Archive of Our Own

Azula's room in the hospital has a window that faces the courtyard. The building is meant for long-term stays, so the rooms are larger and have space for patients to put their things. Azula has no things—even her closet only has one extra set of clothing.

The hospital is an entire complex. There are four multi-story buildings surrounding the courtyard, all bound together by a wraparound porch. Being in the Fire Nation capital, and Azula being a member of the royal family, confining her somewhere so visually grand only made sense.

There's a garden and a bathhouse. A beautiful entry gate.

There's also a wall. It surrounds the entire estate. It's too high to climb quickly, and Azula knows they placed her in this room intentionally. She can see the wall, but she can't go down to it without being caught like she might have been able to in a room on the other side of the building.

She tries anyway.

Spring is beginning, and the scent of the early-blooming flowers is a thick perfume in the air. Cicadas chirp and badger-frogs croak in a cacophony. The grass is damp. The air is cool but not cold. It’s easy to blend into the dark—even easier to avoid the guards. At night, people have a tendency to make themselves known. They bring lights. They step heavily, as if that could ward off the unknown of the dark.

Azula is a master of stealth, and just when she thinks she’s made it, just when she has scaled the wall, well—Fire Lord Zuko himself personally escorts her back to the institution.

Of course, she doesn't ever give up without a fight. Even when she's been captured and totally restrained, she taunts him. Getting a rise out of poor Zuzu has always been too easy and causes him to make stupid mistakes.

But now Azula feels stupid for even trying. Zuko doesn't respond at all. He doesn't even look her in the eye when he shoves her back into the gates of the hospital.

Well, Azula knows how this game works too. She resorts to threats but Zuko doesn't respond to those either. His shoulders are tense, his face is drawn. She feels anger pouring out of him, frustration reaching a boiling point. Not angry at her threats, but angry with her existence. Still, this is Azula's playing field.

“Azula,” Zuko says, grasping and pulling down on his face. “Stop. Stop making this harder than it needs to be.”

Azula spits at his feet. In the fight, her hair has gotten loose from the tiny ponytail she’d managed to tie. Bangs stick to the sweat on her forehead. “Never.”

Zuko sighs, frustrated, and leaves.

Good riddance, Azula thinks. Still, she won’t try to escape for a while. Placate him. So he starts to not expect it.

The next morning, Azula rises with the sun. Her skin feels sticky, and her hair is unkempt. A lifetime ago, her appearance was second only to her power. Now, she has to be escorted to the washroom.

They’ve placed her in an unfamiliar room. It has bars over the window. The door can’t be locked or unlocked from the inside. She’d barely slept the night before, emotions running high, the bed uncomfortable, the sheets scratchy and oppressive. She’d paced the room until an orderly had come and told her to knock it off, eventually forcing her to drink still-cooling tea laced with a sedative.

They will only keep her in here for a few days, then she will be put back in her old room. A man in a long robe and a stuffy-looking hat will come and examine her. Will ask her too many questions, none of which feel particularly relevant. He doesn’t really care about her, she’s decided, he only cares about making her feel crazy.

Until then, she sits on the hard, uncovered floor, and meditates. Of course she knows how—and knew how spirituality was intertwined with firebending—but she’d fallen out of practice. She’d never needed meditation to be effective, though, not when she made up for everything in raw power. Still, it helped to pass the time.

Azula feels the sun rise, feels its power in her. Feels her breath rise and fall, aware of the weight of her chest. The heat when the sunlight eventually falls over her face.

There is a cat in her closet. There is a cat in her closet.

It hisses at her when she opens the door, returning from her solitary confinement, and she has to take a step back out of pure shock. It curls up against the wall, hair standing up. Azula can’t help but feel offended.

She’s not an animal person, not like Zuko, but a cat can’t be that hard to deal with, right? The cat lowers itself to the ground, still clearly on the defensive. Its eyes do not, not even for a second, leave hers. Azula finds herself biting her lip. She sets herself down on the floor.

“If they find out, I’ll be punished somehow.” Even though it’s a beautiful, expensive facility, the matron is strict and cruel. Azula had learned that the hard way, before she’d even tried to escape. It didn’t bother her, not really. She can respect cruelty, she was sure she would be the same.

She’s not sure how long she sits there, dumbly, without coming up with something to do. Confliction isn't something she’s used to. Should she talk to it? Her face twists in confusion.

“Where did you even come from, anyway? How can you get in, but I can’t get out?”

The cat, to be expected, does not respond. Azula glares, as if that would do anything. It glares right back.

“Would you rather die or have me give you to the staff?” Either way would end in trouble. “I can’t just have you stay here.”

Stay here. It’s an odd thought, because as soon as she says it, it starts to seem real. She feels a twinge of disgust. That’s not something she would ever do, was it? No. She wasn’t soft like Zuko. She didn’t pick up strays.

There’s a knock on Azula’s door, and she startles far too easily. “Princess? Dinner.”

Because this awful room is more of a prison than anything else, there’s a slot at the bottom of the door that opens so an orderly can push a tray through. Of course, there’s no way to open it from the inside, no way to efficiently push it out. Not that it would be very helpful, but it would have been something.

As Azula stands to collect her meal, the cat hisses again, and Azula turns to it, fury rising in her. For some reason, it feels so intense, this small betrayal of a condition that hadn’t even been established, could never even be established, because this was a cat and not a human being.

“You little–” She calls a flame to her hand, and brings it towards the cat.

Unfettered, hackles raised and teeth bare, the cat swipes at her hand. Azula, again, out of shock more than anything, steps back. She stares at her hand in disbelief. It only starts to hurt once blood rises to the cut, spilling over the sides of the wound. Nothing had ever done that, not to her at least.

“Oh.” She falls back onto the ground. Her mind is completely blank.

“You’re lucky the orderly had already left,” Azula tells the cat, who has once again settled into the corner of the closet after a moment. As if Azula wasn’t the one who had threatened it. “Otherwise you’d have been dead.”

She picks up her tray and tries to tempt the cat with some of the meat she’s been served. She backs away a few feet. Maybe because she’s already been scratched, the cat feels safe enough to come to where the food is lying on the ground. It’s like she had put Azula in her place, with the threat of being scratched again established.

Oddly, Azula feels respect rise deep within her.

“You might be the only one of us who enjoys that.” The cat continues to lick at the food. Childishly, Azula sticks out her tongue. No one is around. It doesn’t matter.

For reasons that are beyond even Azula’s own comprehension, she builds up a routine with the cat.

In the morning, she checks on it. It hisses at her. She gives it a part of every one of her meals, and she sits on the floor just a few feet away, watching. She cleans up after it without comment or threat. She lays down a towel and a spare set of sheets in the closet next to it. It hisses at her again. She meditates. It sleeps.

