Azula falls limp, her cheek pressed against the grate she is chained to. She doesn't know for how long she has been there. Her throat is still raw and burned from screaming fire, so it couldn't have been that long. But her arms and legs are sore and have long since fallen asleep and the guards had enough time to put up a gate as an extra precaution until they had time to pick her up. So it couldn't have been short either.
She lets out another choked sob. She just wishes that someone would come for her already, the position she is in is beginning to cut off her circulation.
Day turns to night and Azula takes it upon herself to shift positions. The blood begins flowing better-brining with it a horribly painful pins and needles sensation that shoots up and down her arms and legs. For this she has traded the comfort of her joints.
Another hour passes and she is completely agonized.
Despite her already aching throat, she screams. Perhaps if she screamed loud enough they would come for her.
But they don't.
She cries herself to sleep and she wakes with her cheek against the bars of the grate. She heaves herself upright and lets out another sob. Have they forgotten her? How dare they forget her? She is their princess.
She was their princess.
What is she now?
Apparently, an object to be discarded and tethered to a grate.
She yanks fruitlessly at her chains. The only thing it does is break skin. She hisses as the first droplets of blood spill.
Her second day chained to the grate turns into a third; she is growing hungry and her dry throat is in dire need of water.
She thinks of drinking from the stagnant puddle before it evaporates.
On the fourth day she does drink from the puddle.
It tastes absolutely foul but dehydration has been even more unpleasant.
She resists the urge to weep again, she needs to retain every drop of water that she can.
Azula doesn't have a clue as to where she will get food, but her belly rumbles and she knows that she needs it soon. She is growing weaker by the hour and the late-summer sun leaves her feeling nauseous. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to weather it out.
The fifth day leaves her angry.
She screams and curses and and punches the ground until her knuckles are as raw as her wrists. "I'll kill you Zuzu!" She vows. "I'll kill the fucking water peasant too! Everyone. I'll burn everyone alive…" her mind unravels further than it had already.
She doesn't know it is is the isolation or the starvation but it makes her yell and holler to herself and beat her own head against the grate. "You're next, Zuzu." She mumbles to herself as she hits her head again. "This is what I'm going to do to you and the peasant." Another hard bash and she is sleeping for the first time in days.
Azula knows that she put herself out for a few days because her hunger is almost unbearable and her throat is bone dry again. She supposes she is lucky; a light rain falls. She laps at the puddle the micro-storm is creating. She feels like an animal. She practically is one.
Her anger subsides to sorrow. Given a new source of water, she allows herself to weep again. She knows that she has done some awful things but she doesn't think that she deserves this.
She wonders if her father is being treated as inhumanely.
Perhaps he is already dead.
"I'm sorry." She whispers to no one, face against the grate once more. "I'll be good, Zuzu, just let me come home." She nuzzles her cheek against the grate, the metal is cool against her skin. "You can have the crown, just let me come home."
The day after, she hardly moves. She doesn't have the energy for it anymore. Her stomach is so empty that it doesn't even hurt anymore. She would be thankful, if the realization weren't so horrible.
Azula thinks that, by the time they are done punishing her, that she may grow gaunt enough to slip from the chains on her own.
She gives it a try, but she hasn't grown that thin yet.
The day after that blesses her with an elephant-rat.
She doesn't really think too much of it.
She only thinks that she needs something to eat…
It tastes just about as good as the stagnant puddle had, but at least she has a little something to slow her starvation. Still chained, she cannot clean her mouth so the elephant-rat's blood coagulates around her mouth and on her chin.
She is a filthy mess, she is hardly human.
This is what they have reduced her to.
She never thought that Zuko had it in him.
Azula cackles madly to herself. It is all she can do. She lets herself succumb to the madness. The very madness that has landed her here. She talks to them freely now, as if hallucination Zuko will unchain her if she insults him or apologizes to him enough.
When talking to Zuko doesn't work she tries her mother and then her father. And then TyLee.
She doesn't bother with Mai or the water peasant; they never help.
In another day, she is back to lapping at the remains of stagnant puddles.
She doesn't think that she has ever been this cruel to anyone.
Her servants may not have been invited to the royal feasts, but they had never been forced to eat rodents or drink sludge.
They had shelter, perhaps not the luxurious quarters and plush pillows that she had, but they still had beds. They'd never had to sleep on the ground until their bones went stiff.
She hears footsteps that night and perks up. The hope leaves her jittery. "Zuko?" She tries softly, not that she could get her voice above that. She hears shuffling and a pounding on the gate. She tries to peer up and see who it is but her position and the chains don't allow for it.
The footsteps retreat, apparently they were just checking on her.
She begins to sob again. Maybe they'll come back and free her if they realize that she is still human, that she can still feel. Even if she is insane, she is still only a lost and, admittedly, frightened teenager.
Whoever had been there had less compassion than she.
Another few days later, Azula finds herself longing for the sewer pentapus that swim beneath her. The rushing water mocks her. All of that food and water, right there but she cannot get to it. By Agni, she knows that it is sewer water and that, lately it has been smelling more and more rotten, but her body craves anything to keep it going.
She yanks at the chains and bursts into tears when her hands come free. She lies there wracked with tears born of a mixture of stress, disbelief, and relief. Her entire body shudders, she doesn't know what to do from here. She didn't think that she would get this far.
Azula doesn't know if she should yell at Zuko or simply let her tears keep falling and ask him why he had left her to die like that.
On shaky, and unsteady legs, she stands. She hasn't used them in so long that they buckle. It doesn't help that she hasn't eaten in so long. She decides that, that is what she will do first. She will get herself a real meal and a real drink.
She will have a bath.
She will comb her hair and put on her makeup.
She will have a change of clothes.
She will make herself feel human again.
Azula gives a weary and tired smile. The thought of it all, of being able to meet her basic needs once more, leaves her feeling warmer than firebending ever had.
Still, she lacks strength. Just opening the gate takes so much of her.
She wanders through Capital City dazed, confused, and disoriented. She wonders what time it is, she can't find a soul in the streets. Her foot falls seem to echo. It is so silent. Has it always been so silent?
She comes to a halt. Come to think of it, save for that one person and her own distressed noises, she hasn't heard a sound. Her father had just been defeated shouldn't there have been fireworks, the sound of celebration.
Azula takes a deep breath and wanders further into the capital. Tables upon tables and chairs have been set up. Tattered banners and streamers blow lazily in the air. There are indeed preparations for a celebration.
Perhaps her mind is more frayed than she thought. Perhaps her insanity has made her time spent locked up seem longer than it was.
Azula shakes her head and looks at her hands. She has grown so small and so frail that she knows that she has definitely been chained for a while. "Zuko?" She calls. She only receives an answer in the form of an echo. The only other sound is that of those banners flapping in the wind.
"Zuzu…" She tries again, knowing very well that he is not around.
She takes a few more clumsy steps, nearly tripping over a dislodged brick. She scans the tables for something to eat. Everything is rotten and hosting an assortment of maggots and flies. She recoils at the sight and loses her footing. She staggers back, further.
She had been so scared that they had abandoned her that she hadn't considered fearing that they hadn't abandoned her at all.