Chapter 57 – Split
Azula remains quiet in the early afternoon spending most of her time in a private training area. She replies with looks and grunts each time the group asks her something. Sure enough, they stop trying to get answers from her and ask Nuwa who comes out of her room much later in the afternoon.
Nuwa doesn’t explain in detail. She just says in a depressed tone that they had a big fight because of a mistake she made. Obviously, that isn’t an adequate answer, but the friends know not to push when things are this personal. It will take some adjustment though, going from sharing nearly everything with each other and having orgies to the current situation where Nuwa and Azula are emotionally out of commission.
Nuwa in particular is the core of the gang due to her planning and teasing. Aang tries to perk everyone up, but it just makes them more aware when a snarky or sultry comment that Nuwa would have made is replaced by silence.
Nuwa interjects in the middle of a conversation loudly, “I’ve been thinking..”The whole group minus Azula and Iroh are there at the table currently. Aang, Katara, Mai, Zuko, Ty Li, Toph, and Kuei look over at Nuwa. “It’s time for you to go, Aang.”
Aang looks confused and asks, “Where?”
Katara sighs and puts her hand on Aang’s shoulder saying in a soft tone, “She means that it’s time for us to leave.”
Everyone quiets down and falls into some melancholy. The last few days were fun for all of them. Being waited on hand and foot by servants, for example Dai Li agents to make sure they were never interrupted during sex. Enjoying lavish buffets that included wondrous tastes they never experienced before. Finally, they had late nights and comfortable beds to sleep on as they made pillow talk.
Now, the fellowship is going to go their own ways.
Nuwa reminds the group, “Aang, you are the Avatar. I can help you, but if you stay around me, you’re just going to let us do your job for you while you relax and take on the role of some hired help. As the Avatar, you need to play an active role in restoring balance to this world. You need to make your dreams come true with your own power. Just remember, we’ll always be friends and you can always call us for help if you can’t come up with any solution.”
Aang stiffens as he remembers the duties of the Avatar and puts on a smile full of helplessness. The past few months that he’s been living carefreely with the Gang has been the most fun he’s had since living in the Southern Air Temple. Even spending time with Katara and Sokka was not quite as fulfilling as the company of the Gang, because when it was the three of them, they would be stressed out keeping their duties and goals in the back of their mind at all times.
With Nuwa, everyone’s progress is so clear-cut. It was like.. she could accomplish all of their goals for them and they could follow her, put in minimal effort, and enjoy the ride by fucking around, literally.
Katara recognized this as they were leaving the Northern Water Tribe. To be exact, she noticed Aang’s change in demeanor. He used to fake being cheerful, but after spending months with the Gang, he had grown genuinely cheerful. It was clear to her that he views Nuwa as someone in between a mother, big sister, mentor, and Avatar guide. Now that she slams him with the reality that is his life, he doesn’t quite know how to feel other than that he’ll definitely miss his friends a whole lot.
Aang puts on a miserable face and says, “But.. but.” Then he starts bawling. Katara rubs his shoulder to comfort him, but he shrugs her off and runs away still crying. Katara forces a smile and says, “You know Aang, Stella. He’ll come around.”
Nuwa nods with some worry, “I knew you’d understand, Katara. I’m actually more worried about you. We can’t risk anything to your child. Take Lee and Kristen with you. The four of you are the closest amongst us. You can look after each other.”
Zuko immediately objects, “Hold on! What about you and Zulrath! You can’t expect us to leave you guys to sort this out yourselves?! I’m a brother to both of you, and I can’t rest easy knowing you two are miserable.”
Nuwa points at a Dai Li agent and orders, “Call over Zulrath.”
Katara looks worriedly in the direction of Aang, but stays since she knows she should be here for the coming discussion, since it involves Aang and her.
After several tense moments at the table, only punctuated by Toph loudly eating without a care in the world and Kuei whispering to his bear, Azula makes her way into the throne room fully drenched in sweat.
Zuko stands up and asks, “Zul, Stella wants us to split up. Now of all times, she decides we have to split up! Please, say something to convince her otherwise!”
Azula sweeps her eyes across the table and seriously says, “The way I see it, all of you except Toph and Stella have gone soft. We’re in a fucking war. I haven’t seen you train even once, Lee. I bet you won’t get serious about it unless you go out there and see it for yourself too. So go. Stella and I have some personal issues to sort through, but it will take time. More time than you guys can afford to sit around and babysit us.”
Deflating slightly, Zuko sits back down in silence. He really has skipped training to spend as much time as possible with Mai. One more short silence occurs before Toph slams the table and gives everyone except Azula, who wasn’t at the table, a jump-scare.
“HAHAhaha. Zul’s right, yall are soft. Just go and do what you have to do. Fuck everything else!”
Nuwa chuckles weakly, “Let’s all ignore that last part, but we should do what we have to do. Make sure you’re prepared before you set off and don’t dally. If you happen to open a chakra point and can enter the Spirit Realm, I’ll be visiting the North Pole Spirit Oasis at regular intervals if you want to see me.”
“If you just want to talk, Ty Li will hold onto Kristen’s Magical Twin-Birch Paper. Only ask for our help as a last resort or if the babies are in danger. You girls should stay on Appa when things get dangerous and leave the fighting to the boys. Lee and Katara, remember not everything can be solved by fighting, so get creative if you’re in a sticky spot.”
