'Love is like wildflowers; It's often found in the most unlikely places.'

tw: murder, sexual harassment.

—

Blinding light leaks through the crystalline clusters of rock and illuminates the water below. She watches him rise, pride filling her chest and hope glistening in her eyes, but the light is gone too quickly and the emotion in her eyes is cracked.

Instinctively, she pulls water to her hand and sends it crashing down onto anyone in her path. Azula stumbles and the stream of lightning that had shot from her fingertips stops abruptly.

He is sprawled across the ground, his young, frail limbs bent in strange directions and his tattoos faded back to blue. But his chest still rises and falls ever-so-slightly, and his right hand twitches almost unnoticeably; he is alive. He is damaged and burnt and broken, but he is alive. Her face is coated with sweat and blood and tears that she didn't even realise had fallen, and her legs are sprinting towards him as saltwater clouds her vision. She is closer to him every second, closer to taking him in her arms and carrying him to safely - so close, that she barely notices Azula lift her arm, barely notices when white heats skims her shoulder. Yet, she does notice when Azula's lightning paints a picture of horror in front of her, his weak but agonising scream echoing in her eardrums and the scent of his scorched flesh filling her nostrils.

The avatar has fallen.

—

"Take the peasant." Azula orders, not even bothering to look at the green-robed men that she addresses.

"Why do you want her?" Zuko questions, knowing that he probably won't like the answer. This is Azula, after all - she is nothing if not cruel. Of course, no matter the answer, it isn't as if he's in any position to argue with his sister; she is taking him back to the Fire Nation and ending his disownment, a task which he has not been able to complete in the three years he's been gone.

"Did you even see what happened? The avatar was not killed in the avatar state. The next avatar will be born into one of the water tribes, and this peasant could be helpful in more than one ways."

"And what are we meant to do with the next avatar?"

She stares at him for a moment, as if the answer is obvious. "Your years away haven't made you any brighter, have they? We kill it, dum-dum. And this time, we will kill it in the Avatar state, and end the cycle for good."

The part that she leaves out, of course, is that this means they will be killing a baby. It's a good plan, of course - it is logical and effective and the most efficient way of ending the avatar cycle. Yet, he cannot deny the sick feeling in his stomach at the thought of it. To kill something so innocent, so undeserving, simply seems wrong...

Of course it does. His sister is never one to think of compassion or morals; then again, why would she? Azula takes after their father.

"The peasant's putting up quite a fight." Azula remarks, her amber eyes fixed on the scene in front of her. He glances over at the young water tribe girl, shooting water and ice at the earthbenders.

She's improved majorly since our first encounter, he thinks to himself, remembering when she could barely flick water up at his crew. Nevertheless, the Dai Lee soon have her hands bound behind her back by their strange rock fists.

"Let me go!" Her voice rings out, raw and desperate, as she writhes in an attempt to break the rock.

Azula simply purses her lips and glances at one of the Dai Lee. "Cover her mouth too."

—

She cannot get the image of Aang out of her head. The green of the crystal catacombs is not present in her memory of it, the colour drowned out by the pallor of his skin, the red of his blood. She does not cry or scream or curse whatever gods allowed this to happen; perhaps if she was able to hold his lifeless body in her arms, she would. Instead, there is simply a numbness - one that feels all too similar to the weeks and months and years after her mother died, the burnt corpse never leaving her mind, yet with no agonising display of emotion to match it. There is simply a silence, a memory, a loneliness; if she tried to speak, she doubts any sound would leave her throat.

She forces the image out of her head as best as she can, instead trying to focus her attention on the discomfort of her captivity. Binding her hands is one thing, covering her mouth is another, but using the seemingly unbreakable rock on her ankles as well is too much - she is restricted to her place in the corner of the room, only able to walk with tiny, time-consuming steps. To make matters worse, they are travelling by ship; she is infuriatingly held captive while surrounded by her own element.

