A. N. : We're saying goodbye to my favorite grandpas soon, so I hope you'll enjoy Sekiji this chapter. And also Azula, but she's not getting away that easily haha

There's a scarab-bee on Azula's mask.

It walks all over the wicker face protection, blue elytra sparkling under the sun and making Azula cross-eyed. Ugh.

Doctor Sekiji says she's just curious, she won't sting, Azula has nothing to worry about and – first of all, how dare he assume Azula would be scared of some stupid scarab-bee. And second, she would hope the too warm full-body suit Doctor Sekiji made her wear will protect her even if this scarab-bee, or any of its friends, decides it doesn't like her being here.

Azula sighs.

Somehow, even the suit and her disinterest in these creatures, and this spirits forsaken scarab-bee that won't leave her alone – even all of that is better than staying at the shack would have been.

Being with Mai and Ty Lee, after what happened… Even Qin's quiet presence felt awkward, after he prostrated himself alongside her for reasons Azula doesn't understand.

There's a lot she doesn't understand these days, she finds.

For just one more instance of the world not making sense anymore – or of Azula's normal patterns not fitting ? No, that's just Mai's treachery getting to her –

Azula doesn't get why Doctor Sekiji took her to see his precious hives.

Outwardly, the reason is the same as the one justifying Azula not sleeping inside his house anymore, instead joining the others on the beach – it's like a sleepover, Ty Lee had joked the first evening, and Mai had asked if she'd brought any nail polish to make it a real party, and Ty Lee had faked despair at the realization that she hadn't.

Like she didn't stop Azula earlier in the day, like Mai didn't proclaim some absurd desire to murder the Fire Lord, like everything is right in the world and Azula's fire hasn't deserted her.

The reason Doctor Sekiji brought her here, officially, is that she is healthy enough to stay outside and help with the daily chores, and healthy enough to pay for what she did with some manual labor.

But that doesn't explain why she wasn't made to buy groceries, or carry water, or whatever it is that Ty Lee and Mai were roped into.

Ty Lee would probably love watching the dance of the scarab-bees flying to and from the hives. Mai would be still enough to not even register to these creatures, and she wouldn't have to wear that suit.

Doctor Sekiji slides out part of the hive, asks Azula to hold it above the jar they brought with them while he slowly pushes the scarab-bees out of the honey they'll be taking.

Azula doesn't understand how he's not getting stung.

When you leave, I'll stop bending again, he says calmly, like it isn't one of the most outrageous things a bender can say. He can feel his drive slipping away already, now that her life doesn't depend on his flames anymore.

Please leave as soon as you're ready, he says.

Azula doesn't understand.

Shouldn't he want her to stay ? Shouldn't he want to keep his fire ? His self ?

He shakes his head.

What drove him, drives him, is the will to save lives, help people to the best of his ability, and – it's exhausting, he says. There is nothing he wants more in the world, and yet he cannot live this way anymore, with the losses and his own powerlessness in front of death.

Losing his fire was an escape his weak self provided. It was a blessing.

I do not regret healing you, he says. But the burden of being able to do it, the self-imposed burden of having to do it, isn't something he can live with in the long term.

He's failed too much already. Succeeded too much, too, got his patients healthy again just to they could go and die on the frontlines the next day.

He is tired.

The way he lives now may not be interesting, but the quiet life of a nobody suits him. And he is not alone.

Putting the hive slice back in place, he tells Azula that she should think about what she wants, and how she can bear to live. It is fine if the answers take time to come, but she should keep in mind that there are many potential roads for her to follow.

She doesn't need to do only what is expected of her. Just living is fine.

Azula nods.

She doesn't understand.