Gladiator

by Seyary-Minamoto

In a world where the Avatar wasn't found, the Fire Nation took over two nations and they strive to overcome the last one. Water Tribe warrior Sokka seeks to fight for his people's rights, but he's captured by his enemies. His life is no longer in his hands as he fights as a Gladiator, and his fate will eventually depend on the Fire Nation Princess, who needs him for her own ends...

284. Chapter 284: Family reunion-Str Bonds 2

Family reunion/Strengthening bonds

2

It was such a comfortable mattress, so smooth and fluffy. Surely sleeping on a cloud would feel much like this did. It was the most comfortable mattress she'd ever…

Rei gasped and sat up with a start, eyes wide, chest heaving. Beside her, Wen groaned, no doubt startled out of her nap just as Rei woke from her own.

Yes, what a perfectly nice bed… the Princess's bed, in fact. Rei's wide eyes took in the fact that she had been lounging carelessly on that bedding, crumpling the sheets underneath her, much as the still-drowsy Wen had… oh, this was completely out of bounds. It was bad, it was terrible, she shouldn't have…!

"Ah, awake so fast? Here I thought you were finally relaxing."

The Princess's voice sent shivers of the bad kind down Rei's spine. The younger woman trembled, turning her head slowly towards the desk: Azula sat there, her back on both her companions as they rested on her bed. Rei wasn't sure she remembered how they'd wound up there… though now she recalled that they had the Princess's permission to take a nap. She and Wen had worked together that day after the Princess's nightly escapade while Azula took care to clean up properly, perhaps more thoroughly than she had for as long as Rei had known her. She had even dressed in a casual outfit, rather than the sleeping gown she had favored unless anything urgent required her to dress up properly… but there was no such urgent situation taking place now, as far as Rei could tell. No, the Princess was simply… she was simply fine. Perhaps, for the first time since Rei had known her, the Princess was fine.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" Rei mumbled, only for Azula to interrupt her with a dismissive snort and a wave of her hand.

"You're sorry for following my advice that you should simply relax and take a nap after I forced you both to stay awake all night with my antics?" she asked. "I guess I'll have to make it a proper order next time, rather than a suggestion…"

"Y-you don't have to, b-but this is your bed, and… w-well…"

"And it's so comfy…" Wen groaned next to Rei, rolling onto her back and dropping her hand on her forehead. "But now I'm awake too. You two talk too loudly."

"Ah, shall I fetch you some incense so you can sleep more soundly? Maybe you'd like a few sweets and tea to enjoy, while you're at it," Azula told Wen, with a smirk. The midwife grinned and nodded.

"How diligent of you. Thanks, Azula!"

"Always here to serve, of course," Azula said, making an exaggerated reverence in Wen's direction, which saw the midwife cackling with laughter, her previous displeasure fading quickly.

Just so, Rei's apprehension dwindled too. She smiled at the two women, her frantic heart easing into a much tamer rhythm. How these two had managed to forge a bond as tight as the one she sensed between them, Rei had no idea… well, she had one idea by now, one that she wasn't completely certain of, so she'd keep her mouth shut unless she saw enough evidence to back up her suspicions. Yet it was always amusing to hear their banter, good-mannered as it was, especially when Wen was shameless and the Princess retorted with her sharp tongue. Their friendship had somehow helped Rei feel much more comfortable in this regal world in which she still felt like an outsider… but after moments like this one, she couldn't help but feel she had a place with these two simply because they seemed to want her there.

"Ack, it's getting kind of late, isn't it?" Wen groaned, sitting up too and glancing out the window. The sky remained blue, but streaks of orange had started to color the clouds by then. "I should get your afternoon tonics ready, Princess…"

"Maybe you should stop being so proper and just bring the ingredients here permanently, you know?" Azula asked: she had turned again to her work, her inkbrush fluttering in quick, timed motions over the paper before her.

Rei realized then that the Princess was writing one of her unsent letters again. She usually didn't do that when Rei was around, not even after Rei had learned of the existence of those letters, or after the Princess had told her about Sokka. It was a startling change, just as her sudden, renewed confidence and clarity had represented a remarkable change, too. What had happened last night certainly had a powerful effect on the Princess… and so far, Rei couldn't see any downsides to it. If she was at peace, and no longer as miserable as before… if she had truly been able to see Sokka, if their souls had somehow bridged across the miles that distanced them, Rei could only be relieved for it.

"What, and stop having to walk back and forth between my room and yours? I'll end up putting on tons of weight because I won't exercise at all that way, Azula, don't be silly," Wen said dismissively, climbing off the bed and stretching her arms. "Wow, that was a good nap. Anyway! Off I go, though… hey, speaking of which, you need to take your walks too, Azula."

"I'll go after you're done with the tonics, I guess," Azula said, simply. "You're still sure you have nothing that can help with the stupidly greasy hair…?"

"Short of washing it lots and lots…?"

"Eh, you already said that, so I guess it's hopeless."

"Don't despair, it'll stop being so weird soon," Wen laughed, stepping towards the door. "Bet you'll get used to it after a few more weeks and then you won't even notice as the greasiness starts to fade out…"

"Sure thing," Azula scoffed, waving a dismissive hand in Wen's direction as the midwife opened the door.

"Be back in a bit, alright?"

Azula nodded in response, and Wen closed the door behind her just as Rei climbed off the bed. Azula had finished writing her latest letter, it seemed, for she blew into the paper, to make the ink settle faster.

"No worries, I'll clear up the desk right away. You can work on your math problems now, if you want to," Azula said. Rei flinched and shook her head quickly.

"No need! If you're using the desk, I can just do that in the dining room, or so…!"

"I guess you could, but you don't have to if I'm already done, do you?" Azula said, smiling at Rei as she turned around, already rolling the letter unto itself. "I… was writing this one, right before that mess happened yesterday. It's definitely going to be the weirdest of the bunch, what with the complete and utter change of tone after everything that's happened…"

"Ah… I see," Rei blinked blankly as Azula stepped around the bed, approaching her closet. "Though… w-well, nobody is supposed to read them, right?"

"Not really, but that doesn't mean I take literary coherence for granted," Azula smirked, and Rei crooked an eyebrow. "Even if I'm doing this for myself… there's no reason to do it mediocrely. But I don't think the result itself is mediocre, if that makes any sense? If anything… as strange as it might be, this one feels right. Surprisingly so."

She stepped inside the closet, fussing over the box in which Rei knew Azula kept her secret writings these days… she turned her head quickly. She didn't think there was anything inherently wrong with what the Princess was doing, but Rei remained convinced she had no business reading the Princess's personal writings, and the less she knew about them, the better, no matter how curious she was, even now, over the Princess's past experiences.

"Say, Rei? Can you fetch me a hair tie?"

Lost in thought, Rei nearly missed the Princess's words. Her eyes widened at the question, and she nodded affirmatively right away… only for her gaze to move towards the dresser, with uncertainty.

"It's just… too much hair, I have the feeling it's growing out at ten times the rate it already used to. If this keeps up, I'll be able to fashion rope out of it," Azula said, rolling her eyes as she glanced out of the closet. Only then did she notice Rei's distress. "Oh… the cabinet to the right, in the topmost row of the dresser."

"Ah! Right away!"

Azula glanced at the young woman with a tender smile as she rushed to fulfill her request. It really seemed uncanny that Azula would have grown so used to Rei's presence in the short time of their acquaintance… but even her nervousness seemed to be changing in nature by now. No longer did Rei appear completely lost when she didn't know what to do. She still wasn't in the habit of outright asking for better instructions, or for help… but Azula herself knew that learning how to ask for help was no easy matter. It always took time for someone to start relying on others when they had spent far too long handling all their challenges alone, but at least Rei didn't seem so punishing of herself whenever she didn't have all the answers in hand right away anymore.

"Will this do?" Rei asked, raising a crimson ribbon in Azula's direction. The Princess raised an eyebrow but shrugged, still smiling.

"More ornate than strictly necessary, but it's not a bad choice," she said, nodding.

Rei smiled, picking up Azula's hairbrush too and returning to where the Princess stood. Azula had closed the closet's door by then, and she took the hair tie and brush with a gracious nod.

"Thank you," she said: Rei's eyes and smile brightened. "Alright, then, work with me, now, you dastardly, irksome hair…"

Rei giggled softly as Azula brushed the greasy strands with utmost displeasure. She even rolled her eyes at the unpleasant sensation, utterly baffled by how quickly it seemed to have become unmanageable when she had washed and rinsed it properly earlier that day…

"Unbelievable, honestly. It wasn't this bad after I spent a whole week without a single bath, walking non-stop through a seemingly never-ending forest…" Azula grumbled, gathering most her hair into a fist.

"I can help, if you want…" Rei suggested, but Azula shook her head.

"No need, your hands would end up so oily you might end up risking becoming a human lamp because of it…"

"T-that's not…! That's not possible," Rei laughed: Azula smirked weakly in her direction.

