A/N: I experimented a bit with formatting in this fic. The reason I chose to write like this is because I think this would be how Azula would remember it looking back months or even years later. Of course, the huge page-breaks on this site complicate things, so I hope it's not too distracting!
Daddy said that, once he could change the laws so they could marry, their children would be the most powerful firebenders to ever live. Technically, there wasn't supposed to be a child now, but in all the upheaval after Daddy left, Azula had forgotten to take her medicine. She was sure he would understand.
The nurse had thought Azula was lying when she said she didn't feel like eating…imagine! Then another nurse came in and held Azula down while the first nurse attempted to force-feed her…and got vomited on for her troubles. Well, she couldn't say she hadn't been warned!
"You're pregnant," Dr. Yisheng said disapprovingly. Azula yawned. She'd think about it later.
It was later, and she'd thought about it. They sent a doctor in to discuss "her options." She knew full well what that was code for, and her only answer was a flat "No."
This new special nurse that they'd assigned to her…it was like her sworn mission was to be unrelentingly nice and cheerful, no matter how nasty Azula was inreturn. It sort of reminded her of…she hastily slammed the door on that thought.
Zuzu sent some people over to ask Azula if she knew who the father was. She just laughed at them until she nearly peed herself. They left.
"So you're saying I can draw anything I want?" Azula inquired skeptically. Back when her mother was around, she'd had art lessons, but the teachers always made her sketch stupid things like vases and fruit.
"Yes, anything," the art therapist confirmed. So Azula drew a bunch of very improbably-proportioned dicks all over the paper.
The therapist didn't even bat an eyelash! This was disappointing.
At twelve weeks, Dr. Yisheng ordered total bed rest, and he was strict about enforcing it. Azula wasn't even allowed to walk across the room to use the toilet on her own. Of course, any bending was out of the question, and they made sure that none of the items in her room burned easily.
"Don't get cocky, Zuzu," she muttered. "My escape may have been delayed, but it will happen."
Since there was nothing else to do, Azula started drawing more to pass the time. The art therapy sessions continued, but they were now moved to Azula's room. She was actually developing a grudging respect for the therapist/instructor, since nothing seemed to faze her. When Azula realized that her crude doodles weren't having the desired effect, she drew things that were progressively more gory and detailed. But surprisingly, the more graphic the pictures were, the more the instructor praised them!
"You have a natural talent, Princess!" she said.
But it was just to kill time! It wasn't like she liked doing it or anything.
One night, Azula was woken up from a deep sleep. Since there was no nurse examining her at the moment, she wondered what could have happened, and then she felt some kind of odd fluttering in her stomach.
So that was what it was like to feel the baby move for the first time. To be honest, it was a bit underwhelming, since the way women talked about it made it seem like some magical rite of passage.
All she could think to say in response was, "I do hope the rest of you isn't that disappointing."
The checkups were getting more frequent now as things progressed, which meant Azula had to see more of Nurse Smiley. On top of that and the regular stuff, once a week a doctor traveled over from the main hospital to have a look at her too. He always looked so serious when he took her measurements and muttered things about "fundal height," then he would torture her with his stethoscope and frown some more. She always demanded to know what it all meant, but he would just say things like, "We think your baby might be a bit on the small side, that's all."
All Azula could do was grind her teeth and fantasize about how quickly she'd be able to kill him if she wasn't restrained.
Nurse Smiley had suggested talking to the baby so it could grow accustomed to its mother's voice. Azula had scoffed at the time, but every now and then she found herself doing it anyway. Her mother had been rather quiet lately.
So she recited the history of their ancestors and the names of all the past Fire Lords, pointedly leaving off her brother. After all, this child would hopefully inherit the throne someday, so it was good to get a head start on this knowledge.
And this was the only reason why she was doing it! Affection is for the weak.
Also, she only put her arm around her bump because her back was hurting and she wanted some extra support. Nothing more!
New paints and inks and brushes have magically arrived…at least, that's what they seemed to want Azula to think. She tried to pretend that she didn't care.
They told her she had to eat more…but how could she do that when they didn't allow her to have anything even remotely flavorful?
"If you're nervous or have any questions, feel free to ask me!" said Nurse Smiley.
