Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A burning sensation dances agonizingly over her body. The day was already humid, suffocating so. But this…

This is something else.

Her head is pounding something furious and her lungs strain against that suffocating heat. And for her eyes—she might as well be staring directly into the sun. It is her skin though. Her skin that absolutely smolders. It is blistering but without a bubble on her skin. There is no blackening, no rolling smoke. Nothing but the sensation of being ablaze. It comes from the inside. 

It is a pain that burrows far deeper than the skin it singes her to her core leaving her bones feeling a mock sensation of melting away.

Her muscles a sense of uselessness.

Her heart aching in such a way that she can swear that it is ready to burst

And for what? What has she done? Plenty of unkind things, that is true enough. But what is so dreadful that she needs to boil alive. She screams, cries out into a vast jungle that swallows her voice. She almost expects fire to erupt from her throat, a roar of flames to match her roar of agony. 

Why?

Why her?

Is she really so horrible? 

The spirits love to torment her. And maybe that’s what this is; just another wicked illusion. Something that she has to fend off with her hands gripping either side of her aching head. Maybe she just needs to will it away. But she has been trying. Trying for the last several days. She has lost count of how many of them have gone by. Enough, though, that her mind is beginning to fray. Illusion or reality, the burning is only growing more intense. 

She has found a lake, a small pool with nearly frigid waters—exceptionally cold for being in the middle of the Fire Nation—and she slips her body into it. The burning persists. 

She drinks water until her stomach can handle no more. The fire takes up more space. 

She stops coming out in the daytime when the sun sears the brightest. She can smell smoke in her nostrils. 

And when all else fails, she scratches at her skin. Peeling away at it just to see if the flames will burst through. She wishes that they would, just so she can know that it isn’t her imagination. They never do. 

They rage inside of her until she finally buckles to the floor, gripping her furiously pounding head. The ground is moist and cool, the mosses tickle her cheek. But it offers no relief. She curls her fingers into her hair and the pain shifts in such a way that it becomes more intense in her stomach. And when she grasps her simmering middle the pain shifts once more to reside predominantly in her chest. She hopes that her heart will combust so that she can finally have some peace.

Tears do not cool her. They don’t do anything at all except fall from her eyes. “Please.” She murmurs to no one in particular. There is no one around. Just the trees and their whispering canopy. “Make it stop.” 

She just wants to go home. She just wants her life back, the life that she had before everything fell apart. She wants her mind back. Wants her body back. Her body hasn’t been taken quite yet. 

She shifts positions several times over; first to sit upright with her knees drawn to her burning chest, head nuzzled in her knees, second to laying on her back as stiff as she can manage, and third to a fetal position. It is here that she remains, curled in on herself with her arms curled tightly at her chest. She whimpers softly against that festering feeling that refuses to subside, even for a second. 

There is no relief. 

There is no break.

No period of respite.

Just an endless stream of raging fire. Perpetual pain in a physical sense to match the feelings in her head. She has no peace. Not in mind. Not in body. Certainly not in soul. And maybe this is her own doing, maybe she has earned this. The spirits have no corporal forms, but she has still managed to step on a good many of their toes. 

Her lips part but she has nothing to say and no one to say it too. She is alone with her suffering. Alone with remorse and regret that she can’t quite place. She doesn’t want to be alone right now but she has been left again. She can’t imagine that Zirin would really care anyhow. Her mind begins to wander. Wander to a place where Zirin comes upon her. Even in her own mind, the woman just walks away with a shake of her head. Even in her own mind, she has been abandoned. 

Her tears feel like rivers of lava on her face. Surely they are leaving trails of blisters on her face. They burn so hot that they must be doing so. Azula thinks that she is reaching a boiling point. A fine film of sweat clings to her face. She is absolutely sweltering.

And then…

And then with only two small pops and a crackle for a warning her skin goes up in flames.

She can see it now, tongues of fire rushing from a blacked spot on her elbow. They crawl up her arm. 

She shrikes, howling under a sweltering midday sun. The jungle vibrates with excitement. Vibrates for the justice that has finally been paid. She swears that she hadn’t been that horrible. That life has been crueler to her than she has ever been to it. She screams long enough for the fire to finally gush from her mouth. Her body is a volcano and it has finally erupted. The fire washes over her face, catching skin, hair, and clothing. She thinks that it all might be melting away. 

The flames overtake her, encompassing her entirely. She screams until her lungs are taken by the smoke. Screams until her voice box is claimed by the fire. Her skin blackens and hardens. Inch by inch, the fire burns her away until she is certain that there is nothing left of her but burnt bones and her defeated, troubled mind.

And yet she lives on.

She has curled so tightly in on herself that she isn’t certain that she can unbunch. So she lays there, weeping silently and without tears. She is all dried up. She cannot stand, she cannot move, she cannot twitch, she can barely breath. But her heart still beats and her brain still throbs. Her nerves still function, that is for certain. 

More than anything, Azula just wants to go home. To wake up in her bedroom. Agni, at this point she wouldn’t mind waking up in a straight jacket with one of those agitating nurses telling her that she had imagined the entire ordeal.

Finally. 

Finally, some hours later the pain begins to subside.

It dulls to something terribly uncomfortable but vaguely tolerable.

This, she resigns herself, is her new existence. 

A soul locked within in a body shrouded in furious fire.

Always aching and always alone.

Chapter Text

Sometimes he looks at pictures of her and his heart aches. Most of the time he thinks that it is his fault. And maybe, partly it is. He is her older brother and he can’t say that he was the best at it. Azula, of course, was no delight to him. Once or twice Zuko swears that she had been, in her own way, trying to connect, trying to be kind. But it always felt short. She just…she never felt sincere. And so he never felt compelled to show her any compassion. He can’t imagine that she would show him any were their roles switched. 

And yet he stares at her portrait. At her perfect, impeccable smile. Not a hair out of place, not a crinkle in her clothing. A far cry from the last state that he’d seen her in. Although he must say that she looked at least a little better. Her face had regained its color and her eyes had lost that odd glint. 

“I think that I should try to find her.” Zuko comments one day over dinner. 

“Who?” Aang inquires. 

“My sister.” 

“Did you already try that?” Katara asks.

“It’s a waste of time.” Mai sighs. “She doesn’t want to be found.” 

Zuko shrugs. “Yeah. Maybe.” The last that he had heard any news of her at all had been two months ago. A fire in a factory then things had been quiet around Caldera City.

“She’ll turn up eventually, she always does.” Mai mutters.

“Usually at the worst time too.” Sokka adds with a swish of his fork. 

But she doesn’t. Not in the month to come nor the month to follow that one. And then Zuko would get swept up in politics and duties and a vacation or two. He doesn’t know it now, he has absolutely no clue, but it would be another four years before he’d think to look for his sister again. 

While he eats his supper, his sister enjoys her fifth day of fire.

.oOo.

As many things do, it begins as only a vague cause for alarm. A subtle sense that something is not right. The kind that she would readily dismiss if she hadn’t experience to tell her that some of the worst fates have come in the wake of tiny inconveniences. 

Her little itch is a hole. 

This minuscule blank spot in her mind.

It used to be a memory that occupied that space. 

A useless fun fact to be precise. 

She can no longer recall how tall the average komodo rhino grows to be. She remembers that she had a phase as a child. She had a stuffed toy that father had won for her at a sun festival. She remembers the jingling bells tied to the stall. She also remembers the smell of spicy sausage links and the sound of their sizzling. She remembers tugging on father’s sleeve and asking for one. He had gotten her two since it was her birthday. And then she got to ride one of the komodo rhinos—its name was Kenzo. She held her stuffed komodo rhino, nibbling on its horn until father reminded her that doing so was unbecoming, and that big girls didn’t chew or suck on their toys. Lu Ten came home the next day and he had fashioned some armor for her toy. For his efforts and troubles she had prattled on and on about real komodo rhinos. She could list off everything that there was to know about komodo rhinos; their horn length, their average weight, what to feed them, and how to saddle them. She still knows these things. All of them except for how tall they grow to be. 

She sits upon a large rock, lightly beating a fiery fist against a flaming forehead, as though she can knock the memory back into her mind. But no matter how hard she tries she can’t seem to fish it back out of that hole. And so the blank space remains, small but seeming to gape all the same. 

Azula rubs her hands over her face. Not that she can call them hands anymore. They look more like twigs on the end of a branch of a smoldering tree. At first she thought that she was looking at bone…her bones. But no, her arms have a very distinctly woody texture and spines to go with it beneath all of that fire. Her ribcage on the other hand, is very much still bone and it is displayed openly with her flesh burned away from it. In place of guts and throbbing bits, she has a belly full of fire. A belly like a furnace that never stops raging. She doesn’t know what her face looks like, she doesn’t want to. But she imagines that it is no longer pleasant to look at. Perhaps it is hollow and skull like. Perhaps her eye sockets are empty of eyes. But how then, would she see? She knows that she has a tail, it is long and rigid and spiny like her arms. It bares likeness to a hardened lava floe, complete with cracks, glows, and occasional pops of sparks. It warps around her when she is feeling dread—an involuntary motion from an appendage that she hasn’t learned to use. It is wrapped around her now. It has been wrapped around her since her transformation. 

Azula, for all of her intense warmth, shivers and trembles. Not for the first time in her life, she doesn’t know what to do. But for the very first time in her life, she hasn’t even a semblance of a plan. 

Most of the time she finds herself wandering, occasionally stopping to catch the attention of a spirit. But when she begins to ask her question, only fire and smoke spouts from her mouth. Her words are weak, her voice soft and lost beneath the fire’s roar. 

And so the spirits slink or dash away from her, terrified of the power that she hadn’t meant to unleash before them. 

She is no closer to uncovering the how and the why. Possibly the who. Which spirit had done this to her? Or had it been the universe itself? Had she done this to herself? She thinks that she might have—with some help of course. The last of this gaggle of spirits flutter away. 

But she cannot weep for the fire steals her tears before they are shed. The feeling is still there constricting her chest. Azula is terribly sad and this time she doesn’t think that she can salvage anything at all. 

And so she wraps her arms around herself and carries on. 

Lost…

Lonely…

Suffering…

Chapter Text

Approximately 4 tons. 

20 to 55 inches for the horn.

And the average height still eludes her. 

As her memory rots so do the details. There are several species of komodo rhino, each has their own statistics. 4 tons and 20 to 55 inches for the horn; this could be either the black or the white komodo rhino. She should know which. She used to. Whichever one it is not is the species that gets to be nearly 7 tons and has a horn length up to 59 inches. And then there are the greater one horns and the Caldera ash komodo rhinos. The greater one horned variety can weigh a formidable 7 tons at most with a horn length of 39 inches. 

The Caldera ash komodo rhinos have always been her favorite. They are the largest, the strongest. They are on average 10,000 pounds of fury and brute with horns that can exceed 60 inches. They like to linger around active volcanoes. She remembers the myth: that their hide is thick enough to withstand lava. 

But Azula cannot remember any of the heights.

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. Black or white komodo rhino. 59 inches. 7 tons. White or black komodo rhino. 39 inches. 7 tons. Greater one horned komodo rhino. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds. Caldera ash komodo rhino.

She clings to these facts. Repeats them over and over again so not to lose them. Should she come by one of them on her misadventures she could feed the black komodo rhino twigs and shoots, the white komodo rhino favors a similar diet but it would require much more. And so she decides that it must be the white komodo rhino that is 7 tons with 59 inch horns. But she could have that wrong too. She could have the diets mixed up. 

She claws at what would be her hairline were she not wearing a crown of flame. The greater one horned komodo rhinos prefer a diet of aquatic plants while the Caldera ash favor meat—both small and large game. They can eat over a hundred pounds a day if they so choose.

It is how the grow to be the size that she cannot recall. 

20 to 55 inches, 4 tons black komodo rhino. 59 inches…

She cannot let herself forget because it is nearly all that she has left as far as the komodo rhinos are concerned. She can remember her stuffed toy and that it had a name. But what was it? She remembers that the toy had armor but she can’t remember who gave it to her. Father? Mother? Zuzu? No, Zuzu was too young. So Iroh or Lu Ten? Grandfather? 

She grits her teeth. She knows this. She does! 

And where had she gotten the toy? She knows that father had given it to her, but she can’t remember where or when. Or why. 

And so she recants the numbers 20 to 55 inches, 4 tons…

Numbers always have been easier for her to remember than emotions and aromas. 

Numbers have sense to them. Order. Emotions are chaos, they don’t quite follow any rules. Nothing really follows rules anymore. Nothing has consistency. Rhythms and patterns are becoming scarce. 

The pain doesn’t help. Sometimes it gets to be so overwhelming that she can’t even muster up her possibly botched numbers. Sometimes, she has to stop in the middle of her mantra to wait out the pain. Most of the time it passes. Sometimes it takes an exceptionally long time, long enough that Azula begins to fear that it will never subside. 

Today, she isn’t hurting. Not quite as badly. So she lets her mind wander a bit. She has a childhood memory, but the details are fuzzy. She is on some beach somewhere. It is sunny. Zuzu is smiling and laughing and she is too. They had just emerged from the water and they had sworn that they’d seen a lionturtle. Mother had humored them. Father had rolled his eyes but he didn’t protest their fantasies. 

Azula misses father. She sort of misses Zuzu too. She even misses mother and maybe Iroh. She misses a life that she never had. A life that she could have had. She misses all of the choices that she had never gotten. Or maybe she had gotten them, just the same as Zuzu had, and she had just scoffed at them and tossed them aside. And for it, she wears fire on her body.

At last it makes sense.

Something makes sense. 

She has only ever had her firebending. 

It was all that really mattered to her; firebending and the glory, admiration, and affection that it brought her. 

And now fire is all that she will ever be. 

She has a crackling laugh. She hates the sound of it. But she can’t stop. Because it is so funny. So dreadfully hilarious. The poetry, the symmetry. It is satisfying in some sick and dark sense. And so she laughs her crackling laugh and the fire erupts from her throat. Sprays sparks into the night sky. 

Weather she realized it or not, Azula’s firebending had always been her undoing. 

And it undoes her still.

Chapter Text

“You’ll make sure that things stay in order?” Zuko requests. 

“Better than you ever did.” Mai offers him the faintest of smiles. But it is a smile and it is a pretty one. He likes to think that those smiles are showing up on her face more often these days.

His own face has started seeing smiles only sparingly. The throne isn’t exactly kind and sometimes he wonders if he had any business taking it at all. Maybe that is why he feels inclined to leave. To seek Azula out for himself instead of sending another search party that will just come home empty handed and without any news of any sort. 

They hadn’t been able to track down Ursa, so of course they can’t find Azula. 

He doesn’t think that anyone can find her. Not unless she wants to be found. And he is confident that she wants to remain hidden. Not that he has given her any reason to show herself. As far as she knows, the only thing waiting for her upon return is a trip back to the institution that she had escaped from. So why would she come back?

She had four years to do it.

Four years. 

Agni, he wonders what she is like now. Surely she has changed somehow; he can’t name a soul that the passing of four years wouldn’t change. And so he wonders if she changed for better or for worse, he likes to think for the better. 

He likes to think that she smiles again, that smile that she had offered him on Ember Island. Likes to think that she isn’t so worried and intense anymore. That she has learned to relax and give herself room for error. 

Sometimes he thinks that he only hopes as much to ease his own conscience. 

No less, he wonders if she is doing well or if she is struggling as much as he had during his three years of banishment. 

And the darkest, gloomiest parts of him wonder if she is even alive.

.oOo.

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. Blue or white komodo rhino. 55 inches. 7 tons. White or blue komodo rhino. 49 inches. 7 tons. Greater one horned komodo rhino. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds. Caldera ash komodo rhino.

No, no! That isn’t right. There is something…maybe a few somethings that aren’t right. She clenches her teeth. Clenches her fists. She squeezes her eyes shut. But which isn’t, which numbers are wrong…

No.

No, not the numbers…

Blue. She is all mixed up again.

Her fire is blue. Was blue? 

She looks down at her arms. Orange.

So what then? What was blue? Because it wasn’t the komodo rhino. The komodo rhino is black. Yes, that’s right the komodo rhino is black, not blue.

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. Black or white komodo rhino. 55 inches. 7 tons. White or black komodo rhino. 49 inches. 7 tons. Greater one horned komodo rhino. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds. Caldera ash komodo rhino.

But that still isn’t right. She just knows it. Knows it in her soul. In that part of her that is still human. But what is it? What part of her mantra has she gotten mixed up? 20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. Black or white komodo rhino. 55 inches. 7 tons. White or black komodo rhino. 49 inches. 7 tons. Greater one horned komodo rhino. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds. Caldera ash komodo rhino . She bites the inside of her cheek. She wishes that she could cry. She is so frustrated. Because, dammit!  She knows that something isn’t correct and she dreads that it is in the numbers. The very thing that had never escaped her before. Had never failed her. 

Had always comforted her. 

But numbers can’t numb the pain anymore. These days, the spikes in her agony can get to be so sharp that she can’t think of anything else at all. Nothing but her suffering and that horrible burning ache in her brain. 

She thinks that this is when her memories escape. 

Memories, afterall, are opportunists. They like to slink and sneak, the darkest, bleakest of them had always liked to creep up upon her when she thought  that she is doing alright. They never had to do much work. They just had to lay and wait for the right moment; a certain sound, a certain scent. And then they would pounce! They would bombard her senses. 

And just as they relish in the opportunity to invade, they enjoy an opportunity to flee. 

Pain leaves the door wide open. 

And it is here again. It has her curled up into a little ball of fire for the other spirits to gawk at. Her fire flares and weakens and flares and weakens and flares and…

It is following her heartbeat, she realizes. 

Her heartbeat has lost its rhythm. And that in itself is a brand of suffering. 

Her chest is on fire. Her head is in flames. Her eyes have already burned away, she is certain of that. She hasn’t quite figured out how she is still able to see without them. It isn’t with eyes, because eyes see in more color than just violent shades of orange that make the ache in her head worse. 

She thinks that the worst of it is that she can never seem to predict when the agony will flare up. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern. She swears that she hears laughter off in the distance. She had heard chatter the last time her head started to ache. Right now she can’t begin to put those pieces together. She might be trying to connect dots that aren’t there anyways.

She scrunches herself up even tighter. 

The pain is exceptionally excruciating this time. So much so that by the time it fades away she can’t remember what she has forgotten. And so, with nothing else to do and nothing else to help her ease the trembling of her body, she repeats her mantra, 

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches. 7 tons. 49 inches. 7 tons. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds.

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches. 7 tons. 49 inches. 7 tons. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds.

Wait, She thinks, that isn’t…

And so she repeats one more time; 20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches. 7 tons. 49 inches. 7 tons. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds….

And she realizes, with a jolt and a twinge in her heart, that this is terribly wrong. There were more words with those numbers. Her heart is absolutely hammering, showering sprays of sparks. There was something else. Those measurements had once referred to something. 

Had once meant something…

So heavy is her distress over this that she doesn’t think to dread that she also can’t remember her own name.

Chapter Text

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches. 7 tons. 49 inches. 7 tons. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds….

She can’t remember why she is repeating it. 

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches. 7 tons. 49 inches. 7 tons. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds…

She doesn’t think that there is a reason at all aside from that it is simply what she has always done.

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches. 7 tons. 49 inches. 7 tons. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds….

But it is becoming tired and tiresome. 20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches… 

The fire spirit frowns to herself. She has better things to think about, she just isn’t certain of what those better things are. So maybe it is less about having better things to think about and more about letting her mind be silent now. 

Yes. That is what she wants; silence, even from her own mind. 

Her mind doesn’t need to be noisy anymore. Her own inner chatter had only been there to take her mind off of the sensations that had troubled her body. That horrid and persistent burning and blistering. But she hasn’t felt singed nor sizzled since retreating further into the trees.

So what else can she think of, now that her mind has room for other things. She tilts her head to the side at the realization that she doesn’t really have much to think about at all and, even if she did, words are quite strange. She finds that some of them don’t really mean anything anymore. If they had ever meant anything at all.

She realizes that, that which she doesn’t remember doesn’t bother her. 

If these things…these words were important she would remember them. 

She would also remember it . 

Whatever it is. 

She has lost something, a few things maybe. 

And she thinks that that something or those somethings might be the ‘it’ that might be important but certainly can’t be if she couldn’t be bothered to remember. And so maybe this thing or these things that she has lost aren’t really a loss or several losses at all. 

The fire spirit has lost that nagging suffering and she certainly does not miss that.

And so the fire spirit wanders deeper into the jungle. 

Deeper, where the pain grows fainter yet.

Deeper, where traces of what the spirit had once been snuff nearly completely. 

.oOo.

Katara wipes beads of sweat out of her face. These Fire Nation summers are brutal and she is growing quite tired of having to whip out her water. She is equally as tired of passing it around to everyone. Moreso, she is worried that the water is becoming unsanitary. She is going to have to dump it and refill her waterskin, hopefully before her mouth grows parched and her throat runs dry.

She can tell that the others aren’t faring so well either. Each of their faces are slicked with sweat and Sokka is practically panting. Aang is fanning himself with airbending and Toph looks like she is ready to collapse onto the ground and burry herself beneath cool dirt. Zuko is the only one who seems to be tolerating the heat—naturally so. 

Katara wipes the sweat from her forehead. 

“Look!” Aang declares. “A river!” 

She doesn’t need to look, she can hear it loudly and clearly and her heart tickles with relief and joy. Before she can even lift a leg, Sokka is bounding past her and leaping into the gently rippling waves.

“Sokka!” Zuko shouts. “We have to focus.” 

“What we need is a break.” Toph counters. “We’ve been walking for hours. And we’ve been walking for hours this whole week.”

“I think that it has been a little more than a week.” Katara mentions. 

“It has been.” Zuko confirms. “And so far we have no leads except for that guy who said that the last time he saw Azula, she was heading into this jungle.” 

“He also said that he could have seen someone else entirely and that he didn’t get a good look.” Sokka calls as he dives back beneath the water. 

“Come on, Zuko.” Aang smiles. “A small break couldn’t hurt, right?” 

“We’re trying to find my sister!” 

“She’s been missing for years.” Toph shrugs. “I think that fifteen more minutes won’t really make much of a difference.” 

Zuko grits his teeth and balls his fists. Katara puts a hand on his back. “It’ll take longer if you argue with them. We can’t find Azula if we are tired and dehydrated. I have to refill my waterskin anyways and we could all use a bath.” She is under the impression that Sokka has reached a level of odorous that can get them hunted by vicious peacock-lions and jaguar-gorillas. 

Zuko sighs. “Fine, but make it quick.” He folds his arms across his chest and finds a large rock to sulk upon. 

Katara can’t help but smile; at least Azula has someone who is worried about her. In spite of everything, she finds herself hoping for the best for the former princess. But somehow she finds herself fearing the worst. She can’t name many people living good lives just up and leaving them behind for a mysterious, muggy, foggy jungle. 

Katara pours her dirty water over a few nearby ferns. The ground eagerly soaks it in and she eagerly kneels down to refill her waterskin with purer waters. She should probably fill a second—one for drinking and one for keeping cool. 

She rises back to her full height and fixes the waterskins back onto her belt before making her way to a fallen tree. It isn’t the most comfortable looking seating arrangement, but it isn’t jagged and pointy like the rock Zuko has picked. She imagines that he will be grumbling about an aching rear soon enough and it will serve him right for being so careless about where he sits. 

Katara brushes some dirt off of the bark and purses her lips. “Huh?” She hums to herself, holding her pointer and middle fingers level with her eyes. She furrows her brows. “Is this…ash?” 

“What?” Zuko asks.

“Ash…” She repeats with a gesture to her sullied fingers. 

Zuko shrugs. “What about it? There’s ash everywhere in the Fire Nation.”

And finally she places precisely what makes her feel so unsettled. “But these ashes are still warm.”

Now Zuko is on his feet. On his feet and walking towards her while she slowly extends her arm and holds her palm to the fallen log. It too is a little more than just warm, and it has the scorch marks to prove that she isn’t just feeling something that isn’t there. 

Just far enough to be discernible but not far enough for her comfort, there comes a rustling. Katara holds her breath and squints into the treeline. And…there! She catches a blur of motion. Something almost bright. At least she thinks that she does. 

Her heart is pounding. “Zuko…”

“I heard it.” He says through gritted teeth as Aang lets out a loud laugh and splashes Sokka. “Quiet!” He snaps but Aang and Sokka aren’t paying attention to him. 

“It’s behind that tree!” 

Katara jolts. If Sokka had seen that, he would make a point of popping out at her at random times for the rest of their time in the jungle. “Don’t do that, Toph!”

“Sorry.” Toph mutters. “Just trying to help.” 

“What’s behind the tree?” Zuko asks. They now have the attention of Aang and Sokka and, probably, the thing behind the tree.

“I don’t know. But it’s pretty small.” 

Katara relaxes just a little. Zuko does not, he creeps closer to the tree that Toph had pointed to. Toph who is shaking her head. “It’s not there anymore.” She whispers. But only Katara hears her. Zuko is still creeping towards that tree. Toph stands rigidly while Katara steps to the right, opposite of Zuko. To the right, where she had heard the faintest pop. She takes a deep breath and gets down on all fours to peer under another fallen tree. 

She sees the face but only for a flicker, certainly not long enough to tell what kind of expression it wears. But she knows that it isn’t human. She jerks back, falling on her rear with a rather shrill cry.

“Katara!” Aang rushes towards her. Sokka in tow with his boomerang raised. 

The spirit throws itself atop the fallen tree and looms over her. It wears a halo of fire that flares like a lion-peacock mane. She can hear the pop and crackle of it. She screams again. But the spirit doesn’t leave its new perch. She scuttles back and out of the spirit’s shadow. It doesn’t follow. It doesn’t move at all, not in her direction anyhow. Instead it backs away, pressing itself against an upright tree.

And Katara realizes that the fire spirit is screaming too. She lets out a breath that she hadn’t realized that she had been holding; if the spirit is shouting then it is just as startled as they are. And if it is scared of them then they don’t have to fear it.

“Sokka, you can put your boomerang down. It’s just scared.” Katara says.

“Exactly!” Sokka shouts. “Cornered animals are twice as likely to strike!”

“Well good thing we cornered a spirit and not an animal.” Toph shrugs. “And also it isn’t cornered it’s backed up against a tree.” 

“That’s not better.” Zuko grumbles. 

The poor spirit tries to back further into the tree. Katara sees smoke rippling off of the bark just as the smell of burning wood enters her nostrils. Her heart aches for the spirit. “Maybe we should back up.” She suggests. “And, for Raava’s sake, lower your boomerang, Sokka!”

The spirit holds its spindly, fiery arms up to its chest. If Katara didn’t know any better she would say that it is shaking. She should probably lower her voice. “Hey…” She starts, offering a slight smile. “It’s alright, we didn’t mean to bother you. We were just trying to cool off.”

The spirit slinks away from the tree slowly, cautiously. It is still breathing heavily. Although breathing might not be the right word to use for a spirit. She doesn’t think that spirits can breathe. But this one has a heart–visible and glowing violently orange behind bones. Or branches? Bones and branches? Katara squints, the spirit’s collarbones, she realizes, are bone with streaks of wood fused to it. The glow of the spirit’s heart casts shadows. And that glowing, shadow-casting heart is beating. So maybe the spirit can breathe. Its belly roars with each inhale and flames burst from between its blackened ribs with every exhale. 

Aang raises his hands, “it’s alright.” He promises. And in that cheerful, reassuring tone that she had cherished so much as a child he adds, “We’re just passing through.” 

The fire spirit tilts its head. 

“We’re actually looking for somebody.” Zuko mutters.

Katara nudges him and, through gritted teeth, grumbles, “not now!”

“Sorry.” 

The fire spirit takes a step back and Katara fears that it might flee. From the looks of it, Sokka and Zuko are hoping for just that. But she isn’t. She can’t explain it but she wants the spirit to stay. 

Katara takes a few steps back for herself. Compared to some spirits that she has seen on their adventures—the scariest of them—this one is so small. No bigger than Aang had been when they’d found him in that iceberg. Now and then the fire that halos the spirit will puff and flare and it looks much larger. Just moments ago, the spirit had been gleaming like the sun. But now that it has calmed, those flames have settled, flickering instead like little candles upon its head and shoulders. Katara thinks of a boar-q-pine with fiery quills. 

It tilts its head again.

It is curious, Katara realizes. 

Katara holds her hand up and waves. The spirit might be waving back or it might simply be imitating what it has just seen. 

It tilts its head in the other direction and fixes eyes like firefly bulbs upon her. In each socket swim three tiny yellow orbs and all six seem to peer directly into her soul. Its gaze is terribly intense. 

Slowly it lifts its arm. 

Slower still it extends its arm.

Katara gulps. 

“We’re looking for someone.” Sokka says abruptly before the spirit can get too close. It flinches back at the sound of his voice, withdrawing its arm in a snap. “Maybe you’ve seen her.”

The fire is flaring around its head again, darkening from orange to an agitated red. “Sokka…” Katara can’t bring her voice any louder than just above a whisper. The spirit steps closer. 

“Get away from her!” Zuko shouts, fire bursting into his palms. 

The spirit lets out a horrid screech and the fire on its body seems to retreat into its bones and its woodsy arms. Before Katara can get a good look at its face without the fire, the spirit throws itself back into the underbrush, back into the thick of the trees, leaving only smoldering rings upon fern leaves and a pile of ash in the dirt to prove that it had been there at all.

.oOo.

The fire spirit curls herself up under the roots of a banyan tree. She thinks that those people hadn’t meant to frighten her anymore than she had meant to frighten them. They hadn’t meant to hurt her. At least she doesn’t think that they had. But she is in pain all the same and they had caused it. 

She draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, rocking herself back and forth. But that doesn’t soothe the searing pain. She doesn’t remember much but she remembers this particular burning–how it had plagued her relentlessly for days…weeks…months? She realizes that she doesn’t know what days, weeks, and months are. They are words without concept. She has lots of those; “we’re looking for someone” and  “we’re not going to hurt you” among them. 

But, even if the rest is lost on her, she knows what hurt is and she knows what fear is. And, whatever their human speech was meant to reassure her of, they had hurt her. 

They had hurt her after making promises that she couldn’t understand. What she does understand is emotions and the energies that accompany them. They hadn’t radiated malefic auras. It was mostly fear, not unlike her own. Fear and a touch of curiosity. Compassion?

And so she isn’t angry. 

She is just hurt. 

She is just afraid. 

And she can’t exactly place where the fear is coming from. They had let her leave. They hadn’t followed her. They had been doing their best to convey a comforting aura. And yet she is terrified. Haunted in a way that she understands less than she understands everything else. 

She can’t recall but they seem familiar in a way that makes her fear them in spite of their attempts to be approachable. 

The spirit nestles herself further into the friendly darkness of the banyan roots and curls herself up. 

She hopes that these people with their loud voices and flashy weapons will leave soon.

Chapter Text

It has been stalking them for a while now, observing them. Even if Toph hadn’t mentioned it once or twice, she would have known. It is something about the way the ferns stir. The rustling always comes with the scent of a campfire that has been freshly extinguished in a haste. It is a faint aroma but it is most certainly there. 

Katara finds herself shuddering. The fire spirit hadn’t been an aggressive thing, if anything it had radiated only a sense of cautious curiosity, not unlike her own. Even still, she can’t help but find it unsettling in some sense. 

To be watched but unable to watch back. 

And there is a part of her that wonders if it is the fire spirit at all. She can’t imagine that the fire spirit is the only spirit in this jungle. On the other hand she can easily imagine that there are many much more sinister spirits here; her mind wanders to Koh and an enraged Hei Bei, a defensive owl spirit and the types that make illusions in one’s mind. 

“Should we stop to rest our feet?” Sokka asks much too loudly for Katara’s comfort. Not that volume matters, the spirit already knows that they are here.

“I don’t think so.” Katara replies softly anyhow. “I think that we should just keep moving.” 

“Or we could stop and show that spirit who’s in charge.” Toph declares, punching her fist against her opposite palm. “There are five of us and one of it.”

“We’re going to have to stop at some point.” Zuko agrees. “We should probably just get it out of the way before nightfall.” He slows his pace to a crawl and the rest of the group follows in suit. “At least we can see what we’re up against.”

“We’ll be fine.” Aang assures. “I think that if it was going to attack us, it would have.” 

Katara doesn’t like it but Toph has already made herself comfortable on a tree stump where she begins to massage her foot. Katara’s own feet are aching something fierce. She takes a breath and props herself up against a nearby palm tree. She traces the opposite treeline with her eyes, she thinks that she catches a flash of movement between two rubber trees. A golden flare, perhaps. 

But the rustling comes from behind her. 

She hasn’t noticed the head peeking out from behind the very tree she leans against, but her stomach tickles and sinks all the same. 

Zuko and Aang chat amongst themselves across the clearing, Toph continues to massage the soles of her feet, Sokka is cleaning his boomerang, and the spirit wraps its woodsy finger around the trunk of a banana palm. 

Its fingers blends so perfectly well that Katara doesn’t see them until they give a crackle and a pop and bust to life. Katara throws herself away from the tree with a sharp cry and the fire spirit shows itself, tilting its head in an almost inquiring way. 

Katara holds its stare. She doesn’t move an inch. 

It doesn’t creep any closer.

Instead it slinks back. 

Back into the bushes, disappearing as quickly as it had emerged. 

.oOo.

“Come out!” A harsh masculine voice demands. “We know that you’re there!” 

“We’re not going to hurt you.” Comes a softer voice. “We just want to talk.”  He sounds sweet enough. Genuine too. But the fire spirit still can’t be certain. Because that fear, the one that she can’t seem to place, is still there. And it has her by the throat. 

