A/N: So...I still don't own Avatar...but I am building this epic army...completely unrelated but anyway...sorry it's taking me a while to update,I just got back to school so it'll be harder now than before. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 12

Those lips that Love's own hand did make

Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'

To me that languish'd for her sake;

But when she saw my woeful state,

Straight in her heart did mercy come,

Chiding that tongue that ever sweet

Was used in giving gentle doom,

And taught it thus anew to greet:

'I hate' she alter'd with an end,

That follow'd it as gentle day

Doth follow night, who like a fiend

From heaven to hell is flown away;

'I hate' from hate away she threw,

And saved my life, saying 'not you.'

-William Shakespeare Sonnet 145

Ty Lee

Even though I was out of the state of dream weaving, my dreams seemed to pick up somewhere else when I was able to doze off again. The tightrope was haunting me again, this time was different though. Usually it feels like I'm watching myself fall and die, but this time, instead of seeing me on the tightrope, I saw Azula. I don't know who was on either side of the rope waiting for her but she was right in the middle of them, they were calling to her and she kept turning to face them as they spoke, I tried yelling for her to focus and pick a way to go to get out of danger but when she finally looked up to acknowledge me that's when she fell. Feeling the scream force out of my throat I was shaken awake again, this time by Aang, who I was surprised to see.

"Aang?" I felt my lips move apart to say his name, but I was too groggy to hear it.

"You were having a bad dream." He responded, partly in a whisper.

"I always have that one..." I sighed to myself, knowing exactly what he was talking about.

"You're a dream weaver now, I never knew much about it before, some of the monks used to do it back when they were still around...I never learned, but I thought it was supposed to be more tranquil then that."

"I'm not sure...it was my first time..." I giggled then added. "Sort of."

"What?"

"Nothing!" I took that back after realizing what I had just said in front of a twelve or thirteen year old boy.

"Um...ok." He nodded and we stayed in an awkward silence for a bit until he asked me, pointing at my neck. "What's with all of those red marks? Did you get attacked by a Leopard-Moose?"

My eyes grew wide and I hid under the covers on an impulse. I didn't realize all of the bite marks surfaced through my dream into reality. If that's the case I wonder how much Ursa saw and heard while I was 'dreaming'...

"Uh...nevermind..." Aang said, sounding even more confused than before.

Aang and his friends had come to the village about a week before, Ursa said with out their help I would have died in the dream weaving state. I felt so bad, she looked so relieved that I was alive but so sad that she 'made me go through with it', I tried to explain that I wanted to and that it helped but she wouldn't listen. Eventually she did mention that I spoke a bit in my sleep, mentioning that Azula was somewhere near the desert.

"She probably isn't that far off from us now, I found the campsite that you two fought at, if she is near the desert she headed east...If she starts heading to the shoreline she'll be able to find or bribe someone to get her back home..."

"To the Fire Nation?" Aang looked up at him. "She was banished, won't they arrest her on sight?"

"Consider her lineage, young Avatar." Iroh chuckled. "She's a little more craftier than that to let herself get caught right away."

"There's nothing there for her now..." I tried to reason with them. "Why would she go back?"

"Why else? To retake the throne, and now with Ozai on the loose she might actually stand a chance." Iroh spread out the wanted poster of Ozai on the ground for all to see.

With Ozai out and Azula wandering around on her own, it's only a matter of time before their paths cross. Ursa looked especially disturbed by this, in my dream I saw the former Fire Lord, and they said that my first words before coming out of my rough sleep was that he had her. It was just a dream, so I thought, I was dreaming but technically I was in Azula's head, maybe it was just a fear of hers...her father.

"No...he was there," Ursa sighed heavily. "He too has learned the art of Dream Weaving."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"We met in a dream, he entered my mind." She said softly.

