Chapter Text
Azula used to imagine that the walls of the asylum would crumble beneath her, aflame with boiling fury and hungry, starved, for the smell of charred flesh. It was cold and sunless the day her brother brought her here, when she first vowed to reduce its walls and occupants into smoking piles of ash.
She still remembers what it felt like, when the idea of freedom had been something as tangible as the fire she wielded. Now, they are both elusive, smothered by months of confinement. And with the time that’s passed, she has left her dreams of fire and blood to die.
They’re letting her go. Discharging her on Zuko’s royal decree.
It’s almost funny, how stupid he is.
“Fire Lord Zuko will see to you shortly, Princess.”
Princess. Only she isn’t anymore, is she?
It’s a cruel thing, that she’s bound in chains when the sun touches her skin for the first time in over a year. Letting her go, they’d said. They’d conveniently failed to mention that she’d be restrained in a straitjacket to choke the fire from her breath, to prevent her from bending without also killing herself.
She’d considered it, a couple of times. The latter option.
And it becomes clear quickly enough that whatever her dear brother has in mind for her isn’t exactly freedom. It’s something more like supervision.
The sun pierces her eyes until Zuko comes to eclipse it with his figure, and the guards posted at her side take their leave upon his arrival. He’s much taller now, leaner and more put-together. At the very least, he looks the part to call himself Fire Lord.
Trailing alongside him is a girl Azula recognizes in an instant, and her presence is as disorienting as it is demeaning. It feels fitting, in a way, that the two people who were there to witness her downfall are here now too, to drag her out of the same chains they’d confined her in.
Had the waterbender chosen three months ago to visit, Azula still would’ve had the will to burn her where she stood.
But the sight of her does something exhilarating to her now- it reforges the bitterness in her throat, charging the electricity that travels down the veins in her arms, and the familiarity of it is comforting, in its own way.
She used to waste hours dreaming of her- the girl- of melting her flesh until only bones were left. She’d imagine that the lingering fires would be the last of her memory. A waterbender, forever immortalized in the golden reflection of her killer’s eyes. She didn’t care before, what would happen to her afterwards, so long as she could see her vision through.
“Azula,” Zuko says, and he does a funny thing then- bows for her, as though they’ve ever respected each other to such a degree. “I trust you’ve been treated well here. You look healthy.” He adds a small smile to match his pleasantries.
“So good to see you again, Zuzu,” she greets, lips twisting into a mirthless smile. “It’s been far too long.”
He hadn’t visited her once in the last year.
“Why do you have her all tied up?”
Azula’s eyes snap to the source of the voice, wide and wild. During her time at the institution, she’d faced countless nightmares submerged in water, her limbs and blood aflame but confined, unmoving, no matter how insistently her muscles twitched and ached. And in this endless black sea was always the color blue. The eyes they belonged to would stare down at her, brimming, flooding, with an endless compassion, and maybe even a little understanding, mocking her, shaming her.
“For our safety,” Zuko answers. “And hers.”
“But she’s your s-”
“Aww, Zuko,” Azula interrupts, her eyes burning back into his. “I didn’t realize you were so afraid of me. Had to bring your waterbender girlfriend along to protect you again, did you?”
Zuko tenses in front of her, and a victorious grin pulls at her lips. He’s always been far too easy to tease. But the waterbender places her hand on his arm and squeezes lightly, and the action effectively sours Azula’s victory.
“Katara and I are taking you with us,” Zuko announces, with some awkwardness. “She and Avatar Aang were very considerate in convincing me to give you a chance at rehabilitation.”
Azula looks at her, at this insignificant girl whose hand is placed atop her brother- and Zuko, for all his flaws, is so many humiliating things, but he is still the son of Ozai, and they were both meant to have a greater purpose than to settle on entertaining the lesser, common folk.
“So that’s your name,” Azula says, after a time, and she exaggerates the intrigue in her voice. “Katara.”
A long time ago, her patronizing would have worked. But Katara looks entirely unaffected by the condescension, the fact that Azula hadn’t even known her name until now. In fact, Katara shares that same look from her dreams, the one where she seems to think Azula is some sort of wounded animal, helpless and afraid. It makes a bitterness pang against her chest, sharp like the edge of a newly forged blade.
“Seriously? She has crazy in her eyes!”
“She’s not crazy, Sokka,” Katara retorts. It’s an odd sound, to hear the person who had ruined her, defend her. “She’s a kid, like us.”
“Yeah, no, she’s not a kid. Aang and Toph are kids. She’s-”
“She just turned sixteen,” Zuko interrupts. He’s staring down at his boots, like the passive fool he always has been.
