Chapter Text
Azula died in prison.
She hadn’t thought she would, even at her lowest point. She’d been dodging and retaliating against assassination attempts semi-regularly even before her traitor brother took the throne, and while they increased in quantity after her deposition they didn’t increase in quality. She might have lost most of her allies, but she hardly needed bridges that burned so easily. The only thing she needed was the very flames themselves.
Azula made use of them. Very thorough, very liberal use. The assassins and the prisoners and the guards and even the warden who thought to take advantage of a friendless, unstable, beautiful fourteen-year-old girl with no one to protect her had their lessons scorched into their flesh with fire and lightning. Even the chi blockers they tried to send in couldn’t get near her; Azula imagined that every single one of their faces was Ty Lee’s as they burned.
They stopped even trying to control her, let her go where she wanted in the prison grounds and take what she wanted from the guards, as was her due as their rightful Fire Lord. Zuko hadn’t even won his own Agni Kai; he’d brought in a foreigner, an outsider to win his battle for him. If anything, his pet Water Tribe peasant should be Fire Lord, not her pathetic brother who had only ever learned to steal the achievements of women stronger and more skilled than he.
Azula had expected better of him, but she shouldn’t have, considering how often he failed when he only had his own talents to rely on, how he’d even stooped so low as to send an assassin to finish the mission their father gave him to restore his honor. Azula had given him his greatest victory, given him the title of Avatar killer and the right to return home in glory, to steal part of her triumph over Ba Sing Se, and he repaid her by spitting her generosity back in her face and betraying her.
Just like Mai. Just like Ty Lee.
Azula gave him to Mai, gave her only brother to one of her vassals as a reward for her service, and now neither Mai nor Ty Lee had been punished for the things they gleefully did in her service. Mai had only ever been interested in violence, just like Ty Lee was in the spotlight, and she gave them both everything they could ever want. She knew Mai thought Zuko a traitor to his nation, that she looked down on the commoners of her own nation and was openly disgusted with those of others, but all had been forgiven as long as she continued servicing the Fire Lord.
Ty Lee wanted more than anything to be unique, to be recognized, and she threw all her hopes and dreams away to bow and scrape before the Kyoshi warriors the way she once had before Azula. For someone so desperate for individuality, she was always so willing to be used, to be a doormat, to be a weakling. Azula had tried to make her one of the most powerful women in the world, a woman who bowed to none but her princess and her Fire Lord, but her spine really was as rubbery as her contortions suggested.
None of them had visited her, never even sent her a letter, until the day they condemned her to die.
Azula should have reacted as soon as she saw the bison land in her newly-claimed prison yard, saw the ugly scar on her brother’s face, but she wasn’t… entirely able to trust her senses, these days. She saw her mother often, now, and Zuzu slightly less. Mai and Ty Lee she only saw in dreams.
Occasionally, on very bad days, she saw her father.
Azula’s arms were encased in ice and her feet in stone before she realized that what she was seeing was really there.
Mai was holding a blade to her throat, a smirk playing on her colorless lips at the… unkempt state Azula was in. The only thing that could reliably cheer her up, other than Zuko, was the suffering of those beneath her. Azula spat fire in her face, and cackled when her brother had to haul his little girlfriend away before she put that blade to use. Azula recognized it; she’d given it to her for her friend’s thirteenth birthday. Mai probably relished the chance to twist the metaphorical knife in her back deeper with the real one.
“How nice of you to visit, Zuzu,” Azula cooed, a wide grin splitting her face. “And look, you’ve brought your entourage of traitors, too!”
Her brother stared back, face twisted with anger but eyes sad, before he went carefully blank. Mai was beside him, his grip tight on her arm as the waterbender held glowing hands to her jaw before the burn could scar. Pity, it would have matched Zuko’s. The blind earthbender was in a ready stance, sweating slightly but visibly; Azula had always enjoyed cracking her bravado. The Avatar watched her from the bison’s neck, gray eyes piercing, and Azula imagined shooting him full of lightning again. In the saddle, her uncle was cataloging her various injuries, her broken nails, her tangled hair.
Azula was sure he’d been responsible for more than one of the assassins. The Dragon of the West had been just as ruthless as her, before he adopted his doddering old fool persona, and he’d never liked her. He’d had a nephew to groom and manipulate into replacing his worthless son, and his poor behavior with women was an open secret around the palace. A niece he couldn’t use in that way was of no interest to him; a girl who threatened his pseudo-heir’s place was worse than worthless.
“Uncle finally convinced you to kill me yourself, Zuzu?” Azula asked, throat convulsing with laughter she could barely hold back.
“Of course not, Azula. We’re family, even if you’ve never treated me like it,” Zuko said, eyes flashing. He was undoubtedly relishing the chance to lord over her, to finally feel superior to her despite his own inferiority. “But I can’t permit you to terrorize our people like this any longer.”
Azula started to giggle, first softly and then louder and louder. “You mean the ones trying to kill me? I owe them nothing but the lawful executions I have given them for attempting to assassinate a member of the royal family.”
“No one has tried to kill you, Azula,” Iroh said firmly. “You are even more crazy than you were when we last saw you, and you have resisted treatment again and again. They were doctors trying to help you, and you killed them.”
Azula was too overcome with mirth to respond to that, especially when she saw the blind one’s face pull tight. Apparently her uncle wasn't nearly as gifted a liar as Azula was. No doubt the earthbender could sense the cracked ribs, the broken fingers and fractured wrist, the missing teeth. Even so, she said nothing. Azula hadn’t expected her to.
