Gladiator

by Seyary-Minamoto

In a world where the Avatar wasn't found, the Fire Nation took over two nations and they strive to overcome the last one. Water Tribe warrior Sokka seeks to fight for his people's rights, but he's captured by his enemies. His life is no longer in his hands as he fights as a Gladiator, and his fate will eventually depend on the Fire Nation Princess, who needs him for her own ends...

285. Chapter 285: Family Reunion-Str Bonds 3

Family reunion/Strengthening bonds

3

He woke with an unpleasant start in the dark room, ever twitching at the mix of all sorts of unpleasant odors barely masqueraded by a poor layer of perfume. No doubt, some of the stench had to emanate from his own body, from the bottles left by the bedside. Three finished, one almost done…

"Finally awake? Was about damn time you got up. I'll have my first customers in thirty minutes. Meant to stick around and watch, did you?"

Zhao snarled, rubbing his eyes as he pushed himself to an upright sitting position. He most definitely didn't care to watch anything, let alone did he have it in him to become Aiko's first customer of the day, right after being the last one of the previous night… to a fault.

"I'd ask if you want to join in, but if you weren't up for it last night, can't see how you'd be up for it this morning," Aiko continued, her dismissive drawl ever grating on his nerves. It could be a charming sound sometimes, tempting even… not lately, though. Especially not last night, and not this morning, either. "I'd think you're trying to stay loyal to the wife if only you hadn't visited Hong Qu so many times after you were wed in the first place. Trouble in paradise sends you running for the nearest brothel, apparently… or the nearest bottle, maybe?"

"It sends me running, outright. I had nowhere else to go but here," Zhao snapped. Aiko laughed, glancing at him skeptically from over her shoulder. She stood before an old dresser, already clad in suggestive clothes, fixing her hair.

"Ah, because the tavern and the other houses won't take you anymore?" she asked, amused. "How I love knowing I'm your very last resort, Zhao, dear…"

"The other girls don't talk as much as you do," Zhao grumbled.

"Well, of course! They're only there to get paid to play doormats for you, whereas I can turn your world upside down even out of bed, more so once we're in it," Aiko smiled, though the grin soured quickly as she shrugged in his direction. "Though not when you're as pitifully drunk as you were last night. Honestly, what a sorry spectacle you made of yourself, crying and whining all over the place when we could've been having sex instead…"

"I wasn't in the mood, and neither were you," Zhao said. Aiko snorted.

"You think I have to be in the mood? This is my bloody job, you idiot. You have to be in the mood to butcher northern savages whenever you're deployed by the Fire Lord? Damn unprofessional you are, Admiral Zhao, if that's the case."

He scoffed at her mockery, and Aiko only let out a soft laugh. Of course she was in a good mood: his fee after spending the night would likely be monstruous. The one thing that truly moved Aiko was money, although she scarcely made any use of it. Lady Meili controlled everyone's income in her house, only occasionally allowing her girls – whether they were younger than Rei or scarcely a few years younger than Zhao himself, they were all 'her girls' – a chance to waste money on frivolities. No one had savings in the Scarlet Oasis, no one could buy their way out of service, not after they sold themselves to the whorehouse in the first place. They wouldn't lack food, clothing or a roof over their heads anymore… but they wouldn't own anything, not even their very bodies, for as long as they lived. What could have seemed an unacceptable trade-off for countless people, however, sat just fine with Aiko and some of the other women who had willingly entered those terms of employment established by Lady Meili.

"So stiff and humorless now… guess the rest really did you good, you were a whimpery whiny mess last night," Aiko said, shaking her head. "I do like you better this way. Much manlier."

Zhao frowned, averting his gaze from the woman, letting his eyes travel towards the window. Dawn had broken by then and he suspected he'd be chased by Lady Meili out of her fine establishment any moment now, unless he decided to invest further coin to spend time with Aiko. He could have done so just to spite the woman who had been his occasional lover for many years: keeping her out of business for the whole day, making her suffer through his complaints and rants over his current circumstances… she'd certainly have to eat her words about her alleged professionalism if he did that. Yet he didn't want to stay here talking with Aiko… he never did. The excitement she had once elicited inside him, back when they had been much younger, was well and truly gone by now. She was but a source of familiarity these days, someone he could turn to whenever nothing else would do. She didn't seem to have any particular affection for him – or for anyone, for that matter –, hadn't since the early years of their dalliances… but that had been a very different time. Driven by lust and recklessness, Zhao had indeed invested a lot more money in this whorehouse than in the others, spending the days of his shore leave frequently entwined with the voracious woman who finally had finished fixing her hair to her satisfaction. Next came the jewelry, Zhao remembered… all cheap pieces, faking to be the real thing, intended to conjure an atmosphere of dignity that nothing in this house could truly evoke.

"Now, then, get lost. Unless you really want to revisit the good old days of staying cooped up in this room with me, which I suspect you aren't, as you were much quicker at shutting me up back then…" Aiko said, raising her eyebrows expectantly in his direction.

"What if I were?" Zhao asked, with another dismissive huff. "If I paid you to listen to my endless woes…"

"You wouldn't be so cruel. Not even you," Aiko said, mockingly. Zhao couldn't hold back a slight smile, shaking his head afterwards. "Frankly, I don't understand why you came here in the first place. I'm not a counselor of some sort, damn you. Want someone you can pay to talk their ear off? Find them somewhere else."

"I came here because… because you're her mother," Zhao huffed. Aiko scoffed.

"Why's that supposed to mean anything to me?" she asked, dismissively.

"Children… are better off with their mothers, that's what people always seem to believe," he said. Aiko laughed, hands on her hips.

"No doubt that's what you thought when you decided to take her away to live in your golden palaces!" she said, amused. "Now you think she'd be better off with me? Why would that brat need a mother anymore anyway? She's bound to be fully grown by now, isn't she?"

"She's… seventeen, still," Zhao said, frowning. Aiko scoffed again.

"She's well past being a child, no matter what the laws say," she growled. "I already told you so last night, and I won't change my mind: you're NOT bringing Rei back here. We're fully staffed. She's meek and plain enough that she wouldn't get much attention, but I'm not interested in sharing my workload with anyone else."

"Competitive even with your own daughter…?"

"Need me to ask again why that's supposed to mean anything to me?" Aiko snapped. "She's just another woman in the end, her parents don't matter one bit, just as much as my parents don't matter one bit. You're not bringing her back here unless you want me to kick her out to the street as soon as you take off."

"You… you could do that, I guess," Zhao mumbled, though a pang of guilt struck his gut when he uttered the words. He sighed, shaking his head. "How about if I take her to another brothel, then? That'd be okay, if she's not competition under your same roof?"

"That'd be none of my business," Aiko shrugged. "Means nothing to me, I said."

"You'd be fine with it, then? With…" Zhao asked, biting his lip.

Oh, was he for real? Was he really thinking of doing this? The minute he had laid eyes upon the young teenager when he had first met her, his heart had nearly stopped upon realizing she was his daughter, the product of a long period of time during his shore leave spent in this very room. He had been dispatched too often afterwards, seldom visiting the Capital for anything but official business, worse yet after Ozai had become Fire Lord and Zhao had slowly risen into his fateful position as the leading officer of the navy. By then, spending time in such places should have been out of the question…

But when he had returned from the North, he had an unexpected urge to visit Aiko. He had wondered if she'd still be there, hoping to dazzle her with his growth over the course of the fourteen years they had spent without seeing each other, and he had certainly needed to unwind after a tiresome period of getting his personal business in order.

He had asked Aiko to confirm his suspicions about Rei immediately after meeting her, and Aiko had been as dismissive and impersonal with Rei as she was right now. Imagining the woman had nursed Rei or looked after her in any capacity was… well, difficult to the point of impossible. Zhao suspected Lady Meili had been more of a mother to Rei than Aiko, and that wasn't the right term for it anyway: Rei had swept the floors, cooked occasional meals – and then been scolded for doing it wrong –, washed piles of laundry, and she wasn't allowed any respite or complaints, for if she dared ask for any form of leniency, the punishment would be an even more unforgiving workload…

He would have felt bad about seeing any child in such a position. That she was his child, however, his own flesh and blood… Aiko had said she wasn't even sure he was the father, that she had no idea who it might be, but Zhao suspected otherwise. It wasn't only the recklessness of their youth… it was the fact that Lady Meili had no doubts the girl was his daughter, much as Zhao himself believed so. She had refused to hand Rei over to him at first, intending to keep her in the brothel while demanding that Zhao paid for the girl's lodging and meals if he so cared for her. He had paid her a large sum instead, enough to make Lady Meili's eyes gleam with greed and make her forget her previous demands… and so, Zhao had taken Rei home with him, relieved not only over having removed her from the dreadful environment of the Scarlet Oasis, but over having ensured the young girl wouldn't be fully initiated either. If that had happened, even twice as big a sum wouldn't have sufficed for Lady Meili to let go of Rei, in all likelihood. Once they were initiated, once they had first served, they were stuck there forever much as Aiko was, whether they'd done it willingly or not.

All of it had brought Zhao to suspect that Rei's existence was no accident. He had been a cocky, up and coming official in the armies of the Fire Nation at the time. He hadn't been the only soldier to frequent such facilities, of course not… but the others didn't have a personal friendship with one of the Fire Lord's sons. Even if Ozai was the second Prince, nowhere near as admired as Iroh had been before, Lady Meili had spotted an opportunity when Zhao, so loud-mouthed and careless as he'd been, had confessed to being friends with the second Prince. In all likelihood, she had commanded Aiko to forsake her birth control measures whenever Zhao came to visit… and after those visits of multiple weeks, it seemed only reasonable, only logical, that Rei would be his child. She was meant, back then, as a means through which they could blackmail as much money out of him as they could get… and they got a massive sum of it anyway. Where had the money gone, he wondered? Clearly, not into the improvement of the infrastructure of the place, or into supplying the prostitutes with better beds or even new sheets… even during his occasional visits after taking Rei away to his estate, he had detected no difference in that respect and it remained that way still. Perhaps Lady Meili simply had blown off the money on personal fun for herself, sharing none of it with her girls… selfishness was this locale's policy, after all. Thus, it had always seemed a rather straightforward place to Zhao. Agreeable, even, until the consequences of said policy had finally affected him personally.

