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At this point, Azula was used to not having all the food she needed at any given meal. The Wani had a few supply issues what with some people wanting to make her life more difficult, making her realise the hard way that sometimes, you had to make sacrifices in order to not starve. Plus, floating on that raft for three weeks had already conditioned her to be careful.
Problem was, hunting alone with only a long stick and her knife for equipment wasn’t exactly easy, or feasible for that matter. If she’d still had her sword, things might have gone differently, but her liuyedao was rusting at the bottom of the Northern Sea, so there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She had elected to just go fishing and then try to forage with what little knowledge Mother had given her on plants, but her catch had been pretty humiliating.
She walked back to where she’d left her uncle, hoping that he would help her for the foraging part so that they wouldn’t have a tiny fish as their only source of nutrition.
“Azula, remember that plant I thought might be tea?”
Dread slowly filled her as she pieced together what he was saying. “You didn’t…”
“I did.” He turned around, revealing red markings all over his swollen skin. She yelped in shock as he continued calmly. “When the rash spreads to my throat, I will stop breathing. But look what I found!” He showed her a branch of red berried. “These are bacui berries, known to cure the poison of the white jade! That, of maka’ole berries that cause blindness.”
She grabbed the branch and threw it as far as possible, resisting the urge to go on a rant about how you don’t just eat random plants you’ve found when you don’t know for sure what the fucking plant is, and didn’t your mother ever fucking tell you-
“We’re not taking anymore chances with these plants!” She inhaled deeply, trying to calm down. “We need to get you some help.”
He started scratching his rashes, something she was pretty sure he shouldn’t do. “But where are we going to go? We’re enemies of the Earth Kingdom and fugitives from the Fire Nation.”
She hummed. “If the Earth Kingdom discovers us, they’ll have us killed.”
“But if the Fire Nation discovers us, we’ll be turned over to Zuko.” Which would then mean possible torture and definite death.
(It felt wrong to equate her brother to being possibly tortured and definitely killed.)
They started at each other, and nodded in agreement.
“Earth Kingdom it is.”
They followed the river nearby and walked inland, knowing that eventually they would find a settlement. And thankfully, they found a village, along with a medical clinic owned by people who didn’t mind the fact that they didn’t have money.
“You two must not be from around here,” said the nurse helping them as she stopped Iroh from scratching himself. “We know better than to touch the white jade, much less make it into tea and drink it.”
Iroh smiled awkwardly. “Whoops!”
She resisted the urge to scowl. To be honest, Azula had stopped worrying the moment the nurse laughed at their story and told them that the spread was slow enough for him to be fine with her treatment.
“So where are you traveling from?”
“Invaded land,” she lied, knowing that the girl wouldn’t press further.
“Oh. I’m sorry. And do you have names?”
Master Piandao’s comments about common names came to mind. “I’m Li, and this is my uncle, Mushi.” That last part was just to get back at him for being such an idiot when they didn’t need him to be. It was one thing when they had the security of their ship, and a somewhat positive relation to the Fire Nation, but now, he should have known better.
She didn’t smirk at Uncle’s glare, but she did glare back once the nurse couldn’t see her but could see him.
“Mushi and Li, huh? My name is Song,” she smiled, and Azula did her best to smile back. “You two look like you could use a good meal. Why don’t you stay for dinner?”
Now, Azula may be somewhat desperate, but she would not accept pity from an Earth Kingdom peasant who had no reason to be nice to her. (She didn’t need the extra shame in her whole ordeal.)
“Sorry, but we need to leave as soon as possible. People expecting us and all that.”
Uncle gave her a look as Song screwed back the lid on the pot of cream she’d been slathering him with. “That’s too bad,” she smiled again, and this time Azula knew she wanted something. “My mom always makes too much roast duck.”
Uncle’s reaction was instantaneous. “Where do you live, exactly?”
Song kept smiling, and Azula didn’t glare at her.
Well played.
*****
Dinner was nice, if a bit awkward from her perspective. The food wasn’t poisoned, obviously, she didn’t see why Song would want to kill her patient after having saved him. But the gaze cast on her by Song’s mother made her feel self-conscious, wondering what the woman was looking at. She wasn’t looking at her face, that would have made sense since her eyes were too amber to be Earth Kingdom. No, she was looking at her arms.
