First off, I should mention that one of the main reasons I'm currently neglecting PJO Ship Weeks is Avatar/Legend of Korra. Oops.

And anyways, after watching Sozin's Comet, I starting thinking about Azula and how she became who she was and what the causes of her downfall really were. And this happened. I don't even know if it makes sense, so feel free to comment and critique in reviews!

Disclaimer: I, sadly, will never own Avatar.

In a strange sort of way, she was the definition of fire. Flames needed fuel and air and heat - Azula needed praise and power and perfection. She had never known any other way.

Almost isn't good enough!

Lightning had crackled from her fingertips from as early as she could remember. Azula dreamed of her father's praise (as good as she was, of course he would need her to be better).

She was a dancer, an artist - a warrior, a leader. Azula watched her brother stumble and fall, his fire mixed up too much with his insecurities, his rage. She knew that her fire would always come from her cool grace.

(Emotions were a waste of time anyways.)

The knowledge that she was the child that would rise above any challenge, she was the hero in her father's eyes - this was the fuel to her flame, the ambition that pushed her to be stronger, more precise.

(She cursed fate for forcing her into the slot of second-born. Perhaps if her father could achieve the throne despite being the youngest, it would be a sign of her own destiny.)

She's a true prodigy!

There was a thrill in knowing that Zuko would never be better than her.

(Oh, but he had stolen all of their mother's attention, hadn't he?)

She was already playing her game, two steps ahead of him, three steps ahead of the world because how else would a second-born child make it in the world? How else would she prove that she was the child they needed? The heir the Fire Nation deserved.

Years later, it was the same game, and he never quite figured out the way she worked - using what she had and moving the pieces one step at a time until Ba Sing Se fell and the Avatar was dead.

(But he wasn't.)

The power - that was simply life. Simply the way she passed the time, the way she kept moving from day to day. The way her father had taught her (people are tools, Azula), and she would never disappoint.

Father asked her to retrieve her treacherous uncle and failure of a brother. Azula struck down the Avatar and conquered Ba Sing Se.

(He had to realize now.)

Azula was who she made herself - piece by piece, until it didn't take any effort to twist her words and target her lighting - never one hair out of place, she couldn't afford mistakes.

The desire, the hunger to be perfect, oh yes it started her down the road to Firelord from the beginning but then again, Azula wouldn't be herself without her poise, her cool, deadly grace, her games that played out across move after move but always had the same outcome.

(Wouldn't she?)

You miscalculated.

Azula was never wrong. Ever.

You will remain here in the fire nation.

She was the heir the fire nation needed. She was the perfect child, her father - I have shown you time and time again, can't you see? - always said so.

There was no reason. No reason why the praise should stop, why Ty Lee and Mai should not follow her every word, why her father should turn her away when she had done so much for him.

Why? Why? Why?

It started swirling in her head, and it didn't stop.

Fire need all three components to burn, but Azula would defy nature and make do with less. Of course she could. She didn't need outside praise, she never had.

(She always had.)

Although she could never admit it, she was coiling tighter inside of herself, protecting her flame because it was starting to flicker. It had burned through all the wood, the coal, the dry twigs and wind-tossed leaves.

It had burned too brightly to ever last.

She didn't need them. She didn't need any of them.

Alone - alone, or else the rest would strike at her, strip away the self she had built. As Firelord, she naturally couldn't afford to live at risk, the threat of danger over her head.

Trust is for fools!

No, Firelord was not an empty title.

(Oh yes it was.)

The conquering hero had no one to witness her crowning moment of glory, but she didn't care. She had built herself for this moment, climbing up bit by bit despite the hand fate had given her.

She had never dreamed of any other ambition, never hoped for another life. This was her life, this was all her life could be.

(Alone. Empty.)

Where? Where had all her power gone?

The flame was nearly dying, but Azula still had her lightning, her skill, her perfection in combat and in knowing that she would always win.

No, she wasn't losing control - No, she was just a precise as she always had been.

Breathe - in out, in out.

For a moment, she held hope in her heart once again because she still knew how to manipulate Zuko, she still knew how to win.

Azula would claw her way back to the top despite the hand fate had given her.

Her flame burned for a moment.

And then cold chains and water stealing her breath and stealing her fire once and for all.

Everything she was inside snuffed out in a heartbeat.

Without fuel, without oxygen, without heat, there is no flame. There is not even ashes.

She was nothing.

In the end, when the skies burned red, when world caved and then closed in, wrapping her in chains and silence for years and years - only then did Azula realize.

(Why she had always known that Zuko would win in the end.)

What is wrong with that child?

The silence was unbearable, and Azula fought her final war in solitude.

Almost isn't good enough!

No. I love you, Azula. I do.