Chapter Text
Everyone would think that years dealing with spirits would leave him unable to be surprised by their eccentricities, but for Aang, every time he found a new spirit, he found out once again how much influence they have on the human realm
Now, seeing the girl who killed him, not a day older than when she disappeared, seeing her as old as his own little girl makes him wonder everything he ever thought.
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Azula looks strange at the group in front of her
A woman in red, who was closer than the rest, moved her arm as fast as Azula could barely see it
Before she knew anything else, the princess was trapped in a tree, a knife kept her in place thanks to her clothes.
“What kind of joke is this?!” Mai screamed at the girl, “What are YOU doing here?!”
Azula's head was still too fuzzy to understand what the woman meant.
“Mai stop!” the acrobat interposed between them, “She was trapped." Ty Lee put her hand over the princess's shoulder, "in the spirit dream like me.”
“Spirit dream?” Someone asked from behind, “That's where she was, all this time.” Ty Lee empathized, looking back at Azula's face.
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The travel back to the fire nation was quiet; they left the lost travelers in the nearest city with strict instructions to help them get back home or find them a new place to call home.
Suki and Mai sit closer to Ty Lee. They miss her more than everyone; they're happy that she was safe, but the presence of the lost princess was disturbing enough to make them not want to make any movement.
Azula was sitting close to the tail of Appa, her hands were stuck thanks to a pair of handcuffs Toph made with rocks, the eyes of the teenager avoided everyone. Before looking directly at the eyes of Ty Lee, “ What were you talking about before? What happened?”
Everyone looked at the pair nervously. The girl was just a teenager, but she was still Azula.
Ty Lee was about to open her mouth when Zuko interrupted, “You disappeared, Azula, for twenty years.” “You left without a trace, we thought you were dead,” Katara completed.
Azula looks at them with annoyance.
“Dead? Really, Zuzu, you have that little faith in me?”
Zuko, exasperated by the mention of the soubriquet, screamed, “AND WHAT YOU EXPECTED ME TO BELIEVE?! THE LAST THING I HEARD FROM YOU WAS THAT YOU WERE LEFT ALONE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOREST AND THEN NOTHING FOR YEARS!!”
“We search for you, everywhere,” Suki interrupted in an attempt to calm the waters. “Not everywhere,” Azula answered, looking directly into Ty Lee's eyes
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“Soooooo… spirit dream?” Sokka says, looking at Ty Lee, “What do you mean by that?”
“Sokka!”Katara shouted, “Don't ask me not to ask! You can't say that any of you aren't curious!” he responded by throwing his hands in defense.
“Wait…none of you got a spirit dream? I thought you guys slept in the temple too.” Ty Lee moved her head, looking at everyone with curiosity.
“I got a dream, but I don't know if it was a SPIRIT dream,” Toph said, moving her hand in front of her face as if it was obvious.
Ty Lee nodded at this.
“It's hard to explain it…” Ty Lee answered, “When you're in it, you don't want to leave, it gives you all you've ever wanted, so you don't need to leave... You don't want to.”
As she said this last thing, she shot a look at Azula. The princess still refuses to do any contact with anyone “ You keep forgetting why you're there, how the people look, Agni, I even sometimes I forgot who I was!” Ty Lee exclaimed in high voice emphasizing the confusion for the experience in her voice, just to be followed by the acrobat retreating her legs in fetus position and saying in almost a whisper “You're only sure that you want to stay there…forever.”
A strong silence fills the place; no one on the team avatar knows how to react to this.
“I think I get it,” Katara said, finally breaking the silence, “I remember some briefs of seeing my mother in my dream, I guess I wasn't trapped long enough to experience all that.”
“But why does she do that?” Aang wonders.
“I don't know,” the acrobat answered, not looking anyone in the eye while she said that
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Zuko never expected to see her sister again… and now he is in a mess
“Zuko, can you help me here?” The monk called over his shoulder to the Scarface
Zuko moved right to the side of the avatar who was piloting the skybison.
His hands were handing the rope with more force than necessary and his eyes seemed lost in memories before he opened his mouth to talk. “So… what are we gonna do?”
“What do you mean?” Answered the fire ruler raising an eyebrow in confusion.
“Azula Zuko, she's back, what are you gonna do?” the avatar said this with precision looking directly into Zuko's eyes, he knew that his answer to this could change everything.
“I was trying to not think about it, but we can maybe take her back to her old cell” the answer seemed to disappoint the airbender.
“You know we can't do that” he responds in a whisper “it would be the same as twenty years ago”.
“Well I can't let the other nations know that she's alive, it would be a disaster! People will ask where she was! Why does she still look like that?The succession would become catastrophic now with Azula. Will she be before Kiyi and Izumi or after? She's now younger than them? The earth kingdom will still want revenge against her?”
“What about your mother?” Aang interrupted, “She's been devastated since you declared Azula dead over a decade ago, will you keep this away from her?”
This left Zuko's without a word, he knows how hard hit his mother the Azula's disappearing, since they stop hearing of the princess, the old firelady has been extra focused on Kiyi like if she was overcompensing for her first daughter, Sometimes Mai saw her in the old Azula's room looking at the sheets with nostalgia and something indescribable in her eyes, gladly these visits have been reduced to one or two a year but Ursa still won't let him reuse Azula's room.
“We can help her” the avatar start again “your sister needs help then and probably still need it now, and we can help her better than then”
“Why do you think this could work?” Zuko asked abruptly “this is Azula we're talking about, she didn't accept our help then, why would she do it now?”
“Zuko” Aang started “ I'm going to say this honestly because you're my friend” The firelord raised an eyebrow at this but let the avatar continue “We didn't help her at all the last time, she end up throwing fire at Ursa and she was crying without end”
Aang took a deep breath before continuing “and she kept asking Ursa why she didn't love her enough and maybe it's because she's isn't look older than Kya or Izumi but as a parent I couldn't live in peace if my daughter say something like that and I can't imagine how hurt she was to say something like that”
Zuko sighs after hearing the airbender discourse, “Listen Aang, I get it you want to help but are you sure about this? She's still Azula”
Aang glanced a look to the small teenager in the back, she looked out of place, she just escaped the spirit but she's still trapped in a world she isn't part of anymore.
“After whatever that was I believe she deserves a another chance ”