Chapter Text
When Azula was eleven, she smiled as her father burned her big brother.
Burns were a teaching moment; if you were good, you would learn from them, smile and thank your master for teaching you, and never need to be corrected again. Zuko was bad at learning. Azula had only ever needed to be burnt twice, and never somewhere visible, while Zuko's arms were always covered in marks. Those burns only took a few weeks to heal and the scars were barely noticeable. Not even teachers were allowed to permanently mark the royal family.
Maybe having a larger burn in a more painful place would mean the lesson would finally stick. Zuko would stop messing up, and he would stop needing to be hurt.
Her smile started to falter when Father did not pull his hand back. Firebenders were hard to burn, but inflicting a wound painful enough to punish only took a few seconds at most.
When Azula smelled her brother's hair burning, his flesh boiling, she plastered the grin back onto her face. Her mind drifted off, eyes staring forward. She was anywhere else– in her bed, near that stupid turtleduck pond Zuko liked so much, on Ember Island. She'd gladly be in the spirit world if being there meant she didn't flinch here . If she stopped smiling, Father would know she didn't want to watch. (If she stopped smiling, she'd be next.)
Zuko collapsed (dead he's dead he's-) and she did not see it, she only saw colors and silhouettes, and this was a shadow puppet show. That was not her brother on the ground and that was not her father looking down at him and then impassively over the crowd (at her he's looking at her- no, no of course he's not, he's looking to the Sages to declare the obvious victor). This was a play (Zuko liked plays) and the curtain was closing and the performance was over and Azula was alive (of course she's alive, it's Zuko who's dead), and should she clap? People clap after plays, but no one else was clapping so she wouldn't either. People started trailing out of the arena, and she did not run. She laughed all the way back to her room.
Azula locked herself in her bathroom, stuffed blankets into the cracks of the door to muffle the sounds, and then retched until her throat burned. Then she went over to the mirror and practiced smiling.
She kept one hand pressed to her ribs, ready to teach herself in case her smile slipped.
Zuko wasn't actually dead, of course. Her brother, even weak as he was, was too stubborn for the spirits to take. She stared at him through the infirmary door. She was facing his left side and could see nothing but the bandages. White, like a funeral shroud. But he wasn't dead. Obviously he wasn't dead.
She wanted to get closer, see the parts of him that still looked alive. She scoffed at the impulse and turned on her heel, never setting foot into the room.
When she went to look at him the next day, the bed was empty. She would never see her brother again.
(He wasn't dead. This wasn't like Lu Ten. Azula was not to mourn him.)
She should have burned Zuko when he was unconscious. Then he would have had something to remember her by, a real lesson to cling to instead of Father's affection and the Avatar. Both mythical.
(If she had burned him, her hands wouldn't be shaking like this.)
Father finished telling her of Zuko's banishment. He gestured, signifying that she was allowed to speak. A subdued response would be a weakness and too much enthusiasm could be a threat.
Instead of risking her voice, Azula smiled till she could feel the corners of her mouth rip.
When Azula was twelve, her favorite servant, Daitan, was arrested.
Azula didn't exactly care for Daitan. She couldn't care for anyone, like she'd heard her mother whisper. But Daitan had been her favorite, in the abstract way that blue was her favorite color and that food stolen off of Zuko's plate had tasted better than her own. She didn't nag Azula like Lo and Li, and she brought food to Azula's room when she trained through meals. Once when Azula was four and she was hiding (though she couldn't remember what from), Daitan found her but did not tell her parents where she was. Azula's doesn't remember why that was a good thing, but it left her with a lingering fondness, like one would have for a pet.
It enraged her to find out that the reason her favorite servant disappeared was because she had preferred Zuko. Had insisted on calling him "crown prince" even though Azula now had his spot on the line of succession.
She had burned with anger, grinning as she lashed out at her guards, until she heard rumors that her former-favorite-traitor-servant had broken out of prison. No, she didn't break out. Someone else broke her out.
Zuko's name was whispered constantly, now that Azula was listening, after being an unmentioned ghost for months .
Childish jealousy gave way to a hungry curiosity. Her father did not tell her what was happening, and Azula dared not ask him. But it was obvious that there had to be something.
Azula stopped smiling and started to pay attention.