#Ozai snaps at Iroh and tells him how nice it must be to gloat about how he's on the outside now | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

universallywriting · 3 years

Note

ATLA prompt, Meta ask, or both if you want- Azula’s thoughts when she heard Ozai and Azulon plot killing Zuko. She was just a kid, even accepting Ozai’s worldview she must have still loved her family despite herself. Some fans say that’s why she “warned” him, but in that scene she doesn’t seem to want to convince him or even seem upset. She looks near sadistic, taunting him without explaining. Yet Ozai’d be enraged if she arose his suspicion. I can’t make sense of the scene. It intrigues me.

Ooh, this was a really good prompt. Thank you! This is fairly angsty, and I’m taking some info from the comics (I’m picky and choosy about what I want to take from them, lol) about how Ursa was forced to marry Ozai because there was a prophecy that they’d make stronk babies.

tw: mild halucinations

----------------------------

Azula learns young that her mother doesn’t love her.

She’s always been curious. Sneaky. Her tutors say this is what female cleverness always manifests as. This is why females make inadequate firelords. But they say she is brilliant, and that this is why she sneaks around the palace. Her eyes are big and her ears are perked for everything she hears. Even as a small child they find her odd, uncanny - an uncomfortable little thing who listens and doors and remembers more than she should.

“Don’t touch me,” Ursa hisses as Azula lurks outside her parents’ quarters. “Two is enough.”

“I hoped for two boys.”

“As did I. Your heir and your back up.” Her voice is flat. “Take what you’re given, Ozai.”

“But another boy-”

“Azula is already a little monster!” she snaps. “Raise her to be your war beast. You don’t need a boy for that.”

Mother does not want to touch Father and Mother does not was to touch her. She sees it in the hesitation Mother has when she pats her head, or strokes her cheeks. Well, except for grabbing her. Mother has no reluctance in dragging her away from things. Azula decides she must be awful if her Mother has always known that she was a monster. She must be awful if even Father presses at Mother for a better child - another boy, like Zuko.

Mother seems to love Zuko just fine, so it’s clear that Azula is the problem. Not - not a problem. Her tutors praise her. She is as brilliant and gifted and strong and ruthless as her grandfather for whom she is named. On occasion, she shows her mother her skills. On a good day, Mother will say, “That’s nice, dear”. On a bad day, Mother will reprimand her. It’s quite like the way one would train a mongoose lizard. Well. She is a war beast, after all. That’s why she always returns to the war room, where she is beloved.

Iroh sends her a doll one day, and there is nothing but pure rage in her veins as she burns it to nothing. He doesn’t know her at all, doesn’t care about her success at all if he wants her to waste her time on trinkets.

They find out Uncle’s child is dead, and when she tries to point out the holes in succession, Mother and Zuko are furious with her. They’re always furious at her. What does it matter?

She lies in bed, thinking of Zuko’s knife. The boy. The firstborn. He gets the useful thing, though he hasn’t fought or struggled for it. He simpers up to Mother and he will get everything for it. She smothers the scream building in her lungs because Zuko has simpered up to Uncle too. Uncle loves him. Uncle is without an heir, and he hates Azula, and she is a girl and he lost a son and Zuko is a boy and nonono. Another path for Zuko to be firelord?

No matter how she plays it in her head, the story ends with her as Firelord Zuko’s chained war beast.

She does not look at her feelings. The older she gets, the more she finds her heart rotting away. If she ignores it well enough, perhaps she can pretend it isn’t there at all. She can focus on the things she’s good at, rather than the soul that Mother can see decaying in her chest. Sometimes she hears her mother’s voice at night, Ursa’s sweet tones telling Azula that she’s going to cut her open, and look inside her, and she’s sure there will be nothing but mold where her organs should be.

