Azula stirred slowly and lazily. It had been a while since she actually had a good night of sleep. When she opened her eyes, it took her a while to recognize where she was – in Sokka's room. Oh, right… She looked around and found the Water Triber sleeping in the couch in the corner of the room in a not very comfortable position. The Princess found herself smiling while looking at him, and quickly shook her head. What's the matter with you, Azula?
She stood up and left the room to get ready for the day. After a while, Sokka woke up. For a minute, he wasn't sure if the Princess actually slept there, but then he saw the messy bed and the bowl of fireflakes she had eaten. And why would he sleep in the couch anyway? He remembered the night ended up to be quite fun and the Princess looked less stressed out in the end of the night, and that made him feel good. Why do you even care that much? Sokka sighed and started to get ready himself too.
One hour later, the Royal family (and Sokka) was in the dinner room having breakfast.
"Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors are coming in a few days. I'm sure they will help us to investigate what's happening here." Zuko spoke, hoping to let everyone calmer.
Azula was as always trying to be as cold and as reasonable about that as she could.
"Good." She began. "But I don't think we should wait for them. I know this Palace better than anyone, we could start the investigation immediately." Azula looked around to see if the guards were too close and spoke in a lower tone. "We certainly need to start with the guards… and the servants. We can-"
"Azula, no." Zuko cut her off, and frowned at her. "This is too dangerous. You are the one they want and you are going after them?"
"So? You know I'm good at this. And we shouldn't lose time anymore."
"Now you don't want to lose more time, but when the first attack happened you didn't even want me to do anything!" Zuko raised his voiced, frustrated with his sister.
"Well, Zuko, I guess I changed my mind." Azula kept her calm tone though. "So, I'm going to use some of the secret passages today after-"
"Azula, I said no." He cut her off again and Azula glared at him, starting to get really mad.
Sokka was observing the siblings from the other corner of the table a little tense. It was never pretty to see these two fighting. And the truth was he could easily understand both of their sides. He sighed, that was when Ursa intervened in the discussion.
"Azula," Her mother's voice was soft, but it wasn't hard to tell that Ursa was really nervous. "Things already aren't easy, please, don't make it worse by putting yourself in a risky situation. Also, you shouldn't be questioning your brother's decision."
Suddenly the whole room was quiet. Zuko looked alarmed to Ursa then to Azula, expecting to see his sister snap in a second. Even though Azula quickly glared at Ursa in a deadly way, she didn't do anything. Actually she was quiet for a moment before saying:
"I guess there is nothing else to be said, then." She said codly, and stood up.
"Azula, you barely ate…" Ursa spoke in a motherly concerned tone now.
"I've lost my appetite." Azula said harshly, and then gave her mother a disgusted smile, before leaving the room.
Sokka followed Azula down the corridor and gave her a worried look.
"Are you okay?" He sounded concerned.
"Fine. Now, which secret passage should we take to listen what's going on in the guard's chambers?" Azula said to herself, while she stopped and turned around to face Sokka.
"What?! I thought you were not doing this!" Sokka looked terrified to her.
"Shh… Of course, I'm doing it. It's just easier not to argue with my mother." She rolled her eyes.
When Azula turned around to keep walking, she gasped when she saw Kiyi standing in front of her. Sokka's eyes widened. Now things would get ugly. Azula would get busted and would probably make Kiyi suffer for it later… He didn't even want to see it.
"Okay, Kiyi, listen…" Azula started calmly, but her little sister cut her off quickly.
"If you want a good place to spy on the guards, you should take the tunel behind the big paint of Sozin. There are some air passages there, you can see and listen to everything clearly." The little girl's voice sounded as she was talking about her dolls or some childish game. Then she looked up to Azula with a sweet smile.
Sokka's jaw dropped, it didn't expect this. Azula smirked at her little sister, grabbed Sokka by the arm and started walking to the place Kiyi had mentioned. She laughed when she saw that Sokka looked startled.
"She really likes to explore the Palace. And don't worry she won't tell anyone." Azula said, smiling.
"Yeah… Good thing she is a nice kid…" He still looked really confused.