"Maybe it is a bit of an exaggeration, but it honestly barely feels like one," she said: she spun the ribbon over the hair quickly, tying it up as best she could into a tall ponytail. It wasn't her favored hairstyle, but she hardly wanted to play the regal part of Crown Princess Azula right now, anyhow. One day, maybe, she'd feel like brushing her hair the way she used to… but for now, the ponytail she typically had worn for bed, in the past, would have to do.

"For that matter… you're a firebender, so you're more likely to be an oil lamp than me," Rei smiled, and Azula hummed.

"Fair point there. I wonder if I'd set my hands on fire if I tried to start bending right now…" she said, biting her lip with a devious smile as Rei laughed beside her. "Might be funny, if nothing else…"

"Please, don't," Rei said, shaking her head.

"Ah, come on, now. I'd put it out before it could really burn me, I would…" Azula teased her further, and Rei giggled. "You're not a bender, are you? Strangely, I take for granted nobody is one unless I'm expressly told otherwise, but I don't think I ever asked…"

"Oh, no. I mean… I don't think so? I've never bent anything…" Rei said, blinking blankly. Azula smiled.

"Well, considering your parents weren't exactly in the business of helping you find your life's calling, might be you'll be the latest bloomer of all late bloomers with bending, if you happen to be one. Your father is a bender, at the very least…"

"Yeah, but… I've worked with fire and lamps before, here and there. I don't think I've ever done anything weird around fire," Rei said, with a shy smile.

"Fair enough, then. To be honest, I'm doing much more writing than bending lately… I'm probably better suited to teach you the first thing, these days."

"You'd be a great teacher, Princess. But… I don't think there's much to teach me with bending, anyway," Rei shrugged, smiling. "You, uh… you've said something about a week in a forest?"

"Ah, yes. I typically remind myself of those days whenever I want to feel better about my current circumstances, if you must know," Azula said, with a dry grin. Rei raised an eyebrow. "Almost a whole week away from actual civilization… and I mean it, it was just trees, a big river, then a boarcupine who looked ready to maul us if I stupidly attacked it, as I nearly did. Good thing I was lost with Sokka, of course… I know for a fact I wouldn't have survived that madness without him."

"Oh? You weren't alone, then?" Rei said, smiling upon learning something new about Azula and her Gladiator.

"I barely ever was, feels like," Azula said, with a tender smile, as she lowered her hands slowly. "It could have been strange that I got used to having him around so quickly, I used to be far lonelier before I met him… but maybe I just get attached to people pretty fast. I've known you for what, three months? And I'm already so used to having you around that it's almost like you've been here all along."

"Really?" Rei asked, eyes wide with delight. Azula smiled and nodded, raising a hand to pat Rei's shoulder… but she didn't dare do it, in the end. Before she could touch Rei, she withdrew her hand, glaring at her palm with distaste.

"Sorry. Should wash my hands before touching anyone's clothes after dealing with my hair…" she said, with a skeptical smile. "Honestly, what a pain…"

"Was it really not this bad after a week in a forest, though?" Rei asked, amused, as Azula walked to her bathroom's basin. "It's hard to believe…"

"Well, maybe it was, and maybe I was just so filthy all around that I didn't even realize the hair was particularly bad," Azula acknowledged, with a weak grin. "I did want to take a bath, terribly so, and there was a river right there, so I absolutely was tempted to jump in, but… heh. I wasn't exactly in the habit of taking my clothes off often, back then."

"Oh. I guess… you two weren't together yet?" Rei asked, as Azula washed the unwanted greasy feeling off her hands quickly. She snorted and shook her head.

"Oh, no. Definitely not. Things between us were a bit chaotic at the time, but… to be honest, looking at it from where I stand now, all these years later, that whole debacle we had looks like a playground scuffle between toddlers, compared to everything else. Petty, ridiculous nonsense…"

"Huh," Rei eyed Azula with uncertainty as she wiped her hands clean. "W-well, then, um…"

"You want to hear about it?" Azula guessed. Rei blushed.

"I… shouldn't pry, I think, but… I'm sorry. Your life sounds… like it was very exciting," Rei said, with a weak grin. Azula laughed and shrugged, leaving the bathroom to join Rei at the center of the bedroom.

"It was. I suppose it sounds like I'm boasting, to a degree, but… it really was," she smiled, absent-mindedly. Had Rei asked to hear about the forest three days ago, maybe Azula wouldn't have explained matters, but today… after today, it seemed like nothing could possibly hinder the peace she had regained after that encounter with Sokka.

Where to start, though? She took a moment to ponder that, to wonder how much context the young woman might need… just then, the door swung open, and Song strode back inside the room, carrying a few vials and powders in her hands. The annoyed expression on her face, however, suggested she wasn't all that happy with her haul of goods just yet.

"I forgot one of the mixing cups because I'm clever that way," she said, flashing both Azula and Rei a dry grin. Azula laughed, shaking her head as Song rushed to the nearest cabinet, setting down the ingredients carefully.

"See? Leave your things here, you'll be better off," Azula said. Song sighed and rolled her eyes.

"The worst part is I might end up doing it in the end. You're promoting a very lazy and unhealthy lifestyle for me, Princess," she scolded Azula, pointing at her with a finger. The Princess smirked and shrugged with no sign of remorse.

"I'm afraid I'm not the one in the business of taking care of anyone's health, in case you haven't noticed. As it is, I can't even take care of my own," she declared, beaming. "Which is precisely why you were brought here…"

"And it's precisely why your wise health advice shall go ignored by your health advisor," Song retorted sarcastically, to which Azula laughed as Song returned to the door.

She smiled too, delighted by Azula's better mood, by the vast improvement she'd seen, not only compared to the alarming behavior Renkai had even sought her and Rei over, but over everything Song had seen of Azula during the last months. She was so much stronger now, in such better spirits…

When Song pulled the door open anew, however, her personal state of relaxation and silent celebration over Azula's improvement threatened to fall to shambles.

Renkai no longer stood alone in the corridor: Zhao, disheveled and disgruntled, was with him.

The leisurely, casual mood in the room shifted all over again: Azula's brow furrowed upon recognizing Zhao. Renkai seemed tense, as he ever did, but Zhao sorted his way past him and stepped into the room with a snarl.

"Well, well. Looks like the gang's all here this time," he said, his eyes raking the three women with distaste, as though he'd smelled something unpleasant… though the one who smelled rather unpleasantly was Zhao himself, Song realized, inching away from the stench of liquor that also reached Azula and Rei, before long.

"Well, well. Looks like you decided to show up two days in a row," Azula retorted, immediately stepping forward, garnering Zhao's attention and deliberately drawing it away from Song and Rei. "To what do we owe the momentous occasion? Did my father call you back from your very serious duties of… what, guarding a brewery, maybe? Or is it you got kicked out of a tavern and you had nowhere else to go?"

Rei winced, ever dreading that antagonizing her father could prove a terrible choice for the Princess to make. Song, as well, eyed Azula with uncertainty: was she sure about provoking the man? He certainly had been drinking, whether on that day or the day before… Azula glanced at Song as Zhao scoffed at her questions, and she jerked her head in her direction.

"Go on, Wen," she said, simply. Song gritted her teeth but nodded, resolving to be as quick as possible, to avoid leaving Azula and Rei with the Admiral for too long.

"And what if I'd been kicked out indeed, ah?" Zhao asked Azula, raising his eyebrows. Song had already taken off by the time Zhao asked his question, which Azula answered with a scoff. "What's it to you, huh?"

"Nothing to me, for sure. But if it means you can at least greet your daughter for the first time in months, I suppose it's a good thing that taverns decided not to have you when it's not even sundown yet. Mighty reputation you must be building for yourself by getting exiled from anywhere of the sort well before night falls," Azula said, with a dry, unpleasant smile.

Zhao scoffed in her direction: he ambled awkwardly, as though even remaining upright was a complicated chore at the moment. Azula followed him with her glare as Rei fidgeted behind her: the young woman didn't particularly care to witness a confrontation between her current protector and her father, but after what he'd done yesterday, Azula had very little compassion in her heart left for Zhao.

"You're… in an awfully good mood today, aren't you, Azula?" Zhao scowled, glancing at her from the corners of his eyes. "Over it so quickly? Here I thought you were so distraught over the fate of the man you so claim to love…"

"Oh, I am distraught over it. But there's no point in dwelling on it any longer," Azula said, her voice charged with disdain. "My father has seen to that."

"Your… your father?" Zhao asked, turning towards her fully. Azula scoffed again.

"You decided to share information of that magnitude with me while assuming I wouldn't ask him about it directly?" Azula said. "You really underestimate both my lack of common sense and will to live, don't you?"

"You… went to him? But you don't ever leave this… t-this room…"

"What a shameful display you've coaxed out of me, Admiral," Azula said, with an unpleasant, sarcastic smile. "And I suppose you seem so unsteady and disturbed not only because of the drinks you've had… but also because you must have known that my father didn't intend for me to learn about this, and yet you went and blabbed… and now you're, predictably, terrified out of your breeches because he knows, of course, that I only learned about it from you."

