Chapter Text
The first time Azula had felt the cold, biting sting of lightning, she was six.
It flowed through her in fits and bursts: this radiant burn, this possessive power of electricity.
It started in her belly with a soft rage. It tingled along her fingertips, caressing the pathways of her arms. It shook down to her toes. The first time it came at her call, she destroyed a wall. The lightning blazed through her body, uncontrollable. Then out of it, crumpling against the warmth of the wood.
The resulting fire, Zuko had to rush to put out.
(He couldn’t stop the tears. Azula had sobbed in her room for days, refusing to leave and later paid her father’s price. This time, she didn’t cry).
This familiarity—cold, hateful, rebellious—settles over her now.
Far, far, far above the stone walls of her room-house-prison, a thunderstorm brews.
Her blood dances molten. Her inner flame is a second heartbeat under her ribs. The very air around her frizzles with power. It shimmers with static, sharp electricity. With sparks longing to reunite with the budding lightning. With disobeying, defiant bending.
She paces along her prison cell for lack of anything else to do, letting the static build around her. It’s cold. Biting. Heavy in the air. Just as restless, as impatient, as she is. She paces and paces and paces. The static builds and builds and builds.
Then the door opens.
And Ty Lee walks in.
She’s dressed in her Kyoshi Warrior uniform once more. The deep green and gold look crude against her skin; anything but pink looks wrong on her. The makeup gives her a ghoulish quality. It’s not a bad analogy, she supposes. This part of her that Azula had burnt and buried returned to haunt her. To taunt her with memory of what had been.
If this is Zuko’s idea of torture, it’s a lot more effective than Azula was expecting it to be.
“I can open a window,” Ty Lee says, and Azula can’t help her wail of rage.
She’s moving without thinking, shifting forward on silent feet without so much as a blink. She ducks under Ty Lee’s blocks, dances around her offence and grabs hold of her ponytail to slam her head into the wall. Her hands pin Ty Lee’s without conscious thought.
“Traitors don’t do me favours.” Azula hisses into the girl’s ear. “And you,” she slams her head again for emphasis, “aren’t worth the dirt on my boots.”
Ty Lee reaches back and hooks their legs. Then, with a move so smooth and new Azula can’t scramble fast enough to counter, she pulls. They fall together. Azula, with her hands bruising hers, and Ty Lee, with controlled power. She falls on top of her and uses the momentary shock to wretch out of her grip. Ty Lee turns, gets to her knees and presses her boot onto Azula’s wrist. Her fan flutters out, inches from the softness of her exposed neck.
Good. She still knows Azula’s weak points. She still knows where to aim.
“You don’t have the power to define me anymore.” Ty Lee says, with far too much softness.
Above them, thunder rumbles and lightning crackles.
Inside her, the sting of lightning lurches, longing for the electricity in the open sky. Azula arches involuntarily into the danger of the storm, into the call of lighting.
It’s too sudden of a move. The knife edge of Ty Lee’s fan nicks her neck, sending the smell of metallic blood into the air.
She jerks away, eyes wide.
And Azula smiles.
Azula calls forth lightning with ease. It pools in her palm as it arches, reaching for the soft underside of Ty Lee’s knee. But Ty Lee blocks with her other boot. The one poised above her right wrist presses down, the threat made clear. The lightning frizzles in the air, pulling at the loose hairs of Ty Lee’s braid.
“Open me a window then,” Azula challenges.
(Ty Lee should really know better than to challenge the Lightning Princess. Especially during a storm. Especially with only one hand captured.)
She presses her neck against the fan, feeling her blood coat its surface.
Ty Lee stares at the stain, frozen in her expression.
Her third mistake.
Azula calls back the lightning hanging in the air. It’s all too eager to fall into her waiting hand, all too eager as the hand arches once more. And slams into Ty Lee’s side.
The girl cries out and crumples, clutching at her burn.
Azula pushes her aside and sweeps herself up.
She stands over the warrior, calling lightning back into her fist. “That was a rookie mistake.” Ty Lee groans and tries to stand up, but Azula kicks her down, disarming her in the process. “Losing focus in the middle of battle?” She tries to get up again, but Azula tuts and pulls her up by her throat, slamming her into the wall. This time, she keeps out of range of Ty Lee’s legs. And presses a fan against her throat for good measure. “You know better than that.”
