"I love how Azula learns to be humble here. I love how you're creating a chemisty with the child and her father." Thank you :) She doesn't know it, but she has a way with children. They just kind of gravitate towards her. "It's adorable how she falls for the little child and her point of view about Azula has found the better turnip." xP Flattery may or may not soften a certain princess. Not that she'll admit it. "I love how you're creating this heart-warming banter and competition" xP thanks I feel like a redeemed Azula is still 100% going to be into small quips and competition. "He likes Azula and so does his daughter. And Azula do like them." Indeed they do, Azula is a bit better with people than she realizes. "As more hurts to know that she has lost them." But yeah, that does add some sting for sure. "Back in the palace it is obvious that she has been through a lot but not all of this has been bad." Being home kind of just emphasizes how she has changed and it makes her nervous and melancholy. "She has learned to value the privileges of being a princess but also has learned to value the happiness and pride." And this is true. She won't be taking things for granted anymore and has learned to apricate hard work and jobs/positions that she has formally deemed beneath her. "And it becomes obvious that she has loved her new life and that she has found love as well." This too. She had come to enjoy a more quiet, humble life and so being back at the palace with a crown on her head is daunting in a way that she hadn't expected.

The world takes her to the seaside. It does so with a force that she doesn't expect. But then, she hasn't expected to stay in Wu Jing as long as she has. She isn't sure how she had gone from vowing to be at Chin city within the week to making excuses to stay in Wu Jing.

She sighs, who is she trying to fool, she knows why she has tethered herself and she is both afraid of and exhilarated by it.

She was anyhow. She looks into the waves as she casts a net out. It would seem that she is no longer welcomed in Wu Jing. She supposes that it was only a matter of time before that happened. She is the only firebender in the village and not everyone takes kindly to it. She is under the impression that a good handful of them only tolerated her because they were under the impression that she'd be leaving soon.

She drags the net back in, it is significantly heavier, a good sign. "You're a natural." The captain comments, she helps Azula pull it back in. "You sure that you've never done this before?"

Azula nods.

"Maybe in a past life?"

She shakes her head, "in a past life I was a dragon."

The woman chuckles, "ain't mean ye couldn't 'a been a fisherman in a different one."

Azula shrugs. "I suppose." Though she sincerely doubts it.

"Yee don't talk much."

She shrugs. "Just here for some coin. I'm not trying to form bonds."

"I take it the las' bond yee formed didn't end so well? People take to the seas when they wanna forget the land."

"We're on a short fishing trip, I'll be back on land by sundown."

"So ye ain't runnin' away from something?"

She empties the fish and throws the net back to the waves. The captain disappears back below deck and Azula slumps over the rails. The wind brings a flutter to her hair and the scent of fish to her nose. The ship hits a wave and the seaspray brings salt to her lips. It leaves her feeling sticky and dirty. She yearns for this trip to be over with so she can take her earnings and go. She has caught such an excess that she will no longer have to fret over meals nor the tears in her clothing and holes in her shoes.

Perhaps she has done well by leaving Ojihara and his rancid turnips. That loathsome man...She reels in her net again. She is going to be mighty sore by the end of this endeavor.

"Need some help with that?"

"I can…" she huffs. "I can do it myself." It is a full body effort by now but she almost has her catch. She hears the ripping of a rope and curses. The Water Tribesman hustles towards the net and holds the severed ends together. He looks away just long enough. She slams a ball of fire into the rails, the kickback throws her onto her back, but the net, brimming with flopping fish, comes with her. She winces, and lays dazed for a moment.

"Are you…?"

"I'm fine."

He casts a glance at her haul of squirming fish. "Yeah, with a catch like that I imagine you will be."

She gets to her feet and cringes, her pants are rather uncomfortably soaked through and she hasn't a change of clothes. She won't have one until she makes it back to the inn.

"Have you been in our village long?"

She shakes her head. "And I won't be staying long. I'm not a fishing village sort."

He quirks a brow.

"I can catch a few fish, that doesn't make me a good fit for…"

"Then perhaps you'd be suited for the Tribes?"

"Absolutely not!" She replies abruptly. "I'm not trying to stray that far from home. Even if I were, I can't imagine that the cold would do my fire any good."

"Well I think that you'd be good for a fishing village lifestyle."

"Your judgement is poor."

"So your social skills."

She gives a haunty sniff, bristling at the odor of fish. "Which is precisely why I shouldn't join a fishing crew in the long term. I won't have myself tethered in one place and to a handful of people." Even as she says it she feels for the stone in her pocket. She ought to chuck it over the side of the boat.

The man's face softens. "Can I help you collect your fish?"

"You may help me, but only because I don't like how their scales feel."

"I take it that you won't be skinning them?"

