Chapter Text
A burning sensation dances agonizingly over her body. The day was already humid, suffocating so. But this…
This is something else.
Her head is pounding something furious and her lungs strain against that suffocating heat. And for her eyes—she might as well be staring directly into the sun. It is her skin though. Her skin that absolutely smolders. It is blistering but without a bubble on her skin. There is no blackening, no rolling smoke. Nothing but the sensation of being ablaze. It comes from the inside.
It is a pain that burrows far deeper than the skin it singes her to her core leaving her bones feeling a mock sensation of melting away.
Her muscles a sense of uselessness.
Her heart aching in such a way that she can swear that it is ready to burst
And for what? What has she done? Plenty of unkind things, that is true enough. But what is so dreadful that she needs to boil alive. She screams, cries out into a vast jungle that swallows her voice. She almost expects fire to erupt from her throat, a roar of flames to match her roar of agony.
Why?
Why her?
Is she really so horrible?
The spirits love to torment her. And maybe that’s what this is; just another wicked illusion. Something that she has to fend off with her hands gripping either side of her aching head. Maybe she just needs to will it away. But she has been trying. Trying for the last several days. She has lost count of how many of them have gone by. Enough, though, that her mind is beginning to fray. Illusion or reality, the burning is only growing more intense.
She has found a lake, a small pool with nearly frigid waters—exceptionally cold for being in the middle of the Fire Nation—and she slips her body into it. The burning persists.
She drinks water until her stomach can handle no more. The fire takes up more space.
She stops coming out in the daytime when the sun sears the brightest. She can smell smoke in her nostrils.
And when all else fails, she scratches at her skin. Peeling away at it just to see if the flames will burst through. She wishes that they would, just so she can know that it isn’t her imagination. They never do.
They rage inside of her until she finally buckles to the floor, gripping her furiously pounding head. The ground is moist and cool, the mosses tickle her cheek. But it offers no relief. She curls her fingers into her hair and the pain shifts in such a way that it becomes more intense in her stomach. And when she grasps her simmering middle the pain shifts once more to reside predominantly in her chest. She hopes that her heart will combust so that she can finally have some peace.
Tears do not cool her. They don’t do anything at all except fall from her eyes. “Please.” She murmurs to no one in particular. There is no one around. Just the trees and their whispering canopy. “Make it stop.”
She just wants to go home. She just wants her life back, the life that she had before everything fell apart. She wants her mind back. Wants her body back. Her body hasn’t been taken quite yet.
She shifts positions several times over; first to sit upright with her knees drawn to her burning chest, head nuzzled in her knees, second to laying on her back as stiff as she can manage, and third to a fetal position. It is here that she remains, curled in on herself with her arms curled tightly at her chest. She whimpers softly against that festering feeling that refuses to subside, even for a second.
There is no relief.
There is no break.
No period of respite.
Just an endless stream of raging fire. Perpetual pain in a physical sense to match the feelings in her head. She has no peace. Not in mind. Not in body. Certainly not in soul. And maybe this is her own doing, maybe she has earned this. The spirits have no corporal forms, but she has still managed to step on a good many of their toes.
Her lips part but she has nothing to say and no one to say it too. She is alone with her suffering. Alone with remorse and regret that she can’t quite place. She doesn’t want to be alone right now but she has been left again. She can’t imagine that Zirin would really care anyhow. Her mind begins to wander. Wander to a place where Zirin comes upon her. Even in her own mind, the woman just walks away with a shake of her head. Even in her own mind, she has been abandoned.
Her tears feel like rivers of lava on her face. Surely they are leaving trails of blisters on her face. They burn so hot that they must be doing so. Azula thinks that she is reaching a boiling point. A fine film of sweat clings to her face. She is absolutely sweltering.
And then…
And then with only two small pops and a crackle for a warning her skin goes up in flames.
She can see it now, tongues of fire rushing from a blacked spot on her elbow. They crawl up her arm.
She shrikes, howling under a sweltering midday sun. The jungle vibrates with excitement. Vibrates for the justice that has finally been paid. She swears that she hadn’t been that horrible. That life has been crueler to her than she has ever been to it. She screams long enough for the fire to finally gush from her mouth. Her body is a volcano and it has finally erupted. The fire washes over her face, catching skin, hair, and clothing. She thinks that it all might be melting away.
The flames overtake her, encompassing her entirely. She screams until her lungs are taken by the smoke. Screams until her voice box is claimed by the fire. Her skin blackens and hardens. Inch by inch, the fire burns her away until she is certain that there is nothing left of her but burnt bones and her defeated, troubled mind.
And yet she lives on.
She has curled so tightly in on herself that she isn’t certain that she can unbunch. So she lays there, weeping silently and without tears. She is all dried up. She cannot stand, she cannot move, she cannot twitch, she can barely breath. But her heart still beats and her brain still throbs. Her nerves still function, that is for certain.
More than anything, Azula just wants to go home. To wake up in her bedroom. Agni, at this point she wouldn’t mind waking up in a straight jacket with one of those agitating nurses telling her that she had imagined the entire ordeal.
Finally.
Finally, some hours later the pain begins to subside.
It dulls to something terribly uncomfortable but vaguely tolerable.
This, she resigns herself, is her new existence.
A soul locked within in a body shrouded in furious fire.
Always aching and always alone.