"Please mommy" Mika whined from her seat on the bed as her mother stood in front of the mirror doing her hair.

"I said no, you're going to learn in school" Azula insisted while finishing the tie on her hair.

"But Aiko's mommy and daddy teach her and her brothers at home" Mika whined.

This morning's topic of conversation was an old one, firebending. Azula would never admit this to her daughter but when she discovered that she was a bender, it had been her worst fear come true. She knew that Mika's bending would lead to her needing to teach her. Sure Mika got some instruction in the after school program at the preschool, but Azula knew that it would only be a few more years before her daughter fell hopelessly behind because all the other kids would get tips from their parents or other relatives, and poor Mika would be learning strictly on the schools instruction because her mother was too afraid to bend again.

It's not that Azula doesn't bend anymore; she'll use her bending to light a fire when it's cold or to cook, but that's pretty much the extent of it. It's been a long time since she did any serious bending, and for good reason.

She hated herself. It was the middle of the night, her first night awake after having apparently spent three days in something close to a coma at Rafela's house and now she was kneeling in the yard, doubled over and crying her eyes out. She half wished she had the strength to run farther but she didn't; this was as far as she got before her knees buckled and she fell to the ground, how many hours ago had that been?

It didn't matter; she was weak now and she hated it. She was the great princess of the fire nation; she was supposed to be strong. But here she was, doubled over crying bloody murder in the backyard of some old woman's house in the middle of nowhere.

She was pathetic.

The sound of leaves crunching behind her alerted her that she was no longer alone, and she looked over her shoulder to see Cara standing against the side wall of the house, slowly emerging from the shadows. The scene was about as pathetic as Azula felt. The young girl was looking at her cautiously, as though she were some kind of feral creature and approached slowly.

"Leave me alone kid!" Azula snarled at the girl; she shrunk back in response, but only for a moment.

"That's what my mommy did to me" she timidly confessed, "Every time I cried my mommy left me alone" she was staring at the ground but continued to approach Azula, seeming to grow more confident in the action with each step she took. "No one should be alone when they're sad" she said and suddenly Azula felt a small and gentle hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

After FINALLY getting Mika to move off of the firebending topic Azula walked her daughter to preschool just like every morning. As they walked through the busy streets of Republic City Azula ran through a mental map of the quickest route from the preschool to the bar, today was Tuesday so she had to be in for her shift at eleven to help open, and it was currently a few minutes before nine. Sighing in relief she realized that if she took a shortcut through the alley two blocks from the bar she would have time to stop at a vendor cart for breakfast, having over slept this morning she had been too worried about getting Mika ready that she didn't have time to make herself any breakfast.

The sight of the school snapped Azula out of her thoughts. Education in Republic City isn't nearly as important as it is in the Fire Nation, though it lasts longer. In the Fire Nation Azula had grown up attending the Royal Fire Academy for girls until she was twelve, which was the same age public schools lasted until. By the age of twelve girls were often needed at home with their families in the villages and colonies and boys often began military training, though any who could pursue a higher education often did. Here in Republic City, however, children were expected to attend school from the ages of five through eighteen, though many dropped out long before eighteen. There were also preschools on the ground floors of the school buildings, one of which Azula was currently standing in front of. Looking down she noticed the excited grin on Mika's face, the little girl was just itching to go inside and play with her friends.

"Alright, go on before you explode" Azula giggled as she crouched down and hugged her daughter.

Mika eagerly returned the hug before hurrying off into the building. Azula watched as her daughter rushed up the steps and once she was safely inside of the school she turned around and began her walk to work.

On the way to work Azula stopped at vendor booth for a to go bowl of oatmeal, which was disgustingly thick and sticky. After forcing down her breakfast Azula cut through the alley two blocks from Lao's just as she planned and tossed the to go bowl into the dumpster, and that was when she found herself pinned face first against the alley wall. Her body crashed into the bricks of the building she found herself pinned against; one arm being held tightly behind her back by one strong hand, her attacker's other hand holding a knife to her neck.

"Hey princess, miss me?" A terrifyingly familiar voice hissed into her ear.

Today was her nineteenth birthday. She never imagined she would spend this day doing chores for a little old woman who lived in the middle of nowhere, not to say that she didn't like it. Her first night with Aunt Rafela had by far been the worst, but Cara somehow managed to talk her back. After that things seemed to get better. She was still sick from the poison, but Bao took full advantage of her being stuck on the cot in Aunt Rafela's back room and spent the days in there 'keeping her company'. In reality the little boy had been more annoying than helpful, but he was amusing. Azula soon learned that neither Bao nor Cara were actually related to Rafela, they were orphans whom she had taken in. They were also unrelated to each other, unlike Azula had originally thought. They had both been through a lot according to Rafela, but since they never asked her where she had come from she respected their privacy and didn't ask. From what she had gathered Cara's parents were dead, and aside from her mother not knowing how to handle Cara when she became angry (the girl did have some anger issues) they had been good to their daughter. Bao was a little more complicated, and had been with Rafela since he was a baby. His parents were yet to be brought up at all, but his earthbending made it obvious that he's not 100% Fire Nation. At first Azula was amazed that they let her stay, but she soon she realized that Rafela had no family herself, and she enjoyed taking in children with nowhere else to go.

Like Bao and Cara, who by now were eight and thirteen years old, Rafela took Azula in and helped her. She never pushed or forced Azula to open up, she trusted that she would do that in her own time. What she did do was listen. She listened to Azula when she cried and screamed, and upon the confessions of her past she never batted an eye. She took everything so well, even when she could've EASILY agreed that Azula at least had been crazy. But instead she told her that it was a bad time, and insisted that things could get better. Now, as she walked through the market at nineteen, Azula could agree that they had. But she was suddenly pulled from her thoughts when she bumped into something and instinctively braced herself for a hard landing, a landing that never came.

"Oh man I am so sorry" The voice of a boy apologized as Azula felt two strong arms around her middle, that something she bumped into was in fact a someone, someone who was kind enough to catch her.

He set her back on her feet quickly, so quickly that she nearly fell again. But he kept his hands firmly on her hips until he was sure she was stable.

"Are you alright?" He asked; she was wearing her hair down today so it had fallen into her eyes during this whole fiasco, leaving her unable to see the boy.

Moving her hair out of the way Azula found that this boy was about her own age with short, shaggy, brown hair and tan skin. He was taller than she was, tall enough for her to look up in order to talk to him.

"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention" she apologized awkwardly, even after all these years saying "sorry" still wasn't something Azula was great at.

"Well that makes two of us" the boy chuckled "I'm Jong".

Sokka didn't know what possessed him to walk by Lao's on his way to work; he had been purposely avoiding the bar for a month now. But for whatever reason he had decided he would take this much longer route, and thank god he did. He hadn't even reached Lao's yet; it was still two blocks away, when the sight of a struggle in an alley caught his eye. Actually it wasn't even a struggle, a woman was walking through the ally when some lowlife came out of nowhere and pinned her to a wall. Thinking fast Sokka whipped out his boomerang, something in the back of his mind making a note to mock Katara for telling him to stop carrying it, and threw it into the alley with a shot successful enough to knock the knife out of the mugger's hand.

Azula was about to reply to Jong's question when she saw something out of the corner of her eye flying towards them, and next thing she knew Jong's grip loosened on her arm and the hand by her neck flew away as he dropped his knife. She didn't know what happened and she didn't ask, she just started running. She bolted out of the alley without looking back; she had to get away before Jong recovered from whatever hit him.

It all happened so fast. Sokka hit his mark and the woman began to run, he charged in to help her, and the next thing he knew he was face to face with Azula.