Navigating the labyrinthine halls of the Palace was none other than Sokka. Today was important; he was to meet with the Fire Lord concerning the rights of some small island in dispute between the Fire Nation and the Polar Nation. They had both agreed that the islands were to difficult to deal with politically, and that they should be allowed independence. The issue at hand was...

Sokka never paid attention to that part.

Even now he wished he'd paid attention all the times he'd been to the Palace, as he was now 100% lost. All the hallways were the same and the decorations were too bland to make any mnemonic impression. After the third time he passed the blue vase with the daisy in it, he began to wonder why there weren't any servants buzzing around like there normally were.

Then a door a couple of meters ahead of him opened and small, black-haired woman stepped out, looking up and down the hallway.

"Oh, great, Sokka," she said, moving towards him.

"Azula." He said coolly

She grabbed his arm and pulled him to her room. "Come here, I need some help."

"What?" His voice was careful and nondescript.

"Moving furniture." They stopped in front of a large dresser, its drawers removed to make it lighter. "I need to move this dresser, but it's too heavy. Help me."

'Help me' usually meant 'Do this thing for me'.

Sokka shrugged and positioned himself on the side of it. "Which way?"

"Just pull it towards you."

Even with its drawers removed the dresser was still pretty heavy, Sokka could see how anyone could have trouble with it, let alone Azula.

He struggled with it, managing to move it about sixty centimeters.

"How's that?"

"No, more."

Another third of a meter.

"Keep going."

Another half-meter.

"More. More."

Sokka noticed that she seemed more interested in the wall behind the dresser than its actual placement.

"What are you looking for?" he grunted between tugs.

"A..." Her voice trailed before she could even start the word. She dropped to her knees and began to feel the wall. "Keep going. About another foot."

"What is it?"

"Keep going!" she snapped, waving her arm at him.

Sokka grimaced and continued to pull.

"Yes." Azula said suddenly. "I knew it!"

"Is that enough?"

"Yeah, you can stop."

Sokka climbed out between the dresser and the wall.

"What is it?"

Azula was crouching in front of the wall, running her finger along a square-shaped depression in the wallpaper, about two feet on a side. She stood up. "It's a secret tunnel," she stated matter-of-factually.

"Oh yeah. I forgot there was a bunch."

"So now..." She stepped back, swung her arms, and delivered a swift low-kick to the square. Her bare foot punched through the material with a soft crunch.

However, now her foot was stuck. She swung her arms, trying to keep balanced. It didn't work. She would have fallen if Sokka didn't lunge forward and catch her by her back.

"Careful," he advised. Quickly, she extracted her foot and removed herself from his hands.

"Th-thanks."

One of the things everyone who interacted with Azula noticed was that she was just weirdly averse to being touched. Even placing a hand on her back caused her to get uncomfortable and anxious. Sokka suspected it had to do with being abused by her father, though she insisted that he'd never physically abused her.

Rubbing her hands on her shirt, she regained her composure. "Okay. Now to find where it leads."

"Hmm." Sokka nodded, arms crossed and hand on his chin. No one did anything for a second. He looked up at Azula. She looked back to him. "Go ahead."

Her face screwed up in offense. "So you can ogle me from behind? Nice try. You first." She stepped back to give him access to the hole. He reached into the broken panel and yanked it out of the wall. It was made of wood, but it was too light; it'd obviously been in place for a while and begun to rot. No wonder Azula could kick through it in her state.

Sokka broke the square on half and threw it aside, kneeling down to peer into the tunnel. It was straight and long, and hard to see into.

"It's really dark, I can't really see anything. Do you have a lantern?"

"No, sorry. Just... Crawl forward. Unless you're afraid of the dark?" She kicked his foot gently.

"Whatever." Sokka crawled into the tunnel. After a meter or so, he heard Azula get to her knees and enter after him.

"How long is this anyway?" He muttered.

"Probably thirty or forty feet."

On the one hand, thirty or forty feet of a dark tunnel leading to Spirits know where. On the other, he wouldn't have to meet with the Fire Lord for a while.

"Hmm," he breathed.

