A/N: Hey y'all! I'm back for another update. Apologies for the long break between again but Merry Christmas (to those who celebrate it) and Happy New Year to all of you! This story is still coming, albeit slower than I'd hoped. I thank you all for your patience and I'll continue to do my best to get chapters out for you! As always, let me know what you think about it and I hope you enjoy!

Word Count: 3,456

29. Leaving Things in the Past (Why is Walking Away so Hard?)

"Because you've never done it before." Percy said, carrying Toph into the clearing.

Zuko's head popped up off the ground defensively, before looking at him very worriedly. It seemed the young firebender thought that the demigod would enact some sort of revenge for burning the earthbender.

At Toph's uneasy expression at realising where he'd taken her, he whispered so only she could hear.

"Don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you. Plus, I want you to hear this too."

"What do you want?" The ex-prince asked.

"Just to talk." Percy answered, walking past and sitting at the fire. "And also, to help heal my friend, if you don't mind."

Zuko almost stalked around the fire to stand in front of his tent, still perceptibly watchful of him. The young man obviously remembered what he could do with both water and his sword, but Percy wasn't going to prioritise his feelings of comfort.

"You don't have to talk if you don't want to, but I will be using that." He continued.

Without a word, the demigod lifted the water out of the satchel in Zuko's makeshift tent made from the balloon. He startled as it floated past, watching as it settled on the soles of Toph's feet. The young girl looked at him, with both appreciation and apprehension. A prolonged sigh left her lips as it seemed his healing was having an effect.

After a silence filled with the croaking of some kind of frogs and the crackling of the fire, Percy decided he didn't have the patience to not continue talking.

"I've had talks like this with both your uncle and sister, but I can't say I've had one with you."

It seemed at the mention of his family, Zuko became interested enough to have a seat around the fire.

"You talked with my uncle?" He asked, with hope, before continuing. "You had talks like this with my sister?!"

"Absolutely. Complicated family, I must say."

"You don't even know the half of it." He muttered in reply.

Percy couldn't help but joke.

"Oh, out of everyone, I'm well aware of how complicated some families can get."

He received very inquisitive looks from both his fireside companions, but neither of them pushed for any context. Instead, Zuko brought the conversation back to his earlier remark.

"How did you get to talking to Azula like this?"

"Very easily, actually. She came to me." He shrugged. "She didn't even try to kill me."

Zuko's eyes widened, before Percy realised he wasn't telling the full truth.

"Well, she didn't after the first few times. But that's beside the point."

Toph gave him a little punch on the shoulder and a cheeky smile.

"And Uncle?"

"Oh, he's very wise, that man." Percy replied. "He knows a thing or two about not giving up on family."

Both of them looked to be deep in happy memories of the old man.

"Do you know where he went?" The demigod asked.

"No." Zuko replied, sombrely. "He escaped the Fire Nation prison during the invasion."

The prince and earthbender both looked crestfallen at that information, but Percy knew that wherever he was, he would be doing good for everyone.

"Man, now why did you have to send the assassin?" Percy said. "That was so stupid."

Zuko's head dropped dejectedly.

"Yeah! What's that about?" Toph asked.

"I thought…" He paused. "I thought that if my dad found out that I hadn't killed the Avatar, that I'd be in trouble."

"Ahhh." Percy acknowledged with a grimace.

Toph seemed to be equally understanding. Percy made a mental note to talk to Toph about her own parental situation. He'd always figured there was something there, but that specific understanding worried him.

"Do you think they'll be able to accept me?" Zuko asked the demigod.

"Hmm, I don't know. You've done an awful lot. Made it real difficult for yourself."

The firebender's ashamed look was almost entertaining to him.

"And what's more, I don't even know if you have changed. You're going to have to prove it to everyone every single time you can until you gain their trust. But if you have indeed changed, it should come naturally the more you do it." He continued.

"Why are you helping me? What makes you more open to accepting me that the rest of them?" Zuko asked.

Toph looked up at him with a wide, intrigued expression.

