She sprinted through Forgetful Valley quickly as she could. Briefly she wondered if she had actually managed to keep a straight face when talking to Zuko, she thought she did but as of late her thoughts weren't as right as they used to be. All she knew was that now she was running and hot tears were clouding her vision. Finally she tripped and instead of getting up she just lay there on the forest floor and let out a sob. She sobbed and sobbed until she had lost all track of time and began to notice the little insects crawling all around her. Finally she got off her stomach in favor of kneeling, her arms now crossed over her middle as she stared absently at the ground, and for the first time in a long time she let her mind go completely blank. She kept sniffling from the tears but aside from that she did not move; she just knelt there completely still until the tears started again.
"I…what, what have I done?" She asked herself as violent sobs once again wracked her body. Her entire frame shuttered as she cried and realized that she had been wrong all these years.
Mother doesn't hate her, she never did. She loved her; she really, really loved her. Her entire life she had been lying, to herself. She convinced herself that Zuko was the favorite because he was weaker when she didn't want to admit that she brought all the punishments upon herself. She played too dirty, too rough. But she also didn't want to admit that she did all those things for attention. Shallow as it may seem it was true, and now she had gone too far.
"I… I can't go back" she decided and with that said Azula finally stood up, and kept running.
"Ok run this by me again, and do me a favor and make sense this time" Toph requested. Considering she can't see clocks or the sky she has never been the best at telling time, but she knew it was too early for Sokka to be in her office on a Saturday morning with one of his 'sky is falling!' stories.
"I'm serious Toph! Azula's in the city and she's working at Lao's" he insisted. After last night he decided that if he was going to catch Azula he was going to need the help of someone not only with the skills to take down the ex-princess but was also crazy enough to do it, obviously Toph came to mind.
Toph on the other hand had no interest in involving herself with Sokka's latest scheme. It wasn't that she didn't believe him, after all Republic City is huge and no way Azula is STILL in Forgetful Valley. But after hearing what had happened to Azula she had some sympathy for the princess, and after running away from her own parents she wasn't too keen on hunting down people who don't want to be found.
"What are we doing if it is her?" The blind woman finally asked; she didn't need her seismic sense to feel the exuberance leave Sokka's being when he realized that he didn't have a plan.
"I just want to know if it's her or not" he finally claimed but Toph only snorted in laughter. "What?" Sokka exclaimed, sounding hurt.
"Who are you kidding captain boomerang? Every time you get your hands on information, no matter how useless it is; you do something with it. Just knowing is never enough for you." Toph laughed, Sokka sat there with a frown but said nothing as he waited for her to finish mocking him.
"Are you done?" He asked after a few minutes and she had just about stopped laughing.
"Yeah" she said before her face became serious once again, "look Sokka all I'm saying is maybe Azula doesn't want to be found. She's not bothering us so why should we bother her?" The police chief inquired but Sokka was still determined.
"Why? Toph she nearly killed all of us at least five times, not to mention the countless number of innocents." The councilman insisted
"Are you forgetting what happened to her after that? There is no way she was mentally stable when she did all that stuff!" Toph exclaimed
"You're defending her?!" Sokka shouted, nearly jumping out of his chair as he did.
"I'm not defending anyone. All I'm saying is it was almost twenty years ago, and after she completely broke down Zuko decided she was mentally unstable and pardoned her for her crimes. Legally there's no reason I need to be looking for her." Toph explained and Sokka couldn't argue that. "But since you're going to go chasing her anyway I'll tag along, someone needs to save you when she tries to roast you alive" The blind woman smirked and upon hearing her agreement Sokka grinned from ear to ear.
Lao's place opened at noon, and right at noon Sokka and Toph were there. The bar was empty save for the bartender and one other guy wiping down the last of the tables.
"Hey chief" The bartender called when he saw the two visitors coming in. He was an older man, just turned sixty. He was short for a man but also very muscular with graying black hair that was thinning at the top and a short beard.
"Hey Lao" Toph greeted the man casually, she was a decent enough friend with the man and that friendship was really the only thing making her put any serious doubt into Sokka's story. She came here often enough to know who worked here.
"So what brings you here in the middle of the day?" Lao asked as the chief and her friend approached the bar.
"We're looking for a woman named Azula, I saw her working behind the bar last night" Sokka informed Lao as he put away the glass he was cleaning.
"Well she's not here today," he answered before looking at the two skeptically, "Why? Is she in trouble?" He asked.
"No, but she does work here?" Toph questioned, admittedly a little surprised to hear that Sokka may just be right.
"Yeah, has been for about three months now. Nice girl," He answered
"Nice girl!?" Sokka exclaimed in disbelief, "Do you even know wh-" Sokka was abruptly cut off my Toph clamping her hand over his mouth.
"I take it the councilman here has a history with one of my employees?" Lao half joked, half inquired. Toph rolled her eyes in response,
"Something like that" she answered vaguely, "thanks for the help Lao" she said as politely as she could while trying to ignore Sokka's tongue moving across the inside of her hand as he tried to free himself from her hold.
"No problem chief, stop by again any time!" Lao called after his friend as she dragged Sokka out of the bar.
"What was that?" Sokka and Toph each asked at the same time once they were outside.
"Why did you cover my mouth?" Sokka demanded as Toph brushed her hands together in order to wipe off Sokka's drool.
"In case you didn't know meathead, very few people outside of the fire nation actually know what Azula looks like, even most people in the fire nation don't know much more than her age." She explained
"So?" Sokka questioned, still not understanding.
"So by now I bet us and her family are the only people who could recognize her, and you almost gave her away!" Toph nearly shouted
"I asked you in the office and I'll ask you again, why are you defending her?!" Sokka once again demanded.
Toph gave him a death glare, for a woman with no use of her eyes she sure knew how to intimidate someone with them. "Because ever since you brought this to me I've been having flashbacks to when Zuko showed up at the Western Air Temple." She admitted, "You were so angry about what he did in the past that you didn't listen to his apologies and wouldn't accept that he'd changed. When you drew up the plan for this city everyone called it the world's second chance, it was a place for starting over." By this point in her lecture she didn't need to say it, Sokka got the message. "I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm beginning to wonder whose really the blind one around here." With that Toph decided she had enough of helping Sokka hunt down a girl who was probably just trying to forget her past, and brushed past him to walk back to the police station.
As Toph walked away Sokka considered her words, and decided that it had been a long time since he felt this guilty. She was right, he assumed Azula was here to hurt someone and he wanted to find her before she could, he wanted to contact Zuko and tell him that he should either contact the mental institution or capital city prison because his nutcase of sister had been found and some poor child was being subjected to her care. But in reality what had he seen her doing? Serving drinks and telling her daughter to go into an office. He had been acting like he did when Zuko first joined the group, convinced that evil could never change.
He decided that Toph was right and he would do as she originally asked and say nothing about having found the woman who more than likely doesn't want to be found. So he had no idea what possessed him to open the front door to the bar one more time and call in,
"Hey Lao, is Azula working tonight?"