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English
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Part 11 of and love will be your teacher
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Mah Cabbages
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Published:
2019-11-05
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1,429
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the increase of your herd

Summary:

A little of what is going on around the palace.

And an escape.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Ozai sat on his rightful throne, a smile curling on his lips. Iroh was gone, just as he'd intended. Murdered, burst into a thousand tiny pieces by some horrible 'assassins.' Ozai would make sure to produce them in a few months and successfully 'avenge' his brother. For now, however, he is content with restarting his father's war.

The earth kingdom and water tribes had made it clear peace was impossible. Honestly, he couldn’t have planned it better himself.

Ursa had been a bit of a problem- a problem he hadn’t expected, she wasn’t blind and certainly not as easy to hide things from, like Azula and Zuko. He’d assumed she would obey him. He’d been wrong, but at least she'd been taken care of easily enough. Zuko, however, was... unfortunate. The people had loved him after the assassination incident. (His first attempt. He had been sure to get someone competent this time. Honestly, it shouldn’t have been that hard to take down Ursa's failure of a son.) The mad prince story was a stroke of pure genius though. General Qiao had remarked how feral Zuko had looked in his prison. It hadn’t taken much after that.

After all, Azula had always been his intended heir, with Zuko as a mere puppet or conveniently removed from the equation. The mad prince was no great loss. In fact, it just made things easier.

Ozai leaned back on the throne, content for the moment with his progress.

 

The Fire Nation was in a period of mourning. They had lost their Fire Lord to filthy water tribe assassins and on the same day they had lost their crown prince to madness.

There were whispers of dissension, hurriedly covered up and hissed at to be silent, not to sully this dark time with conspiracies about their great and noble Fire Lord. The rumors, however, persisted stubbornly, as rumors are wont to do.

Crown Prince Zuko was not mad, they said, Ozai had stolen the throne from his former son, Ozai had attacked and imprisoned the true heir to the Fire Nation.

The palace issued a proclamation that Zuko was indeed mad, had killed others in his madness, and that such talk of otherwise was treason. Of course, this did not dispel the rumors at all, in fact, they only spread like wildfire. No one did anything, of course, what could they do? It was one thing to gossip about terrible tragedy and political machinations, but it was an altogether different thing to act on them.

Besides, what if the Prince was mad?

No, better to whisper quietly and spare furtive glances at the gleaming palace, than to act on hearsay alone.

The rumor mill churned steadily onwards, and, slowly but surely, the seeds of revolution were sown.

 

After Azula's rather illuminating visit, Zuko retied the old bandage. He probably wasn’t going to get anything like it anytime soon. He breathed in and settled on the bed, mediating just like Iroh had taught him too. The iron shackles on his wrists were impossibly heavy, and he slumped under their weight. Iroh was dead.

He shook himself, Iroh was dead, but he would not let Ozai get away with such a crime. In the meantime, he would not let himself fall out of practice.

His face burned and itched and he grit his teeth, but by nightfall he managed to wrestle his fury back into some semblance of calm.

Zuko supposed he must’ve fallen asleep after that, because he's woken again in the night by another bang. Zuko started, eye wide, waiting.

Had Ozai decided that he was too much of a threat to keep locked up? Was another assassin going to break in and kill him at Ozai's command? Would Ozai stand before the fire nation tomorrow and mourn for a son and a brother he had murdered? Zuko stood, bracing himself. If he was to die, he would go down like a true prince of the fire nation. On his feet, fighting for his life.

There was a spurt of blue flame and the clatter of armor.

Zuko froze. Wait-

Azula skidded down the hallway, mouth stretched into a manic grin. Two girls stumbled in after her. He only just recognized them.

It had been years, after all, since he’d seen Azula's friends: Ty... Ty Lee, the one who had always talked about joining the circus, and Mai, the pretty one. Azula slid a worryingly bloodied key into the door lock and swung it open, "Hello, Zuzu! We're here to rescue you!"

