And now for something completely different
Jan. 2nd, 2010 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resonance_and_dSo I've been working on this fic, with the premise that it was much more than 100 years between the time Aang was frozen and the time Katara and Sokka found him. So we have the same characters, and there's still bending, but the level of technology is at the level of present-day Earth.
And... I was doing it because I was procrastinating on my other stuff, but now it's 12000 words long and I think I'd better start posting it or I'll start losing momentum.
BUT: It is written in totally random snippets, which are not in chronological order. I'm talking 25 separate drabbles or oneshots so far. I don't think I want to post them together, but posting them all separately would result in massive spamming.
Thus... I am going to follow the format of some memes I've seen, and put the drabble-length snippets in the comments of this post. Then I'll make another post where I figure out what order everything should go in and archive it.
Confused? So am I. But I'm going to try it anyway.
And... I was doing it because I was procrastinating on my other stuff, but now it's 12000 words long and I think I'd better start posting it or I'll start losing momentum.
BUT: It is written in totally random snippets, which are not in chronological order. I'm talking 25 separate drabbles or oneshots so far. I don't think I want to post them together, but posting them all separately would result in massive spamming.
Thus... I am going to follow the format of some memes I've seen, and put the drabble-length snippets in the comments of this post. Then I'll make another post where I figure out what order everything should go in and archive it.
Confused? So am I. But I'm going to try it anyway.
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Sokka gets a haircut
Date: 2010-01-31 10:18 pm (UTC)“Did you try to give yourself a haircut?” Katara asked. “Because it's a lot shorter on this side than the other.”
“What?” Then he remembered that day with Suki, and how one fan blade had been especially close to his head. That had been weeks ago, though. Why hadn't someone told him?
Then he remembered that they'd been camping out in the forest for most of that time. There hadn't exactly been time to look in a mirror. And today was the first time he'd had a comb in forever, so uneven hair had been the least of his problems.
“I can't believe I didn't notice until now!” he said, pulling the uneven portion of his hair to the front and trying to assess the damage without much success. He really needed a mirror, but there weren't any here. “Why didn't you point it out sooner?!”
Katara sighed, and Yue giggled.
“I can fix it,” Yue told him with a smile. “Here.” She tugged Sokka away to one of the tents, and Sokka caught Katara's face in a strange moment of anger.
Well. She could deal with the loss of her friend for a few minutes. Besides, Sokka had things to talk about with Yue. Like if she had a boyfriend.
“Your hair is so strange,” she said. Her hands ran through his it, untangling the tiny knots that had somehow found their way into it since he'd run a comb through it a few moments ago. “Why do you wear it like this?”
Sokka had never thought of his hairstyle as strange. It was just hair. It was a little long, because he hadn't had a haircut in a while- but it wasn't that long. Yue's dad had much longer hair. Hell, Dad and Bato had longer hair, and they kept little blue beads in it when they didn't have to go to work. That was weirder.
Or maybe that was the problem, he realized. His hair was too plain. No beads, no wolf tail, and it was shorter than most of the hair around here. It didn't look like he was Water Tribe. He just looked normal. And here, that was weird.
She worked with the scissors for a while, gently. Then she put them down and picked up- something, he couldn't see. A razor, maybe? She was behind him.
The blade was awfully close to his scalp. He had just expected her to trim his hair. This was way more than a trim. But he was rendered incapable of protesting by the presence of a pretty girl so close to him, gently running her hands through his hair.
She pulled his hair back, and this he knew- it was a wolftail. Mom had put his hair in one every day when he was small. He knew the feel of them, even years later.
“There,” she told him. “That looks better.” She pulled away, and handed him a small mirror.
She'd cut almost all the hair from the sides of his head, leaving one stripe of hair down the center of his scalp uncut. The hair that was left was pulled into a wolf tail.
“Now you look like a warrior,” she told him. She smiled.
He did look like a warrior. The computer geek Sokka, who liked to build programs, and who couldn't throw a boomerang to save his life, and who got written off as the class clown as school even though his grades were high- that wasn't the guy he saw in the mirror. He looked- fiercer. Less goofy, somehow.
“I like it,” he told Yue, though he wasn't totally sure how much he meant it. She flushed. He smiled.
And then he realized that they were standing alone in a small tent, with less than two feet between them.
It was his turn to flush. Yue looked away.
“I'm glad you like it,” she said. “I'd better go. I have chores to do.”
And with that, she left.
He hadn't had a chance to ask her out. But he walked out a moment later with a goofy grin on his face anyway.
He walked into a wave of ice cold water, because apparently getting a haircut had pissed off Katara.
Jeez. What was up with her lately?
Sweet things
Date: 2010-02-24 04:08 am (UTC)(Later, he would realize that she treated the whole world that way. He wasn't special. But when he first met her, that look of total indifference was magical.)
“Er,” he said. “We only have tea here. Uncle- the owner- thinks the smell of coffee overpowers the tea and ruins it.”
“Of course.” She sighed.
“We do have a blend of tea that has as much caffeine as tea. If that's what you're after.”
“How does it taste?”
“Too mild for me,” he admitted. “It's sweet even without any sugar.”
“I don't like sweet things. Too boring,” she told him, and she walked out without buying anything, giving him a blank look out of the corner of her eye as she went out the door.
“Yeah,” he said, though she couldn't hear him. “Neither do I.”
Re: Sweet things
Date: 2010-04-02 01:58 am (UTC)I think this is supposed to be "has as much caffeine as coffee" not tea. Did you just write this one recently? I don't remember reading it on your laptop before. Post the Ty Lee one!
Re: Sweet things
From:Mai and her family
Date: 2010-03-21 08:05 am (UTC)Usually Mai's mother didn't bother with conversation at the table. She fed Tom-Tom, and sometimes she would make silly noises at him as she maneuvered the food into his mouth. But there wasn't any conversation.
“They're close,” Mai agreed, spearing a piece of meat with her chopsticks with a particularly efficient motion.
“Don't jab at your food like that, dear,” her mother said. “It's rude.”
Mai ate the next three bites of food more politely. Only then did her mother continue the conversation.
“I know it must be difficult to find suitable friends at that school,” her mother said. “I mean- they let anyone in to public schools here, don't they?”
Tom-Tom started wailing, and Mai's mother was distracted for a moment with feeding him and making silly little faces.
Mai breathed easier for a moment, and took another small bite of her food.
“Your father and I have been thinking,” her mother continued after a moment. “And we remembered that one of your father's coworkers sent his daughter to a school only a few hours away from here. It's a very elite academy, and I'm sure you could find a more suitable class of friends there.”
“A few hours away? That's an awfully long commute.”
“Well- it's a boarding school.”
“A boarding school?” Mai questioned, tone cool.
“An elite one,” her mother said, a faint smile gracing her lips. “You understand, don't you? We have your father's career to think about. We can't afford any scandal. You'll find better friends at the academy. Ones who won't embarrass you later.”
“I'm sure you and father will do what you think is best,” Mai said, voice perfectly even. She took her plate to the kitchen, rinsed it off, and set it down in the sink so hard that it cracked.
I don't care, she thought.
But somehow she couldn't quite make herself believe it.
Katara and Yue
Date: 2010-03-21 08:41 am (UTC)“They're-” she started, but Katara said:
“They're spirits, aren't they?”
Yue smiled. “They are. Tui and La, the moon and ocean spirits. You're lucky. They hardly ever come out anymore. Grandfather once told me that this used to be an oasis. The spirits would keep it warm. But somehow we lost their favor. They spend most of their time far beneath the surface.”
