1. Chapter 1

**February 103AG **

Gaoling

The normally alert and combative earthbender was drained. After two years of captivity and sedatives, her bending was practically nonexistent and she was too weak to walk very quickly, much less run. She hobbled down the street, hoping to find sanctuary somewhere.

It was easy for Xin Fu and Master Yu to capture Toph. "Easiest 2500 coins we ever made." Master Yu said as he picked her up and hoisted her over his shoulder. They were on their way to their carriage to take her back to the Bei Fong estate.

Unfortunately for them, someone else wanted Toph.

Their ostrich horse, which had been pulling the carriage, shrieked before running away. Someone had burned through the rope, scaring it into fleeing.

"What the?" A powerful flame hit Xin Fu right in the chest, making him scream in pain. Master Yu turned to see a foot kicking him right in the knee. The assailant grabbed Toph from him as Master Yu fell to the ground from a fire kick to the groin.

He coughed up blood as he fell to the ground.

Their carriage had no horse. They were wounded and on the ground, and their bounty was gone.

Well Shit!

* * *

><p>Toph wouldn't wake up for another three hours. When she did, she realized she had no idea where she was. She was in an unfamiliar bed, which meant she was in a new house and she had no idea what city or town she was in.<p>

Her stomach growled. She was so hungry. She reached out for anything to grab and she felt a glass. Toph held it to her nose.

"It's just water." She drank it, needing to try and soothe her dry throat. She tried to get up, but she just fell down. Without her earthbending, she couldn't see and even if she could, she was on a wooden floor.

"FUCK!" she cried out in frustration after she hit the floor. Toph hated weakness, and she was too weak to walk.

Suddenly a person ran into the room. Two hands grabbed Toph and pulled her back onto the bed.

"Are you hurt?"

It was a woman's voice; it was a deep voice but it was definitely a woman's. Toph knew it, but she hadn't heard it in some time. Who was this?

"I don't think you should try to walk for a while. You were pretty weak when I found you."

The voice was bothering her. It was so familiar, but it was different. The tone was not what she was used to hearing from this person. "Who are …"

_She doesn't recognize me. I could lie, but then she'll freak out when she actually has her senses back_. "I'm Azula."

That's the voice. Toph knew it, but it sounded sweet, caring. That just can't be.

"Why do you have me here?"

Azula didn't have a lie to tell. The truth didn't make her look bad anyway. "I saw these two men trying to take you away. I couldn't tell it was you at first. I was at a distance, but I thought they might have been rapists or something. You were clearly unconscious, and they were well kind of old.

When I got closer, I realized who you were, and I knew they had to have done something to get you so weak, so I beat them up and took you to my home. You've been here for almost three hours. Are you hungry?"

Starving. "What do you got?"

Azula had made some dumplings earlier that day. She just needed to boil them. With her flame, she could cook almost anything pretty quickly.

She told Toph to stay put. Her attempt at walking well was a total failure.

About 15 minutes later, Azula came back with a bowl of dumplings, a fork, soy sauce and a chili sauce.

"These are actually pretty good." Toph could tell they were homemade, and they were pretty flavorful.

"I worked in a restaurant as a line cook, well before I saw that Iroh frequented it. I fled Ba Sing Se and came here."

"You went back to Ba Sing Se?"

"I figured no one would look for me there or in Capital City, but I was less recognizable there. A lot of people have heard of me, but not that many people there have seen me, especially in the middle ring."

"How did you get out?" It was obvious she had escaped or else she wouldn't have hidden from her uncle.

"They drugged me, a lot. I couldn't bend or even really talk. I just felt numb. I thought it was the herbs, but when I palmed them instead of eating themand threw them away, it didn't help. I realized the drugs were in the food, so I stopped eating it.

I got my bending back, but I still was too weak to do anything since I hadn't been training for months, and I had no food. I had been throwing it away through the bars and smearing some on my lips so they thought I ate it.

I had to eat to get out, but eating would knock me out. It was the perfect paradox," Azula laughed bitterly. "I figured out the only way to have a chance was to eat sometimes, so I had some energy, but not enough such that I had that much of the drug.

Instead of eating the two meals a day they brought me each day, I ate once every two days.

Eventually, I got to a point where I had just enough energy to break out. The guard thought I was catatonic. I had to fake it when I skipped my meals. That was torture. When he came with the tray, I burned him, snatched his keys and locked him in the cell.

He, of course, screamed for the other guards. I waited for them and feigned surrender. When they all came to put me in my cell, I slipped through them and locked them all inside."

Azula grinned, that was fun.

"With the keys, I was able to lock everyone in the asylum. They designed it to lock down from the outside in case the patients got out of their cells, to keep them in the premises. In hindsight, that was probably pretty stupid of them."

"How long was it before anyone found them?"

"I have no idea. I fled immediately and started stowing away on boats, so I could get out of the Fire Nation."

"How long have you been out?"

"Almost two years now."

"TWO YEARS!" Toph expected her to say months. How could Toph not remember the past two years? Someone would have told her if Azula got out two years ago. "How can that be? I never even heard you got out."

"Where have you been?" Azula questioned. Everyone should have heard by now.

"I've …" Toph stammered. "I don't know."

Azula frowned. "It sounds like you got drugged too!" Azula could barely remember anything from the time before she stopped eating her meals. "I can't remember the first six months I spent at the asylum. The drugs kept me too weak to think straight or do anything."

"Who would (drug me)?"

"I doubt you were taken by the rebels. They would have tortured you, and surely your friends would have come to rescue you if you were missing for two years."

Toph just shook her head. "I don't know."

"Let's start with what you do know. Do you remember the end of the war?"

Toph closed her eyes: the sky ships, kissing Suki by mistake, Aang took Ozai's bending. "Yes."

"What happened next?"

"We went back to the Fire Nation. Zuko got coronated once he was out of the infirmary. We threw a big party that night."

Azula scowled at that.

Teo and Haru found their fathers. They got separated from them during the war. Hakoda was there with Sokka and Katara.

"Your friend …"

"I don't have any friends," Azula said coolly.

"Well, your former friend Ty Lee joined the Kyoshi Warriors."

"She would run around with a bunch of peasants who can't even bend."

Toph rolled her eyes. "Mai stayed with Zuko."

"Kissing his ass like she always has."

"Sokka went back to the tribe. Aang and Katara left together."

"What did you do?"

"I …" Toph remembered Kuei coming up to her at the party.

"Your work was most impressive Toph."

"Thanks, your Majesty?" She wasn't really used to correct titles or anything.

"I wanted to talk to you about employment. We need someone to train a new police force since well the Dai Li is untrustworthy. You're the only one who can metalbend and I thought you might be up for the job."

Beating up rookies all day! "Awesome."

Toph didn't realize she said "awesome" again.

"What's awesome?"

"I moved to Ba Sing Se to help train the new police force for the city."

"Then how did you end up in Gaoling?"

"I'm in Gaoling?"

"Well the outskirts, but it's the closest thing here."

"I'm from here. My parents still live here."

"Maybe you went to visit them?"

Toph thought about it. "I did. They asked me to come home. They said they wanted to apologize for keeping me in my room all the time, and they were proud of me."

"What happened next?"

"They hugged me. We had dinner, all of my favorite foods, fried chicken, dumplings, taro puffs and then …" That was it, her memories ran out.

"Maybe they drugged you and kept you in your room, so you wouldn't leave again."

"They accepted me! They invited me to dinner."

"Maybe it was just a rouse. They might have been waiting for a time that they could marry you off to some nobleman."

"My family wouldn't do that to me."

"Really? They kept you locked in your room your whole life and sent bounty hunters after you when you escaped. I saw you with what I assume were bounty hunters today. Maybe you did escape, got too disoriented to get away, and the bounty hunters found you quickly. It sounds like your parents."

"But they're my family. They wouldn't keep me drugged and locked up for years."

"Really? My family would if they could find me."

"But that's different. Everyone hates you." Toph didn't realize how bad that sounded until Azula got up to leave.

"Maybe your friends will come find you then." The missing princess left the room.

"Oh great. I just pissed off the one person who actually bothered to help me in years." Toph realized. "Wait, I still don't know what year it is." Shit!

* * *

><p>Lao Bei Fong came to the hospital when he learned his bounty hunters were in it. "What happened?"<p>

"We found Toph. She didn't get very far, but then some guy came and beat us up. He took her."

"What did he look like?"

Neither of them knew. "I think he was tall," Master Yu said.

"I think he was short, said Xin Fu."

"He threw fire."

"He was good at it."

"He kicks hard."

"He ran fast, and he let our ostrich horse loose."

"We don't know much else. It hurts to talk."

SHIT! Lao had no idea where to find her. Who could have taken her? Why?

* * *

><p>In the morning, Toph had to use the bathroom, but she couldn't find it. She was walking along the edge of the wall, using her hands to brace herself. She had to move slowly. It still hurt to walk, and she couldn't see anything.<p>

Azula was training in the back of the house. She came inside to see, "what are you doing?"

"Trying to find the bathroom."

"Oh."

Azula guided her down the hall and then went to make breakfast.

She opened her cooling unit. She was a bit low on food, but she had enough for a decent breakfast before she would have to go to the market.

She started to peel and dice the fruit, forgetting about Toph until she heard a knocking.

Oh yeah. She can't walk. Azula went to get her.

"Where are we going?"

"The kitchen."

Azula got her to a chair. Toph put her hands in front of her to try and steady herself. It was a nice table. The wood was expensive.

"How can you afford this place?"

"It was abandoned. The family who lived here before thought it was haunted, but no one would buy it from them, so they bailed. I found it boarded up and I just fixed it up and moved in."

"So you're a squatter."

"I'd like to say I'm an improver. It has fruit bushes now and I actually had to do the landscaping without earthbending."

"EW!" Toph thought that sounded dull.

"It makes me pity those who can't bend anything."

Toph didn't pity Sokka. Where was that idiot? Why didn't he come for her? Toph had no idea what to do. She couldn't bend. She could barely walk. She was at Azula's mercy of all people. It didn't seem so bad now, but Toph would eventually have to leave. Would Azula try to stop her?

Clank! Toph could smell the food in front of her. "What is this?"

"Scrambled eggs, bacon and there's a bowl of mixed fruit on the side. It's not much, but well, I only shopped for one person."

It smelled better than any breakfast Toph had during the war. She picked up a fork and started to eat.

"Why are you doing this?" Toph asked her.

"Doing what?"

"Helping me."

"Because I know what it's like to have your life stolen from you."

It made Toph angry that years had been taken from her. She hardly had any to spare. "What year is it?"

"It's February 12th 103AG."

"It's been over two years."

"Which is why you didn't know I escaped. I got out in May of 101AG."

"Why didn't my friends come for me?"

"Maybe your parents sent letters on your behalf giving excuses as to why you couldn't see them. They could have said you had some infectious disease or …"

Toph snorted. "My mother's too proper to suggest a Bei Fong has any kind disease. They probably didn't bother to look for me."

Azula could hear the sadness in her voice. "Friends aren't everything."

"They are to me."

"Everyone leaves. It's easier to just forget them once their gone."

* * *

><p>Flyers went up all over town with Toph's portrait painted on. "Missing: Toph Bei Fong, kidnapped by a tall, brutal, firebending male. Consider him armed and dangerous. 10,000 coins for the recovery of Toph, 1000 coins for any information that leads to her rescue or her kidnapper's capture."<p>

Azula managed to swipe one on her way back from the market. "Well they got two out of four right."

She tucked the flyer in her pocket and got to the house. Toph was on the couch. She couldn't do much in the house by herself. She should get Azula to take her outside.

"Well your parents put out a reward, so expect a lot of goons to try to grab you."

"Goody. How much?"

"10,000 coins for getting you home; 1000 if they find information that leads to your rescue or the capture of the tall, brutal, firebending man that kidnapped you."

"I thought you were short."

She is.

"I'm taller than you!"

"Who isn't?"

"Yeah I'm pretty short! I don't know why they thought I was a tall man or a man actually."

Her breasts were pretty well sized and it's not like she was disguised as a man.

"Maybe they were too embarrassed to say a girl beat them up."

"That's a good point. They probably made me sound big and scary to save their own egos."

"Well you are scary, even if you're an oyster shrimp."

"You can't call me an oyster shrimp. That would make you a wasp."

"Can you take me outside? I can't exactly see on wood."

Toph fell once she got to the grass. "I guess I can't see on Earth anymore either."

"They probably gave you chi blockers along with the sedative, so you couldn't bend, even if you woke up from the sedation."

"Is there anything about this that doesn't suck?"

"You're free now."

"No offense but not really. I can't see anything. I can't walk anywhere. I'm pretty much your prisoner even if you're a nice jailer."

"I was in the same boat, but I didn't even have a jailer. It was just me."

"How did you handle it?"

"Well, being able to see helps, and I had gotten back some strength before I broke out, even if it wasn't a lot. I usually just moved at night, so people couldn't see me. It took months to feel normal again."

Toph groaned. "I don't like being helpless."

"No one does, except those who are too lazy to care for themselves. It's one thing to be helpless and another thing to be hopeless. You learned how to earthbend once; you can learn it again."

They went back inside. It was chilly out, and Toph didn't have a coat. This was going to be a long road. Toph just hoped someone was there for her at the end of it.


	2. Chapter 2

Zuko walked past Azula's old room. How was there no sign of her anywhere? She pulled of a prison break for the ages just to vanish into thin air.

"Staring at her door won't bring her back," Mai told him.

"I know, but how did she?"

Mai shrugged. Azula was catatonic the last time Mai saw her. Her mind was gone, yet she allegedly attacked the guards, locked them all in her cell, let out all of the patients and locked the staff in the asylum. "She must have had accomplices."

"But the guards only saw her, and she had no visitors other than us. How could she have planned such an escape with someone else?"

"Maybe it was an inside job?"

Zuko had grilled everyone, even the other patients, but no one could explain why the chi blocker didn't work or how Azula got away without being spotted by anyone else.

It was almost two years since she escaped and they got nowhere. Aang and Katara couldn't find her. The warriors couldn't find her. Sokka looked with some of the other members of the White Lotus and nothing. Toph was too busy working for Kuei to go looking for her, but according to the letter she had her mother send, Azula wasn't in Ba Sing Se.

"She must be in some nameless town somewhere."

Mai shrugged. "She could be, but they're usually suspicious of newcomers."

"So you think she's in a city, where people might recognize her?"

"Not every city would recognize her. They didn't even recognize her when we were on Ember Island."

Mai was right. Azula was probably hiding in plain sight. "I don't know what to do." He was scared of her and for her. She was crazy and malevolent when she was healthy. She was likely to kill or be killed.

"We just have to wait for some kind of clue. She can't hide forever."

* * *

><p>"You call that a pushup! That was weak!" Ty Lee yelled at the group. "Five more for that disgrace!"<p>

The girls groaned as they cranked out five more pushups.

"I wasn't too mean was I?" Ty Lee asked at the end of the practice.

"Of course not Ty," Suki said with a smile. "You just get all serious when you train us, but we're in better shape than ever. We could take anybody."

Ty Lee grinned. "I love it here."

"And we love having you."

Ty Lee had taught them how to chi block, scale walls and jump higher than ever before. It was nice to have people appreciate her talents and care about her as a person, not just using her as a war weapon.

Ty Lee got a letter from Zuko. She read it. "They suspended the search for Azula."

"What?" Suki questioned. "How can they do that?"

"He says it's too expensive to pay the military; they have no leads, and he has no choice but to wait for someone to spot her and say something."

He tore apart, Capital City, Ember Island, Fire Fountain City and interrogated anyone who had supported her or who had opposed his reign and they found nothing. He couldn't send his military abroad so he relied on his friends to search the Earth Kingdom and the Air Temples. They couldn't find her.

"Who knows what she's up to? She could be underground with rebels or …"

"They tried that. They went after every opposition group and every ally she had. No one had her." Ty Lee hoped Azula would give up her lust for the Crown and move on, but she had no idea what the girl had been doing.

"Let's get inside."

**March 103AG**

Toph had been in Azula's care for a month. It was a rough month. Toph wasn't used to supporting her own weight, so Azula had to guide her for the first two weeks. For the best earthbender alive, this was rather humiliating. Adding to Toph's struggles were her confusing feelings about the runaway princess. As she got better, she remembered more and more of what Azula had done during the war. She hadn't forgotten that Azula shot Aang and her own brother, but it wasn't on the top of her mind when she woke up after begin drugged for two years.

How could she trust someone who shoots lightening from her fingertips, who lies so easily that not even Toph's seismic sense could tell the difference, who jailed her only two friends because they didn't think she should kill her own brother? A part of Toph refused to trust her out of principle, but that part was dueling the other part of her that was looking at the present situation.

The current Azula feeds her well, buys her clothes, and is helping her learn to walk and earthbend again without getting any renumeration. If anything, Toph's presence only adds to Azula's precarious situation. If the Bei Fongs find Toph here, they will use any resource available to take Azula down. In addition, Toph's friends are no where to be found. They could be in some kind of peril. They could be in Azula-caused peril or they could be too busy with their own lives to realize that Toph is in need of help. It is possible, albeit sad to contemplate, that Azula is the only person who is both willing and able to be here for her right now.

To make matters even better, Toph has no one to discuss this with. She can hardly tell Azula, "hey I'm trying to decide if I should trust you at all or if this is some kind of massive conspiracy, what are your views?" Her whole life, Toph relied on her independence. She was strong and could find her own way despite her blindness. For the first time, her blindness is a major problem. Without her seismic sense, she can't see. Even with it, she can't see very well on wood and without her seismic sense, her earthbending abilities are severely limited. It's hard to earthbend if you don't know what's around you.

And of course, there is Azula's domineering attitude. She's a princess and is used to both getting her way. Toph can only give her lip service. She can't physically refuse Azula very well, and the firebender knows it, so Toph has to deal with her crap, mainly her training methods.

Azula's training has been successful. She got some weight back on Toph. The earthbender was starved thin from being sedated and not moving for two years. She still could use some filling out, but she wasn't terribly scrawny anymore, and she gained back some much needed muscle, which is helping with her mobility.

"YOU CALL THAT A PUSHUP! I WANT TEN MORE FOR THAT PATHETIC SHOWING!"

Toph cursed repeatedly as she forced herself to do ten more. Then she hit the ground. "I hate you."

"Doesn't everyone?" Azula retorted.

"My arms hurt."

"You think that hurts, try military training, starting at age 8."

"You joined the military at eight?"

"I got child sized armor and had to do the drills at home."

"What did your mother think?"

"That I should be wearing dresses and playing with dolls. She and my father didn't agree, on anything."

"Sounds like love."

"There was no love in their marriage or in the palace. There was just bitter resentment and rivalry."

Zuko had always described his mother so affectionately; Toph had assumed that their childhood was at least somewhat happy. It wasn't surprise that Azula's view on it was different.

"Come on, Badgermole, let's get you some gruel."

Toph had to admit that Azula fed her well. They had tomato carrot soup and chicken sandwiches for lunch. There was also a bowl of vegetables on the side.

"You buy a lot of vegetables."

"They're cheap, and I have a vegetable garden."

"You do?"

"It's on the other side of the fruit bushes. It was abandoned, but I was able to salvage some of the harvest when I got here and keep it going."

"What's back there?"

"Tomato carrots and potatoes. They're the easiest to grow. I just pull them out the ground. I have to get the green veggies at the market."

"How do you pay your bills?"

"Well, I got a lot of birthday money (and black market money) and Zuzu was too stupid to freeze my accounts after the war, so I just closed them and took the coins before I fled."

"He didn't find out."

"If he did, it was after I left with the money."

"Wasn't that heavy?" If it was enough money for her to live on.

"I converted it to a bank note. I got some coins and smaller banknotes in Omashu before I went to Ba Sing Se. This way, if he found out, then he'd look for me there and the trail would run cold."

"Then why did you work?"

"I was bored, and I didn't know how to cook, so I took the job so I could learn and stretch my money a little bit further."

"You took a job you didn't know how to do?"

"Doesn't everybody? How do you learn if not on the job?"

