The Unrivalled Expert in Human Nature

Chapter 2

After this, I'll try to post at least one chapter a week.

oooooooooo

103 AG

A cloak didn't make much of a disguise, but in the last few months Azula was astounded to find out how often it worked. She spotted one drying on a clothes line and carefully walked by to grab it. This was a rather small town, but you could never be too careful. Posters with her name on them were popping up everywhere these days, Zuzu really spared no expense.

She noticed a man go into an alley alone and saw an opportunity to improve on her newly formed financial situation. It didn't take much to scare him, a single fireball in her hand was enough to get all the money he had on him.

Next, she walked to a nearby food stand and tried to buy something. The line was insufferably long, but any sort of aggression would surely just draw attention to her. Right when it was finally her turn, she noticed the man she robbed pointing her out to a group of Earth Kingdom soldiers. Scum...

"Don't come any closer!" she swiftly grabbed the woman standing in line next to her and threatened her with a ball of fire. She should have known stealth wasn't the way to go about this... "I'll just take the bread and leave! And you're going to let me, or she burns!"

"Look at the fire! That's Princess Azula!" someone yelled from the crowd.

"Give up, we have you surrounded." a soldier said.

Azula looked around and realized she was a bit outmatched. She shoved the woman towards a pair of soldiers and blasted fire at the remaining three that were blocking her way. She managed to escape through a row of houses and into the next street, but they were all right after her.

She was looking around while running, trying to spot a good hiding place, but without luck. Finally, after turning a sharp corner she noticed a tight gap between two houses and slipped in before the soldiers could spot her.

They ran right past her and further down the street, but Azula found herself pressed up against a stranger in a really tight space. She didn't have the room to swing at him or firebend without burning herself, but she was thinking of creative knock-out techniques when she recognized his voice.

"Great minds think alike, I guess..."

She looked up and saw Captain Wen smirking down at her.

"This is your idea of a safe place to release someone?" she asked, trying unbelievable hard not to think about how close they were or the fact that she could feel his breath on her skin.

"Yeah, I'm clearly hiding in here because I knew exactly what I was walking into..." he paused while a group of soldiers walked past them, "I messed up, obviously. This place was never this heavily guarded."

"Well, I can only assume your plucky crew was already captured."

"No, they're back on the ship. It's just a matter of getting to them."

"They have the way to the shore heavily blocked." Azula said after peeking out of their hiding place.

"Obviously..."

"Obviously." she paused, "Well, there's two of us now, maybe we can take them."

"Let me take another look..." he started leaning towards the street before Azula grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him back, slamming him into a wall. His stare was initially pissed, but it seemed to soften as soon as his blue eyes caught her golden ones.