The sun sets, and she goes to sleep with the help of the same sedative. She has dreamless sleep. She spends most of her time with a blank mind.

She stops tracking the movements of the staff outside of her hall. Stops watching the path of their rounds in the courtyard. Technically, now that she’s out of solitary confinement, she’s allowed to go down to it with supervision—to go to the common spaces and interact with fellow patients. Always restrained, always closely watched.

It’s not worth bothering with, though. She can feel the sun from her room, can smell the sickly sweet flowers from the garden, and she can lay on her own bed, thoughtless but not bored. That’s all she needs. Plotting will come later, figuring out what to actually do with this thing in her closet will come later.

She is physically checked on once a day. Mentally, once every other day. The man with the same ridiculous hat comes to her room and asks her about boring things. Has she hallucinated today? Does she have any desire to harm herself or others? The same laundry list of things that make her “crazy.”

She chews on the rice given to her for dinner, not caring about how her hair is unkempt or how she must look, sitting so overly relaxed on the floor. She watches the cat groom itself. It hisses at her when she moves.

There’s something comforting in routine. Even one as strange as this.

The cat gives birth.

“Oh,” Azula says to nobody. “You were just trying to protect your babies.”

‘Babies’ feels like a stupid word. Azula feels stupid for not noticing the cat was pregnant. The cut on her hand has scabbed over, and will make for a nice scar. She hasn’t even been accused of harming herself during her daily examination, though.

The cat, who Azula has yet to name, has calmed down significantly since Azula found her in her closet. She lies in a nest of spare linen and Azula’s cloak, eyes closed and purring as her kittens suckle on her belly. Like she’s done for the past few days, Azula watches from a few feet away. Feeling childish already, she pulls her knees to her chest, rests her chin on top, and stays that way for hours.

That night, she gives the cat a part of her dinner again. For the first time since it has taken up residence inside Azula’s closet, the cat rubs its face into her hand, licks her with a sandpaper tongue, and takes the food right from Azula’s hand. Tentatively, she pets the cat. It lets her.

The routine evolves.

For the first week or so, the cat does not let Azula touch her kittens. She’s warmed up significantly, but the kittens are still too fragile to move, and their mother is the only one who can take care of them. So, Azula spends most of her time in the same way as before: watching from a few feet as the mother cares for her babies.

Azula continues to meditate.

There is a strict rule against firebending, and Azula is not even allowed candles. Using the candles had, at one point, been like prayer for firebenders. But one hundred years of war had rightfully snuffed out spirituality among the Fire Nation’s population. Even the sages themselves knew theirs was a dying art.

Azula remembers the myths about Agni, the fire god, though. She’d had them drilled into her.

So, she imagines the candles in front of her, imagines the control she would have over their flames. Control had also been drilled into her.

For a few weeks, it’s peaceful in her room. She doesn’t feel lonely, even though she thought she had unlearned that. It was as though she did not need to feel it. Now, there’s a strange feeling taking hold. Not lonely, not denying loneliness, not ambition nor any sort of desire.

The days become warmer and longer. The cherry blossoms bloom and quickly fade.

Azula gives the cats increasingly silly names. The mother, who has short brown fur and likes to follow the sunlight across Azula's floor, is Hina. There are Kane and Bana, who have short white fur and large spots of brownish-red stripes. There’s also Himiko, who has long white fur and bright blue eyes.

Then, the littlest. The runt. His eyes haven’t opened yet, and he's the only one with ashy gray fur. Maybe it’s why she names him Ryu—dragon.

While the other kittens have been learning to walk, starting to play, trying too quickly to jump, Ryu stays in Azula's closet. His breathing is shallow, and his mother grooms him for long periods of time, almost like she knows he needs the warmth.

Azula knows it's natural, convinces herself that it's okay—that she doesn't care one way or the other if the thing dies—but she keeps her distance anyway.

The other kittens like when she drags a string with her hairpiece tied to the end across the floor. They stumble towards it and swat at it, like that will do anything.

“Good work,” she praises them coyly because no one is around. “Soon you will be master hunters. Domination will be yours.”

Zuko tries to visit several times. Azula is aware that he probably thinks she's on the verge of executing another escape attempt. While she considers it, and still takes note of any relevant information she overhears when orderlies pass her room, she has yet to make any sort of plan.

One night, Hina takes her kittens and leaves.

Azula doesn't notice until she's awake—when she checks the closet and only Ryu is left in the pile of linen and clothing, mewling and breathing too quickly.

“What?” Her forehead creases. “Where’d she go?” Her voice betrays hurt, confusion. Internally, she berates herself.

Azula’s heartbeat quickens. Stupidly, tears prick at the corners of her widened eyes. Her breath comes out shaky, and she’s never more wanted to have someone to blame, to hurt, to take this out on. She’s feeling something she can’t put a name to. All she knows is that her chest is tight.

Stupidly, again, she stumbles across her room. Looks under the bed. Behind her nightstand. Of course there’s nothing there. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She goes back to the closet. Rage fills her when she sees the kitten there again. Her vision tunnels, the world feels far away.

How could she abandon her baby like that?

Azula falls to her knees. Her hands reach her face, nails digging in. She feels wild.

“How could she do that?”

She grasps the fabric on the floor, and before she can even think about it, she throws it to the side.

Mewling pulls her violently back to reality. Breathlessly, she pulls back the heap of fabric to reveal the kitten there, writhing and too small to do anything more to save itself. Azula picks him up by the back of the neck and cups him in her hand.

“How could she abandon me?”

From that moment onwards, the resolve to save the kitten takes hold of Azula's very soul. Later, if anyone asks, she'll make up some excuse to save face. To seem less stupid than she is. It's not logical, it's not her, but it feels so vitally important.

She dips a cloth into the broth of the soup they give her with breakfast and places it in the kitten's mouth. Even though Azula hadn’t expected the thing to survive, it adapts easily to the new food.

One morning, on her trip to the bathhouse, Azula figures out how to escape supervision. For a fleeting second, she considers trying to scale the wall again, making a run for it without turning back.

Instead, she sneaks into the kitchen and steals a bottle of milk.

She's already concerned with her lack of knowledge of how animals of any sort developed, let alone something as tiny and fragile as the cat in her room.

Instead of leaving him in the closet, Azula keeps Ryu in the ceramic basin on her nightstand. He sleeps next to her head. She watches for hours without thought, keeping track of the rise and fall of his chest. She continues to steal towels and sheets and any manner of things to make him comfortable. If he dies, she wants it to at least be warm. For him to feel safe.

It still doesn't make any sense. Why is she doing any of this?

Summer comes and brings the monsoon with it. Wind pounds against Azula's closed shutters. It rains for a day straight.

She spends the time curled on the floor. She is allowed to read or to write, but she doesn't feel the need to do anything.

