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A Cursed Blessing	By : Yaoiandcoffeeaddict Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > AU/AR - Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality Views: 6940 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar Last Airbender or profit from this story... damn.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
INSANITY AND THE INSANE
Layer by layer the paint dissolved as Mai vigorously scrubbed it from her skin, leaving white, grey and pink spiral streaks that reminded her of smoke in the cleaning basin. How in the world could the Kyoshi Warriors stand to wear such makeup? Mai felt like the heaviness was suffocating her. The white paint had been like wearing another person’s skin, it was so uncomfortable. What was that old tale? The moose-lion in goat-sheep skin? Right now she felt like a mouse-termite, hiding within the infrastructure of the city with the make-up as her wood camouflage as she and the other two mouse-termites ate away at the ancient city piece by piece. She hated the fact she would have to reapply it tomorrow.
Mai sighed and looked up, catching her own weary reflection in the old, warped mirror of the boarding house bathroom. The middle-aged owner was obviously not wealthy to buy a new one, which Mai suspected as he had let herself, Azula, and Ty-Lee stay in the room without any payment. He was a charitable man that one, something Mai was not used to. She planned to slip him some money before they left anyway.
“Hey, Azula, what are we going to do now?” Mai heard Ty-Lee’s somewhat muffled high-pitch voice ask through the thin wood of the bathroom door. “I mean… are we really going to try and take over Ba Sing Se?”
“Of course, Ty-Lee,” responded Azula. “This is the last city in the Earth Kingdom to remain undefeated. It is our duty as citizens of the Fire Nation to put an end to their disturbing ways and let them see the error of their ways.”
“But what about Zuko?” Ty-Lee asked.
Mai froze. She opened the door slightly to hear Azula’s answer better. From the small crack she saw Ty-Lee was hanging upside down off the of the bed closest to Azula as she sat in front of an old vanity and brushed sections of her long dark-brown hair in preparation for bed.
“What about dear Zuzu?” Azula said, not taking her eyes off the striking teen in the mirror.
“Well, he’s going to marry the Earth King. Doesn’t that mean Ba Sing Se will be part of the Fire Nation if royal blood is on the throne?” Ty-Lee asked.
Azula snorted. “That would mean Father acknowledging and condoning what a disgusting creature Zuzu is and admitting to our subjects a member of the royal family had not done the honorable thing and killed himself.”
“Then what will happen to him?” Ty-Lee asked, sitting up and turning over to lie on her stomach on the worn bed.
Azula’s hands paused for a moment, the exquisite gold dragon brush in line with her delicate, pointy chin before Azula turned in Mai’s direction and startled her. “Did you get off all the make-up, Mai?”
Mai was proud she did not flinch as she opened the door completely and exited the bathroom. “As much as possible. I don’t know how those girls weren’t bothered by the weight of all that paint on their face.”
“Then why don’t you join us?” Azula asked, her eyes glinting with paranoia. “Unless you wish to continue to lurk in that doorway?”
Mai knew better than respond as Ty-Lee giggled and moved over to make room for Mai on the bed. Mai sat down on the edge and stared straight ahead over Azula’s left shoulder to her own reflection and saw the mask of indifference was seated perfectly on her face. Who knew what Azula would do if she thought Mai was worried about Zuko? He’d always been nice to her when they had been kids and, despite knowing that he was cursed, she still had a small crush on him.
The reflection of Azula’s golden gaze snapped to meet Mai’s face. “So, Mai, what do you think I should do with Zuzu?”
Mai hesitated, keeping her face as blank as any apathetic advisor should as she worked out the diplomatic words in her mind. “I believe the decision is your family’s, Azula.”
Calculating eyes withdrew as Azula hummed in agreement. “True,” Azula replied with a smirk. “I suppose this is a private family matter.” Ty-Lee pouted at the lack of a clear answer as the beautiful hairbrush resumed its work. After a few seconds filled with only the soft hiss of the brush moving through the dark curtain, Azula’s tension dimmed before being stopped once again by an off mark made by Ty-Lee.
The instant Ty-Lee shot up with a wide expression on her face, Mai knew something was going to go wrong. “Azula, what if he’s pregnant?” Ty-Lee asked.
The brush clattered to the floor without any facial twitch to correspond to its cruel treatment. “What?” Azula asked, evenly. Mai’s entire body went rigid and chills engulfed her.
