Überflüssig
While I raced back to the palace, I unwittingly left my niece in the company of hyenas. As the 8th Calderan settled into winter quarters in the abandoned Earth Kingdom city of Ulan Ulde, Azula was kept in a gilded cage, unaware of the danger that lurked around every corner. But my niece is as cunning as she is fierce. Zhao's machinations were as clumsy as his bumbling attempts at martial glory.
Ty Lee strutted through Azula's chambers. The greens and tans were quite exotic to her eye, but from the gold filigree in the wallpaper to the lacquered furniture and porcelain finery, it was all quite splendid. "This is all rather nice," she chirped.
"It's a prison," said Azula. She'd draped herself on a chaise lounge, hair and nails immaculately done, but hadn't even gotten out of her night robe today.
Ty Lee shrugged. The view out the window was a sharp contrast to the finery of this mansion. This town was all but forgotten, long abandoned from the war. Few buildings had been maintained, falling into rain-beaten heaps of brick and wood. Others bore the scars of battle in their charred hulks. Ty Lee closed the drapes with a heavy sigh. "I don't see what the fuss is about. You won the battle, the Earth Kingdom general even presented his sword to you in surrender."
The ivory handled dao was propped up in the corner in its green silk scabbard. Azula's eyes flitted to it, and some of the warmth returned to her. It had been a great triumph. But the feeling turned sour immediately. "And what did I get for my trouble," she whined, "I'm under house arrest until my idiot uncle returns with my father's instructions."
Azula rolled onto her back. Her lithe little friend had laid on the back of the lounge like a cat. Even with Ty Lee's small frame Azula wondered how she managed the balance. Those gray eyes pierced into Azula's, and she found herself frozen in the moment. Her heart thumped, and yet in this quiet moment still Azula's thoughts turned towards losing her friend.
If Ty Lee noticed the obvious effect she was having on Azula in this solitary moment, she didn't let on. She just brushed a stray lock out of the princess's face. "I don't care what they say about the Avatar, Azula. I know you're my friend. Even if you're scary and you don't show it well."
The door opened without a knock, setting Azula's teeth on edge. Mai strutted in with a tray full of crystal glasses.
"Mai dear," Azula said, welcoming a distraction from the vulnerability, "playing servant is beneath your station."
Mai grumbled something about the army not being good hosts under her breath. She set the tray on the lion-turtle table before Azula. The glasses were filled with cloudy-green sharbat, a sweet drink made from ash-lemon juice, mint and rose water. The silver tray was dotted with sweet little lokum candies, rosewater and saffron flavor judging by the color. Mai popped one in her mouth, and smirked. "So what are you two lovebirds up to?"
Azula's brow pinched. "We are not lovebirds."
Ty Lee giggled and brushed her thumb across Azula's cheek. "So what if we were, Mai. We don't tease you about your crush on Zuko."
Mai rolled her eyes. "
You don't tease me about it. She, on the other hand…" a flash of hurt formed on Mai's lips, only to be quickly washed away. "Nevermind. The cold winds are coming, and we're going to be wintering here. We're going to have to get cozy, so I'd appreciate it, for my own sake, if any sparks are going to fly that you keep me in the dark about it."
Oh there was something there, Azula decided. Something other than hurt about being teased. "Well, now that you mention it," Azula sat up, and ran the back of her hand over Ty Lee's cheek, eliciting an immediate blush, "Ty Lee is pretty cute. Who knows, maybe sparks will fly."
"Ugh, gag me."
"Oh Mai, you're so predictable," Azula teased, "or maybe this is jealousy. Hmm, I wonder, which one though."
Mai crossed her legs, and looked away, feigning disinterest.
"Could it be that Mai just has a thing for royals in general. Or maybe she wants someone nice and bubbly like you," Azula patted Ty Lee's cheek for emphasis, "to balance out her utter lifebane personality."
As much as Ty Lee liked the attention, she cringed at the effect this was having on Mai. This was not the kind of knot she wanted to see Azula pulling at. But she didn't want to see Azula's cruelty turn towards her. Azula became like this whenever she felt her control over a situation slipping. "Azula, we're your friends," Ty Lee said quietly. She swallowed hard, throat suddenly dry, at the realization that if Azula would just let herself ever be vulnerable, they might even be more than friends.
Mai was suddenly like steel, gleaming in the lantern light. "Azula, I'll be frank: there's no answer that will make you happy. So I'm just going to let you keep guessing."
Bile rose in Azula's throat. Her mouth flapped wordlessly. Taking a quick sip of sharbat, Azula seethed at Mai's audacity. Because worst of all, she was right. It was time to quickly change the subject and pretend this conversation never happened, because those two, who meant the world to Azula, were slipping out from her control.
They spent the rest of the evening making life hell for the army orderlies assigned to wait on Azula, chatting about more pleasant things like the thrill of battle, and the joyous feeling of enemies prostrate at your feet, as well as life's simple pleasures like haircare and nice clothes.
Unfortunately, Azula's friends were not permitted to quarter with her. Ty Lee left first, leaving Azula and Mai alone in the princess's chambers. The air was suddenly heavy with anticipation, as Mai's lips quivered on the edge of a sentence. Mai held a goblet in her lap, rubbing at it like a worry stone.
Azula shifted cross-legged, wriggling in the tension of the moment. "Mai," she sighed, "if you have something to say, just say it."
"You're really not going to talk about it?"
"What's there to talk about?"
Mai gripped the cup with white knuckles. "Literally everything has changed, Azula. What you're going through, you don't have to go it alone."
