Disclaimer: AtLA does not belong to me. I seek no profit.
Warning: Incest, and other deviants that may accompany it. We all know why we're here, correct? I should warn you: it's dark. What'd you expect? :) Enjoy!
Inspired by: Tanto Metro & Devonte song: 'Give It to Her'. It's canon I say!
Summary: Azula looks so innocent, when she is asleep. Ursa's dark dreams showcase another side of her daughter. And another side of herself.
Synonyms for Deviant: atypical, heretical, off-base, psycho, twisted, wandering
Deviant
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At times I wish I could have acted differently, at others, I'm keenly aware that I had no say in any matter, at any time. None of us did.
----
"I don't know what to do with this one." I joke. Azula's round eyes measure the panda-lilies I hold, one she'd given to me, the other, her older brother, a moment before he'd left for his lessons.
She smiles kindly, sweeping the latters stem from my hand, setting it ablaze in her own. "I do, Mom."
"Azula!"
"I was only trying to help." She tilted her head in amusement, tossing the burnt blossom to the pond carelessly, the ash of it's blackened silhouette smears and ripples across the crystal water, as a grim cloud would overcast the clean skies.
"Oh, yes, that was very helpful. Sometimes I just can't understand you, child. Do you like causing mischief?"
Her eyes darken, the innocent look on her face slips as she twists down the bench away from me. "You mean: do I like you yelling at me all the time, Mother?"
----
I nearly jumped in fright upon discovering my little Azula already in my chambers, her short legs dancing nonchalantly, her small boots bumping up against the support mattress lath. After I endulged her short reproach on my excitability, going so far as to replicate the face I'd made, she asked for a good night kiss. So strange, she never asks for one, but I suppose we aren't together enough of the time. Not nearly enough of the time. I lean down and kiss her cheek, perhaps she wanted something of me, I straighten and raise a brow warily, "Go to bed now, Azula. We need to rise early tomorrow."
She hopped toward the door, indifferent to my suspicions, maybe I had judged her too harshly. But she turns in the wide doorway to look at me questionately, "Why do you and Dad sleep in separate rooms now?"
"...go to bed, young lady."
----
"Baby, what are you doing?" I whisper sleepily to the darkness. In her eagerness to settle in under the covers, she'd forgotten, she'd had a bad dream. Curling into bed beside me, she swings an arm about my neck, I cradle her to my breast, nuzzling my lips into her hair, she murmurs something in her sleep that I can't discern.
"I love you too, Sweetheart."
----
Oh gods, what is she doing to me? Why am I letting her do it? My chest rushes up to meet her smirking lips.
I woke with a start, my daughter still asleep against me, her tiny body entangled in mine, I'm completely horrified by the details of the dream that I'd enjoyed far too much, and by its subject. I shift her away from me, as far as I can manage, she sighs but doesn't wake. I adjust my sleeping robes, they'd somehow unfastened during the night. I lay still, trying not to think until the pulsing should subside. Azula rolls her body over the mattress until she is crushed into my waist, again her knee shifts up my thigh, I push her away, less gently than before. I cover my flushed face with my hands.
----
The candle teeters, I grasp for it and it burns me, the heavy base clambers to the floor and the light is swept out, leaving us in darkness. She apologizes countless times, punctuating her remorse with a kiss, starting at my injured finger, trailing up to the inside of my forearm. "I'm fine, Sweetheart." It was an accident.
Her tongue starts to tickle me and I pull my arm away, swatting at her. She laughs passively, small tactful fingers hook my waist. "Can I sleep with you tonight?"
I reach down and find one of the soft locks of hair framing her face, giving it an uneasy tug before slipping it behind the shell of a delicate ear. "No, Dear." The dreams that keep molesting me in the darkness as she lays by my side weigh heavily on my mind. "I think you should sleep in your own room from now on, Azula."
"What about my nightmares?" She lights a little flame in her palm, her amber eyes narrow accusingly: the pouting tactic. I want to spend time with her, we never do during the day, and I don't want nightmares to trouble her innocent sleep, but-
"I'm sorry, Sweetheart."
--
She doesn't speak to me for days afterwards. It wasn't much of a difference from before, really. We never had that bond. I suppose I hoped that it would come with time. But time has a devious way of obscuring things.
----
Subsequent Deviance
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When my daughter was 'made well' I did my best to express to her what it meant to me, to have her near again. Fortunately, she was articulate enough for the both of us.
----
She twirls the teacup on the tips of her fingers. It totters near the edge of the dark precipice, the pattern dilates. I wonder how far she could manipulate the cup without breaking it. She's not looking at it, she's watching me. She smirks, then lets it shatter.
I wake gradually, the echo of my dream lingers. I don't understand why Azula must be such a constant in those dreams, and my nightmares.
