Azula sat on the edge of her bed brushing out her hair. She'd removed her armor and wore now just her loose under clothes, held in place by her belt and wrist guards. There was really no point in staying armed anymore, it was uncomfortable and in the few hours since Tatsuya had incinerated the guard captain it had almost become as if they'd occupied the town. None of the other guards dared ever to make contact with them, and the townsfolk did whatever they told them to.
The Captain had yet to report back to her, but she assumed, correctly, he was busy. There had been a number of things to 'acquire' from the locals before they could depart, and she had been the one who'd wanted to leave today.
Truthfully Azula didn't mind. Though she'd never admit it upon pain of death, and you couldn't tell if tried, she was a little nervous. Seducing men had never really been her cup of tea, nor had she ever been particularly fond of tea. Ty Lee was the one who always had men crawling over each other to get near her, and she'd been rendered nearly useless by the shirtless state of the Captain. Of course the princess had admired the view herself, but you wouldn't have known if she told you.
The problem was she couldn't get that image out of her head. Tatsuya, standing flame in hand, about to strike down and finish his enemy, looking at her, murder in his eyes, silently begging her to let him kill, pleading with her to let him murder, beseeching her to let him finish the man before him. Even now it sent her heart to her throat and she had to concentrate to control the thing.
Now she couldn't allow herself to lose control, not if she wanted to make Tatsuya hers. She took some comfort in the fact that she didn't truthfully need to seduce him, if need be she was still his commanding officer, but the truthfully didn't want to take him. She wanted him to offer himself to her, to be hers entirely, heart, mind, soul, and body.
But how to obtain that, Ty Lee traditionally had boy practically begging for her to take their hearts and bodies, but the Captain had shown little, if any, interest in her giggling antics, and if the gymnast were to be believed, he only had eyes for Azula. Now while Ty Lee was generally a fairly good judge of character, be it because of auras or chakras or whatever, the princess couldn't help but second guess her assessment of the Captain. No boy had ever liked her for any other reason than if they married her they would become the next Fire Lord, and Tatsuya had no chance of that ever happening. He wasn't full blooded Fire Nation, and by his own admission had never even been to the homeland.
Why would someone like that have any interest in her? Though she was beautiful, there was little chance of denying that, and it was doubtful there was another girl her age half as powerful as her; these weren't generally things that boys took into account. While her beauty would be enough to interest them once they noticed her power they either attempted to control her, or ran for the hills, both generally resulted in her igniting part of their clothing.
But Tatsuya had already shown his willingness to be controlled by her. Even during his Agni Kai, his duel, his battle, he had turned to her for Permission to deal the death blow. It was hard to conceive being much more subservient than that, at least in Azula's mind. He was perfect, powerful, wrathful, obedient, intelligent, and vicious. It was too bad he wasn't a noble, had he only been the child of a war hero, then perhaps her father wouldn't mind.
Either way it was of no consequence, while Azula wasn't in the habit of going against her father, what people didn't know wouldn't hurt him, or their family's reputation.
There was a knock at her door, she knew it was the Captain, Ty Lee always knocked in some odd pattern, and Mai only knock once. "The door is open Captain." They'd given up their little rouse shortly after the guards stopped trying to guard things from them.
Tatsuya stepped around the door closing it quietly behind him as the princess slowly brushed out her hair. He still wasn't wearing his shirt, but now held it in one hand as he bowed to her. "You, wanted to see me princess?"
Azula put down her hairbrush. "Yes, Captain, I wanted to talk to you about your little outburst today." The princess stood up and began slowly circling the boy like a vulture, her hands neatly folded behind her back. "While I can understand your reasons, it was dangerous and reckless. You put or entire mission in danger simply because you couldn't control yourself."
"I know… and I apologize, princess…" He bowed his head, turning to face her, as she paused in her circling. "Though if I may explain my actions… That man had it coming…" He growled a little and Azula was reminded of the vicious nature that lay beneath his submissive skin.
"That may be so, but despite how much we might want to, we can't go around incinerating ever jerk we come across." Azula smirked a little and returned to walking a circle around the Captain.
"I know… it was merely that…" Tatsuya took a deep breath and visible calmed himself. "That guard got to me… I won't let it happen again, I apologize, princess." He rose and turned to leave.
But Azula stepped between him and the door. "Captain…" She looked at him in what she hopped appeared to be concern. "Tell me everything." She tried for compassion, but it came out sounding more commanding.
