Book II: Earth

Chapter 11: The Lonely Hunter

Fire Nation Colonies - Ten Years After Sozin's Comet

The outcome of confrontation in the forest had left Azula feeling unsettled.

Grudgingly, she had had to admit that the combined forces of the Avatar, her brother and his waterbender, and that earthbender they had picked up somewhere were a formidable match, even for her. Once Zuko had successfully redirected the lightning back at her, she had really felt like the rug had been pulled out from under her feet. Lightning was supposed to be her trump card, the one thing that, if all else failed, would always prove she was the superior bender. Something she would always have that he never would. And now she couldn't even rely on that?

This called for some reassessment, a change of tactics. Her retreat from the smouldering forest to the colonies was a strategic one.

For one thing, she needed better transportation. The Avatar had a flying bison, and if Azula was going to catch him, she needed something that could match that speed. The tank had been too slow, and the lizard mount unreliable. Her full airship required a crew, and that would mean relying on the competency of others, which never worked out for her. She wasn't going to give anyone else the chance to undermine her mission this time. She would hunt alone.

A smaller war balloon, the kind usually used as scout ships, she could easily manage herself, and there were plenty of those at her disposal at the naval base located on the small bay north of the Omashu mountains, which was now the southernmost outpost in Fire Empire territory. Temporarily, she reminded herself. New Ozai had fallen before, and been reclaimed. It would be reclaimed again. And this time, she would be the one to do it, the one to claim the glory for herself, with no jumped-up admirals seeking to feed their own ambition. But first things first. The Avatar.

The same naval base she now headed to, being the closest outpost to the so-called free Earth Kingdom, was also naturally where Azula had sent her airship when she had struck out on her own, and thus where the one interesting prisoner she had found during her brief occupation of Gaoling had ended up. Azula figured while she was there, she might as well stop in to visit her. She had little else to do while she waited for the scout balloon she had ordered to be stocked and prepared for flight, after all.

Azula had questioned Basma back in Gaoling, of course, and she hadn't expected difficulty in getting her to talk. She had nevertheless been surprised to discover the old woman could hardly be stopped from talking. But while what Basma had to say about Ursa and the circumstances of her disappearance was all very fascinating family gossip - quite the revelation, in fact - it wouldn't do much to help Azula locate her present quarry. At the very least, between the rambling apologies and tearful explanations, she had gotten confirmation that her brother had in fact been in Gaoling, which presumably meant the Avatar had been with him, too. But what destination they might have had upon leaving, Basma had been unable to say. Not that it mattered, since Azula had found them anyway.

And then you lost them again.

True, they had escaped, but this was only a temporary setback, Azula reminded herself as she stepped into the dark cell where Basma was being kept. She would be back on the hunt in a matter of hours, as soon as the men at this spirits-forsaken military outpost had her transport ready to go. She would find them again, soon enough, and this time she would be prepared. For the moment, she could spare the time to seek other answers.

"Well, we meet again," Azula said casually, igniting a blue flame in one hand to illuminate the dark cell.

Basma looked up at her wearily. The old woman's white hair hung loose, and her Earth Kingdom garb had been traded for drab red prison fatigues. She looked rather gaunt, and the blue-white light of Azula's fire did little to improve her appearance. "Princess," she addressed Azula with sincere respect. "I'm sorry, I…"

"You're behind the times," Azula cut her off coldly. "It's Fire Lord now." She hadn't been a mere princess in years.

"Fire Lord," Basma quickly amended. "Your majesty, please…" She pressed her hands together in a gesture of supplication, head bowed. "I have always been loyal to your family. I only left the Fire Nation because I was forced to. I have never done anything...Please, let me go."

"You have never done anything," Azula repeated carefully, lowering the hand that held her fire so it was just a bit closer to the old woman. "Yes, I suppose that's true." Basma had never done anything, just as her mother had never done anything, nor had her father...no one ever had. They would all face the consequences, one way or another. "You have no idea where my mother is now," Azula went on, reiterating what Basma had insisted during their last little talk.

