Takeout and drama

"How about we order some food?" I said, trying to talk loud enough to cover my rumbling stomach.

"Don't tell me you can order food with the computer, too?"

"You can order pretty much everything online." I reassured her.

"Except for Battleships."

I had no answer to that, so I browsed to the online presence of a local chinese restaurant. I figured Azula would be most comfortable with asian food. We browsed through their selection for a bit before I picked rice with beef and Azula tentatively decided for noodles with duck. Although she was rather weirded out by the idea that it was just duck and not some strange hybrid creature from the Avatar world. After ordering and shutting the laptop down we moved to the living room, where Azula sat on her preferred armchair again.

"How do they deliver the food anyway?" She asked while I went to the minibar and picked up a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

"Well, someone brings it over, I pay him, and he gives me the food." I told her while moving to the couch myself.

"Even during a lockdown?"

"Uh, well even the Dai Li can hardly demand people starve in their homes." I explained while setting the glasses down and pouring us the drinks.

"Could you specify they send a woman about my age and build to deliver it?" Azula asked. It was rather clear what she was planning.

"That would be a rather quick way to land on some lists you do not want to be on." I replied truthfully. "Do you want ice in yours?"

Only now Azula seemed to realize that I had gotten her a drink. She carefully lifted the glass up to her nose and sniffed the liquid. Immediately her face scrunched up, and she held the offending glass far away from her.

"Ugh, that smells like you could clean the floor with it." I sighed. Azula was many things, but not easy to please. So I took the glass from her and unceremoniously poured the contents into my glass.

"Would you like to try another? Or maybe a wine?"

"Do you have anything non-alcoholic?"

"Tea? Or tap water I suppose."

Azula let out a groan. "Water it is, then."

While I went to get her a glass of water from the tap I figured now might be a good time to ask her how she had ended up with me anyway. Or rather, how she was programmed to believe she did. I was really interested in how much thought went into the backstory they had set up for her. I tried to come up with appropriate reactions to whatever she might tell me on the way back to the living room.

"So, how exactly did you end up on the run from the Dai Li anyway?" I asked as I sat back on the couch.

She glanced at me but started talking nonetheless. "I was sent on a mission to capture my brother and our uncle. However, by mere chance I found another very elusive fugitive and since my brother was -rather unhealthily- obsessed with that person anyway I could kill two birds with one stone and traced them to Ba Sing Se." Azula paused, apparently thinking about how much details about the following events she should divulge.

"Why would you be sent to capture your relatives? Wouldn't that be the crown prince and..." I left the rest open since too much knowledge about the intricacies of fire nation royalty would probably be suspicious on my part.

"General Iroh, Dragon of the West." She spat out. "He was, at least. Nowadays he's a traitor, fugitive and lazy bum. And my brother is a pathetic failure who has been banished years ago. But somehow they managed to bring embarrassment upon our nation even in exile and therefore father saw it fit they be captured and put into prison."

"Lovely family." I commented. For a moment I cursed myself for not being able to keep my mouth shut but Azula just gave a snort.

"Wait until you hear about my mother who abandoned our family after poisoning my grandfather because he demanded my brother be killed. Or about my father who..." She stopped herself, a rather pained expression on her face. Her voice had gotten louder and louder up to this point but when she continued she only whispered, her eyes distant.

"Oh, my father loves me. As he so aptly put it, he loves me like a swordmaster loves his sword. And the more you use it, the more you come to love it. You sharpen it, hoping that it will last you a lifetime, but should the blade dull to the point where you cannot sharpen it anymore, you shouldn't be afraid to cast it aside and find another weapon."

I exhaled a breath that I hadn't even realized I had been holding in. There was a lot of backstory programmed into her.

She looked at me again, an expression of pure determination on her face. "I will not dull. I will become the perfect weapon."

I struggled to say anything to that. Somehow I doubted that protestations that there was more to life and that she would be happier if she stayed here with me would be very fruitful. Of course in the end she would stay with me anyway but maybe now wasn't a good time for such talks.

"When outside the city we happened upon a group of warriors. The ones wearing that horrible outfit that I had when I arrived here." She resumed in her normal voice. "That was out ticket into the city. We managed to gather some important intel and I came up with a plan to take Ba Sing Se from the inside. Unfortunately we were recognized by the Dai Li before I could fully execute it. They tried to apprehend us. It didn't exactly go as well as they probably would have hoped."

"You managed to defeat them?" I asked, trying to sound impressed like any earth kingdom citizen probably would be.

"Oh it was only about 40 of them. Although it was made more difficult by the fact that it was in a cave, and they had a lot of earth to work with." Azula said with unmistakable pride in her voice while idly checking her fingernails.

"Anyway, we managed to defeat them but more and more kept coming, so I decided it would be the wisest cause of action to retreat temporarily. Of course, they pursued us and we got split up in the process. Then the lockdown was announced which made shaking them off more difficult and I decided it would be best to lie low somewhere, which got me here." I didn't fail to notice that she sounded a lot happier when she ended her explanation.

"And who is that 'we'?"

"Mai and Ty Lee. I recruited them to join me on my mission." Azula offhandedly explained.

"Friends of yours?" I asked but before I could get an answer the doorbell rang announcing the arrival of our food. Azula almost jumped at the sound and gave me a glare.

"We went over this, I'm not selling you out. I'll just pay the man and get our food." And for once she didn't argue and remained in her seat, while I went to gather our food. Two minutes later I came back to the living room with two containers containing our food and two forks. Azula unenthusiastically opened her plastic box and started chipping away at her food. I was rather hungry myself, so I went through roughly half of my box before looking at Azula.

"So, how is it?"

"It beats starving."

"That good, huh?" I chuckled.

"Here I am, Princess of the Fire Nation. Sitting in a peasan't house, wearing ill-fitting rags, eating mediocre food out of a plastic container. If it weren't for you being somewhat entertaining I would almost like to think getting captured would've been preferable." She gave me another one of her natural smiles. A sight that still fascinated me.

"Such high praise from you brings joy to my heart."