that remind you who you are.”

Katara doesn’t reply, though she tucks the comb inside her sleeve. Azula slings her bag over one shoulder again and prepares to step out of the palace. She lingers briefly. “Honor your losses, and savor your victories.” She bows, offering the flame-palm. “May Agni bless you with a long and prosperous reign, lady Katara.”

Katara returns a wary look. “Did you fall from Appa and hit your head?” But her wrath seems to ebb, and she stands there looking only mildly irritable, like a perfect sister-in-law.

Azula smiles, waving with a hint of her old, cocky self. “Take care of Zuzu. He’ll need you.”

While Aang readies the bison for travel, Azula kneels in the earth and lifts a palmful of soil into a silk handkerchief. When she’s tucked it away, Zuko stands before her. 

She bows to the Firelord one last time, and he raises her up. Aang herds the bison further away to give them a moment alone. Seated side by side on a stone bench, brother and sister look silently down at Caldera City in the setting sun. The roofs shine richly red, and the trees stir in the warm air that smells faintly of salt. Beyond the gap in the crater’s peak, the horizon is blue and twinkling. On clear mornings, if you strained your eyes, you could see the gleaming statue of Azulon keeping silent watch over the sea. Everything is suddenly both strange and unbearably familiar. It’s a long time before either of them speak. 

It’s Zuko who breaks the silence. “I think this is crazy, by the way.”

Azula shrugs. “A little madness is a good thing.”

He frowns. “That sounds like something Uncle would say.” 

“Impossible. I’m far more succinct.”

A faint smile appears on Zuko’s face.

“I am sorry about breaking my engagement.”

“Are you really?”

“Sorry that I don’t have to marry Ryo? No. Sorry I couldn’t face the truth sooner.” Azula looks away, pushing herself to find the words. “Sorry that you must tie up my loose ends.”

“I suppose that’s the role of a big brother,” he says, dryly. “Besides, there’s a dozen other women far more suitable for a Keosho wife.”

“Careful, Zuzu. I still have my pride.”

“Face it Azula. You were always meant for bigger things.” He pauses. “Granted, I didn’t imagine that meant you’d...travel with Aang.” 

Azula laughs at his vague discomfort. “I take it you don’t want plenty of letters, describing our travels in great detail.”

“Please don’t.” He looks at her and his smile fades. He appears thoughtful, even a little ashamed. She angles her head with a sharp, prompting look and Zuko brushes his chest, the hidden scar, before confessing, “There were times - more than I care to admit - when I wished you would disappear. So I wouldn’t be in your shadow.”

“Well. It’s not like I’ve always had your best interests at heart. Family tradition, I suppose.”

“But these past few years - they haven’t been so bad, have they?” 

Azula has prepared herself for Zuko’s wrath, his disappointment, even for him to try and half-heartedly prevent her leaving. But looking at his face, she isn’t prepared for the realization that he will miss her, and that she will miss him. 

“No.” She smiles. “They haven’t.”

A servant hurries up to them, nearly buckling under the weight of two massive yak pelts. The boy drops them at her feet with shaking knees, breathlessly explaining that they are a gift from Lady Katara, and thrusting a note into Azula’s hand. Though hastily written, Katara had still used parchment with the imperial seal.

Azula,

You’ll need these when you travel to the poles. I trust you can sew a crude parka.

Safe journeys to you both,

Lady Katara, Daughter of Hakoda, of the Southern Water Tribe

Imperial Consort to his Highness, Firelord Zuko

Azula has no idea how to sew a parka; she doubts the fancy embroidery she was briefly taught as a child would suffice to knit these heavy pelts into a wearable garment - which Katara knew of course. The gift is a challenge and a reminder of who they each were. Azula smiles. Katara would survive the Imperial Court with her selfhood intact, in ways she herself had never managed to. The pelts in her arms smell wild and musky and foreign, of lands she has yet to see. She runs her fingers between the shaggy fibers and wonders how her firebending would fare in the freezing climate and sunless days, and excitement stirs to see for herself.

“Did you know Dad spent time at sea?” Zuko says.

“Yes, he mentioned it once or twice. Never in much detail, though.”

Zuko nods. “He got lost for a while. I found some old letters in his desk that he wrote to grandfather, but he never sent them.”

“Really?” It’s difficult for Azula to reconcile the Ozai she knew with some second-guessing prince who hid unsent letters to his own father. Then again - he had always invested a great deal in the appearance of strength and power. The memory of him spitting in her face returns, tinged with pity and contempt. “I assume you read them.”

