This chapter is pretty strongly inspired by Christina Perri's song "One Night." A lot of her songs actually match the mood and meaning for so much of this story. I might come up with a playlist of songs that I think match certain chapters well, if any of you would be interested in that, but if you want to listen to some now I'll list ones that inspired parts of the story I've already typed up and posted. Christina Perri: One Night, I Don't Wanna Break, Sea of Lovers, and Run. Adele's Lovesong is another fitting one too.
Had it been any other day, we would've been exhausted, but we weren't. We'd never been more awake as Ozai swept me up and carried me across the threshold.
He only set me down because he had to go over some details about our honeymoon departure with one of the servants. We were to leave for Ember Island the next day, whenever both of us could manage to get out of the bed. Our fatigue hadn't hit us yet, but we knew it would as soon as we closed our eyes. I'd probably feel as though I could sleep for twelve hours straight.
He also felt the need to cover and recover some ground rules with the servants. I almost pitied the poor prince; marriage meant he had to get used to multiple maidservants attending me almost constantly, even if he'd managed to weasel free of the traditional manservants for himself.
While he did that, I took in the silence and checked myself out in the mirror, wondering whether or not I should change out of my wedding robes now or later. It was the first time I was alone since the wedding, and the first time I didn't have to worry about presenting or reserving myself in any way. I felt surreally myself, as though nothing had changed since the day before, and unreasonably fresh, clean, like a flower's first bloom. Even so, I picked up a brush from the vanity table and sat down to brush my hair.
The gold glint in the mirror struck me in the heart. I'd forgotten about the hairpiece, which somehow seemed absurd. My reflection took my breath away, not because I was still glowing and still looked more beautifully, naturally me than ever before, but because of that piece of gold I had no idea what to do with.
Every little girl dreams of being a princess. I'd stopped most of that dreaming once I met and befriended an actual prince, and especially once I watched an actual princess die. I hadn't allowed myself to think of the title in such a nostalgic, child-like concept since I realized my love for Ozai, but I allowed myself to just allow. As I looked at my crowned reflection, I allowed the little girl in me to grin and soar and giggle. It felt good to indulge in such a wondrously absurd reality, even if I had lost so much before gaining it.
Before I could decide whether or not to remove the accessory, Ozai came back in.
"My princess," he complimented with a soft voice that rang against every wall.
She couldn't help but giggle at hearing her new title spoken by the voice she most loved. A few years ago, she would've hated herself for laughing in the manner I'd always scorned and mocked in "painted, proper airheads," but we'd both grown enough to realize that no form of laughter should be avoided, and that her giggles were the furthest things from obnoxious in my ears, especially in my prince's ears.
"My prince."
Ursa turned around in her chair to smile at me, almost calming the rapid beat of my heart but not quite.
I began to cross over, trying so hard to look taller, older, and more confident than I felt, and she rose to meet me in the middle of the floor.
He didn't reach for me, and I soon realized why.
My hands trembled.
Ozai.
My Ozai.
Prince of the Fire Nation.
Son of Azulon and master of his element.
Was…
Nervous.
I really was.
For the first time in my life, I was incredibly, insanely, insuppressibly nervous. My heart slammed against every rib in my chest, and I couldn't move any body part for fear I might break this mirage before me.
I was terrified I might hurt her.
His caution made me beam from ear-to-ear, perhaps part of the reason why I wasn't nervous at all. I thought I was going to be. I thought I would be so fearful of doing something wrong or not knowing enough… But I'd never felt freer. I'd never felt more comfortable, and everything in me burned and blazed to show him that, to love every part of him as he loved every part of me, to come together in passion and love and core-of-my-being-and-soul-and-spirit vulnerability.
Eyes alight, Ursa yanked my goatee, quite lovingly, to bring my mouth down to meet hers, her deep kiss feeding the inner fires behind my fears. Her lips left mine just as my courage returned, and she asked me to help her with the clasp of her gown. As I did, she tried to help me with my robe, but I beat her to it, insisting on undoing it myself.
