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caelum-in-the-avatarverse · 4 years

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Written for @azulaweek. Prompt - Friendship. (Thanks to @piandaoist for the screenshot!)

Summary: When you grow up in the Fire Palace, your friendships tend to come with ulterior motives. Sometimes they aren’t even your ulterior motives.

Slight warning for background Ozai being a controlling/manipulative parent.

Something more serious today. I had fun with this one, because it allowed me to pull in some of my OCs/headcanons.

~~~

Azula rarely visited her friends these days.

That wasn’t to say she rarely saw them - quite the opposite, in fact. Since Father had become Fire Lord, Mai and Ty Lee had practically become fixtures in the Fire Palace. Azula had needed the support of her friends after her mother’s mysterious disappearance and her father’s sudden rise to the throne, after all. And after the political upheaval had calmed down, well, Azula was of an age where it was important to start cultivating friendships that might benefit her later in life. So Mai and Ty Lee continued to be invited to the palace. Often.

Her friends had to come to her. It wasn’t often that Azula left the palace to visit them.

Mai didn’t care, because Mai didn’t seem to care about anything. She also claimed that the palace was less boring than her family’s home, so obviously she preferred spending her time there.

Ty Lee didn’t truly mind either, but she did seem more put out. “It’s a shame you can’t come visit my island. The coffee cherries are really good this year! But the juice doesn’t travel well.”

“Ty Lee, we’ve been over this,” Azula said. “I simply haven’t the time.” It wasn’t even a lie. Between her firebending training and her education at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, Azula didn’t have much time to relax. More than Zuko, who had to work three times as hard just to stay almost-average - but still. Father expected absolute perfection, and Azula knew that almost would never be good enough. Zuko was proof of that.

Privately, however, she thought it was unfair. Lu Ten had had firebending training and army training and an education befitting the son of the Crown Prince, and he’d visited Kohimori Island often to see his friends. But shortly after Father’s coronation, Azula had learned not to request any visits to Kohimori herself. The last time she had, Father’s lips had thinned, his eyes had darkened, and he’d told her that as a princess she would do better to remain in the palace, where she belonged. Her friends, he’d said, ought to be honored to come visit her.

Ty Lee may very well be Azula’s friend now, but Ty Lee’s oldest sister and cousin had been Lu Ten’s friends first. The Kohimori Clan had been staunch supporters of Prince Iroh before Fire Lord Ozai’s sudden ascension to the throne. And as for Mai...well. Uncle’s wife had been from the House of Flying Daggers. Mai was a distant cousin to the late Princess Janya and Prince Lu Ten.

Azula hadn’t asked again if she could visit Ty Lee’s home island. She never even brought up Mai’s.

She went to Mai and Ty Lee’s houses in Caldera City occasionally, but more often than not they stayed behind the palace walls.

Today they were lazing in one of the gardens, the one directly below the Fire Lord’s office, and they were allegedly studying. Maybe Mai and Ty Lee were actually studying. Azula had never seen the point. She had a perfect memory, so she didn’t need to study, it was just a waste of time. So long as she did her required reading and listened to her instructors’ lectures, she would be able to recall her lessons with crystal clarity, and if other students needed to reread and pore over the same bits of information for hours, well, that certainly wasn’t her problem.

Her teachers at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls had been somewhat perturbed by this attitude, but they couldn’t argue with her academic performance. She had the highest marks in the entire school, let alone her own class. Upon seeing the results of her first year in classes, her teachers had all applauded her and her perfect grades - of course the Fire Princess would be so intelligent, of course she wouldn’t have to study, of course she was a brilliant young woman. More importantly, Father was pleased with Azula’s performance. The only professor who’d ever brought her concerns up to the Fire Lord and implied that Azula’s lack of study habits may be cause for concern had been shipped off to the colonies.

Azula had laughed when she’d heard that. It just proved her point. Her academic success came to her easily, and she saw no reason to study information she already knew when she could be working on her firebending instead.

Right now she was working on her firebending by manipulating the temperature of the little flame under the teapot.

“Azula!” Ty Lee complained. “You’re going to ruin the tea!”

Azula made the flame spit a few more times before she gave it up and swiped a cookie from the table the servants had laid out. “It’s a stupid drink, anyway. I’m surprised you even drink it. Doesn’t your clan supposedly grow the best coffee in the Fire Nation?”

“I would be drinking coffee cherry juice, if we had any,” Ty Lee said dejectedly. Then she perked up. “But Min says I’ll be old enough for coffee in a few years! I can’t wait!”

“I thought you said it tastes disgusting,” said Mai, glaring at her textbook like she wanted to stab it.

“It does, but Min says I’ll like it more when I’m older. And I can always add sugar to it!”

Azula and Mai exchanged glances at the thought of Ty Lee hyped up on caffeine and sugar.

“I don’t think I’d like it with sugar,” Mai said.