Ursa went on explaining how she had recently been seeing Azula and Zuko in her dreams, and the last one she had she said she saw Azula running into a cave crying. Naturally wanting to help her child, Ursa chased after her, only to find the back of the cave full of flames and leaking smoke with Ozai standing within it and Azula stuck between them. They didn't speak but they didn't have to...

"I could see it in his eyes...that evil look of his...and that smile that just screams 'I'm winning once again' it was frightening and I tried to call Azula over to me, but she wouldn't budge."

"Did she go to Ozai?" Iroh asked urgently.

"No..." She shook her head and I let out a sigh of relief.

"I hope she's ok..." I prayed to myself looking away from everyone.

Azula

I have always been the proud and the strong, never in my life have I been feeble, in mind or body. People mistake my aggressive acts on the battle field and war room settings as 'evil' or 'hateful' but I am neither of those things. A person doesn't have to smile to be happy, and just because I get a kick out of defeating my enemies, and come on who doesn't? That does not mean that, that is the only thing that makes me happy. No...there are other things...better things for me...

"Azula!" Her voice, the way it sounds, the excitement in her every breath made me delighted no matter what emotion she would speak in. Whether I had just pushed her, hugged her, kissed her, or shot a playful flame past her face she would always say my name...and some how...I loved it. I loved her...no...I love her.

But I'm not allowed to anymore...

While I was away from her again, I set up camp and forced myself to sleep since my legs were too weak to keep moving after traveling so much. I dreamed the sweetest dream I have ever had in my life. Sweeter than any fond memory I would have had about family or old friends, though, an old friend was certainly involved. It felt so real, I could feel her body beneath mine, pushing, pulling, biting, scratching and kissing as I did to her, fighting for the top like we used to in the playful but most involved part of our physical relationship. All the while that Zuko was banished, I was more or less free to do as I wished, aside from my routine drilling and attendance at fathers war meetings. Other than that the time was mine to do as I pleased, and I did. I must admit that I never did anything completely sexual with Ty Lee until our little journey to Omashu. Every other time we just made out a lot, some times clothes would be lost but when it came down to simply loving her, fucking her, to be blunt about it, I would find myself too afraid. For once I was afraid of something, something that seemed so insignificant when I really look back on it, but that's how it was and like a lover Ty Lee understood.

Just like her dream of the tightrope, and falling to her death, staring up at the height at which she had fallen...I was also given a message in my night mare. That I could no longer love her the way I used to, it was getting in the way of my mission. Father appeared in my dream and like the rest of the time it did not feel like a dream to me, it was real. Maybe I am insane...

I remember...

There I was staring into the eyes of my only love and the room became hot, hotter than we had made it, making it hard to breath, as if there were smoke around us that we couldn't see. Ty Lee didn't seem to sense it as fast as I did, but if she was just a figment of my imagination then maybe she wasn't supposed to. My door burst open, flames shooting in all directions, instinctively I got up and prepared to fight whatever and whoever dared to disturb us. But I couldn't...I could feel my face drop in shock, my body quivered slowly as I saw him enter the room. Smoke clouded around me and I could no longer see Ty Lee, but I could hear her screaming for me. The closer I thought I got to her, the further away she sounded when she screamed, when the smoke finally cleared my room was empty, Ty Lee was gone.

"Don't move." My Fathers voice hissed from behind me. "Listen carefully, you're dreaming and you need to wake up very soon and when you do you are going to travel west. You will come across a cave and that is where we will meet. Now...wake up." He turned me around to face him and fire shot from his mouth and into my face burning it completely, I could feel the flames stab at my skin until it broke and tore falling off in melted pieces.

I woke up screaming, pressing my hands against my face which was unbelievably still intact. My heart was pounding, the night sky still lingered above me but I would not go back to sleep not after all of that. Instead, by what felt like an instinct I gathered the few belongings I had and headed west...

