#i’m not unkind but maybe i have been talking behind ppls backs a little too much..

[002700]

after this week it may be the stress but i may also have to come to terms with the fact that. i am a bit of a bitch

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Azula Week 2020: Day 7 - Repaired

Prompt: Success Pair: N/A Song: 69feetofsmoke - Ppl That I Luv

Summary: Zuko comes across Azula's paintings and sketchbook and finds startling self-portraits. 

The paintbrush slashes across the canvas leaving a thick and heavy trail of black. One harsh, angry brushstroke after another and another and another and…

Red comes next, vivid and bright. There is nearly as much red as there is black. It is thrown and spattered by flicks of the brush from a distance.

A touch of gold. Only the faintest trace of it.

The painting is cast to the side amid the rest of them. She curls herself up on the bed feeling drained. She is well aware that painting shouldn’t leave her feeling such. But it always does.

Azula has become a ghost of herself. Zuko sees it in her dulled eyes, in her loose stance and her slouched sitting posture. He sees it in her disheveled robes and her disarrayed hair. Sees it in her paled skin and hears it in the dejected way she speaks.

She hasn’t been the same since their Agni Kai. She isn’t as unkind, on some days she is actually rather pleasant to talk to, but she is deeply sad. Even when she smiles it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“I’m fine, Zuzu.” She insists again. They sit in the shade of a dragon maple.

“You aren’t acting like yourself.”

“Everybody wanted me to change.”

He presses his lips together. He hates when she does that. Even if she doesn’t mean anything by it. Even if she only means to lay down facts as she sees them. He never knows how to reply to that because she isn’t entirely wrong, but she is missing some critical aspects. “That’s not what I mean.” He finally settles.

“Then what do you mean?” She asks, eyes fixed on her hands, clasped atop her knee.

“You just seem...really...unhappy.”

“I’m fine.” She repeats as though rehearsed. She does this a lot too, has him talking in circles.

“I just want you to be okay.”

“I am.”

He has to hold back a frustrated sigh. He has run out of things to say. But he doesn’t think that it is a good idea to leave them in silence. “The pond looks nice today. Katara said that she saw you decorating it?”

Azula shrugs. “I moved a few rocks around because I didn’t like where they were placed.” She pauses. “And I thought that a couple of fire lilies would look nice around it.”

He recalls that her bedroom window faces the pond and wonders if this is a small way of trying to lighten her mood.

“It does look nice.” He smiles. She doesn’t return the smile.

.oOo.

It feels weird talking to them. Talking to any of them. Every time she begins to feel secure, like she might be fully accepted, she makes a mess of it. And it is usually over the most mundane and trivial things.

Today’s argument has an extra bite considering that she’d taken something positive and turned it sour.

“You’re really going to choose flowers over people!?” Katara asks.

“They’re just flowers” Mai adds nonchalantly, “Sokka did even know that they were yours.”

Azula fixes him with a cross stare, his arm is slung over Suki’s shoulder. Suki who now wears Azula’s fire lilies in her hair. They aren’t just flowers. They are her flowers. Were her flowers and they made it, if only a little, easier to pull herself out of bed. They gave her something pretty to look at. They made her feel as though she could create something beautiful. She folds her arms across her chest. But even when she does create something beautiful it becomes vile in the end. “They were mine.” She says flatly.

“They were in the palace gardens.” Zuko says gently.

“Which are also mine.”

Zuko sighs, presses his hands together, and holds them to the bridge of his nose. “They’re my gardens too and…”

“And what!?” Azula asks. “And I think that you’re overreacting, a little.” He replies.

“A little?” Mai quirks a brow. “They’re a bundle of flowers, she can grow more.”

Azula clenches her fists beneath the table. “I shouldn’t have to. People should know better than to touch what belongs to me. They should know better than to disrespect…” She hisses.

“I didn’t even know that they were yours!” Sokka throws his hands up.

They are all looking at her. Glaring at her with such hatred and aggravation.

