Azula goes from the deep sleep of strange dreams to full wakefulness in a disorienting instant. While firebenders are meant to rise with the sun, usually it is a gentle easing process as Agni's call from the east grows gradually stronger. That is not the case today. Instead, the Sun Spirit is suddenly everywhere and calling with greater insistence than is typical even during a clear noonday sky.

It takes another moment for Azula to register the continuous roar of fire in the halls. Have invaders and traitors already come to attack them?

The girl hurries from her bed. She takes the time to quickly slip on shoes and clumsily tie her hair back. She will not fail in her mission to something as foolish as foot injury or untamed hair.

Father had been clear that she was to be Zuko's last defense, should the guards fail, because Dum-Dum couldn't be expected to successfully protect himself. If the attack just started -- and she can only hope it has not been going on for long while she slept -- then her brother should still be in his suite. Unfortunately, that means he is across a hall full of an unknown number of assailants and combative firebending from her current location.

Azula stands off to the side of her suite's door, one hand holding a fistful of primed flames and the other preparing to throw open the final barrier separating her from the ongoing battle.

Her plan is simple and adaptable: cross the hall of assailants, collect her incompetent older brother, and reach the secret passage entrance at the end of the corridor with her charge in tow. From there, she and Zuko should be able to sneak up to the hall connected to Father's rooms. Hopefully, no traitors have succeeded in breaching the second floor yet. If they have, she will instead have to guide Zuzu all the way through the palace's secret passage network to an escape exit leading out into the southeastern section of Caldera. Getting to the guest rooms and Uncle Fuddy-Duddy would be easier than fleeing the palace entirely, but she can't be sure that he isn't the one who arranged this attack in the first place. She refuses to fail her mission from Father by trusting in an uncle with untried loyalties.

Azula takes a deep breath to prepare her initial attack, opens the door, and --

There are no assailants or traitors in the hall. Instead, a torrent of fire -- white, like Father's -- streams past, rushing through the corridor and radiating Agni's call so strongly she would have to be a nonbender to miss it.

The fire in her hand dissipates in her shock and she finds herself walking forward, drawn to the call like a hapless butter-moth.

One of her guards is folded in a full kowtow, mumbling old prayers under his breath. The other stares with disbelieving eyes at the white flames from his knees. Neither attempt to halt her approach.

Azula stops an arm's length away from the torrent of flames and humbles herself before the nation's patron deity in a perfect kowtow. The spirits have been distant for generations before her birth. She never expected to meet directly with the source of her firebending. Still, she is not so stubborn that she cannot acknowledge who and what is before her now. "Agni, Father of Fire and King of Flames," she addresses the spirit formally, "I am here."

A low chuckle, warm like the sunrise that slowly banishes the chill of the night, startles her. She had not heard that with her ears. The thunderous roar of the flames would have masked such a soft sound if she had. "Princess Azula of Second Fire," answers a voice that is not a voice, "I am pleased to see you well but there are matters that I must attend to now. We will speak another time. Do not fear the flames. They will not harm you." And then the voice is gone, slipping from her mind like so many unimportant thoughts.

Azula blinks and looks up at the flames continuing to flow past her. Some spirits are known to be tricksters, misleading fools through cleverly twisted words rather than lies, but Agni would not have been revered and worshipped by her ancestors if he were to regularly lead them astray. The princess pushes herself back to her feet.

A quick test confirms that she cannot alter the course of the flames rushing past. Not that she had ever expected that she would be able to pull fire away from the greatest of the fire spirits and the King of Flames. Still, Agni had promised they would not harm her...

Azula squares her shoulders, takes a breath, and gingerly dips a single finger of her off hand into the white flames.

One of the guards behind her makes a choked sound.

Hm. It is quite hot, but not enough to hurt.

The young princess withdraws her hand and examines it for any injuries or blemishes caused by the flames. She finds none.

Azula considers the situation she finds herself in, standing before a work of Agni with the Sun Spirit's promise of protection from his fierce fire. She may never have another opportunity of its like in her life.

