Chapter Text
After her downfall to that Water Tribe peasant, Azula had been locked in a fire nation prison. She hated it, she hated the plain walls and the metal bars and the darkness and the bad food and the straw mat on the floor. But more than the actual surroundings, she hated being alone. Azula had never really feared being alone before -- in fact, she relished it. All that time to spend without having to worry about other people messing things up. Now, however, she found the silence oppressive, the time alone reminding her of all the people she’d lost. She’d started having daymares of her mother, of Ty Lee and Mai, of Lo and Li. She’d even had one hallucination of that servant girl she’d banished the day of her coronation.
Only after the visions were over did she realize she’d been dreaming. Even once she’d realized this, she’d still feel trapped and confused, and she’d sit curled up in the corner for hours, staring into empty space, unsure of what was real. Her mother would fade in and out in front of her, scolding her, and she’d shy away from the figure, body shaking.
Now, in one of her few moments of clarity, she was laying on the straw mat in her cell, gazing up at the moonlight streaming in from the window in the ceiling, reminiscing on her coronation. Stupid Zuko, always having to come in and ruin everything. And the Avatar’s girlfriend, what was her name… Kanna or something, always messing things up. And the look on her father’s face when he’d seen her failure…
She squeezed her eyes shut against the image, trying to shield herself with her eyelids. When that didn’t work, she rolled over onto her side and curled up slightly, tucking her arms protectively around her waist. Her father danced across her closed eyelids, giving her a look of such utter disappointment she was sure she’d be ripped in half. He was looking at her with that expression he always reserved for Zuko. She couldn’t bear being on Zuko’s level. She had to be better. She had to.
You have a visitor, Princess Azula.” A guard’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. She rolled onto her back.
“I don’t want to see anyone,” she responded flatly, hating the sound of her voice as it came out, grating and harsh in her ears. “Tell them I’ll see them some other time.”
“Um…” the guard hesitated, and she imagined him throwing a questioning look at whoever it was who had come to throw dirt on her pride. “Sorry, Miss,” he said firmly. “You don’t have a choice with this one.”
Azula sighed and propped herself up on her elbows, expecting her stupid brother to be the one to enter, because who else had that kind of authority over her wishes? Her eyes widened in shock and then narrowed suspiciously when someone entirely different stepped into the room.
The Avatar.
He looked older since she’d last seen him, much more mature. He was wearing typical Airbender clothes, still desperately hanging on to the traditions of his destroyed culture. He had orange and yellow cloth draped over his left shoulder and tied together by a deep red sash around his waist. His big grey eyes, turned a deep brown in the light coming from the door, looked more penetrating and philosophical than they had before, and his ears no longer looked like they had been stolen from a monkeydog and stuck haphazardly on the sides of his head. He seemed to have grown into them. A blue arrow was still tattooed on his bald head, pointing down to his upturned nose. And he looked worried. Very, very worried. So worried he seemed on the brink of despair.
The door closed behind him and he blinked in surprise at the light change. It was dark in Azula’s prison cell. He lit a fire in his hand and held it up to look at Azula, thin eyebrows lifting up concernedly.
“Hello, Avatar,” she said, tone bristling with hostility. The last time she’d seen this child he’d been with Zuko, and he’d stood by while Zuko ordered her to be “put away.” And he’d given her a pitying look. Azula could stand many indignities, but pity was one she couldn’t bear.
“Princess Azula,” he responded respectfully, dropping the fire for a moment to give her a deep Fire Nation bow.
Her eyebrow lifted at the sign of respect. He picked up the fire again, looking around the room for a place to put it. After a minute of fruitless searching, he sighed and sat down cross legged on the ground, cradling the fire in his lap. Azula sat up all the way, facing him and crossing her legs in a mimicry of his position. Her expression remained impassive, although in reality she was dying to know what the Avatar was doing here. “How kind of you to pay me a visit in my lowly prison cell,” she said, almost mockingly.
The Avatar gave her a sad look, eyes flickering over her face as though he was reading her. “I should have come sooner,” he said finally, dropping his eyes to the fire in his lap. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want people to see it as a challenge to Zuko’s authority.” He sighed. “Which, actually, is precisely what this is.”