"What?"

"Nothing." They pressed on.

"So, what are you doing in the Palace?" Azula inquired after a few seconds of silence.

"Oh. I'm supposed to meet with your borther about some Podunk islands the Fire Nation took over."

"I thought the Fire Nation released all of its old claims."

"Well they did. But these islands are so insignificant that the Polar Nation doesn't even want to incorporate them. They're in a kind of-"

"Polar Nation?"

Sokka closed his eyes. A lot of things had happened while she was in isolation. "A few years ago the Northern and Southern Water Tribes decided to join themselves together, to strengthen themselves and keep the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation from taking advantage of them. They call themselves the Polar Nation now."

"Hmm. Why not the Water Nation? Fits the theme."

"Well thanks to numerous Fire Nation raids over the last century-" he looked back to give a sarcastic glare to Azula's silhouette "-The South Pole had almost no Waterbenders in it. Pretty much just my sister and this little girl four villages over. When they named the country, they didn't want to offend all the non-benders, so they went with the Polar Nation."

"I still would have called it the Water Nation."

"Well I suspect it won't matter in a few years."

"Oh?"

"The nation was formed to stand up to political bullying. Once they figure out all the details left over from the war, the two tribes will probably break up again."

"It's hard to maintain a country on literal opposite ends of the planet."

"Yeah. Oh, whoa. There's something."

In the oppressive darkness, Sokka hadn't even noticed the tunnel ending in front of him. "There's a door."

"Open it."

It was a small wooden door, hinged at the top. Sokka pushed on it to find that it was unsecured, it opened easily.

Sokka pulled himself upright in the small room. The only light came from what appeared to be a pipe coming down from the ceiling, letting in sunlight. Unfortunately, crud had accumulated on the glass inside the pipe and prevented any useful light from entering. "It's too dark to see anything."

Azula stood up next to him. "Are there any torches here?"

"Um-" Sokka leaned out for the wall, and began to feel around for a torch. Azula did the same thing.

"Found one," she stated. "Oh, it's dry. Damn."

"Well just... use your Firebending."

The Avatar was reluctant to completely strip Azula of her Firebending. He felt that it wasn't fair. Instead he tried something different: By being careful with his Energybending, he managed to simply restrict 7her Firebending abilities. She could easily produce small flames in her hands, but any large displays would be incredibly difficult for her. He also insisted that she never, ever use her ability, threatening to completely remove her Firebending if she was caught.

The Avatar wasn't here right now.

Azula produced a small blue flame in her hand, increasing its size until it bathed the room in light.

"Agh, agh, that's really hot. Can you turn that down?" Sokka was standing about two feet away and could still feet the hair burning off his arms.

"Sorry." She focused on the flame, dimming it from bright blue to a more natural yellow. "Better?"

"Yeah. So what's in this room?" Sokka turned slowly. There wasn't much more than a few old boxes, some dusty books, and a large painting on one wall.

"I found this room about a month ago. I have a lot of free time, so I started to explore the secret tunnels in the Palace."

"Right. Are these original to the Palace?"

"No, my great-grandfather had them put in right after he declared wart on the world. He figured it was a good idea to have secret passages all over the Palace, in case it was ever attacked."

"Oh."

"But now my Royal Brother's undoing all that. All of the entrances are getting boarded up. It's how the assassins keep getting in. Which means this is my last chance to do this."

"Do what?"

Azula motioned to the painting with her free hand. "Take that down."

Sokka complied. To his surprise, there was another small tunnel behind the painting, a meter off the ground, 60 centimeters wide and about 40 tall. "Oh wow. A hidden tunnel within a secret room at the end of a hidden tunnel."

"Excellent." Azula put her hands into the opening and worked her way into it. Sokka set the painting down.

"Thanks Sokka! Put the painting back up when you leave, okay?" Her foot disappeared into the tunnel.

"Wait, no-" Sokka climbed in after. "Where does this lead?"

"Oh you're coming? I thought you'd stay."

"Yeah right."

More silence. More crawling. More getting cooked by the fire in Azula's hands.

"Wait, you never told me where this goes."

