Wildfire
Chapter 6
A/N: I'm back! Wow aren't you guys nice! I love you all so much you brilliant paragons of society, you say such lovely things! Annnnyway, been a while, not as long as last time but long enough, and I managed to find the inspiration to write this and get halfway through the next chapter too, thanks for the encouragement! This is set in Yusheng/Zarin's present, so will the next few chapters be, which I know you wanted. I try my best to handle her sensitive mental state as best I can and I hope it fits, I've answered a few of your comments at the bottom if you wanna read, don't be afraid of commenting, I love it! (Apologies for typos/errors/etc. I check myself so stuff is missed)
Disclaimer: ATLA is not mine
The sun is shining when Yusheng wakes. Its pale, bright rays are dyed vermilion by the thin orange linen covering the small window opposite her sleeping mat and the soft warmth plays over her face. The air is dry and cool, not the heated stickiness that seem to pervade the Fire Nation whatever the season and smells faintly of winter flowers and the sea.
She opens her eyes slowly, a leaden weight thick like molasses sliding over her limbs and pulling at her mind. The light is bright on her face, tinted as it is, and she squints her eyes against it.
She feels exhausted, completely and utterly drained. A steady throb beats behind her skull and it clouds her fuzzy, sleep-heavy thoughts with muddy pulsing colours and a rhythm that pounds in time with her heart. She can't have had much sleep; her limbs are aching and her hair is still slightly damp from her bath. She thinks she must have returned to the harem some hours after midnight and the time that she'd lain awake plotting and scheming hasn't done her any favours.
She stretches her body out and yawns, her mouth gaping open as her bones creak with the effort, the stiffness slipping slowly from her limbs. She pulls herself up, gracefully despite her weariness, for if there's one lesson from her childhood that has served her equally well here it is to always look her best, no matter how she feels. Her hair feels heavy on her head, running down her back in a silken river and she runs a hand through its length, wincing a little as her fingers snag in the knots. She sits there for a moment in silence, face tilted toward the light as she breathes in the clean air and wakes.
She makes a pretty picture, she knows; the soft orange glow spilling over her naked skin; her hair: thick and dark and long. She can almost see it now The Whore Awakens, hung up in some rich man's house and she allows herself a small sardonic smile. It looks almost soft in the shadows of her face.
It is early. The sun is weak yet and the world is quiet.
It creates a small mirage of peace here within her prison; the gentle quiet of the morning and clean feel of the air and she supposes that these rare moments of stillness are the closest she ever comes to being content. There is a hazy quality to the morning -although that might be the tiredness speaking - a gauzy, chiffon texture threaded through with ribbons of peach and pale yellow.
She thinks back to last night and feels the smile on her face turn to something less mocking and more real. The prince's kiss remains on her mind, the youthful passion and innocence clear enough in her memory that it makes her tryst with Vathak seem pale and watery; makes the oil in her veins feel just slightly thinner.
It was a good kiss, not so much in technique, she thinks it must've been his first (and isn't that satisfying?), but in depth and emotion. All that restrained violence and feeling, it makes her shiver a little at the deliciousness of what is to come. It makes her feel something that is vaguely akin to excitement and hasn't it been so long since she's had cause to be excited about anything? She feels a little giddy, a little drunk on her own success and ambition, and her smile stretches into a wide grin, toothy and sharp.
There is a confidence to her in the calm of the morning, despite her exhaustion and the disgust that mirrors the soreness between her thighs, and she feels oddly invigorated.
The weakness of the light tells her that the sun has only just risen and from that alone she knows a good portion of the palace is awake. Firebenders rise with the sun after all and servants must wake before the nobles. But this is the morning after a festival; chances are that those of the court are still abed, languishing their mornings away in nests of crimson silk as they nurse their hangovers and blissfully wearied bodies.
It gives her a rare opportunity, she thinks, to wander without being noticed, to walk off her heavy eyes and lassitude in the pale morning sun. Her almost-peace makes her feel slightly reckless, an odd feeling of invincibility that lures her away from the dim halls of the harem and into the maze of the palace.
