My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of light footsteps. Only women walked like that.
Who exactly?
Not Toph's battering-ram stomping, not Suki's stealthy tread or that of one of the other warriors, not Mai's footsteps, while Ty Lee moved so smoothly that I wouldn't have heard her until she was three steps away at most. No, those confident yet light footsteps could belong to only one person.
"Can't sleep, Your Highness?"
"I see you're not in bed either," Azula replied with her usual smirk.
"Yeah, sleep doesn't seem to be happening. Tea?"
"Why not?" The girl sat down beside me. Oh, she'd clipped on a safety line. Good. Whatever else could be said about Azula, no one could accuse her of lacking common sense.
"I'll go get another cup." I was about to stand, but...
"I think one cup will be enough for both of us." She took it right out of my hands and shamelessly helped herself to a sip. Yeah... I was definitely a bad influence on her. "Hmm... White Dragon?"
"My favorite."
"I know." The girl closed her eyes. "Two spoonfuls of the herbal blend, first rinsed with water that's cooled slightly after boiling, and only then brewed in a preheated teapot."
"Nothing escapes your notice, does it?" I reclaimed the cup from the princess, topped it off from the teapot, and took a sip of the divine beverage.
"You know, I've been meaning to talk to you for a long time, but somehow there was never a good moment..." Azula, waiting for the right moment? That was, to put it mildly, strange. I suddenly felt somewhat... uneasy.
"And about what?"
"A little bit of everything..." The girl fell silent, gazing thoughtfully into the blackness drifting beneath us.
"If our scuffles with Toph are bothering you, then I apologize," I said after a minute, breaking the silence with the first thing that came to mind among the more notable recent events. "It's just that children her age need support, and this is the only kind she'll accept..."
"No, that's not it..." the princess dismissed the idea, but after saying it, she paused for a moment and gave an irritated twitch of her cheek.
"Something wrong?" With a reaction like that, it would have been difficult not to sense the tension.
"No... And... yes."
Azula rose to her feet and paced back and forth along the parapet several times.
"You know..."
The heir to the throne sounded thoughtful and determined in equal measure.
"Ever since I was a child, I've been used to being the best."
Three steps one way.
"The strongest, the most talented."
Three steps back.
"The best. And I really am."
She took the cup from me and had another sip without breaking stride. The abyss beneath her feet didn't seem to bother her in the slightest.
"But once I reached the top, I realized I was completely alone. Every boy I met at official functions, or accidentally through Father's arrangements... They were all afraid of me. Of my strength. Truthfully, I realized that long before I ever reached the top, but that doesn't matter."
She pivoted on the toes of her boots, skimming the edge of the drop so precisely that there couldn't have been more than a millimeter in it, yet paid the danger no attention whatsoever. The princess pursed her lips pensively.
"I thought I was fine with that. I thought it was even a good thing... You can control people with either money or fear, but when the two come into conflict, fear always wins—that's what Father taught me. Even Mai and Ty Lee are loyal to me because they're afraid of me... To a lesser extent, perhaps, but still."
The cup was finally empty, and the firebender at last noticed. Once she did, she focused her gaze on me. "And then you appeared. Another genius, someone who stands above everyone around him, someone who inspires almost more awe and fear than the princess and the Fire Lord put together..."
"You flatter me..." But she didn't even acknowledge my interjection.
"And you weren't afraid. You weren't afraid at all! At first I thought it was sheer recklessness born of stupidity and arrogance, but no. You simply weren't afraid because... you weren't afraid." The girl's attention shifted toward the horizon, and silence closed around us once more.
Coming from Azula, words like that meant more than a declaration of love. She had, for all intents and purposes, laid bare her personal fears and insecurities before me. She had shown me her weakness. Given the way she'd been raised, that was somewhere between recklessness and outright stupidity.
And if I handled this wrong now, I would never have a more terrifying enemy.
(End of Chapter)
P@treon: /SadRaven
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