It occurred to Ozai as he stalked unsteadily through the shadowed corridor that he really ought to be more cautious with this woman.

Vigilance, ruthlessness, prudence – though never outright paranoia – were highly ranked among the reasons he survived his tenure as Fire Lord. And all of those qualities dictated that he know as much as possible about the reason for his liberation. Why, exactly, had a lone member of the air-force come calling at his cell so late in the evening?

The memory of her expression, the strangled note of fury in her voice as she took in the scene, assured him that she had not known what waited for her on the other side of the door. Yet, save for the fact she had not arrived a mere twenty minutes earlier and spared him the whole ordeal, her timing had been impeccable. It was remarkable, really.

Ozai was not a man who took such seeming coincidences lightly. In his experience, they simply did not exist.

Nevertheless, as each step grew more laborious than the last, he found he really couldn't be bothered to care. He had made his wager, had opted for the unknown, and was reconciled with the consequences.

Wherever she intended to take him, it was away, far from this miserable place of imprisonment. She clearly did not mean to kill him, else she would have already done it.

And even if she did have that in mind, Ozai knew, there wasn't enough fight left in him to do much about it. He had only been able to cling to wakefulness for as long as he had because he was loath to return to that neither-dreaming-nor-dead place of tilting landscapes and bodiless voice. It had been utterly foreign to him, without any of the enticements of an undiscovered land. Far from it. The place had been insurmountably unwelcoming in its strangeness – as though forbidden – and the sick intuition of being where he so clearly wasn't supposed to be had left him queasy in a way that had nothing to do with his body's tortured condition.

Ozai would not have admitted to calling it fear, but it was something equally base. The primal avoidance of the unknown and hintingly unpleasant.

The loose edge of a stone caught the calloused bottom of his foot, and he stumbled. Little more than a dark figure in the shadows, the woman's hand curled around his bicep – Ah, there you are – and steadied him.

The woman's hand was unexpectedly warm and rough against his skin, her grip firm but more protective than punitive. He supposed she preferred keeping him on his feet rather than having to carry him again. In that, at least, they were agreed.

He did not jerk away.

As promised, the dark corridor eventually gave way to a door, and on the other side was the quaintly pleasant smell of hay. Several ostrich horses and other beasts of burden stood steaming in the cool night air, heads lowered into a series of troughs. Ozai and the woman skirted through the stalls in silence before finding where her ostrich horse had been stabled. The creature clicked its beak contentedly at her as she stroked its neck, but narrowed its eyes as it caught sight of her companion.

Her grip on Ozai's arm slid down to his wrist, raising his hand up so the creature could smell him properly through the rank cloud of blood and piss and shit that surrounded him. Somehow in the fresh air, the stench was stronger, cutting through the crisp night.

The ostrich horse flared its nostrils, took a great breath in and then released it, damp, against Ozai's palm. It tossed its head, then shuffled closer, apparently satisfied. Unthinking, Ozai lifted his hand to scratch beneath the animal's chin.

It was such a simple act, such an utterly human thing to do, that Ta Ming almost wondered if she had broken the wrong man free.

"We should get going," she hissed quietly, "Get on."

Ozai hadn't ridden an ostrich horse – or anything else, for that matter – in years. He'd been quite good at it when he was younger, but it had been a form of ribald entertainment, not a means of transport suitable for a prince – let-alone a Fire Lord. He lifted his arms weakly to hoist himself into the saddle, the act promptly draining him of whatever reserve of lucidity that had managed to sustain him the last several minutes. He made to mount the animal, and nearly fell.

The woman stifled a noise of surprise and moved to catch him. She placed one hand against his back – Ozai hissed through his teeth as her fingers unintentionally scraped against the scorched lash one of the guards had given him – her other palm pushing insistently at the junction of flesh between thigh and buttock. The near-intimacy of it, the way her hand cupped against him, caused every muscle in Ozai's exhausted body to stiffen.

"Steady, now," she whispered, and it was just as likely that she spoke to the ostrich horse as to him.

With the help of another firm shove, Ozai flopped awkwardly into place, the hard leather of the saddle creaking and uncomfortable beneath him.

And there it was, the accumulated indignities of the evening summed up in a single moment.