Arching up off my mattress, I stretch the sleep away. I promised my daughter I would meet her for morning tea, I don't want to lose the precious trust I have been honored with.
----
"You're sweating. You wear too much clothing, Mother."
Waving the maid servant away, she refills my cup with steaming tea, I bow my head in gratitude, reaching my hand out to grab her sleave, I give it a gentle tug, perking a brow in amusement, "And these are your leisure robes, I'm guessing?" Azula had dressed almost immediately in royal uniform upon her return to the palace less than two months prior. I've yet to see the form of my teenage daughter in anything but this or her white shift back at the facility.
She places the delicate kettle aside, covering my hand with hers, she smiles back, her eyes light with mirth, "I don't have to wear my uniform. I choose to."
"We're likewise clad then, but I wear the uniform of a mother, dismal and restrictive though it may seem to you."
Her sharp eyes appraise me from across the high table, drifting up the slope of my collar, watching as I blow lightly across the rim of my cup, "I didn't say your wardrobe was lackluster, you look ideal." She takes a sip of tea, her lips purse against the cup, when she speaks again her features and tone showcase lightly veiled disdain, she laughs, the hum is labored. "You just don't always have to dress like my mother." A bird flies too near overhead, and it shadows my daughter's face for a brief instant. Her disapproval bothers me more than I wish to trouble to understand.
I nurse my teacup in one palm, twisting my captured hand to soothe my fingers across her wrist. "I'm not sure I'd want to be dressed as anyone else."
"You wouldn't-" Azula pauses, her brow creases in displeasure, I wait patiently as she slowly traces the pattern of gold trimming the hem of my sleave, her thumb brushes my forearm, her eyes narrow a touch. "You wear too much clothing."
What follows is an unnerving silence between us. A dragon-beetle whizzes by disinterestly, in the distance, a gnarled servant makes a fuss over the death of the panda-lily sedges, raking the brittle casks away in preparation for the young seedlings.
"Azula?" Setting my teacup aside, I take her hands in mine. Seeing the fretful look apparent on my face, she seems to recognize her behavior for what it is, she sighs apologetically, she looks away with a pout I identify as embarrassment, as if she'd been caught in a naughty deed.
"Let's retire back into the palace, Mother. The gardens are unseasonably warm." Azula stood, casting a disparing glance at the resident shrubery engulfing the sunny pavilion. I didn't argue, though I shot more than a few worried side-glances in her direction. Walking in companionable silence, I start slightly when she nudges a shoulder beneath my arm, with a smile I acknowledge her unspoken request, holding her close to me as we round the lantern lit halls leading to her chambers.
----
"Don't you trust me? You're hurting my feelings, Mother." Again, her red lips arch into a pouty bow, she nudges me down to her mattress. This time I allow it. Breathing in the cool of the room and the faint wisp of her aroma relaxes me, her hands are gentle against my shoulders, her eyes soften lovingly.
Very carefully, so tediously, she arranges my arms above my head, her hands smooth--no, caress up to press my wrists, first one, then the other. She smiles, and chides until I submit. My eyes close. She has a gift-- to bestow on me. Long moments pass, I start to suspect this is another of those 'charming' tricks of hers. I murmur her name, the smile is wiped perfectly off my face when yielding lips lay against mine. My eyes fly open, they find hers, she doesn't blink, then they flutter shut.
I'm a fool to trust her. And Azula says so with a breathless smirk.
----
At dinner, she laughs along with her brother, some trivial matter of state that is plaguing him, she kindly offers her help in the matter. Her magnetism captivates all present. Fire Lord Zuko is in awe of his sister's redemption. A mark he attributes to me. I know in my heart I had nothing to do with this transformation... I'm not sure I want the recognition. Azula raises her glass, she smiles radiantly, I look past the proffered chalice to her lips, already stained red with wine, as they manipulate, "To my redeemer."
A lovely scrutiny. My daughter is powerful, she makes me blush in shame with a mere arsenal of terms. Her words ring out as a decree to be followed without question, and so it is. I swallow mine down severely, not surprisingly, it doesn't sit well, burning deep in my chest. She douses her wine in a breath, her eyes gleam with unremitting approbation.
All evening, my eyes flit from the grand banquet table, to my son, to my almost untouched glass of wine, to the blood red curtained far walls and back, but always do they distinguish my daughter's keen stare, fixated on me.
----
The morning air does absolutely nothing to clear my head. The sun is shining too brightly, no clouds yet have appeared to shadow the sweltering earth. I grind my fingers into my temples, I should have stayed in bed, feigned illness, then I wouldn't have to face-
"You're playing hard to get." My breath catches as her arms envelop my waist, she nudges her chin into my shoulder, just enough to cause an ache of discomfort. When did my daughter grow so tall?
