A/N: Thought this up when re-watching Book One. Hope you like it, please review.
Disclaimer: We all know what goes here, do I even have to say it?
Broken
He didn't know why he wanted to be next to her, be around her, how the lack of her was like a concious twinge, a distracting annoyance that visited him when he was alone, even though he had no reason. After all, the time he had spent with her had been sparing, not nearly enough time to develop a bond so close as to miss her constantly. However, firelord Zuko had an idea as to why he found her so pleasing.
When he was a child, the world was in his hands. Son of Ozai, crown prince of the Fire Nation, everything he required was a call away. The compaions he wanted were by his side, the people he didn't want to see were kept out of veiw. Full of honor and the brash confidence of youth, Zuko was the gem of the Fire Nation. A hope for a future that, beyond the reign of Ozai; he would rule a world united under the bloody fist of the Fire Benders.
However, these things did not please him. Contentment was his life, and he knew not of true happiness, just the dulled feelings of a boy who had nothing to chase. The globe in his hands was a light thing to carry, but he found the bearing of it boring.
She was slender, with long, elegant fingers that tapered to trimmed, white fingernails. Her clothes were curious, blues and blues and darker blues; shot through with strips of what seemed to be fluffy white pelt. Her eyes were dark as her hair, and her skin was nut-brown. She wasn't beautiful, but her shoulders, though thin and sloping, carried her head high, her eyes curiously dark and dull, her smile mysterious.
He was hiding behind one of the curtains when the blue-woman came before his father, bowing respectfully. Father seemed to be angry with her, he rumbled and grated and sent flames towards her, when with a casual flick of her hand, water from a pouch at her hip turned it to steam. After a while, they seemed to come to an agreement. She bowed once more and retreated, her smirk smug and her braid swaying as she walked out of the throne room, this time flanked by two palace guards.
Though he longed to, Zuko did not see her until that night, when Father ate with him and Azula, the hated one, and she came back into the throne room.
The blue cloth that fell over her torso and cut down her legs, slitted up both sides for free movement, was carefully shucked off. Ozai's eyes began to flame with some unknown emotion that the young, naïve Zuko could not place as the dark leggings were also discarded. Her chest and thighs were curiously bound now, wrapped in white, almost-bandage like cloth, with a primal, short, also slitted skirt about her hips.
"As requested," she said in singsong, mocking voice. His fathers' hand clenched on his bowl, he leaned forward with the element he commanded smoldering in his eyes. Zuko felt worry slash through him. He didn't want this woman to die. Anyone to die. To die was a terrible thing.
"Wench, you live on my command."
"Because you seek some services from me." A smirk.
"Get on with it, then."
"As you wish, Most High." Her voice was curious—almost as if she taunted his Father with the honorific. But neither Ozai nor Zuko had time to punish this breach, as she quickly segued from one activity to the next.
She did something curious.
She had begun to dance.
The movements were fluid and graceful, and Zuko's heart began to pump faster at the sight. He had never seen anything like this before. This dancing . . .
With an almost lazy flick of her wrist, water rushed from a hidden place behind her, swirling about her body. Her hands moved in a similar fashion, as if to hold it there, her hands weaving as the snakelike columns of liquid twisted violently about her hips, her waist, the exposed brownness of her legs. The heat in the room lined with fire was making quick work of boiling the water, and steam began to hiss about her. She danced now behind a veil of persperation.
After a few seemingly neverending minutes, the Blue-Girl let the water—what remained of it—splash about her feet to the floor before guiding it into the flames that surrounded the royal family, where it hissed and became nothing.
"Do you enjoy my dance, Most High?" Once more she scorned Ozai with her words. The Fire Lord seemed to note this, and leaned forward, his gaze dangerous.
"You are but a slip of a thing. Your bones look easily broken."
"As does your heart," she quipped. "What's left of it, after all. Soon, I suppose, those feelings of trepadation you've been feeling over this bloody reign will crumple and die with the rest of your doubts . . . and you'll do something drastic, like, say, exile your wife."
His face turned from taunting to fatal in a blinking.
"You have no place," he growled.
"So kill me," she said almost casually "I was taken from my children and my husband because your soldiers found me pleasing—I remain alive only because of your great kindness, and lust, Fire Lord."
His fathers' face closed.
"Begone, wench. I shall call you again."
"To your bed, I'd guess," she said, her tone clipped. She allowed herself to be led away. Eventually her form faded from veiw, obscured by smoke and many draperies, but Zuko was still obsessed with the slender woman who danced for his father, her form dancing in front of his eyes.
"F . . . father," he said, his tongue too large in his mouth. He had no idea what the words he and the woman had exchanged, or what they had meant, but he was still confident his father would not deny him his request.
"Yes, Zuko?" he asked, his tone sharp.
"I should like to marry that woman," he said with decision. Azula snorted loudly, then dissolved into derisive giggles, just barely muffling them with her sleeve.
"Be silent, Zuko," his Father said. "You can not marry a woman of that barbarian tribe in the North."
Azula laughed harder.
"M . . . more like take her to bed a few times then discard her, eh, Father!"
Ozai silenced her with a whip of flame that singed her shirt and shut her mouth.
-x-
"Zuko."
"May," he said, leaning on the railing of the balcony. His lands were so beautiful. He'd never noticed before, too preoccupied with the complications of youth and exile. Fire was truly a beautiful element, as was it's people and it's architecture.
"You're thinking of them again, aren't you?" she asked in her monotone, leaning next to him and looking at him with strange affection.
Not them. Just her.
"They'll be back. But they have a lot to do, Zuko. Restoring peace isn't easy or quick."
She'll be an old woman before it's over. She'll marry him and I'll always be the friend.
"I know, May."
"Oh, Zuko . . . " her voice was a sigh as she rested her head on his shoulder. "We have a lot to do here, too. But I'll help you through it."
"Thanks."
Silence.
" . . . I love you, Zuko."
"I love you, May."
I love her more.
Katara.
She had the dancing womans' hair and eyes and nut-brown skin, and her carriage was just the same—confident, her smile so small and knowing. What she had told him under Ba Sing Se; that her mother had been lost to the Fire Nation, he had had no doubt. Her mother was the dancing woman; and his father had broken her, then thrown her away.