Rated T for language and some graphic imagery.

Disclaimer: This might shock you, but Avatar: The Last Airbender and its related properties are not under my ownership. Sorry if this fact causes disappointment.

Aang fought off the tears as he forced Appa onward, away from the Southern Air Temple that had been his home for all of his 12 years of life. He didn't know where he was going, or even what exactly he was doing, but he definitely knew why: if the monks at his temple were going to take him away from Gyatso, the closest thing he had to a father, and mold him into whatever they wanted him to become, he wanted nothing to do with them.

Memories kept replaying unbidden as his eyes turned from the sky around him to inside himself. He tried to focus on the good ones, of his days before he learned his future had already been decided for him, but he kept coming back to the bad ones: being told he was the Avatar, being rejected by his friends, learning that he'd be separated from his father and—

The sound of lightning to the left jolted Aang back into consciousness. With a start, he realized that he had flown Appa straight into a thunderstorm.

All rational thought was immediately replaced by sheer terror.

He pulled on Appa's reins wildly, trying desperately to turn around, to fly somewhere, anywhere, as long as it would get him out of the storm. Escape was the only thing on his mind.

That is, until the next lightning bolt struck him, right in the heart.

Then he didn't think about anything.

An Avatar: The Last Airbender oneshot (in four parts)

Part One

Azula prided herself on many things. Her power, of course—she was only 10, and was already close to being a master firebender. Then there was her intelligence, with both an amazing memory and deductive reasoning abilities far greater than anyone else her age. Combine that with her beauty (again, apparent even at 10), her physical strength, and, of course, her status as the Firelord's daughter. Put simply, there was no shortage of very good reasons for Azula to have a great deal of respect for herself.

But there was one more quality of Azula's, one quality that she considered even more important than all the others (though being a firebending prodigy came awfully close): her wisdom.

Fools would be content with Azula's lot in life, but Azula herself realized that it could all be taken away, in an instant, very easily. She had…experimented, when she was younger, and knew very well just how fragile a thing life was. If you gave a sun, others would take a ri—that's the way the world was.

So as far back as she could remember, Azula's life philosophy had been that the only way to protect yourself was to control everything and everyone else.

Plus, it was pretty fun, too.

She was going to love being Firelord.

Firelord Ozai was thinking about the Avatar. Not an uncommon event recently.

Around 95 years ago, his grandfather, Firelord Sozin, had attacked the Air Nomads with the benefit of his comet in an effort to capture the Avatar and render him irrelevant to the great conquests to come. They captured the ones who were around the right age and killed the rest, then tortured those captured about which one was the Avatar. The ones from the Southern Temple claimed that he had disappeared shortly before the attack, which was ridiculous, of course—coincidences like that only happened in kabuki plays. But none of them showed signs of…Avatar-ness, for lack of a better word, so they were all killed too, and the situation was generally chalked up to Spirit World weirdness. Sozin alone had wisely kept up the hunt, with most believing he was mad, though none dared say that to his face.

16 years later, a Southern Water Tribe savage—16 years old, of course—claimed to be the new Avatar, with the bending to prove it. The girl, Hatsuna, united the Southern Water Tribes behind her and even managed to repel the Fire Nation's attacks. If she could ally the Water Tribes with the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation's glorious mission to bring proper culture to the world could have been ended permanently.

Luckily, the great, ancient Firelord Sozin concocted a daring plan, bringing with him the Fire Nation's most powerful benders, along with the Yu-Yan archers, to strike at Avatar Hatsuna directly—as his last mission. Their advantage was Hatsuna's inability to find a competent firebender willing to teach her, which left her with just water and earth. In addition, the Water Tribes' general dispersion—their 'capital' was no bigger than the Fire Nation's smallest city—left her unable to muster a significant defense. Many great Fire Nation soldiers, along with the Firelord himself, were lost, but with the Avatar dead, any hope for a worldwide anti-Fire alliance died with her.