“Ya know we’re trying so hard to be nice to you.” Katara interjects. “We don’t have to and we really shouldn’t. You’re lucky that we’re giving you a second chance.”

But she feels neither lucky nor like she truly does have a chance. In fact, all she feels right now is anxious and angry. But she thinks that she might be angry at herself. She buches the fabrics of her robes beneath the table.

“And you aren’t even putting in any effort!” Toph declares.

“We thought you changed.” TyLee adds softly.

“Who gets mad over flowers?” Suki mutters. “I thought that they were pretty enough to wear.”

Azula bites the inside of her cheek, she hadn’t thought of that. Hadn’t considered that she had created something beautiful after all. Something so beautiful that someone wanted to wear it. Beautiful enough that it could have created joy for someone else. And suddenly she agrees with them, that she has made a problem out of nothing at all. Suddenly she feels horrible.

“They were my flowers…” Is all she manages.

She wants to cry, but, Agni, she can’t do it now. Not in front of so many enemies, especially ones that already gnash at her with razor teeth. She gnaws her lip that much harder. She can feel the tears building behind her eyes and they keep talking. She isn’t quite listening but they are still talking and they are still chastising.

She feels like a little girl. She feels pathetic and immature and an assortment of other dismal things. She can’t cry and she can’t look away, she is already being ridiculed enough. She feels as though they are closing in on her, she has to take her mind somewhere else… She has too…

The heat comes to her fingers before the tears have a chance to come to her eyes. She presses her fingers into her forearm and heats them much further. Everyone hates her again, they probably always will. She keeps her mind fixed on the burning sensation. It isn’t potent enough yet so she heats her fingers further still.

“Azula!” Zuko is loud enough to break through her concentration.

She stands up and pushes her chair in. She thanks Agni that her sleeves are long enough to cover the burn marks beneath. It isn’t as though she hasn’t done this before. She’d just never done it with other people in the room.

“Azula, we’re not done talking.”

But she is. She is done with a lot of things; hope and creating joys for herself among them. She pulls out her sketchbook and a fountain pen and begins slashing at the paper.

.oOo.

Azula’s room is vacant when he comes to check on her an hour later. The servants assure him that she has gone for her bath. He seats himself upon her bed. An hour later he sighs to himself, he is nodding off. He forgets how long she takes in the bath.

He stands to stretch his legs when he glances at her nightstand. At first he thinks that it is a journal, and in some sense it might be. It rests face up and open, an image done with thick ink. He knows that he ought not to, especially since their entire argument just hours ago had been about touching her belongings. But curiosity gets the better of him. He takes note of the picture she’d left open and flips to the first page. This one is just as dark, maybe more so.

The ink is applied so heavily that he can see indents on the page beneath it. The figure is hunched over, its face obscured. A plethora of weaponry juts from its back. Some arrows and a few throwing stars, but mostly there are knives. Red ink is used generously.

He turns the page to see another figure this one also has its face obscured, this time by hair. But he can sense the wild eyed gaze beneath. It wraps its arms around itself, nails clawing into its skin. Azula’s artistic talent is so much that it almost feels real, like he is looking at actual flesh that is being gripped to tightly. All around the figure are shadows, faintly human in shape, some are only hands.

The next page is much simpler; another dark-haired figure but the face is violently scribbled out. And the one next to it is similar but instead of ink, Azula blotted the face with paint. Deep, dark, paint.

The fifth image reveals a face. It’s eyes are dark and empty. There is such a deep sadness in them. He wasn’t aware that a single painting could convey such an emotion. He is so distracted by the face reveal that he almost doesn’t notice that the rest of the figure is in shambles. It’s right leg is seperated at the knee and the left is obviously broken. The left arm is twisted and bent. And its right arm is cracked and covering a large hole on its head, the cracks spiderweb onto the forehead. There is no blood, somehow this leaves him more unsettled. In the teeniest font at the bottom of the page he sees the word, ‘broken’.

