"Azula? I ordered you to wait in anticipation of the Avatar's arrival. What is the meaning of this defiance?" Ozai's voice boomed, his raspy tone coated with anger.
"Father, I cannot live like this anymore. I cannot force myself to be the daughter you desire, I've seen what we are to the earth people, my eyes have been opened. There is no honour in being a conqueror. There is no honour in being the princess of a nation spearheading the destruction of balance." Azula spoke gently from her bow before standing to face her father.
"Azula, silence yourself! You do not know of what you speak." The smoke rising from his hands was almost visible.
"You are wrong father." Her voice was strangled but her words were sure. "Our people believe this war is a way for us to share our knowledge with the world, but what an incredible lie that is. People fear us, the other nations hate us. If it wasn't for the Avatar's miraculous escape the Air Nomads would be extinct. This isn't balance father, it's chaos!" She grew stronger and more forcible with each breath.
"You will pay for this insubordination!" Ozai stood harshly, rage glowering in his eyes like hot coals.
"No father. I won't, I will leave this room and go free Uncle, he was right to defy you and only now do I see that his path is the righteous one that I must follow. After I free him I am going to join the Avatar and believe me when I say it father, I will help him defeat you." She turned on her heel, thriving on the courage she felt dispersing through her veins. She had done many things in her life but defying her father, the fearsome ruler of the Fire Nation had never been one. Ozai moved silently, his arms twisted in gentle arcs before a bolt of shimmering blue and gold shot towards his daughter. It hurt Azula to realise she had not only guessed at this occurrence, but had expected it. She spun with the grace of a fallen nation and deftly dodged the blow, shooting a jet of fire at her own father.
"It pains me that I didn't expect and less of you father." She turned back to the grand double doors that were easily four times her size.
Azula hastily made her way towards the prison that held her uncle. When she arrived she was amazed to see that the guards were, for the most part, unconscious and her uncle was no where to be seen. She held a guard by the collar and thrust him into one of the stone walls.
"Where is my uncle?" She spat, saying each word as its own sentence. The guard looked a little confused at Azula's appearance but answered anyway.
"He busted himself out, he was like a one man machine." Azula released the man, allowing him to slump back to the ground. She left the prison quickly, determined to catch the Avatar before he left.
She found an unoccupied war balloon and set it aflight as soon as she could. She could see the bison faintly in the distance and moved quickly in order to catch it. She tried to keep a discreet distance as she flew the ship, laughing every now and then at the oddness of manning your own vessel for a change. It wasn't until she passed around the boiling rock that their destination became clear. The avatar was heading for the Western Air Temple, the closest sanctuary. She had only visited the temple once herself but remembered the oddness of the place; it was completely defiant of gravity and the buildings mostly hung as stalactites. She flew through the night over their camp in order to secure a campsite before she approached the people she had, on several occasions, tried to kill.
There was a certain simplicity to the nomadic life and Azula honestly had to admit, so far she liked it. The passing thought that maybe one of her past lives had been an Air Nomad glinted at the back of her mind but she quickly dismissed it. The accompaniment of the stars added a nice touch to the scenery of the temple and lulled her gently into sleep. When morning came, she was hit with a sudden sense of nervousness at what she was about to do and realised she had probably better practice the words that would usually come easy to her first.
"A-hem." She coughed, "Hello, uh, Azula here. No of course they know who I am, I tried to kill them you don't forget that. Maybe I should apologize for that first. Uh! What would Zuko say?" She pulled at her hair gently.
"Hah Avatar I finally got you, honour I will have you at last!" Her body shuddered with a light laughter. "No, that would never work, how about mother? What would she say? Avatar Aang, I have made several distasteful decisions regarding you in the past but now I am here to help. No, even when I talk has her I can hear the disappointment!" Azula harshly tugged the ties from her hair and threw them to the ground. "Maybe I should just give up and disappear like she did. She was right, I am a monster." Azula shrunk to the ground in a crumpled mess. "Maybe I should just opt for the truth, trust might be for fools but isn't that what I've become?" A tear rolled its way down her cheek, blazing the trail for several others.
