legionworld | (no subject)

Entry tags:

kubo,
✘ azula

(no subject)

Who| Azula and anyone brave enough to get close
What| Post-Murderworld, Azula is not doing well
Where| The Observation Deck
When| A few days after returning from Murderworld
Warnings/Notes| This thread is going to be one of the leaked videos. While it isn't actually complete yet, it will show Azula attacking and more than likely killing the Ursa muttation.

Azula knew how much she needed to hold herself together. She also knew how close she was to completely falling apart ... again. She stayed in her room for days after getting back, curled up in a ball on her bed. Every few minutes, she would create a small blue flame, just to make sure she still could.

It was the video that made her get out of bed. She watched it carefully again and again. And when she could, she watched other people watching it, to make sure it was real. That thing had really been there. Unlike her mother, who never had been.

She couldn't stay in her room forever but she still doesn't want to be in a crowd, a crowd that might ask questions. She discovered the observation deck earlier and thought it painfully dull but at that moment, dull would be a pleasure.

She sat and watched the planet below - still bending frequently, just in case the ability leaves her again.

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Kubo had seen the video, in his process of trying to understand both the future's incredible technology AND what had happened to his friends when they'd vanished on that mission. He had tried not to watch it all the way through at first - it seemed intrusive to watch her actions when she hadn't known she was being recorded. But his curiosity won out, in the end, when combined with his lingering, bewildered anger at the cruel way she'd spoken to him before the mission.

The video hadn't really given him any insight into why a mortal girl would be as cold and without compassion as a moon spirit, though - it had just shown a glimpse of something personal and hurtful and violent and Kubo was a little embarrassed to have watched it after all.

When he came across Azula sitting alone on the observation deck, where he'd gone to practice his shamisen while looking down on the earth, his initial instinct was to turn around and leave. He'd come here to practice in comfort with a beautiful view, and Azula was very uncomfortable to be around.

But with the knowledge that she'd been on that terrible mission and the way she was making her fire in frequent bursts, Kubo realized the thing to do - the thing to try to do - was be kinder to her than she'd been to him.

For a second he considered rolling his eyes at his own self. He didn't have to do this. He could turn around and leave. He didn't have to try compassion, when she was probably just going to be mean to him again.

But maybe, just maybe she needed compassion. Maybe she was even in the state of mind to receive it.

"Are you okay?"

Azula hadn't heard anyone come in and that's horrifying. She can't lose her edge, not here, not now. She stood up quickly, her eyes narrowing as she realized who it was.

"What do you want?" she practically spat out.

"I just asked if you were okay."

Like literally just then. Had she heard him or . . . ?

"Sometimes I come here to practice," he went on, trying to disarm Azula a bit. "I like looking at the earth."

It wasn't the same Earth his mother had once looked down on, but it let him imagine what her life must have been like a little better.

Azula took a deep breath in, like they'd told her to do at the facility. She hated putting any of their lessons into practice.

"I came here to be alone." And even if she wasn't, Kubo was the last person she wanted to see. Ever.

She hadn't firebended for a few minutes now. She flicked her wrist, creating another small flame. That was the only thing that felt right.

Kubo considered that probably meant she wanted him to leave. But the observatory wasn't hers, and he couldn't possibly be the only other person who might want to be in there at the moment.

It would be a polite move to leave, but would it be the right one? Azula hadn't worried about being polite to him when last they'd met, but he knew she'd been through something terrible. That thought softened his resistance to showing her politeness.

"Fine," he said, not taking his shamisen off his back. "I'll practice somewhere else today."

But he HAD come there just then to think about music that could evoke the feeling of looking down on the earth, of being in a strange and alien place among the stars. He could put the playing off, but he still wanted to meditate on the view that would have been from the moon.

He stayed by the observatory window, looking out, and after a moment, hummed a couple of bars to himself. A few seconds later, he repeated the tune, slightly different. It was a soft sound, but the observatory had acoustics that carried.

When Kubo went away, Azula sat back down and resumed staring at the planet and occasionally creating fire. When she noticed the music, she tried to ignore it. Music was another thing the facility had tried and she'd never taken to it.

But this was different somehow. As she listened, she actually felt herself begin to relax, just a bit. But that was a lot more than she'd been able to do since she returned.

Eventually the lure of playing just became too great to ignore. Kubo had said he'd practice elsewhere - and that meant running through finger exercises and scales and playing through some of the complex songs his mother had taught him to hone his technical skill - but the stars and the blue view, along with his mother's memory, were putting a full melody into his head.

He didn't want to have to play the feelings that the view of Earth gave him somewhere that he couldn't SEE the Earth. And he didn't want to wait for Azula to leave. He gave into temptation, taking his shamisen off his back and played gently.

When the real music began, Azula felt even more tension start to just fade away. She realized that not only had she not created a flame for several minute but she no longer needed to. Her firebending was back. She didn't need to test it anymore to know that.

