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One
“Zu-ko. Zu-ko. Koooo.”
She frowns. “Zu-zu. Zu-zu. Zuuuu,” she counters.
“Zuzu,” he sighs, defeated by her insistence, producing as resigned a look as a three-year-old can muster. It's a battle he has lost many times before.
“Zuzu,” she agrees, smiling up at her older brother. “Zuzu, up,” she says, raising her arms imploringly. He obliges, lifting her from her crib and into his arms. Making wooshing noises with his mouth, he carries her around the nursery, dipping her down over her blocks, then whirling her over her array of dolls and stuffed animals. She laughs and claps, being swooped around the room until Mommy comes in and says it's time for Azula's nap.
Two
They're at some fancy party surrounded by nobles and generals, with Daddy and Mommy and her and Zuzu in their best clothes, Uncle and cousin Lu Ten somewhere around here. Azula's dress is stiff and tight, she's tired of standing, and she's getting bored of all the adults just talking, and not even talking to her. A few of them leaned down to tell her how pretty she is, then went right back to ignoring her.
“Zuzu, Zuzu,” she says, tugging on his sleeve. He looks down, blinking like he's startled, even though Azula knows he has to be as bored as her. “I wanna go up.” She emphasizes the up, so Zuzu knows exactly what type of up she wants.
Mommy, and the nobles talking to her and Daddy, laugh, at her. Daddy frowns down, at her. But Azula doesn't know why, since her brother smiles and crouches down, and she clambers onto his back. Already her tired feet feel better as she swings them in the air, Zuzu's grip tight around her knees. She rests her head on Zuzu's shoulder, and wonders if Daddy will be mad if she goes to sleep right there.
Three
It's dinnertime, and her food is growing cold, but telling Dad and Mom the story is more important.
“–and then we wanted to practice our bending so I made sparks and then Zuzu–”
“Speak properly, Azula,” Dad snaps, and Azula's mouth shuts. Zuzu stops beaming at her and stares down at his plate. “You're old enough to pronounce your brother's name now. Stop embarrassing yourself.”
“Let her be, Ozai,” Mom says, exasperated, but Dad is still giving Azula a cold look.
“It's time she learned. Zuko could pronounce his own name well before her age,” Dad says, and Zuzu smiles, proud.
Something as cold as Dad's eyes clenches inside her.
Azula bends her head down and finishes her dinner. Silently.
-
She practices at night.
“Zu-ko. Zu-ko. Koooo,” she whispers to herself.
She practices in front of the mirror, sounding out the syllables carefully.
She doesn't say her brother's name, without thinking first.
And she doesn't think her brother's name, without correcting herself first.
-
She thinks it takes a couple days for Zuko to realize that she's stopped using his nickname. She thinks it's when they're playing in the gardens while Mom watches and he's too far ahead, and she calls out to him, “Zuko, Zuko,” and when he turns, there's a small frown on his face. But it passes, and he runs to her side, asking her what's wrong.
Four
The first time, it's because she makes a mistake.
They're eating lunch, and then they'll be going to the beach, and they haven't been there in forever, and it's bright and sunny and she feels giddiness bubbling over in her.
She forgets herself.
“And then after we go swimming and build sandcastles, we need to get ice cream, because last time we didn't get any and Zuzu said–” She realizes the slip even before Dad's sharp gaze fixes on her, lips thinned, those golden eyes so cold, and she rushes to finish, “–he won't go home without some, isn't that right Zuzu?”
The teasing note comes out almost naturally in her panic, and Zuko looks at her with faint confusion. She hasn't used the nickname in over half a year.
Dad doesn't frown. He doesn't smile, either. But that cold gaze retreats from her, and he returns to reading a letter from Uncle, about some such issue with the war.
“What was that for?” Zuko hisses under his breath, and Azula just sticks out her tongue at him. Zuko rolls his eyes, and goes back to eating to his kimchi as Mom warns them both to behave, then urges Azula to continue. And Azula returns to explaining their plans for the day.
