When she heard he was back, Azula knew she couldn't avoid her uncle; the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation was probably the most important person in the country, barring the Fire Lord himself, and Fire Lord Azulon was a very old man. Soon enough, her uncle would be the Fire Lord, so she would need to earn his respect; he was the man who would rule her country, and she understood the respect she would need if she wanted to be the Fire Lord one day. However, the Dragon of the West was not the same man who had left the palace; she could see that as soon as she saw his face. Iroh had gone off to Ba Sing Se, hopeful and determined to find victory for their nation; that was over two and a half years prior, and now, he returned, saddened by the loss of his son, probably uncaring for the victory he had achieved- for all intents and purposes, the Earth Kingdom was theirs, but his will had been shattered.
She saw him sitting doing what he seemed to like the most, drinking tea; though Zuko had gone to speak with him first, she waited patiently, knowing that she would have to discuss matters with him. She was closer to the throne, because of her cousin's demise, and she could not ignore that; her father was certainly going to become the Fire Lord at some point, and after that, perhaps she could succeed him. She was still a child, and perhaps Iroh did not think she was ready to talk about things like that, but she was; her father had not had her train and learn from her tutors what she had with the intention of her being merely a Princess, but a future Fire Lord.
When her brother left the tea-room, she waited a few moments for him to walk on down the hallway, hoping that he didn't see her standing in the shadows; he didn't even look back, though she could tell from his posture he was probably just weeping over their cousin's demise. She had experienced many emotions the day they found out about Lu Ten, but tried to keep them at bay; she could not cry in front of her father, no matter how much she would miss her cousin. He was a good man, and she knew that he did not deserve the fate he had received. Her uncle might have been weird, and perhaps not suitable for the role he was going to inherit, but her cousin, he was the kind of person she could have seen being a great Fire Lord. Noble of heart, and ferociously loyal to their nation; he wanted to serve it so badly that he had joined his father to fight in the siege, where he had died.
Now, it would be her that would one day be the Fire Lord, if she had anything to say about it; Zuko could act like and think he was the heir- even their grandfather thought that was inevitable, but Azula would fight tooth and nail for what she knew was rightfully hers. She strode toward her uncle, having this in mind, and when he turned to face her, he smiled; she couldn't understand why- she knew that he ought to be sad, knowing what they would have to discuss, but for some reason, he couldn't help but smile. Her presumptions were confirmed once more- her uncle was a weird man.
"Niece, I'm... glad that you've come to see me." he smiled at her, though his tone sounded pained, "It's been a long time."
"I know." she simply acknowledged the fact of the matter, before she sat down across from him, where Zuko had, "What did you and Zuzu talk about?"
"Oh, so you were watching us?" he asked her, somewhat amused in his tone, the Princess nodding.
"Well, yes." she didn't bother to lie, knowing that it was easier to tackle things head on when it came to her uncle; he wasn't going to punish her for eavesdropping or spying, unlike her father.
"We talked about what happened there." he simply admitted, "I shouldn't have taken so long to come back here... but I had to... do things." he admitted, his words cryptically disguising whatever he had been up to between conquering Ba Sing Se and returning to the capital; it usually wouldn't take eight months to get back to the Fire Nation.
"It's not right... what happened to Cousin." she tried to phrase herself in a way that seemed more distant from Lu Ten; he had been kinder to her, kinder than most, and she knew that it would be a challenge to try and act like she didn't care.
"It wasn't." he sighed, his expression now showing his true emotions; he was broken by what happened to his son, and she didn't know if he'd ever be the same again, "Lu Ten fought for his country, and he paid the price I wish I could have paid instead."
"Uncle." she addressed him, her voice timid, despite wanting to sound serious, "What did you do?"
"What do you mean?" he asked her, simply confused by her rather vague question; given the context, she thought he would have understood it a little better.
"To them. The people who killed him." she acknowledged, the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation drawing a long breath, as if he were trying to hold himself back from telling her.
"I defeated the Dai Li." he simply put it, "They tried to hold the palace, and we destroyed it." he acknowledged with a grimace, "I do not know how many died, but... it doesn't matter. Our victory cost many lives, not just your cousin's."
"Did you capture any of them?" she asked Iroh, whose eyes darted away.
"I did not." he acknowledged, "I know that my men... well... they got their revenge." he conceded, almost as if he were disgusted by it.
