Work Text:
The first time he showed up, Azula was convinced he was a hallucination.
Most of her visitors were.
Not the servants, of course, her mind wouldn’t bother to make them up.
Ty Lee had brought an oversized, rather noxious vase of brightly colored flowers once. Ones that she’d promptly asked Mai to dispose of after Ty Lee left. Not so much as a single petal was left behind. With no evidence to speak of, it was difficult to confirm whether they’d been there at all.
Not that it mattered.
Even if she was imaginary, Azula never liked to hurt Ty Lee’s feelings.
Uncle wasn’t. No hallucination could bring the sensation of bitter tea sliding down her throat.
Zuzu wasn’t either. He didn’t stay long, but the fire flakes he’d brought burned her tongue enough to bring tears to her eyes. The heat lingered for hours after he left. Azula didn’t mind it. She liked the reminder he’d actually been there visiting in her suite.
Her suite. That’s what everyone else called it. They didn’t seem to like it when she called it her cell. Despite the fact that it might as well have been one. She wasn’t allowed to leave, beyond the occasional walks through the gardens which were supervised closely.
But the Avatar who came traipsing through the door with a Pai Sho board tucked under his arm couldn’t be real. The tattooed boy passed the stationed guards with a bob of his head. Neither acknowledged his presence. Which did nothing to help her decide if he was actually there or not.
Other people could be so useless that way.
He bowed to her, his fist against his palm. Her gaze narrowed. An airbender wouldn’t greet her like that.
Unless of course, he wasn’t real.
Azula made no efforts to acknowledge his presence, as the fake Avatar stared at his hands, adjusted them slightly, and bowed again. The second bow was deeper. Deep enough that the Pai Sho board slipped from under his arm. A resounding clatter bounced off the walls of the room, only slightly deadened by the tapestries, cushion piles, and the thick rugs spread across the floor.
The tiles rolled away from the boy, scattering. One tile knocked into Azula’s slippered foot. With a bored expression, she nudged it over to reveal the wheel tile. She let out a low hum. Of course, it was air. It made sense, she supposed. If hallucinations could ever be accused of being logical, that was.
He rushed out an apology and scrambled to collect the fallen game pieces and board. But still, she said nothing. She just watched him out of the corner of her eye. He didn’t use his bending to collect all the pieces, instead, he scraped the pile off the floor with his hands.
Not real.
What reason would the Avatar have to come to visit her anyway?
She dropped to one of the velvet-lined chairs in her sitting area. Azula ignored him again when he approached with the board. The Avatar set the game on the table between them and sunk into the velvet seat opposite her.
“How are you doing today, Azula?” he asked. She glared at him, “Is there something on my face?” he asked, glancing over to the ornate mirror on her vanity. But found nothing out of the ordinary in his reflection.
“Why are you here?” she asked, rolling her eyes.
“I thought you might want to play a game with me.” His chirpy voice made her wince.
“Sorry, I try not to give too much of my time to figments of my imagination,” The Avatar cocked his head to the side, eyes uncertain, “Besides, I don’t play mind games anymore.” She fixed him with a long, hard stare, “You can’t play mind games if you’ve lost yours.”
“Um, Azula,” he began after a brief pause, “I am actually here. You know that, right?” She shrugged, letting out a noncommittal hum as she picked at her nails, “Well...if you don’t want to play, I guess we can just talk for a while?”
“If you must, Avatar .” She waved him on.
“It’s Aang,” he said, grinning as he settled deeper into the seat across from her. He prattled on about all manner of things. The animals in the palace stables. Ty Lee teaching him acrobatics tricks. Something about a monk and pies, and throwing them at people. Whatever it was it sounded silly and wasteful.
She didn’t really follow it, but it was one of the more amusing hallucinations she’d had so far. Azula was almost disappointed when the servant with her dinner tray arrived, and the Avatar was shuffled out, “Maybe next time you’ll feel up to playing, see you soon Azula,” he called over his shoulder.
He and his Pai Sho board left her alone to pick at her noodles in relative peace. The Avatar, Aang, was gone. Her hallucination over. Back to the reality of her too quiet suite. She stood, about to request a walk in the garden to clear her head, when her slipper collided with something on the floor.