"Ha! Nice? She will probably ask me something in return later. Here, that's the paint." Azula pulled the paint to the side and warmed up the wall behind it, opening a doorway. "Are you coming?"
"Uh, what? Of course I am…" He frowned to her.
"Since Zuko doesn't know I'm doing this, you know you don't need to come, right?" She shrugged.
Sokka didn't know what to say. She certainly had a point, but he couldn't let her alone, could he? The assassin could appear again and caught her out of guard! He didn't know when he started caring about her like this, but he knew he couldn't bare thinking of her getting hurt.
"So, you are coming or not, Sokka?" Azula crossed her arms, looking at him impatiently.
"Uh, yeah… I mean, it's better than doing in nothing in this boring Palace." He gave her a fake laugh.
They walked into the passage and Azula made a small blue flame with one hand. The tunnel gave Sokka the shivers, it was dark and wet and he could see some creep insects in the corners.
"How isn't Kiyi afraid of a place like this?" He started walking closer to Azula.
The Princess gave him a mocking look.
"Why, is it too scary?" She asked with sarcasm, and laughed a little at his face.
"No!" He made a grimace to her. "Just… it doesn't look like a place a child would like to come!"
"I always wandered through this tunnels when I was younger…"
"Of course you did…" Sokka sighed and shook his head.
It took a while until they find the air passages, Kiyi was right they could see and listen to everything from the guard's chamber there.
"Smart kid…" Azula whispered. "I had totally forgotten this place!"
However, there was nothing interesting going on there. There were some men in the room talking about trivial things, others playing Pai Sho. Azula rolled eyes.
"This can take a while." She sighed. "Let's stay here for a couple of hours, if nothing happens, we came back tomorrow."
Azula keep spying inside the room looking for something suspect. Sokka on the other hand was looking to the Princess, he smiled when he realized she was standing on tiptoe to be able to see through air passage on the wall. It was funny how someone so small could be so powerful and terrifying. However, she didn't terrify him anymore, at least not how she used to. Suddenly, he felt anxious. What if he wasn't able to protect her? What if something actually happened to her? That terrified him. Sokka would never say it out loud, but the truth was he wasn't doing this for Zuko anymore, he was doing it because he wanted to. He didn't know why though… What is it really possible that he was developing feelings for the Princess? That's ridiculous…
"What?" Azula suddenly asked.
Sokka didn't realize he was looking at Azula for a long time now. She was now facing him confused.
"Uh… Nothing, nothing. " He shook his head, coming back to reality. "Do you want me to take your place there for a while?"
"Okay." She shrugged and stepped back.
Sokka started looking through the wall, still feeling a little nervous. Alright, you are overthinking this. You just don't want anything to happen to her, because you are a nice guy, or probably because you spent too much time with Aang, who always wants to save everyone. That's it.
"Uh…" He began, trying to distract himself. "Can I ask you something, Princess?"
"What?" She was leaning against the wall, with her arms crossed. "Keep your voice down…"
"Fine. Hm, actually, I've always been curious about this for a while. What made you came back? I mean, to the Palace. And how did you even become Zuko's adviser? I think no one understands that." He looked at her frowning.
She gave him a weak laugh.
"Keep your eyes on the guards."
"Oh, sorry." He replied quickly.
"Alright, I will tell you…" Azula sighed. "I guess no one except Zuko knows about it, but it's not a great story. It was a really silly one to be honest." She smiled at his confused look. "Don't take your eyes off them!" She gave him small push on the arm.
"Okay, okay… Now tell me."
She rolled her eyes.
"Fine. You remember how I and the other girls were the Kemurikage, right?"
"Yeah!" Sokka exclaimed. "What happened to them anyway?"
"I still keep in touch with some of them…" Azula answered with a smile, then she shook her head. "Don't make me ramble. So, during that time, you know, we were doing some things for the nation, against Zuko's will of course… But well, I guess I was finally doing something that was really my choice, you know? And that made me happy... But one day, Zuko found me, and he said he wanted to talk me, as he always did when we met. I was expecting him to say something like he wanted to help me or that I should stop what I was doing immediately… But he didn't." Azula smiled weakly. "He simply asked me to come back home. He asked me, not commanded. And he told me I wouldn't be a prisoner and I would be free to leave again whenever I wanted to. I never knew why exactly he did that, but I guess it was part of his plan to have a 'perfect family'." She shrugged. "But the thing is, it was only there that I realized I really missed home… and being a Princess and everything. So, I agreed, telling him it was only going to be temporary… But here I am one year later." She sounded a little embarrassed at this last part. "Oh, and I became his adviser after a while, because, you know, Zuko can't handle a charge like this by himself." Now she just sounded really proud of herself.
