The first chapter of my first longer english story. In which Fire heals the mind as Water heals the body. And a brief history of the Fire Nation as told by Azula.

Azula couldn't sleep. She was restless, frustrated and angry. The low glimmering embers in her fireplace would sporadically erupt in an angry shower of blue flames, whenever her thoughts wandered to her father and how he left her, how he betrayed everything he should stand for to chase his personal dreams of an empire, leaving her behind with a title he made meaningless.

She stood up, her lose robes sweaty and crumbled from her tossing and turning.

Betrayal. Again.

Again and again she was betrayed by the very few people she thought trustworthy. Zuko she had expected. She didn't expect things like loyalty or patriotism from him anymore. He spent to much time with Iroh and his tea, letting himself be fooled by the old mans friendly and jovial facade,couldn't see the shrewd manipulator beneath.

She may not have liked Iroh, hated him even, but she could not deny that he was a dangerous man and not only for his formidable firebending.

Mai on the other hand, she could not say that Mai's betrayal had not taken her by surprise. They were friends and Azula hated to admit but maybe she hadn't known Mai as good as she thought she had. Maybe Mai's facade was an even better one than hers.

As much as she loathed to admit it, Azula could see it when she made a mistake. The problem was that this mistake was a dramatic one. The bruises Ozai gave her for letting Zuko escape still hurt, when she moved to abruptly.

She had underestimated Mai's... not love, Mai might think she loved Zuko but Azula knew her better than that. Mai was an opportunist with surprisingly more spine than Azula had thought.

She shook her head. Azula didn't know what to think of Mai anymore.

Maybe she should speak to her in prison, acknowledge the friendship they once shared.

But it hurt. It hurt to think about Mai or Ty Lee. Especially Ty Lee, cute, friendly housebroken Ty Lee, the last person she expected betrayal from. But it was her, eager Ty Lee, who struck Azula down from behind when she faced of with Mai.

It hurt a lot to think about those two. Almost as much as her fathers flame as he punished her for her failures. Ty Lee's facade might have been even more perfect than hers or even Mai's.

Azula thought she knew the depths of Ty Lee's Mind. She knew that she wasn't as shallow or stupid as she pretended to be. The princess of the Fire Nation did not suffer fools lightly, nor did she call them her closest friends. She knew that there was more to Ty Lee but Ty Lee was good, very good. There was a reason Azula used her as a spy and Infiltrator, because she could even fool Azula with her mask of joy and stupidity. It seemed she was too good at faking emotions.

Azula only ever had two friends and she had selected them carefully. It wasn't exactly love. Azula had difficulties feeling things like that, but Mai and Ty Lee were her companions for a long time, for a war, they were to young to fight, for lonely nights in the wilderness, for hunting the most dangerous bender on the planet and conquering the unconquerable city Ba Sing Se.

They had shed blood, tears and sweat together and it bonded them together. Shallow Ty Lee shared deep bonds with the cold and unfeeling Mai and the cruel and callous Azula. They were her truest confidants, redefining her thoughts with dry snark and boundless enthusiasm. All that was broken now. Bonds severed and friendships nothing but ashes. Azula was all alone. They left her when it counted, showing once again that only fear could hold people together. Their bonds were not enough, and because of them they didn't fear her.

Azula snarled and the flames in the fireplace turned blue again, hissing and burning as her anger did.

It was difficult to hold her thoughts together. She mulled over a thousand plans and dismissed them all, wishing she had Mai's cold logic and Ty Lees knowledge of emotions her to help her think of a way to turn this mess into something where she wouldn't be reduced to a powerless pawn, all alone in this palace.

"I love Zuko more than I fear you." Zuko, always Zuko. Mai's stupid Ideas of being in love, Ty Lee's lies about love, it seemed to be the center of all her problems. Azula was often called heartless, but only now she wished she truly were. Then it wouldn't hurt so much.

"I love Zuko more than you." Like mother. Like father wished he could. Like Iroh. Mai and Ty Lee were only the last of a long line who loved stupid, useless Zuko more than her.

But I love you. Azula", whispered the voice in her head, the one that sounded like her mother.

"Shut up!", Azula snarled furious, at her mother, Ty Lee, at herself and at her father for leaving her out of what would have been her triumph.

Suddenly she couldn't bear to be in her room anymore. She ripped the door open and stopped outside in the hall panting and looking down the open corridor, her claustrophobic attack slowly ebbing away as moonlight fell out of the high window and bathed her in a softer glow than the unconquered sun or her own icy flames could have done.