Fair enough. "So you learned how to cook and then bailed on the job."

"Yeah. They got a good cook for a few months, but I wasn't staying around. I thought Iroh would only eat there once. He eats there like every week."

Toph laughed. "You would pick that restaurant."

"Well, I haven't had any more close calls. Maybe Zuzu gave up."

"Why would he do that?"

"I'm sure he spent an arm and a leg deploying the military and the royal guard. It's not like he's rolling in dough right now."

Azula got Toph to the living room. She could walk now; she just couldn't see on wood floors.

* * *

><p>The girls spent a lot of time talking. Admittedly, there wasn't much else for them to do in the house. Azula read to pass the time when she lived alone, but Toph couldn't read and it seemed that a bar would be asking for trouble since they're both fugitive of sorts, but once a week, Azula would bring home a bottle of moon peach wine and they'd get drunk on it and just let go.<p>

"Is it sad that my favorite day is Thursday because that's when you bring home wine." Toph asked.

"I think it's sadder that I only bring home wine on Thursdays because that is when it's half off at the store."

"Why don't you buy more?"

"Only one bottle per customer per week. It was to increase their customer base."

"Oh that sucks."

"Yeah, it went twice as far before."

"What did you do for fun in the Fire Nation?"

"We had the bathhouses, which was more about relaxation than fun, but it was nice to relax after training. I never really liked museums or theatre. I guess festivals were the most fun I had. Performances and dumplings, I used to be so proud to be Fire Nation."

"Are you not anymore?"

"I don't know what to believe anymore. For 100 years, my family told us that it was our destiny to take over the world. That ultimately people would be better off because we're more industrialized. Their food will be cheaper. They'll be able to afford modern medicine. They made us feel like we heroes and that the rest of the world was too stupid to realize it was better to join us.

Now, it's all over. 100 years and all we have to show for it are a lot of lost lives and bitter feelings. My father is in jail, admittedly he deserves it but where I'm from the father was king and the Fire Lord was the King of fathers. I had to be loyal to him not just as a citizen but as a person too. It was wrong to disobey your father no matter what he said.

But Ozai abandoned me like everyone else in the end. Zuko committed the ultimate sin in our country just to become its ruler. He locked me away like I was an elephant mouse in a laboratory. It's hard to be a nationalist when your family runs the nation, and they turned on you. The Fire Lord is the nation. Where does that leave me?"

"I think that's your country's problem," Toph told her. "Kings are supposed to be about their people. Yes they are in charge and make laws but their power comes with a responsibility to protect and serve those below them. When the king abuses his authority, the people are supposed to rise up and remove him.

Your country operates on a top down system. For 100 years, it ignored the obvious because they didn't think they had a right to challenge what was given to them. It's imperative to any free society that the people feel free to challenge their sovereign. Without that, you have no basis to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong. You're just stuck with the rules that the Fire Lord makes, no matter what the consequences."

Azula had never heard anyone say something so radical to her. "Did you study this in school?"

Toph laughed. "My parents didn't let me go to school remember. I had tutors who read textbooks to me, and constitutional law was the only part I found interesting. The right to be free is so fundamental. Nothing works with out it. I didn't really see why I had to learn anything else."

"We don't even have a constitution," Azula said. "I can't think of what Fire Lord would willingly impose a restriction to his power."

"Our constitution didn't come from the King. It came from the people after a series of complaints about the King's abuse of his prosecutorial authority. The people complained and at first, the governors did nothing since it didn't affect them, but when the King arrested a governor's son on a dubious warrant, the nobility suddenly cared.

They drafted what they considered to be the people's fundamental rights. They wouldn't rest until the King accepted the document and they kept pushing for more codification of the King's authority. Eventually, the Council of Five came out of it and a full constitution was formed."

_Here, the people decided on their own rights and made their king accept them. It sounds insane, but they must be strong if they succeeded. I had always believed I was strong because I was a talented bender and could win fights with others, but what's the point in winning if I'm just a slave to the sovereign in the end?_

"The first Fire Lord came to power by killing everyone who opposed him. There were very few coups of Fire Lords. Usually, their own family members murder them if their deaths are unnatural. My mother poisoned Fire Lord Azulon, so my father could take the throne and they forged a will to steal Iroh's birthright."

"You're starting to make more sense now," Toph told her.

"You too."

**April 103AG**

Toph turned 15. She hadn't been one for birthdays really. Her celebrations at home only meant her favorite dessert and it's not like she has celebrated in some time, but Azula decided they should do something.

They built a stone barbeque pit in the backyard and Azula got some cow-pig belly from the market.

It smelled really good. "Is it done yet?"

"No," Azula told her.

"You didn't even look at it."

"I know how hot the smoker is. Trust me, if you take it off too soon it will just be too tough to chew."

Toph grumbled. "It's my birthday. Doesn't that mean I get whatever I want?"

"Maybe if you're eight years old."

Toph flipped her off.

"It will be worth the wait."

"I'll be the judge of that."

Toph had her seismic sense back, but she wasn't able to metalbend yet.

Azula took the meat off the smoker, but it wasn't done yet. She fired it in the oven, extra hot, for 15 minutes, to get the skin to puff up and get crispy.

"Now we wait for it to cool, and then we eat."

With the cow pig belly, Azula served rice flour tortillas with spicy tomato carrot slaw, hoisin sauce and lettuce. They made the most delicious tacos.

"My parents never let me eat food with my hands," Toph commented as she shoved a taco into her mouth.

"I can see why," Azula teased as she daintily ate hers.

Toph flipped her off. "How did you learn to make this?"

"Every now and then, my grandfather would kick out the kitchen staff and make an elaborate meal. He caught me spying on him once, and he taught me how to make this."

"I always thought Fire Nation food was boring."

"When did you eat it?"

"At the palace."

"Zuko's palate is boring. The chefs made better food for me."

After dinner, Azula got Toph in a disguise, so they could go out.

"Why so much make up?" It itches.

"I'm making your skin darker, so people will think you're biracial."

"Is that what you do?"

"I wear colored contacts, so my eyes look green."

"They make that?"

"For theaters. I also have stage makeup. It's good enough to fool anyone who's not expecting it."

"Cool." Toph obviously didn't know much disguising her appearance, so it was good to be with someone who did.

With Toph's blue dress, the deception was complete.

Azula donned green to make her seem more Earth Kingdom, and they headed out to the bar.

"The people here aren't the most savory, but the booze is cheap and the music's good."

The décor isn't so interesting, but why would Toph care?

They went to the quieter side of the bar, although both sides were loud.

"Can we get two mint juleps, strain the ice and double the whiskey?" Azula put down her copper pieces.

"Coming right up ladies."

"You don't play," Toph said to her.

"Oh no. Trust me, this drink is the best booze for your money."

When Toph got her glass, she took a sip, cold, minty but not too sweet and she could tell the drink was strong.

Toph had never been out to a bar before. The drinking age in the Earth Kingdom was 14 and Toph didn't remember her 14th birthday.

"This is what I should have been doing last year."

"True, so we'll have to make this party twice as much fun."

"Did I mention it's my friend Kori's birthday?" Azula said to the bartender with a grin.

* * *

><p>Three hours later, they were stumbling drunk out of the place.<p>

"I can't believe so many people bought us drinks," Toph said. "It wasn't' even your birthday."

"Oh that was good. If they didn't only have one bartender, I'd say it was my birthday every time I went in there."

"I can't believe that smelly guy tried to give me a birthday kiss."

"I can't believe someone else punched him before I could."

"Aw, you didn't get to be my knight in shining armor," Toph teased.

"I already got that title."

"I've never been kissed," Toph admitted.

"What?"

"I thought I was kissing Sokka once, but I kissed Suki."

Given the years she was kept prisoner, it's not surprising that she's never been kissed.

"Close your eyes," Azula said.

"I'm blind."

"I know."

Toph rolled her eyes before she closed them. Azula captured her lips. Her movements were gentle, sweet, not at all what Toph was expecting.

"Now you have," Azula said as they continued to go home.

"Have you ever been kissed?"

"Once," Azula said.

"What happened?"

"He thought I was crazy, and I ended up trashing his house."

Toph started cracking up. "So because he called you crazy, you acted crazy."

"If the bra fits …"

"Well I reserve the right to remain silent."

"You never have before."

Toph shoved her.

Azula shoved her right back and they spent the rest of the walk home trying to make the other fall.


	3. Chapter 3

**May 103AG**

It's now been two full years since Azula's gone missing. Zuko had other issues to worry about, mainly that food prices were high, property values were low, and unemployment was climbing.

The people hated him, and he didn't blame them. The Fire Lord had made several concessions during the reparation negotiations, and even though he thought he had been morally right, he hadn't been fiscally responsible, and his people, many of who had nothing to do with the war, were paying the piper.

Some were calling for a new royal family. Others wanted Azula to come back. They weren't sure if she really escaped or if he locked her in some secret prison. Maybe he even killed her and made up the story to cover up the action.

"How are things?" Iroh asked when he came to visit.

"Bad, really bad."

Zuko explained his troubles to his uncle.

"You're doing your best."

"MY BEST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH!" Zuko roared. Then he calmed down. "I'm sorry, but when my people are in the streets fighting over bags of government supplied rice, I can't just say, well I followed my heart, people. They don't care about my good intentions. They just care that Ozai could feed them, and I couldn't."

"Have your austerity measures gotten anywhere?"

"No. It doesn't help that after I raised the taxes more people went underground to hide their money. It's hard to get enough coins to do anything, and when I hire more police to catch those in the black market, I lose even more money without any guarantee that I'll find enough tax evaders to make up what I spent.

The more I try to get my head over water, the more I sink. It hasn't been three years. I don't think I could do three more years of this. I'll lose the country to civil war or be assassinated first."

"Have you tried asking the Avatar for help?"

"He gave me an extension on my reparation payments so I could have some breathing room, but it wasn't enough. He can come quell rebellions but he can't magically produce enough food or make my people happy. He even got Kuei to give me a six-month forbearance, and I'm not even sure how much of his soul he had to sell to do that, but I'm going to have to pay the piper eventually, and I don't know how."

Iroh should have realized that Zuko would need more help when he went into the negotiations. "I didn't want to be overbearing at the beginning. I probably should have been there to advise you."

"I should have asked for help. It's not your fault I didn't realize how ignorant I was."

When Iroh went out to the city, he could see how troubled it was. The streets were dirty. The people had tattered clothes. They weren't nobles of course, but poor people from the smaller towns had come here to beg. There was street prostitution, which was almost unheard of before the ended, in Capital City and drugs flowing left and right.

People looked either strung out or jaded. The will of the people was dying, and if something didn't change soon, there wouldn't be much of a Fire Nation at all anymore.

Iroh wasn't sure what the White Lotus could do if anything, but he wrote to his friends. There had to be some way out of this.

* * *

><p>Lao and Poppy were frustrated that three months of searching had gotten them nowhere. Unsure of where lese to go, they turned to King Kuei for help.<p>

"Our daughter was kidnapped."

"What?" Who could get Toph?

"She was taken in February. We have been searching locally for months, hiring any bounty hunter we could. We had a reward, but we don't even have a sighting of her. Now, we must assume that she was taken out of Gaoling.

We can't search the whole country for her."

The King nodded. "No you can't. I'll start a search for her in Ba Sing Se and we'll fan out the military. We'll find her."

Lao and Poppy wondered if they should have come to him earlier. If they had, he might have asked what happened to lead up to her kidnapping. They didn't want to reveal that they had effectively kept their own daughter prisoner, but what choice did they have? They needed her to settle down, so they could find someone for her to marry, and she just wouldn't listen.

Now they had to wonder if they'd ever see her alive again.

The Dai Li had been relegated to only being an administrative agency. When they were informed of Toph's kidnapping, they were responsible for informing various entities and making sure that they coordinated the search as to avoid redundant searches.

They contacted King Bumi, the new metalbending police force, General Fong and the Avatar, informing each of them that the others had gotten the same information and they offered a way to divide the territory of the kingdom so that they didn't all search the same place at the same time.

Their work was so boring.

"I miss Azula," one of them said.

"Me too."

She was crazy, but she was fun too. Watching her take down Long Feng was definitely a highlight for them.

"I wonder how she managed to hide from Zuko for so long."

"She must have had a safe house somewhere."

They mused about their former leader, but they had no way of finding her. It was unlikely that she came to Ba Sing Se.

* * *

><p>Aang was in the Southern Air Temple when he got the letter. Toph was what! "KATARA!" He yelled, calling her from the stream where she had been waterbending.<p>

She came running. "What is it?"

"Toph! They've kidnapped Toph."

"Who?"

Katara took the letter and read the description: male firebender, tall, strong, very dangerous, and possibly armed. "Do you think it was one of those rebel groups?"

Aang had no idea. "We have to get Sokka and start a search."

At the tribe, Sokka was going over the upcoming whale hunt with his father. "Do we have everything we need?"

"Weapons wise, yes, but the boats need some work. We'll need to do maintenance on them probably for the rest of the month."

Sokka started to work out a schedule.

He didn't notice a fluffy sky bison in the air until it had already landed.

"Aang? Katara?" He hadn't been expecting them for another month.

He got up to greet them.

"Aang, sis!"

"Toph's been kidnapped," Aang said frantically.

"WHAT? When?"

"She was taken in February, but her parents didn't report it until recently."

"WHAT?" He wanted to give them a piece of his mind.

"Forget about her parents," Katara said. "We must find Toph!"

Sokka nodded. "I'll pack my stuff. Can you tell father. We should leave straight away."

The police force was scouring the city, checking every ring for signs of Toph or this male firebender. Unfortunately, a lot of men fit this description. The police investigated every one, but none of them checked out.

"Where could she be?"

King Bumi was surprised by the news. He had to put his plans to reconvene the White Lotus on hold.

"Sorry Iroh, but this is an emergency."

He called in his troops and ordered them to search the city and fan outwards.

"They've already searched Gaoling thoroughly, and Ba Sing Se is being searched now, so we'll start at home and go to the Foggy swamp on one side and to the water on the other. She may be in serious trouble. Who knows why someone would kidnap her if not for ransom?"

The Avatar and his friends searched the Si Wong desert, wondering if she was being kept somewhere that people avoided or if she had been sold to sandbenders.

"How could Toph get kidnapped?" Sokka still wanted to know. "She's so tough."

"She might have been taken by surprise or drugged," Katara suggested.

"I hadn't heard from her in a while, but she was so busy working. I didn't think …" Aang started to blame himself.

"This isn't your fault," she told him. "None of us thought to check on her."

"So it's all our faults."

"We'll get her back!"

They came across a group of sandbenders. Aang showed them Toph's portrait, but they said, "we haven't seen her nor have we heard of anyone selling her. Usually, women get sold in the Lower Ring," not that it's legal.

"Which the police are searching now," Sokka said. "Thanks anyway."

They tried the Labyrinth, the Plains, and Jibade only to end up, tired, thirsty and frustrated that she wasn't anywhere.

**June 103AG**

The only people who knew where Azula was (other than Toph) were Lo and Li. They helped their former protégé get out of the country, and she kept them informed of her whereabouts using the alias Suyin.

Both twins were concerned about the turn for the worse that the Fire Nation had taken, and they felt it was time for her to come out of hiding and help get her country in order.

They sent a message, requesting an audience with her.

"We can come to you Suyin. Just tell us where to go."

Azula got it and wondered what was so important they were willing to come to the Earth Kingdom to see her.

She told them that the best thing for them to do would be to take a sky ship to Gaoling, and she would meet them in the center of town before taking them to a clandestine place to meet.

"You might not recognize my disguise, so wait for me to come to you. Burn after reading."

One week later, Lo and Li were waiting at the Fountain of General Gao, the source of the name Gaoling, and a woman with green eyes approached them.

"It's been a long time."

The twins hugged her.

"We never would have expected this." She looked half Earth Kingdom with the eyes.

"I know. We can talk at my house, but I have a roommate now. Do you mind if she hears this conversation?"

"It's best if she doesn't, Suyin."

"Very well. If she's home then we'll go for a walk."

Azula had done Toph's makeup that morning in case she wanted to leave the house.

They got to the house, and it was empty

"This is a nice place," Li told her.

"I know. I can't believe the owners abandoned it."

They had tea and dumplings.

"So what's going on?"

Lo explained how the politics of the country had changed. "At first, people were just thrown for a loop. After 100 years of fighting, they were told that the war was wrong, but it wasn't so bad. Men came home to their families. People figured taxes would go down and the toxic fumes from the factories would stop, but after a few months, things started to change.

Food prices started to go up, just a little bit at first, but now, rice is double what it was three years ago."

"Taxes went up too over the first year, Li added and businesses with higher costs and less profit started letting people go.

They complained to your brother, and he offered unemployment benefits but he paid for those by raising taxes again. Business started to close. No business, fewer goods, fewer jobs, fewer tax dollars.

The black market started expanding. Unemployed people would work there and keep the money they made to themselves and not pay taxes.

Zuko hired more investigators to find the tax cheats.

No matter what happens, he reacts and then it's worse."

"Who are his advisors?" Azula questioned.

"He has Mai," Lo said, "and her cousins, but we don't know if he listens to them or if they're as stupid as he is."

"We offered him advice but we were refused," Li told her. "He doesn't want anything to do with people who worked with you or your father."

"And you both hired the best," Lo added.

Azula found this all depressing. "What can I do?"

"You need to come home," Lo told her.

"And go back to jail?"

"Guide this country," Li told her.

"Zuko won't let you help. You think he'll let me in?"

"If he doesn't let you in, take your throne back," Lo told her. "You won the agni kai. It was yours all along."

Azula wasn't surprised to hear that. She barely remembered the fight but she did remember him falling. "But he has a military, the Avatar, all of the world leaders will back him. I couldn't possibly beat him now."

Lo and Li glared at her.

"You mean to tell me that the youngest firebending master in world history, the first to ever master lightening at twelve, and the Conqueror of Ba Sing Se is too scared of Zuko?" Lo lectured.

"I'm not scared, but I'm realistic. I'm safer here."

"And what about your people," Li demanded to know. "They aren't safe. They will starve. Crime rates are sky high. Women are being raped and murdered in the streets while the cops chase tax cheats. They need a real leader, not a boy wearing his father's robes."

"Being a Princess is more than just a privilege," Lo continued. "It's an honor and a responsibility. One you used to take very seriously."

"I still do!" Azula insisted.

"Then prove it! You managed to break out of an asylum guarded more heavily than Boiling Rock, by yourself, when you were drugged and deprived of adequate food after wasting away for almost a year, and you're telling me that in better health and with allies you cannot make a comeback. If you give up now, then you're not the girl we thought you were."

Azula did not like feeling like a coward. She wouldn't be one. "I'll do it. I don't know how, but I'll find a way to save the nation."

"Do you think the Dai Li will still help you?" Lo questioned.

"They might. I haven't heard from them since the war ended. They might just arrest me."

"We'll go," Li told her. "We can handle them."

Azula was afraid to ask how.

"We should head out now, before your roommate comes home."

"Thank you," Azula said.

"For what?" They came to demand the impossible from her.

"For reminding me of who I am." Azula had forgotten. Now she remembers.

They made their leave.

An hour later Toph came home. Azula hadn't lied to her since she got here. That was about to change.

* * *

><p>Lo and Li made their way to Ba Sing Se. They bought forged papers to get into the Upper Ring along the way.<p>

It wasn't hard to find the Dai Li, now that they were all stuck in the same office. They casually walked inside.

"Can we help you?"

"We believe we have a friend in common," Lo told him.

"This job looks boring," Li added. "Are you interested in a new one?"

It was pretty easy to get the Dai Li on board. Their role was administrative, which that meant they had access to a lot of information, and they gave the twins any information that could be of interest, including the notice sent out to the city about Toph Bei Fong's kidnapping.

The twins mailed all of the documents to Suyin. Hopefully, she'd be able to find a way to use it.

Azula got the mail three days later. The most interesting part was the notice.

In February 103AG, Lady Toph Bei Fong was kidnapped by a dangerous male firebender. King Kuei has authorized a full nation search for her and anyone with information about her whereabouts or about the man who kidnapped her is to report it to the authorities. Withholding such information is a felony offence.

