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Azula's Lost Chapters OR Azula's New Cook	By : DecieverGod Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > Het - Male/Female Views: 13899 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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The Fire princess awoke early that morning. The sun had just started to illuminate the dense swamp, beams peaking through branches to the east. Their camp fire was just a pile of glowing embers now, but Azula didn’t much feel like rekindling it.

She surveyed her friends. Their somber mood had never lifted last night, even after the revelation that the Captain could have been alive, if alone, somewhere in the swamp. Ty Lee was curled up against the trunk of the tree they’d camped under, while Mai was balled up in her robes trying to stay warm. Azula had simply fallen asleep in a meditation stance, to be perfectly honest it hadn’t been the first time, it was a comfortable way to sit and she preferred it to sleeping in the mud like some common urchin.

The princess stood, slowly leaning forward and shifting her weight to one arm as she folded her legs up under her then straitened them to stand strait and tall, well as tall as she was. She surveyed her surroundings; still in a swamp. Azula pouted a little, she would have to go without a bath today, sure there was enough water around, and she could always heat it with her bending, and she was coated in a thin layer of swamp gunk from her fight with the swamp beast and subsequently spending the night on a damp sandbar, but there was no place private enough and she did not want to bath with unclean beasts like Cat-Gators watching, nor did she for see any particular benefit from bathing in a swamp to clean swamp gunk off.

Slightly vexed by being deprived her morning ritual Azula permitted herself to sigh as she crossed her arms behind her back. Her clothes were slightly stiff and had a thin layer of muck dried onto them now, it dawned on her that her spare clothing had been lost along with the Captain and the rest of their supplies in the wave. She groaned a little and rubbed her eyes, she was done with being in this wretched swamp, and it was high time they headed out, with or without the Captain. “Mai, Ty Lee, get up. We’ve heading out.

Ty Lee’s eyes fluttered open and she bounced to her feet stretching out her almost abnormally flexible body. She yawned slightly. “Gee Azula; we’re sure getting an early start.”

Mai woke with less vigor than her comrades. He eyes never made it more than half open and she didn’t move to do much beside shift her arms. “That’s just because she wants to find the Captain…” She yawned and stood up. “If only to give him back his halberd.” Mai knew better than to point her pessimism toward the Fire Princess, directly at least. The Goth girl stretched out a little after receiving a bit of a glare from the princess and pulled the halberd free from above their dead fire pit, it had long since cooled. Mai spun the blade once to get a feel for it; it was too top heavy for her to wield it effectively but she laid it over her shoulder all the same.

Ty Lee flipped up from a pose that raised some serious questions about the integrity of her spinal column and giggled at Azula’s side. “I knew you liked him Azula, of course there’s plenty to like about him…” The gymnast girl stared out into the swamp a little. “He’s cute and loyal, smart, and really strong…”

Before she could continue Azula interjected. “Yes well… let’s see if we can’t find him before some swamp thing eats him shall we?”

Ty Lee blinked a couple of times as her train of thought was derailed and thrown off a cliff. “Oh, yeah sure that’d be good.” She smiled and bounced into place at Azula’s left.

Mai yawned and walked up on the princess’s right. “If he has been eaten by something can we just leave? I’m tired of having muck in my shoes and my clothes haven’t been wholly dry since we got here.”

Azula smirked a little as she set off into the swamp. “Well of course we can Mai; we just have to make sure the Captain is dead first. After all, can’t have him running about in here on his own now can we?”

“We can’t?” Ty Lee blinked a little as she waded through the swamp alongside her friends.

“No Ty Lee, we can’t.” Azula rolled her eyes a little, sure it was early, but she had kind of hoped that the gymnast’s brain woke up as quickly as her body did.

The three walked in more or less silence for over an hour. Every once in a while Mai would ask if they could just call the Captain dead and leave, Ty Lee would comment with something along the lines of what if he’s alive, and Azula would point out that the Captain had their maps. Then about fifteen minutes later they would go through much the same conversation with slightly different words choices.

