Chapter 2: Escape from Pineweb Forest

A/N:

sagelights: Thank you for your comment, I hope my fic does not disappoint.

crazyhorse: If you sign up for you can opt to be sent alerts every time this story is updated, I'll try to update it a couple times a week..

Ur2: It's nice to see I'm not the only one who appreciates Avatar femmeslash :-)

---

"I believe I can help," a feminine voice said. Aang and Katara had been busy trying to break the branches that enclosed their friends. They turned around and readied their stances.

"Oh please," Azula said, her posture lax. "If I had wanted to attack you two, you'd already be dead."

"What do you want?" Katara growled, holding the water from her waterskin in the air, ready to attack. She remembered how the princess had just that very day almost killed Aang. The hole was still in his clothing. If she wasn't so angry she would've wondered how Azula had found them and gotten up on top of the trees where they were.

"Like I said before, I want to help," Azula said, giving an earnest look. She had always been good at faking sincerity.

"How are you going to help?" Aang asked. His expression soften.

"I am a firebender," Azula stated, as-a-matter-of-fact-ly. "But I'd need some help extinguishing the fire, eventually."

Katara nodded, keeping her eyes on the princess. She didn't trust her, but, if she was willing to help…

---

Meanwhile, Sokka, Toph and the Earth King had other matters to attend to.

One of the pinecone spiders had appeared. Sokka approached it with his club. Toph stood by Appa, and the Earth King hid behind her.

"Take that!" Sokka shouted as he began to pummel on the hard outer layer of the spider.

"What's that smell?" Toph asked. It smelled like a fire was burning.

"What smell?" Sokka asked, automatically, as the pinecone spider's fangs grabbed onto his club. He didn't really have time to play 20 questions.

Sokka was too busy wrestling with the pinecone spider to notice. Until the spider caught of fire. A blue fire.

"Oh no," Sokka muttered under his breath as he looked up to confirm his fear. Azula.

"Katara, put out that thing before it burns the whole forest down," Azula ordered. "Aang, get them out of there already."

He couldn't believe his eyes when she saw Katara taking orders from Azula.

"We have to free Appa first," Aang stated as he jumped down to the ground.

"What is SHE doing here?" Sokka asked, pointing at Azula, as soon as he could speak again.

"She's rescuing us," Aang said plainly. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"She's rescuing us?!" Sokka repeated unable to comprehend those words in a sentence referring to Azula. "Did you say you'd go with her or something? Aang, you're the Avatar, you shouldn't be sacrificing yourself like that!"

"Relax," Aang said, as Toph and Sokka grabbed onto his walking stick.

Aang airbended himself, Sokka and Toph out of the clearing, much to Sokka's relief. Toph immediately clung to Sokka.

Aang looked up at Sokka, "She didn't ask me to turn myself over to her. I'm not sure I understand what's going on."

Sokka frowned. "If Azula's involved, it can't be anything good."

--

Azula jumped down into the clearing, and immediately saw Appa trapped. "How much water do you have left Katara?"

It would take more than a little fire to free the flying bison, the branches had him pretty much trapped.

"Not much," Katara answered as she jumped down and bended what little water she had out of the waterskin.

"That's not going to be enough," Azula stated. "Is there anywhere else you keep water?"

"No, we just barely escaped from the city with our lives, no thanks to you!" Katara snapped. "So sorry if we don't have enough supplies for your pretty little plan to work."

Azula's eyes widened, and she shrank a little, putting on her best 'sensitive little girl' act.

"I guess I deserved that," she said almost quietly. "I don't blame you for being angry with me. We can talk about it, later, after we save Appa."

"Maybe Aang can blow out the fire or something," Katara said, feeling a little bad.

"That would be a bad idea," Azula said. "My fire burns blue because of how intense it is, adding air to it would just strengthen it."

"I know," Katara said. "I can use the moisture in the trees to control the fire."

"You can bend water within a living thing?" Azula asked. "How useful."