Realisation hit her as she put her braces back on, remembering that she’d forgotten to wear them again after her failed fishing trip. She quickly covered the burned skin, trying to seem as blasé as possible and not at all frantic. The burns already speckled her wrists, she didn’t need people to see more of them.
The mother gives her a sad look. (Pity.) “My daughter tells me you’re refugees. We were once refugees ourselves.”
“When I was a little girl,” Song explained, “the Fire Nation raided our farming village. All the men were taken away. That was the last time I saw my father.”
Azula’s stomach twisted even though she already knew about this. War was war, after all. She tried not to wonder why the news made her feel like this.
Song looked like she was looking for a response or a comment, and Azula could only think to say: “I haven’t seen my father in many years.” Whether she meant because of her banishment, or simply from his stance on her, she didn’t know.
“Oh. Is he fighting in the War?”
Her jaw clenched. Yes, she supposed, technically he was. “Yes.”
At some point, Uncle started talking to Song’s mother about landscapes or something like that, and Azula was getting bored. So she left to sit alone on the porch of the house, sneakily meditating so that she didn’t have to think about what bothered her.
“Can I join you?” Azula didn’t jump at Song’s question, in fact she was quite welcoming considering the fact that she wanted to be alone. “I know what you’ve been through. We’ve all been through it.” She looked down at Azula’s wrist. “The Fire Nation has hurt you.”
She reached out to grab or touch Azula’s wrist, but Azula took it away quickly. She bit back her remarks. No, it was her father that had hurt her, and even then it wasn’t that bad. At least she had been burned in private. Plus, it had been a lesson on keeping her opinions to herself in front of him, so in the end this wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
“It’s okay,” Song continued while pulling up one of her trousers’ leg. “They’ve hurt me too.”
There were burns on her leg. They looked to have come from a ranged attack, not by a palm directly onto someone’s skin. She’d seen those kinds of burns on soldiers before, or firebenders who had done dumb things in their youths with their bending. But… Song was a civilian. She shouldn’t have those kinds of burns. Because it was clear that they were made by bending, they were too far apart to come from some burning debris that could have caught her. (But then why would a soldier attack a civilian? Why-)
She said she was sorry for her, maybe. She didn’t really remember. Too many things screaming in her head for her to be sure. She didn’t dwell on it further, because she had more important things to do.
(She still felt bad for stealing their ostrich-horse when they left, but at this point she needed to stop feeling and start being practical. Things never went well when she followed her emotions.)
---
When he disembarked, Zuko was reminded of how not walking on metal felt. It felt good. Settling for the night in a room that didn’t groan every five seconds felt good. Being miles and miles away from his goal did not feel good.
He walked off on his own, even at the protests of his great-aunts suggesting him to take the palanquin. Palanquins were slow, dull, involved more people than necessary to travel (more than one) and were the very opposite of pragmatism. If he were to journey with a small team like they’d said, he would have to get used to not using it, something he had gotten down since forever. Seriously, who would want to use a fucking palanquin?
Plus, he really wanted his reunion with her to be private.
And across the tents and people trying to handle different animals, he found her upside-down, standing on her index fingers. He smiled a little. Some things never changed.
“Ty Lee, could that possible be you?”
Her smile was bright as she flipped from her stance and twirled towards him. “Zuko!” She bowed down before rushing to him and hugging him. He stiffly hugged her back. While she didn’t have an unlimited time to hug him like Azula, she still had some. “It’s so good to see you!”
His smile grew at that. She always had a way to make things feel better, at least for a short time.
He let go of her. “Please, don’t let me interrupt your… warm-ups?”
She giggled, did a backflip, and started stretching. She had grown a bit in height, but other than that, she hadn’t really changed in the last year since he’d seen her.
“So, how are things going for you? I got your letters, but it was clear you were holding back on us with the details.” He looked around and noticed a platypus-bear laying an egg in the middle of the path. Was anyone going to do something about it, or…?
“Oh, they’re going great! My aura has never been pinker!”
She seemed sincere, and that almost made him rethink his request (order).
“Well, I have a proposition for you. Do you mind going somewhere a little more private?”
Her smile stayed but got more serious as she got up and led him to what he guessed was her tent.
She tilted her head. “What’s this about?”