“A few,” Zuko admits, as though it pained him to have violated the privacy of a man who burned half a child’s face and called it ‘honor’. “They were hard to read. He was describing all these places, but he seemed embarrassed that he found them beautiful. I see why he never sent them to grandfather.” He looks at the sky. “I wonder if he got lost on purpose.”

“Unlikely,” Azula says. “He hated privation of any kind. I doubt he felt any differently about shipboard life, even if he occasionally enjoyed the scenery.”

“You’re probably right. I guess I still wonder if -,”

“If there was a chance we might have all been happy? Maybe if Dad laid anchor somewhere in a remote village? You and I could be fishermen,” she jokes.

Zuko laughs, and the air is lighter. He clasps her hand and does something unusual. He kisses her forehead. Unprepared for the physical affection, something they hadn’t shared since they were children, Azula isn’t sure how to proceed. Zuko, instantly embarrassed, pats her shoulder with a stilted smile. “I’m glad you didn’t get lost,” he says, his good eye crinkling.

Azula looks away, looks at the horizon. She holds onto her brother’s hand. “Me too.”

Somewhere over the ocean, gliding through the night sky, Azula is combing out her hair while Aang watches. He leaned against the edge of the saddle, legs crossed at the ankle. They aren’t far from their destination, but for now it’s just them, the bison’s quiet, content rumbling, the aging lemur asleep by Aang’s feet, and the sky, dark and ethereal around them. 

“What are you smiling about?” she asks.

He gives an easy shrug. “Just thinking about how Zuko’s ministers can add ‘stealing our princess away’ to the list of reasons they don’t like me.”

Azula gathers her hair into a bun. “You didn’t steal me away, I absconded.” A sudden gust pulls the hair from her hands to swirl around her face and shoulders. The air settles so smoothly anyone would think it was the element itself, and not the airbender beside her, that had an interest in her hair. 

“Leave it down,” Aang says. “Please?”

Intrigued by the heat in his eyes, she complies. Her face warms under his scrutiny, and a memory stirs. “Cloudeaters,” she says.

Aang tilts his head.

“Some of the girls in school used to tell stories. Folktales, if you will, about airbenders stealing women away. If you let your hair blow in the wind, the cloudeaters would abduct you, that kind of thing.” Azula had never had patience for such fanciful talk. They seemed a distraction from the realities of troop movements and mastering all her firebending forms. Now they fill her with new interest. 

Aang laughs. “And the stories said we ate clouds? How fearsome.”

“Cloudeaters and skybrides,” Azula confirms. “If we didn’t observe proper etiquette, they would take us as their skybrides, and we would never taste food again. Trading white rice for clouds was the popular refrain.”

“That makes sense. White rice was a luxury during the war. Still is, for many people.”

Azula nods. Many could only afford to serve it at weddings.

He rubs his chin, as though deep in thought. “Well, I can’t say I’m flush in white rice. But-,” he waves his hand and the air coalesces around his fingers, producing small clouds shaped like medallions of rice. He holds out the puffs of air with great ceremony. “For you, my skybride.”

“I am not eating that.”

“Why not?” He pops a ball of cloudy air in his mouth. “It’s ceremonial. Here, try some.”

Her lips twitch in a smile. “No.”

Azula moves fast, though not fast enough. Lunging forward, Aang seizes her in his arms and they roll across the saddle together, until a chastising rumble from Appa halts them. Aang’s lips found hers, the clouds long vanished from his hands. She wraps her arms around his neck as their laughter fades into soft, breathless silence. They would land soon but for now, the sky is enough.

Chapter Text

I should tell you, it’s been a long time. I was a boy, and much more interested in the flying lessons. I might get some details wrong.

What was the weather like that day?

Why do you want to know that?

Humor me.

It’s cold, but the sun is very bright. The temple flagstones are rich with gold. Monk Pasang had awoken Aang early to walk the mountainside with him. Aang isn’t sure where they’re going - but Pasang walks steadily, hands folded behind his back, his steps ever so slightly hurried. Aang follows along, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. 

“You’re cold,” Pasang notes, not giving Aang a chance to deny it. “Practice your breathing exercises. We can’t command the air unless we master its language.”

If this were Gyatso, Aang would ask for more instruction, perhaps even a demonstration. But Pasang was stern and forbidding and expected his instructions to be obeyed without question. Just last week, he’d been reprimanded by Pasang in front of the other monks for asking too many “impertinent questions.” So Aang stays quiet and tries to regulate his breathing without moving the air around him. This proves difficult. The air was more than an element, it was a friend and a companion who followed Aang everywhere, who Aang could never be parted from. So how could he not reach out and play with his friend?

