A. N. : You ever seen two character whose core beliefs are so fundamentally opposed that you want to see them interact, just for the absolute trainwreck it would be ? Anyway if someone has good fic recs with Azula and Suki interacting in a major way, I'm interested. Maybe I'll make my own content someday too, we'll see how things turn out, but for now it's time for our best girl to make her appearance !

Something is wrong.

Suki doesn't know what, or why, but something happened that changed the behavior of the guards. They seem – agitated. The Warden visited her this afternoon, ordered that she be confined to her cell for the rest of the day.

If this man was capable of emotions other than arrogance, Suki would say he was afraid.

In normal circumstances, anything that scares the Fire Nation in general and the Warden in specific would be good news, but something about this makes her uneasy.

They're treating her like they somehow think she could escape. But of course, if there's one thing Suki learned in the time – two months, three weeks, five days – she spent at the Boiling Rock, it's that the Warden trusts only one thing, and that thing is the impossibility for anyone to break out.

There is no way this man thinks her capable of escaping, especially not after her attempts – one attempt, really, the second one was half-hearted at best, a way to make them think she was desperate and close to giving up and won't jump on the first occasion she gets, a way to make them thing they got to her, that no matter what, they can keep her caged.

No, the Warden doesn't think Suki can break out. He is afraid of what would happen if she did.

Seems like her status changed again – from the Princess' trophy, to high security prisoner, to –

This is making her restless. She rises to her feet, assumes the basic stance, weight sitting low, feet rooted in the earth, the image of a fan in her hand.

Suki is important again, relevant again, in the eyes of someone – she rotates, evades an imaginary blow, trips her opponent, her feet never quite leaving the ground – that has to mean they want something from her – no fan anymore, it was knocked away, and she hits he opponent's plexus with her fist – but she has no information, has been isolated for too long to have any, so what – no hands anymore, maybe they are bound like when she was moved here, she kicks the air one, two, three times, not the move of a Kyoshi Warrior but one of a prisoner who will not yield, Suki's refusal to be erased, her will to hold on until she gets her chance, until Sokka comes and gives her the opportunity she needs –

She stops.

Suki doesn't have information, but she has knowledge. Sokka will not abandon her, neither will the others, neither would her sisters if they were free to do so.

She said so to the Princess, told her her plan wouldn't work, kept her head high and proclaimed that Sokka wouldn't fall for that, that he would come for her and then the Princess would be sorry – Suki had watched her laugh at that trust, had been enraged at her dismissal, at the way she had tried to twist Suki's words into dependency, like somehow trusting made Suki weak.

Of course, the Princess is wrong – Kyoshi Warriors are strong on their own, but they are close to invincible when fighting as sisters, and even the Princess needed her own team to do anything.

There were times, in these two months – three weeks, five days, or is it six now ? – that Suki thought back to this moment and almost felt pity for the Princess and her friends, in the aftertaste of her resentment. How miserable they must be, she would think, to not trust the other at their back.

Now all she feels is rage and dread, a cold fire that threatens to burn her down, to break her when nothing did before. Suki held on thanks to the certainty that she would get out someday, that someone would come and give her the chance to fight back.

That knowledge was her strength. Her backbone. Her feet, rooted in the ground, stable no matter what, no matter how long – two months, three weeks, six days – she would have to wait.

She knows Sokka will come for her someday. Knows she won't be left behind.

She told the Princess exactly that. It was defiance, a rejection of the hopelessness presented to her, and it was – a terrible mistake.

Suki is no trophy anymore. She is no prisoner anymore.

She is a hostage.