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bellatrixobsessed1 · 4 years

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Athazagoraphobia (Part 19)

I have finally reached a point where I don’t have to look up at the other tabs to spell Athazagoraphobia.

“I am your princess and I am telling you to let my father out.”

The female guard, who Azula has come to know as both Yoka and the prison’s leader, crinkles her nose. “Do you forget what the world has come to? Your title is null. Your demands have now power.”

It hits her in double, because the woman reminds her very much of Bujing. Perhaps her birthright no longer holds weight but blackmail always has stock. “Let him out of his cell or I will personally inform each and every one the inmates of exactly what has become of the outside.”

Yoka’s shoulders go rigid.

“You said it yourself, my title is null. So are your laws.” She feels the parasites simmer beneath her skin, seemingly with her growing aggravation. It brings her a new and great sense of unease to think that they might be syncing up with her psyche. She swallows and pushes on, “I’ll speak with that man first.” She points to a particularly fussy inmate.

Yoka chews on her lip, muttering something about never letting another outsider in. “I’ll bargain with you, Azula.”

“State your proposal.” Azula folds her hands in her lap. “You’ve kept me waiting this long. What has it been? A week now?”

“We’ve kept you and that needy old hag fed for a week.” Zekyul comments.

The parasites stir within her head. “Li is...was an esteemed royal advisor. She’s still an elder, speak well of her.” She lets a brilliant blue flame flare up in her palm., all the while wondering when she had grown so fiercely protective of the woman.

“I will release your father, but it won’t only be from his cell. If he wants his freedom, then he can find it in the outside world.”

Azula keeps her expression carefully blank. She gives a drawn out sigh. She had been planning on departing soon anyhow. “Fine, but I will take supplies as well.”

“No more than a third.” Yoka says. “We have more mouths to feed.”

“I am aware.” She won’t let the world nor the parasites turn her savage. “I just need enough to sustain us until we reach the port.”

Yoka extends a hand and Azula shakes it. “Zekyul, show Azula to the food reserves. I will get your father and inform him of our agreement.”

“Let me speak to him about that.” Azula says quickly. “He’ll take more kindly to me.”

.oOo.

The sun glares down upon her, it is a particularly smoldering day. “Are you sure that you don’t want to stay in the prison?”

“I told you that I will take care of you until my time expires, princess.” Li insists. Azula is glad for her loyalty.

She watches her father squint against the sun. How long has it been since he has seen the light? He grins, “the world welcomes me back.”

She does’t point out the macabte perfume of burst boils and blood. The rancidly sweet odor of the infected. “We shouldn’t stay in one place for too long. The parasites are around, I can sense them.”

“Sense them?” Ozai questions.

Li nods, “we’ve been out here long enough to tell when a predetor is about. Azula has always been good at detecthing them. I has kept us alive.

Ozai smiles, “the strong can adapt.” She notes his unspoken praise. “Though I did expect more strenght from this nation; more than just the two of you and those lowly guards.” If the delapadation all around him distrubs him, he certianly doesn’t display it. “I’m sure that we’ll come across more on our way to Capinal City square.

“Father, the square has been overrun by the infected. Li and I just came from there.”

“Where were you headed?”

“To find you…” she pauses. “And to get to the port.”

“The port?” He asks as they continue to walk along.

“We were going to take a ship to the tribes.”

“The Water Tribes?” He furrows his brows. “What fool’s idea was that?”

Azula swallows and with burning cheeks and an awkward cough confesses, “it was mine, father.”

“You wanted to run?”

“We can’t rebuild our nation if we aren’t alive to do it. I was thinking…” she trails off, trying to come up with an answer that would saciate him. “...we’d go to the tribes to recover, build our strenght, and accquire a few weapons and soilders.”

Ozai considers. “Yes, I can see the use in that. I shouldn’t have doubted you’re ability to strategize, though for a moment I thought you were losing your touch.” In an instant, it hits her that the last time she had seen him was when he’d left her behind with a false crown. “If the tribes are in the same state as our nation, we can simply take them over.”

Azula’s stomach sinks furter. She isn’t sure if it is as the thought of the tribes lacking sanctuary or that her father is still fighting a war that is long over. She lets them fall into a tense silence that is lost on Ozai. She lets the man revel in his newfound freedom. Perhaps his boldness will fade when the novelty wears off. Hours of quiet--which she excuses to him as trying not to draw hosts and parasites to them--leaves her room to think of nothing but the throbbing in her leg. She wants to ask her father to carry her like Shinu used to when she complained of an ache in her leg. Her crutches catch in a small crater and she stumbles. Li helps steady her. Feeling foolish for not having paid attention, she chances a look at her father who offers her only merciless indifference. She thinks that he might have scoffed.

