Sokka walked through the thick, Fire Nation forest with the biggest grin on his face. He tried in vain to get the grin to shrink a littleーit wouldn't do to appear to be goofy and unprepared in enemy territoryーbut the corners of his mouth refused to recede. The Water Tribe boy gave it up as a lost cause, grinning openly as he looked at his much younger friends walking next to him.
I guess they are kind of cute, Sokka admitted to himself. The pair was walking quite close to each other, hands brushing against the other's as they laughed and joked down the path. They had been in a good mood all day, ever since Sokka had enlisted the group's help in moving the meteorite that had wreaked havoc on the village only days before to the forge so he could create…the ultimate space sword. It was definitely worth it, Sokka thought satisfiedly, considering the relentless training and work of the last few days as he admired the rich, dark metal of the freshly crafted sword grasped in his left hand.
Thinking about his pre-teen friends led the Warrior to think about the other couple in the group that had been missing when he first returned to campーthe angry guy and his sister. Well, I guess he's not so angry anymore, Sokka allowed. His brow furrowed as thought of his sister and her boyfriend.
To be honest, he didn't really know what to make of the whole situation. There were no other boys their age back home, so Katara had only been involved with one other guy beforeーJet. Sokka had known from the beginning the freedom fighter wasn't all that he said. It was clear to the Water Tribe boy that the relationship between his sister and the rebel had been largely superficial, and he had been unsurprised when the whole thing nearly ended in complete disaster.
This time, things were very different. They say hindsight is always 20/20, and now that Sokka was looking back on their time on the stolen ship with the knowledge of the pair's relationship, it was immediately apparent that this was no superficial bond. They had been inseparable, always having long conversations over dinner after Katara had finished serving the crew and sneaking off to spar together. If his sister needed help with some chores or needed someone to run an errand, Zuko was always the first to jump to assist her, surprisingly without fuss for a spoiled prince.
Now that their relationship was in the open, the Prince surprisingly took every opportunity to make it very clear who Katara was with, always giving her well thought out gifts and making sure to hold her hand and show her affection in public, softening his tone whenever he spoke to her and, in general, drooling over her with the softest, mushiest, moon-cow eyes you can imagine. In return, Sokka had never seen his sister look at anyone else the way she looked at the Firebender. It was a startling thing to Sokka, to see his baby sister look at someone with so much unadulterated love and trust. The Warrior couldn't even say he looked at Suki the same way, and he was the older one!
I guess that's what happens when you don't have a freaky spirit bond, he thought with a shrug. The supernatural bond between the two benders was of course, the most confusing thing of all. Sokka had always felt responsible for his sister; he was the older brother, he was supposed to protect her! But, even before they had left their tiny village, it had become very evident to Sokka that he couldn't do much in the way of protecting, at least not on this power-charged stage where he was one of the only ones without bending. And of course—his sister was constantly proving to him that she didn't need his protection.
Nevertheless, the Water Tribe boy had definitely struggled with his worth to the group at times without bending. That was how Sokka had taken up planning. He couldn't rely on sheer, brute strength, power, or fancy magic bending to disable his enemies. He needed to plan ahead, allow them to work against themselves and become their own downfall.
In summary, when at a loss, Sokka made a plan—but he couldn't make a plan about this bond. This ridiculously deep connection that had sprung up between two people who had previously been enemies was completely unexplainable and thus, completely unpredictable. Sokka could not help his sister, and he watched helplessly as she easily looked more and more to Zuko for support, answers, and comfort. The Warrior was watching his sister grow up before his eyes into a future none of them could have predicted. It was disconcerting, and he worried for her. He didn't know if she could do it alone with Zuko—if people of two opposing elements from different sides of the world could really be happy together.
He didn't know if he was ready to let go.
Sokka sighed loudly as they drew closer to their camp and Toph and Aang's antics wound down. He vaguely watched as Aang enthusiastically greeted an excitedly chattering Momo as the lemur (hopefully affectionately), showed Aang various objects by knocking them against the side of his skull. The Airbender carried his animated companion ahead of them into the camp, scratching the creature under the chin as he walked. Surprisingly, Toph stayed behind with the Water Tribe boy.
"That's a lot of sighing you've been doing,'' she joked to Sokka. The older boy gave a half-hearted laugh, trying to avoid Toph's clear curiosity and force a nonchalant tone.