In the aftermath of that battle, the new Firelord, Ozai's father Azulon, sent agents all over the Earth Kingdom, to catch the newborn Avatar before he or she could deal more damage. Unfortunately, the new Avatar, Shen, was born in Ba Sing Se, and learned the lessons of Hatsuna's death. He spent almost all his time holed up in the Earth King's damn palace, using his name to lift the spirits of the Earth Kingdom's damn army. Of course, his failure to even find a firebending master left him without very many options in and of itself. In any event, he died at age 65, of some sort of disease so serious even waterbenders couldn't heal him.

That was 10 years ago.

The next Avatar—the current Avatar—was Fire. Some of Ozai's advisors were telling him to take advantage of this fact, to use the new Fire Avatar to take over the world once and for all.

Those people were idiots. The new Avatar was not Fire. Avatars were never truly a part of the country they were born. They were half Spirit, and the other half was concerned about keeping "balance" in the world, which in this case, of course, translated to "not let the Fire Nation improve humanity."

Ozai's grandfather, Firelord Sozin, realized this eventually, realized that an Avatar would be more than willing to betray his country—betray his best friend—for his precious "balance." That's why he was so concerned about getting rid of it, and why he taught his son (who in turn taught Ozai) to never trust an Avatar.

Besides, while it was technically illegal to say so, the Fire Nation was not doing well in the war. Hatsuna had damaged them, Shen had held his ground, and the losses were starting to pile themselves up. Victory not only gave the Fire Nation honor and proof of the righteousness of their mission, it also gave them resources and spoils of war. Defeat gave them shame, doubt, and poverty. The anti-war faction in the Fire Nation was small, but it was growing with each passing year, despite Ozai's best efforts to crush it. Even if the Avatar held some special regard for his birth country, he could just ally himself with the anti-war traitors and rationalize it away. If that should happen, then Ozai would be finished.

He would not let that happen.

No matter what.

"Wanna play a game, Zuzu?"

"No," Azula's wimpy older brother said sulkily.

"Ohhh, what's the matter, my dear older brother?" Azula cooed, sliding over and ruffling his hair.

Zuko grabbed her wrist. "Nothing."

Azula put on her most innocent-looking expression. She was particularly proud of it because it had taken a while to get just right—it didn't exactly come naturally to her. "Come on, you can tell me. We're family, right?"

Zuko threw her arm aside without saying anything. Azula didn't react. "Are you upset about mommy?" she said instead.

Her brother's face had been in permanent scowl ever since their mother had…went away, but whenever Azula brought it up, it deepened into a glare. Which was not only fun, but very informative for Azula in her efforts to construct the perfect stare of hatred. She still needed lots of data for it, after all, and Zuzu was very good at hating her.

"Go away, Azula," Zuko said.

"Come on, Zuzu, don't be like—"

Zuko put his fist in front of Azula's face. Again, Azula don't react. "And you really don't want to be like that, Zuzu. I'm being serious this time," she said.

Zuko held his position for a few more seconds, then put his hand, and head, down in defeat and turned away.

Azula grinned. "Tell me, Zuzu. How does it feel to be so powerless?" she asked his retreating figure.

Normally, Zuko became completely sulky and introverted after she beat and/or intimidated him, so Azula turned her back on him after the question, deciding on some more firebending training.

"Better than being you," she heard behind her.

She whipped her head around, but Zuko had already left the hallway, the door clattering shut behind him. Azula really wanted to torch him for that remark, but he was already gone, and her father wouldn't be happy if she destroyed a part of the palace again. So she did breathing exercises to calm down, then stalked off to the training ground.

The person chosen to be her training partner that day was very unlucky.

Iroh had traveled to the Spirit World to try to meet his son again, if only to say goodbye. He failed in this, but his journeys in the Spirit World had taught him much besides. He may not have become an entirely different person, but he had changed.

