Azula Week

Sunrise is her favorite time. The quiet and lonely golden hour that people seem to miss because they can’t be bothered to rise early enough. Perhaps it makes her selfish, but she doesn’t like to share this hour with anyone. Not even with Sokka. She likes to take it with a cup of daisy-dandelion tea and a thin blanket draped around her shoulders for the sake of having a blanket around her shoulders. 

Sunset, the second golden hour, is her second favorite time. It isn’t as quiet; in fact it is rather noisy. The crickets are beginning to awaken and the people are well awake and making their own racket. 

The fireflies also begin to awaken, cluster by cluster until they are everywhere blinking in the tall grasses and upon the trees. 

Usually by now, the world around smells like smoked meats and burning the burning leaves of campfires. This is the time that she wants to share with Sokka. He enjoys meat anyhow, most certainly more than he would enjoy her shaking him awake early in the morning. Sometimes she does that anyways when she feels sad for no reason. Sometimes she does it accidentally when she wants someone to hold or nuzzle her face against. He gets grumpy but he holds her anyhow. 

“We’re almost there.” Azula remarks. 

“Exactly where are we going?” Sokka pushes a fern leaf aside. 

“There’s a big hill. We’re going on top of that.”

Sokka furrows his brows. “Why are we doing that again?” 

“Because I want to show you something.” 

“Will the cicadas stop by the time we get there? Those things are driving me crazy. We don’t have those back at home.”

“You complain about the cicadas every year.” Azula rolls her eyes.

“Is it just me or do they get louder every year?”

“I think that it’s just you.” 

“I think that you Fire Nationals are just used to it.” He grumbles. 

“We’re here.” Azula declares. 

Sokka’s shoulders slump. “It’s just a big grassy hill!” 

“For now.” Azula replies. 

“For now!?” Sokka throws his hands up. “What does that even mean?” 

Azula offers him a smug and cheerful smile. “You’ll see.” She unfurls the picnic blanket and lays it out across the grass. “I figured that since I made you walk all of this way, that’s I’d make your favorite…”

“Peppered komodo chicken with a touch of garlic and a side of…”

“Smoked seal jerky.” Azula fills in. “Yes.” She withdraws a pan, a cooking fork, and a small iron grate to rest the meat upon. She gathers herself a nice tent of firewood and lights it up.

.oOo.

The last of the sizzles and pops die away as the sun fully falls. Azula does not relight it and Sokka shudders, it is quite darker than he had imagined. But Azula seems entirely unbothered which he might have found reassuring if Azula wasn’t unbothered by most things. 

She passes his meal to him. “Enjoy.” 

He will certainly try but the sounds emitting from the shadows–the ones that Azula insists are just lemurs and screech hog-monkeys don’t make it easy. He watches Azula, ever unphased, lay herself belly-down across the picnic blanket. She rests her chin in her palms and gazes down the hill. 

“It’s firefly mating season.” She remarks at last. 

Sokka swallows his mouthful. “Good to know, I guess.” 

Azula rolls her eyes and sighs. “Every few years there’s a firefly boom.” She elaborates. “It kind of reminds me of the polar lights. Less colorful, more uniformed but it’s like looking at stars but they’re in the grass.” She gestures down the hill where the first flashes are finally beginning. 

“I’ve seen Water Tribe winters.” She continues. “So I thought that I would show you what a Fire Nation summer is like when it is at its finest…” There is something in her voice, in the way that she trails off. It makes Sokka’s stomach sink. He is being unenthusiastic and he thinks that it is cracking her confidence in this thing that she had been so excited to show him. 

He wants to be enthusiastic but he has seen fireflies before so many times. He can’t say that this is any different from what he is used to seeing. A few drifting clouds of fireflies. It is pretty for certain but he isn’t sure if it is worth a long trek through the jungle. But Azula’s smiles are worth it. 

She is not smiling right now. Rather the opposite. “There are usually more than this…” She bites her lower lip. 

Sokka’s heart sinks further. He puts a hand on her back. “It’s alright, Azula. It’s still nice.” It is quality time with her and a meal that she had taken the care to cook for him. It has been prepared and is being eaten with breathtaking scenery, however ordinary it is. “It doesn’t have to be…”

“But I wanted to show you something special.” She mumbles. 

“This is special.” He insists. 

“But you’ve seen this before.”

“I’ve seen something similar but I’ve never seen these fireflies and they never dance around in the same way.”

Azula shrugs. 

“How many times did I take you to see the polar light?”

“A lot, Sokka.” She replies. 

“And did you enjoy them any less the tenth time?” He quirks a brow.

She purses her lips. “N-no.”

“Well then.” Sokka grins. And her smile starts to return.

.oOo.

Azula isn’t sure what had woke her up but she is pleased that it has. She nudges Sokka. Once then twice. “Sokka.” She whispers. He rolls over and gives a sleepy grunt. “Sokka!” She hisses again with a harder nudge.

“Wha-uh-t!?” He grumble-whines. “Go to sleep, woman!” 

This time she gives him a very solid thumb on the back. He jerks awake. “Geez!” 

Azula laughs. 

“What!? Is someone dying?” 

Azula shakes her head. “Look.” She points at the roof of their tent. It is all beaded with firefly bulbs that rest there like glowing yellow raindrops. Now and then the insects crawl down the fabric leaving a glowing trail just as rain leaves a trail of wetness. 

“I-it’s completely covered.” Sokka sputters. 

Azula nods rather eagerly. She takes his hand. “Come on Sokka, the hill is probably full of them!”

The hills, the canopy, the tree bark. Everything. Clouds of fireflies are suspended over the pond and make themselves cozy in the leaves of cattails. 

Sokka blinks. “They’re everywhere.” 

Azula nods. 

“I’ve never seen so many!” 

She nods again and takes his hand. “Come on, Sokka.” 

“Where are we going?” He asks. She knows that he will be able to deduce the answer soon enough.

.oOo.

He and Azula wander through the tall grass. It tickles his waist as he wades his way through. Although it is significantly higher on Azula–perhaps reaching her belly button or a little above–she seems to sift through the grass with ease. 

Sometimes it is nice to just walk hand in hand with her, letting her lead him along. Tonight she guides him through a field of stars. Each blade of grass seems to be tipped with a firefly bulb or two. And each strand that they part seems to rouse a whole cloud of them into the sky. 

Azula extends her arms and cups her hands. When she parts them to let him peer inside he finds that she has come away with at least five or six fireflies. 

“This must have been fun for you when you were a kid.”

Azula shakes her head. “Father wouldn’t let us chase them. He didn’t want us to get our robes dirty. We got to look and that was nice enough. But I never had the chance to…” she reaches up and plucks another firefly from the sky. 

Never had the chance to be a kid. He can see as much on her face. And he realizes that, technically, this is a first time for her too. A childhood dream coming to life. 

“Who do you think can catch more?” Azula quirks a brow. 

“I can of course.” He declares. “I’m taller so I can reach more of them.” 

“But I’m faster.” Azula counters. And he can’t dispute that. She has reflexes on top of that and this easy, fluid way of maneuvering through the world around her. She does a half twirl to look back at him. There are fireflies in her locks and crawling on her billowing robes, over her outstretched arms. 

She doesn’t even have to lift an arm to catch the fireflies. 

He can’t see himself but he imagines that he is similarly dressed in fireflies. Any traces of sleepiness ebb right out of him. 

If he falls asleep now, he fears that he will never see something like this again. 

Azula holds her hand out and he takes it. 

Just as he had held her hand when he introduced her to the lights. 

He has shown her the winter and she has showed him the summer.