Do not engage this firebender if you see him. Contact the authorities with any information you have about his whereabouts, but do not put yourself in harms way. The King will reward any information that leads to her recovery. The Metalbending Police Force, the troops of Ba Sing Se, troops of Omashu, and the Avatar are all apart of this search.

Please offer them any assistance you can and your efforts will be appreciated and rewarded in kind.

King Kuei

It looked like Azula and Toph would have to part ways sooner rather than later. This might be for the best, as it would mean Toph wasn't around while Azula was plotting. It would mean, however, that people would know that Azula was actually in the Earth Kingdom.

She had to handle this conversation very carefully.

* * *

><p>When she got home, Toph was in the kitchen. "Where's lunch?"<p>

"Calm down!"

Azula made grilled cheese with bacon.

"The King has started a national search for you."

"What?"

"He has the police in Ba Sing Se, the military and the Avatar looking for you."

"You mean I'll be able to go back to my life?"

"It depends on who finds you."

"What do you mean?"

"Kuei obviously started the search when your parents told him that you were kidnapped. He may have instructed his men to return you to your parents."

"But they're the reason I was kidnapped."

"I know that and so do you, but they don't know that or maybe they won't care. Your father's an important man. They may choose his support over your freedom."

"But Aang wouldn't do that."

"How will we find him before the military finds us? He's likely searching for you in the air."

Toph didn't know. "We have to come up with something."

"I have an idea. You could disguise yourself and go to Ba Sing Se. My uncle will hide you until he can get you to the Fire Nation Palace. Zuko won't turn you over, no matter what Kuei has to say about it."

"What about you?"

"I'm still a fugitive."

"You don't think your brother will help you after all you've done for me?"

"He'll think I had ulterior motives." Even if he didn't, his reign is too precarious. Me coming back will be a problem for him. "Not that I blame him. We've never gotten along."

"So this is it," Toph wanted to see her friends, but the thought of losing Azula was upsetting.

"Until we meet again. Someday, you'll be an adult and free of your parents demands. Someday, I'll find a way to deal with my legal issues, but it looks like we will have to part ways sooner rather than later."


	4. Chapter 4

Azula was able to plot a course for them, avoiding the military routes with the information she got from the Dai Li.

"This will take longer, but it will be safer. No sandbenders or military should be around."

It was going to be a seven-day hike since they were on foot. Once they got to Chameleon bay, they'd have to get a boat into the EK Ferry Port so they could get into Ba Sing Se.

On the second day, Azula called Toph over. "Time for your bath!"

"But we'll just get dirty hiking tomorrow."

"I'd rather have only two days of dirt on us than seven days worth when we get to Ba Sing Se. Do you really want the first time you see your friends in almost three years to be you smelling like an ostrich horse's butt? They'll be glad they didn't look for you sooner."

Toph launched a boulder at her.

Azula split it in two with her flames. "You know I'm right."

"You don't have to be such a bitch about it."

"But everyone hates me."

"I think people just don't know you. I like you, and I don't like most people."

"I like you too. Now get your stinky butt in the bath."

Azula did heat the water, which was nice and she had some flowery bath stuff.

"What are these?"

"Moon peach blossoms and bath salts."

Toph hated baths, but this one smelled really nice. "Can you help me wash my hair?"

Warm hands lathered Toph's hair and long nails scratched her scalp.

"Head scratches are the best!"

Azula had a way of helping people without making it seem like she pitied them, or she was their mother. Katara could take some notes.

* * *

><p>That night, they stayed in an abandoned mining town.<p>

"They have some interesting stuff here," Toph explored the metal carts and other abandoned items.

There was a dilapidated house where presumably the miners slept when they did work here. It was better than camping outside.

"What are you going to do afterwards?" Toph said.

"I don't know. Zuko might demand that you answer his questions as to where I was living. It's probably smarter to find a new house."

"I'm not going to just sell you out."

"I wasn't saying that you would, but when your friends aren't all on the same side, eventually you have to pick."

"I won't lie to him," Toph said, "but I won't throw you under the ostrich-horse cart if I can avoid it."

"Thanks."

* * *

><p>After the third day, they decided to take a day off, which of course meant sparring.<p>

"Princess Zappy, you're going down!"

"Like hell Badgermole!"

Boulders met cerulean flames. Metalbending found lightening as they found new ways of thwarting the other.

Azula was more strategic whereas Toph relied on instincts. She just had very good instincts.

Toph collapsed the ground beneath Azula, but the firebender flipped away.

Azula responded with fire whips, but Toph was able to dodge them.

"Why did I train you to be more athletic?" Azula questioned.

"Cause you're dumb!"

They had a good morning beating each other up, and now they needed to rest.

After an hour of lying around, both girls were famished.

"I see some fruit trees," Azula said in the distance. At their rate, they'd be out of jerky by the time they got to the bay, so they had to forage more.

Azula climbed and picked some apples. She roasted them over an open fire, which made them more appealing than just eating raw apples for lunch.

"We should have brought some cow pig belly."

"How would we store it?"

"If Sugar Queen were here, she could have kept it cold."

"If she were here, I'd probably be in jail."

"Then who would cook the cow pig?"

"Stupid," Azula told her.

"Double stupid!"

They slept under a dirt tent via Toph's earthbending.

"Do you get lonely, since you've spent so much time without anyone who actually knows who you are?"

"Before my paranoia kept me from worrying about that. I was sure that someone was going to find me, but now that I'm used to having someone to talk to, it will be weird being on my own again."

"You don't have anyone else that you trust?"

"I do, but I couldn't risk their safety. They're still in the Fire Nation, and if they got caught with me, they're looking at treason charges."

"What about me?"

"You're not Zuko's citizen. He can't do anything do you for what happened here. Kuei could if he had been looking for me, but he wasn't."

"So it's going to be you and those books."

"Yeah, me and a lot of books, until I figure something out."

"I wish I knew how to read. I never say anything about it, since I don't want the pity, but it would be nice to actually know what's going on instead of having people paraphrase everything to me."

"Maybe you could learn, if they had raised print or an ink with metal in it."

"Those are both valid ideas. Maybe the Mechanist could help me figure it out."

* * *

><p>Azula woke up with Toph's head resting on her chest. Azula could feel the blush on her face and was glad Toph couldn't see it.<p>

The earthbender had grown to be a beautiful woman, not that she knew it. She was so small and frail when Azula got her, but she was strong now, and her body actually had enough fat to give her curves. She'd have no trouble finding a boyfriend if she wanted one.

Azula wished they didn't have to part. It was nice not having to share Toph, but it's not like the earthbender reciprocated her feelings. How could she?

Azula pretended to be asleep when Toph woke up.

"Her boobs made nice pillows," Toph commented as she got up. Azula found it funny, but kept quiet.

Thirty minutes later, they were hiking again. Toph was appreciative that Azula had been such a hard ass before when it came to her training. She couldn't imagine this trip in the state she had been in months ago. The earthbender wondered what it would have been like to have her on their side during the war. With her fighting prowess and training methods, she could have likely made better fighters out of everyone.

If things could have been different, then Azula wouldn't have to leave her.

Was it wrong that Toph was looking forward to her bath because Azula would wash her hair? She knows how to keep the soap out of her eyes and not pull too hard.

It was also nice to feel her warm hands.

Stop this Toph, she doesn't like you like that, and she's going to be gone in a few days.

That evening, Toph made bathtub out of rock. They filled it with a rock bucket and Azula heated the water.

Toph took off her clothes and got in. Azula shouldn't stare but it was too easy. Azula took her clothes off and climbed into the tub.

"How did you get so many moon peach blossoms?" Toph questioned.

"I bought a pack of dried ones at the market. They're pretty compressed before you add them to the water."

Azula started to wash Toph's hair. The earthbender moaned happily which made Azula giggle.

"Shut up!"

"Sorry, you're enjoying my handwork too much!"

She was getting ready to wash her hair, when Toph turned around suddenly. Azula's hand slipped from her hair to her shoulder.

"What is it?"

"Have you ever liked someone, but known it wouldn't work because there was just too much in the way?"

"Yes."

"Did you go for it anyway?"

"No."

"Do you think that was wise?"

"It was probably wise, but I don't know if it was smart."

"What?"

"Given what I knew at the time, it was probably wise not to do anything, but if I had been smarter, I would have tried to find a way to make it work anyway."

"So if you had a second chance, you'd just try it anyway."

"I guess I would."

That's all Toph needed to hear. She crashed her lips to Azula's, almost missing since she couldn't see that well in the bathtub.

This kiss was the opposite of their first, needy and rushed. Toph needed some kind of confirmation. Once the shock wore off, Azula kissed her back, quickly taking control of the smaller girl as she pulled Toph into her lap. Their bodies were pressed together, as they battled each other in the tub.

Toph broke the kiss with a moan as Azula cupped her face.

"Are you sure?"

Toph nodded. They kissed again, this one slower more restrained. Azula felt like her chi was going to explode. She broke the kiss and started to move down Toph's body, kissing her neck and shoulders as the younger girl hummed happily.

Azula cupped a breast in her hand. The nipple hardened at her touch and Azula pinched it.

"OOH!"

Azula grinned, pinching and caressing as Toph's breathing slowed down.

She flicked a hardened nub with her tongue. She tried to pull away, but Toph pushed her head forward. She wanted more. Azula chewed on the nipple gently.

"FUCK!"

It was still amazing to her how perfect the earthbender in her arms was. She was thin, but strong, curvy, but only in the right places. Eventually Azula made it down the girl's flat stomach and started teasing her belly button with her tongue. It's a good thing she's an innie. Azula discriminates against outies, like her brother, gross! It's like a penis in your belly.

"LOWER!"

"Patience," Azula said. They only had a short time left together. Azula was going to savor every second.

She went down to her hips and then her thighs. Toph opened her legs on a reflex. Litlte hot pokers teased her thighs as Azula roamed her with her fingertips.

She smelled good and Azula bet she tasted even better. She made her way down her legs to her feet. Daringly, the firebender licked one of them with a heated tongue.

"OH FUCK!"

Toph usually hated it when people touched her feet, but her movements were so gentle, so wonderful.

Azula gently massaged each foot, doing things to her toes she had never even thought about before. It felt like nothing was out of bounds.

She slowly made her way back up to Toph's hips. She leaned in and licked her between her legs.

"OH SPIRITS!"

Azula continued to lick and suck away at her, exploring every inch of her wetness. She used her fingertips to add to the excitement. Toph was tight, so tight that Azula could only get a finger into her.

"FUCK!"

"Is that too much?"

"No!"

But another finger would have been, so Azula stayed with one.

A swollen nub made itself known. Azula licked around it, eliciting hisses, moans and gasps from the earthbender until she finally licked it directly.

Toph grabbed her head, pushing the princess into her and threw her head back. It's a good thing no one was around or else he would have heard Toph's shrieks and discovered their coupling.

Azula licked her clean; the earthbender was trembling. "Let's get out of the water. We're all wrinkly now."

* * *

><p>Toph was dried, dressed and dinner was about to be served. She wasn't sure if Azula would kiss her back or slap her. There were so many reasons why this couldn't work, but none of them registered when they were in that tub. All Toph could think about was the warmth of Azula as she roamed her body freely. She completely gave in, and it felt so good. Toph would remember this night for a long time.<p>

Dinner was simple: toasted bread, jerky and fruit, but food was food at this point. They were half way to Ba Sing Se. Three more days, and this would all be over.

They lied outside and Azula tried to explain the starry night to the blind earthbender.

"Stars are big balls of fire. From here, they all look like dots, white dots in a black sky, but they are different colors. The colors represent different fire temperatures. The hottest fire is white; it's all of the colors put together."

"But I thought the moon was white. It's just a big rock."

"It's not white," Azula said. "It's reflecting light from the sun which makes it look white. The moon is grey, which is like a mix of white and black."

"I still don't get what white is."

"Let's compare colors to sounds. You hear my voice and you can tell that it's me, but in a bar, you might hear 20 voices at once and although you hear sound, you can't make sense of any of it. It all blends together. White is like that. It's the mix of every color so that even though all of the colors are there, you don't see any of them. It's the opposite of black, just like a noisy bar is the opposite of silence. The sky is like bits of white interrupting the black sky. You can see each star in isolation just like you can hear different voices if they're not too close together."

"Are stars pretty?"

"Yes."

"Are you just saying that because they're made of fire?"

"I like that about them, but I think they're generally seen as pretty."

"Does nature have any features that are just plain ugly?"

"Swamps?"

"Have you ever been to one?"

"No, but they sound ugly. Catgators and beetles ew!"

Azula woke up before Toph. She didn't think the earthbender would return her feelings that made this all even harder. She didn't want to keep everything from her, but who knows how she would react? The Fire Nation needed its princess to come home. Azula had to save it. Even if Toph understood, how could she ask Toph to keep this a secret? What if Azula failed? Toph could be jailed if people thought she was involved.

Azula had to keep her mouth shut. It's better she hate me and be safe than love me just to risk everything. She pecked Toph's lips lightly, not expecting the girl to react, but then a small hand grabbed her. "If you start our mornings with that, we'll never to Ba Sing Se."

Azula grinned. Toph had the perfect smile. "Let's get ready. We have a bay to find."

They got up and started walking. It was easier to start the hike before breakfast. They would break for breakfast in the first hour and then keep going until lunchtime.

When they settled on a place to rest for the night, Toph asked her, "how is this going to work?"

"You mean us?"

"Yeah Zappy, us."

"I don't know. I want you to be happy Toph, preferably with me, but I can't ask you to wait forever."

"What are you saying?"

"What I'm saying is that someday, I'll have a place where we can live together, happily, but if you find someone else who makes you happy before then, I'll understand. My past is my problem, not yours. Someday, somehow, I'm going to have to answer for it, and I can't ask you to put your life on hold until that day comes."

Toph took her hand. "You don't have to ask me anything. I want us, and if that means waiting until your brother gets his head out of the sand, then I'll wait. I doubt I'd just magically find someone else who will make me as happy as you have in the past four months."

"You have no idea how gorgeous you are," Azula told her. "You'll get lots of offers."

"Like I said, I don't like most people. The thing about seismic sense is, I can tell when they're full of shit, and that's more often than I can put up with."

"Yet you kissed someone who's reputed to be a pathological liar."

"I never thought that," Toph said. "Sure you're not a 400ft platypus bear with pink horns and silver wings, but I knew you lied for the job, not just because you couldn't handle the truth. You're more like a secret agent than a habitual liar, and that's kind of hot."

Azula grinned. "Do you keep secrets from your friends?"

"What do you mean?"

"Let's say that Kuei and Chief Hakoda are in some type of territorial dispute, a fight over fishing posts, and you are meeting with your water tribe friends who of course, support their father.

If you had information that would be of interest to them, but you thought your King would want you to keep it to yourself, would you keep it a secret, even if they got angry at you later?"

Toph thought for a moment. "I'd do what I thought was right. If I thought Kuei was wrong, I'd go against him, but if he wasn't or if there was no truly right person in the dispute, then I'd have to side with my king, just like my friends would side with their father. They might be mad, but I hope they'd respect that my loyalty to the Earth Kingdom is just as valid as their loyalty to their tribes."

"And if they didn't?"

"Then they aren't being very good friends to me. Friends aren't people who agree with you all the time or follow you blindly. They're supposed to care about you, but even though they are important, they aren't your whole life."

"Coming from the girl who said her friends were everything."

"They are, I mean if I was in a position where I had to give my life to save my friends, then I would, for any of them, but a life or death situation isn't the same as just giving them everything they want. Sometimes, friends come down on different sides. If they're true friends, they'll make it."

"I see."

"Is this theoretical or real?"

"A little of both."

"Do you think you'll ever be friends with Mai and Ty Lee again?"

"I'm not sure if we were every really friends in the first place. If we were, it was before my father militarized me, and I might have burned that bridge too severely." If I haven't yet, I will soon.

"If they ever were your friends, then they could at least appreciate what a terrible guy he was and the affect that he had on you, even if they are wary of you now. If not, then move on. No reason to get hung up on what you can't change."

The next day was their last full day of hiking. It wouldn't be very long to get from their resting spot to the Chameleon Bay, but they would have to do their makeup and get forged papers to get into Ba Sing Se.

"Are you sure we can just buy them on the spot?" Toph questioned.

"It's what I did at Full Moon Bay. They aren't waiting in public obviously. You just have to look for the people who seem to be hiding. With your seismic sense, that should be easy."

"Good point."

They made it to their campsite. Azula could see the bay in the distance, but they were a bit a ways from it.

They built one last bath together and had a fun time washing each other.

"I love your hands," Toph told her.

"Most firebenders have rough hands from all of the callouses and burns, but I had the best skin care money can buy."

"You would."

"I am a princess after all, even if I'm in an exile of sorts."

"Are girls allowed to learn to firebend?"

"There are no rules against it, but it is rare. There's a reason I'm probably the only female firebender you've ever met."

"You are."

"Firebending used to be about life and celebration. There's fire art, fire healing, advanced heatbending and cold firebending. Men and women used to learn them all at their leisure, but when the war started, Sozin put all the focus on fighting, so all of the instruction went to men. It was seen as a war tool, and only men traditionally went to war, so women stopped learning."

Azula learned a lot about the pre-Sozin Fire Nation from books she read during her time hiding in Ba Sing Se. She found it shocking.

"Does anyone know the other arts?"

"The sages might. They probably know some of it at least. It would be nice for my country to learn it once more."

"How come you got trained as a man?"

"When my father discovered I had a blue flame, he realized I was a prodigy. He had me trained to be a fighter and started to ignore my brother. It's one of the many reasons he can't stand me."

Toph didn't ask the other reasons, but she had some idea.

After their bath, they went to their bedrolls, naked of course. Toph had been at Azula's mercy last time. This time, she wanted to be in charge. She straddled the firebender, kissing her before saying, "I believe I still owe you from the other night."

Azula grunted happily as small, strong hands made their way all over Azula's body. Toph roamed everywhere. She had to feel her way since she couldn't see on the bed. Azula's skin was so warm and soft. She also made delicious moans, low and throaty as Toph explored her body. He breasts had a nice heft to them, and Azula squirmed as she squeezed them.

The firebender tried to resist, but she was bad at suppressing her excitement.

"There's no reason to fight it," Toph said. "I can feel your heart pounding out of your chest."

Eager lips lavished Azula's delicate skin and as Toph went lower and lower, the woman beneath her struggled to breathe as she anticipated what was to come.

She started off slowly, exploring her way with her hands and tongue. She wanted to know Azula's favorite spots, and she had to try them all to tell.

The only hands that had ever been down there before were Azula's and this was better, much better.

The firebender breathed a flame as Toph made her way inside.

"You really are a dragon," Toph teased as she curved her fingers inside and rubbed this spot that seemed to drive Azula crazy.

"OH SPIRITS!"

She was a mess, breathing irregular and body shaking, as Toph toyed with her. The earthbender didn't want this moment to end.

The Princess let out a strangled cry as she came. Toph kissed her way back up to her lips, and pecked them. "You're too much fun."


	5. Chapter 5

They found a man to sell them papers on their way to the bay. Azula thought they were a bit pricy, but when she saw a sample, she agreed. "Those are better than the ones I used last time."

Suyin and Kori made their way onto a small boat that took them to the ferry port, and from there, they went into Ba Sing Se.

Azula kissed Toph one more time before they went their separate ways. The earthbender had to make her way to Iroh's teashop while Azula had to find the Dai Li. They were going to help her find a new house to stay in until she could find a way back into the Fire Nation.

The firebender had no trouble finding the office. Lo and Li had given her good directions.

When she got there, they looked puzzled. "Who are you?"

She produced a flame. "Like the disguise?"

* * *

><p>Aang was at the Jasmine Dragon. He and Iroh had been trying to think of a new strategy for the search for Toph.<p>

Sokka and Katara had gone out to the Fire Nation to search for her there. At this point, they had to entertain the idea that she got smuggled into the country.

"How could we have looked everywhere and found nothing?" Aang questioned. He couldn't believe she had been missing for four months. "What if she's dead?"

