Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

Trapped

An Avatar: The Last Airbender oneshot (in four parts)

Part 2

Iroh and Azula had exactly four conversations during their long, restless, miserable journey to the Southern Water Tribes on a rickety old boat.

The first was initiated when Azula complained about said boat—"I can't see, but I can smell the worthlessness of this dump" were the exact words.

Iroh explained that a fancy ship would attract too much attention; there weren't very many ships outside of the Fire Nation Navy, and while some army officials were opposed to Ozai in principle, especially after his 'decisions' regarding Azula, none of them were willing to defy the Firelord openly. Azula acquiesced reluctantly but quickly; Iroh knew that self-interested logic was just about the only thing that could move her, but move her it most certainly could.

Their second conversation began when Iroh told her who they were going to stay with.

"Hakoda! You aren't talking about the Chief of the largest tribe in the South, who counts among his bodyguards the most powerful waterbender in the South? You must have misspoke, because shacking up with the most famous southern barbarian in the world is the stupidest idea I've ever had the displeasure of hearing."

"First of all, Azula," Iroh began from his prepared speech, having had a good idea of what his niece's reaction was going to be, "you might not want to complain about powerful waterbenders, considering your condition. Or southern 'barbarians,' for that matter."

Azula practically snarled at that, but said nothing. Iroh ignored her and continued.

"Second, my brother is perfectly capable of blanketing the entire South Pole once he figures out you're there—and he will figure it out, sooner or later. From Hatsuna on, the Southern Water Tribes became experts at hiding from the Fire Nation in order to save themselves from our raiders, and Hakoda's one of the best. Just because he's famous doesn't mean he's easy to find; quite the opposite, he became famous because he's the hardest to find.

"Finally, and most importantly, you're going to have to forge some kind of alliance between both of the Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdom. Developing good relations with the biggest figure of the South is a necessary first step toward achieving that goal."

Once again, Azula was angry; once again, she had to bow to Iroh's logic. Smart she may have been, but no 11-year-old could match the intellectual weight of the entire White Lotus. Especially not an 11-year-old who had just went through what she had.

Their third conversation was prompted by Azula, who asked Iroh one day, out of the blue, "Where are Ty Lee and Mai?"

Iroh blinked, then answered levelly and truthfully. "Even though they were your friends, they're also daughters of influential families, so they managed to escape punishment. As far as I know, Mai went back to live with her family, while Ty Lee went to the circus."

That produced something Iroh hadn't seen in quite a while—a laugh from Azula, albeit a short, haughty one. Iroh decided it was worth the risk to inquire further. "What's so amusing, my niece?"

After a few seconds, Azula answered, her voice slow with no discernable emotion. "You'd think Ty Lee was getting the raw end of that deal, but it's the opposite. She's always wanted to go to the circus, while there are few things Mai hates more than her family. And she hates a lot of things."

There was silence for a few minutes, until Iroh eventually felt himself forced to say, "We can't get them—"

"I know, Iroh. They're both connected to me, so Ozai's going to place them under constant surveillance. Agni, I'm not Zuko, old man; I have some brain cells."

And that was the end of that.

Their fourth conversation occurred at about the midpoint of their trip. Iroh had finished feeding Azula dinner and was about to leave when she said, "Wait."

Iroh paused and looked back.

"Don't you want to know why they did this to me?"

He said nothing.

Azula smiled what had to be a rueful smile, but looked for all the world like she was feeling immense pleasure. "I could guess, of course, but the asshole in charge—Haka, I believe his name was—felt it necessary to inform me in person. He said they didn't want to let the Avatar reincarnate, so he was ordered to keep me alive, but only barely, and with a special eye toward preventing any kind of escape. So his first course of action, of course, was to stuff a rag into my mouth to stop me from biting off my tongue. Because death would be an escape, you see.

"Next, he apparently wanted to cut off my arms and legs, but Ozai overruled him, saying there was too much risk of death—even if they tried to cauterize immediately, I might be able to figure out some way to reopen the wounds. So he broke them and stopped them from healing, as the next-best thing. He wanted some sort of trophy, though, so he decided, hey, why not take my eyes? Just reached in and plucked them out with his fingers. He told me later he has them mounted on his wall.

