“You’ve never seen the North Pole?” Aang asked. And just like that he carried her away, far away from the noise of the capital and the judging glares of the people.

On the back of his bison, the pair had round after round of deeply personal conversations. Weirdly personal, she had to admit. She found that loneliness and sorrow could loosen the tongue. A part deep within her, longed for someone to vent to. Longed for release. The Avatar seemed like a good place to start. The boy was wide eyed and—for the most part—of pure intention. She had trouble picturing him sharing the secrets of others, knowing the distress it could cause. So she reluctantly opened up to him. Often, he would nod his head and not say anything. Other times he would offer a piece of what he hoped was well placed advice or reassurance.

For that, she kept talking and on occasions, she listened to his troubles. One such strife—that was discussed weeks into their journey—was a fight with Katara that ended with a pretty bitterweet breakup. “She wanted to go back home and I wanted to stay in the Fire Nation and make sure things were okay.” He told her. That’s how it started. It finished with them agreeing that a long distant relationship just wouldn’t be possible—Aang had a duty and she had a family so traveling the world together just wasn’t going to work anymore. Of course, that left him wondering if they had only gotten together because the war had brought them there. That, perhaps, their love only ran as deep as their need to save the world.

 “I’m sure you’ll find someone else.” Azula replied and couldn’t help but add a resentful, “there are plenty of worthier people anyhow.” To whom she was referring, she hadn’t yet realized. Of course, Aang wasn’t thrilled with the offhanded remark, but chose to let it go in light of things.

 The conversation to follow was one that Azula had been dreading. The one where he asked her about her mother. She mostly kept quiet but that was enough to let him know he was touching a raw spot and he continued to pry until she turned her back to him so he wouldn’t see the few tears that slipped out. They didn’t speak for the rest of that day. He probably feared that he shattered the eggshells their entire relationship seemed to resemble; because that night when he brought Appa to the ground he approached her. She was laying on her stomach when he asked if he could sit next to her, when she didn’t wave him away he dropped down. Slowly and soothingly he rubbed her back and said that she didn’t have to talk about it if she didn’t want to. Somehow, that always made her want to get things off of her chest. She sat up and relayed what she had known for a long time, that her mother never enjoyed her company and would have been better off with just a son. As she did so, Aang took her hand and squeezed it, telling her that it wasn’t true and that possibly, her father had planted those thoughts. She furrowed her eyebrows, she’d never considered that she’d heard those ill-words not from her mother’s own lips, but from her father speaking for her mother.

That night she let Aang fall asleep by her side. Without much thinking, she wrapped her arms around him and nuzzled her face in the crook of his neck. He didn’t move away, in fact he looked pretty cozy.

 After that their conversations had become less heavy. He would share a story or two from their life on the road—her favorite was the one about Sokka and the baby sabretooth moose-lion. In turn she mentioned a thing or two about TyLee catching a fish and stuffing it down the back of Mai’s shirt. She made sure to mention that this occurred during their little chase.

 The two of them were just about as different from each other as two people could be. But they had a certain vibe that Azula enjoyed. He was as gentle as she was harsh. She was as cold as he was friendly. But somehow it worked—she could get him to toughen up when times called for it and he had a way of slipping under her armor and exposing a more sensitive side. They brought each other out of their comfort zones until it was no longer uncomfortable.

 Only one thing remained uncomfortable for her. And by the time they got to the North Pole it became more apparent. Seldom did Azula come across a person who accepted her as wholly as he did—for not just her brains, cunning, loyalty, and skill, but for her manipulative streak, cold demeanor, and paranoid nights (among other things) as well.

Under the glow of the northern lights it became apparent that she more than enjoyed his company. She yearned to keep it. She savored his light and caring embraces, the twinkle in his eyes when he realized that he had made her laugh or helped her work through something tough. Stranger still for her, was that she took relief in finding out that she’d helped him.

 “You’ve really never seen them before?” He asked again, motioning to the colorful glowing patches that danced about the sky like dreamy specters.

