Chapter Text

Chapter 1

The Crystal Catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se were supposed to be quiet. They were a place of profound earth-aligned stillness, where glowing green crystals hummed with the ambient, ancient energy of the deepest parts of the world.

Right now, however, the air was practically vibrating with lethal intent.

"Breathe in, Azula," Aang said. He kept his voice deliberately steady, though the strain was evident in his posture. He sat in a perfect lotus position across from her, his hands resting lightly on his knees. "Focus on the center. Fire is life, not just destruction. You are treating your own chi like an enemy. Let the warmth flow down your spine, not up into your chest."

Azula sat rigidly across from him, her eyes squeezed shut. Her breath came in jagged, shallow gasps that sounded painfully like dry heaves. A volatile, flickering aura of blue energy cracked around her shoulders, sparking and snapping like a fractured halo.

"Spare me the Air Nomad platitudes," she snarled through gritted teeth. Her eyes snapped open. They were wild, feverish, and cornered. "If you brought me down into this cavern to bore me to death, you are succeeding, Avatar."

"I brought you down here because your chi is completely blocked," Aang replied, his tone firming. He was older now, the carefree boy who had danced around her lightning replaced by a seasoned young man who bore the crushing weight of a recovering world. "You haven't slept in four days. Zuko told me you nearly burned down your own courtyard yesterday just trying to light a candle. You're losing control of your bending."

"I am in perfect control!" Azula shouted. Her voice echoed off the glowing walls, sharp and desperate. "I am a prodigy. I do not lose control. I am simply... surrounded by incompetence."

"You are surrounded by people trying to help you," Aang corrected gently. "But you won't let them. You're trying to contain an inferno inside a glass jar, Azula. It’s going to shatter."

"I am not glass!" She threw a hand forward, intending to cast a simple, illuminating spark to prove her dominance over the element.

It wasn't a spark.

Driven by months of suppressed trauma, paranoid isolation, and the splintering of her own brilliant mind, the energy manifested as a torrential, roaring wave of blue fire.

Aang’s eyes went wide. He dropped his meditative stance instantly, slamming his fists together and pulling apart the air to create a pressurized vacuum shield. But the blue flames didn't just hit the air; they hit the highly condensed spiritual energy of the Catacombs.

The clash of pure, unbridled cosmic energy and Azula's cold-blooded, unstable firebending did not create an explosion. It created a terrifying, absolute silence.

The glowing green crystals instantly turned a blinding, piercing white. Aang felt a sensation like a massive iron hook catching right behind his navel, pulling him violently forward through space and time. He heard Azula scream—a raw, terrified sound completely devoid of her usual arrogance—before the cavern, the light, and the world itself dissolved into a deafening roar of wind.

Aang woke to the smell of pine needles, damp earth, and sulfur.

His head pounded with a vicious, rhythmic thud. He groaned, rolling over, his face pressing into coarse dirt. He coughed, spitting out a mouthful of dead leaves, and slowly pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. The air was thick, humid, and heavy.

"Avatar."

The voice was cold, sharp, and laced with absolute venom.

Aang blinked, his vision swimming into focus. Azula was standing ten feet away. Her hair, usually immaculate, was tangled with twigs. Her silk robes were torn at the hem. She looked like a feral, cornered predator, and her golden eyes were fixed on him with murderous intent.

"Azula," Aang breathed. A wave of profound relief washed over him that she was alive, quickly followed by a spike of alarm at her posture. He sat back on his heels, rubbing his temples. "What happened? Did the cavern cave in? Where are we?"

"I should be asking you that," she hissed, taking a threatening step forward. She gestured sharply at the towering trees around them. "What kind of spirit trick is this? The Catacombs do not have a sky. And this humidity... this is the Fire Nation."

Aang looked up. Through the dense canopy of ancient pine trees, a heavy, gray sky loomed. The distinct, sulfurous tang of a nearby volcano coated the back of his throat.

"I... I don't know," Aang murmured, thoroughly confused. "The energy in the cavern, it reacted with your fire. I need to ask Roku or Kyoshi what happened."

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, reaching inward to the eternal, cosmic thread that connected him to Raava and his past lives. He reached for the Avatar Spirit.

He found a solid, impenetrable wall.

