The Broken Throne by Nephthys Moon

Ch 1. The Crossroads of Destiny

"I thought you had changed!" she shouted, feeling her heart in her throat as she stared across the greenly glowing cavern. Aang was forgotten, as was Azula. All that existed was the boy in front of her, the one she had just minutes before offered to heal, physically and emotionally.

"I have changed," he growled. She bit back the tears and prepared another strike, ignoring everything but taking out her anger and betrayal on Zuko. She reared back to strike again, but she was suddenly caught between him and his sister, slamming into an outcropping of crystal and too stunned to stand. She struggled for the strength to rise, knowing that if she did not get up, she would die where she lay. If she could just get up, she could continue to fight. Even as she saw the Dai Li agents surround her, she still pulled herself to her feet, her eyes glittering with hatred and betrayal at Zuko. She would not die on her back, a coward who had given up.

She pulled water from the canal nearest her and pushed herself into an octopus form, prepared to defend and strike back until she died. She struck several Dai Li agents with the tentacles before she, and everyone else in the cave were frozen, watching in awe as Aang rose into the air, hovering a dozen feet above the ground, his eyes and tattoos aglow, fully in control of the Avatar State at last. Katara smiled proudly as she watched him continue to rise, the entire cavern lit by the shine of his tattoos.

A faint crackle of electricity was the only warning, a flickering light that was nearly indiscernible from the glow emanating from Aang, but she knew, instantly, what it meant. She shouted a warning to Aang and ran towards Azula, determined to stop the evil Fire Nation princess before she could strike Aang when the rocks above her head suddenly came raining down upon her.

The smoke cleared but the glow remained, and in it she could see the stunned figure of Azula, her small hands pinned behind her back by her much-larger uncle. Iroh was straddling what appeared to be the dead body of his nephew and Katara's heart fell from her throat to her stomach as she grasped what had happened and she tried to process it, but before she could, she felt herself being swept away, engulfed by a wave of water that surrounded her. The water was glowing, and she felt the cuts and scrapes of the past hour washed away in a healing rush. She looked for Aang, but she couldn't see him; she wanted to shout, to tell him they couldn't leave Iroh, not after he'd helped them. And Zuko's body couldn't be left for Azula to desecrate, either.

Though it couldn't have been more than a few minutes, it seemed like hours that she floated in the water as it swept them away from the battle, and though her wounds had healed almost instantly, it continued to glow with healing energy. Finally, the water ceased its flow and she saw Aang, the Avatar State gone, swaying gently as he reached for his whistle to call Appa to them. Iroh knelt at the ground near his feet, bending over his nephew's chest, which was marred by a gaping wound over his heart.

"Katara, I tried to help him, but I'm not as good at healing as you are," Aang said as he raised the whistle to his lips. She walked slowly, staring at the hole, knowing that the chances of Zuko surviving such an injury were slim. In spite of his betrayal, he had risked his life to save Aang, and she couldn't not try, at least, to save his in return.

"You are a healer?" Iroh asked, his raspy voice sounding far more hoarse than usual, and Katara knew that he was aware of the severity of the situation – knew that Iroh knew there was little she could do for his nephew except make his last moments, if he weren't already dead, more comfortable.

As she knelt across from Iroh and pulled water from the skin on her hip across her hands, infusing it with her healing energies, she felt a tugging at her neck and stared in some surprise as Iroh pulled on the amulet Master Pakku had given her.

"What is this?" he asked, but his eyes had narrowed. "This is from the Spirit World," he breathed a moment later. Katara nodded and reached up to remove the amulet's cap, bending the small amount of water in her hand and passing it over the wound in Zuko's chest. She could see three ribs through the burn on his skin, and below that was his heart. It was still. She focused on his heart, pushing the water into the muscle and willing it to move, willing the water to have the ability to start a stopped heart. She felt the muscle move under her hands, felt the blood flowing through his arteries again as he opened his eyes briefly and looked at her.

A thud pulled her attention away from his flickering eyelids and she looked up to see Appa, carrying Sokka and Toph, land nearby. Toph jumped to the ground and her feet stopped.

"We need to get Sparky out of here," she shouted, lifting the ground below him into a makeshift stretcher. Aang assisted her, guiding the slab to the top of Appa's saddle and Sokka lifted the older boy from it, laying him gently down. With Aang's assistance, they all climbed onto the saddle and Aang took the reins.

"Head for Chameleon Bay," Sokka shouted. "Dad will know what to do!" Aang looked back at her for confirmation, and she nodded before turning her attention back to healing the worst of Zuko's injuries as best she could.

"Don't you dare die on me," she muttered to him, ignorant of the looks Iroh and Sokka were giving her as well as the smile on Toph's face. "Don't even think about it."

He smiled slightly in response, and she felt her own lips quirk up to match his.

And then his breath left in a soft whoosh, and Katara screamed.

