Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar, and make no profit writing about it.

(AN): Starting this the day after chapter 3. Let's see how she goes.

Sweat was beading in the stiff collar of his formal robes as Zuko stood with his father under the noon sun. Staring off into space, the prince idly thanked Agni that the stifling cloth was dyed deep red and black and gold, and would not betray the profuse perspiration trailing down his back or collecting in his clenched palms where they were folded behind his waist.

"At last – through the blessing of Agni, our greatest enemy and greatest triumph has been revealed..."

Ozai's voice rolled over him, deep and strong and imperial as it went in one ear of the Crown Prince and out the other. Zuko had little need to do anything during the Fire Lord's address besides stand to the side and behind the monarch – mirrored on the only side by his sister.

It had been deemed auspicious that the gathering invasion fleet be launched on the same day the existence of the Avatar was publicly revealed. A statement that they could not be cowed by forgotten legends or the intervention of 'lesser' spirits. The Prince had been peripherally aware of the swelling armada stationed around the harbor – the heir to the Throne must needs be aware of everything in the Kingdom – but he'd had no intent to join it.

"For we are the children of fire, and none escape the benediction of our Lord and Father..."

Until last night anyway. Uncle had been quite displeased and worried, but it wasn't in Iroh's nature to deny Zuko the duties expected of the prince of the Fire Nation. So the Dragon of the West had pulled some strings, leaning on old friends and allies to have his nephew hurriedly commissioned as a captain in the Fire Nation Navy and the Tenri assigned to the Third Fleet.

Lu Ten had floated in the tense air between Uncle and nephew. A shadow of grief and loss that moved Zuko to promise he would return. Uncle had only smiled with sorrow and insisted he would not bury another son so long as he lived, and promptly returned to his cabin on their ship.

"We stand on the precipice of victory! Through the efforts of our Nation's strong and fierce sons..."

A large part of him was twisted up with guilt over forcing his uncle to return to the battlefield at his side. Iroh had never been the same after Lu Ten died beneath the boulders of earthbenders – choking on his own blood and gasping for breath. It had broken Azulon's first son. Not glaringly and obviously, but undeniably in the shadows the bubbled up in Uncle's orange gaze.

But even if it hurt his Uncle, following Azula to the battlefield was the only choice left to him. She was his sister – his only true sister – who had stuck by him despite all the fickle tides of Ozai's whims or the threats that seemed to press inward closer and closer every year. It was no longer about a boy grudgingly playing with his sister for the sake of his mother. It was about a man protecting one of the few people in the world he could safely care for.

"You stand not alone, but go accompanied by both heirs to the Burning Throne. Such is my faith in our strength..."

Tension throbbed in his sweat soaked temples, and Zuko restrained the urge to grimace. He had little patience for the formality of the court and the dangers seeping into the smiles of Ozai's sycophants. If there was one thing to be praised about going to war, it was that it would at least get them out and away from the Fire Lord's reptilian stare.

No more drawing back his hair into phoenix tails so tight that the very skin of his face felt frozen. No more dragging up phony gratitude for every oily compliment or back-handed suggestion. No more twisting his lips into an approving smile when painted trollops laughed breathily and leaned in inappropriately.

"For it is ordained! Fire is the superior element! The visible expression of our will to conquer..."

Zuko wondered if it would make much of a difference in the end. Uncle seemed beyond caring about it, but the Crown Prince had come to know that no matter how far they'd wandered across their country in recent years, that a man could be taken out of the court, but the court could never be taken out of the man. Even when they had been children, they never could truly be children.

Rules and subterfuge and betrayal piled up from the earliest memories until Zuko could do little but live his life in a constant haze of suspicion. Genuine people existed, like Uncle's exasperatingly amusing worship for comfort and games, or Azula's poisonously protective sororal love, or Lieutenant Jee's gruff respect. But they were so rare, buried beneath the expectations of royalty that stifled childhood before children could truly be children.

"We are no barbarians that disrupt the order of the world with our bending. Our fire comes from within – as natural as the very blood in our veins!"

