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Chapter Text

The royal physician bowed deeply as he backed out of the chamber, his face carefully blank despite the screams that had echoed through the halls only moments before. Azula watched him go, noting the tremor in his hands, the sweat beading at his temples. Failure carried consequences in the Fire Lord's palace.

"How long?" she asked, her voice cutting through the silence.

The physician froze, his shoulders tensing beneath his crimson robes. "Before dawn, Princess." He did not turn to face her. "The infection has reached his blood. His fever burns too hot for any medicine to touch."

Azula nodded once, dismissing him. As his footsteps faded down the hall, she turned her attention to the ornate door before her. Two Imperial Firebenders stood at attention, their faces hidden behind skull-like masks. Neither acknowledged her presence. They had been ordered to admit no one.

No healers. No servants. No family.

Her father's orders had been explicit.

Azula placed her palm against the polished wood, feeling the heat radiating from within. Zuko had always run hot, even as a child. She remembered how he would warm her hands during winter festivals when they were small, before everything changed.

The Agni Kai had been swift, brutal. Zuko’s final challenge, and final mistake.

A sound escaped from behind the door, not quite a moan, but far more broken. Azula withdrew her hand as if burned.

"Weakness," she muttered, straightening her shoulders. "You never learned how to burn it out, did you, Brother?"

She turned and walked away, her steps measured, unhurried. Royal blood did not run. Royal blood did not rush to bedsides or shed tears over the inevitable. Her brother had challenged their father, and now he would pay the price that weakness demanded.

She told herself she did not hear the rattling breath that followed her down the corridor.

The funeral pyre stood ready in the courtyard, dawn's light painting everything in shades of amber and gold. Azula stood at her father's right hand, back straight, face composed. The perfect princess. The perfect daughter. The only heir now.

Ministers, nobles, and the essential witnesses had gathered in a small circle to mark the passing of the prince. Her uncle was notably absent. Perhaps that was mercy. Perhaps it was another punishment.

Four Imperial Firebenders carried the litter, Zuko's body wrapped in white silk embroidered with gold thread. They had covered his face, hiding the bandages, the evidence of his disgrace. Even in death, appearance mattered above all.

Ozai stepped forward, his voice carrying across the hushed courtyard.

"Let the flames consume Prince Zuko. Proof that weakness has no place in the bloodline of Fire Lords. May this serve as a warning to all who forget their duty or question divine will."

The Fire Lord’s eulogy carved Zuko’s name from the family tree. Prince Zuko. Disgrace. Never son.

Azula watched as the Firebenders lowered the litter onto the pyre. Her father raised his hand, and with a single, precise movement, sent a stream of fire into the kindling. The flames caught quickly, hungrily, as if eager to claim what remained of her brother.

She noted the efficiency of the design. How the pyre was constructed to burn hot and fast, to reduce a body to ash in mere hours rather than days. Everything in the Fire Nation was designed for efficiency. Even grief was not permitted to linger.

"You will meet with the council this afternoon," her father said, his eyes still fixed on the growing flames. 

Not a question. Never a question.

"Yes, Father." Azula kept her voice steady, her gaze forward.

"The ministers will need assurance that today’s failure does not weaken the throne."

"Of course, Father."

The fire roared higher, sending sparks dancing into the morning sky. Azula did not flinch, even as the heat pressed against her face. She had been raised in fire. She had been forged by it. But Zuko, Zuko had been consumed by it.

"You will not disappoint me," Ozai said, and finally turned to look at her.

Azula met his gaze without hesitation. "Never, Father."

Azula paused outside her brother's chambers. Unlike the flurry of activity throughout the rest of the palace, this corridor remained eerily still. Two Imperial Firebenders stood at attention on either side of the closed door, as immobile as statues.

"Princess," the guard on the right acknowledged with a bow of his head, though he did not move from his position.

"I wish to enter," Azula stated, not a request but a command.

The guards exchanged a brief glance. "Forgive me, Princess," the same guard responded, "but Fire Lord Ozai has ordered Prince Zuko's quarters to remain sealed. No one is to enter or disturb the contents."

Azula's eyebrow arched slightly. "Not even me?"

"The Fire Lord's orders were explicit, Princess. The room is to remain untouched until he determines otherwise."

Interesting, Azula thought. Her father rarely preserved anything associated with failure. What game was he playing?

"I see," she said coldly. "And when did the Fire Lord issue this order?"

"This morning, Princess. Immediately following the ceremony."

Azula studied the ornate door, imagining the room beyond. Zuko's scrolls still unfurled on his desk. His bed still bearing the indent of his body. The air still carrying traces of medicinal herbs and smoke.

A tomb, preserved as a monument to weakness and disobedience. A warning, then. But for whom? The palace staff? The nobles? Or for her?

Something tightened in her chest, a sensation so foreign that it took her a moment to recognize it as discomfort. Not grief. It couldn't be. Her step faltered, barely, no more than a breath, but she stamped it out like an ember. Hesitation was indulgence.

Azula turned from the sealed door. From the guards, from their silent vigil over her brother's untouched possessions. She had preparations to make for the council meeting. Her father expected perfection, and she would deliver it as she always had.

As she walked down the corridor, she passed a balcony overlooking the courtyard. The pyre still burned, though lower now, the white silk long since consumed. In a few hours, there would be nothing left but ash and bone.

Just as there should be nothing left in her heart but ambition and duty.

And yet, that strange discomfort lingered. A hollow space where something else should be. Azula quickened her pace, pushing the sensation away. There was no room for such weaknesses in the sole heir to the Dragon Throne.

Tomorrow, her father would formally name her as his successor. Tomorrow, the future she had been trained for since birth would finally be secured. Tomorrow, the last shadow of her brother would be swept away like the ashes of his pyre.

But for now, in this moment between what had been and what would be, Azula allowed herself one final thought of the brother who had never been her equal, yet had somehow always been there, a fixed point in her carefully ordered world.

"Goodbye, Zuzu." The whisper curled into smoke, gone before it reached the ashes.

A prince, reduced to ash.

A daughter, crowned in silence.

One burned. The other froze.

Azula inhaled, and let the last of the pyre’s heat sear her lungs.

Then she turned, letting the ashes scatter behind her like forgotten words.

Chapter Text

Three months.

Three days and three nights the pyre had burned, staining the palace spires black with Zuko's ashes. Three silent weeks before the Academy returned her belongings, Ty Lee's last letter still folded untouched beneath her training gloves.

Three months since the Fire Nation's youngest prince had died screaming at thirteen, it echoed through the palace halls and in her dreams. A curse that refused to lift.

Three months of isolation. No more shared lessons with Mai, no more spotting for Ty Lee's backbends.

Three months since Azula had become the sole heir to a throne built on the bones of other nations, though some nights she wondered if she had died alongside her brother in that moment, who would it be that sat on the throne after their father.

The palace had grown smaller since then. 

Every corridor seemed to lead to the same destination, her father's displeasure. Shadows held the promise of someone following behind, watching, reporting. Every breath she took was borrowed time that she would eventually have to pay back with interest.

She was eleven years old, and she had already learned that love was just another word for ownership.

The morning had begun like all mornings since Zuko's death, with the careful ritual of inspecting her reflection for flaws that might cause correction. 

Her hair arranged in the precise way that her father preferred, her robes pressed and spotless. She had learned to be a living figurine for him. Clever and beautiful, and utterly compliant.

But as she made her way through the palace corridors toward the council chamber, she saw Uncle Iroh slipping through the servants' passages. 

The sight of him, shoulders caved in and moving with the quiet steps of a man who had learned to make himself small, sent something cold sliding down her spine. 

This was what happened to those who disappointed the Fire Lord. This was what happened to those who showed weakness.