Ty-Lee lowered her eyes and bit her lip, knowing she asked the entirely wrong thing. “I know Zuko needs to be punished but what if he is carrying your niece or nephew?” Ty-Lee’s arms went into a cradling position. “I mean, would you turn him over if he had a tiny little baby inside of him? What if your dad decides to kill Zuko after he has the kid and the baby grows up without its moth…”
Before either could realize it, the hairbrush was snatched up and flung at Ty-Lee with such force that pieces broke off as Ty-Lee yelped in pain and fell off the bed, grasping her injured shoulder. Mai turned back to find Azula looking at Ty-Lee with such fury, her beautiful face had transformed into the harsh furrows one saw in the faces of dragon statues. “Never speak of such things again!”
Mai shook her head slightly as Azula returned to her mirror. Ty-Lee knew that particular word was off limits, especially when they were discussing Zuko.
----
For the one of the few times since he had come to the palace, Zuko found himself rising with the dawn again. The beautiful golds, reds, pinks, and purples could be seen from the small window of the dining area. Uncle was already up, a new, beautifully embellished ceramic tea kettle with a badger mole theme on the stove. Seeing Zuko’s curiosity, Uncle had simply smiled and said, “It’s a present from your fiancé. It was on the table this morning.” Zuko had an image of Kuei and Uncle having daily tea ceremonies and stuffing their faces with the customary delicate tea sweets he remembered his Uncle giving him as a child.
A part of Zuko was pleased his Uncle was happy and enjoying comforts similar to what Uncle once had in the Fire Nation despite the nagging doubt concerning Zuko’s own place within this foreign court. A slight smile tugged at Zuko’s lips as he sat down in his seat and was served a hot cup of a tea before the servants entered with breakfast.
A messenger arrived at the doors of the Jade suite two hours past dawn, interrupting Uncle’s lesson on mediation with the soft knocks. Zuko had risen to his feet first but it was Uncle Iroh who answered the door. “How may I help you, young man?” Uncle asked the middle-aged, uniformed official on the other side of the door, who bowed to the pair as he held out a small scroll tied with a delicate green and gold ribbon.
“I have been entrusted with this message from His Highness for Prince Zuko and Prince Iroh.”
Uncle smiled lightly and took the offered scroll with a soft, “Thank you,” before closing the door on the messenger and untying the ribbon and stuffing the ribbon into his robe. (What his Uncle wanted with that ribbon, Zuko didn’t want to know.) Then he carefully unrolled the paper and skimmed the beginning of the message. The shift in Uncle’s posture was subtle but Zuko immediately noted the change in mood despite the fact Uncle’s small smile remained.
After several minutes of silence, Zuko grew impatient. “Well?” he growled in irritation.
Uncle’s eyes met his as he handed over the message. “The rehearsal for your wedding is going to be this afternoon,” he summarized.
Zuko froze, a numb sensation taking over his body. Why he felt like he had just fallen off a mountain, he didn’t know. He’d been expecting the wedding rehearsal to come, just not this soon. This would be it. In the Fire Nation, a wedding rehearsal for royalty was, in reality, the actual wedding. The first ceremony was for intimacy and to allow for mistakes. The second was for the people and the entire court. If the same practice was done here, he would officially be a part of the Earth Kingdom by nightfall and expected to seal the deal in Kuei’s bed. “I… I see,” Zuko replied lamely.
Uncle walked over and placed a reassuring hand on Zuko’s shoulders. “Everything will be fine Zuko.”
The rest of the day passed in a blur of anxiety and doubt as people wandered in and out of the suite to prepare him. First there was a very thorough bath. Zuko was never one to enjoy strong scents, so never thought there could be so many different types of oils and that those oils would be applied in so many… places. Then a brown pigment was placed in an intricate design on his stomach. Next a middle aged man came in and applied a thin layer of make-up, highlighting his good eye and pinning a gold ornament of lace so that it shadowed his burn.
Next, he was wrapped and fitted into his rehearsal gown and his uncle was handing him something to drink that definitely was not tea. By the end of all the preparation, he was escorted by Dai Li dressed in formal uniform down a hallway to a room he had never been in before. Unlike other rooms in the palace, this room was small and painted blue with white accents and golden oak furniture. The colors were oddly soothing, but Zuko could not relax in the small sitting room as he kept his gaze on the plain, undecorated doors of opposite the ones he had just come through.
