Author's Notes: I'm terrible about replying to reviews here. Back in the day fanfiction dot net wasn't nearly as annoying as it is now. I wouldn't even post here anymore, but I'm a sucker for feedback and would always rather reach the widest audience possible. If you have a deviantArt account (or even if you don't), I highly recommend looking me up over there (links from my bio). I post my fics and art (there's a couple pieces floating around for this fic) and throw contests and have hilarious conversations with my reviewers. I just don't feel the same sense of community here. Back in the day people used to do a lot more reviewing on ff dot net, too. But maybe that's my fault for not replying? Feel free to share your two cents. ;)
Review Replies: Thanks for your comments! Really, they DO mean a lot to me.
To Anariel/Nayara, your comments have been so inspiring you've basically got yourself to thank for the continuation of this fic.
To Lost In A Dark Wood, glad you enjoyed the jokes and my portrayal of the characters. Sokka is 21 and Azula's 20, but age is hardly a determining factor for maturity. ;) I don't know about you, but I can see 40 year old Sokka still being a goofball, especially if his jokes have some ulterior motive (like throwing his opponents off-guard). I know I don't come out and say "HE'S TRICKING HER" or "HE'S FAKING IT" at a lot of scenes in this fic, but if I gave everything away it wouldn't be nearly as much fun to write. Azula starts to catch on to his mischief, though, don't you worry. XD
To J. Idanian, glad you're still enjoying the fic! There are as many different writing styles as there are authors, and many of us employ many different styles to capture the particular feel of our stories. I could wax poetic about the dew glistening on the fields as Sokka runs for his life or I could keep the action hard and fast, the dialog quick and witty, the torture sharp. I find it's easier to emulate a cartoon when you don't go too in depth. If you can see the characters acting and hear them talking in your head while you read my stories, that's the best I'm hoping for.
Disclaimer: Do we really need these anymore?
The Dragon and the Wolf
Chapter Four: Blue Eyes, Blue Sea
"Aren't you tired?" The voice whispered in her ear.
"Yes, you look tired," the second voice hissed.
"Always running."
"Always fighting."
"But you don't have to," the two voices spoke as one. She recognized them now - Li and Lo. They were always with her, though Azula dimly recalled banishing at least one of them. And certainly, they were nowhere on board her airship, yet their voices seemed to find her whenever she had a moment to herself.
It was enough to make a person crazy, their constant whispering, but it would take more to unhinge her. She focused on her breathing and tried to clear her mind.
"He's offering you a way out."
Azula's eyes flicked open, but there was no one else in her chambers. She resisted the urge to check behind the curtains draped around her cushioned seat. She was alone, she knew that. Her gaze drifted instead to the weapon displayed like a trophy on her wall. Her legs unfolded with the grace and poise that only years of training and a noble birthright could bestow. Without thinking, she took the sword down and returned to her padded throne.
It wasn't beautiful, but there was something about the sleek design that pleased her. The scabbard was plainly adorned, two toned wood with a golden inlay and tooled gold at the base. The design was simple yet elegant, and Azula suspected the work had been done by the master and not the apprentice. The pommel was a flat disc, golden like the other accents, with a White Lotus emblem displayed proudly, marking the bearer as one of their own.
He belonged. Not just to the White Lotus, or the Southern Water Tribe, but to his friends and the rest of the world at large - sought after for his advice, desired for his strategies, respected for his victories, and loved for his loyalty and devotion.
In short, he was everything Azula was not.
"And yet he's here, with you," the voices purred, coming to her with her eyes open this time. "He could take you home, take you away from your terrible choices."
"Home," she scoffed. "There is no home for me, anymore."
"He could help you."
"He wants to save you."
She ignored the voices and slid the sword out of its sheath, eyeing the dark blade. Here it was, hidden by modest design and a simple exterior, much like its owner. A core of hard, black steel, sharp as any edge known to man - sharper even. Deadly, cunning, ruthless, and versatile in its singular purpose. The blade and the man had one task and would do whatever it took to see it done.
The Avatar might have defeated Ozai, but Azula knew who to blame for the collapse of the Fire Nation. If it hadn't been for him, the airships could have completed their mission of purifying the Earth Kingdom, securing victory once and for all. If it hadn't been for him, there would have been no assault on the capitol, no uprising of joined Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe forces. If it hadn't been for him, the Avatar wouldn't have stayed focused on his mission.
If it hadn't been for him, staging a rescue of prisoners at the Boiling Rock, Azula wouldn't have lost her friends.
"Or your mind," Li and Lo whispered.
