Addendum: Wherein an unlikely friendship is formed between a former Fire Princess and a common house pest. (They don't fight crime.)

There's a roach-rat under Azula's bed.

She has no idea how it got there; every inch of her cell is so well padded it could hold water. There are no secret switches, no tunnels, no loose bricks. She checked. The likelihood of one of the staff bringing it in isn't very high; they're painfully tidy, the lot of them, their uniforms almost offensively pristine. She doesn't have any windows, obviously. This room is a fortress.

And yet it was breached by a tiny, brown, frazzled, magic roach-rat. And at this moment, it is eyeing Azula's breakfast in a rather presumptuous manner.

"I can see you there," she informs it matter-of-factly. "Don't think I'll hesitate to crush your skull the second you try to touch any of my crumbs."

Beady eyes twinkle at her from the darkness under her bed, then blink and are gone.

"It would be so easy for me to kill you," she says. "There are a hundred ways I could do it. I could wring your tiny little neck until your head pops. I could eviscerate you with my fingernails, rip your stomach out while your heart still beats and strangle you with your entrails. Then maybe flay you, too, peel off the skin slowly so it doesn't tear and then use it to make a tiny fur coat for a tiny china doll."

She tries to scratch at the rash on her back, but her cuffs limit her reach. If only anything in this Agni-forsaken cell had sharp corners. She'd settle for blunt but solid at this point.

"Or I could simply step on you, of course."

She can almost reach the right spot if she twists a certain way, but not quite.

"But I think I'd rather hang you by the tail, see how long you can flounder and flail while your blood slowly aggregates in your skull before you get a brain aneurysm and die."

If she could just stretch a little bit more…

There.

Azula exhales in relief, then quickly clears her throat. "Where was I," she says. "Right, I was just about to discuss with you the exciting eventuality of your exsanguination."

She rolls her shoulder. She might have strained a muscle.

"Though that would be rather messy, I suppose." She pauses. "I'm sure I was going somewhere with this."

xxx

The next morning Azula finds the roach-rat on its side, limp and unmoving. She approaches it slowly.

"You could've at least had the courtesy to let me be the one to end your miserable existence," she says.

But when she gets within reach, the roach-rat jumps up and scampers to the obscured space under the dresser, where it promptly collapses and resumes playing dead.

"Well, that was rather anticlimactic." She sits back down on the bed. "And I say that having had no expectations in the first place."

The roach-rat is completely motionless; not even its tail trembles. It really does make a very convincing corpse.

"So, starving to death, are you? That's nice."

Azula can't recall the last time she engaged in small talk. Probably some years ago, with an elderly councilman or other and some sort of grander scheme in mind.

And now, with a half-dead dungeon vermin in a half-lit dungeon cell. Funny how things turn out.

"I'm afraid I have no nauseating industrial slop to share," she says. "I licked the bowl clean."

It's not a lie, which is unfortunate.

"You've really come to the wrong place to steal food from," she tells the roach-rat. "Even worse place to beg for it. I'd advise you to get out of here now before you become yet another source of horrible stench in my room."

The roach-rat doesn't seem to be listening to her at all.

Azula gets up and kicks the dresser. It rattles and one of the drawers slides open. The roach-rat doesn't so much as flinch.

"Suit yourself," she says. "I hope you don't rot."

Dinner comes in escorted by a young woman who seems distracted but has no problem meeting Azula's eyes. She puts down a bowl of soup, a slice of bread and a spoon and leaves.

Azula always gets a spoon. At least when she gets some soup as well it's slightly less humiliating.

The steam rising from the soup spreads in the small cell, and the smell of komodo chicken and root vegetables spreads with it. And with the fragrant scent of sustenance, the roach-rat emerges. It circles around the dresser leg before stepping in front of Azula.

It chitters. She's never heard it chitter before. It looks so pitiful with its tail wrapped around itself, dull black eyes staring at her, unblinking, wispy antennae shivering miserably. And she really doesn't need a little decomposing carcass lying around.

"Fine," she sighs.

She pinches a piece of bread, dips it in the soup and throws it to the roach-rat. Its antennae twitch before it scurries to snatch the food and retreat to a private shadowy corner.

"So easy to make you happy." She leans her head against the wall. "I used to get servants kicked to the streets for fruit salads with disproportionate citrus ratios." She laughs. "I think I actually like lentil stew now. How incredibly quaint."

