Chapter Twelve: Lawless

A week's time after the Ruthless Sun's attack on Shanxira City and the subsequent hatching of dragons, while Azula and Katara are in the dangerous company of Lu Ten and the royal court, an old man folds his frayed apron and places it beneath the humble tea shop counter. He looks up as the bell on the door of the closed store jingles and a hooded traveler walks inside.

"I was beginning to become concerned for your wellbeing; you were due two days ago, June," he says as she removes her hood and slumps into a rickety, creaking wooden seat. "It is not your fault you lost track of your quarries. Lu Ten is a competent man and Caldera well-fortified."

"I lost them in Shanxira, like an absolute idiot. The Ruthless Sun was on their tail. Prince Zuko wasn't with them, but..."

"Ozai gave him a second chance and he took it. I know. So, it is true Azula has allied herself with a rebel waterbender, then?" He slowly but casually pours a cup of herbal root tea for calm and inhales the steam as it fills just short of the chipped brim.

"Apparently. I knew we wanted Hakoda's people and Ozai's brats for the operation. I never thought I'd find them collaborating. Well, if you can call it that; they weren't the most cohesive duo of soldiers I've met," says June as her employer begins to walk over with two cups of tea.

"War has made for stranger bedfellows," he comments.

"Cool it, grandpa." June rolls her eyes and huffs as he places the cup in front of her. "At least your intel wasn't far off. I don't like working with mercenaries or relying on the word of a gambling addict with a debt deep enough to buy myself a private island away from all this, but he was right. They took the bait even if they slipped off my hook."

"A Pai Sho sportsman knows better than anyone that people are predictable."

"So, what now?"

[X]

Many miles away — and two weeks later — the morning after Toph first joined the other two dragon mothers on their quest, a record-breaking heat wave hits the Earth Kingdom. Azula handles it better than the other two, especially Katara, who drips with uncomfortable sweat as she guides Mizu through the woods in search of a fresh source of water. She had suggested they split up to locate one once they decided to camp for the sweltering, painfully humid night on the outskirts of the massive swamps but Azula refused to let the Blind Bandit go anywhere with the golden dragon unless she supervised so Katara ended up on a solo mission while they trekked off in the opposite direction.

With a weak sigh, Katara slumps down against the side of a tree, so tired and dehydrated from the pace at which they fled the very active scene of their 'crimes' — sadly, freeing slaves and disrupting a slave auction is considered one — since after they liberated the nearby mine the Fire Nation soldiers have been on the highest alert. They made for the swamps, a good place to escape detection, but between the distance and the heat they couldn't make it before nightfall, that she does not even register the pain of the tree bark scraping down her entire back.

Despite being fit and healthy, she struggles to catch her breath and get her bearings in the summer swelter. Ever since she and Sokka stowed away with their dad and the other tribe warriors, she has handled Earth Kingdom weather just fine. The island was miserable but she had been so focused on survival that the weather never crossed her mind and while Caldera was hot and humid she was in the lap of luxury with Lu Ten almost the entire time.

Now, on the road away from Gaoling towards the swamplands, either the air has been scorched by the early and unexpected arrival of the dreaded comet or the past few weeks are catching up to her all at once which is giving her heatstroke.

Given the lack of any world ending battles raging around her, she assumes it must be the latter. Since being shipwrecked as Azula's prisoner and finding the dragon eggs she cannot think of a single time she has managed to catch her breath, unless you can count being knocked unconscious by the Fire Prince and Azula's ex.

Katara feels her eyelids become heavy as she tries to remember when she last got any worthwhile sleep but she does not drift off thanks to Mizu gently nipping at her hand until she forces her eyes open again.

"I know; I'm just tired, Mizu. I'll be fine once I find some water." She kisses the pint-sized — but rapidly growing — red dragon on the head and forces herself to stand. "Can you fly ahead and see if there are any streams or ponds nearby?"

Katara weakly resumes her journey with Mizu keeping a watchful eye on her mother.

A few miles in the opposite direction, Azula, Toph, Kimiko and the golden dragon pursue the same goal, albeit with a slightly different approach and less strain on their bodies from the heat.

"So, what does a girl have to do to get a nickname like the Blind Bandit?" asks Azula after nearly an hour of searching for water in utter silence.

She did not mind it, at first, since it allowed her to quietly observe and keep her eyes fixed on the golden dragon while not digging for water that does not exist. Azula also knows that whoever speaks first is submitting and at a disadvantage, so she holds her tongue, hoping Toph would bend to her first. Yet, the heat and the dehydration and the fatigue wore on Azula until she compromised her scheming and decided speaking first and establishing an exploitable bond with the new dragon mother was worth the temporary sacrifice of her dignity.

At first, it seems Toph will not answer, but, at last, she shrugs and says coolly, "I'm blind and I'm a bandit and since nobody knew my name they needed something to slap on the wanted posters."

Azula rises back to her feet after another futile attempt to find water. To her mild surprise, for a young woman who could not have seen — literally speaking — the need to conceal facial expressions, The Blind Bandit's face is an unreadable mask.

Azula ignores it and continues, refusing to allow her power and dominance to falter.

"While we are on the topic of things needing names … you have a name in mind for your dragon?"

Toph grunts, but she does softly caress the tiny golden dragon who currently is gazing very enviously at the older, larger and stronger blue dragon.

"So yours is Kimiko and Katara's is Mizu?"

"Kimiko is named after the formidable and admirable first female Fire Lord. Mizu is named for a childhood friend of Katara's who was murdered. And so?"Azula loosely gestures at the golden dragon.

Toph does not need to think for very long before she firmly decides upon, "Jiayi."

The golden dragon responds well to it. Toph repeats the name to the beast until Jiayi embraces it as her own and rests her head in the crook of Toph's neck.

"Any reason for the name?" asks Azula.

"I know jack all 'bout names or any of that fortune telling bullshit but I had a cousin named Jiayi because she was born during an earthquake but survived. My parents told me her name meant luck and, y'know, since we're on basically a suicide mission I figure we could use all the luck we can get."

Azula suppresses a laugh, although Toph snorts and shrugs.

"Practical. I like it," remarks the princess.

They do not say anything, but they both sit down, pausing their search for water. Their throats may be dry and their lips chapped, but the mutual need for a few moments of rest wins out in the end.

"I've been meaning to ask, why were you and Sugar Queen looking for me?"

"Sugar Queen?"

"Nickname for your friend."

"Right," says Azula through her teeth and the disgusted curl of her lips. It is trashy but she supposed it can be Katara's problem. She has to focus what little mental energy her dehydrated mind has on deciding which information she will reveal to the Blind Bandit and which information she will choose to withhold.

At last, she settles upon, "We had a vision of a flying boar, went to Gaoling, crashed into you and had a gut feeling. The third dragon mother was implied once I retrieved the golden egg from those who stole it. I found the eggs in the ruins of a Sun Warrior Dragon Temple. The Sun Warriors were the first firebenders. They learned from the dragons. I am descended from them. Katara was present when the eggs hatched for me but I cannot help but wonder why you of all savages and peasants would be connected to my destiny and my dragons."

"Well, I learned to earthbend from badger moles."

"What?" Azula blinks. Sweat and dirt stings her eyes but she hardly notices after hearing such a bizarre statement.

"When I was a kid I got lost in these caves. The badger moles showed me more than just my way home. They taught me how to bend and how to see without seeing. Maybe that makes me more like a Sun Warrior than you, Stiff Slip."

"Do not call me that." Azula huffs and flips her hair. Toph has an interesting point about her odd origins of bending and unique abilities perhaps being related to her role as a dragon mother but Azula is still going to be the Dragon Queen and this mud-caked wannabe comedian is nothing like Azula's noble and wise ancestors.

