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lizbeeTitle: Your Treasure Spent
Author: LizBee
Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender
Characters: Aang, Azula, Mai; Aang/Katara, Mai/Zuko, Azula/Ty Lee, Azula/OMC, Mai/OMC
Rating: R, mostly for violence and politics
Warning(s): (highlight to reveal) Major character death; violence; underage arranged marriage; casual sex under the influence of alcohol; psychological abuse; mental illness
Part 1 | Part 2 |
I woke up that morning to find myself in bed with a stranger.
The bed wasn't mine, and the stranger was a young man with muscular arms and heavily calloused hands. My head ached, and my mouth tasted like moose-lion fur, and my clothes lay in a trail from the door to the bed.
So much for my mother's lessons on decorum, ladylike modesty and the expectations men had for a daughter of the nobility.
(I had lost my virginity to Zuko on a warm summer morning soon after we returned from Ember Island. But princes, I had been told, could have whatever they wanted, and anyway, we were too absorbed in each other to admit that our fantasy marriage would never be allowed to happen.)
My bed-mate snored. I put my arm over my eyes and put together the pieces of the previous night.
Lately I had been spending my evenings in the Lower Ring, eating hawker food and drinking with Smellerbee and Longshot. I didn't know much about them, not even their real names, but they had helped liberate Ba Sing Se, and they knew Iroh by his Earth Kingdom alias of Mushi. They were peasants, and at first regarded me with mingled distrust and contempt. But Smellerbee was handy with knives, and Longshot was an archer to rival the Yu Yan, and they were both mourning a friend who had been killed by the Dai Li, so we bonded over our weapons and losses.
We had gone out last night, drinking the cheap, rough liquor that they favoured in the Lower Ring, until Smellerbee got into first an argument, then a fight with a stranger. The bouncers, who had previously ignored us, had no choice but to throw us out.
The other two went home after that, and I stayed out alone. It had been a bad day, and the last thing I wanted was to go back to the apartment in the Upper Ring, where Iroh would be meditating or summoning spirits.
I found another wine shop and bought a bottle of sickly-sweet plum wine, the kind Ty Lee and I used to sneak when we were at school. I had been feeling weirdly out of kilter lately, like I was standing still and watching the rest of the world move. Zuko and Ty Lee were dead, Azula and I were alive. I shouldn't have followed Li and Lo out of that room. I shouldn't have let Ty Lee go off alone. I shouldn't have lived.
My parents certainly wouldn't have cared if I died. I had a letter sent to the Fire Nation colony where they took refuge after the fall of Omashu, letting them know I was alive and safe. Part of me even hoped they would want me to come and join them. More than anything else, as I sealed that scroll, I had wanted to be back with them, bored and unfulfilled, but at least with people I knew.
They didn't answer. Either they were dead, or they were deluded enough to think my father would have a career in Azula's government and didn't want me hurting his prospects. It didn't matter, I told myself again as I poured another glass of plum wine. We didn't need each other. All my life I had been treated as either a liability or an asset. Without them, I was free to be a person.
Whatever that meant.
It was very late when I left, and I had no sense of direction in the narrow streets. And right around the same time I realised I was lost, I realised I was also being followed.
Three guys. Big ones. Armed. Not soldiers, just thugs, which would have been comforting, except I was fumbling as I reached for my knives.
Once, because Azula dared me, I had drunk half a bottle of raspberry wine and then thrown my knives at an ancient tree that stood outside her bedroom. My aim back then had been perfect, and Azula had demanded I teach her the skill.
Now I had drunk considerably more than half a bottle, and I was out of practice. And the weapons I had bought in the Lower Ring markets were of much poorer quality than what I was accustomed to.
The first blade sliced one man's face open. He stumbled back, more surprised than hurt. Then he took a step forward, raising his arms, and the earth rose up to lock my feet in place. I began to feel strangely detached, as if I was watching myself from very far away.
My next knife went awry.
A meaty hand closed around my throat.
"We probably would have left you alive," he said. "But maybe not."
At this range, I couldn't miss. My knife embedded itself in his throat and he dropped to the ground, making a horrible gurgling sound. The rocks holding me in place loosened.
I started to run, but my balance was off, and I stumbled. One of my other attackers caught me, then something sailed out of the darkness and yanked first him, then his accomplice away.
I stood there, blinking stupidly, as the guards approached. Stone chains bound the two survivors. The third one was already dead, and I wondered if I, too, would be arrested. But they just led me by the hand to the guard house, where I was given tea and a blanket. Someone asked if I wanted them to call my father, and I realised that they thought I was an Upper Ring brat who went slumming and got in over her head, too powerful to charge with the death of a street thug.
"No," I kept saying, "no, I'm fine. You don't need to call anyone."
I couldn't get the sound of his death out of my head. The heavy, wet breathing mingled with the memory of Zuko dying.
Eventually a hand covered mine, and the squad leader said, "I'm going off duty. Is there anywhere I could take you?"
He was young, good-looking, ridiculously alive.
"Your place?" I said.
He blinked. I stood up, realising as I did so that I was still quite drunk, but I could walk straight. I kissed him.
So he took me back to his tiny, cramped apartment. And it was strange, not like being with Zuko. I still felt like I was an observer in my own life, playing out a role in one of the cheap peasant romances that Ty Lee loved. But we made it work, and I fell at last into a deep sleep.
The last thing I heard before I lost consciousness was, "You didn't even give me your name."
"Ty Lee," I told him.
Now the sun was rising. I climbed out of bed -- my companion shifted, but didn't wake -- and pulled my clothes on. My weapons and launchers had been left on a chair. I washed my face and found my pai sho tile on the floor near my shoes.
The streets were full of the smell of food when I stepped outside. My stomach turned over, and I walked faster. Movement made my head hurt more, but it was a long way to the Inner Ring and I was already running late.
The sun was high when I finally reached the palace, but Piandao was still waiting in the courtyard he used for training. He looked me up and down as I approached, taking in my messy hair and the bloodstains on yesterday's clothes. But he said nothing as retrieved my sword, merely saluting me with his own as I bowed.
He was a kinder teacher than my grandmother had been, but no less exacting. When he had defeated me for the third time, he sheathed his sword and said, "Enough, Mai."
"Apologies, Master."
He pursed his lips. There was movement behind him: Sokka, bearing a jug of water and some glasses. I drained my glass in one long, unladylike swallow, then refilled it, avoiding Sokka's gaze.
"Now," said Piandao, "Sokka. Mai. Step into the circle."
"Are you okay?" Sokka asked quietly as we took our positions. I pretended not to have heard.
It took Sokka a whole fifteen seconds to disarm me. We had trained together every day since he returned from the South Pole a month ago. Usually I could hold him off for a few minutes. Once I even beat him. Without pulling my knives out.
"Sokka," said Piandao, "would you mind stepping inside for a moment?"
When we were alone, he said, "That was very disappointing."
"Yes."
"Generally, my students improve. What I just saw was ten times worse than when you began."
I bit back the glib response that was on my tongue, and just nodded.
Very gently, Piandao took the sword from my hand. "You have a lot of talent, Mai," he said. "It's an honour and a pleasure to have you as my student. But by coming here tired, hungover and filthy, you've shown great disrespect to me and my teachings. If it happens again, that will be the end."
