"I'm afraid I owe you an apology."

That's one surefire way to get Katara's attention. She puts down the food in her hand and gives Azula a questioning look.

"What I said last night was not appropriate. My reaction was uncalled for and insulting to you. I hope you can look past that."

Azula, apologising?

"What changed your mind?"

At that, Azula looks confused. Just for a split second before she gets her face under control, but it's enough to clue Katara in. That, and the awkwardly stilted phrasing.

"You don't mean that, do you? Are you really sorry, or do you just want to smooth things over?"

"What difference does it make?"

Katara sighs.

"All the difference, Azula. You have to mean it. If you're just apologising for the sake of it, forget it. I don't want to hear it."

That's not how Azula sees it. She's learned the art of apologising early on, and in her opinion, although she resents doing it, she's fairly good at it. She's got the tone down, the appropriately rueful expression, the body language to show deference. What else could Katara want?

"But—"

"No but", Katara cuts her off. "An apology means you regret it. You have to know why you're wrong. I'm not some diplomat you have to appease. Either mean it, or save your breath."

Ah.

Her father's teachings come to mind. Ozai would rehearse with her, after she'd insulted some courtier or, Agni forbid, embarrassed him in front of her grandfather or other nobility. He had always been proud of her abilities, the shows of submission and respect she could perform. He had expected nothing less of her, whether in public or in private. Unlike Zuko, who would cry to their mother at every turn, she had mastered the art of diplomacy early on, always known when to speak and when not to, when to show respect and when to demand it. Intentions had never mattered. Whether she had been right or not, there had been times when it had been necessary to apologise to people they couldn't afford to alienate. He who holds the power is right, he who serves is wrong. In her world, that iss how it is and that is how it should be.

Katara leaves the table without another word.

At the war council, Azula delivers her speech, but her usual projection of strength and untouchability isn't entirely there. Nobody would dare point it out, but she can tell. They've smelled her weakness. After she's done, the council debates possible next steps, but her mind and heart aren't in it. As the generals and admirals deliberate, she catches herself more than once picturing Katara's reactions to their proposals, followed by her father's disapproval of such a sentimental weakness. It's odd, measuring her decisions against Katara's approval, when Katara… doesn't reall matter, isn't someone who can supervise or punish her.

"Your Majesty?"

Lord General Shazi has finished his proposal. A massive raid on an Earth Kingdom supply depot recently located by Fire Nation spies, using troops from the Twelfth and Fifth Army. A successful strike could provide some much-needed relief and throw the Earth Kingdom's forces around the coast into disarray – but failure would mean catastrophic losses, and weaken Azula's troops in the colonies.

"No."

To the general's credit, he contains his surprise well. Azula can admire that; a display of discipline worthy of a royal courtier. She would expect nothing less of him.

"We don't stand to gain enough to risk such an amount of troops and materiel. Need I remind you that soldiers are a finite resource? Your plan is ambitious, general, but if it fails, we will have exposed the entire eastern front and invited a counter-attack. The consequences could be devastating."

She doesn't mean only the consequences to the nation. The implicit threat is understood clearly: generals who incur defeats are to expect a punishment fitting the crime.

The meeting concludes without a decision on the next steps.

Afterwards, Azula spends the afternoon at the dojo, blowing off steam. Dummy after dummy goes down to her blasts, fire whips, and kick shots. Scorched hay and broken wood are strewn all over the floor, and a few hours in, the familiar reward of sore muscles and sweat all over sets in. It's refreshing, really. She feeels alive.

"Your Highness?"

The arrival of a servant interrupts her training and the last blast misses the dummy.

"What is it?"

The man takes a step back at the tone of her voice and makes sure to bow extra deep again.

"Your prisoner has demand to access the palace library, Highness. Captain Meiyo has sent me to bring the matter to you for decision."

Library?

"Demanded?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. I am afraid your generosity is wasted on her; she clearly does not know any respe—"

She holds up a hand.

"What does she want in the library?"

The man shrugs.

"She hasn't said, Highness. But who knows what goes on in the minds of these primitives?"

Azula's irritation about being interrupted condenses into ice-cold anger. You've just made the biggest mistake of your life.

The servant steps back as she turns her glare on him. With every step she takes towards him, the man seems to shrink, until she has him cornered against the wall of the dojo.

"What is your name?"

"H—Hundan, Your Majesty."

"Well, Hundan. I am only going to say this once."

If eyes could kill, there would be a burning hole in his face.

