trans_9 | Denial? Just a little bit.

Entry tags:

Denial? Just a little bit.

Who: Kaya, open to all.
Where: Sensoriums
Summary: Ed not remembering her is sort of the last straw, so she's getting her aggressions out.
Warnings: Um. Are there any? TBA, I guess?

But so much for that now. Right now Kaya, who had had a pretty bad last few months, found the last straw was bringing Ed back and having him not even recognizer her had been the last straw. Now she was just standing here, around a background of water and streams, and she was moving in a combination.

First there was her own bending. Smooth, flowing each movement into the other, legs supporting the base as arms and shoulders tensed and drew forward, calling the water up and around her, making waves into developed whips, turning that into solid substances and back again.

And then, when the Bene Gesserit came into play, that slowed but accurate action became quick, deliberate fast. Her body become a putty oin increments as she geared for offensive kicks and movement, pushing her body to the limits here. There was no turning back, no moment of reflection.

At this moment, Kaya wondered what would become of her training, if they would form a base of strength and bending even she didn't fully understand yet. She would put aside those feelings of helplessness, of pain she could not do more.

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"It was because they thought she was losing touch with her waterbending," Kaya said, doing her best not to let that old scar sting so much, even though she was still a little angry about it. "They didn't think her learning from a master who thought killing in the right circumstance was ok was something Katara should do."

No tricks. Just a quiet frustration.

Azula looked more puzzled now.

"I expect that sort of nonsense from the Avatar, but I would have expected Sokka or Zuko to be more...logical."

She turned away from Kaya stalking back towards her long since abandoned cushion. "So because the rest of them have turned their backs on you for not being her...you stalk me." That made much more sense to her poor addled mind.

"No, its not that." Kaya said this slowly and deliberately. "And keep in mind I wasn't even looking for you and you found me, ok?! It's just...our world is gone, and the people we knew from it are gone too. We might hate each other forever, and we won't see eye to eye but...I'd still like to get to know you. Know what you are."

Her eyes narrowed and her shoulders squared as suspicion put her on edge.

"You already know who and what I am." She muttered darkly.

"I know what they told you that you were supposed to be. A long time ago, I was told what I was supposed to be too. I may not have been as grandiose as you, and I may not have been a princess, but I did what I could. And whether you want to believe it or not, I would like to know more about who you, Azula, actually are."

"But there's a fairly significant difference betwee what people told you you were and what I was." Azula argued starting back towards the cushion once more. "And as much as you all hate to accept it, I liked what I was. I didn't want to change who I was. In fact? If I could I'd go back to being that way in a heartbeat. Instead of this...whatever I am now."

"I figured that," Kaya said. "It hasn't escaped my notice you wish you were who you were back then. But you were also cruel, hurt people, and overall created chaos for other people in our world. Now look at how you are, and think: is the reason you don't have that because you lost, or because there was something you were missing when you lost?"

Azula tried not to let it show just how sharply she felt the question sink into her chest like a well placed spear, but Kaya had nailed down the question that Azula had been wrestling with for months.

Why had she broken down?

It was one thing to become depressed after losing a match, another to become discouraged. But what had caused the insomnia? The Paranoia? The hallucinations?

The harder she tried to focus the more the noise in her head began to roar in her ears like a raging river in a thunderstorm.

"I don't regret anything I did back in our world. Let's be entirely clear." her words were deliberate and slow, as she focused most of her energy on staying calm rather then flying off the handle like she so desperately longed to do right at this moment.

"And that's your own damage, or at least where it starts," Kaya said, arranging herself quietly. "You may have earned your position as Princess of the Fire nation, but cruelty and malice and pain was a common thing to you. It doesn't surprise me in the least you wouldn't regret it now. That's sad, but you're hardly the first person on the ship to revel in other people's pain."

She shrugged. "But you also didn't answer my question, and there's something very telling about that."

"Sad? Or practical? Or is it just another one of those arguments where neither of us will ever back down?" Azula questioned in return. After all who was SHE to pass judgment on the actions Azula had taken growing up?

Even if she did have a point about not answering the question. "Just what does that tell you then oh wise and edified one?" The title was said as sarcastically as the Fire Princess could muster.

"I don't expect you to see things from my point if view: how could you? you were born to rule and you worked your way into your father's eyes. I was born knowing the terror of the fire nation coming and what that meant for your people and where you lived. You'll forgive me if I will never see things from your unique position."

Because really, there was no way she would feel bad about what Azula used to be, remembering what the Fire Nation did.

"It tells me you don't want to answer that question, because you believe so much that your upbringing and your position was perfect. But it couldn't have been, not with how you fell to mind sickness. Do you even know why it happened?"

Azula did, and she had thought about it every which way but in the end it all came back to one specific day and one particular event that was burned into her mind.

"Clearly it's because I worked so hard for so long to get something I deserved only to have it stolen from me."