This was what would happen to her if she wasn't perfect.

She said nothing. The Dragon of the West was planning something, and Azula found herself intrigued rather than bound to report it.

Perhaps part of her wanted to see what would happen.

She arrived exactly seven minutes early. Time enough to appear eager but not desperate.

The room smelled of jasmine tea and barely contained violence, a combination that had become as familiar to her as her own heartbeat. Scrolls were unfurled across the table with maps to territories that had not yet learned to surrender. 

The generals nodded with newfound respect as she took her place at her father's table. The spot where Zuko would have sat, had he lived.

Her father sat at the head of the room, bathed in the low light of the golden braziers. When his golden eyes fixed on her, she felt herself dissolve into something smaller, sharper, more useful. 

More disposable.

"The Earth Kingdom fortresses in the western territories continue to resist our advances," General Shinu reported, his weathered face creased with the kind of frustration that came from being thwarted by peasants who refused to understand their place in the natural order. "Our forces are stretched thin maintaining the siege lines."

Azula's mind worked swiftly, calculating angles of attack, troop movements, fuel requirements. The tactical situation was clear enough. They needed a solution that didn't require additional manpower.

"Additional troops would be the conventional approach," the general continued, "perhaps redirecting forces from-"

"You’re wrong." Every face turned toward her, and she felt the familiar thrill of being the center of attention. "Redirecting forces creates vulnerabilities elsewhere," she continued. "We need precision, not brute force."

"What would you suggest, Princess Azula?" Admiral Zhao asked.

She stood, her small hands finding the edges of the map spread across the table, and for a moment, she was not a child but a strategic planner. “Cut the supply lines, starve them out, let desperation do the work that soldiers couldn't.”

The approval in the room was intoxicating. Her father's nod was everything she had ever wanted wrapped in a single gesture of acknowledgment.

"Efficient," he said, and Azula felt herself flush with something that might have been happiness if she still remembered how to feel it without permission. "Implement Princess Azula's strategy immediately."

The ministers murmured their agreement, scrolls already being amended with her recommendations.

But then her father's expression shifted, his golden eyes taking on a distant quality that sent ice crawling down her spine.

"After that is concluded," Ozai said, dropping to a cadence that warned no one to interrupt, "our primary focus will shift to the Northern Water Tribe."

The silence that followed was different from before. Not the respectful quiet of subordinates processing orders, but the uncomfortable silence of unspoken disagreement. Azula felt something cold settle in her chest as she watched the ministers exchange uncertain glances.

Around the table, the ministers shifted. 

Even Admiral Zhao, normally eager for any excuse to wage war, looked uncertain. Azula found herself studying her father's face, seeing something she had never noticed before. A fevered quality to his eyes, a tremor in his voice that spoke of obsession rather than tactical reasoning.

"My Lord," General Shinu said carefully, "the Northern Tribe remains heavily fortified behind their ice walls. Strategically, wouldn't our resources be better allocated to-"

"The North has mocked us for too long. Their walls stand as a testament to Fire Nation weakness. An insult that has festered for decades." He rose from behind his wall of gold flames, moving to the table. "The South is the key to breaking the North." 

“How so, my lord?”

The Fire Lord's shadow stretched across the map as he traced a path to the Southern Water Tribe. "We will turn their hearts into a noose," he said. "Let intercepted scrolls speak of Fire Nation ships bearing down on their villages. Mothers, children, the elderly all helpless. Their warriors will abandon the front lines in chaos, racing home like panicked animals." His fingers curled slowly into a fist. "And when their sails appear on the horizon, our ambush will strike before their boots even touch the ice. Wipe out enough to break them but let a handful escape." 

Azula saw the plan immediately. "The survivors will flee to their sister tribe."

"The Northern Tribe won't turn away refugees," Ozai said. "Their compassion will be their downfall. Hidden among the survivors will be our agents. A trojan horse delivered by their own bleeding hearts."

The generals murmured their approval. 

She stared at the map, seeing the tiny marks that represented villages and families and children. The plan didn't make sense. The North and South were wastelands of ice and idiots. Why waste troops there when Ba Sing Se still stands? 

"Father," she said carefully, "wouldn't our resources be better allocated to Ba Sing Se? The Earth Kingdom's capital coordinates all resistance. If we take it-"

The temperature in the room plummeted. Every face turned toward her with the kind of attention that preceded executions, and she could see her mistake reflected in their eyes, the terrible recognition that she had just questioned the Fire Lord in front of his entire war council.

"Are you questioning my strategic judgment?"

She should have known to back down. Instead, some stubborn part of her, some last remnant of defiance, made her press forward into the abyss, fueled by her own need to be right.

"I'm suggesting that our primary focus should remain on-"

Ozai's raised hand silenced the room. "The council is dismissed. General Bujing, prepare the orders as discussed."

The military leaders filed out with practiced efficiency. Azula remained, spine straight as an arrow, waiting for the expected praise for her foresight. For her excellence.

The doors closed with an echoing thud.

Silence stretched between them. Azula felt an unfamiliar flutter in her chest, not fear, surely. She did not fear her father. She admired him. Emulated him.

"A minor oversight, Father," she said smoothly. "The strategic advantage of my suggested plan-"

The blow came without warning. Her father's open palm connected with her cheek with such force that she stumbled backward, crashing into one of the golden braziers that lined the war room. Hot coals spilled across the floor. A tongue of flame caught the hem of her royal robes.

Azula moved to extinguish it, but before she could, Ozai's hand closed around her wrist. His grip was like iron as he pulled her to her feet.

"You are my masterpiece," he said, terrifyingly calm. 

Not angry. Something worse. Disappointed.

"But even porcelain must be reforged when it cracks."

He forced her hand against the brazier's heated metal rim. The sizzle of flesh meeting scorching metal filled Azula's ears. She bit down on her lip until she tasted blood, refusing to scream.

The pain was extraordinary. White hot agony shot up her arm as her skin bubbled against the metal. Her vision swam with unshed tears that she would die before letting fall.

His grip was not that of a man in rage. It was precise. Clinical. A sculptor reshaping clay.

Ozai leaned closer, his breath hot against her ear. "Do you know why I let Zuko die, Azula?"

She couldn't answer through the pain.

"Because I saw in him what I now see in you. A hesitation. Questions where there should be only certainty." His fingers tightened, grinding her flesh deeper into the scalding metal. "Your brother believed in something beyond my power. It made him weak. And now you dare question me? My decision on where to direct my troops?"

He twisted her wrist slightly, finding fresh skin to burn. 

"You are all I have left." His voice softened to something almost tender, which made it infinitely more terrifying. "The royal line cannot afford another defect. Do you understand?"

When her vision blurred, Azula saw not her father's face but Zuko's. Her brother on his knees, begging forgiveness at the Agni Kai. She heard his screams again as the flames covered his skull, remembered how she had watched impassively, telling herself this was the price of weakness.

Through the pain, she managed a nod.

Ozai released her, and she nearly collapsed. 

But a princess of the Fire Nation does not fall. 

Not even when her flesh smokes.

"Admiral Zhao will lead the deployment from Crescent Island," he said, straightening his robes as though nothing had happened. “Ensure you relay the strategy to him once more before he departs.”

"Yes, Father." Her voice did not waver. 

This small victory she allowed herself.

In the hallway, she stood alone for exactly sixty seven seconds, controlling her breathing. Then she walked, measured and regal in front of the servants, to her chambers.

I am still worthy. I am still his weapon.

She wrapped the bandages around her wrist with the same methodical precision she applied to everything else. Each layer tight but loose enough to avoid cutting off circulation. The motions were automatic, muscle memory from years of training accidents and dueling practice. 

Fire Nation royalty learned to tend their own wounds early. Weakness was a luxury they couldn't afford to display.