He quickly flips the page. This one is not much better. Fierce and angry golden eyes look up at him. Golden eyes... The figure emits such an air of hatred that he almost closes the sketchbook as he should. But he can’t tear his eyes away. It is bleeding, its throat slashed from side to side and its wrists mutilated. Zuko finds more tiny writing. ‘Deserved.’

He comes to the page he’d first happened upon. The newest one. The worst one. It is the same figure, this time its eyes look dead and empty, thick black ink runs down its cheeks. It holds a dagger in its right hand, it’s blade adorned with red ink. The figure is naked and upon its stomach is the word, ‘monster’. His stomach sinks, in an instant he becomes aware that he has been referring to the figure as ‘it’. It is a human. It is undeniably a twisted, mutilated self portrait.

On her portrait self’s forehead, Azula had scrawled, ‘crazy’ and in smaller print, ‘lunatic’. It doesn’t matter where on the image he looks, it is full of words. Her left arm read, ‘disappointment’, ‘dishonor’,  ‘bitch’. and ‘hateful.’ Her right arm  is marred by, ‘ugly’, ‘damaged’, and ‘a mess.’

Her legs are decorated with various synonyms and the red ink drizzles down them pooling at her watercolor feet. Her chest is censored with two words, ‘heartless’ and ‘unlovable.’ The background is made of more words still but these are all overlapping one another so much that he can’t make out any of them. He doesn’t have to, to know that they are just as demeaning.

He looks back into those gold ink eyes. The sorrow within them is so complete that it is overwhelming. He hears footsteps and hustles to put the sketchbook back in its place. And pretends to be observing the dragon mural hanging at the other end of the room.

“What do you want, Zuzu?” She grumbles. Her hair is dripping, she smells like the bath she’d just taken. He might have mistook the grumble for an argumentative growl, but now it only seems dreary.

“Just to check on you.”

“For what?”

He shrugs. “I just. I know that it’s hard to try to fit in with a group of people that you hurt.”  He wants to bring up the sketchbook, but he isn’t sure how without rousing her temper.

She shrugs and sits herself back on the bed. Her eyes look nearly as vacant as they do in her portrait. “Are you okay.” He hears her insist that she’s fine in his head before she opens her mouth.

“Are you?” He asks with a pointed stare to her nightstand.

She goes very tense.

“I told you not to...we just fought over…” Her voice seems to catch. “You shouldn’t go through my things.”

“You left it on the nightstand…”

“You shouldn’t be in here at all.” Her demand lacks its usual sting.

He takes the sketchbook, “it’s not true, we don’t think those things about you.”

“You do think them.” She insists. “You just don’t say them. Not to my face. But I overhear Mai and Suki. I overhear the palace staff. Iroh…” She pauses.

His mind runs in circles trying to figure out which thing Iroh had said. Perhaps heartless...or crazy, he’d heard his uncle call her crazy before.

“I doesn’t matter anyways because even if you don’t, I…” she stops herself. Her eyes seem to go hollower still.

He rubs his hands over her face. “It wasn’t just about the flowers today, was it?” He asks.

“No.” She replies.

“What was it about?”

She waves her hand. “It doesn’t matter.”  Her head seems to droop ever so slightly. He’s going to lose her if he doesn’t do something.

“Will you come downstairs with me?”

“No.”

He takes her by the wrist and she flinches and pulls her hand out of his grasp. “Sorry,” he mutters, “I forgot that you don’t like to be touched.”  He furrows his brows. “What happened?”

.oOo.

She doesn’t resist as he takes her hand again to inspect it.

“No.” He shakes his head sadly. “No. Don’t don’t do this.” He gestures to the burn marks.

Usually when she makes him cry it is because she’d hurt him. She always imagined that he would be delighted to see her hurt. She isn’t sure why he isn’t thrilled. This is what he wanted, to see her fall and hit the bottom so that he could have the top.  

