Azula and Ty Lee lead Sokka, Katara and Aang to the Dragonbone Catacombs, although it is likely they are already being pursued. It feels dangerous and risky, and Azula would much, much prefer to be halfway out of Caldera by now.
But she has to admit she is curious why they need information on Avatar Roku. And, therefore, she guides them deep into the library, which is cold and comfortable despite the sweltering heat outside.
"It's empty..." Sokka remarks, thinking for a moment that it might be a trap.
He is not quite trusting of the princess, even if she has helped them twice at this point. The fact that he has heard stories about her conquering Ba Sing Se singlehandedly makes him think twice about trusting her, while Aang and Katara seem perfectly willing. And the other girl, well, she does not seem incredibly bright, so Sokka is not very worried about her.
"Everyone is celebrating my engagement," Azula replies, just realizing it herself. There was no one checking at the gates to remove food or drink and to confirm access to certain records.
It is deserted, and Azula is sincerely just hoping it is her luck and not something far more sinister.
"The section about Fire Avatars... is near the back, I think," Azula murmurs, more to herself than her newfound companions.
They scuttle through the bookshelves, all of them glancing around in paranoia. Any moment half of the army could burst in here to claim the Avatar and the Princess and Azula is wringing her hands as they reach a dingy, dusty area of the library that is... locked. Damn.
"I guess we should just leave then," Azula says, glancing at her newfound companions hopefully.
"Or..." the Avatar says with a small smile.
Azula recoils, along with the water peasants and her fiancée, as the Avatar inhales, pulls back, and with a motion of bending, blows the door directly off of its aged hinges. They walk inside as Sokka tries to prop the door back up and eventually decides it is not worth the effort.
"Let's split up the work," Katara says, looking around at the endless stacks of paper. She glances at Aang in hopes his Avatar spirit will pick up on something, but he looks as clueless as the rest of them.
Azula moves quickly to a section she recognizes the old Fire Nation characters on. If it is the last thing she does, she will find out the information first and decide what to do with it. She needs to be in control of the situation, and having the knowledge the Avatar and his friends so desperately crave will certainly help her.
Born 82 BG, died 12 BG...
Blacked out, a good portion of the scroll is blacked out by rough, dark ink, but Azula sees a code pointing her to the sequel scroll. She pretends to look baffled by the papers, as much as her companions, who are all complaining about different Avatars past, and Aang is spouting half remembered facts that seem to amuse the water girl.
She flies through that scroll, which, along with the next four, detail his training and list his trainers. Azula hesitates on their births and deaths... they all died within weeks of Roku's death...
They all were killed by Sozin's men.
Azula brushes that unsettling fact aside to focus on the task at hand. Roku's family...
She finds it. A family tree, tucked in the back with a few other lineage records, of living relatives of Roku at the time of his death. All killed within twelve years of Roku's death. These are his brothers, his sisters ─
His wife, noblewoman Ta Min, friend of Fire Lord Sozin, lived the remainder of her days on Ember Island after publicly denouncing her husband and never remarrying. With her children...
Nepotism at its finest, Azula supposes. Having friends in the royal family gets you nice things... like a sixteen year old wife. She grits her teeth at the thought of Zhao and at the thought that he is probably after her right now.
Her only living daughter, Rina...
Boring facts, endless boring facts. Azula skims as Sokka throws a scroll at the wall, grumbling to himself. She finds the next code, and finds what the Avatar is looking for. And then a sudden wave of revulsion and panic that no one seems to notice.
She quietly tears off the page about her mother and shoves it into her pocket. Parts of it are blacked out, particularly the entire last half, but there might be a way to read it, and some of the words are salvageable.
Salvageable enough for Azula to realize she is the person that the Avatar and his peasant friends are searching for.
"I'm going to check to make sure we won't followed. Ty Lee, take over my scrolls," Azula says, her eyes flashing at her fiancée. Ty Lee narrows her eyes and hides her shock when she opens them and the princess leaves.
