When he first entered her room, she felt only one emotion: Rage. It wasn't particularly uncommon for her to feel that emotion, but it was uncommon for her to express it these days. As she stared at the intruding form, his blue tattooed arrows filled her vision, his grey eyes infuriated her mind, and his ridiculous smile ignited her breath.

She screamed, if one could place the noise that she made as belonging to a human, then the only conclusion would be that it belonged to an absolutely enraged one. Her voice ignited into sapphire flames, hatred and anger fueling her bending as she did her best to mimic a dragon. Unlike two months ago, there were no tears rolling down her face, and she had a perfect view of her visitor as her neck rolled and stretched and her arms and legs struggled against the chains that had been shortened in length in anticipation for this kind of reaction.

And what a view it was, he looked absolutely terrified, his eyes widening significantly. His form pressed up against the door he had just closed. His former smile has morphed into a thin line of surprise and his body seemed to be shaking. Azula couldn't help but start to laugh, at first softly, before deforming into a full on cackle. Even locked up and chained to a wall, at least she still had it within herself to terrify a 14 year old boy, taking only slight pride in the fact that it was at least the Avatar. She continued to laugh as she let her legs give in, allowing the chains on her arms to break her fall, her unkempt, uneven bangs moving rapidly in and out of her view as she did. She watched as he seemed to get over his fear temporarily and sat in the lotus position across from her, closing his eyes and removing any trace of emotion from his face.

Angry at his insolence, she narrowed her eyes. This boy had the audacity to ignore her, Royalty. She reached inside for her anger again, not a particularly hard task these days, and she willed flames into her breath again. She knew it wouldn't reach him at this range as she had never mastered the technique as well as her traitorous Uncle. Still, she shot her flames at him, hoping to jolt the same kind of terror that she had the first time, but unfortunately it seemed that the effect was muted now, which served to infuriate her even more. She continued to howl flames at him for as long as her breath would allow, before her body gave out and her lungs gulped for air; finally, her neck snapped to the ground as her eyes stared at the cement flooring.

After panting for a few moments, she heard an absolutely infuriating voice say something.

Her eyes narrowed as her visitor said, "Hi, you probably remember me as the Avatar, but I want to introduce myself as Aang."

Her head snapped up at his word, and she leveled the fiercest glare that she could as she met his eyes. She absolutely hated the smile that his face wore, and more than that she absolutely hated that she was in a position where her enemy apparently felt such pity that he would come to visit her in a cell of his own making. It seemed that she hated a lot these days. Still, she refused to rise to his bait. If she couldn't scare him, she wouldn't debase herself in front of her enemy any longer. She leaned against the wall, and tried to forget that there was someone else in her cell.

After a few minutes, she heard him shifting but refused to acknowledge the other occupant of the room, and thankfully it seemed the shifting had evolved into footsteps which resulted in the door to her cell being opened again. If she was not above it as royalty then she would have breathed a sigh of relief; however, footsteps began to approach again and she decided to check who would be graced with her presence this time, only to see the Avatar enter again, this time with a chair in hand. All she could do at this point was glare before finding the humor in it again and breaking into fits of laughter. It would seem that Agni truly did have it out for her.

"Do you want to know how I survived your lightning?"

Aang had been trying for the better part of two hours to provoke a coherent response from Azula, but besides anger and deranged laughter that he was pretty sure wasn't from his jokes, it had not been going well. The staff had told him that she had pretty much become resigned to sitting there and having fits of rage or laughter, depending on her mood, but even in the six months after the war he had always remained an optimist. He figured if asking about how she was doing and making small talk wasn't going to work, he would dangle something a lot more personal to get a response. It might have been a bit of a cheap shot to remind her of what she was once capable of, and it had just as good odds of rousing response from her as it did of angering her, but he hadn't won the war without taking chances.

He was rewarded for his efforts with a low hiss before she brought her head back up, her amber-gold eyes staring at his chest, specifically the spot that she had struck him. Well, that was the best response of comprehension that he had gotten so far, so he decided to push his luck.

"I think you'll be pleased to know that you actually did end up killing me." He smiled, moving the upper left part of his robe around his neck and pulling down to reveal his rather large scar, "I ended up in the spirit realm briefly before Katara used magic water from the North Pole to revive me."

She laughed again; this time was a bit less hysterical, but still not particularly inspiring about the state of her current mental health. Aang's eyes widened slightly when her laughter stopped and her mouth kept moving.

