soon it'll be dawn again
transcript under the cut ⏬
page 01
Fig: no way? - you're still up?
Riz: Wh– yes?
Riz: Why'd I not be.
page 02
Fig: I me~~ean - that took.
Fig: whole day.
Riz: Yeah?
Fig: 'm beat.
Riz: you should sleep.
page 03
Fig: nah. my guy's still up
Fig: I wanna hang out.
page 04
Riz: That's really nice.
Fig: Hah! - Nobody ever expects an Archdevil rockstar to be nice.
Riz: … yeah. - 's just budget work tho. (the stuff I'm working on) - I've heard it's boring.
page 05
Fig: yeah, but you do it…
Riz: It keeps things going, right? - Nothing happens if nobody sits down and - does the thing.
Fig: That's right… - though. Yeah.
page 06
Fig: sometimes it's someone else who - doesn't want the same thing to happen.
Riz: … - mm.
page 07
Riz (off screen): …It took me a long time to get that not everyone likes doing what I do. - 's probably because you guys are so nice– - or. - kind.
Riz (off screen): to anyone too, not just. - the people you /love/.
page 08
Riz: that's not how it is elsewhere. - The world's– not. hostile. - but 's not like it's kind.
Riz: So I'm doing as much as I can now…
page 09
Fig: Hey.
Riz: ?
Fig: Go dig some dirt with me.
page 10
Riz: [blank speech bubble] - oh you meant like - actual dirt. (not incriminating information)
Fig: o yea.
Fig: there's clay in the backyard soil. - sometimes when I'm sun deficient or something I go touch dirt for a bit.
page 11
Fig: here u go
page 12
Riz: uh
Fig: now we make a thing! - 'm pretty good at freehanding a bowl.
Fig: I'll show u
page 13
Fig: just– yep, flatten that out as evenly as u can, then–! - actually ur nails'd be so good at cutting out the strip. [larger than usual space] wait. - wait. wait u can carve patterns with them! we HAVE to try
Riz: uh - What. do I carve?
Fig: anything!!!
page 14
Fig: and– yep just seal the inside uh. seam?
Fig: yep that works - okay time's up! all contestant hands up
Riz: [blank speech bubble] - okay - wh. what's next?
Fig: haha - watch this.
(sound effect text): FWOO—MP
page 15
Riz: WH– DON'T JUST DO THAT???
Fig: Now it's fired!
Riz: THAT WAS NOT SAFE
Fig: (actually it's just dry. if u add water rn it'll dissolve)
Fig: ok catch!
Riz: [blank speech bubble] - careful!!
Fig: dw no need haha
page 16
Riz (thought bubble): oh - it's warm…
Fig: now I want you to throw this.
page 17
Fig: u gotta do it - c'mon
page 18
Riz: wh– - It's like 3AM right now
Fig: oh it's not /fired/ fired it's not gonna make a loud noise
Riz: And then just? leave a pile out here?
Fig: pour water over it & it'll be gone I told u
Riz: but
page 19
Fig (off screen): RIz.
page 20
Fig: I've done all this before.
Fig: Can you trust that at least?
page 21
Riz: no, I– - I do. - I trust you.
page 23
Riz: okay what happens now
(sound effect text): glob
page 24
Fig: we do it again!
page 25
Riz: wh. [larger than usual space] What do you mean. (this clay's too wet also)
Fig: see! you're already learning
Fig: [blank speech bubble] - there are flows that are futile to fight. - The world changes.
Fig: Things change.
page 26
Fig: I've learned my lessons with "forevers". - But - as an artist
Fig: I can give you one thing: - You can always do it again.
page 27
Fig: most of everything depends on the rest of the world, - but this. - making new. - that's yours as long as you want it.
page 28
Fig: So?
page 29
Riz: Yeah. - Yeah! - let's make another one.
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prompt: Ozai has Azula watch Zuko (his progress or rather lack thereof) from way earlier on, possibly even before Aang gets away from the iceberg in the first place
There it is, written at the bottom of his banishment notice, wobbling in and out of his vision and he’s not sure if it's his eyes—
(Father wouldn’t have meant to blind him. Being blind won't help him catch the Avatar, so he’ll just not go blind.)
It’s either his eyes, or. Or the rage. It has to be the rage.
So Zuko reads the line again, and lets the fire brim up and overflow, until sparks chase the shout from his lips.
“Banishment to be overseen by Crown Princess Azula?”