“How sweet of you to remember,” Azula comments dully. All eyes turn to stare at her, as though they’d forgotten that the subject of their meeting was sitting at the same table as them. To their credit, she’s been quiet, letting her hair shield her face so that she won’t be as inclined to pay attention to their rambling.
“I’m not a kid,” Aang mumbles, and he slouches in his seat. Azula notes that his voice has deepened considerably.
“Well- whatever! I just don’t think it’s smart to welcome her in with open arms,” Sokka bristles.
“It’s not like that,” Katara says. “We’re giving her another chance, the same way we did with Zuko.”
“Yeah, but Zuko’s… Zuko, and Azula’s Azula. She’s tried to kill us. Kill us, kill us. And she actually achieved that, with Aang. He wouldn’t have come back if it weren’t for you, and we’re fresh out of spirit water.”
Azula smiles. That had been a good day- only that Katara had ruined that for her, too.
“Look at her- she’s smiling right now!” Sokka continues, incredulous.
“I’m sorry Katara, Zuko. But I have to agree with Sokka,” Suki sighs. “She’s done so many awful things, and I’m not ready to forgive her.”
“I…” Katara lets out a breath. “I get that. I’m not saying that I am either. But I still think she deserves a chance.”
Azula can feel Katara’s eyes on her. She doesn’t look up to confirm.
It is their intention to humiliate her, she decides, and she isn’t going to give them the satisfaction of letting it work. They’re fools if they think her fate is truly in their hands. She is not her brother, and they can’t mold her and ruin her the way they did him.
It’s even more pathetic that Zuko and his merry band of misfits have had to keep her confined in her straitjacket, because they know from experience that they are outmatched, even six to one.
All her enemies, compiled together at one round table. They’ve no idea that she will be their end.
“What about you, Aang?” Katara asks. “What do you think?”
Aang looks directly at her, and sinks further into his seat. “I mean, she’s a bit of a wildcard. But I do think everyone deserves a second chance.”
Azula watches Sokka’s jaw drop. “Did you forget the part where she killed you?!”
Aang shrugs. “Of course not. But Katara’s right. She was just a kid when the war started, and when it ended. She shouldn’t be judged on the things she was raised to do.”
Sokka slumps back into his seat, arms folded over his chest.
“It’s funny. None of you have thought to ask me what I think about all of this,” Azula says, the hint of a smile cracking at the corner of her lips.
“Or me,” Toph adds, but she’s largely preoccupied with picking the dirt out from under her nails.
“Please, Azula,” her brother says then, although hesitantly. “Feel free to contribute what you’d like.”
Azula’s smile grows into a sneer, and she says, “You all should have killed me years ago.”
They’d brought her to Ember Island, as if this was supposed to be some sort of vacation. Zuko confirmed as much, what with the itinerary he had planned, and the clothing he’d packed.
“What is this supposed to be?” Azula had demanded. “Summer camp?”
Zuko had sighed, exhausted with her already. “Look, just try to have a good time. Think of it as our old visits here, when we’d all get along and no one would blast fire at anyone else.”
“We clearly remember our retreats here very differently.”
But the ground rules had been set. She couldn’t bend at anyone, or she’d be taken back. And, the one she much preferred- she was to be treated with dignity, and so she was left unchained. It was easy enough. She could play nice if she needed to.
Still, if this was Zuko’s idea of rehabilitation, he was shaping out to be quite the pathetic Fire Lord.
For the most part, she’s vaguely aware that she isn’t really alone, most of the time. If not an island servant, Katara and her brother are the ones who keep close watch over her. Katara’s room is just across hers, and so her agitating presence is always looming, always observing, a shadow to Azula's every movement. Despite being the person who had first presented the idea of her release, Katara is exhaustingly untrusting.
The only time anyone lets her be is when she bathes. It’s odd, not having someone watching over her to ensure she won’t try to drown herself. It would have been a fitting way to die, if Katara hadn’t been a coward all those months ago.
The one thing they hadn’t considered was to take her mirror away. To remove any sharp objects from her room so that she couldn’t use them against her captors. Or herself.
That was the funny thing, about confinement, about the toxins her mother had bit into her, the spread of which Katara and her brother had further facilitated. It wasn’t only her honor that had been stolen from her, but her mind, and the loss has left her with an understanding- there are no expectations in the grave.
She doesn’t recognize the reflection that stares back at her. So many things have changed- her hair’s grown back, at least, but her eyes aren’t as golden, and she’s skinny in a way that makes her look more malnourished.
