A Lesson in Humility | Closed RP
He didnât hear her when she spoke to him at first. He didnât even feel her when she placed her hand over his. It wasnât until her hand found the back of his neck and she said his name again.
Her soft voice felt like a cold knife.
 Katara stood very close to him, but Aang found he could barely feel her presence, could barely feel her. The longer he stared at her, the harder it seemed to see her. The air felt hot, stifling so, suffocating. Over her voice,  Aang could hear them, all of them, their shouts and cries and rage and bloodlust, just beyond the walls, choking around the room like a gag.
  âWhat did you say?â Aang managed to breathe to Katara. It felt forced, fake, Trying to ignore all the voices.
 Katara stared at him for a long moment. Aang wasnât sure if she was steeling herself up for a fight, or in the middle of fighting off tears.
 âWhat are you going to do?â her voice was quiet. Strangled. She looked pale and Aang could feel her hand tightening at his shoulder. She was afraid for him. Of what he was meant to do. Of what it would do to him.
 Or maybe she was just afraid of him now. He thought that would be a fair reaction.
 What was he going to do? The question shook him. It had wrapped itself around him a week ago and never let go. Because he had to do something now. after all this had all been his doing.
 Not that this was how it was supposed to work at, of course. When Azula had been put on trial, he had fully expected mercy from the Earth Kingdom. Maybe he wouldnât have assured Zuko to let the trial go on. To let justice be served, to prove to the Earth Kingdom that he, Fire Lord Zuko, did support peace and condemning the Fire Nationâs war.
 The Earth Kingdom was supposed to lock Azula up. Or sentence her to jail time, like her father, or, as Aang had hoped, back to the institution. That the Earth Kingdom would see Zuko, and the Fire Nation, as allies.
 Aang did not expect the Earth Kingdom to find Azula guilty verdict punishable by death.
   He would never forget how Zuko looked when the blood left his face.
And he would never forget how the Earth Kingdom had nominated him, Aang, to carry out the deed. If the Earth Kingdom killed her, it could be seen as an act of war. If the Fire Nation did, they risked citizens seeing him as complacent, manipulated and under the thumb of the Earth Kingdom.
 But the Avatar was a neutral party.
 âIâll do what I have to,â Aang said slowly, the words feeling like tin on his tongue.
When the verdict passed, Azula had laughed.Â
It had been years. Years since sheâd been Azula. Years since sheâd assumed another identity and forgotten herself, and what she had been running from. Foolish, she knew in retrospect, but she had thought that sheâd changed. The bounty hunter Ilah had taken over her identity, and she had become anything but a princess, or a well-oiled weapon.
Now she was Azula again, and she had laughed. The motion had strained at her lungs, making them ache along with her sides as sheâd knelt before the crowd of judges, the people who blamed her for her fatherâs war. But it was your war too, you visisted the most chaos upon them.Â
Theyâd had to drag her away; she could barely stand.Â
Zuzu had been there. She vaguely remembered his face. It was frightening how much he looked like father. She might almost have been able to imagine Ozai staring down at her disapprovingly from the dais if Zuko hadnât been so blatantly disturbed by the idea of her fate, and so many years after she had escaped and left him wondering whether he would ever see her again.
Now, Azula had to face the Avatar once more. The man who had made her into what she was, by all accounts. Age hadnât hardened in his eyes the way that she imagined it had in her own -- in the way that she knew it had in Zukoâs.Â
Rising painfully from where she had been shoved to the ground, braced against her knees, the former princess stared out at the Avatar, her hands tightly bound at her back, painful at the wrists from chaffing. A razor-sharp smile cut itself out of her cracked lips, aimed pointedly at the airbender standing some feet away, the waterbender who had defeated her at his side.Â
Another laugh bubbled up her throat, and Azula crumpled in on herself for a moment, the sound turning to a whimper as she pressed her trembling lips together.Â
She thought of a round face with her eyes, and soft touches.Â
Her voice rasped in her throat. âStop standing there and just do it!â Azula railed, glaring out of the strands of hair that had escaped her topknot and now fell into her face.