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The Avatar Saga - Azula's redemption	By : flamehead23a Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 6861 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own avatar, nor any character affiliated with it. Neither do I make money from writing this work. I do own The white Phoenix, though. Please don't use this story as your own, nor post it without my consent.

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The Avatar Saga—Azula’s redemption
Chapter 3: Of Breakdowns and Breakouts
By Flamehead23a

Five years.

Five long years she’s been in this cell. Five long years without seeing the sun, the sky, or even the boiling lake surrounding the prison complex. Five years in a cooler built just for her, specially designed for long-term containment. It was larger than the small 3X3 coolers other firebenders were kept in, with a thin, decrepit mattress and toilet as its only furnishings. It was larger, and it wasn’t quite as cold as other coolers, but its intention was the same—to make a firebender so cold they couldn’t produce enough heat to bend. It was here she waited—numb, unthinking, void of any emotion. She spent today the same way she spent yesterday, and the same way she will spend tomorrow: staring at the door, waiting for the small slot to for someone to slide her next meal through.

She would walk calmly then, her breath steaming and clouding her vision, to her meal. She would eat it quietly and quickly, before it froze. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she knew that without food her body would have no energy to burn for heat and the cold would claim a few more degrees she could never get back. As she silently ate, she mused that she was slowly losing body heat anyway, and her feeble attempts at staying warm were a losing battle. She accepted this, and thought no more of it. She had stopped caring whether or not she lived, or felt sunshine, or saw another person’s face. She no longer cared about her future, her life, about anything. But she wasn’t always like this. When she was first thrown into this cooler, she did care.

Azula cared very much.

The first year was insanity, turbulent and frenzied. She was delirious, and spent her most coherent days running through the entire spectrum of human emotion: she’d laugh, cry, and speak nonsense to phantoms of her past. Visages of her father, mother and brother circled her with dizzying speed—calling her liar, monster and reminding her that they never really loved her, only bided their time till they could get rid of her for good. Shades of Mai and Ty Lee would sit in the cell with her, never speaking, in the corner of her vision. She’d turn to them, only to find she was alone.

She spoke to these shadows—arguing, explaining, apologizing and raving all within the same breath. During the worst of it, her madness could cause a complete mental shutdown, and she’d lapse into unconsciousness for days on end. Then she would somehow rouse herself, and begin the cycle again. For a year the madness persisted, but Azula soon came to her senses, and began to think on the events leading up to her imprisonment. This gave her mind clarity, and replaced the lunacy with something entirely more violent.

The second year was fury, wild and incendiary. She raged for days, screaming curses to the walls of her icy prison. How could they do this to her? She was the Fire Lord! She was the rightful ruler of her country, and every minute she remained imprisoned was a crime of the highest order. She swore revenge on everyone who ever wronged her, and then on everyone whom she’d ever met. She wanted the world to suffer for what had happened to her. She’d scream herself hoarse, then throw herself against the door until her voice healed and her shoulder bled.

She would pounce like a rabid animal whenever the food slot opened, trying to reach whoever was on the other side. She would tell this person all the ways she would make him feel pain, and how she would torture him personally for weeks, and kill all his loved ones in front of him, before finally ending his pitiful, peasant life. No replies ever came from that slot though, and after a year, even her famous rage had been extinguished.

The third year was sorrow, pitiful and weak. Azula sank deeper and deeper into a black void of depression, eating less and less every day. Her core temperature sank without the energy from food needed to maintain it and her body began cannibalizing itself to stay alive. She thought of all the cruel and wicked things she’d done and she cried daily. She had betrayed her friends, attacked her brother, and dishonored her entire nation. She had even tried to kill the Avatar, very incarnation of the planet itself! She dwelled on her sins, and felt true regret. She begged the food slot to bring her Zuko, her friends, or even the Avatar, so she could apologize. She begged for someone to talk to, someone to listen to. Azula wanted to die that year, to rid the world of her wicked evil.

The fourth hear was instinct, feral and reflexive. Despite her wish to die, Azula’s body refused to give up life. She became mechanical, going for weeks on end in thoughtless bliss. She never thought of her past, and kept what little human reason she possessed focused on the present. Food, sleep, and waiting for food to come again was all her life consisted of, all she thought about. This seemed the shortest of the four years, and for that she was thankful.

