Teo peeled off his soaked shirt, and grabbed several things off the shelf beside him. "If you aren't going to help me, wait out there." He pointed to the bedroom.
She waited several long minutes while Teo got dressed. She tried not to think about what will happen when the Avatar finds her.
"Bring my chair over!" Teo called and Azula maneuvered the thing towards the washroom.
Teo hobbled out, wearing a longsleeved white shirt, a brown vest, green pants and a green jacket in the new style that she's seen in her travels in the Earth Kingdom. He turned and fell into the chair with a grunt. "You stay here, I'll go talk to Aang." He turned and headed out the door to the lift.
She paced his room for a few minutes, trying to get hold of herself. "I won't go back, I won't go back."
"Calm down, Azula. Teo seems like he knows how to handle the Avatar." Ursa said, laying her hands on Azula's shoulders. "You have to trust him."
"Trust!? I don't trust anyone. Every time I do, things get worse," she pulled away from Ursa and stumbled against the bed. She lay down in the spot she found Teo in. She stared up at the ceiling, trying to ignore her mother's stare.
"If you didn't trust him, why did you stay after he recognized you?"
"I didn't assess him as much of a threat. I miscalculated," she rolled off the bed and resumed pacing.
"You've been miscalculating since you arrived here."
Azula stopped as Ursa sounded less like her usual self and more like Azula's own inner-voice.
She took one last look at the room then slipped out to the stairs. She made sure to keep with the crowd, her green and brown dress matching the style of the temple dwellers. She hoped with her hair pinned up and her signature bangs hidden that she could be anonymous enough to make sure Teo was not selling her out.
Outside in the main courtyard, Teo watched from the landing pad as Aang and several of the gliders twisted and soared through the air around the temple. Azula supposed that Teo's fake injury would prevent him from taking part in such a game though he seemed too busy talking to someone that she couldn't see.
Annoyed at the fact that she couldn't get any closer, she pushed through the crowd to see whom Teo was laughing with. She nearly screamed with rage when she saw Katara kneel down next to Teo's wheelchair.
"That whore," she muttered to herself. First that water bender goes after the Avatar, then seduces her brother and helps him become Fire Lord, now she moves in on Teo?
"Calm down, Azula," Ursa urged.
Azula clamped down on her rage, forcing herself to watch the pair. Teo looked terrible, his face pale and his movements sluggish. Katara leaned over and whispered, her face plastered with a fake smile, the smile of a healer that won't give bad news.
Teo looked away from her, focusing on the gliders. Azula was too far away to hear, but he must have said something convincing because the nosey healer stood up and stepped away. Azula hoped he told that girl whose eyes are too big for her face to take her water someplace else, but she knows that Teo is much too polite for such an answer.
Eventually the gliders landed and Teo escorted the Avatar and his wife to the dining hall for the midday meal. Azula followed the crowd to the dining hall where she made her way into the kitchens.
"What's all the fuss out there? Why's there such a rush?"
"The Avatar decided to pay us a visit. Better put some more vegetables on, Suma!"
"Mai Lee, there you are! Here, start chopping! Everyone is going to expect food right now," Loma, the woman that usually makes dumplings said and shoved a knife into Azula's hand.
"Loma, Mai Lee is probably going to have to leave soon," Shi, the girl that usually chops vegetables warned.
"Oh no, I'm not needed out there. I believe you all will need more help anyway," Azula put on a smile and took the knife in hand. She had wondered when the rumors of Teo's girlfriend would spread to the kitchen staff.
"Are you sure?"
"It is no problem at all," she started cutting cabbage and glanced out the small window from the kitchens to the dining hall. She could just barely see the Avatar and Teo conversing at one of the larger tables.
"Mai Lee!"
Azula turned towards the voice with a cold sense of dread. Hei-Won grabbed her by the arm and pulled her through the kitchen. "You have to meet the Avatar."
"No, I have to finish with the lunch service." Azula protested as the Acolyte drug her out. The other women stopped to watch.
"Don't be silly! Your place is at the head table, sitting beside Teo," she kept chattering. Azula considered stabbing her with the kitchen knife, but thought better of it and tucked the knife into the folds of her dress and apron.
Ursa screamed at her to think of something, to find a way out of this before it was too late.
Avatar Aang laughed at something Teo said. He looked over to his approaching student and the smile on his face froze as if he had been trapped in another iceberg.
Hei-Won put her arm around Azula's shoulders as if they were best friends, "Avatar Aang this is –"
"Azula!" Katara summoned her water whips and put herself between Aang and the princess.
Hei-Won's eyes widened and she jumped back from the firebender as if she were burned.
"Katara no!" Teo, trapped by the table and the crowd in the dining room, put up his arms. "She hasn't done anything!"