The warrior just slumps against the wall. Her eyes bore into Azula’s, dark and angry and hurt. The fan digs in a little deeper, just on the side of drawing blood.
“You disgust me.” She hisses the words right into Ty Lee’s ear. Satisfaction flickers alongside her flame when Ty Lee’s expression shutters, shock peaking through. She smirks at the traitor and presses the fan closer, drawing blood just because she can.
Then she steps back, letting Ty Lee crumple to the floor.
“Get out of my sight.” And she tosses the fans out of the door.
Zuko comes with dinner.
Correction; he comes with the means to cook dinner.
Because during the first week, amongst all her escape attempts, Azula had also refused to eat. Notably, she had thrown her noddles onto guard Hayami’s face, leaving behind burns that were too familiar.
She had never seen her again.
Zuko had come into her room-prisoner-house with a small pan and some vegetables. He cleared his schedule, didn’t restrain her, and cooked for her. Because he spent his banishment serving tea to Earth Kingdom peasants. He didn’t understand that Firelords aren’t meant to care about their prisoners. At least, not enough to cook for them.
Azula watched him use every ingredient with contempt, every step of the process bared to her wolf-vulture eyes. Nothing went in without her knowledge. When the food was served, she made him eat from both their plates—then watched him for signs of poison.
It became a routine.
Not a particularly stable one.
He was still the Firelord, and she was still human. He didn’t have the time to be cooking her meals. He had important business. But he came when he could, and when he couldn’t, Azula didn’t eat.
Then, his schedule became a little too scheduled. He came down at least once a day, usually more. He stayed for as long as she wanted him to. Each day the shadows under his eyes grew deeper and deeper.
That was the only time she left her room. To hunt down a servant and teach him exactly how to make the foods her brother did.
Zuko stopped cooking after that.
Today, he works silently.
Azula watches the ingredients for lack of anything better to do.
He makes the meal, sets it out and serves it for her. They eat in silence, and when Azula starts her evening meditations, he sits alongside her. Even though he always does his mediations in the morning with Uncle or Piandao.
“You can’t do that,” her brother finally says.
“She knows the rules,” Azula says instead of the question she wants to ask.
“The rules are for you, not her.”
“My rules.” Honestly. As if this is something that needs to be said. “She knows my rules.” Ty Lee was her friend first, of course. “She broke them.”
“Azula…” He frowns at her with his big brother I-know-you-can-do-better look.
She despises that look. She despises him. And she despises Ty Lee.
Her oldest friend. Who she had trusted more than her mother. More than her own father or brother or uncle or cousin. A girl she had spent a lifetime chasing because she knew from the moment she set her eyes upon Ty Lee that she was special. That she was important and would continue to be important. That one day, she would be the Firelord’s most trusted advisor.
And for that, there were rules to follow. Rules that she broke. By following them. Because she was no longer the Firelord’s most trusted advisor, the Firelord wasn’t the Firelord anymore, and she would more likely throw the girl to the mercy of the cold ocean before she trusted her words again.
Or her presence during lightning.
That was sacred. That was something only the Firelord’s most trusted could see. In the absence of both parties, Ty Lee didn’t have that privilege.
And she knew it. She knew what Azula would do.
“She had nobody to blame but herself.”
“You can’t hurt every person who offers to open your window.”
“You said I couldn’t shoot fire. I didn’t.” She hadn’t even thought of it, in fact. Which just shows how well she’s following the rules of her imprisonment.
Zuko sighs, all put upon. He peels open his right eye, the one facing her, and stares at her figure. For a moment, she thinks she’s four again. Learning the meditations all over again. With her big brother beside her, right eye peeled open as he stared at her. As he tried to mimic her breathing and posture because his own flame was flickering erratically, and hers was rising and falling better than even father’s.
“Her burn needs intensive care.” He says, and Azula’s fire whimpers like it hasn’t since she first learnt how to do this. “Your lightning kinda…” he makes a scooping gesture, “burrowed deep.”
Azula thinks of the blood against her neck. The blood she had let dry—had allowed no one to touch. The cut that still stung underneath. The phantom feel of Ty Lee’s boot on her wrist. The terror of knowing she might never bend again, if she made the wrong move.
“Good.”
She steadies her flame with forceful determination and closes her eyes.
Ty Lee comes back.
She stands outside Azula’s door with uncharacteristic stoicism. Azula can feel her just outside, standing at military attention with the erratic heart rate of a hummingbird rabbit.
