Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ Eve of the Eclipse ❯ Vignette ( Chapter 1 )

AN: Thank you to silverontherose for the beta read.

 

 

Eve of the Eclipse

 

Some scars never healed. They were a visual plight on the outside, setting off loaded first impressions with whomever he met. His eye was raw within the scar, but he didn't feel physical pain anymore. The burn ached with memory of what his father had done. Sometimes, the memory itself ached raw too.

 

He had another scar that had healed, physically, but had left a mark underneath his skin, aching with a residual pain within inner tissue and bone. This scar, which used to be a set of three slash marks across his left forearm, had healed in time, but still ached when the sun was the highest of the year or when the army led troops out to battle.

 

Sometimes this scar burned when his sister looked at him, calculating his demise in her mind - coating their conversations with sweet, oily fallacies and lies.

 

It was the scar Azula had given him for the first time. It was her first offensive strike against him, even within a harmless, sparring arena. Though there had always been verbal sparring between them, nothing stung more than the first time Azula had painted her fire across his youthful flesh.

 

He felt his stomach plummet. He remembered her snide look as their mother took him into her arms. He tried not to cry, but he couldn't hold back the tears. They streamed down his face as he looked at his sister with shock, disgust, and finally, hatred. He'd never thought he'd feel that way about her before. She'd always been a brat, but after that, Zuko knew she was so much more. She strived for it, and she was his father's perfect little weapon.

 

She had been proud to harm him too. She called it a victory, even though their sparring wasn't supposed to hurt. She made the excuse that the fire just came out, and she couldn't control it well yet. Zuko knew that was the first lie among many to come. He knew that Azula had started fire bending early, and that his father had been training her late at nights while Mother was asleep.

 

It was the first of many spiritual scars that Azula would give him, but this scar always felt the worst.

 

---

 

Suddenly, Zuko woke up with a start when he realized there was an alien weight in his bed. His breath was caught in his throat when he realized who his visitor was.

 

“Still asleep, Zuzu?” His sister purred, inviting herself under his warm covers with her cold legs. She even sounded menacing in the softest of whispers.

 

He sneered at her. “What are you doing? Get out, Azula!” His body went rigid as a board, and he felt nausea pool in the pit of his stomach. He gasped when her delicate finger traced down his cheek. She cackled at him, leaning in closer. Her lips were close to his, and he could feel her warm breath trace over his skin.

 

“What? Can't I say goodnight to my brother? What kind of sister would I be if I didn't tuck you in?”

 

“Not my sister; not you,” he growled. He shifted away from her to a colder spot in the bed. It was definitely better than her wandering fingers and ice cold toes scraping at his shins.

 

“Hrmm… I heard something today. Do you want to know what it is?” She changed the subject, but continued to touch him incessantly. He started to feel some lines being crossed, but with Azula there was no line taboo enough for her games. She had a plan to squeeze something out of him, and unless she had become a mind reader in a day's time, she wouldn't have learned anything about his motives.

 

“I don't care about mindless gossip. Go to bed, Azula.” Zuko turned on his side away from her, feigning indifference. He hated to admit but her extreme proximity made him feel oddly warm yet numb, and the notion that she'd push him just a little more electrified his adrenaline into unhealthy territory.

 

He hated to admit, but he and his sister had always had a … perplexing relationship filled with incomprehensible implications.

 

Though, when he guessed silence was on his side, he was startled again when Azula leaned in and embraced him from behind, squeezing her chest against his back. His eyes widened, and he felt his blood literally freeze.

 

“Azula…?” The question came out in a choke, and suddenly, she was winning this game. He could feel her smiling behind him, and odds teetering to her favor only incensed him more.

 

Quickly, he spun around and grabbed her arms, pinning her under him. He raged at her, “What… are you doing in here, Azula? What do you want from me?”

 

Azula's face was expressionless, plastered with a faux smile. Zuko flinched. She was completely relaxed under his grasp.

 

“Are you going to betray father tomorrow when the rebels attack?” A soft, controlled hand caressed his face. The old unseen scar she'd once given him on his arm pulsated with a fiery pain, and he had to prevent himself from wincing. He hated this. He hated her. Once again, she was tugging for his control.

 

“I'd be upset, Zuzu; after all the things I've done for you: convincing Father that you killed the Avatar, bringing you back into this family when you were an outcast, and then regaining your honor. Are you going to disappoint me and throw away everything I've given you?” Her hand rested on his shoulder, and her hard eyes watched him, awaiting his answer.

 

“What?” he asked in a mangled whisper. Were they really that close? Did she know his every intention - his every thought? Or was Azula just displaying some kind of fancy guess work?

 

There was no way she could really know what his plans were during the solar eclipse. He hadn't told anyone, and he'd only just decided recently to make a move.

 

So how could she…?

 

“I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't need to explain anything to you,” he answered her bitterly.

 

“Hrmm… oh really?” Her lips formed a cat-like smile. She lifted her chin, watching him with doubt. “I hope for your sake you're right. I'd hate to have to fight you again someday and give you another scar that you would just whine about.” She glanced momentarily at his arm where she first burned him and met his gaze again. She dropped her hands listlessly by her head and let out an exaggerated sigh.

 

“You can release me now, Zuzu. I promise I won't hurt you,” she said, adding to her words by arching her chest against his for a moment, and then exhaling into a content pose. She stared at him, still relaxed while being pinned under his weight. He felt his energy freeze, and he stared at her hair as it fanned out underneath her head.

 

“What… the hell is wrong with you?” he asked, slowly getting off her. When she was free, she turned around and rested on her side. Her eyes were still so cold, unchanging and confident.

 

“Just remember what I said, brother,” she said, the last word was intoned with menace. Zuko watched her dumbfounded, and she slithered out of his bed toward the hallway, throwing him a mysterious glance over her shoulder, as if it to drive her warning further.

 

That night, Zuko couldn't sleep, despite the pinnacle day that loomed ahead of him.

 

--

 

He rose early that morning, pushing aside the ache and lethargy from a sleepless night. He looked outside his window, and he felt a cold sensation in his power as he glanced at the rising sun.

 

His father and sister had little idea what he had in store for them today. Azula's suspicions last night clawed at his mind, and he feared that she really had gotten inside his head. Thinking of her only made his old unseen scar ache worse, but he couldn't let her get to him.

 

There had to be a day when it was no longer about her, and today was that day.

 

It didn't matter if Azula would succeed him in the throne. It didn't matter if she was a better fire bender and fighter than he was.

 

He knew that after the eclipse today, he would be the better person, but thoughts alone did nothing. He had to act, and he would defy them all for the destiny that would no longer elude him.

 

He looked down at the smooth skin of the arm where Azula first burned him, and inwardly, he scoffed.

 

Her mind games wouldn't matter anymore. The destruction and villainy of his kingdom were beneath him. Redemption would be the salve to heal even the deepest wounds.

 

Once he joined with the Avatar, his destiny to do justice was the only thing that would matter - leaving his scars behind as nothing more than mere memories.

 

END