WiltingDaisies94: Welcome everyone to my first Avatar: The Last Airbender tale. This one has gone through a few revisions, but it should be in excellent shape now.
Like most Zutarians, I was extremely displeased with the season finale and all that Kataang nonsense the writers hid behind. But, sadly, this story is not about fixing the misguided pairings of the Avatar universe. Although I think Zuko and Katara would make a great couple, they also have excellent chemistry as enemies, which is what I'm working with in this story.
Warnings: Alternate universe, occasional profanity, some sexual references/situations. This story will be on the darker side. If you want fluff or romance, you are looking in the wrong fanfiction.
Setting: It's been two years since the Great War of the Avatar, and Katara is trapped in Fire Lord Zuko's palace, as his personal war-slave.
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of its lovely, lively characters.
Chapter 1
Too proud to cry.
They had killed Sokka.
It was the first thing she'd learned after her capture. Her brother, her companion, her friend; he was dead.
Toph disappeared, a captive like her, to an undisclosed location.
And Aang, the only hope, the only prayer... Aang was gone.
Meanwhile, they sent her to him.
Too proud to cry.
He most certainly was a prince. It radiated off him, seeping into his walk, his speech, his manner of dress – arrogance was bred into him, as natural as breathing. Royalty and cruelty mixed together and settled over his body like a second skin.
But it was power that mattered most, power that was key. Lords and Ladies, benders and masters, those were the lucky few to whom he lent his ear.
Just as dangerous to have for allies than to keep as friends, but a necessity nonetheless. He took only a slight, twisted pleasure in meeting with the other top players of the world – he liked to play, but it was always a game of wariness and politics. Even he had only so much delight in diplomacy.
What he truly enjoyed was torturing her.
Too proud to cry.
It's been two years of night and day, a merry-go-round of the painful and harsh. He's had the chance to say everything and anything, all the nasty, cruel barbs that have occurred to him since they first met.
He rages, he blames, he taunts and torments, and it cuts away at her heart just the way his knives and whips break open her skin.
Every look, every sneer, every snide remark scratches at her, and makes her that much older, that much colder, that much more resistant.
There is no way out for her. All she can do is live through his anger, without hope of reprieve.
At least, so he would like her to think.
Too proud to cry.
One might question why he still keeps her around. After all, the same taunts bore him after a time; why should he be bothered to hold onto her when a few pointed stabs would suffice in finishing her?
He knows why, though he'd be hard-pressed to share. It's an embarrassing problem.
The little water-bitch won't break.
She is certainly too weak to escape from his palace, and she has nowhere to turn in the event she could escape.
But she is not broken. Not in the way he wants her to be.
She's damaged, yes. Hurt and tortured – but not broken.
He wants to be able to look into her face and see the haunted eyes of the damned, the gaze of a suffering, destroyed spirit.
But all he ever sees is sadness, an accusatory sorrow as deep and chilling as her beloved sea.
He wants to hear her beg for mercy, plead for help. He waits and waits, but she refrains.
She takes her beatings and punishments without a word, without a sound, without so much as a gasp of pain or indignation.
Too proud to cry.
The one thing he wants above all is to see a tear slip down her cheek. Watch as she desperately tries to hold it in, but the strain is too great, and it falls. He wants to see it fall down, down, down, roll across her cheek and down her neck, until it disappears from sight.
And then, only then, will she be completely under his power. Broken.
She knows it.
He knows it.
And they both try their very hardest to hold their own - her attempts to restrain her feelings, his intention to make them burst like a dam.
So he will wait for it, day and night, until it comes, that tiny, almost nonexistent trickle.
But until then, neither can do anything but wait. For he knows and she knows -
She is too proud to cry.
WD94: And off we go.