"Alright, alright. I'll tell you a bit about my life." He jovially nudged his earthbender as he began. "When I was younger, I was a part of a lot of… conflict?"

He tried desperately to be as vague as possible while still quenching Toph's thirst for his own backstory. The demigod paused heavily between sentences, though there was no worry about being interrupted.

"I've had more than enough friends betray my trust. Many were manipulated and fought for the right reason but were misguided. Kids who had terrible authority figures. Kids who were pulled into things way out of their understanding, put in way out of their depth. Too many died not knowing who they were really fighting for. What they were really fighting for. Those that did learn often didn't survive either."

Ethan and Silena's faces leapt into his mind.

"And your father," Percy looked at Zuko, "well he's exactly the type of person who uses people to his own end. Including his kids."

The firebender raised his eyebrow, clearly not missing how the demigod didn't leave out Azula of that statement.

"You really think that… anyone can change?"

The unspoken person at the centre of his question obvious to Percy.

"Yes, I do. But I also think some people, once they mature, don't deserve the opportunity to change. But giving certain people as much help as we can and the realisation that they have a choice; those people are deserving of a chance to change themselves. And that's all we can do, give them a choice."

Silence fell between them for a while. It seemed Zuko needed a while to think about what he'd said. The demigod remained with his hands hovering over the young girl's feet. After a while, a large snore took them both by surprise. Toph's head had fallen on Percy's leg, and she was out like a light.

"She really does trust you, huh." Zuko said in a muted voice.

"It seems so." He said, with a soft smile on his face.

"How do you do it so easily?"

"I've had years of trying to get people to follow me. Having to try and fight a war mostly motivated by trust. It gets easier over time." He looked down at the earthbender. "It helps that Toph is just awesome."

"Right." Zuko said, looking into the fire.

"Speaking of people willing to follow you." Percy questioned with a smirk. "How did Mai take your choice?"

"Mai? You know Mai?"

"Of course I know Mai." He pretended to look serious and faked throwing knives while speaking. "She's also awesome. So how did she take it."

"I don't know…" He said, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck.

"Wait, why don't you know?" Percy asked, getting prepared to be disappointed.

"I just… I sent her a letter before I left."

The demigod let out a long sigh of frustration.

Of all the ways to handle that… even I know that's terrible.

"Now why would you do that?"

Mai stood next to Ty Lee by an airship. Completely overshadowed by the height of technology that stood before them, the knife-thrower couldn't help but let her mind wander elsewhere.

That letter. Oh, that letter.

Her idiotic boyfriend had left her something she'd been hoping for him to say to her. How quickly she would've left if he had. In some ways, she was thankful that he hadn't. She might not have fully thought of the consequences for both Ty Lee and Azula, both of whom needed her for drastically different reasons. If she had left, she couldn't see either of them being able to cope.

One of those girls had been by her side for the last day or so and could clearly tell that the letter had caused some unbridled emotions in her. Unlike her usual self, Mai almost couldn't contain her smile. Because, while she didn't fully appreciate the way Zuko had done it, leaving the Fire Nation to help the Avatar had been for the all the reasons Mai had been trying to show him.

He'd turned his back on the Fire Lord, his father. She'd been waiting for her own opportunity to do the very same.

But why did he have to do it in the most… ugh, Zuko way possible! 'Dear Mai, I'm sorry that you have to find out this way, but I'm leaving.' Really?

Mai desperately wanted to throw a knife into him, slap him upside his thick head and kiss him, all at once.

She caught Ty Lee looking at her with a small smile enveloping her lips. It seemed her emotions were showing a bit too much on her face.

I need to get a hold of myself before I see Azula. I doubt that would go well.

Thankfully for her, the princess would've been difficult to miss. Her procession of soldiers was led by her palanquin and having known Azula's silhouette since she was a child, Mai could tell she wasn't at all happy by her company.

"That's a lot of soldiers." Ty Lee whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

Mai just nodded slightly, giving her an almost silent hum of agreement.