"Ah, so once again you… you hope to turn us against each other. And your brilliant father will allow it, won't he?" Zhao huffed.

"It's incredible how you manage to paint yourself as the victim under any circumstances, truly," Azula said, raising an eyebrow. "Quite the uncanny talent you have there. Instead of bonding over what you two pulled off, over having killed him, here you are, groveling in your own filth and whining over…"

"W-what… killed? Wait… he's dead?"

"Ah? So you didn't know?" Azula asked, raising her eyebrows, hands on her hips. "Why, now… did you truly expect your fabulous scheme to go so poorly that his death comes as a surprise to you? He… he really must have lowered his guard considerably if you expected your strategies to fail you, then."

"You're… you're lying. You're messing with me, you…!"

"Don't believe me?" Azula asked, smiling in disbelief. "Ah, I bet it's because you think that, if he's truly dead, I should be bawling my eyes out and torn over my misery… yes, well, I've been doing that for months to no avail, and now that he's gone there's nothing left for me to do, is there? I have even less to lose than I already did, you could say, so I don't particularly care for minding my words, whether with you or with my father. Truly, though… go on, ask him to confirm it himself, or better yet, to show you the message. I bet he'd rather show it to you than to me. He's quite proud of his achievement, just as you should be… how remarkable that the force of a Fire Nation army miraculously proved sufficient to kill a single man!"

Zhao stood in place, staring at Azula with a strange mix of emotions plain across his face. Was it guilt? Was it remorse? Or was it fear, perhaps? Perhaps her act didn't convince him, but he'd have no objective reason to believe Sokka still lived, not when the only information available in the Fire Nation indicated otherwise. Azula herself had no solid reason to believe he did, none that anyone would consider credible anyway… hence, she hoped her pretense of normality, of having overcome the absolute worst of revelations, would shock both her father and Zhao sufficiently so they might not know how to respond to her unexpected behavior. It was entirely possible, yes, that they might suspect her apparent calmness over the idea of Sokka's death to be a front… but there would be no signs or evidence of foul play on her part. Hopefully, her regained strength would instill fear and uncertainty in her father and her alleged husband…

"You… you're not serious. You can't be. Not if you're… like this. No way," Zhao scoffed, shaking his head as he struggled, again, to balance himself as he stepped forward. His eyes glided over the room, settling on the uneasy, trembling Rei, nearly hidden behind the Princess. "And you're putting on this spectacle in front of Rei, too. Guess it's true you've lost all your shame. Though… you did that from the moment you leapt into bed with a savage, I suppose."

A weak laugh shook Zhao… only to find a silent, skeptical response from Azula's crooked eyebrow and folded arms.

"You really must be badly drunk if that's the best you can do right now," she said. Zhao scoffed, his amusement receding quickly. "Or maybe I should thank Rei for being here, if that's what's holding your tongue…"

"Oh, please…" Zhao scowled, shaking his head. "She's just a tool to you, just like everything's a tool… like he was. Look at how you fought for him, and now you claim he's dead and yet you seem more alive than you have been in months. I don't even give a shit about him, and I think I'm more affected by his death than you are. Sure you loved him, heh… you're just as bad as your father. I should've just… I should've never… shouldn't have brought Rei here at all. You'd have been better off away from this nonsense, back in the estate…"

The words Rei had longed to hear upon first arriving at the Palace suddenly sounded like a death sentence to the young woman. Her eyes widened, and she stiffened behind Azula. An urge to reject Zhao's words surged inside her gut, and yet… and yet she couldn't voice it out loud. She gritted her teeth, interlocking her fingers by her chest as she repressed that urge, knowing she'd get herself, and Azula, into further trouble if she spoke against Zhao's words…

"I'd have been better off…" Zhao continued, shooting a fierce glare at Azula… that was interrupted by an instinctive impulse Azula recognized quickly, for she had experienced it herself far too often over the past months.

Zhao's eyes tore off Azula when he felt the unpleasant rush building up, twisting inside his body, surging upwards. He closed his mouth, ambling in place again when the surge of bile reached his throat…

"Oh, hell, hold it back!" Azula shouted, with more authority than she had spoken with in the past months. "There's a bathroom right there, Zhao, just…!"

He bent over, and the contents of his stomach spilled over the marble flooring of the Princess's room.

Rei winced, bringing her hands up to her face. It wasn't the first time the Admiral had done something like this in her presence, it happened on occasion when he came back to the estate after his occasional nights spent drinking… but it certainly had to be the worst time it had happened. He wasn't particularly considerate when he was drunk, especially if he was in a bad mood… but Rei had genuinely expected him to behave himself better in the Palace than he had ever before. All eyes of the nation, of the world, were supposed to be set on the events that transpired in this place, as far as Rei knew… and yet he acted out in a manner befitting a drunkard looking for a fistfight in a tavern?

Going by the outrage poorly contained in the Princess's tightened fist, he might just get himself a fistfight anyway, even if not in a tavern at all.

"Oh, don't… don't give me that look, damn you…" Zhao grumbled, wiping his mouth clumsily as he marched to the bathroom now, intending to wash his face.

Azula's shoulders rose and fell upon every breath she took, fists so tight that Rei could only watch her in genuine fear of what she might do. However strong the Princess presented herself, if this was the kind of behavior she'd been enduring from the Admiral whenever Rei wasn't around to see it, Rei wouldn't be surprised to see her snapping sooner than later.

"Not like… like you have any right to complain," Zhao rambled from the bathroom, splashing his face and rinsing his mouth. "Or weren't you puking all over the place over that brat you're supposed to be bearing, Azula? Are you going to pretend you're so far above us mortal folk that you don't even hurl and get sick when carrying a child?"

Azula breathed deeply, hoping to still herself, though she doubted she'd succeed: the air was becoming stale with the stench of Zhao's vomit. How she wished she could pretend it didn't affect her, but it seemed the Admiral's methods of insult had evolved into a more gruesome, pathetic form of protest… and as much as she wasn't as sick as she had been months ago, Azula still found herself easily nauseous over Zhao's behavior and choices…

A hand clasped hers, and Azula frowned before glancing back at Rei. The younger woman gazed at her with fearful eyes… but she wasn't afraid of her wrath. No… what she feared was the man inside the bathroom, instead.

"It's not worth it, you shouldn't…" Rei started saying, but she fell silent just as Zhao stepped outside again, looking only slightly less disheveled than before.

"Well, now… what is it, you actually like the new décor?" Zhao asked, shooting Azula another venomous glare before glancing at Rei. "Clean that up, will you? That's what I brought you here for, in the first…"

"No."

Azula spoke with even more vitriol than Zhao had before. Her golden glare betrayed no mercy, no compassion, for the man who expected his own daughter to clean up his messes… much as another man often had, only to toss said daughter aside when she had stepped out of line, according to him. She refused to let Rei face the same fate without at least fighting back.

"No?" Zhao asked, with a smirk. "Then you truly do want it there, is that it?"

"Rei won't clean up after you anymore," Azula declared. Behind her, Rei stiffened again, as Zhao scoffed in disbelief.

"Oh, because you get to give the orders now? Not only do I outrank you in every way that counts, but that girl right there is my maid and my daughter, as you damn well know, so…"

"And that's how a father treats his daughter, is it?" Azula asked, with a dangerous, skeptical smile. "Doesn't even direct a single greeting her way, pukes his innards out and demands she cleans it? Quite the exemplary behavior you're offering us today. A magnificent display from the grand Crown Prince…"

"Oh, so that's what this is about now? Again, you pretend to give me lessons on parenting?" Zhao scoffed, tilting his chin up. "You just don't learn, do you? Again, you're playing at championing the lesser folk…"

"Lesser folk, really? You think of her as lesser than you, you piece of…?" Azula snarled, and Zhao snorted with derisive amusement.

"Everyone… everyone but your father, I suppose, is officially lesser than me. Crown Prince, remember?" he said, raising his eyebrows. "But to think you'd end up taking after your mother in the end… a pity, with how much potential you had. You even took it further than she did, of course… she married up, you tried your best to marry down, instead. You love commoners far too much for your own good. Charity cases to make you feel important, is it? Don't think for a second that she wants anything else from you, Rei. Whatever she's doing with you, whatever nonsense lessons she's been giving you… oh yes, I do know about that, Azula. I've noticed it, and it's just more of your same drivel, isn't it? What, you expect to endear Rei to you by playing the nice stepmother? Is she your training dummy for that thing growing inside you? Or maybe you want her to help you assemble an army of commoners to help you cry to Ozai over the restoring of your birthright? Is that what this is for?"

"Oh, goodness, that sounds terribly ineffective. Trust me: if I wanted to go about reinstating my position as Crown Princess, I'd go about it in a much more definitive manner," Azula hissed. Zhao snarled at her, shaking his head.

"You give as good as you get, or try to, is it? Well, good, then," Zhao snarled, glancing at Rei. "If you don't clean up after me, you're not to clean up after her either, not anymore. Leave the vomit there, and don't make the bed, don't clean the bathroom… let her fester in filth, just as she would have if I hadn't brought you here in the first place."

