TexasDreamer01

The scratching of the charcoal grated on her ears. It wasn’t, per se, the sound itself. No, what made her teeth gnash and pulse thrum in frustration was the abject knowledge that such a noise was the product of an inferior product. Her teeth pulled back, An inferior product for an inferior person.

Sokka, offensive person that he was, took no notice of her snarling thoughts as he doodled on his sketchpad, tongue sticking out in concentration. Unfortunately for her, he was much more versed in big brother behaviours than Zuzu, and so needling him into compliance wouldn’t work.

She frowned at him, picking through her observations to figure out what sort of pressure would get him to bend to her will. The answer would come to her eventually, try as the healers might to dissuade Azula from her natural talents. They hadn’t succeeded in several years, and she was loathe to let anyone take away such a core tenet of her personality.

Humming interrupted her, a catchy jangle interspersed with words too quiet to be discerned. Her resolve broke into splintery fragments as she snapped, “Will you stop that.”

The Watertribesman stopped with an abrasive scratch of charcoal on paper, a baffled look on his face. “Drawing?”

“That too.” She was not pouting, she was not.

His idiotic look only strengthened, and Azula dug her nails into her crossed arms to resist lashing out. The bars of her so-called residence would be only a minor impediment, she was sure.

There was a beat of blessed silence. Then, “... Do you want to see?”

“No.”

“Aw.” He looked dejected, but she was feeling too churlish to smirk about it. Shaking the paper out, and releasing a fume of dust that made her frown some more, Sokka continued, “I mean, I kind of wanted to know what you thought.”

Azula blinked. What. “What?”

Indescribably, Sokka brightened, “Yeah! You’re like… scarily smart, and none of the others can figure out what I’m drawing.”

“I’m sure that’s because of your impeccable skills,” She drawled, but loosened her posture anyway in curiosity, squinting at the horrific mess the boy was making. Sokka helpfully displayed his creation to her, a hopeful grin on his face. Harrumphing, she arched a brow, “Perhaps it would be more useful if you drew intelligibly.”

“Hey, I’m intelligent!”

Azula drew in a deep breath, closing her eyes and counting to ten. Exhaling, and disgruntled on an entirely different level that no flames came with it, she said, “Idiot. I meant that you have no skill in accurately depicting what you’re thinking.”

There, that was helpful, yes? It followed the stringent instructions of her healers precisely.

Sokka frowned, and glanced down at his paper in doubt. Perhaps not, she thought, eyeing him warily. Zuzu was predictable when his fragile ego took a blow, but this insolent boy was relatively unknown. It irked her, idly, incessantly, that she didn’t have enough data to predict him.

“Oh.” A response that gave her absolutely zero information, and why couldn’t he be useful? Azula gritted her teeth, even as Sokka looked back up at her. “What should I fix?”

And that- that was unexpected. She huffed, lunging forward and grabbing the paper held tantalizingly loosely in the other’s hands, “Give me that.”

Obligingly, he handed over his charcoal too, watching her curiously. Azula laid the paper onto the floor, grumbling to herself that the miniature-sized desk was nevertheless too heavy to drag over, and smoothed it out over the strip of stone that laid between her cell’s bars and the plush rug Zuzu had graciously ordered to be installed. It was flat enough to be serviceable, at any rate – it’s not like Sokka’s drawings could get any worse.

She made a test scratch on one corner, making a disgusted noise at how unevenly the line was drawn. “What is this garbage?”

“Hey, I made that myself!”

“And you suck at it,” Was Azula’s tart reply as she practically threw it back at him, “What did you use to bind this, a little airbender’s hopes and dreams?”

Sokka frowned, but it was more petulant than truly offended – a part of her breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn’t hollering loud enough to bring the healers running. He squinted at the charcoal for a moment, before copying her test marks. “Well, I did make this by myself…” He murmured thoughtfully, rubbing his chin, “Usually I just nab a few off Zuko’s desk, but he’s making me buy my own because they’re for official purposes or something.”

He waved the charcoal at her, “The good ones are so expensive! Did you know that? I’m not going to waste my money when I can do it myself just fine.”

Azula leaned against the bars, bemused, “You bought the cheap binder, didn’t you.”

Sokka raised a brow at her, “Well duh. Budgeting master here, I’d rather not blow my entire budget on charcoal with how much I use it. Guilting Zuko into buying me ink blocks is enough work already.”

Despite her best efforts, Azula felt a laugh bubble up. “Zuzu’s so gullible, isn’t he?”