It deters her from asking if they can rest for a moment. But Li, seeming to have picked up on her many moods and subtle displays of distress says, “my old bones can’t take much more of this walking. Can we stop for a bit, princess?”

One cross look from her father has Azula shaking her head, “we should get somewhere secure before taking any pause.”

Though she can’t think of a single place between their current location and the port that could offer even minimal protection from the hosts and the parasites.

“What exactly does this infection look like?” Ozai asks.

Azula points to a gaggle of hosts. “They are completely feral.”

“They’re gathering.” Li points out.

“They must be feeding.”

“They eat human flesh?” Ozai asks.

Azula shakes her head. “They eat a person’s spirit energy and make room for the parasite spirits to take it over.” A cry rings out, accented by the unrelenting whispers and echoing between crumbling buildings. “We should move on, they’re drawing in more of them.”

One of the hosts turn around. And one after another they all mimick the first, until each of them stare at the trio with their glassy eyes. Among them she sees a few newly infected. Near the center of the hoard is a host so new that its skin has not yet begun to decay. Azula is certain that it is the woman who had screamed.

“Do they always do that?” Ozai inquires.

“No.” Li says. “This is irregular behavior, usually they attack.” She pauses and watches each of the hosts tremor. The contortion ripples through them one after another like an undulating wave. “I’ve never seen them do this.”

“I have.” Azula notes. “Before we left the palace.” They could very well be staring at all three of them, but Azula gets the sense that they are only staring at she and Li.

One of them breaks from the crowd followed by another and Azula’s breath catches in her throat. She would know those green eyes anywhere, the Fire Nation doesn’t have many half breeds. Even through the infection, Shinu keeps his half blood spouse.

They are in different stages of decay; Shinu lacks an eye and part of his nose has fallen away. His jaw hangs slack, a spill of tongue flaps around in the breeze. While the half blood only has matted hair and pockmarked skin. Regardless of decay, they are ripe with silver-blue tendrils. And their eyes. Azula’s stomach lolls. She can see him there, existing as only a small agonized fragment. She can’t imagine that it will be long before his eyes go glossy and he drifts from his lover.

“Let’s go.” Azula mutters. “Before they decide to attack.”

When no one protests, she leads them into the closest alley. It is just about as foul as she expects, uninfected bodies lay in slumped heaps, decorated with squirming piles of maggots. If not for her crutches she would be swatting flies left and right, instead they assault and aggravate her. Her nose bunches up in both disgust and discomfort. It is just distracting enough for her to step on a stray entrail. She doesn’t look down to see exactly what one it is. Weeks ago she might have stopped to vomit. Her father is a different matter; she pretends to take no notice to save him his dignity.

She hustles to get out of the alleyway but halts in her tracks at a figure hunched over and eating one of the fetid corpses. Goosebumps rise on her flesh when it strikes her that no whispers accompany this body. It is human.

It. He looks up. His head is turned but she only needs to see his profile. “Ruon?” She says softly.

She almost asks him what he is doing, making a meal of a rotting body. She supposes that there aren’t very many food options around. She carefully stoops down and opens her pack, fishing out some stale bread. “Here.”

“Oh, Agni, it hurts.” He wheezes, ignoring her offer entirely. “I need to make it stop.” His speech is so garbled that she can’t make it out. He cups his head in his hands. When he looks back up she understands. She understands and she follows in her father’s footsteps. The entire left side of his face has rotted away, exposing jutting bone and muscle tissue.

Azula realizes that he hadn’t been feasting at all. He was ripping and tearing flesh from the cadaver and pasting them onto the spots of his face that have rotted away. “It doesn’t stop hurting.” He informs.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so disturbing if she knew that he was just a mindless husk. She supposes that, in some way he is. She sees no tendrils writing beneath his skin nor embedded in his eyes. She can’t sense them anywhere on him and his remaining eye is weeping and bloodshot. It expresses a degree of pure torture that only a human can convay. But he has been reduced to only that torment. She sees on him the insanity she’d seen in the mirror before she’d smashed it.

Maybe a part of him is still around because he reaches out and takes her hand before choking out a gurgly sob. “Help me.” He rasps. “Fuck, just make it stop.”

By all indications, she believes that the spirits have left his body, but the infection left in their wake still courses through his body.

“Please…”

She swallows, body shaking. She doesn’t want to look him in the eye, but she should at least offer him that dignity. She takes a deep breath before taking his request. In one swift sweeping arc and a flash, his body lies motionless atop the one he had been ravaging. A thin trail of smoke rises from the hole she had put in his chest.

She rises and wipes her eyes, “welcome to the outside, father.”

#Avatar #Azula #Lo & Li #Ozai #Fanfiction

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