Chapter Text
As the Avatar and his little friends scampered away with their proverbial tails between their legs, Azula strode towards the makeshift throne room of the bunker. Oddly enough, her father's guards stood just outside - not just the ones who had been keeping watch over the entrance, but the ones who had been stationed inside to protect her father, as well. All of them looked terribly nervous, too nervous, she noted, to be justified by Azula's understandably intimidating and nerve-wracking presence. "Why are all of you out here?" she demanded.
"Fire Lord Ozai sent us out, Your Highness," one guard quickly answered.
Azula walked past them and rapped on the door three times. "Permission to enter, Your Majesty?"
There was no answer.
Azula crossed her arms and eyed the door calculatingly. "Is someone in there with him?"
"Prince Zuko, Your Highness."
That was interesting, to say the least. "Is that all?" If Zuzu was the only one in there with their father, Azula should rightfully be granted permission to enter. The silence she had received instead added an extra layer of intrigue to the whole situation.
"...We heard lightning, Your Highness," another guard reluctantly put forth.
Azula froze. ...So, Zuko is dead. Why, she didn't know. She only knew that if her father and Zuko had been alone together preceding the lightning, Zuko was dead. I suppose I'm the heir once again. She gave herself one second to take in the new information, then moved on. "How long ago was this?"
"Just a few minutes ago, Your Highness."
It was unlike her father to need more than a handful of seconds to compose himself in the wake of a fight, and by the sound of it, it could hardly be called a 'fight,' or else the guards would have reported more than just lightning. Presumably Zuko had brought his death upon himself in some way, in which case her father would likely not take much offense at her entering unbidden. But what if Zuko didn't bring it upon himself? Involuntarily, Azula's mind leapt to thoughts of Azulon and Ursa. ...Better safe than sorry. Mentally (not physically, not yet), Azula prepared herself to generate lightning. Then she entered the throne room.
Zuko was not dead. Zuko was on his knees, staring blankly at their father, who was dead.
Possibly, Azula would feel something about that later. For the moment, she accepted this turn of events and set herself to gathering information about the increasingly strange circumstances. "Why didn't you kill him with your swords before the eclipse ended?"
"...I didn't mean to kill him," Zuko uttered hollowly.
...Of course he didn't. Agni himself was surely laughing at her. "Why were you here in the first place?"
"I was here to... confront him."
Azula sighed and braced herself for a painfully stupid conversation. "And what was your plan after that?"
"To break Uncle out of jail."
"Uh-huh," Azula said slowly. "And then?"
As zoned out as he was, Zuko somehow still managed to look sheepish. "I was going to teach firebending to the Avatar."
"You mean the Avatar who is currently fleeing the country as our soldiers explode his and his friends' means of escape?" Azula inquired pointedly.
Zuko's eyes remained fixed on their dead father, but widened all the same. "They can't do that."
"And what do you propose they do instead?" Azula retorted icily. "Shall we surrender?"
"...No." Zuko took a deep breath and leaned over, pressing his face into his open hands. Azula feared that he was shutting down on her completely, but then he mumbled, "Don't stop attacking, but don't kill anyone either. Just... chase them out?"
"Is that a question or a command, Your Majesty?" Azula took care to inject as much sarcasm as she could into the empty title.
"Command," Zuko grunted.
Azula strolled out of the throne room and shut the door behind her. "New plan," she informed the guards awaiting her. "Call off the bombing of the submarines. Chase the intruders out of our country, but aim to mobilize, not murder."
"I'm sorry, Your Highness, but we need the Fire Lord's authority for a change like that," one guard bravely stammered.
Azula sighed exaggeratedly. "Fine. Wait here." She returned to the room and approached Zuko. "Mind if I borrow this?" Without waiting for an answer, she bit out a mocking, "Thanks!" and drew one of his swords. Then she approached the throne and neatly separated Ozai's head from his body. She ignored the sharp inhalation Zuko made at her back and made her way to the door. When she opened it, she left it open wide enough to show herself, Zuko, and the head she dangled by its hair in the doorway. "Ozai doesn't have much to say about the change of plans," she quipped. "Your Fire Lord has condoned it, though. Isn't that right, Zuzu?" She carelessly tossed the words over her shoulder.
Silence.
Azula turned and put her back to the wall, keeping the guards in her peripheral vision as she looked expectantly at Zuko. He looked back, dazed and disconcerted and probably not really seeing her. "Say 'yes,' Zuko," she implored patronizingly.
"...Yes."
She turned back to the guards with a sharp smile. "There you have it. The Fire Lord has approved this change of plans. Now, someone go enact it before it's too late, or this," she shook the head hanging from her hand, "will be you. Understood?"
All of the guards were pale white. "Understood," one squeaked before abandoning his colleagues. Several of said colleagues cast jealous and resentful glances after him, as if wishing they, too, could retreat.