She hated it. The moonlight was soft, silvery and melancholic, symbolizing everything she hated, everything she had lost. With hasty steps of her bare feet on the polished floor Azula passed columns of ivory and alabaster, read velvet curtains and tapestries, embroidered with gold and silver, showing Images of dragons, fire and great battles.

It was a warm night, even by Fire Nation standards. The capital, located in the caldera of a resting volcano wasn't as warm as some of the islands, who were covered in jungle or rocky deserts, where the air grew so hot that it distorted, but it had a very tropical climate still.

And even then, Azula was still a fire bender. The cold never bothered her anyway.

And so her feet brought her deeper in the heart of the ancient palace, rebuild by Fire Lord Iroh, when the volcano destroyed half the city four hundred years ago and since then maintained and improved by the following Fire Lords.

She passed the giant portraits in the hall of memories, where long dead Fire Lords were remembered with their images as high as six men, all of them staring with grim eyes down at her, their unlucky successor.

It started with Iroh, behind him the burning palace, the loss of so many and his noble fight against the incoming tide of magma. Iroh was portrayed as a very large man, with hands like shovels and only one eye.

He lost one in an Agni Kai with his predecessor, Fire Lord Imria who was called the Dragonborn when he challenged her over her cruelty. He was a compassionate man who loved nothing more than his son Azhor, the next in line.

Azhor, protector of the faithful, lost his eyesight because of the volcano and it was under his rule, that the church of the dragons and the fire sages were gifted with their own island and the great temple was built. A temple that was now empty and cold, as neither Sozin nor his son cared much for religion.

Or dragons for that matter.

Iroh and Azhor were portrayed with a red and a golden dragon rolled at their respective feet, their companion and most loyal friend.

The next Fire lord in line was Azhor's niece Aya. She was a Fire lord Azula had always admired. Aya killed her older brother in an Agni Kai for the throne and founded the order of the imperial firebenders, as a knightly order in service to no one but the royal family.

It was said she got the idea from Avatar Kyoshi's Dai Li and like Kyoshi she was ruthless and cruel. It was her who upped the punishment for betrayal and capital crimes to almost draconian levels. It was said she only ever loved two things in her life, her Nation and Kyoshi and thank the dragons she never had to choose.

Azula stopped at her portrait, and admired it, the black dragon at her feet, crumbling city's and a lot of blood in her back, back to back with a green robed figure that could be none other than Kyoshi.

An inspiration for sure. When Kyoshi died, Aya followed a few months later, from a broken heart as people said.

Her sisters son Ozhar didn't have a tapestry, because he ruled for less than a year, before his weak condition and sickness killed him, but his brother in law Sozin, the founder of her own line, led the Nation into a new age of war. The comet with his name over his head, the war at his back and the corpses of Avatar Roku, a sky bison and his own blue dragon at his feet.

What might Roku have felt at his best friends and probably Lovers betrayal? Was it what she felt now? Was he alone when his fiery end came, left by the one person that meant the most to him? Azula sympathized with the last Avatar. Betrayal was a terrible thing, she knew that now, be it for false love or ambitions.

Azulons portrait showed war and not much else, no dragon, no politics, only war and not much else. Azula had known her grandfather as a strong, dangerous presence even her father feared, until his death by her mothers hand.

She didn't even look at her fathers image, staring at her with disapproving eyes.

A disappointment, like Zuko, more than Zuko, who never had any potential at all. A Fire Lord, left behind with the title she always desired, just as the position became meaningless under the rule of the Phoenix King. The ancient and noble position of Fire Lord was reduced to nothing more than a glorified steward, without the real power that normally came with the position.

Azula clenched her fists at her side and the fires in the hall turned blue and seemed to whisper and hiss in harmony with her seething anger. She ignored the voice of her mother screaming after her and almost ran down the narrow stairs at the end of the hall of memories, the stairs that led to the Dragonbone catacombs, where she ignited the torches in the wall with a flick of her wrist.

The dead Fire Lords rested down here since Azulus the Great and the downfall of the priestkings. Azula's boots left imprints in the floor, that was covered in a thin layer of ash.

She motioned for the two Dai Li Agents, that had shadowed her since she left her room to stay here. That place was not for Earthbenders to see.

The corridor was drilled through the hard rock of the volcano a long time ago and here near the surface the walls were covered in gold-filled carvings of spirits of fire, like the immortal Phoenix, greater dragons and depictions of the unconquered sun, that glittered in the blue light of the torches.

There were seven niches in the front and seven in the back, four to the right and three to left plus one empty one. The niche, that would hold Ozai's ash, carved in the stone the day he became Fire Lord. The stone of a coffin that would remain forever empty was carved in his likeness and Azula laughed a bit when the light of her flame washed over his lifeless visage. His urn would be commissioned the day he died, depicting his great deeds and his ash would forever rest in the hands of his likeness in white marble.