Zuko did not know how long he waited before the doors finally opened to reveal the King Kuei by himself. The King’s appearance was not all that different from the norm. His hair was still styled in a long braid down his back; his simple crown was still perched on his head; and his tiny glasses still sat on the bridge of his nose. What had changed was the long, undecorated, white robe.
Zuko turned to gaze back at the Dai Li guard and found they had vanished.
He was alone with the man who was to become his husband before the ceremony.
Or was this the ceremony?
“Zuko,” Kuei began as he approached him with a smile and took Zuko’s left hand in his, “you look wonderful.”
Zuko bit down the urge to blush and asked, “So what happens now?”
Kuei smiled softly and, so quickly Zuko hardly noticed it had happened, he removed the lace ornament on Zuko’s head and tossed it into a nearby seat. Kuei’s gentle face leans into his and their foreheads gently touch. Zuko closes his eyes and allows himself a moment to enjoy the feeling of contentment emanating from the man in front of him. Thin but soft lips brush his scar as a soft voice replies, “We burn.”
“What?”
Suddenly the entire image shifts as Kuei’s form dissolves into darkness. Calm walls morph into angry and powerful reds and Zuko is alone, his betrothal clothes in rags as he finds himself kneeling in front of an empty, ancient throne as a strange sound echoes behind him. Zuko’s blood is boiling and his heart begins to hammer his ribs. The fire in front of the throne dances and jumps higher and higher as a hissing sound draws closer and closer.
Zuko aches to look behind him, but fear of both what the unknown creature could be and the ever threatening fire in front of him freezes him in place. The only part of his body that moves are his fingers, which extend and curl in anticipation.
Finally, a long fingered hand with ugly, pointed, yellow and brown fingernails slides into Zuko’s vision and stroke the rough skin of Zuko’s scar. Even before the voice speaks Zuko knows who stands behind him. “You always were a disappointment Zuko.” The index finger of the hand trails down his face to his neck. “From the moment you were born, I knew you would lead to my death.”
Zuko’s eyes widen as the face that slides into view is not his father’s.
“No, Mother, I…”
“But I loved you anyway.” The sharp clack of the heeled sandals echo as his mother comes around to the front as the royal flames lick the ceiling. “I killed the Fire Lord for your safety and then I killed myself because I followed the laws of our nation.” The blood on her stomach is now visible to Zuko, trickling down the gold and red fabric like small beads of rain, the mark of an honorable suicide. The once beautiful face is decaying into greens and whites like the skin of the dead horse-goat he came across in the desert. But the face is full of sadness, not anger. “If you marry the Earth King, you betray not only our nation but lead to the destruction of both.”
Guilt and disbelief consume him as he stares at the rotting form.
“Marriage between the two nations is not going to solve the problems. There have already been several marriages between the two nations and they have not solved the problem. Just like my death did not save my child from all harm.” The royal flames drop to gentle flickers as the form morphs into the pristine image of his mother when she was alive. “It only made your father and sister resent you.”
“Nothing is ever simple, Zuko. Your marriage or death will not help change minds. Only what you do with your life will.” His mother gave him a smile that was so warm and loving, that he felt like he was in the warmth of her embrace again. “If you marry the Earth King, he will only prevent you from your destiny.”
“My destiny?” Zuko repeated as the scene changed to one of the familiar shorelines of Ember Island and he found himself dressed only in a loose light green cotton robe. He reached up to remove a long string obscuring his vision, only to discover it was his own hair, longer and silkier than it had been before the Agni Kai. He caught sight of himself in a still tidal pool and found he looked like he had aged almost ten years.
His mother appeared at his side and removed his hand from his hair gently before clasping it and leading him down the sandy road, their bare feet sinking into the mush. “Kuei and Iroh wish to protect you, but just because your body can bear children does not mean you need protecting.” The smell of the warm sea and feel of the warm sun evoked long forgotten memories of happier times. His sister hunting for sand crabs to place on him. His father twirling his mother around as they laughed, a scene completely different from the distant royal couple at the palace. “They wish to lock you behind the mighty walls as you bear powerful heirs for the Earth Kingdom.”
Zuko looked down into one of the tidal pools and saw himself sitting in the small, secluded private garden looking much the same, only with slightly longer hair, a fuller face and pregnant with a doting Kuei stroking Zuko’s stomach, an expression of awe on his face as his uncle came into view carrying a message with a smile as the sun reflected off his armor.
