Chapter 29

Azula stopped sprinting when she began to make out the rooftops of the nearby village. She walked slowly for the remaining minutes to relax her heartbeat and catch her breath. During her time on the road, she hadn't passed anyone else walking, but now that she was on the village's doorstep, a handful of people were setting out towards her, probably to wait for the ferry to the capital.

The village was not as small as she originally thought. There were a good number of shops and restaurants, with little houses scattered in between. Bright reddish orange lanterns had been strung up along the buildings for some sort of early spring festival and the streets were bustling with morning foot traffic.

Because of the strangely high level of activity, Azula kept to the outskirts of the village, not wanting any needless attention drawn to the random person in armor. She passed along the backside alley of a series of houses. If they can be called houses, they're utterly derelict. Spotting a poster tacked up against one of them, she halted and narrowed her golden eyes.

Her brother's illustrated face stared out at her, complete with his Fire Lordly hair piece. Azula couldn't help the rumble of jealous anger that spread through her chest. But she ignored it, instead savoring the fact that she had slipped out from beneath his uncaring grasp.

Below the inked portrait was a message calling for citizens to be wary of a thief that had been "terrorizing" and "wreaking havoc" throughout the Fire Nation. She scoffed at the over-dramatic word choice. Initially this person had targeted wealthy nobles, but it seemed they were no longer limiting themselves to the upper class. Several local poor families had reported break-ins as well. No matter the social status, the same items were always taken: gold, komodo chicken, and rice. Azula snorted. What kind of high profile thief steals meat?

Even with the odd choices, she acknowledged that the person must at least have sufficient skills to evade capture thus far. And she allowed a small smirk at what she suspected was the reason for that success. "Do not approach alone, criminal is a skilled earthbender." Hm, letting everyone into the nation seems to be going well for you, Zuzu.

She ripped the poster off of the house and tucked it under her belt, before continuing to stroll along the alley.

A ball of some kind suddenly ricocheted off the wall in front of her and moments later a small boy with an unruly mop of dark brown hair appeared to collect it. His already big eyes opened even further at the sight of a uniformed guard lurking in an alleyway. He began to run back to the main street where his friends called, but Azula motioned for him to come closer. He did, slowly, clutching the ball to his chest.

Azula wasn't particularly fond of children, they were so whiny and dirty. But she knew they were also exceedingly gullible, easily persuaded under the influence of an adult.

Her mind suddenly formed the image of a man in immaculate crimson imperial robes smirking and calling to her after a training exhibition.

She forced it out of her mind, as her stomach turned strangely. Where did that come from?

The boy was probably seven or eight years old and covered in dusty dirt from playing with his friends in the morning. She asked him, trying to sound friendly, "Do you know where I can find a messenger hawk?"

He had yet to blink, staring in awe at the imposing figure before him. He'd never seen a guard up close before and wondered if they were all so scary. He shivered a little at the voice, swallowed, and nodded, "There are stables at the back of the main road, towards the mountains."

Azula followed his gaze, as he relinquished his iron grip on the ball. She could stick to the alleys and back streets easily enough, hoping the armor wouldn't make her stand out too much. And that this boy didn't go blabbing immediately to his friends. Children had such loose tongues.

She looked back at the boy, "Is there a person who works at these stables?"

"Uh yeah, duh, he takes care of all the animals. He lives next door to them."

She twitched at being addressed so casually, but made a faint sound of acknowledgment and began to walk towards the back of the village. She heard the shuffling of tiny feet behind her and whirled around to find the boy following her.

"Don't you have school?"

He stopped in his tracks, "N-no, it's the Fire Lily Festival this week. We get a vacation!" His eyes lit up at the joyful thought of not having to attend school for a whole week.

She didn't have time for this nonsense. Azula bent down so she was level with his round face and spoke with annoyance, "You shouldn't talk so easily to strangers. Go back to your silly game, before I pop that." She jabbed the ball with her finger to get the message across.

The boy's lip trembled and he ran back out to the main street, holding the ball like it was a highly sought after treasure.

Azula rolled her eyes and continued winding her way through the houses and shops, until she reached a clearing where the stables were. A shack of a house was positioned nearby, likely the place where the stable hand resided.

She strode up to the enclosure and pushed past a little wooden gate to enter the stable. Her eyes immediately latched on to a source of travel and she remembered another piece of information Ty Lee had given her some time ago.

"Two mongoose lizards tethered to the outside gates… People from the nearby village must have used them to visit someone here."

That seemed to be the case. There were three mongoose lizards and three ostrich horses, all resting on the hay covered floor. The hawks were napping on little perches at one corner of the room. Only two were present at the moment, the other perches were vacant.

