Chapter Text
Unlike Zuko, Azula doesn’t bother with self-deceit.
On the contrary, she’s as honest as possible with herself. It helps, she finds, with lying to other people. She keeps careful track of the ways in which she needs to improve, and careful track of the ways in which she has already outpaced her so-called peers. She knows what she needs to do to succeed, and she does it.
Competency is another way in which she differs from Zuko.
Her Firebending surpassed his within a year of her first flame, and her social skills were far superior to his antisocial skills. She used her words like he used his little swords, and the injuries she delivered were always more devastating.
He won Mother, of course, but she’d always liked him better. Azula had their father, whose respect was harder to earn and far more valuable. His was the favor to seek, not some peasant-turned-royal whose greatest talent was running away in the middle of the night.
When Azula was the younger child of the younger prince, outdoing Zuko was an amusing hobby. But then her father took a throne he wasn’t born to take, and suddenly the only obstacle to her taking that throne was Zuko. Which- can he be called an obstacle, really? That seems generous.
The Agni Kai slotted her into place as the clear and public favorite. It felt like a victory party, and she had relished in her brother’s defeat. She planned to visit him to gloat about just how thoroughly she had won, and to assure him she would treat him as fairly as a damaged spare should be treated, but he was gone before he was ever lucid enough to hear her.
His banishment changed things. Of course it did. Her competition left. She’d practically become an only child.
She enjoyed it, naturally.
She had Father’s attention entirely. There was a shift in the way members of the court approached her, a certainty now that she was the Future Fire Lord, that she was the one to fear and respect and grovel to. Most had figured this out ages ago, but those dull few that hadn’t were quick to cow. She received more presents and well-wishes for her birthday after Zuko left than she’d received her entire life. She even felt the shift with Mai and Tai Lee. They’d been strange the first few days after his banishment, hesitant around her as if they didn’t know how to behave now that her status had advanced, but things had settled. They always do.
As with any political upheaval, there were some minor inconveniences. She no longer had Zuko to annoy and outmaneuver, and it was difficult to see just how skilled she was- both in general and for her age- without him failing miserably next to her on the training yard. Perfect, again, her tutors would say. Perfect became adequate.
Which was its own reward, of course.
Zuko wrote her from time to time, letters which detailed the pointlessness of his day-to-day wild gecko-goose chase. It was just pathetic enough to be amusing, so Azula had- discreetly- replied, giving him the morsels of information he dared request. He always finished his letters with an assurance that his latest lead would ensure the Avatar's discovery and subsequent capture.
Azula wondered when he'd solve the world's easiest puzzle and stop writing, but he was tenacious in his groundless optimism and never seemed to notice no one wanted him home.
And then the news came.
Ridiculous. Stupid. How had a son of Ozai been bested by pirates? Yes, he was incompetent and hot-headed and foolish, but he’d still been trained by the best, still been- he’d been Crown Prince, once.
She really was an only child, now. No more possibility he might return. No more wondering what might happen if he did. She could erase him entirely from her memories, from the record of this nation, and nothing about history would change. He’d been negligible.
She was a touch tetchy in the weeks following the news, and that she noticed this only irritated her further. Her usually impeccable control developed some small blemishes. She traumatized a few servants for things that perhaps needed only a snide remark, and halfway electrocuted a tutor who’d suggested an attack was beyond her current abilities.
“I suppose you were right,” she’d drawled as he lay at her feet, the last vestiges of lightning making his fingers twitch. “That move was too advanced for me.”
If he was pleased to be proven correct, he did an admirable job hiding it.
And now Father has called her into his chamber, alone, with all his servants and advisors dismissed. No one in this nation would dare tattle on her, not about something so petty as chastising a manicurist or rebuking a tutor, so this? This is something different. Something worth her attention.
So Azula strides in with her shoulders back and her chin high, prepared for anything.
---
“It seems," Ozai says, "your brother survived.”
Azula freezes in her perfect bow. “Did he. How fortunate.”