Azula had to force herself to not have a visible reaction to this statement. She managed to restrain herself to a mere eyebrow lift.
“I didn’t want him to put you in here at all,” the Avatar said, waving an arm around to demonstrate the room. “But it was his first or second act as Firelord, and I didn’t want to invalidate his decisions.” He shook his head. “Sorry.”
Azula felt a flash of annoyance. Why was he apologizing? He was trying to manipulate her! She knew it, and she wasn’t going to let it happen.
He shook his head again, with another sigh. “This isn’t going how I thought it would.” He lifted his head and made eye contact with her, worried expression returning full force. “I came here because…” he took a deep, stabilizing breath and Azula leaned forward in anticipation of the great reveal. “Because I need your help.”
Azula’s eyebrow shot up even further. “My help?”
The Avatar nodded, looking miserable.
“Why would I help you?” Azula asked scornfully. She had no intention of helping the Avatar with anything. Not unless there was something in it for her.
He gave her a small smile, as though he’d anticipated the question. “Well, a couple reasons,” he said. “First, because it would mean you’d get to temporarily leave this place. Second, because Zuko doesn’t know about it and we’ll be running around the world without his consent, which should feel like a small form of revenge. And third, because what I need your help getting is something I think you want too.”
Azula’s eyes skated calculatingly over his hopeful face, trying to discern if this was a trick or not. After a long silence, she spat, “I will never help you. Not as long as I am living and breathing. I will work to make your life a living--”
The Avatar threw his hands up in exasperation and the fire went out. “You haven’t even heard what I need your help with yet! How can you say no without even knowing what you’re saying no to?” The fire flickered back on in his hand and he returned it to his lap, scowling at her. “Look, just hear me out.”
Azula frowned at him, her silence giving him permission to continue.
“I wouldn’t even be coming to you at all if I wasn’t at my wits end here,” he started. “Katara, and Sokka, and Mai, and all the Kyoshi warriors have been kidnapped, and I don’t know where they are, but I do know that they’re in trouble.”
“Then get my idiot brother to help you,” Azula suggested bitterly.
“No, I can’t do that. He’s too busy with… Fire Lord stuff.
“Then get Uncle Fatso. He’s a talented Firebender, and he’ll be more than willing to help you go save your worthless friends.”
“No, no, I can’t do that!” he protested, waving his head violently from side to side.
“Why not?”
The Avatar gave her a helpless look and suddenly she understood.
“Oh…” she said, a smirk crossing her face. “You haven’t told little Zuzu that anything’s wrong, have you? And you know I’m the only person just spiteful enough to not tell him, and good enough to get your friends back.”
He buried his face in one of his hands, still gently carrying the fire in the other. “Don’t say it like that, you’re making me feel like a terrible person.” He lifted his head again and gave her a sharp look. “Which I’m not.”
“Of course not,” she said smoothly. “But you still haven’t told me why I would want to help you on your little… rescue mission. Why would I want to get these people out of this unfortunate yet hilarious situation?”
“It’s not hilarious,” he snapped. “It’s really bad. And I thought you liked Ty Lee and Mai?” he continued, sounding as though he was questioning his thoughts now. “They were your friends?”
Azula felt her blood run cold. He’d mentioned Mai, and that had hurt a little, but he hadn’t said anything about Ty Lee. If whoever the Avatar had made an enemy of had kidnapped Ty Lee, it was unacceptable and demanded immediate retribution. “You didn’t say anything about Ty Lee,” she said, trying to keep the anxiety out of her voice. If anything happened to Ty Lee, she’d never forgive herself.
“Oh, sorry.” The Avatar’s eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully. “I just lumped her in with the Kyoshi Warriors, I think. My bad, sorry.”
