Author's Note: This is a nice, lengthy, uninhibited oneshot –my longest in this series so far, actually. But, oh, how sweet it was to write! I love writing the peaceful side of Azula; I love making her motherly when the Avatar community thinks she shouldn't be. Honestly, who wouldn't be genuinely moved by the interactions between a mother and her child, no matter who that mother may be?
Let this be a warning in advance to anyone interested in reading on. I suppose this chapter might be insinuated at a high T or low M-rating, since it features heavily detailed accounts of breastfeeding. Proceed with caution, for you have been warned. Later updates in my revisited version of 'Beautiful Dawn' will see accounts of the act with a similarly descriptive degree, a stark contrast to the very watered down instances the old story got. To refresh any memories, in 'Beautiful Dawn,' Ursa requested that Azula nurse Raiden after he was born in the Boiling Rock, thus making breastfeeding not just symbolic in the writing sense (look at how John Steinbeck used it as a plot device in the conclusion of his 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath), but highly significant to the princess' relationship with her son. As it stands, this oneshot here was me wetting my feet as a writer, and I figured: well, if the world can read about graphic sex in stories, a fanfic or two depicting a woman breastfeeding her baby shouldn't be frowned upon. If you're a little kid, don't read this; if you're an immature teenager or adult, don't read this!
As for those who feel they can conduct themselves maturely, however, please review, fave, and send me your thoughts, pretty please! I'd love to see what you all think! Remember also –before you post something ridiculous –that this oneshot (and all the ones in this collection) is part of an Azula redemption story, so she is extremely OOC from the show's rendition of her character…
Enjoy! Feel free to feel really sorry for Azula when you get to the end of this one!
A Morning With Raiden
A pink sunrise showcased itself through a curtained window of the ornate bedroom. It was a soft pink, not sharp and piercing to the eyes. A pale blue streaked around it, almost like a blanket of sorts, cuddling its billowed arms around the color. And just beneath a set of distant trees below, the sun, slowly emerging as if being reborn again, peeked through the blurry green leaves.
The curtain around the window danced briefly and went still. A morning dove hummed a simple tune and quieted itself. It must have then flown off, for the fluttering of its wings was heard just beyond the window.
It was not long before a yellow ray casted itself through the rectangle opening, lighting the red sheets of the single king-sized bed in the room.
Though already awake, Azula stirred, stretching herself under the covers. Flipping them over, she sat up, pulled a single stray tress from her forehead, and yawned. It seemed so blissfully quiet in her bedroom. There were no servants knocking upon the royal door, no husband snoring next to her, no chatter or footsteps from the hallway.
There was but one sound audible, and it was a most wonderful sound. She turned and crawled lightly over to the edge of the bed, the side nearest to the window. Meeting the angle of which the sun's rays were still hitting her room, she stared, with a warm smile, below them.
Her tiny, little breathing sweetheart, Raiden's perfectly white crib lay there. It sparkled under the sunbeam, making it look impossibly bright and untouched.
Azula rose from the bed and to her feet, faintly disrupting the fragment of light. Listening intently, she could better hear the mild sound of Raiden's airy snores. Looking down on him, she noted he was somewhat turned on his side, his sleeping visage facing her. His expression was charming: the left side of his lip was upturned in the slightest degree, causing his typically crooked smile to look a lot less odd; his right thumb was just barely grazing his lips (the glint of sunlight revealed that the digit was coated with spittle, meaning that he had been sucking on it recently); his hair had not a knot in it (each long, fawn wisp hugged his head); and his chest protruded and fell in perfect rhythm.
The princess sat back down again, the mattress beneath her groaning. She sighed, reflecting on how miserable the last eight hours had been. Her baby had cried for four hours straight, complaining even though a short feeding. Even as he slept now, she could just imagine how hungry he probably was, and how grumpy he was probably going to be when he woke up.
