t/w: torture.
CH 34 | Renamed
Day 1
"I don't know, she's an anonymous drop-off. Unnamed Level 3, though—she must've been someone high up…"
"Level 3, huh? It says she can lightning bend, too. Alright, get her processed and throw her in with that feral bitch in south block."
Azula was vaguely aware of her body laying atop some type of stretcher, and the distant conversation of new voices. She attempted to open her eyes only to find her left swollen shut and her right not responding. Then the pain hit her—she must still be burning, and the heat continued to crest as if no maximum threshold could ever be reached.
She managed a choked gurgle, vomited, and sank back into unconsciousness.
Some Days (?)
Azula awoke to the sound of a woman screaming, only to realize it was herself. Her face must be melting again, and the act of opening her mouth to wail brought the sensation as if she had torn papering flesh that had sealed over her lips. She tasted a rush of blood in her mouth. Her left eye opened now, but she could only make out the hazy coloring of a person-shape kneeling over her. A woman.
She attempted to push her hand out in defense, but the movement was suddenly too painful to bear. She vomited again, sour bile.
"Easy, easy! It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you" the woman said softly. Azula could only growl and wretch in place while making out the vague outline of the person's hands being held up entreatingly. "—ere 'm I?" was the best she could manage without moving her mouth. "You're in the Cranefish Detention Center" the woman seemed tried to move closer but stopped immediately when Azula flinched.
"I know it's not a surprise but…you're in bad shape…"
No shit. Thought Azula.
The pain was unearthly. Most obvious was her burnt face which seared without reprieve. Through the haze, Azula also managed to take stock of the tell-tale throbs of bruises littering her arms, ribs, and shoeless feet. It was freezing.
Her vision was bleary, but she could tell at least that she lay on the metal floor of a small, undecorated room. The woman kneeling before her sported a very short crop of hair and though her features were still blurry, there was no mistaking the large red scar line extending from one eyebrow to the opposite side of her lip. The woman was skinny and pale in a malnourished way, which only served to accentuate the swell of an early pregnancy stretching the fabric near the bottom of her shirt. "What's your name?" The woman asked. Her voice was suspiciously kind in such a circumstance. Azula mistrusted it.
"No" she responded.
"Alright…No…but it's important to keep a name here. I hope you reconsider. Right now, though, I uh…you need to let me clean your burn."
Azula again sat up in an attempt to drag herself away from the woman, triggering a fresh tsunami of flaming pain. "Unnnnnnnnn uhhh" she moaned and collapsed back down. Now that the woman had mentioned it, the feeling of her burnt face seemed to double, as though the nerves that were most assuredly dead at this point had flared back into agonizing being. She could smell it now—rancid and rusty beneath a large bandage pad.
"-nfected?" Azula groaned questioningly.
"Yes." The woman confirmed. "If we don't clean it, you'll probably die…"
Azula sighed as deep as was possible and did not respond. Dying might be the mercy she needed, but she let the woman scoot slowly towards her anyways. After carefully untying the bandage, Azula noted the woman's sharp intake of breath, and the new wave of acrid stench bombarding her senses. It must be bad.
"This is going to hurt, I am so sorry…but there's just no other way…" the woman murmured. "Do it." she gritted in response. When the woman pressed a cloth into the burn, the only way she had to remove the layers of accumulated dead flesh was to firmly slough it away under pinched fingers. Azula fainted into blackness once more.
Some Weeks(?)
The woman was shaking Azula awake. "Hey, hey. HEY! You need to wake up, quick!" She sounded rushed and panicked. Azula only had time to sit up on her elbows and blink the woman blearily into being before hearing the rattling of keys unlocking the door. "Listen to me, they're going to take you. It's called a re-education and fuck that shit; do you understand me?" Azula only nodded, taking in the woman's eyes for the first time. Deep brownish blue, nearly violet. She'd never seen eyes like those—ones that spanned multiple heritages and nations.
Two fully armored guards walked in, armed as if going into battle. Behind large plexi-glass shields, one beckoned her with gloved fingers. The woman made a show of helping Azula stand, all while whispering hurriedly in her ear. "Do not let them take your name, do you hear me? You don't owe them that. You don't owe them shit. Do not let them take you."
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Though the pain of her face was now more of a tight, itchy ache, Azula was in no position to physically fight the guards. Frankly, she hadn't decided if she should. These men were clearly Fire Nation—she could probably gain the upper hand here once she (physically) recovered. "To what end, though? You are nothing now. You are no one." A voice emerged from within her.
Azula found herself fastened to a chair not unlike one in a dentist's office, complete with an annoyingly bright light in her face and a series of looming apparatuses nearby. The only difference was this chair came with handcuffs and a tight head clamp that was particularly painful to one whose face was still molting scabbed, puss-filled flesh.
A new woman emerged, but Azula was unable to look at her as she positioned herself near her shoulder on her burnt side. The interactions would be small and confusing in the best of times in the months to come.
"Whom do you Serve?" the woman asked. Azula decided not to answer.
After a time in silence the woman asked, "what is your name?"
"Ursa" Azula lied, wondering at herself for trusting in her stranger-cellmate.
The woman clucked her tongue: tsk tsk tsk. "No" she corrected, "You Serve at the pleasure of Fire Lord Ozai, and you have no name." Leaning over, the woman opened a small valve from above Azula's head. It was just barely out of her (now extremely limited) line of sight. After a squeak, the valve gave way and began a steady drip…drip…drip…drip… onto Azula's forehead, causing the ousted princess to snort. "Really? That's the best you can do?"
The woman smirked and exited the room, leaving her to the painless, though annoying experience of being stuck under a dripping tap. It stung her burns as it leaked down the sides of her face, but not enough to bring her to a breaking point. It was slightly uncomfortable in that she could not open her eyes long enough between drips to really do or think about anything else. She was irritated to feel her shirt beginning to wick up the droplets that found their way down her neck.
