Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Standing at the helm of her war balloon, Azula’s narrowed gaze swept over the sparse boundaries of the forest. One of her hands shot up. A blue blast off her fingers propelled the balloon higher. The crimson material swelled to its full capacity. Taking advantage of the extra drifting time to pour over her leather-bound journal of maps, she glanced down at the landscape and jotted down a correction to her map. It wasn’t efficient, of course, to operate it on her own. To be the navigator, lookout, mechanic, pilot, and artillery in one. But she managed.

Like she always had. 

She didn’t have a choice not to. 

The basket dipped with a change in the wind. She rocked on her heels to adjust her footing against the woven structure beneath her feet. Azula tucked the battered journal under her arm, raising the other to send another blast of fire into the swelling balloon. The ripple of the material nearly masked a low hiss. Eyes narrowed, Azula peered over the edge of the balloon. She dodged back as an arrow rushed an eyelash length from her nose. The arrow lodged in the thin, crimson material above her head. Perfectly positioned in the stitching. Its weakest point. 

A string of breathy curses escaped Azula’s mouth. She threw down the journal, scaling the edge of the basket in a single bound. Reaching for a bit of the rolled adhesive tucked into her belt, she deftly dislodged the arrow and applied the patch. Her fingers heated ever so slightly to seal it to the balloon without letting anything burn. She dodged another arrow with a leap back into the balloon’s basket with a hard sprawl that made the balloon dip dangerously lower. It rocked side to side.

Another round of arrows forced themselves against her hasty patch, but it held against the battering. She leaped back to her feet, heating the balloon as much as she dared. It was a risk. The less air in the balloon, the less likely it was to burst her patch job. But it wouldn’t hold for long. 

It only had to hold long enough. 

She could outrun them. Outmaneuver. An arrow lodged in the basket from the other side. She rolled her eyes, dislodged it from the woven structure, and snapped it in two before tossing it over the side. The chances of it returning to where it had come from were slim, but some part of her liked to think they would see the wasted ammunition. 

Her enjoyment of that concept was short-lived as another arrow punctured the balloon on one side, and two more followed from the opposite direction. Azula’s gaze dropped to the adhesive roll on her belt. Heart sinking. She had enough on the roll for another patch, maybe two if she skimped on the material more than was strictly comfortable. It wasn’t enough. 

If any other arrows hit their marks she was sunk.

Quite literally too. 

The war balloon dipped lower again. Low enough she could make out the telltale twang of a bowstring. An arrow sailed through the air. Another right behind it. Azula threw herself down against the basket’s floor. The arrows had missed their mark but joined the others lodged in the seams of the balloon. They knocked into each other with enough force to widen the gaps in the material. 

She dipped lower, listening to the rushes of air stream out of her balloon. Her trajectory could no longer be considered gliding. Azula was dropping. There was nothing else to do but prepare herself for an impact, and the fight that would come when she hit the ground. Gritting her teeth, she scrambled for her abandoned journal. She stuffed it into the satchel hanging off her belt. 

Azula crouched along one side of the basket. Peering above the rim, she scanned the rapidly closing distance between her and the ground. Not that she could see the ground. The landscape below her was a sea of trees. It wouldn’t be a pleasant landing, to say the least. She analyzed her choices to decide if she was better off staying in the basket, or if it would offer her more protection than harm. 

It made her a bigger target, Azula was sure of that. Another volley of arrows hit the balloon. She cursed, ducking low beneath the rim again. The princess would have to try her luck in the basket. She hunkered low against the floor, tucking her hands over her head to protect her face. Azula waited.

Harsh cracks of branches snapping beneath the weight of the basket filled the air around her. The trees buffeted its side. Azula found herself knocked around despite her better efforts to stay in one place. Her shoulder struck against the basket’s side. Pain blossomed through the joints in her arm. Before she could take stock of more serious injuries or brace herself again, the war balloon slammed down to the ground. The balloon’s material snagged on some of the remaining branches above her, tipping the basket with its momentum and toppling Azula to the forest floor.

