Chapter Text
The pain isn't actually as bad as he'd been expecting. It hurts, sure, he's not going to pretend getting seven kinds of crap beat out of him is fun, not now, not when there's nobody to perform to, but. But he's alive, that's the thing. He'd been half-expecting to get killed on the spot.
He stretches out on the thin plank that he guesses is supposed to be a bed, and counts the bricks on the cell wall. It distracts from the way his knee keeps throbbing.
The morning comes, and he's just about to see if he can stand on both legs again when the door to the cell bursts open, and suddenly there's guards, three of them, and his hand reaches for a sword that's not there any more and a spear jabs through the bars of his cage and hovers menacingly at his throat. A second spear, on the other side, makes it clear that what he's supposed to do here is stand perfectly still.
It's just weird enough that he's more confused than frightened.
“Hands behind your head,” one of the guards- he can't tell which, because they're all wearing masked helmets- skull masks, he realises, for the first time, they're actually wearing skull masks, what the crap- barks. He complies, out of a healthy respect for bladed weaponry.
It's not until the third guard fills a small cup with water, and affixes the cup onto a long, thin pole, that he realises what's going on.
“Drink,” comes the order, as the water is proffered, cautiously.
“Okay, but... you guys do know I'm not a waterbender, right?”
“So, I lay a trap for the Avatar, and what I get... is you.”
His first instinct is to close his eyes, but he can do one better than that. He yawns, and rolls over to face the wall. Let her smirk at his shoulderblades, see how far that gets her.
He's kind of expecting to die for that, but whatever. He's been kind of expecting to die for days now.
After a while, during which he somehow fails to find himself shot full of lightning, his left arm starts to die, and he has to roll back over.
She's still there.
“You're still here,” he says, and regrets it instantly.
“Well, I was inspecting the repairs, and I thought I might as well check on the newest prisoner. Is there anything you need?” she insinuates, and she's trying to get him to bristle, to be entertaining, and absolutely fuck that.
“Yeah could you let your guys know that I'm not a waterbender? I've tried telling them but I don't think they understand, and drinking from a wobbling cup on the end of a barge-pole is getting really old.”
She tilts her head, a tiny nod of acknowledgement and he realises way too late that he shouldn't have risen to her at all, but then her mouth turns up a little at the corners, like she's thinking something over.
“You really aren't a waterbender?”
“I have this amazing trick where I can turn water into me being not thirsty any more.”
“Hm.” She looks slightly thoughtful, then dismisses him with a wave of her hand. “Well, I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing.”
After she's gone, he realises he's annoyed she got the last word, which has definitely got to be a bad sign.
The days pass, slowly. There's not much she can do, not while the repairs to the city are still being completed, and it's not as though she can go chasing Zuko, and leave the city under-defended.
So it's only a matter of time before she finds herself in front of the barbarian's cage again. Really, if he doesn't like it, it's his fault for being slightly interesting.
“So,” he bristles, delightfully confrontational, “I can't help but notice I've still got my teeth.”
That stops her, for just a moment, and she frowns.
“You know, none of my fingers are broken, no superficial burns, okay no new superficial burns, distinct lack of terrifying noises in the middle of the night, I get let out in the yard for exercise once a day.”
“You're welcome.”
“My point is, if this is some subtle reverse-psychology thing, it's really not working.”
Oh. Oooh. “Well, do you know anything useful?”
“Loads of stuff, actually.”
“I'm sure. Do you know where the Avatar is now?”
“No.”
She shrugs. “Well there's no need for anyone to waste their time, then. You might prove useful in a hostage situation, if the Avatar shows his face again. Until then, you can stay there.”
The logic appears to mollify him, for a second, before something occurs to him. “So... what'd you do to Suki?”
The question throws her, and she blinks. “Who?”
“Oh come on. Where is she?”
Oh, right. Her.
She shrugs. “I honestly don't know. A prison somewhere, I expect.”
“You expect me to buy that?” he barks, more bitter than she was expecting. “After all that stuff you said on the day of black sun?”
She has to shrug. “I was trying to distract you. It worked.”
“Oh.” He scowls, like he's trying to figure out what he should be feeling. “I'm an idiot, huh.”
She's back again. He's starting to get concerned. What if she's got... ideas?
