“What you doing, Princess?” His voice, although no longer such a nuisance, still managed to send a jolt of electricity up her spine. Azula had theories of why that was, none that pleased her entirely, but she was still working through them.
“What does it look like I’m doing, Councilman?” She answered, not bothering to move, or opening her eyes even.
“Well, I was going to say sleeping, but given the fact that you answered me-” He left his answer inconclusive, and she just hated when he did that.
She cracked one eye open, and found herself staring at his very naked torso. She trailed up his defined chest, neck, that stupid bearded jawline, and finally his blue eyes staring back at her. She let her eyelid fall shut once more.
“Breathing exercises.” She answered plainly, and went back to focus on the task at hand, ignoring the man hovering above her.
“Interesting choice of position to do that.” He commented, and she rolled her eyes. It would seem he was not going to go away easily.
True, it was- unorthodox, to say the least- to be lounging on a chaise to practice her breathing, but she’d made her way to the training fields earlier, only to find the man in question using one of them, the snarky earthbender in another one, and the mighty Avatar meditating in the third. She hadn’t even tried to find another place, should she encounter the Waterbender, or the Kyoshi girl. The palace was vast, sure, but somehow every time her brother had his friends over, they managed to invade it all.
So she’d retreated to the only place they never went, her favourite library. Be it because she was usually there, or because Zuko had told them to avoid the room out of sympathy for her, she didn’t know, but she usually found peace here. Until now.
“So-” He dragged the word until Azula’s lips were pressed in a fine line, and she propped herself up on her elbows, to glare at the man, only to bump her head into his.
“What the fuck?” She cursed, a hand rubbing on her forehead. “What do you think you are doing?”
Azula’s eyes closed in on the tribesman sheepish face, as he too, soothed his head. He gave a grin and a shrug, and she zapped his side.
“Ouch! What was that for?” He jumped back, and rubbed at his ribs. She took the moment, and the space to sit up straighter.
“You know very well what was that for! What were you doing so close to me, are you actively looking for me to roast you, are you that bored?” Azula countered, and sent another zapp for good measure.
“Now that one was uncalled for, I’m sure!” He held his hands up, but he was chuckling, and her blood boiled. “I was just watching you so peaceful, nothing else.”
“What?” Really, what- Her brain shut off for a moment, and she cocked her head to the side, examining him, wondering if maybe all that training under the sun had fried his brain. He did seem particularly hot, his neck glistening with a fine layer of sweat.
He grinned. Fuck, she was staring again.
“You heard me alright Princess, I was admiring your lovely, peaceful features.” He said, more confidently this time. She frowned, he really was pushing it now.
A zapp. “Hey!” Another. “Wait!” She stood and swiped him off his feet. “Ouch, I’m telling the truth!” Another zapp. “La, you’re insane.” She pressed a knee to his chest. “Damn it, Azula!”
She stilled, and her eyes closed unwittingly at the sound of her name on his lips. Agni, it had felt too good for her liking. Her knee pressed harder into his chest, and a hand closed around her ankle. Azula’s eyes snapped open, the blue on the other side was sparkling, teasing.
“Is that all?” He asked, and his fingers pressed a little tighter on her skin.
“Stop it.” Her voice, meant to be threatening, commanding, came out almost in a sigh, and she took a breath before trying again. “Stop. All of it.”
He moved his hand upwards, softly over her calf, and behind her knee, pulling her leg to the side, making her fall to straddle him instead. She stopped breathing.
Azula wasn’t sure how long it was, until either moved again, but she was very aware of the way his eyes had darkened, and his chest was heaving underneath her. Finally, it was him who broke the silence.
“You are ruthless, Princess.” His words were soft, controlled, but his hand was now up her thigh, and she was hating every second of loving it. “I’ll get some nasty bruises from this. Do you really think that’s the way to treat your guests?”