Maybe bringing Rei back here really was a bad idea. But taking her elsewhere… that could do the trick. He would visit on occasion, to confirm she was doing well… if she had adapted to every change he had flung into her life so far, surely she'd do fine now, too. She'd be far better off than by playing the meek-mannered, dutiful, poor maid to the wretched woman he loathed to call his wife…

She was using him, in countless ways. Not only was she using him as a smokescreen before she delivered her half-breed aberration, but she also used him as means through which she could endear herself to her father once again, after all this time. The more strife and dissent she sowed between Zhao and Ozai, the better her chances at regaining power… no matter what she said, no matter what she claimed, that had to be her ultimate goal. Yet her blatant declaration that she would have gone about getting rid of him far more effectively, if that was what she wanted… it confirmed his only role in her charade was to play the naïve brute of a husband who didn't realize his sleazy wife was carrying another man's child. She would have had him killed somehow already if he didn't serve that purpose, and she was already gathering forces to do so. The damn guard, Renkai… he had tried to hold back Zhao from entering his alleged room in the Palace the last times he had visited. What right did he have to do such a thing? None, of course, but naturally, Azula had charmed him, too… just as she had charmed Rei with her pretense of worrying over the weak and downtrodden.

"Didn't even give a damn when I compared her to her mother…" Zhao mumbled out loud, without his awareness.

"What was that?"

"N-nothing, nothing. Never mind, I…"

"Did you even hear me before, damn it?" Aiko scowled. "You were staring into space with that utterly stupid look on your face again, Zhao: I said I don't mind at all. Do with the girl whatever you wish, she's none of my concern anyway. I didn't want her to begin with."

"Then you shouldn't have had her," Zhao huffed, rising to his feet. Aiko smiled.

"Yes, that we can agree on: I shouldn't have," she said. "A true leave of my senses… or of Lady Meili's senses, if anything, making me keep her. Bet she just thought it'd be good to train her up in case any of the older ones went down with disease… but there's always newcomers. No point in wasting time and resources feeding a brat who can just get whisked away whenever her rich father shows up…"

"Almost starting to sound like you want her here, after all."

"Quit twisting my words into your pitiful fantasy of a pretty, happy family if that's what you're thinking. If you want to play house, go back to your fancy, regal wife, why don't you?"

"I don't have any fantasies of the sort," Zhao rebuffed, and Aiko grinned in delight for his words. "Never have, never will. Hence why I'm here, rather than there."

"Well, then, if you really are done playing the sensitive bastard, make sure the next time you come you bring less of that," Aiko said, pointing at the bottles scattered by the floor. "And instead, more of this…"

Aiko reached for Zhao's groin: her fingers were forcefully stopped only inches away from touching him, and Zhao glared at her pointedly as he held her wrist firmly. She, of course, was only amused.

"Still sensitive, I see? All the more reason you should get the hell out, then. You're no fun," she said, pulling her hand back. "Make sure you pay Lady Meili, will you?"

Zhao rolled his eyes, storming out of the room and slamming the door behind him. His aggressive behavior usually was but a matter of bravado to amuse Aiko: now that he was apparently serious with it, she found herself even more amused than usual. To think the great Admiral Zhao, now Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, had reached such lows…

She could only giggle to herself as she gathered the bottles, already suspecting she'd see Zhao again soon enough. If he truly was sowing such discontent in the taverns he visited, in the other brothels he frequented, too, it was only a matter of time before he returned…

"… Hey! HEY! You piece of shit, you bastard, get back here! You didn't pay for…! ZHAO!"

Aiko raised an eyebrow upon hearing Lady Meili's characteristic, hysteric screams. He hadn't paid in full? Or was it he hadn't paid at all…?

Well, then. Maybe she wouldn't see him again anytime soon, actually.

Zhao huffed as he marched across the bay area's streets without looking back. Lady Meili wouldn't give him chase all the way back to the Palace, he knew… he'd just pay her properly the next time he came. He had spent all the money he'd been holding on the drinks he'd purchased and taken with him to Aiko's room… he would have had more on him, but his latest chaotic visit to the Palace had seen to it that he had failed to do any of what he'd intended to do. Instead of cleaning up, gathering clothes and money, he had marched to the Fire Lord's study after his clash with Azula, intending to ask if it was true, if Sokka was truly dead now… but then he had turned back, furious, realizing it made no difference whether he was or wasn't. What he truly wanted, what he truly needed, was to set himself free of Azula's web of manipulations for once and for all.

He wasn't sure he'd succeed at it just yet… but taking Rei away from Azula, now that she seemed to be so attached to her, would certainly serve as a powerful blow against the arrogant Princess. As for Rei's wellbeing… it was a shame, truly, having to return her to the world he had removed her from, right before she had laid true roots in it. But perhaps that was simply her destiny, in the end. Better a prostitute than becoming the Princess's latest plaything. What little fatherly concern he could feel for the girl knew Rei would be worse off, far worse off, the longer she spent with that scheming, vicious, dangerous woman…

So he marched onwards, brow furrowed as he strode purposefully to the main streets, his feet guiding him to the Royal Palace.

---

Climbing the steps of the Capital's temple was always a chore, but Azula felt slightly victorious upon finding she had done it more quickly than the last time she had visited the location, and without wearing herself out as badly as she had back then. Her chest heaved regardless, as the morning sun proved every bit as merciless as it did by noon, but she found she welcomed its warmth for the first time in what felt like forever. She swept away some of the beads of sweat that had trickled down her forehead before turning to check on her companions.

"You two alright?" she asked: Song and Rei, breathing heavily, nodded and smiled.

"That's… a lot of stairs," Rei said, with a shy smile. "But I'm okay."

"Well, you probably look better than I did, the last time I climbed them," Azula said, with a weak grin of her own. "Guess Renkai can confirm that. He kept standing behind me, fearing I'd fall over while I climbed…"

Renkai probably blushed under his helmet, tensing up once Azula mentioned him. He cleared his throat before speaking, softly.

"If… if I am allowed to be honest, then yes. Compared to you that day, they certainly don't look quite so…"

"Weak? Fragile?" Azula finished for him. Renkai lowered his head. "I suppose Wen's latest walking regime has been good for me after all."

"Good to know," Song smiled, stepping forward to admire the Temple's entrance. "Guess you shouldn't need another walk after all this exercise today, but…"

"But I think I'll take one anyway," Azula said, softly. "I'm thinking… well, regardless of how things go today, it might be a good idea to introduce Rei to Xin Long."

"Ah? That sounds nice," Song grinned, and Azula smiled back.

"T-to… your dragon?" Rei asked, stepping forward, cheeks flooded with color upon hearing those words. "Are you sure? A-am I allowed to…?"

"Well, for that matter, I'm not allowed to see him, myself… but if we can stop by the refuge, I'd think introducing you to Xin wouldn't be a terrible idea… unless you don't want to?" Azula said, with a smile. Rei's bright eyes answered that particular question all on their own. "Hmm. Definitely looks like you don't want to-…"

"I do! Oh, I do, I…!" Rei gasped, and Azula laughed softly, patting her maid's back gently.

"Then the sooner we're done with this, the sooner we can get to it," she said, smiling kindly at the young woman before marching inside the Temple's main building.

Rei breathed out slowly as she stepped after the rest of the group. Wen lagged behind to keep up with her, though Rei was quick to realize that, unlike her, Wen's gaze wasn't charged with amazement over the grandeur of the building, far less unpleasant than the Palace's daunting architecture, in Rei's opinion…

"Have you been here before?" she asked Wen, softly. Wen offered her a pained smile but nodded.

"Yeah… a couple of times. Feels like a lifetime ago, but… it wasn't that long ago at all," she whispered. Rei bit her lip, and Wen laughed before shaking her head. "Don't worry about it right now, alright? I'll probably have to explain things properly to you in the future, but for now… for now, we should focus on you, huh? Ready to become, uh, well… a bit royal?"

"I…! N-no, no, I'm not… I-I mean, well, I did say I wanted to do this, b-but me? Royal?" Rei blushed wildly, eyeing Wen with unrestrained panic. "Y-you don't think the Fire Lord will be… upset about this?"

"I have no idea, to be honest," Wen said, with a shrug. "But Azula seems so sure about what she's doing that… I guess it'll be fine, somehow. I'm not sure how, exactly, but… hopefully."

Rei bit her lip but nodded: they had entered the building by then, and as ornate and beautiful as it might be, Rei found the lack of lighting rather confusing. If this was the Fire Nation, why didn't these glorious buildings feature more lamps that, in a way, celebrated fire while letting people admire their surroundings better? It boggled the mind… though she did realize that the lack of lighting meant she wouldn't be so easily distracted from what was happening by detailing the building properly: Princess Azula had spoken to a sage by then, with Renkai standing beside her. The sage raced down the corridors quickly after the Princess was done expressing her intent, just when Wen and Rei reached them.

"The Head Sage should be with us shortly," Azula announced, turning to Rei with another reassuring smile.

"Huh… are you sure it's okay for us to do this, well, so openly?" Song asked, softly. Azula raised an eyebrow in her direction. "I kind of thought any random sage would do. Isn't the Head Sage kind of a dangerous person to visit without the Fire Lord's approval…?"

"Oh, sure, if I were up to anything nefarious," Azula said, with a smirk. "But I'm just here to adopt Rei. If the Fire Lord demands an explanation about what I've done, where's the harm in telling him as much?"

"Are you… sure?" Rei asked, gazing at Azula worriedly. "He won't think you're… doing something bad?"

"Bad? Taking in my husband's daughter as my own is a bad choice, now, by any chance?" Azula smirked. "I'm not going to push for you to be inducted into my father's council, let alone to be incorporated into the succession line, if that's what you're worried about. He'll have no reason to complain about this: I'm doing something that, in his eyes, should mean I'm welcoming his newly chosen Crown Prince and his progeny into the fold of our regal family…"

"But… Admiral Zhao won't see it that way," Rei said, softly.