Of course, the Material World had changed during his time away, too. He intentionally steeled himself to expect nothing when he returned to the Fire Nation, but his father dead, his sister-in-law missing, and his honored younger brother sitting on the throne was a little much to take in.

"Uncle Iroh, would you honor me with a practice duel?"

Then again, some things never change. For better or for worse.

"Certainly, my dear niece."

Azula didn't want a duel, he knew. She had done this before—try to impress and intimidate him with her skills as a firebender, and probably learn some new moves from him in the bargain. Perhaps she had it in mind to reassert her dominance after he had been away for so long. That was the kind of person his niece was, the spitting image of her father. Not unrelatedly, they were also just about the only people he could never forgive. They had blown through too many second chances.

"Of course, my father does not approve of unsanctioned duels, so—"

"I shall not tell a soul, Azula. I give you my word," he said kindly, smiling at her.

She was lying, of course. She didn't want Ozai to see the duel because she didn't want Ozai to see her lose. She was arrogant, but she did know when she was outmatched. Her intention was to put up enough of a fight that Iroh would be scared of her potential abilities, not her current ones. But it never hurt to be polite.

Azula bowed again, a picture of perfect courtesy. "You are very kind, Uncle. Is four hours after sunset tonight in the Royal Training Grounds acceptable?"

Iroh nodded.

"Then I hope to see you there." Bowing one more time, she walked away.

Iroh arrived at the grounds exactly on time. Five minutes passed before Azula entered, having undoubtedly intentionally made him wait.

"Thank you again for giving me this chance to test my abilities, Uncle," she said courteously, bowing perfectly. "It is rare for me to have the opportunity to go all-out. I do have one request, though."

"For me to not hold back, correct?" Iroh said, his voice inscrutable. It wasn't difficult to guess—that was the same request she had made last time.

"Yes," she answered easily.

They bowed to each other one final time, and the practice duel began.

Azula fired the opening volley, launching a few fireblasts at him that Iroh sidestepped easily. He could tell his niece hadn't put much power into them—they weren't even blue. They were warning shots.

He observed his niece carefully as she went through several katas, starting with the most basic attack patterns and slowly making them more complex and powerful as she went along. Iroh continued dodging them, bending a fireblast out of the way only rarely. No matter how much of a prodigy his niece was, she was still 10, and if she kept proceeding through the katas like that, she would definitely falter sooner or later.

And indeed, soon enough, when she tried switching in mid-pattern from a kata full of leg sweeps to one composed of rapid palm thrusts, her leg placement became slightly off, causing her to momentarily lose her balance. Iroh responded by balling both his hands into fists and punching them forward, bending the chi in his body into two columns of fire angled slightly downward.

But instead of wildly deflecting his attack and leaving herself open for a finishing blow, Azula caught herself immediately and swept her hands in a large circle, taking Iroh's attack and sending it screaming back at him. He moved his fists apart and sent the attack into the ground, but not before letting his surprise show for a moment.

"Did you like my feint, Uncle?" Azula asked innocently.

So she had planned that from the beginning.

"Quite ingenious, Azula," Iroh said, with a neutral expression. "Shall I see how effective your defense is now?"

Without waiting for an answer, Iroh started going through the katas himself, in the exact same order Azula did. The point of this duel was not victory, after all—this duel was about political power and control. Iroh didn't care about those things anymore, but he was not of a mind to let Azula have them without a fight.

As Azula dodged and deflected his attacks, the difference in their abilities quickly became apparent. She had more raw power than he did, but the gulf of training and experience between them was quite broad and deep. Despite the fact that this should have been obvious to her as well, Azula's cocky smile never left her lips. It might've been a mask, or a result of her thinking that she had already proven her point, but Iroh knew his niece better than that. She was planning something else.

When Iroh reached the point where Azula feinted, he switched to the palm thrust kata in the same place she did, without missing a beat. After finishing that, he went into a basic firebending stance—arms and legs bent and apart—and stared at his niece, who, despite her front, was clearly sweating.