Frequently Zuko found himself waking from dreams of what could have been. If Aunt Rin had not perished from consumption when Zuko had been five. If Lu Ten had returned from the war, Uncle unbroken and burning bright with their vitality. If Father had loved Mother and his children. If they had been simple peasants instead of royalty.

Sometimes he even woke sweating and shivering, dreaming of worlds where Sozin's war never happened. Treason. The breeze would whisper, and Zuko would gasp and clutch the sheets and drink in his snoozing sisters familiar smell. I am loyal to our nation. I am. And he was.

"So let us march forth, children of fire! March forth, and with our blood and steel build the greatest-civilization the world will ever know!"

Which meant Zuko's deployment was preordained. He was Zuko of Agni, and the battlefield was his birthright. Regardless of how badly his gut clenched in anxiety at what might be found across the sea or how much the subtle tension around Azula's eyes cut into him.

"Harder Zuko! Faster!"

Scowling at her brother, Azula spun into a tight heel kick and sent a curving spear of fire towards her brother. Not letting up even as Zuko barely dodged the azure stream, the princess sighed as her axe kick drove her older brother to his knees.

Azula tugged ineffectually at the collar of her black and gold armour, momentarily cursing her decision to train in full combat gear. It was beastly hot outside to train firebending for hours in her ornate, but functional armor, and the sweat that made her undergarments chafe only made matters worse.

"Fire is an aggressive element, Zuko. Stop bending like an airbender and use more force!" She ignored the poisonous look Zuko gave her to tug the older teen to his feet. Brushing her sweaty mop of unbound hair, Azula turned and displayed a demonstrative palm strike.

"Throw your whole body into the motion. Don't hold back or try to conserve power. Your goal is to overwhelm. The most common mistake firebenders make is in thinking they can attain victory if they conserve energy by half-assing their attacks." Ruffling Zuko's messy chin length strands, Azula spared an appreciative glance for the sweat trickling down his naked chest before finishing. "Attack less if you're tired, but when you do strike you must put everything in it. All your muscles."

"Uncle says firebending comes from the breath though."

Struggling with the urge to pinch her nose, Azula gave up and closed her eyes in exasperated thought. Stupid, stubborn Zuzu having to unlearn everything and relearn it because he couldn't get it right the first time. "Well best of luck breathing all over your enemies then, dum-dum."

Zuko's face coloured, and the Crown Prince opened his mouth to launch into a tirade before Azula cut him off with a chopping motion. "Of course firebending comes from the breath. But it's shaped by the muscles, unless you're skilled enough to direct the flow of your chi by thought alone?"

Squinting up at the noon sun, Azula snapped her fingers and shoved Zuko towards the stairway heading down below deck. "Go get yourself cleaned up and find something to eat. I'll come find you in a few hours to whip you into shape again."

"Yeah, okay."

Azula wiped a trail bead of sweat off her upper lip before rushing below deck to get away from Agni's punishing rays. They might be children of fire, but it could get sweltering hot when the wind was dead and sunlight reflected off the clear waters that surrounded the Fire Nation archipelago.

Moving in a straight line towards Zuko's – and thus her's, for all intents and purposes – cabin, Azula barely slowed to allow the commoners their proper deference and time to throw themselves out of her way.

"Out of the way!" Azula ordered unnecessarily as she burst into the Captain's room, drawing a confused look from Iroh where the older royal was engrossed in reading a yellowed scroll. Not bothering to clarify her impatience, the princess barrelled into the washroom and threw open the taps to the bathtub.

Slamming the door closed and locking it with an offhand, Azula tore her clothes off before jumping into the great steel basin. It was honestly a bit of unneeded extravagance, as most officers lowered themselves to the communal showers to rub elbows with their men – but opulence defined the higher officers of the Fire Nation, beginning with those who commanded units or ships. And Azula had no problem taking advantage of it.

She sunk down into the steaming water, inhaling the scent of filtered salt water and rust with a faint grimace. Pumped up from the ocean and past the boiler to be heated and to kill organisms, the liquid Azula soaked in was the very definition of plebeian utilitarianism.

