Was gonna go for straight comedy but this wrote itself into fluff. Also it was gonna be a one shot but I decided to leave it open to possibly becoming a multi-parter if I have the time. But I tried to leave in the Azula/Daniela chaotic duo aspect I mentioned.
Summary: Azula is a fire in Alcina’s otherwise cold and desolate world. She brings a certain spark to the castle that is as vexing as it is endearing. Anyways, her daughters are fond of the girl so how bad can it be?
A simmering summer, Alcina decides, is more chaotic than a merciless winter. Fire is wild, uncontrollable, unpredictable. It leaps from one thing to the next, searing away all that which it touches. Winter leaves a frosty kiss but it can be dispelled and warded off. Winter is predictable, summer is strange, feral.
Winters is predictable. Azula is anything but.
Winters has a knack for smashing windows–breaking anything with a glass surface, really.
Azula sets fire to everything that will burn.
Winters does it out of spite and malice.
Alcina is convinced that Azula does it for the thrill or attention.
She knows that attention is Daniela does it for chaos and companionship.
Alcina pinches the bridge of her nose as another thunderous boom resounds down the expansive hallway. She takes a hard and generous swallow of wine, this particular boom had sounded rather expensive. The shatter of porcelain, perhaps her favorite bathtub.
“What are you guys doing!?” Bela screeches. It is a noble thing that the girl is trying to do. Noble but pointless. Alcina has come to find that Azula and Daniela have become quite an unstoppable duo. A duo with such ferocity that even Winters has stopped coming by.
She isn’t sure where the girl had come from nor what sort of mutation has granted her the ability to wield fire in her hands but she is here and Alcina can’t help but feel a fondness for her. She is a small thing, absolutely teeny–even by comparison to someone who isn’t as tall as she. And mostly she is a charming and poised girl. Elegant and well-mannered. Even tempered, a break from the chaos. A refreshing break.
But with Daniela there comes to the surface something wilder. The girl’s laugh is far less than refined when Daniela points to a large crate and yells, “oh, what about that! Set that on fire!” There comes another loud bang and Alcina flinches. She is almost certain that, that had been a crate of clothing that she has been meaning to look through. She grits her teeth and grips the armrests of her chair. She loves her daughters, loves them more than anything else. But if she hears one more explosion…
.oOo.
Azula chuckles to herself as the flames lap at the wood. Her own mother would never let her get away with such a feat. She scrambles her way up a chair. Castle Dimitrescu is somewhat intimidating in its impressive size. There isn’t a single thing that she doesn’t have to ask one of the Dimitrescu sisters to help her reach.
When they aren’t around she has to quite literally scale counters and furniture. And the bed…she had thought her bed at the palace was large. The one she sleeps in now has room for several of her as well as a mongoose-lizard or two.
And it is no wonder, she hears the thunder of Lady Dimitrescu’s footsteps.
“OhHHh fUcK!” Daniela shouts. Before Azula’s reflexes have a chance to kick in, she snatches her off of the chair she had worked so hard to ascend. “She’ll never catch us.”
“And what if she does?” Azula asks.
“Then we’ll just burst into a cloud of flies and…oh wait you can’t do that.” She slows her pace to tap her chin. “Then we’ll just have to…set MORE things on fire!” She throws her hands up. Azula gives a yelp of surprise as her body is tossed into the air.
She catches herself on a chandelier and pulls herself onto its fixture. It bobs precariously though she can’t imagine that she weighs anywhere near enough to bring it down.
“Whoops.” Daniela winces from below.
Having successfully launched her partner in crime to oblivion, she is left to fend for herself.
“Where is your sister?”
“Which one, mother?”
“The fiery one.”
“Cassandra’s is in her room.”
Alcina inhales deeply. “Azula. Where is Azula.”
“Oh, right, yes. Well you see, she’s really small and so I may or may not have thrown her clear across the castle.” Perhaps her lie would have had more success if she hadn’t offered the chandelier a wink. Alcina reaches up in an attempt to pluck her down. Azula ducks under the woman’s hand but one misplacement of her hand has her tumbling to the ground.
With a most devious grin, Daniela lets out a screech and catapults herself into the air. She practically bodyslams Azula as she catches her and takes off into a full sprint. “Daniela, you get back here!” She hears Alcina groan. “Bela, catch your sister!”
Daniela takes Azula’s arm and positions it out in front of her. “Make fire!”
“Do you think that your mother will finally replace this hideous wallpaper if I just…” she holds the smallest candle wick of a flame to the wall and lets Daniela’s sprint do the rest.
“Our mother won’t have a choice. Oh! Maybe if we set all of…everything on fire we can finally redecorate the house. I was thinking of something more daring like…” she trails off. “Like we can take a whole bunch of man bones and string them up on the balcony like wind chimes. Oh and I saw this neat thing at Karl’s factory. I heard minimalist is in…which is exactly why we need to clutter this place up. I was thinking sofas in the middle of the hallway and lamps hanging form the chandeliers.
“Daniela, that sounds awful. Let’s do it!” Though she is nearly certain that it will end up driving her just as mad as it will drive Lady Dimitrescu.
Daniela comes to an abrupt halt and bursts into a cloud of flies as she collides with Bela who erupts into her own separate cloud. Azula lands with an oof. The fire, a testament to her success and thrill, crackles behind her. Bela reassembles with her hands on either side of her head, “what have you guys done!?”
“We don’t like the decore and wallpaper so we’re remodeling!” Azula declares more boldly than someone who has landed flat on the floor ought to.
Daniela lifts her off of the floor and turns her around to face the fire. “It’s…” she wipes a tear from her eye “…glorious.”
