Work Text:
It’s been six months since he was crowned, and Zuko still hasn’t been to see Azula.
He’s stronger now, but Azula’s always had a special talent for saying just the right thing to smash down any walls he puts up, and he’s terrified of what she’ll come up with once he gives her the opportunity.
After a long conversation with Mai and Uncle, he decides that he can’t put it off any longer.
The great metal doors to the prison swing open without a sound, the hinges apparently well-oiled. At first, Azula had been kept in a mental hospital to recover from her psychotic break, but after a while she was deemed healthy enough to be transferred to an actual prison for dangerous war criminals.
Zuko’s shiny boots crack against the metal flooring with every step, and he has to keep from wincing, still mentally accustomed to his silent, stealthy life as a refugee. Several guards follow behind him with their own cacophony of sound, and he already feels a migraine beginning to beat its drum beneath his skull.
When he arrives at her cell, it’s… revolting.
The cell itself is cramped, no larger than one of the palace bathrooms. There’s a threadbare mattress in the corner that’s so worn it has sand spilling out of a hole in its side. There’s a bucket in the other corner that’s probably for… bathroom use, according to the smell, and it’s hardly far enough away from the bed.
Azula herself sits right in front of the bars, face pressed to them so she can watch everything with a mere flick of the eyes, and her delight at his entrance is palpable. “Finally! I was wondering when you’d grow enough of a spine to stop by, Zuzu. Can you tell these idiots that this is no way to treat their former princess?”
Her only clothing is a basic shift dress, but she lounges around like she’s still in full regalia. She grins at him, teeth sharp, like she can somehow sense the fireball stirring to life in his chest.
“What is this?” he grits out to the Guard Captain at his side.
The man shifts nervously in place, eyes jumping back and forth between the two siblings with confusion. “A prison cell… your Majesty?”
“Are all of the prison cells like this?” The question spills out of him with billowing black smoke, and everyone but Azula takes a step back. He remembers how perfectly maintained the doors had been, and knows that this neglect is deliberate.
“I told you,” she taunts them maliciously. She jolts up to a standing position and grabs the bars with a disturbing speed, and through her vicious glee he can see stark relief pooling into her eyes. “I told you that you were going to be in big trouble, but you didn’t listen! Nobody listens!”
His teeth grind together and he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to do the breathing exercises Uncle taught him. Flames lick up his forearms and curl around his elbows, so close to lashing out, and the next words he spits are accompanied by a shower of sparks.
“Have all prisoners in this complex moved to the guest wing of the palace with whatever accommodations necessary to keep them secure while I put this entire building under fucking renovation!” He storms over to the exit and screams over his shoulder--
“And after that, you’re all fired!”
The metal doors slam shut behind him, glowing red-hot.
-----
“Perhaps,” suggests Uncle, placing the Lotus Tile on his Pai Sho board, “this was not the most diplomatic reaction.” He’d temporarily closed up shop and shown up to visit about a week ago, and Zuko had been so shocked and delighted that he’d immediately cancelled all of his meetings for the day, much to his advisors’ chagrin.
Zuko snarls and paces the length of the room. He’d be burning a hole in the carpet if his exact path hadn’t already been seared from the fabric months ago… by him.
Mai snaps her thumb up against the Rock Tile in her hand and it gracefully spins through the air, landing in a random position on the board. Uncle’s eyebrows jump to his hairline and he strokes his beard, leaning forward.
“A lot of the Fire Nation prisons are like that,” she drones. “You’ll have to put out legislature to make it fully stop.”
Zuko remembers that she had been briefly imprisoned, too, as the war was coming to an end. “Why can’t they just see the right thing? Why do I have to fight my way through making new laws to impart any shred of common decency?”
“It is not just one hundred years of war you are ending, but also one hundred years of an enforced culture of cruelty,” Uncle suggests. He places a tile on the board, then frowns when Mai immediately counters with one of her own, seemingly uninterested in the move he just made. “Many of your citizens are only continuing to follow orders from before, unsure if they are expected to change. You have a lot of work ahead of you, nephew.”
“Are you sure having Azula in the palace is a good idea?” Mai puts on a tone of disinterest, but Zuko can tell that the idea bothers her.
“Where else am I going to put her? I’m not putting her back in that horrible… sty. She may be Azula but she’s also my fourteen-year-old sister!” he explodes. “If I had made a few more wrong choices, I’d be right in there with her. I look at her and I see myself, wasting away.”
“You’re so dramatic,” Mai counters, disgusted. “You’re nothing like her, even when you were at your worst.”
