[X] A lie. Childhood sentimentality means you're unwilling to hurt a friend, and royal practicality tells you to keep your enemies closer. It's Mai's choice which one she intends to be. Ty Lee's, too.
Arsonist's Lullaby: An Azula Timeloop Quest
- Thread starter Magery
- Start date
- Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Under your couch
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] A lie. Childhood sentimentality means you're unwilling to hurt a friend, and royal practicality tells you to keep your enemies closer. It's Mai's choice which one she intends to be. Ty Lee's, too.
Well this will be interesting to watch unfold.
Well this will be interesting to watch unfold.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] A lie. Childhood sentimentality means you're unwilling to hurt a friend, and royal practicality tells you to keep your enemies closer. It's Mai's choice which one she intends to be. Ty Lee's, too.
TheSilenceIsVast
Of the Sun
- Location
- United States
[X] A lie. Childhood sentimentality means you're unwilling to hurt a friend, and royal practicality tells you to keep your enemies closer. It's Mai's choice which one she intends to be. Ty Lee's, too.
Winged_One²
SACQ Tablemaster
- Location
- Germany
[X] A lie. Childhood sentimentality means you're unwilling to hurt a friend, and royal practicality tells you to keep your enemies closer. It's Mai's choice which one she intends to be. Ty Lee's, too.
SmashQueen
Professional duck-cat.
[X] A lie. You wanted Zuko to get away, because Zuko would lead you to the Avatar, but then Mai just had to make a fool of herself when you had it all under control. You're eager to hear how she intends to fix this—and what Ty Lee thinks of her actions.
- Location
- France
[X] A lie. You engineered this confrontation as a test, and Mai and Ty Lee failed. The worst part is, they didn't even fail it cleverly. If Zuko's supporters are going to conspire against you, is it too much to ask for a little challenge?
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
[X] A lie. Childhood sentimentality means you're unwilling to hurt a friend, and royal practicality tells you to keep your enemies closer. It's Mai's choice which one she intends to be. Ty Lee's, too.
I kind of echo Cetash way back on page 1 - this is the most interesting lie to me, because it's the most patently obviously horseshit. They know Azula. They know she's not that kind of person - if there's any childhood sentimentality in her, she burned it to ashes on the fire of herself. More than that, they know Azula can and does lie better than this. So what does it mean if she goes with this anyway?
I kind of echo Cetash way back on page 1 - this is the most interesting lie to me, because it's the most patently obviously horseshit. They know Azula. They know she's not that kind of person - if there's any childhood sentimentality in her, she burned it to ashes on the fire of herself. More than that, they know Azula can and does lie better than this. So what does it mean if she goes with this anyway?
Magery
Life blooms like a flower, far away or by the road
- Location
- Australia
Well, that was certainly a spectacular response!
I'll be closing the vote here, with the runaway winner as:
[X] A lie. Childhood sentimentality means you're unwilling to hurt a friend, and royal practicality tells you to keep your enemies closer. It's Mai's choice which one she intends to be. Ty Lee's, too.
Future votes will use the scheduled vote system, now that I know how to use it—it's been a while between drinks.
I'm aiming to update once a week.
See you then!
I'll be closing the vote here, with the runaway winner as:
[X] A lie. Childhood sentimentality means you're unwilling to hurt a friend, and royal practicality tells you to keep your enemies closer. It's Mai's choice which one she intends to be. Ty Lee's, too.
Future votes will use the scheduled vote system, now that I know how to use it—it's been a while between drinks.
I'm aiming to update once a week.
See you then!
"First" Loop - The Boiling Rock, Part 2
Magery
Life blooms like a flower, far away or by the road
- Location
- Australia
The Warden's office is, as ever, suitably garish for a man of his talents.
You're not sure what's worse: the size of his desk, the tacky red-and-gold colour scheme it tries to pretend is dignified, or the gigantic portrait of your father that sits behind it. It seems that no matter where you go, or when you are, his shadow is always there to greet you. Thankfully, your decision to take the Warden's uncomfortable seat—or, at least, uncomfortable by the standards of Caldera Palace, which you suppose is… actually, by the way Zuko treated it, arguably comparable to a prison—means you are framed by the glowering Fire Lord and don't have to look at him at all.
It's Mai and Ty Lee who have to meet his gaze, unless they're willing to meet yours. You hope they do. Your judgement in friends might be… slightly less than perfect, perhaps, but you know they aren't cowards. Just traitors, and fools, and treacherously foolish to boot.
You study them across the flat of the desk, folding your hands under your chin and resting your chin on your palms. It's one of your favourite poses, for the sheer psychological dissonance of it: as a firebender, your hands are your most dangerous weapons, and you are keeping them up and visible and away, but at the same time, you are the princess of the Fire Nation and you are staring at someone over your hands with an air of visible expectation. Are you trying to be politely unthreatening, or are you implying that your firebending should be the least of their concerns?
At least one general has fled your presence with fumbled excuses when all you did was look at him, just like this.
(And yet here you are, using it on the only people in the world you used to call 'friend'. How subtle of you, Princess Azula!)
"Well?" you ask, golden eyes sharp. "What do you have to say for yourself, Mai?"
Mai sighs, expression—such as Mai can ever be said to hold an expression—thin with irritation. But there's a little confusion in it, too. She wasn't expecting to survive; or at least, not survive like this. Frankly, you weren't really expecting her to either, but at this point in the endless cycle of your life, sometimes you're willing to just give things a try because you can.
"What do you want me to say?" Her voice is low and flat. "Zuko was going to die if I didn't do something, so I did. I don't have a "better" reason for you. Not everyone wants to fit into your boxes, Azula."
"I can see why Zuzu said you were boring," you say, shaking your head. Naturally, even after the chaos of combat, your topknot is so perfect that your hair hardly shifts in place. "Betraying your nation, your princess, and your Fire Lord, all for something as predictably pedestrian as love? And after he abandoned you at that. Let me guess: did he tell you that he could finally recognise your devotion? When you found him in that cell, were you whispering to each other sweet nothings about willing hearts, given in return?"
(Of course you remember the words to Love Amongst the Dragons. You remember a lot of things you hate, especially when you once fooled yourself into thinking you didn't.)
