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“Dun dun dun dun dun dun…”
Azula’s eyes snapped open. The wind whistled through the curtains of her bedchamber, high in her pitch black tower on the eastern edge of Azgard. It carried the tender notes of a long-lost song. Sunlight — a perpetual annoyance on Opealon, but particularly bright now — beamed in through one of the most skyward windows of Barad-dûr. The rays seemed almost to push her eyelids open, forbidding them from shutting again and letting her fall back asleep. The humming on the breeze drew her upright, her long, dark hair cascading past her shoulders.
It fell farther than she’d remembered it falling for quite some time. The last time any of her raven-colored locks had been shorn off, it had been by her own hand, haphazardly and unevenly, hours before facing off against Zuko and his whore in the Agni Kai that had changed her life for the worse. The battle where she’d been defeated so soundly and beaten so shamefully that it had catapulted her into another fucking dimension. Onto this sad, sad world, filled with water and hopelessness and creatures just trying to make ends meet.
She had defied those odds. She and her compatriots had built something out of the nothing they’d been handed — and now, she awoke to it in all its glory. Her expansive bedchamber, lined with beautiful obsidian ornaments buffed with carnadine linings and fixtures. The orange gems traced a path through the room directly to her canopy bed, where she now sat, staring mindlessly ahead.
Through the sheer, crimson curtains, she could almost see the silhouettes of figures gathered around her desk at the opposite end of the room. She pitched forward, bursting through the drapes, her nightgown flowing behind her as she galloped towards the small, dark escritoire.
A small pastry with a single candle sat upon a tiny plate. Azula reached out, grabbing the chair and sliding it away from the desk before placing herself demurely upon it. She looked at the tiny, pathetic excuse for a cake for a few seconds before letting out a long, weary sigh. Her gaze slowly drifted towards the window, where she could look and immediately see the places where her compatriots took up residence, just across the island.
She scowled. Those bitches forgot my birthday.
The fire princess lifted a finger, a small blue flame sparking and dancing on the tip of her nail. She slowly brought it down and lit the candle, then blew it out without a word.
Azula was dressed and ready for the day mere hours later.
For months now, things had progressed at precisely the same click. She would wake up, proceed to her bath, which had already been drawn and heated by one of her orcish peons. She didn’t exactly need them to heat the water for her — firebending and all that — but she knew the decorum of being one of the ladies of the city. She’d been the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, after all, for all of her life, and the Fire Lord for at least a day of it; she would allow her lessers to pamper her, since that was in their job description.
After she’d finished bathing and been sufficiently strapped into her armor, she would descend the stairs of Barad-dûr and make her way to the throne room, where she’d be served a breakfast of whatever fish the orcs had managed to snatch from Opealon’s oceans and some assorted fruits and vegetables. She hadn’t been forced to enter into combat since the days of Dante’s Abyss, but she made a point to keep herself healthy.
You never knew, after all, when some clown or other would send an assassin to try to take you down.
Ugh, that wasn’t even true, though, was it? Ever since Hela had broken ground on this little ‘present’ of hers — Azgard itself, of course — even the politics had become quite boring. To tell the truth, the city was just far too well-protected for anyone to try and come challenge the girls in charge. Between Azula’s Burning Legion and the zombies that shambled around at Hela’s command, they were perfectly safe. And that wasn’t even mentioning their pet dog.
Following breakfast, she’d mosey up into her chair in her own time, waiting for one of her guards to bring her news that never came. She prayed for something exciting, for some threat of violence. Her face and name had been broadcast across the Crossroads, but she supposed the price the City of Hope had put on her head had been far too meager to attract any bounty hunters of note.
Not too surprising, considering they’d just begun recovering from having a whole suburb of their city yanked into the ocean by ‘the Dark Side’ or whatever the fuck the overbearing evil of the universe was being called these days.
She scoffed. Back in her day, she was that overbearing evil.
Now, who was she? An eighteen-year-old who’d already become a has been?