He walked away, leaving me alone, sick to my stomach and angry. I sat down on a stone bench and brooded.
Eventually, Sokka returned with more water. "If it's any consolation," he said, "I did pretty much the same thing a few weeks back."
I blinked, feeling stupid. "You got drunk and slept with a city guard?"
"Okay, not quite the same thing. But Piandao gave me the exact same speech. It's not because you're a girl or anything."
I lifted my head. He was staring straight ahead, doing a good job of looking casual. "Thanks," I said.
"Any time."
I drank the last of the water, and wondered if I was ready to think about food.
"Are you hungry?" I asked.
"Mai," said Sokka, "I'm always hungry."
We foraged in the palace kitchens, eating hot dumplings and listening to the staff gossip about the likely whereabouts of the Earth King. Afterwards, Sokka walked me back to the apartment.
"Because, no offence or anything," he said, "but you look like hell. And you really need to bathe."
He had been kind to me, so I didn't make a remark about Water Tribe barbarians and their bad manners.
I felt a lot better when I was clean, and I even got a few hours sleep before my shift at the tea shop began. Fresh clothes and clean hair made me feel more like myself. Iroh gave me a concerned look when I arrived, and he said quietly, "I was worried when you didn't come home last night."
"It won't happen again."
He pressed a little packet into my hand and went to serve a customer. It was wild carrot leaf tea, to prevent pregnancy. For a second, I was angry -- he must have spoken to Piandao; these old men who regarded the entire world as their own to manipulate -- but the emotion quickly passed. It was here. I needed it. That was all that really mattered.
It was a long, quiet afternoon. I took a break and brewed the tea while the shop was empty. Iroh squeezed my shoulder as I sat down. The tea was probably intended as a kind gesture, I thought. He had been a general. Female soldiers were supposed to be promiscuous. He was probably beyond shock, at least about that.
The door opened. Light footsteps approached me. I looked up, into the Avatar's face.
He said, "I'm going to assassinate Azula. Do you want to come?"
"Of course," I said.
We entered the Fire Nation two weeks later, using one of the airships left from the earlier escapes. Aang left Appa behind, along with Momo and a lot of angry friends.
"Fine," said Sokka, when his final attempt to dissuade Aang failed. "You go get yourself killed. When you're reborn in the Water Tribe, I'll make sure you grow up knowing how my sister died for nothing."
Toph just scowled and said nothing. She had done her shouting already.
Iroh was the angriest of all. I had never seen him in a temper, and for the first time I understood why he had been called the Dragon of the West. "This plan is foolish beyond belief," he thundered. "How will killing Azula create balance? Will it restore the dead? Offer justice to the living?"
"It will prevent a lot more deaths," said Aang.
Iroh shook his head.
We were in the empty Jasmine Dragon, an abacus crumbling into ash as Iroh's hands clenched.
"Mai," he said, "do you want to throw away your life on this foolish and desperate plan?"
"It's my life to throw away. In a few years, no one will remember or care." I looked down at the blade in my hand. "If I hadn't betrayed Azula, maybe Zuko would be alive."
"I don't think so," said Aang. "I don't think she was the same after Ozai found out she lied about me being alive." He squeezed my arm. "It's not your fault. It's mine."
"Because you showed mercy to my brother?" Iroh asked.
"Because I had lots of chances to take Azula down, and I wasted all of them."
"She and Katara were of an age," said Iroh.
"Yeah." Aang's eyes were hard. He looked like an old man. "So Azula's death will bring balance."
He walked out, leaving Iroh and I alone together.
"I will miss you," he told me.
"You'll get over it," I said. "Most people do."
Aang refused to see him after that. I was tempted to move out of Iroh's apartment, but it wasn't for much longer, and I had nowhere else to go. But I stopped working at the tea shop and spent most of my days training. If Piandao agreed with Iroh, he didn't tell me. In fact, he didn't say anything, but his lessons took on a brutal new intensity, and two days before we left, he helped me forge a sword of my own.
The next evening, the night before we were to leave, Iroh watched me pack.
I said, "I'm doing this for Zuko, you know."
"Yes. A stupid and destructive gesture is a fitting tribute, I suppose." He didn't sound angry anymore, just resigned and unhappy. "Mai," he said, taking my arm, "please, consider the cost of what you're doing. To the world and yourself. Murdering another person will only make you smaller."
I pulled away.
"Is that what your journeys to the Spirit World have told you?"
"That," he said, "and common sense. You and Aang should not be killers."
"Then Azula shouldn't have killed the people we love."
"Mai," he said gently, "is it really Aang who wants this?"
"It was his idea. Who else?"
"The spirits won't speak to me," Iroh said, "but I hear whispers nonetheless. Be careful of him, Mai." He squeezed my hand. "I will miss you."
We left at dawn the next day. No one came to see us off.
We flew south to the tiny island where Mai's family had an estate. Most of the servants had followed the family to Omashu, she said, and the few that remained had doted on her since she was a baby.
It wasn't a big island, but from the airship I could see a town and a handful of villages. Mai's home overlooked a lake in a lush, green valley.
"This place is beautiful," I told her as we landed.
"It's literally the most tedious place in the Fire Nation," she said. "I doubt Azula even remembers it exists."
"Sure is quiet. Where is everyone?"
"I don't know," said Mai, looking around. We had seen peasants tilling the fields her family owned, but now we were in the courtyard of her house, and there was no one around. Not even a hare-dog barked. There were weeds growing between the flagstones.
We had to break into the house. Inside, all the furniture was covered, and there were gaps on shelves where ornaments had stood.
"This is really creepy," I said, following Mai through room after room.
She led me to a room overlooking the courtyard. "This is our steward's office," she said. "He served our family since my dad was a kid. And," she found a ledger, "he kept meticulous records."
According to Wei's notes, late last summer, about a month before the Comet had arrived, he had packed up the house, dismissed the servants, and taken himself -- and a lot of money -- to the Fire Nation colony at Mount Sozin, in the eastern Earth Kingdom.
"What?" I said. "Why then?"
"Because that was when I became a traitor," said Mai. "I guess my parents decided to cut their losses." She closed the ledger and walked away, leaving clouds of dust in her wake.
The next day we started our preparations in earnest. We spent our mornings training in the courtyard. Mai prepared a map of the royal palace and its grounds and drilled me on it in the afternoons, until I could find my way blindfolded to the Fire Lord's private apartments. In the evenings we ran laps around the lake and swam.
"This is nice," I said, watching the sun go down.
Mai was sitting on the dock, her feet dangling in the water, sharpening her knives. "This was where my parents sent me when I was being difficult," she said, not looking up. "I spent a few years here, after my betrothal to Zuko was ended."
"I didn't know you two were engaged."
"We weren't. Not after Ozai became Fire Lord." Scrap, scrape, scrape went the metal on the whetstone. "Suddenly Zuko was the crown prince. He couldn't marry a non-bender. So my father came home one day and said he was very sorry, but I would have to marry someone else."
"You must have been nine years old!"
"Eleven. I'm a year older than Zuko. Was. A year older." She frowned a little, but it might have been at her knife. "I guess I took it pretty hard. My parents sent me here to live with my grandmother. I missed a couple of years of school, so when I came back, I was in a class with Azula. They probably planned it that way."
"Did you like living with your grandmother?"
