Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sun crests over the horizon, in the distance. Soft reds and yellows paint the sky and city. Halfway across the sky, the moon is preparing itself to set—tonight was not a full moon, but it was a close thing.

Azula closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath through unpainted lips. It's summer—three weeks from the solstice, and dawn grows earlier every day.

It's five after six, but Azula has been awake for an hour, already. The moon—Azula takes another breath—it is not so easily ignored, this close to being full.

Azula is—sensitive—to these things, and it is not easy for her to sleep, this close to the solstice, this close to the full moon. There is power there, although the modern world has all but forgotten it.

Azula closes her eyes, and in the dawn sunlight that streams through her opened windows, the bags under her eyes are cast into sharp relief. Azula is a modern woman—a modern firebender—and so the power that she has, she often, in moments of weakness, wishes she could ignore.

Behind Azula, her lover sleeps peacefully, her surprisingly small form curled up in layers of blankets to compensate for the loss of Azula's warmth. She did not notice Azula's departure—and will not, for many hours more, unless Azula goes out of her way to make it known to her.

She sleeps—like the dead.

The dawn doesn't affect her, nor does the moon or the tides or any of the various things other benders are affected by.

It comforts Azula, grounds her in a way that she wishes she did not need grounding—frees her in a way that she wishes she did not need freeing.

Azula opens her eyes once more, golden irises boring out into the cold silence of the early morning. She shifts, the soft material of her shirt scraping near soundlessly across not-quite-smooth skin.

There is movement in the corner of her eye, and when she focuses on it, she realizes that it is her own hand, reaching up to itch at—

Well, things that should not itch, any longer, but do regardless.

She closes her eyes against the memory as she skates cropped fingernails against rough skin, and turns away. She opens her eyes stares down at the deathly still form of her lover, and a sigh gusts out from between her lips.

She is so tired.

So very, very tired.

Every year, every month, like clockwork.

Always the same.

She would be frustrated—angry—were she not so bone-achingly tired.

She wishes she could sleep. Like her lover does, like her lover is doing.

A siren sounds in the distance, and her lover does not so much as twitch, the even rhythm of her breathing never wavering.

With one final sigh—one final controlled exhalation of breath—Azula turns back to the windows and snaps their blinds closed, plunging the room into pitch darkness.

In it, Azula is more than capable of waddling around the bed to her own side, and entering the bed without disturbing the silent sleeping woman before her. She does not do so.

She instead crawls over her lover, bumping her in a way she is capable of not doing, but does anyways, before tucking herself under the covers, once more.

Her lover stirs, moving for the first time in hours, and grumbles out incoherent sleep babble as she rolls over and locks Azula in an iron grip.

“You okay?" makes itself known somewhere within the incoherent grumbling, and Azula curls her arms around Toph in return.

“No," Azula tells her, raising a hand and dropping the room’s temperature half a dozen degrees with a gesture. “But go back to sleep.”

Toph softly headbutts Azula's chest, and grumbles some more.

Azula slowly relaxes into Toph's grip, laying her head down and listening to Toph attempt to produce words she isn't awake enough to manage yet.

“Mmkay," she finally sounds from somewhere near Azula's chest before falling silent once more.

Three minutes later, and she is an unmoving lump, once more.

Azula smiles faintly at the black hair before her that she can't actually see, and closes her eyes.

She doesn't quite fall asleep again, but she manages something close, and—

She doesn't do it alone.

And, well, that's something.

(That's something important.)

Chapter Text

Toph sometimes wonders what it would be like to see. To open her eyes and see what color blue must be, see what a cloud looks like, see what other people actually look like.

To be able to trust herself, even when the ground is freezing cold or her pro bending coach books her a carpeted room by accident. To be able to see—really see—what it is about that scar on Azula's back she's so ashamed of. (To be able to tell her, be able to convince her, that it isn't, at all. Maybe if she could see what Azula sees, she could do that.)

It's a piece of the world that she is forever apart from. A piece of the world that no amount of pretending or social accommodations will ever truly make hers.

She knows her eyes are green—milky green, they tell her, and then they tell her why the word milky means white-ish, like it was spilled in milk. She knows her hair is black, her skin pale but not really Fire Nation pale, and that… well, that she's pretty. Kind of. In an earthbender kind of way.

She's never gotten complaints, anyway, but she's also never tried. She understands makeup exists—lipstick and—other kinds of makeup, even if she doesn't remember what they're called or which of them are supposed to do what. (When she first started dating Azula, she tried to learn which of Azula many, many makeup whatevers did what, and she succeeded... for a little while. But Azula didn't care, and neither did Toph, not really, so she's forgotten them all over again.). But she's never used them (it?—she's never sure), because—well, because it's really all the same to her.

And, more than anything, Toph wouldn't notice the difference—if she did it right, or if she did it okay, or if she did it horribly, horribly wrong. The same with fashion, although at least Azula doesn't really care about that, and really, all of those… sighted things, everyone else takes for granted: wallpapers on her phone, the color of her apartment walls—how attractive or not-attractive this or that celebrity is.

Maybe other blind people aren't like her, maybe they trust their sighted friends (or their parents—what a terrible thought), but Toph doesn't. (Toph doesn't know—she's blind, but she's not really, sometimes, and she's never really felt—well, she's never really felt like she's a member of whatever secret society other blind people are a part of—she doesn't know their secret handshakes, or their secret codes.)

Toph thinks it might be because she doesn't trust people, and that maybe that's her parents fault, because—because they were never really all that trustworthy. (They're still not, and Toph doesn't make friends, not like she probably should—her world's too small, way smaller than it should be, smaller than it's really healthy to be.) But she does trust one person, and maybe for that one person, she could… try. Maybe. If she wanted to.

But she doesn't. Toph likes who she is. And—well, like she says—she's never gotten any complaints. (It all sounds like such a hassle, anyways. Azula spends an ungodly amount of time every single morning, doing… whatever it is that people do with three drawers worth of makeup.)

Toph wasn't born blind. No—she was born two months premature. (Lucky to be alive, or so they tell her.) She became blind later. (Every once in a while, someone will claim they can tell—that there's something stretched out about her—something that makes it obvious that she spent those two months lying in a super, premature-baby-saving crib, and not curled up in a womb.)

She was born on the Spring Equinox. It's a coincidence so unbelievable that if it had happened a couple centuries earlier, or to parents that were not—so well, spiritually disinclined—it would be suspicious. But, it didn't, and they were, so it remains an incredibly unbelievable coincidence. (Something something premature something something blindness—for a condition that took away her vision and undoubtedly changed her life, Toph has never actually bothered to remember what it was actually called.)

So when she wonders about what it would be like to be sighted, she mostly imagines that she would have been born on time, sometime in June. (June 6th, if you want be specific. Toph may only think about this occasionally, but she has thought about it a lot.) And she imagines that she would have grown up, a perfectly ordinary baby, that didn't go blind sometime between her first and second birthdays. (No one's really sure—the Beifong manor is built entirely of stone, and no one noticed until they put her in a vehicle, five days before her second birthday, and she screamed like someone ripped one of her toenails off.)

And then, she imagines, she would have become a perfectly ordinary toddler, then a perfectly socially acceptable child. She's told she was cute enough as a child, and (although no one has ever said it to her face) her parents would have surely paraded her around, had she only been—more... fully functional.

From there, Toph's imagination always—stutters.

Because people always tell her that she can see because she's such a (prodigious, brilliant) earthbender, but Toph's not convinced. Every single moment of every waking day, Toph earthbends. If she wants to walk across the room, she listens to the earth, and it tells her if there's anything to trip over. If she wants to pick something up off the counter, she listens to the earth, and it tells her wear to look.

Toph earthbends like she breathes, and everyone tells her it's because she's just a natural, but Toph thinks it's more because she needs to earthbend to breathe. (Figuratively speaking, of course. Toph is fairly confident that she could she breathe without earthbending. She's just unconvinced she'd want to.)

So, when Toph is wondering, and reaches this point in her imaginings, the perfect Toph in her head, who has good, doting parents that love her and are proud of her, cannot earthbend. (Not like Toph can—not like she’s the best earthbender in her generation.). And even if she could, she doesn't. Because it's not the done thing.

This is the 21st century, and people don't bend. It's uncivilized. And the perfect Toph in Toph's mind is, most assuredly, very civilized.

And Toph—well Toph's not sure she wants that. Toph's an earthbender. She loves it, loves the feel of earth between her toes, loves feeling it shift and move at her will—loves the way it always (always) welcomes her, listens to her, cares about her.

Azula doesn't like her firebending. Not that she'd ever say it, but when the full moon's drag on, and the summer solstice draws near, you can feel it, in the way she groans and stumbles. She wishes she never had it, that she wasn't so naturally brilliant at it.

Azula never wears anything but one god damn outfit, no matter that it's ten below or ninety. She does it with her back straight, like she's proving something to the world, not flinching as people flinch away from her. (As much as earthbending may not be the done thing, firebending is oh so very much worse.) Because Azula has to be proud of everything that is Azula, even if she hates it, and wishes it weren't so.

If Azula didn't have firebending, she'd still be the same, mostly. (She'd be dead, but excluding that little detail—) But Toph—Toph's not like that.

Earthbending is important to her. Earthbending might just be the most important thing in her life.

So when Toph imagines what it would be like to see, she also has to imagine what it would be like to be blind. Blind like she isn't now—like she couldn't see through her fingertips and her toes (and even, on one memorable occasion, through her ass). Like couldn't put her hand in Azula's chest, and feel her from the inside out.

And that—

That Toph doesn't think she could handle.

She can handle being blind—not really knowing what color the sky is, not being able to read, having trouble waking down the street, sometimes, when it's icy and ten below freezing. (Not being able to convince Azula that she really can see the scar on Azula’s back ,and that she doesn’t care, and man, fuck everyone who would.) All the little things—not being able to drive, needing special accommodations, having to deal with stupid people and their stupid, stupid little questions. (Maybe those are the big things, she's not really sure.)

But she doesn't think she could handle not being able to put her feet on the ground (her hands, her back, her anything) and feel the entire earth, solid beneath her feet.

She might be blind, but she's a part of something—something bigger and older and no, not very civilized—but she's part of something, and that's important.

Toph sighs through her nose, sits back on her bed. Her feet are on the ground, and if you're clever enough about it, you can wind your way from the bottoms of her feet all the way to concrete foundation of her apartment building. (It's one of the many reasons Toph lives here, even though it's generally awful and the landlord lets random people into her apartment with even a pathetic, half-formed excuse.)