Carefully, this time.
-
The second time, it's in front of the servants.
Zuko's all grumpy because he hasn't done well in his firebending lessons again, even though Azula doesn't see how it could be that hard, because she's already creating little flames to show off to Dad. For some reason, Zuko decides the best time to complain to her is as the servants do her hair and neaten her clothes. Which is also right when she's planning to tell the servants that she wants to do her hair differently today, like the way Mom does it, and she can't do that if Zuko keeps talking.
“I don't know,” she interrupts, since he won't leave her alone, “maybe you just need to try harder, Zuzu.”
She can see Zuko flush, and the servants fighting off smiles.
“Don't call me that,” he snaps, and stomps off.
And she feels guilty. Because it had been their word, when she wanted him to play with her, when she wanted him to do something for her, and he would listen and indulge her.
But one of the servants whispers, “Maybe Prince Zuzu needs a nap,” teasingly to another, and they all softly giggle. At him, not her.
Zuko must still have heard, because he stomps off harder.
He leaves her alone.
Five
The third time, it's in front of Dad and Mom again.
A test.
It's at dinner, since that's really the only time of the day they're all together. When they're with Dad.
She finds her opening while Zuko's telling Mom about his lessons. He's been having them for years, and Azula's only starting lessons with her tutors, though with half days compared to Zuko's longer days. Just like with his firebending lessons, Zuko will grumble about them, and just like with firebending, Azula's not sure why – it's not like they're that hard.
“...and I like all the history stuff,” he's telling Mom, heaving a big sigh, “but I'm having trouble remembering all the dates and names properly.”
She takes the chance. “Well, unlike you Zuzu, Tutor Amaya said I remember all my history facts perfectly.”
And abruptly, she's worried, because what if Zuko's thought up his revenge – some mortifying nickname for herself that he'll start saying in front of the servants, in front of Dad?
But Zuko only glares at her, and then at his bowl. “Maybe that's just 'cause you don't have to learn as many,” he mutters, as he stabs at his rice with his chopsticks, and her guilt returns.
Except when Dad frowns, it's at Zuko. Not at her.
And though Mom gently chides her to stop embarrassing her brother, that doesn't dim her relief when Dad snaps at Zuko to sit up straight. When that cold look is levelled at Zuko, not her.
“Perhaps you should consider paying more attention in your lessons, seeing as your tutors tell me you're falling behind,” Dad says flatly.
Azula preens. Zuko casts his eyes down, and nods, murmuring, “Yes, Dad.”
And though Mom protests, “Ozai, it's only in one subject,” Dad turns those cold, golden eyes on her as well, and Azula knows that all of Mom's complaints will never matter as much as that stare.
Six
When she starts experimenting with the nickname, it's nowhere near the habit it had been almost three years before. But after working so hard to rid herself of it, she finds the word is familiar on her tongue, like the warm, red, fuzzy blanket she keeps on her bed, or the big stuffed platypus-bear she likes to sending roaring around her room.
When it's time for her first official firebending lesson, she decides it's time for a new experiment.
The Sifus lead her and Zuko to the bending training rooms set aside for royal family – Zuko knows the way, but since it's Azula's first time, they get an escort of their two respective Sifus and four guards. Before they're taken off to their separate rooms for their separate lessons, before any of the escort can leave, she trills, “Have fun bending, Zuzu.”
One or two of the guards make small noises, but are too disciplined to do much more. One Sifu fights backs a smile, and the other faintly snorts, then covers it up with a cough. And all Zuko can muster is an angry, “I told you not to call me that,” face flaming red.
There's no other comeback, no humiliating nickname. No revenge.
She begins to wonder why, but the firebending lesson soon sweeps all other thoughts out of her head.
She's a natural, of course. Much better than Zuko, at that age.
Better than Zuko, even now at his age, she finds out.
Seven
“...so what do you think, girls? Maybe we could play hide and find with Zuzu?” she says, loudly enough, just as Zuko passes by.