"That doesn't matter, she's up to something, you don't know how evil she is!" A water whip sailed across the table towards the princess. Azula summoned a shield of blue flames, rendering the whip into harmless steam.
"Katara! Enough!" Aang said, finally over his initial shock and he stepped up to her. "A lot of people are still looking for you."
The temple dwellers were confused, making a wide ring of open space with "Mai Lee" and Katara in the middle. Hushed whispers spread around the room.
"I won't go back! You'll have to kill me first!" Azula shouted, readying her hands up in a firebending stance.
"You can't just get away with what you've done, Azula! You need to go back to the asylum. Or if you'd prefer, a prison cell next to your father!" Katara swirled her arms above her head, forming a large ball of ice.
"Like you haven't committed any crimes during the war! I served my nation with pride. I did what I had to do and I lost. What else do you want from me? What else do I have to give?!" Azula shouted, igniting a ring of blue fire as a barrier between her and her attackers. Her hair started to fall down around her face.
"Azula, no one is going to hurt you," The Avatar stepped forward, holding his hands up in a pacifying gesture. He stepped forward and she stepped back, taking a glance behind her at the terrified temple dwellers.
"You are such a liar. You say that life is sacred, but I know what you did to my father. Torture such as that is a fate worse than death. And I won't let you take my bending." Azula turned and ran out of the dining hall, leaping up on one of the long tables to avoid getting held up by the crowd.
"Katara wait!" She heard the Avatar yell.
Out in the main courtyard, Azula turned towards the glider take off point instead of the road down the mountain. But she stopped dead when she saw Teo with his glider wings attached to his chair.
"Get on! Hurry!" He urged as his fingers wrapped around the weapon that she saw him make in the workshop.
She silently obeyed, climbed into his lap and wrapped her arms around the back of his chair. He released the brake on his chair and they rolled down the ramp and off the edge of the temple. Her stomach dropped as they fell briefly, but the wind soon took them. She let Teo take care of their flight as she watched Katara stop at the edge of the temple.
"They will come after us on the bison!" She shouted at Teo. "This was a terrible plan! You can't outrun the Avatar!"
"This is such an ostrich-horse dung plan because you didn't listen to me in the first place. If you would have just stayed in my room, then I wouldn't have had to improvise!" he snapped back at her.
"The Avatar is coming!" She held on tightly as se watched the airbender leap off the side of the temple and unfurl his glider.
"Hang on!" Teo grit his teeth and he pulled into a fast spin, accelerating them further, but Aang was still on their tail.
"Teo! Azula! Turn around now and we can talk about this!"
"No Aang, you turn around and let us leave." Teo said, twisting around to look at Aang. "My Father is being held in Republic City. The Earth King wants to leverage taxes and mining rights on us. Your own people want to take the temple away from us! It was supposed to be a place for everyone to start over, on equal ground! But it's been tainted now. Sullied by hate and fear. If Azula can't start over there, then I don't want to be there either."
The Avatar's expression changed as he flew along beside them. They all turned when they heard the sky bison, with Katara sitting behind his head.
"Teo! What do you think you're doing?!" Katara shouted over the wind.
"I'm doing what I believe is right!" He wrapped one arm around Azula and pulled his glider into a dive, causing them to plummet fast. Azula felt like she had when her glider was falling, except now she had Teo's arm holding onto her tightly.
"Teo, we're both going to die!" Azula shouted in his ear.
"Not if I can help it!" He shouted back, pulling hard on the glider controls.
A water whip lashed at the glider, sending them into a spin. Teo corrected their descent. "Put your hands where mine are!" She obeyed and placed her hands on the controls of the glider. "Hold steady!" Azula could feel the chair shake and the glider shudder. Another whip and they would fall to their deaths.
Teo reached over her and aimed the weapon he brought with them. He waited until Katara lashed out at them again and fired.
Azula was deafened by the noise and choked on the smoke. She heard the sky bison roar with fear and break off the attack. She blinked the tears out of her eyes and saw the bison was unharmed and retreating back to the temple. Teo took the controls back from her. "What did you do?" she shouted.
"Scared Appa of and kept Katara from killing us. Now we have to get Aang off our tail."
"I have an idea, but it's a long shot." She shouted through the wind.
He turned to her, looking at her through the green tinted goggles. She couldn't bear the trust in his eyes. She leaned forward and kissed him. Her fingers wrapped around the kitchen knife she tucked into her skirts.
There was a sickening tear as Azula slashed the canvas of the glider. Teo pulled away from her and looked up at the glider, then her with the knife. His mouth opened in surprise as she pushed off his lap. She tucked her arms in and pushed blue flames from her hands and feet, accelerating further away from the temple as Teo fell. Predictably, the Avatar dove to save Teo, letting her escape unscathed. She ran for the forest as the sky darkened, ignoring Ursa's shouting as she left the temple and Teo behind.