Not that he's have ever considered what that might be like, no sir, not a chance.
"Tell me," she asks, and maybe she was just trying to get him off guard before, maybe now it's time for the thumbscrews and getting hit with sticks until he can't remember to lie "what made you decide to follow the Avatar?"
Okay, maybe not. Maybe it's Uncomfortable Personal Truths time instead.
He shrugs. "Not like I was doing anything with my free time."
"This," she gestures at his cell, ignoring his answer, "had to have been the best you could hope for. You're not stupid. You couldn't have thought you'd win." Oh, ouch. Nice backhanded compliment. Focus on that, don't pay attention to the fact that she's got a point.
At the same time, he thinks she's missing the bigger picture. And apparently that's his problem now.
"If I didn't go, it would've been Aang and Katara by themselves," he muses, more to himself. He's never really put it into words before, but there it is. Simple.
"Katara." She sounds a little lost.
"Yeah, you know. My sister?"
"Oh," she says, in a way that makes him think that maybe he gave the wrong answer. He keeps going anyway, though, because really, what's she going to do? Have him arrested?
"It's like... yeah, it's not as though I could do much, we've kind of established that, failed invasion and so on, but I figured I could try and keep them alive." It's even worked, up to a point. The point where his invasion plan had completely failed, and he'd gotten captured. Up until then it'd been okay.
"No, but what is the point of fighting? This would have been over long ago if it weren't for the Avatar. Why join him?"
Oh okay, suddenly this conversation isn't fun any more. "When I was a kid," he says, rolling over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, "my village was attacked by a whole fleet of Fire Nation ships. We weren't soldiers, not really. We were barely in the war at all, actually. Spent most of our time just making sure we were fed. The fleet killed a lot of people. Kids, parents. Because they'd heard that one waterbender had been born." He doesn't look up, doesn't want to see if she's even listening. "Stuff like that makes me kind of suspicious when people talk about how much better life'd be if we stopped resisting you guys."
When he looks up, she isn't there.
"Yeah, you'd better run," he mutters, when he's quite sure she's out of earshot.
It isn't that she's avoiding him, naturally. He's in a cell. It's not as though she's worried she'll bump into him in the corridors of the palace. She simply has no reason to visit him. Not that she would otherwise be looking for reasons.
She's not Zuko, stealing away to the prison every night to rant and rave at a figure behind bars. She simply visited when she had cause to. He's intriguing, and there's so little to do.
But she waits, this time. She doesn't go to see him until he gives her a reason to.
She's nothing like Zuko at all. Sokka is far more interesting than Uncle ever was.
He's sleeping when she strides into the room, one arm wedged behind his head, leg dangling off the narrow platform that serves as his bed, the other splayed out, twitching with some dream.
She spends a few minutes wondering how to wake him up. The chisel is a reassuring weight in her hand. It's a remarkably well-made tool, and she wonders where he managed to steal it from.
Eventually, she runs the chisel horizontally along the bars of his cage, filling the small room with a echoing, rattling, metallic cacophony.
He shrieks, actually, honestly shrieks, and hurls himself up, back shoving against the stone wall, elbows pinwheeling, trying to climb the wall like a spider. It takes everything in her not to laugh out loud.
"What was that?" he wheezes, desperate and indignant. "Are you actually trying to kill me?"
She waves the chisel at him, and smiles.
He deflates so deliciously, a strangely delicate sigh that nearly flutters his eyelids, and he sinks down, back onto his bed, and folds his arms.
"Well," he sighs, after a moment, "you can't blame a guy for trying."
And she can't, of course. It isn't as though she wouldn't do the same in his position. She'd just be better at it.
“I guess now's the part where you tell me if I try and escape again something terrible'll happen, huh,” he asks, and he's playing the game, so of course she has to beat him.
“Oh, I wouldn't ever tell you to stop trying to escape,” she says, matter-of-factly, brushing a lock of hair out of her eye. “It's just that if you do-”
“Okay here it comes, you'll set fire to a village or something, better make it an Earth Kingdom village or I am not gonna care-”
“If you do,” she repeats, sternly, until he starts paying attention “I'll hunt you down myself.”
She isn't quite sure she'd meant to say that, but it worked, in that he looks confused and a little worried.