- - -
“Prince Zuko,” Azula says, standing as tall as an eleven year old can. She’s using his title, so that he’ll use hers. And if he doesn’t then he’s ill-mannered and not fit for his own.
“Crown Princess Azula,” Zuko grits out.
“I’ll just be inspecting your ship, then. Father’s orders.”
Two men are in shackles by the time she’s done.
“—Fostering mutiny against your prince,” she is yelling, and somehow her voice is just as high-pitched as his without sounding childish at all. “When our father hears about this—”
- - -
“So you had them executed,” Fire Lord Ozai inquires. Lightly. And from behind his flames.
“Of course, father,” says the kneeling child. “It was an attack on our family.”
Her father doesn’t say anything.
Azula is eleven. Eleven, she had presumed, was old enough to count.
One, two, three. Four, with Uncle. The royal family.
Her father is silent still.
One. Two.
“Forgive my impertinence, Fire Lord,” she says. “I will bring them to you for judgment next time.”
“Do so,” Fire Lord Ozai says. He does not contest the ‘next time.’
- - -
“Crown Princess Azula,” Zuko says.
“Your bandage is off, brother,” Azula says. “Are you blind?”
“No.”
(The blur of her red robes, the eye-searing glint of sunlight off her headpiece—he’s not blind in that eye. He’s just… still recovering.)
“Lovely,” she says. “Then what’s your excuse for the condition of this ship?”
…He has an increased budget for repairs, by the time she’s done.
- - -
“Brother,” Azula says, “traditionally knives are to be delivered to the back.”
“I… what?” her brother says, still holding out the inexplicable thing. “No, I bought it at port. For you. See, it matches the one Uncle got me.”
“How original,” she says.
Her brother turns a shade of red that puts his bending to shame. Not that it’s a particularly high bar. “Fine, I’ll just—throw it out.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. At the least, Mai will want it.”
- - -
“Nice knife,” says Mai, looking at the hilt peeking out of Azula’s boot.
“Be silent,” Azula says, thus ending that conversation.
- - -
“Did great-grandfather… did we…” starts her brother, fresh from scurrying about the Eastern Air Temple like some particularly dim-witted pheasant-monkey, the dust not even brushed from his clothes even though he knew her ship was waiting down here. “Azula, there were children—”
“Be silent,” she says.
- - -
“You’re leaving frequently,” comments father, as his knife cuts through the pheasant-monkey, clicking against the plate below. The persimmon-cherry sauce is thick and red and smearing.
“I find it advantageous to cultivate a working knowledge of our nation’s tactics,” Azula answers. She does not push around her meat like a child, but she does eat only lightly; the dish is more sour than she remembers.
“And your brother?”
“Oh, him,” she says, to which her father smiles.
- - -
“...What?” Zuko asks, blinking down at the scrolls.
“It’s your birthday,” Azula says. “Apparently, I should have gotten you a calendar.”
“Thank you?”
She sighs.
- - -
“Do we… tell him we can hear him?” asks the assistant cook, as the prince continues monologuing. Dramatically, and loudly. Through the pipe connecting the drain of the kitchen sink to the ones in the shower.
“Ssh, I think this is one of his new plays.”
- - -
She gets him a calendar for his next birthday. It’s not funny.
- - -
He gets her a doll, for hers. The look on Uncle’s face as she torches it in front of them both is hilarious.
- - -
“Brother,” she says, looking up at the damage to his ship. “This is not the way to requisition additional repair funds.”
“Captain Zhao,” her uncle says in the background, with heights of pleasant antagonism she can only aspire to. As if a general could mistake Zhao’s new insignia. Particularly with all the polishing he does.
“It’s commander now.”
“How did you manage this?” she asks.
“Uh,” Zuko says. “Can we… speak alone?”
She eyes her brother’s shifting stance. Eyes, too, the way Zhao’s men are already moving to intercept and interrogate his crew. One of the new commander’s more noxious habits is stalking her brother’s every move.
Well. She’d been meaning to deal with that, anyway.
Azula snaps her fingers at the commander’s guards.
“Detain him,” she says. And for a moment, just a moment, her dear uncle freezes, as if she were talking about someone he actually cared for.
The guards don’t. She’s trained them better than that.
“Princess,” Commander Zhao says, his snarl well hidden behind a smile. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Crown Princess Azula,” she corrects. “Now hush; the adults are talking.”
- - -
They have an Avatar to catch, apparently. Her brother is coming home.
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