***

Hakoda's head snapped up. A woman had screamed somewhere nearby, he knew he'd heard it. From the way his warriors were watching the surrounding area, he knew they'd heard it to. Suddenly, Bato shouted and pointed upwards, and he watched as the Avatar's bison began its descent towards him. His eyes did an inventory of the passengers, making sure his son and daughter were alive and upright, relieved to find Sokka sitting in the front of the beast's saddle, looking shell-shocked but fine – but Katara and the small Earthbender were towards the back of the saddle, the smaller girl crying silently and patting an older man on the shoulder while his daughter leaned over something lying at the bottom of the saddle, something the rest of them were staring at in despair. And all he could think was that this could not be good.

"Is your sister alright?" he shouted up to his son as Sokka attempted to assist the blind girl in getting to the ground. Sokka shook his head and Hakoda grabbed his son by the shoulders and shook him. "What's wrong with your sister?" he demanded, pushing the boy aside to try to climb the beast himself.

"I think she lost him," Sokka said quietly. Four hours ago, he wouldn't have cared if Zuko died. But Iroh had explained, quietly, what Zuko had done in the catacombs. Trying to redirect lighting, he'd said, was a difficult task for even the most accomplished Firebender, but for one whose loyalties were torn, as Zuko's were, it was nearly impossible. And yet he'd tried. Zuko had tried to save Aang.

For a brief moment, Sokka had wondered if it had merely been a way for him to outshine his sister and bring the Avatar back to the Fire Nation himself, but now he realized it didn't matter what the motives. Zuko had risked his life to save Aang's – and it looked like he might have lost it, as well. Sokka looked up from his feet and saw Aang and Toph lowering Zuko on a slab of rock, Katara bending herself to the ground on a slide of ice and instructing them to move him to their father's tent without so much as acknowledging that Hakoda was standing next to her. She lifted the flap from the outside and made room for them to lower Zuko onto the rugs.

"I need furs," she said to no one in particular. "Aang, I need as much water as you can get from the bay. Get all the sand and salt out of it with Earthbending, Toph. I need it to be pure. Sokka, build up Dad's fire. General Iroh, if you could please come with me," she added in a much kinder tone as she entered the tent. The others rushed around to obey her orders, but Sokka recognized the look his father's eyes and knew that the General was more than capable of building up the fire in the tent.

"General Iroh?" Hakoda asked menacingly, and Sokka knew that his explanation would have to be damn good or his father was going to haul Katara out of that tent by her hair and demand answers from her himself.

"It's a really, really long story, Dad," he said. He was exhausted and felt as though he'd aged ten years in the past few hours.

"Well, I'm obviously not going to sleep any time soon," Hakoda put in wryly, "so get to it, son."

Sokka 'got to it' explaining as fully as he could what he knew of the events from the time he'd left his father's camp until he'd arrived back at it. "There's stuff I don't know, Dad," he admitted. "Katara was missing a long time, and so was Zuko – Aang said they were in prison together. He said Zuko turned on them, but that he saved him, too. I don't know what to make of it."

"So you're telling me that my daughter – my little girl – is in my tent right now alone with two Firebenders of the royal family while you're sitting outside explaining things to me and her two idiot friends are getting water so she can heal one of them?"

***

"General, his heart is barely beating," she said when they were alone. "The Spirit Water got it started again, but I don't know how long he has. I'm so sorry."

"What can you do?" Iroh asked, holding tears at bay. A story he'd heard years ago was whispering through his brain, but he wasn't sure if it was appropriate or even wise to tell the girl across the slab of earth from him the details.

"Without more Spirit Water, I don't know how much I can do. My healing is a natural ability, but my training is rudimentary, at best," she admitted. "So far I've only ever had to use it for minor injuries. With something like this, I'm not even sure what to do, honestly."

He thought for long moments. It was true, the information he was about to give her was dangerous. If used as a weapon, it was devastating. But if she could use it for healing purposes, then perhaps she could still save Zuko. He closed his eyes briefly and decided. The moon was full, thank Agni, and the girl in front of him would most likely never think to use the ability he was about to teach her as a weapon. She didn't have it in her.

"What about his blood?" he asked finally. It was possible that the technique was something that was learned in the Water Tribes and never spoken of.

"His blood? I don't know anything about blood, General," she said, bewildered. He decided she was either a very good actress or she truly did not know.

"Blood is mostly water, Miss Katara," he said quietly, praying to Agni that she would never use this as a weapon. "A powerful Waterbender, such as yourself, with the power of the full moon behind her should be able to bend the blood in his body to keep it flowing and use her other abilities to heal his wounds."

"Bend his blood?" she asked, horrified. Thank you, Agni.

"Can you do it?" he asked and she shook her head violently for a moment before stopping and shrugging.

"I don't know," she said at last, "but I can try."

"Thank you."

