Chapter Text
Mai hated the sun. She hated the way it rose and fell every day, hated how it made her eyes sting and leave after images that would not go away, no matter how tightly she shut her eyes. Firebenders needed the sun, they drew their power from it and built their lives around it. Mai was no firebender and she was glad for it. She would never need it; would never depend on something no one could control.
Azula had been like the sun, after they had joined war, before the war, as long as Mai had known her. And maybe at some point, when they had been children, Mai had liked to stand in the sun. Azula had shone bright, her fire burning hotter than that of a child ever should have. A child that bent the power of the sun to her will as those around her had watched in awe. When Mai had begun despising the sun she did not know. Had it been when she realized that she could not keep the sun from rising every day? Or had it been when she stared at the sun for too long, stared at it until her eyes had hurt for days? Did it even matter?
Looking at Azula now, lying in the dark, no window for the setting sun to shine through, Mai wondered how she could have mistaken a little girl for something so inevitable as the sun. Azula would not shine again, unlike the sun that was sure to rise again. Mai probably should not be thinking about the girl she had met at school, a little girl that had long been swallowed by the painful glare of the sun.
Azula was whimpering, hands and feet in chains, her body scuffing against the cold stone ground. Make-up smeared over her face, tears and snot blended in between. Mai could not hear the choked-out syllables, the mad ramblings between sobs and cries.
“Is she awake? Does she know we are here?” asked Ty Lee standing beside her. She was staring at Azula. Ty Lee wore that face-paint covering her with that ghoulish white and bright reds and distorting her features. It looked out of place on her. She looked like a stranger. Mai hated it, hated it like she hated the sun, like Mai hated many things. Mai had always been spiteful, had disliked so many things, maybe just as many things as Ty Lee loved.
Ty Lee had not looked away yet, but Ty Lee had always liked to look at the sun too much, had stared at it directly and always just a little too long. Ty Lee was no firebender and yet, when they were children, she had built her life around the sun. But so had Mai, mesmerized by the same fire, the same girl that was just a little too mean, a little too cruel. That girl who had shone just a little too bright.
They have not been children for a long time.
Ty Lee barely moved since they had arrived, all she did was stare at Azula. When Zuko replied she did not even look at him.
“I don’t think so.”
Gone where the heavy robes from yesterday’s coronation, the crown was nowhere to be seen. No sign of his royalty or status weight on him, and yet as he stood in front of the iron bars that held his sister captive he looked just as burdened as he did when accepting his crown, when accepting the responsibility for a nation and the responsibility for a history of war and hatred. Maybe, in a way, this was just an extension of that burden.
“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.
By all measures Zuko should have hated his sister, the one that had burned him, left a wound covering his chest and that would mark him with a scar. Just like their father once did. But Mai knew better. She knew that Zuko was too kind. His fire had never burned like his sister’s. He had never shone so brightly that it had hurt to look at.
“Can’t the Avatar just take away her bending?” Mai asked. She ignored the horrified gasp escaping Ty Lee, who did not even bother to look at Mai for all her apparent dismay at the option. Mai turned away from Azula, from Ty Lee, looking only at Zuko who glanced at her.
“He could, but,” his words came heavy and slow, “that was my father’s punishment. The punishment for a lifetime of war. Azula is just 14.”
“She is dangerous,” Mai said. She knew she did not need to remind Zuko or Ty Lee of the violence and cruelty that was Azula. They knew, but maybe they did not understand, that as long as Azula’s fire continued to burn she would burn down any future they would try to build. Not just their future, her own future as well. Azula would burn herself to ashes as her rage consumed everyone around her. She had seen it at the Boiling Rock.
“Maybe, but in here, she can’t hurt anyone,” Zuko said.
He was wrong, Azula was hurting people, right now. She was hurting Zuko who helplessly watched what was left of his sister writhing on the prison floor, trapped in a nightmare, unaware of her surroundings. She was hurting Ty Lee who could not admit to herself that the girl they both had grown up with had been gone for much longer than just the last few weeks of this war, that she had been gone for years, that she might have never existed in the first place.