"Yeah I mean...what do you think Katara and the angry guy have been doing this whole time?" Toph rolled her milky green eyes.
"Nice try Snoozles. Now, tell me what's really bothering you," she commanded uncompromisingly. All at once, the warrior's frame slumped.
"Even though Katara can sometimes be really annoying, and bossy, and controlling, andー"
"Yeah, yeah I know all that! Get to the point!" Toph interrupted. Sokka glared at her briefly before sighing again.
"Even though she can be all of those things, I really depend on her. We really depend on her," Sokka admitted.
"Yeah, Sugar Queen definitely has her moments," Toph admitted. "But so what?"
"So I don't want to lose her, okay!" the truth finally clawed its way out of the warrior's throat. "Zuko...even though he's a firebender...he loves her—and they've already started disappearing together...," Sokka continued softly, gesturing towards the empty camp. "Since our mom died, Katara has taken on so much responsibility. Sometimes...I'm not even sure I can remember what our mom looked like. And once our Dad left...all the kids in the village were so young. It was me and her, it's always been me and her."
Sokka sat down heavily next to the fire as they finally reached the camp. He could feel Toph's unseeing eyes on him, the exertions of the day were finally catching up with him, and he felt weighed down by all the questions springing up without answers. The balance of their world was at stake, and that responsibility fell fully upon the groups shoulders. Most days, Sokka was able to accept that by making lots of bad jokes and eating copious amounts of food. But today, the full weight of the war had finally weighed him down. He had accomplished amazing swordsmanship after only a few days of training, and not because he was a prodigyーbut because his very life was at stake. Keeping track of the plan for the team was a blessing and a curse, as he was kept hyper-aware of how fast the eclipse was drawing near.
And then there was after the eclipse, after the war was hopefully over. Sokka had already lost so much; Suki's status unclear, a childhood with his Father, Yue's sacrifice, his own Mother, and he was scared of the future where he would lose his sister to the Fire Nation too.
"Well," Toph began, "I know I've never been to the South Pole, but that all sounds exhausting. She's always thinking about everyone else's happiness, it might be nice for her to care about her own."
The silence of the forest seemed deafening in the wake of Toph's observation, and Sokka hung his head. "I know, I know. I know I'm just being selfishー"
"You are," Toph agreed easily, "but I understand." With that said, she stood and practically skipped over to Aang, who greeted her with a disgustingly wide grin. The pair quickly started to whisper and laugh to themselves, and Sokka looked away in mild disgust.
He knew Toph was right, he knew he needed to let Katara have her own life, separate from his own. They both had had such a hard childhood with so much responsibility thrust upon them, but he knew Katara had it particularly rough being a girl in their sexist society. He also knew that these questions were silly ones to ask now when everything was so uncertain and they could literally die any day, so he took a deep, cleansing breath and put those thoughts out of his head. As per usual in his moments of despair, advice from his father floated to the top of his mind.
When the goal seems impossible, break it into smaller tasks.
Today he had completed his first taskーlearning a skill so he could defend himself and be an asset to the group. There was of course the much larger task of the invasion and the overwhelmingly large Fire Nation army…but he had made a super-cool space swordーwhich was definitely something to celebrate! Today should be a happy day, he decided— so it would need to include food. No celebration at home is complete without food, he reasoned.
The Water Tribe boy stood to search for his sister so she could at least help him make the meal—he was awful at cooking, but he also knew better than to interrupt his sister and her boyfriend just to request she cook him a meal. He looked to his two companions to get some more information about the direction Zuko and Katara might have headed in, but they were too busy whispering secretly to each other to pay any attention to him.
Great, now I'm a fifth wheel, Sokka griped to himself. He struggled to keep hold of the last dregs of his good mood as a wave of loneliness washed over him. It didn't help that he was still wracked with guilt over Suki's capture as well. Would she be with us now? He wondered.
Sokka forcibly shook off his morose thoughtsーthe only way to help Suki, and his family, and everyone else he was worried about now was winning the war, and the only way he would be able to do that was to stay focused and positive. He needed to take things one step at a time.
First step: find Katara...and Zuko, I guess.