"Because you're one to talk about love," Mai snaps back. "Some days I wonder if you're even capable of it."
"Mai!" Ty Lee looks a little frantic, her eyes wide and her fingers tense where they clasp Mai's forearm over her maroon sleeves. It's not something you ever really paid attention to until the Avatar had ruined you several lifetimes in a row, but the colour of her irises, somewhere between hazel and grey, is the kind usually found only in the history books. How interesting. "That's an awful thing to say!"
You're not sure why Ty Lee is trying to defend you. Probably because she wants to look better by comparison in the hopes it'll keep her safe, or, worse, because she wants to try and keep Mai safe. There's no point to either, and—well, it's not like Mai is even wrong. She's far from the first person to say something like that to you.
Instead of giving voice to any of that, though, you place a fine-fingered hand over your heart and reel backward with dramatic exaggeration, pressing your spine into the thick red leather of your chair. "You wound me, Mai. You're still alive, after all, aren't you?"
What Mai doesn't know about how many times you've learned how her flesh smells when lightning cooks it from the inside out won't hurt her. Yet, anyway.
"What's with you, Azula? Is this all just a big joke to you? I saw your face when I started cutting the line. Now you're mocking me like we never moved on from Ember Island." You must be really getting to Mai. She hasn't spoken this many words in a row since you plucked her from New Ozai. "Just get to the point, so I can get back to sitting in whatever dank, damp little cell you want to throw me in."
Well, she did ask.
"The point…" you muse, tapping your chin with a finger in a mockery of thought. "Yes, I suppose I must have had one of those, mustn't I? That's why I'm different from you. That's why I'm the monster. Because when I look at the world, I don't see people, do I? Just levers. So when one refuses to be pulled, the only thing I know how to do is to break it."
Your smile is a masterpiece. It falls crooked across your jaw, like you're trying to keep an amusement on your face that you're struggling to feel—like you're lying to yourself about how well you're lying to everyone else.
(It's a smile that has your eyes focusing anywhere else but the glint of the knife poking out of Mai's sleeve, lest you see yourself in it.)
"Tell me, Mai." You lean forward across the table, pressing your palms into the surface until your knuckles whiten. "How broken are you feeling right now?"
Ty Lee gets it first, you think. Her arm twitches over Mai's, like she's thinking about reaching out to you instead; her cheeks pale and her lips open. Mai, by contrast, takes a little longer—and then it hits her and her eyes narrow even as her frown softens ever-so-slightly.
"Not enough to believe you," she says, but with an edge that bruises instead of cuts. "Nice try, though."
"You're such a softie, Azula!" Ty Lee says, which is the first and hopefully last time the universe has ever heard that sequence of words in that order. She's smiling at you, now, like she did when you crossed to her for the spike at the volleyball game; like she does when you've done something she's proud of.
It's not the same smile she has when she believes you.
But it's close.
You'll take it.
(This is friendship, to you, after all. It's all about "take". No doubt Father would approve.)
"Well then, Mai," you say, clapping your hands together briskly, "in the interests of trying, perhaps you'll answer me this: what is it about dear Zuzu that makes him such an appealing proposition, compared to me? Be as honest as you like; it'll hardly be the most asinine drivel I've heard today."
Like most of your questions, it's one you already know the answer to. Zuko is your lesser in everything that matters to you—not just firebending, but politicking, military strategy, academics, anything and everything that should pave the way to the throne—but, it seems, your greater in everything that matters to everyone else.
It's not that you care about the answer particularly, either. You are quite content with who you are and what you're capable of, and you have no interest in neutering yourself and your capabilities, or whatever inane remedy for the problem of your personality Mai will inevitably suggest.
No: this is just you indulging your curiosity on a whim. You've never bothered to ask your ex-friends about their feelings before—just the thought is positively mortifying. If you're asking now, it's only because you might as well take the chance here, when nobody else will remember the conversation but you. And if they do, if this is the price you have to pay for escaping these accursed cycles, you can surely bear the indignity just this once.
For a moment, Mai just looks at you, all dark hair and disregard; the same Mai she always is, and the same Mai she'll probably always remain. Then there's an imperceptible shift in her posture, a slight flicker of an eyebrow—the sort of movement that in anyone else would be a cocked head and a verbalised "Huh."—and suddenly she straightens in her chair, rests her own hands demurely in her lap, looks you straight and unflinching in the eye, and says, "You really think I wouldn't have done the exact same thing if Zuko had escaped and you were going to fall, don't you?"
You blink.
What?
"I can't deal with this," she says, and stands. "One royal idiot is enough for today. I am not handling two. Ty Lee, you're up."
Then she pulls her wooden stool out, neatly steps around it, tucks it back in, and stalks out of the room. Her robes flutter in the torchlight as she leaves, like the undulating banners once above New Ozai.
"Mai, get ba—" you start, and then cut it off before you embarrass yourself. A princess should never give commands she knows will not be followed. You will deal with Mai's blatant insubordination later.
(You know, after your brain stops echoing with if Zuko had escaped and you were going to fall.)
"Azula," Ty Lee says gently, "what's going on?"
You take a sharp inhale, tinged with the cold, biting taste of the sky before lightning, and look at her. "Why must something be 'going on', Ty Lee?"
"You're answering questions with questions." Her voice is still gentle, like you think an embrace is supposed to be. How hateful. "And you usually lie way better than this. Did you—is Mai right?"
The torchlight—still a bright, flickering blue—dapples across the round curves of her face. You don't recognise the emotions she's wearing: the low turn of her mouth, the way she blinks a little too slowly. The closest thing you can think of is grief, but it's not. It's too careful for that.
"Mai made her choice," you say, because you refuse to dignify that ridiculous hypothetical with a direct answer. "She can pretend what she likes, but she chose Zuko—and you were going to choose her, don't think I didn't see that, Ty Lee."
Something dips in her expression, like the first few stones slipping down a cliff before the whole thing crumbles into the sea.
Except then she shakes her head—ponytail jiggling like a particularly brown and lively entrail—and slaps her cheeks, a peculiar ritual you've seen her perform several times before when she wants to remind herself to think positive or something similarly childish. It works like it always does: she bursts into a bright smile that shifts from practised to enthusiastic halfway through, and… reaches out to clasp a hand with one of yours, because it's been so long that you'd nearly forgotten that Ty Lee affirms her positive feelings through touch.