“Speak for yourself!” Says a different voice, less commanding but still rather loud. “Listen here, spirit! You leave my sister alone or you’re going to face the wrath of my boomerang whack-a-pow!” 

She catches a glint of sun on metal. 

It is all the warning that she needs.

“Sokka!” That shrill exclamation follows the spirit as she flees back into the darker stretches of the jungle. 

Sokka. 

She doesn’t like that name. 

She can’t explain it, but it makes the inferno in her belly swirl. The flames flick about with a beat to match her unease. 

She should have stayed back, kept her distance. She doesn’t know them and they don’t know her. But she has been lonely. 

So, so terribly lonely.

And so afraid. 

Maybe that is what the spirit had been hoping to find; company. She is tired of being the only light in this dark, dreary place. She is tired of being confused and lost. But she is frightened of what lies outside of this cozy but sorrowful burrow that she has lovingly fashioned for herself.

And she is frightened of the people with their booming voices, bombastic and frantic gestures, shiny toys, and hateful expressions. 

It smells comfortably of fire lilies here. Fire lilies, mangos, and burning wood. The people smell like sweat and metal. The ground here is soft and spongy and she can rest her fiery head upon it. The terrains that the humans seem to prefer are jagged, flat and rocky. She has her collection of trinkets here; little bones and strings, old and weathered ofuda charms, and glistening rocks with pale orange crystals. Feathers and tufts of fur. Dented coins and shards of glass. She can’t carry all of it with her, these little things that bring her joy. She has nothing else, she doesn’t want to risk losing these things too, not for strange people who only shout and raise their fists at her.

And so the spirit sits alone under her favorite tangle of banyan roots, haloed by a circle of gold, a glowing candle tucked and nestled in her own small and solitary world.

Chapter Text

It is still following them. She can hear it.

She has to admire the fire spirit’s persistence; it has been tracking them for four days now, trailing closely behind, lingering just out of sight. 

Zuko runs his fingers through his hair. “Ugg! This is so frustrating! It’s impossible!” She feels horrible for thinking so, but Katara wishes that he would just shut up for a moment or two. Just so that she can hear. Can really listen. But he bellows on. “This jungle is huge and Azula might not even be here!”

“But she could be wandering around somewhere.” Aang says. “She might be happy to have someone take her home.”

“Or she’ll be more furious than ever and this is all a waste of time.” Zuko kicks at the ground. “This was a stupid idea! Of course she’s going to be angry that we’ve tracked her down! Why should anything have changed?”

“Come on, Zuko, that’s not necessarily true.” Katara says, if only to try to placate him enough to regain a relative quiet. “You’re…we’re all just a little cranky and tired from being out here for so long.” She feels horrible for the half-sincerity. For offering words of comfort with an ulterior motive of sorts. 

There might have been another snap but Zuko’s voice had made certain that she couldn’t hear it. She grits her teeth and almost tells him outright to be quiet. If only Toph weren’t so entirely invested in setting up their campfire. That should have been Zuko’s job, the fire would have been lit already. 

Finally Zuko finds himself a spot on the ground and drops down, resting his chin in his hands. “Maybe we should just go home.” He mutters as a final thought on the matter. 

“Maybe we should.” Katara agrees quietly. Although she can’t seem to ward off the tickles in her heart that come at the thought of leaving anyone, even Azula, to fend for themselves in a creepy place like this. The rustles are closer now and this time they come with a guttural clicking. For all she knows, that stomach-churning clicking could have been ongoing for a while, unnoticed beneath Zuko’s grumblings. Katara fixes her gaze eastward. The clicking comes again, although she wagers that it hadn’t stopped at all it simply lowers in depth and then rises once more. She wishes that she could dismiss it as cicadas or some type of Fire Nation variety of cricket. They have been in the jungle long enough for her to have gained a sense of what its usually nightlife is like and this is not it.

“Zuko do you…?”

“Hear that?” His brows knit.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah…” 

“Do you think that its just…” Katara begins.

But no. 

Something is wrong. 

These snaps seem much louder. 

And the fire spirit never clicked.

The fire spirit didn’t exude such a hateful, conniving aura. 

Katara squints at the treeline. And there! Six glowing eyes. She lets out a sigh of relief, they are pretty low to the ground. “I think that it’s just a small…”

The eyes shift and shoot up. Katara gulps, she had sorely misjudged; this spirit is massive. A hulking shadow with a head turning presence. And turn heads it does. Aang, Toph, and Sokka drop what they are doing, firewood and tent pegs clatter to the jungle floor and the fire that Toph had just got kindling snuffs out.

It is a skinny thing that ambles around on all fours with a sickly beige to brown gradient complexion. Its under belly is speckled with what looks like tiny red gemstones floating within nearly translucent, gelatinous skin. It breathes heavily and when it does its slippery, slimy sides suck in and suction to its ribcage. Katara thinks of thin rubber, elastic and bouncy. The texture is pimpled and difficult to gaze upon.

“What does it want?” Sokka asks. 

“I think that it wants us to leave.” Aang replies. He grimaces. “We might have stepped onto its territory.”

And that, apparently, is reason enough for the spirit to propel itself at them with an enraged clicking screech. A massive hand whips out and slaps Sokka clear across the clearing before he can even reach for his boomerang. Toph throws a wall of stone between she and its palm. A palm that obliterates the earthy wall with ease. 

Zuko blasts the hand aside with a horizontal column of fire. “Watchout, Aang!” 

Aang leaps out of the way of the spirit’s crystal-barbed tail only to find himself clobbered when it comes back around. Zuko winces on his behalf. The fight has just begun and they are already overpowered…a perfect ambush. This is no time to let her mind wander but she spares Azula another passing thought; if she has been in this jungle all this time, it would be a miracle to find her alive. 

Zuko throws blast after blast at the spirit but it seems mostly unphased. Katara’s water sinks into its skin, seeming to rejuvenate it more than anything else.

“We’re getting our asses kicked!” Toph hollars. 

Katara has to wonder if they would be faring any better had they been prepared. As things are, they don’t stand a chance. Katara gasps as the spirit extends the crystals on its tail, she doesn’t even have time to cry out before it poises that tail for a lethal blow. She closes her eyes and waits for it to come. 

She hears a shrill screech and a shatter. And she opens her eyes to writing spirit surrounded by rough shards of shattered ruby. Beneath it, almost comically small by comparison, stands a spindly spirit with a cloak of fire. It looks back at Katara and its face cracks into a glowing grin of sorts. 

A grin that is wiped swiftly away by the other spirit's retaliation. It ponces upon the fire spirit who only narrowly evades.

 Zuko springs forward with furry and two fistfuls of fire. He throws one after another but the only spirit that yelps is the one with the fiery limbs. It drops to its knees and clutches its head. 

“Zuko, stop you’re hurting it!”

“That’s kind of the point, Katara!” 

“No! Not one! You’re hurting the fire spirit.” The poor thing is on the ground writing, its hands frantically move from one part of its body to the next; it first clutches its head and then its stomach and then its head again. And then its right arm, its throat, its head, its chest, its stomach…

It is confused and it is more terrified than ever. So much so that it can’t even seem to fathom what part of it is hurting the most and so it continues its haunting twitching dance. A dance that seems to swell and crescendo as the skirmish wages on.

“How am I hurting the fire spirit?” He huffs as he throws another ball of fire. 

The fire spirit shrikes, perhaps louder than the spirit that Zuko had actually struck. 

Katara’s mouth falls agape and her words come out in a gasp, “your fire.” It must be. She watches him throw another flaming ball and the flames encompassing the fire spirit rise with a vicious roar and then seem to burn out completely. It cries out again, in time with the malevolent spirit. “Your fire!” Katara says louder. “Firebending hurts it.” 

“What!?” He looks over his shoulder. 

“I–I think that using firebending takes fire from the spirit and that hurts it.” 

Zuko’s brows crease.

“Zuko, pay attention!” Toph shouts as the other spirit’s spectral tail comes to thrash him squarely in the back. He crashes to the ground with a thud and a loud curse. The spirit is on top of him in second, four of its six eyes are fixed upon him, the other two keep a close watch on everyone else. 

Zuko brings the fire to his hands again and the fire spirit seems to wither. Drawing in on itself. There is a an eye-burning glow that pulsates brightly in the cracks in its treebark arms. The other spirit puffs up, its skin bulges, body rounding like a pufferfish on land with a glowing red belly. Also like a puffer fish, spines protrude from its body; sizable sharpened crystals that jut just shy of puncturing Zuko’s stomach. He releases a relieved breath and grits his teeth. All the spirit has to do is lower its body and Zuko is as good as dead. 

His face strains as he summons every ounce of fire in his body. There is a flame in Aang’s hand too. Sokka’s boomerang twitches in his hand, Katara can tell that he isn’t sure if he should release it. Toph too holds her boulder in place; if the spirit tries to duck, Zuko will be impaled. But he will be impaled if they do nothing. 

The fire swells in Zuko’s hands. 

And the fire spirit twitches and writhes next to Katara.

At its wit’s very end the fire spirit unleashes an absolutely nightmarish screech and charges. 

It is fast.

Admirably so. 

It moves with such a speed that she only sees a gold-orange blur. And then it is on top of the puffer spirit ripping and clawing, viciously ribboning the creature’s back. It gives a screech of its own, sucks the jutting jewel back into its stomach, and pushes it out of its back. The fire spirit gives its back one last lash before diving out of the way. 

The puffer spirit unleashes an enraged clicking growl. Katara, Aang, Toph, and Sokka attack in unison while Zuko rolls out of the way. The puffer spirit inflates in second, crystals jutting out in every which way. It pitches to the side, putting holes in the grass as it rolls towards them. The four of them dive out of the way each in a different direction. 

But the fire spirit, the stubborn, perhaps stupid, thing holds its ground extends its branch-like claws. Katara wants to scream. To shout at it to get out of the way as the puffer spirit barrels towards it. But it seems all too intent on popping its newfound rival. At the very last moment, the fire spirit finally finds its sense and leaps out of the way. But it extends a claw and holds it there as the puffer spirit rolls on by, drawing a deep red gash on the other spirit’s side. It unleashes an angry roar and discharges all of its crystals, one final act of vengeance and defiance before it deflates. 

Katara scrambles to get out of the way and Sokka throws himself over her. Zuko throws himself behind a tree, picking Toph up as he does so. Aang rebounds one of the jagged crystals with a powerful puff of air. Katara and Sokka get lucky, one gem pierces the ground just short of their heads. The fire spirit isn’t so lucky. The puffer spirit, with a particular resentment, had sent a larger barrage of crystal spines at it. The fire spirit manages to dodge three but the fourth and fifth pin it to the ground by its shoulder and splinter its arm at the elbow respectively.

Blood like lava runs thickly and slowly like syrup from the splintered wood of the spirit’s arm. Its sobs come like a rush of fire through an open door. Katara shudders, the undertones are distinctly human. 

.oOo.

The fire spirit has gotten used to pain. This variety of it is different though. Worse, if only because she hasn’t gotten used to it in the way that she has come to familiarity with that burning sensation. In some ways, the fire spirit almost misses the harsh burning when it cools away–it is a constant, a familiar affliction that is comforting in its familiarity.

The ailment that she feels now…she thinks that she is going to die. That her flame will snuff and she will be reduced to just a pile of smoking twigs and blackened bones with fading traces of orange to outline the cracks in them. 

She holds her arm out and her body trembles, the fire haloing it sputters. At first she doesn’t comprehend what she is looking at. Lava gushes from her elbow, creating a sizzling crater in the ground next to her. It gushes from what she, at first, thinks is just a fair sized hole. But then a breeze comes by and rattles the branches. Rattles her branch. Her branch is broken, snapped nearly in two. 

She screams again. A strangled sound between a shrike and a wail. 

“Oh no…” the girl with the blue eyes and braided hair mutters. “Oh no, no, no!” Without thinking she wraps her arms around the fire spirit. She throws herself back just as quickly with a cry of her own. And the fire spirit laments in double; she hadn’t meant it, but she can’t help it, she has burned the girl’s arms. Put a char in her clothing.

“Aang, help it!” 

“You’re the waterbender, Katara!” Sokka shouts.

“It’s a fire spirit, Sokka! I don’t think that waterbending on it is a good idea. I-I don’t know how to heal spirits anyways, I don’t think that I can.” She bites her lip. “Aang, can you do something?” 

The fire spirit’s firefly eyes land upon Aang and she recognizes him; the Avatar.

Yes. She knows the Avatar. All spirits know the Avatar. He can help her.

She  reaches for him with her good arm. Flexing her fingers with a sense of longing and desperation.

His voice is gentle. “It’s alright, you’re going to be okay.”

But she doesn’t think that she will be. She is always in so much pain and just when she thought that the suffering was all done with, it has come back worse than before. And so the spirit weeps. She weeps and wishes that someone could hold her. 

The waterbender’s fingers brush fleetingly over the back of her uninjured hand. It was a simple, passing gesture but there had been so much affection in it. The fire spirit could sense it. She can see the compassion and care in those blue eyes. And she supposes that that will have to do.

Chapter Text

They could do nothing for the fire spirit. 

That much became apparent almost right away. Water based healing is out of the question. They can’t touch it to put its arm in a cast nor a splint and even if they could, the fire would just burn it away. Aang tries to use spirit energy, but he has barely dabbled in the art of spirit bending since using it to take Ozai’s bending away. 

And so the fire spirit is left to fend for itself. The most that they can do is keep it company. Granted, the company seems to suit it well enough. 

But it is hard for Katara to look at; she doesn’t like seeing the angle at which its arm is twisted. And she hates it more when the spirit plays with its own broken appendage. In a way it is like a child. A child keen on poking bruises and picking scabs. 

Once or twice every now and then Katara catches the spirit in the act and finds herself saying, “don’t play with it!” And eventually, “what did I just tell you!?”

And every time, the spirit looks up at her with what she believes is a pout and a cloak of fire that shifts from its usual vivid orange to a black-orange color which Katara has come to realize expresses disappointment. Disappointment or mild upset, it is hard to tell which. Or maybe dull gray-orange is an expression of guilt. 

She knows for certain that radiant red is rage and pure black is pain. 

She hasn’t yet figured out what pink means yet.

Sometimes the colors are mixed; likely a swirl of emotions that weave in and out of each other. 

In spite of her words, the spirit seems keen on messing with its arm; Katara grits her teeth and cringes when the spirit pushes both halves of its arm together. It holds the two halves together as it makes its rounds.

She watches the spirit circle around their small campsite, it hasn’t sat down since arriving. It has, in fact, been pacing since yesterday. It is almost maddening—it drives Sokka in particular up the wall. “Just go into your tent and ignore it!” Katara tells him. 

“That won’t work!”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll know that it’s still doing that. I can sense it and it’s bothering me?”

Zuko rolls his eyes. “It could be doing a lot worse than pacing. You’re a grown man, act like it.” 

“Says Mr. Temper Tantrum!” Sokka throws his hands up.

“Look, I’ve got a lot to deal with!” 

“And you don’t have to take it out on all of us.” Toph grumbles from her spot propped up against a tree. She folds her arms over her chest. “You’ve been super grumpy and demanding.”

“Well if you don’t want to be here then you can leave!” 

“Guys, stop it.” Aang frowns. “You’re scaring the spirit.”

“The spirit is scared of everything!” Zuko snaps. “It can leave too if we’re so scary.”

The spirit slinks back, fire retracted to almost nothing. That which does show, burns a red speckled gray. Fear. Probably with a hint of sadness and guilt. It edges closer to Katara and Katara finds herself reflectively reaching out. It leaps out of reach and she mutters a little thank you. A thank you for having more sense than she, a thank you for not letting her burn herself. 

“Zuko, we’re all doing our best and the spirit is…”

“Baggage. It’s slowing us down. In the Fire Nation we keep to our own and let the spirits keep to theirs. We don’t get involved with their business and they don’t interfere with ours.” 

“And the Fire Nation has less benders because of it. You’ve lost touch with your spirituality and that causes…”

“I don’t want to hear it right now, Aang. The point is, we’ve never meddled with spirit business before, we shouldn’t start now.”

“Oh that’s a load of shit!” Toph laughs. “The Fire Nation caused so much disturbance to the Spirit World! Aang told me all about Hei Bai and there was Wan Shi Tong. You guys meddle with spirits all the time, even if you don’t know it. It’s only a problem now because this one is inconveniencing you.”  

Zuko grits his teeth and fixes himself for a reply. Instead he takes a breath and rubs his hand over his face. “I’m going back inside my tent. Might as well sleep if we’re wasting time.” 

Aang opens his mouth but Sokka rests a hand on his shoulder. “Let him go. I think that he could use some sleep. I think I’ll head to my tent too.” 

.oOo.

The spirit has stuck close since this morning’s commotion. 

It avoids Zuko with a pointedness and Zuko seems perfectly content with that. 

“He’s not so bad.” Katara promises the spirit, although she doesn’t know why. “He can be a real jerk sometimes. A jerk and an idiot.” Although the spirit listens, she can’t be certain that it understands what she is saying.

Throughout their adventures and misadventures, Katara has come to realize that the spirits all seem to have different levels of intelligence. Different levels of human-likeness. There are spirits that are so intelligent and so human in shape that they could be mistaken for a human save for a minor detail; a tail, a glow, ears that are slightly too long or eyes that come in unnatural hues. And then there are some that look so bizarre and don’t understand a bit of human speech. 

This spirit falls somewhere in between; it seems to understand and react to emotion, expressing human-like feelings in the ways that it can. But it doesn’t talk and its mannerisms are rather wild and hard to predict. It is, in many regards, human in appearance; size, number of limbs, bipedal, a face with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, and its heart is positioned in the same place as Katara’s is. But its heart looks different. Its arms and legs are branches. It is fully engulfed in fire. 

It is spirit and human with a spirit lean.

So maybe it does know exactly what she is saying. Maybe it just doesn’t have the ability to communicate even if it has exceptionally brilliant or enlightened things to say. At the very least, it knows what she is saying on a very basic level. 

“Sometimes I feel like I’m surrounded by idiots.” Katara sighs. “Immature idiots.”

The spirit crouches down next to her, cradling its arm in such a way that the two halves of it are still pinned securely against one another. 

Katara furrows her brows. “Are you able to…I don’t know, move the fire around on your arm?” She inquires. “If you can make a patch with no fire, I might be able to give you a cast.”

The spirit cocks its head and very carefully holds out its arm. And Katara gasps. She supposes that she should be surprised. But it still takes her aback. More than anything though, Katara is relieved to see that the fire spirit is just as much of a tree as it is a fire. Its body has begun to heal itself; it compartmentalizes under layers of cells and then the lava that has been weeping from its wound does the rest. It has started to seal the wound off as hardened magma. It solidifies as it cools and leaves protruding drippings like black stalactites on the fire spirit’s elbow.

A cheerful and smug grin cracks across the spirit’s face as if to say, “look what I can do!” 

Katara can’t help it, she returns that smile.

Chapter Text

She observes the fire spirit from a distance as it roams about their small camp, cradling its injured arm. Now and then it will give a small yowl. Sometimes Katara thinks that it just wants attention. In fact, she is almost certain that it is just being dramatic; much of the wound has been perfectly sealed off with cooled magma. Katara’s heart tickles at a faint inkling that something else could be ailing the spirit. But then it stops its fussing and resumes its curiosity driven endeavors. 

The spirit finds Sokka’s sleeping bag, tilts its head, and pinches it between two fingers of its good arm. 

“Hey! What are you—!?” Sokka starts.

In an instant the fire leaps from its arm to Sokka’s sleeping bag.

“No, no! Put that down!” 

The fire spirit drops it and leaps back with a screech. Its fire elongates and flares a brighter orange as Sokka frantically waves his flaming sleeping bag about. Katara rolls her eyes, the dolt is only making it worse. He shouts and throws it on the ground, his rapid stomping agitates the fire spirit into a series of hisses and shouts of its own. 

“Sokka, stop that, you’re scaring it!” Zuko demands. 

The fire is out anyhow.

“My sleeping bag!” Sokka grips his hairline. His face falls and he looks up at the spirit with wide teary eyes. A small plume of smoke rises from blue cloth. “Y-you ruined it.” 

The spirit’s fire dims. Dulls into the gray-blue.

“It didn’t mean to, Sokka. It was just curious.” 

“That spirit is pretty troublesome.” Zuko grumbles. 

“You should probably get used to it and get over it.” Toph shrugs. “It seems pretty keen on sticking around.” 

The spirit has been with them for a few days now, longer if its days of stalking in the shadows are to be counted. 

“At least she's friendly.” Aang replies. “We could have a mischievous type of troublesome spirit that likes to pull hair and shove us.” He gives the spirit a smile. “I think that she likes us.”

“She?” Sokka asks. 

Aang nods. “This one’s female. She told me.”

“She can talk?” Katara watches the spirit wander to the tent and lift one of her arms. 

“Sort of. I can sense her spirit energy. She’s not actually in any pain.” He confirms Katara’s suspicions. “I think that she just wants us to take care of her.” He pauses. “Or maybe it’s her way of showing that she’s not a threat. 

The spirit reaches for a tent. 

“Then why is she threatening my tent!” Sokka holds his hands on either side of his head and tugs at his hairline. He grits his teeth and his eyes bug as he watches the spirit’s arm get closer to the flammable fabric of his tent. “Don’t touch that!” He snaps. And the spirit slinks back.

Zuko sighs. “Are we really going to let her stay with us? We’ve already got our work cut out for us.”

“We’re letting her stay, Zuko.” Katara resists the urge to sling an arm over the spirit’s shoulders. Those rippling flames do a perfectly good job of warding touch away.

.oOo.

The fire spirit tails behind Katara.

Katara seems to be the most welcoming of her company. Katara and the Avatar. But of course, the Avatar is kind to her. That is his job; to bridge human and spirit. The blind woman, Toph as she recalls, doesn’t seem to mind her either. She knows that she is a nuisance to Zuko and Sokka seems to resent her completely. All she has to do is look in his direction and he will leap to snatch up his belongings before she can touch them. All over a little accident. 

Other than that, she supposes that things have been going well enough. She is starting to get a sense of her body; how to mend it, how to shift the flames that surround it, how to dim and brighten her eyes to change the way that she sees the world. 

But she can never seem to get the flames to leave her completely and she cannot control the color in which they burn.

The fire spirit only thinks to be curious about why she has to learn these things after coming across a grove full of baby spirits. They aren’t exactly like her, they have mask-like faces and fuzzy hog-monkey bodies. But they are still spirits and they drift and glide with ease. They leap from tree to tree, turning invisible at will. 

They are well aware of all of their abilities and some of them haven’t yet learned to feed themselves. 

It occurs to her then that there are things that should be second nature to her that simply are not. And it makes the spirit twitchy and restless. What is wrong with her? She should have already known how to heal herself. She shouldn’t have to learn how to move her fire and adjust her vision. 

She slinks closer to the Avatar. If anyone would know, it would be him. 

Yes, he can tell her about herself.

About what kind of spirit she is. 

She only has to figure out how to ask. 

“Try asking the spirit.” Aang suggests to Zuko, whose question she hadn’t heard. The spirit perks up no less. Perhaps if she answers their question, they will answer hers!

“It can’t even talk.” Zuko replies. 

“Not with words.” Katara says. “You just have to pay attention to the color of her fire.”

“What color means, ‘I know where your sister is’?” Zuko scoffs. “You know what, forget it! I’m going to go do some bending.” 

“Zuko your fire hurts…” 

“If it hurts her then she can go somewhere else, she doesn’t need to follow us around!” He continues grumbling as he storms off towards the nearest clearing. “Can’t even let off steam with some firebending!” But his stance says that he will do it anyhow. 

The fire spirit wonders why he doesn’t care that he is hurting. She hasn’t done anything to him…has she? Are there things that she doesn’t remember? 20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. It is an echo from a distant place. A thing that she has forgotten but remembers. There must be things that she has forgotten but doesn’t remember. 

She doesn’t have room to dwell upon it because her limbs and bones absorb the fire haloing her body and her torment begins afresh. As though it has never left her to begin with.

.oOo.

To her credit, the fire spirit lasts five katas before she finally topples. Her knobby, woodsy legs wobble and she collapses right onto her side. When she does fall, she writhes. And when she writhes she shrikes and Katara’s heart can’t take it. 

Perhaps pain doesn’t display so gleamingly in its eyes as it would in that of a human’s. But it shows itself readily in the way that the spirit’s form crumples. She curls like a burnt leaf and she smokes like one too. 

Her body gives off an odor like a campfire. But there is something else. Sap and maybe copper. The spirit is quivering. It has no eyelids to squeeze shut, but those firefly bulbs seem to retreat further into its skull. That, she thinks, is what it means to see pain in the spirit’s eyes. It isn’t the  sparkle or a gleam that she had been searching for, but a dimming. An emptiness. 

“Zuko, can you please do that elsewhere?”

With an abruptness that causes Katara to jerk, Zuko punches out one more fireball. “Fine!” And for a moment, Katara thinks that, that is the end of it. But Zuko picks up his pack and throws it over his shoulder. “I’ll look for Azula myself. Have fun with your new spirit friend!” 

“Zuko!” 

Sokka rests a hand on her shoulder. “Let him have his tantrum. If he wants to practice firebending and jerkbending, I say let him. He and Azula can make up and be terrible, mean people together.”

The fire spirit inches closer, burning that guilty grey-orange

“It’s not your fault.” Katara mutters. Her hand hovers over the spirit’s smoldering arm and her lips part. She wagers that she is onto something. 

Zuko stomps through the foliage, making quite a ruckus. She watches the treeline until it swallows him whole. Her throat swells with the desire to call out to him, to tell him that they need to talk this out. But Sokka squeezes her shoulder and she swallows the comment.

Zuko can take care of himself. He has survived on his own for quite some time, she remembers. He has done it several times. Perhaps that is just the kind of person he is; the sort that needs time and space every now and again. And so Katara turns her attention back to the suffering spirit. The fire is beginning to peek back through the ridges of the spirit’s branchlike arms.

“Aang…” she frowns and furrows her brows. “I don’t think that firebending causes the spirit’s fire to burn out. I think…” She trails off. No, that can’t be right. And yet…

She looks back at the spirit’s arm. “I think that the fire retreats into her and that’s what makes it hurt.” 

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“That I should try to use water-based healing on her?” Katara asks. 

Aang nods.

Katara nods. 

“The fire isn’t there to help her, Aang. I think that it’s there to hurt her.”

Chapter Text

The fire spirit watches the angry man go. And good riddance to he and his selfish nature and his unpredictable, albeit, short lived bouts of anger. At least she will no longer have to worry about he and his moods. She only has to fret over the man that they call Sokka. She supposes that she would rather tiptoe around Sokka, at least he is comical when he snaps at her. She senses more stress and trepidation than outright hatred and annoyance from him anyhow. She doesn’t think that he hates her, mostly he wants her to stop tinkering with his belongings. 

The humans seem very fussy over what belongs to them. And maybe she doesn’t understand because she doesn’t have anything to call her own to be fussy over. 

No, nothing at all unless her own body is to be counted. But even that doesn’t feel like it is hers most of the time. The things that happen to it are controlled by things that she can’t understand. Things that she suspects she doesn’t want to understand. 

What she does know is that it is better if she doesn’t know.

If she doesn’t know the things that she doesn’t know, then she can’t be distraught over not knowing them. The desire to know won’t nag at her.

And yet it seems to be nagging at her right now. 

Wouldn’t it be nice to know why she is on fire? And why the fire never goes out. She could possibly stop it if she knew why it is happening—what is causing it. 

Perhaps that is precisely why she doesn’t know; she is meant to burn and the forces that scorch her want to keep up the smoldering. 

There are, however, other forces at work. Those forces have blue and gray eyes. Those forces have big ears and arrowed hands. Those forces also have waterbending and a soothing voice. To the side, Sokka and Toph go about their own business; mostly picking up the things that Zuko has left behind.

He will be back sooner rather than later, the fire spirit deduces. 

“Are you listening to us?” Katara bites her lip.

Truth be told, she hadn’t been. The spirit finds it hard to pay attention—the world around her is so vivid and so busy. There is alway something or another going on; the canopy is always rustling, some critter is always snapping twigs, the light always filters through in different ways, sunrays always dance differently…

“Hey!” the fire spirit jerks at the sound of her voice. “Aang and I want to try something. It’s going to hurt a little bit, but we need to test a theory so that we can help you.” The fire spirit senses that Katara hopes that she understands what she is saying. She clenches her twiggy fingers and that is answer enough for Katara who tells Aang, “Alright, Aang. Firebend. Just a little.”

The spirit fire squirms.

She doesn’t want them to go through with this little trial; whether the flame is the size of a tea light or the size of a bonfire it all sears her the same. But Katara has mistaken her fearful clenching for bracing herself and, by extension, permission.

Heedless and unaware of her unease, the Avatar calls fire to his fingertips. Just two tiny little dots of glowing orange but her own fire reacts with just as much fury as it usually does. It retracts from the surface and sinks deeper and the twitches begin. They are mostly involuntary, a series of jerks and jolts that she doesn’t want to resist anyhow. For as much as it hurts, there is not enough fire to bring the twitches to full on spasms. They do, however, leave her pacing and agitated. 

“Hold still.” Katara instructs.

The spirit is keen on continuing to pace until the irritation subsides to a more manageable level. 

“Please sit still so I can…” She holds up a flimsy square of water. 

The fire spirit does not cease her pacing and so Katara puts herself in the spirit’s path. She seems to inspect her, look her over until she grows terribly uncomfortable. The spirit does not like being observed. She enjoys doing the observing. 

“Well?” Aang asks. 

“The fire is definitely inside of her now.” Katara confirms. 

The chatter, she realizes too late, has rendered her careless. The fire spirit, also much too late, realizes that she had let her guard down and now she is dripping wet. She half-screech, half-hisses at the waterbender. 

For some reason the waterbender is laughing at her vicious outburst. 

Steam ripples off of her arms and probably her head too. It outlines the entirety of her body and curls through the space between her ribcage. Her heart, still glowing a dull orange, constricts. They have put her fire out.

They have…

What have they done?

The fire spirit trembles. Have they killed her? They must have because she doesn’t feel anything…

She doesn’t feel anything. 

She doesn’t feel pain.

“It’s alright.” The Avatar smiles. The fire spirit holds her arm out in front of her. “See, no more fire.” 

And that is exactly what she fears. It will come soon, she is certain of that. That fire was her lifeforce…wasn’t it?

Katara takes her hand. “That feels better, doesn’t it?” 

The no-longer-on-fire spirit eyes the hand that strokes the back of hers as she mulls the question over. It doesn’t feel better…it doesn’t feel at all. Is that how not being in pain is supposed to feel? Like nothing at all? Feeling better is not the presence of something but an absence. This absence feels much different than the absence that comes when she tries to recall what her old mantra had meant. 

“Does it still hurt?” 

At the shake of the spirit’s head, Katara is grinning. 

“Great! That’s amazing news!” And she wraps her arms around the spirit. And the spirit is confused. But she feels something. Two things; relief and…something light and spinning. Something like feathers and nervous jitters. 

The spirit concludes that she is, in fact, not dying.

She is just wet. 

Wet and a touch sad because she is wet.

.oOo.

The fire stays out for a while but then bursts back and the spirit is whimpering again. Katara could be imagining it but it seems as though the spirit is whimpering more than ever, having experienced a window of peace only for it to be taken from her. 

“Should we do more waterbending?” Aang asks. 

Katara bites the inside of her cheek. “Aang, we’d have to do it every hour. And a good portion of the water evaporates as soon as it hits her skin…we can’t waste water like that. I mean it’s not a waste, it’s for an important cause but we also need enough water to drink…”

“I don’t know, she seemed dripping wet to me.” Aang replies.

“Yeah, kind of like a sad polar bear dog.” Toph remarks. 

“I don’t know.” Katara murmurs. “It might be better to just let her stay used to the pain—so that its more tolerable for her—until we find a more long term solution. What if we are just making it worse.”

“We can travel close to the river.” Sokka suggests. 

“Great idea, Sokka, lets just chuck the spirit into the river whenever she gets all fired up.” Toph laughs.

“Th-that’s not what I mean and you know it!” He exclaims. 

“Man, I love it when your voice does that thing where it gets several pitches higher.” Toph wipes a tear from her eye. “You’re a real riot, Sokka.”

Katara glances at the spirit who has taken to pacing around again. She has been wandering in circles for at least fifteen minutes now. And she has taken to doing it on all fours. Katara speculates that the spirit’s legs are too shaky to carry her on their own. If not…

Katara’s stomach tickles. 

If not, the spirit might be regressing? Devolving? Can that happen; can a humanoid spirit become less human over time? Is it a choice?

She hopes that she is just reading too much into it. That the pain is simply making the spirit less social and less rational. 

“We could stick close to the river.” Aang agrees. “And that could help us with our search for Azula, she’d be smart enough to stick close to a source of water.” 

“Wait, we’re still doing that?” Sokka asks. “I thought that we’d give it a rest now that Zuko is off doing…”

“Impulsive, stupid shit?” Toph fills in.

Sokka nods. “I thought that we were just going to focus on…” he gestures to the spirit with his head. 

“We can manage two things at once.” Katara replies. “Alright, we’ll try sticking to the river for a few days and see how it goes. But we have to find a better way.” She turns to Aang. “Do you know anything about what kind of spirit that is?”

He shakes his head. “If we can keep that fire out for a while and get the spirit to focus I might be able to talk to her and get some answers.”

“What if she doesn’t want to or can’t communicate?” Sokka asks. 