Aang gasped, his eyes flying open in sheer terror. He fell backward, his hands scrambling in the dirt. It wasn't a blockage like when Azula had struck him with lightning in Ba Sing Se. It wasn't a severed connection. It was an occupation. Someone else was sitting in the spiritual seat of the Avatar. The presence was immense, fiery, and deeply, overwhelmingly familiar.

"Roku," Aang whispered, his voice trembling. He looked at his hands, trying to summon a small flicker of flame, a bead of water, a shift in the earth. Nothing. Only the faint, swirling eddy of the wind answered his call.

Azula crossed her arms, her lip curling in a sneer. "Have you finally lost your mind? Avatar Roku has been dead for a century."

"No," Aang said, scrambling to his feet. His breathing quickened into borderline hyperventilation. "No, Azula. I can't feel them. I can't bend anything except air. Roku... Roku is alive. He's holding the connection. Right now."

Azula stared at him, her expression hardening from anger into skeptical disdain. "You are pathetic. If this is a ploy to lower my guard so you can restrain me—"

"Azula, look!" Aang pointed through a break in the trees, toward the edge of the high ridge they were standing on.

She marched over, prepared to mock whatever illusion he was pointing at, but the words died in her throat. Below them, nestled in the caldera of a massive, dormant volcano, spread the Capital City.

It was undeniably her home, but it was profoundly wrong. The architecture was older. The great metal foundries that choked the sky with soot during her father's reign were absent. But the true terror lay in the harbor. Anchored in the bay were massive, coal-powered dreadnoughts. They were not the sleek, iron-clad cruisers of Ozai's modern fleet. They were older, bulkier models. The distinct, jagged insignia of her great-grandfather was painted proudly on their sails.

Azula’s breath hitched. Her golden eyes widened as she took in the impossible sight. The city was prosperous, peaceful, and entirely unscarred by a century of global warfare.

"It's Sozin's fleet," she whispered, the venom draining from her voice, replaced by a hollow, creeping horror. "Those ships... they were decommissioned before I was even born."

"We didn't just move," Aang said, the crushing weight of reality settling onto his shoulders. "The Catacombs... the energy. We tore a hole in the timeline. We're in the past, Azula. Before the war. Before I was frozen."

Azula turned to him, her face a mask of pale, rigid denial. "No. Time is absolute. This is a trick. A Spirit World hallucination."

She raised two fingers, taking a sharp breath, preparing to summon her signature blue fire to prove this was an illusion, to burn the false trees to the ground.

"Don't!" Aang lunged forward, grabbing her wrist.

She reacted violently, twisting her arm and throwing a sharp palm strike at his chest, but Aang smoothly deflected it, relying purely on his evasive footwork.

"Let go of me, peasant!" she spat.

"Listen to me!" Aang pleaded, keeping his distance, his gray eyes urgent. "If you use your fire, they will see it. Think, Azula! Blue fire is an anomaly. If Sozin's sages see a teenager wielding flames hotter than the Fire Lord himself, what do you think they'll do? They won't bow to you. They won't know who you are. They'll lock you in a cage and dissect you to find out how you do it."

Azula froze. Her chest heaved. She looked at her trembling hands, then down at the peaceful city, then back to Aang. The brilliant, calculating strategist in her mind violently overrode the panicked teenager. He was right. In this era, she was not Princess Azula. She was a nobody. And wielding a unique, terrifying power would not elevate her; it would damn her.

She lowered her hands, her jaw clenching so tightly Aang thought her teeth might crack. "I am going to kill you for this, Aang."

"You can try later," Aang said softly, the use of his name instead of his title not lost on him, even in the chaos. "Right now, we just need to survive."

Surviving the Caldera forests for a week was an exercise in absolute, degrading misery.

Without the ability to bend, they were reduced to the lowest rung of existence. Aang, at least, had his airbending to help him leap into trees to scout or silently drop onto small game, though his ingrained pacifism meant they survived mostly on forged berries, bitter roots, and whatever edible moss Aang could identify.

Azula, on the other hand, was enduring a waking nightmare.

"I am not eating that," Azula stated flatly on the fifth day, staring down at the handful of slightly bruised, purple berries Aang offered her. They were sitting by a small, unlit camp. They couldn't risk a fire, even if Aang could have made one without bending.

"You haven't eaten since yesterday morning," Aang pointed out, his own stomach growling in loud agreement. He tossed a berry into his mouth and chewed. "They aren't poison. I promise. The lemurs back at the Southern Temple eat them all the time."