"I'll call you whatever I—"

They are interrupted by the frantic cries of Mizu as she swoops towards them, batting her crimson wings in an utter frenzy.

Katara. Oh no.

Azula jumps up as Kimiko and Jiayi join Mizu in the sky. She runs ahead, Toph following her, and they pursue Mizu until they find Katara, waist deep in a crystalline river.

On this hot, miserable day, Azula does not think she has ever seen anything more beautiful. The water, that is. Obviously not Katara, even if her hair does look ravishing when soaking wet and her smile is stunning and the sunlight caresses her ample, sexy curves. Physical attraction does not mean mental attraction, Azula assures herself, and being sexy has nothing to do with grander terms like being beautiful. Which Katara is not. Or, at least, her personality is not and that is Azula's firm, unbreakable opinion on the matter. She'd sleep with Katara but only if there was no talking and she could sneak out the window in the morning never to see the young woman again.

"Mizu found you!" exclaims Katara. Her voice and energy returned to her tenfold once she located fresh water and drank herself nearly sick.

Azula shrugs. Toph says nothing. The two of them drink until their muscles cease to ache and then all three dragon mothers and dragons get to work setting up a camp on the banks before sunset.

[X]

That night, Katara's sleep is threadbare, and feels not unlike lying in a bathtub with your ears only half submerged in the lukewarm water.

She wakes when, in her fit of sweaty discomfort, she bumps into Azula, who must have drifted closer — to the point their skin had almost been touching — in her uneasy slumber.

Katara sits up and peers cautiously out of the tent. Something feels off, a little unnerving. The closer they travel to the swamps, the more her skin prickles with gooseflesh and her stomach twists into uneasy knots.

Whatever lurks within the Earth Kingdom swamps, she is afraid to meet it, but at the same time wants to get there as quickly as possible. Azula would call her crazy and Toph does not seem to be the spiritual type — or the social type, given that she made a solitude tent with her earthbending and did not speak to Azula and Katara as they put out the small fire and settled in their makeshift shelter of branches — so she must deal with these feelings on her own. She squints into the treeline across the stream and her heart begins to race as she thinks she sees a light.

Katara has to slap her hand on her mouth in a split second to muffle her involuntary scream as a hand suddenly rests on her shoulder blade.

"Oh, quit the dramatics," whispers Azula and Katara rolls her eyes. "It's me."

"Do you see those lights?" tentatively asks Katara.

"Of course I do. They're fire beetles. Just relax."

Katara blinks a few times to fully clear the sleep from her eyes and sees that what had her so nervous had all along been familiar bugs.

"The swamp is close by."

"So?"

"Something about it makes me anxious."

"Everything makes you anxious. Come back to bed."

"Why won't you trust me on anything?"

"Trust is secondary," says Azula.

"Fine. But you still can't just order me around."

"Can't I?" Azuka groans melodramatically as she realizes Katara is not budging. "What is important is the dragons. I fail to see what risk a swamp poses to them. We cannot let them get harmed or fall into the wrong hands."

Katara glances at Azula with an expression of mild distaste. "Well, wronger hands."

"Yes. Like my cousin or father. And we can hide from them in the swamp like we planned. Have a little faith and get a little more sleep."

Katara reluctantly relents.

[X]

Dry lightning cracks across the sky. Azula flinches when she hears it, especially in such heat, hopefully not more than a day or two's walk away from the massive swamps the maps they studied had promised, in the absence of rain and the still insufferable, unrelenting heat.

"Lightning startles you?" asks Katara as she hands Azula the last of their shelter to burn into ash and release into the river.

They cannot afford to leave any trace of their presence and Toph did a fine job of erasing even the tiniest disturbances in the earth. Katara is irritated to deal with Toph's type; the third dragon mother is the kind of person who would pick through a trash bucket and only throw away hers. But it is an improvement upon a literal princess raised in a fortress palace who never once had to cook, clean up after herself or share.

"When it isn't mine and when there isn't rain, sure. I have to assume we are about to experience the worst inclement weather this filthy pit of a continent has to offer. We need to move quickly."

Katara and Toph both immediately understood the warning. A tornado had the total potential and the total temptation to strike. The spirits had not held anything else back yet; they certainly had no reason to suddenly give the dragon mothers a break now.

Katara and Mizu took point as Jiayi, still younger and weaker than her siblings, remained on Toph's shoulder and Kimiko — with a whisper of gentle instructions from Azula — had flown ahead to scout out the way to the swamps.

Then the long, agonizing walk begins.

For at least an hour or two they remain in silence as Katara corresponds with Mizu and Kimiko, occasionally changing the course to avoid the gathering storm clouds that look anything but natural and everything but safe.

Finally, mostly out of a new level of sheer boredom, Azula attempts to strike up a conversation with her new unwanted companion on the quest to restore balance.

"What's with you and the nicknames, anyway?" she asks Toph as they trudge through gradually deepening mud and thickening foliage.

Toph shrugs. "It pisses people off."

"And that's all?" Azula figures it may well be the full answer, given that Toph does not strike her as someone with much depth beyond her tough girl act, but it is too hot to come up with a change in conversation and she is too tired to March ahead in silence with no distractions.

"Well, I guess sometimes people don't fit their names, y'know? So I give them a new one."

"So I'm a Stiff Slip?"

"Yeah. Your posture is freakishly rigid and so is your annoying bossy attitude, and Slip given the fact that I've been a conwoman long enough to know one when I meet her. I might be the first to put two and two together for nicknames but no way I'm the first person to call you on being a vainglorious priss who could sell water to a drowning dude."

"And Sugar Queen?"

"Is it not self explanatory? High and mighty attitude but also sickeningly sweet. Like ugh. I don't think highly of you but I still can't believe anyone would want to bang that mess."

"Trust me, I do not."

"You know why little boys pull on little girls' pigtails?" casually and confidently drawls Toph.

"Because they're fun to pull on and boys are trash?" sighs Azula as she continues to fan herself.

Toph snorts and says, "Because they like the girls but don't know how to tell them."

"If that is some implied comment about my strained, forced and inconvenient partnership with Katara I did not hear it and I will not respond to it," indignantly huffs Princess Azula. She sneers with such contempt it could shrivel a slug on sight but, sadly, Toph cannot see it. And if Toph could see it, she would not be fazed by it.

Yet another insufferable companion foisted upon Azula out of the sheer cruelty of the fates. Ty Lee and Mai would have been far easier to work with as the other two dragon mothers.

"I'm not implying anything. I'm outright saying you've got a thing for her and you're shit at hiding it," laughs Toph dryly.

"I happen to belong to another already and even if I did have any interest in Katara it pales in comparison to the girl who waits for me once our task is finished."

"Uh huh."

"Not to mention that we have been over this. Katara's appearance may be hot, but her personality is absolutely not."

"Yeah, save the dumb excuses for someone who can't feel your heart rate thump through the roof when you talk to her."

"Agitation raises heart rate."

"There's a difference between the heart rate of somebody who's pissed off and somebody who's hot and bothered."

Azula snorts. "Right. Because you're clearly the type to pay attention and be precise in your readings, whatever the fuck they even are."

"I didn't have a lot else to do growing up." Toph shrugs. "Besides, being a human lie detector thanks to my bending is pretty helpful and requires paying attention to that shit."

"A human lie detector? Now who's the vainglorious egotist? I find it hard to believe."

"I don't care what you believe. I never miss a lie. Trust me. Heck, try me if you're so skeptical."

