The Phoenix Queen (reference for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
theposthumans plot) (forBR!AU)
Nov. 9th, 2010 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lessthanperfectThe escape from the Boiling Rock went as expected. Easily smuggled out by the Warden, Azula was finally, after six years, a free woman. And using the information given to her by her military supporters, she knew precisely what she had to do.
It was all too easy to surprise the Avatar and his party, then, on a deserted road in the Earth Kingdom. She and a group of elite firebenders given to her by one of Iroh's generals made quick work of their targets. Iroh was struck down trying to protect Zuko - the surprise attack had left him unguarded, but even unguarded he did what he could for his nephew. The Avatar...well, Aang went into the Avatar State unconsciously, in order to protect Zuko. But the Avatar State was no match for Azula's lightning. Both Aang and Zuko were savagely hit, and they both fell to the ground, their bodies smoldering from the hit. The two Water Tribers - Katara and Sokka - had been trying in some way to help the dying Iroh, but he beckoned them to take Aang and Zuko instead and to flee. Azula, knowing she had mortally struck the Avatar and also, that Zuko would die from his injuries, let them go. All the better that they left Iroh's body for her to take advantage of, she realized, and on the way to the capital she formulated a plan to ensure no one - no one - would question her or the war again.
A week later, the people of the Caldera were summoned to an announcement at the Royal Palace. Everyone expected Iroh to come out and announce the end of the war. Simultaneously, Azula's military supporters were summoned to Azula's side, with the expectation they would be rewarded by the young, inexperienced new ruler. To everyone's horror, however, Azula appeared on the balcony, presenting Iroh's burnt, charred body to the people below. Adding to the spectacle was Azula's first speech. Fire Lord Iroh, she claimed, had freed her from the imprisonment imposed by Azulon in an act of mercy, so that their family could be whole and honorable once again. But as they were returning to the capital with the Avatar, Iroh walked into a trap set by his own generals, all under the pay of the Earth Kingdom, and he, the Avatar, and Zuko had been killed so savagely only Iroh's body had been spared at all. Azula had been spared any injury, because, she claimed, the generals had expected her to obey them and make concessions to the Earth Kingdom. Even so far as to make the Fire Nation a vassal of the Earth Kingdom.
The story was a complete lie, but Azula had always been an effective liar. And the passion she pumped into her story had the intended effect - the people of the Fire Nation believed they were tricked, that the Earth Kingdom intended to destroy them, and that capitulation was wrong after all. It helped that Azula was careful to omit her true loathing of Iroh as the days went by and people became more and more desiring for revenge, even arranging for and pointedly Iroh's - and Zuko's - splendid funerals before even thinking of arranging her own coronation, which was of course low-key. So, within the first week of Azula's return to the capital, Azula's original group of supporters, those who had helped spring her out of prison, were executed as traitors, negotiations with the Earth Kingdom were severed and the war resumed in full swing. This time, there would be no holding back. It would be complete, and total victory for Azula, and everyone in the Fire Nation would give three times what they had given before to the war effort.
And she was popular, because of this, and because of other things she did. She had always been brilliant, and she put her brilliance to work, allowing women to serve as elite firebenders, abolishing non-bender discrimination laws, even setting up a program to provide for injured soldiers who could not re-join the army to aid them in finding other work. Naturally all of this work was war related, and war machines such as zeppelins (thanks to the Inventor, who was eventually made a captain in the Fire Nation army for his work) became more and more commonplace. She also forced the Earth Kingdom provinces under her control to not only re-swear allegiance to her, she also instituted an impress system on all men and women over the age of 13 in those territories, forcing hundreds to join the army or to become laborers on Fire Nation roads and in Fire Nation houses. Especially promising benders or children of certain powerful people in all areas were made to live and be trained as part of Azula's personal guard, as insurance that there would be no uprisings.
After Azula's ascension the war came to a close quickly. Renewed, restored and stronger than before, Azula's army once more went to lay siege to Ba Sing Se, three months after she came to the throne. But this time the giant siege force was a trick - two weeks before the army was set to arrive, Azula, disguised as a Kyoshi Warrior that had been captured in a raid, infiltrated the impenetrable city and gained an audience with the Earth King and his adviser, the General Secretariat Long Feng, on the day the siege started. When asked how they could handle the siege and how to push back the Fire Nation from someone who had apparently clashed with them before, Azula responded by summoning Long Feng's Dai Li - during her two weeks in disguise she had convinced Long Feng's entire network of agents to side with her, appealing to their sense of power and personal glory. King and adviser were promptly arrested and imprisoned under Lake Laogai - while the walls of Ba Sing Se opened for the Fire Nation to occupy, without a single shot fired. The war was effectively over, and soon after a far more ostentatious ceremony was held in the Fire Nation Capital. In front of her subjects, who believed her to be the savior of their country, Azula set the Earth King's crown aflame and was crowned once more - not as Fire Lord, but as Phoenix Queen, the Invincible Ruler of the Eternal Flame, the overlord of the world.