None of them were paying particular attention to anything. Aside from the princess that is, Azula carefully surveyed everything as they passed it. She was mostly concerned with encountering the swamp thing again, yet deep in the back of her mind she could feel her concern for the Captain. Now the mere fact that she was feeling concern for any living creature other than herself was enough to put the princess in a foul mood, but the fact that that living creature was an attractive older boy added fuel to the flames.

Something splashed from just out of sight and Azula stopped in her tracks. She didn’t strike a battle pose, after all it was most likely just a Cat-Gator, but the three girls were waist deep in swamp water, and the princess didn’t trust that a creature like a Cat-Gator would be intelligent enough to understand that attacking her was taunting death.

Mai paused as the princess stopped walking. She looked over to where the splashing had come from and slipped a knife into her hand, she was still carrying the Captain’s halberd but she still had one hand with which to through small deadly things into the eyes of approaching creatures.

Ty Lee just prepared to leap in some direction, really that would depend on what came around the corner. If it was a Cat-Gator she would leap to one side to try and distract it while one of the others killed and/or scared it away, if it was something gross she’d jump back away from it, and if it was something cute she’d jump on top of it to hug it.

It was Tatsuya. Ty Lee squeed and jumped strait at him tossing her arms around his neck swinging about a little once she grabbed him. “Tatsu! You’re alive, we were sooo worried!” The gymnast’s sudden assault nearly caused them both to tumble into the muck, but she let herself down and leaned forward crossing her arms behind her back and smiling up at him while he regained his balance.

Azula blinked a little and then rubbed her eyes; leave it up to Ty Lee to ruin what little dignity their pack had managed maintained after being drenched in swamp muck and left without food for half a day by bursting into a girlish flurry at the first sight of their lost comrade. The princess permitted herself to sigh, though she did smile at the Captain. “Good to see you’re not dead Tatsuya.”

He smiled and saluted the princess, but before he could say anything Mai walked over and practically shoved his halberd back to him. “Yeah great. You’re not dead. I don’t suppose you happened to find a way out of this festering swamp while you were out not dying?”

Tatsuya chuckled a little and scratched the back of his head; he wasn’t wearing his top armor, other than his arm bands. His chest plates had been sacrificed to build a carrying pack better than a bunch of leaves. “Well actually I have managed to acquire a map, but it just shows the local area, and doesn’t show where the edge is.”

Azula blinked at the Captain. “And just where did you get a map like that?” It seemed like too much of a coincidence for the Captain to have just found a map that told them how to get out of the swamp during his time lost, particularly since he couldn’t possibly have mapped out the swamp on his own, he’d only been missing a day.

“The locals, water benders, I managed to convince them I was with the Earth Kingdom, they don’t seem too bright.” Tatsuya climbed up a nearby root and set his pack down; pulling out the map the swamp benders had given him. Ty Lee bounced over him to perch behind him higher up on the root and looked over his shoulder, Mai walked over around his other side. Azula just walked up to face him.

Azula stood in front of him as the Captain laid the map out between them; he had north facing him so that the south faced the princess. “I can only assume we are somewhere around this area.” Tatsuya pointed to a place near the center of the swamp. “If we head due south we should be able to breach the edge of the swamp by sundown. I’m not sure where exactly we’ll be after that, this map wasn’t drawn with the outside world as reference, and I’m not even sure north and south are correctly marked… But following it should at least get us out of the swamp.”

“If it means we get out of this swamp. I’m all for following the map.” Mai said tucking her arms into her sleeves.

“I don’t know… A map that can’t be relied on sounds like it could just get us more lost…” Ty Lee for once played the skeptic. It was actually a refreshing change for the princess to hear Mai touting the pros, and Ty Lee the cons.

Too bad she had to agree with Mai. “This swamp is getting us nowhere, the Avatar has probably left long ago and we can’t waste anymore time here, let’s a find our way out and then a town to resupply at. Finding the Avatar is out number one priority, we can no longer be distracted by plant monsters and oversized mud holes.” Azula looked from Mai to the Captain to Ty Lee, they each nodded in turn, well Ty Lee and Tatsuya nodded, Mai just sort of smiled. “Let’s head out.”

