Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mai wakes to the sound of persistent knocking coming from downstairs. She groans as she twists herself out from under the sheets, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. It’s still mostly dark—the gas lights of the new city shine in from her balcony, and the sky beyond is only just beginning to glow with the first of Agni’s rays.

More sharp raps from below—she curses as she shifts up off the futon, stumbling across the room to the divider where her night robe lies crumpled in a heap. She pulls it on and belts it haphazardly, pausing only to pluck one of her knives from the dresser before shuffling down the stairs to the shop.

The banging intensifies as she reaches the curtain at the bottom of the steps. Mai’s mouth thins to a sharp line. Even Azula would never dare wake her before the sun was at least a few degrees into the sky—whoever this fool is, they're going to regret their decision.

She rounds the workbench littered with cuttings from her latest project, a commission for the opening celebration of a new dojo a few blocks uptown. She’d worked late into the night perfecting the arrangement. Her visitor is in luck. Running on precious little rest, Mai is feeling well and truly homicidal.

She stumbles past a bucket of chrysanthemums that are just beginning to wilt and pulls back the screen covering the door. Her plan—to glare pointedly at the small plaque bearing the shop’s opening hours and then walk away—vanishes when she sees the woman waiting on her step.

She's Fire Nation, shorter than Mai by at least a head. She shuffles nervously from side to side, her eyes cast downward in deference, or is it apology? Standing slightly back from the door, she rests one hand nervously over the satchel at her side, the other worrying at her collar. Mai’s heart sinks when she spots the all too familiar insignia of a half flame.

Mai groans audibly. Of course it just had to be a fucking messenger from the embassy. Whatever this is about (and it can’t be anything good, that she’s certain of) it’s clear that she won’t go away until she’s at least had the chance to speak. Resigned to her fate, Mai undoes the lock and slides the door open.

“What?” she barks.

The woman, a girl really, blanches and fumbles again with her bag. (Perhaps Mai could have come across a bit less testy, but what of it?)

“My apologies for the early hour Lady—er, Miss Mai,” she bows, far too deep for Mai’s reduced station. “Ichii, special attaché to the embassy. I’m supposed to deliver a message for you, I’m afraid it’s urgent.”

Mai rolls her eyes. Zuko’s little lackey seems to share his tendency for stating the blindingly obvious. “Well clearly, or they wouldn’t have sent you to come hammer down my door ten degrees before dawn. Get on with it.”

The messenger winces under Mai's sustained glare, glancing down quickly before she pulls a sealed tube from her satchel. She offers it to Mai, who snatches it irritably.

“Is that all?” Mai snaps.

Ichii (or whatever her name was) devolves into yet more awkward shuffling—what will she have to do to get this woman to simply go away?

“My apologies miss, but I’m supposed to wait here for your reply.”

She snorts—as if that was going to happen. Mai turns without a word and slams the screen in the messenger’s face. If the woman wants to wait here and freeze out on her step, that’s her prerogative.

She walks back to the bench and lights a candle, brushing away trimmings to examine the scroll. It’s encased in a tube of tough komodo-rhino leather, the end sealed with wax bearing the insignia of the Fire Lord.

Zuko. She thought she’d been exceedingly clear when she told him in no uncertain terms that she never wanted to see or hear from him again, but apparently he couldn’t even make it a full year before deciding to pester her once more.

She really should just burn it and tell the messenger that His Majesty the Fire Lord can go fuck himself, but if it’s grave enough to justify sending an embassy runner in the dead of night she should probably at least skim whatever it is. (If only to save herself from the inevitable trouble later.)

She breaks the seal with somewhat more force than necessary and pulls out the scroll. The writing is haphazard, even blotchy in places. Zuko had clearly been writing in a panic.

My Dearest Dear Mai,

I know you requested that I not contact you again, especially after how we parted on such poor terms, but something has come up and I don’t know who else to turn to. Uncle is all the way in Ba Sing Se and the others are still at the Southern Temple for the solstice celebration with Aang and Ty Lee, you’re the only person close enough that I can trust.