She stands slowly, quietly in the shared space of the harem, and pulls on a pair of loose trousers and a tunic from the folded pile of clothes by the foot of her bed and runs a comb through her hair until it's smooth. The other whores are sleeping, she can see their shadowed forms through the thin divides that separate their sleeping spaces and she is pleased that she will not be forced to interact with any of them. Before she leaves though, she reaches down to the small drawstring bag that she keeps by her pillow and pulls out a handful of wild carrot seeds, small and innocuous, she shoves them into her mouth and chews, grimacing at the bitter flavour.
The last thing she wants is a pregnancy.
That's not to say though, that she never wants children. She is incredibly aware (always aware, always hurting) that she is the last Liu and therefore it is her duty to carry on the family line. She'll be damned if a line as ancient and prestigious as hers dies out on account of her and her own selfishness. She doesn't think her ancestors would ever forgive her.
(But the idea -the very notion- that the father of the next generation of Lius would be some piece-of-shit Fire Nation scum sickens her to her very core. Makes her stomach twist and skin crawl in a way she thought she'd left behind. She thinks she'd rather die.)
With that attended to, she pulls back the linen screen that serves as a mimicry of a door to her sleeping area and steps out into the narrow hall that all the whore's bunks are along. She slips her feet into a pair of worn red slippers and glances around to make sure no one has seen her and follows the hall to the door.
The area of the palace containing the harem is not the most extravagant of places, but there is a certain garish decadence to it that she has leant to associate with the Fire Nation. The harem itself is not especially large, but within its limited space it manages to somehow feel almost revoltingly carnal and overwhelmingly constricting. There is the main entrance, where clients are met, and the room where they all gather before meeting those clients: a mess of scarlet and orange fabric (apparently meant to mimic the tents of the Si Wong people but fails so miserably its offensive) and walls that are covered with obscene images.
Then there are the private quarters: the baths (which are her favourite place in the entire palace), the corridor where they sleep, a small dining area for eating and a courtyard with a water pump for washing their clothes.
Whores don't get servants after all.
There are various anterooms here and there, mainly used for storage and the like, but all of it filled with so much of that fucking contemptable red that she has to grit her teeth against the constant urge to scream and tear it all to pieces.
Not that it would do much more than earn her a space in one of the Fire Nation's prisons anyway.
She scowls to herself at the thought, one day, one day, she will leave this place and never have to set her eyes on another strip of red silk again. One day she will throw anything that reminds her of this place on a pyre and laugh as it burns. But for now, for now, she grinds her teeth and clenches her fists and ignores the steady rumble of fury always sitting at the back of her mind.
She moves through the harem silently, her steps light and even as she slinks through the new-dawn shadows. She enjoys the silence, delights in the absence of the chittering, high-pitched voices of the other girls and the lack of Madam Azari's piercing yellow eyes. Solitude is such a rare thing for her these days, for all that she is avoided and avoids in turn, it always seems as though there is someone around, even if it is just the eerie mocking eyes of the faces that adorn the walls. She is always alone in a crowd, and such is a poor substitute for true aloneness.
She never used to be such a solitary creature, and it is a part of her she mourns the existence of as much as anything else. She was such a lively child once, growing up in an expansive family with many cousins: precocious and chatty, the sort of child adults titter over and praise. She misses that part of herself, is unfathomably angry at the Fire Nation for killing it along with her family and her dreams, and knows it lies buried in that forest.
She somehow manages to retain her content confidence as she sneaks out of the harem and into the main palace, stepping into the dark halls. Night and day, summer and winter never seem to exist in the palace. The corridors of the main bulk of the building are perpetually cold and gloomy; forever lit by ever-burning lamps, like will-o-wisps leading the unwary to their doom.
Her years of traversing these halls on the arm of one client or another has made her fairly familiar with this area of the palace, but much of the palace is still a mystery to her as she has never had leave to wander its halls freely. She knows many of the passages and boltholes around this part, but the odd confidence she feels inspires her to walk further, to meander deeper and deeper through the shadowy corridors.