The next grave down the line was Azulon, who was rather old when he became Fire Lord, which was why his aged face in marble looked eerily familiar to Azula, who remembered the grim face of her grandfather and namesake from her own childhood. She also remembered his pride after her performance in the throne room and the sweet cake he gave her on that day as a reward, together with a crimson cape, embroidered with dragons. She still kept it, even tough she had long since outgrown it, as a reminder.

Ozai had never rewarded her.

His urn and coffin depicted scenes of war, but it showed him also as a patron of marriage and also the great gates of Azulon he had built to protect the harbor of the capital. In his niche the floor was littered with the weapons of his enemies, earth kingdom broadswords, boomerangs of the Water Tribes, spears, bolas all rotting and rusting as a show of his victories.

"We are born from fire and given back when our flame goes out.

We are the children of dragons", Azula whispered a quick prayer for her grandfather.

Now she sympathized with him. Back then, when her thrice cursed mother killed him he was a necessary sacrifice for her fathers ambitions. Like she was now.

Her steps took her farther to Sozin's niche. The ground was cluttered with bones, which were, as Azula knew, the remains of the Airbenders her great-grandfather slaughtered at the day of the first Sozin's comet. The comet that was approaching very fast again.

His coffin was the first one that had a dragons skull to it's feet, the remains of Sozin's blue dragon Irrah, the last of her kind and nest-sister of Fang, Avatar Rokus dragon. The skull was a bit bigger than Azula, small for a dragon, even in the modern times and a far cry from the greater dragons of old. It was said that the great wild dragon Sindri, who killed the last god-king of the Sun Warriors had been as big as the whole city and his wings darkened the sky on the day he attacked it.

Sozin's Urn showed him on Irrah, fighting Roku, an Airbender on a bison and the comet in various forms.

Azula spared the niches on the left only small glances as she passed them.

Ozhar, whose niche was depressingly empty, Aya with her sword on her chest, the elegant long blade a gift from Kyoshi, and her dragons skull at her feet, much bigger than Irrah's.

Then Azhor, with the insignia of the fire sages and his priestly staff. The eyes of his marble face covered and his golden dragons skull to his feet, and Iroh the protector with the rubble of the old palace in his niche.

Azula followed the path deeper into the catacombs. The decorations on the walls made way for smooth black walls, the tunnel burned into the rock with dragonfire. The next chamber held eight niches, the Dynasty before Azula's and Sozin's, the ones directly descended from Azulus.

Imria III, the Dragonborn who died without children in an Agni Kai against the first Iroh. The skull at her feet an absolute giant, easily as tall as the whole chamber and with teeth as long as Azula's whole legs.

After her Azulus III., who decreed that every firebender had to serve a time in the military, and Razai, who destroyed the old city of Omashu with his red dragon. That earned him the eternal hate of the earth king Bolin II. Even long after the war ended.

Azula smirked. Even he and his great dragon couldn't touch Ba Sing Se. At least for that, she would be remembered forever.

The last Fire Lord on this side was his father Ozhar, known as the shipbuilder, for it was him, who made the Fire Nation the great power at sea that it still was today.

On the left there was Azulus II., the Alchemist, more scientist than king and more scholar than firebender. Before him came Azahai, who destroyed a revolt of the nobility with an army of nonbender-volunteers, which brought him his name: the Lord of steel. His father Azulon the lawgiver, a wise and cunning man who bound the nobility and the clerics to the Fire Lord for generations and paved the way for the modern legal system of the Fire Nation.

The next niche was bigger than the others, for it held two coffins. There was Azulus the Great. He was the one who ended the reign of the cult of Agni, killed the last high priest and distributed the belongings of the church to the families who would later become the high nobility of the Fire Nation. Next to him his lover Imria, the last Fire Lord from the line of Vanir the Uniter and until her death in an Agni Kai against the High priest, whose name was purged from all records, a puppet of the church of Agni. Their story was a tragedy and one of the most reinterpreted in the whole Nations, be it in song, poetry, theater or writing. Every educated citizen knew the story and it was accepted as the source of the Fire Nations love for tragedies.

But something drove her deeper into the catacombs into the next chamber, through blank walls forged by Dragonbreath and into then chamber of Vanir's heirs, the first Fire Lords.

Azula knew them by name, it was part of her thorough education as an aristocrat and princess but not much more. Their reigns were a long time ago in a wilder, more uncivilized time, when communication between the nations did not exist, the Avatar was nothing but a legend of times when spirits roamed the lands with humans and fire was a new gift.

