pretty little broken things
aang&azula – She wants to break him. / For Cody.
tell me you love me, she whispers, innocent and pretty but also deadly and menacing. tell me you love me.
i love you, he says, a half-truth.
you're lying, she sings.
.&.
Her nails burn. They draw crescents in his skin—a sort of lost art, maybe—makes them, him, bleed, and under all the pain he thinks he feels something—an inkling. Of a feeling. An inkling of a feeling.
The same thing he felt with Water Tribe Girl when they touched.
He feels alive.
.&.
She doesn't understand him.
Whenever she tortures him—torture, she's young and she tortures and well at least she's honest because this world is brutal—he doesn't scream. She expects him to scream, if she is being perfectly honest. She's never perfectly honest, of course, but.
Instead of screaming, he cries. Well, sometimes. He cried a lot in the beginning.
{—cry, cry little birdie sing for me—}
It was sort of disappointing when he started getting used to the pain. She tried harder.
She's wearing him down, she thinks.
.&.
His favorite color is blue. Blue for the Water Tribe Girl. He doesn't know what happened to her—and maybe he doesn't want to.
But all he is ever around is red.
.&.
why? he asks. why do you do this to me?
because you're special to me, she answers, curls her fingers around his chin. because i like hearing you scream.
it will get old fast, he tells her.
no, she retorts, it never does.
.&.
She doesn't like when he talks to her. It makes her feel guilty.
She doesn't need guilt.
She is a queen. Queens don't feel guilt. No. Never.
shut up little boy shut up no one wants to hear you i will do whatever i want you do not command me i do not care who you are or who you were once you're mine now mine now listen to me listen!
.&.
When she kisses him, he finds it odd that it doesn't burn like everything else. But isn't she the girl born from fire, made from fire?
Her lips, they are ice cold.
.&.
break! she commands, she sings. break for me!
no, he thinks.
But he just might—so that he may see her lips curl in triumph, in satisfaction, in glory.