With no clue which direction to go in but confident the couple wouldn't have gone too far, Sokka headed off into the trees. The pair had been suspiciously quiet recently regarding what they were working on with their bond, but Sokka knew vaguely that they were practicing meditating. The Warrior could admit he wasn't exactly the most spiritual guy around, but getting in touch with nature would surely help with weird, spirit meditation stuff, right?
As Sokka continued further into the forest, he began to smell the unmistakable scent of smoke. He frowned with confusion for a moment, until he heard a strange sound. It started out as a small sizzle, but quickly grew into a roar. Sokka hurried around the next corner of the path worriedlyーalmost running into a literal wall of flames.
The Water Tribe boy was forcibly reminded of their first night in Shu Jing. Is this place just super susceptible to freaky space fires? Sokka wondered absently as he tried to figure out a solution. The fire was growing rapidly—too rapidly for him to do anything to manually stop it without a bender's help.
Of course the two benders that would be most useful are the ones I'm trying to find, Sokka grumbled to himself as he turned tail to begin running back to camp, yelling ahead to let Toph know he was coming.
"Guys!" he panted as he burst into their clearing. "There's another—"
"Fire. We know, Snoozles. I'm pretty sure the whole town knows because of your yelling," Toph interrupted dryly. She stood, pulling Aang up next to her. "Where's Sugar Queen and Sparky?"
"Not here, clearly!" Sokka erupted in frustration. Toph looked ready to snap in response, but then she frowned deeply. She slowly knelt, placing one, small hand on the ground.
"Guys," she began. "You're gonna think I'm crazy...but it sounds like there's a metal man coming."
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Katara...struggled awake.
There was no other description for this experience as she struggled to focus her foggy brain on her current surroundings. Where am I? Where's Zuko?!
She slowly raised her head from where it was pillowed on the lush, Fire Nation grass, blinking her eyes hard to focus her vision. As she started to look around, a foggy alarm rang in her head at the smell...and heat around her,
It was almost warm enough to ward off Katara's suddenly violent shivering. She shook her head violently as she finally sat up fully, wrapping her arms tightly around herself despite the unnatural heat in the air. Focus, she said to herself. She slowly rose to her knees, sniffing the air again then immediately coughing. Definitely smoke.
Through the haze collecting in the air, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Every fiber in her being jerked toward the now identified thing. Zuko, Katara thought, painfully struggling forward against a weakness she had never felt before. She started to half-crawl toward the Fire Prince when he suddenly sat bolt upright with a gasp.
Though he wasn't looking at her, Katara could tell by the look of concentration on his face that he was trying to communicate through their bond. His brow quickly furrowed with frustration as he called out to her hoarsely. "Katara!"
"Zuko!" She responded with a gasping breath as she continued her slow progress towards him. "I'm here!"
The Firebender's head snapped in her direction as he immediately attempted to stand on wobbly legs. He managed to find his balance leaning against a tree trunk, and he stumbled slowly from trunk to trunk towards her.
Like a man lost in the desert to water, he nearly fell on her in relief. She in turn wrapped her arms around him with as much strength as she could muster. I can't get close enough, she thought her frustration to Zuko as she tried to bury her head in his chest. The prince's brow furrowed as he examined her face.
"I can't hear you," he said in disbelief. He gripped her tighter, voice slightly edged with panic. "What happened in there? What did she do to us?!"
Katara was unable to answer as a similar panic overwhelmed her. Despite the fact that they were sitting in a burning forest, the heat slowly closing in all around them, she could think about nothing other than Zuko. She felt so...incomplete.
"I can't get close enough," she repeated, out loud this time. Her quiet admission seemed to reign his emotions in. All at once, he stilled, gripping her tighter still.
"There are a lot of old Fire Nation love stories, of men and women who wanted to get married, but didn't have the money for a fancy ceremony. So they would…"
"...tie their wrists together, in a symbolically tying them together forever," Katara finished. Zuko stared at her in surprise.
"The Southern Water Tribe has love stories too, you know," she joked, but the joke fell flat as she realized what Zuko was saying.
"Are you saying you think Yue married us in a dream?!" Katara exclaimed, exhaustion and shivers quickly overcome by sheer adrenaline, her heart pounding in her chest. Her gut instinct said no, that couldn't be true. After all, it was just a dream. They had no proof of any of those things, the endless fall, the ceremony in the moonlit blue pool…all of it could have just happened in their heads.
And yet, what exactly had they been attempting to do jointly meditating anyway? Was this the piece we were missing?