Azula closed her eyes to consider for a moment, shutting out the Avatar’s expression of a boy who has come completely to the brink of despair so she could think. She’d be out of the prison cell. That was clearly an excellent reason to go with him. She wouldn’t have to stay in here a minute longer, and on the way back she could make an escape, fight her way out from the Avatar’s clutches, maybe kill that insipid girlfriend of his on the way out. And if she went with him, she could ensure Ty Lee’s release from whatever horrible situation she’d gotten herself into. And maybe while she was doing that, she’d be able to get Ty Lee to worship her again, and tuck Ty Lee back under her wing. And the entire time she was doing all of this, she would be going directly against Zuko’s wishes, an excellent way to show her sibling she didn’t give two shits about him or his stupid orders.
On the other hand, helping the Avatar was still helping the Avatar, something that felt completely heinous to her entire being. And there was still a good chance that he’d continue giving her those looks of sympathy and pity, which, as was mentioned, she couldn’t stand.
But when she weighed that against Ty Lee’s safety, it paled in comparison.
She opened her eyes again and saw the Avatar still looking at her despairingly, as though he truly needed her help, and knew he couldn’t do it without her. She grew suspicious again.
“You’re the Avatar. Why can’t you do it yourself?”
His shoulders slumped and he dropped his gaze again. “I’m a lot of raw power and natural talent and that’s about it. I need someone with a brain. I also haven’t finished my firebending training yet, so I was kind of hoping I could have a Firebender with me to fill the missing part.”
Azula looked him up and down, trying to decide if he was telling the truth. He gave her a look that was so completely helpless and desperate that she immediately believed him.
“Fine,” she said airily, as though she didn’t really care one way or the other. “But I have a couple requests to make.”
It was his turn to look suspicious. “What are your requests?”
“I need new clothes.”
He smiled. “Done.”
“I want the guard outside fired.”
The smile dropped. “No. Sorry, that’s not my decision to make.”
Azula nodded, smirking. “Yes, I know, I was testing you.”
He shot her an annoyed look.
“And I want my father to never find out about this. Ever.”
His forehead cleared and the look of pity suddenly returned full force. Azula had to refrain from making a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “Of course,” he said softly. “I’ll make sure no one tells him. I don’t know who would, to be honest. No one ever goes to see him except Zuko, and he usually comes back looking about ready to become a combustion bender out of pure rage.”
“Well, then, yes, I will come with you.” She briefly considered requesting that he set her free for her efforts helping him, and then realized he’d probably refuse that, and would keep a close eye on her for the rest of the trip to make sure she didn’t try to escape, so she decided it was a bad idea to even bring it up.
The Avatar gave her a relieved smile, and he stood up, dropping the fire again. “Thank you,” he said, bowing again. “Give me just a second and I’ll get the guard to let you out.” He turned toward the door and then he stopped and turned back. “This probably seems unnecessary to say, but please don’t try firebending at me. It won’t go well for either of us.”
Azula’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Isn’t the whole point of a team-up that we’ll be temporarily on each other’s side? Why on earth would I firebend at you if we’re trying to help each other?”
The Avatar shrugged and laughed. His laugh was unlike anything Azula had heard before, and she had to stop herself from staring. It reminded her of cool summer mornings, just before dawn, when a light breeze is drifting lazily along through the trees and the grass. Listening to it was listening to the sound of leaves swirling on the cobblestones in autumn, the sound of a grass field bending its stalks in waves like a vast ocean. “I don’t know,” he said in answer to her question. “That’s why I said it probably seemed unnecessary to say. But I thought I should probably throw the warning out there, just in case.” He laughed again and Azula’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. He must have been laughing on purpose to throw her off her guard. “I’ll get the guard,” he said happily.
He opened the door, and warm firelight streamed into the cell, sending a long shadow on the floor behind him. Azula stood up and leaned against the wall to her cell, trying to not look too excited about being let out. After a hushed conversation with the guard outside, the Avatar stepped back in with the key and started to unlock Azula’s cell. “I already have everything packed,” he said brightly. “So all we need to do is sneak out of here and we’ll be all good.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I may have convinced several of the guards to not tell anyone what we’re doing. You’d be surprised at what they’d agree to when it’s the Avatar telling them to do it.”
The corners of Azula’s lips quirked up, and she forced them back down into a passive expression. She refused to be entertained by this boy. She would not enjoy his presence. Not after her mother had turned him against her.
