Chapter 6
Title: Festival
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Third Person POV.
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Timeline: 95 AG (2 years and 10 months later) (5 years before canon)
A new year has started for the beautiful world of avatar and so, the royal capital of the fire nation is in a joyous atmosphere. stalls and the streets of the capital are decorated in beautiful red ribbons and red flowers of different veriety, as well as people walking the streets donning beautiful red colored dresses and wears
Anywhere one looks, one shall see the color red prominent, with other colors occupying also but in fewer quantities.
While the capital is lively, within the royal palace, a different kind of lively is ongoing
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Within the royal palace, in the training grounds, sounds of flourishing flames and grunts of exertion are heard. Within the circular chaped ring of the training ground, Master Jing, the master assigned to the royal family, and somone from a prominent clan who has participated in the war of the frontlines and has lived to tell the tail, is currently seeing to the friendly spar of the three royal children of the royal family
Currently on the ring is the 20 years old Lu Ten, the first child of the first prince, and current oldest to be training in these training grounds. Facing him is the first born of the second prince, Zuko who is currently 11. The match might seem unfair with the age gap, but you have to remember, in this ruthless world nothing is fair, the only way for somone to live a fair life is through strength
As the spar continues, Zuko throws flames after flames towards his opponent, but unlike their first spars, he doesn't give into anger like before and instead, controlling his breathing, throws controlled and stronger than before flames
In response, Lu Ten has to take this spar more seriously and start defending while throwing a few jabs back. He dodges a horizontal wave conducted by Zuko's kick by lowering his center of gravity, and responds by a fist throw, generating heat from his knuckles and making his opponent dodge
by the time Zuko dodges the beam, Lu Ten has already changed position and send another wave of pure heat his way. Seeing this, Zuko has no other choice but to dodge until he finds an opportunity to cut Lu Tens following onslaught
As the spar is ongoing between the two, admittedly, Zuko seems to have improved alot in these past few years. But ultimately, the gap between the age of the duo catches up, leading to the second prince's defeat
After catching their breath, the next faze of the match starts, with Lu Ten, the winner being paired agained the only other combatant except the master
Azula stands up from her position and begins entering the makeshift ring, bowing to her opponent in the signature fire nation sign, before assuming her fighting stance
Lu Ten does the same and assumes his stance as well, knowing fully that he can't take this one easy and has to get serious from the start. In these past, almost 3 years, the ondisputed strongest among these trio has been made abundantly clear. Since the day he got issued to become the princess' training partner, he has only known the taste of victory againsed her a few times. And those were only on the first year since this arrangement
Since then, not once has he been able to defeat her, this seemingly 9 years old girl. It should have been disgraceful, painfully so, to lose to a child not even half his age, but, when you look at the spars she's sometimes made to participate in by either Ozai or the firelord, againsed master firebenders, older people in the prime of their lives, and lose againsed her, it'd be hard to feel ashamed
It is, without a doubt, a fact now. Azula has become the youngest bender to ever master her element, and eclipse even those so called masters in the minor age of 9. She is the ondisputed strongest now, only falling short to, Ozai, Iroh and the firelord, or is she?