Azula, however, found she could not rest on her laurels. In fact, it was the Earth King who caused her sense of uncertainty - he mentioned an impending solar eclipse as part of his counterattack on the Fire Nation when she had been disguised as a Kyoshi Warrior. How he learned of it, he would not say. But Azula realized someone was going to try and use it to their advantage, and she prepared for this inevitable attack by bringing Dai Li agents to augment the earthbenders in her guard. The result was an easy repelling of the Invasion of Black Sun - and perfect justification for Azula to truly, once and for all, claim ownership of the world, as the attackers were from one of the Water Tribes. With that in mind, Azula prepared for an invasion of the Northern Water Tribe on the day Sozin's Comet would reappear in the sky - a mere four months away.
But not even the preparation of war could truly calm Azula's mind. More and more she began to wonder who it was who had found out about the eclipse, who would have reason to tell the Earth King. First she killed Long Feng. Then she had other imprisoned Earth Kingdom generals executed. Soon enough several of her own generals would feel her wrath, and even several of the Fire Sages were summarily executed for perceived treachery. Her mother and now her uncle, she saw and talked to in her mirror, yelled at, screamed at, to the confusion of her servants. Rumors, quickly squashed but not quickly enough, began to circulate about her mental instability, and the adoration of her people began to turn into fear once more. On the eve of what would be her ultimate triumph, the Invincible Ruler of the Eternal Flame could not stave off the insanity and paranoia that had festered in the Boiling Rock when she was simply the forgotten, tortured prisoner.
But nothing she had experience could have possibly prepared her for one fact that, if she knew it, would have simply destroyed her mind for good: The day before she arrived in Ba Sing Se, the Avatar and Zuko had been in the Earth King's presence.
Both had survived, through the simple fact that Azula had let Katara live. Azula had not known Katara was a waterbender. Nor did she know anything of the bottle of water Katara carried, a boon from her grandmother who, in her youth, had fled from the Northern Water Tribe. The water was from the Spirit Oasis, a gift given to Gram Gram by her betrothed, before she escaped from the suffocating misogyny of her birth culture. In Katara's hands it revived Aang from death and brought Zuko back from the brink of his own death. And now, they were traversing the globe, training, fighting - but also, now, waiting for the day they would face Azula once more. And, the next time, they vowed they would win the batle, and end the destructive war - for good.
It was all too easy to surprise the Avatar and his party, then, on a deserted road in the Earth Kingdom. She and a group of elite firebenders given to her by one of Iroh's generals made quick work of their targets. Iroh was struck down trying to protect Zuko - the surprise attack had left him unguarded, but even unguarded he did what he could for his nephew. The Avatar...well, Aang went into the Avatar State unconsciously, in order to protect Zuko. But the Avatar State was no match for Azula's lightning. Both Aang and Zuko were savagely hit, and they both fell to the ground, their bodies smoldering from the hit. The two Water Tribers - Katara and Sokka - had been trying in some way to help the dying Iroh, but he beckoned them to take Aang and Zuko instead and to flee. Azula, knowing she had mortally struck the Avatar and also, that Zuko would die from his injuries, let them go. All the better that they left Iroh's body for her to take advantage of, she realized, and on the way to the capital she formulated a plan to ensure no one - no one - would question her or the war again.
A week later, the people of the Caldera were summoned to an announcement at the Royal Palace. Everyone expected Iroh to come out and announce the end of the war. Simultaneously, Azula's military supporters were summoned to Azula's side, with the expectation they would be rewarded by the young, inexperienced new ruler. To everyone's horror, however, Azula appeared on the balcony, presenting Iroh's burnt, charred body to the people below. Adding to the spectacle was Azula's first speech. Fire Lord Iroh, she claimed, had freed her from the imprisonment imposed by Azulon in an act of mercy, so that their family could be whole and honorable once again. But as they were returning to the capital with the Avatar, Iroh walked into a trap set by his own generals, all under the pay of the Earth Kingdom, and he, the Avatar, and Zuko had been killed so savagely only Iroh's body had been spared at all. Azula had been spared any injury, because, she claimed, the generals had expected her to obey them and make concessions to the Earth Kingdom. Even so far as to make the Fire Nation a vassal of the Earth Kingdom.
