gemsofformenos: I was a rough chapter for her and this one is going to be even worse. "It seems that there is not much hope left in her, only sorrows, anger and frustration about how her decisions have lead all of them to this place." She's just got a lot to think about and dwell upon and she doesn't know how to fix anything or if she even can. "All her hope is lying on the possibility that her father might have survived and that he would know what to do." It's kind of the last thing she feels that she has left. "Still both stick to her for their very own reasons. Li truly cares for her and also Bujing seems to prefer her company before being on his own out there. They need each other, somehow and so they care for her. You give them a new dynamic with this step." But yes, she has some support which is important for her.
"Also Li's choice to stay quiet about Azula's infection is interesting." She has her reasons and one of them is that she cares for Azula and doesn't want to see her hurt. "The idea that the body can't handle the infection of this spirit parasite is great in my opinion." Thank you. The way I have this parasite is that it is basically an infection of the mind and soul. Not the body. Rather, the body is collateral damage. It simply can't handle hosting a spirit that powerful. Some fare better than others though. "Even if she should get rid of this thing in the end, for what? It would only mean, that she would have had a longer torture than others, before she would fall." And this is a question she grapples with. Thank you again! :D
Waking up to a painful throbbing in her leg and a fresh helping of blood running from her nose to her chin is no longer a foreign occurrence.
At first she had instinctively called for Li.
Now she simply picks herself up, gaters her crutches, and wanders down the hall for her sorry excuse for a meal.
In the passing days, though with an icy demeanor to match her own, Bujing has been civil with her. Sometimes even inviting her to reminisce about better times. Or to ask her how she is feeling.
She lies and tells him that she is well, save for her leg.
But her head aches most of the time and her stomach is delicate and queasy every now and again.
"I think that we should set out for the prison soon." He says. She thinks that he is beginning to pick up on the palpable feeling of foreboding. The inexplicable inkling that something dreadful will overtake them if they don't make a move first.
Even without such ill premintions, Azula would agree; she is getting anxious just sitting around. It leaves her too much time to think and simmer in her multitude of regrets and physical discomforts.
To dwell on everything she used to be, what she could have been.
To realize, with a sense of horror and self disgust, that a part of her enjoys this. She thinks that it is the part of here that sees things that aren't there. This part of her is glad that the world had gone to shit precisely when her life had. If she is going to fall, the world will fall with her.
"We should leave the palace tomorrow morning." Li agrees over a stale, unsavory meal.
But the parasites decide that they will leave tonight.
She wakes to their incessant whispers. Their tendrils curl like curtains around the rungs that hold the canopy above her bed. Her ears ring louder as they draw closer. They wiggle about and reach out for her.
Don't they know that she is already one of them?
But Li and Bujing aren't.
She ducks under their invisible fingers and within her rises a frenzied tingle as though those spirit parasites are trying to connect with those within her. In her mind there is an itch. A desire to succumb to the madness brewing in the recesses of her brain.
She steps out into the hall, she comes upon a sight that makes her soul run cold.
They are inside.
The hosts. An army of them.
They simply stand.
Stand rigid and contorted at impossible angles; bent, twisted, and agnonized. In them, she can tell who has been newly possessed, their bloodshot, leaking eyes express a degree of torment and fear that the longtime hosts no longer have.
Azula's stomach lurches all over again at the notion that the host is still there, if only a fragment of them. At the notion that perhaps they could come back.
Those of them that have no humanity left stare at her with lifeless, glossy eyes.
She holds their stare, waiting for them to make a move of any kind.
She resents how unmoving they are.
Growing tired of this game, whatever it is, she takes another step. And then another and another after that. Each accented by the clatter of her crutches. She weaves between decaying bodies. The only thing that follows her is their potent rotting scent and their eyes.
They don't turn to stare at her, not in full. Instead, in a series of grotesque cracks and pops, they twist only their heads.
Azula shudders.
She thinks that she hates the infected more than the parasites nestled within them.
Instinct cries for her to call out to Bujing and Li. She holds her silence. She doesn't need them giving away their hiding spots...if they had even made it to hiding spots. She soon finds that she doesn't need to, she hears a weak wail come from down the hall.
