In the early hours of the morning, as she woke up, the first thing the princess noticed was the pacing shadow just outside her door. As the maid entered and informed her that there was a strange foreign boy waiting for her a satisfied smile spread across the young girl's face.
The shadow ceased its endless march and began to wait in an impatient patience. Upon completion of her morning grooming ritual she instructed the maid the exit via the side entrance and settled comfortably upon the side of her bed.
After close to an hour of sitting and savouring the clockwork shuffles and twitches of the frustrated shadow- Azula picked up a black and golden vase off a nearby countertop, returned to sit on the side of her bed, let the vase drop violently towards the floor and relaced her fingers in a pose of ready expectation.
The terrible shattering resulted in the shadow bursting in to the room, his poise unplanned and panicked. The water tribe boy's eyes darted around the room before resting upon the broken ornate pieces littering the floor, and the eerily composed Princess lording over the severed fragments from the side of her bed.
Sokka inexplicably overcome with the unmistakable feeling that he had somehow lost. As he pushed down the feelings he realised his only choice was to begin. "Azula..."
"Sonja isn't it?" Her eyebrows rose perfectly to fit the query.
"Sonja is a girl's name Azula." His face conceding an unwanted twitch and his tone was filled with open annoyance.
"The nuances of tribal custom have always seemed strange to me." The princess said the words as if engaged in idle chit-chat with an old friend.
"You know my name." He was certain that the devious serpent would not forget something that could be used as a weapon.
Azula's brow became slightly pinched- the savage was trying to wreck her fun. "Is there something that you want?"
"You know what I want." Delivered with an equal level of certainty- the snake knows what everyone wants.
"I was actually expecting you to visit me during my temporary imprisonment. Your little girlfriend not important enough for you to suffer the stench of the dungeons?" Open mockery filled the prodigy's voice, no longer bothering with restraint or guile.
"Zuko told me that you wouldn't speak." Sokka replayed the past.
"And that satisfied you? Do they not teach persistence in the barren south?" She knew that it didn't, and that they did.
"They told me you likely wouldn't know." Sokka had walked up to the princess's bed, the pieces of vase noisily cracking under his boots.
"But you knew I would." She leant back, supporting the weight of her body with her hands, visibly displaying her unconcern for his approach.
"I didn't know if I could live with myself." The words were an admission.
Azula didn't understand, her brow furrowed once again. As his meaning dawned on her an emotion, that vaguely resembled welcome surprise, passed across her face- traces of it never fully disappearing. She leant forward again. "If I didn't tell you."
"If you didn't tell me." The tribesman affirmed. His manner would be uncharacteristically serious to someone who only vaguely knew the boy and the extent that he would go to protect those he cared for.
Azula broke the gaze that the two had shared to look idly over the rest of the room, only to realise that her ability to move had been greatly limited by the jagged pieces that now scattered the floor.
Sokka purposefully strode across the room and picked up her shoes from against the wall. He returned and with a swift motion cleared the dangerous shards away from a small section of the floor. The boy knelt and gently took hold of the princess's calf, sliding her silken dress smoothly up her leg to reveal her feet. As the pointed leather boots, and the hands guiding them, made their way further up Azula's legs- the princess became visibly unnerved. Physical contact was unusual for the Princess apart from battle or the the meaningless ministrations of faceless servants.
His task completed- Sokka rose making sure to keep anything that could be interpreted as victory from reaching his face. It was hard- as the princess was well and truly shaken, one of the few times Sokka had ever seen the cold facade of the poised planner even slightly falter.
"She escaped." Azula suddenly began. "... Quite an embarrassment really, especially after uncle walked free only a few days earlier. The Fire Nation's prisons are supposed to the most secure in the world- then again we are the only nation that imprisons our criminals." The last was clearly meant as a slight, but it was ignored by the warrior.
"If she 'escaped' then where is she?" The boy clearly didn't believe a word the Princess had said.
Azula delivered her words as if speaking to a petulant child. "Keyoshi Island I would assume. That is her home."
Sokka delivered the words as if speaking to a petulant child. "That was one of the first places we looked when we couldn't find her in the prisons."
" 'We'?"
"Scout parties have been sent all over the world."
"Let me get this straight- Fire Nation soldiers went to Kyoshi Island and announced that there was a new Fire Lord and that their warriors should come out and board a boat back to the Fire Nation. Can 'we' not see the flaw in that plan?"
The warrior's poise shifted in to neutrality as he silently considered the words. "They're on the island." Sokka tested the words
"Yes cong-..." The princess was interrupted before she could finish her taunt.
"They're on the island!" Sokka's voice was ecstatic. He picked up the Princess and gripped her in a spontaneous hug- laughing in genuine glee. He gave the Princess an overdramatic kiss before skipping off out of the room and down the corridor.
Azula stood with a look of bewildered confusion straining her face. Her hand unconsciously glided to her mouth.