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The replacement - Kiyi, Zuko had reminded her in that horrible, pitying tone he used nowadays - sat obediently, legs crossed, before her, an insufferably naive grin in place. Behind her, her mother watched, face pinched and guarded. Azula smiled with three too many teeth and focused her attention back on the baby.
(“She’s four, Azula, she’s hardly a baby.”
“She doesn’t bend yet. She’s an infant.”
“She’s not supposed to bend yet, you know that. Besides we don’t even know if she can.”
“She can.”)
“Your feet should be on top,” Azula corrected, a little more sharply than she’d intended. “Like this.” She broke seiza to demonstrate.
“Why don’t you have to put your legs like this?” The replacement asked, pulling her own into place with a frown. “It hurts.”
“It will stop hurting,” Azula pointed out, “and my hips are flexible enough. This will pull on your legs a bit so that you can perform katas correctly when you’re older.”
“Why can’t I puh… perform katas now?”
“Because you need to have a clear head to firebend.”
The replacement huffed slightly.
“Stop complaining.”
A flicker of movement behind her student and Ursa appeared, looming over them both. Azula didn’t quite flinch, but she felt her fingers twitch. She stood, motioning for the replacement to do the same, and looked up. (She should be taller, by scientific rights, but she was born ‘lucky’, not gifted.)
“I think that’s enough for today.”
Azula watched her face for just long enough that it twitched with discomfort before bowing.
“But, Mama, we only just started!”
Ursa’s face turned Zuko-ish as she scooped up her daughter. “I know, sweetheart, but now it’s time to stop.”
Azula turned away and ignored the twisting feeling in her stomach. It wasn’t a new one.
---
“If Zuko is my big brother, and you’re Zuko’s sister, does that make you my big sister?”
Ursa insisted upon supervision for Kiyi’s training, since finding her daughter cutting open one of her dolls trying to ‘find her stomach’ - Azula had never been prouder of another person - so she was lying in Zuko’s lap when she asked, his fingers running through her hair.
“Yes,” Zuko said brightly.
“No,” Azula said, at the exact same time.
Kiyi sat up, a frown on her face. “What?”
“No,” Azula repeated. Zuko gave her a look. She ignored it.
“Why aren’t you my big sister, then?”
Zuko raised his eyebrow at her, mirroring the question without actually saying it.
“Because your mother didn’t want me.”
“Azula.”
She ignored him.
“Why didn’t she want you?”
“Because I’m…” - a monster - “a bad person.”
“ Azula .”
“Shut up, Zuzu. Did you really have to ruin her hair? She’s going to light herself on fire like that. Break’s over. Come here so I can re-do it.”
Kiyi trotted over obediently.
---
“You know, you could try talking to her.”
“Don’t skip your cool-down stretches.”
Zuko sighed. It was the kind of sigh that suggested he wasn’t going to let her ignore him.
“And either way, you didn’t have to tell Kiyi-”
“What would you have preferred I said, Zuzu? You seemed so adamant that lying was ‘bad’ the last time we spoke about this.”
His half-scowl turned into a full one. Azula scoffed.
“We’re not playing happy families here. I’m working.”
“Azu-”
“Cool down stretches or we keep going, Kiyi! You shouldn’t be stopping this early anyway.”
“Azula, you’ve been at it for forty five degrees. The only reason I let you keep going past thirty is because Kiyi wanted to.”
“Forty-three,” Azula said mildly. “She should be able to keep it up for sixty.”
“No, she shouldn’t, just because you could at her age…” Zuko took a deep breath. “Just. Look at her. She needs to go to bed.”
Azula looked. Ursa’s daughter, as expected, was not doing a very good job of hiding her exhaustion. Zuko gave her one of his looks.
Azula remembered aching limbs and too-hot hands around her wrists when she complained.
“Fine.”
---
“Sifu Azula?”
“Yes?”
“I know that Mama doesn’t want you, but I do. Does that mean you can still be my big sister?”
Azula was not caught off-guard often, but it did happen.
“Sifu Azula?”
“No. You don’t want me for a sister. We’re done for today.”
“But I don’t think you’re a bad person.”
“You don’t know me, Kiyi. I said we’re done for today. Get started on your cool down stretches.”
“Fine.”
---
“You need to counterbalance your kick properly so that you don’t go spinning out of control” - Kiyi groaned - “and stop checking over your shoulder to make sure your father’s watching. You’ll never get anywhere in life seeking attention from others. Now, again.”