Then, one day, the vent that had been routinely pumping in frigid air for the last four years stopped, likely a break in the system, needing to be repaired. For two days, the temperature in her cell slowly began to rise, and with each degree of heat, her mind re-opened a little bit more.

This brought Azula to the fifth year of her life sentence. She had learned to accept her fate, and expected nothing more out of life than her daily meal. She no longer thought of herself as a privileged Fire Nation Princess, nor the Fire Lord, second only to the power of the Phoenix King. No, now she was simply Azula the prisoner, a woman waiting for death. The one smudge on her otherwise impeccably thoughtless life began a month ago, when she started dreaming again.

It was a strange dream, at the same time ethereal and more real than anything she’d ever experienced. She dreamt of a man, with a head of fire and emerald eyes, surrounded by white flame. She traveled the world with this man, and saw the scars of her father’s war. They were pursued, hounded by unknown powers and seemingly infinite enemies, but they were happy. Together, they stood against an immense, rolling dark cloud and broke through it to the shining sunlight above. These dreams deeply bothered her, and Azula tried her best to not think of them.

However, life in a cell gave her little else to think about, and she often found herself slowly applying some of her renowned intellect to this puzzle of a dream. Obviously, it was little more than a fantasy. She knew she would never leave this cell again, so these images of her traveling the world must have been her mind’s attempt at keeping itself occupied. The emotions she felt in the dream were troubling, as she knew that feeling emotions again would only lead her back to depression or rage, and she had no intention of reliving one of the last five years.

As for the stranger… that was obviously her body trying to cope with not seeing another person for so long. No one had red hair, at least not like he did. But still, she couldn’t help but shake the feeling that she knew him from somewhere.

It didn’t matter, though. Nothing in Azula’s dreams changed her reality. She was in a freezing, bending-proof cell in the middle of an inescapable prison surrounded by boiling water. Azula had babbled past lunacy, raged through fury, outlasted depression, and survived without thought; nothing could faze her now.

At least, that was what she had thought… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The morning (if it even was morning—she could never tell) began like any other for the Princess the world forgot. She awoke to the physical numbness that came with lying still for more than four hours, and proceeded to do several varied warm-up exercises, helping to raise her temperature and pull feeling back into her limbs. The exercise kept her healthy, which was fortunate, as sickness here spelled certain death. It was also something to occupy her mind with; the steady motions and repetitions kept her from thinking about the dreams.

She stopped frequently to avoid sweating, and during these periods of rest she would listen to the sounds her cell made. The whooshes of cold air circulating in the vent above her, the groans of the metal prison—she even trained herself to hear the lapping of the boiling waves against the prison walls. She would cast her mind out, and walk around the prison complex, “watching” every door rattle open and slam shut, and following every guard’s heavy footsteps. Soon, the footsteps bringing her daily meal would reach her ears, and she would follow them until they reached her food-slot, which was the one piece of human interaction she had left.

Today, however, something was different. It began with a tremor, so faint Azula thought at first she imagined it. It felt like something had impacted the recreation grounds. She was just beginning to think about how something that hit hard enough for her to feel it had to have left a sizeable crater when the prison alarm system blared to life. Azula had only heard the alarms twice before, first when her brother was escaping, and second when she was being escorted onto the island.

The noise frightened her, as she was unaccustomed to anything but muted echoes and footfalls. She had no time to dwell on her fear however, as soon the prison erupted into chaos. All around her people were shouting, screams and barked orders filtering through the prison walls—the first voices she had heard in five years.

“Stop him! Seal all the levels! Don’t let him in!!”

“He’s melting the doors down, our bending isn’t working!”

“Get out the pikes; don’t get too close to it!”

“Archers, fire! Fire, damn you!! Stop his advance at all costs!!”

The voices were getting closer, she realized. Whatever had broken through was coming for her, Azula was sure of it. Despite believing she had accepted her fate, Azula’s heart began to race, and her mind spun with the possibilities. Was it an assassin, secretly hired by her brother to finally put her down? Some sort of insurgency group, bent on rescuing and using her to overthrow the Fire Lord? A dragon, seeking revenge for her family’s part in the decimation of its brethren? Her attention was drawn again outside of her door, where guards began to form up outside her cell, the only one on this level. She could hear their heavy breathing, their audible fear.