"None, your majesty," Basma said again. "Please believe me."

"Oh, I do," Azula replied with an almost indifferent affect. "But what about the others?"

"The others?" Basma asked in confusion. Her hands, still pressed together, were trembling.

"My mother had other servants who were sent away when she left," Azula clarified. All of them had been sent away, in fact, the entirety of Princess Ursa's personal staff. As a measure to forestall them spreading rumors among the court, it made perfect sense, though Azula had wondered if her father hadn't also held some resentment against the men and women who had served his mysteriously departed wife. Of course, he had never shared any such thoughts with her - just as he had never let her know about the little prize Ursa had taken with her. "Surely you must know what became of some of them."

Basma's eyes darted away, frightened. "I...I couldn't say, not for sure…" she spluttered.

"But you could say," Azula said with a triumphant grin, seizing on the old woman's hesitation. She took a step closer, then crouched down so she and Basma were on the same eye level. The old woman flinched away from her fire, as she should. "You're going to tell me everything you know about the others - every lead, no matter how thin - and leave the rest to me." In a softer, more sentimental tone, she added, "Our own reunion has brought back such fond memories, I would so like to see the others again, too."

Basma shuddered, but her resistance was feeble. Soon enough, she had told Azula everything she could - most of the other servants had gone to the colonies, a few had found work in the Earth Kingdom like she had, but Basma had eventually fallen out of touch with all of them. She could only give specifics for where a few of them had gone, and had no idea what had become of them since, but it would be enough to start with. Ignoring the old woman's further protestations of loyalty and pleas for freedom, Azula left her in the dark again.

Does it feel good to be the one leaving people behind now?

As she made her way towards the docking platform where the fully stocked war balloon would be waiting for her, Azula turned over the names and places Basma had given her, committed them to memory, and then promptly put them aside. An amusing diversion, the question of where her mother might be, and of course the mysterious other child whose existence her father had kept hidden from her all these years. But now she was back on her mission. She needed to focus.

Unfortunately, after taking to the skies and leaving the military base behind, Azula found that hard to do. She still had a lot of ground to cover before she reached a reasonable area where the Avatar might have fled, and that left her with time to herself, sitting alone in the metal gondola of the scout balloon, with nothing to do but think.

Mental images of the long-lost sibling of whom she had so recently learned kept arising unbidden. For whatever reason, she assumed it was a boy - he would be in his teens now, and it was so easy for her to picture another brother, looking much like Zuko had just before his banishment. He and Mother made quite the pair, the devoted son and the fawning parent, their affection for each other blatant and sickening. Ursa looked unchanged in her imagination, though. It was hard for her to picture her mother any older than when she had left them.

When she had abandoned them, rather. Ursa's crimes had been committed for Zuko's sake - that much Azula had always known - and now she knew her disappearance had been for the sake of the other child as well. Ursa would go to great lengths, it seemed, to protect some of her children.

That's what moms are like, if you mess with their babies...

But Mother wasn't around to protect Zuko anymore. And when Azula found her brother, she would prove what a mistake it had been for Ursa to overlook her, if she had wanted to keep him safe. Maybe after that, she would even locate the other one as well, and make her mother's failure complete.

But first, the Avatar. Azula got to her feet and checked her position. She was crossing over the mountains, back into so-called free Earth Kingdom territory. The hunt was on.

Fire Nation Capital - Six Years Earlier

In the early hours before the dawn, Azula stole away from Admiral Zhao's residence the same way she had snuck in - like a common harlot. Things had certainly taken an unexpected turn that night.

Azula was no naïve young girl. She had known for some time that Zhao wanted her, had noticed him staring on more than one occasion, sometimes quite brazenly. It had caught her off guard, the first time, a feeling she never liked. But as soon as Zhao had realized she had noticed, he had looked away in shame, and that she did enjoy. Furthermore, the admiral had not let his temporary embarrassment check his lust subsequently, and she found she rather liked that as well.