"Zhao won't have a stronger say upon anything involving you than I do, from this day onwards," Azula said, softly. Rei's heart sped up upon hearing those words. "You'll be an adult, free to make your own choices, within a few months, right? Consider this your starting point of preparation for that moment in your life, if anything."

"I… I'll try," Rei smiled, nodding in Azula's direction. Azula grinned back.

Moments afterwards, the halls of the temple echoed with the approaching voices and footsteps of a group of sages. Azula turned towards them to find the Head Sage led the group: he strode towards the visitors purposefully, though his face was riddled with confusion. His many assisting sages bowed down respectfully in Azula's direction, no doubt surprised to see her in their Temple again, a long time after she last visited it without masquerading as a guard.

"Princess… I didn't receive any notice that you'd come today," the Head Sage spoke, with a smile that still didn't do away with his apparent confusion. "Is everything well? Do you require another chi-reading, perhaps…?"

"Not quite, though if you wish to do one for good measure, I'll appreciate it," Azula said, graciously. "I'm here over another order of business today, in fact."

"Would you wish to discuss it privately?" The Head Sage asked. "We can speak personally in my study, if you'd like…"

"We could, but it's bound to be unnecessary. I may need you to do some work for me today, so the sooner I explain myself, the better," Azula said, with a weak smile. "I have a few questions, first… then, I'd have a request, if the answers are the ones I expect and hope for."

"Ah? Well, then, ask away," the Head Sage said, intrigued.

"As far as I've understood, though I've seldom witnessed it personally, children in Fire Nation settlements are presented at the local temple sometime after their birth," Azula started. "The parents will present the child at the temple, traditionally… and the child's birth is then recorded in the Fire Nation's annals. Yes?"

"That is correct, Princess," the Head Sage said, nodding. "You saw some of those records yourself, remember? When you sought to track down the members of that initiative you started, the… the Rehabilitation Center, was it? I remember we received birds from you in the Temple, requesting copies of some of those documents… though unfortunately, we couldn't find everyone right away."

"And then I had to track down the records of destroyed villages and the sort, as best I could, unless there were no records left altogether, lost somewhere or another," Azula finished, with a nod. "The records served me quite well back then. But I meant to ask about this for another reason: if, for instance, a child loses one of their parents, or the parents negotiate a settlement for separation, and the remaining parent remarries: would it be possible for the new spouse of one of those parents to become a legal guardian for the child from the previous relationship? Would it be necessary to hold a procedure of any sort so that the new parent could, well, adopt the child fully, or is it taken for granted that the child is now their stepchild?"

"Ah… well, it can be taken for granted, I suppose, but there are records of the sort, yes," the Head Sage confirmed, nodding. "Adoption records are mostly used in the case of orphans, not so frequent when it comes to parents remarrying, but it has happened, too… is this about an investigation you're doing, perhaps? Do you need me to look into anyone's files, in case…?"

"Well, I'd appreciate it if you could find someone's file, yes, but this isn't a matter of investigation at all," Azula said, with a casual grin. "I want to adopt someone."

Rei, behind her, shrank in place as her face burned with the full force of her blush… even her ears seemed to be set alight upon hearing the Princess speaking to the Head Sage so easily about her adoption. Adopting someone who was so close to adult age was probably a very strange idea… would that be a problem? She glanced at the Head Sage nervously, to find the man appeared mystified over the Princess's words.

"Y-you wish to… uh, huh?" the Head Sage said, smiling a little. "I… did not expect to hear that at all. Are you certain of this, Princess?"

"Entirely," Azula said, nodding. "Though all that remains is to ask if I can adopt someone who isn't an orphan. She does have parents, but you see, I happen to be married to the father, so…"

Rei grimaced, biting her lip as she eyed the Head Sage nervously still. She hoped he'd say it was fine, that they didn't need Zhao's approval… goodness, the Princess truly didn't need to do this. She had no real reason to stand by Rei and protect her this way, and yet she wanted Rei to be an acknowledged member of her family, to this extent…

No one had ever wanted her that way before. Never had she felt she belonged anywhere, and frankly, she didn't think she belonged in that creepy Palace anyway… but she felt she had found a place by the Princess's side, all the same. For once, she had been with people who didn't look down on her or put her down at every chance they got… and all she could want, truly, was to stay by their side for as long as she could be. She meant something to someone, at last… and even if it felt too good to be true, Rei didn't wish to let go of that feeling of belonging, not for a moment.

"The… the father, then?" the Head Sage finally said, glancing at Azula again. "Admiral… Crown Prince Zhao?"

"I understand it's an unconventional situation, yes…" Azula said, raising an eyebrow. "I don't even know if he'd be on the record as the father, he may not have been part of the presentation ceremony anyway, so…"

"Well, even so, it's usually the local sage's duty to look up the identity of the missing parent, in any such case," said the Head Sage, raising an eyebrow. "If he does feature as the father, though… you certainly would be, by all effects, the child's stepmother already."

"So… we don't need Zhao's approval to make it official?" Azula asked. "That's my main concern, to be frank…"

"He married you. If he didn't wish you to be the stepmother of his offspring from previous relationships, surely he would have thought twice about it before agreeing to your nuptials," the Head Sage said, with a profoundly sarcastic voice. "It's not a problem whatsoever, in that respect. But… we will need to find the child's records in order to make it fully official. We'll redact a document, add it to the file, we can even send a copy back to the local temple to make sure they know, too, that you're the child's legal guardian now. It may take us some time, but it can be done, Princess. It can be done right away… today, if all goes well."

"Perfect," Azula smiled, nodding. Rei gasped behind her, unable to hide her smile behind the hands she brought to her mouth a moment too late to masquerade the grin.

"I… I take it this is the child in question?" the Head Sage asked, smiling kindly at the blushing Rei. "She isn't of adult age just yet, though, is she? She looks young, but when you reach my age, every young person looks far too young…"

"Really?" Azula asked, amused.

"You look like you're of similar age to me, I'm afraid, yes," the Head Sage laughed.

"She's seventeen, actually," Azula answered. "Not of age yet, but soon. Is that a problem?"

"Oh, no. Unconventional, no doubt, as children usually want to get away from all parental figures when they're that age," the Head Sage smiled, shaking his head. "But it's perfectly feasible and legally doable. Rest assured: you will be the girl's legal guardian by the time you leave this Temple today. What is her name, then? And the temple where she was presented, too: which was it?"

"U-uh… my name is Rei," the young maid spoke up, softly. "As for the temple… I-I don't really know. I lived in the Hong Qu district of Harbor City all my life, u-until, well…"

"Hong Qu…?" repeated the Head Sage, unable to suppress a grimace. "Well, goodness. Though… that's nearby anyway. We could send a bird to the local shrine there, in case we're lacking any records here. Hopefully, we won't be, but…"

"Is that possible?" Azula asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, when it comes to districts like Hong Qu… yes," the Head Sage admitted, with a weak nod. "The local sages always try to keep track of everything happening in the area, but it's certainly possible that something could have slipped their notice. Worse yet… if her father is a high-profile man like Crown Prince Zhao, it's possible they could have even, well…"

"Destroyed any such records? Perhaps there were no records of her birth in the local temple, to begin with?" Azula asked, raising her eyebrows. Rei flinched.

"It's… a hypothesis. A possibility," the Head Sage said, raising a placating hand in Azula's direction. "But that should be even less of a problem, in fact. If the girl has no record, and by all effects, wasn't presented at any temple or shrine upon birth, then that means…"

"She would have no legal parents," Azula finished. Rei tensed up behind her.

"And it would mean any adult, with the approval of the Temple's authorities, could very well present the child themselves," the Head Sage concluded, smiling. "Whether you're married to the Crown Prince or not would be utterly irrelevant in that scenario, even. You'd have actual custody of the child while he wouldn't, due to his negligence upon not presenting the girl at the temple at all."

Azula raised an eyebrow with unabashed interest and amusement. Rei's mood seemed to change and shift even more than that of the pregnant Princess right now: the Princess could be her sole guardian? Admiral Zhao would have no true legal power over her if she hadn't been presented at a temple at all…? Truth be told, Rei doubted she had been presented anywhere. She couldn't recall ever leaving the premises of lady Meili's brothel until Zhao had taken her away… a presentation at any temple would have happened before she had any awareness of her surroundings and circumstances, but the fact that nobody in the brothel had ever bothered to even tend to her when she was sick, or to take her to school, or teach her to do anything altogether… would they have bothered taking her to any temples to present her there? They might have if they had something to gain by doing so, but Rei wasn't sure they did…

"Well… do you think this is alright, Rei?" Azula asked: the girl raised her head quickly, her anxious brown eyes meeting Azula's golden ones. "I guess I'd share custody with Zhao if I have no other choice, but…"

"But if I have no records, t-then… you would be m-my… m-my…"

"Your mother?" Azula finished, with an awkward smile: a joyful laugh burst from Rei's lips. "I suppose so. A strange concept for us both to wrap our heads around, but…"

"I… I like it. I do, I… I think I've never heard anything better," Rei said, tears of joy blinking in her eyes. "Are you… are you sure you want to do this, Princess…?"

"I'm the one who thought about it in the first place," Azula smiled. "Your opinion is the one that matters at this point, Rei. I know it's all a blur and probably much crazier than anything you expected would happen to you once you wound up in the Palace, but…"

"If anything, I can't believe my luck," Rei laughed, smiling at Azula. "I… I want this. I think, f-for the first time in my life, I… I really want something."

"Is that so?" Azula smiled warmly, placing a hand on the girl's head. "Well, then… let's see to it that your first genuine wish comes true, shall we?"

Rei let out a soft burst of laughter, stepping forward, towards Azula… and spreading her arms to embrace her, burying her face in her right shoulder.