Ty Lee giggles, and Mai makes a face somewhere between amused and mortified at mocking Zuko, what with her oh-so-obvious crush that Azula still doesn't understand. Zuko fumes – literally – and hurries past.
Azula realizes that her brother is not good at this game.
Eight
Dad is the Firelord. Mom is gone.
“Honestly, Zuzu, you're acting like becoming Crown Prince is the end the world,” she teases, but he doesn't respond, not even with with a glare, or an angry huff of breath.
She tells herself she doesn't care that Mom is gone. That it doesn't matter that Zuko confessed he saw Mom one last time before she vanished, but Azula hadn't heard even a whisper, hadn't felt a hand on her shoulder to wake her up.
Her mother always loved her precious Zuko more anyway.
And Azula still has Dad. She has her flawless and effortless firebending, her tutors' praise for her genius in her classes, and the adoration of the court for their prodigy of a princess.
Which, she knows, is a whole lot more than Zuko has.
Nine
It's easier with Mother gone. There are no more scoldings when Azula snaps at a servant, or aims a fireball indoors, or makes fun of Zuko.
She's outstripped him so far already, calling him her nickname in front of servants and teachers and nobles and courtiers is pretty much overkill.
She still does it anyway.
Her new favourite place for it, she thinks, is firebending training. While she's passed Zuko's level of firebending years ago, they've been sharing the same lessons for the past month. Zuko's last Sifu suggested it to Father, thinking that watching a near-master like Princess Azula learn the moves might encourage the Crown Prince to do better. Or shame him into it.
Either way, it doesn't appear to be working. The “Crown Prince” is just as terrible as always.
Of course, it makes it that much easier to tease him. She's done it so many times in front of Sifu Yoshiko, Azula thinks she's used “Zuzu” more than “Zuko”. So it doesn't come as much as a surprise when Sifu Yoshiko tells them she'll teach them a new form today, after Azula taunts, “Come on, keep up Zuzu”, that Sifu Yoshiko calls them to attention with, “Eyes on me, Princess Azula, Prince Zuzu.”
It takes less than a second for Sifu Yoshiko's eyes widen, for her to shake her head and hastily correct, “I mean, Prince Zuko.” But Azula can see it's already too late. Zuko flinches, shrinking in on himself, eyes downcast. Instead of the outburst of anger she expected, she thinks she can spot the glimmer of tears in his eyes.
When they go through their new forms, Zuko's even sloppier than normal, his fire weak and flickering, more smoke than anything else.
Going through the forms perfectly, fire blazing bright and hot, Azula only rolls her eyes at him.
At this point, it's his own fault he's so useless.
Ten
They're at a small gathering, only their family, and a few choice nobles and generals. Her and Zuko are expected to show up, look dignified and properly dutiful, while Father speaks to the guests. They're barely halfway through the evening when Zuko lets out a yawn in front of two nobles.
Sweetly, she smiles at him, and says, “Awww, Zuzu, is it your bedtime already?”
Before Zuko can do more than glare, or the nobles let out more than a titter, a hand lands on her shoulder. “Ah,” a voice from behind her says, “but doesn't that mean it should be yours too then, little Azula?” And when she turns, Uncle's eyes twinkle down at her and he smiles, as if in a gesture and two words – that hand on her shoulder, that little Azula – he didn't just make her feel small. Weak.
Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Zuko smirk.
Uncle hasn't even been back for a year from whatever trip he took after his failure at Ba Sing Se, and she hates him already.
Him, and the worry that he's finally given Zuko what he needs to fight back.
It's like Uncle has put the fire in Zuko hands, shown him how to aim it, and now all Zuko has to do is throw it, with a mocking “little Azula” to counter her every sneering “Zuzu.”
It's as much a test, as it is spite, when at the next gathering – much, much larger than the last – she pulls out a “little Zuzu.” She says “little” just the way Uncle did to her – dismissively, patronizing, like the target isn't a threat. She adds her own spin on the “Zuzu”, as derisive and condescending as she can manage in two syllables.
