Azula Cares For Her Brother (And Others Though She'll Never Admit)

Leading to and of the Agni Kai

Azula was 8 when she lost her mother and cousin, and with how she recovered she may have well let is go.

Her uncle may as well be dead, considering he was out exploring something, or so her father said.

Her heart felt heavy when she thought of any of them, with and emotion she couldn't place, and she she figured it was just normal. She thought of them late at night when Father couldn't yell at her for going blank as she called it. When she went blank her mind was practically empty or containing only fragments of thoughts, whether that be fleeting imagines or broken sentences.

Usually it was very simple to bring herself back, but at times it took minutes to even make sense of what she saw. The proof of not bring herself back fast enough to please her fathers expectations in bending burned and blistered on Azula's upper arms.

Ty lee and Mai never said anything in the blanks, just kept playing, perhaps thinking Azula was thinking. Her just not paying attention to them, which wouldn't have been surprising.

When Azula thought about it, she remembered her mother sitting motionlessly at the pond, and perhaps her mother blanked as well.

Despite not knowing the correct term for her blanking, Azula got the sense most people likely didn't do the same as her. Although she had caught her older brother curled up with tear tracks down his face while blankly staring at a wall. When Zuko got like this he usually tried to hide so Azula found him in many spots.

During the day Azula worked on her bending, already on the advanced sets. The teachers whispered about how she was a prodigy, and it filled her with pride.

Zuko took to learning about swords and how to use them, trying to get their fathers praise for excelling in something.

Ozai saw this as an opportunity to send him away to Sword Master Piandao under the guise of wanting to help him grow.

Zuko was ecstatic for the opportunity to learn more. And to beat Azula in something as she didn't want to do swords. Even if she had wanted to she wouldn't take that away from Zuko.

Azula saw through Ozais caring guise and knew he just wanted his 'failure' of a son out of the way. More time to teach Azula meant less time for her to become a master.

In the year he was gone Azula had learned how to grow her fire hotter than her fathers. It grew to was blue color, showing the power behind it.

Her teachers had taught her about lighting bending as well, but she couldn't quite do it yet. She knew how because they went quite deep ito it, but was still in the process of learning.

Her days were long and hard, and without Zuko to talk to or to tease there wasn't much she could do in her free time. Most of her free time was spent trying to make shapes with her fire, like the performers for festivals.

Ozai saw the festivals as a waste of time, and the performers as wasted use of firebending and thus had stopped letting the kids visit the festivals.

The turtleducks were being cared for by Azula as well, despite the fact she didn't care much for the small things.

She read up on the agni kai rules, as per her fathers request.

They stated:

If a person forfeits they cannot be counted as a participant in the duel, and as such cannot have fire turned upon them

Persons under the age of 16 cannot be challenged or challenge those above the previously stated age, and those under 10 cannot participate at all

Persons who fight against a turned back after they have lost shows no signs of honor, and disgrace Agni's name.

Persons who use Agni's name as a sole attempt to harm someone and not as a fair fight disgrace their own fire