"Father was right." 

She met her own eyes in the mirror, cataloging the damage. The split lip, the bruise blooming along her cheekbone, the way her usually perfect hair had come loose from its pins. 

"I miscalculated. I will not do so again."

Her hands were shaking.

The tremor was subtle but unmistakable, a fine vibration that made the bandage ends flutter like moth wings. She stared at her fingers in fascination. They'd never done that before. 

The injury was affecting her concentration. Nothing more. 

She flexed her fingers, working out the stiffness, and called fire to her palm. Blue sparks scattered and died. A fluke. She tried again, focusing her breathing the way her tutors had taught her. The flame sputtered, weak and pale, then guttered out entirely.

Her chest tightened. Not panic, surely. Azula didn't panic.

Third attempt. Fourth. Fifth. Each one yielded less than the last until she was left staring at her empty palm, watching the tremor in her fingers grow more pronounced.

Temporary setback. The burn had damaged nerve endings, disrupted her chi flow. It would return. It had to return. The alternative was- 

No.

She wouldn't think about that.

But the thought crept in anyway, insidious and cold. Without her bending, what was she? Strip away the prodigy, the perfect princess, the masterpiece her father had so carefully crafted, and what remained?

Nothing. Just another broken thing, like Zuko had been.

"Weak," she whispered. 

She couldn't tell if she meant herself or her brother, but then again, maybe it didn't matter. Maybe they'd both been weak all along, and she'd simply been better at hiding it.

She turned away from her reflection and climbed into bed without bothering to change out of her robes. The silk was wrinkled and smelled of smoke and failure, but it hardly mattered now. Tomorrow she would wake up, arrange her hair with steady hands, and pretend this night had never happened.

She had to. There was no other choice.

Two days later, the fever came with a slow burn, creeping through her veins with infection. 

Azula had hidden it well during the day, carefully applying powder to mask the flush in her cheeks, avoiding direct sunlight that might make her sweat through her robes. But now, in the privacy of her chambers, she could feel it eating at her from the inside.

She'd changed the bandages twice, each time noting the angry red lines that had begun to spider outward from the wound. The flesh was hot to the touch, swollen and tender in a way that made her stomach clench.

Sleep had been elusive. 

Every time she closed her eyes, she heard Ozai explaining the precise difference between correction and cruelty. 

By midnight, the nausea finally drove her to the window, her vision swam but the shadow below still caught her eye.

She could see the figure moving through the courtyard. Careful, deliberate, avoiding the torchlit paths with the skill of someone who knew the palace's blind spots. Even with fever blurring her vision, she recognized the distinctive gait.

Uncle Iroh.

He carried a small pack, and he moved with purpose toward the outer palace walls.

Curiosity, and something she refused to name drove her to follow.

She dressed quickly in dark clothes, wrapping her injured wrist with fresh bandages. The fever made her dizzy, but Azula had trained through worse. 

She tracked him through the palace gardens, over the servant's entrance wall, and through the sleeping capital city. Iroh moved with surprising stealth for a man of his age. Several times she nearly lost him in the winding streets, but she had been taught by the best survivalists in the Fire Nation.

At the city gates, Iroh paused, speaking quietly with the night guard. Coins changed hands. The massive doors opened just enough to slip through.

"Leaving without saying goodbye, Uncle?" she said, cutting through the night’s stillness. "How very unlike you."

Iroh froze, then turned slowly. In the moonlight, she could see he wore simple traveler's clothes beneath his cloak, not the finery of a prince of the Fire Nation.

"Azula." His eyes found hers, then dropped to her bandaged wrist. Understanding dawned on his face. "I see your father's lessons continue."

Something in her faltered. "Is that why you're running away? Afraid Father will decide he only needs one royal heir after all?"

Her tone was mocking, taunting, not a confession of her own growing fears. 

But Iroh didn't rise to the bait. He stepped closer, his eyes flicking to the guards who stood just out of earshot.

"The Fire Nation has lost its way," Iroh said, heavy with grief. "This war consumes everything it touches, even its own children. Fire should give life, Azula, not just take it."

She scoffed. "Spoken like a failed general."

"Maybe," Iroh agreed, sorrow etching deep lines around his eyes. "But you are clever, you can see he is wrong. That's why your end will be slower. A spark smothered in silk, not a blaze extinguished in daylight." He leaned in, the scent of jasmine clinging to his robes. "When my brother sees doubt in you, and he will, he'll prune it like a dead branch. And you, my fierce girl, will thank him for the knife."

Her fingers twitched toward her wrist. "You're lying."

"About what? You followed me here instead of reporting me," Iroh cut her off. "Your fever is visible even in moonlight. "Your hands-" he gestured to her trembling fingers, which she quickly hid behind her back, "Fire flows through them. Damage the channel, and the flame may never burn the same way again. Even your father should understand that.”

The care in his voice stung worse than her burned flesh.

"It was a correction." She kept her tone level. "Nothing that wasn't deserved."

"Is that what you told yourself as you watched Zuko burn?"

The question was quiet but direct. No preamble, no gentle leading into difficult topics. Just the thing itself, laid out before them.

"Zuko was weak." The declaration came automatically. "He defied Father. He earned what he received."

"Did he?" Iroh's tone carried the particular gentleness adults used when explaining difficult concepts to children. "Or perhaps he simply recognized what you are beginning to recognize now?"

"I don't know what you mean." But even as she said it, she could feel the lie weakening

"Your hands tremble," he observed with clinical interest. "Your fire is likely failing you. You follow traitors through the night instead of reporting them to the proper authorities. Tell me, do these sound like the actions of someone who is certain of her path?"

She wanted to argue, to summon the cold certainty that had always been her particular talent. Instead, she found herself asking a question she had not planned to ask.

"Did you know? About the Agni Kai? That Zuko was going to face Father?"

The way his breath hitched, just for a heartbeat, told her everything

"I tried to warn him," Iroh said quietly. "Tried to convince him to leave before it could happen. But he was too much like you, too proud to run, too loyal to believe that his father would truly..." He trailed off, then shook his head. "He was afraid for you, you know. Afraid of what would happen when you returned from the academy."

"That's not true." But she stumbled on the words.

A lie. It had to be. Zuko had hated her. She'd made sure of it.

“He may not have shown it like you wanted, but your brother loved you.”

"You're pathetic," she spat, but her throat cracked. "Lying about a dead boy to manipulate me."

"Then why are you crying, little dragon?"

She touched her cheek. Wet. When had that happened?

For a moment, Iroh studied her as if weighing whether comfort would soothe or provoke. She almost reached out first. Then his hands moved to his pack, retrieving a small cloth pouch. Medicine, from the smell of it. He pressed it into her palm along with a small white tile with a lotus carved into it.

"For your wrist," he said. "And when you decide what kind of fire you want to be, the kind that destroys or the kind that gives life, find me." He turned toward the gate, then paused. "Fire that burns uncontrollably," he said softly, "destroys even itself. Remember that, Azula. When the heat reaches your throat."

Then he was gone, leaving her standing alone.

She could call the guards. Should call them. One shout and they'd bring him back in chains. Her father would be pleased, might even overlook her recent mistakes.

Instead, she put the tile in her boot and started walking back to the palace.

As she navigated through the empty streets, her father's words echoed. 'The weak don't deserve to survive.'

Something black snagged around her ankle on the way. A mourning ribbon from a shrine, torn loose by the wind. She picked it up and wound it around her bandaged wrist. Black silk over white cloth. It looked appropriate somehow.

Walking through empty streets, she found herself thinking about the war council meeting. 

The way her father spoke when he talked about the Northern Water Tribe. The particular intensity in his eyes when he'd outlined his strategy.

