The steel ship at last leaves the river and moves past the trees. They are on open sea, heading directly for the Fire Nation in the dark, star-studded night. On the cold bow, Princess Azula is the only free person in her recovered group. She stands, a red blanket gently draped around her as she gazes out at the horizon, looking towards home.
She finds that, while she wants a multitude of things, she most wants to go home right now. And to never see a forest again.
Admiral Zhao's heavy footsteps clang loudly against the deck as he walks to stand beside the princess. She fell right into his hands, as well as the Avatar and Prince Zuko. Her little prisoner pet, he does not ask about. For now, his mind is fixated on the glory when he returns home.
So long as she cooperates. So long as Azula will not do something wildly unpredictable.
Mai did not seem very comforting about the matter, when he inquired.
The princess looks up the admiral and they exchange a brief glance before, "Does us nearly dying of exposure make you look good, Admiral?" Azula says sweetly, batting her eyelashes.
The mixed messages in that statement are pathetically confusing to the man.
He has no doubts that she will be an excellent Fire Lord one day, but right now she is an adolescent girl, and there are few things old men fear than adolescent girls. And this teenager with the tempting posture and thoughts beyond comprehension, is able to have him killed.
"Me rescuing you from dying of exposure makes me look good," Zhao replies curtly, confidence raging in him like a poorly controlled flame. Unfortunately, Azula must admit that he has a point.
But she runs her fingernail along her lower lip as gears turn in her brilliant mind. And they land on the most perfect of possible conclusions to her journey. Oh, Zhao is not the inconvenience she thought him to be. She now realizes that he is the opposite of a burden; he is useful.
"Then we have a mutual interest, don't we?" Azula purrs with a small, charming smile and Zhao studies her uncomfortably for a moment.
"I don't see what at all is mutual about me valiantly saving your life," he growls, not even bothering to be cautious at this point. She probably is playing worse games than her sullen little friend, and that perturbs him.
"Well, no, you see, because it was that prisoner who truly saved my life. I would have drowned if she had not fished me out, and I never would have made it through the forest without her knowledge."
"That knowledge does not help me in any way."
"She had an unpaid debt. A life debt, towards me. It is repaid, however, if this story were to... twist ─ because whatever I say is the truth, even if I claim that airbending purple men came down from the heavens to rescue me ─ in order to give you that unpaid debt..." Azula looks at him, a glint in her golden eyes. But he does not seem to catch on.
"I misunderstand. Enlighten me." His heart pounds, awaiting an answer that he doubts he will enjoy hearing.
"That prisoner is appealing to me. But she is only of worth in my father's eyes if I am keeping her around because she owes me her life. Yet, if you were to be the one who did it, and she would seem crazy if she tried to protest..." Azula cocks an eyebrow and he at last understands.
"You're telling me that you'll give me credit, and therefore, she will still owe you legally in the eyes of the Fire Nation," Zhao says slowly and the only explanation he has for her behavior is hormonal infatuation. But, being legally owed a favor from the crown princess, and rewarded in the Fire Lord's eyes is enough to keep his mouth shut and let her play with her toy as long as she pleases.
"Yes, Admiral Zhao. Magnificent work repeating what I said back to me." She claps sarcastically before walking into the innards of the ship.
He gazes out at the sea and can only hope that the princess is telling the truth.
Her owing him a legal debt would be a very magnificent shift in events, and that is most certainly worth the high risk of listening to her.
Azula finds Ty Lee shackled in the warm and stifling hot captain's cabin; the room given to Azula immediately. It still smells like tobacco smoke and metal, from the man who had it before, but they are on a fast track to the Fire Nation, and Azula does not think she will sleep in the first place.
"What's happening?" Ty Lee asks softly as Azula sits beside her. "Are we going to tell them our little secret? What if they find out it's not Toph?"
Princess Azula gently touches her forefinger to Ty Lee's lips, and then kisses her passionately.
"I have it all worked out. Don't be afraid." Azula moves, running her fingers along the metal handcuffs and enjoying the deep, hot throbbing that comes with this situation. With Ty Lee belonging to her.
