A/N: Since I can't really decide on an update schedule, I'd be super happy if you could tell me in the reviews what you'd prefer. I thought about something like twice a week (Monday and Thursday?), but at that pace, it would take until mid-April to finish the story. Lately, I've been posting almost every day, but I'm not sure if that's too fast for everyone to keep up. So idk, let me know what you think.

Nothing of the sort comes up again, and neither Katara nor Azula hear anything else, but the conversation doesn't leave Azula's head. For weeks after, she can't help but analyse her every interaction with Katara against it, and to her distress, she can see how they might appear like it. For months now, she's woken up almost every morning wrapped in Katara's arms, and as much as she tells herself it's purely utilitarian, that it helps them deal with their respective stress, that it's just a little weakness she allows herself while she struggles to realise her father's dream – it's obvious how it must appear to anyone else.

She's taken Katara to her tailor for new clothes. She's accepted her as her only sparring partner. She's allowed her freedoms beyond that which even many guests of the Fire Lord would enjoy, free use of the dojo and the library. They eat from the same food.

It's way too late. She's let things get out of control.

But then again, there is the debt she owes Katara. And if she's being honest (she's not, she's looking to place blame), it's Katara's fault, too. Saving her life, indebting Azula to her. Following her stupid moral code and offering kindnesses to Azula that she didn't need to, like healing, like holding her when Azula became weak in the face of defeat. They've truly brought it on themselves.

Azula's reaction is the only one she knows: isolation.

At dinner, she stops making conversation. She goes to the dojo to spar alone. After a week, Katara picks up on it and takes the hint, begins to sleep in her own bed again, loses herself in books, disappears into the study where she knows Azula won't bother her and draws. It gives her time to reflect as well, and the thoughts that cross her mind aren't too dissimilar from Azula's. Wondering why she's let herself be tamed like this. Grappling with her guilt over her collaborative behaviour, tries to figure out what it is about Azula that breaks down her disgust for the Fire Nation, her hatred for its ruler so easily.

If she were a daughter from a noble house, would it have been her at my side instead of Mai and Ty Lee?, Azula wonders.

If things had gone different, if she weren't so bent on destruction, would it have been her joining us and not Zuko?, Katara wonders.

Desperate to spend as much time away as possible and think about Katara as little as possible, Azula buries herself in work. At every meeting, with the war council, the Minister of Security, or any other matter she can get her hands on, she almost expects to be confronted about Katara. Expects them to read fear about her reputation in her face. Nobody says anything, but she's convinced everyone must know. She lets her eyes wander through the room while a general reports on gains and losses at the front and wonders how many of them have thought the same, how widespread this gossip is.

It's unnerving.

After two weeks, she tries her best to not grapple with the fact that she misses Katara. That her bed feels cold every night, that dinner tastes like nothing without Katara trading barbs with her about the day's business. That she misses seeing Katara's drawings scattered across the dining room table, that the divan in the sitting room looks too big without Katara buried in books sitting on it.

After three weeks, she comes home after spending hours poring over ongoing investigatins with Captain Meiyo, and just asks: "Sparring?"

A few hours of beating the shit out of each other feel more freeing than anything she's done all week, but also serve to remind her what it is about Katara that draws Azula to her. Skill, talent, agility. Strength, power, potential. The more they've sparred over the last year, the more she can see traces of her own ruthlessness in Katara; feints and bluffs before hurling attacks at vulnerabilities in Azula's defences. The more they spar, the more Katara has to admit to herself how much Azula impresses her, too. It's easy in this setting, with no stakes but competition. Harder back then, when Azula was a constant threat to her life.

What a warrior she would have made, Azula thinks, if she had been born here. A fine companion for some general's son, perhaps, although generals' sons rarely want their wives fighting alongside them. It's the unmarried women, the single daughters, who end up joining the army, for the most part.

A handful of times, servants or officials pass by, carrying messages or hurrying from meeting to meeting. Each time, Azula doubles her efforts, attacks as ferociously as she can, as if to demonstrate the nature of her relationship with Katara, that of ruler and prisoner, of Fire Lord and simple sparring partner. It's not different to if she were training with her guards.

When the sun begins to set, it's Katara kneeling over Azula, hands pinned down and frozen blade hovering over her throat, and they both realise the absurdity of the situation at the same time. Almost a year ago, in the same situation, Azula feared for her life and Katara couldn't bring herself to take the final step; now, it's a simple knock-out, one in however many matches that afternoon. Both of them start to laugh at the same time and water splashes onto Azula's face as the blade melts from Katara's hand before Katara jumps up to offer her arm. Azula's hand grips her underarm and she pulls her up like just another fellow warrior.

The ice between them has once again begun to thaw, Katara is sure of it.