“But I’m tired .” She stretched the word out like it would make her argument more convincing.
Azula pinched the bridge of her nose. “Once more. Then, if you get it right, we can move on to the advanced katas next week.”
Kiyi jumped, span, and landed, a little wobbly.
“Did I get it right?”
“Almost. Now, cool-down stretches.”
“No, I wanna get it right, what did I do wrong?”
Azula was being patient. She was being very patient and she was not her father and she was not going to burn her student.
You will.
“Do it again, then.”
Kiyi obliged.
You’ll burn her eventually.
“You weren’t watching!”
“Shut up,” Azula snapped. She’d heard him. He’d been behind her.
Ikem appeared. When had he moved? Why hadn’t she noticed? “Kiyi, I think it’s time to finish now. Come on, do your stretches.”
Azula pressed her nails into her arm. “Do as your Father says. I expect you to complete your evening meditation, too. I know that you’ve been skipping it.”
Ikem looked at her strangely as she left. She tried not to think about what that meant.
---
“We’re going to be practicing fine control today.”
“What does that mean?”
Azula smiled and tried to make it genuine. It didn’t particularly matter; Kiyi couldn’t tell the difference. (Raised out of court, poor thing, she never would.) “We’ll start with similar exercises to when you were just beginning. You remember the leaf?” Kiyi flopped dramatically onto the grass. “I’ll take that as a yes. Once I’m certain you can do that perfectly - and I mean that, stop whining - we’ll move on to shaping flames around objects so that you don’t burn them. Then we’ll go on to practicing heat control in your hands, then heat transference.”
Kiyi mouthed the words over, brow furrowed.
Azula remembered sharp words and disappointment.
“Your mouth will catch up to your brain eventually, and you learn a lot by keeping it shut in the meantime.”
---
She heard Ikem’s gasp when she rolled up her sleeves, despite its quietness. Kiyi stared.
“Where did you get those?”
Azula stared at the faint fingerprints on her wrists. “I complained too much as a child.”
“Aren’t you still a child?”
“No. I haven’t been a child for a long time.” She felt Ikem’s gaze without having to turn. Seventeen was young to him, she knew.
“Does that mean I’ll be a grown up soon?” Kiyi’s face was tilted up towards hers, excited at the prospect of growing older.
“No,” Azula said. “With any luck, you’ll be young for a long time yet. There’s value to be had there.”
She remembered being six. Ursa had called her a monster for the first time and it had been Mai that had explained, bored as ever, why she would never be as good as Zuko.
( “We’re nobility, Azula. Even if you are a firebender, all that ‘gender equality’ crap doesn’t apply to us. We’re just meant to sit at court and look pretty.”
“Then we’ll just have to get so good they can’t beat us.”
“Who can’t beat us?”
“Anyone.” )
“Alright, place your hand on mine and make it warm - not hot - warm.”
---
“Princess Azula!”
She turned to face Ikem, running across the marketplace. He wheezed a little once he had stopped.
“Here.”
Azula caught the bundle that was thrust at her. It was a small pot of ointment.
“For the scars,” he explained. She blinked and very carefully did not frown.
“They’re not going to fade anymore than they already have.”
Ikem’s face twisted into that odd, half-pitying look Azula could never quite decipher. “It’s not to make them fade. It will help the new skin.”
She nodded, once, and bowed, noble to respected elder. Ikem smiled and returned the gesture.
“Princess…”
“If you have more to say, say it. I can’t get away with burning people who annoy me anymore.”
Ikem chuckled, like he always did when she made jokes that tended to scare people. She liked that about him.
“Ursa asks after you, you know.”
“How very disappointing for her. Goodbye, Ikem. Would you make sure Kiyi is keeping up with her exercises?”
She only just heard his sigh over the thrum of her pulse as she walked away.
---
Kiyi was the first to break the news, bounding down the steps of the house before Azula had even stepped down from the wagon.
“Sifu Azula, Sifu Azula, I-”
Azula cut her off with a sharp look. “What are you forgetting?”
Kiyi blinked for a few moments, confused, before her grin returned and she bowed sloppily. “Sifu Azula, guess what!”
“Hm, well, your general tone implies good news-” Kiyi nodded enthusiastically “-from there it’s just speculation, though. I haven’t seen you for almost three months, so I have no context clues from what I know of your life…”
“I’m gonna be a big sister!”
