The others were stunned. This woman is Azula's mother? How was that possible? And what was she doing in Ba Sing Se of all places?

The woman who introduced herself as Joo Dee looked confused, "I think you have me confused with someone else, little girl. I don't have any children, and I certainly wouldn't forget them if I did."

Azula blinked. Was this really happening? 'I certainly wouldn't forget them if I did.' It sure seemed like she had forgotten all about them!

She pointed towards herself, "Mother, it's me. Azula. I know that you're probably shocked to see me looking the exact same way as I did years ago, but it's really me!"

"I'm sorry, but I really think that-"

"Why are you pretending that you don't remember me?! Was I so much of a monster that you would just forget about me?! If only I were like precious little Zuzu, the boy who could never hurt anyone!"

"...Who?"

The nerve of this woman! Fine, if she wanted to play games she could go right ahead. Azula didn't have to play along with her. There was a nagging feeling at the back of her mind that her mother wasn't joking around at all but she decided to ignore it.

"You know what? Fine. If you want to stand there and act like you're this Joo Dee person and not Princess Ursa, go ahead and knock yourself out. See if I care!"

"Who is 'Princess Ursa'?"

"Ugh, just shut up!" Azula shouted before she ran off, ignoring the others pleas for her to come back.

Mai turned to Sokka to ask if he could go after her, only to find the boy gone, "Where did he-oh wait, let me guess."

Toph snorted, "He went running after the tiny princess the moment she ran off."

"Well that's good, at least she won't be alone. Now, what to do about…this." Mai said, looking at Joo Dee.

The woman smiled, "Shall we start the tour?"

Deciding that it was best to just follow her, they all agreed.

Nobody noticed the two figures watching them.

"So this woman is really Azula's mother?" Katara asked.

Mai and Ty Lee nodded. They were slowly making their way around the lower, middle, and upper rings of the city. The tour would have been great if Sokka and Azula were there with them. They'd have to find them later. Right now they have another problem to worry about.

Nobody in the city seemed keen on talking about the Earth King.

Whenever Katara or Aang would ask about him or the war, the person would shut down and claim that they didn't notice anything, before quickly shooing them away. One thing that Mai noticed was that it always happened whenever they would look at "Joo Dee". It was as if she were somehow signaling that they were not to say a word about anything to them. Which was going to make their job a whole lot harder. Great. Not to mention that Ursa was somehow a Joo Dee with no memories of her past. Something was clearly wrong with this place. The faster they could leave, the better.

"She is, but….how is she even here? For years, none of us knew what happened to her. We all just woke up one day and she was gone. We never could have imagined that she ended up here of all places. What doesn't make sense is why she doesn't seem to remember anything. I could believe her having a whole new identity since she obviously wouldn't want to be recognized. But full on memory loss? That's weird. It almost seems like brainwashing to me." Ty Lee said.

"Something definitely isn't right about this place", Katara agreed, "and we need to figure out what that something is and who's behind it. I'm pretty sure that Azula would appreciate having her mother back."

"...I'm not too sure about that." Ty Lee mumbled.

Before Katara could ask her what she meant by that, Joo Dee stopped in front of a large house and told them that they would be staying there for as long as they were in the city. When Aang asked when they could see the Earth King, the woman gave them her signature eerie smile and said that she would come and check on them in the morning, and then she left.

"She never even answered my question!"

"It's called being handled, twinkle toes. Get used to it."

Sokka found himself sitting next to Azula behind a restaurant, trying to think of what to say to the girl. It was obvious that something had happened to her mother in order for her to end up like that, but that wasn't the main thing on his mind. Not really, anyway.

"Why are you pretending that you don't remember me?! Was I so much of a monster that you could just forget about me?!"

Azula's words rang loud and clear in his mind, particularly the "monster" part. Was all of that true? Did her mom truly think that she was a monster? Sure, Azula had a mean streak and wasn't exactly the most pleasant person in the room, but a monster? She certainly wasn't that. Not to him, at least.

"I suppose you want to know what that was all about. What I said to my mother, I mean."

Azula's voice broke Sokka out of his thoughts.

"Uh, yeah. Only if you feel like sharing, of course. I'm not going to force you to talk about something that you don't want to."