Azula's heart thumped, and she was sure her lip quivered with a flash of vulnerability. But like all those all too human needs, Azula tamped down the embers and snuffed it out before the desire could burn, however it seared her to. She hid that vulnerability behind a mask of detachment, and then hid that mask behind her sharbat cup. "Mai, everything is perfectly under control."
"Is it?" Mai raised her voice. It was desperate, almost pleading now, and so unlike the usually placid girl that it briefly stunned Azula. "You're a prisoner right now. You know better than anyone that the Avatar is an enemy of the state."
"Reality is whatever the Fire Lord dictates it to be," Azula said, recovering her composure. "Once this little embarrassment has passed, I will go right back to the way things were before as a loyal servant of the nation."
Mai skirted around the low tea table and settled in next to Azula. She took Azula's hands in hers. Mai's eyes bored into Azula as she traced her thumb across one of the training scars, a ragged burn that extended from the princess's palm over her wrist. "You remember, what you told me when you asked me to join you on campaign?"
Heart beating like a taiko drum, Azula tried to avert her eyes. But something compelled her to remain transfixed, to not pull her too short sleeves down to cover the scars on her arms, to keep staring into Mai's tawny eyes. "No, I don't recall."
"Liar. You said that your father had grown impatient with you. That he told you that you were too headstrong, too wilful. That he suggested you were disobedient in heart if not in action. That you feared he'd choose Zuko, not you, to be Crown Prince. Azula…" The final treacherous thought was left unsaid.
"What can I do, Mai? We both swore an oath to give our lives to the state. It's not just filial piety that he demands, my father is also my sovereign. What can I do except obey?"
In the dim lamplight, as the sun sank below the mountains and the air chilled, Azula waited for Mai to get angry at her deflection like she always would, for the girl's face to harden and bitter words to be exchanged. But that moment did not come tonight. Mai cradled Azula's head by her temples as she nuzzled their foreheads together. "I am worried for you," whispered Mai.
Azula shivered as something yearning welled up inside her. Her hand found Mai's, and some unnameable desire bid Azula to linger in this quiet moment. She had not been this close to another living soul since she was a little girl. Only now did she realize that the years since had been like starvation. Trembling, Azula pulled Mai's hands to her lap, leaning in closer til their noses touched. "I will be alright, Mai."
"You are my princess, Azula. But you are also my friend. I have been and ever shall be yours. Never forget that."
Some part of Azula would have moved the Heavens and the Earth so that Mai would not have to leave. But leave she must; Mai's departure left a pall over Azula. She tried to distract herself from it. She bathed herself, luxuriating in the lemongrass scented bath salts. After trying…and failing to put her hair back up in a top-knot, she settled for a messy bun while she dined on a simple meal of ash-banana bread, dipping oil and a graciously provided wine nightcap.
It was much better than the swill they had served on the march. As the cold rains beat down on the building, Azula huddled in a green armchair next to the potbelly stove. She re-read her favorite parts of the old
Vedas, subvocalizing the old, all but forgotten tongue of the original settlers of the Fire Islands as she read. The old tongue had a poetry that modern translations lacked, and thanks to her classical education she could fully appreciate it.
She sipped her second cup more slowly and felt her eyes grow heavy. It didn't usually hit her like this. She shook her head, and placed the silk ribbon amidst the pages where she'd stopped. But she was young, and had little experience with alcohol. This excellent full-bodied red must've just been stronger than the swill she was used to.
Azula set the book aside and stumbled over to her lounge. As the fire in the stove crackled, Azula collapsed into the cushions. As sleep came, the fires in the stove and candles began to wax and wane in time with her snores.
Iroh strode into the throne room. His younger brother sat on the throne, conversing with his war minister Chin. The flame curtain was unlit, and the chambers were empty save for the close honor guard of Imperial Firebenders.
Ozai's attention turned at once toward Iroh, and a thin smirk formed on his face. When two of the Imperial Guard attempted to halt Iroh's approach, he brushed past. "My lord," he cried, "I have most urgent news. Highly sensitive news."
The polearms and flaming fists retreated at Ozai's wave. "Please, my brother is among my most trusted confidants. Leave us," Ozai commanded.
Once the forms were observed, the chamber emptied. "Thank you, brother," Iroh said, a warm smile of relief gracing his face, "the trust you place in me does me great honor."
"Please, approach, and tell me what news you bring. I trust you would not leave my daughter were this not of the utmost importance."
Iroh bowed at once and rushed towards the throne. He sat at the right-hand place of honor. Pulling a silk handkerchief from his armor, Iroh dabbed the sweat from his brow. "Actually, this news concerns your daughter. I know this will sound mad, but I witnessed it with my own eyes. The whole of Zhao's regiment did. Azula…I don't know how but
she is the Avatar!"
There was a strain in Ozai's voice. Iroh believed it to be shock at this news. "The whole regiment?"
"Yes. Her actions won us the battle, when she bent earth as well as fire. General Shan, a mighty warrior, turned over his sword to Azula in defeat. She was magnificent, a jewel in Sozin's line!"
"Fascinating."
"I know what our father said about the Avatar, a force beyond mortal control, that defied all his efforts. But this must be divine providence!" Iroh gushed, "I've been praying every night to the Daevas for a sign to light the way since Lu Ten's death. This must be it. We can at last triumph, and bring an end to this terrible scourge of war."
Ozai sighed, "Oh brother, I am glad that you rushed to me with this news. But I'm afraid you're too late."
"I don't understand."