Azula quirked an eyebrow, smiling faintly. “How… unexpected.” She looked up to see Ursa standing in the doorway. Azula bit back as much as she could. “I suppose congratulations are in order. May Agni bless you and your child, Lady Ursa.” The title was no longer applicable, but Azula needed the formality in that moment. It helped her keep a professional distance. She bowed as best she could, stiff and uncertain. Ursa returned the gesture, just as awkward. At least they were both uncomfortable.
Kiyi’s training was uneventful, dominated by her excitement. To Azula’s dulled delight this only made her more driven, practicing harder and harder until she’d mastered every kata Azula could think to set.
“Alright, cool down stretches.” Kiyi slumped and Azula sighed. “I know, but if I let you keep going, I’ll never hear the end of it from Zuko.”
“Okay, Sifu Azula.” Kiyi began her stretches somewhat reluctantly. “Are you… okay?”
Azula frowned ever so slightly. “Of course.”
Gangly arms wrapped around her midsection and she jumped. Kiyi pressed her face into the front of her hanfu. “You can be not okay, you know.”
Azula patted her head lightly. “This isn’t going to get you out of cool down stretches.”
Kiyi shook her head. Her topknot was starting to fall apart. “That’s not the point.”
Azula did her best to extricate herself. “Cool down stretches, Kiyi.”
Kiyi sighed a little but did as ordered. Azula took a deep breath and massaged her temples. The day was almost over.
“Azula?”
She froze. Ursa was in the doorway, looking… unreadable. I wasn’t hurting her , she wanted to say. She knew what her mother thought of her. She’d made it very clear.
“It’s getting late. Perhaps you’d like to stay for dinner?”
She was trapped by social convention. She couldn’t turn down the invitation because it would most certainly be Ursa - or Ikem - cooking and she would be disrespectful, but accepting would be imposing upon a woman with child. It was very like her mother, a way of ensuring all those endless propriety lessons from her childhood had remained.
“Please?” Ursa asked. “We should… talk. It’s been long enough.”
Azula’s breath caught in her throat for the slightest moment. She bowed to cover it up.
“It would be my honour.”
---
Ursa watched her eldest daughter sip at her tea. Ikem had talked Kiyi into helping him dry their recently done laundry so that they could have a moment. Ursa wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it.
“Kiyi is an entirely capable firebender,” Azula said, before Ursa could begin the conversation she wanted to have. “She doesn’t need any further training, unless she expresses a desire to pursue a related career.”
Ursa felt a familiar pang of guilt. It was what she’d come to associate with Azula, always struggling to see past the Ozai in her for long enough to behave like a real mother.
Evident enough in Azula’s certainty that she was about to be fired.
“That isn’t… I didn’t ask you to stay so that I could fire you.”
Azula sipped at her tea again. “I see.”
They lapsed back into silence.
“I wanted to know how you were getting on,” Ursa tried. Azula inclined her head and set her tea down.
“Kiyi has mastered all of the advanced katas for her age, and a fair few of the beginner forms in the next set up. She shows a proficiency for fine control more than power-driven fighting, and-” Ursa held up a hand, shaking her head. She noticed Azula’s neutral expression falter momentarily and winced to herself.
“I didn’t mean with Kiyi,” she said gently. “How are you , Azula?”
Her daughter swallowed and picked up her tea again, passing her thumb around the rim of the cup to reheat it. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.”
Ursa bit back a sigh. “Our relationship is… damaged. I asked you to stay for dinner because I want to try to repair it. I’d like… I’d like a second chance with you, Azula. If you would give me it. I’m your mother; I-”
“Are you?” Azula cut her off. “You made it perfectly clear a very long time ago that I wasn’t good enough for you.”
“Azula, please.” Memory dragged her tone back to stern and her daughter laughed, mirthless and cold.
“My apologies, mother , I’ll be more ladylike next time.”
Ursa took a deep breath. This wasn’t going how she’d planned.
“Azula,” she tried again, “I’m sorry.” That seemed to be the way to go. “I have so many regrets-”
She was cut off again with a sharp “Don’t.”
Azula seemed to take a moment before continuing. “I don’t want apologies, Ursa. I’m here to train your daughter, not ‘reconnect’ or whatever it is Zuko’s been on about this month. If you want me to stop training Kiyi, I will. It’s certainly safe to do so. If not, I’ll be back in two weeks.” She made to stand.
“Wait, Azula, I…”
This time she was interrupted by her other daughter, bounding back into the house excitedly. “Sifu Azula! I dried all the bed linens without scorching any of them!”
