Drip. Drip. Drip.
Damned nuisance. Useless, damned nuisance.
The former fire lord took a moment away from his grumbling solitude to reflect upon the irony of his most recent thought. Useless, damned nuisance...yes, that described his son quite well. His disgraceful, weak, pathetic boy who'd somehow managed to fool people into thinking that he was worthy to bear the title of "Crown Prince" years ago and was somehow managing to fool people into thinking that he was worthy to bear the title of "Fire Lord" now. His disgraceful, weak, pathetic boy—the one who'd locked him up in this hovel of a place and was (to his loathing) ultimately decisive of his future.
Zuko.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Yes, yes, Zuko was a traitor. A traitor underserving of his blood; a foul, unwanted smear upon his family's honor. But he wasn't the only one. His daughter, the perfect tool—his cool, manipulative, shrewd, and merciless daughter—she'd betrayed him as well. She'd disappointed him. After all those years of all that careful conditioning he'd done for her, investing so much of his time and energy into molding her and grooming her into the perfect Fire Nation heir, she's the one who goes and gets funny in the head from what he'd last heard from the guards. She'd been useless after all.
Azula.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
It was never his intention to raise such weak, utterly pointless children; he had always been out to bear strong kin, kin so strong, in fact, that the likes of them would have never had the pleasure of gracing Fire Nation soil or, any soil for that matter. Roku's blood, Sozin's blood, that was the only reason he'd chosen Ursa as a wife if he was honest with himself. Together, they'd create firebenders of unfathomable power, he'd thought at the time. They should have created those benders, they should have, but fate was never on his side. He'd been cursed with a sickly newborn barely strong enough to cling to a life and another child whose destiny was to break down completely when all was said and done. He swore harshly now, wondering how everything had ended up like this.
He supposed in the end, there was only him. Blue fire or no, Phoenix King Ozai was the only truly perfect being in this world; the ends justify the means, he'd always say. The ends were all that mattered, anything else could just curl up in a ball and die in a flaming pit for all he cared. The ends justify the means. He was the only perfect being. The only perfect being.
Ozai huffed in aggravation at the smallest voice nagging him in the back of his mind, telling him that he wasn't beyond the average man (it coincidentally sounded exactly like Ursa), and the smallest squirming in his gut. He'd gone soft. He was feeling guilt of all things, for the simple knowledge that he transcended all others. It disgusted him.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He sighed and shifted his position on the muddled cot he slept on, staring up at the dreary stone ceiling even when he could hardly see; the only light in the room came from a large crystal well above his cage, embedded into the wall and glowing a pale, sickly blue. That, and the shifting half-light of torches streaming in through the barred window at the door to his cell. He cursed himself, there he was, the all-powerful Phoenix King...reduced to nothing but a blithering cellmate inside a dank dungeon like a petty criminal.
Had he really fallen so far so quickly? Had he really fallen so far at all?
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He spent a quite a while in that position, shifting and turning on that pathetic excuse for a bed, perhaps an hour or so, it was hard to tell time in a place like this. He spent that time cursing himself, his son, his daughter, the Avatar, and everyone else who'd gotten him to such an end. Then, he was blinded.
The hinges to the heavy metal door creaked as a temporary lapse of light suddenly poured into the room. He squinted, sitting up and shading his eyes, willing himself not to look away despite how his temple was beginning to throb. There was a sillhouette at the doorway, illuminated by the burning fire in the hall. Ozai felt a stab of bitter hatred once again as his eyes caught sight of the flames, damn that little punk for taking away his bending, his reason to be...
The sillhouette only had one feature about it that he really took any interest in: the golden flame piece set behind the topknot. The Fire Lord's ancestral crown piece. Zuko.
"So..." he growled, not at all surprised to hear his voice rasp from disuse and feel the words scratch at his throat, "you've come to see your beloved father. I must thank you, Fire Lord." his words glowed of sarcasm.
"Actually, it wasn't me who wanted to visit you." Ozai was mildly taken aback by his voice—it was stronger, deeper. This was not a boy, this was a man. Damn him. Damn.
"It was her."
Drip. Drip. Drip.
His heart stopped, deciding instead to cling to his ribcage. It was his daughter. Looking very much mentally stable, at that. To see his Azula—not as a kooky, psychotic, blubbering mess, but as the same astute, chilling prodigy he knew her to be—it brought a strange, unexpected shock.
"Hello Father," she said almost pleasantly, just as he remembered, that same all-knowing smirk playing at her lips as the door slammed behind her and her brother with a sickening clang. He dimly registered how Zuko hung back as Azula stepped forward, the golden flame atop his head almost glowing in spite of the darkness, and the rich fabric of her robes moving soundlessly across the floor as she took a few steps forward.
He tried to say something—he tried to say her name—but he found that he could no longer speak.
"Zuzu's been telling me how well the prison guards have been treating you," she went on airily, as if discussing nothing more trivial than the weather, "how fortunate."
Drip. Drip. Drip.
"I was just talking to him the other day about how wonderful it would be to see you again, in your new...abode."
Azula, unlike Zuko, had not changed. Everything about her was the same, except the way her hair now swooped down to cover her face like that bounty hunter girl he'd once hired to track down one of his governors with that beast of hers. There was still that unsettling lilt in her voice, that same cold burn in her eyes, the same effortless poise in her posture. He tried to swallow, but found he could not.
His prodigy. His hopes. His dreams. His best.
Himself.
"Aren't you going to say something?" Zuko's voice came out in a hiss, startling his father out of his reverie. It was only then that he realized looking up, that both his children were closer now—much closer. They were right in front of the bars, both standing proudly and glaring down at him with matching looks of contempt on their faces. It unnerved him.
He opened his mouth to speak, he still couldn't.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
"Oh come now Father," now Azula spoke, a fake, exasperated, coaxing sound in her words, "surely you have something to say. Zuko and I have ever so much to say to you."
He still couldn't speak.
He saw who he was: angry, burning, needing, screaming. Always so sick of hearing "Iroh, Iroh, Iroh"; "Your brother Iroh went off to the military and came back with eight honors within the highest order of the Fire Nation Navy. You disgrace me to not have the same. Your brother Iroh had a wife when he was three years younger than you. You disgrace me to not have that now. You disgrace me, you disgrace me, you disgrace...", so eager to prove himself, so desparate. Willing to latch onto any glimmer of hope.
He saw who he wanted to be: cool, perfect, strong, able. Never letting the enemy evade him, never letting the enemy get near him, never letting the enemy outsmart him. Always ready no matter what the circumstances. Always able to think things through, never losing his composure. Always able to think, win, and conquer. Never letting his father down, never letting himself go unnoticed, never letting himself disappoint, never being able to disappoint. Always so cunning, always so merciless. Always.
Both his selves—fantasy and reality—were standing before him.
"You never did anything for us."
"You're just like Azulon was—worse."
"You broke us."
"You tortured us."
"You were never a father."
"You're a disgrace."
"You're a disgrace."
"You're a disgrace."
He sags, Disgrace, disgrace, disgrace...
The door slams.
Drip. Drip. Drip.