Iroh didn't know what to say at this point. "We have to believe she's alive. They would have had no reason to kill her and not come after anyone else."

"Twinkle Toes, Grandpa, you both suck at searching!"

They turned around and saw what looked like a water tribe woman but it must be, "TOPH!" Aang ran to her and gave her a crushing hug. "You're alive."

"No thanks to you, asshole!"

"What happened?" Iroh questioned.

Over tea and a lot of snacks, since they had run out of food that morning, Toph told her tale.

"So in December of 100AG, I went to my parents' house because they invited me for dinner. They gave me all kinds of bullshit about how they were proud of me and wanted to improve our relationship. Well, instead they drugged me and gave me chi blockers so I couldn't bend or run away."

Aang and Iroh's faces fell. It was her parents all along?

"I was kept as a prisoner in the house, and I would still be there, but they gave me some bad food and I threw it up, which meant I wasn't sedated or anything. I managed to break out of the house, but I was too weak to get very far."

"When was this?" Iroh questioned.

"This February."

"They had you for more than two years?" Aang yelled.

"Well you might have figured it out if your dumb ass ever tried to visit me!"

"They said you were working for Kuei. I thought you were training the police and fighting crime."

"Well, I wanted to be, but I wasn't. Anyway, these bounty hunters my parents hired found me and started to take me back when that "dangerous firebender" rescued me.

She hid me from my family until I got stronger and retaught myself how to earthbend."

"Wait she? The flyers said it was a big scary man," Aang said.

"Yeah, she was a girl who was not much taller than I am. They must have lied to protect their egos. Anyway, she nursed me back to health and when she learned Kuei was looking for me, we donned disguises and hiked our way to the Chameleon Bay, so we could get into the city. We didn't want the military to find me first, in case they just dragged me home, so she helped me get here, and well, here I am, no thanks to you!"

Aang hugged her again. "I'm so sorry. None of us had seen you but we didn't talk to each other enough to realize that no one had seen you. We all assumed that someone knew you were there, and your parents did lie to the world for two years. They told us you were working around the clock."

"Never trust Lao Bei Fong, for any reason."

Iroh had an obvious question. "Where is your rescuer?"

"Um, she didn't want to come here, so she went her own way."

"I'm sure Kuei would have given her a reward," Iroh said.

"Yeah, I don't want to go to Kuei. He might side with my father since he's so influential, and even though I'm old enough to buy booze, I'm still a minor until next April."

"What do you want to do?" Aang asked her.

"Can you get me to the Fire Nation? Zuko can write to Kuei from there, and then he can call off the search."

Aang agreed. "We'll fly out tonight."

"Can it be tomorrow? I spent seven days hiking, and I'd rather not be blind until I'm well rested."

"Of course. You are both welcome to stay here," Iroh said.

Aang was so glad to have her back that he didn't worry about anything else. Iroh, on the other hand, was concerned. Toph seemed different. Of course this was his first time seeing her in almost three years, and after her ordeal, she must be different, but she never came across as reserved before.

It might take her some time to trust the group again. They did fail her, even though they didn't mean to. Iroh hoped she wasn't holding back something bad. Who knows what could have happened to her in all this time?

"I'm so glad you're back," Aang told her at dinner.

"You said that ten times, Twinkle Toes."

"I know, but it's still true. They searched the entire country looking for you, and Zuko's tearing apart the Fire Nation right now."

"Well, I guess we outsmarted you."

Toph was no longer wearing her water tribe makeup.

"So you just made yourself look like a woman from the water tribes?" Iroh questioned.

"I told people my name was Kori, and given the make up, they assumed I was a half-breed."

"Where did you get it? I could use it."

"Trying to make yourself pretty Twinkle Toes?"

"No, I could just use disguises sometimes."

"My friends said it was stage makeup. I don't know anything about theatres. She put it on obviously."

"She did a good job. I didn't recognize your face even though I knew it was your voice."

"Well, we had to be careful. My parents are crazy."

"You're really lucky that the girl who found you was nice," Aang said. "She could have just given you back to your parents for the reward money. They were offering 10,000 coins for you."

"Yeah, she was cool."

* * *

><p>Later that night, Iroh asked Toph if she was all right.<p>

"That's kind of a loaded question. I'm physically fine, but it's been a really rough road."

"I know, and I am sorry that I didn't realize anything was wrong. I know this sounds terrible, but it wasn't very suspicious when we didn't hear from you. You can't write, so we just assumed your parents letters were legitimate."

Toph frowned. She did know that. "I know, but did you really think I would not come to visit for over two years."

"I was sad about it, but I thought you were off to bigger and better things."

"Well, I'm going to learn how to write my own letters."

"I think that's a great idea."

"Do you know how I could get a metal based ink?"

"That shouldn't be too hard."

Toph felt bad about not telling Aang and Iroh who had saved her, but she had to give Azula a day start at least. She deserved that much, and more, a lot more.

* * *

><p>The following morning, Toph and Aang hugged Iroh goodbye before they flew off to the Fire Nation.<p>

"Everyone's going to be so happy to see you," Aang said. "I bet Zuko will have the staff make you whatever you want."

"I know what I want, cow pig belly tacos!"

"I've never heard of that, but if they have the stuff, they'll make it."

Toph spent a week going northeast, just to fly southwest. Irony was a funny thing. She wondered what Azula was doing right now.

"Zuko will probably hire a bounty hunter once he learns where I am," Azula told the Dai Li. "Which means I need to give him a reason to think that I'm one place when I'm really somewhere else."

Toph will get to the Fire Nation later today. Even if she tells Zuko that day, it will take him two to three days to get a letter to a bounty hunter that's in the city, and by the time they get here, Azula should be gone.

The question was where to go. She could try hiding in Yu Dao, but it might be more likely that someone would recognize her since Fire Nation nobles came and left, or she could try Omashu again which is closer to Lo and Li.

"Where would you hide if you were me?"

The consensus was Senlin Village. "It's small but enough people come and go from the Fire Nation that you wouldn't look out of place, especially if you wear the disguise."

Azula nodded, "to Senlin Village." She should also be able to get a boat from Omashu to there.

She decided to take off tonight. She didn't want to chance Iroh looking for her before she could escape.

It was afternoon when they got to the Fire Nation.

Aang flew straight to the palace and took Appa to the barn. Appa liked the palace. They pampered him here.

Aang took Toph inside and told the servants to please get the Fire Lord, Mai, Sokka and Katara as quickly as possible. "I have news that they will want straight away."

The servants did as requested and they were all stumped.

"What could Aang have that caused him to fly here instead of writing?" Mai questioned.

"Well, I could have written," Aang said as he came into the room, "but then you would have been mad that I didn't come right here."

"I'm back, jerks!" Toph declared proudly.

Their jaws dropped.

"How did you?" Zuko questioned.

Katara ran and hugged her. "Oh my spirits we were so worried."

"No need to crush me Sugar Queen."

"Aang you're amazing," Sokka declared before hugging Toph happily.

"Why? He didn't find me. I found him!"

Once she got away she said, "Snoozles, seriously you need to buy deodorant."

Oh Toph was back.

"How did you escape?" Mai asked.

"Who kidnapped you?" Zuko wanted to know.

"My crazy parents kidnapped me, and well the person they claimed kidnapped me really rescued me. I've been in hiding until I was strong enough to come here."

"What do you mean strong enough?" Katara questioned.

Toph explained how she had been held for years and when she got away, "I was too weak to walk and my earthbending was too poor to use my seismic sense. I was helpless, and I had to learn to do everything again before I could leave or else I'd just get captured and brought back to my parents."

"They kept you all this time?" Katara was astounded.

"I knew there was some reason that they didn't report your 'kidnapping' for three months!" Sokka had wanted to confront them right away.

"Even if we had confronted them, we wouldn't have found Toph," Aang said. "And they probably would have denied it all."

"They should get arrested," Katara said.

"For what? I'm a minor and they'll just say I was a runaway child. The Earth Kingdom pretty much lets parents do whatever they want."

"But they drugged you and made you too weak to walk. That has to be child abuse."

"You try bringing Lao Bei Fong to trial. He's untouchable, which is why I came here. I didn't want to risk being sent back."

"Well, they're not getting anywhere near you."

Everyone was so happy that Toph was back that Zuko almost forgot to tell Kuei to halt the search.

He didn't mention that Toph had fled the nation since she didn't trust Kuei not to return her to her parents. He just said, "she was found safe and sound in the Fire Nation."

No one gave much thought as to whom Toph's rescuer was except for Mai. There weren't many female firebenders, especially ones who could take down two bigger fighters without much difficulty.

She didn't want to bring her suspicions to Zuko in case she was wrong. The next day, she started with Aang.

"Did Toph tell you who had rescued her?"

"No, but I could just hug her."

"Don't you find that odd? Most heroes would want recognition."

"Maybe she just wants a quiet life. Everyone knows who I am, and it's kind of annoying sometimes. I wouldn't be surprised by a rescuer who would rather just be normal than be some trumped up hero."

That was plausible, but Mai thought there was more to the story.

* * *

><p>She didn't want to be the one to bring the subject up to Toph. She thought a closer friend should do that, so she tried Sokka.<p>

"I have a question for you."

"Shoot, Blade Runner." Mai could just kick Toph for giving her that nickname. Almost three years later, it still stuck to her.

"How many female firebenders do you know?"

Sokka thought, "Well, there is that sage's daughter and there were those girls in Yu Dao, but almost every firebender I know is a man. That is kind of weird. They don't have rules like the Northern Water Tribe do they?"

"No, it's not a rule. It's more customary. I'll ask you another question. How many female master firebenders do you know?"

"Only that sage girl, the other girls were enthusiastic about it, but they clearly needed more training."

"Anyone else you remember?"

"Well, there was Azula, but I can't say I really knew her. What are you getting at?"

"I'm just puzzled. Toph was rescued by a female firebender, who had to be a pretty good fighter to get her away from bounty hunters without any injury to herself. Unless it was that sage's daughter, who else could it have been?"

"You think Azula rescued Toph, but that wouldn't be I don't know, nice?"

"It sounds odd, which is why I haven't approached Zuko, but don't you find it odd that Toph has never mentioned her name. She just calls her she or friend. Her friend also refused to go to Iroh's teashop, which Azula would have to do of course."

"Toph wouldn't hide Azula!"

"Not the Toph we knew at the end of the war, but put yourself in her shoes. You found out that your own parents have held you prisoner for years. No one noticed because none of your friends bothered to try to visit you, so they all just assumed you were fine."

Sokka was about to interrupt, but Mai was too quick.

"You take the last of your energy to escape only to find yourself back in the hands of your parents' associates. You get rescued, and your rescuer is even prepared to nurse you back to health, but she's the most wanted criminal in the world.

Would you accept the help or would you try to run away, even though you can't really walk or even see, and you'll probably just get captured and dragged back to your parents where they will drug you some more?"

"I'd have to stay," he admitted.

"And wouldn't your feelings change if said war criminal fed you, clothed you, taught you how to walk again, taught you how to bend again or lets say sword fight in your case. If you had to rely on someone for four months, and she took reasonably good care of you, then you would at least be appreciative notwithstanding your other issues with her."

"I guess." Sokka didn't like where this was going at all.

"And even if you couldn't shield her permanently, you might give her a bit of a head start, and if no one asks you who she is, then you haven't really done anything wrong by not volunteering the information.

I'm happy to have Toph back. We all are, but Azula is still a very dangerous person, especially given our political situation right now. One move from her, and it could all come tumbling down.

We can't expect Toph to know that. She's been out of the public sphere for almost three years and would have no idea that we're on the verge of civil war. If the people find out that Azula is healthy and of sound mind, they may want her to replace her brother and could be willing to try to force him out.

She could undo everything Zuko has accomplished since the war ended. We need Toph to tell us the truth. I would have confronted her myself, but …"

"You aren't that close to her."

"Exactly."

"So you want me to talk to her."

"I do."

Sokka knew Mai had a good point, but it felt weird trying to fish information out of Toph. She's his buddy. They've always been so tight, but then again, her parents kidnapped her, and he didn't even know. He didn't think to go to Gaoling or look for her when she was in Ba Sing Se. He was either with the tribe or with Suki before they "went on a break." He didn't know how she had changed, how she had been forced to change.


	6. Chapter 6

It wasn't until that night, after dinner, that he tried to talk to Toph. She was in the garden, holding a moon peach blossom. It smells like her, Toph thought as she held it. This really sucked.

"Are you okay?" Sokka asked her.

"Define okay. I'm healthy, strong again, but it's hard not to be bitter," about her abduction, about everything.

"I know you've probably heard this 100 times, but I'm so sorry. I don't have any excuse. I just figured you were busy beating people up."

"I know, and I forgive you guys, but I don't think I'll ever forget. I woke up and had no idea that two years of my life were gone. I don't think words can describe what it was like when I got out of that bed and realized I was too weak to walk."

Sokka hugged her.

"She pretty much to carry me around for the first two weeks. I was able to start walking, but I still couldn't see on the wooden floors, so she had to guide me everywhere. It must have been annoying, but she never complained about it."

"Why did she help you, I mean other than she just wanted to be nice?"

"I asked her that. She said that she knew what it was like to have her life stolen from her, but when she got away, she was all alone."

Sokka knew what she was telling him. "Azula rescued you."

"She did. I know I should have told Iroh when I got there, but I couldn't."

"I understand."

"You do?"

"We weren't there Toph. We wanted to be. We searched everywhere, but at the end of the day, when you needed us, we weren't there. She was. I don't know how or why, but she did what we couldn't.

I understand why you didn't tell us, but we have a problem. She's still dangerous."

"She's different now. I didn't even recognize her voice when I woke up. It was like the venom was gone."

"I take it she's still as good a fighter as she was then."

"I think better. She's had nothing else to do but workout and read. It's not like she gets invited to birthday parties."

"The Fire Nation is in trouble Toph."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Mai said it's really unstable right now. One false move could send the country into civil war."

"What?"

"What I'm saying is, Azula's presence, even if she doesn't do anything is a problem. If the nobles find her first, they could try to force Zuko out."

"So you want to jail her because of her bloodline?"

"I didn't say jail, but we do need to find her. She could be the difference between a united country and a disaster."

"I'll talk to Sparky tomorrow."

"I'll tell him. He'll be mad and say things he doesn't mean; plus Mai already suspects it. She just didn't want to say anything if she was wrong."

* * *

><p>Azula had never flown on a sky ship before. Before the war ended, they used them only for battle. Now they were used as a form of civilian transit.<p>

She was a bit nervous. If anyone figured out who she was, she couldn't exactly run away, but she seemed fine just holding a book in front of her face.

She flew over the desert. She wondered how long it would be before her brother knew. She had to assume that he could have found out the day Toph got there, but she hoped that Toph was able to give her a little more breathing room than that, but it likely wouldn't be very much.

Even if Toph didn't say anything the first day, Mai would be suspicious. Mai was always suspicious. She would push until she got answers. Toph would likely have to say something within the first few days of her arrival, so Azula assumed that Zuko found out somewhere between day 1 (the day they got to Ba Sing Se was day 0) and day 3.

It would take Zuko at least two days to get a bounty hunter, which meant one would get to Ba Sing se at the earliest on day 3.

Azula flew to Omashu on an overnight sky ship at the end of day 1. She landed in Omashu on day 2.

At the earliest, Zuko will have a bounty hunter looking for me tomorrow. _Hopefully, I can get to Senlin village before they think to come here_.

Azula wasn't sure if she wanted Toph to tell them about her house or not. It would be a waste of time for them to search there, but it also meant she couldn't go back later if she wanted too.

Azula had to assume she couldn't go near it for at least the next three months. Gaoling didn't have much of a police force. They couldn't watch the house for too long.

Sokka delivered the news to Zuko, after he had a hearty breakfast. "We need to talk."

"About what?"

"Toph's rescuer."

"What about him?"

"It's a her, and I believe you've been looking for her for some time, a little over two years if my memory serves me correct."

He can't mean, "AZULA!"

"Yeah, her. She found Toph and rescued her."

Zuko was baffled. His sister, who never helped anybody ever, rescued one of his closest friends and delivered her to their uncle, whom she hates, but now she's missing all over again.

"Where is she?"

"I have no idea. I'm just telling you what Toph told me."

"TOPH!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

Mai got there first. "Don't give yourself a heart attack."

"You knew?"

"I suspected. How many female master firebenders do you know?"

Who else could it have been? He hadn't given the gender much thought, but Azula was one of the few possibilities.

Once Mai got Zuko sort of calm, they started to make a plan.

"We need to get any information Toph has, but she will likely be defensive. She's been a captive for years. Her instincts will be more protective, and she will have a natural inclination to protect her rescuer. If we just lose our tempers, she will shut down," Mai looked at Zuko.

"Stop looking at me!"

"You need to refrain from screaming."

"I can do that!"

"You just screamed that. Calm yourself!"

Mai wondered if he should be in the room at all, but it was very hard to give Zuko criticism, on anything.

Toph came to the office and Mai told her, "We have some questions for you."

Toph nodded. Well duh!

Mai wanted to start with a question they had the answer to, so they could check her honesty. "Do you know how she escaped?"

"I know what she told me. I can't tell you if its true, but she said that they had been drugging her food in the asylum, like my parents did to me. It made her catatonic. She tried throwing out her medicine, but the drug was still getting to her, so she knew it was the food.

She started throwing the food away, but then she was weak from starvation, so she started eating one meal every other day, so she would have some energy and not too much of the sedative.

Eventually, she got to a point where she felt strong enough to try to escape, so she faked being catatonic, attacked her guard, stole his keys and when the other guards came, she faked surrendering, just to lock them all in the cell when they rushed to put her inside. She said they hurt each other trying to catch her, and she got away in the confusion.

She realized the asylum locked from the outside, so she just locked everyone it in and left. She didn't know how long it was before anyone would find them. She just wanted to get as good a head start as she could. She travelled at night, so no one would see her and stowed away on ships until she could get to the Earth Kingdom.

She didn't go into too much detail, so that's all I know."

That was mostly congruent with what their investigation told them. Mai was satisfied that Toph hadn't hidden anything from them, yet.

"Where had she been hiding?"

"She had a house near Gaoling. I don't know how to describe where it was without being in Gaoling. That's the thing about seismic sense. I can describe it once I'm on the ground, but I can't put it on a map.

It had a big back yard with a fence. She had a vegetable garden and fruit bushes. She also had training gear, like a climbing wall and a pull up bar. She was quite strong and well a nasty drill sergeant."

"Do you think she went back?" Zuko asked her.

"No. I doubt it. She would have assumed that I'm here right now and is likely looking for a new home in a new city."

"We should start in Ba Sing Se," Mai said. "Even if she left there, there might be a clue as to where she went next."

"Maybe there are clues in her house too," Sokka said. "She must have planned the trip to Ba Sing Se. Maybe she planned her next move"

"She wouldn't have left written plans," Mai said. "She burns everything after reading it."

"Oh, maybe it would be a waste of time to look for the house."

"We could send a bounty hunter to both cities."

Aang and Katara had been getting reacquainted. "I'm so glad you're back, and you brought Toph."

"Me too," he grinned as she rested on his chest. "I can't wait to relax!"

Sokka knocked on their door. "We have a meeting, now!"

"Shit!" Aang cursed.

"Let's go," Katara went to put on her clothes.

They got to Zuko's office.

"What's going on?" Katara questioned.

"We have a sighting on Azula."

"What? Where is she?"

"She was in Ba Sing Se," Sokka told her, as of a few days ago."

"Who saw her?"

"I did," Toph said to her. "She's the one who got me there."

"What?" Aang questioned. "Why would she …"

"She's my rescuer. She got me to Ba Sing Se, so I could find Iroh and come here. It was her idea that I come here instead of Kuei. She knew Zuko wouldn't return me to her parents."

"And she knew the search for her would start here, where she isn't," Mai added. "She bought herself a day."

"Not if Toph had told us when we were there." Aang didn't like that she had deceived him.

"Why didn't you mention this before?" Katara demanded to know.

