Yula smiled, placing her hands on her sister's shoulders as they both gazed into the mirror of the dressing room. "There, now you look like royalty."

"Ha, I look just like you," Shayu said.

Yula chuckled. "Well, that is the point."

Shayu stared at herself in the mirror. Wearing a regular imperial military coat had been strange enough, but to be dressed up in Yula's Dragon Empress robes? Now that was totally bizarre. Plus, with her hair pulled back into a ponytail, she really did look just like her sister, if a little younger. Provided she kept her posture straight, anyway. She did have a problem with slouching sometimes. "So, why am I doing this, again? It feels weird, dressing up like an empress. You should be the one wearing this uniform, not me."

Yula stepped back from the mirror, hands pressed against her hips. She wore a simpler, casual outfit, no different than an ordinary citizen, while she had let down her hair around her shoulders, and removed her glasses. At a quick glance, no one would be able to discern that she was actually the Dragon Empress. "Shayu, I already told you, I have things I need to take care of right now. At the same time, people need to see their empress. They need to know she's still there for them. So, while I'm taking care of other matters, you're going to travel around the Earth Kingdom in my stead. You won't have to speak or get close to anyone. Just stay behind your escort and wave to the crowds every so often. Simple."

"I guess that makes sense..." Shayu said, squinting at her reflection. "You're sure they'll think I'm you?"

"Of course," she replied. "Just look at you. You're the spitting image of me in that uniform. Just one more thing..." Yula grabbed a pair of round glasses sitting on the table next to her, and placed them onto her sister's face. "There we go."

Shayu's brow lifted. With the glasses, she could pass as Yula's twin. "Wow, you're right."

"I'll miss you, Shayu, but it's only for a couple weeks." Yula wrapped her arms around her sister, hugging tight. "We'll see each other again soon."

"Thanks, Sis," Shayu replied. "I'll miss you too."

"Now, go on, your escort is waiting." Yula ushered Shayu out of the room, giving one final wave before her sister disappeared.


When Shayu was gone, Avan slipped into the room. He glanced over his shoulder, watching the door where Shayu had gone. "You're sure this is a good idea?"

"Yes, I'm positive," Yula replied. "I've no doubt there are spies behind our borders, trying to determine our next move. If they want to watch me, then they will—by watching Shayu. Meanwhile, I'll be free to organize our troops in preparation for Republic City. In two weeks, we should be ready to invade."


Azula swatted at a fly buzzing around her head. She followed close behind Zuko, doing her best to avoid stepping in the large pools of mud along the way. At one point, a squirrel frog jumped onto her shoulder, prompting her to shoo it away with a disgusted groan. "Why on earth would anyone want to live in a swamp? This place is filthy."

"At least it's quiet?" Anraq said. Moments later, the screeching wail of some distant animal echoed through the air. "Uh, for the most part."

"That's hardly worth all the mud," she muttered, as she slid over a massive raised tree root. Her boots sploshed in a thick puddle of mud, eliciting an annoyed grumble from her lips. When her mouth opened, a rogue insect fluttered inside and lodged in her throat. She coughed and sputtered, turning her head to spit it out. "Uck! Or the bugs!"

"Relax, Azula," Zuko said. "We won't be staying long."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine then. Let's get this over with."

Zuko led the way towards a large tree, the roots of which twisted and raised up out of the ground. The roots parted around a small opening at the base, leading into a sort of tree cave beyond. A curtain of grassy vines hung down over the opening. Zuko paused outside, curling a gentle smile onto his face with a deep breath. Taking a step forward, he reached out to part the vines. As he did, the ground shifted beneath his feet and forced him backwards, creating enough space for a smaller figure to walk out from behind the grassy curtain with a travel pack slung over her shoulder.

"Well it certainly took you long enough to get here," the old woman muttered, marching right by him. "Let's stop wasting time and go already. Where's the dragon?"

Zuko blinked at her in confusion. "Toph, you knew we were coming?"

"Of course I did!" she replied, with a raised eyebrow. Her expression was one of disbelief, as though he had asked one of the dumbest questions she'd ever heard. "Geez, it's like you forgot who I am or something. Just because I came back to my swamp doesn't mean I stopped paying attention to what's going on in the world through the vines. I know about Yula, what happened to Zaofu, everything. I knew you were coming here to ask my help finding Izumi, so I made sure I was ready."