"Uncle," she said, in a slightly hurt tone, "Even though I asked you not to hold back, you're nowhere near your best right now." She smiled, and in a way only Azula could, made it simultaneously friendly and malicious. "Unless it's true that the Dragon of the West died along with his son."

Iroh tried very hard to avoid rising to her bait, and succeeded.

For the most part.

In roughly a quarter of a second, he decided that the best way to destroy Azula's attempts at dominance was to wipe her out, totally and completely. He stomped his feet and launched himself at the girl, rocketing his body forward by forcing an incredible amount of fire out of his feet. Azula started attacking almost immediately, but almost was not fast enough, and Iroh swatted her hasty attempts away with relative ease before stopping right in front of her, releasing the excess flames in a shockwave that knocked her off her feet. As she fell, he calmly pointed his fist at her, mentally preparing what he should do when she surrendered—

Except, as soon as she hit the ground, the earth moved under him, and he tripped.

When he looked up, Azula was holding her fist in front of his face, wreathing it in flames, with a look of utmost contempt on her face.

"Did you just take a fall to let me win, old man?"

Iroh was unable to answer, as his brain was trying to process what had just happened. There was only one way that it could have, but…

Some part of him had always guessed. The timing was perfect, her insane talent at firebending (even for a member of the Royal Family) was explained, and, from a certain point of view, her position and intelligence made her an almost perfect candidate.

This train of thought was always stopped by the sane part of his brain, which asserted, There's no way the Avatar Spirit would ever incarnate itself in Azula, of all people!

Yet here the evidence was, staring him in the face with a flaming fist.

After a few seconds, Azula sneered, returned her fist to her side, and stalked out of the training ground.

Iroh lay on the ground thinking for the rest of the night.

Things were going well for Azula recently. Her firebending was improving rapidly, while Zuko's was lagging. She was being let into more and more war council meetings, and recently, her father had even let her contribute some ideas—which let her demonstrate just how cunning she really was to the generals. Add that to the special lessons she was getting from Ty Lee and Mai, and she'd be one of the most powerful benders in the world by the time she was 13.

Whenever she thought that, she invariably thought of the other "one of the most powerful benders in the world," which would then lead to her dear Uncle. Iroh had been acting strange ever since their 'duel' a month ago. Or, to be more accurate, he had been treating Azula differently. And not good different (i.e. awe and fear), but weird different. She couldn't even really put it into words, and that was rare for her. It was like he was interested in her—not sexually (oh Agni, please don't make it sexually), but like she was a Monkey-Rat in a zoo or something.

"Earth to Azula!" a chirpy voice called.

"What!" she snapped, causing the owner of said voice to leap back.

"Y-You had just blanked out for a second," Ty Lee stammered, twisting her hands and looking away. "I was worried."

Azula smiled. Aside from her incredible flexibility and near-perfect knowledge of chi blockage points, there was one major reason she kept Ty Lee around: she was the perfect servant, constantly terrified of Azula, always aiming to please her, and completely submissive. Basically, she was what Azula wanted to turn the world into.

"She's just getting stage fright before her big exam," a monotone, airy voice said. "Get ready to laugh when she falls on her ass."

"Don't be silly, Mai," Azula responded. "You never laugh."

"Ha ha," Mai deadpanned, proving Azula wrong.

Azula snorted, releasing a small bout of flame from her nostril unconsciously. "Fine, you never laugh unless it's ironically."

"Glad you understand."

Mai was Azula's other friend, under her personal definition of 'friend.' She was the exact opposite of Ty Lee—unemotional, rational, and completely unafraid to make fun of Azula. She needed someone like that: despite the fact that she was near-perfect, she did occasionally make mistakes, and Mai was the only person who called her on them other than her family. Filling his top posts with yes-men was her grandfather's fatal mistake, and Azula didn't intend to mimic it. Even now, Mai's taunting was helping her to deal with the relatively small amount of stress she was feeling.

Preternatural skill with knives was just a bonus.

"Alright, all done!" Ty Lee said, stepping back and shoving a mirror in front of Azula's face. Azula looked at it admiringly—the girl wasn't the brightest ember in the fire, but she knew her makeup.

Azula nodded. "Well done," she allowed, and stood up, putting out her arms and letting Ty Lee attach the traditional Fire Nation firebender armor. She was the princess, after all—following tradition was important. After that was done, she turned to the door, breathed in, breathed out, then grinned.

"In about 30 minutes, I'll be the youngest firebending master the Royal Family's ever had," she told the room.

"I'm sure you can do it!" Ty Lee enthused. "And happy 11th birthday!"

"Just don't cry on my shoulder after you fail," Mai said.

5 minutes of walking later, she was standing in the middle of the courtyard, a huge crowd around her, facing the master firebender that had been chosen for her test.

In the Fire Nation, the only way to be recognized as a firebending master was to defeat a firebending master. Azula, being not only the Fire Nation princess but also her father's pride and joy, had an additional task: defeat a firebending master so thoroughly that the entire country would know and fear her power.

The man her father had chosen was middle-aged, thin, and wiry. His name was Li (how original), and he was apparently a Captain or something. Her father hadn't told her much, to stop her from doing research beforehand. He was testing her today, too.

Don't you worry, father. I've never failed a test yet, after all.

Her teacher droned on about the history of the master test and other similarly irrelevant matters, and the opening fireball was finally launched. To avoid giving the appearance of favoritism, she had been advised to let Li have the first attack. He launched twin fireballs at her, which she deflected easily, then responded with rapid thrusts and sweeps, sending a barrage of fire his direction.

The asshole dodged or avoided all of it.

Azula cursed under her breath and kept up the assault while chasing him, but after half a minute, the dynamic had already taken shape: she attacked; he dodged and countered; she deflected easily, but he was already too far away for Azula to deal the finishing blow.

His style was really annoying. It was clear what his aim was: get Azula to use up her chi, then defeat her when she was exhausted. The worst part was, it was working. She had only ever seen Ty Lee dodge that well—and Ty Lee couldn't deflect fire. She had never dealt with this kind of enemy before, and the longer it took to figure out how to destroy him, the more worried she became about the consequences of not destroying him quickly enough.

But it was when she saw the disappointed look on her father's face that she did something that was, for her, extremely rare: enter desperation mode. She blasted the ground in front of her to create a wall of fire to protect her, breathed deeply, and started meditating. She had done this many times before, and so her positive and negative chi energies quickly became clear. Then she started pulling them apart.

By the time she realized what a stupid idea trying to bend lightning now was when she had never succeeded before, it was too late to do anything but try to make it work.

She attacked her own chi with a fury, tearing it apart, and—

She missed the moment when they crashed back together. The lightning building on her hands fizzled.

Her entire body was seized by panic. And then Li dispersed her little fire wall and started charging at her.

Her complete frustration at not being able to bend lightning, combined with her anger at herself for not being able to hit this asshole, mixed together with abject fear at actually failing this test, left no room for rational thought. Her instincts took over and threw her hands up to cover her face, while begging her opponent to stop.

And before her eyes, he did. Azula's fear-addled mind didn't give her time to question 'why' before she dove at the man and shoved her fist at his face, the way to win a practice duel.

As her emotions ebbed away and her senses returned, Azula experienced a moment of confusion, wondering why nobody was cheering.

Then her peripheral vision returned, and she understood all too well.

The earth below the man's feet had been bent, covering his legs and holding him in place.

Her first thought was, So that's why he stopped.

Her second thought she expressed out loud. "Who the hell interfered with my fight!" she screamed, making sure to put an expression of absolute fury on her face, looking around wildly.

The crowd backed away, and Azula's mind raced. The only other people here were Fire Nation nobility—and there was no way an earthbender could be anywhere near the Fire Nation palace, anyway. It could've been a spy, perhaps, but if it was, why would they interrupt her master exam? Wouldn't they take the opportunity to attack her, or her father?