Azula has escaped. It happened sometime late yesterday evening—the midnight watch arrived to find her guards unconscious and the bars of her cell melted clean through. I didn’t think I had no idea she could even do that, if I had I would've taken more precautions with her. I’m so stupid Perhaps I let myself get lulled into a sense of complacency, but she’s been so quiet these past two years. I just didn’t think, I never think

Anyway, that’s not the worst of it. We found my fath Ozai in the morning, or what was left of him. It was horrible, Mai. He’d been—I’m having a hard time even writing it—he’d been burned, everything below his waist charred and blackened, all the way down to his bones. I knew she was capable of violence, but this... the smell—

I’ve already doubled the palace guard and reassigned every garrison I can to search for her, but she’s disappeared without a trace. I can’t bear to sleep—I feel like I’m going out of my mind. She left nothing behind her, no hint as to where she’s going or what she intends to do. Just thinking of the possibilities… it terrifies me to my core. You know her better than all of us—if anyone can find her and bring her back it’s you. Please Mai, I know we’ve had our differences, but I need you now, more than I’ve ever needed anyone. Please help me.

Yours,
Zuko

The war has been over for three months before Mai can summon the resolve to make her request.

It's a crisp winter morning, and they’re having tea in his mother’s garden. It’s the first time they’ve been alone together since she arrived—ever since her official status as Consort was announced, she’s been inundated with overbearing servants and simpering courtiers.

Mai is, to put it simply, fed up. She can’t even bathe without her bodyservant standing nervously at attention beside her. At least with Azula she was on the periphery—being the center of attention is a thousand times worse than she could have ever imagined. She feels well and truly cloistered, hemmed in on every side by the weight of tradition and expectation. She’s spent so long convincing herself that she can live with this fate, but the reality of it becomes more difficult with each passing day.

Mai picks up her tea, making a point to catch Zuko’s attention through his good eye.

“I want to see her.” She says, far more casually than the feels.

Zuko is silent for a moment, and Mai resists the urge to pull at the loose thread of embroidery on her sleeve. Tailored for the opulence of court, the robes of a Consort are stiff and inflexible, weighing down her shoulders. They’re bright and garish, a tangible reminder of the bargain she’s struck. She dearly misses her old wardrobe of simple black bijia.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Zuko looks at her warily from across his tea. “You didn’t see her on the day of Sozin’s Comet, Mai. She was… she was unhinged.”

‘And I wonder whose fault that could be?’ Mai thinks acidly. She forces down another mouthful of tea—jasmine, always jasmine with him—the flavor masking the bile rising in the back of her throat.

“It’s important, Zuko. Please.”

Zuko gives her an odd look, like he’s watching tea seep into the cracks of a porcelain cup, illuminating its imperfections. She wonders if he can see the unruly tangle of conflicted emotions she’s tried her hardest to box away and forget about ever since her return to Caldera.

[

The first thing she sees when she steps off the ship is Zuko, dressed in full Fire Lord regalia with his guard in tow. He smiles at her, full of hope and newfound surety. Mai doesn’t know whether to sigh in relief or vomit. Seemingly oblivious to her hesitation, Zuko rushes forward and yanks her into his arms.

“I was so worried,” he chokes out. “What happened on the Day of the Black Sun, and then there was no word of you, just nothing. I didn’t know if…”

Mai pats him on the back and attempts to extricate herself from his hold. Zuko winces as he releases her, his hand unconsciously drifting to his chest. So, the rumors were true then.

“I’m fine, Zuko.”

(‘No thanks to you,’ she almost adds.)

It’s probably the wrong time to ask (will there ever be a right time?) but she has to know. She can’t help the name that spills from her mouth a little too quickly.

“And Azula?”

Zuko’s face twists in discomfort. “Locked up, somewhere she won’t ever be able to hurt anyone again.”

Mai wills herself not to react outwardly as relief and anger war in her chest. “It would have haunted you,” is all she can bring herself to say.

Zuko nods and looks away, his gaze suddenly distant. “She had this expression after I redirected her lightning, for a moment it seemed like—“

Zuko seems to pause mid-thought. His face lights up again as he turns back to her. “But you’re here now, and we’re safe. Come! There’s so much we need to talk about.”

He natters for the entire palanquin ride back to the palace. Mai pretends to listen, offering a nod or a ‘hmm’ whenever it seems appropriate.

She tries her best to ignore the doubts that linger in the back of her mind—whether she should have ever returned here. She’s spent the majority of her life in this city, but seeing it now feels wrong somehow, her heart beating to an unfamiliar rhythm.

She reminds herself again that this is for the best. She forces herself to think of Tom-Tom, of her parents. Her relationship with Zuko is all that shields them from the fate that undoubtedly awaits their fellow Ozai loyalists.

Her thoughts betray her, however. They stray to Ba Sing Se, a conversation that now seems like it’s from another lifetime. She can only laugh bitterly at the irony, making the same choice now as she did then.

She cant help but think that in the end she was right—their fate was never theirs to decide.