Perhaps, she thought snidely. After all, by now the routine had become so rote that she’d practically memorized the moment when Chakub the orc corporal would come waddling into the throne room with what would, inevitably, end up being quite depressingly uneventful news.
A fresh beam of sunlight streamed through the throne room’s windows right on time — eleven in the morning — as, like clockwork, the large metal doors swung open and Chakub, a skinny young orc with glasses and a mop of stringy brown hair, came rushing in. His black leather coat, the edges charred from the many times he’d displeased his sovereign, billowed behind him as he rushed toward Azula’s throne with, admittedly, a little more urgency than usual.
“Your grace,” he sputtered, almost falling to his knees as he struggled to go prostrate before his queen.
“Spit it out, Chakub,” the fire princess leaned on one of her hands. She was already bored.
“Your grace, it pleases me to report that we’ve taken a prisoner!”
Azula blinked, and waited. Chakub didn’t look up; in fact, by now, his nose was touching the obsidian bricks on the floor and his glasses were slowly, almost comically, sliding down towards the ground. The princess leaned forward, not out of interest, but out of expectation.
“...is that all you’ve got to tell me?”
Chakub bolted up. “Uhm,” he stammered, “she seems to be a warrior of some kind?”
“Is it Rominia?” Azula joked, leaning back and kicking her legs over one of the arm rests. “Did you and your idiotic men arrest the dog, Chakub? Not that she doesn’t deserve it, she’s barely been around lately to tend to my needs.”
“No, ma’am, it’s not the dog, it’s — uhm — I believe her name is… Lamb?” Chakub tried his best to justify his existence, though Azula had been back and forth on the necessity of any of these ugly-ass green-skinned ‘soldiers’ (used loosely) for months now. His fumbling now wasn’t going to endear them to her anymore; nothing would, she knew, except them actually fucking doing their job for once.
“Always with the fucking animals,” the firebender spat. “Animals and hags. That’s what I’ve got to surround myself with.”
She let out a deep, uninterested groan, and hopped out of the chair, striding quickly down the stairs and within striking distance of Chakub. And then she struck him.
“Owowowowow!” he shouted as the back of Azula’s hand swung cleanly across his face, sending him flying into the ground. He splattered onto the floor, sliding towards the window, and Azula massaged her hand for a moment until the throbbing subsided. “I’m s-s-sorry, mistress!” he whined. Azula wasn’t having it.
“Quit your blubbering and get out of my sight,” she commanded, spinning around and marching back up toward the chair. She glanced over her shoulder at the last moment and shouted at him as he scrambled toward the door.
“And get someone from the kitchen to bring me a damn mango.”
Azula’s teeth bit into the third mango of the day as she slipped on her nightgown and prepared for bed once again.
Another day had gone by without so much as a ring from Hela or Rominia. It wasn’t that she cared for the old women, but seeing as they were essentially running a small city-state together, she’d have liked for them to at least come by and knock every once in a while. She supposed she could do the same, but, well… it was in her nature to be antisocial. She couldn’t be expected to reach out. She was the petulant teenager, after all.
“And you’re sure no one’s heard from Stheno?” she asked Chakub as he finished her debriefing at the end of the day.
“No, ma’am, but once again, we did catch someone lurking today — ”
“Out of my sight,” she sighed without so much as looking at the skinny orc, and within seconds, he’d disappeared through the door. She trashed the remainders of the mango she’d been snacking on and headed toward her bed, slipping through the curtains and snuggling up beneath the blood-red silken sheets.
She’d especially expected them to call upon her today. It was her birthday, after all. She’d been alive — on this planet or another — for eighteen years as of today. Didn’t that warrant a house call?
Shut up, Azula, she scolded herself. They’re not your friends.
…
You don’t have any friends.
That was the last thing the birthday girl thought before she drifted off to sleep.
And good riddance.
***
Outside the window, someone else lurked. Azula was fast asleep by the time the slinking assailant reached the windowsill. They slowly lifted the window, the air hissing as it snaked into the fire princess’ bedchamber… and as whoever they were slipped in after it.