"They never raped me, though. Not sure why. Maybe you have some idea?"

Iroh left the room.

Nothing else of note happened for the rest of the trip.

Before landing at the South Pole, Azula dreamed a meaningless dream. And she cried, because in it, she could move and see.

Iroh's first meeting with Hakoda, greatest of the Southern chiefs and his new protector, was in a small igloo near the South Pole's coast. The meeting had been organized by Hakoda's mother, Kanna, a member of the Order of the White Lotus. Not that her family knew that.

Iroh had never met Hakoda before, and looking at the man, he could not see the qualities that had made the man so great. There were many stories about Ice Wolf Hakoda, but before him, all Iroh saw was a tired, gentle-looking middle-aged man.

Then again, maybe I'm not one to talk, he thought grimly. Iroh knew from first-hand experience how quickly one could shed gentleness.

The only signs of Hakoda's power were the relatively fancy beads hung to his hair, and even those were far less than tradition would signify a Chief should wear, especially in a formal setting. His parka was worn and plain, his gloves and boots were dark and rough; he wasn't even sitting on any sort of raised dais. To his left was Kanna, with a somewhat more ceremonial-looking coat that covered her almost completely, making her look like a Bear-Pig's corpse.

Sitting on Hakoda's right, by the entrance, was his bodyguard Hama, the most powerful waterbender in the South. She was almost as famous as her tribe's Chief—she had studied under Avatar Hatsuna's prized pupil (and probable lover), and later was, for a time, the leader of a feared guerilla force that combined the best waterbenders from many different tribes. After that fell apart, the tribeless Hama had moved in with Kanna, and became the leader of that tribe's guerilla force. She was too old now to engage in pitched battles directly, but was plenty good enough to defend Hakoda, and few dared to take up arms against her.

She was also known for truly and completely despising the Fire Nation and its people. Soldiers feared being her captive even more than they feared being her combatant. And her invasion of a Fire Nation village on the mainland was still spoken of in soft whispers, as well as the occasional angry drunken rant swearing revenge.

Needless to say, the meeting was not as comfortable as might have been preferred.

Still, it went well. Kanna did most of the talking—Iroh had already known she held most of the power, but he was somewhat surprised they didn't even bother pretending otherwise. Hakoda interjected occasionally, while Hama just glared at Iroh. He had instructed Azula to remain silent the entire time, and no one addressed the blind, crippled, 11-year-old Avatar. Even Hama only spared her a disdainful glance once.

They had roughly 3 years until Sozin's Comet, which would effectively herald the Fire Nation's victory, so it was agreed to make the final, go-for-broke invasion some to-be-determined time beforehand. Trusted messengers were to be sent to Ba Sing Se and the North, complete with daggers they could use on themselves in case of capture. They also requested a suitable earthbending master be searched for, although the logistics of that would be a challenge.

The biggest problem at the moment was airbending, but Kanna had a solution for that. Or at least, pretended she did—the true source of the idea had been the leaders of the White Lotus. But the other three didn't need to know that, either.

"There is a mountain that lies in the very center of the South Pole," Kanna intoned, "called Manitutshu. It is the most spiritual place in our lands. The Winter Solstice is soon. If the Avatar meditates at the base of Manitutshu during the Winter Solstice, she should be able to enter the Spirit World. If an airbender still exists in this reality, he will be there."

At the end, Iroh dared to ask Hama if she was going to heal Azula herself. The waterbender gave him a withering look while Hakoda laughed.

"Hama's the best there is at killing people, but when she tries to heal them, she tends to make their wounds worse," the chieftain said lightly. "But don't worry—I knew the situation, and brought along our best healer. The Avatar won't be wanting for medical attention."

Iroh almost winced, knowing those words and tone wouldn't exactly endear the man to Azula. But when he glanced at her, she had on the same mask of indifference she had worn the entire duration of the meeting.

Finally, the three Water Tribesmen left, Hakoda promising the healer would be there soon. After the last one—Hama, with one last glare—left hearing range, he turned to Azula and prepared for the eruption.