She looked over to where Kubo had gone. She didn't imagine he had the best view from over there.

"You can come back."

Why would he want to come back? Why -

"I'm fine over -"

- oh wait, did she want to talk? Kubo bit off his own retort.

He walked over to the better angle next to Azula, pausing for a moment before picking up his song again.

"It's beautiful," he commented. "Down there, you'd never know it was that big -"

So much bigger than the moon had ever been.

Talking wasn't exactly what Azula had in mind. She just wanted to hear the music better. She figured having a better view might help make the music better too - it would give a better ambience, as Ty Lee would have said.

"Just keep playing."

Kubo let his bachi fall across the strings with a soft but dissonant twang. Yes, Azula had been through something terrible, an awful story that he only knew part of, but she had not treated him with kindness when she had even a portion of the worst part of his life's story.

"I'm going to keep playing, and I don't have to talk, but I'm not your servant. You could ask."

An angry retort was on the tip of her tongue but she decided to stop herself. She didn't have the heart for it, not right now.

"I don't want to talk." She gritted her teeth, before whispering, "Please."

Actually receiving a 'please' from Azula felt so unusual that it surprised Kubo into silence. The little he knew of her hadn't prepared him to believe she'd actually say it without another argument.

Her pain was running deep, then, he guessed.

He played on in silence, shifting through song after song - melodies informed by the blue vastness of earth, the endless depth of the star-filled space beyond it, and all of Kubo's precious memories from the green surface of the world. He played the song of catching fireflies in the mulberry field, the song of swimming in the river, the song of golden herons carrying the spirits of loved ones from this realm to the next.

In the middle of playing the melody of sinking into Mother's arms and coming to rest there, in the warmth of her love and the knowledge that no matter if he never hugged her again, that love would always be, he forgot Azula was even there as he lingered on the tune.

The first songs Kubo played has the same soothing effect and Azula let herself drift into a state of calm, almost mediation. She could put her thoughts into order again and they even began to maybe make sense.

But then a new song began and there was something different about it. Something she couldn't quite understand. And it made her remember that creature with her mother's face, and the voice. The same one she had heard before, the day she was supposed to become Fire Lord. But the creature had been different. It was designed to upset her and it had worked.

Her mother was Azula's weakness. It always had been. And now other people knew it.

By the tears that thinking of his mother brought to Kubo's eyes, some might have thought she was his weakness, too.

But those people misunderstood true strength. Thinking of Mother, playing the music of being safely loved in her embrace, filled Kubo with all of the good things that made life easier to face. Gratitude. Confidence. Joy. She'd given him these gifts when she was alive, and they were gifts that could never be taken from him. Gifts she would be glad to know he still carried in his heart.

He had to pause his tune for a second, to wipe the grateful tear from his eye, and in doing so, remembered who he was playing next to. A flash from the arena's video resurfaced in his mind - the monster with the woman's face, declaring love for Azula.

Had Azula's mother never given her a mother's gifts back in her home? Perhaps that was why Azula was cold and cruel, why a monster with her mother's face could hurt her with love.

Kubo's hands found his strings quickly again, as he played the song of swimming in rivers. If Azula didn't know the gift of unconditional love from her mother, he ought not to be meditating on his mother's gifts when playing for Azula. Not every person was as lucky in the mother they had as he had been.

Azula's mother had thought she was a monster. Azula remembered saying as much that night on the beach, with her brother and Mai and Ty Lee. That had been a good night. Probably one of the best.

She was right, of course, but it still hurt.

That's why she couldn't believe what that creature had said. She would never believe that Ursa cared for her at all - especially not when she had her precious Zuko. Instead, Azula was left with Father's approval and what she had thought was respect. Until the end, when he left her behind.

With all this negative thoughts running through her head, she's relieved when Kubo changes the song.

Kubo avoided letting his thoughts wander elsewhere in his family. All he could wonder about when he did was whether Azula's had been terrible, and it made too much sense to assume it had.

She'd hurt him deeply, but if she'd been hurt all her life by people who ought to have given her understanding and love, no wonder she was cruel.

He played on through songs meant to invoke the Earth below them, songs of mountains and streams and gentle rain falling on the sea. He played for a long time, until his stomach started to grumble and he realized that the time for an evening meal had come.

He let the strings fall silent and put the shamisen on his back.

"If you do ever want to talk," he said, less hesitant this time, "I'll listen."

His stomach rumbled again.

"I'm going to go eat. If you want, you can join me."

Maybe she still didn't want to be alone.

Azula doesn't want to talk and she can't imagine anything happening to change that fact, but she nodded anyway. She doesn't know why he is being so considerate of her, after their last conversation. It didn't make any sense but she was thankful for it.

But when he left, she stayed where she was. It was still too soon for her to want to face anyone else.

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