Tears threatened to pour down Azula's cheeks when Rei held her. A familiar sensation, soft and slow, stirred inside her chest when Rei hugged her. Merely two days ago, Azula's world had fallen apart in the worst possible manner… today, she found it felt stronger than it had in months: she had changed the life of the girl who clung to her so tightly, the girl who had been so shy and frightful when they had first met. Little by little, Rei herself had disregarded all protocol and social distance that should exist between them, she had done so by her own initiative… and Azula would be damned if she let moments such as these go to waste.

Her arms tightened around Rei too, and that feeling in her heart strengthened further. Much as a dragon's discovery had brought back her happiness, much as the man who was her perfect match had taught her how to love, and to let herself be loved in return… just like in those moments, when she had felt her world changing and shifting in subtle ways, it changed again now that a new feeling emerged inside her.

Though it wasn't that new. She had felt it before when she had discarded Mai's brew. When she had done the unthinkable to protect the child growing inside her.

Her body trembled as she embraced Rei tightly, and by now, the tears did spill down her cheeks. They were being watched by so many sages, by a surprised but approving Head Sage, by a relieved and protective Renkai, and by a smiling Song, with tears in her eyes as well… but the moment they shared felt unbreakable, regardless. Their bond had developed slowly, as far as Azula could tell, and yet it had been so damn fast and effective that she could barely imagine her future without Rei in it anymore.

What a mysterious thing motherhood was proving to be, Azula thought, as she held Rei tightly. She had one child in her arms… and another one nestled between the two of them, growing day after day inside Azula's womb, connected to its mother by a bond just as powerful as the one that now bound Azula and Rei, for as long as they might live.

---

Sokka hadn't truly intended to spend the better part of the day watching the horizon, sitting by the edge of the cliff, watching as the sea battered against the western Earth Kingdom's shores. Yet the longer he delayed his return to camp, the harder it was to walk back to the rest of the group. He guessed someone might come fetch him once everything was over, once Zuko had told his full story and Ursa finally knew why they were here and who they were.

Would Zuko dare explain everything, though? Sokka's heart clenched as he wondered if he might gloss over the truths behind his relationship with Azula out of uncertainty or discomfort. Hopefully he would have told Ursa about his own family, though, about Suki, Mari and Zi… would Ursa be proud of him for the man he had become? Sokka would already know the answer to that question if he hadn't walked away as he had…

He sighed, dropping his chin on his hand as he stared into the horizon again. He wasn't sure whether it was fair or warranted that he would feel so uncomfortable near Ursa when he had been the one to save her in the first place. Yet every time Azula had doubted her true worth, her very humanity, it seemed as though those doubts had been planted there by the heartbroken woman in Zuko's arms. It was so easy to understand Azula's grievances upon seeing them together: Sokka, Aang, Katara and Kino had been as good as intruders during the emotional reunion between mother and son… and Sokka had no doubts Azula would have felt even more out of place in the scene than he and the others had. Was that what her childhood had been like? Had Ursa been so caught in her relationship with Zuko that she hadn't realized she was overlooking her daughter? Had it been a matter of negligence, of too powerful an attachment to Zuko… or had it been worse than that? Azula's conviction of being a monster, that dark night in Ember Island, suggested as much…

Sokka sighed again, shaking his head. Azula had been a child, and that meant she might not have understood her mother's struggles and pressures. Just so, Ursa had failed to understand her daughter's needs, or, if she understood them, she had failed to act on them… his Princess deserved a loving mother, nothing would change that reality, but even so, Sokka found himself wondering now if perhaps there wasn't an actual villain in this story. Perhaps the conflict between mother and daughter was simply a matter of human mistakes, mistakes with severe consequences that could ripple into infinity.

Yet part of the problem, he knew, was that the similarities between Ursa and her daughter paralyzed him whenever he sensed them. It wasn't a matter of physical appearance alone, although that was what Azula had often been told: it was Ursa's reactions, her anguished expressions, the lost look in her eyes that compelled anyone to protect her… a look Sokka had only seen in Azula's own eyes. The more they resembled each other, the more his chest hurt, feeling that acute, bludgeoning pain born from Azula's absence, from his own fears regarding what she was facing while in Ozai's power… how could he be here, sitting by a fire with Azula's mother, when she was still so far away? When he missed her desperately still, even when he had bridged his spirit with hers a mere day ago…?

He'd stared at Azula's necklace for hours, wondering what to do. He had no right to push the others to keep moving, to keep searching… he had no right to ask Ursa the important questions yet. He had to give them time, to give himself time… to breathe and wait until everyone was ready to leave, until Ursa was ready to talk, which she clearly wasn't so far. And even when she was… even then, Sokka wasn't sure he would have the strength to say all the things he'd wanted to when he'd held a brokenhearted Azula in his arms. The merciless cruelty Azula faced right now at Ozai's hands made it so Ursa's harm to her daughter, intentional or not, would appear to be the lesser evil, no matter how harmful it had been at the time.

His thumb trailed over the ridges of the betrothal necklace, wishing she were here, as he ever did. Wishing he could stand by her side as Azula finally faced her mother, rather than facing Ursa by himself…

Rustling sounds in the trees and bushes behind him brought Sokka to frown: had Katara come to fetch him? Were they done yet, or did they just want his input on what to do next? Whichever it was…

"… You're sure you want to do this?"

Sokka's stomach sank when the voice he heard was Zuko's. And he didn't direct those words at Sokka.

"I'm just saying, if you don't want to do it alone, I…"

"I'll be fine, Zuko. I'll be fine."

Sokka's stomach clenched and twisted as he pocketed the necklace again: now he did feel like he should take a potty break, though he wasn't sure even that would help matters much when it came to the sudden, cold grasp of anxiety that had surged inside his chest. So… that was how it would be. Ursa, for whatever twisted reason, apparently hoped to talk to him alone. Sokka tensed up, trying not to shudder… trying to remain calm and collected, even though the would-be Fire Lady's words had worsened his earlier fears and uncertainties. He had kept his distance for good reason… he hoped Ursa had understood as much. If she simply wanted to thank him for saving her, she could have done it later… hence, she had likely come here for other purposes, whether Sokka liked that or not.

Ursa marched onwards, but her footsteps weren't accompanied by her son's. She stopped right at the edge of the trees, and then Sokka heard Zuko walking away, back to the camp, it seemed. Ursa truly had asked Zuko to lead her to him… she truly trusted him to remain civil throughout their private exchange. Either Zuko hadn't told her the full truth, or she was so far out of touch with the harm she'd caused her daughter… or was she completely aware of it, instead, and welcomed whatever Sokka might say as a form of retribution? Sokka frowned as he pondered which possibility might make the most sense as the woman stepped closer to the cliff's edge.

She took her seat at a fair distance from Sokka, legs folded in a lotus position. He dared glance at her, once again taking in the similarities with Azula… and the differences, too. Her hair was deep brown rather than black. The arch of her eyebrows slanted upwards, her nose was longer… her eyes seemed perpetually sad, too. The spark of mischievous intelligence in Azula's golden eyes was absent from Ursa's… much as her typical smirks seemed to have never graced her mother's face.

He tore his gaze away from her again, taking a deep breath as he wondered if he'd have to be the one to speak first: Ursa, so far, had simply taken her seat beside him, perhaps at a loss for how to talk to him. Well, it wouldn't be that hard to get started, anyway…

"He told you everything yet?" Sokka asked, blunt and to the point. Ursa's hand, upon her knee, trembled at the question.

"No," she said, softly. Sokka frowned. "Everything he could, yes, but… not everything. He believes that… that you may be better suited to explain certain things. But that's not why I… why I thought I should talk to you alone."

"Want no more explanations, then?" Sokka asked, almost dismissively. How ironic that the stories he could tell, the stories she seemed to reject right now, would be the ones that revolved around the daughter that had never felt loved by her…

"I do, but… there's much that needs to be done, first," Ursa whispered, glancing at Sokka with unease. "Zuko… realized it. Maybe you did, too. But I… I had seen you, before."

"You saw me? What, in a swamp vision?" Sokka asked, skeptical, but Ursa shook her head.

"I was told… I wasn't in the swamp's range anymore," she said. "But I had a dream, induced by the swamp, regardless of the distance. Then, all signs took me north, until… until I saw you, by the fire."

"What exactly…?" Sokka frowned, puzzled still. "When? Though, wait: can you tell me when this happened, or did you lose track of time too badly to know…?"

"I… I did," Ursa confessed, lowering her head. "Days and nights… they are but blurs, following each other repeatedly, until they're both one and the same. I don't know… I don't know when."

"You've really lost all sense of time, then?" Sokka asked, frowning. "Is that why you… why you thought Zuko sounded too old? Do you not know how long it's been?"

"I do, and yet… I don't," Ursa said, softly. "I felt each day and night acutely, before. When I first had to leave, I… I couldn't stop counting the days, every moment away from them. Waiting, pacing, crying, but overall, waiting, because… I believed I might return. I hoped… maybe he'd do something. Maybe he'd be able to, but… it never happened. And the longer I was away, the less likely it was that I'd ever come home to… to my family.

"Then I heard… I heard rumors. I heard of Zuko's banishment, of the Agni Kai, and I couldn't believe it. I rejected it, I refused it, and… and they believed me a lost case for it."

"They?" Sokka asked, raising his eyebrows. Ursa breathed deeply and nodded.

"They know you. I think… I think you know them, too," she said. Sokka grimaced, lowering his gaze.

"Then you really were with them? You were with the White Lotus, all along?" Sokka asked. Ursa swallowed hard.

"Not willingly. Not once I understood… once I understood who they were," she whispered. Sokka's brow drew together. "I… I wanted to leave. I tried to escape, but… I couldn't get far. Every time I tried, they… they'd find me, somehow. Eventually, I stopped trying."

"Yet you kept running to the swamp, as far as that guy told my sister and the others," Sokka pointed out. Ursa nodded.

"That… happened later. After… a-after the comet, at least I know that much," Ursa whispered. Sokka's eyes widened. "I don't know… don't know what happened, not entirely. Why we wound up there, I really don't, or why they weren't there before, I don't know, but… it's where they gather, where they make their plans. It's…"

"Their base. They took you to their base," Sokka finished. Ursa nodded. "After the comet, though? After… after the Earth Kingdom fell."