She grunted. Her nails dug into the soft dirt to roll herself to her feet. Azula ignored the slight twinge of her shoulder blade. Scanning the trees already, she was alone. But Azula couldn’t stay with the Firebug Two for long. Its bright red material was a beacon in the trees, poised to give her location away.  Azula plunged deeper into the woods. She’d have to find somewhere to hunker down until her assailants gave up and she could make her return to the Firebug Two for some covert repairs. As unsavory as a retreat was, sometimes they were necessary. 

Pulling her utility knife out of her belt, she left subtle notches low down on the trees to trace her route back. Azula could only hope they were subtle enough not to raise the attention of anyone else in the woods. She stopped, her back and aching shoulder pressed against the wide trunk of a tree. Her chest heaved, forcing her to swallow down the sensation of fire in her dry throat.

The pounding in her ears slowed enough for her to take in her surroundings again. A shake of leaves rustled above her head, followed by a delicate snap. Her eyes shot up. They tore through the branches. Before she could make out the source of the movements, a figure dropped in front of her. 

Cold steel pinned her to the trunk of the tree, hooked blades scored the bark, and dug into her neck. Azula was forced to hold herself rigidly still and upright so she didn’t brush against the sharpened metal.

 “What brings you to our woods, Fire Nation?” a voice demanded.

A boy. Probably Zuko’s age, if not a little older, gripped the sword handles. He kept a steady posture, saving all his movements for the clenching of his teeth around the stalk of wheat in his mouth and the boring of his eyes into hers.

“A sharp drop,” she snapped back, “I’m not interested in your woods. I highly recommend you let me be on my way before I feel less inclined to resolve things peacefully.”

The hooked swords stayed stubbornly in place. Sharp snaps of twigs snapped sounded from somewhere close behind her. Hands gripped her wrists, tugging her twinged shoulder behind her back hard enough to make her grind her teeth together. Something cold snapped around her wrists, encasing her fingers. Another pair of hands gripped her shoulders before the hooks shifted off her neck. 

“Bring her to Lieutenant. He can decide what to do with her.” Azula gnashed her teeth at the one with the shaggy, rounded haircut. She threw her weight to one side, one of her elbows jammed into the ribcage of the wiry assailant on her left. He let out a near-silent rush of air. The grip on her cuffed wrists slipped loose. Just loose enough to launch herself into a sprint along the narrow path between the tree.

Leaves slapped against her cheeks, her skin stung from the blows. Azula’s eyes tore through the path, glancing above her for signs of movement. Her fingers sparked, but the metal against her hands only heated dangerously close to her skin. Useless. 

Infuriating too, since the cuffs were of Fire Nation origin. Her assailants were nothing but thieves. Little cowards hiding in the trees. It was no matter. Once she’d shaken them off her trail, she’d break herself loose and handle them. Burning this forest to the ground would be a service to her father and country, but a deeply satisfying endeavor for herself. She’d have to avenge the Firebug Two by any means necessary, assuming she couldn’t repair it. 

If the missive she’d borrowed off a messenger hawk was anything to go off of, there was an encampment of some of her father’s troops stationed nearby. Her presence would be difficult to explain. Inconvenient to say the least. But if it was necessary, the right number of threats would be sufficient enough to stop any mentions of her from reaching home. 

She ducked down a twist in the trail, daring to stop against the trunk of another tree. Azula pressed her heaving shoulders into the bark. While her breathing slowed, her fingers traced the seams of the cuffs. Somewhere there had to be a weakness she could broach and crack open.  Something snapped behind her. Azula froze. Holding her breath, she flattened herself as far against the tree as she could and waited. There were raised voices she could just make out between the pounding of her heart in her chest. Footsteps down one of the narrow gaps between the trees. 