“I…I guess that I could try energybending. I don’t like it but…” He frowns. “In this case it might be worse to not try.”

“Think it over, Aang. I know that you’re afraid to energybend. In the meantime, I’ll try to comfort the spirit.” Katara takes a deep breath and pulls some water from the river. She hovers it over the antsy spirit and lets it drop. 

There is a horrible hiss as the fire douses and the steam begins to rise, blanketing the spirit entirely. And when the steam lets up Katara is granted a view of the poor spirit bunched in on herself, legs drawn up to her chest with her arms wrapped tightly around them. Thick wisps of steam still roll gently off of her body. 

Katara wraps her arms around herself. The spirit looks so small and vulnerable. She is shaking.

Katara isn’t sure how many times she can do this. She doesn’t think that the spirit understands that they are trying to help. For all she knows, the spirit probably thinks that they enjoy pestering her with water. 

And so she kneels down by the spirit. “Hey. Come on, lets…” lets what? There is nothing to do really. Nothing but lift the spirit into her arms. It is a risk when the spirit can burst back into flames at any time. But she decides that she is willing to accept that risk when the spirit nuzzles herself into the embrace.

Chapter Text

The spirit has been a lot perkier these days. 

Now that she is mostly free from the fire she is more energetic and harder to keep still and focused. Let alone still and focused enough for Aang to try to have a conversation. Katara can’t help but to smile when she observes the spirit who has found herself a shady spot by the river.

“You’re lucky that you don’t have to worry about taking baths.” Katara comments as she dries herself off. The spirit doesn’t have to worry about fighting with friends, with finding lost siblings, with complicated politics and a seemingly endless stream of missions to go on. “You just have to worry about which shells you’d like to keep and which to throw back.” And the fire returning to lick at her fragile limbs…Katara worries about that for her. She and Aang have been doing pretty well with keeping the fire out. So the spirit is free to pick through her newfound collection of shells in a carless sort of bliss. And Katara concludes that the extra worry that she places on herself is worth it. 

“Aang has been wanting to give energybending a try.” She takes a seat next to the spirit. She kicks her shoes off and buries her feet in the sand. “Are you ready to try that? He thinks that it might help.” 

The spirit doesn’t look up. She, instead, begins arranging her shells, stacking them one atop the other until she has a tower of them with the smallest somehow at the bottom and the largest at the top.

“You’re pretty good at that.” Katara says. 

The spirit looks up at her and grins.

“So you are listening…” She mumbles. “You know, if it—the energybending—works then we won’t have to keep drenching you every hour. I know how much you hate it.” They are several days into their hourly routine of soaking the spirit. And the spirit still looks at them with a vague sparkle of betrayal in her little firefly eyes. She still spends the first few minutes afterwards pacing and shaking herself off.

The spirit begins collecting her shells. She looks around for a place to store them before holding them out for Katara to take. Katara sighs. She is getting nowhere on getting the spirit to approve of their plan. She takes the shells and tucks them into her pack. “I could make you a seashell necklace and you can wear it.”

The spirit perks up.

“But I’m going to need to be sure that they won’t catch on fire. So we’ll have to wait until we get rid of those flames for good. Aang might be able to do that with energybending.” 

The spirit tilts her head. 

“It’s almost time for your hourly dunk. Do you want to just go in yourself? Or am I going to have to waterbend?”

The spirit eyeballs the river.

“You’re lucky that Toph and Sokka are off foraging and gathering firewood. They’d just toss you right in.” 

The spirit gets to her feet and holds out her hand again. It takes Katara a moment to realize that she wants her hand held. And so Katara takes that hand. Her tummy tickles; that hand is already warm, nearly to a point that renders it too hot to touch. Oh yes, that fire is very much set to return. “I’m going to have to let go.” Katara frowns. “It’s starting to hurt.”

The spirit’s head dips in disappointment. 

“I can hold it after you—”

The fire roars back into existence and the spirit shrieks. Shrieks and stumbles. Thankfully her stumble has caused her to fall back into the river where the flames snuff out into a rolling steam once more. Katara can see the spirit’s outstretched arm reaching out from the fog. 

Katara takes her hand once more. “Can you please let Aang try. Aren’t you tired of doing this?” 

.oOo.

She is tired. 

Terribly so.

But she would rather endure this familiar fate than reckon with a new type born from energybending gone wrong. She knows how to navigate her small blazing world, years of living with it has made it tolerable. 

But just a few days of comfort have stolen that delicate tolerance. Just a few days to undo years of adaptation and resilience. Perhaps she should keep the waterbender from providing what she thinks is mercy. 

Or maybe she should embrace the pain anew. Let it in and evoke a new form of it while she is already unacclimated to what she had once come to accept. It very well may be far past the time to play silly games. The human girl’s words are confusing and sometimes hard to piece together. But she knows, at least to some degree, what is being offered to her. And there is some part of her, a part that screams out from this very very dark space within her, that screams for her to take that offer. To take that offer and save it…save this wretched thing that has been banished so far back into her soul and mind. 

Is that the part that hurts her so?

Maybe the key to her solace is to bury that nagging, pitiful thing residing in the very back of her mind. To free herself from its clutches and let it go once and for all. And then she can be free. Free of flames. Free of torment. 

Can the Avatar accomplish this for her?

Surely he can find that screaming part of her soul and subdue it. It might be that he could energybend it away and then the flames will recede for good. 

Or maybe that muffled, screaming, part of herself is the part that keeps the flames at bay. Keeps them from engulfing her completely. 

She knows only that she can’t reach that part of her on her own. 

Her head gets so foggy and so dizzy whenever she tries. 

She hasn’t tried in so, so long. 

But sometimes she still hears it whispering; 20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. 55 inches.

Chapter Text

It is the perfect day for some meditation if Aang did say so. There is still dew on the grass and raindrops from last night’s rainfall still tucked into the leaves of the ferns. Last night had been a good one for all of them. He and Katara had finally gotten a full night of sleep and the spirit had seemed perfectly content to sleep in the rain, knowing that she wouldn’t break into a blaze. Once or twice, he caught her messing around in a puddle. She had brought Katara a particularly large warm that she had retrieved from the puddle. Katara hadn’t appreciated the gift nearly as much as Toph did. 

Does Aang feel bad for Katara? Yeah. But the spirit did make a friend in Toph in giving her a new means to prank Sokka.

This morning the sun is high and glinting off of the remaining raindrops and the spirit has been freshly dunked. She is now sitting, not very still, in front of him. That might be difficult—she does not like to sit still. 

Aang smiles. “I’m so glad that you’re finally letting me give this a try.” He is glad and terrified to an equal degree. The spirit looks up at him with innocent, trusting eyes. He is so scared; it would be so easy to break that trust even if that is exactly what he is trying to avoid. 

The spirit doesn’t seem to be nervous at all. Had they left it to burn, he imagines that it would be burning a low and easy natural orange. “I’m going to be doing most of the work. All you have to do is sit still and…I guess just let me in,” he gently taps her head,  “when you sense my presence.”

The tilt of her head can mean either that she is very confused or that she understands perfectly. If he remembers correctly, a tilt to the right means that she gets it and a tilt to the left means that she is completely lost. It could also mean that she is entirely uninterested. But the intensity of her stare tells him that she is both invested and aware of what he has just told her. 

“Okay. Well then, here we go.” He takes her hand. Without its outline of fire it is rather cool. Cool like the damp wood of the banyans and mangroves. It has the same texture too. It is heavier than usual he notices—heavy with retained water. That might just be a good thing, if this journey into her mind doesn’t work, she might just be waterlogged enough to be free of fire for a while. 

He closes his eyes. That is where he will start; he will focus on the spirit’s hand. Cool, heavy, rough to the touch. A little swollen, he realizes with his deepening focus. Maybe she has too much water. It doesn’t seem to bother her though. The fire has burned away mosses and lichens that might have grown upon her woodsy arms. But he feels chunks of hardened lava in the spaces where fungi probably would grow. 

And then her hands begin to grow lighter. Lighter has he retreats further from her physical form and closer to her soul. 

Aang’s mind is empty for a blink. The space he awakens when he opens his mind’s eye is mostly dark. Dark save for a vivid orange glow quite far off in the distance. The glow that can only be the fire spirit. 

His heart leaps. Why is she so far away!?

He opens his mouth to call out for her but he has no name to call out. And so he runs. He dashes towards that brilliant blaze and to his relief, it does not get further as he wanders closer. In fact, the fire only grows larger and larger still until he realize that he hadn’t been looking at the fire spirit at all but at the start of a burning labyrinth. 

He swallows hard but the fire doesn’t move. Not that it isn’t still unpleasant. He is already dripping with sweat. The labyrinth crackles and shifts. It doesn’t make any sense; usually these kinds of blocks are in place to keep intruders out and prevent those who have successfully breached from reaching sensitive secrets. But the Fire Spirit had very eagerly welcomed him in…

Unless he had misread the tilting of her head.

“Hey!” He calls out into the blaze. “Hey, where are you!?”

He takes his first step into the furnace. What he finds is not a mischievous spirit but burning books spat from torched shelves. Rows upon rows of bookshelves that make up the walls of this burning labyrinth. There are hour glasses too, towering ones positioned one per every five shelves. They have golden sand with blue flakes and golden dragons to perch upon them. Cautiously he takes the first coroner. He leaps nearly out of his britches upon coming face to face with a massive komodo rhino sculpture. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Okay. This is fine.”

He bunches his fists and plunges further into the maze. Turn after turn, left right, right, left, straight, straight, straight…

He has gone straight for so long. 

Maybe he had chosen wrong. 

Maybe this will go on forever…

He doesn’t know for how long he has been wandering, traversing this endless hall, passing what very well could be the same burning portrait over and over again. Long enough for him to start considering a retreat. But if he does and the Fire Spirit is here he could leave her trapped within her own mind and so he stops. He turns to look at the burnt photograph. A pointless thing to do, really, it is burnt far beyond comprehension. All but for the bottom right corner. There are no discernible objects depicted in the paint but there is lettering; ‘to welcome a new candle; born 85 AG’.

Any hopes he had of finding a clue in the portrait deflate, and he with that hope. There have been ten thousands of people who were born in the Fire Nation in 85 AG.

He keeps walking. Walking until he passes a burning doll on the floor. Walking until he comes to a door, large and red and embellished with a Fire Nation insignia. He grits his teeth and pushes it open; what other choice does he have?

He can leave. 

He could certainly do that…

But what kind of person would he be if he did that?

The door closes behind him. 

He nearly screams when he sees that he is back where he had first started. It was maddening that first time and it is maddening the second time. And the third time. He is on his fourth time. This time instead of doing a pattern of left straight left he tries a pattern of right straight right. 

“Come on, where are you?” He whispers more to himself. 

The longer he wanders the more oppressive the place becomes. The furnace has become a complete inferno and it seems to tilt and close in on him with every step, coaxing him to flee. To let go and retreat back to the safety of his own mind and body. To the safety of the physical world.

He hates energybending. 

It isn’t natural. 

There are so many opportunities for things to go wrong and he has a feeling that he is about to come upon several of them. 

“Please! If you can hear me, come out! I’m trying to help you!” 

He swears that he sees a silhouette in the blaze. A small shadow peeking out from behind a burning pillar. He hasn’t passed pillars yet. He releases a breath, at least this is new. Maybe he is getting somewhere. 

Maybe that is why he can see the silhouette. 

Why he can feel something watching him from within the blaze. His stomach absolutely squirms. He really ought to leave. Surely Katara would understand. The Spirit can probably find her own way out, it is her mind after all. 

“Please!” He tries again. And then once more, very quietly. Posture slumped with defeat and exhaustion he makes another right. The presence grows stronger. Another step. Stronger. Another step. Stronger. Another step…

It throws itself from the fire and Aang screams. And the Fire Spirit screams. He lands upon his rear. And the Fire Spirit slinks back. He quickly gets to his feet and gathers himself. “No. No wait!” He tries not to raise his voice. “You wanted me to come here, remember? We’re trying to help put the fire out.” 

The Spirit takes another step back. 

“It’s me, the Avatar. I promised Katara…”

The spirit halts. 

“I promised her that I would help you remember? Can you help me, help you put all of this fire out?”

.oOo.

Her head hurts. It hurts so terribly. More than it ever has. Sounds have no meaning. Shapes have no meaning. Nothing has meaning. In this place there is so much of everything; every color, every word, every scent, and mathematical equation. This place is so full of everything that it has nothing at all. 

Memories…her own, someone else’s? Her own and someone else's? It doesn't matter, they pass so rapidly and so in sync that she can’t begin to decipher them. She isn’t even aware that she is seeing memories. She isn’t aware that she is hearing every word that she has ever—never?—heard. Every word that she has or hasn’t spoken. Every word that has or hasn’t been spoken to her. All at once. 

She clutches her hands to her head. 

There is one phrase; 20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. Black or white komodo rhino. 59 inches. 7 tons. White or black komodo rhino. 39 inches. 7 tons. Greater one horned komodo rhino. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds. Caldera ash komodo rhino.

Finally.

Finally there is a pulse of relief. It lasts for the span of time that it takes to listen and repeat that mantra. 20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. Black or white komodo rhino. 59 inches. 7 tons. White or black komodo rhino. 39 inches. 7 tons. Greater one horned komodo rhino. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds. Caldera ash komodo rhino.

And she latches to it once again.

Just like old times. 

Yes. 

She remembers. 

Old times. 

There was a time before all of this. 

But what was it? 

What was it?

“Remember?” The word cuts through her mantra. It is so close to her. She tries to block it out. “Remember?” 

She doesn’t. Or does she? She remembers something but perhaps it is not the thing that she is supposed to be remembering. Who is she? What is she? “Remember?” NO! No she doesn’t and it is driving her mad! She has already been driven mad! She is burning, burning, burning. And she can’t remember a thing.

Another word stands out amongst the colorful chaos, and fire, and the other words. “Katara.” It isn’t just a word. It is a concept. No, a name. A name that she can tether to one of the memories that leap from the pages of burning books into her field of vision. This one hangs in the air in front of her. 

But it isn’t the Katara that she knows. 

This Katara hurts her. 

This Katara trapes her beneath ice and she can’t breathe. 

But then her Katara holds her. She remembers that. That memory is true. 

“Remember?” It is the Avatar’s voice she realizes. 

And yes. She thinks that she is starting to remember. 

“I promised her that I would help you remember? Can you help me, help you put all of this fire out?” He tells her gently. She listens to him as intently as she can and, at last, the other voices begin to quiet. One by one they taper off. The memories and their images return to their respective book pages and the shapes begin to right themselves. The mathematical equations retreat back to wherever mathematical equations dwell.

There is only one sound left. One that too is beginning to taper off, “20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. Black or white komodo rhino. 59 inches. 7 tons. White or black komodo rhino. 39 inches. 7 tons. Greater one horned komodo rhino. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds. Caldera ash komodo rhino.”

“What?” The Avatar asks. 

But those are the only words that she knows how to shape. “Remember.” She says although it lacks meaning. Really she is saying it just to say it. While the way his lips have moved to make that sequence of sounds is fresh in her mind. “What?” She repeats, trying to move her mouth the way that he does. “What? Remember? What, remember? Remember what?” It doesn’t sound exactly the same on her tongue. She is probably pronouncing it wrong. 

So she says once more the one thing that she does know how to say. “20 to 55 inches. 4 tons…”

“I don’t understand.” The Avatar sounds as though he is on the verge of tears. 

“I don’t understand.” She mimics with just as much distress. She doesn’t realize just how befitting it is of her to say. 

The Avatar rubs his hands over his face. 

“Come on, let's get you out of here.” The Avatar suggests. 

But she doesn’t move. She doesn’t want to leave. She wants to understand. She thinks that she is so close. 

“We can try again but I think that we both need to come a little more prepared.” The Avatar says.

The spirit shakes her head. “No.”

“No?” The Avatar asks. 

“No.” She says again.

“No as in you don’t want to do this again? Or…”

“Now.” 

This time he is the one doing the repeating. “Now?” 

And the Fire Spirit takes his hand and she leads him to a door. It isn’t too far from where they stand. But The Avatar is in distress.

“Oh no! No, no! I’ve already been here, this is back to where I started.” 

She supposes that she can’t blame him for not having seen the door. It is affixed to the floor and she is the key. Her body fits perfectly into the keyhole and she nestles herself into it. Things are less painful when she awakens again.

“Where are we?” 

They are back in the dark place. She hasn’t been here in a long time. He hasn’t been here once. But she doesn’t know how to form the word ‘dark’ or the word ‘place’. And she can’t answer his next question either. 

“What are we supposed to do here? I don’t know…” 

She follows the Avatar’s gaze. 

Follows it right into the darkness.

Follows it right to where the darkness becomes blue.

She and the Avatar creep closer. Closer to the figure bathing in blue. 

The Fire Spirit is close enough now.

She sees the girl and her heart sears a violent orange. 

The spirit creeps closer. And closer still. And with a smaller proximity, she realizes that she is staring at a woman, not a girl. But the woman is small. Small and lanky and bruised. Her eyes are hollow. She is as dull as the fire spirit is vivid. As dreary as the fire spirit is bright.

The Fire Spirit peers at the Avatar with a question burning in her mind. She doesn’t know how to ask. The words are there but she isn’t sure how to move her mouth to form the words. She has no sand nor dirt to convey the question. 

Who is she? The spirit thinks.

“Who is she?” The woman speaks.

The spirit jumps and the woman flinches. 

The Avatar’s mouth falls agape. 

And her body bursts into flames. The spirit screeches and the woman cries. The spirit has very few words but here in this place it doesn’t matter because the woman likes to say what the spirit thinks; “help me, Avatar.”

Chapter Text

Aang falters, looking between Azula and the fire spirit. They are both in terrible pain and he is torn. Torn between helping one over the other. And torn between whether or not he even should. If he lets the fire take Azula then only the spirit will be left. It isn’t murder, it isn’t leaving Azula to die, it is letting fate take its course and letting Azula become someone new. That is what he tells himself. She would be better off, he think, if Azula were to become the spirit. He could find a way to take the pain from the spirit and then…

He would be a bad or, at the very least, morally dubious person. And he doesn’t think that he could live with that. 

The spirit is on the ground, once again curling in on herself. With a heavy heart Aang walks around her. He steps out of the reach of her grasping hand. “Azula?” He doesn’t need to pose it as a question but he doesn’t know how to greet her and a part of him, perhaps, still hopes that he is mistaken; that the loveable, curious spirit does not hold the cold and unflinching soul of the girl who had struck him dead. 

When he kneels down the woman who meets his stare isn’t quite that person either. She is subdued. Sad. Scared. “Avatar.” She mumbles. 

“Hello, Azula.” 

She reaches out. The spirit lifts her spindly arm. The spirit’s arm falls limp, Azula’s does not. Aang takes the hand that Azula extends. He grimaces, Azula’s hand is almost as fiery as the spirit’s. But he helps her to her feet anyhow. He lets her lean against him and listened to her winces and her breaths, breaths that are labored with pain. “I’ll get you out of here, just tell me where to go.” 

“I…” She mumbles. “I can’t. I don’t remember…” 

Aang swallows hard. “Isn’t this your maze? Didn’t you build it? To keep me out.” 

Azula shakes her head. 

“You didn’t build it?” 

“I didn’t build it. It was built for me…” 

To keep her within. He finishes that thought. 

“I think.” She adds. “I…” She rubs her free hand over her face, buries her fingers in her hairline. “I can’t remember.”

“I can’t remember.” The spirit echos from behind. It falls in step with her. Dragging itself behind in a terrifying parody of Azula’s own movements. 

Aang wonders if she recognizes the spirit for what it is. And if the spirit recognizes her. It reaches up and takes her hand but Azula jerks out of its grasp. Her hand comes away smoking, blistered, and bloodied. She yanks out of Aang’s grasp to clutch it to her chest. The spirit grips its own glowing heart. 

“Here, let me…” He reaches for Azula’s hand but she shakes her head in decline. It doesn’t matter, he, aside from energybending, can’t bend here. 

He can sense betrayal and helplessness rippling off of the spirit. The poor, kind, innocent spirit. “I am helping you.” He promises. “I know that it doesn’t seem like it, but I am.” 

He doesn’t think that the fire spirit understands that helping Azula will help the both of them let alone understands that she and Azula are two halves of one tortured soul. 

.oOo.

The fire spirit has never felt hatred nor resentment. 

Never had a concept of them. 

She still doesn’t grasp the concept but she feels loathing all the same. 

Yes. Yes, she hates the woman walking next to the Avatar. The Avatar says that he is helping her. He promised her that he would. But he is ignoring her. And he is doing it for the woman with the sad eyes and the blue fire. 

He brings the spirit no water to snuff the pain and all of his words are waste on the woman who seems to ignore them anyways. But the spirit wouldn’t ignore them, she would listen to them, would savor them. Even if she can’t reply, he would still know that she is listening. 

The woman looks upon her with those dreary eyes. There is something in them, a hatred that rivals her own. But there is something else, something worse. Something that the spirit can’t place. This thing makes the spirit uncomfortable. 

The spirit slinks timidly back from the woman whose gaze pierces her so violently and with such open hostility. The spirit thinks that the woman blames her for their suffering. Probably as much as the spirit blames the woman. 

The spirit wanders up to the Avatar.

“I know.” He says. “This is probably really confusing for you. Confusing and scary.”

She reaches out again but the Avatar refuses her hand.

“I can’t touch you right now.” He sounds as devastated as she feels when she looks at her hands. Her flaming hands. 

The woman’s hands are nice. They are touchable and they look soft. Small and easy for the Avatar to fit into his own hands. The spirit wishes that she had hands like those. That she had a body that can be safely held. 

The woman is ungrateful. She can be held and cuddled but she rejects proximity. Now that the Avatar has promised to help her, she doesn’t need to use gestures as a ploy for sympathy. She walks with a good distance between herself and the Avatar. The spirit follows closer than the Avatar. 

“Help me.” The spirit says again.

“I am.” The Avatar insists. “I promise, I am.” But she can hear the shake in his voice. The uncertainty. 

She thinks that he is lying to her. 

Withholding something. 

She dreads that she is going to be left behind, lost and alone in this maze until her flame is extinguished for good.

She doesn’t want to fade. 

She doesn’t want to disappear. 

She doesn’t want to die.

She has only just found some way of living. 

.oOo.

“You know what that is, right?” The Avatar asks of her as they continue their aimless wandering.

Azula spares a glance at the fire spirit. She thinks that she might have a faint idea. It walks in perfect synchrony with her. It lifts its arm when she does. And sometimes she lifts her arm when it does. It is more of an impulse than a force but she finds herself giving into the compulsion more often than not. 

And she can hear the pitiful thing’s thoughts. She hears them as clearly as her own, perhaps more so. Its thoughts hurt. Its confusion hurts. Its confusion confuses her—it instills a sort of delirium, a fog. It keeps her from making sense of this place. It keeps her from remembering bits and pieces of herself. 

These days Azula is aware that her mind isn’t quite as sharp. That she might not be remembering things as they really were. That she is acquiring memories that she hadn’t made and feelings that aren’t her own. She isn’t certain of how exactly she has gotten here or where exactly this place is.

She is fading day by day as that pathetic creature grows stronger. She can see it happening. She can see it in the pallor of her skin and the fragility of her diminishing figure. She can feel it in bones that are becoming too heavy for her to carry. 

And Azula is certain of one thing; that creature is the source of her suffering and she needs it gone. 

Needs it to die.

“I can’t stay here much longer, Azula.”

Azula swallows hard. “Why not? You said that you were going to help me.” There is a tremble in her voice. A subtle cracking. She is so, so very close to being free from this place, wherever it is. 

“I am, Azula. I promised you and I promised Zuko.”

“Zuzu?” 

The Avatar nods. “We were looking for you.” He is quick to add, “to bring you home!” He gives her time to process that. “And then we came upon…” he gestures to the creature. Agni, it is an ugly thing if Azula did say so. 

“Then don’t leave me here, Avatar. This is the first time I’ve been able to leave that dark place. I don’t want to go back there.” She wants to be free. She wants to leave the fog and remember those things that she has forgotten. “I…I can’t remember him, you know.”

The Avatar crinkles his brow. 

“Zuko. Zuzu. I…” her own brows pinch. “I remember his name and his face—I think that it’s his face but I might have it mixed up for another—but I don’t remember who he is. Or who he is to me.”

“He’s your—” 

“Don’t bother.” She mutters. “I’ll just forget it again when you leave. I have to focus on retaining the memories that I do have.”

“20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. Black or white komodo rhino. 59 inches. 7 tons. White or black komodo rhino. 39 inches. 7 tons. Greater one horned komodo rhino. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds. Caldera ash komodo rhino!” The creature declares and way too happily, at that. 

Agni, she wishes that the wretched thing would just shut up. It is, of course, simply clinging to a reclaimed memory—probably the only one that it has. And that memory doesn’t even belong to it. It is hers and it isn’t even an important scrap of information. But it is still hers. Hers and that creature chants it out loud, parading it around as though it is its own. 

“20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. Black or white komodo rhino. 59 inches. 7 tons. White or black komodo rhino. 39 inches. 7 tons. Greater one horned komodo rhino. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds. Caldera ash komodo rhino.”

Over and over again to a point where she has to resist the urge to kick it. Hours in and the only thing truly stopping her is a sense that if she does kick it she will feel that kick too. You know what that is, right? His question echos in her mind. Only vaguely.

But she thinks that she is on the precipice of understanding. She just needs the Avatar to stay a little while longer.

“It’s getting too hot for me. If I don’t leave now I’m going to pass out and then all of us will be in trouble.” He takes a deep breath and grabs the spirit’s hand. 

“Avatar, wait!”

He does not.

The Avatar is gone and the creature goes with him. 

She remembers again that the creature has visited her before.

She remembers once again that that creature is her. 

She always recalls just a little too late.

Chapter Text

It is more of a crash rather than a graceful step back into his body. But he is thankful to be back in the physical realm no less. Things make sense here. And nothing is on fire. Rather most things aren’t aflame. The fire spirit is fully engulfed again. Fully engulfed and trembling harder than ever. Aang’s stomach lurches. He had put work into getting into her mind and had done absolutely nothing but let confusion get the better of him. 

He rubs his hands over his face. What if he had just made things worse by invading Azula’s mind. He shakes his head. But Azula was the one who had invited him in—a part of her had anyways, likely the part of her that just wants love and affection.

“She needs some water.” Aang starts to say. But Katara already has the spirit drenched and lightly smoking whey she continues to lay, curled up and whimpering. He can’t help but imagine Azula there curled up in her human form, eyes closed, cheeks pressed against the ground. 

“You’re going to be alright.” Aang promises her. 

“What happened, Aang?” Sokka asks. 

“You couldn’t get the fire out?” Toph shoves herself away from the tree that she had been leaning upon.

He shakes his head. “No. I couldn’t. I…” got lost and didn’t accomplish a single thing.

“What? What is it Aang?” Katara kneels down at his side. “You can always try again. You don’t need to be so hard on yourself.”

But the more attempts that he needs the longer the spirit…Azula will suffer. He doesn’t think that she deserves to suffer but part of him, the part that he tries to stay far, far away from, can’t help but think that she did have it coming. It’s that same part of him that was so angry with Zuko for the longest time. And he feels like a liar for pretending like everything was okay. It is okay now, he had lied until it became true. Lied about not being angry until the anger left.

And if he had harbored a silent and passive resentment for Zuko what can he say for the woman who had killed him.

It would be so easy to just let the spirit drive her out and take her place. Nobody else would be wiser to it. Which is why he has to say it out loud.

“I…” He furrows his brows. “Well I don’t really know what I saw.” A lie. To himself he muses “Maybe I should wait until I know for sure.” But no he does have to say it. If for no other reason than to make sure that he doesn’t betray his own values.

Katara looks from him to a spirit that still looks somewhat dazed and disoriented. 

“Aang what happened?” Toph urges. “Come out with it already.”

“We can’t exactly offer advice if we don’t know what’s wrong.” Sokka points out.

He frowns. “I…I think that I found...” He pauses. Yes, that’s one way of delivering the news. But is it the best way? He starts over. “I think that the spirit is Azula.” 

Sokka’s mouth falls agape. 

Katara’s stare falls back on the spirit who is now sitting upright and listening intently with her head cocked. “Are you…are you sure?” 

Aang nods. “Not completely.” He needs to stop holding back. “But almost completely. Like as completely sure as I can be without being completely sure.”

“What does that even mean?” Toph grumbles. 

“Aang, what exactly did you see?”

“A burning maze.” He answers. “I was lost in it and then I ran into the spirit. Or she ran into me. And then there was this spot on the ground—it could have been a door—she fit herself right into it and then we were in a very dark place.” He pauses. “And that’s where I saw Azula.”

Katara’s brows pinch. 

“She and the spirit…they would say and do the same things. It’s because they are the same person. Two parts of one another.” 

“Are you sure?”

“I know what I saw and I’m pretty sure that it means what I think it does. Why else would I see Azula in the Fire Spirit’s mind? She can’t remember who she is. But she’s still there.” He stares at his hands, at the ground, the sky, the trees, at anything but his friends and the fire spirit. “I don’t know how to help her.” Is what he confesses. What he means is that he doesn’t know what to do; what choice to make. To save Azula is to get rid of the spirit. And to save the spirit is to leave Azula to be burned away. One of them will vanish so that the other can live. Perhaps it is a dreadful thing, but Aang wants to keep the spirit and its silly quirks and innocent stare.

.oOo.

“We should probably find Zuko and tell him what’s going on.” Sokka suggests.

“Tell Zuko what?” He hates it when they do that. Talk about him behind his back.

“Zuko!” Katara jumps. 

“Yeah…” Zuko grumbles, rubbing the back of his head. 

“Done throwing your royal tantrum?” Toph asks. 

“You know what, I’ll just…” He turns back to the treeline that he had just emerged from.

“Wait!” Katara shouts. He doesn’t care to do that. Maybe that makes him a jerkass, but he is tired and hungry and frustrated. And he doesn’t want to be around his friends when he is in such a touchy and defeated mood. “We found her!”

He pauses and turns around. “Then where is she?” 

And to his dismay, Katara points directly at that goofy, mischievous fire spirit. “Of course she is.” He mutters.

“Why don’t you come get something to eat and Aang can explain everything.” Sokka offers. 

“I can explain what I know, which isn’t much.”

“When did you find out?” Zuko takes his seat on the nearest log. The Fire Spirit…Azula fixes her eyes on him, he is surprised to see a lack of resentment and distaste in them. She doesn’t leave Katara’s side. 

“She doesn’t remember anything.” Aang says. “Well she does but she doesn’t.  I used energybending to go into her psyche; she’s in there and she remembers who she is. But the spirit doesn’t know that she is Azula and Azula didn’t recognize the spirit as part of herself. It’s complicated.”

“Aang, you’re making my head pound.” Zuko massages his temples.

Aang strokes his chin. It has been some time since Zuko has seen him look so serious. “It’s a spirit curse. There are two halves of Azula and the human part of her that remembers being human is trapped in her own mind but she doesn’t realize it and doesn’t know where she is.” He takes a breath. “And when she saw the manifestation of her spirit half she got angry.” 

“I thought that you said that you weren’t completely sure if that was Azula.” Sokka quirks a brow. “You sound mighty certain now.” 

Aang shrugs. “The more I say it out loud, the more sense it makes.” 

“I don’t know if I agree with that.” Zuko grumbles. He leaves for a little while and suddenly everything is one giant mess. 

“I’m going to try to go back into her head tomorrow. I think that the key is getting Azula to either remember what happened to her or recognize the spirit as a part of herself.” 

“Well which is it?” Zuko asks. “Does she need to remember what happened or recognize that they’re the same…entity?”

“Maybe both.” Aang replies quietly. 

“Well if she remembers how she got cursed, wouldn’t that come with realizing that she and the spirit are the same?” Toph asks. 

“Probably.” Aang nods. He bites his lower lip. Zuko hates when he does that. It means that there’s something more. 

“But…?” He prompts. 

“It could also be a matter of getting the spirit to recognize that Azula is a part of her. And that would be a bit harder because the spirit is a little…”

“Stupid?” Toph laughs.

Katara gives her a solid swat. “Naive.”

“Confused.” Aang says. 

“So what are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Zuko asks. “Apparently we can’t just take her back to the Fire Nation.” And he isn’t allowed to use his bending around her. 

“Well.” Katara takes the spirit’s spindly hand. “We make sure that her fire stays out so that she isn’t in pain. We usually have to take her for a swim every hour. And that’s about it. Now that we know that she’s Azula we’ll just have to keep her comfortable while Aang works with energybending.”

“You can’t just talk to her.”

Aang shakes his head. “She doesn’t get it.”

“If she doesn’t ‘get it’ out here in the real world, why would she ‘get it’ in…in Azula world.” He shudders. Agni, he doesn’t even want to know what Azula world is like. It is probably fully engulfed in flames and lies. 

“It’s a spirit problem that requires spiritual solutions. I have to reach human Azula. And to do that…” 

“You need to talk to her through energybending.” He finishes. 

“That’s right.”

“Just be glad that we found her.” Toph folds her arms. “That was our mission and it was a success.”

Zuko wouldn’t call this success. They still have to find Azula in some sense. Wherever she is locked within her own mind. Zuko groans. Her mind is so complicated! Aang has himself an impossible mission if even Azula herself is confused by her own mind. 

He watches the spirit crawl into Katara’s lap. Katara who should push her away but instead pets her head. It would do Katara well to remember that her silly, curious spirit is actually a conniving, intimidating monster. 

A monster, he reminds himself, that he wanted to find and make amends with. 

