Azula, former Empress of the Fire Nation, stood staring moodily out of the window of the space ship. She watched the small, insignificant marble she'd grown up on fade into the stars. She'd never considered there could be life beyond it. But here she was, riding a metal ship off into the stars. It was impossible to believe that she would ever have been happy with just one pathetic, what where they called?

"What are they called again? The thing we just left and the things we're going to conquer?" She turned.

Her companion was beating his finger tips on the railing beside her, in that irritating four beat pattern. "Planets, my darling."

Planets. Azula turned back to the shrinking world. "When we have burned many planets, let us return here, so that all the world may know that Azula is much greater than any firelord before her."

"If that's your wish." The man who called himself the Master smiled, still beating the railing.

At first everything about the ship frightened her, and it amused the Master how the girl would bluster to hide it. Within almost a day, the entire crew of the ship—including servants—was terrified of her.

The first mate came to him within forty-eight hours. "Sir, we know she's your guest and all, but she's already nearly killed two good men. Don' you think we could...?"

The Master smiled at him benevolently. "Do what, Mr...ah?"

"Dawson, sir, and, well, we'd rather like to take her back to her homeworld, sir, or at least place her somewhere safe."

"Mr. Dawson," the Master leaned forward and gently set his fingertips on the desk that had formerly been the captain's. "I invited her highness on the ship for my own reasons, and it would be a shame to have to break my promise to, 'show her the universe,' wouldn't it?"

Something in his eyes must have warned the first mate, because the larger man backed away slowly. "No, sir, I suppose it wouldn't."

"Noooo, definitely not." The Master came around the desk and wrapped a hand around Mr. Dawson's shoulders. He guided the man out of the room and down the hall. "See, that would be very very rude. I am not a rude man, Mr. Dawson. I am a very polite man, except on rare occasions...like this one." The Master gave Mr. Dawson a shove and used his laser screwdriver to close the door behind him. "I hope the cold of space teaches you manners." He walked away as the vacuum pulled Mr. Dawson out of the ship.

Within hours half of the crew had opted to leave by the same method Mr. Dawson had. The other half was too frightened to protest.

Azula came to visit him when the uprising was finished. "Don't you think throwing half the crew to their deaths was a little...I don't know, overkill?"

"I did it for you, my lovely," he replied, holding out his arm for her to join him on the leather couch he'd brought with him from earth.

With a half-smile half-sneer she sat next to him. "Still, half the crew dead? That's not a good way to start an empire."

"Says the woman who once banished her entire castle staff, such that there were none to attend her coronation." The Master gently kissed her shoulder.

"I was so young then. Why did you come for me?" Azula asked.

"What?" The Master drew back from her.

"Why did you come for me? How did you know I was in that asylum?" She looked up at him through her deep golden eyes.

He looked away, feeling the need suddenly. It wasn't a physical need; in fact it was separate from the one that made him want to push her back against the couch and force himself upon her. That one he kept in check, after all, where was the conquest in that? Instead he looked at the need for someone who understood him, someone who had been over the edge, like him. The drums...He began to tap out the rhythm behind his eyes on her shoulder.

"Stop it." She struck him suddenly and pulled away.

"Stop what?" he asked.

"That pounding. I don't like being used as your drum, you idiot!" He voice was an angry growl.

The Master forced himself to still. "Sorry, lovely. Please, sit back down." He forced himself to sound calm, to not betray the anger boiling inside. She can't hear it. Of course she can't hear it. It's in my head, and my head only.

Azula sat next to him, on the edge of the couch and not as close as before. He could see it in her future-in their future—it was going to be a long road.