They want to help you, Azula.
Her eyes slam shut. She’s grown so tired of hearing her mother’s voice, as much as she’s become used to its presence.
“You’re not real,” she whispers.
I will always be in your heart, my love.
Ursa isn’t there, in the reflection, standing beside her like she used to. No, she wouldn’t be- because Azula lost her footing long ago. Her mind has become something tangled, unreachable, and the truth of it aches. It's taken her the longest to realize it, that she's something lost and battered- Zuko understood it from the beginning, her friends feared her for it, and her father cherished her for it.
But still, she searches, for a trace of midnight hair the same shade as her own, for the gleam of gold in her eyes, the same color Azula had inherited in her own. There are always fragments of Ursa that Azula finds in herself, but she is always alone, in the end.
She shouts out an awful noise when her closed fist connects with the glass. It shatters, as expected, but it’s not enough for her- she needs her fire, so that she can burn Ursa away once and for all.
It doesn’t come. It hasn’t. Not since the comet. She thought she’d find herself again when she escaped her prison, but she is left empty now, with only the vacant company of the ashes that form in her throat.
It’s a funny combination. That she’s crazy, and broken.
And so she bends down, tears stinging in her eyes, and picks up the broken glass pieces. She flinches, despite herself, when they draw blood from her fingertips.
The pieces of mirror that remain on the wall reflect something more familiar to her. Distorted, and splintered, the way she’s always been. She only wishes that Katara had killed her that day, so that she could have died with some pieces of herself still intact.
She punctures each wrist. Deep and unrelenting, until she is choking out her sobs. She would have had more discipline than to cry, before. Now, she doesn’t care. They’re messy sounds, uncontrolled, and they sting a deep pit within her heart that remind her of her mother, a tender hand rubbing circles on her back, promising her she’d be okay, that she’d be able to get past this.
The shards of glass fall to the floor, stained red, and she follows with them, a heap of body and blood on the hard wooden boards. She barely has the strength to drag herself to the side of her bed, so that she can lean against it while she watches the blood drown her the way she has always wanted it to.
And she allows herself the mercy of death.
Katara and her brother, once again, do not give her the satisfaction.
“What did you-” Zuko cuts himself off when his eyes fall upon his sister. He must have heard her scream. “Katara!” He shouts then, and Azula smiles, all teeth. They’re both too late. Finally, at least, she’s beaten Katara at something.
Katara enters so quickly that she nearly hits the door on her way in, water already pooled above her, hands at the ready to counter whatever attack she’s presumed Azula to have started.
The water falls to the floor in an instant, and her hands come up to cover her mouth.
Zuko is on her, then, his palms clamping around her wrists where she’d cut them, but he's shaking too much to make significant enough of a difference.
“Katara!” Zuko shouts again, with more urgency, and Azula, despite herself, flinches at the proximity of his voice.
She bites out a laugh afterwards, her attempt to correct her displayed weakness, then tries to pull her arms away from him. Zuko doesn’t let her.
“Get off of me,” she croaks out. She can't recall when her voice had gone so weak.
Katara breaks free of her shock, and rushes toward them, her knees sliding against the floorboards.
“Hold her,” she directs, a sudden strength to her voice that Azula hadn’t thought she was capable of. But Katara’s eyes betray her- they are white, and round, and she looks as though she’s seen all hundred years of the war she only experienced a summer of.
Azula imagines lashing out, breathing fire in both of their faces, and rewarding Katara with a dark, ugly scar for her kindness, one to match her brother’s.
But her eyes are shutting, weak now, and so, so heavy. She feels a coolness surrounding her wrists, and a blue glow illuminates the room that dominates all other light, stinging the sensitive skin of her closed eyelids.
She doesn’t remember much else.
When she wakes, she tastes copper, and an ache settles over her entire body that burns like embers.
“I thought you said she was doing better!”
“I was busy picking up after the nation she and my father almost destroyed! I didn’t know it was this bad!”
“Well, you should have!”
If Azula had the strength to roll her eyes, she would have.
“She’s awake,” Zuko says then, much quieter.
“How considerate of you to notice,” Azula bites out. Her voice is still weak.
They both hover beside her like clouds, with Katara even presenting her a glass of water.
“Drink this,” she says, gently, as if Azula is a child. “Help her sit up, Zuko.”
Zuko does, and she doesn’t protest to him. Katara, however, she adamantly refuses to look at. Instead, she examines the bandages covering her wrists, stained a deep red where she had cut.
“Azula,” Katara tries again.
