AN: Worked through saturday. Posting today.
Things might get a little steamy... Then again most of you have probably been waiting for that.
Chapter 6 Burn Out The Day, Burn Out The Night.
Connor woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door of his home late at night. "Who the hell could that be?" He asked himself in English, while putting on a pair of pants in the dark. It had been nearly a week since he'd had any visitors, and those were all scheduled meetings he'd had with other smiths in the city. Ever cautious, Connor lit a candle, and took his double barrel pistol in hand, and as he approached the door, setting the candle on the nearby table, hid the weapon behind his back.
Cracking the door at first, Connor's suspicion was replaced with pity. "Azula?" He asked, opening the door and tucking his gun into his pants behind his back. She looked absolutely miserable. Her makeup ran down her face, and her eyes were still puffy, evidence of shed tears. She held her own arms, and kept her chin tucked to her shoulder. "Are you alright?" Connor asked, though wasn't given an answer. At a glance under the candle light she looked uninjured, but Connor wasn't going to make bets on appearances alone. Looking left and right down the street, Connor held his hand out to guide Azula inside. "Well, come on in, no point standing around in the dark."
Azula sniffled, and accepted the invitation without speaking, as Connor closed the door behind her. Already familiar with the house's layout, Azula made her way to the sitting room, and found the most comfortable cushion she could, as Connor lit the coal gas lamps around the house. Once he was done illuminating the home, Connor sat to Azula's right, and repeated his first question.
"Azula, are you alright?" Connor asked. Azula rubbed her shoulders, as she looked away from Connor, before taking another cushion from the floor, laying down on it, curling in on herself. Conceding that he would get an answer from Azula when she was ready, Connor sighed, before standing up, and choked the gas lights out in the house.
Laying still with her back to the room, Azula felt more tears forming, thinking Connor was going to just leave her alone, before a blanket was gently laid out over her. Connor sat down on the floor in front of her, before leaning his back up against the wall, setting the candle down beside him. He looked at her, and smiled softly. "Sleep well, Azula… I'll be here when you wake."
Nearly smiling herself, Azula closed her eyes, as she tightly clutched the blanket given to her, feeling the gentle glow of the candle beside Connor.
Azula rose with the sun, and found that true to his word, Connor was still sitting against the wall, the candle beside him having melted into it's pewter holder, and snuffed itself at some point in the night.
Laying still on the floor for a while longer, Azula only sat up once she felt the stiffness of her joints begin to ach. The creek of a floorboard roused Connor, who opened one eye, before stretching.
The two teens sat in silence for a moment, before Azula ran a finger across her cheek, her makeup having smeared into the floor cushion. Connor chuckled, before he got up. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up before breakfast." He said, holding a hand out for Azula to take.
Accepting what help was given, Azula took Connor's hand, and once on her feet, walked to the washroom still draped in the blanket from the night before. She'd removed her makeup with a wet cloth, and finding that her top knot was crooked, removed the pin and tie keeping it together, her hair falling down her back near to her waist, before pocketing the metal pin and silk tie in her robe.
Walking out of the washroom to the kitchen, Azula found Connor at the wood stove, the smell of cooking meat drifting through the air. Connor looked over his shoulder, having heard Azula's footsteps, and nearly dropped the pan he was holding. He looked away from Azula. Not accustomed to seeing the girl without her makeup, he was almost always stunned by her natural beauty. "Almost done. Take a seat wherever you like. I'll bring it to you." He said, before clearing his throat.
Azula found her seat on the floor once again, and in only a few minutes, Connor had brought her a plate loaded with the bacon of an animal, Komodo-rhino eggs that had been scrambled, and rice, though the most interesting part of the entire ensemble was the small bit of polished flat metal stuck into the eggs, that looked like the handle to a knife. Azula pulled the metal free, and found that the utensil was actually a small 4 pointed stabbing weapon, with a flat scoop nearer the handle.
Connor noticed Azula eyeing the utensils with confusion, and cleared his throat. "It's called a fork." He said, before holding up his own like he would a knife, and sticking it into the eggs to scoop a generous portion up to his mouth. "Got tired of trying to use two sticks to eat solid food with, so I raided the warehouse full of everything I came here with, and took a few from the inventory." He said, before blowing on his eggs, and eating the forkful.
