Zuko blinked twice rapidly at his boomerang-wielding friend. "Okay... I'll assume I know what you're talking about." Just then, he spotted the Companion lying on the low table. He bent over and picked it up. "So you're reading this again?"

"Yup," Aang chirped, then his eyes suddenly brightened. "Hey Zuko, why don't you read to us?"

"Yeah, go for it Zuko," Sokka agreed. "Katara and I have already done it before; now it's your turn!"

"But I... I mean, why don't you do it instead, Aang?"

The Avatar grinned sheepishly. "Well, I kinda don't think I can do it..."

"What he means is, he 'kinda' doesn't think he can read anything from that book without some extreme reaction," Toph smirked. "Especially if it involves Katara with a guy, regardless of who the guy is."

While Aang's cheeks started turning red, Zuko opened the book and began browsing through it. "Well, I don't mind reading from this, as long as I don't find myself doing something crazy in a story." His hand stopped at a certain page. "Hey, this one has my father as a main character!"

Sokka almost fell off the couch. "Your father is a what now?!"

Toph's sightless eyes widened. "Why would anyone want to write about Ozai?"

Katara shrugged. "Well, they've written about all five of us, plus Momo, Appa, Hawky, Foo Foo, the cabbage merchant -"

"And Suki, and Ty Lee, and the Unagi..." Sokka continued.

"So why not Ozai?" Aang concluded.

Zuko paused for a moment. "Fair enough," he said finally. "Oh, by the way, the other main character listed is Aang."

Aang's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. "What am I doing with Ozai in a story?!"

"Maybe he escaped from prison, and you two were fighting each other again," Toph suggested.

"Or maybe it'd be like the time you and Zuko appeared together..." Sokka began, but Katara quickly put a hand over his mouth, effectively shutting him up.

Aang shuddered. "If it's going to be like that... I think we'll pass this one, Zuko."

"No, it isn't that kind of story." Zuko held up the book for the others to see. "The story title's The Art of Firendship, and according to the summary, it's just Aang visiting Ozai in his cell."

"Still, that could turn into..." Sokka started to say, but Katara clamped her hand over his mouth again. He shot her a look of annoyance, which she promptly ignored.

"What's 'firendship'?" Toph asked.

Zuko shrugged. "Dunno. It could be a spelling error - you know, 'friendship' with the 'i' and 'r' switching places?"

"Never mind how the word 'friendship' would be related to Ozai in any way," Sokka said, glancing warily at his sister in case she decided to shut him up again, "just start the story and we'll see how it goes, okay?"

The others nodded in agreement, and Zuko began reading.

A scraping sound of a door opening echoed through the cell followed by the light tap of footsteps on the metal floor. The door closed and Ozai looked up. It had been 6 weeks since his defeat and Ozai had hardly changed. He eyes still held the golden hate he felt toward his son and brother. Despite being powerless without his fire bending, Ozai still held the air of a man once seemly invincible. Some of his guards still feared him: his only comfort in his defeated state.

Sokka snorted. "I don't know if the guards would still fear him if they'd seen him after his fight with Aang. I mean, what with him slumped on the ground and drooling from the corner of his mouth - it's not exactly fearsome stuff, is it?"

Toph shrugged. "Well, they did get him cleaned up before shoving him into prison, right Zuko?"

Zuko nodded. "As far as I know, my father's behavior hasn't changed much from when he was Fire Lord."

"Of course, he should have noticed a slight change in the surroundings," Katara smirked.

"Oh yeah, Prison Cell Lord. That's a lovely title," Toph grinned.

As the ex-Fire Lord's eyes saw who stood on the other side of his bars, he glared distastefully.

"Avatar." He said in greeting.

"Ozai." Avatar Aang bowed his head slightly. This act of respect surprised Ozai.

Not that he would show such in front of his enemy.

Sokka grinned at the Avatar. "Always the gentleman, eh Aang?"

"Well, it's not like he'd ever think of laughing in Ozai's face and shouting 'Ha ha, I won!', right?" Toph pointed out as she picked her nose leisurely.

Aang scratched the back of his bare head. "No, I definitely didn't think of doing that."

"You should try it sometime," Sokka said earnestly. "You did kick his butt during the Comet, that gives you bragging rights over him. Why not?"