]

Whatever Zuko is looking for in her gaze, he doesn’t find it. He sighs, returning his cup to its place on the table.

“Fine, I’ll allow it. But only because I know she was your friend.”

‘Friend’ Mai thinks. Such a small word, so entirely inadequate for the mess of powerful and contradictory feelings Azula provokes within her. Feelings that are hers alone—feelings that Zuko need not know.

Mai bows once, deep enough to avoid giving the impression of displeasure but not so deep as to reveal the enormity of what Zuko has just granted her.

As if picking up on the strange tension in the room, Zuko is quick to change the topic, voicing his frustration with the council over his plans to withdraw their troops from the Earth Kingdom. Mai privately thinks it’s a disaster waiting to happen, thousands of demoralized soldiers returning home when they have no jobs to offer and precious little in the way of resources to spare for them, but her mind is elsewhere, already plotting her way to that squat white structure, an invisible presence that looms just beyond the rim of the caldera.

The rest of the day is filled with the petty social obligations of the Consort to the Fire Lord, vapid events and social calls that seem to fester and multiply like lice, relentless in their demands on her time and patience. It’s well into the evening before Mai can finally excuse herself and make her way to the prison.

Upon her arrival, Mai expects to be led to one of the cells on the top ring, those reserved only for prisoners of the highest rank. A cell like where Prince Iroh was held after his return to the Fire Nation following the fall of Ba Sing Se.

Instead, the guard ushers her to a grated door. He pulls the metal screen back and gestures for her to step inside. Mai has to hide her jolt of surprise when the guard pulls a lever and suddenly the entire small chamber shudders and begins to descend. The metal around them groans under the stress and she can hear the rhythmic clanking of chains moving overhead.

All things considered, it’s rather clever. Another one of the Ambassador’s pet projects, perhaps? The man is always finding inspiration in the strangest of places.

She’s struck by a silly image, dumb waiters carrying food up from the kitchens in the palace. What kind of dish is she?

They descend for what feels like an eternity, a strange green glow growing stronger beneath them as the daylight from above fades. Mai steadies herself as the contraption comes to a stop with a lurch. The guard pulls back the screen and she finds herself in front of yet another barred door. It’s the third, by her count.

A grizzled old man stands at attention opposite them. Unlike the guards in the prison above, he’s dressed in full battle armor, the black bone of his shoulder guards taking on a dull sheen in the dim light.

She bites back a sneer. Zuko’s paranoia, no doubt. Not that it would make much difference when the prisoner in question is Azula. Mai has seen her cut sheet iron with her flame, a few thin layers of bone certainly won’t stop her.

The guard’s eyes narrow, he looks at her with open suspicion and grunts.

“The prisoner is not permitted visitors, orders from the Fire Lord himself.”

Mai’s eyebrows pinch in irritation. Hadn’t he been informed of her visit in advance? She draws two slips of black jade from beneath her robe, the first bearing her personal seal and the second marking her as an emissary of the crown. Together they give her blanket authorization to go and do as she pleases, carrying the implicit authority of the Fire Lord himself. The guard inspects both carefully, scanning for even the smallest irregularity. After a long, awkward pause he gives her a stiff nod and inserts a key into one of the two keyholes in the lock. The guard beside her provides the other, and the door creaks open.

He locks it behind them, and the guard she came in with leads her down a long corridor lit not by the braziers she’d come to expect, but instead by crystals glowing an eerie green. More fond memories...

At the far end of the hall lies yet another door, this one of solid iron. Mai’s hands shake, dread sitting heavy with anticipation in her gut. She is not ready, she should not have come.

What is she hoping to accomplish? Is she trying to relieve herself of the regret that chases her every waking moment? To free herself of the golden eyes filled with shock and pain that visit her every night in her dreams, to convince herself that things are as they should be, that there was no choice, that there can be nothing better?

She does not know. All she knows for certain is the gnawing need in her chest, the lack she feels keenly in every gesture, every movement.

The process repeats, she shows her seals, the keys twist and the door creaks open. The guard beside her stops and Mai looks back at her in surprise. The woman shifts uncomfortably, her voice cracking in trepidation.

“We are not permitted to interact with the prisoner, your highness. I’m afraid that from here on, you’re on your own.”

Mai bites back the retort on her tongue. Are her words alone such a threat? (Long Feng still rots beneath Lake Laogai.)

She gives the first guard a stiff nod as the second turns to her. Yuyan, going by his facial tattoos and the bow at his side.