 “To be honest, I didn’t know that the sky could do that.” Azula admitted. The display was dazzling. It was like the smoke she was used to seeing but in graceful pastels that washed the snow in shades of green and pink and sometimes blue.

 Aang shot her that wide and goofy smile. He seemed proud of himself, for showing her something that she found fascinating.

 “I just wish it wasn’t so frigid.” She replied, shaking with cold. Aang scooched closer and tossed his blanket around her. “Can we get closer?” She asked.

 Aang peered at Appa. “Are you up for that, buddy?”

 The bison gave a lazy groan but stood up anyhow. Aang took Azula’s hand and helped her into Appa’s saddle. He seemed to be bursting with joy, “I can’t wait for you to see them up close!”

 She responded to his words with a warm smile. They were skybound in no time at all, idly drifting nearer to the wintery spectacle. As Azula gazed at the curtains shifting in the night sky, Aang came to stand behind her. He wrapped his blanket around the both of them and then his hands around her middle. It was quiet, serenely so save for the breeze that fluttered her hair. In this instance there wasn’t a need for words.

 In that moment, Azula realized that Aang accepted her for everything she was. Now she had to accept that she loved him for it. As impossible as she thought it was, she loved him in general. She felt a soft kiss on her ear.

He was making it so easy for her to accept.

The red standards flew in the air along with the blue ones. Horses charged without any restraint, weapons shining in each warrior’s hands. Resistance was futile: every military unit was being wiped out systematically by the powerful siege weapons that tore down buildings, walls and guard towers. Nothing could slow down the destruction of an entire civilization, as the winds of conquest swept by. Time was running out already, but the untimely demise of the Japanese civilization could not be slowed, not when all their castles and samurai had been slain…

“Ugh! I quit!” Toph shouted, throwing her hands up in the air. Suki groaned.

“Come on, just a little further, we have resources…!”

“They’ll have wiped out our buildings before we can do a damn thing. Leave it be! Quit and let them celebrate already!”

Suki sighed and resigned from the game, and on cue, the red and blue team started their mandatory celebration, laughing and kissing as the rest of the competition sighed in defeat.

“Well, you should be glad you guys were the last to fall, if anything,” Katara told Toph and Suki, pouting.

“Yeah, well, your team was very easy to target once we realized Aang had no military forces,” Sokka laughed at Katara, with Azula’s arms still around his neck.

“We are most grateful for that, Aang,” she said, smirking at the bald, defeated boy who scowled a little at her. “A population limit of two hundred, and you made a hundred and eighty villagers… did you just want to be wiped out, really?”

“Well, as much as he only had villagers, at least he wasn’t the first to fall. Next time we’re not getting paired with Zuko,” Toph pouted. Zuko jumped.

“Hey! I was working just as hard as everyone else here!” Zuko exclaimed, blushing.

“Zuko, you know as well as everyone else that your strategy skills were, uh… lacking,” Suki said, eyes wide. Azula snorted.

“Poor, innocent Zuzu, too unprepared, too lacking to practice the art of war on Age of Empires…” she snickered. Zuko huffed and glared at her.

“Shut up. That joke’s not nearly as good as you think it is,” he grunted.

“Well, the bad joke of the day really is the whole lot of you, I’d say. Beating you didn’t even take an hour,” Azula smirked. Sokka chuckled next to her. 

“In all fairness, Azula, we’re just too smart for them to handle,” he said. Azula sighed in agreement.

“Indeed. Whatever they may do, there’s no contest against us,” she said, with a contented smile. “We ought to invite Ty Lee and Mai the next time.”

“Oh? Think they might be better competition?” Sokka asked, squeezing her shoulder gently. Azula snorted.

“No, I simply want more people to crush,” she said. He laughed again.

“You’re unbelievable,” he whispered, kissing her cheek.

“I don’t know what’s more gross about the two of you, your displays of affection or your teamwork,” Toph growled, shaking her head. “Maybe a mix of both.”