To his surprise, there was none. She still had the mask up.

"How was it?" he asked tentatively, though making sure to project certainty in his tone—the last thing he needed was for Azula to think him weak.

"Nothing particularly objectionable occurred," Azula answered serenely.

Iroh nodded slowly, then caught himself. It was still hard to remember that she was blind sometimes. After quietly berating himself, he said, "Indeed."

They said nothing else before the healer arrived. He looked to be about 20-something, with black hair and relatively light skin for a Water Tribesman. He happily waved Iroh out of the igloo, and Iroh obeyed, glancing at Azula only once before he stepped outside.

If this is how cold it is close to the coast, I'm not looking forward to going further inland, he thought, wrapping his arms around himself and doing firebending exercises to warm up.

Azula hated being blind.

Oh sure, having all your limbs broken was incredibly humiliating, but not having eyes was even worse. Throughout her life, her fath—Ozai had taught her to notice all the subtle ranges of emotion a face could produce. "The face is a window to the spirit," he had said, and he was right. Your face didn't lie, and Azula had learned well the subtle art of gleaning peoples' true characters through sight alone.

Now she would have to rely on voice. Worse, she'd have to figure it out by herself, so Agni knew how long that would take. In the meantime, not knowing others' emotions with perfect clarity was like another blindness. It left her almost immobile in social situations.

She was actually grateful that she didn't have to speak at the meeting, despite the fact that it involved the two subjects closest to Azula's heart (herself and politics, in that order). So she listened, and tried to work on analyzing voices.

By the end of the hours-long talk, she figured she had the basics somewhat figured out—having had some previous training in voice analysis helped a lot. Getting back to her old level, though, would take years, if not decades.

Terrific.

The four adults left, and someone with light footsteps entered the cold-as-shit igloo.

"Hello," a young male voice said cheerfully. "I'm Kalu, and I'll be your healer for the foreseeable future. Let's get along!"

Azula hated him immediately.

"Just see what you can do about my limbs, okay?"

The man hummed. "All right. That's gonna require touching you, incidentally. I assure you I have no untoward—"

"I know." Azula grit her teeth. "Just do it." She hated his amusement, and the way it seemed like he was almost, but not quite, laughing after everything he said.

Kalu started feeling Azula's arm, pressing down harder occasionally. After a while, he moved on to her other arm, then her legs, and the entire time, he insisted on chatting with Azula. It was annoying.

"So, little Avatar—"

"Don't call me that."

"What's it like being the Avatar?"

"You have eyes, I assume. Use them and guess."

He clucked his tongue. "No need to use that tone, little Avatar."

"I can use whatever tone I want when talking to some pissant barbarian!"

He started humming again. "And what if I told you I was the son of the chief?"

That line shocked Azula a little. "Isn't Hakoda's son supposed to be some nonbending brat?"

"His official son, yes. I just so happen to be a bastard."

As much as Azula hated this guy and didn't want to talk with him, she had to admit he was piquing her curiosity. "A bastard, huh? How'd that happen?"

The humming got louder. "You see, little Avatar, when a man and a woman love each other very—"

"Not that! Agni, I know about sex, asshole."

She thought she heard Kalu chuckle, but it was soft and fast and hard to make out. "Fair enough. About 26 years ago, before my father had become Chief, his tribe managed to capture an entire Fire Nation raiding party. One of their soldiers caught his eye, and they had what might be called an illicit—"

"Wait, you're half Fire Nation?"

The humming started up again. "Indeed. My father swears it was mutual love, though I can't deny I've wondered occasionally. In any event, it was impossible for them to stay together, of course. They eventually sent her back in a prisoner exchange, but he kept the baby. 25 years later, here I am."

Kalu didn't talk after that, and Azula considered the information she had just been given. "So is that why you're a healer even though you're a guy?" she asked after a minute. "Because they didn't want to let a half-breed learn combat arts?"

This time, Azula definitely heard a chuckle. "You're thinking about the Northern Water Tribe there, little Avatar. Really, with their cities and hierarchies and rules, they're more of a country than a tribe these days. I keep saying, any day now they're going to start calling themselves the 'Water Empire' or something.