The Captain nodded, Ty Lee smiled, Mai smirked and Azula took the map, rolling it up and tucking it into her armor between her breasts. The four of them set out again, though no one admitted it, their mood was much improved by the Captain’s return.

Yet something uneasy still shimmered in the shadows of the swamp. Azula was on edge, but she didn’t know why, and that merely put her more on edge. It was one thing to simply be on edge in a strange environment, she almost expected that of herself, but to not be able to tell why she was on edge, that bothered her. And what only added to her ire, was that she was actually taking some comfort from the presence of the Captain. She didn’t understand why, apparently a growing list, another thing that irked her.

After all, Ty Lee was a skilled gymnast with a mastery of pressure points, and with her ability to block chi, there wasn’t a bender alive she couldn’t stop in their tracks, perfect for chasing the ultimate bender, and Mai, dreary little Mai. She had more knives hidden away that even Azula could keep track of, she was at least as agile as the princess, perhaps more so, not to mention her drab little monotone was perfect for concealing any deceptions Azula might need.

The Captain was a mediocre bender with a long sharp stick. He was less than a dime a dozen, he was more like a nickel a dozen. There was an entire army of fire benders at Azula’s beckon call, and yet she felt some… thing toward the Captain. Azula wasn’t a fool, she could tell that she had some sort of feelings toward the Captain; it was simply that she refused to admit that to herself. Refusing her emotions was something Azula traditional didn’t do, it was messy and restricted her bending, but there was simply something so improper about the Princess of the Fire Nation, the most powerful nation in of the world, harboring feelings for some worthless no name half breed Captain. Still if by no means what so ever did word of her feelings ever see so much at a sliver of daylight…? The princess glanced back at him.

There had to be some way… Azula had always gotten her way before. Perhaps if upon her success she touted the Captain’s assistance. No Ty Lee and Mai would know what had really happened, and they would never let the princess live her crush down. Well, it wasn’t likely Mai would care, but Ty Lee wouldn’t let Azula live it down.

While the princess schemed they walked, slowly and steadily through the swamp. Ty Lee on Azula’s right, Mai on the princess’s left, and Tatsuya a few steps behind. The creatures of the swamp knew better than to mess with the four of them, in truth they knew better than to mess with Azula, animal instinct told them not to anger her and anything that didn’t listen to its instincts was deswayed by the look of her companions. Ty Lee radiated so much energy animals worried about what she might do to them, Mai stood in such stark contrast to the gymnast that the creatures of the swamp gave the two a half mile buffer zone, and then there was the Captain and his sizable pole-arm, he added another ten feet.

The four stopped briefly for when the sun was at its highest. The Captain grilled the fish from the swamp benders for the girls, but refrained from giving them any of the grilled insects, he still held concerns about their edibility. It was probably just as well, none of the girls would have eaten a giant insect.

Soon enough they were on their way again, but the silence of their traveling was starting to get to Ty Lee. She scanned the area for something interesting, but the animals were still keeping their distance and no matter how hard you tried swamps just weren’t that interesting. Nor was Mai, sure she was interesting to think about, just not to talk to. Azula? No… talking about Azula was never a particularly good idea, unless you were fire proof, and lighting proof, and there wasn’t anything particularly sharp around. The Captain! He was new, he was interesting, he had a past she didn’t know about, and he was cute. He was perfect.

“Say Tatsu?” The gymnast started, her head was tossed back as she stared backward at him; he looked over at her respectfully uninterested in what she was going to say. “What was it like growing up in the colonies?”

Something changed the moment Ty Lee asked, it wasn’t something physical, but it was a change felt by each of them. Azula slowed her pace and looked back over her shoulder; Mai removed her hands from her sleeves and looked over at Tatsuya.