She imagines Hina and the rest of her kittens, stuck somewhere out in the rain. Serves her right.

Ryu is slowly growing bigger. Despite the odds stacked against him, he opens his eyes for the first time in the midst of the storm. They're a brilliant blue.

For a few weeks, it's bliss.

The sun comes out, Azula can open her window, and Ryu’s limbs grow longer. She tosses toys tied to twine for him to play with. A smile creeps up to her face. There is no one here. She allows it.

He's a good cat. He knows his name and has moved to solid food from Azula's tray, but doesn't beg or fight her for food. He lays on her lap when she meditates, purring and kneading his paws into her leg.

She learns his facial expressions easily. She knows that when his eyes widen and his ears pull back in a certain way, he'll jump suddenly to the window sill to look around wildly. Azula will join him, but she never sees whatever it is he sees. She just runs her hand down his spine. It's endearing.

“Do you even miss your mother?” Azula asks him. He’s laying at her side, and he twists into her body, stomach to the sky. “I can't decide if I miss mine.”

Azula studies the way Zuko raises his hand to silence the matron before she even begins to speak. In another lifetime, that would have been her. It’s strange how she is the focus of attention, the interrogation, but Zuko is the magnet in the room. They all defer to him. Azula doesn’t know when that happened—when he became so comfortable with power.

She doesn’t like this dynamic. She stares at him and he stares back.

He had brushed the hair from her face when she’d finally fallen limp over the grates of that drain. Quietly asked her if she was hurt. She wouldn’t be able to speak for weeks after, though—she’d been completely hollowed out.

“Azula, why are you hiding a cat?”

The matron’s assistant is holding said cat on Zuko’s other side, scratching it behind the ears. The cat’s tail flicks side to side, and Azula can tell he wants to come to her. Despite herself, she sputters. “Well, I wasn’t going to leave it to die!”

Zuko’s eyes narrow. Like Father’s had before striking. As if he could seamlessly transition to rage at any moment. Azula snarls. She needs to defend herself here.

“Does the cat…help?”

“What?” Disgust colors her voice.

“I have heard animals can have a good effect on mental health!” The assistant chimes in. The matron glares at her from behind Zuko, but she only offers a smug grin and a shrug.

“It’s against the rules,” the matron growls.

Zuko turns to her, and her features smooth over. She looks to the ground, deferring to him and his power. He just smiles. Genuinely smiles. Not harsh or critical or sarcastic in any sense. “Rules can be overridden. I am the Fire Lord. I think you can allow her to have a pet while she stays here.”

For some reason, Azula hates him for it. Even though it’s what she’d wanted.

Ryu is her cat. Her cat that lets her rest her head next to him, where she can hear its heartbeat, faster and quieter than a human’s. The cat that purrs on her chest with slowly blinking eyes. The cat the assistant gives to her to hold, and whose soft fur she buries her nose into.

Azula's mother watches her from somewhere behind her.

Her gaze always felt so heavy, so judging, that it made Azula afraid to move. She takes a deep breath and tries to pretend the floor isn’t rocking beneath her. She covers both ears with her hands, already anticipating her mother’s voice.

It still comes through.

“Azula, I love you.”

She crouches to the floor. There’s nothing here to destroy, to rid herself of that voice. If she looks behind her into the window, her mother’s face will be in the glass.

“Stop it,” she growls. “Not now.”

“Azula, I’m sorry.”

Her heart is pounding, but the voice isn’t any quieter. The words echo in her mind, bouncing around in her skull until it hurts. Her grip over her head tightens.

“Leave me alone!”

She keeps her eyes averted from the window. Her skin seems to buzz, prickling with energy and blurring the rest of the world away. She reaches out to grab something, anything, to throw at the window, but she bumps into something soft instead.

It’s Ryu.

Azula startles and falls back onto her elbows. Her heart is still racing, and she still can’t quite see her peripheral, but her cat is there. He crawls up onto her chest and knocks his face against hers. She blinks, shocked.

“She’s not there, is she?” Azula asks quietly. “She left, didn’t she?”

Ryu knocks his head into her again. She reaches up to run her hand down his back. Slowly, her heart calms, and she’s able to sit up again.

“Thank you,” she whispers to Ryu.

She lays on the floor until her next meal comes, feeling like she’d run a mile.

“I think I know how to find our mother.” Zuko takes tea with Azula in the courtyard, beneath the shade of a willow tree. There’s a tray between them, but it might as well be an entire chasm. They’d been close once, some treacherous part of her brain whispers.

“Why are you telling me?” Azula takes a sip of her tea. She’d never enjoyed it much, but Zuko has seemed to pick up the taste for it somewhere along his traitorous years with Uncle.

Zuko sighs. “Azula, please. I didn’t come here to fight.”

Azula feels the urge to sneer. To tell him to get out of her sight. Instead, she narrows her eyes and concedes. She nods, allowing him to continue.

“I’ve found her hometown. I want to start there—to see if there’s any hint of where she might have gone after being banished.”

There’s a million things Azula could say. She deserved it. She killed our grandfather. She was always weak. You were always weak. She left me behind.

“Again, why are you telling me?”

“Azula.” Something changes on his face, a grave question in his eyes. “Do you want to come with me? I can let you out of here.” He gestures around to the serene courtyard.

Azula tilts her head. It’s not entirely unexpected. However, she wasn’t aware he trusted her enough to not attempt escape. Either that or he thought he could still take her in a fight. It might have been close, what with her having been out of practice for months. But she knew she could win. And she knew Zuko knew, too.

It would be a perfect opportunity. But then, she imagines her mother’s face and a shiver races down her spine. She lets the corner of her mouth curve.

“No.”

“What?” Zuko had clearly not been expecting that answer.

“I say let her stay dead.”

“You don’t care a single bit whether she’s alive or not?”

The words cut deep for no reason that Azula could name. “No,” she lies.

Zuko breathes out heavily in frustration. Azula realizes she doesn’t have to be afraid of him. He wears all his emotions too earnestly, too publicly. It’s his greatest weakness. But he was the one with the power. Azula was the one institutionalized.

“If you find her, you can tell her.” Azula smirks when Zuko scowls at that.

“I’m leaving.” He stands with a flourish.

“Goodbye,” she sing-songs.

Zuko still sends her a letter later, in his own handwriting. A true Fire Lord never did such things. He had scribes. Even then, his seal, still new and foreign to Azula’s eyes, is pressed into the seal of the scroll.

She’s invited to stay in her old room at the palace while he’s gone, if she wishes. Uncle will be regent in Zuko’s absence. She is welcome to enjoy the comforts of the palace, her cat included.

Ryu purrs in her lap, nudging her to pet him. She obliges, scratching under his chin. Sure, she decides. Make Zuko regret it.

She doesn’t think she’ll try to run away, though.