Her skin is cool against yours, and her fingers are as firm and calloused as your own.
"I don't really believe in choosing people, you know?" Ty Lee says. "There's not a finite amount of love in this world to give. It's forever. Like the sky. Or dancing! Just because I danced once doesn't mean I don't want to dance again. Just because Mai's my friend doesn't mean I don't want to be your friend. Or Zuko's friend. Or that cute boy who runs with the Avatar's friend. Honestly, don't you think everything would be better if we were all friends?"
That is so utterly beside the point you can hardly do anything but blink at her for a second or two.
"…I really don't," you say, and remember only a second later to pull your hand out from under Ty Lee's.
"Maybe not," Ty Lee gives easily, "but you know, Azula, you're actually pretty bad at being friends, so I don't think your judgement really counts."
You have never been bad at anything in your life.
"Yes you have," she says, apparently reading your words directly from your disgruntled stare. "I was there when you tried to learn the erhu. I'm glad the Fire Lord put a stop to that."
You open your mouth to castigate Ty Lee for speaking on matters far above her station and abruptly come to understand that, somehow, you have entirely lost control of the conversation, and may have never had it at all.
The plan was simple. You would suggest to Mai and Ty Lee that you spared them out of misplaced childhood sentimentality, a lie they would not believe, and in the ensuing argument they would reveal the motives for their treachery, which would allow you to prevent repeats down the line by taking preemptive actions to prevent similar flaws in all your future subordinates. Once "caught" in the lie, you would remind them of the old adage that one should keep their enemies closer, and they would see a truth they could understand in your actions: the cold-hearted pragmatism of royalty.
Instead, you are… almost about to argue with Ty Lee about your (lack of) instrumental talents, while Mai is off sulking somewhere because she's mad at you for something entirely separate to what you wanted her to be mad at you for.
How did it come to this?
"Just… get out of here, Ty Lee," you say, waving her off. "Go find Mai and make sure her idiot of an uncle hasn't done something stupid like try to arrest her. I need to think and your insipid smile is entirely too loud to let me."
"No worries, Azula!" Ty Lee says, bouncing towards the door in a flurry of pink. "Come find us when you're ready, okay?"
You will most certainly not.
(Liar.)
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 are indicated in bold.
"I'm going to Yu Dao," is the first thing Mai says to you when you find her.
Not that you were looking—you were on a therapeutic stroll through the prison, inspecting the guards' progress in fixing their own incompetence as you made your way to the gondola and from there, the docks. You'd left orders earlier to ensure a ship was prepared for you—there's no point looking for your war balloon, you know from experience it's gone the way of Zuko—but you've found your presence often helps your lessers find a little extra effort they might otherwise misplace.
That Mai seems to have had a similar idea is convenient, but convenience is all it is.
"And hello to you too, Mai," you say, because a princess is always polite, in the same way a knife is always sharp.
She just looks at you, turning her head over her shoulder with an annoyed squint, trails of dark hair rustling against her narrow collar. "You can't plagiarise a sense of humour, Azula."
Whether or not you borrowed that line from something Ty Lee has said to you—more than once—is irrelevant to the conversation you intend to have, so you ignore her spurious accusations. "You seem confident that I will allow you out of my sight."
"I'm going to Yu Dao," Mai repeats, attention turned back to the winding, rocky path leading down to the docks now that you've stepped up to her side, "because frankly even dealing with my Father crying about how that crazy king tossed our entire palace out of Omashu and into a farm is better than having to deal with you and Zuko tugging me between you like a toy. Find me after it's done. But if you kill Zuko, I'll find you."
Most of the time, you'd be eager to remind her that you know a rather edifying number of terrible things that can be done to a person without killing them, but… the worst thing you could do to Zuko, your Father already did. You'd just embarrass yourself if you tried to pretend otherwise.
"I've tried that," you say instead, "but it never seems to stick."
Really, you have: you've killed Zuko at the Western Air Temple and at the Agni Kai quite a number of times, but you're still no closer to escaping this hateful cycle. That was the first possibility you eliminated. Whatever you have to do to escape, it doesn't require you to murder your brother.
Honestly, it's somewhat of a relief. Zuko turning out to be useless even for dying is so in-character that it reminds you not every constant of the universe is out to get you.
"There really is something different about you, Azula." Mai stops walking, choosing to lean up against the ragged cliff wall that frames this section of the pass—dark and porous, it towers above the both of you, though it stands far from tall enough to prevent the sun from soaking through the rock and your skin both.
The gravel crunches roughly beneath your armoured boots as you stop opposite her. "Is there?"
Mai doesn't say anything more, though.
She just stands there and waits.
Where did she get this accursed spine from?
"Think what you like," you say, staring her straight in the eye, gold to gold. No matter what platitudes she offers you, neither she nor Ty Lee deserve anything resembling the truth. They'd hardly believe you if you told them. "It's no concern of mine."
Mai shrugs, pushing off the wall and returning to the path. "Whatever. Ty Lee can't say I didn't try."
The rest of the walk to the dock passes in silence.
At the end of the day, it's easy to let Mai go: to Yu Dao, and to whatever happens in the world outside your cycle.
It's the best solution to the problem of her presence. You can't trust her around you, and you can't trust her within reach of Zuko, but you can't just throw her back in a cell. And you've grown so used to being abandoned that it doesn't even hurt this time. Of course she's leaving. The sun rises, the wind blows, and you are left alone. That's just how the world works.
Which is why it's quite inexplicable that Ty Lee isn't going with her.
"You're staying," you say, and barely bite off the unbecoming upward lilt of your voice that would turn it into something as revealing as a question.
"Yep!" Ty Lee is standing on her head, feet kicking at what looks to be a repurposed children's ball-and-cup—the cup is hooked on a pipe across the ceiling, snagging the ball in place so it can swing around every time Ty Lee taps it with a toe. "Aren't you happy, Azula? I'm happy!"