The girl steps into the flames and offers her own fire to Agni.

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Zuko wakes with a gasp, panting hard. Trembling fingertips trace over unblemished skin but the visions of his nightmare continue to play out in his mind's eye and an unfinished sentence taunts him with its possible conclusion.

But it was only a dream.

...Wasn't it?

A quick, half-panicked glance around his room reveals no strange, green turtle-ducks with eye-faces.

He is alone.

"Princess!" someone yells from out in the hall.

Zuko springs out of bed and runs for the door, only now recognizing the crackling roar he hears as something more than a lingering shadow of his nightmare. He stumbles back when he discovers the living river of fire that has consumed the length of the corridor. White flames twist together as they rush past, and there, caught up in the center of the current is --

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"Azula!" he calls, fear like a vice in his chest.

Azula stills and glances back at him with a frown. The fire is clearly not her own bending, and yet it moves around her as harmlessly as ocean waves on a calm day, the flames lapping over and around her with not a burn to show for their touch. "Dum-Dum, I'm trying to concentrate," the girl says.

"But --"

Azula huffs, blowing short hair out of her face from where it has slipped free of her odd, messy ponytail. "Come along if you're worried, but don't distract me."

Zuko looks at the white flames. Father is nowhere to be seen and these flames move with an unnatural amount of control beyond even the masters' skill, but Azula stands unfazed and unharmed at their center. Maybe...

His wrist is caught in a steel grasp before his shaking hand can reach into the white fire.

"Prince Zuko," one of his room's regular guards -- He thinks her name might be Yuri? -- says tersely with stress-pinched features, "Never touch a flame you fear. And especially not if they are generated by a spirit as these are. Spirits can be unpredictable. Their works can pass harmlessly over one mortal only to strike down the next." Having given her warning, she releases her grip on his wrist.

Azula scoffs. "What sort of firebender fears Agni?" she asks with a sneer, but then she stops as a thought comes to her. His sister smiles, sharp and vicious, as she taunts, "Well, I suppose Agni did only promise that his fire wouldn't harm me. He didn't say anything about you, Zuzu."

"Agni?" Zuko questions in disbelief, "You spoke to Agni, too? Like Father did?"

His little sister rolls her eyes and gestures to the white flames surrounding her. At his blank stare, she sighs. "What time is it, Dum-Dum?" she asks.

"What does that --"

"Zuko," she says, "check the time."

The prince frowns and... and that's strange. His sun-sense is pulling in what feels like every direction but it is particularly strong right in front of him and -- "Oh."

"Yes, 'oh,'" Azula mocks before dismissing him, "Join me or don't. I'm going back to practice."

Azula turns around and begins to bend, moving in the same direction as the rushing flames around her. Splashes of blue are quickly whisked away by the greater fire's current, brightening until they too become white, indistinguishable from the rest of the twisting flames.

Zuko frowns. Agni has spoken to Father, and now to Azula, but he's never spoken with the great spirit. He's the heir! Shouldn't Agni have come to meet him before Azula? Does this mean that Agni prefers Azula, like Father does?

His hands shake. He wants to join Azula in Agni's fire, but he's afraid. Visions of Father's fire turned against him continue to crowd his mind and he can still hear his own scream as he watched himself burn and...

And what Fire Lord can afford to fear fire? Zuko curls trembling fingers into fists. He follows Azula down the hall, just... walking to the side of Agni's flames. It's what he can do. For now. One day he'll figure out how to catch up to his prodigy sister. One day, but probably not today, so he'll watch instead and see if he can learn what it is he's doing wrong.

Azula moves through a simple kata again, and again, and again in a loop. It's one of the very first katas taught to firebenders that actively uses flames rather than being limited to movements and breath control. Zuko isn't sure when it starts, but slowly Azula's movements go from the sharp chopping motions of standard Sozin's Form firebending to something more fluid that ends in quick snaps and blooms of blue flame. It almost looks like...