"Well, I am a pretty good liar."

"Then what're you afraid of? Tell me a gobsmacker."

"I am a sixty foot tall, spotted, purple bear who speaks only in riddles."

"Too obvious. You need to be trying to slip it past me for you to be worried. Sarcasm isn't exactly high stakes lying?"

"Fine. Two truths and a lie. I left my father to join up with my cousin and captured Katara to give to Lu Ten as a peace offering. I have never been kissed on the lips by someone I truly love and who truly loves me, and I miss my mother every single day."

Toph is stumped. And stumped by the fact that she is stumped. So she guesses.

"The first one, right?"

"Wrong. They were all lies. Or were they? Seems you aren't quite the human lie detector you thought you were. My condolences."

Still, Azula must begrudgingly admit to herself that when not dealing with a practiced liar such as herself, the ability may prove useful in the future.

Thunder and lightning crash.

They pick up their pace.

A lilting voice singing a lullaby radiates through Azula's hazy memories of her youth before the loss of her mother.

She hears Ursa singing just one lyric to Azula and Zuko and allows herself to embrace it for only a brief moment before burying it deep, deep down.

"Hope can drown lost in thunderous sound…"

[X]

At nightfall, the three young women and three younger dragons hasten to set up their camp, finally within a stone's throw from the entrance to the swamp. The place gives all three of them the creeps but for different reasons. Azula sucks in the humidity and feels it dampen her inner furnace of power with each breath, but she keeps her lips sealed and makes an excuse to avoid lighting the campfire so that the others will not know of her anxiety. Katara's joints creak and ache, as if the mud in the thick, lukewarm water all around them has replaced the thin, hot blood in her veins. Toph could feel and hear the scurrying of creatures and rustling of the natural chaos of the wilderness up until they reached the wetlands and the silence makes her uneasy, whether she shows it or not.

They all conceal as much as they can from each other as they quietly set up camp.

Azula has just finished padding a spot for herself to sleep when she hears the same melody that has been tormenting her since recalling the single line sung to her and Zuko by Ursa in a time before time.

It is a different lyric — or set of lyrics — and the voice singing the song is different but it is unmistakably the same one.

Azula shoves her way out of the ramshackle shelter and sees Katara singing to herself as she boils and bottles drinking water for the journey tomorrow.

"… but united we can break a fate once set in stone.."

"What are you singing?" coarsely demands Azula.

Katara gently touches her necklace. "A lullaby my mom sang to me before she died."

Which cannot be, since it is identical to the melody and mood of the lullaby Azula keeps remembering Ursa singing and there is no way Ursa and some Water Tribe peasant could know the same song.

"My mom sang it to me too," says Azula.

And neither girl says anything more.

[X]

The next day, the three young women enter the sprawling swamp with no idea of what they are about to face in its deep, dark, muddy depths.

All seems well as they trudge ahead until suddenly they are separated, as if by magic. It seems to happen in the blink of an eye, rattling all three to the very core as they try to cry out to each other and receive no reply.

Katara calls out a few more times before the racket of birds and sudden rising mist distracts her. She stumbles forward a few steps before stopping and blinking, trying to clear her eyes. It takes her bending to be able to dismiss enough of the watery fog to see ahead, but rather than the grand trees and slippery vines of the swamp, she sees a mountain.

It looks so familiar, but she cannot quite place it.

Katara, breaking out with gooseflesh, turns away and begins to run in the opposite direction, only to find that when she at last clears the fog, the mountain is there again, giving her chills.

She turns, planning to attempt a run to the left, maybe a feint right, anything to escape the nauseating vision, but a sloppy, wet vine grabs her by the arm and yanks her back to face the mountain. Katara tears the water from it and slashes it to bits, and then destroys the other three tendrils. More approach and she hears, as if the plants and hazy mist of the swamp are softly singing, "Death will take those who fight alone."

And she understands she needs to walk the creepy path towards the mysterious mountain if she wants to relocate her friends.

She gently beckons Mizu to fly back and rest on her shoulder, and then begins her slow ascent.

Meanwhile, Azula faces a similar predicament. She wanders through the fog, desperately trying to light her way with cerulean flames in the palm of her hand, but despite the strength of her firebending and the immense heat of her fire, the mist snuffs out her light time and time again until she has to take a moment and collect herself.

It is only then that she sees a beacon ahead of her, smoke from a chimney, the warmth of a hearth, raucous conversation and laughter. Clearly she has stumbled into some kind of house built in this awful location.

Azula turns to run before anyone inside sees her. Something about the shack filled with light and laughter makes her guts feel like they are turning inside out. But despite her powerful attacks slashing flames through vines, they do not fully burn due to the dank, dampness, and, at last, two grab her by the arms and fling her back so that she lands on the doorstep.

As she slaughters the vines in burning blue, they seem to croak in a dying breath that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up straight, "Death will take those who fight alone."

She gazes into the den of gamblers and drinkers only to see that none of them have faces, but for some reason, she feels no fear. They are all playing Pai Sho, even the drunks who cannot possibly be doing well at a game requiring strategy.

Azula tries to pass through but something compels her to begin to play.

It takes what could have been seconds or even years – the way time feels stretched and eerie inside of a dream – but as soon as she wins, and with relative ease, the shack and its ghostly inhabitants disappear, and so does the fog, revealing Katara running towards her.

As Azula, Katara, Mizu and Kimiko reunite in the hazy swamp and set out to find Toph and Jiayi, The Blind Bandit and her dragon face a trial of their own, not far away. She holds her new child – reptilian as it may be – closely to her side as she desperately tries to keep track of the wavy vibrations in the swamp. As far as she can tell, Katara and Azula just vanished from the earthly plane, but this uneven ground is hard to get a grasp on even when she does her best to focus.

The thick fog makes her cough but she does not bother trying to clear it; instead she focuses her attention to what she can hear, since her feet seem to have betrayed her at the worst possible time. Jiayi whimpers and Toph pats her once for some form of reassurance, which is as soothing and maternal as the coarse girl gets.

The cacophony of babbling water and bickering crows has morphed into something else entirely, even though her feet certainly show that nothing in the landscape has changed, nor matches the sounds she hears of a large marketplace with loud, quickly speaking salespeople and customers.

She cannot make out what they are saying at first, but then she hears that rather than haggling for prices or advertising products, they all are saying the same thing over and over.

"Death will take those who fight alone."

Toph has never felt more afraid in her life, but thankfully she holds herself together, since suddenly the vivid, utterly real sounds of a marketplace vanish and her feet register Azula and Katara running towards her, which lines up with their high, girly voices calling her name.

The tension leaves her muscles and she joins them, doing her best not to let them know how much that auditory hallucination left her rattled and ill.

And as soon as the girls find Toph, get as far away from that horrifying swamp gas as they can – albeit still hidden amongst the mud and trees so as not to draw attention to themselves – and snap out of their hazy confusion, the dragon mothers recount the details of what they saw to one another and then build a small but sturdy camp.

As they put the finishing touches on the fire and shelter, Toph stops digging in her ear to ask, "You okay, Sugar Queen? You're practically vibrating."

Katara continues pacing back and forth, mulling over her own hallucinations and the stories Azula and Toph recounted to her. "So a mountain, a pai sho game and a marketplace?"

The symbols laid out together do not make a lick of sense to Azula or Toph but Katara's protuberant cobalt eyes flicker wide with sharp, sudden realization when it clicks.

"I know where we have to go."

For once, thanks to the brutal toll the swamp took on them, the other two young women do not argue.