It seemed like hours before the smirking woman returned, and Azula was seething with anger. She has no idea who she is dealing with. "Whom do you Serve?" the woman asked. "I serve myself" Azula spat. She refused to break. After a time in silence the woman asked, "what is your name?"
"Ursa." She lied again. The woman clucked her tongue: tsk tsk tsk. "No" she corrected, "You Serve at the pleasure of Fire Lord Ozai, and you have no name." Leaning over, the woman turned the tap on again.
"You're going to wish you'd never been born" Azula growled at her as the smirking woman exited once more.
Azula lost the ability to comprehend time. It could have been minutes. It could have been days. It didn't matter. All the room in her brain was engulfed by the unsteady metronome of water. She tried to make songs to the beat of it as a form of distraction, but the tempo was never quite perfect. She tried to move her head to slightly change to angle of the droplets from time to time but found herself unable to loosen the vice.
After a while the drip…drip…. drip…drip seemed like it hurt, even though she knew it was in her head.
"ALRIGHT, I'LL SAY IT." She started to call out. No one responded.
Azula was starting to talk to herself out loud, just to hear sound other than the impact of water on her face when the woman walked back in.
"Whom do you serve?" she asked. "F-firelord Ozai" Azula sputtered almost immediately. "What is your name?" she asked. "No one. I'm no one." Azula responded, a dejected whisper. The woman smirked again and leaned over to turn the tap back on.
"W-wait! WAIT! I SAID WHAT YOU WANTED! NO!" Azula screamed, tears of frustration finally breaking through. She was soaking wet, her burn felt fevered, but worst of all, the feeling of the droplets had not subsided, even after it had stopped.
Finally, the woman lowered her face to hers and allowed Azula to take in her features. She was a round-faced woman with squinty green eyes that seemed to squash her nose into a wide, leering smile. She wasn't even Fire Nation.
"You have to mean it." She hissed.
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They'd never struck her once, but when the guards delivered Azula back to the floor of her cell, she collapsed as though thoroughly beaten. Her cellmate scrambled to her side and caught her as she teetered down in sheer exhaustion. The water was still there, and she knew now she'd never escape it again.
"They did it. They took it all from me." Azula couldn't help but sob into the woman's shoulder, clawing desperately for something soft, something even remotely comforting. The woman rocked her and stroked the back of her head. They hadn't bothered to shave her head when she was first delivered to the facility unconscious but had instead taken scissors and cropped it in wild, irregular patches.
"Shhhh. They can't take anything away from you. You're still there inside. You're there. You have a name."
"I have a name" Azula agreed, allowing herself to be embraced and rocked. Whether or not her scar-faced roommate could be trusted, she now had no choice. The woman was all she had.
"My name is Ursa."
Some Months…It doesn't really matter now.
Re-education sessions were only one of many obstacles one needed to survive at Cranefish. The most pressing was a lack of food. Azula knew from the daily briefings she received when she was…in her old life…that the lack was purposeful—not only did it save on costs, but also functioned as something of an environmental pressure.
When it came time to distribute, the inmates jostled their way to get at whatever gift was left out in the center block—sometimes it was a single basket of bread, sometimes a large vat of stew. Sometimes there were more than one item to choose from, all incredibly vital: Food, a single water bottle, two blankets, medicine.
Having a roommate seemed more advantageous than ever for Ursa. They'd usually strategize to obtain one item of each, and despite her ever-swelling belly, the woman seemed to handle herself with no small amount of hand-to-hand training.
Those who couldn't fight to obtain resources died, plain and simple. Those who could eek out an uncertain existence lived another day to sort recycling and burn trash in the courtyards where the Fire Nation delivered their waste. Ursa and her companion stealthily harvested edible plants that grew in secret places—mushrooms they minded under a raised foundation behind a loose piece of wood, pea shoots that looked like weeds they cultivated in a trashed burn barrel that they'd hollowed out on the bottom.
New inmates came in.
Old inmates became scattered ash.
No one was ever "rehabilitated" and released.
Ursa and her companion trained in their cell, even though the woman's belly was becoming too big to do the more vigorous attack moves. Ursa also found herself unwilling to hit her. "It's not good for your baby. And even if I aim away from your stomach, I could miss and hurt you." The woman waved her hand dismissively. "Ursa, do you honestly think I'll carry it to term? Look at me."
Ursa had no choice but to nod in agreement. The woman looked like a potato with toothpicks for arms and legs. It was as though the pregnancy was feeding off the woman's own flesh to keep the new life in her going. There didn't seem to be much of her body left to supply.
Ursa had already received her weekly re-education session and discovered a new instinct when they jumped at the tell-tale rattle of guard keys. She put herself in front of the woman, acknowledging a fierce desire to protect her ever weakening…friend?
"She needs a break. She's pregnant, for spirits sake" she pleaded with the guards. "Stand down, inmate." The guards responded. One rattled his shield with a heavy baton as Ursa curled her hand to produce fire.
"No, DON'T!" her friend said, catching Ursa on the wrist. "It's okay. I know who I am. I got this." She reassured.
Late, late in the evening, Ursa jumped awake at the sound of keys once more. She was ready to catch her friend. Sure enough, the woman stumbled in and crashed to her knees, wheezing. They repeated their usual mantra as Ursa held her, rocked her, and stroked her hair.
"Shhh, it's okay. I've got you. It's done for now. They can't take anything away from you. You're still there inside. You're there. You have a name."
"I have a name" she agreed, allowing herself to be embraced and rocked. Whether or not her scar-faced roommate could be trusted, she now had no choice. The woman was all she had.
"My name is Suyin."