Chapter Text
“Why did they name this place Amber Island?” Azula mumbles against the car window, her expression pinched as she watches the gravel and sand and fluffy seagrass transition into concrete and asphalt. “It’s like they didn’t even try to give this place its own personality. I’m surprised Ember Island hasn’t sued.”
“They don’t need to. I mean, look at the kind of customers they’re missing out on.”
“Did you see how that sidewalk just ended? It’s like they gave up on the infrastructure planning halfway.”
“If I ever do have a wedding, I won't force anyone to travel to attend it.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that. Because you’re a decent person,” she clarifies. “Not because you wouldn’t ever get married.”
“Please,” he chortles, which squeezes a little smile out of Azula, and yeah. That’s all right.
---
“Why do we live, Azula?” Sokka mumbles into his half-full little bottle of complimentary wine.
Azula thumps her head against the headrest of her seat on their flight. “Agni fuck, Sokka.”
“I’m serious. I mean,” Sokka gestures with the tiny bottle, “the work we do isn’t meaningful, not in any big sense. The connections we make eventually die. Everything we build gets burned to the ground. Meaning is a myth.”
“I was so enjoying the silence.”
“It—” Sokka shifts, the remaining wine in his bottle sloshing. “It has to be that it isn’t a myth, not for everyone. It has to be that within the myth, there’s a sliver of truth, and you have to believe in that little sliver. Come what may. Despite the rational mind. No—listen. Because—because if you—if you don’t, the myth just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“I don’t understand wine bottles with screw caps. What the fuck is up with this?” Azula examines her own unopened bottle with quiet fury.
“And you also have to encourage others to believe the myth, because if they believe, they can do anything! They can laugh, hope, learn new skills. Vote. Get married. But if they don’t, they can—they can only make themselves as minimally happy and comfortable as possible.”
“For me, a wine bottle with a screw cap will always carry the stench of chintziness. I mean, it’s not like I love cork in particular. Have you seen it on the soles of womens’ shoes? Ridiculous. But when it comes to wine, I find cork to be necessary. It conveys a certain élan.”
“What if we’re falling in love?”
Azula gives up with a sigh. “Don’t be absurd.”
“What if love comes for everyone? What if no one is immune to it, not even us?”
She turns her steady golden gaze on him. “Stop it.”
“Don’t you think it would be some kind of cosmic crime to not acknowledge the miracle that happened between us?”
“It was not a miracle. I actually found it to be much closer to a debacle.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t you find it to be the teensiest bit miraculous that two people like us developed any sort of bond?”
“On the contrary. I find it to be debacle-ous.”
“It was a miracle,” Sokka insists doggedly. “It required so many things to line up. Being seated together on the plane and at the welcome dinner, adjoining hotel rooms, a near-death experience—I mean, what else are you waiting for? A burning bush?”
Azula looks at him blankly. “What does a burning bush have to do with—you know what, nevermind. It doesn’t matter. I can’t believe you’re bringing this up again. I thought we’d formed an understanding! Come to an agreement! Sokka, we’re less than an hour away from parting as friends.”
“Okay but deep down, in your broken, miserable gut, don’t you want something that’s pure? Beautiful?”
Azula crosses her arms, a picture of stubbornness. “No.”
“Don’t you secretly want to have a life that confirms all of your wildest hopes and dreams, instead of a life that only confirms your cynicism?”
“No.”
“Don’t you want to believe that things like what happened between us could actually, really happen?”
“No. I’m fond of my cynicism. It’s very comfortable.”
“Yeah?” Sokka downs another gulp of wine. “Like a warm blanket of your own shit?”
“Yes,” Azula snaps, “I’m very comfortable and warm in my fucking blanket of my own fucking shit.”
“What if this is what it’s like, falling in love?” Sokka sighs. “Is this what it’s like? I mean, no one has ever described it to me in a clear way before.”
“It would end in disaster, Sokka.”
“What if it didn’t?”
“It would.”
“You can’t die jumping out of a basement window, you know.”
“Yes you can. You could hit your head on a pipe on your way out, or accidentally inhale leaked gas while you’re trying to get the window open.”
“You’re gonna wish you embraced the miracle, Azula. I’m telling you, you’re gonna wish you had.”
Azula glares at him, then glares out the window, then rips the screw cap off her bottle and downs the wine in one go.
---
“We shouldn’t exchange contact information,” Sokka mumbles. It comes out sounding like a question.
Azula peers up at him over the rim of her sunglasses. “There’s no point.”
