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The most important day in Zuko’s life was the day his baby sister was born.
Azula was born on a bright summer day, strong and healthy, with a set of lungs that could split a person’s eardrums. She was born to the screams of her mother and blood on the sheets, and the grim grim faces of the healers.
Zuko saw everything. His mother had gone into labour, and suddenly everything had become very busy. No-one ushered him out. He suspected they hadn’t really noticed he was there. Too busy with his mother’s bleeding, and his new baby sister’s screaming, and the panic that accompanies a birth gone terribly, terribly wrong. Nobody had been paying much attention to one small quiet prince, watching everything with wide open eyes.
He’d seen his sister blast her way, red and screaming, into the world. He’d seen the blood on the sheets and his mother’s too pale face, and he knew, he knew what it meant, even if no-one had dared say it out loud.
He still remembered how brave his mother had been. He could only hope to have half her courage. She’d known she was dying, she must have known, but she didn’t flinch, or cry, or rage against things that she couldn’t change. No, instead, she’d held the then nameless baby in her arms, and beckoned Zuko over to her from the corner he’d been forgotten in. Ursa had always seen him, even when everyone else failed to notice.
“This is your sister.” She’d said, soft but deadly serious. “You’re a big brother now. Promise me Zuko. Promise you’ll always take care of her, that you’ll love her, whatever happens.” Zuko hadn’t understood. Not then. But he loved his mother, so he promised, right before the servants suddenly remembered his existence and kicked him out of the room. It was the last time he ever saw her alive.
The last thing Zuko’s mother ever said to him was to take care of his sister. To protect her, look after her, love her, no matter what. Then the servants had hustled him away with drawn faces, and anxious eyes, and by the time the world stopped spinning, he found himself sitting alone in the nursery with the new baby in the cot in the corner, and a new hole torn in his world. His father was nowhere to be seen.
After a while he wandered over to the cot and looked at her, that small soft, scrap of humanity. When he had first heard his mother was pregnant, he’d been prepared to hate the baby. All of a sudden no-one was paying attention to him anymore, it was all baby this and baby that, and will it be a girl or a boy. But in that moment looking at her tiny screwed up face all he could hear was his mother’s voice, telling him to look after her. He wasn’t stupid, he knew something had gone very very wrong with his mother, and he was suddenly vey alone and scared so he picked up the baby and held her close.
“I swear I will look after you. I will protect you even against Agni himself. I swear by my honour.” The baby just gurgled up at him and he had never loved anyone as much as he loved her in that moment. It was hours before anyone came to tell him that his mother had died. They found him still awake and watchful, with the baby in his arms.
…..
It was a week before Ozai came to visit his new baby daughter. He didn’t stay long. Zuko wasn’t surprised, it was always his mother who stayed with him, spent time with him, told him stories. His father had more important things to do than play with his children. He stayed for a few minutes, looked the baby over with a critical eye, named her Azula and then left. Zuko wasn’t surprised, but it still hurt. Now he truly was alone. Mother had died and left him alone. He didn’t know what to do with that truth.
The baby started to cry, an abrupt reminder that, no he wasn’t alone, he had baby ‘Zula. He had to fight back tears when he realized she would never know mum, that their mother would never tuck her in at night and tell her stories to keep away the nightmares, like she had for Zuko. Well, he decided, that just meant he would have to do it instead. Mum was gone so he would have to look after Azula. As the nurse rushed in to feed her he smiled for the first time since his mother’s death.
…..
Zuko wasn’t a strong bender. By the time he was six that was becoming abundantly clear. Azula was coming along well which was reassuring, but he still worried, how was he supposed to protect her when his firebending was so weak. It was after he saw a demonstration by the renowned swordmaster Piandao that he started to see a way around his problem.
Of course being a royal prince, he couldn’t just ask for swordfighting lessons. His bending was supposed to be enough, to ask to learn an inferior weapon would shame his family, and his father would never consider it. So for now he limited himself to watching the soldiers train, and trying to practice what he’d seen with sticks when he was alone. The soldiers all thought he was adorable, they were perfectly willing to show him tricks, and help him improve on his basic techniques. It was enough. In swordwork at least, he had talent, and no weapon was inferior if it helped him keep his sister safe.
