Drabbling, drabbling.
---------------
Poor, disillusioned Prince.
He had abandoned the only creature in the world that loved him for everything he was...
Had he only seen that love...
No.
Had he only accepted that love...
But royalty is used to getting its way.
Importance desires obedience, and cannot rest until it receives it.
In the case of the Prince, with his constant blindness to both subtlety and vague emotion, he'd shunned every chance and every opportunity he may have had to finally gather what he'd always wanted...
The love of a father.
That love was what his royal blood demanded; that love was what his royal blood had destroyed.
And ironically, the creature he'd abandoned, whose anguished face now swam tauntingly behind the Prince's heavy, tired eyelids, had been willing to bestow upon him that love...
No.
He had bestowed that love upon him.
And the Prince knew that, in the back of his mind.
Yet...
He refused to accept it.
Somehow, he continued to doubt the existence of that love.
Who could love him?
Why would anyone want to love him?
After so many years without compassion...
How could he understand the feeling of being loved?
Who could love him?
How could he have every felt love before?
Mother...
The Prince felt tears burn his weary eyes; he blinked away those wet embers with fervent distaste.
No. Mustn't. No.
He didn't have love now.
Dwelling over past love wouldn't help him.
But...
But...
But that would mean that he had felt love, once before...
So why could he not feel it now?
Did someone love him?
Uncle...
The tears burned his throat, scalded his eyes.
A renegade escaped and trickled down his scathed left cheek.
No! No!
A smear of dirt disguised the rogue's damp trail; a moist left hand was the only evidence that remained of its life.
Why had he abandoned him?
Why had he felt so hampered by him?
Why?
Why?
The same question, Why?
Why?
Who could love me?
Who?
And Why?
And why do I always choose to run... Why do I run from those who try?
-----------------
Zuko is interesting...