In The Night

nineteen- family fun

Zuko
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Ember Island Home for the Deranged, the sign read. It was a premier care facility where the problematic members of the upper class were sent. Here held many prominent family names: a Sato, a Uchida, even a Bei Fong battling addiction, and my sister.

I was greeted by a plump nurse carrying a clip board immediately after I entered.

"Firelord Zuko!" She marvelled, bowing low.

"I'm here to see Azula," I stated, if it wasn't obvious.

"Of course!" She exclaimed, once again overzealously. Beconing me through the doors into a long hallway, she chitchatted away. "It's so nice that you're here! Azula has made much progress, and it's always nice for family to see. Ty Lee has of course been instrumental. Why, she's come by at least once a week!"

This woman was insufferably chipper, and maybe if it were under different circumstances I would've been nicer, but I desperately needed to see Azula to prove she wasn't behind any of the Pheonix nonsense.

"Spirits, just where is she?" I complained.

She looked more offended than hurt.
"We're here," she confirmed succinctly, gesturing to the name on the door. Just then, a nurse rushed out, sobbing down the hallway. "Not again," the plump nurse sighed. "I'll send someone to wait for you outside," she offered as she went to consult the tearful man running away.

Oops.

I opened the door, expecting to see the rabid girl I last knew, hair chopped uneven, writhing against her chains keeping her to the bed or the wall. But what I saw was much, much worse.

"Hello, little brother," she smiled looking up from a book. Smiled. She was smiling, closed lips, at the person who locked her away. Her brother who locked her away. It was unsettling to say the least. "Come to gloat?"

I cleared my throat, "Actually I have a few questions."

"You want to know if I'm responsible for the little uprising you have on your hands," she stated, rather than asked.

"How do you know?" I shot.

"People talk," my sister shrugged. "This isn't prison, you know. I've got a nice little thing going here."

Yeah, I thought to myself. She probably has the whole island wrapped around her finger.

She continued in my discontented quiet. "You know I'm under 24 hour watch, brother. You know there's no way I could be operating an armed rebellion out of here. So tell me, what is it you're really here for?" Azula challenged smugly.

Yet I remained quiet. She went further into her monologue on my psyche. "Is it closure? Guilt? Curiosity? The only family you have left is locked away. Scared you'll face the same fate someday?"

"I don't have to listen to this. I've already beaten you, Azula," she let only the faintest hint of emotion show on her smug, deadly face, and then I saw it. There were chains. Metal ones, connecting her wrists and ankles to the bed. What for, I hoped not to find out. All that mattered was that I was in a position of power.

"Naive little Zuko," she laughed, it not occuring to her that I just experienced a revelation. But I let her go on just a little more. "You may have won that battle, but I will still be with you your whole life. That little thought in the back of your head. If I hadn't gone insane, would you still have beaten me? Or the guilt of putting that water tribe girl in danger. What if you missed that jump?"

She struck home.

"Don't bring Katara into this," I snarled.

"Everyone was right about you, Zuko. Now, I see why you're the laughing stock of anyone who ever called you Firelord."

"Well mother was right about you," I returned.

She snapped. My sister actually growled as she shot at me, her chains clanking as they resisted her advance. "Mother only ever loved you out of pity!" she shrieked. Two nurses ran in and attempted to restrain her. She continued to wail as I was escorted out the door. As I walked down the hallway, I still faintly heard her soul-cutting taunts.