Disclaimer: Characters. not. mine.

Fazia Tasikhe does not believe in the word perfect.

After all, if Ozorne really were the perfect little statesman, he wouldn't have needed to execute Thedorre Ladvem, the brother of Fazia's best friend, in order for someone to take the blame for the Siraj …issue.

If he honestly were the perfect general, he wouldn't have sent Karim Ishbak to lead the entire Western army to die on the fields of Ekallatum.

And if he truly were the perfect big brother, he wouldn't look at her like he did the slave girls he paraded around the court, his hungry roving eyes wouldn't contain the glint that made her know that for every compliment he gave - he had a personal interest in. He wouldn't have exiled Ayaneh Ladvem to the Roof of the World because she did not embrace the lust of an emperor.

If he was really, truly, honestly, a good person like all the shifty-eyed courtiers insist, just a little too strongly to mean it, he wouldn't take such sadistic pleasure in hurting the people closest to her.

But then he finds her Gazanoi Iliniat - because he says he owes her for having to kill her last admirer (he didn't even bother coming up with an excuse this time). The way Gazanoi looks at her, talks to her, really listens to her, it makes her feel like maybe the forbidden word is within reach after all.

And when he holds her tight and tells her about the new house he's having built for them, and she realizes that she can lose the name of Tasikhe now, that she can make this final break from her brother and somehow… still find more happiness, she wonders if maybe, one day, she'll dare utter the promise.

He takes his new bride to the sandy cove by her new home and shows her the treasures he remembers from his childhood - and when they sit in the sand and watch the ocean, the normally cerulean waters now reflecting the reds and violets of the sky above it... she feels complete, and the curse of that dark work shatters at last.

Then he gently lifts her chin for a kiss, and even though she can't see it anymore, she knows that it is the perfect sunset.

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A/N: there's just something about that word that made this oneshot a must . Review?

Fazia/Gazanoi

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