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Of all the inane and stupid items to come across in her wanderings...

It stood about chest high on her with little grips on either side and buttons at it's base with familiar faces on it. Tentatively she pushed one of the buttons and sure enough a little doll popped out with her face.

It was far more beautiful a face then she remembered, but then again the game had been designed by people who were loyal to the Fire Nation. And there was no greater hero to the Fire Nation then their princess...except of course the Fire Lord.

Another button press brought her a doll of her brother and she placed them in the pegs on top of the small tower. Their feet clicked into place perfectly. It was like not a day had passed.

With a sullen and half hearted smile she tapped the button once, twice, three times watching the little doll punch her brother in the face. It was oddly soothing.

But how to get it back to the air temple from the city?

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Finally she spoke after what felt like an hour.

"I was focused. And so smart...so very clever. Plans inside of plans inside of plans. Now I can't even maintain myself long enough to travel back to the place I sleep."

"I am still strong and fast...though my fire bending is no longer as pure and powerful as it was." Her voice was positively drenched in self loathing.

"I see death around every corner. Every shadow, every drop of water..." And that was the biggest distraction even on her good days.

"You're still smart. That doesn't just stop. Other things may be interfering with your ability to think, but that's all they are. Interference. What you've got upstairs is still good, under all that."

Then he nudged her, almost playfully. "Stop that. I heard that. You honestly think that if your skills slip a little, you've failed somehow? It happens. It's okay. You have lost nothing you can't regain."

And the last one... he lifted an eyebrow, curious if she would elaborate.

She wouldn't, not yet. Instead she flicked a tiny flame at his knee for how familiar he was getting with her.

"Just how many broken girls do you go around trying to fix on this ship?" her voice steady, trying to escape her own pity party with distraction.

"As many as I can, though they aren't exactly ten for a dozen," he said, brushing at his knee. He wore the plantsuit for pants, so that could have been worse. "You're changing the subject."

"It seemed like the thing to do." she acknowledged. "It's not as if we're on some kind of a time limit...save more patience and energy." Both of which were thin these days.

"Heh. I suppose I've pushed you a lot for today, haven't I," he said, chuckling. "Well, you haven't burned me that much yet, so I assume it wasn't THAT horrible."

She rose an eyebrow as if daring him to test her "I imagine your hair would burn very quickly." A thinly vailed and barely interested threat.

He reached behind him, sliding an arm under his hair so that when he pulled it forward, the long mass of hair hung over his forearm, down to the ground they sat on. He DID have shamelessly nice hair.

"Now if that were true, you would've managed it while we were sparring."

"That was only because I wasn't aiming for it. You're no use to me dead or irreversibly maimed."

Because yes, she was totally using him. Not getting help. That's what it was. For sure.

"Hey, hey, hey. I've been dead twice, thank you, and I'm still pretty useful," he said, winking. "Though I like the idea that you consider damage to my amazing bishy hair as 'irreversibly maimed'."

There was a questioning raise of her eyebrow, "And they tell me that I'm the crazy one." She sighed.

"Everyone on this ship is at least a little crazy in one way or another. But 'sane' life is boring and unfulfilling, so who can blame any of us?

"But if you want to know about the dead thing? I honestly don't understand it myself, so I can't really explain it." He lost just a little of his smile at that; the fact that he had been literally dead, twice, and yet brought back out of it through no particularly special means honestly disturbed him.

"So what can you tell me?" After all if she were to die and come back that would be useful to say the least. She tried not to seem too interested though.

"I don't know the reason, but twice, when I was to all intents and purposes dead -- and I'm talking gross trauma here -- healing magic was able to restore me to life. Once I'd been basically cut in half, the other time I was impaled on a sword." Well, she'd asked...

"And do you ever regret your return?" It was something she'd been doing entirely too much thinking about lately.

He shook his head. "My time will come when it comes. If I'm alive now, it's because I should be."

It was an optimistic way to look at things, but Azula couldn't bring herself to believe that just yet. After all there were so many people on the ship who just didn't seem to have a purpose or reason to exist.

"If you say so."

It had its downsides, really.

"I did try to kill myself once," he said, looking off into the distance. "I was a wreck, back then. Not with any good cause, mind."

Well now, that was an interesting concept.

"How?" She asked simply allowing him to expand on himself. At least while he was telling her his story he wasn't pressuring her about her own.

"How did I try, or how was I a wreck?"

Ha! She may think she's diverted him, but in reality he's continuing to give her nonconfrontational human contact!

"Both." She abandoned her game tower for a moment to move over to his car and lean non it. Her slender young form was an attractive compliment to the clearly beloved vehicle.

Well, claiming the car didn't have the purpose of making girls take notice would be a lie. He rolled lightly onto the small of his back, then kipped up.

"I'm an orphan. I was raised in a temple from as long as I can remember, getting both an intellectual and physical education. So for my formative years, I wasn't in a family, just really a boarding school. There's a difference in relationships there. Then my soul got stuck in a sword, which really marked about when things started going downhill."

He tilted his head to the car. "Ride?"

"Only if we can take the game." She pointed back to the solid and weighty tower she had left a few feet away. It would be her first time riding in a vehicle like this.

"Sure, we'll put it in the backseat." He dropped to a crouch just long enough to heft the thing into his arms. Standing with it was no real effort; that physique he had wasn't just for show.

"Anyway," he said around it as he walked to the car, "even with my soul stuck in a sword, that wasn't really terrible. I mean it sucked, but I was getting by. I graduated from school, went back looking for my family's legacy, and discovered I was the heir to a meaninglessly large amount of money."

Azula listened, not bothering to ask questions. Nothing made sense anymore so why did he need to explain how he was put into a sword.

She slid into the passenger seat luxuriating in a vehical that felt as though it was worthy of someone with royal status. It was a rare moment of decadence compared to the rest of her life these days.