Azula’s Redemption
Fics in which Azula earns her redemption, either partially or wholly.
(Open, Moderated)
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Summary
Zuko botches his escape on the day of the eclipse and sits out the war in prison. What will the Gaang do with a new Fire Lord they can't trust? Season Four "Zuko never joined the Gaang, and he's really bad at being good" AU.
Featuring Azula's extended field trip, Jun not signing up for this, and Sokka's increasing desire to scream. Come get your international politics with a side of baby dragons.
Podfic and German translation now available, see chapter one notes!
Series
- Part 1 of Towards the Sun
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"There a lot of things about Zuko that the servants ignore. He is half-way between skins now. He shed the old one and hasn’t grown into the new one, trapped between worlds and skins and identities. Some days he feels more like Li the war-child refugee than Zuko, the Fire Lord."
Zuko attempts to lead his nation into peace, kicking and screaming in protest. He discovers what it means to survive a war- and a childhood- that no one ever wanted or expected him to.
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Our Father, Who Art Buried in the Yard by Grandapplewit for MuffinLance
Fandoms: Avatar: The Last Airbender
19 Nov 2020
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Inspired by Muffinlance's Salvage, Hakoda not only picks up a surly traumatized teenager but his sarcastic, angry sister as well. Ozai may not want his son back, but his daughter on the other hand... well, Hakoda is ready and willing to fight for custody of the daughter that isn't his, and the son that's safer among enemies than with his own father.
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we'll burn that bridge when we get to it by chaoticsandstorm
Fandoms: Avatar: The Last Airbender
29 Oct 2020
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An AU where Ozai wasn't so forgiving of Azula lying about the Avatar's death, and decides he doesn't want an heir he can't control. Zuko goes with her.
OR: The one where Azula gets a life-changing field trip
Series
- Part 1 of the things we give to each other
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the ashes in my wake by aloneintherain for Megamence123
Fandoms: Avatar: The Last Airbender
09 Sep 2020
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“Sparky,” Toph announces, “it’s field-trip time. Pack your bags.” She pauses and considers Azula. “You want to come, Princess?”
Azula eyes her up and down. “With you?”
Toph’s grin is full of teeth. “You know I’m more fun than anyone else at the palace, don’t try and pretend otherwise.”
Unfortunately, she has a point.
Or: the beginning of Azula's redemption.
Recent bookmarks
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Summary
"There a lot of things about Zuko that the servants ignore. He is half-way between skins now. He shed the old one and hasn’t grown into the new one, trapped between worlds and skins and identities. Some days he feels more like Li the war-child refugee than Zuko, the Fire Lord."
Zuko attempts to lead his nation into peace, kicking and screaming in protest. He discovers what it means to survive a war- and a childhood- that no one ever wanted or expected him to.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 22,996
- Chapters:
- 6/6
- Collections:
- 7
- Comments:
- 147
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- 1,701
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Bookmarked by mayfriend
03 Sep 2021
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Bookmarker's Notes
There are a lot of things Zuko thinks he doesn’t deserve.
Like honour. Like love. Like the loyalty of his citizens, because they shouldn’t trust a leader who spent months starving in filthy backwater towns in the Earth Kingdom, stealing and begging and fighting in dishonourable exile. Like praise.
Like food.
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"Twice Iroh goes to the Spirit World. The first time he is lost. The second time he is found."—After the War, Azula eventually comes to live in Ba Sing Se with Iroh. On Iroh, Azula, Zuko, and the ties that bind them.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 19,205
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 7
- Comments:
- 166
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- 1,701
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Bookmarked by mayfriend
19 Oct 2020
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Bookmarker's Notes
Perhaps he was wrong, Iroh muses while watching Azula correct Izumi’s stance, when he described Zuko and Azula so long ago.
Zuko is more than candlelight. Rather, he is a bastion of sanity in a Fire Nation obsessed with supremacy and domination. And Azula—she is no longer lightning, but akin to a slow-burning and controlled brushfire. For her, sparks still smolder beneath the surface, little spots of chaos that could spiral out of control at any moment. Or that could go out forever.