Just yesterday he had been ogling her in the middle of a war council, right under her father's nose - and somehow she'd been the only one to notice. All those old men, ministers and generals and the Phoenix King himself, drawing up grand plans for military victory and glory, and there was the admiral who was more successful than all of them even with his defeat at the North Pole, distracted with thoughts of conquests of a much more vulgar sort - though at least Zhao could not be said to lack his characteristic ambition in that area. It was all so absurd, so base, and so amusing.

Azula also knew far more than anyone gave her credit for about what went on in the royal court. She knew which ministers were loyal to their own wives, and which ones were more fond of other men's, and who preferred the company of women who could provide professional services. Zhao was one of those in the last category. He was too focused on his career to have time for a wife or a lover, just as her mother had surmised of him all those years ago. But he was a man nonetheless, and no man's appetites could be fully sated by war alone.

No man, perhaps, except for her father, who as far as Azula could tell lived as chastely as a monk. But of course, the Phoenix King could only be a man of exceptional self-discipline, unencumbered by such lower passions.

At any rate, Zhao's household had an established protocol for delivering young women to the admiral's bedroom with discretion. And how fun Azula had thought it would be, what a delightfully wicked way to tease her favorite admiral, if on the eve of his departure for his latest campaign, she intercepted the whore, persuaded her to seek her fortune elsewhere, and then took her place.

It had been laughably easy. Of course she'd only done it to see what Zhao's reaction would be, and the look on his face when he drew back the curtain to find her in his bed had been well worth the little joke - a priceless mix of anger and arousal, and just enough fear to make things interesting. He had been expecting pliant and disposable flesh, and instead he'd found her. Azula knew herself well enough to realize that she was far more terrifying in the flesh than any fantasy could conjure.

She had kissed him for the same reason she had snuck into his bed in the first place, just to see what he would do. And then one thing had followed another, always the same way, just to see what he would do. The answer had turned out to be far more than she had anticipated - and more than he would have dreamed either, she was sure. It was a moment of discovery for both of them, in that regard. But there was nothing he had done that she had not allowed.

And then she fled. No, not fled, Azula insisted to herself as she ducked through one of the palace's many hidden passageways. This was not an admission of defeat, or regret. She had been the one to conquer him, in the end, as it could only ever be. This was merely...a strategic retreat, to give her time to assess where things now stood.

If it had been laughably easy to sneak into the admiral's residence, it was no more difficult for her to make it back to her own wing of the palace without notice. It was late, servants were asleep, and no one knew how to skulk around these ancient halls better than she did. There was no one waiting up for her when she returned to her own rooms, either. No one seemed to have missed her. She shut herself up in her bedroom, and for all anyone else in the palace would know, that was where she had been all night.

But as she stripped off her now rather rumpled court dress and ran a hand over her loose, disheveled hair, Azula knew she would not find it so easy to pretend that nothing had happened. She had done this thing, or let it be done, which amounted to the same in the end. There was no going back now. She tied her dressing gown tight around her waist and crawled into her large, empty bed.

Azula was not a fool. She had read the old diplomatic correspondence going back to her grandfather's reign. She knew offers had been made for her since she was a little girl, a princess only just close enough to the throne to secure the loyalty of some nobleman by marrying his son. But she wasn't a little girl or a princess anymore. She was eighteen years old, the same age her own mother had been when she married. She was also the Fire Lord. Her father had never spoken of it to her, but Azula knew dynastic concerns would require her to make a good match sooner or later.

This was decidedly not a good match. Zhao was useful to the crown, but beneath her station, hardly marriage material, and if a child were gotten of this sordid affair it would be only a royal bastard. There had been none of those since Sozin's reign, not acknowledged anyway. Hers would be the first. But the law was clear on this point - a bastard could not be the heir.