"She said it was too soon...or something like that." Katara frowned. "But she had no choice."
"No choice but to marry us?!" Zuko exclaimed incredulously. She shrugged helplessly in response.
"It's a choice she had us make. A commitment," Katara reasoned. It cannot be undone, Yue had warned.
There were so many questions she wanted to ask Zuko, and the lack of mental link between them felt like a cavernous, gaping hole. If they were now more linked than ever, even if only by some ancient ceremony, why had their mental bond suddenly retreated? She shivered violently again, burrowing further into Zuko's chest, searching for the usual intimacy she had with him when he was simply holding her hand.
And still, the forest burned around them.
Zuko shook his head, indicating with his hand for her to stand up. They both stood slowly with the aid of a tree, keeping their hands linked for some form of relief.
"We have to find the others, put out this fire, and get off this island," Zuko said determingly. Katara struggled to maintain the same focus as the Firebender even though her mind was still reeling.
With a silent decision, the two walked slowly—almost drunkenly—in the direction they knew their camp to be located. The oppressive heat and smoke only got worse as they headed down the path, the roar of the flames drowning out their now hurried footsteps.
They hadn't been moving long when they bumped into the rest of the Gaang.
"There you guys are! Didn't you see there was a fire?!" Sokka exclaimed upon seeing his sister and her boyfriend. Katara couldn't even summon the energy to respond scathingly to her brother, not to mention she was relieved to see him unharmed.
"Do we have any idea about the source of the fire?" Zuko asked forcefully, taking charge. Katara liked his thinking. The sooner we can figure this out, the sooner we can be alone.
"Well if we knew what the source was, don't you think we would've put it out already?" Toph asked sarcastically. Zuko grit his teeth as Aang interrupted the spat between his 'kind of' girlfriend and the Fire Prince.
"Guys, we don't have time for this! We need to—" The monk was rudely interrupted by a plaintive whistling that slowly grew louder and louder…until the cove of trees next to Aang exploded.
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In a convenient, well-placed spot on an exclusive, Ember Island beach, Azula nodded at the appropriate times in order to give the impression she was actually listening to Ty Lee's vapid chatter.
Even I would feel slightly tortured if I actually had to listen to all of that, she thought sardonically, the thought bringing the slightest quirk of a smile to her lips. The princess refocused on Ty Lee to see if her smile had been well-received, only to realize the girl wasn't even talking to her anymore. Instead, she brightly chattered to some well-meaning, clearly lovestruck boy, too foolish to realize he was being used as human shade and eye candy.
Azula felt oddly angered by the sight, and wondered at this strange heat she felt in her chest. It was...different from the cold iciness of her determination to rule, different from the slinky blackness of her scheming, this…
This was jealousy.
No sooner had the thought crossed her mind that Azula forcefully shut it down.
Imagine that. Me, Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, jealous of some circus freak.
She smiled in satisfaction even as Ty Lee added a second boy to her fan club, but a frown fought its way back onto her face when the fools actually began fighting over her "friend". In her usual fashion, Azula turned to Mai so they could commisermatedly roll their eyes at Ty Lee's antics, a ritual Azual often participated in in order to lull Mai into thinking she viewed her as better then Ty Lee somehow. Competition is always healthy among the ranks.
However, she was uncomfortably taken by surprise again when she found Mai wasn't paying attention to her either. Instead, the knife thrower had also found some peasant boy to pay attention to her. As Azula watched, color appeared on the normally unfrazzled girl's cheeks.
"...and it's not just your looks that are amazing! It's your mind!" the guy delivered with a charming smile. Azula rolled her eyes inwardly as Mai looked down demurely.
I'm not jealous, they're jealous! The Princess chanted to herself as she crossed her arms and turned away from the sickly scene. Royalty attracts only the best, so it's no surprise no one on this plebeian beach would be able to come over to me.
As Azula fumed darkly, the annoying voice of Mai's suitor cut through.
"Hey," he said while flipping his bangs out of his eye, "We're having a party tonight. Me and Ruon-Jian over there." He pointed to his friend, one of Ty Lee's suitors.
Ruon-Jian started to move from his position at the acrobat's feet when his competition jeered at him. He stuck his chest out in return and stayed in position, waving to his friend and Mai instead.