She moves soundlessly, quick and quiet, her soft slippers making no noise on the gleaming wooden floors. She revels in the silence of the early morning, the subdued anticipatory deadness of the dawn. The sounds of servants scurrying by are distant in her ears and she hides in the shadows of corners and sculptures to avoid being seen. She finds it curiously thrilling, to dart and wander through the heart of what is ostensibly enemy territory unseen and unnoticed: a vengeful ghost prowling the halls. She challenges herself to push it further, her hiding places become more daring and she waits longer before concealing herself and smiles daggered and catlike in the dark.
It feels almost like a hunt.
It heightens her mood, this game of hers, makes her feel powerful in a way that she hasn't in a long time. Oh, she has had power in her beauty, in her sexuality and the raw sensual energy she has leant to exude, but not in the primal way of a predator, not for a long time. She takes a risk, one inspired by this odd jovial mood of hers and begins to secretly follow the servants as they work. Each one for a few minutes, unseen in the gloom, before switching to another.
She follows them deeper and deeper into the dark, winding halls of the palace, further in than she has ever been before. Diving into the servant's passages after them and avoiding the guards. There is a dangerous sort of thrill about it, she knows that the punishment would be harsh if she is caught but somehow she cannot find it in herself to care; she feels as though she deserves this, this playful fun, it harkens back to her days doing the same in the Palace of the Endless Earth, running through its circuitous halls as the Dai Li watched on from the shadows.
The old Earth King had loved children, as much as he'd only been able to produce one with his queen, and so had encouraged his advisors to bring theirs to the palace, claiming he enjoyed the sound of darting feet and childish laughter in the halls. She'd spent much of her childhood there, the ancient buildings more of a home to her than the family lands to the west.
It's part of the reason she hates this place so much, part of the reason she'd felt so terribly betrayed when she'd seen the Dai Li that night. They'd been her protectors and invisible guardians for all her life up until then; the utter, aching betrayal of them witnessing the darkest events her life and being party to them was more shattering than what the Fire Nation did. She could've expected it from the Fire Nation, but not the Dai Li, and for that reason that she hates them more than she ever could her captors here.
Nobody betrays the Liu's and gets away with it.
While her rage at the Fire Nation is a weighted heavy thing, a fractured crystal wall of fury and loathing, her hate for the Dai Li is almost primal: illogical in its animalistic intensity and dark in its bloody desires. And once she has dealt with this place she will hunt them down like the filth they are.
The servant she is following takes a sharp turn to the left out of the passages and she gasps.
The servant continues on his way and she is left staring at the sight in front of her.
Now this, this is a place that she has never been before and she cannot help but be in awe of it. The room is huge and cavernous -it must take up the entire height of the palace- and grand beyond measure. Much of the space is empty, full of vacant echoing air sitting still between the polished wooden floors and the domed ceiling: but it is an emptiness of presence, one that feels full and terrifying despite the absence of things; all the more glaring in comparison to the rest of the palace.
The ceiling is a work of art that even she cannot deny: layers upon layers of metal scales, gold, copper and blackened iron that flicker in the light of the torches. Arranged piece by piece spiralling up towards the zenith, seemingly random in their positioning but placed in such a way that they writhe together in the light like living flames, the colours mixing and warping, drawing the eye ever deeper into the twisted tongues of imagined heat.
But it is the centre-back of the room (if one could even callthis space a room) that has her entranced, has her walking silently and spellbound further in, regardless of the risk.
A huge statue, an enormous looming idol of red agate that stands twenty metres from foot to crown and stares out with glaring ruby eyes. It is the largest of its kind she has ever seen. The crystal is cut in swooping, angry lines, fluid and powerful and almost liquid but not: it is everything that is fire and it glows, shrouded and enshrined in an ethereal witchlight that scalds the skin.
The statue itself is a god, riding astride a strange, four-legged hooved beast with cruel-looking curved horns. The god's three heads stare in every direction, crowned by an immense halo of flames, and its four arms stretch out, wide and encircling, each palm cradling its own fire.
Agni observes his domain.
Around and behind the statue, golden lotus petals unfurl in layers of gleaming metal, like an enormous burning flower, or a rising sun. Each shined surface etched with tiny patterns and scenes of exquisite detail, every one more brilliant than the last.
There is more wealth in this one room than there is in entire cities, the statue alone could feed a province. It's disgusting: a beautiful, wasteful expression of religious devotion that she doubts anyone in this entire palace feels. She cannot help but walk closer to it though, bewitched by the burning in its empty crystal eyes and the shining glowing mirror of its form.