Katara sat by the edge of the pond, and let the tips of her fingers touch the water. It was cold, but still warmer than it ought to be. Just chilly, instead of frozen. The white fish- the moon spirit, Tui- left La for a moment to nibble at her fingers. Then the two spirits resumed their endless dance.
“I had dreams about them, before we came here,” Katara admitted. “But I don't know what any of it meant.”
“The spirits send visions and help to anyone they think might listen,” Yue said. “Not many people do, now. Even in the tribe, a lot of people are losing hope. They've stopped praying.”
“It was the same in the southern tribe,” Katara said. “Only Gran-Gran still seemed to believe anymore. She told me stories all the time, at home. Sokka thought they were silly, but I knew they had to be true. I mean- I'm a waterbender. Nothing else seems hard to believe, after that.”
Yue gave a faint smile. “It must be nice. My family had great hope that I would be a bender. The moon spirit saved my life when I was a baby. A little of its life is in me. But I can't do anything with it.”
She looked away from Katara, and towards the fish, and the look in her eyes was not quite sad.
They fed the koi fish stale bread left over from the journey north, and laughed about the boys in the tribe, and Katara showed Yue what she'd learned in her waterbending lessons.
She streamed the water all around Yue, so that the two of them were surrounded by a net of sparkling strands. She told herself she wasn't trying to impress anyone, even as Yue's eyes went wide with delight.
Azula looks for blackmail material
Date: 2010-04-12 04:14 am (UTC)She didn't need to blackmail him. Not now, and hopefully not ever. But she might need his silence on some matters some day. She didn't know where Uncle stood on certain matters, and she wasn't planning to find out on accident. She wanted a bit of insurance that Zuko wouldn't talk if he came barging into her room at an inopportune moment.
Zuko's room was depressingly lacking in blackmail material. In fact, it was practically empty. His desk was clean, there was nothing under the bed, and she couldn't figure out the password to his computer. (Mai? Firebending? Mother? None of them worked, so she had to acknowledge that her brother wasn't a complete idiot)
His closet was also tidy, though it wasn't empty. His clothes were hung up, but the floor had a few boxes on the ground. Mostly keepsakes and papers, she noted as she went through them. Boring things. Old school papers. Photos of mother. She might have given up after looking through the first box, but Azula never did anything by half-measures.
The last box was filled with letters from Father. Some of them had been forwarded from their old house. Most were even older.
She took the most recent one, then packed up everything as neatly as she had found it.
Simple. She'd known he had something to be ashamed of. Everyone did.
“What were you doing in my room?” Zuko said with a glare as she walked out.
She gave him an innocent look. The letter was tucked away safely in her shirt. Nothing was out of place. He had no proof that he'd done anything wrong.
“Looking for you, of course, dum-dum. I've been practicing a new bending technique and I wanted your input. It's not working out exactly how I want it to.”
His glare softened a touch. “Later,” he said. “I'm busy right now.”
Azula yawned. “Fine,” she said. “Just let me know when you're ready.” She walked away with the letter still under her shirt.
Zuko was dumb. And now he wouldn't be able to use Ty Lee against her, if it came to that.
Re: Azula looks for blackmail material
Date: 2010-05-31 04:39 pm (UTC)Awesome! I love the Tyzula in this!
Sokka and Hahn fight
Date: 2010-04-21 03:36 am (UTC)“You- you think she's some kind of prize!” Sokka said, putting down the boomerang that he'd been sharpening.
“What does it matter to you?” Hahn said. “It isn't like you'd ever get to be with her. I mean, look at you. You can't even hold a spear right. No offense.”
The fight that followed was not Sokka's best, though he managed to land a few good blows.
“You want Yue for yourself?” Hahn said with a weird grin. “Why don't you ask her if she even likes you back?”
“I don't like her like that,” Sokka said. “But you... shouldn't talk about girls that way.”
Hahn beat him up pretty badly. Black eye, split lip, the whole works. Sokka'd been beaten up before, but it wasn't fun.
This time, Katara had magic glowy water. So it was better.
“You didn't have to do that,” she told him.
“I know. But I couldn't let him insult your crush like that, could I?” He puffed out his chest and made his best knight-in-shining-armor face. “I mean- what are big brothers for, right?”
She laughed at the face, and then the laugh relaxed into a smile.
“Thank you,” she said.
He hadn't thrown that punch for Katara. But she never had to know that.
Sacrifice
Date: 2011-03-11 05:22 am (UTC)“It's my duty, Katara.”
“Well, fuck duty!”
Katara shouldn't have been able to bend, because the moon was dead. But Yue had a glimmer of the moon's power, and Katara could feel it. Between that and sheer willpower she managed to muster up just enough ice to wrap Yue's feet, to keep her from taking one step closer to that pond.
“If the moon is gone forever, the world will be perpetually out of balance,” Yue said. “Is that what you want? To be together while everyone else suffers?”
The ice around her feet melted- and Katara thought no, she isn't a waterbender, how-
Yue kissed her one last time before she laid her hands on the moon spirit's mortal body.
“No,” Katara said, as Yue slumped to the ground and was caught by Sokka. “No, this can't be right-”
“She's gone,” Sokka said gently, feeling for a pulse.
The moon lit up the sky, and Yue's body disappeared. In the oasis, the fish that was the moon began swimming in slow circles..
“You didn't even let us keep the body?” Katara said numbly, staring at the fish. “Not even that?”
One day
Date: 2011-03-11 05:27 am (UTC)She didn't know what to do about it.
Couldn't he tell she was still torn up about Yue?
She kind of liked him back. And the liking hurt, so she looked up at the sky and stared at the moon whenever it was full, and pretended that she didn't like Aang because that was too complicated right now.
“I'm not going to forget you,” she told Yue.
The moon was silent.
“We only had a few weeks together,” she added. “It wasn't enough.”
The moon couldn't talk to her, couldn't smile and look at her with clear blue eyes and tell her to calm down. So she didn't. She lashed out, shooting a blast of icicles as far as she could towards that stupid blank, hovering-
The ice fell long before it reached the moon, and then she just curled up on the hillside, knees tucked up against her body.
And Aang came, and sat next to her.
He didn't say anything for a while.
“I liked her,” she told him.
“I know,” Aang said.
“Do you?”
“I know what it looks like when two people are in love,” he said. Then he grinned, and said: “I mean, Sokka made me watch all those 'chick flick' movies, remember?”
Katara laughed, and it turned into a little bit of a sob, and smile on Aang's face disappeared.
“One day it'll be okay,” he said, and he looked up at the sky. “Or- better, anyway.”
Katara remembered suddenly that Aang had lost a lot of people, too. But-there was hope in his eyes, still. Katara couldn't help feeling a little of it, too.
“One day,” she repeated. And they kept staring at the sky.
Ba Sing Se
Date: 2011-03-11 05:35 am (UTC)But it's where Aang's vision had told him to go to find an earthbending teacher, and well- if he's here, he has to do something, doesn't he? He's the Avatar. And even if that doesn't seem to mean a lot to anyone else anymore, it means something to him.
“Why are they shooting at each other?” Aang asked, drawing on his knowledge of guns from the cop movies Sokka had made him watch.
“They're gangs, Aang. They fight,” Sokka said, as though those were just the rules of the universe and Aang had to accept them.
Katara looked sad. Of course, Katara looked sad a lot of the time, ever since Yue had died. But he was pretty sure that she looked extra sad right now. And he didn't like that.
“I'll stop them,” he told her, and he grinned just before he jumped off of Appa, glider in hand.
It turned out, bullets? They hurt a lot more than it looked like in the detective movie he'd watched one day when everyone else was still sleeping.
Aang really hated Ba Sing Se.
