Content warning: suicide attempt.
If you'd like to skip this one, there will be a TLDR in the closing author's note.
Katara is dead.
Figuratively speaking. She wakes up every morning, she eats the disgusting prison food, she falls asleep every evening. She has a pulse, she breathes.
But by all means, Katara is dead.
Sometimes, Azula throws blasts of fire at her – to blow off steam, or just because she feels like it. At first, Katara throws back water – from her dish, from wine on Azula's table, whatever is available. She learns very soon not to. She dodges Azula's flames. Most of the time. Every now and then, she gets burned, and go thirsty for the rest of the day after using her small water rations to heal the burns.
Sometimes, Azula is just gone. Sometimes days, leaving in the morning and returning in the evening. Once, two weeks.
Katara has no life. No spirit left in her.
Azula finds it incredibly boring.
The idea of keeping the little savage had seemed appealing at first. Revenge. Humiliation. Someone to take her bad days out on. Taming the peasant, maybe even shaping her into a servant. But by now, the idea has lost its novelty, and more often than not, Azula doesn't even spare a glance for her prisoner.
The thought of killing Katara has crossed Azula's mind, but she's not ready to let go of her prize yet. That fucking brat and her friends have been a thorn in Azula's side for a year; she's gonna be damned if she'll reward her with a quick death.
Then again, what else to do with her? She's given up all the information she's going to, of that Azula is certain. Nobody spends a month with the court's finest interrogators without spilling all they have to spill – blood, secrets, dreams, fears, fantasies. No interrogation in the world will get more out of Katara. Azula could kill her, slowly, painfully. Make a display out of it. Entertain some guests. But then again, she might have need for her in the future. As a hostage. Bait. Whatever.
As a result, the status quo doesn't change. Katara stays in the cage. Azula ignores her for days, comes back from a frustrating meeting with the war council, and shoots flames at the cage until she's tired of Katara dodging them, or until the stench of burnt flesh tells her it's enough.
Winter, if you can call it that – the homeland never gets particularly cold, owing to its volcanicc nature – winter passes. Over on the eastern front, Azula's troops stop freezing. The war progresses easier, now that Agni has blessed them with warmer nights and earlier sunrises again.
Another session of the war council.
Azula hates it. All of those fat, old, lazy generals. Older than her father – wherever he may be; for the first few months, she expected him to walk back through the palace gates any day – older than her father, lazier than her uncle. None of them have led any troops into battle in a long time. Zhao was the last one who showed some ambition, and his untimely demise has convinced the rest of them to hold on to their chairs and country retreats twice as hard. She's fired a quarter of them the day after her coronation, and the new ones are loyal to her to a fault; competing to best each other at displays of submission so pathetic, even she finds it revolting. But these people, captains, commanders, young and ambitious who owe their careers to her… lack of experience and all, she still prefers them to the old assholes.
Lord General Ghizo is speaking. One of the old ones.
"…and with that, we now have a total of 10 major ports under our control. I should believe that at the current pace, the western coast of the Earth Kingdom will be under our control by the end of the year."
Azula graces him with a nod. The entire Earth Kingdom was supposed to be aflame half a year ago. People like him are why it still isn't.
Him. Her father. The Avatar.
Nobody's seen or heard of Ozai. Neither the Avatar.
At first, she was confident. With the power of Sozin's Comet, victory was theirs. It was their destiny. What her great-grandfather had begun, she and her father were going to finish.
No news for a day. Two. Three.
After a week, she sent out one of the few airships that had stayed behind on a search party.
When the wreckage was found, Azula had called upon the Fire Sages. Her coronation – the one her traitor of a brother and his savage girlfriend had crashed – had been completed.
Her father. Her mentor, her master, her idol. The man who would bring the world to its knees. Who taught her everything. Who made her Fire Lord.
Gone.
Azula still can't believe it.
"Your Majesty?"
She snaps out of her thoughts. Admiral Yao.
"What is it?"
She can feel their stares. The court still hasn't accepted her. Is still waiting for Fire Lord Ozai, Phoenix King Ozai, to return and lead them. Not his daughter.
"With your permission, Your Majesty, we would like to move the Tenth Fleet and redeploy it to the western cap. The Twelfth Army could use the reinforcements."
The Fire Nation hasn't had a female Fire Lord for as long as the records go back. Perhaps never. Her right to rule is indisputable; her father's last official act as Fire Lord makes it so. Her reign is as divinely destined as his. But while the people may believe it, the court knows better. She rules, but they enforce it.
Azula waves a hand. "By all means."
Sometimes, she wishes she had generals she could rely on. They're like toddlers; always asking stupid questions. 'Can we do this', 'should we do that'. But she has to control them. Has to. Left to themselves, Agni only knows what they would do if Azula weren't there to supervise them.
Trust nobody.
Trust nothing.
Everyone always betrays you.
After another hour – the Third Fleet will be recalled to the homeland to be refitted with new artillery, the Twentieth Battallion will push forward towards the Great Divide, the garrison at Pohuai will be reinforced –, the council disbands, small groups of officers walking leaving the room one by one. Azula doesn't trust them. Gossip and rumour are the worst enemy of any well-trained military.
When she arrives outside her chambers and waves her guards away, she's just itching to break something or burn someone. She strides into her rooms, flame already on her finger. It's a bad day to be Katara.
The first time she hears it, she stops dead in her tracks.
Sobbing.
Heavy breathing.
Another sob.