The Captain had been smiling, not for any particular reason other than when a superior addressed him he had the habit of smile back at them. He wasn’t anymore. “It was…” He paused to find a word that would both be honest, and murder the subject of his past where it stood. “Unpleasant.”

“Oh come now Captain.” Azula smirked. “Surely you must have some interesting tales of growing up the child of a Fire Nation soldier in an occupied Earth Kingdom town. I would not have assumed that it was pleasant.”

None of the other girls knew why the princess had taken an interest in the Captain’s past; Mai didn’t even know why Ty Lee had. In truth the princess was hoping that there some something in the Captain’s past that would aid her in validating him. She admitted that she liked him, to herself at least, but before she could allow herself to act on her feelings she needed something to validate him. He was just a soldier after all, one of hundreds, and she was the princess of the most powerful nation in the world, the heir to the throne, the daughter of Fire Lord Ozai, whomever she married would become the next Fire Lord. Sure she wasn’t exactly picking out her wedding dress, that was more Ty Lee thing’s anyway, but still she was a woman and wasn’t going to start a relationship that couldn’t possible become anything at all. She needed a reason, something, anything that she could use to validate him.

Tatsuya frowned, but he wasn’t going to directly refuse the princess. He took a deep breath. “My father was a soldier in General Iroh’s army. His unit was to reinforce the General’s position at the wall of Ba Sing Sei, they passed through my mother’s town on the way. It was already occupied by that point but I don’t think there’d ever been any particularly large Fire Nation presence.”

He paused and the girls looked back at him, he wasn’t telling the story like it was his past. It was more like he was talking about someone else’s past, someone he was less than friends with. “My mother worked a tavern in town, she was just a waitress but apparently something about her must have caught my father’s eye. He forced himself on her, and his unit moved out a few days after.” He spoke of his conception in cold, almost military jargon, and yet there was something in it that Azula found interesting. She wondered how he came to think of himself in such dark, vile, terms.

“My father died shortly after they broke through the first wall, but he got farther than most ever have. My mother was left to raise me alone in an occupied town, against her will. It was rough, the other children were almost entirely Earth Kingdom, and several of them were even earth benders.” There was more than what he was telling; the princess could feel it in how he spoke around the subject. She couldn’t yet tell what it was, but she could tell it was there. “They didn’t much care for me, picked on me. Kid stuff mostly, throwing rocks, starting fights, that sort of thing. It got better once I discovered my bending; people tend to avoid upsetting an eight year old with the power to sling fireballs.” Azula smirked; she knew exactly what he was talking about. Fear was a powerful motivator. “Anyway shortly after that I joined the military to get some formal training in my bending. I left town and didn’t return until after I became Captain and forged my halberd.” He smirked at the girls shrugging a little; again there was more he wasn’t telling.

It was clear to Azula at least that he had avoided telling them most everything he could about his past after all, all Earth Benders did was throw rocks, but now wasn’t the time to push the point, she hadn’t learned anything particularly useful about his past, and didn’t much care to learn anymore at the moment.

Mai sighed. “Sounds depressingly boring Tatsuya…” She yawned a little fanning her mouth to prevent any swamp insects from getting any ideas.

“Yeah Tatsu, didn’t you have any friends or someone you left behind?” Ty Lee leaned over toward him. Azula rolled her eyes; it was so obvious she was asking if he’d left behind a girl that the princess actually felt sorry for the Captain.

He smirked a little. “No Lady Ty Lee, the only one I left home was my mother, and honestly… I doubt she misses me.”

“Wow. Now that’s just seems sad… even to me.” Mai said with a sigh.

They left it at that, and several hours later the four of them broke the edge of the swamp. It hadn’t taken till sundown as the captain had projected, but they didn’t stop at the swamp’s edge. They kept walking till the sun did go down, looking for a village or a convoy, or their carriage. It was clear the Avatar wasn’t around there anymore, but if they could get to a town they could resupply, wash their clothes, and perhaps pick up the trail.
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Azula's Lost Chapters OR Azula's New Cook