The soldiers also managed to provide him with a slightly… enhanced vocabulary, and a detailed understanding of a number of card games, but Zuko knew better than to repay their indulgence by repeating what he’d learned. He could keep secrets when it mattered, and with Azula to protect, it always mattered.
Azula meanwhile had made some new friends. After a reasonable amount of observation, Zuko approved. Ty Lee and Mai were good for her he thought. They were loyal friends, and Zuko was becoming increasingly aware just what a rare and valuable thing that was in his father’s court.
Besides, even though they weren’t benders, they were both learning how to fight, which could only mean more protection for ‘Zula.
….
Azula loved her brother with all the fierce, obsessive love that a child had to give. Her mother had died when she was born, father was never around, and the rest of her family were distant figures of authority at best, but Zuko was always there for her. Zuko was hers, completely and entirely, and Azula always was dragon jealous with what was hers. For as long as she could remember Zuko had tucked her in at night, had told her stories to keep the nightmares away. When she fell over and scraped her knee, it was her big brother she ran to for comfort, when she had trouble with her lessons, he would sit with her and explain until she understood, and if anyone ever tried to hurt her Zuko would always be there to protect her. She knew that because when she was three an assassin had got into the nursery, and Zuko had jumped on him from behind and tried to strangle him. It didn’t work of course, silly Zuzu was six, and six year olds can’t strangle grown assassins, but it raised enough of a commotion to call in the guards to deal with the intruder.
She loved her new friends Mai and Ty Lee as well, Ty Lee knew how to do cartwheels, and Mai always knew the best places to spy on the grownups. Azula was sure that when they grew up they would be unstoppable. She wasn’t sure what they would be unstoppable at yet, currently it seemed to change from week to week, but she knew that whatever it was they would be the best. And they were hers. Not as much hers as Zuzu was, not yet, but they would be, she would make sure of it. (The dragon in her soul purred at the addition to her hoard).
…
When Zuko was seven the court was thrown into an uproar. His uncle Iroh and cousin Lu Ten had come home. Zuko barely remembered them. The last time he’d seen them had been at his mother’s funeral. Azula didn’t know them at all, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Azula didn’t always react well to change.
He was nervous, but he was also kind of excited. After all, they had been in the Earth Kingdom, fighting in the war, they must have seen all kinds of strange things and done all kinds of heroic deeds. Maybe they would tell him about them.
When they arrived there were a lot of stuffy family events, which Zuko could honestly have lived without, but it was all worth it because Cousin Lu-Ten was awesome.
Zuko liked Uncle Iroh as well of course, he was nice, and funny for an old person, but Lu-Ten was his favourite. Lu Ten was nearly a grown up, but he was still happy spending time with Zuko, when he heard how weak Zuko’s bending was he didn’t laugh, he just showed him techniques to help him compensate, told him that because he had less power he could be more precise, and sometimes precision was better than brute strength anyway. When Zuko summoned up the courage to shyly show his cousin the sword fighting techniques he’d been practicing, Lu-Ten had been impressed rather than angry, and said that he was a natural. It was Lu-Ten who arranged for him to have secret swordfighting lessons, and sneaked him out of the palace in disguise to buy his first set of practice blades.
It felt nice, almost like having an older sibling of his own to look out for him.
…
Azula didn’t like Uncle Iroh and Cousin Lu-Ten. She didn’t like them and she wasn’t afraid to show it. She and Zuko had been perfectly happy before they came along and turned everything upside down. Before, she and Zuko had been mostly left to their own devices, now they were expected to appear at endless boring family meetings, and be on their best behaviour at all times. She hardly ever got to see Mai and Ty Lee, and she had to wear those horrid formal clothes everywhere, but worst of all, they were stealing Zuzu. Now instead of spending all his time with her, he was always disappearing off with cousin Lu-Ten, or having tea with uncle Iroh. It wasn’t fair, they were ruining everything.
So she sulked. She took sulking to a whole new level. When she and Zuko were invited to dinner with Uncle Iroh she refused, when Cousin Lu-ten offered to show them grown up fighting moves, she said no, when Uncle Iroh gave her a new toy doll she set it on fire. In the end Zuko lost his temper with her. He told her she was a spoiled brat, that her behaviour was shameful, not only to him, but to the whole fire nation, that if she carried on he was never going to speak to her ever again. She responded by throwing the mother of all temper tantrums, it ended with her being sent to her room without any dinner, and Zuko ignoring her for two days solid.