"I am..." she began, before realising she wasn't glad they won; despite how much she wanted the war to be won, she could not justify it in her mind that their victory was worth it.
The loss of her cousin was so great, and incomparable to the victory they had achieved; Ba Sing Se could have been conquered another day, if they had not pushed on, and her cousin would have lived.
"You are what?" Iroh asked her, looking at her with a concerned face, "Azula, what's wrong?"
She turned her eyes down, and simply tried to think of an excuse, "Could I have some of the tea? It smells good." she excused herself; she didn't care about the tea, but it was something to keep her mind off of her cousin.
"Of course, my niece." he smiled at her, before flipping an empty cup over, pouring some of the aromatic mixture into it; she pulled the cup closer to her, blowing on it before she sipped from the cup.
The tea did taste good, but she wasn't going to say that to her uncle, lest she lose her dignity and image; not that she was trying to make it seem to her uncle that she was completely focused on her bending and had no time for worldly pleasures, but she did want to show off through her actions that she was a serious, competent and dutiful Princess. Once she placed the cup back down on the table, she noticed that Iroh had been intently staring her down, though not out of suspicion; he seemed more confused about her diversion, which he could probably understand had to do with her feelings about Lu Ten.
"Princess Azula," he addressed her by her title, which indicated that he was being serious, "may I ask, how have you been since I left?"
She raised a brow, a little confused as to why he was asking about how she had been; he thought he would be more concerned about her reaction to her cousin's demise, but instead, he just wanted to know about her life. She didn't think it had been a bad two years, though she knew that her training had only grown more intense; her father was serious about having her be ready to serve her nation, and with that, she was expected to become a master firebender as young as possible. She didn't know when she would master lightning generation, or any other complex and challenging firebending techniques that she had yet to understand. She did have one bit of news on that front; her firebending wasn't orange any more, which was a surprise at the very least; she had only achieved her blue firebending a few months prior, and her father had been drilling her to perfect it, and by that point, she could no longer bend orange fire.
"My fire." she spoke up, raising her left hand up to show it to her uncle, before she sparked a blue flame in her palm; his eyes widened, shimmering with awe of what he was seeing.
"That's... impressive." he acknowledged, "How long have you been able to do that."
"Only a few months ago." she clarified, "Father says it's because I'm a prodigy. Even Grandfather was impressed."
"I'm sure he was." Iroh nodded along, before his eyes turned away momentarily; his tone suggested there was more to his words than she could understand, but she decided not to press it, a little confused why he was feeling off about it, "Zuko didn't mention that."
"Of course he didn't. He's jealous." she smugly asserted, knowing it to be true; her brother wished he had firebending as great as her own, but despite all his hard work, his was feeble in comparison.
"He is." he agreed with her, "Ozai was just like that when he was his age. He wanted to be a better firebender than me, but I was so much older and more skilled that my father didn't really consider his bending." he acknowledged, making Azula cringe slightly.
Her uncle comparing Zuko to her father was something she really wouldn't have imagined possible, but it did make a little sense; her father resented Iroh for a number of reasons, and his bending prowess had to be one of them, and her brother felt the same about her.
"Father and Zuko are nothing alike." she tried to deny his observation, "Father's a great firebender."
"Through hard work." he clarified, "Nobody is born great."
"I was." she argued, before he chuckled; whether he was denying her claim or actually thought she wasn't a great firebender was unclear, but she would be offended either way.
"Well, you can say that, but if your father hadn't had you taught from such a young age, would you have become such a great firebender?" he asked her, the Princess turning her eyes away.
"I don't know." she whispered, before picking up the cup of tea, knowing that would give her an excuse not to respond to whatever question came out of her uncle's mouth.
"Nobody is born great." Iroh argued, "We have potential, that is true, but who you grow into is something that is not predetermined." he acknowledged, making her look at him with confusion.
"I thought you believed in destiny, Uncle." she noted, remembering him saying something about it before he had gone to Ba Sing Se.
"Destiny is malleable, my niece. It is not something that is impermeable to change. If you are destined to be great, then it is up to you to decide how you make yourself great." he advised her, the Princess narrowing her eyes; his words were confusing, but even then, she got the jist of what he was trying to tell her.
"I know that I will be a great Princess." she acknowledged, deciding not to state the next step, knowing that it mightn't be the right time to discuss her aspirations for the throne.