"She was a hateful old bitch, but at least she was honest. And she taught me how to fight."
Mai took aim and let the blade fly. It buried itself in the neck of a lizard-fox, killing it instantly. I made a little noise in the back of my throat. Mai turned back to look at me.
"You're preparing to kill a fifteen year old girl, and you're worried about a lizard-fox?" She shook her head and went inside.
That night I dreamed that I was looking down at a boy begging for mercy. I woke up with his scream still ringing in my ears.
I went to find Mai.
She was in her old room, curled on her side with her back to the door. The room was full of heavy wooden boxes: her possessions from the house in the city, boxed up and sent here after her arrest.
"Mai," I said, "are you awake?"
She stiffened, but said, "Yes."
"Were you there when Zuko's father burned him?"
She rolled over to face me.
"Everyone was there," she said, sitting up. "Who wouldn't want to watch a thirteen-year-old boy being humiliated by his dad? Azula made sure I was there."
I sat down on her bed.
"I have these dreams," I said. "Or memories. But not my memories. Where I'm a man, looking at Azula or Zuko through a wall of flames. Or I'm a kid, looking up at Iroh. I keep dreaming that I'm Ozai, and I can't stop."
It was too dark to see Mai's face. She said, "When you took Ozai's bending … something came with it?"
"I don't know," I said. "I thought it would fade, but they're getting worse."
Mai was silent. What could she say?
"There's one other thing," I added. "I wonder -- I'm worried -- what if killing Azula is what Ozai wants me to do?"
"You think he's controlling you?"
"It's not like that," I said. "And I know she was his favourite. But he was furious when he found out she'd lied about me being dead, and I think, if Ozai thought Azula was in his way..."
I couldn't finish.
Eventually Mai fell into an uneasy sleep, but I stayed awake through the night, listening to her breathe and trying not to remember my dreams.
The flames were blinding.
Sweat dripped down my face, my neck and my chest, but I kept my back straight and my stance firm. Chan Li, behind me, rested his hands on my hips, ready to catch me if I passed out, but I concentrated on my breathing and remained upright. It was a bad omen to faint, and I had too much to lose.
"Spirits of sun, fire and light," intoned the Chief Sage, "imbue this royal child with your strength, so that he may one day take his mother's place as Fire Lord."
The flames rose higher. The Sage anointed me with sandalwood oil: on my forehead, between my breasts, on my belly. He kept his gaze respectfully low, but I was acutely aware that I was naked to the waist and encumbered by pregnancy, and surrounded by men.
The scent of the oil mixed with the incense, making it difficult to read. Chan Li's grip on my hips tightened. Pointless. If I passed out, his injuries would keep him from catching me. And the rumour would spread that the Fire Lord had fallen, like a peasant, and all our work would be for nothing.
"A son," said the old man who, the sage claimed, could see the future in the flames. "A son for Fire Lord Azula and Prince Chan Li. He will rule with wisdom, and bring justice and honour to the Fire Nation."
The sages resumed their chant, the names of the spirits and my ancestors.
What a farce. When my mother performed this ceremony for the first time, the very same sage had promised a long life of great honour for Zuko. It was a matter of public record. I had read the scrolls last night. A life of service to the Fire Nation for Zuko, a successful marriage and many children for me.
Mother had been eighteen when Zuko was born. Li and Lo had promised I would be a mother shortly after my sixteenth birthday.
A farce.
The sages were recounting the achievements of Azulon. Not much longer to go. I could feel Chan Li shaking, weakened by the heat and his injuries. A poisoned arrow had landed in his shoulder three weeks ago, striking in the very pavilion where we had formed our alliance. The archer swallowed the same poison before my guards found her. I had personally overseen the interrogation of the servants who aided the assassin.
It had been three days before the royal physicians had managed to identify the poison and apply the antidote. I remembered a meal I had shared with my father on one of those evenings.
He said, "I hear Chan Li calls for you."
"He calls," I said, "but he doesn't recognise me."
"But it's touching, don't you think? A man is truly honest at moments like this." There was amusement in Father's eyes. "I know you find it difficult to trust people, Azula."
Father hadn't visited Chan Li's sickroom. Someone must have carried the report of his fever cries, just as someone carried a report of our amicable marital alliance.
"If I have problems with trust," I said, "then I learned my lessons well."
I replaced the servants and threatened the physicians, but I couldn't be everywhere at once. Not in the palace. Not in the Fire Nation.
There was sweat running down my back, pooling at the base of my spine. Just a few more minutes, then I could bathe and dress and sit. Just. A bit.
Longer.
Between one breath and the next, the world changed. Instead of the Fire Temple, I was standing on a rocky shore, looking out to sea.
No.
Not again.
It had been months since I had seen things that weren't there. I worked and meditated, and spent my nights with Chan Li, and I was much too strong to let this happen again.
"Azula."
The man behind me was old, and oddly familiar, though I was certain I'd never seen him before. He wore the hairpiece of a crown prince of the Fire Nation, which had been lost for four generations.
"Azula," he repeated, "you must be careful--"
"No," I snapped. "No, I won't go back to that."
"Great-granddaughter--"
"No."
I moved to burn him, but there was no fire. I froze, horrified and afraid. Was this what had happened to Father? I stepped back, and stumbled on a loose rock, and --
Chan Li caught me as I swayed.
When the ritual was over I bathed myself in cold water, scrubbing myself raw to get rid of the last fragments of sweat and oil and incense. I took my time dressing, but I let the servants do my hair.
Chan Li and the Chief Sage waited for me in the temple's ancient library. Chan Li gave me a curious look as I entered, but he didn't say anything about my earlier lapse. The Sage bowed and scraped and didn't seem to have noticed anything at all.
"Fire Lord," he said, taking his place behind the desk and unfurling a scroll, "my prince. In light of the attempt on Prince Chan Li's life last month, it might be wise to consider, hmm, an exigency plan for the upbringing of the royal children. Should something happen to his parents."
"The attempt didn't succeed," said Chan Li mildly.
"This one didn't," said the Sage. "Who knows what treason is being plotted?"
"Yes," I said, "who does know?"
The Sage blinked. I smiled. He cultivated an image of being too concerned with spiritual matters to bother with worldly politics, but I knew he had transferred his allegiance to my father long before Azulon's death. Long ago, the Fire Lords themselves had been the Chief Sages, and before that, my ancestors had dedicated their lives to the service of the temples and the spirits. I couldn't look at a Fire Sage without thinking that, in another life, that might have been me.
"Tell me," I said, "who would you recommend to raise a poor orphaned prince?"
("Three guesses," Chan Li had told me that morning, "and the first two don't count.")
"Why, your father, of course."
Chan Li caught my eye. His jaw was set.
"Lord Ozai is still a young man, and who better to raise your child? He had two children of his own--"
The Sage faltered. I raised my eyebrows.
"Yes?" I asked.
"And you could not ask for a more experienced regent."
"No. I suppose I couldn't."
The Sage pushed the scroll towards me. It was an act of succession, naming my child as my heir and first Chan Li, then my father, as regent in the event of my early death.
I signed it with my own hand, using all my names and titles.
"You may as well have signed our death warrants," said Chan Li, as the palanquin carried us back to the palace.
"There was no other candidate." The swaying of the palanquin was making me nauseous. I concentrated on my breathing. "It's simple. Try and avoid assassins."
