The screwy romance continues. Sorry about the short chapter; still figuring out exactly how I'm going to culminate this. Thank you for your patience :).
Azula fell asleep early that night with the expressed purpose of waking up early that morning, and she did.
Her bison remained asleep but she tripped over Bosco's paw, and the animal let out a soft wine.
"Sorry to wake you, but now that you are awake, you might be useful."
"Come with me of course," Azula invited her bison. "In fact I rather think you're going to enjoy this little activity, Dominatia."
The beast opened one eye, and a large toothy grin spread across her mouth. It had been so long since her Lord had been interested in mayhem! She must be getting better! Hopeful, excited and somewhat overjoyed, she nudged Rampage awake beside her. After a few brief chortles, the two bison came up with a cover plan for her.
Rampage arranged some hay in the cot and covered it up with the blanket, though the nurses wouldn't be in to check on Azula for hours. Then he closed the gap left by Dominatia when she followed Azula out the building. He complained a little as they were leaving.
"Of course you can come tomorrow night, Rampage," Azula promised as Bosco scampered up beside her. "All of you can take turns covering for me of course. This little project will take some time, you see."
Azula then walked with the two animals to the barracks in the distance where the new recruits were sleeping and tired from a day of training.
They were about to have a new understanding of the word "tired."
She explained her intentions to Dominatia, who was practically foaming at the mouth with anticipation. Azula was right on one thing: Dominatia was just as mischievous and messed up as she was, minus the schizophrenia and homicidal tendencies.
Bosco was also curious about the Bison Lord's plans. He didn't necessarily have her taste for messing with others, but he did ask how he could help by letting out a little mewl once they reached the barracks.
"We're going to wake them up of course, and rid them of their imperfections."
Bosco cocked his head and mewled again. Azula took it upon herself to interpret the sound. "Well, you can pull off their covers. Dominatia will set off the explosives outside. And as for myself, well let's just see how well they react to a firebender attack."
And so they did. When the commotion and the flames finally came to a standstill Azula had the troops in their underwear, shivering and slightly charred in the moonlight. She gave the command for them to fall in. Bewildered and still smoking, they awkwardly assembled.
Dominatia and Bosco snuck off into a grove of trees to observe it all from afar. Azula figured that their presence would blow her cover.
"Hello Gentleman," she said, her voice lifting through the night. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Fire Nation Goodwill Cross Advisor, Ilah Shar, here to offer my advice and train you; I am a gift of sorts from the Firelord Zuko. My campaigns include the siege of Ba Sing Se, and the glorious conquer of Omashu. I also I devised the strategy for rebellion squelching on the day of Sozin's Comet. Ozai was merely the brawn; I supplied all the brain of that operation. So if anyone knows how to defeat Earth Kingdom enemies, it is me, because you see I once was one. So here is my advice: You all suck. Quite thoroughly. In fact, the exquisite completeness with which you suck puts most river snail-leeches to shame.
"The good news is that I can change that. So, go get dressed, and then we'll start the improvement process."
So at four in the morning she ran them. She ran them around the palace walls, straight through muddy fields with water and canals that came up past the waist. The lap took an hour and a half, and while she was a little winded by the end of their jaunt, her recruits were wheezing and gasping and completely filthy.
She let them recover for only a moment before she taught them to low crawl through an obstacle course that she haphazardly constructed by burning down a grove of trees outside the city. Half of it she kept on fire, the other half she made more interesting by launching little bags full of gunpowder at them as they moved. Then they completed roundhouse kicks by splitting seedlings outside the obstacle course.
Two hours later, the sun came up, and the Captain of the King's guard came to get what he thought would be fresh troops. Instead he found a bunch of sweaty, puffy eyed foundlings that looked at him pleadingly as they panted outside of their billets.
Naturally, the Captain focused in on Azula, demanding her identity and an explanation, and he did so rather gruffly.
Azula didn't even bat an eye. "Really Captain," she purred as she examined her nails, "A man of your status, not having heard of me. I find that very hard to believe…"
"I find the position of Fire Nation Goodwill Cross Advisor hard to believe..."
"The Firelord sent a note to His Majesty King Kuei warning of my arrival months ago," Azula interrupted. "This would mean that your communication sucks also; what a shocker…" and Azula continued on with a laundry list of comments that half flattered/half insulted the Captain.
Meanwhile the Captain stood there, a little angry at what she was saying, but completely impressed with her prowess and unable to come up with a sufficient reason as to why she shouldn't be "improving" the King's guard.
At the end of the day, or really the beginning, the Captain of the King's guard was very well convinced that she was an international advisor. He was so convinced in fact that he continued to let Azula come and train his men every morning from 0330 to 0600. In addition, he took advice from her and used it to fine tune his own training program that continued well after she left to go, well, the Spirits knows where.
This persisted for almost two weeks. During such time, the guard improved greatly, and was almost ready to start providing security for the King. After each training session, Azula snuck back into her confinement before her 0700 am dose of medication and the nurses could notice she was gone. Her illness continued to haunt her, but in different ways. Mother and the voices staved off, and she didn't see any more bugs or blood dripping from the walls. Her arms also began to heal, but there were a few things that persisted.