Maybe, now that she’s received Zuko’s trust once again, she can infiltrate his ranks, so to speak. Take him down from the inside. However, she doesn’t follow that thought very far before pulling out her own paper.

The Palace feels foreign. She hasn't been here in over a year. She hasn’t even stepped beyond the gates of the institution in that time. The rooms feel too big—her robe feels too heavy.

Ty Lee grasps her hand. “Isn't this great!” She’s out of that ridiculous makeup, and she no longer wears the skimpy outfits that had been her forte. It’s still pink, though. Always pink.

“If you say so.”

Ty Lee hums. Azula hasn’t seen her for longer than she’s been in the forsaken hospital, and she can’t help but notice that her friend has grown up. She’d embraced Azula as soon as she’d seen her, almost like they really had been friends after all. Ty Lee never made any sense.

Azula had left her things in her old room along with Ryu. She’d told him very seriously to watch over them. He had looked up at her with his large eyes and blinked slowly. Somehow, she thought he understood. Understood that there was a joke there, hidden under layers and layers of irony and her carefully projected adulthood.

They keep walking and Ty Lee points out an alcove. “Hey, remember when—”

“When we played frivolous games, and I was infinitely better at them than you?”

Ty Lee rolls her eyes, but it’s a good natured gesture. Her thumb brushes over the back of Azula’s hand. “You always took things too seriously.”

“Do I not still?”

A lifetime ago, Ty Lee would have flinched in fear, would have corrected herself, and Azula would have felt comforted. In control. Happy. Now though, Ty Lee seems lighter, and Azula begins to realize she was the weight on the other girl’s shoulders. Ty Lee just scrunches up her nose with a smile. Guilt gnaws at a miniscule part of Azula that she thought she’d stamped out.

The floor is too smooth. The ceilings are too high. Everything feels too perfect, like it could fall apart at any moment.

Mai has a new boyfriend, and she clings to his arm like she never did with Zuko. Not that Azula had ever had a problem with them dating, but somehow, this feels more natural. She, too, looks relaxed in a way she never had around Azula. Around anyone.

Mai gives Azula her classic smirk. There is no malice in her eyes either.

A lifetime ago, Azula wouldn’t have known what to do with that. Fear, distrust, anger, hatred—they were all things she expected and understood. Interest, familiarity, comfort—these were not things she knew how to handle. At least fear was tested. It usually ended the same.

“Good to see you,” Mai says with no sarcasm like she had in Omashu.

Usually, one had to bow when greeting a member of the royal family. Azula enforced it, even with her friends. Now, she bows to Mai first—who bows back without comment.

Ty Lee is annoyingly close still. Azula can practically feel her vibrating in excitement. She has half a mind to tell her to knock it off, but she chooses to disregard that instinct. She…doesn’t really mind it, actually.

Ty Lee leaves Azula’s side and wraps Mai in a tight hug. “Mai!”

For once, Mai does not stiffen under the hug. Azula wonders if they’ve been in touch since the end of the war. They seem more comfortable with each other now, even more so than when they’d traveled together through the wilderness.

“Hi,” Mai says, and there’s a certain tenderness to her voice that makes Azula jealous. It isn’t a feeling she’s used to. Or, maybe it had always been there. She’s been having strange thoughts like that recently.

They take lunch together. And, while the awkwardness between them remains, there is also something regained. Azula doesn’t know why they forgave her, or, more importantly, why she forgave them, but there turns out to be value in diving straight into the deep end.

“I know it's wrong but, I—”

“Azula, stop. You don't have to say it.”

“Please don't tell anyone.”

“I'm the only one that matters.”

Ty Lee kisses her cheek then, and Azula feels butterflies kick up in her stomach. Feels weightless for the first time in her whole life.

“But it's illegal.”

“Like you've ever cared about that.” There’s something about her intonation that makes Azula feel silly for saying that. She doesn’t know what she believes anymore.

“I...suppose you're right.”

“Then I'll do it again!” She kisses Azula's other cheek.

Despite herself, Azula smiles bashfully. A blush creeps up her neck.

“Aw, you really like me, huh?”

“Shut up!” She shoves playfully, and Ty Lee giggles. It's like they’re little girls again.

Ty Lee shoves Azula back, following through until she's pinned her down to the bed. Azula's breath catches in her chest.

“Here,” Ty Lee mumbles, and kisses Azula's bottom lip. Azula can't find anything to say, cheeks warm and heart fluttering.

Ty Lee stands, and Azula wants to protest, to ask her to do it again, but all that comes out is a breathy sigh. “We'll finish that later.” She does have to leave, and Azula will have to wait.

It’s late at night when Ty Lee finally cracks open Azula’s door. At first, she bolts upright, and can’t recognize her surroundings for a second. The room is crushingly big. Unknowingly, she’d drifted to sleep at some point on top of the covers, still fully clothed.

“Relax,” Ty Lee whispers, sneaking inside and locking the door behind her. Azula does. She’s carrying a tray with a teapot and two cups, which she sets down on a side table.

When she notices Azula’s day clothes, Ty Lee frowns and cocks her head to the side. She sits down, criss-cross and comfortable. The fireplace in the corner of the room crackles, but it’s not what’s making Azula feel so warm. From the tray, Ty Lee pours a cup of tea for both of them and invites Azula to sit next to her on the floor. The light from the fire glitters off her eyes, just like it had on that beach.

Noiselessly, Ryu brushes up against Ty Lee’s leg, and Azula joins them both.

“It’s not poisoned, is it?”

“Huh?” She looks a little sad, like she had when Azula asked her to leave the circus.

“At the asylum they give me sleeping droughts.”

“Do you need them?”

“I think so.”

Ty Lee just shrugs. “You seem fine to me.”

You didn’t see me over those grates, Azula thinks bitterly. You only saw me before.

“They kept telling me about it. I mean, Zuko and his friends.”

Azula should sneer, she could, but doesn’t. She remains still, staring at the fire.

“Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to know, but they told me how bad things got while, y’know…”

Azula does know, but she doesn’t want to speak on it. Old wounds still ache from time to time.

“I really did go crazy, I'll have you know.” It’s embarrassing, painfully so, to admit, but it’s like a weight lifted to admit it, even as a joke.

“You never did anything halfway.”

“Neither did you.”

A pause. “Was it because of me?”

Azula had felt fear for the first time in years that day at the Boiling Rock. So, yes, it was her fault, but Ty Lee wasn’t the one who made her father turn against her or who had summoned her mother from beyond the grave. “No.”

“Every instinct is telling me to be angry with you,” Ty Lee says in a rare moment of complete sincerity. “But another part of me thinks that maybe it wasn’t all bad.”

Azula scoffs. “I was cruel to you on purpose.”

“But, I still…” She trails off with a heavy sigh.