"Zhao has already informed me of the Avatar. Judging by the time, he should be receiving my reply. Though, I suppose his omission of certain details will have to be addressed, it changes nothing."
A pit formed in Iroh's stomach. His heart clenched.
"I am again graced with your care and devotion to my progeny, brother. But that
is not my daughter. That is Ahriman given flesh, a creature that crawled out of my former wife under ill omens, who has grown more troublesome with each passing year. Fitting that she'd become this once she started climbing the ladder to majority."
"How can you say that? She is your daughter. She worships the ground you touch."
"Like I said, it's too late. You may mourn what you knew of my daughter if you wish. But she has been deceiving us all her entire life. The matter is already done. If you do not wish to provoke my ire further, then begone from my sight and speak no more of this."
Iroh rose, feeling like he'd aged twenty years. Hands shaking, he gave a curt bow and plodded his way out of the throne room. What was there to do? Ozai spoke with such finality, the whole matter seemed sewn up and down. Nothing but cinders on a pyre. As he left the Palace, Iroh turned to the setting sun, the goddess Amaterasu, called Surya in the elder tongue. She was the bride of Agni, the gleam in his eye, and the source of a Firebender's power. Iroh prayed that Azula's fire would not be snuffed out.
His hands found their way to a pocket, where naught but an old pai sho tile rested. He examined the old white lotus title, and thanked Surya for her blessing. Azula was strong, and there was still hope that he might one day get to know his niece. It was time to get off the bench. Time for the White Lotus to come out of the shadows once more.
Azula slept fitfully, drifting in and out. Something was wrong, it clawed at her, black ichor forming on her nerves. Her limbs felt heavy, and no matter what she did, she could not seem to lift them. Her chest rose slowly with each labored breath, like the tales of malicious Spirits that snuck into bedrooms of naughty children and sat on their chests, sucking the life out of them.
What's going on…this is not right.
The young man with the blue tattoos from before crystalized in the air over her. He seemed translucent as he floated by the chandelier. The man descended close, kneeling at the head of her bed. He craned over her, seeming upside down to her fuzzy thoughts.
"They drugged your wine," the man whispered. The earlier calm he'd shown had melted. This was clearly not part of this Spirit's plan.
You're me, aren't you. A me that was before.
"You're sharp. Good, you'll need all your wits. This much would've killed a normal person. But it's not enough to stop you. If you concentrate. And bide your time."
So…tired. What's your name?
"Aang. My name is Aang. Stay with me." He grabbed her hand. His spiritual form felt like feathers on her skin, and it chased away the pins and needles of numbness. "I know…everything that you know. Things you'd already know if you had all your faculties. If you listen, you can hear them. They're coming for you."
Soldiers…Fire Nation army boots. Three, maybe four of them.
"Good, good. Listen Azula, I need you to focus. They're going to kill you. But you also know…what things men will do to helpless women." Tears began to form in his eyes. "I need you to be strong, and wait for the right moment. This will not be easy."
What…I'm the Fire Lord's daughter. Impossible! Who would dare?
"Do not doubt your senses. Take what you know, and work through the logic the other way."
Wait…my father? Did he give the order?
"He is the only one who could give that order."
The door creaked open. Four men marched in, their voices hushed. Azula stirred fitfully as they circled her bed. The one she presumed to be their leader took off his helmet, revealing the pockmarked face of a young man wearied beyond his years by the hardships of the campaign. He stared right through Aang's incorporeal form. "Blessed Spirits, what a sight!" he said. He gazed at her like a hungry dog.
"Such a shame to have to kill someone so pretty," another voice said.
"She reminds me of my daughter," the third said in the least fatherly way possible.
The leader knelt down. With a laugh, he parted her robe, whistling as he drank in the sight.
Aang had been gentle, so the murderous cold stare on his face unsettled Azula. "The poison works by slowing your heartbeat and stilling your breath. I'm…I'm sorry I couldn't protect you better. But we–"
We know the way out of the trap, she finished for him.
An animal will gnaw off its own leg to escape. A human waits for the right moment.
Every word out of their disgusting mouths stoked the fires in her heart. She'd strain against the drug, and slowly get more of it back. The poison would metabolize faster, taking the weight from her chest.
Azula was no longer frightened. Nothing they could do to her mattered. They'd already signed their own death warrants, they just didn't know it yet. She could endure whatever indignity, because those fools were such base and lowly creatures that they would throw away what chance they had to kill her for fleeting pleasure.
The third voice, who Azula decided to picture with her own father behind his helmet, said, "Shame about the scars."
The leader laughed. "Oh I think it adds character. Such a tough and fiery woman. Shame to destroy such a work of art. Every firebender has scars like them." He traced the faded burn scars on her bare arms and chest with his rough fingers. "She should be out for hours. Plenty of time."
She felt a finger, rough and bumbling, start to invade. As he monologued about 'proper technique' for the benefit of his younger compatriots, her breath quickened.
Oh you stupid man, if only you knew how much you disappointed every woman you've ever been with. Such a shame that you're never going to find out.
The fog was receding from her mind. The inky black numbness pulled away from her lips. Aang stayed, holding her hand through it all. She gasped, and suddenly felt the embers in her chakras stoke. She let out little coos, pretending to be asleep, to keep the men focused on her, as the dim candle on the desk started to flicker in time with her breaths.
"Damn, she's almost ready. Sozon, you're up kid."
"Me sir?" The youngest of the four said.
"Congratulations, you may be a gutter rat from the docks outside Caldera, but your first time is going to be with a princess."
