Quillbending

Disclaimer: I do not own any of “Avatar: The Last Air Bender's” characters, fandom, etc. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for profit.

QUILLBENDING

A/N: I’m going through some of my old bits and pieces. I completely forgot about this one. Any critique is welcome. Thanks, Fate

Characters: Azula
Word Count: 652
Rating: PG13
Warning: Mild reference to a certain body part.

Envy

He had the one thing she didn’t have and couldn’t get. It infuriated her, that he could have it through no striving of his own, but through circumstance and birth, something entirely out of her ability to control. It didn’t matter if he was eldest, which he was, but hadn’t Father proved himself that that small disadvantage was negligible if you played your cards right? He had seized the throne denied him by birth and how could she do anything less? It was in her birthright, so to speak.

Fire was restless and ever-changing, ever-cleansing and ever-consuming. She consumed her weakness, as her brother allowed weakness to consume him. Poor little Zuzu. He didn’t, couldn’t, understand what true power required---all or nothing. And she was willing to give all. She had proven it time and again. She was unmatched, a fire-bending prodigy and master tactician. She used every weapon the Gods had given her---beauty, cunning, intelligence---to become what she was, unmatched, and unmatchable.

And still he had what she could never have, damn him. He was a fool and a weak, emotional one at that. She could pull on his heart-strings as easily as she could pull on a puppet’s strings and make him dance for her. He was much like a puppet or, perhaps, like one of the dolls she had set aside with lost childhood. She could manipulate him so easily---too easily. It was a shame, that he and she could come from the same blood, the same seed. The gods had favored her with all that could have been his, had he been ruthless enough to use them to his own advantage and not be used by them for hers.

But the irony of Fate was that he had been born with the one thing she had not. Such a little thing, or it had been, when last she saw it---when both of them were small and allowed to bathe together and shared the same lazy nurses who could not be bothered with bathing the children separately. She had teased him, and laughed, but the nurses had been quick to scold her, and she had learned from an early age what truly made a man a man. Not honor, not strength, not ability or intelligence, but a single, silly thing that hung absurdly in front of them instead of being neatly tucked away between their legs.

It was that which separated them, and made him---weak, foolish, emotional brat that he was---the heir and her just the spare, the other, the nothing. It was that which had had their father banish him from the Nation, and yet not from the throne, for darling Father, the humorless bastard, had refused to name another in Zuko’s place, though his shame was obvious, his very nature too pathetic to ever hold worthy the Iron Throne.

But he was a boy, and she was not, and that was the one thing she could never be, and was thus unacceptable in her father’s disdainful eyes. No matter what she did or how she proved herself, she could never be more than just a reminder that she was not what that poor, pathetic prince was---a man.

Unless she killed him. Then Father would have no choice but to name her heir, for there would be no other for him to name.

Sad, how brutal politics could be. She hadn’t wanted to kill him. He was her brother, after all. There was a time, long ago, when she had been small enough to fear the lightning storms of the monsoonal season and would crawl into his bed, shivering with terror, to be held by him and soothed into sleep. He was strong then, as she was not. Pity it was so different now that their roles had become reversed. But she now controlled the lightning, and she would control her own destiny.

The throne demanded no less.