A/N: Warning – I haven't really got the format down on this thing. I do want to spend at least some time in everyone's heads, but since this is me writing it, the emphasis will be on Sokka. I'm also planning to have some fun here, so don't be surprised when sex rears its ugly head just to keep us all entertained. I will attempt to keep it believable, but really, we all know Azula would probably just kill everyone. So please be prepared to suspend your disbelief and relax your principles. (At the moment, I don't see it getting too explicit, in which case I'll have to change the rating. For now, I think it's okay)

Disclaimer: Well of course I don't own these characters or their universe. I just plays with them to suit my fancy, and respect all property rights held by others. Y'all can just back off now…

Chapter 2:

"Damn it! I'm coming already," Sokka grumbled as the guard who'd accompanied the princess's courier hauled him to his feet as he finished pulling on his boot.

He sincerely hoped he would be given a chance to finish that bath – it had been the first he had seen of any reasonable quantity of water since he'd regained consciousness (he didn't count the body of water on which this ship floated). Apparently there had been some confusion as to whether or not he was a waterbender. And while it had struck him as funny to have two firebenders attend the healer who changed his bandages and bathed his wounds in those first days, he was loath to actually strip down for a good wash with them in his cell. On the other hand, life in Ba Sing Se had instilled in Sokka an appreciation for cleanliness that had evaded him most of his short life, and he saw no reason not to indulge that appreciation in an otherwise wholly joyless situation.

He tried to grab his shirt off the bench, but the guard shoved him towards the door. "Aw, c'mon. You don't really expect me to walk in there half-naked, do you? Do you?"

Another rough shove.

"Shit. I guess you do."

As he walked through the bowels of the ship between his escorts he wondered idly if he looked as vulnerable as he felt, and which would have made him feel better, a shirt or a weapon? It then occurred to him that he would be better off paying attention to the turns and various sets of stairways he was being led through. He then noted that his guards carried no obvious weapons. So. Firebenders again.

He considered himself lucky that among his injuries none included burns that would leave more than faint shadows of scarring on his already brown skin. At the moment, the pattern of bruising, particularly across his upper back and shoulder, was far more colorful to behold, and he flinched as the guard behind him placed a gloved palm squarely on what he was sure was the largest of his bruises to hurry him along.

"You know, you'd all be a lot better off if you'd stop being is such an all-fired hurry to obey orders. Seriously. It just sets up unreasonable expectations in people." He emerged onto the ship's deck and quickly side-stepped beyond the guard's immediate reach. "No, no. That's okay, I get the picture. No need to handle the merchandise."

In the bright daylight the figures around him assumed the starkness of silhouettes as his eyes struggled to adjust. He slicked his fingers through his loose hair, palming it away from his eyes as he surveyed his surroundings uncertainly.

There. Before the tower splitting off the stern from the foredeck was a raised platform. And it was there he saw them, sitting at a low table with a scattering of plates. He squinted. The plates appeared to be mostly empty. Not that he would have been likely to get a bite of any of that fare, but it didn't hurt to notice these things, now, did it?

Sure enough, with a thrust of a helmeted chin Sokka's guard indicated he was to head for the platform. Sokka swallowed hard. He'd faced down kings before, sure, and any number of unfriendly foes. But never before, he suddenly realized, had he done so alone.

The princess watched as her soldiers emerged from the lower deck with the prisoner, saw him dance aside with some comment not quite loud enough to carry its meaning to her ears, but the tone of annoyance and mockery was there. One brow raised fractionally as she noted his state of undress, the odd look of unkempt hair long at the crown and shaved close on the sides. A patchwork of white bandages showed in stark contrast against the dark bronze of his torso. She heard a soft intake of breath on one side as Ty Lee's gaze rested upon their catch.

Azula could not prevent her own lip from curling slightly in acknowledgment of her friend's suppressed appreciation at the sight. He was indeed handsome in his own exotic way, and while he lacked the raw power of her brother's stride, or the preternatural grace and speed of the Avatar, he moved with a certain purposefulness that struck her immediately. It looked lazy, muscles relaxed and apparently even slack. But she was almost sure that to assume such would be a mistake. Princess Azula was not going to make any mistakes.

With an inward chuckle Azula realized how she had recognized what she was now sure was a performance on the Water Tribe boy's part. On her other side Mai's sleeve brushed the tabletop as the young woman moved her tea cup off to one side. She deliberately shifted her body to the side, presenting a narrower target to the group approaching the dais under the guise of examining the table before them for any tempting remaining morsels. Everything about Mai was a pose; beneath her sleeve was enough sharpened metal to impale not only the prisoner but his guards and Azula's courier several times over. The boredom hooding her gaze masked her observation of everyone's position and angle of fire relative to Azula.