Azula arched her back, lolling her head back to hide the feral grin on her face. Her eyes fluttered open fully. Aang nodded at her, as the gas lanterns flickered and the stove began to bellow.
"Boss…" the third man said, "Somethings not right."
The man assaulting her froze as Azula's hand seized him by the nape of the neck, nails digging into his flesh. She looked up into his panicked eyes. With a measured breath, every source of fire in the room tapered to a tiny pinprick, as all the heat was sucked from the room. In the pitch black, a pair of eyes glowed blue.
The room burst into searing blue flames. The man tried to pull back, but the iron grip on his neck nailed him in place. Azula had an out of body experience, watching from third person detachment as her body levitated, a typhoon of fire circling her. The roaring flames peeled the skin from the man's eyes, his skin flaked away into chunks of ash.
When the pyroclasm ended, the blue glow receded, and Azula collapsed into the charred floor. All her clothes had burned away and her body was coated in a layer of fine white ash. As her senses returned to her, and she saw the empty, melted slags of what could have only been armor and weapons, she smiled with grim satisfaction that it was the ash and bone dust of the men who'd tried to assault her.
Aang floated into view as she gathered her breath. "Now that this is taken care of, you should probably gather your things and start running."
"Yeah, I know," she said aloud. So many pieces on the pai sho board. Someone was bound to notice the flare. Some of the wooziness from the drug remained, even the immense rush of cosmic power, whatever that thing was that made her eyes glow blue–
"--It's called the Avatar State," the "Aang" hallucination said helpfully.
It hadn't burned through the rest of the drug, at any rate. But she focused on one task at a time. Clothing. She found some of her traveling clothes first. She wore them for exercise so they'd suit well. The grimy ash would have to wait, she decided, throwing on the trousers and thin-soled boots. The duller, earthy reds of her pants and jacket would help her stand out less.
She stuffed a leather bag with some of her personal medical supplies, kohl, what few coins she had lying around, and as one last nod to sentimentality, her golden royal hair piece. Everything else would have to be scavenged along the way, but right now she needed to put some distance.
There was no time for a message, no time to even say goodbye. She could only hope that Mai and Ty Lee, the only people whose opinions mattered here, would trust that she wouldn't kill four men without cause. The whistles and shouts of troop columns were nearing, and perhaps the only saving grace was that her normal guard had been cleared out for these men's fiendish deeds. It allowed her to grab a green traveling cloak and a small cooking vessel as she slipped out the kitchen exit.
Azula snuck through the dark, thinking of all the nights she'd crept through the palace grounds unseen to pull some mischief over her brother. She made her way through the patrols, stopping to fill a sack with rice from a supply cart. The stables were too well guarded to try to snag a mount of some kind, but in her meandering journey through the ghost city of Ulan-Ude she did manage to pick up a compass, a map, and a few more silver coins.
She'd made a clean break until, just past the outskirts of the town, a hidden man's palm flared with light. She almost struck the man down until she recognized the weary face of Lieutenant Li. The man shrugged and doused the fire. He stepped from his hiding spot into the pale moonlight.
"Li…don't make me kill you too."
"I'd never dream of it, my lady."
She allowed herself a smile. "You remembered my promise. How'd you find me?"
"I had an intuition that our destinies would be linked since the day you saved my life. I wanted to return the favor. I will report that I spotted you heading west towards Ba Sing Se. It should give you at least a day's head start."
"I…I don't know where to go other than Ba Sing Se."
"You should head south. Get passage on a ship, it's faster. Head towards Kyoshi Island. Look for a man named Jeong Jeong–"
"--the deserter?"
"Yes. And my old commander. He's rumored to be in that area. He's your best hope right now."
"Okay. Li…"
"Yes, my lady?"
"Thank you. Could you please deliver a message for me? Tell Mai and Ty Lee, discreetly, that they need to trust me. To stay safe."
"I'll see what I can do, but lowborn men like me don't have much chance to socialize with the daughters of nobles."
Azula nodded and started off south.
"Oh and one more thing, princess. When the time comes to settle accounts, if you call we will come. We won't forget what you did at the Mamai Kurgan. If that makes us traitors, then so be it."
It had seemed so small at the time, just doing what was best for her own glory. But already, she had touched the hearts of these men, and they were prepared to give an unreasonable amount in return. It stuck in her heart like an arrow, and somehow it didn't seem right to think these men foolish. There was perhaps something more than just the weighing of coins on a scale, though Azula could not yet fathom what it meant. She turns to the dark road before her, unsure of where it will lead.
The days passed, one after the other. Her feet were sore and blistered from walking on the first day. Parched, she could only slake her thirst from babbling creeks, writhing at the thought of what else squirms and swims in the water.
By the end of the first day, her skin crawled from the ash. Her mother's voice scolded her for how unseemly must look. She remembered dimly from the academy that soap is produced by mixing potash with oils or fats. The dust had come to resemble an oily slick of soap on her skin. Once the curtain of night fell, she stripped down at a creek and washed the mess off her. Still she does not feel clean. She imagined all the misdeeds of those men running down the creek, like the film of dirty water, and it starts to calm her.
Her first attempt at boiling rice results in a mushy residue, more like watered down congee. Azula doesn't know what she did wrong, but she chokes down the mush anyway rather than waste it.
She slept fitfully that night, dreaming of her father's hands around her throat, throttling the life out of her. Azule awoke wiping the tears from her eyes, body cold and sore in the autumn air. After relieving herself, she finds some fruit for breakfast. The wild pears are almost fully ripe, and much tastier than another attempt at cooking rice.