She'd assumed it was tactical brilliance. But what if it wasn't? What if it was something else? Emotion driving strategy instead of the other way around?

The thought unsettled her. Her father was supposed to be above that kind of weakness. He was the Fire Lord. He made decisions based on logic and strategic advantage, not feelings.

But if he didn't…

She tucked the thought away. There would be time to examine it later, when she wasn't running a fever and making questionable decisions in the middle of the night.

The infection peaked two days later, then broke. Her fire came back gradually. Weaker at first, then steadier than before. When she looked in the mirror, she still saw her father's daughter.

But something had changed during those fever days. Something small but significant. When she looked in the mirror now, the reflection held new questions alongside the familiar ruthlessness.

It was a start.

Chapter Text

The North’s attack had collapsed, as Azula predicted, charred wrecks limping home to a palace choked with chaos. Their crews whispered of a lone waterbender who sank three vessels before perishing in flames. The palace, already reeling from Uncle Iroh’s flight, now choked on Father’s rage.

"Again, Princess Azula."

In the training courtyard, the twins, Li and Lo spoke as one.

"Your father expects perfection."

Azula reset her stance, blue flames dancing around her fists. The morning sun beat down, but her fire, always sharper, hotter than any soldier’s, felt unsteady, flickering with the tremor in her hands.

Li's voice (or was it Lo's?) droned on. “Your form lacks precision.”

She bit back a retort. Precision was her birthright, but today, it failed her.

Three hours of forms, hours of their endless corrections, and staying exactly where servants could see her when passing.

Where she was safe.

Ozai’s rage spared her, aimed at his generals. For now. 

"Your breathing is uneven," Li observed.

"Uneven breathing leads to uneven fire," Lo continued.

"We cannot present you to the Fire Lord in such a state."

Azula's jaw tightened, but she adjusted her breathing pattern. These two ancient relics had trained Fire Nation royalty for decades despite not being fire benders themselves. They'd trained her father, back when he was young enough to need correction.

The thought made her skin crawl.

She launched into the next sequence, a series of sweeping strikes that should have produced perfect spirals of blue flame. Instead, the fire flickered and wavered, betraying the tremor in her hands that she thought she'd mastered.

"Again."

"Your father-"

"I know what my father expects," Azula snapped.

Li and Lo exchanged one of their meaningful looks, the kind that usually preceded a lecture about proper Fire Nation breeding.

Before they could speak, footsteps echoed across the courtyard's marble tiles. Azula turned, expecting to see another palace functionary with more reports of failure and humiliation.

Instead, she saw Mai accompanied by two soldiers.

Her friend looked terrible. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her usually immaculate appearance was disheveled. Her black hair hung loose around her shoulders instead of arranged in its typical severe style. Most telling of all, she wore mourning colors, deep grays and blacks that made her pale skin look ghostly.

"Governor Ukano's daughter requests an audience with the princess," the soldier announced, his voice stiff with protocol.

Mai scowled at him. "I know how to speak for myself."

Azula didn't blink. "Leave us."

There was a moment of hesitation, then the soldiers and twins withdrew like shadows. The moment they were alone, the air between them crackled with everything unsaid.

Azula’s fingers twitched at her sides. Months of silence, of writing letters and burning them before they could be sent, of looking at Mai’s empty cushion in the garden. Now here she stood.

Thinner and fiercer but alive in a way that brought relief.

She should hug her. The impulse was childish, ridiculous, but for a heartbeat, she almost gave in.

So Azula stayed still.

And Mai-

Mai didn’t reach for her either.

She moved like the palace ghosts Azula used to mock her for fearing. All hesitation where there should have been effortless grace. Her absence at the funeral had been noted. Lord Ukano's polished lies about illness meant nothing when Azula had seen her friend vomit bile into a washbasin at dawn and still make first bell at the Academy. Mai didn't break.

Until now.

The voice that finally came was wrong. Scraped raw, like she'd been screaming. "My father was summoned about the northern fleet."

"It was a tactical setback," Azula replied automatically. "Father is already developing new strategies."

"I didn't come to talk about your father's war." Mai's dark eyes fixed on hers with uncomfortable intensity. "I came about what happens to daughters when Fire Lords decide to burn their sons."

The words hung between them like smoke. Azula felt her chest tighten.

"Mai-"

"He murdered Zuko." The statement was flat, matter-of-fact, devastating in its simplicity. "Not in battle, not defending the nation, but because a thirteen-year-old boy dared to speak out of turn. And everyone pretends it was honor. Justice."

The training courtyard suddenly felt too small. Azula found herself backing toward the fountains that lined the eastern wall. Her heel hit the stone and suddenly she was eight again, watching Zuko leap across these same tiles to bat a flaming fruit from Mai's hair - so quick to act, so slow to think.

So very Zuko.

The memory seared worse than Ozai's brazier. "He challenged Father's authority. He had to-"

"I know exactly what this nation does to its children." Mai advanced, her shadow stretching long across the courtyard stones. "Weapons to be forged. Failures to be locked away." Her sleeve shifted, revealing the glint of steel. "Remember the stories we whispered after lights out? About what happens to men who break their people?"

Azula's pulse jumped.

The old nursery tales of masked spirits dragging tyrants from their beds suddenly felt too close.

"Those were just bedtime stories," she scoffed, but not before glancing around the courtyard.

"Then why are you checking for eavesdroppers?" The knife in her sleeve slipped further into view as she stepped closer. She held it loosely, not as a threat, but as if offering Azula a choice. "Some monsters wear crowns, Azula. And some ghosts wear masks."

"They were just ghost stories," she insisted, remembering sleepovers with Ty Lee where they'd giggle about spirits stealing misbehaving nobles. "Myths to scare-"

"Or history they tried to erase?" Mai spoke in a whisper. The blade caught the light again as she gestured toward the palace spires. "What if they were once people like us? Girls who saw their loved ones burned and decided enough was enough?"

Azula's gaze darted instinctively to the empty training grounds.

No servants. No guards. Just the echo of her pulse in her ears.

"They were real." Mai’s lips twisted into something between a snarl and a plea. "And your father is exactly the kind of monster that birthed them. Kings so drunk on power they'd burn their own heirs. And when the blood ran too deep..."

A shiver crawled down Azula's back like melting frost. She knew these stories - had rolled her eyes at them in the royal archives. Children's tales about masked avengers.

But now, with Mai's grief hanging between them like a fresh death, the old warnings took on terrible new meaning.

"Too bad they don’t exist anymore," she deflected, absent-mindedly touching her scarred wrist.

Mai's gaze followed the movement like a hawk. "Don’t they?"

The white bandage slipped from beneath her sleeve like a traitor. Azula jerked her arm back, but too late. The damage was done. Mai's sharp eyes missed nothing.

For five heartbeats, the world stopped. Then Mai's whisper cut through the silence like one of her knives.

"How long after?"

Azula spoke before her brain could stop her. "Three months."

The number hung between them, damning. Her perfect obedience. Of silent meals. Of waking to Zuko's screams echoing in her skull. 

Mai's hand jerked toward the scar before clenching into a fist. "So that's how long it takes," she murmured. "For Ozai's perfect daughter to become just another failed heir."

The insult should have ignited her fury. Instead, Azula saw only Zuko's face in that final second. His pleas as he begged their father for leniency.

Would it have changed if he fought?

"He was teaching me," Azula protested weakly. "Strategy requires-”

"Don't." Mai broke. "Don't call torture a lesson. Don't call murder justice."

The first tear betrayed Mai. Then the floodgates broke.

Azula wouldn't remember who moved first. Mai's dark eyes held her in place with desperate intensity, then suddenly they were stumbling toward each other. Mai's arms closed around her, all sharp angles and fierce grip.