It's a good look on him, she decides.
“Well, okay, you can't beat the personal touch.”
"So," he sighs, rolling onto his back, folding his arms above his head, self-consciously crafting an imitation of someone really unselfconscious, “you really think you're gonna win, huh?"
She's doing that not-interrogating thing that, in anyone else under any other circumstances, he'd have called 'a conversation'.
She smirks at him. He can tell just by the tone of her voice. "And you don't."
That furrows his eyebrows. "I don't?"
"Think you're going to win."
Oh. He rolls his head to look at her, one eyebrow raised. "And you can tell, huh? My naturally sunny disposition not fool you?"
She shrugs, acknowledging a fact. "I'm a people person."
"Oh yeah, you said. So maybe I'm not sure we can win." He stretches his arms up, taking in the whole of his cell in a conservative gesture. "What do I know?"
She should have expected he'd be good at this. He's creative, a quick thinker, unconventional in a very particular way. Pai Sho was made for minds like his.
Unfortunately, the ancient masters had failed to account for a mind like hers. It was to be expected, of course, but she had never been able to constrain herself in the way the game demanded. She kept having to fight the urge to play moves like 'Black Dragon Disguises Itself As Summer Garden, Infiltrates Three Wheels' Defences, And Stabs Them In The Back.' All this nonsense with hopping over tiles somehow didn't have the same effect.
Which was why, if anyone were to dare to ask, she was losing handily.
He's sitting up, now, eyes fixed hungrily on the board, lips moving silently in thought. Every so often he glances warily up at her- he knows he's winning, but more importantly he hasn't worked out she isn't letting him yet- and hesitantly calls his move.
"Seven- no- Six Rings to White Lotus."
She of course has not been such a fool as to let him reach the board. She moves the tile, as requested.
"Wheels. These pieces are called Wheels."
"Not where I learned to play. Now come on, start putting up a fight before I go back to sleep."
She could quite possibly have been within her rights to have him killed for that comment, but for some reason she finds herself more interested in the outcome of the game.
One morning, he comes to the unpleasant conclusion that he... kind of likes her. Company. Her company. He finds himself looking forward to her visits, which are suspiciously more frequent than he figures should really be normal procedure.
This is definitely a problem. He's pretty sure he's heard of this, prisoners starting to decide that their captors are right and sympathetic and stuff.
As an experiment, next time the guard who brings him his rice shows up, Sokka stares at him in intense concentration, trying as hard as possible to find him sympathetic and human and probably justified about stuff in his own mind.
Try as he might, though, Sokka can't shake the nagging conviction that Rice Guard is just a jerk in a bad hairstyle. No looking forward to his company, no wondering what his life was like growing up, no stupid in another life pining, and definitely no getting increasingly distracted by the shape of his eyes.
So that's good?
"...See, I actually met Zhao, and can I say? If that's your star Admiral, I have no idea why you guys are winning."
Azula tilts her head, conceding the point. "On occasion, some people get promoted further than they actually deserve."
"I am so glad that guy's dead," Sokka announces, with more feeling than she was expecting. She's tempted to prod further, but she has to remember why she's here.
"I came to tell you, I shall have to leave you alone for a while. But don't worry. When I get back, you should have company."
His brow furrows, and after a moment, he looks... disappointed, impossibly.
"Oh."
She can feel herself getting angrier, and rushes to justify herself. "You should be glad! After all, both of us know this war has to end. This will be the quickest path to peace."
It's not getting through to him. She doesn't know why it should, or why she cares.
"For you, sure. Whatever," he sighs, turning to face the wall. "Have fun."
She retreats, putting him firmly out of mind. She has a war to end.
The days pass. Eventually, most of the repairs to the prison have been completed, which cuts down his potential avenues for escape pretty severely. He begins to wonder if he might just be in it for the duration. Which would be pretty terrible, but hey. Comet's coming soon, either way he's not going to be much use as a hostage against Aang for long.
Eventually the guards accept that he's not a waterbender, and they stop worrying every time he looks thirsty.
It's been weeks since Azula last bothered him. He tells himself he only notices because it's the only thing that's different in his life right now.
He's guarded even in his sleep. One hand under his head, a reflex, a remembered action from holding a blade under his pillow. He sleeps expecting a knife in the dark. He's right to.
