Ch1
The lone survivor clutched her ribs as she stumbled from the wreckage. Bracing herself on a metal hand railing during the three thousand foot descent may have saved her but it didn't leave her unscathed. She knew one of her ribs was fractured, and the metal hand railing had snapped which extended a sharp edge which had left a severe puncture wound in her side. Beside the pain of breathing and the sharp pain which radiated from where her crimson tunic was progressively becoming redder, she had been the lucky one to walk out of the mangled wreck.
Surrounded on all sides by dense trees, the twisted and smashed wreckage of one of the Fire Nation's massive airships peaked out above the canopy of the heavily wooded area. The decision had been made to transfer her from an institution in the Fire Nation to a more scenic and secluded location within the central Earth Kingdom. Her captors felt it would be for the best of her mental situation that she be separated from the landscape which brought her nothing but torment.
At first she was against the idea, but then again she really did not have a choice. The accord which allowed her to get out of a straitjacket if she made the transfer was far too persuasive. The freedom of movement, of course without the tolerance for bending and round the clock supervision, was empowering. Being in such restraints reminded her all too well of her duel with that water tribe witch. She could recall the pinch of the iron chain which had held her back from taking her rightful place on the throne. Being aboard one of her country's military airships again was another reminder of what once was. She recalled the counter attack of the invasion of the day of black sun, and the shelling of the western air temple. Never could she have imagined then that she would one day be aboard as a prisoner, as a failure. Then came the storm. It happened so fast and seemed to come out of nowhere. Her memory of the moments leading up to the sudden typhoon-like winds was blurry, though she remembered the sky being unquestionably clear.
"Do you mind turning the ship by several degrees to the right? The sun is shining directly at me," she recalled barking in what seemed like just seconds ago.
Sudden winds caused extreme amounts of turbulence, pushing and pulling the airship and threatening to roll the dirigible over mid flight. Screams and shouts were heard as the crew tried to fight for control of the vessel or brace into a more stable position. Many were thrown from, or through, the windows and those on the platforms outside were also tossed from the ship. The metal which encased the airship's gas envelopes and engine compartments groaned under the stress enacted on the hull. The prodigy could hear the distant screeching and grinding of iron and steel from the distant but nearby compartments and structures just above and behind the leading gondolas. Muffled explosions could be heard, certainly from the engine room, as the vessel quaked under the immense forces erupting from its numerous detonating boilers. The propeller and exhaust mounts on both sides of the airship erupted as a large explosion destroyed the assembly. Now without propulsion, the ship descended at a hastening rate of decline. An explosion in the forward compartment within the envelope split the vessel into two, cutting the ornate bronze dragon head from the bow. She recalled the ship then pitching down drastically and the weightlessness and tingling in her core as she stared directly at the wooded ground below them from out the cabin's forward window ports. The last detail she could recall was clinging onto the nearest metal railing she could latch on to for dear life, thinking this could be the end. The rest of the incident was a black screen in her mind as her eyes were clamped shut until long after the groaning, screeching, explosions, and blasts of shattering and snapping iron ceased.
The iron door screeched as she kicked it open. The heavy door was on a slightly elevated incline and gravity combined with her injuries made the ordinarily simple task of opening a door, one of the more painful tasks she'd endured immediately following the crash. Clutching her ribs and cradling her arm, the young woman stumbled from the smashed wreckage of the former military aircraft. Immediately before her was the dragon head of the ship, severed from the explosions, which had landed in a position conveniently facing her exit. Its angered gaze looking down on her menacingly, a symbol of the past and what her nation- her world, used to be. Should it have landed on the compartment she was in, the weight of all that bronze and following steel would have brought a crushing demise to the deposed princess.
She did not know where she was nor who or what could be around, but from the dreadful and eerie silence with the exception of the occasional water drip, only one thing was certain.
Azula was alone.