Another twig snapped, this one further off. She let out her breath. They were moving further away. She waited a minute and then another until she was sure she was alone. Azula took a light step away from the base of the tree. Her narrow eyes scanned the brush, setting a course in the opposite direction of all the noise. For thieves, they weren’t especially subtle.

Before she could take a single step, something hissed through the air. An arrow speared the material of her trousers, pinning her to the bark. Another joined it on the opposite side with impossible precision. Azula tried to wrench herself free, but the arrows held fast in the stiff material. 

She gnashed her teeth at the pair of eyes that stared at her from beneath the ragged brim of a straw hat. “I see you. You can come out and stop toying with me,” she snapped. Without a sound, the owner of the hat obeyed. He crossed into the clearing in front of the tree. Two of his fingers traveled to his lips and a shrill, bird-like whistle echoed through the woods. 

Azula winced at the noise. She glared at the young man, but she had to imagine it wasn’t so fear-inspiring while she was bound and pinned against the tree like some common insect beneath a burning glass. Scowling, she waited as a ragtag group of reinforcements arrived. The silent archer was joined by a scruffy-looking girl, her hooked assailant, and meaty looking figure that towered over the rest.

“So brave of you to call in reinforcements against a bound opponent,” she taunted. Azula shifted her weight against the tree, testing the hold of the arrows. They’d found their marks, too well. She was good and stuck. The meaty hands pressed against her shoulders in a firm grip. She lashed against the hold. Filthy fingernails dug into the tender skin around her shirt collar, forcing her still.

Keeping an eye on her, the silent one retrieved his arrows with two firm tugs on either side. He swiped off the bits of dirt on his sleeve before returning the arrows to their quiver on his back. Satisfied, he pointed down a path in the opposite direction from where Azula had been headed. The others agreed and Azula found herself marched-if one could call it marching deeper between the trees. 

She tried to keep track of the number of paces, but she lost count as they plunged deeper into the woods. Not that it would matter. If she couldn’t find her way out, she could simply make one. Blaze her own trail. 

The group came to a halt. Before Azula could process what was happening, the meaty one tossed her over his shoulder. She growled, smacking the metal cuffs against his back, “Put me down you oversized hippo cow.” The metal clanged without any effect off of his shoulders. He didn’t seem to notice her battery in the slightest. If he did, he didn’t even have the decency to pretend it hurt.

Meaty stepped through a loop of rope, it cinched snugly against one of his boots. From her vantage point across his shoulders, Azula couldn’t make out the signs of any mechanisms in the trees. She had no time. Something clicked. Meaty tightened his hold on her and they shot upward. Bits of hair tugged loose from her top knot, whipping her cheeks in the rush of air as they rose between a tangle of branches.

Azula squeezed her eyes closed. Flying was only an enjoyable experience when she was the captain. Not when she was buffeted through the air, battered by leaves and twigs in the scattered branches around them, and grappled tighter by the hippo cow.

Quickly as they’d shot up, Meaty let her drop. Unprepared, Azula tumbled against a wooden platform. She ignored the sharp pang through her shoulders with the impact. The platform swayed beneath her weight as she rolled to her knees. Hair fell across her eyes, obscuring Azula’s view of the figure whose shadow cast over her. 

She threw her head back to knock her hair aside, teeth bared with sparks casting between them. Until the figure spoke and Azula’s blood ran cold. Her sparks fizzled out. Every one of her hairs seemed to stand on end.

“Careful Firebug, it’s the dry season.”

Chapter Text

Azula’s eyes widened from her kneeling position on the platform. Her throat was raw from the chase through the woods and she was still breathless from the sudden launch through the air. All the same, she found her voice enough to speak, “What did you say?” 

The shadowed figure cleared his throat, seemingly somewhat taken aback by the shift in her demeanor, “It’s the dry season,” repeated the low voice, a layer of incredulity coloring his tone, “Did the crash landing rattle your ears?”