But she then decided to ignore those imminent possibilities and instead think about what was at present. In the few weeks he had been alive, waking up to only his snores had been a rarity. Azula was an optimistic mother, for she believed Raiden was getting closer and closer to overcoming the colic he was diagnosed with just a short week after his birth, despite the stiff pediatrician's less hopeful opinion. Even so, colicky kids, as the myth read (a myth a young and undoubtedly naive mother like Azula prided herself on believing), were inclined to grow up calm and reserved. But this mom was not about to wish her son's babyhood away…
Azula's little infant stirred in his rocking crib, his legs stretching smoothly down the mattress beneath him. Wriggling himself into wakefulness, Raiden curled his dainty hands into loose fists, and rested them at the protrusions of his cheeks. His toothless mouth opened, and he let out a yawn, which, as it slipped from his pink lips, sounded almost like a yip.
Upon hearing him, Azula rose, bent over, and soothingly lifted the teeny, undersized child out of his bed. She held Raiden at an arm's length from her body, staring deeply into his barely open gray eyes as she rocked him. He released another yawn at his mother's gentle swaying. Azula then pressed his belly to her robed chest, and walked about her bedroom, thinking to herself immediately just how warm he was as he cuddled against her. She sighed, smiling, as he lifted his head and put his lips to her chin, as if kissing her. He opened his mouth and nibbled at it briefly, but then allowed a third yawn to sneak past him.
His left hand snaked about her bosom and grabbed hold of the lazy neckline of her robe as Azula whispered in his ear, her voice tickling his skin, "Are you hungry, sweetheart?"
A tired coo was Raiden's primitive reply. He blinked several times, squinting as light from the open window entered his vision. He stared out it, peering at a swaying tree as it danced melodiously to the rhythm of the morning wind.
Azula gave him a heartfelt smile and walked him to his changing table, where she rested the frail baby on his back. Raiden's toes curled and uncurled, his legs kicked about as he eyed his mother in stoic suspicion as she found him a clean cloth diaper. With practiced discipline, Azula managed to pull the dirty cloth off his bottom before he had a chance to complain, and set about wiping him clean.
Another milestone to add to many so far, she supposed, stifling a laugh to news that would surely make her husband thrilled the next time he had to change one of his son's soiled diapers. Raiden's testicles had dropped finally. The palace physician had told Azula during his after-birth checkup that the baby's early birth at thirty-two weeks had kept the testes from descending, and had assured the first-time mom (and dad, when Chan came into the picture a week later) that they would fall before his sixth month of life. Well, Azula mused, five and a half weeks was as good a time as any, considering just how premature Raiden was…
Wrapping a fresh diaper around his waist and making sure to point his penis downward with her thumb and forefinger before tying off the ends, Azula had managed to get her little Raiden changed without a single outburst on his part, and she noticed that he had since closed his eyes again. His left hand was splayed atop his nose in an unimposing fist, and his right was flat atop his bellybutton. He was sound asleep yet again.
Even something as simple as being changed wore baby Raiden out. And even though she hated disturbing him, she peeled him off the changing table, holding him up just above her, staring deep into those tired colorless eyes of his, now open only in half-moon slits.
"There's my beautiful boy," she whispered to him, her heart fluttering with joy. She felt the sting of happy tears edging on her lashes as she gazed into her son's eyes and saw his father in his visage. She brought him down just mere centimeters from her own face and planted a peck to his cheek, to which he merely responded with a pitchy grunt.
Now that he was awake again, Azula settled Raiden down in the crook of her arm and took a seat on her bed, and pushed her back against her fluffed pillow. She unknotted her robe and again cuddled preemie Raiden between her swollen breasts. Still tired, the infant bobbed his head, his lashed lids struggling to stay lifted from his eyes. With the tips of her once-sharp and dagger-like fingernails, Azula tickled the nape of his neck. She kissed the wrinkled folds of his forehead, as, finally, with instincts taking over him, Raiden pushed himself downward, his nose leveling with her exposed nipple. He lunged, forcing the breast between his flanged lips.
