Damaged and Discarded
Mostly, Azula doesn’t feel much like a princess anymore. On most days they leave her bound tightly, confining her to a small room. Most days, they don’t even bother to proper her up against the wall, instead she is carelessly laid on the floor like an outgrown toy. Really, that’s what she is; once cherished, once taken everywhere. But as soon as it had cracked, as soon as a piece or two bent, its use was over and it was tossed under the bed or into a closet. Holed up in the dark and forgotten about.
Unloved and uncared for.
She wants to curl herself up but the straitjacket doesn’t allow for it. Instead she is forced to deal with her discomfort, one of these days she’d get used to it and grow numb to it. She closes her eyes and prays that she will not dream.
Nightmares always disturb her to the core and terrorize her sleep.
Dreams always leave her with a sense of melancholy longing.
She doesn’t know which is worse.
Being awake is worse than either though. Eventually she can leave her dreams behind. She can’t leave her waking life. Her waking life where she is roughly handled. Where she is hoisted up and fed food that barely resemble such. Where they rather aggressively forced her to eat when she refused the sickly looking meal they presented her with. Where they shove pills into her mouth or prick her with needles when she gets to moody with them. She is not allowed to have emotions. They render her less expressive than Ozai ever had. They talk about her, but they never say her name. The whisper about how she is a hassle, about how she isn’t worth the fuss. How they wish that the Fire Lord would have just imprisoned her alongside her father.
She no longer has any dignity.
No longer has any value.
She begins to think of herself as an object.
They toss her around like one.
Even when Zuko comes to pick her up, the mentality never leaves her. He mutters some sort of apology and something, something about how he didn’t realize they were being so negligent.
But it is so normal for her. So normal that she no longer questions if their treatment of her had been unjustified.
So normal that she doesn’t think that it was.
She doesn’t speak to him.
She doesn’t speak to anyone.
Objects don’t talk.
Objects get handled and discarded. She doesn’t understand why he has pulled her out from under the bed. She is broken and her use is expired. He tries to talk to her but she only listens. He asks her for her opinions, she doesn’t give them. She doesn’t have a right to them. Every morning he asks her how she is feeling, what she is feeling. She doesn’t answer, objects don’t have feelings. Even if they do, they aren’t of any importance.
For the most part Azula lays in bed, half expecting to be rudely roused from sleep and forced to the dinner table. But no one disturbs her, not in such a manner. Zuko sets food on her dresser she doesn’t touch it the first few times. She doesn’t touch it until her belly aches too much for her to ignore it. Only then, does she take a bite. She doesn’t even like steak, but she has no place to protest so she forces herself to eat.
The only time she is ever forced out of bed is when they make her bathe. They offer to let her bathe herself, but when she refuses, they do it for her. They undress her and lift her into the water. She is discomforted by the eyes on her body. But she is an object so they can do as they please. There is a little relief in that they all look terribly uncomfortable and do their best to keep their hands away from certain places.
It is the most respect she has been shown in a long while. Faintly, for a moment she thinks of herself as a human being again. But then she recalls what has been said of her in the institution and the illusion is shattered. With care, they lift her out of the tub and dress her once more, in clean clothes. She wonders who had chosen the outfit.
Her hair is brushed and she is tucked back in. Routine doesn’t change for a long time. She sleeps, she eats when she feels up to it, and she bathes when they make her. She doesn’t protest. She doesn’t do anything at all. Occasionally she lets a small flame burn in her hand, simply staring at it, trying to remember days when she mattered. Days when she was human.
She doesn’t know how much time has gone by, but it is bath time again and nervousness overtakes her. She doesn’t want to be stripped, yet she has no place to vocalize her concerns. They don’t matter. But this morning is different from most. Her door opens and a familiar voice speaks, “Zuko said it’s bath time. He says that he thinks you’ll be more comfortable with someone you know giving it to you.”
Azula takes a sharp breath and looks away from the figure in the door. An arm slides under hers and she is forced to her feet. “I can’t carry you.” The voice huffs. “Can you please walk?”
It is a question but it may as well have been a demand. Feeling hollow, Azula pads down the hallway and into the bathroom. She stands and waits for her robes to be removed. It takes TyLee a good while to realize that Azula isn’t going to do so herself. Hesitantly, TyLee does so, mumbling, “he mentioned that you usually have other people do this for you…”
Soon she is in the bathtub again with gentle fingers working shampoo into her hair. Azula, rigid and unmoving, stares at her hands.
“You still like saffron shampoo the best, right? Or do you want me to use lavender instead?”
Azula continues to stare at her hands, flexing her fingers once or twice.
“I want you to be happy with this bath. I know that you have a preference.”
Azula swallows, she wants to cry. She clenches her fingers. TyLee is too persistent. Finally and quietly she answers, “I still like saffron.”
TyLee smiles. “I thought so.” She pauses. “Is the water hot enough for you?”
Goosebumps crawl over Azula skin. She shakes her head and TyLee calls for a few firebenders to heat the water. They leave once the water starts to steam. “Better?” She asks and Azula nods.
TyLee finishes lathering Azula’s locks and rinses the suds away. Azula’s stomach churns when TyLee picks up a bar of soap. “It’s also saffron. Do you want to do it yourself? Zuko says that you usually don’t…”
Azula stares at the bar of soap for a moment before taking in her hand. Because she does want to do it herself, she always wants to do it herself, but no one has ever insisted that she make that decision until now. She runs the soap over her body until she feels sufficiently clean and hands the soap back to TyLee. The woman doesn’t protest and puts the bar away.
Azula admits to herself that it is nice to have someone put things away for her again. It is nice to be treated like a human again. “Do you want me to comb your hair now or should I wait until it dries?” Usually the servants take the brush to her hair right away. She doesn’t like this because her hair usually snags when it is wet.
“Wait until it dries.”
TyLee sets the brush down and fetches a towel. This time she doesn’t wait for TyLee to ask, she stands, takes the towel, and pats herself dry. It has taken too long but she begins to realize that she has been the only one viewing herself as a possession. She looks through the few outfits TyLee has laid out and picks one. It becomes apparent that Zuko and the palace staff had tried to give her choices, they just hadn’t the correct method. And perhaps they feared being too persistent. Perhaps they had, despite their own discomforts, decided to themselves that Azula would have said something if they had been making her uncomfortable.
She wishes that they hadn’t drawn that conclusion.
Azula tightens the sash holding her robes together. What is done is done. She supposes that she should just be glad for TyLee’s reappearance in her life. And glader still for the girl’s apparent forgiveness. She wonders about the state of herself, it must have been pretty poor for TyLee to simply let things go.
“Now what?” TyLee asks.
The question takes Azula aback. She realizes, with a nervous jitter, that she has been given control. The sort that she hasn’t seen in ages. And for the first time, she isn’t entirely sure what to do with it. She almost says that she wants to go back to her room and return to sleep, it is an impulse.
One that she ignores.
Still, she doesn’t know what she wants.
It has been so long since others...since she has allowed herself to want anything.
Azula closes the space between she and TyLee and folds her arms around the woman. Because that is what she wants to do. She wants to hold someone...she wants to hold TyLee specifically. Likely because she can convey the weight of her gratitude vocally.
It is as though TyLee has washed the damage away, a good portion of it, anyhow. She kisses TyLee’s neck, because that is also what she wants to do. TyLee rubs her back and mumbles something akin to, “I’m glad you’re doing better.”
And Azula is starting to feel like a human again.
She is starting to feel like a princess again.