Whoever said that air was the element of freedom clearly did not spend any time being stuck in a very small hot air balloon with a Water Tribe idiot cracking terrible jokes, blubbering incessantly and only stopping to suck face with his equally annoying girlfriend. Add a grumpy and mistrustful brother to the mix, and Azula felt a bit like being back in the mental ward.
She was trying to let out excess energy firebending into the furnace, which was unfortunately also Zuko's chosen method of letting off steam. It was unfair. Zuko had everything. He stole her throne, her palace, (her sanity) - couldn't he have had the decency to let her have the furnace at least?
Despite efforts to start polite conversation by the others (about inconsequential things like fluffy clouds and the inventor of the balloon), Azula spent most of the trip in sullen silence trying to come up with a plan to win. It was a bit unclear what game they were playing, but one thing was evident; winning was the only acceptable outcome. She found it frustratingly hard to concentrate as the others were constantly joking and laughing at something and generally made sickening demonstrations of friendship and love.
The situation improved marginally once they landed and continued the last leg of their trip on komodo rhinos to the tip of an abandoned peninsula. They made camp at a cove near the drop-site. Setting-up camp seemed like a well-practiced operation; Sokka and Zuko pitched the tents, Suki took out bed-rolls. They all knew their roles and she was the outsider. Not that she wanted to belong to them . Azula thought bitterly for a moment of the handful of fun nights out in the Earth Kingdom wilderness with Ty Lee and Mai, giggling around the campfire, drunk on freedom from the suffocating formalities of the palace life. She banished the memories. Traitors had no place in her mind.
"Why don't you make fire?" Zuko finally seemed to notice her.
Azula gave him a grimace and a shrug. If he wanted fire, she could show him fire. She was good at fire. She gathered some sticks and sent a giant fireball into the middle of it. Sokka and Suki jumped when they heard the swoosh and felt the heat of the flame. Zuko just gave her a disapproving look - the kind of look that reminded her of mother, and obviously it was never good to go there.
"Gather around, Team Egg," the Water Tribe peasant announced loudly.
"We are not calling ourselves that," Azula snapped. There was only so much indignity a princess could take.
"She has a point, Sokka," Zuko agreed with her for once. They looked at each other surprised that they somehow managed to be on the same side of anything.
"Why not?" Sokka's eyebrows rose.
"For one, it's ridiculous," Azula started to count off on her fingers, but closed her fist when she realized that this was the only reason she had.
"So what do we call ourselves?" He glared at her in challenge.
"Why would we need to call ourselves anything?"
"Every good team needs a name," Sokka said with a pompous expression on his face. "And a mascot."
"Can we just focus on the plan?" Zuko cut into their argument like an exasperated parent trying to get the children back on track. Azula frowned. Normally, she was the exasperated parent and he was the petulant child. The world was upside down.
"Easy. You go, signal the silent creepers…" Sokka pointed at Azula.
"- Whispering Shadows - " she corrected him.
"...whatever, and when the guy shows up, we capture him and force him to lead us to their base. Then we do boom-boom-slish-slash-whoosh and recover the eggs." The Water Tribe idiot waved his hands around, but his hectic motions did not add any clarity to his fuzzy plan. It was hard to believe this was the same person who came up with the plan of the invasion during the eclipse.
"Boom-boom-slish-slash-flap?" Suki repeated.
"Just to be clear - am I slish or am I boom in this plan?" Azula asked sarcastically.
"You are boom." The sarcasm obviously went right over his head. "Because of fireball. Zuko is boom-slish. I'm slash."
"Wait? You mean I'm flap?" Suki protested, clearly not impressed with this task distribution.
"For the fan," Sokka pointed to the weapon in Suki's belt.
"You are an idiot," Azula concluded.
"Oh, because you have a better plan."
She examined her nails casually. "Naturally. First, even if we take the guy, the Whispering Shadows never talk just because you wave your boomerang at them. And second, we'd lose the element of surprise."
"So what is your plan?" Zuko asked her.
"I signal them. You and Suki follow the guy stealthily, scout the base and once we know more - we'll discuss our attack plan." Azula explained with a half-smile. It felt good to be calling the shots. Zuko listened and nodeed.
"Fine. But I go with you." The Water Tribe boy sighed and pointed at her with his boomerang. Probably for extra effect.
"Why? You don't trust me? You are hurting my feelings," Azula smirked.
"Azula, we are team now. We need to behave like one. Everyone needs a backup." Zuko sounded again annoyingly reasonable.
"So you're sending a guy with a toy weapon and no fighting skills to back me up?" she rolled her eyes.
"Hey, I happen to be very good with boomerang," Sokka protested and waved again the undignified weapon for emphasis.
"Why do you need to be so mean?" Suki jumped to the defense of her precious boyfriend. They were all ganging up on her.