Azula looked at the fork once again, before stabbing the bed of rice with it, and lifting away a mouthful. Awkward as it was to think of putting what was effectively a weapon in her mouth, Azula would admit the steel tool was remarkably easy to eat with. Strangely the oddness of her introduction to an eating utensil from Connor's world was what had shaken her from her poor mood, and Azula found the strength to speak. "Fitting that your people eat with stabbing instruments." She said, a small smirk forming.
"And she speaks." Connor said, eating another bite. "Are you ready to talk about whatever it is that happened to you?"
Azula tensed up at the question, before presenting her own. "What would you do if you found out everything you've ever been taught was a lie?"
Connor furrowed his eyebrows. "Is that a question you have for me, or yourself?"
Azula cleared her throat. "I want to know how you're going to react to what I'm going to tell you."
Connor took another bite of his eggs then spoke. "I suppose that depends on why I would have been lied to?"
"If the lies were told unknowingly?" Azula proposed.
Connor nodded. "Then whoever told them isn't to blame. They'd have been lied to just as much as I would have been… What is it that's got you so… Glum." He asked.
Azula took a deep breath, setting her fork down. "Where to start… I… I guess you should know that my great grandfather, Firelord Sozin was… Well he must have been far worse than the history books would have ever portrayed him… The Fire Nation didn't just start the war… We caused it."
"What?" Connor asked shortly.
"The land that Sozin colonized in the Western Earth Kingdom was already inhabited. Sozin took entire cities before the war even officially started because the Earth King apparently wouldn't do anything about it." Azula said, looking away from Connor. "And Sozin… Sozin killed Avatar Roku, his best friend, because he was the only one standing in the way of expanding the nation… And the… The attack on the air nation, it… It wasn't a battle, it was a slaughter… The Nomads had no armies, they were apparently spineless pacifists, and Sozin hunted them down over the rest of his life…" Connor's grip on his fork tightened. "And the war with the water tribes, Agni, I can only imagine. My grandfather Azulon probably tried to wipe them out like Sozin did the Air Nomads."
Connor took a breath, before pressing his tongue into one of his molars. "So then… Your war… It's never been a just one? Or even one that had simply gotten out of hand?"
Azula shook her head. "I don't know… I want so desperately to believe that it is, or maybe even was right… But I…" Azula paused. "I just can't…" She said, grabbing at the roots of her hair. "And it's not just the war that is a lie. My entire life and lineage is a farce…"
"Your lineage?" Connor asked.
"I'm a descendant of Avatar Roku…" Azula blurted out. Connor's eyebrows rose. "He was the Avatar before they boy you know… And I never knew… I never knew that my great grandfather had killed my mother's grandfather… And I… GRRRR!" Azula grit her teeth and curled in on herself. "And my father, Agni, my father knew… It's why he married my mother. For… For a perfect heir… And all this time… All this time…" Azula went quiet for a moment. "All this time I believed these lies, and what infuriates me so much about it all, is the fact that we need lie to begin with… My great grandfather, my grandfather, my father, my entire nation, all lied, to hide shame. And how can the Fire Nation, how can the throne, rule justly if it's doing so in shame?"
Azula released her hold on her hair, and finally looked up at him, finding he'd crossed his arms. "If you'd known this when we first met, would you have told me the truth?" He asked. Azula blinked once and looked away, her answer gong unspoken. "Typical…" Connor said in English. "Because back then I was nothing more than a tool in your little political rivalry with Minister Qin."
Azula felt her body recoil away from Connor slightly. "Now that's not fair at all. You offered your knowledge willingly."
"And now that I know your nation is responsible for the entire war that I helped escalate, I wish I'd have never given it to you." Connor spat. "I didn't like The Fire Nation before, but now…" He ran a hand through his hair.
Azula chuckled, short and without mirth. "And I thought I was being melodramatic… Eventually your guns would have been recognized for what they are… We'd have escalated the war either way…" She said, her frown deepening.
Connor scoffed. "Then I suppose it would have been better if the ship and all in it's hold was floundered at sea…" He said, before taking a bite of his rice. "And I with it."
"What? No no no, Connor you…" Azula stumbled over her words. "Connor, your presence here, in our world, it's no small miracle. If it weren't for you, I'd… I'd have never freed Ba Sing Se…"
"You mean taken Ba Sing Se?" Connor asked, eating another forkful of rice.
