Chapter Text
Azula was running.
Stinging feet beating against the ground, breaths coming in short gasps, hair flying wildly across her face. Her chest ached, but she kept running, stumbling through the underbrush, her silks tearing against bushes and tree bark. She could hear the shouts of the asylum guards behind her. She veered to the left and vaulted over a fallen tree. Her slippers scrambled for purchase against muddy ground, but she managed to stay on her feet as she sprinted through sharp bushes. Her hands were streaked with blood from thorns piercing her skin. Her foot hit a rock and she fell face-first into a ditch, her hands exploding in pain when they failed to break her fall. Azula groaned as she tried to get up, bruised skin rubbing uncomfortably against her asylum uniform.
“She went this way!” Azula’s head snapped up at the call. Adrenaline surging through her again, she leapt up, muscles screaming in protest, and took off running again. She was going to get out of that damn prison if she died trying. She was at a massive disadvantage, she knew it–– Azula had no idea where the asylum was in the Fire Nation and where she would come out if she made it through the surrounding forest. Her body was weak from months of malnutrition and her hands stung. But Azula had faced insurmountable odds before. She wasn’t about to give up just because things looked bad.
Azula heard the rustling of mongoose lizards moving quickly through the undergrowth and the calls of guards as they shouted at each other. Way closer than she’d thought they were. She looked wildly around and her eyes zeroed in on a stream nearby. Without thinking, she dived for it, plunging herself into the water.
Cold. It was so cold. Her skin was being pierced with a thousand invisible needles. Distantly, she heard the party of guards pass the stream, their shouts so close, but Azula couldn’t focus on them. She… she couldn’t focus on anything as the cold reached deep into her bones and the air leaked from her lungs, and she thought she heard the clanking of chains? The roar of fire and the whistle of ice as it froze against her skin. Phantom touches grazed her arms, the sound of the nurses’ sharp voices as they held her underwater–– No. No.
She wasn’t there anymore, wasn’t sobbingscreamingcrying in the courtyard as the red of Sozin’s comet painted the sky bloody, wasn’t gasping for breath as the nurses plunged her into the ice bath. No, she was here, so close to freedom. She grabbed onto something, a root, maybe, and fought every instinct she had to rise to the surface. She had to stay under. She had to. Even though panic like she’d never felt before built in her chest and her lungs felt unimaginably tight. Azula waited until she was sure the guards were gone, off to search some other part of the forest. Then, like a bird to flight, she let go of the root and rose, heaving huge breaths of clean, wonderful air as she pulled herself out and doubled over onto the muddy bank.
Then she started to laugh. Loud, probably too loud, but she didn’t care. She laughed and laughed and laughed, chest aching, and then she was crying, and she sobbed into her wet silk shirt. She was free. She was free and now what? Azula felt at once jubilant and sick. Nearly three months of torment in what was so kindly called an asylum, and now she was free.
But it came at a cost. She had no idea where to go from here. The circumstances of her escape had been hilarious, truthfully, and quite unlike her. Azula supposed she wasn’t even sure what was like or unlike her anymore, but she was certain that she typically liked to have a plan, and literally jumping out of a window in a blur of opportunity was the furthest from a plan one could get.
Her feelings began to cool to an unpleasant nothingness. What does she do now? She could free her father. Fear–– pure, unadulterated fear–– ran through her at the thought and it pulled her up short. Why should she be scared? Because you failed and Zuko is Fire Lord and you lost to a stupid water peasant and you couldn’t even escape the asylum without ending up covered in mud and crying your damn eyes out. You know what Father does to failures.
She shook her head. But he wouldn’t do that to her. Right? She… didn’t know. She tried to dispel the thought. It didn’t make any sense to free her father now. He had no political power, and Azula knew a lost cause when she saw one. She knew there was no going back to the way things used to be. She’d learned that in the asylum. But no one in the world would take her in now, a full-blooded Fire National; There was no guarantee any Fire Nation citizen wouldn’t recognize her, and she couldn’t imagine any other nation accepting a person who looked as Fire Nation as she does, peacetime or not. Azula was glad she’d gotten out of the asylum, but it really was out of the frying pan and into the fire, as it were, and she was starting to doubt why she’d even escaped in the first place.
She’d laugh if she didn’t feel so sick. She’d regained control of her mind, escaped the asylum, and now she was completely lost, with no allies or places to go. It was so hilariously ironic that it felt like the universe was slapping her in the face. Again, after months where she’d been forced to hear about Zuko and all the others living happy, fulfilling lives while she wasted away in a straitjacket. This was almost worse. Azula buried her face in her hands.
She didn’t know how long she lay there on the bank of the stream. A couple of hours, maybe. The sun had nearly disappeared behind the hills and her stomach was growling, but she ignored it. She felt like lying here for however long it took for the forest to claim her, but some invisible, cursed purpose begged her to get up. So she did, brushing off her silks, the pain in her hands now faded to a manageable ache.