"Yeah, me and Chan have been planning this for a week! It's gonna be the sickest party in town," he tossed his bangs from in front of his eyes again to kneel in front of Ty Lee. "I'd be honored if you'd be my date." He smiled winningly at her as she blinked her eyes flirtatiously.
"Wait a second, I wanted to ask her!" The other suitor protested.
"Well you're not invited!" Ruon-Jian snapped back. Their argument quickly devolved into a small scrabble as Ty Lee delicately picked her way across the fighting boys to sit with her friends.
"Boys," she said, rolling her eyes at the other girls. "They sure can act like animals," she giggled.
Azula didn't answer as she sat and silently fumed. Yes, she'd known men who acted like animals. But that was over war, never over her.
Her romantic life wasn't something the Princess often allowed herself time to think about. After all, it was a full time job plotting to overthrow your own father and take over the 4 nations. But, despite her valiant efforts to the contrary, her mind had not stopped trying to think more about the reaction she had drawn on Ember Island beach.
Despite her resolution not to let boys distract her on the quest to take over the world, Azula's observant brain could not help but notice the way the boys flocked to Ty Lee and Mai while they almost...cowered away from her.
Azula knew it wasn't her looks. She was the model, Fire Nation beauty, and she kept careful track of what she ate to maintain her image that way. She was an example to the Fire Nation people一the women, especially. She was the ideal.
And yet, even if in her cutest bikini that she had harshly ordered her servants to set out that morning. With her pearly white skin she hadn't allowed to be marred by the sun's rays. Even with her miniature Fire Nation crown, nestled in her perfectly dark and coiffed hair…
Even with all of those things, the boys on the beach avoided her like the plague.
I don't need them, Azula assured herself, even as the tips of her ears burned with jealousy as Mai and Ty Lee cooed over their respective beaus.
No, she didn't need boys, Azula confirmed to herself. And yet…
Of all the things I've achieved, this should be the easiest. The Princess nodded slowly to herself, treating this as just yet another goal she needed to overcome, an obstacle with code to be cracked一she only had to code the human male. Not hard at all, she nodded approvingly.
With this in mind, she smiled waspishly at Ty Lee; she did seem to have a few things figured out, and Azula reasoned she definitely wouldn't mind helping out her friend.
As the Firebender turned back to the conversation, Mai and Chan snuck off, and the fight between Ty Lee's two suitors came to a head as the battered and bruised boys stood in front of her angrily.
"Well, are you coming to the party with me or not?!" Ruon-Jian demanded angrily. The other boy pushed him out of the way.
"Ugh, don't go to his lame party! We can go to a real restaurant, then afterwards I can buy you gifts with my parent's money!" The boy suggested, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Uhh…" Ty Lee stuttered for a second, then gave up and discreetly chi blocked each boy before moving away out of their field of view. She sat next to Azula with a huff.
"Those boys," she said in disbelief, "I guess they like me too much!" Here Azula put her plan into action.
"Oh Ty Lee, you know why they like you," Azula said silkily. When Ty Lee shook her head in the negative, she playfully rolled her eyes.
"Well of course it's because you make it too easy for them! You're not challenging. It's not like they actually care about who you are," Azula said flippantly. Ty Lee's face crumbled as she began to sniffle and cry. Too easy.
"Oh calm down, calm down," Azula said, gripping the other girl's arm lightly. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just...weird how they act with you when they act so scared of me," the princess admitted in a fake sincere tone. This statement was uncomfortably close to the truth for her. She endeavoured to change that.
"I mean, you are perfect in every way," Ty Lee reasoned, wiping her eyes. "Maybe they're intimidated?"
"Intimidated?" Azula repeated, examining her cherry red nails. "Why would they ever feel like that?"
Ty Lee giggled. "Look, boys like to feel important, you know what I mean? Just look at them, smile a lot, and laugh at everything they say, even if it's not funny." She smiled widely at Azula as the Princess looked off in the distance, managing a shrug in return.
BREAK
Look at them, smile a lot, and laugh at everything they say, Azula repeated to herself as the trio of girls walked the short distance to Chan's parent's house on the island. Being upper-society members, the house lay only a short distance from the royal beach house the girls were staying in.
When they finally arrived at the bottom of the stone steps leading to the porch, Ty Lee excitedly skipped by them to knock lightly and rapidly on the door. It was almost immediately wrenched open, an excited Ruon-Jian whisking Ty Lee through the doorway and into his arms.