“But I am, I just--” His voice cracks and he stops pacing-- “Why can’t anyone else see it? Why doesn’t anyone else want to help her?”
Uncle sighs and pats the floor next to him. Zuko reluctantly sits down, fuming.
“Your sister was just as twisted by her upbringing as you were, though in a different direction,” he says. “One of my greatest regrets in life is that I could not be by both your side and hers at the same time. If you believe that she still has the ability to find the right path in her heart, then it is time for you to make a decision as Firelord. Does Azula go free for a chance at redemption? Or does she remain locked away, where she will have no chance of hurting anyone and also no opportunity to achieve personal growth? The choice is yours, Zuko.”
-----
“No,” says his advisors.
Zuko blinks in shock. It’s the first time anyone has told him ‘no’ to his face since he was crowned; he didn’t think anyone had it in them, but now that it’s happening, he’s not surprised that it’s his obstinate advisors.
“Isn’t it kind of… my decision?” he suggests delicately, trying not to be an asshole about the whole thing.
His advisors are visibly sweating. One of them tugs at her collar and clears her throat. “...Of course, your Majesty. We did not mean to suggest… that you could not free the Princess, only… that you should not.”
She trails off and the advisor next to her quickly adds, “--my Lord.”
Zuko stares at them. They are sixteen of the highest-ranking nobles, each specializing in a particular field of knowledge and also well-informed on all the other fields. They are remarkably intelligent and individual people with their own personalities and interesting lives and…
Zuko really needs to stop referring to them in his head as some kind of hivemind that exists solely to contradict him and deliver bad news.
“Advisor Yuna.” He singles her out, and her eyes widen. “What is your specialty?”
Her eyes dart to the others for support, but they hilariously take a step back so that she’s alone in front of him. She inhales deeply and turns back, squaring her shoulders.
“Domestic Culture and Public Opinion, my Lord,” she reports.
“And for what reason do you oppose my decision to release Princess Azula from prison?”
She sets her jaw and looks him right in the eye. “Fire Princess Azula is a war criminal. She was an integral piece in Ozai’s final war effort and a major influence on the people of our nation. The people are used to following her lead, and I believe that releasing her will allow her to establish dissent among civilians in an attempt to grasp at some form of power and control.”
“I see.” He hesitates. “What if I agree to restrict her movements only to certain parts of the palace under watch of the Royal Guard, and heavily vet anyone who comes into contact with her?”
He sees some of the other advisors nod subtly at each other, and Advisor Yuna cocks her head, apparently committed now to being their spokesperson.
“Will you remove her ability to firebend?”
“No,” he says, a little too quickly, and Advisor Yuna flinches. “Sorry, I just… believe that would be cruel and unusual.”
Advisor Ryusei steps forward. “Permission to speak, my Lord?”
“Go ahead.”
“My specialty is in Bending in all four nations. I agree with your stance that any permanent restriction of Princess Azula’s ability to bend would be spiritually harmful. However, I am sure we are all aware of just how dangerous she can be. My suggestion is that as we have cleared out Ozai’s fireproof dungeons for prisoners that could firebend, we repurpose them to be the Princess’s new quarters.”
“--with major renovations to make them more inhabitable, or course,” he adds at the look on Zuko’s face. “That way, if she chooses to lash out with fire, the only things she’ll damage are her own possessions. Not to mention that the dungeons are large enough that she could still have her own practice room for katas and similar rituals.”
“What about sun access?” pipes up Advisor Koharu, who Zuko remembers is also a firebender. “The dungeons are underground.”
Advisor Ryusei takes on a thoughtful expression. “We could shackle her arms to restrict bending for visits to the Royal Courtyard, and perhaps with enough time and good behavior, we could allow for katas in the sun-blessed stone yard under heavy watch by the Royal Guard.”
They continue to discuss the issues amongst themselves for another hour, and Zuko wonders if this is what they usually do when he’s not in the room. It’s heartening to see; irrefutable proof that he’s being assisted by people that do actually know what they’re talking about.
“Alright,” Advisor Yuna finally says, holding up a hand to stop all conversation. “We will support your decision, Firelord Zuko.”
-----
“This is genius,” marvels Azula in the middle of her new chambers a few weeks later, running her fingers along the strange texture of the fireproof walls. She snickers and turns to face him. “I highly doubt this was your idea.”
“I have advisors for a reason,” he counters stiffly. Then he sighs and gestures to a chest at the foot of the bed. “Apparently when you were captured, they burned all of your stuff, so... I had the Royal Stylists make you some new clothes. I wasn’t sure what to ask for, so I just told them to make things you’d probably like at their discretion.”