She has to admit, the time in the woods made her fall for this girl.
"I'm freed. Right? I saved your life," Ty Lee whispers and Azula's eyes flash wide with unwarranted rage. Ty Lee does not know what at all to make of it, and so she just stares at Azula with glittering eyes and a slack jaw.
"Do you want to be free? You want to leave me after all I have done for you!" screeches Azula and Ty Lee cannot begin to find the words to explain how much of that is far from true.
Maybe Azula was predicting Ty Lee to want to betray her, but after all they went through in the woods, Ty Lee is uncertain of Azula's paranoia.
"We never finished our firebending lessons," Ty Lee offers honestly and Azula glares at her as if that is an even worse offense.
"So, you just want to use me to learn how to firebend?" Azula spits and Ty Lee suddenly can see something deep beneath the surface. Something is hurting, throbbing in her, unable to be ignored and forgotten. And Ty Lee has no idea what it is or how to help with it.
"No, I've started to... Azula ─"
"Princess. You will address me by my proper title." Her golden eyes flash as they do when she has decided to assume control of everything around her. Ty Lee just inhales deeply and gazes intently at her feet.
"Princess, everything that happened in the forest was real. I like you ─ I think I might love you! I don't want to leave you just because I wind up free," Ty Lee says feebly, but honestly. Thoroughly truthful.
"You won't be able to leave me, and my father will not be able to take you from me. You are my prisoner, and that will not change."
Azula dives out the room, fighting her strong desire to look back.
Ty Lee fights her strong desire to run after her. But the chains on her make that nearly impossible to execute.
Now they both are hurting. Ty Lee fights the tears in her eyes as she weakly tugs at her chains for a moment. She thinks about how Azula saved her from certain death, and then when Ty Lee first went into the Avatar State, it was because Princess Azula was in danger.
Why can Azula not see how their spirits are somehow bound? Something stronger than sex is holding them together, but Ty Lee does not think she can get Azula to see it.
Zuko looks at Toph beside him, glancing again.
She refuses to say anything, and she wears an expression that could kill a platypus bear.
He at last decides to speak to her. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for taking you away from your life and getting you here."
Toph pouts her lips out for a moment but she shakes her head. "I don't regret leaving that place. It was horrible there, and I don't even think that the Fire Nation could be worse."
Zuko stares at her, and thinks about every moment in the forest. He was lost, but he felt much less lost than when he was with the rebels. Yes, he misses his uncle, and he knows that returning to his father cannot end well. He knows that, while when he was relying on Azula in the forest, she now is free to do whatever torment she can think of.
"I don't regret finding you," Zuko says softly and Toph grins mockingly.
"Awww," she says, punching his shoulder. "I'm totally flattered, Twitchy. Of course you needed me to save your butt like a million times."
Zuko rubs his temples and groans. Toph works as hard as she can to fight the flush she feels in her cheeks.
Azula returns to Ty Lee eventually, while the prisoner is trying weakly to entertain herself while in captivity. She knows that she will not escape, but she also, for some reason, doesn't want to escape. It is so confusing and complicated, and Ty Lee does not how to make sense of any of it.
"Is Mai here?" Ty Lee asks softly as Azula closes the door.
"Yes. She's occupied, however," Azula says smoothly, even though Mai is not occupied. Azula just does not want to talk to anyone save for her prisoner and the man she is about to use until she is safely with her father.
Being cast into the forest, lost, dying of exposure and starving, made her realize how much she needs to be in control of a situation. It also made her realize that she needs to have control of Ty Lee so that she does not lose her. They needed each other in the forest, and Azula knows that, being a prisoner and the Avatar, Ty Lee will run at the first chance.
All Azula wants is to kneel before her father and tell him what must be said.
Then she can retire into a life that she has power over.
"Your father would have to let me be with you if you tell him how I saved you," Ty Lee says excitedly and Azula just silently gets undressed and lies down beside her.
"I don't know," Azula lies, and she wants to feel the warm body of her secret Avatar as she falls asleep.
This is certainly a complicated situation.