Arsonist's Lullaby: An Azula Timeloop Quest

You are Azula, and you are—

a blink,

a breath,

the celestial echo

ash and salt water

a spark grounded in earth

—alive once more.

"You miscalculated," comes the chorus of your rebirth. "I love Zuko more than I fear you."

What can you do but laugh?

It fills you, high and free, like birdsong in the wind, or lightning in clear sky. At the end of everything: here you are again. It's almost reassuring, the same way a cut is when it stings.

"Azula…" Ty Lee says hesitantly, but you wave her off. You need neither her pity nor her concern. In fact, you almost believe you need nothing from her at all. Almost.

(Because you're going to save her, aren't you?

Even though it didn't change a thing, you're going to save her again. And you'll save Mai too.

After all, it's a change of pace. A breath of fresh air. Something different. Something new. All these things the endless cycle of your existence hasn't had in what seems like forever—

—and everyone knows how much you love unexpected things you can't predict.)

"…do you think this is funny," Mai says, so flatly it lacks even the inflection of a question. "Seriously, Azula?"

Your laughter slowly trails off, and you tilt your head back down, brushing a loose black bang—how unseemly—out of your eyes. The steam rising from the boiling lake beneath breaks up her lanky silhouette slightly, making the edges fuzzy, as if seen through smudged glass. How fitting. All your conversations feel much the same.

Speaking of, you're almost tempted to tell her yes, because most things people are willing to die for are funny. But Mai seems to be more wilful when she's being lied to, even if she doesn't know what about, or why, so perhaps you'll put that one aside for now.

"Not particularly," you say instead, slowly ambling toward the edge of the platform that protects you from the lake. Below, it spits and hisses and bubbles, the faint stench of sulphur grasping at your nostrils. It's a little soothing: a reminder you're still here.

Much better than being down there. Boiling is an ugly way to die.

(You don't recommend it.)

"Guards," you say, loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough that you can't hear the way one of Mai's knives slips out of her long sleeve and into her hand, "leave us. You have a riot to suppress."

"But what abou—" one hapless, black-armoured idiot tries.

Something crackles around your fingers, and he immediately falls silent.

"I do not recall granting you permission to speak," you say without turning around. "Only to obey."

You hear the sound of boots stamping against metal—so many that the platform briefly trembles with the weight of the stampede.

Good.

You probably won't have to banish them, then.

Clapping your hands briskly, you spin to face Mai again—and not Ty Lee, who still hasn't moved from her point of the triangle, near equidistant from the both of you. Interesting. Is she reacting to the (false) perception of your vulnerability? That would fit her to a tee. How quaint.

"Well, Mai," you say, "since you said it so proudly, I'm sure you're positively dying to explain: what is it about darling Zuzu that has you so enamoured? Is it his charming scowl? His stunning inability to think even one step ahead? His fascinating attempt at a haircut?"

She opens her mouth, and that's precisely when you choose to speak again.

"I suppose that's unfair. You're a political girl, after all. I'm sure you have much deeper reasons to support his flailing at the throne than that."

You smile.

"Don't you, Mai?"

Mai narrows her eyes, thin eyebrows pinching. "What's your angle, Azula?"

Cocking your head to the side, you tap a sharp-nailed finger against your jaw. "I haven't the faintest clue what you mean."

"You don't—" she begins, and then seems to reconsider.

"Oh?" you ask, looking away from her for a moment as if to admire the ring of the volcano that frames her. "What don't I?"

Mai sighs, a short, low sound of exasperation. "Who cares about the throne?"

Does she want the itemised list?.

"Rhetorical question, Azula," she says, perhaps seeing your bemusement on your face. "I didn't save Zuko because I want him as the Fire Lord. He'd be insufferable."

"Perhaps you didn't," you allow, because that does line up with what she said the last time around, "but surely you understand how it appears. When the eldest male heir declares his treason before the Fire Lord, runs off to join a ragtag gang of rebels, and busts their allies out of prison—well, it paints a certain picture. And then for his erstwhile lover to betray the only remaining loyal heir in order to protect him…"

You shrug, one shoulder-pad bobbing.

"Isn't there a saying about walking like a turtle-duck?"

"She didn't mean it like that!" Ty Lee interjects, wide-eyed and frantic. "I—Azula, she didn't!"

"That, Ty Lee," you say, studying her out of the corner of your gaze, "is not yours to decide."

"Azula, please," she says, desperation dripping from her tongue. "Don't do this."

"I haven't done anything yet." You return your attention to Mai, who stands tall and proud despite the bead of sweat running down her cheek from the oppressive heat that gave the Boiling Rock its name. "Calm yourself, Ty Lee, or you'll make me wonder if you're starting to be overcome by misgivings of sympathy."