“I’m supposed to be hunting two traitors, my sister and my uncle.” Her face dropped and her eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. “I’m here to ask for your help.”
“You… want me… to help you hunt down Azula?”
He smiled at her clear disagreement. “Well, not quite.” He felt the heat around them, checking that no one was around the tent to hear them. “I’m supposed to bring her back to be punished, but personally, I don’t want to. So I’ve come up with a plan. All you need to do is help me catch her, and I can make sure that she gets back home safely.”
Her shoulders loosened. “What your plan?”
“Don’t worry about that. I just need you to be there. So, can you?” She still looked a little hesitant. “Once it’s over, you can come back here and continue making your aura even pinker if you want.”
She chuckled and nodded brightly. “I’m coming with you. Though, do you mind if I still do tonight’s performance? I’ve been working on it for a while.”
“Can I come watch?”
She grinned and grabbed his hands excitedly, something that he faintly felt. “Of course!”
*****
Ty Lee’s performance had been nothing but breath taking, as expected. She had been the best part of the show.
He told her as such, and she called him a charmer. It almost felt like old times.
*****
Okay, fine, he conceded in taking the palanquin to get inside Omashu. Keep up good appearances, blah blah blah, lord over them your opulence, whatever.
When he told Ty Lee his grievances, she had shrugged tentatively and proposed that it sounded fun. He told her that he couldn’t move while on it. She began understanding why he didn’t like it.
She was lucky, she could just walk next to the bloody palanquin.
He held back a sigh of relief as he finally stepped back onto the sweet, sweet ground.
From afar, he could see a massive construction site for a metal statue of his father. He eyed it with hidden disdain. Agni, what a waste of resources. He made a point to ignore it for the rest of the trip here.
Mai stood there, looking as bored as ever. Even though it had only been a few months, he had also missed her.
“Please tell me you’re here to kill me,” she groaned, bowing slightly. Though those kinds of jokes usually left a twitch in his hands, he had grown more than used to Mai’s sense of humour.
She smiled slightly at him, and he returned the expression while chuckling. “It’s great to see you too, Mai.”
He patted her shoulder before letting Ty Lee hug her. Mai pat her back awkwardly.
“I thought you ran off and joined the circus. You said it was your calling.”
Ty Lee released Mai and smiled. “Well, Zuko called a little louder!”
Mai turned to him with a confused expression. Understandable, they had both known that Ty Lee had had enough of her life back home.
“I have a mission and I need you both,” he explained.
“Count me in. Anything to get me out of this place.”
He smiled, glad that she trusted him enough to not even ask what it was about.
“I’ll explain it to you later,” he added, fully aware of the four guards behind him. “For now, I’d like to know why a city as big as Omashu is so deserted.”
Mai told them what happened as she led them to the throne room of the palace to meet her parents. He didn’t miss the slight worry in her eyes as she told them about her brother being kidnapped.
When he entered the room, he barely glanced at her parents as he sat on the throne, wondering how such doting parents could have lost their two-year-old.
“I apologize,” said Ukano. “You’ve come to Omashu at a difficult time. At noon, we’re making a trade with the resistance to get Tom-Tom back.”
Well, at least they both seemed worried about the kid.
“Yes, I’m so sorry to hear about your son. But letting all the citizens leave was bound to bring an opportunity for that resistance group to strike.” Plus, pentapox wasn’t even an actual disease. They were probably fooled by the resemblance with septapox, the actual highly contagious disease. “My father has trusted you with this city, and you’re making a mess of things.”
They prostrated themselves. “Forgive me, My Prince.” That tiny part of him that liked seeing scared people grovel before him was having a field day lately.
He got up and walked down. “You stay here. Mai will handle the hostage trade so you don’t have a chance to mess it up. Ty Lee and I will come for backup. You are dismissed.”
After this, Mai explained that the resistance wanted to trade Tom-Tom for King Bumi. It sounded like a terrible deal from his perspective.
“We’re not trading a king for a toddler,” he told her. “But we are getting him back.”
In some other instances, he would have tried to find a more honourable way of dealing with the situation, but kidnapping a child wasn’t honourable, so he didn’t see why they should be.
---
Katara inhaled slowly as they waited for the trade off to happen. As much as she hoped for a peaceful trade like Aang wanted, she was still preparing herself for a fight. On Aang’s other side, she could see that Sokka had the same idea, though it was hard for him to look threatening while carrying a toddler. At least said toddler had calmed down since last night.