Laws, however, could be changed, Azula told herself as she watched the first grey light of dawn appear at her window. It was a bold new age that the Phoenix King had proclaimed, and what was the good of being Fire Lord if she couldn't do away with the backwards customs of the past? He would be a powerful bender, her child. He would be a worthy heir because he was hers and no other qualification would be needed. She would see to it. She was prepared to fight for him, if it came to that. She would make him great. Nothing would stop her.

She wondered what her father would say.

Si Wong Desert - Ten Years After Sozin's Comet

The scout balloon afforded Azula greater speed, if not stealth, but stealth had never been her only advantage. Without a trail to follow - she couldn't count on the bison shedding this time - she had to hop from town to town and interrogate the unwashed peasants, always leaving before any rebel forces could be mustered against her, but with enough burning wreckage in her wake that they would know she wasn't running scared. Rebels were simply beneath her concern right now. She was after bigger prey.

It seemed the Avatar hadn't actually stopped anywhere on the plains south of Omashu, and Azula flew right over the swamps beyond that, dismissing them as an unlikely place for anyone to seek refuge. When she reached the southern mountain range, she finally found a rice farmer who stammered out a confession that he had spotted the Avatar's bison flying due northeast. She burned his barn for good measure and set out in that direction.

It didn't even occur to her until she saw the first dunes that nothing lay that way but desert. There might be an oasis here and there, but in over a century of colonizing, the Fire Nation had left the Si Wong alone, and Azula knew it had to be with good reason. What was the Avatar playing at?

Perhaps this was Zuko's doing. Her brother might be foolishly leading the Avatar and his companions into a barren wasteland in hopes of evading her pursuit. Or maybe, another nagging thought suggested, maybe he knew something she didn't. Was Zuko running scared to their mother just like he had when they were children? Would she find Ursa and both of her beloved sons hidden away in some desert cave? Basma had spoken to him first, after all, and who knew what other family secrets their traitorous uncle might have passed on to him years ago.

"Unlikely," she said aloud, dismissing the fancy with a shake of her head. Uncle couldn't have known where Mother had gone. He had still been wallowing in his failure in Ba Sing Se when she left, and had never been around much at all when they were little. Not that that had stopped him, when he came back, from latching on to Zuko. Or more accurately, they had latched on to each other. It was pathetic, the way her brother had used their uncle's affection as a crutch, hiding behind him the same way he used to hide behind their mother. And Uncle Iroh had looked at Zuko like he was a replacement for Lu Ten.

He had only ever looked at Azula like there was something wrong with her, when he bothered to look at her at all.

She had overheard him say something about it to her father, once, in one of her last childish bouts of eavesdropping. He'd presented it as a concern for Zuko, of course - Azula was too fond of tormenting her brother. Her father had not been impressed with the accusation, saying Iroh would know all about that, wouldn't he? Whatever excuse or apology Iroh had tried to offer, Ozai had cut him off, and told him to leave Azula alone.

And so he had, not that he had needed much encouragement. He'd left her alone, just like mother had done.

Zuko may have been Uncle's little pet. Mother may have preferred her sons to her daughter. But Azula had always had Father's favor, and that was what really counted.

Is that why you're out here in the desert, hunting the Avatar just like Zuko?

Frustrated, she blew the hair out of her face - traveling by the small balloon was windy, and wreaked havoc on her neat topknot. No, her situation was not just like Zuko's, or Zhao's, or anyone else who had been given this task. She was actually going to find the Avatar, and see him either killed or captured. As always, what would set her apart from her brother was that he had failed, and she would succeed.

She scanned the burning sands below again, though they were as empty and unyielding as ever. No, her mother could not be here. There had to be some other reason the Avatar had come this way, something that was here in the desert that had escaped notice before now. Whatever it was, Azula would find it.

She had chosen to cover the southern reaches of the desert first, keeping the mountains always visible on the horizon. If there was anything here, any kind of settlement or shelter, this would be where it was more likely to be found. The northern desert was separated from the burned lands by only a thin strip of semi-arid steppe, and the interior of the Si Wong was dangerously far from any civilization, even of the inferior Earth Kingdom kind.