"I try," he said, "but lately they seem to be seeking me out." He hesitated. "Azula?"
"What?"
"Never mind. It can wait."
He broached the subject of my episode that evening after dinner. We were alone in the library reserved for the royal family, Chan Li reading military reports, I perusing intelligence dossiers and pointedly ignoring the book of traditional wisdom for expectant mothers that Li and Lo had left out. It would have been a charming domestic scene, except that I kept feeling Chan Li's eyes on me when he thought I was distracted.
I said, "If you have something to say, you should spit it out. Or at least stop staring."
"You nearly fainted today."
"I lost my balance. I don't faint."
"You went limp. It was like you weren't even in your body."
I read the same character three times. When the silence had stretched to breaking point I said, "I lost my balance."
Chan Li nodded, and I let him change the subject.
I was reluctant to sleep that night. I used to sleep deeply, and never remembered my dreams. Then the Comet came, and something inside of me seemed to break. Sometimes it was a struggle just to pass for my normal self.
I had thought I was getting better.
Great-granddaughter, the man had called me. My great-grandfather was Sozin the Conquerer. One of my great-grandfathers.
Chan Li didn't stir as I got out of bed.
The palace library was not as exhaustive as the Fire Sage's halls of histories, but it held a copy of the family records. My great-grandfathers were Fire Lord Sozin, Lord Hsiao, Lord Ueda and --
Nothing.
Dad never slept much at all. I found him sitting in his rooms, staring into the fire. His face was in shadow.
"Azula? You should be resting."
"Was my maternal grandmother illegitimate?" I asked.
He laughed at me.
"Like you, she was the daughter of a traitor," he said. "Fire Lord Sozin had his name struck from the records. As if that would make people forget Avatar Roku ever existed."
"Avatar Roku."
There was a sick ache in my chest. Something flickered at the edge of my vision, and it took all my control to keep from turning to look at it.
"Your brother inherited the traitor's blood, too. Watch out." Father reached out, resting his hand on my belly. "Children will inevitably disappoint you, Azula."
There was contempt in his voice. Because I, a woman and his child, had all the power he wanted and could never have again. Because I was my mother's daughter as well as his, and he had despised my mother as surely as she had feared me.
He had taught me to be fearsome. From the moment my bending had manifested when I was three, setting Mom's clothes and hair on fire as she tried to discipline me, he had claimed me for himself. His tool. His weapon. As powerful and worthless as a pai sho tile.
I had spent my life trying to please him. I had killed my brother. In his eyes, I was nothing.
He was watching me. I pasted a smile on my face and bowed.
"Good night, Dad." I kissed him on the cheek, like I was six years old again. "I'll see you in the morning."
Someone was crying.
For a second I lay awake in the dark, not sure where I was. Solitary confinement, in Princess Ursa's rooms with Zuko dying in my arms, Iroh's apartment: I was everywhere at once, paralysed, listening to those eerie cries.
I forced myself to breathe.
When I had control of my body at last, I went to find Aang.
He was up by then, rinsing his face in the fountain in the courtyard.
"Hey," I said.
He put his head under the water then stood up. Rivulets trickled down his scalp, shining in the moonlight.
"I couldn't make it stop," he said.
"You're awake," I pointed out, sitting on the edge of the fountain and watching him bend the water.
"We should train."
"Sunrise is hours away."
Aang opened his fingers and the water he was bending turned into shards of ice that embedded themselves in my grandmother's prized fig tree.
"My ice against your sword," he said.
It wasn't like I was going to get more sleep anyway.
We pitted ourselves against each other until we were too exhausted to see straight. The sun was high when we stumbled inside. I collapsed beside Aang on his futon, aware that I was sweaty and disgusting but far beyond caring. We slept until evening and we didn't dream. When we woke up, we ate and then we started again.
By the time we left for the capital Aang could use airbending to direct a knife I had thrown, and I had become adept at using my sword to block frontal firebending assaults. We had memorised the layout of the major service tunnels that ran beneath the palace, and I had schooled Aang in basic court etiquette.
As the ferry pulled away from the dock and my family's estate vanished behind us, I said, "What about Ozai?"
Aang adjusted the broad peasant hat that hid his tattoos and said, "What about him?"
The ferry was the new kind with a loud steam engine, and we were well away from the other passengers, but I still leaned in to whisper, "Killing Azula and leaving her father alive is shortsighted."
Aang looked uncertain. "But without his bending--"
"You benders think that's all that matters. He'll just have more kids."
"I came to take care of Azula, not to kill more people."
"Fine," I said, "I'll deal with Ozai."
I watched to see his reaction, but for once his face was totally unreadable.
In some ways, the strangest thing about going back to the capital was how little it had changed. The old quarter was a maze of alleys and narrow streets lined with hawkers, widening out and becoming less crowded as you reached the middle class areas. When we were younger, Azula used to challenge us to find her something in the bazaar: a trinket, a forbidden book, a cheap forgery of an Air Nomad artifact. I developed a taste for street food and once Ty Lee kissed a boy who sold pork buns.
I was just remembering the taste of spicy fried popiah and wondering if I could find a place that sold it, when Aang grabbed my arm.
"Look."
Standing at the corner was a pair of Dai Li agents, their green uniforms a vivid contrast to the reds and blacks around them. The crowds gave them a wide berth. I heard an old man with one arm, wearing a frayed uniform thirty years out of date, mutter something about Earth Kingdom infiltrators, but he, too, avoided their gazes.
I forced myself to walk naturally, Aang at my side, everyday Fire Nation people going about their business.
But now that I'd seen the Dai Li, I was looking at the crowds with new eyes. We were the only able-bodied teenagers here. In fact, I saw no one under forty who wasn't missing a limb or was otherwise injured in some way. And the stalls were shabbier than I remembered, their wares more sparse. Maybe it was just that I'd been a kid when I came here before, and now I was a cynical adult, but I didn't think so. Even the food stands looked empty, although it was late morning and they should have still been full. And a few years ago, there had been soldiers here, mostly domestic forces, maintaining law and order.
I looked back at the top of the street. The Dai Li agents had moved on.
"That happen often?" I asked a man selling tarnished hairpieces.
"Domestic forces were sent to the front," he said. "Now we have foreigners on the streets." He squinted at us, taking in our tanned skin and worn clothes. "You in from the colonies?"
"Outer archipelago."
"Take care. General Shin's not too choosy about how he gets his recruits. Press gang'd get good money for you and your brother." He gestured vaguely in the direction of some graffiti that promised a dawn after the darkness. "Be careful."
"Thanks."
I paid him for a tin hairpiece. A few blocks later I gave it to a little girl whose mother was selling spotty dragonfruit and led Aang down a lane that smelled of rotting fish.
"This was a better area eighty years ago," I told him, struggling with the old metal door. "Kitchen staff at the palace used to buy food for the Fire Lord's table here." Giving up, I stepped back and let Aang take over. "The palace stewards didn't want them walking all over the city, so they had tunnels built." The door buckled under Aang's metalbending, giving us a small opening through which we could enter. "This leads to the old kitchens."
Aang nodded, smoothing out the door behind us. A flame sprang to life in his hand, illuminating the half-smile on his face.
"Let's go," he said.