“Maybe you’re right.” Azula knows she is. She’d wanted Mai and Ty Lee to be her friends. Deep, deep down, she had trusted them, despite what she would claim after the fact. She knew she was cruel, and vindictive, and petty, but that was what she knew to be effective—to keep people by her side. Still, not everything they’d done together served a purpose. “Maybe it wasn’t all bad.”

Ty Lee’s breath hitches, and Azula thinks she’s about to cry, but she wraps Azula in a hug instead. She pulls away, after only a moment, contemplative. “Can I brush your hair?”

Usually, this was the work of a servant, and Ty Lee was no servant. But Azula acquiesces. Ty Lee removes her shoulder padding, undoes the tie over her outer layer, leaving her in the plain red robe underneath. Gently, she unties Azula’s hair, carding her fingers through it and relaxing her scalp.

“They cut it short, didn’t they?”

“Technically, I did.”

Ty Lee doesn’t ask why, which is good. Instead, she begins to braid, leaving Azula’s bangs in the front, framing her face—a reminder of her former self. Ty Lee ties the plait with a pink ribbon. It falls down Azula’s spine in a way that isn’t entirely displeasing.

“No one has done that for me in a long time.”

Ty Lee shrugs, like she wouldn’t have it any other way. Back then, Azula would never have let her anywhere near her hair. Would not have even let her close enough to share such an intimacy.

“Should I–” Azula hates feeling awkward. Hates asking. Hates explicitly doing things for others. “Do you want me to do yours too?”

Instead of responding with words, Ty Lee pulls the tie out of her hair. Azula fingers her braid apart and picks up the brush. Her hair is shiny, and it’s long enough to reach the floor. Azula rebraids it in the same way as Ty Lee had done to her, hair gathered at the base of her head and tied off at the end with a pink ribbon.

Ty Lee takes Azula’s hand. They’ve finished their tea, and she leads Azula to the bed. They don’t kiss again—they just fall asleep a few feet apart.

There will be another few weeks like this—where Azula waits all day until Ty Lee, and sometimes Mai, come to her room, and they do the things they might have otherwise forgotten how to do. Zuko remains occupied, and Azula avoids all politics.

Zuko does end up finding his mother.

Azula has taken up herbalism in her long days spent mostly alone. A lifetime ago, her mother had tried to teach her. Despite her father’s wishes, and without his knowledge, Mother hadn’t been able to simply forget her past life.

“Women in our family have done this for generations,” she’d tried to say.

Azula had stuck out her tongue. “But it's so girly.” Back then, it was an insult. Girlishness was for stupid people like Ty Lee. Not for her.

Still, she finds old scrolls in the library, notices where the herbs grow on her walks through the palace gardens, and decides it's something she needs to know every last detail of.

Now, her mother sneaks up on her in the greenhouse.

“I always knew you'd be good at that.”

Azula doesn't look away from where she's making a poultice. It's not for anyone in particular. She'll bottle it, label it with careful handwriting. One hundred and one years after Sozin’s first comet. Apply to wounds.

“What do you want,” Azula says icily.

“I wanted to see my daughter. Zuko told me where I'd find her.”

“Well, you've seen her.” Azula whirls around to face her mother. “Now leave me alone.”

“Azula, please.”

“No!” Azula falls into a defensive stance, hand snapping outwards and knocking her mortar to the ground. Her mother flinches away. Good. “Go away!”

“Please, Azula. I love you.”

Azula’s face betrays her, she’s sure. She squeezes her eyes shut and covers her ears with her hands. Her chest feels restricted and it’s like the room is getting smaller with each breath she sucks in. “Stop it!”

“What is it?” Her mother sounds panicked, but it’s so distant, like everything else was with her.

“Stop lying!” Azula has crouched in on herself, lowered herself to the floor.

“I'm not lying.”

“You're not real! You can't trick me!”

There's the rustle of clothing as her mother stands and leaves. Azula just tries her best to breathe. Blood rushes through her ears and she doesn't hear anything until there's a cat at her side, rubbing its face into her body.

“Oh, hello.” She rubs a thumb across its cheek before wiping away tears that were unconsciously shed.

Zuko comes rushing in, their mother behind him, and Azula brings her cat into her chest. “Azula, what's wrong?”

“Leave us alone.”

“Should I call the doctors?”

He crouches down in front of where she's curled up on the floor. Grabs her wrist and unlocks her hands. He's gentle with her, even after she almost killed him. She’ll never understand it.

Mother is still standing awkwardly above them, unsure of herself. “I didn't want to upset you, Azula.”

Zuko turns to her, and Azula can't see his face, but she desperately wants it to be mean. “I think you should go,” he says.

“Thank you,” Azula says to Zuko, maybe for the first time in their lives.

He smiles tightly. “Are you okay?”

Azula nods. “You can go chase after her if you want, I'm sure she's upset.”

“You're upset too.”

Azula can't help but freeze. She doesn’t like the feeling that sprouts up inside of her.

“Do you need me to talk to her?” Zuko asks, like it wouldn’t even be a problem.

“I'd rather just forget it, Zuzu.”

“Okay,” he says, though he looks unsure. “Here, I'll help you clean up.” Again with the things no Fire Lord would ever do themselves.

Zuko invites Azula to his office, where he works through paperwork and writes letters to his silly friends. She sits at the other side of his magnificent desk, legs tucked under her like this is a formal audience. He doesn’t say anything when she comes in—doesn’t even glance up from his writing for more than a moment except to gesture for her to sit.

Azula can’t stand silence. “I suppose you want me to apologize to Mother.”

Zuko finishes writing a sentence. He used to seem immature in comparison to her, even as far back as a few months ago, but he’s never been more regal, nor has he ever seemed so confident.

“What I want, Azula, is for you to be okay.”

Azula remembers that she’s not supposed to have that. She is her image, and her image has to be cruel. She has to be perfect, she has to please her father. It doesn’t matter what she should have, inside herself and for her alone.

“And why is that?” She tries her best to sound bored.

“Because, in spite of everything, I care about you.” His words sting. She’d cared about him, too, until everything had unraveled inside of her.

“But you have every right to care about Mother more.”

“Did you care about Father more than me?”

“Yes.” It’s not really true.

“Did he make you feel cared for?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Then…no.” Azula shrinks in on herself. It didn’t matter, she tells herself. It was fine. But in the end, he’d cast her aside. Left her alone to fall apart.

“And Mom didn’t make you feel cared for either, did she?”

“No.” She realizes she says it too quickly. “But it doesn’t matter.”

Zuko gives her a skeptical look. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what went wrong when we were children—”

Unexpected anger flares in Azula’s chest. “It was you!” she interrupts. “It was Mother leaving and it was your foolishness that brought on your own banishment. Don’t be stupid!”