She took a moment to rest and take in her surroundings. The region was heavily wooded and seemed to extend indefinitely in all directions. The ground was muddy and easy to sink into in addition to being covered with vines and tree roots. The wreckage around her was the only remnant of where she had come from; the airship's captain and forty nine other crew members were either killed or missing in action from the wreck. It was mysterious to her as they seemed to disappear without a trace.
A slight smirk grew across her lips. She was free! Immediately she winced and grasped at her throbbing sides. She was in no condition to be making long distance treks, but she would have to bear with it. The sooner she could get out of this swamp land, the better. Still cradling her sides, she began to scan for a viable direction to go in. Inevitably, the Fire Nation- her brother and the avatar would soon learn of the airship's downing, and this would be the first place they would search. If she wanted to stay free, she had to venture out. But there were no indicators as to which direction would be the most viable to travel. In the best case scenario she would choose the shortest line of travel to the edge of the swamp and it would take her a few hours at most to emerge into the open from the darkness of the swamp. In the worst case, she went the absolute opposite way and went further in. The teachings of her time at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls in regards to direction and using solar bodies as a guide could not apply. Despite it being the middle of the day, the tree canopy was so dense she could not see the sun; not a sliver of sunlight broke through the canopy.
I need to stop this bleeding, she thought. It was a clean entry wound in her side with no exit. Stopping the bleeding would be simple enough, but she wasn't looking forward to it. A piece of the wreckage; an iron bar was immediately handy. It would have to do. Picking it up, Azula began to superheat the scrap metal until it was glowing orange on its tip. Her palm was blistered in accomplishing this as she yelped down the urge to whimper or scream. She lifted up the side of her blouse, exposing the still bleeding entrance cavity where she had been stabbed from the impact, a stream of blood cascaded her pale skin from it. Azula closed her eyes tightly as she contacted the affected area with the searing hot jagged piece of iron. The pain radiated throughout every fiber of her being! The edges of her vision began to whiten, as she held the cauterizing tool steady for moments longer. Finally she tossed the bar away from her with great and angered force, the bar clanged as it forcefully bounced off a partially submerged boulder.
After refocusing herself, she began to reexamine her options. From the airship wreckage to her left was a clearing in the fallen logs and vines that she could manage to pass through without hurting herself too much. She'd been through hell already, whether it was during the war, during her fall from grace, or in that forsaken asylum, a little crash and some trees were not going to stop her now. With as much strength as she could muster for a single strike, with her free arm, Azula threw forth a powerful blast of fire from a clenched fist. The motion of the shot caused her injured rib area to stab at her painfully. The blast, of a brilliant but not pure blue flame, collided with whatever vines, fallen wood, and rocks were still partially blocking the clearing, exploding and tossing the rubble clear. Birds and other strange animals in the nearby vicinity seemed disturbed from the blast as the flutter of seemingly hundreds of pairs of wings and sets of legs seemed to vacate all around. Under her labored breath and groans of sharp pain, Azula smirked the same devious expression which had always marked her satisfaction.
Exhausted, Azula pulled herself through the trail she blazed, gaining distance from the settled airship wreckage. Despite being winded, injured, and exhausted she still found time to fix her hair, and made sure to leave no strands out of place. She recalled how awful her self-made haircut was. The reflection which she saw that fateful evening haunted her in her sleep.
"Ahahaha..you're hilarious," a distant voice laughed. Azula immediately stopped in her pacing and looked around for whoever the voice came from. But there was no one. Between the trees and in the shadows, she could swear she was seeing pairs of eyes and other human-like figures but after second glances and rubbed eyes turned out to be simply tree stumps.
"Fear is the only reliable way," the whispers, amid the deafening silence, as if its speaker were standing just beside her.
She whirls around, in one fluid motion, simultaneously throwing forth another fireball. The blue glow emanating off the dense forestry. No one.
The glow of the fire fades as the flames dissipate. Her breathing rate increased, despite the sharp pains in her chest. She could feel her heart rate increasing, as her eyes shot left and right. Her mind was playing tricks on her! No- The swamp was playing tricks on her!