Vanquished Fire Lord Ozai, stripped of his bending and his self-proclaimed title of Phoenix King, beaten and naked, the taste of another man still lingering in his mouth, unable to even haul himself atop an ostrich horse.

Ozai thanked Agni for the cover of night, for the fact the woman could not see the haze of shame that had crept across his face. It was bad enough she'd had to carry him.

The woman hoisted herself with a grunt of discomfort – no doubt the result of her own burns – and then her arms had snaked around his waist, grasping for the reigns. Behind him, Ozai could hear her gently cluck her tongue, and then the ostrich horse was moving. Before he knew it, they had trotted out past the prison wall and into the dark of night.

Had he not been on the cusp of losing consciousness every minute of the journey, Ozai was certain the feeling of freedom would have sparked some sort of elation within him. As it was, the frayed threads of his willpower were almost completely undone, the lid of his undamaged eye growing leaden, though he desperately did not want to revisit wherever his undreaming mind had drifted last time.

So he retreated from the aching temptation of sleep, relied on the last anchor to wakefulness his body could possibly offer – his senses.

It was easy enough to do, assailed as he was by a myriad sensations long-denied him in the prison cell.

There was the open sky above him, an endless expanse of black silk, stitched through with stars. The wind brushing itself like fingers through his soiled hair, cool against the concentrated throbbing pain of his face.

His shoulders complained from having been angled behind him during the earlier assault, and his bare thighs stuck uncomfortably to the worn leather of the saddle.

All of him hurt, some parts just more than others.

He threaded his fingers through the ostrich horse's mane, rolling the small knots and tangles through his fingertips, every disruption of texture another moment of consciousness secured.

The hot skittering of the woman's breath against his back, the way she stiffly elevated her wrists so as to not let them drop into his exposed lap, the rhythmic jolt of her legs against his own, that too kept him awake. Desire had nothing to do with it – sweet Agni above, he was too far gone for that to even be a consideration – but the sheer proximity, the physicality of it, had been unbelievably reassuring after years of no contact.

In conjunction with the remnants of adrenaline riding his veins, the sudden onslaught of sight and smell, sound and sensation? Her closeness was nearly overwhelming.

Before long, the woman had steered the ostrich horse across the rough plain and back towards the outskirts of the royal city. She navigated carefully, creeping through alleys and avoiding the main street until at last she guided their mount towards a two-level home built directly into the rising stone ridge of the caldera.

"Well," the tone of her voice over his shoulder was one of relief, "we made it."

Ta Ming gratefully slipped from the saddle to guide the ostrich horse through her fence. They had been fortunate enough to not be followed, but she knew that would be short-lived. Even if their harried departure from the prison had gone entirely unnoticed, the absence of four guards come shift change would not, nor would the disappearance of their most contentious prisoner. It would only be a matter of time before the streets rung out with panic.

There was so much she had to prepare for.

Ozai slumped forward on the animal, fistfuls of mane sticking up through his fingers. She looked up at him, saw that his uninjured eye was hazy, his face drawn in an expression of utmost exhaustion.

She reached up to help ease him down. He grasped at her shoulder with manacled hands, his legs uncooperative, and nearly fell into her as he dismounted. Ta Ming grimaced and curled an arm supportively around his waist for yet another time that night, wondering if any of the imperial guards could have claimed such closeness with their liege.

No, she thought, likely not. That would be inappropriate.

She nudged her ostrich horse in the general direction of its stall, in a lean-to along the side of her home. The beast retreated readily, ducking its head towards a bucket of water. Ta Ming would have to tend to it properly in the morning. Add it to the list.

As she guided Ozai inside, she mused that she had never been so thankful for the cover of night, and her lack of neighbours. Buildings were more generously spread out along the city's periphery, the more desirable properties all located near the centre of the caldera, closer to the palace. He captain's wage meant that she could easily have afforded something other than the simple dwelling along the outskirts, but Ta Ming had spent so long sharing barracks and tents that she found living on her own strange, even lonely. Lavish chambers in an expensive estate would not change that – to her logic, an abundance of unnecessary rooms might even exacerbate the sense of isolation.

Tonight though, she was exceedingly glad for the privacy. She cringed as she imagined the scandalized look on the face of the elderly woman who lived in the house to the east, watching as she half-carried a bedraggled and naked man across her doorstep.