She also realized that she was the only human currently inside. Glancing out one of the windows, she saw a little trail of smoke spiraling into the sky from the shack's chimney. He must still be inside. Perfect.

Azula pulled the poster she'd taken from her belt and flattened it out against one of the walls. A long forgotten phrase had entered her mind upon exiting the institution and she thought its counterpart would be a positively charming thing to send to Zuko. Grinning, she produced a tiny flame at the tip of her index finger and scorched the nice little message for her brother on the paper.

When she finished, she strode over to rouse one of the hawks marked with a royal insignia and jammed the message into a worn leather pouch. Strapping it to the bird, she brought it outside and shook the creature free, sending it screeching into the sky towards the capital. She watched it for a minute, hands at her hips, before she heard footsteps rushing her way.

A man was barreling at her from out of the shack, waving his arms. She merely watched, turning her helmeted head towards him as he approached. He was dressed in patchy clothes and smelled like he and the stables had coalesced. She turned her nose up at him.

"Hey. Hey! You can't send a bird without consulting me first!" he looked at her angrily.

She raised an eyebrow, though he could not see it through the helmet, and gestured towards the sky, "It looks like I just did. Try to call it back if you like."

He huffed and crossed his arms, "What's your business here? Usually the guards stick close to the institution."

"I had to send an urgent message to the Fire Lord. All of our birds were being used. Doctor's orders," she said sweetly. And it was true, she had sent a message to dear Zuzu. Azula was only disappointed she wouldn't see his face when he opened it.

The man looked skeptical, but he had no reason to doubt this person, "It's two silver pieces to send a hawk." He held out his hand expectantly.

"And how much is it for the other animals?"

He shot her a quizzical look, slowly withdrawing his hand, "Eight gold per day for a mongoose lizard, four for an ostrich horse."

Azula walked back into the stables, the man tagging along at her heel. She approached the group of larger animals and looked them over. Turning back to the eager man she stated simply, "Well, that's just not going to work," and swiftly kneed him in the gut.

He doubled over while Azula retrieved one of the extra sets of reins hanging against the front of the building. She tied his hands behind his back, somewhat roughly, and for the moment secured him to the gate of the stable. Before he caught his breath to shout for help, Azula had stripped the breastplate from her body and ripped a portion of the red undershirt to use as a gag. She stuffed the cloth into the man's mouth and then removed the rest of her guard clothing.

The pieces all clanked to the ground in a heap, leaving Azula back in her red shift from the institution, bunched awkwardly around the roll of bandages and jar of ointment. She decided to keep the too large boots for now, not wanting her feet to get scraped from roaming outside. Azula considered swapping them for the stable man's, but instantly shuddered at the thought of wearing stable boots. Who knows what kind of filth this man had stepped in?

She looked down at him, bound to the stable, and grinned at the confusion in his eyes, "Do you not know me? I suppose not, what with being kept away from the public eye all these years."

Recognition dawned on him as she lit a flame on her fingertip. She let her long hair down, shaking it from the messy topknot. Instead of redoing it completely, she tied it in a less militaristic style, similar to how she'd worn it so many years ago on Ember Island. The top middle portion was secured with the elastic band of the guard's outfit, leaving the rest to frame her face and fall down her shoulders and back. Even fewer people would recognize her this way.

She sighed and ripped another strip of cloth from the discarded clothes on the ground. Approaching the struggling man, she knelt in front of him and sneered, "I thought I was harder to forget."

Wrapping the cloth around his eyes, she undid the reins and led him out the side of the stable that faced the mountains, not the village. Here, he was hidden enough from view and so Azula tied him again to a nearby hitching post.

She reentered the stables and selected the mongoose lizard she wanted. Each animal had already been fitted with a saddle and reins, so she merely untied the beast from its post and was about to mount it before an idea struck her.

Azula quickly untied all of the animals from their current positions and shooed the remaining hawk outside where it bobbed nervously back and forth on the ground. She then opened the gates of the stables, mounted her lizard, and sent a blast of blue fire to the stack of hay near the back corner, where it instantly erupted in a cloud of smoke and flame.

The animals screeched at the now orange fire, and bolted out of the gates, scattering in several directions. Azula managed to guide her hissing and bucking lizard towards the mountains and away from the blaze engulfing the stables.

She dug her heels into the side of the animal beneath her and it rocketed towards the tree line in the distance. Glancing behind her, she saw the stable man panicking at the sudden wave of intense heat nearby, but knew he was far enough away for any licking tongues of flame or falling wood to miss him.

Facing forwards in the saddle, Azula reflected on how well today had gone. She settled into the undulating rhythm of the lizard, wind blowing her hair behind her, and headed east where she would begin to follow the coast, searching for passage to the string of Fire Nation islands.