Azula whirls around and slams the glass out from her hands. It’s agonizing, to make such a sudden movement when her body still feels like it’s burning, but she considers it worth the effort when Katara winces.
“Azula!” Zuko shouts.
“I’m not your pet!” she shouts back. She isn’t looking at either of them in particular, but her fingers curl into fists, and the tension of the action stings the ligaments on the underside of her wrists.
“You’re dehydrated,” Katara says, much calmer than her, to some credit. “You need to drink something.”
Azula’s eyes, finally, snap to hers. “Don’t pretend to care. I know what you’re really doing.”
“I’m not…” Katara trails off. “You- you scared us. All of us are so-”
“Don’t lie. It isn’t very flattering when you do it.”
Azula had never had anybody to take care of her, and she certainly doesn’t need anyone now. Not some Water Tribe commoner, and not her outcast, moron of a brother.
Katara retrieves the glass, which had not shattered, to Azula’s disappointment, and her blue eyes are set on Zuko when she returns. “You’re her brother. Take-” She inhales, and slams the glass against his chest. He hardly catches it in time, his own eyes widening. “Take care of her!”
She sounds exhausted. Azula’s seen the way Katara coddles over her own brother, and how he routinely does the same for her. And it’s true, that the royal Fire Nation siblings have never particularly loved each other the way siblings typically do.
Azula did, in her own way. Once, a long time ago, when she found herself crawling into her brother’s bed after a more jarring nightmare. She thinks she still does, now, if fleetingly. It had always been very difficult for her to express, and Zuko certainly didn’t make it any easier for her.
Katara leaves the room after that, and Azula doesn't miss the way she wipes her cheeks with her sleeves.
“Azula,” Zuko says, quieter than before. He sets the empty glass on the table beside her. “This is serious. You could have died.”
Azula scoffs out an empty laugh. “Almost like that was the point, genius.”
His eyes are very serious, and he clearly doesn't find the sentiment humorous. “You’re my sister, Azula.” He says it as if it's supposed to mean something to her right now, as if it ever has. She very nearly laughs in his face.
“So? Are you going to magically erase all of the times we’ve fought with the intent to kill one another?”
Zuko blinks, just once. “I’ve never wanted to kill you.”
“I’m sorry to say that the sentiment isn’t shared,” Azula mumbles back.
He takes one of her hands, then, so gently that she’s hardly even bothered by the action, but she still grimaces on instinct.
“I know we have a really messed up relationship,” he starts, measuring his words carefully. “I guess it's always been that way for us. But, you’re… you’re important to me. I want you to get better, and I want you to be happy."
“Trapping me in an asylum is a fantastic way to go about that, Zuzu.”
His fingers are so soft over hers, and Azula loathes him for it. He’s never been quite so delicate with her, until now. She wants to rip her hand away, but a deeper part of her- one she can’t understand, or reach- wants him to hold her there forever.
Both of his eyes begin to brim with something pathetically soft. “It’s not like I was going to throw my own sister into a prison cell.“
“But you were perfectly willing to submit Father to that fate.”
“He was a tyrant,” Zuko says. “We were both just his pawns.”
She feels her face tightening with revulsion. “Maybe you were. I was his equal.”
“You were his weapon.”
She pulls her hand away, now, and watches his eyes pool with what looks like regret.
“It was awful that day,” Zuko mumbles, looking away from her now, “Leaving you there like that. And I… I know I can’t fix any of the horrible things Father put us through, but I want us both to be free of his shadow.” He pauses for a second, as if knowingly. “And Mom’s, too.”
Azula lays flat, and turns her head away from him. Her arms are held in front of her, palms up, which makes for a particularly uncomfortable position, but it’s the best she can do with the current state of her wrists.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” Zuko says, sincerely.
Azula bites down, and stares at the floor. “You’re pathetic. Your friends softened you. They made you weak.”
“They made me stronger,” Zuko replies, quietly.
There is a brief silence that passes, until Azula realizes that he isn’t going to stand up and leave, the way he used to. The way she wants him to, now, because it’s all she's ever known him to do.
“Don’t send your waterbender here,” she warns him. “Unless you’d like to see her flesh melting off of her bones.”
She hears him shift. “Katara has to keep healing you.”
“A pile of ash she’ll be, then,” she mumbles out.
He sighs, long and heavy. “She can handle herself, but that doesn’t mean you need to make it difficult for her. We want to help you.”
She listens as he stands to pour her a fresh glass of water, and then she feels a strange, light pressure on her head.
He’d kissed her. Softly, into her hair, the way their mother used to.
