Azula likes to destroy, was born with the desire coursing through her, a wasting sickness. Buildings and memorials and governments, but people the most.

Ty Lee was her first target, a test to see just how far she could go, and Ty Lee was such an easy country to conquer; pathetically easy, that little tease. She's never had much of a spine. Too fucking eager to lick and suck, too willing to debase herself in exchange for the faintest hint of praise. Boring. There's no more adrenaline rush from warping her skin with flame, from making her cry out in pain or pleasure; there's nothing duller than a willing masochist.

But Mai, Mai is so infinitely complex; she contains multitudes, behind the haughty sneers and indifferent shrugs. It's a never-ending source of entertainment to push her, push Zuko with her— and even though she's too thin and too awkward and too pale, like a plant raised in the dark, there's something beautiful about her angular features and glossy black hair. Azula wants her, wants to bed her. Wants her firmly in her grasp, once and for all.

Ember Island is grey and smeary in the early morning, gusts of salt-wind sending shivers down Azula's spine through the open windows. Zuko and Ty Lee are still asleep, as are her ancient advisors; Mai sits across from her at the small breakfast table, pretending to nurse a cup of tea. She's in her sleeping robe, her feet bare, her bangs hanging in her face— and she will not look at her.

(Azula has put her lipstick on. She doesn't like talking to people without it.)

"Ty Lee isn't enough for you?" Mai asks after a long silence, her cat-like eyes narrowed. "I'm not a degenerate, princess."

She's using her upper-class voice, but Azula heard the hitch in the sentence, the slight intake of breath. "Of course you're not a degenerate," she replies sweetly. "You never fantasize about women when you're alone at night, with your hand up your skirt… no, it's just my brother's cock that gets your pussy wet."

For a moment she wonders if Mai will abandon her court training and hit her, but then the animal-in-a-trap expression is replaced with the omnipresent blank mask, only disrupted by a faint blush. "You're being vulgar," Mai says, painfully calculating. She takes another ladylike sip that was probably beaten into her. "Inappropriate. Didn't your mother ever teach you how girls are supposed to behave?"

Azula picks up a cherry from the fruit bowl and bites into it slowly, letting the dark juice trail down her chin— it must look like blood, she imagines. She licks her lips. Mai swallows hard. "Just tell me one thing, and I'll leave you alone, I promise. That you don't think about me. You don't think about us kissing, or my breasts in your hands, or my mouth between your—"

Mai looks up, and there are tears shining in her eyes, and Azula knows that the battle is over. "What do you want?" she asks hollowly, brokenly. "What in Agni's name do you want?"

"I want to know what Zuko's getting and I'm missing out on." Really, she cracked so fast, it's almost disappointing. "But I don't have to force you into anything, do I? You're dripping already." She can see that Mai's nipples are hard, straining the thin fabric of her shift. "Slut."

Mai leaps across the table (oh, there's the passion she was looking for) and she's slamming her mouth into Azula's and pulling her out of her chair, up against the wall, and she tastes of saltwater and jasmine and yes, keep jerking your hips, perfect. "Is this how we're going to play?" she snarls, her voice hoarse, like she's inhaled smoke. "Is it?"

Azula laughs, then, because she's won she's won she's won and this has to be her greatest victory, seizing this bitter, cold girl piece by piece. "I'm glad you've finally learned your place," she says, and bites the side of Mai's neck hard enough to bruise.