She is being kept down where the workers are busy keeping the ship running, and their watchful eyes seem to bore into her whenever they pass. She does not know how long it takes to get to the Fire Nation from Ba Sing Se, nor does she know how long she has been staring dully at the ground, but she can tell that it is late at night. Working men seem to be getting their breaks, replaced by others, and many of them are opening barrels that emit a bitter smell that she assumes, as they fill their cups and begin acting much less focused and refined, is alcohol. She shrinks further into the corner where she sits, yet she cannot disappear completely, and she cannot, as more of the men get more and more intoxicated, prevent the stares of the working crew, their eyes now filled with something different - something that she prays isn't lust.

One man in particular inches closer to her each time he refills his cup, his gaze locked on her every time she glances at him. She pushes herself further into the corner, tries to make herself disappear, and yet when he walks over to her, there is nothing she can do.

"Hello, little girl. What are you doing down here?"

His voice is raspy and deep, his words slurred and the alcohol in his cup dripping onto the ground between them. He takes a step closer to her and she knows this is wrong, in the same way she knew, as a child, the inherent danger of a polar leopard approaching. Her father had taught her to maintain eye contact and slowly back away - no sudden movements, no loud noises.

Here, there is nowhere to back away to. The man is now far too close to her, close enough she can smell the alcohol on his breath and the sweat on his palms, his lips suddenly brushing her earlobe as he whispers something about how pretty she looks with her hands tied. She tries to yell through her gag, her hands shaking now, but it comes out far too quietly to be heard over the drunken chatter of workers; the only person who hears it is him, who responds with a laugh that makes her feel sick to her stomach. As he brings a calloused thumb under her chin, forcing her to look him in the eye, she realises that it is a laugh of someone who knows they have all the power - someone who knows exactly what they can get away with.

And at that realisation, anger fills her veins. His thumb brushes her lip and she begins to squirm, looking desperately for an opportunity to somehow get him away from her - and just as he pulls one side of her dress off of her shoulder, she finds it, slamming her head as hard as she can into his own. He spills his drink onto himself and loses his balance, falling backwards and hitting the floor with a loud shout.

There is a moment of silence wherein she can't quite move or speak or think. She stares at the man in front of her, her heart still pounding in her head, only looking away when the sound of footsteps echoing down the stairs meets her ears and Zuko enters her vision.

Zuko. Just the sight of him makes her nose nose crinkle in disgust. Betrayer.

His eyebrows furrow at the scene. "What happened?"

"Sir, the girl attacked me for no reason! She's out of control!"

Everything seems to move a fraction slower, the words that leave his mouth sounding more like white noise than anything else. She expects fury to ignite within her at the lie he tells, yet all she finds is a dull fear that Zuko will choose his version of events over hers, and perhaps put her in a worse position than she is already in.

Zuko looks from the worker to her, as if slightly unsure of what to do. Yet, slowly, his eyes catch on the alcohol staining the man's shirt, the way her dress hangs off her left shoulder, and they widen with an anger that, for the first time in her life, she is glad to see.

"Don't lie to me! You tried to molest her!" His voice is loud and seething. "Go up to Azula - she'll deal with you." Zuko then looks at the waterbender, his expression softer as he notices how her hands shake in their handcuffs. He reaches up to uncover her mouth, his hands strangely warm. "Are you… okay?"

She doubts she could speak even if she wanted to; more importantly, she refuses to say that she is most certainly not okay. Not here, where everyone is her enemy, and not to him, who is one of the reasons that she is here.

Zuko speaks again. "You won't have your mouth covered, in case there's an… emergency. Just don't make too much noise if you don't need to."

She is grateful for this. Almost grateful enough to thank him. But he betrayed her when she gave him a chance; he joined his sister, who murdered Aang; he has taken her captive and, though she doesn't know the exact reason, she knows it's for his and Azula's own benefit. He does not deserve her thanks.

When she spits on his cheek, she takes great pride in the shock on his face.

—

A/N: Thanks for reading my first chapter, I know quite a lot happened but I got carried away... Anyway, I'm really excited about this new story, I haven't read another story with this sort of plot, so apologies in advance if this sounds like another author's work, it's certainly not meant to.

Please review, fave and follow

~Bri