Azula sits, combing her hair in the mirror while her ghost watches from the bed, softly smiling at her girlfriend. The Fire Lord stayed awake the entire night thinking about her strange dream, and Zuko's not-so-cryptic comments about the person other than Mai he loved.

"I want to find the water girl. The one I hate," says Azula to her ghost.

"Do you think I can help you?" asks Ty Lee, pivoting to face the Fire Lord. "I don't know if I can. I'm locked up in your head. Not that it's so bad. I want to help you. I love you."

"Would you stop saying that?" snaps Azula.

"I guess." Ty Lee studies the palms of her hands. Azula bitterly stares at her.

"You found Zuko."

"The water girl isn't Zuko."

"How is it so different?"

"I don't feel it. I had a feeling about him, y'know?"

"No. I do not know. None of this makes sense."

"I agree. I mean, I pretty much always agree—"

"You could agree more often. That is why… that is why you are not real. The real you would be entirely supportive of me and encourage all my endeavors."

"Do you think you have such a lack of a conscience that you need it to be somebody else telling you what's right or wrong?"

Azula scowls. "Something like that. Right and wrong are social concepts that have no true meaning beyond comforting—"

"You are riddled with guilt, my love."

Azula scoffs. "Guilt is what unintelligent people claim to have when they run out of excuses for their actions."

"I think you need things to be that way. I think you need to call good and evil pretend and say that guilt is just for people who can't make up better lies. If you admitted that maybe there's a reason so many people believe in those thi—"

Azula smashes her fist into the mirror. "Shut up. I am done with you."

Ty Lee averts her eyes.

Ty Lee sits across from Azula, at the foot of her bed like a cat. Azula lies awake again, trying to theorize about the water girl. She knows she should ask her father, but she does not know how she could justify it to him, especially if he does not have her.

And Ty Lee suddenly asks, "Tell me you love me. Please."

Azula sighs and sits up, squinting in the darkness. "No. I can't."

"Then tell me you hate me. Please."

"I want to tell you I hate you, but that would be a lie."

"You're a liar. Probably history's most famous liar."

"I don't see a point in lying to you. It does not serve me."

"You lied to me when I was alive."

"I think the last part of that sentence sums up why I do not lie to you now."

"Oh. I guess that's another perk of being long dead."

"Hm. I didn't know there were any. You died quite terribly and tragically. I would be far more bitter about it if I were you."

"I don't know. Dying by the hand of someone you're in love with is kinda hot."

"Are you implying something?"

"I don't know. Am I?"

Azula stands up and walks away to reign as Fire Lord in this dreadful, cold city.

Azula sits in the middle of an extremely boring meeting about the rebels. She knows her father wanted her to deal with this so he would not have to. What a lovely assignment.

Her ghost interrupts Commander Xen's tiring and vapid speech with, "So, if you won't lie to me, will you tell me if I'm pretty? Am I almost as pretty as you?"

"That question is petty and pathetic," says Azula before turning around and realizing she is in the middle of an important meeting. "Commander Xen. I don't want to hear anything like that again."

Ty Lee says sweetly, "I'm petty and pathetic, princess."

"I am not a princess," Azula snarls before remembering again. "Commander Xen. I won't be so easily fooled by double talk. I'm not a naivete, after all. I conquered this city."

"Have you always been so good at multitasking? I'm really impressed!" chirps Ty Lee.

"Yes, I always have," Azula says to Ty Lee before turning to Xen. "I always have had confidence in the Fire Nation's prowess. Do not doubt my support of my nation."

"I—yes, yes, your highness," says Xen.

"This meeting is over. I am tired of looking at you," Azula says. "You could stand to run a comb through your hair once a week."

Azula begins to walk away when she hears Xen making a comment to Li.

"She's a strange one, isn't she?" remarks the commander.

Azula pivots on her heel. "What was that?"

"Nothing, your highness," Xen breathlessly replies.

"That's what I thought," purrs Fire Lord Azula.

Ty Lee giggles gleefully. "I love it when you make people panic."

"I do too," replies Azula.

A girl and her ghost girlfriend stride away side by side.

After three weeks, Azula at last hears good news.

"We have the waterbender. Your father released her to your custody."

Azula walks forward and looks at the girl bound in restraints dreamt up by the engineers of Azulon's era. They used them to wipe out a weak, inferior race.

"Hello, Katara," says Azula. "Welcome to my home." Katara just snarls at her. Azula refuses to recoil, although that is her first instinct. "So rude. I am sure my accommodations will be kinder than those of my father."

Katara laughs. Azula scowls.

"You are so much crueler than him."

"So you think. You will find I care very little about your opinion. Take her to the dungeon… where they kept Zuko."

Her cobalt eyes widen.

Azula turns around so that no one sees her victorious smirk.

Azula stands outside of the water girl's cell. She mentally practices what she will say, what might be the best way to draw her in. Zuko already began believing her pretty lies about Mai and Ty Lee. She just needs to know what will make Katara as good as hers.

Finally, she settles on fake humbleness. It works sometimes.

She strides in and has the guards lock the door behind her.