“Avatar Aang agreed to come here today to stop you from hurting anyone else,” Zuko declared, voice echoing across the prison yard. “As Fire Lord, it is my duty to safeguard my subjects from you.”
Azula heard a few cautious cheers from the cells and the guards watching from atop the walls. She hadn’t made things easy for them, in the past… however long her imprisonment has lasted. Time slipped away from her so easily, these days.
She turns to the waterbender, who Mai had finally lost her patience with and shoved away. Her pale, dead face looked pink now, rather than charred and red. The waterbender looked affronted, blue eyes flashing, and the familiar sight brought a memory back to the forefront.
“You should be Fire Lord, you know,” she said conversationally, watching the beautiful peasant’s face go slack with confusion. “My brother lost his Agni Kai. Technically, he forfeited by bringing anyone else into it in the first place. My second Agni Kai, the one I lost, was with you. That crown is yours by right, even if your tactics were cowardly.”
“Heed your princess!” Azula yelled, turning her head to look up at the guards and then down at the prisoners, who were paying rapt attention. She’d always been a gifted public speaker. “Your dishonorable Fire Lord lost to me, in the eyes of Agni and our ancestors, and stole a crown he has no right to! A Water tribe peasant won his duel for him while he lay moaning on the ground! Is this a man worthy to rule?!”
A chorus of jeers answered. Many were directed at her, calling her a liar and many other unsavory terms she’d long since gotten used to, but a few were directed at the waterbender, and a few more at her worthless brother.
“Fire Lord Zuko,” Iroh said urgently. “Do not drag this out any longer. Have the Avatar do what he came here to do.”
“Always whispering in your ear, isn’t he?” Azula spat contemptuously. “Always telling you what to do. You went from being Father’s beaten dog to Uncle’s pathetic pet.”
Zuko slapped her across the face. Azula was less surprised he’d done it than he was; his eyes were wide with shock, and he looked at his hand like it had betrayed him.
Azula smirked, tonguing the new split in her lip, and said, “Maybe you are a little like Father, after all. But you’re still weak; his always hurt worse.”
Zuko went ghastly white, and stumbled back. Iroh snapped her name. The earthbender winced. The Avatar’s mouth fell open. Mai didn’t react at all.
Only the waterbender surprised her.
“ZUKO!” she snarled, catching him with a water whip that sent him sprawling. Mai flung needles at her, but she froze them without even looking up and sent them tinkling to the ground. “She’s restrained and defenseless! What were you thinking?!”
Zuko didn’t respond, eyes closed and muttering, “Azula always lies… Azula always lies… Azula always lies…”
“Avatar Aang,” Iroh said, sliding down the bison’s side and rushing to Zuko’s side. He wrapped his shaking nephew in an embrace. “This has gone on long enough. Do it now, so we may leave.”
The Avatar glanced around uncertainly.
“Gramps is right, Twinkletoes,” the earthbender opined, though her shifting feet suggested she was less certain than she sounded.
The waterbender’s head turned from her glaring match with Mai. “Wait! Are we really going to just—”
“Get it over with, already,” Mai said, glaring at Azula. “She’s a liar and a manipulator. She wanted all this to happen. She goaded Zuko into it to hurt him.”
Azula started laughing again. Yes, of course, it was all her fault. Just like Mai’s sins were hers, and Ty Lee’s were hers, and her father’s were hers, and now Zuko’s were hers. She wondered how long he had until his new friends left him the way Mai and Ty Lee had left her. They were both their father’s children, and Zuko couldn’t fool them forever. Unless, of course, he had her around as a scapegoat for all his worst and cruelest impulses.
How nostalgic. Just like when they were children. Injured and dead turtleducklings were so easy to blame on a younger sibling, especially if their mother already knew she was a monster. (But Azula had never particularly enjoyed hurting things that didn’t fight back. She preferred a challenge. It was why she had liked playing with Zuzu so much.)
“Wait,” the waterbender blurted, twisting her hands together anxiously. “Aang, are you really going to—”
“Yes,” the Avatar decided, drifting gently to the ground. His steps were silent as he approached her. “She’s killed people, Katara. I can’t allow her to do that anymore.”
“...If that’s what you think is best for the world, then I’ll support you, sweetie,” the peasant said, all that fire suddenly turned to embers. Azula frowned. Was this the girl that had just knocked the Fire Lord on his ass? How disappointing.
And then the Avatar’s hands were at her head and chest and his eyes and tattoos glowed white and he was ripping out something inside her something precious something vital no please don’t that’s mine it hurts it hurts it hurts she can hear her father screaming along with her stop stop stop please don’t—
Then it was gone.
Azula doubled over and vomited, again and again until there was nothing but bile. She hadn’t been able to eat much while at the prison, hadn’t wanted to, and now she knew she never would again. The ice encasing her arms melted and she fell back, feet still surrounded by rock.
She felt a cool hand on her forehead and she didn’t even try to burn it, just bit until blood filled her mouth and the Avatar and the earthbender had to pry her jaws open. The waterbender didn’t strike her, didn’t even yell, just calmly healed herself.
“Are you all right?” she asked, and Azula laughed until she cried.
When she came back to her senses, such as they were, she was in a cell, hanging from a chain. The Avatar and his entourage were gone, and now there was only a steadily growing crowd of prisoners and guards. All of them had very good reasons to harm her, even she could admit that.
Azula didn’t smile or laugh. She had no reason to. She felt violated, dirty and torn open and disgusting in her very soul. She knew her bending, her reason for breathing, was gone. She just hoped they would make it quick.
They did not.