So Katara came after him, and Sokka wasn't far behind, and they did manage to break up the fight.
Katara fussed over him and healed the wounds, and then she and Sokka both told him how stupid he was.
Well, how was he supposed to know it would be so hard to airbend fast enough to stop a bullet? They'd looked a lot slower in the movie.
Things had been a lot simpler before guns had been invented. Aang was not a fan.
And then, as soon as Katara had almost finished with healing and yelling at him, a rock hit him in the back of the head.
“What the hell are you doing here?” a girl's voice asked.
There was a dirty little kid there, in torn-up clothing and with black hair so tangled and filthy that it was more like a filthy mat on her head than actual hair.
“Who are you?” Aang asked, clutching his head.
“I'm asking the questions here,” she told him. “This isn't your turf. You can't just barge in.”
“There was a fight,” Aang said. “We had to stop it.”
“They'll be fighting again tomorrow. You just put it off a little longer. Get out of here. No asked for your help.”
“I'm the Avatar,” Aang said. “It's my job to help people find peaceful solutions to their problems.”
“Whatever,” she said. She turned to leave, and Aang took a step forward to go after her but tripped over a low wall he could swear hadn't been there a minute ago.
When he looked up, she was gone.
Aang fails at not airbending
Date: 2011-03-11 05:39 am (UTC)The most frustrating thing about school, besides sitting still for hours at a time, was recess. There were swings hanging from metal bars, and Aang knew he could swing all the way up and back down on the other side if he used airbending, but Sokka and Hakoda and Katara and Gran-gran had all said very specifically not to airbend at all. Because people would notice.
Well- a little bending wouldn't hurt, right? If no one could tell he was bending, then no one would notice, and then it was like he was following their orders, and no one could get mad at him.
After all, anyone could go over the bar if they tried hard enough, couldn't they? The girl who sat behind him in art had told him that a friend's brother had done it once.
So it wasn't like he was doing anything special.
There was a line for the swings, and he waited in it with a little frown. The playground should have more swings. If he were in charge of a school, he would put in more swings. And have shorter classes. Better food would be good, too; all he could eat from the cafeteria was rice and some nasty broccoli that was a weird shade of brownish-green.
And then he was at the front of the line, and the chubby boy on the end swing got off-
Swings were amazing. They were almost as good as flying, and Aang hadn't had a chance to fly in a long, long time. Weeks. Since they'd gotten back from the South Pole. Gran-gran had locked his staff in the hall closet when he'd snuck out at night for a little tiny flight, and-
It wasn't fair. Nothing was fair, not the way he wasn't allowed to airbend, or the way everyone he'd ever known was dead, or the way no one could bend anymore, or how the other kids made fun of him because he sometimes couldn't read the stupid simplified calligraphy in the textbooks. It wasn't fair, and he wanted to go home, except home was just skeletons and statues, and-
He realized that his hands were clenched into fists around the chains of the swing, and he was making a face.
He breathed. He let it go. He put on a big grin. He could think about all of that later.
None of it mattered at this moment, because he had the swings, and he had his bending, and he was almost at the top.
He was level with the bar now, and getting higher with every swing. Even with airbending, it wasn't easy. He didn't have his staff, and it was a still day. There wasn't much wind to work with.
There was a crowd of other kids watching now, and a few concerned teachers were shouting at him. But he was almost around. Just a little higher, and he'd be there. Just another inch-
And he was over, soaring around-
He hadn't thought it through this far, and he ended up falling off the swing as it hurtled towards the ground. Hopefully no one would notice that he was falling a little more slowly than anyone else would.
Across the playground, a pair of eyes narrowed.
Ty Lee is having trouble staying bouncy
Date: 2011-03-11 05:44 am (UTC)Azula's dad wasn't a nice man, no matter how much Ty Lee tried to see his good points. He didn't care that he was hurting people. He just cared that things were going well for him.
Ty Lee had hurt people for him. For Azula, anyway. It made her sick to think of it, but not as sick as thinking about what had probably happened to them later. They were much thinner, and there were scars or injuries where there hadn't been before. Sometimes Ty Lee had to look away. She didn't like what Ozai was doing.
Azula was different around him. She seemed- sharper, all around. She didn't laugh as freely, and Ty Lee was worried about what she was doing, when it was just her and her father.
Azula thought she could kill and torture and be fine, but Ty Lee knew better. Azula could hide how she was feeling- so well that she didn't even know she was doing it- but she couldn't hide the cruelty that was seeping into everything she did. Things just bothered her less, these days.
Ty Lee was good at lying to herself, but even she couldn't avoid seeing it.
She didn't want her girlfriend (yes, girlfriend, even if Azula wouldn't say the word) to be balanced on a razor's edge between humanity and-
And whatever Ozai was.
He talked about strength, and what he meant was cruelty. And Azula believed him, because he was her father and she believed everything he told her.
Ty Lee wanted to leave. She wanted to take Azula and flee to some island, some place with sunshine and cool breezes, where they could just be happy and not worry about bending or wars or what Ozai was planning to do tomorrow or the next day.
But Azula wouldn't leave, and Ty Lee couldn't leave her here. If Azula were alone here with Ozai, Ty Lee was sure she would be broken in no time. She'd be just like him.
So she stayed. She loved Azula, and while there was still some Azula left to love- something besides blue flames and cunning and cold cruelty- Ty Lee would stay here.
But Azula was getting a little colder every day.
There was a slab of rock in the hall of the house they were staying in. It was carved in calligraphy Ty Lee couldn't read- it was too old, and the characters were illegible. Ozai had said something about it, when they came to stay here. It was a prayer, he'd said. A prayer to Agni, the sun spirit.
Right now, a beam of sunshine played across the surface of the stone, and it shone.
You're warm, aren't you, Ty Lee thought to the sun. You're responsible for- photosynthesis, and plants, and summer. And Azula is a little bit yours, isn't she? Could you keep her warm, too?
I could use all the help I can get, she added.
The sunlight winked at her, she swore. Or maybe a cloud just blew by overhead, for a second.
But Ty Lee felt better anyway.
Maybe things were going to be okay.
The Price of Failure (1/2)
Date: 2011-03-11 05:49 am (UTC)Azula gave him a short nod, and entered the building. There was a woman sitting at the table in the kitchen, drinking tea. “Can I help you?” she asked, and her hand started edging towards her phone.
Azula gave her a disarming smile, walked a step closer, grabbed the phone and flung it against the far wall. “Yes, as a matter of fact,” she said. “I need to see your husband.”
The woman frowned. “Well, you're a bit late for that. He left this morning for a work retreat. I'm afraid he won't be back until next week.”
Azula sighed. “You aren't a very good liar, you know.”
A boy walked into the room. “Mother, is everything okay?”
Upon seeing Azula, his face twisted into a frown. “Who's this?”
“Someone who was just leaving,” the woman said. “Haru, go to your room.”
The boy's stance shifted, and Azula shifted hers as well.
“I guess our intelligence was wrong,” she said lazily. “I was told there was only one earthbender in this family. I guess no one ever found out that you were one, too.”
The woman's eyes darted from Azula to her son and back again. “Leave us alone,” she said. “We've never hurt anyone-”
Azula made a pair of flame daggers. The boy twitched his hand, and she easily sidestepped a pair of statues that abruptly flew at her from above the fireplace. “If you come easily, I might let your mother be,” she said. “You know you don't stand a chance of defeating me.”
Another pair of statues came at her, and again she sidestepped them. “You're not even buying yourself much time,” she said, and lunged at him with the daggers.
He backed away, and by luck managed to avoid her.
