Notes: Part of an unfinished drabble meme I've had sitting around for a few months now. Figured I might as well post them. :)

::Her Mother's Daughter::

She doesn't move when the guard brings her food. He calls her 'Princess' and Azula wants to laugh, but she can't remember how. She isn't a princess anymore. Isn't anything. A shadow, a shard, a wraith, a remnant.

A failure.

The guard retreats, footsteps fading and suddenly Azula launches herself against the bars, screaming for him, demanding he return, come back come back because once she's alone she won't be alone.

She clings to the bars, shackles heavy on her wrists and sucks in a harsh breath. The prison is quiet, quiet, and she knows he won't come back. She's alone again and Azula hunches her shoulders and stares through the bars with ferocious intensity. She will not look. She will not acknowledge.

A gentle touch on her hair and Azula fractures, whirling around with frantic eyes. The cell is empty but it's not, and Azula presses hard back against the bars and knows it won't help. "Go away!" she snarls, enraged and trapped.

"I won't leave you alone, Azula," a soft voice, her mother's voice, whispers in her ear.

She lashes out, striking stone hard enough to tear skin and screws her eyes shut. "I don't need you!"

The hand returns, stroking filthy, matted hair so gently Azula feels like she's going to shatter. "I think you do."

She sinks to the floor, and strong arms catch her. They catch her and hold her and rock her like they never did when she was little. "I hate you," Azula says, but she doesn't pull away. She isn't sure she can.

"I love you," her mother replies in that sweet, familiar voice, the one that conjures memories of a childhood a hundred lifetimes past.

She loathes that voice, those arms; loathes the way they make her fold in on herself, make her feel young and small and needy. She hates this woman for being too little, too late.

But mostly, Azula just hates herself.