Chapter Text
‘Man makes plans and God laughs.’
That was how the saying went, but she felt like this was entirely too much.
You see, in one universe there was a story about a boy trapped in an iceberg. When this boy woke up and broke out he made some friends, but was also chased around the world by a prince who wanted his honour back. When the boy befriended the prince, the prince’s younger sister started chasing them instead.
In the end, the prince ended up fighting his younger sister for the throne. He defeated her with his friend and the sister ended up suffering a complete mental-breakdown while the boy defeated the royal siblings’ evil father who wanted to burn the world to the ground.
It’d been a good story about balance, redemption, friendship and hope.
She had seen this show, had liked it enough to re-watch it when she felt down, and had also seen the sequel show that came afterwards.
She knew it pretty damn well, which meant she knew exactly what the royal family had looked like: the two siblings, who’d been pit against each other for most of their childhood; their mother, who’d had to run away after committing regicide to save her son; their father, who should really have been carrying around a plant wherever he went to replace the oxygen he wasted by breathing.
That was it for the immediate family. She could also count their cousin who’d died before canon, their grandfather who their mother had killed, and their uncle who was a very prominent figure in the brother’s life.
But that was it.
There had not been a third child involved in that family, especially not a twin to the sister.
Yet here Azai was.
Already two years in the body of a child that shouldn’t exist. Oh, and she was named after her dick of a father. What a lovely time to be alive.
Anyway, it was a rock that woke the true her up. Or at least that was what they said.
Apparently, she’d fallen in the gardens while playing with Azula and Zuko—her new brother and sister—and cracked her head against it, going night-night immediately. Unconscious for a week then boom; she was four years old and being fussed at by people that should’ve been fictional.
Azai couldn’t actually remember that first part, so she had to take their words for it. For her it had been like falling asleep and waking up in a different world; she had no memories of her life in the Fire Nation prior to waking up in a very large—and comfortable—bed.
Neither could she remember much about her own world either, but that was neither here nor there. She could remember the show, some of her previous life and her experiences. Some of her friends and family were also there in the back of her mind, but they’d lost their names and their faces in the assumed dimension travel. She’d lost her own name as well, but Azai tried not to think about what she’d lost too much. A feeling told her that it hadn’t been that important, that she hadn’t been that close with either family or friends.
That it had been obligation more than it’d been love.
She also tried not to think about the fact that that feeling could very well be conjured up by whatever brought her here and none of the choices were longer her own. Or other things along those lines. Those were better left in a burned box at the bottom of a river.
Anyway- what she did mind losing was her fine and regular motor controls.
Being able to simply do things was not really anything you thought of until you couldn’t anymore. Four-year-olds weren’t completely useless like infants were, but damn it all to hell and back if she hadn’t been using most of her waking moments to curse the limits of her new, tiny body.
Seriously, she'd spent the last two years just doing menial tasks that would allow her to just do regular shit again. Ninety percent of the time she was ignoring her actual lessons in favour of re-learning all she’d taken for granted. Holding a pencil should not take that much conscious thought!
And it wasn’t like they were teaching her anything worthwhile anyway. Azai hadn’t been, and still wasn’t particularly interested in falling face first into Fire Nation propaganda.
Instead she re-taught herself how to hold and use brushes and pencils effectively; how to balance for running and leaping and playing; how to tie her own hair up and how to dress herself. The last two were surprisingly hard, not because of her own lack of skill, but because of the attendants that insisted on doing it for her.
She quite literally had to hide the fact that she was practising these things. How the hell did this place expect her to be a functional adult if they had people on their hands and knees waiting to wipe her ass for her?
… Okay that might’ve been a bad analogy given child development and the fact that she was technically only six in this universe, but her point still stood. A little independence went a long way!
No matter; she had spent the last two years mostly regaining as much control of herself as possible, but that was only during bullshit lessons that she had no use for.
