Oh hey guys! If you watch the news, did you see those riots in Minnesota at the mall of America? I was there. This is a little short, but, things are getting back into motion.
p.s I suck at updating on regular intervals, uh.
Word count: 986
Days, or maybe it was hours.
She'd spent fumbling at the edges of the blunt muzzle, she often cried when alone in her cell. Often woke up soggy and paranoid. And after that first time she'd slipped up with her doctor she'd never done it again. Pride (or maybe years of practice pretending these emotions didn't exist, that they didn't gather in her chest -) allowed her to just sit as a stony, emotionless, slate. It crossed her mind she'd never be able to smile again. She'd never be able to speak, never be able to throw out another witticism beyond a blubbering mutter and yet she still sat mute. Defiant with her silence, the only thing she had left.
"You need this."
(Never)
"Im going to help you get better, Azula. But only if you let me."
(Never)
Long drolling hours of torment. Eventually Her nights swept into day like satiny silk, rambled along, never stopping for anyone. Predictable in its routine and yet she couldn't see it. She could feel it (she could feel something besides anger and fear in this cell), just as the sun rose so did she and instinctually all firebender's. No matter how many minutes she'd slept prior. She'd found before the dull ache of hunger drummed at her stomach that in the early moments of the morning, in the faraway chirp-croak of the frog-bird she had abstinence – could maintain this, control it, temperance, power. In those fleeting moments the spiders nestled in the hidden nannies cooed to her and the closing walls might have even been comforting. She had this to look forward too, she assured herself.
But in these sparse moments of sobriety, she might have preferred exile especially when her visitor hadn't come back. Her anonymous face she couldn't trust with important things but miniscule musings, blur of the moment lapses. (Because it didn't matter what they said? Because they held no power like the psychiatrist, or the guards? Because they were just another worthless face in the crowd? The only face in the crowd she could see?) But she supposed dereliction was inevitable, waved it off as if she was back to normal. As if monsters didn't open gaping jaws to release rancid, rotten, breath into her sully ebony lochs and taint and obscure her tunnel vision.
"You scared her off you know, she doesn't want to see you."
"Your only visitor."
The guards said.
(I don't care)
She liked to think she didn't, Azula liked to think she could get out of this situation if she really tried, if she had a moment where she wasn't drugged crooked, if there was a day – maybe two – of her being "awake" and not a couple of measly minutes or a hour tops. She liked to believe that she was the daughter of Sozin, she was destined to be great, to overcome oppression. She liked to believe that she had the will too. But it was only poorly conjured attempts to rebuild her standard. And she'd never set to even trying to escape. It was all fruitless now, futile to thrash and scream .The prodigy and her people had been built on the foundation of amour-propre, and though she'd struggled at first out of bravado it hardly seemed appropriate, maybe even degrading, to do so now. Especially over the amalgamating indistinguishable days and nights. Even in her medicated stupor she stumbled along, chains dragging, with a regal tilt of her head.
Sat dully as the doctor scribbled whatever on parchment, her lack of progress, maybe even .
Stood silent as the guards ridiculed her, prodded her.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
It was a cycle she liked, something she could predict. The flicker of a digit thoughtfully on chin as her Psychiatrist observed her, tried to get her to do something – anything – promised her petty little things if she complied (if you talk Maybe I can get those chains loosened? Maybe you could have a some fire flakes?).Followed by the smug smirk of the simpleton who dragged her along obediently (Look where you are now? Pity. And no one has even come to visit you? Is this how you like it? – Peh.) Try to trip her, or throw her in her cage, laugh – move on. She'd spend the remainder of the day in her silence, trying to figure out truth to hallucination. Maybe sometime around the night realize what sleep was, fall asleep, wake up with her head pounding and slurring, lucid until the guards noticed. They'd slip a straw between holes in her mask, she'd drink the whole cup – then eat.
Later, rinse, repeat.
But then, as the fire prodigy's head swam with withdrawal and awareness rising slowly (achingly almost) to set feet to ground and start it all over again – something was different.
She was there.
Standing just hardly silhouetted by the sun pooling in through a far away window (fire wasn't allowed near her for good reason) Azula squinted, narrowing azure eyes to slit to scrutinized, might have played it off for a second as a guard – but immediately recognized the slumped, sloppy frame, the languid gait. Heart shaped face with ears sticking out goofily. Long knotted hair swinging and brushing across rim and collar-bone. Or where her collarbone would have been blatantly obvious before, actually.
It seemed Ty-lee was busy out there.
"You." She mumbled, coming out as a sopping slur of finality ("wouu"), voice lax from lack of use. There was silence for a moment, Azula could here and register the –drip splut splut of a leaking wall nearby. Huh, must've rained. She pondered. Trying anything to keep her attention away from the awkward lengthy tensioned silence and pretending like she didn't even mind it. (When had she ever begun to think of these as awkward? Condensed? When had she ever even cared what another had to say?)
"Me."
Lather, rinse –
"Me."
Repeat.