Better to be cleaned with such water than to endure the indignity of sitting about for days or weeks in the grime of her own sweat however. And she would not even begin to think about the utterly horrific body odour the commoners would acquire without access to frequent showers.

Honestly, mandating daily washings was one of Azulon's wisest policies when the Fire Lord was just a warmaking Prince. Not only did it make it bearable to be in the presence of the peasantry fighting for their glory, but it also reduced loss of manpower due to sicknesses.

Grabbing a bar of soap, Azula began to scrub down in swift, economical motions. It was tasteless and cheap – like the food and the company on her brother's boat. There was no purpose in dragging out her ablations any longer than required, and with a final dunk of her hair in the sudsy water, Azula climbed back out of the tub.

Vaporizing all the moisture clinging to her form with a quick flare of heat, Azula poked her head out the door and fixed Iroh with the most pleading expression she could muster. "Uncle, could you find me some clean clothes to wear? Zuzu's is fine."

When the retired general stared at her with a measure of disapproval – unlike Zuko, Iroh was more than aware of what people would think if she walked about in her brother's clothes – Azula stuck out her lower lip in a generous pout.

Iroh's mouth twitched in reluctant amusement, and setting his scroll aside, the old royal heaved his bulk from the sitting cushion on the floor and began to putter about the room. "With a face like that, you'll be breaking hearts before too long, Niece."

"Good." Azula replied tartly, catching a tossed pair of socks and tugging them on. "I have to find something to amuse myself with, lest I go mad."

"I would have thought tormenting your brother would manage to satisfy you?" Digging around Zuko's messy room, Iroh managed to scrounge up a pair of red woolen trousers and black leather boots.

Azula reached out around the open crack of the bathroom door, accepting the weight piled on her arm with a grunt. "Well you know how it is, Uncle. I can't do that all the time. You'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as they say."

"And is your brother a fly?"

A crumpled sleeveless vest was dropped into her hand, and Azula shrugged it on quickly. Glancing at herself in the plain square mirror, Azula smiled. Hair unbound and slightly mussed from the bath – or a tumble in the sheets – wearing her loose fitting older brother's clothesthat coveredeverythingbut her bare arms and a hint of cleavage.

How scandalous.

"No." Azula jabbed back with a tone of satisfaction. "Zuzu is much more than that."

Sweat poured down the planes of his back as Zuko moved into the last stance of his kata. Chest heaving and eyes stinging with sweat, the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation idly wondered if others had to put such absurd effort into their firebending. Somehow, he doubted it. Between whatever trade they performed for a living and time set aside for their personal lives, there simply wasn't enough time in the day to study firebending as Zuko had to.

Beneath the last setting rays of the western sun and his sister's appraising stare, Zuko had to admit that he had no particular talent for firebending. Oh he wasn't a terrible firebender – quite the opposite, in fact. The Prince was nearly a master, despite his young age and lack of natural talent for the art. But anything less than perfection and prodigious skill sent the Fire Lord into sneering rants.

It would never matter how much effort Zuko put into learning the katas and every individual strike in the Imperial Style. The fact that the Crown Prince drilled hour after hour, day after day, through every movement to maximize the destructive potential in order to make up for his own individual lack of inner fire was irrelevant.

Zuko's earliest memories were of a father with a tremulous smile. Once upon a time Ozai had possessed some fragile affection for his wife and children. The hands that taught Zuko's first firebending forms had been – if not kind or gentle – then at least possessed of paternal pride and lack of cruelty. For so long, the heir to the Dragon Throne had held onto those recollections as proof.

Proof that if Zuko simply tried hard enough, if he was skilled enough, ruthless enough, that he could earn back that love that Ozai had once given him so effortlessly. But something had poisoned Ozai. Perhaps it had been Azulon, or the court, or Ursa's persistent distance from her husband. In any case, all that was left of his father was a creature of mad ambition and cruelty.