That looks...nice, some distant part of Azula's brain thought abstractly. She squashed it ruthlessly.
Distractions, boys are nothing but distractions, she assured herself. She should just forget Ty Lee's advice completely. The Crown Princess shouldn't be associating with such plebeian boys anyway. When she ascended to the throne, she would have her pick of all the worthy suitors in the nation.
"...You're early," Chan was saying to Mai. She ignored him in favor of examining the wall decor. Azula managed a strained smile in Chan's direction.
"You said you were planning on partying from dusk till dawn," she repeated his earlier boast on the beach back to him. "Being the perfect party guests includes punctuality. It's dusk, so we are here." She smiled at him, thinking to flutter her lashes at him as she had seen Ty Lee do many times before. He didn't swoon as expected, however, as he merely looked at them in confusion.
"Umm...okay," he shook his head. "Listen, my Dad's an admiral and he doesn't know I'm having this party. So don't mess anything up, okay?"
On the inside, Azula seethed. How dare he? He should be grateful to have a member of the Fire Nation royal family in his wretched hut.
On the outside, the princess employed all of her strategies to keep her anger off her face. Laugh, even if it's not funny, she thought. She gave her best impersonation of Ty Lee's vapid giggle.
"Oh Chan," she said lightly, "you're funny, but you can trust us." She gave him a winning smile. He smiled hesitantly in return, offering his arm.
"Can I give you a t─?" He began, but was cut off as Ruon-Jian finally stopped hovering over Ty Lee and came to pull his friend away. Chan waved as the two ran off to finish the last of decorations.
"This is boring," Mai deadpanned from where she had quietly appeared beside Azula. The princess concealed any hint of surprise, though she hadn't heard the taller girl coming.
She chided herself. She couldn't allow herself to keep being distracted like this. Self control wasn't something the Firebender usually struggled with, having mastered her body and emotions better than most adults.
Maybe I just need to master this then? Azula pondered. This seemed plausible. Once the boys were falling over her, just as Ty Lee had said they would, Azula would have mastered the art of men. And then, she would simply stop.
For the rest of the night, Azula put this plan into action. She made an effort to charm every boy she talked to, and though they weren't necessarily fighting over her, they were at least not cringing, which was a vast improvement.
At last, Azula decided she was ready for the original obstacle, Chan. The admiral's son was absconded in the corner with a girl vaguely resembling a rat, and the Firebender reasoned he would much rather talk to her than the rat-girl.
Poised, with confidence that could only be afforded to a member of the royal family, Azula strode up to the couple. She tapped Chan on the shoulder, smiling passively at the rat-girl as she glared at her.
"Oh, hey," Chan said as he spun around and realized who had tapped him. Azula frowned.
"I'm ready for my tour," she said helpfully, but with a bit of edge. The admiral's son somewhat reluctantly handed his glass to the other girl and offered the Princess his arm, leading her up a set of stairs. They passed through several red draped corridors, Chan boasting about his sports achievements at school and his Dad's accomplishments in the military. Azula was surprised as she watched him slowly loosen up and begin to look at her in a different light when she complimented him on a prize or laughed in just the right place.
Finally, the couple reached a stone archway leading to a balcony. Stars twinkled softly in the perfectly cloudless sky, the silhouettes of the surrounding vacation houses dotting the view in the distance.
"Anyway," Chan scratched the back of his head, finally seeming to realize he'd been talking a lot about himself, "Is this your first time on Ember Island?"
Azula smiled. "No, I used to come here years ago."
"Yeah, it's a great place, if you like sand," Chan quipped. Azula laughed lightly, looking up at the other boy from under her lashes. He blushed, "Yeah, it's like: Welcome to Sandy Land!"
The Princess laughed harder along with him, surprising herself with the genuineness of the feeling. As their tour of the house had continued, Azula found herself relaxing more in the teenager's presence. Now, on the moonlit balcony, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore was the only thing that would break the silence. She was forgetting all about her plan to perfect the art of men. Azula found her breath caught in her throat as the tall boy stood directly in front of her, wrapped his arm around her waist, and drew her near.