She doesn’t know why he is babbling apologies to her. He never did anything wrong. That is her job. She’s the cruel one. She’s the one who hurts people. She is hurting him now and all she had done was hurt herself.

He gives her a light shake. “Answer me?”

But she hasn’t much to say. He can pretend to care...he can actually care but it makes little difference when everyone else  hates her. When no one else does. In time, he’d be better off anyhow.

But he doesn’t let her go, Agni she wishes that he would. He only releases his hold to let her lie down but he doesn’t leave. Hours go by and he sits there quietly, occasionally nodding off. It makes her feel teary all over again, but she can’t distract herself with pain with him watching so closely.

Azula squeezes her eyes shut as the first few tears free themselves. She must have made the smallest noise because his hand now rubs small circles on her back. She tries to force herself to stop crying but his hand on her back only makes her weep harder.

And then harder still when she hears footsteps heading their way. She doesn’t know who it is, it doesn’t matter. One person seeing her like this is bad enough. “Is she gonna be okay?”

Zuko glances down at her. “I hope so, Ty.” He gives her a small nudge. “I want her to be okay.”

She swallows. She wants to be okay. But she isn’t, there isn’t one okay thing about her.

.oOo.

He can’t seem to get her to move, not for the first week. For the first week she stays in bed. During the middle of the second week is when she emerged. She was sluggish and untalkative, a silent presence at the breakfast table.

But he was thankful to see her at least up and about. He wasn’t sure exactly what had motivated her to finally leave her room. But, Agni, was he relieved. If he’d known she’d be joining them for breakfast, he would have had them cook her favorite, pancakes with mango slices mixed into the batter. An eccentric choice if he must say. He’d requested it for her the next morning.

Still she didn’t talk. She sat with them but her presence was like that of a specter or a doll. It is her sixth day of not speaking a word. He sits the pancake before her. This time she finishes a little more than half of it before staring blankly at it.

“Hey, let’s go for a walk?” He offers.

“To where?” She speaks up for the first time in ages. He never thought that he’d be so relieved to hear her voice.

“Just out back.” He smiles.

She looks around the table, “where is everyone?”

“Come on.” He helps her out of the chair and leads her outside.

.oOo.

She squints against the sunlight, she wants to go back to her room. Instead she lets Zuko lead her towards the palace gardens. They are all there; Mai, TyLee, the Avatar and his gang, and Iroh. The smell of tea, jasmine, she believes, dances on the breeze.

“What is this?” She mumbles.

The little crowd parts and she sees them. A dozen or so vividly orange fire lilies. She looks up at Zuko in both confusion and a sudden wave of distress. He must sense it on her because his hand is on her back again, “sit down and let Iroh pour you some tea.”

Azula feels shaky, she thinks that she ought to sit down. She lets Zuko lead her to the foldout table that Iroh has assembled. He pours her a cup and she takes it in her hands. She wishes that her hands weren’t trembling so obviously and that the tea cup in them didn’t make them tremble moreso.

“I’m sorry about the flowers.” Sokka says, “I didn’t realize that it bothered you that much.”

She shakes her head, “it wasn’t just about the flowers…” She pauses. She has already made herself plenty weak, they haven’t taken advantage of it yet. And so what if they do, they can’t make her feel too much worse than she already does. “They helped me wake up in the morning. To see them out there. And then I woke up and I didn’t see them…”

A little thing to latch onto. To keep her going and she couldn’t even have that. She rubs the petals of a new one between her fingers. But she does have that. Yet they aren’t the ones that she planted.

She swallows. They are the ones that were planted for her though. Maybe the thought that went into them has more weight. “Why?”

“Because you haven’t been okay for a long time and we want you to be okay.” Zuko says.

She hopes that she hasn’t told them about the sketchbook.  She stares into her empty tea cup. Iroh offers her a refill.

.oOo.

Things were different after that. Azula still didn’t talk very much in the beginning but she would tag along when they went out to eat or to see a play. She wouldn’t necessarily part take, but at least she was getting out of the palace.