This is why she doesn’t know her feelings as she comes to Zuko after eavesdropping. When one is a monster, one should avoid looking at those monstrous feelings, and simply focus on the monstrous acts one is good at. She is a female. Clever. Conniving. Curious, unsettling eyes. She practically sings that Grandfather has ordered his death. This is a move of pure power. It is gloating that he’s going to lose everything. Wouldn’t it be pathetic if he had to live as an Earth Kingdom peasant for his whole life? How humiliating to live to be an old man far, far away.

A fate worse than death to run away, isn’t it? And a coward like him would surely take it.

She doesn’t look at her festering heart.

Mother overhears because she’s so loud. She wanted Mother to overhear because that means she has power over her too, even as her hand drags Azula away. Ha. Mother is touching her again. It’s been so long. She really can make anyone do anything she wants. She has no feelings about this.

Her heart is pumping poison and rot through her body. She can feel it if she looks, so she pretends it isn’t beating at all.

“Are you lying?” Ursa asks. Azula grins, all alone with her mother, and she’s shaken hard for her weirdness. “Your brother’s life is on the line, Azula! Are you lying?”

“Worried because you never managed to make the spare for Father?” she asks. There is pain in her lungs like she’s breathed in smoke. She ignores it. “Worried the monster will be firelord, Mother?”

“Azula,” she whispers as she kneels. Their eyes locked in the dark room, and she hates it. She hates that Mother is looking right into her eyes and seeing the awful things inside her. “You’re honest for once, aren’t you? Azulon has ordered Zuko’s execution.”

“Yes,” she says, and she raises her chin, trying her best to look down on those penetrating eyes. “It won’t be long before Father kills him, unless he runs away like a coward.”

She turns from Mother, watches her own feet as she carefully places once in front of the other. “I’m not a coward. I would take the fight. I would challenge Father to an Agni Kai to the death and I would kill him or I would die with honor. Zuko is too pathetic to fight. But Grandfather says Father has to lose something, and Zuklko is the important one.”

“Either you or Zuko could fulfill the prophecy. He doesn’t need more children,” Mother murmurs. She trails off, looking into the distance. Her hand absently reaches out, stroking Azula’s cheek - soft and tender and warm. “Good girl, Azula. I think I can save him.”

She leaves her, and Azula stares at her mother’s retreating back, shaking as she tries not to look at her heart. It is a useless thing to examine. She is a monster, a beast, there is nothing but charcoal and fire and rot inside her and there is never, never any point in looking inside. But the temptation is too great, and she spares a single glance.

Sobs catch in her throat so that she has to cover her mouth to keep them in. She whispers, “Do you still think there’s something wrong with me?”

She tries to call up the gentle words again, tries to hold them in her mind like so many other words seem to stick. “Good girl, Azula.” Forget the part about saving him. Forget that she only matters because she’s helped Zuko - the one Mother loves. Forget that she was touched like Zuko was touched, just this one time, because Mother’s mind was full of him and she had forgotten that Azula is a rotten monster who can only be touched with rough, reprimanding hands.

It doesn’t stick. She just hears her own voice, pathetic and weak and broken: Do you think there’s something wrong with me?

The room is empty, but somehow she still hears Mother’s answer.

Yes.

#Anonymous #atla #azula #fic #tw hallucinations #not su

109 notes · View notes

lykegenia · 5 years

Text

The Things We Hide Ch. 22

The Southern Water Tribe stood for a hundred years against the Fire Nation, indomitable until Sozin’s Comet tipped the balance in Fire Lord Ozai’s favour. Now, as planned, the South is decimated, Chief Hakoda is a puppet on his throne, and Princess Katara is a political prisoner held in the Fire Nation capital to ensure his good behaviour. But Ozai has little time to gloat. A vigilante masquerading as the Blue Spirit is causing unrest among the people, rebel ships still hound his navy, and right under his nose the South’s most powerful waterbender waits with the patience of ice to strike at the very heart of his empire and bring it crashing down.

