AN: WARNING for implied incest and femslash.

"Mommy, look at me," Izumi squeals at Mai and Azula looks up from the corner.

That phrase has become quite common to hear in the palace, and Azula never thought it would make her feel so sick to her stomach. It seems like the child has something else to show her every ten seconds and it gets on her last nerve. It finds a rock. It bothers the pets, picking them up as if it is an accomplishment. The child drops its tea and starts to cry and Azula thinks she should clean up the mess or console the child but why would she? What is in it for her?

She is Mai's child anyway. Izumi is Mai's and Azula is not the type of person to expose herself in a lie, even if it bothers her.

It worked so nicely for Zuko.

Didn't it all work so nicely for Zuko?

"Mommy!" Izumi shrieks and Mai does not hear her from the other side of the courtyard.

"I'm looking, I'm looking," Azula mumbles, setting her chin in her hands. She wonders if she was ever that annoying as a child. She desperately sought her father's attention, every second overshadowed. Has she turned into Ozai? Was that all she ever wanted or did she just want love? Ty Lee says she wants love and Azula rolls her golden eyes. The child has her eyes. Looks like her.

But that is so easily written off as looking like her father.

"Okay, Aunt Azula!" Izumi cries and for some reason, Aunt Azula hurts more than Izumi screaming 'mommy' at Mai.

"I'm. Looking!" She grits her teeth and keeps from bending. Azula can see Ty Lee nearby, braiding flowers into her hair, pretending not to be watching Azula. And Azula is in no mood to be chi-blocked today.

The child spins one hand and the air lights on fire. It singes particles of dust. Bright, brilliant blue like an angry sky. Azula watches her daughter do a flawless dance of bending and wonders who taught her. She is only four and already bending. Izumi will be a wondrous Fire Lord, and Azula can at least be content with that fact.

Is this her first time? Azula should...

"Your form is sloppy." She returns to her book. Cringe. Don't.

"Why would you say that?" It's Zuko.

"We need to hang a bell around your neck, brother," Azula snaps and he clenches his jaw. She smirks. The child is gone. She disappears too often in an instant. Azula sometimes wonders where she is, but other times she wonders how she went from being the best at everything she did to being a failure feeding off of the spoonfuls her brother feeds her as if he is doing a heroic deed.

"Why would you say that to a kid?" Zuko sits down in front of her. He looks stupid in his Fire Lord clothes. She wore it better. "You're going to destroy her self esteem."

"Give me a reason to care, brother," Azula says, fondly reminiscing on the times when she would not say a word. After she came home... she decided to detach herself from society and everyone around her completely. Zuko changed that, he changed that for a while, and Azula and Ty Lee's relationship grew... and then it was poisoned by a mistake.

"How did that make you feel? When people told you off for a hair out of place?" Zuko demands and Azula rolls her eyes.

"Oh, come on, like you could parent better," Azula says and Zuko looks frustrated. "You let your emotions rule you. That's why you're a failure."

Zuko throws up his arms in a gesture to the Palace around him. She chews on her lip viciously. "This is mine. Don't call me a failure."

She clenches her teeth. Bitter. She should not be so bitter. It is easier to push it on Zuko, make him the villain. Am I a villain? No. Shut up.

"I was telling the truth," Azula says and Zuko is silent for a moment. "But I wouldn't know the truth if it slapped me, would I?"

Zuko closes his eyes and tries not to remember saying those words.

"It isn't as if anyone would believe you anyway," Zuko says, trying to sound strong, but Azula can tell he is just scared. Scared of his actions. "You wouldn't know the truth if it slapped you."

Azula just stares at him, not bothering to cover her exposed breast falling out of her faded nightgown. Zuko furrows his brow in shame and Azula just averts her eyes.

"Why does it upset you?" he asks and Azula just shrugs. "Do you want to come clean about her. Do you want her?"

"I never said I wanted her," Azula snaps and Zuko sighs. He rubs his temples, clearly frustrated. Azula takes great pleasure in his discomfort. "You pushed it on me. I don't blame you, of course."

"You should apologize to her."

"Why?"

"So she doesn't... Never mind." Zuko has a perpetual look of frustration on his face. Or maybe that's just when he is dealing with her.

"So she doesn't turn out like me." Azula stands up slowly, regally. She wears the invisible chains like trophies, sits on every chair that is offered to her like it is a throne. But it is pretending.

"Just say you're sorry," Zuko says and Azula wants to tell him off, but she holds her tongue.

She imagines the garden around her burning to the ground, to ash. Ashes. The flowers smell sweet and she finds it grotesque and nauseating. "Alright, if it will prevent her from turning into some power hungry monster, I'll apologize."

Azula walks through the palace. It looks so different now, though nothing has changed. The decor has not been updated since she was a child, but it is all alien to her. Every walk through the corridors feels different and she cannot put a finger on why.

She finds the child in the other room, displaying her bending to a crowd of onlookers. Azula steps back into the shadows. People look at her and she feels uncomfortable, twisting, her stomach in knots. The child is already like her mother. It is too late for the four year old.

"That was amazing," comes the familiar voice of Ty Lee. She is wearing her crown, except it is dotted with the flowers that she was braiding earlier. She looks breathtakingly beautiful. Azula's wife picks up Princess Izumi and spins her through the air. They both laugh gleefully, blithely, united. Why don't they look at me like that? "Did you show your mother?"

Izumi hesitates. "I showed Azula," she explains and Ty Lee's expression immediately sours.

So her opinion isn't so high as it is when they are curled so sweetly betwixt the sheets.

Azula swallows. The way the child looks at Ty Lee marks her more as mother than the way she looks at Azula, and almost as much as when she looks at Mai... Mai who she calls mother... Mai who is not her mother. Then what is Azula? What... She did not ask for this. It does not matter if the little bending prodigy does not see her as mother. Why would she even want that?

Azula walks after them. She finds Izumi and Ty Lee in the throne room. It has become some kind of low-class living room since Zuko came into power, and it disgusts Azula.

"I'm pregnant," Azula breathes, she and her brother in the doorway, leaning against each other, so close they can almost taste each other. Maybe they want to taste each other.

"Is it...?" Zuko cannot even finish his sentence.

"Yes," Azula whispers.

"There you are," Ty Lee says. Pretending. No one is ever that happy to see Azula. Even the woman who she caresses and kisses and wed.

"Where else would I be?" Azula replies with a pointedly fake smile and Ty Lee recoils slightly. Azula suppresses her pleasure at the pain of her true love. Words still have power, even if it feels like they don't. "Could you... leave?"

Ty Lee hesitates. Azula watches the child's wide eyes of admiration at the acrobat.

"I guess. I'll see you tonight then!" Ty Lee walks out of the room like she is dancing on air. Azula could fly once, soaring, burning and blazing like a azure supernova.

She looks at the child. I'm sorry. The words sound wrong. Not hers.

"Let me show you how to do it better." Azula kneels down and guides her daughter's hand.

Daughter. Azula needs to stop thinking about Izumi as daughter. What Azula knows she must do is what she always does, be a positive figure in Izumi's life, help her, guide her, and just deal with the fact that she will never be able to get the credit she strongly desires.

The child bends like a prodigy. It breaks her mother's heart. Everything is falling apart as Azula watches her improve in mere seconds. Just like her mother.

Azula hates how much of herself she sees in Izumi.

It worries her.

Izumi would be better off if the lie about Mai were truth.