He rubs his hands over his face. He had expected the years to have changed her. 

But not like this. 

Not so literally. 

“Why does everything have to be so difficult!” He throws his hands up.”

“To make your life exciting.” Toph declares with an unhelpful degree of boldness.

He hopes that the Azula that comes out of this is more agreeable than the person that he used to know. At the same time he finds himself hoping exactly the opposite. It would be terribly strange if human Azula acted as timid and thoughtlessly as the fire spirit. 

So what does he want from her?

What had he been hoping to accomplish by looking for her?

Maybe he really has only been thinking of himself again. Of easing his mind in knowing that she is still alive.

He can’t help but look at the spirit and think that that could have been him if things had gone even slightly different for him. And perhaps that is what drives him. What makes him want to help Azula. 

They aren’t so different from one another. ‘

He doesn’t shoo the spirit away when she cautiously approaches him.

Chapter Text

She is alone.

Always alone.

Always in the dark.

She supposes that she could leave this place. She has found the door. It isn’t a physical thing so much as blanker space suspended in a blank space. It is a spot of darkness darker than the rest. And when she passes through it, light strikes her with violent aggression. Her eyes are not used to the light, Azula has grown so used to the dark. It is more comfortable. 

Mostly she is content to just lay here. Lay here and dream. At least she thinks that she is dreaming. It is hard to say considering that she is awake. But images flick and flit, offering moments of respite from an otherwise empty world. Mostly she just hears words. But now and then she sees a lake or a trail. Now and then her visions come with sensations; the feeling of a hand taking hers, the flutter of flutterbat wings against her palm, a rush of cool water soaking her through and through is the most common of the sensations. It is a nice break from the constant dull burning that burdens her. 

Save for the occasional searing, she supposes that it doesn’t bother her to be here. She thinks that it might have troubled her at one point. That it might have absolutely terrified her. It doesn’t anymore and she is probably better for it. She is perfectly alright with resting here with her cozy nothingness and with those occasional intrusions of somethingness.

But today she is feeling daring. Today she passes through that blank space. Today she squeezes her eyes shut and covers them with her hands until the brightness becomes more bearable. Her eyes sting and water when she opens them. And it is no wonder, the world beyond the darkness is filled with smoke and ash and popping embers that irritate her eyes and lungs. 

Azula takes a few steps away from the door and tries to make out the shapes within the flames. Bookshelves teeming with scrolls upon scrolls. She swallows hard, her heart races. With a mighty snap one of the shelves buckles and a rushing gust of fire unfurls towards her. With a sharp cry, she leaps back and out of its way. Back and nearly into the other shelf. She hisses at the sudden rush of heat. She hadn’t touched the flame but she knows that she had gotten close enough for it to leave her back a vicious red and the hem of her robes slightly singed. 

Azula swallows hard and creeps her way around the bookshelves only to find herself face to face with more bookshelves. She bites the inside of her cheek and wanders further, taking corner after maddening corner only to find the same endless insanity; a never ending stretch of burning bookshelves with the occasional sculpture, portrait, or piece of furniture to tell her that she has found somewhere new. 

And after a while even those start to look the same.

Her breath quickens and her heart thunders. 

She throws herself around another shelf and finds herself presumably back in the very spot she had just left. Over and over again, a never ending loop. There is a tightness in her throat and chest. A tickle in her belly born from a foreign sense of fear; the kind that converts itself into impulse and hasty, careless decisions. 

She begins taking her turns and corners with a frantic sense of desperation.

But what else can she do? It isn’t as though careful decisions will lead to different results. 

Why should she think rationally when this place, wherever it is, is so perverse from the natural, so far removed from any sort of logic. 

If she takes a corner wrong she finds the world tilting and dumping her down from the ceiling. She crashes facedown onto a burning carpet where she lays and screams. Roars with the flames. She can’t find the exit and she can’t find the door that had brought her here, to this burning place. 

Scraps of burning paper rain down around her. They fall from helpless scrolls and books. The flames finish them off before she can read more than one or two words. ‘Fire lord’, she reads and then that scrap is consumed. ‘Sozin’s comet’, and that one too is gone. She catches a third scrap of paper and pats it until the fire is out. It leaves a ring of blisters on her palm. She slips the singed paper into her pocket where it leaves a ring of blisters on her thigh.

She doesn’t know for how long she remains on the ground, weeping to herself before she numbly pushes herself off of the ground. It is entirely useless but she lets her shaky legs carry her through the maze until her eyes gloss over and her head empties. 

Empties save for the sense that she has done this before. 

And then the fire dims and its crackle grows quieter. She keeps walking one foot after another. She walks for ages. And after an eternity, the dim light is reduced to a weak glow. And then she is falling.

Falling.

Falling. 

Forgetting.
Falling…

She never lands but her body comes to rest. Azula isn’t afraid, not particularly. She thinks that maybe she should be. But she is too tired to be afraid. Tired from what? She can’t remember having done anything particularly exhausting. But she must have; how else would she have arrived here? Wherever here is. 

There is something wrong. So very wrong. 

So why isn’t she afraid? 

Why doesn’t she feel inclined to leave her unsettling but strangely comfortable dark world. 

She wants to leave this place. There has to be something beyond it. 

She knows that there is; if she listens hard enough, sometimes she can hear it. 

Azula has nothing better to do. She closes her eyes and listens. “Have you ever tried seal jerky?” She knows that voice from somewhere. “Sokka, I don’t think that spirits eat seal jerky.” She knows this voice, she hears it often. And it is solace in its familiarity. She likes that voice very much. 

It fades quickly at the realization that she has recognized it for what it is; a sound from the outside rather than some vague image projected from nowhere. Azula’s heart quickens. Yes, that’s right. There is a world outside of all of this and she had been trying to get there.

Azula sits herself up and lightly knocks her fist against her head, some feeble attempt to dislodge the memory that had been so recently lost to her. 

She had been doing something before landing here again. But what?

Azula wraps her arms around herself. 

And then she feels it, something jutting from her pocket and scratching at her ribcage.

She reaches into her pocket and her fingers find a brittle slip of paper. 

Maybe it could tell her how to leave this place.

She could read it if only it weren’t so dark.

.oOo.

The Avatar is here and he has brought some creature with him.

It keeps its distance and looks upon her with innocent eyes. She doen’t trust those eyes. They seem to hint that they know something that she doesn’t. But what could some silly spirit know that she does not?

“Hello, Azula.” The Avatar greets plainly, methodically. It is unlike him, doesn’t match his usual demeanor. The cheerful demeanor that she remembers from the world outside of this dark place. At least she thinks that he had, had a cheerful demeanor. She could be mixing him up with someone else, attaching his face to a personality just because it is there for her to do so.

Azula massages her aching head. 

Her head always hurts when he comes around. She sees him and things start to shift…memories stir. They make her head pound as they fight to break through whatever barriers keep them from reaching her. Sometimes a few manage to wiggle free. 

“Avatar.” She returns the greeting. “Avatar, it’s getting worse.” And she is becoming more terrified as her fuzzy memories continue to erode.  “I…I almost didn’t recognize you.” But it is coming back to her. “We’ve done this before?”

“Yeah.” The Avatar confirms. “We have.” 

.oOo.

Azula’s cheeks are burnt, Aang notices. Azula does not, or maybe she has noticed long before he got here so the alarm isn’t there. It isn’t as though she has a mirror, she can’t see how painful those burns look. Her left cheek is a very bright red, the other is swollen and slightly blistered. 

“What happened?” He asks.

Azula furrows her brows.

He points at her cheeks. Her brows knit tighter as her fingers graze her cheek. She flinches and gasps. He is getting used to seeing fear flicker in her usually composed demeanor. These days the fire spirit is less jittery than she. Likely the product of familiarity, the fire spirit remembers the things that Azula seems to struggle to recall. The spirit has gotten quite used to Azula and her distaste for her. But Azula is no more comfortable with the spirit than she had been when they’d first seen each other.

“I—”

“Did you try to leave on your own again?” He asks. 

“Leave?”

Aang nods. “We talked about this last time…” He doesn’t know why he bothers, she never remembers. “It’s better if you don’t try to enter the maze without me.” 

“The maze…” She murmurs. She lifts her hands to rub her face but thinks better of it. “Avatar, I don’t—” 

“It’s alright. Just follow us. The spirit seems to have a sense of where we’re going.” It is strange, he thinks that the spirit is adapting, becoming knowledgeable while Azula diminishes. It could be that her instinctual hatred of the spirit might not be unfounded; maybe, just by existing, the spirit is feeding off of and consuming her. Whether it means to or not. 

“Do you remember any of this?” Aang asks, gesturing to the maze. 

Azula shakes her head. 

Aang sighs. 

“No wait…” She frowns. The crease in her brow is becoming very familiar. By the end of this he is almost certain that they will become permeate wrinkles on her forehead. “I think…yes. I was here. I…what did I do?” She trails off into a string of murmurs that are meant more for her own ears than his.

The spirit cocks her head and reaches for Azula’s robes. Azula snarls and snatches them away. “Are you trying to set me ablaze!? It’s bad enough that I have to avoid touching these burning shelves, I don’t need to be worrying about…” Her eyes widen. “The shelves. Yes, that’s right.” She reaches into her pocket. “I found this. I have been here before.” 

Aang takes the sheet from her hand. 

“I don’t know why I can’t remember.”

“It’s probably a security measure. Whoever built this maze built it with a fail safe; it keeps you from remembering so that you can’t find your way out.”

Azula nods. “Yes, that would make sense.” 

Aang allows a sense of relief to wash over him. Maybe Azula’s mind isn’t going dull. She just needs him to jog her memory whenever he visits. 

“This isn’t the first time that I’ve talked to you?”

Aang shakes his head. “I’ve been here three times before now.”

Azula nods. 

“Do you remember that?” 

She shakes her head. 

“You don’t remember anything about the spirit?”

“I remember that I don’t like it.” 

“But do you remember why?” 

She shakes her head as the spirit guides them around another corner. This one is unfamiliar. His heart leaps, they might finally be getting somewhere! “It’s because the spirit is a part of you. Deep down, you know that and it scares you. It scares you because you don’t understand it.”

.oOo.

Azula balls her fists and bites the inside of her cheek. She spares a glance at the spirit in question. It still keeps a very good distance from her. It is afraid of her as it very well should be. She can sense that much. Perhaps that is why it is less chatty today. That’s right…it is usually talkative. Not that it ever uses its own words. It likes to imitate her. Mock her. That is why she resents it…

“You don’t like the spirit because you don’t understand it and that makes you afraid. You don’t like things that frighten you.”

“Don’t tell me how I feel, Avatar!” She snaps. 

“Just listen to me, please. I don’t think that we have a lot of time. We’ve been through this twice, eventually you wrap your head around it and remember but I need you to do that a little faster if you want to get to the end of this maze.” 

“Avatar…”

“Just listen. Please.” He urges. 

Azula swallows whatever remark had been on her tongue. But the spirit speaks, “don’t tell me that I am afraid!” The remark has no bite nor command coming from the spirit. But it chills her all the same. 

It reminds her that, in spite of her stolen words, she is very much terrified. 

Her terror is dashed with a spot of relief as comprehension dawns upon her. “It…she…that spirit is me.”

Aang nods.

“Does it…does she understand? Does she know what she is?”

“I don’t think so. She knows how to navigate the maze and she seems to be better at latching onto the memories that do come to her. She can remember having walked around this maze before even though you don’t. But she doesn’t seem to understand the things she remembers.” He pauses. “Like the komodo rhino thing, it's a detail from your life that keeps her tethered to you but she doesn’t know what it means.”

“It’s just a stupid fact. From when I…” She falters. “From when I was a child. I used to love komodo rhinos.” She tries not to get to giddy over the recollection. She probably won’t retain it. “It’s not really important.”

“Maybe it wasn’t before. But right now it’s something that ties you to her and keeps you from fading away.”

Azula’s small smile diminishes again. 

“I’m not going to let you fade away if I can help it. But that’s the thing, I don’t think that that’s in my control.”

Azula cringes. 

“It's yours. You like to be in control, so that should be good news.”

The spirit comes to a halt just as she does. They both look despairing at Aang. “Avatar, I don’t know what I’m doing.” They say in perfect unison.

“Don’t worry. I have a theory.”

“Keep navigating.” Azula demands the spirit. It offers her a rude gesture that it had probably plucked from somewhere in her mind but it does resume leading them along. “I’m not like that, Avatar. I have manners.” 

Aang laughs. “Well that didn’t come from nowhere. She probably found some repressed desire.”

She is thankful that she has the red of the burn to cover her blush. She folds her arms. “State your theory, Avatar. You mentioned that we don’t have much time.”

“Right.” Aang replies. “Well I’m thinking one of two things needs to happen. You either need to accept and embrace the spirit as a part of you and then merge with it or we need to find the end of this maze.”

“Wouldn’t finding the end of the maze cause the two of us to merge?”

“I don’t think so. I think that if we reach the end of the maze and exit before you merge, only one of you will get to leave. This maze is part of a spirit curse and it’s meant to get rid of you, Azula. I think that the only reason you, the human you, still exists is because you refused to just give in and forget.”

Or because he had gotten to her just on time; she had been getting terribly content in her quiet dark place. Azula shudders and the fire spirit’s flames flicker. 

“You’re supposed to be a prisoner in your own mind, losing bits of yourself until you fade completely. If we get to the end of the maze before you and the spirit become one entity, one of you is going to have to stay behind and fade away.”

“Well there’s an easy solution to that, Avatar. I’ll leave because I am the real me and the spirit can disappear. She wasn’t supposed to be here to begin with.” But what would that mean for her? If the fire spirit is part of her, which part will she lose if she lets it fade. “Avatar, since it is a fire spirit, would I…would I lose my bending if I choose to leave it behind?” Or would she lose much more than that.

“I don’t know Azula.” He frowns. “I’m not even sure if my theory is correct. I just know that it would be better if you merged.”

“Well get that over with then.” Azula slows her pace to a halt. “How do I merge with the spirit?”

“You have to remember, Azula.”

“Well I do, I remember now. We’ve talked about this before, we’ve had this discussion!” Only twice but they have had it and she does remember it! She remembers it quite clearly now. And she remembers how it always ends; Aang gives her a sad smile and shakes his head right before the fire begins to close in on them. Before he has to make a swift and hasty retreat. Before they have to start all over again.

It is, in fact, the very same smile and head shake that it is giving her right now.

Chapter Text

The Avatar has come to visit and he has brought some strange creature with him…

The creature is sad. It circles lazily around her with its shoulders slumped and its head dipped. It can stand upright but it seems to favor walking on all fours.

“What is that?” 

“I’ll explain it as we walk.” The Avatar says and he leads her out of the dark place. It is driving her mad, she thinks. She is starting to forget things that she should remember. For one thing she can’t remember where she used to live before coming to reside in the dark place. She thinks that she had lived in a city, but she can’t quite recall what the skyline looked like or the name of it. As of the country it was called the something Nation. She can’t remember what ‘something’ is a substitution for. 

The creature…rather, the fire spirit, as the Avatar had called it, navigates the maze without hesitation, taking corner after corner without a second thought. “Shouldn’t it stop to consider its options?”

“She has done this before.” He leaves ample pause. “And so have you.”

By the end of his summary, Azula is quite sick to her stomach. Apparently they have been through this at least six times already...that month. Apparently two of them have gone by. It makes her head hurt. She might not be so thoroughly and nauseatingly disturbed if he hadn’t mentioned that she isn’t talking right anymore. She swallows hard; she wasn’t aware. But apparently she sometimes mixes up words. Words like ‘lost’ and ‘last’. Two attempts to navigate the maze ago, she had told him that she thought that they were last. Upon a request for clarification she had informed him that, “we are last in the maze, we don’t know where we are going.” 

It makes her queasy that she hadn’t recognized the difference between lost and last until he gave his example. And there are other words too. She has periods of silence and confusion and that those are happening sooner and sooner each time that he supposedly visits her.

“And what about the spirit?” She asks. And he launches into a brief but concise spiel about how she and the spirit are one and the same. His delivery is almost vacant, second nature. He has said the same thing so many times that he has grown bored of it. 

They come to an open space and the maze breaks off into five separate passages. It is here that the spirit falters. 

“We should go to the left.” Azula suggests.

“Azula…that’s…that’s right. You’re pointing to the right.” 

Her cheeks grow hot but the rest of her chills. 

She imagines that her eyes are wide when she fixes them upon the Avatar. And her body trembles softly. “I’m not going to make it out of here, am I?” She says quietly. 

“You’ll get out of here.” Aang promises. 

“Not before I lose myself.” She whispers with a shake of her head. “Maybe…” she trails off. “You should probably make the decisions.” Her stomach plummets further and there is a tightness in her throat. This is humiliating. She thinks that even the spirit is more competent than she and it is animalistic in nature. 

.oOo.

She is right, the spirit thinks. The human version of her senses the same thing that she does. It is a coldness so subtle that it may as well not be there at all but it is coming from the right and so the spirit wanders to the left most passage. 

“Where are you going?” The Avatar calls after her. “We haven’t tried passages three, four, and five yet!” 

But she doesn’t have time to argue with him, let alone without any of her communication tools. Lately Azula hasn’t been saying the things that the spirit thinks anymore. Lately, Azula feels very far away, distant though they are standing right next to one another. 

They don’t have much time at all. 

Azula and the Avatar fear what will happen if only one of them make it out, she or Azula. The spirit knows better, she dreads what will happen if neither of them make it out before Azula is extinguished. 

And so she keeps running. Running, running, running even as the Avatar calls for her to wait. Even as Azula calls for her to think things through. If she thinks things through now then neither of them will ever think again—nothing that makes any sense anyhow.

She drops back onto all fours, she can move faster that way. Now and then she has to take pause for the Avatar and Azula to catch up. She can’t stand it, they are so slow. They don’t seem to have the twitchy urgency that she has. They don’t know that if they don’t make it out this time that Azula will fade. 

Azula has no love for her and the spirit still resents and envies Azula. But one of them needs to make it out today even if it isn’t her. 

“Please wait!” The Avatar calls again. 

But the spirit does not. It is growing much too hot, unbearably so. And maybe that is why he wants to turn back—his skin is bubbling. Azula’s is, in places, melting. Mostly her left arm but there are spots on her neck that are growing red and loose. 

The spirit is used to it. She burns all the time. It doesn’t matter if they are clumps of flesh and bone by the time they reach the end of this hallway, so long as they reach it. So long as they open the door. 

The spirit keeps running. Running until her energy has been spent and then some. 

Azula is staggering now. And then she stops altogether. It is only then that the spirit stops. Stops and screams. Is it pain? Frustration? An attempt to coax Azula back to attention? All three? Whatever the reason, the spirit shrieks. And fire bursts from her mouth adding to that which shoots up from the walls. 

“Azula…Azula, please.” Aang begs. “Don’t do this. Not now.” He pleads with her as though it is in her control. 

The spirit backtracks and takes Azula by the wrist and pulls her along. By the time they reach the end of the hallway she is practically dragging Azula. Azula whose eyes are glossy and distant. Azula who is murmuring something that even the Avatar can’t understand. The spirit swears that the woman has taken her mantra. But maybe she is just hearing the things that she wants to hear.

The spirit drops Azula and looks up at the door and then looks to the Avatar. He is blistered all over and burnt black in the places where he is not. “You found it…” he rasps. 

The spirit dreads that he is too weak to get them out of there. So the spirit will have to do it herself. She picks Azula’s hand up and holds it against the door. 

.oOo.

Aang swallows hard. He meets the spirit’s gaze. “We don’t have time to let you two merge, do we?” 

The spirit shakes her head in confirmation. He gives a cry of frustration, bunches his fists, and holds them to his searing forehead. They’d wasted so much time! He should have just skipped the explanations about having done this before over and over again and got right to the part about merging and finding an exit being crucial. But he doubts that Azula would have went along with it anyways if he hadn’t established credibility.

Regardless, there is a decision to be made. 

And he thinks that it has already been made for him. 

Azula is on the ground, confused, incoherent, and burnt from head to toe. The spirit is pacing at the door, urging him to help her finish opening the door.

“I’m sorry, Azula.” He is. He really, really is. In spite of it all he wishes that he didn’t fail again. “I didn’t want to leave you here.” Sometimes he feels useless. Sometimes he feels like he is a terrible Avatar. 

He wonders what Katara is going to say.

What Zuko is going to say. 

The door falls open and the fire rushes out. 

The spirit rushes out. 

He, with a look back, rushes out.

Azula does not.

Azula lays there, she turns her head. “Don’t leave me, Avatar.” She mouths. “I’m sorry.”  She doesn’t realize that he is too. She doesn’t even realize that he isn’t angry with her. That abandoning her has nothing to do with their history and everything to do with salvaging at least one part of her. 

She reaches out as he steps through the door. 

Her hand falls limp as it closes.

The fire keeps burning.

Chapter Text

The spirit sits up.

She has been staring at her hands. Maybe for an hour now, but she still has trouble comprehending that they belong to her now and not Azula. The spirit hasn’t begun to contemplate that she is Azula now. 

That she always has been.

She has trouble getting used to how when she lifts her hands and brings them to her cheeks, that they are soft and easy to the touch. That neither her hands nor her cheeks are on fire. She flexes her fingers over and over again until the disconnect between mind and body starts to clear.

She feels a hand on her back and her tummy tickles.She still isn’t used to people touching her. She looks up at Katara who offers her a slight smile. “The food is ready. You need to eat and…” she pointedly eyes a nearly full waterskin. “You were supposed to be drinking that. It looks like you only took a few sips. You probably feel tired and dizzy, don’t you?”

Azula nods and Katara shoves the waterskin into her hands. “Drink it or you’re going to keep feeling that way.”

Azula stares at the waterskin for a moment before bringing it to her lips. She hadn’t realized that her throat had gone dry until the water wet it once more. She offers the waterskin back to Katara who shakes her head and gently pushes her offering hands back to her. “That’s yours now, I filled it for you.”

Azula nods again and holds the waterskin to her chest. 

“What do you want to eat? We have fish and rabaroo meat.” 

Azula wanders closer to the firepit, overwhich hangs a still sizzling pan. She points at the rabaroo meat. 

“Well take it!” Sokka snaps. Azula flinches and Sokka looks away.

Hastily, she takes her meal and retreats back to her place at the outskirts of the camp, a decent distance from all of those weary, mistrustful stares. The ones that she doesn’t quite understand.  She had thought that they all had been warming up to her. Now everyone seems as suspicious as they had been when she’d first made her appearance. Zuko and Sokka especially. But they always had been, right from the beginning. It is Katara’s distance that bothers her the most. Katara had seemed to like her; now even she seems to be cross. Her smiles are tighter and more forced. 

The fire spirit is still who she always has been…

And that, she is beginning to realize, is just the problem. 

She is who she always had been before she had become a spirit. Before she had become whatever she is now; a spirit locked within a human body, the one that, apparently, had always belonged to her. 

Azula pokes at her meal but she finds that she isn’t particularly hungry. 

She can finally be held and cuddled, but Katara no longer has any interest in doing so. She spares a longing look at Katara, Toph, and Sokka who seem to be invested in a very humorous exchange. 

Zuko and Aang are having their own conversation and from the looks on their faces and the bombastic arm gestures, she imagines that the mood of that conversation is closer to the mood that she is in.

.oOo.

He had known that this was going to be an issue from the very moment he had seen Azula burn away. He wishes that he didn’t feel any type of relief. But the fact of the matter is that he did. The spirit is much more lovable than Azula. The spirit hadn’t struck him down with a swift bolt of lightning. He wishes that he weren’t so happy that only the spirit had followed him out the burning maze of Azula’s mind.

Zuko couldn’t be any more furious if he tried. He had never warmed up to the spirit to begin with. His hatred of her now is particularly hot. 

“It’s not her fault.” Aang insists. 

“Not her fault! She came back and my sister didn’t!” Zuko roars. 

“That’s still Azula.” Aang says. “She just can’t remember that she is.”

“She also can’t talk and can’t remember anything about any of us. She only looks like Azula. She doesn’t know how to firebend. She doesn’t even remember that she needs to eat and drink!”

Aang shakes his head. “She still does things that Azula does, like the way that she quirks her brow and the way that she holds her hands behind her back when she paces. Or the way her expression looks when she’s thinking or concentrating.”

“How do you know how that looks?”

“I was in the labyrinth with her for months. I’ve picked up on a few habits.” He pauses. “She still withdraws and isolates instead of trying to communicate.” He looks across the clearing to where Azula sits alone with her meal. 

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m trying to say that I think that Azula is still in there.”

“But you said that you watched her burn away and die?”

Aang nods. “I saw a lot of things in there and I don’t know what they mean.” 

“So fix her!”

“Zuko, I can’t. I tried and I made things worse. If Azula still is in there somewhere, she’s…a lot further than she was before I messed with energybending. I should have never tried.” He rubs his hands over his face. Regardless of how endearing he found the spirit and how uncomfortable he finds Azula, he finds himself just about as frustrated and guilt-riddled as he had been when he’d fled from the Air Temples so long ago. “I knew that energybending was dangerous. She was already trying to help herself out. I thought that I was helping her to help herself but I might have just made things even more confusing for her.” 

“So what, we just…” Zuko slaps his hands against his sides. “Bring her back to the Fire Nation and pretend like nothing is wrong?”

“We could try to find the spirit that cursed her.” Aang suggests.

“We don’t have enough supplies to last us a whole new search.”

“Then we can take her back to the Fire Nation, restock, and…”

“Forget it!” This outburst causes a turning of heads. He lowers his voice. “We’ll take her back to the Fire Nation. Maybe being back at the palace will…I don’t know, trigger a memory or something.” 

“Yeah.” Aang agrees. “Maybe. That could work.” Now that he is thinking about it, he wonders if that is what he should have done all along. He had been so stupidly focused on helping her from the inside out that he hadn’t even paused to consider that energybending and mind infiltration might not have been necessary at all. “Alright, we’ll take Azula back home.”

.oOo.

The spirit…Azula wanders up to her well after the fire had burnt out.

It used to be endearing waking up to the spirit hovering over her, head tilted and staring at her with those blazing firefly eyes. She still hovers and she still tilts her head but those eyes—Katara shudders—they are so intense. 

Katara fights the urge to shove her back and ask her why she is getting so close. “It’s really late, Azula.” She notes instead. 

Azula’s brows scrunch and something flickers in her eyes. Hurt maybe.

Katara had never questioned her late night visits before. She had always just assumed the the spirit needed comfort or companionship. That she was just confused and frightened. Katara swallows hard. And maybe she still is. Aang had said that Azula is the one who had died that day. 

Katara sighs, “oh alright.” She pats the sleepingbag. Azula smiles. It is a type of smile that she had never seen on Azula’s face, bright, cheerful, and rather warm. It suits her very well, Katara has to admit. She watches her circle around and find her spot on the sleeping bag. The same spot that she always takes. “Why do you do that?”

Azula tilts her head. 

“Walk around in circles before finding a place to sit or lay.” She clarifies. “Appa does that too sometimes.” 

Azula’s lips part but the words that come out are jumbled beyond decipherability. There is more clarity on her second attempt. “It’s a secret.” 

Katara can’t help it, she has to laugh. “So us humans just aren’t meant to understand why animals and spirits circle around before finding a spot to lay?”

Azula rests her chin on Katara’s knee and nods. She is, Katara realizes with a leap of her heart, expecting head pats. “Azula, you’re not a spirit anymore.”

Azula takes Katara’s hand and holds it to her head, just the way that Katara had been doing these past few weeks. She sighs. “I don’t think that Azula, the real Azula, would want me to pet her like a dog.”

“I’m Azula.” The spirit says. “Real Azula.” 

Katara withdraws her hand. “You can sleep next to me but…” she trails off. “I don’t know. I’m not going to treat you like an animal.”

“Yeah, she’s more like a feral child that has been in the woods for too long.” Toph shouts from her stone tent. “Now shut up and go to sleep so I can go to sleep.”

“You’re louder than they are!” Sokka shouts from his tent.

Katara rolls her eyes. “They’re ridiculous.” She mutters to the spirit who nods in agreement. Katara is not sure if she knows what she is agreeing with. “You’re a human now.” She resumes the conversation. “We’re going to treat you like a human.” 

At this Azula seems to crumble. “Hatred.” 

Katara furrows her brows. “Hatred?”

The spirit nods and points at herself. 

When Katara’s look of confusion doesn’t pass, Azula feels around for a stick. Katara watches her etch into the dirt; you hate the human. She wipes away the word ‘human’ and replaces it with her name. And then she clears the sentence entirely. ‘You will treat me like you hate me?’

Katara’s stomach lurches. “No! No, that’s not what I meant! I meant that I’m not going to pet you or cuddle you and talk to you like you don’t understand what I’m saying. Unless you don’t understand me.” But it seems like she does. More or less. “Also I…I didn’t hate Azula.” She doesn’t think that she did. Was she afraid? Terribly. Was she angry? Without a doubt. But hate is such a strong emotion. “I don’t hate you.” She knows that that is true, she had grown quite fond of the spirit. And that is who she is talking to. She just has to remember that.

But it won’t ever leave her mind that Azula might come back and drive the spirit that she has grown fond of out.

“Okay.” Azula replies simply. 

“You should get some sleep. I know that you did that, even as a spirit.” 

“Tent?”

Katara shrugs. “I was hoping to just sleep under the stars tonight.”

“Stars.” Azula repeats. “I like stars.” 

Katara begins to close her eyes. 

Katara feels Azula’s hand take hers.

Chapter Text

The spirit has thoughts sometimes, thoughts that she can’t understand. Sometimes they come in dreams where they are the clearest. Sometimes they find their way into her head in waking moments; little whispers from some dark place within. Whispers that tell her to do things that she wouldn’t ever think to do on her own. 

She knows where they come from. 

Who they come from. 

She is still there and she waits eagerly for Azula to fall asleep to remind her that she is a fraud and a phony—a hollow imitation of a real person, a double that lacks substance and soul. Azula knows that, that isn’t true. If she didn’t have a soul then she wouldn’t have feelings to hurt and fears to be taunted with. She wouldn’t have memories. But Azula, the other Azula—the one who insists that she is the real Azula—tells her that all of those memories are stolen. That she has no right to access them and no right to be hurt or cheered by them when she thinks about them. And maybe that is why the ‘real’ Azula is so terrified; day by day, Azula is becoming more like her, reaching more memories and speaking more smoothly. It is, for the ‘real’ Azula, a startlingly fast progress. For Azula it is agonizingly slow. But sooner or later there will be no ‘real’ Azula, it will just be her and nobody will notice the difference. 

The real Azula insists that, that isn’t true. “You might have my memories.” She had mentioned a few nights ago. “They might even make you feel something. But you don’t feel how I do about them, you don’t interpret them the same way.”

An uncanny doppelganger, that is what she had called her. 

And so Azula tries not to fall asleep. She doesn’t want to see the woman who insists that she is the real Azula. She doesn’t want to hear her hateful words. She doesn’t want to see the pain in eyes that look exactly like her own. 

But those eyes are growing heavy and everyone else is asleep. Katara is adamant that she should sleep because it is not healthy for her to go without sleep for so long. She believes Katara, she had needed sleep when her body was branch-like and engulfed in flames too. But her human body’s need for sleep is much more pressing; it makes her body feel heavy and useless. It makes her mind feel cranky and irritable. 

“Will you go to sleep if I let you stay in my tent?” Katara offers. “I promise that it’s a lot more comfortable than pacing around outside and rummaging through our belongings.”

“It would also be nice to not hear rustling and footsteps all night long.” Sokka grumbles only to be nudged by Aang. “What!?”

“We’re trying to get along with Azula now.” Toph answers for Aang.

“The spirit is starting to sound more like Azula so maybe we should start treating her like Azula.” Sokka counters. 

“We were going to try to get along with Azula anyways.” Zuko folds his arms across his chest. “That was kind of the whole point of this mission.”

Azula wraps her arms around herself. Sometimes she forgets that her nails are long now and that her skin is so soft. It doesn’t take much to break it and draw blood when she begins her nervous scratching and pacing. They seem to pay her no mind and carry on with their debate.

“So what? Were we just going to give her a free pass?” Sokka asks. “Because I was kind of under the impression that we would all be having some pretty serious conversations before deciding to hug and make up.” 

“Well the situation is a bit more complex now.” Aang replies. 

“It was pretty complex to begin with.” Zuko adds.

“This isn’t exactly helping her fall asleep.” Katara mutters, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, Azula, stop scratching, you’re hurting yourself.” 

Azula nods and lets Katara take her shaking hand. 

“Does that seem like Azula to you?” Aang asks. “The Azula we knew, I mean.”

Sokka groans. “I guess not.” 

“I’m sorry about my brother. It’s just that there’s a lot of history between all of us and Azula.” 

“Me?” 

“Sort of.” Katara gives her a sad half smile. 

“Ba Sing Se?”

“Huh?” Katara’s brows knit.

“Are they mad about what happened in Ba Sing Se?”

“You…you know about that?”

She nods and yawns. “I think so. Sort of.” She can watch the entirety of that day unfold in her mind but she doesn’t feel a particular connection to it. A double that lacks substance and soul. But she does feel a connection to a different memory. “Are you mad at me?” 

“For Ba Sing Se?”

Another nod. “And for the Agni Kai.” She thinks that she is upset with herself. Katara is so gentle and caring. And she…the ‘real’ Azula had sent a bolt of lightning and copious amounts of fire in her direction. 

Guilt.

Regret. 