Sokka only smiled proudly at his girlfriend and she gave him one of her trademark smirks too. Too often their displays of affection were over the top, just to make their friends uncomfortable, but the teamwork was something they took pride of beyond most anything else about their relationship.

It was to be expected for them to pull off such remarkable victories over their friends, seeing as they had spent the better part of two years playing games together, even before they were dating. Before they knew who the other was, too.

But while they loved playing in Dannan, they had other games they rather enjoyed, too. And Age of Empires, a game of strategic warfare, was certainly one of their favorites.

While Sokka and Azula usually spent most their free time alone together, this weekend was different. After Toph had badgered them enough about wanting to play with them, Sokka and Azula finally had decided that the best game they could play with her was Age of Empires, rather than Dannan. Yet Toph suffered from the obvious problem regarding games: she couldn’t see. So that had brought her to ask her friends if any of them wanted to help her play against the gamer pair, and that had stirred everyone’s curiosity quite a bit. Katara was the first to volunteer, but Toph had decided to pick Suki as her proxy instead, as she was more likely to listen to Toph’s orders, instead of stubbornly doing whatever she thought was best.

The conversation had caught Zuko and Aang’s interest too, and in the end, everyone had showed up that Saturday with their respective laptops, ready to install and play the game. Sokka and Azula hadn’t been expecting such a turnout, but they were far from displeased: it would be much more fun with more players.

They set up their computers in Sokka’s living room, some of them sitting on the couches, others with the computers on the coffee table. After a quick rundown of how to play, they had set up the first game between them all: a seven-player game, where Sokka and Azula had comprised the red-and-blue team, Katara and Aang had been the yellow-and-turquoise one, and Zuko had joined Suki and Toph’s unit, playing as the orange-and-green team.

Sending two teams of rookies against two experienced players could only result in total annihilation. And the pair responsible for such a feat were clearly quite proud of themselves.

“You know, we just need practice,” said Katara, scowling at Azula. “We’re going to be much stronger eventually and then we’ll fight evenly, you know we will.”

“Say what you will, I think we’ll have the upper hand no matter what,” said Azula, smirking proudly.

“Only because you’re paired with each other,” said Suki, shaking her head. “You two have been working together for ages now, of course you’d know how to beat everyone else at this game.”

“Yeah, I bet you’d stop being so smug if you got paired with Zuko instead,” said Toph, smirking.

“Uh, possibly, but really, even Zuzu can’t be so bad that he’d cause me to lose,” said Azula, shaking her head. “I’d still win.”

“Are you sure?” Aang chimed in, with a small smirk of his own. “Even… if Sokka’s in the opposite team?”

Those words were the first to make Sokka and Azula tense up in the entire day. They frowned, looking at Aang with uncertainty.

“I’m just saying…” he said, but Katara stepped forward and looked at them with amusement.

“He’s suggesting something really good, actually,” she said, with amusement. “How well would you two fare against each other, instead of being on the same team, for a change?”

“That… is a terrible idea,” said Sokka, looking at his sister pointedly. “It might end up being a twelve-hour game, or so…”

“Oh, I think watching you two destroy each other will be well worth twelve hours,” said Katara, with amusement.

“Well, unless they’re scared of doing it because, you know, they might break up because of it?” said Toph, smirking and shrugging. “Seeing how competitive they both are…”

“Please,” said Sokka, rolling his eyes. “We wouldn’t break up over something like this, of course we wouldn’t. Right?”

He looked at Azula, but she remained silent, a thoughtful look on her eyes. Sokka’s eyes widened and he nudged her with his elbow.

“Right?!”

“Uh, heh? Depends on how the fight goes, really…” Azula said, with a dry grin. Sokka’s jaw dropped.

“Say what?!”

The others laughed at Sokka’s response. Azula simply shrugged apologetically.

“What can I say? I don’t like losing and I know neither do you, but one of us is going to lose anyways…” she said. Sokka snorted, in disbelief.

“Fine then,” he said, shaking his head and standing up. Azula watched him as he picked up his laptop.