“You guys are the worst.” Cassandra grumbles. “I think that my favorite seat cushion was down this hallway.”
Daniela rolls her eyes. “Who actually bothers to pick out a favorite seat cushion anyways?”
“I do, Dani!”
Azula shrugs. “If it was in this particular hallway that it was an abomination to upholstery.”
“It’s not about the aesthetic! It’s about the feeling it gives your buttcheeks when they sink into it’s plush fabric.” Cassandra explains. “Haven’t you ever sat your ass down on something so fluffy it transported you to a new dimension?”
Azula shakes her head.
“Then how’d you get here?” Daniela asks.
Bela rolls her eyes, “because obviously comfortable seating is how you move from one universe to another.”
“The right level of booty comfort can go a long way.” Daniela insists.
“I hate to say it, but I think Daniela is right, Bela.”
With a fire blazing wildly behind her, Azula sits back and watches the siblings bicker.
Such is the pattern that she has fallen into. It is thrilling, fun, and exhilarating. This world, wherever it is, is bizarre and uncanny. Messy and wild, and there is a sense of freedom in the chaos. In becoming part of the chaos. Something liberating that she can’t find in the Fire Nation.
Something that compels her to shake away what remains of her overwhelming need for perfection.
.oOo.
Alcina finds that the fire child is much easier to manage when she is sitting upon her shoulder chattering away about the politics of her own realm and how she rather enjoys having three sisters instead of one aggravating brother.
And upon her shoulder, away from Cassandra and Daniela, Azula retains her more soothing, soft spoken demeanor. The one she takes up when looking over books with Bela. This is the topic of discussion today, “I’ve never read anything like this. The history of your world is quite intriguing.”
“I am glad to hear that you are getting comfortable here.” Alcina takes a seat, picks up her kiseru, and has a drag. The smoke trails up and Azula fans it away.
“It would be wonderful if you could get some smaller chairs, climbing these is just about as tiresome as some of my firebending katas are.” She absently kicks her legs at the air, offering Alcina’s chest something of a massage.
“I suppose that I can do that for you.”
“Perfect.” Azula claps her hands together.
For some time they sit in silence and then the girl speaks.
“I’m glad that I found you. I don’t…I don’t feel like a monster here.”
Alcina furrows her brows. She has been around many a monster. By all means, she thinks it fair to call herself one. But the girl, this small, delicate thing… “why would you think that?”
“Everyone else does. My own mother…”
Alcina’s heart pangs again. Suddenly she doesn’t feel quite so much like a monster, “a mother who can’t love her child is no mother.” And for a moment she isn’t sure if she is speaking of Azula’s mother or of Mother Miranda. “A mother who makes her child feel insignificant is a monster.” She reaches up to stroke Azula’s hair.
“You don’t think that I’m a monster?”
This girl, this beautiful girl has been made to feel unloved and unlovable.
“Why would I think that, dear?”
She shrugs. “Daniel and I have set everything you love on fire.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose. “You haven’t set yourselves or each other on fire.” She sighs. “I suppose that this castle was due for some renovations anyhow.”
This seems to delight the girl.
“My mother had a fit when I set a single, withered rose on fire.”
“Things work differently here, as you are finding.” She rises to her feet. “It has been a while since I’ve had company on my strolls through the courtyard; my girls are unable to tolerate the cold. Would you join me?”
.oOo.
“Firebenders don’t much like the cold…mother.” It sounds strange to say on her tongue, but it feels perfectly correct. The woman’s face seems to fall. “But I’m sure you have something warm for me to wear while we’re out.”
“Of course, dear. I’ll fix you a cup of wine–if I remember correctly you prefer it without blood–and we’ll head out.”
“No blood, that’s correct.”
“Strange girl.” The woman chuckles.
She isn’t sure that she is the strange one here but she keeps it to herself while Alcina sets her back on her shoulder and makes her way into the dining room. Minutes later she finds that Alcina hasn’t any winter clothing that is even remotely her size. Instead, the woman bundles her up in a nest of blankets that very well may be Alcina’s own winter coat.
The outside world is cold on her cheeks. She finds herself pressing her hands against them as Alcina points out her favorite places in the courtyard, her favorite flowers and her favorite statues. Much like all else in this world, Azula has never seen anything quite like it. It is grand and elegant place as cold and grey on the outside as it is warm on the inside. It has many twisting, sharp spires and stone gargoyles to top them. In places it is broken, ancient. Gloomy and depressive in a haunting way that Mai would appreciate. “Your castle is beautiful, mother.”
“Thank you.” She smiles. “I am pleased to know that you don’t find it off putting.”
.oOo.
Azula burrows further into the blankets.
“Are you getting cold?”
“I’ve been cold.” She replies.
“I suppose that I’ve had my fill of nightair.” She cups her hand over the girl’s head, hoping to provide her with even just a little more heat. “I ought to check up on Daniela.”
Azula nods and leans into her chest, pulling the blankets tighter around herself as she does so. “Thank you.” She mumbles. “For letting me stay here.”
Alcina ought to thank her for staying. She can’t remember the last time that she has had company, human company that she found pleasant. Human company that didn’t find her terrifying and monstrous. She just hopes that the girl will never have to see her in her second form. She shouldn’t like Azula to look upon her with fear and disgust.
She thinks that it is an inevitability.
Everyone leaves her eventually.
Everyone save for her daughters.
This girl, she reminds herself, is her daughter. She likes to think that she wouldn’t leave.
“It is no trouble at all. I do hope that you will stay with me for a long time, dear.”