“No,” Azula’s insistent response came by no bidding of her own, blind to the obvious jibe in his question, “before that. You called me something. Say it again.” The princess was in no position to make demands. Surrounded. Bound. On her knees. But she demanded all the same. Not that it mattered if the shadowed figure complied with her or not. Azula knew what he said with the same certainty she knew that the sun rose and set each day as it had for an eternity and would continue to do so. 

She didn’t need him to say it. But she wanted him to regardless. It wasn’t something she ever expected to hear again, but all of a sudden it was something she didn’t think she could live without. Like the air in her lungs. Like fire in the world. Azula shivered. “Say it.”

Metal hooks clanged against each other from somewhere behind her on the platform. A warning. Azula was sure she was supposed to hear it. But she couldn’t care. She wasn’t afraid. Not of them anyway. Only that she was wrong. But she wasn’t wrong. She couldn’t be. 

The figure stepped out of the shadows, the brim of his hat tipping back just enough to let Azula take in his face. And she did. Older. It had been years since she’d seen him last. She was older too. He left behind a little girl. She wasn't a little girl anymore. Leaner. The bones of his cheeks and jaw jutted out at harsher angles than she remembered. He'd obviously grown accustomed to going without meals. Scragglier. As if perhaps the hooked swords she’d been threatened with served more utility than simply weapons. That was if he even cut his hair at all. But he must have, it was shorter than she remembered. He'd been injured at some point too. He leaned part of his weight on a cane, favoring one of his legs in a way he’d never done before. 

But there was no question in her mind. It was him. 

“Firebug?” he asked, though the hints of uncertainty in his tone soured in Azula’s ears. It shouldn’t have sounded like a question. He’d given her the name. “It seemed like an apt thing to call a flying ashmaker pest throwing sparks around.”

Azula recoiled as if he’d slapped her in the face. Her insides burned. The jeers of the ragtag group surrounding her were lost in the sound of her blood boiling in her ears. What little of her composure she’d managed to retain was slipping. Quickly. She ground her teeth together to stop the quiver that threatened to spread through her lower lip. Her eyes stung, but she refused to let any of them have the satisfaction of seeing tears. Of seeing her break. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

It simply didn’t make sense. Perhaps her head had been rattled in the crash landing. Aging. Injuries. Misfortunes. Those she could understand. The general cruelty the spirits inflicted on people took its toll. She’d witnessed far too many times already the world wasn’t kind to anyone. It beat people down. But those wouldn’t explain her cousin looking at her like a stranger and casting slurs at her like she was the enemy. 

Sucking a steadying breath between her teeth, Azula fought to calm her racing heart. She shook her head and forced herself to meet his gaze, no matter how it made her reel. 

“Lu Ten,” she said, her voice breathless and foreign to even her own ears. It wasn’t a statement. It wasn’t a question, so much as it was a plea. That he was there. That he was real. That he wasn’t just some desperate creation in her head. She scoured his expression for any signs of recognition. But he stayed stone faced, as if the name meant nothing to him. His lack of reaction wasn’t enough to silence her. “When they told us you were dead, I didn’t believe them. Not for years.”

It was true. In the beginning, she’d raged against anyone who dared to bring it up. Heirlooms shattered. Sparks flew. Her screams echoed through the halls. Azula had denied her cousin’s death so ardently that no one around her dared to say his name at all anymore. His presence and existence faded away from the Fire Palace to nothing more than her memories and the occasional hurried whisper. Dead or not, Azula had created a ghost.

“Shut it, Fire Nation.” One of the hooked blades struck the platform just in front of Azula’s knees. The force of the blow left a splintered gouge in the planks. She stiffened, but otherwise refused to give the straw sucker the satisfaction of a reaction. He crouched beside her. Close enough that the stalk bobbed in the furthest corner of her vision. Hot breath rustled her hair as he muttered dangerously low in her ear. “Next thing you say out of turn, Pipsqueak over there-” A grip clenched her hair at its roots, wrenching her head in Meaty’s direction with a sharp twist. “-snaps you like a matchstick.” 

