Chapter 39.2- And so the Dragons Danced

“I’m bored” Azula’s voice whined out as I breathed out and loosed the arrow. It flew right over my target’s shoulder, sailing into the empty field behind it and planting itself into the ground. I turned to the Princess with an annoyed expression that I could feel grow in intensity as she smirked and shrugged at me, not even bothering to show any remorse for causing the miss.

“Surely, you do not think that was my fault. You miss often enough without me that you can not possibly be blaming me for this one” She said and I sighed, feeling my shoulders slump as I agreed with her.

“Of course” I said, putting down the bow and reaching around my shoulder to take off the quiver and hand it over to Toji. “That’s it for me today, I think” I whispered to him as I prepared to attend to the bored Princess before she decided to take her entertainment into her own hands. The last time I had ignored such a complaint, I’d been left dismantling an illegal underground fighting ring made of Fire Nation soldiers who had suddenly got it in their heads that fighting to the death was the best way to prove their worth to the Princess. She denied having anything to do with it, but considering that I’d broken into their venue and found her given pride of place while she cheered at the blood being spilled, I doubted that a lot.

“Let’s go spar, Princess” I said to her as I walked past. I did not need to turn around to know the joy that showed up on her face, I could practically smell it at this point. Everything that I’d thought I’d known about Azula from canon told me that she would be the sort of person who would be aggravated at being bested at the thing she was best at, but for some reason, she enjoyed being beaten by me whenever we sparred.

We made our way through the palace, collecting no small amount of stares. I knew that by the time we made it to the inner rock garden where this spar would be taking place, word would have spread around the palace and we’d probably have an audience in a matter of minutes. Governing the city left me with a lot to do, but not having any war to monger left the bulk of the Generals with little and less to do day after day. I’d given Sung the charge of the vast majority of the army and charged him with ensuring that any outpost, village, or town within a sixty mile radius was flying the Fire Nation flag or destroyed. Whichever he chose did not matter. All that mattered was that I refused to be hemmed in, cut off, and besieged at this position. Turning all my attention to governing the city ran the risk that someone would do to me what we had initially planned to do to Ba Sing Se.

“Ready?” Azula asked from her position across me.

“Hold on” I said, reaching up to my tunic to take it off and expose my upper body to the crowd. The wolf whistling made my cheeks flush and my eyes squint but they quickly died out as Azula stared daggers into everyone who whistled.