Weakness, her mind hissed, but her fingers dug into Mai’s back hard enough to bruise. She didn't care if servants reported it.

Let them see.

They were no longer a princess or a noble, but girls grasping the last person who remembered them before the flames.

Mai's whisper scorched against her collarbone. “Don’t let him carve you into his.”

"I don't know how to be anything else," Azula confessed to the hollow of Mai's throat. The admission tasted like blood and childhood summers.

When Mai pulled back, her eyes were dry and terrible. The knives flashed as she turned them hilt-first toward Azula, not weapons, but keys.

"Then learn," Mai commanded, her voice steel wrapped in silk. "Learn to be the shadow instead of the flame. Learn to cut where it hurts most."

Azula stared down at the knives. They were beautifully crafted, perfectly balanced, designed for precision rather than brute force. Weapons for someone who needed to strike from the shadows, who couldn't rely on raw power to survive.

"Why?"

"Because Zuko was my…friend. Because I care about you and I've spent the last few months watching the Fire Nation tear itself apart in service to your father's vision of glory." Mai's voice hardened. "And because someone needs to remember that before they made us weapons, we were children."

Azula closed her fingers around the knife handles, feeling their weight, their potential. For the first time since Zuko's death, she felt something other than fear or desperate compliance.

She felt purpose.

"The guard rotation changed last week," Azula murmured, already calculating. "There are... gaps."

It was true. Soldiers redistributed to defensive positions, expecting retaliation that would never come, but her father’s thoughts told him otherwise.

Mai's mask slipped just enough, not approval in her eyes, but something far more dangerous.

Hope.

"Then dig," she said simply. "Until you find what they buried."

They stood together in the training courtyard, two girls mourning a dead boy and the innocence they'd lost with him. Around them, the palace continued its daily rhythms, courtiers and servants going about their business, unaware that something fundamental had shifted in the shadows.

The courtyard stood frozen around them - two girls holding a vigil for the boy they'd lost, for the children they'd never been. Beyond the colonnades, the palace pulsed with its ordinary rhythms. Servants scurrying, nobles scheming, blissfully ignorant of the fault line cracking beneath their feet.

"I should go." Her voice threatened to crumble. "Before my father-"

Azula's fingers closed around her wrist. "Zuko, he-...he was always happiest when you visited."

Mai's breath hitched. A single tear traced the sharp line of her cheekbone before she wiped it away with a violence that wanted vengeance.

"Be the spark, Azula," she said, turning to go. "Burn it all down."

Azula watched until she disappeared down the corridors, turning the throwing knives over in her hands. The steel caught the light, throwing brief flashes of brilliance against the palace walls.

He murdered Zuko.

The truth coiled, venomous, in her skull.

She thought about the northern fleet, scattered and broken by a single waterbender who'd fought to their last breath. She thought about all the soldiers who'd died following orders they'd never questioned, trusting in strategies designed by men who saw them as expendable.

She thought about Zuko, and the choice he'd made to speak truth to power, even knowing the cost.

And Azula, herself, for doing the same.

The Fire Nation had created her to be a weapon. But weapons, she was beginning to understand, could choose their targets.

She was her father’s blade.

Yet that night, she sought Zuko’s ghost.

She made her way through corridors that felt different than before. With the palace guard rotations, whole sections of the royal wing now stood empty, unwatched. 

Including Zuko's chambers.

She slipped in after watching from the shadows. The door hadn't been locked. Why would it be? There was nothing left to protect, nothing left to preserve. Her father had made it clear that Zuko's existence was to be scrubbed from palace memory as thoroughly as their mother's had been.

The room was exactly as he'd left. Dust motes danced in the moonlight streaming through windows that servants no longer bothered to clean. His training gear still hung on its stand. His desk still held scrolls and ink, as if he might return at any moment to finish his studies.

Azula moved through the space, her fingers trailing over surfaces that still carried traces of his presence. She thought she would feel nothing. She should have reminded herself that this was the room of a traitor, a weakling who'd chosen defiance over duty.

Instead, she felt hollow.

On his nightstand, partially hidden beneath a stack of military treatises, a leather-bound journal, its cover worn smooth. Her brother's private thoughts, the words he'd never dared speak aloud.

She opened it without a second thought.

The war grows more aggressive each day. Father spoke at meal time today of burning entire Earth Kingdom villages to demoralize their forces. Uncle tried to object, but Father silenced him. Someone needs to speak up. Someone needs to remind them that those villages have children in them.

Even then, her brother couldn’t see the bigger picture. Those children would grow up and attack them, just like father explained-

She turned to the next page.

I've been working on alternative strategies. Ways to achieve our military objectives without the civilian casualties Father seems to prefer. Most are probably impossible with our current resources, but some might work. If anyone would listen.

She read through the list. Some were sound ideas. Others were completely ridiculous, and others would improve areas. Too bad their father would rather ruin their military than advance it.

Azula returned from the Academy today for a visit. She's gotten so much better at firebending, but something in her eyes has changed. She looks at me like Father does now. Like I'm something to be corrected.

Azula paused at the page. He was right.

She remembered she had embarrassed him at dinner that night. Asking him how many forms he had mastered and laughing with her father when it was only half her number.

The thought of it now brought bile.

I think Father is planning to test me soon. Uncle warned me to be careful, to keep my opinions to myself, but how can I stay silent when I see what we're becoming? What Azula is becoming?

She gripped the page and turned it.

The war council meeting is tomorrow. Father will present his newest strategy, and I know it will be monstrous because they always are now. Uncle says I should say nothing, agree with everything, survive to fight another day. But what if there is no other day? What if my silence now means more children burn tomorrow? Maybe... maybe if I speak with honor, if I remind the council what the Fire Nation used to stand for, someone will listen. Someone will remember.

The council would never have agreed with him. At least not publicly, not in front of Ozai. 

Uncle asked me to leave with him, to abandon the Agni Kai. He said I insulted Father and he will duel me, but Father wouldn’t do that? Would he? No, not even he is that cruel. Even if he doesn’t like my strategies, he wouldn’t harm me. I feel fear, but I will fight. I think fear without action is just cowardice. And I can't be a coward anymore. Not when Azula will be watching. Not when the Fire Nation's future depends on someone finding the courage to say this is wrong.

If I don't survive tomorrow, I hope someday Azula will understand. I hope she'll know that I tried to be brave enough for both of us.

The journal slipped from Azula’s fingers, a soft thud in the dust-choked silence. Zuko’s handwriting stared up at her, each word a wound.

I tried to be brave for both of us.

Zuko hated her, surely. He yelled at her, glared when Father praised her. But those were his words. He wanted to be brave for her. He was afraid, and he still went for her.

Her chest seized. Princesses don’t break. But her body betrayed her, silent sobs clawing free. The tears shook her entire body. She collapsed beside his bed, clutching his sheets to her chest, finally allowing herself to grieve.

Zuko hadn’t burned for weakness. He’d died for her.

Brave, while she’d stood silent, watching flames devour him.

Four months after his death, she was beginning to realize how alone she truly was. No mother, no brother to take the brunt of their father’s disappointment. Everyone had left.

Even the old, gullible fool, Iroh.

She was abandoned to a monster who taught her to smile while he murdered her brother.

When her tears dried, leaving salt and resolve, she began to wonder if Zuko had something else hidden in here. Useful beyond words in a journal.

She scoured the room, tracing childhood hiding spots. Loose stones yielded nothing, hollow bedposts mocked her, creaking floorboards whispered betrayal.

Behind the wardrobe, wrapped in silk that shimmered with their mother's scent - red berries and sea air - she found something. Another ghost's embrace yielding treasure.

