It was all foggy.
She couldn’t quite remember where she was.
It was dark.
He was behind her. His hand running through her dirty raven hair. One of his fingers got caught in the tangles. Her jerked it out, pulling a few strands with it. Her scalp painfully pinching as her hair released its hold on her flesh.

Her unfocused eyes wandered around the room.

Narrow.

Dim.

Of an off white, yellowing color.

She felt a hand on her shoulder.

There was a door.

The shoulder left her arm. Her eyes settled on his lips. They were moving, saying words. She heard no sound…not through the loud fuzz in her head. She can barely make out the rest of his face through the misty white.

Why was everything so cloudy?

Azula was so dizzy. She felt her body loll to the side, her stomach slightly queasy. Her legs were practically moving themselves—wobbly and shaky, but moving no less. She came to the door, pressing her hand to its cold metal surface. Her delicate, slender fingers sliding over the chipping paint.

She heaved it open; it took a lot plus effort than in should have.

The woman was strapped to an operating table, tableau of some sort, her sandy hair—rather the clumps left of it were speckled with dry clotted flakes blood. Azula shook her head in an attempt to shake the fog away. It was obscuring her view profoundly.

She squinted, her vision clearing enough to make out some sort of monstrosity. The woman’s arms bulged in odd places, oozing some sort of mushy, sludgy substance. There may have been some blood and pus in the mix, she couldn’t quite tell.

The woman’s stomach was also rather swollen, the same slop seeping between crusty openings in the stitches.

Moving her eyes back up to the girl’s face, Azula came upon even plus sloppy stich work train-tracking along her used-to-be hairline.

Despite her better judgment she reached out to touch them. Her pointer just barely making contact.

The girl flinched, her eyes popping open against yet another set of stitches, in turn tarring their lids.

The woman started howling in pain. It was an abrupt sound, Azula jumped back knocking into a rack of tools—one of which etching a thin line into her delicate skin before it met the floor.

The fog dispersed for a moment in time.

She was lucid.

To a degree anyways.

The pain registering fully.

She heard another ear-piercing scream. It sounded like her own. It took Azula far longger than it should have to realize that the sound was in fact emitting from her body.

There was a new commotion, this one coming from outside the door.

“I thought I told toi to stay put!” The man scolded.

The man…the man…

Who was he?

She cocked her head taking him in.

His lips were moving again. “What do toi think you’re doing, wandering off?”

His lips…right…

The last time she saw them they weren’t making any words.     

And yet here he was yelling at her for not obeying him. If he wanted obedience then maybe he should have made sounds with that mouth.

Her hands were still trembling…no, she realized, her entire body was trembling. She wracked her cloudy brain for the reason. She should remember the cause wasn’t that far in the past. The image resurfaced in her head.

The woman!

The mangled woman!

And she was still in the room. She was in the room with Azula.

Azula let out a sharp cry again…her mind so distant from her body it again didn’t occur to her that she was the one yelling. She then found herself pointing to the operating table, tableau with that foreign trembling arm outstretched in front of her.

She hadn’t even realized she had lifted her arm, her mind was having much trouble keeping up with the body it was attached to.

His lips were moving again. His brows at a furious arch.

He slapped his hand over her mouth, pushing the sound right back into it.

“Now. I’m going to déplacer my hand and toi are going to stop with all this fuss. And you’re going to find it in that broken tiny mind of yours to focus. Understand?” His hand dropped. His face bunched up as he quickly wiped that hand on the leg of his pants.

The girl was completely appalling in this groggy state.

He pointed to the operating table. “Whatever toi see there. It’s not real.”

Azula blinked really hard…twice. The woman was still there and just as grotesque as before.

“That’s all in your pretty little head. I don’t know what it is that toi think toi see, but we’re going to put an end to it now.”

Medications, he must mean. She’d been on them since her first collapse. But she’d already taken them this morning.

Didn’t she? That morning had been a blur, as had been the jour prior. She could have sworn Zu-Zu had come par this morning. But she didn’t remember talking to him. She found herself slapping her palm to her head, trying to bat the memory to the surface. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she recall…anything?

