The water is cold but Azula will not warm herself. She keeps her fire at bay and forces her eyes to remain open, staring at the dark waters around her, as she repeats the motions the waterbender had shown her earlier.
The water remains unchanged aside from the stray pockets of air bubbling out of her mouth and striking against the darkness.
It was past sunset. Waterbenders were stronger in the night. So why couldn't she get this?
Azula brings her hands closer, relying on the stray shards of moonlight to see, and tries again.
Water is the element of change.
Azula ignores the burning in her lungs. There was so little time.
I think we should take a break. Maybe a little relaxation will help.
Her father. He had to forgive her. He had to.
Hey, chill out. Even Sweetness didn't learn waterbending in a day.
Doublebending with the Avatar. It wasn't enough. She had to do better.
Azula? Azula!
She repeats the motions, imploring the water to coalesce around her hands, when her body began to panic.
Azula breaks the surface of the lake and breathes in deeply; the night air crisp with shame, before tilting her head up to the sky and letting her mouth burn with vibrant flames.
It wasn't enough.
If Azula met her her father now there was no guarantee he wouldn't kill her. She was a threat. A monster.
She spies a shape in the darkness.
Mother. Of course.
Azula makes her way closer to the bank, ignoring the shrouded apparition, until the clouds part and she realizes the apparition wasn't an apparition at all but a figure.
The Avatar had witnessed her failure.
Azula thinks briefly about going back into the lake and letting herself drown but, alas, she had already made her way into waters shallow enough for her legs to begin to shake from exhaustion.
"Came to gawk?" she calls with a defiant lift of her chin.
"No." He pauses and Azula watches in envy as he effortlessly glides across the water.
He reaches her, the water coalescing into a solid surface beneath his feet, and holds out his hand.
She stares at it in silence.
"I can teach you," he offers in a voice devoid of judgment and a face framed by moonlight.
"Why?"
She asks him why and he notices her lips tremble.
It wasn't because of his offer. Azula asked her question with a hard voice and a sneer. No, she was trembling because she was cold and for some reason she chose not to warm herself up.
Aang frowns, debating on whether he should ask.
"I asked you a question, Avatar—"
"Why are you cold?"
She glares at him. The moonlight cutting through her eyes and illuminating her features.
Winter's grave, thinks Aang, because her skin looked cold and her eyes remind him of tree bark stripped by winter wind.
"Training," she replies curtly and Aang takes a sharp breath.
"This isn't right!" is what he wants to say, but those words would be battered away easily and in so many ways.
"You're killing yourself," is what he thinks next, but that's not right either because Azula isn't dead, and yes technically he had died and wasn't one to talk but—
"Why not?" he hedges, and watches her lips curl even as they shake.
"You do realize I'm going to k-kill you once this is over?" she says, biting down harshly on her lip before staring at him with cold eyes and with a colder tone saying, "we're enemies."
"Then you should learn all you can," he says pointedly, "because right now you're scared to take my hand."
Vexing, thinks Azula with a glare as she grabs his hand.
Why are you being kind when you know the risks?
He falls into the water. Falls in the way only an airbender can; with more poise and grace than gravity allowed.
His feet dip into the water briefly before it swirls around him, them, picking them up effortlessly and distributing their weight until they're standing with nary a ripple underneath.
His hand settles on her waist.
She's cold, he thinks, and Aang moves his hand further along to her back, heating up his skin and subtly pressing her closer to him.
Her hands steam and she lifts the one not held an places it against the crook of his neck in a warning.
It gives him an idea.
"Dance with me," he says, and Azula can only stare.
"It will help you learn waterbending," he explains, moving the hand behind her back in a way that causes the water underneath them to swell slightly.
He's warm, thinks Azula as she holds onto him for balance.
"You didn't think this through," she says accusingly, glancing down at the choppy water. "I'll strike you with lightning again if you drop me," she warns, but the threat is weakened by her last shivers and she is not surprised when he simply smiles in response.
"Press your feet against mine. Keep them close." He says, and Azula follows his suggestions. It is dark and she is utterly exhausted. No one would see her lean against him and, if she ends up learning how to waterbend after this, she doesn't particularly care if they did.
"Lead the way," she says.
A dance with my soulmate. No problem.
Aang adjusts his grip, palm facing palm, and focuses on waterbending, making sure the water will hold taut, before carefully moving across the surface, unsure of his steps.
A sliver of moonlight catches her soulmark, making the blue arrows shimmer.
It looks good on her, he decides evenly, ignoring the way his heart hammers in his chest.
This is not a fairy tale.
She is not in love with him, and while Aang would be willing to risk himself for love he is not willing to risk the world.
But he will allow himself to hope.
"Try to focus less on your bending and more on enjoying the moment," he advises, hoping that if he cannot change her loyalty then he can, at the very least, make her consider the possibilities.
Enjoy the moment? thinks Azula skeptically as she hurriedly tries to copy his movements in the dark. How am I supposed to do that? She could be meeting her father in weeks, if not days, and what would she say? "I know my soulmate is the Avatar. I know I cost you the throne. I'm sorry." She would burn herself for such a pitiful display.
She's frowning. Not at him but at her feet. So, he slows his steps. Adjusting; moving with her instead of forcing her to bend.
Then she scoffs at him, so he decides to pick up the pace.
There's wind in her hair. Air nomad.
He's moving without looking and it's not a dance she's been taught, so it's either a peasant abomination, a informal amalgamation—
He spins her across choppy waters
— a brave informal amalgamation of dance moves, corrects Azula as she finds herself pressed frustratingly close to his chest, or it was a forgotten airbender dance.
She clears her throat as the water laps at her ankles.
"How were you taught this dance?"
Aang slows, refocusing on his steps, as he ponders the question.
"I wasn't taught," he says and feels her innocently place her hand back against her neck. He huffs, and tries to think back further for an answer that will satisfy Azula.
"Dancing was a way to express ourselves. It was something you did when you felt like it, not something that you were taught," he says at last, swaying on small waves.
Her hand moves from his neck to rest formally on his shoulder.
"What about you?" he asks.
"Academy," she replies curtly, focusing on moving the water around her, and not on the way they easily fit together.
Soulmates. Nothing more than biology and desperation.
They were…compatible, she'd admit as the moonlight occasionally illuminates his sinewy muscles.
However, she would not betray her Nation, her father, for him solely because their souls matched. That would be ridiculous.
Azula closes her eyes and tries to move the water with them.
It didn't mean anything.
The water ripples in reply.
Azula could cheer. The water is finally responding to her. It's not enough, the partly ripple is a far cry from mastery, but she feels like cheering all the same.
"Did that help?" asks Aang when they reach the sandy banks and his hands drift back to his sides.
Azula stares through him and he fidgets, smoldering copper, as the silence loops around them.
"The stars," says Azula carefully, breaking the silence. "Are the stars the same now as they were in the past?"
He looks up and carefully counts the sky; comparing it to the memories he has of flying under the stars with people who now rest without graves.
"It's the same," he says with no small measure of relief, but Azula is no longer there; leaving him with the stars in the sky and a lungful of burning questions.