"I see..." he said, with another blink. "Honestly, I thought I was going to have to do more convincing than that."

Toph uttered a harsh grunt. "I already lost a daughter. I'm not going to let the same thing happen to you as long as I can help it. No convincing required."

Zuko's smile deepened. "Thank you, Toph."

"Thank me after we find Izumi. Until then, stay focused." Toph hoisted her pack higher onto her shoulder and marched forward. No doubt she had already sensed where Druk was waiting for them. She made it three steps before coming to a sudden stop in front of Azula. Sheer, numbing awkwardness descended over them, so thick Azula could have cut through it with her swords.

Azula stared at the old woman. "Toph."

Toph's expression creased with a frown. "Azula."

"So..." What was she even supposed to say? Toph despised her, no secret there. If not for Zuko's presence, the old earthbender probably would have attacked her already. "It's... nice to have you along, I suppose. What's it like, living in a swamp?"

"Stuff it." Toph's voice bit with venom. "I don't want to hear anything from you."

"But—"

"Let's get one thing straight." Toph turned a blank stare towards Azula, deepening a hateful scowl across her wrinkled face. "I'm putting up with you on this trip because I have to, as a favor to Zuko. This doesn't mean I like you, it doesn't make us friends, and it doesn't make me forget the things you've done."

Azula frowned. "I've changed, you know. Not that I care what you think about me, but I am trying to be better, and set things right."

"You mean you're trying to clean up the mess you helped create," Toph retorted. "I don't care how much you say you've changed. Doesn't make it true."

"Kuvira changed, didn't she?" Azula countered. "You used to hate her, but now you're friends. If you gave her a second chance, why not me?"

The scowl on Toph's face twisted, igniting with a flash of genuine rage. "Kuvira wasn't complicit in my daughter's murder!"

Azula stiffened, asserting herself with an equally stern glare as she attempted to regain her composure. Why did being shouted at by a cranky old woman put her on edge? "I didn't kill Suyin. That was Zaheer."

"But you were there," Toph insisted. "You helped him do it. You're just as responsible for Su's death as Zaheer himself, and if that's not something you can take responsibility for, you haven't changed one bit, no matter how much you claim otherwise. You think I'm going to give you a second chance after that, just because you're a little less horrible now? It doesn't work like that."

Toph turned her head and spit into the mud. Her expression didn't shift, remaining angry and bitter. "If you want forgiveness, you need to actually own up to what you've done. You need to realize how much you've hurt people, and take their emotions into account, not just your own. You think you've changed, but you're only partway there. Who cares how you feel about the things you did? How do they feel? That's what you have to consider. You need empathy, and as far as I've seen, that's not something you're truly capable of yet. Until then, don't talk to me." The old woman scoffed and continued her march through the swamp.

"Toph, wait a minute," Anraq said, making a move to follow her. "With all due respect, I think—"

Azula silenced him with a grab to his shoulder, holding him back. "Don't bother, Annie. She's right... Let's just go."


Azula gazed up at the stars, hands held behind her head in her bedroll. They had made it most of the way to Ba Sing Se by nightfall and stopped to make camp. Tomorrow, they would arrive at the city and begin their search for Izumi. For now, they slept. At least, the others slept. Anraq had passed out hours ago in the bedroll next to hers, his face buried against his pillow, while Toph had secluded herself in an earthen tent on the other side of the forest clearing. Druk slept in the center of the clearing, his wings wrapped over his head. As for Zuko...

Well, she wasn't sure. Not in camp, the last time she'd checked. Perhaps he'd gone off to relieve himself. Didn't matter. Far more important things on her mind than to worry about where her brother had wandered off to. Questions, which kept repeating in her head. How much had she changed, really? Was she really any different than before? Was her new lease on life just some kind of subconscious front she was trying to fool herself with?

She could thank Toph for drowning her in renewed self-doubt. For someone who had been so forgiving of the Great Uniter, Azula would have expected the old earthbender to be a bit more understanding. Granted, they did have a history. Although a long time ago now, Azula had still tormented Toph and her friends on numerous occasions. That wasn't even mentioning the Suyin incident. Perhaps the hate was warranted, in that case.