Part 4
Author: LizBee
Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender
Characters: Aang, Azula, Mai; Aang/Katara, Mai/Zuko, Azula/Ty Lee, Azula/OMC, Mai/OMC
Rating: R, mostly for violence and politics
Warning(s): (highlight to reveal) Major character death; violence; underage arranged marriage; casual sex under the influence of alcohol; psychological abuse; mental illness
Part 1 | Part 2 |
Mai
I woke up that morning to find myself in bed with a stranger.
The bed wasn't mine, and the stranger was a young man with muscular arms and heavily calloused hands. My head ached, and my mouth tasted like moose-lion fur, and my clothes lay in a trail from the door to the bed.
So much for my mother's lessons on decorum, ladylike modesty and the expectations men had for a daughter of the nobility.
(I had lost my virginity to Zuko on a warm summer morning soon after we returned from Ember Island. But princes, I had been told, could have whatever they wanted, and anyway, we were too absorbed in each other to admit that our fantasy marriage would never be allowed to happen.)
My bed-mate snored. I put my arm over my eyes and put together the pieces of the previous night.
Lately I had been spending my evenings in the Lower Ring, eating hawker food and drinking with Smellerbee and Longshot. I didn't know much about them, not even their real names, but they had helped liberate Ba Sing Se, and they knew Iroh by his Earth Kingdom alias of Mushi. They were peasants, and at first regarded me with mingled distrust and contempt. But Smellerbee was handy with knives, and Longshot was an archer to rival the Yu Yan, and they were both mourning a friend who had been killed by the Dai Li, so we bonded over our weapons and losses.
We had gone out last night, drinking the cheap, rough liquor that they favoured in the Lower Ring, until Smellerbee got into first an argument, then a fight with a stranger. The bouncers, who had previously ignored us, had no choice but to throw us out.
The other two went home after that, and I stayed out alone. It had been a bad day, and the last thing I wanted was to go back to the apartment in the Upper Ring, where Iroh would be meditating or summoning spirits.
I found another wine shop and bought a bottle of sickly-sweet plum wine, the kind Ty Lee and I used to sneak when we were at school. I had been feeling weirdly out of kilter lately, like I was standing still and watching the rest of the world move. Zuko and Ty Lee were dead, Azula and I were alive. I shouldn't have followed Li and Lo out of that room. I shouldn't have let Ty Lee go off alone. I shouldn't have lived.
My parents certainly wouldn't have cared if I died. I had a letter sent to the Fire Nation colony where they took refuge after the fall of Omashu, letting them know I was alive and safe. Part of me even hoped they would want me to come and join them. More than anything else, as I sealed that scroll, I had wanted to be back with them, bored and unfulfilled, but at least with people I knew.
They didn't answer. Either they were dead, or they were deluded enough to think my father would have a career in Azula's government and didn't want me hurting his prospects. It didn't matter, I told myself again as I poured another glass of plum wine. We didn't need each other. All my life I had been treated as either a liability or an asset. Without them, I was free to be a person.
Whatever that meant.
It was very late when I left, and I had no sense of direction in the narrow streets. And right around the same time I realised I was lost, I realised I was also being followed.
Three guys. Big ones. Armed. Not soldiers, just thugs, which would have been comforting, except I was fumbling as I reached for my knives.
Once, because Azula dared me, I had drunk half a bottle of raspberry wine and then thrown my knives at an ancient tree that stood outside her bedroom. My aim back then had been perfect, and Azula had demanded I teach her the skill.
Now I had drunk considerably more than half a bottle, and I was out of practice. And the weapons I had bought in the Lower Ring markets were of much poorer quality than what I was accustomed to.
The first blade sliced one man's face open. He stumbled back, more surprised than hurt. Then he took a step forward, raising his arms, and the earth rose up to lock my feet in place. I began to feel strangely detached, as if I was watching myself from very far away.
My next knife went awry.
A meaty hand closed around my throat.
"We probably would have left you alive," he said. "But maybe not."
At this range, I couldn't miss. My knife embedded itself in his throat and he dropped to the ground, making a horrible gurgling sound. The rocks holding me in place loosened.
I started to run, but my balance was off, and I stumbled. One of my other attackers caught me, then something sailed out of the darkness and yanked first him, then his accomplice away.
I stood there, blinking stupidly, as the guards approached. Stone chains bound the two survivors. The third one was already dead, and I wondered if I, too, would be arrested. But they just led me by the hand to the guard house, where I was given tea and a blanket. Someone asked if I wanted them to call my father, and I realised that they thought I was an Upper Ring brat who went slumming and got in over her head, too powerful to charge with the death of a street thug.
"No," I kept saying, "no, I'm fine. You don't need to call anyone."
I couldn't get the sound of his death out of my head. The heavy, wet breathing mingled with the memory of Zuko dying.
Eventually a hand covered mine, and the squad leader said, "I'm going off duty. Is there anywhere I could take you?"
He was young, good-looking, ridiculously alive.
"Your place?" I said.
He blinked. I stood up, realising as I did so that I was still quite drunk, but I could walk straight. I kissed him.
So he took me back to his tiny, cramped apartment. And it was strange, not like being with Zuko. I still felt like I was an observer in my own life, playing out a role in one of the cheap peasant romances that Ty Lee loved. But we made it work, and I fell at last into a deep sleep.
The last thing I heard before I lost consciousness was, "You didn't even give me your name."
"Ty Lee," I told him.
Now the sun was rising. I climbed out of bed -- my companion shifted, but didn't wake -- and pulled my clothes on. My weapons and launchers had been left on a chair. I washed my face and found my pai sho tile on the floor near my shoes.
The streets were full of the smell of food when I stepped outside. My stomach turned over, and I walked faster. Movement made my head hurt more, but it was a long way to the Inner Ring and I was already running late.
The sun was high when I finally reached the palace, but Piandao was still waiting in the courtyard he used for training. He looked me up and down as I approached, taking in my messy hair and the bloodstains on yesterday's clothes. But he said nothing as retrieved my sword, merely saluting me with his own as I bowed.
He was a kinder teacher than my grandmother had been, but no less exacting. When he had defeated me for the third time, he sheathed his sword and said, "Enough, Mai."
"Apologies, Master."
He pursed his lips. There was movement behind him: Sokka, bearing a jug of water and some glasses. I drained my glass in one long, unladylike swallow, then refilled it, avoiding Sokka's gaze.
"Now," said Piandao, "Sokka. Mai. Step into the circle."
"Are you okay?" Sokka asked quietly as we took our positions. I pretended not to have heard.
It took Sokka a whole fifteen seconds to disarm me. We had trained together every day since he returned from the South Pole a month ago. Usually I could hold him off for a few minutes. Once I even beat him. Without pulling my knives out.
"Sokka," said Piandao, "would you mind stepping inside for a moment?"
When we were alone, he said, "That was very disappointing."
"Yes."
"Generally, my students improve. What I just saw was ten times worse than when you began."
I bit back the glib response that was on my tongue, and just nodded.
Very gently, Piandao took the sword from my hand. "You have a lot of talent, Mai," he said. "It's an honour and a pleasure to have you as my student. But by coming here tired, hungover and filthy, you've shown great disrespect to me and my teachings. If it happens again, that will be the end."
He walked away, leaving me alone, sick to my stomach and angry. I sat down on a stone bench and brooded.
