A/N: This was written as a high school graduation present for a LiveJournal buddy of mine. One of her favorite pairings is Sokka/Azula. Now, while I think there is tremendous potential for heat in this pairing, I've yet to work out the actual scenario in my usual fashion. So I tried another take on this, focusing on the passion, and not so much on the wheres, whens, or whys. One of my favorite folk-songs gave me the inspiration, enforcing the structural elements as a reflection of or comment on each stanza.

Disclaimer: Both Avatar: The Last Airbender and "Temporary Road" are copywritten by others. I make no claim on anything other than a concept and turn of phrase here and there, and am thereby exempt from any litigation.

Temporary Road,

Lyrics by John Gorka©

He is skating on a river

That's been frozen since December

He's a soldier on a river off to war

He was tired of feeling useless, no, tired of being useless. Aang and Katara didn't really seem to need him. It was his sense of duty that kept him with them. To be so close to the actual war and not fight, well, it didn't seem right. He wasn't back home protecting the village. He wasn't protecting his sister or the avatar – no, they seemed to be protecting him.

And he just received his orders

They're in his pocket with his quarters

But they never cut his leave like this before

He still had Bato's map. Perhaps it wasn't too late to find them somewhere near the rendezvous point. Perhaps he could use his connections to the avatar with the Earth Kingdom forces to go find his father's fleet after all. Well, yes, he was afraid. Hell, he was always afraid. But he hadn't let that stop him yet, so why should it now?

And his buddies know he's crazy

But they'll meet him by the bridge

And he has the light of more than half the moon

They look at him askance. He knows that Aang feels betrayed, and this hurts him more than he wants to admit. Katara is wiser, but also more pragmatic. She knows Aang's path is perilous, but she ultimately believes in his destiny, with some hazy sense that it will protect them all. On the other hand, there will be nothing to protect her brother if he ventures forth alone.

But he says he is not alone. Not anymore.

He skated nights when he was younger

Though he always knew the danger

But it seems so much is here and gone so soon

She was so quick – impossibly so – and equally impossible that she should somehow remember him. He thought himself secure in anonymity once he had left the avatar's side. He was wrong.

The Water Tribe princess had been beautiful and giving. Shy and impulsive. She made him feel more of a man.

The Fire Nation princess was also beautiful. As her prisoner, he learned that she did not give, she took. There was nothing shy about her, nor was there anything spontaneous or impulsive about her. And she did her best to make him feel like a worm.

And the ice talks to the river

And the geese talk to themselves

Will they fly all night if there's no place to land?

She does her best to break him. She is exquisite in her cruelty, even when she knows it is pointless – he knows nothing and has nothing to give her. But that is just the point. He defies her; he looks her in the eye, admits to terror and even screams when the flames burn him. But the ice never melts in that blue gaze, and she never tires of it.

A place to land is open water

And open water he can't use

When it's hard enough to find a place to stand

She would kill him, but she finds she can't. Her curiosity is caught, despite herself. The whispers in her ears she hears as envy for her fine catch. She ignores the quiet voice in her soul that demands destruction of that she can't either control or understand.

It would be a choice she would regret.

When the ice gives in beneath you

You know it changes how you dream

And you will never be the same again

He had been born and bred on the ice. He knew every phase of it, he knew its heart. He was beloved of the moon. He shared her soul. It gave him strength to endure.

But he didn't really know or understand heat. Not really. He thought he knew passion, but its real heat was still a stranger to him, and fire can melt any ice, eventually.

He's going where there is no winter

The only ice is in his veins

He may kill someone whose face he'll never see

She took him with her, on her endless searches for others.

She consoled herself for her losses in the certainty of his frozen gaze.

She cooled her passion in his hate, and for both of them it was a release, short of death itself.

He always knew he'd be a soldier

Since his parents could remember

Now he's skating down this temporary road.

He told himself it couldn't last forever. He told himself that he was finally doing what he was always supposed to do.