"I don't know, maybe because she was the only person who has done a damn thing to help me in almost three years. I was kept in a house and drugged every day for over two years. I couldn't walk. I couldn't talk. I couldn't even earthbend a fucking pebble, and she was the only person who did anything to stop it.

She didn't want to come back here to get the same treatment and I don't care what she did or what punishment you think she deserves no one deserves to wake up and have no idea what year it is or how long they've been out of it. No one deserves to be drugged so heavily that they can't think, to be unable to walk, or even bathe themselves.

I didn't say anything before because I didn't know if Zuko was going to do the same thing to her now as he did before. I wasn't sure if I should trust him."

Zuko looked offended. "I didn't know they were drugging her so heavily. I thought she had lost her mind and that's why she was like that."

"She doesn't know that. She thought you rendered her inoperable on purpose. I obviously couldn't ask you about it."

"So what are we doing now?" Aang questioned.

"I'm writing a letter to my uncle. He's the only person there I trust right now."

* * *

><p>Iroh received the expedited letter the next day. He knew Toph had been holding back something, but he was not expecting it to be his niece. Although it could have been worse news, this was not very good news at all.<p>

"She could be anywhere," Iroh realized. He wanted to call in June, but he didn't have any clothing of hers.

He wrote to Zuko. "I can hire a bounty hunter today, but June's the best, and she needs something with Azula's scent to work with. Can you send me something of hers?"

Zuko got the letter and grumbled. "I don't have anything of hers," he yelled as he got the correspondence.

"What's wrong?" Katara questioned.

"Iroh wanted something of Azula's so he could send June to track her down with her shirshu, but all of Azula's stuff is missing."

"What do you mean missing?" Sokka questioned.

"I didn't think to go into her room until she escaped. When we got there, everything was gone. Her clothes, her crown princess hair pin. It had been cleaned out."

"She came back to take all her stuff?"

"I doubt it. My guess is that someone took it out of her room when the war ended."

"Why?"

"In case she went on trial for war crimes. Any plans she had drafted or correspondence she had with father could have been used against her."

"But that doesn't make sense," Aang told him. "Mai said she burns everything once she gets it, and why would taking her clothes help with that?"

"He's right," Katara said. "Someone must have taken her stuff for another reason."

"Like making sure you couldn't use a shirshu," Sokka added.

"Lo and Li," Mai hissed. "They probably took her stuff while you were in the infirmary after the agni kai. They would have known that she wouldn't want you to have access to it."

"How would they know she would break out a year later?" Sokka questioned.

"Maybe they were waiting for her return, no matter what the circumstances."

"This gives us another reason to go looking for that house," Sokka said.

Zuko sent Iroh a letter saying he was looking for something of Azula's to send for June, but could he get a bounty hunter out there in the meanwhile.

Iroh hired a man and paid his deposit. He could only give her height and weight description from when he had last seen her. "I haven't seen her in 3 years, and she's 17 now, so she might look differently."

"I see. When was she last here?"

"Apparently five or six days ago."

The search began.


	7. Chapter 7

Zuko was so focused on his own political problems that he promptly forgot Toph's allegations about the asylum. Whatever horrors went on in there will still going on, with patients whose families probably forgot about them, if they even know they are there.

Meanwhile, the Gaang couldn't decide whether or not to bring Toph to Gaoling. She could help them find the house easily, but they might run into her parents or people her parents hired, creating a whole other incident if there was a confrontation.

"Think about what we're doing," Aang said. "We're asking her to go back into the lion's den after spending over two years of captivity there. I don't think that's very fair."

"Also, she might not be as willing to help us as we want her to be," Mai added. "She's unsure of who to trust right now, and if Azula moved to get her out of danger, and we throw her back in to get Azula, then we don't come across as very good friends."

"Who knows how long it will take to find the house without her?" Sokka said.

"Probably not that long if we fly," Aang said. "How many houses with vegetable gardens, fruit bushes and a training apparatus could there be in Gaoling?"

"I guess not that many," he said.

"Some of us should stay here, in case Iroh finds out anything in Ba Sing Se."

* * *

><p>Aang and Katara went to Gaoling.<p>

"I still can't believe she kept this from us, after all we've been through together." Katara told him.

"After all we've been through together, it still took us two and a half years to realize something was wrong. I love Toph, and I know she loves us, but things just aren't the way they used to be. We can hardly blame her for that."

The flight to Gaoling was shorter than the one to Ba Sing Se. He got to the center of town, but most of these houses didn't have gardens.

"I think we need to go south to find somewhere with a garden," Katara said. The water was south and the grass would likely be greener and richer there.

They got to the edge of town and did a flyover. "There are a lot of vegetable gardens," Aang commented.

"And there's a wall."

They landed in the yard. They saw the training wall and the fruit bushes.

"How did she afford this?" Aang questioned.

"Maybe she had some friends. She wouldn't have told Toph everything."

Katara made an ice key and they went into the house. It was clean. There was no food in the cooling unit. "She didn't plan on coming back. There are no provisions in her kitchen at all."

Aang found a blue dress. "Toph had disguised herself as half water tribe. I bet Azula did too!"

"How?"

"Make up. Toph made her skin look darker, so I thought she was biracial when I first saw her. Azula probably wears makeup when she's out, which is why no one has reported seeing her."

They took the dress back the next day. Appa needed to rest before they could fly him again.

Azula was surprised that this little village even had a post office. She got a box and send correspondence to Lo and Li, letting them know where they could find Suyin.

The Dai Li knew where she was. She just needed to wait until all of the world leaders were occupied.

She already had people she wanted to make allies and a plan to save the country from economic ruin. She just needed a chance to execute.

Azula found it odd that there was no forest here.

"On the map, it shows a forest."

"It got burned down during the war. It was an accident, but the forest spirit was really upset and tried to kill the villagers."

Azula would be equally upset if someone burned down her palace, so she understood his frustrations.

She knew it would take a long time for anything to grow here again, but she could gather up some seeds and start planting them. It would be nice to have a forest again.

She also needed something to do. She had books to read, but once you get used to having someone in your life, it's hard to just sit and read books, so Azula got some seeds at the store and started planting them.

She had no idea what could actually grow here, but she thought some fruit trees and some flowers would be nice, so she got them. Plus, it was cheap to get a giant packet of seeds.

"Plant 2-4 meters apart." Easy enough Azula thought as she got to work. Plus, it was an easy way to stay in shape. She might be fighting a lot very soon.

* * *

><p>When Aang and Katara came back with the dress, they just knew they'd find her soon.<p>

"We found this in the closet," Aang said. "There wasn't much in the house, so she probably abandoned it," he added.

Mai figured as much, but the dress would be useful to say the least.

Sokka sighed. Hopefully, this would be over soon.

Zuko mailed the dress to Iroh, and three days later Iroh was able to find June. "Are you up for a job?"

"Depends, how much you wanna pay?"

"Well, my nephew will pay a lot of money to find his sister."

"The Fire Lord, keep talking."

June had planned on going on vacation, but this could be worth it, and she could afford a better vacation.

He explained that they hadn't seen her in years, but she had been in Ba Sing Se about two weeks before, and she likely went to hide elsewhere in the Earth Kingdom.

She quoted him a price.

"Oh Zuko will pay."

"He had better. I know where you live."

June accepted the dress, and the next day she was off.

At first, the search was off to a normal start. They left Ba Sing Se and went south which wasn't a surprise.

It was surprising however, when the shirshu insisted on leaving the continent.

"Are you sure?" Iroh said she probably didn't leave.

It nodded.

"Well okay. Let's go."

They ended up at the Fire Nation palace.

"What the fuck?" June questioned. How could she be here?

The guards let her in and the shirshu chased down Toph.

"Shit!"

"What's wrong with your shirshu?" Zuko demanded to know.

"It found the owner of the dress. This was Toph's dress, not Azula's."

Zuko smacked his face. Damn it!

"I should have known Azula was too smart to leave her own dress behind," Mai grumbled, and it's not like Toph could have corrected them. She's blind!

June demanded payment.

"You didn't find her."

"You gave me the wrong dress. I found the girl you sent me to find. I want my money!"

He refused to pay, and she paralyzed him with a shirshu dart.

Before this turned into even more of a fiasco, Mai agreed to pay her for her costs and some for her trouble, but she also said, "we were willing to pay top dollar for Azula. This isn't Azula, and it didn't even take you a day."

June accepted the settlement and left before the dart wore off.

* * *

><p>Zuko woke up. "What the fuck?"<p>

"You're sister trolled you bro," Sokka teased.

He and Aang started cracking up.

"She's sneaky," Aang laughed.

"Leaving one dress in the closet," Sokka laughed. "It wasn't her dress. Oh she got you bro!"

The two continued to roll on the floor, making fun of the situation, while Zuko yelled every curse word he knew and set his own couch on fire.

Katara was on fire safety duty, and Mai just shook her head.

* * *

><p><strong>July 103AG<strong>

The political situation only grew more precarious in the Fire Nation. People were hungry and when they're hungry for too long they're angry.

The crime syndicates only recruited harder, encouraging people to abandon their jobs that came with heavy taxes and work for them instead.

As the police tried to catch them, violent crime only increased. As people got desperate, they broke into stores. Families shut down their businesses as they lost too much from shrinkage.

The country was on the verge of collapsing and the Crown Princess was still missing.

As people called for Azula to come home, Zuko only became more desperate. "If we don't find her like yesterday, there's going to be a civil war by the end of the summer."

The Gaang was all out of ideas. "Iroh's guy checked Ba Sing Se. June obviously can't help us. Azula didn't go back to Gaoling, and she could be anywhere. She's had weeks to travel," Mai summed up how bad this position was.

Zuko realized he needed to get someone who would get the job done, no matter what it took.

He hired the Rough Rhinos.

Colonel Mongke came to get the deposit. "So let me make sure I have this right. You want me to catch your sister, who has been missing for over two years and could be anywhere."

"She was in Ba Sing Se as of last month. She isn't there now. She has also lived in Gaoling, but she abandoned the house she had. She uses stage makeup to cover up her appearance, so she will likely look biracial to you, either part water tribe or part Earth Kingdom and she apparently likes cheap dive bars."

"We'll do it."

They didn't start in Ba Sing Se. Why would they if she isn't there? They decided on Yu Dao and to go south from there.

"Mayor Moshita," Colonel Mongke greeted.

"Colonel Mongke, how can I help you?"

"I'm sure you're aware that the Princess is missing."

"Oh I heard about that, but I haven't seen her here."

"Would you know for sure if she was here?"

"Not 100%, but I think I'd figure it out pretty quickly. I know all of the Fire Nation citizens here and I know many of the Earth Kingdom people as well."

"I see."

They tried all of the restaurants and cheap dive bars, but there was nothing.

"She isn't here," Utor said.

"We move south," Mongke decided.

They went through the E.K. Trading Port, Gaipan, Pohuai and crossed the water before going down to Senlin's Village.

"We look here and if she's not here, then we go to Omashu."

It was a small village, but there was a lot of traffic. They had some false alarms, but none of them turned out to be Azula.

"I think we need a different tactic than scaring women and seeing if they produce a blue flame," Vachir told them.

"He's right," Yeh-Lu said. "We should see if we can lure her out."

They found a local dive bar and convinced it to have a ladies' night, tonight where they all get their first two drinks free.

"If she's here, she'll come out," Kahchi said.

That night, lots of women came to the bar. Vachir was watching them all from a distance. One woman stood out to him.

"Her," he pointed at a woman.

"But she has green eyes," Ogodei mentioned.

"She has stage makeup. Maybe she changed the color of her eyes, but her cheekbones and her forehead. I'll be damned if she's not of the line of Sozin."

Vachir couldn't get a good shot so Yeh Lu decided to try a bomb to see if they could get her by surprise.

* * *

><p>15 minutes later, Yeh Lu bombed the restaurant. Unfortunately, they stored their frying oil near his strike zone, and instead of knocking Azula on her ass, he set the whole bar on fire.<p>

Their surprise attack turned into a disaster right away.

The Rough Rhinos bolted. No way was Zuko going to pay them now.

**One Week Later**

"15 people are dead!" Kuei hissed angrily when the Avatar made his way to Senlin Village to investigate the tragedy. "And 30 are wounded!"

"You said it was a bomb?"

"A bomb that was set off near a storage closet full of oil. It set the whole bar on fire."

"Who would do such a thing?"

"According to the owner, the Rough Rhinos convinced them to have a promotion that night."

"You think they got the bar full of people, so they could bomb it."

"You tell me! They fled to the Fire Nation the next day!"

Zuko had rounded up some of them, but the rest of the group was still missing.

"This is such a disaster."

"You never told them to bomb anything," Mai said.

"Who the hell cares? I hired them to capture my sister, and they thought they could surprise her with a bomb. They blew up 15 people!"

What Zuko did was definitely illegal. He sent mercenaries into a foreign territory to operate without permission. It could be seen as an act of war.

"Was Azula killed?" Mai asked. That could really send the country into a war if this gets back to Zuko.

"I don't know."

Zuko sent correspondence apologizing for the tragedy. He sent another letter to Aang asking if his sister was amongst the dead.

They had to get a coroner from Omashu to identify the bodies.

"None of these are the princess," the man told the Avatar.

"How do you know?" It just looked like mangled flesh to Aang.

"I can tell the females from the males based on bone structure and I can tell approximate age. I split them up by gender. I can also approximate age using the bones. There were 10 women killed and 5 men. Out of the women, 3 of them were in their forties, 3 of them were in their thirties, and 4 of them were in their twenties.

Azula was only 17. Also, none of these bodies match the height and weight description I got from her uncle. I've already identified 13 of the bodies. My guess is that two of these women were from out of town. We won't know who they are until someone reports them missing."

"Is there a way to check and see if they were firebenders?"

"If they were just dead, yeah, but they're a bit too crispy for any tests I'd normally do."

Aang wrote back saying the coroner didn't believe that Azula died.

* * *

><p>"If she didn't think you were trying to kill her before," Mai said, "she does now."<p>

FUCK! "She'll never turn herself in," Zuko grumbled.

The others tried to keep the news of the explosion from Toph, but her hearing was too good. She would sit tat the vents when they would all go into Zuko's office.

_I was right._ She was unsure if she should tell them that Azula used the alias Suyin or that she wore green contacts. If she had told them, then Azula might have died instead of just getting a close call. How could he hire the Rough Rhino's of all people to track down Azula? When it came to her, she couldn't trust her friends.


	8. Chapter 8

Naturally, Kuei demanded that Zuko explain what his mercenaries were doing in Senlin Village. He had already discovered that they had been searching the Earth Kingdom, and once he met with the mayor of Yu Dao, he would know that Zuko hired them to find Azula.

Zuko decided to fall on his sword. "I have to confess. If he finds out that I tried to bury this, I'm toast."

They called an emergency world summit meeting, getting everyone there so they could decide what to do next.

One week later, Zuko, Mai, Toph, and Sokka all flew to Ba Sing Se. Aang and Katara left from Senlin Village. The waterbender had been treating the injured.

"This is so horrible," Katara said. "They came for a night of fun and got blown up."

Aang shook his head. "I never want to see an autopsy again."

Katara skipped that. "Let's go. We have to get to Ba Sing Se."

Meeting them there was Chief Hakoda and Bato, Chief Arnook and Hahn, King Bumi who had provided material support to Senlin Village given the tragedy, Prince Iroh who hoped he could do something to help Zuko since he was (for a matter of no better term) TOTALLY FUCKED, King Kuei and the Council of Five.

Aang opened the meeting. "Thank you for coming on such short notice. We're here to discuss the tragedy at Senlin Village, what caused it and what do we do about it. Since this was in Kuei's sovereign territory, I'll give the floor to him."

"Well first, I would like to thank King Bumi, the Avatar and Master Katara for their help in treating the wounded, identifying the dead, and investigating to determine who was responsible.

Our arson investigator concluded that the assailants used a bomb, and this bomb was close to a storage closet full of oil so the oil caught fire and burned the restaurant.

Under these circumstances, this is officially a murder investigation and since the Rough Rhinos had encouraged the bar to have a special to lure people in, they have a bomb expert, and they fled right afterwards, we must conclude that they were in fact responsible for this attack.

Our investigation also shows that they had been searching other areas in the Earth Kingdom for someone. Since they are Fire Nation citizens, and they work for hire, I believe that their work is somehow tied to Fire Nation business. I think its time we hear from the Fire Lord."

Zuko started. "First, I would like to apologize for this entire incident to the victims, to their families and to everyone who has halted their lives to deal with this. I did hire the Rough Rhinos to find my sister.

She escaped over two years ago, and I have not been able to find her since."

"Why weren't we notified that she went missing?" Arnook questioned.

"I was afraid of causing a public panic," Zuko said. "We had no proof that she had left the country, and we assumed she was hiding at home, so we looked for her there. It wasn't until June that I got evidence that she had been in Ba Sing Se.

We hired a local bounty hunter, but she had already left. We tried June, but Azula left another woman's dress in her abandoned house, so that was a dead end. Given the political situation in my country, I thought it best we find her as soon as possible, and I hired the Rough Rhinos, but I never authorized them to use any explosives. I wanted her found alive.

From what I understand from them, they saw her in the bar. The promotion was to lure her out since they figured she was hiding in a house. The archer wanted to just shoot her, but he couldn't get a good shot, so Yeh Lu decided to use a bomb to force her to run and they would chase her. Unfortunately, the bomb was planted next to the oil, and the bar just blew up. They fled obviously, and now Azula's fled too. I'm sure she thinks I'm out to kill her, and she could be anywhere right now."

"So let me get this straight," Arnook said. "You lost the most dangerous war criminal in the world and decided it best not to tell anyone figuring she was at home. You find out she wasn't at home and instead of notifying the appropriate sovereign, you decide to continue to look for her yourself.

When you can't find her, you still don't ask for help, but instead you hire a murderous group of mercenaries, who are also likely war criminals, and send them into another sovereign's territory. Only after they murder 15 people and injure 30 more do you decide a peace summit is a good idea, and what Zuko are we supposed to do with all of this?

Your whole position from day one is that you are not your father or your sister, that you are here for peace, that we should trust the Fire Nation because it has changed, but from the day Azula escaped, you treated this like a war game and like we were too pitiful to even be players. How are we supposed to trust you? How can we even help you at this point? If you had an heir, I would be calling for your resignation right now."

Hakoda, Kuei, and Bumi all looked at Zuko angrily.

Aang wasn't even sure what to say. No one was.

Sokka bravely decided to speak next. "There's no sugar coating this. Zuko goofed, repeatedly for years, but we all have a common problem. The most dangerous war criminal in the world is missing, and I think we all want to find her and that should take priority over whatever we do to Zuko for this."

Hahn had a question. "How dangerous is she? Sure, she was dangerous then, but is there any evidence she's actually done anything? Maybe she just wants to be left alone."

"Where has she been all this time?" Kuei questioned.

Zuko turned to Toph.

"She can't see you looking at her," Aang told him.

"Oh me," Toph said. "Well, she broke out of the asylum in May of 101AG. She told me that she went to Ba Sing Se and lived in the Middle Ring where she worked at a dumpling house, but she quit when she realized Iroh was a frequent customer of said dumpling house and moved to Gaoling."

"You didn't say that before," Mai told her. She wondered how much Toph had kept to herself.

"Did it matter? She wasn't there when I got to the Fire Nation. Anyway, she lived in a house that she found."

"What do you mean found?" Hahn questioned.

"The owners thought it was haunted and abandoned it, so she just moved in and fixed it up. Anyway, she lived there, and no one saw her.

I got kidnapped by my parents and was drugged against my will for two years. That's why I mysteriously quit my job, and no one ever saw me. My parents are pathological liars. I escaped their house only to get caught by the bounty hunters my parents sent after me when Azula beat them up and took me with her.

After I woke up, we deduced that I had been drugged from December of 100AG until she rescued me in February 103AG, and she helped me rehabilitate so I could walk, earthbend, and function.

When she learned King Kuei had called for a national search, she suggested that we go to Ba Sing Se, and I find Iroh and go home. Since Lao had probably told the king to look for me, we thought he might be waiting for me at the palace, so I opted to go to the Fire Nation instead.

