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Sokka had just finished digging a hole in the snow to get to the water and was about the cut a hole in the ice.
A few days prior, the young man had decided to take a well-deserved break from the political life of the tribe and had gone on an extended fishing trip.
Now Sokka could finally enjoy some peace and quiet. All alone.
A lone hunter bravely facing the wilderness.
A sudden explosion made him look up towards the sky.
Sokka’s eyes widened in surprise as a watched a giant fireball crossing the light blue sky above him. From what he could see, the fireball appeared to be a Fire Nation hot air balloon that had completely caught on fire.
The balloon went down and landed in the snow in a fiery blaze.
There were no reasons for a Fire Nation balloon to be at the South Pole. The war was long over and Zuko was not due for a visit as far as Sokka knew. No, that flight was unsanctioned and Sokka had to find out what was going on.
Sokka started running towards the crash site and for a second he was reminded of that fateful day the Fire Nation attacked his village and the death of his mother.
However, Sokka had no time to dwell on the past now. He made his way to the balloon, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve to protect himself from the thick smoke. The hot air balloon was burning down entirely and there was nothing Sokka could do to stop it.
Despite the thick smoke, Sokka caught some movement from the corner of his eyes. He got closer, carefully avoiding the flames and realized that there was a woman lying down unconscious in the middle of the raging inferno, her long dark hair covering her face.
Sokka did not know who that person was but there was no time to think. He grabbed the woman by the armpits and dragged her as far away as possible from the fire. When he was far enough, Sokka let go of the woman and fell on the ground, breathless.
The woman groaned.
“Are you all right?” Sokka asked.
He got on his knees and pushed some hair away from the woman’s face. Her face was as cold as ice.
“Azula?” he exclaimed, immediately taking a step back.
Azula’s eyes opened wide and her fist went flying, producing a meager flame that did not even reach Sokka. Then, Azula’s eyes rolled back in her skull and she passed out.
Sokka could not believe his back luck. Of all the people who could have had – literally – crashed his fishing trip, it had to be the Fire Nation Princess herself!
Despite his distrust of the firebender, Sokka could not in good conscience leave Zuko’s sister to fend off for herself. Azula would most probably die out there if Sokka did not come to her rescue. He sighed and got up. Then, he scooped Azula’s legs up and carried her in his arms all the way back to his camp.
ooo
Sokka had built an igloo to shelter himself for the cold. The igloo was spacious enough for one but immediately became too cramped with another person there. A fire had been burning in the middle of the room for a few days, offering some welcomed warmth.
Sokka carried Azula inside and unceremoniously dropped her on a rug near the fire. She let out a groan but did not wake up. She probably was exhausted.
Sokka wondered how a master firebender like Azula could have miscalculated and burned down her own hot air balloon. And what had she been doing flying over the South Pole in the first place?
Azula groaned and slowly opened her eyes.
“Where am I?” she asked quietly.
She felt groggy. She glanced at the young man in front of her and sighed.
“Oh, it’s you.”
Sokka huffed. “Thank you for saving my life, Sokka. That was so brave of you, Sokka.”
Azula rolled her eyes. He chose to ignore the obvious disgust on her face and instead presented a cup to her.
“Here, drink this. It’s hot, it’ll warm you right up,” Sokka told her.
Azula recoiled immediately. “What is it? Are you trying to poison me?”
Sokka rolled his eyes. “I’m not trying to poison you, for crying out loud. You need to get warm.”
Azula was still looking at him with distrust in her eyes and Sokka was not having it.
“Look, you can either shut up and accept my help or go back outside and freeze your little firebender’s butt off. I don’t care.”
Azula huffed but finally took the offered drink. She raised it to her nose and made a point of sniffing it to make sure it was not poisoned before taking a sip. She immediately coughed and groaned in disgust.
“Huh, what is that?” she exclaimed.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Your Fieriness. This lowly peasant only has melted ice to offer you.”
Azula glared at the cup in her hands. “You could have at least offered me some tea.”
“I don’t have tea!” Sokka exclaimed, waving his arms around. “We’re in the middle of nowhere! Where would I even get tea?”
Azula took another sip of the tasteless warm water and stared vacantly as Sokka kneeled down and rummaged through his bags.
