Disclaimer: This is a fan work created at no profit and for entertainment purposes only. The author acknowledges that Avatar: the Last Airbender and related characters are property of Nickelodeon.

Azure Renaissance

Chapter 3: Ensnared

Even with all the alarm bells common sense and experience were ringing in his head at the moment, Sokka remembered one night and one discussion so clearly that it pushed to the forefront.

It was shortly after Zuko joined team Avatar at the Western Air Temple and Sokka meant to keep an eye n him best he could. So in the dark of the night, the Southern Water Tribe warrior had stalked up to the door of the banished prince's room with the intent to keep watch.

Rather than watch, he ended up listening. Listening to the tossing and turning, the fitful mutters and moans as the things that Zuko said he was atoning for in the day tried to consume him in the night. After twenty or so minutes, Zuko's sleep abruptly cut off in a short, sharp scream and shallow, terrified breaths.

As much as he hated the jerkbender, Sokka was almost moved to go check on him on principle. Then he heard what the other young man was mumbling and the terrified, childish lilt to his voice was so unsettling that Sokka decided he wanted nothing to do with it.

The words stayed with him though and gave new depth to his hatred and wariness of the Fire Princess: "Azula always lies. Azula always lies. Azula always..."

In the here and now, Sokka looked up at the subject of young Zuko's mantra. She had a smirk on her face from having implied she'd make him sleep on the floor, and an eyebrow raised to tell him she was waiting for a reply.

"No thanks." He said, steeling his expression. "I can managed by myself."

Azula's expression didn't change except for a narrowing of her eyes. "Oh really? Then allow me to administer a very simple survival test." She turned and took up another wooden bowl, filling it with soup from the pot before dropping a spoon into it. Turning back, she laid the hot bowl non-too-gently on his sternum. "Eat up."

Even through the wood of the bowl and his bandages, the soup was hot enough to hurt. So much so that Sokka couldn't keep the tightness out of his voice as he said, "I think I'll wait until it cools off a little to eat it."

"Of course, there is an alternative..." Azula said, not bothering to conceal her amusement at his attempts to mask his pain. She picked up the bowl and lifted the spoon, holding it just in front of his mouth. Truth be told it smelled delicious—but then again, after going Tui knew how long without eating, anything would have smelled delicious to Sokka.

"Oh no," Sokka turned his head. It didn't hurt as much this time. "I'm not falling for that. Seriously? Like you would ever offer to feed and take care of anyone? It's poisoned. It has to be."

Rolling her eyes, Azula stabbed the spoon back into the bowl. "Don't be a fool. You've seen me eating stew from the exact same pot."

"...which is why you put poison on the bottom of the bowl, or on the spoon."

The Fire Princess tilted her head and considered. "Poison on the spoon. You know, you have something there. A wary foe would certainly suspect the vessel, but few would consider the utensils..."

"I wasn't trying to give you ideas!" Sokka quailed, making his ribs hurt.

Azula smirked at him again. "Oh, but you did. And a decent one too. But no, I have no need to poison you—I need you alive, after all. As I said, killing you would be to bring down the Avatar's wrath and I will not end up..." She had started talking more rapidly and louder, but suddenly caught herself, taking a deep breath. "I won't be disposed of like Ozai."

Her near-outburst mad Sokka look Azula over again. That had been the only sign of the manic behavior that had characterized the young woman in the months following her defeat. Only even that didn't seem crazy, only... afraid? That was new for her.

Azula returned his scrutiny with a glare. "If you insist on being an idiot, then I will prove that nothing her is poisoned." With that, she dug the spoon into the stew, then popped it into her mouth. After a few delicate chews, she swallowed. "There. Now. Eat. Starving you to death won't help me in any way."

When she went to feed him a spoonful, he blanched and turned his head again. She grit her teeth. "What?"

"I'm not eating after you! Wipe that off!" Sokka all but squawked at her, a look of horror on his face.

"Really?" the princess mocked. "I'm the one who should be worried about germs, Savage."

To her surprise, it looked to her as if her prisoner/patient started pouting. "It's not about germs." he grumped. "Which I don't have, mind you. Look, I don't know how you do it in the Fire Nation, but in the Water Tribe, a guy eating after a girl means they're family or the next thing to it. It's kind of a big deal—I didn't even eat after Toph until we'd been traveling together almost two months. And I never got to eat after... never mind. Point is, I'm not gonna eat after—mmph"

That last part was obstructed by a spoon being shoved into his gob when he opened his mouth wide enough.

He wanted to spit it out, preferably on her, but it tasted just like it smelled and he was so hungry... When Azula withdrew the spoon, it was possibly cleaner than it had been when she bought it.

"You." He growled, knowing he couldn't actually do anything to get back at her yet.

Azula merely loaded to spoon again and gave him a look that dared him to speak. "In case you didn't realize, we are not at the South Pole at this moment. Therefore, your quaint little customs do not apply." She then made it a point to offer a sweet smile that seemed all the more malevolent for the sweetness. "Unless whatever miniscule amount of my saliva might have been transferred has magically made us 'family'." There was so much acid in the last word that Sokka shied back from it.

"Thank every spirit ever we are not." Sokka muttered. Zuko was a god friend, but Sokka never wanted to call him 'brother' because there was no way he wanted to even be honorarily connected to that family tree. Even Iroh and Avatar Roku weren't enough to sweeten the pot there.

"Good. Then we agree. Now eat quickly; I have work left to do before I go to sleep."

Sokka considered resisting longer. But the stew was mighty tasty and didn't seem to be killing him... "Fine." He finally said. "But even if I promise not to tell Aang you're here, don't think I won't come back here myself to catch you."