The Captain took a deep breath and sat down right where he had been standing. His legs folded under him he stared at the ground as Azula circled him one last time before she sat on the edge of her bed, her arms crossed over her chest as she watched him. She could tell she was rousting unpleasant memories, but it was high time the Captain explained himself.
"It wasn't something he did… it was something he said… a name he called me…" Tatsuya seemed almost hesitant, not of revealing his past to Azula, but more of, speaking about it aloud.
Azula perked up a brow; she tried to remember what the late guard captain had called Tatsuya. "Fire Boy?" That was what it had been hadn't it? She assumed so from the captain's reaction, he grit his teeth and growled a little.
"Yeah… That was it." He was breathing a little harder, an old rage fire rekindling within him. "Back in the colony that was what the other kids would call me."
"Well, it's hardly an original name; after all, you are a boy, from the Fire Nation."
"That's just it. I'm not from the Fire Nation… I'm not from the Earth Kingdom. I'm from… some place in between." He turned his head, unable to be looked at by Azula, at least in his mind.
Azula was reminded of the other times they'd discussed his origins. He'd never seemed to think of himself in, to put it lightly, a positive light. Somewhere in the back of her mind, or the bottom of her heart, she hoped she was about to find out why.
"Back in the colony, the other children would call me that, and then beat the living daylights out of me, some of them my age, most of them twice as old." There wasn't anything, regretful, or mournful in his voice, and somehow, that made the words twice as real. "It, was never that they really, hated me, or at least it never felt like that…"
Azula wondered slightly how being beating to a pulp couldn't feel like those doing the beating hated you, but allowed the Captain to continue uninterrupted. "Some of them were Earth Benders… and some of the attacks were pretty bad…" He held out one arm and clutched his ribs on his right side. "I think I probably broke half my rib cage before I was ten." He chuckled a little.
"Captain…" Azula wondered if it was really something to laugh at. "May I?" But she was more curious about the true extent of his battle scars, they couldn't be that bad. They'd been just children after all. She gestured to the bed next to her and slid back a little. He nodded and stood up, moving over to side on the bed almost in front of her. He held his arms out to either side and sighed, still handing his head a little.
Azula laid her hands on his back and he began again. "I would, try to defend myself, and sometimes I almost got away." Azula passed her hands over the broad extensions of bone that were his shoulder blades, his right one had been cracked in two places, long since healed. "But… every time I fought back, they'd just show up with more next time." She slid her hands around under his arms, he'd been right. She felt at least three knotted pieces of bone, where his ribs had been broken and healed over.
"What about your mother...? Surely she must have objected, or at least said something." There were another two possibly four on his left side. Azula could hardly imagine a mother who would allow their child to be bloody like this, sure she'd never been on good terms with her own, but she'd always felt she was still her mother.
The Captain smirked. "Heh, my mother…" He drew a deep breath; Azula could feel his rising chest press against her hands. "My mother…" He sighed. "I only ever… truly, saw her smile, when I came home bloody and beaten." He smirked a little more, how could that have been a pleasant memory? "She'd smile at me and say, 'well, let's get you cleaned up' like I'd fallen in a mud puddle or something… I think she must have been a nurse… she always knew how to put me back together. Set my bones, bind my wounds. Heh, I think it was the most time I ever spend with her was when she was 'getting me cleaned up.'"
Azula brought her hands back around to his back. She slid them up across his tensed muscles and out over his strong outstretched arms. She for once, had little to say. Her own mother had thought she was a monster, but she'd always tried to be a mother despite. "You said some of the ones who beat you were Earth Benders, what that how you learned that form?" The princess was somewhat wary of the subject of mothers, and was eager to leave it behind.
The Captain smirked half heartedly. "Yeah, get beaten by rocks enough times and eventually you pick up a few things from those doing the beating…" He took one of his arms from her and glared down at his fist. "They were just novices… all those with any real Earth Bending talent were carried off to prisons, or put to work in the coal mines." He clenched his fist tight. "Things got a little better once I discovered my bending. But at the same time they got worse…" He dropped his arms to his sides.
Azula leaned around him a little, one hand resting on each of the Captain's arms. She could feel just the slight shadow of a pair of scars, resting in the nook of his right arm, one under the other. "Captain…" She knew she should say something, something deep and meaningful, something that would win her his affections forever. She just couldn't think of anything.
