A/N: Modern alternate universe. Ozai is a rich oil magnate, Zuko has already left home, etc.
Contains non-graphic rape/incest. Please proceed with caution.
It was Azula's sixteenth birthday.
The knowledge brought with it a sinking sense of paranoia. Other people, she knew, looked forward to their birthdays. They got presents. They were treated specially. They had parties with friends. She had been to the affairs herself.
Azula got presents as well, of the kind that she never asked for.
And sure enough, after breakfast, she returned to her room to find a set of lingerie laid out for her. Black and red. Last year, it had been blue. Bra, panties, garters. It could have been worse; she remembered the corset with loathing.
Wear them for me today.
The note wasn't signed. It didn't have to be. Azula knew her father's handwriting as well as her own. And so she pulled on the garments, refusing to look in the mirror.
They weren't comfortable. They were made, after all, to be taken off. But if her father were to check her room and find that she had left his gift untouched, she would undoubtedly pay.
So Azula, feeling and looking like a prostitute, pulled her school clothes over her father's birthday presents. She had approximately twelve hours between now and when she would have to see him, and knew that each minute would be torturous. She dreaded her birthdays, and when they came, she prayed for them to be over.
She had stopped wondering, a long time ago, exactly why Ozai chose her birthday every year for this kind of sick game. She would do whatever he asked any other day, and surely he knew that. But Azula could imagine the thoughts that went through her father's head as he dressed her up and played with her.
I made you. I own you. You are all I have left of her.
Azula was notably more restless than usual in class. Her new underwear was unfamiliar, uncomfortable, rubbing and chafing against her skin. The garters continued to wander down her thighs, meaning that she had to pull them up every few minutes.
Her only relief was that she wasn't forced to change for gym. She did not want to deal with the looks of the other girls, even if a few scalding remarks would be enough to shut them up.
She knew what it looked like.
"Happy birthday, Azula!" Ty Lee chirped, handing over a box containing a set of ruby earrings. Azula examined them with feigned gratitude and privately noted that they matched.
"Yeah, many more," Mai added. She offered a rare smile. "I think my parents were going to send the gift straight to your house, so you can look forward to that."
Something to look forward to, at least, Azula thought, keeping herself from saying it out loud. Not that she really cared. Any of the expensive gifts Mai's parents would think to give her were things Ozai already showered on her, things that were tainted by their association with the man.
Ty Lee and Mai had learned years ago not to ask Azula what her father gave her for her birthdays. Her eleventh had been the first birthday when she had come to school wearing lingerie intended for women at least twice her age. When Ty asked, innocently, Azula had fled to the bathroom and attempted not to cry. Even then she could guess why her father dressed her up. Even then she could guess what awaited her at the end of the day.
Predictably, the day passed much faster because of her trepidation. Even though every moment felt like an eternity, extending her dread, and yet all too soon she was slipping into her car and the driver was pulling out of the school's parking lot and back toward the house.
It was dark and quiet at home. Ozai wouldn't be home for a handful of hours yet, and most of the help had been given the day off. Azula knew the routine. She had gotten used to it, birthday after birthday. After the cook finished and dinner was served, all the others would leave too, and it would be her and her father alone in the house.
Wouldn't want anyone around to call Child Protective Services, she thought coldly. But Azula didn't have faith that anyone would attempt to help her even if they knew what was happening. Ozai paid well, and that was surely more important than whatever he chose to do to his daughter.
Homework was a welcome, if insufficient, refuge. Her textbooks helped give Azula's mind a rest, something to focus on. But the dread was still there, lingering beneath the surface, and the part of her brain that wasn't engaged in the calculations of chemical reactions was wondering what grim surprises awaited her that evening.
Last year, it had been handcuffs and rope. The year before, gag and blindfold.
She didn't think it was at all about satisfying Ozai's sexual desires. Her father wasn't a particularly experimental man. It was entirely about the power. He snapped and she jumped. He ordered and she obeyed. He liked testing exactly how far that relationship went.
Too far, most would say.
She had considered running away before, but it was a foolish thought. Where would she go? Where could she go that her father, with his unending money and infinite resources, could not find her? No. If she stayed, if she made Ozai happy, then she would inherit. One day, she would bring about her own happiness. She just needed to be patient.
Dinnertime. Candles and shadows.
Her father looked impeccable, not a single thread of his suit out of place. Azula smiled as she greeted him. He held out a bouquet of roses and she accepted, smelling one as if she hadn't expected this, as if it wasn't an exact replica of every year before.
Red for romantic love.
"Happy birthday," he breathed, before kissing her on the lips. Azula felt his beard tickle her chin and waited for it to be over.
The food was delicious. Any less and the cook would be fired. The conversation was sparse. Azula was just focusing on getting and keeping a decent amount of food down. Neither of them felt the need to fill silence with inconsequential small talk.
It ended, as everything must. As the night would. As her next birthday would, and the one after that, and the one after that. As Ozai's life would end, and after that, her own.
He wiped the last drops of wine from his lips and folded his napkin neatly before looking up, expectantly, at Azula.
"Are you going to model your present for me?"
He didn't like explaining exactly what he wanted. He had that first time, when she was eleven. Azula remembered frozen fear, stiff limbs, not comprehending what her father was asking from her. But she knew now. It was routine.
She went upstairs, went to her bathroom, showered and shaved and dried her hair, fetched the undergarments from her clothes and pulled them on. Again, she avoided looking at the mirror. The walk from her room to her father's seemed to take forever. It was just them in the house, but she couldn't help the fear of being seen. . .
When Ozai finally came upstairs, it was to find his daughter sitting at the end of his bed, staring, glassy-eyed, at the floor.
Azula stood as her father entered. It wasn't as embarrassing anymore. She was used to the feeling of his eyes on her. Bra, panties, garter, with nothing to hide them. Just her body, his genes, her mother's genes. Just blood and blood.
Ozai smiled at the sight of her, and then he placed his hands on Azula and covered her skin with his fingerprints.
The lingerie was made to come off, and it came off. Azula lay naked in the sheets where her mother had once lain naked, and the same man pulled himself away from her to rummage in a drawer in the far corner of the room.
"Close your eyes."
She wasn't facing his direction, but Azula obeyed. It was always safer to obey.
She felt him approaching, felt his skin brush against her, and then felt something metallic slide around her throat and click into place.
Collar.
She opened her eyes without being told to do so. Ozai jerked her, roughly, by the throat, over to where he lay waiting. Azula crawled over on hands and knees, crawled onto her father's skin and pressed herself onto him.
Happy birthday.