"I'm overreacting," she thought. "No one is around. Remembering this will cease this."
Azula concentrated on that thought for a moment. She focused on her breathing. Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. Her pulse calmed down as she tried to relax herself. She was getting worked up over silly little imaginations, mere ghosts of her imagination. "Who am I? Mai? From all those years ago? She's still scared of those ghosts stories of the Kemurikage I'd tell her," she thought to herself. She reminded herself of the things she knew to be certain. She was the crowned princess of the Fire Nation. The conqueror of Ba Sing Se and the killer of the Avatar, even if temporarily. She may have been deposed recently- temporarily -but that didn't change who she was! Her mind- No, her mother could not play tricks on her any further! "To think I am getting riled up about these ridiculous disembodied voices. Mere imagination! This is something Zuzu would rather get worked up about. Or uncle! That lazy worthless old man would probably rather sit here for hours convinced there would be something of value to learn here," she scoffed.
She opened her eyes. Sure enough it was just the trees, vines, and low hanging fog and mist. There was nothing and nobody around. Just her, and hundreds of tons of mangled iron. -Just how long had she been here?-
She looked to the left. Nothing. To the right? Nothing. Behind her? Nothing. It was unsettlingly quiet though.
"You can run," the voice whispered in her ear. "But I'll catch you!"
Her eyes shot wide. "Who said that?!" She began to ferociously scan her surroundings! "Do you know who I am?! You think I am afraid of you?!" The world seemed to spin around her as she shouted into the darkness. The more she looked around, the more she could swear she saw figures around her. "Come out! You want to fight? Then let's end this. Now!"
She made another one hundred eighty degree pivot quickly with her freehand serving as a lantern and weapon at the ready, a blue flame dancing above her open palm. She saw her.
"Haha...ahaha," the figure laughed. She stood over the shocked princess from the tree line. Beside one of the large tree trunks stood the figure of a woman, eerily similar in stature to her own. She wore the armored chest, shoulder, and skirt pieces which resembled those of the royal family- Resembled her own which she once wore. Her long black hair whose bangs seemed irregularly and hastily cut, draped over most of her face, covering all but her left eye which twitched erratically. A streak of eye liner, soaked from streams of tears which now drew a line down her cheek. Only a quarter of her lips, painted in a deep crimson, was exposed from her draped hair. An eerie smile below could be made out. "Look at you. Even when you're so strong. You're weak," the woman hissed.
Azula took in the sight of the monster who stood before her. She was frightening. But she wouldn't back down. "There you are! Prepare to face your doom!" The flame which danced above her hand grew in intensity.
"Come and get it," the woman laughed, eerily, as she seemed to fade into the darkness behind the trees.
Snuffing the flame out, Azula took off running directly at where the woman was standing, despite the piercing pain in her sides with each step and each breath. She could take whoever this person was. Whoever had the audacity to insult her, would meet their swift end and regret the day they tried to get the best of her. She ran forth. Her foot caught on a protruding tree root. She flew forward. A steep drop lay before her, deeper into the darkness. She hit the downward slope of tree roots and dirt. Each bounce, each impact tossed her forth more, the tree line she ran at concealed a small ravine. Finally her tumbling ceased, landing hard and face first into an area of ankle high water at the base of the swamp. She struggled to push herself up, getting her face out of the water, sides aching as if someone had thrust a sword into her torso. She struggled to take a breath as a stabbing pain shot out from her chest and back, wheezing as she took the breath. She suffered greatly, but no tears formed.
Across the water, among the standing tree roots and trunks, she caught sight of another figure, another woman. This one was different from the previous. She stood taller and donned Fire Nation court robes, and seemed much more...majestic. Her back was turned to Azula. She stood amidst the water, at a great distance across from the downed and wounded princess. She somehow felt like she knew her, as she looked extensively through squinted eyes, her vision wavering from the pain.
"Mother?" she managed to grunt. "What are you doing here?"