The punishment for treason against the crown is clear and unambiguous and drilled into children as soon as they are old enough to understand: death, and not a merciful one.

In some ways, Mai is lucky she's not a firebender.

At least she won't be buried alive, to die where the Sun cannot see.

Regardless, despite your proclamation, Ty Lee's eyes start to bud with tears—even as Mai exhales a breath and crosses her arms over her chest, the trails of her sleeves draping over her waist.

"I thought you'd be angrier," she says frankly, pale-gold stare fixed on yours. "But you almost sound like you care. You know, beneath all the posturing and threats."

You do not posture.

You are entirely willing to do whatever is necessary.

You always have been.

(Except, of course, the very first time you ever faced the Boiling Rock, you still kept Mai and Ty Lee alive.

Funny how that works, isn't it?)

"Oh, I'm furious," you say, voice dropping into a ragged, volcanic hiss that has Ty Lee flinching and Mai's pupils threatening to dilate. "I travelled a thousand miles to return you to my side, led you across the world to the conquest of Ba Sing Se and a reunion with your precious Zuko, and even brought him back home, and the moment he fusses about the details, this is how you repay me?"

Then you smile, bright and certainly not manic.

"But I'm willing to let bygones be bygones, if you can offer me something interesting enough to excuse it." The smile drops, and you study her with what's meant to be curiosity. "So, Mai. I'll ask you again: why would you do it, when you know the consequences?"

Mai studies you in return for a little while, something budding in her gaze, like clouds drawing together before thunder. A finger taps against the glinting silvery blade of the knife that's sprouted—seemingly on reflex—from the voluminous shadows of her sleeve. When she uncrosses her arms, the blade disappears; or, perhaps, becomes her tongue, because her voice as she speaks threatens to leave blood in the air that carries it to you.

"You still don't get it," she snaps. "Or maybe you're just not trying to. Are you still so fixated on the idea that the only value someone has is their proximity to the Fire Lord that you can't comprehend that I don't care?"

This time, she's the one who waits until the precise moment your mouth opens to say something, and then barrels right over the top.

"Because you can pretend what you want about bids for the throne, but if I could keep Zuko a hundred miles away from that stupid thing for the rest of his life I would." She thrusts her jaw forward as someone else might thrust a spear. "And I think you know that, Azula. I think you just don't want to think about what it means."

Mai steps forward, once, twice, upcurled shoes soft on the steel beneath her, and a part of your brain is caught up on the fact she probably learned the mannerism from you. The rest is like stuttered clockwork—you know what you want to say, what you should say, but the thoughts just clog and rotate inside your skull without ever spurring your tongue to action.

"That palace has only ever hurt Zuko. Your father has only ever hurt Zuko. And nobody ever talks about it. I don't talk about it. Because Zuko hates it. Because I wasn't there. On that day. All those years ago. But you were, Azula. And they said you laughed." You don't think you've ever seen Mai this angry. You don't think anyone ever has. Not even Ember Island twisted her face like this, thinned her mouth to cutting and carved her jaw from marble. "So why wouldn't I do it? At least this way no matter what happens Zuko knows there's still one person in this whole damn place who cares."

She snorts.

"Even if he doesn't."

"Mai…" Ty Lee seems to teleport to her side in a pink blur and tries to hug her, which is the second-most embarrassing thing you've ever seen after your total inability to actually say anything when Mai started to speak. "I'm sure he does!"

After that, it's quiet for a time.

Mai doesn't seem to be interested in speaking; Ty Lee appears terrified of it; and you are just… thinking.

Remembering.

Reconsidering.

I never expected this from you may have been a slight understatement.

"I didn't laugh," you say, a fraction before you realise you've actually said it. For some reason, it feels like the most important thing to address. "I did smile. But I didn't laugh."

Mai just looks at you. "Thanks, Azula. I'm so glad to know that."

What did she even want you to say?

On that day, in that arena, Zuko was burned by the Fire Lord's will. That's just how the Fire Nation works: uncompromising in its greatness, ruthless in its equality. It's like your Father once told you: all things must be the flame, or else they become the fuel. Zuko had refused to be one, so your Father had been right to brand him as the other.

It had been as correct as it had been inevitable.

Of course you had witnessed it with joy.

(Zuko had not refused to be the flame, though, had he?

He'd refused to raise a hand to the Fire Lord, whom you had both looked on as others might the Sun.

Would you have done the same?

Would you have been right to burn?)

"So, Mai," you say some time later, without awkwardness because a princess is never awkward, "I think it is clear that you have… strong feelings about my brother, which I may have underestimated and which may have blinded you to the political implications of your actions."