“Ah, here it is,” he exclaimed before getting up. “Here, you need to eat,” he told her.
Azula made a face but took the offered food without putting up a fight. She stared at the stick of dry meat in her hand, pondering if she was hungry and desperate enough to put that thing in her mouth.
Sokka sat down opposite to her.
“What were you doing out there?” he asked.
“Sightseeing,” Azula answered coldly. “What do you think I was doing? I crash-landed. Obviously.”
“Obviously…”
Azula took another sip of warm water and looked around the room.
“What is this place? Do you live here?”
An igloo in the middle of nowhere was probably not up to standards for the Fire Nation Princess but it was no excuse for her disdain.
“Hey, I built this myself, show some respect.” Azula glared at him and Sokka gulped. “I mean, it’s not as grand as what you’re used to but it beats freezing to death outside, doesn’t it?”
Azula huffed. “I’m not so sure about that.”
Spirits, what had Sokka got himself into?
She’s Zuko’s sister, he told himself. You can’t let her die. She’s Zuko’s sister.
Sokka crossed the room and kneeled down in front of her. He extended a hand towards her but she recoiled immediately.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“You were freezing when I found you,” he explained. “I’m just checking your temperature.”
“Touch me and I’ll burn your hand off.”
Sokka rolled his eyes and pressed his palm against her forehead. “Whatever you- Ow!” he yelped. “You’re burning up!”
Sokka waved his hand around before pressing it against the icy floor.
Azula frowned. “I feel fine.”
“Are you kidding?” he exclaimed. “Is that a firebender thing? How is your brain not fried right now?”
Sokka unwrapped the cloth strap around his arm, filled it with snow he scooped up from the ground and pressed it against Azula’s forehead. Azula’s eyes crossed as she looked at Sokka’s hand but she did not say a word. She did not even try to burn Sokka’s hand off, which he appreciated.
“If you weren’t a firebender, your brain would have melted right off.”
“Is that why you’re an idiot?” she said, deadpan. “Your brain melted off?”
Sokka froze. Then he burst out laughing.
“Ah, good one.”
He was still pressing the cloth to her forehead and suddenly realized how close they were standing. He was lucky Azula did not seem to be in a mood to kill anyone. She was probably still a bit confused and disoriented.
“Here,” he said, grabbing her hand and pressing it against her own forehead.
Sokka sat back down, as far away from Azula as he could in that tiny igloo.
“You still haven’t explained what you were doing flying out here,” he told her.
“And I’m not going to,” she said plainly.
Sokka almost smiled. She was doing her best to appear calm and collected but the snow had started to melt and was running down her face. Sokka noticed she was not wearing any make-up for once and she looked almost youthful and innocent.
He was staring.
Azula looked away. “I think I’m going to lie down for a bit.”
Sokka took a spare sleeping bag from his bag and handed it to her. He tried not to stare as she slipped inside and turned his back to him.
Despite her fever, Azula did not appear to be sick. She was exhausted and obviously malnourished. When Sokka had carried her inside, he had immediately noticed how light she was in his arms.
Even though Sokka doubted Azula would try to kill him in his sleep, it took him a very long time to fall asleep and once he did, his dreams were plagued by fire and death.
ooo
When Sokka opened his eyes the next morning, he immediately jumped out of his sleeping bag, boomerang in hand. He stared at Azula’s sleeping form for a moment, willing his heartbeat to slow down. There was nothing to fear.
Right, he thought, lowering his mighty weapon. Azula. Crash. Fire.
The events of the day before were not a fever dream after all. Sokka had not been high on cactus juice. He had not been hallucinating. The Princess of the Fire Nation was in fact sleeping peacefully, all bundled up in Sokka’s spare sleeping bag. She had drawn the edge of the sleeping bag and the extra fur on top of her up to her nose. Sokka wondered if she was even able to breathe but he knew that firebenders had issues keeping warm surrounded by so much ice and that she was trying to keep the cold away.
Sokka decided to let her sleep some more and stepped outside as quietly as possible. He was not willing to take the risk of waking her up and be on the receiving end of her fiery anger.
He took a few steps away from the igloo towards the hole he had dug in the snow the day prior. If he was lucky he would manage to catch a fish for breakfast.