"Anyway, while the North may cling to a sexist delineation of bending duties, we in the South never really had that problem. Especially after Hatsuna. I'm good at healing and bad at battle, so I became a healer. Not so complicated.

"As to my being half-Fire Nation, that does cause trouble occasionally. But after you bring their parents, siblings, and children back from certain death, people have a tendency to treat you well. Especially when they know you're the only one who could've done it."

There was silence for a few seconds. Then Kalu withdrew his hands and seemed to back up a bit. "They sure did a number on you, huh?"

Azula was silent.

"Well, hate to break it to you, little Avatar, but we do have a problem here. After being untreated for so long, your bones started growing back in ways they shouldn't. If you want to gain much function back in your limbs, it'll take…drastic measures."

"Cut the dramatics and just tell me, asshole."

She could practically sense Kalu smiling. "I'd have to break them again, then set it up so that this time, the bones heal properly."

A chill started heading up Azula's spine. She could still remember the day she was imprisoned, two months ago, with perfect clarity. Her mind would never let her forget the day all control had been stripped from her, and she had been left a doll.

She gulped, and tried her hardest to stop from sounding nervous. "Then do it."

More silence. Azula's heart was beating hard in her chest.

Eventually, Kalu said, "It would be very painful, of course, and I can't do anything about that. Besides, while I've never done something like this before, I would guess that you'd be lucky to regain 80% functionality in your limbs. And you are still just 11, little Avatar. I should probably ask your uncle."

"No!" she screamed. "It's my body, my choice! I don't care how much it hurts, and I don't care if it's not perfect; going through life not being able to move is infinitely worse! Now do it!"

Time stretched on. In her excited state, Azula didn't even bother to try to measure how long it was.

Finally, Kalu chuckled again, low and soft. "I kinda like you, little Avatar. Okay, I'll do it. But I imagine your uncle is going to come running when he hears your screams, and won't be very happy, so I'd ask for your help in explaining the situation. If the Dragon of the West kills me, your recovery will go much worse, I promise."

Azula would've rolled her eyes, if she had had them. "I'm not an idiot. Just do it."

She heard Kalu stand up without another word. Azula grit her teeth and prepared.

Iroh was contemplating things as he trudged along the icy wilderness. Then, suddenly, he realized it had been a while since he last meditated on the nature of reality, and even longer since he had had a good cup of tea, and much longer than that since he had last felt comfortable.

Then he kicked himself and returned to contemplating his and the world's current situation, with only a small glimmer of depression. All that could wait.

"Hi, Azula!"

Azula grit her teeth. "Katara."

It turned out that the Southern Water Tribes really were tribes, surprisingly enough. They all lived together, and since they kept their lives by not staying in one place very long, they moved together, too. And Hakoda's tribe was large—at least 500 people, and that wasn't counting the constant scouting parties that were wandering all over the place. From what Azula could gather, Hakoda's main task was just organizing the logistics of it all, while his mother did the actual decision-making, leader-like stuff.

Azula wasn't exactly keen on dealing with so many barbarians in her state, so she tended to spend most of her time with the chief, as was her right as the Avatar. Unfortunately, that brought its own problems; namely, having to deal with the chief's children.

"I'm here to feed you lunch!" The girl giggled.

"I figured," Azula grumbled.

His son, Sokka, was kind of surly and distrustful. Which suited Azula just fine. His daughter, Katara, on the other hand…

"I talked to Kalu this morning. He said you'll probably be able to move your limbs by next week! Isn't that great?"

"Wonderful."

Hakoda's wife, in her infinite wisdom, had decided to let Azula and Katara be by themselves for the first few hours they met, to "bond." Katara proceeded to rattle off every half-baked story she had ever heard about the Avatar. Not wanting to antagonize her protector's daughter, Azula smiled and nodded, while secretly wanting to kill herself.

Ty Lee was bad enough, and she at least knew when to shut up.

