Sokka warms his hands over the fireplace. "Ah, warmth."

Toph spreads out on the floor and sighs happily. "Solid ground."

"Let us never search for lotus bulbs again."

"Agreed."

They both turn as Aang walks in wearing a weak smile. "There you guys are. I thought you'd be helping grind the ingredients."

"You're not here to give us more responsibility are you?" asks Sokka, pausing in the removal of his mud-soaked shoes, "or worse, send us out to collect more bulbs?"

Aang sits down in front of the fireplace and folds his arms over his knees. "No, we found enough."

"…did my sister send you to get me?" asks Sokka, warily.

Aang stares at the fireplace. "No, she didn't. Lotus was with her; I don't think she needs more help."

"Okay. Cool."

Toph lifts her head. "Did Princess send you here to make me learn how to swim?"

"No," Aang says softly before adding, in a pensive manner, "I don't think she's going to teach you in muddy waters."

"Okay." Toph lays her head back down. "Cool."

Sokka glances at Toph, who does not glance back, before resting his gaze on Aang.

"Hey, Toph? Do you mind checking on Katara?" asks Sokka.

Toph pushes herself off the ground. "Not at all."


Lightning is good for clearing one's mind.

Azula stands on the damp vegetation, letting her chi rise and smother her tumultuous thoughts into clarity.

She arches her hands,— I'm getting far too comfortable around him.— sparks threaded through her fingertips. The air growing dry. Him. Softly saying, implying, that a rejection from her would hurt — Azula draws her arm back, focusing on the tree in front of her, and waits for her mother to appear.

"You should use this weakness against him," scolds her father.

Lightning crackles as it turns against her, he's not real, Azula haphazardly points at the tree. A burst of heat, far too close, nearly takes her hand off. She misses. The tree spots a new scar too high and to the left of her target.

Azula breathes.

I didn't hear anything. The ground is wet, I would have heard him.

Azula walks to the spot her father was and inspects the ground. No indents. A hallucination.

It was the stress.

She looks around. It's too dangerous for her to bend lightning along the water. Firebending could attract the others. Earthbending, perhaps...

"Because air is too intimate?" says the hallucination with a frightful, knowing, smirk.

Waterbending. Waterbending will require my full concentration.

Azula steps into position, but the hated element won't yield.

She hears footsteps. "Learn the elements. Save the world. Bring me the Avatar. Save the Fire Nation," recites her father.

Azula doesn't turn around.

He leans over her shoulder until Azula can see his face.

"Tell me, Princess Azula, what do you think of that skeleton of a plan?"

She doesn't move.

"It's not very good is it?" continues her father, "Not when I know you could do so much better."

You're trying to kill me.

"I tried to kill Zuko too, and he usurped you. Are you weaker than him?"

Azula presses her lips together.

"Are you less deserving?"

No father.

"Then prove it. Show me that you are worthy enough to be my daughter."

Azula changes her stance and fluidly, perfectly, directs her body.


"You lost to the waterbending peasant," said her father, cutting off her spiel.

"You lost to the Avatar," replied Azula.

She was trying to remind him of the similarities between them. It didn't work.

She had hoped she could reach him, free him, before he found out.

His face revealed nothing. It was his voice that gave him away.

"You think the Avatar is better than me," he said quietly.

"No father," said Azula, staying in place even as every muscle in her body strained to move. To run. "He got lucky."

"Indeed. Tell me, Princess Azula. Did your soulmark appear before your Agni Kai?"


Droplets shakily gather around her fingers.

"I didn't know you were a waterbender."

Azula's shoulders hunch and the water drops to the ground. She turns around. It's the healer. Those must have been her footsteps.

"I'm not. I'm a firebender, Princess Azula of the Fire Nation. I share bending with the Avatar."

"I see," says the healer, Lotus, tapping a finger against her lips. "No wonder you're struggling with waterbending."

"Teach me," demands Azula.

"Of course," Lotus smiles and moves her arms in coil-like motions until snakes of water are pointing at Azula, "You see, waterbending is all about adaptation." The healer thrusts her arms out.

Like I'm between a rock and a hard place. Waterbend or drown.

Azula copies the movement.

Like I'm punching a metal wall. Bend or break.

The water coils around her.

"You have a lot of repressed anger," murmurs Lotus, "Try ice. Withdraw your flames and sharpen your fury."

"How?" asks Azula, her voice tinged with the barest hint of desperation.

Control the flames or they will consume you.

Lotus sucks air sharply through her teeth and clicks her tongue. "Stop thinking like a firebender, girl. Don't draw on emotions from within but let them manifest around you."

Azula lowers her chi until she can feel the cold pressing against her skin. Ice forming along her hands.

"That's it. Keep an open mind. The water is a part of you; let it adapt to your will."

Azula completes the motion, circling her hands, bringing her arms closer to her body, before flinging them out. Icicles flying through the air before striking and embedding themselves into a tree.

Lotus shrugs and says, "If I may make a few corrections?"

Azula nods, adrenaline coursing through her, and says, softly, "Thank you."

"The pleasure's all mine, firebender." Lotus moves closer. "Keep your feet shoulder width apart."

Azula looks down and adjusts her stance. She feels hands clasps down on her shoulders.

"Lower your shoulders," advises Lotus.

Azula obeys. She feels a pinch on the back of her neck.

