A week has passed and there was no other attack. Life in the Palace was pretty normal, except Sokka kept following Azula everywhere. She had trained, and now she was reading something on the couch of her room.

"Don't you ever get out of the Palace?" Sokka's voice broke the silence, and the Princess sighed.

"Don't you ever stay quiet for more than 2 seconds?"

"Come on, I'm serious!" He sounded a little bit desperate. "I've been here for a week and I've barely visited the gardens."

"I didn't know you were a fan of flowers." She said sarcastically, not bothering looking at him.

"Ugh" He rolled his eyes, walked to her and took the scroll she was reading out of her hands.

"Have you lost your mind?" She glared him, a small blue flame appeared in two of her fingers.

"No, no need for that! Now, please, let's go to the town, Princess? Just for a while… We can have lunch there… I just need to get out of this Palace for a while or I will go crazy.

"No." She grabbed the scroll back, angrily.

He groaned and dropped himself on the couch next to her.

"Come on, Azula." He said in begging tone. "I know you have fun torturing me, but can't you do me a favor just once?"

"Just once? I have the servants getting you food every time you are hungry, which basically a hundred times a day! I'm not doing any other favor."

He frowned, thinking that she had a point after all.

"Okay, but just this other one?" He gave her a fake begging smile. She rolled eyes.

"If you shut up, we can go to the gardens…"

"Not the gardens… I want to go the town, to see more of Fire Nation than the Royal Family and its servants… No offense." He said in a childish tone.

"No."

"Alright, Princess, let's make a deal, then." He sounded more serious now, really focused in making Azula to change her mind. "We go to have lunch in the city now, and then I promise I will be quiet the rest of the day! Like, you literally won't even notice I'm here."

"The rest of the week." She hit back.

He groaned but agreed.

"Why do you even want to eat in the city when we have cooks here?"

"I just want to leave this Palace for a while. I feel like a prisoner." He said pulling her outside by the arm.

"Don't touch me, idiot."


Azula told the royal coachman to take them wherever Sokka wanted to. It had been a long time since the Princess had come to the capital town center, and Sokka could see she was a little uncomfortable with that. When they arrived there it got worse.

"Is that the place you want to eat?" She said with a disgusting face. It was a very ordinary place, somewhere Azula would never voluntarily step in.

"You will like it, let's get in." He said, entering through the door.

As soon Azula went in, every one looked at her right away and bowed down. Sokka noticed that most of people were clearly terrified by her presence. The owner of the place gave them a reserved special place and said everything was on the house.

"Everything for my Princess." He said with an insecure voice.

"I really must go out with you more!" Sokka said really excited trying to decide everything he was going to eat.

"You mean if I don't die from food poising?" She said looking quite disgusted with the place.

"Don't be silly, everything here is great…"

Sokka noticed then that she was uneasy and looking around all the time, he didn't know if she was just judging the commoners around her or there was something else.

"What is it?" He said frowning.

"Do you think any of those are part of the groups against Zuko's polity? Like do you think they know the person who broke in the Palace?" She said in a worried tone, more to herself than to him.

"Hmm… I don't know. I didn't know that was bothering you." He found himself talking in a concerned voice to her.

She paused, looking at him. Then her face changed to the usual cold countenance.

"It is not. I've dealt with cases like this at my father's ruling, I can deal with them at Zuzu's." She shrugged. "It's nothing to worry about. I hope Zuko realizes that soon, so I won't have a babysitter anymore." She said rolling her eyes.

He couldn't help but laugh.

"You think of me as your babysitter?" He raised an eyebrow to her.

"Well" She laughed a little as well. "That's basically what it is, right?"

"Hm, I prefer personal guard… it's less embarrassing, I think." He said with sarcasm.

"Nah, that sounds too serious, it doesn't suit you."

The food arrived and even though Azula said it was the most disgusting food she ever saw, she ended up eating most of it. He had to admit it was quite amusing how everyone in the restaurant was afraid of unpleasing her and how she seemed to have fun with this. They ended up talking more than in the past few days. And the weirdest thing, he thought to himself, was that it was actually nice to talk to her, at least when she wasn't threatening anyone.

When they got back to her office in the Palace, Sokka had a hard time trying to fulfill the deal he made with her. He obviously couldn't stay quiet for more than five minutes… But luckily for him, Azula didn't seem to remember about it, since she didn't complain or anything, actually she was also really talkative herself.


Hours later, the Princess was in her room getting ready to sleep. She found herself laughing at something stupid Sokka had said earlier. Was she going crazy or it was kind of fun hanging out with him? No, she was definitely going crazy…

A tray with a jar of water was just left beside her bed, after Azula drank some of it, she noticed there was still a servant girl in the room.

"Hey, I'm glad you're still here, I need you to bring some-" The Princess frowned when she didn't recognize the girl's face. "Do you work for me?"

"Y-yes…" The girl sounded nervous. She was lying, Azula noticed. "I'm new here…"

Before the Princess could do anything, she started to feel very dizzy. She looked at the glass of water.

"What did you do?" Azula groaned to the girl, as she tried to throw a fire ball at her, but the world was already spinning and she missed it. Azula felt panic take over her, while everything slowly went dark.

Sokka was making a snack before going to bed, when he heard a loud noise coming from the next room. He quickly ran outside, and before he could have made to the Princess' room, he bumped into a servant girl. She looked at him in fear, and stormed out without saying anything.

"What-" He suddenly got really worried. Azula's door was opened… and he could see some flames in there. Oh, shit. Where were the damn guards? He ran as fast as he could.

When Sokka arrived there he saw a figure all in dark with some kind of knife in his hand, but what really scared him was seeing the Princess lied on the floor unmoving. He instinctually threw his boomerang at the person in black, managing to get them away from Azula. He rushed to the girl's side.

"Hey, Azula" He shook her by the shoulders. "Woke up, we need to get out of here."

He saw some flames burning in a corner and looked at Azula unconscious at floor and for a second he wondered if something worse had happened to her, and he almost panicked. But if she were really dead, the man wouldn't be there anymore, right? Sokka noticed the attacker was coming in his direction.

"What are you doing? You should be helping me."

Sokka looked confused to him. At that moment he listened to the guards running down the corridor, but the man instantly stormed out the room, and once again he seemed to disappear before the guards got any closer.