AN: This was a small ficlet, but now I think it will be much longer. Over 20 Chapters at least. It's inspired a lot by the arranged sibling marriages in ancient history.
Pairing: Zuko/Azula. Also: Azula/Ty Lee and Zuko/?
AU: Aang Was Never Found, Fire Nation won after Sozin's Comet.
Beta: FanfictionVillainess.
Warnings: Incest, lemons, a small amount of yuri, what qualifies as child abuse and mentions of rape.
Disclaimer: I don't own A:TLA. I just think of lemons involving cartoon characters too often to be healthy.
- The Truth About Forever -
- by delictabledelias -
Prologue
It is the dead of the night in the Fire Nation, four years after the return of Sozin's Comet and the conquest of the Earth Kingdom. The palace, formidable, dark as obsidian with dim windows at this late hour, is silent, save for the quiet moaning of two of its inhabitants.
Brother and sister, blood of blood. It's wrong.
Her nails dig into his bare back, leaving trails of blood and stark white skin. Zuko is on top of her, and he has never felt such a sick thrill. Her lips crush against him again and again and again, not bothering where they land, craving, endless craving. She imagined that his return would only be terrible news for her, but that has proven not to be true.
It was in anger that she sought him out while he was in his bed one night. She stripped off her clothes and he did not say no, even thought she is certain he thought it was wrong. And now, weeks later, they are still sneaking around, still incapable of resisting. Azula wishes she could better control this urge, this urge for something pleasurable and worth risking everything in order to perpetuate it.
Zuko has, by this point, stopped saying that it was wrong, and taking a moment to self righteously protest, before he knows that he wants it to.
They hate each other, unless they are making each other orgasm. But on the other hand, briefly after it ends, when they linger together, they do not want to be apart. There is the strong sensation that they are the only two people who will ever understand what they both have gone through, even if neither of them knows the half of it.
Or maybe it is a fight for dominance. Yes, Azula likes that idea much better. She likes the thought that maybe this is about power and domination, and not about genuine feelings and the inability to express them. Because sex, violence and deceit are easier than confronting their own feelings. Because they were never taught how to be siblings, and so the flicker of compassion, the moments in which they felt for each other, was shrugged off and replaced with these illicit encounters.
But tonight is different; tonight is the night that they get caught. Zuko has just penetrated her, just made a moan escape her lips as he feels surges of pleasure. They are not bothering to keep quiet, as they have for so long. And they are so distracted by the raw, taboo acts that they do not hear footsteps in their solitary hall.
She presses herself against him fiercely, hungrily, not stopping to think about consequence. It feels too good. Tastes too good. The surges and fits of pleasure too strong.
Azula gasps and then sinks further into the mattress, her eyes closed, sparing her momentarily from the shadow in the doorframe, and the sound of crashing wood as their only blockade from prying eyes is thrown open and hits the wall.
They pull apart more quickly than they have reacted in sparring matches and when confronted with enemies. It is a blur to Azula, the next thing that happens, because it is completely and entirely targeted at Zuko, without so much as a glance to her as she attempts to cover her naked body.
"What are you doing in here?" Azula finally shouts and their father turns away from having Zuko pinned helplessly by his neck, his back bruised against Azula's shelves.
Hesitation. The Fire Lord is incapable of breathing, much less saying anything. It feels like he has just been struck by a hallucination, and he wonders if he has. His family does have a history of madness.
"What was your brother doing here?" he growls in response.
Azula is speechless, possibly for the first time.
Ozai paces, flexing his fingers, trying to remind himself to deal with Zuko in a noble and acceptable way, instead of in a fit of rage. That would cause issues that he does not want to raise. His daughter is staring at her knees, now covered by clothing, her cheeks red.
At last, Zuko emerges, fear so readily apparent in his eyes, finally dressed.
"You certainly took your sweet time," Ozai remarks, his lip curled to the left in an angry snarl. "I am a very merciful man, or else I would have finished you. However, because of my ample kindness, I simply want an explanation. I, out of the absolute kindness in my heart, allowed you to return home without fulfilling the terms of your banishment, due to the Comet. And your first instinct is to do this to her?"
Zuko does not like how quiet his father is, how he is not burning with rage. It makes Zuko know that he is a level of appalled that Zuko does not think he can escape.
Azula will escape it, of course, which makes him want to push her off of the roof and see if she's as much a deity as father seems to believe. And he knows she has most likely spent this entire time fabricating such pretty lies to get herself out of any trouble.
"What's this?" Zuko asks, his heart pounding like a hammer.