What a devastating blow to whatever reputation she might have that would be, never mind the fact the man in question was a deposed Fire Lord, and the nation's key war criminal.

With her free arm, Ta Ming raised a hand to her face and pinched the bridge of her nose. Agni, what a disaster. She'd only meant to look in on Ozai, driven by curiosity to see if prison had humbled him. Had only meant to steel herself for spending the next several months – years, maybe – in his company.

She dragged her hand down her face, her lower lip pulling away with an almost audible pop. There was one, albeit small, victory to consider, however. General Iroh and Fire Lord Zuko had tasked her with keeping Ozai safe as much as keeping others safe from him. Though it was premature to their intended schedule, she had dutifully removed him from harm's way that evening.

A small warmth budded in her chest at the thought.

They trudged awkwardly inside. As he had in the hidden corridor, the leaden weight of Ozai's feet caused him to stumble, his toe caught on the coarse jute rug of the entry. Suddenly off-balance, Ta Ming had to wrap her other arm around his waist to keep them both from falling. The motion brought them face-to-face, and for the first time that evening she took more than a perfunctory look at her charge.

One eye had completely swollen shut, a mottled bruise of red and purple. Beneath that, the skin on the ridge of his cheekbone was split and raw, also beginning to swell. Uneven trails of blood had carved their way down from his nose to his chin. His lips were cracked and peeling. His hair was a mess of shit – the stench of it had been impossible to ignore, but this was the first time she realized quite where it had come from – and she watched, horrified, as a fat louse struggled through the filth, burrowing out of sight in the ruined ebony strands.

Ta Ming wrinkled her nose. He reeked of piss, too.

Not that she was much better.

The sight of him shifted something inside her. It was impossible to reconcile the wretched figure before her with the one that loomed in her memory, the man who had snatched at her chin barely more than an hour ago. The Ozai who had burnt his own child's face, who had rained fire and destruction upon Wulong Forest, could not possibly be this same man who struggled to stay upright.

It was difficult for her to hate him when he was like this. When he looked so… broken.

As she scanned his face, Ozai caught her gaze with his uninjured eye, the haze of delirium having cleared. For a moment Ta Ming was amazed at the fury still burning within him, the fierce determination with which he kept himself awake. The unrelenting and ferocious pride. That was the Ozai she remembered, the one she hoped had no memory of her.

It strained credulity that any Fire Nation citizen would be able to keep their chin up in proud defiance when in such a state, but then, she reasoned, Ozai was no mere citizen. If anyone could sluice shame from themselves like water off a turtleduck's back, it would be the man who had once called himself Phoenix King.

One blazing, bloodshot amber eye bore into her, and the captain tensed, preparing herself to drop him and make a quick step back. But then he lowered his gaze, the corners of his mouth turned down grimly. Before she could react, Ozai had dropped his head against her shoulder, leaning completely into her awkward, supportive embrace. She stood stiffly, her throat suddenly tight, eyes warily watching his hair for other signs of vermin.

A heavy sigh tore through him, and she felt him shudder against her.

"…I'm so tired…" he croaked.

After he had stumbled into the woman's arms for what seemed the umpteenth time that night, Ozai had wanted to make a retort, some snide comment to preserve – reestablish? – his dignity. Now that you've got me, what are you going to do with me? But it was pointless. As soon as he had caught her expression of appraisal, the way her muddy brown eyes catalogued his condition, shame burned hot beneath his skin. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and be relieved of the whole embarrassing, disgusting spectacle of himself.

Yet he dreaded what waited for him on the other side.

Vulnerability was the last thing Ta Ming had been prepared for, and with the utterance of that appalling admission, something clicked into place in her brain. She had not realized until that moment the full extent of his torture, even staring it in the face as she had been.

This was not simply the result of one sound beating.

And with that realization, something cemented itself at the base of Ta Ming's spine.

"I know," she offered him quietly, "let's just get you cleaned up first. Then you can sleep."