"I'm not nervous. I conquered Ba Sing Se; I think I can handle this," Azula insisted with more conviction than she felt.
Actually, she did have just one question. She asked where the baby would go after it was born, and was told that it would be sent to live with her brother. Now that could complicate things.
Spring came again after a seemingly endless rainy season, and the doctors allowed Azula to sit outside in a wheelchair for short times. Right now, she was at the point where everything hurt almost constantly, so was content to sit still and absorb as much sunlight as they'd let her.
Azula received a package in the mail. Inside was a lopsided knit hat in a garish shade of pink and matching booties. She rolled her eyes and told the doctors to put it all on the corner of the shelf farthest from her bed. Later, she'd wonder why she didn't just order them to throw it away.
There had also been a note. She burned it unopened when no one was looking.
She had to give the staff some credit here. Just one stifled cry from her in the earliest hours of the morning and she heard voices and footsteps outside. And just a couple of minutes after that, Nurse Smiley was bursting into the room and saying, "Oh, honey, is it time?"
Azula would have glared a hole through her…if she wasn't currently too busy trying to catch her breath still.
So they got her on a stretcher and took her down to a room on the lowest floor, and the doctor was summoned. He confirmed that it was, indeed, "time." Then he went back to check on his patients at the main hospital, leaving everyone else to just…sit around and wait.
If one more person told her to "breathe," Azula was going to take their foot and drive it through their ear canal into their brain. And she said as much.
It was night again. The doctor took a hideous-looking thing with a hook on the end and used it to break Azula's water. He said that this might speed things up. He was very, very lucky that her arms and legs were bolted to the bed. As it was, his topknot was singed when he had fire breathed at him.
Was it daytime now? Azula was confused. Also, this annoying woman wouldn't stop screaming for her daddy. She was about to snarl at this woman to shut up, then realized it was her.
They'd adjusted her restraints so she could sit up partially, and were all shouting at her to push. This had been going on for a while, and Azula felt like she was about to rip in half. What appeared to be half the population of the Caldera was gathered around the end of the bed, peering intently at a very private area. Was it just her or did they seem really tense? Even Nurse Smiley wasn't saying much from her place holding up Azula's leg.
What were they doing with those scissors?!
Several minutes of utter humiliation later, it was over! And then…silence. Azula had only gotten a glimpse of the baby as they whisked it away, but even she could see that something was terribly wrong.
She didn't want to accept it at first. So its head was swollen…there were surgeries to fix that, right? And so what if its arms were useless stumps and its legs weren't much better? That just meant it might need a bit of extra help!
The doctors and nurses were all crowded around, and she couldn't see a thing. One of them grimaced and muttered something unintelligible to another person.
"What is it? What is it?" she demanded, although it wasn't very loud since she'd nearly lost her voice. How dare they treat her this way?
After a few minutes of this, there was one weak cry. And no more after. The group of people worked a while longer, but eventually the doctor gave a resigned sigh and placed the baby on Azula's chest.
"A girl, Princess," he said. He still didn't unchain her arms.
The group got to work retrieving the afterbirth and stitching her up, but Azula only had eyes for the baby. She should despise it for being so flawed…why didn't she?
Then, with its last gasps, it opened its eyes and looked right at her…and those eyes were the most beautiful molten-gold color she'd ever seen.
No, those weren't tears, just sweat dripping down…
Wait…why were they taking her baby away now? And covering her face?
Then Azula saw her. Ursa.
"You won't get away with this!" she gasped as she sat up abruptly, as far as the restraints would allow. Instantly she felt dizzy. For the first time she noticed…was there supposed to be that much blood?
The last thing she heard before passing out was a panicked shout of "The princess!" with a voice in the background saying, "No, no, save it for the med students."
When she woke up in the recovery room, she was informed that she had a condition which made her blood take longer to form clots. While her life had never been in immediate danger, she'd lost more blood than they would have liked.
A small part of her noted that this actually explained a lot. Like why she bruised so easily, or her bad female problems, or why she bled so much her first time with Daddy. But the rest of her just stared dumbly from shock.
She got lots of visitors over the next few weeks. The problem was, it was hard to tell who was real.
She was pretty sure that Zuzu had been real, at least. She distinctly remembered saying, "Have you come to gloat, dear brother?" Her memory of what happened after was fuzzy at best, but he didn't come back.