A few minutes later, Sokka heard footsteps in the snow and turned around as Azula made her way to him. She had borrowed one of his thickest fur coats and was practically drowning in it. Sokka looked at her feet and realized she was still wearing her Fire Nation-made shoes.
Azula almost tripped in the snow.
“I have another pair of boots you can wear,” he told her.
“What are you doing?”
“Fishing. That’s why I’m out here instead of back home enjoying a home-made meal.”
Azula frowned. “How can you fish here? There’s nothing but ice.”
Sokka raised a finger in the air. “That’s because we need to cut a hole into the ice first,” he told her, pointing at the hole in front of him.
Sokka had already started digging a hole into the snow the day before. Now he only needed to pierce through the ice with a stick and start fishing. He turned away from Azula to grab his spear from the ground and when he glanced back at Azula, the princess had pressed her hand against the ice and was melting it using firebending.
“Like this?” she asked once she was done.
She stood back up and crossed her arms. Sokka gulped as he glanced at the melted ice.
“Yeah, that works too, I guess.”
Sokka placed the bait in the water and sat down next to the hole in the ground. To his surprise, Azula sat down next to him.
Sokka stared at the water, spear in hand, waiting for a fish to take the bait.
“So… what are you going to do?” Sokka asked after a while. “Your balloon is out of commission and I don’t think we’ll be able to repair it.” Azula glanced at him without a word. “Huh, I was planning on staying out here for a couple weeks but I can take you back to the village if you want.”
Azula shrugged and looked away. “Whatever. Nobody’s waiting for me anyway.”
She thrust her arm forward suddenly and blasted a ball of fire at the water. Sokka moved his feet away to avoid the burning heat.
“I’m sure Zuko would-” he started to say.
Azula glared at him. “Don’t.”
Sokka threw his arms up in the air. “All right, I’ll stay quiet. This is not how you catch a fish, by the way,” he pointed out.
Azula huffed and wrapped both her arms around her knees. “How do you do it, then?”
She was obviously being sarcastic but Sokka immediately launched into a lengthy explanation anyway.
ooo
Sokka was feeling out of sort. The fact that Azula was willing to spend two whole weeks on a fishing trip with him would have weirded him out anyway but his feeling of unease was made worse by Azula’s mere presence. Any time Sokka and Azula had spent time together, they had been enemies or reluctant allies and Sokka was not used to having a civil conversation with the Fire Nation Princess.
Azula had saved Sokka’s life once, when they had been looking for her mother. Azula had prevented some vines from attacking him, burning them with her firebending. She had also zapped him using lightning when he had threatened her with his boomerang. The two of them had a difficult relationship to say the least but Sokka was willing to put the past behind them. He was not sure Azula was willing to do the same, though.
When Azula crawled into his sleeping bag that very evening, Sokka had to fight every instincts in his body telling him that she was trying to roast him alive. Her hand brushed against his bare arm. It was freezing. Now that she was so close to him, Sokka realized that her teeth were chattering.
“How do you live like this,” she mumbled.
“I thought firebenders ran hot,” Sokka pointed out.
Azula huffed. “I’m not feeling all that hot right now.”
Sokka chuckled and tugged on the fur cover on top of them until it covered Azula’s head.
“There, there. Try to sleep.”
What Sokka did not know was that Azula was having issues keeping her internal fire going ever since she had run into the Sun Warriors.
Azula had been travelling the world on her own for years with her hot air balloon, enjoying her hard earned freedom. Surprisingly, she had been enjoying being a nobody; just another face in the crowd. She had travelled to the edge of the world and back. She had spent time in the Earth Kingdom. She had met a various range of people, from simple peasants to traveling bards; she had been roped into helping children and elders more than once; she had fought bandits and pirates and, on one memorable occasion, had gone toe to toe with a wild saber-tooth moose lion.
Azula had not been the Fire Nation Princess for years. She had let go of her destiny and had no idea where she was going in life but she had decided to focus less on where and more on the going.
Her travels had led her exactly where she needed to go and she had found the Sun Warriors just a few weeks prior.
Azula had fallen to her knees in front of the two dragons and had cried for the first time in years. The dragons had shown her a side of firebending she had never thought about before. They had shown her light. They had shown her life itself. In that moment she had realized that her father had been wrong about the very nature of firebending. There was no aggression. There was no fear. There was only warmth.