I haven't seen Azula since she got me to the Upper Ring, but from what I could tell, she hadn't attacked anyone other than those bounty hunters. She seemed disinterested in trouble."

"So she basically bounces around from city to city," Bumi said. "And hides until there is a threat of exposure, and then she moves again. Finding her will be a big pain in the ass! Especially now that she's probably terrified after that bar stunt."

They took a break for lunch.

They served roasted chicken with taro root puffs. Aang got some kind of tofu vegetable medley instead of the chicken, and his taro root puffs were vegetarian.

Toph really wanted a beer or six to deal with the rest of this meeting.

Mai had this bad feeling that she couldn't shake. There were missing something, and she wasn't even sure if Toph knew what it was and didn't tell them, or if it was something even Toph didn't know.

* * *

><p>When they came back, they continued to talk about where Azula could have gone.<p>

"It's hard to try to think like her without knowing how she supports herself," Sokka added.

"Oh she closed her Crown accounts after she left the asylum," Toph said.

"What?" Zuko questioned.

"She said you forgot to freeze them, so she just went to the bank and withdrew all her money."

Aang started laughing. "If you had frozen the account, you would have found her two years ago."

"Fifteen people are dead because he forgot," Mai reminded him.

_Is that really true?_

Aang promptly stopped laughing.

"So she has an indeterminate amount of coins, and it must have been enough to live off for a couple of years, but she can't have a life time supply of money in her bag," Hahn said. "She'll either need a job or allies at some point."

"Does she have any supporters?" Arnook questioned.

"She's still very popular in the nation," Mai said, "increasingly so given our economic problems. If she could get to a noble family, she could probably hide in the country easily. That's why we had assumed that she never left."

"But how would she know of the political climate if she had been in an institution," Hakoda said. "Her first instinct would have been to get away from Zuko not play political games."

"So she wouldn't have stayed there before, but she might have gone home now," Aang said.

They didn't come up with a search plan, since she could have gone east to the Fire Nation, north to Yu Dao, west into the Earth Kingdom or South towards the Southern Air Temple.

"It was the perfect place to disappear," Sokka said looking at the map. "We either have to take a guess and hope we're lucky or dilute our efforts and look everywhere."

They broke until the next day.

The mood stayed somber after work. There was not much to celebrate at the moment.

* * *

><p>The next day, it was in the middle of the morning when they got some news.<p>

"We have a scroll for the Avatar," a courier said. The guard let him in.

They paused the meeting so that Aang could read the correspondence.

Dear Avatar Aang,

This letter is to inform you that Crown Princess Azula has returned to the Fire Nation and has taken her rightful place on the throne. She has been coronated as Fire Lord and has already started passing legislation to save the country from impending civil war and economic ruin.

As the avatar, you have a responsibility to keep the world in balance, not to support your friends as they ruin their country and cause what could be a global disaster.

Azula won the agni kai against her brother. According to Fire Nation law, she was the rightful Fire Lord, but instead of being coronated, she was held in an asylum, drugged against her will, and rendered incompetent. Such treatment was a violation of her human rights, and as the sovereign responsible, Zuko committed several crimes against humanity with her unlawful and inhumane detention.

Furthermore, Zuko has rendered the country unstable as food prices keep rising, unemployment keeps rising, taxes are rising, and violent crime is rising, which has only lead to more unemployment and higher food prices. At this rate, the country will implode by the end of the summer.

Emergency action must be taken to make sure that the citizens can eat, can walk the streets safely, and can work. Since Zuko has proven himself unable to restore order in the nation, it was necessary and proper for Azula to take control of the country herself, so that she could protect the welfare of her citizens. This is a sovereign right inherent in the powers of the Crown of the Fire Nation.

In addition to the domestic troubles of the Fire Nation, Zuko has also caused several international problems, i.e. he hired the Rough Rhinos, a group of dangerous war criminals, to infiltrate the Earth Kingdom and to take police/military action in another sovereign state without permission. This is not only a violation of international law, but it is also a war crime as defined in the Four Nations Treaty, which was created after the war.

If you ignore his conduct and attempt to reinstall him on the throne, then you are telling the world that the treaty, which was meant to prevent any world leader from becoming tyrannical, is meaningless and that world leaders can commit war crimes as they wish without impunity. If that is the message that you care to send to the world, go ahead and attack. I'll be ready.

Any attempts to reinstall Zuko to the throne will be considered an act of war and the Fire Nation will invoke its right to self-defense in response. This right is inherent in the sovereignty of the Fire Nation and cannot be abrogated despite any treaties Zuko has signed to the contrary.

Treaties cannot render international law ineffective, and for hundreds of years, the world has recognized a right to self-defense. Any treaty provision that goes against this principle is hereby null and void.

Should Azula have to fight for control of her nation, she will promptly have Zuko and Mai jailed for war crimes, and if they will not be prosecuted in the world court, then they will be prosecuted in the Fire Nation under the domestic laws that have been passed to enforce the treaty. Should they wish for a pardon, it would only be granted on the condition they do not act, directly or indirectly, nor have friends or allies act on their behalf to undermine Fire Lord Azula's sovereignty.

Understandably, the world leaders will be skeptical of Azula's intentions. We invite all of the world leaders to come to the Fire Nation and to inspect the government and the military. We have nothing to hide and will guarantee free passage and protection, so long as they do not attack or conspire to attack Azula, her allies or her government.

On a related note, we will accept future inspections to ensure the world that we are a nation of peace.

You can't have peace when you have an angry population that cannot eat, work, or move freely in its own city. Hate crimes against international residence have gone up 300% in Zuko's reign, largely because the people blame the rest of the world for their struggles. Zuko's reign has not only been a human rights disaster, but it could also lead to another war if and when the world leaders recognize how terribly their citizens are being treated in the Fire Nation, and Zuko's inability to stop it.

I hope you do the right thing. The world needs you to act for what is best for the people, not what is popular in your social circle.

Sincerely,

Secretary of State Li

As Aang read the scroll, his face twisted and turned in all kinds of ways. He had no idea how to explain this to anyone or how to respond. He just stared, blankly at the letter, and when Katara tried to take it from him, she couldn't get him to let go.

"AANG!" she yelled. "What's wrong with you?"

Sokka tickled the Avatar and took the letter.

He started to read it aloud. Once he got to the part where Azula had taken the throne, he shrieked. "Your sister deposed you!" he yelled at Zuko, ignoring the rest of the letter.

"WHAT?" he yelled.

Everyone turned to look at Sokka, including Toph who couldn't even see him reading. Azula did what? How?

"She took the throne and got coronated when you came here." Sokka dropped the letter and started laughing.

"That's not funny," Katara yelled at him.

"It's kind of hilarious. He spent two years trying to find her, came here to explain an international disaster due to one of his failed attempts to find her, and she was waiting at home for him to leave, so she could get coronated the same day. She probably sat down on his throne when it was still warm from his exit. I mean you got played like a bitch!"

Sokka started cracking up.

Prince Iroh took the letter and read it quietly.

When he was done he said, "well it looks like she has your balls in a vice grip," Iroh told him. "Somehow she knew not only of your political troubles, but she did her homework and pointed out every law you broke in the process of trying to find her.

She's making the case that she is the rightful Fire Lord, and you have become a war criminal since the war ended, and it would be illegal and an act of war to put you back on the throne."

Mai went over the letter. It had been written very carefully. They framed the argument to say that if they attack Azula without at least checking to see if her reign is a peaceful one, then they are the war criminals. She's coercing them into visiting where she will show them a sugarcoated nation, and then if they attack, they will look like barbarians.

"She's good, and I mean we knew she was good before, but she built an underground alliance right under our noses. She had to have had more help than just Lo and Li."

Everyone looked at Toph. "I didn't know!"

If Zuko could get away with it, he'd have her interrogated right now, but she wasn't his subject, and this wasn't his territory. He had no control over her and she knew it.

The courier came back. "Sorry, I didn't realize I had more letters for this room. I have one addressed to Fake Fire Lord Zuko and …"

Sokka started cracking up again. "She's playing you bro!"

Aang was laughing too. "She pulled this off during a world peace summit. Could she have given the world a bigger fuck you?"

"She could have taken a dump in Kuei's throne room," Sokka retorted. Katara was appalled at the statement.

The two boys laughed like children.

The courier continued to speak; "I also have a letter for a Lady Toph Bei Fong actually two letters for Lady Toph Bei Fong and a letter for King Kuei, all from the Fire Nation."

Everyone wanted to know what was in Toph's letters.


	9. Chapter 9

"Why don't we start with Kuei's letter?" she suggested.

He read it aloud.

Dear King Kuei,

From one sovereign to another, I offer my sincerest apologies for the murderous tragedy at Senlin Village. I wanted to inform you that each of the Rough Rhinos has been captured, and they are all in custody.

Should you wish them extradited to your territory, we will arrange it at your earliest convenience. Else, we will try them in the Fire Nation for murder, conspiracy, and any other crimes they committed.

In addition, their assets in the nation have been seized should the victims or their families wish to sue them civilly. We also have a settlement offer for each victim to help with burial costs, rehabilitation for the injured and support for the families who are now missing a loved one.

I know that money cannot bring the victims back or undue their suffering, but I do not have any way of truly making them whole.

I also understand that your sovereignty has been violated and there must be appropriate consequences for that action. In response to this tragedy, the Fire Nation will require all bounty hunters and mercenaries to be licensed.

They will only be permitted to work in territories covered by their license, so any extra-national work will be illegal, and if they are caught operating in another country without either a license or expressed written permission from that country's sovereign, they will be subject, in the Fire Nation, to jail, fines, and having their domestic license pulled.

I hope that we can work together to ensure that such harrowing incidents do not happen in the future.

Sincerely,

Fire Lord Azula.

"How did she respond so quickly?" Hahn questioned.

"I'm sure she had a provisional government operating before she returned to the Fire Nation," Mai said. "They heard about the tragedy and started making plans, so that Azula could act the day she got the crown."

"What does Zuko's letter say?" Aang questioned.

Zuko read it and started to get a fiery hand he was so angry. Mai took it from him.

"Dear Zuzu,

I'm sure you realize by now that your terrible reign is over. Trust me when I say it is for the best. You, my brother, are an idiot.

You signed treaties promising money that we couldn't afford to pay. Instead of admitting you made a mistake, you taxed out people money they didn't have.

Since they couldn't afford to pay your taxes, they went to the black market to work, and instead of realizing 'maybe I should just tell the world leaders I made a mistake,' you raised taxes again so you could hire police to search in vain for the tax money you never got.

The crime rates went up as people were poor, desperate, angry and agitated and instead of directing all of your police to violent crime, you said why not look for tax cheats since when you catch them you can take their money, allowing people to rape, pillage, and burn the country down without impunity.

This is why our people hate you. This is why I didn't even have to fight to take the country back. I walked in the palace door, and your guards hugged me! They were pissed that you haven't paid them in three weeks, since your butt is broke! I just paid them all.

You're the kind of man who pours grain alcohol on a flame to put it out. This is why you aren't Fire Lord anymore. In reality, you never were. You had your peasant whore cheat the agni kai because you couldn't even fight me when I was crazy.

You sir, need to stop hiding behind women and learn to fight your own battles. When is the last time you earned something yourself?

Fake Fire Lord Zuzu screws sisters."

Aang and Sokka were balling by the end of the letter.

"Damn, she disrespected you," Aang laughed.

"Do you realize how smart she is?" Sokka said. "Zuzu screws sisters. It's funny because you screwed her over, and she's your sister, and you're screwing Mai who is also a sister."

"And it refers to Katara who she alleges you are screwing who is a sister," Aang added. "And it also ties into the rumor that you're screwing Suki, who is also a sister. She just dissed you in like four different ways!"

The two boys kept laughing.

Zuko was trying not to set this room on fire, mainly because it wasn't his room.

"I think we get the humor," Iroh said sternly.

"But on the bright side," Hahn said, "We don't have to look for her. We know exactly where she is."

The three boys all started laughing.

"She's probably dancing naked on Zuko's throne," Aang said.

"She probably set fire to all his stuff," Sokka added.

Arnook started laughing. "I'm sorry. This is just so absurd. I don't even know what to do. I wish I had stayed home and never learned any of this!"

Bumi remarked, "Azula was always my favorite villain. I could see her telling interesting stories if we got drunk together, but Ozai, he was just nasty, and Azulon seemed kind of uptight and boring.

Azula's a class act. She is intelligent, good looking from what I hear, my eyes aren't too good anymore, narcissistic, appreciates dark humor, shows blatant disrespect for everybody else, but shows small glimpses of humanity. She's like an amazing anti-hero."

"We still don't know what was in Toph's letters," Katara pointed out. "And she can't read them."

Toph wasn't sure if she wanted everyone to read them. Iroh could see how uncomfortable she looked.

"Do you want me to read it to you privately?" he asked.

She nodded.

They went into the next room.

The first letter was a certified document from the court. "These are emancipation papers," Iroh told Toph. "They were signed by your parents and mean that you are legally an adult in the Earth Kingdom. They can't try to take you hostage or assert any control over you anymore."

"What?"

"I'll have them check with the city to make sure they are valid, but it appears that Azula made them sign it some how."

_She got my freedom?_

"Do you want me to read you the other letter?"

"Yes please."

"Dear Toph,

I'm sorry that I didn't tell you what was going to happen, but I wasn't sure if I would succeed. If I failed, I would be jailed for treason, and if you knew and didn't turn me in, then you could find yourself in jail for war crimes. I decided that I would rather you be angry with me and safe than possibly facing peril because of me.

I'm sure you're wondering why I did this or maybe when I decided to act. It was in June when Lo and Li visited me. They told me how bad things were, that my country was on the verge of civil war and ruin. I felt terrible about it, but I didn't think there was anything I could do.

I was a fugitive. I had no power, but they reminded me that the right to rule is in my blood, and if Zuko can't handle the country then it's my responsibility to step up. I wanted to be Fire Lord before for all the wrong reasons, but now, I just want my people to be able to eat, work honestly, and to live safe lives.

I had to risk everything because I didn't see another way. Zuko would have never let me help him as an advisor. He fired everyone who had been there before him and refused the advice of anyone who had ever worked with my father or me.

Unfortunately, that meant he acted without counsel of those who were the most knowledgeable of our country's affairs, and he made of mistakes, very costly ones. He got to the point where he was drowning, and even the suggestion that I might return would have been enough to end things for him.

Why else would he have sent some of the most dangerous men alive after me? He made the wrong move. Instead of trying to capture his competition, he should have stepped up his game, but he didn't; he probably didn't know where to start.

You once told me that the relationship between his king and his people is a social contract. When the king fails to live up to his end of the deal, the people have a right to rebel and seek a new one. Zuko's day came for him. I know he didn't mean to be a tyrant, but he was ineffective as a leader, and it showed. The time to rebel was now, and I took advantage of it.

I didn't want you to think that my feelings towards you were any less than I indicated they were. I meant every word I said to you before I left, and I understand if under the circumstances, you don't wish to see me again. If you do, you know where to find me.

Sincerely,

Azula.

Iroh realized that Azula's relationship with Toph had likely been a romantic one. Iroh hadn't thought about that, but it really wasn't surprising. They had been isolated from the world for months. They were both mature enough to seek an adult relationship. It was pretty clear why Toph didn't want the letter read out in public.

"How about we just show them the emancipation papers?"

"Thanks Iroh." Her girlfriend just deposed her brother and stole the country. What the fuck was Toph supposed to do with this?

They came back to a chaotic room. Zuko was throwing a temper tantrum. Mai was trying to calm him down. Zuko produced a flame. Katara doused him to make sure he didn't burn down the room, and he got even angrier.

Sokka and Aang though this was hilarious, mainly because it was easier to find this funny than it was to be scared by the real possibility of a war with Azula, and Hakoda looked to be asleep.

"I think we should take a recess," Iroh said. "It looks like people need to calm down."

* * *

><p>Azula made some unprecedented moves to get her country out of its recession as quickly as possible. Instead of throwing a coronation party, she made a public announcement in Capital City where she announced new measures.<p>

"Hello everyone! Thank you for coming out today. I wanted to make sure everyone was informed about the new actions I will be taking to improve the Fire Nation.

First of all, starting tomorrow, we will be offering an expanded food program, where each family will get a supply of starches, vegetables and proteins, either meat, fish or tofu depending on dietary needs and availability.

Effective Monday, there will be a rebate available to everyone who has paid taxes in the past year. I know the tax rate was too high and we are working on a new system to lower it for everyone, but that will take time and people need money now.

I know the line will be really long on Monday, so we will have as many tellers there as we can, but if people could come on different days this week or perhaps next week, that will help with congestion. You just need to provide identification and you will be given a rebate based on how much you have paid in taxes.

We are also working on a bill to give tax incentives for people to open businesses, whether they are new or had to be closed because the economy. We will also offer incentives for those who hire additional full time employees to help get people back to work.

Other areas of concern are crime, particularly violent crime, cleanliness of the city, more lighting to improve safety, and education for our children. We are working on having after school programs, so that children will have a safe place to go after school and before their parents can pick them up from work. All children may attend, but this is geared towards those who cannot afford babysitters or nannies to be in their home.

I know it's been a really rough three years. I'm sorry I didn't get home sooner, but I'm here now, and I'm trying to get us to the light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you!"

The people ate every word. They just heard food, lower taxes and jobs. Sure there were some other good things in there, but who the hell cares. Their main concerns would be answered. They finally had a Fire Lord who would respond to them.

* * *

><p>That evening, Azula had dinner with the leading mob bosses. One of them was Qin's father. Another was Ty Lee's great uncle and the rest were people whom Azula had heard of but had never seen before.<p>

"My Lord, I must say it is not every day that we get invited to the palace," Qin's father said to her.

"I suppose I can say the same thing."

They laughed. "How may we be of service?"

"I believe we have some common goals. My brother tried, pathetically, I might add, to stamp you out and get your money. As a result, he left out nation broke. Like my brother, I don't want crime in my streets, but unlike my brother, I have different priorities as to what crimes I want to stamp out the most.

He targeted tax evaders and money launderers. I care more about getting rid of rapists and kidnappers. If I can clean up the streets from visible crime, then I will scale back the police force considerably as it is costly. If I however, cannot get rid of these thugs, I will have to consider more drastic action."

"And you think we are the ones to get rid of the crime," Ty Lee's great-uncle stated.

"I'm a realist. I know that you all have divided the city into regions for control and realistically, people will tell you what happened after a violent crime on your turf before they will tell my cops.

Obviously, you are not the police and have not been tasked with dealing with these issues, but if these issues were to be resolved, I think you would find things better for your business. I hope I am making myself clear."

"Crystal clear, my Lord."

"Perfect. I hate repeating myself. Continuing this idea of common interests, I have some progressive ideas on how to deal with illicit drugs. My brother tried to get rid of them, but again for the wrong reasons. He was annoyed that taxes weren't being paid. I'm more concerned about drug overdoses and murders that happen over territory disputes and unpaid bills.

I know that drug use is ubiquitous in the Fire Nation. It's likely ubiquitous in the world, except for the water tribes where they can't grow, and the community is too insular to really smuggle them in, but not all drug use is equal.

Some drug use, occasional, recreational inside the house, I can deal with. When it's showing up on the street corner outside of a school or I see a hooker overdosed in the street, we have a problem.

Some drugs are more likely to lead to trouble than others. Some might even have a shot of being legalized and taxed so that my city can make some money and spend less effort policing it. This all depends on whether or not the people can behave themselves and often people will do whatever they can get away with.

Are we all on the same page."

"Yes My Lord."

"Very good. Then why don't we go to dinner? My chef is preparing one of my favorite recipes."

Azula was always one for power plays. Now, the crime syndicates would police themselves and their streets to get rid of the violent crime. Azula could scale back the police force and save money, and the criminals now had an incentive to regulate their own conduct.

Instead of just selling as many drugs as they can, they will be more considerate when there are signs of addiction. They will restrict their own supply to prevent problems. They will actually care about moral hazards. If she can't beat them, then she will reform them.