The boy nodded vigorously, “Oh absolutely. I have to not do it too often or Katara notices and makes me return them.”

They shared a commiserative silence. Azula used it to ruminate on precisely which face her brother would have made, and it was mildly entertaining to imagine how the waterbender would react. “Hm.”

“Hm?” Sokka blinked at her, looking away from the charcoal he had been staring so contemplatively at.

“You have too much air in your fire,” She said, instead of reminiscing aloud, “The grains are too coarse, and aren’t binding well to whatever wax or resin you’re buying.”

The resulting bout of silence was long enough to make her glance in the boy’s direction, only to see the consideration with which he peered at her.

“What?” It was more defensive than she would have liked, but she assuaged herself with the haughty curiosity filtering over it.

Sokka squinted, and she frowned. When he hummed, she huffed. Right as she was envisioning her revenge in the form of a singed and properly-offended Water Tribesman, he astonished her with the simple question of, “Is that why your fire is blue?”

Azula blinked, “Well. Yes.”

He nodded, as if that answered several problems at once. She paused, and saw in her mind’s eye the path his thoughts made – yes, it probably did. Impressive.

Sokka held out his charcoal, grinning, “Wanna show me how an Azula-made charcoal writes?”

It took several trials and errors, but between the two of them, the perfect stick of charcoal was made. Azula peered over his shoulder as he leaned against the bars barricading her room, a peculiar feeling of peace swelling at the sight of the smooth, liquid marks being drawn on the paper.

“Success!” Sokka crowed, quietly in deference to her proximity, and she felt a matching grin tug at her lips.

“Success,” She confirmed, then leaned to the side, “Now. What was that atrocious thing you were attempting to show me?”

“Huh? Oh, that-” There was a rustle of paper, charcoal stuck unerringly behind his ear and leaving a long smudge that amused Azula immensely, before the original piece of… artistry was unceremoniously shoved back into her direction, “How much of this is from the charcoal, do you think?”

She grabbed the drawings clumsily, the angle off and her complete reticence to ruin her robes with the sub-par material creasing the paper before she could maintain a proper grip on it. Grumbling, she opened the creased mass of papers, turning it a few times before it was at the orientation she vaguely remembered.

The effort made little difference, and Azula stared uncomprehendingly at what laid before her, tongue stilled only by the hopeful look on her co-conspirator’s face. He reminded her unerringly of Ty Lee, all buoyant airs reaching for the stars, and because of that her gaze was applied a bit more ruthlessly upon Sokka’s work in an attempt to glean value from what laid before her.

Pointing at a series of miniature, delicate lines in the assumption that this was some forming blueprint, she asked, “What’s this?”

“Oh! That’s the gear shaft!” He exclaimed, quickly reaching through the bars to grab one of the other papers, holding it up with a flourish, “I drew it in better detail here, the Mechanist at the Northern Air Temple told me it’s good to have separate pages for complex things.”

“Smart man,” She muttered, mind already ticking away as she saw the array of pages in a new light. It was quick work to put them into order, Sokka intuiting what sort of big picture she was going for. “Hmm. What is this, some sort of flying machine?”

He waved the charcoal at her exuberantly, pouting only for the dramatics when she glanced up and plucked it straight from his hand, “Exactly! See, I knew that scary brainy-ness could be used for the purposes of good!”

Azula raised an eyebrow, tone dry despite the notes she was amending in the margins of the designs, “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“Fine, fine,” He waved his hand, settling down so he could watch her work. It was flattering, really.

She preoccupies herself with the sketches, giving them a discerning eye while she shuffles them around. The niggle of inspiration is just out of reach, but it’s invigorating, the same spark Agni shows her when the air shifts to make way for her lightning strike- “Paper,” She demands, finger poised still over a path of least resistance, “And charcoal.”

It’s hurriedly shoved into the gaps of her cell, and she wastes no time in flattening out a couple of sheets, redrawing entire sections with quick strokes, words spilling into the margins as she notes design flaws gleaned from her own knowledge of the Mechanic’s work process. Sokka has a particular approach, but it’s obscured by his dubious technical artistry.

Winnowing out the core of his ideas is exhilarating, the flow of ideas evolving from curt questions to more involved conversations as they distilled the truth of this new goal.

It was… good. After Sokka left, promising to bring more reams of paper for the both of them, it was an easy thing to slip into the jetstreams of meditation.

The model in her hands is rough, the wood granted only a cursory polish to not prick her skin. Oiled paper imitated windows, allowing a glossy glance into the interior. Sokka had proudly displayed a cross-section, but it was a unique perspective to view the whole.