They expected soldiers to come, or even the governor himself, but instead, three teenagers appeared on the other side of the scaffolding they were on. After having been chased by Azula all across the world, Katara was starting to wonder how many teenagers the Fire Army recruited.
The girl in the middle looked bored as she stopped in front of them. Everything about her seemed gloomy, down to her hair. Katara recognised her as the girl who had chased them with throwing knives two days ago.
The girl to her right looked like her opposite. She had what looked like a permanent smile on her face and light pink clothes. She had a bounce in her steps, and since she didn’t seem to have any weapons on her, she was either a non-combatant, a bender or a hand-to-hand combatant.
The guy to her left looked neutral except for the burnt left side of his face that looked like a scowl. Katara stopped herself from wincing, wondering how someone could manage to get something like that. He was dressed in lightweight armour and also didn’t seem to have weapons. Probably a firebender. A red hairpiece was in his hair, and with the regal air he exuded, he seemed important.
She didn’t like the way he looked at Aang as Bumi was brought down by a crane in some sort of metal coffin. It looked like a predator eyeing its prey.
“You brought my brother?” the gloomy girl asked. Ah, so she was also the governor’s daughter. Fun.
Aang gestured to the toddler. “He’s here. We’re ready to trade.”
The guy then turned to say something to the gloomy girl. They couldn’t hear anything until his neutral expression turned into a nasty grin.
“We’re trading a two-year-old for a king, a powerful earthbending king. Does that seem right to you?”
The girl looked back at them, then at her brother, then back at the guy. She wasn’t going to do that, right? She wasn’t going to abandon her brother, right?
“You’re right.” She held up her hand. “The deal’s off!” She did do that. The Fire Nation really didn’t care about family, did they?
The crane lifted Bumi as the king laughed madly.
“Bumi!” cried Aang.
He ran towards the old man before she or Sokka could stop him. The guy moved and created a wall of blue flames (Wait, those were a thing?) in front of him, making Aang bounce off to the side before opening his glider to get his balance back. The guy looked confused as Aang’s scarf fell off his head, revealing hi tattoo.
The guy’s eyes widened. “The Avatar!” A jovial grin appeared on his face. “Knew it.”
With that, he ran off to climb the scaffolding. Katara tried to stop him, but knives blocked her way long enough for him to be pulled up by a rope. Guess Aang would have to deal with him on his own.
The two girls started charging towards them, Gloomy Girl preparing her ammunition.
Katara got into position as she called to her brother. “We’ve got to get the baby out of here!”
From the corner of her eye, she could see Sokka blowing the bison whistle. “Way ahead of ya!”
They ran opposite of the girls, hoping to find a place for shelter when Sokka suddenly tripped on nothing. He fell on the ground, and the cheery girl appeared out of a hole to cartwheel towards him. Katara didn’t have the time to wonder ‘what the fuck?’ since Gloomy girl was right behind her.
She managed to stop Gloomy Girl’s attacks and catch Cheery Girl with a water whip around her ankle, giving Sokka enough time to climb down to another scaffolding. Cheery Girl went to try to catch up to him, but Katara was a little busy with Gloomy Girl to catch her again.
Seriously, how many knives did she have?
Katara noticed that most of her ammunitions were around her arms and legs, because why not. She managed to catch one of her arms mid-throw and freeze it. She tried to break the ice, but Katara had made sure to make it thick enough.
All of a sudden, someone hit her shoulders and arms. It hurt with how hard the hits were, so much so that Katara dropped her water. Cheery Girl appeared with a grin, having apparently done that.
Wait, now that she’d thought about it, it hadn’t hurt that much. Trying to bend the water up again, she realised that whatever that girl had done had stopped her bending.
Gloomy Girl smirked. “How’re you gonna fight without your bending?” she taunted as she brandished a three-pronged knife. She aimed, but was stopped by Sokka’s boomerang.
Tui and La, the things she loved and hated about that boomerang.
“I seem to manage!” Sokka quipped while landing Appa next to her.