Her nose crinkles, "skinning them?" She looks at her hands. They aren't clean nor are they smooth and soft anymore. But they aren't yet bloodstained and shredded by scales. "I am going to sell them and someone else can have the pleasure."

"Who are you?"

"Cheyul."

"Where do you come from, Cheyul?"

"The Fire Nation."

"I know that. But which part."

"Just help me with these." She gestures to the fish.

By the time they reach the docks, the fish are packed neatly into crates and ready for selling.

"Where were you before you came to this village?"

"Why do you care?" She snaps. Her eyes don't leave the men and women working to bind their vessel to the dock.

He shrugs. "I suppose that it's because I've never met someone like you before."

"Stern, uptight, hard to get along with? Then you have met many firebenders." She lifts one of her crates and carries it towards a one of several dockside buyers for weighing. "I'll have more." She mutters and the buyer nods.

The Water Tribesman manages a half smile and sets another crate down. "I was going to say guarded and...sharp. I don't know, there's just something different about you."

Different, she thinks. And when she thinks of different, she thinks of the things that make her so. These are the same things that make her a monster. The same things that she is trying to out pace. The things that pursue and catch up to her no matter where she goes. "You're like all of them." She mutters. "I'm different and you're like all of the rest."

"How do you figure that?"

She sets her last crate down and stares him in the eye. "You want to get to know me and when you finally do, you realize that you were mistaken. That, that isn't what you want at all."

The buyer grins and hands her an extremely generously heavy pouch. She staches it away in her satchel.

"How do you figure?"

"I've learned to tell." She turns from him and strides away.

"Who hurt you?" He asks.

"Who hasn't?" She returns.

And who hasn't she hurt? Of course Ojihara would detest her. Of course they all would. And for what? Because she didn't want to babysit his grandchild? Really it was a no win situation; either she 'wasn't earning her keep' or she'd be outcast for managing to traumatize the child.

Decidedly, she hates children. Loathes them. They are needy and fussy and all too curious.

"So you left because you've been hurt? Where are you going to go and how long do you think those coins are going to last?"

And adults are even worse.

"They'll last me long enough to find another quick job." She hastens her pace. "It's none of your concern."

"So you're just going to keep on running?" The man asks. "I thought that firebenders were supposed to be brave and head on. A tribesman...we stick to our values."

"You assume I have values." She cuts herself short before she can add, 'of my own.' It might be that he is right, at least to some degree; perhaps she should return to the Fire Nation and concede. She has gone searching for something and she hasn't found it. She hasn't even figured out what she is searching for. It might be that her purpose, her destiny lies in a cell or a padded room.

"You don't have anything that keeps you attached to anywhere?" His tone softens.

"I've got nothing at all." She takes another step.

The stone in her pocket knocks against her leg.

That night she learns the depth of a small thing.

.oOo.

She studies herself in the mirror. Her reflection is elegant and pretty, decorated and done up to the fullest. Rubies on golden chains sparkle on her ears, her fingers, and around her neck. They glisten in her hair and shimmer on the bulky silk folds of her gown, a gown that hides the bandages that wrap her foot and ankle. They have, once again, evened the color of her skin and crafted a sharpness to her eyes and lips. It is almost as though she has never left at all. She thought that it would have been comforting to revel in a vision of the past. To see her old, unblemished face peering pristinely back at her.

It only feels as though she has erased something...

"Satisfied?"

Azula rubs her lips together and shakes her head.

"What is it? Do you want us to apply more makeup?"

She shakes her head vigorously.

"Less?"

She hesitates.

She nods.

"You're not backing out, are you?" Zuko asks.

"Why would you think that?"

"You're having your makeup washed off."

"I wanted less of it."

He furrows his brows as her servants remove a healthy layer of concealer.

"I thought that you…"

"They will be staring at me from a rather large distance. They won't notice much."

The clean layer and layer away to her satisfaction. Until she is almost barefaced. Until a touch of eyeshadow, eyeliner, and lipstick remain. She brushes her fingers over her cheek.

The servants exit and a team of fire sages come to take their place. "Lo and Li will begin the introductions, you will emerge when they speak your name. We recommend that you start making your way to the balcony…"

She lets the man finish but she knows the workings of it well enough. With her nod the sage replies, "I shall tell them to begin."

It is Sokka who fills their vacancy. "You look nice." He smiles.

She clasps her hands over her knee. "Thank you."

"You're really tense."

"It's my natural state."

He chuckles though she isn't joking.

"Are you sure that you don't want me or Zuko to accompany you?"

"I don't need hand holding, Sokka." She doesn't quite mean it but she speaks with an extra bite.

"Just...ya know offering."

"Offering once was plenty." A series of claps accent her words and she knows that the twins have made it to the balcony.

