Content warning: graphic descriptions of violence
The gentle tugging of the moon spirit wakes Katara from her lethargy. Throughout the day, it's been there, growing stronger the closer the moon inched. Now, after the sun has set and the palace has gone to sleep, it's here.
A full moon.
Before, she would have doubted herself. The immorality of what she is about to do would have made her falter, hesitant to indulge in such an abhorrent practice. The memory of Hama is still fresh in her mind, even after all she's been through the past month. The disgust she felt.
But after two months in the clutches of the Fire Nation – Azula's clutches –, Katara sees no other way.
Footsteps. Ready now.
Azula slams the door to her chambers shut with a force that doesn't even come close to reflecting the stressful day she's had. A less than satisfactory meeting with the war council, a fruitless discussion with the governor from Yu Dao – the former governor from Yu Dao, now –, and yet another troop transport lost off the Earth Kingdom. What a waste of time, wasted on those incompetent sycophants, all excuses and nothing to show.
She hates them.
Good personnel is so hard to find today. She's gonna have to replace the governor with someone less cowardly, that's for sure, and if those disappearing ships aren't solved soon, Admiral Sung is going to feel the full extent of Azula's displeasure.
What a pointless, disappointing day.
She glances at the cage in passing. The savage is sleeping. That's all she ever does at this point, eat and sleep. Really, why Azula keeps her, she's not even sure. Some entertainment she turned out t be.
She sinks into a chair, and Katara strikes.
The full moon makes the blood in her veins sing as she takes control of Azula. The Fire Lord barely has the time to gasp before her arms and legs stiffen, forced into action by Katara. She stands up and, led by Katara's invisible strings, staggers over to the cage. Her hands snap to her belt where she keeps her keys and start searching for the right one.
It's the worst thing Azula has ever felt.
She wants to scream, but her jaw is locked so tightly, she fears for her teeth. She expects her heart to race, but its beat is distressingly calm and even. Every attempt to bend or struggle against this impossible force that compels her fails.
This time, surely, she will die.
Sweat drips down Katara's face as she forces Azula's hands around the key. These movements have to be more precise than anything she's bent before. A slight pull to the capillaries in Azula's hands, and her captor's fingers curl, insert the key into the lock, and turn it. It takes her a couple of attempts, but finally, the lock clicks.
Free at last.
With more than a little satisfaction, she grabs Azula by her major arteries and hurls her into the wall. A world of pain explodes around Azula as her spine hits the stones, and when she opens her eyes, Katara is gone, the remains of the door dangling from its hinges.
The blood pumps through Katara's veins. She isn't familiar with the palace, but the moonlight guides her. Even from up here, far above the harbour and in the heart of the capital, she can feel the ocean due east. So close, yet so far. Her way home.
Up ahead, a guard steps into the corridor. Before he can see her, Katara has taken hold of him and sent him flying down the hall, flesh pulled along by his blood. It's only when she feels the pumping of his heart stop that she realises the impact has broken his neck. She doesn't have time to dwell on it, though, as seconds later, two more turn the corner.
This time, on of them gets to scream.
Before too long, the place fills with guards, but what can they do against a waterbender at the full height of her power? Swords burrow themselves in the back of comrades and screams wrench themselves from pained throats as soldiers feel their bodies betray them, hands gripping blades and plunging them through another one's heart. One man's tears become projectiles that impale his companion's neck, and the blood from the fallen rises up to fill the lungs of the next.
It's dirty, dirty work. It's disgusting.
Katara feels the bile rise in her throat as she continues to slaughter her way through the palace. There's not a sprinkle of blood on her, but she may as well have ripped the guards' throats out with her bare hands. They're stained, she's stained.
Carry on. Just carry on. The crashing of the waves on the far shore mixes with the pumping of the blood in her ears. So close, just keep on pushing. Soon, she will be free. She can almost see it now, leaping into the sea and making it carry her home. To her friends. To safety.
She's in the courtyard now. The fountain in the middle explodes and drowns an entire platoon of guards. The woman above the gate staggers mechanically towards the winch, but Katara loses her patience and a wave of water breaks down the huge doors. Out, out, forward. She rushes through what she thinks might be the stables. Some sort of barracks next. Ten guards choke on their own spit as she brushes past them, an angel of death riding on blood and water.
There are the palace gates. More fountains here, how foolish. Their waters rise for Katara's final assault. In the distance, she can hear horns blaring, soldiers screaming. The waves hammer against the gates like a battering ram. Almost through now, almost through.