They had joked once, when they were younger, that Ty Lee could be her own personal bodyguard. The joke being, of course, that Azula didn’t need protection or bodyguards. They had curled up together in Azula’s bed (always hers, even when Ty Lee’s was within arms reach) and made up the rules in the same breath.
1) Never leave each other behind. Never forget about each other.
(Ty Lee had broken that one when she ran off to the circus. When she hadn’t even asked Azula along.)
2) In battle, fight with each other or not at all.
(That one was there in case of hostage situations. In case someone had taken Azula and Ty Lee got the crazy idea to try and fight her to safety. In case someone had taken Ty Lee and Azula forgot that she was supposed to be cunning and smart. That she wasn’t some burning thing filled with hatred and anger.
It should have never applied in Boiling Rock, but Ty Lee broke it then anyway.)
3) Meals are shared. Water is shared. What one has, the other has.
(That one ended up applying to more than food and water. Azula’s bed had become theirs. Ty Lee’s makeup, theirs. Azula’s room, theirs (this time, Mai was involved). Ty Lee’s joy, theirs. Azula’s glee, theirs.
Until it wasn’t.)
4) Lightning will never be weathered alone.
(Ty Lee broke that one too.
It’s been three years since Azula has shared her storms.)
5) The things that happen during lightning stay there.
(She hasn’t broken this one, but it’s only a matter of time.)
6) Siblings should never be mentioned.
(That one was a new rule—added after Azula almost lost control. When the words “nothing like your brother” had dared to utter from Ty Lee’s mouth and all she could hear was her mother's voice. When Azula had called one of her sisters and Ty Lee had answered. Then hadn’t moved for hours.)
Eventually, when the wash of betrayal stops playing before her eyes, Azula gets up and bangs on her door. “Leave!” She yells through the wood. “Before I cut out your tongue and feed it to the palace turtleducks!”
Ty Lee teeters.
But she does.
Eventually.
Ty Lee is different to Mai.
Ty Lee is an open book to Mai’s locked-in-a-box-and-chained. Mai likes her knives, and she likes her silence, and she likes her drama. She switches between arguments and demure agreements without even blinking.
Mai is complicated. And quite simple.
She had come to visit once.
Azula hadn’t yelled at her. Or huffed at her. She hadn’t done much of anything other than regard her with impatience. Mai hadn’t talked either. They passed an hour on silent glares before Mai got up and left.
“I didn’t just do it for him, you know,” she said, right at the door, like she was talking to the doorway instead of Azula.
“It’s time to leave, Mai,” she had said.
“I did it for you too.”
When Mai disappeared, Azula let her.
Mai can’t—won’t—be controlled. Mai had carved herself a space in a world that didn’t want her to be much of anything. She had her knives and her silence, and her selective use of words. Mai didn’t mould herself around the shape of another. Mai wasn’t Ty Lee. Therefore, they weren’t as close.
But they were friends. Because after everything. After Ty Lee had left, Mai was still there. And she didn’t leave. She came to the palace with her monotone and gossip and her boredom. She ordered ridiculous foods to watch the servants scramble to serve it. She tripped up councillors just because she could. Because she could flutter her lashes and blink, and they would be convinced they tripped on air.
She kept Azula company during the days after, when everything felt like water slipping through her panicked grasp.
In the whole world, there were three people Azula had trusted. Mai was one of them. That said enough, in her own opinion.
Mai’s betrayal has a different shape to Ty Lee’s. A different sting.
But a sting nonetheless.
After Ty Lee stops, Mai starts.
They sit together in silence.
Mai flicks through her knives, and Azula flicks through her fire. Red. Orange. White. Blue. Then once more. Red, orange, white, blue.
They don’t talk. They barely look at each other. Each day, the writhing, burning parasite inside Azula, the thing that shapes itself around Mai’s betrayal—around her anger—grows. Larger and louder.
Each day, Azula sees the dark figure of her traitor and her inner flame shudders. It beats erratic against the confines of its cage, and Azula flicks through her fire. Red. Orange. White. Blue.
She doesn’t tell the girl to go away.
She doesn’t lunge or attack. Doesn’t shape the sparks in her hands. Doesn’t throw the parasite inside her at its maker.
She just sits. And flicks. And thinks.
Mai’s betrayal was different to Ty Lee’s.