After reorienting herself and clearing her camp from under the rock awning, Azula continues south, keeping to the back roads. At noon, she stops to rest and clear the stones from her shoes. As luck would have it, some wild turnips are sprouting near her resting spot. After digging them up, she decides she'll try them instead of rice tonight.
As she's rooting through the soft soil with a rusty old knife for more turnips, a fit of pique hits her. Azula finds herself reaching out to the earth once again. She mimics the motions of Earthbenders she'd witnessed, feeling her chi follow the lines of her muscles. The earth answers slowly. But clumsy or not, her efforts make the ground yield to her, parting to reveal more buried turnips.
Azula decided she didn't mind being an Earthbender so much now. There was no use in feeling ashamed or guilty about it, she'd not chosen it. She just is. On her journey, she continues practicing, forming sand into stone, clearing rocks from the path, making little bridges that cross little gulleys in the path.
That night, she boils turnips in the cooking pot, and roasts a dove over the cooking fire. Both are bland, even when seasoned with the few wild herbs she could recognize, but on the whole much better than the gruel she'd forced herself to eat to stave off the burning hole of hunger in her belly. As she rolls up the leftovers in a handkerchief for breakfast, Azula finally remembers what she's forgotten.
Salt. Rice and salt were the two cornerstones of civilization, and she'd forgotten one of them. Azula beats her head with frustration, then puts it out of mind. She will lick rocks if she has to. She will not let this get in the way.
The long period of solitude gave Azula far too much time to be alone with her thoughts. Even alert, always watching the horizon for any sign of other travelers, she kept finding herself bouncing back to the madness that had once again beset her. She wanted to dismiss it as a side effect of whatever those vermin had drugged her with. Except she was too smart for that. She'd gone into a fugue state at the culmination of the battle on the kurgan.
All that work of curing a troublesome child of being touched by the spirits, what a waste. Azula is back to hallucinating again. Not just the ever-present intrusive voices–thoughts in another voice, she corrected herself. That's what the court physician had called them. Just a malady of an overtaxed mind, nothing of spiritual import.
Azula stopped to rest under a tree, stooping to catch her breath. Somewhere this morning she'd started running, as though this was all that it took to keep the bad thoughts away. Now she was slick with sweat, legs as taught as a bow string. Azula decided if she ever saw that quack Hiroyuki again, she'd wring his neck.
By the end of the fourth day on the road, she'd figured out how to build a rock shelter with Earthbending. It had been days since she's seen a friendly face. Every waking moment was spent looking over her shoulder. Nights spent sleeping fitfully, a few hours at a time. As she watches the dying embers of her campfire, she cries herself to sleep.
By midday, she reached what her map had called the Paradise Orchards. It may have been paradise once, but under the overcast sky, these low plains remind Azula of the Ashlands, where the souls of the dead go to await reincarnation. The path has been lost in the fire. Nothing but blackened soil and charred tree trunks as far as the eye can see.
The smell is still strong in the air. But still Azula trudges onwards, navigating by compass. By nightfall, she reaches the ruins of a town. One ruin looks vaguely promising; a chimney with three intact walls still stands. As she pokes around it, she finds the floorboards singed but still sturdy, and something approaching a bed.
It would be such a nice place to stay, but there's just one problem. She drank the last of her water in the afternoon. She hasn't found a creek yet, and there's none marked on the map. Defeated, Azula walks towards the well. The stone ring remains intact, but the bucket and hoist are in ruins. She smells the water vapor rising from the well, so sweet.
Bitter tears form in her eyes, but she refuses to shed those tears. Leaning over the side, she reaches out, demanding, pleading, for the water to rise. Her motions are jerky and angry, like a novice firebender, and she can feel the pull of the water at the tips of her fingers, but each time it slips through.
Panting, she's reduced to a lazily flapping at the air, feeling the energy sputter helplessly, until after an hour of fruitless work, a thin line of water rises from the well at her command. Azula is so startled with success she almost drops it. But at last she fills her cooking pot, her canteen, and then any vessel she finds in the ruins of this village. The joy that the water has finally answered her calls has wiped away the tears.
Tonight is the closest she's been to happiness in a long time. She finds salt, pickled vegetables, cured meats and even a bottle of burned wine in the cellar. She tries her hand again at making rice, and has finally figured out the right proportions of water and rice to make something approaching edible. It's a feast as great as any she's had, and after a few shots of burned wine, Azula curls up under warm woolen blankets and sleeps her first restful night.
She awoke with a start just before dawn, sensing something lurking in the shadows. Blue flames erupted into life in her hand as she tore away the blankets. "Who goes there!"
Azula heard the cries of children outside the hut. She leaps over the half-ruined wall to find three children, probably between the ages of eight and twelve, hyperventilating against the wall. Azula doused the flames. "Relax, I'm not going to hurt you."
"But you're…you're a Firebender!" the oldest said, fighting back the tears. She's got brown hair and big doe eyes that remind Azula of Ty Lee.
"Yeah, and?"
The girl looks at her like she has three heads.
Azula crouches down. "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. What would I get from hurting three little whelps like you?"
The youngest, a boy with a bandaged eye says, "Firebenders hurt people."
"Yeah, most people are stupid, but I'm not. So I ask again, what would I even get out of it? Use your head if you want to survive in the world."
They don't seem convinced. They do, however, look famished.
"Come on in, I've cooked up some rice and some salt-ostrich."
They do not budge.