"I am not a flying rodent," she deadpanned, sitting on a log with her arms tightly crossed. Her silk robes were now permanently stained with mud, her boots scuffed beyond repair. "And I am not eating dirt-covered refuse handed to me by an incompetent monk."

"Fine. Starve." Aang sighed, placing the leaves on a rock near her. He knew she would eat them the moment he turned his back.

He ran a hand over his head and winced. "My head is itching like crazy."

Azula looked at him, and for a fraction of a second, the sheer absurdity of their situation broke through her fury. "Your hair is growing back. It looks ridiculous."

Aang frowned, touching the prickly, dark fuzz that was beginning to obscure the bright blue arrow on his scalp. "I don't exactly have a razor. And I can't walk into a barber shop down there and ask for a shave."

"You can't walk down there at all looking like that," Azula said sharply, her tactical mind fully engaged. "Those arrows are a beacon. The Air Nomads are isolated right now. An Air Nomad youth wandering the Fire Nation Capital is a political anomaly. You will be questioned by the city guard within ten minutes. And we cannot afford to be questioned."

"So what do I do?"

Azula stood up. She walked over to where Aang's outer robe lay drying on a branch. Without hesitation, she gripped the thick, dark orange fabric of the hem and tore a long, wide strip from it.

She walked back to Aang and threw it at his face. "Tie it around your head. Cover the arrow on your forehead and tuck it firmly over your ears. It will look like a laborer's sweatband."

Aang caught the fabric, looking at it, then up at her. He wrapped it tightly around his head, tying a knot at the back. It pulled his ears down slightly and covered his entire forehead. With the dark fuzz growing on his crown and the thick band hiding his tattoos, he looked entirely different. He didn't look like the Avatar. He looked like a rugged, slightly disheveled, lower-class teenager.

"Well?" Aang asked, adjusting the knot.

"You look like a vagrant," Azula said coolly. She reached down, picked up one of the purple berries, and popped it into her mouth, chewing with a grimace. "At least you will blend in with the rest of the street trash."

By the seventh day, starvation and exposure drove them down from the mountains.

They entered the lower rings of the Caldera as the sun began to dip below the horizon, casting long, bleeding shadows across the cobblestones. The lower rings were loud, cramped, and smelled overwhelmingly of roasting meats, coal dust, and cheap liquor.

Aang and Azula walked close together, heads down. Azula’s face was hidden by a hood fashioned from her remaining clean fabric, while Aang kept his hands tucked into his sleeves. They were exhausted, practically vibrating with hunger, and utterly penniless.

"We need a coin," Azula whispered, her voice tight as they passed a stall selling steamed buns. The scent was agonizing. "I can lift a purse off one of these merchants. They are distracted, loud, and careless."

"No stealing," Aang hissed back, grabbing her elbow before she could drift toward a wealthy-looking man arguing with a vendor. "If you get caught, we have no defense. You can't fight back without exposing us. If you get arrested, I can't break you out without my bending."

"Then do you suggest we beg?" she snapped, yanking her arm out of his grip and stepping into a dark alleyway. "Because I will throw myself into the volcano before I ask a commoner for table scraps."

Before Aang could formulate a response about finding honest labor, a voice called out from the street.

"You there! In the shadows!"

Aang and Azula both froze, falling into defensive stances instantly. Aang shifted his weight, preparing to blast a concussive gust of air down the alley, while Azula’s fingers twitched, desperate for a flame she violently suppressed.

An older woman stepped into the mouth of the alley. She was plump, wearing a simple, faded red apron over gray robes. Her hair was pulled back into a neat bun, silver threads weaving through the black. She held a small lantern, raising it to illuminate their faces.

Behind her stood an older man, tall and broad-shouldered, with a thick, graying beard and a stern, weathered face that spoke of a lifetime of hard labor.

The woman’s eyes softened immediately as the lantern light hit Aang’s dirt-smudged face and Azula’s pale, exhausted features beneath her hood.

"Oh, Jian," the woman whispered, her hand flying to her mouth. "Look at them. They're just children."

The man, Jian, grunted, his eyes sweeping over their torn clothes and Aang’s protective posture. "Runaways. Look at the state of them, Min. Probably haven't eaten in days."