This was a collaboration piece, she thinks, looking at its curves and lines, a work of art produced by both fire and earth alike. Agate does not naturally form this big, nor this perfect, and she sees within her mind the weeks that earthbenders and firebenders toiled together in harmony to form such a perfect stone. Fire to create the conditions, Earth to manipulate the minerals needed for it to form.
She stares at her reflection in the glass of its surface, a relic of a lost world.
She sees herself in the statue, the Earth that makes up who she is and the Fire that forced her into what she has become. She smiles without humour and her reflection does the same, finding it oddly ironic that she has found metaphors and mirrors in a statue of the fire god.
The room, which must be a shrine of some sort, is strangely empty. No servants, no guards, no sages or priests, no believers come to pray. She finds herself alone with this colossus and the odd sentiment it evokes.
Her earlier content confidence is gone, it coils in the air now with the smoke from the statue's flames: wispy, elusive and vanishing. Instead she is thoughtful, considering, her green eyes are narrowed in contemplation and her pale face smooth in thought. There is no viciousness here (in the strange morning silence; in the shadow of a god) just odd open questions, half-written ideas with no meaning and cyclic riddles that dance in her brain.
She cranes her head back and meets the underside of the middle head's glittering eyes; her hair paints an oil spill down her back. She thinks back to the prince's comments on the lost gods of the Fire Nation, those ancient deities that have died with their flocks and feels suddenly and irrationally furious. She jerks away from the statue abruptly, the poison returning to her eyes and her features sharpen and twist. She can feel the disgust and wrath creeping back through her veins, the interlocking torrent of hate/pain that she carries in her heart oozing to the forefront and her hands clench and nails bite and she pulls herself under control.
She gives the statue one venomous look before turning away.
How many corpses is your throne built on?
She can no longer stand to be in this room with that thing. She recognises it now for what it is, its burning-laughing eyes, the way that, when looked at from a certain angle, the three mouths fuse together in a ghastly cheshire-grin. It's a symbol, as nearly all things are here, a symbol of Fire Nation dominance and power, of how they crush their enemies, subjugate their foes into mere memory and rise from the ashes of their pyres.
Agni stands glorious and laughing on the bodies of his fellow gods and the Fire Nation does the same to its fellow nations.
The image of earthbenders and firebenders corrects itself in her mind. There are whips there now. And chains. Cuts seeping blood and puss and bruises that purple to complement the smear of soot on worn bodies. Hair forcibly shorn short as a mark of dishonour and bones bowed and bent from manual labour.
Slaves built that statue now: broken and beaten and oppressed. Slaves with the hope driven out of their green eyes and the feel of solid Earth Kingdom ground a distant, painful loss.
She can feel the weight of the statue's eyes on her back as she stalks, quick and efficient from the room, feel the pressure of it presence and the heavy air in between. But she tastes smoke in her lungs and cannot stay in this room any longer.
Back in the servants passages she takes a moment to calm, braces both hands on the solid surface of the wall and rests her throbbing head between them as she breathes in and out. The surface is cool against her skin and she curls her hands into fists and feels the tendons pull taut as her skin flushes white. She hates how any beauty she finds here is bloodstained in some way, as if any spark of pleasure, any fleeting lightening of the world must be soaked in, and dripping, crimson.
She shudders and closes her eyes as flashes of distant fading screams echo in her skull. Moments frozen in time that she will carry forever even as her memory inevitably fades.
Spirits she wants this place to burn. In the Si Wong desert there is an ancient stone tablet with the codes of a lost world inscribed on its surface, she had to study it with Earth Kingdom law when she was young, she recalls it now:
If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye. If one break a man's bone, they shall break his bone.
She will pluck out all their eyes and snap all their bones before she is done.
She sighs, a sibilant whisper of breath that hisses in the silent corridor and straightens up, the tense curl of her hands relaxing as she stretches out her fingers, her filed pointed nails skewering the air. She should go back now, she knows, before she is found. Her prior good mood is but a fading blur now and her rationality has returned, nothing gold can stay.