That is what she feels. She wonders if ‘real’ Azula would feel the same. She doubts it. She imagines that the other her wouldn’t regard Katara at all when reflecting upon that memory. She imagines that mostly the ‘real’ Azula would be sad and angry. Mournful of what she had lost and angry at what Zuko and Katara had taken from her. But you don’t feel how I do about them.

What is she? 

Why should she exist?

Why shouldn’t she exist?

She is a nicer person, a better person. 

“I’m not mad at you .”

Azula smiles. “Thank you. I don’t want you to be angry with me. You’re…” she yawns again. “You’re important to me. You make me feel happy.” And comfortable and safe and many other emotions that she is finally starting to get a grasp on. She yawns a third time. 

Katara gives a small laugh. “Let’s get you to sleep. You look like you’re about to collapse.”

.oOo.

The woman looks just like her but her cheeks are hollow and, beneath tattered robes, her stomach is sunken.  Her skin is burnt in more places than it is not. Her eyes are misty and unseeing. But the spirit knows that the woman sees her. 

Sees her and loathes her for leaving the maze without her. 

Resents her for leaving her to burn. To die.

Absolutely loathes her for replacing her. 

For, perhaps, being the better her.

Azula can feel the hatred radiating off of her, burning as hotly as the fire that once scorched her body.  But her body is free of fire now. Free because the fire that once outlined it now flares to life on her counterpart’s already terribly charred skin. By the end of the dream her skin will have burnt down to bloody bone only to regrow and repeat the next time that Azula dreams.

“You died.”

“The Avatar was mistaken.” Each word is followed by a puff of fire and sparks. “I can’t die here. I can only suffer.” She pauses. “We both tried to take the easy way out but I’m the only one who pays the price. I’m trapped here while you live out my life.”

“You’re dead.” The spirit says again. “We saw…”

“You don’t know what you saw. You don’t even know how to talk without my help. Without me here living in your mind you wouldn’t have a vocabulary at all.” She pauses. “So use that vocabulary to tell the Avatar that he is mistaken.”

But she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to go back to burning. 

She doesn’t want to go back to burning so the ‘real’ Azula smolders for her.

“Tell him that I’ve figured it out. Tell him that you need to be asleep when he does his spiritbending. I can use dreams. I have control over dreams. And nightmares.”

The spirit shakes her head. 

She is free. Free from fire. She won’t be bound elsewhere.

Azula sneers. Sneers even as her skin starts to slough down her cheeks. “You aren’t even the part of me that matters! I am! And I will destroy you if that’s what it takes to get back what is mine.” Even if she has to sacrifice her firebending to do it. She doesn’t say it out loud but the spirit understands perfectly . Understands in just the same way that she feels the other Azula’s hatred and outrage. 

The way that she feels that Azula’s dread and sorrow. 

The woman who looks just like her wants to go home. She wants to feel safe. She wants to feel hope. She wants to feel loved. She wants a chance. The chance that her spirit counterpart had earned for her. 

“I won’t let you.” 

“You don’t have a choice.” She hisses as one final puff of smoke escapes her mouth. And then she is just ashes. Smoking ashes and a pile of blackened bones.

.oOo.

Katara shudders. Until now, she has only heard Azula cry once before. It was a horrible, heart wrenching sound then and it is worse now. For a moment it is hard to split the here and now from the day of the comet. Azula is once again screaming as she cries. At least there is no fire to accompany those sob-shrieks. 

“What’s going on?” Zuko throws the tent flaps open.

“She’s having a nightmare, I think.” Katara replies. It is a silly thing to say; she knows without a doubt that Azula is having a nightmare. This happened the last few times that she had tried to sleep. She is surprised that Zuko still asks what’s going on. “I’ll take care of her.” 

“Are you sure?” Zuko asks. “You need sleep too.”

“I’m sure.” Katara nods. “I know how to calm her down.” She starts by lifting Azula into her arms and resting her head on her shoulder. Raava, she is shaking so badly. She takes Azula’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “It’s okay, you can wake up now.”

“But you just told me to go to sleep.” Comes that sad sleepy murmur. 

“I know. And you did. You were asleep for about three hours.” It is hardly enough but it is much better than no sleep at all. Frankly, she is hoping that she can coax the woman back to sleep once more. 

“Do you want me here?” Zuko asks. 

“It’s alri—”

“Yes.” Azula rubs her eyes. With that Zuko comes to join them in the tent. He sits cross legged next to Azula. 

“How can I help?”

Azula shrugs. “Just sit here, I guess.” 

Katara rubs her thumb against the back of Azula’s hand. “Do you want to hear a story that my mom used to tell me to help me get to sleep?”

“Mmmhmm, yeah, I’d like that.” Azula nuzzles her cheek against the crook of Katara’s neck. Her eyes are already starting to droop again. Halfway through the story her eyes close once more. Carefully, Katara tucks her back into her sleeping bag. She rubs her cheek against the first pillow and clings to the second as though it will run from her. 

Zuko chuckles. “I guess that she still does that. Clings to pillows, I mean.”

“She’s always done that?”

Zuko nods. “Since she was a kid. You won’t be able to pry it from her either, I’ve tried that once.”

Katara looks back at Azula and her heart tickles. When she thought of Azula, the word cute had never come to mind. Terrifying and cruel had always been the association. But now…

“She looks so…innocent.” 

Zuko shrugs. “Yeah. It’s kind of unsettling.”

“Unsettling.”

“That’s not the real her. She’s like…like a parasite. A spirit parasite that’s using Azula as a host. She doesn’t even see anything wrong with that. And that makes her more disturbing than the real Azula.”  

“She’s not evil, Zuko. It’s not her fault and she’s clearly scared.”

“Maybe you like her better than the real Azula, but I don’t.”

“You didn’t seem very fond of the real Azula either.” Katara counters. 

“But I wanted to be. I came her to try to make amends with her and that…” he gestures to Azula’s sleeping form. “That thing too that away from me. From me and Azula.”

“Zuko…”

“Forget it.” Zuko grumbles. “Have a good night, Katara.” With another rusting of tent flaps, he is gone, reiterating back to his tent to overthink things and work himself into a rage. 

Katara touches the back of her hand to Azula’s cheek. Maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe it is disrespectful to the real Azula. The real Azula who may or may not even exist anymore. She might not be certain if the real Azula is still around but she knows that the spirit is. And she knows that the spirit likes having her hair stroked and her cheek touched. She also likes it when Katara holds cool water against her forehead and belly. So Katara keeps her hand held to Azula’s cheek until she too falls asleep.

Chapter Text

Sometimes Azula makes it through, it is a fight every time but luckily the spirit has low resolve and a weak, easy to conquer mind. When she emerges, her first hour is wasted on trying to reacclimate to the world outside of that dark place, outside of that little corner of her own mind that she has been confined to. Reacclimate to the real world. 

Emerging from that dark place, the chaotic cacophony of sounds is harsh on her ears. She used to enjoy the rustle of leaves and the calling of birds, the buzzing of dragonfly wings and the chirp of crickets. And she thinks that she would still enjoy these sounds if she were to listen to them individually. All together and with the constant drone of cicadas, she finds herself terribly overwhelmed. Overwhelmed to the point of debilitating dizziness.

And that is just the sounds. She has four other senses that can be antagonized. Sight is the worst of them; colors are too vibrant and the sun is merciless in brutal radiance. There is movement all around her, the swish of grass and the swaying of branches, the rivers rush and the rolling of clouds, the flash of a jungle critter and the dance of a sneaky little spirit, Zuzu and the rest of them going about their days…

Touch is also unbearable. She finds herself terribly sensitive to how the fabric of her sleeping back feels against her skin. She can feel every rock, root, and bump beneath that sleeping back. The feeling of her hair against her cheeks, arms, and neck when the wind rustles it. The wind itself gusting upon her face is a displeasure. Dirt on her hands or between her toes is uncomfortable. Shoes feel miserable against her skin but wearing them is much more tolerable than feeling each individual blade of grass on her feet. 

She can’t stand the way that smells mix. Even the ones that used to pair well such as dew on grass or meat over a fire. And the jungle is just teeming with aromas, mostly floral and woodsy. She wishes, more than anything, that Sokka and Toph would bathe more regularly.

Taste is the most bearable. Mostly because there isn’t as much going on there. And she can more easily pick just one thing with one bland flavor to eat. 

Truly she hadn’t realized just how deprived that little dark space has left her. She is beginning to wonder if she is still human herself or if her time spent in that place truly has stolen something critical from her. The spirit seems to do perfectly well with all of the sensations around her. 

This, she thinks, will be her downfall. 

Her spirit counterpart has yet to figure out that Azula has a weak point. That it would be so easy to eliminate her sometime during the first hour after her re-emergence when she is debilitated by a horrid headache and a queasy stomach.

Katara comes to sit next to her and Azula’s already queasy stomach gives a lurch. They could also easily hurt her and if they knew that they were no longer talking to that delicate little spirit, they might just. All but Zuzu, who seems to resent the spirit more than he dislikes her.

“How are you feeling?” Katara asks.

“Not well.” Azula mumbles. 

Katara holds a had to her forehead. “You feel a little warm…even for a firebender.”

Azula nods. 

Katara feels around for her waterskin and Azula closes her eyes. Closing her eyes usually helps, she doesn’t see as much that way. But she can’t keep them closed forever, it would do her well to just endure the sensory overload until she becomes desensitized to it once more. But she never seems to have enough time to do so. Whatever force had driven into her own mind in the first place, does it still—calls her back and forces her into that dark place. And then, depending on how long it takes her to fight her way out once more, she has to start from scratch. 

She feels a thin and cool layer of water spread across her forehead. It is one of the few sensations that she derives pleasure from. She exhales through her nose and tries to relax.

“Katara?” She, in her own way, has trouble speaking just as the spirit does. It isn’t for a lack of vocabulary and muscle memory but because the vibrating of her vocal cords and throat as the words come out, irritates her.

“Yeah?”

“You said that we would be leaving the jungle soon?”

Katara nods. “Yes, we’ll be going back to the Fire Nation. Your home.”

Azula can’t imagine that the spirit will be pleased with this. But fair is fair; she has endured the jungle that the spirit loves so well. Now the spirit can endure the discomforts of being in a place that is unfamiliar to it. 

“Zuko thinks that bringing you there will help you remember who you are.”

But she already remembers. “I need to talk to the Avatar.”

“You can just call him Aang, you know?”

That sounds so informal…like they are friends. “I’d also like to talk to…” if she calls him her brother then they will know exactly who they are speaking to. If she calls him Zuzu, that can pass as the spirit not being able to form his whole name. To call him Zuko would be the most subtle. “I’d like to talk to my brother.” 

Katara tenses. “A–Azula?” 

She is already slipping away again. 

At least now they will know that she isn’t lost.

That they aren’t just talking to some strange, infantile mimicry of her.

This time when her eyes flutter closed, the darkness doesn’t leave upon opening them once more. Just like with the maze, she will probably have to start from the very beginning again. It might be harder now. Now that she has given them what they can perceive as a false sense of hope that the real her is still around. 

Sometimes she thinks the spirit is mocking her when it laughs. Mocking her for being so powerful in mind and memory but still too weak to reclaim the body that is hers. So intelligent but so helpless to figure out a way to blend the two of them. 

She know that the spirit isn’t laughing at her—it doesn’t even think of her when it laughs—but every time she smiles, Azula feels slighted. Those smiles are on her face. Those smiles belong to her, yet she reaps none of the joy. 

She begins to wonder if it would be worse to dwell in this lonely miserable place forever as a spectator to a life that could have been and should be hers or to let herself fade away, forever forgotten.

.oOo.

It is easier now that they are in the air. Easier and harder all at once. On one hand she has new sensations to get reacclimated to. On the other, there are less of them up here on the back of a bison. Even still she finds herself curled up, clutching her stomach, and waiting for the airsickness to pass. It shouldn’t bother her, it never had before. 

Katara rubs small circles on her back while Azula tries not to let the nausea show on her face. She winces despite her attempts.

“I guess that this is pretty stressful for you, isn’t it?” Katara says more to herself. “You’ve flown on Appa before, do you remember that at all?”

Azula supposes that this is as good an opportunity as any. She will just have to fight through the turning and lurching of her tummy. She does her best to sit herself upright, for her efforts she is awarded with a fuzz in her vision and a spinning of her head. One that almost sends her straight back down. She would have fallen if Katara hadn’t been there to lean against.

“Take it easy.” Aang casts a look over his shoulder. “Do you need me to tell Appa to slow down or fly lower?”

Azula shakes her head. At last she manages to mutter, “I remember flying.”

“That’s good.” Katara replies.

“I told you that this would work!” Zuko declares. “She’s already…”

“Don’t get your hopes up just yet.” Toph cautions. “You tend to get all of these expectations and then you get all fussy and cranky when they aren’t met fast enough or at all.”

Zuko folds his arms across his chest. “Yeah whatever.” 

“I remember more than flying, Zuzu.” 

He gives a visible jolt and stiffens. Something, maybe hope, flickers into his eyes. She supposes that he will be let down by the end of the conversation, just not in the way that he had imagined that he would be.

“What else do you remember?” Katara asks. 

Azula stares at her palms. “Everything, I think.” 

She catches a scrunching of Zuko’s brow. “Then why are you…? Why do you act so different most of the time? It’s like you’re here sometimes, rarely, and then you’re gone again.” 

“Yes, exactly.” Azula replies. “I’m not always here. I’m…” she furrows her own brows. “I’m trapped.”

“Trapped?” Sokka asks. 

Azula touches her head. “In my own mind. It…it feels like…” what does it feel like? “There are two of me. One that has my firebending and…” And what? Her dreams, she thinks. Her hopes and her ability to feel happiness. Her emotions, she realizes. Other than discomfort and a sensory overload Azula doesn’t feel anything anymore. Even the pain is starting to fade. Even the rage. But the resentment remains and a motivation to keep trying to claw herself free of that dark place and root herself here in the physical world once more. But she chalks that up more to instinct, a primal need to preserve her existence, than she does genuine determination and resilience.

In some ways she supposes that she is just as hollow as the spirit is. 

They are incomplete, broken things. 

“The spirit has a part of me and I want it back.” She finishes. But it isn’t exactly what she had been trying to say either. “It doesn’t feel like I’m one person anymore. It’s like having to souls sharing—rather, fighting for control of—one body. A body that isn’t big enough for both of us.” It is barely spacious enough to hold just her own singular mind.

“What do you mean, Azula?” Katara asks. She can sense the woman’s renewed sense of trepidation and so she slowly pulls herself out of her embrace. 

“We’re the same person. That spirit and I. We’re supposed to be anyway. But we’ve been severed. Separated.” She stares at her palms. “And we’ve been that way for so long. I have the memories, the vocabulary, the human habits. I think that the spirit has my firebending and my emotions. Or she can feel them more strongly that I do.” And she is picking up on speech and human behavior while Azula herself is losing emotions. And her memories might start to slip away too. “I don’t think that I was ever supposed to come out again. I was supposed to stay nice and tucked away in that dark place until I withered away.” Even now she withers. When she returns to the far recesses of her mind the hands she stares at are no longer soft, her cheeks are no longer round and full of color, her hair is brittle and breaking instead of healthy and voluminous. Her metaphysical form is deteriorating and when it finally crumbles her memories will scatter like ashes in a breeze and she will cease to be. This time with a finality. Of this she is certain. 

Of this, the spirit is blissfully unaware. 

Or maybe it has its darker side—maybe it knows that all it has to do is suppress her until she crumbles and then it can have their body all to itself. 

She realizes that she cannot hamper the spirit the way that it can get rid of her. It only has to wait. 

“Azula!” Sokka is snapping his fingers in front of her face. She is faintly aware that this should agitate her more than it does. She swears that, just a day or so ago, she had been able to feel things just as much as her spirit counterpart. Agni’s flames, she had just been arguing about feelings with the spirit. She rubs her hands over her face. 

“I think that we’re losing her again.” She can hear the dejection in Zuko’s voice. It gives her that little push that she needs. Ignites a small flame of real determination.

“I’m still here, Zuzu.” She replies. Probably not for much longer though. She is growing sleepy. And she can feel the spirit scratching. The tickle of her clawing her way back to the forefront. And so she will be bombarded with thoughts that aren’t truly her own, soon words will come out of her mouth that she didn’t want to speak. “She, the spirit, I mean, tries to keep me in the background.” She pauses. “I suppress her too. I could let her access my memories but I don’t. Sometimes, if I try hard enough, I can steal her speech. I can keep her from accessing all of the words that I know.”

“Why would you do that!?” Sokka shouts.

“Because, it keeps me from fading away and makes it harder for her to take over. And besides, they were my memories and speaking patterns first.” 

“How could you do that to her? Don’t you think that, that’s, I don’t know, horrible?”

“You think that I’m evil but I’m just trying to keep what is mine.” She gestures to herself. “This was mine first and it’s still mine. If anyone is cruel, it is that spirit. I was here first.”

“Yeah but…” 

“But what, Sokka?” Zuko scowls. “This is my real sister. The one that I came here to find. Don’t tell me that you aren’t at least a little disturbed.”

“Why would I be disturbed?”

“Because it’s…creepy. That spirit is creepy anyways. It’s like a child.” He pauses. “Or a parasite that acts like a child. You don’t find it uncanny to see Azula acting like a curious baby cat-deer. I’ll take conniving, cold Azula over that.”

“It doesn’t bother me.” Sokka shrugs. 

“And you guys call me an asshole!” Zuko throws his hands up. 

“You are.” Azula mutters. And she knows exactly what they would call her. “You all like her better than me but we’re the same entity. I think…” Uncertainty sounds so strange spoken on her tongue. She used to be so confident. So assured.

“You couldn’t be any more different from the spirit if you tried.” Sokka declares. 

“We’re two halves of a severed soul and we’ve been apart for so long that we now want different things, have different goals and opinions. I don’t even know if we are the same person anymore.” She turns her attention away from Sokka. “Is that possible, Avatar? To be away from your own soul for so long that it becomes its own being entirely?” 

Azula winces as the spirit coaxes a most dreadful migraine. She clutches her head 

“I–I guess. I don’t think that this has ever happened before.” He buries his face in his palms. “Raava, what did I do? I should have never used energybending. I made everything worse.”

“We’re like two different beings. But I still feel the things that she feels sometimes and she feels some of the things that I do. What does that make me…us?” 

And then she is gone. Forced back into her own mind.

The Avatar wouldn’t have had an answer for her anyhow.

Chapter Text

Observing the fire spirit is different now and different in the most terrible way. The things that Katara used to find endearing are unsettling. The way that the spirit tilts her head, that innocent look in her eyes when she is experiencing things that Azula has already experienced for the first time. 

And she has chosen a dreadful time to become unsettled by this. Everything in the little town of  Akaruihi is new to the spirit and she is both fascinated and frightened by all of it. It has a low population by comparison to almost every other Fire Nation village that Katara has visited but this is the most amount of people that the spirit has ever seen. 

She lingers behind Katara, trailing so closely that the two of them are practically one person. She is so small that, if Katara stands a certain way, she can’t be seen at all. And Katara guesses that that is exactly what the spirit wants. 

There is a lot of chatter and many stares to accompany the gossip.

It was short sighted of them to not consider that people would recognize their princess. And she has been gone for so very long.

“Okay, let's make this stop quick.” Zuko pesters. “I’ve already left Mai in charge for a lot longer than she expected.”

Azula peeks out from behind Katara and begins picking her way through a mound of fruits, holding each different one up and admiring it as though she has just found a precious gem. First a plum and then a cantaloupe. She finds an orange after that and finally a banana before the stall’s owner scolds her not to touch the fruits of she isn’t going to buy them. 

And she hisses at the woman, actually hisses. 

Katara’s face flushes on her behalf. “Azula…” she half-whispers. “You can’t do that. You’re not an animal…or a spirit anymore. You’re a human and you need to act like one.” Truly, she needs to act like a princess, dignified and put together. But that is asking way too much of the spirit so soon after removing her from the jungle. 

“Human.” Azula repeats the word. She is awfully chipper and excitable now that she has noticed the assortment of shops. “Human…” she says again. Her eyes light up when she spies the jewelry stall.

Katara takes her by the shoulder before she can begin a dash towards it. 

“Shiny.” She points. “Like my rock collection back at home.”

It takes a moment for Katara to realize that she is speaking of her old den back in the jungle. Her tummy tickles at the realization that they hadn’t even thought to ask her if she wanted to stop back at her den to pick up a few of her belongings. 

Katara sighs. “Alright, I’ll buy you some shiny things, but only because we forgot to let you fetch your old things.”

Azula nods. Her brows furrow. “My rocks and feathers…”

Katara cringes but Azula’s face lights up once more when she finds a polished spearhead. 

“I want this.”

“Alright, here.” She hands Azula a few coins. 

“Just hand them to the woman and say thank you.” She says softly so not to draw any unwanted questions. Questions like, ‘why are you teaching the princess to make a purchase?’ But the spirit does need to learn how to function as a human so they might as well start here in a smaller town where rumors spread slower and chances at embarrassment are lower.  

With an enthusiastic nod the spirit wanders up to the stall with coins in one hand and a spearhead and a handful of rocks and gems in the other.

.oOo.

Azula curls herself up. She doesn’t feel so well. Her face is too warm, there is a burning in her belly and in her throat. One that she hasn’t felt in quite some time. One that she hasn’t felt for long enough that she almost doesn’t recognize the sensation. 

But it can’t be. 

Her skin doesn’t burn anymore. 

Azula lifts her hands and peers at them just to make sure. 

She looks at them long and hard, narrows her eyes, furrows her brows.

But there is nothing, not even a plume of smoke to be seen.

“What are you doing?” Katara asks.

“Am I on fire?”

Katara shakes her head. Zuko does too. They are all shaking their heads.

“Then why do I feel like I’m burning?”

Katara grits her teeth and meets Zuko’s glance. Zuko who too wears a grimace of sorts. They both turn their heads and she follows their gaze. Follows it straight ahead to where, in the distance, a city skyline is growing closer. 

It is still just a thin, grey-black line on the horizon but she can see it well enough, the Fire Nation.

The place that they tell her is her home. 

A place with streets that she has walked many times but cannot recall ever having done so. 

“Home?” This word is nice on her tongue. Better than the word ‘burning’ which is so harsh and blunt.

“Home.” Zuko confirms. 

She winces and curls herself up at the very back of the saddle. She feels as though she has been laying directly beneath the blazing sun for hours although her skin isn’t even a shade pinker than usual. 

Katara holds a hand to her head. “You are very warm.”

“Us firebenders do tend to have really high body temperatures.” Zuko reminds the both of them.

“You feel her head then!”

Zuko lifts his hands. “No need to shout.”

“Sorry.” Katara mutters. “I think that I’m just cranky and ready to get a nice bath and some real food.”

“And stressed?” Toph puts in.

“Yeah, maybe that too.” She admits as Zuko crawls closer. And then the back of his hand is touching her forehead. He frowns.

“Is there something wrong with me?” Azula asks. 

“Aside from the stuff that you already know about?” Toph laughs. 

Azula tilts her head. “What stuff do I know about?”

Toph laughs harder. “Apparently nothing much.”

“That you are both a spirit and not a spirit and you’re fighting for dominance with the other half of your soul.” Sokka remarks. “That before you were a spirit you’d been missing for years doing who knows what.”

Azula swallows. 

“Don’t worry, Azula, we’ll help you figure this out.”

Perhaps they will, if she doesn’t burn from the inside out first. 

.oOo.

She will still feel the burning. Even if she retreats back to within. The fire does, afterall, come from the inside so it very well could be twice as intense in there as it is out here. Really there was no point in letting her assume control of the body again. And so Azula comes to conclude that her nonsensical, whimsical spirit counterpart has this nasty habit of slipping away into the relative safety of their shared mind when things get stressful.

Oh and things are terribly stressful right now. 

Azula isn’t one for crying and she very much refrains from screaming when she can.

But this? This warrants a good and loud one. 

The kind that tears from her throat before she can bother thinking of muffling it. 

Azula most enjoys speaking with a level and pleasant voice. But what she does today is scream and talk at the same time, “it hurts!” She clenches her teeth and squeezes her firsts, a few beads of sweat are forming at her hairline. “Zuzu, it hurts!” Burns is the better descriptor but right now it is hard to hear her thoughts. 

Hard to hear them over the agony and over the wailing and yowling of her spirit self. This time she doesn’t scold her to be quiet, this time she agrees that a degree of shrieking and whining is perfectly warranted.

Spirit Azula and Azula writhe in unison.

It is the most like each other that they have been since they’d split off. 

She almost can’t distinguish between the two of them.

They are both thoughtless and simple minded in the face of such intense pain.

It is like fireworks popping off in her belly. Exploding into searing bursts that painfully speckle her torso from within. And the closer they come to landing in Caldera City, the more rapidly they fire, the larger the bursts.

They explode in her head too. Worse than a migraine. Migraines throb and ache but they don’t feel like a bubbling crater of thermal water has opened up in her skull. She half expects flames to burst from her ears, to flare out of her nostrils, and erupt forward the next time she opens her mouth to cry out. 

Appa continues to descend and with him so to does her physical state…her meta-physical state? Agni, she can’t even tell which part of her is smoldering. Just that each and every inch of her, inside and out is scorching. She swears that a few more inches of descent will cause her to combust. 

So horrid is her pain that she no longer knows what to do with herself. She can move her arms to clutch her stomach but then her head will call her attention but before she can reach that a flare in her leg or her foot will urge her to clutch them instead. It hurts to move but she can’t sit still—rigidity ales her too—and so she twitches and flinches. Violently enough to startle the Avatar. 

And she knows that she can’t go home. 

The blaze might not show on her skin but she is still burning. 

“Aang! We need to turn back!”

“What!?”

Azula curls herself up and covers her ears. But their shouting isn’t the problem at all. 

“Firebending! It still hurts her. We have to get her away from here! We have to go back!”

And now Azula feels nauseous. Nausea that has little to do with the pain itself and everything to do with what it is taking from her. Again.

“I thought that we took care of this problem.”

“You helped get her human form back but she’s still spirit cursed.” Katara continues. “She still can’t firebend and she can’t be around firebending.”

She might throw up.

“Well where should we go? It’s a little hard to avoid firebending in the Fire Nation.” Zuko points out. “And we can’t just live in the jungle, we don’t have enough supplies. Building a shelter would take forever.”

“We can go to the Water Tribes.” Sokka suggests. It is, perhaps, one of the smartest things that he has said to her. Maybe the only smart thing. But it still causes her distress. 

“I don’t like the cold.” She whispers more to herself. But she can’t handle heat anymore either, apparently. She doesn’t mean to sob but she can’t quite keep herself from doing it, especially not with her spirit half coaxing her to do so. How can she call herself the crown princess of the Fire Nation if she can’t even bear to be in close proximity to it. 

She cries out this time for both the pain and the loss of the life she’d once known. 

She hasn’t lived that life in a very long time.

She hadn’t exactly imagined that she would ever go back to it. 

But the prospect had still been there. 

It had still been an option if she ever fancied going home and facing her past. And herself.

The choice is no longer hers and so, even as they begin to put distance between she and Caldera City, she weeps as violently as she would have if they had landed Appa right in the city’s heart. 

She feels a hand on her shuddering shoulder. “It’s alright, Azula. You’re going to be alright.” Under any other circumstance she would be a lot more cagey. Under this specific happenstance, she welcomes the waterbender’s hand rubbing her arm. 

It soothes the spirit too; with no memories to mourn, the stupid creature grows quieter with distance. 

Azula can’t bring herself to stop crying. Even as the worst of the burning subsides. She lets Katara lift her into her arms as she usually does for the spirit. Katara squeezes her tightly with one arm. Her free hand is pressed to Azula’s ear, holding her head firmly against her chest. And finally… finally her cries begin to taper off into hitched little breaths.

Chapter Text

Katara inhales sharply, her lungs are refreshed by cool, clean air. If she breathes deeply enough she will inhale little flakes of snow. And those flakes fall in abundance today. Wind comes in light, loving gusts that welcome her home. Her tummy flutters with the falling snow; she hadn’t realized just how much she had missed home and it’s blustery weather until she hears the shifting of the snow beneath her feet when climbs down from Appa’s saddle. 

Sokka follows her down and Aang follows after. Toph lands in the snow next to him and Zuko lingers with Azula. Azula who is peering over the saddle with an expression that is both curious and skeptical. 

“She’s never seen snow before.” Zuko remarks. 

“The spirit Azula or the human Azula?” Toph asks.

“Both of them.” Zuko replies. “I don’t think that human Azula wanted to see it, she never liked the cold. Not even the idea of it.” 

Spirit Azula is a different matter altogether. That look of trepidation fades and with remarkable enthusiasm she leaps right off of Appa. Her landing is nimble and agile, so graceful that Katara thinks that human Azula has decided to make another appearance. 

But the smile on her face is much too cheerful to not belong to the spirit. 

Any trace of her prior suffering seems to be long gone and if the long nights they had put in, in order to get here in a timely manner have left her tired and drained she certainly doesn’t show it.  

“Welcome to the Southern Water Tribe.” Sokka announces. 

“Maybe we should start our welcome with getting some proper winter clothing?” Zuko wraps his arms around himself. Between he, Azula, and Aang, Katara can’t tell who is shivering the most intensely. “After that, I have to write a letter to Mai, she’s probably tearing her hair out and contemplating a divorce.”

“Yeah.” Katara agrees. “We’ll stop by our home, greet Gran Gran, and then we can find some warmer clothes.”

“We can get a bite to eat too.” Sokka declares. 

“And you can get started on your letter.” 

.oOo.

“Stubborn one, that one is.” Gran Gran remarks of Azula. Katara  has spent the better part of the morning and continues to spend time trying to convince her grandmother that the princess is quite harmless at the moment. She can only imagine how the rest of the tribe is going to react when word spreads more fully.

“She’s just not used to having to wear so many layers.” Katara says. And from the disgruntled look on her face, the crease between her brows and that soft pout on her lips, the waterbender would wager that she finds the layers to be restrictive and uncomfortable.

Getting the Azula bundled up is probing to be quite a task. The spirit wants to throw herself face first into the snow, chase the penguins, watch the ice-fishermen load their supplies into their canoes, ride in a canoe for herself…anything but sit still and wait for Katara to finish buttoning her coat and tying her scarf.

“Don’t tell me that you aren’t getting cold.” Katara tries. “Doesn’t it hurt to not wear gloves?”

Azula shakes her head. “I’m used to it.”

“Used to it?”

“It feels sort of like the fire did but cold and less painful.” Azula replies. 

“You know that it isn’t a good thing when your hands and feet get so cold that they feel like they are burning. That means you’re going to get frostbite.” Katara cautions. 

“Frostbite?” 

Katara nods. “Your fingers will turn this black-blue color and then we’d have to amputate them to save the rest of your hand. It isn’t pleasant. Gran Gran can tell you!” The old woman gives a soft grunt. Katara frowns to herself. “And I saw it happen once when I was a little girl; these fishermen got lost in a blizzard. One of them had holes in his mittens…” she shudders. “I don’t want that to happen to you, you’ve already been through a lot, okay.”

“Okay.” 

“So let me finish helping you put your coat on and be careful.”

“Okay, Katara.” She smiles. “You’ll take me to see the penguins and the boats after this, yes?”

Katara returns that smile in spite of the unease creeping back in. Azula’s voice is pleasant, it always had a soothing lilt to it a softness. But hearing her speak so sweetly, so innocently chills her more deeply than the most desolate parts of the tundra could. And that she is so unsettled by Azula speaking kindly brings about a greater sense of unrest; to know that Azula hadn’t known warmth or kindness until after she had disappeared. 

Katara pats her shoulders. “You’re good to go.”

Azula takes her hand and gives her arm a good tug. “Well let’s go then, before the penguins fly away!” 

“Penguins are flightless.” 

This stops Azula in her tracks. “But they are birds? Correct?”

“They are, yes.” Katara nods. “Flightless birds.”

“Flightless birds…” Azula repeats. “Well what is the point of being a bird if you cannot fly?” She pauses. “I’m like a penguin.” She concludes after an extended period of thinking. 

“How do you figure that?” Katara inquires as they approach the waddle of penguins.

“Penguins are birds that can’t fly. I am a firebender who can’t bend fire. I am a penguin.” 

“You’re like a penguin.” Katara corrects.

“Mmm hmm, yes, I just said that.” Azula nods. She gives Katara’s arm another pull.

“We have to approach them slowly if you don’t want them to waddle away from us.” She mentions. But Azula has already dropped her arm and is rapidly but quietly approaching one of several penguins. Once again, Katara’s tummy flutters. It reminds her of Aang, when they still had some room to be goofy kids. When his eyes were still full of unabashed optimism and untainted by the grimness of a war that had stolen all of their childhoods. Before they had fallen in love and then out of it. 

Sometimes she misses being the Avatar’s lover, his playful spirit and the late nights that she spent cuddled in his arms. She misses the way that he could always get her to try something new, experience something delightful for the first time. The way that he used to beam at her and how his eyes always closed when he grinned wide enough. 

The way that Azula looks at her now. “I caught one, Katara!” 

She shouldn’t be surprised, Azula has always been swift and efficient. The penguin that she holds up is a small one. Just a baby. 

“I think that that one is too small for penguin sledding.”

“Penguin…sledding?”

Katara’s stomach drops and her cheeks flush. “It’s…it’s just something that Aang and I used to do. Nevermind.”

“I would like to know what that is.” Azula requests, a hint of authority slipping into her voice. Katara shudders. But Azula hugs the penguin to her chest and coos at it and Katara’s dread dissipates. She thinks that spirit Azula doesn’t even know how intimidating she can be when she uses Azula’s voice the wrong way.

“It’s like regular sledding but you do it with a penguin.”