Her eyes followed him as he moved to sit opposite to her, their tilted screens in light contact. He fixed her with a steady gaze, to the brim with determination. Soon enough Azula smirked.

“Well, then… we’re doing this for real?” she asked. Sokka nodded.

“You bet we are. Though if you want to break up after I kick your ass, well, I won’t stop you, but I would’ve thought you wouldn’t be such a sore loser…” he smirked, as he started setting up the game. It was Azula’s turn to laugh in disbelief.

“Ah, well, if you’re so confident, I do hope you won’t come crying to me once I make you bite my dust,” she said, shaking her head as she leaned forward towards her computer too.

On cue, everyone else gathered behind the two players of this round, filled with perverse curiosity. Zuko and Katara drifted to Sokka’s side, while Suki, Aang and Toph moved towards Azula’s. Yet neither of the competitors took much notice to how the groups had distributed. They were too busy trying to intimidate each other before their battle.

“I’m picking the Byzantines,” Sokka declared. Azula smirked.

“Good luck. My Spanish shall blow you to smithereens,” she said. He scoffed.

“You can’t break the best civilization of the game with a few guns, I thought you already knew that,” he said, shaking his head. “But I suppose Gilded Fire has always put too much faith in firearms…”

She laughed again and looked at him with skepticism. Sokka smirked back at her, his mouse hovering over the button to start the fight.

“Ready?” he asked. She smirked.

“To write your epitaph? Afraid so. You were loved dearly, Sokka,” she said, mockingly. He couldn’t help but laugh again before starting the battle with one click.

It had been a brutal, fierce fight. The Nomad mode of the game was harsh, and without their awareness, they had set up camp far too close to each other. Battles had ensued, conflicts had arisen, but Sokka had been able to respond well at first. He built up a strong army, with large groups of priests that quite often converted Azula’s units and caused quite a lot of trouble for her.

Yet as Sokka took three relics for himself, Azula took the last two. And where Sokka walled himself in his territory, while also seeking to destroy Azula’s initial base, she set up a new base elsewhere, and waited patiently, quietly. The red soldiers were building their strengths, and she focused on developing all the technology she needed to fight back, even as Sokka frequently sought to siege her new base. But it wasn’t enough. Not even his best units could tear through the full defenses of Azula’s own walled territories.

After a few scouting missions that he couldn’t stop, she found his monastery. And with a massive army of paladins, conquistadors and trebuchets, she tore through his lands without breaking a sweat and destroyed his army, along with his every military building. Just as she was stealing the relics from his fallen monastery, the unsurprising message had blinked in her screen: Sokka had surrendered.

“Woah! That was amazing!” Toph shouted, laughing and patting Azula’s shoulder. Suki had narrated everything for her as it happened. “Damn, you kicked his ass!”

Sokka groaned and dropped his head on the keyboard as even Zuko and Katara went around the table to congratulate the winner. Azula was beaming with pride, hearing them recount the most impressive of her tactics.

“So wait, she had already set up elsewhere on that area while Sokka was busy wrecking her first base?” Katara asked, impressed. As she had been at Sokka’s side, she hadn’t seen any of what Azula was doing.

“I don’t know how she did it, but she did it,” said Aang, with an amazed laugh. “Though he almost got her at a few points…”

“He’s good at quick responses,” said Azula, smiling fondly at her sulking boyfriend. “But it’s hard to outdo me when it comes to long-term plans, and he knew that. He tried to strike first to stop me from doing what I did, but… it was too late already.”

“Yeah, well…” said Sokka, grimacing and lifting his head only to bow towards her. “Good game, good game…”

“Why, thank you,” said Azula, smirking. “Though you ought to address me with more respect, now, Sokka…”

“Huh?” he said, raising an eyebrow. Her smirk only widened as he grimaced. “What, you don’t want me to call you empress or something, do you…?”

“She did win at the Age of Empires…” Aang said innocently. Azula laughed as Sokka snorted.

“Heh, well, fine, I’ll humor you,” he said, with narrow eyes. “Empress Azula… conqueror of my heart!”

