The Story of the Moral

An Azula-centric fanfic.

Disclaimer: Space Sword and Piandao's sword were designed with references to swords owned by Sifu Kisu, who was the martial arts consultant of Avatar.

Author's notes:

Due to technical problems, this update is about a day later than it should have been. Other than that, I'm back to the regular schedule now.

Guesses on who would win were fairly even, but slightly in Azula's favour. The answer is coming up right now.

/ Another Duck

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Bitterflow

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Azula knew Sokka was eager to fight, despite that she was the better warrior of the two. It served her well, as she was weary from the long flight. A prolonged battle would likely end in her defeat, since she didn't believe he was as tired. He had the battlefield advantage, but her superior skill would overcome that and win her the duel. Eager as he was, he made the first move.

She easily ducked the boomerang he threw, and took the opportunity to thrust at him, hoping to catch him off balance. No such chance, as the distance was just too great for her to cover before he could bring his club to parry. Oh, well, that would've been too easy.

He took a swing at her extended arm, forcing her to draw back before attacking again. They traded a few blows, neither pressing too hard, but Azula got a minor advantage, enough for her to go a little more on the offence. However, that's when the boomerang came back and struck her shoulder. Her armour protected her from any damage, but it made her lean dangerously far forward. Sokka's simultaneous catch of the throwing weapon and swing at her head surprised her, although she had just enough time to avoid being knocked out.

Now with two weapons in hand again, Sokka's defence proved too much for her to penetrate, so he managed to push her back somewhat. One step back became much longer than she had planned when her boot failed to find traction on the ice she didn't see under the thin layer of snow. With a little range between them, she foresaw the boomerang, and ducked down into a split. This time she planned on remembering when it came back.

Sokka followed her out on the slippery surface, and it was soon apparent that he had the advantage there. His boots, unlike hers, were made for this sort of ground. Keeping as steady as she could, she fought back all attacks he made. She actually found it somewhat easy to be on the defensive, as she would slip back whenever he pressed on. As long as she kept her feet steady, she wouldn't fall, even if she would skid more than she was comfortable with.

Then she noticed what she had been waiting for. His pupils strayed from her for just a moment, but that was all she needed. Reading his body language, she carefully but quickly stepped to the side, and then forward. The boomerang whizzed past her at the same time as she slashed towards his shoulder. He wasn't quite fast enough to both catch the incoming weapon and avoid being hit. For some reason unfathomable to her, he decided that taking a hit was the better choice.

He wasn't badly injured. It hadn't been a strong hit. Furthermore, the thick parka he wore blunted the worst part of the cutting edge, especially as the hood had been thrown up on the targeted shoulder, but it the arm was still taken out of the fight. Azula smirked. He was lucky she had pulled the strike somewhat as the sword was extremely sharp, but he couldn't take her on with just one arm, could he? Retreating to a safe distance, Sokka once more prepared to throw the boomerang. Unlike the previous throws, this went low, and she had to jump over it. In her overconfidence, she had let him away far enough so she wouldn't be able to attack before he could wield his club again.

This time, she had a definite advantage, but her feet still slipped more than he did, causing him to advance on her, even if he mostly just defended. When he checked where the projectile was, she was taken a bit off guard as it appeared to be high above her. Unsure of how to dodge it this time, she turned slightly to see where it would hit. She was initially worried as it turned out to come from straight above her, as moving quickly sideways wasn't too easy, but she managed to shift her weight enough to cause the boomerang to hit where her foot was a blink of an eye before.

Then her worry increased tenfold. With the snow covering the ice she was standing on, she hadn't paid much attention to where exactly it was, but now when she heard a loud crack at the impact of the weapon, followed by way too much groaning for her comfort, she realised the ice wasn't as thick as she had believed. She froze, not daring to move in case the ice would break completely. That's when she saw what her opponent was up to.

With the club high in the air, Sokka swung it powerfully into the ground in front of him. Azula had only time to gape as she dropped down into the freezing water. Struggling not to sink, she found it much harder to stay afloat compared to the more comfortable temperature of the water around Ember Island. Her armour didn't help either, nor did the sword she held in a death grip. To make it even more difficult, any ice she tried to hold on to broke even more. She threw the sword into a drift to get both hands free.

"Azula," she heard him say with a surprisingly relaxed voice. "Calm down."

That was easy for him to say. He wasn't the one drowning in ice cold water. Her thoughts were quickly invaded by blackness, but she fought it off, trying to remain conscious. She would not have another fainting spell, not now.

It still caused her to lose control of the situation, and she swallowed some water. Even if it wasn't long since she had fallen in, her body was rapidly growing numb in the coldness, which made her lose whatever buoyancy she had left. Submerged again, she didn't manage to get back to the surface, and she feared she would die. The darkness of her mind grew stronger.

Just as she could no longer reach up with her hands, she felt something solid hit one of them, and she grabbed onto it instinctively. Immediately after she was pulled up, and she welcomed the opportunity to breathe again. When she felt she was no longer pulled in any direction, she used her remaining strength to crawl up on the solid ice she had been towed against. Shortly afterwards, one hand grabbed her armour somewhere on the back and pulled her completely out of the water.