Appa slammed his tail as Katara climbed on his head, slamming the girls off the scaffolding. They flew off and managed to spot Aang on the mail chutes, mostly thanks to the dust he made and the blue fire being thrown at him. They tried to catch him, but he aimed the coffin too far and landed further down the chute. The blue fire guy kept racing behind them and shooting at them, keeping Appa away with his flames.
They watched from a distance as something stopped him, letting Aang and Bumi run off. They flew past him and towards Aang. At least, they thought they did. The guy propelled himself to them, managing to grab Sokka, almost making both of them fall. Before Katara could do anything, he had cut off the makeshift baby carrier around Sokka and leapt away with the toddler, landing on a nearby roof.
She grabbed her shaking brother. “Are you alright?”
“Oh yeah, just almost got thrown off and stabbed by another crazy ashmaker!” He turned to her, still clearly worried, and smiled wonkily. “We’re doing great.”
As they flew off to join back with Aang, Katara hoped that they would never see that trio again.
---
Zuko ran across the rooftops of the city towards the meeting point they’d planned if things didn’t go well. Tom-Tom was held in his arms, which felt extremely stiff from his worries of accidentally dropping him.
The toddler, for his part, looked very happy with his situation, even attempting to grab Zuko’s hairpiece. It was probably because it was shiny.
Though he should have been angry, he instead smiled. Smiled at the kid’s antics, sure, but also at that chase from earlier.
He hadn’t fully thought through running after the Avatar, only knowing that father would be screaming at him to get him if he were here. So Zuko did, like the attack dog he was. But sliding down that mail chute had been oddly fun, like back when he and Azula were small and trying to run across roofs and slide off of them.
He landed at the entrance of the palace, where Mai and Ty Lee were rubbing some sore wounds.
“I’m guessing you didn’t catch them?” he joked.
Mai frowned, annoyed, while Ty Lee rolled her eyes, smiling.
“At least you got my brother back.”
He adjusted his grip on Tom-Tom. “And the king is apparently still in custody.”
Whatever than meant. To be honest, he had a feeling that the old man could do more than he showed. Whatever, it would be someone else’s problem, not his.
Tom-Tom managed to get a hold of his hairpiece and yanked it, effectively letting Zuko’s hair down. Now he could see even less than usual. The grabby child looked at his prize with much joy.
“Well, at least someone came out of this happy,” he deadpanned as the girls chuckled. “Now, is there a place we could speak in private?”
Mai took over in holding her brother and gave him back his hairpiece before the toddler could put it in his mouth. Seeing how sharp it was, since he sharpened his to be a backup knife, it was a good thing that he didn’t do that.
She told them to wait in her room while she gave back Tom-Tom to her parents. His senses told him that no one was in the room, so he allowed himself to relax and sit on a chair.
Ty Lee giggled.
He looked up at her. “What?”
“You should see the look your hair gives you now.”
He stared at her blankly. “Ha, ha, ha.” Mai came back, also looking a little dishevelled. “You also got attacked?”
She sighed. “Brothers. So, what’s this mission about?”
He pushed his hair back and got up. “I’m supposed to capture Azula and Iroh for being traitors to the Fire Nation.” No response, but he could tell that she didn’t like the news. “Officially, I’m asking you to help me in that mission. Unofficially, I want you to help me in helping her. I’ll make sure that she’ll be pardoned, all you have to do is help me catch her.”
Her stare was calculating as she took the news in. “Why don’t you tell her yourself? I’m sure it’ll be easier than running after her.”
“I tried, but things didn’t get through like I wanted to. She probably thinks I’m trying to capture her for our father.”
She thought for a moment. “We’re not gonna hurt her?”
“No.”
“I’m in.”
He stopped himself from sighing in relief, but he did smile at her. “Good. Also, we now have a third target. An actual target. Feeling up for a rematch with the Avatar and his little friends?” Because that was what Father would want, and he has been trained to do what his father wanted.
They looked at each other before nodding.
He nodded back. “We’ll be leaving tonight. Say goodbye to your parents now.”
She stretched. “Ugh, finally. Do you know how much those two bore me?”
He smirked. “Everything bores you.”
“Not everything!” Ty Lee piped up. “Depressing makeup and pointy things are never a bore for her!”
They both snickered as Mai frowned at them.
She threw a hairbrush at him, which he caught before it could hit him. “Brush your hair, you look like you have a bird’s nest on your head.”
He smiled and shrugged. “Fair enough.”