"I… I know which way it is," Ursa said, glancing at Sokka from the corners of her eyes. Sokka frowned. "But I don't know yet, if I… if I want to…"

"If you want to tell me where it is?" Sokka asked, blinking blankly. "Well, then, don't tell me, but tell Zuko instead…"

"No. I… I can't. I can't… talk to him this way," Ursa admitted, running her hands over her hair again. Sokka frowned heavily. "I want to, b-believe me, I do, but… I don't know where to start. I don't know how to tell him I… I did things he should never forgive me for. He looks at me like I'm… like he's delighted to have found me at last, when, in my absence, Ozai has… h-he has become a…"

"A monster?" Sokka finished for her, bitterly. Ursa's fingers tightened in her hair for a moment… then she released it, straightening her back once more. Tears had dripped down her cheeks, but she seemed to maintain her serenity as best she could.

"You won't believe me… maybe you shouldn't, when I say he wasn't always like this," Ursa whispered. "When I say that… that there was something good inside him, there was… there was kindness he kept muffling out until he snuffed it out of existence, I suppose…"

"Heh… I do believe you, actually," Sokka said, with a dry, sarcastic grin. "I also believe, just as well, that he's made every wrong choice he could in order to get rid of anything good he ever had left inside him, and he's done his best to destroy the only person left who ever… who ever cared about him, anyway. Whatever goodness he could've been capable of, he chose, for himself, to do the opposite thing, at every damn turn. So, if you think I can have any sympathy for him because of the good man you hoped he could be… well, I'm sorry. You came to the wrong guy."

"I didn't," Ursa whispered, and Sokka frowned. "It's fine if you think so. If anything… it makes sense that you would. Even I had my moments when… when I dreaded he would never live up to what I hoped he could be. My moments when I feared he'd… he'd become exactly like his father."

"Well, I don't know a lot about Fire Lord Azulon other than that he was a piece of shit who definitely deserved to die painfully…" Sokka said, bitterly. Ursa shuddered upon hearing those words, shooting him a wary glance that Sokka didn't notice. "But if he was even half as bad to Ozai as Ozai was to… to his own kids, one would think, heh, that Ozai would try to do better rather than repeating history all over again."

"One would, yes. That's what I often thought, as well," Ursa admitted. Sokka glanced at her with unease: she definitely sounded a lot more lucid right now than she had earlier… which led him to return to the question of what she had referred to before, anyway.

"You said you saw me sitting by a fire," Sokka said, and Ursa blinked back to focus upon his words. "I was only near the swamp… well, once, in the past. Earlier this year, actually. If you say it wasn't a vision… maybe you saw me when I was nearby. That's my best guess, anyway."

"You… you weren't alone," Ursa whispered, and again, she seemed profoundly shaken by the words she didn't seem all that willing to utter. The tranquility, the lucidity, with which she'd spoken moments ago seemed threatened by the complicated feelings she bore over the next words she meant to say to Sokka. "I… wasn't ready yet. I didn't want to accept… didn't want to believe time had passed at all. Even when I was told otherwise, I didn't want to, b-because… because I've already made enough mistakes. So many of them, so… so I was selfish and rejected the truth, all for my own sake, my convenience, my… my peace of mind. I knew it would do me no good, in the end, rejecting the truth, b-but I was… I just… I didn't want to face it. I didn't want to, I didn't…"

"Because you missed out on so much?" Sokka ventured a guess, unsure he should feel empathy towards Ursa, even if he couldn't help it. "Years would have gone by, and… and you weren't there to stop Ozai from becoming his worst self, or to help your children…?"

"I couldn't even… c-couldn't even make amends," Ursa said, clasping her head between her hands again. "For everything wrong I did, everything bad, I… I made mistakes, so many, and now it's too late to fix them, isn't it? It's… s-so many years have passed, it's so late t-that Zuko… he has a family now. He said… a wife, two daughters, w-when I… w-when I just kept chasing illusions of his child self in the swamp until yesterday…"

"Yeah, well… he has done well for himself," Sokka said, frowning. "He's learned to stand up on his own, to help others… he's not the same guy I first met in the Fire Nation. I know this is a lot for you to take, but I'd think you should be proud of… of them."

Ursa tensed up before shaking her head. Sokka's brow drew together, though her next words took him aback.

"I… have no right to even… t-to even think it. N-not when I wasn't there… no matter how badly I wanted to be, I wasn't there," Ursa said, bitterly. "N-not… not for Zuko. Not for Azula."

Sokka shivered upon hearing Ursa speaking her daughter's name aloud. Only then did he realize she hadn't done it, not once, so far… he glanced at her warily: tears had already spilled down Ursa's cheeks, but again, she showed unexpected, remarkable clarity as she gazed at him.

"I… I know what you meant to her. What she meant to you," she whispered, and an unexpected surge of self-awareness shook Sokka.

He wasn't sure why he was nervous… but perhaps it was simply a natural, inevitable reaction. No matter how bad their relationship had been, no matter whatever Ursa's choices had been, she was still Azula's mother… and one of Azula's main fears, and just so, one of her certainties, was that her mother would have never accepted him as her husband.

"Zuko told you, I… I guess?" Sokka asked. He hadn't expected Zuko to do that. If anything, he had anticipated Zuko would try to skip over everything to do with his sister's private life… but maybe explaining Sokka's presence in their group would have proven very difficult if he had done that.

"Well… he did, but… I already knew," Ursa said, lowering her head. Her fingers reached up for a strand of her hair, toying with it, perhaps even marveling over it being properly smoothed and combed for the first time in who knew how long. "I thought so, when… when I saw you, by that fire. But I… I didn't want to think it was her, n-not then, b-because…"

"Because she was a grown woman, and not the child you hoped she'd still be…" Sokka finished. Ursa let out a humorless laugh, raising her face to the open sky.

"Isn't it… pathetic?" she asked. "It just proves the swamp right, doesn't it? I didn't deserve… d-didn't deserve to see her. The one time I saw her, I just… I failed her again, like I always did, like I always have…"

Sokka frowned. Her words were cryptic at times, but right now, he found yet another unwanted parallel between Azula and her mother: Ursa, as well, appeared to believe herself unworthy of the affection of the people in her life.

"Tell me… did you love her?" Ursa asked, glancing at Sokka. He gritted his teeth.

"I… I do. To this moment, I do, and I always will," Sokka said, sternly. "It doesn't matter how far away she is… I love Azula, just as much as I did when I was by her side, if not more every day."

"You… you did, then," Ursa said, and a light smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Impulsively, hopelessly, Sokka blurted out a question that he couldn't repress anymore, that he couldn't hold back despite knowing it might destroy what little progress he'd made with Ursa so far:

"Did you?"

He probably shouldn't have done it, but he couldn't regret asking it. The smile faded, and he feared Ursa might just regress all over again… but he had to know. In the end, he had to know, to understand, to really see through to the very depths of the chaotic relationship between mother and daughter until he unraveled, for sure, that Ursa hadn't truly been so blind, so foolish, as to fail to see the brilliance of her extraordinary daughter…

She lowered her head, and her eyes seemed sadder yet, even if tears didn't drip down her cheeks at the time. Her breath hitched, then she let it out in a weak sigh… and then she spoke again, at last.

"I… I thought I did," she said. Sokka frowned heavily. "I know, I… I did countless things wrong, but in the end, she was my daughter. I… I really did think I'd have another chance. That one day, I'd connect with her. That we would understand each other eventually. That I just had to give it time… to wait for the right moment. And then I wound up spending, well, I don't know how many years away from her, only to realize the right moment would never come anymore. S-so… I wronged her. I could never fix it. I hoped to, but I failed, s-so… so I was punished for it."

"Punished?" Sokka repeated, eyeing Ursa skeptically. The woman nodded.

"When I first was near the swamp… when I first dreamt so vividly of Zuko, when we were on our way to the fortress, I… I didn't know why it had happened," she explained. "I didn't understand. I was told why, later… and I reasoned the swamp might… might help me see them again. Y-you have to understand, I… I went years without seeing their faces, any of their faces other than in my memroies, and then that dream, it was…"

"It was the most vivid you'd ever had. So vivid it felt real," Sokka finished. Ursa whimpered and nodded.

"So, I… escaped. To the swamp, over and over again. I found Zuko… mirages of him, during the day. Then, I slept and he came to me in dreams. Then, I saw… I saw Ozai, too. The way he was, the man he used to be… so confused, so aloof, so arrogant and yet so unsure of himself, and I… I found him again, in dreams, too. Then, someone would take me away from the swamp, they would come find me and take me back to the fortress. Whenever I missed them, whenever it hurt too badly, I'd escape to the swamp again, but…"

"But wait, you… you only mentioned Zuko and Ozai. You never saw… her?" Sokka asked: his guess nearly broke Ursa, who covered her mouth with her hands. "Really? You never…?"

She shook her head, running her fingers raw over her scalp. Even though Sokka felt the urge to stop her, he didn't dare do so as Ursa's tears spilled again.

"For all… f-for all that time, I wanted to believe… I wanted to believe I could do better, if I was given the chance. That she'd understand… the things I'd said, it was for her own good. She was… too smart, too strong, too stubborn, and the world wasn't ready, it still isn't ready, for someone like her. S-so I… I wanted her to hold back, for her own good, and she never listened…"

"Of course she didn't," Sokka said, frowning. "She… she wasn't wrong to, either. She just didn't understand why you acted that way, but you did hold her back…"

"But I… I still cared, damn it, I still… I failed at showing it, b-but I thought…" Ursa whimpered, shaking her head. "She had Ozai on her side, is what I thought. He loved her…"

"No, he didn't," Sokka snapped, cuttingly. Ursa shuddered. "Sorry, but… no. A father who loves his daughter never could've… never could've done what he did to her, in the end."