“No, Azula. That wasn’t it.” Zuko looks down and continues to write on the page. “Our father was cruel, and he pitted us against each other so we would remain submissive to him.”

“Why shouldn’t I be submissive? Why shouldn’t I serve my own father?” He still wasn’t reacting enough. It was like punching a brick wall.

“Because he did not serve you.”

“That’s not how any of this works!”

Zuko raises his brow. It forces Azula to pay attention to his scar, to look away, intentional or not. Blood is still rushing through her ears, and her heart is still pounding.

“Honor can’t be taken or given. It is proven.”

If it weren’t for the way he’d changed since becoming the Fire Lord, Azula might have accused him of simply parroting their uncle. She can see the frustration beating in his throat, the way his eyes narrow. His hair has grown out, though. He looks older. Maybe Azula doesn’t know him like she once did.

“So, what? What do you want me to say?” she asks.

“Nothing. I just want you to know I care about you, and I don’t expect anything in return, and I want you to be happy.”

“Why? I tried to kill you and your little friends over and over. You can hate me, I won’t care.”

“You will.”

“You don’t know anything about me, then.”

“No, Azula. I do know you, and I understand more about both of us than I ever have before.”

“What? That we didn’t have a good childhood? Great observation.” Azula rolls her eyes.

“Azula, please, hear me. Listen to me. I had Mom and Uncle, but you only had our father. Someone needs to make it up to you, and it has to be me.”

“I don’t understand.” And she really, truly, doesn’t. A pit forms in her stomach, heavy and hot with the shame of what he’s pointing out.

Zuko doesn’t say anything. Instead, he hands her a neatly packaged box, wrapped in fine paper and golden twine. After a moment of hesitation, she opens it and pulls out a tiny collar. It’s a beautiful shade of deep red, accompanied by golden thread embroidered in a fine pattern. Attached is a tiny bell, smaller than the size of her pinky nail.

“For your cat.” He smiles tenderly.

“I—” Azula is completely lost. She can’t decide what she’s supposed to be feeling, what she’s supposed to be saying, so she sits in shocked silence. After a beat, “It’s nice, I suppose.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

In another lifetime, she would have mocked him, would have burned the collar right in front of him. Everything feels so far away. She still doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do, who she’s supposed to be. Still, she feels something, even if she can’t quite name the emotion.

She’s been sitting and clutching the collar for an indeterminate amount of time before Zuko breaks the silence again. “We’ve been drafting a new law, and I want your input.”

“You do?”

“You were always more politically aware than I was.”

“I am better than you in many ways.”

“So, you’ll help?”

“I suppose.” Azula shrugs nonchalantly.

Zuko smiles. Maybe he really will care about her.

“You want to outlaw the Agni Kai?”

“Yes.”

“Need I remind you of how you came to be in your current position, my dearest Fire Lord?”

“Humor me.”

Azula rolls her eyes. “The people of the Fire Nation are nothing if not connected to tradition. They’ve spent a hundred years engaged in warfare, and that is their only frame of reference for the world. Whether or not you believe the war was justified is your opinion, Zuko, but an outright ban on anything will alienate the people from you, inevitably leading to civil unrest.”

“I want to give more power to the parliament. Instead of just enforcing the law, our local magistrates can give us a stronger connection to the population.”

“Democracy muddies the waters. Too many voices makes it impossible to get anything done efficiently, let alone a ban on one of the Fire Nation’s longest-held traditions.”

“And if the law were to be proposed not by the Fire Lord themselves?” Zuko grins deviously. “Perhaps by a high ranking advisor? Maybe even an heir to the throne?”

“You’re…you’re giving me my title back?”

Azula’s no fool, she knows she disgraced herself in their duel. She knows she no longer has the right to anything, let alone her former position of power. They still call her princess, but it’s not like that means anything.

“Not exactly. We’ll have to come up with a new title. I want you to lead my primary council. I will supervise.”

“Zuko…”

“It’s yours if you want it. You’re extremely talented. I need you.”

And I need you. “You realize you’ve put me in an impossible situation, right? If I refuse, I’ll never regain my honor. If I accept, I will betray everything I’ve stood for so far.”

“What exactly is it that you stand for right now?” A thread of anger in his voice. A moment of fear in her chest. “Do you want Father back on the throne? Do you want the war back?”

“I—Yes, that would be nice.”

“Do you really believe violence is more efficient than democracy?”

Azula thinks about the cat in her closet lashing out at her. She thinks about throwing her brush at the mirror, faced with a hundred reflections of herself, hair untidy and eyes wild. About Ty Lee knocking her to the ground. Ty Lee pushing her back onto the bed—her going down willingly.

“I’m…not sure anymore.”

Zuko nods like she actually agreed. “We need to redistribute power. We need more transparency. We need more input from the people.”

“You need to re-engage with other traditions, then,” she says quietly. “That’s easy enough to figure out, even for a dummy like you.” Zuko glowers. “Much of our culture has been replaced with the wartime mindset. Use the Avatar.”

“His name is Aang.”

“Fine, use Aang to reintroduce spirituality to the people, even though there’s previously been no use. Celebrate the summer solstice—the Avatar’s birthday while you’re at it! Rebuild the main council and consult the sages. If you really want to deemphasize violence.”

“And then we can ban the Agni Kai.”

Azula sneers. Stares at his scar and relaxes. “And then you can ban the Agni Kai.”

“You’re amazing, Princess Azula.”

Azula stands at the head of the meeting table in Zuko’s throne room, Ryu cradled in her arms. She strokes the cat’s back as she listens to a former general make the same aggressive suggestions he always used to during the war.

Behind her, Zuko watches on. He tends to keep his curtain of fire low enough to see his face, which remains stony at this moment. While Azula’s fire burned hot, blue and extremely powerful, his burns more like a campfire. It’s warm, and it has the colors he says were a gift from the dragons.

“You’re all wrong,” Azula admonishes. She takes a lap around the table. “You’re all stuck in the past, which is the exact opposite of what we’re trying to do. Your Fire Lord has commanded continued de-escalation, yet you fail to listen.”

“How many more peace summits do we have to hold before you realize it’s pointless? You and your brother have failed to continue the great legacy of this nation.”

“What do you know about legacy?” Azula snarls.

“Enough,” Zuko interrupts, rising to his feet. Azula sits down as a symbol of respect. “Former General Yi, the legacy we have been given is cruelty. It is up to us, as a nation, to fix this.”

Azula and Zuko have almost never played on the same side, although she’d always tried to include him. As a child, he’d been too timid, too fearful to ever lie or manipulate or sneak around. He’s always been blunt, but now he’s actually backed by confidence that Azula finds herself envious of.

“Azula.” Zuko gestures for her to continue, so that he sits down and she stands up.