Right now though, she cannot stand the idea of going back to that musky prison with its linen bars; the redredred that covers every wall and the empty eyes of its inhabitants. The very idea horrifies and she so desperately wishes to be alone.
She scratches her nails against the thin fabric of her trousers in a nervous gesture that she had forced herself to be rid of long ago and feels the muted slide of them on her skin. Her pelvis aches in a way that is unmistakeable and she knows that now she is alive again, she cannot be left alone with this pain and her thoughts, not now that her defensive apathy is gone.
She eyes the dim dark of the servant's corridor and walks further into the shadow.
She wanders aimlessly now, with no clear direction and no desire to have one, she simply wants to walk until Agni's eyes no longer press on her and her heart calms.
The servant's passages are plain and barely lit, the walls are a black ash colour and the floor a cheap dark wood that creaks with each step. She takes care of how she steps on these floors and hides in the shadows cast by the torches that line the walls. There is no decoration, none of the ornate gaudiness that is the pattern here, there is no gold or dragons or laughing demons, just a dark maze of identical halls.
It is easy to get lost in here, the few times she has traversed these passages had taught her that, the servants who were tasked with leading her had always seemed to have an odd, almost unnatural understanding of how each hall linked together. Barely glancing around as they avoided looking at her and darted through the halls. She smirks darkly in remembrance as she trails her nails across the grey plaster, the servants never have been able to look at her, simultaneously both above and below her in status, and offended, no doubt, by what she is.
She walks mindlessly in the dark, there is barely anybody around in this section of the palace and although this strikes her as strange, she doesn't allow it to phase her. The passages grow narrower too, older and darker and smell faintly of incense, a not unpleasant mix of fire lilies and dragongrass that drifts past on a non-existent breeze. The aroma leads her onwards as she weaves by in the dark, sharply reminded for a second of the winding halls of Ba Sing Se. The same geometric circuitousness and quiet age. This must be an older section of the palace, one build by the Earth Kingdom all those years ago and the thought brings with it its own melancholy yearning, tinged with pain.
It isn't long until she reaches a dead end, finishing at a door. She could go back, but she still doesn't want to. She leans on it, presses her ear against the heavy wood and attempts to make out what is on the other side. There isn't much, but a faint whoosh and roar, the sound of crackling flames and the sssssh of sliding sand.
It would be stupid to go through the door; the faint rim of light tells her it leads outside and the sounds mean that there are people around. But she feels a sudden uncontrollable urge to feel the sunlight on her skin, the limpid touch of natural light before it becomes too harshand to get away from the suffocating chill of the palace.
She takes a moment to contemplate her next move, a month ago she never would've gotten this far without turning back, probably wouldn't have even left the harem at all, but something about the revived swirl of her mind pushes her forward. She is no longer content to sit by and take it, to let men like Vathak use her: she wants to take risks, live more and revel in the electric rush of adrenaline in her veins.
She twirls her finger on the wooden door, drawing the shape of the Earth Kingdom crest in the dust and smiles emptily, her own little rebellion.
With that in mind, she carefully opens the door and steps out into the sun.
The light hits her eyes like daggers after being so long in the dark and mutated black blotches obscure her vision as she hisses in pain. She brings up a pale hand to cover her eyes and blinks rapidly to adjust. When her eyes no longer hurt, she lowers her hand to survey her surroundings.
She has come to a courtyard, almost like the one from last night but not quite, this one is functional rather than beautiful. And older. There is not a single part of this space that is Earth Kingdom inspired, not one part of the design that she recognises. And it's fascinating in its own way.
The courtyard is decently sized and ringed by a colonnade of coral arches, a shaded walkway of strange multi-lobed porticos decorated by repeating shapes and patterns. It's ornate and layered, but not in an obtrusive way, and she imagines that long ago it must have been painted: bright, vibrant colours that have long since faded with the heat and time.
The Fire Nation palace is a strange place, an amalgamation of dynasties and styles stretching back into the distant past. Its towering, layered structure and stone base are purely Fire Nation but the curving pagoda roofs and flat geometric shapes are all Earth Kingdom. The interior too, is more Earth Kingdom than not, but with that ostentatious, flashy flare: molten gold and jewels. It hurts to look at sometimes, a familiar stranger that should be green not red and dark where light should flourish.