The door to her cage swung open and she had to refrain from sprinting out. She walked casually to the door, looked the Avatar’s short frame up and down once and then stepped out, smirking. The Avatar looked nervous now that he’d actually let her out, terrified of his own decision. He sent her a timid smile and went for the door to her cell, leading her out. They stepped outside and he handed a letter to the guard outside. “If Zuko comes looking for her, would you give him this and tell him it’s from me?”
The guard took the letter and gave the Avatar a deep bow. “Yes, Avatar Aang. It would be my pleasure.”
The Avatar gave the guard a short bow back, saying, “Thank you. I can’t imagine why he would come down here, but… you know.”
“Of course.”
Azula frowned at the guard, reading him. After a moment, she decided that the guard really was on the Avatar’s side, and wasn’t going to immediately go rat them out to Zuko. She twisted up her lips in a mimicry of a smile and nodded to the guard.
“Shoot,” the Avatar muttered, suddenly sounding worried. “Someone’s coming.”
Azula pricked her ears, but she couldn’t hear anything. “Who?”
“No one I know,” he answered, tipping his ear to the side. He suddenly dropped into a wide horse stance, picked up his left foot, and slammed it back into the ground, eyes closed in concentration. Azula felt a tremor go through the ground beneath her and she stared. The Avatar straightened up again, grabbed Azula’s hand and ran down the hallway, giving the guard a parting wave.
“Who was it?”
He shrugged. “No clue. But I figured it wasn’t a good idea to stay and find out.”
Azula had to admit that was good reasoning. He dragged her around two corners and down a long hallway to a dead end. She almost rolled her eyes in annoyance. The kid clearly had no idea what he was doing. But then he thrust out the backs of his hands and shoved a round patch of the wall back, making a long tunnel into the wall. He picked up her hand again and ran down into the tunnel. It closed again behind them, sending their surroundings into darkness. Azula couldn’t see anything. It was pitch black.
The Avatar didn’t stop to make a light. He continued running down the tunnel, every once in a while shoving more rock aside. As they ran, the tunnel closed behind them, preventing them from going back even a few feet.
Azula didn’t like not being able to see. She felt oppressed by the darkness, unsure of what terrors would surface while she didn’t have her vision. The Avatar’s hand in hers was like an anchor, and she clung to it desperately. It and the floor beneath her feet were the only things she felt sure of at the current moment, and she wanted to hang onto reality as much as possible in an attempt to fend off the darkness.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity in blackness, the Avatar’s tunnel started heading up. With a final thrust of his free arm, he cleared away the last bits of dirt and moonlight flooded into the tunnel. Azula released his hand and ran ahead of him. Once she was fully out of the tunnel, she sat on the ground and curled up in a ball, letting the night breezes wash over her back, trying to fend off the images of her mother floating in front of her.
“Azula!” the Avatar gasped, emerging from the tunnel. “Don’t--” he caught sight of her and she saw his facial expression quickly make the transition from angry and scared to concerned. “Azula? Are you okay?”
The tunnel sealed up behind him without a mark, completely erasing all evidence that there had ever been a hole there. Azula stood up again, ignoring her mother who was standing behind the Avatar, a constant reminder to Azula that there was no one she could really trust. “Fine,” she said, tone bristling. She considered lighting the Avatar’s head on fire, ending this stupid mission right here, finally getting back at her mother for manipulating everyone around her into hating her. It was the thought of Ty Lee that prevented her from doing it. She still needed the Avatar alive. “Where to next?”
The Avatar gave her a searching look, eyes gazing into hers, piercing into her deepest secrets. Azula set her mouth into a firm line and crossed her arms defensively. The Avatar turned and started off. “Appa’s over here, come on.” He led her around a rocky outcropping and she saw his giant sky bison. At the sight of her, the sky bison immediately started growling and she smiled. At least there were some things her mother couldn’t touch.