She’s still in that horribly dirty, flat dress from the prison. She smirks. “How sweet, Zuzu, though I half-expect to find nothing but trash if you left it up to those deceitful-- huh. This is actually pretty nice!”
She pulls out an outfit that looks surprisingly similar to her old clothing, only a little less intense and with more gold thread. She shoots him a bewildered glance and he swallows the bizarre urge to laugh.
“I made sure they also made you a really big bath, since I remembered you complaining about your old one when we were both in the palace together before I… switched sides.”
Her eyes widen and she darts into the bathroom. “Agni’s fucking breath, Zuko, this is the biggest bath I’ve ever seen! And I’m a princess!” She pops her head back out through the doorway before he can follow her, eyes narrowed. “Alright, what do you want? Whatever it is, you clearly know how to win me over; so if it’s within reason, it’s yours.”
He blinks at her. “Do you really feel like you’re in a position to negotiate? I don’t… want anything, Azula. I mean--” He falters. Then grimaces. “I guess I want us to get along?”
She laughs outright. “I said within reason, Zuzu.” She rolls her eyes. “Get out of here, I’m using this bath immediately.”
He turns and leaves.
-----
“Am I allowed to visit her?” Mai asks quietly in the night. Zuko’s half-asleep, so it takes him a moment to figure out what she’s talking about.
“Yeah, Mai… You can do whatever you want,” he slurs, holding her hands close to his chest. “Firelord’s permission. Anything at all.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” she teases him, speaking softly into his shoulder blades. “What if I want to take over the palace and make you my Royal Consort? What then, hm?”
“Sounds great.” He sighs happily. “Long may you reign.”
-----
The next time he goes to visit her, he hears Uncle’s voice from inside and stops outside the door, listening.
“You are not a monster, Azula. You’re fourteen.”
“Like the two are mutually exclusive,” Zuko hears her snarl. “Are you aware of how many people I’ve killed? Zuko may be soft-hearted enough to think that I can change, but you and I both know that you’re smarter than that.”
“Perhaps you do not know me as well as you think,” Uncle suggests. “Perhaps you do not know yourself at all.”
“You claim to know me?” She sounds hysterical. “When you went off after Zuko and abandoned me like everyone else? Like mother?”
Iroh sighs deeply. “...I had to make a choice, Princess Azula. Zuko was burned, vulnerable, and alone. While you were hardly in a safe position, you still had your father’s favor and a comfortable home in the palace. But you must understand that even this logic does not comfort me. To leave anyone in proximity to your father was a crime in and of itself.”
Azula is silent for a long time, long enough that Zuko thinks their conversation might have ended. He presses his ear against the door. “...and I’m stronger,” she eventually says. “Than Zuko, anyway. I’ve never needed as much help as he does.”
Even through the door, Zuko can tell that Uncle is hesitant to agree to this. “...Perhaps.”
“No, I am,” she establishes firmly. “If Zuko had been the one left at the palace, he wouldn’t have lived very long. At some point, he would have refused the endless violence that father was asking for, and he would have died for it. All the better, then, that he was banished.”
“So you admit that you care for him.”
“Of course I do,” she scoffs. “I may be a monster, but he is my brother.”
Zuko leaves. He’ll visit later.
-----
“So this is the little brat that defeated father,” Azula says skeptically, looking down at Aang’s smiling face. “...Have you gotten smaller since the last time we encountered each other?”
“No,” says Aang, still smiling. “I’m actually half an inch taller! Can you tell, Zuko?”
“You look the same to me,” he offers dryly. Azula grins at him. “Actually, I think Azula’s right. You do seem shorter.”
“What?” Aang is starting to look worried. “That can’t happen! Stop messing with me, guys!”
“You should have Katara take a look,” Zuko suggests. “Maybe she can fix you before it’s too late.”
“Yes…” Azula puts a hand on her chin and makes a show of leaning over to inspect him. “This is clearly some kind of grotesque bone shrinkage.”
Aang shrieks just as Katara and Sokka arrive. He barrels his way over and leaps into Katara’s arms. “Zuko and Azula say that my bones are shrinking! Please say it’s curable, Katara, I’ll do anything!”
Katara gives Zuko the stink eye. “Your bones are not shrinking, Aang-- they’re just bullying you. I knew Azula would be a bad influence.”
Azula grins. “Oh, please. Zuko has always been mean, he’s just more inclined to hide it in polite company. Nothing to do with me.”
Toph enters the room without flair. “Sparky? Nah, he’s a little pushover. Aang’s just easy to mess with.”
They all start arguing, Azula included, and Zuko can’t help but smile at the scene. Sometimes it’s easier to just be children.