gemsofformenos: Thank you :) This one was supposed to be melancholy but in a more optimistic way? Azula has gone through a lot, she's been on a bit of a journey and did some self discovering. And so that has changed her quite a lot. What exactly came back to reap her peace will be revealed eventually lol. But she's now in a rough spot again and she's going to need a bit of help to deal with loss. And as always, Sokka is good at, or at least sort of good at, understanding her. At the very least, he is good at showing sympathy and offering a chance at a new start.
PurplePlatypusBear21: xP It's always a pleasure to mercilessly throw feels at people. Zuko and Sokka are wholesome and they care about Azula. And Sokka knows a thing or two about loss with his mother and everything so he can kind of connect the dots with her. And he wants to help her through it if she'll let him in. And thanks! That's a detail was really happy to write in. It's probably going to come up again eventually.
Mogor: This fic is one of three that I'm going to be testing the waters with in terms of deciding which to focus on.
The plains are a lot vaster than she remembers, it might be because she had first traversed them via a sturdy tank. With nothing but a mongoose-lizard for company and transport, it is a little different. More daunting. And this time she doesn't have a sense of direction. She has stolen herself enough coin from the palace to get her by for at least a year, should nothing happen. So long as she buys clothes only when she needs them and plans her meals as precisely as she plans her conquests she should be fine.
Should be.
She is never fine these days.
She can't use her coins to buy back the luck she has run out of.
If there is one thing that is a mercy, it is that Earth Kingdom afternoons aren't so swelteringly brutal as Fire Nation ones. She is accustomed to the intense heat and can largely ignore the unabated sunlight that spills over her. It is the night that she fears for. It is always cold and this, she is not used to.
She has already spent several nights woefully unprepared and shivering. Laying under her mongoose-lizard with a terribly thin blanket only goes so far. The sun is on its way down and she still only sees an endlessly sweeping plain. She doesn't want to spend the night out in the cold. She isn't sure that she will be able to endure another.
But she will have to. She knows it when the sky turns from a blazing-yet dull by comparison to a Fire Nation sky-orange-red to a thick indigo and the first pinprick of stars burst into view. She knows it well when a sliver of a moon climbs into the sky.
She makes herself a fire and longs for something to cook over it. She has run out of berries and nuts, and that which she hadn't run out of had gone slushy and moldy. She hasn't come by anything to hunt either, not even small game.
Three days so far, without food. She is thankful that she had the forethought to travel by the stream. And she berates herself for not thinking of trying to catch fish. It will be difficult by hand and dagger alone-she makes a mental note to craft herself some tools when she comes by time, energy, and supply-and she doesn't like seafood but the ache in her belly tells her that she can't afford to be choosey.
She takes a sip from her waterskin and stares off into the sky. She likes the sky, it is her one comfort. For a while it takes her away from the biting cold and it makes her feel somehow less lonely. Truth be told, she isn't sure exactly why that is. She stares at the shimmering expanse until it becomes a shifting mirage.
This is when the coyote-fox begin to yip and yap. They will do so unceasingly into the night. She quickly lets her fire die. The night chill fills its vacancy with an overzealous readiness. Even with the fire out, she wonders if the coyote-fox will sniff her out.
Some suppressed and dismal part of her hopes that they will; nobody would miss her. Nobody would find her.
She closes her eyes.
And she awakes before the morning breaks. The sky is that same inky indigo as it was before but to the east there is a streak of gold on the horizon. It is a breezy day, she knows it not only buy the way her hair whips at her face, but at the sound of the grass swaying. She gets up on shaky legs and drags herself onto her mount. Fatigue has her nodding off several times. She is fully awake when she slumps and falls to the grass. Newly bruised she carries on.
An hour or so passes and then another and the wind is growing incessant, the way that it whips her hair. She climbs down from her mount and takes a deep breath. She isn't sure if her hands are shaking with hunger or anticipation. Either which way, she takes the blade to her locks and watches strand after strand drift away in the breeze like the bison fur she had followed through this meadow some years ago.
It is pathetic really, but she falls to her knees and cries.
She can't deny that the ravaging of her hair was well overdue.
It is midafternoon when she makes it up the hill. And for a moment hunger subsides and the oppressive sorrow that has been following her for hours, perhaps days, dulls. The land is gorgeous. Calf high, the ankles and wild flowers swish around her. She can see for miles, a steady sea of grass, undulating like waving hands. In rays of the sun she sees plumes of teeny insects flitting about.
For a moment she thinks that she will be okay.
The moment passes when she fails to catch a fish.
Four days without food.
On the fifth day she begins to unravel.
She feels weak and tired. For the first time she considers that she has made a mistake in trying to take on such a great grassland. It devastated her psyche too. More than she had anticipated.
The whispers begin, she hears them in the rustle of the grasses. They tell her that she isn't alone, that they are here. That she can talk to them. Some are familiar, most are just unrecognizable whispers born of a need much more pressing than food...
On this day she learns that she can't be and doesn't like to be alone.
.oOo.
Azula rolls over and pushes herself deeply into the mattress. It is so cozy. She isn't particularly ready to leave its comforts yet. A pang of nervousness has her bolting up right, she has to get a start and find food or…
She looks around and inhales deeply as she rubs her hands over her face. She lays herself back down. It will be there when she is ready to come and get it, she reminds herself. This is disorienting. Even more so is when her food comes to her instead of she to it. The serving girl sets it on her nightstand with a soft smile and an, "enjoy, princess."
Azula sits up once more. She is only a few bites in when Sokka enters. "How are you feeling?"
Azula thinks for a moment before ultimately shrugging.
"It's good to be home isn't it? Or is it just weird?"
"It's weird to be consistently bombarded with questions."
Sokka flushes. "Just trying to be friendly!" He stumbles.
Azula feels faintly jittery, recalling that he isn't accustomed to her yet. Not like they were. He can't interpret her like they had been able to. "That's fine."
Sokka furrows his brows, "uh...I'm glad that I have your permission to be friendly?"
The fluttering in her tummy grows. She probably should say something else but she doesn't. She isn't sure how. Like many conversations these days, there is no tactical approach and if she tries to approach it with stern mannerisms and carefully planned dialogue it is just uncanny.
"You're not easy to have conversations with, you know?" Even his statements are questions, she almost laughs. "It's hard to talk to someone who doesn't talk."
"Why do you want to talk to me?"
"I...I don't know. I guess it's because…" he trails off. She catches him staring at her neck. So it's a pity thing. She pulls her collar up. "You've probably been alone for a while right?"
"I have, yes." She replies. "But why does that matter to you?"
"It just does. Does there have to be a reason?"
"Yes." Azula gives a firm nod. "There is a reason and a motive behind everything. I would like to know yours."
"Because I think that you could use a friend."
"But why do you want to be that friend. The last time we spoke we were throwing fire and boomerangs."
He chuckled. "There was a point where the last time Zuko and I spoke, it was the same thing…" he trails off.
"That doesn't answer why you care. Where's the logic…"
"Ah ha!" He exclaims as though he has backed her into a corner. "This isn't about logic, Azula. It's about emotion. Ya know, feelings."
Azula scowls. "I don't like those."
He laughs. And then his laughter fades. "Sometimes I just like helping other people. It makes me feel good. Ya know?"
She presses her lips into a thin line. Even if only vaguely, she thinks that she does. She looks at her satchel and thinks of the small straw-stuffed badger-mole within. And she thinks that she does know, at least to some degree. "I do not." She says anyhow.
Again his eyes wander to her neck. "I think that you do. Come on, finish up," he gestures to her food, "and I can show you some new stuff that has been added to the palace while you were gone."