More soldiers. No matter. Many fall, some plunging themselves onto their own swords, others swept away by water, stabbed by shards, or crushed by blocks of ice. Blast after blast after blast. Bones break. Blood is spilled. A blade catches Katara's arm; the woman wielding it is thrown halfway across the yard when half a ton of water hits her chest. More arrive, and more are swept away by a tidal wave. An arrow grazes Katara's leg; the archers never get to fire a second volley before a thousand icicles come down on them.
Slice. Splash. Hack. Blast. Slash. Burst. Kick. Drown.
The courtyard is filled halfway with corpses when a well-thrown stone from a disarmed archer hits Katara's head. She sways, stumbles. Rights herself. Raises her arms for another wave. But her brief disorientation has sufficed. The hilt of a sword follows the stone, and then there is darkness.
When she wakes up, she can't feel the ocean anymore.
In fact, she can't feel any water anymore.
As she wakes from her unconsciousness and takes in the surroundings, Katara panics. Her arms and legs are wobbly and weak. She can't feel the moon. Her own blood and sweat. Not the moisture in the air, the puddles on the floor, the dish of water in the corner. Nothing.
She screams.
Pure, unadulterated, primal panic.
Outside the room, Azula watches, satisfied. With Ty Lee in prison – she grimaces at the thought of her, that treacherous little circus rat – with Ty Lee in prison, her favourite chi-blocker is gone, but that doesn't mean there's no one left who knows the art. For the last two days, after the guards dragged Katara in front of her, covered in blood, cuts, and bruises, Azula has had the savage imprisoned here, carefully subdued with herbal medicines, and today, after turning up someone capable of chi-blocking, she's allowed the little brat to wake up.
Frankly, the display of panic is reward enough.
What the girl has done to Azula's guards is another question altogether. Her best scholars can't explain it. The workers still aren't done clearing away the bodies. Here, deep down in the deepest catacombs, far away from water and the wretched moon these tribals draw from, Azula knows her prisoners secure. And until she knows what in Agni's name made that massacre possible, she isn't about to grant the little beggar the gift of a quick death. If this is something waterbenders can do, Azula needs to know, and if she personally has to burn the information out of her, so be it.
"Watch her", she waves a guard over. "Whatever you do, don't enter that room, is that understood?"
"Yes, Princess!" The man catches himself mid-word. "I mean, Your Majesty."
She ignores his apologies as he falls to his knees and begs her forgiveness. It's been two months, but the palace is still adjusting, some struggling more than others to accept her in the role she was always meant to play. Her father is gone, Zuzu is a traitor, there is nobody else who could possibly lead the nation. It has always been clear that this would be her ultimate position. And yet…
Whatever. I don't have time for this. /p
When she's climbed the stairs to the surface, she's already forgotten about him, and she pushes Katara aside, too. For now, she has a meeting with General Xao. There is a village in the colonies that needs punishing, and Azula has just the right idea. Her interrogators will find out the dirty savage's secret…
It takes them three months.
The foremost scholars on waterbending have been consulted. Captured waterbenders have been subjected to every interrogation method known to the royal guards. Azula herself spends weeks trying to force an answer outt of Katara.
Full moon.
Of course it's the full moon, Azula thinks when she hears the news. It's always the moon with those primitives, isn't it. The pathetic spirits they worship. To bend another's blood… Azula has to admire it. The efficiency. The total control, to completely take ownership of another's body… there is a certain beauty in that. Deadly beauty, as one hundred of her own dead men can attest to.
But, as far as she can tell, it's only Katara. Her scouts and spies haven't reported anything out of the ordinary, the sages have combed the royal libraries for any mention of it and found nothing.
And now Azula knows how to stop Katara. The chi-blocking has proven quite effective.
For what she's done, Azula decides, it would be too generous to allow her to die now. She will die if and when Azula wills it.
She has the cage reinforced. The chi-blocker, a wrinkled old woman from a village at the far end of the main island, is moved into the servants quarters and given to understand that her services will be required every moon, along with the consequences of disobeying the Fire Lord, should such thoughts cross her mind.
When Katara is moved out of the dungeons, a dozen new burns cover her skin. Her legs are weak, and she falls several times on the way to Azula's chambers, bound at arms and legs with heavy irons. The sunlight burns her eyes, and she has to squint against it. It's a surreal experience, being led back into Azula's chambers. The sound of the cage door falling shut and being locked may as well be the last beat of her heart.
Not even bloodbending is enough. She's done it all for nothing.
The sounds of necks snapping and blood being pumped for the last time haunts her nightmares as she falls asleep.
A/N: I'm posting these as I write them, and I'm on a roll the last couple days (Dec 16, posting date on AO3), but don't get used to one chapter per day xD speaking from experience, that's gonna level off at some point, to a more sustainable pace.