A/N: Hello, everybody. It has been a while, has it not? And it is good to be here again, typing meaningless words at all of you. So many things have happened: Radiohead released a new album; I finished my second year of college; I haven't quite turned twenty yet...

In the intervening time, while I have not been writing Snow, I have been writing other things. Synnecrosis is a canon-based Maizula oneshot collection that I'm puttering away at, and I recently wrote an Urzai oneshot, "as you're pretty, so be wise." So if those sound interesting, or you're just looking to support yours truly in her writing adventures, you should check those out. And, hell, if you haven't read Molotov by now, you probably aren't going to, but I'll throw it out there anyway: read Molotov! I love it, and you might too.

Um. I'm sorry this took so long. I have been very busy and not very motivated. But I'm hoping to bang out a few updates over the summer, and we'll see how next year goes. You know, when I started writing this, I did not anticipate it would turn into this vast project. I think this update pushes Snow over 300,000 words. And you all have been with me, patient and supportive, and I can't thank you enough for that. This is for you, and I hope you enjoy it.

Come morning, the mess hall was crowded and noisy, but despite the lack of space the soldiers were sure to give their three guests a respectful distance. Of course, there were still craned necks, whispers, plenty of recruits eager to see their princess in the flesh.

For all the sound that surrounded them, the trio was quiet. Mai was more brooding than usual, clearly still dwelling on Azula's threats of the previous night. Ty Lee, too, was somber, her gaze distant as she ate absentmindedly. But the princess couldn't be bothered to pay much attention to either of them. She had more immediate concerns.

The breakfast offerings were certainly more pleasing than trail rations, but Azula's food was almost untouched just the same. She was preoccupied with the thought of her letter home and her father's pending response. Though she knew it was impossible, as she'd just sent it yesterday, she kept expecting someone to hand her the scroll that would contain Ozai's displeasure.

She had no idea what to expect. Would he decide that she was as incompetent and useless as Zhao and tell her not to bother coming home? Just the thought of that killed any appetite she might have had before. Results were what she needed. But how was she to get them when she didn't know where to look next?

She should have captured them the first time. Forget her captain's idiocy; it was Azula who had let Iroh overpower her. She should have killed her uncle, dragged her brother home, and then gotten the Avatar at Oma—New Ozai. There should never have had to be a next time.

Against her own will, she remembered the moment on the ship when the careless words had slipped from her captain's mouth. She found herself wishing that the man was in front of her now; she needed a target for this anxiety. Maybe she should have killed him after all. Would her father think her weak for not doing so? Was she no better than Mai and Ty Lee?

Than Zuko?

It was too early for such dark thoughts, but they came upon her all the same. She had nothing at all to go on, and she could feel her father's favor slipping through her fingers as if it was a tangible thing.

"Azula!"

"What?" she snapped, distracted at last. Both Mai and Ty Lee were looking at her expectantly, and she realized it wasn't the first time they'd called her name.

"Are you okay?" Mai said it like it was a statement rather than a question. The tone made Azula want to do very ugly things to the girl sitting across from her.

"What is it?" Azula ignored the second question and focused her attention on her tray. Somehow seeing how much food was left there annoyed her, like she'd expected more to disappear while she was lost in her ruminations.

"I just wanted to know how much longer you thought we'd be here. That's all." Ty Lee said the words in a rush. They sounded innocent enough, but they only served to put Azula further on edge. Did Ty Lee think she needed a reminder of the timeframe? Were she and Mai just like Lo and Li, tools to push Azula along, to watch and judge her every move?

"Unless you have any leads you haven't been sharing with us, we don't have anything to go on," Azula said. Her tone was ice. "So we'll wait a few days, and if nothing comes of it, we'll set out again."

"And where will we go?"

Azula glared at Mai for having the impudence to ask such a question, but the other girl was unfazed. She raised her cup of water to her lips, took a drink, and set it down, looking as cool as ever. Azula's threat of the previous night seemed to have had the opposite of its intended effect. Underneath the table, Azula's nails dug into her palm. The last thing she needed was to question the girls' loyalty.

"Wherever we need to. I'll comb every inch of the Earth Kingdom if I have to. And if you'd like, Mai, you can always run home to your parents."

Azula stood, taking her tray with her. She was done with breakfast and with the conversation. She needed to think of some way to find her prey, or, barring that, she needed to find something to distract her, to prevent her from spiraling more and more surely down into panic.