"I didn't realize it was a game, Dear." The proximity agitates me as I've never felt before, I don't want her to make some glib remark about my pounding heart, I pull away, but her hips push into mine, pinning me against the steel rim of the balcony. The motion steals a gasp from my lips but I manage to keep my eyes focused on the distant horizon. She chuckles lightly, shrugging into me, she sighs deprecatingly, as if her movements were accidental, her behavior a mere nothing. I keep telling myself not to panic. Of course it's simply sport. Her breath pulses heatedly against my neck.
Isn't it? Gods, she can feel my heart racing.
That kiss. It was all just my prodigious daughter, having a laugh at my expense. A ploy, it's a pastime of her own device.
The tip of her nose finds the skin beneath my collar, she nuzzles the fabric aside, inhaling deeply. "If you like, I know of a better one." She reaches her tongue in and tastes me. "Ursa."
The pace of her heartbeat picks up so it almost matches mine.
----
Everywhere I turn, anywhere I go, she is there. She smiles so sweetly when she finds me, as if we'd planned this. I never did have a say in our games. I retire to my chambers for the night, a most likely spot. She finds me, no waylay, she said she would, and she's been so truthful with me lately. "Do you need anything, Mother?" She holds me close, her manner open and hospitable as she searches my eyes for some undefined answer.
Nothing a servant couldn't do.
She isn't fazed. "Something only I could do?" She never deviates from her warm smile as her eyes and hands leave the gentle embrace of my shoulders, trailing down to my hips, the thin fabric shifts and trembles under her touch. It isn't the only thing affected by her fondling. My eyes widen and my heartbeat trips, I feel my body start to curve into my daughter's, and that fills me with a long repressed nightmarish fear. "Because I would do it all..."
"That's enough Azula!" I push and pull, backing away from her, I hitch the door open, trying to keep my heart down in my chest, shooting the girl a warning look that always had a deep enough effect on her as a child.
She looks so hurt, her eyes blink in confusion. Those red lips part, I know her tongue, at least, isn't innocent. "Mom?"
Her pleading eyes threaten to sway me, I force myself to remember things I wish I could forget, her lips caressing mine, "I..."
"Yes?" She doesn't hesitate to counter, her eyes spark in sharp interest.
"I want you... to leave me alone."
Her eyes flicker, a burst of anger, a twinge of regret, finally slipping into something not at all unfamiliar to me, an emotionless mask. She takes in the floor, the surroundings, and least and longest of all me. She looks like she's going to say something, she teeters forward almost imperceptibly, she takes account of my hand shaking on the brass door handle. I know she does.
Azula nods once, twice, if you count her head half jerking away from me. She stiffens, pillar straight, emblazoning the grain of a true soldier, my daughter forges past me, she doesn't look at me. I shut her out, and almost at once the guilt beckons me back, into the abyss of its unredeeming darkness.
And the night lasts forever. Even many silent days afterwards.
----
"Looking for someone?" She swivels her head away from me, though she doesn't bother to veer from her seat at the edge of the pond. A commonplace for us to meet in the afternoons, a highlight of my day. I would not accept losing it--her.
"Azula." I take a seat next to my child, she looks back to the water, though only to watch my movements. Young turtle-ducks leave their mother's side to swim nearer, vigilantly awaiting a hand-out. "I wanted to apologize, I was hard on you."
She shrugs lightly, her face devoid of any hint of sentiment, her tone however, was rich with a cutting edge. "It's the only way I'll learn: discipline. You always seemed to think so."
Her eyes bore into me, that hard look makes me stutter.
"That's, that's not..." But it was true. "You weren't like most children." Her eyes darken, a cloud has blotted the sun that shone through the capering linden leaves above. She doesn't care for differences-- any thing to dare mark her less than perfect. I rest my hand on her knee, she reflects on it. Her eyes almost seem to soften.
"I'm not like most women, either."
My hand recoils before I can stop it, I flinch in self-reproof, my lips tighten. She smiles bitterly, holding her palms up to me briefly to valuate, before hiding her hands in her lap as if to shield me from something indecent, otherwise seemingly naked and revealed to me. She trusted me, I realize, against her better judgement no doubt. I swallow forcibly. "You've always been special, Azula...you're my precious baby girl." I touch her shoulder lightly, the tips of my fingers first, then, tentatively my hand curls there as well. I never dreamed I would have this talk with any of my children, and there was so much I still needed to understand, and she'd been willing to open up to me at last. "But...why are you acting this way toward me?" My daughter's 'difference' was one thing, in her family, things were not always as they seemed, but if I was interpreting her actions correctly...
Azula didn't respond, she stared down into the water, her mask of indifference pronounced yet again. Taking both my daughter's hands from their hiding place, I set them open, palms up, on her knees. "Azula, please, don't be afraid to talk to me."
"Can you honestly tell me you don't know?" My daughter broke ahead roughly, staring down at her hands in annoyance.