Azula’s eyes swam. Her vision blurred with stubborn flecks of moisture that threatened to roll down her cheeks. The grip loosened on her hair. The force of the release shoved her downward. She sagged against the swaying platform. Her face pressed into the splintered wood and left impressions of the grains in her burning cheeks. 

The one they called Lieutenant cleared his throat, “That’s enough. No one strikes again.” 

Mouths opened in protest, but arguments were silenced before they could begin, “Not unless she strikes first.” His firm tone left no room to debate. The order was absolute. “Is that understood?” he asked.

Sullen nods of agreement made their rounds through the group. Straw Sucker scowled, his teeth clenched together and snapped the thin stalk in two. It didn’t take a vivid imagination to know he’d do the same to her if given the chance. 

“Jet?” The lieutenant prompted again, waiting for his response. “I said, is that understood?”

“Understood? What I don’t understand is when we started showing mercy to ashmakers? If it was one of us, do you think any of them would wait for us to strike first?” One of the hooked swords sliced the air. Another chunk of wood from the platform splintered off. The bit struck Azula’s face, scraping across her cheek in a stinging line. Deep enough beads of tacky blood forced their way to the surface of her skin and threatened to spill down her face. 

A stunned silence blanketed the platform. Wide-eyed gazes flicked around the gathered group, all apparently waiting for what Azula would do in the face of the strike. But whether it came as a relief or a disappointment to the members of the scruffy band, though she stiffened and her eyes narrowed a fraction, Azula didn’t give anyone the satisfaction of her reaction. 

Biting her lip and ignoring her stinging cheek, Azula tugged herself back upright. Her shoulders protested the way the cuffs twisted and pinned her arms behind her at harsh angles. Metal bit into the skin around her wrists. She watched Straw Sucker slide his hooked blades back across his shoulders, a wordless acceptance of his orders after the damage had already been done. 

“Longshot, go sweep the perimeter to make sure the firebug didn’t bring any other pests to the woods with her. You too Jet.”

The silent one with the arrows jerked his head in a nod. His awful, torn scarecrow hat bobbed as he slid back into the branches beyond the platform. Straw Sucker followed behind him, a sharp rustling of leaves in his wake. 

“Why are you here?” The question came, as cold and biting as the cuffs on Azula’s wrists. 

A dark, choked laugh escaped her lips before she could strangle it down. Why was she there? She could ask the same question. That question and all the others that burned on her tongue. Ones she’d had since she was seven years old. Ones people told her she’d never really have the answers to. Ones she feared she’d never get to ask, but hoped beyond all hopes that one day she would. 

“You’d have to ask them.” She craned her neck in the direction that Scarecrow and Straw Sucker had gone when they disappeared through the trees. “It wasn’t my plan. It was your little army that shot my balloon out of the sky, Lu Ten.”

“It’s Lieutenant ,” he corrected.

“No. It isn’t,” Azula insisted. She shook her head, her composure beginning to waiver again. “It’s Lu Ten. You’re Lu Ten.” A flush spread through her cheeks as humiliating hints of desperation crept into her voice. “Son of Prince Iroh, the Dragon of the West. Crown Prince of the Fire Nation.” At least he had been once before Azulon had passed and Father had taken his title. “Captain of the Firebug,” she said, her voice breaking, “My cousin, Lu Ten.”

Azula looked up at him. She pored over his features for any flickers of recognition. Any signs to show that her words meant something to him. But his face was blank. An impenetrable wall. Just as distant from her as he’d been only an hour before when she still believed he was dead.

“This mean anything to you, Lieutenant?” The slight girl piped up from the crowd. 

Azula stared him down. She willed him with her eyes to say yes. To remember or stop the charade that he didn’t know her. But Lu Ten only shook his head firmly, making her insides clench again.

