Sunday: First Kiss

Ursa's first kiss had been young, with a boy she liked behind a shed no one checked. Ozai's first kiss had been older, but also with a boy, when they'd tucked themselves deep into the labyrinth of the palace. Ursa had had more, since then, with more people. Ozai wasn't quite that lucky.

But for the two of them, their first kiss together was on the day of their arranged marriage: dispassionate, quick, perfunctory, little more than a display for the crowd. The torches and sun cast light across their faces in an even, mundane, unromantic manner. The food was exquisite and meaningless. Even the crowd's cheers did little to ruffle Ozai's carefully practiced mask of disdain and disinterest. Ursa was less carefully practiced, but it was more surprise that disturbed her than any passion.

That first, dispassionate kiss predicted the next few months-quiet coexistence and distant conversations, dancing around each other in a well-practiced avoidance. But that didn't mean they weren't watching each other. How could they not? They saw each other in the dead of night, in the pauses between breaths, in the modes and phases that no one else saw. Ozai began to learn the curves of her smile, the exact differences between the shades of purple she liked and the ones she didn't. Ursa began to learn the grace of his steps, the katas he preferred and why he did so. Their circlings in their dance began to draw closer and closer, until perhaps, metaphorically, they could have reached out and brushed each others' fingertips.

And they did, slowly. Both metaphorically and physically they began to brush finger tips, slip hands into each others', glide along each other's paths. It was inevitable.

A few months later, when they'd realized what was happening, the ways they'd fallen into each other's orbits, Ursa touched Ozai's shoulder, gently, understanding just how much of a privilege his trust was. "My love," she called him, and there was far more truth there than before.

"Yes, belladonna?" he asked, covering her hands with his own and looking up at her as an equal, thinking her beauty celestial.

"I—" and here she stuttered. She wasn't sure just how to go about this. "Our first kiss," she said by way of explanation. "Our only kiss. Do you—do you think it counts?"

Ozai's silence would have struck any lesser body with fear, but Ursa was his twin star and she knew how to read the flares and sunspots of his face. There was no anger in it now. "Perhaps…do we want it to?"

Now it was Ursa's turn to pause and think. She was sure Ozai read the mountains and plains of her face as easily as she read his. Their first kiss, she remembered, had been nothing special, nothing meaningful, an empty performance for the crowd and the Fire Lord. Did that count? Should it count? Could it even be considered a proper kiss, if the purpose of a kiss was affection?

"I don't want it to," she finally answered.

"Neither do I," Ozai said.

He lifted his hand from hers and cupped it around her cheek. She slid from her position behind him to sit on his lap, their faces mere inches away. She could feel his firebender's heat radiating from him. Their lips hadn't touched since that first day, but now, alone, with his hand on her cheek and her hand still on his shoulder, she felt it come, the way his head drifted closer to hers and her own head did the same. Two planets colliding, two nebulae merging, gravity pulling them closer until she felt their noses touch.

His eyes were still open. She couldn't bear to look away.

A slight brush against her lips and she slid past his nose to press up against his own lips. Only when everything became blurry and little more than a distraction did she close her eyes, memorizing the feel of the kiss. Both did little more than explore, but that was far more than they'd done before. That first kiss had been quick. This first kiss was slow. That first kiss had been in front of a cheering crowd. This one was on their own.

This first kiss, they both thought, was far, far better.