Notes: Deviating from canon is tricky, and I appreciate all the lovely comments and encouragement. With that said... I've pretty much crumpled up and thrown out the original outline. Zuko just HAD to go to Azula without Iroh for backup...

Zuko marched up the gangplank to Azula's ship, back stiff and step as crisply formal as if he were wearing military reds instead of soft, wide-legged spa pants and a tunic.

This is such a bad idea, Sokka thought. He looked around for Iroh—sometimes he could talk his nephew out of a bad idea, or at least irritate him enough to stop and think. He had been wearing a salmon pink obi today, hadn't he? There was no sign of that color, or him, near the piers or out on the beach.

One of Azula's guards placed himself at the top of the gangway, barring Zuko from the deck. He looked down at Zuko, at least six inches taller and severely unimpressed.

Zuko clenched his fists at the insult. "I am Prince Zuko, and my father has lifted my banishment. I wish to speak with my sister." His good eye narrowed to match the bad one. "Stand aside. That is an order."

There was a moment of crystalline tension, broken when the guard actually stepped to the side to allow Zuko to pass. Phew.

"You have got to work on your people skills, buddy," Sokka said.

Zuko smirked and in a very quiet undertone said, "Worked, didn't it?"

Zuko couldn't turn to watch his back while he was doing his stuck-up prince thing. Sokka, though, had his head on a swivel. He didn't need to be subtle or quiet about what he saw, either.

"We're being flanked. Three guys following us, ten steps behind." He paused. "These don't look like an honor guard. Last chance to run. If you need to, jump right off the deck. I can waterbed us out of here." At least, he mostly sure that he could. He'd bent currents under a raft. How much harder could doing it while swimming be?]

... Eh, best not to find out.

Zuko thought about it for the space of three strides. Then he shook his head, minutely. "If it's a trap, Azula won't debark until she has Uncle, too," he murmured under his breath just above a whisper.

Sokka eyed him. That was reasoned thinking, but... "Nope. Not buying it. You don't get to pretend that was your idea all along. I've seen you plan."

His smirk grew a little sharper.

He was briefly challenged again as he tried to leave the deck and to the corridors leading to the officer quarters and the bridge. Again, the bemused guards let him proceed, though now a guard walked ahead of him—along with three additional guys behind, leaving Sokka and Zuko stuck between them in a trouble sandwich.

Up a set of stairs, turn a corner, and then the lead guard stopped in front of the wooden door to Azula's cabin. "Princess, Prince Zuko has arrived with a request to speak to you."

There was a pause. "Send him in."

Here we go. Bracing himself, Sokka walked in.

Good news: The thing—dark spirit, whatever— had stopped sucking on Azula. Bad news: It stood in a shadowed corner like a horrific piece of furniture. It made no move when they entered. Just stood and watched, swaying back and forth slightly.

Zuko's gaze flicked around the room, not settling on it. He couldn't see it.

Azula rose. "Brother, I'm surprised to see you already. Where's Uncle?"

"Azula..." Zuko started and then stopped, glancing at the guards behind him. "Please wait outside the door. I wish to speak to my sister in private."

The guards did not move.

Oh shit, Sokka thought. Prince or not, they aren't listening to his command. They belong to Azula.

"You've come about the decree." Azula's voice was warm, but something in it sent a chill through the air. "You don't trust my word?"

Zuko hesitated before answering, gaze flicking to Sokka. The question was clear in his eyes. Is it here?

Sokka nodded with his chin. "It's in the corner by that tacky vase." He sent a worried glance the guard's way. "We're standing on the edge of a breaking iceberg here. I think—"

"This one is yours?" the dark spirit hissed.

Sokka whipped his head back. In the second he took his eyes off it, the dark spirit had somehow crossed half the room. It simply stood there, its drowned-corpse eyes locked on Zuko. Sokka had not seen it move.

"Gah!" Startled, he didn't know why he did what he did next except in no way did he want thing touching Zuko. Zuko was his.

Focusing on the dark spirit, his hand landed on Zuko's shoulder and for once did not phase through.