She feels the mad urge to touch him. To know he's there, he's real. She imagines, for just a second, opening the cage door. Letting him step out.
He'd run. He'd leave, he'd fight, he'd die, he'd run.
Nobody has stayed near her because they wanted to.
She steps back, and shakes her head. He can stay in his cage. At least she knows where he is.
He wakes up in the middle of the night- just a nightmare, he's long since gotten used to those, they're like bad weather; nothing he can do to stop them, all he can do is deal with them when they happen- and she's there, standing in the corner of the room, just... watching him.
Yeah, that's normal. That's healthy.
“'S been a while,” he yawns, for want of anything better to say. She starts, like he just caught her doing something weird. Like, say, watching somebody sleep.
“You're awake,” she says, and that's when he knows something's wrong. Staring at him while he's asleep is just creepy, but she's never fed him such an easy line before.
“...Yeah.” Enough of the quips, enough of the stupid back and forth. He sits up, running a hand through his hair, working it out of his face. “What's up?”
She grins, wide and wrong, he knows how she smiles and this isn't it, this is her putting on a show. Even as he's looking her he can see her realise he's not fooled, and she shakes her head.
“I'm fine. Just fine,” she grins, too loud, too harsh, that's not what she sounds like when she's sure of something, and that's it, he gives up, whatever it's called when a prisoner gets completely infatuated with the princess that's captured him, he is it, from his hair to his boots. Or he would be if he had boots on.
He pushes himself to his feet, but even as he turns towards her, she vanishes into the shadows, gone before he can say a word.
The day of the comet dawns, the sky dusk-red, what little he can see from his cell. He desperately hopes Aang has been keeping an eye on the date.
Amazingly, he can just catch a glimpse of the armada of airships as they take off, and he can't help the stab of engineer's pride- he made that work, it was his idea that turned a pile of wood and canvas into a working design, and he can't help but feel just a little smug about that.
Until he remembers that the Fire Lord is almost certainly using those airships to set fire to anything standing in his way. That kind of takes away from the achievement, just a little.
Crowned, dressed and regal, he's put her on the throne and tossed her aside and she never wanted this, never thought he could so easily- so simply-
she can't think it, can't even find the word, if she doesn't name it it's not real, but she can feel the thoughts tangling through her hair, hear that voice whispering the old lie she never wanted to believe.
The mirror shatters, and her chest tightens.
The answer comes to her, a flash of clarity.
Send them away. Send them away send them away send them away. They can't betray her if they're already gone.
"You are being released," the guard mutters, grey-faced.
He blinks, certain he's misheard. "What?"
"You are being released." The key turns. Amazingly, the guard presents him with his sword, and his boomerang.
"We couldn't find the club," he mutters, barely holding onto his temper.
"Okay, seriously, what is going on."
He shrugs. "Orders from the Fire Lord. You are being released."
Well that makes complete sense.
Really, there's only one place to go.
The streets are hushed, and empty. Everyone seems to have decided it's a great day to stay indoors and hide.
He spends the whole time expecting another ambush.
The palace makes the city look like it's bustling.
He looks in all the obvious places, but it seems like everyone just... got up and left, right in the middle of whatever they were doing.
After a while, he finds, miraculously, a drawn bath, still warm. He files this under 'highly suspicious,' and decides the only thing to do is investigate thoroughly.
He grabs a discarded robe once he's done, leaving his prison rags on the floor. He's not sure red is his colour, but it's clean, and sort of fits, at least once he's buckled his sword-belt over it.
He drifts through the palace corridors in something like a daze. He's long since stopped expecting someone to jump out at him and yell it's all been a mistake, you're under arrest, back to the cage. Now he's just hoping to find something to eat.
He nudges the huge door open, and slips into the throne room.
He wasn't really expecting anything else, and there she is, slumped, squatting on the throne, half-visible behind flickering bars of pale fire.
She turns to face him, slow and confused, like she doesn't recognise him, at first.
"I ordered you to go."
"No, you let me out. Not the same thing at all."
"Leave."
"...Nah." He flops onto a chair, and, on the basis that he might as well, puts his feet up on the table.