“No matter what happens, he cannot be permitted to reach the princess. Don’t use firebending, that’ll only make him stronger. Stick to your pikes and arrows, maybe one of us will get through to the skin.”

“Why is he doing this, commander? I thought he was on our side. Just last week he put on a show for the Fire Lord!”

“I heard they got into a big fight a few days ago in front of a bunch of nobles. He took off from the palace and hasn’t been seen since.”

“We’re dead men! He can bring this entire volcano’s power to bear! I heard if that he were to die, he’d just come back from his own ashes! We’re not fighting a man, we’re fighting a monster!!”

“Lee! Get a hold of yourself. Keep going into hysterics, and I’ll put you at the point of the formation! And I don’t know, Rai—he hasn’t killed anyone yet, but he hasn’t said anything either. This isn’t like any of the stories I’ve heard about him.”

“Commander! Th-The Door!!”

“All right, here he comes! Remember, he’s still a man, and he dies like any other!”

BOOM!

Azula jumped at the sound of the blast. From what she could hear, the guards hadn’t stayed in place either. They quickly reformed, however, and the commander soon had them back in line.

“Arrows, LAUNCH!” The twangs of many bowstrings reached Azula’s ears, and she could hear the whistling of the arrows. She cocked her head, hearing the tell-tale sounds of fire burning wood. She could hear the tinkles of arrowheads colliding with metal, and the startled gasps of the prison guards.

For a brief moment, there was nothing but shocked silence outside her door. Then, a single pair of footfalls started to move from the level’s entry-way to the petrified guards. These weren’t the steel-toed boots she had come to recognize as a guard or soldier either. This man’s shoes were different, and his step was light, as if he was just going for an afternoon stroll to the Turtle Duck pond. A voice came with those footfalls—immediately familiar, yet completely unrecognizable.

“M’kay, as you can see, I’m gonna torch all your arrows, so anything else you fire is just gonna be a waste of ammo. Now, I haven’t killed anyone yet, and I don’t want to; you guys’re just doing your jobs, and I can respect that. So hey, I’ll leave it up to your commander there— that’s you, right? The one with the tricked out hat?—we can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

“That voice,” Azula thought. “Where have I heard that voice?”

“For Zuko! CHAAARGE!”

The voice sighed, “Always with the hard way. Well here—hopefully this won’t kill any of you…”

Azula heard the stranger clap his hands, and then a large fwoosh echoed through the hallway, like all the air had been pulled out of the level at once. She listened as the guards collapsed, their metal helmets clanging against the unyielding prison floor. Again there was silence, save for her own heavy breathing and the blood pounding in her ears. Then there was just her and the strange footfalls, slowly advancing to her cell door.

Still not knowing just who this man was, nor what he wanted with her, Azula scrambled, trying to do ten different things at once. She looked for a place to hide, a place to attack, her mind frozen solid after so many years of seclusion. She straightened her tattered and ragged tunic, the last remaining piece of Fire Nation Princess inside of her trying to be presentable, while the long-ago-broken prisoner inside of her wondered if the stranger would leave her alone if she looked crazy enough. She thought up a million disparaging remarks, angry at the time it took for someone to finally decide the world still needed her intelligence and power, while coming up with a million more words of thanks, overcome with the joy of knowing that at least one person left alive wanted to see her face and hear her voice.

Azula fought to reclaim the Zen-like calm she had acquired within the last year, but she might as well have been reaching for the moon. Suddenly, the footfalls stopped. The man was right outside her door. She heard the door handle rattle, and an annoyed grunt sounded from the hallway.

“Figures they’d lock it. Princess, you might want to stand away from the door—and don’t touch it, okay? It’s about to get a little hot in there.”

Azula couldn’t answer; she could just scramble to the freezing back wall of her cell and fall to the ground, transfixed by what was happening to her tiny, self-contained world. The ice crusting the door began to crack and melt. Soon, the entire door was glowing red, then white hot. In the back of her mind, a voice commented to Azula on how she should be roasting alive right now, being so close to something so hot, but it barely registered. All she could do was gape at how the door began to liquidize and melt before her very eyes.

Soon, the door was just a puddle of molten metal on the ground. Warm air rushed into her cell, and her body began shivering violently—a sign that she was regaining heat and coming out of the deeper stages of hypothermia. Azula found herself staring at the figure on the other side of the threshold, who was panting heavily, his head bowed and scorching red hair concealing his face.