Zuko's face emerged into her field of view, blocking the stars above as he peered down at her. "Azula, are you still awake?"

"My eyes are open, aren't they?" she said, narrowing a glare up at him.

He furrowed his brow, and gestured for her to get up and follow him. "Come with me. There's something I need to show you."

When he disappeared from her line of sight, she sat up and huffed out a sigh. "Fine, if I must."

Zuko led her into the forest down a small, overgrown path through the trees. For several minutes, he remained silent, merely leading the way with his arms held behind his back. After they crossed a narrow stream, he glanced at her. "Don't let Toph get to you. She's always been... blunt."

Azula rolled her eyes. "I'm not concerned about Toph. She hates me, I understand that. She has every reason to. There's nothing I can do about it, so I'm not going to worry." Azula folded her arms across her chest and looked downward, watching the dirt beneath her feet as they strolled along the path. "Besides, she was right. Even now that I've realized the terrible things I've done, even though I'm trying to do better, and make things right... I still never thought about how the people I've hurt must have felt. I only thought about my own guilt. Not their pain."

Zuko hummed a thoughtful breath. "Perhaps now that you've realized this, you can work towards rectifying it?"

She shrugged. "I suppose. Really, what would it even matter? People like Toph are never going to forgive me no matter what I do, so what's the point in making the effort? I don't even care about their forgiveness anyway. I don't need it to feel better."

"The point, I think, is to find empathy, as Toph mentioned. You've started healing, yes, but to finish healing, you may require more than simply realizing you've done terrible things."

"Like killing Suyin, you mean?" Azula stopped walking. She stared at the ground, arms held around herself in self-embrace. Her eyes shifted with an uncharacteristic softness and regret—or were those sorts of emotions now becoming characteristic of her? She didn't even know anymore. "Toph was right about that, too. I wasn't the one who dealt the final blow, but I might as well have been. I'm responsible for aiding the Red Lotus attack, for getting them inside Zaofu, for using her husband as a hostage to make her surrender... I did all that. Me."

Azula spread her fingers and ignited a flickering ball of blue flames in her palm. She stared at it, entranced by the glow. "At the time it was just a means to an end. I didn't care how it would affect people, or what the consequences were. The casualties didn't matter to me, so long as it furthered my own goals. Looking back on it now, I wonder how I ever became that depraved. That desperate."

The fire in her palm extinguished, dissipating into thin air. "I was operating under the lie that it was my destiny to rule, whether it be the Fire Nation, an empire, the world... I've been a slave to that lie my entire life. I hate what it did to me. I hate how it destroyed me, and I hate our father for ever driving it into my head in the first place."

What had been a wistful, distant expression of sorrow shifted, igniting with seething anger at the thought of Ozai. She clenched her fingers into a fist, and flames erupted from her knuckles. "He never gave me a chance to be anything else but the monster I was. I don't want to live that lie anymore. I don't want to be that monster anymore."

Silence lingered. Azula wrapped her arms around herself again, standing still while staring blankly at the ground, as though the dirt beneath her feet offered some kind of solace. Really, she just didn't want Zuko to see her face. To see her pain. As if sensing her turmoil, her brother came up behind her and held his hands to her shoulders. A simple touch. Comforting. She swallowed, shuddering as a soothing warmth flowed through her.

"You know our mother never thought you were a monster, right?" Zuko said, his tone soft and tender. "She was only ever concerned for you, and how our father was raising you. She did love you."

Leave it to Zuzu to cut right to the heart of the matter. Monster. The thing Azula had always claimed their mother thought of her. How could Ursa have thought any differently, after all? By all accounts, Azula had been a terror of a child—uncaring, cruel, mischievous, even sadistic at times. Ursa had spent most of her time with Zuko, her clear favorite between her two children. Rather than try to connect with her daughter in the same way, she had only ever wondered what was wrong with Azula.

What is wrong with that child?

Those words had eaten away at her for years. She'd never let it show, of course. She'd buried it. Internalized it. That had only made it fester, rotten and sour, to the point she had convinced herself her own mother thought of her as a monster. Deep down, perhaps she should have known better, but such a thing was beyond her understanding at that age, especially when she'd had a father who treated her like a prodigy and nurtured her cruelty. She'd never had a chance.

