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Aiko has lived to serve the Fire Lord for quite some time, she’s been here since the ending of Fire Lord Sozin’s reign, the whole of Fire Lord Azulon’s reign, and she’ll be here for the beginning of Fire Lord Ozai’s reign, at least. Her mother went through the same thing and her daughter will too. She’s old and wrinkly and her back is bending but she still has steady hands and clear eyes so she’s good enough to the Fire Lord’s.
Besides, with being the Head Chef of the kitchen, she doesn’t need much except a clear mind and commanding voice.
And one thing you learn when you’re Head Chef, is the gossip from the servers and the habits of the Royal Family, especially food wise. Like how Fire Lord Sozin liked cold sweets, or Fire Lord Azulon liked the spiciest foods or like how Prince Zuko thinks he’s the sneakiest when stealing cakes and chocolates.
Ah, Prince Zuko. Odd little boy, for a prince who’s the son of Fire Lord Ozai, at least. Fire Lord Ozai...Aika tries not to think of when she can, a horrible man who seems angry over every little thing. The reason a huge amount of servants get burns so much there’s a pile of burn salves in a cabinet in the kitchen.
But Prince Zuko is a quiet, shy boy who blushes when servants bow to him and call him “Your Highness.” He tries to sneak treats and when caught he seems like its the worst thing he does, and he only does it because he doesn’t want to bother Aika and the other servants. Very odd for a Prince, thats for sure.
Then again, Lady Ursa is kind. Small smiles and gentle words and soft hands when she grabs a midnight snack, which Aika gladly gives not just because she’s the Lady. She’s a bit...skinny, her cheeks seem to be gaunter than usual, paleness that doesn’t fit with the usual color.
So, yes makes sense Prince Zuko got it from her. Same smiles, same soft hands even though Aiko knows he does sword fighting.
Well, if Prince Zuko got his personality from his mother, than Princess Azula got hers from her father- or maybe thats wrong. Princess Azula is nine or so and she’s much better at sneaking than her brother is. And when caught, which only really Aiko can do, she has the innocence like her brother but the manipulation like her father.
It’s...frightening to see a small nine year have the manipulation and coldness of an older man.
Though Aiko finds when together, the Prince and Princess, the latter is softer. Her smiles are small but there, like her mother’s, barely a twitch but its not like her other cold grins. Her hand always loosely in his, even though she whines and complains she never lets go like she could. Aiko is a little grateful for the kind Prince Zuko.
Though what Aiko is not grateful for, is how much sneakier than are together. Putting their smarts together and stealing half the chocolates.
+
Then, Lady Ursa disappears, Fire Lord Azulon dies. And Fire Lord Ozai comes with an even more fiery temper and burns on servants arms.
Prince Zuko sneaks in less and Princess Azula sneaks in more. Aiko doesn’t try to catch her anymore, knowing from the handful more of treats she’s getting it for her sinking brother.
At least, they have each other.
+
It was another day of being in the fiery kitchen, bustling with talk and footsteps and hands trading foods. Something settled in Aiko’s stomach, something dark and churning even though nothing should be afoot. Young Prince Zuko is in the war meeting, Xia mutters. A storm is brewing, Daichi whispers.
Nonsense, Aiko wants to say, but there’s something wrong in the air today.
It comes with her daughter and other servants running in and whispering with fear. All Aiko focuses on is Sara, who skips over foots and slides under arms only after years of being used to the bustling kitchen.
Sara is red in her pale face and panting and her hands clutch heavily at Aiko’s old bones in her arms. “Mother! You won’t believe- Prince Zuko- Fire Lord Ozai-“
“Breathe, child.” Aiko commands and Sara takes a deep breath before frowning, worry oozing from her eyes.
“Mother, Prince Zuko, he- he- he-“
“He spoke for innocents a General wanted to send to the front lines!” Another girl, Mio explodes from where she is raving to her aunt and cousins. “Fire Lord Ozai was furious and-“
A servant boy, Ikko, cuts in with deep fresh burns on his arm and wrist, “The Prince! He has to have an Agni Kai!”
The servants explode, whispers and mutters and words thrown around like this couldn’t get back to the Fire Lord.
But. Aiko can’t form words. It’s odd, not being able to speak after years of commanding the kitchen.
Her hand is to her mouth in shock without her realizing, worry and shock and anger spinning her mind to mush. The Prince, small and thirteen, just yesterday sneaking some treats up his sleeve. Just last week, grinning and showing a new move he mastered to Sara and a few other younger servants. Just a few weeks ago, with his even smaller sister and laughing and grinning as she told a story she overhead from some noblewomen and men.