Eventually, Sokka returned with more water. "If it's any consolation," he said, "I did pretty much the same thing a few weeks back."
I blinked, feeling stupid. "You got drunk and slept with a city guard?"
"Okay, not quite the same thing. But Piandao gave me the exact same speech. It's not because you're a girl or anything."
I lifted my head. He was staring straight ahead, doing a good job of looking casual. "Thanks," I said.
"Any time."
I drank the last of the water, and wondered if I was ready to think about food.
"Are you hungry?" I asked.
"Mai," said Sokka, "I'm always hungry."
We foraged in the palace kitchens, eating hot dumplings and listening to the staff gossip about the likely whereabouts of the Earth King. Afterwards, Sokka walked me back to the apartment.
"Because, no offence or anything," he said, "but you look like hell. And you really need to bathe."
He had been kind to me, so I didn't make a remark about Water Tribe barbarians and their bad manners.
I felt a lot better when I was clean, and I even got a few hours sleep before my shift at the tea shop began. Fresh clothes and clean hair made me feel more like myself. Iroh gave me a concerned look when I arrived, and he said quietly, "I was worried when you didn't come home last night."
"It won't happen again."
He pressed a little packet into my hand and went to serve a customer. It was wild carrot leaf tea, to prevent pregnancy. For a second, I was angry -- he must have spoken to Piandao; these old men who regarded the entire world as their own to manipulate -- but the emotion quickly passed. It was here. I needed it. That was all that really mattered.
It was a long, quiet afternoon. I took a break and brewed the tea while the shop was empty. Iroh squeezed my shoulder as I sat down. The tea was probably intended as a kind gesture, I thought. He had been a general. Female soldiers were supposed to be promiscuous. He was probably beyond shock, at least about that.
The door opened. Light footsteps approached me. I looked up, into the Avatar's face.
He said, "I'm going to assassinate Azula. Do you want to come?"
"Of course," I said.
We entered the Fire Nation two weeks later, using one of the airships left from the earlier escapes. Aang left Appa behind, along with Momo and a lot of angry friends.
"Fine," said Sokka, when his final attempt to dissuade Aang failed. "You go get yourself killed. When you're reborn in the Water Tribe, I'll make sure you grow up knowing how my sister died for nothing."
Toph just scowled and said nothing. She had done her shouting already.
Iroh was the angriest of all. I had never seen him in a temper, and for the first time I understood why he had been called the Dragon of the West. "This plan is foolish beyond belief," he thundered. "How will killing Azula create balance? Will it restore the dead? Offer justice to the living?"
"It will prevent a lot more deaths," said Aang.
Iroh shook his head.
We were in the empty Jasmine Dragon, an abacus crumbling into ash as Iroh's hands clenched.
"Mai," he said, "do you want to throw away your life on this foolish and desperate plan?"
"It's my life to throw away. In a few years, no one will remember or care." I looked down at the blade in my hand. "If I hadn't betrayed Azula, maybe Zuko would be alive."
"I don't think so," said Aang. "I don't think she was the same after Ozai found out she lied about me being alive." He squeezed my arm. "It's not your fault. It's mine."
"Because you showed mercy to my brother?" Iroh asked.
"Because I had lots of chances to take Azula down, and I wasted all of them."
"She and Katara were of an age," said Iroh.
"Yeah." Aang's eyes were hard. He looked like an old man. "So Azula's death will bring balance."
He walked out, leaving Iroh and I alone together.
"I will miss you," he told me.
"You'll get over it," I said. "Most people do."
Aang refused to see him after that. I was tempted to move out of Iroh's apartment, but it wasn't for much longer, and I had nowhere else to go. But I stopped working at the tea shop and spent most of my days training. If Piandao agreed with Iroh, he didn't tell me. In fact, he didn't say anything, but his lessons took on a brutal new intensity, and two days before we left, he helped me forge a sword of my own.
The next evening, the night before we were to leave, Iroh watched me pack.
I said, "I'm doing this for Zuko, you know."
"Yes. A stupid and destructive gesture is a fitting tribute, I suppose." He didn't sound angry anymore, just resigned and unhappy. "Mai," he said, taking my arm, "please, consider the cost of what you're doing. To the world and yourself. Murdering another person will only make you smaller."
I pulled away.
"Is that what your journeys to the Spirit World have told you?"
"That," he said, "and common sense. You and Aang should not be killers."
"Then Azula shouldn't have killed the people we love."
"Mai," he said gently, "is it really Aang who wants this?"
"It was his idea. Who else?"
"The spirits won't speak to me," Iroh said, "but I hear whispers nonetheless. Be careful of him, Mai." He squeezed my hand. "I will miss you."
We left at dawn the next day. No one came to see us off.
Aang
We flew south to the tiny island where Mai's family had an estate. Most of the servants had followed the family to Omashu, she said, and the few that remained had doted on her since she was a baby.
It wasn't a big island, but from the airship I could see a town and a handful of villages. Mai's home overlooked a lake in a lush, green valley.
"This place is beautiful," I told her as we landed.
"It's literally the most tedious place in the Fire Nation," she said. "I doubt Azula even remembers it exists."
"Sure is quiet. Where is everyone?"
"I don't know," said Mai, looking around. We had seen peasants tilling the fields her family owned, but now we were in the courtyard of her house, and there was no one around. Not even a hare-dog barked. There were weeds growing between the flagstones.
We had to break into the house. Inside, all the furniture was covered, and there were gaps on shelves where ornaments had stood.
"This is really creepy," I said, following Mai through room after room.
She led me to a room overlooking the courtyard. "This is our steward's office," she said. "He served our family since my dad was a kid. And," she found a ledger, "he kept meticulous records."
According to Wei's notes, late last summer, about a month before the Comet had arrived, he had packed up the house, dismissed the servants, and taken himself -- and a lot of money -- to the Fire Nation colony at Mount Sozin, in the eastern Earth Kingdom.
"What?" I said. "Why then?"
"Because that was when I became a traitor," said Mai. "I guess my parents decided to cut their losses." She closed the ledger and walked away, leaving clouds of dust in her wake.
The next day we started our preparations in earnest. We spent our mornings training in the courtyard. Mai prepared a map of the royal palace and its grounds and drilled me on it in the afternoons, until I could find my way blindfolded to the Fire Lord's private apartments. In the evenings we ran laps around the lake and swam.
"This is nice," I said, watching the sun go down.
Mai was sitting on the dock, her feet dangling in the water, sharpening her knives. "This was where my parents sent me when I was being difficult," she said, not looking up. "I spent a few years here, after my betrothal to Zuko was ended."
"I didn't know you two were engaged."
"We weren't. Not after Ozai became Fire Lord." Scrap, scrape, scrape went the metal on the whetstone. "Suddenly Zuko was the crown prince. He couldn't marry a non-bender. So my father came home one day and said he was very sorry, but I would have to marry someone else."
"You must have been nine years old!"
"Eleven. I'm a year older than Zuko. Was. A year older." She frowned a little, but it might have been at her knife. "I guess I took it pretty hard. My parents sent me here to live with my grandmother. I missed a couple of years of school, so when I came back, I was in a class with Azula. They probably planned it that way."
"Did you like living with your grandmother?"
"She was a hateful old bitch, but at least she was honest. And she taught me how to fight."
