#heartxofxthexocean

Sitting in an armchair, Anna held an unlit cigar which she waved around while speaking  in a deeper tone with an exaggerated accent. She pretended to be one of the many stiff business men in first class that spent most of their time bragging about how much their families are worth.

"Rose, my girl! Did you know that I have so  much money, I swim in it at least three--  no, four times a day!" 

"So, child?" Koh purred, coiling around the fallen princess.  Azula had lost a drastic amount of weight in the two years she’d been interred in the asylum.  Two years of ritual humiliation and routine torture, two years of writing letters to Zuko about her treatment there…  She had no idea that they’d been intercepted by the asylum staff, that Zuko had no idea of the abuses she suffered there.  Given the bad blood between her and her brother running already, she assumed he was complicit in it, if not the one that had ordered it outright.

After two years, she could take it no longer.  She’d begun pleading to the Spirits, for assistance, for death, for anything to get her out of that place.  The one that had answered her was Koh, the trickster and face stealer, but also a very wise old spirit who sometimes dealt in knowledge.  Or, it seemed, in favours.

"I’ll take you somewhere you will not be tracked.  You will not be chased.  You won’t be able to do anything against your brother or his allies from there, but neither will they against you.  This is a fresh start, completely.  I’m not going to offer you useless platitudes about turning over a fresh leaf, but it would be a waste if you didn’t learn from some of your old mistakes.  For the duration of your life, you won’t need to worry about our agreement at all.  I’ll come for you when you die.  You won’t be using your face after that anyway, so I’ll have it then.  Do we have a deal?"

Reflexively, Azula reached up to run her fingers over her eye and cheek, now sunken and hollow, and shadows appearing below the first.  Despite the nervousness she felt dealing with a Spirit that was known to cause havoc, she nodded her head.  She really had meant it.  Anything to get her out of that place. “W-we have a deal.  The terms are fair.”

"Lay down, child," Koh murmured, patting the bed Azula had in her cell in a mockery of parental affection, switching to the face of a moderately pretty woman of Fire Nation descent.

Azula stretched out obediently, closing her eyes for a moment…

Now…

The beach had been quiet, the natural peace of gently rolling waves and calling birds made for a soothing scene. Then, suddenly, thirty, maybe fifty feet of a giant insectoid body and its mass of many, many legs, all at once appeared there, winding around the rocks and twisting through the sand. A face painted with makeup to look like a mask peered into Rose's eyes. The red lips of the mask-like face pulled into a smile, and the creature held out the body of an unconscious sixteen year old girl, forcing her into the older woman's arms.  ”Here, princess, have a Princess,” the Spirit said cryptically, then withdrew, disappearing into the sand and out of reality.

The girl, on the other hand, was most decidedly there, and she was in poor state, too—clearly malnourished and having been mistreated for some time. Her hair was matted and her eyes were shadowed, and around her wrists were the marks of shackles and restraints that likely hadn’t been removed often for a very long time. The clothes she wore were Eastern, handmade and fine, but as battered as she was for a long stay in somewhere very unpleasant.  They were clearly tailored to her body, but that had been before she’d lost a drastic amount of weight.

The looks she recieved were undoubtly wary ones, people seemed to step their way around her. Ladies offered sympathetic smiles, their eyes wide and uncomfortable with her presence. It had been this way for the past few weeks or so. A widow who had so dearly loved her husband, yet had not shown a single sign of mourning, was a worrisome sight for many. Whispers followed her behind hands and fans, heads turned quickly, eager to speak on what they, and everyone else had seen.

It was not unsurprising that she did not mourn Thomas as was expected, she did it in her own way. In her nightmares and hysterics at night, in the utter disbelief that came when her heart had shattered in her chest. Her mourning was, however, over and done with and she resolved to live as Thomas had told her she never had, and to remember him as the charming, sad excuse of a human, as the monster that he was, in her novels which had yet again taken inspiration from him. Though no longer as the romantic hero.

Braiding her hair away from her face she moved quickly to get dressed. Norns knew she had missed anything outside of Hogwarts walls. As much as she loved it at school she loved home far more, or rather the world outside of school far more.

Sigyn sat on the edge of her friend’s bed, trying to shake her gently from sleep. “Rose, come on Rose get up!” Seeing it would not work she got one of the pillows from her own bed and hit Rose with it lightly, “Rose Dewitt Bukater, your name is far too long and we’re not going to get to go to Hogsmeade if you don’t get up!”

With a laugh she threw her pillow back on her bed. “Come on, Rose.” They had agreed to spend this trip together since they both had been more than a bit distracted with other people and school work the last few months. It would be nice to simply see her friend again for the day.