Fire Sickness

Chapter 17: Stand Up Straight

"Stand up straight, Azula," Mom instructed from her seat in the corner of the royal seamstress's fitting room. 

Madam Yosai's little shop sat just outside the edge of the palace grounds, available only to my family and close friends like Mai and Ty Lee, but with my birthday right around the corner, the seamstress closed her store to focus on her most important client. I stood on a dais, a corset cinched tightly around my waist, careful not to move lest the needles in the hem of my dress poke me in the foot.

"I am straight," I said. "I mean, I am standing straight."

If Mom noticed the slip of my tongue, she didn't let on. "If you slouch at all, the dress won't sit right at your birthday cotillion."

"I know that; you don't need to keep reminding me."

And yet, she continued, pretending she didn't hear me. "This ball is about more than you, my darling, you know that? The city is mourning the absence of its crowned prince, and Lu Ten is usually the life of the party around here-"

"I get it!" I shouted, making Madam Yosai flinch, her eyes fixed on the hem of my floor-length gown.

Iroh and Lu Ten's send-off was a weepy little affair, Zuko hugging our uncle as though he were his own father, Commander Enya giving her betrothed a proper farewell like they were the love of each other's lives and not a mutually advantageous arranged marriage. Enya wore the kind of stiff, high-collared dress I'd be miserable in, the type of garment a soldier normally wouldn't be caught dead in, but she wore it well. She wore everything well.

"What are you thinking about?" Ty Lee had asked me while watching the Fire Nation Army's war tanks take off for Ba Sing Se.

"Nothing."

"She's probably eager to see Lu Ten go," Mai said. "That way she can finally make her move on the commander."

"Ooooh!" Ty Lee poked me, giggling even though her face looked pinched.

I shoved her away from me, storming off. "You guys are so annoying!"

My father came to stand beside me, wearing a gold ornament in his topknot.  Usually the crown prince was the only person other than the Firelord who wore something in his hair to indicate his rank, but Iroh was dressed as plain as a vagabond, so Dad took the opportunity to don lavish robes and jewels.

"Careful, Azula. It's not becoming of a young princess to shout at her friends at such a solemn event."

"I'm not shouting," I lied stubbornly, folding my arms. "How do you deal with all this tedious drivel?"

He smirked, his hand clasping around my shoulder tightly. "It is the duty of the royal family, a duty you will inherit before long."

I snorted. "When's the last time Grandpa's niece had to attend any public functions? Once Iroh is Firelord, no one will care about me anymore." It wasn't until I said the words that I realized how much that eventuality terrified me: the obscurity, the irrelevance."

But my father only chuckled. "I wouldn't be so sure about that..."

"Azula!" my mother's sharp tone broke me out of memories, making me flinch. "Madam Yosai asked you to turn twice already!"

"It's fine, your highnesses; I can move around her."

While she shuffled across the floor, Mom fixed me with a pointed glare. "That is not an acceptable way to treat people, Azula."

"Who cares? She works for us."

"AZULA!" 

The seamstress played deaf, focusing on my hem, and I followed suit. My mother didn't come from a noble background, and it frequently showed. Why should I move for some commoner when she has two good legs? She should move to accommodate me. Everyone should move to accommodate me.

"You're back!" Ty Lee sprinted across the lawn, wrapping her arms around me. "Can I see your dress? Huh, can I?"

I squeezed her back, looking around before pecking her on the jaw, making her giggle. "You'll see it at the cotillion."

She pouted. "That's when everyone else will see it. Aren't I special?"

Ignoring her, I glanced around. "Where's Mai?"

Ty Lee grinned deviously, easily distracted from any subject by the opportunity to gossip. "She's canoodling with your brother."

I gagged. "Mai and Zuzu?! What the fuck does she see in him?"

"He's good-looking, I guess. And older. Girls like older boys."

"I don't like older boys."

The brunette grabbed my face, surprising me with a kiss on the lips. "You don't like boys at all, or did you forget?"

I shoved her away from me, annoyed. It was one thing to kiss Ty Lee or hold her hand or catch her eye in the middle of class and wink, but it was another for her to plainly explain to my face what I was. Despite knowing better, I couldn't help but feel she was rubbing it in my face. I knew Ty Lee liked boys as much as she liked girls. When she had to marry a man her mother picked out for her, she'd be fine; she would learn to love him. I wouldn't. I couldn't.

"I'm gonna go find Mai."

"Want me to come with you?"

"No," I snapped venomously, not turning around to check her reaction before storming off.

I didn't give a shit about Mai and had no desire to walk in on the fourteen-year-old with her hand down my brother's pants. But it wasn't like I had any other friends or anywhere else to go. It was a stroke of pure luck that I ran into Enya, intercepting her long-legged stride through the gardens.

"What are you up to?" I asked as nonchalantly as possible.

"Good afternoon to you, too, Princess. Excited about your birthday? It's only two days away."

"I know when it is." Glancing behind her, I realized she'd come from the temple pavilion. Perhaps she was under the Byoki Temple again with those freaky tubes in her veins. "What were you doing out here, Commander?"

She placed her hands on her hips, cocking her head to the side and examining me with her bemused, feline gaze. "I don't believe that is any of your business."

"I'm the princess; everything is my business."

Enya laughed, the sound high and clear as a bell. "Does that actually work on people here?" She passed me, ruffling my hair as she went. "I'll give you the weekend off- it is your birthday after all. But I expect you back in the Kai Do the very next day, so don't get too drunk at the ball; I don't want you hungover when you show me your forty-two."