Zuko was no longer a child. He could not desperately hold onto fragile fantasies at the cost of everything else in his life, and assume they would somehow work out.

Flicking salty sweat from his brow, Zuko spared a glance for the distant eastern horizon as he mused. Only another few days until the invasion force landed, and only another few days to discover if his painstakingly studied firebending was up to the challenge of a true battle.

The couple of weeks at sea had passed surprisingly quickly. Days ran together in an indeterminate steam, details blurring in between the burn of his muscles at Azula's training and the faint smell of tea in the nostrils at Uncle's games of pai sho. Soon – too soon, if Zuko were honest – he'd have Earth Kingdom ground beneath his boots and earthbender peasants beneath his flames.

A great part of the prince trembled in fear at the thought. Still a boy, or barely a man, and how many would he have to kill before war's end? Too many, if he were to hold to a similar sort of philosophy as Uncle. But a greater part of Zuko quivered with anticipation and hunger. Not enough, for he was fire – which was combat and blood and the racing beat of a furious heart.

"That was better." Azula advised cautiously, ruby red lips thinned in the crimson light of the dying sun. Her hair hung loose and free about her shoulders, curling down to the middle of her back in blatant challenge of their country's traditions. Zuko admired that, to the point where the Crown Prince was inspired to abandon the warrior's topknot himself.

"Thanks." Zuko muttered lowly, rubbing at his body with a towel to prevent the accumulation of odor. A quick sniff disabused him of the hope that he'd managed to escaped the rank scent of broken down sweat, and with a final respectful bow to his teacher and younger sister, Zuko rushed past her to his own quarters.

The few carefully nurtured political instincts Zuko had always screamed whenever his sister came near. Whenever it was to train him, or teach him, or simply to enjoy his company, his guts told him Azula had some motive. Zuko ruthlessly squashed those instincts. If Azula had some personal desire to one-up her older brother, she wouldn't spent so long tutoring him on the intricacies of the court and the dangers of even the simplest of actions.

As rare as it was, Azula's love was sincere. His younger sister was a better politician and a better firebender, and probably would be a better Fire Lord. But despite all that, the girl made the constant effort to shore up Zuko's own position. To sharpen the edges of his own martial skill. To pass information that might concern him into Zuko's own hands.

Azula was the contradiction to every political rule. Her only interest in the game was Zuko's welfare and her own survival. Which was why despite her inherent cruelty, Zuko could hold her close as his sister and love her. Whatever else she was, the Princess was his sister. His only sister, and the only courtier he could trust to have his best interests at heart.

Which was why he'd agreed to seek the blood and chaos of war in the first place.

I'm sorry Uncle. I'm sorry for Lu Ten. I'm sorry for the deaths that will come at my hands. But my sister's safety has more import to me.

Azula meant more than the deaths of a hundred thousand men to Zuko.

(AN): Another 3000 words. This is the last chapter I think before things shift into interpersonal conflict. As it is, it's mostly been Azula or Zuko going into a monologue. Which is what it is. They have their differing views of the world, of the people in it, and their relationship. And that's fine. But I'll be glad to finally step into some sort of actual dialogue or military conflict.

This Pairing: I know it's not for everyone really. And half the time, I almost wish I'd flip over and write this as Zutara or something. But I committed to Zucest, and that's what I'll produce

This chapter is kind of an "at sea" sort of monologue. It's an expansion of Zuko's views on his war and his family, Azula training him and her interacting with Iroh some, and then Zuko again anticipating their landing. I wanted to touch on Zuko a lot – who is a conflicted character between the desire for peace Iroh has given him and the instinct of fire to burn AND the desire of his only sister/friend to go to war.

But I didn't want to ignore Azula entirely, so I took the effort to paint her a bit as someone who trains Zuko. She also hopefully comes across as someone who "likes nice things" and someone who accepts and believes in classism. I've tried to give Zuko's POVs the sense of an egalitarian royal ( someone that's raised royal, but believes in all mankind ) where Azula is entirely about her own privileges and expectations.