[X]

Meanwhile, in a quaint, out of the way tea shop called the Lotus Petal, tucked away in a small, sleepy town between Ozai and Lu Ten's tentative territory which has little of interest about it save for the fortunate quality of being close to nowhere but simultaneously not far from everywhere, Iroh reviews his notes on recently gathered intel.

He is impressed by far more than just the hatching of dragons or escape from Caldera, and he is saddened by far more than Zuko's prolonged lapse in moral judgment pursuing Azula and the dragons to regain Ozai's favor or Lu Ten's poor reaction to the dragons being nearly in his gras. Gaoling was an intriguing and unexpected target and apparently the folk hero of the city, The Blind Bandit, has been rumored to have accompanied Azula and Katara.

Iroh mills over Azula's actions again and again. For her to spend time liberating slaves, destroying Ozai and Lu Ten's monuments to power, to be giving speeches alongside a young woman he cannot picture his niece acknowledging save to spit in her face. Something is off about it but he cannot figure out exactly what.

His lack of understanding of Princess Azula's motives revives the aching in his joints and temples. How can he recruit her if he does not know what motivates her rebellious actions?

The door jingles and Iroh strides over to open it with a broad, jolly smile and cavalier posture, erasing his worries in an instant in order to take care of the customers.

June emerges from behind stacks of tea and takes over at serving the two military officials seeking shelter for the night on their trip to Ba Sing Se from Gaoling.

The glance Iroh and June share is well-concealed yet communicates a very loud statement in silence.

Two men with enough medals to melt into statues of themselves seeking a night off after witnessing whatever it is that happened in Gaoling. And whatever it is that happened obviously must be of great enough importance to Ozai that they are taking a long journey to deliver the message in person. They could be the key to unlock the mysteries Iroh wrestles with every evening.

So, he and June begin their all too familiar routine.

[X]

Scoundrel's Sanctum is a massive feat of insubordination to Ozai and Lu Ten both, carved into the heart of a mountain. Legend has it that it originally was a safe haven for deserters from the armies of Sozin and Azulon, which continued even after they splintered because of the Fire Nation's current brutal, worldwide Civil War, but now it is a black market busier and better stocked than any merchant sector of Ba Sing Se or Caldera, filled with desperate people and ne'er do wells, as well as plenty of desperate ne'er do wells in addition to the deserters whom the Sanctum first housed.

It is at last clear to Azula and Toph why Katara interpreted this place from the three visions.

Katara had described a mountain that quite perfectly fits with the one hiding Scoundrel's Sanctum. Azula won a game of Pai Sho in a gambling hall, and from the moment they approach the mountain they see both gamblers and advertisements for different games. Toph, even from the front door where they must prove their mettle with a lie about being arms dealers to pass inside, can hear the exact same market she heard in the swamp, except, thankfully, she hears actual hagglers and salespeople shouting about their products rather than the creepy chanting of the phrase in her auditory hallucination barely a day ago. Neither Azula nor Toph had any interest in praising Katara for her conclusion, but they both had to silently, internally admit that the Sugar Queen had done damned well deciphering the message.

They exercise caution, wearing hoods, keeping the dragons in separate bags to the dismay of all three, and coming up with their backstories in deep detail with every second of free time they had on the road.

The place is more populated than when Katara last was here, which simultaneously both saddens and relieves her. It saddens her because it means more and more people have been made desperate by the Fire Nation's oppression but relieves her because she and her companions have a much better chance of remaining unnoticed.

They keep their hoods up, their dragons concealed and their feet moving as they weave through the crowds just within the hidden entrance.

"I have to hand it to you, Katara," purrs Azula as the three women enter the main antechamber of the sanctum, "this does not strike me as the type of place you'd know a thing about. Perhaps there is more to you than meets the eye."

"I've only been here twice, when the rebels were desperate enough to look for help or trade for supplies and had no choice but to go with my dad and brother. It isn't my cup of tea. Trust me."

Azula shrugs a shoulder and turns up her left palm as she haughtily drawls, "I do not trust you, but I do believe you. Any idea what it may be the spirits expect us to find here?"

Katara sighs and slows her walking pace. "Not yet," she reluctantly admits, "but I know where to start looking. I have something of an understanding with a man who lives here. His name is Lee and he has enough information in his drunken head to rival professional spies and ministers of war. He knows everything about everyone and maybe that's why the spirits want us to come here; he must know something that can help us."

"So, you and this Lee have… something of an understanding?" purrs Azula with a skeptical glint in her eyes.

"Yeah. He owes me a favor. Anyway, he's a gambler. You know the Pai Sho games you told Toph and I about in your hallucination? We'll find him in a game hall and that's his gamble of choice."

Azula snorts derisively and rolls her gilded eyes. "It's a strategy game. I wouldn't call it a gamble if you know what you're doing."

"I guess if we have to play you'll be our representative then, but hopefully it won't come to needing to make bets or gamble. He knows he owes me. We ought to be able to just talk to him."

"You sound rather confident in this man."

"I am. Well, my dad and Bato were confident in him, at least, and I trust them."

"So then it simply boils down to getting him alone, correct? And then figuring out exactly why the spirits are ever-so-cryptically leading us to him."

"He won't be easy to find. Most gambling addicts prefer not to be caught off guard when they owe money to every shady bastard under the moon and over the ocean. I don't have any ideas about that. Do you have a suggestion?"

"You could seduce him, or I could light his gambling hall on fire and when he evacuates we could snag him, perhaps we could lie about money or a lucrative job to lure him out?"

"Please tell me you have at least one plan that doesn't involve near brushes with death or attempting to manipulate dangerous criminals," sighs Katara as she visualizes the myriad ways those half-baked plans could and would end in their certain, grisly deaths.

They round a corner and Toph coughs once to draw the attention of the two who — despite their vehement protests and insistence that they are sworn enemies — have become something of a codependent closed loop after all they have endured side by side since the shipwreck months ago.

"So, Azula, you can play Pai Sho?"

Azula scoffs and melodramatically rolls her gilded, gleaming eyes. "I don't play Pai Sho; I win Pai Sho. It's really just math, memorization and misdirection. All the chest puffing, claims about bluffs being of any remote importance and war metaphors men like to make are utterly worthless at the end of the day. Why?"

Toph smirks smugly. "Because I have a pretty good idea of how we can get this rat-monkey cornered without getting ourselves killed or worse."

[X]

Thank the spirits, decides Azula as she and the other two dragon mothers weave through the unwashed and frantic crowds, for problems with fairly simple solutions. They give the illusion that this chaotic universe can be controlled and mastered like its four elements, which is an illusion everyone needs to experience from time to time.

Katara has just finished explaining the fact that this man, despite being a drunk, smuggler, gambler and black market salesman, has ties to some kind of information network, which seems to be a plausible enough reason for the spirits to send them to the fool; he may have details they are missing.

Still, despite this seemingly flawless and easy answer to the harrowing visions in the swamp, the spirits are not notorious for speaking clearly, so Azula has her concealed reservations and is ready to take matters into her own hands if she must.

However, if Katara wanted to screw her over she would have already and if anything the girl overshares.

"I just need you guys to trust me," breathlessly finishes Katara.

Toph just shrugs, staying on brand to her tough girl persona.

Azula considers telling Katara her concerns before deciding against it and simply saying yet again, "Trust is secondary. You know the mark and so this is your mission."

They walk a while longer until Katara gestures at a man in a hood heading down a row of stalls and shops carved into the stone cave walls.

It seems to be going fine, which has Azula feeling uneasy.

"So, heads up, if he sees me… he may bolt," says Katara, a little belated after the hour they spent subtly tracking him to the right gambling hall and a high stakes private game of Pai Sho being held at this moment inside.

