Chapter 18
Azula lay in her bed in the early morning hours. She could hear the soft breathing of the guard in her room and wished he would fall asleep. She wanted, needed, to stretch and practice her forms.
Instead, for three nights she lay awake tightly holding onto her old crest, running over the details of everything she had gathered from her hours in the common room.
It was true, most of the time in there she had indeed spent staring at the beautiful fiery orb in the sky. How could she not? It was a part of her just as much as her own heart was. One pumped blood through her veins, the other pumped fire. As mesmerizing as it was, Azula had also spared time to take in as many details about the building's fortifications as she could.
The common room window looked out over the front-left side of the building and was about six inches thick. A remarkably reinforced piece of glass. But Azula could see the glass set directly in the metal of the building. On each side was a sill about three inches deep. Meaning, the walls of this building were a solid foot thick of metal. And she knew there was no chance she could break through that kind of barrier. Her escape route had to be through the only weak points in the building and gate security: doors.
She had a limited view of the building's grounds, but could gather that at least the inner gate was made of a similar metal and thickness as the building. It was perhaps ten or fifteen feet tall. The outer one she could not see at all, though knowing how security checkpoints usually worked, she figured that the inner ones were heavily reinforced with more guards.
Speaking of guards, she had seen four different ones patrolling around the perimeter of the building. They were all dressed in identical uniforms, but they walked differently and she could deduce certain unique traits even from her position. One had a slight limp, one had medium length chestnut hair that flowed across her shoulders, one bopped his head from side to side as he walked, and one was Niko.
She hadn't seen dear Niko guarding her room for quite some time. Azula supposed he got sick of seeing Ty Lee with her so often and was amused by his jealousy. It seemed he was on patrol outside now, ponytail and all.
Azula imagined that there would be stationary guards, at least two, directly posted outside of the front door. As far as she knew there was no back door, so the front seemed to be her only viable option.
The inner gate was more of a thick metal wall, really. It would be difficult to scale and so Azula again decided that the only way through it was through its singular door. Two more guards would surely be posted there. The outer gate was still a mystery. She couldn't see it through the window, blocked as it was by the inner wall, and Ty Lee had never said anything regarding its structure. To be safe, she assumed it was identical to the inner ring. Anything less secure and she could easily figure out a solution on the go. Anything more and… well, that was more of a problem.
Yawning, she thought more about the guards. There was a reason she wanted to stay in the common room until sunset, and it wasn't just because the colors of the sky looked pretty. Night shift started at nightfall. She had seen with her own eyes the literal changing of the guards. Four new people with four new tells had replaced the daylight workers, who quickly entered the building and then reappeared moments later, following the path towards the outer gate and their homes. One could only surmise that they would be replaced at sunrise. A nicely balanced shift. Perhaps there were changes outside at midday and dinner time as well, but the early morning one was most pertinent to the princess.
Azula turned onto her side, pressing the cool steel of the flame against her lips. She had run over this information a hundred times since the weekend and still she craved more certainty about that outer wall. Ty Lee might be able to help, but asking outright would be idiotic and Azula wasn't quite sure how to strike up a conversation about the guards without seeming suspicious. Niko might be the key again.
Her eyes stared through the darkness of the room at the shadowed figure of the guard. A lone man, with no key to her barred door. But at night, the door to the hallway was always unlocked. Another half hour and they should be here.
The time passed slowly, but soon she felt her blood bubble with the imminent sunrise and waited, feigning sleep. Sure enough, for the third early morning in a row, the door to her room opened and a guard filed in for the start of his shift. The night man nodded to the replacement, passed the new hallway guard, and exited the room, heading down the hallway.
She rolled over again and stuffed the crest back into her pillow. Today she would let the guard discover the fresh new burn on her forearm. Tonight and tomorrow she would spend in freezing temperatures. Kai still didn't post anyone inside while she was getting that treatment. She didn't understand how that man was from the Fire Nation; he was far too considerate and unfortunately for him, that might cost him his most valuable patient.
She had made up her mind. Now it was only a matter of time and meticulous planning. There was one way to do this, one chance, and it had to be executed perfectly.
The weekend rolled around quickly and before Ty Lee knew it, she was back at the hospital Saturday afternoon, seeking out Azula. Stopping by to check in with Dr. Liu, she asked if they could go to the common room again. He agreed and retrieved the cuffs and chain before gritting his teeth and clanking them back down on his desk.
Ty Lee looked at him, puzzled, "What's wrong?"