"It's fine. Probably for the best that I tell you now since I'm sure that we'll be seeing more of her while we're in this city. If you want to know whether or not my mother actually called me a monster, the answer is no. Although the way she treated me in comparison to how she was with Zuko certainly spoke for itself. She was always…gentle with him. Always softly explaining to him why whatever he did was wrong, being proud of him despite the fact that he failed a new firebending technique, always spending time with him. With me, though? She was a completely different person. Whenever I did something wrong, she never took the time to explain to me why it was wrong. She'd just yell and tell me to go to my room. As if I was just supposed to know better. Whenever I perfected a new firebending form, she never congratulated me, never seemed happy for me. She would just give me this look. I could never make out what that look meant. And after a while, I just started to think ...what was wrong with me that I couldn't get the same kind of love that she gave to Zuko, no matter what I did? I outdid him in nearly everything, and yet that never seemed to impress her. Looking back, that's probably how Zuzu felt about father. Nothing he did was never enough in his eyes. Ever the failure."

Sokka shook his head. This girl's family truly was screwed up.

"So that's the story behind my sad, pathetic, childhood. It's not very interesting, is it?"

"Stop doing that."

"Stop doing what?"

"Stop putting on a mask to hide how you really feel about something. It's just us two here right now. You don't have to hide behind your mask with me. Or with the others. We all care about you."

Azula didn't want to admit, but it was nice to hear him say that they all cared about her. That he cared about her.

Sokka stood up, "Alright, looks like we have quite a few things to do here now."

"A few things?"

"Yep! Talking to the Earth King about the invasion plan, figuring out what the hell happened to your mother and get her back to normal so that you two can have a nice long chat, and going to the library here and seeing if we can find any book that talks about spirits messing with humans like this and how to reverse it."

So that's what he meant. She wasn't sure if she would be ready to talk to her mother if they managed to get her back to normal, but she did know one thing. She wanted to unravel whatever was going on in this city.

"Sounds like a plan, I guess. Let's go back to the others."

It was then that Sokka realized something.

"I suppose you wouldn't happen to know where we're staying, do you?"

"How the heck should I know? I ran off, remember?"

"Right, and I ran after you. Which means that we have no clue where the others are."

"...So then we're lost?"

"Yep, we're lost."

"Is the relationship between Azula and her mother really that bad?" Katara asked.

"Bad enough that Azula may not want to be bothered with finding out what's going on and saving her mom? Yes." Ty Lee responded.

Katara didn't know what to say to that. She couldn't imagine having a strained relationship with her mother. As far as she was concerned, Azula was lucky that she still even had her mother. Katara and Sokka weren't that lucky. They could never see Kya again.

"I still think that she should do something about this. We won't have our parents around forever. And while Fire Lord Ozai may be a horrible human being, it doesn't seem like her mother is as bad as him. Maybe there's just a huge misunderstanding between them that needs to be cleared up." she said.

"Among other things." Mai said.

"I think I can sort of understand how the tiny princess feels. I mean, the relationship between me and my parents isn't exactly ideal either. Granted, my father isn't a genocidal maniac but they still suck." Toph said. Her parents treated her as if she were some nasty secret that had to be kept hidden, all because she was blind. Even after they found out that she was an even stronger earthbender than the likes of Xin Fu and The Boulder, they still refused to see reason. She couldn't have been more glad to leave. She'd be lying to herself if she said that she didn't kind of miss them, though.

"Speaking of Azula, shouldn't we go and look for her and Sokka? They both ran off before Joo Dee gave us a tour of the city. I'm worried that they might get lost." Aang suggested. He wasn't too worried about Sokka being lost, but Azula was small. If Sokka wasn't with her, who knows what could happen to her?

"Good idea. They don't even know where the house is! I hope they're ok."

"I'm sure they're just fine, Ty Lee. Assuming that they're together, that is."

"Mai, don't say it like that!"

"Are you sure that you know where we're going, Sokka?"

"Of course I do, my instincts are never wrong!" he said.

"Really?"

"Really"

"Then why have we walked into the same alleyway for the THIRD time now?!" Azula shouted.

They had been trying to find their way back to the others, to no avail. Azula had suggested that they buy a map that would show them the entirety of Ba Sing Se, but Sokka had refused, saying that they didn't need to waste money on one and that they would be able to find the others in no time. In reality, however, he didn't want them to get a map for another reason: he wanted them to get lost on purpose. He wasn't sure if "Joo Dee" would still be with the others, and he could tell that Azula needed just a bit more time to gather her thoughts before she was inevitably bombarded with concern from the others.

