Blindsided {sokkaXoc}

1

It was midnight, the fire nation palace was completely silent aside from the barely audible pats of bare feet through the royal chambers corridor. Their owner evaded the moonlight that crept through the windows and moved as quickly as they good.

At last, they came to an abrupt stop in front of the turtle duck pond in Lady Ursa's gardens. The owner sat down softy and gazed down upon the reflection of the moon in the water then looked up to and admired its entire beauty. Tui's reached out and touched the owners face, revealing a young girl with brown, almost black, hair and daring grey eyes. She wore a dark red robe tightly around her body that made her porcelain skin seem as though it was glowing.

She let her shoulders fall and let out a distressed sigh. Tomorrow she'd leave the palace in search of her brother and uncle with her twin sister, Azula.
The two looked almost exactly alike aside from the young girl's, Ashton's, grey orbs instead of Azula's enchanting molten amber ones. A thing that angered their father, Fire Lord Ozai, greatly as it did nothing but remind both him and his grandfather of those of the Air Nomads, that their nation had slaughtered. Azulon saw them as a curse, making her a complete disappointment in both of their minds. Despite their disgust with them, her mother, Ursa, along with her uncle always reminded her of how beautiful they thought they were. They saw them as a marking of the spirits, not the damned.
If it wasn't for the fact that she, like her sister, was a fire bending prodigy, then she doubted her father would even acknowledge her existence. Luckily, she did nothing but excel in the art of fire bending and quickly passed her peers in every set. She even put her Azula, her father's undeniably favorite child, to shame as she mastered fire in only a few years, Desperate to make her father proud. She was even sent off only at the age of ten to make a journey on her own. A journey that led to her being unable to protect her older brother in the Agni Kai against their father and even saying goodbye after his banishment. She didn't even know he was gone until she arrived home almost a year later excitably running to his chambers and finding them empty.

She missed him greatly. She missed her mother greatly. She could almost hear their laughter along with hers at this very spot a long time ago.

"Hey Mom, want to see how Azula feeds turtle ducks?" Zuko asked with a smirk plastered on his face, throwing the rest of the loaf of bread that they had been feeding them at the water, hitting one of the baby turtle ducks in the process. "Zuko!" Ursa gasped, shock evident on her face.
"Why would you do that, Zuzu?" Ashton exclaimed, but Zuko ignored her staring at the water frightened that he had accidentally killed it. Relief quickly washed over his face when the duck resurfaced again, but that expression almost immediately turned into one of pain when the mother turtle duck bit Zuko's leg and he let out a scream while trying to shake the angry bird off.
Ashton slightly giggled to herself when Ursa grabbed the mother duck and it angering quacked at her then quickly returned to her ducklings. "Stupid turtle duck! Why'd she do that?" Zuko pouted. Ashton rolled her eyes at his lack of understanding wondering how in the hell that she was the younger one.

"Zuko, that's what moms are like." Ursa said softly, putting her arm around both of her children lovingly. "If you mess with her children then" she bit behind Zuko's ear "they're gonna bite you back!". They all let out joyous laughter, enjoying each other's company.

Ashton let a tear fall down her cheek as she stood up and dusted the dirt off her robe. Tomorrow she'd be leaving home to capture her family members, she needed rest. The grey-eyed girl turned her back on the pond and walked swiftly and quietly back to her chambers.