She woke with a start. The door slammed against the padded wall.

Azula’s head was pounding horrendously. She heaved herself up, the effort staining her abdomen. She was still feeling rather groggy. Super weak and super tired. Between the lack of food and the crushing weight of the straitjacket her stomach was aching. A soft fuzz hummed softly in her ear. The linger of delirium.

Tang-Shin began their morning ritual; stirring a slushy herbal mix. It wasn’t like her old medication, but he said…he insisted that the two remedies did the same thing. He withdrew the spoon from the chunky mooch.

Some of the slurry drizzled off the spoon and back into the bowl with a slosh.

Azula cringed, her nose crinkling. She hated eating that stuff, the mushy, slimy texture as she swallowed it down.

A spoonful a morning but it was still awful. But she wanted the voices to fade. She wanted the paranoia to subside.

Shin-Tang moved in closer. He instructed her to open her mouth. She asked if he could remove the straitjacket first. With much hesitation he did. “Now, take your medication.” He held the spoon out.

Her mind clicked back to the blur that was the night prior. What was it that HeeKul had told her? Don’t take the medication—or something like that, she recalled.

“This would be much easier if you would do as you’re told.” Tang-Shin pointed out. “You’ve never had a problem with taking your medications before.”

“I don’t need them right now. I feel fine.” It was the first coherent sentence she had formed in a little over a week. And it wasn’t a lie—in way of her mental state she was feeling much better than she had in a while…

Hell-bent on proving her wrong, Ursa lingered in the corner of the room. Tang-Shin didn’t need to know that though.

“You are anything but fine. You’ve been speaking nonsense since you arrived here. Last night, in fact, was one of your worst episodes yet.” He lifted the spoon to her lips again. She made no effort to part them.

“If you think I won’t pry your lips open and force this down your throat, you’re sorely mistaken.” Tang-Shin threatened .

She could hear HeeKul screaming at her (be it in the form of her conscience or another auditory hallucination) as she let her lips part slightly. She’d rather eat on her own accord than to be force fed. If she put up a fight his suspicions would rise. One day she’d worm her way out of downing that herbal disaster. Today wasn’t that day.

She’d first have to find a way to let him take the slushy medication herself so she could dispose of it without his knowledge. And with that she’d have to think up place to discard it that would go undetected.

This moment offered her no time to mull any of it over. And within minutes the dense fog created by this medication would cloud over her brain once more. Intertwined with her own, now untreated, fragile state of mind, she’d never be able to formulate any plan of use.

She felt the metal of the spoon scrape against her teeth.

The near-liquid substance leaking down her throat. Her gag reflex kicked in as that disgusting, putrid substance leaked downward. It tasted a felt like vomit, mud, and the insects that dwelled within the mud. Azula wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what this ‘medication’ was composed of.

Azula knew that her rationality—her connection with reality—was now on its way to slipping from her again. The moments before would be nowhere near enough time to make her plan. Azula felt herself becoming, once again, a susceptible hollow shell. A body without a real mind.

She’s soon be stripped of herself. Dulled…moldable—as HeeKul so kindly put it.

She used her last lucid sentence to ask when she’d be getting real food…

Her last fully awake movement to grip her aching middle and look up.

Her last genuinely conscious thought to wonder just how long it had been since she’d had a real meal, or even a meal at all. Probably around the time he started forcing her to eat that slop.

“I suppose, since you’ve been well behaved.” He paused. “Of course I am choosing to ignore your…hesitance a few moments ago.”

It was a shame she would be able to enjoy it properly.

Azula got to her a surge of tell-tale dizziness overtaking her. She stumbled, tripping over her feet. The last lucid chunk of her, fuming at the fact Tang-Shin hadn’t even put a hand out to stabilize her…much less keep her from hitting the floor.

Again she found herself thanking Agni for the padding.

Though the padding wasn’t enough to knock the forming fog away…if anything it quickened its arrival.

Azula’s mind and body lost connection again.

The twin nurses heaved her up (their names refused to come to Azula), they had to…her muscles felt like soft wax, like she’d just been chi-blocked. Where was she going again? Tang-Shin seemed to know. So she’d just follow him…not that she had a choice.

Azula had never eaten with her fellow patients before. They were an odd bunch; a bald man seizing in the corner, another with drool dripping down his chin, a woman with rapidly darting blue eyes and anxiously drumming fingers. And on the other side of the room a teen boy babbled to himself next to a girl of the same age group who had taken to rolling around on the floor.

“What are you all doing. Chi block her!” Tang-Shin barked at the male nurses lounging in the corner drinking hot tea and playing Pai Sho. They bickered silently to one another before one of the two got up and landed the girl on the floor with a few quick jabs, grumbling the whole time.

She watched Tang-Shin stride off.

Kirah and Zhu-Ling cuffed Azula to her chair near a group of peoples like her. The ones whose once nearly stable minds were numbed. This group didn’t twitch or drool. They were prone to mood swings, obsessive compulsions, delusions, outbursts of violence, or hallucinations.

If Azula were in her right state of mind she would have wondered how many of them were as in control as she—how many of them, like her, didn’t truly need to be drugged at that moment.

