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Summary
A week alone in the woods was supposed to be simple.
Aang and Azula — new to this, still learning how to be soft with each other — take a week away from crowns and councils to find a lost relic and, more honestly, just to be alone together. Sokka gives them one landmark: walk north, and a hut will find you.
It's warmer than it should be.
What begins as fireside teasing and stolen kisses curdles, chapter by chapter, into something old and starving — something that knows exactly which voice will make Azula stop sleeping, exactly which face will make her stop trusting her own mind. By the time Aang understands what they've walked into, it's already taken her.
He comes home alone, with her blood on his hands and no body to bury.
But grief isn't the end of this story. Azula's spirit hasn't gone quiet — she's fighting, from somewhere the living aren't meant to reach, to hold onto herself long enough to be found. And Aang, with Zuko, Sokka, Katara, Toph, and Suki's Kyoshi Warriors behind him, is going back into those trees to bring her home — whatever it costs him.
Some things that die in the dark don't stay dead. Not if you love them enough to go looking.