"I can also come out if you'd like."

"I don't need your coddling either, Zuzu."

Doesn't need it and feels sick at the thought of having it. Of standing rather plainly next to him in his opulent and awestiking regalia. Of being quite ordinary and unaccomplished. She faintly wonders if he had thought the same during his homecoming.

"We have searched every stretch of our Nation and beyond our land. Our search had turned up nothing and we had assumed the worst." There is no glory to boast. No heroic deeds to tell of. Nothing substantial at all really. Nothing worth announcing. "What we have found is that a phoenix can rise back on its own." They make it sound more glorious than it is. Azula supposes that, that is their job. She rises, her stomach gives a small flop. Zuko offers her an encouraging smile and Sokka mouths a good luck. She is thankful that the crowd won't be able to see her limp, however slight it is.

They pause and she pauses, hand gripping the fabric of the curtain. She closes her eyes.

"Now after six long years," Lo says.

"She is ready to return to the public's eye!" Li finishes.

"Your princess, Azula!" They both finish.

She gently pushes the curtain aside and slips onto the balcony. Her eyes scan a wholly silent crowd. She isn't surprised to be met with a very un-Fire Nation coldness. Her footfalls echo about the plaza as she makes her way to the railing. Her hands curl around them, the wind stirs her hair chopsticks, sending their lavish ornamentation tinkling.

And then the crowd erupts. Not into the hateful sneers and yells that she had anticipated but a rather thunderous clapping. They are pridefully noisy, it is almost dizzying. She grips the rails tighter. And tighter still when she looks off into the distance and sees that the statue of her father has been demolished, probably melted down and reshaped into one of Zuko.

"Would you like to address your people?" The twins offer.

Azula's stomach lurches a second time. They haven't told her that she was to do so, though she supposed that she should have figured as much. She almost shakes her head but the crowd falls silent again. And she is silent. The world is all too still.

Her lips part and she tilts her head up, bearing the scar on her neck, and inhales through her nose. "I have been to a good many places." She says at last as she peers over the crowd. It is very different from when she has last stood up here. Spots of green and blue mix with red. Eyes of gold, green, and blue fix on her with anticipation. "It is a pleasure to be home again. Home in the greatest nation with a rekindled knowledge that the Fire Nation is the crown jewel of the world." She pauses, almost leaving it at that. Her fingers brush over one of the two trinkets she has tucked into her gown. She has garnered another round of approving claps and remarks, mostly from the red specks. She waits for them to go silent. "Though I suppose that there are many other jewels that are tantalizing in their own respects." And now the blue and green join.

She reaches into the folds of her gown and feels for her stone. She grips it tightly while holding her head high until the twins beckon for her to return inside. "You will be seeing more of me." She concludes as her subjects bow.

"You did amazing!" Sokka exclaims.

"I hardly did anything at all." Azula shrugs. "These things are all for show."

"They weren't booing you."

"Is that the reception you tend to get?"

"People love me!" Sokka declares.

"If you say so."

.oOo.

"You feel better now, don't you?"

Azula reclines on the sofa and lets her hair down. It is true, she does feel much less tense now that a public appearance isn't looming over her head. "I feel well enough Sokka." It very much helps to be out of that gown and in something less excessive, less restrictive. She rests her head upon the arm rest and closes her eyes.

"You are happy to be back, right?" Zuko asks.

"Why does everyone ask so many questions?"

"Because you're hard to read and don't give clear answers the first time around."

"I just got back, Zuzu. I haven't decided how I feel about it."

"Oh come on, you can't tell me that you don't enjoy the pampering!" Sokka declares as he quite brazenly takes a seat. He doesn't wait for her to move her legs, opting to simply sit on them instead. She frowns and gives him a rather solid kick. He jolts and she curls her legs up. He sits back down.

"It is nice." She replies. "I missed being clean." She brings her sleeve to her nose and inhales the fresh scent of various flora.

"I liked your speech."

"It wasn't much of a speech. Just a few carefully selected words." Though careful is a bit of a stretch considering that she hadn't pre-prepared them.

"It was still nice." Sokka says.

She shrugs.

"Can you tell us about what you did in the Earth Kingdom?"

"Is lunch almost ready? I'm quite hungry." She moves her hand from behind her head to her belly. "Dumplings would be nice." She hasn't had them in ages. Not fresh and steaming to palace perfection.

"Sure, I'll let the cooks know that, that's what you want." Zuko replies. "It'll be nice to sit at the table together again. Mai and TyLee will be there."

"Of course." She says simply. She snatches up one of the decorative pillows and holds it to her chest. She wonders how it is that she had come to expect that she wouldn't be seeing either of them again. She wonders how it will be received if she simply stole away in the night and disappeared again.