Foreign Blood

By THE Xenomorph (aka Xenomorph666)

Avatar: The Last Airbender and all related Characters are © Nickelodeon

Bao-Fai is © Me

Choronus Illadae is © Me

Errant Kindness

Azula yawned as the sound of Choronus kicking the fire out woke her up. Much to her surprise it was morning already. He had let her sleep the entire night through and it made her more angry than anything. She tossed the tent open and stomped outside.

"You said you'd take first watch, why didn't you wake me?" She snapped, anger firmly written on her face.

A yawn escaped Choronus before he spoke. "Fell asleep my self, woke up to a smoldering fire." He smiled as weakly as he lied.

"You're a terrible liar." Azula snorted.

"So I let you sleep, seemed like you needed it." Choronus said.

"Don't do that!" Azula snapped as she was suddenly point a finger at his face like it was a dagger, she found herself even half wishing it was one, "I don't need your pity!"

"Yeah, you do." Choronus said sternly.

Azula felt her face contort in rage. She didn't need this impudent and insufferable man's pity. She lashed out with a kick, almost expecting flame to follow it and teach him a lesson. Instead, he was already behind her and had her head and arms fully restrained. She couldn't fight back with her arms, so she kicked backwards aiming for his groin but it never connected and instead she found herself flailing around yelling and spitting. Then all at once she was on the ground crying.

"You need pity, because you don't know any other way to view it." Choronus said. "Superman may be one preachy S.O.B., but he has one thing right. Doing the right thing for the sake of the right thing isn't done often enough, you'd be his primary argument in so many ways."

"So what now?" Azula asked, still crying but obviously trying to pull her calm demeanor back together.

"We go to Ba Sign Sae, hopefully your world actually has a good grasp on mental health, and we get you professional help. Then we convince said help to come back to your home as a private 'mental health expert'." Choronus air quoted the last part as she sat in the dirt. "I'll pack, try and hold together for a few more days, 'cause I know I'm not easy to deal with." He then reached out and scuffed up her hair a bit.

"I need a brush." Azula sighed, "And a mirror."

"Oh, so you can do something for yourself." Choronus cracked and then spoke a few words before pulling a simple brush and mirror from their bag. He then had to catch his breath.

"What's wrong?" Azula asked as she took the items.

8888888888888888

Choronus took a deep breath then asked for the mirror, he was glad to confirm his charms and godly enhancements were still working, but was now very confused.

"My magic usually doesn't wind me from such a simple spell." He explained as he continued to breath deeply.

"Maybe the source of your power is further away then?" Azula shrugged.

"I am the source of my power." He further explained. "My soul powers my magic."

Azula's eyes went wide. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"More so than normal, but at the same time not." Choronus said with a slight smile. "I wasn't being poetic when I said part of my soul went with my wife when she died, and normally a fractured soul is instant death with the magic I use. I got special charms and enchantments from the gods I work with, I don't drain power from my soul."

"Then what do you get your power from?" Azula asked.

"I always thought it better not to ask, gods aren't known for providing free power. Still if I had to guess, probably one of the worst possible sources they could think of." Choronus said with a look of slight concern.

"Which would be?" Azula asked.

"Well seeing as Anubis provides the main charm, the land of the dead and the souls that get devoured by his precious soul eating beast." Choronus smiled. "I could potentially be powered just by the things farts for all I know."

"How charming." Azula rolled her eyes. "Boys never grow out of that type of humor, do they?" She then started to brush her hair.

"Nope." Choronus said with a smile.

A few minutes later Choronus was done packing and he noticed Azula had a white knuckled death grip on her mirror. He walked over behind her and looked in it, half expecting to see some demon all he saw though was her reflection.

"Hey..." He gentle nudged her shoulder. She didn't respond.

"Kiddo." He put his hand on her shoulder. Still nothing.

"Azula..." Her eyes darted momentarily from the mirror.

"Sha keth." His words caused the mirror to vanish.

Azula's reaction was immediate, and odd as she simply stood up and picked up her smaller bag.