Now Zuko jerked in surprise, eyes widening as his focus landed on the dark spirit, seeing it for the first time. In a second his fist cocked back, knees bent and ready to leap away in a classic firebending pose.

"Azula, what is that thing?"

The girl stopped. She regarded her brother, narrowly, eyes flicking back to him, the dark spirit, and back again. A slow smile spread over her face. "Well, well. You have learned a thing or two in your banishment after all."

One of the guards spoke up, unsure. "Princess?"

Both royals ignored him.

"What is it?" Zuko demanded, clearly shaken. The dark spirit simply stood there, head listing to the side like a sinking ship, but made no move to attack. Zuko looked at his sister. "Has she… Are you okay?"

Azula smiled. "Don't be such a child, Zuzu. Don't tell me you don't recognize her."

Uh-oh. Then again, the dark spirit's features were so twisted, she barely looked human.

"What do you mean?" Zuko asked.

Azula's smile widened. It was a touch too wide and there was something in the back of Azula's amber eyes that made Sokka uneasy. Like that time he had come across a sick giant razor-toothed leopard seal lurching too far ice, foam dripping from its jaws as it attacked snowdrifts, other seals, its own shadow… anything that moved and a few things that didn't. Mad with rage. If his father or the men were there, they all might have been able to take it down. But alone? No. Sokka had to watch and wait from a safe distance, nearly the entire day, until it fell. Then as he walked up to give it mercy it had looked at him. Azula's eyes held a shadow of that same sick madness.

"You know," Azula said, rising silkily from the desk and walking around. Every step was liquid and her head canted to the side, in the same direction as the spirit. "For the longest time I thought she loved you best. Most loved, first born. I was the better heir, but she had such a soft heart for the weak."

Zuko's eyes widened and for a second he looked... very young. He shook his head. "No. No, Azula that's not her."

"She's taught me everything I know. Secrets about firebending you could never dream of." She raised one hand and the fire that kindled in her palm was blue. Sokka didn't think that was possible.

"Mom wasn't a firebender! Whatever it said, it's lying to you."

"Jealous, Zuzu?" Azula came to a stop shoulder-to-shoulder next to the thing in an unconscious parody of the way Sokka and Zuko stood. The dark spirit turned to her, mouth gaping with teeth too long and needle-like to be human. Hunger rolled off it like a miasma. It looked like it was seriously thinking of swooping in for second breakfast.

Sokka felt Zuko's shudder under his hand. "Leave her alone!"

He blasted fire that went through the spirit as if wasn't there. The guards flinched, tensing. Azula didn't so much as blink. "Jealous, Zuzu?"

"Azula, I can help. I didn't know—I thought, well, it doesn't matter, but I can help you. Help... her. The Fire Sages must know something of this."

She laughed, tossing her head. Again, it was a touch too loud and too long. As she were putting on a play of a girl laughing.

"Zuko has a companion of his own," the dark spirit hissed. "A boy. Weak."

"Hey!" Sokka complained. "At least I kept my good looks!"

Azula's unhinged gaze darted around, seeking Sokka, but not landing on him. The dark spirit was not touching her. "Too little, too late Zuko." Azula's voice turned cold. "Take him."

He thought she was only talking to the guards. Zuko did, too, turning around with daggers of flame in each hand.

Something struck Sokka from behind, knocking him forward. Then the dark spirit was on him.

Her touch… it was like someone had reached into the core of Sokka, a piece of him that was precious and sacred and only his. He let out a short scream of fear, of pure revolution, flailing to try to knock her away. But that hurt, too. Her skin was moist and fish-belly cold. He wanted her away, but everything in Sokka wanted to recoil, do anything but to touch her.

Her hunger clung to her like a miasma. A rot that went up his nose and down his throat, making him gag. She twisted his arm up behind his back, sitting on him to keep him down. Sokka writhed, not fighting with his usual intelligence, just struggling to get away—and Zuko was shouting too—a bolt of fire passed through them, hitting neither. Zuko was trying to help, but more guards had poured in and the numbers worked against him.