“Oh god, Sokka!” Katara groaned, as Toph made a face of disgust. The others laughed while Azula blushed but smiled, shaking her head at him.

“What? It’s still true, I wasn’t going to break up with her because she beat me!” he said, beaming proudly.

“You should kick his ass again, Azula, please.” said Katara. “Make him stop being so corny.”

“If you want me to, gladly,” said Azula, smirking at Sokka. “What’s it going to be now? Fortress? Arena…?”

“Team Islands,” Sokka said, with a raised eyebrow. Azula tensed up.

“N-no, you can’t…”

“Oh, yeah, I can,” he said, with a proud smirk.

She wasn’t very good at maps with water. Sokka was far too talented in them, better suited for water-based warfare than anything else. But she couldn’t falter. She shouldn’t.

“Fine. Fine,” she said, raising her hands before glancing at everyone else. “Well? Are you lot going to join in this time, or not?”

“Woah, are we?” Aang asked, looking at Sokka with unease. “I thought you two were going to have it out again…”

“Oh, we can. On opposing teams,” said Sokka, smirking.

“Huh, well, then I’ll join Sokka this time,” said Zuko, beaming. Sokka tensed up.

“Heh? Don’t you want to join Azula instead…?”

“Oh no, you keep Zuko, I’ll take Aang,” said Azula, smiling as Aang jumped to his computer. Katara looked at Toph and Suki.

“So I guess we’re going together this time?” she asked. Toph smirked and Suki nodded in approval.

“Let’s do this!” Toph exclaimed.

“Our love is effortless, stop acting like you’re scared

I get down on my knees but you’re not playing fair

My heart breaks down when you question if you’re mine, well

I don’t I don’t I don’t get it cause I’m so sweet all the time”

- ‘In My Mind’ by Maty Noyes

The moon was low and to their left in they sky when Mai and Azula set out to hunt the night’s meal. Poorly as Mai’s father had handled things, their supplies were limited. Between their mouths and the mounts’ as well, they didn’t bother to ration much. Azula had explained that they would hunt for themselves, and give most of the rations to the mounts, almost everything but the water. It would be a short trip to the next Fire Nation colony, after all, and Azula had never minded hunting. It had almost surprised her when Mai offered to help her where she could, with her limited experience.

Azula had been so anxious when they'd left the city, she was almost glad for things to be calm for a short while - a small but welcome break in the action. Traveling with Mai and Ty Lee, as well as hunting, would be a good way to take her mind off of the way things had gone, or how badly she’d marred them…She’d been so close to a victory and it had slipped through her fingers so easily.

She needed time to collect herself, as much as she hated to admit it. Now, all there was time to worry about was finding the boy Avatar and taking him down for good, which would undoubtedly lead her to her uncle and brother as well…She simply had to remember the goal, and everything would turn out the way she’d planned.

Failure was not an option this time.

As the pair made off for the tree line, Mai still adjusting the sling on her back slightly, they could hear Ty Lee cooing at the mongoose lizards, promising the three beasts that they would never be eaten. She’d been adamant about staying behind to look after the mounts and the small fire, refusing to hunt with them. Azula and Mai were less than surprised, and though they both had teased her relentlessly about it before setting off, they waited to laugh quietly until they were sure she wouldn’t hear them.

They made their way deeper into the forest, treading lightly. It was more than a bit strange for Azula to be next to another person after traveling alone, but she was happy to see Mai after all these years, even if things had gone…awry in New Ozai. She was alert and naturally light on her feet, so it seemed to Azula that she belonged. Maybe this wouldn’t turn out as badly as she’d expected it to.

She was determined to stay confident. She couldn’t let her mind slip into the dark again.

“What’s out here, anyway?” Mai asks, missing her mark on disinterest but wise enough to speak softly.

It hadn’t been nearly long enough for Azula to miss the hint in her voice that it did, in fact, matter to her. Mai had been a picky eater, if she remembered things correctly.