“You're a bender, too” he said. “Why are you helping those murderers?”
Azula didn't bother giving him an answer. She just swiped at him with the dagger, and wished, as he rolled right and evaded her yet again, that the lessons uncle had made her take at the dojo had focused more on what to do with weapons and less on defending oneself from potential rapists.
“My name is Haru,” he said, as if she would be less inclined to kill him if she knew his name.
Suddenly, there was a quick kick to the back of her legs, and Azula realized that the boy had maneuvered himself so that Azula had her back to his mother. She tumbled to the ground and let the flame daggers in her hands dissipate. Then she sprang up on her hands and managed to knock the woman off balance.
Ty Lee would have been upset, if she'd seen Azula using one of her handsprings to knock a blameless woman down. Ty Lee cared about things like that.
She banished the stupid thought at once. This was no time for foolish sentimentality.
“I'm only here for your son,” she said, as she moved in for the kill. The boy was finally standing still, looking at something behind-
She stepped to the side and dropped into a low kick. The move knocked the man behind her off his feet.
“Ah,” she said. “You must be the father. The other earthbender.”
She hadn't been prepared to fight against two earthbenders at once, in close quarters. Let alone in a brick house that seemed to have been decorated entirely with statues. It was time to move the battle outside. She backed into the wall, jammed her arm back into the window-
-and was met with resistance that was entirely wrong for glass.
The father of the family was making a threatening face. Azula risked a quick glance at the window behind her. It was definitely glass. But-
Of course. Glass was earth. He was strengthening it against her. She wouldn't escape that way.
The father was blocking the door out. The son was standing by the door to the rest of the house.
His position wasn't strong, though. She could push through to another room, break a window, and they would have no choice but to follow her.
She darted past the boy, into the living room-
And she was met by a wall of water.
The Price of Failure (2/3)
Date: 2011-03-11 05:51 am (UTC)After a moment, her head was freed. She took an undignified gulp of fresh air.
The waterbender was standing in front of her.
Heat, Azula thought. I need heat. She willed fire to her hands, and the heat melted the ice around her hands a little. Not enough to move them, but given enough time-
“You won't be hurting anyone else,” the waterbender said. “Not today.”
Someone would be here as her backup in just a moment. Which was, of course, unacceptable. She was trying to prove to father that she was strong. Failing at her mission, after a year of failing to capture the airbender- it would show him nothing but what he already suspected. That she was weak. That she couldn't handle the tasks he set her.
She'd lose her bending again. Or something else important, because if there was one thing that Father was good at, it was finding things you didn't even know you cared about and taking them away.
Unacceptable.
She directed as much heat as she could to her hands, but it was no good. The waterbender had noticed her efforts and froze the water again with a casual flick of her hands. “You aren't escaping,” she said. “Not until Haru and his family are safe.”
“My father is outside,” Azula said. “They won't get away.”
“He won't catch them,” the waterbender said. “We knew the house would be watched. But thank you for the warning.” She gave Azula a smile. Or showed her teeth, anyway.
Azula had been beaten. It was not a nice sensation. “What will you do with me, then?”
“You'll be free to go,” the waterbender said. “We aren't monsters. We don't kill people.”
There was a slight emphasis on “we” that Azula felt was unfair. She'd never- she'd only ever killed one person. She wasn't some sort of serial killer. She'd been interrupted several moments too early for that, she noted sourly.
The remaining moments of Azula's temporary captivity passed in sullen silence. Then the waterbender's phone buzzed, and she flipped it open. “Good,” she said. “They're clear. You won't find them again, so don't bother looking.”
She froze the ice around Azula's hands once more, and walked into another room. Azula could hear her footsteps on stairs, and then there was no sound. Had she gone to to roof? The earthbenders might have escaped through the basement, but they wouldn't leave that route open. The waterbender had probably called her airbender friend and escaped on the bison. Which meant Azula's father would know already that Azula had lost. That the airbender and his friends had been here.
It took a few moments to work her way free. Even with her hottest flame, there was a lot of ice that needed melting. She was numb and tired and all she wanted was to curl up with a cup of spiced drinking chocolate and Ty Lee.
But she still had to face her father.
The Price of Failure (3/3)
From:Punishment
Date: 2011-03-11 06:05 am (UTC)“A word, Azula,” he said. Ty Lee watched as he and Azula went to the living room, but didn't follow. She just stayed in the kitchen and kept eating her cereal.
She didn't like Ozai. His aura was all wrong, and she was sure he disapproved of her. But she didn't get in the way, and he was only after benders, so he left her alone.
She was still a little frightened of him.
She finished the cereal, washed her bowl out, and put it by the sink to dry. Then she sat down again and wondered if it would be rude to walk after them. It would be, she decided.
And then Azula screamed.
There wasn't any conscious thought involved in the mad dash to the next room, and she wasn't sure what she expected to find. The Avatar, come to stop them once and for all? The waterbender, gone all wrathful and city-destroying again?
By the time she got there, though, Azula was lying crumpled on the ground, and Ozai was walking out the front door.
“Azula?” Ty Lee said, kneeling down beside her. “Are you okay?”
A few seconds passed, and Azula didn't say anything. And then, finally, quietly: “He took my firebending.”
There was the sound of a car starting in the driveway.
“Took it?” Ty Lee said. “Why?”
Azula muttered something. Ty Lee didn't catch the whole thing, but the word “punishment” was clearly in there.
“That isn't fair,” Ty Lee said. “You tried your hardest, didn't you? And it isn't like the firebending was making you evil. You're the same Azula you've always been.”
Azula sat up. She looked uninjured, Ty Lee noted with relief. With the screaming a moment ago, she'd been afraid Azula was bleeding, or had broken bones. She'd sounded like she was dying.
“I'll get it back,” Azula said. “In a week. If I can prove myself.”
She didn't sound sure about that, and that was what worried Ty Lee more than anything. Azula wasn't supposed to sound unsure.
“Well, that's fine then,” she said, because one of them had to sound hopeful. “Everything will be okay.”
She held Azula, and pretended not to notice how she was shaking.
Without Bending
Date: 2011-03-11 06:12 am (UTC)Ty Lee had never seen Azula frightened before, even in her sleep. Azula was usually so strong. It was scary, to see her sick and afraid and cold. But that just meant that Ty Lee had to be strong, this time. Just this once, because Azula needed her to be.
Sunshine might help, she thought to herself. Firebenders and sunshine went together.
Of course, Azula wasn't a firebender right now. That was the whole problem. But still, it couldn't hurt to open the curtains. The room was awfully dark.
She drew the curtains. The room became slightly brighter, but not much. It was a cloudy day.
Tomorrow might be sunny, she thought hopefully. Tomorrow might be warm. And then we can go outside, and have a picnic. Azula might like that.
The furnace wasn't turning on, and Ty Lee didn't know what to do about that. She couldn't call a repairman, in this house that wasn't hers. Ozai would get mad. And it wasn't just the furnace- the wind was coming in around every window and door. None of the seals were good. The house wasn't quite finished, and Ty Lee doubted it ever would be. Not from what Azula had told her.
She did know one or two tricks to use when the furnace wasn't working. Her mom had used them when she was a kid and they hadn't always had enough money to pay the gas bill. Like- she put dry rice in an old clean sock, and put that in the microwave for a minute, and that kept the bed nice and warm. So Ty Lee tried that. The rice-sock was hot and she put it under the covers with Azula. It worked for a little while. So she filled up another sock, and another and another, because she didn't like her thick socks anyway. She heated them up again every hour or so, and Azula stopped shivering though she still looked unhappy.
