The people of the blue world prepared a feast of various colored foods, but yes, many of them were blue. But some were yellow and orange and red, and there was plenty of salad greens. Some were nuts or seeds and some were creamy concoctions, but there was few of anything that remotely looked like or resembled meat in any way, except for a tentacle-looking thing that truly looked and somewhat tasted like an octopus leg to Zuko, but Hazuki told him it was actually a root of some kind that came from a swamp a few miles to the East. But then she handed him some jars of pickled fish that tasted more or less like tuna with a hint of something fishier, and something that looked like navy blue jerky, and she indeed claimed it was dried jerky meat. It was made from some type of giant oyster, which was apparently extremely rare and hard sought for, being many miles away from the ocean shore and very cumbersome to bring back to shore and prepare. But they needed meat occasionally and seafood was apparently the only meat the blue people would eat.

All of the food was pretty okay, some even good, all a little too weird for his usual tastes but acceptable on an empty stomach. Zuko didn't care for the oyster jerky but he ate it anyways to not offend. There were sweet creamy dishes in yellow, pink and blue colors, the pink and blue tasting like berries and the yellow tasting like vanilla with just a hint of banana, all three of which were pretty good. He tried to just enjoy them and not think about what potentionally gross stuff they might be made of, especially since Hazuki didn't shy from the feast, and he was extra hungry.

Once they had been sated some of the blue people began to dance and sing for them, and the pair politely watched. They were a gentle race with a dreamy sway to their moves and a lullaby to their notes, but Zuko was in no mood to go back to sleep just yet. He needed to know more about his mysterious temporary ally Azuma Hazuki.

When she began to retreat from the festivities, Zuko followed her, and she let him, just until they were just beyond the village of the blue people, even though they couldn't understand them anyways. Then she turned and faced him, "What do you want from me, Zuko?" She asked, "I suppose you expect something in return for your help earlier?"

"I would appreciate it." Zuko quipped back, glancing down at her katana. "Fancy sword... Makes me think you were well to do in your original world. A noblewoman of some kind?" He inquired back.

She relented, but only slightly, she wasn't about to tell him her life story before he told her his. "Of some kind." She admitted. "My parents were both doctors, they did well financially. And yours were lords of some kind?" She asked back, throwing the ball in his court so to speak, and just to make it extra personal, since of course it was something she'd noticed from the start but had been polite enough not to ask about so far, she added, "And how did you get that scar? Some valiant battle?" She guessed, "Or just you blowing up in your own face? How do you do all your fireworks anyways?" She added.

His look hardened noticeably. "My mother and father were lords, yes. Fire lords, of the Fire Nation, where many of my people are known for being able to bend the power of fire. We're called Firebenders. And it just so happens that my father is also the cause of this scar."

"I get the impression it wasn't an accident..." She mentioned more quietly.

He slowly shook his head. "My homeland was at war for many years before and after my birth. The war only ended recently... My father found my aversion to fighting to be a despicable weakness, and punished me for it." He reached up and lightly felt at the edges of his old scar. "He told me the only way to redeem my honor would be to find the Avatar, basically a god in human form who is the sole master of all four elements, who was destined to end the war my nation started. It was initially a fool's task, the Avatar had been lost for a hundred years and believed to be dead, but I really did find him, and eventually, after almost doing completely the wrong thing and betraying him at first, I teamed up with the Avatar to help bring the war to an end." He took a long sigh after his brisk but deep description of his life and it's purpose thusfar. "So, what about you, Hazuki? How did you get here?" He added before she could ask him any more questions.

She took a deeper, longer sigh than him, looking elsewhere. She was quiet for a moment, considering just what to tell him. "...Basically, I royally pissed off this goddess named Lilith, and she's been punishing me ever since by throwing me into different worlds, to mess with me." She finally admitted.

He raised an eyebrow at her, "How did you manage that? Did you not know she was a goddess when you pissed her off?"

"No, I knew she was..." Zuko began to give her a look that clearly read 'Well that wasn't very smart of you then', and she glared at him to let him know to keep that opinion to himself. "She was very different when I first met her. She didn't seem like a goddess at all, she acted like a ditzy, brainless blonde. I didn't take her seriously, and she liked me back then, so I didn't think much of her supposedly being a goddess. I never imagined she was as powerful and as vengeful as she turned out to be..."

"How did you meet her?" He continued to inquire, interested by her tale. "What did you do to make her angry?"