She snapped the black blade back into its sheath. If there was anyone who needed to suffer, it was him.
"He knows what I'm capable of. So why is he here?" she asked, knowing that the voices had no answers she could trust.
"To help you," they whispered her deepest thoughts and uncertainties. "Aren't you tired of running?"
A loud knock at the door startled her and Azula remembered a time when nothing and no one could catch her unawares.
"Princess," Lieutenant Sen came into her room and knelt before her. "It is done."
"Done?" She searched her scattered thoughts but couldn't recall what the Lieutenant had been doing for her. It was like scrambling up a slippery slope, but she kept her face a mask of cool control and lifted her chin, waiting for him to explain.
"He's broken, my Princess. He's ready to talk."
She shot to her feet. "Impossible." As if it would be that easy. As if all her answers could come to her on a silver platter. "You fool." She was out the door before Sen could get to his feet and hurry after.
"No man could have withstood what I've done to him and not crack," he assured and the more he spoke the more Azula knew it was a trick. "The damage was severe enough, to be sure. Nothing that won't heal in time, but the pain of those burns reduced him to a sobbing wreck. He begged me to get you so he could tell you everything he knows."
Azula quickened her pace. Apparently she was not the most convincing liar on the airship. "Trick," Li whispered. "Trap," Lo whispered. "Lies," they hissed.
"Silence," she growled and Sen snapped his mouth shut while the other two laughed in her head.
The door to the interrogation room stood ajar and Azula was not surprised in the least. Sen broke into a sprint, rushing on ahead to protect her or try to rectify the situation, but Azula cared little either way. One guard laid sprawled on the floor and the other sat, stripped to his underwear, in the torture chair. They were both unconscious, dead, if they were lucky. Azula had little tolerance for failure and what patience she had was running out fast.
"He… how? When?" The lieutenant clenched his good hand in his hair as he inspected the bonds that should have held their prisoner secure.
Azula stepped past and made her own assessment. The chair had been partially dismantled, but it would have been impossible to accomplish while strapped in. Something caught her eye and she went to the metal desk and picked up a folded piece of paper. A handful of screws fell out, clattering against the various torture instruments, and there was no doubt who had left them.
If there had been a doubt, the childish art doodled on the paper would have solved the mystery - sword in one hand, boomerang in the other, hair sticking up in a spiky ponytail, and tongue sticking out teasingly - who else could it be? And who would have had the audacity to leave a taunt when escape should have been his only priority?
"He must have done this after he escaped his cell but before you recaptured him." Sen was still trying to piece things together. "He knew we'd torture him. He came here first and removed just enough screws so he'd be able to get free." He turned and met her gaze as she crumpled the drawing in her fist. "He could have broken out at any time, but he let himself be tortured…?"
"If you're asking me to explain the inner workings of insanity," she snapped, "I'm afraid you'll have to be disappointed." She hadn't meant to say it, but there was no taking the words back. Sen swallowed and pretended she hadn't essentially admitted she was crazy. It was a touchy subject, one generally not allowed onboard her flagship.
Azula looked down and realized she had his sword in her hand, though she couldn't recall when she'd picked it up. Even the doodle clenched in her fists should have gone up in smoke, but some part of her held back her firebending. She tucked the paper away and cleared her throat. "Did you know that he once infiltrated the Boiling Rock and impersonated a guard for over a week?"
"The story is widely told," Sen replied, glaring at the naked guard. "How are we going to find him when he could be anywhere or anyone?"
Azula allowed herself a moment to consider the advantages and disadvantages of having every soldier wear matching armor that hid the identity of the wearer. They looked fearsome, certainly, but was it worth it?
"We can order the men to remove their helmets."
Azula rolled her eyes. "Yes, and while we're busy figuring out who's who, he could be off in the engine room sabotaging us."
"We can order everyone to scour the ship and report to the hanger for inspection."
"The hanger?" She fixed him with an amber stare. "I suppose you haven't heard the one about how he hijacked his first airship? I hope you can swim, Lieutenant."
Heavy booted feet clanged to a stop outside the door to the interrogation chamber and three matching armored men saluted. "Princess, reporting for duty as requested."
She arched one perfect eyebrow and exchanged another look with her torturer. "Who gave you that order?"
They must have heard the threat in her tone because two of the men stepped back and pointed at the third. Sen lunged and knocked the last man's helmet clear off his head with more force than was strictly necessary.