"Oh, what a low blow that is…" Azula raised her eyebrows, almost amused at the weak retaliation from Zhao. Rei, behind her, shivered with uncertainty, caught in the middle of Azula and Zhao's struggle for power, it seemed…

The Admiral scowled as he turned towards the door and almost flinched when he realized that not only Renkai had entered the room, but lady Wen had returned, too… and by their body language, it seemed none of them wanted him here. Unsurprising, and yet…

"Guess she must have fed you all the same mad delusions, huh? You're awfully good at that, even now. What charisma," Zhao said, spitefully, glancing at Azula sternly. "Manipulating everyone to dance to your tune…"

"Well, you're slightly off-beat, it's true… but I guess that's as good as I can get from you," Azula said, simply.

He froze in place: was he, somehow, playing into her hand again?

It was the last straw for the furious Admiral. He snarled and stormed off, without so much as another word, leaving behind a Princess who, while certainly stronger than the last time she had faced her legal husband, still felt an uncanny urge to slam a fist right into his face. To think she had resented him long ago for reasons that now seemed so simple… to think she had no idea of what kind of man he truly had been until all of this had happened, until her pregnancy had been revealed. She shook her head as Song strode up to her, while Renkai took up a position at the room's threshold, no doubt worried about what might happen if Zhao chose to return.

"What did he…? Are you both okay?" Song asked, reaching for Azula's shoulder again. The Princess breathed out and nodded, rolling her eyes afterwards.

"He's being a pain, but… it's nothing that can't be handled," Azula said, simply, before turning towards Rei. "Are you alright?"

"I… I'm just glad he left," Rei admitted, more honest than usual, her head ducked. "I'm so sorry, Princess, I… I thought he'd be better than this. I didn't think he'd… he'd act like this with you. I'm so sorry…"

"You don't have to be," Azula said, reassuringly. "It's not your fault that he's being such an ass, if you really need me to say so…"

"B-but… you already have so much to worry about, so many things you've been dealing with, and…" Rei said, shaking her head… her eyes fell upon the puddle vomit anew, and she tensed up. "Oh, I'll clean that up, I…"

"Wait, what? No," Azula huffed, clasping Rei's forearm when the young woman had been about to take off to pick up her cleaning implements.

"No?" Rei repeated, eyes wide. "B-but… Princess, it's disgusting! It's unhygienic, and…!"

"Well, she does have a point," Song said, glancing at the puddle with utter contempt. "What an ass. Couldn't he have…?"

"Held it in and gone to the bathroom? Yes. He chose not to," Azula said, with a shrug. "I have no doubt it was a deliberate choice to spite me, and he expected to do that all the more by demanding Rei cleans it up, but I won't allow it."

"Princess… I-I understand you want to help me," Rei said, shuddering. "I don't believe what he said, I know you're good and all you've done for me is genuine, but fighting the Admiral isn't going to… it isn't going to help. In the end, he's… he's my father. Even if I know you're right, every time he and you fight, I want to help you, but I… I-I can't even move, I'm paralyzed b-because…"

"Okay, now… calm down, Rei," Azula said, raising a hand to cup the young woman's cheek. Rei flinched, tears burning in her eyes. "You don't have to help me fight him. You don't even have to pick sides; I wouldn't ask that of you…"

"Well, I already did. And I pick yours," Rei nearly pouted. Azula smiled at her earnest response. "It's just…"

"I know. Believe me, if someone understands how damn hard it is to stand up to your asshole of a father, it's me," Azula said. "But that's exactly why I… why I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did. Not to mention, why I don't want to become anything like him, so…"

"So, what? You'll clean it yourself?" Rei asked, mortified. Song flinched and shook her head.

"Not a chance. You're pregnant!" she exclaimed, looking at Azula with utmost disbelief. "I'd sooner be the one to do it than to let you…"

"The longer we spend here wasting our time arguing about who will do it, the worse it stinks and the more we'll all want it gone," Azula said, with a dry, sarcastic smile. "I don't mind learning how to clean up things, or how to make the bed, or to do all the chores around this place if it means you don't get to be his plaything, the bait with which he can further torment me, Rei. He's taking advantage of your obedience, of the fact that I've been trying to help you, just to bring you down and try to impose his authority over mine. Well, the truth is, I don't need you to be a maid. I don't need you to clean after me. He brought you here for those purposes, no doubt… but Rei, you're more than that. The only people who profit from making you believe otherwise are the ones who have taken advantage of you for as long as you've been in their lives. They want you broken, lost, compliant and meek, fearful of consequences because they think they get to control you that way: well, I don't want to control you. I… I don't want to control anyone, no matter what mad delusions Zhao's gotten into his head."

"Well… good. But if that's the case… you'll let us clean that for you, because you're not trying to control us," Rei said, stubbornly. Azula stared at her skeptically before sighing and rolling her eyes.

"You've definitely learned a thing or two, turning my words against me this way," she said. Song, despite the tension in the situation, smiled weakly.

"I'll keep on doing it," Rei warned Azula, who stared at her skeptically. "If he does these sorts of things to you… I'll keep helping you. I'll clean it, no matter how bad it gets. Maybe you're right… maybe I can be more than this. But I won't… I won't become more than this at the expenses of the one person who saw something worthwhile in me, when nobody else ever had. I… I want to help you. It's not because you order me to… it's because I want to."

Azula gritted her teeth, letting out a slow sigh. She folded her arms over her chest, and Rei eyed her expectantly, waiting for the Princess's answer…

"Fine… fine," she said, bitterly, though her eyes sharpened as she stared at the two women before her. "On one condition, though."

"Uh-oh," Song sighed, and Rei raised her eyebrows.

"Like I said… I have no intentions of being like him," Azula said, shooting a glare at the doorway: Renkai had left it open, although he stood outside the door now, once again. Zhao was already gone from the corridor. "Maybe I shouldn't clean vomit, fine… but you'll teach me how to make the bed, at least."

"W-woah… huh? For real?" Song blinked blankly, glancing at Azula in disbelief. The Princess folded her arms over her chest as Rei laughed, softly. "I… expected something a little more along the lines of, I don't know, 'you'll steal a haul of mochi from the kitchens for me', or so…"

"Uh, no. The stench is so bad that even mochi is unappetizing right now, but I'll let you know if I change my mind about that later," Azula said, with a skeptical smirk. Both Song and Rei laughed at her response, and the Princess drew in a slow breath. "Look, I just… I don't know what the future holds anymore. I took a thousand things for granted, I made unforgivable mistakes and now I find myself realizing that I… I really need to do better than I have, in more aspects of life than I realized. So, yes, I've as good as never done house chores… and I won't have a better chance to learn than now, will I?"

"Maybe, but… you really don't need to do this," said Rei. Azula huffed, eyeing the girl skeptically.

"Maybe not. But much like someone else I know, maybe I just want to," she said, with a teasing smirk. Rei burst laughing again, and Azula smiled as she placed a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, then: I've taught you to write and read, you can teach me to make my bed, right?"

"We were the ones who messed it up this time, too…" Rei groaned, covering her face with her hands. "He couldn't have known that, of course, but… it only needs fixing because of me and Wen."

"And how is that important? You've been making a bed you don't sleep in for several months now," Azula said, stepping towards the dais upon which her bed stood. "I'll sleep on it later on anyway, so it makes even more sense for me to make it than for you to do it. Simple, right?"

"Simple, sure…" Rei sighed, smiling a little. Song patted the young maid's shoulder gently.

"Come on, you can teach her how to do that. I'll take care of the…"

"Oh, no, lady Wen. It's really gross, but I've done it before, so…"

"All the more reason why you should just work with the Princess instead," Song smiled, gently pushing Rei to join Azula at the dais. "Come on, she has a point: you deserve better than this, Rei."

Rei nearly stumbled over the steps as Song made her way to the bathroom: she hadn't needed to clean up anything quite like that puddle since her early years of service in her hometown's hospital, and it usually obeyed serious motives, genuine illness, back then. To think that the most uncivilized person she'd met appeared to be none other than the highly ranked and regarded Admiral Zhao…

Azula waited by the bedside, staring intently at her mattress. She had certainly burned the sheets once before in a fit of rightful anger, but she didn't recall ever making the bed, not this one, nor any others. Even in Shu Jing, Sokka had been the one to take care of the matter… not that the bed had remained made for very long back then. She could remember having taunted him over his inexperience on the matter when they had first slept together, and the memory of his horror-struck reaction over her jab brought a fond smile to her face. She had countless failings and shortcomings with him, she couldn't help but acknowledge as much… yet the bright moments where they had matched each other beat by beat seemed to blur out everything wrong, to the point where she could barely evoke anything but pleasant memories anymore. After that confrontation with Zhao, it only seemed natural that thoughts of Sokka would serve as the perfect counterweight and relief to her previous outrage.

"Alright, then," Azula said, returning to reality once Rei took her position at the other side of the bed. "How do we do this?"