Behind her, Azula is dead asleep (or the closest Azula ever gets to it—she's still restless, squirming and shifting every couple of minutes, like Toph's been told she does not ever done). It's a new moon tonight, and to Azula that matters, and tonight she couldn't even make it an hour past sunset. (Toph keeps track of the moon, now, even though she can walk beneath it, and not tell if its full or new.)

It's winter, so Azula will sleep—long and deep. She likes winter, Toph knows. More than summer, and generally more than spring and fall. You'd think less sun would bother her, but apparently the being able to sleep so long and so well more than makes up for it. (Azula doesn’t much care for her bending, after all.)

It's a sticking point between them—Toph hates winter, despises it with burning fury of a thousand suns, and she loves summer. One day, she used to dream of moving somewhere nice and hot, where the winters were short and not-very-cold. Then she met Azula, and she still likes summers, but—

Well, they compromise in spring and fall. Maybe one day, they'll move… well, somewhere off these islands—somewhere further south where the winters aren't as bad, the summer days nowhere near as long. (And maybe, the winter days, not so short— Toph misses Azula, on these ridiculously long winter nights around the new moon. They don't always have time, during the day, so Toph wishes they had more time at night.)

And they will move together. Toph refuses to even consider that they will move apart. They haven't explicitly made those kinds of plans—that kind of scale of plan together, but there's a ring buried in the kitchen counter that Toph made with her own two hands that she's not ready to give just yet, but she does want to give someday.

The clock to Toph's right declares the time to be 9:02, and, after picking up her phone and getting it to whisper her the time, Toph feels something approaching tired, but not quite.

So Toph leans back, on the mattress they rebought because as sweet as Azula's rock-bed was, their apartment can't have a bed only one of them can use by themselves (it's still here, and Toph still loves it, but it's not in their bedroom), and places an arm heavily over Azula's slowly shifting form.

Azula stirs, because even in a new moon on the winter solstice, she's still a light sleeper, and Toph leans down to press a light kiss to Azula's lips. If it were a full moon, Azula would be awake and returning her kiss in an instant, but it's not, so she only leans sleepily into it with a grumble that is much cuter than Azula will ever admit.

There's an unspoken agreement between them, that during the winter it's okay for Toph to do this, to poke at a deeply sleeping Azula because she's lonely and Azula won't remember it anyways (and she'll get more than enough sleep, no matter what), and that during the summer it's okay for Azula to do the same because—well, because she's tired and lonely and Toph really won't remember it anyways. They could probably do it other times, too, Toph poking Azula awake in the summer, and Azula poking Toph awake in the winter, but… well, they don't.

They don't need to.

Azula smiles as Toph pulls away, one of her arms lazily coming around to make a vague effort at reaching Toph's side. Toph scooches herself under the covers, and gives Azula's arm that last little bit of help it needs, and Azula curls up against her, a (near) literal furnace against the cold winter air, her unnaturally hot breath brushing against Toph's face with every exhalation.

Toph smiles, and breathes that faint scent of wood smoke, and brimstone. It was something to get used to, once upon a time—the smell on a firebender’s breath that they never goes way, no matter how much they brush their teeth or how little they blow fire out their mouths, but Toph's come to appreciate it.

It reminds her of times like these, with Azula curled up against her, limp and relaxed and trusting, in a way Toph knows it is sometimes hard for her to be.

There's more to their relationship than this, more than the faint smell of fire and an almost too-warm embrace, but this is an important part. An iconic part, one that fills her four senses and that she can call up, when she needs to be reminded that this is really happening, that this is really her life.

Azula, warm and smelling strongly enough of fire Toph can taste the smoke on her tongue, letting out soft whispering breaths. Toph won't be able to sleep like this, too much stimulation for even her, but she'll take a moment to enjoy it before rolling away and pushing her back against Azula's front.

In the morning, Azula will undoubtedly complain about black hair in her mouth and spend a good five minutes complaining about getting it out before Toph can maybe convince her to do something that's a bit more likely to get black hair stuck in her teeth.

Tomorrow's Saturday, after all. And it's winter, and a rested Azula is a—well—appreciative Azula.

Toph smiles and rolls over, nestling close enough to Azula to give her something to complain about, and closes her eyes.

(Tomorrow will be a good day.)

Chapter Text

Azula wakes to the full moon, bright against the weak blinds of her dorm room. It streams across the floor through the cracks in the blinds, lighting the small room with an eerie light.

Across the room from her, Azula’s roommate (Qiu, was it? something like that) lies undisturbed, her soft snores sounding in the silence. Azula briefly entertains the idea of waking her, just to be petty (and she does so enjoy being petty), but she does not.

She instead pushes the blankets off of herself, and takes to her feet. She digs her hands into tangled, too-long black hair, and makes a weak effort to tame it.

It doesn’t work.

But, then again, she doesn’t try very hard.

Azula crosses the room, and scoops a black hoodie from the back of her chair, and shrugs it on over her altogether too-sheer sleeping shirt. For a moment, she considers not putting on pants at all, walking through the night like she is now.

Nobody would notice, she’s fairly certain. The hoodie is more than large enough, and she certainly doesn’t need to worry about catching a cold.

But she pulls on a pair of sweatpants anyways, swiping her keys up with a motion that makes just a bit more noise than was strictly necessary, and then shoulders her way out the door. (Her roommate doesn’t stir, and Azula finds herself disappointed that her petty little revenge failed so miserably.)

She blinks against the bright lights of the hallway, and silently promises herself to rent an apartment instead of sleeping in these God-awful dorms for one more year.

She makes her way idly down the stairs, and tries not to rub at her eyes or stumble over her own feet.

She’s tired, and, without her contacts (Azula doesn’t own glasses), she’s an awful lot blinder than she’d really prefer.

She reaches the bottom of the stairs, looks down at her bare feet, and then silently curses before turning, and trudging her way back up them.

She’s back in just under five minutes, now with her bare feet jammed into unflattering socks which are in turn jammed into tattered, unflattering sneakers. She must look quite the sight, but she can’t bring herself to care. She’s wearing her contacts now though, and she blinks briefly at the lights above her, plucking at an eyelid, before proceeding out the door.

The campus is remarkably quiet, for a wednesday night (for a full moon), and Azula silently whispers thanks for small favors.

There are still a couple dark figures, scurrying through the night, but none of them try to make any trouble with her, so she doesn’t make any trouble with them.

Five minutes later, Azula finds herself at the fountain near the middle of campus, and finds that she is not the first to arrive. Before her is a woman, with dark skin and light brown hair that makes her presence here remarkably unsurprising, even setting aside the soft ripples that are just not-quite-right in the fountain before her.

Azula considers turning away, and returning to her dorm, but steps forward instead.

The woman hears the sound, and turns.

Her gaze widens in surprise briefly before she smiles a polite smile, and gestures beside her.

Once again, Azula considers leaving, but does not. She pulls the hoodie closer around her to ward against the cold she does not feel, and shuffles forward to stand beside the woman (girl, maybe? Azula’s never sure when that distinction is supposed to be).

When they are side by side, the woman side-eyes her, then asks the obvious question—

“Are you a waterbender?”

Azula’s response is out of her mouth before she can stop it—

"Do I look like a waterbender?"

(It’s harsh, snapping out loud in the night, and Azula isn’t particularly sorry.)

With a gesture, she lights a blue flame in the palm of her hand, and then stares Katara down, daring her to—

Well, do something.

Instead, Katara flinches. "I'm sorry," she says. "My mother—" Her voice catches, and she swallows, "she was killed by a firebender."

Azula pauses, then looks away, eyes focusing on the fountain before them. Then she twists her wrists, and the night is dark, once more.

"So was my father," she finally responds.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be,” a sharp breath of remembered pain, and remembered fire. "He deserved it."

Katara glances sharply to where the firebender stands, no more than three feet to her left. Azula's golden eyes are hidden in shadows, but her expression is tight, expressing more than Azula would probably like it to.

"My mother didn't," Katara finally responds. The hoodie Azula has carelessly shrugged on does not quite cover the rough, mottled skin that shines on the back of her neck in the moonlight. Katara stares at it for a moment before turning away.

"That's good," Azula says. She cracks her neck, and pulls the hoodie tighter around her, hiding the skin, once more.

For a long moment, they are both silent.

It's Katara who breaks it. "So you're a firebender, huh?" The moment after the words leave her lips, she cringes, and cool golden eyes slide over to her, then back to the reflection of the full moon in the fountain before them.

"Yes."

She turns, and Katara thinks, for a moment, she will leave, but she doesn’t. She takes a seat at a stone bench beside the fountain, and, after a moment, Katara joins her.

Katara's eyes dart from Azula to the fountain and back, but Azula doesn’t look at her. In her lap, her hands itch to take the fountain's water for her own, to take the power the full moon is pouring into her. She resists.

"I didn't know firebenders felt the pull of the full moon."

"Most don't."

Azula's voice is low and gravelly and irritated in a way Katara doesn't quite understand. Her hands continue to twitch, and Azula gestures in irritation at the fountain before them.

"Please," she says, "feel free. Do not hold back on my account."

Her eyes are cold, and her voice is not particularly welcoming, but Katara finds that she doesn't care. With a long, controlled, exhale, she extends her hands to the fountain before her, and curls her fingers.

Azula's gaze follows the water as it arches through the air, and into Katara's lap. It wreathes itself around Katara's hands as she twists and curls it with small, unconscious motions in her lap.

Katara lets out gusty sigh, Azula raises her gaze to Katara's face. Their eyes meet, and Azula's breath catches in her throat. Katara is smiling widely and brightly, utterly radiant in the moonlight.

Her blue gaze wanders from the moon to Azula and back, and Azula doesn't look away.

"So what's it like," she asks, "being a firebender?"

Azula blinks, and then looks back at the fountain. She takes a breath, and blows a plume of smoke into the air above her.

"It—" she pauses, and then shrugs. "I don't know."

She holds out a hand, and sparks dance on her fingers. She brings the hand back, and, with a twist of her wrist, lightning cracks between her open hands.

Katara jerks and gasps as she blinks away the sear of white burned into her retinas. Her hands fumble the water in her lap, but she doesn’t quite drop it.

"It's convenient, I suppose. I don't need jackets, but I can wear them even when it's blisteringly hot." She glances at Katara. "One day, I imagine it will save me quite the pretty penny on utility bills."

It’s kind of a joke, but she doesn’t smile as she says it.

Katara smiles anyway. "I guess its kind of a silly question." She twists her hands just so, and the water around her hands crystallizes into a sharp crag of ice. "I can't imagine being anything but a waterbender."

