A/N: Set during The Awakening. Title owned by Henry Lawson.
The slight, unconscious way he draws back, the stifled gasp: these are hardly new to me. By now, the arrested recoil that is the usual reaction when first seeing my face is no surprise to me.
After all, considering that my own reaction to seeing it for the first time was enough that the physicians contrived to put the bandages on for another month, I have no reason to condemn their shock.
Yet it occurs to me to wonder that Ozai lacks the ability to hide emotion that his elder brother granted me, for his horror and revulsion as he views his own handiwork is clear for me to read.