Fire, the whip and the club were the guards' favourite tools, and they made sure Azula felt all three of them at least several times a day. Like clockwork, the fire burned, the whips cracked and the clubs smashed and by the time the cell door was pulled shut, Azula could barely stand… even getting to her knees was an ordeal. The food definitely didn't help, stale bread, swampy soup and rotting fruit ensured that the prisoner vomited up more than just blood. And at the end of the day, when the door to her frigid and frozen cell was slammed shut, the fallen princess was left to shiver in her chains – battered and beaten.
But she refused to break; she refused to consider even the idea of begging or pleading; she refused to give into the pain, humiliation and agony of being treated like this. The ice clutching the walls of her cell was supposed to freeze her resolve like it was freezing her body. But it did the opposite – because it reminded Azula of her Water Princess.
The questions were always the same:
"Are there any more attacks planned?"
"Who else has betrayed the Fire Nation?"
"Where is the Avatar?"
And to all these questions, to every single one, Azula would push away the pain of the fire, the whip or the club, look up at whatever guard was taking the opportunity to punish the princess who had looked down on commoners like her or him all her life and smile a sweet, innocent smile like one you would find on a cute little girl.
"You're going to have to ask nicely."
The next blow would always be harder than the one that had come before but Azula didn't care – she was used to pain and she was willing to take it. They were asking about the Avatar and by extension, they were asking about Katara. If their new hiding place was discovered – wherever it was – then the Fire Lord would throw everything he had at them. Katara was stronger than any Firebender Ozai had in his army – she had proven her power many times– but Azula knew that there was still a risk that…
That she would run out of water…
That superior numbers would wear her down…
That her brother or one of her friends would do something stupid, and Katara – sweet, compassionate, kind Katara – would forget about herself and defend them, leaving herself vulnerable…
Azula would never forgive herself if anything like that happened to Katara because she had been too weak to protect her.
So, despite the fire, the whip, the club, the cold, the pain, the humiliation and the agony, Azula refused to break. If she broke, her actions on the Day of Black Sun would have been for nothing.
Azula was going to escape the Boiling Rock. Her mind, though clogged with the whining of her body, had been working at the problem day and night, creating and discarding plans, tactics and strategies. Everyone knew that the Boiling Rock had the honour of being the only prison in the Fire Nation that had never been escaped from, but everyone had said that Ba Sing Se had been impenetrable and – while she now regretted what she had done there – Azula had brought it down in two days.
Azula would leave this cell, she would escape the island, and she would find Katara again. When the fire was burning, the whips were cracking and the clubs were smashing, she promised herself that. Like the ice, it kept her resolve burning bright.