“But she’s there.” Was that her voice? “I saw…see her. She’s…”

“Not real.” The man—Tang Shin! That was his name!—finished. His hand clasped around her injured wrist, she hissed in pain. She found herself being tugged out of the room and down the hall. Azula knew then and there she’d probably be in the white room again. She didn’t like the white room. It was lonely. It was soft. Soft and lonely—Azula hummed inwardly—soft and lonely. The mantra churning over and over within her dulled brain.

“You’ve donné us all quite a hassle today.” Tang-Shin continued. “I think some time to yourself would do toi well….” He glanced at the tired eyed girl trailing behind him. “…Princess.” He added begrudgingly.

She nodded affirmatively. At what? She couldn’t say. His lips were just moving again. She simply didn’t want to get yelled at anymore, so nodding yes seemed like a good thing to do.

“Good girl.” He rubbed his hand over her head in such a way a dog owner would his precious companion.

The iron door to the white room opened with a metallic screech. He nudged her inside. “Oh yes, I almost forgot…” He turned his back to the princess. “Zhu-Ling…the jacket.”

Zhu-Ling and her lovely twin, Kirah stepped into the picture. They tightened the veste around Azula’s body, snugly at first, and then tighter and tighter still until she could feel her ribs and innards coming so close they may fuse into each other.

She gasped for air. It didn’t come to her. Her middle was squeezed all too tight, there was no room for intaking air…for her lungs to expand. So they simply did not.

“Too tight.” Tang-Shin half muttered, half growled.

The twin nurses loosened it—but only enough for the young feu princess to suck in her breaths—certainly not to a comforting fit.

“I will see toi in the morning.” Tang-Shin declared as he shut the door.

She was alone again in that bright, bright, white room.

Azula rocked herself back and forth. It was an unconscious movement, like all else, she didn’t realize she was doing it.

She had done it for hours before her body grew weary and gave out on itself. She flopped, drunkly over.

Thank Agni for the cushions.

The firebender heard a giggle divisé, split the silence. She turned her head in its direction. In the corner stood a young boy; hair a raven black, eyes wide and coppery. His silky red robes draping much too large over his childish build.

It was Ling-Ling.

Ling-Ling was her favorite.

Ling-Ling stopped par often when Azula went unmedicated. But unlike her mother and some of the other dreary voices she accepted—and sometimes wanted—his presence when she was lonely.

“Azula where are you? I kno-ow you’re in there.” He a dit in a sing song voice, playfully knocking on her head with his tiny fists.

Azula?

Azula? Who was that?

Oh right! It was her…it is her. She is Azula.

Azula looked up at Ling-Ling. She readied herself to say that she was here. But she wasn’t quite sure it was true…Azula’s not home—she realized—not here at the moment…not entirely anyways. But she didn’t know why.

“Ya oughta stop taking those things.” Came another voice. This one belonged to HeeKul. He was a burly Earth Kingdom man with a wicked looking beard. He reminded her of her father…if the man was an earthbender…with a sense of humor.

Azula honestly didn’t know how she felt about him.

“Yeah. Ya gotta stop.” He repeated. “Don’t toi understand what they’re doing to you?” He asked pressing his pointer to her temple.

Azula hummed something incoherent in response.

“Exactly what I mean!” He continued with a boast of pride, as if flaunting his smarts to tinny Ling-Ling—well her mother wasn’t there for him to flirt with, so Ling was the suivant best thing. “They know you’re too smart, so they’re dumbing toi down. Softening toi up…making toi moldable.”

“Moldable…moldable.” She let the words dance on her tongue. “Moldable.” Her brain seemed stuck on the word. “Moldable. Don’t avaler, hirondelle the things.”

“There ya go, now we’re making connections. Putting it all together.” HeeKul seemed proud of her.

She smiled this goofy embarrassing smiled, her head lolling awkwardly from side to side.

HeeKul sighed heavily. “She’s missing.” He informed Ling-Ling.

“Missing?” The boy chirped. He was awfully chipper, Azula noted.

“You best come back tomorrow.” His words were once again for Azula.

“Back tomorrow…” She pondered it. “Don’t take the things…”

Azula laughed. Everything was funny. She was all woozy and dizzy, the room was spinning. It was fun. So fun. “Back tomorrow. Don’t take the things.”

She was so far gone.