"I believe in you, Azula." he assured her with a warm smile, "I believe in both of you."
Zuko did not want to think the worst of his father, knowing that fundamentally they both wanted the same thing: to serve their country. However, the Prince could not help but be suspicious about his father's late evening meeting with a shady looking man; he had watched them from afar, hiding on a nearby rooftop of the palace, listening in to their conversation. To his frustration, the Prince Ozai only spoke cryptically, and the man barely said a word; the only thing he noticed was that his father exchanged a document with his father, and after that, the two of them went their separate ways.
He decided to follow his father, given that there must have been a reason for him to give the shady figure a message. He carefully climbed down from the roof, and after that, followed his father down the hallway; given that it was after dark, there weren't that many guards around, except at the entrances into each section of the palace. He was forced to take a diverting route around through a small conference room to miss some guards his father walked by, before he continued to follow after Ozai. He was cautious to keep his distance, but eventually, his father did stop at the messenger hawk station, located at the northern end of the palace. The Prince stayed by the doorway, peering over once he knew his father was distracted by a messenger hawk. Zuko's eyes widened as he saw his father pull out another scroll, which he placed into the carrying box, before locking it and setting the messenger hawk loose.
From what the Prince could tell, his father seemingly sent two messages at once, one by messenger hawk, and the other by courier. That seemed too serious to ignore, and with no other choice, he tailed after the courier, who was likely leaving the palace with haste. He dashed down the hallway, and immediately moved to get to the nearest secret entrance in the palace, knowing that he'd need to take a route via the catacombs under the city if he was to reach the courier in time. He found a door, which was opened via a quick firebending form; he had to place his hand on a mechanism, disguised as being part of a beam, and send his flames into it. Once the mechanism opened the secret entrance, he stepped inside and pushed the sliding door closed, making sure nobody saw him leave.
He raced down a staircase, quickly making his way underneath the palace, into the catacombs proper; he had to open another door at the base of the stairs, again with his firebending, before he was able to enter the catacombs proper. To his luck, guards didn't tend to patrol the catacombs, though some of the easier to access entrances were guarded, to his knowledge. He only ever used the more secretive ones, wanting to avoid walking into any guards; the kinds of things he got up to in his theatre mask were not things he wanted his father hearing about.
He sprinted through the catacombs, having memorised the labyrinthine shape of the structure well; he'd gone through it enough times when he'd gone off to see Mai in secret, not wanting to draw too much attention to himself, nor let his father comprehend the relationship he had with the girl. She was one of his only friends, and he knew that his father would probably disapprove of such 'distractions' and try to have them separated. He tried not to think of her at that very moment; the courier ought to be at the centre of his mind.
When he did eventually reach the exit he needed to take, he climbed up a ladder, scaling it with haste; one of the rungs snapped, and the Prince cringed, hoping it wasn't too loud- he was close to the street, and he didn't want anybody hearing him beneath their feet. Scaling up the rest of the ladder, he pushed the stone plate above him out of the way, glancing around the alleyway he was to climb out into. Seeing that there was no one there, he climbed out of the hole, and put the stone plate back in place, before he immediately moved to the end of the alleyway; he could see the courier walking down toward the gates of the palace, and waited by the corner of the alleyway patiently for him to leave.
Once the courier moved past the gates, obviously cleared to leave, he saw him approaching a carriage, which was waiting for him nearby; the Prince's eyes widened, realising he'd have to get to the carriage and stop it from leaving. He couldn't chase after a messenger hawk, but he could get after a person with ease, as long as he knew where he'd be heading. The Prince decided to run off the guess that the messenger was going to travel out of the caldera; that was the only reason they'd be getting in a carriage, given the relatively small size of the Caldera City. Making his way down the alleyway, he approached the next street that crossed perpendicular to the main road, which the carriage would obviously be taking, given that it was the only way to leave the caldera, at least outside of the catacombs.
The Prince waited by the street corner, knowing he was looking for the message, not the messenger; he would have to get him out of the carriage first, and he had a pretty easy way to do that. As the carriage was being drawn by a dragon moose, there was one simple thing to do; and that was to scare the animal, forcing it to a halt. Though he didn't want to have to use his firebending while in disguise, he knew that it was his best option to achieve just that. As the carriage approached, the Prince took a deep breath, before he bent a wall of flames in front of the creature, which cried out with fear, raising its forelegs, and moving back, much to the chagrin of the driver; who Zuko swiftly knocked out with a jab to the head.
