They like to tamper with her spirit. She supposes that it doesn't matter because it is broken anyways. They constantly shift it and mold it and faintly Azula knows that it is wrong. But they have tampered with her spirit too much already for her to be alarmed by it beyond the simple acknowledgment that it is unnatural and invasive, no matter how good the intent. And lately she doesn't have a reason to believe that their intentions are good. She isn't sure when they began to shift from therapy to control but she hasn't the means to fend their antics off.

She has become a lab elephant-rat of sorts. Before her, spirit vines have never been used to treat a patient like herself. Combined with the Avatar's reluctant aid, she hasn't even a chance to resist. So her moods shift constantly and not of her own accord. Not even of their own accord. They shift and bend to the will of Aang.

To the will of the Sun Pool facility personal.

Azula is a different person day to day. They will elevate her mood and she will become chipper and bubbly, more like TyLee than herself. Sometimes they will touch her spirit in the wrong way and she will be numb and impassive, almost depressive. More closely resembling Mai in this instance. At some point she had taken to naming each personality that seemed to emerge from them playing with her emotions. Including the real Azula there are ten; Cheerful and bubbly Azula is Sachi. Somber Azula is Yuka. When they have her in a state of unexplainable rage, she becomes Shiori. The passionate and lustful, Aiakahana is the most uncomfortable to reflect upon. Being Aiakahana brings her a sense of shame and embarrassment. Humiliation has a name too, it is Rokora, who was easy to make flustered and awkward.

Other times they are able to bring out a more curiosity driven, childlike version of her. This person, she calls, Inori. They could elicit a more fearful and paranoid version of herself—Kowagaru, she names that one.

There are three emotions that they seem to enjoy amplifying the most; there is a generous and giving Azula, who she has named Shona and a loving and rather sweet version of her that she calls Ai-Emi. Least of all, Azula enjoys being Nari.

Nari is timid, shy, and soft-spoken. Often she is prone to being taken advantage of. Nari is everything Azula dreads letting herself be. She has no fight. She has no control nor dominance. They usually evoke Nari when they want to try a new treatment with her or to subdue her. They know she won't say no, and if she does then they know that she will eventually submit. She is almost certain that they are trying to mold her into Nari for good. She would certainly be easier to manage that way.

These days, even on the days where they aren't tampering so heavily with her spirit energy, Azula finds herself in a state of confusion. Somewhere down the lines she has lost herself completely, she is growing uncertain of which personality is her real one. She can no longer tell if she is truly feeling things of her own accord or if they are false emotions. And she loathes the uncertainty, the insecurity.

She lies tethered to a bed, it might as well be a cold metal operating table. The warm and plush sheets are falsely comforting. She supposes that it is another ploy to coax Nari to the foreground as much as possible.

"Try to relax." Instructs the head of operations, a doctor named Sangyul. She doesn't think that she has a choice. If she can't calm herself, Aang will instill serenity within her. She decides that she should just try to calm herself on her own. She lets her body go slack. "Good." The remark is completely patronizing and is almost enough to bring tension back to her.

"Avatar Aang."

With that cue, Aang steps forward. His eyes are wide and innocent. His demeanor is nothing but friendly and hopeful and yet the sight of it instills nausea within her. "Good morning, Azula." He greets.

She stares at her palms.

He has been doing this long enough to know that he won't be getting a response. Sangyul fixes a few spirit vines across her forehead and at her temples and beckons Aang forward. The smile that the Avatar offers is supposed to be reassuring. It only makes her feel sicker, some part of her wonders if he does know exactly what he is doing and that he reaps some sick joy from it. She closes her eyes as his fingers press against her forehead. The spirit vines radiate a faint purple as Aang taps into their power.

She can feel him working his way in. She has long since given up on trying to wall him out. His fingers are phantasmal and they pull and tug on invisible threads of energy. In her mind, their color varies; brilliant red-orange, she thinks, is their natural state. An aura of power and control and confidence. When she is angry they flare a brighter red and when she feels passion, the hue is more scarlett.

Aang's energy, as it invades hers, is a white-blue, tinged with the purple of spirit vines. It creeps in and curls around the vulnerable threads of her aura and emotions. The white-blue tendrils fan out until they touch each and every thread. It is a tedious process, a slow one. Once the first thread is wholly wrapped in pink, he moves on to the next and then the next.