She sets her cat down, folds her hands behind her back and tries to emulate the same confidence she used to hold. She’s been broken down, torn apart at the seams, and now she fails to fill the room with her presence in the same way that she had under her father. The careful blend of masculine ego and feminine charm she took years to cultivate doesn’t come out quite right.

“It is your duty to your nation to respect the wishes of the Fire Lord, but it is also your duty to understand his choices.” She glares at Yi. “Our culture of violence has even extended to inflict suffering on our own citizens. Our nation’s tradition is not imperial war—that is Sozin’s tradition. You all have shown your ignorance to the greater history of the Fire Nation. You have all disrespected yourselves and our people.

“So, you will draft reparation plans, you will heed the command of your Fire Lord, and you will learn to serve the best interest of our people once again. I am hesitant about his ideas myself, but I know my place. I know our nation’s history in its complete depth, and I am willing to serve the Fire Lord in every way to return our nation’s honor as he sees fit.”

“I will make one amendment,” Zuko says once Azula has returned to her seat. “Do not do this simply to please me. I don't want to rule by fear.”

Zuko’s words make Azula freeze.

After the meeting, she apologizes. It might be a first.

“I didn’t mean to undermine you.” She bows, deep. They’re walking through the portrait hall, past their great-grandfather again. Ryu is asleep in a satchel strapped across her chest.

“It’s okay.”

She sighs, frustrated. “You’ve changed so much.”

“So have you.”

“Nothing makes sense to me anymore,” she confesses.

There had been the chains and the asylum and the cat in her closet. Then there was her brother, the garden, and their mother. She knew cruelty. The ground had been pulled out from under her feet, and she hasn’t regained her balance in the entire year that has passed.

“It took a lot of work before it made sense to me.” He stares into Sozin’s eyes.

“I don’t think I can be here,” she blurts out.

“What?” He looks at her, and she turns away. She can’t look him in the eyes while she admits vulnerability, she just can’t.

“Mother isn’t pleased with my presence, and I don’t know how to function in the court anymore. I don’t belong here.”

“Azula, no.” Zuko seems afraid. “You belong, of course you belong.”

“I committed just as many crimes as the military officials you’re putting on trial right now. You have every right to strip me of everything for the rest of my life.”

“Azula, the pressure broke you. It wasn’t all your fault.”

“Stop it!” She whirls around, tears forming. “Hate me!”

“No. I can’t.”

Her cat mews from the bag, and she locks her body still. “Why,” she grits out. “I still don’t get it.”

“I guess the Avatar is rubbing off on me.” His stance is awkward. He touches the back of his neck.

“Aang,” Azula corrects sarcastically.

“Listen, you’re an…abrasive person, that won’t ever change. Growing up, we were taught that was the correct way to operate. Anger brought fear, and fear brought results.”

“I’ve already heard this spiel from you. Blah, blah, blah, violence isn’t always the answer. Spare me.”

“Azula, you’re not a monster.” It comes out of nowhere. Like getting punched in the face.

“Stop it.”

“I’ve seen you with your cat. I’ve seen you in the greenhouse with the herbs. You’ve even made up with Mai and Ty Lee.”

“Shut up! That’s not me!”

“Maybe it is.”

“I might be lying. I might be building the perfect facade so you let your guard down. Stop pretending you know me!”

The cat starts to wake up, so Azula forces her breathing to calm. He can sense those things, even from the bag. It doesn't help her argument.

“If I leave—leave for good—would you chase after me?”

“No.”

That night, she packs a bag.

Azula would have left in the middle of the night, disappearing without a trace, if not for her mother. If not for the stupid collar Zuko gave her cat ringing when she was in earshot.

“I always used to say we needed to put a bell on you,” her mother says when she’s approached the spot where Azula has frozen still.

She’s very aware of how her chest constricts. She can’t meet her mother’s eyes.

“Azula, my darling.” Her voice sounds fake, just like in the hallucinations. Flat and distant.

“Don’t talk to me.”

“Just for a moment?” Her voice is so airy, so gentle that it could be mistaken for sweet. Azula won’t be tricked.

“You never cared before.”

“Of course I cared—”

“No. You were afraid of me.” You should be.

“I didn’t realize how much I’d hurt you.”

Tears spring from Azula’s eyes. “You should have! You were my mother and you didn’t care!”

“Azula, dear.”

“You left me here,” she sobs, “All alone with him.”

“Oh,” her mother says, and pulls Azula into a hug. She had stopped doing that somewhere along the line—hadn’t even said goodbye to her. Resting her face against her mother's cool chest is strange enough, but the fact it does feel comforting is horrifying.

“It's all your fault,” she chokes out. “You're why I'm like this.”

“Like what?”

“A monster.”

“Azula, no.” Her mother presses a hand into the top of her head, bringing her in closer. “I came to your room that night, but I didn't have the heart to wake you. You were so small then.”

Azula cries harder. Her mother holds her tighter.

“I should kill you,” she gasps. “I should do it.”

Her mother stiffens but does not let go. “No. Your father wins that way.”

“You both abandoned me. Everyone always leaves me.”

“Oh, my darling.” Her mother's breath quivers.

“I don't forgive you.”

Her mother lets go, misty-eyed and looking weak. It's not vindication Azula feels, though. More like disgust.

She can't help it. She rips away from her mother’s arms, walks back to her room and locks the door.

Azula stays another week. She spends a lot of it with Zuko in the library, where, even though they are effectively the most powerful people in the nation, the librarian still shushes them when they speak above a whisper. There’s not even anyone else there.

“I really wish you would stay my legal counsel forever.”

“I still might be able to tutor you to perfection.”

Zuko looks put out. Even though he was older, so seemingly grown up, he was still her brother. And she was still his sister.

“Now, recite the entirety of Fire Lord Taiso’s address to the royal court on the fifth day of the seventh month, sixty years before Sozin’s comet.”

“There’s no way you actually remember all this stuff. It’s impossible!”

Azula opens her mouth, ready to recite the speech entirely from memory before Zuko groans loudly. She smiles with satisfaction when the librarian glares at the both of them.

“Zuko, I’m waiting.”

“Can you give me the first few lines?” The hopeful lilt is another thing that remains from childhood.

“No.”

Azula stays another month. Another six months.

Azula stays until the summer solstice. Zuko holds a grand celebration and announces a national holiday. The grand courtyard is filled with noblemen and high-ranking military officials that haven’t already been sent to prison.

She can’t help it—she stands on the mezzanine that surrounds the party, leaning on a post. Later, there will be fireworks and Zuko will give a speech. But a sullen feeling has overtaken her. Every so often, he catches her eye and gives her a small smile.

It’s been nearly two years since she’s been here. This is where she’d lost the Agni Kai, where Zuko had been crowned only a day later. Where her grandfather’s funeral had been. Maybe this place was haunted.