“Rumors of his death were manufactured by Admiral Zhao," he continues, watching her, "in the hopes of capturing the Avatar himself."
Zhao is ambitious, but he’s also sycophantic. He has neither the courage nor the cleverness to keep something like this from Father. Azula wants to demand why she wasn’t told. She asks the more important question. “And did our illustrious Admiral succeed?”
"He fell at his failure of an invasion in the North.” There have been only the beginnings of whispers regarding news of the attack. Azula doesn’t react to this confirmation of its failure. “An invasion,” he continues, “for which your brother was present.”
“Chasing the Avatar,” she presumes, feeling a kernel of fond contempt. Of course Zuko would rush into a full-blown invasion.
Ozai considers her. “I have come to believe, given this latest news, that your brother’s place is here.”
Azula feels a chill that should be impossible in this fire-bathed room. Perhaps she’s misread him after all. Perhaps he’s noticed her slip-ups. Perhaps without Zuko there to highlight her Firebending progress, he thinks she’s plateaued. Perhaps he thinks favoring her was a mistake. And perhaps Zuko, incompetent Zuko who outmaneuvered Zhao and found the long-gone Avatar and survived the Northern invasion, perhaps he has grown in three years, perhaps she has grown weaker without him as a whetstone-
“It’s merciful of you to reward his incompetence in capturing the Avatar with the comforts of home.”
Ozai smirks. “I doubt he’ll feel similarly.”
The lack of a straight answer is irritating, and a lesson in how to discomfort others.
Why would he invite Zuko home? The failed Northern Invasion- along with months of Avatar propaganda- will certainly bring about low morale. But inviting home a banished failure hardly projects strength. Zuko has failed again and again and again, his whole life long, no matter how many chances he was given when Azula only ever needed one. His failures make the entire Nation look weak-
Oh.
“I’ll have his new rooms prepared,” Azula says, testing the waters, and Ozai seems pleased. More sure of herself and the familiar status quo, now, she continues, “I’m sure after three years at sea, he’ll appreciate the stability of the dungeons.”
“As to his capture-”
“Allow me,” Azula interrupts in the space between words, where it’s less interrupting and more anticipating his needs. “I would so cherish a reunion with my brother, after all.”
Ozai smirks back at her, proud, and her chest flutters with satisfaction.
She’s not Zuko. She’s fine.
----
It doesn’t take much to locate her wayward older brother. There are eyes everywhere eager to get on her good side, and Zuko’s never exactly been subtle.
It seems Uncle took him to one of his favorite mudpits, a spa in Earth Kingdom territory where they could melt away the embarrassing failure of the Northern Invasion. It only takes a week to get there, and it only takes a day to confirm his presence.
Azula ignores her Captain’s unrequested opinions and approaches on her own. Zuko spots her through the window of his cottage, ducks out of view in a panic, and then awkwardly sidles out of the front door as if trying to keep it as closed as possible. Azula theorizes he’s trying to be nonchalant.
“Zuko,” she says as he draws near. He’s taller than he used to be, and tanner, with longer hair and the sorts of muscles you earn from work rather than training. Even though she’d known it would be there, even though she’d watched it happen, a part of her is surprised to see the scar on her brother’s face. It's ugly and huge and completely healed, as if he’s always had it.
She smiles. “It’s good to see you.”
"It’s good to see you, too,” he says, and it doesn't sound like a lie. “How did you find me?”
“I looked.” She glances over his shoulder at the cottage he’d left- old with a faded coat of paint, overgrown weeds suffocating the cheap stone wainscot. It's embarrassing, considering this is meant to be one of the finer Earth Kingdom spas. “A little beneath you, isn’t it?”
“I’ve lived in worse places.”
“Then you’ll be happy to know why I’m here.” She lets him stew for a moment, then softens her voice for the big reveal. “I’m here to bring you home, Zuko.”
“Home,” he repeats blankly. He doesn’t understand, clearly. Perhaps he thought this turn of events was impossible. That would be uncharacteristically astute of him.