Hazuki sighed again, gathering her thoughts. She rarely spoke to other people much at all, so it was somewhat tiring to do so now. At the same time though, it had been a rather long time since she'd spoken to someone who shared her language, let alone her unique predicament, and she found herself willing to share. "I first met her when I disappeared from my world. My home..." She began, "On her sixteenth birthday, my sister Hatsumi disappeared into a flash of green light, a spiritual energy which this sword and I were bathed in... I loved my sister, more than anything..." Guilt stabbed at her as she admitted that. "I vowed to find her no matter what, and at first Lilith was a great help to me. She allowed me entry into different worlds to look for Hatsumi. She was really annoying though, always touching me and flirting with me, I wanted to hit her sometimes." She gave him a particularly intense glare, as if to let him know not to try anything either. "When I finally found Hatsumi, I was so excited to see her again, I abandoned Lilith without a second thought about her or her feelings for me, which I had assumed were nothing serious. It offended her greatly. Admittedly, I was unnecessarily cruel to her..." She looked disappointed with herself now.

"But you found your sister? What happened then?" He asked it as gently as he could, knowing that the fact that Hazuki was alone now couldn't mean anything good.

"...She wouldn't come back with me." She answered quietly, fighting back a lump that was forming in her throat. "It just so happens... My sister Hatsumi was a goddess herself. Her true name was Eve. She came to my world only to visit, she never intended to stay..."

"Even after all that you did for her?" Zuko asked, shocked and a little sorry for her.

She shook her head, "All that I did only made things worse. I was a presumptuous mortal and I deserve Lilith's punishment..."

"You got that right."

Zuko and Hazuki both gasped as everything around them suddenly went pitch black, and then emerged into a dimension of perfect blank whiteness. The blue people and their blue plants and everything from the past world was gone. The only thing that existed in this world besides the two youths was the person who had just interrupted their conversation, a person who looked stranger than just about every other person Zuko had ever seen. Like Hazuki she was incredibly beautiful, but her beauty only made her look unreal. She had long, curly blonde hair and an enormous witch's hat perched on top of that hair, in which was a gigantic staring eyeball. In her hands she held a riding crop in a rather menacing way, especially with how she was smirking at the two.

"I'm so glad to see you're finally learning some humilty, Ha-Zu-Ki-Chaaaan~!" She sing-songed in a rather insulting manner. "You're really much prettier when you're defeated, submissive and heartbroken, you know..." The goddess giggled and slapped the riding crop against her own thigh, suggestively licking her lips.

Hazuki looked at the blonde woman for a moment as if she wanted to kill her. But instead she drew in a long breath and sighed it out, calming her nerves before she spoke. "I have your payment ready, Lady Lilith..."

"As if I didn't know that already!" She scoffed back at the teenage swordswoman. "You'd still be in that lousy little backwater world if you didn't!" She 'hmmph'ed and rested one of her hands on her hips.

Hazuki pretended as if she hadn't heard her, approaching the goddess and bowing down to her knees before her. There she reached into her pockets and pulled out a rather sharp, curved object - The tip of a fang of the Hydra they had defeated earlier, Zuko realized - And a handful of the red petals that had been growing by the waterfall it resided in.

"Aha~!" The goddess lit up with delight at the sight of the objects presented to her. "The vemon in this fang and the oils from these flowers will make an amazing skin tonic!"

Zuko had been silent so far, but he had to gape at her then. "You had her fight that gigantic snake-thing just so you could make a beauty product?" Was anyone really that vain?

The goddess gave him a bored glare. "Like Hazuki, you clearly understand NOTHING about beauty or fashion - Are you wearing pajamas right now, by the way?" She motioned towards his current ensemble with a mocking giggle. It was a very fancy royal robe, but she was right, it was just a robe and essentially they were pajamas, no matter how fancy they were. He blushed furiously and promptly shut up after that.

"Lady Lilith." Hazuki spoke up before Zuko could get himself in trouble too. "I implore you for your mercy. Let Zuko go home."

"Oh, Hazuki~" Lilith sighed, "You know it's not that easy..."

"It could be that easy, if you wanted it to be..." She replied bitterly.

"Yeah, but I DON'T." Lilith returned with an annoyed scowl. "Why should I do anything for free? He has his own payments to make."

Hazuki glanced back at Zuko, who looked unnerved. He already knew that Lilith wouldn't want all the gold in his kingdom even if he offered it to her, but he didn't have time to be running around doing errands like Hazuki had been doing for the past three years, either.