If Azula’s father had been wrong about firebending, who knew what other things he had been wrong about? He might have been wrong about Azula herself. She might not be as strong as her father had thought.
Azula had had issues controlling her firebending ever since meeting the dragons. Her internal fire was in turn weak and incredibly strong and she could not control it. That was the reason why her hot air balloon had crashed. She had lost control, the fabric had caught on fire and the whole thing had come crashing down, nearly killing her.
All her life Azula had tried to be perfect. The perfect daughter, the perfect princess, the perfect firebender. Now she was starting to see that her whole life had been a lie.
ooo
The next morning, Sokka woke up with a start when he heard someone scream. He grabbed his boomerang and ran outside, ready to strike. To his surprise, Azula was not getting mauled by a bear. She was crouching with her back to Sokka and seemed perfectly fine.
She was singing. Well… screeching.
“SECRET TUNNEL, SECRET TUNNEL!”
Sokka rubbed his eyes with one hand and stared, at a loss for word.
“What are you doing?” he finally asked.
Azula turned around and Sokka could not help the scream that came out of his mouth when he saw her. Her front was covered in blood and slime as she proudly held a gutted fish in her hand; its inside slowly spilling on the ground.
“I caught a fish!” she exclaimed.
Sokka was taken aback by the childish pride radiating from her.
“That’s- huh- nice?” he said. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
Azula frowned. It looked like she had not been expecting that particular question.
“I’m not,” she simply said.
Sokka coughed awkwardly. “All right, then. I’m going back to bed. You’ve got something in your hair,” he added, pointing in the general direction of her face.
Sokka resisted the urge to get closer and get the blood out of her hair himself and instead turned around and went back inside.
ooo
Living in such close quarters, Sokka and Azula soon ran out of safe topics of conversations and realized that they could not tiptoe around their shared and antagonistic past together forever. Sokka told her about rescuing his dad from the Boiling Rock and Azula told him about taking Ba Sing Se.
“How did you get in?” she asked with a frown. “I know how you got out, obviously. But I never found out how you got in.”
Sokka shrugged. “We flew there with Zuko’s hot air balloon.”
Azula stared at him coldly. “You used a hot air balloon to fly over a boiling lake?” she asked. “Are you stupid?”
Sokka chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, we realized our mistake when we crash-landed.”
Azula huffed, turning up her nose. Then, she turned her sharp gaze to him and Sokka gulped.
“I didn’t find any wreckage,” she told him. “I should have found the wreckage.”
“That’s because I dumped it into the lake to hide the evidence,” Sokka explained.
“Smart move,” she acknowledged. “But my brother is still an idiot.”
“Give the guy some credit,” Sokka said, coming to his friend’s defense. “He’s pretty smart. Well, not as smart as me, obviously but-” Azula snorted loudly. “Hey! I’m pretty smart, all right? I led an invasion right into your home. What do you say to that, princess?”
Azula rolled her eyes at him. “Please, you only got that far because I let you.”
Sokka opened his mouth before closing it again and looked away.
“Right. How did you know about the invasion anyway?” he asked quietly.
“The Earth King told me,” Azula stated calmly.
“He did?”
“Although he thought I was a Kyoshi Warrior at the time. Your girlfriend’s getup might be ridiculous but it does provide an adequate cover.”
“Not my girlfriend anymore.”
Of all the things he could have said, that was what came out of his mouth.
There was something really weird about exchanging war stories around a campfire with his old enemy and Sokka was starting to lose his bearings. The fact that Azula was incredibly smart and beautiful was not helping him keep a level head.
“How did you get the Dai Lei on your side?” Sokka asked, looking away.
“I’m a people person.”
“Come on, tell me.”
Sokka listened raptly as Azula retold the way she had double-crossed Long Feng and taken control of the Dai Lei in Ba Sing Se. He would never admit it out loud but he was actually impressed by her intelligence and resilience. When they had been on opposite sides, Azula’s stubbornness had always worked against them but now Sokka was able to appreciate how truly smart and resourceful she was.
“Do you have a contingency plan for everyone on the team?” he asked her curiously.
Azula nodded. “I did. It changed a lot over the years as the Avatar became more powerful.”
Sokka rolled his eyes. “His name is Aang, you might want to start using it.”