She can’t help but wonder what Lady Ursa would say or do. What Princess Azula is thinking. What General Iroh is doing.
Well, she cannot do anything about others. But she can about herself.
+
Getting into the Agni Kai, is surprisingly easy. The whole crowd of noble people and not-noble people are muttering and shifting but are still just, quiet and frozen.
Strangers hold each others arms in worry and mutter to each other in anger. Prince Zuko is a light to the Fire Nation, because for a Nation of fire, it is dark. But Prince Zuko, soft and kind and gentle Prince Zuko shines a light with his smiles. And this Agni Kai may snuff their only light out.
Aiko holds her hands tightly together as the other servants around her shift closer. She looks across the heads of people and see’s the small boy. He has his mother’s small and lean stature and black ink in a traditional ponytail and his eyes. Oh his eyes. Odd even in the Fire Nation, golden and flowing and melting like honey.
A figure steps from across the small boy and everyone inhales in shock. A few people outright gasp and other mutter about how “isn’t a General suppose to be up there-“ but mainly the crowd doesn’t breathe or move or just...exist. They are a fire, burning and flaring but something is holding them back from spreading to the two people they are looking at.
Fire Lord Ozai is big and has muscles and an inflamed aura that strikes across the air. He makes Prince Zuko look even smaller as he stands and turns and- promptly bows and cries and bleeds.
Zuko (no prince because here they do not care they just see a boy) is small and cowering and just a few days ago he was sneaking in to steal cookies from the kitchens and to talk animatedly with some servants and- he is a boy.
Zuko has been a light to the Fire Nation, small yet burning and alive like how fires should be. Contained and controlled yet he flares and brightens. He is a small light of shy grins and soft giggles and dancing feet.
And now the Fire Lord they fear and hate and resent as much as the rest of the world- he is snuffing out the small flame.
He talks and moves like an impending storm and he reaches a hand out like perhaps he may stroke his sons tears away and hold him and-
He is burning this child. His large hand is aflame and he is holding this small boy’s left side with fire spreading from his pale skin onto the other’s face.
Zuko is small and is a light and is shy and gentle and kind and- he is burning. He is screaming and crying and pleading to Agni himself to help.
Zuko is burning. He is a light of the Fire Nation and is being snuffed out and put aflame by his own father.
Zuko Zuko Zukozukozukozukozuko- Zuko is burning Zuko is gentle Zuko is a Prince Zuko is kind Zuko is shy Zuko is a boy Zuko is burning.
Suddenly, after what seems of years of screaming and burning flesh and crying and a hand on the left side of the face and screeching and flames spreading down the left of a small body, it stops.
In a flash Ozai (no one cares of fire lord he is just a man he is just a monster) is gone and everything is still. Even Zuko is frozen on the ground, the burning of flesh drifting through the air and suddenly there is movement.
Iroh (no one cares of titles) is running to his nephew and calls for medics or at least for someone to come bring him to people to help. People rush and carefully carry the boy (the boy the boy the small thirteen year old boy) to the medical wing.
After they rush off, everything is still again. No one moves or talks, they just. Sit and don’t even think, they are frozen. Then, Princess Azula (oh agni she was here the even smaller than her brother eleven year old) stands. She stays still for a moment before suddenly-
Suddenly, she is looking at all the people in the crowd, as if she is making eye contact with every single one, she makes eye contact with Aiko, gold meeting dark brown. And she may be a short child but she seems like Lady Ursa in that moment, commanding and loud and angry. She says in a loud voice for all to hear-
“My brother has been banished.” Half the people move in a jolt as if they didn’t hear those words Ozai had spoken. She watches, letting the words barely sink in, in those moments she hesitates for a moment and in a split second her eyes flash and harden in determination that looks so large for her small frame. “Listen to me carefully, spread the word. Tell everyone of what happened today, of the Fire Lord who burned his Firstborn and banished him. Tell of what the Firstborn did, of what has happen.”
She pauses, as if she wants to say something but decides not to. “Any who oppose the Fire Lord will be punished. No one is exempt. Not even his son.” Not even his daughter, Aiko thinks as an emotion flashes across Azula’s face.
Then, she jumps from the seats to down where her brother disappeared to and everyone is moving again.
Aiko can only think of the small child who is shy and kind and gentle and good, who had a mother who was equally so and a father who is the opposite and a little sister he tries to hold onto and keep stable.