“The door will lock behind you. Tap when you are ready to come out—twice if all is well, three times if you are under duress.”

Mai nods again. “Noted.”

She steps through, and the great block of iron swings shut behind her with a clang of finality. Awash in dim green light, it takes her a moment to register the sight in front of her. Yet another set of bars, and behind them a room, no more than four paces to a side. A bucket sits in one corner, a thin straw mat opposite it. And on the mat, huddled with her back facing Mai, the slight form of a girl.

Zuko had described madness, but here she sees only defeat.

[

Mai creases the letter between her fingers, cursing as she paces back and forth in her apartment in the palace. The battle is over, the Avatar has fled and his forces have either been subdued or sunk beneath the waves. The mood should be joyful, but all Mai can feel is hollow dread.

”Dear Mai, I'm sorry that you have to find out this way, but I'm leaving…”

She crumples the sheet and throws it across the room before slumping against the wall. Her face is uncomfortably wet, she’s unable to hold back the tears as anger and terror strip away the last vestiges of her composure.

How could he? Never mind why—she’s sure Zuko’s reason is good and noble, at least in his own mind—but what about them? Does he have any idea what this will do to Azula, to her? This is undeniable treason. Zuko knows the penalties of that better than anyone, the law of eight degrees…

Somewhere in the back of her mind, it registers that she is almost certainly dead. She should be upset, or at least afraid, but in this moment all she feels is an eerie calm.

Her family… she can only hope they’ll be safe for now in New Ozai. The Fire Lord can afford to make an example of her, but her father is too valuable an ally to waste, and besides, Ukano still has an heir. Now that Zuko’s treason has rendered her betrothal null and void, Mai is no longer of any use to him.

She’s half-expecting the Royal Guard to burst into the room at any moment and haul her off, to throw her in some dark cell in anticipation of the pyre that awaits her.

But degrees pass, and still no one comes. The palace is oddly quiet; even the servants seem to know when to make themselves scarce.

The silence stretches on, and inevitably her thoughts turn to Azula—Mai shivers in dread.

Azula hasn’t spoken to her since her return after the battle. She brushed past Mai in the hall, her eyes empty and her face a perfect mask, brittle and blank. She didn’t so much as spare a glance in Mai’s direction. Still, Mai caught a glimpse of her hands as she passed. They were balled into fists, nails digging deep enough to draw a small trickle of blood from her palms.

Azula had been on her way to the throne room, and that was ninety degrees ago now.

Mai rocks from side to side, unable to calm either her body or her mind. If Zuko succeeded in confronting his father, then the Fire Lord must know that Azula lied to him for Zuko’s sake.

“Father does not tolerate weakness.”

Azula repeated it frequently enough for it to become a mantra, she would mumble it over and over again after her training sessions, staring forward with unfocused eyes while Mai helped her bandage the burns and applied cooling balm to bruises that bloomed like ash-poppies on her skin.

And if there is one thing that Fire Lord Ozai hates more than weakness, it is disloyalty. Azula is guilty of both, and Zuko had just damned them all for it. Mai refuses to imagine what Ozai will do.

She drifts off again, only to start when another ball falls from the water clock atop her vanity. She looks up to find the room bathed in darkness. How long has it been? How long will it be?

The spirits must have heard her, for not a dozen breaths later the screen to her apartment opens with a crash. The sudden burst of light from the hall makes Mai wince, she has to squint as her eyes adjust.

Azula stands in the entryway, her face drained of color in the low light. Her hair is wild and uneven, singed on one side. She’s barefoot, clad in only her under-armor with some sort of sack slung across her shoulder. There are fresh burns on her wrists and a dark ring beginning to form around her neck. She favors her right leg, wincing every time the fabric brushes against her thigh.

Azula stares at Mai and she freezes. The look in her eyes is wild, almost unhinged. There’s something new there, a dark and awful kind of violence.

For the first time in her life, Mai is scared of Azula, of what she might do. The Azula in front of her is not the one she knows.

Azula moves faster than Mai can react, pinning her against the wall with a dagger of blue flame to her throat. Mai’s skin tingles and begins to burn.

Azula's entire body is radiating heat. Barely a finger’s breadth separates their faces now—Mai can taste the smoke on Azula’s breath and sees the streaks in her eyeliner where tears have been hastily wiped away.

“Did you know?” Azula’s tone is unsteady, almost pleading.

Mai looks her in the eyes as she responds, willing her to believe. “Not until this morning, when he left that on my bed.”