But what is light without darkness?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
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One year after she's been shut away in Imperial Jade Serenity Healing House, her arms semi-permanently chi-blocked to prevent her from bending, Azula contemplates her bleak future.
Or: Team Avatar aren't the only ones tasked with making drastic and potentially lethal choices.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 7,294
- Chapters:
- 2/?
- Collections:
- 3
- Comments:
- 27
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- 223
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- 60
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- 2,753
Bookmarked by mayfriend
06 Oct 2020
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Bookmarker's Notes
Azula knows who Koh is. Everybody in the Three Nations, even those who don’t believe in the Spirit World (and Azula had counted herself in that category up until a kè ago), knows about Koh the Face-stealer. His glistening many-legged black-and-white visage has crawled into countless children’s dreams. Water Tribe and Fire Nation alike are united in the screams of their youngest citizens as they awake from a nightmare about Koh, their hands pressed frantically into their cheeks, searching for reassurance that their faces have not been lost to the monstrous creature.
Azula had only screamed once, after the very first Koh dream she’d had as a young child. Ursa had come running, and for a scant shí Azula had lain in her mother’s soft arms, lulled to sleep by her false voice and false warmth. The next day, at breakfast, her father had fixed upon her a look of such vitriolic disgust that Azula had nearly vomited, her belly pierced by shame. After that, whenever Koh crept into her mind at night, she had resolutely clamped her mouth shut, allowing herself only the quietest whimpers into her pillow. Zuko, of course, had shrieked for Ursa until he was nine, the weak little duckling.
“You are not the Avatar,” Koh says, coiling up and regarding Azula with terribly serene eyes. “And yet you look… familiar.”
Azula schools her face into perfect neutrality. It comes easily to her, a talent born from a lifetime spent at the knees of a father who would not hesitate to burn her for the smallest show of disrespect. “Perhaps you have had nightmares about me,” she says conversationally.
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we'll burn that bridge when we get to it by chaoticsandstorm
Fandoms: Avatar: The Last Airbender
29 Oct 2020
Tags
Summary
An AU where Ozai wasn't so forgiving of Azula lying about the Avatar's death, and decides he doesn't want an heir he can't control. Zuko goes with her.
OR: The one where Azula gets a life-changing field trip
Series
- Part 1 of the things we give to each other
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 107,998
- Chapters:
- 31/31
- Collections:
- 10
- Comments:
- 1,641
- Kudos:
- 4,367
- Bookmarks:
- 1,005
- Hits:
- 145,804
Bookmarked by mayfriend
04 Oct 2020
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Bookmarker's Notes
"You look hungry. You tell that brother of yours to make you both something nice and hot, okay?" She shakes her head and looks up at the storm. "Children should be safe inside at these times."
Before, Azula would have brushed her off. Would have threatened her, screamed, thrown the basket of vegetables back in her face. How dare you pity me. Now she stands in the rain for a little longer, clutching the basket and watching the woman.
"What would you do?" Azula asks her. The woman continues packing but looks at Azula. "If you had a daughter, and you didn't understand her? If you thought she wasn't good enough?"
"That would never happen," the woman replies firmly. She heaves a crate onto the stall. "No child of mine could ever be a disappointment. Children aren't there to be useful, they're there to be loved."
The woman finishes packing after that, glancing at Azula in concern, but she moves on. Azula feels the rain drip down her nose and plaster her hair to her scalp. She steps back, further into the rain.
To be loved. Children don't have to be useful. She knew, didn't she? After Azula started talking to the daughters of other nobles, all those years ago. She knew her family wasn't normal. She knew that they were loved, adored, because they were carried the flesh and blood of their parents. Possessions, but not ones to break. Ones to cherish. Azula knew her family wasn't normal, she knew what Ozai did wasn't right, but then there was Mai and Ty Lee who said the same things as her, scoffing at the idea that children can be loved without purpose, because they never experienced it either. Mai was perfect or she was nothing. Ty Lee was outstanding or she was nothing, subsumed by her sisters. Azula thought that made it okay. She thought, here are these people who say I am right. She pushed all other thoughts from her head.