"No. I really do mean, freed…" Azula said. "Minister Qin took the city, but you and I… We freed it from the Da Li, from their corruption, short lived as that freedom might have been. That's… That's proof enough that what you've brought to our world isn't solely more wasteful destruction."
Connor chuckled before he took another bite of his eggs. "So I gave the rest of the world a fighting chance then?" He asked sarcastically.
"In a way… And in a way you made me…" Azula cut herself off, before picking up her plate, and standing.
"Made you, what?" Connor asked in confusion.
"Nothing, Connor…" Azula said, before placing her plate on the nearby table. "You… You wouldn't happen to have a spare bed roll tucked away somewhere?... I'm not sure I want to return to the palace tonight."
Connor sighed, before he got to his feet. "Won't people be looking for you?" He asked.
Azula shook her head gently. "Perhaps if my father needed me for something, he would have a servant search for me."
"Then would it not look incredibly bad for us to be found together?" Connor continued his questioning.
"Perhaps… And perhaps if someone appears inquiring about my whereabouts, you could answer the door, and lie." Azula said with a small smirk.
Connor sighed. "All I've got are the floor cushions and my bed. If you'd prefer it, I'll forfeit the bed tonight…" Connor said, before pointing at Azula. "But only tonight. The last thing I need is people poking around asking questions." He took the two plates between them, and walked them to the nearby trash bin. Azula clenched her fists, only to forcefully exhale, and unball them.
The day passed by slowly for Azula. Connor kept himself busy by writing in what Azula could only assume was a journal, his native English kept it's contents private from the world. She meanwhile, dedicated most of the afternoon to rudimentary grooming. Something she'd never done alone as she came to realize, always having servants or at the very least Ty Lee while abroad in the Earth Kingdom hunting her brother and the Avatar, which made the otherwise simple endeavor all the more difficult.
After having bathed, trimmed her nails, and combed her long raven locks, Azula sat on a stool in the washroom, facing the standing mirror, her clothes hanging from the hooks on the back of the door. She'd intended on shaving what hair had grown under her arms and on her legs in the past two days, (leaving her maidenhair untouched as proof of her fertility, and because she wasn't a prostitute,) but had to take a moment to pause, as the only razor Azula found obviously belonged to Connor, and looked complicated. It was able to fold, and seemed to have some sort of blade frame or comb that covered the edge. Deciding she could go another night without perfectly smooth skin, Azula sighed to herself, and started getting dressed.
Leaving the washroom with her more extravagant shoulder piece, boots, and belt in her arms, Azula made her way through the house to the only bedroom, and laid her things out beside the unmade bed, her now loose ankle length robe accumulating dirt from the floor. It wasn't quite dusk yet, and so Azula saw no reason to go to sleep, rather, she left the room, her nose catching the smell of searing meat for the second time that day.
Connor was once again making food, and as Azula stepped into the kitchen he looked over his shoulder, and cleared his throat. "Supper's nearly done." He said, looking back to the cut of lamb-pork, and a pot of what looked like boiling greens. "What exactly was it that you'd said before… Something that I'd made you do?" Connor asked.
Azula pursed her lips together, before holding her hand over where once upon a time a bullet had pierced her. "You've made me change." Connor straightened his back out, and turned to face Azula, looking confused. "I suppose I'd already admitted that some time ago, but… I just didn't realize to what extent. I… I've been horrible to so many people. People who care about me… And people I care about… And it wasn't until Ba Sing Se that I started acting... I guess, empathetic, would be the proper term... Uncle Iroh thinks I'm this way because of my father. That I… I need to reject him."
Connor shrugged. "Perhaps he's right… I mean, by your admission, your father gave Zuko that scar for showing kindness… Why should you bother listening to him?… Aside from fear I suppose."
"I guess that was exactly the point Iroh was trying to make…" Azula said, before remembering what her uncle had told her. "You need only look to those who love you, and accept it." Glancing away from Connor for a moment, Azula took a breath in an attempt to steady her heartbeat. "If… If I had to choose… If I had to choose between My father and My nation, or… Or love, a year ago I would have chosen the former, but now I'm not so sure…"
"What are you getting at, Azula?" Connor asked, as she looked back at him.
Azula held her elbows in her hands."I… I mean, that I understand now, what I never would have before I met you. That I… I didn't exactly have a good childhood. That I've never known what being loved was like, or maybe just don't remember, and so I don't know how to return it…" Azula paused, as she smelled the cooking meat begin to burn in its pan. "Are you going to do something about that?" She asked Connor, pointing to the stove.