“Control, pupil Aang,” Pasang says, reading his mind. “Air is not a toy. A strong gust of wind can flatten trees and crack mountains. As airbenders, it is our duty to honor the power of our element, to respect it, and to never abuse that power.”

“Yes, Master Pasang.”

Pasang grunts in approval, and they continue up the rocky path.

Is it very painful? Remembering these things.

Sometimes. Other times it’s like being hungry for a fruit that’s not in season. No matter what you eat, it’s never quite the same.

I see.

I guess hunger is a part of the story. Skanda was born a prince, in a high palace on a plateau of clouds. From his window, he could see the outermost reaches of his father’s kingdom, a vast territory. But he was never satisfied. He hungered to climb down from the sky and walk the world with his own two feet. Of course, as a prince, they told him this was impossible.

Of course.

You royal types don’t like to travel, do you?

Confine your remarks to the story, Avatar.

As you say, princess. 

They reach the high places dotted with the chir and lacebark pine trees the lemurs loved, planted by monks many generations before them. When a monk turned thirteen, he spent a year working with the pines as part of his tutelage. This early in the morning the lemurs are still quiet, and Pesang walks carefully between the trees until he reaches a copse surrounded by dense shrubs. “Quiet now,” he instructs Aang over his shoulder. “Follow my lead.”

Aang thinks longingly of the warmth of the breakfast hall where his temple brothers would now be sitting down to their morning tea and thukpa . By the time he and Pasang returned, it would be too late, and he’d have to make do with nuts and tea until lunchtime. But even more worrying - he might miss the morning flying lesson. That was his favorite time of day, soaring through the cool, rosy air, the sunlight slowly chasing every trace of sleepiness from your bones as you drifted and gilded and bobbed on a sea of pinkish clouds. Some of his peers were still hesitant, still wary of trusting their gliders, but not him. From the moment Aang had touched a glider, the instrument became an extension of his body. He never liked to be too far from it, would sometimes even sleep with it beside him. For him, the glider represented an airbender’s freedom - you could slip away from any danger, or soar into the sky and leave your troubles behind, so long as you kept your glider close.

Skanda’s story, our story, is one of loneliness. When he would not fight his father’s wars, he was banished from the Sky Kingdom. In those days airbenders ruled the skies, and those who ruled the sky ruled the earth too. From their high palaces, they could give or withhold rain, chase clouds away, whip up storms and forestall them. People worshipped them as gods, and those who didn’t were swiftly crushed. You see, airbending was the first spiritual art born into the world, and the Sky Kings used the power that came with this gift to rule a vast empire.

When Skanda was banished, he swore never to airbend again. For many years he wandered the lands desolate and alone. Those who recognized him as an airbender fled his presence, others tried to kill him in vengeance for their fallen people. Each time he found a refuge, his identity was discovered, and he was forced to flee. Finally they chased him out to the vast plains of the western Earth Kingdom, and a desperate Skanda used his last strength to fly to the top of a mountain and escape his pursuers. Safe at last he fell into a deep sleep, and when he awoke, the landscape had changed. He realized his refuge was not a mountain, but the back of a great Lion Turtle.

The mighty beast permitted Skanda to remain on his back, and they travelled the world together. When Skanda, starving and desperate, devoured the fruits and roots he found aplenty on the Lion Turtle’s back, a strange thing happened. He awoke and found that he himself had turned into whatever he consumed. The jackfruit, the plantain, the lizards. He lived and died as they did and returned to his body. This is the origin of the Lion Sutra, which teaches us to thank the earth before we consume its fruits, and forbids us from consuming the flesh of living beings.

The Lion Turtle taught Skanda many things about himself and the world. Skanda learned how to travel the astral planes and see the future and the past, he learned how to open his sahasrara chakra and draw power from the fabric of the universe itself. He learned how to bend the other elements, and became the first Avatar before the world knew what an Avatar was.

That was lonely too.

In the end, it was time for him to rejoin the world of humans. The other bending arts had awoken, and the Sky Kings were losing their empire. Skanda knew he had a part to play in shaping the world, and so he bid his beloved Lion Turtle farewell and returned to the Sky Kingdom. He warned the Sky Kings that unless they lay down their arms and changed their ways, they would lose everything. He told them about the world he had seen, what he had learned, and urged them to join him. But they saw only his power, and tried to use him as their weapon. Skanda refused, and left his home for a second and final time. A few airbenders went with him, and he taught them the Lion Sutra, and they became nomads, holding no possessions, sharing whatever they had. When the Sky Kings were destroyed by their enemies, the followers of Skanda lived on, and shared the sutras with the world. But they could never return to their home in the skies, and soon the Sky Empire passed into myth, and airbenders lived among the walking world.