"The thing is…" Tatsuya smiled. "They stopped… I guess they didn't want to fight, if I could fight back." He chuckled a little. "Go figure."
Azula knew she'd missed her chance, and she was cursing herself for it. Though the Captain was still bearing his soul to her, she might get another… "You said it yourself, people tend to think twice about messing with someone who can sling fire."
"Heh, yeah," He smirked, turning his head to look back at her a little "I guess that's what it was… It's just that… I traded without knowing it… The other children backed off… but, from the moment my mother learned I was a Fire Bender… she never looked at me." Tatsuya sighed deeply, remembering things long since pasted, reopening wounds never truly healed. "Not directly anyway… I think my father had been a
bender… and while my mother, was never." He paused, trying to find the right words. "The highest functioning woman… She always tried to be my mother… until I became a bender."
Again Azula could feel her chance to say something to win her the Captain's affection, and again she couldn't think of anything remotely meaningful to say, and all she could think of is to curse Lo and Li for always making it look so easy. "At least you have the Fire Navy, I'm certain they respect what a unique bending style you possess…"
The Captain smiled, and for a moment Azula felt like she may have actually gotten the hang of the whole, being confided in, thing. "The Navy… once a year, for as long as I could remember recruitment officers would come to our town and try to get anyone they could to join. Not very many joined, the sons of colonists, mostly, probably just because there wasn't much else to do if you were going to make a life in the Earth Kingdom… From the day I discovered my bending, from the day my mother stopped looking at me… Every day they were in town, I would run down to them and ask 'can I join' I would show off whatever new Fire Bending move I'd learned 'look what I can do, please, let me join.'" He smirked fondly remembering his younger self's admiration for the Fire Navy. "And every year they'd tell me I was too young, and tell me to come back when I was older…"
He hung his head a little and Azula felt his body temperature jump, rage was returning to his veins. "And every year after they left me there…" He was growling a little flames flicking between his teeth. "The other children would rally together, calling themselves the 'Fire Fighters.' They'd get everyone they could, Earth Benders or just twice my size; it didn't matter to them, anyone who wanted to would find me down by the shore, where the recruitment officers would have been. And they'd beat the holy hell out of me…" Tatsuya grit his teeth, and growled out a plum of vibrant orange flames. "And Every Year, I'd fight them. It didn't matter if there was a dozen of them or a hundred, I fought. Got a few of 'em good every once in a while too." A smile graced the captain's lips, though it appeared like it would have been more at home upon Azula's.
"You fought for your country, a noble cause." Azula almost whispered in his ear, she was no longer attempting compassion. She'd learned enough, now she knew how to control the Captain. He was broken, and she knew how to fix him.
"I fought for my life." He stood up taking a few steps away from where the princess sat. "And it never made any difference. For each one of them I injured, they came back with double the fury the next day… There was no way I could win… only survive."
"So you did. And you joined the Fire Navy." Azula leaned to one side, watching him carefully, studying him. She appeared more like a predator, than a confidant.
"And even there people hated me!" He turned, lashing a curl of fire between him and the princess. Not deliberately, he was like her brother, too much fury, and no place to aim it.
"Well you can hardly blame them." Azula calmly toyed with a lock of her hair. "You were half Earth Kingdom, and very well could have become a spy against them."
"But I wasn't!" He turned to face her fully, anger flickered in his eyes, but not anger at her. He was angry at the past. He was furious with it, for being so immutable. "I was just a kid. I was just trying to find some place to belong. I was hated at home, and I was hated there. The other benders, they were warrior's children. Their fathers had taught them how to bend since they'd discovered it. I knew more about Earth Bending than I did Fire!" Tatsuya stormed about, practically clawing at the walls of the room. "And they hated me for that too."
Azula smirked, she could sense something, there was a violent ending to this story, and she wanted to hear it. "But you showed them, you never backed down."
The Captain smiled, again one akin to Azula. "Yeah. I took what I'd been given. I took my rage, I took my, 'unfocused and petty displays,' and I became such that not a one of them, not even the instructor, could best me one on one."
"And they hated you for that too." Azula stood, pressing him harder.
"Yes!" The Captain stormed toward her, he was almost close enough to forget himself. "They hated me for it, and they wanted me to die. They put on the front line of battle after battle. They fit me against Earth Bender after Earth Bender. And I killed each of them. Never showing them the mercy I'd dissevered but never received, and none of them, not one of them cared. I could slaughter a thousand Earth Benders and it'd never make up for the fact that I shared blood with all of them." He was furious,
Azula could feel the heat rolling off his body, and she could smell the hatred in his blood. "You know what they called me?"