She couldn't figure it out. So she did what she always did when she couldn't figure something out, and asked her father. "Father?" she said, turning around. "What just—"

She was stopped short by her father's look of complete shock and abject fear. And then, her brain finally finished piecing together the events of the last 15 seconds.

She had moved her arms up, and the earth had bent up. At the same time she had been wishing, body and spirit, that the guy would stop…

No…

She had been born only two weeks before Avatar Shen's death was confirmed. Information out of Ba Sing Se came slowly, so the timing was…

No.

All the children born around Shen's death had been kept under close surveillance, but none of them had shown any signs of being the Avatar. Very few of them had even shown much firebending talent. The only one who hadn't been considered was…

No!

"Look, father," she said, almost pleading (almost—Azula never pleaded), "I'm sure there's some kind of explanation for—"

Her father rose from his seat, and with a stern look on his face, slowly started pacing toward Azula. Her body tensed up, and she was more terrified than she had ever been before.

He stopped right in front of her…and smiled.

Azula was filled with so much relief that she actually became weak at the knees.

Such a meek reaction, she chided herself. I'll have to—

Then her father's fist met her face, and her world went black.

It had been two months since Iroh had received his confirmation that Azula was the Avatar—in the worst way possible.

He, and the White Lotus, had been very busy for those two months. He had met with them two days after Azula's eleventh birthday/reveal as the Avatar, and they unanimously agreed on the need to break her out of her holding cell and take her someplace Ozai couldn't reach her. The Earth Kingdom was out: only Ba Sing Se was safe from the Fire Nation, and they couldn't risk letting Azula fall into the Dai Li's clutches. Besides, it was too obvious. The Northern Water Tribe seemed the most reasonable—but Ozai knew that too, and the country was too compact to offer full protection from his armies.

That left the Southern Water Tribes. Diffuse enough to make any attempt to track down the Avatar very difficult, and still powerful enough after Hatsuna to beat back all but a focused, prolonged assault. They had learned to be adept at guerilla warfare the past 60 years, and any Fire Nation soldier dreaded being sent to the South. And the fact that it was not a single, unified nation meant that Ozai would probably mostly ignore it, in favor of focusing on the North and Ba Sing Se. So with that, the strategy was decided.

It took a while to find Water Tribesmen willing to take them in, not to mention set up a plan to break into the inner sanctum of the Fire Nation palace and rescue Azula from the very depths of the building itself. But the plans had been drawn up, and the preparations were in place. All that was left now was to execute them.

As an elite strike force of White Lotus members and earthbenders attacked a specific part of the Capital, chaos swept through the city, and Iroh was given an opportunity to sneak into the place where Azula was being kept.

It was not the Boiling Rock: as supposedly impregnable as the place was, Ozai was too uncomfortable keeping the Avatar that far away from him, even though—or perhaps better said, especially because—it was his daughter. So he kept her in the Dragon's Pit instead: an underground dungeon deep below the Palace, in the lowest part of their emergency bunker. Guards were stationed there, of course, despite the White Lotus's attack.

But the Dragon of the West was not dead quite yet, and they weren't much of a match.

15 minutes had passed since the plan began when Iroh finally arrived at her cell—a bit slower than the ideal, but not terrible. He melted the metal lock, shoved the door open…

And was shocked by what he saw.

He had known, very well, his brother's attitude toward the Avatar. He knew being his daughter would likely only make it worse, not better, for Azula. He had prepared himself for anything…or at least, thought he had.

She was tied to a chair, unable to move, with a huge gag in her mouth. But on closer inspection, all four of her limbs were hideously bent, in at least three places where they shouldn't be.

He had broken them all, more than twice over.

And when she looked up at him, there were empty sacks where her eyeballs used to be.

Iroh fought the urge to throw up. He won. Barely.

