A/N: Sorry for the longer breaks! Ironically, now that it's summer and I have more time, that means I'm working on other writing projects and not this so much. Thank you to everybody who's reviewed and favorited, and please continue to tell me what you think.
Warnings here for self-harm and some Ozai/Azula.
Parallels!
The palace feels like a cage. The dim halls where she and her brother chased each other years and years ago, the suite of rooms she has inhabited for quite a while now, the imposing grandeur of the throne room—all of these things are the same, aren't they? Nothing seems to change in this place. Yet all of it, all the immensity, is claustrophobic now.
She supposes not going out to school any longer makes a difference. Now Lo and Li tutor her in all the subjects it's important for an heir to the throne to know. She attends the occasional war meeting at her father's side, goes to the barracks to spar, and learns firebending from Fire Lord Ozai himself.
He is relentless and strict in his teaching. Her mistakes are few and very far between, but he punishes each harshly. She doesn't need to be told anymore to hold out her wrists when she's done something wrong. She does it, silently, and her father presses searing fingers to her skin to add to the collection of whitish scars there. She looks at the burns in the night and reprimands herself more viciously than her father will ever be able to.
When she performs perfectly, when her fire blazes so hot it turns blue, when lightning crackles from her fingers, he says nothing. She understands, of course; perfection is nothing more than satisfactory, and all else is unacceptable. But his silence eats her alive just the same. He used to compliment her, she thinks. Not anymore. Neither do Lo and Li.
The word perfect hangs above her like a guillotine.
But what a stupid, childish notion to desire praise, to believe she deserves it. If Ozai was not pleased with her, she would be like Zuko, scarred and banished.
(It never really occurs to her that she's halfway there.)
And this is what she wanted. She is the heir apparent to the nation's throne. The nobles and generals and servants call her a prodigy, and she knows it's true. Zuko and Iroh and Ursa are gone, and it is just her and the only person that matters, and he loves her.
Love is the bruises he leaves on her hips. It's the cascade of words that pours from his mouth when he's inside of her, for indeed he's free enough with compliments when they're under the sheets: so tight so hot yes yes so beautiful my little dragoness mine mine—
Love is the euphoria he brings ripping through her when he's so inclined, when all she can do is clutch the sheets and watch him smile as her world comes apart in a pleasure that tastes like sin and guilt and nothing good at all.
And love is spending infinitely long nights in the cage of his arms. Love is when he bores of a meeting and demands her during a recess, when he dresses her in her mother's old clothes, when he orders her to her knees.
He loves her. He has to. He is still there, unlike the ever-growing list of those who have left Azula behind. Lu Ten Ursa Azulon Zuko Iroh Ty Lee Mai—
She knows the feeling is loneliness. She knows she should be happy. She wears this knowledge like a shroud, and no matter her father's anger her own contempt and disgust for herself will always dwarf his. She is her own worst enemy. If only she could take a knife and cut out the weak, sniveling thing inside of her, be left with nothing but the serenity that consumes her when she summons lightning.
On an evening after months of this silent battle, she finds herself sitting alone in her room in the dead of night, sleep eluding her. The nights spent in her own chambers are becoming fewer, but she doesn't particularly enjoy them. On her own, after all, there is nothing to do but think, and the thought of her father's smothering embrace seems a welcome one by comparison.
She is thinking, again, of that day in the spa, the look on Mai's face when she rejected her. She is certain that if it had been Zuko, Mai would have accepted. She cannot stop herself imagining the two of them rolling together, laughing, laughing at her.
It's infuriating. She is everything. She has everything. Zuko is nothing but a stain on the royal family. And yet...
He's easy to talk to. Kind. Open. Maybe you should care more about that.
They are all the same, all the ones who have left. They wanted something that she will never be. She's better off without them. And Ozai loves her as she is.
That is the only thing that matters.
She has her own knives. Nobles like giving them to her as gifts, something as beautiful and deadly as she is. She unsheathes one, takes it in her fingers the same way she remembers seeing Mai do it. This isn't a knife made for throwing, but she gives it a try just the same. It feels awkward and uncontrolled as it leaves her grasp and buries itself in the wall.
A jagged gash in the wood. She wrenches it free, thinks of something different, and smiles.
It's an endurance test, she thinks, and she excels. It's incredible how little effort it takes to glide the blade across her skin, how easily the red wells up and drips out. Before she knows it, she's laughing, an entirely different kind of euphoria consuming her. It's so lovely, and somehow it seems to not hurt at all, and she wonders how many cuts it will take to sate this lust.
A servant interrupts her with a knock on the door, and Azula snaps from her trance. Instantly the wounds are repulsive and humiliating. She herself is stupid and weak to succumbing to such an urge. She washes and bandages them and tries not to think about it.
Neither the shame nor the bloodlust dissipate.