With some effort, Mai nods in the direction of the crumpled ball of parchment sitting at the foot of her desk. Azula follows her line of sight, releasing her abruptly. Mai rubs the angry red welt on her neck as Azula snatches the note from the floor, smoothing it out as she scans it. Her face twists in an ugly sneer as the note crumples to ash in her palm.

“Both of us, then. He betrayed us both.”

Azula looks up at Mai, the anger draining from her face only to be replaced by fear.

“You need to go.”

Mai just stares at her for a moment, unwilling to comprehend.

“What?”

Azula retrieves the sack from where it had fallen by the entrance and thrusts it into Mai’s arms.

“I can’t protect you here, you need to leave.” Azula pulls back, turning away from her. Curled in on herself with no makeup and bereft of armor, she suddenly looks very much her age.

Azula won't look at her as she speaks. “Clothing and papers, and enough money to set yourself up somewhere. There’s a boat at the docks, a freighter bound for Cranefish Town in the Colonies. The captain is expecting you, he won’t ask questions.”

Mai sputters for a moment, unwilling to accept Azula’s unspoken command. Disbelief rapidly gives way to outrage. Azula is dismissing her again, just as she had in Ba Sing Se, as if she’s nothing. (As if she doesn’t need Mai the way Mai needs her.)

Mai drops the bag. “No.”

Azula is pacing, eyes darting around the room in panic, focusing anywhere but on Mai’s face.

“Father, he will—"

Something in Mai snaps. She doesn’t care that they might be overheard, no longer cares for the consequences of her actions, for her duty to her family or to her country, for anything outside the two people in this room. She cuts Azula off, seizing her by the wrist.

“I love you more than I fear him.”

Azula’s face goes blank with shock. Something in her expression opens, vanishing just as quickly as her face contorts in anger.

“Then you’re a fool. Go now, or I’ll turn you over to him myself.”

Azula wrenches her hand away, and Mai finds herself suddenly mourning the loss of contact. The Princess’ face is closed off—Mai knows her well enough to know that there will be no getting through to her now. Still she tries one last, desperate gamble.

“Come with me then.”

Azula laughs. It’s high and mirthless, cracking with anguish. “I have my duty. You should have learned by now the consequences of pining over impossibilities.”

She retreats, the room seems to fold in around her as she picks up the bag at her feet. The canvas straps are coarse in her hands.

Abruptly, Azula rounds on her and screams, fire blooming from her hands and mouth in uncontrolled waves.

“I said GO!”

Mai wants to touch her one last time, wants to imprint the curve of her neck and her scent into memory, but all she can smell now is ash. She makes her way to the foot of the bed and slides back the board hiding the entrance to the passage below.

She lowers herself down and closes the board above her, keeping her eyes fixed on the darkness ahead. If she looks back, she knows she will not be able to summon the will to leave.

(In some memories, she lingers just long enough to hear a muffled thump above, followed by the sound of quiet sobs.)

]

“Azula.”

Mai forces down a powerful surge of emotions, shame and regret and others she refuses to name. Her voice is grating to her own ears.

Azula doesn’t respond, doesn’t even move. Mai finally forces herself to look, to really look at her, and she retches so hard that she has to brace herself against the wall.

Azula’s hair has been shorn off entirely, now no more than two fēn at its longest. Not for the first time, Mai finds herself furious at Zuko. Removal of hair was reserved only for the highest of dishonors—a punishment fit for deserters, generals disgraced in battle, traitors to the crown.

Azula once took such pride in her hair, refusing to even allow her servants to touch it. Mai remembers standing behind Azula, watching as she rinsed her hair gently with rice water before working in the oil with slow, deliberate fingers. A hundred strokes of the brush followed, the same routine repeated each morning and night. Once or twice Azula let her guard down enough to hand Mai the brush, eyes piercing into her, seeking reassurance with a desperation that could only be borne of denial. Quiet need, companionable silence and the smell of camellia oil, unguarded glances and the rare smile that Azula reserved only for her.

That hair is now greasy and matted with dust, no longer than Mai's knuckles. Azula sits hunched on the mat with her knees to her chin. From this angle, only the side of her face is visible. Even so, Mai notices the hollowness in her cheeks, deep purple rings around vacant eyes.

“Azula.”

She twitches but still doesn’t respond, curling tighter into herself almost imperceptibly.

Mai doesn’t know what to say, has no idea how to express the feelings she won’t even let herself acknowledge. When Azula finally turns to look at her, Mai has to suppress a flinch at the coldness in her eyes.

“Why are you here?”