That was a lie. But she wasn't about to go confessing that she was well aware her grip was slipping before that day. Not to this girl anyway. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

"You lost a fight. Anyone can lose one of those, it doesn't mean everything they 'deserved' is gone. Besides, I had Katara's memories in my mind: you weren't in top form, even with Sozen's comet in effect. Something happened that day to you and you know it."

She shouldn't push, but she simply KNEW something happened with Azula: that evidence wasn't even hard to concoct. No one went crazy that easy, and believing she did because she lost was an insult to her prowess.

Azula growled gently turning away from Kaya "It's not as if I simply lost a match. I lost my entire Kingdom! My Father's respect, A life's work stolen from me by a underhanded watertribe trick."

Her voice lowered, "If she had just died the way she was supposed to...I won that Agni Kai, but I ended up locked away all the same." Her muscles were winding up again, nails digging into her palms.

Kaya narrowed her eyes. "Well for all your talk, you certainly can't take a loss. Bunch on nonsense, 'waterbending trick.' She beat you, fair and square, because she knows here element as good as you know yours. You lost your faith in yourself when you lost, and you just blame it on other people."

Sorry Azula, she was not going to go easy on you here, especially not when it came to Katara. You wouldn't to her.

"You know darn well why you were locked away. You lost it, before and at the end. And if you're content to continue lying about that, there's no reason for us to continue this conversation. I'm too tired to put up with lies today."

"You're the one who wouldn't let me leave!" The former princess protested rising to her feet again. "Don't get frustrated with me just because you keep hoping there's more to me then what I am. You can keep digging all you like but you're not going to find any sort of magic switch to make me break down into tears and beg for forgiveness."

When she turned her glare on Kaya again it was quivering with madness. her eyes were unfocused as she teetered on the edge of another breakdown. Her life spent in such a constant perilous balance, no wonder she was so often cranky or miserable. All it took was a little conflict, some uncomfortable subjects and she would become upset beyond her own control.

"Mastery of blue fire: it is only a bender with supreme control of their emotions, the cold heart bending, that can use it. In that time, you were one of the few. I remember hearing that from your Uncle. If you think I'm frustrated with you, I am: you keep choosing to run away from what might actually help you. I'm not talking about being good: I mean what made you break down to begin with."

Hearing Kaya remind her of the power she had lost made her grind her teeth and grip her fists till her knuckles turned white.

"I'm running away, because I don't want to do something that will get me locked up again. But you're making it very hard not to change my mind on that."

"Look, you've been here a really long time. You've made some progress in some ways, and that's good. But they never bothered to find out why you went crazy in the first place, and that was their job. For all the better technology and these new ways of thinking are supposed to be, they glossed over you. I think you know that too."

She ignored the threat: if she attacked her, she would simply have to defend herself, and since when was that new?

That much even Azula couldn't deny. The few that had bothered to try and analyze her...

"And what makes you think you're so much more qualified to succeed where they failed? It's not as though I'm particularly comfortable talking with you."

"Are you really comfortable talking with anyone? You might say a stranger is better than me, but a stranger knows nothing about our world and cares more about documenting you as a case rather than a person. If there's anything you should have figured out with me is that I do care what happens to you."

Azula couldn't help the paranoia that was pulsing in her head with every word. "You care because I'm a threat. And then when you figured out I wasn't as much of a threat as I used to be it was about pity. Now it's because we're both outcasts from our own world."

"Please. Do you think you're the only threat on the ship I ever had to deal with? If you don't want pity don't be so eager to throw yourself to the wolves. I care because I think no one has bothered to even get to know you and want you to get better besides me and Nima. You've been an arguing point, a danger, a person someone with a degree was saddled with. And now, with someone who actually wants you to at least be something you were before, you react with the same paranoia you have about everyone. Stop and think about why that might be."

And there was a little of her BG teacher there, no doubt, with Katara's reproach mixed in.

Azula opened her mouth to speak again but snapped it shut sharply and sat, every muscle as tight as it could be as she struggled against herself. She chased the logic around in circles but couldn't grasp hold of it. The words she wanted were just out of reach and just out of sight. All she felt was the pulsing of pressure in her head, the sweat running down the back of her neck. Suddenly the heat that had been such a comfort to her felt like it was cooking her from the inside.

Silently she sat staring into space, the occasional shiver raced through her as the same question repeated itself over and over and over again.

why?

She was silent, watching Azula a moment and then settling down, breathing deep. The sun baked on and Kaya sweated, but she showed no signs of discomfort. She remembered a memory Katara had once about being lost on the desert with the crew, and how tempers had flared and Aang had gone into Avatar state. It had been her fear that she would react similarly when she trained in the climate Sheeana favored.

Kaya sniffed appreciatively. "I still remember the first time I wanted to learn something new on this ship. I stumbled upon my first teacher, Sheeana, dancing and moving in ways I thought impossible for a human. But the area of the exotic, the new, the pervasive was there, and so was the fight. It reminded me of how much bigger the world was, and how I wanted to be a part of that."

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