Aang dropped his stance slightly, his nature recognizing the total lack of threat in the couple's posture. "We... we're fine. Just passing through."

"Nonsense," Min said, stepping forward. Azula tensed, ready to strike, but Aang put a subtle hand out, holding her back. "You'll freeze to death in these alleys tonight. Come inside. I have leftover broth and rice. You look like a strong wind would blow you both over."

Azula opened her mouth to deliver a scathing refusal, to tell this peasant woman exactly where she could shove her pity, but her stomach betrayed her with a loud, hollow growl.

Jian offered a small, gruff smile. "Pride doesn't fill the belly, boy. Bring your sister inside before the night patrols come around. They aren't kind to vagrants."

Aang and Azula exchanged a rapid, silent conversation through a single glance. Do we run? No. We need food. We play along.

"Thank you," Aang said, bowing his head respectfully. "We would be grateful."

The house was small, but impeccably clean. The heat of a crackling hearth in the corner was absolute heaven after a week of freezing in the damp woods. Min sat them at a low wooden table and placed two steaming bowls of chicken broth and rice before them.

Aang practically inhaled his, his manners vanishing in the face of sheer starvation.

Azula, however, could not turn off a lifetime of royal conditioning. Even starving, dressed in rags, and sitting on a cheap wooden floor, she sat with a ramrod-straight spine. She pushed her hood back, picked up the wooden spoon elegantly, holding it with her index finger slightly extended, and brought the broth to her lips with slow, deliberate precision.

Min, who was wiping down the counter, paused. She tilted her head, her sharp, motherly eyes tracking Azula’s movements. She looked at Azula’s delicate, uncalloused hands, the aristocratic slope of her nose, the way she chewed with her mouth perfectly closed. Then, Min looked at Aang—shoveling rice into his mouth, dirt under his fingernails, a ragged cloth tied around his head, sitting with a comfortable, peasant slouch.

Min wiped her hands on her apron and walked over, sitting across from them. Jian leaned against the doorframe, crossing his massive arms.

"You aren't brother and sister," Min said softly.

Aang choked on a grain of rice, thumping his chest. Azula froze, the spoon halfway to her mouth, her golden eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.

"I don't know what you mean," Aang coughed, recovering quickly. "We're from the colonies."

"Don't lie to me, sweet boy," Min smiled, though her eyes were deeply sad. "I know an estate hand when I see one. You've got calluses on your palms from climbing and manual labor. But her?" Min nodded gently toward Azula. "This girl has never worked a day in her life. Look at how she holds her spoon. Look at her posture. She's highborn."

Azula's blood ran cold. She knows. The peasant knows. She calculated the distance to the door. She could blind Jian with a strike to the throat, flip the table into Min, and be out the window before they hit the ground.

"What are your names?" Jian asked, his voice a low rumble.

Aang panicked. If they lied, and the couple pushed them on it, the entire facade would crack. But he also knew he couldn't use his title.

"I'm Aang," he said quickly. "And this... is Azula."

Min gasped, her hand flying to her chest. Jian’s eyebrows shot up.

"Azula?" Min breathed, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and pity. "But... that is an ancient name. A name meant only for the highest nobility. Derived from the old words for sacred fire..."

Aang blinked. He looked at Jian, then at Min, and then at Azula, who was staring at him with a look that screamed, Fix this, or I kill everyone in this room.

And then, Aang realized exactly what was happening. They didn't think Azula was a threat. They thought her name and her manners proved she was a noble's daughter. And they thought his calluses proved he was her servant.

It was the perfect alibi.

"Yes," Aang blurted out, dropping his bowl. He slumped his shoulders, forcing a look of desperate, tragic guilt onto his face. "Yes, you're right. She is Lady Azula. And I... I was just a servant. Please... please don't turn us in to the city guard. Her father will kill me."

Azula’s spoon clattered into her empty bowl. She stared at Aang, her mind entirely blanking in shock.

"Oh, you poor, brave things," Min gasped, her romantic heart instantly melting. She leaned forward, clasping her hands. "I knew it. I told you, Jian! I said, look at how he stands between her and the door. He's protecting her."

"I am," Aang said, his voice dropping into a solemn, theatrical register. He reached across the table and, before Azula could react, took her hand in his.