Ty Lee’s was an unthinkable, horrid vision from the depths of her deepest nightmares. Ty Lee’s betrayal was exactly what it was (a friend betraying a friend) but so much more than that (a worst fear confirmed, the knowledge that nothing stays, that you can mould and break and bend, but in the end, no one follows unless they want to, no one loves unless they want to).
Mai’s betrayal was… unsurprising. It was not expected. (Azula had never dreamed of the Boiling Rock turning out the way it did). But she knew Mai. She wasn’t some doe-eyed sheep here to follow Azula’s every order. She did what she thought was right, and she loved Zuko. She had warring loyalties. Azula had known it was only a matter of time before she had to choose. She had just never imagined Mai would choose Zuko.
Her betrayal also went beyond the obvious (a mother she can’t remember, the bitterness of monster on her tongue, the shape of it in her mouth), but in the end, it was nothing more than what it was (a girl too much like Azula who finally showed her cards).
Once, she had been foolish enough to see the sweet, placid exterior and make assumptions. Mai knew how to play her role and exactly what to say to make Azula dismiss her. She knew the gossip that would keep her a valuable asset in Azula’s pocket. She knew how to play at demure nods and impassive eyes in a way that made you believe you were the one in control. She could smile sweetly to convince you that the puppet strings on your body weren’t there.
It was the thing Azula admired about her, once she realised.
She had thought Mai was just another airheaded girl here to curry favour, but the Lightning Princess didn’t earn her name by falling for half-truths. No one fools her. (Even if Mai had come close).
Azula saw the steel underneath Mai’s smile before she was supposed to. And, on that day, understood some key things about her friend.
The first lesson is that Mai is not scared of her. At least not in the same way as everyone else. She wasn’t panicking bows and scattered gazes and ass-kissing so obvious even Azula at three years old could pick it up. And not because she didn’t know the consequences. She had seen them plenty of times. She just figured they would be interesting and, therefore, worth her time.
(But Mai didn’t defy her at The Boiling Rock because she was bored.)
The next lesson is that Princess Azula was just Azula to Mai.
She cares, of course, for that title. She knows the benefit of having Ozai’s favourite at her side. At having their favour. It’s why, in the beginning, she tried her hardest to befriend Zuko until it became abundantly clear that Azula was the favourite.
But she had never let Azula hold that over her. Azula was a pawn and a friend, but she wasn’t allowed to use either to her advantage.
(It’s unfair that Mai was. On that fateful day.)
The last lesson came far too late for her. Azula had already grown fond by the time she realised.
Mai does not bend or shape to fit others. If there was one thing being a silent, smiling pawn for her parents taught her, it’s that there’s no one in the world she can trust like herself. Mai did not look to Azula for guidance or praise, or power. She looked at Azula for companionship, with all the bonuses that brought along, or to giggle—in her Mai way—about which of the councillors had just gotten caught with their hands down a servant’s pants.
(She isn’t sure if Mai’s individualistic nature makes her stunt at Boiling Rock better or worse. Because when it came down to it, she chose the wrong sibling.)
“Are you done brooding?” Mai asks at the end, when Azula has contemplated the frizzing edge of her flame and the oil-spill of Mai’s hair for far too long. “Because if the answer is no, I’m leaving.”
Azula stares at her.
Then watches her leave.
The problem with being locked in a windowless underground dungeon is that the passage of time means objectively nothing to her. There was her coronation, her life before and this muddly, grey drag afterwards. Her only measurement of time is Zuko.
His first week, he came down with curls of smoke around his mouth and piles of homework. He spent his daytimes here, then his nighttimes, all ranting about the frustrations of pulling back forces. Azula didn’t kill him, even though the bloody, sneering face of her father taunted her from the shadows.
After the first month, the paperwork stopped coming. He stopped cooking. He got calmer. Visits became exclusive to nighttimes. After the first month, he came down with bone-deep exhaustion and eyebags so deep-set, they might as well be two new scars to add to his collection.
Azula stopped counting the days.
Zuko got better.
After that first week, her hallucinations stopped. The presence of her father with his head caved in or the shame of her mother never appeared again.
After that first week, Azula had optimistically—foolishly—hoped that was the end.
But her mother sits atop her perfect bedsheets, proving her wrong.
She is a stoic, silent figure. Her gaze prickles at Azula’s back, making the hair along her arms stand up. To ignore her is impossible. She tries, of course, but a mother can’t be avoided for too long.