Azula wanted to be happy. She thought, if this is normal and I have done something wrong to deserve this, then I can fix whatever mistake I have made. I can change my behaviours, my personality, the way I walk, talk, eat. Then everything will be okay and I can be loved. Then father will stop testing me. Then mother will look at me. If it wasn't normal and it wasn't her fault, wasn't anything that Azula was doing, then that meant there was nothing she could change. Her father didn't love her and that was that. No ifs or buts. No way to make it stop.
Letting herself believe that it was her fault made things easier. Zuko did the same. Accepting that they were fundamentally unlovable was an easier task that wrapping their heads around the idea that father just didn't have the capacity to love them. That there was no reason for their suffering.
This woman. She extended her hands. She said children don't have to be useful. No child of mine could ever be a disappointment. And Azula would have buried it as the ramblings of a stupid peasant woman, but yesterday Ty Lee sighed and said he gave orders to kill you, Azula, and yesterday Mai and Ty Lee betrayed her but didn't turn her over to the guards, and yesterday Zuko left but came back for her, and today this woman gave her a basket of vegetables from her own stall so Azula wouldn't be hungry. These people. All idiots. Mai and Ty Lee were fools to betray her and Zuzu is just an idiot, period. But they all showed her love. They reached into their withered hearts and offered breadcrumbs, at least.
Ozai couldn't even give her that. His heart was coals. Warm at first, but rapidly cooling. Azula thought that was enough. The illusion of warmth, if nothing else.
She deserves better.
Azula finally understands. This vendor, this strange woman who has never seen her before in her life, can smile at her and extend her arms and say you’re welcome to stay the night, just because Azula is a child, just because she is tired and hungry and cold. Her own parents couldn’t do that. Neither of them saw a child. Just a weapon of war. Her father’s weapon. And Azula finally understands that it isn’t hard, to be kind. It isn’t something you’re born with or without like she thought. You can choose to be kind, you can choose to be better, to welcome cold children into your home, to give them food from your basket. Her parents could have chosen. They just didn’t feel it was worth the effort.
Azula closes her eyes. Standing in the freezing rain, she feels peace like she has never known. It wasn’t her. She didn’t do anything wrong. There is nothing she can do to change her father, nothing that will make him love her. Killing the Avatar won't be enough. Razing a nation to the ground won't be enough. Killing her brother won't be enough. Twisting and contorting herself to fit his mould, forcing herself to act like the daughter he wants, none of it matters. It won't have an impact.
She can let go now.
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the ashes in my wake by aloneintherain for Megamence123
Fandoms: Avatar: The Last Airbender
09 Sep 2020
Tags
Summary
“Sparky,” Toph announces, “it’s field-trip time. Pack your bags.” She pauses and considers Azula. “You want to come, Princess?”
Azula eyes her up and down. “With you?”
Toph’s grin is full of teeth. “You know I’m more fun than anyone else at the palace, don’t try and pretend otherwise.”
Unfortunately, she has a point.
Or: the beginning of Azula's redemption.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 4,710
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 10
- Comments:
- 137
- Kudos:
- 4,972
- Bookmarks:
- 1,045
- Hits:
- 30,260
Bookmarked by mayfriend
01 Oct 2020
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They visit an orphanage one morning. There are no government officials to threaten or impress, no troops to win over. Just several dozen little faces staring up at them with big eyes.
Azula bats away their sticky fingers. She’s a princess. Even a disgraced princess shouldn’t have to deal with grabby orphans.
But then, Zuko is the Fire Lord now, and he crouches down to their level, getting his fine robes dusty. He laughs when they try and climb onto him, and gently moves their hands whenever one of the little ones reaches for his crown, glittering in the early sun.
He’s gentle, but he’s not good with the kids. He falters and tells the kids to eat their vegetables twice, desperate to impart a lesson. The kids pull faces. Zuko flushes pink.
But no matter how uncomfortable he seems, no matter what thoughtless thing the kids say to him, flames never lick at Zuko’s fingers. He doesn’t yell. Zuko—impatient and tactless Zuko—never loses his patience.
If he wasn’t her brother, she never would have guessed he was Ozai’s son.