You eye the way her brown side-bangs sway across the dull metal of the ship's floor, sheen scraped away by hundreds of soldiers' boots, with carefully hidden distaste. "It does seem to be one of your most… noteworthy habits."
"You always have the funniest ways to pretend you're not insulting people," she says brightly, smiling up at you. It's a strange thing to see, upside-down as it is, but nonetheless Ty Lee's face is so built for joy that you can read it easily regardless. "It's one of the things I like about you, Azula."
You weren't aware she had ever realised what you meant.
"I have no need for your pity, Ty Lee," you say with a sigh, "and you do not need to flatter me to get what you want. If you wish to return to your circus, I shan't stop you. There's no point in pretending you want otherwise."
"Weeeeeeeell," she hums, contorting her bare feet to catch the ball between her heels while simultaneously exerting so little pressure on the ground with her fingertips that she almost seems to be hanging from the string attached to the ball, "I thought about that, actually, but then I realised it would clash with my aura, so I decided to stay with you instead. Isn't that exciting? It's been so long since it was just the two of us!"
"I am quite aware," you say, which you… did not mean to. What is wrong with you? That's three conversations in a row where your tongue has flailed around like a child's. Have you gone so long without talking to someone across anything but an open flame that you cannot even remember how to keep your thoughts inside your head? Spirits, at this rate you'll turn into Zuko—Zuko, who can't keep his mouth shut to save his face.
"Yeah," Ty Lee says, almost softly, "I thought you might be. But that doesn't matter now! It's going to be you, and me, and Mai in spirit!"
Mai has never done anything with spirit in her entire life, and you're certain she's not about to start now.
"That's not the point, Azula." Ty Lee shakes her head, which somehow does not move any other part of her body an inch. She truly is wasted as a performer. That kind of physical control is far better suited to violence. "But don't worry about it. I'm here to help!"
"You can help by getting out of that ridiculous pose." Must she flaunt her flexibility at every opportunity? You know she was attention-starved as a child and acts out dramatically to force others to engage with her on her terms, but there is nobody here but you, and you are already well aware you cannot match her absurd contortions. "This is a transit hall on a warship, not Bohai's Big Top Bonanza or whatever nonsense circuses pass for names these days."
Ty Lee backflips to her feet, casually avoiding hitting you, or the narrow steel walls, or the corrugated floor, landing perfectly on her toes without the slightest trembling in her posture. There's not even a thin sheen of sweat across her neck or belly. You can hold a plank with only your hands and turn it into a double-footed kick forwards while balancing on the edge of a moving gondola in the middle of a fight, but there's something irritating about Ty Lee's easy mastery nonetheless.
"Alright, alright," she says, grey-eyed gaze finally level with yours instead of originating from somewhere near your boots. "Sheesh, you're impatient today, Azula. Are we going somewhere once we get to Caldera?"
There is an assumption in that "we" that you are…
…probably going to entertain, you realise glumly, pressing an armoured forearm into your hip in lieu of clenching a fist or a jaw.
(You're in the Fire Nation, after all, on your way to Caldera Palace. You can no longer afford to show your feelings so easily. You know exactly who is watching.)
With Mai gone, and Zuko's death no longer on the table, Ty Lee is… you doubt she'll betray you before Sozin's Comet, at least. Well, you suppose she's the most likely person you know outside Zuko to get all teary-eyed about burning the Earth Kingdom to the ground, but where your brother is stupid enough to actually turn his feelings into actions, you don't think Ty Lee is quite as willing to tell the Fire Lord to his face that he's wrong. Fear may not be as reliable an ally to you as you thought, but your Father is another matter entirely.
And if nothing else, she'll be a useful distraction to whichever one of Zuko or Iroh or the waterbender or the Avatar comes to try and take your rightful place on the day of the Comet.
Speaking of Zuko and Iroh and the waterbender and the Avatar, though, Ty Lee's question does remind you that you have another decision to make.
Where are you going once you get to Caldera, Princess Azula?
[ ]To kill the Avatar at the Western Air Temple. You know where he sleeps, and perhaps it is ending one cycle that will free you from another.
It never works. Honestly, it's frustrating. You kill a spirit once, and suddenly everyone around him looks for you in every shadow.
[ ] To test your brother. Sometimes, when you fight across the airships, you taunt him about Mai, but it only makes him stronger. How will he react instead when he learns she's safe, and sound, and waiting somewhere far from your impending coronation? Will conflicting loyalties split his party, or will he finally prove as ruthless as a royal ought to be? Either way, he'll be more off-balance when the Comet comes, and maybe you'll finally be able to talk to him.
[ ] To abduct your brother. With your Father's attention fixed on Sozin's Comet and the plan to scour the Earth Kingdom to ash, you're sure you can find a suitable hole to toss Zuko in without him knowing. There you can interrogate him at your leisure, and find out what drives him to a stupidity as relentless as the loops that confine you. For all you know, the two are related. He does seem to be their most recurring feature.
[ ] To ignore your brother. You're not actually interested in him. You want the waterbender. She won't let you refuse Zuko's challenge on the day of the Comet, and if you kill her someone always kills you, so there's only one solution left: you'll remove her from the board, and ransom her back for the opportunity to negotiate with Zuko and the Avatar. They'll never see it coming.
[ ]Nowhere. You're going to wait in the palace until the day of the Comet, trying to convince your Father to take you along. Together, you will kill the Avatar, and maybe this way you can end two cycles at once.
Your Father does not change his mind without a fait accompli, like you presented him with after Ba Sing Se. Anything less than that—like the begging of his only son, prostrate on the floor—moves him only to violence.
You're not sure what's worse: the size of his desk, the tacky red-and-gold colour scheme it tries to pretend is dignified, or the gigantic portrait of your father that sits behind it. It seems that no matter where you go, or when you are, his shadow is always there to greet you. Thankfully, your decision to take the Warden's uncomfortable seat—or, at least, uncomfortable by the standards of Caldera Palace, which you suppose is… actually, by the way Zuko treated it, arguably comparable to a prison—means you are framed by the glowering Fire Lord and don't have to look at him at all.
It's Mai and Ty Lee who have to meet his gaze, unless they're willing to meet yours. You hope they do. Your judgement in friends might be… slightly less than perfect, perhaps, but you know they aren't cowards. Just traitors, and fools, and treacherously foolish to boot.