Azula’s eyes snapped open. The wind whistled through the curtains of her bedchamber, high in her pitch black tower on the eastern edge of Azgard. It carried the tender notes of a long-lost song. Sunlight — a perpetual annoyance on Opealon, but particularly bright now — beamed in through one of the most skyward windows of Barad-dûr. The rays seemed almost to push her eyelids open, forbidding them from shutting again and letting her fall back asleep. The humming on the breeze drew her upright, her long, dark hair cascading past her shoulders.
It fell farther than she’d remembered it falling for quite some time. The last time any of her raven-colored locks had been shorn off, it had been by her own hand, haphazardly and unevenly, hours before facing off against Zuko and his whore in the Agni Kai that had changed her life for the worse. The battle where she’d been defeated so soundly and beaten so shamefully that it had catapulted her into another fucking dimension. Onto this sad, sad world, filled with water and hopelessness and creatures just trying to make ends meet.
She had defied those odds. She and her compatriots had built something out of the nothing they’d been handed — and now, she awoke to it in all its glory. Her expansive bedchamber, lined with beautiful obsidian ornaments buffed with carnadine linings and fixtures. The orange gems traced a path through the room directly to her canopy bed, where she now sat, staring mindlessly ahead.
Through the sheer, crimson curtains, she could almost see the silhouettes of figures gathered around her desk at the opposite end of the room. She pitched forward, bursting through the drapes, her nightgown flowing behind her as she galloped towards the small, dark escritoire.
A small pastry with a single candle sat upon a tiny plate. Azula reached out, grabbing the chair and sliding it away from the desk before placing herself demurely upon it. She looked at the tiny, pathetic excuse for a cake for a few seconds before letting out a long, weary sigh. Her gaze slowly drifted towards the window, where she could look and immediately see the places where her compatriots took up residence, just across the island.
She scowled. Those bitches forgot my birthday.
The fire princess lifted a finger, a small blue flame sparking and dancing on the tip of her nail. She slowly brought it down and lit the candle, then blew it out without a word.
***
Azula was dressed and ready for the day mere hours later.
For months now, things had progressed at precisely the same click. She would wake up, proceed to her bath, which had already been drawn and heated by one of her orcish peons. She didn’t exactly need them to heat the water for her — firebending and all that — but she knew the decorum of being one of the ladies of the city. She’d been the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, after all, for all of her life, and the Fire Lord for at least a day of it; she would allow her lessers to pamper her, since that was in their job description.
After she’d finished bathing and been sufficiently strapped into her armor, she would descend the stairs of Barad-dûr and make her way to the throne room, where she’d be served a breakfast of whatever fish the orcs had managed to snatch from Opealon’s oceans and some assorted fruits and vegetables. She hadn’t been forced to enter into combat since the days of Dante’s Abyss, but she made a point to keep herself healthy.
You never knew, after all, when some clown or other would send an assassin to try to take you down.
Ugh, that wasn’t even true, though, was it? Ever since Hela had broken ground on this little ‘present’ of hers — Azgard itself, of course — even the politics had become quite boring. To tell the truth, the city was just far too well-protected for anyone to try and come challenge the girls in charge. Between Azula’s Burning Legion and the zombies that shambled around at Hela’s command, they were perfectly safe. And that wasn’t even mentioning their pet dog.
Following breakfast, she’d mosey up into her chair in her own time, waiting for one of her guards to bring her news that never came. She prayed for something exciting, for some threat of violence. Her face and name had been broadcast across the Crossroads, but she supposed the price the City of Hope had put on her head had been far too meager to attract any bounty hunters of note.
Not too surprising, considering they’d just begun recovering from having a whole suburb of their city yanked into the ocean by ‘the Dark Side’ or whatever the fuck the overbearing evil of the universe was being called these days.
She scoffed. Back in her day, she was that overbearing evil.
Now, who was she? An eighteen-year-old who’d already become a has been?