Azula felt the goose bumps crawl on her skin upon feeling her nipple brush against her son's soft palette. She loved the intimacy of nourishing her son, loved being the only one capable of doing it perfectly. The way her baby expressed milk from her breast often made her think of the act of nursing him as the show of the demons of her past drawing forth from her in the form of something good. Breastfeeding Raiden had been the first deed she had done for him upon the first hour of his birth, the very first thing she did to draw him into her heart. No servant or wet nurse would ever take this tender, impactful responsibility away from her, no matter how constrained it caused her life to be. Azula had often opted out of meetings and other palace functions (to only have Chan go in her stead, which he did faithfully) with her brother and counselors and the people of her nation to maintain a strict nursing schedule with her son. Unless his colic superseded his desire to breastfeed, Raiden nursed up to twelve times a day, and Azula was more than happy to bask in the silent solitude atop her bed or in her mother's old rocking chair to give her tiny baby boy what he needed most.
She traced a finger across the contour of Raiden's pink cheek, which rose and fell in rhythm to his suckles. A fist pounded atop the mound of her ample breast –his own haphazard version of kneading, she supposed –and those two knobby knees of his kicked beneath her arms and into her ribcage. She winced lightly. These slight pains, these little selfless inconveniences that encompassed motherhood… Azula would have given up the opportunity to experience them firsthand had her own mother not intervened the day preemie Raiden was born inside the Boiling Rock. She shuddered at the thought of replacing the sleepless nights, the painfully engorged breasts, and the dirty diapers with what had been her life before. The shallow, heartless, starved and on the verge of death person she had been before the birth of her baby could have remained until death itself would have seized her, and she would have never known those tiny attempts at smiling, those primal coos that resonated a language only she and Chan seemed to understand, that climatic seizure of bliss that rattled her bosom each time he cried out in need of her…
Azula surrendered a tear, and felt it drop into the dip in her clavicle, just slightly above where Raiden's now unmoving hand had settled. His miniature palm was pressed flat to her heart; his fingers were splayed as far as they could reach, capturing every beat her heart drummed. Azula coiled her slender but significantly larger hand around his, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. His suckles, she noticed then, had slowed, and his latch on her nipple was becoming significantly shallow, a fact that was quickly showing signs of vexing him.
Knowing full well that her Raiden was still hungry, she gradually coaxed him off her breast fully and placed the exasperated infant atop a burp cloth draped over her shoulder, where she began softly patting any air out of him. Instead of burping, however, the lack of there being a breast in his mouth caused Raiden to let out a squeal of anger. He turned his head as far as his underdeveloped neck muscles would allow him to and buried his face in the crook of his mother's warm neck, where he vented his frustrations in bursts of loud, irritated screeches.
"Shh, Raiden, baby," Azula tenderly murmured in Raiden's ear, pressing her lips to its curves of cartilage and adding a much-needed kiss for effect. "I know, I know…"
As much as she wanted to switch breasts and satisfy her son's wants, she knew she had to get him burped first, or else colicky Raiden would find something else to be perturbed about…
"Let Mommy burp you first, sweetie."
The well-intended command barely mattered; Raiden was no more cooperative than he was in the moments prior, but he ultimately submitted to being replaced on Azula's shoulder. As he wailed in agony atop her, Azula resumed patting his back and rubbing him up and down his spine until the burp she had been hoping for finally expelled itself in a yellowish heaving of breast milk and bile.
Still upset, the sobbing Raiden choked once, and Azula immediately scooped him off her shoulder. The burp cloth, soaked with the contents of the baby's stomach, was discarded and swiftly replaced with another, which she used to wipe the excess spit-up that had effectively began rolling from his lips and descending the curve of his neck. Throughout the entire cleansing, Raiden's body twitched and flailed, his arms jerked, his legs bent themselves up against his barely impressionable belly, but his loving mother kept at it until the undigested milk was washed entirely from his skin.
