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It's spring, and the rain falls heavily.
A palanquin, red and royal, stands by the porch; inside the house, a tyrant sails by leaving only painful destruction in his wake.
(And the house isn't his…)
"Play fighting?" he asks, never really listening, and grabs the nearest doll.
(Her favourite.)
She shakes her head. "No, no, she's my favourite…"
And watches him behead the little personage. Splatter-splatter, sawdust trembles to the ground, littering the carpet with sand and the taste of watery salt.
Little tears fall, heavier than the heavy spring rain.
(As always.)
…
The harvest moon shines bright, and she steals along quiet lanes clad in shadows and silence. On the morrow she will enter the palace, and a week hence, the grand wedding she's never wanted will be held.
The palace is a graveyard of broken dreams and dying love. There is no pity to be had, no love to be found, nothing indeed, but a well of anger, power and might that breeds tyrants who stake their claim in fire.
But tomorrow, she will slip on the red gown and walk meekly into the labyrinth where generations of Fire Nation noblewomen have lived and died in terrifying oblivion. She fears that the imposing gates will shut her in forever, into a world she would much rather escape.
(She has no reason to stay.)
That night, she dreams a strange, wakeful dream.
(Nightmare.)
There is nothing but a throne, empty, beckoning, and a little boy with dark hair runs to it, smiling at her with open eyes. She runs to him, but he disappears in a puff of fire and dubious smoke. She chokes and wakes with an iron hand clutching at her heart.
(There is no reason to doubt that she will face an early end.)
…
"Tea, milady?" And she nods, because it is polite to do so.
Prince Iroh deftly pours steaming jasmine tea into a delicate cup with willow patterns at the edges. The smell is mildly calming, and she misses her baby.
"What's on your mind?" Iroh asks, and she knows that he isn't just tossing an indifferent question at her the way her husband (devil, devil) does.
"Why can't I nurse Zuko?"
"Princesses don't nurse their own children, sister, I'm sure you know that."
"But…"
"Drink your tea. Don't worry, sister, you'll get used to it."
(Wise words never do go down without a bitter aftertaste.)
But Iroh was right, and he wasn't.
…
The palace is eerily silent at night, the way it's always been. She thinks that the wretched ghosts of yesteryear still linger with their unhallowed memories, towing their dreadful sins along. The night is hot (as all summer nights are) and she fumbles with her collar.
She has a mission tonight.
There's no doubt she will miss the palace when she's through and done with whatever she's set her mind to do, though Ozai is not counted among the short list of things she'll miss when she has nothing to her name but a pile of ashes and the soul of fleeing dreams. The palace, empty and serpentine as it is, houses her two jewels. When all's said and done, she knows she'll miss the times she spent walking about the terraces with Zuko and miss the times spent combing Azula's fine hair.
But a mother never shies away from her rightful duty to protect her children.
(Sacrifice is a duty, virtue, long inscribed in her Fire Nation heart.)
There is a door, and in she goes.
When the night fades behind the subdued dawn, she kneels before Ozai and spills the truth with head bowed and eyes closed.
He spurts anger and … it's over, it really truly is.
She doesn't-didn't feel a thing.
Rooms away, Zuko jerks up in bed and muffles a deep wail.
(She's left behind her reason to stay, to love, to know, to think, to be. She's left her human heart behind, she thinks, and then walks calmly to where her parents dwell.)
A/N: Ahaha it's been ages since I did an ATLA fic! The title is Latin for "the beginning foreshadows the end."
Reviews would be much appreciated, as always (: