Freezing water engulfed her in the remote ice grave, failing to reach the cliff of the glacier. That damn peasant had bested her amidst the ice a second time. Insane! She could still see the shadow of Katara, weary and desperate from battle above the forming ice, waiting for Azula to escape. She'd show her, yes she would. She'd break out at the last moment, just as her breath left her. The water began to freeze, her limbs numbing. Azula paid no heed. The shadow blurred as light dimmed, and her eyes grew wide. Trying to move, her limbs failed to flame, and her lungs soon forced her for fresh air. There was none, only the cold water. One last desperate move, a shove of her neck to force fire through…
Her throat began to burn as the frozen water flashed to hot steam, escaping into the exposed atmosphere. Azula opened her eyes to the dark night sky, feeling the sway of the waves as the ice melted about her. Katara. Where was the bitch? She looked about, panting through her charred windpipe, gasping for air desperately. In a burst of strength, the last of it was used to completely escape the ice, and falling flat onto it.
She hated the cold.
More than that, she hated the weakness, her inability to stand, to command her burned tongue. Desperately, the pyro princess turned toward the horizon weakly. Far, far in the distance she saw smoke, and weak lighting of a steam ship. Panting, and caving to her weakness, she fired a bright orange pillar of fire into the sky with the last of her strength, hoping her signal would make it to the crew. A second time she tried, and then a third, before darkness overtook her vision once more, as it had in the ice.
Azula ached seemingly, the memory of her pursuit of the peasant that had finished her for Zuko on the day of Sozin's Comet. A boat she'd stolen and navigated in pursuit of the woman from the asylum, that's where she had been. It made little sense; this wasn't her way, not blind rage. The world ached to her, ice-water clashing against her blue flames atop the glaciers. What had she hoped to accomplish with such blind revenge? There were better ways to torture the trespasser than this, but still her poor style and mangled hair were all that slew from the princess. She felt detached, and the world blurred. Her cheek stung, yet remained untouched. Cold winds had picked up, snow skidding across her face, but she never felt it. She gasped for air.
Gasping for air, Azula's eyes snapped open through a sputtering of coughs; her coughs. She was inside, but felt the sway of the water, and a weak 'hum' sound coming from above. Shaking her head, she noticed quickly that the ceiling was full of strange, fireless lighting. The room itself was sparingly decorated, utilitarian, and a door opening. She was still firmly on the bed, but the man pointed to her, yelling to others down the hall.
"Her eyes are open, Doc!"
"Go inform the Captain," spoke a second man, stepping into the room with a pat of the back to the first crewman. "I'll take care of it from here." His stepping was wary, and his face looked old, but appeared to be well practiced. "So, you're finally awake, miss, are you?" She hated being patronized, but only a wheeze of dismissal escaped her throat, and a throbbing pain rekindled itself from her innards.
"Whoa, whoa, take it easy there. You've got major burns from your mouth and nostrils all the way through your esophagus." A sturdy arm weighed heavily on her shoulder, pressing her back down as she tried to look at the man. "I've been treating it, but I can't say that's something I see every day." Slowly he walked to the cupboard, taking a bottle of water and pouring it into a pan. She heard a click and felt a weak but intense flame.
The once-Princess of the Fire Nation could barely manipulate it.
The man went without noticing as he kept talking. "Hopefully by the time we get to Republic City you can at least talk again. I'm hard pressed to say I work miracles, but given a couple more weeks of treatment you ought to sound just fine once you're fully healed." He shook his head, turning back to her. "You just focus on getting your rest; as interested as I am at how you got stranded so far out, I guess I'm just going to have to wait for an answer."
As if she planned to answer him. Her pain largely faded now that Azula had given up on speaking, yet watched with interest as the man picked up a large black and white paper.
"Have you heard about that Amon figure?" he asked, trying to occupy her time. "Think he's a real nut, not that I blame him. But the world's always going to have bending. Don't think his 'Equalist' movement is ever going to succeed so long as the four nations don't go to war again." She silently scoffed at the mention of the four nations, before realizing nothing he had actually mentioned made sense. Equalists? Amon? Even Republic city made no sense. Turning ever so slightly his way, she raised her arm, looking over what she could of the paper.
"What's that, miss?" She pointed at the paper, scowling, and he brought it closer. The title she gazed over quickly, its stories largely irrelevant, the date point-what? Her eyes widened, and she tapped the date on the page. "It's a couple weeks old, yea," he muttered. "Been a while since I've been able to pick up a new one back at port." Her head fell back onto the pillow as she let the news sink in.
Everything at home was gone, her dethroned, depowered father was gone, her armies were gone, and those loyal to her were gone, her very royalty ripped from her grasp. Though a mirror, her mother turned and gave her one last proud smile, before walking out the door.
It seemed unfathomable, but the Crown Princess Azula had pulled an Avatar.
Almost seventy years had passed in an instant for her, and for the first time in a decade she felt the pressure of intimidation; her life had become a blank state, devoid of purpose or goal. Her heart pulsed, thoughts racing as quickly as her blood. The fearless warrior closed her eyes tight, attempting to escape the implication. She was lost, either amidst her own mind in the asylum, or in time.