"There, there, Raiden," she said at last through his relentless screaming. "Shh, Mommy's right here…"
To better comfort him, she cupped his chin and laid him back on the supple rise of her chest, resting his ear against the drum of her steady heartbeat. Rising from her bed, Azula stepped around her bedroom, rocking and swaying baby Raiden back into a state of stillness. Quieting his cries to nothing more than muffled whimpers, Raiden gaged his interest in nursing once more, and teased a wrinkle in his mother's robe between his gums, unknowingly waiting for his action to have the desired effect.
Raiden, the dear things he did to melt her into submission… Something as simple as gumming her robe was enough to send the princess down onto quivering knees. She fell back on the pillows she had propped up when she had prepared to nurse her boy the first time, feeling them behind her like soft reminders of what this morning had so far accomplished. Her son was only halfway through his first feeding of the day and had already been through so much crying and exhaustion that the time had seemed to Azula to stretch on longer than it had in reality. Only thirty minutes or so had passed since she woke, and the little boy's colic-induced sufferings were only just commencing.
The pain her little boy –whom she adored more than anything in her life –felt was her own pain, transferred to her via the love in her heart for him. Being an unusually colicky babe, there was no bout of anguish he deserved, and she so desperately wished she had the power to cast the demon of the infantile illness out of him the way he banished the evils of her life out by simply being there when she needed him…
The combination of Raiden's impatient knuckle beating at her breast and a dull knock on her bedroom door brought her back to reality. Before acknowledging the guest behind the doorway, Azula wriggled her second breast into Raiden's rosebud mouth. Attuned to her maternal instincts, she took her bed sheet and concealed her baby and breasts beneath it, fearing a servant's unwarranted intrusion.
She took a quick peek. Seeing that Raiden's latch on her nipple was fine and that he was suckling contentedly, despite the sudden change of light on his eyes, Azula finally replied, "Who is it?"
"Hey, 'Zula, it's me," Chan said, his voice low, laced with fatigue. "Do you want me to come in? I brought you breakfast."
Food… Azula had neglected her own hunger in exchange for quelling Raiden of his. On impulse, her stomach rattled. Raiden toes grazed her abdomen; his fingers attempted in vain to clutch the flesh of her bosom as a better maneuver for kneading, but the petite preemie suddenly lost his grip on her nipple and shrieked.
Azula exhaled. "Hold on, honey," she answered to Chan, nevertheless diverting her attention back on Raiden, whose milk-sodden mouth was opening wide and closing over and over beneath the cover –the babe's own fruitless search through thin air for the meal he was missing out on –as he squealed those pitchy squeals of his.
"Is Raiden all right, honey?" Chan called weakly. "You want me to come back later?"
This question Azula had no time to answer for. Keeping Raiden concealed (in case a nosy servant decided to barge in unannounced), she changed his position in her arms, and clutched him to her side, holding him up with the underside of her arm against his backbone. Cupping his fine-haired head in her hand, she angled Raiden so that his face was forward, aligned perfectly to her nipple. Her other hand she coiled around her breast, and she nudged her nipple between his gums. With his mouth full and his mission to find his meal yet again accomplished, Raiden shushed himself, and began concentrating on emptying his mother's breast once more.
"Come in, Chan."
The door at the far end of the room opened to reveal a wan, most obviously tired Chan. In his grip was a tray with a bowl of rice and a tall glass of water, which he sat at the foot of their bed. With relief at seeing the face of the man she loved swarming over her, the princess pulled the sheet away from Raiden, an action which caused the suckling infant to squirm, but thankfully he was not upset enough to release her nipple from his mouth again.
"Sorry, Chan," she confessed, and patted Raiden's head. "I thought you were a servant at first, and then Raiden here had a little trouble latching on."