Whatever her resolve, Azula had very little idea of how to occupy herself. It came as a welcome diversion, then, when she was intercepted on her way out of the mess hall. Colonel Ryu was one of the highest-ranking soldiers currently at the base, and she was also the person who had recognized them and let them into the base when they'd arrived.

The tour of the munitions factory she offered was an invitation that Azula probably would have otherwise declined, but desperate as she was for any distraction, she accepted.

Now she was following the colonel and the factory's overseer as they led her through vast rooms filled with heat from furnaces and the sound of metal clashing on metal. The din was so loud that her guides had to shout to make themselves heard above it. For her part, Azula was content to look about and listen. She had knowledge of many of the machines that were being made around her, but it was entirely different to see them firsthand.

"Firepower is more reliable than a living steed," the overseer explained proudly as their small party stopped in front of a vast steely tank. "Of course, we've been deploying similar vehicles for a while now, but this one's larger without sacrificing speed."

"Machines don't have the instincts to catch threats before humans can, or to bond with their riders, or use fear to move faster or dodge attacks," Azula said, less because she actually had an opinion on the matter and more because she found the man's overblown confidence annoying.

The man gave a short laugh and glanced between the princess and the colonel before bowing.

"Of course, Princess. Komodo rhinos and ostrich-horses have their own benefits, to be sure, that machines cannot replicate...yet. But engines have no need for rest and food, and a steel hide will block attacks far more reliably than any animal's coat."

"Even earthbenders have difficulty penetrating these tanks, Princess," the colonel offered. "I've been in skirmishes with them. We've routed Earth Kingdom troops with remarkably few losses. Once we've built enough, they could be enough to turn the tide at Ba Sing Se."

It was true that Azula had heard that war balloons and tanks that could scale even the sheer sides of cliffs had made all the difference in conquering Omashu. Suddenly she found herself regretting that she hadn't taken advantage of the technological advances surrounding her. It was an oversight that she wouldn't make again.

"Speaking of Ba Sing Se..." The overseer's eyes gleamed and he beckoned both of them onward. Azula looked all about her, watching firebenders power huge pulleys and levers. Machines making machines. A long, long time ago, maybe when she was four or five, she remembered a family visit to one of the Fire Sages' temples. In some odd way, this place reminded her of that. There was the same constant glow of flames and heat, people going about their work with the same reverence. Of course, the noise made the factory anything but a spiritual retreat.

The overseer led them into a second chamber. Rather than many different projects, here there seemed to be only one thing under construction, a cylindrical machine so vast that the workers looked tiny compared to it. Azula couldn't help but feel her mouth fall open at the sight. When she caught sight of the overseer's smug smile, though, she carefully rearranged her features into something resembling neutrality once more.

Even Ryu looked impressed. She yelled to the overseer, "It's much further along than last time!"

"We're just putting the finishing touches on it." The overseer looked proud, as if he was the one welding the steel, as if he was anything other than a glorified tour guide.

"What is it?" Azula finally asked, tired of being left out of the loop.

"This, Your Highness, is something truly remarkable," the overseer said. His smile faded somewhat when Azula's only reaction was to blink coldly at him. "The product of months of labor and the best engineering minds in the Fire Nation—"

"Ryu," Azula said, cutting the man off with a wave of her hand.

Biting back a smile, the colonel took over the explanation. "Part of a drill, Princess."

"A drill?"

"A drill large and strong enough to bring down Ba Sing Se's walls."

As Azula slowly comprehended, she looked back up at the gigantic thing again with new awe. A machine to finish the job her uncle had started.

"The idea was conceived years ago, and now it's nearly done!" Ryu's excitement seemed more understandable now, if still annoying.

"But you said this is just part of it."

"Our factories aren't large enough to build it all in one place." An earsplitting screech of metal on metal cut the overseer off. He tried to shout over it, but the noise was too deafening. With a shake of his head, he turned his back and led them away. Before they left the hall, Azula took another look at the thing hanging above her.

Machines. Steel and fire and might. Doing only as they were bidden.

At last they stood in the antechamber at the front of the factory, a room that now seemed tiny compared to the spaces they had just wandered through. The deafening sounds were still audible beyond the walls, but here they could speak in normal tones and still be heard.

"As I was saying, various pieces are being constructed in several different factories, but soon they'll be shipped together and assembled. And down comes the wall."