But then there are places like this, different from everything else and older still -ancient by all accounts- remnants of the first palace built here and a culture that time forgot. Bizarre echoes of a past she has no right to and so distant that it fails to evoke the pain nearly everything else does.
But as she darts behind a faded peach pillar to hide from sight, it is not the architecture that takes her focus, but what is in the centre.
The centre of the courtyard is covered with sand: tiny, grainy granules the colour of bleached marrow and spewing dust when moved. On top of it dance five figures, men with pale torsos oiled with sweat and shining in the morning sun. Their muscles flex and curve as they move in sinuous, powerful spurts and from their hands and feet burst iridescent gouts of flame. The fire roars and crackles as it erupts into life in waves of shimmering heat that rocket across the baking sands. She can feel the shocks of it on her skin from behind her pillar. There is no smoke, for there is no material to burn, just pure ferocious energy and power.
She takes a deep breath as her vision blurs and her hands shake where they grip the plaster. Please not now, she thinks feverishly as the hungry sound of fire growls in her ears and phantom scent of cooking meat hovers below her nose, I can't do this now, she thinks as she squeezes her eyes shut. Her knees threaten to buckle as a pulse of heat hits her skin and sweat begins to bead on her flesh. The world starts to become hazy and fade as the colours darken and the sun fades. The air is blisteringly hot and the screams are loud around her: they scream for her, at her, to come back, to run. But there is nowhere to run, not now, not then, not ever.
She moans lowly, a pained broken sound as the firebenders grow louder and consuming in her mind. Her breath comes in pants, gasping, painful things as her heart pounds in her chest and her perception narrows. She can't breatheSHECANTBREATHE! Her limbs are weak and shaking as her hands claw desperately at the pillar and she presses her head against it to ground her and weather the storm.
Her families' faces swim to the forefront and she gasps sharply as she sees their meltingblisteringboiling skin and watches the agony in their jade eyes as they howl and screech.
She doesn't know how long this lasts but she grits her teeth against the terrorfurypain that rushes over her like an avalanche, burying her and choking her in the dark.
She comes back to herself with a sharp inhale, as she always does, and the sun returns.
She hates these fits, these episodes where she loses all sense of time and self and becomes lost in the pain. Her face is tight and furious, her eyes sharp and raging and she feels weak. She can't afford this, this vulnerability. It makes her frail and pathetic; feeble and soft and she wishes sometimes that she could just scream herself hoarse instead of chaining it all in the back of her head.
She takes a shaky breath as she forces herself to look back at the firebenders, pushes through the instinctive revulsion and panic she feels at the sight and scowls nastily at her own weakness. This is hardly the first time she's seen firebenders since she's been here, casual firebending is everywhere: from the servants lighting the torches to the artists that perform for the court, but she rarely gets to see it aggressively, which is probably what set her off.
She forces herself to pay attention, to look at the way they move, and for all that firebending is an evil, savage, destructive thing, there is something mesmerising about it.
It appears to be a sparring match, four men against one, and the difference in skill is blindingly obvious even to her untrained eyes. The man in the centre is a work of art, seamlessly moving from shape to shape as fire explodes from his body in a continuous routine of strikes. His moves are as elegant as they are aggressive, precise and powerful in a way that she has never seen before from any warrior. The other men are nowhere near as talented, and it shows, they look as clumsy as a lame ostrich-horse next to him.
He ducks as an arch of fire rushes toward him, slips beneath it and turns abruptly into spin kick that pulls a wave of flame from the air and into the two men advancing behind him. They are forced abort and duck as the heat roars over their heads. The man then punches rapid spurts of fire at the original attacker before vaulting into the air in a rolling jump that sends fire whipping across the courtyard and into all four men simultaneously.
Her eyes widen watching the spectacle, and while she hates firebending as a whole, the sheer artistry and pure athletic mastery shown is astounding. She has seen earthbending masters before, but this is a completely different beast: earthbending is grounded and still, the idea is to force your opponent to move rather than move yourself and one must be as firm as a mountain to succeed. Only the Dai Li do it differently, quick and light and hunting from the shadows, traitorous fucking snakes.