Another gust of dry wind, and loose hair flew in front of her eyes again. With a growl, she yanked the crown out of her topknot, allowing the whole thing to tumble down around her shoulders. Clenching the unwieldy gold ornament between her teeth, she wrestled all the dark locks back into as severe a bun as she could manage, then pinned the whole thing back in place with the crown.

You have such lovely hair.

Her vision at last unobstructed, at least for the time being, Azula leaned out eagerly over the railing, scanning the desert once more. This time, something finally caught her eye. It was a distant shape ahead of her, hard to make out but dark against the empty desert sky. And it was steadily rising, flying towards the southeast.

Azula knew very well that there were no other Fire Nation airships patrolling the desert, and nothing in the Earth Kingdom could fly like that. Only the Avatar's bison.

She adjusted the balloon's course.

Fire Nation Capital - Six Years Earlier

The next day Zhao was gone, of course, according to schedule. The Fire Lord never made an appearance at such a routine sendoff and she made no exception this time. It wouldn't do to give her admiral the impression that he held any sway over her.

Instead, Azula went through an ordinary day's routine. A short morning meditation was followed by firebending practice, then breakfast alone. Meetings with government ministers filled the next several hours, boring discussions of the affairs of state that the Phoenix King deemed beneath his concern and delegated to her. She finally saw her father at lunch.

She had a moment of panic as she sat down at the table, struck by the irrational fear that he would know, that he would be able to tell already what she had done, even though there could be no outward sign of it yet. But Ozai barely looked up from his plate - as he often did, he had started eating without her, a habit of impatience her mother used to chide him for - and of course Azula was too composed to let any of her anxiety really show.

"Have you made progress on the new conscription laws?" Ozai asked as Azula picked up her chopsticks. She frowned at the reminder of the particularly tedious meeting from that morning - the war minister wanted to increase the years of mandatory service from two to three, the interior minister wanted to lower the age of conscription from seventeen to sixteen, and the education minister wanted to expand conscription to include girls as well as boys.

"I don't see why we can't enact all the proposals," Azula replied, picking at the roast komodo chicken on her plate without much appetite. The laws should be hers to make as she wished, not for ministers to squabble over. She would have to have that kind of power, if she were really...

"Eventually, I will, of course," Ozai said. "But not all at once. The task I gave you was to determine which measure would be best received as a first step." There was just a hint of impatience in his tone, enough to let Azula know he wasn't interested in a discussion. He only wanted an answer.

"Expand the conscription to girls," Azula reported to him like the good little functionary he wanted her to be. More to herself than to her father, she added, "It's ridiculous that we haven't already."

Ozai nodded in agreement, and the rest of the meal passed with nothing else of consequence said. Ozai left the table first, as soon as his plate was cleared, leaving Azula to finish eating alone - something else that her mother never would have allowed. Her stomach all in knots, Azula abandoned her own barely-touched food not long after. Her mother would have been furious with both of them.

Her afternoon schedule was thankfully free of more meetings, instead given over to a trip to the royal spa with Ty Lee. But even as she sat back with her eyes closed and had her hair washed and combed, Azula found it hard to relax. It didn't help that there was a particularly stubborn knot in her hair, and the clumsy servant couldn't seem to work it out without yanking on her scalp.

"Are you okay, Azula?" Ty Lee asked, just as Azula was contemplating seizing the comb herself. "Your aura's all...yellow and squirmy."

"I'm fine," Azula snapped, opening her eyes. The comb hit that stubborn knot again, and she reached up and smacked the girl responsible with the back of her hand. "Get out of here," she ordered. The comb clattered into the basin, and the girl all but ran from the room, not even pausing to bow. Idiot. She would never set foot in the palace again.

"Are you sure?" Ty Lee persisted. Her own servant continued to gently massage a scented oil into her long brown locks. "I know being Fire Lord is stressful and all, but you're not usually this tense." The concern in her voice was evident, and Agni help her if she suggested yoga again… "Did something happen?" her friend asked instead.