"How long?" Azula found herself wondering how she hadn't heard about this project before. Had it been mentioned in all of the endless war meetings, on a day when she hadn't been paying adequate attention? Surely her father knew. And there anxiety was again, bringing with it the lurking sense of inadequacy. She should have known, shouldn't she?

"Our piece is to be shipped within the week, as are the others, and then—"

"How long?"

"It should be less than a month, Princess." The overseer bowed. A month. A month to the fall of Ba Sing Se? And Azula was off chasing rabbits. It felt wrong. She needed to be there, to stand above the rubble, to complete the mission her uncle had so pitifully failed.

Well, she'd just have to catch her prey before then, wouldn't she?

"Well, there you have it." The overseer rocked on the balls of his feet. Suddenly his smug expression was much more thoughtful. He glanced at Colonel Ryu, who cleared her throat and stepped forward.

"Your Highness, we'd like to beg you a favor."

"What is it?" Azula was at once on edge. She was reminded of the court back home, endless nobles bowing and scraping and trying to claw their way up an invisible ladder. She'd thought she'd left the politics behind her, but perhaps she'd been naive to hope so.

"Well...between the factory and the barracks, a large percentage of our population is aiding the war effort," Ryu said. "And lately, food rations haven't been sufficient. Of course," she hurried to clarify, "we understand that cuts are to be expected because of the war, and we are not the only ones affected, but we hoped you might be open to the idea of increasing rations. It's...not just gluttony, you understand. There have been some...incidents, and we're worried about illness."

"Last week, one of my workers looted his neighbor's cellar and stabbed the owner when he was caught," the foreman said, his face grave. "That's the most serious, but you can see why we are worried."

"We seek only to best serve the Fire Nation."

Azula looked between the two of them. Part of her wanted to simply tell them that rations were rations and nobody else seemed to be having problems, but Ryu had a point. Malnourished soldiers were weak soldiers, and weakness in war was death.

"Have you spoken to anyone else about this?" she asked.

"I sent a messenger hawk to my superiors two months ago. They told me it was the same everywhere." Ryu shifted. "I have no proof, but I suspect that some of my higher-ups and the governors may be hoarding rations for themselves."

"I understand. I'll send a letter home," Azula said. "My father's minister of agriculture should hear about this, if nothing else."

"Thank you, Princess." Relief swept across Ryu's face, and both she and the foreman bowed deeply.

"I can't guarantee anything will come of it."

"We will abide with His Majesty's decision." Ryu straightened and looked about. "Well, Princess, shall we be heading back? It must be almost lunch."

They left the foreman and headed back out into the city's streets. Azula's mind was distant. She wasn't thinking of the rations and another letter home, but rather of the vast drill and tanks and war balloons. Machines powered by fire, turning cogs, steely and impenetrable. It bothered her that she couldn't begin to fathom their inner workings. It would be something to read about, to teach herself, when she was home again.

If she was ever home again.

The week seemed to drag on forever. Each passing day with no news of either the Avatar or Zuko and Iroh put Azula further on edge. There weren't enough distractions to be had in this seaside town. She spent most of her time in the barracks, watching soldiers train or practicing herself. At first the others were eager to spar with her, but as the princess's mood became blacker and blacker, more and more of her opponents walked away with burns, and then there were no more volunteers.

Her second letter home was written and sent without much thought. Azula was still fixed on her first missive and her father's response. Every day she waited for it to come, and every day that it did not, her fear only worsened.

Patience was a valuable thing, she told herself over and over again. She needed to bide her time. There was no use in running haphazardly about the Earth Kingdom without clues or a plan. That would be a good way to get caught and killed. But still, the idea of action seemed so much better when she was trapped in stasis. And the idea of being strung up in some Earth Kingdom dungeon left her far less fearful than the thought of her father's disapproval.

The mayor invited her to his house more than once. Each time she declined. His company was useless to her, and anyway she wasn't interested in retreading the memories of Zuko and Iroh in this place.

Zuko rejecting her. The look of confusion, almost revulsion, on his face.

She hadn't given it much thought after it had happened, or in the years since, but now the memories surfaced again, clearer than ever. She could envision his shadow-bathed cabin. The stiff unwillingness of his lips and body. That ugly monstrous scar. The desire to kill him, ruin him, make him taste what she had tasted and do what she had done.

And now she pursued him. She had the chance to make all those whims into reality. She would drag her brother home and rub his failure in his face until the memory of his disgust left her for good. He was the despicable one, not her.

The fourth or fifth night in Ageo, she had a dream.