Chapter 1 on AO3 This chapter on AO3 Masterpost here

Zuko woke somewhere dark. As his awareness grew, the first sensation to come back to him was pain, a sharp ache at the back of his skull and a dull throb down the left side of his face that he knew would only get worse. Whoever had knocked him out had left his mask on, and it did nothing to relieve the feverish itch of his skin. His hands were chained above his head; the metal clinked when he tried to move. He drifted off again, falling between wakefulness and unconsciousness so that even with his ability to sense the sun, he couldn’t tell how much time passed.

Eventually, he heard footsteps. One set steadily approaching, echoed by another running to catch up. They stopped beyond the shadow he presumed to be the door of his cell.

“Food for the prisoner.”

He shifted, tense, the guard’s muttered response lost in the pop of joints that hadn’t moved for hours.

“Katara, are you sure this is a good idea?” The Water Tribe boy. “You know –”

“I know what I’m doing, Sokka.”

Sokka sighed. “Just be careful.”

She murmured something Zuko couldn’t hear, and then a key turned in the lock and the door swung open on the groan of old hinges. He turned away. Her footsteps carried her through until she halted, and the door slammed shut again, and the scrape of her boots over the packed dirt floor came with the smell of hot food and the glow of a candle.

“Zuko?” she called, with a wary, muted quality to her voice that grated on his nerves. She sighed and crouched down next to him. “How’s your head?”

“Spare me your false pity,” he snarled, unable to help the way his fists clenched.

“It’s not false pity. I’m going to take your mask off now. Even if you won’t admit it you’ll be more comfortable with it off.”

He watched her hand reach for the ties behind his head but didn’t move away, knowing that to do so would be useless, and token shows of resistance were beneath his dignity besides. Even so, he hissed when she pried the mask off him, flinching away as the bandage over the left side of his face stuck to the wood and broke the scab. He had hated her for months – a lifetime – but somehow, it was her gasp on seeing the ruin of his face that formed the hard lump at the back of his throat.

“Don’t touch it,” he snapped as her hand stretched out again.

Her fingers curled in on themselves. “What happened?”

“Why do you care?”

“I care,” she replied. “Zuko, this is infected, let me help you. I can heal –”

“Get away from me!” He jerked upwards, calling fire to his fists so she had to flinch away. “I don’t need anything from you. You did this to me.”

“No, I didn’t.” Her gaze held something inscrutable, like a riddle she was on the cusp of solving, but he was glad when she didn’t reach out to touch him again. “Why are you here?” she asked instead.

He bared his teeth. “Why are you here?”

The only answer was another sigh as she pulled a ring of keys from a loop on her belt and rose on her knees to unlock the shackles above his head. His wrists were still bound together, and the rush of blood back into his hands made them sting as they dropped into his lap, but he nevertheless had to bite back a sigh of relief.

Katara was already standing. “You should eat something.”

He hadn’t noticed her place the bowl next to him. It was mostly rice with only a small amount of some thin, gristly broth soaking around the edges, but at least it smelled edible, and as his watering mouth and rumbling stomach reminded him, it had been at least a day since he had eaten.

“There aren’t any chopsticks, I’m afraid,” she told him. “It was decided you might try to escape – which I wouldn’t recommend, by the way. I managed to convince them to bring you down here without taking off the mask, but everyone knows who the Blue Spirit is now, and the Prince of the Fire Nation is a valuable prisoner to have.”

“I won’t help you,” he managed, because of all the retorts crowding on his tongue, that one was the safest.

“I wasn’t asking for your help,” she replied coldly. “That was a warning. There’s more than one person here who would love the chance to avenge family killed in the war. By your people.”

“Are you one of them?”

She turned away from him, and was nearly at the door before she threw her answer over her shoulder. “My quarrel isn’t with you.”

The door groaned open at her knock and as she stepped through a shadow detached from the wall and reached out for her. She paused, but ignored the touch and kept walking, leaving Sokka an instant to glare through the darkness at the prisoner in the cell, before the guard blocked the sight and slammed the cell closed once more.