Sozin. He was always there and he was always watching her. At one point he appeared beside her while she was running the troops outside the city and actually ran with her during the early morning trainings. He was convinced that she couldn't stop her destiny and was born to rule; he told her so repeatedly. It took every ounce of willpower she had to not scream back at him.
And then there was Kyoshi Azula, who spoke to her almost constantly. It took every ounce of strength Azula had to ignore her. Every ounce of strength she had.
After Azula had been training them for nearly two weeks, she heard the warrior whisper: "It doesn't matter what you do." That did it.
This little dig especially inflamed the princess and she would have no more of it. She ordered the troops to run up a hill, and then whirled on her tormentor after they were out of earshot. She pointed a finger at the painted face. "You're wrong. I'm going to beat you. I will."
Unfortunately part of her beating the Warrior and Sozin involved ignoring the King. She was often tired after training the troops, and she dozed easily through most of the morning and the first part of the afternoon. But there were times when she wasn't asleep and she knew he was there, sneaking in to speak to her.
On the rare occasions when she was awake she pushed him away with her classic Azula nastiness and her trademark Azula psychosis. She did it to keep him safe. Her schizophrenia wasn't under control and as long as it wasn't, she was dangerous; she knew it.
Dominatia disagreed with her shutting out the King,
"I can't trust myself Dominatia. I'm still hallucinating and the guard's not fully trained yet. "
The bison gave her mistress an unceremonious raspberry, and explained that she wasn't so convinced of that.
"I'm seeing a dead man and a much more irate version of myself; Of course I'm still hallucinating!"
Dominatia and Rampage thought she was likely no less irate now than she was at fourteen. They told her so.
Azula let out a groan and fell into her pillow, weeping bitterly; it was not one of Dominatia's more successful therapy sessions with Azula.
So Azula's little game of battling her hallucinations, sleeping/ pretending to sleep through most of the day, and training the King's guard continued. The bison took turns viewing the charade from afar. Oddly enough, they all seemed to enjoy the suffering of others; this was largely a consequence of having someone like Azula for their Bison Lord.
The strange thing is that this whole game of Azula's continued in front of the King's most reputable officers and they never once suspected that they were receiving instruction from a lunatic. Then again, even though Azula was crazy, she was still very cunning. She was able to pull off the role of Fire Nation Goodwill Cross Advisor so beautifully, so convincingly, that no one dared question her, not even the Captain of the Guard himself. The troops blossomed so quickly; who else but a seasoned warrior such as Ilah Shar could have delivered such results?
And soon, no matter if they had heard of her or not, everyone admitted that they did. Really they were lying just to not look foolish…which seemed like a good idea at the time.
Well, said idea became especially good when General Fong walked by and the Captain of the King's guard regaled him with his tales of Ilah Shar.
At which point General Fong, being loathe to bullshit in all of its forms, admitted that such a person did not exist, and neither did the position of Fire Nation Goodwill Cross Advisor. He vowed to investigate this matter immediately after informing the King.
He was on his way to doing so when he happened to pass the barn where Azula was being kept. On a hunch, he decided to check on her, as he sometimes did for the King. The nurses stopped him at the door. "She is asleep, General."
"But it is well past noon!"
The nurse shrugged. "We're not sure why. She has been asleep all night and sleeping most of the day as well for the past two weeks. We think she is trying to avoid her hallucinations. Dr. Ping told us not to disturb her…"
And then he realized with a self-deprecating moan and then an ironic laugh, that no investigation was necessary. He already knew who Ilah Shar was.
# # # # #
Kuei snuck into the barn later that next morning, hoping to get a glimpse of Azula when she was asleep. She was very cross and curt with him when she was awake, and though he tried not to take it personally, he was aching just to be near her, which she wouldn't allow when she was conscious.
Luckily he found her asleep, or at least he thought so. She was lying on her side with her hair covering half of her face and sweeping beautifully down her back.
Dominatia and the other bison half opened their eyes as he snuck past them. Lately they had taken on her sleeping schedule.
In reality Azula was not asleep, but this time, instead of turning the King away, she pretended to be. Azula heard him come up next to her and felt Kuei run his hand gently over the back of her head. .
She felt tears sting the back of her eyes at the realization of how much she had missed his touch. Even though she was outwardly very nasty, internally, Azula remained torn over the King's affection. She missed him and wanted to see him, but as long as he stubbornly showed up, he was in peril. She shut her eyes tightly as she felt his hand trail down her arm and gently take her hand in his for a moment.
His lips lingered against her temple for a sweet kiss. Then she felt his forehead touch hers.
It was all she could do to keep from weeping.
I kind of think Ilah Shar sounds like a Jedi name, don't you? Anyway, in case you missed it, Ilah was the name of Azulon's wife in the original series, but we don't know very much about her because she was already dead when the series began.