Also, The Traitor-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned may have been real. She was sobbing and carrying on like it was her baby who died. Azula might have thrown a pillow at her and told her to go to hell, but she wasn't sure.
After a couple of weeks, her physical wounds were mostly healed. The bleeding stopped, her milk dried up, and she no longer felt like she was constantly straddling a thorny bush. But mentally…that was another story. She was eventually able to pretend like she was back to her usual self, but something deep down just seemed…broken.
She'd thought she was doing okay…she'd gone back to her art, and she was even learning how to style her own hair. Then one day, out of the blue, when she was reaching for a certain paintbrush on the shelf, she saw that stupid, atrocious knit hat, and when her memory picked up again, she realized she'd been lying on the floor, clutching the hat to her chest and sobbing hysterically, for who-knows-how-long.
Dr. Yisheng was always trying to get her to talk about her feelings. But she was Princess Azula, and she was much too strong to be affected by such trifling matters as emotion! Right?
A year! She had been in this dump for a whole year now, and as much as she hated to admit it, was no closer to escaping than she had been when she first came here.
Azula was in the shower (a communal room; of course she couldn't have a private bathtub because she might drown in it) when she thought she heard someone outside mention the Fire Lord. She quietly turned off the water and waved her towel around like she was drying off.
Two nurses, who obviously didn't know Azula was right there, were excitedly talking about how the Fire Lord and his fiancée had called off their engagement. Unfortunately, Azula's attending nurse caught on to the conversation and ran over to scold them, so Azula didn't hear any further details. But she still cackled behind her hand as she turned the water back on.
She guessed it was because Mai was such a total fucking prude. Her brother would have had to use a crowbar to pry her legs open if he wanted to try anything!
"Hello, daughter."
Dammit! Azula had thought she'd been gone for good!
"You're not real!" she tried.
"What is reality but one's own perception?" Ursa answered smugly.
"I know you took my baby."
"It was for your own good, Azula. Can you imagine yourself being a mother? All that responsibility at such a young age and with such a fragile mental state…it would not have gone well at all."
"Zuzu was going to take care of it," Azula pointed out.
"Yes...but you would have had to come home eventually..."
That was it. Azula would think of the most hurtful thing she could to get Ursa to leave her alone.
"Da…Father said you weren't a virgin on your wedding night," she finally spat out. "He said you pretended, but he could tell the difference. But I was. I wasn't some slut. So there!"
Silence. Azula turned around to look. She was gone. Good.
So why did it feel like such a hollow victory?
Although she could never tell anyone this, Azula still occasionally had dreams about what could have been…a powerful, beautiful woman with molten-gold eyes ruling the whole world.
They'd never told her exactly what they'd done with her baby's remains, or where they were now. She'd never bothered asking either.
For a very long time, not much of anything happened. The only thing she liked was the art lessons. She finished one painting she was particularly proud of, which depicted white hands cradling a very red gut wound, with intestines spilling out everywhere. The art instructor offered much praise for how realistic the intestines looked.
But other than that, there was really no one to talk to. Nurse Smiley was only there for the pregnancy, and Azula was so bored she actually kind of wanted her back! She was annoying, but at least she'd been a distraction!
So, because there was nothing else to do, she started behaving. And the doctors totally bought it!
"You are making excellent progress!" said Dr. Yisheng. Azula just scowled at him. She knew they were reporting everything to her brother, so all she had to do was keep this up until he let her out. But this was taking longer than she had anticipated. Now, all of a sudden, she'd been here two years!
And then one day, he showed up out of nowhere.
"I…need your help," he said.
It must have been a dire situation indeed if he admitted that! Azula smirked and said, "I'm listening."
A/N: I'm not sure how realistic the baby opening its eyes was, but I felt that I had to include it. The prude/slut internalized misogyny is a bit of a nod to what's been on the news lately.
On a slightly lighter note, I've been learning how to knit...so I felt compelled to mention it here!
Oh, and that blood-clotting disorder is known as Von Willebrand Disease IRL. It's different from the more well-known Hemophilia A and B in that it also effects females. In fact, Von Willebrand is actually more likely to be detected in females because of heavy periods (which I alluded to).