Is this what that other Mai had meant, when she'd said she'd have done the exact same thing for you?

That it was never about the throne, and always about the person?

You—

—well. You suppose there's a sense to it.

Zuko has often inspired others to pity.

You don't think you ever have.

It's what makes you strong.

(Isn't it?)

"I am therefore willing to excuse your… indiscretion in this instance," you add, fixing your attention on the steam-stained horizon rather than her face, "provided that you swear before the flame that you have no intention to, and will never, support his treacherous bid for the throne."

Now Ty Lee is hugging you, which is… not even the most ridiculous thing about this situation, actually.

No, the most ridiculous thing about this whole situation is that if Zuko had been able to just sit down and shut up for a month longer, come Sozin's Comet he would be the Fire Lord.

You were almost finished beating that into his thick skull before the waterbender interrupted.

Or, at least, that's how you are choosing to remember that conversation: and if nobody else will, that makes you automatically right.

"I think you and I have very different definitions of the word support," Mai deadpans, "but sure, whatever. I promise. No throne for Zuko."

She looks at Ty Lee attached to your arm like a particularly bouncy limpet with an expression that best translates to better you than me, and adds, "But seriously, are we ever going to talk about how you saw me save my boyfriend's life because he was literally about to die and assumed it was because I wanted him to be the Fire Lord?"

Mai shrugs, languid and lazy.

"Because that was stupid, and you're not usually stupid."

Usually?

You are never stupid.

"Yes you are," Mai says, as if your thoughts had somehow shown on your face—an absurd prospect, of course. "I remember when you thought the reason they were called starfish was that they fell from the sky, and you wouldn't believe any of us when we told you because Zuko had also disagreed and you were convinced he couldn't be right about anything."

How dare she.

You were six.

And more importantly, your logic was sound! Trusting Zuko, who didn't even know his square numbers by then, now that would have been stupid!

"Thank you for your fascinating perspective, Mai," you say through clenched teeth. "Regrettably, I believe we should table this discussion for another day. The guards should have finished handling the riot by now. Given their failures in every other area of the situation, however, it would behove us to inspect their progress. Thoroughly."

If there is one thing you have learned from Ember Island, it is that the correct response to an emotionally overloaded conversation is to express any lingering frustrations on the less fortunate afterwards.

Back then, it was Chan and his gaggle of gawking idiots.

Now, it is the Warden—Mai's uncle—and his band of buffoons.

You're sure it will be just as cathartic an experience.

For the first time since you began to talk, Mai smiles. A slow, dangerous uptick of the mouth. "Finally. Work I can actually get behind."

You have a feeling she is not particularly fond of her uncle.

It's something you have in common. You don't like yours either—or hers, for that matter.

So maybe it's two things you have in common.

"Ooh, are we playing bad guard, bad guard?" Ty Lee asks by your elbow, just a little too brightly to be believable. "I'm not very good at it."

You are not sure Ty Lee actually knows how to be bad—not by your standards, at least. The last time she tried, she made herself cry.

"Don't worry, Ty Lee," you say, with your best attempt at sounding reassuring. "Just stand near the Warden, and you'll look competent by comparison no matter what you're doing."

The man couldn't even manage something as simple as dying. Maybe you should dismiss him from his duty, and promote Mai to replace him.

If nothing else, it would be a refreshing change of pace.

(And that's why you're keeping her and Ty Lee around, right?)

You float the suggestion as the three of you walk together back into the prison, but regrettably, Mai refuses.

She did look tempted for a moment, though. Maybe you ought to workshop the pitch a little more. You're sure you can get her to agree.

In the meantime, though, you wave a hand idly to fill all the sconces with flickering blue as you turn left into the hallway that leads to the Warden's office. In the distance you can hear shouting, the dull whoosh of freshly-summoned flame, and even the sharp crack of metal against stone. It appears the riot is yet to be quelled.

How utterly unsurprising.

"Come on, girls," you say, curling your fingers around a spark of lightning that winds its way around your fist. "Duty calls."

Behind you, Ty Lee is flexing on her toes, and Mai is sharpening a sleek bronze hairpin.

There's the sound of pounding feet, and a bedraggled, shivering wretch who's clearly still recovering from a session in the cooler staggers around the corner and almost falls over at the sight of you—and your crown, and the two girls behind you.

"Ooh, dibs!" Ty Lee says, about one second after the hairpin—and three others just like it—have embedded the man into the wall by his collar. "Aaw, Mai, no fair!"

"Sorry, Ty Lee," Mai says, lowering her arm. She sounds as apologetic as a cat sitting over a dead turtleduck. "My hand slipped."

