Azula's sobbing echoed through the darkened room. She trashed around on her small bed and punched the stone wall over and over again until the blood from her knuckles trickled down her arm and stained her patient gown. It felt nice, the warm blood, it reminded her of firebending. At the thought she rolled up on the covers clutching her pillow, smudging it in the process.

Pathetic. That is the only thing on Azula's mind, her own pathetic failure, to her nation, her father and most importantly, herself. She poured her life into fulfilling her father's plans, and now that they were destroyed whatever was left of her was huddled on a cot in a lonely cell somewhere in the Earth Kingdom. It's not like it mattered anymore anyway. When the Avatar took her bending away, he took away her fire, that passion and motivation that powered her, her whole personality. It had just been too much and she completely fell apart.

Everyone had abandoned her, even her supposed friends. When Mai and Ty Lee left they knocked down the strong columns that kept Azula's head high. She really had cared for those two. The three of them had each other's backs since childhood. She had even set up Mai and her brother together, and yet she was the first to betray her. Ty Lee was always a bit of a pushover but Azula never even considered that she would double cross her. She thought that Ty Lee had truly cared for her, but she had made her feelings clear when she chose Mai over her.

Everybody seemed to do that constantly, pick anyone and anything over Azula. Deadly, dangerous and deranged Azula. That's all anyone ever saw in her. A heartless killing machine. And she had relished it, absorbed others fears as strength. Until fear stopped working. Her father had taught her that fear was the only way, that trust was for fools. She had tried to live by those words, but there was always a little bit a trust that creeped inside her. Mai and Ty Lee, for example, had planted a little seed of trust inside Azula, keeping her human. But now that their trust had been ripped away it left Azula cracked and damaged for good.

"This is your fault mother" She had taken to talking out loud to her dead mother. She stood from her bed and walked, legs trembling, towards the sink. Her hands were holding on firmly onto the sides of the basin as if it were the only thing keeping her alive.

"Azula dear, stop hurting yourself. It pains me to see you so unhappy." Azula faced the mirror and saw her mother with worried look on her face. Ursa had taken to answering her daughter's outcries and showed up often for a visit on most mirrors and other reflective surfaces.

"Since when do you care? All you ever saw was poor Zuzu being bullied by his monstrous little sister. Why don't you go pay him a visit? I bet he's dying to see his precious mommy" She was looking intently into her mother's, probably looking like a deranged lunatic, trying to channel all her resentment towards a cracked mirror.

"I've always cared Azula. And I was only trying to protect Zuko, but he's not the one who needs my help now."

"So that's what it takes for some attention from my mother? Being completely helpless and crazed? I guess you're not as loving and caring as everyone thought you were. In the end you were just like the rest of us, biased and ruthless. In cahoots with father to kill the Fire Lord."

"I did what I did because I love Zuko and he was in danger. And I would do anything, even scheming with Ozai, to save the people I love." At the sound of that last word Azula let out a crazed laugh.

"LOVE? Please mother, don't go off on some speech about how love will save everyone. I have gotten rather old for fairy tales, don't you think?" Ursa sighed heavily with a guilty look on her face.

"You're a very bright girl Azula, but you were rather cold and detached and I can only blame myself. It's true, with my trying to protect Zuko I might have neglected you. But I'm trying to make up for it now, if you will let me."

"This may have slipped from your attention but you're not even real. You could be dead for all anyone knows or hiding with the Air Nomads."

"I'm as real as you want me to be Azula. But that doesn't change the fact that I have come here to help you in any way that I can. I just need you to open your heart and trust. It doesn't even have to be me, anyone that will be willing to love and trust you back"

"That's the thing isn't it? No one could love someone like me, evil and cruel. You're just wasting your time."

"I love you Azula, I hope you are aware of that. I might have seemed like I didn't show it but I do, very much."

"NO. STOP LYING TO ME. YOU DON'T LOVE ME AND I DON'T LOVE YOU. I DON'T NEED HELP FROM YOU OR ANYONE ELSE. GO AWAY." She was screaming at the top of her lungs with so much hatred and anger that her mother's image dissolved only after shedding quiet tears, leaving her only daughter in the murky cell.

She started crying again and began pounding the mirror in front of her. The broken glass cut even deeper into her already wounded hands but that didn't stop her. She was in so much pain from her failure and abandonment that a bit of physical pain was insignificant. Her screams echoed around her small cell and out towards the hallway of the empty cell block. She was the only one kept down there, too hazardous to keep around other prisoners. She had to admit, it had its advantages. The emptiness in the prison allowed her to break down, shout and cry in complete privacy. The rumors of the Fire Nation princess gone mad were bad enough, she didn't need to be giving people more evidence to back it up.

So she just continued bawling and hitting everything in sight. Soon enough almost everything was covered in blood, including herself. She wasn't worried of dying though. In the morning when they served her mean, the guard would see the damage done and call up a doctor that would patch her up in no time. That was probably the worst part of her imprisonment, there was absolutely no escaping it. The Avatar refused to take away a life, and to stand by and watch Azula take away hers would be like condoning a kill in his eyes. So she was trapped in this miserable world until death decided it was her time.

Therefore she continued lashing out at the room until she began to feel dizzy and weak. Thoughts of her mother, father, brother, Mai and Ty Lee swarmed around in her fuzzy head as she finally stopped to catch her breath, leaning on one of the walls to stop herself from falling. Gone. They're all gone. And there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. There was even no point in escaping. So she just leaned there, the darkness of her life finally sinking in and pushing her down.

"Finally" Azula whispers as she collapses to the floor next to the toilet. She tucks her legs to her chest and hugs them firmly, shutting everything off as she falls into the dizzy haze. "Alone"