She was home again. She was standing on the balcony of the Fire Lord's chambers. When she heard footsteps behind her, she did not turn, not even when a familiar arm snaked around her waist. His lips were on her neck, his hands seeking to disrobe her.

"Is this what you wanted?"

The voice was not her father's. She jerked around to look at the person behind her and saw the scar. And she had no voice with which to object, and no matter how hard she tried to summon fire her hands remained cool.

He pushed her down. There was the silk of the bed beneath her, and she fell onto it. Her brother climbed atop her. The look on his face was one she had seen all too frequently in reality, a glare of vicious anger and hate.

But to her it seemed very different this time.

"Who's laughing now?" he snarled.

She awoke sweating and panting with very little idea of where she was. She glanced to her left, expecting to see Ozai there, but there was only the stone wall. And she remembered, slowly, that she was in the barracks, with Mai and Ty Lee in the bunk just across the room.

Her heart refused to slow. Still she could see Zuko's face in her mind. He had looked so much like Ozai, looked more and more like Ozai each time she saw him. The feeling of phantom fingers gripping her about the waist was hard to shake when it was more than a dream, when it was a memory too.

But it hadn't been like that, she told herself. Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a...

Yes, she'd kissed Zuko, but he had been as cold and unresponsive as a statue. He was too innocent to do something like that, wasn't he?

Maybe that time, in the cabin of his old junky ship, it hadn't been about showing him what she had been through. Maybe it had been an attempt to prove to herself that he was every bit as monstrous as her. She'd wanted to take his notions of honor and throw them in his face.

But in the end, he'd passed her test, and it had just been Azula alone with the weight of her secrets, as she was now, as she always would be. Ursa had been right all along. Azula was the despicable one. And now she was a failure, too. The perfection she had always sought so desperately was slipping away from her, and when it was gone, she would be nothing.

Her hands curled into fists. Her nails dug into her palms until they opened her old scabs and blood dripped onto the rough sheets. She bit her bottom lip to keep from sobbing, but the tears slipped out nonetheless.

She fell asleep again like that, cursing herself for crying, for bleeding, for feeling.

The morning brought lucidity, as it always did. Much to her displeasure, Azula remembered the dream, but in the light of day it was something to shove to the back of her mind and forget about. What she'd mistaken for revelations in the night were mere hysteria. Thinking about the dream, about the past, about Zuko, except as a target, were all meaningless diversions. She needed to ignore them, and eventually they would cease to matter.

Just like Ursa's reappearance and its fallout.

She felt calmer, better. Her father's response and her previous failures still weighed on her, but Azula was determined not to be crushed under their weight. They were events of the past, too, just as suitably forgotten and thrown aside.

Later that day, Azula followed Mai to the training field. It was predictably much busier than the night after their arrival, but Azula easily picked out her traveling partner between groups of soldiers throwing fire and practicing hand-to-hand combat.

Mai looked hot. She insisted on wearing her long-sleeved robe even when the sun beat down. She looked as unaffected as she ever did, but the sheen of sweat on her forehead gave her away. Azula couldn't help but smirk at the sight. Was it modesty, hammered into Mai by her overbearing mother?

The soldiers parted to let their princess through. Mai glanced her way, and when she noticed Azula her face seemed to close off. Was it fear there? Too late to say.

"Princess Azula," she said, and bowed. "Are you here to practice too?"

"I'm here for you." Azula had resolved to come with honey rather than poison, but she couldn't deny that it was rewarding to see Mai's mask crack widely enough to show unease. She had been so calm even when Azula had threatened her brother. What would it take for her to show real fear? To make her scream?

Then again, maybe Tom-Tom was the wrong incentive. Mai hadn't so much as batted an eye when he had been kidnapped, after all.

"Let's go inside," Azula said when Mai failed to respond. Still Mai said nothing, but she followed when Azula led the way out of the sunlight and into the cooler halls of the barracks. Azula stopped when she reached an alcove. There was still an occasional soldier passing by, but it was otherwise much quieter here.

"What is this about?" Mai's voice was flat.

"I wanted to apologize," Azula said, sweet as sugar. She didn't miss the way Mai's eyes narrowed when she said it.

"For what?"

"For doubting your loyalty. For threatening little Tom-Tom. It was wrong of me." Azula's smile didn't waver. The words came easily to her. She'd had plenty of time to think of exactly what she wanted to say, after all.