She stooped, pinching the offending object between two fingers. It was a Pai Sho tile, the rhododendron. The one that would have been her favorite if she bothered to have a favorite in the game at all. A lucky azalea for Azula. She had some fuzzy, rather distant memories of Lu Ten saying that whenever she sat on his lap while he played. Feeling special when he won. Like his victory was hers somehow.
Until simply watching him win got boring, and after a while he wasn’t around to watch anymore anyway.
But she closed her fingers around the tile in her hand. Felt its weight. The grains in the wood hadn’t quite been sanded down. Carved grooves pressed into her palm. She slipped it into her pocket. Her fingers brushed against it now and then on her walk outside through the gardens, checking to make sure it was still there.
If it was ever there at all.
It never disappeared.
Feeling more than a little foolish, she took the tile to bed with her and stashed it in the lining of her pillow. Her fingers traced the petal outlines through the silken material, still the same ones as before. At least if it was all in her head, her mind was consistent about it.
That had to be an improvement of some kind, she was sure.
The tile was still there when she woke up in the morning.
Perhaps he’d been real all along.
He returned with the game board under one arm and a basket of treats hooked on the other.
“You’re back,” she remarked, unsure even to herself if it was a question or a statement. He nodded, beaming at her.
“I told you I’d see you soon, didn’t I?” Again he asked her to play. He offered her pastries she recognized from the palace kitchens. Taking a flaky, jelly-filled roll from the proffered selection, she bit into the center. Sticky and sour cherry filling spread through her mouth. The honey-drizzled flakes clung to her fingers.
In a way that was completely unbecoming of a princess, Azula lifted her fingers to her lips and licked the sweet remnants away. But for all she knew, there was no one around to watch her do it. Hallucinations didn’t call for any particular decorum. Besides, being locked away for her own wellbeing, as well as everyone else’s excused her from such things.
Even if he was actually there with her, the boy across from Azula who was cramming cookies in his mouth didn’t seem to be fussed about formality. She supposed monks didn’t get taught dining etiquette. Or perhaps being the Avatar excused him of such things, as well.
“Are you feeling any better today?” he asked, his question half-mumbled through a mess of crumbs.
A noncommittal noise slipped from her throat against her will, and the boy seemed to take it as an encouragement to continue. Not bothering to ask her again if she’d like to play, Aang set up the board on the little table between them. He dealt out the tiles into their separate sets.
Six White Jades.
Three White Dragons.
Three White Lotuses.
5 Rhododendrons.
He stopped short, glanced around the table, and frowned, “I’m sorry, Azula. It looks like I’m missing a piece.” The look he gave her was painfully apologetic. Eyes as wide as Ty Lee’s. It was no wonder the two of them seemed to be getting along if the stories were anything to go by, “I guess we can just talk again.”
Pursing her lips, Azula stood and crossed to her bed. She glanced back at the Avatar. Heat flooded her cheeks when she snatched the tile from her pillowcase. Azula stalked back over and tossed the offending game piece on the table.
“There, just keep dealing.”
He gave her a puzzled look but didn’t comment. An odd kind of smile on his face as he separated the rest of the pieces out, “I play the dark set,” she ordered. Aang nodded and pushed the stacks of darker-colored tiles toward her.
“I like playing the light set anyway,” he offered, brushing a stray crumb off his cheek with a sheepish look, “You can go first.” He adjusted the cushion on his chair so he could sit cross-legged, feet tucked under his calves on either side.
Azula’s expression pinched.
“Going easy on me because my mind isn’t right, Avatar?” she asked, tone cold and sharp.
“No.” He didn’t seem bothered by her shift in mood. Azula didn’t like it, “I just thought you might like to go first. But I’ll go if you want me to.”
She sniffed, snatching up her white lily tile and dropping it close to the boundary of the temple gate closest to her. Crossing her arms, she stared Aang down and waited for him to make the next move, “How many harmonies?” he asked. Azula shrugged, “Ten?”
“Fine, if that’s what you want, just quit stalling and play,” Azula ordered. Aang placed his white lily tile, mirroring her move.
She’d never liked that rule, especially when she wasn’t playing first. There wasn’t enough control in your first move being selected for you by someone else. Part of her had to wonder if the Avatar had guessed as much. Wanting to give her the choice of exactly how she wanted to play the game.
