For a blissful second, Azula heard and saw nothing. She felt herself floating in a dark abyss. At first, the silence was comforting, almost like a cotton blanket. Unfortunately, staying in a cotton blanket for too long, one begins to feel trapped. She felt that her throat and torso were being squeezed.
Instinctively, she summoned her blue flame, illuminating her surroundings just enough to reveal a never-ending stone pathway ahead. As she ventured forward, each step echoed off the unseen walls, resonating with a hollow sound that seemed to mock her aloneness.
The silence forced Azula to confront her thoughts, and inevitably, her mind wandered to Zuko, her older brother. She found herself stuck in the last recent memory of him. Immediately, it ignited a familiar fury within her as she closed her eyes and clenched her fists to fight back against the memory.
"Azula, I can't ignore what happened here. You've taken a life." Zuko's gaze hardened as if he were looking at a foul prisoner, not her, Azula.
"He thought he could touch a flame and not get burned. He was wrong." Azula retorted with a smirk, though a strange heaviness weighed on her heart as she met Zuko's intense, searching eyes.
Azula opened her eyes, and in front of her stood a young ten-year-old Zuko looking at her and sneering. He took a step forward, and instinctively, she took a step backward.
He continued to walk forward, his voice low and bitter. "Azula lies. Azula always lies." His accusation, a simple echo of their childhood arguments, filled the air.
Then, she stopped moving as a chilling sensation enveloped her body. The same chilly sensation that the peasant water bender girl froze her. It was as if she was encased in ice, her movements sluggish, her thoughts foggy. Suddenly, Zuko morphed into an older, more embittered version of himself and charged towards her with undisguised hatred. "You lied to me!" he shouted, his voice a thunderous roar in the quiet darkness.
As Zuko's figure loomed closer, Azula's instincts rushed. With a swift motion, she summoned a blistering flame, intending to scar the other side of his face to match his previous one. But as her flame roared towards him, instead of striking him, Azula hit a small turtle duck that had appeared in place of Zuko.
The creature let out a pained quack, and Azula, with a rare moment of hesitation, knelt beside the scorched duckling. As she reached out tentatively, the echoes of footsteps caught her attention. Lifting her eyes, she faced an all-too-familiar figure—a soft gasp escaping the silhouette before a quiet, heart-wrenching question filled the air.
"Azula, what have you done?" Her mother's face, etched with sorrow and horror, stared back at her. Azula's heart clenched as her mother whispered "monster" with a tremor of fear, then turned to leave, her spirit fading into the darkness, leaving Azula alone with the shivering turtle duckling.
Unable to contain her anger in the oppressive quiet, Azula screamed, her voice tearing through the darkness, desperate to shatter the haunting stillness. Her scream was not just a release of her fury, but also a plea for understanding, a desperate attempt to explain that her actions, however misguided, were born of a desire to prove herself in a world that always seemed to favor Zuko.
As her scream faded, the illusion of the now wounded duckling dissipated into the shadows from which it had emerged. Azula was left alone once again, her heart pounding and her breaths shallow. Azula pounded the ground as she forced herself to stand up and continue walking.
Each step she took on the stone pathway felt heavier, laden with the weight of her fury and the crushing loneliness of her current state. She continued walking. It seemed hours had passed until she froze when she heard the sounds of a crackling fire.
To her left, a soft orange glow caught her eye. A wooden log, engulfed in flames, burned steadily. Unlike any ordinary fire, the log did not diminish as the flames licked its surface. Transfixed, Azula watched the orange flames dance—warm, inviting, and eerily comforting. The crackle of the fire was a gentle whisper compared to the silence, weaving stories only fire could tell, secrets of warmth and destruction.
As Azula lost herself in contemplation, the flame began to flicker and grow, gradually enveloping her. Startled, she stepped back, but the flame transformed, shaping into a dragon, its eyes piercingly wise, its presence overwhelming. Fear gripped Azula, yet she stood defiant, unwilling to show any sign of weakness.
The dragon, composed of golden flames with red flickers that seemed to dance like living sparks, spoke in a voice that resonated with the wisdom of ages and the weight of judgment. "Azula, child of fire, bearer of darkness, the time has come to confront your destiny."
Azula, though terrified, masked her fear with a sneer. "Destiny? I make my own future."
The dragon circled her, its fiery breath warming her skin. "You are to atone for the suffering you have caused. You must heal the wounds of those you have torn asunder. Fail, and your soul shall endure torment for eons."
Azula's pride surged. "Atone? I have nothing to atone for. I am responsible only for myself. If people died, then they were the fools that led to their demise. They chose their paths!"
With a roar that shook the very air, the dragon commanded silence. "Your arrogance blinds you, princess. See beyond your pride. Each life you shattered, you must now mend. An eye for an eye, a life for a life. Remember the young soldier from Ba Sing Se, whom you misled into treason? Or the old sage whose temple you destroyed? What of the families that fell in the wake of your quest for power? Their lives are the ones you must account for."
Azula clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms. "And if I refuse?"
The dragon's eyes flared. "Then suffer you shall, far beyond what mortal mind can comprehend."
Begrudgingly, Azula bowed her head, tasting blood as she bit her tongue to hold back her fury. "How am I to redeem these deeds?"
"Begin anew, Azula. Redeem your soul, save as many as you have doomed," the dragon decreed before it dissolved into a blinding white light.
Blinded and disoriented, Azula felt a sudden, intense pressure all around her. Water, cold and unyielding, enveloped her, compressing against her body with immense force. She struggled, her instincts screaming for air as her form seemed to twist and contort under the immense pressure. Just as panic threatened to take hold, the pressure ceased, and she was thrust into freezing air, her lungs expelling a cry. Dazed, Azula heard voices around her, one shrill and exuberant above the rest.
"MY FABULOUS NIECE IS HERE!"
YOU ARE READING
In Their Eyes (Azula x BNHA)
Fanfiction"Stop it. Stop it. Stop it." A girl no older than sixteen covered her ears as she curled within her body as voices swirled around her. SHE'S THE PRODIGY SHE'S THE OBSTACLE SHE'S THE THREAT SHE'S THE ENEMY SHE'S A MONSTER "BE QUIET. ALL OF YOU. LEAVE...
