Gust: Thanks! That's actually really flattering to hear! :D
Vienx: This is also wonderful to hear, thank you.
She didn't know how long she walked for nor how far. It was late though and her body and mind called desperately for sleep. So Azula curled herself up on the floor, but could only manage to lie awake. She twirled her bangs around her pointer as she contemplated her situation. The cave spirit, she came to conclude, was rather masterful at what he did. He had cornered her into picking between physical suffering and mental turmoil. Either which way, she would be ailed—she had simply strolled into unfamiliar territory. She longed to take that decision back and suffer the physical torment. She pulled the hood back over her head and waited for the morning to come.
"You really like to wander, don't you?"
Azula groaned to herself, Sokka was the last person she wanted to see. Just like nearly every other time though, he was able to find her.
"Apparently I didn't wander far enough." She responded.
"Now that you aren't angry with me, do you want to tell me what's wrong?"
"Absolutely not." Azula replied immediately.
"Well if you change your mind, you know where to find me." Sokka replied.
"Shouldn't you be with Suki?" Azula spat.
"I can't just let you leave again."
As she so often reverted to, when in moments of distress, she poised her tongue for another argument, "do you think I can't find my way back?" Even still she feared another day of being ignored and generally disliked.
To her luck, he didn't take the bait this time. Instead he went quiet for a moment and confessed, "I think that you don't want to. And that's what worries me." Something in the way he said it, also told her that he'd likely drag her back to their camp kicking a screaming if he had to.
"That's not true." She admitted. "I sort of don't mind your company." Sort of don't mind it, she repeated to herself. She yearned for it and it was consuming her. In an instant she realized that she probably couldn't bring herself to tear away from the group now. Perhaps they weren't pleasant company, but they were company.
"Does that mean you'll be joining us tonight?"
"I'm not moving again." Azula replied stubbornly. Deciding that some distance from him would probably do her well. Maybe if she slowly drew herself away from him, she could rid herself of the feeling completely.
"If I leave right now, can you promise that I'll see you in the morning?" Sokka asked.
"I can promise you anything, but that doesn't mean I won't break my word." She answered. "So sure, Sokka, a promise I'll come back to camp in the morning." Azula couldn't offer him a definitive answer, because she herself wasn't sure how she wanted to attack the situation.
"Well that's reassuring." He said. For a moment she thought he was going to lay down next to her to make sure that she wouldn't sneak off. But he left her to make her own decision.
.oOo.
"Just give her a few more minutes, she'll come back." Sokka insisted. And to himself added, "she has to."
"Sokka, I don't think that she's coming. She's playing with you…again." Suki grumbled.
"She'll be here."
"She has until we get our stuff together." Katara gave her input as she helped Toph fold her sleeping bag. "If we hurry, we'll make it to the mountain by late afternoon." She looked at Sokka in such a way that told him that they would be at the mountain, undoubtedly, by noon. He dared say they'd reach it before then.
Each time he placed a new item back in his pack he looked to where the trees began to show more compact, expecting the princess to finally emerge. He was running painfully low on things to put away.
At last he was able to make out Azula's tiny frame emerging from the tree line. In one hand she gripped her pack and with her free hand, she rubbed at tired eyes. Everything about the way her hair bangs appeared tousled beneath the hood and how her clothing had been hastily fastened told him that she'd overslept. With a sluggish gait, she came to join the rest of them.
"I didn't think you were coming." Sokka noted.
"I didn't either." Azula replied. "So I went back to sleep…"
"And?"
"I was hoping you guys would have been gone by now." Azula shrugged.
"That explains why you didn't have time to make sure the jacket was fastened properly." He commented.
"My decision to join you was last minute." She finally came out with the truth. "I supposed that since I could still hear you all taking—you're horribly loud, by the way—I wasn't meant to part ways with you yet." As she spoke he worked to realign the buttons into their proper positioning.
"You mean you didn't come back just to see me?" He feigned shock and hurt.
The princess looked him straight in the eyes and answered, "of course not."
He finished fussing with the jacket. "Well, I'm glad you could make it."