Even after all of this time, he still hasn't mastered the art. Every now and again, he forgets to unravel the thread-or simply can't seem to do it-and so pink turns bright red and then deep red.

The purple radiating upon and around the spirit vines is beginning to fade. Aang doesn't have time to go back and correct his mistakes. Half of the threads of her mood are pink and the other half are left scarlet.

Azula hasn't yet come up with names for the hybrid emotions he has been leaving her with lately. Granted, this time there is more pink than scarlet. She is exhausted.

Exhausted to the point where she can barely lift a finger.

"You alright?" Aang asks.

She yearns to tell him that he can save his false care, but only manages a sleepy murumer.

Like clockwork, they peel the vines from her head and lead her back to her room to sleep it off. When she wakes she won't be her.

.oOo.

Aang is sitting at the foot of her bed. With nothing else to do, he observes her sleeping form. These days, she looks so small and fragile. In that way, she doesn't even look like her. When her eyes flutter open he wishes that he could be elsewhere, for both her sake and his own.

"Avatar." She greets, her voice is low and soft with sleepiness. She heaves herself upright and eyes the boy. Her expression is too kind for it to be her, the real her. His stomach lurches, Sangyul will be pleased with his work, but he only feels disgust.

"They said that it might be good for you if I ate dinner with you."

Azula swallows, "you...you want to have dinner with me?"

Aang's unease grows when she struggles to meet his stare. He offers her a soft, albeit, uncomfortable smile. He is all too familiar with this mood. "Yeah, I think that it would be good for you to have some company."

She gives a rather sheepish smile. "I think that, that would be nice."

Aang rubs the back of his head. "Yeah." He lays down a small box containing fried rice, noodles topped with an egg, and a small assortment of fruits.

"Did you make all of this?"

He did, he had carefully put it together, a little something to lift her mood but also because the stuff that they try to feed her looks foul. He shakes his head anyways, he knows how she will take it if he says that he had cooked for her and it makes him feel terribly awkward and guilty.

"Oh." She looks downcast. Disappointed.

It is better if she is.

Her smile returns, "well, it is good to have a meal with you, Avatar." Her fingers brush over his; he hadn't painted her aura with enough deep red for her to dare anything more than that. But he is well aware that she wants to, that she wishes she had the courage for it. He can see it in her eyes, it is the look Katara had given to him some time ago, before he had lost his way.

He wants to tell her that it is nice to have a meal with her too, but it will have the same effect as telling her that he prepared dinner for her. "Please just eat, Azula."

Her face falls again. She picks up her chopsticks and hovers a few noodles in front of her mouth before putting them down again. "You're angry with me."

"No! No! I just…" he just what? "I just...they don't give you a very long dinner time and I need to make sure that you have time to finish it." He finishes lamely.

She has a few quiet bites before offering him one. Again he shakes his head, "it's your dinner. I already ate."

When she finishes her meal he finds himself wishing that he were right about her having short meal times. There is no food left to keep her occupied for what remains of the hour and it is a good twenty minutes. She twirls her bangs around her pointer. Were she Azula, really Azula, he would use this extra time to ask her how she is feeling. There is no sense in it when he knows how she is feeling. How he has forced her to feel.

She loves him.

For now, anyhow.

Not for the first time, he questions how this is supposed to help her heal and recover. And not for the first time, he concludes that helping her get better had never been a goal at all.

He will tell them that he no longer feels up to treating her.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For being here, Avatar. You're the only person here who isn't...cold. I think that you actually care for me." She pauses, moving closer towards him. "I don't know what's wrong with me or how to fix it. They're supposed to help me but they don't. You do though, you try, I think." She wraps her arms around him and nuzzles her face into his chest.

His stomach knots. He isn't a bad guy, he is worse than that. And he has probably just proved that by letting her lean into him and hugging her back. He feels like he is taking advantage of her. He shouldn't be hugging her back. Even if comforting her is his only goal. She isn't crying this time but he has been around her long enough to sense the hurt. Even if it is buried under layers of false emotions.

Azula is still there. The real Azula. He sees her in those sad eyes. Her grip tightens. Her expression isn't suited for her, it is too timid and too soft. And yet there is a flicker of fierceness behind those eyes. Something that still fights, perhaps a sparkle of resistance.

He decides that he can't leave.

Not yet.