To be fair, Katara got better after she finished gushing about the Avatar. She then happily took over all of Iroh's old duties, including feeding and…cleaning Azula. Which Azula was grateful for; being helped that way was humiliating, but it was slightly better when it was a 10-year-old girl instead of your ancient uncle. And the girl was pleasant enough, generally speaking. Plus, she was apparently a waterbender training under Hama herself, which might make her useful in a few years' time.

But after a while, the girl's practically worshipful attitude was starting to grate on her. Which, when she first realized it, surprised Azula—she loved it when people worshipped her. But eventually, she managed to figure it out.

Katara wasn't worshipping her. She was worshipping the Avatar. And to Azula, those were two very different things.

"So, you wouldn't believe what Sokka said today…"

A month after they arrived, Hakoda's bastard said that it was safe to take off Azula's bindings and let her move.

"She'll be sluggish for a while yet, and I'll still need to be on hand, of course," he had said, "but I figured the little Avatar wants control of her limbs as soon as possible, no matter how little it is." He had given Iroh an odd look as he said that.

To be honest, Iroh hadn't trusted Kalu ever since he broke Azula's limbs without consulting him. But the man did know his job.

And he was right about Azula—she had practically gushed at Kalu when he took her restraints off.

Well, not really, it wasn't even particularly close to gushing. But closer than he had ever seen her get before.

Then she actually started walking.

Her face was screwed up in concentration, as she took her first step in over three months. And as she firmly planted her left foot in the ground, she displayed something close to pure joy.

She took a second step.

And crashed to the ground.

Kalu and Katara instantly ran at her, but Iroh waved them off. He did know his niece, and he knew she would hurt anyone who tried to help her right now.

She stood up by herself, slowly, a bruise starting to form on her cheek. The joy was gone, replaced by concentration again.

It didn't come back.

Soon after her restraints were taken off, Azula began her journey to that mountain the old woman had talked about, Manitutshu—early enough so that it was certain she'd make it there before the Winter Solstice. She was escorted by Iroh, Kalu, and Hama's top student Naya. Katara had also insisted on going along, of course. Hakoda and the others were needed with the tribe, so they stayed behind.

Good riddance, Azula thought.

Because they were heading so far South, they were using one of the few carriages the tribe had. Made out of wood pilfered from the Fire Nation, it was pulled by two yak-oxen through the harsh snowstorms that seemed to flow continuously in the world's bottom.

The land was an inhospitable hellscape. But Azula had to go there, because she was the Avatar. She couldn't even practice firebending, for risk of burning the stupid wood.

So she let Katara show her some basic principles of waterbending instead. It wasn't exactly easy—water was her opposite element, and she still had to go soft on her limbs. But she managed to melt ice and freeze water soon enough…until Naya caught her, and promised various horrible retributions if the practice continued.

"There is a reason Avatars learn the elements in order. If you don't learn Air first, you'll put too much will into your Water, and you'll just end up hurting those around you."

That's the goal, idiot, Azula grumbled to herself. But they were soon forced to spend all their time in the carriage by the worsening weather, and Azula wasn't able to sneak off to practice again.

Azula's annoyance at not getting to learn the elements immediately was starting to itch, and it was getting worse every day. Being able to bend all four elements was the only good thing about being the Avatar. Plus, having potential powers at her disposal that she was forbidden from using…

Complaining won't help. They'll have to let you learn them soon enough anyway, if they want to live at least.

But every day spent freezing under layers of clothing, with people she hated, unable to see, the rational part of her died just a little bit more.

"You know what you are supposed to—"

"Yes, I know, Iroh; you've told me a thousand times. Meditate, go to the Spirit World, find an airbender, get him to teach me as many things as possible."

"Yes. Remember, we will—"

"Take care of my body, and I can find it either in the carriage or back with the tribe. Now just shut up and let me concentrate on my breathing."

Iroh looked at his niece, draped with at least 10 mole-bear skins, huddled at the base of an impossibly tall, snow-covered mountain. He swallowed, and nodded. Then berated himself, and said, "All right."

"Welcome to the Spirit World!"

"Unh," Azula grunted, as the world slowly came into focus. "Who are—

"Holy shit, I can see!"