Now that little boy is burned by his own father and Aiko knows, Princess Azula knows the crowd knows, and soon the rest of the world will know, that something historical has happened and they will never forget this moment.
+
General Katsuo is a tired man. He is a man who never wanted to be General and yet his bones are creaking from years of fighting and his voice is hoarse and worn. And yet he sits in this war council anyway.
He is a nobleman of a family of four (three) plus two. He was second to youngest in his siblings and it was his older brother who always dared to be a General and even higher. Kota was the one who played with wooden swords and traded them for real ones, Katsuo was one for books and scholars.
But then Kota died before he could go off to war and suddenly as the eldest boy, Katsuo is the one who learns the sword moves his brother never got to do.
But Katsuo is a tired man who wants to lay down and in this war meeting he mentions his plans and-
Suddenly there is a young boy, small and fiery and so passionate about these innocent people he doesn’t know who are being used for the war.
Were Katsuo a different man, he probably would be offended or be hateful to the boy. Were Katsuo a different man he wouldn’t even be in this war meeting.
He’s ready to listen to the boy but suddenly the Fire Lord stands and suddenly he and the boy must have an Agni Kai.
General Katsuo is tired.
+
The boy is Prince Zuko. And he is thirteen. Katsuo see Kota in him, Kota died at that age, he had the same spirit of love and compassion, too.
Katsuo is told he will not fight against the boy, the Fire Lord is doing it.
Katsuo feels sick.
+
General Katsuo somehow ends up in the back of the crowds of the Agni Kai. He watches as a man, a monster, burns his son’s left side of his face and body and he feels so tired.
Katsuo never wanted to be a General. He wished to be a scholar. Then his brother died and he joined the war in his place, they didn’t care.
He is tired. His brother died at thirteen in an incident that was half his fault too, now another thirteen year old boy is scarred and banished, he thinks its his fault too.
He’s tired.
+
A princess burns his house to the ground looking for a General Katsuo but he is finally resting, like he always wanted.
He never wanted to be in the army.
But the princess does not care of his thoughts or feelings, she curses and burns his body and memory as nothing more than the General who got the prince scarred.
He is nothing more than a reason for a boy getting scarred and banished.
He is okay with not being known as a General, he never wanted to be one anyway.
+
One of Azula’s first lessons she learned from her father was that love has no place in the palace, that fear is stronger than anything else and if you have fear you have power.
Azula knows that whatever her father says is true, to listen and respect what he does and say. But she can’t help but think that he’s wrong about this one thing.
Of course, it takes awhile for her to realize. Like how it take a awhile to realize that her father is not someone to be praised. Like how it takes for her to realize her mother and Uncle are good peoples. Like how it takes her to realize that Zuko loves her and she loves Zuko.
Well, the first half of the last bit comes to realization quickly.
Azula is young when she realizes Zuko loves her, that he doesn’t look at her like mother does, or the way the servants look at her. It is even different from how Mai and Ty Lee look at her.
Zuko...he looks like she’s the best firebender, like she hung up Agni up in the sky herself.
After her first firebending lesson, Zuko is so excited he is practically vibrating from it. So after a few begs, she easily goes through the sets she learns.
And while Zuko sits there, with the fire’s reflection in his eyes blending in with his awe, a grin splitting his face into two and words of praise spilling from his mouth, Azula can’t help but have a feeling.
She doesn’t know what it is, at first, she is six and proud at doing a set so smoothly and- and she likes her brother looking at her like that. Like she created firebending and he’s never seen it before.
A feeling that shifts her ribs and shakes her stomach and flutters her heart happens and later on she’ll realize it’s happiness and love.
But now she is only six and only knows father’s words of fear and cold lessons and she is just prideful of her firebending and her brother singing her praises.
+
She and Zuko form a tradition, of sorts. Every day, between their different lessons, whether it be her firebending and his history, or her maths and his swords, they always meet up and sneak into the kitchens to get treats.
It first starts when she see’s him horribly sneak in, so horrible in fact she wouldn’t even call it sneaking, and she decides to show it how it’s done.
Half of the reason is because she wants to embarrass his skills and the other half is just bored. (really she wants to spend time with her brother but that realization comes later)
Except he’s not embarrassed. He blushes a bit and mumbles but when she’s out with a whole other handful of treats, he’s grinning and jumping and asks how she did it.
