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Azula never truly heals.
She gets better but she never truly heals.
The past sticks with her even if it doesn’t hurt anymore.
She learned this in mind first and body second.
It starts with a factory in Republic City.
The one that routinely liked skirt around budding safety standards and cut corners around the scant measures that had already been implemented. The same factory that Sokka declared was the bane of his existence. She doesn’t know why he liked to rant at her. There are other members on the council and she is the newest of them and, to an extent the least qualified in her inexperience. Perhaps because she is the best spoken and most efficient of them. The most forward and most stern. For it Cheng’s Sturdy Steels had a particular distaste for she and her meddling and ‘nosing about’.
Even so they say it was an accident; afterall, there’s nothing left of their of their factory.
She agrees that it wasn’t on purpose, but it wasn’t an accident either. It was a willful and well-known series of sketchy practices and soddy repair jobs that lead to what could be called an accident in that the consequences hadn’t been intended. Of neglect in the name of pocketing a few extra coins at the expense of workers and consumers alike.
And bystanders.
At least twelve of them, herself included.
She rubs her fingers over the scars, two large slashes from debris on her bicep and shoulder and one small burn on the side of her neck.
Her ears look completely healthy.
“You okay?” Katara asks.
Azula nods.
Really she just wants some quiet.
She never gets quiet anymore.
Even when her hearing is muffled--almost all the time--she never gets quiet.
And Katara’s talking is preferable to the dull ringing that it covers up.
It as been there since the explosion.
Lingering with no source.
A horrid replacement for the hearing that she has lost, the tones and pitches that she can no long hear.
It comes from within her own head. Or maybe it is her ears that produce the sound. The doctors and physicians like to debate over which it is; the result of a head injury or a long lingering echo of the explosion that just won’t leave her ears.
They do agree on one thing; that she isn’t just hearing things. Sokka hears the ringing too sometimes but he hadn’t been as close to the blast as she. Six of the other ten bystanders hear it too.
Constantly.
Persistently.
Torturously.
It makes her twitchy and restless. Sometimes she paces around the room. Sometimes she bangs things around or slams doors just to have other noise to cover up the sound. Sometimes her heart races and her hand shakes because she can’t fathom how she can live like this, in perpetual noise, for the rest of her life. She is only 23!
Sometimes she wants to puncture her own eardrums, that oughta stop the incessant noise.
Sometimes she wants to beat her head against a wall, it would be easier to get to sleep that way.
Sometimes she wants to put herself out of her misery.
Sometimes she just wants to cry. Crying drowns out the sound well enough.
Katara squeezes her shoulder as she squeezes her head. Cups her hands over her ears as if that has ever been of any help before.
“Is it getting any quieter?”
Miserably, Azula shakes her head. “It gets louder sometimes.”
“I’m sorry, Azula.”
“For what?”
“That my waterbending doesn’t seem to be working.”
Azula shakes her head. “Not your fault.” At least she had tried. “It works for a while.” But the relief is only temporary. Frankly the sound of the water around her ears is more soothing than the healing properties themselves.
“Are you going out onto the balcony again?” Katara asks upon her rising.
Azula furrows her brows. Sometimes Katara still forgets. Every time, it still stings. A little pang that Katara hadn't intended to send rippling through Azula's heart. "You're going to have to repeat yourself."
Katara's cheeks flush. She clears her throat and mumbles something that Azula can't hear at all but can guess is an apology or an 'oh, right'. She walks closer to Azula, positions herself to Azula's right. "I asked if you are going onto the balcony again."
Azula stretches her arms and nods.
“You’re not going to sleep out there again, are you?”
“I am.” She replies. It is noisy out there but the sounds of the city’s rush lulls her to sleep almost as well as perfect silence used to.
“Isn’t it a little cold for that?”
“Maybe I can sleep in the lobby. There’s this fountain there…”
Katara furrows her brows.
Azula’s cheeks flush slightly. She clears her throat. “It’s background noise. Something that I can listen to instead of the ringing.” It is at least partially soothing. Makes her stress a tad more manageable. She’ll take what she can get.
“If you need background noise we can put on the radio.”
Azula shakes her head. “That’s too loud and the sounds change too often I need…” She trails off. “I suppose that we can turn the volume down low and find a station with static.” But she much prefers the sound of Satomobiles, crackling fires, running water, or a good thunder storm.
Katara hums in thought. “What about quiet instrumental songs? Have you tried falling asleep to that yet?”
Azula shakes her head.
“How about we give that a try before you decide to sleep on the balcony or in the lobby?”
“Okay.” She replies. She rubs her forehead and sighs.
