Azula's secret friend

Chase

A/n less long than the last one. Not as much inspiration.

Aritho's POV

A magnificent day on the road is ahead of us. Sarcasm aside we will travel a lot in the next couple of weeks. Azula decided to add a small side quest to our main mission. A little distraction if you will, why not hunt the avatar while we're at it. I must admit it is not simply to add some difficulty to the quest actually it is quite smart. Her brother is also hunting for the avatar the logical thing to do is to also follow the avatar and we will capture both of them at the same time. Though i doubt we will catch them before ba sing se. But we can always wish. I have already made clear that i was simply jere acting as a mentor and will not interfere in any plans during this journey unless it is getting out of hand. I will still accompany them along with kura but as i don't really want to fight with my friends i will not take place in any combat. Unless i'm needed of course. I will watch from the side lines and observe the thing i want to correct in Azula's combat and some of her tactics not that i don't have faith in her capacities to end this trip without me being there and doing it on her own she has seen me do many types of tactics to manipulate people into a peaceful submission. Avoiding big combat and preferring much more civilized way to end things. Though a bunch of good fights might occur. That is sure, the earth kingdom are bunch of hard headed idiots that hit rocks, not to be mean but they aren't the fastest. Mostly after the event of Ba Sing Se where i 'captured' their best general. Kura is by far their smartest and strongest general. They just didn't want her to fight because, and i quote. "It's not natural for girls to fight." Boy, what did you think Kyoshi was a roachant?

Since Omashu Azula has been making some plans of the earth kingdom we passed trough and took many notes on possible commercial routes going trough the little bit of kingdom she saw. Clever, very clever, only problem is with the number of bombs dropped on these routes a week i doubt that they will be in fonction order any time soon. But for future reference it can be a good idea do a small map to go by.  The first way azula thought of for carching the avatar is to follow them on earth and not stop until they are too tired to continue. She knows from experience that animals have a limited time of staying up to be effective. Appa need at least a good five hours of sleep at night to be able to fly through the next day smoothly. For dragons they need a little less when they fly in a blue sky and strong sun. The light of the sun gives them energy but they are less efficient in the dark of the night. She hasn't been sleeping well enough either though. Her night aren't longer than a few hours of sleep three at most. She always says it's habit from the palace and while i do believe it has a little to do with the issue i doubt that it is only that. I think it has to do with a certain acrobat. After the reunion of the two she began to sleep less, like she was worried about something even more now. I cannot ask about it, not now at least maybe later tonight either of us won't be sleeping, so why not. Until then i will keep an eye on her, manner of speaking of course. Two hands landed on my shoulders softly pulling me out of my thoughts, this is getting out of hand i should meditate more it's not good for me to think like that. Slowly the world came back around me. Azula, Mai and Ty Lee were talking in a corner, making plans to capture the avatar. Nalian and Oyan were laying beside each other sleeping peacefully. Complete opposite to their riders. An officer stoped in front of me saluting and waving me go follow him.

"We need your opinion on something my lady if you will follow me." I shrugged not to sure what was so hard in choosing moungoustlions but whatever. We wandered back into the far end of the sort of train where the animals were kept.

"They refuse to eat anything we give out to them and they are beginning to be weakened by it. We were wondering if you had any suggestions." I hummed pensively walking around checking the windows and other. The air wasn't flowing properly from the window making it probably more difficult for the poor beast to breathe. It might be one of the causes but if we were to open them more smoke could get in from the engine that is fuming down below. I went over to the food that was stored to be fed later to the animals.