Mai wondered how much of her resentment stemmed from memories of lightning sparking between Azula’s fingers, ready to strike Mai down, or from seeing Zuko’s chest bandaged, the flesh underneath singed, and how much came from remembering a little girl she wished to forget. During the war, she had been able to forget, it was easy then. Azula in her polished armour and heavy make-up did not look like a 14-year-old child. She looked nothing like a little girl who sulked over not getting her favourite dessert and played pranks on them. But now that the war had stripped her of all dignity, stripped her off all that armour and took that crown she had desired so much, Mai remembered that little girl.
She did not want to feel sympathy, she did not want to feel regret. When looking at Azula all she wanted to feel was contempt, maybe satisfaction, they had won after all. In the end Azula had lost everything and they had won everything. Azula had made her own choices. Azula was cruel, always has been. There was no reason to feel sorry for her. It angered Mai. She cared about so little things in the world, was bored of most of them, why did she have to care about this of all things.
“She could hurt herself.”
Mai did not mean to say it, because she did not want them to think she cared. Azula hurting herself should have been a form of justice, retribution for all the pain she caused.
The torches lighting the hallway flickered as Zuko held his breath, jaw clenched, his fists hanging at his sides.
“She wouldn’t!” Ty Lee said a little too loud, too high. Her voice sounded wrong inside the stone halls of this prison. It was a voice that did not belong in a prison, almost child-like, and yet this was not the first time Mai had heard it like that, resounding of cold prison walls. Azula had made sure of that. Ty Lee flinched, surprised by her own voice and its volume ringing in their ears.
Azula must have heard it, it should have been enough to wake her, but when Mai looked back to the girl in the cell there was no comprehension. Mai saw no reaction, like nothing had happened Azula continued to moan and sob. Mai wondered how it was possible to cry and scream for so long. So many emotions, it must have been exhausting. Yesterday, after the coronation, Zuko had spoken with Mai about Azula’s condition. He mentioned that when Katara had bested her and chained her to the grates two weeks ago, his sister had howled for hours until she collapsed. Since then, Azula had been taken to this cell, given proper chains, ones that would be less likely to break her joints in a fit of rage. The manacles certainly still could, but they were fitted properly and were less likely to injure her. According to her brother Azula had been calmer when she first woke up in here, she had cried and sobbed and rambled to herself, but she did not tear at her chains, did not spit fire in uncontrolled rage.
Maybe Mai should have known that this was inevitable. It was the natural conclusion to a life of control and perfection. Had Zuko told Ty Lee the same things he had told her? The rumours must have reached Ty Lee. Those hushed whispers accompanied by righteous glee. Everyone talked about the mad princess. Mai and Ty Lee had heard some of those rumours together during their travel to the coronation. But no rumours spoke of the hallucinations, not as far as Mai knew. She had only learned of it through Zuko. He had witnessed it a day before the coronation and it had broken his heart, latter he did need to tell her, Mai could hear it in his voice. At first, he had believed she was talking to him, but soon he realized what was happening, understood that Azula was not coming to her senses but was talking to a mother only she could see. Azula had been responsive before, or at least showed clear signs of recognition even as she ignored the world around her out of spite, as if she could bend reality to her will as long as she did not acknowledge it. But Zuko had suspected that news of the coronations must have gotten to her, maybe the guards had let it slip, in either case Zuko had explained to Mai that for the last few days Azula had been worse again.
“I don’t know Ty Lee,” Zuko said. He covered his eyes with his hands.
“Come on, guys! It’s Azula! She would never do something stupid like that!”
Mai and Zuko had many things in common, also differed in many ways, it was a good balance she thought, and one thing both agreed on was a mutual dislike for Ty Lee’s baseless optimism. She remembered how Zuko had mocked Ty Lee on Ember Island, his patience having run its course, not that he ever had a lot of patience for Ty Lee in particular. They had never gotten along all that well, and maybe that had been Azula’s influence, or that, whereas Mai and Ty Lee were so different it worked out for the two of them, Ty Lee and Zuko were not different enough. While Mai always had been a pessimist, she would never deny that, deep down Zuko never was. It could also just have been that Ty Lee had enjoyed teasing Zuko a little too much when they were kids. She always had been just a step behind Azula, with mischievous giggles shared between the two of them.
