A/N: ...No...No owning of the Avatar for me...

Thank you all for the awesome comments! Keep reading, I won't let you down.

A little music to inspire me: Linkin Park-Faint and Easier to Run

Chapter 3

(Roku Voice Over): Previously on Cold Flame...

"Zuko may have faith in you,but I don't. I see right through you,Azula,and after this evening,you won't be our problem anymore."

"And you won't be mine."

"Welcome,your journey here must have been straining..."

"YOU are Azula's escort??"

"Do you want me to go in with you?"

"No. I must do this alone."

"Be careful."

"My daughter..."

"Hello father."

"She's been in there for a while." Mai said holding onto Zuko's hand tighter.

"I'm sure she's fine."

"Maybe you're putting a little too much faith in her. Six months in prison can hardly make amends for years of tyranny."

"I think she could change." I stepped forward, interrupting the Fire Lord and Lady who looked at me puzzled at my statement. "Mai has a point, Zuko, six months in a dark cell isn't enough to completely change someone with Azula's personality. The only reason I'm taking this job as her escort is because I know it will take more than a hike to Ba Sing Se to change her around for the better and just like you Zuko I know she's capable of the change."

"Is that the only reason, Ty Lee?" Mai gave me a strange look, making me blush for a moment.

"Of course it is." I eased my face sober and stared at the couple with more seriousness than they could handle from their once bubbly friend.

"So you only have business in mind and not pleasure?" Mai teased a little more.

"What? What's going on?" Zuko looked between me and her, baffled by our conversation.

Mai knocked on Ozai's cell door, signalling to Azula that time was up, while still looking at me carefully she took Zuko's hand and they walked behind me.

"I'll explain it to you one day."

The door slowly opened and Azula let herself out. She looked so timid, like someone tried to attack her, and judging by the way her hair was hanging in front of her face, I honestly thought someone had and that filled me with an anger I could hardly explain. I wanted to run up and comfort her, compliment and praise her the way I used to, I know her better than anyone in this world...and she knows me...I can not, will not, give in to this anymore. At least not now...

My status as a Kyoshi Warrior has become my balance, Azula was the part of my life that would send it spiraling somewhere else completely. It could go either good or bad but never in between. Just as she has changed a bit in the last six months, so have I.

"Are you ready to leave, Princess?" I said to her formally.

She said nothing to me. Instead she stepped passed me and kept walking on her own. The four of us returned to the palace so she could pack the rest of her things. She was silent the entire, by the time we got back I figured I would give her privacy. As always her movements were stealth, silent and nearly undetectable.

"It's like she's not even there..." I said to myself in a dull tone.

Hearing myself say that actually made me concerned, she's in there...at least she better be. I took in a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"Azula, we need to leave."

Nothing. Damnit...

"Azula...?"

I pushed the door down and out of reflex I composed myself to be ready for a fight, the room was still in tact, the windows were closed and the princess was standing alone in silence. Her eyes seemed to wander around the frame of her mirror, which was shattered, from where I was watching her reflection looked as mangled as the glass. Closing the door behind me I slowly approached her and stood by her side. She didn't look at me or say anything for a while, she just stood there motionless. This was a new obstacle for both of us, I had never seen her this far our of her own mind. It was frightening. Azula was always the strong one, the one with the most power, she was fearless and now...now she looked like a weakened and terrified child.

"Azula..." I whispered gently taking her hand.

She trembled at my touch but still stared into the broken glass. Her lips quivered as though she wanted to speak, but she could not get the words out. Instead, I saw what Zuko spoke of the day she went insane, a stray tear fell from her eye. For a moment I felt her pain, and my own eyes started to well up with hot tears...this felt so familiar, the weakness around Azula, not in her... in me...

I remembered...before the final battle, just before I left to join the circus...I was so scared that I would not be able to make it on my own and that I would never be able to return home if things got bad or if I got hurt...

"You know you can always come back," Azula smiled at me with her usual confidence.

"But my family...they won't take me back..." I cried, nearly in hysterics. "They probably won't even know I'm gone...my sisters look just like me...what's one missing matter?"

"I would notice." She sounded insulted.

"No..." I was afraid I had offended her. "I didn't mean it like that, Azula, I promise!"

Her eyes pierced me in ways I can hardly describe, cold and unforgiving but burning with passion, like a cold flame. I could hardly resist her, this is what defined our relationship, the strings she kept me on. She looked like she could kill me but she wouldn't, she fiercely got into my face still with that scowl on her face, I didn't realize she had gripped my arms until she spoke again, her eyes not leaving mine.

"And it matters." She said firmly.

Her harsh gaze on me softened as the tears welled up and I fell into her embrace crying. I was weak and she was my strength. Until then I thought it was just pity she had on me, just feeling sorry for an old friend or however she looked at me. As she held me she moved her arms up to gently hold the back of my head against her shoulder. With her other arm she held me closer, I lifted my head to say something but looking into her eyes I forgot what I had to say, she looked unsure, or rather, she was trying to mask that she was unsure. But of what? I tried to speak up but she quieted me and brushed my hair out of my face and wiped my eyes, sliding her hand delicately down my face she guided me closer to her and lightly kissed my lips. We pulled away together and looked at one another, looking from her eyes to her mouth I stopped fighting my feelings and leaned in for another more passionate kiss that I wish had lasted forever.