"Know what exactly?" I hardly knew the girl--the young woman beside me, this was painfully evident.
Azula sighed in frustration, she looked to me, her eyes narrowed pointedly, "That I love you, Ursa. I love you with the love of a woman, not a child. Not your child. Is that something I can talk to you about?"
The little turtle-ducks twittered nervously, their plaintive sqeaks halted, gliding away from us. They leave the most beautiful ripples in the water with the delicate pads of their claws, the golden light shimmering off the pond almost matches the gold of my daughter's eyes. How beautiful. -Dumbstruck-, I think, is the best term to describe the raw jolt that hit me hard in the chest. She shook her head, her lips pulled almost in amusement, she continued on, her precise speech sounding more like a war doctrine than a confession.
"Or maybe, I can tell you about all those nights I spent thinking of you." Azula stood, pacing the ground evenly, gesticulating grandly with her arms, hands, body. "Not as my mother. Not as your daughter. I don't think we've ever truely been mother and daughter, do you?"
My child circles me expectantly, I'm being tried for my crimes, I had no testimony prepared. "I...I'm so sorry, Azula, I..." I don't know how to think, somewhere in the back of the mind I can't seem to find I recognize this as a scene from my worst nightmares.
She kneels down to my ear. "Yes. It is your doing." I turn away from her somber face, the image of my dereliction.
"I never wanted to hurt you...I... tried my best." It's almost surreal, the way I reach slowly for her hand, she angles away from me before I can touch her.
"Your best clearly wasn't good enough. But do you think that really matters now? You can't fix this. Just accept it for what it is, won't you?"
I don't hold back the tears any longer.
----
Deviated Consummation
----
Alone.
----
"..."
"I don't want to lose you." I whisper into the darkness.
"I know, Mother." The darkness responds.
"...what can I do?"
There is a strange movement somewhere at the edge of the abyss. It frightens me. Flashes of light surge across the obscurity, a trail of bleary smoke residue curls at length, as a finger would coax and lure a wandering child.
"I think you know. Ursa."
----
It was easy enough to walk the short walk to her quarters. It was easy enough to open the door. So easy to enter unannounced.
I just couldn't do it for what seemed like an eternity.
But I did.
She was still awake, sitting at her vanity, purposefully brushing her long raven hair for bed, her amber eyes found mine in the wide mirror. "Mother?"
"Daughter." I shut the door behind me, she lowers the comb, her brows peak in curiousity, she turns in her seat regally.
"To what do I owe-" I silence her arrogance with my lips.
"Azula."
She murmurs somthing I can't discern. I have no answer for her regardless.
----
I take a plunging breath, brushing the dark strands of hair from her face, she looks so peaceful, so innocent when she is asleep. My fingers run the length of her satiated lips. She smiles. I smile too, briefly; my hand falls to the mattress with a hard thud.
I just took my own daughter.
There were words to describe how I felt. Many, I'm sure, though far into that night I could only answer her probings in strangled grunts. She hadn't seemed to mind.
Now, however, there was nothing to stall my thoughts, it was so very dark, and they crashed one by one against me.
The third thought that came to me was to move off the contaminated mattress, but she grasps my arm, ruling against me she pulls me back to her. "Ursa. Don't go. Please." It isn't really a plea, because she knows that I'm not going anywhere... if she doesn't want me to. She wraps an arm around my waist, holding me close, kissing my bare shoulder.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome, Mother." She takes a contented breath. "I love the way your body feels next to mine."
I fall asleep, and she finds me in my dreams.
----
With fire dancing in her eyes, she watches the tips of her fingers indent across the flesh of my sides, over and over, and over. I don't know what she finds so remarkable about it. I ask her, she laughs, leaning into me so her naked skin is cradled against mine, she kisses my neck tenderly, so that I can't even feel the hard of her teeth veiled behind those smiling lips.
"I used to think," Her breath is heated in my ear, palms smooth down my hips, "when I was very, very small," I can't help the ripple that follows her every movement, she widens her grasp with long tactful fingers, "that it would burn to touch you."
I pin her shoulders in my arms, ceasing her feverish explorations, settling her head against my chest, her favorite place to sleep, even if it wasn't sleep on her too clever mind, "No." It only ever burned me, I was glad of it, I did not wish to cause my daughter more pain.
I kiss my little Azula's forehead.
--
As I lay awake, stroking the darkness, she murmurs something in her sleep that I no longer have trouble discerning. I ignore her petty words, and replace them with my own petty longings.
"I love you too, Sweetheart."
A/N: This set kept tampering with my mind 'til I agreed I'd post it next. Shoot, it was only supposed to be five paragraphs long! Guess it bubbled. *coughSlightlycough*
Ah, the linden (tree of lovers) isn't an Oriental tree, it is infact, very Caucasion in region. ;)
Tomatazos! By all means!