"Where is she?"

I couldn't answer his question. I couldn't move. I couldn't turn around and see that face, my face, staring back at me with her eyes.

I couldn't tear my eyes off the fountain.

Every part of me had been locked there for hours. I hadn't gone back to our bedchamber. I hadn't gone to our children or the throne room. I hadn't glanced at the pond I built for her, the pond where she'd fed the ducks with her son just a few days ago.

The dragon fountain kept me fixed.

The dragon fountain where we met and played and first kissed. The dragon fountain where she taught me how to…

I heard his head lower. He knew I heard him, and he knew what my silence meant.

I managed to close my eyes for the first time when he left.

It only took another hour before I could move enough to leave.

After so many years of living without the sun, I learned to be my own moon, one that shone its own light instead of reflecting his.

It was hell to be apart from my children, but eventually, acceptance found its way to me, letting me to cling to the hope, to the prayers that I would be with them again, and I learned to breathe again.

Exile brought surprising freedom. Freedom I hadn't had in years.

It was easier to love and forgive so far apart from them. It was easier to remember to love the unlovable anyway, to be selfless to the selfish anyway, to find my own worth and strength apart from the affection of others.

So I wrote.

Every week, I wrote to him. I knew better than to hope he might share it with the children or anyone else, but I also knew he'd read every scroll. He wouldn't be able to help himself.

I wrote to my beloved, my prince whom I'd always love. I'd write old memories and inside jokes. I'd make new jokes and tell him stories he never heard and stories he knew better than I did. I wrote what I wanted to tell and do for our children. What advice I'd give them. What events or moments I imagined I was missing or would missed. I never reprimanded him or told him what to do, but I wrote of what I wished I'd done differently, reminded him of the dreams we had for our country, for the world, and admitted how I'd failed them. Sometimes I'd draw out scenes of them, of us all, or what I thought they'd look like.

I apologized to him, but only for what I should.

It was easier to love him like this, even though the nightmares of him returned.

I didn't think her name. I didn't allow anyone to say it.

But she was still everywhere.

Soaked into my skin. Burnt into every inch of the villa, the palace, the gardens. Coating the fabric of every curtain and servant's robe. Glinting off the polished marble and gold.

She watched me, haunted me, a shadow heavier than words could say, always just out of the corner of my eye, never quite able to be seen…

Except in them.

But they weren't her.

I could bear it in Azula. I needed it in Azula. Her face, but with just of my darkness to take away the pain. My blasted eyes corrupting her just enough for the world to make sense.

I couldn't stand it in Zuko. The eyes were too much.

I tried to erase her touch, locking away everything she owned or made, but the reflections screamed anyway.

In absence, she haunted me more than she ever had by being present. Totally unreachable, she was totally inescapable. Intangible but heavy. Stirring thoughts and memories I didn't know I had without warning and without the slightest hope of being suppressed or guarded against.

I had a new bedchamber arranged, unable to sleep in what would always be ours. I tossed and I turned and I burned the sheets. Nothing worked.

Once, I ordered one of the servant girls, supposed to have resembled her more than any other, to rest in the bed, clear that I wouldn't touch her and would burn her if she attempted to touch me, that I just needed the warmth of another body next to mine to fall asleep, just someone else's breath in that intolerably empty—and intolerably full—room.

The disgust was too much, and I leapt out of the bed after three seconds, roaring at the poor thing to leave and never enter my sight again.

In that moment, I loathed myself more than I ever had...

Which said a lot.

I had no choice other than to get used to the emptiness, to the ghost of her. Spirits knew I'd survived worse. I could always harden more.

There was only one weakness I couldn't resist, a routine my body completed even at its most emotionless. Sometimes monthly, sometimes daily, I'd retreat to a chamber hidden behind a wall that even the servants didn't know of.

I kept the Love Amongst the Dragons masks on the wall, and in the desk?

I kept her letters. Every scroll she sent back with the servant who checked up on her. Every piece of proof she still lived.

And I kept her portrait.

I'd burned most drawings of her, but this one… This one came closer than all the rest combined.

I read and reread the scrolls often enough, but I couldn't go a day without seeing that drawing.

My life would be a war itself. Peace vs. war. Light vs darkness. Mercy vs. wrath. The prophecies were self-fulfilling. I'd give up the battle before I sent a blow. How could I expect anything different? How could she? I was a born a killer. Her love couldn't change that. I would die a monster. Her soul couldn't free mine. Only I could save myself. There were so many chances I had to do it. She offered me a way. She believed in me when no one else would. She was the first to make me believe I could be something else—someone else. She was always enough. She was never enough. If she had stayed... If I never left... There were too many ifs. There were too many buts. She could have been my inspiration. She could have opened my eyes, had I let her. Had I let Iroh. Had I let my children. But I didn't. I kept my eyes slammed shut. The fear was too much. The self-doubt, nay, the certainty of my own darkness... I couldn't let go of the past. I couldn't let go of the anger. I couldn't forget what I had done. What I was capable of doing.

For all the fires that burned within and around me, darkness was my home and sanctuary. Darkness was all I knew. It kept me safe. Light—her light—was something I would only allow myself to dream of. Something I would glimpse at to keep from going mad. But I couldn't follow it. I couldn't embrace it.

So I lost the light.

So the darkness embraced me.

I fell because I refused to climb. I fell deep. I fell fast. I fell hard. Into my every fear. Into fear itself.

Into the ruthless. The vicious. The bloodthirsty.

Into savagery.

I reveled in ferocity. I was driven by anger and pride. I delighted in pain, sadistic. I was strong in heartlessness. I was caustic and cruel. I was cold, and I was burning. As I was consuming, I was consumed. As I was destroying, I was destroyed.

As I hated the world, I loathed myself.

As the years went by, I kept writing.

Until the servant brought news that my son had been banished. I'd give him proof that I was still alive and safe, but I wouldn't give him my words.

When the letters ended, the nightmares stopped.

The Agni Kai chamber had never seemed bigger.

I hadn't slept in days, and I couldn't fathom the circumstance before me.

But I couldn't bear his groveling.

He begged on the floor with wide, amber eyes.

The wrong eyes.

The wrong face.

My face.

Her eyes.

"Ozai," she said my name, appearing above his shoulder, more beautiful than memory could hold, comforting him but never me. "Look at yourself. Look at what you're doing."

But I was looking at myself, myself on my hands and knees, weak, pathetic, and my father's words echoed in my ears and vibrated in my throat.

"You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher."

My cheeks.

But they couldn't be my cheeks.

They didn't belong there.

Not with those gems so full of light. Of kindness and goodness and innocence and...

Wrong. So wrong.

"My love, don't do this. Stop this before it's too late. It's—"

Wrong!

Fire shot from my fist, roaring over her voice, hurtling towards that face.

It was what I deserved.

But it wasn't my scream.