"Right..." Choronus sighed as he picked up his bag and began to walk beside her. She didn't speak or make any attempt at communication for hours. Then all at once she started to hum again, at first he was relieved she was doing something other than walking, then she started to dance or at least she tried to while walking. It was no surprise to him when she fell flat on her butt, what surprised him was he lack of an obvious breakdown.

"You all right?" He asked as he stood in front of her.

"It's a bad day." Azula said flatly.

"So I gathered." Choronus said as he pulled her to her feet. "Come on princess, we got a lot of ground to cover."

8888888888888

At the fire palace Zuko watched the sun set as his friends made plans of their own to help find Azula. Then a messenger hawk landed nearby. Zuko found it odd since it had no markings on it, but he quickly took the note which was sealed with an odd code. He decided it was likely for Aang and sought his friends out.

"Hey guys, this is weird..." Zuko paused as he entered the room to find Sokka looking over a large earth kingdom map and making odd calculations. The problem was that the map was the one the earth King Kuei had lent him and it was now covered in Sokka's scribbles.

"What's weird?" Katara asked.

"Weird message probably for Aang." Zuko said as he calmly pulled Sokka away from the map. "Why are you destroying the map Kuei let me borrow?"

"Oh, right, forgot about that." Sokka said, then he noticed the message container that was in Zuko's hand. He quickly snatched it away.

"Hey, that's for Aang." Zuko said.

"No it's not." Sokka said flatly.

"How would you know." Katara asked.

"Play more pai sho." Sokka said.

"White Lotus." Zuko sighed. "Why can't they just send normal messages."

"They're a respected society of elders, artisans and geniuses." Sokka said, "Sending normal messages would be to boring. Aha!" Sokka opened the message and quickly read it.

"Well what's it say?" Katara asked.

"It seems that our mystery man was seen with a young girl matching Azula's description. Apparently the guy stopped an entire group of bandits with just words." Sokka blinked in confusion.

"Wow, he convinced bandits to stop..." Katara was interrupted.

"No, he literally stopped them, as in paralyzed them, with words!" Sokka's eye twitched. "They're calling him a wizard..."

"Ohhhh..." Katara smiled knowing her brother's distaste for "magic". "Ma..."

"Magic doesn't exist Katara." Sokka snapped and then regained his composure. "Anyway, two members in the town convinced everyone not to kill the man and they gave them a bag with several things we can use to track and identify them. But they left most of it behind..."

"He seems smart." Zuko said.

"Yeah, apparently the innkeeper overheard him say he was a detective of some sort." Sokka blinked. "This I don't believe."

"What?" Zuko asked.

"According to this Azula was subdued for most of the time there, except when she threw a fit and broke a mirror." Sokka scoffed. "Right."

"Her medicine must be wearing off." Zuko sighed.

"Medicine?" Katara asked.

"A special herb, with out it her emotional state is extremely unstable and she can go from a rage of anger to catatonic apathy within seconds." Zuko closed his eyes, "And she gets suicidal."

"We need to hurry then, June or no June." Sokka said.

"Awww, you're gonna leave without me?" June's voice interrupted the conversation. She had a mysterious welt just above her left eye and a small cut below her lips.

"June." Zuko turned to the older woman. "We need..."

"Relax, mama bear already explained it." June said. "You know she has a mean right hook?"

"I'm not gonna ask right now." Zuko said, "But you are gonna have to..."

"Zuko!" Toph came running in. "Your mom is awesome!" She exclaimed with a huge smile and continued. "After you told her about June she went to all the bars and found her, then beat her up until she agreed to help!"

Zuko merely blinked in disbelief, so did Katara and Sokka.

"Mama bear was convincing." June smiled.

At that moment Ursa walked into the room. "I suspect the search will begin soon?"

"Yes mother." Zuko gulped in a slight bit of fear.

He did hear Sokka whisper to Katara. "And I thought Ozai was scary."

Ursa merely smiled and walked away.

AN: I FOUND THEM! I hae upto Chapter 20, some old chapters foudn some remade. But I foudn them!

*Crickets*

Oh right... oh well... I'm try and finish it!