"What about your understanding?" asks Toph coldly and coarsely. Katara frowns.

"That's why he may bolt. He never struck me as the type who pays up what he owes unless he has to. If we can get him on his heels and confront him with the dragons and our story, I know he'll honor our understanding and the three of us can be pretty scary if we need to be, but…"

"But what?" snaps Azula, eyebrow twitching.

"But I think I should stay out of this one and keep watch from out of sight. You win the Pai Sho game, get us the leverage we need, then I swoop in, we get him alone and get what it is we came for."

"We don't even know what we came for," complains the fire princess with a huff.

"Please, Azula, Toph, please trust me. You know you can trust me. I'll get you two your tokens to get into the hall. You two take care of the plan, then we reconvene. I won't stray far and I can take the dragons. That way they are safe and out of sight while you two can focus without extra concerns and I know he won't see me until he's got no choice but to make good on what he owes me. Got it?"

Albeit tentatively, Azula and Toph agree.

[X]

With three dragons tucked almost impossibly — a credit to their flexibility and stillness reflexes that made them perfect predators during their species's ancient reign — into a weathered messenger bag draped over Katara's shoulder, the waterbender leaves Azula and Toph waiting as she approaches the very clear bouncer to the closed, musty room.

The rough woman looks Katara up and down and shakes her head. "Not your night, darling. It's a high stakes evening. Entry fee costs more than your life."

Katara glances over her shoulder and then opens the bag, revealing the three beautiful, bioluminescent dragons inside. The woman nearly crumbles to her knees but catches herself with one thick hand on the slick stone wall.

"One for my girl. She's an unbelievable player. One for our friend to get a taste of the action. The other is there if we need to up the stakes. I'd say living dragons should more than suffice for two tickets and a seat at the table of my girl's choice, wouldn't you?"

"I could turn you in just for having them."

Katara shrugs. "What good does that do anyone? Let my girl play, get a good show in your venue, walk away with a dragon of your choice, or two or three depending on how the tiles fall tonight. If you turn me in you turn less of a profit and we both know it."

Although the woman cannot peel her eyes from the dragons, the usual reaction upon seeing them, they narrow as she begins to overthink Katara's motives and asks, "Why not three tickets? You don't wanna cheer on your girl?"

"You take me somewhere with a private view and get to analyze the merchandise without anybody else catching on. Of course, if my girl wins, you can feel free to give me a monetary offer but I will be taking both her winnings and any of my unsold select stock to higher bidders. Sound good?"

The greedy woman grins and hands Katara two entry tokens.

Katara's heart beats in her throat and her stomach twists as she hides the dragons, hands off the tokens and vanishes into the back rooms to overlook the gambling hall with her new 'friend.'

[X]

Azula strides confidently into the chaotic room. Her own coolness seems to lower the abysmally high temperature of the sweating gamblers and tense spectators inside by several degrees as she sees their mark and seats herself comfortably at his table.

He snorts. "Seriously? How much did daddy pay to get you this chance? I almost feel conflicted playing against a little girl!"

His pals, at their own Pai Sho games or just watching, laugh, but Azula's expression and regal posture remain unchanged. Toph cashes in using an old Blind Bandit trick with dice a few feet away.

It is a fairly straightforward plan: Toph gets them money for supplies and anything else they may need by cheating at the games with less attention on them than the high stakes private Pai Sho, Azula puts on a show to keep attention off Toph and at the same time accomplishes the main goal of the evening by digging the gambler, Lee, into as deep of a hole as she can before defeating him and offering him an alternative payment, Katara observes for safety and if all goes well, meets him with her companions and dragons in the back barroom to make their offer.

"Are you scared that you shall never recover from the shame of a teenage girl taking you for all you are worth?" Azula asks calmly.

He snorts, puffed up and proud. Azula loves it when she gets to watch that pride drain and wither.

"I'm over my conflicted feelings. The guest gets the first move."

Azula examines her tiles.

[X]

The game presses on slowly, Azula taking her time, playing with her food before she eats it, and meticulously ensuring that the fool will have no choice but to make good on his deal by the end of the night. Additionally, it gives Toph more time to systematically rob the place blind with no one any the wiser until they will be long gone.

"What do you say I go easy on you in exchange for getting to go hard on you later tonight at my place?" He is attempting, poorly, to rattle her. She doubts he has any attraction, and he certainly has no interest in losing the money that his every tiny motion and bead of sweat shows he is truly and deeply desperate to attain.

"You certainly have balls talking to me that way," casually retorts Azula as she pays him little mind.

He leans closer, but not so close that he would be disqualified for an attempt at cheating. "You should see my balls. Then you'd really be impressed."

Azula examines the tile she lazily plucked up for a moment and then lays it on the board in an ambitious but successful gambit.

She winks as he stares in aghast terror at his own tiles and her smooth trap.

"I'll just have to take your word for it," she purrs as she grabs another free drink a waitress offers.

Toph moves on to another game.

Katara's knuckles burn white as she digs them into the arms of her seat, out of sight, but certainly not unable to see.

[X]

Azula must admit she does love to watch Lee sweat as she empties his pockets and conquers the Pai Sho Board at the end of the third and final round.

She smirks and leans back in her seat as he stares at the table and then looks up at the moderator with an expression that suggests he is about to hurl.

Unfortunately, he does not. He just sweats and stares at Azula before slowly fumbling in a half empty leather coin purse.

Interrupting his exaggerating rummaging for money he quite simply does not have, she sets a hand softly on his shoulder. He gulps.

"Now, about my winnings?"

"I have the money, just not…"

Azula glances at the multiple officials waiting for the transfer of funds and to get home after this late shift working.

Azula smirks. "Clearly, you lack the funds to pay up tonight. This must be very embarrassing for you and potentially quite dangerous. But," she continues, raising a hand to stop the two buff enforcers from seizing Lee, "Luckily for you, I have an idea for alternative payment." She turns her burning gaze to the bookie. "I will sign you off as in the clear for your payment to me if you agree to don a blindfold and follow me home as soon as we rise from this table. Do we have a deal, Lee?"

He, in his utter desperation, all too quickly agrees to be lured into the back alleyway — a tunnel, so to speak, in the mountain — where Toph with pockets stuffed to the brim with coins and Katara and the dragons wait to pounce.

But the moment they convene, the tunnel explodes, Toph barely acting in time to stop it and shield herself, the other two girls and anyone else lucky — or unlucky — enough to be within their radius in time by diverting the falling rock and stomping up a barrier around them.

Katara has no time to register the theft of the dragons from her person because as the blast goes off, Azula pounces on her from nowhere, tackling her and shielding her from the rubble, flame and dust swirling through the air.

Once the mess around them settles, Azula pushes herself up off of Katara and then yanks the stunned waterbender to her feet.

"I thought you said you two had an understanding!" snarls Azula fiercely, every inch of her strong but small frame trembling with pure rage.

"I think he may have misunderstood our understanding." Katara glances towards his blocked off escape route. "He has the dragons. He must have known. We have to get them back."

Azula grits her teeth. Toph, sensing her heartbeat of a woman about to commit an act of violence and Katara's heartbeat of a nervous liar, prepares herself to intervene.

"Katara, how did he know about the dragons?" Azula asks, her eyes ablaze as she pivots to face her former ally and eternal enemy.

"I used them to get us into the club, but I swear on my life the only person who knew about them never once left my sight. Someone else must have identified us."

"Right, and that hunch of yours clearly makes up for using the dragons as currency!"

"I did what I had to do!"