Azula looked around wildly. The faces of her escorts (That's what they look like?), the ice mountain behind her, all the snow, some tattooed bald boy wearing a robe—

"Who are you!" she yelled, pointing a finger at him. "And why can I see!"

The boy looked thoughtful for a second, then nodded. "I'll answer your second question first. You're in the Spirit World right now. See, that's your body right below you."

Azula looked down and saw herself. She involuntary flinched.

"Now, technically the Spirit World exists outside of space and time, in a sort of parallel dimension overlapping the Material World." As he talked, the boy was getting more excited; he started gesturing, and his eyes were growing steadily brighter. "Note, this has a bunch of strange consequences, if you think about it. Like, if we're outside of time right now, how come we're still in sync with the passage of time in the Material World? I think—"

"Why can I see!"

The boy took a step back and coughed. "Er, right, sorry." He cleared his throat, then started speaking again, once more becoming increasingly excited with each word he spoke. "All spirits are, in essence, one. What you're seeing right now isn't the true nature of the Spirit World, it's how your spirit interprets it. Nobody really knows why human spirits interpret it with their senses; I think probably, we just spent so much time in the Material World that that way of perceiving reality just became a habit, you know what I mean?"

Azula tried to glare at him, before realizing she couldn't. "No," she said, but distractedly.

"Um, well, basically, since the entire Spirit World is already a part of you, you 'know' it all already." Now he was getting really worked up. "You're just seeing it because you used eyesight for the first 11 years of your life."

Azula was barely paying attention to him; she was looking for some kind of reflective surface.

"But! You need to keep in mind that while distinction, as in any kind of distinction of course, may not exist ultimately, it does exist practically. There are differences between spirits in terms of practical existence, just not ultimate nature. This is well-known, and is why it's possible for us to interact like this. However! I started thinking about it, and realized, if distinction doesn't ultimately exist, then neither does the ultimate/practical distinction, and when you realize that—"

Azula screamed.

She could see, all right. She could see her eyeless face staring back at her through the ice.

Needless to say, she turned away from that sight quickly.

"Um…" the boy said, stepping closer to Azula. "Are you okay?"

"Shut up!" Azula screamed. "Just who are you? What do you want?"

The asshole kid actually beamed. "My name is Aang. I was Avatar three incarnations before you. I'm also your Spirit Advisor. Nice to meet you!"

Ozai raged.

He had been counting on Azula to succeed him after he had conquered the world. But then that fell through. So, stupidly, he had tried to teach Zuko, only to learn his son's worthlessness all over again.

"Is this because of Roku's blood!" he raged. "Any of his descendents are weaklings or traitors, is that it? Even in death, that man bedevils this family!"

To think I was once in love with that woman…

Shortly, though, Ozai calmed down. After all, he was still a relatively young man, and he was planning on seeing many more sunrises.

He called a retainer in.

"Send this message," he said through the Fire Curtain. "Though the Firelord still grieves the loss of his first wife, he has realized it is time to move on. While honoring the late Firelady Ursa's memory, he has decided to start searching for a new bride. Any noble lady between the ages of," a short pause for thought, "13 and 29, please come to the…"

End of Part Two

Author's Notes: To Aang, the Spirit World is like penguin sledding, only every day. (it should be noted that I also got the idea of Aang's role from Akatsuki Leader's fic, although it's rather significantly changed from the way he did it)

I think it's important to note that all of my viewpoint characters have somewhat flawed views of the world. Please take their judgments with a grain of salt, if you will. Particularly Azula's. And, well, Ozai's of course.

Incidentally, all of the stuff Aang is talking about is basically copied straight from Buddhism (certain abstract branches of Mahayana, to be specific). I didn't even let him get into the real cool stuff. Look into it if you're interested, and really, why shouldn't you be?

"Manitutshu" is the name of an actual Inuit spirit mountain, and it was also the best name I could find from 5 minutes of Wikipedia searching.

Sorry it's kind of taking a while for plot to kick in. The main conflict only really begins in the second half because I'm a crappy writer who takes way too long to set up my central conflict in a pseudo-short story.