A stunned Fire Nation citizen with good breeding grabbed his nose as blood spurted down his lip, yellow eyes wide with surprise. "I'm sor'wy, prin'ess," the man apologized though it was clear he had no idea what he'd done wrong. "I wa jus' relayin orders."
"From whom?"
"Th' odder guard."
His two companions pointed back the way they'd come. "He was heading to engineering, Princess, passing along your command."
Sen growled. "Heading to our engines, just like you suspected." Azula doubted it, but if she corrected every one of Sen's misconceptions she'd run out of hours in the day. "We'll capture him," he said and ordered the men to fall in.
"Helmets?" Azula reminded and the lieutenant stopped, looking embarrassed.
"Take them off!" he barked, and the other two firebenders were quick to comply.
A second team of armored men marched up the hall from the other direction, and Azula, Sen, and their three confused companions stood in silence as the four newcomers came to attention.
"Task completed, Princess."
"What task?" Azula had to ask, though two voices whispered in her ear that she might really have given them orders. Uncertainty was by far the worst part of losing one's mind.
"All off duty soldiers are armed, geared, and ready for inspection."
Now every man on the ship would look exactly the same. Azula gritted her teeth and Sen came to her side and spat his order. "Take off your helmets, fools!"
The four men managed to look nervous behind their intimidating masks and even more so once they removed them.
"Go and tell every man on this ship to show his face. Our prisoner has escaped and is impersonating one of us, giving false commands!"
More feet pounded the grated floor and the group turned as one in the crowded walkway, wondering what was next. The two men saluted but didn't stop until Sen yelled at them.
"We were on our way to clear the hanger, as ordered."
"The hanger!" Sen said. "You were right, he means to dump us in the ocean!"
Azula put a hand to her forehead and considered going back to her room and calling it a night. "The way things are going he won't even have to."
"Princess!" She turned and the others did the same. Captain Li and four armored escorts clomped toward them. The one-eyed captain looked furious, the glare in his golden eye offset by the black patch where his other eye should have been. "What is the meaning of this?"
"I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific, Captain." She spread her hands to indicate the dumbfounded expressions and general confusion around her.
"The prisoner escapes, and you think my time would be better spent searching for him, than on the bridge where I belong? Am I nothing more than a foot soldier, now? An errand boy?"
"I assure you, I gave no such command with no such implications."
He straightened up and rubbed a hand down over his beard, looking rather pleased that he hadn't lost her approval. "Oh, I see. Merely a miscommunication then?"
"Captain," she said, keeping her voice level as cold realization settled into her gut. "Who's flying the airship?"
A crackling echo filtered down from the closest speakers and a very particular someone cleared his throat. "Lady and Gentlemen, this is not your captain speaking." There was a laughing tilt to the comfortable cadence of his voice, and for a moment Azula wondered how someone so infuriating could sound so soothing. "Looks like we're heading for a rough landing," he drawled, losing a bit of his mirth, "so please keep your safety harnesses on until we come to a full and complete stop. Thank you!"
She was already running toward the bridge when the floor lurched under her feet, added downward momentum to her mad dash. The men who'd been following her lost their footing and had to hold onto the handrails to keep from slipping. Not that she'd been expecting their competent assistance. She didn't expect help from anyone.
"You were wrong," she told the voices in her head. "He's not here to save me." Silence was her only reply - silence and the sound of her feet and heart hammering in her ears.
The door to the bridge was locked fast, most likely jammed from the other side, but Azula was not one to be stopped by mere inches of solid iron. She remembered the black length of steel in her hand and the door didn't stand a chance against it, her rage, or the burst of blue flame.
Shrapnel and two good sized chunks of twisted metal exploded into the bridge and would have dismembered the armored figure at the helm, had he not managed to duck, cowering with his back to the control panel. Glass shattered as the remains of the door hurtled out the front window, and wind whipped back inside, whistling and howling through the jagged gap as their descent grew even steeper.
He hadn't touched the controls, so that meant her own explosive entrance was to blame for the plummeting dive.
"Pull us out, now!" she bellowed against the wind, one hand on the edge of the ruined doorframe to keep from falling into the room. The windows were filling with the blue of the ocean rushing up toward them but all she saw was the blue of his wide eyes, staring back at her with fear, confusion, and other emotions she couldn't place so easily.
She was ready for him to try something, but instead he twisted around to his knees and grabbed the helm, or what was left of it after her wreckage had hurtled past. He pulled back on the shattered stick and the world started to level out, sandy beaches of a nearby island just coming into view. And then the metal bar broke off in his hands and he turned to her, holding it up like a guilty child.
"Oops."
"Oops?" she roared. "You've doomed us all!"