Azula glared. “I know his name.”
“Do you have a contingency plan for me?” Sokka asked and Azula immediately scoffed. “What? I’m dangerous.”
“Please, all I had to do was mention your precious girlfriend and you immediately lost your head. You played right into my hands during the invasion. You were never a challenge.”
Sokka tried to hide a wince. The fact that he was not a bender made him insignificant in Azula’s eyes.
“Right. What about Aang? Would you use Katara against him like you did with Suki?”
“Of course not,” Azula said, rolling her eyes. “The Avatar’s love for his girlfriend only makes him stronger. No, if I had to use your sister I would make it look like she betrayed him. I would crush his spirit.”
Sokka huffed. “Nah, it would not work anyway. They’ve gone through too much together, you’d never break them apart.”
“Everyone can be broken,” Azula pointed out.
The statement should have been ominous but Sokka almost smiled. After spending so much time with her, Sokka was starting to realize that Azula was more bark than bite these days. She could threaten to roast him alive all she wanted but Sokka knew that she would not do it anyway.
“Whatever you say, princess.”
Azula bristled, opening her mouth to yell at him but she froze when she saw Sokka’s self-satisfied smirk.
“You firebenders are so easy to rill up,” he told her. “It’s not even a challenge anymore.”
“I’ll show you a challenge,” she exclaimed, creating a green flame inside the palm of her hand.
Sokka spared a few seconds to stare at the flame in Azula’s hand. The color was surprising to say the least. After all, Sokka had only ever seen Azula create blue flames before. He wondered if this new color had a hidden meaning.
“Cool it, princess,” he finally said, grabbing her wrist.
The flame died out the moment Sokka’s hand made contact with Azula’s skin. Azula immediately freed her wrist from Sokka’s grip and glared at him.
“I have seen things you wouldn’t even comprehend,” she told him coldly. “I have travelled to the edge of the world, I have seen ancient civilizations and-”
“Yeah, yeah, let me guess,” he said, waving his hand dismissingly. “You’ve met the Sun Warriors? Big deal.”
“How do you know about the Sun Warriors?” Azula growled.
“Relax, princess. Aang and Zuko went there years ago to learn firebending. Zuko was like ‘Oh, I can’t bend anymore’,” he said, lowering his voice in a truly appalling imitation of Zuko. “Personally, all I hear is ‘blah, blah, blah, fire, blah, blah, blah’.”
Azula frowned. Her brother had never mentioned the Sun Warriors to her. She had not realized that the reason Zuko had been so much stronger when he had faced her years before was because he had learned firebending from the masters. Meeting the dragons had made Zuko’s fire more powerful and Azula could not understand why it had made hers weaker. Her firebending had always been perfect. She had been strong and ruthless towards her opponents; deadly even. She did not understand why she had suddenly become so weak. Meeting the dragons had changed her; she was a different person and even her fire was different now.
It was weak.
She was weak.
ooo
One day, as both of them were fishing, Azula surprised Sokka by asking him how to use a boomerang.
Sokka frowned. “Let me get this straight. You want me to teach you how to use a boomerang?”
Azula looked at her nails nonchalantly. “I’ve recently come to realize that I shouldn’t solely rely on firebending to survive. I’ve seen that boomerang in action. It is… adequate.”
“Gee, thanks, princess.”
Sokka took his new role as a teacher very seriously and insisted on starting Azula’s training the very same day.
Azula was not used to being bad at anything. She had always been a prodigy, even as a very young child and she did not deal well with failure. She had always been too hard on herself.
After a few failed attempts, Sokka moved behind her and put his hands on her arm and shoulder, trying to get her into the proper stance.
“Try it now,” he said.
Azula threw the boomerang as far as she could and laughed happily when she saw it soaring through the air. Then her eyes got incredibly wide and she dodged as the boomerang came back. She did not even try to catch it and Sokka got hit in the face.
Azula snorted. Once. Twice. Then she started laughing, doubling over as her whole body shook. She looked at Sokka’s face and laughed some more.
“Yeah, yeah, very funny,” Sokka grumbled.
Azula’s eyes filled with tears as she laughed. Then, she suddenly froze as a snowball hit her right in the face.
“You didn’t,” she growled, glaring at Sokka.
“I think I just did.”