The next tidal pool showed ten years down the line. The belly of his future self was large once again as a trio of boys with Kuei’s eyes and lips of about nine, seven, and six trained in both fire and earth bending under Uncle Iroh’s instruction in what looked to be the courtyard of the Fire Lord’s palace.
The next pool showed another ten years and he was nowhere to be seen. But the three boys were now teenagers with hardened eyes were shouting out orders to servants as a tiny child that looked exactly like Zuko but the boy had pale green eyes instead of gold was gently led down the hall by a dark skinned little boy with big ears as an older Aang argued with them. As Zuko watched he realized the servants were from every living nation.
When Zuko turned back, he found his mother to be replaced by an old, regal man with the emblem of the Fire Prince in his top knot. His gnarled hand had a firm grasp on Zuko’s hand. Avatar Roku. “You die two years after giving birth to your fourth son, a Blessed One like yourself. Kuei follows a year later with a broken heart and your children grow up under the thumb of the Council of Five, who believe the Earth Kingdom should run the world so it can protect people like yourself. The world trades one evil for another. Avatar Aang tries to prevent it but it is too late and the council imprisons him for treason.”
The last pool showed the abuse the Earth Kingdom aristocracy reaps on the conquered peoples. The extreme class system seen in Ba Sing Se was even worse on a mass scale. Thin Fire Nation farmers handed sacks of grain to plump Earth Kingdom nobles as they were forcibly tied to the land more deeply than before, fire and water bending were forbidden, resources of other nations were depleted to build homes for the rich of the Earth Kingdom, the more beautiful young girls and boys torn from their families and made wives or mistresses to nobles… Then chaos and destruction as Fire Nation cities disappear beneath the ground, Earth Kingdom cities flood and the Northern and Southern Water Tribes’s structures melt and the inhabitants burn.
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” commented Avatar Roku. He let go of Zuko’s hand and clasped his shoulder. “You have a greater destiny than simply bearing children. You are destined to change your people’s hatred and shame of Blessed Ones and their ideals of the world. But you must also help your sister, Zuko.”
“My sister?” Zuko repeated with disbelief, trying to not shudder at the thought of her. “But she’s insane!”
“Yes,” the older man agreed. “Like Fire Lord Sozin before her, turning your back on her only leads to the destruction of both her and others. But her inner fire can be harnessed for good as well, Zuko.”
“How?”
“Give her what she craves- love. Unconditional love.”
Zuko’s stomach churned in fear. “But she… she’ll kill me the minute she sees me.”
Avatar Roku chuckled, “She may try but the truth is she really doesn’t want you dead. Is there not a part of you that loves her?”
“Of course,” Zuko said, surprising himself. “I… I may have been jealous of the attention and praise but… I…part of me still loves my sister.”
“And that is how you will save the world. If you can change her heart, a heart so twisted by rage, jealousy and loneliness, you can change the heart of your people.” Avatar Roku took his hand again and gently lead him away from the pools. “She will come to the palace for the engagement feast tonight in disguise. Do not tip off the King, the Avatar, or even your uncle that you have spotted her but lead her away from the crowd. Once alone, try talking with her. As soon as you are close enough to her, reach out.”
“And it will work?” Zuko asked, disbelieving the solution to be so simple.
“It’s a start. As soon as she is convinced you will give her what she craves, she will be a powerful ally and will call an end to the war.”
----
Zuko shot up in bed, his head reeling under the weight of the images he had been shown. Had it been real or was it pre-wedding jitters? Zuko shook his head to clear it. Surely, the spirits, even the spirit of an Avatar, would never believe Azula would help him.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and made sure his sleeping robe was tied and straightened before opening the door to the main area.
Beautiful golds, reds, pinks, and purples could be seen from the small window of the dining area. Uncle was already up, humming a merry tune as he measured the right amount of tea leaves into the tea kettle. Zuko felt a lump in his throat when he realized it was the beautifully embellished ceramic tea kettle with a badger mole theme from his dream on the stove.
Uncle turned and saw his gaze on the new piece. He smiled and said, “It’s a present from your fiancé. It was on the table this morning.”
TBC
a/n: sorry for the many months that have gone by but my new job was depressing me too much and I didn’t feel the drive to write.
- 11
- 12
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A Cursed Blessing