Mai took aim and let the blade fly. It buried itself in the neck of a lizard-fox, killing it instantly. I made a little noise in the back of my throat. Mai turned back to look at me.
"You're preparing to kill a fifteen year old girl, and you're worried about a lizard-fox?" She shook her head and went inside.
That night I dreamed that I was looking down at a boy begging for mercy. I woke up with his scream still ringing in my ears.
I went to find Mai.
She was in her old room, curled on her side with her back to the door. The room was full of heavy wooden boxes: her possessions from the house in the city, boxed up and sent here after her arrest.
"Mai," I said, "are you awake?"
She stiffened, but said, "Yes."
"Were you there when Zuko's father burned him?"
She rolled over to face me.
"Everyone was there," she said, sitting up. "Who wouldn't want to watch a thirteen-year-old boy being humiliated by his dad? Azula made sure I was there."
I sat down on her bed.
"I have these dreams," I said. "Or memories. But not my memories. Where I'm a man, looking at Azula or Zuko through a wall of flames. Or I'm a kid, looking up at Iroh. I keep dreaming that I'm Ozai, and I can't stop."
It was too dark to see Mai's face. She said, "When you took Ozai's bending … something came with it?"
"I don't know," I said. "I thought it would fade, but they're getting worse."
Mai was silent. What could she say?
"There's one other thing," I added. "I wonder -- I'm worried -- what if killing Azula is what Ozai wants me to do?"
"You think he's controlling you?"
"It's not like that," I said. "And I know she was his favourite. But he was furious when he found out she'd lied about me being dead, and I think, if Ozai thought Azula was in his way..."
I couldn't finish.
Eventually Mai fell into an uneasy sleep, but I stayed awake through the night, listening to her breathe and trying not to remember my dreams.
Azula
The flames were blinding.
Sweat dripped down my face, my neck and my chest, but I kept my back straight and my stance firm. Chan Li, behind me, rested his hands on my hips, ready to catch me if I passed out, but I concentrated on my breathing and remained upright. It was a bad omen to faint, and I had too much to lose.
"Spirits of sun, fire and light," intoned the Chief Sage, "imbue this royal child with your strength, so that he may one day take his mother's place as Fire Lord."
The flames rose higher. The Sage anointed me with sandalwood oil: on my forehead, between my breasts, on my belly. He kept his gaze respectfully low, but I was acutely aware that I was naked to the waist and encumbered by pregnancy, and surrounded by men.
The scent of the oil mixed with the incense, making it difficult to read. Chan Li's grip on my hips tightened. Pointless. If I passed out, his injuries would keep him from catching me. And the rumour would spread that the Fire Lord had fallen, like a peasant, and all our work would be for nothing.
"A son," said the old man who, the sage claimed, could see the future in the flames. "A son for Fire Lord Azula and Prince Chan Li. He will rule with wisdom, and bring justice and honour to the Fire Nation."
The sages resumed their chant, the names of the spirits and my ancestors.
What a farce. When my mother performed this ceremony for the first time, the very same sage had promised a long life of great honour for Zuko. It was a matter of public record. I had read the scrolls last night. A life of service to the Fire Nation for Zuko, a successful marriage and many children for me.
Mother had been eighteen when Zuko was born. Li and Lo had promised I would be a mother shortly after my sixteenth birthday.
A farce.
The sages were recounting the achievements of Azulon. Not much longer to go. I could feel Chan Li shaking, weakened by the heat and his injuries. A poisoned arrow had landed in his shoulder three weeks ago, striking in the very pavilion where we had formed our alliance. The archer swallowed the same poison before my guards found her. I had personally overseen the interrogation of the servants who aided the assassin.
It had been three days before the royal physicians had managed to identify the poison and apply the antidote. I remembered a meal I had shared with my father on one of those evenings.
He said, "I hear Chan Li calls for you."
"He calls," I said, "but he doesn't recognise me."
"But it's touching, don't you think? A man is truly honest at moments like this." There was amusement in Father's eyes. "I know you find it difficult to trust people, Azula."
Father hadn't visited Chan Li's sickroom. Someone must have carried the report of his fever cries, just as someone carried a report of our amicable marital alliance.
"If I have problems with trust," I said, "then I learned my lessons well."
I replaced the servants and threatened the physicians, but I couldn't be everywhere at once. Not in the palace. Not in the Fire Nation.
There was sweat running down my back, pooling at the base of my spine. Just a few more minutes, then I could bathe and dress and sit. Just. A bit.
Longer.
Between one breath and the next, the world changed. Instead of the Fire Temple, I was standing on a rocky shore, looking out to sea.
No.
Not again.
It had been months since I had seen things that weren't there. I worked and meditated, and spent my nights with Chan Li, and I was much too strong to let this happen again.
"Azula."
The man behind me was old, and oddly familiar, though I was certain I'd never seen him before. He wore the hairpiece of a crown prince of the Fire Nation, which had been lost for four generations.
"Azula," he repeated, "you must be careful--"
"No," I snapped. "No, I won't go back to that."
"Great-granddaughter--"
"No."
I moved to burn him, but there was no fire. I froze, horrified and afraid. Was this what had happened to Father? I stepped back, and stumbled on a loose rock, and --
Chan Li caught me as I swayed.
When the ritual was over I bathed myself in cold water, scrubbing myself raw to get rid of the last fragments of sweat and oil and incense. I took my time dressing, but I let the servants do my hair.
Chan Li and the Chief Sage waited for me in the temple's ancient library. Chan Li gave me a curious look as I entered, but he didn't say anything about my earlier lapse. The Sage bowed and scraped and didn't seem to have noticed anything at all.
"Fire Lord," he said, taking his place behind the desk and unfurling a scroll, "my prince. In light of the attempt on Prince Chan Li's life last month, it might be wise to consider, hmm, an exigency plan for the upbringing of the royal children. Should something happen to his parents."
"The attempt didn't succeed," said Chan Li mildly.
"This one didn't," said the Sage. "Who knows what treason is being plotted?"
"Yes," I said, "who does know?"
The Sage blinked. I smiled. He cultivated an image of being too concerned with spiritual matters to bother with worldly politics, but I knew he had transferred his allegiance to my father long before Azulon's death. Long ago, the Fire Lords themselves had been the Chief Sages, and before that, my ancestors had dedicated their lives to the service of the temples and the spirits. I couldn't look at a Fire Sage without thinking that, in another life, that might have been me.
"Tell me," I said, "who would you recommend to raise a poor orphaned prince?"
("Three guesses," Chan Li had told me that morning, "and the first two don't count.")
"Why, your father, of course."
Chan Li caught my eye. His jaw was set.
"Lord Ozai is still a young man, and who better to raise your child? He had two children of his own--"
The Sage faltered. I raised my eyebrows.
"Yes?" I asked.
"And you could not ask for a more experienced regent."
"No. I suppose I couldn't."
The Sage pushed the scroll towards me. It was an act of succession, naming my child as my heir and first Chan Li, then my father, as regent in the event of my early death.
I signed it with my own hand, using all my names and titles.
"You may as well have signed our death warrants," said Chan Li, as the palanquin carried us back to the palace.
"There was no other candidate." The swaying of the palanquin was making me nauseous. I concentrated on my breathing. "It's simple. Try and avoid assassins."