Azula snorted. “Clearly, you’re going to be one of those people who takes their coffee as black as their soul.”

“Mai’s soul isn’t black,” Ty Lee said, tilting her head. “It’s just a little gray and gloomy.”

“Mm-hm,” Azula said. “Is the tea ready?”

It was ready enough. Ty Lee poured it into cups. Azula sipped it and made a face. Tea never lived up to her expectations. Not that she knew what she expected from it, exactly. There’d been a time when she’d liked tea, she was sure, but that had been years ago.

Whatever. It was a stupid drink anyway. It had to be, if Uncle liked it so much.

Lu Ten had liked tea, too.

Azula suspected the last time she’d truly enjoyed tea had been when she was six. She also suspected if she asked Uncle to brew a pot, she’d enjoy it. She refused to entertain either notion for more than the split second it took to dismiss them.

Ty Lee sipped her tea. “I think it’s okay?” She had another sip. “It’s really not as good as Prin - General Iroh’s.”

Azula shot a look upwards, towards Father’s office window. It was empty. “Well of course it isn’t,” she huffed. “If His Royal Tea-Loving Kookiness put as much work into conquering as he does into his tea making, we wouldn’t have lost at Ba Sing Se.”

She meant the words to be mocking, but even as she said them, she could tell there was a heated edge to her voice. Ty Lee and Mai both blinked at her. Then Ty Lee nodded, and Mai shrugged.

Azula sipped her tea. It still tasted like disappointment.

“Oh, great,” Mai sighed suddenly, “my mother’s here.”

Azula looked to the far side of the garden, where Lady Michi was being escorted in by a servant. The woman practically floated over the grass. She always seemed perfectly at ease in the palace, Azula had noticed. Always happy to come take her daughter home instead of sending a servant to do it, always willing to pause and chat with whatever nobles or ministers were milling about the halls, always giving polite smiles and demure laughter and earnest small talk.

“Princess Azula,” Lady Michi said, bowing gracefully. “How are your studies going, girls?”

“Boring,” Mai proclaimed.

“We’re good,” Ty Lee smiled.

“I already know all this,” Azula said, gesturing at her history book. She’d read it earlier; there was no point in reading it again.

Lady Michi smiled. “Of course our princess would be an exemplary student,” she said, bowing again. “Mai, dinner will be ready in an hour. Be ready to go by then.”

“Yes, Mother,” Mai sighed.

Lady Michi nodded and glanced around the garden. “Oh,” she said, “there’s Lady Hiromi!”

Ty Lee and Azula followed her gaze and found Ty Lee’s mother standing under the covered walkway that bordered the garden. Ty Lee’s oldest sister was with her.

“I’ll just go say hello,” Lady Michi said, swanning across the lawn.

Mai sighed again. “Guess I’ll be going home soon,” she said.

“Oh please, your mother is going to take a whole hour to mingle before she leaves,” Azula scoffed. She watched Lady Michi greet Ty Lee’s mother and sister, and the women started chatting quietly. Lady Michi’s voice was light and airy, but the other two kept theirs lower, demure. While Mai’s mother was perfectly happy to be in the palace, Lady Hiromi and Lady Min Lee always seemed ill at ease - they didn’t make a point to stop and speak to everyone they met, and they never stayed longer than necessary.

There’d been a time when Lady Min Lee had spent entire days in the palace. Azula could remember her running around with Lu Ten, or studying with him in this very garden just as Azula now did with Mai and Ty Lee.

As though sensing her thoughts, Lady Min Lee glanced away from Lady Michi to look at the girls in the garden. Azula stared back at her. Mai didn’t bother looking up. Ty Lee raised a hand and waved at her sister.

Lady Min Lee smiled, removed one of her hands from her perfectly-enfolded sleeves, and gave a little wave back.

Ty Lee beamed.

But then Lady Min Lee’s smile went stiff, and a moment later Azula saw why - Uncle came strolling down the walkway, Zuko trailing after him. Uncle was smiling indulgently at whatever Zuko was prattling about - probably something stupid and useless. They were headed in the direction that would take them towards the training grounds though, so maybe Uncle was actually going to do something useful for once and Zuko might actually learn something. Uncle’s face turned from Zuko to look ahead, and neither his step nor his expression faltered when he saw the noblewomen conversing on the walkway.

Lady Min Lee and Lady Hiromi both turned directly to Lady Michi - who, despite her love of chatting up every politician in the palace, didn’t even glance in Uncle’s direction. All three women became absolutely engrossed in their conversation - something about someone’s prized hibiscus bushes somewhere - and as Uncle and Zuko walked past them, they didn’t even give Uncle a glance. Uncle gave no indication he’d even seen them, aside from the fact that he didn’t walk right into them. He passed them by without so much as a hello, and they let him leave without even making eye contact.

Zuko didn’t seem to notice the women either, but that was probably because Zuko was an oblivious idiot.

Azula felt a prickle on her neck, and she casually glanced back up towards the Fire Lord’s office - only with her eyes, not her whole head. Father stood there, framed in the window, and he was watching Uncle and Zuko walk away, his eyes tracking them until they rounded the corner and were out of sight. Then he looked to Lady Michi and Lady Hiromi and Lady Min Lee. If the women were aware of his attention, they didn’t show it - they just kept chattering as Uncle and Zuko’s footsteps faded away. Father’s gaze moved to Mai and Ty Lee next, considering.

Azula turned her attention back to her friends before her father’s eyes fell on her.