Chan ignored this admission. Whether this was an act of benign dismissal or that he just simply did not hear her, Azula had no idea. Chan kissed his wife full on the lips, running his hand to the back of her head and craning her neck into him. "Morning, baby," he slurred, his gray eyes sunken as they weakly looked her over after letting her go. He glanced at Raiden, then back to Azula, then to the cozy pile of pillows she was resting on.
"Oh, Chan, please lie down." Azula used the free hand she had after having changed the position of the nursing Raiden and fluffed up an extra pillow next to her. She patted it, and invited her husband to lie next to her, to which he obliged without comment.
"You look so tired, honey," she cajoled after he got comfortable, and began stroking Chan's light hair with the same tenderness she applied when she fondled Raiden's thin, fawn wisps. "Let me guess: a long, over-exhausting meeting with my brother?"
Chan closed his eyes. "Yeah," he replied in a yawn, blindly reaching out above him to massage the knuckles of his wife's loving hand. In short, but slow circles, he rubbed the fine line of bones, and then cascaded down her whole arm in one methodical swipe, only to bring his hand back up and recommence the massage on her knuckles for a second time. "That, and Raiden's crying kept me up. Once you finally put him down and went to sleep yourself, a servant snuck in and called me down to Zuko's chambers. I don't know why Zuko couldn't have waited 'till morning."
"Well, you know how Zuko is," offered Azula in weak defense to her brother, quickly glancing Raiden's way before settling her eyes back on Chan. She sighed a purr of pleasure to the tickle of her husband's fingertips dancing over her flesh. "Once something creeps on his mind, he can't let it go until he gets it resolved."
"Yeah, I know."
The two parents sat together in silence. Chan kindly sat back up and clutched the rice bowl for his wife. He held it out to her, prompting her to eat. Azula smiled in appreciation before she negotiated the chopsticks into her free hand, and then delicately proceeded to consume the now barely warm meal. As she ate, Raiden reluctantly eased himself off his mother's breast on his own. Azula, no longer feeling the sensation of her son's suckles, peered at him, grinning.
"All done, sweetie?" she asked the five-week-old, only to receive a milky gurgle in affirmation as she set down the chopsticks.
"You want me to burp him?" Chan inquired before Azula had a chance to snuggle their son up on her shoulder. His genuine concern was no shock to her –his willingness to help was always appreciated –but she knew what was best for her husband.
She shook her head. "No, I got it, honey. You just rest. I should only be a few minutes with him, and then we can sleep."
Chan placed the empty rice bowl back on its tray. He murmured an appreciative sigh of thanks, and turned over, grabbing hold of a corner of the bed sheet and pulling it over his shoulder. Azula's bushed husband was out before she could even finish burping Raiden. She palmed her baby boy's curved spine, but the effort she put into doing so seemed futile, for the baby had nothing but a single hiccup to expel. So, Azula stood up and ambled over to the changing table. Atop a dresser next to it was a fresh set of clothes she had set out for Raiden the night before: an outfit that she had been waiting to try on him for days. The shirt and pants had been Zuko's, freshly preserved and given to her by her mother who had told her that Zuko, too, had been a preemie, but had been born at thirty-five weeks, as opposed to Raiden's thirty-two. The baby-sized hat lying atop her brother's shirt and pants was hand woven by the waterbender, Katara as a gift. Crocheted with the very same materials she used in her homeland, the cap was made to be very warm, and, without a doubt, charming. At the front of the hat, Katara had finely woven an intricate image of a dragon behind a blue bolt of lightning: the very symbol of Raiden's namesake. Azula had accepted this gift (one of many so far at the hands of the waterbender) with appreciation, and was excited now to finally be getting the chance to try it on her newborn.
Before placing clothes on him, Azula first made sure that he was still clean. She unknotted the ends of his diaper, and gently pulled the front away from his genitals, remembering to keep the cloth angled in case Raiden decided to suddenly urinate on her without pretense. Much to her appreciation, the diaper was dry and her clothes remained unsoiled for the time being. After tying it back up on his hips, she placed a supportive hand on his soft belly to hold him in place and grabbed Zuko's old shirt.