Iroh watched in fascination as the slip of a girl in front of him pulled water from one of the pots that the Avatar brought to her with one hand and placed the other over Zuko's heart. Her eyes closed in concentration, and the water covered one hand, which passed over the wound in his nephew's chest, hear his heart. Iroh closed his eyes and listened for the familiar sound of Zuko's inner fire, that tiny heartbeat that distinguished a Firebender from a non-bender. He couldn't be sure what the Waterbender was doing, but it was working. The inner fire was growing stronger and so was Zuko's breath. He opened his eyes and saw that the wound that had covered his nephew's chest had closed; though it was still raw and red, his ribs were no longer visible through it. He reached out barely in time to stop Katara from falling into it as she passed out.

***

"So you killed Zuko?" Ty Lee asked, her voice quavering slightly.

"Of course I did," Azula answered without a trace of remorse. "He was a traitor. He would never have been welcomed back. He saved the Fire Nation from housing a royal prisoner, if Father didn't kill him the minute we stepped on shore, anyway. Besides, he tried to stop my lightning. I wasn't aiming for him," she added, as though this made everything alright.

"Good riddance," Mai said softly, but Ty Lee knew that she was lying. Mai had always liked Zuko, even when they were all children. And she knew that Mai harbored no illusions about what Azula was. But when she had come to both of them, scant months before, and asked them to join her, she'd drawn a line in the sand. If you were on Azula's side, then you could live. If you weren't, she'd make sure that you didn't. It didn't matter that Azula's side was the side of evil; Ty Lee was well aware of the menacing, heartless aura that came off of her 'friend'. But it wasn't just her own life she'd wanted to spare in joining Azula; it was that of her family, her sisters, and her friends at the circus. Azula wouldn't have killed her; no it was much easier to get rid of those she cared about until Ty Lee had no choice but to cross that line. Ty Lee sometimes wondered about Mai, honestly, but she could see the good deep inside the girl's gloomy exterior and she wanted to live to see it come to the surface, so she kept her mouth shut.

"Oh, and here I thought you harbored a soft spot for my big brother, Mai," Azula taunted, malice flashing in her eyes.

"There is no place in this world for traitors, Azula," Mai said, and even Azula seemed a bit taken aback by the ice in the girl's tone.

"Good, because I'd hate to think you were mourning his loss. It is my gain, and therefore yours as well," Azula continued. "I will need you more than ever, Mai – and you, too, Ty Lee. But for now, leave me. I want to savor my victory in peace. The Earth Kingdom has fallen." She could not know that she was echoing the words of the deposed Earth King mere hours later. Ty Lee bounded from the room, Mai following her at a more sedate pace, and neither noticed that instead of a triumphant expression, Azula's face was definitely brooding, and the look belonged more on her dead brother than it did her.

For her own part, Azula was pondering how this could happen to her, of all people. Yes, she had brought about the fall of Ba Sing Se, and for that she was sure her father would be extremely proud. And yes, she had killed her brother, removing one of the final obstacles to her ascension as Firelord upon her father's death, sooner rather than later, she decided, would be better. But she had neglected to kill the Avatar as well. And she knew, from experience, that her father would view that failure far more important than her accomplishments. It was inconceivable that it had happened in the first place. Zuko made mistakes like that. Zuko was the one who couldn't capture the Avatar. Zuko's honor was the one in question. Never hers; never Azula's. Azula didn't make mistakes. She didn't allow herself to make mistakes. Mistakes were for failures, for traitors and pathetic excuses for Firebenders like Zuko, but never for Azula.

But Zuko is gone now, and it's all your fault, a snide voice whispered inside her head. Now there is no one to take the blame, no one to make mistakes. It's up to you. She shook her head, trying to dispel the voice. She was not a failure! She was not Zuko!

No, you're not, another voice whispered. It was soft, gentle, and almost – loving? Azula recognized it at once, though she refused to acknowledge it. Zuko would never have done what you did today. No matter what you did to him, Zuko would never have killed you.

"SHUT UP!" she screamed. "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT ANYWAY, MOTHER! You loved him more, even though I was better. You loved him more." Her final words were whispered softly.

That's not true, her mother's voice whispered through her mind. Azula shook her head violently and the voice quieted.

"You lie," she muttered. "You always lied."

There was no rebuttal, and Azula started thinking other thoughts. With Ba Sing Se under the control of the Fire Nation and her brother dead, it was only fitting that she return home and allow her father to name her heir officially. The Sages would need to bear witness, of course. And once that happened, whether he realized it or not, Ozai's time on this world was limited. He might be older, but she knew that she was more powerful than he was. And she intended to show him. She couldn't know that Ty Lee had slipped back in quietly, on soft feet that almost seemed to not touch the ground at all, hiding behind a curtain and listening to Azula continue to talk to herself about her plans for having herself named heir and then her own coronation. She couldn't know that the minute Ty Lee had fully grasped the implications of all of it, the young acrobat had slipped away as silently as she'd come, passing Mai's door in concern at the soft sob that passed through the wood.

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