"You promised to protect them! You are their mother!" Azula pulls back her elbow and punches Katara directly in the face with all her might. Her knuckles connect cleanly and forcefully with Katara's cheekbone and the other dragon mother stumbles onto the ground, head practically spinning off of her neck, but it does not satisfy Azula as much as she hoped it would.

"I know I deserved that this time but don't you dare try anything like—"

Azula interrupts Katara's calm statements with an utterly enraged snarl. "You lied to me and could have gotten us all killed or worse, lost the dragons!"

"It's the first one that bothers you the most, isn't it?" asks Katara, surprised by the level of trust Azula must have placed in her to be this upset over a breach of it. She would be flattered or feel even worse about herself were it not for the touch of irony in the world's most notorious liar calling someone else out for dishonesty. "Hypocrite."

"You're right that I've told more lies than my fair share, but I've never lied to you. We all have secrets and I am not the only one who has withheld things, nor am I the only one still withholding them. But I have never lied to you. I would not jeopardize the slim, fragile trust we have built for anything."

Katara blinks in shock, stunned by the blunt, emotional intensity of her sharp words and the amount of passion in her raw voice. It is far from her ordinarily cold and composed purr. Maybe she actually means what she said.

And so Katara returns vulnerability in kind, as much as it may pain her.

"Our alliance has been tenuous at the best of times but you're right that even you didn't dare jeopardize it. And as much as you hate me I know you know, at least on some level, I wouldn't jeopardize it by lying to you and Toph without a good reason."

"What reason could there be to justify such reckless idiocy and callous deception?"

"The last time I saw Lee, he was with my brother. That was also the last time I saw my brother, seeing as I'm pretty sure either Lee or whoever he was working for sold me out to you and your soldier pals. I thought he could take me to Sokka. I thought that was why the spirits wanted us to go here, given it was because of him that you and I met. I realize now how selfish that was but… I had to try. I didn't think it would go sideways!"

"I'd call your faith in the spirits inspiring if it didn't land us in this situation. You will make this transgression up to me. And if that feckless piece of traitorous trash knows where your brother is, I will find out for you. Now come on. There is no more time to waste on this."

Toph adds, "We need to get the dragons back from those bastards. Now," and no one disagrees on the priority.

However, at the exact moment they burst from their barricades hiding spot to run and retrieve what is rightfully theirs, the Fire Nation decides it is the ideal moment to begin a massive raid.

[X]

The raid is utterly raucous and chaotic outside of the caved-in alleyway where the young women and a few dazed and dead unlucky souls currently remain. All three are locked in thought. Clearly, retrieving the dragons is going to be significantly more complicated in the midst of this lethal and populous military strike.

The silence only breaks when Katara murmurs, "Death will take those who fight alone," as she softly rubs her mother's necklace.

Azula suddenly snaps to attention.

She knows what to do, thank the spirits.

"Ladies, follow my lead if you want to live."

"Can I assume that means you have a plan?" demands Toph as she finishes trapping the only still-living person — a mercenary gambler — trapped in their section of the back alleyway in handcuffs of stone.

Azula nods before realizing her mistake. "Yes, you can. And I do. To survive the raid we need to turn these low lives and self-interested scavengers into a coherent, cooperative barricade to hold off the army while we make our escape."

"That sounds more like a depressing statement than a plan."

"I know what to do. Worry not." Azula walks over to the terrified man bound in stone and watched by dragons. "You saw what I did to the last man who got on my nerves. So, I will say it plainly. If you betray me, it will be the last thing you ever do. Understood?" says Azula and he frantically nods, eyes bulging. "Good boy. Call a meeting. Now. I want a full audience and your full cooperation or you'll be digging your own grave before daybreak."

Toph opens the tunnel in one smooth strike and he scurries to obey, sweating profusely as he does.

Azula stands back and crosses her arms.

"So, Katara, just because I am about to need you for this plan to work does not mean you have earned back even an ounce of my trust. Understood?" she snarls with a glare that could cow a moose-lion.

"Trust is secondary, remember?" snaps Katara, glaring at Azula with enough glacial fire to flash-freeze a lesser being.

Azula scoffs and shakes her head. "Not anymore."

She walks off as soon as Toph opens the tunnel.

Katara huffs. "Is it just me or is she being a massive hypocritical bitch?"

Toph shrugs. "What can I say? Girl clearly has mommy issues."

Katara blinks. She cannot believe she did not pick up on the fact that of course Azula would be sensitive to a perceived maternal failing. She may not have said much on the topic but with a family like hers and the way that girl's ego makes her project her issues on anything and anyone that stands still long enough…

"I underestimated your emotional acuity, Toph. You're much more empathetic and perceptive than I had assumed," admits Katara.

"You take that back!"

Katara just laughs and walks off after Azula.

Azula keeps ignoring her until Katara finally grabs her and whips her around. Despite the utter chaos just outside their hiding place, the world seems silent save for the two of them, no one exists but Azula and Katara in this moment, so long as their pained gaze remains locked in place.

"I don't know what your mother did to you," says Katara, "but you can't let it affect you right now. I need the cold blooded bitch I've grown to hate slightly less in recent weeks. I can't have you breaking on me now. We can't save the dragons if we fall apart now. They need us. We're their mothers and that has nothing to do with yours."

Azula blinks. No one has ever been foolish or suicidal enough to speak to her in that way about such things as Ursa.

"Come on," she says at last, "you and I have a speech to make if we want to survive this raid and retrieve our children. There is no time to waste."

Katara sighs but follows her nonetheless.

[X]

The innermost and largest cavern of Scoundrel's Sanctum has yet to be penetrated by the loud, violent battle outside.

Spirits willing, that will give a fighting chance to those inside if they can collaborate.

And so Azula and Katara seize their chance while they still have it.

"The Fire Nation believes they have beaten you. They believe they can control you. They are gravely mistaken," says Azula and, while she may be standing atop a tall boulder with Katara, her stance alone draws every eye in the room to her. "You are the lawless and the unbroken. You have been ground into ashes by my father and cousin and all in between but not only have you reignited from ashes, you have turned a profit!"

Katara holds up her hand and although Azula wants to shove her into the crowd and take off on her own to rescue the dragons, she holds her tongue and allows Katara to interject.

Now at Azula's side and at such a high level she sees there must be hundreds of ne'er do wells below staring straight at her. If there are not a thousand, there still is something close to it.

Katara says, "Listen I know you all are fearless and mighty but death can and has easily taken those who fight alone. Don't let your hope for freedom and financial gain be drowned out by the sound of those soldiers. United we can stop them and break the fate of this Sanctum they foolishly believe is set in stone!"

Azula interrupts, "Let your faith be stronger than your fear. Hold the line until the end and teach them the one rule of Scoundrel's Sanctum. Don't fuck with our freedom! Now, join forces and let's give these motherfuckers Hell!"

Cheering. Curses. Clapping.

The excitement ripples through the room and hits an apex just as the soldiers burst into the cavern.

The soldiers, who are apparently led by Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee. Shit.

Azula grabs the other girls and dives away with them as the intense battle begins. Zuko and company are searching for her and, as much as she would enjoy some therapeutic combat with old friends and old flames, if they are going to catch up with the dragon thieves they cannot afford even the slightest distraction.

"We aren't going to fight with them," snaps Azula as she drags both Toph and Katara down behind several large barrels to stay out of Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee's sight. "We riled them up to fight and be our distraction as we find the dragons and get out of here. Any time we waste on my brother and ex is more time for those savages to take the dragons farther away. Come on!"

Katara huffs as she allows Azula to drag her and Toph further into the tunnels that run behind the gambling halls.

"I want you to know I don't approve of this!" She hisses bitterly.

