Oh, wow: thank you so much! And believe me, I have had your finding-Ursa story rattling around in my head since I read it the other day: that lullaby. And, heh, after reading your epic thread on Fire Nation dysfunction, I feel we may have similar tastes, Avatar-wise.

I'm especially glad you think I did ok with Azula - I don't think she's served well in fic either, but then, she is hard to write without straying into gratuitously crazy-lady territory or making her flat out eeeevil or something equally boring.

And her relationship with Mai fascinates me, because they're so close to being equals in a lot of ways. I can see both of them really, really needing a tempering influence (well, I mean, Azula needs a lot more than that, of course), be it Zuko or Ty Lee. And without them you get this massively disturbing situation where everyone and everything is acting as a substitute for someone else and all these power-plays are being fought out but never stated, because, absent Ty Lee or Zuko, there's no-one there who needs this stuff explained to them. Wellll, at least - that's kinda what I was going for.