She walked west as the world turned to dusk, trying to get her bearings but recognizing nothing in the thick forest. Soon, it became too dark to see, and she lifted a hand to call fire, and that was when the other shoe dropped.
Because, when she snapped her fingers, she made nothing but a tiny wisp of flame. Blue, then orange, then gone into the night. She tried again. It was smaller now, barely a spark. Her shoulders and back ached, and she felt like she’d expended all her energy just trying to call that pitiful flame. Chi-blocking, she realized, but she wasn’t chi-blocked now. It must have some kind of permanent effect, or else they’d given her some kind of drug that took away her bending? She hadn’t let the Avatar near her, so she’s certain it wasn’t that…
Her thoughts were chaotic and uncoordinated as Azula snapped her fingers again and again, even though she already knew it wouldn’t work. Her knees hit the ground as she cradled her hands to her chest. She couldn’t bend. She couldn’t bend. This was the final straw. She had lived through Zuko and Mai and Ty Lee leaving her. Coped with her mother’s invasion of her mind. She’d survived the isolation wards at the asylum, the humiliation of being watched at all times.
But now she had lost a part of herself. A part that she had always thought immovable, permanent; wherever she went, she would always have the light of Agni inside of her, bold and glowing. Even when she was chi-blocked, she had known that her bending would come back.
Or at least, she thought she had.
Stupid, worthless, weak. The words thundered through her mind. She felt tears drip from the tip of her nose and fall onto her knees among the bushes. Her sobs were loud and pulsed through her entire body.
“Oh, Azula,” a familiar voice sounded from above her. She lifted her head to see her mother standing a few feet from her, clothed in the royal red and gold. “I’m so sorry it had to be this way. Maybe it’s better like this.”
Azula snarled. Red-hot anger exploded inside of her. “You did this to me! You made me this way!” She screamed. She stood and rushed at her mother, tripping when Ursa turned to shadow in her hands. Azula choked in surprise, staring at her trembling palms. Her vision was tunneling, her gaze sliding in and out of focus. A voice growled in her ear, and it sounded like her father. Azula… I had such high hopes for you. You were everything I had made you to be. She dove away from the source of the voice, but it followed her. But look at you. You can’t pull yourself together. You can’t bend. You’re a failure, worse than your pathetic brother! At least he’s learned how to control himself.
“Stop! Stop! Please stop!” Azula cried, pushing her hands over her ears. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t see. “I’m not like Zuko! I’m better than him! I’ll do better, I promise!”
I don’t care. I never did. Who could ever care about you? Her father’s words were relentless. They mixed with her mother’s soft cadence, a rhythmic pulse of unintelligible sounds; with Zuko’s screams as their father burned him; with the cold hiss of Mai’s traitorous voice. Over and over. Azula stumbled forward, trying to get away, and her foot hooked on what could’ve been a root, or a rock, but she pitched forward before she could stop herself and now she was falling, rolling over and over down a hill. She dug her hands into the mud in a desperate attempt to stop herself but earned nothing but a muddy face as she continued to fall. Her right foot smacked against a rock and exploded in pain. Reeling from the shock, she rolled to a stop at the bottom of the slope, panting. Her foot throbbed and tears leaked from her eyes. She clutched the ground, pressing her face to the earth as the voices of her former friends and family invaded her mind.
Princess Azula cried herself to sleep.
. . .
“Zuzu! Zuzu!” Azula was skipping, laughing. Her body was alive with electric excitement. She pushed past a group of servants, sprinted through the courtyard, and launched herself on top of her brother, who was sitting idly by the turtleduck pond. Zuko narrowly avoided falling into the water and stumbled back, laughing, as Azula rolled off of him and hopped to her tiny, four-year-old feet.
“Look, Zuzu,” She breathed, and opened her palm. A tiny flame grew there, flickering, lighting Zuko’s surprised face a warm orange.
“Lala! You’re a firebender!” He said, awed.
“Let’s show Mother!” Azula grabbed her brother’s hand and pulled him through the halls of the Fire Nation Royal Palace until they reached their mother and father’s bedroom. Azula could barely reach the doorknob but before she could open the door, none other than the Fire Lord himself stormed out. Azula and Zuko both stumbled back. Their father’s gaze raked over them.
“What is this about, children?” Ozai inquired.
Zuko piped up. “Azula made flame,” he said.
Ozai’s gaze turned to Azula, eyes sparking with interest. “Is that so?”
Azula nodded and lifted her chubby hands to show him, but nothing came out when she tried to bend fire again. She exhaled into the flame but she could only make tiny wisps of smoke. This isn’t right, she thought to herself. This isn’t how it happened. She glanced back up at her father, whose face was contorted in unexplainable rage. Panicking, she looked to Zuko for help, but he was gone, and in his place were the huge pillars of the Agni Kai chamber, with thousands of pairs of eyes watching as Azula staggered away from her father.
When Ozai spoke, it was Ursa’s voice. “Why do you have to be so cruel?”