Ozai

She was not conditioned to become a traitor like the rest of our damn family. First Ursa, then Zuko and after him followed Iroh. No. Iroh betrayed us when he let go of Ba Sing Se the first time. The only one worthy enough to share my blood is Azula and now she is lingering on the border of betrayal. Chung taught me how to penetrate her dreams and see her inner most thoughts, and what I figured to be tactful plans of action against her would be assassins and ideas of a stealthy overthrow of the new Fire Lord...I found instead her sleeping with some Kyoshi Warrior, an enemy to the old and better ways of the Fire Nation. This will change, I will make sure she does not stray from her mission...

For the longest time I remained a hermit in that damn cave, continuing the fool with Azula's mind, leaving her basic directions on where to go to find me. Dwelling in her subconscious for what seemed like days at a time I could sense her drawing closer and closer to me. Truly I had perfected this trade...

"Father?" Her voice echoed through the darkness.

"Spark a fire and come inside." I replied in a low voice.

"How did you get here?" She asked, holding a single flame in her hand, letting it fall into a meager fire pit between us as she sat across from me.

"I have ways." I put it simply, I could see that her time in prison had done a lot to her, she did not look as sure as she used to.

"I some how knew to find you..." She said, almost confused.

"I told you to find me and you did. There is something new I wish to teach you, something you can use against your enemies with out them ever knowing."

"Tell me..."

"First." I halted her eagerness. "You need to learn your priorities."

"My priorities are to the Fire Nation."

"Are they?" I questioned her loyalty. "What of your little Kyoshi Warrior, what part of our nation does she fall into?" I didn't let her answer, she looked so lost. "If you honestly expect to win the Fire Nation back from your treacherous brother, you will eliminate all obstacles that get in your way."

"Kill her you mean..."

"There is nothing to think about. If she gets in our way, you will destroy her."

"Yes..." She nodded.

Ty Lee

When everyone had left the room I tried to rest, but my thoughts were keeping me alert making it hard to just relax. Breathing steadily I managed to get to sleep and without realizing it, I was looking for Azula once again. This time I found myself wandering on the outside wall of Ba Sing Se. It didn't take me long to find her, there she was standing on top of the drill she had plow through the wall some time before. She looked so proud of herself but just like the end of the war, something seemed off about her. Expecting the same reaction as before I went right up to her and started to speak but she silenced me quickly darting at me with such speed I hardly knew what hit me. Flaming daggers, an old trick she and Zuko learned when they were young, appeared in her hands and she stabbed me in my sides and let me fall over in pain.

I could feel it, all of it, the flames moving inside of my body as she drove them inside of me, and then I felt the heat linger and spread all over as she pulled them out, blood pouring from my sides, boiling. The screams emerged from the pit of my stomach, through my throat and almost barely out of my mouth. I was in the worst state of shock that when I looked at her, she just stood there staring at me. All the while everything became darker...

Ursa

I sat at her bedside after she had fallen asleep again, a new dream weaver can never control their dreams when first beginning to learn the trade. I wanted to keep a close eye on her so she wouldn't get hurt again like last time. Why did I send her? A child, one that is practically my own. Sweet Ty Lee, she'll never know what she has done for this family, let alone my daughter.

As she slept she tossed a bit at first, reaching out as if she had seen someone, anyone really, her typical smile still graced her lips even as she slept. If only everyone could be so peaceful in mind as she is. But soon, too soon, her smile faded from its regular state, to a frown in seconds and then that frown changed to a face of horror and she started to breath heavily, crying and trying to scream. Trying to restrain her from falling off the bed I held her down at first, and when that didn't work I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her up into an embrace. My hands began to burn and I ripped the covers away from her seeing holes burning on the sides of her clothes, they burned off and she was bleeding profusely.

"IROH!" I screamed immediately. "SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!"

"What's going on?" The young water tribe boy rushed in first with his young girlfriend behind him.

"Get help, please hurry!" I cried as they ran off to get help.

Holding onto her and tying the thin blanket around her, tightening it against the wounds the bleeding seemed to stop, but she wasn't breathing.

"Why did I make her do this..."