Azula shrugged. "Whatever. We leave in five minutes, Water Peasant. Be ready." She walked over to her bags, back straight, feeling like she won this particular spar. She smiled triumphantly. She still had it.
-0-
Sokka paced up and down. Suki and Zuko had not returned yet. If they got captured by the chattering ninjas it was up to her and Princess Evil to do something. Except he didn't trust Azula. He didn't buy her motive of boredom. She was scheming - it was in her nature. Tiger-sharks never stopped swimming and she was like a tiger-shark. She breathed treachery and it was up to him to uncover her wicked plans. He had to protect Zuko who seemed to have lost all sense of self-preservation when it came to his sister. Not that he had much to start with. Zuko was always reckless and becoming Fire Lord did little to temper his penchant of getting himself into trouble.
"Stop that. You're making me dizzy," Azula snapped at him.
Sokka ignored her annoyed glare and continued treading circles around the campfire. It's not like he was going to be intimidated by her scowl, after all he grew up with a glaring sister of his own. He had a long experience of being glared at. "They should be back by now."
"They'll be fine. Zuko is always fine," Azula replied on a calm, bored voice.
"Don't sound so disappointed."
"Look. I'm not trying to kill him. All that is in the past. We are turning a new leaf. You should be happy about that." The fire lit her eyes and for a moment she looked sincere. Then Sokka remembered that she was good at lying. She had a lie-telling superpower that even fooled Toph's freakish truth-senses. Sokka didn't think it was possible to trick Toph, and wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't witnessed it all with his own eyes. He had to be cautious.
"I don't trust you and I am going to figure out what your game is."
"We'll see." Her irritating smirk was back.
He was about to ripost, when he felt something sharp pressing into his throat. Before he had time to freak out, he felt Suki's hot breath against his neck. "I got you."
Sokka swallowed. Suki's stealthy powers were annoying, but she also looked really good in her black ninja suit. It was an uncomfortably ambivalent feeling. His ambivalence dissipated quickly when she pressed her lips on his earlobe.
Zuko emerged from the tree line in similarly freakish silence like a gracefully prowling tigerdillo, but then he plopped down by the fire and went back to being regular awkward Zuko.
"If we are done with all the cuddling, can we make plans?" Azula gave Sokka and Suki a pointed look.
"There is one ship, about 1 hour walk to the east from here in a hidden bay." Suki motioned in the general direction.
"We saw about 30 men, but there could be more. We didn't see the prisoners or the eggs," Zuko continued.
"They must be below deck," Suki surmised.
Sokka mulled over the intel. It was vital to regain his status as the Plan Guy. He couldn't screw this up. Team Egg needed his leadership.
"So we'll attack at night. Suki and Zuko take out the guards silently. Then we'll sneak in, find the prisoners and the eggs, and get out of there before the ninjas awake."
"Why free the prisoners?" Azula asked. "We came for the eggs, right?"
"Of course you would suggest leaving the prisoners to some heartless assassins," Suki looked at Azula with disdain. She had no love for Azula, not after what happened in Ba Sing Se.
"They'll slow us down. Or worse, wake up the assassins. I'm only being practical." Azula was unfazed by their hostility.
"We are freeing the prisoners. It's the honorable thing to do," Zuko chimed in. Of course, Zuko found a way to make it about honor.
"We wouldn't want to do something against your precious honor," Azula beat Sokka to the sarcastic comment.
"Also, we have no idea what to do with the eggs, so we need someone who knows that sort of thing." Sokka added.
"That's decided then. Go rest. I'll take first watch." Zuko offered.
Sokka gave a (hopefully subtle) once-over at Suki's skin-tight ninja clothes and decided that Zuko for once had a good plan. He pulled her towards their tent.
Suki snuggled up to Sokka resting her head on his shoulder. She sighed contentedly like a baby turtle-seal. "Remember the first time I sneaked into your tent?" she whispered.
"It's the fondest memory of my life. I will forever be turned on by tents," Sokka smirked, placing a soft kiss on her forehead.
"So why are you so tense?" Suki's fingers ran down his neck, kneading Sokka's shoulder blades. He moaned in pleasure; he didn't realize how insanely tight his muscles got.
"I don't trust Azula. She's up to no good. I have to protect Zuko," Sokka murmured.
"I don't trust her either."
"Luckily, I have a plan in motion," Sokka reassured her.
Suki gave him an adorable pout. "Of course you do, Plan Guy. How about we stop talking about Azula and you show me what you planned for me?" She slid her hands under his tunic, caressing his skin, leaving a trail of tingling goosebumps. Sokka's mind stopped swirling, as Suki's touch commanded his undivided attention. Troublesome princesses could wait, he decided as his fingers went to explore.
