Over the past few weeks, Ursa had grown accustomed to being an accessory to Ozai. She'd become less and less of a person to nearly everyone, especially him. With each passing day, he saw her as less his wife, and more the vessel through which he would receive his future son. He saw the possibilities of raising a powerful fire bender to follow in his footsteps. He saw a card to play against his brother. She understood as well as he did, that if Ozai produced more powerful and numerous heirs than his brother; he had a better chance of usurping the throne upon his father's passing.

Everything went back to power with him. He wasn't ever happy with having some power—he had to have all or nothing. He'd made that clear enough when he ranted to her about his father, about the unfairness of it all. That he deserved so much more than being the second son to someone not as deserving as he was of the throne. Personally, she was glad his chances of ever taking the throne were slim. The Fire Nation could use a ruler with a kind heart. It had gone far too many generations without one.

Her thoughts are stalled when she feels familiar arms around her waist, pulling her back into the solid wall of a well-muscled chest. She shifts uncomfortably, the heat of his body unwelcome in the summer heat. It was just her luck to be pregnant during the dead of a Fire Nation summer. Ozai considered it a sign that their child's bending would be strong, to gestate when the sun was at its closest. Everything seemed to revolve around the child now, even her own thoughts; her own fears. She still hadn't decided if she could love the quickly growing life inside of her.

"Where have you been?" He asks, and she makes a noncommittal noise in response, tilting her head back to rest on his shoulder. He won't let her leave his arms unless he wishes it, so she doesn't fight him, "That wasn't a yes or no question, Ursa." He continues, voice gruff in her ear as his arms tighten around her.

"I've been here." She responds vaguely. He didn't need to know the exact details of her day. It was the time she had away from him that made her days worth having.

"I don't believe you." Ursa's body tenses in his grip, more forcefully wriggling to possibly encourage him to release her, "You've been complaining about the heat for weeks. You wouldn't just sit around in the sun in the middle of the day." She can feel his beard against her neck, and she shivers involuntarily. She detested the thing.

"I don't have to explain myself to you," She snaps, because she truly is unbearably warm as well as him being completely right. She'd simply been avoiding him, going to the furthest possible place from where she'd known he would be. She'd needed time and space to think, "It doesn't truly matter to you does it?" His grip tightens further, putting an uncomfortable pressure near her swollen stomach.

"Actually," Her world spins suddenly when he turns her around completely to face him, "You do. Did you forget? You're not supposed to go anywhere unaccompanied, not in the state you're in." That earns an exasperated sigh from her, and now that he's released his hold on her, she backs away from him. She feels like she can breathe again.

"The state I'm in?" Ursa asks incredulously, propping a hand on her hip, "I think I can take care of myself, like I always have. I don't need people guarding me everywhere I go just because of this." Her free hand settles on her stomach, rounding the curve of it. Her nonchalance seems to anger him, and he clenches his fists with restrained frustration.

"I've explained this before. It's not your competence I'm concerned with." He's grabbing her again, his hands finding hers and engulfing them, a mockery of a caring gesture, "There are assassins, enemies to the Fire Nation, who may try to harm the child because of its status." It's no surprise that he's more concerned for the child's safety than her own, and it is true that he's told her this before. She'd held her tongue then, but for some reason, his words drag a cruel laugh from her. Perhaps it's the heat, the fatigue, the frustration, the fear or a combination of all of them, but she throws all of her caution and good manners to the wind.

"Ozai, you overestimate your importance." She says venomously, and realizes just how much venom she has for him, "No one is going to assassinate a child that isn't even in line for the throne. They wouldn't even bother with you, let alone your child." That's not entirely true, but it feels good. With how trapped she feels, and with how much negativity, uncertainty, anger and fear swirl around him and because of him in her mind, it's therapeutic to hurt him just once. She watches each emotion cross his face in order, relishing each one. Shock, confusion, realization, and finally, anger that boils over into a righteous fury.

When he strikes her with a powerful backhand, she falls to the ground before she even feels the pain, the left side of her face stinging fiercely after a few long moments. She slowly raises her hand to feel her face, finding the skin of her cheek tender and hot to the touch. She can't look up at him, instead staring down at the blades of grass beneath her. They stain red from the blood that drips from between her lips. She's in denial that it's her blood, that he did this to her. He'd always had a violent temper, but he'd never dared to lay a hand on her before.

