What's next?

Azula in a cell

Azula stared very angrily at the floor. She was still face-down, unable to move anything beyond a vague twitching of her extremities. She had **** but to wait laying over the desk for the brats to come back.

She tried as hard as she could to shake of the paralysis. It still hadn't worked. Embarrassment wasn't doing it, and neither was sheer rage. She glared at the ground still as if she would spontaneously pick up combustion-bending. It didn't work as well as she'd hoped.

They would pay. Focusing on that thought was what got her through every mortifying second. It was much easier to avoid dwelling on her nudity if her thoughts were instead filled with very detailed vengeful schemes. She could make an example of them. No one humiliated a Fire Nation Princess and got away with it!

Azula heard the door move, and instant Katara's curious squeezing stopped as she played innocent. Azula managed another incoherent yell. Even if she couldn't see them, she knew she was greeting the group with her ass.

"Found it!" Aang said. "Follow me."

Azula screamed again. It wasn't any good.

Katara didn't pick her up immediately, first debating how to. Eventually she just decided to scoop up the princess, carrying Azula over her shoulder, an arm again on her butt to support her, leaving Azula uselessly staring at Katara's back. She tried to squirm away.

"Lead the way," Katara said.

Her next yell was just as useless. She was taken through the corridors of the embassy, then through a doorway into a stone-walled room. A chill filled the air.

She yelled again, more warily. She knew about cells like this, of course, it was her job to. To imprison a waterbender, keep the air dry and limit what food and drink was available. To imprison an earthbender, keep them in the air and use wood and metal. To imprison an airbender, well, there was a reason they'd been killed first.

And to imprison a firebender, make one room near the middle of a facility, no windows, no sunlight, and stone walls so next to no ambient heat got in. It wasn't freezing, quite, but it was still uncomfortably cold and far too cold to create any significant fire.

The room was in two sections, for the purposes of interrogation. The door to the room was on one side of floor-to-ceiling bars, and Azula was left on the far side of the wall, face-up that time. She groaned, managing to move her hand a little more than, but otherwise could do nothing. Sighing, Katara left and locked the cell door behind her.

"So what next?" Katara said.

"Um, do we really want to discuss this in front of..." Aang said. He gestured towards the paralysed princess.

"Fair point," Katara said.

They were almost out the door when Sokka burst through.

"Hey! Found you!" he said. "Oh, she's locked away. That's... good. Yeah. Good."

Katara rolled her eyes.

"It's getting dark out," Sokka said. "Do we want to head off now, or wait until morning?"

Aang glanced back. Azula wriggled futilely, hating how impossible it was for her to cover up.

"I don't think I want to leave her unguarded all night, if we can't report her in that time," Aang said.

"Yeah," Katara said. "At least we shouldn't be disturbed in here. We can spend the night, leave her food, then head off."

"Wait, you want to spend the night under the same roof as her?" Sokka said. "That doesn't sound sane."

"Would you rather that or letting her get away?" Katara said.