Ursa watched in wonder as Azula put on an entirely new face, softer and mildly bemused, to greet Kiyi.
“Well, of course you did. Your fine control is almost perfect nowadays.”
Kiyi preened at the praise, before taking on a more serious tone. “I’ll get it perfect soon.”
This prompted a sadder smile. “Almost is fine, Kiyi.”
“I know, but I want to be as good as you!”
Azula laughed. “I’d hoped you’d learned your lesson about setting yourself impossible goals. You’re too much like the avatar.”
Kiyi grinned. “Uncle Aang is cool! Kind of. His slang is making a comeback now.” A faint look of horror passed across Azula’s face and Kiyi giggled. It was easy to think she was normal, like this.
Ursa caught the thought before it was completely finished and tried to push it away.
“Will you do evening meditation with me, Azula?” One raised eyebrow. “Please?”
Ursa lamented that she could never have that effect on her youngest. Still, perhaps that was best.
“Very well.”
“Perhaps,” Ikem said, from the doorway, “you could put her to bed for us? Old bones, you know.” Azula bowed, relaxed but still respectful.
“It would be my honour,” she said, despite Kiyi’s interrupting protests that she didn’t need to be put to bed because she was seven years old, thank you very much, she wasn’t a baby anymore.
“Evening meditation,” Azula prompted, and they vanished off into the house.
---
Kiyi watched her teacher. She had to be very careful about this. Collecting herself, she huffed dramatically and flopped back onto the floor.
“That doesn’t sound like meditation,” said Azula. Kiyi could tell she hadn’t even opened her eyes.
“I can’t concentrate,” she complained, making it more lamenting than whiny. Azula wouldn’t budge in the face of whining, not like her parents would. “There’s too many thoughts in my head.”
Azula didn’t say anything, so neither did Kiyi.
“Well, out with them, then,” she said, at last.
“Huh?”
“What are all of these thoughts?”
Kiyi sighed and looked off into the sunset for dramatic effect. “Mom’s going to have another baby.”
“She’s not replacing you,” Azula cut in, fiercely. Kiyi blinked.
“Of course she isn’t, you can’t just replace a person. That’s not- I don’t even- What?”
“Never mind. Please, continue.” Azula smoothed out her sleeves the way she did when she was anxious and she didn’t want anybody to know. Kiyi dutifully ignored it.
“It’s just that, I’m going to be a big sister soon, and I don’t know anything about big sisters. I certainly don’t know how to be one.” She paused to take a breath and made her voice a bit smaller. “What if I’m bad at it?”
Azula looked, hilariously, as though someone had just thrust a pigchicken at her. “I’m sure you’ll be a perfectly decent older sister, Kiyi.”
“But what if I’m not?” She insisted. “I don’t know where I’d even learn.”
Azula seemed to actually give this a half-moment of thought. “You have Zuko,” she pointed out, which, unfortunately, was correct. Kiyi put her face into a frown.
“It’s not the same,” she decided. “Zuko’s a big brother. I suppose it would help if I’d had a big sister too, but…” she trailed off tragically and stared into the middle distance of the kitchen.
There was a long pause.
Azula snorted.
“I’d like it on the record that I blame Zuko for this, completely.”
Kiyi sat up and huffed. “That was my best performance, Azula! I rehearsed for weeks!”
Azula broke into full on laughter, quiet and subtle like it always was. “It was a wonderful performance. Perhaps a little over-the-top, but I’m sure you can workshop it with your father. He is an expert in these things.”
Kiyi deflated. “It doesn’t matter now. I was just being stupid.” She sniffed and glared at the stars in the hopes that the tears would go away.
“Actually,” said Azula, “I think I was being far more stupid. I’m certain there must be a way for me to be your sister without being Ursa’s daughter.”
Kiyi sat up immediately, grinning ear-to-ear. “Really?”
“I can do anything,” Azula boasted, eager to change the subject now that she’d gotten all the feelings away. Kiyi knew her. “I once-”
She cut her off by tackling her very unceremoniously with her boniest hug. “My sister, Azula,” she said, just to make it feel a bit more real. Azula patted her on the back and Kiyi pulled back to face her. “I love you, sister,” she said, as seriously as she could muster, because Zuko never said it to her but he always said it to Kiyi and she suspected she didn’t hear it enough.
Azula laughed again, all quiet-soft-warm- sister .
“I love you too, you insufferable brat.”