"Huh?" The redhead asked, before looking at the stove. "Ah shite!" He cursed in English before pulling the pan away from the fire by its handle. Using a nearby knife, Connor flipped the meat over, and sighed. Only the edge had started to char. "Well, supper's… Well done." He said.
Azula almost giggled. "Your sense of humor is awful." She said playfully.
"Can't be worse than yours." Connor said, smiling at Azula from over his shoulder. "Grab a plate if you want some."
"I assume I'll have to eat with your tiny instruments of murder again?" Azula asked, opening a nearby cupboard to find a few ceramic dishes, which she pulled two plates from. In response, Connor took out two forks, and another knife, before stabbing all four utensils into the cut of meat in the pan, two on either side.
"That, you will." Connor said, still smiling softly, before he took his own fork and knife to cut the meat in half. Once finished, Azula held up both plates, and Connor put a slab of meat on both of them, before taking "his plate," and fishing a few forkfuls of boiled green beans onto it, then preparing Azula's own portion of vegetables.
Sitting on the cushions at the low dining table, Azula awkwardly cut her lamb-pork, much to Connor's amusement. She glared at him for a moment, before continuing, finally having reduced the half of a chop into manageable bite sized pieces. "I do hope you're enjoying my struggle." She said with a raised eyebrow, before Connor cut into his own meal, making long thin strips of lamb-pork, and biting into them as he went.
"Would you prefer Ty Lee prepare your food for you?" Connor asked, recounting how while abroad, Ty Lee had done most of the "leg work" of ensuring Azula's food was cut into manageable sizes, if it wasn't already done.
Azula sighed, and rolled her eyes as she ate, speaking only after swallowing. "She is quite good at it…" She glanced up at Connor for a moment. "I feel like such an idiot." She said.
"First time?" Connor asked with a grin.
"Ha ha, the attempt at humor is noted. I mean, I feel like an idiot for treating Ty Lee and Mai exactly how my father's treated Zuko and I." Azula said, before taking another bite of meat.
"I thought they were your friends." Connor stated.
"Well, as close as friends as they could be… At the end of the day though, they've always acted like subordinates… And I'm sure it's because I've treated them as such since we first met. I can't think of anything that we ever actually did as children that all of us enjoyed together… Looking back, they were always friends with each other, but to me they were soldiers… I recruited them."
"Then maybe you need to find something you can actually bond over." Connor suggested, before biting into a mouthful of green beans. "I'm sure there's something you three actually share." He said with a full mouth.
"Well we used to enjoy humiliating Zuko, but obviously Mai grew out of that." Azula said, as she tenderly tried to scoop up her green beans. "We all still enjoy a good fight, but one can only dominate their enemies for so long before it gets boring."
"I'd drink to that…" Connor said before furrowing his brow. "Hold on a moment." He said before getting to his feet and leaving the room. Azula's attention followed him out the door, before she dawned a confused expression, then continued eating. Connor returned only a moment later with two tin cups, and a black bottle of what Azula figured was liquor, only for Connor to uncork the bottle with his teeth, and fill the room with the sweet aroma of chocolate.
"Ruby port wine. If there is one thing the French make better than guns, it's wine." Connor said, before pouring both of them a cup's worth. "Shame I've no glass befitting such a drink."
Azula nearly chuckled. "I'm sure it will be the least improper thing you do this week."
"I can only hope." Connor said before the two raised their tins, as he nearly slammed his cup into Azula's in some cultural gesture she was assuming to be normal for his people.
Though the two drank as they ate, hardly a quarter of the bottle had been poured out. Still, Connor's cheeks had grown rosy, and Azula fared no better. Their dinner complete, Azula took the dishes, cups and utensils to the kitchen to be cleaned later, as Connor put the wine bottle back in the pantry.
Nearly colliding in the hallway, Connor apologized, before the two both moved to the sitting room, finding the most comfortable cushions available, as the sky turned orange outside.
"Nearly sunset… I suppose you want me to be gone by sunrise?" Azula asked as she looked out the window.
Connor ran a hand through his wavy red hair, then scratched behind his ear. "Yeah… Yeah."
"You don't actually mean that, do you?" She asked, before the two locked eyes.
"I'd… Rather you stay, at least for the night." Connor said, his hand gliding across the floor to find Azula's. She slid herself closer to Connor, and pouted, before asking a question of Connor.
