The grassy field surrounding the tank-train now had a conspicuous bald spot. A plum blossom blooming amidst the grass, a bacui berry bush over there, and then bam. A rough patch of loose dirt. Any sort of digging out here in the mountains, where farms were rare and the land was for the most part uncultivated, would immediately stick out like a sore thumb to any experienced tracker.

It was a rather amusing coincidence that Zhulu's Pass was so close to Azula's makeshift grave. Zhulu's Pass, where Master Jianzhu put down the Yellow Neck rebellion. She was rather fuzzy on what the Yellow Neck rebellion actually was, not that she cared. The interesting part wasn't the rebellion itself, but how it was squashed. See, the rebellion was thousands strong, and thousands stupid—the movement was entirely composed of low level bandits and thugs—hence why it was so easy for Jianzhu to lure them into Zhulu's Pass and then bury them all alive with Earthbending. It was efficient, deadly, and with the added bonus of leaving no visible bodies afterward. Why kill your enemy first and then bury the body when you could accomplish both at the same time? Of course, it was impossible for Azula to replicate Jianzhu's feat without Earthbending. She did have a shovel though, which she first used to knock the soldiers unconscious after putting them in the pit Sensu Earthbent, and then to shovel six feet of dirt on top of them. The method wasn't as clean as Jianzhu's, but Azula figured he would be proud nonetheless.

With the tank repaired and the soldiers disposed with, there wasn't much left for Azula to do. She considered practicing a couple firebending forms, but decided better of it. A huge blue flame or a deafening bolt of lightning would give away her position to every Earth Kingdom soldier in a mile radius. She wasn't afraid of the soldiers, but she didn't feel like repairing the tank a second time, especially considering how tired she was.

She also had a massive headache—that energy tea Mai brewed up was starting to wear off. As her eyes sagged, Azula wondered what the tea was actually made of, and how her uncle's ailing heart was able to withstand the huge jolt of energy he'd get from drinking it. This was one of the rare times when Azula actually wanted to talk to her uncle, if only to ask which plant he put in the stimulant tea. Speaking of…where was the rest of the tea, anyway?

Well, it wasn't under the bed, it wasn't in the pantry, it wasn't—oh, it's there. Apparently, sometime during the fight with the soldiers, the tea box managed to spill out onto the floor of the mongoose-lizard stable. "Oh, for the love of Sozin, that's disgusting," Azula said. She supposed that she could simply sleep off her headache, but still it was unfortunate that the tea got spilled, truly unfortunate…

—

Thank the spirits Mai isn't here, Azula thought. She was on all fours in the stable, scouring the floor for fallen tea leaves. She couldn't believe she was this desperate for tea that she was willing to scoop it up from the floor of an animal pen. It wasn't as if Mr. Snuffles was particularly dirty—Azula made sure to give him a scrubbing every other day, but she had no clue how fastidious Mai and Ty Lee were with theirs.

Back in Caldera City, well, back in the bad parts of Caldera City, there were always a couple people in every alley or street corner with these bony cheeks, rotting teeth and sunken eyes staring at the sky. They'd smoke their bamboo Yen Tsiangs, and then it was like they had entered the spirit world. Azula once saw one of them staring into the sun. Strong stuff, strong enough that once you started you could never stop. She wondered if this tea was like that. She didn't think she was addicted per se, but she did really have a hankering for another cup—no, another pot of tea. Maybe this is why Uncle drinks tea all the time.

Having scooped up a huge pile of leaves from the ground, she gingerly walked back to the kitchenette and poured them into the kettle along with some water, then set it to boil. She sat down on a chair and waited. The headache was getting worse. Why won't this tea heat any faster?

To speed up the process, Azula shot a thin bolt of lightning, electrifying the kettle and instantly vaporizing half of the water inside. The steam that filled the room already gave her energy. She picked up the kettle and poured it into a delicate china cup, then sipped. It had an earthy taste with subtle notes of jasmine…and not-subtle notes of floor. If the liquid weren't piping hot, Azula would have chugged it down to mitigate the unsavory floor-flavor. It was better than scorching her throat with boiling water, if that was any consolation.

As Azula sipped her floor-tea, a certain mongoose-lizard pulled up to the side of the tank. Mai, her robes ruffled slightly, dismounted and knelt down to take a look at the tank treads. The sprockets seemed rather lumpy, but all things considered, Azula did pretty well in fixing them. She wondered where all the soldiers went. Azula probably put them in the back with the mongoose-lizards.