~~~

Author’s Notes

Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are always greatly appreciated. ^_^

For anyone who's read my other works concerning Ty Lee's family, I hope you appreciated this post-Azulon look at their current political situation, ahaha.

Mai's family isn't in as much trouble for a few reasons - Ozai actually liked his sister-in-law, she's been dead for decades, she was from a cadet branch of her family instead of the lead, and that lead branch was pretty quick to accept Ozai as their new overlord. (Sidenote: When Zuko becomes Fire Lord, my Ukano and Michi are pretty quick to accept him as their new overlord too. Those two are happy to float wherever the wind takes them, and if it takes them to their daughter becoming Fire Lady, WELL, they certainly aren't looking THAT gift ostrich-horse in the mouth. I've always thought that Zuko's in-laws would be a major stabilizing force early on in his reign. The comics haven't changed my mind on this.)

Regarding Azula and her study habits - I pretty much read Azula's arc as that of a "gifted child." It's the same old story - kid who happens to have a good memory and acute book smarts (and possibly undiagnosed ADHD/Autism/Something) gets hailed as a little genius, gets easy A's without trying, the adults in their life figure the end justifies the means and are just proud to have a smart kid, said kid never builds up study skills or gains an understanding of how effort works, hits a point in their life where "being smart" isn't what they need to accomplish their goals, cannot comprehend this new reality they find themselves in and proceed to fall apart and assume they peaked as a teenager while all the adults in their life say things like "you had so much potential."