"…and raise your guard."


Toph finds Katara sitting in front of a cauldron and chopping up various herbs.

"Need any help?" asks Toph.

Katara looks up. "Huh? Oh, yeah, actually if you wouldn't mind separating these snail slugs from their shells."

"Sweet!" Toph grabs a handful and begins pulling apart the gooey gastropods; waiting patiently for Katara to say what's on her mind.

She doesn't have to wait long.

"I messed things up didn't I?"

Toph shrugs. "We were all wondering what was going on between them."

Katara sighs. "They're supposed to be soulmates. It shouldn't be taking this long for them to," she waves her hands, "find a happy ending."

"You know," Toph says uncertainly, "You don't need a soulmate to find true love. I certainly don't. I don't care if my soulmark never appears."

Katara lays a comforting hand on Toph's shoulders. "My parents were blanks."

"They were?"

"Yes, they chose each other." Katara smiles fondly. "My mother, despite not having a soulmark, would tell me all about them. She loved stories about soulmates finding each other almost as much as she loved stories about the Avatar. They gave her, us, hope."

"…but if you don't need a soulmate to find love, then why do you care so much about Aang and Azula being each other's soulmates?"

"Because Aang," Katara's voice cracks, "really, really, wanted to fall in love with his soulmate."

There is silence, and then Toph walks over to Katara and punches her on the shoulder.

"Twinkletoes will be fine," asserts Toph. "You should know by now that he's tougher than he seems and, who knows, maybe he can woo the Princess. It can't be that much harder than saving the world."

Katara laughs softly and wipes her eyes. "Thanks, Toph."

"Anytime."

Lotus steps into the room.


Sokka glances at his wrapped wrist. "You know, when Yue died…Not "You" but "Yue", my girlfriend, my soulmate, it…felt bad." Sokka hangs his head in frustration. Aang looks over in concern.

"She was important to you," states Aang.

"It's not just that." Sokka takes a deep breath and doesn't lookup. "I'm used to people not coming back. I'm a warrior. We're at war. It happens."

Aang scoots closer. He wants to say something but the air around him is as heavy as it is familiar. He nods, instead, and when that small silent gesture causes Sokka to relax the weight off his shoulders; Aang feels as though there was a milestone in life and somehow he, Aang, had passed it by without realizing.

"I didn't know Yue for very long," says Sokka, his tongue uncharacteristically loose around a topic heavier than stone, "and yet it hurts. It hurts a lot and it hasn't stopped hurting. Not entirely."

Maybe this is how Water Tribe men talk about their feelings, thinks Aang as he gives another nod. Huddled in front of a fire, speaking only to be heard.

Aang gets it, in a way, but he favors the Air Nomad way of giving words and feelings freely to the open air.

"I know what it's like to lose a soulmate," continues Sokka, "I know how much it hurts, but I found Suki and she makes everything so much better. You could find someone else too, regardless of your soulmark. I know you could. Do you want to?"


"Thank you so much for helping us," says Katara as Lotus drops the various cut herbs into the cauldron and stirs the bubbling broth.

"The pleasure's all mine," replies Lotus, picking up a bowl of ground lotus bulbs. "Here, both of you, gather around. Watch."

"Blind," deadpans Toph.

"Then smell," she says curtly before tilting in the final ingredient.

The ground bulbs swirls into the milky broth, turning it blood red, and releases a momentous amount of smoke.

"Is it—" Katara breaks into a coughing fit as Toph drops to the floor. "—supposed to be like this," she finishes weakly before collapsing as well.

"Why yes. Yes it is," says Lotus cheerfully and continues stirring.


"She's my soulmate," says Aang, and he hopes those words convey everything.

Sokka shifts, moving closer. They both stare into the fire instead of looking at each other.

"…do you want her to be your soulmate?"

Aang says nothing. It would have been easier if his soulmate was Katara. The pieces would have made sense. Save the world. Kiss the girl. But now, even if Katara suddenly chose him as her soulmate, it wouldn't fit. There was a mark on his back that would forever remind him that their picture wasn't perfect.

He could, at least, try to fall in love with Azula. Couldn't he? It wasn't as though he had a better option.

Aang frowns slightly before nodding. He feels an arm around his shoulder and turns in surprise.

Sokka squeezes him in a half hug. "You know, with fishing you have to be patient—"

"I'm a vegetarian," reminds Aang with visible confusion.

Sokka sighs. "Yeah. I know. I'm saying to give Azula time."

"Why not just say that?"

"Because—" Sokka blows air through his lips. "I don't know. I was trying to be wise."

Aang smiles. "Thanks, Sokka. I think you are pretty wise."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you—"

"There you are," interrupts Lotus. She walks towards them and holds out two cups. "Here, this will make you immune to the poison. Be sure to drink it at once and at the same time."

"Why do we have to do that?" asks Sokka skeptically.

Lotus shrugs and folds her hands.

Sokka turns to Aang who shrugs in response.

The two of them look down at the blood red liquid in their cups.

"On the count of three?" suggests Aang.

Sokka nods and seconds later they both down the liquid.

"Lotus?" calls Aang as his vision blurs.

"Please," says a voice sounding so weak and far away that Aang can't tell if it's his or hers.

"Call me Hama."


A/N: My first villain reveal! How did I do? :D