Though he shouldn't have been surprised, he had come to view her fighting with her hair as they walked. He had to give her credit, she was doing a pretty decent job for trying to tame her locks with that hood still covering her head. It also amazed him that she thought to bring her comb but not a waterskin. Before he could stop himself, he vocalized this realization.
"I had one. It snagged on a branch and tore." Azula explained. "Not much use after that." They were walking side by side now and he watched her slip her comb back into her pack. She waved away a swam of bugs. The same swarm that had him flailing his arms like an idiot. "Shouldn't you be by your girlfriend?" She asked.
"I suppose, maybe. But I like talking to you; she has Toph and Katara to keep her company, you…"
"Don't have any friends. Yes, I am aware." Azula finished. "I don't want your pity, Sokka."
All at once Sokka recalled the man he used to be some time ago; the kind of guy who only wanted to converse with a person when they were at their highest. Never had he considered that talking to someone only when they were at their lowest would earn him some scorn. But if anyone could give him shit for that, it would have been Azula. "I'm not talking to you because I pity you."
"Then, why?" Azula questioned.
"Why are you helping us right now?" Sokka returned fire. After a bought of quiet her replied, "exactly." He contemplated bring up how fondly he thought of the night they'd spent snuggled under the tree. He recalled vividly, the feeling of her arms around his middle, the way her hair tickled his neck, the feeling of her chin on his shoulder. Mostly, he remembered how she was so quick to drift off to sleep and how he didn't have the heart to wake her and ask her to release her hold—Agni did she have a firm grip, especially in sleep. Thinking back on it, it was odd. Surreal, to know that the firebender could be so compassionate and tender. He couldn't see her face now, but he could imagine that her expression was as stern as her strides were.
"Sokka, look at this!" Suki called.
He looked at the other woman, who was quick to wave him off.
"Wouldn't it be lovely to get a portrait done here?" She motioned to the landscape. "You and me with the falls behind us and the jungle fern. We could sit on that rock…" she trailed off. "Anyways, it's a lovely view."
"Imagine the view we would have had on Ember Island." He couldn't help but to utter.
"This is still nice." Suki smiled cheerfully.
"Nice." He agreed simply. It disturbed him how little the conversation engaged him. Suki's words were so kind and loving again. It was like all of the tension from the years gone by seemed to have melted away, as if that one fight had released it all. Yet they didn't seem to have any spark to them. No matter how much he tried to fire one up, their conversations seemed to be lackluster, to no fault of Suki. His mind wandered again to Azula. Now there was a conversation with spunk… he shook his head.
"You okay Sokka?"
"Yeah, great." He replied. "Just kind of anxious for this whole cave thing. I never did like those."
"Really, I thought you had a blast in the Cave Of The Two Lovers." Katara elbowed him. It was wonderful to see her coming out of her own dismal mood. Aang looked no better than before, but with Azula's freakish knowledge of the jungle, his odds were faring much better.
"Cave Of The Two Lovers?" Toph asked.
"Oh yeah, I forgot, you weren't there for that…"
Suki took his hand. "Don't worry about the cave. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about in there."
Sokka could have sworn he heard Azula mutter, "pfft…yeah, okay." But for the sake of his own manhood, choose to pretend like he didn't. Instead he put a ridiculous amount of focus on the feeling of Suki's hand in his. As if to prove something to himself he dwelled on how soft and pleasant it was in comparison to the roughness he'd found when rubbing Azula's. Part of him felt bad in thinking so. The other part was relived to put Suki back up on a higher pedestal. For the rest of the walk he made a point of walking notably close to her while she chattered in his ear. He had to admit, she had some lovely stories to share about the days on Kyoshi Island before he had arrived there all those years ago. Eventually he found himself getting back into the vibe of their conversations.
There was no greater sense of relief.
.oOo.
The mountain was looming ever closer. Azula's reluctance to continue grew with every step. Over and over she kept repeating to herself, that she wasn't yet in the cave, she was only near it. There was a difference. The notion helped her little. She tossed a glance over her shoulder. For a moment she wanted to call Sokka over. Or even Toph. Frankly she just didn't want to be alone. Even less so, did she want to come off as a frightened child, so she kept her sense of foreboding to herself. To her luck, Katara approached her on her own accord. "Thank you again for getting us here." The waterbender spoke. Azula supposed it was a little surprising to hear the woman thank her even with her truth exposed. "I don't think we would have gotten this far without the help." She confessed.