“Father has had a change of heart," she elaborates helpfully, brushing past his shoulder towards the door he’d sought to keep closed. "Family is suddenly very important to him.” She slows a few steps from the door, watching his reaction from the corner of her eye as she does.
He seems... doubtful. “Is that so?”
“They’re the only ones you can really trust,” she confirms. She turns, considering him from the high ground as he considers her. “Father forgives you, Zuko,” she continues, when he doesn’t say anything. “He wants you at his side, where you belong. Where you’ve always belonged.” Still nothing. “Did you hear what I said?” She pushes, because he’s reacting all wrong. “You should be happy. Excited. Grateful. I just gave you great news.”
Zuko swallows. “...after all this time, why did he change his mind?”
Look at Zuko, asking smart questions for once. “There are rumors of plans to overthrow him,” she answers. “Treacherous plots hatched by disloyal cowards and ambitious fools. It’s made him realize the value of loyal sons.” There’s no outrage on Father’s behalf, no righteous fury that anyone would dare go against the royal family, no immediate promise to help however he can. It’s very un-Zuko of him. “He needs you, Zuko. Your nation needs you.” The words should be galvanizing, should be tugging at his endless obsession with honor and duty, but Zuko is still just staring at her. Shock, she thinks. Confusion. Perhaps even doubt about Father after how thoroughly he’d disowned him.
Well, she can fix that.
She marches down to face him. “When he heard you were dead, he regretted your banishment,” she tells him, sympathetic and empathetic and any other pathetic -athetic Zuko could possibly want. If he wants Ozai to be sorry, the man will be positively weepy with remorse. “He mourned for his son, and now he wants him back. Unlike Uncle,” she adds, to lighten the mood, “he can make that happen.”
“Did you?”
Azula blinks at the non-sequitur. “Excuse me?”
“Did you mourn?” Zuko presses. “Did you think I was dead?”
What a pointless question. It was his own incompetence that made her think he was dead in the first place. Obviously she thought he was dead, and obviously she mourned. That’s what people do when people die. They dress in black and accept useless condolences and they move on, just as she would have if Zuko had committed.
“Of course I mourned.” She inspects her fingernails. “I don’t know why I bothered. I should have guessed you were faking.”
“I wasn’t faking,” he nitpicks. “Zhao captured me and spread those rumors.”
Azula’s eyes flicker back to him because, yes, actually, she has questions about that. “And now he and his rumors are dead, and you aren’t.”
“And Father wants me home,” he finishes for her. “Because he regrets what he did. Because he needs me. Because he loves me.”
She nods instead of bursting into laughter. She’s mildly impressed with herself.
“And you came yourself, to tell me.”
“I felt the task called for a familial touch.”
Zuko shifts towards the sea, staring out at nothing in particular. “I need time to think about this, Azula.”
“Think,” she repeats, thinking of the week it took to get here, conducting a quick cost analysis between the inconvenience of waiting in this dreary seaside town versus the inconvenience of capturing him. She’d prefer not to inform Zuko of his actual fate until they’re back on dry land. Why deal with his moping around all week if she doesn’t have to? Not to mention the inevitable, ineffectual escape attempts. But if he’s going to be annoying about it…
“It’s been a long three years,” he says, perhaps sensing her impatience. “This is big news. Good news,” he’s quick to assure, “but unexpected. I... need time to process. And pack.”
“Of course,” she graciously accepts, biting back the instinctive question of what has he got worth packing? What, did he pick up souvenirs in the North Pole that haven’t melted yet? “But don’t take too much of it. The sooner you’re ready, the sooner you’re home. And Father is anxious to see you.”
“I’m sure,” he says, but the tone is off. Shock over his shifting circumstances, or doubt over the entire proposal? There’s no outright suspicion, so it’ll do, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. Azula nods once, then begins making her way past him.
She stiffens as he grabs her arm- too loose to be an attack, and even Zuko isn’t fool enough to start a fight in close quarters anyway, but what else-
“I really am happy to see you, Azula,” he says. “I’ve missed you.”