"Wow, " Sokka was amazed. "I didn't know I was so easy…"
She laughed.
"I told the story was silly…"
"It's not silly!" He objected. "It's just… I remember when Zuko told us that he wanted to bring you back home, but we always believed it was impossible. And then when you actually were back home and, you know, not threatening anyone's life, I thought he had brainwashed you in some way!"
Azula laughed again.
"Well, I guess I can't blame you. Now, let me look through the wall again, if something does happens, you will end up missing it." She pushed him away.
Two hours later they were back to the Palace's corridors. Azula was frustrated.
"Nothing. There was nothing. Nothing odd, no one acting weirdly, no suspicious talk. Nothing!" She groaned. "I just made both of us waist our times in that disgusting place."
"Calm down, Azula, it wasn't that bad. And you didn't think it would be that easy to find out something, did you?" Sokka was walking besides her, trying to make her feel better.
"I know, I know… It's just too frustrating. Maybe next time we try it with the servants." She sighed, and rolled her eyes.
Nothing happened the whole day. But Azula avoided being around her mother the best she could. Sokka could notice that the talk in the morning really bothered her, but he didn't have courage to ask. And since she spent half of the day at firebending training and then dealing with paperwork, he didn't have much time to talk to her.
At night on that very day, Azula and Sokka were walking to Zuko's office, she said she wanted to talk to him about the event that was happening in a few weeks to commemorate three years since the end of the war. But when they were really close to the doorway, Azula stopped as she heard her mother's voice coming from inside. The woman sounded stressed out and apprehensive.
"The problem, Zuko, is that she only does what she wants. How can we be sure that she actually listened to you?"
"Mom, calm down, okay? Azula won't do anything wrong. And she was just trying to help… In her own way." Zuko replied.
"That's what I'm trying to say, Zuko, it always has to be her way. Don't you know? What if she does something dangerous?"
"I will talk to her again then, if that makes you feel better."
"It's hard to feel better when you know one of your children can be killed at any moment. Oh, I'm sorry, my dear, I didn't want to worry you more." Ursa's voice was gentler now. "Your Uncle is right, that's probably someone Azula wronged in the past. And you knew not everyone would be happy knowing she became your adviser…"
"Well, mom, what could I do?" Zuko asked in despair. "They need to accept things change, right?"
Ursa didn't say anything.
"Wait… y-you don't think she should be working with me, do you?" Zuko asked in a low voice now, sounding almost scared.
Azula froze. Neither she nor Sokka moved or said anything. They just stood there, listening to the rest of the conversation.
"Oh, Zuko, I know you are really generous and you want to help your sister, but this was too much. You should at least have waited more. And still, Azula is so unpredictable to a job like this, and she spent so much time with Ozai..." Ursa whispered the last part, it was like she didn't want to say their father's name out loud. "I'm glad nothing went wrong until now, but it was just a matter of time… "
"Mom, please…" Zuko tried to say something, but Ursa spoke again.
"And now I don't know what is more disturbing the fact that something can happen to Azula or that she can go out of control because of this!"
Sokka was so shocked he couldn't do anything. This was so wrong! Why would Ursa say something like this? And the worst part… Azula was listening to it! Sokka felt his chest tightening as he watched her face. All the strength and control she was trying to put together until now seemed to be melting away, while tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Azula…" He tried to say.
But suddenly Zuko and Ursa stopped talking. Shit, they heard me.
"Sokka? Is that you?" Zuko asked to the corridor.
Azula gasped, and before anyone could say anything else, the Princess just ran away as quickly as she could.
A/N:
Thank you guys for the reviews! This chapter wasn't supposed to end like this, but it would be too long, so I decided to split it up. I will update soon though! Reviews are always more than welcomed ;)