"There is nothing to apologize for," Mai said. Her eyes were respectfully downcast, but Azula still watched them with a hawklike intensity. "I was insubordinate."

"No, I overreacted." Azula sighed and let her lips lose their upward curve. She glanced down and away. "Father's expectations are...exacting."

Mai's lips moved, but she said nothing. She was so like a statue, and yet somehow that made her far more fascinating. With Ty Lee, everything was obvious, visible from the surface. Mai was a puzzle, one Azula was determined to solve, with gentleness or with force.

"And you don't have much real experience. You'll grow into it. I know that you would never do anything to threaten the Fire Nation."

Mai looked up. Her eyes fixed on Azula's. The princess held her gaze. A moment passed, and then another, until Mai at last looked away again. Azula let her eyes flick downward. Mai still held a knife in one hand. Her index finger was running absently over the blade.

"You would never betray me." Maybe a barb slipped through Azula's careful honeyed tone, but if it did, she didn't care. Mai deserved it. She had deserved the initial reprimand and the threats. And if she didn't take this second warning, she would deserve whatever else Azula decided to give her.

There was another pause, longer than the first. Azula felt the seconds chip away at her patience, but that was probably Mai's intention. Azula wouldn't give in first.

"Of course not, Azula."

The glow of sweat had faded from Mai's skin. Despite her time spent in the sun playing with knives for the past few days, she was as pale as ever. If Azula leaned in and tasted her cheeks, would they be salty? Would Mai object, or would she sit as still as ever? Did she have it in her to deny anyone, or was her only tool sarcasm buried within polite words?

There was an uncomfortable sensation between Azula's thighs. It reminded her of home and of her father. The unease returned. What was she doing, thinking such things, feeling such things? What would Ozai say if she knew?

"Azula?" Mai sounded warier this time. Azula blinked and realized she had been staring. She turned her head sharply away. Heat was flooding her cheeks no matter how insistently she tried to suppress it.

"What have you been doing these past few days?" Azula swung abruptly to another topic. She needed something else to think about. The ache wasn't going away. Dreams and reality, past and present, were coalescing. She didn't feel like herself. Ozai was a continent away and still something traitorous pulsed between her legs.

Mai paused a second, glanced away and back again. "Not much. Wrote a letter to send home. Walked about the city a bit."

"Do you miss the mainland?" Mai had gone away so easily. She had accepted Azula's invitation without fuss. Was there anything of substance there at all? Was she nothing more than a shadow? Would she scream if Azula burned her?

Honey, Azula told herself. Gentleness. There would be time for experimentation when her prey had been caught and Ozai was satisfied. And wasting such questions on Mai was pointless anyway. Wasting energy on her was pointless. Why couldn't Azula's body just obey the edicts of her mind for once? Why was she still sitting here, talking? Why did the warmth refuse to dissipate?

"Don't miss much at all. Everywhere's the same, isn't it?" It didn't really sound like a question. Mai's lips turned up a little, but the smile seemed to be a private smile. It wasn't meant for Azula to share.

"And now? Is this all the same?" Azula motioned with her chin at the wall, meaning the barracks and Ageo and their mission and herself.

"Well..." Mai turned her head slightly. Maybe this time her smile was for Azula. "It's certainly more exciting."

"It'll be exciting when we catch my brother and drag him home." Mai's smile disappeared. Something like regret flickered through Azula, something she shouldn't have been feeling. "Don't look so grim. I'll tell the guards to allow conjugal visits. Maybe you'll learn to like chains."

A flash of something crossed Mai's face. Scorn? Disgust? It was gone too quickly for Azula to be sure, leaving only narrowed eyes behind. When the princess looked down, she saw Mai's finger still traversing its steady path along the knife's blade. At long last the fluttering of that tender spot between her thighs died away. Revulsion, again. She was a revolting existence.

Azula made herself smile.

"Do you miss the mainland?" Mai asked. Whatever her face showed, her voice was steady as ever.

"Of course. Who wouldn't miss war meetings?" Azula snorted. "It's better here, better to be doing the real thing, putting my skills to use. Though of course I miss Father."

"His Majesty still virile?" Mai said it very casually. Her eyes were looking past Azula.

Somehow it didn't bother Azula as much when it was Mai asking rather than Ty Lee. With Mai, there was no threat of waterworks. It was an impudent question, and one she knew she should reprimand Mai for daring to voice, but Azula kept her tongue in check. She briefly entertained the thought of telling Mai about Ursa and Cong and everything the intervening years held. Would Mai hear any of it? Would Azula's secrets pass through this shadow girl and leave her as blank as ever?