He gaped, "What- What are you doing here?"

Azula tossed her hair imperiously, hanging uncharacteristically loose around her shoulders, "I’ve had it with father."

Ty Lee grinned, bouncing in place, the years apparently not changing her bubbly demeanor, "Hi Zuko! Long time no see!"

Mai rolled her eyes and held up another key, "I’ll take care of those." At Zuko's confusion she nodded at his chains and intoned blandly, "Hands."

Zuko held them out and she unlocked them, mouth twisting. He sputtered, "But Azula- Ozai will- I don’t...”

Azula sniffed, "I've outgrown him." She put her hands on her hips, "Now let’s get a move on Dum-Dum. I don’t have all day."

He swallowed back his questions and his surprise and jogged after them.

Mai glanced back as they darted through the hallway, raising an eyebrow, "What's wrong with you?"

Zuko huffed, annoyed, a hand straying to his side, "It’s just my ribs. The- the soldiers- they got a few lucky hits in when they took me."

For a second he thinks Mai is going to say something but instead she turns her head away, "Well. Keep up."

Ty Lee jumped up, "Angry soldiers, coming our way!"

Azula grinned and thrust her hands forward but Zuko stopped her, "Wait- don't hurt them! They’re just doing their jobs, Azula!" She scoffed, but let her flames die and with a roll of her eyes, she started forward. Zuko suppressed his involuntary flinch at the firelight.

Mai whipped knives from her sleeves, her daggers arcing through the air like slices of light. When had she learned that? Zuko gaped as Mai moved with surprising grace. Shaking himself out of his stupor, Zuko breathed, daggers of fire forming his hands, just like he’d been practicing. Ty Lee had already waded into the fray with Azula, soldiers dropping like stones under her nimble fingers.

They probably all look very silly. Or, at least, the soldiers did. One would expect it to be harder for four children to take them down. As it is the four of them make quick work of the fire nation soldiers.

Ty Lee vaults over an unconscious man and points towards the door, "Quick! We've got a Komodo rhino saddled out back!"

Zuko breathed heavily, hands on his knees, "Give me a minute."

Mai brushed her dark hair out of her face and held out her hand, "C'mon. You need to hurry up or your dad is really gonna kill you."

Zuko huffed but took her hand.

The two ran after Azula and Ty Lee, already disappearing into the night. Zuko blinked, "Wait, how long was I gone?"

Mai's eyes flick towards him and then away, "Two weeks tomorrow. People think you’re mad."

"Oh."

Azula already held the Komodo rhino's reins, Ty Lee behind her. Soldiers begin pouring out of the palace. Azula shouted, voice thick with impatience, "Zuzu, pick up the pace!"

Zuko pushed himself, and Mai leapt agilely onto the Komodo rhino's back, pulling Zuko up. Azula snapped the reins and the rhino bolted. Zuko nearly fell off again, "Azula! I’m not on yet!"

She tossed behind her, "There's no time, dum-dum!"

Ty Lee giggled and helped Mai pull Zuko all the way onto the Komodo rhino. He sagged, utterly spent, "Where are we going?"

There was a moment of silence. Zuko blinked, "Wait, do you not have a plan?"

Mai shrugged from behind him, "I didn’t think we'd get this far, honestly." Ty Lee brightened, "We could join the circus!"

Azula sniffed, "I did too plan ahead! We’ve got supplies! I just... didn’t know where we would go."

"Not a town. Nowhere where someone might recognize us."

"Uh, that might be hard."

Zuko frowned, "Why?"

Mai sighed, "You'll be a bit too easy to recognize now, Zuko." He appreciated her bluntness even if it knocked the air out of him, "Because of your new scar."

"Oh."

The silence loomed over them, heavy as a thunderstorm on the horizon, as the four fire nation children left the capitol, their homes, behind.

Notes:

My tumblr is here! https://ford-ye-fiji.tumblr.com/

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