Chapter Text
Zuko is twelve when his mother receives the letter informing the royal family of his cousin’s death.
It is a clear day, typical of the Caldera, and Azula playfully chases him in through the garden. For once, it seems, she’s not trying to maim him, as his face splits into wide smiles that threaten to make his cheeks burst.
Childish happiness wells up within him, a fountain, but the bubbles of laughter die on his lips when he turns to see his mother’s face. Her face has gone pale, too pale, and a single tear falls down her cheek. In her hands is a scroll, stamped with the mark of his uncle and cousin’s battalion. Zuko’s face is drained of color, mirroring his mother, and he thinks that he doesn’t want to know what she has to say next.
The only thought Zuko can manage when Mother delivers the news is, Lu Ten is dead. Lu Ten is dead.
It ricochets through his skull like a heavy bouncing ball, making his head pound and his eyes sting with tears. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Lu Ten promised him. Lu Ten promised he’d come back, he can’t be dead! Lu Ten wasn’t supposed to lie. Azula lies and Father lies but Lu Ten was never supposed to lie to him. He can’t be dead. But Mother says he is, and one thing Zuko is sure of is that Mother never lies to him. Lu Ten is dead. Lu Ten is dead.
Zuko turns on his heel and runs back to his chambers, barely avoiding the servants, his vision clouded from tears. He won’t let them fall, he won’t, not with everyone around to see how soft he is, how weak. Father would comment on how weak he is, Mother would bring him to the turtleduck pond and stroke his hair, but all Zuko can think is not now.
Mother calls after him but Zuko can barely hear her through the pounding in his feet and in his head. He strides down the last corridor to his bedroom, races inside, and collapses right there on the floor.
If Father could see him, he’d call Zuko a failure. Zuko doesn’t care. Lu Ten is dead. Lu Ten is dead. Lu Ten is dead.
From his place on the floor, sobs wrack Zuko’s small frame, and he feels like his chest is on fire.
~•~•~
Zuko is twelve when his mother tells him and Azula to put on their best clothes.
Father has requested an audience with Fire Lord Azulon, and his whole family is expected to be there too, a perfect image of a perfect family. Zuko rarely ever sees his grandfather, and he never enjoys the visits. Each time, his father displays his sister’s intellect and bending prowess. Never Zuko’s talents, he would have to have them to begin with. Always, Azula outshines him, outperforms him. Again and again, Zuko has to feel the shame of the dishonor and disgrace that come with losing to his little sister.
And as if he could ever forget it, Father’s harsh words and burning grip on his arm afterwards always serves as a reminder of just how much of a failure Zuko is. Zuko hides the scars from Mother–she gets upset when she sees them–but he knows that he deserves this. If he was a better son Zuko would see the error of his ways and do better, do something right for once. But despite his Father’s guidance, Zuko can never seem to measure up to Azula, and how could he? His little sister is the prodigy, the perfect child. Zuko wishes he was more like her. Father is proud of Azula. Father is not proud of Zuko.
Sometimes, on those rare nights with no stars in the sky, Zuko wonders if he will always be a failure. Maybe he was always destined to be a failure since the moment of his birth. Father certainly thinks so. He says Zuko was lucky to be born at all. (Sometimes, Zuko silently wishes he wasn’t.) Zuko knows what his father says is probably true, but he can’t help the spark within him that wants Father to be wrong, wants Father to be lying.
So as Zuko gets dressed in his best outfit and prepares to see the Fire Lord, he thinks with firm resolve that this will be the day he proves his worth. Today he will finally bid farewell to shameful defeat and scalding insults and arms littered with his shortcomings.
And yet, the part of him that already knows Zuko will not prove himself, that part is preparing for his arms to burn.
~•~•~
Azula is ten years old when she pulls her brother behind the throne room curtain.
Azula doesn’t always like Zuko. Father says he’s weak and a failure and Father is always right. But she also doesn’t have anyone else to sneak with. So, when the meeting ends, she grabs his wrist and pulls him along with her.