"How dare you." Ozai growls out, the air around him crackling with withheld energy, "I am your husband, and once I take the throne from my weakling of a brother, which I will, I will be Fire Lord." He reaches down, grabbing a handful of her hair and tugging down painfully, forcing her head to tilt up and her eyes to meet his, "And if you wish to still be alive to see that day, I suggest you hold your tongue and respect your husband." She won't cry, she refuses to give him that, but her entire body seems to shake with the effort.

"Do you understand me?!" He demands loudly, shaking her by his grip on her hair, the world going out of focus for a moment before stars burst across her vision.

"Yes."

"Yes, Prince Ozai."

"Yes, Prince Ozai."

He leaves her as swiftly as he'd come.

At dinner, she dines alone, the enormous dinning table mocking her with its emptiness. The servants who flutter around her murmur about the purpling bruises on her face, but none have the audacity to do so when they serve her. When she retires to their bedchambers, she's alone once again, and when she falls into a fitful sleep, she dreams of fire. She dreams of a boy with dark hair and Ozai's startlingly bright golden eyes, but there is kindness in them that puts her at ease. The hard edges of his father's face have been somewhat smoothed by the more subtle curves of his mother's. She dreams of the pain his father inflicts on him, torturous and unforgiving training to mold him into the man Ozai demands he be until that kindness is broken out of him, until only a perfect copy of Ozai remains.

When she's startled awake by a new weight on the bed beside her, she finds her cheeks are wet, and her left eye is refusing to open completely, the skin beneath it swollen.

"I was thinking about you, today." A voice murmurs behind her, and it's too soft for her to recognize it as Ozai's voice for a moment, "About what you dared to say to me." His hand starts at her shoulder and slides down to her own hand, grasping it as he settles behind her. She can feel every rise and fall of his musculature when he presses against her, lips finding the back of her neck as he brushes her hair aside.

"Why do you make me hurt you?" His words come out as almost regretful; if it wasn't for the smile she feels against her neck, "You're so beautiful. Such perfect skin…it hurts me as much as it hurts you to damage it like that. But you gave me no choice, you know." His hand leaves hers, instead hooking into the fabric of her nightgown and tugging upwards in a way that makes her shift herself away from his embrace. His other arm tugs her back into her original position.

"Aren't you going to apologize?" He breathes out, mouthing at her jaw.

"I…" Her words are choked in her throat, and again she chokes back the sting of tears. She still won't give him that.

Her hands press down on her nightgown, stalling its progress up her legs at her knee.

"No." She spits out, tugging on the silk and pulling it out of Ozai's grasp. When he lets out a noise of frustration, she feels it more than hears it, the sound reverberating deep within his chest pressed against her back.

"I thought you were so much smarter than that." She's suddenly on her back, and he pins her down with a hand gripping each of her arms. When he leans in to kiss her, she grits her teeth and twists her head to the side, his lips connecting roughly with her bruised cheek. She lets out a small pained noise, teeth digging into her lip, "You need to be punished for your insolence, Ursa. Need to be taught some respect. To remember who has the power here." The restrained tears start to fall as she struggles underneath him, his excessive mass alone preventing her from getting any traction.

Suddenly, his weight is pressing down on her arm, the sharp angle of his elbow digging into her skin as he pins her with it and uses his freed hand to force her head upward. She has no choice, his fingers pressing into her bruised cheek and holding her jaw in place, and lets him ravage her mouth. He's far more aggressive than she'd ever seen him, tongue forcing open her mouth and lips claiming hers with a fervor that frightens her. He practically sucks the breath out of her, and when he pulls away, she's panting harshly.

"I'm going to let you go." He murmurs against her skin, "But fight me, and I will damage you far worse than you can comprehend." His hot breath comes out across her neck, teeth digging into her skin, "You can always conceive again." Every muscle in her body wants to fight him as soon as he releases her arms, but as her hands begin to rise off the mattress, she thinks of the boy in her fading dream. The kind eyes that, while they were most certainly inherited from his father, were eyes all his own. Eyes that looked upon her, begging for her help, her protection from the man who was supposed to love him, that she could never put in jeopardy. So unsure, yet already so protective of the boy she doesn't know, she lowers her hands, gathering fistfuls of the sheets as her nightgown is tugged further upward and over her hips.

She doesn't know that boy, not yet, but she will.