A/N: Supposedly, this is based on the prompt, "Domestic/You have the right to remain violent". How close it manages to be is pretty questionable, but I'd like to think it's a good oneshot nonetheless. Written for Ozula week so suggestive content ahead.
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A figure stood clad in expensive scarlet robes, eyes cast towards the pile of scrolls in front of her that she was swiftly turning into ash.
"What are you doing?"
The voice was low, angry and dangerous but the figure did not turn her back from the flames.
"Cleaning," she replied tersely, "isn't that what the wife is supposed to do?"
"No, that's what the servants are for, dear," sarcasm dripped from his voice, "So let me repeat, what are you doing?"
The woman did not reply, or, in fact, give any indication that she had even heard him. She continued her burning, seemingly oblivious to the seething figure behind her.
Though a lesser man would have cowered in the face of the wrath of the most powerful man in the Fire Nation (and quite likely, the world), she was not intimidated in the least, hadn't been for a long time.
But eventually she relented, "I'm burning our portraits, our papers, everything that has any connection to us." She replied, more clearly this time.
"Why?" His voice full of barely contained anger.
"Do you really need to ask that?" Her tone was frustrated, the question rhetorical. She continued to burn the paintings, this time with more vigor.
Silence, only the sound of the crackling fire and the rustling of the papers as the fell to their deaths.
"Look at me."
He called out gently, or what passed as a decent imitation of gentleness (she doubted even Zuko would be fooled).
"…I don't want to see your face right now." She replied honestly and dismissively, keeping her eyes on the fire before her.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you, Azula."
All pretense at gentleness gone, his voice demanded obedience. The fire burn bright red for a moment, a sign of his anger.
A deep sigh. Then, slowly, Azula turned to face her father.
"What do you want, Ozai?"
There was a resigned weariness in her voice, and one got the sense that she was far too old for her age (she was barely in her mid-twenties) but there was a lot of unresolved anger too. Anger that burned as hot as the fire behind her.
The Firelord was silent. His face was blank and Azula wasn't sure what he was thinking (she wasn't sure she cared quite frankly).
"What happened?"
He asked after a while, in what was, in Azula's opinion, a decent approximation of caring.
"…I grew up," she replied tiredly, "I'm sick of these twisted games you play. I'm not a child anymore." Silently, she thought, I was never really a child, thanks to you.
"So you're all grown up now, is that it?" His voice was slightly mocking, and a long time ago, she thought, she might've flinched at his tone, but not anymore.
"I'm still your husband," he began.
"-Still your father?" She asked softly, a certain sadness entering her eyes.
"I hear the whispers in the halls. The things they say about us in every Firenation dining table from here to the colonies."
"Is that it?" His tone was incredulous. "You're angry about the gossip?" He looked at her as though she had gone mad, and perhaps she had, but certainly not for the reasons he believed.
"They're planning a coup. You won't be Firelord for much longer." Her voice was indifferent, her body posture aloof, yet the tremor in her hand betrayed her true emotions.
"People are always planning coups! What makes you think they'll ever succeed? I'm at the height of my power!" He told her all this like it was guaranteed, and she was a fool for thinking otherwise.
"Are you blind, father? The Fire Nation has been in political turmoil for a long time. Many people were unhappy when you seized the throne. You aren't exactly the most beloved Firelord, and I, far from the most adored Princess. The Nation doesn't like us, father. They obey us because of their sense of duty to the Firenation. But they definitely won't oppose a coup, in fact, they'll celebrate it." She gestured towards the window, as though he might glimpse a crowd gathering with pitchforks and torches any moment now.
"Our marriage has been a political suicide. They were always looking for a reason to dethrone you, vultures that they are. And now they have one."
He looked as though he was about to speak but Azula cut him off.
"It's true we aren't the first royal family to marry a relative, there were many who married a cousin or sibling, and one who was father-daughter like us. But that was many years ago. And the Firenation prides itself on being more progressive than the other nations.
Are you truly so blinded by your arrogance that you don't see all this? Because I see it all too clearly-have seen it, every day, since our marriage."
The sound of flesh striking flesh. A dark red bruise began to form on Azula's cheek. There was no surprise on her face, only a mask of stony blankness she had learned to perfect over the years.
"Don't make me out to be a fool, insolent girl." He said angrily, "I am your husband-and yes-your father, and you will show respect when you speak with me."
"Very well, Firelord Ozai," she conceded, her voice devoid of emotion, "I see our conversation, as always, ends with violence on your part. Tell me, were you the same way with mother? Or am I special?"
He looked as though he was about to slap her once more, but she quickly turned her back to him. In one swift motion, she sent a blast of blue fire towards the large pile of scrolls on the floor.
"When the people kill us-or banish us, if they are being merciful, though I doubt it—there will be no evidence of our existence, and we will disappear. We shall be forgotten, like the old stories of bogeymen that terrorized the lands of yore, existing only on the tongues of old crones. And what we have done shall be a secret we take with us to our graves."
She whispered in a heated breath, and the room seemed to be wreathed in eerie blue flames. Suddenly, he saw in her a madness that managed to at once disturb and disgust him. His beautiful (ugly) mad (sane) daughter. In the very back of his mind, he asks himself if it is he who has caused this.
When all the scrolls had turned to ash, she faced him. She looked at him as though this was the last time she would do so, and whispered, "You told me I was born lucky, but I suppose that was just another one of your lies."
Then, she turned away and left the room. Where she went or if she would ever return, he didn't know. If she stopped to look back at him, he didn't notice. His gaze was focused on a lone blue flame, still flickering against all odds.
When the flame died out, as it was bound to, mere moments later, he thought he should weep.