"Sorry." he apologised to the man, not really knowing how well involved he was with his father's intelligence apparatus; he could have just been hired for the job, and got beaten up by a random assailant for no reason other than being in the way.
The Prince pulled out one of his dao, and slashed the door open; to his surprise, the courier jumped out, immediately trying to attack him with firebending. He raised his left hand up, bending the flames to either side of himself, effectively blocking his attack; the courier looked his way with eyes of fear- if he knew who he was, perhaps he'd be even more afraid, if only from the reputation Prince Ozai had built up for himself. He blocked the courier's hands as he tried to conjure a wall of flames between the two of them, quickly slashed his dao at his shins; he cried out with pain, and Zuko grasped him by the collar, and began to drag him toward a nearby alleyway.
As he squirmed, trying to break himself free, the Prince couldn't help but sigh, "Stop it if you know what's good for you." he warned him with a purposefully deeper voice, hoping to intimidate him; it worked, and when he was thrown up against a wall, he kept the tip of his dao by the man's throat.
"What were you doing in the palace?" he simply asked him, the courier's eyes widening.
"I don't know who you're working for... but you will pay dearly for this." he warned the Prince, who leaned closer, the blade moving to nearly pierce his throat.
"Give me the scroll." he demanded, the courier's eyes widening; he immediately set his hand on fire, which suggested the worst- he was going to get rid of any evidence of Ozai's activities.
He responded in turn by kicking the man right in the head, forcing his head into the wall and knocking him out cold; he reached over to take the scroll out of the man's robes, and once he had got it, he darted down the alleyway. The guards would be coming after him, so he needed to be quick.
"You! Stop!" a guard demanded, before shouting out, "Get around the block, don't let him escape!"
The Prince grit his teeth, and realised that he'd be in a lot of danger if he got caught; the kind of danger he seriously wanted to avoid. His father hadn't had a reason to be truly angry with him, given that his comparatively less impressive bending was out of Zuko's control; Ozai would certainly be justified in being furious if he learned about him sneaking around and spying on his treason-laden meetings.
Once he reached the end of the alleyway, he immediately looked for anywhere to hide from the guards; he knew they probably couldn't follow him to the rooftops, but that would be somewhere he'd be rather easy to spot, especially given they'd know to look there. He decided that his best bet was to run down the closest alleyway and find a corner to cover in; he charged across the street, seeing a few guards, who obviously could see where he was heading. he was a lot faster than them, however, and was had to quickly make his way down the alley between two large houses.
He decided in that moment his safest bet was to jump over into someone's backyard. Nobles loved to have their ornate gardens, so he knew he'd be able to easily hide in some bushes. He turned around a corner in the alleyway, and jumped up to grasp the top of a brick fence; it was a challenge to reach, but Zuko's athleticism was something even he himself underestimated. He grunted as he pulled his body up and over the fence, and heard the shouts of the guards, who made their way right down the alleyway.
The Prince cowered down, sitting down behind a bush that was planted against the fence; it was rather prickly, and was irritating his skin, despite the robes he had over his body. He tried his best to stay as still as possible, waiting for the guards to move by.
"Where'd he go?" one of the guards snarled, "He can't have just disappeared."
"Did any of you get a good look at him?" another asked, one of the guards responding with a confused voice.
"He had a theatre mask on." he mumbled, "Like, from one of those traditional plays."
"It was blue. He's like some kind of blue demon." another added, making his comrades laugh.
"That wasn't a demon, buddy. That's what you call a thief." he acknowledged, "I'm going to go interrogate the men he beat up, but all of you, keep an eye out for him. He looks dangerous, so don't get too close without back-up."
The guards then sounded like they were moving away, probably guessing Zuko had continued to run off around the city. He sighed with relief, and turned to pull out the scroll he had stolen; he hadn't gotten a chance to look at it, so he decided to do so at that moment. He unfurled the scroll, and sparked a flame in his left hand, allowing him to look at it. The Prince's gut dropped as he read the first few words.
"You will be rewarded greatly for the death of Fire Lord Iroh." he whispered the words aloud, just to try and make sure he wasn't misreading them.