“It’s such a shame,” Ursa says in a voice too familiar. “Your hair used to be so beautiful.” Somewhere in her head, the voice of Ozai sneers the word. Her mother just smiles, perfectly placid. Azula tries to look at her, but her shape flickers around the edges, never consolidating, never real.
“You’re not real.” Azula hisses for all the good that does.
“It’s such a shame,” Ursa says, in a voice Azula has never heard. “You used to be so much.” Her voice echoes and mingles with Ozai. Then it’s both her parents saying, “And now you’re… this.”
“You aren’t real!”
“Poor Azula,” Ursa says, with a voice like a thousand councillors, like Mai and Ty Lee, like Zuko himself. “Poor Azula’s trapped in a cage. Poor Azula’s gone insane!” Tears sting against her cheeks, and her heart dances in rage. She drops into a bending stance, but not even sparks come to life across her knuckles.
“It’s such a shame!” Her father says from her mother’s mouth. “You were so bright! My favourite child! And in the end, you couldn’t even beat Zuko.”
“Leave me alone!” She tries to get away, but the room is too small, and her mother is so big. Her mother is looming, and Azula is tucked in a corner, clutching at her knees. “Please! You aren’t real! Just leave me alone!”
She’s begging, but no one’s listening.
Her mother was small and sweet. Now she towers above and speaks poison.
Her father is gone, but here he is, clear as day.
“Please…”
Azula heaves in deep breaths, trying to mediate the erratic thump-thump of her heart. Her bending is failing her. Her words are failing her. She’s curled in a corner, begging, with air choked somewhere in her throat, unable to come out like it hasn’t done since she was three years old.
“Leave me alone… Please… Leave me alone…”
Weak , her father says, and worthless and soft.
Soft , her mother echoes with disbelief, as if you could be soft.
Monster , she says, machine , inhuman.
And all the while, Azula sobs.
The lightning comes back. In fits and bursts.
Azula doesn’t notice the spark at first. All she can feel is the press of words against her exposed back, the sting of voices against her protected cheek. Then, there is a tiny spark. Electricity dancing in her belly. Her inner flame making itself known again. Blue flickers across her fingers.
“Azula?” Her brother says, muffled behind the door. “Azula, are you okay?”
And she isn’t sure when he got here. She isn’t sure what he will do when he realises she’s weak, cowardly. What he will do when he realises she is uncontrollable. That she cannot be hidden away like a shameful secret.
She isn’t sure.
Her brother is the Firelord. An attack against him is treason. When the electric stabbing of lightning returns to her, Azula is not thinking about the consequences.
She doesn’t stop to regulate her heartbeat. She doesn’t stop to listen to the taunts of her parents. She drops into her lightning kata, pulls the danger close, lets it form into a strike, and unleashes it against the door.
The lightning hits. The door cracks. It explodes outwards, leaving nothing but a smouldering archway in its wake. On the other side of the door, two guards are slumped, bleeding from ragged edges of splintered wood. Between them, Zuko lies, head covered.
He looks at her.
She drops back into her lightning stance.
“Azula…” He says, soft as ever.
“Get out of my way, Zuzu.” She says back, sharp as ever. Distantly, the thud of footsteps mimics the race of her heart. “Before this gets ugly.”
“You don’t have to leave.” He doesn’t move. He doesn’t try to defend himself. “You don’t have to do this.” The thud of footsteps gets closer. The beating of Azula’s heart gets louder. “I can help you. We can fix this.”
A flash of gold and green catches her eye.
The Kyoshi Warriors turn the corner and Azula attacks.
She slams more lightning against the wall, bringing the stone tumbling down. The crumpled wall gives the Warriors pause, and Azula uses the lingering smoke as cover.
She steps over the guards' bodies, past her brother, in the unguarded hallway. She knows every hidden passageway in the palace, every hidden nook and corner. She has spent her life wandering these halls. She knows, without much thought, the easiest, safest and fastest ways to leave this place. The trick is figuring out which one she wants to take.
Azula spares a glance at her brother, still lying on the floor. “Infirmary.” She offers, as her final words, nodding down at the guards. “If you take them now, they’ll live.”
The last thing she was expecting rushing through the underground tunnels was Mai’s low rasp asking, “Leaving so soon?” She doesn’t stop, not at the words or Mai’s voice. Not when the thud of footsteps is still too close. She doesn’t intend to waste her words or tenuous bending on a traitor—even one who has found herself in the hidden tunnels.