“Oh, the usual - elephant rats, turkey ducks,” she answered, staying quiet as well, though her smirk sounded through her words. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a stray pig chicken.”

She saw under the moonlight the movement in Mai’s eyes, one that showed her distaste plainly.

“Sounds great.”

Azula grinned a bit wider for a moment. “Shouldn’t you be telling me this sort of thing? You’re the one who’s lived out here for years.”

“I wasn’t out camping,” Mai responded, sounding like Azula should have known. Though most of Azula’s attention was on a rustling bush in the small clearing far ahead, she could hear the faint smile in Mai’s voice to match her own. She put her arm out toward Mai, and hardly a moment had passed before she stopped as well, eyes locking onto the rustling and shift of light. Azula motioned her head to their left, and Mai understood, moving swiftly yet as soundlessly as ever, drawing her set of knives.

On Azula’s signal and in a heartbeat, Mai sent the knives through the air to their target - apparently missing, because Azula spotted what looked like a turkey duck bolting away unscathed with a loud squeal of shock. In a second of instinct, she calculated speed and direction and shot a bright, concentrated ball of flame, striking it directly in its head. The woods seemed to turn to daylight for an instant, her flames illuminating the look of slight shock on Mai’s features.

“Well,” Azula said, her voice returning to full volume, “you obviously haven’t been hunting, either.”

Mai laughed to herself quietly. “Animals are quicker than people.”

“You’re rusty, Mai, admit it.” Azula had meant it, especially considering the way things had gone back in the city, but she still heard the words come out far more harshly than she’d intended. Once she’d reached the kill, she turned her head and added, “What have you been doing since you left?”

And even though she’d managed a smile when she asked, Mai said nothing to her, silently marching the rest of the distance between them. Azula felt the air thicken, if only slightly. Of course she’d said the wrong thing, the wrong way. She heard her father’s voice in the back of her mind, the same voice that told her alliances were a waste of time and a weakness before that. She was beginning to understand what he’d meant.

She remembered why she hadn’t minded the solitude. Even if she was happy to see her friends after so long, it would be the same as when they were children, even after all that had changed…Another failure for her to add to the list, something meaningless to distract her from her mission.

Still, when she looked down to the animal, Azula barked with laughter in spite of her thoughts. She took hold of its neck and lifted it to eye level, admiring the awful burn on the side of its tiny head and neck, or what was left of it.

“It almost looks like Zuko, now.”

It was meant to be funny, to make Mai - and herself - feel better. Instead, Azula felt the air become even more tense than it was to begin with. She turned toward Mai with the animal dangling away from them both, and even in the dimness she could see her frown deepen.

“Oh, Mai. Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts about capturing my brother…”

Azula had failed to sound like she was only teasing, as if the question was truly rhetorical.

Mai unpacked the sling and held it out for the creature, never quite looking away from its charred face and neck.  “It’s nothing.”

Azula felt the familiar rise of paranoia, rushing through her blood, making her skin feel hot even in the chill of nightfall.

“Is it nothing?” She spoke the word like a curse, trying not to be needlessly aggressive with her work stuffing the kill into the cloth. “You’re frowning like a scolded child.”

When Azula cast an eye toward her face, Mai was silent still, mask in place once more. She hauled the thing over her shoulder without looking away from the faint traces of ash and blood staining the dirt by their feet.

“Let’s just get back to camp,” she sighed, adjusting the sling. “Ty Lee’s probably been training the mongoose lizards to do cartwheels. She must be bored.” After that, the only sound was the ground beneath Mai’s feet as she turned away to retrieve her knives.

Azula’s mind rushed back to Mai and Ty Lee’s conversation as they were escorted to the gates of New Ozai, the way Mai had smiled when Ty Lee mentioned Zuko’s name. He had been branded unworthy, cast aside like the runt he was, a shame to the nation - she hadn’t seen him in years, and Mai still reacted this way…

The way she would when they were children, and she would tease her about her silly little crush.