When Ty Lee was too tired to stay awake any longer, she crawled under the covers with Azula, threw one arm over her, and hoped that that would keep her warm through the night.
In the morning, Azula was a little bit better. She was awake when Ty Lee woke up, sitting outside in the weak fall sunshine.
It was a little warmer today, though it was still very windy. Ty Lee wanted to get Azula back indoors where it was warm, but Azula didn't seem to mind the chill as much today.
“I hate this,” Azula said. “I keep reaching for it, and it isn't there. It's like losing an arm.”
She didn't look upset now- but then, Azula was good at lying.
Ty Lee gave her a kiss, and worried a little that her lips weren't as warm as usual. Usually, Azula burned like she had a fever.
“It'll be okay,” Ty Lee said. “Your dad will give you your bending back in a few days. You just have to show him that you deserve it.”
Azula nodded. “Right,” she said, sitting up a little straighter. “I'll figure out where the airbender and his friends are going. And once I have my bending back- then I'll crush them.”
Ty Lee smiled, because what else was there to do?
At least Azula was more cheerful. Because Ty Lee didn't think she could stand to see her so lost anymore.
Useful
Date: 2011-03-11 06:19 am (UTC)“You're weak,” Ozai said. “And you'll make Azula weak.”
“Nothing can make Azula weak,” Ty Lee said. “Nothing touches her.”
She didn't let the sadness show. Her chin was held high.
Ozai laughed.
“Well. Do you want to be useful?”
Ty Lee didn't nod, didn't say yes, didn't do anything. She didn't know what he meant, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to know. But Ozai grabbed a handful of her hair, and one hand over her heart-
It was painful. Something ripped through her, and her heart skipped a beat, and then another, and she was sure for a moment that she was going to die before it started again.
And then everything was over, and Ozai let go of her hair, and she crumpled to the ground.
“I doubt you'll be strong enough to use it instead of being used by it,” he told her. “But if you survive, you'll be more useful as a firebender.”
And he walked away as Ty Lee clutched at her chest and tried to remember how to breathe.
Training
Date: 2011-03-11 06:29 am (UTC)At least, Ty Lee hopes she would have.
“You've never bent before,” Azula said, tones crisp and military, as though Ty Lee were some new recruit in Ozai's little army. “It won't be easy at first. It took me until I was four to figure it out. It will probably take you at least a few days before you can feel the difference.”
With that, she began to walk Ty Lee through the basic breathing exercises. She was more relaxed once she was in motion, dropping the precise diction and moving Ty Lee's limbs to the correct positions.
“Power in firebending comes from the breath,” she said, murmuring it into Ty Lee's ear and blowing so that it tickled. Ty Lee giggled.
Azula stood up straight and assumed a commanding tone once more.
“It doesn't matter how strong you are physically,” she continued. “Control your breathing, and you control the fire.”
So Ty Lee did the breathing exercises, and there was- maybe something, a tiny decrease in the pain- but she couldn't make flames. And Azula looked irritated after an hour of trying and failing, but she wouldn't give up, and finally Ty Lee had to drag her to the bedroom just to get her mind on something else. Which was a little risky, since Ozai might come home at any time, but that was part of the thrill.
The firebending lessons continued every day after that. Ty Lee made no progress, though she managed to learn some of the forms and the pain went away gradually. It wasn't that she wasn't trying. She was. But when Azula talked about the source of fire that Ty Lee ought to be feeling, she didn't feel it. And the forms seemed wrong, though she couldn't figure out what might be better, and every time Ozai came around he scowled at her, and she remembered how it had felt, when he'd tried to give her bending, and she shivered.
Ty Lee wasn't a bender. She wasn't sure why Ozai had thought she could be made into one.
Katara Believes in Legends (reprise)
Date: 2011-03-11 06:41 am (UTC)She wakes with tears in her eyes, every time, and bends them away before anyone can notice.
Katara believes in spirits and legends. She wishes she didn't have to.
Family Reunion
Date: 2011-03-11 07:02 am (UTC)He might actually be able to take her.
“When I capture you,” Azula said, “Father will take your bending.” She smiled cruelly for a moment. “Imagine what it will feel like. Your inner fire going out. Bending isn't just a matter of self-defense, you know. You'll feel cold all the time, and you'll want to warm yourself up- but every time you reach for your fire, it won't be there. And it will be a shock to find it missing, every time, no matter how long it's been, no matter how accustomed to losing your bending you think you've become.”
She stared at him intently, as though waiting for him to cower in fear. As though she had seen what losing bending was like, after interrogating dozens of prisoners over and over until she knew all the the gory details.
Or like she wanted him to think she had.
“It's horrible,” she told him, face now neutral.
Zuko thought, not for the first time, that his sister was a sick, twisted excuse for a human being.
He kept his guard up and didn't listen too hard to anything she said, because if Azula was talking, it was probably supposed to be a distraction. He kept an eye out for Ty Lee, because the damned acrobat seemed to follow Azula around everywhere, and it was kind of strange that she wasn't here now, wasn't it? He was sure she'd pop up from behind him somewhere, any moment now. Why else would Azula keep talking to him?
But Ty Lee didn't show up. When Azula beat him to a pulp, it was entirely on her own.
Uncle was still unconscious on the other side of the room, and the last thought Zuko had (before Azula smashed him into a wall, too) was: at least we'll be together.
He woke up alone, in the same spot she'd knocked him unconscious, and with a large lump already forming on his head. Uncle was gone, and Zuko had no idea where Azula might have taken him- and most of all, he had no idea why Azula hadn't taken Zuko, too.
The rendezvous point
Date: 2011-03-12 04:08 am (UTC)It was a house. Nothing out of the ordinary. Windows, doors, driveway.
“What's wrong?” Ty Lee asked. Azula only shook her head and said: “It's home. He rebuilt it, I suppose.” Her expression hardened a little, so Ty Lee knew she wasn't happy, but she didn't volunteer any more information.
And- Ty Lee didn't know what to say to that. Azula's old house had burned down. Her mother had died. Ty Lee knew that much.
Ty Lee wouldn't want to rebuild after that. She'd want to move somewhere else and try to forget all the sadness, if it had been her house. Rebuilding it- it was like a shrine, or a tomb- strange, to say the least.
“Are you okay?” she asked Azula, because she looked a little strange. Not quite shaken, because Azula never looked shaken, but- disturbed.
“I'm fine,” Azula said, and brushed aside the hand Ty Lee had raised to comfort her. She hefted the large backpack with her things in it off the ground, and marched up the driveway.
It was a nice enough house, Ty Lee supposed, though some things were strangely unfininshed, as though Ozai had started to build the house again and suddenly lost interest, banishing any workers mid-job. None of the floors had been varnished. There was no railing on the staircase. There was some furniture, but it was minimal- a table and chairs, a couch and television. One bedroom was furnished. It wasn't really a house anyone could live in.
Azula paused at the furnished bedroom.“This was my parents' room,” she said, staring at the large bed. Her expression was unreadable for a moment, and then she gave Ty Lee an imperious look. “I supose we'll have to share the bed.”
“I think we'll survive,” Ty Lee said, smiling widely. “Just don't steal the covers this time.”
“Not tonight,” Azula said, and she seemed to be herself again. “But then, I don't plan on doing much sleeping tonight, anyway.”
It was a lazy afternoon, one of the last warm days of fall, and though the bed was dusty and had no sheets, it still served. For that matter, so did the shower, which was a welcome change after months travelling. Afterward, they spent time cleaning up the house a little, finding blankets tucked away in a closet in the hall, and trying unsuccessfully to turn on the heat. Dinner was soup from the back of a cupboard, because neither of them felt like going out to find food. They couldn't figure out the stove, but the electricity was working and there was a microwave.
