gemsofformenos: Thanks. I'm gonna be trying to bridge the two plot lines lol. It's a little tricky finding a balance between the romantic moments and the plot moments. "For a long time it was more about what has happen to Azula and how she ended up with loosing her blue fire and her memory" Yeah lol, I felt like that took priority. But I think that I've come to a place where I was able to flourish their relationship a bit more. Now that Azula has some answers she can kind of focus on other things, at least for a bit. "He starts to know her and when her wuotes have to be taken serious and when not. And he notice that he starts to fear this Azula he got close with might be gone in case she should get back her memory." Yeah, this is scary for him because he knows what their relationship used to be like and he the risk of her memories coming back is daunting for him. "And I'm curious how the nect morning will be when he has to tell her about his own experience of killing a person." Hopefully well ;) Thanks so much and you're welcome! I'll try to PM you tomorrow if I get a chance lol. I've been meaning to!

The air is rich with the scent of fire lily and ocean spray. Azula sits herself upon a large rock and kicks her feet at the water. Zuko should be there within the hour and she wants to get things moving, they have been idle for too long for her liking.

"Still want to hear that story?" Sokka asks as he leans himself against the rock.

She nods, "I wanted to hear it last night."

Last night…

It had been pleasant, all things considered. He has has arms folded across his chest. Memories between nightmares and the next morning are always rather fuzzy and distant, but she vividly remembers those arms folding around her.

She feels like she ought to be flustered or weary but she isn't. Not at all, in fact.

She steals a glance up at him, studying his face as she awaits his recant. He has a pleasant enough face, she supposes. He is a little scruffy, but charmingly so. She supposes that keeping him up all night with her night terrors doesn't exactly help him keep the scraggles out of his hair and the tiredness out of his eyes.

He looks doubly exhausted now.

"You don't have to share it if…"

"No." He replies. "I want to. I just don't know how to start."

"The same way you did last time?"

He shakes his head.

"You told me that my brother sent him to kill the Avatar?" She time she takes care not to make a joke of it.

He nods, "yeah, your brother was trying to capture the Avatar and...that's a very long story. The point is, the guy, he was after us and he was terrifying."

"Why?"

"He could explode things with his mind!"

"Imagine if I could do that." She nudges him. "I could cause a whole new world of terror." She hopes that her joke is in better taste this time. It must be, because he gives the slightest hint of a smile.

"Well, this guy was trying to kill all of us and so I threw my boomerang…"

"Your...boomerang?"

"Oh yeah! I never showed you boomerang! I mean I have...I hit you with boomerang once, but you don't remember that." He reaches behind him and comes back with a small boomerang. "Its really useful!"

Azula reaches out to touch it but he yanks it away. 'Sorry!" He says quickly. "I just don't let anyone touch boomerang."

Azula rolls her eyes, but even as she does so he holds it out to her. "Okay, you can touch it, but that's it, no holding, just touching." She rolls her eyes once more and holds her hand atop its metal surface. "Glorious isn't it."

"It's nice." She quirks a brow, somehow he gets the message; "oh, right, the story!" He says.

It almost unsettles her that he has so quickly picked up her non-verbal cue.

"So that guy, I just called him Sparky Sparky Boom Man, he had this tattoo of an eye on his forehead. And as he was...powering it up for one of his explosions, I threw my boomerang at him. It hit him on that third eye. He still tried to do his sparky boom thing and...uh...it didn't work out."

"In other words, it's not your fault, he did it to himself." Azula shrugs.

"But I still feel like it is my fault. If I hadn't thrown my boomerang he would…"

"Have killed your friends and then you'd blame yourself for that." She pauses. "Wouldn't that have been much harder to live with?"

"And that's what I was saying the other day when I said that sometimes I think that you're the lucky one."

She can't help but to agree, once again she almost feels blessed to have had her mind cleansed. She isn't particularly sure exactly what she had seen during the war, what she had done, but she finds herself thinking that she doesn't want to know.

"You did what you had to do, Sokka." She says."You're a man who knows what needs to be done and you know when to stop holding back."

"Maybe." He frowns. "But murder is still murder...we were just kids…"

"You did that so your little sister wouldn't have to." She tries.

He gives an even subtler smile than the one before. "I'd rather be the one to think about this than let her.

Azula nods.

"But I still think about it a lot. He was a human being and now he's...he's nothing at all. And it's my fault."

Azula sighs more to herself as she thinks it over. "That man might be dead because of you, but there are at least four others who are alive because of you." She gives him a firm pat on the chest and lets herself slide off of the rock. "I think that, that holds a little more value." She gives him a small peck on the cheek.

.oOo.

Sokka flushes, his eyes rather wide. He opens his mouth to sputter a response

"Look, Zuzu's here." She points to the ship pulling into the dock.

"Ye-yeah, we should probably head over there then."

He gives a small jolt when she grabs his hand and hustles him towards the pier as though nothing has happened at all. His head spins and he isn't sure if she is even aware of what she has just done; she never has been particularly good with social implications.

Holding her had been one thing, but a kiss, however innocent, is another. He isn't even sure how innocent it had he can't say that he hadn't enjoyed the surprise. For certain, he can know that Zuko shouldn't hear about it.

His ship hasn't quite docked yet by the time they arrive.

"Thank you for sharing your story with me."

"Why are you thanking me?"

She shrugs. "As far as I know, you're the only person who has ever...trusted me? To talk about something like that.

"Yeah, anytime." He replies. He just hopes that he can trust her to talk with him about that kiss.