Her voice is raspy from disuse, so much so that Mai wonders if she’s the first person Azula has spoken to since that fateful Agni Kai.

Mai could say that she simply wanted to check on an old friend, that she felt guilty for Azula’s fate, that she genuinely missed her, that something in her needed to see Azula again no matter how painful the memories.

She responds only, “I don’t know.”

Azula’s gaze darkens as she spots the hairpiece adorning Mai’s topknot. She’s suddenly acutely aware of the metal digging against her scalp. She fights the sudden urge to rip it out and cast it away—somewhere out of mind, or at least out of sight.

Mai thinks she sees hurt flash momentarily across Azula’s face before she inevitably sneers. “Look at you, Royal Consort to the Fire Lord in all your finery.” Azula lets out an awful, bitter laugh. “I’m sure Lord Ukano and your dear mother are so very proud. Tell me, is it everything you thought it would be?”

Azula raises an eyebrow in cold mockery, the insinuation is not lost on Mai. Words echo in her head—remnants from another continent, a different lifetime. Something twists in Mai’s gut, her jaw tightens in anger. Azula always did know exactly where to cut.

(She will not admit that whatever anger she now feels at Azula is multiplied tenfold against herself.)

“I made my choices.”

It’s a hollow reply, and they both know it. Azula stretches, folding her arms behind her.

“Did you now?”

Mai has had enough. She can’t be here, in the presence of the girl who makes her want to question everything, who strips her bare until her regrets are plain for all to see. She stands and makes her way to the door—she cannot bear to look back.

Mai hears Azula behind her, and she aches at the thinly disguised desperation beneath her jeer.

“Go on then, leave!”

It is dark when Mai finally exits the prison. The full moon looms at the edge of the caldera, stained orange in the twilight.

She passes through the gardens, pausing when she sees movement near the fountain. It’s the waterbender—Katara, she thinks absently. She watches as the woman lunges forward, the water heeding her call effortlessly. The grass below her feet browns as she bends moisture from the earth, feeding it into an arc of ice that swoops out and slices clean through a boulder three paces from where she stands.

The intensity she radiates makes the strange respect with which Azula spoke of her suddenly all too clear. The waterbender is ruthless in her own way, possessed of the same burning drive she knows so painfully well from another.

They’re reflections, each wielding their element with the ghost of its opposite, unassailable power behind so much pain.

[

They make camp fifty li north of Omashu, not far from where the Nan Shan river joins its larger, more turbulent cousin to the south. Mai can’t sleep, the hard earth beneath her bedroll digging into her back. She rises and wanders away from the tents towards the river, following the glow of the full moon overhead.

She stops a dozen paces from the bank, transfixed by the sight in front of her.

Azula stands in the clearing, balancing on her left heel as she sweeps out a great arc of flame from her right. She moves like the river just beyond, her fire surging forth and receding in time with the water lapping at the shore.

Azula is fluid perfection, effortless grace and overwhelming power. She’s almost unearthly in the cool glow of her flame. Azula was barely twelve when the Fire Sages proclaimed her a prodigy blessed by Agni herself, the kind of firebender that comes not once in a generation, but once in a hundred. Looking at her now, Mai can see the truth in those words, understands why even the Fire Lord himself has come to fear her power.

The heat emanating from Azula’s flames is so intense that Mai begins to sweat even as she shivers in the chilly evening breeze. The blue glow of her fire ripples in the moonlight. It’s searing cold and blinding heat—Mai does not know if she would burn or freeze should she reach out to touch it.

Azula’s brow glistens with moisture, her eyes bright and the start of a smile gracing her lips. It’s not an expression Mai is used to on her friend—but seeing it now, she thinks it might be the closest Azula ever comes to feeling true joy—unburdened by crushing expectation or the nervous anxiety of duty.

Staring up at the sky, Mai recalls palace whispers, gossip regarding the strange circumstances surrounding Azula’s birth. Born at midnight on the summer solstice with the full moon high overhead, perhaps it is not just Agni that graces Azula with her blessing.

Azula completes another kata, the flame winding around her in great arcs, flowing out and returning as if greeting an old friend. In its own strange way, it's almost playful.

Mai stands mesmerized, still as a ghost, just one more dark shadow at the treeline. She dares not move, lest she interrupt the scene in front of her and disperse the strange power of this moment.

Even so, she does not go unnoticed.

Azula pauses in her routine and turns to face her. Something flashes behind her eyes, an emotion neither one of them dares name. Gold eyes bright in the moonlight, Azula smiles.

]