She continues to twist and tug at the ice in her hands, and it flows like ice shouldn't, melting and snapping and melting and snapping into shapes beyond number.

Azula watches it for a time, and then responds—

"I can.” She doesn't take her eyes off of the water-ice in Katara's hands, pretending, for a moment, to be mesmerized by the light it reflects from the moon. "I still remember."

She looks up, and Katara's stark blue gaze is boring into her. She looks back down at Katara's hands, and calls fire into her own. She doesn't itch, not like Katara obviously does, and twisting and pulling at the fire as it wanders up her sleeves without burning them will never be unconscious like it is for Katara, but she does it anyways.

She does it a little more, and finds that she doesn't hate it.

"It wasn't that different, not really," Azula continues, threading blue flames through pale fingers. "I slept a little better during the summer, slept a little worse during the winter. Owned jackets, checked the weather—got sick, and didn't light things on fire. But it wasn't really different.” She stops. Takes a breath. “Not in any of the ways that matter. It's a new world, a civilized world, and we're all equal—or we're supposed to be." Her gaze flicks momentarily up to the moon in the sky, and she remembers a time when she didn't feel the phase of the moon like her own heartbeat.

She looks back at Katara, and finds Katara staring back at her. She has that look—the same look Toph gave her, when Azula told her the same thing.

"I've never seen a firebender bend blue fire before," Katara finally says, changing the subject, recognizing their irreconcilable difference of opinion for what it is.

"It's rare." One last twist, and Azula let's her flames die, ignores the twinge as part of her dies with it. "Not a particularly good thing, either. Not a great history of blue flame firebenders."

Katara's eyebrows inch upwards, and Azula answers her unspoken question:

"Azulon," she says, and Katara flinches. "Some others, too, but really—it's mostly just Azulon." Azula takes a breath, and allows smoke to leak out from between her lips.

Katara tries for a smile, and Azula cuts a glance back at her.

"My father was kind enough to name me after him." She smiles as Katara blanches. "He always took it as something of a personal insult that I couldn’t bend Azulon’s flames."

Katara blinks. Opens her mouth. Closes it.

Looks down at where Azula’s blue flames had been.

“I couldn’t, at the time,” Azula informs her dryly. “I assure you, he very much thought his stupid little prophecy did not come true until the day he died.”

Katara looks at her for another long second, then looks down at the water neither of them noticed she'd let drop into her lap.

"My name's Katara," she finally responds. "Katara Wen."

With a gesture, she pulls the water from her pants with a mildly uncomfortable shiver as the water unsticks itself from her skin.

"It's nice to meet you, Katara," Azula responds formally without even thinking, a certain amount of manners drilled into her too deep to allow her to do otherwise. “My name is Azula Ishimoto.”

"Yeah," Katara agrees, squeezing the water a little harder than she was before, before shaking herself and offering Azula a smile. It's just as radiant as the one she showed when she drew the water to her, what couldn't be more than five minutes ago. Azula draws a sharp breath, and lets it out, once more.

"It's nice to meet you, too, Azula."

They look at each other like that for a long minute, before finally, Azula rises to her feet. Katara looks up at her, and Azula looks back.

"Have a nice night, Katara."

"You're going back to the dorms?"

"The moon just wants to be noticed," Azula responds, gesturing up at it with a sparking hand. "Acknowledged." With a gusty sigh, Azula blows a plume of smoke in its general direction. "I've done so. I'll be able to sleep."

She turns back to Katara, and Katara stares back at her.

"That's not the way it works for me," she says. "I haven't slept on the night of the full moon for..." she looks down and away, before returning her gaze Azula, "oh, five years."

Azula looks at her, and then nods.

"I'm sorry."

Katara shakes her head. "I don't even feel it—no fatigue, no—" she smiles, gives Azula what is probably a knowing look. You know, it says.

But Azula doesn't.

"It's not like that for me." Maybe it should be—maybe her fire is punishing her for ignoring its call, for so long. But it doesn’t matter—the night's already starting to drag on her, regardless. It's been a long couple of nights since the waxing gibbous moon started demanding her attention. It will be a long couple of nights, yet. She gives Katara one last plastic smile, and turns away.

She's taken three steps before Katara calls out from behind her.

"Oh," she says. "I just realized—"

Azula stops, turns around.

Katara is standing, now, the moonlight illuminating her the way it doesn't quite illuminate anyone else.

Azula takes a breath. Lets it out.

"You're Azula. Sparky." Azula's eyebrows jerk, and she is almost dragged from her fatigue. "Toph's friend."

Azula can't help but let out a coughing bark of a laugh. She only embarrasses herself with two snorts before she reins herself in again.

"Toph's been exaggerating our relationship."

"I should have known—she talks about your bending, how she's never felt fire like it, but of course she can't tell it's blue."

Azula's hoodie has slipped down over her shoulders once more, and she tightens her grip on it unconsciously, slipping it back up her neck without a thought.

"Yes, blindness is one of Toph's more endearing features."

Katara gives her a look that implies she doesn't quite know what to make of that response. "There's also the matter of my name."

Katara lets out a light laugh, her white teeth shining in her moonlight, and Azula briefly closes her eyes, to re-center herself.

"Yeah," Katara agrees as Azula opens her eyes once more. "You just made it sound so much more dramatic than when Toph says it."

Smoke leaks from Azula's lips with a light chuckle.

"Toph can make anything sound like a joke,” she say with remarkably little humor in her tone.

Katara gives a little half-shrug. "I guess." She meets Azula's eyes for a moment, then looks away. "Well, I guess I should let you get some sleep. You need it, apparently." She tries for a light laugh, but doesn't quite succeed.

It's spring, though. Azula’s only had two summers, so far. She's not looking forward to a third. It’s not much of a joke to her.

"Good night, Katara," Azula finally says.

"Good night, Azula."

Katara lifts a water-wreathed hand, and Azula turns away, walking back into the night.

It's not really the start of a beautiful friendship. But it's background to another (to two others), and neither of them forget or regret it.

Chapter Text

The bell rings, and the arena falls into something approaching silence. Azula, Toph, and Due fall together, leaning onto each other a bit more than they’d like to admit. The territory lines are reset, and they split once more.

Across from them, their three opponents spread across their forwardmost territory—earth and fire on the left and right (respectively), air in the back. A standard opener, but no less effective for its frequent usage. Azula and Toph take mirroring positions on the right and left (respectively), and Due comes to stand behind them.

It is their third match in as many days—a schedule that would be illegal in the pros, but in college it’s nothing more than bad luck. Regardless of its reason, it shows. The fact it is May 30th, and only one day into a waning gibbous helps matters not at all.

Azula leans heavily against her knees, and stares at her opponents through a smudged faceplate. The top knot tied in her hair and the crude headpiece embedded in it are heavier than ever, and the crowd all around them (today is a home game) is deafening.

To her left, Toph’s position is much the same, and behind them, Due stands both straighter and not, his stance wide, his back bent. His blue eyes are sharp in the way they only are under the bright lights of an arena, his lips curled up in a smile that declares him very much in good company among the Fire Princess and the Blind Bandit.

Azula takes a deep breath, and lets it out. Smoke still curls at her breath, and sparks itch at her hands. She smiles. Her two teammates smile with her.

Today is not the day they lose.

The bell rings once more, and the arena explodes into action. The earthbender before Azula (Jun, although Azula is almost entirely certain she does not care) pounds a disk at Azula, and receives a lazy fireblast in return. Across the stage, Toph has deflected a fireblast with a twitch of her hand, and sent the disc she used to block it straight back at her opponent’s face.

Both of their opponents are forced to take staggering steps back, and Azula and Toph take steps forward—bringing them to the edge of their territory, forcing their opponents back to the opposite edge of theirs.

The Rainbow Brigade (and Azula still can’t believe she allows herself to be a member of a team that names itself such) may be tired, and this may be their third match in as many days—

But, looking in her opponent’s eyes, Azula knows that her opponents are far more weary than she.

A glance at Toph (a risk, and she dances back from an airblast hard enough to knock her back into the next territory), and she sees that she is not alone.

Their opponent’s firebender (Yong) begins to move, and Toph counters him in a single motion—sending him staggering back, and finally falling into the next territory. Azula drives one, two, three (four, five, six, actually, but who’s counting?) into Jun’s chest, and all three of their opponent’s have fallen back.

There is a sharp ding, and the Rainbow Brigade move forward as one.

Due’s arm’s snap against the air fast enough to whistle, and the airbender (Mabel) is forced to take to the air, casually leaping over Jun (the earthbender)’s head, landing her directly in front of Azula. Azula smiles, and three discs force Mabel to dance backwards as Azula pounds into their firebender from halfway across the arena.

Jun moves to take advantage and finds herself with a face-full of water for her troubles. Azula jabs out a kick of fire in the direction she feels a light breeze, and smiles as Jun is forced to fall into defense as Mabel staggers further back.

The crowd in the benches all around them takes to their feet, and Azula smiles when she plucks her name out of the crowd.

Meanwhile, Jun adjusts herself to Azula’s attacks while Mabel crosses the field away from them, and Azula falls back, switching places with Due. Toph continues to handle herself easily, moving steadily forward while forcing her opponent steadily back.

Her toes touch the next line of territory, and she shatters one of Jun’s discs with a flick of her wrist.

Before her, Yong and Mabel have focused their full attention on her, jumping and dancing and doing their best to keep themselves off of the floor. To Azula’s right, Jun catches a sharp blast of water to a kidney, and goes down.

For one instant, no one is looking at Azula.

So when Mabel falls to the left as Yong falls to the right in the wake of a single disc shot between them at exactly the right time, Azula takes a breath, and snaps out a fist.

She aims for Mabel’s abdomen—Mabel only has seven feet to the edge of the court, and with a little effort, one fireblast could easily send her tumbling back over it.

But then Mabel’s foot catches just wrong on one of the shards of disc Toph’s fists have shattered across their opponent’s territory, and her face falls before Azula’s flames instead.

Azula sees it coming an instant before it happens, and stretches her fingers out to her flames, working against her own momentum to make it that last inch—and the flames fall from a blazing blue to an orange an instant before they crash into Mabel’s faceplate.

For an instant, the arena is deafeningly silent, a sound only broken when Azula’s own knee hits the ground—the price for reaching out for something she couldn’t quite reach.

Jun and Yong turn, as if in slow motion, and Toph’s blind eyes widen as she works out that something has happened that she hasn’t been able to see. In the next instant, Azula is over their territory line—halfway to Mabel before Mabel’s helmet hits the ground. A moment later, Azula’s own helmet crashes into the arena floor once before falling off the ring. She blinks, having no memory of stripping it from her face, but then she is before Mabel, pulling sharply against the burning heat wrapped around Mabel’s face.