Speaking, history and maths? Completely useless, this was her personal playtime.
Etiquette, strategy and politics? Mind-numbingly boring, but she was aware of her status and had no desire to piss off Ozai while still defenceless so she paid cursory attention.
Writing and reading? Very important, since this universe didn’t use the Latin alphabet and instead used a logography. The Chinese one, if she remembered correctly. Not that the knowledge did much good since she was pretty sure there were both traditional and simplified versions of Chinese characters and Azai hadn’t known a lick of either before this all happened. It meant that these lessons were ones she paid a lot of attention to and a lot of her spare time was spent with her nose buried in scrolls and books trying to get the hang of it.
Still, she was not above admitting that she’d ended up staring into space more than once when the lesson just seemed to drone on and on.
Really, the only lessons that’d had her full attention—and still did—was her firebending lessons.
And could anyone blame her? She could toss around and summon fire on a whim! That was fucking awesome!
Apparently everyone else had known she was a bender before she did, something about holding a ball of bark with a bunch oils in it and holding under her nose when she was an infant to see if it would ignite or something like that. She hadn’t paid much attention beyond ‘you’re a firebender’. Azai didn’t even really care that her training supposedly started very early compared to normal standards in this nation; as long as she got to learn about her abilities she was happy as a clam.
She’d been shoved into the body of Azula’s twin, so it wasn’t surprising that she could bend, per say. It didn’t take away from being the coolest thing ever.
Firebending lessons weren’t supposed to start until the child was around eight—Zuko hadn’t started his own lessons yet—but Azai had been impatient and eager and Azula had been a prodigy, so they were tossed to an instructor when they were five.
A year of learning and it was as if they’d poured gasolene on the campfire of her curiosity. She wanted more; always. If she wasn’t reading some dusty scroll or sneaking around the palace, a good bet would be to check the training areas for her.
It was just- it was firebending! What was she supposed to do? Not let it completely consume her every waking thought? Fat chance!
“Zaza, let’s go! If you’re late instructor Cho will have you in horse stance ‘til noon!” A high voice sounded beyond her door, accompanied by three quick raps against the wood.
…Okay so maybe there was a chance that it didn’t consume her completely.
Her true love might have been firebending all this time, but her main focus was—and forever would be—her siblings.
Azai had woken up in this imperialistic hell-scape and to her right Zuko had been sleeping holding her hand while Azula had been curled into her side on her left. The moment reality had set in, which to be fair took a while, she had sworn to give them better.
It’d been early canon, very early. Before Ozai had sunken his claws into Azula and before Zuko had become filled with self-loathing. Before they’d both been burned in different ways. She’d looked at Zuko and seen a boy unscarred and unconcerned, peacefully asleep. She’d looked at Azula and seen a girl drooling slightly on her pillow, dreaming something nice.
They had become her priority instantly, Azula especially, given what Azai knew of her eventual fate.
It was early which meant Azula was neither good nor bad; she was just a child. Children were shaped by their environments and Azai was determined to show Azula one where she knew she was loved and not feared. One where she was a girl, a sister and a princess. Not a monster.
She couldn’t be sure of how well she’d done so far, given Ozai’s current lack of interest in them, but since Azula felt the need to remind her of their training, she at the very least felt like she’d lain some good groundwork.
Azai still grumbled slightly under her breath before raising her voice into a shout. “Coming, Lala!”
She tucked away the papers she’d been writing on, the secret compartment of her desk drawer shutting with a satisfying ‘click’. With the notes on her knowledge of canon safely hidden once more and unreadable to anyone who didn’t know the Latin alphabet, she secured the black sash around her waist and headed out.
An almost identical face to her own greeted her with a grin upon opening the door, the only difference was the lack of a small scar going through the right eyebrow—curtsey of rock-kun. Azai grinned back before she grabbed her sister’s hand and they rushed off towards the main training yard.
Yeah, this was solid groundwork.
She hoped she could keep it.