He continued to read along, though he didn't dare to say the rest out loud, "As a precaution, you will be given disguises indicative of Earth Kingdom soldiers, so it looks like they were behind the attack in case it fails. The man who has given you this letter will provide you with your reward once you return to the Fire Nation; in the case that he was unsuccessful in giving you this message, a second courier has been sent this message by messenger hawk, to ensure that you know that my offer still holds. Burn this letter as soon as you have read it."
His eyes widened, realising what he had just read, "F-Father..." he mumbled, unsure what to say or do; he couldn't stop the other message from reaching the assassins, so he would have to do something else to warn his uncle.
"I have to send a message to Uncle, right away." he acknowledged the fact of the matter, before his eyes widened, realising that his father was probably having every single message from the messenger hawk station checked, especially given that the only things that were usually sent out of there would be official messages or whatever conspiratorial things Ozai was up to at that very moment.
The first thing he thought of was who he could trust to help him send a message; he could buy or steal a messenger hawk from some store, but he was pretty sure that would be more dangerous than it was worth. He decided that there was only one person he knew to rely on- Mai. He rose up to his feet, and listened out for the guards.
"I need to get to her house... right now." he acknowledged; sneaking around was going to be more dangerous, now that the guards were about.
He thought to himself what was more dangerous; the guards catching him, or his father finding out that he walked around the city at night by himself. Zuko decided that the latter was preferable, and took the mask he was wearing off, pulling his hair bands out of his pocket, allowing him to tie his hair back up into its usual phoenix-tail, before he placed his swords and mask down; he didn't need them, and he could pick them back up on his way back home. Reaching up to grasp the top of the wall, he pulled himself up, glancing over the top to check if anyone was there; the alleyway was empty, even if he could hear the guards in the distance.
He climbed over the wall, and began to pace down the alleyway, acting as if nothing was wrong; he approached the main street once more, and stepped out, noticing a few pedestrians on the street, as well as some guards. They looked his way, narrowing their eyes at him; given their cautious reactions, he was unsure whether they could recognise him. Prince Zuko was not an exceptional looking person, and outside of his royal robes, he probably looked like any other teenager.
He paced on down the street, casually walking along, and to his luck, the guards didn't move to question him; he continued along toward Mai's house, which he knew the directions to well. It didn't take him that long, given the streets were practically empty at that time of night, barring a few lone individuals pacing about; he wasn't concerned what they were doing, and only about whether the guards would be suspicious of him. he walked past some more, and they didn't bat an eye; Zuko sighed with relief, and continued walking to Mai's house, which he could see in the distance.
He first approached the gates of the house, before he climbed up onto the brick fence that surrounded the property; he then placed along the fence, moving slowly enough that he wouldn't make any loud, sudden noises, before he climbed up onto the lower portion of the roof, striding along toward Mai's window. He took a deep breath, before he knocked on the window. He heard rustling inside the room, before the window was opened up from the inside; Mai was holding a dagger in hand, nearly cutting Zuko's wrist as she reached out toward him. He created a flame in his hand, which revealed their faces to each other. Her eyes widened as they met his own, and she then straightened her expression; though she looked as stoic as ever, he could tell from her slightly pursed lips that she was confused by his presence.
"What are you doing here, Zuko?"
"I wouldn't have come if I had another choice." he acknowledged, "It's about Uncle."
"Oh." she mumbled, before she pulled the window completely open, "Come in." she simply requested of him.
Zuko obliged her, and stepped through the window, sitting himself down on the bedside table, while she moved to sit on her bed; she wiped her eyes before she looked at him, her glare serious, "What did you find out now?" she asked, the Prince gulping, afraid of what he had seen; he didn't know how she was going to react, but he pulled the scroll off of his belt, and handed it to her.
She opened up the scroll, and he sparked a new flame in his finger so she could see what she had in her hands; her eyes scanned down the scroll, and she didn't even seem to finish it, immediately placing it down on her bed beside her. Her eyes met his own, and he could tell that she was as nervous about it as he was.
"Okay, this is serious, Zuko." she acknowledged, before narrowing her eyes at him, "But why are you involving me?"
"I need to send a message to my uncle that Dad won't see." he clarified, "If he does, then... well, I don't know what he'd do to me, but it wouldn't be very nice."
"You want me to send the message." she realised, before turning around to look at her bedroom door, "I can do that, Zuko, but we're going to have to be really quiet." she acknowledged, before turning her gaze back to the scroll, "We're going to show this to somebody. What your father's doing is treason."