In the end it was Uncle Iroh who negotiated a truce. He sat them down at a table with cups of tea, and refused to let them get up until they had both apologised and explained their behaviour. After that Zuko spent a bit more time with her and Azula made the effort to be a bit nicer to Lu-Ten and Iroh. She still didn’t like them much, but a wise commander knows when to make a truce for the sake of greater objectives.
…
When Ty Lee grew up she wanted to be an acrobat, Azula believed she could do it, she didn’t know anyone else who could do handstands on their fingertips. Any circus owner would be a fool to refuse her.
When Mai grew up she wanted to be a ninja, she was even having lessons in how to throw knives, Azula believed she could do it. Mai was sneaky, and quietly deadly, and once she’d managed to pin a wasp to the wall with one of her knives.
When Azula grew up she wanted to be a hero, like the ones in Zuko’s stories. The ones that slayed monsters, and destroyed evil, and rescued damsels. She was sure she could do it, after all, everyone said she was a firebending prodigy, and she was a princess after all. Everyone knew royalty made good heroes.
When she told Zuko all this he just smiled at her and said that he believed in her. Years later as reality set in, that stayed with her. Maybe that was why she had the confidence to do what she did.
…
Zuko was eight when he realized there was something not quite right about Azula. Or maybe that was just when he admitted it to himself. He’d found her down by the pond torturing one of the turtle-ducks. What really terrified him was not that Azula could do such a thing, but that his first reaction was to hide the evidence. He didn’t know what would happen if people knew what she did, but he was sure it couldn’t be anything good. It wasn’t her fault, everyone around her acted like hurting things was good, it wasn’t her fault mum wasn’t there to teach her not to do things like that. It wasn’t her fault he’d let things get so far.
If people found out though… They would think she was a monster. Normal people would shun her, be afraid of her, and that would almost be better than their family’s reaction. He had horrible sickening feeling in his gut, that if their father knew what she’d done, he would be pleased.
And if he was pleased, he would encourage it, that dark cruel streak in Zuko’s baby sister, try to turn her into a monster for his own use. There was no way Zuko was going to let that happen on his watch. He had promised to protect her. He promised and more importantly than that he loved her, more than all the world. So he buried the small animal’s body, and made Azula promise not to do anything like that again. She was only five, but she had already learned to pick up that note of fear in Zuko’s voice, that told her this was serious.
When she asked why, he told her anything he thought she’d listen to. He told her that other people wouldn’t understand, would hate her if they knew, he told her that it was wrong to hurt creatures that weren’t your enemies, that attacking the helpless was a sign of weakness, that you shouldn’t hurt animals because animals were the only ones you could trust to always be honest with you. He told her that mum had loved them, that heroes didn’t hurt the helpless. One of his reasons must have sunk in because, Azula never tortured an animal again. People were another matter, but he’d take what he could get. Azula wasn’t a monster, she just didn’t know any better. Children learn by example after all and his father was not an example Zuko wanted anywhere near his sister.
….
Azula was six when cousin Lu-Ten died. The night the message arrived the whole palace went into mourning, and Azula’s world was turned upside down. That was the night that Grandfather ordered father to kill Zuko, and father had instead had grandfather killed. There was no proof of course but everyone knew what had happened. It was the very definition of suspicious circumstances. When you wake up in the morning to find the firelord had died immediately after naming Ozai heir, and with Ozai having been the last person to see him alive, well certain conclusions had to be drawn.
Azula wasn’t sure what she felt about the situation. On the one hand she was glad her father hadn’t killed Zuko, on the other hand he had killed one family member already, which meant that he might do it again and neither she or Zuko was safe. She wished Uncle Iroh would come home. She hadn’t always got on with him, but she knew he would never let father hurt them. There was no point in wishing though. Iroh was gone on some kind of spirit quest, and he couldn’t help them. That was when Azula started practicing her bending in secret. If father did come after them she wanted to have some surprises waiting for him.
…
He didn’t cry for Lu-Ten. If he had learned one thing growing up at court it was never to show weakness. Iroh had shown weakness, and his father had pounced on the opportunity. Zuko wasn’t going to make the same mistake. Not when his poor bending was already reason enough for his father to want him gone.