"I try," he said, "but lately they seem to be seeking me out." He hesitated. "Azula?"
"What?"
"Never mind. It can wait."
He broached the subject of my episode that evening after dinner. We were alone in the library reserved for the royal family, Chan Li reading military reports, I perusing intelligence dossiers and pointedly ignoring the book of traditional wisdom for expectant mothers that Li and Lo had left out. It would have been a charming domestic scene, except that I kept feeling Chan Li's eyes on me when he thought I was distracted.
I said, "If you have something to say, you should spit it out. Or at least stop staring."
"You nearly fainted today."
"I lost my balance. I don't faint."
"You went limp. It was like you weren't even in your body."
I read the same character three times. When the silence had stretched to breaking point I said, "I lost my balance."
Chan Li nodded, and I let him change the subject.
I was reluctant to sleep that night. I used to sleep deeply, and never remembered my dreams. Then the Comet came, and something inside of me seemed to break. Sometimes it was a struggle just to pass for my normal self.
I had thought I was getting better.
Great-granddaughter, the man had called me. My great-grandfather was Sozin the Conquerer. One of my great-grandfathers.
Chan Li didn't stir as I got out of bed.
The palace library was not as exhaustive as the Fire Sage's halls of histories, but it held a copy of the family records. My great-grandfathers were Fire Lord Sozin, Lord Hsiao, Lord Ueda and --
Nothing.
Dad never slept much at all. I found him sitting in his rooms, staring into the fire. His face was in shadow.
"Azula? You should be resting."
"Was my maternal grandmother illegitimate?" I asked.
He laughed at me.
"Like you, she was the daughter of a traitor," he said. "Fire Lord Sozin had his name struck from the records. As if that would make people forget Avatar Roku ever existed."
"Avatar Roku."
There was a sick ache in my chest. Something flickered at the edge of my vision, and it took all my control to keep from turning to look at it.
"Your brother inherited the traitor's blood, too. Watch out." Father reached out, resting his hand on my belly. "Children will inevitably disappoint you, Azula."
There was contempt in his voice. Because I, a woman and his child, had all the power he wanted and could never have again. Because I was my mother's daughter as well as his, and he had despised my mother as surely as she had feared me.
He had taught me to be fearsome. From the moment my bending had manifested when I was three, setting Mom's clothes and hair on fire as she tried to discipline me, he had claimed me for himself. His tool. His weapon. As powerful and worthless as a pai sho tile.
I had spent my life trying to please him. I had killed my brother. In his eyes, I was nothing.
He was watching me. I pasted a smile on my face and bowed.
"Good night, Dad." I kissed him on the cheek, like I was six years old again. "I'll see you in the morning."
Mai
Someone was crying.
For a second I lay awake in the dark, not sure where I was. Solitary confinement, in Princess Ursa's rooms with Zuko dying in my arms, Iroh's apartment: I was everywhere at once, paralysed, listening to those eerie cries.
I forced myself to breathe.
When I had control of my body at last, I went to find Aang.
He was up by then, rinsing his face in the fountain in the courtyard.
"Hey," I said.
He put his head under the water then stood up. Rivulets trickled down his scalp, shining in the moonlight.
"I couldn't make it stop," he said.
"You're awake," I pointed out, sitting on the edge of the fountain and watching him bend the water.
"We should train."
"Sunrise is hours away."
Aang opened his fingers and the water he was bending turned into shards of ice that embedded themselves in my grandmother's prized fig tree.
"My ice against your sword," he said.
It wasn't like I was going to get more sleep anyway.
We pitted ourselves against each other until we were too exhausted to see straight. The sun was high when we stumbled inside. I collapsed beside Aang on his futon, aware that I was sweaty and disgusting but far beyond caring. We slept until evening and we didn't dream. When we woke up, we ate and then we started again.
By the time we left for the capital Aang could use airbending to direct a knife I had thrown, and I had become adept at using my sword to block frontal firebending assaults. We had memorised the layout of the major service tunnels that ran beneath the palace, and I had schooled Aang in basic court etiquette.
As the ferry pulled away from the dock and my family's estate vanished behind us, I said, "What about Ozai?"
Aang adjusted the broad peasant hat that hid his tattoos and said, "What about him?"
The ferry was the new kind with a loud steam engine, and we were well away from the other passengers, but I still leaned in to whisper, "Killing Azula and leaving her father alive is shortsighted."
Aang looked uncertain. "But without his bending--"
"You benders think that's all that matters. He'll just have more kids."
"I came to take care of Azula, not to kill more people."
"Fine," I said, "I'll deal with Ozai."
I watched to see his reaction, but for once his face was totally unreadable.
In some ways, the strangest thing about going back to the capital was how little it had changed. The old quarter was a maze of alleys and narrow streets lined with hawkers, widening out and becoming less crowded as you reached the middle class areas. When we were younger, Azula used to challenge us to find her something in the bazaar: a trinket, a forbidden book, a cheap forgery of an Air Nomad artifact. I developed a taste for street food and once Ty Lee kissed a boy who sold pork buns.
I was just remembering the taste of spicy fried popiah and wondering if I could find a place that sold it, when Aang grabbed my arm.
"Look."
Standing at the corner was a pair of Dai Li agents, their green uniforms a vivid contrast to the reds and blacks around them. The crowds gave them a wide berth. I heard an old man with one arm, wearing a frayed uniform thirty years out of date, mutter something about Earth Kingdom infiltrators, but he, too, avoided their gazes.
I forced myself to walk naturally, Aang at my side, everyday Fire Nation people going about their business.
But now that I'd seen the Dai Li, I was looking at the crowds with new eyes. We were the only able-bodied teenagers here. In fact, I saw no one under forty who wasn't missing a limb or was otherwise injured in some way. And the stalls were shabbier than I remembered, their wares more sparse. Maybe it was just that I'd been a kid when I came here before, and now I was a cynical adult, but I didn't think so. Even the food stands looked empty, although it was late morning and they should have still been full. And a few years ago, there had been soldiers here, mostly domestic forces, maintaining law and order.
I looked back at the top of the street. The Dai Li agents had moved on.
"That happen often?" I asked a man selling tarnished hairpieces.
"Domestic forces were sent to the front," he said. "Now we have foreigners on the streets." He squinted at us, taking in our tanned skin and worn clothes. "You in from the colonies?"
"Outer archipelago."
"Take care. General Shin's not too choosy about how he gets his recruits. Press gang'd get good money for you and your brother." He gestured vaguely in the direction of some graffiti that promised a dawn after the darkness. "Be careful."
"Thanks."
I paid him for a tin hairpiece. A few blocks later I gave it to a little girl whose mother was selling spotty dragonfruit and led Aang down a lane that smelled of rotting fish.
"This was a better area eighty years ago," I told him, struggling with the old metal door. "Kitchen staff at the palace used to buy food for the Fire Lord's table here." Giving up, I stepped back and let Aang take over. "The palace stewards didn't want them walking all over the city, so they had tunnels built." The door buckled under Aang's metalbending, giving us a small opening through which we could enter. "This leads to the old kitchens."
Aang nodded, smoothing out the door behind us. A flame sprang to life in his hand, illuminating the half-smile on his face.
"Let's go," he said.
Part 4
no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 05:14 am (UTC)