Azula's personal carriage was set down next to them and she got out, moving to board the airship without a word to either of them. Both girls fell into step next to her and were followed by the metal clanking of soldiers' armour. It seemed Azula didn't even take note that the two had kept up with her as she made straight for her own quarters.

As if to signal to them her dishevelled state, the princess' door was left ajar, swinging loosely on its hinges after being thrown open.

"I told father. I said I didn't need help." She began to herself, bracing herself against the bed.

Mai and Ty Lee looked at each other worriedly.

"But no. 'The generals need to have faith in their future Fire Lord.' You could make them have faith in me. But nooooo. You just had to- AGH!"

Azula lifted off her pauldrons and threw them to the floor. Her arm grasped at her shoulder before she leant on the corner of her bed.

"Azula?" Ty Lee's soft voice carried over the silence of the princess' pain.

"What are you two-"

Her shock at being seen was quickly disregarded. Mai saw her façade of being a princess rise to her face, before it fell off her completely.

She collapsed onto the floor, kneeling with tears in her eyes.

"Why does everyone leave me?"

…

The two girls stood, confounded. Not necessarily by the question, they knew all too well just how and why people would leave her. A fact which made Mai wince. But their surprise came from the vulnerability of the question. It felt to Mai that Azula's eyes didn't leave her.

Of all the things she thought about Zuko leaving, it affecting his sister in such a way wasn't one of them. Their sibling relationship had always struck her as, at best, strategically beneficial. Anything beyond that was stamped out by a combination of the Fire Lord's machinations and their competitiveness. But this didn't seem like a reaction that would arise from that.

Not only that, but her mention of 'everyone' had Mai wondering.

Were the rumours true?

News between noble houses often travelled fast and they were the first to hear about things outside of the Royal Family. And the young noble girl had heard whispers that Iroh had escaped.

That was another strange one to Mai. She hadn't really thought that the princess and her uncle were at all close. In fact, the last she'd heard, Azula's vitriolic resentment towards General Iroh hadn't changed.

But, as with all things in her life recently, the topic swung around to Percy.

It was the most logical reason for her to say that. From what Mai could piece together, he'd left Azula multiple times. Or, rather more likely, the princess had been pushed to leave and he hadn't stayed with her.

Not to mention those… other rumours.

Swirling around the capital, not unlike the storm that faded with the attackers, were people speaking of a being encased in winds. One that fought back the entire army on its own. One that shouted down at Fire Lord Ozai and challenged him individually. The breaths of those words spoken were stamped out among the presence of any general or nobility, but the whispers still carried to her ears. The two girls had come to exactly the same conclusion on who that being was.

Ty Lee was the first to respond. She went over and knelt by her side.

"Oh Azula, we won't leave you."

She placed her hand on the princess' uninjured shoulder and Mai immediately drowned in her guilt. The girl looked at the frail figure before her, imagining just what it might've been if she'd have been given the choice to leave with the prince.

It took a quick flash of a look from Ty Lee to understand she'd been still for too long. Mai moved to Azula's other side, still unable to find any words. All she could see were the tears that fell to the floor and the princess' periodic pained winces.

"We're still here, aren't we?"

Ty Lee's question hung in the air, as if the princess was too worried to answer truthfully. Mai didn't trust her own answer either.

Almost like the flip of a coin, Azula's tears stopped falling and her back straightened. Her clothed arm came up and wiped away the evidence her pain had sculpted into her cheeks. Mai's shock was replaced with a nauseating anger at realising why. The clanking of metal echoed through into their room. Two soldiers moved to stand guard at either side of the door.

With a face moulded by the harshest of fires, the princess spoke.

"Mai, close the door."

She saw that Ty Lee looked just as pained as the knife-thrower felt, but Mai acquiesced to her order. Even with the door closed, the princess didn't return to her fragility. Instead, she stood on solid legs and opened a drawer in her bedside table. Mai returned to stand next to Ty Lee, both watching the princess with worry.

"We're going here." Azula said while pointing to a map she'd laid out on her desk. "I know the area… well. It must be where they were going."