"I... I could not have expected what I happened to walk in on in a thousand years. The idea is sickening. Did you actually think for a moment that I wouldn't catch you? Someone would have heard or seen eventually, and it would have gotten to me," Ozai says coldly and Zuko tries to solidify his stance. "Did you actually think that you would ever escape reprimand for raping your sister?"
"That is ─ did she tell you that?" Zuko exclaims, not caring if it looks as if he is protesting too much.
"No. I think her silence for the past hour speaks louder than words." Ozai gestures loosely at Azula before stepping slightly closer to his disgrace of a son.
Zuko looks at her, stares at her imploringly, because she does have the power to prevent what their father will do next. She probably likes that. And, of course, as Zuko should have expected, she just averts her eyes. Zuko had thought so many times that maybe Azula just didn't know how to express love; it was not as if Zuko knew how to do it either. He had sometimes thought, as she fell asleep with him instead of silently leaving, that it was the only thing she thought was love.
On the other hand, Azula loves nothing but herself. And Zuko, by all means, should hate her.
"It was completely consensual. And... I..." Zuko rubs his face, his nails tearing at his own eyebrow. This is a nightmare. This is a nightmare.
She started it, and Zuko, he knows he should have resisted and done the right thing. But he was in no mood to do the right thing in the middle of his existence. In a life where the only thing his father said upon his return was, "You may be alive in my home, but until I die, you don't really exist."
It is only because of Ozai that sleeping with her was desirable. Or so Zuko tells himself.
"What you did," Ozai says clearly and Azula inhales sharply behind him. Zuko gives her the same look again, but of course she is too cold to respond. "Is very easily penalized by death. It pains me, but it has to be done."
"You've been looking for an excuse since I was born!"
That immediately destroys the disturbingly calm demeanor of the Fire Lord. "I don't think walking into my daughter's bedroom to find my son inside of her is a fabricated excuse!"
Zuko moves into a fighting stance as quickly as he can, knowing he is prompting retaliation, of course, but he also knows that his father will strike first if Zuko says another word he has on the tip of his tongue.
The fight lasts all of two seconds before a snapping sound echoes loudly through the room. Zuko stumbles backwards, nearly falling, and his father is nearly as disoriented by the lightning that strikes the space in the wall between them.
"He's telling the truth," says the last voice Zuko ever expected to defend him. "We all know who's going to win this. Zuko could be beaten by a toddler, father. There's no honor in it."
Ozai hesitates, taking a step back. He waits, examining Zuko for a moment. "As I seem to be the only person here able to control primal and sick urges, today's your lucky day."
And the room is silent.
Reasonably enough, the siblings are kept separated by their father for the remainder of the night, as he tries to come up with something brutal yet honorable to do to them. His stomach churns, and there is no way he will sleep as the image simply refuses to leave his eyes.
He cannot understand how this could have happened. How either of them could have such a sick desire. It isn't... her fault, he tries to remind himself. Zuko was raised pitifully by a weak and indulgent man who probably encouraged such hedonism.
Ozai raised Azula properly.
She is leaning on the windowsill when he walks to find her, as he is no desire to look Zuko in the eye again for as long as he lives.
"Tell me what happened. Tell me how much you did with him," Ozai demands quietly, and somehow, his soft commands are more intimidating than rage.
Azula looks away for a moment. "More than I should have."
"I have no idea why either of you would have such perverse proclivities." Ozai pauses. "But you would gladly let him take the fall, I'm sure. Haven't you always wanted to be an only child? It's doesn't matter right now if you were involved or chose to be with him; if you value your reputation, I'm sure you're content lying... I don't know where he would get a disgusting urge like that.
"Perhaps it's inherited," Azula replies sharply as their eyes lock. "I don't intend to lie about being victimized by Zuko. I refuse to play the part of a weak, exploited young girl just to make you feel better about your parenting."
Princess Azula regrets it instantly.
"Then you'll suffer with him. It's only fair."
Azula and Zuko are as spaced out as they can be as they kneel before the glowing orange throne. They do not want to be close to each other, even though they did share those moments. Play fighting, sparring, Azula mocking her brother and his scar, Zuko snarling at her and watching her lips twist into that evil smirk. The twisted mind that a pretty face can hide, well, Zuko learned about it the hard way with his sister.
And now he has destroyed his life for her, because he thought that they shared a bond.
He thought that after losing their mother, despite being further apart, they had the potential to be close.
He thought that Azula's gradual acknowledgment of his existence, her gradual lack of genuine scathing wickedness and pleasure about Zuko being locked up forever, led her to act.
Azula, well, she knows why she did it, but she cannot admit it to herself. It is not the type of thing that the remorseless, calculated and powerful Princess Azula would do. She would not start to squirm at her father's abuse of her brother, she would not start to wonder if what she had been told by her father about Zuko was wrong. And her confusion, her pain and her confusion, led her to him.