"You've heard of the ritual of rice and salt right? I formally invite you, weary traveler, to shelter under my roof and share with me rice and salt. That means so long as you are my guest, I'm duty bound before all the Spirits to grant you hospitality."
The oldest blinks. "But you don't have a roof."
"Do you want to eat or not?"
The kids watch her warily as they eat the reheated food with their grubby little fingers. They let their guard down after the second helping is dished out, so much so that they don't realize she's gone over to the well to fetch more water to wash herself and her clothes with the soap she found.
She returns, clean but hair still in the messiest of messy pony-tails, to find the kids fast asleep in the bed. Quietly, Azula packs up the rest of her things, and the supplies she's scavenged from the ruins.
Azula knows well what she's seen here. Like farmers torching a fallow field to prepare new cultivation, the Fire Nation razes a territory ahead of a new colonization effort. The native inhabitants are expelled by the advancing fire. Their crops and the native plant life reduced to ash, to be tilled under and replaced with ones fitting the civilized Fire Nation way of life. Old dwellings burn away, replaced by the new.
It makes the process simple. The new settlers will never have to look the old inhabitants in the eye, never see the bitter tears they weep. Never see the bodies of those who could not escape. She's seen plenty of it.
It's war, she chants,
it's war. It does not help.
Azula also knows that she's in danger. If a colonization operation is happening here, then outposts of the Fire Nation military are not far away. She's already lingered too long.
By mid-day, she dodged her first patrol. Two men on eel-hounds race by while Azula cowers amidst the rolling hills of ash. All the cover has been scorched away. Word has probably reached them already of the traitor princess…the bile rises in her throat just thinking about it.
All her life, every breath she's ever taken, has been in service of her father and her nation. She dug her hands into the ash, and stifled a scream in her sleeve. She pounded the earth, but it didn't help, so she composed herself and slipped away when the men were out of sight.
She took shelter under a lonely acacia tree, well off the main road, that night. Her campfire was little more than embers stoked to life with half-burned branches. On the cold, hard ground, Azula could only sleep an hour at a time, waking sore to stoke the embers to life to warm herself before drifting off.
By morning, the patrols are thicker in the area and they cannot be avoided. She wrapped herself in a green shawl and pretended as best she could she was just an Earth Kingdom peasant beneath the contempt of the Fire Nation military. When a group of three colonial auxiliaries rode up on her just afternoon, Azula cursed under her breath.
"What have we here?" The man on the first ostrich-horse said, stooping to pull back her shawl. "Are you lost, girl?"
Azula jerked away from his grip, but the second lancer had already blocked the road. "You will not block my path," she growls. But the voice of a Calderan noble girl means nothing here on the frontier. All it does is mark her as not an Earth Kingdom peasant girl.
"Oh, a rich girl all on her own," the second lancer said. "You should come with us. It's for your
safety."
Azula's eyes narrowed. She imagined him burning to death, but still just clenched her fists and bit her tongue. Three men would be missed, even if she got them all.
The third man dismounted and grabbed her by the arm, and still Azula doesn't react.
"Oh, she's unafraid…I like that. Mog, you think the boss will mind if we have a taste?"
This "Mog" was still on his ostrich-horse. He wore sergeant's chevrons on his uniform, right under the coat of arms of Yu Dao. He circled her, studying the afternoon's catch. "Hmm, she's definitely spirited."
Mog hopped down behind Azula. He grabbed her hair and yanked, studying her snarling face like livestock. "She's worth too much to spoil, especially once she's cleaned up. The boss will pay enough to keep all of us in a bottle and in good company for a month. If the boss finds out you spoiled her before he could sell her to a rich client–"
"Slavery is against the law," Azula said, not taking her eyes off her captor.
Mog cackled. Wiping the tears from his eyes, he said, "Oh, aren't you precious. Girls traveling on their own go missing all the time. Especially ones clearly trying to hide from something. Against the law? You fool,
I am the law." He pressed his rough hand on her cheek, and still Azula did not react. "Whatever you're running from?
I'm doing you a favor. You can be some pampered pet, away from all this. All you have to do is come along and not
bite when someone wants a little taste."
Reflecting on this moment later, watching their smoldering ashes, Azula supposed it was meant to be a sort of powerplay, to demonstrate his dominance, when Mog once again laid his hands on her and pulled at her ponytail.
When Mai or Ty Lee did that, it was play. From his hands, violation. Azula ran out of patience. She jabbed two fingers wreathed in searing blue fire into Mog's throat. She knew it was going to be a grisly death, but she had not anticipated the firebolt removing the crown of his head.
The lancer still on his mount fell back as his ostrich-horse reared and kicked from being startled. The man on the ground tried to skewer Azula with his lance. She heard the steel whistling behind her, and rolled out of the way. She took the head of the spear in one hand and kicked up a whip of fire at him. When he let go of the lance, Azula flipped the weapon around and drove it into the man's belly. The sharp point burst through the mail rings. Stuck and squealing, the man fell onto his back, blood streaming out the wound with each ragged breath.
The last man tried to run. He spurred the ostrich-horse hard enough to draw blood, shouting "Ha!" with each kick. In the next instant, Azula decided she could not let him get away no matter what. She began with two fingers at her crown chakra, sparks crackling across her skin. Heart pounding in her ears, blood pumping with the thrill of battle, she whorled through the lightning kata. At the moment of release, her blood stilled to perfect calm as the bolt lanced from her fingertips.
It struck him on his shoulder, burning a hole in his tabard. Both ostrich-horse and rider contorted. The thunderclap sent birds flocking from the nearby trees. Their smoking bodies collapsed, writhing for a moment before being stilled forever.