I’ve missed you. From anyone else, it’d be an obvious lie. From Zuko, it should be. But the way he’s looking at her- earnestly, openly, clearly chock full of repressed memories- suggests maybe it’s not. That maybe, despite three years that should have taught him better and one very potent lesson from Father, Zuko hasn’t bothered changing.
It slots nicely into her plans of retrieving him without trouble.
“Of course you did, Dum Dum. All you had for company was Uncle.” Speaking of, the old man hasn’t made an appearance, even though she’s sure he’s in the cottage, watching over this little exchange. Why else would Zuko escape so carefully? “Tell me, is that old fuddyduddy around?”
“Probably getting another massage," he lies. Maybe he wants to keep the reunion between them, between actual family. More likely, Uncle has made his opinion on Azula clear, and Zuko wants to avoid any conflict which might get in the way of his passage home. It’s actually rather shrewd of him.
“Fine,” she accepts, noting his clear relief as she does so, though he’s just as clearly trying to hide it. “I’m sure he’ll turn up soon enough, and we can have a proper family reunion. Minus Mother, of course. Don’t be long,” she orders lightly, continuing past him. “I’ve got better places to be than waiting on the prodigal son.”
She’ll give him until dawn, she decides as she walks down the steps. Either he’ll arrive and they can go about this civilly, or he won’t, and she’ll handle it. Regardless, she’ll have a few soldiers keep an eye on the cabin, just in case he develops the good sense to leave.
----------
Azula doesn’t sleep much- too busy considering the week ahead and how to stem potential problems before they become proper ones- but she still wakes before dawn to train. Lo and Li aren’t Firebenders but Azula suspects it’s the resulting envy of that failure that gives them their pleasantly critical eye. They’re far superior to the middling tutors she’s already surpassed. She performs her katas once, then once more, improving on what minor imperfections they scrounged out.
Dawn comes and goes and she’s just begun to think Zuko managed to slip away when he comes darting towards the ship.
Azula watches him wind his way ever closer, raising an eyebrow as she notes her Uncle’s absence. Like Mother, Uncle had never liked Azula. In all likelihood, he’d advised Zuko not to come, and Zuko had ignored him. Three years is a long time to romanticize home, especially if you’re as naive and desperate as Zuko.
Azula has never seen the fearsome Dragon of the West in Uncle Iroh, but she isn’t one to underestimate a potential threat, no matter how soft and useless it may appear. So, considering she wasn’t ordered to capture him and he’d only have made things more difficult, she decides to take this boon in stride. If he wants to waste away in some rock bottom colony spa, let him. It’s the pathetic end a pathetic man like him should have. And with him out of the picture- and with Azula playing the part of the sweet little sister Zuko has always dreamed of- the trip home should be uneventful.
Zuko does drag along two Fire Nation soldiers. Azula doubts they’re from his original crew- whose manifest she reviewed in anticipation of her arrival here- as the armor is the updated version specially crafted for the Northern Invasion. Some of Zhao’s, then, that Zuko pilfered to accompany him in Earth Kingdom territory. It seems he’s learned some semblance of self-preservation. Not enough, but it’s still an improvement.
“Zuko,” she says, smiling, and he smiles back as if she never once pushed him off a roof. “I’m glad you came.” She glances at the two soldiers expectantly and he hurries to introduce them.
“Kuzon,” he says, gesturing to the shorter soldier. They bow a little too low and a little too enthusiastically. From the colonies, then. “And Lee.” Lee- definitely a colony name- bows more accurately but much more stiltedly. Strange. Zhao has always preferred homeland soldiers, adamant that they were of higher quality. People like Zhao- close to power but still clawing for it- overvalued things like the cachet of wartime chattel. It was a source of pride for him, knowing his soldiers were from all the best families. Considering they’re all of them beneath her, Azula really doesn’t care.
But something is off here.
“Were they on your crew?” She asks, knowing they weren’t.
Zuko shakes his head. “No. They fought in the North. They found me after the battle was over.”