The princess was pleased. She knew of Ty Lee's interest in the young man before them, and had expected to exploit it to her advantage. She had not expected to find the model for understanding him in Mai, and rejoiced in her luck.

Ty Lee thanked her attention to karma for the unexpected pleasure in seeing the Water Tribe prisoner looking so delightfully primitive. She had to clench one fist beneath the table hard against her belly to keep from giggling with raw lust at such a nice range of exposed skin. He was lean, lanky even to the point of appearing a bit underfed, and the network of bruises showing purple and yellow beneath the dusky skin distracted from the clean definition of musculature. She knew what she saw was the result of burst vessels and subsequent pooling and dying of fluids beneath the skin, knew of ways to manipulate blood flow in those areas that would both ease the pain and restore the natural color. She longed to run her hands over his skin and… help him.

Deliberately Ty Lee unclenched her fist and drew in what she hoped was a normal breath, willing the heat to dissipate from her own blood before she found herself doing something terribly foolish. He was, after all, just another pretty face. She allowed her eyes to take in the limpid blue of his own gaze before dropping them again to his bare chest, the narrow plane of his belly, pausing briefly in silent contemplation before focusing on him as just another element in the tableau of figures on the deck before them.

And it suddenly struck her that the Water Tribe boy's aura was a coppery gold, and not, as she might have expected, any shade of blue at all.

Did they expect him to bow or something? He remembered King Bumi's guards forcing them to their knees when they were brought before him for wreaking havoc with the city's package delivery system. Well, he had felt guilty then, and ready to do whatever was wanted to earn any kind of clemency. But this? This was wholly different. So, maybe out and out rudeness was not appropriate, but he'd be damned if he'd show any particular courtesy to the daughter of the Fire Lord. If anything, she was the one who owed him an apology, an apology for all the hell her family and nation had wrought on the world over the last hundred years and on him personally for the deaths of those he held so dear. No. He wouldn't bow.

One part of his brain took in the picture the three girls before him made, negligently sitting at a table with the remains of a feast of delectables no more luscious than that formed by their faces and lovely figures.

He was young enough to find the picture enticing and he blinked twice, hoping to have burned the images upon his retinas sufficiently to recall them for contemplation at some pleasant leisure, assuming he might someday have such a thing.

He was old enough in experience with these three to loathe the reality of their presence, together or apart. He noted the appraising coldness of the princess's gaze, considered how the perfection of her features resembled her brother's, but lacked his passion.

More seconds were spent assessing the wide-eyed smile of the contortionist. There was something proprietary in her look that frightened him, and he wondered if maybe there were layers of danger he could not even imagine.

The other one appeared to ignore him completely, but he knew that was a sham. Still, he was relatively sure she wanted nothing of him, unlike the other two. He was merely another enemy to her, someone to dominate or crush beneath her. The girl with the weapons he understood because he felt the same way about her. No mystery there. She avoided his eyes, as if by doing so she was ignoring his very existence. Yeah. Right.

Mai remembered his quickness and, even if she had forgotten, his appearance from the hold with its deft shift to avoid the arms of his guards had been ample reminder. Because Azula had always been able to match her in sizing up any given situation, Mai assumed the princess had also taken note of the prisoner's awareness of those around him and his ability to avoid them. The firebenders would all assume he couldn't avoid their flames, and perhaps they would be right. The other benders could interpose their own elements in defense, but the non-bender was helpless. Mai smiled without humor, and hid the motion of her lips by bringing a tiny almond-flavored cookie to her mouth, inhaling briefly the sugary essence of almond paste layered in each bite.

As she knew from experience, most bending attacks could be evaded or thwarted, if you just knew how. After he had spent so many months in the company of the Avatar, was it wise to assume the Water Tribe youth had not learned to deal effectively with bending? She drew one finger surreptitiously along the flat of a blade beneath her sleeve. She would keep her trust in the solid steel she could touch.

And she saw no need to extend such trust to the firebending troops of her father that had been assigned to Azula. After all, where did their allegiance lie anyway? So, even as she marked the prisoner she also marked his escort. Almost certainly it wasn't necessary. But Azula had chosen her not because she was extraordinarily competent with her weapons, although of course she was. No, Azula had chosen her, had trusted her, to see beyond the certain to the merely possible. So yes, she would pay attention to this prisoner, unlikely as he was to offer anything in the way of interest himself.

And why, anyway, was he of value to the Avatar?