"My best plans are always for you," he said on a husky voice, as he leaned in for a real kiss.
-0-
Luckily, it was a moonless night. Zuko felt a familiar exhilaration to be out on a stealthy mission as he stared into the darkness until his eyes adjusted and he could make out the silhouette of the ship. Sneaking around was kind of his thing since he was a boy. It was one of the few things he seemed to have a talent for. Becoming Fire Lord made being stealthy very hard though. Especially the Kyoshi warriors who were equally sneaky made the whole silent ninja game near impossible, always following him whenever he managed to get past the royal guards. It was an annoying game.
This was real though and the rush of the stakes made his blood pump with pleasant heat. He swam under the water, careful not to make ripples or splashes. When he got to the boat, he put his feet against the sideboard and climbed silently onto the deck. Suki approached from the other side. They each sneaked up on a guard and knocked them out in perfect synchrony. Suki expertly tied up their hands and gagged them, while Zuko signalled for Azula and Sokka, throwing a line to them. All four of them snuck below the deck, past a room of snoring assassins, and split up looking for the eggs and the prisoners.
Zuko opened a number of cabins; he found old scrolls, a treasure chest, cooking supplies, what looked like a well-stocked armory, but the eggs didn't seem to be anywhere. He noticed a hatch at the end of the corridor. The metal creaked loudly as he opened it, and he froze, expecting to have woken the assassins. He waited a full minute holding his breath. When nobody came, he climbed down the ladder into the hold. He stumbled blindly around the pitch-dark, not wanting to risk a flame until he felt something strange. It was like someone was tugging on him gently from the end of an invisible rope. A throbbing warm feeling coming from a corner of the hold. Zuko crawled towards its source and the pull felt stronger. He felt around the bags, until his fingers touched something familiar. It was warm, scaly but smooth. The bag contained four eggs.
He realized they never asked Ham Gao how many eggs were missing. He conjured a little flame, checking quickly the other bags in the hold, but when he could not locate any more eggs, he headed back up the ladder. He was halfway up when the latch closed above him, locking him into the storage room. There was the sound of a thump, as something hit the plank.
"The prisoners. We need to stop them from escaping," a gruff voice exclaimed. Zuko pressed his ear to a crack in the wall, listening.
"It's not a big loss. What were you going to do with a bunch of savages anyways? The important thing is that the cargo is safe. So we can make the trade," another voice replied. "Secure her in the hold. A wild tiger-python needs to be carefully contained."
When the sound of the footsteps receded, Zuko opened the hatch, and climbed through the closest window. He swam to the shore pulling the bag behind him and headed for the tree-line. When he got back to camp, he found a group of a dozen sun warriors huddled around the campfire.
"Zuko, we've been worried about you," Sokka greeted him.
Zuko stepped to the Chief and handed over the bag. "I found the eggs."
The older man opened it with a worried expression. He laid his palm against the eggs and closed his eyes. When he got to the last egg his frown deepened.
"We don't have much time. We need to get this one hatched," he announced gravely.
"And how do we do that? We sit on it?" Sokka interrupted with a silly laugh.
"No, we'll have to take it back to Sun Warrior Island and hatch it there." The Chief raised his eyes and looked at Zuko pointedly.
Zuko nodded. "I can arrange a balloon for you."
The Chief shook his head. " You need to hatch it, Zuko of the Fire Nation. He chose you ."
Zuko blinked. That sounded completely crazy. Fire Lords didn't hatch eggs. Eggs didn't make choices.
"What does that even mean?"
"The dragon made a connection with you. He will die unless you hatch it," the Chief explained calmly. His explanation still didn't make any sense, but the sadness on his face was real.
"So he will have to sit on it?" Sokka grinned. He seemed to enjoy the absurdness of the situation.
"He'll have to use the sacred art of firebending," the Chief replied. Zuko felt a quiet relief. He had been worried about the indignities the hatching process would involve. Firebending didn't sound so bad.
"Oh." Sokka's grin faded in disappointment. He had been probably already conjuring images of Zuko sitting on the egg.
"We can't fit this many people into the balloon." Zuko looked at all the freed prisoners.
"You go ahead, Zuko, I'll take care of the rest of the people," Suki offered. It was probably the best plan. She had time to walk with the freed prisoners to the nearest port and commandeer a ship, while Zuko could take the Chief, Sokka, and...oh no…
Zuko looked around the fireplace in panic.
"Wait, where is my sister?"
Sokka and Suki looked back at him, eyes wide with shock. They lost Azula.
Notes:
If Sokka's slish-slash plan sounds familiar, it's because the dialogue was heavily inspired by The Dragon Prince. You know another word for shameless rip-off? Homage.
(Also, The Dragon Prince is a great show, go watch it!)