I'd always seen more of Ozai's kindness, his goodness than anyone else, but he stunned me that night. The smolder of his golden eyes didn't dim in the least, but it seemed to burn slower, deeper, like a flame too powerful and eternal to have a climax, constant, unchanging, and all-consuming without overwhelming even slightly.
He stunned me by being so…. gentle. He stunned me with his softness. I never dreamed my prince could be so tender; his touch made me feel like a tiger panther in comparison. Of course, he'd be the tiger panther every other night. He treated me like a lily, something precious and fragile but very much alive, until he was sure I wanted, and could handle, more, until the fire overtook us body and soul.
She was, as always, the sun and the moon, pouring light into every part of me, made out of the stars themselves yet somehow human and flawed with blemishes and bumps on her smooth skin reminding me she was real, reminding me we were more alike than dislike after all. She wrapped herself around me til our hearts were one. I didn't know where mine ended and hers began, and I didn't care. We were whole for the first time in our lives. Two broken, scarred souls healing and living and breathing together.
When we finally parted from the realization of too much bliss, I buried myself in our icy sheets, lying in almost complete contentment. All the fire in Ozai's body—of perfect, perfect muscle—seemed to have left him and gone into me. His skin was cool to the touch, for once, while I felt drenched in sweat.
How can his mane still look like that? Not one hair out place? I wondered as I panted. There's no way mine looks like that.
He started to hum our song, and my mind went back to that night and those masks, that performance in the rafters, something neither of us ever fully acknowledged or spoke of because we didn't have to; we both knew how sacred it was.
I would've joined in his song, but then I wouldn't have heard him so clearly, so I just waited and drank in the sound of the voice I loved more than any other.
"I love you more than life," he whispered in his cold calm and eerie peace, calming me as he drew me close to him.
"I love you more than breath," I whispered back, resting my head on his chest. It was the only pillow I ever wanted ever again.
"I love you more than fire."
"Don't say that," I insisted, wrapped up in his arms and hoping to stay there all night, even if such an awkward way to sleep probably meant permanent neck and back problems for both of us. "Fire is a part of you. I'd never ask you to give up something so integral to who you are. You wouldn't be my Ozai without it."
"But I wouldn't be anything without you. I know you would never ask me to, but I would if I had to."
"I love you more than ash banana bread," I chuckled, and my pillow rocked with laughter.
"I love you more than fire flakes."
"You hate fire flakes."
"So it's even truer that I love you more than them."
We continued the game of "I love you more" until we fell asleep.
I managed to keep myself awake long enough to watch her. It amazed me that a woman so fierce, untamable, and obstinate could suddenly become the personification of peace, mercy, and all things good. It had to be an act of the spirits themselves, transforming the sun into the moon, maintaining her blazing life but keeping her so calm and content, so whole. The land of dreams and slumber gave Ursa the ease she deserved.
She was at peace. She lay dead to a world unworthy of her. Beams of moonlight bathed her fair face and made her smoother-than-water-skin all the more luminescent and gorgeously pale, even though it already shone with a light of its own. Dark curls pooled about her head, falling gracefully to tease at her jaw ever so softly, and feathery lashes brushed ever so lightly against her cheeks.
Everything about her only added, even then, to how that enchantress seemed to be in danger of vanishing if touched, merely a mirage, but the most stunningly beautiful…
The thought of her awaking from that peace, of shattering that image of blissful ignorance broke my heart.
I woke after dawn for the first, and last, time in my memory. I didn't want to rise with the sun, instead choosing to skip the morning forms and sleep in with my bride.
It was also the first time I could remember my own dreams in years, but I chose not to tell her that fact.
I didn't tell her that the dream involved a pillar of black in a swirling pool of flame. I didn't tell her what I realized about that blackness. It was my first victim, the first burnt remnant of the inferno I'd lit. It was the first thing I'd touched and the first to turn to ashes and soot. The first to be destroyed. The first smoke to warn of my flame. Or perhaps that was wrong. Perhaps it was the last victim. The only thing left my fire hadn't consumed. The last speck of innocence surrendering to my touch, my redness, and my all-engulfing blaze.