Before she had time to catch her breath, she heard him talking. "Can you make any fire?"

She tried, both with her hands and with her breath, but she had simply lost too much heat, and too much strength. Finally getting her mind in gear enough to take any action of her own, she told him, "Warm my hands."

He quickly figured out why, and took her hands in his, trying his best to rub some heat into them. The cold wasn't too severe for him, but he was used to it, and he also wasn't soaking wet. She, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as comfortable in this climate, even outside her current predicament.

It took her a few tries, but eventually she managed to get a small flame that slowly grew while she recovered in its heat. It became large enough for Sokka to back off so he wouldn't get burned, although Azula was unconcerned. This was something she was used to, after all.

It didn't last. Once the flame reached a to Azula comfortable size, it started shrinking, and soon faded away into nothing. "That's all I can do. We need to get to the village now."

None of the previous hostility remained between the two. Azula was too cold and tired to care any more, and Sokka only thought about getting them both back to safety. She walked a little bit on her own, but her strength failed her before long, so Sokka had to support her. A little bit further, and all she remembered was an increasing darkness dominating her vision.

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A strange smell invaded her senses as she awoke. She didn't recognise it, but it most certainly was some kind of food, which immediately reminded her of how hungry she was. Her stomach agreed with her in a way she hoped no one else heard.

"So you're awake now, bathing girl?"

No such luck. The nickname he used for her reminded her of what had happened the previous day, and it wasn't exactly the kind of thought she preferred first thing in the morning. While she didn't mind going for a swim, doing it fully clothed in a climate even those clothes were too cold for wasn't her idea of a day at the beach. "Yes, now go away."

"Okay, but I just thought I'd tell you that there's a ship leaving for the Earth Kingdom soon."

That made her open her eyes and rise from her bed in no time flat. The sudden movement also made her almost black out again, but she escaped that. She did however fall out of her bed as her balance didn't have the same luck as her consciousness.

"Easy there. We're not in a hurry."

"I need to stop doing that," she mumbled. Sitting back up on her bed, she idly noticed that she was wearing clothes of the Southern Tribe. "You have a continuously bad impact on my dignity, do you know that?" She took a few moments to clear her head and awaken fully.

"Thank you, I try!" he responded mirthfully.

She started to glare at him. She'd been doing a lot of that lately, and she wasn't anticipating an end to it in any foreseeable future. "So, do you want to tell me why I'm wearing different clothes than yesterday? I vividly remember being unconscious the entire time."

"Your old clothes and your armour hangs over on the drying rack." He indicated where by jerking his thumb backwards in a dismissive gesture. "I think they're still a little damp, but they should be dry enough to pack."

"Do I even want to know who dressed me?" She doubted that was a wise choice of topic for the conversation, but asked nonetheless.

"Probably not."

There was one thing she did want to find out, though, wise or not. "Was it you?"

"No." That was an answer she found vaguely relaxing. "I just braided your hair." That was not.

"Whaat?!" Her hands flew to check her hair, but only found her relatively straight hair flowing unhindered down her shoulders. If she had glared at him before, she added even more fire in her eyes, almost literally. Sokka, on the other hand, wasn't scared off by it.

"You know, you're actually kind of fun to mess with. You're not as scary anymore, especially without your make-up."

That did it. Two blue flames appeared, one in each hand, and she took aim at him. In a flash, he was out and away. She was after him as soon as she could, but he had disappeared somewhere in the village beyond her sight. Angrily, she threw the flames at a nearby pile of snow, blowing it away completely. Behind it, she saw the object of her ire.

"Umm, hello! Now you're scary," he admitted, before darting behind another snow pile, which met the same fate as the first one. This time, he had managed to escape further away, so she didn't see him any more.

Her stomach growled again, so she decided to kill him later, and went inside to eat what he had prepared for her. It did smell rather delicious, after all.

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Sokka entered again when she had just finished the tasty fish, and she suspected it wasn't a coincidence. Her temper had mostly faded back to normal, but she still gave him a fiery scowl.

"You have a little time to pack if you want to come," he informed her.

"Do you want to climb up on that mountain to retrieve my stuff?"

"Ah, good point. You can keep the clothes you're wearing, though."

She looked them over, finding them to fit her rather well. Remembering the time she had infiltrated the Earth Kingdom, she realised she had worn clothes from around the world. "I should get some Air Nomad clothes as well, then I'll have a complete set. Although, I think I prefer the Kyoshi Warrior outfit. Maybe I should change into that later." It wasn't quite true. She didn't find it too comfortable, but it did bring back some sweet memories of conquering Ba Sing Se.

His eyes went to the floor and the mood turned blue. "I'd rather you didn't."

"Why not?" Her eyebrows rose only for a moment before the reason for his objection struck her mind. "Oh, Suki. I heard about that."

"It hurts when someone leaves you."

"Tell me about it."