She wanted to slap him, zapp him again, pull at his hair, run her nails down his chest- So very carefully, as to not betray her own movements, Azula put her hands on each side of him, and moved down his body, until she was facing the already pink marks on his chest.
She looked up at him, his breathing was wild, and his eyes more so, and she felt her body burn under his gaze. Slowly, so very slowly, Azula kissed one of the marks. His breath caught on his throat, and she smiled to the skin, before moving to the next, and then one more. He tried to grip on her wrist, but she swatted him away, and moved further down, to the last one, just above the pants’ waist.
Azula blew hot air on the wound, and the tribesman moaned, a deep and ragged sound that coursed through her body, and made her core vibrate with it.
“There.” She said standing up, and the way he looked up at her was worth every piece of gold in the nation. “Now you’ll get all better.”
She turned to leave, and he called after her, scrambling to get up, but she held up her fingers in a threat.
“But-” His eyes were pleading, his whole body was, and he seemed to be searching for something to make her stay. “But, you missed a spot. I’ll get a bump.” He whined, and pointed at his forehead.
She smirked. Oh no, there was no way she was doing that, being so close to his lips was far to dangerous, she knew it.
“That’s rough, Councilman.” Azula shrugged, and left the room, the groan that followed her out made up for the rest of the happy gang’s stay.
A Glaidator scene (or rather inspired by). I just wanted to draw Azula’s “warm look” and Sokka feels overwhelming by it. A true nice, comforting moment.
The backgrounds telling what each one feels at this moment.
He doesn’t sleep much, even at the best of times, which this isn’t. He’s never shaken the habit of working under moonlight, and even though there’s less he has to do in order to minimise the chances of getting beheaded than he used to, he still finds himself up most nights, tidying or writing or doing some other small things. He likes it, usually.
Now, though, he’s been sitting on the white sand trying to mend a fishing net for an hour now, and getting nowhere.
It’s been a week. He’d been really expecting to have calmed down by now. But he’s as worked up as he was when he first heard about this newest, final punchline to the joke called the Fire Nation Royal Family.
He doesn’t think he’s got unreasonable standards. All he wants is for the people he loves not to hurt. A few years ago, the best way to accomplish that had seemed to be to follow them around, menacing anything that looked at them funny with a machete.
But at least Katara and Aang and Toph had known to fight back. There’s something horrible and sad in Azula and her brother, some cloying passivity that keeps telling them they deserve whatever they get, and some days he can’t tell if he wants to bundle them up and take them away from everything that’s ever gone wrong for them, or just shake them until they start standing up for themselves
At least he’s pretty sure he’s figured out where they got that attitude from. So that’s one good thing that’s come out of this mess.
He doesn’t know what Zuko decided to do about Ursa, and frankly he doesn’t want to. Maybe she was back by now. Maybe it turned out she’d had a really good reason to do what she did. Sokka didn’t care. The way he sees it, out of all the things she could have done, she’d picked the one that caused the most pain for the stupidest reason.
With a snarl of frustration, he throws the net down at his feet, and stomps back to the rented beach house.
Azula is sound asleep when he slips back into bed. She stirs a little, her brow creasing unconsciously, but the moment passes, and he sinks into the sheets, pulling her body gently towards his, feeling his breathing sync with hers, letting her warmth fill his limbs. He feels the tension in his shoulders drain away.
It seems to Azula that she can’t breathe out until the airship is drifting over the valley, nose pointed eastwards, the setting sun on her back. Up here, she’s safe. Up here, there’s nothing she didn’t mean to bring with her.
The gondola of the airship is close- it wouldn’t be possible to spend more than one concurrent night in the air, at least not comfortably- but if she needs space, all she has to do is land. Here is the nearest thing to home she’s had since before the asylum. A small, secret space that nobody else can touch.
“You shouldn’t be here, Councilman.” She said, and those five words were already shattering his heart, even though it was probably just the last, the one doing it. They were both smart enough, to know her choice to refer to him by title, was not unintentional. She was putting distance. It was like their very first encounter all over again.
