A. N. : I still haven't managed to build up a sufficient backlog again, so it's quite possible there will be another update skipped at some point. The fact that I write in the train means that any holiday time actually translates to less of a chance to write for me, since I tend to move around way less when there's no class or therapy to go to. Still, it didn't feel right to skip two updates in a row, so have an Azula !
Azula breathes.
She sits, legs crossed, on the sand. Feels the sun warm her skin, warm the beach, warm everything it should warm except for her insides.
Her body is warm, but she feels cold.
It is the third day already, and yet she is still so, so weak. Too weak. Even just walking to where she is now, right outside the shack, required her to lean heavily on that pirate, and left her exhausted.
Patience, the Doctor said when she tried to do stretches on her own yesterday, after the pirate left her to visit a patient in the village. Straining herself too much would only hurt her recovery, he said.
She wanted to tell him there was nothing to recover from, that she is as good as dead, but couldn't.
Her throat was burned from the inside by her own chi, she's been told. It hurts less with each passing day, each sickeningly sweet meal and drink forced onto her, but her voice still doesn't come out reliably.
At least she now has enough strength to push away Ty Lee's patronizing hands and the fake comfort they pretend to offer.
How absurd. They should have just let her consume herself, instead of bothering with any of this sick game of playing pretend. They do not care, none of them – not Ty Lee and her sugary smiles, not Mai and her sharp interruptions when the pirate has Azula stretch in a way that makes her wince, not Qin and the warm tea he serves her after each strenuous exercise.
There's a sting at the back of her throat, like nausea, like the sting of a scarab-bee protecting the queen's honey.
The Doctor told her – Azula's pathways and chakras were forcefully opened, enough that her own body won't try to kill her anymore, but the flow of chi is still hindered by the damaged pathways and her fragile mental state.
She nearly struck him, then. Would have, if it wasn't for the weakness of her arms. She even thought of spitting on him, to let him know precisely what she thinks of that opinion of his, but that would have been unsightly.
She is not mad. She refuses to let the world, to let these three, to let Fa- refuses to let anyone make her believe that.
She knows how the world works, it's not her fault everyone around her is too stupid to act accordingly.
The damage to Azula's throat isn't the same as the rest. There are traces of strain older than the few days since her situation changed enough to uproot her – and hah, what a delicate way to say since you lost everything it had been.
The Doctor can make recovery easier, but if she lets the blockage in her throat become a chronic issue, then he will not be able to cure it. I can not make miracles, he told her. No matter how much they would like to, healers cannot change the course of the world. They can try to help individual people, and some do it better than others, but at the end of the day they are just as powerless as anyone else.
It's an exercise in futility, the Doctor said. He left the room to help out with the cooking after that, only adding that the throat chakra is blocked by lies to oneself, as his parting words.
Azula clicks her tongue at the memory. Who does he think she is ? Of course she knows these sorts of things, she is a master firebender, and she basically grew up with Ty Lee. She had Doctor Lee Mei Lin see her regularly, for crying out loud ! She could recite the chakras' attributes by heart if she felt like it !
Sound chakra, located in the throat, deals with truth and blocked by lies to the self. Blue. There, easy.
What is that man implying, anyway ? Azula isn't lying to herself. She doesn't have any reason to. Doesn't have anything to lose anymore.
She has nothing.
Another sting, Azula winces and raises a hand to her throat. That broken body of hers craves the soothing balm of honey, but she will bear with the pain if it can spare her yet another overly sweet concoction.
She was never big on sugary foods, but her current fate has her beginning to actively dislike the taste. It's almost nauseating, honestly.
She sighs.
She is used to meditating in the worst of conditions, sore from training and with Li and Lo keeping guard over her shoulder, but the cold… this, she cannot grow used to. More than distracting, it's –
It makes this exercise feel aimless.
Azula opens her eyes, looks at the sea. Everything she was, everything she had, it's all gone. So long as the cold remains, she will be nothing.
She has nothing.
Her throat hurts.