You study them across the flat of the desk, folding your hands under your chin and resting your chin on your palms. It's one of your favourite poses, for the sheer psychological dissonance of it: as a firebender, your hands are your most dangerous weapons, and you are keeping them up and visible and away, but at the same time, you are the princess of the Fire Nation and you are staring at someone over your hands with an air of visible expectation. Are you trying to be politely unthreatening, or are you implying that your firebending should be the least of their concerns?
At least one general has fled your presence with fumbled excuses when all you did was look at him, just like this.
(And yet here you are, using it on the only people in the world you used to call 'friend'. How subtle of you, Princess Azula!)
"Well?" you ask, golden eyes sharp. "What do you have to say for yourself, Mai?"
Mai sighs, expression—such as Mai can ever be said to hold an expression—thin with irritation. But there's a little confusion in it, too. She wasn't expecting to survive; or at least, not survive like this. Frankly, you weren't really expecting her to either, but at this point in the endless cycle of your life, sometimes you're willing to just give things a try because you can.
"What do you want me to say?" Her voice is low and flat. "Zuko was going to die if I didn't do something, so I did. I don't have a "better" reason for you. Not everyone wants to fit into your boxes, Azula."
"I can see why Zuzu said you were boring," you say, shaking your head. Naturally, even after the chaos of combat, your topknot is so perfect that your hair hardly shifts in place. "Betraying your nation, your princess, and your Fire Lord, all for something as predictably pedestrian as love? And after he abandoned you at that. Let me guess: did he tell you that he could finally recognise your devotion? When you found him in that cell, were you whispering to each other sweet nothings about willing hearts, given in return?"
(Of course you remember the words to Love Amongst the Dragons. You remember a lot of things you hate, especially when you once fooled yourself into thinking you didn't.)
"Because you're one to talk about love," Mai snaps back. "Some days I wonder if you're even capable of it."
"Mai!" Ty Lee looks a little frantic, her eyes wide and her fingers tense where they clasp Mai's forearm over her maroon sleeves. It's not something you ever really paid attention to until the Avatar had ruined you several lifetimes in a row, but the colour of her irises, somewhere between hazel and grey, is the kind usually found only in the history books. How interesting. "That's an awful thing to say!"
You're not sure why Ty Lee is trying to defend you. Probably because she wants to look better by comparison in the hopes it'll keep her safe, or, worse, because she wants to try and keep Mai safe. There's no point to either, and—well, it's not like Mai is even wrong. She's far from the first person to say something like that to you.
Instead of giving voice to any of that, though, you place a fine-fingered hand over your heart and reel backward with dramatic exaggeration, pressing your spine into the thick red leather of your chair. "You wound me, Mai. You're still alive, after all, aren't you?"
What Mai doesn't know about how many times you've learned how her flesh smells when lightning cooks it from the inside out won't hurt her. Yet, anyway.
"What's with you, Azula? Is this all just a big joke to you? I saw your face when I started cutting the line. Now you're mocking me like we never moved on from Ember Island." You must be really getting to Mai. She hasn't spoken this many words in a row since you plucked her from New Ozai. "Just get to the point, so I can get back to sitting in whatever dank, damp little cell you want to throw me in."
Well, she did ask.
"The point…" you muse, tapping your chin with a finger in a mockery of thought. "Yes, I suppose I must have had one of those, mustn't I? That's why I'm different from you. That's why I'm the monster. Because when I look at the world, I don't see people, do I? Just levers. So when one refuses to be pulled, the only thing I know how to do is to break it."
Your smile is a masterpiece. It falls crooked across your jaw, like you're trying to keep an amusement on your face that you're struggling to feel—like you're lying to yourself about how well you're lying to everyone else.
(It's a smile that has your eyes focusing anywhere else but the glint of the knife poking out of Mai's sleeve, lest you see yourself in it.)
"Tell me, Mai." You lean forward across the table, pressing your palms into the surface until your knuckles whiten. "How broken are you feeling right now?"
Ty Lee gets it first, you think. Her arm twitches over Mai's, like she's thinking about reaching out to you instead; her cheeks pale and her lips open. Mai, by contrast, takes a little longer—and then it hits her and her eyes narrow even as her frown softens ever-so-slightly.
"Not enough to believe you," she says, but with an edge that bruises instead of cuts. "Nice try, though."
"You're such a softie, Azula!" Ty Lee says, which is the first and hopefully last time the universe has ever heard that sequence of words in that order. She's smiling at you, now, like she did when you crossed to her for the spike at the volleyball game; like she does when you've done something she's proud of.
It's not the same smile she has when she believes you.
But it's close.
You'll take it.
(This is friendship, to you, after all. It's all about "take". No doubt Father would approve.)
"Well then, Mai," you say, clapping your hands together briskly, "in the interests of trying, perhaps you'll answer me this: what is it about dear Zuzu that makes him such an appealing proposition, compared to me? Be as honest as you like; it'll hardly be the most asinine drivel I've heard today."
Like most of your questions, it's one you already know the answer to. Zuko is your lesser in everything that matters to you—not just firebending, but politicking, military strategy, academics, anything and everything that should pave the way to the throne—but, it seems, your greater in everything that matters to everyone else.
It's not that you care about the answer particularly, either. You are quite content with who you are and what you're capable of, and you have no interest in neutering yourself and your capabilities, or whatever inane remedy for the problem of your personality Mai will inevitably suggest.
No: this is just you indulging your curiosity on a whim. You've never bothered to ask your ex-friends about their feelings before—just the thought is positively mortifying. If you're asking now, it's only because you might as well take the chance here, when nobody else will remember the conversation but you. And if they do, if this is the price you have to pay for escaping these accursed cycles, you can surely bear the indignity just this once.
For a moment, Mai just looks at you, all dark hair and disregard; the same Mai she always is, and the same Mai she'll probably always remain. Then there's an imperceptible shift in her posture, a slight flicker of an eyebrow—the sort of movement that in anyone else would be a cocked head and a verbalised "Huh."—and suddenly she straightens in her chair, rests her own hands demurely in her lap, looks you straight and unflinching in the eye, and says, "You really think I wouldn't have done the exact same thing if Zuko had escaped and you were going to fall, don't you?"
