Forged In Fire || ATLA

Fire Fire

The Beach

"Almost thought we made it home, but we don't know this place at all. That's enough now, dry your tears. It's been a long eleven years." - Flyleaf

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Azula wore the bruises on her face like a badge of honor as she strode into the throne room an hour after her miserable defeat. She hadn't dared delay her Father any longer by trying to hide the damning evidence. She was smart enough to know that her shortcomings would've already made their way to him by now, and she was enough like him to understand that the summons he sent for her had been meant to make her squirm.

'Pull yourself together before you report to me.'

Azula hadn't so much as flinched. Not when she stripped away her blood-stained clothes and set them to ash. Not while she ached and throbbed as she cleaned her wounds. Not even when her Father left her to wallow in her shame outside of the throne room for a miserable thirty minutes before she was allowed to enter. No, when the Fire Lord finally deigned that he was ready for her, Azula kept her head high even as she found her brothers already there, the two of them kneeling before the wall of fire and their remaining parent. She dropped between the pair without a word, the undeniable center and current focus of their family.

It was only the second time that Ozai had called all three of his children together in four long years. He believed it far easier to see their true colors when he had them before him one-on-one, but even that was a thing of rarity for his sons in a way that it wasn't for his daughter. Old habits died hard, and it had never been more painfully apparent than it was now as the Fire Lord looked down upon the face of the only child he had ever truly been proud of.

"It's a shame that Admiral Zhao did not make it back to us, Princess Azula. He could have warned you about the repercussions of holding onto childhood rivalries, and saved you from all this disgrace."

Azula knew better than to speak, even if some part of her broke beneath the weight of disgust that had never been aimed at her. Still, ready to accept whatever lashing she might receive, she stared into her Father's flames and imagined that her fate lay somewhere inside his fire.

Good, Ozai thought to himself, though he wouldn't dare admit the approval out loud. Not when it would do his daughter better to embrace her humiliation. The Fire Lord had already advised his healers to turn her away should she approach, though he doubted her pride would allow her to do so in the first place. "I will let your current state serve as punishment enough, just this once Princess Azula. Do not disappoint me again."

"Now Father, you're being harsh. I'd consider the entire experience quite enlightening."

Three sets of golden eyes locked onto Zetzu, the epitome of cool disposition where he knelt, Azula having not even had time to respond. Zuko wanted to scream, maybe even more so than their sister did, but he remained silent from the opposite side of the throne, and hoped his brother didn't damn Aelita further. The younger Prince didn't wait for the Fire Lord to question him. "How much do you know about the Spirit State, Father?"

The Fire Lord glared at the interruption. "Enough."

"Of course, but for my brother and sister's sake, I'll remind them that the Spirit State typically arises when the wielder experiences extreme levels of distress. Now, I'm confident that had Akira Aelita not been under the effects of the poison that leashes her abilities, we would've seen her in that State this evening. Instead, the reaction we observed was merely a small fraction of what she's capable of, something I'm sure that Prince Zuko can attest to seeing as he has bore the most witness to her abilities. Which," Zetzu continued, only speaking to their Father, "is a positive sign for you as her holder, because I worried that my bride may have broken a bit too thoroughly for her to experience this sort of distress or anguish easily. Given her relative lack of resistance or reaction during the past weeks, I was beginning to fear that we may need to resort to drastic measures to coax this power out of her."