It comes away with a scream, but Mabel has already taken a breath, her eyes wide against what could only be the agonizing pain of her lungs, literally burning her from the inside out. Another pull, and Azula forcibly pulls the super-heated air from Mabel’s chest, using her other hand to tear the faintly glowing headgear off of Mabel’s head and tossing it somewhere she doesn’t bother to look.

Mabel falls heavily to her back, her hands reaching for her throat as her chest works to suck air into lungs that can’t process it anymore. There is a presence at Azula’s side, and then Due is kneeling beside her, the sharpness in his blue eyes not yet gone and his expression uncharacteristically grim.

Wreathed around one hand is air so humid the light shimmers faintly as the light passes through it, and he holds it out to Azula. With a gesture, she pulls any lingering heat from it, and it begins to frost.

He pushes at her side, and she yields the position, catching Mabel’s right hand before it scratches at her throat, once more as he looms darkly over her.

“Breathe,” he commands, and she does so with such vigor Azula finds herself breathing with her. When Mabel breathes, Due’s hand is suddenly there, and the shimmering humidity around Due’s hand vanishes into her lungs.

She chokes wetly, but doesn’t cough it back out as he places his hands heavily on her chest.

“Don’t breathe,” he continues, as light begins to filter eerily through her gaping mouth.

Then her chest and diaphragm starts to heave, and Azula lifts her remaining hand, swallows heavily, and clamps it down over Mabel’s nose and mouth. Mabel seizes against them, her left hand now caught in two of Jun’s.

Azula meets her eyes across Mabel’s rapidly weakening form, and they stare dully at each other, and their gaze only breaks when Due pulls his hands away from Mabel’s chest as EMT’s close around them.

Azula jerks, releasing Mabel, taking to her feet, and stumbling backward in one long, awkward instant. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Due extend a hand to Mabel as she chokes in air, color slowly returning to her, and the humidity curls briefly towards him before dispersing in the air once more.

In the time Azula has to blink, five EMT’s are surrounding Mabel, and Azula has fallen back onto a solid form that has materialized behind her. Azula snaps her head to her left, and finds herself staring into Toph’s blind gaze. She does not know if she is surprised or not that it is pointed at her, and not at Mabel.

There is a noise from before them, and Azula snaps her head back forward to see Jun and Yong pulling against two of the larger EMT’s, their hands reaching towards Mabel. From there, Azula’s eyes drift up, and fall upon the silent figures in the crowd all around them.

In the corner of her eye, Azula can see the warped form of the crown she wore, halfway across the arena. One of its points is driven between the slats in one of the water troughs, and it reflects the light of the arena lights just wrong, glaring brightly into her eyes even from twenty feet away.

The crowd continues to be silent, and Azula continues to stare up at them, her back solidly braced against the solidity of Toph behind her. Due comes up beside them as the EMT’s leverage Mabel off the stage in a stretcher, followed closely by Yong and Jun.

Azula’s hair is wild around her shoulders, her topknot still half held in place by sweat and tangles. Murmurs slowly begin to spread through the crowd, and Azula finally looks away, turning her gaze fully to the almost-crown half an arena away before turning back to Toph.

When she raises her hand, she finds that it’s shaking, and she tries not to think of all the reasons they call her a Fire Princess (all the things being a Fire Princess used to mean)—she tries not to think of all the people who were just waiting for this day to come. (Azula is something approaching famous, after all, for how well she deals with airbending opponents, when most other firebenders are consistently out maneuvered and outplayed by them.)

(For all that is terrible and awful and hated, there is power in Sozin’s forms.)

But jeers and boos from the stands never come, and in their place Azula hears her own name, whispered with something that almost sounds like respect.

“Come on,” Toph says, tugging lightly at Azula midsection and nodding towards the edge of the arena.

Azula turns briefly to Due, and finds his eyes clouded, but his expression not as blank as it pretends to be.

“I didn’t know you could do that, Due,” she finally says, finally yielding to Toph’s tugs, and making her way to the edge of the arena. If this were a professional match, she knows, they would have continued, or the other team (the Kingston club) would half suffered a technical KO.

But this is college, so they have likely ended in a tie, or perhaps even a this-never-even-happened.

“The great swamp—,” Due begins, his voice not quite holding that dreamy tone he usually masters so easily, “—gives—” he takes a breath, “and it takes away.”

Azula cuts a glance to him for the non-answer, and he smiles blankly back at her.

It doesn’t matter, though. Win, loss, draw, or non-starter—

She sighs, and Toph’s arm loosens around her waist, trusting her to keep her feet.

As they make their way out of the arena, Azula’s back burns.

Chapter Text

Azula sits, motionless, on the edge of Toph's bed. Her elbows rest on her knees, and her head rests in her hands. The air around her is warm but not hot, and her skin is not quite hot enough to burn.

Actually, well, she’s not motionless. Not really.

She’s shaking, her shoulders and her back and her hands and her everything—

They’re all shaking, like they’ve never really shaken before (even though they’re really barely shaking at all).

Toph stands before her, less than a foot from Azula's bowed head, and says nothing. Her pale green eyes are uncharacteristically soft, their corners turned down in worry. Through the floor between them, she can feel the tremors in Azula’s hands—in her shoulders and in her back and in her feet and—

(To Toph, Azula is currently little more than a smeared blur of motion.)

“Azula," she whispers, reaching out with one hand and resting it haphazardly on Azula's hair. They pat and twitch idly against it before Toph takes a deep breath slowly slides her hand through the still-tangled mess of hair at the top of her head. (Were it any other time, Azula would complain about being petted—but it isn’t, so she doesn’t.)

Azula shoulders tighten briefly before they slowly slump, relaxing but not really. (Toph can still feel the way Azula is making the floor shake.) Her knees spread further apart, elbows slipping from her knees, and Toph takes a step closer.

Azula shifts further to accommodate her, and Toph takes another step—then two more, and she is standing squarely between Azula's knees, Azula's head pressed against her chest. (Now, Azula’s tremors reverberate directly into her sternum, shaking her and turning the whole world to a gray smear.)

She lifts her arms, and folds them loosely around Azula's shoulders.

For a moment, Azula does nothing, but, after several seconds have passed, she hesitantly reaches up, and curls her arms around Toph's waist. Another couple seconds, and her arms tighten around Toph, pulling her closer, and forcing her face further and further into Toph's chest.

Toph, in turn, tightens her grip on Azula's shoulders, arms shifting up and her fingers curling into the dark hair knotted at the back of Azula's head. She leans down, and presses an awkward but heartfelt kiss to the hair directly beneath her face.

Azula's fingers curl in the loose fabric of Toph’s shirt and she begins to shake in earnest. She lets out a loose, gasping cough that could be construed as a sob, and Toph pretends not to notice the dampness of the face pressed against her chest.

The seconds turn into minutes, and Toph searches for words of comfort—searches for something she can do to help quell Azula's pain. (She finds that she can think of nothing—Toph has never been particularly good at caring and comforting.)

(It has never been a problem before.)

It's okay, she wants to say. Everything's going to be alright.

But it isn't, she knows. It won’t be—(it might not be, ever again).

(She can only hope that all of that not-alright and not-okay doesn’t also extend to them.)

So instead she just clutches Azula tighter to her chest, holds her closer—

Tries to keep her from breaking apart when her choking gasps cannot be construed as anything but the deep, wracking sobs that they are.

She just hold Azula closer and hopes that that will be enough.

(She prays to a God she doesn’t believe in that that will be enough.)

In time, Azula's sobs subside, and she slowly relinquishes her too-tight grip on the loose and now stretched material of Toph's tank top.

It happens in slow, self-conscious stages, until finally Azula raises a red, tear-stained face, and pulls away.

Toph releases her reluctantly, and even then only partially—she leaves her arms looped lightly around Azula's shoulders—her right hand still cradling the back of Azula's head. As Azula pulls away, Toph's hand slips forward, until it is curled around her right cheek, and, to her surprise, she finds Azula leaning into it.

“Toph," she whispers, voice ragged and more than a little desperate. “I—" Toph hears her stop—feels her swallow as she hesitates— “I don't think I can do this anymore."

(It is Azula: admitting she is not capable of something. It is a grand occasion, but Toph finds herself too petrified of the implications to care.)

“What?” she feels herself whispering. She opens her mouth to continue, but no words come out.

For a moment, her terror makes her blind, and she is terrified that she cannot see the face Azula is making, that she cannot gauge her intent from the tenseness of her muscles—

“What.” She repeats it because she can't not.

There is a moment if silence, so deep and so long that Toph thinks that for a moment that she is both deaf and—

“This,” Azula finally says, and a warmth makes itself known to Toph just beside her right cheek. (An open flame, she already has the experience to know.)

And just like that, Toph can see again.

“I always told myself—”Azula begins, “—I always told myself that I would do this, and I would enjoy it because if I didn't then—” another heavy swallow “—then what—what would I be.”

The heat goes out, and Toph can feel the tension in Azula’s body—pulling her taut and—

Terrified, Toph realizes.

(This is Azula, admitting weakness. Before her—one of the few people whose esteem she actually holds in high regard.)

“But I can't,” Azula continues. “I just—” her head droops, leaning heavily into Toph’s supporting hand “I just can’t—I'm so tired of pretending I don't feel it—that every time I throw fire, I don't feel it burn.”

Azula's face shifts in Toph's hand, and Toph can feel Azula's gaze upon her—awaiting her verdict. (Anticipating Toph's disappointment.)

Toph—finds herself with nothing to say. She opens her mouth, but no words emerge from between her lips. They all get caught, stuck in her throat, and—

“I love you.” And then suddenly, they're not stuck anymore. “I don't care if you can't bend at all.”

Then left with nothing else to do, Toph crushes Azula to her chest.

For a moment, Azula is as stiff as board with Toph’s arms (still as stone—but Toph has always had great success in moving stone), but then she's not. Azula’s arms wrap tightly around her, and her arms are warm (warm like they weren't before—warm like Azula's arms are always supposed to be).

Azula's doesn't say thank you, and she doesn't say I love you back, but she holds Toph as tightly as she can. Ten minutes later, they are lying in bed together, and Azula's breath is hot on her face, her entire body like a miniature furnace all around her.

And, just before Toph slips into unconsciousness, she can hear, "I love you, too.”

Chapter Text

Azula's soft footsteps echo against the overbearing silence of her study. She pauses for a long moment at the threshold, before stepping in.

