Steel Monsters In Glass Bottles
She doesn't miss him.
Azula stands at the helm of the ship, watching the sea stretch to meet the sky. Endless. Infinite.
And she doesn't miss him. Want is an element of attachment, an emotion of absolute weakness. With it eventually comes fondness, love. Azula is not weak, and she does not want, need, or miss him.
He was a pawn. He meant nothing.
"You are ruthless, Princess," he laughs, delighted.
Sea breeze sifts through her hair, and Azula closes her eyes.
A single, stubborn strand of hair falls into her face. She recalls, with a pang that she refuses to acknowledge, the first night that he reached up and brushed it away. It's a memory too strong to be shaken away.
The ocean waters beat against the hull of the steel ship, a cold monster tearing through the bottomless abyss. Spread out before her is a world to search, and a job to do. She is above this wallowing - this fruitless guilt that she feels that she must lie to herself about. Somewhere out there, the key to her success is waiting for her to seize it. And that, more than anything in this world, is what she desires. It is far more valuable than the unreachable world that hides out beyond the horizon, beyond the distance where her fingers can grasp, like a ship trapped in a glass bottle, where a man tucked her hair behind her ear and did not cower from her strength.
And she does not miss him.
Still, when her eyes creep open, they gaze past the ship, and the sea, to a place in her mind where a man with ridiculous sideburns kissed her hard on the mouth. The memories float on air, always to be seen in the distorted curve of the clear glass walls and never touched, where the dark waters cannot consume them and it is almost enough to make her want to miss him.
When they reach port, she is happy to turn her back to the sea.