Azula goes to it as fast as her crutches can carry her.
Li's cry sets the hosts in motion. Azula's blood runs colder. She turns around and takes a deep breath. She reminds herself that they had planned on leaving anyhow. She calls forward as much fire as she can manage and sends the blaze down the hall.
She watches only long enough to make sure that the wall of flames will keep raging.
Satisfied that they will, she follows the echoing screams, hoping that it isn't too late. She finds the old woman on the ground with her back arched and her mouth locked agape.
Silver threads dance on her lips.
Azula's stomach sinks. She is going to be alone again.
Perhaps forever.
She wonders if this is a special hell crafted just for her. Damned to isolation in a devastated world, the last woman left. It will drive her mad, completely and irreparably.
She wanders over to Li's contorting form and finds the best sitting position that her legs allow for. She takes the woman's hand in her own. She is already dying, she knows that much. What are a few more parasites. The creatures seem excited to be reunited, she lets them sliter from Li's flesh and soul and into hers.
She falls back, body seizing and twitching.
They are going to rip her apart from within.
.oOo.
When she comes to there is silver-blue all around. Specters and phantoms scream in every corner. Li sits in the center of the room, she meets Azula's gaze and shakes her head sadly. "You didn't have to do that."
Azula's mouth runs dry. "H-how long?"
"Before you, dear." The old woman says. "They got me when they got Lo."
Azula shudders.
Li holds out a wrinkly hand and helps Azula to her feet. "But you're not decaying."
Li laughs. "I sure am." She holds up her robes. Her wrinkled, sagging belly is pockmarked with oozing lesions and holes. "But it's alright. I was decaying long before the infection." She gives a cheerful wheezing laugh as though she had cracked a silly joke. "That's what old age is."
"I won't have to worry about that." Azula mutters.
Li flashes her a sympathetic look and places a hand on her shoulder. "You never know, princess. And if you don't make it there, I'm proud to say that I've had the pleasure of raising you until the end." She flashes a missing-toothed smile.
"Where's Bujing?"
Li shakes her head.
"So it's just us?"
She nods.
"How quickly had they gotten to him?"
Li clicks her tongue. "They didn't get the chance. He took himself out quick and easy before they could."
Azula finds herself staring blankly at her toes and the floor. She feels Li's gnarled hand wrap around her own. "Come on, dear, I think it's time we head out." She becomes aware of the smoke wafting into the room. She feels numb as she lets Li escort her into the hall.
Hollow as she notes the darkness of it.
Hollower still when she realizes how quiet it is.
They must be playing with her because they don't whisper. They don't make a sound. They leave her to dwell on the crackling fire and emptiness of a palace that had once been bustling and teeming with life and chatter.
In her mind's eye she can see servants wandering down the hall with armfuls of towles, dipping their heads as she approaches. She sees guards switching shifts. The royal tailor with silk draped over her shoulders and in her arms. She sees war generals passing through the rays of a setting sun that stream through the windows, on their way to war meetings.
She can hear the lively chatter. The clanking of pots and pans as the team of chefs begin their dinner rush.
She sees a life that she had taken for granted.
And she sees a dreary, lifeless, vacant hallway. Coated in dust and full of tattered tapestries.
Looking at the palace, from the outside is almost worse. To see something that had once been so grand, in such a decrepit, crumbling state. Many of the accents and ornaments on the roof have fallen and shattered on the cracked stone below. Their gold is tarnished.
The spokes of the flame-like structure have lost their shine. She thinks that they might be cracking. The stairs and walls are spattered with mud and blood, a stark contrast to the time when they had been well-kept and polished.
Azula is like her palace.
Or maybe the palace is like her.
"Come on," Li says gently, "don't look at it for too long."
But she already has.
She has already looked long enough for it to truly set in that her old life is gone.
She can't say why she has done it. Maybe it is a way to make her feel like she has some semblance of control. To make her feel like this has been her choice. Whatever is compelling her, blue fire dances on her hands.
She sends blast after blast into the palace, until it is fully ablaze.
The jewel of the Fire Nation is in its natural state.