There were six Fire Lords in here, not burned but buried in their coffins, without their images, nothing but marble, decorated with flames and dragons, most of their grave offerings long since decayed or plundered and only the skulls of the monstrous dragons remained, that never left their side.

There was Vanir, the Uniter. First Fire Lord, who took the ruins of the Sun Warriors empire and the scattered tribes on the isles and forged a new Nation from them. It was said, that the ancient dragon Skreeva, taught him the forgotten art of Firebending, so that he could rule over the isles and the tribes. Skreeva's skull towered over Azula, big enough to swallow a komodo-rhino whole, far far bigger than her descendants, a monument for the glory of the old days.

His son Vanros followed his example and brought the last isles and tribes into the fold. His daughter Imria made first contact with the mainland and the three earth empires of Omashu, Gaoling and the grand city state of Ba Sing Se. There was no friendship but mutual respect and careful trade. Under her and later her brother Vemrir trade was opened with the Air Nomads, who were very welcomed guests in those times for their exotic goods and interesting stories.

The first contact with the water tribes was not as peaceful. Vanros II. Vemrir's son led an expedition for punishment after the first exploration-vessel was destroyed by waterbenders. Vanros died in battle and his son Velteros forged an uneasy ceasefire with the watertribes but there was never much love lost between the two people. The southern water benders gave the Fire Nation a much warmer greeting and opened trade. Velteros' son was murdered by the Fire sages and the story of his daughter Imria was Azulus story.

A long line of Fire Lords rested beneath the mountain and Azula feared she could be the last one. How long until her noble title was unnecessary and forgotten,cast aside for a new line of Phoenix Kings, as nothing more than a glorified steward until the next king or the one after that would abolish the title completely?

The apparition of her father nodded smilingly, the one of her mother reached out to her: "I never wanted that life for you anyway."

"You never wanted me in the first place", Azula bit back and stepped up to the enormous skull at the end of the hall.

Azula caressed Skreeva's gigantic teeth carefully marveling at the sharpness, even after two thousand years. All of that history, all of that knowledge only served to further infuriate her. All that history for nothing. With a curse she send a circle of blue flames against the skull, cursing the dragons, the Fire Lords and most of all her father.

She was rather shocked as the circle expanded grew and the eyes of the skull lit up in an eerie blue glow, the flame in the bones making it seem almost alive. She rushed out of the way and landed unceremoniously on her behind, as the flames grew and grew, the skull rose from his eternal rest. The flame, now not longer only blue burned with many colours as it formed a body for the dragon, with giant claws of white fire, sun fire-wings and eyes, glowing the colour of stars. Every scale on the long body, that filled the whole chamber was a flame, burning in another colour, creating a grand and terrible spectacle that left Azula fearful and in awe.

Azula kneeled, not because she wanted to, in fact every fiber of her being wanted to refuse, to keep standing, but the flames of the spirit seemed to seep into her very soul, making her knees weak and forcing her to the ground in reverence.

The great spirit towered over her, the Dragon's skull shining in the light of multi colored flames.

When it spoke it's voice vibrated into every fiber of her being, licked at her like small pricklng flames, engulfed her like a terrible inferno. It was a deep, vibrating voice, whose tone seemed to do everything at the same time. It flattered her, tore her to pieces, threatened and made her feel warm inside.

"I greet you, daughter of dragons." His head swayed like that of a giant Monitor-snake, hypnotizing and enticing her. "Come closer! Bask in my glory!"

The serpentine body of flames slithered around her, until Azula was completely surrounded, the enormous head hanging directly over her. She raised her head, remembering her position and stood up carefully, the arms wide spread and the knees lightly bend in a gesture of reverence. She tried to speak, but she didn't manage it, the apparitions of her mother and her father screaming in her head, her father in agony and her mother screaming at her to run, to accept fate, to embrace her destiny, Zuko's destiny.

The spirit roared and it was a roar from an older world, primal and haunting, like dancing stars mirrored in the sea or a great volcano erupting far far away. The apparitions were silenced and began to fade, not waiting but gone for the first time since Azula was left behind.

"The chatter of hallucinations is not something a Fire Lord should listen to, daughter of dragons", the spirit chastised. "Especially when they come from a mind like yours." Another layer of flames circled Azula, now in the constricting grip of the burning dragon. And still Azula didn't know what to say. She was in awe, desperately trying to not show her weakness and failing as tears started to glisten in her eyes.

"You don't need to speak", the dragon said quietly. "I can see your spirit as clear as your body. It is a dragons spirit, cruel, greedy and thirsting for power. But it yet lacks the majesty and understanding, the passion of a true dragon."