"PLEASE, Lady Lilith." Hazuki insisted when she looked back at the goddess. "It's one thing to punish me. I deserve it and no one in my world probably even noticed I'm gone. Zuko is in charge of an entire country. People depend on him, and he has a fiance waiting to marry him. Please, I beg you. Let him go home and I'll make his payments for him."

Lilith blinked in considerable surprise at her offer, as did Zuko. "Wow, Hazuki! That sure is a generous offer! But then you owe me so damn many payments, what's a few more? Still, that is an awfully nice thing to do for a total stranger..." She suddenly glared deeply at Hazuki, her hate more obvious than even that unblinking eyeball that stared at them in her hat. "You'd do something like that for him, but you can't even bring yourself to love me? That really chaps my ass, Hazuki." For good measure as she said this, she reached behind the Japanese teenager and quickly smacked her buttcheeks smartly with the riding crop.

Hazuki went rigid and her face went almost as red as Zuko's face was, but otherwise she didn't react. "Please, Lady Lilith..." She repeated quietly.

"I FORBID IT!" Lilith cut her off, nearly about to throw a tantrum, but in the next second, she was completely calm again, eerily so. "I'm not completely unreasonable, though..." She smirked and held out the fang in front of Hazuki's eyes. "Since your little burn ward boyfriend was really the one who defeated the Hydra, I'll count this fang as one of his payments instead of yours." She turned her back on Hazuki and gave her attention back to Zuko. "And YOU... Don't think just because you're a prince that you're above paying the price of your own sins, boy."

Zuko seethed silently. No one ever dared to call him a boy even when he WAS a boy, especially not like she had just said it. But he bit his tongue, not wanting to make things worse for himself.

Lilith went on, "Including this, you've got seven payments to make me before I let you go home. You're actually getting off easy here, at least compared to Hazuki. She's probably never going to pay me back what she owes me, that's why she was so quick to offer to take your payments for you, so don't think it was because she likes you or anything like that. There's only one person in all the worlds that the cold-hearted Hazuki burns for, and that person-"

"SHUT UP, LILITH!" A red-faced Hazuki suddenly yelled at her, much to Zuko's shock. She had been so submissive and formal towards the goddess so far, but apparently she had finally stepped on a sensitive issue that Hazuki wasn't willing to let her trespass upon.

Lilith at first stared at her in silent surprise, but she soon burst out into mocking giggles. "Don't get your panties all twisted up, Hazuki! I'll let you tell him yourself. Someone as grotesque and shameful as you can't hide your ugliness for long, after all..." She smirked again, though there was no mirth within her. "Now, now, what kind of world should I toss you into this time... A lake of lava? A jagged stone forest? No wait, I think I've got the perfect thing for you..." She trailed off with a wicked grin, and snapped her fingers.

Though there had been no ground beneath their feet, it felt as if it had been pulled out from under them, and the two youths descended through a rabbit hole of blackness until they landed unceremoniously in the middle of a dark, unopened shopping mall. A stuffed coin purse fell from the sky and landed on Zuko's head, and Lilith's giggling voice followed after it, "See? I'm not really that mean after all~ Buy what you need with that, but as for my payment, it'll have to be something money can't buy..." After that her voice trailed off into an echo and eventually disappeared.

Zuko groaned, rubbing his sore spots. "Where are we now?"

"How should I know?" Hazuki replied sourly, "At least it's not a lake of lava..."

Zuko had to relent that was indeed a better thing than not, and he looked over at the blue haired girl and her bright red blush, which could be seen even in the darkened room. "Hey... Thanks for trying to help me out back there."

Hazuki didn't look at him, but he could see her blush was spreading. "It's not a big deal. I owed you one for helping me beat that Hydra anyways."

"No you didn't." He answered her surely, "And anyways, you were willing to take on seven payments for me for just that one favor..."

Hazuki cut him off, "Like Lilith said! Don't think I like you or something because of that! I was only trying to help you to help your people-"

"I know." Zuko interrupted her back. "I know, and that's what I want to thank you for. Even if it didn't work, I really appreciate it."

She calmed down and huffed away her annoyance. "...Don't mention it. Now come on, lets hide until this place opens. Then we can buy you some proper clothes so you won't be walking around in your pajamas all day, your majesty."

He blushed and glared back at her, "Hey, these pajamas just so happen to be made of the finest-"

She rolled her eyes, "They're still pajamas!"

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

(I hope to have the next chapter out soonish, but in the meantime if anyone is curious the full list of fandoms our "travelers" Zuko and Hazuki will eventually visit is posted at archiveofourown dot org. Hope you enjoy and if you do please comment! :D)