"And do what, pray tell?" Azula asked, growing a predatory grin. "As you've said, you love me, and… I can admit I feel the same. To that end, I do desire more than a simple, ahem, dinner date." Young she may have been, Azula understood her body's needs better than most. "And as you said, it's not as if anyone has to know." Azula quickly reminded herself to get some blackroot tea from Mai when she had the chance, lest her mounting desire become a burden.
Connor looked away for a moment. "Ay, well, if you'd allow me, I'd rather do things properly."
"What, to your people, is considered proper then?" Azula asked, leaning into Connor's arm, feeling warmth further gathering in her core.
"Well, first there would be courtship, and I suppose that's already been done on both our parts. I've no family here to judge you, and your father, as you said, wouldn't allow it despite our feelings…" Connor started, before Azula grew confused and pulled away for a moment.
"Wait, what are you talking about?" Azula asked, eyebrow raised.
"Well… Marriage of course." Connor said simply. Azula blinked three times in rapid succession, as she tried to deduce if Connor was simply thick headed or ignorant. "It wouldn't do good for us to be seeing each other or, god forbid, enter an amorous congress without at least the intent to marry."
Azula playfully scoffed, before holding a hand up to Connor's face. "Well, in the Fire Nation, we've no such customs. Love making isn't confined to marriage, though procreation is. So unless you intend to convince a child, I don't think we need to worry about the procession, ceremony and grand spectacle of a wedding party."
It was now Connor's turn to look confused. "Who said anything about a party?" Connor asked, taking her hand away from his face gently and holding it.
"Is a wedding not a grandiose gathering of an entire community to celebrate the union of two families?" Azula asked.
"I mean…" Connor started. "It can be, but at the end of the day it's a private contract and affair between a man and a woman. I mean… If we swore vows to each other right here and now, we could be wed before the sun dips past the horizon, and consummate before it breaks at dawn."
"But a marriage the world would respect?" Azula asked. "How many years away could that be? Two? Four? By then my father may have arranged one for me." Azula pulled her hands together towards her chest, Connor's hand following her own as he gripped them. "I'd rather we give ourselves to each other now, and worry about the ceremony after."
Connor looked out the window before exhaling. "Spousal de futuro." Connor said. "In effect, what you're asking for. An engagement though drawn out, inso a man and woman can live together before an official marriage." Connor said, thinking to himself, "When in Rome."
"Then… You've no issue with… Being joined?" Azula asked.
Connor released his hold on Azula's hands, before pulling her close by the waist. As Azula hiked up onto her knees to shimmy closer, Connor swept her off the floor, and held her in his arms as if she were already his bride, before standing up. "Ay, I've no issue with grinding corn, I'd just rather not blow the groudsils out."
Azula put her arms around Connor's neck. "Speak plainly." She demanded, before Connor gently leaned in, as she pulled herself closer.
"You know what I mean." Connor whispered, before planting a kiss on his love's lips.
It wasn't nearly as painful as Lo and Li said it would be, moreso, Azula felt only a slight burning as she was taken, which was nearly drowned out by the fog that clouded her mind as Connor held her amid their love.
Equally inexperienced as Azula, Connor was gentle, attentive, but above all, he was passionate. He groaned her name, as she couldn't help but whimper his. He spoke his love for her in an unknown tongue, as she forgot her own. He pressed closer, smothering her back into the silk of the sheets and her robe, as she took in the scent of their labor, sweat and musk, like a heady perfume. His hands would roam, finding supple flesh to please, as hers clung tighter to the muscles of his back and shoulders, nails making their mark as her toes curled. Then finally, their duet came to its crescendo.
Strength left Azula's body, and she released the lock she didn't know her legs had made around Connor's waist, before he pushed himself up on his knuckles, and looked down at her, still panting, before he smiled, rolling away, and laying on his side.
Once the mist befalling her mind had dissipated, Azula ran her fingers across her body, one traveling down over her navel, the other up over the mound of her breast, before she sighed in bliss, and threw the tails of her robe over her body. Turning in the seemingly small bed, as Connor's arms wrapped around her, Azula found her head resting beside his chest.
Basking in the afterglow with her for only a minute more, surely not enough time for either of them, Connor tucked his head down and whispered to Azula. "No matter what happens to us, I will always love you, Azula."