BlueLion: Yeah I was surprised too lol. I was thinking about going back to this one for a while, then I binge watched The Walking Dead and my brain kinda just went back to this fic. I absolutely can! Thanks for pointing that out!
CeCeHigganbotham: That's super amazing to hear; Lovecraft is actually a really, really huge inspiration for my writing! Alongside King and Poe (and a few other horror writers).
Mogor: ^_^ good to hear, and I definitely will. Like I said, even if I only update once or twice a week I do plan on seeing this one through.
FearKat: She's by far my favorite as well. And it definitely hurt to see her so tormented by the end of the show. She was just so young and before that, she never really learned how to fall gracefully. She's a very tragic character. And thank you, I have a thing for the macabre.
gemsofformenos: It only takes one chapter in an apocalypses story to completely shatter the soul of every single character lmao. But, yeah, on the plus side, she does have more people now. Usually company and human contact is a good thing. On one hand she is Azula and so there might be some bad blood left over, on the other hand, nothing like a dooms day to bring people together. I ended up going back and re-reading that one. 100% sure that I forgot that, that one existed because I absolutely did go in with the same basic premise in mind. xD Whoops, guess I have to sue myself for copyright. Jokes aside, I'm glad that I rebooted that fic because I feel like the grate just gives an extra layer of foreboding. I'm really happy to be continuing it. It's actually getting more attention than the Sokkla one which is bizarre because, 1. the Sokkla fics usually get the most views for me and 2. Horror fics don't tend to fare as well in my experience. Definition not complaining about it though because I have a massive preference for horror over romance. Still gonna work with the Sokkla one tho.
Azula awakens with a plush pillow beneath her head and wrapped in luxurious blankets, upon a cushy mattress. It doesn't take her long to realize that she is in her own bed. She breathes a sigh of relief, momentarily letting herself believe that she had never left it at all. That she will go to her closet, dress herself, and head off to her own coronation as it is truly supposed to happen. But she finds that she cannot get up at all. She can't feel her right leg, the one that had taken the brunt of her fall.
She inhales, she supposes that she should count herself lucky that she has made it back to the palace and that they-whoever they may be-have taken the liberty and have had the consideration to cleanse and dress her wounds.
To the best of their ability, anyhow. The bandages, she notices, look to be makeshift. Some of them are real, others are just tightly bound strips of cloth. She narrows her eyes; this is how they are treating their fire lord. No, their princess. No…
She swallows, this is how they treat the defeated.
Against her better judgement, she uses the bed posts to get to her feet and using the wall for balance she makes a one legged hop towards the door. She feels foolish.
The again, she supposes that only a fool would try walking with a freshly broken leg and one badly bruised and swollen one.
Azula makes it to the door.
"Waoh, what are you doing?"
She recognizes the boy in the doorway. He is the very same Chan that she had met on Ember Island. She eyes him sternly. He sets a tray of food onto the floor. Too late she realizes that he had just made armspace for her. Even if she'd connected the dots on time, she could do nothing about it.
"You know that your leg is broken right, and that the other one is in pretty bad shape too?" He tucks her back under the covers. "Actually, pretty much all of you is in bad shape right now."
"I've made note and have elected to walk anyhow."
He picks up the food tray and a cup and sets it on her nightstand. "You couldn't have at least waited for lunch?"
"I want to know what's going on."
"More than you want...need an edible meal?"
Azula hesitates and picks up the bun closest to her hand. Edible is an adequate word, it is only that; the bread is stale. Stale but safe to consume, so she does. It is only one thing but her stomach already feels less achy.
The rest of the food is also pretty poor in quality. But it is on par with the royal banquets in comparison to the elephant-rats. She eats rather quickly, greedily. She doesn't bother asking where her silverwear is. She knows that it is rather undignified, but her body craves the sustenance that it has been denied. "What are you staring at?" She asks crossly.
Chan lifts his hands. "Sorry. I'd rather look at you than out the window or something."
"Then stare at the ceiling." She requests, not that it matters anymore, he has already seen her unbecomingly twice over. She reaches for the the cup and relieves her dry throat. Her face scrunches. This water has the same quality of those stagnant puddles, perhaps only a tad better.
"So I've lost." She notes. "Zuzu is the Fire Lord and I get chained to a grate and left to die. I'm a prisoner now?"
"You...you don't know?"
Azula stares unblinkingly and waits for him to elaborate.
She doesn't want him to though. She wants to believe that she is simply a prisoner because she can escape that. She can come back from that.
"You were out there and you really don't know."
She swallows, she can feel her mind fraying a little more. She almost tells him that she has a pretty good idea of what he's implying. Instead she feigns complete ignorance, "I know that I was defeated and that I've lost my title. Zuko is the Fire Lord and I…"
"There is no Fire Lord." Chan stares at his palms. "There's no anybody. We don't even know if Zuko is still alive." He pauses. "Ruon and I took the palace because it was empty. There are a few more of us taking refuge here…"
Azula stares into her half drained cup. She is feeling fatigued all over again. She still hasn't decided which outcome would have been worse; finding that her sanity had lapsed worse than she imagined or the reality of her nation having fallen with her. The notion that she had been abandoned or the notion that there was no one left to unchain her.
It doesn't matter which she deems is worse. It is what it is.
She still doesn't feel as though her head is in the right place, not even close; there is now backing for her paranoia and she also can't tell if that is better or worse than being completely, baselessly delusional.
How is she supposed to ward off monsters if she can't tell the real ones from the fake?
Her grip on the cup tightens and she realizes she has drawn the silence out.
"Sorry about the bandages." Chan breaks it. "We found a decent amount of them in the palace infirmary but we're trying to…"
"Conserve them." Azula finishes. Her mind maybe be more than half gone, but she hasn't rendered herself stupid.
"We still have the palace springs if you want me to send one of the girls up to help you."
"I want to rest." She replies.
Chan nods, "I guess that I'll leave you to it then."
She sinks back into her pillow. At least for a few moments longer she can pretend like nothing has changed.
He makes it halfway across the room before something else dawns upon her. "Chan?" He halts. "Ruon called me a thing…?"
"Yeah sorry ab-"
She holds up a hand. "I don't care about that. I just want to know why. What things did you mistake me for?"
"We don't know what they are, princess. We can never seem to really get a good look at them."
"Were they ever human?"
He pauses. "Yeah. We think. Some of them."