"Why? Are you interested in trading up?" Azula's laugh was malicious. Hopefully that would do. Mai wasn't stupid enough to ask twice. "I'm afraid Fire Lord Ozai isn't interested in pallid little doormats, Mai."

Mai paused quite a while before responding. Both hands were playing with the knife now. She passed it absentmindedly back and forth between her fingers. The blade ran across her skin without leaving a single cut.

"Isn't he?" Her gaze was level and very calm when she looked up to meet Azula's eyes. There was no fear at all on her face. In that moment, Azula couldn't help but think what a waste it was that Mai had been born a nonbender, for surely lightning would come as naturally to her as breathing.

Azula let herself laugh. She didn't know if she actually found it funny. Maybe she just laughed because she didn't know what else to do. She had come to make amends, and burning Mai until she screamed seemed counter to that aim.

Mai laughed too, a little chuckle, in response to the princess's good humor, though her eyes remained wary. Perhaps she knew she'd crossed a line. That look calmed Azula, told her that Mai still knew her place, even if she needed to be reminded of it every now and again.

Lifting one arm, Azula trailed her taloned index finger up the pale skin visible under Mai's collar. She could feel the grooves of Mai's windpipe there. It would be easy to end her life then and there. That knowledge reassured Azula. She had nothing at all to fear. Emotion was wasted here.

"Be careful, Mai," she murmured, then pulled her finger away. Azula turned her back and continued down the hallway, leaving the stupid conversation and all her unwanted feelings behind her. She didn't bother looking back, so she didn't see Mai lift her head, her immaculate mask falling back into place, her eyes hardening once more.

The feeling returned that evening. Azula sat alone in their room; Ty Lee had gone to the baths, and Mai was making herself scarce again. She was glad for their absence. It left her free to lie back in her bunk without fear of being watched.

The pressure refused to go away. She couldn't help but think of her father's fingers filling that needy hollow void. She needed him. She remembered, too, the sensation of his lips and tongue against her as he lapped up blood. His beard had scratched, but it hadn't mattered, not when that blissful heady sensation swept over her. That was what she thought of, what she longed for. She would take the heat and the awful stretch and the black bruises on her thighs the next morning if it would just stop the ache.

All her thoughts only made it worse. She rubbed her thighs together and gritted her teeth against the sweet awful feeling.

Her fingers wandered timidly underneath her belt. It was a futile effort. Her strokes felt heavy-handed and wrong. She didn't know the space between her thighs well enough to bring the satisfaction she desired. He knew her so much better. He had laid claim to her body and taken it from her in doing so, and now it seemed it was only he who could force it to obey.

She kept at it for several frustrating minutes, but to no avail. At last she leaned her head back onto her pillows. She was sweating, annoyed, and no better than when she'd started. Her fingers continued their gentle motions, but with her mind now elsewhere, she might as well have been scratching her arm.

A knock at the door jolted her upright. Azula barely had enough time to yank her hand out from under her belt before Ty Lee appeared in the doorway.

"Wait for me to answer next time!" Azula snapped. She was certain she looked a mess. Her face was hot and her hair was tangled and sticking to her skin. Too late she noticed that her fingers were slightly damp. She wiped them hurriedly on the sheets. Suddenly she found herself missing Lo and Li, who, whatever their many faults, at least had the courtesy to announce themselves before entering.

"Oh! S-sorry, Azula." She looked taken aback at the scolding. "Sorry. I didn't know you were in here." She closed the door again behind her and moved quietly into the room. Distracted as she had been, Azula hadn't realized how dark it was. The single candle she'd lit had nearly burned all the way out.

"It's fine." Disgruntled, Azula settled back into her pillows once more. Perhaps she should make her way outside and practice her forms until she was too tired to even think of lust.

"Were you sleeping?"

"No, I was..." Azula's voice trailed away before she could be bothered to think of a lie. Ty Lee didn't seem to notice, though. She struck a match and lit a new candle. Her face looked softer in the light. Her hair was dark and shiny, the only indication that she'd just been bathing. Rather than her usual circus garb, she wore a simple red robe.

"That suits you," Azula said, gesturing with a lazy hand. Ty Lee looked up. She might have blushed, but it was too dark to say. "You look like a proper Fire Nation citizen now, not some circus girl."

"Maybe I should take it off, then." Ty Lee stuck out her chin. "I like my clothes."

