Azula stood on the bridge of the Fire Nation airship Szeto, one of the largest and most state of the art vessels the Air Force had to offer her, and allowed herself a small smile.

She had finally done it. She had done what the Fire Nation had never been capable of doing before.

She had captured the Avatar. Not only that, his little band had been wiped out in a matter of minutes. Three of them had been killed, and the rest had been taken prisoner.

Azula had mixed feelings about those deaths. She was happy, because one of them had been the Kyoshi Warrior who had imprisoned her. It had turned out she had survived her arrow wound at the Caldera, but the job had been finished now. She had avenged her lost freedom. The Water Tribe boy, Sokka, was of no great importance to her, and she found herself indifferent about his fate. The third casualty, though, had been Mai.

On the one hand, she thought that Mai had received her just punishment for treason. Indeed, she herself had been willing to carry it out when she and Ty Lee had caught up to them in the aftermath of the eclipse, but she had been prevented from doing so.

On the other, she found herself feeling sad about it. Mai had been one of her oldest friends, after all. No, a voice in her head said. Thinking that way is a weakness, and weakness cannot be tolerated. That was also why it had been necessary for Mai to go.

Apart from those three, who lay at the foot of a cliff somewhere far out in the Fire Nation countryside, the rest of the Avatar's friends were chained up in the brig.

Well, most of them were chained up. The Earthbender had been secured using ropes, because she could metalbend now.

She was snapped out of her reverie by the Captain giving her a report.

"...We're about a day and a half's flight from the Caldera, Princess," he told her.

"Excellent."

"... will that be all?" The man seemed to be leaning ever so slightly backwards as he said it; Azula realized that he was scared of what might come next- and of her. Good. Fear was after all the best motivator.

Still, she was in a good mood today. The war was as good as over. There were still some cleaning up operations to do, a few strongholds of resistance that needed cleaning out, but with the Avatar in their custody their momentum was now unstoppable.

"Yes, I think that will be all. I'm going to visit the prisoners."

She smiled.

"Try not to crash the ship while I'm gone."

Azula had meant this last comment as a joke, but the man nodded quickly in a manner that suggested he found nothing funny about it.

Azula rolled her eyes, and then left the bridge.

She made her way down past the crew quarters, and walked through the bomb bay. Since there was no anticipation of needing to bomb anything, it had instead been converted into extra space to carry troops; Azula had wanted overwhelming force for her attack.

Finally, she reached the brig, a corridor with a succession of cells along each side. Five of those cells were currently occupied.

A pair of guards stood at the end of the hallway, and they nodded at her approach. She stopped before one of the cells and tapped it, in a way that made it clear she wanted the door unlocked. When one of the guards obliged, she stepped inside and was confronted by the sight of her brother.

"Hello Zuzu."

"What do you want?" He looked up at her. His arms and legs were shackled tightly, forcing him into a sitting position. He had only woken up again after being brought into the ship, having taken an almost direct hit from a combustion beam.

"Why can't I just be checking how my dearest brother is doing?"

"We both know I may be your brother, but I'm not 'dearest.'"

"Alright, you got me." Azula held her hands up. "I came to tell you something actually. Well, two things."

"I get the feeling I'm about to be threatened."

"It's true that father isn't happy with you.."

"Father hasn't been happy with me in years, what's your point?"

"Well, he's really not happy with you. Your friends may get off with life imprisonment, but I'm afraid he intends for you to suffer the death of a traitor."

"What about Mai and Ty Lee then? They defected too."

He looked into her eyes.

"Tell father that I led them astray, or whatever it takes for them to be let off. I take responsibility, but they should not be punished."

Azula laughed. "Why not? They committed treason too, even if it was at your urging."

"Surely they are your friends as well? Does that mean nothing to you?"

Azula pretended to consider for a second. "Well, you make a good point about Ty Lee... but I'm afraid it's already too late for Mai."

As expected, she saw a hint of fear creep onto her brother's face at that. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, I don't suppose you saw, did you?" Azula said in mock concern. "That first shot that knocked you out, it also hit Mai."

She paused for a second, more for dramatic effect than anything else.

"I'm afraid that she was knocked off the cliff."

She bent down and looked directly into his eyes before delivering the final verbal blow- as bluntly as possible.

"Zuko, Mai is dead."

She saw the grief and shock in those eyes then, which swiftly became anger. Tears began to run down his face.

"No," he said. "You're lying. You always lie."

Azula stood up. "Not always."

"Azula always lies. Azula always lies..."

She left him there, hunched over with tears streaming down his face as he repeated the same three words over and over again.

It felt good to take something from him for once.