“No, it doesn’t, and I’ve heard enough of this. Escort her back to her ship, cut her loose, and make sure she leaves,” he ordered.

Meaty took a lumbering step toward her that shook a new wave of sways and groans through the beams of the platform. Azula rolled away from him. She pressed into the balls of her feet, using the momentum to stand right in front of Lu Ten. Raising her chin, she shook her head.

“No.” 

She wasn’t going anywhere. Not without him. Finishing the mission she’d set for herself could wait. Her priorities had shifted and, no matter how treasonous her thoughts were, nothing could be more important. Not the war. Not the Avatar. Nothing.

“If you had no intention of coming to these woods in the first place, then you shouldn’t have any hesitation in leaving them,” Lu Ten said, his voice cold and void of all emotion. The conversation was ending.

“You don’t understand.” Hints of pleading crept back into her tone as Meaty closed in on her again, his overly padded palms and fingers still finding ways to dig sharply into her collarbone, “You’re confused, Lu Ten. You need to listen to me.”

Meaty tugged her a step toward the edge of the platform and the way back to the ground, wrenching her arms behind her at a harsher angle until a strangled gasp escaped Azula’s mouth. But the sharp strain through her shoulders was forgotten when Lu Ten closed the distance between them.

He leered down at her, voice clipped and harsh, “No, Firebug, I think it’s you who’s confused and needs to listen in this situation.” There was no room to debate or argue. And for once, Azula found herself lost for words. The lieutenant continued, “Now, I suggest you let them take you back to your ship and get out of these woods before you find yourself squashed the way they’d all like to see happen.”

The lieutenant stepped backward, in a clear end to the conversation. He slid his uninjured foot into a looped strap that propelled him to a higher platform in the trees. Lu Ten disappeared from view in a rustle of leaves. 

Azula swallowed down the tightness that was building in her throat. His words weren't a suggestion, she knew, so much as a promise. A threat. The man who had been standing in front of her may not have been the same in every way as the Lu Ten she’d always known. But he’d never lied to her before. And he wasn’t lying then. She knew that much was the same. 

It was obvious for the moment that nothing she said or did was going to get through to him. There was only one course of action, really. Not a retreat and it certainly wouldn’t be a surrender. Nothing of the sort. She resolved to consider it as a tactical regrouping. A strategic, temporary disengagement from Lu Ten and the others. She would take the time to orient  herself, regain her composure, find a higher ground in the situation, and make a plan for what would come next.

Meaty manhandled her off the platform and back to the ground. The slight girl sprang into step beside them. “You’re lucky Lieutenant didn’t let Jet take care of you, Fire Nation.” She sneered through her stripes and scruffy hair. 

Azula didn’t engage. She let the girl jeer and chitter alongside her like a tiger monkey, as Meaty steered her back in the direction of the site of her crash landing. Her mind was occupied with things far more pressing than the insults of Earth Kingdom, peasant children playing at being soldiers in the woods. 

Parts of her brain that weren’t occupied with Lu Ten and the events on the platform were aware the route seemed longer than it was supposed to be. Azula determined it was likely that Meaty and his jeering companion were throwing extra twists and turns, and doubling back on their route in a feeble attempt to throw her off the trail should she try to find their hideout in the trees again.   

The glint of the Firebug Two’s metal basket caught her eye through the trees, interrupting her thoughts and signaling the end of their stroll through the forest. They stopped short just within the clearing of trees that contained the wreckage of her ship. 

Azula’s eyes flicked around, surveying the full extent of the damage for the first time. If she hadn’t already been planning to linger in the woods a little longer than anticipated, it seemed she certainly would be. Gaping tears littered the balloon’s material. The wire basket itself was mangled, nicked and bent all over. And the interworkings of the balloon’s mechanisms were littered around the crash site. She estimated it would take days to get the balloon back in the sky, if it even could be made operational again. It was inconvenient to say the least.

But the prospects of having Lu Ten back were worth more than a fleet of airships, let alone one war balloon.