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The spar concluded in her victory once again, just like every other time for the last two and a half years. Such is the perk of somone born with the potential and tools to climb at the peak of this world, or even maybe beyond someday
As the spar comes to a close, from the doors to the training yard, arrives Azula's only 2 true friends, Mai and Ty Lee. Seeing them, a genuine smile erups on the princess' face and she sprints towards them
"Mai! Ty! What are you guys doing here? " She asks a genuine question, but is nonetheless happy to have her friends over. They immediately start chatting while walking towards her room, completely forgetting the spar and the people in the yard
"Sigh, and there she goes, not even acknowledging our spar and my defeat" Lu Ten sighs and slumps his shoulders in defeat, with Zuko giving him a pat on the shoulder in consolidation
"I know what you mean. I still can't believe how strong she's become. It's like she should be the older sibling among us and not me" Says Zuko
Master Jing had already left the yard as well, not even being acknowledged by the two friends who has, at different extends, surpassed even him. At this point, he is only attending these spar sessions to be the referee
The new Azula of this world has changed the personality and fate of these two so much that, at this point, they are unrecognizable from their canon selfs
"Wanna spar some more to get it out of your system? " Asks Zuko while looking at his friend. "Sigh, sure, atleast I'll have a punching bag to relieve some of my shame of losing on" Sighs Lu Ten before sending a cocky smirk his way
"Keep talking like that gramps, and see how i surpass you in no time" Instead of getting angry or losing his composure, Zuko sends a jab back his way before both get into fighting stances, continuing their spar
Zuko has changed SO much in these past years, he is no longer the short tempered person who would lash out at the tiniest thing he doesn't like. And even fights back in other creative ways. Lu Ten has also changed from that perpetually serious dude, who saw duty above everything else, and who had gotten himself killed in the canon timeline, into this easygoing, but stronger person than his canon self
And the reason for all of these changes is the princess, current strongest firebender who is only the second best in the world. And she is currently pondering on her plot of escaping the palace at night to join her two friends on the festivities being held at the city
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[With Azula, Mai and Ty Lee]
Inside her room, Azula is having the conversation all female friends have inside their inner circle, or it's more like Ty Lee gushing over another pretty boy inside the Academy while Azula gives her two cents now and then and Mai is completely out of it, being in a world of her own
"-so then after that i asked him to go to this circus that visits the capital with me, but he refuses. Turns out he's afraid of platypus bears, can you believe that?!? " Says Ty Lee while exaggerating with her hands atop her head
"Wow, a noble's boy who's afraid of those harmless animals, especially the cute one with that duck like beak? Talk about a turndown" Says Azula with a little bit of uninterestness to this whole convo
"That's so lame" Mai puts out two cents of uninterestedness of her own to the conversation
"I know right! So then i dumped him" Concludes the ball of energy with no flair put to the end, showing how uninterested even she was in the relationship
"But anyways, i later learn that it was my dad who'd made Jin's father make Jin go out with me, saying that 'I'm at the age to start thinking of my future' or whatever" Dissmisses Ty with a wave of her hand. "He wanted to take me to the festival, but then, unluckily for him, this incident happened. And me, being after any excuse, no matter how little to get out of that doomed relationship, used that opportunity to get out of there" Concludes Ty Lee with a victorious grin, eliciting claps from her two friends, one having clear lesser enthusiasm than the other
"Oh! Speaking of the festival, wanna go guys? " Asks Ty Lee with visible excitement. "I don't know... My mom and dad are supposedly going somewhere for a few weeks so I'm supposed to be the temporary head of the house... or whatever..." Says Mai, trying to get out of this clearly fun activity
"Oh come on! It would be fun! " Says Ty Lee, trying to pull her friend to the light side. "Exactly" Says Mai in a bored voice
With no other choice, Ty turns to Azula "Azulaaaa! You say something!" She points to Mai while having a pouting face
Being the middle woman in this conversation, Azula sighs before looking to mai, "come on, it could be interesting" She shrugs, "i mean, what would you do at home anyway? Just sit in your room, bored out of your mind? " She says, but then she gets a mischievous idea and smirks, "if you come, i promise to drag Zuzu there too~" She sing songs the word, making Mai jolt a little
Azula and Ty Lee already knows about her infatuation with the prince charming, the seemingly perfect 'knight in shining armor' prince that Zuko is, -atleast in her eyes-,And they, like the good friends that they are, are using her weakness against her to make her cooperate