He ignored her, he couldn’t let her do this today, and moved further into the room, shedding his outer robe as he went, and finding her sitting in the middle of the bed, still on her gorgeous dress, knees hugged to her chest. His heart broke yet again.
“I mean it, we cannot do this anymore, and you know it.” She turned to him, and he was tempted to toss caution to the wind, and march right now to the Fire Lord and the shining Fire Lady to tell them everything, if it meant he could erase the pain from the golden of her eyes.
“I know.” His voice was hoarse, and he winced as he said it, and by La this was harder than he’d thought.
Sokka climbed to her bed, pretending he didn’t see her shoulders tense, and knelt behind her, his fingers slowly working on removing the pins keeping her hair in that intricate updo, like he’d done many times before. Granted, it usually happened later. After they were sated, spent, his hands burning from caressing her skin, her lips full and raw from his kisses, and her hair a tangled mess from the lovemaking.
But today everything was different. Today it was all over. Zuko had finally married Katara, and what they had started as a drunken mistake, a stupid game- one where they both teased, and vexed, and ignored, and danced around each other, until they couldn’t take it anymore, and fell on the first surface available, a mess of blue and red, hands working desperate on removing the layers of clothes, the bandages, the walls they had up to keep the other one out- it would all end today.
It had been agreed like that. They were adults, they could handle it, they were not in love by any means. It meant nothing.
“Please Sokka, don’t- I can’t, if we do this…” Her voice was a plea, one he wished he’d never had to hear. One that, had he known how it would tear at his chest, would’ve never allowed to happen. Her lips should not plead like this, but for him to stay, to kiss her, to-
“We won’t. I swear.” He removed the last barrette, and her hair cascaded down the pale skin of her back. “But please, let me stay tonight. I’ll leave with Yue.”
It had started like that. When they stopped pretending it was only sex, but were both too afraid to acknowledge anything else, too stubborn to come forward, two hopeless fools.
I’ll leave with Yue, Sokka would say, and she would allow him in with feigned reluctancy, and smart words on her viperine tongue. Oh, how he loved to shut her up. Push her against a wall, the wood of her canopy bed, the thick rug in the middle of the room, and pleasure her until the only word out of her her pretty lips was his name.
“No one can ever know.” She said after a while, as his fingers played with her hair, letting the silky strands soothe the pain coursing through his body. “Sokka, if word gets out, they will make it impossible for Zuko and Katara.”
He sighed, and let his head fall forward, forehead resting on her shoulder, and his lips burned to kiss her shoulder blade, down her spine, up her neck, every inch of her.
It’ll be our secret, she told him, the night their siblings announced their engagement, pulling him into her room, and caressing his worries away. She’d been so uncharacteristically soft that night, that he’d hoped to wake up next to her in the morning, but the rule had been enforced, and with the last trace of the moon in the sky, he’d left her.
“Azula, I-” He started, but her lithe fingers on his jaw silenced him. A fingernail played with the hair of his beard, and he closed his eyes, lips pressing down on the pulse point in her neck.
“I know, I promise.” She whispered, and shifted to face him, a hand letting his hair free from the wolf tail, and another pushing him back down on the bed.
She laid on his side, and he hugged her tight. No other word needed, they stayed there, letting the last hours of night escape their grasp, until the sky started to clear, and Yue became more and more transparent, and it was time for him to leave, before the sun made its appearance.
As Sokka was getting up though, her fingers closed on his wrist, and he held his breath, his mind willing his heart not to read more into it. He turned to find her golden gaze mistied, and it took all the strength he didn’t know he had, not to kneel right there, and beg for them to go away, hide somewhere, be happy together.
“Me too, Sokka.” His chest constricted with her words, he gave a brief nod, and her hand opened, to set him free.
As he left her room, the moon disappearing, and the sun rising, Sokka wondered if he’d ever be able to see the sky again.
Fanwright 