"Suit yourself." Azula swung her legs up and sat on the edge of her bunk. She'd managed to ruin her bun, and sweaty, irritating clumps of loose hair hung about her face.

"Are you okay, Azula?" Ty Lee took a step closer. The concern put Azula on edge. She didn't need looking after. She didn't know what had clued Ty Lee in to her abnormal state.

"What do you think?" she growled, only to regret it when Ty Lee's eyes flickered and she looked away. "Don't—I'm just tired, Ty Lee."

"I know you're under a lot of stress," Ty Lee said, "but I think it will turn out okay. I think His Majesty will be proud of you."

"Proud?" Azula's laugh was more hysterical than she would have liked. She shook her head and waved wildly about her. "What have I done to be proud of? I've failed, Ty Lee. I've faced my brother and the Avatar and have nothing to show for it. I don't know what I'm doing. He's going to flay me alive."

The words came out, and the self-hatred followed not a second behind. Thinking such things was already bad enough, but voicing them was an entirely different matter. Azula looked away. Heat was building behind her eyes. She waited for Ty Lee to put her hands in the crack and rip her open.

Ty Lee did not. She hesitated, then sat down on the bunk beside Azula.

"Well, I think Fire Lord Ozai shouldn't be able to criticize you when he's sitting in the capital and sending you to do jobs for him. You're trying your best to do what he wants, and I think he should...appreciate that."

Ty Lee's voice was shaking. Azula wondered if she was afraid of reprimand. Certainly her words were questionable at best and treasonous at worst, but Azula couldn't find it in herself to be as angry as she should have been at the slight on her father.

"Don't be daft. That's what I'm for. The Fire Lord can't just go out on such missions. The capital needs defending. And if it were my father..." Azula looked at her hands. She curled her fingers in so that her nails rested on the scabs where she had dug them in so many times. But with Ty Lee watching, she did not apply force. "If it were him, the Avatar would be in chains in the Boiling Rock. Uncle would be dead, and Zuko...Ty Lee, trying means nothing. Results mean everything. If I can't do something as simple as this, I might as well be dead anyway."

"Simple? Azula, we're chasing the Avatar! We're—" Ty Lee seemed to catch herself. She took a deep breath and began again, obviously putting effort into keeping her voice from shaking. "I know how much pressure you put on yourself. But you haven't failed."

"How can you say—"

"Not succeeding the first time isn't the same as failing!" Seemingly unable to contain her energy, Ty Lee stood up, somehow managing to put herself in a handstand even in the small space between the bunks. She stared at Azula from between her arms, and Azula had to admit that it was harder to feel too upset when she was looking at the acrobat upside down.

Azula disagreed, but said nothing.

"Like at the circus. Of course I couldn't do everything right away! Like the tightrope. It took me a really long time! First you do one that's a foot off the ground, and you just try to walk on it, and then you move it higher up, and you do harder stuff until you get the hang of it. So maybe you fall the first time, but you get up and try again. It doesn't mean you're failing, just that you're learning. These were just falls. You're learning! How could you not be? You're the smartest girl I've ever met." Ty Lee punctuated her words with an upside-down nod. Her face was somber, which somehow made her look even more comical.

Azula didn't know what to say. She wanted to believe Ty Lee. Some part of her felt better. But a voice in the back of her mind told her that such thinking was for weaklings like Zuko, that Ty Lee was making excuses, that to accept her words would result in complacency.

"A tightrope is different from catching the Avatar," she said finally. "I have to succeed."

"You will. I know you will." Ty Lee righted herself and brushed the loose curls of hair that had escaped her braid back against her scalp. "I have an idea for something to help you relax."

"Don't say meditation," Azula said, thinking of her uncle. "...Or tea."

Ty Lee smiled again at last. "No. I was just—you know, I learned a lot about the muscles and stuff while I was learning chi blocking, and since I had to deal with my own cramps and strains in the circus, I've actually got a lot of practice, so if you wanted a massage..."

Azula was surprised to find that the idea actually appealed to her. Back home, she wasn't particularly fond of massages. She knew Ursa had spent long hours in the spa, but when Azula was a child, she didn't understand the appeal of lying still for hours while servants dug their fingers into her skin. As she'd grown, she'd gotten them after particularly rigorous training sessions, but she found it impossible to relax. Even with warm stones under her body and the smell of incense and the palace's best zither player at her disposal, her mind refused to calm. The foreign fingers wandering over her bare skin had always felt much too intimate.