“Hah…hah…sorry, just give me a second. It’s not easy making steel go from freezing to sixteen hundred degrees Kelvin that fast, on top of trying to contain the convection currents on the side I can’t see…hah…hah…but you don’t know anything about that, so just forget I said it. Here, let me just take some of that heat back…” the figure placed his hand over the molten metal, and with the same fwooshing sound she heard earlier, seemed to absorb the heat, cooling it and leaving a hunk of gleaming steel right where the door used to be.

Seemingly energized, the man straightened, and focused his eyes on Azula, whose own stared back in shock. He held out his hand, and with a grin, pitched his voice into a strange accent. “Come with me if you want to live.”

She remained sitting, equal parts confused at his attempt at humor and astonished at his appearance. No sound escaped her lips save for the violent and uncontrollable chattering of her teeth.

Mat dropped the accent, but kept the grin. “Yeah, I thought it was a cheesy line the first time I heard it too. That movie really didn’t have the writing talent the first one did. “

“…Wh-wh-what?”

“Ahh, don’t worry about it. But seriously, come on, we need to go.”

“And wh-who are yu-you?” Azula found her feet, but kept her back against the wall, trying to appear in control of the situation. Or at the very least, not as terribly weak as she felt.

Mat’s grin faded somewhat. “You mean you don’t remember me? Aww, princess, I’m hurt.”

“W-W-We’ve met b-before?”

“Several times, in fact. During the war, we were on opposite sides. Aw, geez, you’re a freaking ice cube. Here, give me your hand.” Mat extended his hand into the cell, and Azula looked at it suspiciously, still not aware of the stranger’s intentions. Trying his best to look sincere and disarming, Mat spoke in a gentle voice, “Trust me, the last thing I need is you passing out in the middle of your own escape.”

Azula stared blankly at the hand, her mind still trying to process the act of talking after five years without seeing another person. Fortunately, the survival instincts that had kept her alive during her darkest hours were still working, and fighting the cold she was now feeling more than ever, she gave her trembling hand to the man she had been dreaming of for the past month.

As their skin touched, warmth rushed through her body, catching her off guard. Azula’s eyes rolled back and she fell forward as the shock of such rapid warmth reached parts of her body that had been numb for almost five years straight. Quick as a flash, Mat was there in the cell, catching her and sweeping her up into his arms, cradling her frail, shivering body to his own.

His body was like a huge blanket, and he saturated her with life-giving heat. “Shit,” he whispered. “I gave you too much heat too fast, sorry.”

The Phoenix carried the Princess out of her icy prison, walking down the hallway and towards the scorched and melted metal that used to be the door to this level. Azula’s eyes fluttered open, and she looked over Mat’s shoulder. She noticed just how many guards had been sent to keep him from getting to her. Fifteen guards were clustered together, dazed and groaning on the floor in front of her cell.

Still weak as a newborn pygmy puma, Azula dropped her head back down and slurred into Mat’s chest, “whudidja do to’em?”

“I superheated the air for about half a second,” Mat’s soft voice echoed around them as he began to ascend the stairs to the recreation grounds. “Induced mass heat exhaustion. They’ll be fine in a couple of hours, once their temperature comes back down. Be super-thirsty, though.”

As they climbed the rest of the way in silence, Mat couldn’t help but notice how feeble Azula seemed, how insubstantial. “That’s what happens when you’re stuck in a freezer for five years,” he thought. “Man, Zuko. Was there really no other way?”

They reached the top of the stairs, and stood at the door that would take them outside. Mat was about to kick open the door when he felt Azula’s small hands push against his chest. “…‘Ssaright, I can walk.”

“You sure? You haven’t been out of that cell in five years and yo—”

“I know how long I’ve been in there,” Azula said, strength returning to her voice. “I want to walk outside by my own power. Put me down, now…please.”

“Whatever you want, Princess.” Mat gently slid her out of his arms, noticing that she was barefoot and mentally kicking himself for not bringing her any shoes.