Azula followed her a mere moment later, summoning a large handful of fire to help her find the set. The flame was large, and it erupted a bit more forcefully than she’d anticipated.

She didn’t particularly feel like dropping the topic.

“I never showed you the wanted poster from back in the resort village, did I?” She asked, knowing the answer and unable to hide the hint of malice in her voice. She followed behind leisurely, not bothering to conceal her grin at all.

“The scar is awful,” she continued, watching Mai locate the knives sticking out of the dirt by the shrub she’d aimed for. “Really, the resemblance between my brother and our dinner is uncanny.”

Mai said nothing, but Azula still could see the corners of her lips tugging downward again as she plucked the knives out of the compact soil, her fingers slipping a bit on the first try.

“Forget it, Azula.”

The fire in Azula’s palm blazed - hardly enough for Mai to see or feel, but it had. She’d noticed, too, the way Mai’s voice held an edge…It was the exact tone she would adopt when they were younger, when Azula would push her until something finally bubbled up to the surface. It was clear she’d had enough, and though Azula didn’t want to stop, and she never had before, something made her anyway.

Some things had changed, and some things had not.

“Oh, would you relax?” Her tone was cold, and this time, her fire kept still. “It was only a joke.”

“Well, it was a bad one,” Mai muttered, barely turning her head to say it as she dusted the blades in her hand.

Azula’s eyes widened by a fraction, more out of shock than indignation. Whatever she’d expected Mai to say, that wasn’t it. She couldn’t even enjoy the fact that she’d gotten under her skin…She glared down at the girl crouched in front of her. Azula was the heir to the Fire Lord’s throne, not Zuko. She was Mai’s princess, and she was speaking to her like she was just another commoner. She’d practically insulted her.

Even as the thoughts seared their way through her mind, Azula only let her arm fall, quenching the fire she held with a slight sound of distaste. The urge, or perhaps the reflex, to remind Mai of her place was faded out by something stronger…though Azula couldn’t give it a name.

She looked away, and decided to drop it this time.  

They walked the rest of the short way back in silence, though it wasn’t tranquil, at least not for Azula. The need to do something was faint at its strongest, and she wondered why she wasn’t more outraged. Anger was only on the edges of her thoughts. Not for the first time since the skirmishes in New Ozai, she wondered if she’d made the right choice to recruit them. It was proving to be far more distracting and disappointing than she’d planned.

As they approached, they saw Ty Lee in a one armed handstand, all the while chirping to the mounts like she had been when they’d gone.

“Whoa, what’s wrong with you guys?” She asked, falling out of form and looking between them.

“Mai’s being boring, is all,” Azula sighed. She lazily fed the fire with her bending and a raised pair of fingers, glad to be back with Ty Lee to eat up the silence. Hopefully she would serve as a simple distraction instead of another problem to dwell on when she didn’t have the time.

Hopefully neither of them would become a real problem. She would have to keep a close eye on them both…

“I’m just hungry.” Mai’s voice was perfectly flat again, but it felt like thunder to Azula. “Let’s eat before it gets too late.”

Ty Lee shrugged slightly, averting her eyes from the kill that Mai was unleashing from the cloth. With her back to the two of them, she went into her handstand again.

As Azula rolled up her sleeves and set to work on the animal with Mai watching, learning, and lending her knives every now and then, Ty Lee kept the conversation going entirely on her own. She regaled them with stories of what they’d missed in the past ten minutes. Apparently, Mai had guessed correctly - the mongoose lizards weren’t very good students.

All the while, Azula focused on the color of the blood while she worked to prepare the meat. She’d done this before, and she wondered vaguely what was making her hands so erratic and forceful as she removed the innards of the dead thing in front of her. Ty Lee’s voice was strange to hear, its highs and lows seeming out of place while she worked.

“The animals at the circus were way faster with learning all that acrobatic stuff,” Ty Lee remarked, gently petting the face of the unwilling beast in front of her. “The platypus bear was the smartest, though. He picked things up so quickly, it was like he was born to it!”