It's nothing new. The little tribal has been crying a lot. Screaming, sobbing, kicking the walls. Azula has disciplined her more than once for keeping her up at night.
This… sounds different.
Her feet are silent on the heavy carpet and, flame still in hand, she sneaks closer. Hides besides the doorway of her dining room, one wall away from the cage.
Katara is kneeling on the floor.
I can do it. I can do it.
The mantra – half thought, half whispered – does nothing to ease her fears. Her pain. Does nothing to calm the racing beat of her heart.
Before her, the water she's drawn from her bowl hovers between her hands. A blade? A point? She can't decide. The neck or the heart? Either would work. She has no idea which one is better. Faster.
Painless.
There is no hope.
There is no rescue.
Nobody is coming.
She touches her face. The scar that monster has given her. Even if she could escape, how can she ever look anyone in the eye like that?
Neck, she decides. The water solidifies into an icy knife, glistening and sharp enough to cut herself on it just looking.
She takes it. Guides it to her neck.
Her blood is pulsing underneath the blade. The artery twitches against the edge.
Just one more movement.
Just one.
Free.
She grips the blade tighter. Just one quick slice.
Azula doesn't dare breathe.
Katara's hands refuse.
She stays frozen for a small eternity – kneeling, neck exposed, hair pulled back, knife hovering over her skin.
I can do it. I can do it. I can do it.
Azula watches.
She doesn't have it in her. Coward.
Of course, if the roles were reversed, Azula would long have escaped. No doubt about it. She would never let herself be taken the same way this tribal failure has. But still, if, if she were in Katara's position, Azula has no doubt she wouldn't hesitate to deprive her captors of such a valuable prisoner.
I can do it. I can do it.
Dad, forgive me. Sokka.
Aang. I'm sorry.
She tries to cut.
Stops short of the skin.
I can't.
The blade slips from her hand and returns to its liquid state, and Katara loses it.
Azula has heard many prisoners cry. For mercy. For reprieve. For death. For freedom. It's what people do, when they realise they should have known better, or just cooperated. It's what weak people do. It's their own fault.
Katara's gut-wrenching bawling, the sobs violently wringing themselves from her throat, the soul-stabbing, agonizing screams of terror as Katara realises that her last resort is none at all, that she cannot go through with the only escape she had held out for – it leaves Azula cold. Weaker people, people who are not the prodigal daughter of the Fire Nation, would be moved.
Azula isn't.
Absolutely isn't.
It's reassuring, in a way. Knowing that the little bitch doesn't have it in her to cut her own throat and die like a warrior. Knowing that there's no chance Azula will lose her prized possession.
If there's a slight uneasiness in her stomach, it means nothing.
The flame dies in her hand. She sneaks back to the door. Makes sure to open and close it as loudly as possible and announce her presence to Katara as if she had just come in.
It's purely strategic. The savage doesn't know Azula witnessed her little moment. It's information that may prove useful in the future. Know your enemy. Know his weakness. Know what he knows and know what he doesn't.
Katara doesn't look up when she hears Azula enter. She doesn't move when Azula throws a carefully-aimed flame an inch past her face.
Thank the spirits she didn't see that, Katara thinks. She can't be that weak in front of that monster. Never make herself vulnerable. Not if she hopes to ever get out of this place.
Thank Agni she didn't see me, Azula thinks. That little tidbit is sure to come in handy. And who knows, if Katara had seen her, she may have gone through with her plan.
That evening, as the moon rises and the sun sets, day and night in perfect balance for one single moment, Azula can hear crying from the cage. She hears it through the wall of the dining room, through the hallway, and into her fath—into her study. Over maps and records of troop movements, she hears Katara sob into the hand she's clamped over her mouth, while Azula plans reinforcements, ambushes, and raids.
The next morning, well-rested, she's already pushed the previous day aside, filed away in the back of her head. Katara's eyes are red from crying and barely open after a sleepless night. Azula pays her no mind. Lord Zhiro has humbly begged the Fire Lord to spare a precious hour of her time to visit an unworthy subject like him so that he may demonstrate the new design of warship his engineers have worked on. Admiral Kzito wants to discuss the construction of a new port in the Mo Ce Sea with the Royal Engineers and the Fire Lord. The Sages have requested her presence at the capital temple for the equinox ceremony.
There is much to do.
Around noon, long after Azula has left, the guards enter Azula's dining room to bring Katara her daily ration of water. If there's a reason the bowl is larger today, and accompanied by a cup of soup, the guards don't tell her. They're too busy keeping their flaming fists trained on her.
News of bloodbending and dead soldiers travel fast.
Katara downs the soup in one go and chases it with half the water. The why is unimportant. She's alive to see another day.
Azula isn't going to let her favourite prisoner die.
Not like that.
When Katara dies, it will be at Azula's hands, after she has burnt down everything Katara holds dear.
It's only a matter of time. First the west coast, then the Divide and the desert, the South Pole, then Ba Sing Se and the Nothern Tribes.
It's only a matter of time.
All hail the Fire Lord Azula.
TL;DR: Azula is bored, muses about the unreliability and complacency of her officers and how she cannot trust them or anybody else, comes home to observe Katara trying to kill herslf, Katara can't do it and breaks down, Azula feels a tiny bit unsettled but mostly scheming and evil about it. The next day, she has slightly better food and water brought to Katara and resolves that Katara won't die until Azula wins the war and can triumphantly kill Katara herself.
A/N: Comments are the juice that turns ideas into stories, so feel encouraged to comment. Praise, criticism, long, short, I'm happy about each and every one.