Was that girl on the prison floor even really Azula, Mai wanted to ask, but did not. It was a question, too complicated for her to care about, it brought along too many feelings for her think to about it. Who was Azula, if not the firebending prodigy, the ideals and cruelty of the Fire Nation made flesh? That had always been Azula’s role in life.
“I hope she will calm down again in the next few days,” Zuko said. He was side-stepping the debate on whether Azula was capable of hurting herself. He was probably right to do so, no one really wanted to talk about that possibility, and no one knew the answer to that anyway. While Mai had not been surprised to hear of Azula’s breakdown, she had not exactly seen it coming, not like this at least. Certainly, Zuko might have called his sister crazy more often than he could count, but Mai was sure he had never meant it quite so literally. None of them had predicted Azula going mad, so how were they supposed to tell what else Azula might do?
“Is she going to stay here?” Ty Lee asked.
“For now,” Zuko said. “I don’t think it’s good to keep her this close to father,” he explained after a short pause. A flight of stairs and a short walk was all that laid between the man who proclaimed himself Phoenix King and his daughter. It should have been unsettling, knowing he was there, but Mai had spent too much time in the palace to feel uneasy about it and knowing he did not have his bending, nor his pride, helped too.
“Zuko, why are we even here?”
He looked at her, in the same way her parents had often looked at her; surprised by her apathy and struck with let-down expectations. She hated those expectations, the assumption that she should care about things, the surprise when she did not. Her parents had learned at some point, had focused their energy on Tom-Tom who was too young to disappoint. She had thought everyone else had too, but Zuko always had been a bit of an exception and his disappointment stung more than that of her parents had. At least he had the decency to try to hide it, which only made it worse for Mai, but he did not need to know that.
“I thought,” Zuko said, “I thought you two, you would like to,” he struggled through the sentence, “you might like to see her.”
“Well, we have seen her, can we leave? This place is depressing.”
“Mai!”
Unlike Zuko, Ty Lee did nothing to hide her disappointment. Finally, Ty Lee looked away from Azula, looked at Mai, but her distress meant nothing to Mai. Why should it? With all that paint, how was this face any different than that of a stranger? Ty Lee had no right to force these feelings from her, dressed in hideous green and yellow, barely recognizable as Mai’s childhood friend.
“What?” Mai said and forced herself to look at Ty Lee, she would not let Ty Lee push misplaced guilt onto her. “She threw us in prison, now she is in prison, who cares.”
“She is our friend!”
“Oh please, we were never really her friends.” That was a lie, comforting but transparent. It would be so much easier if Azula had always just used them, forced them to pretend to like her. It would be easier if Mai had no fond memories of her, but she did, from before the war and some even from during the war. But Mai was also convinced that latter, those fond memories during the war, were also something that Ty Lee would not admit to. Not while she wore those green robes and that stupid face paint; not while she paraded her supposed change in front of everyone, so easy to see, like putting on the uniform of the winners could be enough.
“You know that’s not true,” Ty Lee said, and Mai hated her for it. Why couldn’t they all just pretend, it would be better that way. If they all pretended not to care, they could leave all those fond memories of Azula with the ashes of the old Fire Nation, the ashes of a war that had raged for 100 years. Like they all pretended their families did not benefit from the spoils of that war, had not built their fortunes and homes on its foundation. Azula would be just another power-hungry would-be dictator, from a line of tyrants. One day kids will read about her just like they will read about Sozin or Azulon, their friendship would not even be a footnote in the history books.
“It doesn’t matter anyway. How would you help her? Look at her. Tell me, Ty Lee, what does her aura look like?”
Ty Lee did not answer, she only stared at Mai with surprise and hurt written over her face.
“Thought as much.”
Zuko did not stop her when she left the prison, neither did Ty Lee. So, Mai left them standing there, helplessly staring at Azula who looked more like that little girl they knew than she had in years. They wanted Mai to care, needed her to care the way they themselves did. They should have known better, but what was one more betrayal between the four of them anyway?