“Listen, we haven’t seen any more guards, so they’re all probably waiting for us outside. Stay close to me, and move quickly, okay?” He waited until he saw her nod, then, taking a deep breath, opened the door.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The two escapees stepped out of the compound and into the darkened prison grounds. Azula sighed, hoping her first glimpse of the outside world would be during the daytime. She didn’t have time to dwell though, as Mat was already moving, quietly making his way across the recreation yard and towards the far wall. Azula struggled to keep up with him, her body still shaky from the change in temperature and her legs unused to this amount of activity. The two passed a shallow crater, the bottom of the hole still glowing a molten orange. Azula stared at the crater, then back to her rescuer, solving the mystery of the tremor she felt earlier.

They managed to make it to the center of the grounds, when suddenly, lights from all directions blinded them.

“Matthias Musagetes! Stop and give the prisoner up! We have you surrounded!!”

The wall that ringed the recreation grounds was loaded with guards. Doors were thrown open and more guards streamed onto the grounds, surrounding the escapees and outnumbering them at least two hundred to two. Mat smiled and edged in front of Azula, who was staring wide-eyed, any hopes of escape erased from her mind.

“Warden, I didn’t expect you up so late! I gotta tell you, I just came from visiting Zuko in the palace, and your niece is absolutely stunning! I swear she gets more beautiful every time I visit.”

“Save your breath, Musagetes. I heard all about your fight with Lord Zuko last week, and deep down, I knew it must have been about her.” The Warden cocked his head at Azula, who tried to return the glare, but found herself looking away after only a few seconds. The man was an intimidating sight. His shoulder-length salt and pepper hair flowed freely, an odd style in the Fire Nation. Since his Fire Lord’s escape from this very complex, he had trained both his men and himself to be the very best prison-keepers in the Fire Nation, and had both new bulging muscles and firebending skills to prove it.

“I don’t know why you would betray the Fire Nation—no, the world—like this, but let me be eaten by a dragon if I just stand aside and let you walk off of my island. Step away from the prisoner and you’ll be free to go.”

Mat’s easy smile was erased; like a pillar of stone he stood, the air around the prison dropping several degrees as he began absorbing heat from the volcano. He locked eyes with the warden, all trace of joviality gone from his face. “I have the world’s best interests at heart. Azula must be free to take her own path, not stuck in a cell where she’ll slowly freeze to death.”

“That’s for the Fire Lord and Avatar to decide, not you!” The warden raised his voice, his famous temper flaring. “Now, this is your last warning; you may leave alone or die together, but you will not escape my prison!”

Azula stared at her rescuer. “Musagetes, Phoenix, who is this man? These names all sound so familiar; why can’t I remember?” Her thoughts were interrupted when Mat spoke again.

“No, this is your last warning. Let us go peacefully, or I can’t guarantee that I won’t accidentally kill your guards. I’ve spent long enough tip-toeing around you ants, and I’m beginning to lose my patience!” Mat stamped his foot on the ground, the heat he had been collecting pouring into the stone of the recreational grounds.

The rock around his shoe began to glow a deep red and quickly melted into magma. A channel of molten rock spread from his foot to the nearest section of wall; guards both on the ground and on the parapets scrambled to one side or the other, fleeing the path of the molten river. When the channel reached the towering wall of steel and stone, it pooled beneath it, soon causing the entire section of wall to give way and plunge into the boiling water surrounding the island. Guards screamed as the scalding water was propelled high into the air, only to rain down over the entire prison.

Azula cringed, expecting the same boiling-hot dousing everyone else was receiving, but cracked open an eye to see Mat standing over her, using one hand to absorb the heat from any water that came near them. With his other hand, Mat was siphoning heat from the entire lake; shimmering tendrils of super-heated air radiated from the hole in the wall to his hand, and when the scalding rain finally stopped, Mat raised both arms over his head, his palms open and fingers bent into claws.

“You made a grave mistake Warden, challenging the will of the Fire-Snatcher while inside an active volcano!” And with that, the Mat released the rest of his newly acquired energy straight up, in the form of a white-hot column of flame, at least twice as high as the guard walls. Guards scattered under the awesome display of power, and the Warden cowered from his position on the battlements.

Ceasing his torrent of fire, Matthias dropped his hands to his sides, the water from the lake steaming off of his white clothes, and more steam coming out of his mouth and nose with every heavy breath he took. Mat’s chest was heaving with the effort of such a show, and Azula almost took a step back when he looked over his shoulder and whispered to her, his breath showing white, “Hey, I need you to climb on my back.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Come on, hurry up, while they’re all scared shitless, climb on my back so we can get out of here.”