In addition, everyone knows that the black market does what the crime bosses tell it to do. Everyone will play by the rules or be forced out of business and the crime bosses had a reason to protect Azula from any efforts made by her brother or his friends. They had a personal stake in her reign, and they controlled the assassins, so Azula had a pretty generous advantage over her brother.

Some of these were ideas she had before the war ended, but now she had a chance to improve them. Fire Lord Azula. Damn, it sounds good!


	10. Chapter 10

The recess only helped some. The world leaders were still in disagreement as to what to do.

"We have to depose her," Hakoda insisted. "She's much too dangerous."

"How?" Arnook questioned. "If we invade, she could accuse us of restarting the war, and if she won, she would be well within her right to suspend all the reparation payments. She would disavow herself of everything Zuko signed, saying that it was meaningless since we didn't uphold our end of the deal."

"How is leaving a war criminal in charge apart of our deal?"

"We had two goals when we ended the war," Arnook said, "preventing future wars and making the other nations whole. If we restart a war with her, then she'll say the peace treaty was null and void. She's already attacking some of the provisions, apparently the ones on the military sanctions. She might extricate herself from the whole thing leaving us at our starting point.

Can you afford another war right now? I can't!"

"She also has home court advantage," Iroh said. "The capital city is well guarded, and I'm sure my niece didn't move without making sure she had the means of defending herself.

Everything was carefully planned. She knew when Zuko was leaving the country. She knew when we'd all be here. I wouldn't be surprised if she got coronated while Zuko was in the air, his sky ship just leaving visibility from the port.

She'll know if we come back, and she'll be ready. I'm not coming out in support of her. I am strongly suggesting, however, that we are very careful with the idea of using military force with her. It could be disastrous and given our nation's hesitation when it comes to the other nations, it could be outright dangerous for every foreigner who lives there right now."

Aang also had something to say. "The Fire Nation is hanging by its last thread. We all know it. It's why Zuko was so desperate to find her before she could oust him, and if we remove her and try to force the people to take Zuko back, we could ruin the country. They might just kill him and have whoever wants it fight for the crown.

I have a responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen, which has to be superior to my personal opinion of her. At the very least, I want to accept her offer of free passage, and see what's going on from the inside.

I can't commit to using force without it. If I did, I'd effectively be telling the world, don't trust me, I'm full of lies, and I'm nullifying everything I've put my name to since the war ended."

"Who are we sending on this diplomatic mission?" Iroh questioned. "We clearly can't all go. If things go sour, we could all find ourselves in Fire Nation jail."

"I say we send the people Azula is least likely to attack," Sokka said, "which means not her brother or Mai."

They ultimately decided that Aang, Toph, Sokka, and King Bumi would go. Aang wrote back to her himself saying that they accepted her invitation for free diplomatic passage, but this was not a recognition of her right to rule, rather it was an acknowledgement that she is currently ruling.

Toph was unsure of whether she wanted to slap Azula or kiss her when she arrived to the palace, maybe both!

* * *

><p>One week later, the agreed upon people flew to the Palace where Lo and Li were waiting for them. "Please come in and welcome. Do you require any food or drink before we get started."<p>

They heard ramblings about food, drink, and a bathroom. They got everyone comfortable and then Azula came out to introduce herself.

"Sorry I didn't greet you when you first arrived. I had well a bit of a wardrobe malfunction."

Toph snickered. "Your boobs were too big for your shirt again, weren't they?"

The men blushed. Resist the urge to stare at her boobs!

"Yes Miss Gossip. I had to find a new one at the last minute. Anyway, I trust Lo and Li took adequate care of you."

"They did, but I'm dying to know, how did you take over so quickly?" Sokka had to know.

"Well, I rehired the Dai Li, and they told me when everyone would be in Ba Sing Se, and I waited for Zuko to leave. I was just in Fire Fountain City."

Bumi snorted. "I knew Kuei should have disbanded them."

"Yeah he should have, but he didn't. Any more matters of curiosity?"

No one had anything.

"Great, let's get started. We'll go to my office first, since that's where I do most of my planning."

Sokka guided Toph since they were on wooden floors.

"You can walk barefoot," Azula told her. "I put metal in the finish."

Toph took off her shoes. "I can see! Awesome!"

"Everyone, feel free to take a seat, and I'll briefly explain what's been going on here."

Azula had more seating put in the room. She rearranged the furniture so they were sitting in a circle.

"When I got here, the city was a mess. People were dumpster diving, breaking into storefronts and looting. We had high taxes, high unemployment, a lot of black market activity, and high food costs, pretty much a perfect storm for disaster.

In response, I offered a food program that gave out food to the needy starting the day after my coronation. I started a tax rebate program the first Monday after my coronation, which went to everyone who paid taxes in the last year.

I am just about to pass a second tax bill to offer incentives to those who open businesses in the nation and those who hire more workers and I have redefined the priorities of the police such that they will be more aggressive with violent crime even if it means we let some of the financial criminals get away."

"How are you paying for all of this?" Bumi questioned. If Zuko could have afforded it, he would have done it.

"Downsizing the police force, selling government bonds, and a new partnership with Lao Bei Fong. He and his partners will be financing much of the recovery for the city, and in exchange, he will get a variety of business benefits."

"What kind of benefits?" Toph questioned. She would make a deal with my dad.

"Mainly, he will have exclusive rights to some of our more lucrative coal mines, and he will have the first option for opening a new sky ship cruise line. Currently, there is only one option and the prices are very high. He will offer more competition, which will lower the prices and should attract businesses to move to the nation."

"Where do I come into this?"

"What do you mean?"

"How did you get him to emancipate me?"

"Oh I told him that if he wanted to make money we should talk, and if he didn't emancipate you, I'd seize his assets. He has a number of accounts here."

"You blackmailed him?"

"I'd like to say I negotiated fairly but firmly to our mutual benefit."

"You're a bitch."

"I thought you liked that about me."

Toph smirked. She does use her evilness for good, well sometimes.

"Alright, so you found some people to pay to fix the city. How do we know you're not going to try to take over the world again?" Bumi questioned.

"You don't know for sure, but I can't afford it. I'm barely treading water. I can however show you what the Capital City is like now. I have nothing to hide."

They started their tour at government center. Azula had one lawyer, three professors and a slew of interns working on legislation.

"I come up with ideas. It's their job to anticipate any pitfalls and fix them before I sign the bill."

"So you don't write them yourself."

"Oh no. That requires an expertise that I know I don't have. I could tell Zuko drafted his bills themselves. They didn't make any sense."

"How is the tax bill coming?" She asked her lawyer.

"Doing the final read through now. It should be ready for you by noon."

"I'll come back before the end of the day. Feel free to ask them any questions."

"Do they pay you?" Aang asked the interns.

"During the summer, we're full time employees, but in the fall, we go back to university and only work part time. We get a weekly stipend, which of course is reduced during the school year."

Sokka frowned. "What kind of question is that?"

"What?" He wanted to make sure they weren't being exploited.

There weren't many more questions. Bumi asked if they had done anything about military authority and they said it wasn't their purview. "We do more economic and social policy. Acts of military authority belong to the Fire Lord and aren't always bills. They're often edicts."

"We'll visit the military next."

Azula took them downtown.

"Why are we here?" Bumi questioned.

"Because, I had to do something with all of the men Zuko enlisted to hunt for me, so I am using them to clean up the city."

They were picking up trash, helping storeowners install new windows, and putting up streetlights.

"I don't have to pay them as much for domestic work as I do for combative work, so they're my new city crew until I figure out what to do with them."

"What do you want to do with them?" Sokka questioned.

"Our tax bill will offer a benefit to those who hire veterans. I'm hoping to get a number of them in the private sector, so I don't have to pay them anymore."

That would be the best of both worlds for Azula. They would be trained and accessible if she wanted to rehire them, but she wouldn't have to pay them to do not much work.

As they toured the city, they saw the military all over the place: giving out food, working as crossing guards outside the schools, and apparently standing guard.

"Why are they standing there?" Bumi asked.

"I don't know."

Azula went up to him. "What are you guarding?"

"We're community officers. Our presence discourages crime."

"Who's paying you for this?"

"Mr. Qin my Lord."

"Ah. Very well then."

"They're not guarding anything. They just make people less likely to steal."

"What? You're paying them to stand there?" Toph questioned.

"I'm not paying them. Nobles who are sick of crime in their neighborhood are paying them," and by nobles, she means crime lords.

"When did your people get all proactive?" Aang questioned.

"They've always been proactive. They will go where the Fire Lord leads them. Once I said fighting crime was my priority, they joined in."

"It seems like they just behave better for you," Sokka retorted.

"They do. I don't doubt that they were acting much worse for Zuko than they do for me, but he failed to get to the root of the problem. When people can't afford food, find what little money they have going to the government, and can't walk down the street without someone trying to mug them, they tend to act badly. From day one, I said I was here to fix their problems, but I'm only one person. If they wanted a better country, they'd have to help me with it."

Their final stop, before dim sum was the police force.

They had crime boards, portraits, and evidence lists. It looked rather busy.

"Who's in charge here?"

Everyone pointed to the Captain at the front of the room.

"Very well. I would like you to explain to my guests here what all you do."

"Of course my Lord. This is the Major Crimes Division. We are in charge of dealing with the gnarly crimes that occur in the city, rape, murder, kidnappings, and such.

Right now, we are preparing a case against a serial rapist for the DA. He was arrested two days ago after a neighbor snitched on him, and three different victims have identified him in a line up.

The judge just denied him bail this morning and now we are getting ready for his indictment."

"Feel free to ask him any questions?"

"How long have you had this post?" Aang asked

"One year."

"And would you say this government change affected your job significantly."

"Oh yes. Ex-Fire Lord Zuko?" How was he supposed to address him? "Had designated drug trafficking, money laundering, and tax evasion as major crimes. My work is totally different now."

"A good different?" Sokka questioned.

"Well, I am more likely to lose my lunch with these cases, but this is more suitable for my training. I had no idea how to handle money laundering. You need a forensic accountant for that, and I can't say I'm any good at math. I am, however, good at finding scumbags."

"Who deals with those other crimes now?" Aang asked him.

"Um, I think they are doing administrative remedies instead of criminal prosecutions."

"What?"

"Fining people instead of jailing them. It's much easier to just send someone a slip of paper that says 'pay by ex date or we'll sue you instead.'"

"Do those work?" Sokka questioned. It sounded too easy

"I don't know."

Just then, a group of young men were lead into the station in cuffs. They looked like hell, black eyes, busted lips, and some had missing teeth.

"What did you do to them?" Sokka demanded to know.

"This wasn't us," the officer insisted. "These men having been robbing houses for months. When we went to arrest them, some of the victims heard what the charges were and attacked. We had to save them from the homeowners."

"Make sure they get any needed medical attention before they go to pre-trial detention."

"Of course my Lord."

"Are you ready for dim sum?"

Azula took them to her favorite restaurant. She had them prepare a vegetarian cart for Aang to choose from as it would be difficult to tell from the outside what all had meat.

Sokka started stockpiling his plate. He was hungry from walking around and snooping all day.

Toph was right there with him.

Bumi was a bit more suspicious of the food in front of him. He had always been weary of Fire Nation food.

His attitude changed, however, when Azula ordered the Sichuan dumplings.

"They have Sichuan dumplings here?"

"The best in Capital City."

The King's eyes lit up when a large bowl of dumplings came to the center of the table.

* * *

><p>Everyone else was in Ba Sing Se, wondering what was happening in the Fire Nation.<p>

"I bet they're eating dumplings," Zuko said. "Azula took them to dim sum and is going to feed them until they forget why they're there."

"I want dumplings," Mai said.

Zuko looked at her.

"What? You mentioned them, and now I'm hungry."

Katara folded her arms. "This is ridiculous. Azula leads another coup, and we're just sitting here doing nothing."

"I'm doing something," Hahn said.

"What are you doing?"

"Writing smutty poetry to my wife."

Everyone stared at him.

"What? Y'all are doing nothing. I'm getting laid when I get home."

"I don't even have a home," Zuko said. "I don't want to go in exile again!"

Mai groaned. She hates it when Zuko sounds pathetic.

"With whining like that, you'll never get laid," Hahn told him.

Zuko stared at him. Mai kept a neutral face.

Iroh was at his teashop. He saw no reason to meet without any intelligence, and he offered what help he could. He had been preparing to beg the other nations for forgiveness, not trying to stop his niece who stole the country.

She always was so sneaky. Iroh used to think she was like Ozai, but she was really like Fire Lady Ilah. The woman was such a good liar; you never knew what was fact and what was fiction and she had this air of superiority, like she was smarter asleep than you were awake. She and Azula would have liked each other.


	11. Chapter 11

After their late lunch, the diplomats were free to go as they wished either on foot or in a carriage.

Aang and Sokka opted to go without the provided security detail. They wanted to hear what the people were saying when there were no authorities around.

Bumi wanted to get to a writing desk so he returned to the palace.

Toph finally got a chance to talk to Azula alone. "Can we go somewhere that we won't be bothered?"

Azula took her to a lounge that only served the royal family and the higher-ranking nobles.

"We'll need our own room, water and tea, and after that, I'll ring the bell if I want further service.

"Of course my Lord."

"It's closer than the palace, and no one will interrupt us."

They got to a lounge on the second floor. It had a balcony and a glass sliding door in case you wanted more privacy.

"You look great Toph."

She scoffed. "I didn't dress up."

"I don't really care how you dress."

"But you're a born princess."

"So I have to dress a certain way when it matters, but I don't think they magically make people look better. Good looking people generally look good in anything."

"I see, so I could wear a cloth bag dress and pull it off."

"If you narrow the waist."

The two girls laughed at the silliness of it all.

"I missed you Toph."

"It was lonely without you," the earthbender said. "Even with my friends there, I would come out to the garden and find the moon peach blossoms. Damn you! I can't smell one without thinking of your lips."

Azula gently pressed her lips to hers. "Neither can I. I want you here with me."

"My friends are furious with you."

"I know."

"I still don't know what to think about this."

"Sometimes I wake up, and I think this is a dream, that when I really wake up, I'll still be in Gaoling, but then I open my eyes, and when my feet hit the floor, I know I have a job to do. The crown is not the whole of me, but it is a big part, bigger than I have entertained since I escaped.

If things had been better, I would have taken the money and started a new life on island or something. I would have loved for us to just have a nice beach house, some tropical trees, and have no worries, but I couldn't do that to my people. I couldn't leave them, and I knew that it would cost me.

How much has yet to be seen, but sooner or later, I will have to answer to the world. I know I will, but I won't let my country go without a fight. I won't let it look like the slum it was when I got here. I wouldn't ask you to agree with me. You are more than smart enough to make up your own mind about how this should play out, but I hope that you can see that I'm not here to be a tyrant."

"Actually, I can see that," Toph said. "That makes this even harder. If you were up to your old ways, I could just beat you up now, go back home, and forget anything between us ever happened, but you had to come with your convictions and your poise. You had to make it harder to see what was right."

Azula kissed her hand. "Sometimes, I don't think there is one right answer. Sometimes, I think there is only a less wrong one."

Their lips met each other. They would be spending a lot of time in this lounge before they went back.

* * *

><p>Aang saw a group of children playing in the yard.<p>

He went up to the woman supervising her and asked her what this was.

"They just started after care in the city so if parents are working later than school lets out, they can keep their children at the school and there is recreation for them."

Aang saw one boy with the ball and the other students chasing him around.

"Who do you mean they?"

"Oh the State. It's a free program."

Just then, one woman came for her son. "Lee! Let's go."

"Coming Mama!" The boy grabbed his backpack and checked out before going to his mother.

"How do you like aftercare?" Aang asked.

"It's fun. Before I had to run home and lock myself inside until Mom got home. Now I can play."

"I couldn't afford a sitter, and I have to work to pay the bills."

"So you like the new government."

"Oh it's awesome. The streets are cleaner. People just seem nicer too. I think they finally feel like they're being heard. Well I have to get him home now. Bye!"

Aang and Sokka heard similar remarks through out the afternoon.

"People are happy," Sokka said.

"Isn't that good?" Aang questioned.

"Yes, but it makes our job more difficult."

"It does."

Aang sighed. They decided to get back to the palace. They were tired after running around all day.

"Would you like to go to the bathhouse?" A servant offered them. They shrugged and agreed.

"We haven't been there in a while."

Somehow Aang had forgotten how thoroughly they wash you. "I don't need you to wash me in … oh boy." I hope Katara doesn't consider that cheating.

A woman grinned at Sokka. "I hear you are single."

"Um, well sort of. I was with Suki but then she suggested we … Oh boy."

"We will take good care of you."

"Um I …" He stammered and writhed about as she put some kind of gel on him and started to stroke.

The gel was warming somehow. This feels fantastic. Sokka started panting. It wasn't long before he found his release. They cleaned him up and sent him to the steam room. Aang was already in there.

"They are friendly here," Aang said.

"Yes, very friendly." It's a good thing that he and Suki aren't exactly together right now.

* * *

><p>Instead of a group dinner, Azula told the servants to prepare her guests food whenever they wanted it. She knew she would be full for some time after all the dim sum, but the others might want to eat earlier.<p>

Azula and Toph came back from the lounge and shared a bath together.

"This is so good," Toph mumbled as Azula massaged her back.

"I'm glad you are enjoying yourself."

"It's hard not to, with heated hands, Oh my SPIRITS!"

Azula grinned.

"When's dinner?"

"Whenever you want it."

"No group dinner."

"I figured people might get hungry at different times."

"Are you hungry?"

"Not yet."

"In that case, I'll get a snack, and we can eat dinner later."

"What are you in the mood for?"

"Those spicy chicken wings!"

Azula rang the bell.

* * *

><p>The news of the takeover made its way around the world. It didn't travel as quickly as one might expect. The newscasters waited to see if Azula was able to retain control before spreading the news abroad. They didn't want to say she was Fire Lord, just for her to get kicked out the next day and face possible treason charges. When the military followed her and Zuko didn't return, however, they were ready to share the news with their international papers.<p>

Ty Lee was a recipient of such a paper. She used it to keep up with Zuko and Mai's political situation. They weren't the best at keeping her up to date with letters.

Azula Has Returned

The Crown Princess Deposed her Brother

Declaring Herself the True Fire Lord

Ty Lee started to hyperventilate.

Suki saw her. "Ty?" She ran to her.

Ty Lee just showed her the front page.

"WHAT!"

The leader took the paper and began to read.

"In what was possibly the cleanest coup of all time, Princess Azula returned to the Nation and promptly took the throne. According to witnesses, she walked into the palace, no guards tried to stop her, and went straight to the sages, insisting that she was the true Fire Lord as she had won the Agni Kai against her brother three years prior.

The sages agreed and coronated her that very morning. Two hours later, she held a press conference where she promised to combat high food prices, unemployment, taxes, crime, and education. She was met with cheers and an outstanding welcome home.

Given the country's economic situation, she decided to forego a coronation party and instead wants to use any Crown funds to help restart the nation. "If I am successful," Azula said, "I'll throw a party on the one year anniversary."

She has been in power for less than a month, and her approval rating is at 80%, the highest Fire Lord ratings since Sozin. Azulon rode around 70% for most of his long reign. Ozai was around 60% for his five-year tenure.

Zuko started at about 65% but found himself at only 13% when he was ousted in absentia. His drop of over 52% in three years is the highest approval-rating drop in recorded history. Granted the ratings have not always taken place in the Fire Nation, however his unpopularity is unprecedented.

Azula admitted that she thought it would be difficult to maintain such high starting numbers, but she is confident that she will be a responsive Fire Lord, and that she will meet the needs of her citizens."

"HOW?" Suki yelled.

She convened the rest of the warriors.

"What do we do?" one asked.

"We go to the palace," Suki insisted

"And do what?" Ty Lee asked. "Try to fight her, the royal guards, and whoever else is in there? We need to find the other world leaders and have a coordinated plan."

The World Leaders were in Ba Sing Se at their peace summit. Both places were fairly far from Kyoshi Island, and they were in the opposite direction.