Neither her tone nor her sympathy sat quite right with him, even if it sounded honest, and it made him snort. "Like you can feel empathy."

As usual when someone tried to insult her by implying she was evil in one way or another, she shrugged dismissively. "You're ri..." That's when the true meaning of the situation fully impacted on her. Her eyes opened in an odd sort of excitement as she stared at Sokka. "You're wrong. You're actually wrong! I do know how you feel. I can feel what you feel. I feel empathy." She savoured the taste of the last word, like it was a new dish she had never tried before, just like the fish. The concept was far from new to her, since she was rather good at determining if people felt good or bad, but this time she genuinely felt it as well.

With a disbelieving look in his eyes, he asked her, "How does someone like you know that?"

She grabbed his shoulders, eager to explain. "When Mai and Ty Lee betrayed me, I felt abandoned, like I couldn't trust two of the only people I actually could trust. This must be what you feel now. You're lost, lonely, and you've lost the stability to fully deal with the situation in a rational way. You're angry at yourself for not expecting it. I know that because I feel the same way."

He had a hard time figuring out how to react to that. On one hand, it made him a little bit upset and antagonistic to hear someone say that in such a positive tone, especially someone like Azula. On the other hand, she did indeed describe what he felt rather accurately, so he couldn't just tell her she was wrong. Nothing she'd said since she fell down before his feet the other day had been lies from what he could tell, and this wasn't either. Then again, she was a notorious and excellent liar.

"You do realise you're being happy about something sad?"

Shrugging, she just countered it with, "Well, I am crazy. I can probably get away with not making sense."

It was hard to plead rationality to someone who admitted she was insane, so he just kept his mouth shut. It also made him think about what he actually felt about Suki. Azula obviously picked it up, and tried to stifle her excitement.

"Sokka." She looked him in the eyes with an emotion he'd never seen in her before. It almost looked like compassion. Sensing his confusion, she gave him a hug instead. "I'm sorry you lost her."

To say that Sokka was conflicted would be an understatement. Of all people, Azula was hugging him. The last day they had interacted had no where near made up for her previous behaviour, so he still wasn't sure if it was just another of her nefarious plots or not. But sympathy, even coming from her, felt kind of nice. He hadn't spoken with anyone about what happened between him and Suki, although he didn't really want to either. In the end, he decided to be careful. After all, many people had been burned by Azula's lies, sometimes literally.

"Look," he started, and pushed her to an arm's length from him. He noted an annoyed expression coming from her, but he didn't think it was directed at him. "Thanks for caring and all, but you're still Azula. It feels weird to be hugged by a mortal enemy."

"It feels weird to me too, okay?" She sat down on a bed, frustrated at the situation. "I'm not comfortable wearing my emotions on my sleeve, nor hugging anyone." She paused, briefly. "Other than Ty Lee." Then she went back to her rant. "I feel exposed, like every time I say something it will be used by someone else to manipulate me. And it's vexing having to think everything over just to figure out if it will hurt the person or not, and this when I'm trying to be nice. Being nice when it's of no gain to me isn't something I've done much of before."

She took some time to breathe and calm herself down. Her visage went from emotional to determined as she looked up at him again.

"But I need to go against my past self, or I will end up back where I was, and let me tell you, losing your mind in paranoid delusions isn't all what it's cranked up to be." Tired eyes were left when her rant began to run out of steam. "When I lost trust in my closest friends, I had only paranoia to turn to, and no one will trust me if they fear me."

"Didn't you believe everyone could be ruled by fear?"

"Mai and Ty Lee taught me differently. They never followed me out of fear. Well, maybe a little, but most of all, they are my friends. I just didn't realise it in time."

"Friends are great to have, and family. I wouldn't have gotten where I am without my sister."

She smiled a little sideways. "I can relate to that as well."

"You mean with your brother."

"No, your sister. I don't remember clearly, but I think she helped me when I needed it the most."

"Katara helped you?" She'd never told him that, and he found out most things about her eventually.

"It had to have been her, since the only other person there was Zuzu, and he was dead. So either her, or a delusion of someone. She helped me back to reality when I had lost my mind. I should thank her for that."

"Probably," he said, unsure of what to think. "Anyway, the boat leaves in an hour or two. Make sure you're ready by then."

"Who's the leader here? I need to discuss some matters."

Sokka explained which the right house was, and she was out and on her way.

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Author's notes:

Thus ends the ninth chapter of the story. Anyone wants to guess what the title means? It's nothing complicated, and Sokka will help out with that later.

I'm going to say that MTL76 came closest to guessing the outcome, as the guessing was about the how, not the who. Here's a good feeling as a prize. No one guessed on home field advantage, though. Feel free to dispute the outcome.

Battles are hard to write, so I hoped this one turned out well. The outcome was really the only thing I knew from the beginning, and it was also the most enjoyable part.

Azula's mood flip-flops a lot in this chapter. I've found that in a lot of stories, a character has one personality throughout the entire thing. I've really tried to avoid that, by making the characters act differently depending on what mood they're in. Tell me how it works, or if they just seem out of character.

/ Another Duck