“So, what do you do all day in here?” Aang asked after they’d both placed several pieces. He glanced around the suite, but beyond the slightly rumpled bedding from her tile retrieval, nothing was out of place. It was free of clutter. Free of any evidence of how she passed the time.
Azula shrugged, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears. She slung one of her legs over the arm of her chair and slumped back against its opposite side. Her fingers traced the golden stitching embroidered on the velvet.
“Contemplate my place in the universe.” Her bored expression was shattered at the sound of barely stifled laughter coming from the boy across from her. Azula’s nose wrinkled, “What?” she demanded, “What are you laughing at?”
“Oh it’s not you,” Aang explained hurriedly, his hand half-hiding his still twitching mouth, “it’s just that one time when Zuko and I were stuck in this pit of green goop, and he said almost the exact same thing.” He grabbed another cookie from the basket and stuffed it in his face so he wouldn’t have to say anything else for a few seconds at least, “You two are more alike than I thought,” he said, still slightly muffled by crumbs.
“Odd isn’t it?” she said, less than amused, “we grew up in the same place, had roughly the same parents, and the same uncle. Just different luck.” She placed one of her white dragons, “Zuzu didn’t turn out mental.”
Aang bit his lip, eyes downcast as he considered his tiles and his words. He turned a wheel tile in his fingers. He let out a soft sigh and dropped the tile without the care of his other moves.
“Zuko always says you were born lucky.”
“Apparently luck runs out.” She placed her rock tile, canceling one of his harmonies. She watched him scramble for his next move, “The golden child lives in a gilded cage, and the sorry excuse for a son sits on the throne.” She paused and added, “No offense to Zuzu, that’s just how things were.”
Aang placed a boat on one of her rhododendrons, setting her tile aside. Azula snatched it up, tracing the grooves with the pad of her thumb. The Avatar waited, but she didn’t place another piece. Or say anything else.
“Maybe we should take a break,” he said after far too much time had passed, “we could finish tomorrow?”
Azula peered at him over steepled fingers.
“Why, afraid you’re going to lose if you stay much longer?”
Either the game or his mind, the Avatar could take his pick as to which one she meant. Aang gave her an almost sad smile and shook his head. He scribbled down their tile placements on a scrap of paper and packed up the game, gathering all the pieces except rhododendron Azula still had.
“Why don’t you hold onto it until I come back?” he said, watching Azula cock her head to the side, “Monks don’t usually hang onto material things, they’re too grounding. But, maybe that’s a little of what you’re looking for? I don’t know.” He scratched the back of his neck, trailing off and looking sheepish. Aang scrambled to his feet. A little cascade of crumbs scattered the rug beneath him. She rolled her eyes at the mess, “I’ll see you soon, Azula,” he called over his shoulder and slipped through the door.
She nodded slowly, her fingers clasping the tile he’d left behind.
They finished the game over the course of the next several days, progress lagging between tangential conversations, the occasional brooding stare, and far too many pastry items.
Azula practically slaughtered the Avatar in the end.
She held her tongue against the snide comment that it wasn’t the first time she had.
Besides, the Avatar didn’t seem to mind her victory at all.
That soured her win ever so slightly.
She squashed the bitter feeling in pastries.
Patting her full stomach, she kicked back in her chair and watched him put the pieces away. The rhododendron had been left out to the side waiting for her. But she shook her head, leaning forward just enough to shove the tile toward him.
“I’m fairly sure you are actually here at this point. And that you’ll come back,” she rolled her eyes at his wide smile, “You don’t have to look so cheery about it. Honestly, you’re worse than Ty Lee. Why don’t you supervise me on a walk or something to celebrate the accomplishment?” she asked.
Aang hopped to his feet. He slung the basket over his shoulder, and waited while Azula traded her house slippers for proper shoes, “Why are you bringing that?” she asked, “Are you trying to turn my walk into a picnic? Any more of that and I think no one will have to be concerned with guarding me anymore, I’ll explode.”
Chuckling, Aang shook his head. He hiked the basket higher against his shoulder when it started to slide down his arm. The motion dumped a layer of crumbs behind them. She rolled her eyes at the mess but didn’t say anything about it. The whole thing would be gone by the time she returned to the suite anyway.
“Nope, it’s not for us.” He led her through the halls, and out to one of the courtyards. Zuzu’s favorite with the little pond and the flock of turtleducks who lived there. She sat with her back against the tree, watching the Avatar toss crumbs to the turtleducks.