Azula is twenty-one years old, and she owns a three bedroom condo in what is not quite the heart of London, but is something close to it. She did not buy it because she particularly needed the space, but rather simply to prove she could.

She looks up at the remarkably high ceiling above her, the looming bookshelves that cover them. She turns her gaze back down.

This is the second largest bedroom. The third and final bedroom is empty. She cannot even remember the last time she entered it.

Of the entire apartment, this is the only room that is not fireproof. (Books cannot so easily be made so, after all.) In every other room, she can bend freely without worrying about anything catching fire—but in this room, and this room alone, she must be careful. She must constantly keep herself in control. (There is more money bound in these books than the average Londoner will see in a lifetime.)

It is her favorite room. (The only room where she can pretend she is not twenty-one and the full heir to the Ishimoto name.)

Smoke curls from her lips as she exhales, her feet softly pad on the carpet she had to have specially installed two weeks after she moved in, three months ago. (It is quite flammable.)

She crosses the room, and sinks into the dark blue armchair placed in the center of the room. Then she frowns, gets up, looks at her hands, then seats herself once more.

She had a reason for coming into this room, she knows. She looks around herself once more.

She's forgotten it.

She extracts her phone from her pocket, glances briefly at it, then stows it once more. She glances around the room. She looks at her hands, then, and settles back, staring at the silent fireplace before her.

Whatever it is, it will return to her, she trusts, if it is really particularly gripping. (It is not, she seems to recall now—just a desire to… Walk. Clear her head. She shakes her head. What was it she was trying to clear her head of?)

With a twist of her wrist, she punches a ball of blue fire into the fireplace, and it throws the room into eerie half-light. It is the fault of the color of great flames, she knows—were they red or orange, it would have cast the room in mellow tones, warm and welcoming.

She glances at the bare shimmer of light shining through the window, and then at the light switch on the far wall. (For a moment, she wishes she were an earthbender, capable of flicking that switch with a twist of her wrist. But then that moment passes, and she turns back to the flames.)

With an aggrieved sigh, she takes to her feet, punches absently at the light switch, detouring briefly past a desk and picking up a half read book in passing before seating herself once more.

With the room now properly illuminated, Azula's pet fire looks altogether more tame, now resembling a shiny bauble rather than some demonic flame called from the depths of hell.

Azula opens the book in her lap, and stares blindly at its pages for several moments before slapping it shut, once more. Breaking Dawn, its title declares to her, and Azula barks out a laugh despite herself.

She opens the book once more, and drags her gaze down the page in something approaching interest. (The Volturi are closing in, she sees, and Bella seems to be gathering an army to stand against them. A glance at the number of pages beneath her right hand reveals she is—mercifully—remarkably close to the end.)

She is reading it because of Toph, she recalls, who confessed to liking it offhandedly, and then defended herself with the sort of vigor Azula had only ever seen her exhibit on two previous occasions when Azula openly mocked her for it.

(Hey, you haven't even read them! Don't talk shit about them until you've at least bothered to do that!)

Azula is still very much of the opinion that she really hadn't needed to read them to—as Toph would say—talk shit, but here she is—reading them anyways.

They are not quite as bad as she expected, if only because she expected them to drive her to self-injury, and she hasn’t gone about injuring herself to escape from them. (Yet. Although in all fairness, if she was going to do so, she probably would have done so… Oh, about one hundred pages back.)

They are still quite bad, however, and Azula took great joy while reading the first one, silently tallying up its many sins to expound upon Toph when they next met. However, looking in Toph's eyes when they smiled brilliantly back at her, she found herself unable to list them, driving their every last sin into Toph's fairly thick skull.

When Toph finished expounding on the many reasons she loved then as she did, she stared at Azula expectantly, broad smile across her face, waiting expectantly for Azula's response, Azula found herself at a loss for words. In stages, she watched as the hope drained from Toph's face.

Toph—she began.

No it's fine. You don't like them, you don't like them.

And it was even true—Azula didn't like them, and she couldn't imagine growing something even approaching a liking for them. But in the face of Toph's disappointment—

Have you ever met anyone who actually liked them?

Toph coughed out a snort, flicking her blind eyes in Azula's general direction.

No, she said, the hurt already gone from her face. Or, at least, not for the reasons I do. She threw her hands up in the air and waved them in what she likely thought was a good approximation of ditzy something, crying out Oh, Edward, he's so dreamy, don't you just want to—

She cut herself off then, glaring balefully at Azula through her bangs, as if Azula had been the one to say it.

And that's not why you like them, Azula remembers supplying.

Toph gave her a look that more or less screamed—Weren't you listening at all? (Azula had been, for the record) before shrugging, and looking away.

Nope. Azula remembers that she popped the p with unnecessary vigor, the sharp sound echoing harshly off of the walls of the empty room around them.

Azula blinks back at the book before her, idly rubbing the next page between her fingers. After that, they had gone on to talking about pro bending and they didn't revisit the topic again until Azula finished the second book (not my favorite, but how about those blank pages, and man, have you seen the movie—) and then the third (probably my least favorite, really, but hey, Edward's finally going to turn her, and then there's the whole sex bit, but really—) and they probably wouldn't revisit it until Azula finishes the fourth and reports her findings.

However, even if it was for only that one moment, Azula could still remember that hurt look on Toph's face as Azula geared up to tell her everything she hated about the first book, so, still, Azula kept reading.

The second book wasn't quite as enjoyable as the first, considering she no longer gloried quite as much in tallying its sins as the first.

Breaking Dawn is apparently Toph's favorite, or so Azula was informed upon informing Toph she had finished the third book. She kind of sees it, she thinks, having heard all of Toph's rather many and varied reasons for loving the four books. It reveals more of the mythos, arguably, than any book but the first, and so far lacks many of the conflicts that bothered Toph about middle books.

Azula turns Breaking Dawn in her hands once, snapping it closed once more, and looking longingly in the direction of her desk. A glance at the last page reveals she only has… one hundred, forty-seven pages left to go—easily short enough to finish before she falls asleep tonight.

On the other hand, she doesn't much care to.

Folding her hand carefully over the book, she raises her gaze to the ceiling above her. For a moment, she thinks of Toph, in a way she has come to think more and more of Toph, and she feels her mouth twist into something that is almost a smile.

Smoke curls around her painted lips, and Azula exhales with a soft laugh.

I'm curious—why don't firebenders just set the vampires on fire? Azula remembers asking Toph idly after she finished the second book. We're told no human can stand against them, but I think with the right preparation I'd trust my chances.

I'm really more curious about how they keep earthbenders from tearing them apart, Toph had answered her wryly—we're told that they're more or less living stone, and that seems like a more pressing danger to me. Toph's smile, when she said it, was—something to see.

Azula turns her gaze back to the book, and flips it open, once more, a smile still curling at the corners of her lips as she blows more smoke idly over the pages. Her eyes find where she last left off, and Azula reads—

And then another pair of unexpected friends arrived—unexpected, because neither Carlisle nor Rosalie had been able to contact the Amazons—

(Who knows—this book may drive Azula to self-injury, yet.)

Chapter Text

A large, balding man steps up to an unmarked hospital door. He is noticeably fat, his girth protruding well over his belt, but there is muscle beneath it, and despite the tired curve of his back, he exudes an aura few would have ever missed, had it been fourteenth century, rather than twenty-first.

His eyes are a deep golden beneath heavy gray brows, a color that gives his identity away as surely as a neon sign. They have a history and a reputation that he has spent his whole lifetime trying to subvert.

Standing here, before the door of his niece's hospital room, he worries that he has failed. It is a crushing sort of despair that sets upon his shoulders, now, and it holds him here, standing still instead of entering.

His name is Iroh Ishimoto. He is not a royal (although he carries in him the blood of kings), but his children are. If thirty-seven people, scattered across the United Kingdom, managed to get themselves killed before creating progeny, his eldest would be king. (His eldest would be the first firebending king the United Kingdom has ever had.)

(His eldest is the first firebending royal the United Kingdom has ever had.)

He takes a deep breath, and then opens the door.

He hasn't even closed it before his niece's hard golden gaze is upon him—her lips curled into a tired approximation of a hateful sneer—her voice already spitting venom.

“What are you doing here." She spits the word you like a curse, and Iroh find himself flinching despite himself.

Azula smiles a nasty smile at his flinch.

“I want to help you."

He reaches behind him, closing the door with a soft click, and he finally sees her—her back, neck, and upper arms covered in bandages, most of them already discolored. She's sitting up, leaning her elbows on her knees, and staring at him. (Glaring at him.)

For an instant, when she hears his words, her face contorts in honest surprise, her eyebrows raising into her forehead, and her elbows slipping from her knees.

Then she catches herself, sets her elbows solidly on her knees once again, and sneers instead. She lets out a sharp, mocking laugh, and Iroh grits his teeth, trying not to flinch (she's still little more than a child, but she scares him more than anyone he has ever known—even the man who put her in this hospital). She notices anyways, smiling a nasty little victorious smile.

“Uncle,” she says, her voice patronizing, “you hate me," she says in a rumbling purr Iroh really didn't need to know she was capable of producing. “Don't pretend you don't."

(Unfortunately, she is not wrong. He really did hate her, even as a child. They all did, apparently.)

“Good," she continues, reading the admission from his face. “Now, if you're done with your late little oh, I'm so sorry, act," Iroh looks up at her, and she venomously hisses out, “Get out."

Iroh blinks, but doesn't move, even when Azula looks at him expectantly.

“No," he finally says.

“What?"

“No."

Confusion is visible on her face for a long moment, before disdain falls away for sheer fury.

“I don't need your pity, Iroh!" She shouts at him. “Get out of my hospital room!"

Blue sparks spark from her hands as she she shouts at him, fizzling lightly on the sheets around her.

For a moment, Iroh is stunned silent—he had heard, of course, but Azula, a firebender? He can do nothing but stare.

When he doesn't respond, Azula continues her tirade, sitting up straighter, throwing her blue sparks farther.

“Congratulations, Iroh," she continues to yell at him. “I finally got what you knew was coming to me!" Smoke leaks from between her lips and her golden eyes blaze from within the deep bags around her eyes. “ Ozai did what you didn't have the—”

“I was wrong!" Iroh finds himself bellowing back at her. The smoke in the air now comes from two pairs of lips.

Azula jerks back, but Iroh doesn't stop.

“I thought you were just like him, but I was wrong. And I left you there, and I thought—” Iroh swallows. “—I thought you didn't need my help."

He takes a step forward, and Azula tries to lean back, away from him, only for her back to touch the bed and for her to flinch forward once more. Iroh stops.