The tip of her finger hesitated to leave its spot, somewhere in the Earth Kingdom. Mai looked closer to see the finger, shaking right below the lake. Azula seemed to leave herself only a second to linger, before she brushed past the two girls, scooping up her armour and putting it back over her head. The room went silent as the door closed behind the princess.

Ty Lee scrambled to follow the princess, clearly focused on remaining by her side. But Mai went over to look at the map again.

And there it was. The only indication there had been any grief in her friend at all. Infused into the map was a tear stain, right over where her finger had been pointing. A splotch of water covered the lake completely, making it look that little more realistic.

Percy had listened to the exiled prince stumble through why he had just left Mai a letter for long enough to understand. Zuko's reasoning wasn't the worst. It seemed Iroh's words had finally gotten through to him though during the war meeting when he left the Fire Nation after so long. And not knowing if she would go with him and leave everything behind was an understandable concern. It wasn't like the demigod could say that he was perfect in the romantic department.

Well, to be fair to me, godly intervention, malicious monsters and death-defying stunts were typically to blame for my romantic incompetence. Most of the time…

"Alright, I get that. So, are you and Mai like, I don't know what to call it here? A thing?" He asked.

"A thing?"

"Yeah, like, together."

"Oh, I think we were. I don't know about now. She might never want to speak to me again. I did betray her and my country by leaving."

Percy smiled at that.

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure." He replied, just loud enough for him to hear.

"What was that?"

"Don't worry about that. But what was with you and Jin?" He changed topics.

"Jin? Oh yeah, you were with her! What were you doing in my uncle's tea shop?"

"Shhh." Percy whispered. "Toph's asleep, let's keep it that way."

Zuko gave him the courtesy of appearing sheepish, before allowing him to explain.

"Originally, I was hiding from the Dai Li. But then, Jin was nice enough to take me in." He smiled at the memory, before continuing. "But then, I was trying to get her a date. And Mr. Smooth-Talker just had to give her a candlelit evening and a kiss before running off and leaving her in the middle of the Lower Ring, unaccompanied."

The demigod gave Zuko his best stern look, with his eyebrow raised. If he'd looked sheepish before, he looked downright ashamed after hearing that.

"I wasn't really thinking about that." He said, unconvincingly. "I just, it was complicated."

Percy let go of his attempt at a tough look, before chuckling to himself. He gave the ex-prince a light punch on his shoulder.

"Don't worry man. I know how complicated and tangled love lives can get. We don't always remember to think about others in every situation." He finished laughed before returning to serious again. "But if we learn from it, and don't make the same mistakes over and over again, then it means something good has come from it. Right?"

He nodded in agreement and Percy hoped he got his double meaning. After they both listened to the crackling of the fire, Zuko seemed to have more princess-related questions.

"You really were able to get Azula to just… talk like this? The same Azula." As the firebender spoke, he morphed into a face that could only be described as princess-like. "I will do something unspeakably horrible to you and your friends"

Zuko's imitation was more accurate than Percy's, causing him much grievance.

"Yeah, that very same Azula." He nodded, while thinking about how to go about talking about her. "But weren't you like that in the past? What I heard from Katara would make it seem like it. Burning down villages, hunting down the Avatar-"

Percy noticed Zuko wincing with each point so stopped mid-sentence.

"Point taken."

"Yeah. But more importantly, I have a question for you."

"Mm?" Zuko asked, inquisitively.

"Did you notice any changes in your sister when you saw her?"

It took a while, but Zuko sat there in thought. Percy's hand remained idly healing Toph's feet, even as she was still asleep. Every time his water brushed over a particularly burnt part, she'd hum contentedly at the cool water.

"There were a few moments. She was very open and emotional when we went to Ember Island. A lot more than usual, though I can never tell with her when she's acting or not. Azula always lies."

"Hmm." Percy made a noise of agreement. "That she does."

"Well, actually. There was one thing."

"Yeah?" The demigod asked, more interested.