“You’re going to regret it, peasant.”
Sokka was expecting a snowball to the face in retaliation. He was not expecting Azula to jump on him, dragging them both to the ground. The two of them rolled around in the snow, shoving each other and trying to get the upper hand.
Azula finally climbed on top of him, straddling him and Sokka froze.
The next second, Azula went flying as a whip of water hit her.
Sokka looked around and saw Aang and Katara standing a few feet away from them. Sokka had been so engrossed in their playful fight that he had not even heard Appa landing in the snow.
“Katara!” Sokka exclaimed.
He glanced at Azula and realized that Katara had trapped the firebender with ice. He jumped on his feet and placed himself between his sister and Azula with his back to the firebender without even realizing it. He knew that Azula did not need him to protect her but he still felt the need to do it anyway.
“Katara! Let her go!”
Aang was looking incredibly confused. “Sokka, buddy, mind telling us what’s going on?”
Sokka ignored him as he glared at his sister. “Let her go.”
Azula closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she let out a roar as a tornado of fire formed around her, melting the ice in the space of a few seconds. Sokka looked over his shoulder at the tornado of red, yellow, green and purple fire around Azula.
Aang and Katara took a step back as Sokka stayed rooted into place, not believing his eyes.
Once she was free from her ice prison, Azula created two huge green flames in both her hands, looking at Katara with murder in her eyes. Katara lifted her arms in the air, gathering water around them.
“All right, stop it, both of you!” Aang exclaimed.
Katara was not backing down.
“I don’t trust her,” she said.
“She’s not a threat,” Sokka said. Then he saw Azula glaring at him menacingly. “Well, at least not right now. You can stop glaring at me now, princess.”
Katara’s hands were still raised menacingly and Azula was still nursing two strong green flames in hers. The two women were not about to back down that easily.
“Explain,” Katara told Sokka. “Now.”
“She crash-landed. She would have died, Katara.”
Azula scoffed. “I would have been fine.”
Sokka rolled his eyes. “For once in you life, Azula, just shut up.”
Azula eyes went wide in surprise. She was not used to people addressing her in such a way.
Sokka took a step towards his sister.
“Katara. No matter what happened in the past, she’s still Zuko’s sister. I couldn’t let her die.”
Katara finally lowered her arms but Sokka did not relax. His sister was still angry and obviously about to give him an earful.
Katara took a deep breath. “Do you have any idea how worried I was? Dad told me you went on a fishing trip and you hadn’t come home yet. You should have been back to the village days ago, Sokka. Dad was so worried something had happened to you that Aang and I volunteered to go check up on you and all this time you were sharing a house with Azula?”
Sokka winced. He should have known that Katara would be upset about Sokka and Azula sharing a house. In Southern Water Tribe tradition, couples were considered married simply once they started living together.
“It’s not like that,” Sokka mumbled but Katara ignored him.
“After all she did to us, after she hurt Aang and Zuko and almost killed me,” she went on. “How could you?”
“Katara, it’s not what you think, I swear. We would have gone back eventually.”
Azula huffed and crosses her arms over her chest.
“I’m not planning on staying here longer than necessary,” she pointed out.
“All right,” Aang exclaimed. His cheerful smile looked a bit strained. “Now that everything’s cleared up, why don’t you guys get your stuff and we’ll give you a lift back to the village.”
Sokka would never admit it but he was almost disappointed to have his trip cut short by Aang and Katara. He had got used to having Azula around for the past few days and would be sorry to see her go. To be honest, he was also worried about her wellbeing; after all, who knew what would happen to her after she left.
ooo
The journey back to the village was awkward to say the least. Katara refused to say a word to Sokka, and Aang tried to keep the conversation going but gave up after a few minutes.
Once they landed, Sokka and Azula headed for the port. Sokka was hesitant to let Azula leave on her own on a sailboat but the firebender had made it very clear she wanted to leave as soon as possible.
“Look,” Sokka told her. “We’re all going to the palace for the anniversary of Zuko’s coronation in a few weeks, you should come.”
Azula huffed. “What about your sister?”
“She might not want to see you there but I know Zuko does. Just- Think about it, all right?”
“I will.”
Sokka watched the sailboat disappear over the horizon, wondering why he was feeling so down at the idea of never seeing Azula again.