Azula made it back to the inn only to find the door locked. She could have fire vaulted her way into their room, but she wasn't entirely sure which window was theirs and did not want to land in the wrong bedroom.

Instead she went and sat under a tree. As a little girl, she used to climb them. She would go up high when she didn't want to be found. Lu Ten was the only one who knew to look for her there.

Out of all of her family members, she had been the closest to him as a child. He had been the only one to see that under the veneer she maintained for Ozai, she was just a scared child who needed someone to love her. She looked up at the stars, wondering if he was looking down on her. Why is it that only the good die young?


Ursa thought it was too late to go looking for her now. "Maybe we should wait until the morning. We could get lost going out there now."

Sokka frowned. "Azula's never been here before. She might be lost now."

"She's always had a good sense of direction," Zuko said, agreeing with his mother. "She probably went back to the inn."

In the dark, Sokka wouldn't be able to do much, not without some light. "Do you have any torches?"

Sokka was about to head out alone when Toph and Aang decided to go with him.

There wasn't anywhere for them to sleep there anyway. They had been on the floor and "who knows, maybe Princess Fireblast got into something interesting," Toph snickered as they left.

They started walking down the road. The inn was on the other side of town.

"For a town with barely anything in it, it is rather spread out," Aang commented as they walked.

"Land's probably really cheap here," Sokka answered. People can afford to spread out, unlike in the busier cities.

Toph was beginning to miss the city. "I could go for a kabob right now." There wasn't anywhere to get food late here.

Sokka sighed. "Yeah me too!"

Unfortunately, a herd of wasps was also hungry and started to follow them.

Sokka swung at them, which only pissed them off.

"Good work Snoozles."

"Aang, can't you do your peace thing and get them to chill."

Aang rolled his eyes at Sokka. "I manage disputes between people not insects."

"Well, we're people having a dispute with some angry insects."

Aang gently airbended them out of sight. "Hopefully, they don't come back."

They didn't, for about 10 minutes. Then they came back with a gigantic swarm.

"Oh shit!" Sokka cursed.

They all started running. The swarm was gaining on them, getting ready to surround them and sting the living hell out of them when a blue flame took out a big chunk of their army.

Azula had heard their antics. She had been sitting under a tree by the inn.

The rest of the wasps flew away.

Sokka found Azula's eyes piercing through the darkness. "What are you doing out here?"

"They lock the inn doors at 10." She wished they had mentioned that.

"What?"

"I have a key to our room, but not to the outside door."

Aang made a water key to open the door. They locked it behind them and headed upstairs.

Aang and Toph headed to bed.

Sokka stayed behind with Azula. "How come you didn't want to stay?"

Azula looked at the ground. "Time hasn't changed anything."

"What?"

"It's been almost seven years, and when Ursa came back, she gravitated to Zuko and forgot all about me."

"Maybe she just wanted you to get your rest."

"If you hadn't seen your kids in seven years, wouldn't you wake them up when you got home?"

Sokka would have. He imagined most parents would have. "Did you want to go to bed?"

"Not really."

When Sokka was growing up, he would walk around the tribe when he couldn't sleep. "Why don't we just go somewhere?"

"What's in this town?"

"Probably nothing."

Azula shrugged. They left again. "I guess we'll have to stay out until morning."

Sokka took her hand in his.

They didn't talk as they made it towards the center of town. There weren't any streetlights. Sokka still had the torch and used it to illuminate their path.


Daylight shone through the window harshly telling Noren it was time to get up for work.

Ursa was still asleep. She had stayed up later than he did. He started to get his work clothes together.

Once he was dressed, he went downstairs and made oatmeal for breakfast. Normally, Ursa was up by now and made breakfast. He ate alone and kissed Kiyi's forehead before he left.

The little girl woke up and went to find her mother. Usually, she was downstairs, but there was only Zuko sleeping on the couch. Kiyi tried her mother's room and when she woke her up, she realized a stranger was in her mother's place.

It alarmed her, causing her to jump back into the wall. Ursa woke up at the thud. "Kiyi, what are you doing?"

It sounded like her mother, but "what happened to your face?"

The woman sat up. "Years ago, I went to the Mother of Faces and asked for a new face. Last night, I went to get my old face back."

Kiyi frowned. "Why would you keep changing your face?"

"It's a long story, Boo. Where's your father?"

"Work?"

Ursa looked at the time. "Oh, I should have been up over an hour ago." She got dressed and went downstairs.

"Mom," Zuko said sleepily.

"Zuko, all of your friends are gone."

Zuko said, "so."

"So, how are you going to get home?"

They wouldn't leave without telling him. "I'm sure they're just at the inn."


Aang needed a bath. He drew one while Toph was still sleeping. He added soap and made the water foam with his airbending and heated the water with his firebending. Oh the virtues of being the avatar. It was easy to make your bath awesome.

He coaxed Toph awake.

"What do you want?"

"Bath time."

"Have fun." She didn't plan on getting up.

Aang, however, did not agree. He started to take off her clothes.

"Not now. I'm sleepy."

"Not that," he said with a laugh. "Your bath."

"Heck no," she retorted and curled up in a ball to block him. He just airbended her into the bathtub.

"I hate you Twinkle Toes."

"No you don't."

She had to take off her clothes now. They were weighing her down. "Now my clothes are all wet!"

"Free laundry," he retorted as he joined her in the tub. "When's the last time we had a bath?" He knew they didn't take one yesterday and wasn't sure about the day before.