"Right, well I am the most useful of this sorry party." Azula shrugged.
"Do you have to make complimenting you hard?" Katara asked.
"Naturally, yes." Azula replied. "You need some way to remember who you're talking to."
"The blue fire works just fine." Katara pointed out.
"Believe it or not I don't shower people with fire when they say pretty things to me."
"That's not what I meant." Katara replied.
"You sound like Sokka." Azula noted.
"How can you say that after I just complimented you!?" Katara asked.
"My mouth slipped." Azula shrugged again. If she wasn't mistaken, the firebender would have said that Katara got a kick out of that one. She had to admit that the conversation had touched her sense of humor. Despite the nagging sense of impending doom that loomed over her like the shadow of the mountain, Azula found herself in pretty good spirits.
So long as she didn't look back at Sokka and Suki.
For that, she decided to indulge Katara in a full conversation. They talk of many things; Azula shared some of the rich history of the Fire Nation and the heritage she took such pride in. Katara retuned that with some rather fascinating Water Tribe lore. According to her, in the Southern Watertribe, at the winter solstice children used to leave fish offerings for a half-human, half-penguin so that their hunting season would go well. "I never really believed that one. But Sokka did."
Azula could very clearly imagine Sokka believing something so silly and standing outside of his hut in the dead of night with an armful of fish. "What an idiot." She replied.
"He can be a bit dull up here." Katara tapped her head.
"I do believe that I've mentioned that before." Azula said. "Multiple times."
Only moments after their conversation died out, did Azula find herself standing directly before the entrance of the cave. Gazing into the mouth of the cave, the panicked feeling finally set in. She gulped slightly as the first musky, earthy stench assaulted her nose. With the smell came a torrent of less than pleasing memories. The cave spirit's final warning echoed so loudly in her brain that he might as well have been lingering next to her, whispering it in her ear.
Maybe he was.
.oOo.
Sokka heard Azula clear her throat before dismissing them with a, "well, you all have a great time."
"I'm sure it will be, with you here making occasional commentary." Sokka replied.
"What, no." She said, coming to sit down on the nearest log she could spy. "This is as far as I go. Caves and I don't get along."
"You don't get along with us, and here you are." Sokka pointed out.
"Caves are intolerable. If I cover my ears and pretend like I'm talking to different people entirely, you guys are manageable."
Sokka opened his mouth to ask her if she was actually afraid, but quickly thought better of it. Even if he hadn't, Katara vocalized her thoughts first. "You said that there was a labyrinth. Aang has maybe a day or two left in him…"
Azula cut her off. "What makes you think I know my way about it?"
"We were told that the heart pool is a legend. You made it pretty clear that the heart pool is real. You wouldn't have if you didn't see it for yourself." Katara replied. "Azula we need you."
"I bet you do." Azula grumbled. Still, something in her expression softened.
Once again Sokka felt a twinge of guilt in deciding to take it and run with it. "We…I want you to come with us. We can't just start a journey with you and not finish it with you."
"I do believe that you started it without me. So by all means, you can finish it that way too."
"But I don't want to."
.oOo.
Just like that her unwavering stance crumbled. From the start she had planned on leaving them when they got to the cave. She promised herself that she would. She couldn't help but give an inward laugh, remembering exactly what she'd told Sokka the night before about herself and promises. Even so, the cave looked dreadfully daunting.
"I know this is gonna sound weird, but I like having you around." Sokka added.
Her grip on the log tightened.
"Please stay with me." He held his hand out. Highly apprehensively, Azula took it. The Water Tribesman helped her to her feet and lead her to the mouth of the cave. Again, the overwhelming stench of it taunted her. It wreaked of the cave guardian. As if sensing her ambivalence, Sokka's hold on her hand tightened.
Despite everything screaming at her not to, Azula stepped into the cave.