"If I ever, ever, hear you speak that way again, ever…", he clearly fears for his life (too bad he didn't think of that before), "I am going to cut out your tongue myself. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. Of course. My apologies, I just thought—"

"You are not here to think", Azula growls. "You live to serve, so serve me by going back and telling the captain my guest is permitted to use the library. Tell the captain to send some of her guards along, but she is not to be bothered, do you understand?"

"Certainly. Right away. Majesty. My apologies."

She watches, satisfied, as he runs like a man possessed. Nobody, nobody, none of the soldiers or servants, are entitled to that kind of language. What they think doesn't matter. She is the Fire Lord. It's not so long ago that she herself has thought of Katara that way, but that is her prerogative. If she wants the staff to hate Katara, she will let them know. If she wanted them to like her, they would be bowing down to Katara. What they themselves want is irrelevant.

She tries for a lightning bolt, aims at a dummy and imagines it to be Hundan, but it explodes in her face.

That evening, when she returns home, later than usual, she finds Katara engrossed in a book.

"You missed dinner", Katara says without looking up. "Shoku said she would bring a second serving once you're back."

"A security matter required my attention", Azula answers. "Who's Shoku?"

At that, Katara looks up.

"The head of your kitchen staff? Black hair, round face, prominent mole on her chin?" When Azula's face remains blank, she incredulously asks, "you never bothered to learn her name?"

Azula shrugs. "What for? She's a servant. If I wanted to learn all their names, it would take months."

"You're impossible."

Katara returns her attention to the book.

After drawing, this becomes the second freedom in Katara's life. She devours anything she can find – books on the history of the Fire Nation, about the war, religious tomes and treatises on the geography of the islands. She finds some books about the other nations, too, and the contrast between texts from before and during the war is staggering. Almost every day, when Azula returns in the evening, she finds Katara over some scroll or book. After a while, the guards stop looking too closely at what she reads, stop shadowing her every step in the library, and just walk her from the Fire Lord's chambers to the library and back. They keep her in their sight, but true to Azula's orders, nobody bothers her. Occasionally, on the few occasions Azula returns earlier than usual, they each tend to their own matters – Katara reads or draws, Azula reads military reports or dry exercises bending stances.

"What are you reading?"

Katara tears her eyes away from the book on her lap and holds it up for Azula to see.

"Architecture During the Life and Reign of Fire Lord Zhensho, Its Peculiarities and Characteristics, and the Enduring Architectural Influence on Our Great Nation", Azula reads. "Hardly what I would have picked."

Katara shrugs. "It's interesting."

She turns back a few pages.

"I read about this really interesting place, the Xisheng Monastery? The techniques used to build it are said to be unique, and it says here it's not so far away from the capital, do you think I could see it? I'd love to draw it."

It's a shot in the dark. Azula has taken her hunting, has taken her sparring, has allowed her the library. With a little luck, this too may be possible. From what she's seen of Azula, her breakdown, the guilt and regret that has unexpectedly been unearthed, it seems like there is a lot she feels she has to atone for, even if she's evidently not ready to admit it. And she owes Katara, more than she can ever repay. There has got to be something she can leverage.

Azula shakes her head and Katara's hopes fall apart.

"It was demolished a few years ago. My father built a new factory on top of it, to take advantage of the region's rich metal deposits."

"Seriously?"

"What? It's just a building."

"It's not 'just a building'. You… your people cannibalised your history, your cultural heritage, just to fuel your stupid war!"

"Whatever you say."

"Ugh! Whatever."

She turns back to the page she was reading before and the conversations ends there. When Azula goes to bed, much later, long after the sun has set, after she has spent hours sitting at the table thinking through the day's work, she finds Katara has fallen asleep on the book.

The next week is filled with more work than ever before. Azula sleeps less than usual, rises before the sun, stays away all day, and returns after dinner to fall into bed immediately. Katara divides her time between the royal library, picking reading material, and their rooms, burying herself in books for entire days. Azula is gone when she wakes up and comes home after she's fallen asleep, but even though they see next to nothing of each other awake, Azula is secretly relieved to fall asleep and wake up next to Katara every night; a feeling she pushes away and buries as deep as she can.

After a week, she comes home early to empty quarters for the first time.

"Corporal!"

The woman outside the door hurries to Azula's side and salutes her.

"Where is", Katara? 'My prisoner'? 'My guest'? She settles on, "she?"

"Miss Katara has gone to the dojo, Highness." When Azula raises an eyebrow, the corporal adds, "Captain Meiyo assumed you wouldn't mind and didn't want to bother you. She's sent an escort along."

Smart call. Azula lets Katara use the library and she takes her sparring, it's only logical that she would let Katara use the dojo on her own. The captain is a clever one. Finally, someone who doesn't bother her for every small thing. She's gonna have to keep an eye on her though; that amount of initiative could easily become a threat. It's not good when people think too much. Not too little either, there's a middle ground that's just right for Azula's servants.

