Azula placed the Fire Nation helmet on her head and waited for the gangplank to open. She stilled the jitters in her chest. She struggled with this, for the anticipation of battle was her second-favorite part of fighting. The first was actually doing it, of course. Her heart quickened its pace once more. She tapped her foot impatiently on the deck.

  She gave the soldier beside her a quick nod. The soldier, a man only a few years older than her, gave her a fearful nod in return. She made a feral grin. This must have been his first assignment after training. What must he have done to deserve a posting with her?

  “To victory,” she said to him. Oddly, this seemed to cheer him.

  The front of the ship opened, and the gangplank extended to the frozen, snowy ground. Azula slowly walked down. It was all so very theatrical, but Azula liked it that way. She breathed a deep, excited breath through her nose. It was time.

  As she descended the plank, a boy (at least she thought it was a boy: his face was covered with ridiculous white and blue war paint) charged up the plank, a raised club in his hand. She smiled, waiting for him to approach. She could’ve easily blasted him with deadly flame, but decided it would be best to make an example of him.

  When he reached her, she ducked his overextended swing and punched him twice in the kidneys. He doubled over, howling in pain. Then, she kicked him off the plank. He landed, headfirst, into a pile of snow. She choked down a laugh. She would not look very menacing if she broke out in laughter before the battle even started!

  She continued her descent until her feet touched the ground, and then she glanced over at the boy. To his credit, he had gotten out of the snow and was making another run at her, this time without the aid of his club. He grabbed a spear and jabbed it at her. She slipped to the side and easily disarmed him. She whacked him on the head with it to truly humiliate him. She tossed the spear aside as he fell to the ground, holding his head.

  “Sokka!” some Water Tribe girl with dark hair, dark skin, and blue eyes yelled, running over to him. She glared at Azula.

  Azula grinned back before raising her eyes to the rest of the village that had gathered around. “Members of this village: I have come for the Avatar! Where is—”

  She heard the boomerang behind her, and she spun just quickly enough for it to not completely take her head off. It partially glanced off her helmet, knocking her sideways.

  She tore the helmet away angrily and scowled at the boy. Sokka, was it? He had dared to attack her again! She would end this situation decisively. She punched, and a ball of blue flame blasted from her fist into the nearest Water Tribe hut.

  “If anyone else resists,” she said, “I will destroy the rest of this village.” She fixed the cowering populace with an angry look. “For the last time, where is the Avatar? I know you're hiding him.”

  Silence hung in the air, and the villagers simply stared at her. She walked past a cowering child. When he saw her, he planted his face into his mother’s leg. The sight made something twist inside Azula’s breast, and she quickly averted her eyes. These people must not see her as weak. Not like her father did.

  For the second time that day, someone tried to attack her from behind. Thanks to her quick reflexes, she launched herself into a backflip. The world moved as in slow motion, and Azula looked down halfway through the flip to spot her enemy. A boy, even younger than herself, slid under her, riding a penguin. He was dressed in yellow and orange monk robes. They were of a type she hadn’t seen before. The boy was pale and completely bald, except for blue arrow tattoos on his forehead and arms.

  She glared at him. “I warned the village what would happen if they defied me. Very well.” She kicked a whipping slash of fire at another hut.

  To her astonishment, the pale boy blasted the fire away with a gust of wind. He raised an odd-looking staff at her in a guard position. His eyes flicked to the boy and girl. “Hi, Katara, Sokka.”

  “You’re the Avatar,” Azula said, and then smirked. “The legends say you are over a hundred years old, but you’re just a kid.”

  “So are you!” The Avatar said, incredulously.

  She hadn’t felt like a child in a long time. She raised her hand angrily and ordered her men. “Destroy the village. I’ll handle the Avatar.”

  “Wait!” he said. “If I surrender, will you spare them?”

  She lowered her hand with a twinge of dejection and sighed. She’d been really hoping to fight him. “I suppose so.”

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  The girl, Katara, ran up to the Avatar, her blue eyes imploring him. “Aang! Don’t go! You can’t trust them.”

  Azula sneered at the young girl, whose black hair was placed in the traditional Water Tribe hairstyle. Small strands of dark hair looped on either side of her dark face and were held up with beads. All the villagers were dressed in blue-colored furs. “He’s doing the honorable thing. Don’t spoil it with whining.”

  Aang bowed to Katara. “It’ll be okay. Thanks for everything. Take care of Appa.”

  With that, he strode up the gangplank onto the ship. Azula smiled, following him. At last she was going home.

  ***

  Uncle Iroh walked up to Azula on the deck. She was overseeing the soldiers binding the Avatar. She fixed him with a proud grin. “You said I wouldn’t find him. Well, here he is. I present to you the Avatar.”