“Well, uh.” He adjusts the position of his luggage next to his feet, before pulling himself up straight. “It was very nice to meet you.”
A taxi stops next to them as Azula finally smiles. “It was very nice to meet you, too.”
Sokka gestures at the taxi. “Ladies first?”
“Oh, my personal driver is coming to get me.”
“Of course you have a personal driver.”
Azula’s smile turns into a smirk as she flicks a lock of hair over her shoulder. “Of course.”
“Why didn't we meet seven years earlier, Azula?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
She stands aside to watch as Sokka wrestles his rebellious carry-on into the trunk.
“Fourteen Bhanti Drive, please,” Sokka tells the driver as he climbs into the back seat.
“What’re you doing?” Azula demands, leaning down and fixing him with a disapproving gaze. “Don’t give your exact address. You don’t know who the driver is.”
The driver very tactfully does not react. Sokka leans out the open door to grin up at Azula. “Thank you for caring.”
“I would have said the same to anyone.”
“We’re holding up the taxi line, Azula. There are other people in this world, you know.”
“Are there.” Azula pushes off the door frame, her hand falling to her side. Sokka slams the door shut, and the taxi driver takes that as his cue to leave.
Sokka twists around in his seat to watch as Azula grows smaller and smaller in the distance, a black smudge in the sunny airport tableau. On impulse, he rolls down the window, shoves his arm out, and flips her off. She enthusiastically waves her middle finger back at him.
He can’t see her face now, but he imagines that she’s smiling.
---
“Hello, Uncle.”
“Azulaaa! You didn’t say goodbye before you left!”
“Are you drunk?”
“Not at all! Did you know that this resort has a weekly Pai Sho night?”
“You’re still on that godsforsaken island?”
“Wh—I’ll have you know, I met a very nice lady yesterday, one of Suki’s friends, and I’m spending an extra day or two here with her—the tea here isn’t so bad, you know—and I am aware of how you feel about Zuko’s wife, but trust me, Mingxia is a very nice lady, very classy—”
“Uncle, you do realize she’s probably just hoping to use you as a cash cow.”
“Now, niece, you know I’m smarter than that. Permit an old man to have his fun before his impending death, won’t you? Anyway, I didn’t call to talk about myself. I saw that Socks fellow carrying you to the ceremony.”
“You did?”
“Zuko did, too.”
“Was he livid?”
“Zuko was many things.”
“I see. Thank you for telling me, Uncle. I do appreciate it.”
“And what’s this I hear about you wandering off to engage in a romantic rendezvous on the beach…?”
“I’m going to kill Haru.”
“So he wasn’t lying! Ho ho. Is this Socks young man with you now? May I speak to him?”
“We’re not together. We parted as friends.”
“What? But—why?”
“You know my position on these things, Uncle.”
“Niece—(just one second, my delectable little Chuli peach, I’ll be right there)—niece, you know I’ve made a point to never tell you what to do.”
“Because you’re a coward.”
“Because it’s important for you to make your own choices! But let me tell you—it is a horrible, horrible thing to grow old with nothing but your regrets for company. Now I have to go—Mingxia is very persistent, ho ho—but Azula, do not grow old with regrets, do you understand? It’s why I'm staying on this island for a few extra days with a woman who likely only wants me for my money, and it’s why I didn’t sever contact with your father after all of his bullshit, and it’s why I’m calling you now.”
“...I see.”
“Good night, niece, I love you, I’ll call you—(just a second, my darling little cherry tart, I’m almost done)—I’ll call you when I’m back in town.”
“Good night, Uncle. I love you, too.”
---
When someone knocks on his front door late that night, Sokka emerges from half-consciousness, barefoot, slightly drunk. Did he order takeout? He might’ve ordered takeout.
He opens the door and freezes mid-yawn.
Neither of them move. Then, brandishing a bar of the same chocolate they’d had in her hotel room, she gestures angrily at what appears to be a brand-new suitcase, sleek and black and very Azula, at her side. “I got you a new suitcase.”
“Oh.” Sokka abruptly loses feeling in his feet. He frantically interrogates his mind for something to say. “Oh. I.”
Her hair is tied back in a high, loose knot. He hasn’t seen her wear it like that before. She keeps her expression carefully schooled as she says: “That’s all. Good night.”
“Wait!”
She stops halfway down the steps. A car is idling at the end of the driveway—her personal driver, maybe? Fuck that guy, Sokka thinks, and he suddenly realizes that he’s grinning.
He steps to the side and tilts his chin. “Do you wanna come in?”