"Me?" he shouted back. "You're the one who busted in here and broke everything!"
"You're the one who hijacked the ship and put us on a crash course!"
"Well, you're the one who…!" he stopped, screwing up his face as he thought about it. Then he grinned and rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I guess this is mostly my fault."
She staggered toward him, trying to keep her balance, and for some reason he reached out to steady her. She slapped his hand aside and inspected the damage, thinking fast. She needed another metal bar to wedge down inside the helm. Something long and thin, with strength to spare, that she could use to manipulate the broken remains.
Once again, she realized her hand was clamped around the hilt of the perfect tool. She jabbed the bared blade into the mechanism and he yelped and grabbed her wrist. "Hey, careful with that!"
"It's the sword or your life, idiot!" she snarled down at him, but his wounded expression gave her a pang of something she could only describe as guilt, if such a thing were possible. "It's fine." She shook off his grip and wrapped both hands around the hilt, pulling back. The airship groaned as she tried to ease them out of their inexorable dive, but the damaged steering mechanism resisted her efforts.
She had no idea he'd gotten to his feet behind her until his arms came into view and his hands wrapped around her own, adding his strength. She had to resist the urge to elbow him, though the invasion of her personal space seemed irrelevant in the face of rushing death.
"What are you…?"
"Less talk, more pulling," he cut her off and redoubled his efforts. The ocean was nearly upon them, the lone island growing threateningly on the horizon.
"It's not enough!" she said, though they were both smart enough to know they were in trouble.
"It'll have to be." He gave one last mighty pull. Azula could taste the salty mist and then the ocean was upon them, roaring and rushing, an earsplitting crack of impact. At the last moment he sucked in a breath and curled around her, shielding her from shattering glass and white angry water.
And then they were in a different world, one where everything moved in slow motion and floated in a muffled, suffocating blue. She watched him shrug out of his heavy Fire Nation armor, like a fish escaping a net. How did he have the presence of mind to think rationally when even she felt frozen with the shocking cold and sinking doom?
He grabbed her wrist in one hand and his sword in the other and kicked for the broken window, dragging her along.
Why bother? She wondered. Why save her when he'd put so much effort into bringing her down? Why save her after everything she'd done to him and his friends?
Wouldn't the world be a better place without her in it?
"Let go," Li whispered.
"It's over," Lo replied.
"Now rest," they crooned and it seemed like a good idea. She was tired of running, tired of fighting, tired of trying when failure had been her only companion for far too long…
She drifted.
"C'mon, Azula."
A pesky voice, best ignored.
"Don't you dare give up."
She twitched, drawing her brows down in irritation.
"Breathe."
Had she forgotten to? Strength comes from the breath - every firebender knows that. A warm hand rubbed her back and sensation returned with a growing awareness of the cold and wet all around her.
"Let it out. Breathe, Azula!"
She did, but only so she could tell the annoying voice to leave her alone. Instead she coughed and sputtered and felt her lungs drain into the sand.
"That's it," he said, nearly laughing. "I knew you couldn't die that easily." He kept rubbing her back and then ran his other hand up and down her arm, bringing warmth and comfort she was sure she didn't deserve.
She rolled onto her back and pried her salt-crusted eyes open, staring up at his stupid grinning face and trying, once again, to guess his motives.
"You saved me," she croaked.
"I'm full of surprises." He winked.
"I'm powerless," she said, voice rasping. "Now's your chance."
He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side like a curious puppy. "My chance to what?"
"How should I know?" She waved a limp hand. "They're your plans, not mine."
"Ah yes," he said and sat back on his haunches looking somehow disappointed. "My plans." He stared off for a minute, blue eyes searching and calculating. "Well, plans won't make us warm and dry."
"Unless you plan on finding firewood."
"Good plan." He grinned and pushed himself up to his feet, wincing and looking unsteady. "You stay put and rest," he told her, though it seemed like advice he should have given himself. She was too tired to even pretend to care, but once he'd staggered off she wondered if he wouldn't just disappear, abandoning her like all the others.
"He'll come back," Li promised as Azula's eyelids drooped.
"He's different," Lo whispered and Azula couldn't help but agree. He was unlike anyone she'd ever known. She just hadn't figured out what that meant yet.
A/N2: Oh no, the dreaded cliche! STRANDED ON A TROPICAL ISLAND! But wait a minute, isn't the whole "Sokkla Capture" thing supposed to be overdone? Hopefully I can make it entertaining... ;) Who says a Torture/Capture fic can't double as a Romantic Comedy?