A packet of sweets rested between the sundry spoils of their work, and the nostalgia of watching Ran-Cha fold caramelized ash bananas into a dough to make that evening’s dessert made her sigh between shuffling pages, the candied coconut a delicate crunch to the pillowy softness of the bread. Sokka echoed her sentiment, lounging against the bars of her cell with a slice in his own hand, dragon-lychee juice in his other a cool complement to the still-steaming treat.

She settled the scale model to an unoccupied corner of floor, rearranging things so that the cross-section model was aligned to the papers that borne the idea to the world. In this, Sokka’s skill shone through, for the model was a precise replica of the drawings.

“How would it look if we angled the wings, hm-” Azula tilted her head, taking an idle sip of the juice Zuko had insisted Sokka pack (it was, admittedly, her favourite, so she wouldn’t complain too much), “Fifteen degrees? Not twenty, that’s too much.”

Sokka poked his head into the gap to better see the hinge her nail was tapping on. She tilted the paper a little, not minding the perpetual chalk dust any more that indicated impromptu revisions, so the other could see what she meant. He hummed thoughtfully, pulling away to rummage into his satchel for the compass that always accompanied him.

He tweezed the angle of the instrument, squinting at the paper through its gap. “Sixteen? Seventeen, maybe?”

Azula studied the hinge briefly, taking another bite of her bread, “We’ll try sixteen, and see about the pinion.”

“Absolutely,” Sokka agreed easily, pinching the compass to the requested degree and handing it to her to chalk up the new measurement. She sketched the revision quickly, picking up the first model with its articulated wings.

“We’ll need to make a lot of these,” She mused, wondering how it would look if- when they finished this project. A blimp that followed the air to reduce its fuel requirements was surely the next step in air technology.

“I’ll bring my kit,” Sokka promised.

It should be odd, to be allowed not only outside, but into the palace courtyards. It should, but it wasn’t, the sight of her and Sokka’s first full-scale model taking her breath away.

She paced around it, too preoccupied with observing how the light shone through the structured, thin metal of the wings and the actual glass windows that could open on their own, so different from the oiled paper of their scale models – the glimmer of Zuko’s dragonlike qi at the edges of the courtyard was overcome by the calculations she was already running in her mind about air pressure and currents and durability.

Sokka was beside her, equally as fascinated, holding up the plans to compare the model. He drew to a stop near the passenger door, the smoothly-oiled swing of it opening its own allure. “Hey, come look at this,” He said, gesturing her to look at the footwell, “Do you think this is enough room for the pedals?”

They had calculated for a conservation of weight, but she grimaced at the cramped space, withdrawing the charcoal behind her own ear to annotate the sheet Sokka handed her. It left a smudge of charcoal blending into her hair, but it goes unnoticed in favour of discussing scaffolding to increase space.

Azula’s breath fogs in the crisp, early-winter air, a parallel to the slumbering coals of her qi as Sokka pulls her toward the tarpaulin-covered model that – they hope – is fully operational.

The metal of the engine is cold, but that doesn’t deter them from debating the exact seconds needed between lighting it and turning the propellers for a full start, though they manage to hop onto the aeroplane before it takes off without them, barely missing one of the spiked towers as Sokka frantically pulls on the levers for steering.

The climb to the horizon is slow, Agni still climbing to full ascent despite the fog gathered in the dips of the caldera. It’s quiet for several tense heartbeats, but as they break past the minimum height their calculations call for, Sokka whoops in excitement.

It’s startling, freeing in a way that makes the war balloons feel hindering, and Azula can’t help her own unbidden yell of happiness when they successfully climb to their own ascent amid the noisily puttering engine.

“We did it! We did it!”

Take one prodigy and heir apparent of a nation that flung themselves at least two epochs forward in terms of technological advancement and had a fall from grace that was frankly needed, add another prodigy and potential heir apparent of a war-torn set of inter-connected tribes with zero actual resources but his imagination, and shake the bottle until a friendship comes out. Two completely (and, I argue, complementary) different sets of genius in one room ought to come up with something extraordinary, no?

Every time I think too hard about the fact that the Fire Nation has a navy made of alloyed metals with furnaces, and a burgeoning air force also with alloyed metals with furnaces, I'm blown away by how much and how complex of math they need to accomplish this. Really, how does the ATLA-verse look like, knowing algebra and the concept of zero (and possibly negative numbers!) exists alongside metaphysics such as bending and the Spirit World and a literal, physical bridge between realities in the form of a reincarnated person?