With a sudden rush of rage, she springs from the throne, fists bunched at her sides. "I order you to leave!"
It's such a perfect setup that he can't help but shrug. "Not a Fire Nation citizen, remember? You're not the boss of me."
She doesn't have a response for a long moment. Then she sags, and her head droops forward.
"What are you going to do?" she hisses, almost inaudible under the roar of the wall of fire between them.
"Thought I might stick around."
She cracks. Stumbling back into the throne, she throws back her head and laughs, too wide, too loud, hysteria crashing down onto her, every tongue of fire in the throne room bursting into searing, blue-edged white. Under the bravado, Sokka can't help but shudder.
So that might not be a completely positive sign. Someone should probably do something here.
He tries to shut his ears and tear his eyes away from her, and focus on the first problem in front of him. Big wall of fire. Looks pretty nice, very intimidating, and very in the way right now. Odds of Azula calming down long enough to let him in? Low.
Unbidden, the memory flashes through him: Aang in the desert, winds howling around him, light blaring. Katara striding into the storm. The best of a whole lot of bad ideas.
"Okay don't go anywhere, I will be right back. I promise," he says, as clearly as possible, and darts for the door.
A confident stride and a reaching hand isn't going to cut it here. He's going to need a really big cape, and a bath-full of water.
Lies! Lies and betrayal! He turns and runs, like she always knew he would, like they all did, like she ordered him to- and now- now-
Is she safe? Is there nobody left to be afraid of?
Her chest is crushing her heart and the only sound that makes it past the blood in her ears is the roar of the fire and footsteps on wood-
A dark shape hurtles through the wall of fire and crashes onto the steps at her feet, shrugging off a singed and steaming cloak with a small shriek, unfolding itself into Sokka.
"See? Told you I'd be right back, okay?"
Azula... wilts. Her head lolls, hands come up to cover her face, she slumps over in her seat, hair cascading down her shoulders.
Then, with such perfect silence he almost doesn't notice it, she starts to cry.
For want of any better ideas, he reaches up, and pats her on the knee. She doesn't seem to mind.
The courtyard is deserted. Zuko looks confused, like he was expecting Azula waiting for him. Katara, at least, is thankful to get the chance to breathe.
He takes the lead through the palace, ash-faced, knuckles white on the hilts of his swords, heading straight for the throne room. Eventually, Katara feels compelled to break the silence.
"There's supposed to be people around, right?"
"Yes," Zuko grinds out, and shoves open the huge doors to the throne room.
Nobody is there to greet them. Zuko blinks at the dead fire pit and the long table, one chair carelessly angled.
He marches through dark corridors at a frantic pace, twisting through the palace, seemingly completely forgetting that Katara is at his side at all, until he stops dead at the sight of a figure, gently closing a door behind it.
A ghost, wearing a red robe and clutching a long black sword.
"Sokka!" she shrieks- he's alive, alive and whole and it's beyond what she ever dared to hope and he looks up and his face breaks into a wide smile.
"Katara!" he shouts back, before stopping himself short, and lowering his voice. "Katara, you're okay! And... hanging out with Zuko? Also: no shouting, it took ages to-"
“Where’s my sister?” Zuko interrupts, looking more like his old self than Katara remembered seeing him in a long time. His arms twitch, the swords, still drawn, flashing in the gloom.
“At this exact moment? Sleeping, finally. And if you think for one second I’m gonna let you charge in there and wake her up and start fighting, give it up. Whatever you’ve got to say can wait for a couple hours.”
“Say?” snaps Zuko, and Katara starts to wonder.
“Sokka,” she interrupts, stepping forward, patting Zuko briefly on the shoulder in a reassuring kind of way. “What’s going on?”
Sokka tilts his head. “Well, it’s kind of… you see… -actually you clearly do see. …We both somehow managed to end up taking responsibility for a walking disaster area that’s vaguely shaped like Fire Nation royalty, didn’t we? That’s actually something that happened.”
“Oh." Katara glances back at Zuko, who is beginning to wear a more familiar look- lost and confused, rather than determinedly murderous. “Yeah. I guess so.” The implications sink in, and she whips back round to her brother. “Are you saying-“
“All I’m saying is if Aang shows up with the Fire Lord in tow, then I’m officially leaving.”