Now, though... Now she did have a chance. Now she did know better.

"I know," she uttered, with a deep sigh. "I think I've always known, in a way. It was just... I don't know, easier to blame her for how I turned out, I guess, rather then accepting my own mistakes." She paused, tilting her gaze up at her brother. "How was she? After you brought her back home, I mean. Was she a good mother?"

Zuko smiled, and eased a soft breath. "She was everything I had hoped for since she disappeared. We were a family. Her, myself, Ikem... Kiyi." His expression shifted, growing solemn at the mention of their half-sister. "She was never a replacement for you."

"Yes, I realize that now," Azula muttered, looking away. "Is she... still around?"

"I'm afraid not," he said, with a simple shake of his head. "Kiyi passed away close to twenty years ago now. It was illness, nothing the doctors could do."

"Oh, I see."

"For what it's worth, I think you two would have gotten along."

Azula managed a shrug. "I guess we'll never know." She paused again, allowing silence to linger between them for several moments. Zuko resumed walking down the path, and she followed. "So, what did you bring me out here to show me, anyway?"

"I need to teach you something you should know," was his response.

A soft groan grumbled out her throat. "Training, at this hour? Really, Zuzu, can't it wait?"

"No, it can't. There's no telling when you might need this skill, and to be honest I should have taught it to you ages ago."

"Fine," she sighed. "What is it?"

Zuko turned from the path and motioned for her to follow through the edge of the treeline, into a small clearing. "I'm going to teach you how to redirect lightning."

Azula's brow shot upward. "Oh, well... I suppose that would be useful to know."

"This technique was developed by our uncle after studying waterbenders. A waterbender lets their defense become their offense, turning their opponent's energy against them. By applying the same concept, a firebender can do this with lightning. By letting the energy in your own body flow, the lightning will follow it." Zuko extended an arm, with two fingers pointed forward. "You must create a pathway with your fingertips, up your arm to your shoulder, then down into your stomach. The stomach is the source of the energy in your body, and is known as the sea of chi." With his other hand, he traced a line down the pathway he described, to illustrate. "From the stomach, you direct it up again and out the other arm. It is absolutely critical that the lightning pass through the stomach on its way out your body. If it passes through your heart, the results could be fatal."

Azula watched him intently, absorbing the information. This was one skill that had given her fits over the years. Being able to generate her own lightning became useless against someone who could redirect it. She had never been able to figure out how to do it herself. Now, she could learn.

"Follow this motion, to get a feel for the flow of energy." Zuko started with both his arms held forward, fingers extended. He turned his body and pulled one of his arms back, pointing it in the opposite direction. When he finished, he performed the action again, returning to his original position.

"Like this?" Azula mimicked the motion, flowing back and forth like water.

"Exactly like that. Are you focusing your energy? Can you feel your chi flowing in, down, up, and then out?"

She nodded. "Yes, I can."

They repeated the same motion for close to an hour. Azula lost count of how many times she performed it, but she never once faltered. Her form remained perfect, and she made sure to properly flow her chi through her body each time. Down the arm, into the shoulder, through the stomach, and back up the other arm. Not too difficult a concept to master, once you knew the basics.

After what felt like the thousandth time of repeating the motion, Zuko raised a hand, urging her to stop and end the lesson. "That's good for now. You seem to have it down. Of course, you'll never truly know unless you try it, but I'm not about to shoot lightning at you. Hopefully, you'll never have to use this technique at all."

Azula quirked an eyebrow. "So if I do need to use it, I'll have no idea if I actually can?"

"That's pretty much it, yes."

She scoffed, folding her arms over her chest. "Well that's just wonderful."

"Come on," he said, waving her along. "We should head back."

Azula pulled into stride next to him, as they returned to the path that led back to camp. For several minutes she said nothing, instead enjoying the quiet. Halfway back to camp, she walked closer to him and offered a tentative gaze. "Zuko?"

"Yes?"

"I just want to thank you," she said, with a soft exhale. "I know things were so messed up between us for so long, but I... I'm happy you're in my life now. In a positive way. I'm happy to have you as a brother. Even if you are an old man."

Zuko smiled, and held a loving arm around her shoulders. "I'm happy, too."