Azula stares at her fire feeling like a freak.

Her father says she should be proud of it. That the blue is a symbol of natural power. But she is different and she has already been through enough schooling to know that different is a dreadful thing. She doesn't know when or how it had come to be blue, but she wants her orange fire back.

She wants it back so that her classmates will stop staring at her as though she was doing something wrong. So that her firebending masters will stop talking about her and pestering her to, 'do it again', 'show me your fire'.

Ever since the change, she was feeling less like a princess, less like a girl, and more like an object or an experiment of some sort.

She hates her fire very furiously but she doesn't know how to make it orange again. She feared trying to make it orange again, because what if she accidently turned it an evil looking black instead or a mortifying shade of pink.

She brings the flame back to her palm anyhow, willing it to return to its original hue. But it does not obey. She can toss it across the room. She can bring it to her. She can drag it along and push it away. But she can't get it to display in the right color.

Her mother doesn't make it any easier. She can see the fear in Ursa's eyes whenever she works with her fire. Azula bites her bottom lip; she had loved firebending so very well. But now she feels as though it is isolating her further than she had already been and practicing her talents no longer seems fun.

She bites her lip harder and flicks the fire away, as though she has no intention of working with it again. She hadn't been careful, hadn't been paying attention and it misses Zuko by mere inches. He yelps and tosses himself to the side. "Mom! Azula is doing the weird fire thing again!"

Azula has half the mind to do it again and this time on purpose. But his words only have her belly squirming more. 'Weird', 'freaky', 'scary', she ought to get used to the words now. She is only going to hear them more. She regrets having made her dreadful ability public. "It's not weird." She insists despite her own thinking, maybe if she can convince him, she can convince herself. "Dad says it's powerful and…"

"Dad, is scary and he…" Zuko trails off, rightfully fearing trouble.

"You're just jealous, ZuZu." In truth she is envious that her fire can't be as unremarkable as his.

"I'm not jealous, I like having regular fire, not creepy blue fire."

She thinks that she should go complain to her father, but her father would judge her—and not kindly— for letting Zuko get to her at all. Azula folds her arms. "It's not creepy." She says, this time it is soft, more like a mumble because she doesn't believe herself either. Because when she needed to fetch something in the middle of the night, it was eerie to have only the dimmer light of a blue fire instead of the brilliant radiance of an orange flame. It was spooky to cast a dark place in a shade of blue. She misses her old fire more furiously.

"It is too."

This time she doesn't refute, because he has convinced her this time. "I want my old fire back."

Zuko doesn't have anything to say this time. Maybe her agreement has taken him by surprise.

"I can't turn it back." She adds. "Dad won't tell me how."

.oOo.

And he never did. So many years later, she gazes at a fire that is just as vividly blue as it had been. Many years later, she found a sense of pride in hearing that her bending was scary. The intimidation saved her much hassle.

Just as her mother always feared her for her unique talents, the terms 'weird' and 'unnatural' never ceased. It would seem that she would always be a freak, her bending always some mistake in the order of things. But she was growing numb to the terms, these days she equated them with strength and victory.

They could call her what they will and say what they'd like about her fire, but its hue will remain and she will embrace it with dignity. The dignity she should have regarded it with from the start.

She lets her fire dance over her fingers, admiring it for what it is. The color is a lovely shade. She thinks that it becomes her anyhow. For so long she had let everyone take that from her. But no longer, now she lets the world know. In powerful stances and easy conquests, she lets the world know that her fire is wonderful. A thing to admire. A thing to envy.

They still seem to resent it.

Still seem to cringe at the sight of it.

They wince because it is different.

They don't like different.

But Azula does. TyLee is different. Mai is different. Different is fierce. Different is better.

Perhaps in time the rest of the world would come around.