The story was a complete lie, but Azula had always been an effective liar. And the passion she pumped into her story had the intended effect - the people of the Fire Nation believed they were tricked, that the Earth Kingdom intended to destroy them, and that capitulation was wrong after all. It helped that Azula was careful to omit her true loathing of Iroh as the days went by and people became more and more desiring for revenge, even arranging for and pointedly Iroh's - and Zuko's - splendid funerals before even thinking of arranging her own coronation, which was of course low-key. So, within the first week of Azula's return to the capital, Azula's original group of supporters, those who had helped spring her out of prison, were executed as traitors, negotiations with the Earth Kingdom were severed and the war resumed in full swing. This time, there would be no holding back. It would be complete, and total victory for Azula, and everyone in the Fire Nation would give three times what they had given before to the war effort.
And she was popular, because of this, and because of other things she did. She had always been brilliant, and she put her brilliance to work, allowing women to serve as elite firebenders, abolishing non-bender discrimination laws, even setting up a program to provide for injured soldiers who could not re-join the army to aid them in finding other work. Naturally all of this work was war related, and war machines such as zeppelins (thanks to the Inventor, who was eventually made a captain in the Fire Nation army for his work) became more and more commonplace. She also forced the Earth Kingdom provinces under her control to not only re-swear allegiance to her, she also instituted an impress system on all men and women over the age of 13 in those territories, forcing hundreds to join the army or to become laborers on Fire Nation roads and in Fire Nation houses. Especially promising benders or children of certain powerful people in all areas were made to live and be trained as part of Azula's personal guard, as insurance that there would be no uprisings.
After Azula's ascension the war came to a close quickly. Renewed, restored and stronger than before, Azula's army once more went to lay siege to Ba Sing Se, three months after she came to the throne. But this time the giant siege force was a trick - two weeks before the army was set to arrive, Azula, disguised as a Kyoshi Warrior that had been captured in a raid, infiltrated the impenetrable city and gained an audience with the Earth King and his adviser, the General Secretariat Long Feng, on the day the siege started. When asked how they could handle the siege and how to push back the Fire Nation from someone who had apparently clashed with them before, Azula responded by summoning Long Feng's Dai Li - during her two weeks in disguise she had convinced Long Feng's entire network of agents to side with her, appealing to their sense of power and personal glory. King and adviser were promptly arrested and imprisoned under Lake Laogai - while the walls of Ba Sing Se opened for the Fire Nation to occupy, without a single shot fired. The war was effectively over, and soon after a far more ostentatious ceremony was held in the Fire Nation Capital. In front of her subjects, who believed her to be the savior of their country, Azula set the Earth King's crown aflame and was crowned once more - not as Fire Lord, but as Phoenix Queen, the Invincible Ruler of the Eternal Flame, the overlord of the world.
Azula, however, found she could not rest on her laurels. In fact, it was the Earth King who caused her sense of uncertainty - he mentioned an impending solar eclipse as part of his counterattack on the Fire Nation when she had been disguised as a Kyoshi Warrior. How he learned of it, he would not say. But Azula realized someone was going to try and use it to their advantage, and she prepared for this inevitable attack by bringing Dai Li agents to augment the earthbenders in her guard. The result was an easy repelling of the Invasion of Black Sun - and perfect justification for Azula to truly, once and for all, claim ownership of the world, as the attackers were from one of the Water Tribes. With that in mind, Azula prepared for an invasion of the Northern Water Tribe on the day Sozin's Comet would reappear in the sky - a mere four months away.
But not even the preparation of war could truly calm Azula's mind. More and more she began to wonder who it was who had found out about the eclipse, who would have reason to tell the Earth King. First she killed Long Feng. Then she had other imprisoned Earth Kingdom generals executed. Soon enough several of her own generals would feel her wrath, and even several of the Fire Sages were summarily executed for perceived treachery. Her mother and now her uncle, she saw and talked to in her mirror, yelled at, screamed at, to the confusion of her servants. Rumors, quickly squashed but not quickly enough, began to circulate about her mental instability, and the adoration of her people began to turn into fear once more. On the eve of what would be her ultimate triumph, the Invincible Ruler of the Eternal Flame could not stave off the insanity and paranoia that had festered in the Boiling Rock when she was simply the forgotten, tortured prisoner.
But nothing she had experience could have possibly prepared her for one fact that, if she knew it, would have simply destroyed her mind for good: The day before she arrived in Ba Sing Se, the Avatar and Zuko had been in the Earth King's presence.
Both had survived, through the simple fact that Azula had let Katara live. Azula had not known Katara was a waterbender. Nor did she know anything of the bottle of water Katara carried, a boon from her grandmother who, in her youth, had fled from the Northern Water Tribe. The water was from the Spirit Oasis, a gift given to Gram Gram by her betrothed, before she escaped from the suffocating misogyny of her birth culture. In Katara's hands it revived Aang from death and brought Zuko back from the brink of his own death. And now, they were traversing the globe, training, fighting - but also, now, waiting for the day they would face Azula once more. And, the next time, they vowed they would win the batle, and end the destructive war - for good.