Azula sat up, heedless of the water that ran in rivulets from her hair, thoroughly soaking her red silk robe. "I told you I'm fine, Ty Lee," she insisted irritably. "Stop nagging."

Ty Lee turned her head slightly, and gave Azula a searching look. Azula felt the knots in her stomach clench again. She'd never put much stock in her friend's talk of auras, or any of the other mumbo-jumbo she had picked up at the dopey little circus Azula had plucked her out of after her coronation, but if the other girl really could tell something was different…

But Ty Lee only shrugged, and let her eyes drift shut as the servant began working the oil gently into her scalp. "Okay, whatever you say, Azula," she said softly, giving in the way she always did. Azula wouldn't have had her around if she'd been capable of standing up for herself, after all.

She stood and left the spa in disgust, grabbing a towel for her hair on the way out. Ignorant fools, all of them, she thought as she sat down in front of her vanity, back in the privacy of her own room, and vigorously wrung her hair with the towel. Mother would have told her to be more gentle, of course, but mother had been the most foolish of them all…

Azula frowned at her reflection, and let the towel drop to the floor. No, that wasn't right. Mother had been many things, but not a fool. She had seen, after all, things about Azula that no one else had. If she were still here, perhaps she would have known. But of course, she was long gone, and never coming back. Far, far away from her monstrous child, she'd had the good sense to run. No, she was no fool at all.

Pulling open one of the vanity drawers, Azula dug out a wide toothed comb and set to work tidying the dark locks she had abused with the towel. The fools were the ones who stayed, all that she was left with, and their ignorance, their utter blindness to what was going on seemed today far less amusing than it had yesterday. What she had done as a joke suddenly wasn't anymore.

When her hair was suitably tamed, the hand gripping the comb came to rest on top of the vanity, and her other hand drifted down to rest over her stomach. Her reflection in the mirror blurred, though she couldn't imagine why. He would come, the inexorable child, in his own time, to bring the dark, hidden things to light. He would be no fool, for he would take after her, would see everything she was in himself. He would know, and he would be hers, and she would make the Fire Empire of the whole world bend in submission beneath his feet.

Azula clung to that vision, and it gave her strength.

But, as the weeks went on, it became apparent that this vision was not to be. She had conceived the child only in her mind, not in her womb. What a bitter joke it was after all, and she the fool in the end.

The realization came with a certain degree of relief, naturally, though not without a sense of disappointment as well. But she wasted no time dwelling on that, for she soon had more important things to think about. Child or no child, she would still make the world bend. Reports came in that the rebels in the Earth Kingdom were planning an assault on New Ozai, and Azula was determined to be there to stop them, personally.

Si Wong Desert - Ten Years After Sozin's Comet

The shape that Azula pursued through the skies was fast, but her scout balloon was faster. Soon, she had gained on her prey enough to see that it was indeed the Avatar's bison. She was surprised when it took no evasive maneuvers - surely the fools weren't stupid enough to think they could still outrun her, when she was growing closer by the minute? But soon after that she had gained enough to see through her scope that there was no one at the bison's reins, and the lone figure clinging to the saddle wore green.

Not stupid, then. Blind. Which in this case amounted to the same.

As soon as she was in range, Azula let loose a fireball at the bison. But even if the blind earthbender couldn't see where she was going, the animal had enough instinctive self-preservation to dodge out of the way. They were nearly at the foot of the mountains now, at the southeastern corner of the desert, and whether by that same animal instinct or because the earthbender sought to regain some advantage, the bison was heading to ground.

It could descend far more quickly than her balloon could - that was one advantage it had. But Azula was undaunted. Eyes fixed all the time on her prey, she pulled herself up onto the rim of the metal gondola, then leaped over the edge into empty air. With her firebending to propel her, she was able to control her fall and follow the creature down to the mountains.