Shortly, they had him on his knees, his hands behind his back. The lead guard stripped him of his only weapon, a pearl-hilted knife, and laid it on the desk.

Azula's grin was wide. White sparks danced between her hands.

"Poor Zuzu," she crooned. "You try and you try, but you've always come up second best."

Lightning, Sokka realized, horrified. Could firebenders even do that?

Apparently, the answer was yes. The sparks coalesced into a very zappy looking ball between her hands. Held on his knees by three visibly terrified guards, Zuko couldn't even block—

"No!"

In an instant the dark spirit had released Sokka. He rolled away, gasping air he didn't need (it was the principle of the thing), rubbing his arms and half expecting slime to come off.

In an eye blink, the dark spirit stood before Azula. "You must not."

"Move aside, mother," she grit out.

Sokka scrambled up to his feet. He felt weirdly weak, but better by the second. Staggering, he forced himself to stand in front of Zuko. "Don't touch him."

Azula and the guards couldn't hear him, of course. But the guards looked even more alarmed by the second. If Sokka had to guess, she'd kept her 'talking to people who weren't there' to a minimum until this point.

"My darling, my pet... please..." The dark spirit raised one skeletal hand as if to run fingers through Azula's perfect hair. The spirit leaned in, her voice low, but Sokka could still hear every crooned word. "You promised that he would suffer."

The lightning between Azula's fingers flickered and died. "I did promise that. Didn't I?" she said. Then she turned and grabbed for the pearl hilted knife from the desk. Taking it hand she strode forward.

"No!" Sokka yelped. "Stop! Don't hurt him!" But there was literally nothing he could do. He swung, hitting nothing. Azula walked through him as if he wasn't there. "No! No!"

The guards holding Zuko saw the danger, too. One let out a half-voiced protest, "Princess—!"

Zuko didn't fight, didn't flinch or close his eyes. He just tensed for the blow.

The knife flashed.

And then Azula had Zuko's hair in her hand. She had cut his ponytail it to the scalp in a perfect slice that left only a diamond stubble on his head.

Looking up, Zuko snarled in wordless rage. Azula just smiled again.

"You asked for your decree, brother. Here it is: By order of Fire Lord Ozai, you will return to the Nation in chains to be sentenced as a traitor—" Pause. "—where you will be cleansed by fire before Agni."

"I am not a traitor!" Zuko yelled, half-rising before the guards forced him down again. "You lied to me."

"Oh, like I've never done that before." The hair caught blue fire. She let the ashes drift to the floor. "Lieutenant, secure the prisoner."

Unlike Zuko's old ship, Azula's had a brig. Set on the bottom level, it was dank and dark. No windows, or bed, with an open pipe-hole for a toilet. A thick slab of metal functioned as the door, with a smaller hole at chest level to shove food into.

The guards took no chances, shackling Zuko with heavy ankle chains that connected to his wrists with little give. Nothing could stop a firebender's bending, but it did restrict his movement.

Zuko went more quietly than Sokka expected. He seemed to be a state of numb shock, though his hands trembled with stress. The second the fireproof door was shut, he whirled on Sokka.

"That thing is not my mother," he snapped as if Sokka had been arguing for it the whole time.

Sokka held up his hands. "Hey, I didn't see a resemblance."

Zuko glared at him. "And I'm not a traitor!"

That… was a little trickier to argue, considering that Sokka didn't consider being a traitor to the Fire Nation a bad thing. He didn't know what got the Fire Lord's panties in a bunch, but considering what he'd done to his son so far…

So instead of debating that point, Sokka redirected to a new one. "Is being 'cleansed by fire' what I think it is?"

Zuko grimaced, looked down, and nodded. "It's reserved for the worst criminals. Rapists, murderers… high treason. It's done so the evil that pollutes the spirit won't follow it into the next life. In theory."

"I hate that theory," Sokka decided. "We need to get you out of here." Before the Fire Lord could finish the job he started three years ago and burn his own son alive.