“I was wrong, and now you're paying the price for my mistake."

Azula's hand has caught fire, and she is scowling at him, and scowling at it, shaking at it as it refuses to go out.

Iroh takes the last step forward, and closes his hand stood hers, quenching the flame in an instant, before releasing her once more.

“I can help you control it— I can teach you how to control your flames."

She sneers up at him. “I know Sozin's forms better than you do, Iroh. I don't need your help."

Her golden gaze bores into him, and he knows she is right.

“Please take it anyways. Humor an—”

“No."

Iroh's mouth clicks closed. Where anger and disdain and hate once dominated Azula's face, there is now nothing but fatigue, and pain.

“Get out, uncle." She looks away from him. “Take your pity, take your bullshit responsibility and take your useless help, and get out."

This time, looking at the tiredness and pain on Azula's face, Iroh does.

He stops at the doorway, one hand on the handle.

“I'm sorry, Azula."

“I don't care. Come back when being sorry ever fixed anything."

Iroh gives the room behind him one final look—his eyes sticking on Azula's stark profile, and the full length of discolored bandages all the way down Azula's back—before he opens the door, and leaves.

(He tries not to see the way the sunlight glints just so off of her cheeks before he turns back to the hallway.)

(He does not succeed.)

Iroh stands before an unmarked hospital door. It has been one year, three months, (seven days) since he was last here. He very much hoped he would never have to return.

"Come to gloat, uncle?" This time, Azula is reclined back in her bed, eyes staring blindly at the ceiling above her. Her face, this time, is not twisted with hate and disdain. This time, it's just—tired.

"No," Iroh tells her honestly, slowly making his way into the room. She has yet to look at him (she was not lying when she said she did not need his help learning firebending.)

Iroh stops beside her, and she turns her gaze to him. Her golden eyes are still clouded, and her cheeks are horribly sunken.

She looks awful. More awful than he expected—her skin waxy, and too-pale, even for an Ishimoto. (She looks far worse than she did the last time he visited her in this hospital—when she had taken the strongest firebender in the world’s fire to her back, and survived.)

How could he have let this happen—how could he have—

He blinks as she blows smoke in his face. "What do you want, Uncle?"

Her golden gaze is now focused fully upon him, but the weariness has not drained from her face.

"I want to help," he tells her.

He expects her response to be scathing, and instant. It is neither. For a long moment, there is nothing but silence between them, before—

"I don't need your help, uncle."

For a moment, Iroh's temper flares.

"Yes, you do." She blinks at him in surprise, and he takes a breath. (A calming breath, as he tries not to see how thin Azula’s wrists are, how thin Azula’s everything has become.) "You need someone's help."

Azula looks at him for a long moment.

"I have other people I can turn to," she finally responds, and he knows that it's a lie, even though he doesn't deny it. (Actually, thinking about it again—it might even be true—Azula has always drawn more people than she's ever realized—but he’s certain Azula intended it to be a lie.)

“But you care about them," Iroh says to her. “you care about what they think of you. You don't care about me."

She looks up at him, golden eyes customarily harsh and piercing, but within them there is a flicker of something—

Something that tells him he might just be wrong. (It has been fifteen months since his aborted first attempt at re-entering his niece’s life—and not all of his overtures have been so summarily rejected.)

It makes something inside of him twist, but then she blinks, looks away, looks back at him. (She does it all again, once, twice, three more times. Iroh waits because if there is one thing his fifty-three years have taught him, it is patience.) Then slowly, her face crumples in tiredness and fatigue, and she sighs.

It gusts out without smoke, and Iroh does his best not to smile.

“Fine," she finally says, not smiling.

Iroh finally does smile, and she glares at him in disgust.

It only makes him smile all the wider.

(Maybe, he thinks—)

(Maybe this time—)

(It will be different.)

Chapter Text

Azula sits alone at a small table set for two. By her right hand is an untouched cup of tea, slowly cooling in the cool autumn air, and before her is a pristine plate containing an untouched scone.

Her eyes are focused somewhere in the distance, lazily tracing the building before her, and when she breathes, her breath makes it six inches into the air before her before finally capitulating to the cold, and crystallizing into a white mist.

Wrapped lightly around her shoulders is a loose black hoodie, pulled tightly but not tightly enough around her.

The wind blows, and she doesn't shiver.

“Sorry I'm late."

Iroh appears at her side, smiling briefly down at her before taking the unoccupied seat across from her.

“You should be," she replies absently a moment later, finally dragging her gaze back to the man now sitting before her.

Iroh smiles at her, and she doesn't smile back.

There is a long moment of silence between them as Azula stares expressionlessly at Iroh, and he smiles back.

“Are you going to eat that?" Iroh finally asks, pointing at the untouched scone before her.

Azula looks down at it. Blinks. Looks back up at him.

“No," she says, “I got it just for you."

The way she says it sounds sarcastic, but she pushes it towards him, nonetheless. As she pushes it across the table, the sleeve on her hoodie pulls up, revealing a too-thin wrist, attached to a skeletal forearm.

“Azula?" Iroh asks, his eyes following her hand even as she slides back into her sleeve and refolds it in front of her.

After a moment, she looks at him, her golden eyes uncharacteristically dim.

“What?"

“Are you okay?"

“Fantastic."

It's comes out as a disdainful sneer almost on reflex, and Azula's face smooths into bland disinterest after a moment of silence.

“Are you eating enough?" He continues, his eyes still darting down to where her arms are folded before her. Now that he's looking for it, he can see it, clear as day—the way her clothes hang too-far off of her frame, the way her sleeves collapse to nothing before her. “Firebenders—”

“I'm eating plenty," she interrupts him, staring venomously at him over the rims of her glasses. “Don't tell me what firebenders do."

Iroh blinks. It's the most emotion he's seen of her in weeks. He is momentarily tempted to press it— push until Azula pushes back. But then he remembers what happened the last time he tried that, so he doesn't.

(It took three months for her to speak to him again—and she already looked like this—her skin stretched like parchment too far over all of her sharp edges.)

Iroh eats his scone.

Azula watches him do so dispassionately, and then pushes her tea over to him as well. After a moment's hesitation, he takes it, holding it to his nose for a long moment before taking a deep sip.

(It's ginseng tea—her favorite.)

“Did you get this for me, too?" he asks.

“I'm known for my kind and generous nature," she responds, straight-faced.

Iroh meets her eyes across the table for a long moment before returning to his scone. He finishes it in two more bites, then settles into his tea.

(It's quite good, if not a particular favorite of his—Azula has always had good taste.)

She watches him drink it for a long moment before allowing her gaze to wander, once more.

The silence between them is thick, and suffocating, but Azula makes no move to break it—reveals nothing that shows she even feels it. (Iroh can't help but wonder if she even can, anymore.)

The silence between them is only broken when Azula pushes her chair away from the table with a screech. Iroh blinks, and looks up.

“I'm going to leave," she tells him, not bothering to elaborate on why.

Her clothes fall even flatter her then they did when she was sitting, and Iroh reaches across the table to catch her arm, on instinct. (His hand reaches all the way around it, doubling back far enough he can feel his thumb on his second knuckle.)

“Wait—"

“Let go of me."

Her response is instantaneous, and he can feel what is left of the muscles of her arm tense beneath his hand.

He looks at her for a long moment, then releases her.

(Azula, he has come to understand, is much like a bird. If he holds on too tightly, he'll just hurt them both. The best he can do is keep waiting, keep leaving out birdseed, and hope she comes back.)

(That's what he thinks right now, anyways. In two months, he’ll curse himself for being so naive.)

Azula stares down at his hand, then at him, and then she turns and stalks away.

Iroh takes a deep breath, and releases it in a long sigh.

Then he pulls his hand back, curls his hand around his tea, and takes a sip.

Chapter Text

Toph and Azula stand at a street corner. They wait with something approaching patience, as cars speed past them.

Azula's is looking straight ahead.

Toph's—not.

She’s looking at Azula.

(The she’s looking away, then she’s looking back at Azula again.)

A particularly flashy sports car blasts past them, and Toph's gaze is momentarily sidetracked before darting back to Azula, looking away, and—

“What."

Toph jerks in surprise, her blind gaze jerking up to Azula's face. It is—not as harsh as it would be, were it anyone else. (Not that Toph can tell, of course—she's only ever been her, after all—to say nothing of the whole—blind—thing.)

A smile crinkles at the corners of Azula's eyes—a look she does not give to anyone who is not named Toph Beifong—softening her ordinarily unerringly piercing gaze.

Toph doesn't see it, but she smiles anyways, a smirk coloring the corners of her lips.

There is a beep from beside them, and when they look up, the light's green before them, and the crowd behind them is bustling past them, muttering curses.

They glance back at each other once more before turning and stepping out into the crosswalk. The crowd tightens around them, and Toph takes a step closer Azula, her thin lips pressed unconsciously together.

They are not close enough to hold hands, or even to touch without express permission, so Azula doesn't reach out for Toph, for all that she wants to (for all that Toph wants her to do it).

They reach the other side of the street without incident, and, by unspoken agreement, they step to the side to allow the crush of people to pass by them.

One man stumbles a little too close to Toph's feet, and she briefly considers kicking him in the shins before just shuffling her feet out of the way, and kicking Azula (lightly, affectionately) in the shins instead.

Azula looks down at the mark Toph's feet have left on her shins before looking back at Toph. One eyebrow slowly creeps over the other, and—

“Azula, if you're making a face at me again, I swear—”

“I'm not making a face." Azula's face twists in distaste. “I do not make faces."

“You were making a face," Toph says, not looking at her (instead glaring at anyone who steps a little too close to her feet), “I can feel it."

Azula gives Toph a look crossed between irritated, disbelieving and what only three people on the face of the earth would recognize as affectionate.

“You're doing it again."

Azula snorts.

“If you can feel me doing it, then what's the problem?" Azula asks innocently.

Toph turns to give Azula a disdainful look.

Azula holds her innocent face for a moment before realizing she doesn't have to, and smirking widely.

The crowd before them clears, and they step back onto the sidewalk.

They're halfway to the next intersection before Toph gives Azula another series of darting glances.

“Toph."

“What."

Azula looks down at Toph, and Toph looks stubbornly forward.

“Why are you staring at me?"

“I'm not staring at you," Toph says, her attention focused wholly on Azula. She waves a hand in front of her face. “Blind, remember?"

“Cute."

“I am known for my cuteness."

They reach the next intersection, and Azula says—“It's green”—the moment before they both step out onto the crosswalk.

They're on the other side before Toph finally caves—

“What are you wearing?" she asks desperately, stopping on the sidewalk, and glaring at Azula.