“Appa,” the Avatar said, reaching up and rubbing the bison’s fluffy forehead. “Come on, we talked about this. It’s just for a little while.” The animal gave a grunt, sounding almost exasperated, and then flattened itself out on the ground to make it easier for Azula and the Avatar to ascend. The Avatar gave him a little pat and hopped up to his head. “Good boy.”
Azula glared up at the bison. “I don’t want to ride on that… thing.”
The Avatar frowned at her. “Well, we don’t really have another choice. Appa’s the fastest thing we can fly on and he’s strong enough to carry both of us and all our stuff. Is there something I can do to make it more… comfortable? For you?” He looked uncertain of the sound of the words falling out of his mouth.
Azula gave a short sigh. “I suppose this will have to do.” She wrinkled up her nose at the thought of climbing up the beast’s side and getting into the saddle, probably getting his disgusting white hair all over her. With another annoyed sigh, she walked over and grabbed a tuft of his hair with one hand, nimbly scaling up its side. She dropped into the saddle and looked around, surprised at how much room there was. The Avatar smiled back at her from the sky bison’s head. “Ready?” He turned back and flicked the reins. “Appa, yip yip.”
With a disgruntled sounding roar, the sky bison took off. They flew right over the fire nation palace, and then made a wide loop in the sky and started to head south. Azula climbed up to the front of the saddle and leaned over the side to talk to the Avatar. He dropped the reins and turned around on the bison’s head to look up at her.
“Where are we going?” she asked shortly.
“Well, like I said, I don’t know where they are, so we’re going to go to Katara and Sokka’s house to look for clues.”
“How do you know they were taken?”
The Avatar frowned. He stood on the bison’s head and hopped up into the saddle. “I got this note,” he said, eyebrows knitted together. He pulled a piece of paper out from his waistband and handed it to her. “It’s from the Dai Li.”
Azula’s eyebrows shot up. “The Dai Li? Making enemies, are we?”
“I’m not making them. People just seem to hate me without me doing anything.”
Azula unfolded the letter. “True.” She dropped her eyes from his insulted expression to the letter in her hands, and began to read it by the light of the moon.
Avatar
Give yourself up to us or you’ll never see your friends again. Don’t tell the Fire Lord or
the Metalbender about this.
-- Long Feng and the Dai Li
Folding the letter up again, Azula handed it back to the Avatar. So Long Feng was in charge of the Dai Li again. Impressive that he’d managed to get back in a position of power so quickly. “Seems pretty simple. We give you to the Dai Li, and then we get Ty Lee and your stupid friends back.”
The Avatar’s mouth twisted in an uncertain look. “I don’t know if they’d actually let them go. I think they’d keep them, don’t you? I don’t know… my mind doesn’t work in the same way theirs do.”
Azula considered. “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “They would know your friends would do anything to get you back, so they’d either keep them locked up or kill them. That’s what I would do, at least.”
The Avatar gave her a disgusted look, and she saw her mother putting a hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t tell me she’d be here,” Azula said with a sneer. The Avatar looked over his shoulder at Azula’s mother. “Who?” He turned back to Azula, squinting curiously at her. She shrank back from her mother’s gaze, feeling it burning her insides. “Azula, are you okay?”
“I love you Azula,” her mother said, stretching her arms out to Azula. “I do.”
“Azula?” the Avatar said again, looking worriedly at her face.
“Get away from me!” she gasped, fending her mothers embrace off with her arms. She crawled backwards away from her mother and the Avatar, who now looked very anxious.
“Okay, okay!” he stood up and put his hands up over his head to show he had no bad intentions. “I’m away!”
“Not you,” she growled. “Her.”
The Avatar shook his head, evidently not understanding. “Who? Azula, there’s no one there!”
Her mother took another step forward and tried to cup Azula’s chin in her hand. “I love you, Azula.”
“No!” Azula screamed, backing up further until she was on the edge of the saddle. “You fear me! You do, admit it, you do!”
“Azula, get away from the edge of the saddle,” the Avatar said. His voice was low and he was clearly making an attempt to sound calm and soothing, but his voice was trembling underneath that. He was freaking out. And rightly so. Azula's mother was in the saddle with them, and there was no one more worthy of fear.