Azula approached Appa, before remembering something from her encounter with the Kyoshi Warriors. One of the girls used fire to scare Appa away. This would have to be done carefully.

"I think I'm going to break the branches from behind the bison," Azula said as she began to walk around Appa, only to be knocked down with an extending branch.

"Agni…." Azula hissed under her breath as she picked herself up.

"Are you alright?" Katara asked, rushing to the other girl's side.

"I'm fine," Azula said, dusting herself off quickly, taking great pains to keep in character. "The sooner we get out of here the better."

Katara nodded, and started bending the water trees up to their branches. Azula created a small flame right next to the branches, seemingly taking great care that Appa could not accidentally get burnt.

After about a half hour, and a couple close calls with extending branches, Appa was freed. Katara and Appa climbed on his back and guided him out of the forest, picking up Aang, Sokka and Toph on the way.

--

Sokka was the only one who even looked in Azula's direction. And all he did was glare.

"Do you want to talk about this?" Azula asked, looking the young warrior in the eye.

"Yes," Sokka replied. "You're the bad guy! You just tried to kill Aang a couple hours ago! And now we're all supposed to accept you as our friend?"

"Sokka," Aang said, trying to calm his friend down. "We're just giving her a ride to the nearest town. Her ostrich-horse ran away while she was saving us. She'd be stranded if we didn't help her. She's not our friend."

"I appreciate you doing this for me," Azula said in an almost wistful tone. "I don't blame you for hating me. I'd hate me too if I were you."

"Why are you all nice to us now?!" Sokka asked, hardly even trying to keep the accusatory tone out of his voice. "Why rescue us after trying to kill us?"

Azula sighed, while inwardly smiling at the wonderful job she was doing acting. "I did not want to kill you, if I did, I would've done it while you were sitting ducks back there."

"Sokka, we don't have to trust her," Katara said. "All that's important is that she helped us, and then we're helping her now, and soon we'll never have to see her again."

"I did do a lot of bad things," Azula said, her head titled downward, her hand obscuring her eyes. "I did a lot of things I'm ashamed of. I know what I've done is inexcusable. I'm just glad that now I'm going to have a chance to finally escape."

Azula peered out to see the reactions of her comrades. None of them were even looking at her, much less looking at her sympathetically. She furrowed her brow; apparently she was going to have to lay it on even thicker.

"I left Ba Sing Se because my father is coming," Azula said, putting special emphasis on the word father.

"Nobody cares," Toph said bluntly. "You almost killed one of us, you've been a constantly royal pain in our collective butt recently, and so your little rich evil princess problems with your dad just don't interest us. Go sell it to a tabloid. Nobody here cares."

"I've ordered the Dai Li to assassinate him," Azula said, inwardly smiling, after the blind little eathbender finished her rant.

Now that got everyone's attention.

"Why would you do that?" Aang asked, disbelieving his own ears. Not that it wouldn't be the best thing ever if Ozai was taken care of by someone else.

"My father is not what the Fire Nation needs or wants," Azula said. "I am the princess to my people, not my father's puppet. Everything I've done, up to this point, was to earn his trust and lure him out of the Fire Nation."

"No way, I don't believe it," Sokka said. "The Fire Nation is the country that's responsible for the war, why would they want their leader killed? Especially when Sozen's comet is just around the corner. It makes no sense!"

"I've not only stopped fighting you but I just saved you as well," Azula said almost too pointedly. "But you still don't trust me. If I hadn't shown up when you were in no shape to fight, I'd have had to defend myself. You may see the Earth Kingdom as the victim, but they are hardly helpless. If given a chance, they will attack, especially after learning my nation's weakpoint."

Sokka rolled his eyes. He still didn't like it.

"There's a town," Aang noted. He still felt a little light-headed. The Dai Li taking out Ozai? Doing his job for him?

"We should stay there for the night," Katara said, pointing to a large building which resembled an inn. "We all had a very long day. It'll be nice to sleep in beds."