Avatar: Reborn in Ice and Blood

I don't need a dead princess on my hands as opposed to the live one. Surprisingly enough, that would me more of an inconvenience.

Accepting my own inadequacy is… painful.

It's been an enlightening time.

...

So, here we are, the three of us, in an inn for once, and me feeling distinctly glad for the bathhouse on the opposite side of the dirt-road. I've asked the kind old lady who rented us the room to look after the brat for a bit. She bought the story of us fleeing from the Fire Nation without a doubt. And we are. Just for different reasons than she thinks.

Removing my mask for the first time in weeks for longer than it takes to wash my face or take a bite of food, I breathe deeply through my mouth. This has been a journey and a half. I haven't had the fun kind of female company, I've played surrogate parent to a brat I didn't father and a weird kind of minder for Azula. I deserve this break.

I sink into the steaming water, oddly enough alone for now, and lean my arms over the sides of the large basin.

I am, for once, alone in a room.

And suddenly, I have the desire for company, for voices to drown out my thoughts instead of my expected desire to use the opportunity for some me-and-my-other-neglected-bodily-appendages-time.

Drinking has always been a good coping mechanism for that, and the old lady did say to go indulge. I could, perhaps, even get laid. There are a few pretty young things in town, and so long as I'm not destroying anyone's future, I'll gladly have a go.

...

Turns out hitting on the mayor's daughter gets you privileges. Because she's misunderstood me.

Azula is snickering at my situation. The mayor's daughter, Teyumi, has decided that I am apparently testing the waters for a courting.

And, because I've promised the kind old lady from the inn some work in exchange for our stay, I'm sort of forced to go along with it. To a degree. I'm very evasive to meeting her parents, and Teyumi thinks I'm intimidated. Kind as she believes herself to be, she doesn't force me. Instead, we spend cutesy picnic dates with Tom-Tom, whom she adores.

The brat is soaking up all the attention. I swear he looks smug every time she hugs him to her ample chest. The brat and I will have words when this is over. Preferably out of Azula's far too nosy earshot.

I contemplated seduction.

But this is the kind of woman who will hunt me down for revenge if I do sully her innocence, of which I had no idea when I propositioned her subtly, and I don't have the patience for that. I'll never marry in this world, not until I know some things with certainty. It would be a world of pain, and for all that it teaches, I don't appreciate the lessons it's been doling out so far more than for their deductive value.

And, Azula does have some kind of moral code when it comes to courtships, the hypocritical witch. Which means, she sort of encourages Teyumi. It makes me wonder whether she would prefer to settle somewhere for the duration it takes me to figure out her head.

"No," she says, when I ask, with a scowl on her face that makes her look her mental age, "They'll catch up to us."

I don't need to ask whom she's talking about. There are rumours of a Fire Nation convoy following our trail. Not, that the people telling me those rumours know it's us they're looking for.

"So long as we don't leave the country, and in secret at that, they will inevitably find us," I say, and she crosses her arms over her chest, looking away. On any other face, it would've looked childish, but on Azula, I've noticed, anything looks imperious. But, I find petulance doesn't suit her. "All we can do, is control the setting when they do."

This catches her attention, and she glances back at me from the corner of her eye, looking away as soon as she spies the brat attempting to scale my shoulders. She, for all that she looks the part of a princess, even in disguise, has a problem with others receiving attention. And, since I've made it perfectly clear that I will give a baby the attention he needs, she's decided not to give him more.

As if it made a difference to the brat. He seems to dislike her. Naturally, she's decided that the feeling's mutual.

Not, that I blame him, when I recall how she decided he wasn't worth trading Bumi for. Not, that I can't understand her reasoning. I just would've gotten him back differently than a hostage exchange. Hostages, I've found, are far more trouble than they're worth, anyway.

"We'll have to move on from here soon, a day after tomorrow at the latest, I'd say. But from here on out, I would be on the lookout for suitable locations for meeting them. Locations that we can easily leave behind, if things don't go as we want them to."

"And how do we want them to go?" she asks, suspicious of my motives. Which she is right to be. Which also plays into my hands. I need to unload one of my burdens.

As much as I would like it to be Azula, it will have to be the brat. Looking after them both is exhausting, and practising my fine-control bending on a capillary level doesn't help with that.

I lift my shoulders, simultaneously making the brat fail, and annoy Azula with my lack of poise. "Either we get them to leave us alone for the time being. Or we secure ourselves a protection detail. One which I might add, won't consist of more than your friends, if I have anything to say about it, and at the moment, I'm the only one who does."

Getting her to agree is a struggle and a half, even if essentially, it's also what she wants. She dislikes me just enough to want to make everything into a fight. She's slowly but surely getting a handle on how to control her bending.

Trying to burn my face off has a lot to do with that. I'm just glad she has the sense not to try while the brat sits on my shoulders. I have a suspicion that it has more to do with Mai than the child himself. She does feel genuine emotion towards Mai and Circus Girl. I think. Maybe? I'm basing this thesis on how deeply their betrayal at the hot springs prison must have cut.

Monsters come with every colour eye, every shape of face, every kind of body.

Take me, for example. I'm trying to reshape the future by means that anyone who isn't part monster wouldn't be able to stomach. I've beheaded a man, and traumatised many others.

It won't be the end of it, either.

...

Azula and I leave the village in the dead of night, and back on the road she reverts back to a bratty child. I hadn't noticed how much more bearable she was with the comforts of a roof over her head and access to a bath. It's odd, how we interact. I tell her to do something, she refuses and says I should be the one to do it, then I make a comment that embarrasses her, and she does it herself. This repeats itself over the course of the day five to twenty times.

In the beginning, this was exhausting, but it became a routine of sorts, and I have a feeling if we let it be for a day, I'd feel like something was missing.

It reminds me, once again, of something I once read, Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensation for misery. Fitting, in a sense, I believe, for most people who haven't had their midlife crises yet, to tell them that 'no, you're not happy with how things are, and you're going to have to change that'. Fitting for Azula in the sense that she has found delight in other's misery, and takes action whenever she can to further it, so that she might feel better about herself and her life.

She's a creature that thrives on a feeling of superiority.

It's too bad that, for now, I'm the one with all the power.

We decide on a village so small it's barely worthy of the name for the confrontation with Mai and Circus Girl. With forest all around, we have good chances of escape, especially with the river nearby.

Five days of stationary waiting by the riverbank, which I use to practise my precise bloodbending, even in daylight, although it's fairly exhausting, and I should be saving my strength for when Azula's friends arrive. I find it imperative that I get rid of her as soon as possible, and I'm fairly sure that removing that clot will be a large step towards her recovery.

During this time, Azula herself practises her own bending, and the brat learns to toddle. I manage to keep an eye on him while I practise, since by now I can feel when humans are in my vicinity when I bloodbend.

Mai and Circus Girl arrive suddenly, without preamble, and it's only my quick reflexes that allow me to roll out of the way of a few punches and stilettos, even as I grab the brat from his attempts at running along the riverbank. Azula, too, I note with some slight surprise and wariness, is geared for a fight.

Two steps backwards, and I am ankle-deep in the water. This is my territory, and Circus Girl will have to be very careful if she wants to engage here. A small fist curls itself into my shirt.

So, this is how we warily begin to talk.

...

Don't forget to throw some power stones :)

...

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