Her daughter collects glass figurines. It is a true noblewoman's hobby that Azula's mother would be pleased with, and it is exactly the last thing Azula expected any child of hers to do.

"This one is a flutter bat," Shinzei says as Azula watches her rearrange her collection for what has to be the hundredth time this year, as if the Fire Lord's first advisor could not figure out what animal it was on her own. "He's my favorite," her daughter continues as Azula forces herself to be interested in opinions about the glass animals that Shinzei has shared with her dozens of times before. "His name is Lord Fluttery."

So it is not a very creative name. So her daughter is six. Still, Azula has to marvel at the how delicately the child handles such fragile objects that are small enough to fit in the palm of her tiny hand. At six years old, Azula would have lit them in flame to watch them burst. However, Shinzei seems entirely nonplused about her bending, though she is extremely talented. She complains that the flames hurt her eyes and the heat makes her feel like she is melting, and if she is forced to bend for too long, she collapses on the ground and pulls the collar of her shirt over her eyes, and she is too tired to do anything else for the rest of the day. It is frustrating to Azula. If she was more enthusiastic, the Princess might consider grooming her to seize the throne after Zuko leaves it to his own nonbending daughter. Surely the people of the Fire Nation would rather follow a firebending prodigy who could lead them into battle herself than an academic. But all Shinzei seems to care about are the little glass animals that line her windowsills and cover her shelves.

"I can see why you like him," Azula replies as her daughter replaces the flutter bat on the windowsill, though it is impossible to tell if the little girl is even waiting for a response. She has hardly looked at Azula since this mostly one-sided conversation began. She keeps her back turned and holds up her animals to show them to her mother over her shoulder, and when she does turn around, her eyes dart around the room. To the wood floor, to the silk canopy of the bed, never to Azula. That is just the way she is. "He's very colorful."

"He's very colorful," Shinzei repeats approvingly. "Mother, did you know that the first known glass animal was poured by a man named Songfeng near Gaoling seven hundred and forty-three years ago? He made a koalaotter for his daughter, who was sick with pig chicken pox. After that, everyone wanted glass animals from him. He even made one of a polar leopard for Avatar Kotaq to remind him of home. And Avatar Kotaq gave it to his son, and it might even still be around today."

Azula did know all of this because it is nearly word for word out of a book that she and Ty Lee gave Shinzei for her most recent birthday, and Shinzei has been spouting trivia from it ever since, but she is trying to be supportive of her daughter's interests—or interest—even if it is something Azula would rather it not be, the way her parents never were for her, so she simply nods and says, "That's right, Shinzei."

But Shinzei does not seem to be listening. Azula was once bothered by the way she or Ty Lee would tell their daughter something and she would fail to even acknowledge their presence in the room. Azula even called a specialist all the way from Republic City to examine her hearing when she was four, but he had finished the exam looking mildly perplexed but ultimately unconcerned. "I don't know what to tell you," he had told her with a shrug. "She hears everything you're saying. She just doesn't feel the need to respond."

"That's just the way she is," Ty Lee had insisted. Azula would take it personally, as a sign that she is already failing as a parent, but it is difficult to ignore that Shinzei does it to everyone.

"And this is Mr. Long Nose," little girl tells her, picking up a glass camelephant toward the back of the battalion of animals.

"Not Lord Long Nose?" Azula asks, raising her eyebrows as a smirk plays at her lips, though Shinzei's back is still turned.

"Of course not," Shinzei replies, as if that is the stupidest idea she has ever heard and Azula should have known better than to even ask. "There are no lords in the Earth Kingdom."

"How silly of me," Azula mutters.

"How silly of me," Shinzei agrees. She pauses, and Azula is sure she is biting her lips, the way she often does before she speaks, as she tries to formulate the right combination of words. "Mother, did you know that there's a woman named Dora in Sho Jing Village, and for the past three hundred and seventy years, she and her ancestors have made a glass dragon for the coronation of every Fire Lord? The tradition started when her great, great, great, great," Shinzei pauses to take a breath, "great, great, lots of greats, grandmother, Jinaru, made one for Fire Lord Kashiko when she was only seventeen, and then when she died, her son took over. Isn't that cool, Mother? I think our family should start something like that."

"We have," Azula reminds her, wondering briefly if she was Fire Lord long enough to have her own dragon. Zuko has one, no doubt. It is probably blue or some color equally unbefitting the ruler of a nation of firebenders. "The royal throne of the Fire Nation."

"But that doesn't count," Shinzei informs her. "I won't pass that down. Izumi will." She says it matter-of-factly, and Azula gets the impression that, as much as it bothers her that her grandchildren will be mere nobility with little chance of ever inheriting the throne, Shinzei does not mind at all. "I meant me and you and Mom should start something. Something with glass animals." She carefully replaces the camelephant.

"What are you guys up to in here?"

When Azula turns, Ty Lee is leaning against the doorframe, the pink floral bag that she always carries into town when she goes shopping dangling from one shoulder. Shinzei does not look up from her collection.

"We're discussing starting a glass animal tradition," Azula mutters, eying her daughter's back carefully. They both have a hard time saying no to her, but Agni help them, if she demands that they all learn how to pour glass, Azula will have to draw the line.

"That sounds fun," Ty Lee comments absently as she pushes herself from the doorway and joins Azula where she is sitting on Shinzei's bed. "I stopped at the market."

