Azula finds out.

Azula pressed herself against the corridor wall and peeped round the corner.

She was looking into the hotel lobby, a wide high-ceilinged room with a pair of comfortable-looking couches and a tall pair of double doors leading onto the road outside. Stacks of tourist brochures sat in a rack behind the counter, next to a bored-looking receptionist in a cheongsam who was idly painting her nails. There was nobody else in the room. Azula hoped there weren't any guests due in soon.

She wanted to get to the doors. She was pretty sure if she could get out of the hotel, she could find her way to the gardens and sneak back to her room through the undergrowth without anyone seeing her. Of course she'd assessed the whole place for defensibility within seconds of her arrival, not being an idiot. She knew all the weak spots in the security. She just have to get through those doors and she'd be home free.

The only problem was, the receptionist was looking right at the doors.

And the only problem with that was, Azula still didn't have any clothes on.

And the only problem with that was, if a total stranger saw Azula sneaking around the hotel without any clothes on, she'd laugh at Azula. And then she'd call all her friends to laugh at Azula. And then the whole world would find out, and they'd all laugh at Azula for being a silly little girl with no clothes on. And Azula would just have to stand there and take it. And if there was one thing Azula hated, it was standing there and taking things.

But she couldn't stay where she was. She was standing right out in the corridor, in the open. She'd already had three or four near-misses just getting here, ducking behind doors and pot plants as people came round corners or out of their rooms unexpectedly. Of course she wasn't afraid of everything, but supposing for a second that she could be afraid of anything, it would have been terrifying. She had to find safety soon.

And she couldn't go back. It wasn't that she was lost. She had a perfect sense of direction, of course. It was just that she was momentarily uncertain of her exact position vis-a-vis geography. So if she didn't want to wander around hotel corridors forever, or until she got caught, getting to those doors was her only option.

She wished she had any clothes on. It would have been easy if she'd had any clothes on. The fact that she was completely, utterly stark naked and still dripping wet, with her nipples stiffening and the cool air raising goosebumps on her inner thighs, was going to make this harder. Not impossible, though.

Cautiously, she crept one step out into the lobby.

The receptionist girl didn't blink. Azula was standing to her right, clearly visible if she bothered to look round, which thankfully she didn't. Azula pressed herself up against the wall, hardly daring to breath, and began to sidle towards the counter.

She had a plan. She was going to knock the receptionist out, harmlessly, using a special Fire Nation sleeper hold she knew. Then she was going to make a run for the exit, stark naked, and... wait, no, she was going to take the receptionist's clothes. That was a much better idea. After all, it hardly mattered if someone else woke up stark naked and had to run back to her room without any clothes on. Commoners didn't have any dignity to lose in the first place.

But she had to be careful. Up against the wall, she was standing in plain sight of the doors. If someone came in now, it was all over. But she couldn't afford to move too fast. The slightest noise might encourage the receptionist to turn her head, and then it was also all over. She just had to hold her breath, keep quiet and carefully creep towards the desk, hoping the whole time that nobody walked in through the front door and saw her standing there in the nude. She couldn't afford to run. She had to tiptoe, as slowly as she could, without any clothes on, through a public room that could fill up with people at any moment. Just because someone could wander in any second and see her completely undressed, that didn't mean she was allowed to run. She just had to keep going. Very slowly. Very, very slowly.

She was getting closer now.

Still naked. Still wet. Still slow. Just a little bit closer with every second.

Closer still.

The counter was almost close enough to touch. In just one more second, she'd be out of danger. All she had to do was creep a little bit closer to the unaware...

The door creaked.

Azula hurled herself across the last foot of space, landing flat on her belly in the narrow space behind the counter, between the receptionist's feet and the back wall. Luckily, she had the presence of mind to do it totally silently. She crouched on the floor, glancing left and right to make sure no part of her body peeped out from either side of the desk, and glanced up at the receptionist to make absolutely sure she hadn't been spotted. Her heart was pounding. That had been way too close.

The receptionist hadn't noticed a thing. She was far too busy smiling at the guests who'd just walked into the lobby. Azula couldn't see their faces, but judging by the noise, there was a whole bunch of them.

She glanced back at the corridor she'd come in by. Had she really come all that far, out in the open with no clothes on? It seemed crazy. There was no way she could go back. She'd be spotted by the guests before she'd gotten a foot. They'd been only a second away from seeing her when they'd come in.

She was trapped.

There was nowhere to run. The receptionist could look down at any moment and spot her, or take a step back and bump into her. And then she'd be caught. Stuck in the lobby of a busy hotel, before guests and staff, having to explain what a princess of the Fire Nation was doing here without any clothes on. They'd all laugh at her. And she'd have to stand there without her clothes on while they laughed at her, and called in all their friends to laugh at her, and the lobby filled up with everyone in the hotel all come to laugh at the stupid little naked princess.

This couldn't be happening.

But it was.

This kind of thing didn't happen to her. She was the smartest and bravest girl in the world. She couldn't end up stuck behind a desk in a crowded room with no clothes on, with no way out, waiting to be caught. She was too smart and brave for that.

But it was really happening.

She was stuck here. Behind the desk. With no clothes on. Naked. Naked naked naked naked naked naked naked naked naked naked.

She had to think of something in the next five seconds, or she'd be caught. Naked.

She shut her eyes tight, trying to think. There had to be some way out. She was the Princess Azula, damn it! She could get out of anything!

And then she heard one of the guests start talking.

"Gee, I don't know, Aang. This hotel seems a little expensive..."