"Because Aang has a whole lot more sense than you do," Katara answered as she caressed the side of Aang's neck, causing him to sigh in pleasure. Sokka gulped and hastily averted his eyes, suddenly reminded of the story he'd read with Suki and Ty Lee on Kyoshi Island.

Even though Ozai could no more attack the boy than he could metal bend his cage, Aang had brought his staff into the room as well as something he held to his chest that the dim sunlight would not let Ozai see.

"So have you come to gloat my defeat or to finish what you started six weeks ago?"

"If I wanted to kill you, I would have. You should be happy I showed you mercy." Ozai scoffed at this. If stripping him of his title and throwing him in a prison was the Avatar's idea of 'mercy'…

"It is mercy," Sokka told the book. "If you didn't like staying in a nice and secure prison cell, you could always get banished to the Earth Kingdom or something. See if you like that."

"Yeah, and everyone would know who you were and you'll have to dodge flying boulders every five minutes," Toph added.

"Especially from all the earthbenders who you enslaved in your shipyards," Katara continued.

"And all the families of the soldiers who died because they were fighting you," Zuko said as well, remembering his reception in an Earth Kingdom village when he was revealed to be a Fire Nation prince back when he was roaming the Earth Kingdom as a refugee.

"And Flopsy," Aang piped up.

There was a moment of silence in which everyone stared at the Avatar. Finally Sokka cleared his throat as he gave Aang a disbelieving glance. "Flopsy?"

"What? He doesn't like Ozai."

"Sure, whatever you say Aang," Toph said casually before bending over and whispering in Sokka's ear, "I think the war finally got to him."

"Then what brings you to my corner of hell?" Ozai asked.

Aang hesitated. Then he sat down facing the bars and set his mystery item next to him. "This might sound strange to you, especially to you, but I hate to have someone who doesn't even know me hate me so much." Ozai followed Aang's hand where is rested on what he now recognized as a stack of papers of various colors. "So, I though maybe we could…get to know each other better?"

Ozai stared at the 12 year old. No one's this stupid. He thought in disbelief. He can't possible think he can make everyone like him! That's ridiculous! But Aang showed no sign of lying to the ex-Fire Lord. In fact, he was smiling hopefully. And I was defeated by this? "No." He replied, turning away. "Absolutely not."

"Aw, come on!" Ozai ignored the Avatar's pleas. "I thought we could do some origami! I brought paper and everything!" Ozai glared at him over his shoulder and smirked when Aang scooted back some. Ozai turned back to his wall, satisfied that the boy would leave.

Sokka shrugged. "Well, that's what you get when you try to do origami with Ozai. Sorry, Aang."

"Not like you're missing out on much though," Toph piped up. "I don't think folding paper with a tyrannical ruler is high on your list of interests anyway."

"Yeah, otherwise you could have handicrafted Ozai to death," Sokka grinned.

Katara sighed. "Death by handicrafts. What a creative killer my brother is."

Instead he heard paper shuffling.

"I'll teach how to make a phoenix!" Aang said tauntingly and Ozai turned fully around to see that Aang was waving a sheet of square red paper at him, himself hold a green sheet with his other hand. The air bender slipped the paper through the bars and placed it on the ground in front of Ozai.

"I said no, Avatar."

But Aang did not give up. "Come on; make a paper friend!"

"He really is persistent, isn't he?" Sokka observed.

"I suppose he's just all hyped up about making his arch-nemesis a 'paper friend'," Toph smirked.

Aang raised an irritated eyebrow. "Hey guys, I'm still here you know."

"We know," his earthbending teacher replied. "That's why reading about you teaching Ozai to fold paper is so much fun now."

Ozai rolled his eyes. He had no use for friends before and did not wish to start now.

Although it would be cool to be able to make a phoenix…

If anything it would pass the time…

And it did get really boring in his cell…

"Fine." Aang's face brightened immediately as Ozai picked up the paper.

"Ok! First you fold the paper here, see? Then this corner comes up to here…"

A few minutes later Ozai was struggling.

"Accursed paper!" Ozai yelled, ripping up his failed bird and wishing he could ignite it.

Sokka turned to look at Zuko. "Does your dad have something against paper?"

