Ch9
Sokka took the first watch shift. It seemed that the captured princess was willing to cooperate with them, even helping them with the fire for the night, but that didn't mean they had forgotten who she was. Azula was deceptive, and always had been. So Sokka and Suki knew they would have to take turns watching her, they could not be asleep at the same time, risking Azula getting away- or worse. He sat across from Azula, sharpening his boomerang quietly as the light from the fire danced across his face.
Azula had trouble sleeping as well. For one reason or another she found herself even resisting the urge to sleep. She stayed awake with Sokka for a good portion of his round of prisoner watch. The two did not say much at all, and rather sat in complete silence with only the crackling of the fire to break the silence between them. Beside the pony tailed warrior, Suki lay across the ground beside him, full uniform and face paint, resting her head on his lap.
Sokka draped a small fleece blanket over his girlfriend and went back to tending to his weapons. He glanced up at Azula every now and then just to make sure she was still there, and not trying anything sneaky. He could see drowsiness setting in as the princess's eyes looked fatigued, but nevertheless she stayed awake. Even the way she sat beside the fire was rigid and dignified. Sitting on her knees and with a stiff upright posture, she looked as if she was sitting above a royal court or about to meditate. He could sense the social awkwardness that Mai and Ty Lee would occasionally talk about.
"So," Sokka finally broke the silence, "What's it like being...you know, royal?"
"Excuse me?"
"You know, royalty- a princess of a nation," he stammered, "What was the day to day like?"
Azula's eyes followed the linear motion of Sokka's sharpening stone as it ground across the edge of his boomerang. "It certainly involved more important, crucial matters, than sharpening mere toys."
He paused his sharpening motions. "Hey! This happens to be a very effective weapon! I bested someone who could literally blow stuff up with his mind with this baby right here."
"Please. You've actually met a combustion bender? They're pretty rare."
"Uh huh. Sure did! Aaand Zuko can attest to that!"
"And you beat him?" She questioned.
"You bet!"
"With a boomerang?" She doubted.
"Yup. So don't go underestimating the power of boomerang," Sokka defended.
"Hm," she scoffed. If what he said was indeed true, as much as she doubted, there was no further she could go in downplaying his ridiculous primitive weapons.
"You still haven't answered my question," Sokka reminded.
"Even if I answered, it's not like you can actually relate," she snapped.
"Ya know, you're not the first princess I've interacted with," Sokka led on. "Although, you're starting to take the cake for 'most difficult to talk to.'"
"Really? A peasant such as yourself? What other princess could you have possibly talked with?"
Sokka became solemn. "Her name was Yue, she was the princess for the Northern Water Tribe."
She scoffed once more. "And what? Let me guess, you fell in love with her? She sacrificed herself for the greater good? In a tragic, yet befitting, role for the princess of your nation?" Azula managed to strike several cords within Sokka on the last insult. She noticed his face grimace and pain before subsiding into anger at her remark. Not that she cared.
"You're just so..ugh!" He fumed tossing his boomerang to the side violently, it impaled itself into a nearby tree stump. "You are just the most toxic, infuriating, person to have to deal with!"
Suki, still half asleep, reached up and grabbed a hold of his forearm to calm him down. "Sokka...please...volume," she grumbled, burying her face into his lap further.
"Sorry," he toned down.
Azula merely blinked sleepily. "So.. struck a nerve of some sort," she said flatly. "You were actually in love with her?"
His lack of a response was all she needed for an answer.
"But, what about you two," she questioned referring to the sleeping warrior.
"It was...complicated," Sokka admitted before going on the defensive once again. "Actually- Why do I need to tell you any of this? It's not like you'd understand anything about love and relationships."
The firebending prodigy took offense to that. It seemed to give her more energy to combat her drowsiness. "Don't doubt my understanding of such feeble things," she scoffed. "I'm not that detached."
"Have ya dated anyone before?"
The audacity of this one! "Well, of course! Boys in the Fire Nation practically fall at my feet wherever I happen to go!"
Sokka grinned. "You know, for someone Toph admits is a pretty good liar, I don't think I buy that one."
"I wouldn't understand a simple nobody such as you to understand," she said distantly.
"Have you ever-"
"Anyways, you want to know what being a princess was like?" Azula forcefully pushed for a subject change. "Being worshiped twenty four seven was fun and entertaining. Outside of that, there were lots of meetings and congregations for world domination. If I wanted something, I need only to hold out my hand and the object would simply appear there," she told.
"Wow, seems over zealous."
"It was worlds better than whatever this 'situation' could possibly be considered. Having a bed was something that I did not know I would miss this much," Azula yawned. She reached over and picked up one of Suki's war fans which were laid on the ground beside where she had been sitting before leaning over and lying on Sokka. She opened the weapon, displaying its golden iron leaflets in full view, glistening in the light of the fire. It had been a while since she had held these ridiculous 'weapons' in her hands, and it wasn't like she ever used them. Azula toyed with the weapon as she waved it back and forth, mainly using it as a fan.
"Hey, Suki's really touchy about people messing with her stuff," Sokka scolded. "Especially her fans and headpiece thingy."
The princess rolled her eyes. What position did this tribal simpleton think he was in to tell her what she could and could not touch? But not in the mood to see any conflict through, and exhausted beyond any desire to want to mess with him or her, she withdrew, closing the fan and tossing back to the Kyoshi Warrior's side next to its twin.
Sokka scoffed at her previous remarks, having succeeded in getting his captive to cease fiddling with his girlfriend's belongings. "I actually prefer this. Being out in the field, improvising," he declared. "When the war ended- not to say that peace and victory isn't great an' all, but after that everything changed from being chased around the world and spending nights in the wilderness with my closest friends, to not seeing them much at all and lounging around the Fire Nation palace and other halls of government around the world."
Sokka began to clean the mud off of his club, being that his boomerang was still buried in a distant tree. Suki shuffled from his lap to the ground, supporting her head with her arms. He smiled at his sleeping partner.
"And anyway-" Sokka turned to begin once again with the Fire Nation princess but caught himself. She had curled up on the ground and had finally, after several hours of remaining awake, drifted off to sleep.
He walked over to her side and knelt beside her. Azula had rolled over to her side and hugged her knees. Her breath was short and shallow, rather rapid, but she was fully out for the night. Sokka thought she would have said something about him approaching her and kneeling beside her, he was certain an outburst or a jab with the term 'peasant' was to launch from her lips, but none came. He did not think she would be one to be unaware of her surroundings even while she slept, and under normal circumstances he'd be right, so even he was surprised. The princess shuddered subconsciously in the cold of the swamp at night. Apart from the brief moment when their faces were essentially right up against each other during their confrontation during the invasion of the Fire Nation, this was the closest he had been able to observe her.
To him, she seemed...almost innocent. Vulnerable. She seemed lost and vulnerable.
Sokka draped his navy blue water tribe blanket over the rich crimson colors of Azula's tunic before moving to retrieve his boomerang.