Chapter 26
The dim ceiling light over the couch in the guest portion of the room was off, shrouding both areas in the usual late shift darkness. Azula was lying in her bed, not sleeping. As if she could sleep, her blood was practically boiling in anticipation.
She heard the steady breathing of the night guard and through the pitch black of the room, her eyes could just make out his form facing her. She slid her hand beneath her pillow and noiselessly tucked the little steel flame under the bandages of her leg. The metal was cold against her skin and served as a nice reminder of her past achievements. Things she knew would help her tonight.
It must be about four thirty. Sunrise won't be for another two hours. I have to give myself enough time to get ready, but should I do it now? Should I wait half an hour?
Play it safe, I can wait.
Azula took several deep breaths to calm down. She was eager, she couldn't remember the last time she felt so genuinely excited. Her heart pounded a steady rhythm in her chest. Patience. Patience. Patience.
The half hour passed at about the same pace it took a snail to travel any measurable distance. But it passed all the same. And once it had, the Fire Nation Princess took action, feeling a flood of exhilaration wash over her. She was fourteen again, on a mission of utmost importance.
She blinked, breathed, and slid off of her bed. Quietly, Azula took the little jar of ointment and small roll of bandages from the floor and shoved them in the folds of her clothes. The carpet silenced her footsteps as she approached the guard's position. Briefly, she flicked her hand out in front of her to find the spacing between the bars. She widened her stance and moved her arms. Once I start, it will be obvious. I have to be fast. And I cannot miss.
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness in the room, but so had the guard's. His armor clinked as he took a step forward to question her, "What's going on? Do you feel alri—?"
The room was illuminated in a sudden white-blue glow. Azula could make out the guard's exact position in the light of the electricity that wrapped around her arms. His eyes bulged behind his helmet and he turned to run out of the door. Ah, but it is so hard to outrun lightning.
Azula grinned and shot the bolt through the bars at the retreating man. She hit his unarmored lower back, just above his belt. The crack of the lightning sent a rush of pleasure through her and she watched as the guard shouted, collapsed twitching to the floor, and lay motionless. Yours might scar a little worse than mine since you won't be receiving immediate medical attention.
She waited for a minute and having confirmed that the man was not about to get back up, she stepped back into the room and unleashed a fresh onslaught of smaller bolts at the hinges of the door. Once she was sure she'd hit each weak point a couple times, Azula ran forward and kicked at the lowest hinge. She heard a snapping sound and retreated to repeat the process for the next two hinges.
Snap. Snap.
The months of freezing and thawing the iron bars had paid off. The water had wormed its way into impurities in the metal and upon freezing, expanded, opening the fissures Azula had seen on the hinges. Repeating this process over and over had weakened the structure. Now, with the rapid temperature change inflicted by the lightning, the hinges were structurally unsound. That is, they had snapped in half.
The door was still suspended by the locking mechanism and the topmost hinge. Azula stepped back to the foot of her bed and sprinted at the door, putting all of her weight into her right shoulder. She collided with the bars and was sent stumbling backward. Ignoring the pain spreading through her right side, she approached the door and found that she could just force it open enough to slide uncomfortably through.
Well, I'm out of there, but there's no way to get the guard through this door without completely breaking it.
Ideally, she would have dragged the unconscious man into her bed, a substitute for a sleeping princess. But that would no longer work. Her mind moved quickly. She squeezed back into her bedroom and ripped the blanket and sheets from her bed. She arranged one pillow and the bunched up sheets into what she hoped was a vaguely human form, before covering it with the blanket. So amateur, but what choice do I have? If they fall for it, they're truly the Fire Nation's best and brightest. She rolled her eyes.
Azula slipped through the door again and approached the sprawled out form of the guard she'd taken out. She began stripping him of his armor and the plain red clothes he wore beneath it. Gathering each piece, she set them on the couch and prayed that this man practiced good personal hygiene.
The dim light above her head flicked to life suddenly and she jumped. 5:30am.
She glanced over at the guard and narrowed her eyes. What to do with you? Her fingers twitched restlessly at her side. He can't fit through the bars. I can't hide him in the tiny bathroom. I have to find a… Storage closet. She remembered glimpsing the tiny room down the hall where they kept that metal restraint chair and a bunch of other supplies on the day that she and Ty Lee first visited the common room.
Her resolve faltered a little at the thought of somehow dragging this man down the hall unseen, though the odds of seeing other guards down here were slim. Still… Was this a gamble worth taking?
Of course it was. It was the only choice she had now.
She had to be fast. Time was ticking steadily away. Azula bit her lip and decided to poke her head out of the room into the hallway.
