Azula felt her stomach turn, though she kept herself steady and her expression bland.
"Do you really think you don't stick out? Even in those clothes?"
Azula huffed and crossed her arms, ignoring June's allusion to her failure to blend in. She didn't have the energy to expend over being furious that she'd managed to pass herself off as a Kyoshi Warrior undetected in the damn capital of the Earth Kingdom but could apparently not pass herself off as a standard expatriate. "So you know my brother," she finally ground out. "I guess that means our business is concluded." Though how June knew Zuko was a question Azula was keen to know the answer to.
June studied Azula for a moment in silence before shaking her head. "These bending matches-"
"Which are illegal, I assume."
"Illegal is a harsh word for it. Strictly speaking, it's not illegal. It's just that the matches get… heated," she paused to smirk at the word choice, apparently pleased with herself. "People get hurt, lose money, get cheated if they aren't paying attention. …The authorities get prickly about those things. They're silly like that."
Azula crossed her arms, considering the tacit offer and June's possible motivations for presenting such a scheme to her when she already knew her identity and her idiot brother. "I see. You don't take me to the secret location of these matches…" She stopped to wave her hand dismissively. "I assume it's all so very clandestine… " She nodded as June shrugged at her. "…Unless I agree to cut you in on my possible winnings or turn the match to the advantage of what you've bet on."
June held up two fingers to the serving girl as she made her way around the room again. "Maybe I don't have anything to offer you since you're not a bender and I'm clearly mistaking you for someone else." She smiled at the princess. "Right?"
Azula scoffed. "If you were right, what's to stop me from finding the locations myself somehow and doing it alone, taking the full cut of whatever pocket change I could win? I would cut out the middle man who has nothing of value to offer."
June kept the smile plastered on her face as Azula continued, looking more bemused than threatened or calculating. She didn't speak again until the girl returned with two cups of what smelled like rice wine and handed them off. "Beyond being offended a little by the implication I'd bring nothing to the table, I'm honestly just amused." She offered Azula one of the cups, still with the stupid, smug look.
Azula stared at the drink, but didn't reach for it. "By what," she asked, waving her hand at the cup. "Stop thrusting that in my face. You can't seriously believe that I'll take some mystery drink from a stranger in this pig's sty."
June proceeded to drain both cups. "Have it your way," she sighed.
Azula's frown deepened. "Amused by *what*," she repeated, this time more forcefully.
"Amused that someone so haughty and obviously Fire Nation, not to mention who you actually are, thinks people in a recovering country would tell them a damn thing about what they eat for dinner, let alone about an underground bending ring half of them probably don't even know about." She stacked the cups inside one another and shook her head. "I'm sure asking around or trying to sneak wouldn't draw any unwanted attention to you either, would it?" June tilted her head at Azula and smirked. "Let me guess… you're not used to having to watch your own back?"
Azula felt an odd flicker of anger before it faded into numbness. "I would never take an unnecessary risk," she replied flatly. "And I have always had to be responsible for myself." She hadn't had a doting Uncle to assuage every biting criticism and flare of temper from her father like Zuko had. That he still likely believed he was the one who'd been emotionally slighted was laughable.
She glanced to the side along with June as someone upended a table, trying to ignore the brief flash of memories. Phantom of blue fire, Dai Li dismissed, and Ty Lee's nimble fingers slamming into her back. It still bothered her that that had hurt a thousand times more than her father's blatant dismissal. Friend watched your back but Ty Lee and Mai had been no true friends. She had well worn, rational arguments and adages she'd repeated to herself for so long after hearing them all her life, but none had been more powerful than the first one she'd ever picked up from her father. "Trust is for fools."
June turned her attention back to Azula and fixed her with a searching look before huffing in amusement. "That's not the worst personal maxim I've ever heard." She rested the door and smiled. "Come on, don't you want to take all that anger banging around inside of you out on some overblown earth bender?"
Azule pressed her lips together, happy to be distracted by the much cheerier prospects of violence and money. "When?"
June's smile broke into a full blown grin. "Follow me."
Azula shook her head, but followed the older woman out of the bar through the door and into the predictably vacant alley it had led to.
"Ever ridden a shirshu?"
"That thing you were riding earlier?"
June stopped and turned, a more serious expression on her face. "Yes, but that thing has a name. And animals aren't things."
"It's not a person either," Azula countered airily. For a moment, she was certain the older woman was going to slap or yell at her. She'd seen the same irritation and confusion on her mother's face many times as a child. Though there had been far more disappointment and disdain laced in Ursa's expression.
Instead June just huffed in disgust and kept walking. "You really are a bratty little princess, aren't you?" She glanced over her shoulder at Azula. "At least you don't lack for spirit."
Azula shrugged. "What fire bender does?"
"Dead ones," the older woman bantered jovially.
Azula tensed and frowned, the expression drifting closer to a pout when June burst into obnoxious laughter.
"Oh, cute."
Azula scowled and was about to cut into June when the shirshu sauntered out from behind several stacks of crates, yawning. "Am I meant to be riding one as well," she asked warily as it almost trotted the rest of the distance to June and nuzzled against her.
"So you don't get out much, do you," June laughed, adjusting the straps to the beast's saddle.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Do you ever actually stop and think about you're about to say?" The woman straightened and leaned against the shirshu.
"I am perfectly groomed and civil… when the situation calls for it."
"And you don't see this as being a situation that might call for you to pretend to be polite?"
Azula shrugged as June gave a soft, exasperated sigh. "Regretting this," the princess inquired.
"Almost. You're riding Nyla, if she'll let you. Ask her."
Azula shot June a dull look, more annoyed than indignant at the ridiculous request. "I'm not asking it."
"Ask her."
The princess's jaw set stubbornly. "No." She suddenly felt like she was dealing with Ty Lee in Ba Sing Se again, repeating no to visiting whatever silly shop she had wanted on their short lived tour of the city. She'd eventually given in, but only after hours of incessant pestering and finally, worst of all, pouting, from the acrobat.
"Then you're free to walk in this brisk night air." She let out a huff of breath to watch it steam for effect. "Just wait until it gets really frosty."
A handful of what felt like minutes passed between the three of them.
Azula hissed in her breath as if by the will of some vengeful spirit, small, icy rain drops began to pepper the street. "Fine," she snapped. "May I ride you, Nyla?"
June smirked as Nyla sneezed and examined the younger woman.
"Well," she ground, crossing her arms.
June clambered up onto the beast and snorted. "Don't be stupid, Nyla can't answer you, she's a shirshu."
Azula glanced up at June, flushed and indignant.
"Come on, beautiful," she laughed, offering her hand. "Swallow your pride and learn to take a joke."
Azula had a nasty response in mind, but suddenly she was getting hauled up behind the woman unceremoniously by the arm instead of gallantly assisted. She grabbed for June's waist as Nyla took off instantly, June's laughter still ringing in her ears.