I'd had another dream with similar images, but I was the pillar of black. She was red like everyone else, good, healthy, decent like everyone else, innocent and pure until she made the horrible mistake of reaching out to my darkness. She'd tried to heal me, fix me with her touch, not realizing I could only corrupt, not realizing I'd envelop her in my darkness the instant we made contact. I was the first victim, first mass of char and smoke, and she was the second. My shadow would swallow the world and blacken the ocean of blood—blood I spilled—but not until I swallowed her first. I was darkness incarnate, so total that even her light couldn't fill me. I was the first sign of a dying fire, a dying empire, killed by the same flame that birthed me, abandoned by the society that made me into the monster I was.
Ursa even managed to wake up a few seconds before me, and my eyes opened to see her smiling face look up to me.
"Good morning, wife," he said in a way that made me completely forget how I once felt the word wife sounded old.
"Good morning, husband," she called me that for the first time, and my soul ached to both swallow her whole and take in every inch of her beauty from a distance.
She was twilight, and she was dawn. She was living, freezing flame.
Only Ozai could find the one thing to say to spoil my total happiness that morning.
And Ozai, being Ozai, had to do exactly that.
"You would be the most beautiful Fire Lady."
She recoiled as if I had lit our bed on fire.
"Ozai!" I cried, leaping out and blinking at him in more than a little horror. "Never say that again! Ozai, you cannot… You must not say that."
"I'm sorry," he apologized immediately, climbing out and reaching for me. "I did not mean it. It was just a thought I had for one moment and, foolishly enough, I said it aloud as it formed."
She took a step back, dodging my hands.
This was more than a rebuke. This was terror.
"Is that what you want?"
"Ursa."
"Because the moment you want… that, you'll lose me Ozai. You know that, don't you? You know we can't, I can't—"
She finally let me take her hands in mine and met my eyes.
"I didn't mean it," I repeated honestly. Back then, I didn't want anything but her. "I don't want it, and I swear I'll never even mention this conversation again if that's what you want. I would never do anything to hurt you, Ursa. I promise. Don't be scared."
She smirked a little at the idea.
"I'm not scared of you, Ozai. I could never be scared of you."
He frowned.
"Of him then? You never need to be scared of Azulon."
"He's the Fire Lord, Ozai," I reminded him, lifting a hand to his sharp, perfect cheek in attempt to soften the truth of my words. "He could take you from me at any moment."
"Ursa, I promise he will never take me from you, and he will never take you from me. Never again. I swear by the sun rise and sun set, I swear by the fire's burn, never again."
He swore it so solemnly, wiping away the tears in my eyes I couldn't fight back, and I rested my head on his chest.
"Oh my prince," she sighed, and I wondered how anyone could want to be called anything other than her prince. "Don't make promises you can't keep."
"When have I ever done that?"
We bathed and reminded each other to eat something before leaving for the island that was more home to us than anywhere else. The month we spent there in perfect bliss and freedom seemed priceless, swimming, splashing, eating, laughing, sleeping, singing, watching the Ember Island players perform the same play almost every night, and taking every advantage of how private our beach and beach house were… We felt totally alone, away from the palace and nobles and servants, living alongside strangers we barely noticed and who barely noticed us, and we loved it, knowing how short it was but making the most of every moment, finding beauty and ecstasy in every second together, making more memories than I could count.
No words could ever come close to describing what that month meant to me, or to her. Ember Island was the closest thing to heaven I would ever touch and the closest thing to freedom I would ever know. We lived and slept and breathed in joy, peace, perfect harmony. Contentment and more. More perfection than I had any right to enjoy.
By the end of that month, Ursa's beauty no longer shocked me. We lived in a reality where such a woman could exist, and that was enough.
I thought she would always be enough.