If the princess was surprised by this, she didn't show it as she started spooning out more stew for him to eat. "Is that really how much saving your life means to you? And here I thought the savages of the South at least had a concept of honor."

"You already named you price: not telling Aang you're here. My honor's clean, thank you very much. Besides, it would be worse if I just left these innocent villagers to whatever you might have planned for them."

"Well that would be selling them forged goods and glassware. Dastardly of me, I know?"

"As if you'd just give up and retire to some little village." Sokka said with a glare. "You're planning something I can tell."

Azula sniffed. "I already told you my plan: I'll use my superior knowledge of metallurgy to build up the wealth and prestige of this backwater and eventually become wealthy and powerful on their backs."

"Pfft. There you go with the Fire Nation metallurgy thing again. Do you know how much fire nation steel I've taken out with just my boomerang?"

Her eyes narrowed, but not in her usual predatory way. It looked more like petulant annoyance. "As a matter of fact, I do. That sword of yours was forged from meteoric iron I hear. So what exotic metal fell into your lap to forge that weapon of yours?"

Sokka snorted, turning the petulance on her face to complete annoyance. "See? You don't know a thing about the Water Tribe. But heck, I would have thought it was common sense that we don't have metal at all. Can't exactly run a forge living on ice."

"Lies." Azula snapped. "I've read the reports. I've seen the damage. Your weapons—"

"Are made from bone. Whaleshark bone most of the time...some of the larger kinds of seals. Sea animals are tougher than land animals because their bodies have to deal with all the pressure own there. If you know how to carve it, you can get very strong weapons that keep their edges and also float in case you drop them overboard."

He gave Azula a smirk of his own as he saw the surprise on her face. Then, without a word, she put the bowl back on his chest (thankfully, he'd eaten most of the stew and it had cooled down) and walked away from him, going to grab something from a shelf.

When she returned, she was holding what he recognized as his unfinished boomerang—the one that had stabbed open his leg during his stranding. She was turning it over in her hands, inspecting it thoughtfully. "So that's what this is. It's so light almost like..."

Her demeanor changed again and Sokka felt the urge to run, injuries or no injuries. This time it wasn't because she had one of her many 'dangerous' looks about her, but because she had one of those expressions like he often got right before he announced a brilliant new plan.

Then it was gone. Azula seemed to simply lose interest. Instead, she placed the unfinished boomerang down next to the hearth and picked up the stew bowl once more.

"What?" Sokka narrowed his eyes at her.

"It's unimportant." She said, digging out another spoon of stew to offer him. Only after he took it into his mouth did he add, "Only that the people here have just happened to discover a metal that seems to have the same properties as your bone tools."

She tossed the words off so casually, Sokka almost missed the manipulative undertone. He came dangerously close to replying, but stopped at the last moment.

Non-plussed, Azula continued to talk as she fed him the rest of the bowl. "It's really very interesting. The old smith didn't know what to do with it, and frankly, neither do I. This 'titan metal' as the villagers call it, is as strong as fire nation steel, but extremely brittle. Alloying it with steel may be the answer, but I'm certain that engineering is where its true value will be revealed. But then, I'm more of a tactician than an engineer."

Sokka swallowed and glanced aside. "Why are you telling me this?"

Placing the bowl off to the side, Azula rolled her eyes. "Oh please. As I said about your weapon: I have read the reports. I have seen the damage: to the Drill. To the First Aerial Fleet. The fleet by the way that I am to understand you are partially the architect of, as well as those submersible ships and earth tanks that you designed for the Day of Black Sun."

As she watched his eyes for reaction, she stepped back and, without looking, dropped into the rocking chair behind her, steepling her fingers. "The invasion, I might add, that I was instrumental in crushing and which would have defeated the Earth Kingdom once and for all if not for you exploiting numerous design and security flaws."

"You're really not making me want to hide you from Aang, you know."

Azula crossed her legs and leaned back, rocking gently. "Oh please. You should be flattered. I am acknowledging you as a worthy opponent. You even saw through my stalling during the Day of Black Sun—at least until I found the right buttons to push. How is my favorite prisoner these days? Still corrupting Ty Lee?"

Silence fell over the room, so profound that it made Azula raise an eyebrow. "Nothing to say to that?"

"I need to rest to heal." Sokka said. His tone was hollow, without spirit.

"Hmm." Azula replied, just to make sure she noticed his reaction.

Sokka didn't care. He was the injured person and he had the right to cut off the conversation if he wanted to.

Closing his eyes, he made and effort to sleep, but his injuries and racing mind made it difficult. Not to mention knowing Azula was in the same room, likely still watching him. Instead, he considered the metal she mentioned. Not just what he could do with something with the properties she described, but trying to guess what she wanted to do with it.

There was no way that even Azula planned his shipwrecking and washing up at a precise spot, so she couldn't have been expecting him to be there. That meant she was building her own plan on the fly—and that he needed to build a counter plan one step ahead of her.

Even though he knew that was her intention, his thoughts lingered on his failures: the Day of Black Sun, the rallying of the Earth Army. He wasn't half the tactician he thought he was. That left his strength—the one even Azula admitted to: he was resourceful and creative even if he couldn't lead men (or girls. Or lemurs), he could figure something out.

With ideas on how to do that spinning in his head, he sank into sleep.

AN:

I'm back again. Like I said, my fanfics might not have the priority right now, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten them.

In this chapter, we get to the meat of why I like Sokka and Azula as a ship. They're both arguably the smartest (but not the wisest) characters in the series and they go about it in completely opposite ways: one goofy and one deadly (literally) serious. The idea of these two having a common goal and getting to understand each other is intriguing to me on a number of levels.

Next chapter, Sokka starts to heal and Azula starts to talk.