Toph snorts when she hears that not everything can be solved by fighting, but knows it’s true. After all, she’s not about to go fight her parents.
Nuwa looks at Toph gently, “Toph and Dan will stay with the military once you guys leave. Toph’s job is to boss around the higher ups and make friends with the troops. Dan’s job is to make sure that rotten eggs in the upper chain of command in the military get into ‘accidents’ that render them unable to do evil or lead troops to their death through incompetence.”
Whining, Toph screams, “Why can’t I beat up those imbeciles?!”
Nuwa just shakes her head and laughs, “Of course you can’t, because it has to be done subtly without drawing attention. Some of them are noble heirs. We’ll have a political disaster in Ba Sing Se and possibly a rebellion if we get caught hunting down nobles.”
Azula narrows her eyes at her Dai Li subordinates, “Nothing leaves this room, got that?”
The Dai Li agent shivers meekly under the glare of the thunder demon and nods hurriedly.
Everyone in the Palace knew that there was a big argument and that Azula was injured. Even if some suspect that Azula cannot firebend after her injury, they're not willing to test it. They know after all, that the thunder last night was from their resident lightning bender.
What no one there knows is that Iroh can bend lightning even stronger than Azula’s, but he never does in combat. Lightning bending involves inducing artificial imbalances of positive and negative charge within the body’s chi, which is against the philosophy of the Order of the White Lotus: the pursuit of balance. Even though the discharge of lightning rebalances the chi within the body, artificial manipulation of the charge of internal chi destabilizes the chakras over time.
Neither Nuwa or Azula know of the dangers of lightning bending. Nuwa has never tried lightning bending before. If she had while in E-Nuwa mode, she would have caught this intricacy. In canon, Aang and Azula both die early on and do not live past their middle ages. This is because of Azula’s overuse of lightning bending and Aang’s wound from Azula’s lightning.
Mortal bodies in the Avatar Record simply aren’t designed to handle lightning. This is the true reason that Iroh never teaches Zuko how to produce lightning, and only how to defend against it by redirecting it through his body.
Iroh enters the throne room and looks at Azula with a serious gaze, knowing she damaged her chakras with lightning last night. He realizes today that she’s been raised by Ozai to be a weapon and may not know about the dangers of lightning bending.
Azula looks at Iroh and feels a surge of anger which exacerbates her Heartburn. She coughs with an angry scowl on her face. Nuwa rushes to her side and pulls Azula’s mouth to her breast. Everyone awkwardly looks away as Azula coughs a few more times and suckles some of Nuwa’s milk to repair the minor damages. She gives Nuwa a bite on her nipple to let out some anger before covering up the breast.
Nuwa moans slightly at the bite, which has the boys hard and the girls turned on. The group makes various excuses to leave seeing as the conversation has ended. Toph jumps on Dan’s back and steers him towards a private room in an unnecessarily obvious manner about their next activity.
Iroh approaches Azula and asks to have a private conversation with her, which she accepts suspiciously. Nuwa notices this and wants to give Azula some space. If she requests to be part of the conversation, Azula might think that she’s trying to cover something up.
In a private room, Iroh sits Azula down and gives her a talk about how lightning bending is damaging to the chakras and it has already shortened her lifespan by several years. If she continues to use it, the shortening of her lifespan will grow exponentially. To repair her unstable chakras and lifespan, she must reattune her chakras to balance. This will also aid her in repairing her Heart chakra.
Azula looks at her uncle who she should by all means hate, and despite that, cannot see him as anything other than a soothing grandfather figure. She’s never had a real father who showed concern for her. Even now, knowing that the lightning bending she was taught is killing her, she wasn’t surprised that her real father encouraged and praised her for it.
That’s exactly the kind of piece of shit Ozai is. If she hadn’t met Nuwa, she doubted she would care that it was killing her. She would use it to torment whoever she wanted until she died alone and full of hatred towards everything. This very morning, she tormented Nuwa and loved every moment of it.
Only after the fact did she feel regret, though it wasn’t enough regret to surpass the glee of revenge. She wonders if she is regressing to the same person she used to be, but dismisses it. The way she felt this morning had a far more sexual undertone than the previous times she tormented others to belittle them.
Azula begins talking with Iroh in earnest about his life experiences, how he views firebending, what to do when a couple has a fight, and anything else she can ask advice about. Now that she has a real parental figure, she might as well ask him everything she needs.
In the meantime, Nuwa wanders aimlessly around the Palace lost in thought. She feels stressed out and can’t wait to tease Aiwei tonight. She wants to apologize to Azula for as long as it takes, but it takes so much effort from her not to casually manipulate like she usually does and passively take all the punishment.
She knows the next time Azula claims her asshole, she will be utterly exhausted. E-Nuwa understands her desire to truly experience the punishment, so sex this morning didn’t replenish her mental energy like it does normally. Teasing Aiwei should be a suitable light-hearted distraction activity that lets her calm her nerves.
The fact that Aiwei can always detect her lies has a strong calming effect on Nuwa. Since there might be a chance that she develops feelings for Aiwei over time simply because of his Innate, she wants to ask for Azula’s permission to continue meeting up with him. Hopefully, she agrees.