Lost in wistful thoughts of flying, Aang takes a wrong step, and only Pasang’s quick bending, a strong but precise gust of air, keeps Aang from tumbling down the pebbly slope. He rights himself with a rueful grin and pleading eyes, a look that never failed with Gyatso. Pasang, sadly, is immune to such things.

“Sorry, Master Pasang, I was-,”

“You were daydreaming. Your head was in the clouds, forgetting the earth under your feet.”

Aang, now hungry and irritable, is also confused. “I thought airbenders were supposed to have our heads in the clouds. To practice detachment.”

“Pupil Aang, detachment is not the absence of awareness, but its highest manifestation. Only an airbender who is keenly attuned to every fiber of this world can hope to reach nirvana.” Pasang pauses, head cocked towards the trees. “Now, follow me. Stay low, and stay quiet.”

Aang does as he’s told, following Pasang’s every move, crouching when he crouches, listening and observing. The breeze, smelling sweet and sharp off the chir and pine trees. The faint moisture in the air, which meant a humid afternoon and dewy night. The loamy scent of earth, the birds pecking at the grass, the mountains around them, alive and rustling, full of tranquility and promise.

Pasang taps his shoulder, gesturing at the tree nearest to them. Aang follows his eyeline and his mouth drops open. A lemur is emerging down the tree trunk with a number of smaller followers. A mother and pups, just a few weeks old if Aang had to guess. He practically bleats in excitement. Despite their friendly and outgoing temperament as adults, lemurs were aggressively secretive with their young. Aang’s heard of careless monks who’d ventured too close to a nesting mother and came away with bitten fingers and scratched cheeks. There’s a low, whistling coo to his left and it takes him a second to realize the sound comes from Pasang. The new mother hurries across the ground to Pasang’s open palms, which Aang notices are full of dried fruit and seed. The pups, who had trailed after their mother, sniffed curiously around her feet as she ate. Low chirping swells in the air around them, and more lemurs emerge, their young trailing behind them, until Pasang has to reach into his bag for more food. “Pupil Aang, help me.”

Aang copies Pasang’s movements down to the letter, scooping careful palm-fulls of nut and seed and crouching on the ground, waiting for the mother-lemurs to approach. The urge to pet them, especially the small furry pups with their enormous eyes, is incredibly strong, but Aang tamps it down. This is a time for restraint, and for trust. Beside him, Pasang nods in approval.

“It’s difficult for lemurs to forage with such young pups - so the adults stay close to them, eating only leaves and bark.”

“That’s why parent lemurs are cranky all the time! They can’t enjoy their favorite treats.” Aang has a flash of understanding followed by a stab of shame. He himself had been surly and resentful, and he’d only missed a single meal!  

“I try and feed as many as I can during this season,” Pasang says, gently stroking one behind the ear. “So they remember to trust us, to exist peacefully with us. No trust is gained on an empty stomach.”

“I’ll say.” Aang’s own stomach chose that moment to emit a fierce growl, startling both him and Pasang. They burst into laughter. Pasang scatters the rest of the food on the ground and dusts his hands on his robes. Aang follows him to sit under a chir tree and, as he marvels, Pasang pulls out a basket of dumplings, a wooden tea pot and a set of spark rocks. While their water boils, Aang and Pasang enjoy the dumplings together. Both the tea and the dumplings taste sweeter and more fulfilling than Aang can ever remember.

“Master Pasang?”

“Hmm?”

“Can I do this with you again?”

“So long as you don’t neglect your sutra studies.”

“I promise, I’ll work hard to keep up.”

Pasang cracks a small, fond smile and strokes Aang’s head, gentle as a breeze. “You will make a fine master one day, pupil Aang. Just remember there’s more to airbending than flying.”

Aang drinks his tea and looks at the sky flashing brilliant blue between the branching canopy of trees. The distant future seems bright and beckoning, but for now he is content.

The legends say the Lion Turtle became a mountain again, so he could always live among the world he had taught Skanda to love. That mountain has many names, but most people know it as Deva Kanda. The legends also say that one day, Skanda himself will be reborn as the Avatar, and he will open the skies for all people to live, for all people to fly.

I didn’t realize you had a knack for the poetic.

I’m just repeating what I remember. 

Do you think your recital would satisfy them?

Yes. Yes I think so.