Azula traced her feet carelessly over ground where they had stepped together before. She lay alone in the indentations in her sheets and held her hands out to feel the phantoms lying on either side of her. She imagined them laughing, imagined them there beside her, tried to remember when they had been there.
When the memories didn't resurface, when the pain stayed manageable, she took it further. She ordered her servants to braid her hair and pretended it was Ty's hands moving along her scalp. She smashed Mai's perfume in her washroom and smelled it, day after day after day, as if Mai's spirit was lingering there, as if she had just left.
But she didn't mourn them, and she came to realize that she didn't miss them. No reminder she forced on herself made her regret leaving them in the bottom of the Fire Nation's most heinous prison. No long day spent only in the company of her maidservants made her wish they were there beside her.
I'm better off now, you useless wretches.
At night, in the shadows, her hands furiously mimicked her friends' movements along her body. She didn't bother pretending it was Ty Lee's tongue, and when she came, she threw her head back and stretched her lips into a gruesome smile. She didn't need them.
It was strange.
They had been there for quite some time. Ty Lee's laughter was a constant noise; Mai's soft presence was always tangible. And now there was nothing but void, nothing but the sting of betrayal. They made stupid choices and they were going to pay for them. It didn't bother Azula. She didn't care that they were gone. She didn't care. She didn't care. She didn't…
It was only the realization that she didn't need them that brought Azula any emotion at all. She bent over, head grasped in her fingers, entirely alone and unbothered. Why didn't she feel anything about them betraying her?
Had she seen it coming?
She moved her fingers between her legs again, trying to feel something, trying to feel the absence of something. She thought she had enjoyed them. She thought she had used them for things like this.
I thought I needed this.
Azula rose out of the shadows and went to Ozai of her own volition, her only garb the robe hung loosely around her shoulders. She didn't mind the servants' stares. Let them think what they wanted. She had already started losing things.
"Azula?" Ozai was alone in his chambers, as usual, and Azula didn't bother with words before she descended on her father, blood pounding through her veins, her mind overflowing with emotions she could not identify.
Ozai was not gentle, as she had not expected him to be. With every touch, he burned away the memories of the traitors.
Azula was happy.