So, after showing him how to rightfully sneak, it somehow becomes a tradition. Sometimes its only one of them sneaking to get some treats and sometimes its both of them, and after they sneak for the first time Azula realizes how good of a team they are.
And if she spends more time with him, its because together they’re powerful. Thats all.
+
When Zuko starts firebending, Azula feels a little bit of pride. She shoves it off as just her being happy he’s getting more powerful which means she’s more powerful. Yes. Thats it.
But. He is going slow. He cannot master sets she mastered at six and father is getting angry and it gets bad when he gets angry.
(when he gets angry mother disappears and servants have burns on their wrists and zuko’s light goes dark and azula sinks deeper)
So, in the dead of night, Azula sneaks in his room and pulls him in an old courtyard no one uses. And she goes through the moves, and doesn’t yell as much as the masters do and doesn’t burn or slap Zuko and.
He gets the sets done quicker he’s right at her heels and Azula feels so proud and happy and-
She’s only doing it because him being powerful means she’s powerful. Yes. Nothing else.
(and father isn’t as angry and servants arent yelled as much and azula stays afloat and zuko is happy)
+
After harder lessons with father, and she slowly starts to realize how bad her father is, Azula starts...sinking.
She goes about her day like normal, lessons, sneaking with Zuko, dinner. But she feels like she’s only watching herself do it.
It goes on for a week before Zuko comes in her room late at night. He makes her scoot over and lays in bed next to her and its silent and still before-
Before he’s holding her. His skinny arms are wrapped around her like she couldn’t break them into two but are holding her like she is fragile, his soft yet callused hands are cradling her like she couldn’t set them on fire, he is humming a soft tune she barely remembers her mother use to sing before she left and-
Suddenly she is crying. Trails of sadness and anger and guilt and helplessness are falling from her eyes onto his shirt. Her hands are clutching his back like if she left go she’d be blown away.
She doesn’t know how long she cries, just that she is tired and only eight and she just wants to be loved.
And she is loved with Zuko, who whispers “I love you” in between song tunes.
(and zuko is loved with her)
+
After that night, Azula realizes the final thing. Zuko loves her, and she loves Zuko.
She knows she will never love father or Uncle Iroh or mother or Mai or Ty Lee like she loves Zuko.
She is softer with Zuko, she is happy with Zuko, she is a dragon and will wrap herself around him to protect him from others.
Love has no place in the palace, but with Zuko they are not in the palace. They are in a small piece of their own, where love is everywhere.
+
When Zuko convinces Uncle to let him in the war meeting, Azula feels something in the air. It is something she cannot place or understand, and she hates things she can’t understand.
Only, she understands soon and she wishes she could go back to not getting it.
Because soon, Zuko has to face a General at an Agni Kai and he trains and she knows he can beat him but.
She knows somethings amiss but she cannot place it.
Cannot place it until father is standing before Zuko with his hand ablaze and Zuko is screaming and crying and she hears her own name in there once or twice and she can heat her father’s words of respect and suffering and banishment but.
Soon, it is over. And her big brother, who looks so small and helpless and still, is taken away to the medical wing and now she has the crowd’s attention.
All she wants to say is to destroy the Fire Lord and avenge her brother but she knows she cannot. But what she can say is this, “My brother has been banished. Listen to me carefully, spread the word. Tell everyone of what happened today, of the Fire Lord who burned his Firstborn and banished him. Tell of what the Firstborn did, of what has happen.”
Azula pauses, she thinks. She chooses her words carefully, her true feelings pushed deep for only her brother to see. “Any who oppose the Fire Lord will be punished, remember this.” Even his child will be, is left unsaid but Azula knows they must know.
But she doesn’t care for the crowd anymore, she jumps from the seats to down where her brother disappeared to, old tears of anger and sadness and guilt welling in her eyes. Except this time, no one holds her.
+
Before her brother leaves, Azula holds him. Like he does for her. Her hands that are so used to hurting, are gentle with his body. Her normally cold words are warm.
“Big brother, you will find the Avatar and come home.” She whispers and she gently rocks her brother who is half conscious but Azula knows he will know. “Even if you don’t, I will get you home.” She leans back and hesitates before laying his body and laying next to him.
She hums an old tune she barely remembers her mother singing and freshly remembers her brother humming. Her body is half on top of his, her skinnier arms wrapped around his lean body, her fully calloused hands cupping his face.
In between hums she whispers softly like he once did, “I love you.”
Because love may have no place in the palace but Azula loves her brother too much to care about that.