She shuddered at the unexpected side effect of his nearness; his warm breath on her cheek. He leaned in. She closed her eyes, her whole body tingling, stomach tight with butterflies when their lips connected. In that moment, Azula found herself wondering why her life up till now had been absent of moments like this.
Why was she living in frigid coldness when the world contained such warmth?
She pulled back abruptly from Chan's lips, putting her hands flat against his chest and pushing him away.
"Hey, what gives?!" He asked frustratedly. The Princess forcibly controlled her breathing, pushing all thoughts of his plump, soft lips from her head. Focus on the prize.
"I'm sorry, it's just so exciting," she smiled slowly. "Together, you and I will be the strongest couple in the entire world!" Azula surprised herself with the depth of her excitement一she had never considered having someone rule by her side. "We will dominate the Earth!" She declared, a blue fireball sparking in her hands with her excitement.
She was so distracted that she failed to notice Chan's less than lukewarm reaction to her declaration. In fact, he actually seemed somewhat scared?
"Uh...I-I have to, uh. I have to go," Chan stuttered as he slowly, then quickly backed out of the room.
He didn't look back.
Azula stood there in shock for a second before the rage hit her. The hot anger welled up inside her, her hands forming one of her hottest fireballs and sending it through the nearest wall. Luckily there was no one in the room next door to witness her tantrum.
How many times must I learn this lesson? Azula chided herself now that she had calmed. Her vision no longer tinted red, the Princess found it easy to clearly where she had gone wrong.
How many times will I have to learn: I can't trust anyone. She scoffed at herself. Was I being serious asking him to share power with me?!
There would be no power to share if she didn't stay focused. Her mother had taught her this lesson long ago.
The ones you love the most always leave, and they never tell you why. You never know what you've done.
But no more. Azula was smarter than this, she was smarter than them all. She would not allow herself to be betrayed by promises of love anymore.
From now on there is only power, or there is nothing at all.
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Drip drip. Drip drip.
In the early evening hours in a fire nation prison cell, the former venerated General Iroh's eyelids twitched.
The Capitol prison tower was hardly known for its beautiful appointments, but Iroh could admit even his upbeat spirit had taken quite the beating in this wretched cell.
Nevertheless, he needed to survive. He needed to see his nephew, to make sure he had all the necessary information to help save the world. That goal and that goal alone kept the General sane as he endeavored to make the most of his prison stay.
He had spent his first few weeks feigning insanity, becoming a drooling animal at the sight of prison gruel. Of course, believing the General to be insane kept the prison staff very lax around him, allowing him to slowly understand the layout of the prison, the schedules; all the details he would need to plan his escape.
At nights, he put his old body to task. He made use of all the broken features of the room, turning it into his own personal gym. Iroh was determined to be in his best shape to be the most useful to the Avatar when the time came.
There were some nights, only here or there, where he didn't exercise at all. Instead, he had tea with his niece.
These were far from what one would consider to be 'enjoyable occasions'. And of course, she never cared for the fine art of tea, Iroh frowned. Mostly, the General sipped his tea quietly in the corner, indulging in the hot drink, while Azula quietly observed. Sometimes, she asked questions, cold, golden eyes analyzing him for information.
It worried Iroh that he couldn't figure out her plan, especially because that could simply mean that whatever plan she had concocted was just too evil for him to consider.
The old Firebender sighed, slowly folding his legs into the butterfly position. The thing to do now was meditate. He would need all the strength and clarity he could get. He needed to get a message to his nephew, but he only knew he was with the Avatar. To find their location, he would have to get it from the only person who surely knew it.
Azula.
She would want Zuko dead, that much he was sure of. It would have to be in a way not connected to her, but she wouldn't want anyone around who could be a legitimate threat to her claim to the throne. His niece would have had her eyes on him, no doubt using an assassin loyal to the royal family. She would have at least given the assassin a starting point, and that would be enough for his smuggled messenger hawk.
Of course, Azula would never speak this information out loud, no matter what tactics Iroh employed on his niece. He would have to go about this carefully, think hard on the most likely places he would be and probe during the conversation.
The General sighed loudly. Meditate indeed.
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Author's Note: Hey all, sorry for the long absence. Real life took over, I had to get a small surgery, work, etc. etc. I'm back now, hopefully that's all that matters. I was hit by a bunch of sudden bursts of inspiration that finally allowed me to finish this chapter. Hopefully you like the direction the story is going in.