"Right before the war meeting, she came to me personally, bringing me along. She also said that I was a good big brother. Or something like that, and that she might not have been the easiest little sister to have? I can't remember, a lot was going on that day, but I remember it being weird and out of nowhere."

Percy felt the sadness rise within him, but he had to know if he was right about where it came from.

"Why did she tell you that?"

"Oh, I don't know." He paused, long enough for Percy to think he was never going to get an answer. "Maybe, she met someone who didn't have the chance to be an older brother. Didn't know it would be so bad to miss out on it. Something like that?"

Tears sprung to the demigod's eyes.

"Ahh, right."

Estelle.

A/N: I hope you all enjoyed! A slower chapter, but that's to be expected post invasion. We're beginning a new arc (one that leads up to the finale which I am unbelievably excited for). We got an update on the girls and Percy doing a bit of bonding with a couple of them. As always, let me know what you all thought of it and I hope you continue to enjoy the next chapters as they come.

Some review replies (Thank you all so much for your reviews!):

CRUDEN: Very true, as much as his angry tragic boi vibe was funny, this Zuko is best Zuko

Backpack Bandit: Me too, they just seem like such a wholesome vibe that I love writing them

ImCursed: Thank you! That means a lot! I put a lot of effort, thought and research (i.e. rewatching atla, I know very difficult research) into them all and always have to picture the scenes with each character so that it feels like its really from them. I'm so happy that came across!

DragonHighElder: Thank you! *extravagant happy author noises* Yeah, it is hard considering we see it from Zuko's perspective more in that moment, so we just want them to accept him and know all the changes he's been through, even though their anger at him is entirely valid and understandable

Artorias78: Oh absolutely! This is a completely different Azula to the one in the series at this point (I cite the chapter above for that) and I hope you enjoy how I write it, although there are a few chapters between now and then (we still have the firebending arc and prison arc so that'll be fun too!)

Okoh: Thank you! I'm super glad it holds up because even though some chapters might not be excellent standalone chapters, my goal was to always just make the story as a whole work. I hope you keep enjoying it!

screwthefates1806: It's hard to believe I've been writing it so long too! I hope you continue enjoying reading it!

Guest1: I have indeed brought the milk home from the cornerstore

Guest2: And yet another chapter! Thank you for that and I'll hopefully get more out for you!

Death Fury/Kirito Tatsumi/Coolgamer100/Burmis: Thank you and more is coming!

Sons of death: That or to be on Percy's lap on the throne? Or to have a smaller throne with Percy in it beside her? These are all valid thoughts

b9271065: That's a very interesting idea! Percy taking a fist to Ozai is spectacular and it all sounds great, however I already have completely planned out the ending of this story. I do hope you enjoy it though!

Deeznuggets2121: Thank you! Me too! I always enjoy the slowing of the pace post invasion. I don't know why but I think it might've been a problem where they were giving out updates, hopefully that should've changed. I did notice a significant dip in readers last chapter (though that might've been the extensive delays too)

dragonslayer111: Thank you! I did try to subtly explain how that worked. So basically the airships saw him take out a few and then just went up higher so even if Percy attempted to take them out of the sky they would have time to move out of the way. But it also made their bombing much less accurate and their visibility worse. So it worked out for Percy anyway. Don't worry, the power Percy displayed will have an effect, however in the Fire Nation, they're known for keeping a tight lid on things that could potentially question the Fire Lord's power. Indoctrination is strong with them. I definitely won't spoil anything about the spirits though the story will involve them in some capacity, hope you enjoy!

Imheretolive08: I'm glad! Hopefully I can get some updates out for you so you're not waiting too long!

Idk just reading: That's awesome! Now you get context for the book but also have seen one of the best animated series' out there! SO very satisfying! If you're interested in canon ATLA stuff, specifically Azula stuff, there are a few comics that you can find online that are canon continuations of some characters. I hope you enjoy the updates!

Thank you all! I appreciate every single one of your reviews and I just hope I can get the story out to you sooner because interacting with you all is the whole reason I post these!

-PS