Dawn
"I know it's an awful thought."
Ursa's teeth knead her lower lip. She picks apart her food. Bit by bit, the fish on her plate turns to pulp, mashed by chopsticks that quiver with her hands. Her stomach is a rock, a hard knot inside her, and she couldn't eat if she wanted to; his eyes are too sharp on her, too cold, too real a presence in the air. Her nerves are too tight beneath her skin. So she distracts herself, as best she can—she keeps her gaze low, on the table, a stripe of wood slicing the room in two. A long, dark looking-glass, buffed to a mirrored shine.
"Yes." The word was heavy. It sounded painful, wrenching loose from his throat. His eyes held hers, for a minute longer, then turned; she saw them rest on the sea. "But it's as you said, my dear. It may be necessary."
It's late, now. Outside, the world is black as tar, moon caged by clouds; inside, candles dance and snap. She hears them breathe. Like little eyes, the flecks of flame watch Ursa, and it feels as if they know—but no, that's stupid. She's being paranoid. She's just nervous, wet-palms nervous, white-knuckles nervous and it's making her see things, hear things – it's just the silence, prickling her arms. That sour silence, restless and jagged, throbbing like a wound. The endless space between.
There's a faint clink of china, as a servant takes Ozai's plate. She's eaten nothing, ground her food into pink paste, but she shoves hers too stiffly into offered hands. "Ursa."
"What?" Her head jerks up when he speaks. When that word, her name, grates against her ears—so foreign, the way he says it. Foreign and loveless. It doesn't fit in his mouth. "Yes. Sorry. What is it?"
A frown flicks briefly at his face, furrowing his forehead. "Are you coming to bed?"
They stood for a long time, watching the tides. In a bubble, in a ring of light—in a world apart, they stood and didn't speak, as wave after wave crashed to shore. Dawn broke around them, the clear bright song of the solstice, a blaze of sun skimming the surf. Flooding the wreckage, the rocks and the ruins under her feet. Glowing in the temple's shell.
"Time is a stubborn element." A sigh rattled Roku's chest, like wind through an old tree. He closed his eyes. "Too often, it fights. Too often I've tried and failed, to bend it back on itself—but perhaps—it will be simpler, now. You know precisely when?"
"Yes. It couldn't have been but one night. For whatever reason, it—well, it had been months since we'd been together, before that. And he didn't bother me after."
"Good." She saw his brow crease in thought. "And you are living. And the years are few."
"Just fifteen."
Gooseflesh sweeps Ursa's neck, a cool, queasy rash. She makes herself meet his gaze. And it stuns her, for a moment, how young he is—she'd nearly forgotten his face, before the frost crept into it. Before the fury, before the venom, before the hatred inside rose and twined into his features. Back when it was a slow burn, playing in his eyes. "I don't think so," she answers, very soft. "Not tonight."
"What?"
The word isn't spoken, really, so much as spat—so much as flung at her, like a poison-tipped dart. She swallows the sand in her mouth. "You heard me."
"It's not that I didn't try," she said weakly. "With her. I always tried. I gave her everything I could, everything I had but—but it was like she was living armor, sometimes. Nothing got through. Nothing nicked her shell. Nothing I did, nothing I said, nothing I knew then or now—there was nothing I could've done." Her voice grew thin and quiet, brittle as chipped bone. "She was unshakable. A code I couldn't crack. And there was nothing, there was nothing—it's not that I didn't try—but I could go back a hundred times, a thousand, and make no difference. I could live that part of our lives over and over, but in the end—her blood would still run cold."
"This is ridiculous!" Ozai snaps. "Stop avoiding me. You spend your days with Zuko, you take your meals with Zuko, you sleep in the nursery half the time—you spend every second with that child, and I'm sick of it. We've barely spoken in months. I've hardly seen you in months. You don't even come to bed anymore, because if it's not Zuko it's something else – some stupid excuse – and when I give in and ask you to, when I actually lower myself to asking you flat out, you have the nerve to reject me? You have a duty to me, Ursa! You're my wife!"
His eyes slit. Chest numb, she reminds herself to breathe. "I'm not avoiding you," she says. "I have things to do. They keep me up."
"Stop lying."