  Though bound, Aang smiled and nodded to her uncle as if she was introducing him as a friend. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Iroh smiled back. “The pleasure is all mine.” He turned to Azula. “I saw you destroying the village.” There was a hint of disappointment in his voice.

  “I did what was necessary,” Azula snapped. The image of the cringing child flashed through her mind. She pushed it away. “Someone had to, and you can’t argue with my results.” She walked over to Aang’s staff and picked it up.

  “You know,” Iroh said, “Sometimes you remind me of your father.”

  His words, though quiet, struck her through the heart. Her right hand started shaking uncontrollably. “What did you say?”

  Her uncle said nothing else.

  “How could you say that!” Azula almost screamed at him.

  Again, he said nothing. Azula scowled at him and threw the staff into his hands. “This will make a fine trophy. Take it to my quarters.” Then she stalked away into the bowels of the ship, barely noticing her uncle giving the task to someone else.

  ***

  Her trek through the ship gave Azula time to regain control of her emotions. Why did she care what her uncle thought of her? Moreover, why did people whose opinion she cared about always seem to disapprove of her?

  She turned to go to her quarters. No, she refused to care about what they thought of her. They never cared for her; why should she care about them? She involuntarily touched the scar around her eye.

  She opened the door to her quarters, and her eyes widened. She had a young, bald visitor. He held his staff with a look of satisfaction.

  She grinned with determination. “And here I thought I wouldn’t get to fight today, Aang.” She closed the door to her room.

  He raised his staff in a defensive position and started blasting air at her. She responded with fire, and the room descended into chaos. Since no one had fought an airbender in over a century, Azula did the best she could. She shot blast after blast of blue fire at him, destroying many of the tapestries that draped from the walls. They knocked her bladed spear off the wall. It clattered on the floor.

  He was as quick as she was, however, and always dodged. She finally decided not to try to kill him with her fire. Instead, she grabbed him and punched him in the gut. He grunted in pain and then slipped to the floor. When he reached the cold metal, he sent a flow of air at Azula’s feet. It knocked her to the floor. She would have planted her face into the metal deck, but she braced herself with her hands and rolled sideways. She sent a whip of fire at him.

  The two continued to knock each other about the cabin.

  She grabbed him and threw him into a corner. He smashed into the bucket that she’d used that morning. For a moment, they stopped, both extremely winded.

  Aang sniffed the bucket. “Wow! That really stinks! I don’t think being out at sea agrees with you.”

  “You have no idea,” she growled. Her cheeks burned from embarrassment.

  That split-second was all Aang needed to jump over her and drop the bucket on her head. She yelled in rage, suddenly very thankful one of the sailors had emptied it that morning.

  “Sorry,” Aang said. “But I have to go!”

  She yanked off the foul-smelling bucket and would’ve shot Aang with fire, but he was already out the door. She ran after him. The boy had reached the deck and was turning his stick into a hang glider. Azula narrowed her eyes. She couldn’t let him escape. Fire erupted from her hands and knocked him into the ocean.

  “Aang!” a girl’s voice shouted above Azula.

  She looked up to see a large, white flying animal with arrows on its head. “Is that thing…flying?”

  Her uncle walked up to her, rubbing his eyes. Knowing him, he’d slept through the whole fight. “What's going on?”

  Katara kept screaming Aang’s name when suddenly, the boy shot out of the water. His tattoos and eyes glowed with blinding white light. Water swirled around him protectively. The Avatar waved his hands, and water lashed out at Azula, her uncle, and the men who’d begun to gather.

  Most jumped out of the way, but then Katara flew the animal to the deck and jumped off. She summoned water from a pouch on her waist and sent a shock of frozen ice onto some of Azula’s men. The unfortunate ones were not fast enough to get out of the way and were frozen onto the deck. The attack, though wild and untrained, gave just enough space for Sokka, Katara, and Aang to climb the giant animal and fly away.

  Azula nodded. These were worthy opponents. “Shoot them down!” she yelled at her uncle.

  Both she and her uncle lobbed fireballs at them. For a moment, Azula thought it might hit the white, flying monstrosity, but at the last second, Aang deflected the fire into a nearby iceberg. A massive flow of ice and snow fell onto the prow of the ship, nearly plunging it beneath the frigid waves. When it settled, her ship was trapped.

  She irritatedly melted some of the offending snow with a fire attack. Her enemies were out of range.

  “The Fire Lord should be pleased,” Iroh said, rubbing his bald head. “His greatest threat is just a child.”

  Azula stared up at the sky where the large animal was starting to vanish from sight. “You were right, Uncle.”

  “About what?” he asked.

  She fixed him with a simultaneous glare and smirk. “I do need to widen my stance,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  She raised her own in return, then began barking orders to the soldiers and sailors.