"I'm starting to think that perhaps Agni herself hates me as much as the rest of my family." Her red lips formed into a malicious grin across her face, and her eyes had mirth that didn't seem friendly. While it hadn't seemed that she had particularly addressed it towards him, Aang decided he would consider it to be so.

With that in mind, he wanted to protest on behalf of Zuko, telling her that he was only here because of Zuko's request, but he thought that was probably going to be a sore subject for a while. Instead, he settled on shrugging and giving her a smile, "Perhaps it's less hatred of you and more favor of me, I am the Avatar after all, that's the closest thing to divine intervention as possible."

She snorted rather derisively before adopting a sadistic grin, "If you let me out of these chains, I'd certainly be willing to help you test that theory."

Aang gulped; it was abundantly clear that even without full command of her mental faculties the former princess was still dangerous. He may be the Avatar, but she was one of the only people in the world that he feared.

He swallowed before responding, "Perhaps next time, Princess Azula. I'd like to help you get better if you'll let me."

Azula seemed inordinately happy at being addressed as a Princess again; her eyes took on a tone equal parts playful and cunning, and her grin returned in full force.

"If you want to help me, Avatar, then tell the staff to allow me to wander my room without chains. I know that I'm on an island based on the sea breeze that sometimes comes through the window. Even if I did escape, I wouldn't have anywhere to go." She said, looking at him earnestly, but Aang reminded himself that she lied to Toph was ease, and he certainly was not even half as good as Toph at detecting lies.

Aang thought on it briefly, he wanted to show a gesture of good will, but if she did manage to break out, or worse, take a hostage then nothing good could come of it. Furthermore, while Zuko had asked him to help his sister, he was pretty sure that he would not approve of this. He came to a decision.

"When I visit then I will remove and keep your chains off myself during my time here." He said in his normal voice before assuming the slightly deeper voice he used when acting as the Avatar, "I'm warning you now though, any sign of danger and I won't hesitate to put you back in the chains myself. Don't forget what the floor is made from." He stomped the ground and sent a small earth tremor to prove his point.

Her voice sounded absolutely soaked in sarcasm and venom when she replied, "I wouldn't dare oppose the all-powerful Avatar; wouldn't want to give you an excuse to leave the Fire Nation royal family with only Zuko representing us."

Aang blinked before realizing what she had implied. He protested her accusation, "I didn't kill Ozai! The monks taught me that all life is sacred, I could never do that!"

Azula's eyes narrowed at him, clearly doubting his words. Her eyes briefly flared before she pushed the subject, "You expect me to believe that you let the most hated man in the world get off with just a prison sentence? Not even you are that weak."

Aang responded with a serious face, "I'm not lying, I could never take a life." He then gave her a sheepish grin and started rubbing the back of his neck, "...buuuttt I did take his bending away so that he couldn't hurt anyone ever again."

Azula's eyes glazed over, and Aang got worried that he had ruined the progress he had made by defending his beliefs so vigorously. Could finding out that her father was not only alive but also stripped of his bending be that big of a shock? Aang almost facepalmed when he realized that yes, that very much could cause a relapse for someone with a history like Azula. He was surprised however, when he heard her spit on the ground.

Her voice was soft but held back anger when she spoke, "Then he's as good as dead. I have no doubt that you understand what taking a bender of his caliber ability to bend does to someone. If you ever want to finish the job both my parents started, then taking my ability to bend would probably be a good experiment in sani-"

"It's not the same!" Aang shouted, "I only did it to keep balance!" He knew that he shouldn't have interrupted as soon as he said it, but this was a sore point for him. He immediately brought his eyes to the ground. He had meditated for too long on the decision with Ozai for someone else to claim that he had essentially killed him.

Aang cringed slightly, but he took a moment to steel himself, he knew that the world was far better off now than taking a moment, he looked into her eyes with determination and replied, "Thats what I'm here for now. You deserve peace, Azula. You were just a child during the war. I'm here to help you; Please let me".

He smiled at her as genuinely as he could muster. When she stared back at him with a neutral expression he counted it as a win when she replied,

"We shall see, Avatar."

Doing my part to try and inspire more Azulaang fics since I've read most of them and want some more that aren't quite so depressing as most of the good ones. Seriously, I hate the mind control/Long Feng trope so very much, and I feel like it's absolutely pervasive in avatar fanfics. Other than that, give me some leeway with the cliche opening, it's really really hard to think of a different Canon compliant way to get these two to actually converse. Let me know what you think of my writing, I'm always open to criticism. For ages, everyone maintains the same age gap, they're just all slightly older, so Aang is 14 and Azula is 16, the rest you can work out if you want to yourself.