Masks

Theater masks from the plays they'd performed together on Ember Island, back when they were still allowed to be children. When their mother would help them paint their faces and rehearse their lines, and smile as she watched their performances.

There was the demon mask Zuko had worn when he played the villain in "Love amongst the Dragons." The painted smile of the trickster spirit from "The Boy in the Iceberg." And at the bottom, wrapped most carefully of all, the stark white face of the Kemurikage from "The Haunting of Fire Lord Sozin."

She lifted it with reverence, remembering how Zuko had insisted on playing that role despite it being traditionally reserved for girls. How he'd practiced the Kemurikage's movements for hours, the ethereal glide across the stage, the way the spirit materialized from shadows to pass judgment on the corrupt.

He reminded her of Ty Lee, she’d teased, cruelly. You move like a girl. His hurt, Ursa’s sharp rebuke. They’d stung her then and hurt more now.

The childhood recitation came back instantly:

'Some fires must be extinguished,
Undoing what came before,
So that from the ashes
Something better can grow.'

Their mother had written those lines for their amateur production, changing the traditional script because she thought the original was too frightening for children. But now, holding the mask in the moonlight, Azula understood the truth her mother had been trying to teach them.

Some fires were meant to destroy. Others were meant to guide.

Zuko had never stopped believing that fire could save. Even as it consumed him

She'd spent her whole life being the first kind of fire. Perhaps it was time to learn how to be the second.

She slipped the mask beneath her robes, along with the throwing knives Mai had given her. Tomorrow would bring research - dusty scrolls and forbidden histories, the Kemurikage's true methods.

How they brought the nation’s most powerful men to their knees.

But tonight?

She simply sat in her brother's empty room and made him a promise.

"I understand now," she whispered to the darkness. "You were right about him, but you were wrong about the Fire Nation. It's not worth saving..."

She traced the carved wood of his bedpost.

"It needs to be unmade."

Outside his window, the caldera fires burned endlessly. Azula smiled.

Soon, they'd burn differently.

It was time to become something more than her father's masterpiece.

Chapter Text

Azula perched on a jagged ledge above the mountain pass, her breath steady despite the sweat dampening her skin. Below, Fire Nation supply wagons creaked through the night, their lanterns casting flickering shadows. Three wagons, ten guards, a cache of weapons meant for a border outpost.

She slid down the slope, silent as a whisper, just as the lead guard tripped over the wire she had set across the path earlier. He crashed into a crate with a stifled grunt. One down. Azula locked on the next target. A smoke bomb hissed from her hand, engulfing a second guard in a choking gray veil. She darted forward, her palm striking his neck. The precise blow sent him crumpling. Two down.

Then the plan unraveled.

The remaining guards snapped into formation, their firebending igniting the pass with searing bursts. Azula dove behind a boulder, the air blistering where she’d stood. Too fast. Her heart thudded as flames licked the stone, singeing the edges. The dry brush caught fire, a beacon that would draw every patrol for miles. She was pinned, her tools dwindling. Her blue flames could end this, but they’d reveal her identity.

Ozai’s daughter, not the Kemurikage.

“Secure the cargo!” a guard barked.

Azula’s fingers closed around one of her throwing knives. She tossed it, and it cut a bag of calthrop spikes on the wagon, scattering across the path. A guard howled, limping, but the fire intensified, exposing her cover. Time was slipping. Among the supplies in the cart, she spotted a mining charge, its fuse glinting. A desperate plan formed. She grabbed another knife. As the soldiers advanced on her position, she threw it, severing the fuse just right-

The explosion shook the ground, debris raining as guards dove for cover. The boom echoed, calling to every Fire Nation soldier in the vicinity. Azula used the smoke as a diversion to sprint from the scene, pain flaring in her shoulder where shrapnel grazed her. 

She'd live, but the chaos marked another failure.

Dawn neared when Azula slipped through Mai’s bedroom window, her Kemurikage mask clattering to the floor. Blood seeped through her leathers, soot streaked her cheek, and the weight of failure pressed down on her more acutely than the throbbing in her arm. She sank onto a bench, her jaw clenched so tight it ached.

Mai glanced up from her desk, her eyes performing a slow, unimpressed inventory of Azula’s disarray. “Let me guess, another failed mission.”

“The operation was compromised,” Azula bit out, clutching her shoulder rather than meeting Mai’s gaze.

Mai retrieved a cloth and a jar of salve, kneeling with a sigh to inspect the gash. “So, another lead incinerated. Literally, by the look of it.”

“I miscalculated their formation.” Azula’s voice was barely contained fury. “Your knives were useless, by the way.”

“They’re not useless. You're just not wielding them like I showed you.” Mai continued to clean the wound even when the salve drew a sharp hiss from Azula. “From the beginning. And don’t edit out the parts where you went wrong. I need the full picture to properly assess how badly it went.”

Azula laid out the sequence of the disaster with cold, clinical precision: the perfectly placed tripline, the takedown, the guards’ unnervingly swift and coordinated response that cornered her, the impossible choice that forced her to detonate the charge. 

Each admission was a fresh humiliation. She was taught to be perfect, but each mistake was a stark measure of the distance between her current clumsiness and the Kemurikage’s flawless ideal.

“You fought like a general,” Mai stated, tying off the bandage with a tug. “All tactics and brute force. But you’re not leading an army. You’re supposed to be a ghost, not a wildfire.” She stood, taking Azula’s satchel and putting away the remaining throwing knives. “I sent a message last week. To someone who can teach you how to move like one.”

Azula’s eyes narrowed. “You told someone about my activities?"

Mai’s lips curved into the most infuriating smile. “Relax. It’s someone even you can trust. You’ll see.”

Azula tested her bandaged shoulder, the sting a perfect echo of her frustration. 

‘Fought like a general.’

The label was an insult. 

She was a prodigy, the perfect weapon, forged in the Fire Nation's depths to command and conquer. 

But the Kemurikage demanded not power, but the absolute absence of it. It was a void she wasn’t sure she could embody.

“And if this…new method is beyond me?” The question came quieter and more vulnerable than she intended.

“It won’t be,” Mai said, her voice leaving no room for argument. “You’ll adapt. Because you always win. And because I didn’t just call in the best. I called in the only person who could possibly keep up with you.”

Before Azula could demand a name, the door swung open with a cheerful creak. A familiar figure bounded in, all vanilla pod perfume and wild energy, and wrapped Azula in a crushing hug before she could even flinch.

“Azula!” Ty Lee’s voice was sunlight in the dark room. She pulled back, her grin wide and effortless. “It's been too long. You looked like you could use a good hug!”

“Ty Lee?” Azula said, full of surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Mai's message was so mysterious, and when she said you were orchestrating something huge, I just had to come!” Ty Lee chirped, dropping into a perfect splits on the floor.

Azula’s head snapped toward Mai, the rage returning. “You put my mission in writing? Are you trying to get us tried for treason?”

“I implied you required a particular skill set,” Mai droned, examining her nails with profound boredom. “The details were unspecified.”

Azula’s posture stiffened. Another variable. Another potential leak. “This is not one of your performances, Ty Lee. The consequences of exposure are severe.”

“I know, I know!” Ty Lee said, leaning forward. “Mai’s letter said it was super-secret. My lips are sealed! You’re my friend, Azula.” The word, so simple and naive, momentarily disarmed Azula’s calculation, conjuring a faint echo of a simpler time.

“The circus was your sanctuary,” Azula stated, dissecting Ty Lee’s real motives. “You claimed it was where you were free. Why abandon it?”