It was better than camping, at least. Ty Lee's hair was clean, and Azula could plot against the Avatar in relative comfort.
Ty Lee still didn't like the house. It creeped her out. But Azula no longer seemed bothered, so Ty Lee was sure she was just being silly.
Shopping
Date: 2011-03-12 04:11 am (UTC)He chose shirts in oranges and yellows, because if the cut of the clothing was strange, at least the colors could be right.
And when Katara tried to get him to try something different, Gran-gran just said: “Enough from you, Katara. Didn't you say you needed a new swimsuit for practice?”
Katara still hesitated, and finally said, “Yeah, I guess.”
Gran-gran, dressed in an unfashionable purple-blue dress and wearing beads in her hair, nodded at Aang, and he nodded back, and really, that was all that needed to be said.
Forgetting
Date: 2011-05-02 04:54 am (UTC)It wasn't a big deal, she would have insisted, if anyone had asked. She didn't want to remember them. They were stupid, and they'd coddled her, and when she'd finally shown them she could deal with the world, they'd taken steps to make sure that independence wouldn't last.
She had a family now. A family she'd chosen. And that was all she needed. She never wanted to see her parents again.
But they were passing through Gaoling, and there'd been another riot. Some idiots had made bombs, and a couple of earthbender kids had gotten scared, and the whole city was a mess. What was she supposed to do? Refuse to get off the bison?
So she sucked it up and went to help. She wasn't a healer like Katara, but she could sort out the badly injured and point Katara at them, and she could get people out from under the buildings that they were trapped beneath.
The work went quickly and easily, because Toph had grown strong. The broken walls were as easy to move as pebbles. The only tricky part was making sure she didn't hurt people when she got them out from the rubble. People kept their distance from her as she worked, their hearts beating faster. But she didn't really mind. It meant she had more space to work. It didn't matter that they were afraid, not at this moment.
She saved 15 of them. She was amazing.
And then, when she'd finished pulling the last outraged citizen from the wreckage, she heard a voice behind her.
“Toph?”
And it turned out she hadn't forgotten at all. Because that was her mother's voice, and there was no way she'd ever mistake it for anyone else's.
She was tempted to run away. Which was dumb, because it wasn't like her mother could hurt her. Toph was the strongest Earthbender in the world. Possibly the strongest ever. No one could hurt her.
“What do you want?” Toph asked.
“It's me,” her mother said, with a little sob in her voice. “Your mother- I-”
“I know who you are,” Toph said, still facing the opposite direction. “What do you want?”
There was no answer for a moment. “You ran away,” her mother said after a moment. “I thought... I'm so glad to see you're safe.”
There weren't words to express how Toph felt, at that moment. Angry, yes- and sad-
“You tried to take my bending away,” she said, because what else was there to say?
“I was frightened,” her mother said quietly. “You could do such strange things, and-”
“You tried to cripple me,” Toph said. “To blind me.”
Her mother hesitated. “You're already blind.”
Toph wanted to scream. She wanted to make her mother understand what she meant.
Instead, she said: “I have people to help. Go away.”
Her mother didn't. She walked towards Toph, and grabbed her-
Toph panicked. She hit and punched and backed away until there was a safe distance between them, and only then did she realize that it had been meant as a hug.
“Keep away from me,” she said.
“I didn't mean any harm,” her mother said, and her voice was broken. “I've never meant any harm.”
Toph hated that she wasn't lying. “I hate you,” she said. And she wished that that was entirely true.
She left, walking- anywhere. Anywhere that wasn't here.
Even after all this time, Gaoling was still familiar. Her feet found the way that she'd gone a hundred times before, and she didn't even need her earthbending to know the way.
“I'm home,” she said, when she got there.
The badgermoles didn't say anything at all. She wished that people were as simple.
She curled up next to them in the silence, and hummed them a tune with no words, and tried to forget again what her mother's voice sounded like when she was sobbing.
Freedom 1/2
Date: 2011-05-02 05:00 am (UTC)It was easier than keeping Azula happy and sane, and Ty Lee felt a little bit guilty thinking about that. Because Azula was her girlfriend and it shouldn't feel like work, being with her. Ty Lee loved Azula.
She pushed those thoughts aside, breathed them out like stale air.
It wasn't hard to keep the guards happy. So she did.
A couple of them started sneaking her cookies and other treats, when no one else was looking. And that was nice. If only everyone could be so nice all the time, maybe there wouldn't be such a big mess now. Maybe she and Azula would still be at school. Ty Lee could do gymnastics again, and Azula could be on debate team and speech team and all the other things she liked to do. Azula had been happier, when they were at school. Being with her dad was doing all kinds of damage to her aura.
But they weren't at school, and so Ty Lee did her best to make everyone happy here. They weren't exactly bad people. They were just following the wrong person, that was all. She'd been doing the same thing, before. There was no sense being mean.
There was a courtyard, in the center of the building. Her window opened to it, but there were bars and the window itself only opened a few inches. There was one guard who'd let her outside to the courtyard, when no one else was around. She'd told him she missed the fresh air, and she'd asked nicely. He was only around once a week or so, though. He wasn't one of the regular guards.
There was no way out of the courtyard, except straight up. There was only one door in. The others had been boarded up. But Ty Lee could see stars at night, or clouds during the day, and she could close her eyes and pretend she was somewhere else, just for a moment.
Then the guard would get nervous and bring her back to her room.
Freedom 2/2
Date: 2011-05-02 05:01 am (UTC)Breath in. Breathe out. Let the bad thoughts go, because they weren't helping.
It was better that she never saw them, even if it was a little lonely without anyone but the guards to talk to. That way she didn't have to make that decision.
The time alone gave her time to practice her gymnastics. She hadn't been able to practice as much as she liked while she was helping Azula. There had been too much time spent on airplanes and cramped into train cars, and not enough to stretch out. And when she was in the house with Ozai, she could always feel his eyes on her, disapproving. He hadn't liked her doing gymnastics, because the point of it wasn't to fight. He'd thought it was stupid. It hadn't stopped her from practicing, but it had sapped the fun out of it.
Well, she was free to practice as much as she wanted, now. There was time for stretching and back walkovers and handsprings, and anything else she could think to do. The room was a little small, but she'd pushed the bed into the corner (half into the closet, really) and if she was careful, she could do enough to keep herself occupied.
She missed the bars and the beam. Ground routines were fun, but she'd always had the most fun in the air. The best moments were the ones when you let go of the bar and it was just you, rushing through thin air with only quick movements and a steady head to keep you from crashing into the ground.
She didn't have the bars. So she worked on floor routines.
It was a nice day today. Unseasonably warm, though the sunshine wasn't burning off the thin layer of snow very quickly. She had the window open, and a gentle breeze was blowing past the bars, tugging playfully at her clothes and ruffling the pages of the book on her bed. The wind carried voices with it- laughter, and quiet talking- too quiet to make out the words.
She started. Arms down, kick one leg up and then the other- and hold. It didn't take long for her the blood to rush to her head uncomfortably, but she held the handstand for a while longer before kicking her legs all the way over and bringing her body up into a bridge.
Everything had to be slow, when she was in this room. She didn't want to go fast and hit a wall. In a way, slow was harder. It took muscle to hold each different position for more than a moment. But it was welcome exercise.
Several more positions, and then she stopped, arms tired. She really was out of practice.
She let herself fall to the ground, gently, and let out a puff of air as she collapsed.
The ceiling fan moved slightly.
Ty Lee stared for a moment, until the slight motion stopped. Then, not quite believing she was entertaining the thought, she inhaled, and let out another puff of air.