"What?" She tilted her head to one side quizzically.
"Ash." He said the word like it was poison on his lips, practically spitting it at her. "Half Fire, Half Earth, and completely worthless." Tatsuya stormed a few steps away from the Princess, leaning himself against the wall, pressing his head against it so he didn't have to face her. He was exhausted, simply from the fury he'd recalled. "And then one day…" He was calmer now, no longer filled with such violent hatred. "A general, some child who'd never been in a real battle before, born into leadership, was to command my platoon. And I accidentally sat on his rhino." The Captain shook his head. "Not like all the rhinos weren't the same…" He was almost smiling at how stupid the whole thing was. "So he challenged me to an Agni Kai, saying I'd disrespected his authority. Now he was a few years older than me, but he reeked of immaturity. He'd been handed everything in life, and was expecting me to just back down and let him win."
"But you didn't?" Azula already knew the answer, it had been in his file, but she also knew of the type of person he spoke of. She'd often been accused of belonging to their class, but she shared the Captain's hatred of them. They were boorish boys, children of war heroes or descendants of military leaders, raised to expect anyone in uniform to bow to them. She recalled one in particularly; whom she'd had the miss fortune of dealing with. He'd carried himself with that proud bravado, like he'd earned her respect just by being there. He'd treated her like some gaggling school girl, flocking around him for his air of rule. She'd set him on fire, and watched him squirm.
"No… I didn't." A devilish smirk returned to the Captain's face, he enjoyed the memory of this fight. "Everything he sent at me, I returned in kind. No matter what fancy Fire Bending move he pulled. I remained standing. I don't think he'd ever really fought someone before. The look on his face, when I burned through his defense, when I stood over him, wanting, in every fiber of my being, to finish him, was utterly delicious… But the boy complained, and his father had some pull with the military. I got my 'promotion' and The Chained Phoenix, and it's less than thrilled crew… And you know what the first thing I did with it was?"
Azula perked up an eyebrow, she was actually curious, what would a boy, with all this misfortune turned to fury, do, if left to his own devices. "What? What did you do?" She smiled and narrowed her eyes.
"I went home. I forged my halberd. I found the 'Fire Fighters,' and I christened my blade, with the blood of each and every one of them. I drove my blade into their hearts, and I hacked apart their bodies…" The Captain was almost trembling, smiling with the sweet nectar of vengeance on his lips. "And I loved every minute of it."
Azula smiled, he murdered. "As you should have, Captain Shouhei." She smirked, sitting back down on the edge of her bed as Tatsuya struggled to catch his breath.
His features calmed, his muscles relaxed. His mind returned to the present, leaving the past behind, leaving it dead and buried as he'd left it. "But even then I didn't find what I wanted." He half turned to look at her, but didn't. He raised his hands staring at his palms as he opened and closed them slightly. "What I'd been looking for…"
Azula smirked, he was turning to her, needing her, and she could feel it. "And what was that?"
"I… I don't, know…" He turned to look her in the eyes, his were long, drawn back, tired. Hers were steady, clear, controlled. "I… I thought I'd been looking for a place to belong. Somewhere I could be with people like me… But… I'm never going to find that place…" He only half sounded remorseful about this, like it had been his desire for so long, he was hesitant to let it go, even in the face of something better. "But… I think I've found, what I was supposed to be looking for. Not a place to belong, not somewhere I can be with others like myself... but someone to belong to, someone, to dedicate my life to. You." He fell to his knees, never breaking his gaze at the princess. He was tired of standing on his own, tired of having everyone hate him, and to have nothing to show for it.
Azula smiled, she held out one of her hands, just stretching it out for him to take. He crawled over to her, unable to find the strength to stand, and laid his head against her outstretched palm. She laid her hand on his head, and began gently stroking his hair. "Sweet boy… Broken boy… don't worry, I can fix you." She slid her hand down under his chin, and raised him up to look her in the eye again. She pulled him up to her, guiding his lips to hers, and kissed him, softly, calmly. He closed his eyes and submitted, he was hers, heart, mind, body, and soul.
Author's Note- For the 18+ version of the chapter please visit http : / cartoon. adultfanfiction .net /story.php?no600090915 minus the spaces, turns out FF .net doesn't like me linking inside stories. I'm sure they have their reasons though.