But Ty Lee was different. Ty Lee felt comfortable.

"I think I would enjoy that. How generous of you to offer."

Ty Lee beamed and bounced up on the balls of her feet. "No, it's good practice! And I don't want you to be stressed out. So, uh, the bottom bunk?"

It was strange to lie there, facedown in the pillows with her shirt abandoned, and wait for Ty Lee. The sheets were much rougher against her bare skin than the silk of the palace. Azula closed her eyes and told herself to relax, but it was difficult to set aside her habits of constant vigilance even for a moment. She heard the scrape and creak of wood as Ty Lee pulled up a chair and sat down.

Ty Lee's hands were surprisingly warm. There was some liquid on them, some sweet-smelling oil. Azula opened her mouth to ask what it was, then decided she was content not knowing. The fingers that pressed gently along her spine were quite talented. Azula found it was an easy thing to keep her eyes closed, until the stray thought that Ty Lee could easily plunge a knife between her shoulderblades happened to wander into her head, and then she opened them again.

"Is this okay?" Ty Lee pressed harder. Her hands were kneading gently at the muscles of Azula's back, undoing knots the princess hadn't realized she had.

"Fine. You're quite good at this," Azula mumbled into the pillows.

Ty Lee giggled. "Thank you, Azula!"

Soon her eyes were drifting closed once more. Azula was content to lie quietly. She watched the candlelight flicker through her eyelids and listened to Ty Lee humming quietly and smelled the oil. She thought it might have been jasmine, though there were other scents there too.

Her self-appointed masseuse kept at it. Her hands worked slowly and carefully from Azula's shoulders down, following the curve of her spine into her lower back. It might have been a quarter of an hour already. Azula didn't want her to stop. She wasn't sure she'd felt so serene in a long time, except perhaps in those moments when lightning sparked at her fingertips.

Ty Lee's fingers slipped closer to the waist of Azula's pants, and an entirely different sort of spark went through the princess. Suddenly she was fully awake. She wanted Ty Lee to keep going. Azula had no doubt that her hands could resolve the tension between her legs just as easily as they had relieved the stress of her back. And the acrobat, so accommodating, so eager to please, would undoubtedly jump to the new task with the same verve she'd accepted the old.

Ty Lee was still blithely continuing on, unaware of the licentious turn of Azula's thoughts. She had stopped to work some muscle just above Azula's hip, but Azula was imagining something much different. Those same fingers would trail their strange electricity down underneath her clothes, and so slim and so gentle they would bring her what she could not bring herself. Not rough, not brutal, nothing like—

She jolted upright. She hardly heard Ty Lee's noise of surprise. The sheets slid away, leaving her nude, but Azula didn't care.

What was she doing?!

She felt ill. Again she could feel her father's presence as tangibly as if he stood beside her. She could imagine the way he would look at her if he knew what she'd been thinking. And she would deserve every bit of his anger. She couldn't have wanted it, wanted Ty Lee, wanted to be touched like that. She was not so whorish.

She was the one who'd kissed Zuko.

She was repulsive. She was the monster. She was sick and getting sicker.

"Azula? What is it?"

Azula shook her head mutely. She ignored the concern on her acrobat's face. For once, she couldn't make eye contact. She couldn't think and couldn't speak. There was enormous pressure in her stomach, in her throat.

"Did I hit a pressure point?" Ty Lee was rubbing and folding her hands together anxiously. Azula couldn't even look at those fingers. She could still feel Ozai watching her. Perhaps the compression about her throat was his hands giving her what she deserved.

"Yes," Azula said brusquely, taking the out offered her. She held out one hand. "My shirt."

Ty Lee handed it over. The worry was still written all over her, but Azula had no time to deal with her right now. She pulled her clothes on again and stood. Her hair was a mess, but she had no intentions of sitting still long enough to let Ty Lee put it up once more.

"I'm going out," she said, and then she was gone, leaving a bewildered Ty Lee sitting alone on the bed with an expiring candle and her hands damp with massage oil.

The Ozai of her conscience accompanied Azula all the way out to the training field.

You promised me you were done with those girls, and here you are fantasizing about them. You know I'll have to punish you for this, Azula. How dare you let them near you? How dare you let them touch what's mine?

She gritted her teeth against the threat of tears or vomit or both, determined to bend and bend and burn all her mistakes away, even if she reduced herself to ash in the process.