“What’s wrong?”
“It makes my head hurt.” Azula mutters. “Make it hard to focus.” And, on the worst days, hard to think. The worst of it is that it shouldn’t be happening at all. She had been perfectly healthy, had taken good care of herself. And yet…
She grits her teeth.
A few months’ worth of frustration finally begins to boil over. And it does so in the form of tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. She just wants quite. Peace and quiet. At this point if she had to pick just one of the two, she’d pick quiet.
“Come lay down.” Katara offers, patting the mattress.
Azula lets herself fall onto it, rolls onto her side, bunches up, and cups her ears.
Laying down always makes it worse. Louder.
And stress does that twofold.
She squeezes her eyes shut.
“I just want it to stop.”
“I know.” Katara replies, rubbing her back. “I know.”
What else can she say? What else can she do except lay next to Azula and hold her tightly?
“Do you want me to turn the radio on?”
Azula shakes her head. “Can you waterbend?”
“Actually yes, at one point I happened to be the only waterbender in the Southern Water Tribe.”
Azula rolls over to give her a small swat. “You know what I meant.”
“Yeah, Azula, I can waterbend for you.” She reaches for her waterskin. “Want me to try healing—”
“I just want to hear the sound of the water. It helps.”
Katara nods and lets the water flow out of its container. Wraps it around the air in small arcs and swirly spirals. “I can make shapes with it.”
Azula closes her eyes and tries to focus on the little ripples and trickles. “What sort of shapes?”
“You’ll see!”
She rests her head upon Katara’s lap and watches the woman wiggle her fingers and twirl her wrists. The water rushes to follow collecting and bulging in some places and elongating in others. From one of the bulges a head spouts. And from the smaller bulges sprout legs. “A tiger monkey.” Azula guesses.
“Yup! I can also make Flopsie.”
Azula furrows her brows. “What, dare I ask, is a flopsie? Aside from something that sound like your brother could make.”
Katara laughs. Azula likes this sound especially when it comes with one of those stupid little snorts as it does tonight. “Flopsie was King Bumi’s pet. Really scary but also really cute.” She pauses. “Sort of like someone else I know.” She gives Azula’s nose a poke.
“Do not.” Azula grumbles and Katara chuckles again. “Less poking, more waterbending.”
“Remember when you hated my waterbending?”
“I try not to.” Azula replies. But she supposes that it is useful to compare the plights of the past to the progress of the here and now…and its own set of plights.
Katara lowers the ribbon of water and spreads it across Azula’s forehead. “How’s this?”
Azula closes her eyes. “Very good, Katara. Soothing.” Should she open her eyes she would be met with a warm smile.
“Good, I’m glad that it helps.”
The ringing in her ears dulls. Sometimes she wonders if the headaches cause the ringing or if the ringing causes the headaches. She is almost certain that it is the latter, but then, she always had been prone to stress headaches. At least now she has someone to help soothe them. At least now she has someone to help soothe her.
With her free hand, Katara squeezes one of Azula’s.
“You’ll get used to it.” She promise. “The ringing. You’ll get used to it just like you got used to life in Republic City and dating a waterbender and…”
“Those were mental discomforts, Katara. I am good with working through matters of the mind.” Mostly. Until the moments that she isn’t…
And she is worried that this ringing will drive her to one of those moments.
“Which is exactly why you’ll be okay.” Katara promises. “You’ve already learned that having background noise helps. I think that you just need to keep yourself dist—busy.”
Azula cracks a smile. It is nice to know that she has someone who remembers the little details like how much she hates being called distracted.
“You’re good at adapting, Azula.”
“Yes. Maybe.” She stretches her arms and yawns.
“Want me to keep going?”
Azula nods. “Please.”
Katara moves the water down from Azula’s forehead to cover her ears and then to tickle her cheeks and her neck. “One of these days, when you’re not so sleepy, I can try to give you a water massage.”
Azula hums, “that sounds nice, Katara.” Nice indeed. She rolls onto her stomach and wraps her arms around Katara’s middle.
“Comfy?”
Azula nods. “I think so.” She feels Katara lift her shirt and then the cool sensation of water on her back, hovering atop her tailbone.
“How’s this?”
“It’s good.” She purrs. Very good. And the sound of the water dripping and stirring is divine. She snuggles her cheek against Katara’s thigh. With one more yawn, for the first time in ages, she is asleep before she realizes what she is doing.
Katara retracts the water, puts the radio on, and tucks Azula beneath the sheets. She lays herself down next to the firebender, kisses her upturned ear, and closes her own eyes. For the first time since the accident, Azula sleeps well.