"This shirt was your uncle's when he was a baby, Raiden," she informed him in that sweet, maternal tone that soothed him when he was cranky. Of course, she knew he could not understand her and that she had no intention of receiving any sort of tangible reply from him in return, but talking to Raiden was therapeutic for her. She enjoyed sitting for hours with him after ending those typical bouts of colic-induced crying on Ursa's old rocking chair, teasing his brown hair between her fingertips and regaling him on just about anything that was on her mind, be it a compliment on how big he was getting, or thoughts on how the nations were faring. The tiny baby did one thing better than anyone: he listened. Raiden had not the capacity to critique; he was armed only with his obsession of her voice, and that fact alone made him a valuable asset to her recovery from madness. He diffused the tension she felt, let her release her joys and frustrations on him the way he released his own feelings on her.
So, Azula unfolded the maroon shirt and held it out in front of her. Judging from its size, she could tell even this shirt would look baggy on her boy (even cloth diapers drooped on him), but it would be a better fit than most of the outfits she had, all of which had been made to fit full-term babies. Untying the string in the front, she pressed the shirt out flat on the changing table, and lifted Raiden so she could place him on top of it. Ready to sleep like his daddy was audibly doing at the moment, Raiden grumbled upon being raised, but gave his mother no form of resistance as she tugged his arms through the shirt's sleeves.
"There you go, Raiden," Azula said after looping the string at the shirt's front into a nice bow. Stepping back ever so slightly, she appraised the fit.
"Still a little big," she judged, giggling, "but, my, you do look handsome in Uncle Zuzu's shirt."
Raiden flapped his arms in sporadic jerks in response to his mother's compliment, and then decided to entertain her with a string of pleasant coos. He rocked his knees like a cyclist –albeit a very sloppy one –until Azula took hold of his ankles, kissing his feet. At this, the baby gave her a wide-eyed look of surprise, his mouth agape until an unexpected sneeze seized him.
"Bless you, sweetie."
To subdue him after the sneeze, Azula brushed the back of her hand against her son's smooth cheek, and Raiden's little hands reached out to touch hers. He managed to nab her pinkie –the only digit that could possibly fit into such a small grasp –and crammed it into his mouth. Azula allowed him the pleasure of suckling on her pinkie, her heart swelling with pride at the miracle before her. Her beautiful Raiden, born two months early due to deplorable prenatal care and nourishment on her own behalf, was lucky to be alive and breathing at all. But alive he was, truly thriving before her and Chan's very eyes.
She lowered her face so that she was mere centimeters from him, the tip of her nose grazing his. "I love you, Raiden," she whispered with affection, the tremendous truth behind her words dawning on her as she kissed the tender folds of loose skin on his forehead. How could she not have loved him five weeks prior? How could she have possibly denied him life outside her womb? This baby, no matter if he had died before birth or had been ordained to Zuko, was her flesh and blood, the outcome of her union with Chan. There were no words, no excuses now that could possibly justify the revulsion she had felt. Loathing baby Raiden was her greatest regret in life, and even though she had since sought and received the forgiveness of the spirits, she still struggled to forgive herself. But every day she spent being Raiden's mother brought her closer and closer to doing so.
Azula's cheek betrayed a fallen tear. "Mommy loves you so much, Raiden," she managed to say, sniffling quietly in spite herself while Raiden replaced her pinkie with his first and middle fingers. His other hand he pressed to the minute drooping of his cheek, and into his wrinkled palm he yawned, releasing the fingers he had been mouthing on at once in a seizure of sleepiness.
The once hard-hearted princess wiped away the tear from her cheek, and grasped the lower half of Raiden's outfit: the loose pair of pants that had once shaped her brother's waist as a baby. Determined to fall asleep midway through his dress-up session, Raiden offered not a peep of distress as his mommy finished what she had started. Like the shirt, the pants had a string at the front, and thankfully so, since Azula could easily tell that they would fall off him if she so much as picked him up out of his crib without having a knot to tie. So, once she pulled them up past Raiden's equally baggy diaper, she curled the string into a fine bow, and then carefully pulled Katara's adorable cap over his hairy head.