Zuko at her side, Azula watches silently in horror as her father proceeds to request the throne, insults to the Fire Lord barely concealed. Her eyes widen almost comically as her father dares to imply that the deceased Prince Lu Ten is weak, that Crown Prince Iroh is weak, and that Fire Lord Azulon himself is weak for allowing Iroh to return home after his defeat at Ba Sing Se.
And they are, of course. Even Azula knows that. They’re weak and soft and cowards but everyone knows that to say so in front of the Fire Lord is to pay the ultimate price. What is Father’s strategy here? She wonders, not for the first time, if Father really is always right. Azula has questioned her father before, in the safety of her own mind, but Agni, never his sanity. For an uncomfortable moment, she wonders how far he will go to claim the throne, why it is that he seems to fear no retribution. Azula is morbidly curious how this will play out, a dispute between a bold prince and a powerful ruler, so when the Fire Lord’s flames burn hotter and higher in front of him in pure rage, and her cowardly brother runs away, Azula stays, determined to find out.
She resolves to banish all thoughts of questioning her father. Azula is a loyal child, a good child, she always has been. She won’t stop being loyal now, not when Father is finally about to take the throne. She’s not like Zuko, her failure of a brother, she won’t be. Unlike him, she knows her father deserves the throne. Anyone can see that he is a better heir than his loser of a brother.
But still, when he requests the throne a second time, why does her throat feel like scorching flames?
~•~•~
Azula is ten when she flees to find her brother.
Exiting the throne room, she bursts into the hallway and starts running, knocking into sharp corners and startled servants as she goes. Her chest is heaving, her heart is pulsing fast enough to burst, and she thinks she might have forgotten how to breathe. Faster, faster, faster, she thinks, and she still cannot reach Zuko’s chambers fast enough.
Azula frantically stumbles into her brother’s room, finding Zuko sprawled out on his bed, staring blankly up at his drapes. He idly waves his arms in strange patterns, as if tracing something invisible. For a moment, she feels as if she’s interrupting something important. Azula freezes in the doorway, trying to quietly catch her breath, but the combination of her echoing footsteps and raspy wheezing alerts her brother. Immediately, he shoots up straight, shoulders set stiff and defensive, and catches sight of her. He narrows his eyes. “Azula, what are you doing here?” he says, in that sulking, shouty way of his. Zuko crosses his arms. “If you’re here to gloat, just go away!”
I’m not here to gloat, Azula wants to say. You're so childish, Zuzu. But trying to talk makes her wheeze harder, so instead of retorting, she runs to the nearest corner and crams herself into it. She’s still visibly fighting to regain her breath. This used to be easier.
Zuko seems to notice her distress. “Um, Azula?” he asks, a bit softer and more cautiously. Azula wants to tell him where he can shove his caution, she doesn’t need to be treated like a frightened animal, for Agni’s sake. He can save all that concern for his precious turtleducks.
She opens her mouth to say this, but once again, the air is stolen from her lungs. Stupid useless air, stupid corncerned Zuko, stupid everything!
Azula sinks to the floor in her corner, determined to get back control, barely aware of the way her fingertips ignite. They dig into her arms, burning through her clothes, burning through her perfect skin. The pain grounds her for a few seconds, and she briefly wonders if she could burn through her bones and out the other side.
“Azula!” she distantly hears, panicked. “You’re hurting yourself! Lala, please stop!” Lala, really? I thought you were the one over childish nicknames, Zuzu.
Smooth hands gently and firmly take her fingers away from where she’s burning herself. Her brother holds onto one of her hands tight, and brings the other up to his chest. She feels the sharp rise and fall of Zuko’s exaggerated breaths. It feels...nice.
“Come on, Lala, breathe with me, in and out. It’s going to be okay.”
Azula leans into the feeling and hangs onto her brother, slowly getting her breath back under control. She feels tears well up and grits her teeth. She will not cry, at least at this point she still has her dignity.
It’s not going to be okay, Zuzu. You’re wrong this time.
After what seems like hours, breathing in and out in a steady rhythm, Azula can finally talk again, but everything comes out in ragged whispers. She coughs, twice, feeling both floaty and painful inside. “Father is going to kill us.”
Silently, she wonders if a person can burn themselves from the inside out, wonders if that’s the reason she feels like smoldering ash inside.