Azula’s entire body went rigid. Her eyes widened, a silent, homicidal promise burning in her irises. Touch me again, Aang, and you will lose this hand.

Aang squeezed her hand affectionately, shooting her a desperate, warning look. Play along!

"We didn't have a choice," Aang continued, weaving the lie with the natural, breathless flair of an Air Nomad storyteller. "I was a groundskeeper at her family's estate. I tended the turtle-duck ponds. But every evening, she would come down to the gardens. She was so sad, trapped in that big, cold house. I started leaving her little wood carvings. A lotus flower. A badger-mole."

Jian nodded slowly, captivated by the tale. Min was practically holding her breath.

"When her father found out," Aang said, letting his voice crack slightly, "he threatened to send me to the outer island coal mines. And he was going to marry her off to some cruel, old general in the colonies just to secure a trade route. We couldn't let it happen. I couldn't let her light go out. So, two nights ago, I packed what little I had, I climbed her balcony, and I stole her away."

He looked deeply into Azula's eyes, his expression a masterpiece of adoring devotion. "I'd rather die in the dirt than live in a world where she doesn't smile."

Azula felt a vein throb violently in her temple. She was going to vomit. She was going to vomit, and then she was going to commit a war crime.

"Oh, sweet Agni," Min sniffled, wiping a tear from her eye. She reached out and patted Azula’s rigid, frozen hand. "You brave, brave girl. Giving up your wealth, your family, your comfort... just for true love. It must be so overwhelming."

Azula forced her mouth to open. She forced the muscles in her face to stretch into what she hoped resembled a timid, tragic smile. "It... is. Truly. I am... overwhelmed."

Her voice was clipped, tight, and completely lacking in warmth, but Min simply interpreted it as aristocratic shyness and the trauma of displacement.

"She hasn't spoken much since we left," Aang added quickly, smoothly covering for her icy tone. "The shock of it all. The cold. It’s been hard on my beautiful lady."

My beautiful lady. Azula closed her eyes. I am in hell. The Spirit World has condemned me to an eternal, agonizing hell.

"Well, you are safe now," Jian said, stepping fully into the room. He walked over to Aang and placed a heavy, calloused hand on his shoulder. "It takes a real man to risk his neck for the woman he loves against the wrath of the nobility. You've got a good heart, Aang. A strong spirit."

"Thank you, sir," Aang said politely, though his body ached with exhaustion. "We couldn't impose. We have no money to pay you."

At this, the warmth in the room seemed to suddenly dim. Jian’s heavy hand tightened slightly on Aang’s shoulder, and Min looked down at the table, her eyes misting over with a profound, dark grief.

"You don't need money," Jian said, his voice gruff, thick with an emotion he was struggling to suppress. "We have a spare room. It's small, but it has a proper futon and thick blankets. That room... it belonged to our son. Lu Ten."

Aang’s breath hitched. He knew that name. It was a common Fire Nation name, one he knew Iroh had given his own son decades later, but the grief in the man's voice was universal and devastating.

"He lived there with his wife, and our two little grandchildren," Min whispered, wiping her eyes with her apron. "Three months ago... there was an accident in the lower foundry. The fire spread so fast. The wind carried it right to their window." She choked on a sob, covering her mouth. "They didn't get out."

The silence in the room was deafening.

Aang felt a sickening wave of guilt crash over him. He was lying to these people. He was exploiting the deepest, most devastating wound a parent could suffer, all to maintain a cover story. He looked at Azula.

Azula was staring at the hearth, the flickering orange flames reflecting in her golden eyes. For the first time since they had fallen through time, her mask of fury slipped completely. She was staring at the fire not as a weapon, not as a divine birthright, but as the chaotic, merciless thing that had murdered this woman's family. Her hands slowly uncurled on her lap.

"I am so sorry," Aang whispered, and for the first time all evening, he wasn't acting. "We won't trouble you. If the memories are too painful..."

"No," Min said fiercely, looking up. "No, the silence in this house is what is painful. Seeing two young people, so full of life, so devoted to each other... it brings warmth back to this hearth. You will stay. It is decided."

Jian nodded firmly. "You will stay. But..." He crossed his arms, his traditional, conservative nature reasserting itself. "I will not have a young, unwed woman sleeping under the same roof as a boy, let alone sharing a room. Not even runaways. It isn't proper. It isn't honorable for Lady Azula."