When she arrives at the dojo, she finds Katara going through katas, but no waterbending forms she can recognise. There's something familiar about it, yet at the same time, something foreign. She watches for a few minutes, trying to figure out the nature of the exercises. Katara notices her, but continues to go through the stances until she's finished. Her precision is impressive, Azula admits to herself. Just another reminder of Katara's potential, her discipline, the way, Azula has noticed, she throws herself at every problem with methodical learning and doesn't let off until she's mastered it. It's been visible in her drawings, and here, it's visible in her training. It reminds Azula of her own rigid education.

"What exactly was that?", she asks once Katara has finished and sits down next to Azula to clean herself up. "I've never seen those forms before."

"Firebending", Katara answers. "I found a book in the library on older firebending forms and I tried to adapt them to water."

It's not a type of firebending Azula has seen before, much more fluid and… well, elegant. How much of that is Katara's changes and how much is history, she can't tell. But at the same time, it makes sense, explains her feeling of familiarity.

"Adapt them to water?"

"It's something I learned from Zuko. He told me about how his uncle took inspiration from my people's bending, and I figured, it works both ways."

That's news to Azula and she says as much.

"The way Zuko told it, his uncle explained the philosophy between the nations… wait, let me see if I can get the story together." Katara furrows her brows. "He said… fire is the element of power, I think, of determination and resolve. They—you have the drive and ambition to pursue your goals."

That sounds about right to Azula's ears. Ambition, drive, that's her (and her people as well, she supposes, though the drive is sadly lacking in some of them).

"He said earth is the element of stability, or something like that. Earthbending needs an unmovable mindset, you have to face things head on and never budge."

That, too, unfortunately matches Azula's experiences. For all that her troops push forward, the Earth Kingdom's armies hold their ground with remarkable insistence. She throws all she has at them, but the enemies remain rooted in place, and when they do push back into her territory, they do so with the slow but unstoppable movement of growing rock.

"Air is the element of… uh, I think it was agility? And detachment. Aa—the Air Nomads preached peace, freedom, and letting go of worldly concerns."

Aang's people, she almost says, but the name hurts too much to speak. Reminds her too much of how she misses him, reminds her of the uncertainty of his fate. The slip of the tongue is not lost on Azula.

"Water is the element of movement and reflection. We use our defence to become our offence, to turn an attacker's energy back on them. We don't block attacks like an earthbender or firebender would, we absorb them and use the momentum to strike back."

Azula nods. "And so what you tried to do here…?"

"Where do you draw your fire from?"

The question catches Azula off-guard, but the answer is obvious.

"I want to destroy my enemies. I have a right to rule to enforce, I know what I need to do, and anyone who stands in my way is an obstacle to be dealt with."

"And is that how your people have always done it?"

"I'm not an historian."

Katara chuckles.

"Long ago, your people didn't draw their energy from anger or hatred. You've turned fire into a destructive force, but it doesn't have to be. 'Fire brings life', you said that yourself, remember? When you told me about Agni?" (Azula does.) "These old forms I found, they're much more… balanced, I guess. There's a lot of talking about a bender's inner fire, about how they have to be at peace with themselves and how attack and defence are the same thing, a means to protect the bender's life, the flame of their existence. From there, it wasn't a big step to combine the two, so I took some of those moves and tried them with what I know about waterbending. Make them a little more dynamic, make them flow into one another."

So far, Azula can follow. But…

"You mentioned my uncle."

"Right. Yes." She gathers her thoughts for a moment. "He explained the four nations to Zuko like I just did, or something along those lines anyway. And he said he'd teach him a form he had invented himself after studying the philosophy of my tribe."

Suddenly, the pieces fall into place. Defence becomes offence. Turn the opponent's energy against them. It's so obvious now. She did wonder where Zuko learned that.

"Redirecting lightning."

"Exactly."

Uncle… I should have known that was his doing. Always messing with me. Really, Zuko and Iroh deserve each other. Two treacherous failures, one and the other. From the corner of her eye, she sees Katara's face fall slightly and realises she's let her own face betray her.

"That does sound like Uncle. He always was one for unorthodox thinking, even before", before he betrayed us, me, my father, can't very well say that, "before all this. I suppose that's why my father and grandfather never really liked him."