"U-uh, well… there's not that much to do this time," Rei admitted. "We only napped and didn't use the sheets, so we'd just have to stretch the wrinkled parts back into place…"

"True. Then we should mess them up so you can teach me properly," Azula resolved, reaching down to yank at the blanket and sheet carelessly. Rei's eyes widened. "What? I want to learn for real, Rei. Nothing more to it."

"Oh, goodness…" Rei sighed, smiling a little before shaking her head. "Well, then… alright, alright. Then we'll start from scratch: the idea is to make sure there's no wrinkles, so you have to pull the sheets properly. They bend and wrinkle unless you're careful, fabric will always do that so… uh, no, you shouldn't leave that fold there. We make that fold afterwards, and no, don't worry about the blanket yet, it's better to start with the sheet alone…"

"And here I thought it'd be more efficient to keep them both together…" Azula said, pulling the blanket out of the sheet. "Truth be told, I'm used to sleeping with a blanket but it's not entirely necessary in these temperatures. Might be I should just stop using it altogether…"

"Oh, b-but it's more elegant with the blanket…" Rei said. Azula blinked blankly, staring at the two different fabrics with a crooked eyebrow. "It suits the room's décor better, so…"

"Heh," Azula smiled. "Admittedly, it does look better, but it seems like unnecessary extra work… I should just have red sheets, then it'll fit the décor perfectly."

"Maybe," Rei smiled. "Alright, then… the sheet. Take the corner, tug on it, and extend it as best you can… uh, no, not that way, see? There's wrinkles in the center now… and now there's some on the edge. Y-you have to, um, envelop the mattress? Oh, no, it won't fall into the right shape naturally, it's tricky to get it right the first time…"

Azula frowned, tugging the sheet in different ways, all to pointlessly wrinkly results. She had been quite set on learning how to do this, but it suddenly seemed to be an art of far more difficult apprehension than most she had mastered in her life. Why wouldn't the sheets be firmer than this? She snarled as she attempted to cover the mattress better with them… and again, the result was a wrinkly mess.

"Here, I'll show you," Rei smiled, at the other end of the bed.

In a matter of instants, the girl had tugged at the sheets in a perfectly fluid motion, and in doing so, most the wrinkles vanished. Azula's eyes widened, as she raised a hand to the top of her head.

"How did…? Why did it just…?" she started, before laughing softly and shaking her head. "Goodness, I think it defies any understanding I have of physics…"

"Oh, maybe it does," Rei laughed: was it even possible to study the formation of wrinkles on sheets? It certainly sounded amusing to try… "It's okay if you can't get it right on your first attempt, though. It took me a long time to learn…"

"Well, you're certainly an expert by now," Azula smiled, reaching down for the sheet again. "I almost don't want to keep going because I know I'll mess up your work if I do."

"It's okay, I can fix my side if it's affected by what you do," Rei said, reassuringly. "Try it again?"

Azula did try… and as expected, the fabrics wrinkled all over again as soon as she touched them. Worse yet, her absentminded touch of her hair had once again resulted in an unpleasant sensation in her hand, where the irritating oiliness had settled once more. She snarled, trying to ignore the discomfort, frustrated over having messed up Rei's work, attempting to fix it without smearing the sheets with the unwanted substance released from her scalp…

Immersed in such frustrations, her body seemed to gear up with a familiar impulse that Azula ignored at first. So instinctive it was, so simple and natural, that she didn't react when a spark snapped off her fingers, spreading over her palm before spilling onto the mattress.

It wasn't every day that Azula failed to control her bending, but the remnants of displeasure at Zhao, the confusion over this new challenge of assembling the sheets, her lingering excitement over having seen Sokka again, all paired with her pregnancy's symptoms, had rolled together into a most dangerous package… and before she knew it, she stood with her palm on fire, as the sheet she'd been working with was gnawed at by slowly growing embers.

"Princess!" Rei exclaimed: Azula blinked blankly before clenching her hand into a fist.

That gesture alone was enough to muffle the fire on the sheets, though not so much with the one that clung to the hand in question. Azula scoffed in disbelief, swatting the flames away in the air before clenching the fist even tighter: she felt the familiar tingle of fire vanishing, the heat source cut off… all in the space of instants.

Rei stood cold where she was, staring at her in utmost confusion. Azula raised her gaze at her, just as Song, finally done scrubbing the floor clean, returned from the bathroom, where she had disposed of the unpleasantness that had been smeared over the room's marble.

"What just…?" Song asked: she had heard the whooshing sound of fire, and she could see smoke rising from a stain of blackness upon the previously ivory-colored sheet…

For a moment, the three women lingered in silence, two sets of eyes trained upon the Princess. And those eyes remained on her when she snorted before being overtaken by a wild spree of laughter.

Rei blinked blankly, watching as the Princess fell on the unmade bed with the burnt sheets, laughing so much more freely than she ever had before, in her presence. By the bathroom's threshold, Song stared at the inexplicable scene before her with a crooked eyebrow. The stain on the sheets was visible, even when Azula laid atop part of it as she giggled uncontrollably.

"Did you… did you burn the sheet by accident?" Song asked, knowingly, with a smile slowly spreading over her face. Azula didn't answer directly, only by laughing harder yet. "Azula, seriously?"

"I'm…! I'm sorry!" the Princess managed to blurt out between laughter that eventually infected the midwife, who came to stop right by the bed, staring down at the Princess with unconcealed amusement. "I just…! I didn't even notice, it just started, and I don't even know why it's so funny, b-but I can't…!"

"Oh, you don't know?" Song smiled, as Azula rolled on the bed, covering her face with her hands as she continued to laugh. "Those are called pregnancy mood swings, in my experience. I suppose it's great that they're lifting you up rather than weighing you down. Though… amazingly, now you're going to have to REALLY learn how to make the bed with a brand-new set of sheets because you messed these up! Nicely done!"

"I… I'm a visionary, you see… totally did it on purpose," Azula snorted, laughing harder again afterwards. Song laughed too, shaking her head as she brought a hand to her forehead.

"I seriously thought it was impossible to be more hopeless at common chores than Sokka was, but you sure decided to prove otherwise today, didn't you?" she asked, smiling at the still cackling Princess, who struggled to catch her breath after the wild spree of laughter.

Only then, only after she'd finished speaking the words, did Song's smile wane… upon realizing that the eyes of the last occupant of the room were set on her this time.

Song froze cold, even though the expression on Rei's face was far from antagonistic. If anything… the cleverness in the girl's gaze, and the telling smile on her face, didn't seem to suggest she found any fault in what Song had just said… when Song had carelessly given away more information than she ever should have in front of Rei.

"U-uh…" she tried to say, struggling to find a way to cover it up: could she pretend Azula had told her Sokka was bad at it? Would that sound like a believable explanation at all, or like a mere, ridiculous excuse instead…?

It would sound as nonsense, for sure… for the smile on Rei's face, as her gaze flittered between the no-longer laughing Princess and Song spoke for itself.

"You knew him… didn't you?" she asked.

Azula's amusement receded slowly when Song's own seemed to freeze over. So lost in her laughter as she had been, she hadn't grasped the extent of Song's slip-up until Rei had spoken.

"Rei…" Song said, unsure of how to save face… unsure if there was any point in doing that. Rei seemed, by all effects, perfectly trustworthy and harmless… and yet the less she knew, the better off she'd be. She and Azula both knew as much. And yet…

"You… you two knew each other from before. I've thought so for some time, but…" Rei said, biting back a slowly growing smile. "You covered it up too well for me to know for sure, but I thought… it made sense, right? It did. So… you did know him. You knew the Princess, too…"

"Rei…" Song said again, gritting her teeth as Azula pushed herself back to a sitting position, glancing at Rei from over her shoulder.

The young maid suddenly froze, upon realizing she'd voiced her suspicions outright, much as Song had blurted out Sokka's name unthinkingly. The Princess turned towards her, and a sudden rush of fear burst inside Rei's chest.

"I… d-don't worry! It's not like I'll run around telling anyone, I figure you didn't want anyone to know, s-so that's why I never asked, I just…"

"You realized it, of course. Well, it's no surprise: I have a very poor history of keeping secrets properly, anyway," Azula acknowledged, and Song shook her head.

"You managed to do so for years, if anything it's my fault this time, not yours," she sighed, looking at Rei hopelessly. "Look, Rei, it's… it's probably better if we don't explain everything just yet. I'm sorry we've, well, kept you in the dark about everything, but…"

"You don't have to be," Rei said, smiling. "I'm not upset… if you thought I was. I just thought… I thought there had to be more to it. And I was right… somewhat. Though I don't know why the Princess would have met a midwife before, but…"

"I'm not exactly… well, I'm not quite what meets the eye, Rei," Song confessed, lowering her head. "If anything…"

"If anything, you've always been a far more impressive person than Wen appears to be," Azula determined, rising to her feet. Song's cheeks flushed as Azula patted her shoulder gently. The Princess turned her gaze to Rei next, who smiled with brimming excitement upon unveiling at least a smidge of yet another mystery and secret about the Princess that she had picked up so far. "And you… you are a very smart girl, probably much smarter than any of us."