Zuko knew what grandfather had ordered. He also knew what he hoped Azula didn’t, that his father had seriously considered obeying. He wasn’t entirely sure what had made his father decide to kill Azulon instead, but he suspected it was a point of pride. His father was done following grandfather’s orders, and he wasn’t going to damage his own line of succession to placate an old man he intended to supplant. There was never going to be a better opportunity for a coup, with Lu-Ten dead, and Uncle Iroh in no condition to challenge Ozai, Azulon was the only one standing in between father and the throne. He knew better than to attribute his survival to father’s affection, so he stepped up his secret sword training. At some point, he and Azula were going to have to run, and when they did he would need to be able to protect her.
…
When it went bad it went bad quickly. The tension had been building for a long time of course. It just wasn’t in Zuko’s nature to be as cruel and ruthless as their father, but he had tried to fake it, for Azula’s sake. They had both known for years that their father was insane, that sooner or later he’d turn on them, just like he’d turned on so many of his advisors, but when it happened it was still a shock.
Zuko had been in the war room, it was important to keep track of what father was doing, and so he’d managed to talk his way in. Things had been quite good that week, their father was distracted by complications in the war effort so they had mostly been left to their own devices, and maybe that was what had lulled him into a false sense of security. Or maybe it was just the temper that he found so hard to control, either way it was the worst kind of stupid. He spoke up against the general’s plan, and he really should have expected his father’s actions, he had committed the two cardinal sins in dealing with his father, he’d challenged his authority, and he’d shown he had a heart. Standing in the ring all he could think was that he was about to die. Ozai was one of the most powerful firebenders in the country, and he… wasn’t. If he fought, Ozai would have every excuse to kill him, in plain view of hundreds of spectators, in plain view of Azula. If he tried to fight back he was dead, but maybe if he surrendered he might get out of this alive. Even the firelord couldn’t kill a kneeling enemy in front of an audience without attracting bad press. So he grovelled, and begged, and pleaded, and it might have hurt his pride but it was worth it because at the end he was still alive, he hadn’t left Azula alone like mother had.
…
That was the day Azula first realized she hated her father. Before she had feared him, and done her best to avoid him but she hadn’t known him well enough to hate him. Now she saw the ruin he’d left of her brother’s face, she saw the cold blooded cruelty as he’d lit the flames, and she realized something. Father was a monster, like the ones from the old stories, the really scary ones where the monsters looked just like people, and with Zuko lying delirious on a hospital bed it was time for her to be the hero.
She called Mai and Ty Lee and told them her plan. They were leaving. Zuko had to go first of course, just in case father got it into his head to finish the job. They needed father to think he was dead, so Azula burned down the hospital. All the other patients got out, but a body was found in Zuko’s bed, burned beyond recognition. The official story was that due to the fever, Zuko had lost control of his bending and caused the fire, the main rumour going around was that the Firelord had sneaked in to finish the job, and the fire had started when Zuko tried to fight back. As far as Azula could tell, Ozai seemed to think it was one of his supporters looking to curry favour.
Azula made a big scene of pretending to believe the rumour and stormed off in one of her famous temper tantrums to Ember Island with Mai and Ty Lee, three days later when their ship was lost at sea, drowning all three girls, the rumour mill declared that the fire lord had her killed because she got too close to the truth about what happened to her brother, and that he’d decided to re-marry and start over with a new heir.
Azula took a grim satisfaction in her father being blamed for their deaths, she hadn’t even had to start the rumours, people had gravitated towards conspiracy theories of their own accord, without any intervention from her. The young heirs had been popular in a vague and abstract way, and the suspicions hanging over their deaths had caused the Firelord’s approval ratings to plummet.
Sometimes even when everything had gone to hell, the petty victories were enough to make her day.
…
The circus had been Ty Lee’s idea of course. It was something she’d always wanted, and Azula had seen no reason not to indulge her. After all, it wasn’t like any of the rest of them had any particularly pressing reasons to be anywhere else, and loyalty like Ty Lee had shown, abandoning everything because Azula asked, deserved its reward.
It had been Ty Lee’s idea, but it was surprising how well it had ended up suiting the rest of them. No-one expected circus performers to be normal, and Azula hadn’t realised just how much the strain of faking normality had got to her, until she didn’t have to anymore. She knew without asking that Mai and Zuko both felt something similar. Mai even smiled sometimes, now that she was free of the stifling expectations placed on a noble daughter, and Azula could tell that Zuko felt safer now than he had in years.
