As soon as they escape from the pit, Azula flicks out her wrist.
Fire—an element more familiar than her heartbeat—has become a stranger.
Azula looks up from her unlit hands and watches with a detached, morbid fascination, as the waterbender tries to coax the ever-growing mist into obedience—and fails.
Katara drops her form, and trails her hands across the goosebumps on her arms, hugging herself she asks, with her back towards Azula, "Where should we go?"
Away from here.
Azula doesn't voice the thought, her fear, and it remains unspoken. A silence passes over them. There is nothing to see aside from each other, a hole in the ground, and a terrifying fog.
Azula rolls up her sleeves, the small rustling movement drawing the waterbender's curiosity.
They don't say anything to each other; the conversation in the pit being forcefully buried by Azula, and remaining unspoken as a courtesy from Katara.
Anger quells fear.
Rare advice from her father that Azula molds to her current situation. She looks down on the obstinate blue arrows marring her arms and lets the loathing wash over her.
This is all your fault.
Only the Avatar could make her feel helpless. And, of course, he doesn't dignify her defeat with his presence! This scenario, her undoing, was all due to him.
I hate you, thinks Azula, anger coursing through the veins where fire normally would.
She closes her eyes and concentrates on activating the Avatar State.
I hate you but I love your power.
She opens her eyes.
Nothing.
Avatar. Fucking. Nonsense.
"What are you doing here?"
Azula snaps her head to the side. The movement once more grasping the waterbender's attention.
"Katara? Can you see me?" says the figure at the same time Katara abruptly asks, "What are you staring at?"
The figure turns.
Great, thinks Azula, as she notes the similarities in appearance, the motherly concern so etched into a face that it's practically engraved, and the way the waterbender is looking through the figure, Now I'm hallucinating other people's mothers.
"Nothing," lies Azula at the same time the hallucination shrewdly concludes, "You can see me."
Katara doesn't bother to hide her skepticism, but, lacking evidence, she relents. "We need to find the others. Do you remember which way Lotus came?"
"No—"
"Direction and distance don't matter here."
"—but I doubt direction has an affect on this place."
"Ah, so you can hear me."
Azula pretends to not have heard.
"Let's go this way then," offers Katara with a shrug, and she walks through the woman.
You don't exist, thinks Azula spitefully at the apparition's shocked face.
"Please," calls out the stubborn hallucination as Azula walks past, "At least let my daughter know I'm here."
Azula's mouth tightens.
"My name is Kya—"
"What's your mother's name?" demands Azula, angrily turning towards the waterbender.
"What?" exclaims Katara before defensively crossing her arms. "Why do you want to know?"
Peace of mind.
"Is it Kya?"
"Take ten steps back," commands Toph.
"Why?" asks Sokka as he follows her command. Belatedly, he realizes he should announce the steps.
"Ten," he proclaims.
Toph tugs the hem of his shirt as she takes an extra two, smaller, steps back. "Do you see the bodies?" she asks.
"No." Sokka squints at the swirling condensation. Warily, he asks, "Do you?"
"Nope." Toph pops the "p" but her voice is steadier than she feels. "This is where we left the—"
"Are you sure?" asks Sokka, cutting her off. If Toph has noticed his uneasiness, she doesn't point it out.
"Positive."
"Alright." Sokka nods, more to himself than to the blind earthbender. He reaches behind himself, his fingers grasping around a new yet familiar weight.
"Boomerang Two! You know what to do!"
"How do you know my mom's name?" yells Katara, grabbing Azula by the shirt, "Answer me!"
"Tell her I'm here."
Azula ignores her. It.
"I guessed—"
"Liar," says Katara, flatly and she lowers her voice into a deadly whisper. "Azula, I swear, if you had anything to do with my mother's death—"
"I didn't. I'm your age." She forcibly reminds Katara before pushing her away.
Katara considers her words and reluctantly relaxes her stance. "Then how did you know?" she pointedly asks.
"I—" Azula glances around. Where did she go?
She feels a hand brush the back of her neck.
"Get off of me!" she shrieks, turning around and reaching for fire that is no longer there.
There's a hole in the ground. She stumbles.
A mother reaches out for her. Azula feels her eyes begin to burn.
Hand gripped tight around her wrist. An urgency in her mother's footsteps.
"I was—"
"Quiet."
Sliding panels. A hidden hallway. Azula had watched, mesmerized by the secrecy, and had thought, at the time, that it was the beginning of a grand adventure. One with just her and Mom.
"Azula, listen to me." Her mother pressed her hands to the sides of Azula's face, and knelt down, dirtying her robes. "I need you to tell me what you heard."
Azula did her best, reciting the words as well as she could recollect them, changing her tone to match her father's and grandfather's.
And then Mom left.
SLAP!
Her face stinging, Azula rights her head back and glares at the waterbender.
"You were screaming," says the waterbender, and Azula, noticing the dryness in her throat and the wetness across her face, diverts her rage.
"What happened?" she rasps, wiping her face and carefully standing up.
"You were screaming," repeats the waterbender.
"About what?" demands Azula, for while the fear in the waterbender's demeanor is welcome, her own confusion is not. She takes a step forward, away from the hole behind her, and the waterbender tenses even further.
"I apologize if I scared you," says Azula, her voice on the edge of mockery, "but I do believe we have greater concerns, like finding your friends perhaps?"
The waterbender clenches and unclenches her jaw. Azula waits, assured of victory up until the waterbender opens her mouth and asks, "How long have you been seeing hallucinations?"
"Zuko's not his father," defends Aang even as he strains against the pressure squeezing his chest.
Hama flexes her hands, granting Aang a moment of reprieve with which he uses to take a breath of air and assess his current predicament.
I can't move. Not with brute force, concludes Aang. He focuses on trying to bend his blood back into his control, but if he is offering any resistance at all then Hama certainly isn't showing it.
Instead, Hama slowly twists her hands and Aang feels his body begin to pull apart.
Sokka catches his boomerang.