"I… no, I'm not," Rei laughed, shaking her head.

"Oh, I'm not saying we were keeping it under tabs properly," Azula smiled. "I'm under no illusions, like I said, of having any sort of ability to keep secrets, especially after the past months. I probably messed up a thousand times and didn't realize it. But… your reaction to learning the truth isn't quite what I'd have expected."

"Well… if you thought I would be upset, I don't think there's any reason why I should be," Rei said, smiling and shrugging. "Your lives are… are so much more exciting and complicated than mine. Even if I thought highly of myself, and I don't, there's no real reason why you should have deemed me worthy of learning all your secrets, right? I've only been here for a short time, and… and you've already shared much more with me than I thought possible. I'm grateful for that."

"See? Common people wouldn't have that much sense," Azula said, with a weak grin. Rei laughed and shook her head.

"Besides… I guess you'd worry, right? Since… since Admiral Zhao could, maybe, try to make me talk," she said, biting her lip. "If he thought I knew anything that you don't want him knowing… isn't it better that I don't know anything at all? For your sake? I mean, I would definitely try to keep your secrets from him, of course I would, but… I'm not really the strongest person there is, even if I want to be stronger. I don't know if… if he could make me talk when I don't mean to, or if I might make more blunders than you both have now that I know some things I shouldn't, so…"

"Well… you wouldn't tell him anything of your own volition, would you?" Song asked, and Rei shook her head rapidly.

"No, but… I don't want to underestimate him. Not when he acted like… like that," Rei said, grimacing. "He said many awful things. I'm very sorry that he did, Princess…"

"It's neither your responsibility nor your fault that he did…" Azula started, but Rei shook her head.

"Even if it's not, I… I wanted to say something, to help you," she whispered. "But if I did, I thought… well, even when I didn't, he said I should have stayed in the estate, didn't he? That maybe he shouldn't have brought me here at all. If… if he thought I'm too close to you, maybe he'll try to make me go back just to punish you. He really did isolate me from everyone, the way you said he did, Princess. I do miss the dragon moose, but… I don't want to leave. I want to stay with you… with the two of you, for as long as I can. I'm scared that… that he'll try to impede that."

Azula frowned, as Song gazed at Rei hopelessly. The young woman, so delighted to learn more about the Princess, was burdened heavily with the knowledge that these bonds she was forming, perhaps the very first true friendships she'd ever built, could be taken from her so easily by Zhao's choices…

"Rei… you're not a slave, right?" Azula asked, and Rei shook her head.

"No, I told you as much…" she whispered. Azula nodded.

"Which means… wait, how old are you, again?" she asked, frowning. Rei bit her lip.

"Seventeen, Princess."

"Seventeen…?" Azula repeated.

She remained in silence for a moment, and Song, beside her, crooked an eyebrow as Azula's eyes seemed to glisten, narrowing slightly now that she was in deep, though likely quick, thought.

"I can hear the engines in your head turning all the way over here," Song said. To her surprise, Azula shot her a quick, mischievous smile.

"I just… had a very strange idea, I suppose," she smirked, glancing at Rei. "As much as my heart firmly refuses to accept it… I am, by all effects, lawfully married to your father, aren't I, Rei?"

"Well… yes," Rei nodded.

"And he did mock me just now, for playing 'stepmother' around you, didn't he?" Azula said, tapping her chin with a slender finger. Rei's eyes widened.

"Y-yes, and it was awful of him to… I-I mean, well…" Rei said, blushing. "It's not like… like he brought me here to be anything but your maid. He shouldn't have…"

"Wait, you think I take offense to that? I don't. I actually, genuinely, don't," Azula said, amused. Rei blinked blankly.

"W-wait… then, w-what are you saying…?" Rei asked, glancing at Azula with uncertainty. Song, beside the Princess, raised an eyebrow as she studied her friend with undeterred curiosity.

"Yeah, Azula. What are you saying?" she asked.

The Princess bit her lip, failing to fully hold back the smirk spreading across her face. It would be the last straw for Zhao, she guessed… ah, but frankly, she was well past the point of worrying about soothing the man's ego – she had stopped hoping to do so long ago, when she had been younger than Rei herself was right now.

"He gets away with bossing you around, with using you as a commodity because he's your father, not your slave master, even if he acts like both things are one and the same," Azula pointed out. Rei flinched upon hearing the comparison. "He gives you orders and expects you to serve him in any sense he requires it, no matter how demeaning the task… and he gets away with it because you've been raised to follow orders, to do as you're told, or face dire consequences otherwise. Right?"

"R-right…?" Rei said. Azula folded her arms over her chest.

"But, ultimately… you have to listen to him because he's your father, isn't that right?"

"Yes…?"

"Well, then… I guess I would have a say upon the matter if I take certain measures from this point onwards, regarding you," Azula said, with a proud smile. Rei blinked blankly. "There's one possibility that comes to mind… one thing I can do, for certain, to stand toe to toe with him when it comes to you. As you're still underage… all the easier for me to do it, even. Were you a year older than you are, this might be out of the question, but since you're not…"

"Woah, Azula. What are you… what are you saying?" Song asked, eyes wide. Azula smirked, her gaze set on Rei.

"What I'm thinking is that, if he so wills it, I'll just make his worst nightmare official. He can keep pretending he has the final say upon Rei's life, her choices, her upbringing… and I don't see why he should so much as pretend he does, considering he's perfectly content to leave her alone for weeks, months even, without the slightest concern. Clearly, he's not doing a grand job as a father, is he? So, as my circumstances are slightly unique, now that I'm his very unwilling wife, the only question left to be answered is… how do you feel about becoming my legal stepdaughter, Rei?"

---

It wasn't morning yet, but Sokka couldn't sleep for another hour. He had spent the night waking up on and off, unsure of how to settle into proper rest when he was so profoundly aware of the new presence among their group.

Ursa had fallen asleep in Zuko's embrace, the two of them resting against a tree. She still laid there, nestled quietly, subtly… and she was real. Sokka swallowed hard as he reasoned with that fact. She was no mirage, she was truly there regardless of how miraculous his discovery of the woman in the swamp's depths had been. She seemed to sleep peacefully, even now… but Sokka wondered, silently, if she would be of a sound mind when she came back to consciousness. The few things she'd said… perhaps the swamp had taken a worse toll on her mind due to how long she had spent in it, how long she had been affected by it. Some of her words had seemed rather odd, with no reasonable explanation just yet – such as her adamant declaration that she didn't eat bees. Yet…

"Zuko. Where… where's your sister…?"

She had said those words, without a shred of a doubt. She had asked Zuko about Azula… and Sokka's heart drummed faster in his chest as he acknowledged that fact. He had dreaded otherwise, that perhaps Ursa would brush aside all thoughts of her daughter in favor of her son, seeing as Azula was convinced that Ursa had never loved anyone but Zuko… it was a slight relief to witness something that might suggest she cared about her daughter too, and yet it wasn't enough to persuade Sokka that Azula was entirely wrong about her perception of her mother. But he wouldn't know for sure until the woman woke again and, with any luck, explained herself at all, if she was ready to do so…

Though there was still the question of whether Zuko would allow Sokka to talk about any of this with his mother, to begin with. While their time with Guru Pathik had seemed to change Zuko for the better, this sudden, unforeseen reencounter with his mother might just bring out every protective bone in the exiled Prince's body. Even now, as he slept, he appeared to hold onto his mother with the unquestionable determination to never let her go again. If Sokka said or did anything that could upset Ursa, it was entirely possible Zuko would shut down any conversation right then and there. Perhaps it would be for the best if he did… Ursa's circumstances were vague, strange, and profoundly confusing. There was no way they'd know what sorts of hardships she'd endured so far, not until she talked about them. Until then, Sokka had no idea if he had any right to judge her, to resent her, no matter how strongly he believed that Ursa had failed Azula…

He lingered in silence over the course of a few hours of darkness: Zuko stirred when the sun began rising in the horizon. Aang, as well, woke by the break of dawn. After such a long period of uneven days and nights, it was strange to find themselves near the middle point of the world anew, where daylight and nighttime shared narrowly equal hours each day. The sun warmed them better here, and Sokka no longer wore his parka at all, much as some of the other members of the group had shed their thicker outerwear. A subtle breeze rushed through the trees; it was refreshing for the group, accustomed to the freezing winds that almost felt like daggers stabbing into the exposed parts of their bodies.

"Morning, you guys…" Aang yawned, rubbing his eyes with his fists. Not far from his sleeping bag, Katara as well stirred back into consciousness, groaning softly.

"Morning," Sokka answered: upon confirming the others were waking up, he made his way to their food pack, hoping to find something worth cooking for their breakfast.