Less surprisingly, because Azula had always known she and her allies would be unstoppable at whatever they set their minds at, they had all turned out to be pretty talented circus performers. Ty Lee was of course a superb acrobat, and it hadn’t taken long for Mai to establish herself as a gifted knife thrower. It had taken a little longer for Azula and Zuko to find their place. In the end it had been Zuko’s hero stories that had provided the answer. Their act had taken a little work, but now the crowds flocked to their dramatic re-enactments of classic folk tales. The other firebenders with the circus had been all too happy to teach them how to use their bending to create dramatic effects. One of Azula’s proudest moments was the first time she crafted a dragon out of blue fire and Zuzu had made one from orange fire to dramatize the old story of the epic battle between Kinoe and Zai, they had brought the house down. Maybe she should have sniffed at such a frivolous use for her bending, but she had been able to feel the way they had the crowds transfixed, the way they adored her, and something in her whispered that this was true power, the kind that bending used for crude and simple violence could never touch.
…
Four years ago Zuko didn’t think he could have imagined feeling so light, without the strain of trying to keep Azula safe from his father, from the country, from herself, without the impossible task of trying to be the prince his father wanted, without the constant fear that had followed his every step, in one way or another since his mother died.
The circus had been good for all of them, in one way or another, but Azula most of all. Free of the toxic environment of the court, and with the adoring recognition that came from being a popular performer, Azula had been doing so much better, able to sit on her impulses to hurt people in favour of cutting remarks, and showing them up on stage. And she was happy. Maybe it wasn’t quite the heroism of her childhood dreams, but re-enacting the hero tales she loved so much was clearly close enough.
He would have taken being burned a thousand times over, to see his sister so genuinely happy, and safe from what the world might have twisted her into.
Zuko himself usually played the villain. Mostly because Azula liked to be the hero, and making sure Azula was happy mattered more than anything in the world to him. But there was also something appealing in it, in the masks that came with the villain characters, that let you be anyone and no-one, in the speeches full of rage, and wrath, and things that polite people weren’t supposed to admit to feeling, but related to anyway.
It was after all a truth that all actors learned early, everyone loves a good villain. There was something Zuko loved about being the one to give voice to people’s darkest impulses, giving them a space to indulge those feelings safely, without guilt, space to look at them head on and in doing so come to terms with them.
He loved being up on stage with Azula, whether they were playing reluctant allies, or star-crossed lovers, or bitter enemies, he loved the stories, he loved the over the top speeches, he loved the costumes. And most of all he loved the give and take of stage fighting, more like a dance than true combat, but with an edge that dancing lacked, the absolute awareness of your partner that was required to make firebending battles look good, and look real, and yet still never do real damage. It was an art, finely tuned, and requiring absolute trust between performers, and he and Azula were good at it, good enough that they barely even needed to think about it, so well did they know each other’s moves.
The last thing he expected in the middle of a show was the avatar landing in the middle of the stage. If either of them had been even a little less skilled, a little less well practiced, that could have ended very badly.
As it was, Azula had barely been able to redirect his strike in time. And then the idiot had started to talk, and Zuko could see her instantly regretting saving the idiot from a singeing. The crowd were of course still watching, and Azula’s temper was running thin, and they really could not afford to draw attention. Under the circumstances there was really only one thing to do. Stepping close to the avatar he’d whispered urgently.
“Play along. We’ll talk backstage when the show is done, and for fuck’s sake don’t airbend.” before launching into a desperate bit of improv that would never have worked if Azula hadn’t followed his lead. Afterwards he wasn’t even entirely sure exactly what he’d said. Something about his villain character summoning the avatar to destroy Azula’s hero, with much evil laughter. The avatar had looked more confused than villainous, but had put up enough of a fight to be convincing, before allowing himself to be driven off stage with Zuko.
Which of course, was when the babbling started.
Rather than reacting like any normal person would, to nearly being outed as an enemy of the Fire Nation in the middle of one of their colonies, the avatar seemed to have decided this whole incident made him and Zuko friends, and now he would, not, shut, up. And now he was saying something about Zuko teaching him firebending, and going on a grand adventure to defeat the firelord together, and whether the circus had any fire flakes because he was feeling kind of hungry.
Zuko had a skinking feeling he was going to regret this.