Azula shrugs. "I would be disappointed if you did."

They keep running until Toph freezes and loudly commands the other two girls to stop.

As Katara and Azula breathlessly snap around to face her, Toph raises one arm to touch the side of the tunnel.

"This is where they went."

"Where would that be? Inside the rocks?"

"In another tunnel branch. It must be how they escaped with the dragons before!" Toph steels her stance and punches two fists into the tunnel wall as Azula and Katara brace themselves for another collapse but, as it turns out, Toph was dead on the money about secret smuggling tunnel branches.

They hit their first stroke of luck in what feels like ages when they find one of the men who ambushed them. He may not have the dragons, but he has a broken leg and knowledge of where his friends went.

Toph cuffs him in stone and the three girls stifle his cursing mouth as they find an inlet in the tunnel that leads to a quiet, abandoned storeroom out of the way of the massive battle raging around.

Katara grabs Azula and asks her to help ensure the store room is secure as Toph finds a place and a proper gag for their new prisoner, mocking and intimidating him all the way.

The last thing Azula wants is to cooperate with the bitch who let their children get kidnapped, but she does know Katara has a point.

And so they prepare for an interrogation and a hopefully hasty escape to rescue Mizu, Kimiko and Jiayu.

[X]

Twenty minutes and two barricaded doors later, the raid led by Prince Zuko continues to rage outside, the three dragon mothers and their prisoner finally have a moment to catch their breath while concealed in the momentary shelter of one of the many mountain store rooms. While Toph binds the soldier and double checks the doors, Katara does her best to heal the slices in her flesh from Mai's knives with water and clumsy half-remembered but mostly self-taught waterbending form and Azula sits slumped against Black Market goods looking thoroughly hollow and utterly unhelpful.

"Was it hard seeing your brother?" Katara asks, finally attempting to coax Azula out of her strange, sullen stupor.

She knows Zuko had accompanied Azula when she defected, seeing as he had been present when Katara was captured and eventually marooned with the princess. They must have had some sort of relationship but Katara also knows damned well how complicated Azula's family is.

Still, the hesitation before Azula replies indicates unresolved tension of some kind. "No. He's not much of a brother. I don't care."

"Your ex is the problem then, I assume."

Azula sighs, wishing she had never let Katara know about herself and Ty Lee. Granted, she needed to exploit it to save them in their last scuffle with ZuZu, but since the gambling hall incident she has begun regretting not lying to Katara about more.

Although she does not want to talk about it in the slightest, especially with present company, Azula cannot stop herself from blurting out, "She probably deserved to be treated as well as I treat you. An enemy, a peasant, a sanctimonious and arrogant bitch. And she was the love of my life. Or at least I thought she was."

"If you treat me well, I'd hate to see what you consider treating someone poorly."

"I have been thinking about the effort I have made to be honest with you and to preserve the trust between us, flimsy and flawed as it may be. I know it was first out of necessity and now it is due to the dragons and our forced partnership but maybe if I hadn't taken her faith in me and my promises for granted none of this would have happened."

"This sounds a lot more serious than you being your toxic self or lying to get your way. Did you cheat on her or something?"

"Worse. I promised her if I ever deserted my father's army we would go together, crossed my heart, made the plans, reassured her for two years it was something I would do with her at my side. Then I left one night without saying goodbye and barely two weeks later I ended up stranded on that island with you."

"I'd be pissed off too if I were her. Plus the whole kissing her then escaping and—"

"Shut up."

Katara scowls and opens her mouth to make a cutting retort but just averts her eyes. She may be the one with the knife marks on her leg but Azula's wounds seem just as fresh and twice as painful. Perhaps it is better to let her wallow in peace than to interfere with the fit of self-loathing. Katara imagines being vulnerable a grand total or two times in a single day has to be a new record for the princess.

"So, why didn't you take her with you? You don't seem like the kind of person who is duplicitous just for the fun of it, duplicitous as you may constantly be. You usually have your reasons, even if they're crooked."

"Why does it matter to you?"

"I guess it doesn't really." Katara shrugs.

Silence.

Finally, Azula says, "She didn't really want to leave, but she never would say it. She always did what I wanted her to do and she molded herself into whichever person she thought I'd like best. I loved her because she was a mirror who showed me what I loved about myself. I thought I was lucky to find someone who never challenged me but I was wrong; it was a relationship that left me equally vulnerable and stunted. And regardless of how dead end our romantic relationship itself was, I had no use for someone who couldn't think for herself where I was going."

"Where were you going? You never told me."

"To meet with our mutual friend, June. I would bring her Zuko to trade for safe passage to…" Azula trails off. Katara does not deserve to know this much. Not anymore, and maybe she never did and Azula was the fool.

"Safe passage to where?" Katara asks despite Azula's reluctance and hateful glare.

Toph returns with their prisoner before the conversation can continue.

"I'll make him talk," says Azula, rising to her feet and confidently striding over to the soldier. She removes the frayed bar rag that served as a gag from his mouth and sits down beside him.

"This is my fault," insists Katara, setting her hands on her hips and then consciously removing them to loosen her posture into a more submissive and apologetic position. "I can talk to him."

"Have you ever tortured anyone, Katara?" demands Azula, and the waterbender's lips part in shock.

"Not unless my big brother counts. No, of course not."

"But you do know that is where this is going, right?" Azula glances at their captive and pointedly adds, "If it's necessary, that is."

"I wouldn't say it's ever necessary. Torture doesn't usually result in actionable intelligence, does it?"

"That depends on the person in the chair and the person holding the tools." Azula starts to walk inside but Katara grabs her, only to be shoved back. "I'll handle this. You owe me that much."

Katara wants to protest, but something in Azula's gaze stops her.

[X]

As Azula settles into her role as interrogator, her captive only intensifies in his frantic rage. Still, despite the agonizing ocean of grief and fear within her about the dragons, she keeps her exterior icier than the South Pole no matter how heated he becomes.

"You have no idea the wrath you idiot girls are going to bring upon yourselves with this stupid little stunt! My allies are going to rip you limb from limb. You ain't seen torture until they come for you. They'll slash your—"

Azula makes a small, unimpressed humming sound in the back of her throat. He blanches and finally stops ranting and raving.

"There is little point wasting your breath on empty threats and false promises of punishment or pain inflicted upon me and my sisters."

"You're overconfident for someone who just stumbled into a nest of angry moth-wasps. You have no idea what is gonna rain down on you bitches. The people I work for already outsmarted you and proved they have no problem stealing dragons and that's them on a lazy day. You have no idea!" He forces a hollow, mad laugh.

Azula shrugs, still unfazed, and sits down across from him. She slowly unravels an oiled leather bag containing cooking blades and utensils she grabbed from the storage shelves. They are not perfect, but they will do the job.

"I deeply regret to inform you that you are the overconfident fool in this instance, not me. In my life, I assure you that I have known many people who inspire fear. I have often even been told that I am one. And do you know the one thing they all have in common?" She pauses for emphasis as he stares at her with his eyes stretched wide and skin glistening with cold sweat. "They never need to talk about how frightening they are."

She smirks. He resigns himself to his fear and his fate. And despite his arrogance, it only takes her twenty minutes of brutality to break him.

"Since I suspect you have no idea where your friends went with my children, despite you insisting you won't tell me, how about we try a few fresh questions and ditch the old set? Maybe you simply don't know who ordered their capture, or where they are being taken, or who your employers even really are and I am being unfair. Who hired you? Who was the middleman? Perhaps I can let you limp to freedom and hurt him instead." She begins to slowly, slowly heat up her knife again, watching his agonized, ruddy eyes follow her composed, slow, fluid motions.