You blink.
What?
"I can't deal with this," she says, and stands. "One royal idiot is enough for today. I am not handling two. Ty Lee, you're up."
Then she pulls her wooden stool out, neatly steps around it, tucks it back in, and stalks out of the room. Her robes flutter in the torchlight as she leaves, like the undulating banners once above New Ozai.
"Mai, get ba—" you start, and then cut it off before you embarrass yourself. A princess should never give commands she knows will not be followed. You will deal with Mai's blatant insubordination later.
(You know, after your brain stops echoing with if Zuko had escaped and you were going to fall.)
"Azula," Ty Lee says gently, "what's going on?"
You take a sharp inhale, tinged with the cold, biting taste of the sky before lightning, and look at her. "Why must something be 'going on', Ty Lee?"
"You're answering questions with questions." Her voice is still gentle, like you think an embrace is supposed to be. How hateful. "And you usually lie way better than this. Did you—is Mai right?"
The torchlight—still a bright, flickering blue—dapples across the round curves of her face. You don't recognise the emotions she's wearing: the low turn of her mouth, the way she blinks a little too slowly. The closest thing you can think of is grief, but it's not. It's too careful for that.
"Mai made her choice," you say, because you refuse to dignify that ridiculous hypothetical with a direct answer. "She can pretend what she likes, but she chose Zuko—and you were going to choose her, don't think I didn't see that, Ty Lee."
Something dips in her expression, like the first few stones slipping down a cliff before the whole thing crumbles into the sea.
Except then she shakes her head—ponytail jiggling like a particularly brown and lively entrail—and slaps her cheeks, a peculiar ritual you've seen her perform several times before when she wants to remind herself to think positive or something similarly childish. It works like it always does: she bursts into a bright smile that shifts from practised to enthusiastic halfway through, and… reaches out to clasp a hand with one of yours, because it's been so long that you'd nearly forgotten that Ty Lee affirms her positive feelings through touch.
Her skin is cool against yours, and her fingers are as firm and calloused as your own.
"I don't really believe in choosing people, you know?" Ty Lee says. "There's not a finite amount of love in this world to give. It's forever. Like the sky. Or dancing! Just because I danced once doesn't mean I don't want to dance again. Just because Mai's my friend doesn't mean I don't want to be your friend. Or Zuko's friend. Or that cute boy who runs with the Avatar's friend. Honestly, don't you think everything would be better if we were all friends?"
That is so utterly beside the point you can hardly do anything but blink at her for a second or two.
"…I really don't," you say, and remember only a second later to pull your hand out from under Ty Lee's.
"Maybe not," Ty Lee gives easily, "but you know, Azula, you're actually pretty bad at being friends, so I don't think your judgement really counts."
You have never been bad at anything in your life.
"Yes you have," she says, apparently reading your words directly from your disgruntled stare. "I was there when you tried to learn the erhu. I'm glad the Fire Lord put a stop to that."
You open your mouth to castigate Ty Lee for speaking on matters far above her station and abruptly come to understand that, somehow, you have entirely lost control of the conversation, and may have never had it at all.
The plan was simple. You would suggest to Mai and Ty Lee that you spared them out of misplaced childhood sentimentality, a lie they would not believe, and in the ensuing argument they would reveal the motives for their treachery, which would allow you to prevent repeats down the line by taking preemptive actions to prevent similar flaws in all your future subordinates. Once "caught" in the lie, you would remind them of the old adage that one should keep their enemies closer, and they would see a truth they could understand in your actions: the cold-hearted pragmatism of royalty.
Instead, you are… almost about to argue with Ty Lee about your (lack of) instrumental talents, while Mai is off sulking somewhere because she's mad at you for something entirely separate to what you wanted her to be mad at you for.
How did it come to this?
"Just… get out of here, Ty Lee," you say, waving her off. "Go find Mai and make sure her idiot of an uncle hasn't done something stupid like try to arrest her. I need to think and your insipid smile is entirely too loud to let me."
"No worries, Azula!" Ty Lee says, bouncing towards the door in a flurry of pink. "Come find us when you're ready, okay?"
You will most certainly not.
(Liar.)
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 are indicated in bold.
(2/2) Azula, Alone?
You have nothing and no-one to rely on. Your friends have proven themselves traitors a hundred times over, whatever meaningless platitudes they choose to try to trick you with, your mother left and your brother couldn't be bothered to stay. Your father is all that remains, and you're trying to stop yourself from realising that does not mean what you once thought it did.
You have nothing and no-one to rely on. Your friends have proven themselves traitors a hundred times over, whatever meaningless platitudes they choose to try to trick you with, your mother left and your brother couldn't be bothered to stay. Your father is all that remains, and you're trying to stop yourself from realising that does not mean what you once thought it did.
"I'm going to Yu Dao," is the first thing Mai says to you when you find her.
Not that you were looking—you were on a therapeutic stroll through the prison, inspecting the guards' progress in fixing their own incompetence as you made your way to the gondola and from there, the docks. You'd left orders earlier to ensure a ship was prepared for you—there's no point looking for your war balloon, you know from experience it's gone the way of Zuko—but you've found your presence often helps your lessers find a little extra effort they might otherwise misplace.
That Mai seems to have had a similar idea is convenient, but convenience is all it is.
"And hello to you too, Mai," you say, because a princess is always polite, in the same way a knife is always sharp.
She just looks at you, turning her head over her shoulder with an annoyed squint, trails of dark hair rustling against her narrow collar. "You can't plagiarise a sense of humour, Azula."
Whether or not you borrowed that line from something Ty Lee has said to you—more than once—is irrelevant to the conversation you intend to have, so you ignore her spurious accusations. "You seem confident that I will allow you out of my sight."
"I'm going to Yu Dao," Mai repeats, attention turned back to the winding, rocky path leading down to the docks now that you've stepped up to her side, "because frankly even dealing with my Father crying about how that crazy king tossed our entire palace out of Omashu and into a farm is better than having to deal with you and Zuko tugging me between you like a toy. Find me after it's done. But if you kill Zuko, I'll find you."