“What? I’m not going to climb onto your back.” Azula crossed her arms over her chest. “Look at you, you can barely stand up. You’re not in the shape to carry anything right now, including me. Besides, how could that possibly help?”

Matt turned to her, surprised by her lack of enthusiasm for his idea. “Because I can get us… God, you’re impossible. Just stop being ridiculous and get on my back!”

“You can insult me all you want; I’m not going anywhere near you after you just absorbed and expelled an entire volcano’s heat.”

“Do you really think I would go through all of this effort of breaking into a high-security prison just to burn you with a piggyback ride? Seriously, just—Gah! …Fine. Whatever, I don’t care.” Throwing up his hands in defeat, Mat sheepishly turned back to the warden, who was still cowering in fear. “Hey…I’m not sure what the best way to ask this is but…can we borrow a transport balloon?”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………

They rode from the Boiling Rock in silence. Mat occupied himself with powering and steering the balloon, while Azula slowly came to terms with the last three hours. They landed softly on a stretch of beach, part of the Fire Nation Capital Island, and it wasn’t until Mat had hidden the balloon under trees and other pieces of camouflage that Azula finally spoke.

“So who exactly are you, and what do you want with me?”

Mat straightened, finishing his disguise for the balloon, and watched the moon sinking beyond the horizon. “Well, it wasn’t the most impressive prison escape I’ve been involved in, but all in all, at least no one died. Princess, why don’t you start a fire, and I’ll go get us some food, eh? You must be starved. We can talk after we get some food in you.” He made to leave into the woods, when Azula’s voice stopped him.

“How do you know I’ll still be here when you come back?” Azula hated herself for sounding weak, for making it seem like she needed this man, but the hard truth was that he was the first person to speak to her in five years, and no amount of royal pride changed the fact that she didn’t want to be alone again so soon after the Boiling Rock.

Mat cast a look over his shoulder. “You’re a half-starved fugitive stranded on a nation you tried to run into the ground. You’ve got no friends, nowhere to go, and your only surviving relative is the one who thought it best to keep you locked up in a freezer. You won’t be going anywhere. Besides,” He gave the Princess a small smile. “More than anything else, you’re curious. Just hang tight. I’ll be back in about an hour.” And with that he disappeared into the woods.

Azula sat on the beach, gazing out to the starlight-illuminated sea and cursing the hard truths Mat had quite bluntly laid before her. She was sure she knew him from the war somehow, but her memories of that tremulous year were scattered and fragmented, blocked off by her own subconscious.

For a long while, she sat there in the sand, watching the waves ebb and flow against the shore. Within every crest, she saw another face—her friends, family, even the Avatar and his followers. Every crash of the waves against the shore brought to mind another clash against the Avatar, another scheme for power, and another betrayal of her trust by people she thought were friends.

She watched the stars slowly march across the horizon, and saw thousands of Fire Nation soldiers march into Ba Sing Se, occupying the last great power in the world, and bringing with them her greatest triumph, and the beginning of her downfall. For the first time since her year of sorrow, Azula cried.

After what seemed like an hour of morbid musing, Azula scrubbed at her face and shook her head, clearing it of all depressing thoughts. “No. Not again. Got to keep busy, keep moving. He’ll be back soon with food.” And with that, the princess set to work.

Once she had gathered enough firewood, she struck a simple stance, and punched. Nothing happened. Confused, Azula tried again; focusing, she breathed in, and as she punched, breathed out. Still nothing. Not a wisp of smoke or spark came into existence. Azula’s blood ran cold. She had lost her bending.

“No fire yet?” Mat called, returning from the woods. “What, are you still chilled from the Boiling Rock?”

Azula spun around to see him standing there, a rucksack slung over his shoulder. He threw her his white blazer, and she pulled it over her shoulders. It smelled like citrus. Azula found its warmth comforting, contrasting with how strangely uncomfortable she found her latest lie to be. “I…I guess so. Just chilled, I guess….Um, could you…?” Mat gave her a long, searching look. She tried to match his gaze, but like with the warden, she couldn’t hold it and turned away.

“Sure,” Mat said lightly, allowing the lie to stand. Sparking his thumb with the same four-fingered snap he had used at the politician’s banquet, Mat threw a ball of flame into the firewood, which sprung merrily to life, illuminating the darkened beach. He held the sack out to Azula. “Here, there’re some fire cakes, rice balls and jerky. A water-flask too. Eat your fill; I had some on the way back.”