She listens to the muted clacks and slurps coming from the roach-rat's direction.

"I guess I'll let you try some next time."

xxx

Throwing grains of rice at roach-rats, Azula has come to understand, is a deeply fulfilling activity. They might not actually fetch them, but they will get every single one. There's no place they cannot reach. Her roach-rat has climbed to the top of the dresser, squeezed between the wall and the bedstead, wriggled in bottomless laundry baskets. Azula had to roll it over once when it got flipped on its back trying to reach a grain stuck to its shell. That's dedication.

And gluttony, of course.

She tosses it a sticky gob of rice and it pounces immediately, dragging the lump over to a dark nook to leave its horde of competitors less directions of approach.

She watches it feed. Its eyes are open and staring, its ears canted and straining. It focuses on its task with unparalleled intent. It's really quite amazing. It reminds Azula of bending, a little bit.

She straightens her arm out as far as her restrains will allow and examines her veins, standing out blue and bulging from under the skin. Firebending comes from the breath, but all bending, it's said, is in the blood. It passes from parent to child, just as royal blood does. Therefore, it cannot be gained and cannot be lost; it's either inside you or it's not.

Sometimes she wonders if it's neither of those; after all, it can apparently be taken away, permanently, without a drop of blood spilt.

She thinks of the Avatar, for the first time in a long time. He really was just a child, in every sense of the word. He probably thought he was doing something noble and kind, letting her father keep his life in exchange for his fire. She wonders how well they've bound Ozai; if they allow his teeth to reach his wrists. And if not, she wonders what resourceful alternatives he's already come up with.

Her father's no longer royalty, but he still has royal blood. He's no longer a firebender, but he still has the blood and the breath and the training of one. And that could count for something, but Azula knows it really doesn't, because while there might be more to firebending than the fire, the vast majority of things are worthless anyway.

The roach-rat is still eating, small pieces of rice stuck to its whiskers. Fat little shit.

She smirks. It guzzles.

xxx

Azula never quite understood most people's tendency to shed the vast majority of their dignity and reason upon encountering a sufficiently small animal. Even Mai seemed to soften up a little when confronted with a baby cat-owl. To Azula, animals have always been little more than especially reactive scenery.

She thinks she can trace the beginning of her mother's discontent with her to a certain incident years ago involving turtle-ducks. Yes, actually, now that she thinks about it, turtle-ducks could serve as an adequate framing device to their entire history. Turtle-ducks, that is, and murder.

But that's not important. Azula was never really a very significant part of that story; that story is mostly Zuko's.

The roach-rat scuttles around in circles, chasing its tail, its carapace clinking against itself. Idiot creature.

Its brain is probably no bigger than an almond; it has no practical value whatsoever; it certainly isn't cute. In the unlikely event that another like it got past the dozens of servants assigned the sacred duty of keeping the royal palace clean and found its way into Zuzu's chambers, Azula has no doubt he'd roast it without a thought. Mai wouldn't bat an eye, or whatever stoical nonsense is her equivalent. Even Ursa wouldn't raise a disapproving eyebrow.

Well, Ty Lee would probably pick it up gently and set it free in the closest appropriate habitat, but Ty Lee is very odd.

In any case, Azula still doesn't get this bizarre fascination with aesthetically-pleasing fauna, but looking at the roach-rat, who has now caught its tail and is chewing on it with tiny, sharp teeth, she thinks she probably wouldn't like to see it crushed beneath a steel-toed heel.

"The thought of your grisly demise no longer fills me with joy," she tells it as it continues to try to consume itself. "Pity."

She then has to chase it twice around the room to make it drop the tail and stop bleeding on the upholstery.

xxx

There are muffled footsteps outside her room. In a few seconds the lock will click and the door will creak and the smell of rice porridge will waft in. Azula hasn't seen the sun in a very long time, but around here time can be told much more accurately and predictably by the food. Noon is rice porridge.

There isn't much of a creak this time; the hinges must have been oiled while she was in another room. That's slightly disappointing, somehow. She hadn't even realized she's come to rely on routine. How perfectly pathetic.

A boy in white comes in, carrying a tray with her gelatinous lunch. He looks barely as old as her brother. He has acne, an unflatteringly fluffy moustache and rather elegant cheekbones. She does her best to catalogue his every flaw; disapproval is her only real weapon nowadays.