If I had acted earlier instead of waiting around for confirmation…

He shoved that thought aside, knowing it would come back to haunt him for the rest of his life.

After he took out her gag, Azula said levelly, "So who's the brave prince, here to rescue the beautiful princess? Although I suppose I'm not so beautiful anymore."

"It's Iroh," he managed to say.

She seemed surprised at first—though it was hard to tell, given the circumstances—but nodded after a few seconds. "I see. Supporting the Avatar as a way to take down your brother and get the throne? Well, I suppose I can't complain. Anyway, I'd suggest you untie me and carry me on your back, because I unfortunately cannot exactly move on my own right now."

Iroh was still not quite able to think, so he started to nod before realizing it was pointless. He remembered he was still on a time limit, so he dashed over, untied Azula as fast as possible, and started carrying her.

"I said on your back, Iroh; you need your hands to firebend. Use the rope you just burnt off of me to fasten me to you. Spirits, do I have to think of everything…"

Iroh was in no mood to argue, and did as she suggested. He didn't have enough time to do a proper job of it, though, so he ended up needing to grasp her with one of his arms to keep her from falling off. Admittedly, it was better than carrying her. He started running toward the bunker's exit, trying to keep Azula as comfortable as possible.

Neither said anything for a few minutes. When Iroh was getting near the exit, incapacitating the one soldier he saw before she could report anything, Azula finally spoke up.

"Where are we going?"

"South Pole."

A pause. "Not bad. That's what I would've chosen. I assume you've contacted people there already?"

"Yes."

Another pause. "Does that include a healer?"

"I believe so."

A third pause. Iroh dreaded the next words, and he thought Azula probably dreaded asking them, but they both knew she would say them sooner or later.

"Can they heal me?" she eventually asked.

Iroh didn't answer for a few seconds, until the exit of the bunker finally came into sight.

"I believe they can. But not completely," he finally said.

Because he also knew it was pointless to lie to her.

They were almost above ground now. Only a few more seconds.

"Iroh?"

"Yes?"

"Let me be the one to kill Ozai."

He stepped out of the darkness and into the clear, midday sun.

"That's the plan," he said.

End of Part One

A/N: Inspired by the fanfic "A Twist of Fate" by Akatsuki Leader13. Or to be more specific, the "Avatar Azula" idea, as well as one other idea that's coming up in the next chapter (which will be posted in a week).

Sun and ri are old Japanese units of measurement (taken from China, as many old Japanese things were); the Americanized version would be "if you gave an inch, others would take a mile." A sun is around 1.193 inches, while a ri is equivalent to about 4295 yards. (this information stolen shamelessly from Wikipedia)

At first, I intended for this to be a oneshot, but in the process of writing it grew much longer than originally anticipated, and I decided breaking it up would probably be best. I still basically consider it one story though, to the extent that I can't even think of good names for the individual chapters (which is why I call them "parts" instead). Anyway, I've already written it all, but I'll be posting a chapter a week because I'm mean that way. So, you know, look forward to that.

Point of divergence: in this timeline, Aang gets caught up in thoughts about the elders and etc., and inadvertently flies directly into the thunderstorm. In canon, he noticed the thunderstorm, and managed to avoid the most dangerous part.

As for the master test; in canon (at least, for the purposes of this story), Azula did it later and passed easily. Her Avatar-boosted skills (as well as the declining war effort, most likely) made Ozai decide to have it earlier in this universe; however, despite all her talent, Azula is still inexperienced and emotionally immature, so it didn't turn out well (to put it lightly).

Azula being mutilated is the most disturbing thing that's going to happen in this fic. On that note, some of my more cynical readers might wonder why Ozai 'just' broke her limbs, instead of chopping them off. Is it a sign of some lingering affection for his daughter, or a result of his growing insanity, or did he actually have a good reason…? I'll leave it up to the reader to decide.

Three guesses as to whom Azula and Iroh are going to hang out with in the Southern Water Tribe. First two don't count.