Perhaps, she thought snidely. After all, by now the routine had become so rote that she’d practically memorized the moment when Chakub the orc corporal would come waddling into the throne room with what would, inevitably, end up being quite depressingly uneventful news.
A fresh beam of sunlight streamed through the throne room’s windows right on time — eleven in the morning — as, like clockwork, the large metal doors swung open and Chakub, a skinny young orc with glasses and a mop of stringy brown hair, came rushing in. His black leather coat, the edges charred from the many times he’d displeased his sovereign, billowed behind him as he rushed toward Azula’s throne with, admittedly, a little more urgency than usual.
“Your grace,” he sputtered, almost falling to his knees as he struggled to go prostrate before his queen.
“Spit it out, Chakub,” the fire princess leaned on one of her hands. She was already bored.
“Your grace, it pleases me to report that we’ve taken a prisoner!”
Azula blinked, and waited. Chakub didn’t look up; in fact, by now, his nose was touching the obsidian bricks on the floor and his glasses were slowly, almost comically, sliding down towards the ground. The princess leaned forward, not out of interest, but out of expectation.
“...is that all you’ve got to tell me?”
Chakub bolted up. “Uhm,” he stammered, “she seems to be a warrior of some kind?”
“Is it Rominia?” Azula joked, leaning back and kicking her legs over one of the arm rests. “Did you and your idiotic men arrest the dog, Chakub? Not that she doesn’t deserve it, she’s barely been around lately to tend to my needs.”
“No, ma’am, it’s not the dog, it’s — uhm — I believe her name is… Lamb?” Chakub tried his best to justify his existence, though Azula had been back and forth on the necessity of any of these ugly-ass green-skinned ‘soldiers’ (used loosely) for months now. His fumbling now wasn’t going to endear them to her anymore; nothing would, she knew, except them actually fucking doing their job for once.
“Always with the fucking animals,” the firebender spat. “Animals and hags. That’s what I’ve got to surround myself with.”
She let out a deep, uninterested groan, and hopped out of the chair, striding quickly down the stairs and within striking distance of Chakub. And then she struck him.
“Owowowowow!” he shouted as the back of Azula’s hand swung cleanly across his face, sending him flying into the ground. He splattered onto the floor, sliding towards the window, and Azula massaged her hand for a moment until the throbbing subsided. “I’m s-s-sorry, mistress!” he whined. Azula wasn’t having it.
“Quit your blubbering and get out of my sight,” she commanded, spinning around and marching back up toward the chair. She glanced over her shoulder at the last moment and shouted at him as he scrambled toward the door.
“And get someone from the kitchen to bring me a damn mango.”
***
Azula’s teeth bit into the third mango of the day as she slipped on her nightgown and prepared for bed once again.
Another day had gone by without so much as a ring from Hela or Rominia. It wasn’t that she cared for the old women, but seeing as they were essentially running a small city-state together, she’d have liked for them to at least come by and knock every once in a while. She supposed she could do the same, but, well… it was in her nature to be antisocial. She couldn’t be expected to reach out. She was the petulant teenager, after all.
“And you’re sure no one’s heard from Stheno?” she asked Chakub as he finished her debriefing at the end of the day.
“No, ma’am, but once again, we did catch someone lurking today — ”
“Out of my sight,” she sighed without so much as looking at the skinny orc, and within seconds, he’d disappeared through the door. She trashed the remainders of the mango she’d been snacking on and headed toward her bed, slipping through the curtains and snuggling up beneath the blood-red silken sheets.
She’d especially expected them to call upon her today. It was her birthday, after all. She’d been alive — on this planet or another — for eighteen years as of today. Didn’t that warrant a house call?
Shut up, Azula, she scolded herself. They’re not your friends.
…
You don’t have any friends.
That was the last thing the birthday girl thought before she drifted off to sleep.
And good riddance.
***
Outside the window, someone else lurked. Azula was fast asleep by the time the slinking assailant reached the windowsill. They slowly lifted the window, the air hissing as it snaked into the fire princess’ bedchamber… and as whoever they were slipped in after it.