Azula stops with her, a smile touching at her lips as she turns to face Toph.

From their left, a woman makes an irritated noise at finding them standing directly at the end of the crosswalk. Toph shoots the air just above her right ear a death glare, and she goes around.

“You noticed?"

“It's weird," Toph complains, her hand halfway to Azula's chest before she realizes what she's about to do, and catches herself.

They both look down at the where Toph's hand hangs, motionless, between them.

They look at each other, and then Toph hurriedly retracts her hand. One last glance at one another, and they continue forward.

“It's weird," Toph repeats, twelve steps later. Another two steps, and she continues, jabbing a finger down, “also, those."

Azula glances down at her heels.

“You don't like my high heels?" She glances down at them as they walk, turning them this way and that. “I think they're pretty."

Toph gives her a look Azula doesn't process for a moment, before snorting lightly.

“They're stilts," Toph complains. “How do you even walk in them?"

“The same way I walk in everything else, I'm sure."

Toph makes a dubious face, and holds back the I thought you weren't like that that's at the tip if her tongue. (I thought you didn't care about stupid shit like that—I thought you were like me.)

She doesn't say it, and they walk five more paces before Azula speaks—

“It's a suit," she says, voice oddly strained. Toph frowns, and wishes she could see Azula's face as she says it. “I care about how I look," she continues, “and I was tired of looking like a slob."

They stop at the next intersection, and turn towards each other.

“You can touch it, if you want."

Toph looks up at Azula's face before reaching out a hesitant hand before her.

Her hand eventually brushes against the soft silk of Azula's jacket. Toph runs her fingers along it, finding the plastic button on the front, and tugging absently at it.

Beneath the jacket, she can feel the hard muscles of Azula's stomach—all clenched tightly beneath her clothes.

Toph raises her gaze to Azula, and Azula stares back at her.

Toph reaches absently for Azula's arm, and catches Azula’s right shirtsleeve where it pokes out of her jacket between her index and middle fingers.

“What color is it?" she finally asks.

“The jacket and pants are black. The blouse is white."

“And the heels?"

Azula glances down, lifting one absently against the light of the setting sun, as if she’s forgotten.

“Black."

Toph gives the material in her left hand one last absent-minded tug before releasing it, and pulling her hands away from Azula's stock-still figure.

“That's not terribly interesting," Toph says idly.

“I'm not wearing it to be interesting," Azula says, smoothing out the front of her jacket and straightening her shirt sleeves.

“What color did your hoodie used to be."

Azula pauses for a moment.

“Blue."

“That's not a particularly fire-y color," Toph recalls without thinking.

She can feel Azula tense the moment the words leave her lips.

“Well," Azula says. “Then it’s a good thing we don’t live in the Fire Nation."

Toph looks up at her, nods, looks back down.

“How'd you notice?" Azula asks, finally satisfied with her sleeves, she allowing her hands to hang by her side once more.

“Sounded different," Toph answers, digging her hands into her pockets.

Azula snorts lightly—just a sharp exhalation through her nose. (They've known each other for close to a year now, and Toph has learned what to listen for.)

“Sounded different," Azula mutters, disbelief and a smile coloring her words.

They look at each other one last time, and Toph smiles crookedly at her.

“I'm the best earthbender in the world."

“That's not even relevant," Azula says with a light laugh.

They turn back forward, and make their way across the crosswalk.

“Oh, believe me," Toph says, “me being the best earthbender in the world is always relevant."

Chapter Text

Azula stands before a tombstone. Its existence irks her like not a lot of things can truly manage to irk her, but it irks her all the same.

To herself she comforts herself in the fact that although it is here, and Azula is still here, he is not.

1964-2008.

It doesn't quite have the gall to proudly declare beloved father, but it is here all the same.

Hers, all the same.

Ozai Ishimoto.

She owns ten percent of this mausoleum, and so she must own ten percent of her father's grave, in turn. She wonders what would happen, if she decided she wanted to take that ten percent—the ten percent that is hers, that not even he could get away with not giving to her—and just…

Get rid of it. Destroy it. Deface it.

(Do to it what its owner tried to do to her.)

She wonders what would happen, then.

She won't, of course, and she suspects the answer is not a damn thing, but here she is.

“Hey, Dad."

She doesn’t fidget, or shuffle her feet. Doesn't look down, avert her eyes. She stands strong, plants her feet.

Just like he taught her. Just like he taught her everything because no one else would bother.

“Here I am. Still alive. Did you really think you could kill me? Were you really trying to?"

Azula takes a deep breath, cools that hint of—weakness—from her voice.

“I saw your face, Dad. Right before I killed you. You didn't look like you wanted to kill me, or at least, not to me." Azula flexes her wrists, but doesn't look down. “And I'm really fairly good at knowing about that kind of thing. But if you weren't trying to kill me—if that wasn't your end object, what did you think you were doing?"

Azula takes another breath, lowers her voice.

All around her are the graves of…

War criminals.

If such a thing had existed, when they committed their war crimes.

Her father would want to be here, she knows. And, really—one hate crime? That's nowhere near enough to get someone banned from being interred here.

Hell, it might even be a requirement for entry.

“Well, I'm a firebender now, Dad. Better than you were. Better than Iroh is, even—and better than Zuko, obviously.” She takes a breath. In, out. “Better than anyone." Another breath—in, out, no trace of smoke. “Thanks to you, I guess." In, out, again, this time with an intentional plume of smoke, spreading slowly in the barely-there wind of small, enclosed spaces.

“Even when I was eighty pounds of skin and bone—I could outbend everyone I’ve ever known." Azula's gaze, shifts, down, and to the right. (What is that direction supposed to mean again? She can't remember.) “It's your blood—definitely not Mom's, anyways." A suppressed eye roll, a flicker of a smirk. “I think you'd be proud, if—well, if you could still be proud of anything at all." In, out.

“I'm doing better," Azula finally says, blinking back to her father's tombstone. “Almost no pain. Full range of motion—no one expected that. Joys of having the blood of the strongest firebenders, I guess—even when we burn, we don't." A roll of the shoulders—a motion she shouldn’t be able to do—not without bitter, agonizing pain. (It’s just a twinge, really. The barest hints, phantoms of a pain she still remembers setting her every nerve on fire.) “Still got the scar, though. Half my back, good part of the backs of my upper arms, and—” Azula takes a sharp breath, breathes it sharply out through her nose. (This time, smoke pours out, still almost hot enough to spark.) “—and the back my neck. It's quite a sight to see, really. I should be dead a dozen times over, and even if I weren't, I should be in agony, every day, day in day out." In, out. More smoke curls towards the ceiling. “That's what would you would have done to me, Dad, if I hadn't ended up accidentally being a firebender. Did you know? Did you—”

Azula cuts herself off, then slowly unclenches her fists. She shifts from foot to foot, shaking out the tenseness in her legs.

“If you were trying to make me ugly, I want you to know that you failed, Dad. Nobody wants me for my back." Azula glances away with a sneer, this time up, and to the left.

“If you were trying to kill Mai, I want you to know that you failed in that, too. She's alive—healthy. Not a single damn scar. Beautiful as she's always been." Azula's temple pulses, and she grinds her teeth together.

“But if you were trying to destroy our relationship, you succeeded there. If you wanted to destroy any hope of my brother and I ever being civil, you succeeded there, too."

In, out.

In, out.

“And if you wanted to take—everything—from me."

In, out.

“Well, I guess—I guess you did a pretty good job of that, too.

“But I want you to know I'm putting my life back together—that Iroh has decided he wants to be in my life, and that he's one hundred times better a father than you ever were. I might not like my firebending, but I'm good at it. Better than you, better than anyone."

Azula takes another breath. Rolls her shoulders.

“I'm learning to like it. I'm learning to like a lot of things." One last sigh. “I guess what I want you to know, Dad, is that I hate you, I hate what you did to me, and I hate what you made me become.

“But God—

“I wish you were still here."

(And God, I wish it hadn’t been me who killed you.)

Azula stops speaking, and the mausoleum falls silent. It stays silent, and, for a long moment, Azula stands, motionless.

But then she turns, and walks away.

In her wake, the air is warm, but, by the time she has reached the door, and stepped out into the sunlight, the air has stirred, and it is cool, once more.

Ozai Ishimoto, the tombstone declares into the empty room before it.

1964-2008.

Chapter Text

It is the first night Azula has stayed over, since she bought Toph the stone bed, and she is asleep.

Toph is not.

The date is September fifth. Every night, Azula goes to bed a little earlier, every morning she wakes up a little later.

They have not yet been together long enough for Toph to have seen what will become of Azula in the darkest days of winter, but she does read. She has read a lot, in fact, about just this kind of thing.

It happens in strong firebenders, and Toph liked to imagine that it would one day be relevant to her life.

(It is, now.)

Toph and Azula first got together in the early summer, just as Azula was growing weak from hunger, exhaustion, and insomnia. (Toph often wonders if Azula would have ever shown the requisite weakness required to enter into this relationship, had she not been so weak already.)

So Toph has seen the worst of it—seen Azula on a full moon, ten days from the solstice, her figure growing more gaunt by the day—losing muscle mass and fat so clearly Toph could feel it just by pressing her hand onto Azula's skin. (Just by pressing her hand to the ground, when Azula was near.)

Toph was terrified, at the time. She was convinced she would lose Azula before she ever really had her—that Azula would just waste away into nothingness.

But Azula didn't—and Azula wasn't afraid.

She was resigned, angry, tired.

But she wasn't afraid.

It had been her third summer, she'd said (the first sign Toph ever got that Azula may not have bent like she did, like she breathed, as long as she could remember), and this was just the way her life was, now that she was who she had become.

(Azula never told Toph what her first summer must have been like, feeling her body slowly betray her like that—feeling fire running freely through her veins but barely able to hold down a meal.)

So now—seeing Azula so healthy, so rested, was—

It was something she now knew enough to appreciate. (The love Toph had always held for summer was weaker, now, knowing what it did to someone that she… felt this way about.)

Toph blinks, and brings herself back to the present. Azula is still slumbering before her.

She is so calm. So—

Peaceful.

Toph can feel it in Azula's heartbeat, in Azula's breath, even in the muscles that lay relaxed beneath her skin.

(Azula is the only one Toph has ever told about her ability to feel so deeply into people—far deeper than ordinary earthbending should allow.)

And the most wondrous thing about it—far greater than just the fact that winter is slowly approaching—is the fact that Azula is this calm, this relaxed, in Toph's apartment, on Toph's stone bed.

