Thank you again :)

This is the reaction he had expected during the fire chakra or even the air chakra, if he had expected it at all. He is certain that he had expected it. How could he not, Azula has kept a lot of things pent up. And with that much to face at once, how could she not reach a breaking point.

He isn't sure how to console her so he lets her lay there while he rubs careful circles upon her back. Her shoulders shake, her entire body shakes with each soft cry. He wishes he knew exactly which truth is the hardest for her to face-which one has evoked this response. He is reluctant to ask.

"It's hard to face the truth. Trust me, I know. It took me so long to accept that I'm the Avatar. But now that I have...I promise it's so much easier."

"Easier?" She mumbles resentfully. "It was easier because you had to learn to accept glory and a heroic destiny. I have to accept…" She knocks the heels of her hands against her head somewhere between lightly and firmly. He tries to prepare himself to catch her wrists should she hit herself with any more force.

"I don't know what fate you think that you have to accept, but I think you have some options." He smiles. "Some really good ones."

"Good ones." Her tone falls somewhere between skeptical and bitter. "What good ones?"

Truth be told, he doesn't entirely know. But he can't imagine that everyone would just write her off. "I just know that you're really smart and really powerful and you can do a lot of amazing stuff with that. You just have to choose to do them."

She doesn't look anymore reassured. If anything she almost looks more distraught and he can't fathom why. His smile falters. He not only is it that hasn't gotten to the heart of this issue but he has also made it more unbearable somehow.

She hears the footsteps before he does and her distress amplifies. There is a visible struggle to regain composure. He gives her shoulder a small squeeze before he makes his way up to the approaching feet.

"You ready for dinner, Avatar?"

He shakes his head. "Not yet."

"What about, you know…"

"Azula doesn't want dinner yet either." Reflexively he cringes; torn between knowing that he should ask her before speaking for her and not wanting to risk the man intruding on a private moment. He prioritizes the latter, he can always chase the man down if she does want dinner.

"Should I check back in a few minutes?"

Aang shakes his head, "we'll let you know when we're ready."

He returns to Azula's side to find her sitting back up with her legs drawn to her chest. Her lips are pressed firmly together, eyes fixed upon a spot on the wall. She has wiped the tears from them but he doesn't think that they are quite ready to stay gone.

"What is the truth that is so hard for you to accept?"

She only shakes her head.

"I can't help you accept it if you…"

"I don't need help."

.oOo.

And it is mostly true. She has accepted the truth in some manner or another. At the very least she has acknowledged it which she thinks counts for something. But to accept her truth is to accept that she is simply not a good person. At the very least, to accept that she likes being dictated is to accept that she may not have ever made a significant choice of her own in her life. To accept that would be to welcome agency...welcome accountability. Welcome the change she has been trying to resist.

By Agni, she is not ready to acknowledge that she is the central source for her conflict. Not ready to acknowledge that Sangyul and Aang had simply been working with the framework that she had laid out for them and allowed them to exploit. For the most part they haven't instilled anything new within her, they simply coaxed it out and rudely confronted her with it.

She supposes that they had certainly put some thoughts into her head. That Sangyul had certainly imposed his will upon her and to a degree she truly didn't have a choice even if she hadn't partially welcomed it.

She isn't ready but she has acknowledged it all the same and now she can't stop. And now her head is cluttered and chaotic in an entirely different way. Now she is forced to acknowledge that she can't just 'wait for the tampering to wear off'.

She rubs her hands over her face.

"This was a bad idea." Aang mumbles. "I shouldn't have suggested it."

Despite it all, she can't bring herself to agree. For all of her conflict, insecurity, and reluctance she still has her a sense of honor. A knowingness that it is time to stop shifting the blame and thinking for herself, truly so.

She shakes her head, "it isn't a bad idea. I...I need this."

Aang's smile is back.

She also needs to sort out exactly which things are the product of Sangyuls invasion and which things were already there. She takes a deep breath and lays back. Aang opens his mouth to speak but she lifts a hand. She needs quiet.

He gives her quiet.

And eventually the quiet gives her answers; she has cut herself off from her fire. She has come to question her own strength on her own. She is certain that she had started doing so after her defeat. And in her defeat she had started to question her nation and by extension her sense of self.

She grits her teeth and shudders.

Sangyul, she decides, is still a vile man. While her inner conflict is not of his making he has certainly exasperated it, made all of those complex facets twice so. He had taken a mess and added more clutter to work through. He added a newfound questioning of her own agency of her own will, her own thoughts…

She concludes that she has already worked through and mended the damage that he has dealt her. Her decisions are hers again, they have been since she'd left that facility. What remains is what was there before. What he dug up and flashed in her face.

The only thing that she is still truly unsure of is whether or not her budding affections for the Avatar are her own. Decidedly, that is a thought for another time.

She almost informs Aang of her new revelations. Instead she asks, "am I a bad person, Aang?" He is probably so exhausted by hearing this same tired question. She doesn't even know why she is asking, his validation does little to make her feel any less rotten on the inside.

He tilts his head, "what kind of lies are you facing?" He furrows his brows.

"Just answer the question."

"You know what I'm going to say."

She has to give him at least a little respect for not caving to her games and antics. She supposes that she is going to have to give him an inch. But she can't give him that inch without giving him the whole league. "Am I a bad person for...wanting my father to be here to tell me what to do?" She doesn't have to give him the context after all. He doesn't have to know...

His face softens. "You're not a bad person for following your dad's orders and wanting him around, he's your dad."

She shakes her head perhaps she will have to clarify, "I want his orders."

"You want him to tell you what to do?"

"If he does then I won't have to." She mutters.

She thinks that it clicks in his mind, though she isn't sure exactly how many dots he has connected.

"Why?"

She inhales sharply. "Let's be clear Avatar, we are having this discussion so that I can open my chakra and get my fire back and for no other reason. I do not have a choice."

"You always have a choice, Azula."

That is as good a segway as any.

"Yes well sometimes it is easier to not have one."

He presses his lips together and nods. "You liked having your father directing your life because it's easier than making your own choices and facing the consequences."

She remains quiet.

He chucks, in equal parts bitter and genuine. "That's why I didn't want to be the Avatar. Everything I do seems to matter so much because I'm the Avatar and I was afraid of that and so I made the choice to run and…" He trails off. "You know what happened."

Understanding. He...understands.

Her tummy flutters at the notion that she isn't some feral beast. At the notion that she can connect with someone else...that she can empathize. The feeling is so daughtningly foreign.

"But that's the thing, in choosing to not make choices a made a choice. A really bad choice. You think that you can hide behind your father's demands but you can't. You chose to follow them. That was still a choice and you still have to face that."

Azula swallows, she supposes that she has already come to that conclusion but hearing it spoken has such an ugly sound. "so it was for nothing?"

"What was for nothing?"

"I. I let him do it, Avatar. The same part of me that liked taking father's orders liked having Sangyul take his place..." so that she could shift the blame onto them. She doesn't make it that far into her confession and she has no desire to do so. She is already sick at the realization that she had completely overshared again.

He shakes his head, "it's not for nothing. He's a horrible man and he...and I did some horrible things to you. But I have a feeling we would be making progress if he...we hadn't done those things to you."

"You call this progress." She snarls. Frankly if feels like at least ten steps back.

"I do." He answers firmly. "Even if you can't see the results yet. You already found the heart of the problems. Now you can start fixing them. I know you, Azula." He reaches for her hand and she lets him take it. "I know that you like facing things head on because you're a strong person." He gives her hand a squeeze.

Even if there had been a push to ignite the feeling, she is beginning to think that her affections for the Avatar are just as of her own making as everything else.