The Avatar hasn't been seen for several weeks, and Azula grows restless. She paces the grounds, setting the garden that used to belong to her mother on fire. Watching the flowers burn passes the time. The days are too hot in the tropical nation, and the fires only make it worse. Azula doesn't care.
It's been several weeks since her brother left, and Azula hopes he's dead. He was never good for anything but exploiting anyway. He is weak, a fool like their uncle.
Iroh escaped during the Eclipse as well, and Azula takes out her anger by practicing her bending. She's becoming stronger as the days pass. If she sees the old man again, she wants to be able to defeat him.
Azula decides that her father is a fool for banishing Iroh and Zuko. He should have had them both killed years ago.
The nights aren't much cooler than the days.
Azula can't sleep very well. She's too distracted by her anger and training. With her pale complexion and slow, sleepless steps, she looks like a ghost wandering the corridors.
"Oh, Zuzu, you don't know what's coming to you."
She speaks her plans out loud, choosing the most cruel way to defeat her brother. Hearing them makes it all seem more real. She can't wait until she gets her chance.
"Uncle, you crazy old man, you should have died with your son. At least then you'd have an honorable death."
Her uncle has always been both weak and elusive. She likes to pretend Iroh can hear her, that her words shame him.
"Avatar, you won't get away alive next time."
She clenches her fist, bending fire through her fingers. Thin whisps of smoke trail behind her, giving her an even more ethereal appearance.
She sees Iroh again in the garden, drinking fresh tea that drips from her mother's plants. Didn't she burn those? She sets them on fire again.
"Tea?"
Her uncle pushes a small cup of deep red liquid into her hands. She drops the cup immediately, and it shatters on the ground. Azula watches it, takes a step back, raises her fingers to create lightning.
When she looks up, Iroh is gone.
Zuko only appears at night, when Azula feels the most vulnerable. She doesn't sleep at all anymore. She spends the whole night sitting on the edge of her bed, waiting for her brother.
Azula yells at him, swinging insults and fire in spirals around them both. The room lights up with an orange glow. Azula yells and curses until the flames die down and her voice is hoarse.
The Avatar is elusive. He floats around her on particularly windy and particularly still days, taunting her. Each time Azula turns to attack him, however, he's not there.
Mai and Ty Lee are becoming worried, and visit Azula when she is at her calmest. They sit on her unmade bed, but appear uncomfortable in Azula's room. The girls try to convince her to relax, take some healing herbs, and sleep. Azula shakes as her friends hold and try to comfort her.
"No one has seen Iroh, Zuko, or the Avatar in quite a while. They're certainly not in the Fire Nation," Ty Lee says, eyes wide and gaze shallow.
"Yeah, I don't know what you're so stressed about," Mai chimed in. "It's not like your boyfriend just left you with a stupid break-up note and an empty promise." Mai looks bitter, even to Azula's jaded eyes. She looks as if she hasn't had much rest either.
"They're stalking me!" Azula insists in a tight voice. She pushes her friends away and paces the room. "You're supposed to be my best friends! Why don't you believe me?"
Mai and Ty Lee exchange worried looks, which only makes Azula more upset. She swings her arms in a wide circle and sets the bed on fire.
On a too-bright morning, Iroh offers her tea made from her mother's plants again. She hits her uncle with blue lightning that cracks the wall behind him.
"You shouldn't do that," Aang scolds from behind her. "You'll disturb the petunias."
Azula whirls around, but is greeted with only a gust of air.
"You can't catch me!" Aang says, and laughs. The Avatar has an annoying, childish laugh.
"You're never going to catch the Avatar like that," Zuko taunts her.
"Ah, Zuzu, so you finally decide to show your face in the light!" Azula faces her brother with what she hopes is a confident smirk.
"Of course, you'll never catch the Avatar at all. I already have," Zuko continues, ignoring Azula's comment.
Azula kicks him, igniting the air. Zuko waves a hand, and the flames disperse. He laughs, but it sounds like Iroh's laugh.
"What is so funny?" Azula demands. "Why is everyone laughing at me?!"
Then her arms are bound behind her.
"Azula! Princess Azula!"
She struggles until she falls unconscious.
When Azula wakes, she's in her own bed. A servant rushes away immediately, and moments later returns with her father.
"Are you feeling better, my daughter?" Ozai asks. He uses a very formal tone. "It won't do for our princess to appear so delusional."
"Delusional?" Azula repeats. Her lips and throat feel dry, and she signals the servant to fetch water.
"The guards found you screaming in a firey garden nearby," Ozai says dispassionately. "This is not behavior fit for royalty."
"I saw Zuko! And Iroh, and... I saw... I heard the Avatar!" Azula insists.
"My daughter, none of them have been seen for many sunsets," the Fire Lord assures her.
"No, they were there! They were... there." Azula slumps against the headboard.
The servant returns with a pitcher of water, and Azula drinks greedily. She immediately begins to feel drowsy again.
Ozai lays her down gently, and Azula falls once more into a deep, much needed sleep. "Sleep well and long, daughter."
He leaves the room and locks the door behind him.
Azula rests for the first time since her uncle, her brother, and the Avatar left the Fire Nation.
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