Dinner that day was miso soup, seared salmon-squid over rice and stir-fried gai lan, and sweet red bean pudding for dessert. That is, that was the princess' dinner, and the smell of it made Suyin's mouth water. She'd eaten about a half an hour ago, while the princess had attended a political meeting with her father and a number of generals, captains, and strategists, so she wasn't hungry. But the dinner she'd had consisted of plain white rice, a fried egg, and a thin slice of meat Suyin hadn't been able to identify. It had been good, too (though everything was delicious on an empty stomach), but absolutely paled in comparison to the princess' exquisite meal.

Suyin had been sitting to the princess' left, holding her hand as she filed her nails into shape, when the maid had come in with the dinner tray.

"I will leave you to your meal, then." Suyin murmured to excuse herself, but before she could even stand up, Azula gripped her hand and pulled her back.

"And leave my nails half-done? Sit. I can eat with one hand."

"Oh- very well."

She would have finished her nails later, after dinner, of course, but thought to give her some privacy as she ate. After all, the princess always asked her out of the room for her meals. To her perfectionism, the thought of having half-done nails must have been more unwelcome than having her handmaid in the room while she ate.

So Suyin returned to her position, taking the princess' hand once again, and continued to file her nails. She liked to keep them extremely long, Suyin learned very early on, and quite sharp, too. The first time she'd attended to her nails, she'd made them too round- and Azula had corrected her, in a sharp tone, that they were to be more angular. She feared the day her nail would break - for it certainly would, with how much exercise and training she did.

Her own nails she kept clean and short, right down to the nail bed. There wasn't really any other option; they would otherwise break with all the work she did, or scratch Azula while she was dressing her or washing her. She didn't really mind; she was used to it, and long nails seemed incredibly impractical, but she had to admit they looked nice. Sometimes she imagined, idly, how she'd style her nails if she could keep them however she liked, with no thought for practicality.

She'd like to paint them, that deep red shade reserved only for nobles. She wondered whether Azula ever painted her nails - it would suit her, she thought. And it could be fun to paint them, too, and then Suyin could almost live her dream vicariously through her.

If the inability to use her left hand incapacitated Azula, it did not show in the slightest. She ate her meal with more elegance than Suyin had ever seen in anyone, one graceful spoonful at a time, eating languidly, without any hint of a rush at all. She used her chopsticks with equal elegance, separating the fish into dainty, bite-sized pieces. There wasn't a single grain of rice that escaped her once she picked it up.

She ate with such perfection- and for whom? For Suyin? She doubted it. It must be her own ingrained regality, perfused into absolutely everything she did, so much that even when she was alone, she did not let her mask drop. Clearly, it was not a facade, but her very way of being.

Perhaps it was because she was looking down at the princess' hand, still filing her nails, and not at her face, that Suyin asked, in a bout of courage and curiosity alike, "Do you always eat alone?"

Azula did not rush to answer her. She chewed as though nothing had happened, and Suyin was beginning to wonder whether she'd gone too far, asking something like that. Whether Azula was graciously pretending she hadn't crossed the line, hadn't asked that question at all.

"I sup with Father." Azula finally answered. But Suyin had now been here for nearly a month, and she had yet to see Azula spend any meal with her father - or anyone else, for that matter. The maids brought every meal to her room, three times a day, and she ate them there, alone.

"Is that so…?" Suyin mused.

Azula must have heard the doubt in her voice, for she shot her a rather exasperated look, "He's been terribly busy with his responsibilities lately. He is the Fire Lord, of course. What else would you expect?"

Suyin shrugged, and kept her gaze and focus on the hand she was working on. "Yes, of course. He must be very busy." She wondered when they last ate supper together, but she had a feeling she shouldn't ask that. "...But apart from that, you eat alone?"

"What?" Azula sneered, "Would you have me dine with the servants?"