Her eyes fixate on her father briefly. You forced me into his arms, even if you didn't intend it, her gaze says, but he either does not see it, or ignores it.
"Do you know what the usual required course of action for extramarital sex between nobles is?" Ozai inquires and, admittedly, neither of them do. "Marriage, of course. If you're going to take that from her, you have to follow through, because I honestly don't think that you can handle any more shame and disgrace, Zuko. And, I can't imagine anyone else wanting you now, Azula."
They are shocked. Too shocked.
"You both want to rule the country, in the end," Ozai continues, looking entertained by his deplorable decision for punishment. "It certainly saves me negotiating difficult contracts. And it is the honorable way to deal with these disgraceful actions. I intended to dispose of one of you to keep this from happening, but I think you will better learn through this."
And there is nothing, nothing Zuko or Azula can think to say in response.
Azula and Zuko are both very shaken after their father's reaction and completely insane punishment for them. Of course, they suppose, they could not have expected anything less barbaric and sadistic from him. He burnt his son's face and banished him for speaking out in a war meeting; of course his reaction will be more visceral and violent to finding out his children were fucking each other.
But his response seems so... counterintuitive. If their incestuous desires are what angered him, then why would he want to confirm them? Why would he want to force marriage?
"Maybe it's a test," Zuko remarks quietly, looking up at his sister. She looks venomous and ready to kill, but he knows they will only find a way out of this fate if they work together, as difficult as that may be.
"A test?" Azula scoffs and crosses her arms, elbows pressing against her breasts.
"Yes. Maybe he's just trying to scare us," Zuko suggests and Azula envies his naivety.
"I doubt that. But I do think we might be able to get out of it," she says clearly, clearing her sore throat.
"How?" Zuko asks, studying her closely.
"This has to be illegal," Azula insists, still looking breathless. "Right? There's no way an incestuous marriage is legal.
Zuko licks his lower lip, thinking that perhaps she has a point. It is taboo enough that he doubts society has ever supported such a thing.
"There are a lot of books on the Royal Family law here, right?" he suggests, looking down the hallway towards one of the dusty libraries.
Azula nods and they both quickly rise to go search for an escape route.
Unfortunately enough, the Royal Family has had a lengthy and detailed history of exclusively incestuous marriages. Wonderful. Azula does find mentions of them being discouraged after mishaps and murders, but they were always popularized during times of war.
Although it seems to have become taboo over time, she thinks that Ozai could easily get away with its legitimacy by the four hundred years of married siblings.
"We might have some legal standing if we point out the regulations over the past few decades but..."
Zuko just grimaces. "But it's not looking too optimistic?"
"No," Azula sighs before slumping into a chair and rubbing her temples. Her headache is splitting, her heart pounding in her throat.
After what she did during the Comet, she is deserving of the capability to have a say in her marriage. And then she had to fuck it up because of her fucking control issues and the desire to dominate her stupid brother. Not to mention defending him. She probably should have just cried to her father about how she didn't know it was wrong and he would simply finish off Zuko and make Azula's life much easier.
But she slipped up, and now she will pay.
How she is going to explain this to her girlfriend is...
Probably not as bad of a situation as Zuko has gotten himself into. He, as the male and older sibling, will likely take most of the blame. Even if he is such a wimp. Azula stood up for him because she knew he would be blamed because of his gender, his age and his past exile. As she watched Ozai and Zuko fight, her mind very calmly told her that it would be illogical to put a stop to it. She told herself that her life was more important, and she should say whatever lies Ozai will put into her mouth.
But her gut, whatever she has in place of a heart even, was too strong for her to stop. She acted on impulse, yet again.
"It'll be okay," Zuko says, reaching to touch her. She bats his hand away and stands, quickly striding away to try to think of a way to fix her problem on her own. "Fine. If you want to be that way, see if I care. You're his little golden child anyway."
"And you are a sad, jealous little man. I wonder, when was it that you looked at father and saw that there was no more love for you in his eyes," Azula purrs, advancing on him. "Or was there never any of it from the start?"
His fists clench, but he eases and takes a deep breath. Zuko does not need any more trouble for the rest of his life.
She grits her teeth, remembering what her father told her about Zuko over and over again. Those lies she believed as gospel until Zuko came home and she began to question all she knew. But her father was right to try to pit her against her brother.
Because everything wrong in her life is because of him.
Zuko stares after her, thinking exactly the same thing.
But both of them? They are just too afraid to admit that their crimes might have come from a place of love. They are just too afraid of expressing any feeling but hatred or detachment.
This is a mess.