Dr. Liu straightened up and smoothed the front of his white coat, "Would you mind if I brought Azula up here after I ask her a few things?" He spoke in a strange tone, a mix of annoyance and hesitation.
"Oh, um, of course not. I can wait," Ty Lee took a seat opposite the doctor's desk, crossing her legs while her eyes wandered around the room.
"Thank you, I'll only be a moment," he rushed out of the room and down the stairs to Azula's quarters.
Bursting through the door, he strolled right up to the bars and waved for the guard to exit the room. Azula was sitting on her bed with her back against the wall. She had recently taken to stretching and massaging her leg outside of the healing sessions with Minah. The healer said her leg was back to functioning normally, with no lasting muscular damage, but the tenderness would remain for another few weeks. Under the guise of decreasing that recovery time, Azula had begun cycling through her old forms again to prepare for her plans. No one seemed to care.
She stretched her arms out in front of her and ran a hand absentmindedly along her leg. It was still bandaged, but with lighter gauze only wrapped from toes to calf. Azula no longer felt the stray pins and needles ignite her nerves, but the limb still didn't feel completely regular. She was always aware of a strange tightness deep in her muscles.
And then there was the look of it. Still, the jagged pink lines remained and it greatly annoyed Azula. Her skin had lost its flawless pale complexion. The burns she inflicted healed without a trace, but her leg was marred by several thin tracks of lightning damage. She supposed it was okay, seeing as she had somewhat miraculously done it herself and most of the time she'd be wearing pants or tall boots to cover it anyways. But she still hoped they would fade with time.
The scars were not as obvious as a certain someone's, and for that she was grateful.
Sliding off of her bed, she walked, no longer needing crutches, towards Kai.
"Well, if you're here, I'm guessing someone else is waiting to see me. You remember what you agreed to?" she grinned and crossed her arms.
Her arrogance irked him, but he supposed it was another sign of her budding recovery, "Yes. Lady Ty Lee wishes to take you to the common room again. But I cannot leave you in there unsupervised and unrestrained. I can only allow that in here."
He looked at the woman before him. She had really made great strides since Ty Lee began visiting. Her frame had filled out with regular meals, though she was still quite thin. The guards told him she'd recently taken up daily meditation and Kai knew this was contributing to her diminishing hallucinations and nightmares. His brow twitched at the trace of a burn on her arm. I still don't understand those though. Perhaps my earliest thoughts of how she still wants to be in control of something are accurate.
He truly did want to reward the pair of young women with unobstructed privacy. To give her the same visiting rights as his other patients, but his gut told him to be smart. Smart and wary. After all, there were countless stories of her feats in the war, easily controlling men far more difficult to sway.
Azula clicked her tongue, "No. I gave you my word nothing would happen and you gave me yours that you'd see this through."
Kai exhaled through his nose, "That is a breach of protocol. Even with other patients, there is always at least one employee present in the common room."
"Then I'm afraid you'll have to break with tradition," she glanced away from Kai, looking positively bored. "I don't particularly want to stay in there for very long anyways; there are other things on my mind," she purred.
The doctor clenched a hand, "No guards, but you must wear the cuffs and chains."
"Cuffs only."
He bit his tongue, "Fine."
Kai unlocked the door separating the two of them and they set off to his office where Ty Lee waited.
She turned her head quickly at the sound of the door opening and jumped to hug a smug looking Azula. Looking her up and down she exclaimed happily, "You don't need crutches anymore!"
"No, my leg is fine," the princess glanced at Kai and held back a laugh. He was shaking his head and looked like he'd eaten a rotten piece of meat at having given in to her. She called to him in a lilting voice, "Shall we?"
The three walked to the common room, Kai cuffing her more forcefully than he did last weekend, "Return to my office when you're finished in here." He swished away and Azula did not hold back this time. She cackled and proceeded into the empty room, followed by a confused Ty Lee.
"Where are the guards?" she looked around as if they were hiding in one of the couches.
"They're leaving us alone today." She strode over to the bookshelves and began reading the spines of some of the volumes, "These are awful. They're all childish novellas and fables."
Ty Lee was still reeling over the "no guards" announcement, but trailed behind Azula. "What did you expect, history books and maps?"
Azula shrugged, "I hoped." She bent down to grab a Pai Sho board, "Let's play."
They walked over to the table they sat at the previous weekend, in front of the large window. The sun was bright behind some stray clouds, while a gentle breeze tickled the leaves of the few trees on the grounds. Azula set up the board. Ty Lee noticed a speck of green paint on the tabletop and was reminded of something.