When it opened again, dawn was not far off, but the air was more bitterly cold than before. Zuko had managed a few hours of fitful sleep after Katara’s visit, the food palatable but nowhere near enough to fill the hunger that gnawed deeper into his gut whenever he thought about it. He had never had to go hungry, not even on the ship. At some point, someone had left him another candle, with a bowl of salted water, clean bandages, and a pot of ointment to treat his burn. Though he tried to ignore the offer, without anything else to distract him the itching on his face became unbearable, and before he knew it he was reaching for the small stone pot and all but whimpering with relief as the thick, herby salve cooled his fevered skin. He had applied the new bandage as best he could without a mirror, but he left the mask lying where Katara had dropped it. He had no use for it now.

A guard stood before him, one of the ones in deep blue and white. Close to, he noticed a floral pattern embroidered into the hem of the quilted robes, and over the white mantle that draped the man’s shoulders, a heraldry that he’d never seen before.

“On your feet,” the guard snapped.

Prisoner he may be, but Zuko was still a prince. People did not talk to him with such disrespect. “Why?”

“Because I’m authorised to make you if you won’t cooperate.” The man grinned. “Don’t worry, you’re too valuable to haul off to the execution block.”

“Then where are you taking me?” Zuko asked, deciding to stand. His legs wobbled from being cramped for so long, but he didn’t stumble.

“The Grand Master wants to see you.”

Another two guards joined them beyond the door of the cell and together they led their prisoner through a maze of tunnels. He was blindfolded, and though he tried to keep track of all the turns as they took him through the maze of corridors, the construction of the temple was disorienting, and all he could tell was that they were climbing up into one of the towers, the steps worn and uneven beneath his feet. Draughts whistled down the spiral staircase, cutting through his thin clothes and dousing his inner fire until even shivering was too much effort, but perhaps that was the point, a way to make him less dangerous.

Eventually they reached a landing. One of the guards opened a door that creaked on old hinges, spilling warmth and the familiar scent of jasmine out into the corridor.

“The Grand Master will see you shortly,” someone said as he was pushed forward onto thick carpet. The door slammed behind him. For a moment he stood, cautious of his new surroundings, suspecting a trick of some sort because while he was still manacled, nobody had said he could take off the blindfold. When he was sure he was alone with only the howl of the wind for company, he reached up and peeled away the offensive layer of cloth.

The place was plush, well-appointed. Scrolls of artwork decorated the walls and artefacts from every nation filled blank spaces in the shelves that lined the room. The airbenders had little use for fire outside of cooking, so there was no hearth, but someone had installed a stove in one corner of the room, and it blazed with a lively fire while an iron kettle heated water on top of it. Zuko edged towards the only window only to find it locked, the sheer drop on the other side added discouragement to try and escape. As he looked around for another opportunity, his gaze was drawn to the centre of the room, where a low table was laid with a Fire Nation tea set on a lacquered tray.

He started when the door opened. And stared.

“Prince Zuko.” The man who surveyed him was squat, old, his jowls sagging and his brown eyes framed by deep wrinkles at the corners. He too wore one of the blue and white uniforms, but his beard was carefully trimmed in the fashionable Fire Nation style, and though he was balding, his wiry grey hair was pulled back into a topknot with a golden general’s clasp.

“I am afraid if you were looking to find a way out of here, you were wasting your time,” the Dragon of the West said as he ambled towards the stove. “Please, have a seat.” He gestured to one of the large cushions by the table.

Zuko, numbed by shock, forgot his defiance of a moment before and tottered to where he was directed.

“I suspect you have questions,” Iroh continued, turning away to busy himself with the kettle. “I do as well, but that can wait. First, we must be comfortable. How about we share some food and a pot of nice, warming tea?”

#zutara #Zuko #katara #zuko x katara #katara x zuko #blue spirit #avatar #avatar: the last airbender #a:tla

6 notes · View notes