Azula tore into the bag, her body’s need for food overcoming any ingrained royal etiquette she managed to retain in the Boiling Rock. It wasn’t until she had finished her fourth Fire Cake that she realized they were still warm from the oven. “Mmmf, where did you get these?”

Mat dropped himself onto the ground, next to the fire. He watched with an amused expression as Azula wolfed down her fifth cake before he even began to answer. “There’s a village on the other side of the woods. I just went into the tavern there and bought some stuff. The cakes were still in the oven when I woke the inn keeper up.”

He lounged on the sand, stretching out sore muscles and pulling heat slowly from the fire. “I got an odd look for being up so late, but she didn’t ask too many questions… you know, you’re not some animal in a cage anymore. You don’t have to eat like one.”

Scowling, Azula washed her latest mouthful down with water from the flask and made a show of daintily wiping her mouth on his blazer before asking her next question. “Well, we have food and fire; now will you tell me who you are and what’s going on?”

She thought she saw Mat’s face shift for a moment—turn pensive, indecisive, and worried all at once. But just as quickly as it had come, it was replaced with the same easy smile he always seemed to have, leaving Azula to wonder if she had really seen it or if the fire was just playing tricks on her eyes.

“Right. I guess I was just waiting for something to jog your memory. Well, as I’m sure you heard the warden call me; my name is Matthias Musagetes, Mat for short. I’ve picked up a few titles over the last six years, but there’s only one that I came here with: The White Phoenix…Nothing?” Mat looked at his hands, seemingly lost. He reached out into the fire, withdrawing a handful of flame. He absentmindedly started to play with it, moving it through and around his fingertips, shifting it from hand to hand. “Man, you really don’t remember…”

He continued to speak as he worked the fire, and Azula watched with cautious fascination as he began infusing the flame with some sort of matter, giving the flame solidity. “I just can’t get over the fact that you don’t remember me. I mean, I know that year was…stressful… but man, I had hoped I’d left some kind of impression. Oh well, maybe something will jump out at you later.” Mat sat up in the sand, focusing more on what he was making than the shifting stars above.

“As to what I’m doing here… well, that’s a tough question to answer. I was brought here for two reasons; to aid the Avatar in stopping your father, and then to help again when the second darkness arises.”

“The second darkness?”

Mat nodded and opened his hands. He had made a miniature dog out of fire, and was letting it take its first steps onto the beach. Secretly, Azula marveled at the feat; this was no type of bending she had seen before. The creature was solid and looked like a living, breathing animal, aside from its shifting orange color and small size. The little fire construct pranced about the campfire yipping and growling at imagined enemies, tripping over its own legs, like any puppy would do. Wherever it ran, its feet would leave little footprints of glass in the sand, a testament to how hot the creature must have been.

Eventually, he opened his hands and the dog ran back to him. Closing his fist, Mat reduced the construct back to flame, and started reworking the plasma again, like molding clay. “It’s something they warned me about when I was first sent here. A great black cloud, rolling across all four nations, threatening to cover every light in the world. I’ve been dreaming about it for more than a month now… and dreaming about you.” Mat opened his hands to reveal a fire-wrought butterfly, beautifully detailed. It floated into the air, like an ember, and came to rest on Azula’s shoulder.

At first she flinched, expecting the little fire-bug to burn, but it merely felt warm, comforting. It felt like a portion of the Phoenix’s touch, and carried with it his faint citrus smell. She looked from the butterfly to Mat, who was watching her with a surprised smile. “Heh, it’s not everyone who can touch my constructs and not be burnt. I guess that means my fire likes you.”

Azula transferred the butterfly from her shoulder to her finger, where it rested contentedly, slowly airing out its wings. “…You said you’ve been dreaming about me?”

It might have been the fire again, but Azula could swear she caught a tinge of blush on Mat’s cheeks. At the very least, his embarrassed smile was obvious.

“Uhh, yeah. In my dream, as the darkness approaches, you appear. Then I see you have two possible futures. One where you redeem yourself, join the rest of the Senken, and fight off the darkness. The other… well, you don’t want to know what happens in the other future. Listen, Azula,” Mat shifted in the sand, the movement causing the butterfly to float off Azula’s finger and back to its master. Azula almost reached after it, to feel its warmth for a while longer. She contented herself to burrowing deeper into the white jacket and watching the butterfly float gracefully back to its master’s hand, where it was balled up and worked through his hands again.