Eventually, after some more pestering, Mai is won over to the light side and, reluctantly, joins the festival goers. Azula was already onboard the moment she heard the proposal, so the only other thing left to do is to bring Zuko aboard the ship
Later that day, after Mai and Ty Lee leaves the palace, a Zuko who had a not necessarily bad feeling all day, is walking down the corridor after his training with Lu Ten. He's headed to his room when suddenly, his path gets blocked by a scheming younger sister with a wide smirk
"Zuzuuuuuu~" Whenever she calls him in that sing song tone, it usually means she has a devious plan and most of the time, puts him in the line of fire for their mothers's usual scolding. Having learned her patterns already, he has given up on trying to get out of her scheme, knowing his ass is about to be fried
"Sighhhh, what do you want Azula? " He sighs in a resigned tone before asking his doomed question
"Brother, how can you talk with me in a such a defeated tone? What have i ever done to deserve such treatment by my dear older brother whom i love so much? " Asks Azula in a 'hurt' tone while shedding fake tears
Getting annoyed at this point, Zuko has had enough "just spit it out already! I know whatever your up to is no good for me so atleast give me something to prepare myself againsed mother's scolding for! " Says Zuko while giving her the stink eye
Having had enough fun, Azula gets to the point. "The festival? And your saying Ty Lee and Mai are coming too? So that makes 3 girls and 1 boy. How is that gonna work? " Asks Zuko, already having agreed to go but not knowing the plot that awaits him
"What's that supposed mean brother? We're just friends going to the festival, what's there to figure out? " Intones the schemer 'innocently' 'haha! Yes! Agree to this brother! Muahahahaha!' internally though, she's setting up the ship to sail 'Mai x Zuko forever babyyyyyyy'
In the end, having thought of, and except sneaking out of the palace, not finding any other thing wrong with the proposal, Zuko agrees. As for why not invite Lu Ten too?, come on, he's 20 years old. Do you think he'd want to spend time with kids?
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When night struck, Azula was awake in her chambers and ready to go. Since she proposed this, she'll have to go to Zuko's chambers and together, they get out of the palace unseen
She gets out of her bed and slowly walks towards her open balcony, knowing that guards patrol the corridors at night as well as there are guards infront of her door
Once she's out in her balcony on the third floor of the palace, she looks left and right, seeing no patrols on the outer peremitter of the castle, she simply jumps off the rails and, before reaching ground, ignites her hand and feet in brilliant blue flames for one sec, to cushion her fall. Once at ground level, she begins sprinting through the garden thats
Infront of her chambers on this side of the castle, using the garden as cover, she sneaks past the patrolling guards. Even using the trees as cover where the flower bushes shorten, casually jumping 20 feet off to a branch of the tree by utilizing her chi bending inside her body on her heels, imitating an inferior version of Chackra Control like Naruto Shinobis
Once she is under Zuko's balcony and there is no guards nearby, she fires a thin jet of Orange flames up all the way to the third floor. Zuko, who sees the signal, quickly gets out of bed and, imitating Azula's move, gets to ground level. Together they both, while having eachothers' backs, manage to get out of the palace unseen by the patrolling guards
Once they are at the outher layer of walls, this is where it gets tricky. See, after this thick outer layer wall, for 40 to 50 meters there is only concrete ground all around the palace, and then you can see the other big residence belonging to the nobles of the fire nation
The solution Azula came up with was both genius, and very simple. You just walk out. If it were day time then you would be seen 100% by the guards on the outposts surrounding the palace. But it's currently nighttime and they have black cloaks to blend into the darkness outside
So once they climb the inner side of the wall and, waiting for the patrolling guards to leave, quickly dash to the other side and, using the wall itself on the outer side like a slide, quickly land on the other side
They couldn't use firebending because that would give their position away to the outposts outside the wall. Anyway, once they are on ground, they crouch and sneakily but quickly walk out of the open and into the more populated district
On their Randevue point, they meet with Mai and Ty Lee who are donning similar garbs and the four head for the festival
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Author's note/ this episode, there was a little action but it was mostly chill so next chapter we shall have more drama and stuff happening. Maybe we'll get a peek into what is going on with Kuzon 🤔
Anyways! I knows it's kinda late -2 to 3 chapters late! - but here is a picture of Mia, Iroh's wife
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WORD COUNT EXCEEDED 2,600!! 😱😱😱
Thank you guys for reading my book and have a great day/night
𝓣𝓸𝓭𝓭𝓪𝓵𝓸~