Ty Lee was fast asleep, the result of a sleeping draught Mai gave her so she wouldn't be awake while the Earth Kingdom medics were setting the bones in her hands back into place. The draught was evidently quite powerful considering how energetic the girl was normally. As Mai slung Ty Lee over her shoulder and walked towards the entrance of the tank, she noticed a bare patch of dirt. Strange. That wasn't there before. She'd have to ask Azula about that later.

She walked into the tank and squinted. Azula…was sipping tea straight out of the kettle.

"Azula…? What are you doing?"

Azula panicked, spilling hot tea onto the ground. She coughed a bit—she had accidentally aspirated some tea. Mai chuckled nervously. After clearing the liquid from her trachea, Azula straightened her back and cleared her throat.

"Glad you're back, Mai," she said in the most dignified tone she could muster, a tone so dignified no one would have guessed that five minutes ago she had tried to sip a whole kettle of tea through the spout.

Mai shifted from one leg to the other, trying to figure out an appropriate reaction to what she just saw. Finally, she settled on a drawn out okay and plopped Ty Lee's limp body on one of the cots. With Ty Lee taken care of, Mai decided to look around the tank. It was surprisingly fastidious. Except for the broken glass scattered around the cockpit, the tank looked fine. Speaking of…

"Hey, Azula?" Mai said. "Would you mind cleaning up the glass?"

Azula shrugged. "Yeah, sure." She walked to the supply closet and found the shovel, which was entirely encrusted in dirt, and began to shovel the glass shards out of the front of the broken windshield. While she did that, Mai eyed the teapot. She was awfully thirsty, having not had time to get a drink while she was looking for that Earth Kingdom camp. There was also the part where she had to threaten to stab the medics until they agreed to treat Ty Lee…

All in all, it was a very tiring day and a hot kettle of tea would be appreciated—even if she just saw Azula sipping out of said kettle five minutes ago. Mai grabbed the teapot and poured some out into a cup. She could tell that it was that same stimulant tea she made earlier, though the smell was a bit off. She figured Azula brewed it wrong, wincing as she remembered that time back at the Academy when Azula accidentally put poison ivy in Headmaster Kompeki's oolong. Accidentally. Still, the steaming brown liquid sloshing around in Mai's cup promised instant energy, and that was all she wanted.

She sipped, getting the expected jolt of energy but also feeling an uncanny stickiness at the back of her throat. Azula definitely brewed it wrong, she thought. Still, she poured herself another cup—she needed energy and this was the easiest way to get it, never mind that it tasted like—is that a piece of hay? Mai picked the little object out of her cup. Yep, hay.

Mai walked into the cockpit (which was now nearly free of glass) and tapped Azula's shoulder. Azula whipped around, causing Mai to back off in surprise.

"Hi, Mai! Uh, right, cockpit! It's all clean!" Azula crooned, her chipper voice obviously tea-fueled. "So, um, what do—"

Mai interrupted her by holding up the soggy piece of hay to her face. "This was in my tea."

Azula rolled her eyes like Mai was a fussy toddler. "Don't be so whiny, Mai," she said. "If you don't like hay in your tea, why don't you pick it up off the ground yourself?"

The tea leaves must have spilled on the floor earlier, Mai thought. I suppose that explains the taste. But the hay was still unaccounted for. How would hay get into the—oh. Mai's face curled into a rictus. She stared Azula straight in the eyes trying to think of the most cutting insult she could throw at her. Upon coming up with nothing, she sighed and walked off, making a mental note to always make her own tea. "Crown princess of the Fire Nation," she muttered. The worst part about it was that she was going to give the tea to Ty Lee so she'd wake up from the sleeping medicine. I guess Ty Lee will have to sleep it off.

The sun was now high in the sky. It was about noon, meaning the girls had lost twelve hours, twelve hours in which the Avatar could have flown off to who-knows-where on his flying cotton ball. Time to get moving.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for not updating the story in a while, I've had to study for APs so this unfortunately had to be put on the back burner. I'm not particularly pleased with the writing quality but I'm way too tired to do additional revisions. Welp, time to do another fifty questions on the Ottoman Empire or something…

Also, would anyone like to beta read my stories? I'd really appreciate it if someone would be willing to give my chapters a once over before I publish them. Thank you!