"I- uh- have a better idea." he admitted, knowing that the scroll was a weapon he had against his father, and he shouldn't so quickly dispense of it.
"You want to keep it?" she asked him, the Prince shaking his head.
"No, but I need somebody to have it. Somebody my father can't reach." he acknowledged, "Somebody I can trust to send it to the military, in case my father acts against me, with some added evidence, and use it against my father- a way to blackmail him into complying with what I want."
She pursed her lips upward, smirking slightly; he deduced she must have been impressed by his idea, "Well, Zuko, I think I know who can help us right now... once you get that 'evidence' you say you have."
"Oh." his eyes widened, surprised by her revelation, "You do?"
"She's a good friend of mine."
The windchill was getting on Azula's nerves; despite the campfire in front of her and her Imperial Firebenders, the altitude of the Eastern Air Temple posed some problems, especially given that it was an exceptionally windy evening. Unlike in the Northern Air Temple, they didn't have the benefit of the Mechanist's heating system, and thus, were sitting in an abandoned hall, warming themselves up with fire they were able to start by collecting broken furniture and stray branches. The Princess and her men had arrived earlier that afternoon, and had already investigated a large portion of the temple, but given its size, she decided that it would be better for them to stay the night and continue their search in the morning.
She knew that she could probably go off and try to find some scrolls while her men got the rest they needed, but she felt that it would just be a waste of time. She was tired, and it was cold; she was getting pretty close to just giving up and going into her sleeping roll, which she hadn't slept in since they travelled to the Western Air Temple. She knew that it was made of quality material, and was quite warm, but sleeping in that on the cold stone floor of an Air Temple could never be enjoyable. She could have ordered the group to climb back down to their tank-train which was located by the base of the mountain, but she knew that would just waste their time and energy, despite the longing she had for the proper bedding that lay inside it.
She was eating a small meal which had been pre-made for her by her cooks and back in her bag, and she could see that her guards were eyeing the food; they only had rather mediocre navy rations to eat, so she could understand why they were feeling jealous. A quick glare was all it took for them to turn their eyes away. She reached into her belt, and pulled out one of the scrolls that she had already found, tucked under an old decaying bed; it was somebody's personal writings, and even though she had expected it to be useless, she was instead surprised to find out some rather interesting things.
It was an Air Nomads ramblings, presumably a young teenager's, about their disdain toward the structure of their own society. Their issues had nothing to do with the ideology that the people themselves lived by, but rather, about how families were structured, or rather, were systematically destroyed; most Air Nomad children were given to the monks to raise, and thus, none of them knew their parents. Air Nomads could have had siblings, but never know who they were, even if they met the individuals themselves, and the same could be said for their parents. The writer of the document was lamenting this fact, and wished that they could have a closer connection to anymore that was more than friendship and mentorship.
Azula was surprised by how discontent the individual was about the issue, and wondered if other Air Nomads found it problematic; their entire society seemed to be structured around people not having families, but rather belonging to the polity of the Air Nomads as a whole. They were meant to not have any kinds of bonds with others that was stronger than friendship, which came about naturally, rather than being enforced by circumstance, which was how familial bonds worked.
She understood that, better than most; at times, she would wish she had had a better brother, though not in the sense that she wanted Zuko to be better at firebending. He was mean-spirited toward her, and had never wanted to have a positive relationship with her. Azula wasn't an idiot, however, and understood his reasons perfectly well. Her mother had died giving birth to her, and he had spited her ever since; she had wondered what her mother had been like, and all she really knew was from her uncle, given that Zuko only had fragmented memories, being so young when she died.
She thought it was unfair how he treated her, and ever since she had learned how to firebend, he had only grown colder. She was certain that his disdain was personal, given that he was happy and cheery with their uncle, or at least, as cheery as he could be. Azula could see how not having families could actually be useful; the kind of spite that Zuko held toward her, or the expectations her father held over both of them, wouldn't make any sense in such a society. They wouldn't know each other, at least not as kin, and they'd have no reason to treat each other any different from a person they met on the street; she certainly wouldn't want to meet her father on the street, however, knowing how coldly he treated everyone, unlike Zuko, who only reserved his hate for her.