He chuckled and it was a terrible noise, like standing right next to the engine of a battleship.

"Be thankful for that. Dragons are spirits and spirits play by the rules. All spirits. Even the great spirit of the world."

Azula finally found her voice again: "And what do you want with me, great spirit? Are you here just to taunt me, the last Fire Lord, before I fade into insanity?"

"On the contrary, daughter of dragons. We are upset with your line, that much is true, but stupidity among humans is hardly a new thing and we would have weathered it. Still there is a problem. Your father betrayed the pact. And that needs to be punished."

Azula breathed in sharply. When the spirit decided to dispose of her she didn't stand the smallest of chances. She had only felt so small when she was a little girl and kneeled before her fathers throne, crying and bleeding... A rush of flames destroyed the unpleasant memories and she looked up to the dragon spirit, tears in her eyes.

"Your fathers have forsaken their duty and the dragons, your brother has become a puppet for the great spirit of the world. But we are not ready yet to end our pact with the Fire Lords and fall in line behind Raava and Vaatu."

He growled and reared his head back, obviously displeased.

"Why fight, daughter of dragons, when there is no passion behind your flames, why follow, when you do not believe and why struggle against the bonds of time? Do you live, simply out of simple fear of death? Or do you want to be something great, like you promised us in your prayers when you were but a child?"

Azula's eyes widened. "You were there...", she whispered.

"We were always there. The dragons did not abandon your line, your line abandoned us. Some of us wished to choose your brother, to leave your spirit broken and for you to fall as a actuality of a new, better Fire Nation. But the balance of the great spirit is not our way. Our way is one of passion, of flames of a new age. Zuko would have bowed his head to the Avatar, a defanged dragon, a pet beast, never to fly again. I expect more wisdom of you, daughter of dragons."

He looked down on her. "Kneel", he spoke. And Azula kneeled, her face in the ash on the ground and her mind a swirling mass of flames.

"The dragons will give you a second chance Fire Lord. Do not draw our ire by wasting it. Do not become your father, all war and destruction. That is not fires nature. Do not become your brother, all compassion and waving in the wind. That is not fires nature. Do not stay on your current path, a scattered ember almost burned out. That is not fires nature.

You will be more than that, a complete flame, a true dragon, a ruler. That is if you succeed. Fail and the Avatar will ravage your spirit, and condemn your soul to the lost garden of fog, from where there is no escape until faceless Koh finds you and your torment will be eternal."

Azula was now bathed in flames, that did not burn her, the giant skull directly in her face and she took a deep breath.

"Why?", she asked. Why offer me this chance, why not destroy our line and seek for a new pact. You don't care for us, do not lie to me. You are a spirit. You play by the rules."

He laughed again, seemingly amused with her knowledge of his manipulation.

"All in due time, daughter of dragons. For now know this: Fire is the element of power, but do not stare to long into the flames, lest you be blinded by the light. And do not trust Raavas intentions. They are not as good as everyone would like to think."

"Your cryptic warnings are not helpful, spirit", Azula said standing up and straightening her back. "But I will accept your gift. For the sake of my nation. I refuse to let it and it's traditions fall to ruin, through the stupidity of my father and brother not the frailty of my own mind."

"Very good, daughter of dragons. Then raise your head high, little ember, and accept my flame. Never again shall you bow until your time comes and the sun shines before you. You are the emissary of dragons, sun-heir, Fire-daughter. You are the Fire Lord. And once again the dragons are with you."

The great skull exploded into colourful flames and for but a moment Azula saw the form of a great dragon in the flames, not skeletal or fiery but a real dragon with blue scales, majestic and grand, roaring into the sky. Then the flames descended upon her and seemed to devour her, filled her every being, ravaged and caressed her, passing through her body into her soul and mind, bringing pleasure and pain with them.

For Fire could heal, as water did but it healed not the body but the spirit and other than water it was not gentle, burning the imperfections away in terrifying, passionate agony.

Azula screamed, one moment in ecstasy, the next in excruciating pain. And as she was taken by the great dragon the fire in her soul bloomed again, roaring blue and in never known intensity. She did not know how long she lay there screaming until the flames receded and she laid on the cold stone, bared from the flames, her skin red and burned and her muscles sore.

But when she opened her eyes there was a fire in them and it was there that Lo and Li found her hours later, naked as the day she was born, but dragon touched, her golden eyes flaming bright and her blue flames dancing on her skin. And they fell to their knees, renewing their oath to their princess.

That's all for now. The next chapter will be uploaded when the third is done.