"Are you dancing?" Zuko blurts the question out before he can think better of it.

Azula freezes in place before whirling on him with a clearly insulted expression. "It's not dancing," she denies, "I'm training with Agni to perfect the blue flame! These movements are proving to be more efficient in the flow of chi and thus producing a more consistent result."

Zuko crosses his arms even as he feels an embarrassed flush steal up his neck. "It looks like dancing," he grumbles.

"Well, it's not," Azula asserts with a huff, "If you can't tell the difference between firebending and dancing, then it's no wonder you're terrible at both."

"Hey!"

Azula ignores him and returns to her training. Zuko trails after her.

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Her first few moves are stiff with the lingering indignation -- It's not embarrassment! -- from her ignorant brother's accusation of dancing. This, her current training pursuit, is clearly a firebending style that she is either inventing or perhaps rediscovering through Agni's guidance. She'd scoff if she wasn't focussing on her bending. 'Dancing.' Really, Dum-Dum?

She settles back into her previous rhythm and pace, the smoother build followed by a sharp, precise stop that allows her fire to continue beyond her limbs as it carries through the motion for her body.

...This style of firebending might, just a little bit, resemble some of the old dances she and Zuko had been forced to learn for the increasingly uncommon political events that still demand such frivolities. And Agni behaves perhaps a small amount like a dance partner might. The white flames are too touchy but they are not restrictive, and no matter how she moves the flames shift to ensure her head remains free to the open air. It's very considerate of a fire spirit to keep his flames from smothering her.

...Fine. Fine! If it will banish Zuko's stupid idea from her head, she'll try 'dancing' with Agni.

Azula abandons her kata and focusses on one of the twisting, twining ropes of fire that make up the rushing river of flames surrounding her. A false start, two, as she fails to anticipate how the fire will shift and change course in response to her own movements, and then...

It works! Oh, there is an irritating stumble here and there as she is forced to improvise her footwork, but she has always learned quickly and she can tell there is a pattern just beyond her. She only needs to tease it out of the movements she is already being guided through with Agni as her example.

Azula exits Agni's flames in her mother's favored garden, the white fire spiralling upward toward a small sun being built in the sky directly over the palace. She'd giggle wildly if firebending didn't require strong breath control. She dances through her new kata past trees and the turtle-duck pond, blue flaring to life past her fingertips even outside of Agni's direct touch. Her chi flows easily through her body's chi lines and then beyond them, unhindered to a degree she never realized was possible before. It's exhilarating!

Azula is halfway through a lap around the garden when she spots Zuko standing near the skyward bend of Agni's fire. She'd grin if she weren't already doing so.

The princess bursts through the white flames and pushes her brother down onto the grass.

"Azula!"

She ignores the objection and flops on top of him, too giddy to care about the impropriety of the act.

"Oof!" Zuko pushes himself onto his elbows but can't right himself any further with a younger sister sprawled across his belly. He glares at her, but she ignores that as she kicks her feet through the air and summons another cobalt flame into her cupped hands. Now that she has achieved consistency, the next step will be to refine her precision. How small and controlled can she keep a blue flame? "Azula, what are you --"

"I did it, Zuzu!" she interrupts, "The first in generations to master the blue flame! And the youngest ever recorded!"

"Yeah," Zuko sighs, falling back, "Guess so."

"Don't stare at Agni's new sun, Dum-Dum," she cautions absently, working to compact the flame in her hands smaller and finer, "You'll burn your eyes."

Zuko stiffens for a moment, but then he groans and throws an arm over his eyes to protect them from the pre-dawn sun being built overhead. That's better.

There's a few breaths spent continuing her work as Zuko pouts under her, and then...

"You did well, Azula," her brother admits, still hiding behind his arm and pinned down by her weight, "Father will be proud." Quieter, he adds, "I am."

"I'm aware," she says, feeling quite pleased with herself.

If she feels a flutter of warmth at the soft-spoken but open appreciation and approval of her skills from her older brother, well, Zuzu doesn't need to know that.