Slowly, everyone climbed out of their sleeping bags, exchanging casual greetings and asking each other in unusually polite ways whether they had slept well or not, still keenly affected by the lingering tension in their campsite. Zuko remained silent, and Sokka didn't partake in the good-mannered morning conversations either. Kino nudged Momo upon finding the lemur sleeping soundly beside him, Aang rose to check on Appa, and Katara joined Sokka at preparing breakfast.

The noise they made, albeit not as loud as it might have been – it certainly had been much louder on the previous mornings, when they were still on their way to the Earth Kingdom – eventually interrupted the slumber of the oldest member of their group. Zuko's grip around Ursa didn't ease, though he eyed her attentively once she shifted in his arms.

"Mom…?" he called, softly, unsure if he should speak to her at all just yet… let alone if he should call her 'mom' when that, presumably, had been one source of the torrent of tears his mother had unleashed the previous day.

Ursa hummed softly, raising her head towards the sound of his voice. Again, she kept her eyes closed, as though she wanted to believe she was still dreaming… yet after her hands touched Zuko's chest, she frowned and opened her eyes far more quickly than the last time.

Zuko swallowed hard, nervous again, when his mother's eyes met his own. Now, under the daylight, his gruesome scar would no doubt disturb his mother even more than it already had…

"Z-Zuko…" Ursa called him. Again, her trembling hand rose to his face, cupping it gently. Zuko bit his lip and gazed at her with uncertainty, eventually lowering his eyes as his mother's fingers brushed against the recently cut strands of his hair.

"Yeah… it's me, Mom," he said, quietly, offering her a sad smile. "And it's you. After… after all these years, it's…"

"You cut your hair…?" she asked, suddenly, startling Zuko. He swallowed hard but nodded.

"I… I did. Well, some of it: someone helped me make it even" he said, shyly. Ursa's lips arched into a smile.

"You… you look handsome."

"I… oh, no. Mom, I…" Zuko shook his head, smiling somewhat shyly as Ursa responded with a smile of her own… a smile that soured, inevitably, when her eyes fell upon his left side. "Y-yeah, well, with this, I don't think I can look very…"

"No, dear, don't… don't say that. Don't say that," Ursa whispered, shaking her head before embracing him gently. Zuko sighed, hugging Ursa as well.

"I'm just saying… if it's uncomfortable for you to look at me like this, I get it. I…" Zuko breathed out, rubbing Ursa's back gently. "I wasn't like this, when we last saw each other."

"Of course not… he wasn't like this, back then. He… he wouldn't have dared," Ursa said, bitterly, clinging to Zuko tightly. The exiled Prince breathed out slowly, unsure of what to do, what to say… was there any minding his words when it came to his father? Would Ursa want to hear it? Was she ready to truly understand how dreadful Ozai had been to him, to everyone in his life… to Azula?

"It's… it's in the past now, though. It's okay, Mom," Zuko whispered, tenderly. "I've learned to live with it… and it… it didn't stop me from, well, from doing lots of things I couldn't have imagined I could do, Mom…"

"G-good, but… you shouldn't have to bear it at all. You shouldn't have been hurt…" Ursa said, shaking her head as she pulled back only to gaze at Zuko again. "I'm sorry, Zuko, I… had I been there, m-maybe…"

"Maybe, but… it's okay. It really is, Mom," Zuko said, smiling sadly at her. Ursa bit her trembling lip… but she nodded, in deference to Zuko's words. "I'm okay. I've… I've grown up as best I could, even if it wasn't easy, but… I've done my best. Just as you always told me to. It's been a bit of a blur, and so much has happened, but… but I'm with you now. We found you… and I won't let anyone tear you away from me again. Okay?"

"I… I…" Ursa gasped, breathing heavily before frowning slightly. "We…?"

Zuko blinked blankly: he had spoken without thinking, but he tore his eyes off his mother now to glance at the rest of the group… and so did Ursa.

Everyone had been watching them, with varying degrees of shame and curiosity. Ursa's heart raced at the sight of so many strangers… and of the massive beast among them, too: she gasped when her eyes fell upon Appa, whose large, kindly gaze met hers, too.

"U-uh… I guess introductions are in order," Zuko said, still holding his mother protectively as she took in the strange group of young people her son appeared to have been traveling with.

Mere instants before Zuko began his explanations, Ursa picked up a strange, unexpected common theme in the attires of everyone before her. The two by the fire, the other two, with the animals… even Zuko, as well, wore a unique clothing fashion that evoked an instinctive thought in Ursa's mind: were Zuko's friends from a Water Tribe?

"This is Aang," Zuko said, gesturing at the tall Avatar, who smiled and waved shyly in Ursa's direction. "And that's his sky bison, Appa. This one over here… he's Kino, and the lemur is Momo. Then… this is Katara. She helped heal your scrapes and wounds and she helped you drink water when you were unconscious."

"A… waterbender," Ursa concluded, gazing at Katara intently. The younger woman blushed and nodded, slightly self-aware upon being introduced by Zuko in such a sober manner.

"And that one beside her… that's her brother, not a waterbender. Sokka," Zuko said, speaking the Gladiator's name carefully: again, Ursa flinched slightly upon hearing his name. Zuko felt the urge to ask about her reaction, immediately… but not yet. He couldn't dare do it just yet. "We were in the swamp, we fell there, and… Sokka's the one who found you."

Sokka hadn't wanted to be in the spotlight in any way, but Zuko had placed it upon him nonetheless. He couldn't do anything but offer Ursa a tight-lipped grin and a light wave: the woman's eyes were darker than Azula's, but the suspicion she bore on them… it was eerily familiar, terribly similar to the Princess's own expressions whenever she was making sense, subtly and silently, out of countless things inside her mind. The crease between Azula's eyebrows whenever she was in deep thought… even that was something she had in common with her mother, Sokka realized.

"Why… why were you there at all?" Ursa asked, softly, glancing at her son again. "Why would you…?"

"Uh, well… maybe we should try to eat first?" Zuko suggested, biting his lip. "I think we both have lots of questions, Mom, so…"

"You're dressed in… Water Tribe clothes? B-but not the swamp ones," Ursa said, blinking blankly as she gazed at Zuko's azure attire. "It… it looks good on you, but… why?"

"It's a very long story," Zuko said, biting his lip "I think… I think we all have long stories, really. I can't even tell you everything myself, but… I guess I can start, if you really want to hear it."

"I…" Ursa seemed to doubt, to hesitate before answering with a weak nod. Even Zuko grew to suspect she might not truly wish to hear this story… but it was better if she did. "Please… w-while we eat?"

Zuko nodded, smiling gently as he tightened his grip around Ursa's waist: he helped her sit closer by the fire as Katara poured some stew in a small bowl, offering it to Ursa first.

"It's… sea-prune stew. Or, well, the most similar thing I could make to sea-prune stew," Katara admitted, with a shy smile. "We've been on the road for a few days now… not a lot of food reserves left."

"Thank you," Ursa whispered, as Zuko helped her take her bowl of food. "I… I've never eaten this before."

"Well, hopefully it'll be better than bees," Kino blurted out: Zuko shot him a meaningful glare while the others gaped at him in judgmental silence. "W-what…?"

"Anything… would be better than that," Ursa said, softly.

The silence that fell next seemed to alert Ursa that she had said something strange, unexpected, perhaps. She glanced at them, unsure of what had alarmed them so much from her words.

"Y-you… had to eat bees?" Katara finally asked, gazing at her in confusion. "You said something like that, when… when you were still mostly unconscious, last night? What… what does that mean, exactly?"

"I suppose you really are nothing like… like those swamp-dwellers," Ursa said, with a weak smile. "All the better, if you're not. They have… strange culinary practices."

"They made you eat bees? Really?" Aang grimaced. Ursa nodded.

"Several times. They… aren't picky eaters," she explained. "Whenever I wound up with them, whenever they found me… I'd just run from them again as soon as possible. They aren't intentionally cruel, I know as much… it is simply how they have learned to live their lives in the swamp. It's… a difficult, dangerous place."

"But you were there. Multiple times, from what Huu told us…" Aang said, biting his lip. "Can we ask, w-well… why?"

Ursa didn't make any motions to answer, as Katara continued to fill everyone's breakfast bowls. Aang seemed to shrink in place over Ursa's silence, but Zuko cut through the sudden tension to spare his mother from speaking if she wasn't ready to do so yet.

"Okay, well… if you want, we'll start with our stories. Then, you can tell us yours, when you're ready," Zuko said, clasping Ursa's wrist gently before reaching for his own food bowl.

She answered with a gentle nod, her gaze rising from her food to her son's face. He bit his lip and nodded too, shivering slightly as he held his meal. Truthfully, he hadn't expected he'd need to explain his life's story to anyone, but if he ever mustered the patience to do so, it would have to be with his mother.

"Well, then… uh, yeah. Things weren't exactly… good, in the Palace, after you left," Zuko whispered. "Though I didn't realize how bad it was all along. I became Crown Prince, and people started treating me differently because of that. I was seen as a man, pretty much… as my father's heir, though not by those in his closest circles. Not… not by him, to begin with. About a year after he was crowned, Uncle Iroh came home and took me under his wing."

