The Legend of Percy: Book 2 - Through Grief

13. The Hunt (As Expected for a Pyromaniac)

Azula saw the smoke rising out of the wooden structure before she heard the sounds ahead of her.

She went through her now practised motion of leaping off her ride and tying it around a nearby tree. Her multiple day long journey giving her the necessity of learning it. And she was nothing if not a perfectionist.

Peering through the bushes surrounding the clearing that she'd left, what felt like weeks ago, she saw Percy sitting on a log with his sword. He looked very different, being back in the clothes he'd been wearing when she'd first met him.

He seemed to be carving something with it, using his bronze glowing sword to shape the block of wood. She didn't know how it glowed in bright daylight, but that was the least of her worries in that moment.

The princess looked behind the man, only to see the full extent of his work laid bare. She couldn't deny it was impressive. The logs looked rigidly strung together, the frame built into and around the foundations excellently. It was scruffy, sure. Unfinished and unpolished, but solid.

Off to the side of the clearing lay a pile of broken and disused wooden things. Obvious failed attempts at some kind of furnishings, though none that she'd seen before. The designs seemed odd for what she'd grown up with, yet very consistent. Sitting in the pile of timber lay that stupid ostrich horse.

Azula was just finishing inspecting her surroundings and about to think about approaching when he spoke up.

"Are you going to come out?"

Azula looked over at the animal, only to see its head swivel and those dark eyes look directly at her. She could've sworn the chittering sound that it made sounded like laughter. Mocking laughter. She didn't like that at all, with everything she knew about the animal's apparent ability to talk.

"I am talking to you, princess."

Well, this certainly isn't going like last time. It was good to scare him before, but at least we're not having an attack... hopefully.

She stood up and walked around the bushes.

"I see you've been busy."

Once again, her tone betrayed her. She went for teasing but a little too much admiration came out in her voice.

"You like it?"

He turned around with a half smirk on his face, gesturing to his log cabin. She looked into his eyes and was just thrown back to that balcony in Ember Island. Seeing those eyes looking deep into her from the dark ocean. The traitorously soft voice came forward in her brain with much more power behind it.

When you wanted it to be me with you?

It was the first time the voice hadn't sounded like it was directly from herself. Azula knew it was, it wasn't him talking to her, but she couldn't exactly logic her way through that. She tried to subtly shake her head, but clearly, he saw it as his smirk faded slightly.

"What? You don't like it? I thought I did a pretty good job for a first time."

He didn't seem that worried about what she thought, more just pleasantly and surprisingly proud of his own work.

"No, that's not..."

She caught herself, realising she really didn't want to explain exactly what she was thinking to avoid the misunderstanding.

Azula couldn't really take her eyes off of him. The relaxed easiness of his posture just seemed so different and inviting. Even on her 'vacation', those kids had still been in line with the Fire Nations teachings. Of course they had been, they were Fire Nation noble families.