The former prince shrugged. "Not that I've noticed."

"Maybe it's just because he's resisting the temptation to burn something so easily flammable," Tpph suggested. "I have the same feeling sometimes when I see a nice big boulder and it's all I can do to not send it crashing into a passerby's skull."

Everyone stared at her in a moment of silence. Then Katara finally spoke, "I think we need to have a good talk sometime, Toph."

He grit his teeth at Aang who was scared stiff. "You! You merely sought to further humiliate me!"

"No, no! You just folded a part wrong! Let's start again." He handed Ozai a yellow sheet and Ozai ripped it angrily from his hands. Aang placed his perfect phoenix down and stood up. "Maybe you'll get it better if we do this…"

A while later, Sokka walked down the hall to where two guard flanked Ozai's cell door.

"Hey, Sokka." Said one with a small bow. Sokka smiled at this.

Ever since Zuko had become Fire Lord, Sokka and the others had been treated with far more respect, seeing as they were friends of mister ruler-of-a-country himself.

"Yup, being the Fire Lord's buddy has its perks," Sokka agreed happily.

Toph raised an eyebrow. "Since when have you become Zuko's buddy?"

"Yeah, you used to call him an angry jerk," Katara smirked. "Or have you stopped doing that already?"

"Hey, I've changed! Seriously Zuko, I have," Sokka reassured the once-an-angry-jerk.

"Hey, Li. Is Aang still in there?" He pointed at the door of the cell.

"Yeah, nothing's happened though. No screams or cries of pain so I guess everything's fine."

"You 'guess'?"

"Avatar Aang told us not to look inside unless we had a reason. There hasn't been any reason so far so…"

"It's not like Loser Lord can do anything anyway. Am I right?" Sokka laughed and jabbed his guard friend in the chest with his elbow.

'Uh, yeah, heh-heh…" It was clear that Li still had mixed thoughts about insulting his former lord. Sokka sighed.

"Well 'The All Powerful Avatar' hasn't told me not to go in sooooo!" And before Li could do anything, Sokka brushed passed him into the small metal room. "So how's the Loser Lord doing these- AANG! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

Toph's eyes widened. "Wow, when Zuko read that last line my mind suddenly had this image of Ozai and Aang doing *this part is omitted to protect innocent eyes* and -"

"Yes Toph, that's enough from you," Katara said hastily while nervously glancing at Aang and Zuko, who looked as if they were going to throw up on the coffee table. She then exchanged a we-need-to-talk-to-her look with her brother before gingerly picking up the Companion from Zuko's shuddering hands and proceeding with the story.

Ozai and Aang looked up.

"Teachin' Ozai origami." If Sokka had thought it was weird that Aang was, in fact, behind the bars sitting right next to Ozai, he was thoroughly freaked out by the reasoning behind it. Ozai held out his bird to Sokka, too much in a state of accomplishment to recognize Sokka as the teen who had mocked him on the day of Sozin's Comet.

"I made a phoenix!" He proclaimed happily.

Sokka started back confused. "Riiiiiggght…" And with that, he turned and left.

"What's his name?"

"Does it need one?"

"Sure he does! How about-" Sokka covered his ears and ran down the hall.

"Wow, that is pretty bad" Sokka commented as he glanced warily at the book. "If that happened in real life, I'd probably look like Aang right now," he said as he gestured at the Avatar's face which was still frozen in horror.

Zuko, who had thankfully recovered from his brief wave of nausea, cleared his throat and looked around at his friends. "Well, I guess that's about enough reading for now. Who wants some tea?"

"That would be nice, Zuko," Katara replied as she rested her arm around her slowly recovering boyfriend's shoulder. "In the meantime," she shot a look at her earthbending friend, "Toph and I are going to have a nice little chat."

I guess Toph is feeling the aftereffects of fanfiction already: seeing perverted subtext in every seemingly innocent line. It's been a chaotic week, resulting in my absence from the Net and one reader asking about when the next chapter would come. Sorry about that, and I'll definitely try to avoid any more disappearing acts! Anyway, thanks to Leviticus Wilkes for suggesting zutarakid50's 'The Art of Firendship' (yes, the original title did have that typo, I kept it to preserve authenticity) and hope to see you all soon!