Azulon had still liked him enough to punish her father for trying to take Iroh's place, though. She vividly remembers overhearing that conversation, remembers what her mother had done in the aftermath. But looking back, she suspects it wasn't as much Iroh's endearing qualities that her grandfather took pride in. More likely a matter of tradition and honour, though what was so honourable about breaking down on the battlefield, she can't imagine. Her father's ascension had secured the nation's prosperity and expansion. To benefit his nation, surely that was honourable?

"Wanna spar?"

Katara's voice snaps her out of her thoughts.

"I mean, we're here anyway and you look like you could blow off some steam…"

"Let's."

They spend an hour fighting, maybe more, but for once, neither of them can gain the upper hand. Now that she sees them in action, Azula notices that Katara's new defences have become fiercer, quicker; her attacks more passionate, more fierce, and she can see the fiery influence in them. In turn, on a whim she tries to take a page out of Katara's book, fire counter-attacks right from her defences, tries to deflect Katara's attacks back on her, rather than wiping them aside like she usually would. Waves and icicles are met with flaming whips and flung back into Katara's directions, fire shields explode outwards to become wavefronts of fire.

Eventually, they call it a tie.

Sweaty and exhausted, Katara flops into the grass outside the dojo. Looking up, she sees nothing but clouds, no palace, no walls, as long as she doesn't turn her head. It's almost like freedom. After a moment's hesitation, a moment debating propriety, Azula, similarly exhausted, lays down next to her. When she rests her head on her hands, her elbow brushes against Katara's for a split second.

Katara looks over to her, tears her eyes away from the clouds, and with Azula, the palace and the walls come back into view.

"I haven't done this since I was a child", Azula muses. "My father would never have allowed this kind of slacking off."

"Your father?"

"Hmm. After our firebending teacher was dismissed because of his incompetence, my father took over my education himself. We would train from midday to evening. If there was any time left over before dinner, he would give me more exercises to keep myself busy until then."

"Wow. What an asshole."

Azula shrugs. "He was a strict teacher, but it's made me strong."

Katara can't quite agree. From what she's seen of Azula over the past two years, she's only strong on the outside. The few times she's been allowed a glimpse past Azula's projection of strength, take a look at her weaknesses, she's seen someone who's scared. Insecure. Who doesn't know what she wants to be, who holds herself to another's standards because it's all she knows.

"What about you? Who taught you?"

"Nobody, really. I taught myself most of what I know."

She taught herself‽ The most powerful bender I've ever known taught herself?

"I imagine that must have been difficult", she diplomatically says instead, curious to hear more.

"It was. There's no benders left in my tribe and I just had to figure it out myself. Sokka thought it was a waste of time, and sometimes I was afraid he might be right."

"Hold on. Your brother thought it was a waste of time? From what I've seen of him, I would have expected he'd be grateful for another warrior. He seems the type."

Katara laughs, but it's a bitter laugh. It's not hard to imagine why, not when she hasn't seen her brother in… Azula counts… almost two and a half years.

"'I know, it's an ancient art unique to our culture, bla bla bla'", she imitates Sokka's voice. "He was never one for the spiritual side of it."

"Ridiculous. He should have appreciated you more."

You're incredibly powerful. You almost took me down, you did take me down. More than once. You can control people's bodies, you can give and take life at will. He should have been bowing down to you.

If there's one thing Azula can respect and admire, it's that amount of strength.

"Not so long ago, you called me a savage and a peasant too, remember?"

Katara's voice is surprisingly soft, a sweet spot between scolding and reminiscing, hitting Azula like a needle. She can't stand it, being scolded or being wrong, never could. But Katara is right and if Azula could erase her own words, she would. With anyone else, this wouldn't have happened. What she says is right. If she changes her mind, it's right. If she contradicts herself, everyone else knows not to acknowledge it. The Fire Lord is always right. But Katara exists outside of that ruleset, isn't afraid to point out Azula's mistakes. She isn't sure whether that makes her special, whether she admires the audacity, the fearlessness, or whether it makes her blood boil.

Both, probably.

She doesn't respond, lets her head fall into the grass, and for a few minutes, they wordlessly stare up at the clouds. When the silence becomes too hard to bear, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife, Azula jumps up. One swift motion, swinging her legs to lever herself upwards. It reminds Katara just how much strength and agility is hidden underneath that arrogant, power-lusting exterior. That Azula is still a warrior at heart.

Azula holds out a hand, and after a moment's hesitation, Katara grabs it, hand around arm like the warriors at home, and lets herself be pulled up effortlessly. By the time they return to their rooms, they're engrossed in conversation, and when they slip into Azula's bed, the incident is all but forgotten.

All but.

A/N: Honestly, coming up with named side characters is almost as fun as doing worldbuilding! A couple of these names will be back in future chapters, too xD