Azula smirked at a job well done, until she heard the moans of the skewered man behind her.
Oh right, that one loose end.
"Help," the man cried. It was all too delicious at first, hearing him sobbing and begging as she glared down at him. Until he coughed and said, "mom."
Only then did Azula realize that he was barely a man, still baby-faced under the helmet. Azula knelt and tore off his helmet, "Tell me, why should I? You were too cowardly to even rape me yourself, you were going to let another man pay you to have the honor himself."
Azula wanted to hear what he had to say for himself. But whether it was the pain or the blood loss, the man couldn't offer anything to say in his own defense. "Mom…it hurts," he cried.
Azula's triumph turned to ashes in her mouth. She watched him struggling to breath, the black blood pooling on his belly. Maybe he wasn't all there from the shock and Azula looked a little bit too much like his mother, or maybe his last wish was to want his mom. Either way, it left Azula feeling alien to the moment. The triumph over the enemy is supposed to be joyous. The taking of a life should weigh heavy. But all Azula could feel right now was emptiness and pity. "I'm not your mom, kid."
"I don't want to die," he said more weekly.
"I st–" Azula clutched her scarf. "You've been stabbed in the liver. You're not going to make it."
He reached limply for the spear, trying to pull it out. Azula grabbed his hand. "If you pull it out, you'll die faster." She pressed her other hand to the wound to slow the bleeding, "You don't get to die until you tell me
why."
He coughed in something approximating a laugh, "What's it matter, you've already killed me."
"You're a disgrace to the uniform." Azula spat in his face.
He laughed again, "You're unbearably naive. They just want bodies for the camps. Officers flog us for everything 'cept being rough with the barbarians. I may be dying, but I'm not about to let a high-born bitch talk down to me."
Azula heard her mother's voice behind her. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and her eyes became pinpricks as her heart stopped. "Honestly, what is wrong with that child?" said the hallucination of her mother.
No, you're not real, I've already gotten over this why now:
!
"But I suppose you'd know a thing or two about being maladjusted, dear."
The voice of her tutor Lo came from the other side, "You were born under auspicious omens, and have lived fae-touched since."
The voices were gone as quick as they came. It left Azula with a sudden epiphany once the bone-chilling violation had receded. She remembered her father's words that the common Fire Nation soldier was a mongrel dog. "He is not like you or I. He must be brought to heel. Without our discipline, there is only anarchy. Don't look away, Azula. He's a brute and he needs the lash." His exact words echoed in her head.
Azula's training scars itched and burned with shame. If she was touched by grace, above those of lower blood, then why did the nobility need such discipline as well. The methods were just more refined, but the goal was the same. She imagined them both living as shadow puppets on the throne-room wall.
Azula pulled her dagger from the sheath on her belt. "I'll ease your passing to the Ashlands. Close your eyes."
Azula could tell he wondered what had caused her sudden change of heart, but wasn't going to look a gift-horse in the mouth. "Thank you," he said, eyes fluttering closed.
She pulled back his pauldron and silk gi, exposing the pale skin of his collar. It was the soldier's death, and she hoped the dagger was long enough to do the job properly. "Mother Surya, forgive the children we once were. Father Agni, carry us to the Ashlands," she prayed. Then she plunged the dagger behind his collar-bone, at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, straight down into his heart.
They always said it was supposed to be quick and easy. But as she soon discovered, there's no such thing as an easy death. He struggled and gasped as the blood flooded from the wound, mouthing flapping wordlessly. When he finally did die, Azula felt neither relief nor satisfaction.
She worked quickly after to bury their armor and to burn their corpses beyond recognition. In terms of valuables, all they had in their saddlebags were some trail rations, shaving soap, a straight razor, and some perfumes. Their tent was too heavy and so Azula left it on the trail, along with most of their sundries. She wanted to attend to hygiene immediately; the stubble in her armpits and nethers was already starting to itch from regrowth, and it already mortified this proper young girl that hair was visible around the edge of her fundoshi. But there was no time. She'd already spent too much time here.
Azula did not stop that night. By noon the next day, weary beyond belief, she stumbled into a town on the shores of the West Lake. The Fire Nation garrison is under strength from the men pulled to reinforce combat operations further north, but already there are wanted posters bearing her face and her crime. In her disheveled state, she's almost unrecognizable.
The West Lake is a no-man's land. There's occasional naval battles on it, but there hasn't been a serious attempt to cross the lake since her uncle's failed campaign against Ba Sing Se. After taking a nap in a stable, Azula heads out before dusk to find passage across. The Southern banks of the lake and the southwestern-flowing river are controlled still by the Earth Kingdom nominally, and from what she remembered from her father's council meetings, there's a general trend towards neutrality towards shipping when there isn't an active campaign being fought there.
Azula prayed silently that her luck would hold as she tramped down to the docks to find passage. The sailor's guild is still open, but the man at the desk laughs at her when she says she wants to sign on.
"What's a girl like you trying to do as a sailor?" the jowly old man asks.
"I have my reasons, and they're none of your business. I am fit, I can work, what more do you want?"
"Experience and sense, girl. Business has been slow. That's why you're here and not just trying to buy passage with your daddy's money."
Azula growled, forgetting that princesses do not growl once again.
"You can hide behind the grime all you want, but your accent, your dialect, even your posture…it screams gentry."