"You know I like dirt."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you can't be clean for once."

She splashed him and they started to fight in the tub. Being a waterbender gave him a distinct advantage.

"You suck."

"No, I leave that to you."

She growled as he washed her hair.

Once they got dressed, they went to try Sokka and Azula's door.

"Are they in there?" Aang questioned. He opened their door with an water key and they weren't.

"Maybe they went to her mother's?"

"I doubt it."

They went to go find somewhere to eat breakfast where they found the Fire Lord asleep on Sokka on a bench.

Toph used her earthbending to flip over the bench, making them fall on the ground.

"What?" Azula woke up on the ground.

"Time to get up Princess Transient," Toph laughed.

"Did I fall asleep out here?"

Sokka was still asleep. The drop did nothing to wake him up.

Azula shook him awake.

"Five more minutes Katara."

"Do I look like Katara?"

Sokka opened his eyes. "Why's your hair all messed up?"

"Because we fell asleep outside like homeless people."

"I used to sleep outside a lot."

"But you're a peasant."

He grunted. "A hungry peasant."

The quartet looked for breakfast. Somehow, they were at the bbq restaurant again. "Is this the only restaurant in town?" Azula questioned. She hadn't remembered seeing another one.

"Well there is the vegetarian café next door, but we own that too," the waitress told her.

Sokka was ready for a bbq breakfast sandwich.

"You get more food with the platter," the waitress told him.

"Oh then I want that."

Aang got the egg and veggie sandwich.

Toph went with the bbq breakfast sandwich.

Azula went with the pancakes. She was rather surprised when she got shredded pork and these thin pancakes. "I thought this would have come with fruit and syrup."

"MEAT!" Sokka said.

Azula rolled her eyes. "This town is so weird."

They ate their food and debated what to do next.

"Don't we have to get Zuko," Aang said.

"He can find his own way home," Azula said.

"How, there's no transit?" Toph wondered.

"He's got feet," Azula retorted.

"You don't want to say goodbye to your sister," Sokka questioned.

"I never said hello to her."

She got roped into returning to her mother's house.

Ursa had gone to the market, leaving Kiyi with Zuko.

When Sokka knocked on the door, Kiyi answered it. "My mom's at the market."

"Wasn't she there yesterday?" Azula questioned.

Kiyi shrugged. She didn't remember.

"Maybe you two get to know each other," Sokka suggested.

Kiyi showed Azula her dolls.

"Azula liked giving them haircuts," Zuko commented.

"Actually, I liked cutting off their heads," she retorted.

Kiyi promptly hid her dolls.

"Why would you do that?" Zuko chastised.

"What? Dolls are stupid. All they do is teach girls it's your job to stay home and rear children. Why bother to send them to school or teach them anything? Even an uneducated bumpkin can watch a baby."

"She's just a little girl. It's not like she knows anything about politics."

"Would it be so bad to get her toy that would actually require her to think?"

The siblings bickered. Kiyi didn't really understand the conversation.

Sokka gave her a cow piggyback ride.

Ursa came home.

"Oh, you all came back," she said.

She still hadn't addressed her daughter, at least not individually.

"Mommy, I'm tall!"

"Why don't you come back to the ground? You're going to tire him out."

Sokka put her back on the ground. "How was shopping?"

"It was fine," she said. "I thought the house could use a new vase."

"It looks just like the one you already have," Azula commented.

"They're different," Ursa contended.

"Oh of course. One is red and black and the other is black and red."

Sokka gave her a look. They did look the same, but still.

The two women stared at one another. Despite their family resemblance, they were quite different. Ursa wished she could say she missed her daughter. Honestly, she never knew how to deal with her.

"Azula, you've grown."

"It's been seven years. I would hope that I have grown."

Kiyi went outside to play with Aang and Toph.

Zuko watched his mother and his sister from a distance.

"So you're the Fire Lord."

"Yes." She knew that before yesterday. Even this small town would have known what happened when the war ended.

"Why isn't Zuko?"

Of course! "Ozai wrote him out of the line of succession."

There was more to the story, but Ursa could tell that Azula wasn't going to tell her about it. "I always hoped you'd want to settle down someday."

"Fire Lords do get married."

"I know, but who will raise the children?"

"Sokka's better with children anyway."

"How have you been?"

"Do you mean recently or since you left?"

"Um both."

"Recently, things have been fine. The country is running smoothly, despite the incompetency of the local governments. Mai's in charge in my absence and unless Ty Lee convinced her to turn Capital City into a giant circus, I'm sure things are normal.

The last seven years, well I suppose they went as expected until the end of the war. Ozai became a power hungry warlord, and he pitted his children against each other to see who survived. He selected me to be is heir, and I would have been if Sokka hadn't persuaded me to turn on him, and now Ozai's in jail pondering how did both of his children become such a disappointment."

Ursa never would have thought that Azula would turn on her father. She had always been a daddy's girl. "Why did you turn on him?"

"I was on the edge of having everything I was raised to think was mine. We were about to win the world. I was next in line to keep it, and suddenly, I realized it would cost me the one thing I really wanted. I decided it wasn't worth it anymore. If ending the war was what it took for me and Sokka to be together, then I had to call back the troops, so I did."

Ursa was shocked. Azula hardly seemed like the kind of girl who would give up world domination for a boy, especially a peasant boy from the water tribes. "I don't know what to say."

Azula had imagined this confrontation 1000 times. She never thought she would have left her mother speechless.