But this is, dare she say it? beautiful. Beautiful chaos and destruction, an artform, a dance.
She discretely moves along the pillars toward them to get a better look and…
Well, well, well
A slow, satisfied, all together gluttonously content smile curls thick and dangerous at her lips. Hasn't she chosen well? For there, at the centre, the extraordinary firebender she had been watching, is Prince Ozai.
Oh how brilliant, how sublime.
He is magnificent as he moves, one with his element in a way that those lesser benders around him aren't. He embodies fire like this, all that terrible grace and madness, the contained passion she now personally knows is there, just below the surface. She feels the ghost of his lips on hers as she watches, the imprint of his hands on her waist in her hair.
His youthful body and muscles look delicious as they reflect the glow of the fire and she can't wait to translate the intense power of this dance into a better, more pleasurable one.
Chills run down her spine just thinking about it.
Her calculating green gaze runs the length of his body hungrily and she feels a little like a lecher, staring at him this way, but she scoffs and dismisses the thought almost immediately. She has a right, she thinks, to a little leering, the amount of times it's been done to her, the toxic feel of unwanted eyes on her skin.
He is pale in the sunlight, and his flowing black hair is pulled back into a high tail on his head and flicks out like a spine when he moves. Now that she is closer she can see the expressions on his face, see the raging in his golden, dragon eyes and the buried fury there as his fine features harden in concentration.
A bead of sweat runs from his neck, down his chest to his abdomen and she wants to follow its path with her tongue, wonders if he would shiver at the sensation, hopes to find out.
She forcefully ignores the way the sound of the flames and the heat makes her feel and refuses to have another episode while she is still shaky from the last. But still, every gust of flame causes the breath to catch in her throat.
Her little prince is so powerful, so potent and brimming with life and passion. Oh, she has so chosen well. Iroh cannot be like this; Azulon might as well have been dead in comparison to the passion his younger son shows and so easily moulded too! She sighs low and pleased, leaning into the pillar and crossing her arms to watch.
Prince Ozai masterfully triumphs over his opponents again and again in ever more complex and impressive ways. How has nobody noticed this? He must be a prodigy! Azulon, she suspects must be blind if he hadn't seen the potential here, or stupid, the grace with which Ozai moves as he firebends is spellbinding.
After a final bout, Ozai's voice rings out across the courtyard, calling a halt. The other four men immediately stop, panting with the exertion, and one even collapses to the ground with a groan.
Ozai stands in the centre, breathing heavily, but hardly as exhausted as his opponents, and surveys them all with a predatory, cruel gleam in his eyes as he sees them defeated at his feet. The bloodlust is almost tangible in the air then, and she can almost see the madness in his mind telling him to strike, but he reigns it in -barely.
Hmm, control, she thinks from her shaded hiding place, needs definite work.
He gives each man a nod which seems to signal a dismissal, and the men press fist-to-palm and bow before scurrying off to wherever they need to be. She takes care to make sure none are headed her way and presses her back to the pillar to avoid being seen.
Ozai, alone in the centre of the court, raises his face to the sky and closes his eyes as the sun washes over his aristocratic features. He looks a little like a lizard, sunning himself on a rock then, and again she thinks of dragons.
They are alone now, the two of them in this ancient courtyard just after dawn, nothing but the distant sound of winter birds in the air and the quiet dawn breeze. She congratulates herself on her good fortune before rearranging her features into something flirty and impressed, and steps out into the sun.
TheGreatDebator: I'm glad you get that anti-hero vibe, that's what I was going for, someone that you feel conflicted over rooting for because although they're the victim, they've become twisted too. I always like characters that are morally grey, I always feel as though there's more character development that can go on there rather than just the archetypal good/evil characters. Glad you're enjoying though!
AngieB: I haven't actually read that, haven't really had time lately for much outside studying, but I'll give it a looksee, sounds like my kinda thing anyway, dark and angsty. Thanks for the rec!
To the rest of you and your questions and comments: For story content, you'll have to wait and see how it turns out, I don't want to give anything away, but rest assured I have it planned out all the way to the end and hopefully I get around to it. Thank you for all your feedback, reviews are love, and until next time!