Azula tried to move her hands to the fork. She didn’t understand, why wasn’t it working!? She looked down. Oh right, the cuffs. She had forgotten about them, she jerked her hand up and with it re-opened the cuts on her wrist.

She thrashed rapidly against the cuffs, eyes growing wide.

She felt a blow to her head, interrupting her distress.

“Knock it off.” It was one of the twins—only one of them was present...when had the other left?

What had she been doing again?

Her arms relaxed. Her body going limp. She felt sleepy…so sleepy. She let her head fall forward. “Where’s Zu-Zu?” she found herself mumbling. “Where’s Zu-Zu? He needs to help me…” she lost her train of thought. “Zu-Zu was supposed to come and take me home.” She was overtaken by a sense of sadness but she couldn’t quite figure out what to do with it…how to express it.

Before she could process her options a bowl was placed before her.

Kirah didn’t wait for Azula’s mind to catch up before shoving a forkful of food into the princess’ mouth. The fork jabbed into her tongue, drawing blood. She hadn’t even finished chewing when Kirah bought the fork to Azula’s mouth again.

She nearly choked. Tears prickled her eyes.

She didn’t remember willing them forward.

Azula focused—tried to focus on chewing the food safely.

The vegetables were undercooked and the rice still rather hard. It finally occurred to her that this food was disgusting. She spat it out. Chunks of half chewed food showered the tabled, clung to the corners of her mouth and chin, and littered her uniform.

She began coughing.

Zhu-Ling kicked the chair out from underneath Azula. She fell flat on her face, this time she didn’t have that lovely padding. She felt a kick in the ribs.

“You disgusting, filthy…” the woman scowled down at her.

Azula didn’t know what was going on. She was like a child, whatever abuse was taking place right now was beyond her comprehension. All she knew through her drugged haze was that she was afraid, someone was hurting her and she didn’t know why.

She curled into herself as far as her restraints would allow. Her whole body was quivering. “Zu-Zu…” She finally found means to express that sadness.

Tears.

She started weeping…crying…sobbing.

She was a sticky mess of dirt, grime, food, blood, and tears. Mess being the understatement. Her body mangled and filthy in every sense of the way; disgusting, filthy—that’s what Zhu-Ling had called her, and the woman was more than right.

Azula screamed out.

To whom she had no clue.

For what? The pain rippling over her body. The confusion that boggled her mind. The shame, embarrassment, and self-loathing. Even in this state she knew she was a sad and sorry cry for help, that she was completely helpless.

She longed to put her hands to her head, to dig her nails into her scalp in an attempt to be rid herself of the agony in her head.

“Zu-Zu…” she whimpered softly.

***
Zuko strolled into the institution just as he had done the day before.

“I’m here for my sister.”

“With all due respect Firelord, it hasn’t been a week yet…hasn’t even been two days.”

“Consider this; I’m here to, I don’t know, visit her. Strange concept, I know.” The sarcasm slid into his voice before he could stop it.

Kirah was more than happy to return it. “How about you…consider this; visiting hours are over.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t one to throw the ‘how dare you treat royalty like this card’ but his patience was growing thin. He has had more than enough of this place, he could only imagine how Azula felt. The girl put him through Hell and back but she didn’t deserve to deal with this woman…and whatever else she was going through.

“I’m sure you can make an exception for me.” Zuko replied.

“No exceptions, your majesty.” Kirah put a little hiss on the ‘your majesty.’

“Let me speak to Tang-Shin.”

“He’s a little busy today. You’ll have to come back tomorrow. And if you want to see your sister, it’ll have to be between 10 and 11:00.”

“Of course it will.” He muttered, the sundial out front had read something a little past 11 when he had walked past it.

Kirah flashed him a such a phony smile, it made Azula’s look real. “Rest assured, she’s in good hands.”

Azula felt Zhu-Ling slap her once more. Someone was laughing. A bunch of someones, staff and patient alike. No one seemed intent on helping her off of the ground figuratively nor literally.

She was so weak. The small, sane part of Azula ridiculing her for being so pathetic, for letting them do this to her; letting them dope her up and humiliate her like this. For making a savage animal of herself.

That small sane part of her was trying desperately to claw out and clear the fog.

“Really good hands. The best in fact.” Kirah repeated, her shitty false smile not meeting her eyes.

Zuko stormed out of the institution. He had to leave, as he wanted nothing more than to punch someone and throw something. And he had no desire to land himself a spot in the very place that evoked such emotions. He’d see her tomorrow. Azula was Azula, she could handle herself.

With her hands cuffed to that chair she had no means to defend herself from the continuing flurry of fists. With every collision of hand and head, that saner Azula was pushed further back. What the hell had she done to earn herself this one? The growing mist kept her from remembering.

He stepped back onto the boat, leaving Sun Dragon island behind…leaving his sister at their mercy.

A sickening crack sent blood spurting from her nose. Her sobs were choked. The woman was shouting at some Azula person. Azula once again struggled to place who that was. And she wouldn’t remember, not until the clouds cleared.