The first several times they were together, it was Azula's apartment, before she realized that her deep plush carpet left Toph as good as blind.

After that, it was in Toph's apartment, but with Azula never staying the night. It had been midsummer by then, and it's possible Azula was simply trying to hide the true price for her firebending until she no longer could, but—

Toph and Azula did not sleep together (in the literal meaning of the word) for the first three months of their relationship. They had sex, of course. (They had sex before they had a relationship.) But they did not sleep together.

And Toph knows some of the reasons, can guess at some more, but the simple fact of the matter is that Azula simply doesn't trust lightly, and what but sleeping in the same bed is a higher demonstration of trust? (Toph can think of half a dozen off the top of her head, but she doesn't let that stop her.)

And now, Azula sleeps in a bed of Toph's element, not just trusting Toph to keep it soft beneath her, but also not to turn it against her.

Toph has no interest in betting against Azula (no interest in ever truly fighting Azula, earth on fire, blood on blood), but she's fairly certain that for all of Azula's sometimes near superhuman feats, that Toph has the upper hand here.

And Azula must know that—must have taken that into consideration before buying Toph this bed, before offering to come over—before deciding to sleep in it beside Toph—and yet here she is, sleeping in it anyways.

Azula stirs before her, rolling over and curling up in the unnaturally soft stone.

Pressed so deeply into it, Toph can see Azula better than she ever has before. In their five month relationship, Toph has yet to grow audacious enough to suggest they very literally fuck in the dirt (she doubts Azula would ever agree to such a thing anyways—the very idea likely would give her palpitations), but what they did tonight was far more intimate than that.

Azula is literally half-buried in the stone. Toph can see Azula. Better than, she is sure, anyone has ever seen Azula before. (Toph has finally seen the scar Azula has gone to such lengths to hide from all the world but her, and it terrifies her more than she can say.)

(She doesn't know much about burns—never had the stomach to do finish the research the many times she started it—but she knows at least that the burn that gave Azula those scars should have killed her—that they would have killed anyone else.)

But Toph takes her mind of off the scar she can feel as clearly as if she were pressing her hand to it, and focuses on all of the other things she can see.

Once upon a time, she paid a woman to lie naked in the earth so she could finally see what the whole rest of the world seemed to be so up in arms about. (It was not her greatest plan, but in her defense, she was fifteen at the time and more than a little confused about more than a couple of things.)

At the time, it had been quite the revelation—solidifying something she had never quite dared put into words before.

But this—

This is something different.

This is not the body of a random woman who was willing to lie naked in the dirt for a couple hundred pounds—a woman who, for all of her comparative importance to Toph's budding teenage sexuality, Toph would not remember the name of in six months.

This is Azula.

And that is an important distinction.

Chapter Text

Azula looks down at her hands. She turns them over.

She blinks, and then she turns then over again.

The world around her is silent, and the bed behind her empty, for the first time in a very, very long time.

Sparks dance across her fingertips on a whim, and Azula closes her hand into a loose fist, before releasing it once more.

Azula, she can almost hear, come back to bed.

But she doesn't.

The room is empty.

Azula breathes out.

Azula breathes in.

(Her room remains empty.)

Before her, the blinds are closed, and beyond that, the night is dark.

The day is May thirtieth.

Spring, kind of.

To Azula, it is already summer.

But that is not why she is awake.

It is a new moon tonight. She should be able to sleep.

But she can't.

No matter how she lays down, no matter what she does.

She just―can't.

(The bed is so so empty behind her.)

Azula finally lets out a sigh, and drop her head. Her hair falls around her face, black and long and not quite as beautiful as it always is. (It's a little grimy, actually. She forgot to take a shower, this morning. It is starting to smell―not enough for anyone besides her to notice―but enough to bother her.)

Azula considers taking a shower, washing out the grime she forgot this morning. It could be therapeutic, she imagines.

It could give her something else to think about.

(She doesn't do it.)

Halfway across the city, Toph lies in a hospital bed. Her breaths aren't particularly labored, but they're not going to release her for another three days (at least).

And for what?

(Azula knows, actually, spent the last three days looking up every fucking detail, but she prefers a veneer of unaffected ignorance.)

Azula sighs at her own pitiful weakness.

Azula has been in this relationship for close to three years—and she's already—

Azula breathes in.

Azula breathes out.

(It doesn't help. She doesn't feel any better.)

Azula curses lightly.

Then she curses louder.

And then she screams it out.

She falls back on the bed, defeated. her echoes die before she even has a chance to hear them properly.

Nothing changes.

Chapter Text

Feet pad silently across the stone floor, and Azula watches the shadows dance across the wall with one eye open.

Across the room, there is the soft metallic clack of metal on stone, and, for a long moment, the shadows on the wall are still.

They stay still, for just a little too long, and―

“Toph?”  Azula slides herself up out of her deep pile of comforters, and turns towards the source of the shadow.  “Are you―”

“Yeah,” Toph says from where she stands over the kitchen table, her right hand still set heavily beside the thick metal rims of her glasses.  She takes a breath and then raises her head.  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

But she doesn’t sound it―her voice still eerily flat, her motions still uncharacteristically encumbered.

They stay motionless for a long moment, Azula staring into the deep shadows where Toph's eyes should be, and Toph (for once) not making the effort to point her eyes at anything at all.

“Come to bed,” Azula finally says in that way of hers that sounds like an order, but isn’t, really.

There is another moment of silence, and Toph's shadowed face turns away.  She points her head towards the bathroom, wondering if she actually had anything she needs to do there, but her mind is blank.

So she just stands there, motionless in that way only she can be, until she is broken from her reverie by the sound of Azula's feet, sliding against the stone floor of their apartment,

It is cacophonous to her, a veritable fountain of noise and information, and Toph's head snaps back to where Azula's rumpled form is slowly making its way towards her.

By the time she realizes what’s happening, Azula's hand is gentle on her own, Azula's fingertips warm against her bare skin.

“Toph,” she says in that soft way of hers.  “What’s wrong?”

Toph shifts towards her, catching her hand blindly on Azula's waist and sliding her fingertips beneath the light fabric if Azula's t-shirt.

Azula's skin is not just warm, but actively hot beneath Toph's fingertips, threatening to silently burn her if her stays her fingertips for too long.

But she doesn’t―they’ve been together for three years now, and Toph has long since mastered the many ways of touching Azula without being burned.

The now-comforting smell of wood smoke and brimstone begins to thicken in the air between them, and Toph remembers that Azula asked her a question.

“I don’t know,” she finally says.  

It's a lie, but she only realizes that after she says it.

A great many things are wrong, right now, and not a great many things are right.

They’re in their fourth year, this year.  They will graduate in eight months.

It’s a long time, but not quite long enough, and―

Toph spoke with her parents, today.  (A mistake, of course, but she forgets, sometimes, why she goes to such great lengths to avoid it.)

It made her think about―

The future.

Her future.

( Their future.)

(Together, and not apart.)

Toph knows what she wants, and―

And most of the time she knows that she can achieve it.  She's good enough to be a professional, good enough to be in this relationship, good enough to have the life she wants to have―

But every time she has to meet with her parents, they always make her doubt .

Before, it was just―

A worry on the horizon.  Something she could think about―worry about―later.

That’s not true, anymore.

It's too close, her future too tangible, for her to so easily put worrying off until tomorrow.

With the hand that is not tracing slow circles against Azula's back, Toph runs her fingers along the cold metal rim of her glasses.

She doesn’t fumble, her fingers moving surely and without hesitation because her glasses (everything but Azula in this apartment) are sharp, and clear.

“It's―” nothing she begins to say but doesn’t finish.  This lie would be too blatant―too egregious.

So she shakes her head instead. It's―well past midnight, and she doesn’t want to go into it now.

Instead, she moves forward, relinquishing her light touch on her glasses to wrap her arms loosely around Azula's rumpled frame.

“I don’t know,” she lies again, in that way everyone does when they do know, but don’t want to.  She curls her head forward, and buries her face in Azula's neck (the thick, heavy scent of wood smoke and brimstone filling her nose and blocking out all the test of her senses).

She shakes her head into Azula's neck as Azula folds her arms around Toph's shoulders, her presence hot and comforting and undeniably there all around her.

Toph can feel the sweat begin to bead along her brow, and she digs her toes into the cool rock of the tile floor as she pulls Azula ever closer.

The air grows thicker and thicker, and just as it Toph can start to feel it choke, the blazing heat fades as Azula takes a series of long, measured, breaths.

“Okay,” Azula finally says, her lips pressed messily into the unruly mass of Toph's hair.

Another moment of silence, and Toph pulls away.  Azula's arms pull partially away from her shoulders, and Toph can feel the heat radiating off of Azula's face, as she holds her own before it.

“Azula,” she says, taking in a deep breath of the faint smoke that leaks idly from Azula's lips.

“Toph.”

Toph pulls Azula just a little closer, and lifts her chin to bring her lips to her best estimate of where Azula's are.  Azula accommodates, lowering her head in response and pressing a long, warm kiss against her lips.

Toph pulls away, and she does her best to smile―not quite realizing that it is far too dark for Azula to see it.

“I love you.”  She pulls Azula close again, and Azula lowers her head once more.  “I love you―” Toph's voice catches in her throat as she keeps herself from saying something stupid like a lot .

(Even though it's true.)

“I love you, too,” Azula says in response in that almost-flat way of hers, and in it Toph can hear the answering a lot .

Toph coughs out a weak chuckle, and Azula echoes with a long breath that doesn’t express much emotion at all.

Toph pulls away, and clears her throat.  She turns half towards the bed, and Azula slowly disentangles herself from where she has wrapped herself around Toph.

She pulls away for a moment before her presence returns and her face hovers before before Toph's for a moment before pressing another warm kiss to her lips.

“Come back to bed,” she repeats.

“Okay.”

Toph can’t see Azula's smile, but she can feel the soft fingers that curl into her own, and tug her with remarkable gentleness back towards the bed.

Five minutes later, and she's asleep.

Fifteen minutes after that, and Azula joins her.

They sleep that night closer than they normally do, Azula's arms not quite around Toph, but close.

Toph wakes up sticky and sweaty and too hot two hours later at two o’clock in the morning, and has to get out of bed, walk around for a bit to dry, before she can sleep again.

But she doesn’t regret it.

“Good night,” she says as she goes to bed for the second time.  She's laying entirely in the bed, with not a single part of her touching stone, so her good night kiss falls a little astray―landing on the point of Azula's cheekbone rather than her forehead, so she pulls herself in a little closer, and kisses her again.

“I love you.”

In response, she can almost hear it—

( I love you, too .)