You might admit to a chuckle or two as Ty Lee flits over to knock him out with a sharp couple of jabs, a disgruntled pout on her lips.

"I'm sure we can leave you one or two," you say, and might even mean it.


You, Princess Azula, have experienced a Revelation, which has Broken one of your Truths.

The modified Truth can be found in the spoiler box below. Changes in bold indicate new text; changes in strikethrough indicate replaced or removed text.



By the time you finally assemble the Warden's coterie—and every guard not on essential duty—in the plainly decorated eating hall, you've probably had to do half their job for them. Ordinarily, that might frustrate you; a princess is far beyond such menial labour. But thankfully, it actually proved to be quite satisfying. By the end, you didn't even need your fire. You just had to stare and the previously-rampaging prisoners would throw themselves to the ground blubbering in fear.

Much like the young guard who cowers behind her heavy-set sister-in-arms at the back of the room, as if standing with as many tables between the two of you was any meaningful impediment to your disgust. Peasants really are peculiar sometimes, even if to become a guard at the Boiling Rock probably means some latent noble ancestry or a particularly bribe-happy merchant family. Probably the latter. The Warden is an imbecile, but he is too jealous of his record to accept nepotism over competence.

Which says truly dire things about what competence in the Fire Nation is when you aren't there to personally encourage it, really.

You snap your fingers. A spark of lightning follows, writhing around your fist.

If the deep, vicious thrum of it weren't so loud, you could probably hear a tear drop from the other end of the hall.

Good.

You look out over the sea of helmets—black and gold, with thick red visors—and frown.

The crowd trembles like wheat in the wind.

"I find it curious," you say, stalking back and forth on top of the table, still circling the cold fire in your palm, "that after apparently being fooled by the stunningly bold infiltration strategy of wearing a face-concealing helmet, there is not a single person in this room intelligent enough to consider a simple adaptation."

Your armoured boots count a slow, dangerous tattoo on the wood.

"Take them off." You let the lightning crackle up your hand until you're balancing the spark on the tip of your index finger the way a lesser bender might a flame. "Unless you want me to do it for you."

There's a frantic scramble followed by a jangling clatter as every person in the room wearing a helmet races to become the first without one. A couple even try to force others' helmets back on their heads, as if to sabotage their competitors—a fine show of initiative, if it didn't get in the way of your orders.

You shift the rhythm of your pacing just so, and don't even need to speak; a fan of knives hisses out hilt-first from beside you, introducing those two guards first to blunt trauma and then to the poorly-scrubbed floor.

Mai, who's standing on the stool behind and a little to your left, crosses her arms at her back, the very picture of a demure young lady.

Smiling, you flick your wrist to dismiss the spark with a deliberately exaggerated crack, and the room falls silent once more. Around the walls, the torches swell blue with your every breath, painting eerie shadows onto the metal railings that ring the second floor. You nearly decided to deliver your speech from up there, looking down, but in the end you think you made the right choice: it's much more fun to be able to see how the Deputy Warden swallows every time you look his way.

"The Fire Nation can forgive many things," you say, continuing to pace, "but failure is not one of them. This is the most famous prison in the world. The most feared prison in the world. Or it was. Now it's the funniest prison in the world—or at least it would be if you asked my brother, or the Water Tribe savage, or any other of the half-dozen enemies of the Fire Nation who just walked in here and, if not for my arrival, would have just walked straight back out without even a fight."

You stop, abruptly, and stare straight out into the crowd.

"Do I look like I am laughing?"

There are a couple of half-hearted attempts to answer that each shift a couple of octaves into squeals of pain, as the more intelligent in the crowd stamp on the feet of the idiots attempting to speak before their princess without permission.

Unfortunately for him, none are bold enough to stamp on the Warden's feet as he joins the maladroit chorus.

Fortunately for him, what he says is so patently ridiculous you don't feel any need to chastise him for it.

"Princess Azula! I beg you, please forgive Mai for her rash behaviour! She was just overcome by the thought of her beloved uncle dying and acted without thinking!"

He drops to his knees, sallow face still looking severe despite his best attempts at adopting a pleading expression.

You exchange a nonplussed glance with Mai, while Ty Lee is overcome by a sudden coughing fit and nearly falls off her own stool. That… is technically one way to interpret the situation, if you were too far away to hear Mai explain why she was actually preventing anyone from cutting the line.

Family truly is the strangest thing in the world.

"Don't worry, Warden," you say, after deciding to simply appreciate the absurdity, "I promise that Mai is absolutely the least of your concerns right now."