And Zuko just grits his teeth, and storms off in her direction, aiming to roughly bump his shoulder into hers, a move which she neatly sidesteps. That's all.
He doesn't retaliate. He never does.
Azula realizes it's not just that Zuko is terrible at this game – he doesn't seem aware there is one, and he needs to be playing it.
Eleven
Her brother's face is half-swaddled in bandages. The left side of his head is shaven, to let the physician have a closer look, and to rid him of all that burnt hair.
Idly, she wonders if he's going to lose sight in the eye, or hearing in the ear. She supposes it'll be a while before she finds out. He'll be leaving tomorrow, under his own power or not.
It's been less than a day since the Agni Kai, and Father has wasted little time in announcing the banishment.
She times her visit, coming in after Uncle went to make preparations to leave, and orders the physician out of the room. Sure, she could have come while Uncle was fussing over Zuko, but she wants to see Zuko alone, without Uncle's hovering. Or anyone else's, for that matter.
“You know, Zuzu, you could have just kept your mouth shut,” she tells his unconscious form. It's like he deliberately ignores all common sense. “Honestly, you bring this all on yourself.”
He twitches, but she doubts it's because he heard her. He's been asleep since Uncle and the family physician dragged him into the hospital wing. With all the drugs in his system, she could probably start poking at the bandaged side of his face, and he wouldn't even move.
She doesn't, though. She wouldn't want him to lose the eye.
He's already pathetic enough as it is.
Twelve
In some ways, it's like being an only child.
However, she does miss him: her skills are a sliver less astounding without Zuko's failure compare them to.
Zuzu is disappointing, even in his absence.
She makes up for the loss, though, when her fire turns blue.
Next, she thinks, she'll turn her hand at creating lightning.
Thirteen
She thinks she could get used to this. Even though the competition was slim to begin with, there's a certain...exhilaration in being the sole royal child. Her brother is obviously never going to find the Avatar – seeing as the Avatar no longer exists – and so he is never going to return home.
Based on reports, poor hapless Zuzu hasn't figured out that simple fact for himself yet.
Fourteen
“Have you become uncivilized so soon, Zuzu?” she asks when she sees him for the first time in three years. He doesn't disappoint, with his angry shout of, “Don't call me that!”
All this time, and he still has no better comeback. It's beyond pitiful, really.
So it comes as no surprise that he's still stupid enough to fall for her trap.
-
“I was wondering when you'd show up, Zuzu,” she says conversationally, and the Avatar snorts, repeating the name to himself. Even the boy knows better than to fear her brother.
-
When the thought crosses her mind that the Avatar may have survived – just a thought, not a worry, not even a concern, but a thought of the faintest of possibilities – the solution comes to her quickly enough.
After all, everyone knows that Azula doesn't make mistakes. That she's perfect. But Zuko, everyone knows that Zuko makes nothing but mistakes. That he's a failure. Where she has no flaws, no weaknesses, no faults, Zuko's are as countless as the stars.
So what difference does another one make?
And it's not like Zuko will be able to do anything about it, to play her back at the game – even after all this time, he hasn't learned how.
And he'll never learn at this rate, she thinks as she sends the missive to Father by messenger hawk, describing the mission with slightly altered details. Even if the Avatar isn't completely dead – as utterly unlikely as that may be – giving the deed over to Zuko loses her little. She still conquered Ba Sing Se almost single-highhandedly. She'll have a hold over poor little Zuzu, if she ever needs to give him extra encouragement to listen to her. And if time ever comes when she needs to reveal the truth...well, she'll come off looking like the kind, generous sister, next to the stupid, incompetent brother who was happy enough to steal his little sister's glory.
Besides, Zuko should be grateful that she's giving her deed over to him – “killed the Avatar himself” is going to sound a whole lot better to Father than “joined her to fight the Avatar and his friend for a few minutes.” Father might even be proud of Zuko, for once in his life. Zuko should appreciate the attention while it lasts.