The fan moved again.
“Oh,” she said.
Suddenly her complete failure at firebending made a lot more sense.
Heel face turn 1/2
Date: 2011-05-02 05:13 am (UTC)It was a matter of getting what she wanted.
Side with her father, and she'd get power, assuming he won. She'd get money and fame and glory, and her father would continue to give her his approval. Someday, the power he acquired would pass down to her.
The price, until now, had been easy. Hurt some people, kidnap others, lie and smile and torture and hurt. She hadn't minded any of that. It was easy. If that had been all, she would still be with her father.
But he'd taken Ty Lee away from her, and that wasn't a price she was willing to pay.
Azula had never needed anyone else in her life. Not Uncle or Zuko or even Father. They were useful, but she didn't need them. She didn't love them, not in any way they would have considered meaningful.
But then Ty Lee had come along, and she'd somehow wormed her way into Azula's life, and now Ty Lee somehow mattered more than power or money or her father's approval. She had ceased to be a means to a goal- she was now the goal, in of herself.
It was irrational, and stupid, and Father would have called it weak, too- but Azula found that she didn't care.
Ty Lee came first, now. And Azula was going to get her back. No matter what else it cost.
“I'm not here to fight you,” she told the Avatar's group, after fending off their initial attacks. “I'm here to offer my services. You know exactly how useful I could be, if I were on your side. I know my father's plans. I know his resources. And I'm an amazing firebender, too- better than Zuko. I can help teach the Avatar firebending.”
“Why would you switch sides?” the waterbender asked. “How can we possibly trust you after all the horrible things you've done?”
Heel face turn 2/2
Date: 2011-05-02 05:13 am (UTC)“Of course you do,” Zuko said, almost growling.
“You have to help me rescue Ty Lee.”
Really, they could have hidden the wide eyes and dropped jaws a little better. It wasn't like she was completely heartless.
Well- she'd always pretended she wasn't, anyway, which amounted to the same thing in the end.
“What?” she spat out. “I'm not allowed to be in love, just because I was on the 'wrong side'?”
Zuko's eyes bugged out of his head.
“You and Ty Lee?” he said.
Really, her brother was very slow.
“Yes,” Azula said. “Father decided we were a poor match. He has her locked up. Presumably in the same place as Uncle,” she added, with a small nod towards Zuko.
“It's your fault he's locked up,” Zuko said.
Azula shrugged. “So who better to get him back? I know where Father's prisons are. I know what the security is like. I know how to get them out. But I need help.”
“And once you have Ty Lee?”
“Father won't take me back,” Azula said. “He doesn't forgive. You should know that, Zuko.”
“Is she telling the truth?” the water tribe boy asked the little earthbender. And Azula thought, she'd have to learn their names now.
“She's not lying,” the little earthbender said. “At least- I don't think she is.”
“Not right now,” Zuko said. “That doesn't mean she won't later. When she changes her mind.”
Azula didn't know what to say. She was usually so good at convincing people to do what she wanted.
“I need you, Zuko,” she said. “Just help me rescue her. I'll do anything.” It was the most honest statement she could ever remember making. But even that didn't seem to convince them.
They left her for a while, standing off where they could see her but she couldn't hear them. She thought about how this wouldn't work, how she hadn't played the situation well. She'd have to find another way to break Ty Lee out. Maybe she could sneak into the prison, somehow. She could handle any guards, as long as they didn't have time to shoot her. It could work.
She knew it wouldn't.
Not really caring what she looked like, she sat on the ground, tucked her knees up, and put her arms around them.
If Ty Lee were here now, she would say something completely inane, about how Azula's aura looked bad or something, and Azula would look up to find her mouth caught in a kiss, and everything would be better. And then Azula would be able to think again.
Ty Lee wasn't there. So Azula just sat, and waited.
It seemed to take hours for the group to make a decision.
And then the waterbender came over, and said: “We'll let you stay with us. But if you take one step out of line-”
“Then you'll kill me? That sounds familiar.”
The waterbender stopped talking for a moment. “I told you before. We're not like Ozai. We don't kill people.”
Azula shrugged.
“Just- watch it, okay?”
“I will,” Azula said, deciding that she'd better stop pissing off the people she needed to help her. “Thank you,” she added. She gave the waterbender a smile, as sincere as any other smile she'd ever given anyone that wasn't Ty Lee.
Switching sides wasn't a matter of morals. She didn't care that her father was trying to take over the world. She didn't care that he was killing people, or if those people were innocent or not.
She cared that he'd taken Ty Lee away from her. And she was going to get her back if it meant she had to rip through every soldier and maniac her father could throw at her.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-24 02:14 am (UTC)And then she turned, and her father was waiting for her, in the shadows.
“You're a perversion,” he said, when she said nothing to him. “I thought you- my own daughter- you might have been strong enough to stand the bending. I was wrong.”
“It isn't a demon,” Azula said, slowly, as though her father were very dim. “It's a talent.”
In the glint of light that came through to door in the window, she could just make out her father's eyes. There wasn't any sanity in them. Not at this moment. Not even any anger. She couldn't see anything at all in them, really, and being unable to read him was unsettling.
She readied her hands to make fire. If he came at her to take her bending, he wouldn't get it easily.
“You're the perversion,” she said, without any particular venom. This was her father, and he was as skilled at reading and manipulating people as she was. Better, maybe. It was best to give him as little ammunition as possible. “I've felt what you do to people, and it isn't... clean.”
(Azula knew about dirtiness. She'd known about it since the day she killed her mother. She'd seen it when she watched her father take a burning stick to her brother's eye, and she'd never forget what it was like.
She was a monster because she didn't care, not because she didn't understand.)
He laughed at her then, and Azula looked for an opening. She could try to break through and run for the front door, but she didn't want to turn her back on him. She couldn't see him well, in this dim lighting, but she thought his hand was in a pocket. It was possible he had a gun or some other weapon, and she had no doubts that he would shoot her, if she took her eyes off him for a second.
Well, there was one way to see if he was holding anything, and end this standoff. She let fire blossom from her fingertips.
She had only a fraction of a second to see the flash of steel. She managed half a step backwards in that time, and ended up flat against the door behind her. The retreat was enough to save her from a slash across the neck, but as her hands instinctively came up to shield her face, the knife caught her across her right arm. The pain made her hiss, but she kicked at him and knocked him back.
Her father was strong, but he hadn't spent years training in martial arts. He'd been focused on other skills. Azula was smaller than him, but she was by far the better equipped to fight. Once he was down, she gave him a few swift kicks and made sure he wouldn't get up again. Not dead, because Ty Lee was picky about dating murderers. But unconscious. Then she calmly melted the deadbolt from the door and walked out.
It annoyed her, that her plan had worked out so badly. Hopefully the next part would go better.
Prison Break (1/2)
Date: 2012-04-24 02:20 am (UTC)“Father was pretty twisted to begin with,” Azula pointed out, gesturing towards Zuko's face. “Somehow I don't think that was much of a problem for him.”
Zuko scowled at her, but didn't say anything.
Aang paced. “To bend another's spirit, you have to be unbendable,” he said. “That's what the lion-turtle said.”
“Then be less bendable than he is,” Katara suggested. “Don't be frightened. Don't give in.”
Azula shot her an irritated look. “It isn't that easy,” she said. “I would know.”
Katara raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“He took my bending for a while,” Azula said, trying to pass it off casually. “When I'd failed one too many times.”
“That's awful,” Aang said, with a look of horror.
Azula shrugged. “He gave it back,” she said, and wondered why she was trying to make excuses for him. She didn't owe him any loyalty anymore.