"You're… you're right, surely, but… I misunderstood, misjudged him," Ursa said, shaking her head. "I thought… I thought he was better than he was. And so, I… I condemned her without knowing I had. I believed she'd be fine, that Zuko was the one who needed me more urgently… but I was wrong. I… I was her mother too. I was wrong, and I always felt I was wrong, but I truly understood just to what extent I'd ruined everything after… after, no matter how many times I did it, I couldn't seem to… I c-couldn't seem to find her in the swamp. I always… always asked them. Whenever it was Ozai, whenever it was Zuko… 'Where is Azula?' 'Can you take me to your sister?' 'Are you hiding your daughter from me?', and in the end… in the end, she was never there. I couldn't… c-couldn't find her. I cried, I begged the swamp to show her to me, I… I pleaded, but nothing worked. Nothing I did…"

Sokka swallowed hard: it was true that the very first question that Ursa had spoken to Zuko had been about his sister. She had still been out of it, she still had thought he was a swamp mirage… so it was true. Ursa truly had sought Azula in the mists of the swamp… to no avail.

"I thought… it had to be a punishment," Ursa said, with a shrug. "It had to be… because I had been a terrible mother to my daughter. If I had been any better, she… she would have been there, too. I had been so terrible that she… t-that she didn't want anything to do with me."

"I… I don't want anything to do with her…"

Sokka's fist clenched over his lap. Some memories could blur out of shape, over time… yet right now, Ursa's voice echoed in his mind until he found Azula's, instead. On Memorial Day, after Ozai had wanted Azula to honor Ursa with him…

A pang of pain burst inside him, upon reflecting on that day once more. As much as he despised Ozai, as much as he resented him and always would… he had no trouble believing that the disappearance of his wife had been a surprisingly painful blow for the wretched Fire Lord. He and Azula had discussed, even, the chance that Ozai might have loved Ursa and pushed aside those feelings upon determining they would only weaken him. Yet he had mourned for his wife… upon every Memorial Day, throughout eighteen years, he had mourned her loss. Sokka had understood his pain, if only superficially… he had been grateful, at the time, to have been by Azula's side for as long as he had been, with no one to pull them away from each other.

Then, the very bastard he had felt compassion for had delivered the same painful fate upon his daughter and Sokka.

He gritted his teeth, shaking his head. People were far too complicated, sometimes outright twisted. Ursa seemed agreeable now, capable of self-reflection, regretting the mistakes of her past… Azula, however, might have found any such remorse insufficient. Just no amount of sorrow and grieving Ozai might have suffered in the past could ever make Sokka forgive the man's sins. What he'd done to him, to Azula… there was nothing Ursa could reveal today that would diminish Sokka's rage at him.

"I just… kept going back, looking for her," Ursa whispered, and Sokka nodded in acknowledgement. "Kept going back, hoping… hoping she'd change her mind. Hoping that one day, I'd have repented enough that she might… t-that she might at least let me look at her. It was all I wanted, all I asked… until it finally happened."

"You… saw her?" startled, Sokka glanced at Ursa to find no triumph in her features. For a moment, he thought he had misunderstood, or misheard. Then, Ursa continued.

"I was asleep… in the fortress," she whispered. "The swamp's influence reached me there. It wasn't supposed to, but that day… it did. I don't know why, it just… did. And for the first time, t-the only time, I… I dreamt of Azula."

Sokka's eyes widened as Ursa pulled her knees up, hugging them to her chest. Her scraped knees had been healed by Katara… but there were scars there of previous wounds that hadn't been smoothed by waterbending healing. Ursa trembled as she drew in a breath for the next part of her explanations…

"She was a child, of course… just like Zuko always was. And she was… laughing. She laughed, but she wasn't happy. She was miserable, and broken, and… and she had killed them. Her father, her brother… their corpses were there, and her hands were stained with their blood. She wept as she laughed, and I knew… I-I knew it was another punishment. The swamp wanted me to know that… t-that it was my responsibility, that she'd ever do something like this…"

Sokka's eyes were wide, as his lips parted over hearing about this dream. A surging rush of disgust, of fury, of righteous outrage seemed to take over his chest, and he damn near stood up to shout at Ursa, to tell her Azula wouldn't do such a thing… but the shock of her words, of the image she had seen in dreams, had kept him floored where he sat.

"Isn't it… isn't it twisted, that I'd dream of this and yet…?" Ursa whispered, biting her lip and smiling, through tears – that irony didn't elude Sokka. "And yet I didn't… d-didn't mourn them, didn't tell her she shouldn't have done that, b-because I was so… s-so relieved to see her at last that… that having seen her was the only thing that mattered to me anymore?"

Her newest addition to her story stilled Sokka's fury, to a fault. Weren't Ozai and Zuko the ones she cared for the most? Wasn't that why they were the ones the swamp showed to her? And yet she hadn't cared about their deaths if it meant Azula was there…?

"I'm rotten. I'm messed up, and wrong, and… I'm a terrible mother, and a terrible wife," she laughed humorlessly, shaking her head. "But I just… wanted to see her again. That was all I'd asked for, for years on end, and… and I finally did. I feared for her, I hurt for her, I hoped it wouldn't be true, b-but… in the end, all I could think, all that could matter, was that she was there… and that she wouldn't be within reach forever. I… I begged her not to go, begged her to stay with me, and… and as everything faded away, I felt a strong pull, a powerful awareness that I didn't understand… it told me to travel north. If I did… I'd find her. And so, I… I did it. I went north… I crossed that forest, alone, not to the swamp, but… t-to the forest, because she'd be there, maybe she just wasn't in the swamp, but instead she was up north… a-and yet…"

"You… found her," Sokka said, frowning. "That's when you saw us. By… by that fire, near the forest, not by the swamp, then… it wasn't the night of the dreams. It wasn't when we… oh, fuck. Oh, hell…!"

Ursa glanced at him as Sokka braced himself back against the ground with a hand, the other by his brow.

"You… you connected with her. Just as I did," Sokka whispered, meeting Ursa's eyes. "The night… the night you dreamt this? She dreamt of you, too."

"S-she…?" Ursa gasped: an onslaught of emotion crashed through her, and Sokka swallowed hard at the sight of the myriad of feelings that seemed to ravage Ursa. "W-what did… w-what did she see? D-do you know? If you do…"

"I… don't know if you really want to hear it," Sokka said, gritting his teeth. Ursa let out another humorless laugh, shaking her head.

"Do you really think… t-that anything you could say would make me feel worse?" she asked. "Because, if so… that's but further reason to do it. I… I have wronged her in more ways than I knew, haven't I? S-so… you, her companion, her lover, surely you know how much I hurt my daughter. Please… t-tell me. Help me understand. Help me…"

Sokka gritted his teeth, lowering his gaze. Ursa trembled, and he had no doubts her request was genuine. Even so…

"You do understand, right? That… that there's very little you can do, at this point in time, to fix any of it?" Sokka asked, eyeing Ursa with compassion he truly hadn't expected to feel for her. The woman swallowed hard and nodded. "You do know… that there was much you could have done better, differently? Because… because from the very early stages of our partnership, the first times she spoke of you, she… she seemed to resent you. A lot."

Ursa nodded, hanging her head in defeat.

"Go on. Please… tell me," Ursa said, her voice far calmer now. Sokka swallowed hard.

"You did hold her back. She never understood why," Sokka whispered. "You, her advisors, Lo and Li, I believe they were called… she sent them away because she thought they wanted to hold her back, too. She wanted… she wanted to fix everything you three took for granted. She didn't settle for believing the Fire Nation had to remain exactly as it was, she decided to make a place for herself in it, to no longer be a passive figure waiting for everyone else to choose her fate for her. So… she fought. She struggled. And… and in the end, she rose higher than anyone else ever had. You must have no idea of how many amazing things your daughter was capable of. The truth is … I don't think there's anyone else in this world who could be half as amazing as she is. No one compares to her. It's not only her achievements, damn it, it's… it's everything about her. The Fire Nation people admired her, they were amazed by her… she made so many friends, strong alliances, even with people who had once hated her. Hell, I'm living proof of that. She made me a slave, of all things, and yet… yet I'd kill and die for her, I swear I would. I already… I already have, in more ways than I can explain.

"So, she seemed indestructible, and yet she was… she was vulnerable, in more ways than I understood. I hurt her myself, you know? I did things that really hurt her… and yet she forgave me. Even then, she had it in her to… to forgive someone like me. That's how kind, how compassionate, she truly was. But it's also… it's also proof of how lonely she was. How afraid she was of…. of being left alone."

Ursa dabbed at her eyes but nodded, encouraging Sokka to keep going. He stared at her intently for a moment before turning his gaze away.

"I… wasn't supposed to tell anyone about this. About lots of things, really, but… maybe you should know it, even if she wouldn't want you to. Because one of the those times Azula fell apart in front of me… it was when she learned you had said your farewells to Zuko and not to her."

Ursa let out a soft cry of despair: visible guilt wracked her right then and there. Sokka frowned, watching as the woman, head bent, seemed not to know how to respond to his revelation, her hands over her mouth. He took her new silence as a sign that he should continue… and so, he did.

"She was furious. Zuko was being an asshole that night too, s-so, well… he and I had a pretty one-sided fight too before I ran after Azula, because she'd stormed out," Sokka said, gritting his teeth. "I didn't understand half of what she said, but… she believed she was broken. That there was something wrong with her…"

"No, no… oh, no…"

"That you thought, somehow… that she was a monster," Sokka finished, sternly. Ursa winced, leaning further forward, as her fingers clawed at her head again. "I… I told her that wasn't true. If you'd said it, then you were wrong to do so…"

"I didn't mean to… oh, I was a fool, a fool, I never meant to…" Ursa whimpered, rocking back and forth as Sokka frowned, closing his eyes.

"What mother would hate her own child?" Sokka recited, and Ursa gasped, tears spilling down her hands. "She asked me that question… or it just burst out of her before she even realized what she was saying. It… it blew me away, I won't lie…"

"I never… I never hated her, I never… oh, Azula…" Ursa whimpered, shaking her head.