She barely pushed open the door, looking out into the hall through a hair's width of a space. There were no guards posted outside her room and the hall looked empty enough. She opened the door a little further and stuck her head out to get a good look. No guards. Do it now.
Though she had been building up her muscles over the past few weeks, she was still a nineteen year old woman, which meant supporting the dead weight of a full grown man would be difficult. Even more difficult with her throbbing shoulder. She thought she could try to piggyback him down the hall, but if she couldn't boost him up on her back, she would have to drag him.
Azula grabbed one of the man's wrist guards from the couch and used it to prop the door open. She wouldn't take any chances that it might shut and lock her out somehow. Swiftly, she bolted down the hallway towards the front of the building and praised the spirits that the storage closet's door was slightly ajar as usual. She wasn't sure why it wouldn't be, there was nothing of importance in here.
The metal chair sat in its place, taunting her with past experiences of being questioned and restrained. She glared at it for a moment before remembering the urgency of the situation and sprinted back down the hall to her room.
She took a shuddering breath and managed to sit the guard on one of the chairs in the guest area. Bending her knees in front of the chair, she pulled his arms over her shoulders and leaned forward, grabbing under his thighs. His weight shifted and she stumbled forwards, bent ninety degrees at the waist. Azula clenched her teeth and took a shaky step. She hesitantly tried to straighten up, hoisting the man's weight further up her back until she could stand at a more acceptable angle.
Slowly, too slowly, she pushed out of the room and made her way down the hall. Her knees threatened to buckle with each step. Her ears strained, expecting to hear the alerting cry of a guard at any moment.
But it never came. Azula reached the storage room unhindered and dumped the man into the chair. Her back cracked when she finally straightened up and she eyed the man clad only in boxers. Shaggy dark hair fell across his face as his head hung limply on his chest. His sides were tinged bright red from the lightning and Azula could only imagine the damage done to his back, but she knew the strike wasn't fatal. Still, she tightened the restraints around his arms and legs just in case.
Azula crept down the hallway and reentered her room, taking the wrist guard from the door and shutting it properly. She pretended she was a guard, glancing around the room for anomalies. Her eyes first landed on several pieces of broken metal that lay in a heap beneath the barred door. She quickly swept them into her hand and deposited them under the cushions of the guest couch.
Then there was the door itself. It hung oddly, relying on the lock to hold the bulk of its weight while the broken hinges barely held on. Azula knew she had to straighten and secure it. She scoured the couch for the dark bands that the guards wore around their arms to keep the fabric from bunching up. Taking one, she tore the elastic in two with her teeth and as best she could, wrapped them tightly around the top and bottom hinges to cover and straighten them up. The middle two were broken, but it would be tricky to notice if you weren't looking for them to be broken. And Azula doubted the guards ever looked at the hinges of her door.
Her blood tingled. Almost sunrise. 6am?
Azula turned away from the door for the time being and began donning the guard's clothes. He was of average height and build, but the red pants and long sleeved shirt still fit loosely around Azula's thin frame. She rolled the pants at the waist and tucked the shirt into them to try and remedy that problem. She hoped the incompetence of the other guards would work in her favor today. Hopefully they wouldn't notice their friendly night guard had shed a few pounds and shrank an inch.
Slipping the breastplate and shoulder plates over her head, she winced at the soreness in her right side. The wrist guards fit loosely as well, but Azula bunched up the excess cloth from her shirt to keep them from slipping out of place.
Next were the leathery skirt-like pads and the belt to go around her waist. Each fastened with a few ties and fit nicely. She slipped the pointed boots on, the first time she'd worn any footwear in years, and frowned at how bulky they seemed, but there was no way to fix that. She would just have to walk carefully. Quickly she tore the other black band in half and wrapped the elastic material around her arms.
She scanned the couch, looking for anything she might have overlooked. Seeing nothing, she bit her tongue, tied her hair up with a bright pink ribbon, and fit the helmet over her head. It too was a bit big, but with her hair cushioned at the top of it, she could see out of the eyeholes.
Azula inhaled slowly and closed her eyes for a minute, allowing herself a brief reprieve from the rising tension.
Again she glanced around the room. The light was dim enough that her excuse for a person in her bed would probably pass. She had successfully hidden the broken hinge pieces and now all that she felt she needed to do was double check the barred door.
She stepped back and examined it casually. It was straighter than before, and the black wrappings from the guard's uniform blended in well enough with the iron's color. But it still looked like shoddy work to her. At this point though, there was nothing she could do but rely on the oblivious nature of the incoming guards. And, if need be, her own combative skills.
Speaking of the guards… Azula stood at the right side of the door to wait, doing her best impression of the man who was, in reality, strapped to a chair down the hallway. She took a few more breaths and held her head high. The easy part was done. Now came the gamble.