Most of the time, you'd be eager to remind her that you know a rather edifying number of terrible things that can be done to a person without killing them, but… the worst thing you could do to Zuko, your Father already did. You'd just embarrass yourself if you tried to pretend otherwise.
"I've tried that," you say instead, "but it never seems to stick."
Really, you have: you've killed Zuko at the Western Air Temple and at the Agni Kai quite a number of times, but you're still no closer to escaping this hateful cycle. That was the first possibility you eliminated. Whatever you have to do to escape, it doesn't require you to murder your brother.
Honestly, it's somewhat of a relief. Zuko turning out to be useless even for dying is so in-character that it reminds you not every constant of the universe is out to get you.
"There really is something different about you, Azula." Mai stops walking, choosing to lean up against the ragged cliff wall that frames this section of the pass—dark and porous, it towers above the both of you, though it stands far from tall enough to prevent the sun from soaking through the rock and your skin both.
The gravel crunches roughly beneath your armoured boots as you stop opposite her. "Is there?"
Mai doesn't say anything more, though.
She just stands there and waits.
Where did she get this accursed spine from?
"Think what you like," you say, staring her straight in the eye, gold to gold. No matter what platitudes she offers you, neither she nor Ty Lee deserve anything resembling the truth. They'd hardly believe you if you told them. "It's no concern of mine."
Mai shrugs, pushing off the wall and returning to the path. "Whatever. Ty Lee can't say I didn't try."
The rest of the walk to the dock passes in silence.
At the end of the day, it's easy to let Mai go: to Yu Dao, and to whatever happens in the world outside your cycle.
It's the best solution to the problem of her presence. You can't trust her around you, and you can't trust her within reach of Zuko, but you can't just throw her back in a cell. And you've grown so used to being abandoned that it doesn't even hurt this time. Of course she's leaving. The sun rises, the wind blows, and you are left alone. That's just how the world works.
Which is why it's quite inexplicable that Ty Lee isn't going with her.
"You're staying," you say, and barely bite off the unbecoming upward lilt of your voice that would turn it into something as revealing as a question.
"Yep!" Ty Lee is standing on her head, feet kicking at what looks to be a repurposed children's ball-and-cup—the cup is hooked on a pipe across the ceiling, snagging the ball in place so it can swing around every time Ty Lee taps it with a toe. "Aren't you happy, Azula? I'm happy!"
You eye the way her brown side-bangs sway across the dull metal of the ship's floor, sheen scraped away by hundreds of soldiers' boots, with carefully hidden distaste. "It does seem to be one of your most… noteworthy habits."
"You always have the funniest ways to pretend you're not insulting people," she says brightly, smiling up at you. It's a strange thing to see, upside-down as it is, but nonetheless Ty Lee's face is so built for joy that you can read it easily regardless. "It's one of the things I like about you, Azula."
You weren't aware she had ever realised what you meant.
"I have no need for your pity, Ty Lee," you say with a sigh, "and you do not need to flatter me to get what you want. If you wish to return to your circus, I shan't stop you. There's no point in pretending you want otherwise."
"Weeeeeeeell," she hums, contorting her bare feet to catch the ball between her heels while simultaneously exerting so little pressure on the ground with her fingertips that she almost seems to be hanging from the string attached to the ball, "I thought about that, actually, but then I realised it would clash with my aura, so I decided to stay with you instead. Isn't that exciting? It's been so long since it was just the two of us!"
"I am quite aware," you say, which you… did not mean to. What is wrong with you? That's three conversations in a row where your tongue has flailed around like a child's. Have you gone so long without talking to someone across anything but an open flame that you cannot even remember how to keep your thoughts inside your head? Spirits, at this rate you'll turn into Zuko—Zuko, who can't keep his mouth shut to save his face.
"Yeah," Ty Lee says, almost softly, "I thought you might be. But that doesn't matter now! It's going to be you, and me, and Mai in spirit!"
Mai has never done anything with spirit in her entire life, and you're certain she's not about to start now.
"That's not the point, Azula." Ty Lee shakes her head, which somehow does not move any other part of her body an inch. She truly is wasted as a performer. That kind of physical control is far better suited to violence. "But don't worry about it. I'm here to help!"
"You can help by getting out of that ridiculous pose." Must she flaunt her flexibility at every opportunity? You know she was attention-starved as a child and acts out dramatically to force others to engage with her on her terms, but there is nobody here but you, and you are already well aware you cannot match her absurd contortions. "This is a transit hall on a warship, not Bohai's Big Top Bonanza or whatever nonsense circuses pass for names these days."
Ty Lee backflips to her feet, casually avoiding hitting you, or the narrow steel walls, or the corrugated floor, landing perfectly on her toes without the slightest trembling in her posture. There's not even a thin sheen of sweat across her neck or belly. You can hold a plank with only your hands and turn it into a double-footed kick forwards while balancing on the edge of a moving gondola in the middle of a fight, but there's something irritating about Ty Lee's easy mastery nonetheless.
"Alright, alright," she says, grey-eyed gaze finally level with yours instead of originating from somewhere near your boots. "Sheesh, you're impatient today, Azula. Are we going somewhere once we get to Caldera?"
There is an assumption in that "we" that you are…
…probably going to entertain, you realise glumly, pressing an armoured forearm into your hip in lieu of clenching a fist or a jaw.
(You're in the Fire Nation, after all, on your way to Caldera Palace. You can no longer afford to show your feelings so easily. You know exactly who is watching.)
With Mai gone, and Zuko's death no longer on the table, Ty Lee is… you doubt she'll betray you before Sozin's Comet, at least. Well, you suppose she's the most likely person you know outside Zuko to get all teary-eyed about burning the Earth Kingdom to the ground, but where your brother is stupid enough to actually turn his feelings into actions, you don't think Ty Lee is quite as willing to tell the Fire Lord to his face that he's wrong. Fear may not be as reliable an ally to you as you thought, but your Father is another matter entirely.
And if nothing else, she'll be a useful distraction to whichever one of Zuko or Iroh or the waterbender or the Avatar comes to try and take your rightful place on the day of the Comet.
Speaking of Zuko and Iroh and the waterbender and the Avatar, though, Ty Lee's question does remind you that you have another decision to make.