“Found you?” She repeats, all interest in the colony brats lost. Zhao would have accepted whatever fodder he could get for such a large invasion. “Were you lost, Zuko?”
He hesitates and something nostalgic in Azula leaps to life. Zuko is embarrassed.
“I-” He starts, falters, restarts, “I was in the city when the attack happened, and a- the Avatar turned into a big, glowing fish.” Azula would have dismissed this as hypothermic brain damage if she hadn’t read a dozen identical descriptions on her trip here. “I managed to get his attention- '' Of course he had. “So I jumped off a cliff-” Of course he had. “-and I drowned. A little.” He gestures to Private Lee. “He helped me.” Then, awkwardly, as he gestures towards Private Kuzon, “He helped me, too.”
It’s all complete nonsense, but she knows her brother well enough to know it’s also all true nonsense. So she nods at Lee, who’d clearly done the heavy lifting- perhaps literally- in Zuko’s rescue. “You have my thanks, Private Lee. It’s heartening to know my big brother had someone watching over him. Tell me, are you a bender?”
Private Lee doesn’t answer right away, body language nervous even in the armor. She supposes he probably doesn’t have much experience in dealing with actual royalty.
“You can talk,” she tells him, gesturing impatiently for him to do so.
“Uh, no, your Highness. I’m not.”
“I am!” Private Kuzon exclaims, raising a hand, clearly not as worried about bucking customs. “Check this out!” A flame leaps free from his palm and every one of Azula’s soldiers leap to attack positions. Azula rolls her eyes. Like someone so proud of making as much fire as a sparkrock could be a threat to her. “Sorry,” the boy squeaks, thrusting his hands down flat against his sides.
Azula returns her attention to Zuko, who looks panicked that his little Firebender has caused such trouble. “We are of course happy to bring them with us,” she says, ignoring the embarrassing display. “If that was your intention.”
Zuko relaxes. “It was,” he admits. “Thank you.”
“Of course, Zuko. They saved your life- bringing them home is the least I could do.” She considers him for a moment, then smiles. “I think it’s about time we all go home.”
Zuko smiles back. He seems tired. “I’d like that.”
Azula turns to walk up the ramp to the ship, the sun at her back and the world ahead. “Captain,” she says, nodding as she approaches him.
“You heard the Princess,” he shouts. “Get to your stations and make ready for departure. We’re taking the pris-” Azula’s eyes narrow, and he corrects, poorly, to “Prince home.”
Zuko, Agni bless him, doesn’t seem to notice the flub. He just follows behind her like the little turtleduck he’s always been. To think she’d worried his time banished had made him wiser.
Really, she can be as foolish as Zuko, sometimes.
----
When Zuko has been shown to his room- half the size of his old bedroom in the palace, twice the size of the room he’d had on the Wani - Azula returns to the deck of the ship. She finds her Captain near its stern, frowning intently at nothing in particular.
“Captain,” Azula says, joining him. “You seem troubled.”
The older man turns to her, reads her face, and then - because he’s clearly illiterate- says, “I’m concerned with the clouds, Your Highness.”
Azula considers pushing him overboard, then echoes, “The clouds.”
“That one-” He points at the offending party, a fluffy patch of white on blue, “-has been following us.”
“As the wind is,” she notes, because he apparently needs the reminder.
“Well- yes.” He doesn’t seem satisfied by this, as concerned with these clouds as he had been with the tides, never mind that neither is his superior. “But-”
“I thought you might be troubled,” she interrupts, resting her elbows too casually on the railing, watching his face instead of his favorite cloud, “because you nearly ruined the mission my Father trusted you to complete.”
He twitches. “Yes, Your Highness. I-”
“You have one week to earn back my favor,” she says, knowing he won’t. “I suggest you do your job instead of watching clouds.”
“...yes, Your Highness.”
“You’re dismissed,” she lets him know, and he rushes off to do whatever he should have been doing all along. She stays there for a little while, watching the last of land get swallowed up by sea, then turns to go downstairs. Best to catch up with Zuko now.
Visits to the dungeon can be so dreary.