Azula’s mother took another step towards her and Azula backed up again. Her hand hit the empty air and she toppled backwards out of the saddle. Her mother vanished, and Azula sighed, letting the air embrace her. Finally, she was done with this earth.
“Azula!” she heard the Avatar scream. He launched himself out of the saddle, straightening out his body to make himself more aerodynamic. He shot down until he was level with her and then scooped an arm around her waist. Twisting in midair, he got his feet out underneath both of them and tucked them up until he was in a tight ball with her in his arms. Suddenly their bodies made impact with something hard and brown. The sky bison’s saddle. The Avatar reached out and clutched at the side of the saddle, holding them both down as the bison flattened itself out again.
When the bison was stable again, the Avatar stood up and looked down at Azula, hands balled up on his hips. “Why would you do that?” he shouted, looking angry. “You could have died! I can’t heal broken bones yet!”
“I had to get away from her,” Azula said, feeling dazed. She sprawled out on her back on the bison’s saddle, looking up at the crescent moon above her.
“From who?” the Avatar asked, starting to sound worried again. “Azula, there’s no one up here but you and me and Appa. We’re alone.”
“My mother was here,” she whispered.
The Avatar’s eyes widened as he stared at her in shock. “Azula, your mother… is dead. Or missing. No one’s seen her in years.”
“She was here!” Azula insisted. She pointed an accusing finger at the Avatar. “And I know she’s been telling you what to do. She’s trying to get you to manipulate me and it won’t work! I know about her plans to weaken me and take away all my power!”
Suddenly seeming to understand, the Avatar sat down again next to her. “Okay,” he said softly. “Okay, let’s talk about this.”
“I’m not going to talk about anything with you,” Azula spat. “You’re on her side.”
The Avatar shook his head. “Azula, I’ve never met your mother in my life. I’m not ‘on her side.’ I’m not really on anyone’s side. But if you want her to go away, you’re going to need to talk to me. I’m the Avatar, right? It’s my job to deal with stuff like this.” He gave her a moment to process this, looking searchingly up into her face. “So tell me what’s going on,” he said finally.
Azula shook her head and backed away from him, curling up against the luggage in the saddle. He pursed his lips and twisted up his eyebrows resignedly. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Just tell me if you ever want to talk about it, okay? You can trust me.”
“Trust is for fools,” Azula muttered.
“No,” the Avatar said, shaking his head. “Trust is for those who have been broken and put back together piece by piece. It takes bravery to trust, and it takes strength to adapt and recover from it when it’s broken. Trust is for those strong enough to open up and be hurt over and over without feeling a single wound.”
Azula squinted over at him, unsure of what he meant.
“Just let me know if you want to talk,” he said, jumping over the front of the saddle onto his bison’s head. “We’ll land in a couple hours to get some sleep.”
Azula settled back into the luggage, watching the blue stripe on the back of his head thoughtfully. Maybe her mother hadn’t manipulated him. Maybe he really hadn’t met Ursa before. He seemed to have no idea of what Azula was talking about, and he hadn’t been able to see her mother, so maybe she’d never shown herself to him before. Maybe the Avatar wasn’t someone who her mother was in control of.
Logically, it made sense. The Avatar was someone who didn’t need to listen to anyone. He made the rules. Her mother had no chance of convincing the Avatar to destroy Azula, because the Avatar was too powerful, too independent. But the Avatar’s power made him a target, made him someone her mother would want to be in control of. So if he really wasn’t on her mother’s side, then Azula had to work extra hard to get him on her own side.
But how? He didn’t seem to be someone she could control with fear. He was too confident, too balanced, too strong for her to do that. But he believed in trust, so maybe, just maybe, she could get him to act on his foolish beliefs and begin to trust her. That was the only way she could see to keep him from her mother’s clutches. Azula sighed. She’d never really worked for someone’s trust before, only their fear. She didn’t know how to get trust, but now she had to try. Maybe the best way to do it was to talk to him, and be as good as possible. Not try to escape, not threaten to firebend at him, not give him looks of utter contempt every few seconds. She sighed. The idea of trying to get him to like her seemed like such a chore. She remembered what Ty Lee said about getting guys to like her. She’d said to smile a lot and laugh at everything they said even if it wasn’t funny. Maybe that would work on the Avatar too. Azula crawled up to the front of the saddle and leaned over.