“What is a sledding?”

“Sledding is…well you find a small hill or slope and then you slide down it on a sled. Sokka and I always made ours out of wood, but you can make one with other materials. 

Azula’s eyes absolutely twinkle at this prospect. “Can we go regular sledding?”

“I thought that you wanted to pet the penguins.” 

“They have been pat.” Azula declares. “This one has anyways. Now I would like to sled. Without the use of penguins.”

“Oh alright.” Katara sighs. But only because she knows that soon they are going to have to have a few more serious talks. She might as well let Azula enjoy her time here before they delve back into what to do about her predicament. The one that she seems content to ignore now that it is not causing her physical distress.

.oOo.

It had been quite daunting at first; everything is so open and vast. It is still at least a touch disquieting in its endless spaciousness. She has no trees to hide behind should she finds herself afraid, no roots to nestle in nor mosses and moist dirt to inhale the scent of when she could use some comfort. 

Azula finds that Katara is right, the cold does start to hurt after a while. It is getting nippy with her cheeks. Cheeks that are now a vivid red. Her nose is growing sniffly too. And there is a tingly throbbing in both her nose and cheeks that is different from any other sensation that she has felt thus far. 

Tapping into her counterpart’s memories does not serve her well this time. And conversing with her, unhelpful at the best of times, is entirely useless. She only offers a half-hearted shrug and a, “better you than me.” 

“You’re getting cold, aren’t you?” Katara asks.

Azula nods. 

“We’ve been out here for hours, I’m surprised that you didn’t ask to go inside sooner.” 

“I didn’t ask to go inside.” Azula laughs. “I want to go down the hill again!” She finds that she quite likes that little flop that her stomach does when the sled reaches its fastest speed. That little spike of adrenaline that comes with thinking that she is going to fall and the larger rush of it that takes over when she does get thrown from the sled. She has fallen four times now and each time she forgets, for a fragment, that the landing doesn’t hurt. Snow, she finds, is quite fluffy and inviting until it finds its way into her shirt and pants. Then it make her jittery until it melts and the cold subsides some. 

“You’re red as a Fire Nation flag, Azula!” Katara tells her. “I think that it’s time to get you inside. You’re not accustomed to this weather.”

“I like the snow.”  Azula informs Katara. She also rather likes spending time with the waterbender without all of her friends around. Mostly she is glad to be away from Sokka and his disapproving stares. “Will you go on the sled with me?” She asks. “And then we can go inside?”

“Do you want to be in front?” 

“That depends, do you want to fall?”

“Alright, I’ll go in front.” Katara takes her seat. Azula wraps her arms around her and rests her head on her shoulder. “You ready?”

Azula squeezes a little tighter. “Yes.” Katara leans forward and the sled begins its gliding descent. Azula gives a little yelp of surprise as they pick up speed. Now and then a rock or a raised patch of snow gives them a little jostle and her chin lightly knocks against Katara’s shoulder. A particularly large bump has the sled hovering above the ground that comes with that tickle in her belly. That flopping sensation that only settles when the sled comes to a stop. 

The both of them stumble off of the sled laughing. Azula flops backwards onto the show.

“How was that?” Katara asks.

Azula flashes her a grin, “it was perfect.”

Chapter Text

She wishes that it didn’t hurt so much that the spirit always seems to be around for the joyful moments while she comes to the surface when things are too stressful for her spirit self to handle. 

“We have to figure out some way to get rid of this spirit curse.” Zuko declares. Azula supposes that his inclination to state the obvious is a decent enough opener. Lackluster and dull but it does the job. “We need to get you back to the Fire Nation.” And she certainly can’t disagree with it. “Any ideas?” He finishes.

And they are all looking at her. She supposes that she could play clueless, as though it is the spirit here and not she. But she would like to bask in her limited time at the forefront. “I deal in battle tactics and political strategy. Spiritual matters never really piqued my interest.” 

“Well have you tried to merge with your other half?” Aang asks.

Truth be told she is afraid to try. 

Afraid of what she might become if she does. She is so divorced from her spirit self, their personalities have grown so different. To blend them together now…? Somehow she feels as though her domineering personality still wouldn’t be enough to snuff out the parts of her that the spirit curse has created. 

“I have, yes.” She lies. “We’re not exactly compatible.”

“Not compatible?” Aang frowns. “You are two halves of the same whole, you’re meant to fit together.”

“Even if they do manage to merge, that still won’t solve the problem of firebending hurts her.” Sokka points out.

Katara clears her throat.  “Actually, I had an idea about that.” 

“Let’s hear it.” Zuko says.

“The Spirit Oasis. If that water can bring Aang back to life, then it should be able to help with this. We can go back to the north and see if Chief Arnook will  let us take her there.” 

“Oh I’m sure that they will be just delighted to have me.” Azula tugs at her coat and folds her arms across her chest.

“I feel like they’ll be more unhappy to see Zuko than you.” Katara replies. “They have history with him and they’re still sore about it.” She pauses to bite her lower lip. “Which is why I think that we should drop him off at home along the way.” 

“Yes.” Azula agrees.“That way he can relieve Mai of the throne and I won’t have to deal with his chatter.” Rather she won’t have to fret over him witnessing the humiliating and awkward task of her trying to navigate who she will become. 

“Deal with my chatter? I’ve been nice to you!?”

Azula shrugs. “Nice people can be annoying.” She pauses. “Usually they are the most annoying people. But I suppose that I will…” miss having him around? No, he doesn’t need to know that. “We will have plenty of time to catch up when I get back, Zuzu. And it won’t be interrupted by a spirit.” The spirit that is growing antsy. Itching for her turn on the surface. 

“Okay but what about the whole tortured screaming whenever Azula gets close to Firebending ordeal?” Toph asks. “We couldn’t even land the first time around and you guys want to fly into the heart of Caldera City to drop Zuko off?”

“It’s the most efficient way to go.” Azula admits. “I will just have to bear it for a few minutes.” A few lengthy agonizing minutes at that. But she won’t let herself become a burden. She’d rather weather the violent burning sensation. At least that will fade; humiliations and disappointments linger longer. 

“I don’t want to have to do that to you, Azula. It was…it was really hard to watch.”

“Then look away?” Azula suggests. 

“It was hard to listen to too.” Toph says.

Azula sighs, partially resigning herself to becoming something of an inconvenience. “We can drop Zuko off at the Royal Plaza. It is close to the capital but will require some travel. Unless things have changed since I’ve been gone, he should have plenty of Imperial Guards to accompany him the rest of the way.”

“Alright, we’ll give that a try.” Katara replies. “But I still don’t like it.” 

Azula supposes that she can take solace in that they don’t enjoy watching her suffer. She, however, isn’t particularly fond of having Zuzu leave her alone with his friends. As much as she hates to admit it, Sokka worries her. He resents that she is here. Really all he would have to do to change that is wait until the spirit comes back and…

Azula cuts herself short. It doesn’t pay to dwell on that which might not even happen, she had learned that much on the day of Sozin’s Comet. 

“Well then. We have a plan now and we won’t just be wasting time here.” Azula concludes. “We’ll leave tomorrow.” Although there is a part of Azula that wishes that she could have been the one to go sledding and chase penguins. It is a small and foolish part of her. A childish part of her that she is curiously certain doesn’t come from the spirit.

“I was hoping to spend at least one more day here.” Katara admits. “I’ve missed Gran-Gran and our dad was going to take Sokka and I on a fishing trip with him.” She pauses. “You can come along if you’d like.”

Azula swallows. “It might not be me who shows up.” The notion puts a sorrowful tickle in her tummy. 

“We’d be happy to have either one of you. Right, Sokka?” 

“Yeah.” He grumbles. “Sure.” 

He could have fooled her.

.oOo.

It is growing harder to tell who she is speaking with, if Katara didn’t know any better, she would say that it was spirit Azula. But her enthusiasm, though unmistakably present, is stifled and somewhat repressed. A composed, poised sort of curiosity and joy that only the Azula that they have always known could convey. 

Perhaps it is a good thing that it is growing harder to tell them apart. They may well be merging with one another on their own accord. Maybe all that they needed was time. Time and no interference.

“Watch your step, princess.” Hakoda says as Azula steps up to the canoe. He extends a hand.

“I know how boats work.” She replies bluntly and Katara knows for certain that it is Azula here this time.

Hakoda, good natured as always, chuckles. Azula does take his hand. “Katara never wanted me to help her either, she was always a big girl…”

“Dad!” 

“And she always fell right into the water.” He pauses. “She did that the last time she and Sokka came for a visit.” 

“Dad!” She exclaims louder. 

“And Sokka tends to topple the boat. So be prepared for that.” 

Sokka takes his turn shouting, “dad!”

“Well I can’t wait for that.” Azula grumbles. She gracefully steps onto the boat, applying her weight in just the right places. Begrudgingly Katara admits to herself that she needs to work on her boat boarding skills. 

Hakoda hands her a paddle. 

She stares at it, “what’s this.” 

“It’s called a paddle.” Sokka props his arms up on the canoe’s wall.

Azula rolls her eyes. “I know what it is. I just hope that you all aren’t expecting me to use it.”

“There are four of us.” Hakoda says. “An even amount of paddlers is always better, makes things easier.” Reluctantly Azula dips her paddle into the water only for Hakoda to say, “not yet, I’ve got to push the canoe further away from the shoreline first.”

Azula’s face flushes slightly as she pulls the paddle back out of the water. Katara stifles a laugh that she knows the princess would take offense to. The spirit would have laughed along with her. Maybe one day Azula will too. She thinks that it would to Azula well to lighten up a little. And it would do the spirit well to be more serious about things from time to time. 

“Alright, you can start paddling now!” Hakoda calls as he climbs back into the boat.

“I bet I can catch more fish than you, dad!” Sokka declares. 

“Now that just isn’t true.” Hakoda argues. “You haven’t caught more fish than me since we started taking fishing trips.” 

“Well I’ll get the biggest one.” Sokka returns. 

“You haven’t managed that yet either.” Hakoda replies smugly.

By the end of it, the both of them are disappointed to find that Azula—spirit Azula, no less—has caught a bigger fish than the both of them. She had only given all three of them heart attacks when she’d shouted, “oh look, there’s one!”, and lept right into the water.

Katara can’t pinpoint exactly when spirit Azula had taken over. Just that she is looking at all of them with sad, pitiful golden eyes as though they are to blame for her being a soaking, shivering mess.

A soaking shivering mess that is, apparently, too stubborn to just let her waterbend her dry. But not stubborn enough to accept a coat. Or maybe she just wants them to feel bad for her, just as she had when she had been wandering around their camp, cradling her arm, and yowling. And just like last time Katara falls for it. With a sigh she wraps her own coat around Azula. She has a better tolerance for the cold anyways. Azula snuggles into the coat and clings onto her fish; she won’t let them pry it away from her. If Katara had to guess, she would say that spirit Azula had taken over at the precise moment that Azula had spotted the fish. Taken by a primal urge to hunt and gather, she’d thrown herself to the front of Azula’s mind and reawakened with a startling suddenness. 

“At least I wasn’t the one to topple the canoe this time.” Sokka says for himself. 

All four of them have a hearty laugh. 

Katara likes to think that somewhere in there, in the privacy of her own mind where they can’t see her, Azula is laughing too.

Chapter Text

Azula finds herself a spot on Appa’s saddle. Frankly she wants to sit where the Avatar sits, right upon the bison’s fluffy head. But the Avatar is worried that she will fall. He says that he would trust the other Azula more because she isn’t as fidgety.

You lack common sense and you act like a child, says her human counterpart, of course he doesn't  want you sitting next to him. You’ll jump off of the bison and get us both killed. She concludes. Unfairly, the spirit thinks.

Azula is particularly cranky today and the spirit is certain that it is because she is terrified. Azula gets moody when she becomes afraid. And so the spirit decides not to take her commentary too personally even though it is quite personal. 

“All set, Azula?” Katara asks. 

Azula’s heart gives a little leap. It usually does when the waterbender talks to her. She can’t explain it but she feels lighter, more fluttery when she talks to Katara than when she talks to anyone else. She thinks that it might be because Katara has done so many nice things for her. And her smile is warmer and more cheerful—prettier too—than everyone else’s. 

She has tried to ask human Azula what that means but human Azula only tells her that she is being ridiculous and should stop reading so much into things.

“Azula?”

Azula jumps. 

“Are you ready to take off? We’ve got a few more hours to fly.”

Azula nods. “I’m ready.” 

“Great!” There’s that smile. The one that makes Azula’s cheeks all warm. Azula returns that smile with one of her own. She hopes that her smile makes Katara feel fluttery and joyful. 

.oOo.

She knows that they are getting close when the spirit retreats into the dark place and she comes to the physical world. She is terribly tired of weathering all of the pain and discomforts on its behalf—not that it won’t feel the things that she does. Making this retreat has all the efficacy of hiding from the monsters under a blanket. Stupid creature that spirit is.

Today the spirit has left her in a more comfortable positon, unlike two days ago when she had re-emerged to dripping hair and soaked undergarments. Today she is propped up against Katara’s shoulder and looking up at the clouds. She sighs, she may as well enjoy the leisurely time while she has it.

“Are you doing okay?” Katara asks. 

“Well enough, I suppose.” Azula replies. This time even she can’t tell if she is being truthful or not. She has certainly seen worse days but her predicament still stands and it is constantly nagging at her even in moments of very relative comfort. She would, for once, just like to be truly content in life again…or possibly for the very first time. 

“Which Azula are you right now?” 

“The real one.” 

“Good!” Exclaims from his own little corner. “I was hoping to talk to you before we reach the Fire Nation.”

“What do you want to talk about, Zuzu?”

“What things are going to look like when you get home.”

“If I get home.” Azula mumbles. “It is perfectly possible that I will have to live out the rest of my days in the Earth Kingdom or one of the Water Tribes.” Without her firebending…

Her stomach sinks. She misses it terribly, misses how powerful it makes her feel. Misses how much stress it relieves to run through familiar routines. But she is so out of practice now. So much so that it might even be embarrassing to try to get back to it.

Now she is getting ahead of herself.

“Well if you get home there are going to be some changes…”

“There have already been plenty of those, Zuko.”

“You aren’t going to treat me like I’m beneath you. And you…”

“Have I been doing that recently?” She replies. 

“I…” He furrows his brows. “No. But…”

“Yes?” She quirks a brow. 

“Are you only treating me better because you’re in a pretty vulnerable position right now?”

A jolt of anxiety slices through her, leaving a fluttering sensation in her belly in its passing. She takes herself a subtle but drawn inhale. With her exhale some of the tickles subside. She hums, “possibly.” She hadn’t really put much thought into why she behaves the way that she does. Why she feels what she feels. Just that she has her behaviors and feelings and that there are some patterns to them. Patterns that have been disrupted by the spirit enough for them to become muddled. “I suppose that, that could be a part of it, yes.” She can’t place fondness for Zuko on the spirit’s emotions because the spirit seems to have a bigger distaste and mistrust for him than Azula herself. “Or maybe it’s because you’re the only one who seems to prefer the real me.” She looks from one face to the next. Sokka is rather shameless and open in that he knows that what she said is true, she supposes that she can respect him for his honesty. Toph, Katara, and, especially, Aang wear grimaces of varying intensities. Aang’s expression conveys the most guilt.

Azula shrugs. “It’s fine, I don’t really care.” 

But you do. The spirit informs her. It hurts a lot. I can feel it. You know it. I know it.

It both scares and comforts her that the spirit sometimes talks like her. 

“Do you want us to like you?” Toph asks. 

Azula furrows her brows and considers. “I haven’t decided yet.” She wants to be angry at them, but for what? With the exception of Sokka, none of them had particularly done her any wrong. They’d faced her in combat but she can’t say that any of it was truly personal. They had been on opposing sides and they’d done what they needed to do the same as she. 

And they have taken care of her. 

Taken care of her and treated her rather well, all things considered. 

“You don’t want to be alone anymore.” Katara says softly.

“I’m not alone. I have a highly agitating spirit to keep me company at all times.” But of course that isn’t the same as having several highly agitating friends to keep her company. She finds herself absently brushing her thumb over the polished spearhead in her pocket. “But I suppose that it would be nice to speak to someone who isn’t me now and then.” She has been alone for so, so long.

Zuko nods. “Yeah, it’s hard being alone.”

“You’ve always had uncle.” 

“Except for that one time that I made him really mad…and that other time when I outright pissed him off. He won’t admit that he was pissed but I could tell.” 

“When you took my side in the Crystal Catacombs?” She guesses. 

He nods. “I was alone then.”

“You had Mai. TyLee too.” And her. He had her. But she holds her tongue on that one, she doubts that he remembers. If he does remember, she doubts that he views her company and kinder words as genuine. “You were never alone, alone Zuzu. You would be worse off if you had been.” He would be like her. 

Her stomach is full of fluttermoths again, this time birthed by a sense of loss, loss over what she could have had. How things could have been.

“Yeah.” He agrees. “I guess so.”

And the conversation is through.

Through and ended with a lack of closure that she cannot quite place.

You thought that he was going to tell you that you wouldn’t be alone anymore. The spirit helpfully informs her. 

She unhelpfully tells it to keep itself quiet unless it wants  to come back to the forefront.

.oOo.

Azula begins complaining about an ache some fifteen minutes before the skyline comes into view. She says that it usually starts in her head or her stomach, precisely where she used to feel the energy from her fire chakra. Katara supposes that it only makes sense that her fire chakra flare.

And for it, Azula has taken to laying on her side, bunched in on herself, and tightly clutching her middle. Her grip only grows tighter as the skyline comes closer into view. And by the time that they can make it out clearly there are tears in her eyes and an occasional tremor throughout her body. Katara can’t decipher if the shudders are the product of pain or anticipation of pain to come. 

And the look on her face…Katara cringes. She has grown to hate that look. The torment that shows so unveiled upon her face in the crease of her brow and the gritting of her teeth. In the way that her fists clench ironclad and with the whites of her knuckles showing. 

“Can I…do you mind if I hold you?” Katara offers. The spirit loves her cuddles. She hadn’t been so sure about Azula until the woman dragged herself right into her lap. With the princess so close comes a new sense of knowing; a better ability to gauge her level of distress.

Proximity grants her the feeling of Azula’s trembles, the less violent shakes. It grants her the ability to hear Azula’s softer, shakier breaths. 

She wonders how the spirit is faring, tucked away into Azula’s mind. If Azula is scared then the poor thing is probably terrified. 

Azula gives a shaky hum of unrest and Katara holds her hand out. She almost regrets offering the princess her hand; that ironclad grip of hers threatens to shatter bone.

At least she isn’t screaming yet. 

Her screams are always so bone chilling.

“How are you holding up?” Zuko asks. 

Azula only shakes her head. 

That in itself is answer enough. 

She is doing just dreadful and growing worse with every inch of travel. 

And then they make it past the point that they’d turned back the last time.

“Please no.” Katara gets the sense that those whispered words were meant for Azula’s own ears rather than hers. “Please no.” She repeats. It becomes a steady mantra until finally the princess cries out. 

The first one is always the worst; it is startling and usually the loudest. 

Katara squeezes her closer. 

They push onwards. 

And Azula writhes in her arms. 

Her fingers clench and unclench. One hand squeezes Katara’s, the other grips at the loose fabric of Katara’s shirt. Her face is hot and red with strain and tension. Her cheek is pressed very firmly against Katara’s chest. 

Katara’s own heart hammers hard. 

She wishes that the princess would just pass out and spare herself the suffering. Katara thinks that she would have done so several minutes ago if it had been her. But Azula has a remarkable pain tolerance threshold, that or she is willfully stubborn like nobody else.

“We’re almost there.” Katara says.

“I can tell.” Azula forces. Katara has never heard such strain in her voice. 

“We don’t have to do this.” Zuko mentions.

Azula lifts a rather limp hand and waves the comment off. “We’re already so close.” She pauses for a muffled whimper. “I haven’t gone through this for nothing.”

That she can still think coherently, let alone speak is an impressive feat in itself. 

“I can try some waterbending.” Katara suggests. “But I don’t know how much it will help. Your injury isn’t physical. It isn’t even particularly mental. It comes from a plain of existence that waterbending can’t touch. It doesn’t stop Katara from trying when Azula grants her permission. 

.oOo,

She derives no sense of soothing from Katara’s waterbending. It can’t even take the edge off. It is cool on her forehead but she swears that instead of granting some of that coolness to her forehead, her forehead brings the water to a boil. 

And so she returns to gripping at her erupting head and the roaring bemoaning the furnace in her belly.

If she didn’t know any better, she’d say that the skin of her arms and legs is peeling away. 

Maybe there is some merit to that because Katara does move the water to stretch over her right forearm.

Agni, it hurts! It is killing her! 

Maybe she will die. 

Can this kill her?

She looks below, they are close enough now to the Royal Plaza that she can clearly make out the people below. 

They are having their mid-afternood firebending practice.

She cackles to herself.

The looks on Katara and Zuko’s faces are almost comical. Comical and depressing.

She knows for certain that the pain is driving her half mad when she glances over at Zuko and mumbles, “well it was nice flying with you, Zuzu, enjoy your walk home and good luck with Mai.” 

She sees his lips moving but they don’t make a sound. She wants to assume that he is saying goodbye and wishing her luck with her endeavors. He has a fuzzy little halo of darkness around his head and it is closing in quickly until it consumes him entirely. 

And then she is back in the dark place, laying across from the spirit who is sitting cross-legged and staring at her with a tilted head. “We’re together.” She comments, somehow it sounds more like a question, as though the creature is too dumb to see what is in front of it. 

“Yeah…we’re together.” Azula grumbles. 

She supposes that she would rather be alone with this chipper, off-kilter version of herself than out there with searing sensation. 

“We’re together.” Her spirit self remarks again.

She holds out her hand.

Azula is too exhausted to take it.

Maybe she’s the clueless one.

Chapter Text

Her first few nights in the north are spent recovering. 

She has been asleep for the better part of the day, according to Katara. And, according to Katara, she is lucky for that. One look at her arms and legs and she can see why. From her wrist to her shoulder her arm is wrapped with a band of burns. Her leg isn’t faring much better, a similar spiral wraps it from the knee up and snakes a bit onto her hip. 

The pain has subsided but Katara tells her that she has been crying in her sleep. She wishes that she could stop doing that. 

“Can I see your arm?” Katara asks. Really she thinks that there is no point in asking, Katara has been healing her this whole time, why ask for permission now? 

Respect probably and she supposes that, that is nice. To have someone who respects her wishes and her privacy. 

Azula holds out her arm and Katara wraps it in water, an aquatic coil to match the burn marks. 

“I don’t think that I am going to be able to get rid of the scars.” She confesses.

Azula shrugs. “I don’t mind them.” She never really had been one to dwell upon scars Lately her appearance overall hasn’t been much of a concern, she has other things to prioritize. She can make herself all nice and pretty again when she has her firebending and her mind is hers and hers alone once more.

Katara’s hand on hers is a gentle thing and the water, whether it is doing anything or not, is quite calming. Azula watches the water pulsate and flow as it cools her skin and soothes her burns. She draws the water back and wraps it around Azula’s leg. 

It worries her that she is so fond of Katara brushing her hand.

That she is so fond of Katara sitting at the foot of the bed, with her forehead crinkled in concentration.

That the sound of her voice has become such a sizable source of comfort.

“You can lay back.” Katara says.

Azula is already halfway there. Her eyes are already drooping. Agni, it has been such a long, long few months. Agni, she needs some rest. It is a whole lot easier to get it when has a bed to lay in and less chatter in her mind. Not that the spirit isn’t still lurking, waiting for her chance to come out. 

Katara lays a hand on Azula’s shoulder and her stomach flutters. “Alright, I’ll let you get some rest. When you wake up I’ll have you some sea prune stew.” 

Azula nods. A warm meal does sound nice right about now. It gives her something to look forward to upon waking.

.oOo.

Every time Azula wakes up, she is in a new place. One that is entirely different from the place that they had been when she’d retreated back into the safety of the dark place. This new place however, has its similarities to the Southern Water Tribe. But it is larger, much larger and the buildings are towering. There are more people here too. 

Azula thinks that she likes the Southern Water Tribe better. The people there leave her be, they are much quieter and tend to keep to their own business. Their stares never made her feel as though she was being observed and scrutinized. Like they are waiting for her to say or do something that displeases them. 

“They just aren’t used to seeing Firebenders around here.” Katara promises. 

“Why not?” 

“The war, Azula.” She replies. “You do have those memories, right?”

Azula nods. She has them, a collection of images brimming with emotion. Strong emotions, the kind that tend to overwhelm her; there is an unfathomable amount of distress. Anger and fear, hatred and sorrow. Sometimes the memories are distant,images that she has seen from afar—glimpsed from an air balloon or speeding armored tank. Sometimes they are personal. 

But she doesn’t understand what she sees; doesn’t understand what the point of all of it was. Why the elements had been so divided. Divided when they were meant and built to be unified. 

Her human counterpart is thoroughly disgusted that she can’t comprehend politics or the intricacies of war. 

Azula is not stupid but the other Azula insists that she is. 

She understands affection. She comprehends the emotional aspects of this war that are completely lost on the other Azula. And she doesn’t call her stupid. She doesn’t call her anything at all. Nothing that isn’t true anyhow; she does inform the other Azula that she is scared and closed off. That she is sad and she is lonely, even when she is the one who is out and about and talking to Katara and her friends. 

But she doesn’t call her stupid or inept. 

She tells her, instead, that she is going to do something helpful. She is going to help Azula get more comfortable with compassion and affection and more open displays of both. And so the answer is plenty apparent when Katara offers, “you’ve been bed bound for a while, how would you like to go for a walk, I can show you around.”

Azula swings her legs over the side of the bed. “I would like that.” She gently kicks her legs at the air before ultimately sliding off of the bed. Her feet touch the floor and she curls her toes around the fuzz of the rug. Her legs had been getting tired and her arms could use a good stretch. 

“While you were asleep,” Katara begins, “I spoke with Chief Arnook.”

Azula tilts her head.

“He says that he is going to meet with his council and they will decide whether or not we’ll be allowed to enter the Spirit Oasis.” 

“Okay, Katara.” Azula replies as she pulls her hood over her head. 

“Until then, we have some free time.” She says. “Two days of it. I was thinking of showing you the glaciers. They’re a lot bigger than the ones in the south.” 

“I like glaciers. I think.” She pauses for a moment to flip through a few memories. “Yes, I like them. They are beautiful.” 

“You can see them as soon as you step outside. The entire city has been carved from a glacier. The glacier makes up both the city itself and the wall that protects it from invaders.”

“Can I touch the wall?” 

Katara chuckles, “sure, Azula, if that’s what you want to do.”

“Where’s the Avatar? And Toph?”

“Aang will be advocating for you at the meeting, he’s preparing for that. They’ll probably want to speak with you and I too. Toph has been driving Paku nuts. And Sokka…”

“I don’t care about him as long as he leaves me alone.” She gives a cheerful smile that Katara does not return. 

Instead she sighs. “I hope that the two of you can start getting along. I had a talk with him. He said that he would try to give you—both versions of you—a chance, like he did for Zuko.” 

“Is he going to apologize?” Azula asks as they approach the bridge. As far as bridges go, this one looks pretty sturdy. But ice is rather fragile so Azula tests it anyhow before stepping onto it.

“He said that he wouldn’t do that unless he got an apology from the other you first. For taking Suki as a prisoner and being ‘maliciously’ intelligent’ or something.” She pauses. “One of you is going to have to apologize first.”

“Or we could do that thing where neither of us apologizes and we just forget about it because apologies are weird and uncomfortable.” Sokka comments as he steps onto the bridge from the other side.

Azula nods. “He is correct about things sometimes.”

“Really?” Katara quirks a brow. “I know that your human half doesn’t like apologizing but, you?” 

“No one likes apologizing, Katara.” Sokka declares. “Spirit or human, apologies are the worst.”

Katara rolls her eyes. “You guys are ridiculous.”

“So what are the two of you up to?” Sokka asks. 

“Azula wanted to go touch the glacier, I going to take her to the city wall so she could do that before the snow comes tomorrow.”

“I heard that there was supposed to be a lot of it.” Sokka mentions. “Well I’ll leave you to that, I have to go resume my rivalry with Hahn.”

“It isn’t wise to fight on two fronts.” At least that is what the other Azula whispers to her. She decides to say this one out loud. For once her other half seems pleased with her. 

“Well then it’s a good thing that we’ve decided to call a truce. Have fun with the glacier.” 

Human Azula mutters that she has made no such truce. Spirit Azula keeps this to themselves. She is perfectly content not having to fight with Katara’s brother. She doesn’t want to bother Katara with that. 

She follows Katara up a few flights of stairs and over a few more bridges. “Watch your step.” She cautions as they come to one more bridge. “This bridge is a little more uneven than the last few.”

Azula puts one foot on the bridge, the glacier is just on the other side of it. It looms over her, larger than she had anticipated it would. It casts a frigid shadow upon them. From this distance it looks craggy and rough. A large crack slices through the right corner, creating a zigzag of deeper blue. 

Azula takes Katara’s hand and Katara holds her steady. Her unpracticed feet, slip and slide on the slicker ice but Katara keeps her from falling. “Hold onto the railings if you have to.” She suggests but Azula likes holding Katara’s hand better. Finally she makes it over the bridge and finds herself standing directly before the glacier’s inner wall. 

Up close it is more like a mirror, a smooth deep blue glass with a dusty current of black sand. And when she studies it close enough… “look, Katara, bubbles!” They are suspended in time, frozen in the most literal sense, exactly how they had been perhaps centuries ago. It is quiet easy to envision a rush of glowing spirit stingray flapping along that black sand current, leaving radiant blue light trails in their wake. Within her mind Azula imagines fish. The fish of many millennia ago, drifting and swimming through the layers of ice. There are jellyfish too, spirit and earthly. Together they create a frigid celestial world. One that never quite existed and one that had a very long time ago. 

She holds her hand against the surface of the glacier, its chill penetrates her mitten. She follows a vein of black until it takes her into a crouch. And it plunges lower still, probably all the way down to the base of the glacier. With her eyes, she follows it up to the very top. 

And suddenly the platform that they stand upon seems so very small. 

Suddenly the two of them seem so very small. 

What she is looking at is raw nature, nature at its most awesome and impressive. What she is looking at is a wonder of the water element and of the cold. It feels ancient and it probably is. This glacier was probably here from the world’s very beginning. And her hand rests where the hands of people long deceased have rested them.

It is not unlike her spirit curse; primordial and incomprehensible. Something greater. Something beautiful. Imposing, but remarkable.

Azula takes Katara’s hand a second time. 

“What are you…?”

She takes both of her hands. Truth be told, she doesn’t know. Other then that it just feels right. Maybe she means it as a thank you for showing her this, for helping her experience something so extraordinary. Maybe she just wants to feel someone’s hand in hers while she experiences the wonders. 

Maybe she wants to experience the wonders in someone else’s arms. Katara’s encircle her when she wraps her arms around the water bender. Yes, this feels right, being held as the snow begins to flutter down upon them. Being held, not because she is in pain and in need of comfort but because she is happy. 

So very happy.

Her lips graze Katara’s ear. 

And Katara gently pats her back. 

She calls it helping, the other Azula calls it stealing.

Stealing moments from her that should have been hers. But that is just the thing…and it is the thing that the other Azula doesn’t understand; she can’t steal a moment from her that never would have happened if they didn’t share a body. A thing that only happened because she is open to and unafraid of letting someone in.

This time she does return the remark when Azula calls her stupid.

Chapter Text

Truth be told, Azula doesn’t understand why humans like squeezing things that they cherish. She just knows that, that is what they do. And that is why she holds Katara. She holds her until Katara says that she is ready to be let go. And when she pulls away, her cheeks are flushed. Azula’s are not. No more than the color that the nippy weather brings to them. 

“What was that for?” Katara asks. She seems confused but not displeased.

Azula shrugs. “I like you.” She likes her very, very much. “Why do people squeeze things that they care about?”

“Are you talking about hugs?" Katara chuckles. “Silly question, of course you are.” 

“Why?” Azula asks again.

“Well why did you do it?” 

Azula considers for a moment. “Because that’s what I’ve seen everyone else do when they want to show people that they care about them.”

“Well…” Katara ponders. “I guess that it’s a way of telling someone that you don’t want to let go of them or lose them. I also think that a lot of people just like being touched and close to another person.”

Azula nods. 

She does like touch. 

She likes hands; how they fit perfectly together, how fingers interweave. How smooth they are. How warm they are. Katara’s of course are stuffed into mittens and so are her own and that makes it a little more difficult. Azula takes one of her hands anyways.

“But what about the other Azula?”

“What about her?”

“Shouldn’t you ask her before…” she lifts both of their hands. “And before you, sort of, kiss me.” 

“She doesn’t mind.” Azula says. “She likes you too. I think.”

“You think or you know?”

“I think.”

“If you’re going to be kissing me, I need you to know.” Katara replies. “Let’s head back, you look like you’re about to get frostbite.”

“But I wanted to go to the top of the glacier.”

“We can save that for another day. Let’s get both of us warmed up.”

.oOo.

She had only just grazed the woman’s ear but Azula can still taste Katara on her lips. Can still feel the flutters in her tummy and the tickles in her throat. It isn’t lost on her that the spirit had backed down so that she could know what that is like; so that she could get the full force of it all. That feeling like a sudden plunge into icy cold water, exhilarating and terrifying. That feeling that is so similar to lightningbending. 

That spirit is clever when she wants to be and she has taken at least a portion of Azula’s wit. 