Where are you going once you get to Caldera, Princess Azula?
[ ]
It never works. Honestly, it's frustrating. You kill a spirit once, and suddenly everyone around him looks for you in every shadow.
[ ] To test your brother. Sometimes, when you fight across the airships, you taunt him about Mai, but it only makes him stronger. How will he react instead when he learns she's safe, and sound, and waiting somewhere far from your impending coronation? Will conflicting loyalties split his party, or will he finally prove as ruthless as a royal ought to be? Either way, he'll be more off-balance when the Comet comes, and maybe you'll finally be able to talk to him.
[ ] To abduct your brother. With your Father's attention fixed on Sozin's Comet and the plan to scour the Earth Kingdom to ash, you're sure you can find a suitable hole to toss Zuko in without him knowing. There you can interrogate him at your leisure, and find out what drives him to a stupidity as relentless as the loops that confine you. For all you know, the two are related. He does seem to be their most recurring feature.
[ ] To ignore your brother. You're not actually interested in him. You want the waterbender. She won't let you refuse Zuko's challenge on the day of the Comet, and if you kill her someone always kills you, so there's only one solution left: you'll remove her from the board, and ransom her back for the opportunity to negotiate with Zuko and the Avatar. They'll never see it coming.
[ ]
Your Father does not change his mind without a fait accompli, like you presented him with after Ba Sing Se. Anything less than that—like the begging of his only son, prostrate on the floor—moves him only to violence.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[ ] To ignore your brother. You're not actually interested in him. You want the waterbender. She won't let you refuse Zuko's challenge on the day of the Comet, and if you kill her someone always kills you, so there's only one solution left: you'll remove her from the board, and ransom her back for the opportunity to negotiate with Zuko and the Avatar. They'll never see it coming.
This one is very funny, and lets Azula bounce off of someone that's not Mai, Ty Lee, and Zuko.
This one is very funny, and lets Azula bounce off of someone that's not Mai, Ty Lee, and Zuko.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, focus on Katara seems like the most likely to produce interesting results.
[X] To ignore your brother. You're not actually interested in him. You want the waterbender. She won't let you refuse Zuko's challenge on the day of the Comet, and if you kill her someone always kills you, so there's only one solution left: you'll remove her from the board, and ransom her back for the opportunity to negotiate with Zuko and the Avatar. They'll never see it coming.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] To test your brother. Sometimes, when you fight across the airships, you taunt him about Mai, but it only makes him stronger. How will he react instead when he learns she's safe, and sound, and waiting somewhere far from your impending coronation? Will conflicting loyalties split his party, or will he finally prove as ruthless as a royal ought to be? Either way, he'll be more off-balance when the Comet comes, and maybe you'll finally be able to talk to him.
Talk to Zuko!
Talk to Zuko!
- Pronouns
- she/her
[X] To ignore your brother. You're not actually interested in him. You want the waterbender. She won't let you refuse Zuko's challenge on the day of the Comet, and if you kill her someone always kills you, so there's only one solution left: you'll remove her from the board, and ransom her back for the opportunity to negotiate with Zuko and the Avatar. They'll never see it coming.
Ty Lee is going to leak Mai's status to Zuko in 0.5 seconds if they meet and if Azula values her companionship she should not force her to chose between Azula and a long term childhood friend AGAIN.
Ty Lee is going to leak Mai's status to Zuko in 0.5 seconds if they meet and if Azula values her companionship she should not force her to chose between Azula and a long term childhood friend AGAIN.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- Any/All
[X] To test your brother. Sometimes, when you fight across the airships, you taunt him about Mai, but it only makes him stronger. How will he react instead when he learns she's safe, and sound, and waiting somewhere far from your impending coronation? Will conflicting loyalties split his party, or will he finally prove as ruthless as a royal ought to be? Either way, he'll be more off-balance when the Comet comes, and maybe you'll finally be able to talk to him.
[X] To abduct your brother
Azula needs to go on a life changing field trip with Zuko
Azula needs to go on a life changing field trip with Zuko
[X] To test your brother. Sometimes, when you fight across the airships, you taunt him about Mai, but it only makes him stronger. How will he react instead when he learns she's safe, and sound, and waiting somewhere far from your impending coronation? Will conflicting loyalties split his party, or will he finally prove as ruthless as a royal ought to be? Either way, he'll be more off-balance when the Comet comes, and maybe you'll finally be able to talk to him.
nvm want her to talk to zuko
nvm want her to talk to zuko
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Love Sokka. Her tgirl rizz is so powerful.
Anyway, onto more relevant topics...
[X] To ignore your brother. You're not actually interested in him. You want the waterbender. She won't let you refuse Zuko's challenge on the day of the Comet, and if you kill her someone always kills you, so there's only one solution left: you'll remove her from the board, and ransom her back for the opportunity to negotiate with Zuko and the Avatar. They'll never see it coming.
Most interested in this of the options presented- every fight Azula and Katara have one-on-one in canon ends with Azula getting owned.
Its a pity Mai left, but I get it.
Anyway, onto more relevant topics...
[X] To ignore your brother. You're not actually interested in him. You want the waterbender. She won't let you refuse Zuko's challenge on the day of the Comet, and if you kill her someone always kills you, so there's only one solution left: you'll remove her from the board, and ransom her back for the opportunity to negotiate with Zuko and the Avatar. They'll never see it coming.
Most interested in this of the options presented- every fight Azula and Katara have one-on-one in canon ends with Azula getting owned.
Its a pity Mai left, but I get it.
chellewalker
President of the Water Seeker Fan Club
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] To ignore your brother. You're not actually interested in him. You want the waterbender. She won't let you refuse Zuko's challenge on the day of the Comet, and if you kill her someone always kills you, so there's only one solution left: you'll remove her from the board, and ransom her back for the opportunity to negotiate with Zuko and the Avatar. They'll never see it coming.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] To ignore your brother. You're not actually interested in him. You want the waterbender. She won't let you refuse Zuko's challenge on the day of the Comet, and if you kill her someone always kills you, so there's only one solution left: you'll remove her from the board, and ransom her back for the opportunity to negotiate with Zuko and the Avatar. They'll never see it coming.