"At that point in time, she and I had countless highs and lows behind us already," Sokka said. "She was responsible for the worst and many of the best moments in my life until then, and I didn't even know she'd be the protagonist, the instigator, behind the absolute best ones that would come in the future, too. But even then… even then, I couldn't understand it, much as she couldn't. Though, well, she was sure that you were right. And Ozai… he just took advantage of the damage and expanded on it, of course. He wanted her to dispose of her emotions because they'd make her weak… and he damn near succeeded at it. Even though she was so heartbroken, so lonely… even then, she listened to him, believed and lived by his every damn word. So I… I told her she wasn't a monster. I tried to reason with her, to make her see the reality of her actions, choices… to make her see that countless other people would've perceived her behavior from when she was a kid as childish mischief. That you would've said anything else, though… I didn't understand it, and I still don't."

"I… I have no excuse," Ursa said, shaking her head. "No explanation, no… nothing will suffice. Motherhood is… it's complicated in a myriad of ways, and I… I didn't do right by my children in most of them. The pressures, the chaos… the clashes with Ozai, I shouldn't have let them overwhelm me, and yet I did. I did, and… and I took it out on her, without even knowing what I was doing. She seemed so strong since she was born, bending right away… Zuko was so sensitive, so delicate, and I was so stupid as to think that… t-that she wouldn't need me as badly as he did. It's no excuse… it's no excuse…"

"I'm glad you know it's not," Sokka sighed, shaking his head. "I told Azula many things that night, but… I told her I was far more inclined to think you were the monster, rather than her, if you'd truly said something like that to her."

"You weren't wrong to say that. What kind of mother… could ever hurt her daughter that way?" Ursa said, shaking her head, with a soft sob. "B-but… you say you told her I was wrong? Did she… did she believe you?"

"To be honest… I'm not sure," Sokka admitted, with a sigh. "I hope she did. I really hope she did. But at times she'd just seem to think that… that it was enough if I thought otherwise. That as long as I believed she was better than that, it'd be good enough for her. She was blind to her own virtues in many ways… but that didn't mean those virtues weren't there. It was just… up to others to try and help her see the true greatness she was capable of. You probably have no idea that she… she saved the Fire Nation, putting her life on the line for her people, because she was the only one with the power to defeat an otherworldly enemy. She was terribly wounded, later… but she seemed not to regret it, so long as everyone else was safe. And yet she had the gall to claim she was selfish, really…"

A soft laugh left his lips as he shook his head. Tears bloomed in his eyes too as he breathed deeply, knowing he had been derailed again. Ursa, beside him, seemed to have settled down slightly, too.

"She… didn't resent you as badly as you might think she did," Sokka said. Ursa flinched and shook her head.

"Don't… don't try to dress up the truth, please. I need to hear it as it is. I've hidden from it long enough…" Ursa said. Sokka shook his head.

"I'm not just saying that. I just… well, the thing is she always put herself down over these things," Sokka said, running a hand over his hair. "That's why I don't know if she ever really stopped thinking she was a monster. She had a tendency to expect me, or anyone who cared about her, to change our minds and decide that others were the ones in the right and that she was just a problem. That she was crazy, or mean, or anything bad you can think of… and I guess, over time, I realized why that was the case. I had a chance to tell her as much… on Memorial Day. Do you know that… that, as no one knows what happened to you, Fire Lord Ozai has a shrine erected for you, every year, on Memorial Day?"

"He… what?" Ursa gasped, eyes wide. Sokka nodded.

"I bet he'll do it this year too… though I don't expect he'll be wanting Azula to pray there with him this time," Sokka said, scowling. "Anyway… he did that to her, once. About two years ago…"

"Made her… pray? At my shrine? He… he shouldn't have. He had no reason to, I'm not…! I didn't die, he knew I didn't, he…!"

"He had no idea whether you were dead or alive, or at least, that's what he told Azula," Sokka said, with a shrug. "It's been many years and he hasn't heard from you, as far as I understand. Even if you saw him when you went to the swamp… he didn't get to see you."

"N-no, of course not, but… oh, curses," Ursa fisted her hair, shaking her head gently. "Why would he…?"

"Well, there's a lot of reasons why, but we can hypothesize on them later," Sokka sighed. "Azula… was unsettled, after that. We had a chance to talk alone afterwards, and she seemed to be close to another breakdown, but we averted it, in the end. Yet… I realized maybe her frequent dismissal of her own perceptions and fears came from more than just self-doubt. Maybe… maybe her feelings over you were more complicated than she had thought they were. Maybe she felt more than just resentment and bitterness…"

"She felt more…?" Ursa asked, eyes wide. "B-but…"

"It doesn't mean she didn't feel those things as well," Sokka said, with a shrug. "But the thing is… I told her that maybe she should think on how she really felt about you. That maybe her doubts and insecurities came from… from how upset she was over how broken your relationship was. I told her she should find a way to just… find peace with it all, somehow. That, no matter if she wanted you back home or away from her forever, I'd support her, whatever she decided. I don't really know for sure, because I had my own lanterns to cast, but… she might have cast a lantern with your name, later that day."

Ursa's lips parted, as though she wanted to say something, but no words seemed to come to her. Sokka gazed at her with uncertainty, as new tears sprung from her eyes.

"She didn't talk lots about you anyway, afterwards, but… she wasn't so insecure whenever she did," Sokka continued. "I don't really know if she made her peace with your memory fully… but I believe that she did her best to do so. That's why… why she was so shaken that night, when the swamp made her dream of you, too."

"Y-you said so, you did, but…" Ursa gasped, looking at Sokka hopelessly. Sokka swallowed hard, lowering his head. "She was shaken…? W-why was she…?"

"Like I said before… I'm pretty sure the whole reason why you could dream about her, for once, when you weren't even inside the swamp itself, is because she was near the swamp too. So close that… that the swamp bridged the two of you together. Maybe you wanted to see Azula so badly that… that it finally decided to grant you your wish."

Ursa sat, paralyzed, as though she'd seen a ghost. Sokka bit his lip, glancing at her uneasily.

"If you really want to know what she dreamt of…"

"Please… tell me," Ursa said, softly. "Please…"

"Well, it's a bit disturbing, and surreal, to be the one saying this," Sokka said, with a sarcastic scoff. "But you, somehow, had returned to the Palace. It was as though you'd been there all along, and… and you disapproved of her every choice, apparently. To the point where you… you even called for my execution, after learning of our relationship."

Ursa's fingers trembled as she brought them to her mouth again. It almost seemed as though she truly thought herself guilty of her dream-self's actions, despite having been utterly unaware of them until now.

"She woke up terrified… I didn't wake up any better, myself. Had a dream that ended up being… well, a prediction of that very occasion I just told you about, when she nearly died saving the Fire Nation," Sokka said, gritting his teeth. "But anyway… as mortified as she was about what she'd seen in her dreams, she was confused about it, too. She didn't understand why she'd dream of you that way, when… when she had been trying to make her peace with you. I think her exact words were that she hadn't thought of you in that light for a long time. So… well, take that for what it's worth. You hurt her, there's no denying that, but… I'm living proof that Azula has a much more forgiving heart than anyone else in your family, I suspect."

"Surely. Definitely…" Ursa said, shaking her head as she let her fingers travel up to her hair again. "Then that was why… why the swamp took pity on me for once. I… I caused her to have such an unsettling dream, too…"

"Now, though… I don't think you should blame yourself, objectively, for that," Sokka said, eyeing her compassionately. "The swamp does… well, whatever it wants to, clearly. There's no rhythm, no logic to its weirdness. So don't assume it means anything particularly awful about you, I'd say… because, heh, I can tell you for sure that Azula wouldn't kill her brother or her father. She… she even saved Zuko. No idea if he told you about it, but… she saved him, and the Water Tribe, in her own way. There's no way that crazy dream you had about her would have any relation with reality…"

"And I wouldn't… I wouldn't have done that to you, either," Ursa said, startling Sokka. "Though… I don't know if my old self would have, it's true. I… I have changed in countless ways since the last Azula saw of me, but… I don't need to ask a thousand questions, or know your whole life's story, to know you're a good man. A good man who… who loved my daughter when the rest of us failed her. I don't think… I don't think anything I say now could ever truly… ever truly thank you for that…"

"Thank me?" Sokka repeated, raising his eyebrows. Ursa swallowed hard and nodded.

"I may never have the chance to do right by her. Even if the opportunity arose, even if I tried, e-even if she let me… it wouldn't erase the harm I did. It wouldn't change that… that she has lived with my thoughtless words and choices for all her life. It wouldn't change the impact I had… the harm I did. What kind of mother would say such words about her own child…? Why… most certainly a terrible one. And I would gladly do better, do it all over again, and without failing my children this time… w-without failing my husband, either. But I can't. I can wish for it a thousand times, it won't happen, not in the swamp, not in reality… I've let myself chase fantasies for as long as I have because it's more comfortable. Because it's easier than… than facing all the wrong I did…"

"But you're ready to face it now…?" Sokka ventured a guess. Ursa sniffed and shrugged.

"I don't know. Perhaps. But I might never be truly ready," she said, shaking her head. "I thank you, though, because… because you saw through her, and you worked hard to help her see her true worth. Nobody asked this of you… you did it simply because you valued her. Because she was important to you. Because… you cared for her. For my daughter…"

"I still do. I always will," Sokka said, firmly. Ursa nodded.

"I was… indeed, a fool, for all those years. I wanted to protect Azula from the disappointments she'd face in life, from the sorrows she'd be sure to find when the world shut its doors in front of her, for striving for things that… that weren't hers to seek, according to our traditions, our culture. But the more she questioned me, the more she defied me… the more I wondered, too, why those traditions I defended mattered quite so much. I… I didn't protect her, in the end. I protected a world that… that I knew would stop at nothing to take her down. Had I looked after my daughter, had I ensured they didn't snuff out her light… who knows if… if either of us would be here, now."