But she is making things so terribly messy. Messy and awkward. She does things that Azula wouldn’t dare. She says things that she would never say out loud and in an open, authentic way that she never would. 

And maybe it is right, maybe she is the foolish one. 

Maybe that is why she is alone and the spirit is loved.

Does that bother her?

At first Azula thinks that it doesn’t. Love is just one of those goals that the spirit has and she doesn’t. Or so she had initially thought. But if the desire hadn’t been a part of her for a while now then there would be nothing for the spirit to have latched onto. There was a part of her, there had always been a part of her that craved affection.

The spirit took that part.

The part that remains with her is the part of her that fears affection.

The apprehensive part. 

And so Azula comes to conclude that she is the worst part of herself and the spirit is everything that she could have been if she hadn’t been used and abused. The spirit is the good that everyone had tried to see in her. And now that that part of her is semi-severed…

Suddenly she wants it back. 

Wants it and all of the things it can’t help her become. Even if she looks like a fool, fumbling her way through emotions that she does not understand.

Maybe she wants to understand. 

Maybe it would be good for her. 

It almost certainly would be good for her. 

She stares into her bowl of five-flavor soup. 

“Not hungry?” Katara asks. 

She is plenty hungry but she, at the same time, has no appetite. She forces herself to pick up her soup spoon and dip it into the broth. 

“Are you alright?” Aang asks. 

“I’m fine, Avatar.” 

“You can call me, Aang, you know?” 

She is pretty sure that he has told her this before. “Okay, Avatar.” 

“Or Avatar.” He grumbles, “if that’s what you’re comfortable with.”

For now it is. She doesn’t know him particularly personally. And he doesn’t know her very well…aside from, of course, what knowledge that he gleaned from looking into the maze of her mind.

She is relieved that she hadn’t become so attached to Katara at that point. She wonders if he would be so keen on friendship if he knew that she wanted to romance his ex-lover. The woman that he almost married. 

.oOo.

It is a night later when Katara bursts into the room and asks, “do you want to see something amazing!?” 

“I see amazing things every day!” Azula says. Lots of them, almost all of the time, really. 

“But this is extra special.” Katara promises.

“Like the glacier?” 

“Like the glacier.” Katara confirms. “But much better. In fact, I was thinking that we could go back up there to get a better look.” 

Azula perks up—at last, she will get to trek upon the glacier’s top! “I would like that, very much.” With those six words they are traveling over the bridges and up the stairs again. For the most part, their route is the same as it was the day before. Until they take a right and head up a much larger set of stairs. Large enough that she is breathless by the time that she makes it to the top of them. Although she does believe that she is finally starting to get a grasp on how to plant and position her feet in order to avoid slipping and sliding on the ice. 

It is incredible! The view from up here; glimmering white hills roll as far as they eye can see and far beyond. It twinkles and glistens under silver moonlight. And she swears that she can see a polar bear-dog lurking just in front of one of several towering ice formations. There is definitely a gathering of penguins beneath an icy arch, marching in a uniformed huddle through that natural gateway. 

Her face lights up. “Thank you for showing me this, Katara!”

Katara laughs. “Believe it or not, that’s not what I brought you up here to show you.” She strikes a match but it quickly burns out.

Azula tilts her head.

“Can you help me with this?” She gestures to the firepit. “I know that you can’t firebend right now. But I can never seem to get a match going, maybe you can?”

Azula kneels down and takes the match between her fingers. She is not helpless. She can do this. The other Azula lets her dip into their shared reservoir of skills—only because she doesn’t want them to earn anymore burn scars, or so she insists. 

It is only after they get their fire going that Katara says, “now look up.” And Azula does.

“What are those?” Azula gasps. “They’re so…” they seem as though they belong in the spirit world. They shift and move like spirits, delicate and whimsical. Playful and enchanting. Perhaps even a touch mischievous. 

They have colors and they have voices and those voices hum to her, a tinkling melody, a soft lullabye. Each color sings a different note and at a different pitch. Red is the lowest and slowest of them. Pink is the highest and has a mighty whistle. Green makes a gentle tinkling sound.  And the snow flutters downward. Swirling in lazy spirals that imitate those curtains of light.

“Those are the northern lights. We have them in the south too but we call them the ‘Southern Sky Currents’, instead of the ‘Northern Sky Currents’. My mother and I used to watch them all the time when I was a kid…” She trails off. There is something somber in that. Something sad.

Something that coaxes her to hug the waterbender again.

Something that matches that little spot in her mind. 

The space that is occupied by the other Azula. 

The Azula that has seen so much hurt and so little of these wonders.

And so the spirit decides to let her have her turn.

.oOo.

She emerges with skeptical reluctance. It is indeed a dazzling, charming moment. One that she can ruin so easily if she says the wrong thing. So Azula says nothing at all. The spirit, slips back into her mind and leaves her to navigate this on her own. 

And what a position she has left her in, with her arms around Katara. 

“Are you happy?” Katara asks. 

“I think so.” She says. She has never seen anything like this before. She never imagined that she would. She rests her chin on Katara’s shoulder and looks from the firelight to the sky. And then from the sky to the tundra and the ocean where the lights reflect. They cast their mesmerizing glow upon the snow, bathing it a soft green-red. Its hues bounce off of the ice structures. And in a way, they are everywhere; the ground, the sky, the sea. Katara, perhaps unthinkingly, leans into her. That is how they remain for the longest time, until the lights begin to fade.

And how they stay for a good while after the lights end their dance completely.

“That was, very…” amazing, wondrous, enchanting, ethereal… “nice, Katara.” 

“Yeah, it was, wasn’t it.” She agrees. Her hands cup over Azula’s and Azula’s heart flutters. 

Flutters both pleasantly and mournfully. Pleasantly for the experience that she is getting and mournfully in that it isn’t truly hers. “Would you be sad?” 

It takes Katara a moment but she does piece things together. “But you are back, aren’t you?”

“I mean for good. No more spirit. Just…just me.” 

“That’s what we were trying to accomplish, wasn’t it?”

Azula rubs her hands over her face. “But you like it better when the spirit version of me is at the forefront, yes?”

“Does that bother you?” She asks, shrugging out of Azula’s hold. “You never liked me before….you hated me.” 

It shouldn’t sting as much as it does that Katara won’t let her hold her now that she is the truest version of herself. “I don’t hate you now. I think that I should but…”

“But you feel everything that your spirit side feels?” Katara guesses.

Azula nods. 

“That must be confusing.”

Another nod. “Terribly.” She admits. 

Katara swallows, “and how exactly does spirit you feel?”

Azula thinks that she already knows the answer. “She…I…” her brow creases with frustration. Finally she settles on, “ she likes you, a lot.” She pauses. “She…” she furrows her brows. “She loves you. She was alone for a long time and you were comforting. You said the right things at the right time. Did the right things…”

“And you?”

Azula is quiet for the longest time. “You still say and do the right things. But you treat me differently than the spirit. You’re scared of me.”

“Azula…”

“I want to come back. I can. I’m stronger than the spirit and I think that I can snuff her out if I try hard enough.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

Azula holds her silence again. “Because you all like that part of me more. The part of me that has no memories and no damage. The blank slate. Maybe I think that I should just let go and let her push me out. She’s happier anyways.” But she had been happy, hadn’t she? Just as excited as the spirit had been when she had her chance to see those dancing lights. She can be happy. Perhaps not untroubled and carefree like the spirit. But she can feel delight.

She can feel warmth and affection.

“Or maybe you should keep trying to figure out how to merge with her. Without mazes and spiritbending.”

“You…you would want that?”

“I don’t know if I’d like that. But if I’m going to fall in love with you I think that I should love every part of you, not just the silly, innocent part of you.” 

Azula’s heart thumps, she feels somewhat queasy, maybe even light headed. “You love the spirit…me?”

Katara brushes Azula’s bangs out of her face. “I’m not sure. Maybe. This is really sudden.”

Perhaps it does feel that way for her. But for Azula it has been steadily building since they’d found her in the jungle. 

“But you wouldn’t be upset if it was just me and only me?”

“Azula, if things go the way that they’re supposed to it won’t be only you. It will be both you and the spirit all the time. The way that it’s supposed to be. And…” She pauses as though considering if she should continue or not. “You’ll probably be a bit different than both versions of you.” She gives another pause. “That’s who I’d like to fall in love with, if anyone at all.”

Chapter Text

Spirit Azula isn’t exactly one to be convincing or persuasive. But she is stubborn and she does refuse to leave even when Katara asks her nicely to do so, just for the duration of the council meeting. Katara imagines that Azula has some choice words for the spirit. She also imagines that the spirit has gotten used to Azula’s prickly demeanor and blunt harsh words. Accustomed enough to ignore them entirely. And so, with the declaration, that she let Azula be there for the sky curtains, so she will be staying at the forefront for as long as she pleases. But it does have its perks to take her to the meeting instead; it puts the council members at ease to speak with a softer version of Azula. To look into those innocent, curious eyes rather than to meet human Azula’s fiery, intense gaze. To watch a terribly bored spirit Azula fidget and count the icicles on the ceiling instead of seeing human Azula sit stiffly and imposingly.

Katara imagines that Azula’s natural overall demeanor wouldn’t do her any favors on this particular endeavor. She supposes that Azula, with enough effort, could threaten and intimidate her way to the Spirit Oasis. But that would be nowhere near as efficient and effective as spirit Azula just being herself with Azula’s sweet, silky voice, soft face, and tiny stature.

Afterall, what harm could a precious thing like her do?

Provide a good disguise. 

Act as a vessel to conceal a bomb.

The spirit, innocent and unassuming, could walk into the Oasis and human Azula could force her way out and do whatever she pleases with Tui and La. But she wouldn’t do that…would she? Katara furrows her brows at the realization that she doesn’t think Azula would take advantage of them letting her into the Spirit Oasis.

Maybe she is letting her guard too far down. Being too trusting. Maybe the spirit has instilled exactly the kind of trust that can pave the way to Azula doing something horrible. Something to usurp Zuko and take back what she thinks is hers. 

But no. She had seen the way Azula looked at her. The things that Azula had confessed to. She can fake a lot of things, but love has a certain look and feel to it. One that Katara has come to recognize very well. And Azula, both versions of her been very sincere. And so she concludes that Azula only wants what truly does belong to her; her firebending. She can only imagine just how much Azula misses it, Katara had been so lost when TyLee had chiblocked her for the first time. 

The council members continue to chatter amongst themselves after Aang finishes his recount of everything that he has observed of both Azulas. That the spirit is friendly and playful and quite fun to be around and that Azula herself is cooperative. Snarky and standoffish but not particularly combative. She mostly keeps to herself. 

“Regardless of how we feel about her, I think that we can all agree that it’s cruel to let someone suffer like that. A bender’s bending should never be taken from them, let alone become a source of suffering to them.” He concludes.

“You took Ozai’s bending from him, did you not?” A council woman asks, she studies Azula’s face for a reaction. Whatever Azula’s might have been, the spirit takes with indifference. 

“Former Fire Lord Ozai was an active threat who could not be stopped in any other way.”

“Any other way that you were willing to perform.” Says the man next to her.

“Either which way, taking someone’s bending is a last resort and it’s not necessary with Azula.”

“If the spirits choose to keep her from her bending then there is probably a reason for it.” Chief Arnook counters. 

Katara has a feeling that this is the exact back and forth that has been keeping this meeting in session for so long.

“The spirits have their own biases. And they aren’t always right.” Sokka points out. “That Wan Shi Tong guy, he sunk a library with us inside of us because we were trying to use his books to try to keep the Fire Nation from conquering everything. An angry spirit terrorized Senlin Village because it thought that they destroyed its forest.”

This gives the council pause. 

It gives Azula pause. 

Azula who studies him with a look of confusion.

“He did say that he was going to try to get along with you.” Katara whispers to her. 

And the conversation carries on with a brand new debate. Should they trust the spirit’s judgment? If they can’t trust the spirits then why seek out their help? It goes on and on until Katara feels like they are talking in circles and the spirit seems to nod off. 

It is in the spirit’s exhaustion that Azula works her way back in and Katara’s stomach flutters. But Azula keeps quiet, a silent observer until they ask her why she thinks that she should be granted access to the Spirit Oasis.

Azula holds her silence for a moment before answering with a question of her own. “What have I done, specifically, that makes you think that I shouldn’t be granted access?” She pauses. “My brother did more to warrant distrust than I have but you welcome him into your city with open arms.” 

“And he will never see the Spirit Oasis again.” Chief Arnook assures. 

“I don’t need to be awake when I go there.” Azula shrugs. 

“But the spirit will be and you can harness from her, any information that might be useful to you.” 

“In any capacity.” She clarifies. “I don’t need to be awake in any capacity. Someone can carry me, unconscious to the Oasis and out of it.” Katara is certain that she is terribly uncomfortable with her own idea. It would leave her terribly prone and vulnerable. 

There is a murmur around the table.

Katara wonders how the spirit would have answered. 

.oOo.

It has been some time since she and the spirit have been together in this dark place, listening to the raging of the fire beyond it. Azula wonders if the crackle will fade and the walls of that flaming labyrinth will finally extinguish.

The spirit sits across from her, her posture is lax but it bears a much closer resemblance to her own than it had before. She, in fact, recognizes more of herself in the spirit than she has ever been able to.

There is an intelligence in her eyes, a knowingness. A very particular kind of knowingness. The kind that Azula herself often possesses. And that is the knowledge that she knows something that someone else doesn't. Or something that many people don’t. To be on the other end of that is unsettling. Worse still in that she can’t possibly fathom what that little spirit version of her can know that she doesn’t. But the look suits the spirit so well. It suits the spirit because it suits her. 

The spirit is starting to talk like her too; with the same inflections in the same places and the same tones. Her word choice is growing increasingly eloquent. 

And somehow that terrifies Azula. 

“We’re going to get our bending back.” She says as though it isn’t still possible for Tui and La to reject them. Or for the Oasis water to simply be ineffective. “We could go back to the Fire Nation.”

“That is the goal, yes.”

“Is it?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

And the spirit shrugs. “I quite like it here. The sights are extraordinary. It’s something new.”

“And what would you know about that? You’ve never been to Caldera City for yourself.”

Her mirror image extends an arm. Her fingers touch Azula’s forehead. “I have.”

“That’s not the same.”  

“It is.” The spirit insists. 

“How so?”

“I can feel the things that you do if I want to.” She pauses. “I can push you out if I want to.” She draws out another longer silence. “You aren’t stronger than me. You can’t ‘snuff me out’ as easily as you think you can.” 

Azula’s stomach churns and she begins to wonder just how innocent the spirit truly is. And just when it had stopped being ignorant and goofy and started playing the part. 

Or maybe she is looking too much into it. Projecting what she would have done onto a spirit that truly is kind and goofy. 

She hadn’t even considered that the spirit can be intelligent and playful at once; a new, evolve version of her.

A superior version of her.

She hadn’t even considered that the spirit might just be able to take over her life. Azula would lose her firebending for good if she exorcises her spirit self. The spirit, now that she has gotten re-acquitted with her vocabulary and the human world, has nothing to lose but baggage and hurt.

Maybe this whole time she was the one who was meant to fade. She almost certainly was. She was the one left behind in the maze. Perhaps it is time to let go. She can’t achieve what the spirit can earn for her. Affection, comfort, friends…

It wouldn’t be so bad to just let go. Aside from these brief, fleeting moments she only suffers anyways. 

There is a flicker of satisfaction the eyes of her spirit self. The thrill of a conquest. A bold sparkle that comes with knowing that she has the upper hand. Triumph, complete and total. And, Agni, she wears that look so well. Well enough that even she has trouble distinguishing the two of them apart. The spirit tilts her head and that look fades. “I don’t want to push you out though. You hate me so much, but I don’t hate you.” 

Azula swallows hard. It has been a good while since she has made herself cry. 

She can’t watch herself be happy without feeling embarrassed to the point of anger. Being carefree and happy, she realizes feels like making a fool of herself.

She hates the part of her that is happy because that part of her is everything that she wishes she could be. She can’t even look at the good parts of herself without feeling resentment and dissatisfaction. 

The spirit regards her with what can only be pity. She sits down next to her other half and when Azula doesn’t push her away, she takes her into her arms. She is so broken, so very broken that she can’t stand to see herself happy, can’t stand to imagine what that might be like. “Go ahead.” She murmurs. “You can have Katara for yourself.” 

“When you asked her, Katara said that she didn’t want that.” 

“She’d never know.” 

“I don’t want that. And you don’t want that.” The spirit informs her. 

She doesn’t want that. 

She doesn’t want to fade. 

But she doesn’t want to hurt either. 

Beyond their little dark place, where the spirit holds her close, a wall of flames fades into ember and smoke.

Chapter Text

She awakes in the Oasis and she does so with a sense that her waking wasn’t supposed to happen yet. She was on the brink of something, she thinks. No, she realizes, she had finished that something. 

Azula rests a hand on her chest and stares up at the sky above. At the falling snowflakes. She takes a deep breath and then another. The air is cold enough to burn her lungs and she is drenched. Drenched and freezing. Drenched, freezing but strangely at ease. 

She has just awoken but she is so terribly tired. She thinks that it could be the intense cold that leaves her so languid. She tries to remember…what had just happened? The spirit had held her. And then what? She isn’t sure that she had actually seen what happened after that. She just knows that she is awake now. Awake and shivering.

She parts her lips but can only manage a weak hum or a mumble. 

“It’s alright Azula, just lay down.” Katara says. There are other voices speaking but she can’t hear them very well. She also can’t seem to find the strength to sit up and so she finds herself listening to Katara. 

“Cold.” She manages. Teeth-chattering cold at that but she is too cold to even wrap her arms around herself. 

“I know, I’m going to get you dried off.” Katara promises. 

Azula tries for a nod but cannot seem to manage one. She is so terribly weak. She feels the water as it pulls back and off of her skin. Off of her skin and out of her clothes. Being dry takes the edge out of the frigid air but her skin is still painfully tingly and a decent shade of red. “Let’s get you inside and warm you up.” Katara offers. For this, Azula has no protest. Katara lifts her off of the ground. She hadn’t realized that Katara was so strong. 

It is pretty, the Oasis that Katara is carrying her away from. She wishes that she could have gotten to explore it. Perhaps walk over that bridge with Katara or pluck one of those small white-pink flowers from the bush. She had never imagined that a place so lush and green could exist in the harsh winter of the water tribe. 

Azula rubs her eyes.

Her hands are freezing. Going numb.

She parts her lips to request gloves but can’t seem to find the words to do so. Snowflakes land upon those lips. Briefly she considers sticking her tongue out to catch a few flakes upon it. She wonders if other people here do that? Catch snowflakes on their tongues. 

Azula’s stomach flutters and she can’t say why. 

Overhead she can see the Northern Sky Currents shifting and swirling leisurely in the night sky. It is a nice thing, she thinks, to see as she slips back into the darkness, away from all that is cool. Back into the darkness where the fire warms her skin. 

Warms it but doesn’t burn it. 

.oOo. 

The both of them had been longing to become the only entity occupying this body. The both of them had wanted full control so badly that they hadn’t truly taken pause to consider what that would mean. 

Azula finds that is going to have to get used to who she is with all of the spirit’s feelings and memories mingling with her own. With all of these new opinions that are both hers and not her own all the same. 

There is, she finds, plenty of common ground, many areas where her own opinions blend seamlessly with that of the spirit’s; their shared love of the Sky Currents and the look of the glacier, their desire for peace of mind, their love of firebending, and their steadily decreasing distaste for Sokka. Her love of learning new things goes quite well with the spirit’s innocent curiosities. 

And then there are feelings that they share but are magnified by the spirit’s version of them. Namely her affection for Katara and her desire to be held and cherished. 

There are, of course, also the feelings that clash completely such as the spirit’s almost complete trust of the Avatar—her level of trust overall—and her desire to win Zuko’s approval. That latter comes with a horrid realization that leaves a tickle in her tummy. It isn’t so much that the spirit had sought out Zuko’s approval but that there is a pattern. She is something of a people pleaser. And she has managed to please exactly no one. 

Especially not herself. 

Whoever she is. 

She has her mind to herself and she finds that she is weary of it. Weary and out of sorts. She is herself but, at the same time, she is someone different. And maybe that is a good thing. It has been so long, she ought to have changed in that time. But into what? Into who? She wraps her arms around herself.

“Are you alright?” Katara asks. 

Azula’s brows pinch. She isn’t sure how to answer. She thinks that she is alright, nothing has gone amiss and she is fairly certain that their trip to the Spirit Oasis had been a success. Although she hasn’t been able to work up the courage to actually try to firebend yet. She feels Katara’s arms wrap around her middle. It brings color to her cheeks and a tightness to her throat. 

The waterbender still wants to hold her. And for some reason, that brings unshed tears to her eyes. Katara still wants to hold her even though the spirit is not there. But the spirit is there, she reminds herself. The spirit will always be on the surface right alongside her. 

“I’m fine.”

“That was probably the least confident ‘I’m fine’ that I have ever heard and I talk to your brother.” 

This makes her laugh. 

“Are you actually fine?”

Azula ponders it for a moment and nods. “I think so.” She is fine but she is somewhat lost. Somewhat confused. Torn between two versions of herself; the person that she has been her whole life and would like to remain and the person that she wants to be…could be if she could shake away her trepidations. Shake away the fear that she might not like or be comfortable as whoever she becomes. She wants to discover that person just as much as she wants to resist that person. And she thinks that this is the sort of thing that can only be resolved with time.

“Why don’t we test out your firebending?” Katara asks. 

“I probably should, yes.” She agrees. But she hasn’t done it in so long. What if she isn’t any good at it anymore? 

Reluctantly, she follows Katara out past the city’s glacial walls. “They aren’t comfortable seeing me firebend?” She guesses. 

“It isn’t so much of that as it is that there are so many meltable things in there. This city wasn’t exactly built for firebending.”

“Have I ever made collateral damage?” Azula asks. “The Agni Kai doesn’t count.” She adds quickly. 

“Maybe I’d also just like to take a longer walk with you.” Katara shrugs. 

Again, Azula finds that her tummy is fluttering. Katara wants to walk with her. Katara wants to be alone with her. With the person that she is now. Katara wants to get to know whoever that person is. “I think that this is a good spot.” She says. 

“I was hoping to show you some of those arches. I noticed that you tend to look at them a lot.” 

“I do?”

Katara nods. “So I figured that you’d like to see them up close.”

She does, she realizes. She very much would like to see them up close, would like to lay her hand upon them as she had done with the glacier as a reward for good firebending or a means to cheer herself up after a failure. “I think that this is a good spot for firebending.” She tugs her gloves off and stuffs them into her pocket prompting Katara to remark that, “I probably should have bought you some thicker gloves since we’ll be going out into the tundra.” Azula isn’t all that worried she, if things have gone right, will have her firebending to warm her. She can’t imagine that she’ll lose a pinky or something in such a short span of time.

She inhales through her nose. Somehow she still manages to forget just how different Water Tribe air is from Fire Nation air. When she inhales Fire Nation air, it kindles the flames that burn within her—it is dry, smokey, and sulfuric. It has a kick.

Water Tribe air is sharp and brutal. Fresh and clean without any particular odor. In a way it has its own unique aroma that Azula cannot quite put words to other than saying that it smells like frosty air. She thinks, at first, that maybe it smells like the ocean. But the ocean air comes with its own smell, one that is different from the air of the tundra. 

She inhales a second time, not certain that Water Tribe air is conducive to firebending. It lacks that kick. But she isn’t going for anything impressive, just a little burst of fire to prove that she can still bend. Azula closes her eyes and coaxes the flames to her palm. She feels the heat wash over her hand and braces herself for leg-buckling agony. When it does not come she opens her eyes. Her breath catches in her throat. The fire that dances in her palm is a startling white with pops of blue and purple now and again. 

She stares at it for some time before looking up to meet Katara’s gaze. “It’s not blue anymore.” Is all that she can manage. 

“I can see that.” Katara replies. 

Azula lets the flames fade into smoke. “But what does that mean?” She murmurs to herself. She thinks that she already knows that answer. It means that something… many things have changed within her. That she is different on a very deep level. And it startles her. Even if her white fire comes with a rush of power, it intimidates her. 

“Are you ready to see the ice arches?”

“I am, yes.” 

.oOo.

The walk had been quite tiresome, leaving her to speculate that she probably should have given herself more time to rest. It is a nasty habit of hers, not resting when she could use it. But she is tired of lying around. Tired of having to rest and recover. She wants to go out and live now. She wants to go home and get on with her life.

Or stay here and get on with her life. 

Strangely she finds it quite easy to imagine herself remaining in one of the Water Tribes with their awe striking sights and extraordinary natural phenomena. Not that the Fire Nation doesn’t have impressive feats of its own, like the volcanoes and the firelily blooms. 

Azula inches her way closer to the arch. It is quite magnificent up close. Below the arch is a small circle of water that splits one half of the arch between the mainland and the particularly large glacier that runs perpendicular to the mainland. The arch reflects upon its mirror-still surface, creating a squiggly circle. Above her head droop jagged curtains of icicles. Menacing things those are, she worries that one might fall and impale her. Suddenly she misses her armor. She turns her attention away from the icicles and to the expansive inner wall of the arch.

Laying her hand upon the ice comes with the same giddy sensation that the spirit has familiarized her with.

It is easier to smile now, she realizes. It comes almost naturally. 

That feeling comes with an urge to take off her shoes and dip her toes into water she knows will cause them to go numb. But the urge is still there all the same. “This is very beautiful.” She comments. “Did you get to see this a lot as a child?”

“A bunch of times!” Katara confirms. 

“Perhaps I can show you some pretty places that I’ve discovered. Ember Island has this secluded cove that no one else seems to know about. And there’s this dormant volcano that is nice to hike up.”

“That sounds like a nice time Azula.”

Azula wanders further under the arch.

She could stay here forever, looking into the ice and picking out patterns and frozen critters, mostly krill and small fish. “Katara, look at that!”  She taps at the ice. At the frozen beast within. She can’t make out exactly what it is, just that is is large with shaggy, matted fur and tusks. 

Katara smiles. “There’s all sorts of stuff like that down south. I can take you there some time.”

“We have a lot of places to go.” 

“You seem like you enjoy exploring things.” Katara observes. 

“It isn’t a bad pass time.” Azula replies. “I’ve seen a lot since leaving Caldera City. There are many aged and abandoned temples in that jungle. I’m not sure if I’d be able to find them again.” And there is at least one that she wouldn’t want to. 

The memory is still a touch fuzzy but she does know that she had sought shelter in that particular temple. And with nothing to offer in return for its hospitality, she hadn’t exactly left a good impression on the spirit that the temple had been dedicated to. 

There had been something else too.
Something else that it had been angry over…

“You’re making a face.” Katara observes. 

“It’s nothing, Katara.” 

“It doesn’t look like nothing.” 

Azula furrows her brows. “I can’t quite remember the details. Perhaps I will tell you what is on my mind when I know what that thing is.”

Katara nods. “I suppose that we should head back now.”

“But I haven’t looked at the other side of the arch yet.”

There is a flicker of amusement in Katara’s eyes. Amusement accompanied by comfort. “You’re shivering and your face is so red that I know you can’t feel your nose.”

She is correct but she does not need to know that. “I will be fine for a few more minutes.”

“You know who else says that?”

“Who else?”

“Everyone who has ever lost a finger or a toe.” Katara replies. “Let’s go inside. Trust me, the cold is beautiful but it is more brutal than it lets on.” She pauses. “You can catch a cold if you stay out here for too long.”

Azula takes one last look at the creature under the ice. “Oh alright. We can head back.” It is rather nice to have someone who is concerned for her health. Someone who urges her to go home instead of venture further and push herself far beyond her limits. 

Katara rests a hand between Azula’s shoulder blades. And Azula thinks that maybe she can be happy. Maybe she, the real her, can be the kind of person that people cherish just as much as the spirit had been. Yet she is still so terribly worried that she will say or do the wrong thing. Mess up that which had been laid out so perfectly for her just as she had with her destiny for the throne. 

She swallows. But the throne wasn’t her destiny, was it? She can’t even say for certain that it would have made her happy. Somehow she thinks that it would have made her worse. Made her miserable. She isn’t the type of person who can stay in one place, not anymore. Not after so many years of belonging nowhere and seeing so many new things.

She has, without a doubt, changed so much. More than she imagined. And she is so very frightened of it. 

But Katara’s hand is on her back. She has a friend…a lover? She has some type of relationship that is pleasant. She can test it; go for a kiss. The spirit very much would have and the inclination is there…

Katara smiles at her.

She might just act upon that inclination.

Chapter Text

She is sick, Katara informs her as if she can’t deduce as much for herself. Too much time outside, prone and exposed to the cold. And so it is that she is buried under a rather weighty pile of furs and blankets, sitting in front of a fire with a steaming bowl of stew in her hands. She hopes that it isn’t more seaweed stew. She doesn’t think that she can stomach anymore of that. The texture is so slimy and gross on her tongue. And the taste is soggy.

Right now she isn’t particularly in the mood for any meal at all with her stomach being as unsettled as it is. And so she stares forlornly at the soup until Katara says, “you need to eat something, Azula, how are you going to fight off a cold if you don’t have any nutrients?”

“With my own immune system.” She grumbles. But she dips her spoon into the stew anyhow. She has herself just enough of the stuff to appease Katara and then sets the soup on the dresser an curls herself up under the blankets.

“I knew that we should have gotten you inside earlier.” Katara mutters as she pulls up a chair. She sets a bowl of water next to the half empty soup bowl. Azula wishes that she wouldn’t do that; one of these days she is going to try to heal her with soup broth by accident. She spreads the water over Azula’s forehead. 

“Have you ever gotten a cold before?”

Azula shakes her head. “I don’t think so.” She has been sick before, especially since leaving the palace. But never like this. She has dealt with viruses from insect bites and more rounds of food poisoning than she cares to admit. She certainly won’t miss having to taste test fruits and berries that she doesn’t recognize. This illness feels like none of the ones that she has had before. It is more uncomfortable than it is painful or terrifying. She is congested and her throat is terribly sore, likely from such persistent coughing. While her stomach is at least a little achy, she isn’t throwing up. Not like she had been after sampling one of the jatropha berries. Really it was her own fault for accidentally swallowing the seed too, and here she had been worried about cherries. The purple berries that she has no name for hadn’t been a fun experience either. Never in her life had she endured cramps so intense.

At least this time around she has a decent bed to lay in and furs to wrap around herself. And an air nomad who keeps bringing her warm teas. “Chamomile is good for sore throats.” He says. “But lemon is good too and I think that it tastes better.” 

Azula isn’t particularly fussy over how her tea is taken so long as it helps clear that horrid congestion. She finds that she rather likes breathing through both nostrils, a luxury that this cold is taking from her. 

Usually the tea does help clear her sinuses so she takes it from the Avatar with eager hands. She closes her eyes and inhales, to the best of her ability anyways. The scent of chamomile is kind as she breathes the steam in. 

As the tea begins to soothe her throat, Katara attempts to soothe the ache in her head and her stomach. “You’re not worried?” Azula says in way of conversation. 

“Worried?” 

Azula nods. “About getting sick too.” 

“Not really.” Katara replies. “I don’t catch colds very often.”

Truth be told, Azula misses being able to retreat back into that dark place in moments like these. But she supposes that if she did that she would deprive herself of Katara’s doting. Her stomach gives another flutter; Katara is caring for her. The real her with all of her edges and complexities. Aang is tending to her. 

“Just so you all know, I can take care of myself. I…”

“You’re a very powerful firebender and you can hold your own. We get it. Just shut up and let us make things a bit easier for you.” Katara rolls her eyes. “You and Toph.” She shakes her head. “And Zuko. What is with all of you and wanting to do things on your own all the time?” 

Azula shrugs. “I’m used to it.” She furrows her brows. She had been used to it anyhow, it has been a while since she has had to fend for herself. Since she has endured sickness of some variety alone and with a lack of adequate remedies and rest.

It is nice. Very nice to have people care for her. She has taken care of herself on her own for so very long. 

“Used to doing things on your own or afraid of letting people help you?” Katara asks. 

“People have been doing that a lot lately.” Azula says in spite of her desire for doting. “Too much, maybe.” Every other day seems to be a day where she is getting herself hurt or into some situation. She is beginning to wonder if she really can take care of herself. But she had managed to merge herself back with the spirit on her own. 

“There’s no such thing as too much.” Aang insists. “You wanted friends right?” At her nod, he continues. “Well that’s what friends do. If you want friends, you’re going to have to get used to letting people help you when you’re hurt. Spirit Azula was really good at that.”

“Spirit Azula was really…shameless.” Spirit Azula liked to wander around melodramatically. And it had won her the affection that she had been aiming to get. “I have dignity.” As much of it as she can have with a bright red nose and bedraggled hair. She looks sloppy. She should be grateful that she once again has the luxury of worrying about looking sloppy. Before she had been too anguished to put too much thought into her appearance. But now that she is healing and not warring over who gets to inhabit her body, she would like to go back to putting work into what that body looks like and how it is dressed. 

“We know that, Azula. We know that you’ve got poise and elegance. And that you’re incredibly smart.” Katara assures her. “So you don’t have to act proper and refined all the time.” 

They like her better when she doesn’t, if their love of her spirit counterpart was anything to go by. She thinks that she likes herself better when she is able to let go. Even just a little. She likes herself the most in those moments where she can smile. When the mood is just comfortable enough for whimsy wins over. 

But she is still so, so scared of that. Of what people will think of her when she goes back home and doesn’t so closely embody that which her nation values; the rigidity, the stoicism, the ability to stand tall and well put together. Honor.

“You’re not in pain, are you?”

Azula shakes her head. 