"The Air Nomads weren't complete idiots." she mumbled under her breath, thinking what it might have been like to actually talk to one of them; of course, they might fear her, because of her bending and who she was.
She knew that the Avatar was the last of their people, and even though they hadn't been seen in a hundred years, they had to be somewhere. Azula was sure of that, and that was why she was investigating every Air Temple for signs of life and inhabitation. She had failed to find any evidence at the Western Air Temple, and she doubted it would be possible to discern the difference between markings of habitation by the Earth Kingdom refugees at the Northern Air Temple, and that from the Avatar, if they had been there at some point. Her dinner did not distract her from the place they were in, and what she had seen; the Eastern Air Temple was uninhabited like the Westesrn one, and did not show any evidence, at least yet, of somebody living there.
She heard a shout, suddenly, in the distance, and she immediately counted the numbers around the campfire; there were two guards missing, and she had no idea what would make them shout. She presumed perhaps they'd walked into some corpses while walking around the halls, but none of her men had reacted in such a manner about skeletons before. She rose up to her feet, and lit a torch on the tip of her finger, which lit up the room a little better than the dim campfire she had been sitting beside.
When the guards appeared out of the doorway, with fearful looks on their faces, she couldn't help but snarl; they seemed perfectly fine, so she couldn't comprehend why they were shouting, "Why in the name of the spirits are you shouting?"
"Y-y-your highness." one of them stepped forward to address her, "The statues."
"What about the statues?" she raised a brow, "You didn't think one of them was a real Air Nomad trying to kill you, did you? Are you all that superstitious?" she almost scoffed, the two guards shaking their heads.
"N-no, Princess, that's not why we shouted." the other guard clarified, "Their eyes and tattoo... they're glowing."
"Sorry, what?" she narrowed her eyes at the two guards, utterly confused by what they meant; statues didn't usually glow, and she hadn't seen anything like that at the Air Temples they had already been to, nor had her scrolls mentioned it, "What do you mean glowing?"
"Follow me." one of them told her, the Princess rolling her eyes.
"You don't give me orders." she snarled at him, the guard raising his hand.
"I can show you. They're still glowing, I think." he explained, the Princess deciding that, given her interest in wanting to learn about the Air Nomads, that she ought to investigate this unusual occurrence.
She gestured for some other guards to follow her as the two guards led her through the doorway, taking her down a short hallway, before they came out to an atrium, presumably where the Air Nomads would meditate and socialise. And when she turned her head around, she saw it; a giant statue was glowing, or more specifically, its eyes and the tattoos on its body. It was the statue of a woman, which made sense, given that the Eastern Air Temple housed only women. She noticed how bright the glowing was, and immediately understood it could be natural; it had to be of a spiritual origin.
She glanced around, and noticed some other smaller statues, whose eyes weren't glowing, although there was another large statue on the opposite side of the room that glowed, "Who are these statues-" she began to ask, before she realised the answer was obvious, "Air Nomad Avatars." she concluded, before she turned around to face her guards, "My grandfather's notes spoke of the connection between the Avatar and their past lives, including effigies of them."
"You mean to say... the Avatar has reappeared?" one of her guards asked her, the Princess raising her hand.
"I didn't ask for your opinion." she snarled at them, before taking a deep breath, realising that she was so much closer to achieving her goal than she had first believed, "This is what I have been waiting for. Do we have a messenger hawk with us?"
"Yes, your highness." one of them nodded, "Do you need to send a letter?"
"Yes." she confirmed, "I need to know from the Fire Sages at once if my assumptions are true." she acknowledged, "And I need to ask my uncle for any information that appears about the Avatar to come right to our ship."
"We only have one messenger hawk, your highness." the guard clarified, making her sigh; it was rather obvious what to do, so it seemed that she would have to do all of the planning.
"We can send both messages to our ship, which is close by, and another message inside to request the crew to send the messages to both my uncle and the Fire Sages." she explained, before clearing her throat, seeing that everyone was just standing there, as if they didn't know what to do, "Get me some paper and a brush!" she commanded, one of the guards dashing off to do just that.
She turned around to face one of the glowing statues, and couldn't help but smirk; she was lucky, she knew that, and this was just proof of it. The Avatar had come out of hiding, for whatever reason, and she would be poised to capture them. The Fire Nation's greatest enemy had just signed away their fate, and she would be the one to take it.
"You're mine, Avatar."