Everyone was giving her a wide berth. It was assumed she’d still be loyal to her father. Most of these people, probably all of them, were quick to adjust to the change of power. Their political opinions shifted as popularity did—anything to maintain their comfort. There was no point trying to correct them. She used to revel in their fear of her. Now, it just leaves her bitter.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Hello, Ty Lee.” Her friend—though they might be a little more than that now—joins her side, hands clasped behind her. “Nothing, I suppose.”

“Remember Chan and Rian Jian?”

“From that idiotic party?”

Ty Lee nods emphatically. “They're here. I smiled and waved and they practically ran away.” She giggles.

“Serves them right,” Azula says snidely.

“Aw, Azula, c'mon.”

Azula only shrugs and briefly closes her eyes.

“You never really were that much of a party person, huh?”

“Well, they're mostly stupid. And full of stupid people.”

“Not exactly what I'm getting at.”

“I know.” Azula looks down, examines her hand. Her nails are well-maintained again, painted a light pink. “They're all afraid of me.”

“They just don't know the real you!”

“It seems you have a better grasp on that than I do. Enlighten me.”

“Azula.” Ty Lee places a hand on her arm. It's tender.

Azula swallows. She should lie, she really should. Tell her it’s fine, that she should forget it. Lately, lying’s been harder, though.

Sometimes, she watches Ryu chase the shadow of a bug in the garden and feels better. She spars with Mai and Ty Lee and feels better. She visits the library with Zuko and feels better. Better enough to tell the truth sometimes.

“I'm not sure who I am anymore,” Azula admits. When Ty Lee’s searching gaze meets Azula’s, she feels extraordinarily weak.

“Well…I know that you're my friend,” Ty Lee says with a smile.

Azula sighs. This is the part where she would push Ty Lee away. Physically or metaphorically. It would be easy. It wouldn’t take much. She stands completely still instead. “And what does that imply about you?”

“Probably something good.”

Azula really doubts it. “Were we ever really friends in the first place?”

Ty Lee tilts her head side-to-side. “Yes and no. We had our moments ”

“You forgave me, even though I didn't deserve it.”

“Because we're friends, Azula.” She looks truly baffled. “Remember what I said at that party on Ember Island? You’re still the smartest, most beautiful girl I know.”

“Not perfect?”

“I'm starting to kind of think nobody is perfect.”

“I'm the one who had a complete mental break. Who tried to kill you and Mai.” She's never really admitted this out loud. It's been so much easier to pretend it never happened. She hasn't been perfect in a long, long time.

“Look at you now, though! You're much saner and aren't trying to kill anyone!”

For whatever reason, tears prick at Azula’s eyes. “I never should have done any of it anyway.”

“You weren’t exactly in control of your own mental breakdown.”

“I meant trying to kill Mai! Trying to lock both of you away forever!”

“Well, those weren't great—”

“And I still don't understand why you'd forgive me! I would never forgive someone who did that to me.”

“Azula, you've done plenty of bad things. But you're changing, and we can all tell. Sure, you used to only care about yourself, but the current version of you obviously doesn't.”

“You don’t know that,” she spits.

“Listen, I don't know how to really convince you that you've changed. You're not a completely different person, but you've grown.”

“I would still do anything to reach an end.” She feels the implications are clear.

“Would you hurt me or Mai? Zuko?”

“I—” A knot forms in her stomach.

“See—the hesitation is all I need to forgive you!”

“That was always there.”

“Then you've always been capable of growth—of caring for others.”

Azula feels stuck. Her mouth falters and she says it before she can even feel it. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Ty Lee blushes an adorable shade of pink.

Azula grabs her hand and pecks her lips. No one pays them any attention, there will be no scandal, but Mai appears from somewhere behind them with a bottle of rice wine.

“Hey, party people,” she says with knowing humor. “Wanna dip? We can watch the fireworks from the roof.”

“Ooh! Can we take the secret passageway?”

“Duh.”

They spend that night passing the bottle between themselves, getting tipsy but not drunk. When it starts to get dark, the light from the lanterns below don't quite reach them, so Azula calls a small flame to her hand. It’s the first she's bent since leaving the hospital. Ty Lee tells them stories about joining the Kyoshi warriors and Azula laughs at the appropriate intervals, though it's not forced.

For the first time, it really does seem like they're just a group of friends. There's no game, there's no goal. There's just them, under the stars.

“Hello, Father.”

“Azula, my rightful heir. You have finally come to visit.”

She can’t imagine he really believes the words, even from the way they sound, echoing in the prison cell. At least hers had had a bed, a wardrobe, a window that she could see out of. Although, like when she’d last spoken to her mother, it’s not pity or empathy that strikes her.

It’s disgust.

“I’ve come to tell you that I’m leaving the Fire Nation.”

“Ah, so my second-born has come to announce her treachery as well.” He pushes himself up from where he’d been sulking on the wall, pushes his hair back, and sits with his knees underneath him as if this is not a courtesy at best.

They’d never had a close relationship, not like Zuko and their mother had a bond. There was always a wall between them, a curtain of flame, separation by several degrees. There’s the overwhelming fear of judgment that she thought she’d squashed down that reignites in his presence.

He must sense her nerves, and he tries to exploit them. “Azula, I know you must remain loyal to me. Serve the rightful Fire Lord and avenge me.”

Petulant anger bursts forward. “You told me I was going to be the Fire Lord!”

“Silence,” he commands. “You know this would merely be the stepping stone. Soon, you would be reinstated as my heir. Your brother would be eliminated from the picture once and for all.”

Azula breathes heavily. Zuko promised her care. Zuko promised her a life that she could choose. A life with no games, no prizes, something pure and simple. But routine was routine, and her father had such a role in her life that it was hard not to bow her head, lay on the ground, and beg for his forgiveness.

“No,” Azula says, mustering her most confident tone. The one she’d used to seem much older than she was, to be taken seriously by men twice her age under her command. “I’m leaving. Zuko defeated me in an Agni Kai. He has proven that he only has the best intentions for our nation. I have no reason to usurp him.”

“Fool!” Still, he’s the one sitting, and she’s the one standing up straight. “The war serves our nation more than he ever will.”

“The war is over, Father.” She sneers. “The Avatar bested you. Accept your defeat with humility if you wish to maintain your honor.”

“You know nothing of honor! If you do not serve your father, you’re no better than a filthy peasant. You must fulfill your filial duties, Princess Azula.”

“I will have no more duties if I leave this country.”

“You would willingly give up your birthright?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then you deserve it. Go, wander aimlessly as your brother did. You will return.”

Azula squints her eyes and tilts her head, doubtful. “Another thing, Father. I might cut the treasonous talk if I were you. The Fire Lord might not enjoy hearing such things.”

“You rat! You cannot betray me like this!”

“Rat? I’m not the one sitting in a cage.” She smiles blandly and leaves.