A/N: Have an angsty one-shot.
They're both so young when it starts, children forced into adulthood by a war that's raged on for a hundred years. There's lingering glances and soft smiles and fingertips gently skimming over silk soft skin and jumping in front of lightning bolts and it's so, so good while it lasts. And then the war is over, and it ends.
She travels with the Avatar, smiles for the people, does her best to rebuild a world torn apart by anguish and grief and bright raw misery. She's hiding her own grief, her own anguish, her own misery; she has pushed aside who she is, hidden her anger, her power, her essence, her love for a man she cannot have. She is the Avatar's forever girl, forever bound by her title.
He stays in the capitol, in Caldera, and begins the life he is expected to lead. There are council meetings and stuffy advisors and stuffier nobility and he wants to walk away from it all because this was never something he asked for, never something he wanted. It was his sister who loved the politics, but she'll never rule over anything now. And so he does what is expected of him; he has pushed aside his feelings, his morals, his anguish, and his greed. He is the Fire Lord, a Fire Lady he's not sure he ever loved by his side, bound by his title and his birthright.