Ty Lee’s smile softened into something more thoughtful. “I did love it. But I missed this. Missed you. Especially after everything that's happened.” Her gaze inadvertently dipped to Azula’s wrist, where the edge of an angry, red scar peeked from her robe. “Besides, keeping you safe is way more important to me than a standing ovation.” The raw honesty of it was an uncomfortable pressure in Azula’s chest. Ty Lee’s foolish sentimentality had a way of bypassing all defenses. “So!” she added, her bubbly grin snapping back into place as if it had never left, “What’s the big plan that only I can help with?”

Azula’s eyes met Mai’s, who offered a single, slight nod. “I am dismantling my father’s regime.”

Ty Lee’s cheerful facade finally cracked to genuine alarm. “But… he’s the Fire Lord. Why would you do that?”

“Because his vision is flawed,” Azula spat, the words laced with a contempt once reserved for her brother. “He confuses brutality for strength. He wastes our nation’s military might on petty vengeance when we should be consolidating our power and securing our future.”

“He’s making enemies where we can’t afford them,” Mai added flatly, giving voice to the strategic flaw Azula saw so clearly.

Azula granted her a curt nod of agreement.

“And if you succeed?” Ty Lee pressed, hesitant. “Would you… take the throne?”

It was the central, unspoken question. Her father would never relinquish power. It would have to be ripped from his grasp. By right of law and lineage, the throne belonged to Zuko. But Zuko was dead.

The path was clear. She was the heir.

If she could defeat the most powerful firebender in the world.

The cold, metallic taste of that doubt was new, and she hated it. A glance at Mai confirmed the same calculated fear reflected there. Not for Ozai, but for the sheer magnitude of the task.

“Speculation is a waste of energy,” Azula declared. “Our first objective is a simple supply transport interception. My skills require refinement for stealth.”

Mai let out a sigh. “I don’t see why not just kill them. You already know how to hit a target.”

“Because they are Fire Nation citizens,” Azula countered. “They will serve the nation long after my father’s reign is over. Furthermore, if I kill them, they will simply be replaced with less adequate soldiers. I have no intention of inheriting an incompetent military.”

“Ooh, I have the perfect thing!” Ty Lee chirped, seamlessly sliding back into her bubbly persona as if the grave conversation had never happened. “The circus taught me this amazing technique. It’s called chi blocking.” She leaned forward, eyes sparkling with excitement. “You hit specific points on the body to disrupt their energy flow. It paralyzes them temporarily. No bending but no permanent harm.”

A weapon that neutralizes without killing. Efficient. Elegant. Perfect.

Azula’s interest sharpened. “Show me.”

Ty Lee beamed. “Hold out your arm.”

Azula complied, her expression impassive. Ty Lee’s fingers darted out, pressing a precise point below her elbow. A strange numbness flooded the limb, rendering it useless and heavy as stone. Azula stared, clinically flexing her unresponsive fingers as sensation prickled slowly back. “How long does the effect last?”

“A few minutes,” Ty Lee said. “Now imagine using it on a firebender’s hands or an earthbender’s stance. Pair it with acrobatics, and you’re in and out like a ghost. No angry princesses covered in ash.”

An approving smirk touched Azula’s lips. “You’re suggesting I tumble around like a circus performer?”

“I’m suggesting you move like you’re weightless,” Ty Lee corrected, her voice firm, her enthusiasm infectious. “Unseen and unstoppable.”

Mai’s voice cut through the planning. “As nice as this reunion is, Azula, you need to be back at the palace before you’re missed.”

Azula stood, rolling her newly regained arm function. The application was ruthlessly efficient. Combined with Ty Lee’s fluid mobility, it would be a new form of tactical supremacy. “How long can you stay?”

“As long as you need,” Ty Lee said simply. “The circus can wait.”

Azula gathered her mask, her mind already weaving the technique into a hundred strategies. No more blunt instruments. No more obvious displays. It was time to become something far more subtle and far more feared. 

“Tomorrow night,” she said, slipping toward the window like the shadow she intended to be. “We begin.”

Four months earlier. 

The Southern Water Tribe dozed under pale Antarctic sun, a rare moment of peace settling over ice-carved homes. In Gran Gran's tent, Katara sat cross-legged on soft furs, watching weathered hands guide thread through sealskin with impossible precision.

"Your stitches are getting better," Gran Gran said, not looking up from her own work. "Soon you'll be mending better than your old grandmother."

Katara smiled, concentrating on keeping her thread even. Around them, the tent held the comfortable scents of seal oil and dried fish, the crackle of the fire pit mixing with Gran Gran's quiet humming.

"Gran Gran?" Katara's needle paused. "Do you think Mom would be proud? Of how we're managing without... without Dad and the others?"

The humming stopped. Gran Gran's hands stilled on her work.

"Your mother knew this day would come," she said finally. "Not the details, but the weight of it. She used to sit right where you're sitting, asking me the same questions when her father went to war."

"She did?"

"Mm." Gran Gran's voice carried the warmth of old memory. "Worried herself sick about whether she was strong enough, caring enough, worthy of the trust placed in her." She looked up, meeting Katara's eyes. "Just like you do now."

Katara ducked her head, embarrassed by the accuracy.

"Listen to me, child." Gran Gran's voice carried gentle authority. "Your mother chose, every single day, to fill her heart with love and hope instead of bitterness. Even when the war took friends, took family, took almost everything we held dear." She reached across, touching Katara's cheek with calloused fingers. "The world will try to hollow you out, steal that kindness from you. But you have a choice. Every day, you have a choice."

"What if I'm not strong enough to make the right one?"

"Then you make it again the next day. And the next. Love isn't something you are, sweet girl, it's something you do. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts."

The tent flap rustled in the wind, and somewhere outside, children's laughter carried on the cold air. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.

"Now," Gran Gran said, picking up her needle again. "Help me finish these mittens for the Nanuq family. And that lazy brother of yours can deliver them when he's done avoiding his chores."

As if summoned, Sokka's voice echoed from outside: "I'm not avoiding anything! I'm strategically planning my patrol approach for greater efficiency!"

Gran Gran and Katara exchanged a look and burst into giggles.

"Sokka!" Gran Gran called. "Come make yourself useful!"

The tent flap burst open and Sokka tumbled in, but his usual complaints died on his lips as he listened to the commotion outside. His face was bright with something between joy and disbelief.

"Dad's back!" he managed. "The warriors, they're coming in to dock right now!"

Katara's heart leaped. She was already rising, her sewing forgotten.

"Go," Gran Gran said, eyes twinkling as she waved them toward the entrance. "Greet your father. The mending can wait."

They raced across packed snow, joining other villagers emerging from their homes. Some wore bright smiles, others the careful expressions of people who'd learned that returning warriors didn't always bring good news.

At the shoreline, familiar kayak shapes cut through dark water. Katara spotted Hakoda's distinctive blue parka and felt her heart soar.

"Dad! Dad!" She jumped, waving frantically.

Hakoda looked up, his face breaking into a small smile that always made everything feel safe and right.

Then the smile died.

As soon as his kayak scraped the shore, he was leaping out, face transformed by desperate urgency.

"Fire Nation!" His voice cut like a blade. "They followed us! Everyone move NOW!"

The horizon exploded in red as two massive Fire Nation warships crested the ice ridges, their iron prows gleaming like the teeth of some terrible beast.

The first fireball screamed overhead.

Hakoda came running toward them, his arms outstretched. "Katara! Sokka!" he shouted.

The fireball came from nowhere.

It hit the ground between them with a sound like thunder, and the world went white. Katara felt herself flying backward, weightless for a moment that seemed to last forever, before crashing into something hard. Snow filled her mouth, her eyes, her lungs. Everything was ringing and spinning and wrong.

She tried to move but collapsed into the snow.

When she regained consciousness, and was able to lift her head, the first thing she saw was fire. So much fire.

And everyone was screaming. 