On the way back, she pushes the guilt aside, tries not to think about the circumstances of her life in the palace. Ignores Azula's own slightly broody, guilt-stricken looks, the moments her eyes flicker to Katara's scar for a split second. Tries, just for a moment, to pretend like this is just a friendship, like she doesn't see Azula's face in her nightmares, like she doesn't constantly beat herself up about every bit of sympathy she feels for Azula. Tries to focus on the good aspects. The fun. The witty conversations. On Azula wrapping her arms around her in her sleep sometimes when Katara wakes up drenched in sweat and tears. On exchanging stories in the moonlight and anecdotes after training.

Tries to let the world be alright, just for a few minutes.

When she's not looking, Azula reads her face like a book, and her thoughts follow along similar lines.

Once dinner has been served and eaten, Azula withdraws to the study – a first – to work on 'security matters' and Katara, left to her own devices, sits down on the balcony to meditate. The moon is a few days from full, and she finds its light helps her think. She sits in silence until she hears Azula go to bed, and when she steps back inside, a wordless understanding is formed and she follows Azula into the bedroom.

There is still a distance between them, a remainder of awkwardness and apprehension, but before long, they're both asleep next to each other. As days pass, the staff's gossip takes a backseat among Azula's concerns. Katara can see her returning to normal, although Azula still spends more time away than usual. But even when she sits in council, spends entire days with the palace guards to oversee their investigations, receives briefings from her officers, she thinks about Katara.

Katara is different. She's not Mai; the time she spends with Azula is not motivated by boredom and a desire to escape the limits of a noble family, the expectations of parents. She doesn't talk to Azula because it's less suffocating than being pretty and silent and marriable. She doesn't spar with Azula because it's more exciting than the luxurious emptiness of a palace city home. Katara is not Ty Lee, either, not an aimless airhead who follows Azula because Azula forces her to, who sticks around because Mai and Azula are the closest thing she has to friends, who ran away to escape being just another one in a line-up of similar sisters, another coin in her father's pocket of profitable marriage potential.

(Azula conveniently glosses over the fact Katara isn't here by choice at all.)

Katara challenges her in a way Mai and Ty Lee never did. Even when they were children, at school or the palace, as much as Mai already honed her knife skills then, as much as Ty Lee was already more athletic than the two of them together, there was always a subservience at play. Azula liked it. But it made Mai and Ty Lee's betrayal all the more unexpected, all the more shocking. But Katara… Azula is keenly aware that Katara spends time with her because she wants to, that she has the willpower and the strength to refuse. For the first time in her life, Azula is being indulged. Oh, sure, Katara gets something out of it, too – freedom from her proverbial cage, for one thing, exercise, a semblance of agency – but for once, it's not Azula who has the power to withhold, it's Katara. It's unfamiliar. Azula has made progress with Katara, has broken her to Azula's leadership, but it's still a far cry from the kind of friendship she's used to.

And Katara's episodes of withdrawal, her reclusion after… that happened (after she saved your life, part of Azula nags, don't be a coward and name it), have made it clear that at least to some extent, it's Katara who calls the shots. She didn't come back to rekindle it, she didn't put on the type of performative display of submission Mai or Ty Lee would have to get back in Azula's good graces – it was Azula who made an overture. Brought her the moon, figuratively speaking, to bargain for Katara's companionship.

What an undignified display of weakness. A princess doesn't beg. Only the strongest survive in this world, and if you want to survive, you must be strong, Princess Azula.

It sounds too much like her father.

She rationalises it. She doesn't see eye to eye with Katara; they simply lead in different areas. Azula is still the Fire Lord, still holds Katara's life and freedom in her hands. She is allowing Katara to spar, to draw, to visit the library. Those are gracious gestures of generosity she could just as easily take back. If Katara gives her companionship and entertainment in return, it's only fair. Both of them have things to withhold, but she is still on top of things. And the fact that Katara lacks the manners and etiquette, the deference Azula is owed, it only makes the worship she receives from everyone else, her subjects, all the more enjoyable. Like a carrot-tomato adds bitterness that makes a meal's flavours come out, so Katara adds impropriety that highlights the propriety her staff and courtiers observe.

It's still a rationalisation, but it makes her feel better. Just a little bit.

And if she wants to enjoy the fire in Katara's soul, the loathing, the never-ending tension between them – well, who is anyone else to begrudge her the experience? If she kept a sabertooth moose lion, nobody would criticise her for not forcing the beast to bow down to her. What's the difference? If defiance is the Fire Lord's poison of choice, nobody in the nation has any right to tell her she's wrong for it.

"Your Majesty. Apologies for keeping you waiting."

Captain Meiyo's greeting snaps Azula out of her thoughts. The captan hurrries into the throne room, kneels down, her face to the floor, in the expected gesture of submission. That's what I'm talking about. Propriety.

"Rise, captain. Your apology is accepted."

"Thank you, Highness. The debriefing of the fifth team took longer than expected."

Azula's eyes narrow in expectation. This could either be great news or terrible.

"Report, captain."