"Well… I hadn't really thought about that. But… well, hopefully you're trying to say that we'd be in the Fire Nation, now newly free from tyranny and ready to build proper relations with every other nation, no more conquering and warmongering…" Sokka said, with a sigh. Ursa nodded weakly.

"Had I been there still… I want to think I would have never done what her dream expected me to," Ursa whispered. "I could be wrong… I could be thinking too highly of myself, for I was a blind, mindless fool in the past, you already know that much. But… you did right by her. Did she… did she laugh with you? Did she smile, did she simply enjoy life as it was, b-because… because she could live it with you?"

Sokka's throat tightened as he nodded, as more powerful memories rushed his mind. Foremost among each of them, Azula's smile, bright and beautiful, her blissful laughter, the way her golden eyes seemed to glow when they met his own…

"She said once that… t-that she'd laughed more in the years with me than in all her life before knowing me, so I guess so," Sokka said, nodding.

"Good. Good," Ursa said, with a tender smile. "I shouldn't have failed her, I will always regret it… but you didn't. You loved her…"

"Lots of people did, besides me," Sokka said, softly. Ursa's eyes glistened upon hearing that. "She… she has friends, so many of them… people are drawn to her: wherever she goes, whatever she does, they… they're fascinated by her. Countless people admire her, deeply… and she inspires loyalty in ways you can't even imagine. She's… she's incredible, really. If you'd seen her… w-well, I'd hope you'd have been proud of her, even if you think it's not your place, not your right, to be proud of her at all…"

"It isn't. Not when I… when I caused her that much strife and grief," Ursa said, shaking her head. "But I suppose… I suppose I could be shameless enough to be proud, nonetheless. She… she has grown into a splendid woman. She sat with you… by that fire. You seemed… well, like good friends, to the untrained eye."

"Oh? Yours is trained to identify clandestine love affairs?" Sokka asked, amused. Ursa laughed softly.

"To identify the secret, silent affection a royal may feel for their significant other, yes," she said. Sokka raised his eyebrows, surprised by that answer. "Ozai and I… it must sicken you to hear it, but we were happy together, once. He wasn't always…"

"I said I believed you. Don't worry about it," Sokka said, with a sigh. "Besides, it's not like… like I have much right to complain. I tried to persuade Azula, a few times, that… that maybe she should rebel against her father. That there might be no other way to set this world on a better path. But even if she didn't reject the idea, I knew… I knew she couldn't bring herself to do it. I don't know, damn, if you truly loved that bastard… but even if I wish it she hadn't, I… I think Azula truly did love him. Maybe she doesn't anymore, after everything… but she did care for him, no matter if she had grown to understand the gravity of his mistakes, of everything wrong in the Fire Nation…"

"There was much that needed to change. Much I didn't understand, back in the day…" Ursa said, lowering her head. "It's easy to take for granted that the world works as it does when you're born into a certain… well, culture. I've understood more after seeing the effects of the war over the rest of the world. After seeing the harm it has done to hundreds, thousands, millions of innocents…"

"You've seen it, then?" Sokka asked. Ursa nodded.

"Not all of it… not personally, in every case. But… they've made me see it," Ursa said, gritting her teeth. "I didn't want to. I really didn't. It's so much easier… to close your eyes and pretend none of it is happening, that none of it is real. To drown out the sounds of slaughter, the cries for help, by locking yourself away and pretending you can hide in the past when the future is already knocking at the door, aiming to tear it down if it's not opened otherwise… and then you're left to live with your willful blindness, knowing your actions, your awareness, your choices, could have stopped an injustice and they didn't. I… I haven't been, at all, the mother Azula deserves. It's quite likely that I… that I can't ever become the mother she should have always had. But, if I may… c-can I call you by your name?"

"Uh, yeah, if you already know it…"

"I've heard it before, yes. Sokka," Ursa nodded, biting her lip as she gazed at him. "Zuko says… t-that Ozai ruined your lives, tried to have you executed, because of your love for Azula. That she saved you… by taking you to the Southern Water Tribe, your hometown, where Zuko had been hiding for years. She saved your life… but now you're hoping to save hers, aren't you? Is this… is this the true reason behind your journey? The reason why you've come here…?"

Sokka nodded, without a shred of a doubt. Ursa's breath hitched at that.

"Then… I have a few questions still," she said. Sokka gritted his teeth but nodded again.

"Fire away," he said.

"Do you… do you have any affection for the Fire Nation at all? You lived there, for years… but you could resent it all the same, as many people do. Some resent their very homelands, but it isn't that, for you," Ursa said. "Much harm, much chaos, has been caused by my country, by its rulers. But… the nation itself, it isn't…"

"It isn't rotten beyond repair. The leadership is what needs fixing most direly, so everything else that needs to improve and change can follow," Sokka said, nodding. Ursa appeared relieved to hear him saying so. "I have… I have many friends in the Fire Nation, if I'm still allowed to think of them as such, these days. I have met countless valuable people there. I've enjoyed their better customs… I've mourned with them, laughed with them, I lived for years among them and I realized that some of the beliefs I was taught in the Water Tribe, that every Fire Nation person is inherently evil, that every firebender is morally corrupt, were just as wrong as the ideology that guided Fire Nation people to believe themselves superior to others. Life is not as simple as either of our nations have led us to believe it is. So… if you think I'm on some vengeful quest, that's not it: I want to save Azula, above anything else. I want to ensure she's safe… and to keep anyone from ever harming her again. That's who I am, damn it. That's why I'm her Gladiator. But I don't believe the Fire Nation, as a whole, is to blame for the pain that has befallen her… though I admit, I do believe she's too good for them, no matter if they're not all bad. I'd feel the same about any other nation, frankly, had she been born to them… I don't think any society or culture in this world is worthy of someone as incredible as your daughter."

"High praise… and no doubt, well deserved," Ursa said, with a fond smile. Sokka's heart ached: if only Azula could hear Ursa now… would she believe her words? Would she ever accept them, or would it all seem phony to her…? "Then… this isn't, for you, a matter of vengeance. At least, not upon the whole nation. But… is it, when it comes to Ozai? When it comes to… to my husband?"

Sokka frowned, his certainties fading when Ursa faced him with unbridled emotion. That was a complicated question to answer…

"You say that saving Azula is what matters most to you. I take it… saving the world, that matters too?" Ursa said, softly. "You wish… to do right by all nations, to bring back balance, perhaps?"

"I… yeah. That's also part of it," Sokka admitted. Ursa gritted her teeth.

"It sounds noble…" she whispered. "But noble words can masquerade cruel intentions. Does vengeance drive you at all? Do you wish… to punish those who tore you from my daughter's side? Those who destroyed the life you'd been leading with her, so far?"

Sokka frowned heavily, aware of the answer Ursa was fishing for. It was clear enough… her purposes were easy to understand. He clenched his fists before breathing deeply.

"I won't pretend I don't want revenge," Sokka whispered. "I won't act like I'm better than that, somehow. I'm not. I'm only human, and… and the woman I love with everything I've got has been tormented for the so-called crime of having dared love me in return. My fury over what your daughter has faced… you can't even begin to imagine it. I want to save her… so if the only way to prevent her from ever being hurt in this way again is to kill those responsible for hurting her, I won't hesitate to do it."

"'If'… you say? You'll do it if it is what needs to be done?" Ursa repeated, reluctant. Sokka frowned. "If… if there were another way, if you didn't need to hurt anyone at all, not even those you have a grudge on… would you choose that route rather than further carnage? If there were a way to end this, without bloodshed… would you do so?"

"I… I would, but there isn't one. Not anymore," Sokka said, frowning heavily. Ursa sighed and nodded.

"I know," she said. "But I still wish to know if, given the choice…"

"Hell, given the choice, I… I guess I wouldn't do it unless it were necessary, sure," Sokka said, with a shrug. "So far, I'm assuming it will be. Do you have any reason to believe otherwise?"

"No… but I wouldn't be able to trust a man whose mind is set on carnage, above all else," Ursa said, with a gentle smile. "Yours is not. You value Azula, her safety, her happiness… you value life rather than death. It's… it's good. It's what I needed to hear. You truly are a good man."

"Well… great. Thanks?" Sokka said, raising his eyebrows, unsure of what Ursa seemed to have been testing him for. "Why did you need to know this, though? To make sure I'm worthy of your daughter…?"

"Well, I'd say it certainly seems that you are, but… it's not up to me to choose for her. She chose well all by herself, clearly," Ursa said, with a friendly smile that waned quickly. "But… once Zuko explained that you were on a journey to seek the White Lotus, to find their support in order to… to end this war, I feared many things, Sokka. They… they are not like you. At least, most of them aren't…"

"Guess you'd know for sure," Sokka sighed, shaking his head. "Are you going to dissuade me from going to them, by any chance? Not that I'd blame you, but I don't have another choice…"

"You don't. But you don't have to go to battle alongside men driven mad with grief and lust for revenge," Ursa whispered, earnestly. Sokka frowned again. "If you were like them, though… if that were all that drove you, I wouldn't dare bring you to them. Yet… you fight because you have hope, not because you've lost it. You fight for justice, not for vengeance. You've come all this way and found me, and with every right to despise me… you've given me a chance to speak, you've even eased my heart with your words, with the knowledge that my daughter found a perfect match in you. You're… you're an honorable man, Sokka. And honorable men can be trusted to make the right choices, no matter how hard they may be."

"And what's this right choice you hope I'll make?" Sokka asked.

"The choice to join forces with the White Lotus…" Ursa said, and Sokka's eyes widened. "But not as their puppet. Not as a weak ally who will be trampled over by them. You… you may not be able to change all of them, but enough might listen if you earn their respect. And if you don't charge forth with vengeance, but with justice… you will set this world on the right path, once more."

"Right… well, that's the hope, but I'd need to find them in the first place, and…" Sokka said, with a shrug… before the implications of Ursa's words dawned on him. "Wait. Wait, now… we're discussing the quality in which I'll join forces with them? Are you trying to say that…?"

Ursa breathed deeply, speaking with serene honesty when she answered Sokka's unfinished question.

"I shall guide you, my son and your friends to the White Lotus's fortress."