"It seems you are of no value to the Avatar after all," the princess stated baldly.

"War's hell on friendship, as it is on most things," Sokka returned evenly. The corner of his mouth twitched. This might be easier than he had thought.

"So you aren't surprised that he has abandoned you?"

"One man's life don't count for much in the grand scheme of things." Sokka shrugged, deliberately butchering his grammar and diction. "He's a smart kid. I'd've been surprised if he hadn't figured that out."

"You realize, of course, that you're worthless to me except as a hostage?" She sat back, curious to see how far he was willing to take this.

"So, I guess you might as well just let me go, then," he suggested blandly. "Sure, an' you don't need another mouth to feed." His eye measured the quantity of food remaining on the table before them as his nose attempted to identify if there was both turkeypork and swanbeef dumplings or just the former.

"Or I could just kill you," Azula smiled.

Sokka cocked his head as if considering her words. "I gotta say I think you should let me go. Killing is messy. Bodies to deal with. Guilt feelings. Guessin' paperwork even in the Fire Nation. Really, more trouble than it's worth. Let me go and I just walk away, no muss, no fuss." He met her eyes with a smile he hoped conveyed harmless idiocy and helpfulness.

"The mess is not my problem, and guilt? Why should I feel guilty at ridding the Fire Nation of a… problem?"

His brows rose in a "who, me?" gesture, but he had the wit to keep silent.

"You look strong enough. Perhaps you'd make a good slave." Azula was almost amused. The peasant had gall; she had an impression that at least some portion of his mind was not on her, and if she weren't just slightly intrigued by the reality that now fleshed out the various reports that had been compiled on this particular Avatar companion she'd have blistered the deck with his charred remains as soon as he appeared.

His face twisted and he shook his head, infusing patently false regret in his voice, "Hmm, probably not. I'm lazy; oversleep most of the time; they tell me my feet stink; I'm horribly forgetful of orders; and oh, did I mention I eat a lot? Better pass on that option."

He could feel the tension rising in the guards on either side of him like waves of heat. She wasn't going to let him go – he'd known it before he suggested it, but it would be wrong to act like he didn't wish she would. Hell, he did wish it, with all his heart! Let her think him stupid and foolish, and he might just possibly have a chance. But he couldn't appear too stupid. It was a fine balance to walk and he really wasn't sure he was up to it.

They must believe me dead…I'm better off dead…if I'm really dead she can't use me against them…I'm better off dead…what the fuck is she waiting for?... Now what, damn it?

The smile on Princess Azula's face hardened fractionally, and then suddenly relaxed. Ty Lee noticed a thrumming pulse appear at the base of her friend's right thumb as she traced it across her lip. The princess's cold blue aura whitened, and Ty Lee wondered how soon they would see the flash of lightning destroy the lovely form standing so fearlessly before them. She noticed her own aura curl dimly around her in a shade that could only be considered a puckish orange.

"Well, then. If you've nothing to offer me…"

"Fire away, lady," he answered, holding his hands out at first, as if presenting himself as a target. "Not that I've got a death wish, but fuck it. No point wasting any more time."

Azula glared at the prisoner before her, absorbing the now aggressively crossed arms, the slack shifting of his weight upon one hip, and the studious avoidance entirely of her gaze. He was clearly trying to provoke her! He was practically begging her to kill him!

No. If that was what he wanted, then that was the last thing she would give him.

Suddenly the princess frowned. "How dare you appear before me unclothed? Have you no respect?"

He heard a… playfulness in her voice that chilled him, so he dared another shrug. "Your highness, you're lucky I'm here with my boots on. These idiots caught me in the middle of a bath, and I thought at first I might be showing up with just a towel. You don't like it, it's your problem, not mine."

The guards and Ty Lee froze in an exquisite agony of apprehension. Was anyone safe from the blast that was sure to come? Mai stretched her limbs languorously and turned her head to look fully upon Sokka. Now this was interesting!

"Hmm. Then perhaps you should finish that bath of yours," Azula said, her tone clipped and devoid of emotion. "When next I send for you, I expect you suitably attired and on time." She transferred her glare to the guard, who trembled in his boots.

Sokka gave half a smile, shrugged yet again, and turned on his heel to walk away. He half wondered what his odds were of attempting a run and jump over the side, but as his guards closed in around him he abandoned the thought and returned obediently to the stairway leading below deck.

"You! Bring me his shirt!"

Sokka paused, mid-step. Shit. She had spotted the problem. He allowed himself to appear to stumble, catching himself awkwardly as if tripped up by the sudden shift from light to dark stairwell.

He was still alive. And maybe this wasn't such a good thing.