It took hours but Azula finally managed to pull herself up and fulfill her destiny. She explored the temple in search of the Avatar or one of his friends. It was to her displeasure when she found all of them together.
"Azula?" Katara called angrily, immediately moving to an offensive stance.
"Wait please!" She called desperately. "I'm not here to attack you." She held up her hands in a defensive salute. "I have come to ask forgiveness, and if you'll allow me, to help the Avatar master the element of fire." She looked through her wild locks at the group, only four of them were there but each was ready in an offensive stance.
"You are kidding right?" Sokka growled. "After all the times you tried to kill us, after Ba Sing Se when you nearly destroyed the Avatar permanently?" Each of his words were like shards of ice on her skin.
"I'm not kidding. It took a lot but I'm finally starting to see the truth regarding my family. The truth about this war. I really am here in pea-" She was cut off by a water whip to her stomach. She fell backwards, hard.
"Don't you even speak of peace Azula. You don't know the meaning of the word." Rage flowered in Katara's eyes.
"Listen friends, maybe we should hear her out." Toph called gently, stepping out of her stance.
"Are you crazy?" Sokka yelled at her.
"Maybe, but you are ignoring one key fact here, Aang needs to master fire, and who better then the blue-fire freak in front of us?" She asked, slightly rhetorical.
"Wow thanks." Azula returned lightly.
"Who better? Who better! You were there when she chased us to the brink of exhaustion! You were there when she nearly killed Iroh, you were there when she nearly broke the wall of Ba Sing Se, you were there when she used the Dai Li to destroy the walls and let the Firenation take control of Ba Sing Se. How can you even entertain the idea of trusting her?" Sokka returned, hate flaring in each of his words.
"Aang, what about you, you haven't said anything." Azula's was weak and feeble, she knew they wouldn't take to her lightly.
"I'm sorry, I need to trust in my friends and stand my ground Azula. I can't learn from you if they can't trust you." She stared at the ground for a moment of quiet contemplation.
"Then, if you won't accept me as your ally, take me as your prisoner. I am officially a fugitive. I can't go home."
"No. You are on your own." Katara growled, glowering at the woman in front of her. She stood slowly before bowing.
"I can respect that." She spoke gently before leaving the camp.
It wasn't until she found her own camp that she allowed herself the odd luxury of crying. She had gone 15 years with her emotions under lock and key and found a strange relief in her tears. "No one is ever going to trust me again. My mother, alive or dead, hates me, my father would sooner see me dead. My brother thinks my every word is a lie, my uncle thinks I'm insane and everyone else see's me as a mercenary or a traitor. How did I get here?" She puzzled to herself before finally succumbing to sleep.
Azula was awoken by rustling in the bushes meters from her camp. She shot a quick blast in the general direction using her legs before standing and calling to the intruder. "Who's there?" She demanded, surprised when the response was a young girl.
"You burned my feet!" The voice accused.
"Oh no, I'm sorry I didn't know it was you, please let me help!" She rushed over to Toph and tried to help her stand.
"Get away from me!" The girl screamed, haphazardly throwing rocks over her shoulder.
"I'm sorry!" Azula tried again before catching a rock to her shoulder. The blow knocked her off her feet and she watched helplessly as the girl she had just hurt crawled away. "I am so sorry." She whispered gently. "Ugh! How am I so bad at being good!" She called angrily to the stars. She reignited the dying flames before sitting, utterly defeated.
The flames began to die again as the sky lightened and turned to shades of soft pink. At first she didn't notice the change, lost in her own mind. She was pulled from her daydream by a minor earthquake. "What was that?" Sha called to no one in particular. Before she could think better of it she ran towards the same camp that essentially banished her the day before. Azula sprinted to the edge of the cliff before jumping over and propelling herself onto solid ground with fire. She landed behind the group who were cowering from a bender on the other side of the canyon.