She landed hard, catching herself in a roll, on a sort of sloped outcropping, skidding to a halt just at the edge of a perilous cliff. The earthbender was ready for her, and rocks flew at her immediately - and accurately. Not so blind on the ground, of course. But still not strong enough. Azula's blue fire immediately superheated and shattered the rocks, sending jagged shards of stone flying in all directions. The earthbender threw up a tall shield to protect herself from the shrapnel, while the bison behind her bellowed in alarm.

"You're good, earthbender," Azula conceded. "But I'm better." She threw two more fireballs at the wall of earth behind which her opponent still hid, then leaped into the air, using her firebending again to keep herself suspended - and invisible to the blind woman - long enough to vault over her shield. Then she brought a flaming spiral kick down on -

Empty ground. The earthbender was no longer there.

"Wanna bet?" came her opponent's voice from the other side of the wall - just before the wall crumbled and toppled down onto Azula.

She ducked her head just in time, catching the weight of the stones on her arms instead. It was bruising, even through her armor, and threatened to crush her, pushing down with more than just the force of gravity. But Azula was not one to be threatened. With a roar, fire poured forth from her hands and her mouth, blasting away the earth above her.

Azula broke free of her temporary prison - no cage could hold her, for she was the hunter, not the prey - and scanned the outcropping for her opponent. The earthbender had disappeared again, and the bison had taken back to the air - though it circled anxiously overhead rather than fleeing, telling Azula it had no rider. She shot a fireball at it anyway, with another angry roar, and the beast answered with further frightened bellows as it flew higher, but still not away.

"Who's blind now?" the earthbender taunted. Azula spun around towards the source of the voice, just in time to see her opponent sink back into the sloping earth as if it were a mere pool of water. Grinning, Azula pounded fireballs against the spot - now wholly solid. She would cook the little badgermole out of her hole, if that was how she wanted to play. Cook her up and let her stew in her own fat and then she wouldn't be so smug.

What is wrong with that girl…

The earth buckled under her feet, and Azula's grin disappeared as she struggled to catch herself from sliding over the edge of the cliff again, hands scraping for purchase in the dirt. Her opponent wasn't coming out, and seemed determined to throw her. Azula glanced up at the bison still circling overhead, and came to a decision.

Risking her balance, Azula let go of the ground, freeing her arms to move in opposite arcs, one, two, then again, and again, letting the charge build. When she finally released it, the lighting was enough to shatter the mountainside, reducing the outcropping to rubble that collapsed into the abyss below. Out of the corner of her eye, Azula saw a hint of green go down with it. But she paid it no mind as she caught her own fall with her firebending once again. The bison was her true prey, not the earthbender. It would either lead her to the Avatar, or the Avatar would come looking for it.

The beast was fleeing in earnest now, and Azula propelled herself after it. Ascending was harder work than descending, took more energy, and she had to land on a mountain peak to catch her breath after a moment. Not letting the bison out of her sight, she glanced around carefully. Her balloon must have drifted in the winds...yes, there it was, to the east. Another leap, another burst of firebending - this kind of quasi-flight was exhausting, but Azula had strength enough to use it to reclaim her vessel. A few more prodigious leaps was all it would take.

Then she would only need to follow the dumb beast, and victory would be hers. The Avatar would come for his pet one way or another, and then she would have him, have everything. The Avatar in chains, Zuko destroyed, Father's orders fulfilled, and all as it should be.

If you're telling stories again, young lady…

A final burst of firebending, and Azula grasped the edge of the balloon's gondola with both hands, letting out a grunt as her already bruised body smacked hard against the metal side. Ignoring the pain, she hauled herself up into the vessel. "Be quiet, Mother," she growled in reply to that nagging voice. "I'll deal with you later." Her hair was in disarray again, the crown hanging precariously loose, but the bison was still just visible to the south. She adjusted the balloon's course once more, pulled the crown from her hair, and then, caught up in the spirit of the hunt, she threw her head back and laughed as the wind whipped the loose, dark locks around her. In her hand, she clutched the crown so tightly that the points of the flame dug into her flesh, but she barely noticed.

...this is not funny.