Azula choked on any words she tried to speak. Her father advanced, his face shadowed. He opened his mouth again, but it was Zuko this time. “You’re crazy! Why did I even think you could ever care about any of us?!”
Fire began to overtake the room, unbearably hot as it climbed up Azula’s skin.
“Listen, Azula,” And now it was Ty Lee’s voice, her usually bubbly tone uncharacteristically flat. “You had your chance to be a good friend. But I’m not falling for your games anymore.”
I tried to protect you! If I hadn’t put you in prison, my father would’ve killed you! Azula screamed but it was lost in the roar of fire. Don’t you understand?! Don’t any of you understand?! He would’ve killed me! He would’ve killed all of us! No one seemed to hear her. You betrayed me! Why?! Why did all of you betray me?
Azula keeled forward, and now she was looking up at her mother’s face, and Ursa cupped her chin, and the woman’s golden eyes were cold as she whispered, “Don’t you understand? You pushed us all away. Why did you even try? We all know you’re a monster.”
Azula woke in darkness, the words of her mother tracing her lips.
The pitch-black was so disconcerting that for a second Azula thought she must have been dead; dead or in some kind of dreamscape she couldn’t get out of. But she gripped the grass under her hands and slowly but surely managed to convince herself that she was in the world of the living. The pain of her injured foot only intensified as she sat up, but it only served to push her further awake, and for that she was grateful.
She wasn’t used to waking up in the dark. She rose with the sun, like all firebenders. Or… she had. A hollow kind of despair sat uncomfortably inside of her chest. Could she even call herself a firebender anymore? She had no idea if she’d ever bend again.
She raised her head to the sky and found it to be a soft indigo; sunrise was nearing. She could feel the power of the sun pulling at her, still; and maybe it should’ve given her hope, but she felt like an empty shell. The night before was a blur, but the emotions had stayed. Worthless. Weak. Everything she’d sworn never to be, she was now. No political power, no leverage, no bending.
Azula rose in a daze, ignoring the pain of her foot. She felt very, very far away from her own body as she marched through the undergrowth in a strange, unconscious push to keep walking. Her thoughts felt numbed, but dimly she wondered if Zuko had sent out a search party for her. She doubted it, but Zuko was unpredictable. Who cares? A little voice said in her mind. Who knows how long you’ll be around anyway? There’s nothing tying you here anymore. The thoughts swirled in her head, painful but somewhat comforting in their truth.
Pangs of hunger assaulted her stomach, but Azula ignored them. She kept walking, even as her foot throbbed and began to swell. She had no idea how long she walked for; time seemed to blur and the world around her seemed muted, but the sun was high in the sky by the time she stopped to rest. She hadn’t been running, but she was panting like she’d just finished a long workout. When she felt her foot, it was swollen and red. Not broken, she didn’t think, but a bad sprain; she shouldn’t be walking on it, but Azula just didn’t care. She felt sick with hunger and her throat was parched, the summer humidity sticking to her skin.
Azula’s mind wandered as she got up again to keep walking, muscles straining, heart thumping. She wanted to get out of the forest, find a village–– but she also didn’t really see the point. Every train of thought led her to a place she was scared to go. Her body screamed at her to find food, find water, but even after walking for the entire day she had yet to see anything she recognized as edible. Not that Azula knew the first thing about surviving in the wilderness.
She was okay with it, she thought. Maybe she’d just keep walking until…
Well, until.
Sunset had spread its crimson fingers across the horizon when she could finally walk no more. She had never eaten much in the asylum, but now she wished she had; even two days without food and her head buzzed as she fought against unconsciousness. She had sweat out any water she’d had left in her body, and was now just a dry, bony shell of herself, wasting away into the air without even her inner fire to help her. Panting, Azula fell to her knees, eyes closed as she trembled with exertion; then she fell sideways into soft grass. She drifted along a sea of hollow hunger and wondered why she’d even escaped the asylum in the first place. She should’ve known she was always going to end up here.
But this is an okay place to die, Azula thought. She could smell the thick perfume of summer flowers around her, and looking around she saw she had fallen in a patch of familiar red blossoms. Her fingers drifted through the fronds. Fire lilies. They only bloomed a few weeks a year in midsummer, and back in the days of Azula’s very early childhood, her mother used to plant them in the gardens so they’d bloom around Azula’s birthday.
Oh. Azula did a quick calculation and huffed a laugh as she realized.
It’s my fifteenth birthday.
She closed her eyes. It’s quite a feat to die on your birthday. What a fitting end.
She wondered if she’d be found.
If she was, where would they cast her ashes?
It’s not like I have a home anymore.
A soft black tide filled her head, lapping against unfamiliar shores.
Azula felt a cool touch against her arms. She didn’t have the energy to wonder what it was. She didn’t protest as she was lifted up into the sky, the pain shooting through her foot a faraway thing.
Is this what it feels like to die?
The last thing she heard before she let herself succumb to the dark was the whistle of wind, and a smooth, lilting voice that sounded like home.