Ty Lee swallows uncomfortably as she realizes they have not just made three new allies. Azula is still in the game for herself, which Ty Lee supposes she has every right to be. But why Azula just abandoned the scrolls on Roku, Ty Lee has no idea, until she sees the torn ridges of paper.
"Did you find anything?" Katara asks, her cobalt eyes sparkling as she looks Ty Lee up and down.
"Yeah, these ones are about Roku. But a lot of it is censored. There's nothing about his relatives," Ty Lee says and Aang frowns. "We can still take the scrolls. Maybe some of the stuff will help later. But right now we probably should be getting out of the city."
"I agree," Sokka says. He cannot believe the Fire Nation girls have better sense than his allies. They should have been spending this time escaping Caldera, not studying old, useless scrolls.
They leave the Dragonbone Catacombs through the back entrance and try to blend in with crowds until they reach the woods outside of the town.
"Azula," Ty Lee whispers as they walk, ducking through foliage as the Avatar leads them to their camp. "What did you find?"
"I'll tell you when we're alone," Azula whispers, glancing up at the water boy and how he never stops watching them, a sour expression on his face.
They finally come to a stop at a series of cliffs far down the coastline from the pier. Azula must admit they have an admirable hiding place, although it will quickly be overrun within the first two weeks of a search for Azula and Ty Lee.
"What is... that?" Azula gasps as soon as she sees Appa. He bellows warmly and she stumbles back, nearly tripping over a branch before Ty Lee catches her by the waist.
"He's Appa," Aang says cheerfully and Sokka grits his teeth at Aang being so kind to the enemy.
"Katara, tie them up," Sokka orders and Katara just squints at him. Azula cocks an eyebrow and grabs Ty Lee's wrist, ready to attack if this does not go as Azula anticipates it to. "What? You actually think we can just let the Fire Nation Princess walk around our camp all she wants?"
With a sigh, Katara rubs her lips together. "She had her chances to kill us or sell us out a lot of times. I'm not saying we shouldn't keep an eye on them... but they seem to want to help us. Remember Crescent Island? Or, in the palace, she could've just taken her girlfriend and left us in the prison."
Sokka takes a deep breath and turns to the two girls, brandishing a boomerang. Yes a boomerang against Azula's prodigious firebending and Ty Lee's exemplary military training. Azula almost finds it irresponsible not to murder him for his arrogance. But she slowly puts up her hands in surrender and Ty Lee hesitantly follows suit.
"My father is losing it. He's becoming paranoid and dangerous, and I was no longer safe. He would have killed me if I stayed any longer," Azula lies and they seem to be buying it, even the skeptical Sokka. "I need you three more than you three need me. And I'm not stupid. I won't risk my only chance of escaping my fate on loyalty to my nation."
Katara shrugs and looks to Sokka. "Give them a chance."
Sokka groans.
"I am not taking my eyes off of either of you until you give us a better reason to trust you than not killing us," Sokka says, jabbing one finger into the air pointedly. Azula inhales slowly. "You're going to help us get out of the Fire Nation, and then our friends in the Rebellion can decide what to do with you."
Azula looks him up and down and slowly nods. "I agree to your terms."
But soon, Azula muses, they will be agreeing to her terms.
Sokka wakes up unhappy. He does not even remember the fact that he is working with firebenders now, but he can already tell it is a bad morning by something prodding his side ferociously and the incessant sighing of his frustrated sister.
"Sokka," Katara says, kicking her brother with her toes. He snores, sputters, and wakes. "Go wake up Azula and Ty Lee."
He stares at her for a moment, squinting in the early sunlight. Their cobalt eyes lock as he finally soaks in what she is saying.
"Why do I have to wake them up?" Sokka asks, shifting into a sitting position while remaining in his sleeping bag.
"Because if they attack, you're strong enough to put them down," Katara says, crossing her arms.
Sokka holds his tongue about Aang being a masterful airbender and Katara being trained by the rebels too, and kicks off the sleeping bag. He is coated in sweat; the Fire Nation is far hotter than the Earth Kingdom. And he walks slowly over to the tent, half in hopes that the girls just left in the night.
He does not like the idea of working with the Fire Nation.