Apart from her natural frugality, her preference for simplicity, there was one other thing that kept Ta Ming from seeking lodgings elsewhere in the city. Her modest home along the royal city's border had been designed with an elegant bathroom, the waters heated by a spring deep beneath the caldera's surface and ingeniously pumped up through the floor. For all that she might miss sleeping with rough ground beneath her back, Ta Ming readily accepted the luxury of hot water, and it was this that she hastened to steer Ozai into.

From the main foyer of her home she guided him through an archway and then down a short set of steps into a decently sized pool, carved right into the floor. He was pliant, letting her ease him down until he sat, blinking dolefully at her.

Ta Ming adjusted a pair of valves and watched as Ozai first flinched away from the water abruptly flooding over his feet, relaxing as it began to climb up his calves. His toes moved reflexively, as though pleased with the sudden sensation of heat. Cautiously, she increased the temperature, wondering if he retained a firebender's propensity for warmth now that the element was no longer subject to his will.

While the water continued to fill the pool, she bundled several items into her arms. A bar of army-issue insecticidal soap – pests were an enemy unto themselves, wreaking havoc among troops and supplies alike – a fine-toothed comb, a small bottle of scented oil, a jar of salve, a stiff-bristled brush. She placed all of them on the tiled floor beside Ozai as he sat, the warmth of the water seeming to pull some of the tension from his body. At least, his posture seemed less desperately upright.

His head pitched forward, and Ta Ming nearly had to dive to catch him before he fell face-first into the water. Agni's light, the captain swore to herself, he'll drown if I don't hold him up.

For a moment she hesitated, the water soaking up the sleeve of her uniform unpleasantly. She considered the long burn on his back, the raw and blistered skin beneath her own scorched armor, the sweat beneath her arms, how close her own hair had come to his infested mane. She needed a bath just as much as he did.

No sense wasting water, I suppose.

As she carefully shed her clothing, Ta Ming reminded herself that this was not the first time she had been naked with a man – nor, for that matter, with him. Her mouth still felt dry, a sour taste teasing the back of her tongue.

She slipped into the water behind Ozai, hissing as her wounds were submerged, and reached over awkwardly to turn off the valves so the water didn't flood over onto the floor.

With one arm she steadied him, and with the other she reached over to grab the soap. She plunged it into the hot water, stroked small circles into the waxy substance with her thumb, creating a rich lather. Satisfied, she brought the soap to Ozai's head and began to scrub.

Ta Ming was thorough without being rough, mindful without overt kindness. Again and again, she brought handfuls of water up to douse the stinging suds from Ozai's head, using the other hand to shield his eyes. She ran her fingers through his hair, working the soap against his scalp, surreptitiously feeling for any hidden wounds.

When she was certain that all trace of shit had been washed away, she worked her way down, grabbing the stiff-bristled brush and scuffing it against the skin of his shoulders, his arms, his sides. The coarse brush, the heat of the water, the harsh soap, all combined to send his skin flushing an unexpected shade of pink.

Ozai drank in her touch, the contrast of sensation high on his chest where his skin broke through the water, the smooth stone beneath him, everything, even the obnoxious smell of the soap. Every moment saw another ounce of tension leave his body, and as he relaxed, he leaned backwards. The woman's skin was slick against his in the water, her breasts twin points of firmness just below his shoulder blades.

Had Ursa ever done this with him? He couldn't recall.

Then again, there was something so completely unerotic in this woman's diligence that it seemed an unfair comparison. This was not the way a wife bathed her husband, nor quite how a child might be washed after playing in the mud. It occupied some strange, neutral territory in between.

Ozai let out a sound – half groan, half sigh – and let his head fall back against the woman's shoulder, his split cheek cradled against her neck. Her touch was a tether for the moment, a reminder that even with this complete stranger, he was awake, safe.

It wasn't a feeling he'd had often.

Ta Ming paused as the man adjusted his position, sinking against her, but then took the opportunity to reach parts of him she had been unable to before. She lathered more soap in her hand, clumsily coated Ozai's jaw with it, drawing her hand down through his beard. She repeated the act under each of his arms, then paused, having remembered where else he had enough hair to warrant attention.

Her fingers twitched against the bar of soap, and she swallowed.

"This will probably burn," she warned him before she submerged her hands, scrubbing the soap into the fine trail of black hair that started just below his navel. Ta Ming fixed her eyes pointedly at the far edge of the pool as her hands continued their descent, working soap through the dark nest of hair, before finally giving Ozai two firm strokes in the name of hygiene.