No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t hide the mirth in her eyes from them.
---
This was fine, she told herself. Begging on the streets like lowly peasants was fine, she repeated. Watching people eye them with pity or like they were lower than dirt was fine, she pressed.
She was a princess, she wouldn’t complain about their situation, no matter how demeaning it was.
As per usual, her uncle had slipped very easily into the role of a beggar, as if he wasn’t one of the greatest generals of this war and one of the greatest firebenders alive.
As he begged to another passer-by, Azula mumbled: “This is humiliating.”
“Now, now, Niece, asking for strangers’ kindness is something everyone finds themselves to have to do at some point in their lives.” That earned him an eye roll.
She watched a theatre mask vendor pass by, with one familiar mask catching her eye. The Dark Water Spirit mask looked practically identical to the one she had used to break inside Pohuai. That too was rotting at the bottom of the ocean.
(She stared at the small piece of paper that the messenger hawk had brought her. Good job, it said. She hid her smile as her brother’s intentionally bad handwriting burned along with the paper it was on.)
“How about some entertainment in exchange for a gold piece?”
Azula eyed the coin, along with its owner with annoyance. “We aren’t performers.”
Iroh got up. “Not professional anyway!”
He started singing some song, but the man cut him off.
“Come one, we’re talking a gold piece here! Let’s see some action!” He drew the sword on his back revealing it to be dual dao blades. “Dance!”
As the man swung the blades clumsily near her uncle’s feet, the old man kept singing. She glared at him as he threw the gold piece on to the ground. How fucking dare he-?
*****
That night, she found the man again and made sure to unconsciously give him a piece of her mind. Her anger was probably easy to see even with the blue mask covering her face.
She also took the liberty of relieving him of his swords. Though they might not have been her weapons of choice (“I just think those swords are super cool, don’t you think, Azzy?”) she still knew how to use them better than him.
And like that, the Blue Spirit (stupid name that wasn’t even accurate to the mask, and if she wasn’t to be taken as a spirit then why did they call her that-) was back.
*****
She soon realised that if she could steal that mask and those swords, she could also steal food.
And cutlery.
And dishware.
And money.
She knew that Uncle was starting to get suspicious, or already was suspicious, but it didn’t matter much to her.
Things felt slightly safe now.
They hadn’t heard from her brother since the resort, and as his target, this was good. They were safe.
As his sister, she wanted nothing more than to try and find him and hug him again, ask him to stop trying to get her killed.
He had looked so happy to see her, and that was something he could never hide from her.
She just wanted him back.
(There were a lot of things she wanted that she couldn’t have.)
Being the Blue Spirit took her mind off of these thoughts. With the mask on, she was someone else. Sure, the persona had slightly changed, what with her choice of weapons, but soon enough she’d managed to find (and steal) a liuyedao.
(She left the dual dao in their place, leaving behind another object that reminded her of him. Good, it was starting to get to her.)
Uncle kept talking about there still being honour in their situation. At this point, she didn’t care. Honour only earned you scars.
“I know that things have been hard, recently. But remember, Niece, in the darkest times, there is always hope.”
“Hope won’t get me anywhere. It’s passive. Hope won’t bring me back home. Hope won’t make me a princess again. Hope won’t give me back my br-”
She stopped herself, trying so hard to stop thinking about that ache that constantly grew every time she thought of him.
He sighed. “I know that you two were close, but things have changed. Sometimes, it’s better to let go of the past so that you can heal from it.” She was ready to burst at him for even mentioning this idea, but he continued. “Hope is what pushes you towards a better present and future. Without hope, you give in to despair, allowing yourself to surrender to your lowest instincts. In dark times, hope is something that you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength.”
She took it all in, but refused to agree with his speech. Her whole life, she had hoped that her father would love her. Her whole life, she had hoped that he would be proud of her. During her banishment, even after seeing his cruelty, she had still hoped that he would lift her banishment and welcome her back, say sorry, look at her like she actually was his daughter.
Why would hoping change anything now?
He didn’t understand, no matter how much he tried to help.
That night, she packed her bag.
“I need to find my own way.”
He seemed to begrudgingly accept her decision, and handed her the ostrich-horse.
“Stay safe.”
She didn’t reply, but she did look back once as she headed off towards the unknown.