Not one bit.
Azula pushes her way through a crowd, unsure what she is looking for, but desperate to find it. She feels her heart racing, beating out of her chest. The people are a sea of red, and all of their faces are vaguely similar and strange. This square in Caldera has an odd, eerie look about it.
She makes it to the front of the crowd and looks in front of her. Then arms grab hers and she is pulled forward against her will and stood on a stage. It suddenly becomes clear to her that she is in the same place she gave her speech on the tour, the one that was interrupted by a riot.
But when she reaches the stage, she sees... herself... herself on it. She is beside Ty Lee and the Avatar, and they are all lined up. It is then that she realizes it is set for an execution.
"And for the crime of treason and consorting with the enemy..." declares Zuko's rasping voice.
Azula looks away before their bodies go up in acrid smoke.
Azula wakes from her nightmare, gasping for breath. Her arms are wrapped around Ty Lee, as they have been often of late. But her back is on hard ground and she can only smell mud and grass, and not the gentle incense of her bedroom.
It all comes back to her then, the escape from the palace, the Dragonbone Catacombs, the fact that she is officially traveling with the Avatar. That she is, for some inexplicable reason, on her way to the North Pole, under the impression that something so absurd could gain her a nation to herself.
"Uh, Princess..." stammers the not-Avatar-boy. He scratches his head awkwardly and looks at the two girls intertwined with each other. "And... other girl... it's time to go..."
Sokka does not know why Katara and Aang forced him to do this. He does not know why he is cooperating with the Fire Nation after spending his entire life trying to stop them. Sure, maybe this Fire Princess and her girlfriend were under duress, as Katara insists, and yeah, okay, some dead Avatar ghost said they needed to take the princess with them, but Sokka still does not approve.
And he finds himself mildly flustered when he walks into the tent and finds... this. It is... uncomfortable... Katara would probably have less of an issue walking in on two girls sleeping in their underwear, all tangled together at the limbs... He hopes his face is not as red and as the heat on his cheeks makes it feel.
"Where are we going?" the princess demands, sitting up slowly. She narrows her golden eyes at this boy and watches him squirm. Ty Lee is still sleeping, snoring very faintly and delicately, like a baby saber toothed moose lion. "You do realize that the entire military will be looking for us, and your dear Avatar friend decided to show off his airbending in a crowded city street. Now you expect us to somehow get out of this cornered position?"
Sokka opens and closes his mouth. "I've gotten out of tighter spots before."
"Oh, yes, you've evidently spent a good deal of time in the Fire Nation, surrounded by soldiers and constant surveillance. I can tell by how you marched right into the palace with zero tact and expected to walk out with military secrets," she purrs as her companion starts to wake. The princess stands up and reaches for her clothes, getting dressed as Sokka is still trying to think of a rebuttal. "Fortunately for you three, I happen to know my way around this country, and have contemplated running away from home enough times to have a good plan."
Sokka decides to leave it. As much as he hates the idea of letting this slippery dolphin piranha of a Fire Princess order he and his friends around, he has to admit he is out of his element here. Give him the Earth Kingdom as his battleground, and you will see the reason he was promoted in the rebellion despite his youth. But the Fire Nation is different than the simulations and maps told him it would be.
Azula finds the water girl packing bags and the Avatar pretending to help her. She actually thinks the airbender would help her, if she did not keep brushing him away and grumbling for him to give her space.
"I never got either of your names," Azula says smoothly, although she might have. People know better than to correct her, so she feels comfortable saying what she pleases.
But she thought wrong, when the water girl says sharply, "Yes, yes you did. Multiple times. I'm Katara, this is Aang, my grouchy older brother is Sokka."
Azula bites down on her tongue and suppresses her desire to slit the girl's throat or burn her. Playing games of manipulation and war is not always fun, but Azula will do it. She must get the Fire Nation, and if that means being cozy with these inbred stains on the fabric of Azula's future empire, she will, so help her.
Ty Lee had an excellent point when she said to play on everyone's side.