"I see that." Azula peers down at the bag. At the windowsill, Shinzei is still selecting her next animal, even though Azula and Ty Lee both know she will pick the turtle duck. She always introduces them in the same order. "Did you get anything we actually need." Sometimes Azula swears that Ty Lee only married her for her money and influence, or what is left of it.

"Oh, you know," Ty Lee hums. "Just some odds and ends. Some perfume, a new sleeping robe, a present for Shinzei—"

"What?" the little girl squeals. Her sleek, black hair brushes the front row of animals as she whirls around. "You brought me a present?"

Ty Lee gasps and covers her mouth in mock horror. "You weren't supposed to hear that!"

"Well, I did." Shinzei moans as she tugs at Ty Lee's pink, silk robes. "Come on, Mom."

"Okay, okay," Ty Lee holds up a hand to calm her as she reaches into her bag. "It's in here somewhere… aha!" She retracts her hand and opens her fist, revealing an eagle hawk. It is dotted with red and gold speckles that reflect colored light through the otherwise clear glass. Shinzei's eyes light up and she flaps her hands and bounces up and down on the balls of her feet for a moment before reaching out and taking it, her face breaking into a wide grin. As she climbs onto the bed and then drops into Azula's lap to examine it, the Princess and her wife smile at each other.

It is hard to resist bringing Shinzei glass animals or books about glass animals when they pass stalls that sell them. It is rare that she gets so excited. She is usually a rather un-emotive child, and she seems bored by almost everything except her collection. Azula thinks that Shinzei is happy, but they do not often get to see her express it.

She is holding the figurine up to her face with one bright, golden eye closed, and focusing and unfocusing the other. They do not know why their daughter does half of the things she does, but that is just who she is.

Azula used to want a daughter whom she could teach to bend lightning, and Ty Lee used to want a daughter whom she could teach to cartwheel and flip. When Azula was pregnant, they talked about those things, but Shinzei will never do any of them. She is too sensitive to firebend, and her gross motor skills leave something to be desired. Sometimes Azula catches Ty Lee watching Mai apply makeup to Izumi's face as they chat about the boys that Izumi is just starting to notice, and she wonders why she could not give her wife the child that she wanted. Sometimes when they argue about having another baby, Azula words that Ty Lee is wondering that too.

"Is Shinzei not enough for you?" is the first thing Azula always asks, even though she knows Ty Lee loves their daughter every bit as much as she does.

"Of course she is," Ty Lee replies, offended. "But I want her to grow up with brothers and sisters to play with. Izumi is going to start spending a lot of time in lessons and meetings really soon, and I don't want her to be lonely."

"She's not lonely," Azula argues. "Look at her. She has her animals. In case you haven't noticed, she won't play with any of the other children we invite over. She doesn't seem to care about having friends. If we have another baby, the only difference will be that we will have two only children instead of one. And I don't want her to think she isn't good enough for us."

"Shinzei won't think that, Azula," Ty Lee answers. "She knows we love her. Not all younger children are born to replace their older siblings."

But the fighting never goes anywhere, and they are both beginning to doubt that it ever will. Azula still sometimes catches herself wishing she had a daughter that she could connect with the way that Mai connects with Izumi, a daughter whom she could imagine seeing on the throne one day, but Shinzei is here and Azula cannot imagine loving anything as much as she loves her.

"Do you like it?" Ty Lee asks quietly. There are actual tears clouding her eyes as she watches her daughter's happiness.

"Do you like it?" Shinzei whispers back, still too fixated on the eagle hawk to string together words of her own.

"I like the colors," Azula comments as she rubs her hand up and down her daughter's back.

"Red glass was first used to make animals by a man named Akairo. He lived in a cabin near Fire Fountain City and made a line of over six hundred glass fire ferrets. Twenty-eight of them are in the culture museum there," Shinzei parrots from her book. "Gold glass was first used by a woman named Kuma to make a glass bear the size of a flour sack for Earth King Yu Kin. It's still in the palace in Ba Sing Se, and today it's worth enough to buy two airships."

"Is that so?" Azula replies. She wraps her arms around her daughter's body and buries a kiss in her hair. Shinzei does not respond.

She is not what either of them imagined their child would be. She is not fast or agile, and though her fire is powerful, she shunes it. She has no royal ambitions and her ability to focus is limited to only one incredibly trivial thing. But it is not trivial to her, and she is not trivial to Azula and Ty Lee and so they adapt. They bend so that Shinzei does not have to.

Expectations are fragile, like glass. Ty Lee's mother surely did not want a circus performer and Azula's mother surely did not want a war machine, and no one is what their parents expect them to be, but Shinzei is beautiful in her own ways. How she finds joy in such small, simple things. How she does not need the validation of peers to feel like a whole person. How her bright eyes droop when she gets tired at night, and how she wraps her arms around Azula's neck and her warm breath tickles Azula's ear as she carries her to the bath. She may not do all the things Azula and Ty Lee hoped she would do, but when Azula looks at her daughter, she cannot help but think that she is perfect.

A/N: So this is another fic that I wrote by hand at work while I was waiting for my computer to be set up. I will say that it ended up being something completely different than I originally planned. It's a headcanon that came to me relatively recently that I knew I was going to have to be careful with because it might touch on something personal for a lot of people, myself included, so hopefully I did it justice.

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