Ty Lee was outvoted. They were going to the palace.

The acrobat figured she wouldn't have to deal with Azula anymore. She was not excited to be knocking on the girl's doghouse door.

The next day, they arrived in Capital City. They hired a carriage to take them to the Palace.

The guards, however, did not let them in.

"Do you have an invitation?"

"What?"

"This is a private residence. Do you have an invitation?"

"No, but …"

The guard wouldn't open the door.

"Surely you can ask if the Fire Lord will see us."

"I can't leave my post. You'll have to wait until one of the roaming guards gets here."

"And when will that be?"

"Um, 15 minutes."

Ty Lee decided to try jumping the sidewall. She was surprised to see, "Aang?"

"Hey Ty Lee. What's going on?"

"You tell me. How did Zuko get deposed?"

"He was really unpopular. She showed up and said, 'hey I'll rule' and the nation was like 'that's fine.'"

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I came with a diplomatic team so we could check on the people and make sure they weren't militarizing. We did a flyover and didn't see anything suspicious. We also took a tour and wondered on our own, but there's no evidence that she did anything criminal."

The guard came to the front and then went to find the Fire Lord.

"Is that my wings?"

"Not if they're knocking. Who is it?"

"Tao. The Kyoshi Warriors want an audience with you."

"Oh curses!" Azula complained. "Escort them to the lounge in the northwest corridor and have some agents there in case they misbehave."

Azula kissed Toph's neck. "My work never stops."

"Can I just sit here and eat?"

"Sure, but there's a dining table and a couch over there. So you don't get wing sauce in my bed."

"Did I tell you how much I love these metal enhanced floors?"

"No, but I'm glad it worked." Azula stole another kiss and then got dressed.

The servants offered the "guests" tea, water, wine or snacks.

"Can I get a glass of rosé?" Ty Lee requested.

"Of course."

"You're drinking?" Suki questioned.

"You'll wish you had one."

The other warriors snickered.

The glass was being poured as Azula entered the room.

"You still drink that swill?"

"Your palace is serving it." Ty Lee retorted.

"Only because Zuzu ordered way too much three years ago. He can't even buy wine properly."

The two women stared each other down for the first time in three years. Well, Ty Lee had seen Azula after the agni kai, but she didn't remember it.

Ty Lee's boss broke the trance. "What games are you playing?" Suki demanded to know.

"You're the ones who showed up in my palace uninvited. You really think you're in a position to demand anything from me."

Sokka was on his way to his room with a basket of steam buns. "Hey Suki."

"What are you doing?"

"Eating?"

"You invited him?"

"He was sent on behalf of his father. So he was indirectly invited."

Sokka kept eating. "These are really good."

"Is that all you have to say?"

"Um, I like your hair?"

Azula cracked up. "Straight people are hilarious." I like your hair. Haha!

"What was I supposed to say?"

"You are supposed to say that this is an outrage, and you'll put a stop to it."

"Um, I don't know if I can do that. I mean she was sneaky and underhanded, but the more I think about it, the more I think Zuko helped caused this mess. Under his rule, people were hungry, unemployed, and heavily taxed. Crime rates were high, and he kept trying to fix it, but he made it worse.

He tried to arrest his sister before she threw him out because he was so unpopular that she could throw him out, only to fail, the people he hired killed 15 innocent people and missed their target, and then she took the country after he had to go explain his past failures. He kind of did it to himself. I don't really know what to say. …These steam buns are really good."

He finished them.

"These steam buns are really good!" Suki was so annoyed.

"Yeah. Have you tried them? You should get some."

"This is why I broke up with you."

"So we're broken up. Good." Then I didn't cheat.

"Wow, well this was interesting, but I was kind of in the middle of something, so I think I'll go back to my bedroom."

Just then, Toph appeared in a bathrobe and covered in wing sauce. "You missed out. Those wings were really good."

Azula turned and said, "How did you get wing sauce on your boobs?"

"I don't know. Want to lick it off?"

The room gasped.

"Not in front of an audience."

"Suit yourself." A servant came and cleaned up her face and hands.

"Also, wash anything in my suite that she covered in sauce."

"Yes my Lord."

"You are the messiest girlfriend."

"Yeah I know, but you're used to it."

"She's your girlfriend!" Sokka turned his head on a diagonal and made a twisted face.

"Yeah, and we were having fun, before I got so rudely interrupted."

Toph sat on Azula's lap. "We should get more food."

"You just ate."

"I know. The wings were good, but they were tiny."

"Komodo chickens are smaller than chickens."

"Ah, I should have ordered like twice as many wings."

"I want wings," Sokka said.

"Is anyone else here bothered that Azula forcibly took the country from her brother?" Suki screeched.

"Whoa Fan Girl, your hurting my ears," Toph told her, "and yeah, it's a problem, but Zuko's reign was also a problem. He was about to lose the country to civil war, and that would be a bigger problem.

At least to me, it's unclear that reinstalling Zuko wouldn't just bring us to the same place we were before in a few months. We can't give him a crown that he can't defend. We're not his military. I refuse to keep coming back here every time his people get mad and kick him out."

Aang showed up. "Hey Suki. Hey Ty Lee. Have you tried the fried vegetable cakes? They're really good!"

"Are you all just eating?"

"Well, we did walk around all day and talk to a lot of people, and I played that game with those kids and that ball. Also, the food here is better now than it was the last time I was here. Why is that?"

"Oh I asked them to make the food more flavorful. I noticed it was blander when I got back. Apparently Mai has a sensitive palate. I think she just likes watching people be unhappy while they eat."

"How horrible," Sokka said.


	12. Chapter 12

Azula turned back to the warriors. "I'm not exactly sure why you're here, but I'm already in diplomatic talks with your sovereign, and he is likely the more appropriate venue for your political grievances."

"How are you so fucking glib?"

"Clearly you didn't make it very far in school or else you'd realize that negotiations between countries typically happen through appointed representatives. People don't just crash a sovereign's palace and expect to be answered to as if they have any real power."

OH SHIT! Toph could feel Azula's anger with her seismic sense. This wasn't going to be good.

"You might think you've won this round, but I know you. You should be well aware that your past is well known, and knowledge is power." Ty Lee told her enough about Azula's past to bury her in the international community.

"Really?" Azula snapped her fingers. The Dai Li came. "Off with her head!" They hoisted Suki in the air. A look of terror was on everyone's face.

Azula snapped her fingers again.

"Leave her alone."

The agents left. They never spoke a word.

"Power is power! Don't ever forget that. Whatever it is you think you know, means nothing if you don't have the power to apply it, and you should be aware that you're in another country. Whatever rights you think you have don't apply here.

You have moxie, I'll give you that, but with a tongue like yours, my grandfather would have cut it out of your mouth himself. That's not really my school of thought, however, there are plenty of people here who would react that way if you came across them.

You don't have to like me. You don't have to trust me. I would find you stupid if you did, but don't forget where you are. You're only sitting there, without trouble, because I allow you to sit there. Do you understand?"

"Oh I do."

"Does anyone else struggle with the concept of absolute sovereignty?"

Everyone shook his or her head.

"Good. I don't like to repeat myself."

King Bumi came into the room. "So this is where the party's at?" Everyone looked petrified. "Why does everyone look like she saw a ghost?"

"They might have seen one," Azula said. "I heard my grandfather haunts this place. Since he was murdered here, I wouldn't be surprised."

Just when the mood couldn't be more uncomfortable, she said that.

* * *

><p>"You shouldn't have threatened Suki like that," Toph told her once they got back into Azula's bedroom. "You're not exactly making it easy for me to tell my friends we're together."<p>

"I didn't think through the consequences," Azula admitted. "I wanted to teach her a lesson, I did, but I should have been more considerate as to how it would affect you. I won't make such threats again."

"You won't behead my friends will you?"

"No."

Toph snickered. "I thought Suki was going to shit herself."

"I expect people to challenge my right to rule, but I don't expect them to think they can come into my home and use any kind of tone with me as if I was some concubine. I have limits. She breached them very quickly."

"Yeah, that was probably not a wise PR move, but shit! Damn, that brings me back. I was afraid you were getting too soft."

"After I forced my brother out in a coup?"

"You didn't even throw a fireball."

"I suppose I was a bit soft in my takeover."

"That being said, maybe you should write a Constitution. It would be an assurance for your people and the world that the Fire Nation is about the people."

"True, but I don't think I can write it. If I write it then it's not really the people's document. It's just a gift I decided to give them. I like the idea of natural law better that there are fundamental rights that are inherent in the rights of men, but those for our nation have to be derived by representatives of the people. Scholars perhaps."

"Yeah, you could get some professors and interns together and they could figure out what they think should go in it."

"It should also involve the sages. They're the most aware of the history of the Fire Nation and its traditions."

"Maybe Iroh would like to help? Getting your family involved could get the heat off your back."

"You're talking like a Fire Lady."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm just suggesting that someday, you might make an awesome Fire Lady."

"Why not today?"

"Did you want to get married today?"

"No."

"That's why. We'll know when we're ready."

* * *

><p>The Kyoshi Warriors were given guest rooms for the night as it was too late for them to find sleeping arrangements elsewhere.<p>

"Just when I thought I had seen it all," Ty Lee said.

"You were right," Suki told her. "We shouldn't have come here."

"Let's just go to sleep."

Suki and Ty Lee were sharing a bed tonight. They didn't care what the Fire Lord had to say about it.

In the morning, a servant came offering to have baths drawn for them and to let them know breakfast was in an hour.

They decided to bathe without the servants. Ty Lee wanted to wash Suki herself.

Eventually, the two girls made it to breakfast together, hair still wet.

Toph had to comment of course. "When did you two start banging?"

Sokka dropped his fork. Aang blushed. Bumi either didn't hear her or pretended he didn't hear her. With his age, who could tell? The other warriors kept their lips tight, and Azula said, "I need more bacon!"

_Ty Lee would start fucking a peasant whore. She always did have dreadful taste._

Suki and Ty Lee took their seats without answering the question.

"Is it just them or are they all …?" Toph questioned.

"The original warriors were Kyoshi's concubines/body guards as she got older," Azula commented. "After she died, they continued to take care of each other and the island, so it would be quite traditional for those two to well fornicate."

"You mean they were the Kyoshi whore-iors!" Toph was so proud of herself.

Suki and Ty Lee frowned. The other warriors had a smirk on their faces.

"How long have you been saving that one?" Azula questioned.

"Since before I got held hostage by my parents."

"That's a long wait."

"I don't remember most of it."

"It's also tradition for princes of this nation to enjoy a harem or two before they wed, and if you're Azulon until you die. Anyway, Sozin had a harem of five sisters before he wed, and he would invite Roku over to enjoy them with him. There were rumors that some of their fun involved none of the sisters."

Aang gaped at the insinuation of his past life. "You do realize Roku was your great-grandfather."

"Oh I do, so the suggestion that he was banging my other great-grandfather is pretty hilarious."

"Wait, are you going to get a harem before you marry?" Sokka questioned.

She looked to Toph. "If you wanted one."

"You'd let me have a harem."

"Sure. Ty Lee's sisters volunteered."

The acrobat gasped. "You're making that up."

"Really, why don't you visit Taro and ask her about it? She approached me after my coronation."

Ty Lee frowned. _Taro would do that!_

"Would you really make Ty Lee's sisters your bed bunnies?"

"It would be kind of funny. They all look like her."

"How are you such a terrible person, yet you're so entertaining?" Aang questioned. "That is a very hard balance."

"I try."

"Does Mai have any sisters?" Toph asked her.

"No, but she does have cousins. If they were better looking maybe, but the last time I saw them, no!"

"Ugly faces or fat?"

"One had an ugly face, and the other was fat."

"That's too bad."

"We could always look for girls in the colonies. They're interesting looking. Oh we could get an assortment of girls from the other nations. It would be multicultural."

"Wow, a worldly harem, you are a cow pig, and I love you for it."

Azula pecked her lips. "They could double as diplomats, and I could call our bedroom sessions, World Peace Conferences."

Sokka was impressed with that one. "You really don't give a shit do you?"

"I'm a practical person. Give me problem and I will find a solution to it. Zuko didn't think that way. He just said yes a bunch of times to make people happy, only to realize he couldn't deliver. If that's what people expect from the Fire Nation at peace summits, I'm not wasting my breath."

"It's kind of sad, but you taking over the country saved Zuko at the last peace summit," Aang told her. "Now he doesn't really have to answer to any of his mistakes since he doesn't have the throne anymore, and it's not like you can be held personally liable for them."

"Like I said, Zuko was a problem. I solved it."

"We do need to put something comprehensive together before we go back," Bumi said. "I'd rather eat more dumplings."

"We could have Toph write it," Aang laughed.

"You're an asshole," she told him.

"I know."

"If you did get a harem," Sokka started, "is there a guest policy?"

Suki hissed at him.

"Typically high end prostitutes are reserved for guests if the palace has them at the time. Azulon used to be big on that. Ozai was more of a special occasion whore kind of host."

"Have you visited him?" Toph asked.

"No. I guess I should. It's been almost three years. He might just get on my nerves."

"We could go together, and if he annoys you, I'll just chain him to the ceiling."

"That sounds like fun. When are you all flying out?"

They were flying out in the evening, so they would make it back the next day.

* * *

><p>Late that morning, Azula and Toph went to Boiling Rock.<p>

Toph hadn't been here since they delivered Ozai.

"Fire Lord Azula, welcome."

"Thank you. We're here to see my father."

"Right this way."

The hallways were decently lit, but the rooms were not.

Sitting in a sliver of light was a tall man crouched over, his hair looked scraggly and his skin was so pale.

"Father. You look like you got ran over by a palanquin."

He looked up. "You never sugar coated anything. I can see that hasn't changed."

She walked into the room. "I'm the Fire Lord now."

He chuckled. "I've heard. You just showed up when he left. If it wasn't so sad, it would be hilarious."

"Can't it be both?"

"I suppose." Ozai turned to Toph. "Who's she?"

"She's Toph Bei Fong. She's my girlfriend; also she helped destroy your battle ships."

"I sort of remember. She can't see me, can she?"

"Not conventionally, but she knows where you are and your general shape."

"Like a cave snake."

"Sort of."

"What?" Toph said.

"Cave snakes are blind, so they use heatbending to see their prey, not unlike your seismic sense."

"Oh, and I thought badger moles were the only blind creatures."

"Why are you here?"

"Well, I haven't seen you in some time. I assumed you get no visitors, so I thought I would say hello."

"Want to let me out of here?"

"So you can try and depose me. No."

"You think I would depose you?"

"If you could get away with it."

"You're right."

"I know."

"Your brother keeps asking about his mother. I won't tell him where she is."

"Because you don't know or because you want to make him angry."

"A bit of both. I can guess where she is, but I wouldn't actually know."

"I see, and why are you telling me this?"

"Because, if you knew what I know, Zuko would owe you, and if he owed you, he might let the Crown go once and for all."

"I see."

He handed her a stack of letters. "These are the best information I have on Ursa. I can't promise she's there, but she's probably there."

"Very well. I'll see if I can get you a cell with more light."

"If you could get me a whore, I'd like that even better."

"Promise not to break her."

"What's the fun in that?"

"That's why you aren't allowed to have a whore."

"You're no fun!"

"Toph disagrees."

"EW!"

"Bye Father."

"Bye Firebug."

Toph learned more from the exchange listening than she would have if she had talked to Ozai, so she didn't. Azula was no longer scared of him, that much was clear, but even with the fear gone, there was still some deference to him. She still cared about what he thought of her, even a little bit. Her words didn't convey this very clearly, but her tone and her body language did.

"Firebug?"

"I discovered my chi earlier than most children."

"So what are you going to do with those letters?"

"Read them, make sure the information in them isn't just made up, since well, it's Ozai, and if they pan out, offer them to Zuko, for a price."

"You don't want your mother back."

"I think I want my mother back the way you want to move in with your parents."

"Damn."

"Yeah, damn. Ursa is the kind of mother who would have drugged me if it would have made me her perfect porcelain doll."

"So she's like my mother."

"Yeah, our children are screwed when it comes to grandparents."

"Maybe the seed donor will have cool parents."

"That should be a requirement."

* * *

><p>Azula wasn't expecting to see Ty Lee before she left, but there she was in the garden.<p>

"You look taller," Ty Lee said to her.

"No I don't. I'm standing on a higher step."

"You never could just go with a conversation, could you?"

"Why would I if the conversation is based off a distortion?"

"Do you really think you'll be a better Fire Lord than your brother?"

"I already am. My people love me. They stopped attacking each other and started working together. The world may never like what I did, but they'll get over it. They don't have much of a choice."

"The world may fear you, but I'm not afraid of you anymore," Ty Lee told her. "I was for such a long time but never again."

"You're lying. You're putting on a veneer, but inside you're trembling. I know you don't believe it, but I'm not the same person I used to be."

"Really, 'off with her head.'"

"Clearly her mother never taught her how to respect people. She's lucky she got a harmless lesson in etiquette."

"Respect is something to be earned, not just given based on a title."

"You're entitled to that opinion, so is she. That doesn't mean that she doesn't have to reap the consequences of her actions. She can't just waltz onto someone else's turf and think that they have to take whatever she wants to dish out. If she didn't know that already, then I am amazed that she has managed to live this long."

"You had no right..."

"I had every right," Azula hissed. "Her behavior, her vitriolic words, her obnoxious tones, her threats, they were all a ploy to get a reaction out of me. She knew it wouldn't be a good reaction.

I'm sure she wasn't expecting the reaction she got, but you don't taunt a wolf if you don't want to be bitten, and once you're bitten you don't get to complain about the wound when you baited the wolf in the first place.

She can think whatever she wants about me. She can sign up for whatever plan the world leaders decide upon, but in my house I'm the king, and when people mess with me in my house, well they really shouldn't do that."

Suki started calling for Ty Lee.

"I better go."

"You always were a follower," Azula told her.

Ty Lee ran off.

Azula didn't want Toph to go.

"I'd be a pretty bad representative if I didn't go back to the king."

"But I like bad girls."

Toph kissed her. "Well, you'll have to wait."

"Um, curse the warriors for interrupting our sex."

"We can hear you."

"Does she really think I care?" Azula said about Suki.

"I love that you're completely unapologetic."

"Why would I apologize? It's a sign of weakness."

"Well, I'm _sorry_ to say goodbye."

"You're a jerk."

"I know."

* * *

><p>Bumi unrepentantly stole a bottle of whiskey for the flight back to the Earth Kingdom.<p>

"The Fire Nation has good liquor, I'll give them that."

"You jacked her whiskey?" Sokka laughed.

"She had like a bazillion bottles. She won't know the difference."

"Do you jack Kuei's bottles?"

"I used to before they started to count."

The old man enjoyed his fire whiskey as the others talked, ate, or napped.

Toph was lying on Sokka. "Snoozles, Azula makes a better pillow than you do."

"Sorry."

"It's not your fault. You just don't have breasts."

He laughed. "I guess not."

"She's very sweet when she's not pissed off."

"Are those rare moments for her?"

"Not really. She has her 'I just don't care' moments and then she settles down."

"Off with her head!"

Toph started cracking up. "She's such an asshole, but the more ridiculous she is, the more I love her."

"Well I guess that's good right."

"You don't think I lost my mind."

"No. I mean she's scary, but you hardly seemed scared of anything. She lies, but you're a human truth detector. I think you can keep her honest; plus you two look really hot together."

"Well now that I know that, we're good."

"See, it's what I'm here for."

"I want more vegetable cakes," Aang said. They forgot he was next to them.

"Is that right?"

"Yeah, they're good."

The Kyoshi Warriors were much less enthused.

"She's crazy!" Suki insisted.

"I got into an argument with her after that," Ty Lee said.

"Don't endanger yourself like that!"

"She didn't threaten to cut off my head."

"Touché."

"Anyway, she seemed different. She was wiser which I don't think is good. Before, she used to scare people because she could, and no one would call her out on it. Now, I think she's actually rationalized her wicked behavior. She seems to have taken this moral high ground; I don't know from where she got it."


End file.