"Please, accept my apology," Azula sighs, tensing her muscles to keep from rolling her eyes. "And..." this part pains her the most. "Thank you for helping me escape my situation. And letting me sleep here when I very well could have just been waiting to kill you both and capture the Ava─Aang."
This is harder than Azula thought it would be, but she will do it.
"Alright, that's settled. You're going to help us get out of the Fire Nation?" Katara demands, cobalt eyes looking Azula up and down. The princess inhales slowly, breathing in the sun and remaining calm. This is as much her element as fire; she is behind enemy lines, letting her silver tongue get her what she wants.
"Of course. Believe me, I want out of here more than you do," Azula says, lying by omission but not outright lying. It is true that she has no desire to be in the crumbling palace as her father continues losing his mind and gaining more paranoia.
Katara picks at her lips. She is struggling to trust Azula and Ty Lee as much as Sokka, particularly with all of the things she has heard about the princess while with the rebels. But only actions matter, and Azula's actions have seemed to be in Katara, Aang and Sokka's best interest.
And so Katara decides to ask, "Why does your father want to kill you?"
"He thinks I intend to steal his throne," Azula replies, now lying genuinely. "My brother is older than me, and he was always the favorite for the throne. I was an unnecessary risk. He tried to marry me off to keep me from being a threat, but I didn't take it lying down. You see, I love her, and I didn't want to be wed to anyone but her."
Katara likes that notion, as much as she knows it is foolish. But everyone is a sucker for a good love story, and it does well explain the princess's irrational actions in running from the palace and helping three strangers.
"I'm not... sympathetic to the Fire Nation, but I won't turn my back on two people who need help," Katara says earnestly. "You seem trustworthy."
Azula cannot believe how easy this is. It is almost funny how gullible these people are, particularly when they have spent their entire lives being cheated by the Fire Nation.
"I know a good way up the coastline to a less patrolled location. Ty Lee and I will lead you there," Azula says, glancing at her fiancée... flirting with Sokka. Dear Agni, only one thing can ruin Azula at this point ─ and it is her only ally.
"Alright," Katara agrees hesitantly.
She supposes the situation is unfortunate. Katara, Sokka and Aang are entirely relying on Azula and Ty Lee, but Azula and Ty Lee are relying on them as well. The only way they escape the wicked plans of the Fire Nation is together, but that does not mean it will be easy to trust mortal enemies.
Katara just sighs as Aang looks to her and smiles hopefully.
Ty Lee and Azula slip into the woods as they take a break on their way up the coast. Sokka and Katara are locked in a vicious argument, and it reminds Azula of she and Zuko. For a moment she wonders if her brother is okay after her escape. She thinks she hopes he is okay, which is a disconcerting thought.
"What did you find?" Ty Lee asks, touching Azula's face. The princess does not reject the motion; she supposes the lover charade must continue to make Katara and Sokka think that they are so in love that they are willing to betray the Fire Nation.
Azula unfolds the scroll that she shoved into her bra. "Most of it is censored. But it's pretty clear."
"That's... that's your mother," Ty Lee whispers, pointing at the slender characters.
"They're looking for me," Azula whispers, stepping close to Ty Lee. "Why no one informed me of this, I have no idea. But it looks like we have a leg up in this little group."
Ty Lee smirks, unable to suppress it.
"What are you two doing?" comes the voice of Sokka and Ty Lee presses Azula against a tree, the princess barely able to stifle her sound of surprise.
A hand shoots into Azula's shirt and her golden eyes are wide with surprise, and then she is uncomfortably hot with the touch as Ty Lee tucks the paper detailing Ursa's family history into Azula's shirt. Her mouth presses against Azula's as the princess tries to ignore the sudden state of her nipples.
"Oh, uh..." Sokka rubs his neck as Ty Lee slowly pulls away from Azula, touching her lips.
"Sorry," Ty Lee says, batting her eyelashes. Azula steps away from the tree, stunned at the abrupt strategic move of her fake lover.
"We're just... uh... leaving." Sokka turns away and flees.
Azula looks in both admiration and fear at her companion in conquest.
Ty Lee winks at her and they return to Katara, Sokka and Aang.