"No, of course not. But-"

Do you not have any friends? Suyin bit her tongue and swallowed her question, feeling that she was teetering close to the edge of dangerous territory. Besides - she rather suspected the answer already. She spent nearly every waking moment with the princess; she knew her schedule down to the minute. Azula spent plenty of time with her firebending instructors, and the soldiers with whom she sparred, and the generals who sat alongside her and the Fire Lord in the war council meetings. And with Suyin, of course.

The only other girls in the palace around Azula's age were maids and cooks, neither of whom Azula particularly interacted with. She was surrounded by business and war and training, and old, greying men. To Suyin it seemed as though she didn't have a single friendly face around her.

"But what?" Azula repeated, and the words felt more like a challenge than an earnest curiosity for her to continue the sentence.

"Mingyu would eat her meals with her parents and brother. And when they were all busy - I would eat with her." Suyin explained. She finally looked up, and gave Azula a smile, hoping to make herself as unthreatening and sincere as possible.

"Oh?" Azula raised an eyebrow.

Was she about to get fired? Suyin genuinely did not know. She didn't think she was suggesting anything outlandish, but there really was no way to tell what would be the tipping point. It would happen sooner or later, anyway, and somehow… the inevitability of it almost made her fear it less. Memento mori, and all that.

"It's part of a handmaid's duty, that is," Suyin continued, "to keep her mistress company, whenever she may want it."

"It's extremely bold of you to invite yourself into my mealtimes, is what it is."

Suyin felt her heart drop. She braced herself for her to raise her voice, to let her go. She shrugged, and sent her a smile, apologetic. "It is only an offer. I thought you might be..." She trailed off.

"Be what?"

"...Lonely."

Azula didn't respond for a lingering moment. Suyin had finished filing her nails at this point, but the tension in the air was so palpable that she loathed to pull away, to seem idle. So she inspected each fingernail again, checking for any jagged edges or uneven cuticles, even though she knew perfectly well there were none.

"Well," she said, "You're here, aren't you?"

"I am."

"So I'm not eating alone."

Suyin smiled politely. That wasn't what she'd meant, but she supposed it was true. The tension, though of her own creation, weighed heavy and awkward in the air between them, and she felt an intense urge to relieve it. Finally, she released Azula's hand, "There we go, all done. Princess, do you ever paint your nails? I think the red polish would be so pretty on you."

Azula inspected her nails, checking Suyin's work. Even four weeks later, this intense scrutiny still made her nervous, but Suyin was beginning to grow confident that her skills would please her. She'd been correcting her less and less with each passing day.

"Not lately. The paint chips easily while I train. But I used to wear it back when I attended the Royal Fire Academy for Girls." Azula reminisced. "My friend, Ty Lee, would paint my nails and Mai's. Of course, they chipped back then, too, during training, but Ty Lee liked them."

Oh! There it was - a mention of friends. It was the first time Suyin heard Azula speak of them, or to use the word friend at all. "Do you see them often?"

"No. We write, once every few months or so. Mai's family has been relocated to Omashu, and Ty Lee's off chasing dream after dream. They both left the capital a few years ago, and we haven't seen each other since."

"I'm sorry." Suyin didn't know what else to say. She wondered whether she missed her friends. Probably. Life in the palace would surely be more bearable with friends by her side, but they must have separated after finishing school. She wanted to know more, to probe her further, but the questions did not come so naturally. In any case, it was nice to hear Azula open up, even if only a little, to speak about her friends.

Azula stood, so Suyin did as well, automatically, as a show of respect. Evidently, she'd finished eating, though she left a fair portion of rice and vegetables untouched, and Suyin mourned the leftovers. What a shame, to let that food go to waste! But she certainly couldn't finish the princess' leftovers herself, no matter how much she might want to.

Azula walked through her room without a word. She took something out of one of the dresser drawers, and then returned and handed it to Suyin. A couple of coins, worth nearly her monthly salary. They felt cool and heavy in her palm.

"Here." Azula stated easily. "Take this. Tomorrow, you will go out and buy red nail polish for me."