Sokka wasn't particularly hungry, though he wasn't sure he had been truly hungry ever since he had first parted ways with Azula. Perhaps that would have been poised to change after his vision of the love of his life, if Ursa's reappearance hadn't thrown a wrench in his stability all over again… but he felt even more revolted upon hearing Iroh's name, upon hearing he had taken care of Zuko in some sort of paternal manner. No doubt, the worst of Sokka's hatred was meant for Ozai… but even now, he couldn't set aside his resentment towards Iroh for manipulating matters in the shadows for a very long time, anyway.

"I was probably… getting a little ahead of myself, by then," Zuko admitted, biting his lip. "I was young and… and I let myself dream about becoming Fire Lord and finally earning the respect I wanted from so many people, especially my father. I thought, well… maybe he was acting so differently, so coldly because you were gone. Maybe it had something to do with it, but… my hopes that it wasn't anything personal, that my father didn't really hold a grudge against me, turned out to be unfounded. I convinced my uncle, one day, to let me join a war meeting when I was thirteen. I was too young, but I thought it'd be fine, and… it wasn't. I said something that wasn't really wrong… but I spoke out of turn. It seemed a small fault, something minimal, but… but my father was furious. He demanded for an Agni Kai, and I thought I'd have to fight against the man I'd slighted, but… he seemed to believe the true victim of my mistake was himself."

Ursa had eaten slowly so far, but by then she'd set the bowl down, covering her face with her hands. No doubt, she had some knowledge of how Zuko's scar had come to be… and hearing the truth of it from her son's own lips devastated her.

"My father burned me," Zuko said, clenching a fist as his gaze shifted to the fire. He could still remember that moment with vivid clarity, how the flames had encroached around him, while he clung to nothing but the hope, the belief, that his father wouldn't do this to him. That Ozai couldn't possibly hurt his own son in this way… only to find otherwise when a burst of pain like nothing he had felt before was etched unto his skin. The fire had seemed to burn over his face for years, and even nowadays, on certain days, the pain returned, if on a lesser measure. "To this day, I… I don't think he regrets it at all."

Ursa sobbed then, pressing her face to Zuko's shoulder. He sighed, wrapping an arm around his mother, rubbing her arm gently. Whether she mourned over Zuko's pain, or whether she wept over how steep Ozai's cruelty had become, the exiled Prince didn't know.

"He banished me, afterwards," Zuko said, softly. "Because I… I had dishonored him by refusing to fight him, apparently. Even then, it should have been obvious that… that he was looking for just about any excuse to get rid of me, but I was too young, too naïve, to really understand it then. So, I just took to the seas, and… and I hoped to prove myself to him when I fulfilled the only task with which he claimed I would be free to come home: finding the Avatar."

"The… the Avatar?" Ursa repeated between tears, aghast. "But… but the Avatar's gone. Zuko…"

"He's not gone, but you're not wrong if you think that's exactly what my father was trying to say," Zuko said, with a grimace "Yeah, he didn't want me to ever come home at all. That was his brilliant punishment for my terrible misdeed of talking when I shouldn't have. He just… wanted me gone. I didn't get it for a long time, but he wanted me gone."

"Why…? Oh, how could he…?" Ursa said, gritting her teeth and shaking her head. "You're his son. His son, and he…"

"Mom… he's not the man you may have thought he was," Zuko said, tentatively. "I don't know if you really had any high hopes for him, as far as I can remember, you two were, well, not on the best of terms when you left? But… but he's gotten worse, Mom. Even… even worse than when I last saw him, from the looks of it. And I don't mean when I was thirteen, I… I did get to go back to the Fire Nation, for a time. My uncle did something, I don't know… pulled some strings somehow, and persuaded the council to let me come home, even though I hadn't found the Avatar. I wasn't pleased, I thought I shouldn't have gone back at all if I had failed, but… but I hoped, maybe, that my father would have reconsidered my punishment. Yet, every time I tried to see him, to talk to him, he… he wanted nothing to do with me. He pushed me away, pretended I didn't exist until the very last moment, when I… when I confronted him myself. When I finally faced the facts and accepted that… that he just wanted to get rid of me. He didn't deny it, if anything he even mocked me for not having understood it soon-… Mom?"

Ursa shuddered and shook her head, pulling away to bury her face in her hands. Zuko tensed up, unsure if he should reach for her. He glanced at the others, almost hoping they might be able to tell him if he'd made a terrible mistake… but it seemed the one most likely to understand his mother's sorrow was him. Zuko grimaced, raising a hand to his mother's shoulder gently, and she shook her head again.

"He couldn't have been so… he couldn't have… w-why would he…?" she blurted out, pulling at her hair until Zuko reached for her hands, making her ease her grip. Sokka's heart ached again, upon glimpsing yet another terrible similarity between mother and daughter…

"Mom… don't hurt yourself. It's bad enough that he's hurt so many people, as it is," Zuko whispered, softly. Ursa relented, but she continued to shake her head as she raised her tearful gaze to Zuko.

"He had no reason… n-no reason, you're his son. Why would he…?" she asked. Zuko's stomach clenched as he dreaded he'd have to answer the question his mother couldn't seem to finish uttering.

"Well… he had a reason, even if we don't like it. And, well, even if it doesn't make much sense, because he's been terrible to her too, but still, he did it because…"

An empty bowl fell near the fire: Zuko fell silent, and now every set of eyes rose to find Sokka had risen to his feet. A dark shadow crossed his features, and his blue eyes were colder than ice…

"Didn't mean to interrupt, I just… need a potty break."

His childish terminology didn't even sound amusing, for once, when he appeared so distraught. He nodded in their direction, hands on his hips.

"I'll be back in a bit, alright?" he said, simply.

"Sokka…" Katara called her brother, but he took off, regardless of her pleas.

The group by the fire fell into an uncomfortable silence after Sokka excused himself. Zuko breathed deeply, guessing he truly ought to continue, and yet…

"Do you think someone should go after him…?" Kino asked, softly. Katara sighed but shook her head.

"Pretty sure we all know why he's… like that," Katara said. "I guess maybe he doesn't want to hear, uh, well…"

"My version of things?" Zuko finished, and Katara grimaced. "Not like I wouldn't have let him talk, anyway… and he did fill Mari's head with all those tales about Jing and Wentai, and made me the butt of countless jokes there, too."

"It's different now, though," Katara said, gazing at him meaningfully. "You're… you're not doing this to entertain anyone. You're telling your mother the truth. And, well… you should. Even if Sokka doesn't want to hear it."

Zuko sighed, guessing Katara was right. Ursa, beside him, had watched as Sokka marched into the forest, and Zuko glanced at her with unease.

"Mom… I know you don't want to talk about some things, and I get it," Zuko whispered, clasping her hand gently. "But… well, Sokka's the one who found you in the swamp, like we told you. And as much as it doesn't make much sense to me that the swamp took him to you instead of me, it looks as if you… as if this wasn't the first time you've seen him or heard of him."

Katara, Aang and Kino glanced at Zuko in confused disbelief. He gritted his teeth, still holding his mother, still uncertain of his own suspicions… and her enigmatic silence did little to reassure him.

"Mom…" he said, unsure if he should push at all… but then Ursa spoke.

"I saw him by the fire."

Katara crooked an eyebrow at those words: was she being cryptic about some sort of vision, maybe? Aang appeared every bit as perplexed as she was, though Zuko certainly was the more confused one out of the whole group right now.

"By… the fire? Last night?" Zuko asked: Ursa shook her head.

"Was it a vision?" Katara asked. "In a swamp vision?"

"No. I wasn't… in the swamp's range anymore," Ursa whispered. "Or so I was told. I'd never seen him before, so… he had to be real. But I wasn't ready, I wasn't ready, Zuko, back then, I… I just wanted… I wanted all of it to go away or just go back to the way it was. I shouldn't have, though. I… I should've been stronger, but I couldn't be, n-not until now, not until I saw you again. I can't… can't keep denying reality, the years that have passed, t-that my little boy has become… has become a man. It's all real, s-so… that was real, too. By the fire, out of the forest… he sat there, w-with…"

She didn't finish the sentence, but she didn't need to: all their eyes widened as it slowly dawned upon them that Ursa wasn't talking about swamp visions indeed… even if they hardly understood what she meant, anyway. Yet…

"Mom… you do know who he is?" Zuko asked, his voice soft, hitching at the end of his question.

Ursa swallowed dryly, hands twitching nervously as her eyes fell upon the fire… so similar to the fire where she had first seen the tall Water Tribe warrior, clad in his armor, but bearing a much brighter expression on his face. An expression matched by the woman in gold who had stood by his side…

Zuko had grown, changed, seen his share of sorrows and agony… all of which meant that, whether she liked it or not, so had she…

Ursa shut her eyes tightly, trembling as she readied herself to accept reality fully… to speak words she had been told, words she had rejected from the first moment… much like the words that had sent her running to the swamp, one last time:

"His name is Sokka… and he's Azula's Gladiator."