Gran Gran's hut was burning. The flames were already too high, too hot, consuming everything. Through the smoke, she could see a frail silhouette in the doorway. Gran Gran, trapped inside, calling for help in a voice that was getting weaker.

"Gran Gran!" Katara tried to scream, but only a whisper came out. She tried to get up, but her legs wouldn't work right. Everything felt fuzzy and far away.

"Katara!" Strong hands pulled her to her feet. Dad. He checked her all over, his hands gentle but urgent, looking for anything broken. "Are you hurt?"

"Gran Gran-" she pointed at the burning hut with a shaking hand.

Hakoda's face went grey. The flames were already too high. Even from here, they could both see there was no way in, no way out. Gran Gran's calls had gone quiet.

"We have to go," he said, his voice breaking. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. We have to go now."

He lifted her into his arms and ran toward the evacuation boats. But they didn't make it far before a figure in red armor stepped into their path.

"Going somewhere?" the soldier sneered, flames dancing around his fists.

Hakoda set Katara down behind him and drew his weapon. "Stay back," he warned her.

The soldier attacked, and Hakoda pushed him back. Katara watched in terror as they grappled, Hakoda trying to keep the flames away from both of them using his spear.

She had to help. She had to do something.

Katara raised her trembling hands and tried to call water from the melting snow around them. She'd been practicing with Gran Gran. Simple exercises, moving water in circles. 

The water barely formed a stream before it collapsed, splashing uselessly into the snow several feet from the soldier.

"Well, well," came a voice from behind her. "What do we have here?"

Katara spun around. Another soldier stood there, his helmet reflecting the firelight. He was holding a piece of paper, looking at her with cruel amusement.

"A little waterbender," he said, his voice mocking. "I thought these booklets were a waste. After all, we thought we killed the last southern waterbender three years ago." He waved the paper at her like it was a joke. "The Fire Lord will be very pleased when I bring him the head of the Southern waterbender. Especially one so small."

She tried to bend another whip of water, but it lifted for only a moment before splashing and soaking the snow.

He looked down and laughed. "Is that supposed to be waterbending? Pathetic." He crumpled up the paper and threw it aside carelessly. "Won't be needing this anymore. There’s nothing here to defend against."

Fire built in his hands, growing brighter and hotter. "This will be easy."

Katara couldn't move. The flames were so bright, so close, and she was just a little girl who couldn't make water obey.

"No!"

Hakoda broke away from the other soldier and threw himself at the one threatening Katara. They went down together in a tangle of limbs and fury. Hakoda fought like a polar bear dog, desperate and fierce, but the soldier's armor was strong, his flames scorching the air around them.

She heard the grunts and gasps as they rolled on the ground. For a moment, it looked like the soldier might overpower him, but then Hakoda twisted, gaining leverage. Sometimes he managed to land solid punches.

“Dad!”

“Stay back, Katara,” he shouted, pushing the soldier’s head back into the snow.

She looked around for Bato or one of the other warriors for help, but they were all fending off attacks. She tried to look for Sokka when something caught her eye. The paper the soldier had discarded. Crumpled and torn, but the bold black title stood out against the white background.

Countering Waterbenders: Field Manual

Instructions for hunting people like her. Diagrams showing weak points, preferred killing methods. They'd studied this. Planned it. Came prepared.

She shoved it into her pocket just as the sound of puncturing armor filled the air behind her.

Then, her father and the soldier stopped moving, wrapped in an eternal clinch.

“Dad?” she whispered.

Neither of the men on the ground moved. Blood began to spread through the snow, and for a moment, Katara’s heart dropped. 

Until Hakoda stirred.

He rolled off the soldier and pushed himself upright, swaying. The firelight caught something dark spreading across his chest, but he was standing. He was-

"Come on." His voice came out thin. "We need to get to the boats."

They stumbled together across the snow. So close now. Maybe thirty yards. The boats bobbed in the blue water, other survivors calling out. Katara could taste safety.

Until Hakoda's knees buckled.

She caught his arm, or tried to. He was too heavy, pulling her down with him as he collapsed.

He pushed himself to his knees. 

“Come on, Dad,” she pleaded. “We're almost there.”

He attempted to stand up and fell face-first into the snow.

And this time, didn't get up.

“Dad?" Katara crawled over to him “Dad! Get up! Please, get up!” 

When she rolled him over, she saw it. The dark spread across his chest wasn't a burn from the flames. His parka gaped open from where the soldier's blade had found the gap in his armor.

“I’m sorry, Katara,” he gasped, blood staining his teeth.

"No, no, no." Her hands pressed against the wound without conscious thought, blood warm and slick between her fingers. 

“Katara, you need to go,” he whispered.

“Not without you!”

She tried to figure out how to help him. She could fix anything. He was too heavy to carry. She couldn't close the wound. Her bending had already failed her but maybe this time…

She pressed her hands against his chest. The glow came instinctively. Pale blue light as she called water from the melting snow around them. Heal. Please. The way Gran Gran said the water could heal.

For a heartbeat, the bleeding slowed.

When she moved her hand, blood poured from the wound again.

"Katara." Hakoda's hand covered hers, his fingers cold now. "Listen to me."

"No! You’re going to be ok." The words came out fierce, desperate. "The boats are right there. We just need-"

"My brave girl.”

"Don't." She pressed harder, willing the water to obey, to fix this. It didn’t. "Don't say goodbye things."

His thumb traced her cheek, leaving a streak of warmth that she realized was his blood. "You and Sokka, my little warriors. You were my whole world. Never doubt that."

The water under her palms had gone dark. No matter how hard she pushed, no matter how much she wanted it, nothing changed. She was eleven years old and her bending was nothing but colored light.

"Go, find your brother," he gasped. "Find Sokka. Get to the boat. Live, sweetheart. Just... live. And never forget that you were loved. So loved."

She felt the exact moment he left. Not a dramatic exit, just a settling, like the tide going out.

Katara didn't scream. She couldn't. 

The sound was trapped somewhere behind her ribs, too big for her throat. Instead, she shook him, whispered "Dad" over and over like a prayer, as if she said it enough times he'd have to answer.

"Katara!"

She fought furiously when someone tried pulling her away.

She wouldn’t leave her father.

“Katara!” Sokka, his face streaked with soot and tears, peered over her shoulder. "We have to go!"

"We can't leave him!" She fought against her brother with all her strength, clawing at his arms.

"He's gone, Katara!" Sokka's voice cracked completely.  "We have to go, now!"

His hand closed around her arm, yanking her backward. She stumbled, her boots sliding through the bloody snow.

At the water's edge, Sokka half-lifted, half-threw her into the boat. An elder used an oar to push the boat off from the shore just as a fresh wave of Fire Nation soldiers began to trickle toward them, their armor glowing hellish orange against the inferno. Katara collapsed at the bottom of the boat, frozen, unable to look away from the shore.

Their home was being consumed. The entire village was engulfed in flames that clawed at the night sky. Silhouettes of women and children scrambled toward the retreating boats, only to be cut down by arrows of fire and sweeping blades.

Sokka grabbed her, pressing her face into his parka. “Don’t look. Just look at the water.” 

But she couldn’t.

The screams were too loud, too terrible to ignore.

By the time their boat reached the open, black waters, the screams had stopped entirely. The only sound was the slap of waves against the hull and the ragged breathing of the survivors.

“Where do we go?” a woman whispered from the stern.

“If they followed the warriors home, they’ll be blockading the Earth Kingdom coasts,” a man replied, the hope drained from his voice.

“North,” Sokka said. His voice was firmer now, like a leader’s decision. “We go North. Our sister tribe will take us in. They have to.”

There were a few murmurs of fear, of doubt about the long, impossible journey, but no one offered another idea.

One by one, they fell silent, slumping against the sides of the boat as they settled in for the long journey north.