Aang blinked. "Oh. Well, I can sleep on the floor out here—"

"No," Jian interrupted, his tone leaving absolutely no room for negotiation. "You risked everything for her. You clearly intend to be with her for the rest of your lives. Tomorrow morning, I will take you to the local shrine. Fire Sage Kaelo is a friend of mine. He will perform the rites quietly. You will be properly, honorably wed."

Aang’s jaw dropped. "Married?"

"Married?!" Azula choked out, her voice finally breaking its aristocratic pitch, rising into a genuine squeak of horror.

"It is the only way you stay under my roof," Jian said firmly. "I will not let you wander back into the streets, and I will not let her honor be stained by living in sin."

"Jian is right," Min agreed, her romantic spirit taking over again. She clasped her hands, her tears drying instantly in the face of a wedding. "Oh, it will be so beautiful! Quiet, of course, to keep you hidden from the nobles, but beautiful. Now, you two sit here. Drink your tea. I have something in the back room I need to find."

Min hurried out of the room, Jian following closely behind her to help.

The moment the heavy wooden door clicked shut, the silence in the kitchen shattered.

Azula lunged across the table, her hands wrapping violently into the fabric of Aang’s shirt. She pulled him forward, her face inches from his, her eyes burning with pure, unadulterated rage.

"You," she hissed, her voice a deadly, vibrating whisper. "You made me a groundskeeper's runaway tramp? You agreed to marry me to a peasant in front of a Fire Sage?!"

"It was the only thing I could think of!" Aang whispered back frantically, trying to pry her iron grip off his shirt. "They saw right through you, Azula! You were eating a bowl of peasant broth like you were at a state dinner! They recognized your name! I had to give them a reason why a noble was wandering the streets with a guy who looks like me!"

"I am a princess of the Fire Nation!" she snarled. "I do not marry vagrants! I do not marry the Avatar! Tell them we are leaving! Now!"

"We can't leave!" Aang shot back, his own frustration boiling over. He pushed her hands away roughly. "Look at them, Azula! They lost their family to a fire. They are grieving. If we just run out into the night, they will panic. They'll call the city guard to look for us. The guards will find us, they'll realize we have no identification, no papers, no family, and we will be thrown into a cell! Can you bend us out of a cell right now? Because I can't!"

Azula glared at him, her chest heaving. She hated that his logic was flawless. She hated that she was trapped. "So your grand strategic plan is to legally bind me to you?"

"It's just a ceremony! It won't mean anything when we go back to our time!" Aang ran his hands over his headband, stressing. "We just have to play along for a little while. We get a safe place to sleep, we get food, and we use this place as a base to figure out how to get into the palace and find an artifact to get us home."

"If I have to listen to you tell another story about feeding me turtle-duck food in the moonlight," Azula whispered venomously, "I am going to strangle you in your sleep."

Before Aang could respond, the heavy wooden door creaked open.

Aang and Azula instantly sprang apart. Aang rapidly smoothed his shirt while Azula rigidly adjusted her posture, folding her hands neatly in her lap, her face returning to a mask of tragic serenity.

Min and Jian walked back into the room. Their expressions were solemn, reverent, and deeply emotional. In their arms, they carried two bundles of folded fabric.

Min stepped forward, placing a bundle wrapped in dark crimson silk on the table in front of Azula. Jian set a bundle of charcoal-gray linen in front of Aang.

"We want you to have these," Min said softly, her voice trembling slightly. "For tomorrow."

Aang looked down at the bundle. He reached out, his fingers brushing the fabric. It was high-quality linen, tailored and pressed, completely untouched by the soot and grime of the lower rings.

"What are these?" Aang asked quietly.

"They belonged to Lu Ten and his wife," Jian said, his voice thick. "They wore them on their wedding day. We... we managed to save them from the cedar chest before the house went up."

Azula stared at the crimson silk in front of her. The fabric was beautiful, stitched with delicate gold thread in the pattern of blooming lotus flowers. It was the most precious thing these people owned, a relic of their dead children. And they were giving it to her—a stranger, a liar, the future princess of the nation that built the foundries that burned them alive.

Min reached out, gently placing a warm, weathered hand over Azula’s rigid knuckles.

"You will be a beautiful bride, Azula," Min said, offering a watery, deeply hopeful smile. "Tomorrow, we will help you get married."