“You and Zuko are caught between two contrasting desires; on one side is your father’s, grandfather’s, and great-grandfather’s desire for power and prestige—desires that eventually destroyed them all.” While she would have liked to defend her family’s actions, Azula couldn’t argue the logic in Mat’s words; Sozin had died hunting the Avatar, Azulon died due to his son’s lust for the throne, and Ozai was stripped of his powers because of his own greed.

“On the other side, you have forces that desire nothing but to protect, balance, and bring peace. Your mother, and your uncle, Iroh.” Azula scoffed at this and began muttering something about “fat, lazy uncles” before Mat stopped her. “You know, after you all returned from Ba Sing Se, Iroh did nothing but train in his cell, and he ended up strong enough to retake the city more or less by himself. Hell, I’m scared of the guy.…I’m pretty sure it’s Zuko’s time with Iroh that helped him decide to train Aang.”

Mat shifted his attention to his hands, which were moving in more intricate patterns around the ball of fire, drawing more heat from the campfire and molding it into the desired shape. “Now, these two conflicting ideals—one of domination, the other of protection—struggle for control within you, just as they did within Zuko. And just like him, you have to make the decision to change on your own. I can’t… no, I won’t force you to come with me. But the darkness is rising, Princess, I can feel it. Zuko and I thought we could get a jump on it by getting you out now and not waiting for…whoever it is… to make the first move. He wants us to find your mother, who seems to be somehow connected to all this.”

Matt sighed and opened his hands once again. Out from his cupped hands emerged a tiny phoenix, immaculately detailed and more lifelike than his other two creations. It poked its head out of his hands and looked up, chirping in recognition of its creator. Jumping out of his hands, the young construct wobbled its way over to Azula, studying her with a critical eye. She held her hand out to the bird, which pecked at it affectionately, chirped again, then took off into the air. The firebird circled the camp twice, and with one last call, flew over the woods and out of sight.

“Where is it going?”

“Honestly? I don’t really know. Every phoenix I make seems to have a mind of its own. Some stay with me, some travel around for a bit, and then come back. Some fly off to who knows where… it’s a mystery.”

“You’ve never tried to follow them?”

“What would be the point? If they wanted to come back, they would. Sometimes, you just got to let things go.”

“…If I decided to leave, would you let me go?” Azula turned to look at Mat. He was still looking at where the phoenix had last disappeared—perhaps hoping to see it again, perhaps so he wouldn’t have to show her his face.

“…Your life is your own, Princess.”

They sat there a while, Phoenix and Princess, watching the sun slowly rise over the horizon. They sat together, but still apart. Separated by the fire between them, neither spoke. Then once the sun had fully risen above the waves, Azula gathered the food and water into the rucksack, shed the white blazer, stood, and began to walk away. And as she did, she whispered one thing to the wind, a small part of her hoping it would carry back to the man still sitting on the beach, the only man to ever relinquish his power over her, regardless of the consequences.

“…Thank you...”
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A/N: Aaaaaand chapter 3! Quickly, I wanna thank a couple people with help on this chapter. First is my friend Myles, who is unwaveringly ecstatic about everything I write. Then comes Mytrancyinspiration, who has been checking my stuff beforehand and whose story motivated me to finally start writing myself. Last but not least: my copy editor Cardinal Zavier and my Beta reader PetertheChameleon—who has taught me more in one week than 4 years in high school ever did.

Now comes the part where reader feedback is critical; I need to know what you guys think of Mat. Before PetertheChameleon’s help, I didn’t know what a Gary Stu was—now I do, and I realize chapter 2 was the worst possible thing I could have done for Mat’s character. I’ll be doing my best to pull him out of Stu territory, and whatever you all have to say about these developments would be great. For now, take Chapter 3 as a much more accurate read on his power. (And keep in mind he was in a flippin’ volcano, so that helped too.)

Chapter 4 features a re-visiting of episode 33, the Drill. This will be the first of several slight retcons, where nothing is taken away, only little things added that don’t change any end results. (Don’t worry, It’ll make sense when you read it.)

OK, R&R, C&C, and all that other stuff! Enjoy!
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The Avatar Saga - Azula's redemption