You step off the table with bladed dignity, the curved gold prongs of your headpiece glittering in the deep-sky firelight that grows a little brighter, a little more present, with your every footfall. By the time you reach the kowtowing Warden, only the unrelenting precision of your control stops the torch-flames from melting the railings they now reach.

"You should be more worried about what will happen to you."

He looks up, incomprehension and concern warring across the harsh lines of his cheeks.

"After all," you muse, light and airy, the same way ash is after cremation, "what else would they call the man who oversaw the Boiling Rock's first escape but a failure?"

The Warden swallows. You can hear his knees knocking together under his formal skirt.

Your lips unfurl into a smile.

"I hope you've prepared your explanations well," you add. "After all—by the time they've interrogated all your subordinates, I imagine the Ministry of Security will be quite tired of hearing the same excuses over and over again, don't you?"

He actually whimpers.

Oh, how you've missed this.


After that fortifying session of exercising your absolute power over all the lives beneath you, it's time to return to Caldera Palace.

Mai and Ty Lee share your cabin on the boat over—normally an unbearable indignity, but with no vessels fit for a princess and her entourage you've had to make do with the captain's quarters. It's a… new experience. You've never left the Boiling Rock like this, with Mai and Ty Lee pretending to play pai sho on the bed because Ty Lee decided on a whim she wanted to learn and Mai glumly volunteered to teach her since the alternative was Ty Lee learning from you.

If you close your eyes, you could be back in the Earth Kingdom, roaming the untrammelled wilds in search of the Avatar, or your brother, or failing that, at least somewhere that wasn't a backwater sneeze of a village with nothing to recommend it except the joy of leaving it behind.

You're not entirely sure how you're supposed to feel about that. The past is what you're trying to escape. The past is what traps you. But you don't feel trapped with Mai and Ty Lee and memories of a less circular life. You feel—

—like smiling, only also not like smiling, because usually your smile varies between a threat and a victory parade, and neither seem appropriate for the way your cheeks are trying to twitch. Naturally, you don't let them, but it's… unusual that you have to even try.

Honestly, it's all very troublesome—which is why you're not actually in the cabin right now, laughing at Ty Lee mixing up the Swallow's Flush and the Tigerdillo's Gambit. Instead, you're leaning your elbows on the metal railing that surrounds the ship's deck, staring across the glittering sea and towards Caldera.

Towards the future, or more accurately, your efforts to ensure you have a future.

It's very clear to you where you went wrong in the last cycle: you tried to kidnap the waterbender without understanding the extent of her power, and so she became worthless as a hostage. Zuko was also frustratingly unresponsive to your conversation, but you're sure if you have a better lever to pull this time around, a better outcome will inevitably result.

All of those levers are, of course, at the Western Air Temple, and that's where you need to go. Though, you suppose that's not quite correct; it's actually only almost all of them. Mai is here with you—so here you could remain instead, if there's some virtue to be found in waiting.

And thus, the question remains: which lever are you going to pull this time, Princess Azula?

[ ] The dirt child. You've done your research. You know who Toph Beifong is. And you know she has a family. The Earth Kingdom is only a messenger hawk away—and you already know you can lie to her, if your orders are not carried out in time. In many ways, she will be the easiest of them all to turn, however unwillingly it will be.
No matter the simplicity, you are not bringing an enemy combatant who can bend earth and metal into Caldera City—not when you haven't encountered her enough yet to learn which way she'll crack under pressure.
[ ] The water peasant. Obviously the issue is that you chose the wrong sibling last time—the one who is occasionally capable of competence. If you take the useless one as a hostage instead, you can guarantee he won't escape, and finally have a bargaining chip that will keep Zuko and the Avatar from demanding anything from you but discussion.
[ ] Your brother. You have plenty of tools to work with to engender a conversation this time around; not just Mai, but also the knowledge he's never actually processed what happened the night your mother left. And if neither works… well, abducting him is always on the table. A captive audience might be precisely what the two of you need.
[ ] The waterbender. You're wise to her tricks now. This "bloodbending" sounds hideously dangerous, but if it was as accessible as lightning, she'd use it all the time. You suspect it has something to do with the full moon, given what Ty Lee said and your own reading on waterbending—a simple task, then, to sedate her with something like shirshu venom and a sleeping powder until it passes.
You are not going through that indignity again. She can keep her moralising about family in the same place she keeps her mother.
[ ] None. You're going to stay behind in the palace, but not to convince your Father to change his mind about the day of the Comet (you'd sooner convince the Sun not to rise)—to work on securing Mai and Ty Lee's loyalties, not just their apparent friendship. Zuko always has an ally somewhere at his back when he faces you. It's time you turned the tables and faced him with two.