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She used to be a morning person but lately nights are kinder to her than daylight. Nights bring her dreams, pretty little illusions. In her dreams she is everything that she wants to be. She is powerful, pretty, perfect. She is the fire lord and her hair is always in perfect condition. Her nails are always well groomed. All of those years she had put into her bending, all of that work. It amounts to something. In her dreams she has reached her fullest potential. She longs for nothing because she has everything.
Power. Pride. Parise. Talent. Riches. Friends. Love.
But morning always comes and Azula always wakes up. She used to try not to, because in her waking moments she is the worst of herself. She is living a nightmare. Her worst nightmare where she is sloppy, bedraggled, and lazy. A disappointment, a failure. Father won’t look at her when she visits him in prison. It never quite settles in that he has no right to judge her from such a low place. She yearns for escape. Wants to return to bed. Because when she is awake and ‘living’ her life, she has nothing.
Weak. Disheveled. Useless. Friendless. Hated.
Azula realizes one morning that just because the sun is up, doesn’t mean that she has to be. She can’t imagine that anyone will miss seeing her face at breakfast, especially on days where she couldn’t be bothered to hide the bags under her eyes with makeup. On the days when her clothes look extra wrinkled and frumpy. They probably laugh when she is gone. They are probably relived when she isn’t there to soil the mood. She wishes that she didn't care so much. That she didn’t lay in be crying about it.
Lonely. Disgraced. Lost. Confused. Hopeless. Forgotten.
They do notice her absence. They notice it rather promptly. She had never noticed all of those little ways that they have been trying to help her. They don’t know how to do it. She doesn’t blame them. She doesn't know how to help herself. Just being around them makes her sad. With all of their medals and titles. They remind her of just how far behind she has fallen. That’s why they send Sokka to her. He says that he knows the feeling. He tells her that as a nonbender he always felt inadequate.
Surrounded. Scared. Directionless. Insecure. Remembered
It takes him some time but he manages to coax her out of her bedroom. She tells him that it isn’t the same as being so far ahead only to amount to nothing. He informs her that she isn’t nothing. She is simply becoming something else. Someone new. He is adamant that her intelligence is better placed elsewhere. She is innovative and she thinks differently than most people. That the world that they are trying to create needs a unique mind to work through unique challenges. Her ideas and intellect will give her a new legacy.
Welcomed. Nervous. Changed. Confident.
She hadn’t believed him. Not even slightly. Every time she tried a new failed endeavor her self-worth diminished. Her confidence reached a new low. She used to be good at bending and amazing with politics. Now she is good for nothing. She doesn’t just want to be the councilman's wife. She expected more from herself. And then Zuko introduces her to the Sun Warriors. And now she has a dragon. And a purpose. Shaping the new world hadn’t been her calling. Preserving old traditions and protecting dragons is. One day they will fill the sky again.
Mended. Healed. Cherished. Loved.