“Drink something. Please. And try to sleep. Call for any of us if you need something.” He brushes some of the hair out from where it had fallen on her face, and Azula’s entire body tightens, furious. “I love you,” he adds quietly, and he leaves, too.
Katara comes, the next morning, with food and a fresh set of bandaging.
“Where’s my brother?” Azula asks, instantly.
Katara sets her objects down. “Hi to you too,” she mutters. “He’s coming later. He thought you’d be upset if he was here watching us the whole time.”
“Fantastic news for him, then, because I don’t require you here at all.”
She watches Katara bite the inner part of her lip, but despite that, she remains calm. Azula finds it decently impressive- she’s become so used to Katara’s explosive reactions, she didn’t think it possible for her to maintain such composure.
“That’s too bad,” Katara says, and she grabs the roll of wrappings she brought with her. “Because I’m changing these for you.”
“I don’t need your help,” Azula bites out.
Katara takes a step closer. Azula's shoulders bunch. One more, and Azula's jaw tightens. It's childish, how slowly she treads nearer, but Azula knows she can't tell her so, because every last one of her own muscles is tensing like she's some pathetic kind of cornered animal. It isn't fair. Without her bending, and with the useless condition of her wrists, she feels uncomfortably defenseless.
“You can make this easy, and we’ll be done in a couple of minutes," Katara says, "Or I could put you in a block of ice and make this miserable for both of us.”
Azula’s head rolls back. “My brother picked such a delightful group of misfits.”
She holds her arms out in unashamed defeat, because it's not like she has any other option, and she isn't particularly keen on causing a scene otherwise. But she feels the anger bubbling in the pit of her stomach when Katara’s lips pull into the smallest of smiles, because it's so overwhelmingly genuine, soft in a way that makes her look more pleased than contemptuous, which somehow makes it more irritating. A part of her hates that Katara doesn't revel in her victories, no matter how big or small. She's such a polite winner, it's infuriating.
Katara starts to unwrap the bandaging on her left arm, and she’s very delicate about it, as though Azula is fragile enough to be shattered and broken from a single miscalculated touch.
“So,” Katara says. “Um, how are you feeling? Any better?”
Azula looks up at her with only her eyes. “If we're going to go through the misery of this, the least you could do is not talk to me.”
Katara pauses to look at her, too, with a comically outraged frown.
But she complies, to Azula’s relief. She continues her task in silence, until Azula’s wounds are revealed. They look worse than when they were first inflicted, if it were even possible to think so. They are swelled red and grisly, and do not at all fit the perfect princess image she had obsessed over her entire life.
Katara bends a soothing pool of water around the cuts, and it's the first time Azula finds respite from the otherwise persistent pain. She watches as the blue glow surrounds her skin, doing its best to stitch her flesh back together, but it’s clear enough that she’s cut too deep for any water healing to fix her in just one attempt.
When she finishes, Katara is just as careful when bending the water away.
She takes Azula’s bare arm into one hand, and loose, clean wrapping into the other, and Azula finds it difficult to hide her discomfort at the contact. She can’t remember the last time she was treated with such meticulous care, and it's disorienting that the gentle touch is that of her enemy.
“I used to think-”
Azula groans. “Such a shame. You were doing so well.”
Katara’s eyes narrow, furiously. “You can’t decide when I do or don’t talk!”
“It’s not like I’ve been stopping you,” Azula says, disjointed. “I simply asked you not to.”
“You didn’t ask! You- you ordered-”
“And whose fault is it for listening?” Azula counters.
Katara pauses for just a moment to cast her a ridiculous glare, but she makes an effort of focusing on her task otherwise, and continues spreading the wrappings around Azula’s arm.
“What I was trying to say is that I used to think you were this horrible, evil person. Purely, completely evil, and maybe even unredeemable, and I-”
“Are you done?” Azula snaps.
“No,” Katara snaps right back, but she doesn’t look up from her work this time. She takes a breath before she continues. “I think I only thought those things because you seemed to enjoy it. Causing us harm. With Zuko, we could always tell he never took any pleasure in hunting us.” She finishes with one arm, and looks up at her before starting the other. “I was wrong. Now, I can see that you’re just hurt.”
Azula looks at her, cold and sharp to contrast with the warmth she's met with in the spring-flower blue of her eyes, and she tugs her arm away from Katara’s light grasp. “Don’t pretend to know me,” she hisses.
Katara’s eyes never lose their compassion. “You’re right. I don’t know you. But I’d like to try, if you’d let me.”
She finishes wrapping her other arm in silence.