“Avatar,” she said, forcing her lips into a smile.
He looked up at her over his shoulder. When he saw her face, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Hi?”
Azula giggled. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I was just wondering,” she said, shifting so she was on her stomach in the saddle, legs swinging in the air, “where you got this bison?”
“Oh,” he said, turning around on the bison’s head to look up at her easier. “Well, when I lived with the Air Nomads, they had a sort of… well, I guess you could call it a ceremony, but it’s not exactly that. It’s like a day where all the eight year olds go out and get chosen by a bison.”
“That sounds fascinating,” Azula said, giving him an encouraging smile.
The Avatar blinked, surprised by her apparent interest. “Yeah, I mean, it was pretty cool, I guess. The nuns gave us all apples and we just held them out. And whichever bison came to each of us to eat the apple was our bison for life. And Appa came to me, so he’s my bison now. And we’ll never be separated, ever,” he cooed to the bison, rolling over and hugging its fluffy head. “Not if I can help it.”
The bison roared and the Avatar giggled. “Not if Appa can help it either.”
Azula laughed and the Avatar twisted around to look at her again, eyes darting up and down her face searchingly. “Are you okay?” he asked finally.
So maybe Ty Lee’s tactics wouldn’t work on the Avatar. “I’m fine,” Azula growled, retreating back into the saddle to brainstorm again.
Hours later, she still hadn’t come up with anything, and the sun was fully up. The Avatar pulled down to a tiny island and landed his bison with a little thump in the sand. “We’ve been up all night,” he explained after touchdown. “We should probably try to get some sleep.”
“Is this island safe?” she asked, leaning over the edge of the saddle to look down at the sand below them.
“No idea,” the Avatar said brightly, hopping off his bison’s back into the sand and looking around. “But we should be fine as long as we stay on the beach. Besides,” he added walking around to the back of the bison and looking up at Azula. “I’m the Avatar and you’re the only person that’s ever managed to kill the Avatar. I think the two of us can take whatever comes up.”
Azula pursed her lips and vanished into the saddle again. She hadn’t factored in past trauma in her attempts at making trust. It would be even harder than she thought to get the Avatar to like her, since she had already destroyed her relationship with him before she’d even tried making one. She jumped down from the saddle, landing lightly into the sand next to the Avatar. He gave her a tense smile and then nodded at the luggage in his bison’s saddle. “If you want a sleeping bag, there’s one up there. Oh, and--” he walked up his bison’s tail and started rummaging around in the piles of stuff. “You requested clothes,” he said, arms emerging from the luggage full of Earth Kingdom green clothes. He used the bison’s tail as a slide to get back down and handed them to Azula.
“Is there a hair tie in this pile by any chance?” she asked, pulling out the plain dark green tunic he’d given her and wrinkling up her nose.
“Not in there,” he said, ignoring her look of disgust. “Why don’t you put those on and I’ll find you one?”
Azula sighed and walked off to the thin strip of trees on the beach. She changed quickly, surprised by how well the clothes fit her, and how oddly comfortable they were, considering they’d probably been taken from some Earth Kingdom peasant somewhere. Maybe they just felt more comfortable since her old clothes were from prison. She was a little disgusted with herself for wearing them at all, since her position in society had once been one that would frown down on her wearing clothes like this.
When she returned to the Avatar, he wordlessly held out a hair tie for her to use. She pulled her hair into a simple ponytail over her back, avoiding the top knot since she was no longer in a position of honor. The Avatar seemed to notice this as he pursed his lips sadly, laying down on the bison’s tail and looking up at the clear blue sky. Azula curled up on the sand, using the bison to shade her from the sun, and began brainstorming again. How to get the Avatar to trust her. How to do it. She’d barely been thinking about it for a few minutes when she drifted asleep, fading softly into a land where her mother couldn’t hurt her.