"Okay, you want to know the truth, fine then," she lied, "I'm fleeing an arranged marriage to an old sod my father is in business with. I'm…I'm trying to find the man I love, but he's on campaign with the Fire Navy." Azula drew on her real rage against her father, and the forlorn feeling she had towards Mai and Ty Lee to sell it.
And it worked. The old sailor's scowl softened and he let out a heavy sigh. Tears welled up in his eyes, "He's a lucky man. If only…if only Na-yeon had been as brave as you."
Oh…I wasn't expecting it to work that well, Azula thought, hoping this wouldn't backfire.
"I'm sure you're traveling under an assumed name. I'll put you down as…"
"Na-yeon. In your honor, sir." Azula bowed, "perhaps the Spirits will listen and your fortunes will turn as well."
"Aye…that'll do. This ship leaves at dawn, it's a river paddler called the
Green Lily. You can find it on pier five." The man scribbled out a certificate and stamped it. "Congratulations, Na-yeon, you're part of the sailor's guild now. Dues come out of your pay when you dock."
Life aboard ship took some getting used to. The cramped quarters weighed down on Azula, and bunking with so many young men left her constantly on edge. Among the nobility, so much of life was segregated by sex. Girls socialized with girls, went to school only with other girls, and had separate wings of a house in any proper household.
Azula won the top hammock in an arm wrestling match, and still had to share it with someone else. "Hot-bunking" was the greatest indignity she'd ever heard of. The crew were cramped in these little closets to make room for more cargo, and as soon as she was roused out of bed in the morning, someone else would crawl into it for some shut eye. Which meant, when it was finally her time to sleep, she was rousing someone else out of bed and laying down in the still warm hammock.
The first night, her skin was crawling. But 'Na-yeon' was tough, and the cover sob story she gave to the guildsman had deterred unwanted advances. Even better, the rough, lowborn men of the ship seemed to treat her with a strange pride. Envy, sure, but the soft kind. It was bad luck to get in the way of true love, they all said, and they hoped that this young man would treat her right.
Sure, they teased her for being highborn, and treated her lashing out like it was a cute affectation and not the deadly rage of a warrior princess. But they gently showed her the right way to perform the tasks of the job.
The few women on the crew plied her for details about this lucky Fire Navy sailor who'd joined up from a broken heart when her father had betrothed her to another. Azula mostly demurred, and filled in details with recollections of Mai.
This moody, black haired boy that made her heart swoon? Fiction. But, as Azula lay awake in her bunk, staring out the porthole, she decided she could do worse than Mai. And wondered if she'd ever see her again.
The trading pier the ship stopped at was a half-moon bay bustling with ships. The town had been occupied by the Fire Nation generations ago, and presently the strange mixture of Earth Kingdom architecture and a mixed population of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom descent stood in sharp relief to the bloodlands near the front-lines of the war.
There was, unfortunately, no direct shipping to Kyoshi Island. Neutral as it was, the waters were too contested. After paying her dues, Azula decided to take the closest possible destination. An ocean steamer was scheduled to depart in three days, carrying supplies for a new Fire Navy outpost in the Patola Archipelago. After the ship docked on its return leg at a neutral port in the Archipelago, Azula would find passage with a fishing ship or something to Kyoshi Island.
She waited the three days by exercising and staying out of sight, engaging in a little bit of thievery and pickpocketing to supplement her meager pay. She traded out her travel worn clothes for something newer in the tropical Fire Nation style, and some sturdy traveling boots.
The new ship paid better, and had more spacious accommodation. It also tossed and turned with the waves, and it took Azula two days to get over seasickness, resulting in two days of docked wages. She tried to remind herself it was only money and once she got her due, it would be a drop of water in the ocean, but right now it stung at her already wounded pride.
The days grew longer and longer the further south they went. And soon, the air got cold at night. Work kept her exhausted enough that the time passed quickly. Until one night, as they neared their destination, a fog settled over the ship. Azula was on deck, mopping away, when she saw the navigation lights of a Fire Navy cruiser off the port bow.
Her work detail partner, a young man named Li (why were there so many Li's?) perked up. "Huh, wonder what they're up to."
Azula gripped the mop handle with white knuckles, but remained outwardly placid. "Who knows."
"They look like they mean to board us."
"Perhaps."
"Wanna sneak away and–"
"I would rather throw myself overboard."
"Oh."
Something wasn't right. The timing on the signal lights was wrong. The men on deck seemed out of place on the cruiser. The hull was beginning to rust where the paint had not been maintained. This was either the worst run ship in the Fire Navy or–she noticed that the only bit of fresh paint on the ship was where the hull number was supposed to be.
Azula dropped the mop and ran to her cabin. She'd just finished gathering her things when she heard the first clash of rock against iron. The ship shuddered on impact, and screams of panicked men rent the air. More hits came, ringing the ship like a bell. She remembered the blasting jelly in the hold, and ran up top.
She only caught a glimpse of the Earth Kingdom troopers swarming the deck of the captured Fire Navy cruiser before one of their projectiles pierced the hold. The deck bucked like a komodo rhino, and Azula found herself tumbling through the air, ears ringing. She hit the water, plunging into the icy cold depths. Momentarily stunned, she watched the ship roll over. When her wits returned, she kicked for the surface.
It took too long to find refuge from the waves. A lifeboat had been kicked free and landed upright in the water. Azula paddled for it, fighting the cold sucking the life out of her. Once she pulled herself into a wet heap in the boat, teeth chattering, Azula used the last of her strength to heat bend herself and her clothes dry. The lights went out as her lifeboat went adrift on the currents, unnoticed by the cruiser.