"If that's all, the new Fire Lord and I have much to discuss. We are only to be disturbed in the case of an emergency." Azula spun on her heel, shutting the door behind her. She stepped towards the dead body, gave it a sharp nudge, and watched dispassionately as it rolled off of Zuko's new throne. Then she delicately sat down where it had been and crossed one leg over the other, happily committing treason right before the eyes of her new ruler. "What is our plan, brother?"
Zuko did not answer.
Azula tensed her jaw in frustration. "I... understand your current state of distraction, but if you don't focus and help me, then I can't help you, and then our country will fall into ruin as it tears itself apart in civil war." She had yet to decide what she wanted out of this whole affair, but it was in the Fire Nation's best interest, and consequently in her best interest, for Zuko's brain functions to kick in sooner rather than later. If she let him leave the room as the desolate shell he appeared to be then he, and by association she, would become a laughing stock. "Is that what you wanted when you came here today?"
"No," Zuko whispered, sounding vaguely aware for the first time since Azula had happened upon him that day.
"Then tell me, what did you want? Obviously you wanted to help the Avatar, yes, but what did you intend to come of that? Peace? Power? What were you seeking?"
"Peace." Zuko gradually sat upright, his eyes regaining their characteristic attentiveness. "I just wanted to end the war.... The refugees in the Earth Kingdom, Azula, you haven't seen them - "
"I honestly couldn't care less," Azula dismissed. "Keep your reasons. Just tell me what happens next."
"I want to end the war."
"Easier said than done," Azula muttered under her breath, but when she saw Zuko's face fall, disheartened, she exasperatedly changed her tune to the best of her ability. "Yes, fine, let's end the war. Frankly, there wasn't much left of Ba Sing Se for us to conquer. We have Ba Sing Se. We have Omashu. We could go after the Water Tribes, I suppose, but is there even anything there other than ice?"
"I don't want to keep Ba Sing Se," Zuko decided.
Azula sighed irritably. "Just when I thought this was getting easier.... How do you justify that choice? More importantly, how do you plan on justifying that choice to the nobility?"
"Ba Sing Se is the heart of the Earth Kingdom," Zuko insisted. "Without it, there's hardly any Earth Kingdom at all."
"And why does there need to be an Earth Kingdom...?"
"The world needs balance."
"Right. I'm sure the nobles will agree whole-heartedly." Azula wondered if she would need to commit a mass murder of the Fire Nation's upper class soon. She supposed she had never liked any of them anyway. True, she had technically never killed anyone before (although the Avatar had been a close thing, she was sure) but if Zuzu had done it accidentally, how difficult could it be?
"Ba Sing Se's residents have been giving us trouble anyway," Zuko argued. "Father was about to burn the whole city to the ground. We hardly take a loss by just giving it back instead. We may as well get something out of it by repairing our relationship with the Earth Kingdom even the smallest bit."
"There you go!" Azula snapped her fingers triumphantly. "Now you sound a bit more like a Fire Lord. What about war prisoners?"
"We should release them," Zuko asserted immediately.
"Really? Just release them, just like that? There's not anything better we could do with them?" Azula prompted.
Even by the low standards she had for him, Zuko was unusually slow on the uptake. Azula blamed it on the dead body in the room, either the actions it had taken while alive or its disturbing presence between them. She should probably get that taken care of soon. Still, Zuko did eventually connect the dots. "We could... trade them for something, or use them as leverage to reach an accord with the other nations more quickly."
Just like leading an ostrich horse to water, Azula thought with no small amount of satisfaction. "It looks like we'll make a politician out of you yet, Zuzu." She rose from the throne. "I will go make arrangements for your coronation and Father's funeral. Not in that order, I suppose. You - "
"I need to go see Uncle," Zuko blurted out. "I need to have him released - "
"Yes, yes, I'll make arrangements for that as well." Azula rolled her eyes. "You need to go take a shower, eat something, and sit down in a quiet place until you resemble something human again. Anyone who sees you right now will laugh you right out of the city."
Azula led him to the door. "Before any of you start to gossip," she began, smiling pleasantly at each of the increasingly terrified guards around her in turn, "my brother has relayed to me that he challenged the former Fire Lord to an impromptu Agni Kai and, as you can see, he won. If anyone still has doubts about his right to the throne, they are encouraged to come directly to me so that I may... assuage those doubts. Do I make myself clear?"
The guards assented enthusiastically, so Azula directed two of them to see to it that Zuko was taken care of (decidedly not the way Ozai had been, at least until Azula had time to further evaluate the situation) and two of them to fetch Ty Lee and Mai and have them meet her in the royal palace aboveground. All in all, she supposed the day could have gone worse. At least Zuko was sentimental and easily manipulated.