“I can't even imagine,” Katara said, and Azula wished she hadn't said anything. Aang's horror had been understandable. Katara's compassion, though, was unpredictable and unwelcome. Katara imagined that she could tell what people were feeling. Katara thought she understood. But her attempts at kindness just made everything worse if they did anything at all. Azula didn't trust kindness.
“I'm fine,” Azula said, because that was the fastest way to get Katara to leave her alone. “Let's stick to the issue at hand, shall we? His ability to take away bending is only an issue if he captures us. I have no intention of letting that happen.”
The look in Katara's eyes didn't fade. Azula wanted to hit her, to make it go away.
She took a breath, instead, and looked away. “We need to infiltrate the compound. Quietly.”
She pulled out a sheet of paper. The plans of the compound, as best she remembered them. Which was pretty well. She'd been paying attention, after all.
“There are guards at the entrances,” she said. “They'll have guns, and knives as well. None of them will be benders, though, and none are especially well-trained in hand-to-hand combat. If we can disable the guns, they'll be easy targets.”
“What about inside?” Sokka asked. “More guards?”
“Of course,” Azula said. “They patrol the hallways at regular intervals. There are also security cameras, but I plan to disable those before we attempt to enter.”
“How?”
“The compound doesn't have its own generator. I'll take out the power. A quick bolt of lightning to the lines outside should look natural enough. There's a storm predicted in two days.”
Sokka nodded, satisfied with that part of the plan. “How many guards did you say were inside?”
“Approximately twenty,” she said. In truth, there were more like ten, but she would rather they prepare for the worst. Father could have increased security since she'd left. He'd had time to recruit- and his cause was popular, these days. He wouldn't have any trouble finding willing volunteers.
“How many prisoners?” Toph said. “Can we count on them to fight for us? Could we start a prison riot?”
She looked entirely too excited at the idea.
“The number of prisoners varies,” Azula said. “It isn't easy to capture benders. And they're mostly cleared out when father comes through. There might be five, or there might be fifteen. Maybe as many as twenty if we're lucky. But none of them will be in a condition to help us. If they're still benders, they'll be in chains. If they aren't, then it really depends. They might be able to walk out under their own power. But that's about as much as we can count on.”
She didn't look at Katara, because she knew she'd see pity there.
“We can free the prisoners once we've disabled all the guards,” she continued. “The nearest reinforcements should be about an hour away. We'll have to hurry, but we should be able to get the prisoners out.”
She pulled out more paper. “The next question, of course, is where to keep them after we've rescued them...”
Prison Break (2/2)
Date: 2012-04-24 02:24 am (UTC)They tied the guards up, and worked on releasing the prisoners. Toph got rid of the chains; Father hadn't' been through here lately, and most of the benders still had their bending. There were about thirty prisoners, which was excessive. Azula hadn't realized that Father's operation had increased its speed.
Uncle was in one of the rooms at the top of the building. But Ty Lee was nowhere to be found.
When she'd made absolutely sure that they hadn't missed a room, Azula went back to the guards, grabbed one, and ripped the gag from his mouth.
“Where is Ty Lee?” she asked, grabbing his arm and digging her nails in hard enough to make him bleed.
“Who?” he asked.
“She was a political prisoner,” Azula said. “She didn't have any bending. Your records say she was being kept here, but she's gone. So where is she?”
“Her?” he said. “She's-”
She dug her nails in harder, because she could tell he was going to lie.
“You may be under the impression,” she said, “that I want to let you live. It's an understandable mistake, because we've tied you up instead of roasting you like a pig-monkey. However, rest assured that the only reason that I am not staring at your charred carcass is that I need information from you. If you lie to me, or if I even think you're lying to me, there are fourteen other men in this room who could just as easily give me the information I need. Are we clear?”
He nodded. “I- She escaped.”
“Escaped,” she repeated. “You're telling me that your facilities- facilities sufficient to keep dozens of benders contained- were inadequate to keep one non-bending teenaged girl from escaping?”
“She was a bender,” he said. “She hid it, but she was practicing in her room, and we didn't know until too late.”
So Azula's firebending lessons had finally paid off. “I thought she'd never figure it out. Good for her.”
He gaped at her.
“Did she burn her way out, then?” Azula asked with a vicious smile, trying to picture it. “A firestorm? Or did she just quietly melt the locks and slip out?”
He stared at her as though she were mad. “As far as we can tell, she made a makeshift glider and flew out her window.”
It took a moment for that statement to process. Hadn't her father made Ty Lee a firebender? But then, maybe that wasn't how it worked. Maybe he couldn't pick. Maybe Ty Lee had just been too airbender-like to learn firebending.
“You've been helpful,” Azula said. “So I suppose I won't kill you.”
She thought for a moment, then added: “Have you told Ozai yet, about her escape?”
“No,” he said. “No, we were still trying to think of what to do.”
She smiled at him. “I think it would be in your best interests if he thought she escaped today, don't you? There's no need to complicate the story further. After all, he isn't likely to look kindly on two failures of your security.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“And you won't mention anything about her bending. It isn't like airbending is even that dangerous.”
He nodded again, more slowly. It would be wiser to kill him, she thought, and all the other guards. It was ensure their silence. But Azula wasn't a murderer yet, and she wasn't going to waste that. Not on him.
She found the others, who were still working to free the last of the prisoners.
“Ty Lee escaped on her own,” Azula told them. “We'll have to find her another way. Later.”
Re: Prison Break (3/3)
From:Aang learns some firebending (1/1)
Date: 2012-04-24 02:33 am (UTC)"You can't be afraid of your own fire," she told Aang. "Firebending is ferocious. If you're afraid to leap out and attack, you'll never master it."
"You don't understand," Aang said. "The last time I tried to firebend, I hurt Katara. I just can't do this."
"Then you won't learn," Azula said. "You'll never fully realize your destiny. Is that what you want?"
"Of course not," Aang said. "But I just can't accept that this is all there is to firebending. There has to be more to it than attacking."
"Fire is alive," Zuko said, from behind them. "That's what Uncle says, anyway. He's been to see the ruins of some ancient firebender civilizations. He's big on philosophy. And he says that fire comes from your own chi. You're bending the energy inside of yourself."
Aang looked thoughtful, and Azula suddenly hated her brother. He wasn't supposed to know more than her. She'd surpassed him, years ago.
"Fire is life," Zuko said.
"Life, aggression," Azula said. "Does it matter where it comes from?"
"It does," Aang said.
Azula thought of the cold hollow spot in her chest when her father took her bending. It was warm again, unnoticeable because all was right once more. But she remembered how it had felt, before. She remembered what it was like to have no bending
.
"Firebending comes from a warm spot in your chest," she said. "Near the heart."
Aang gave her a strange look. So did Zuko.
"You don't notice it normally," she said. "It's only noticeable in its absence. But it's... comforting. And that's the source."
"Did it hurt?" Aang asked, a worried look on his face. "When Ozai took your bending, I mean?"
"Of course it hurt," Azula said. It hadn't occurred to her that such a thing wouldn't hurt. But then, she wasn't a hopeless optimist like the rest of them. She didn't expect life to be sunshine and roses. She only expected that she could win- at everything, at anything. And even that had proved to be false, because nothing had gone right for her since that day she left Uncle's house and joined her father.
Nothing had gone right since she started turning into a person that Ty Lee couldn't love.
"I'm sorry," Aang said. And Azula glared at him. She hated when people apologized for things that weren't their fault. It didn't make any sense. It was stupid.
"Try firebending again," she told him.
He did better this time.
Clearly her teaching was working.