Zuko let out a sharp breath, visibly collecting himself. He looked around the bare room. "We're three decks down. Should be below the water-line."

He saw right away where the crazy jerk-bender was going with this. "This hull is solid steel. I've never seen Katara make water punch through solid metal."

"She's untrained."

Sokka held up his hands. "Hello! I'm not even a bender. I'm just borrowing your dumb magic when using your body. Plus, even if I can knock a hole large enough to squeeze through, you'll have to swim while weighted down with those chains, probably with Azula's men blasting at you from the deck."

Zuko's eyes flashed gold and dangerous. "Drill the hole. I can swim."

"Zuko, since I've known you, you've almost drowned twice."

"I just need to make it to shore." He winced. "And get Uncle's attention."

Sokka brightened. Oh, right. He'd forgotten about Iroh. Nice to have that kind of fire power on your side, literally. "After this is over, he is going to make you drink so much calming tea."

"He's going to be insufferable," Zuko muttered, angry and miserable as any kid facing the pending disappointment of a parent. "He's not going to say, 'I told you so, Nephew', but he'll imply it so much…"

"My Dad always told me being a man is about knowing when to take your lumps."

Zuko grit his teeth, turning his face away. "I've taken mine before. I can do it again."

Oh man. Open foot insert mouth. Before Sokka could think of what to say, Zuko spoke again.

"What about you?"

"Huh?"

"Are you hurt? When that dark spirit attacked you…" He looked at him, concerned. "The way you screamed—"

"I did not scream," Sokka said. "That was a manly shout of surprise, and manliness." But he shuddered, hugging himself, trying to put a concept into words he only half-understood. They had touched, spirit-to-spirit. And hers was awful. "She's evil. Corrupted. And I think… I don't exactly have a body for a barrier, so when that wrestles you to the ground…"

"A lot of manly screaming?" Zuko asked, wry.

"Like having tape-worm ticks crawling all over your skin."

Zuko made a face.

"You would have manly screamed, too," Sokka insisted, and then gave a start. What was he doing? What had happened to him was icky and wrong on all the levels, but Zuko was the one stuck in chains and he was trying to comfort Sokka? They had to get out of here.

As if on cue, a low rumble shuddered through the ship. For a second, Sokka thought it might be the aftermath of a blast—hopefully by a vengeful Uncle come to rescue his idiot nephew. But the shudder went on and deepened into a low hum.

It was the massive coal fire engines starting up.

Zuko cursed. "Get topside. Hurry!"

"What? Why? I thought Azula was going to wait for your uncle."

"Looks like I was wrong about that, too," he said grimly. "I need to know if she's taking the eastern or western route from the harbor. So when I escape…" he took a breath, looking down at the heavy chains. "I need to know which direction to swim back to land. I'll only get one shot."

Sokka groaned. "Oh man…"

Weird, the times that homesickness hit him. He missed riding with Katara and Aang on Appa's back, when even when things were dire… he never once had to worry about gauging the correct direction or else watch his friend founder under the waves.

Zuko, though, didn't look afraid. He looked determined. "Sokka, go!"

He went, phasing through the wall and heading for the nearest stairwell. He kept an eye out for Azula and the dark spirit, but didn't spot either one. The top deck was a scene of busy industry, all hands making ready to set sail. In the few minutes since the engine started, the ship had already pulled well away from the pier. Crap. Even if he figured out how to punch a hole in the hull with waterbending right away, Zuko was facing a long, long swim.

The water isn't as cold here as it is at home, he reminded himself. I'm not going to let him sink under. I'll just figure out a way to waterbend him to shore.

A distant shout, half lost on the wind. None of the crewmen seemed to have heard, but Sokka turned to see a portly figure in a coral pink spa robe running along the beach as if trying to catch the ship. Iroh shouted again, Zuko's name, panicked.

But Iroh was too far away and the ship was picking up speed. Soon he was a distant dot, lost among the retreating horizon.

Note: Don't worry—Zuko is not taking Ozai accusing him of treason in stride. He's just a little stunned after being hit with so much at once.