"What's going on?" She called desperately to the group of benders, and Sokka.
"Combustion man up there is trying to kill us. I thought it was obvious!" He called to her angrily. Azula ran towards the drop to get a better view of the bender who was attacking her only hope at redemption. Once she caught sight of him he launched an immediate offensive for her. It took all her strength but she managed to redirect the attack back at him using a similar technique to the Waterbenders. She caught her breath roughly before calling to the group behind her.
"I could use a little help out here!" Sokka ran out from the group for a moment before releasing his boomerang, in the wrong direction. "Great shot genius, whats next? Going to sing a song of surrender?" She rolled her eyes before turning back to their attacker. To her complete astonishment a blue blob arced around and caught him in the middle of his forehead. The bender was completely enraged by the onslaught and turned back to Azula. He fired up for a direct hit on her and she froze in her steps. The man breathed and leaned back to launch his blast when the entire cliff face exploded.
"You were saying?" Sokka asked, nonchalantly inspecting his fingernails.
"Ok, I admit. That was pretty cool." She said simply, gazing at him with a weird sense of admiration. The rest of the group stepped out from the wall. Aang approached her lightly.
"I can't believe I'm saying this to someone who nearly killed me, but thanks Azula."
"What about me, I did the boomerang thing?" Sokka asked lightly. Azula took a step forward to the group.
"Look, I know I didn't explain myself very well yesterday, I've had a real confusing couple of weeks. After Ba Sing Se I began to realise the error in everything I've grown up believing. My father always told me the war was our way of healing the world, it's only recently that I began to realise how wrong he was. I wanted to believe the lie, I mean, who can you trust if you can't trust your own father. Having Zuko at home reminded me so much of our mother and for the first time, I began to understand her. She's why I'm here, I have to make it right to her. I have to show her I'm not the monster my father raised me to be. All I want is to play my part in ending this war, and I know now that my destiny is to help restore balance that I helped to destroy." She sighed deeply before turning to Toph. "I am so sorry that burned you, it was an accident and I hope I can make it up to you. Fire can be dangerous when you lose control so I need to work on that." She bowed deeply, her hands in the Earth Kingdom salute. To her surprise, Toph nodded lightly and Aang stepped forward.
"I think you are meant to be my teacher. Now I understand that you know, no matter how controlled on the outside a person may seem, control is something you have to work for, it is not given. When I was learning Airbending control was not as important. It takes a slight level of effort, but since most of Airbending is not to be used offensively it is not something you have to actively work for. When I first used Firebending I lost control and burned Katara, teaching me that control is a key part of any form of bending.." He paused, taking another few steps toward her. "I would gladly learn from you, Sifu Azula." He bowed low at her, hands in the salute of her people. Azula was lost for words.
"Thankyou," She breathed, completely taken back. Aang rose from his bow before speaking again.
"Not so fast, I have to ask my friends considering I am not the only one in this family." He turned first to Toph. "Toph, you're the one she burned, can you trust her?" Toph shrugged indignantly.
"Go ahead and let her join." She grinned in a way that made Azula want to cringe. "It will give me plenty of time to get even," Aang bowed before turning to Sokka.
"Sokka?" Sokka looked at his feet and shrugged.
"Look, all I want to do is defeat the Firelord. If you think this is the way to go, I'm with you." Aang breathed in deeply before turning to Katara. Azula sensed a slight hint of sexual tension.
"Katara?" He asked gently. Anger and indecision were plain on her face. Azula readied herself for leaving again. Katara slowly raised her eyes to Aang, confirming that tension Azula was sensing.
"I'll go along with what ever you think is right." She sighed gently. Azula released a sigh of relief.
"Thank you," She stepped towards Katara. "I won't let you down, I promise." Relief and the promise of a second chance fluttered in her chest.