"It was—when I heard Ba Sing Se fell. Because of her. When I realized people were dying, because of her. Because I made her. Because I let her happen." The words came out halting, stuck to her tongue. As if she might choke on the weight of them. "It was then, when I thought—I have to do something. Not to save her. I can't save her. But if I could save those people…from her…"
The legs of Ursa's chair scrape the floor, with a hard shriek of protest. The numbness is growing now, spreading, a million tiny pins tingling in her heart; she can't argue with him anymore. For this to work she has to go, go now, never mind the wild hot howl of the candles at her back. Never mind his anger. Never mind the nettled grip of guilt, with her since the island. Burning like a little flame.
"You can't walk out on me!" He hurls one last threat at her, desperately fierce. It comes out a strangled snarl. "You wouldn't dare."
"It's not that I don't love her!" she cried, louder than she'd meant to. "I do. I did. I could never stop."
She wanted to believe it, so much. She wanted to cry and she couldn't. The tears didn't come, not at all, and she drew her breath in dry, bitter drags—suddenly envied the ocean, for the tides that dashed themselves against the coast. Each wave a rolling white sob. "I know, dear," he said softly. "I know. But you mustn't let that stop you." He touched her shoulder. "You'll regret it."
She wants to run.
Run away from this, into the fog-ringed night outside the palace. Run until it hurts to breathe. To a vast dark desert, where nothing lives. To a place where there are no choices.
But her limbs are lead. Her ankles, wax pillars, almost break beneath her. Outside the dining room, she grabs hold of a column, to keep her legs from giving; she wants to run but she can't move, can barely stand, and she reels with anesthetic ache. Because she didn't know, she was prepared but not for this—prepared to withstand Ozai, beyond the first night. To wade in the bad blood between them. To slip through his hands time and again. To evade him, escape him, face him should her back hit the wall – anything to keep the monster at bay. To stop that thing from taking root in her, and clawing its way into the world.
But it's not that thing. It's Azula.
All at once, the glacier splits. It gores her, like a fire iron, runs her through and she breaks—buckles—hits the ground. Her eyes sting with tears. Before she knows it she's crying, not just crying but sobbing, hard; her body heaves, pushes it out, makes her sick with the sound.
The world is wet, through her eyes, glazed with a cold bleak film. It doesn't matter. She can't see the corridor, moonswept and candles snuffed; she sees nothing but golden eyes, bright spots in the dark. Dragon-eyes, like Ozai's. Blazing and brilliant and burned into her, for fourteen years—since they opened—blinked—first knew light. Since they found her face, a gentle smiling sky. Since they dizzied her, those eyes, so perfect, so new.
She hates the sound of her own sobbing. She can't stop but she hates it, the hoarse bawling dissonance, like pipa-strings plucked and snapped; she doesn't mean to, but she blocks it out. Soft static snow worse than the weeping. Against her will, Ursa's white noise is little-girl giggles, joy before joy and love before love. First words, first songs. Back when they had reason to sing.
Her hands seize, veins frayed cables dipped in flesh. Tremors roll down her spine. She's aware, from somewhere far away, of an emptiness at her center, and grapples to fill it. Her arms ache with the memory of weight, of warmth, of that thing, that sweet wonderful thing, that far-gone thing nestled close to her heart—smelling of flowers, and milk. That downy dark hair pressed to her nose, satin-skin, monster, and that name like a prayer, Azula, Azula…
It's not that I don't love her!
And suddenly, she knows. It hits her, fast and raw, a strike to shatter bone.
She could feel herself melting. When it was done, the shimmers began at her fingers, turning skin to glass; she saw her hands catch sunbeams, and scatter rainbows. She saw the glitter and ripple, the fade. In minutes, she was gossamer, vapor and dust laced with light—and when she looked, she saw that so was he.
"When you wake," he said, "it will be in the palace, fifteen years ago." Roku's eyes caught hers, sharp stones in a clear river. "Be decisive, Ursa. I cannot help you again."
It's savage, and it's hungry, and it hurts like a knife to the gut. But it's love. And she knows.
I could never stop.
Ozai finds her caved in. Smashed to pieces on the floor. Her face is pink, slick, and she speaks but not to him – not with purpose, or sense – only the words I can't, over and over. I can't. I can't. Nearly choking each time. For long while, he just watches her, as she pleads with something he can't see. He sighs, rubs the bridge of his nose. He waits for a lull, a hush between breaths, a sob that slips beneath her tides; when it comes, he extends a hand. She stills—lifts up her head—and takes it.