"Ok, so I made some miscalculations here and there, no big deal."

"Some miscalculations? Leading us around in circles is a lot more than 'some miscalculations'."

"Alright then, what do you suppose we do, your highness?"

"What I said from the beginning, we buy a map."

"And like I said, we don't need a map! If worse comes to worse, I'm sure that the others will find us eventually. Now come on, let's go."

Azula sighed and followed him. If she didn't end up killing him it would be a miracle.

Five minutes later they found themselves in an alleyway again. Azula had to give Sokka some credit though. At least it wasn't the same one as before.

"... Sokka."

"Alright fine, let's go and buy a map."

The two of them soon found themselves in a shop, and they quickly began looking for maps. Azula found one and showed it to Sokka, but…

"We can't use this one!"

"What do you mean 'we can't use this one'? It's a map you ignoramus."

"It's too small! We need something a lot bigger than that." he explained, hoping that she would accept his excuse.

"...You're kidding me, right?"

"Nope!" he said, taking the map from her and putting it back, before grabbing her hand and walking out of the store.

"Where do you think the two of them could be? We haven't seen a single sign of them so far." Ty Lee asked.

"If I know my brother, they're probably looking for a map to help guide them around the city. We should probably start looking in shops that sell maps to see if we can find them."

"That's a lot of shops, Katara." Aang said.

She shrugged, "I guess we'll just have to hope that we get lucky and find them soon."

"How is it that you managed to drag us into 3 different stores and you weren't satisfied with any of the maps?!"

"Hey, it's not my fault the words on them were barely noticeable."

"The words -THEY WERE FINE YOU MORON."

"To you. They were fine to you. You and I have very different sets of eyes, princess."

"Clearly."

Sokka had to admit that he was beginning to feel slightly bad for fooling Azula like this, but he couldn't deny that he was having fun being lost with her. It looked like she was starting to feel better too, which was a good thing.

"Hey, you wanna know what I just realized? We're friends with the avatar, right? The avatar is obviously a very important person. And where do important people in this city stay?"

"...The upper ring. Damnit, why didn't we think of that sooner?"

"That's right, the upper ring! Which means all we gotta do is go there and look for a big house that has Appa sitting next to it!"

"Fine. But can we get something to eat first? I'm hungry."

"So based on what we know so far, Sokka and the tiny princess have been to three different stores in search of a map…and each time they left empty handed, despite the fact that each store that they went to sold maps. Which…doesn't make a whole lot of sense for two people who are supposedly lost. You'd think that they'd just grab the first map they could get their hands on." Toph said.

"It's weird, isn't it? I wonder what those two could be thinking." Katara pondered.

"Considering the fact that they only seem to share a single brain cell whenever they're together, not much." Mai deadpanned.

Ty Lee snickered, "Azula would have totally killed you for saying that if she were here right now."

"Like I care. If anything I'm going to be the one doing the killing since she ran off, again."

Azula had to admit that she was having fun. After they finished having lunch, the two of them took their time exploring the lower and middle rings. They went into different shops, browsing the many books that they had for sale, and discussing what they read. Eventually, Azula had forgotten that they were lost in the first place, something that Sokka was grateful for when he noticed how much fun she was having. Before they knew it, day had turned into night.

"So, where do you want to go next?" he asked.

"Hmm, how about-"

"There you guys are!" a voice shouted from behind them.

They turned around and saw Mai, Ty Lee, Aang, Toph, and Katara running towards them.

"Oh, hey guys! What are you doing here?" Sokka asked.

"What are we doing- ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! We've been looking everywhere for you two! We were worried that something happened or that you were lost!" Katara shouted.

"Lost? Oh yeah, we were lost! I forgot about that after a while since I was having so much fun."

"Well, I guess you would forget, seeing as how the two of you were technically on a date." Mai said, smirking at Azula and Sokka.

"We weren't out on a date! We were just…taking in the sights together! Right, Azula?"

"...You didn't buy me mochi." she said.

"Are you trying to say that you'd consider it a date if Sokka bought you mochi?" Ty Lee asked.

"I never said that."

"Huh, guess I'll have to keep that in mind for next time." Sokka mumbled.

"Did you say something, Sokka?"

"Nope! Nothing at all!"