When she becomes Fire Lord – because of course Father wouldn't let Zuzu ascend to the throne in her stead – she thinks she might keep her brother around. If only for the amusement of watching him bumble through political intrigue like particularly inept koala-sheep.
-
“I'd really rather our family physician look after little Zuzu, if you don't mind,” she grins at the waterbending peasant girl, first shooting lightning at her, then bolt of blue flame after blue flame. The peasant girl isn't laughing, running from pillar to pillar to escape Azula's fire and lightning, her wrath incarnate. Zuko just lies twitching on the ground.
All that talk of redirecting lightning, and Zuko hadn't even managed to do that properly.
“Zuzu, you don't look so good,” Azula jeers down at his spasming body, not caring if he can hear her, because he's down, and soon the peasant girl will be dead, and Azula will be Fire Lord over a glorious nation.
Zuko, dead, or alive, won't matter.
She tells herself, he won't matter.
Fifteen
He still visits her every few weeks.
“You know, Zuzu, this is getting quite tiresome,” she sighs, as if she still sits in her gilded chambers with servants to wait on her, as if there aren't bars in between them, as if she isn't stuffed into a straight-jacket, as if she isn't chained to the back of her cell every time he comes here as a precaution. “Really, one would think you have nothing better to. I know if I'd been Fire Lord, I'd have my hands full with running the nation. Well, mostly because you'd already have been executed as a traitor, but–”
“Do you need anything here, Azula?” he asks. He sounds tired. He looks tired.
She hopes he's crushed under the weight of ruling.
“I need you to stop coming down here to gloat,” she snarls, lurching forward at him as far as the chains will allow, which isn't far, since they don't want her breathing fire beyond the bars. He doesn't even flinch.
“I'm not gloating. I want to help you. I–” Slumped in the chair they bring out for him, he glances down at the hands intertwined in his lap. “I care about you,” he finishes lamely, looking back up at her on the last word.
That's funny, she thinks, and her mouth twists into a smile. “Oh yes, I'm sure this is just how you show your love and affection. Locking us up like animals. At least Father cared enough to let you have that ship of yours, and a whole crew too, when he banished you.”
“That had nothing to do with love or caring.” The words are harsher than she's heard in all his visits, despite her many and varied attempts to get a rise out of him. “Nothing Father's done for either of us has ever been about caring.”
She actually laughs at that. “Well, maybe he didn't particularly care about you, Zuzu. Rest assured, he–”
“He only cared about how much he could use us,” he snaps, and there's his old anger...except it's not the wild, uncontrolled blaze of rage she's used to, but sharper somehow, razor-edged and targeted, almost like her lightning. “He just had more use for you than me. He doesn't love us. He never loved us.” A hand twitches up, toward his scar, before tightening around his other hand in his lap. “The only thing he ever loved was power, and you helped him get it.”
“If that's what makes you feel better about yourself,” she scoffs, but she can feeling something snapping inside her, like a string pulled too tight. Like it had when Father left her to go be the Phoenix King, like when that peasant girl had chained her down to the grate, like it has all too often while trapped in this cell.
“Azula, you need to see Father the way I have–”
She screams at him. She screams and she screams, licks of blue fire creeping past her mouth but never far enough, until he leaves and she keeps screaming until the guards force her to drink something to make her sleep.
He still visits, even if all she does is scream at him. He makes her as “comfortable” as he can without risking her escape. He tells her that the nation is healing. He tells her that Ty Lee and Mai sometimes think of visiting, though they never do. He tells her that he's still looking for Mother.
If he visits Father the way he visits her, he doesn't say, and she doesn't ask.
Sixteen
It's her birthday today.
He lets her go outside with him. In chains, of course, and with guards around the two of them – those ridiculously-painted Kyoshi warriors, the traitor Ty Lee among them, and that one little blind earthbending girl trailing behind and cracking her knuckles as if she were trying to be intimidating.