He's trying very hard not to stare at her. He must imagine himself very tactful. Maybe he took this job not only for the money; maybe he wanted to do something to help people. He puts the porridge down on the side table, eyes flitting between the floor and her left elbow and the murky tea in the smooth wooden cup. He says nothing. His knee bumps against the dresser and a tiny shadow scampers away from under it in the direction of the closest dark and narrow space.

The boy makes a sort of closed-lipped squeak and steps away from the dresser. Azula is already on her feet and advancing towards him.

"Was that –" he starts, and takes another step back as she gets closer.

"That was just one of the many long-term effects of this job," she says, voice sweet and low. "Some people are contagious, you know. Some places are, too." She's close enough to see the grease on his nose. Hopefully her disdain is evident. "You're not going to bother mentioning anything you thought you saw to anyone, are you?"

"N-no?"

He's stuttering. Good. It's nice to know that even without any actual power to back it up, she can still bully people to submission using nothing but the formidable force of her personality.

"No," she confirms. She moves back, rewarding him with personal space.

His shoulders relax. "Should I call the –"

"Of course not!" she snaps. She surveys him. He might be stupider than she gave him credit for. "Were you absent for the entirety of our exchange?" She shakes her head. "You will alert no exterminator. You will report no unusual incident to your superiors. You will not come in here again."

The boy nods. He seems to be standing at attention.

"You may go," she prompts.

To his credit, he does not salute. He raises his hands in concession and backs away slowly.

Before he shuts the door, she adds, "And stop working here. People like you aren't for places like this."

Sipping the lukewarm jasmine tea and eyeing her refugee vermin in the corner, Azula feels far more Iroh's niece than she'd ever imagined in her worst nightmare.

xxx

So, Azula has an insect-rodent roommate.

It's a completely one-sided relationship. She's had plenty of those before, of course, but she's never been on this side of them. She gives it food. It eats. Sometimes she pretends it listens. She talks to it, either way.

"The social structure of Ba Sing Se is downright ludicrous," she says. "It's a city that has government-sanctioned, well-organized distribution of societal redundancy. Every proper monarchy needs to have a properly defined hierarchy, of course, but when the non-industrious poor make up the majority of your society and your solution is to encircle them with a fence and ignore their existence, that might be a sign you're not the most competent of rulers."

She's sitting next to a very overfed roach-rat, who's resting on its side to relieve the pressure on its stomach. By now their mutual respect for personal space has dwindled so much she's surprised it doesn't sleep on her pillow. Though that would probably result in some vital organ or other getting crushed by her head, she supposes. It is a very big head.

"I can't say I'm surprised, really; the Earth King is an idiot, and shouldn't be held to the same standards as a well-trained dancing raccoon-chimp." She yawns. "Or a not-so-well trained one, for that matter."

The roach-rat's ears jerk and Azula's leather creaks when she tries to stretch. She swears there are some kinks in her back that will never come out. It's like old age lost a race to her joints.

"And don't get me started on the buffoon who used to pull his strings. Makes you wonder what's going on there now. I hope they booted the King, at least."

She tries to recall if she'd heard anything about the Earth King's current whereabouts; everything after the Boiling Rock is a little hazy.

"Maybe if I had more time with the place I'd have been inclined to do something about it. Tear down a few walls, for a start. It's really a shame when your greatest victory is also your worst failure, isn't it?"

It was still pretty spectacular, though. Conquering one of the Earth Kingdom's largest cities using nothing but words was definitely much more satisfying than shooting a twelve-year-old boy in the back.

"You know, if I could kill the Avatar again, I'm not sure…"

Certainty used to be such an obvious thing.

She glances at the roach-rat, who's biting the lower segment of its left-middle leg while trying to ward itself off with the front-right one. She snorts.

"I suppose it is rather pointless, asking you for advice."

She scratches the soft part of its belly that isn't covered by the exoskeleton. It doesn't purr, like a tiger-bunny would, and it's too fat and lazy to do something endearing like roll around in delight. There is something vaguely entertaining in the way its spindly legs twitch and kick when she hits the right spot, however.

"Of course, I haven't seen anything with a point in a while."

The roach-rat flicks its pointy tail and Azula just shuts up.