"Hey, did you hang up my picture? You should put it right above your bed so it's the first thing you see when you wake up every day. A nice calming—"
"Cluster of seaweed. No, Kai has it in his office, I think." Azula quietly tapped the tiles into place.
Ty Lee's face grew a bit intense and with a rustling sound, she brandished her painting in front of the princess's eyes, "Not anymore! I took it off of a table in his office! And it's a meadow. How come you didn't take it with you? Do you hate it? I think it's pretty good work for a non-painter."
Azula sighed and stopped preparing the game, "It's very good seaweed. I just forgot to take it with me."
"It's not seaweed!" she pouted and set the picture down in her lap so she wouldn't forget to give it to Azula before leaving this time. "Let's just play this dumb game."
Azula smirked and the two began a short tournament of Pai Sho games. Ty Lee had no idea why she agreed to play against a strategist like Azula. The woman had been fed military campaigns and battle situations as a steady diet in early childhood. And her appetite for winning was unmatched.
The princess watched Ty Lee's cutely frustrated face as she tried to think about potential moves. Her mind wandered and she vaguely considered changing her plans to accommodate the woman in front of her. All it took was one memory of an event over a steaming lake and she shook the thought. No, just me. I can't trust her.
Azula rolled her eyes at the unbelievably long time it was taking Ty Lee to choose her moves. She decided to try and lure some more information out of the naïve woman in front of her to pass the time. Just get her talking and she'll spill everything on her own.
"I noticed Niko patrolling outside the building last weekend. He must be heartbroken not seeing you every week."
Ty Lee scrunched her face up but her eyes remained focused on the board, "I don't mind. It was getting a little awkward. Besides, I think he likes working outside, he can chat with his friends and gets to walk around."
"Chat? Surely they should be more focused on guarding?"
She finally placed a tile and looked up at Azula, "Mm, I don't know. It's not like there's much to guard out there. I bet it's super boring. Most of the time they just stand around, so having a buddy to talk with at the gates is totally necessary."
Azula played a tile. A buddy. Perhaps two non-patrolling guards at each gate, if I take her literally. She looked out the window and after several minutes of silence, thought aloud, "I hate these gates, they remind me of the walls around the palace."
Ty Lee laughed, "These are way worse! At least the palace walls were made of pretty stone. Metal is so sad to look at. The first time I came here, I thought this place looked really depressing from outside. All of the bars and dingy coloring. Well, it still looks pretty depressing."
"Bars?" she waited for Ty Lee to make her move.
"Yeah, on the windows and the gates. I always wondered if those were there before you came here. It seems like way too much for a regular old hospital."
Bars on the gates. Since the inner wall is solid metal, does that mean there are bars on its door? Or do bars make up the outer gate? Either way… wrought iron bars can be overcome easily.
Ty Lee moved another tile and Azula sighed again, "You lost about four moves ago. Let's play one more."
She laughed and rubbed her neck, "I've never been that good at playing this. I like team games more."
Azula rearranged the game pieces and Ty Lee launched into a story of a fun game she played a few times on Kyoshi Island. It was something about a ball or sticks or… Azula wasn't really paying attention. When Ty Lee got into a long story, you could usually tune in at the end and get the gist of the entire thing.
"—and then we won! But we had to help the poor old man repair his roof afterward, Suki was so embarrassed," she was swishing her braid across the edge of the table like a paintbrush. She giggled at the memory of her own story and looked up at the princess, eyes catching the burn on her forearm.
"It's been your turn for five minutes," Azula drummed her fingers against the table.
Ty Lee reached out and brushed her fingertips over the burn, two golden eyes following the movement closely.
"I don't know why you're still doing this, but—"
Azula drew her arm away from Ty Lee's touch, "Drop it."
Ty Lee's chest stung, a little hurt at Azula's withdrawal. The princess had told her to not ask about the burns a bunch of times, but Ty Lee couldn't help it. She was worried. If things were better for Azula, why did she still want to hurt herself? The question was on the tip of her tongue, but she held back and nodded instead.
Azula swiftly ended the game and began sweeping the board and tiles back into their box, handcuffs jingling. She stood and replaced it on its shelf, turning back to look at Ty Lee from across the room. What is she doing?
Still seated at the table, the acrobat stared blankly out the window. Azula approached her and spoke, shaking her out of whatever trance she'd gone into, "Come on. I have something for you downstairs."
A/N: Thanks for all the kind reviews you guys :) I really like knowing there are people out there reading this! Have a great weekend!