“You even think about touching him, and you're going down,” the little earthbender growls at her, and Azula wonders if it would be worth it just to test her. She decides ignoring her presence will annoy the girl more.
Not that she isn't paying attention, as much as she feigns indifference. She can tell that the rest are around here somewhere, past the wall of green and gold warriors, just out of sight. Flashes of blue cloth that could be the Water Tribe peasants. Red fabric and a gleam of a knife that could be Mai. Rippling orange and yellow that could be the Avatar.
Together, they walk. A strange procession
“Afraid, Zuzu?” she snickers.
Zuko doesn't rise to the bait. “They're just worried,” he says, shrugging. “And they know you'd kill me in an instant if you had the chance.”
So, at least he's not that stupid.
They settle under a tree in a grassy space of meadow, beside a pond. Probably for the waterbender's sake. It's empty but for their little group, and there's a blanket and a basket already set out.
“Aww, Zuzu, you shouldn't have,” she sneers. When they reach the edge of the blanket, one of the Kyoshi warriors pushes down on her shoulder, and after a brief moment of resistance, just to show she can, Azula acquiesces. Zuko sits opposite her on the blanket. The others – all the others, Zuzu's friends showing themselves at last – spread out over the grass, little baskets and blankets of their own popping out of the earth when the earthbender stamps her foot down. From the way they're spaced out, each in their little groupings, Azula knows they're close enough to attack, but far away enough to give them some semblance of privacy. She refuses to deign their set-up with more than a lazy glance and a roll of her eyes. “All this for me?” she says sarcastically, “Really, I'm flattered.”
Zuko acts like he hasn't heard her, and reaches in to the basket, taking out food, chopsticks, cups, and, of all things, a little teapot. Azula, hands and feet still chained, sits back with an air of boredom. “So, is this something I should expect on the regular?” she asks. “Because really, as presents go, I could think of much better ones.”
Zuko doesn't respond, carefully setting out the plates.
“Like, making me Fire Lord, for instance,” she says. “Or perhaps letting me give you another scar on your face to match Father's. How does that sound, Zuzu?”
He pauses, but remains silent for another few seconds, before he meets her eyes.
“You know,” Zuko says, slowly, leaning back to sit like her, “when I was little, I had trouble pronouncing Fire Lord Azulon's name. I think I said something like 'Zulon.'” He looks out over the pond, like it holds the answer to whatever he's rambling on about. “It was fine for a while, but then Father got mad. He said – I remember this very clearly – that I had to stop bringing shame, when other children could pronounce the Fire Lord's name, and they weren't his grandson.” A grimace passes over his face. “After that, I started practising his name over and over. A-zu-lon. A-zu-lon. A-zu-lon.”
His eyes shift back to hers, and for an instant, it feels like he's studying her. “You must been born by that time, I think. Maybe that was why Father was so mad. But because of all my practice, I didn't have trouble with your name. And sometimes when Mother let us play together, I had you say grandfather's name with me, and your own name. So you wouldn't make the same mistake I did.” Again, his eyes slide off her face, back to the pond. “You didn't want to learn how to say my name, though. You preferred 'Zuzu'” He gives an odd twisted smile, still staring at the water, as if she's no longer there. “I guess you still do.”
Azula doesn't know what to say, so she doesn't say anything.
The moment of silence stretches as neither of them speak, nor move. Around them, Zuko's friends and bodyguards are chattering away, but the two of them seem to exist in their own bubble of time, frozen, fragile, waiting on a knife's edge.
Zuko breaks the spell first. He reaches into the basket, and pulls something out.
“Happy birthday, Azula,” Zuko says solemnly, and serves her a round little sweet cake on a plate.
There's quite a few things Azula wants to do. She wants to knock the cake from his hands and into the pond. She wants to break through these chains, wreath her hands in fire, and burn off the rest of his face. She wants to draw on her lightning and finish off the job from two years ago, sneering poor, stupid, trusting Zuzu as the light leaves his eyes.
She reaches out, and takes the plate from Zuko.