Zuko claims that "everything comes easy" to Azula, and while I believe he's a slightly unreliable narrator there due to childhood jealousy, I do think he isn't exaggerating much. Azula probably did put a lot of effort into certain things - her Firebending, for one thing, we see her training lightningbending and working hard to get it right - but it really does come naturally and she learns quick so it doesn't take as much effort as it does for Zuko. In other things, such as her schoolwork, I've decided Azula barely puts any effort in at all and still comes out on top. And life works out great for her......until it doesn't.

#azulaweek2020 #Azula #atla fanfic #avatar fanfiction #fire nation royal family #Mai #ty lee #ty lee's six sisters

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earlybirds-atla-au · 4 years

Text

The summer solstice, what happened there?

Oh, about what you’d expect from any family holiday gathering…

(prompt submitted by Girljackson on AO3)

~~~

“Is that Ozai?”

It’s all the warning Ursa gets before her fiance is swept up by a jovial woman with Yu Yan tattoos.

“Jyoti!” Ozai protests, but he’s unable to escape the woman’s fingers before they pinch his cheeks.

“Little cousin, look how big you’ve gotten!” she coos. Ursa can’t help but giggle, and that proves to be a mistake as Jyoti’s head turns toward her. “Oh!” she exclaims, eyes lighting up. “And you must be Ursa!”

When Ursa finally escaped to the banquet table, her mother frowned at her. “I thought you said you were going light on the makeup, dear,” Rina said. “Why are you wearing so much rouge?”

“Cousin Jyoti got to you, didn’t she?” Janya snickered, and Ursa groaned and rubbed her cheeks with a rueful nod.

The summer solstice celebrations progressed as well as they could. Fire Sage Kuzon presided over the spiritual side of the ceremony, giving praise to Agni and asking for blessings and luck for the Fire Nation in its ongoing Great March of Civilization. Other Fire Sages performed similar rites, and then a bunch of nobles gave some speeches and praised the royal family for their astute leadership and wished them good fortune. Through it all, Ursa saw Fire Lord Azulon looking more and more bored. One of the first things she’d learned about her future father-in-law was that he wasn’t one for pomp and circumstance and only dealt with it when the court demanded it.

When the talking was finally over with, the eating and socializing began. Ursa chattered with her parents about her new life in the royal palace, Janya interjecting every so often - mostly to heap praise upon Ursa’s shoulders. Ursa was a sweet, kind girl with a keen sense of humor, fun to spar with and a splendid conversationalist, and Ozai was just dazzled with her. Jinzuk and Rina should be very proud to have raised such a daughter! She was going to make a wonderful addition to the royal family.

Ursa flushed at the praise. Beside her, Ozai was just as red, and he kept shooting Janya annoyed scowls that she pointedly ignored. Iroh smiled serenely and pretended not to see his little brother’s embarrassment. Ursa caught Ozai’s eye and shot him a quick grin, which only made him flush more.

Ursa took a minute to look around the banquet hall. She heard Azulon laugh at something Daimyo Masami of Kohimori Island said, and at one of the other tables she caught sight of one of Janya’s relatives from the House of Flying Daggers doing some sort of balancing trick with a knife on her finger. At another table sat all the Fire Sages who were in attendance for the festivities. Most of them spoke amongst themselves, except for one who was in deep conversation with Daimyo Ayako of the Shiroboshi Clan.

Fire Sage Kuzon, however, wasn’t speaking to anybody. Rather, he was looking straight at Ursa.

Ursa pursed her lips and went back to her meal. She wasn’t unused to the scrutiny of Fire Sages. She was, after all, the granddaughter of Avata Roku - though that little fact Was Not Talked About, not in polite company. It was, perhaps, a factor in Azulon’s proposal that she marry Ozai, but by no means the only reason behind their betrothal, and one that was barely acknowledged. Still, for all that lack of acknowledgement, Fire Sages had a knack for showing up in Hira’a to ask Ursa’s parents and aunts and uncles questions about spiritual affairs. They never asked Ursa, because Ursa had never known her grandfather.