Just as she’d finished that thought, Azula’s attention came back to the one-sided conversation. The meat was already cooking over the fire under Mai’s watch, while she went and washed her hands and arms clean of blood, viscera, and stray feathers in the river beside their camp.

“They only have one job, Ty Lee,” Azula said after a moment of silence and scrubbing, taking her arms out of the water and shaking them off. “They aren’t in need of circus training.”

“Maybe,” Ty Lee admitted after a moment of thought, falling out of the handstand to her feet near the mongoose lizards, who never once flinched, or looked toward the disturbance at all. They had probably long ago realized that Ty Lee never quite stays still. “But, wouldn’t it be fun if they learned?”

Despite it all, Azula grinned slightly while she walked back toward the two of them.

“I miss it there already,” Ty Lee said softly, sitting cross-legged in front of the fire in one swift motion.

Azula felt something run through her blood at those words. She ignored the concern that Ty Lee would run off on her again, and took the portion Mai held out to her. The second was handed to Ty Lee, and all the while Mai was just quiet as she’d been since their return to camp.

They ate to the sounds of the night and the forest and the fire they surrounded. The wind agitated the blaze, or at least that’s what Azula would have blamed it on. She felt nearly the way she had when they’d left the city, like bringing them onto her mission had been a mistake. It certainly seemed that way now…It gnawed at her mind the way she gnawed at her food, the worry that they wouldn’t be able to serve their nation, or Azula herself, and help her to win this war.

After a moment, Mai sighed and waved the rest of her meat outward, her demeanor slightly more displeased than usual. “Do you want this, Ty?”

Azula couldn’t help herself.  “That’s what you meant by hungry?”

“I’ll finish it!” Ty Lee exclaimed, reaching over to take it while Mai looked away in apparent disinterest. “I’m still starving.”

Azula looked at Mai, now sitting empty handed. She felt her patience growing much, much thinner, so she returned to her own food. She was determined to stay focused. She didn’t have time to worry, certainly not about something so inconsequential. Mai was serving beneath her, and Azula could not fail. Mai would prove her loyalty, and so would Ty Lee.

Azula would make sure of it.  

“Should I be worried about your lack of appetite, Mai?” Azula saw the question register in Mai’s eyes. “I have no time for a soldier without the strength to carry out her duty.”

She watched Mai look at her, finally, and with the level gaze from her grey eyes she felt something in her blood other than fire, or anger. It was something close to worry…or something close to fear.

She did her best to push it away.

“You don’t need to worry at all, Azula.” She spoke as if nothing had changed.

Nothing at all.

“Then I trust you won’t let me down when we find my brother.”

Mai’s eyes flashed, and Azula had not missed it. She smiled, her cold gaze a warning.

“Of course not,” Mai stated calmly. She stood and feigned a stretch, looking away. “I’ll set up for bed.”

Once the fire had been doused and the mounts’ ties reinforced, the three of them settled into their bedrolls. Ty Lee apparently knew better than to give her usual round of good-nights, this time.

Azula lay awake long after she’d noticed the two others slip into their dreams. She stared up at the sky, and she stared for so long that the stars blurred into one dull and lifeless stain of light. She knew resting was necessary, yet sleep would not come so easily. The thought that she had already failed once was still heavy in her mind, but now all her thoughts could latch onto was Mai’s voice, earlier in the woods.

Azula recalled the day she and Ty Lee had reached what was then Omashu, and when she’d caught sight of Mai through the cloth of her palanquin. She had admired, then, all the ways that Mai had changed - she’d grown taller, her voice had lowered in a way Azula liked to hear…

And some things had stayed exactly the same. Her grin, her uninspired temperament. Her stupid crush on her stupid brother. Azula thought of Zuko, desperately on the tail of the Avatar with her useless uncle, walking right into the trap they’d set for themselves. She would bring the Avatar’s corpse home to her father, and the entire nation would call her a hero.

Her brother’s corpse would be a gift for Mai. She let her eyes close, calm at last, for what felt like the first time since she’d left home.