"I don't know what to say."

"You brought me here. It was on your orders. You want something."

"I am trying to shape my brother into… someone usable. I think you are precisely what he needs to start… trusting me."

"Zuko would trust you the day the poles melt and the Fire Nation freezes over."

Azula kneels down in front of her. "I think you underestimate my powers of persuasion, and my relationship with my brother. I have known him far longer than you have. Yet, somehow, I think he loves you deeply and dearly."

"Then let me see him. Let me stay with him."

"I am not going to be that easy to befriend, water girl. But maybe we could be friends. Who knows? Perhaps the poles will melt and the Fire Nation will freeze over."

"Maybe."

"Now, what am I going to do with you?"

"Put me with him. I told you."

Ty Lee leans in close and whispers in Azula's ear, "You could sleep with her. That's your signature move these days, isn't it?"

"No!" snaps Azula, and then she turns to Katara. "No, I can't put you together with him. I would be an idiot to do that."

"Maybe." Katara shrugs. "Don't you have more confidence in yourself than that?"

Azula laughs, hoping to knock the waterbender down a level or two. It does not work.

"Listen, I can think of only one reason you would be interested in him, and that is to use him for your own ends. Maybe, though, I could let you see him… if you love him enough."

"I don't love him. I care about him. He earned my respect and friendship. You never will."

"I… didn't love someone too," says Azula, thinking of her successful fight night sob story for ZuZu. "And I wasted any chance I ever had with her. Are you going to make the same mistakes as I did?"

"I didn't think you thought you could make any mistakes."

"Because I usually don't." Azula pauses for dramatic effect and then averts her artificially misty eyes. "But I wish I could have seen her one last time," Azula says, glancing up at the ghost watching her with wide, glittering eyes. In truth, she wishes she could stop seeing her.

"That isn't… enough."

Azula dives right into her scheme and conjures the crocodile tears. She bites them back as subtly as possible, while still giving a certain dramatic effect.

"I just miss her so much," says Azula, uncertain if she is lying or not. She lets her lips linger close to Katara's. Ty Lee watches disdainfully. "Sometimes, I just wish I had someone. Have you been wishing for him?"

"Yes," says Katara.

"It's hard, isn't it? To be so alone in a world like this." Azula leans closer and closer.

Katara moves back and Azula purses her lips. She was beginning to think she might succeed; what a shame.

"There's a difference. You killed her. You. Killed. Her. I did everything I could to protect Zuko, even though I hated him once."

"I never specified who I was talking about."

"It's obvious," says Katara. "Really obvious. The circus girl."

Bitterly and wordlessly, Fire Lord Azula stands and bangs twice on the door for the guards. "We're done here. I'll be back tomorrow to see if you reconsidered my offer."

As soon as Azula steps outside, her ghost comments, "I think you had an effect."

Azula only smirks in her direction.

She knows that she did; the waterbender is far from as impenetrable and strong as she believes herself to be.

Compassion. The waterbender has too much compassion and it will lead her to her end.

Azula waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Finally, after letting Katara enjoy the luxury of the dungeons, Azula returns. She enters, has the door locked behind her, and stands still, arms crossed.

She knows she will do her best not uttering a word.

And, lo and behold, it works.

"I… I reconsidered," says Katara. "It's worth it to see him… one last time. I just want to make sure he's okay, and I trust myself enough to know I'm not on your side."

"Not yet, at least," purrs Azula.

She smirks at her ghost.

Ty Lee smiles back.

Katara is allowed to see Zuko.

Zuko is allowed to see Katara.

Cold months of rebellion attacks and tiring war meetings pass.

Fire Lord Azula finds little use for her prisoners and less use for her ghost. She just waits for something better to happen. Perhaps another strange dream. Instead, she just tries to strike back against the people her father ordered her to fight.

Azula goes through the same routine of gradually being sucked into her ghost further and further. She might as well be a captive of Ty Lee's conscious at this point, but she pretends that she can resist.

She avoids Zuko. Avoids the water girl.

Azula only waits, because that is all she can do while she fights the rebellion.

It happens. Azula is admittedly quite shocked. She did not expect anything to come of following her ghost and dream's advice. She expected to just keep drifting through the world, pretending to care about the Fire Nation's regime and sleeping with randoms.

The palace healer decides he ought to step in to have an audience with the Fire Lord and says quite confidently, "The prisoner is pregnant. The waterbender."

Azula turns to Ty Lee. "Is that what you meant?"

"Your—your highness?" he stammers.

Azula quickly switches conversations and corrects herself. "Is that what you mean to tell me? That she's pregnant? You act so cavalier and calm about this."

"I don't—I don't want to offend you, your highness."

Ty Lee interjects, "She doesn't want to end up executed, I bet. But you don't need a translation; you're kinda the smartest person I know."

"Of course," says Azula to Ty Lee, then she hastily turns to Xen, "Commander Xen. Of course you don't want to offend me. No one remotely intelligent would."

"Right," he says nervously.

"I want to see her," Azula demands.

"Of course, your highness."

Azula gazes at her ghost for several long moments before she steps down from her throne.