"Well with any luck, it leads to a secret door on the outside of the Palace walls. We'll see though, hopefully it hasn't collapsed."

It took a moment for Sokka to register.

"Wait, outside of the Palace?"

"Yeah."

Sokka reached out and grabbed Azula's ankle. "You're trying to escape?"

"Let go-" she shook her ankle pathetically.

"Stop. Answer me. Is that was this is? An escape route?"

"Yes, it was, please..." her ankle became more frantic, as did her breathing. Sokka didn't care.

"Are you insane?" He immediately regretted his choice of words, but pressed on. "Did you actually think I would just let you walk out of here? Your brother would have my head."

"I was going to distract you and run for it. I wasn't going to hurt you or anything. Will you please-"

"No. You're coming back with me. Come on."

"Sokka Please..."

"No. Not until you tell me you're coming back."

Azula stopped fighting and went limp. Her breathing became ragged, and the flame in her hand flickered wildly. Sokka glanced at her thin ankle in his hand, sighed, and let go. At once her legs were pulled up towards her, curling up and blocking most of the light with her thighs.

Great. Now she was having a panic attack in the middle of this tunnel. Sokka cleared his throat. "Hey, I'm sorry. I forgot." He heard her exhale with a hnt a few times before she responded.

"Please don't do that again." Hnt hnt hnt.

"Sorry. Will you come back now?"

She gasped one final time before extending her legs again. "Yeah."

With great difficulty, Sokka began to shimmy backwards down the tunnel. Azula had a different approach. Sokka watched in horror as she twisted herself around inside the confines of the tunnel, legs pointing this way and that, spine bulging out from places unholy, until she was face-to-face with Sokka, the yellow flame still in her hand.

"What the hell?" he groaned.

"A trick Ty Lee showed me."

"How to dislocate your entire body?"

"Ha. It helps that I weigh 90 pounds."

Sokka briefly frowned before continuing to work his way down the tunnel. Five seconds passed. Azula broke the silence.

"So how's the wife?"

Sokka stopped suddenly, staring soulfully at the floor. "Dead. Thank you for asking."

Azula leaned forward. "Dead?"

He nodded, lips stretched tight.

Her mouth gaped for a second. "...I'm so sorry."

"Sure."

"No, really. Suki? She was... a fighter. Never gave up. I respected her."

"Even when you threw her in prison?"

"Especially when I threw her in prison. All of the other prisoners loved her. The guardsmen were afraid of her. That's impressive."

"Heh." His eyes glazed, he seemed to be staring through the ground. Slowly his head lowered until his chin rested on his hands.

"I had no idea. Really." Azula licked her lips a bit.

"How did she, um... If it's not... rude-"

"Um. One day she got sick. And we weren't really worried about it. But she just kept getting worse and we couldn't figure out why. My sister tried everything. We tried other healers, but she wouldn't respond, get better. Then one day..." he seemed to think she would be able to figure out what came next.

Sokka wasn't crying, but he looked like he should have been. "But, you can't dwell on it forever."

"Actually you can-"

"It's been a year, so I've moved on."

"That's good."

"Let's go." Sokka started moving again, faster than last time.

"Okay..."

They wiggled forward for a few more seconds.

Finally Sokka's feet met nothing instead of the floor of the tunnel. "I'm at the end." Another moment of wiggling and he was on his feet in the tiny room. Azula popped out a moment later, refusing to let Sokka help her out.

"I've got it, stop." She stood up. "Okay, let's go. Put the picture back up first."

"You do it." Sokka dropped to his hands, opened the trapdoor, and entered the tunnel.

Azula held the door pen for a moment, waiting for him to get further down the tunnel.

"You coming?" he called.

"Um... No." Azula closed the trapdoor, slipping a bamboo quill into the latch to hold it shut.

"Hey...!"

"Sorry Sokka, thanks for your help!"

"Stop!" He started to kick the door.

Even in her emaciated state, Azula could move fast. She swiftly placed the painting in front of the trapdoor and dove into the secret secret tunnel.

"Dammit Azula!" she heard behind her as she crawled to freedom.