The Officer and the Princess: The Flames Of War

Chapter 25

Sung looked at the floor at that, folding his hands in his lap and leaning forward slightly. "I already said I was sorry..."

Azula pushed herself and walked over to Sung, sitting on the stool the doctor had been using. "You keep saying you're sorry but you don't do anything to make me believe you're sorry. An apology without change is no apology at all, it is manipulation." Manipulation was a subject Azula was well versed in, in her childhood years she had manipulated not only those who had been below her, but those she had called her friends. So long as she had gotten what she wanted she didn't care. But in her time away form the goings ons of the Fire Nation and having time to reflect she had realized the error of her ways and at present was trying to make things at least partially right even if she could never fully repair the damage she had done to people.

Sung lifted his head up and looked at her with those blue eyes. Azula had a thought then that she had never really considered before. Exactly why were his eyes blue. In the Fire Nation most people had ember eyes though brown was also a common color. Blue eyes however was almost exclusively seen in the water tribes and on Kyoshi Islands. Perhaps somewhere down his family tree he had a water tribe ancestor and the gene that caused blue eyes was a dominant trait, because Azula could recall both of his sisters having blue eyes as well. She didn't know why she had that thought just now, because going over Sung's family history was the last thing on her mind. "I'm sorry....I don't know what I was thinking."

Azula reached a hand out and put it on his cheek, the flesh red from where she had slapped him. She had regretted it almost as soon as she had done it, but she had been so angry that she had lost control, not that it was an excuse. She spoke softly, gently rubbing her thumb over the red mark. "Love, you weren't thinking, that's the problem. It's not like you to rush into situations with only one shoe on. I saw how you are in a crisis more times than I can count." Azula thought back to the war, it was just after the drill had been destroyed. When the earthbenders on the walls of Ba Sing Se were throwing rocks on their heads and the commander of the tank escorts was asking her what she wanted to do she had frozen up, she had been taught the ways of war as any member of the Fire Nation Royal family had, but she had never taken part in direct battle before that day and she had been unsure if what to do.

It had been Sung who had taken charge from her, telling the commander to set up a defensive perimeter so the wounded could be loaded onto the tanks. He had then led what survivors had remained back to safety on foot. In that entire situation he had kept a calm head, but now he was for lack of a better term acting as if he was a first year officers school cadet eager to prove himself regardless of the cost. "No matter how badly you feel you need to make this right you can't do it on your own." She continued. "You let your emotions control your actions, you're letting Kurn get inside your head and I think you know it too....I'm watching you head towards the same cliff you saw me going to all those years ago, I know you tried so so hard to help me but I wouldn't listen." She could feel something lodged in her throat now, that strange feeling that one never got use to experiencing. It made it hard to swallow. "Every time you do this I see less and less of the man I fell in love with, the Sung I know is kind, he is cautious. But now...you just look so blood thirsty, you look like you don't care who dies so long as one of them is Kurn."

Sung just stared at her so blankly, his face void of any expression just seeming to soak in her words. A few times she saw his lower lip quivering as if he was trying to find the right words to respond with. He opened his mouth. "I don't like feeling this way Azula." Sung said softly, so softly that she had to strain her ears to listen. "All this rage I have inside me, I hate it...I hate me. I know I'm going towards the cliff but I don't know how to stop it...I'm afraid."

Azula exhaled as she stood up. Putting a hand on his head and pulling it to her chest. In the past it had been Sung who comforted her in her darkest moments...and now that role was reversed. "You can still come back from this Sung, it's not too late. I don't know how...yet...but you can't keep going forward like this."