Then Mai says, “You’re going the wrong way,” and it’s just a trick. Just something to make her stop and stall. To buy the Kyoshi Warriors or the Imperial Guards enough time to get here. So all of them can work together to keep her locked away in a windowless cell, far away from anyone else. Far away from a world she wasn’t allowed to be in anymore.
Azula had employed the same trick on Day of Black Sun. Keep the mark talking and angry and staying still until reinforcement arrives. Until you could do something. She wasn’t stupid enough to fall for one of her tricks.
And this was a particularly foolish version of that. Azula knows these halls. She spent her considerable free time exploring every small corner of the palace. Mai had even accompanied her during this sometimes. They had mapped out the Fire Palace together, secrets and all. So to try and suggest she’s misremembering is absurd.
But Mai keeps following her. Not trying to capture or detain. Just follow. The soft clinking of knives accompanies her every step, but she doesn’t say anything else.
They twist through the tunnels together, almost in sync with their movements.
And then they come to the exit.
“I told you,” Mai says, moments before the Imperial Guards lunge.
Azula doesn’t think, barely stops to breathe, just runs. In quick, little bursts, she sends lightning tumbling behind her. (The sharp cries of guards let her know her attacks are landing). Mai hides behind a bend of the tunnel, just out of their line of sight. She tosses knife after knife into the group, hitting flesh only sometimes. The metallic taste of blood mingles with the rotten smell of burnt skin.
“Stop missing!” Azula shouts, but Mai makes no indication of having heard.
A fireball whizzes past her. It crashes against the wall before her, crumpling the dirt. She turns without thinking and comes face to face with a snarling firebender. Her hands are raised, her stance lowered in a perfect kata. She doesn’t move, but the rest of her crew are getting closer. “We don’t want to hurt you,” she says, “and we won’t have to if you surrender.”
“Get out of my way,” Azula mimics her pose.
“You’re outnumbered!”
Please. As if she’s ever let something as simple as odds stop her.
They move simultaneously, but the guard is just a little too slow. Azula punches forward, and fire blooms under her hands like petals. The guard’s own flame is knocked back from the force, and she scrambles to split the stream. The panic gives Azula time to step forward and kick out her feet.
The guard cries out. She falls and just lays there, dazed, for a few moments. Long enough for Azula to move her foot over the guard’s left hand. She waits until the woman is cognizant. Then she presses down and relishes in the scream.
The guard doesn’t follow her. She lays on the floor, clutching her hand with tears streaming down her face. Azula wants to stay and enjoy the sight, but the rest of her crew are starting to get too close.
She turns and rushes to the bend Mai is hiding behind.
Her knives are being thrown without a break, but she’s aiming to restrain, not maim or hurt. Plenty of the guards have been pinned to walls or floors. Some have ragged cuts that disable them right now but will heal. Her attacks are much more distracting than detrimental. It’s not how Azula would do it, but when they’re quickly being surrounded, there’s no time to complain.
“We can’t go out those doors,” Azula hisses.
“We can’t go back,” Mai replies.
And there aren’t many other choices.
The guards are closing in now. They circle them with vulture-wolf intent. If they don’t choose now, they’ll both be captured.
Azula refuses to go back in that room.
“Stay back,” she whispers, putting herself in front of Mai.
She takes a deep breath in. Closes her eyes. And breathes out. Her inner flame claws against her lungs, rushes up her throat and comes out blinding white. Her throat burns. Smoke curls around her mouth. She exhales, and dragon fire rushes out, burning everything.
She can see skin melting from flesh, morphing into a disgusting conglomerate. Around her, warriors scream and cry, cringing away from the heat.
She doesn’t let up.
Her fire stays vibrant, blazing white until she can taste ash and blood in the back of her throat. Until the screams are gone. Until she can’t feel anything but burning and hurt and anger.
She isn’t sure when she stops. Or when she collapses.
All she knows is that one moment, she is nothing but inferno and the next, she is slumped against Mai, barely breathing.
Mai is hissing something under her breath. It sounds suspiciously like “idiot” and “stupid” and “kill her if she dies”, but everything hurts, and Azula can’t stay awake long enough to question her. The last thing she sees before flopping unconscious is the green-clad figure of Ty Lee running down a hall and Mai’s soft “fuck".