"If you had no where else to turn, where do you think you would go, if anywhere at all?"

"To you."

Now here we stand, and just as I had cried that night, her light trembling grew into harsher shaking, her knees gave out on her and she collapsed. Before she hit the ground I caught her, nearly falling over myself. The woman who held me so closely in private so long ago needed me now the way I needed her then.

"Azula...what happened?" I asked, not as her escort but as her friend.

She didn't answer, she just shook and cried while I held onto her. It wasn't like before, she did not hold on to me the way she used to, she didn't hold me at all, she just fell limp against me and sobbed. It was like I wasn't even there...

"Talk to me. We're friends aren't we?" I smiled at her as she seemed to calm down.

Sitting up, she looked at me, face and eyes red from the tears. Her breathing became staggered as she tried to answer me, all she could do was shake her head and move away from me quickly.

Taking her things she left the room with out me. I was no longer her friend, but the traitor that stabbed her in the back. I hoped that one day she would be able to forgive me, but I suppose that day is not today. I got myself off the ground and looked at the mirror. It was time to leave, to do my job and then return to the Kyoshi Warriors.

The guards would not allow Azula to leave on her own so that gave me time to get ready myself. I quickly put on my uniform and reapplied my war paint, as tradition would have it, and I entered the great hall to meet with my charge to leave for the Earth Kingdom. As I did so, I could see Azula and Zuko standing with each other, not talking, just standing there looking at one another.

"It's odd isn't it?" Came Mai's voice from behind me. "How much things have changed since then."

"What are they doing over there?"

"Talking...they aren't twins but some times its like they have telepathy or something...Zuko didn't sleep for weeks knowing they put a muzzle on her. Even if it was necessary."

"Telepathy or sympathy?"

"Sympathy was taking her out of that asylum and letting her stay here under a family physicians close eye." Mai stared at the two of them at our distance. "He didn't know about the extra precautions, like the muzzle or the tighter shackles...neither did I. He would be up all night saying how even his father wasn't treated as badly in prison as her and although she was insane...her insanity proved she was capable of human emotions unlike their father. Then it got to a point where he would sleep but he would have nightmares of being in that dungeon and hearing voices, the physician that watched her said she was also suffering from sleeplessness and mutter on and on about hearing voices. It was like their thoughts were intertwined. So now I think she wants to either apologize or thank him, both of which I would die to see."

"What happened at the Boiling Rock today, Mai?"

"All jokes aside..." She began, I looked at her and nodded, "She requested to see Ozai to 'wave her strings in front of him' or whatever...and honestly...I think she relied on him to pull the strings. She's lost with out him. Every leader has an apprentice that carries on in their place when they're gone. But Ozai is still alive and Azula has no idea what to do next."

I stood there and watched them a little longer, Azula pulled away first only for Zuko to stop her for another moment to look at her one last time. Looking away from each other he called me over.

I bowed to him as any loyal servant would and then looked to Azula, who still would not look at me.

"Good bye for now, Azula." Zuko said with a certainty to his voice.

I moved to open the door for her, but she waved a single flame at me, like a wall and pushed past me and her brother. Looking at him my eyes were wide and he patted me on the shoulder.

"You'll be fine." He assured me.

As I trailed behind her I noticed she was clutching the hand she fire bended with only moments before. If I only knew what was going on in her mind right now...

Earlier that day...

Fathers cell was worse off than mine so it seemed,much smaller, darker and colder. Although he was right in front of me, he still felt so far away all at once. The only thing that bordered us from one another was the bars in front of him. Looking at him, I could hardly admit this, I felt disgraced, as if he had done me wrong by failing. He had. If he had been more prepared and less arrogant about his strength he could have defeated the Avatar and the war would have been ours, this world would have been ours. I hated him for his defeat. Although, every flame gives off great light and even though he was stripped of his fire bending I was not. If I had to, I would take the Fire Nation back with my own skill and hand it back to my father on a silver platter. Gold even.

"I knew you would be here eventually." The Former ruler said in a low voice.

"Zuko is banishing me. I want to know what you want me to do now."

"Now?" He was insulted. "What do I want you to do now? Where were you when I needed you? When it mattered? You have shamed me more than Zuko ever did. He is right to banish you."

"Father..." I felt like I was pleading. "I am your loyal servant..."

"And you failed me."

"I won't again. I will rebuild what was once ours..."

"You are not the daughter I thought you would be to me. Even your own brother is ashamed. And your mother..."

"Don't talk about her." I dared to spit back at him holding back all of my anger the image of her in my mirror still burned in my mind, her voice rang through my ears leaving me with a constant headache.

"Don't fight who you are, you know you want to strike back at me."

Was he challenging me? I was still stuck on the idea of him saying I caused him shame. I could feel the heat in my palm, watching his features carefully I could see his smile creep up his face slowly.