He is surprised to see her on the beach, digging her toes into the sand. Every now and then she scoops a handful of it and watches it slip from the space in her fist to reach the ground it had come from.

He takes a seat next to her. “I can get you some ice cream, if you want.”

She stands up and brushes the sand off of the back of her legs. “It’ll melt by the time you get it back to me.” She lets him lead her to the stall that is selling all of the cool beverages. She decides that she wants a pineapple drink instead.

He watches her drink it down, it is hard for him to gauge how she feels. Over the next few days, they talk to her, mostly sharing stories that have no relevance to the war. Sokka tells the most horrendously unfunny jokes. She finally opens up, near the end of the week. She is more sociable and her eyes have more life in them, tired as they still are.

He catches her firebending once or twice and on another occasion he sees her teaching Aang some techniques. After that he suggests that they each have some one on one time with her. An idea she protests but goes along with.

.oOo.

Azula still feels awkward and out of place. Her stories don’t seem to have the right amount of lightheartedness, they all have somewhat of a dark edge or undertone to them. Yet they listen to her anyhow. Mai, with the faintest trace of an amused smile. The same one she always gives when Azula shares the flaming apple and fountain story.

TyLee and Katara weave hibiscus into her hair as she talks. The shell bracelet around her wrist tinkles in the breeze. Sometimes she catches one of them staring. She follows their gaze to her lightly scarred arms.

“What are you staring at?” She asks crossly, without thinking.

“Same thing I always stare at.” Toph shrugs. “Absolutely nothing.”

She manages a small snicker. It feels so normal. It all just feels so normal. She thinks that she needs normal.

.oOo.

Azula is painting different things now. He opens the door to her beach house bedroom to see several larger canvases. Most of them are recreations of the sunset. One of them is a painting of a pineapple drink.

She isn’t in her room but she has been recently. There is a scatter of seashells on her nightstand that hadn’t been there a few hours ago.

He peers out of the window and finds her playing kuai ball with Mai, Tylee, and Suki. On the other team are Aang, Toph, Sokka, and Katara. He makes his way down to the beach and waits for them to tag him in.

Their month on Ember Island is coming to a close. In just a day or so they will be making their way home. Azula, decently taken by cactus juice, has fallen asleep not quite on the couch. He hadn’t taken her for a lightweight. He especially hadn’t taken Toph for one. But the two of them are out for the night and the others aren’t far behind. Zuko doesn’t know how he has become the designated babysitter.  

Their final day on Ember Island is coming to a close. Zuko finds himself on the balcony, looking out at the sun as it casts its warm glow on the waves. Sparkles dance across the surface bathed in pinks and oranges.

“Zuzu.”

He turns around and smiles. ‘I’m glad your trip ended up going well. It did go well, right?”

She doesn’t say anything, simply pushes her sketchbook into his arms before padding away, presumably to help Mai and TyLee start their bonfire.

He opens the book to find several familiar pages of artwork. He cringes to himself as he turns to the first of the new pages. The inkwork is much lighter, less aggressive now, but the image is still melancholy. The ink rendition of Azula is laying on the ground with her hair swept out in front of her, five small burn marks are the only color on the page.

The next one over shows a familiar broken and beaten body. But this one has little plants sprouting from the cracks and insufficiently small bandaids patching them up. The next few pages to follow don’t pertain to Azula at all, not without context anyhow; there is another pineapple drink, a very lifelike shell, and an elaborate door knocker--the one they pounded furiously with at Chan’s house before running away. Of course she would draw that.

He flips to the final page. He sees another figure. Like all of the others, its resemblance to her is unmistakable. More so now that there is life in the golden ink eyes. This image exudes as much cheer as her old ones had exuded sorrow. This one has color too; bright orange watercolor paint makes a crown of fire lily around her head.  He realizes that there are a few figures in the background, little yellow blurs that glow on the page where he is used to seeing deep dark shading. He finds a single word at the bottom.

‘Reparied.’