“Then what’s that expression for.”

“I’m just thinking.” 

“About going home?” Katara asks. 

Azula nods.

“I have a feeling that most people know you’re not going to be the same person that you were when you were fourteen.” Katara squeezes her shoulder. “We all like the new you, I’m pretty sure everyone else will too.”

The new her…

“They’ll probably have to get used to you?” Sokka shrugs from his own little corner.

She’ll have to get used to the new her. 

To this person who may or may not be okay with doing stupid things like chasing penguins every now and again if nobody is looking. To this person who is so familiar but so different.

“Not helpful.” Toph mutters. 

“Not particularly helpful, but probably true.” Azula replies. She pulls the blankets tighter around herself and falls into another one of her coughing fits. Katara rests a hand on her back and waits for the fit to pass. 

“Alright, I think that it’s time for you to rest. The sooner you get better the sooner we can get you back home. Aang will leave your tea on the dresser. The rest of us will let you get some sleep and I’ll be back with more soup for you at dinnertime.”

“Oh how delightful…more soup.” Azula grumbles. At least when she gets home she can look forward to more exciting cuisine. Dishes with a punch. She quite misses spice and the smell of grilled meat. She quite misses home. One by one she watches the Avatar and his friends file out of the room until it is just she and Katara. 

Katara who brushes her bangs out of her face and kisses her forehead. 

“You’re going to get sick.” Azula cautions. 

“And you need to stop worrying so much.”

Yes. Maybe she does. Maybe she needs to just let things happen as they will. She has already tried holding control in a vice grip. She had only shattered it in the process. Maybe she just needs to let go and let herself grow into whoever she is supposed to become. 

She snuggles her cheek against her pillow. 

Katara gives her arm a little squeeze and bids her a nice rest. Azula tries to thank her but only manages several harsh coughs. She thinks that Katara understands anyways. Azula finds herself absentmindedly stroking her pillow. She has been both Azula and the spirit, but mostly Azula, for several days now and Katara still likes to kiss her forehead and squeeze her hands, arms, and shoulders. She has been whole for several days and people still want to talk with her.

Chapter Text

The spirit, Azula finds, still speaks to her. Speaks not as a separate entity but as an extension of her own thoughts. Mostly it does so when she finds herself confused or reluctant. It is a small portion of her mind—the portion that acts on impulse and spontaneity. The portion that would probably be called an intrusive thought if the thought was something vicious. These thoughts, while still semi-intrusive, compel her to kiss Katara for no reason or to throw herself into a pile of snow just for the sake of experience. 

She ignores them mostly. 

She is, admittedly, somewhat afraid of them.

Or afraid of what people would think of her if she acted upon them. 

Katara doesn’t seem to mind. She seems to rather enjoy the surprise kisses and the random gifts. Even if the random gifts are just dumb doodles burned onto slabs of discarded firewood. Firewood that she had stashed away in her sleeves just in case. “I didn’t realize that you were an artist.” She says of her newest gift. 

“I’m not.” Azula replies. “I’m mostly bored.” 

“Mostly bored?”

Azula nods. “I swear that it didn’t take this long to make this trip last time.”

“Last time you were in and out.” Katara reminds her. “Time tends to pass quicker when you aren’t there the whole time.”

“Right, yes.” Azula flushes slightly. That was a silly thing to have forgotten. Katara chuckles and Azula would like nothing more than to take a miniature retreat back into her own mind. Evidently she would very much like to sleep through the entirety of her homecoming. Not that she wishes that her spirit self could do it for her. The spirit would have made her look like a complete dolt. She feels as though she will accomplish looking like a fool well enough on her own. 

Katara squeezes her hand. “They’re going to love you Azula.”

“How do you know?”

“Well the Fire Nation seemed to adore you before you left.” 

“I believe that I have fallen out of favor with the general public since Zuzu has taken the throne. Traditional values and beliefs are on a decline.” 

“It’s a shame that you don’t have any way of showing that you don’t exactly subscribe to traditional beliefs anymore.” Katara kisses her ear. “If only you had a beautiful waterbender to date.”

“Yeah, I only have the moderately visually appealing if you squint hard enough waterbender.” 

From her corner of Appa’s saddle, Toph gives a snort and a laugh. 

She wishes that she could laugh too but the truth is that she is…intimidating. Her stomach has been tying itself in knots for the better part of the morning and each passing minute presents her with another opportunity to find something to fret over. 

She and Zuzu hadn’t parted on terrible terms with each other this time around. But they certainly hadn’t had any meaningful discussion while she was occupied with fighting to stay present in her own mind. She isn’t particularly keen on digging up old fights and picking at old wounds. But she is just as dissatisfied at the thought of not confronting her past. 

Franky she isn’t sure why she is so worried, so far her attempts to face herself have all been successful. And the stakes had been just as high, if not more so. And yet this is the thing that worries her more than any other.

She tries to remind herself that Zuko had been the one fighting for her, the real her to come back. 

But it creeps in that maybe he won’t be satisfied with the results of winning that fight. She wonders if it will be strange for him to see her on good terms with everyone else. It will certainly be jarring; he hadn’t been there to witness the full evolution. 

Azula, of course, had been there and it is still jarring when she reflects upon the changes within herself. Both the large and small changes. Somehow those subtle changes are more startling than the more overt ones. She sighs. 

It seems like it had only taken the duration of the one exhale for the Fire Nation to appear on the horizon. It was certainly longer, much longer. But not nearly long enough. Seeing the volcano jutting towards the clouds stirs the butterflies in her stomach into a frenzy.

It is almost instinctual at this point, to see the Fire Nation and feel dread. Even knowing that firebending no longer hurts her doesn’t prevent her from bracing herself for that pain. Her chest constricts. She wishes that she weren’t so accustomed to hurt that she is suspicious of its absence.

She feels Katara’s arms slip around her middle and her chin on her shoulder. Azula hates that she still stiffens at unexpected touches, even the loving caresses and embraces. She resents that she can’t love as effortlessly as the spirit had. Resents that she has to remind herself that she and the spirit are the same and always have been. That they were never opposites so much as twin flames that have come to combine into one brilliant blaze. Hates that she has to actively think about and remember how it feels to live unhurt. How it feels to have been so innocent and trusting. Loathes that she can’t just carry on that way. 

Carefree and open. 

Unguarded. 

So maybe she hasn’t changed all that much. 

Maybe she is the same person that they all hate. That…

Katara kisses her neck. “Don’t do that.”

“What?” 

“Do that thing where you overthink things and upset yourself.” She pauses. 

“If you expect things to go wrong then they probably will.” Sokka comments unhelpfully. “Like a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“What he’s trying to say…” Aang clarifies. “Things will go just fine if you let them happen naturally. If you try to plan every little detail, you’re more likely to get frustrated and upset when things don’t go your way. And then that frustration will make things worse. That’s what usually happens to Sokka. It happened with Zuko a lot too.”

“I guess.” Azula mumbles.  It isn’t just Zuzu that she is worried about. It is Mai and TyLee too. It has been so very long…

Katara moves to massage her shoulders. If it were TyLee doing the massaging she would surely be on the receiving end of another lecture about how much tension she consistently holds. “How do you think spirit Azula would handle this situation?”

“By completely ignoring Zuzu to marvel at how big and shiny the palace is.” Color blossoms back on her cheeks once more as she imagines some goofy, wide-eyed version of herself bouncing around the palace, inspecting its every nook and cranny. “I would look like a complete idiot if I followed that line of thinking.”

“Well you could ignore Zuko.” Toph shrugs. “And pretend to be very invested with the new furniture.”

“New furniture?”

“Oh yeah.” Sokka says. “He added some new decorative vases and got rid of one of them.”

“The one that he got stuck in as a child?”

Another snort sounds from Toph’s corner of the saddle. “He got stuck in a vase?”

Azula nods. “It was not a very good day.”

“Wait, are you implying that you were in the vase too?” Sokka quirks a brow.

“It was a very large vase and it was surprisingly easy to climb. I could probably fit myself into it without much effort.”

“Oh man, I know how we’re spending your homecoming day!” Toph shouts. 

“Except that he got rid of that vase.” Aang reminds her. 

“I’ll find it.” Toph declares.

“You probably won’t. It has probably been destroyed.” Azula replies, perfectly content to have something else to think about. Indeed, she decides, it is better to think about something else entirely lest she give herself an opportunity for some admittedly destructive overthinking. 

“I’m going to find it.” Toph promises. “And if I do, you’re going to get in that vase.”

“I mean, you won’t find it so I don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Great so, it’s a deal then. If I find the vase then you’ll climb into it.”

“And if you don’t find it?” 

“Then I’ll pick my favorite of the new vases and crawl into it.”

“I suppose that I will accept your terms. But only because, in the Fire Nation, we tend to repurpose things that we throw out. The vase is probably part of a tank or an air balloon now.”

“Spoken like someone who is about to get stuck in a vase again.” Sokka mutters to himself.

“I’m sure that, that will earn me the respect of my people and won’t give them grounds to think that the jungle has left me completely uncivil.”

“The people of Omashu love Bumi and all of his quirks.” Aang points out. 

“Caldera City is a bit more…proper. Rigid. Dancing is frowned upon…”

“Not anymore.” Aang says. “You’ve been so focused on how much you’ve changed that you forgot to consider that The Fire Nation might have changed too.”

“Has it?”

“Almost as much as you have.” Aang replies. 

She isn’t sure if that makes her more or less anxious. But she doesn’t have much time to decide. The palace is within eyesight and phantom tickles dance up and down her arms. She closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths. She isn’t on fire. She isn’t burning. The prickles that she feels are all in her head. The product of anxiety more than anything else. 

Katara assures her that she is going to do just fine. 

A little voice in the back of her mind tells her that it will be just another adventure. That she should, maybe, be excited for it.

Excited for the chance to rise from the ashes that she had been burning to and blaze more brilliantly than ever. 

Chapter Text

It is strange to see her again. The real Azula. The Azula that he has always known.

It is stranger still to talk to her again. Without the spirit to intervene. 

And strangest yet to see the Azula that he has always known with her rigid, stiff posture and her well-articulated speaking patterns. But at the same time see someone else, with a more welcoming aura and a twinkle of curiosity in her eye—he can see it every time she spots one of the Fire Nation’s newer innovations, a building with a different material make, a new type of machine, newer forms of firebending…

“What do you think?”

Azula gives the street another up and down glance. “It’s different.” She replies. “That building wasn’t there before. And those statutes.” 

He wonders if it stings at all for her to see that there isn’t one of her standing near the other golden likenesses of he and his friends. If it does she makes no mention of it. “I can probably have them make one of you…”

“Huh?” 

“The statues. I could have one made…”

“What for?” 

“What do you mean? To commemorate your memory…”

“I’m still alive.”

“Your legacy.” He corrects. 

“I’m still making that?” She tilts her head. 

He almost laughs. He can’t believe that enough time has passed for him to forget that she has such a blunt manner of speaking. That she thinks so differently than the way he does. He holds that laugh back lest she get the wrong idea. 

“At any rate, statues are creepy. I don’t understand the appeal.”

“How so?”

“Why do people enjoy staring at their own faces so much? It’s uncanny. That barely even looks like you.” She pauses. “Well it does but there is something off about it. Something that isn’t quite right. That doesn’t bother you?”

Zuko shakes his head. “I never really saw it that way. I think that it’s a nice gesture of respect. A way to remember my accomplishments.”

“You can’t just remember them in your own brain?” She pauses. Before he can speak she adds, “I suppose that I am the wrong person to speak about remembering things that are important.” She pauses again. “From a historical standpoint I suppose that means of commemoration are useful.” She nods more to herself than him. “I’d rather just have a my accomplishments inscribed and then that scroll can hang in a pretty little frame on a wall somewhere.”

“What about portraits?” He asks. “You never minded those.”

“As far as you were aware. I don’t like having to sit for them; there are better uses for my time. Especially since I don’t look at them often.” She sighs. “But it would be quite bizarre if there isn’t a face to put to inscribed stories. I should probably go for an updated portrait, lest future historians think that I died as a child.”

“But no statues?”

“If you erect a statue of me I will personally see to it that it is taken down. If I want to look at my face I will do so in a reflection in a pond as nature had intended.” 

“You have a mirror at home… you’re joking right now.” He states. “You made a joke?”

“I am capable of doing that now and again, yes.” She replies. “I was not, however, joking about getting rid of any statute that resembles me.” 

This isn’t the way that he imagined that his first conversation with her since her arrival would go. Frankly he had imagined stress. He had imagined shouting and scowls and maybe tears. He hadn’t imagined jokes and laughing. He hadn’t imagined feeling a flutter of joy upon seeing her curiously observing the town that she had been deprived of for too long.

And he realizes that he doesn't need an apology just yet. Not vocally, anyways. She has her own way about apologizing. A way that makes her feel safe and he supposes that he shouldn’t push her to do it his way.

It is rather nice talking to her now that father isn’t whispering in her ear.

Now that father isn’t whispering in his ear.

Now that she has had at least a little bit of time to become Azula instead of just an extension of their father. He supposes that he should share this with Mai. Ask her to be patient with Azula. She’ll find the words eventually. Right now, her ability to joke with him and speak mundanely is good enough.

“Are you ready for your homecoming ceremony tonight?” He asks. “I figured that while we were here we can find something new for you to wear.” 

Azula shrugs. “It’s just a homecoming ceremony, there isn’t too much to worry about.” 

He knows that she is lying. If only because his homecoming after three years had been one of the most stressful moments of his life. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “I saw this one hair piece that I thought that you’d like.”

“Alright.” 

.oOo.

Azula smooths her hand down the front of her silks. And she is decorated under layers and layers of it. Pretty red and gold fabrics in varying patterns that drape her arms and flow out and voluminously from beneath the golden sash a her hip. A large ruby with a gold filigree frame pins it in place. 

She hadn’t realized just how long her hair had grown until a team of servants, mostly new faces but one or two that she recognizes, begin pilling it up and fixing it in place with ribbons and hair sticks. The style is quite elaborate, more so than she is used to. And they assure her that they will have it styled twice as elegantly—with hair sticks with dangling crystals and dragon accents and golden hair combs—when it comes time to reinstate her title and place a crown back on her head. She can only imagine what the robes will look like then. There will probably be enough layers and components to make walking a challenge. 

They promise the same of her makeup. Of which they currently tint her lips with. The look is quite simple, they wing her eyeliner the way that she likes and add a touch of red to make it pop. The pat color onto her cheeks. They insist that she has grown quite pale since her trip to the Water Tribe and that they need to add some sunlight back to her complexion. 

It is more lavish than she had been dressed in a very long time, she had forgotten that these dresses make her feel uncomfortable. As terribly as she had missed her spa and the pampering that came with it, she very much does not enjoy the heavy robes. 

It shouldn’t be so hard, Lo and Li will do the talking for her. All she has to do is stand and look poised and presentable. Has to make it look as though she had been through nothing extraordinary.

It is a rather dull affair in spite of the pomp. Lo and Li are enthusiastic and speak with life in their voices but tend to draw speeches out just long enough for the excitement to start to wane. Azula looks down upon the crowd. It is more colorful with a dotting of blue and green with a field of red. It isn’t just her own people that welcome her back home. And maybe some people in the crows are also being welcomed home, for some of them this very well could be their first time standing in Royal Plaza. Their first time seeing Fire Nation royalty in person. 

Everything is so different now. She has been gone for so long. 

But she thinks that she is finally ready to be back. 

Yes, looking down upon the crowd, she thinks that she is. 

If an entire nation can change and change so beautifully then so can she. 

Lo and Li fall silent and revel fills the plaza. Cheers. Claps. Lively chatter. 

Her nation welcomes her with more warmth than the Fire Nation had ever had in the past. She finds herself smiling if only slightly. 

“Welcome home, Azula.” Zuko drapes his arm around her neck. 

“Thank you.” 

He holds his arms out and she sighs. “Fine. Once. Just this once.” He gives her a small squeeze. Just a quick little hug. She supposes that she didn’t hate it. The crowd certainly didn’t. Their claps begin a new. And that is how she knows the long time citizens from the newcomers; a good many of them had probably been waiting for a good long while to see the royal family whole and undivided. 

Whole and undivided like herself. 

.oOo.

“How do I look, Katara?”

“I told you that…”

“I look great.” Azula finishes. “But are you just saying that to get me to relax and move on or do you actually mean it. I don’t enjoy it when people say things just to spare my feelings.” Maybe it is comparison that does her in; she had been dressed so lavishly the night before that the outfit that she has picked for herself feels frumpy and dull. Her hair, loose and unstyled save for the brush she had let Katara run through it, falls to her hips. At least it looks nice.

“While I am very much hoping that we can move on with this, I also actually do mean it. You’ve always been really good at dressing yourself and taking care of yourself.”

“But I was in a jungle for years.” Moreover she was crawling around on all fours, covered in fire for a good portion of those years. She imagines that at least one or two crucial details about Caldera city fashion, she certainly isn’t up to date on the latest styles in Caldera City. Frankly she thinks that she has stuck too rigidly to the way that she used to dress. 

Katara pulls her in and kisses her on the cheek. “We’re having a double date with Zuko and Mai, you’re not making a big speech.”

Azula grimaces. “Not yet.” She is almost angry that she is so nervous. She has never had a problem with speeches and public appearances in the past. 

She had always been so deeply integrated in societies norms, had always been prepped and coached on exactly what to say, what people wanted to hear. Her words were seldom her own and now they want her to, in a sense, speak from the heart. 

Katara massages her shoulders. “You’re getting really tense again; don’t think about that right now.”

“But this speech is going to be a very pivotal one. It is going to shape how everyone views me going forward.” And she is going to need one mighty eloquent, competent, and pretty speech if she is going to undo the damage done to her reputation on the day of the comet.

“They seemed perfectly happy with you during your homecoming ceremony. And besides you have two whole weeks to prepare. One thing at a time, okay.” She offers Azula’s shoulders a firm squeeze. “Tonight let’s get through dinner and making up with Mai.”

Azula cringes.

Making up with Mai…

The prospect is thrice as intimidating as the prospect of making a re-coronation speech. At least she has some framework for what a good speech will sound like.

“You’re going to do fine. Tonight and during your coronation speech.” Katara promises. “Now let’s head out. I know that you like to be punctual.” In a grumble she adds. “And by that you usually mean at least an hour early.”

She does indeed. “I would like to leave ample time in case I see something that catches my eye. Caldera has changed so much.” 

“Are you admitting that you might get distracted?”

“I am admitting that it would only be proper to adequate re-familiarize myself with the city that I rule over…but yes perhaps there might be one or two things that I simply find fascinating.”

Katara flashes her a smile. “Alright then. Fair enough.”

They will probably still arrive an hour early. She had accounted for that.

.oOo.

She hasn’t been to this restaurant since she was a child. It had been her favorite at some point or another. It was always a delight when they handed her the ingredients and let her do some of the cooking. Not that she was particularly good at it. Mostly she liked watching the flames dance. Zuzu’s meals alway came out burnt. Hers did too…probably worse. And so it was up to mother and father to make an edible meal. Most of the time father burned his food too and they were one torched chunk of hippo-cow meat away from calling their chef back to do all of the work.

Mother was good at cooking…

Azula wraps her arms around herself. She is starting to wish that she and Katara hadn’t arrived first. Starting to wish that she had let herself get more distracted. Or that the two of them should have joined Mai and Zuko at the botanical garden but she needed the time to get dressed. Needed time to prepare herself to see her former friend. It is admittedly overwhelming to do, having just gone through her homecoming ceremony and the accompanying dinner the night before. Not that she isn’t pleased to be having plenty of fine Fire Nation cuisine again with all of the spices and all of the richer flavors. It tastes like home. It tastes like normalcy. It is nice to have at least a touch of that after so very long.

Just when Azula is getting comfortable, the figures of Mai and Zuko appear in the doorway. Azula finds herself relieved to know that Mai hasn’t changed all that much. Her hair is longer but she hasn’t changed the way that she puts it up and her bangs are cut exactly the same way. She still has the same somewhat downcast gaze. But she is taller now, much taller. Taller than Zuko even. And she wears dark lipstick. She stands with her hands in her pockets and her lips pressed together. 

“So you got yourself turned into some type of spirit.” Mai says in a way of a greeting. Azula swears that there is a hint of humor in her voice. “That must be quite a story.” 

Azula thinks for a moment. “I don’t remember it all too well.” She thinks that she may never recall all of the details. And maybe that is for the best. Maybe she isn’t supposed to know exactly who or what had put the spirit curse on her. She can’t imagine that the memory would be all too friendly. “Just that it had been storming one night and I came by this old, abandoned temple. It had a spirit protecting it…or it could be that the temple was made for that spirit. Either which way it wanted an offering of some sort for intruding in its temple. I didn’t have anything to give…” She trails off. 

“And…?”

Azula shrugs. “And then a blank space where a memory should be. I think that I had argued with the Spirit. Possibly.” 

Zuko pulls out a chair. “How was your walk?”

“I found this shop that sells little handmade dragon egg sculptures…”

“I thought that you said that you didn’t like…”

“Statutes, Zuzu. Those are unsettling. Sculptures are fine. Especially the egg shaped ones that would make for a very lovely homecoming gift.” She reaches for her tongs as their server places raw ingredients on the table. At its center is a somewhat large pit full of coals. “I understand that you enjoy honor…”

“I do not talk about honor that much.”

“...So I invite you to do the honor of lighting our cooking fire.”

“I haven’t seen you firebend in ages, you can light the fire, the blue would create a nice ambiance.”

“Yes. About that…” 

“Your fire is orange now?” Mai frowns slightly. 

Azula ignites the coals in a brillant flare of white.

“When did that happen?” Mai asks. 

“When I merged with the fire spirit.” This, of course requires a lengthy explanation that she gives while the four of them fight to make an at least semi-appetizing looking meal.

“I think that your fire is too hot, Azula.” Katara frowns. 

“That or you aren’t a good chef.”

“I have never burnt a single meal in my life! Not until now!” She insists. 

Azula rolls her eyes. “Alright, fine.” She snuffs her own flames and gestures for Zuko to set the pit ablaze once more. “But don’t blame the spices when you still can’t create a good meal.”

“Some of these Fire Nation dishes are more complicated then what I’m used to cooking.” Katara insists. 

“We’re going to be eating poorly tonight, aren’t we?” Zuko grumbles.  

“So, why Katara?” Mai asks. “I never imagined that the two of you would get on so well.” 

“Katara can tell you that one. My throat is growing sore. Unlike Katara’s brother, sometimes I get tired of talking.” By the end of Katara’s recanting of their adventure, she finds herself picking at her plate with slightly pinkened cheeks. 

Zuko’s mouth hangs agape so it is up to Mai to confirm, “so the two of you are…dating?

Azula nods. 

“Good luck.” Mai mutters. 

“Who are you wishing luck to, Mai? And why would Katara need it?”

“And good luck to you, Mai. That whole family is a handful.”

“Trust me. I know.” 

They are laughing. All four of them are laughing. She had never imagined that she would be laughing with Mai again. With Mai and Zuzu. To be frank, there had been a time when she didn’t think that she would be able to laugh or smile again. Let alone, mostly untroubled. Maybe next time TyLee will be sitting with them too. Katara cups her hand over Azula’s.

They never do make an edible looking meal.

Chapter Text

Her re-coronation ceremony comes with a festival. The first one that she had attended in ages. The servants had made good on their promise, she had been buried under so much silk and fabric that it was almost suffocating. Her head was heavy with golden combes and elaborate, dangly hair sticks. And then beneath a crown. But she had looked beautiful. Felt beautiful. But it wasn’t exactly practical attire for a festival and so she has dressed herself down. Something simpler, more comfortable and breathable but with a nice touch of elegance. 

She isn’t sure that she wants to stand out, but she seems to do so all the same. Looks and murmurs aren’t lost on her, although she can never quite make any of them out. She thinks that that might before the best, despite Katara’s reassurance that they are just curious to see how she is doing and what she is like. 

Azula tucks her hands into her sleeves and pauses to look around. Zuko and Mai have yet to arrive with TyLee and that adds a whole level of anxiousness to her already edgy mood.

“It’s weird being back at home, isn’t it?” Katara asks softly. She already knows the answer. 

Weird, she supposes, is one way to describe it. “I don’t feel like I belong here anymore.” She has been gone for long enough to have forgotten the do’s and dont’s. Long enough to make a fool of herself, trying to fit back into the standards that she had once upheld. 

She laughs too loud.

Her posture never seems to be as poised as it had been.

She she talks too much when she gets into a conversation 

Her clothes seem far too elegant for her even when she is dressed down.

She says the wrong things and at the wrong times. 

And Katara seems to find it terribly endearing. She finds it rgayer humiliating.

“Of course you belong here, you're their princess. And they seemed pretty happy to have you back during your re-coronation ceremony.”

“Right…” Azula mumbles.

“They’re probably just curious to see your firebending performance tonight.” 

Azula isn't sure if she is ready to give them something else to talk about. Isn't sure if she is ready to show off her white fire, everyone had made such a big deal of her blue fire. But she does enjoy feeling the heat of her flames on her face, had always enjoyed the thrill of a display well planned. Which, evidently, is the other problem; she usually plans her choreography at least a few months in advance. She says as much  to Katara.

Katara who gives her one of those soft smiles and laughs. “I thought that you said that you wanted to be more spontaneous and whimsical like the spirit. Well here's your chance! These shows are all about creativity anyways.” 

Azula bites her lower lip. “Yes. I suppose.”

But it still makes her stomach flutter. It is quite a risk to make her first festival fire dance an impromptu act.

.oOo.

Azula worries too much. Overtones things that need not be over thought. Her firebening is nothing short of mesmerizing. Mesmerizing and masterful.

Everything is an art from her breathing to her hand gestures to her firebening itself. She has adorned her hands with elegant armor. The sort that makes her hands look like long silver claws. 

It was certainly a unique choice to dress in silvers, blues, and whites instead of a Fire Nation red and gold. But it suits her well. And it suits her fire well.

Each and every gesture is deliberate and elegant. The twist of her wrist, the quick flick and pulling back of her arms, the roll of her hips.

It takes katara a moment to realize that she is mimicking the swish and sway of the north sky curtains. That her arm gestures wave like those lights and her fire fur also and unfurls just as the colors had weaved in and out of one another.

Sparks look like crystals of snow. And smoke rolls across the stage like seafoam crowning a wave.

And Aaula stands at the center of it all, hair fluttering, forks of lightning crackling around her. She is in her own snowy, stormy sea. 

She looks upon the crowd, fierce and focused. Her fire reflects in her eyes, putting a confident twinkle in them that almost fools Katara. If she hadn't heard it from Azula’s own lips, she wouldn't think her nervous in the slightest.

Her fire snuffs out and her hair settles over her shoulders. She ends with a graceful bow and closes her eyes as the crowd claps for her. 

“Well she certainly hasn't lost her touch.” Mai comments.

“It comes naturally to her.” Zuko replies. 

But Katara has a feeling that she will still complain about how rusty her skills have gotten because of disuse. Katara can't tell the difference. If anything, she seems better connected to her fire than ever.

.oOo.

She is more nervous to see TyLee again than she had been to perform. Perhaps more nervous than she had been to speak with Mai. 

But it is one last thing. One last thing that makes her feel jittery. 

TyLee looks perfectly content just talking with Katara, Zuko, and Mai. It gives her the impression that she is intruding on something when she walks up and greets them.

“That was an amazing show.” Katara says.

“Thank you.”

“Sparkler?” Zuko offers.

“Those are for children.” Azula replies. 

“I’m pretty sure that the label says not to give those to kids.” Sokka points out. 

Azula shrugs. “Father let me use them all the time when I was a child.”

“He also let you go to war when you were a child.” Sokka quirks a brow. 

She snatches a box of poppers and tosses one at his big toe. He gives a satisfying “yowch!” She takes another and tosses it at the pavement, watching it give flash it’s split-second spark. “Zuzu and I used to throw these at each other all the time. And when father told us to stop we would throw them at him.”

TyLee giggles. “Oh yeah! That was so funny!”

Azula nods.

“You two were little menaces.” Aang says as Toph cackles, “no wonder Ozai was so angry all the time.”

“He didn’t need our help.” Zuko grumbles. “We threw those poppers at each other and we turned out fine.” 

“Did we?” Azula quirks a brow. “You have anger issues and a need to people please and I have…whatever it is that causes a person to see things that aren’t there now and then.” 

“You’re also a people pleaser.” Mai shrugs. 

“Speaking of which…” She turns to TyLee. “It’s good to see you again, TyLee. Katara and I were going to go get some tea and kebabs. Do you want me to bring anything back for you?”

“I’d like to go with you guys. I can never decide which kind of kebab to get.”

“But the fireworks display is about to start.”

“As it does every hour.” Mai reminds her. “The main event isn’t until midnight so…”

“But we’ve never missed an hourly show.” Azula replies. “Except, of course, for the past few years when we didn’t attend the festival.” 

“Well then I guess the three of you better hurry back.” Mai shrugs. “We’ll go set up the picnic blanket and what not.”

“Top of the hill, under the maple tree?” Zuko asks. 

“Top of the hill, under the maple tree.”

And so they split off. She, Katara, and TyLee follow the scent of sizzling meat and chili pepper and the others follow the blinking of the fireflies towards the hill. 

“How have you been, Azula. I heard that things have been really…strange for you.”

“Yes, a little bit.” She finds herself toying with the excess fabric of her kimono’s sleeve. “I…I got to see a few new places. The Spirit Oasis  was nice—I was unconscious or freezing while I was there though so I didn’t get to take in the scenery all that well. But the Water Tribes have these lights that dance in the sky. Have you ever seen them? I think that you would like them!” Maybe she should give TyLee a turn to speak. But TyLee seems perfectly content to listen to her talk about the lights. “I based my performance off of that. Maybe we can all go one day. Me, you, and Mai. Like old times.” She would quite like that. 

“That sounds nice, Azula. But I would like to…get used to talking to you again.” 

It is TyLee’s kind way of saying that she needs to build trust again. And Azula can’t blame her. She feels somewhat the same. They have to get used to each other again. She has to get used to the Fire Nation again. She also has to get used to herself. She likes to think that she will keep good company on that journey. 

“What about you, TyLee? What have you been up to these days?”

“Oh! All sorts of things! I was with the Kyoshi Warriors for a while, as you know, but then I saw this traveling circus and I just couldn’t resist. I kind of missed that, you know?”

Azula nods. “That suits you much better than being a Kyoshi Warrior…or someone who just follows me around. You’re a skilled combatant, but you aren’t a soldier.” 

“None of us were.” Katara adds and Azula nods her agreement. 

“I’m so much happier with that traveling circus. We go everywhere and see everything and they are such a fun bunch!” TyLee declares. 

Truly it sounds like the perfect path for her. Azula hopes that she can find her own now that she has the time and mental fortitude to do so. “Have you ever played any Caldera City festival games, Katara?”

“I did once about a year after the war. Turns out that you need to be a firebender to win most of them.”

“Hmm. Yes. That’s right. Our games are fire based. However, I imagine that, now that we have more waterbenders and earthbenders who attend, we probably have more diverse gaming options.”

“Is that your way of asking if I can win you one of those?” She points at a fluffy pile of plush toys.

“It might be, yes.” She pauses. “It, of course, is also an opportunity to prove that I am better than you at a game of flaming hoops.”

“That’s a firebending game.”

“The hoops don’t necessarily have to be on fire.” TyLee smiles. 

“But then it is not a game of flaming hoops. It is just regular hoops.” Azula frowns. She clears her throat, “not that I particularly care what kind of hoops they are, so long as I get a prize.”

“She cares a lot.” TyLee whispers. “It’s going to bother her all night if you play flaming hoops with hoops that aren’t flaming.” 

Katara smirks. “Well I guess I know what I’m doing tonight.” 

Does Azula win their game of hoops? Only three out of five times. It would seem that Katara is quite better at it than she had anticipated. Has she acquired one large komodo-rhino plushie, three smaller ones, and a sky bison plushie? Most certainly. She gives the sky bison to TyLee who snuggles the thing all the way back to their spot on the hill. 

Did they forget the tea? Yes.

Did they also forget the kebabs? Also yes. 

Are the others quite disappointed? Quite.

Is that humorous? Indeed. 

Sokka loses their game of drawing straws so he has to walk down the hill and fetch their tea and kebabs. At least he does not have to wait in line. At least there are going to be at least three more shows before the main event.

Azula leans herself against Katara. Lets the waterbender wrap her arms around her the way that she had back when she was just some confused and curious fire spirit. It is comfortable. A nice welcome home. 

A promising welcome. 

There is noise all around; booms, crackles and pops. Sizzles, drum beats, and laughter. Chatter, chimes, whistles, and smokey hisses. 

Azula had missed home so terribly and it doesn’t truly hit until now. She is thankful for that. Thankful, also, for the realization that her yearning for home means that she still belongs here. That her flame is still strong. She isn’t entirely certain of where she will go from here, but wherever she goes, she will travel whole and hopeful. Authentic and cherished. 

She looks at Katara. The fireworks twinkle in those pretty blue eyes, bathe her soft skin in flashes of pink, green, and gold. It is not unlike the sky curtains. Azula turns her own gaze back to the fireworks.

She stares up at them with Katara’s hand in one of her hands and several komodo-rhino plushies in the other. 

She used to know all about komodo-rhinos.

She still knows all about komodo-rhinos. 

20 to 55 inches. 4 tons. Black or white komodo rhino. 59 inches. 7 tons. White or black komodo rhino. 39 inches. 7 tons. Greater one horned komodo rhino. 60 inches. 10,000 pounds. Caldera ash komodo rhino.