The top of her head pressed against the bark. Bits of sap clung to her hair. Her nose wrinkled, but she didn’t bother to adjust. Someone else would comb it out for her later. Until then she’d be reminded that there was a world beyond the walls of her suite.
After some time had passed, Aang came to sit beside her. Their shoulders practically brushing up against each other, “It’s nice out here, kind of peaceful.”
“If you like this kind of thing,” she ran her fingers through the patch of grass beside her. Blades twisted around her fingers, snagging and snapping off from their stems.
“You’d be crazy not to,” he paused, wincing, “Oh, I mean-I didn’t-Sorry,” he tugged on one of his earlobes, “That was a bad word to use,” Aang mumbled. Azula laughed, a deep full laugh that made her already full stomach ache. She waved off his comment.
“No offense taken, Avatar.” She leaned over to pick a bread roll from the basket, ripping off pieces to toss into the pond. The turtleducks squabbled over bits of roll down near the water. They both watched in relative silence.
“You seem like you’re getting better,” Aang brought up after a moment. Azula nodded, she had to agree with him, “Not saying you were crazy before-” She held up her hand to stop him.
“I was. But maybe all those pastries have had a positive effect.” She smirked. Aang grinned back.
“Not the Pai Sho?” he asked, a mock wounded tone taking over his usually chipper voice.
“Not the game particularly, but beating you definitely helped with something.”
Azula won every game.
She didn’t believe for a second that he wasn’t letting her win from time to time.
Nor did she especially care.
They were still victories, to be celebrated by a copious amount of gloating and dollops of cherry-filling. To be relished like the bits of glaze left behind on her fingers, and lingered over like the bits of life that had slowly begun to encroach on her previously sterile suite.
Play scrolls from Zuzu neatly rolled on one of her shelves. More for decoration than actual reading. Her fingers traced the punctures in one of the wall panels beside her from the time Mai had snuck a set of her throwing knives into the room for a game of target practice. A dilapidated-looking tea set from the time Toph brought her a massive lump of clay. A painting of flowers Ty Lee had presented her with the promise of it not smelling up the room.
Not every day was a good one, of course.
But her bad days were becoming less and less of an occurrence. Her visitors were real far more often than they were imaginary. And when they weren’t real, banishing the unwelcome guests from her presence was often a simple matter of the right distractions.
“Do you think luck runs out or changes?” she asked Aang, twirling a boat tile through her fingers.
The Avatar tugged on one of his ear lobes as he considered his reply.
“Neither,” he said drawn-out, “I think we change. Luck is just easier to assign the blame or the credit for what happens. I don’t think luck has as much to do with anything as our own actions. Why?” he asked, sitting up a little straighter in his chair, “Am I finally going to win a game?” Azula snorted.
“Perhaps if you stop letting me win, your luck will change,” she fixed him with a long look. He had the graces to look at least a little bit sheepish, “Winning is going to get boring eventually. Besides I can handle losing every now and then, I’m that not fragile.”
“I know you’re not,” he said. Aang took in her pointed expression between the game board and him. The message was clear in her dark eyes. But she said it anyway, baiting him.
“So play like it, Dum Dum.”
Aang placed his knotweed, disrupting her harmony and the course of her entire gameplay in one blow. He offered a toothy grin, wide eyes twinkling enough to make her grin her teeth. She huffed and shifted forward in her chair to get a better look at the board.
It was exactly what she asked for and infuriating all at once. If she wasn’t sure he was real before, she knew it then. No one who was just in her head could make her blood boil that much.
She lost.
Despite her better efforts.
Pondering over a tin of fire gummies, Azula found herself chuckling.
“Um, Azula?” Aang asked, his wide eyes taking in her shaking shoulders and the gleam in her eyes, “Are you okay?” She nodded, offering the tin across the small table for him to take some. “What’s so funny?” he asked. The Avatar took a few from the tin but waited for her answer to put any in his mouth.
“I think that might have been my favorite game we’ve played so far.” Aang nodded with a knowing grin, beginning to reset the board.
Slowly, a sense of order was restored somewhere between their mess of Pai Sho and pastries.
It wasn’t perfect.
But it was an improvement, to say the least.