"I was hired by Bao. He was hired by some chick he met at a bar and invited me."

"And who was she? Who did she claim to work for?" Azula stops heating the knife, showing he may enjoy a prolonged reprieve from pain if he continues to at long last be cooperative.

"It's just a rumor," he hisses through a busted lip and broken tooth, the first thing he has said that has not been a plea or a threat.

"I love rumors," confidently purrs Azula, admiring the slowly cooling bloody blade in her hand. "Facts can be so… misleading. Rumors, on the other hand, whether true or false… always are revealing."

He sputters for breath. She tosses her hair to cool the sweat on her neck as if they are taking lunch on a sunny beach.

"There's a rumor about a secret network. They're planning something big. Given the amount of money, secrecy and information they had… I don't know but maybe the rumor is true and we really were hired by them." He sighs and huffs and tries to catch his breath as he attempts to disguise his sigh of relief upon seeing Azula place the knife back onto the fluid-splattered table. "The network reaches out to you. Ain't nobody ever seen who's in charge or lived to tell about what they want and where they're located. You little bitches are never gonna find your dragons!"

His laugh is genuine, even if it hurts his cracked ribs. Azula wants to kill him, but she manages to retain her composure despite her anger (although, her lip does curl and her nostrils do flare).

"How were you going to get paid then? So, you gambled your life on the off chance they would reach out and compensate you for your efforts? Come on."

"She paid Bao and me half up front. The other half we'd get when the dragons were transferred to the next team."

"Where is the next team?"

He just laughs. And laughs. And laughs. Until he crumples over, choking on his pained breath.

Azula slowly stands up, knowing the interrogation has ended and she will get nothing more of use.

She raises a bolt of lightning and in the blink of an eye, her prisoner is dead and she is alone.

(Of course, Katara and Toph had rushed in when they heard the crack of Azula's bending, but she is as blind to them as she is to everything else as soon as she no longer needs to menace the man.)

Azula's coldness as she executed him crumbles the moment he does and the scream after she slays him and accepts the cruel truth of her lost children and her lack of useful intel to save them is soul-shattering. The wordless cry of a mother who has lost her baby, pained and twisted and endlessly echoing. Although she briefly notices that Katara and Toph are watching her, the last pin holding Azula in place snaps and she collapses, literally, onto her hands and knees.

Katara remembers being on the island and watching how much Azula risked for what they believed were just rocks. She remembers the serenity on Azula's formerly only hostile face as she sat in the fire with the two first hatchlings. And maybe she understands. Or, at least, if she does not understand, she certainly can empathize.

"I tried but…" Azula decides not to explain. No one needs the details imprinted on her heart and soul like warning signs on decaying bridges.

She sinks deeper into the stone floor, her stiff posture vanishing, her arrogant aura shifting hues into a blood-streaked grey.

Toph tries to stop Katara the moment she feels the girl's feet move towards Azula, but she is not fast enough to grab her. She just steels herself; she heard the scream, hears the sobs and feels Azula's loose, tachycardic form on the floor, which means she does not need to see the girl to know she snapped and they all are screwed, so Sugar Queen can go sugar coat if she wants.

Katara helps Azula to her feet as Toph storms off to pack their bags and check the locks again. Azula's torture session has ensured they will need to leave Scoundrel's Sanctum the second Katara can muzzle the princess, whether they have a lead on the dragons' location or not.

Besides, the feeling in her gut surrounding Jiayi and the immense, primal closeness they shared before it was ripped away from her within a few days is not something she wants to risk exposing to the world or facing in her mind if she is left with only her thoughts and nothing to keep her busy.

As Toph readies their escape from the storeroom, Katara helps Azula into a seat and uncorks a bottle of sake. She pushes it into Azula's trembling hands and helps her to drink without accidentally dropping and breaking it.

Slowly, Azula's heart and hands steady. She drinks and Katara sits in silence.

"I've ended a lot of lives," says Azula and Katara assumed her first instinct would be to snark about it. But this moment is not one for banter or loathing or unburied hatchets. She just listens. "But never like that. Never… an execution. And what was it even for? We lost the dragons anyway."

"He deserved it," whispers Katara. "It never is your right or the right thing to do to take a life but I can't fault you for killing someone like that."

Her heavy tone carries in it, however, the implication beneath her words that while she cannot blame Azula for killing the man she still is disgusted by Azula torturing him.

"It hurt me to hurt him. It carves off a piece of you to do something like that, but it had to done. One of us had to do it. So, I did, because I have had to do it before." Azula shakes her head. "I lied about Ty Lee earlier." She takes another gulp of sake, which is definitely not helping her to tighten her lips when her head is already spinning so fast she feels like she is flying and sinking simultaneously. "I had corrupted her. Unlike anyone else I knew, I considered her to be a pure soul. Just like Kimiko, and Mizu and Jiayi. And you."

The strength of the sake rushing into her head notwithstanding, the moment Azula realizes she said those last two words while loosely looking at Katara is what finally allows her to regain control of her tongue and fall silent.

"We haven't lost the dragons yet. We've made it so far already. We can find them, no matter what some jerk in a makeshift torture chamber says. Maybe you can give up if you want but I'm a mother, I love my daughter and that will never let me be able to give in to my self doubt or the doubt others have in me. I will never surrender my search for the dragons even if it means I have to burn the earth and crush the sky. I won't give up and I'll find my daughter and her siblings alone if I have to, but I'd prefer you and Toph to be with me. So you are going to snap to attention, soldier, because I have a better chance of protecting my baby with you begrudgingly helping me and getting on my nerves the whole time. Understood?"

Azula snorts and sarcastically slurs, "Ma'am, yes, ma'am."

"Good. We're out of here in two minutes or less, understood?" Katara wishes she could sound more like a military leader and less like a cheerleader but she is working with what she has.

Azula nods and then gently pats Katara's face, her eyes hazy and glazed. "You're a good mom," she murmurs as if she does not know she is speaking aloud. Maybe she does not.

Princess Azula lifts the same bottle to her lips again and begins to polish it of before Katara gently snatches it away.

Before Azula can argue, Katara, on a sudden and wild impulse, replaces the rim of the rice wine bottle with her lips.

It is a stupid, impulsive ploy to snap Azula out of her stupor long enough to get her help in their escape from the sanctum. From Azula's wide, shocked eyes, stiff spine and sudden sharp inhale, it works.

But, although the utterly unromantic kiss does it's job quickly, their lips accidentally linger for a few seconds longer, savoring the reprieve from the ugly past few weeks.

The heat of the dispassionate kiss is remarkable enough to begin to reignite hearts that have been pummeled and crushed into ashes and embers.

Yet, fortunately or unfortunately, a loud bang of a broken locked door and the thundering of multiple heavy boots on the stone floor interrupts the kiss.

Azula and Katara snap apart from each other and the spell breaks; they both forget the soft tension and recall the blockades and hissing demons in between them. They launch into combat against the mysterious, masked strangers until Katara halts in front of one she recognizes.

It is June, and so Katara grabs Toph by the scruff to stop the punch she is about to land on the familiar woman Katara thought she would never see again.

Meanwhile, Azula is about to throw another fiery punch before a thick hand grabs her wrist and fizzles it out, a shocking counter move that could only belong to a competent opponent.

She pivots to kick his ankles out from under him but before she can land the blow, he removes the mask decorated with white lotuses that has been concealing his face and Azula hesitates, both from surprise at being face to face with a (presumed) dead man and the sake softening her reflexes.

Azula blinks her bleary, half-drunk eyes in shock.

"Uncle?"