Azula suppressed a chuckle, caring not to hold back her smile at her gorgeous little babe. He looked like a little clown before her: all loose-fitted with a cap on the head to top it all off. The hat itself, which Katara made sure to stitch to fit him finely, was really the only article of clothing Azula could say she owned that actually fit him just right. But those rippling wrinkles on his forehead that were deepened by the hat's rim hugging his skin just complimented his comical appearance.
She raised him off the changing table and pressed him to her breasts, walking delicately toward his crib. The sun, which had been illuminating his bed less than an hour prior, was now much higher in the sky. No longer was the horizon rich with the pink of sunrise; now it was in whole a tender blue shade, with not a cloud to be found.
The two made their way to the crib. With that typical hesitation that encased her every time she had to put Raiden down to sleep, Azula set the child onto the billowy mattress, where he fidgeted on his back. His arms flapped awkwardly and he let out a cranky roar, immediately letting his mother know that snoozing was no longer on his mind. After having it for such a long time, her attention was all he craved now, and the poor babe could not bear the idea of her leaving him alone.
Azula sighed at him from above, her hands draping over the crib's edge. Using her long fingernails, she tickled his belly, and whispered, "Shh, Raiden. I'm here. Mommy's right here.
"I will never leave you, Raiden…"
Indeed, this was her promise to her son, one she swore in both her heart and mind that she would keep. No matter how rough the future was going to be for her baby, she declared that by his side she would eternally remain, holding his hand, fighting for him, erasing her mistakes away to ease on a clearer path for him…
The princess watched her Raiden's deep gray eyes grow heavy. He released a few pathetic whimpers, his lip curling every so sweetly when her hand slid off his tummy and onto his cheek. His palms found their way to her wrist, where a gold band was wrapped. He played at trying to coil his fingers around it without too much success, and Azula had a feeling his failure would cause him to wail, but, no, all her precious baby wanted to do was hold her in his way, keep her beside him until sleep found him. And very soon enough, it did, and down did those tiny arms fall, where they landed on the mattress.
Azula pulled Raiden's blanket over him, tucking the ends beneath his frail frame with the very delicacy of a sculptor, her hands working to encase his sides in complete warmth. Once that deed was done, her fingers trailed the tousled meadow of his beloved brown hair that stuck out beneath the rim of his cap, her hesitation to detach herself from him still boldly evident. But he was down for now and at peace. All the teeny child needed from her now was her kiss goodnight, her blessing into his slumber. With fondness, she brushed a few tufts of hair from his puffy cheek and settled her lips against his skin, kissing the warm flesh not once, but twice. One for herself and the other for Chan, who hadn't the chance to give Raiden his own kiss in his current state of restfulness. Beneath her, little Raiden twitched, forming just for his mother one last endearing coo before she had to rise up and depart from the crib.
Just before reaching her bed and tugging the sheet down, she turned her head back in her son's direction.
"Sweet dreams, my darling baby boy," she said in a faint whisper, though the words were loud and they echoed in her heart. "Daddy and I love you."
And with that, Azula joined her husband's side in bed. Chan had since rolled himself onto his spine, the sheet more or less tossed atop him. The motherly princess, not wanting him to get cold, refolded it over his body. His still, partially-opened lips invited hers in, and as she kissed him, she closed her eyes, finally submitting to the overwhelming tiredness she had denied herself from feeling in her maternal duties to her son. Like a weight upon her back, the aching desire to sleep pushed her down onto the mattress, where she nuzzled herself against Chan's muscular frame at last.
Sleep managed to find the princess just as quickly as it had found Chan, and joining in with the two men in her life, she and her little family napped in silence together inside her sunlit bedroom…
Until Raiden had a sudden change of heart…
…An hour later.