She cleared her throat awkwardly as she withdrew her hands, trying not to think too hard about the unexpected weight of him in her hand, and shifted so she could finally address her own body.

When she was finished, Ta Ming set the soap and brush back on the ledge on the pool. She grabbed the bottle of oil and the comb, and reached once more for Ozai's hair. She dislodged several nits, careful to crush them against the hard surface of the floor, and after several minutes the captain was pleased to find her charge's long hair almost restored to its former glory.

What surprised her, though, was that in the process she had discovered several strands of silver, most of them concentrated near Ozai's temples. There weren't many, and they were impossible to see except at such a close range, and yet Ta Ming still felt stupefied. She knew Ozai was not a young man, certainly not getting any younger, but the man's unyielding will seemed to extend to time itself. The rest of him hardly betrayed his age, and as a result it was hard not to think of him as eternal, ever the prince in his late thirties ascending the throne.

This abrupt evidence of his humanity felt taboo to the captain, somehow. It wasn't something she had ever been meant to see.

It would only make things harder.

With more suddenness than was necessary, she adjusted a lever and began to drain the water from the pool.

Once she had dried them both, Ta Ming went about applying a salve to the burn on Ozai's back and the two she had sustained from earlier that evening. It stung, and was disagreeably sticky, but with any luck neither of them would develop scars.

I've got enough as it is.

Ozai swayed where he stood as she smeared the balm over his back, his waist finally – thankfully – obscured by a towel. When she was finished, Ta Ming didn't even give him the option of walking, all too aware of how it would end if she did. Resolutely, she hooked one arm beneath his knees and, grunting, hoisted him up.

"Don't…" he protested, but the words died on his lips.

Ta Ming mounted the small series of stairs that led to her bedroom, depositing him on the thin mattress with a huff. She contemplated him for a moment, then hurried down the stairs, returning with the ring of keys she had purloined.

By the time she returned, Ozai had already begun to snore.

Delicately, Ta Ming unlocked the shackle of one wrist and looped it through the bamboo poles of her headboard. She latched it back onto his wrist, giving the chain a gentle tug.

"Hardly the Fire Nation's finest security, but it'll do," she muttered to herself.

The captain rubbed a weary hand over her eyes, rummaged for a tunic to sleep in, and then unfurled a well-worn bedroll onto the floor. As she settled into it, listening to the sound of Ozai's deep and steady breathing, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of nostalgia for the war, the closeness of sleeping with others.

It was the most at home she'd felt in years.

"Ah, finally decided to join us, have you?"

Ozai jerked his head up, as though breaking the surface of an ocean. A snarl tore through his clenched teeth as he took in his bearings, utterly disorientated. Why was he here again? He'd been comfortable wherever he'd been before – warm, clean for what felt like the first time in months.

Something skittered just beyond his periphery, clicking uncannily as it went. He spun, and was faced with an abomination.

The thing was easily the length of five men, all slithering exoskeleton and multitudinous legs. Worst of all was the head – grotesquely vaginal and eye-like all at once – through which protruded the leering face of a bearded man.

Ozai blanched, eyes wide, a muscle in his face twitching.

"Ah ah ah, don't do that, Fire Lord," the thing taunted, reaching out to drag one awful leg down Ozai's cheek, "It's been so long since I've been able to add a visage quite as handsome as yours to my collection. If you get too expressive, I might just forget that you're here by request."

Shuddering, Ozai took a step back.

"What do you mean?"

"Vaatu wants you," the thing said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. It raised two legs in the mockery of a shrug.

Ozai searched his mind, tried to place the name. It sounded as though it should be familiar. A small and intrinsically deep part of him – a part that had not existed prior to his encounter with the Avatar – squirmed as though in recognition, but he could bring nothing to mind.

"I don't know who that is," he heard himself say, trying to control his face into an expression of cool disinterest, "and I'm certain I have no need of them."

The thing before him blinked, the bearded man's face sucked inward and replaced by a red-eyed, blue-skinned oni.

"Oh, I rather think you do," it chuckled darkly, "After all, don't you want your bending back?"