But now Fire Sage Kuzon was looking at her.

She confronted him about it when the after-dinner mingling started up. Politely, of course. It made for better business if you were polite, a lesson she was trying to figure out how to hammer into Ozai’s head. “Fire Sage Kuzon, is there something I can help you with?”

“Ah, Lady Ursa,” the old man said, turning a genial smile on her. “How are you this evening?”

“Very well, sir, thank you. I saw you looking at me during dinner. Is everything alright?”

“Ah, you saw that did you?” he sighed, looking contrite. “I was just thinking. You look very much like your grandmother, you know.”

Oh. Ursa looked the old man over. She wasn’t sure how old he was, exactly, but he could easily be older than the war. Old enough to have known Lady Ta Min, certainly. “So I’ve heard,” she said. “Did you know her?”

“I met her a few times, when I was a boy. We had a mutual friend, you see. One of my friends’ teachers. He brought us to visit sometimes.” Fire Sage Kuzon smiled fondly. “She was a remarkable lady. Very kind. Always had a bowl of fire gummies ready for when rambunctious children visited.”

Ursa smiled. That sounded like the woman her father had described. Jinzuk had been born late in his parents’ lives, and had been raised more by his older siblings than by his parents themselves, but he had many fond memories of his mother. “I’ll have to stock up on fire gummies, then.”

Fire Sage Kuzon laughed, and Ursa laughed back politely, and then they went their separate ways.

She found Ozai grumping around in the middle of the banquet hall. His cheeks had been pinched red again. “This party sucks,” he grumbled.

“Do you want to sneak off somewhere and make out?” Ursa asked, mostly to see his face flush. She giggled. Ozai stomped off, face red as a chili pepper.

Ursa eventually found herself with her parents, sitting beside Azulon. “Having a pleasant evening, Father?” She wasn’t married yet, but Azulon had told her she could call him father already. He liked her.

“As pleasant as these parties can be,” Azulon sighed. “I’d rather be in my office.”

“It’s good to get out sometimes,” Ursa pointed out.

Azulon huffed.

Across the room, Iroh was serving up some tea to whoever wanted some, and that was when the arguing started. “Iroh, this isn’t tea.”

“But of course it is, Cousin Jyoti! It’s a plant leaf infusion made with hot water. That’s how one makes tea!”

“Herbal teas do not count!”

“Actually they fit the definition very nicely…”

“If it’s not made from the tea plant, it isn’t tea, Iroh.”

“It’s chamomile tea, Cousin. Drink some, it’s very good!”

“Does it even have caffeine? No, of course it doesn’t, because herbal teas are invalid.”

“Here Cousin, have a cup. It has a very pleasing calming effect; I think you could use some.”

“Chamomile tea is just hot daisy juice, Iroh!”

“What?”

“Fire Lord Azulon,” Jinzuk said, watching the drama unfold, “when I agreed to marry my daughter to your son, I did not think her marrying into the royal family would involve her in instances such as...this.”

The arguing was getting worse. Janya was trying to wade through the crowd to get to her husband, but to no avail.

“I know my sons can be...unique,” Azulon said. “But Ursa has slid very neatly into her place in our family. She can handle the...eccentricities of royal life.”

“I should hope so,” Rina muttered. “It isn’t too late for us to withdraw our agreement to the proposal.”

“No, but Ursa wouldn’t want that,” Azulon said, turning to Ursa. “She’s very happy here. Aren’t you, my dear?”

Ursa smiled sweetly. “I could have married Lao Beifong.”

Her parents snickered.

“Ursa I will give you a province if you promise to never entertain that notion again,” Azulon said.

“Oh no need, Father, it was just a joke!”

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack, child?”

“Father, I motion to banish Lady Jyoti from the Fire Nation on the grounds that she doesn’t appreciate all tea!” Iroh shouted from the middle of the hall.

“Your son is a disgrace to tea aficionados who drinks daisy water and has no standards, Uncle Azulon!” Jyoti shot back.

“REJECTED!” Azulon shouted back, and then his hands went to his temples.

“Are you alright, Father?” Ursa asked.

“I am going to put these people on different boats and send them all over the world.”

#early birds au

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