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[the way we break mirrors]
It was cruel, the way she chased after shadows that would never be anything more than just that.
Starring: Ursa/Ozai
He is handsome, in his youth, all smiles and crinkly eyes, and she opens her own amber eyes wide to swallow him whole. There is another, lurking in the shadows, a tea-lover, a gentle man, perfect for a husband, but he lingers like an ephemeral shadow dusted over with the myths of forgotten memories, like a distant memory wrapped in mist.
She falls head over heels and heels over head in love with the handsome Prince Ozai, never mind that he likes to visit unholy places when the moon creeps behind the mountains, and to watch executions with a smile plastered wide over his noble face. He is tall and dark and handsome, all she's ever wanted.
She should have seen the signs when he brings her out to the killing grounds and slaughters a man to display his strong muscles and brute strength, but she does not read the signs aright. He is muscular, she think, and infinitely lovable.
[[]]
"Be mine?" He asks, and brandishes a score of flowers in her face.
She almost squeals, but saves herself in time and drapes on a composed mien. "It would be my honour, Prince Ozai."
When night falls, she dreams of fair rooms and pretty babes and candles aplenty, and indeed, in time to come, he gives her all that she has ever craved, along with broken scars and filthy cuts and a thousand epochs' worth of sorrow.
[[]]
It is night, and the darkness crawls over the windows. He steps smoothly into the room, his eyes cold and callous and creepy.
The light pools about his feet, and shadows settle about his face. He stops and looks at her, curled up like a tiny caterpillar upon the cavernous confines of the white, white bed. He pounces, swift and sudden, and the light fails. She is enveloped in his arms, about to succumb to his will, to give him the keys to his desires, and a part of her hopes that maybe, this time everything will be different. Maybe this time he will be gentle and loving. But the other part of her knows that will never happen, not while the sun continues to circle the earth, and her arms try to pry his away his relentless grip.
His warm lips slide against her own, and bitter bile rises in her throat. Not – not again, not again, not again! But her limbs are weak, and his fire is strong in his belly.
It's not soon enough, but it's still soon enough, and the stars see her folded into a mass of clingy gauze with glimmering tears sailing across her red, roughshod cheeks. Nails, she thinks, should be banned as weapons.
She feels dirty now, like she's rolled in mud and soil for days uncounted, and indeed, the sheets are soiled with perspiration and sighs and the hurts of the flowing years. There is naught she can do, she thinks, but weep herself to sleep, and that she does, whimpering silently into the comfortable arms of silence.
[[]]
There is a certain lightness in her step, a spring in her bearing, even though she is all of eight months with child, and her belly is growing round and swollen like watermelons after a storm.
But Ozai doesn't bat an eyelid. "Why're you here?"
"I missed you."
He grunts, but makes no reply, though the temperature in the room seems to creep up a little. The skies seem much darker that day, and she closes her eyes to the shadows clinging to the curtains in her boudoir.
[[]]
It is winter, when her baby girl slides out in a sea of ochre-red fluid, and her whole body is limp with anguish and torn open by the aching pains of childbirth. The midwife clutches her hand, and tells her to breathe. Like this.
And so she breathes, in and out, in and out, and her heart slows down till she feels human again. But there's a nagging little prickle at the base of her heart – why has Ozai missed the birth?
Azula whimpers and Ursa reaches out for her newborn. She is beautiful, she thinks, with the perfect eyes and the perfect nose and the perfect mouth. But there is a slight glint in her eyes, a slight steeliness so reminiscent of that in her father's. And Ursa deems that a good sign of things to come, of victory, of power, of virtue painted white, of life, of the mysteries that make up the songs of lore.
[[]]
The day she sees Azula tame a kitten with fire, she is horribly reminded of Ozai. Of how Ozai can have it such that he can have his way at the pleasure houses on the outskirts of the palace grounds, and then stride back in happily, candle in hand, and slide his hands around her face.
It is dirty, that touch, but she has since learnt that resisting is not an option.
So she picks Azula up, wipes the sticky red liquid, it's blood, Mother! and tells the girl to stop crying. Hard little fists beat down on her chest, because I didn't do anything wrong! and because she's no bender, and doesn't really want to be burnt into ashes by her little girl who can't control her inner fire.
Because, really, her heart is only large enough for one Ozai, and her strength is only sufficient to chase away the demons that lurk at his feet.
[[]]
She'd never meant to be a killer. Whatever she was, princess, woman, mother, child, wife, royal, she wasn't a murderer. But she has to protect Zuko, and Ozai.
It's worth it, she thinks, and winces as Ozai lashes at her. "You killed him?"
For you, for you, everything's for you, my lord and master.
He slaps her across the face, and she falls noiselessly onto the bed. She could possibly retaliate, but she's a noblewoman first and foremost, and wives never hit their husbands. There's a huge ache in the middle of her tummy, right below her heart, and she thinks that maybe her heart has fallen a little lower into despair.
She's never wanted to feel his strong, warm arms around her more than she does now, but his furious slaps only come quicker and stronger, like the stinging lash of a gruelling tail of wind, or the burning thirst ripping apart a throat on a midsummer's day.
It hurts, like it's never hurt before. She reaches out to cup his face and kiss him, to calm him even, but he pushes her away. Her lips meet the floor, and she worships his toes, her eyes closing.
She's tired, and maybe she will continue running this race another day, when Ozai is in a better mood and much more likely to shower her with kisses and soft hugs and happy eyes.
Throw her out! I don't care where!
Maybe, she thinks, shudders, and slips away into the tiny dark spaces between piercing pain and hazy consciousness.
[[]]
There's a crack in the mirror, from when she threw her brush at it the last time when she felt like an elephant was in the room, with its trunk tied tight around her chest. Now she sees that little grey bits, half shadow, have fallen there, patching the crack with darkness.
Sometimes, she muses with a pang knifing her heart, sometimes, she chases after the cruellest shadows.
And her hopes don't come home to roost. They never have, and never will ever again.
A/N: I like Ozai/Ursa. There's always so much one can do with that pairing.
Reviews would be appreciated! Thanks for reading!